It is now 4 days since I had the booster shot. Whatever it is I have is still with me.

I still have the chills. NO fever.

I have a cough. Not a hacking cough from tickles on the back of the throat. This cough is coming from deep inside when I do cough—which is not often. My chest feels heavy.

My breathing is fine. If my body felt up to it I think I could several laps around the block easily enough.

The VA, except for ER, is closed until Monday. I hope to find out something then.

Brian, please compare alpha to alpha, delta to delta, etc.

There were lockdowns for alpha true. No lockdowns and minimal mitigation for delta. Stronger Mitigation was JUST reimplemented for omicron…after it had already started to skyrocket. It isn’t like turning a faucet on or off dude.

It is not correct to take what was done in March 2020 and imply that is what was still being done in Sept 2021.

So much has changed over time, stay up to date.

For others, cloth masks ain’t gonna cut it with omicron. Kn95 or similar minimum for crowds is where I am landing. So yes now I am saying cloth masks aren’t sufficient BUT for Pete’s sake don’t take that and imply that I never thought cloth worked.

Which other states count that way?

South Carolina is one that I know of.

You’re talking case counts anyway. I’m talking mortality rate per 100k which is not miscounted as it’s done through the cdc. Florida has 11 less per 100k than New york, as I said and my only point is, passports, mandates etc are not doing jack to stop covid or lower mortality when compared to Florida.

I get why you guys focus on Florida though. It means all the mandates and everything else are all for nothing. It’s easier to believe some conspiracy theory that Florida is hiding deaths than to believe the science is bunk. I get it.

How do you explain the huge drop in influenza last year?

Another thing we have to keep in mind, even if omicron is not as bad as delta in terms of mortality rate, since it spreads more, hospitals are busier than ever and they have to focus on covid at the expense of other interventions and surgeries.

People working in hospitals are not invincible and more and more get infected every day. They have been in covid cases for almost 2 years and they are tired.

Not a good time to have hip or knee surgery.

Yeah good point. The website below will help people find locations that have monoclonal antibody therapeutics, definitely not every hospital.

https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/therapeutics-distribution

Just pointing out that only one of the monoclonal antibody medications (Sotrovimab) that we have currently is effective vs omicron. That antibody treatment is scarce and may not be available in all locations.

Remote working
People not going out
Remote schooling
Flu less transmissible than Covid making masks more efffective against it

I guess I see your point but it’s still a straw man argument. Seat belts work (flu) but not so much if your driving 120 mph (Covid) and seatbelts are not as detrimental as the 2020 lockdown was to the economy and child development

Re-named it covid ? :3

Found out on Thursday that I was in “close contact” with someone on Tuesday who subsequently tested positive. (We were both masked and kept at least 4 feet between us, but we did talk a bit) It was my 87 year old dad’s first Xmas since my mom passed and the plan was to have him over to celebrate, so we had to make the thankless choice between calling everything off of relying on multiple rapid tests to decide. We know that it was too early to get a definite positive, but we kept a close eye for faint positives, and luckily the tests all remained clear so Dad came over for the day.

The next few months are going to suck though bc my FB feed is going buck wild the past three days with ppl testing positive. I don’t see how I can avoid more incidents like this. At $7/test x 3 people in the house, it’s going to get pretty costly to make sure things are safe for my dad.

I'm sorry, you say NY does not have a mask mandate: https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-major-action-address-winter-surge-and-prevent-business-disruption

Care to admit you're wrong?

I'm sorry, you say NYC doesn't have a vaccine passport: https://www.ny1.com/nyc/all-boroughs/news/2021/08/13/what-to-know-about-the-city-s-vaccine-passport-rules-that-start-monday

Care to admit you're wrong?

Refer to the CDC.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/season/faq-flu-season-2020-2021.htm

There was a drop due to LOCKDOWNS.

So let's battle the flu by keeping everything closed. Great.

Look at Japan and tell me again wearing masks and wearing them properly hasn't helped mitigate spread and deaths there throughout this pandemic. I lived there for two years in the early 90's and people wore them even back then for things like the common cold when in public. Culturally, it is considered dishonorable to go out and potentially expose others to something without trying to mitigate the chance you spread it.

