Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I am excited - we are finally rounding the corner. And by rounding the corner, I mean treating this as an endemic virus that's not treated differently than others.
Next step is to test only the symptomatic, which I think if Omicron proves to have the significantly lesser severity it has so far, should be started once this wave is over. By symptomatic I mean only those that are sick enough to have to go to the doctor. No more testing every time your throat gets a little scratchy or your nose runs.
I added a bit after you quoted.
Yes all are doing fairly well. Head colds, body aches, fatigue. "Run of the mill flu like experience" if you will. One buddy did lose sense of taste and smell....which seems to be the "worst COVID symptom" of any of them.
You and I have been on different parts of the spectrum of this thing (though not at two extremes) for much of the last two years, but I am basically there as well. We have tools now that we didn't have before. Use the tools we have. COVID is going to be part of our lives just like H1N1 is.
Vax = Flu Shot to mitigate serious infection. Have supply for people to get it during "Cold, Flu and COVID season"
Treatments (Pfizer, Merck etc) will fill in the gap
US Army has a vax coming at some point
I'll still rock my mask during "Cold, Flu and COVID season" as I grew up in a culture of Mask Use, it really doesn't bother me, I'm still very, very, very free, and if it offers mitigating protections like a seat belt, fine with me.
We should re-invest in our "external surveillance capabilities" to keep our experts ears to the ground for any crazy variant down the line....just like we do for other viruses.
ETA - Really the thing I hope that comes out of this is an adjusted "American Culture of Sickness". Americans are unique (in terms of the cultures I have visited/lived in or with) in their "I'm sick, but I'm still going to work/school". I hope these two years have ingrained a change in people to A, take some time to make sure they get the rest they need when they're sick (and yet that would require some employers to face reality for once) and B, realize that in no way does coming to work/school sick show some super uber "Anglo-Saxon Work Ethic!". Get sick, stay home. Get better. Don't share unnecessarily.
We called that CVS after going to/calling numerous others and they said they had them in stock (Pharmacist said a truck had just delivered) and when we got there another person said that they didn't have any At least we were able to get a pizza at Rosalinis while we were out that way
Luckily my daughter still had one test left and tested the morning she drove up here. However we were unable to test. Normally we wouldn't need to because we are homebodies but we had furniture delivered last week and all of a sudden I heard coughing (lots of coughing) and looked over and the one guy wasn't wearing his mask
Interesting. They had tons behind the counter when I was there. Granted, I would guess with us (as a country) breaking travel records for the Holidays, that demand spiked and as such they could have been out of them.
Hopefully resolved soon. Even the PCR tests are appointment only. I wonder if its tied to the fact that all of these tests lose their EUA in less than a week?
Yes all are doing fairly well. Head colds, body aches, fatigue. "Run of the mill flu like experience" if you will. One buddy did lose sense of taste and smell....which seems to be the "worst COVID symptom" of any of them.
You and I have been on different parts of the spectrum of this thing (though not at two extremes) for much of the last two years, but I am basically there as well. We have tools now that we didn't have before. Use the tools we have. COVID is going to be part of our lives just like H1N1 is.
Vax = Flu Shot to mitigate serious infection. Have supply for people to get it during "Cold, Flu and COVID season"
Treatments (Pfizer, Merck etc) will fill in the gap
US Army has a vax coming at some point
I'll still rock my mask during "Cold, Flu and COVID season" as I grew up in a culture of Mask Use, it really doesn't bother me, I'm still very, very, very free, and if it offers mitigating protections like a seat belt, fine with me.
We should re-invest in our "external surveillance capabilities" to keep our experts ears to the ground for any crazy variant down the line....just like we do for other viruses.
ETA - Really the thing I hope that comes out of this is an adjusted "American Culture of Sickness". Americans are unique (in terms of the cultures I have visited/lived in or with) in their "I'm sick, but I'm still going to work/school". I hope these two years have ingrained a change in people to A, take some time to make sure they get the rest they need when they're sick (and yet that would require some employers to face reality for once) and B, realize that in no way does coming to work/school sick show some super uber "Anglo-Saxon Work Ethic!". Get sick, stay home. Get better. Don't share unnecessarily.
