Omicron Will Change the Risk Landscape for Vaccinated People - The Atlantic - "Back in July, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky announced that COVID had become “a pandemic of the unvaccinated,” an unfortunate turn of phrase that was soon picked up by the president. Now the flaws in its logic are about to be exposed on what could be a terrifying scale. Unvaccinated Americans will certainly pay the steepest price in the months to come, but the risks appear to have grown for everyone. The pandemic of the vaccinated can no longer be denied... For Saad Omer, the director of the Yale Institute for Global Health, that’s enough evidence to justify changing the CDC’s definition of full vaccination... anecdotal reports already suggest that large indoor gatherings of fully vaccinated people can become super-spreader events in the age of Omicron... cases are almost certain to increase in highly vaccinated areas and undervaccinated ones alike, and bring with them a host of disruptions to daily life. Schiffer suggested that in areas with sufficient political will—mostly highly vaccinated ones—high case rates could spur local leaders to institute new shutdowns. In any event, fully vaccinated people are still required to isolate for at least 10 days after a positive test, and anyone they’ve been in contact with might have to stay home from school or work. A positive test in a classroom could send dozens of kids into quarantine, and keep their parents out of work to care for them. Jon Zelner, an epidemiologist at the University of Michigan, told me that massive disruptions caused by surging Omicron cases this winter could force Americans to reconsider these sorts of procedures."
It's weird how the people who don't believe the vaccines work (since they continue to obsess about case counts and push lockdowns despite high vaccination rates) keep pushing them and accuse others of being ignorant and anti-science
The Pandemic Isn't Over Until We Stop Isolating People for COVID - "Before vaccines, we were afraid of getting coronavirus because of the risk for serious illness and death. Now, for those who are vaccinated and otherwise healthy, those risks are quite minimal. Now we're afraid of getting coronavirus because of how disruptive isolation is. So, when can we stop isolating? It is months away? Years? To answer that question, we need to think about what isolation attempts to achieve. Let's be clear: Isolation does nothing for the individual who is isolating. A person who tests positive today will need to miss at least six standard workdays if they are unable to work remotely, and not everyone is eligible to recoup lost wages. They will be encouraged to separate from their loved ones, use a separate bathroom, and eat in a different place if possible. They will need to cancel planned vacations. The downsides are quite large, on the individual level — which explains why some vaccinated people with mild symptoms are choosing not to get tested. Why would they? It's likely their course will be mild. What's in it for them? It's clear then that the benefit of isolation must accrue to society. How does this work? Well, by taking an infected person out of society, we reduce the amount of circulating virus, preventing secondary and tertiary infections and so on. But here's the thing. Given the high transmissibility of SARS-CoV-2, particularly the Omicron variant, it is very likely that every single person on the planet who has not already been infected or vaccinated will become infected eventually. It's just a matter of time."
‘You Dirty Rat’: Experts Posit That Omicron Hatched in Rodents
Looks like we need to vaccinate all animals to prevent new variants, so the pandemic will never be over and lockdowns, boosters and demonising those who haven't gotten the 900th booster will be an annual ritual
Beware the modellers bearing bad news - "the modellers have an unenviable task trying to pick their way through all the variables. And it gets worse, because it seems they weren’t even asked to model the possibility that Omicron is inherently milder. Spectator editor Fraser Nelson has reported on a Twitter exchange he had with the co-chair of SPI-M, Professor Graham Medley, which revealed that the modelling teams weren’t asked to look at the possibility that Omicron has lower virulence. In effect, it looks like the modellers only generate bad-case to worst-case scenarios. This seems like a self-fulfilling prophecy that pushes decision-making towards more extreme action. As Nelson points out, modellers at JP Morgan did indeed model a scenario where Omicron is milder and came to conclusions that were far less pessimistic."