Japan has 1/3 the population of the US, a significantly older population, and most live in very densely populated areas where many take public transportation on a daily basis. Yet Japan has very few deaths from Covid compared to most parts of the world and particularly the US. I chalk this up to a culture that understands the effectiveness of mask wearing, vaccination to protect not only themselves but others, and being respectful of those around them (i e. - staying home when sick, avoiding large gatherings, etc).

https://fortune.com/2021/12/07/japan-world-oldest-country-covid-19-death-daily/

Thanks for agreeing that Florida miscounts (intentionally undercounts) it’s cases.

That should be a simple thing. If someone tests positive at the Walmart in Pensacola, it should be counted as a positive case there. But it really isn’t. That’s doing nothing but making the numbers you chirp about look better.

False, and truish. Mandates don’t work because people now just do what they want without regards to the harm it does to others.

Do you get it? Let’s check…

Ok.

Nothing has changed in my world aside from the virus being even more survivable than originally thought. Florida has done NOTHING since the 15 days, nothing aside from monoclonal antibody treatment (I don’t know how many other states offered it) no mandates, lockdowns forced quarantined nothing, no matter what variant is running around. Even at our peak (which was really bad no one is denying. I had 3 friends very sick) with delta we barreled through it changed no protocols anywhere and still came out better than a few states with insane measures like passports, lockdowns and mandatory vaccines etc. hard to believe? Yea it is for me too some times when I talk to friends in Australia or New York. Very.

The masks really don’t do jack though. Sure if you sneezed in my face I would rather you have a mask on but they don’t prevent covid. One guy sneezing into his mask in a room of 1000 just infected the same amount of people most likely mask or no mask. If you’re wearing an N95 or better you’re going to fair a lot better than the guy next to you in his cloth mask though for sure.

But to say the science is changing? Sure “science”.

You used to be able to ask questions when it came to science. We sure changed a lot of definitions in record time to meet “the science” too.

That is not what we have right now. Doctors are being silenced and threatened for saying anything that goes against the grain. They literally cannot question it publicly without losing their license. That is a fact and that is NOT how science should operate.

Based on the science I read, I knew the masks didn’t do jack from the start to prevent covid (the box even says it on there). Imagine how mad I got when the airline told me I HAD TO WEAR A COTTON MASK and not my N95!!? Science? None of this has been based on “science” and if so it’s very loosely based on a few medical Bureaucrats opinions with pharma companies sticking bills in their pants pockets at the same time.

I believed the science that said the vaccines wouldn’t stop the spread day one, I believed the science that said they wouldn’t prevent illness or death day one. I believed the science that said mandates weren’t going to slow it etc…

..If the science keeps changing to prove the conspiracy theorists like me right than I really hope they’re wrong on everything else I believe.

Though I’m pretty sure we’re close to the “discovering it “accidentally” came from a bio research lab in Wuhan China that we paid with our own tax dollars” portion of all this. So that should be fun.

PCR testing abnormalities. Everyone who thought they had covid, many may have had the flu but the PCR threshold being so high was misinterpreting the flu for covid.

Thanks for admitting you don’t know the other states that count this way. Weird you focus solely on Florida..

But if we are comparing then let’s compare mortality because at the end of the day that’s what counts. It’s not being undercounted or hidden from you in some Floridaman conspiracy. We’re doing “well”. With ZERO restrictions. Compared to other states with crazy lockdowns we are actually fairing as well or even better. That’s not a conspiracy of numbers and hidden death counts, that’s the truth. We’re doing pretty well with no mandates or restrictions.

That is what matters. Lockdowns and movement passports are not helping.

Ignorance is bliss.

Or, since you are a self-proclaimed conspiracy theorist, perhaps it’s just paranoia.

It’s amazing how some can spend so much energy complaining about the pandemic response while kicking and screaming against doing anything to reduce the spread of Covid or it’s potential to impact their own health. Good masks properly worn offer demonstrable protection yet so many don’t bother because they are selfish or misinformed.

I’m tired about reading stories about “oh it’s not so bad. I only know a few people that have gotten sick” or “please gofundme because my unvaccinated husband died after insisting he couldn’t have Covid”. The worst are those that refuse to wear masks or get vaccinated and then bitch that the pandemic isn’t over already or that the government isn’t doing enough to stop it.

You said AND. Even the link you give here says OR. So what you said was false. If I use a lot of words, you don’t get it. If I use one word, you don’t get it. What you said was… False.

You’re wrong. I just showed it. You won’t see it.

A lot to go thru here, but I am gonna skip most of it for two quick hits.