I'm happy to hear this and I agree on your points retarding adjusted "sickness culture". I think the changed work from home expectations will certainly help, at least on the white collar side of things. Unfortunately I don't see anything changing on the blue collar/retail side, unless it comes from the top down, which is unlikely to happen in those types of jobs.
I'm happy to hear this and I agree on your points retarding adjusted "sickness culture". I think the changed work from home expectations will certainly help, at least on the white collar side of things. Unfortunately I don't see anything changing on the blue collar/retail side, unless it comes from the top down, which is unlikely to happen in those types of jobs.
My hope is the "from the top" aspect comes too for blue collar/retail jobs. I know early on I think it was McDonalds that decided to start offering paid sick time. That's really "all" it takes to mitigate.
I mean if "Meat Packing Plant X" or "Chain Clothing store in a Mall" or WalMart/Target need a situation in place where society, as a whole, is in a position to purchase goods from them, then the cost of offering people 6-10 days a year for sick time has to be less than a situation where forcing people into work when something like this happens. How much negative impact (reputation-ally) was there a couple years back when people were getting sick at Chipotle and it turned out they were forcing people in sick, including people with Norovirus which can look a lot like food poisoning?
What capitalistic good is there to force Employee #13849038 into work with Rona, risking your customers health, which at enough scale, can impact your bottom line far more than 8 days of sick pay for a $10/hr employee would cost you?
No sick time is a paradigm akin to the "chair time is productive time" BS that somehow carried on since the 1970s and thankfully was killed off, for many places, in the last 2 years. I changed jobs two times during the era of Rona. Left Accenture for EY and then to my current employer as of the end of November. Each one kept their employees remote for the last two years. Minimal if any client travel. All three had fantastic years bottom line speaking. They certainly aren't the only ones.
Even Dr. Leana Wen said this morning on CNN that she thinks the end of the pandemic is in sight, and she is someone who has remained very strict about openings and masking when others weren't, so I thought that was impressive.
I haven't been overly concerned about this variant though I am concerned about long covid for people. Seems like the breakthrough potential is super high with omicron.
Even Dr. Leana Wen said this morning on CNN that she thinks the end of the pandemic is in sight, and she is someone who has remained very strict about openings and masking when others weren't, so I thought that was impressive.
I haven't been overly concerned about this variant though I am concerned about long covid for people. Seems like the breakthrough potential is super high with omicron.
Long COVID will be an interesting thing to watch over the coming years. I've shared before, a friend/coworker of mine who has COVID now three times, after her second bout, her heart had some serious issues with it not normally seen in a 29/30 year old person. Not to mention, for the men among us, ED seems to be a thing with it.
As for breakthroughs, ya Omicron doesn't seem to give AF about vax status. Of the running list I shared above, which amounted to about 20 people give or take?! Everyone one of them is vaccinated and or boosted. Even the Monoclonal Antibody treatments don't work for Omicron (bunch of states have stopped offering them because its basically useless) nor does the "natural immunity" from a previous infection.
Omicron is a sneaky little bugger....but thankfully seems mild enough to basically transmit easily and fast with massive, near vertical increases in cases, but seemingly, without the massive uptick in hospitalizations and deaths (at least among the vaxxed). This is what Mother Nature wants. Highly transmissible virus that doesn't kill the host.
Frank Luntz (GOP Pollster/Focus Group extraordinaire) was sharing stats on hospitalizations this morning.
For vax'd people, hospitalization rate is a 3.9/100K people. For unvaxxed, it's 67.8/100K people.
While the vax (like any other vax) doesn't keep a person from getting an illness (I know of no vax' with 100% efficacy), the evidence is pretty freaking clear that it keeps you from getting crippling sick (i.e. sick enough to need medical attention in a hospital). The unvaxxed hospitalization rate is what, 17 times higher? (and yes, I realize we are still talking fractions of a percent to something less than 10%.)
Even Dr. Leana Wen said this morning on CNN that she thinks the end of the pandemic is in sight, and she is someone who has remained very strict about openings and masking when others weren't, so I thought that was impressive.
I haven't been overly concerned about this variant though I am concerned about long covid for people. Seems like the breakthrough potential is super high with omicron.
That is impressive, and so has been Dr. Leana Wen through this long ordeal.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
At least we were able to get a pizza at Rosalinis while we were out that way 
