I agree. The testing was such a clusterfuck, OMG.
And, I mean, as the article says, last year the metric was school opens when we’re below 10% positivity. We’re currently at 23.6 (?!?).
I do feel for parents though. They must have whiplash and many are essential workers, and might not have Internet at home for remote learning. Etc. There aren’t any good solutions, I fear.
Chicago’s health officer:
"“In what world would we close something essential like in-person education, when we have seen the negative effects of that, when our bars remain open? No public health experts in the world at this point think that makes sense,”
YES, and bars ALSO should not remain open right now, FFS, Dr. Arwady!
Yes, I know, small business, people’s livelihoods, etc. I’ll spare everyone the “social safety net/pay everyone to stay home” soapbox.
Terrible comparison. Bars require vaccination proof. We can’t even get a test done before classes resume. Insulting!
Y’all, I had really been hoping omicron is milder as it seems, and the data is starting to show it is a LOT milder and less likely to kill at risk people than the flu. Fewer hospitalizations, fewer deaths, does not attack the lungs
The bars require vaccination proof?
Man, this is such a different world than what I am living in.
A few places politely request masks (but no one seems to enforce it), but otherwise, this is done.
Here’s hoping omicron is the endemic variant if it really is as mild as it is appearing. I don’t want to see what pi, rho, sigma, and tau have in store.
So, since omicron is milder, can we all just keep our masks on where it makes sense and go back to life?
I just want my kid to go to daycare, take swimming lessons make some mom friends, take a jiu jitsu class, just generally start living my life again. Like, there’s no way to booster all of us forever, we’re never gonna stop spread, we just gotta learn to live with it? What are the risks for long covid anyway? Similar to flu?
I’m actually fine not eating in a restaurant again forever TBH.
I’d suggest that we slightly stagger the infection rate to avoid the shutdown being too messy, but omicron already declined that option.
That’s a major reason our schools, hospitals and things like library are half shut - because open will lead to surprise all shut. Current modeling suggests it should have done the major flame pass by end of January here.
So yes, go to a bunch of those things if they are open this week. Wear a mask. Maybe don’t see sixteen different families but do see one outside
Yes, and restaurants and gyms, as of Monday, there’s a city mandate. I hope they’re checking? Some places were requiring it of their own free will earlier, not due to a city mandate, but sometimes I was waved off while I was scrolling my phone looking for the photo of my card. Other places were pretty hardcore about it.
Some restaurants are going back to takeout/delivery only because they can’t afford staff to check vax cards at the door (or put up with the resulting abuse, more likely).
Day 5-ish? Stull waiting on a test. Still can’t taste anything, except for occasional aftertaste on coffee, which, without the fore-tastes is Not Good. Still addicted to caffeine, tho. I’ve developed a dry, barking cough, and my lungs feel kind of raw. I get winded going up the stairs, but I can do my daily yoga challenge stuff.
There are currently 6 positive cases in my 40 person division, all vaxxed and boosted within the last 8 weeks. Omicron don’t fuck around. We’re all walking wounded, but at least we’re walking. I read that preliminary investigation is showing Omicron has an R0 between 7 and 10. If that’s truly the case, then I don’t personally see much point in masks and vaccine passes. Keep using em, because they’re better than nothing, but they’re not going to stop the ride.
A lot of our restaurants stopped dining in between Christmas and NYE due to staff covid levels. But the new ban on indoor dining means they can’t reopen to vaxxed dine in when they’re all done being covidy
Oh, you guys got indoor dining totally banned? I don’t think the U.S. is going to go that way again. I guess we’ll see.
I’m in an area that seems completely unconcerned about Omicron. I taught a yoga class last night. Management decided to give away free classes, I’m not sure why because January is our busiest time but I had a packed class. One other person besides me masked.
I’m at the point where I don’t see anyway we can put this genie back in the bottle. If I don’t teach the class someone else will. My mental health cannot handle another lockdown. If the cold I had last week was not COVID I’m pretty certain I will have it by the end of January.
I’m starting to think all of the things we are doing to stop it and protect people are just prolonging it. Stopping it works, or at least is reported to work, in places like China where people are more likely to comply or forced to comply. It’s not working here. I’m starting to think the best way out is to just let 'er rip. Let it die out because there’s no one left to infect. When we draw things out, people lose their immunity and there’s always someone new to infect.
If we really cared as a society, we would do the things to improve everyone’s health including making health care more accessible and not requiring people to make choices to survive that negatively impact their health. We would do that things necessary to reduce the occurrence of the comorbidities that make COVID so deadly.
I hope all who are ill recover quickly with no long term effects.
I would be okay with this now that we have high vax rate if it was in tandem with a plan to continue to provide great care and safety to those who are immunocompromised and didn’t completely overrun our hospital system. But I don’t think its possible right now. There are too many vulnerable people not getting care because of covid, I think.
It feels life every solution is shitty.
Me too.
My own thought process has been: I should probably get omicron this week because I’m in a big house alone and working completely remote for two weeks and don’t have any personal obligations where I have to socialize with anyone. I won’t get infected, because I don’t even have to go anywhere or do anything or even have the desire to and I got my booster 10 days ago. I did go to the post office, but my odds aren’t good. I probably won’t even go to a grocery store until past mid month. At this point it feels the situation is so outlandish that the thoughts are not completely unreasonable. Everything sucks. Maybe I’ll get it from an unmasked sidewalk pass?
Edit: also to clarify, my usual life involves working in person, socializing, seeing family, exercise classes, shopping, public transit, living in an apartment. I definitely do not want to roll the dice on long term health effects post covid but because I’m in a bubble right now it’s like ok PLEASE can this just be the week someone coughs in my face
Following up a bit more, yes this is completely true. If I were in charge, people who were unvaccinated by choice would be at the back of the line for health care.
It seems to me with our current approach the health care system is going to be overrun indefinitely. My hope is that if we let it rip, there would be a big wave and then the load on the health care system would go down to more normal levels for the foreseeable future. There’s a high probability I’m wrong about that, and I don’t know how to test it out, so, yeah it gives me pause too. But I’m probably even more pessimistic about our current approach as more and more people quit, and who can blame them? I’d quit too.
This assumes that prior infection confers some immunity; I don’t think we have evidence about that Omicron (for or against). If it does, this is likely to be the end result, but better if we can have that end result and still have a way to get treatment if we have a car crash or heart attack. I think that means we need some delaying tactics still.
You’re right but I am still gonna have a temper tantrum about it every other day.
I think this is fair and reasonable. I’d join you, only no one is taking any precautions here, just like the last two years, so I’ll have my tantrums about that in solidarity.
What I’m seeing/hearing is that covid, like most colds, only gives a short term immunity. So 3-6 months. I’ve heard from a lot of people on a third round of covid, and a lot of vaxxed or vaxxed and boostered people are getting covid.
I think that some kind of staggered or self imposed (I e staffing related) shut down will eventually be our new normal, as well as making choices about boosters and vaccines based on individual risk.
I do think that omicron is blowing through hot and fast without us having any say