So your argument is that because you life hasn’t changed there is no need to do a detailed analysis of the data. No need to take into account how the virus has changed, how medicine has changed, how our understanding of the virus has changed, etc.

How is that “following the science” exactly?

“ PCR testing abnormalities. Everyone who thought they had covid, many may have had the flu but the PCR threshold being so high was misinterpreting the flu for covid.”

Whut?

Wrong where???

In NYC, they have vaccine passports AND a mask mandate.

The mask mandate from the Governor, covers all of NY….guess where NYC is located…..that’s right, in NY.

Then, add in the vaccine passport that NYC has.

So, like I said. NYC has a mask mandate AND vaccine passport, yet, their numbers have skyrocketed.

Just grow up and admit you’re 100% wrong. Everyone here can clearly see you said NYC doesn’t have a mask mandate or vaccine passport.

I’ve treated it like the flu since day one. If I’m sick I stay home. Seems if we had all done that we’d probably be through it by now. All we’ve done is prolong it with leaky vaccinated asymptomatic super spreaders now unfortunately.

I don’t wear a mask because I’m not sick and the onus is on you to protect yourself not me to protect you. Do you wear an N95 or better? I’m not forcing you to and never would but if you really followed the science and were concerned with a flu virus that has a 99.7-99.9% survival rate you would. Almost no one that masks does this though? Why?..

I’m glad you got vaccinated but you’re not protecting anyone aside from yourself unfortunately and it’s not stopping or even slowing the spread, it’s a leaky vaccine, worst case scenario so we’ve now relegated ourselves to “at least the symptoms are lessened” Funny how the entire point of the vaccine was to Stop the Spread in the beginning. Now we are fine with spreading covid because the vaccine "Prevents serious illness" is the mantra I’m starting to hear repeated many times now.

The vaccines were never the answer as we’re seeing now. This isn’t due to the unvaccinated no matter how hard you try and stretch that blame to us. It’s a leaky vaccine.

Remember “breakthrough infections are rare!”?…
Did we collectively forget about that?

I know I’ve brought this up before but Japan also has a less than 4 percent obesity rate. We have a greater than 40 percent obesity rate and all the health problems that go along with it. It’s right on the CDC website that the higher your BMI the higher your risk will be. Pretty much common sense to me that a healthier population will have less hospitalizations and deaths. It’s surprising that almost two years into this the CDC and federal government hasn’t put out any kind of steady message through the media promoting that a healthy lifestyle may make a difference on how you fare with Covid. All they choose to promote is vaccinate, vaccinate, vaccinate.

Im so grateful that Pinside has some of the best minds in the world that share their wisdom..... that pretty much the rest of the world, science, and medicine are wrong, and they help us see these truths.

I'm sure diet and obesity play a role but you would also expect the lower obesity rate in Japan to be offset by the fact it is also one of if not the oldest country in the world.

Many countries in Europe have lower obesity rates but haven't fared that well themselves. Countries like Italy and Greece with lower obesity rates, better diets, and also older populaces have also been hit much harder than Japan.

I think it is pretty clear there is more to it than that. Masks, vaccination, and a populace that listens to their healthcare experts and those with the education and training to give guidance make a difference. I know it hurts to admit for some that have bought into the politicalization of a pandemic and common sense mitigation efforts but the numbers speak for themselves.

With all due respect, you have no idea what you're talking about. The vaccine study endpoints were prevention of severe disease, hospitalization, and death. Look it up.

They weren't developed with the plan they would completely prevent Covid and/or prevent any contagious spread. If the initial study analysis showed that, it was a bonus and you clearly didn't do your homework. Instead, you have apparently sat back in the hopes of nit picking when the virus mutated and turned out to not be perfect in areas they were never promised to be.

The goal all along was/is to try to prevent deaths and overwhelming our healthcare infrastructure while the country and world gradually gets vaccinated and builds up immunity. It really isn't difficult to understand.

I have since about July when I could reasonably get verified N95 masks. As far as I know, I have not had Covid yet. But asymptomatic people generally don’t know when or if they had it, hence the term.

The “not my responsibility to protect you” just shows that you are selfish. Masks protect the wearer and those around them (and you could reasonably argue that masks protect others more than yourself).