EDITORIAL: Staying healthy during COVID-19 | Toronto Sun - "One of the great mysteries of the past 20 months is why there has been practically zero discussion of keeping healthy from our officials — whether they are politicians or public health officials... In some cases, officials are openly hostile to the idea of healthy living. Former federal health minister Patty Hajdu lashed out during a discussion about vitamin D as a tool to combat COVID-19, by calling the whole issue “fake news”... The United Kingdom government, for example, has been delivering four months of free supply of Vitamin D to seniors to specifically help them get healthier during the pandemic. If only Canada had done the same. There’s been little acknowledgement that the overwhelming majority of persons who are winding up in the hospital with COVID-19 struggled with weight and metabolic issues... Dr. Kwadwo Kyeremanteng is a healthcare hero who has been treating hospitalized COVID-19 patients in Ottawa hospitals. He’s been a powerful voice for healthy living and a more balanced response to the virus. “Just a reminder, poor metabolic health (obesity… hypertension) has been the common thread in our COVID-19 ICU patients,” Dr. Kyeremanteng posted to social media, back during the height of the third wave. “ Let’s promote healthy living, staying mobile, avoiding processed foods. Take the power back!”"
Facing COVID passport mandate, more Swedes get microchip implants
So much for that "conspiracy theory"
Twitter to Penalize For Saying Vaccinated Can Spread COVID - "Twitter will begin imposing penalties on users who claim that vaccinated people can spread Covid-19, according to a change quietly added to the website’s terms of service. “When tweets include misleading information about Covid-19, we may place a label on those tweets that includes corrective information about that claim,” the website notes in a section detailing its rules about Covid-19 misinformation. “We may apply labels to tweets that contain, for example… false or misleading claims that people who have received the vaccine can spread or shed the virus (or symptoms, or immunity) to unvaccinated people.” Users can receive penalties up to a permanent ban. The change was made on Dec. 2, according to Wayback Machine archives retrieved by Reclaim the Net. The policy contradicts the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidance, which notes the “risk for SARS-CoV-2 infection in fully vaccinated people cannot be completely eliminated as long as there is continued community transmission of the virus.”... Twitter’s new guidance comes two weeks after former CEO Jack Dorsey’s Nov. 29 announcement that he was stepping down to focus on cryptocurrency, leaving Parag Agrawal as his successor. Agrawal raised eyebrows among critics a day after his ascension with another sweeping change to the rules... UPDATE: After the publication of this story, Twitter amended the language in its terms"
Weird, we are still told that no one denies that vaccines don't stop covid spread
Facebook - "COVID: *kills obese people at an exponentially higher rate* The federal government: *FDA tweet promoting pizza dipped in chocolate*"
claudilla on Twitter - "no offense to my husband, but there's NO WAY our wedding will be the best day of my life, my covid vaccine anniversary will always be more important"
Theresa May demands full release of data behind Covid-19 decisions - "Theresa May accused Boris Johnson of choosing data to fit his coronavirus policies, as she insisted the Government must reveal the economic cost of lockdown... “It appears the decision to go towards this lockdown was partly, mainly, to some extent based on the prediction of 4,000 deaths a day. “Yet, if you look at the trajectory showing in that graph that went to 4,000 deaths a day, we would have reached 1,000 deaths a day by the end of October. “The average in the last week of October was 259, by my calculations. Each of those deaths is a sadness and our thoughts are with the families, but it’s not 1,000 deaths a day. “So the prediction was wrong before it was even used. “And this leads to a problem for the Government – for many people it looks as if the figures are chosen to support the policy rather than the policy being based on the figures... Mrs May also raised concerns about a lack of data on the cost of the Government’s Covid-19 decisions, including on mental health, domestic abuse, non-Covid-19 treatments, “possibly more suicides” and to the economy. She told MPs: “Jobs lost, livelihoods shattered, businesses failing, whole sectors damaged. What sort of airline industry are we going to have coming out of this? What sort of hospitality sector? What sort of small independent shops will be left? “The Government must have made this analysis, made this assessment – let us see it and make our own judgments.” On public worship, Mrs May added: “My concern is that the Government today making it illegal to conduct an act of public worship, for the best of intentions, sets a precedent that could be misused for a Government in the future with the worst of intentions.”... Conservative Philip Davies (Shipley) warned that lockdowns “cost lives as well as livelihoods”, adding: “People are not stupid, they can see that the rules do not make any sense, and that is why they, like me, no longer have any faith in the people at the Department of Health and Public Health England who are making these decisions. “I never thought I would see the day a so-called Conservative minister would stand up and urge Parliament to further sacrifice our most basic of freedoms, collapse the economy and destroy jobs – all to pursue a failed strategy.”"
