After some internal debating I decided to attend a legal workshop of about 25 people in NYC. Proof of vaccination was required to attend. I ended leaving a couple of hours early, but was there from about 9-2PM, including a breakfast and lunch. No one wore masks.
I left NYC around 5PM and got an email from the sponsors on my way home that someone tested positive according to a rapid test that person took after the meeting. No other information was provided.
I am not happy.
Rich
"Failure is Not a Destination"
Coach K on the Dan Patrick Show, December 22, 2016
A preprint (I know) from South Africa says that omicron is three times as likely to cause reinfection as delta. Not good news. Study did not look at infection after vaccination, nor did it look at disease severity, so no need to panic. Not that one ever should panic, of course. I never do that. :-)
https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/world...rts/ar-AARpjai
Got my Pfizer booster yesterday. Arm hurts a bit, but no other symptoms 24 hours later.
I’d love to hear from the experts on this board but a highly transmissible dominant variant that does not cause serious illness or hospitalization or death and that creates a strengthened immune response would seem to be a pathway out of this pandemic.
Of course this variant seems new enough that maybe there hasn’t been enough time for it to cause deaths.
Why are you wasting time here when you could be wasting it by listening to the latest episode of the DBR Podcast?
I’m no expert, but that makes sense to me, assuming that the variant doesn’t cause long Covid.
Of course, we don’t know that omicron is less virulent than delta. Way too early to know.
Edit: here’s a study that suggests omicron may be less deadly:
“The omicron variant is likely to have picked up genetic material from another virus that causes the common cold in humans, according to a new preliminary study, prompting one of its authors to suggest omicron could have greater transmissibility but lower virulence than other variants of the novel coronavirus.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/healt...-cold-variant/
YLE just posted her last update, this one on omicron. It is spreading incredibly quickly in South Africa, and hospitalizations there are starting to increase. This includes hospitalizations of children below the age of 5, very unfortunately. Her ideas as to why:
South Africa is actively investigating why. I think there are a few things that could be explaining this:
1. Kids aren’t vaccinated and may be the last group for the virus to reach. Parents may have avoided infection by altering behaviors until now.
2. Adults around these kids aren’t vaccinated. Infection-induced immunity doesn’t protect well against Omicron while it largely did before. So parents could be bringing the virus home and infecting kids.
3. Because so little is known about Omicron, kids may be hospitalized out of precaution at a higher rate than before.
4. Omicron induces more severe disease for kids than previous variants.
5. A combination of all of the above.
My guess is a combination of #1-3.
https://yourlocalepidemiologist.subs...n-update-dec-4
NY Times so behind a paywall, apologies.
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/12/03/o...ncy-covid.html
Most of the people we interviewed in the Bronx say they are skeptical of the institutions that claim to serve the poor but in fact have abandoned them. “When you’re in a high tax bracket, the government protects you,” said one man who drives an Amazon truck for a living. “So why wouldn’t you trust a government that protects you?” On the other hand, he and his friends find reason to view the government’s sudden interest in their well-being with suspicion. “They are over here shoving money at us,” a woman told us, referring to a New York City offer to pay a $500 bonus to municipal workers to get vaccinated. “And I’m asking, why are you so eager, when you don’t give us money for anything else?” These views reinforce the work of social scientists who find a link between a lack of trust and inequality. And without trust, there is no mutual obligation, no sense of a common good.
As the emergence of the Omicron variant shows, vaccine mandates in the United States are not enough to solve this problem. Hesitancy is a global phenomenon. While the reasons vary by country, the underlying causes are the same: a deep mistrust in local and international institutions, in a context in which governments worldwide have cut social services.
Research shows that private systems not only tend to produce worse health outcomes than public ones, but privatization creates what public health experts call “segregated care,” which can undermine the feelings of social solidarity that are critical for successful vaccination drives.
Rich
"Failure is Not a Destination"
Coach K on the Dan Patrick Show, December 22, 2016
Thanks for sharing. As a New York City resident, I have found that, as much as I dislike the current leadership of the City, they have gone above and beyond to make people "comfortable" with getting vaccinated. I can only imagine how much they have spent. They have brought countless people into these communities to make it really easy to get vaccinated. They have offered money. On local television I see non-stop advertising featuring man-on-the-street interviews with people who reside in these communities, including random people, clergy, nurses, etc. They run ads featuring minority public health experts. They have clearly recognized that trust is an issue and made efforts to deal with this.
Not to get too PPBish, but I am getting increasingly frustrated by policies that devote extraordinary resources to help those who don't want to be helped. This is yet another case of that. But unfortunately, there are huge consequences for the rest of us as well as we have to interact with them in my every day life if we are ever going to have a return to normalcy.
SMDH.