“Stop the Spread” referred to masking and social distancing long before the vaccines were available. Masking, social distancing and vaccination is a three leg stool of protection. Having all three legs on your stool doesn’t mean you won’t fall off, it just makes it far less likely. Take any of the legs away and your stool becomes a whole lot more dangerous. Masks aren’t the end all solution nor are vaccines. But if you aren’t masking or aren’t vaccinated you are absolutely part of the problem not the solution.

As for anyone being “fine” spreading Covid - the only ones I know promoting that are the quacks that want to see everyone infected so we can kill Covid with true natural immunity.

Breakthrough infections were rare. Not so much anymore because enough people don’t care about anyone but themselves while the virus keeps spreading and mutating. Because of that the monoclonal treatments (save one) are no longer effective and we have a far more transmissible variant changing the landscape.

It’s getting silly now. People are just posting Tucker Talking Points or whatever and don’t even take the time to post a link (they didn’t read) they think supports whatever they just made up.

AB7E1A33-6F27-4BEB-87E9-A158239D5D21 (resized).jpeg

Strange reasoning you've got there to clear your own conscience? By having a vaccinated population, there's less hospitalisations so we protect the ones that do have to go to the hospital (with covid, but also the ones going there for other reasons who now often have to wait). That is one of the main purposes to be vaccinated, to make it all somewhat more manageable. You can tell yourself you're not being selfish because the only reason to become vaccinated is for ones own good, but that's definitely not the only reason. I therefor think it's selfish not to get a vaccine: ones who don't often think 'I will probably not be harmed that much if I get covid' but they're not looking at the big numbers for the entire population. Unvaccinated, also young and healthy ones, still do get hospitalised way, way, way more than vaccinated ones. I don't think there's any source to be found that tells otherwise, unless you don't get the difference between absolute and relative numbers. In the Netherlands some say the difference is not THAT big between vaccinated and unvaccinated people in hospitals, but they're forgetting to mention that under 15% did not have the vaccine, and that that group still form the largest group in the hospitals.

Funny is that a lot of the unvaccinated want to keep things open, but they're the biggest reason for things to close in the first place. And no, I'm not saying that without them we wouldn't have any restrictions, but the more hospitalisations, the more restrictions are needed. That, or we'd have to accept that we say 'you're on your own' when you would need a hospital to get help. Let people who can be helped with their health problems just die or become permanently handicapped for even though we have the knowledge to easily help them, there's no capacity. That includes your parents, your children, your brothers and sisters, your friends, you yourself, everyone who in their life need medical help may not get it for the health system can't cope.
Need more capacity? Well, that's easier said than done and with exponential growth even with a doubling of capacity or more, we'd probably not have enough. There's no way we could easily let our health system grow that hard. And besides, if you want that, you're in favour of a lot more taxes and insurance costs. Health care may be more expensive than you'd think(?). Yes, I know, closing things is expensive too, but it's not like the countries who didn't take measures have had more economic growth than the ones who did.

Look, it's your choice not to get vaccinated, but you shouldn't make up reasons that are false: vaccination is not just for yourself, it's for others as well.

The second part of your sentence: indeed vaccines aren't stopping the spread, but it is slowing the spread. Maybe (way) less than we had hoped for with the newer variants, but that doesn't make it 'not slowing the spread' like you claim.
Just an example: if it protects for let's say 25%, which seems very low. If it takes for example 10 days for a virus in a population to get doubled, after 50 days, the number of people having covid with an unvaccinated population is 32 (2^5) times as high, where a vaccinated population would have a 16.4 (1.75^5) times as high number of people having covid. That is a huge difference, and the difference gets bigger the longer period you look at. These are made up figures, but hey, I think I'm correct here on the idea: please correct me if needed.

NYC has a mask mandate OR a vaccine requirement. Let’s go to the order…

https://www.governor.ny.gov/news/governor-hochul-announces-major-action-address-winter-surge-and-prevent-business-disruption

“Governor Kathy Hochul today announced masks will be required to be worn in all indoor public places unless businesses or venues implement a vaccine requirement.“

It’s still the choice of the business which part of that they want to be subject to.

Seasonal flu kills yearly about 300.000 - 600.000 people worldwide. In 2020, Covid-19 had about 2 million victims, and in 2021 about 3.5 million, totalling about 5 and a half million. Myself I wouldn't treat it "like the flu".

It was a fun family Christmas as once again late into the night a debate about the pandemic started lol. One of my family members was very adamant that the following items are true. This is coming from someone who I would consider very informed on a number of topics, smart, and educated. Regularly I wouldn't waste my time debating this (especially on Christmas of all days...) but once he started telling my parents this stuff I had to say something, in a respectful way of course.