Omicron wave appears milder, but concern remains - "The study in Scotland has been tracking coronavirus and the number of people ending up in hospital. It said that if Omicron behaved the same as Delta, they would expect around 47 people to have been admitted to hospital already. At the moment there are only 15. The researchers said they were seeing a roughly two-thirds reduction in the number needing hospital care, but there were very few cases and few at-risk elderly people in the study... Meanwhile, another study in South Africa also points to the Omicron wave being milder. It showed people were 70-80% less likely to need hospital treatment, depending on whether Omicron is compared to previous waves, or other variants currently circulating... An analysis of Omicron by Imperial College London suggests Omicron's mutations have made it a milder virus than Delta. The researchers said the chances of turning up at A&E would be 11% lower with Omicron than Delta if you had no prior immunity. However, that now applies to relatively few people due to high levels of vaccination and infection. The same analysis said that accounting for immunity in the population meant a 25% to 30% lower risk of visiting A&E with Omicron and around a 40% reduction in needing to stay in hospital for more than a day. "
The covid hystericists will just ignore these and laser focus on the studies saying the risk is the same or higher
Chao Wang on Twitter - "Case fatality rate in South Africa will soon be lower than UK. It would be funny if it is not vaccine, treatment, but a variant that will finally end this pandemic."
Laura on Twitter - "My child is almost six years old and has no memory of ever attending a friend's birthday party. Things stolen from my children."
Dr. Eli David on Twitter - "Omicron: Never in history were so many people so afraid of something causing so little harm"
Kelantan wants study to be conducted on Covid-19 vaccine to ensure its Shariah compliance - "Malaysia is in the priority list to receive the Covid-19 vaccine from China, however, it has caused controversy among Muslims who doubt the halal status of the vaccine."
ilana horowitz on Twitter - "The staff at my hospital who chose to do weekly testing rather than get vaccinated, but then were forced to get vaccinated, are really enjoying learning that now we will also have to do weekly testing and wear N95s for all patient contact regardless of diagnosis or vax status...
They were apparently catching asymptomatic infections in other hospitals, so with that in mind, it’s understandable. But here’s the thing. If we turn up positive, but are asymptomatic, we can still come to work. So what exactly does this prevent??"
"It prevents a return to normal Because there will still be more "hospital outbreaks" and more boosters and more NCW's sent home to isolate when exposed, and more testing... It will happen, if it hasn't yet, once a COVID Karen realizes that positive people are working..."
"It also still isn't coming to terms with the fact that Covid is endemic and we are all going to get it. We can't disrupt society constantly for one virus."
"Well, evidence indicates "we" can in fact disrupt society for one virus. A not very deadly one at that..."
Ben Shapiro on Twitter - "POTUS: “I know vaccination requirements aren’t popular… but my administration didn’t put them in place to control your life, they put them in place to save your life.”"
"The administration's take on obesity is going to be fascinating"
Brits will need 3 jabs for vaccine passports for nightclubs, footy & travel from as early as February, Sajid Javid says : unitedkingdom - "This is absolutely fucked. Like genuinely what is this? Is this life now, having to get a booster every 3-6 months in order to participate in society? People said this would happen about 6 months ago and they were downvoted and called conspiracy theorists, yet here it is 6 months later…"
"Honestly a lot of things the anti lockdown people were saying at the start have ended up being true."
A vaxhole claimed that boosters were no different from the annual flu shot. I pointed out that you don't get fired for not getting a flu shot, and he called me an anti-vaxxer and blocked me. Vaxholes really hate facts
Scientists Endorse Covid Boosters, But to a Point - The New York Times - "Where does this end? Are we to roll up our sleeves for booster shots every few months? Humbled repeatedly by a virus that has defied expectations, scientists are reluctant to predict the future. But in interviews this week, nearly a dozen said that whatever happens, trying to boost the entire population every few months is not realistic. Nor does it make much scientific sense. “It’s not unheard-of to give vaccines periodically, but I think there are better ways than doing boosters every six months,” said Akiko Iwasaki, an immunologist at Yale University. Other strategies, she said, could “get us out of this forever-boosting kind of a situation.” For starters, persuading people to line up for shots every few months is probably a losing proposition. About 73 percent of American adults are fully vaccinated, but so far just over a third have opted for a booster. “This doesn’t seem to be a sustainable long-term strategy, for sure,” said Deepta Bhattacharya, an immunologist at the University of Arizona. Just as important, there are no data to support the effectiveness of a fourth dose of the current vaccines. (The calculus is different for people with impaired immune systems, who might well benefit from a fourth dose.)... already preliminary studies are showing a decline in antibody levels just weeks after a third dose. And even at peak antibody levels, the boost does not uniformly prevent infection with Omicron, which is less vulnerable to the body’s immune defenses... simply allowing more time between vaccine doses might also strengthen immunity, a lesson scientists learned in fights against other pathogens. Many experts were initially opposed to the idea of a booster shot at all. Some believed the original vaccine regimens were enough to keep most people out of the hospital, and that this should be the true measure of a vaccine’s success... Omicron has made it clear that preventing all infections is a lost cause... If the vaccines prevented infection and spread of the virus, regular boosters might make sense. “But with Omicron, what’s the point?” Dr. Nussenzweig said. “The endgame is keeping people out of the hospital.”... In order to prevent infections, booster shots must be exquisitely timed to a variant’s circulation in the population. Many people who got a third dose early in the fall, for example, were left vulnerable to Omicron because the immune boost had already subsided... Lessons from flu season also suggest that frequent vaccination is unlikely to be helpful. Giving the flu vaccine twice a year “has a diminishing return, and so it may not make sense to do vaccination so frequently,”... Some experts have raised concerns that getting boosters too often — as some people are doing on their own — may even be harmful. In theory, there are two ways in which it could backfire. Most immunologists now dismiss as improbable the first possibility, in which the immune system is exhausted by repeated stimulation — a condition called “anergy” — and stops responding to coronavirus vaccines... The second worry, called “original antigenic sin,” seems more plausible. In this view, the immune system’s response is tailored to the first version of the virus, and its responses to subsequent variants are much less powerful. With more than 50 mutations, Omicron is different enough from previous variants that antibodies made for the original version of the virus struggle to recognize the latest version... if the pandemic slows in most parts of the world, it may limit opportunities for the virus to emerge in a radically different form. And that’s an argument for helping other nations immunize their populations rather than boosting our own"
Measles surging as COVID-19 curbs disrupt vaccinations
Europe looks to booster shots, possible Christmas lockdowns as cases of COVID-19 surge - The Globe and Mail - "Europe has become the epicentre of the pandemic again, prompting some governments to consider reimposing unpopular lockdowns in the run-up to Christmas and stirring debate over whether vaccines alone are enough to tame COVID-19. Europe accounts for more than half of the average seven-day infections globally and about half of latest deaths, according to a Reuters tally, the highest levels since April last year when the virus was at its initial peak in Italy."
So much for all the gloating about how the US failed
Eric Brakey on Twitter - "COVID, like terrorism, is real. Also like terrorism, your perception of the danger it poses has been manipulated to generate fear and enable the powerful to expand their control."
ZUBY: on Twitter - "60 million people die every year and this has been the case for a long time. Nobody cared. Most don't even know this stat. Yet people now use ~4 million Covid related deaths in 18 months to blackmail, threaten, and defend stupid policies. Didn't care 'til the TV told them to."