What I've learned from this family member is he ends up coming across as "Well I had Covid, I'm not vaccinated, everyone should be fine too if they get it". Well that's not the way science works and everyone is different. That would be like telling someone who also has cancer "Oh, I had cancer too and recovered, no big deal, you will be fine too"...

1. The vaccines have killed 10,000 people within 2 weeks of people receiving it.

This one was a curve ball as he was showing me a CDC article. He's reading the data that all of these individuals died from the vaccine which isn't true. There's nothing that stops people from still dying of other causes after receiving the vaccine...

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/safety/adverse-events.html

"FDA requires healthcare providers to report any death after COVID-19 vaccination to VAERS, even if it’s unclear whether the vaccine was the cause". "More than 485 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines were administered in the United States from December 14, 2020, through December 13, 2021. During this time, VAERS received 10,483 reports of death (0.0022%) among people who received a COVID-19 vaccine. CDC and FDA clinicians review reports of death to VAERS including death certificates, autopsy, and medical records."

What he failed to mention is this part in the article "Reports of adverse events to VAERS following vaccination, including deaths, do not necessarily mean that a vaccine caused a health problem."

2. Only 25% of CDC staff is vaccinated, Dr. Fauci himself said this, they don't want the vaccine he said...

This one started on social media, below is just one of the sources fact checking this. In May of 2021 Dr. Fauci did say in a Senate committee that he thinks around 60% of CDC was vaccinated, this was already higher then the 47% US vaccination rate. At the time vaccination by individuals wasn't being reported or required (that's obviously changing now for federal workers)

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/factcheck/2021/05/30/fact-check-fauci-didnt-say-cdc-fda-staff-refusing-covid-19-vaccine/7474372002/

3. US deaths are no higher over the past 2 years then in the past...

He was very adamant about this, as if no one has really died of Covid-19 and that the numbers being reported are false... He said "show me the CDC data that says deaths are up because of Covid". Ok here it is lol. This is just for 2020.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/products/databriefs/db427.htm

db427-fig4 (resized).png

Simply put, Covid is about "WE" not "ME", so is every Good Message throughout History about life.

If one keeps thinking only for themselves, "WE" fail.

If you are on Twitter, Craig Spencer is an ER doc in NYC and a good expert to follow. Here is what he has to say about the current Omicron wave:

https://twitter.com/craig_a_spencer/status/1475325900766031874?s=21

For the "vaccines do not totally prevent covid infection and so are useless" people, here is a picture of Finnish intensive care situation during Sep-Nov 2021.

X-axis shows the age group (last column is all ages together), red bar means no vaccine, yellow for those who had the first dose, green for 2 doses. Yes, there are breakthru infections and even intensive care patients among the vaccinated, but it sure looks like the vaccination will mostly keep you out of the intensive care.
FHYEpTzXIAkaWcm (resized).jpeg

The vaccines are working pretty well if you ask me. This graph does not include the Omicron timeframe yet. The Delta wave difference is pretty extraordinary. A pretty stark difference bt vaccinated and unvaccinated.

If someone you trust on vaccine matters is talking down the vaccination, perhaps you should no longer trust them.

CE991EF3-2273-4BE7-BF80-326CA8588F73 (resized).jpeg

@PanzerFreak, you wrote that you generally consider this person smart, informed, etc and that you provided him information to rebut the three misunderstandings/misinformation he shared. Did he acknowledge being incorrect about any/all of the three items? Did any of it prompt him to reconsider his positions?

NY with 49,000 cases on December 24th.

It's official. A trip to the VA this morning for a covid test has confirmed that I am Covid positive. The VA is offering, and I am accepting, an IV with a couple of drugs that are supposed to make this stuff go away.

So glad I am vaccinated. I breathe fine. No issues with that, but I can feel this stuff deep inside my lungs. It is beyond any chest cold I have ever had.

This is the attitude of a weak selfish American that doesn't have the patriotism and moral fortitude to fight with their community and country against a common foe.

Good luck, we're rooting for you to get through it!

Let's all hope it will not get more serious! Get well soon!

I feel very sorry for anyone who has to go to work if they are covid positive, as I am.

I have never felt any weaker than I feel right now. No way could I be out in the work world and do a job.

And that is not considering I would be out there spreading the stuff.