'Too gentle': COVID test fans love getting deep nose-swabs - "A new subgenre of autonomous sensory meridian response (ASMR) videos — wherein creators gently whisper and play with objects in an attempt to relax the viewer — have also cropped up featuring mostly young women role-playing as masked nurses administering nasal swabs and discussing the novel virus"
The time has come to declare an official end to the Covid crisis - "Warnings of cases inevitably rising to 100,000 per day, probably reaching 200,000 per day, possibly 300,000 per day, along with hospitalisations rising to an absolute minimum of 2,000 per day and plausibly as high as 7,000 per day, made only a few weeks ago, have proved embarrassingly wide of the mark. Cases peaked in July, just as almost all formal restrictions were removed, despite the Government’s decision to go ahead with that being denounced as a “dangerous and unethical experiment” in The Lancet and Sir Keir Starmer saying that “Boris Johnson’s recklessness means we’re going to have an NHS summer crisis”... asking – like a king asking his people to rally to his standard – is a policy tool as much as laws or taxes are. And if such asking is to be effective, it cannot be forever. Things have been asked of us, and that time of asking should, at some point, be officially terminated. With the back-to-school wave at an end, that point has well and truly come."
Japan town sparks debate after building giant squid statue with Covid-19 relief fund - "A remote Japanese fishing town has sparked debate after spending coronavirus relief funds on a giant squid statue that cost more than $300,000 in a controversial bid to boost post-pandemic tourism."
Australia Considers Charging Unvaccinated Residents for COVID-19 Hospital Care - "A suggestion by Australia’s most populous state to charge unvaccinated people for COVID-19 medical costs has received widespread criticism. The New South Wales proposal has angered doctors and some federal politicians, who argue that health care in Australia is free and universal. The New South Wales government has said that unvaccinated patients being treated for COVID-19 have been irresponsible and have burdened taxpayers with “very substantial costs.” And they could be forced to pay for their hospital care... The Australian Medical Association said the proposal was “unethical,” and it doubted that it was even legal. The president of the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners, Dr. Karen Price, told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. that it would affect disadvantaged communities. “We might make all sorts of judgments on people who smoke or have an unhealthy lifestyle, and the unvaccinated would be a large cohort of those people who might have low health literacy, and we know in some of our Indigenous communities where vaccination rates are low, this would be an unethical procedure to implement”... Western Australia has become the first jurisdiction to introduce mandatory COVID-19 booster shots for certain sections of its population."
GRANT: Vaccines will never eliminate COVID, so it's time to pivot our response | Toronto Sun - "When COVID started, I was convinced that we wouldn’t have a vaccine. This wasn’t simply pessimism, I based my opinion on our experience with other Coronaviruses. Specific attempts to create vaccines for SARS-CoV (the original) and MERS-CoV had been complicated by what’s known as “antibody dependent immune enhancement ” — a fancy way of saying some people had worse disease after vaccination... The initial promise of a vaccine with sterilizing immunity (ability to stop infections and transmission), brought the prospect of disease elimination tantalizing close. Now, in the late fall of 2021, it is becoming obvious that while vaccines are still incredibly effective at stopping severe disease , they are less so at stopping transmission... The only option is to change to an endemic approach, which changes the emphasis on vaccination and prevention efforts. This means that for people at risk of severe disease, vaccine is now more important. However, the incessant drive to an arbitrary percent of the population being vaccinated has ceased to make sense: It is not how many are vaccinated, but whom that matters. For example, vaccinating 100 people over the age of 65 is likely to prevent 3 hospitalizations, while vaccinating a 2000 member high school or university class is unlikely to avoid any. Time and effort need to go to identifying communities of high-risk unvaccinated people, understanding their reasons for hesitancy and working with them towards acceptance of vaccines. The next pivotal change is to stop counting cases and concentrate instead on outcomes with personal and social impact. Testing everybody with a cold is expensive and ultimately futile if we all eventually end up infected. Hospitalizations and deaths become the only metric that matters. Politicians need to abandon the quixotic quest for COVID zero, making many of the interventions intended to stop virus circulation irrelevant. Public mask-wearing, social distancing etc. were only going to defer, not eliminate, transmission... Society also needs to shift how it sees the unvaccinated. The prevailing opinion, including among many of my colleagues, is that the unvaccinated pose a threat to others. Since the vaccinated are still likely to be infected and transmit disease, with similar viral loads as those who are unvaccinated, this is not entirely true. We want high risk, non-immune, people to be vaccinated for their own protection and to reduce the impact on hospitals and health care systems. However, the unvaccinated are not a threat to patrons at a supermarket or ski hill . In fact, it is the unvaccinated who are at risk in crowded situations. This means, at the very least, that the use of vaccine passports beyond the very limited recommendations of public health read more as moral panic, or vigilante justice, than a public health intervention. Finally, we need to think very carefully about how we approach vaccination in the very low risk parts of the population, particularly children. The FDA deliberations included significant concern about applying the same criteria to this very low-risk population as is applied to older groups. If we assume that everybody gets infected, and that young people almost never end up in hospital, the need to limit youth activities with mandates or exclusion becomes less defensible. We need to stop penalizing the young for being young, even in those who are unvaccinated. Youth need to socialize, engage with their peers and develop their physical and mental abilities."
Covid hystericists still gaslight us into thinking that no one said they could stop transmission
This is prescient, written before the moral panic over omicron
Pandemic civil liberties abuses most popular among Lib voters: Poll | Toronto Sun - "A disturbing new national poll shows just how many civil liberties abuses Canadians — especially Liberal voters — are willing to inflict on their neighbours in the name of battling COVID-19. Only 29% of Liberal voters “strongly oppose” the police entering Canadians’ homes without a warrant to enforce pandemic rules. But that number shoots up to 47% and 46% respectively for Conservative and NDP voters. When it comes to jailing or fining people for “spreading disinformation” about the virus, almost three quarters (71%) of Liberal voters support the law clamping down on those who are “questioning the existence or seriousness of COVID” by making claims such as “it’s just the flu.” Although on a national level, 59% of Canadians still support such measures. Liberal voters are also most likely to support the police breaking up families in the name of public health, with 36% giving family separation the thumbs up. Support is not minuscule among other voter intentions, though, with 25% of Conservatives and 21% of NDPers OK with it... One of the few measures that is opposed across the board is the government compelling cellphone companies to provide individual location data to facilitate the enforcement of pandemic rules. “Surprisingly, 37% of Canadian voters support such actions by the government,” the poll release reads. While the poll shows the greatest support for civil liberties abuses by Liberal supporters, the total numbers reveal that Canadians in general are fairly split on the need for greater authoritarian measures... The numbers show support for these measures is highest in Quebec and the Atlantic provinces and opposition increases in Ontario and further west. When respondents are asked directly whether or not they support suspending civil liberties and rights, 52% of Canadians say no, with only 38% supporting it. It’s an interesting exercise in cognitive dissonance to see that while only about a third of Canadians answer yes to a theoretical question about suspending civil liberties, when they are presented with actual scenarios — separating families, entering private residences without warrants, and jailing people for having unorthodox views on COVID-19 — they are far more likely to offer support. These numbers present a truly disturbing picture of the almost carte blanche approach Canadians are willing to give their governments in the fight against COVID-19. While jurisdictions across the United States are loosening their restrictions as case numbers decrease and becoming more targeted in their response, Canada — which is also seeing decreasing cases — appears to be getting more blunt and regressive in its response to the virus."
From Feb 2021
CFIB statement on lockdown extensions in Toronto and Peel - "Almost every other province opened schools and businesses—or didn't close them in the first place—while COVID-19 numbers continued to fall. In fact, Ontario businesses—particularly those in the GTA—have been locked down longer than the vast majority of jurisdictions around the world."
From Feb 2021. And it got even worse
Gruelling lockdown that never ends has Toronto businesses at the breaking point - " Politics are a significant factor too, according to Nelson Wiseman, a professor of political science at the University of Toronto. Ford got high marks from voters for decisive action early in the pandemic. He’s fearful of being seen as overruling the advice of the medical community, Wiseman said. Toronto’s top doctor, Eileen de Villa, has been a consistent advocate of strict measures including indoor dining bans."
GUNTER: Canada rides the Trudeau Wave of COVID ineptitude | Toronto Sun - "The majority of those shunted into hotels have been Canadian snowbirds returning from their winter homes – even ones who received two doses of vaccine while in the U.S. That means the quarantines have been more about showing how tough the Liberals are, rather than how serious they are about stopping COVID. Nearly 180,000 more travellers who have driven into Canada have been waved through the border so long as they promise to isolate when they get home."
