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Covid 19 Thread: [no bitching about masks of Fauci edition]

Thaedolus

Gold Member
Your minds go strange places.

That pick just made we wonder how he still got covid if he also shields himself. 👀

It wasn't some hidden vaccines are useless message.
Neither defense is perfect and the picture in the tweet was when he was visiting another country with stricter protocols than the US, months ago
 

carlosrox

Banned
"Stay home if you think you're sick" is the most redundant fucking messaging of all time and smacks of revisionist history.

Hey remember back in the old world, before COVID wiped out large segments of the earth, when people weren't afraid of the person standing next to them? Remember when people with the cold/flu were out in public coughing and sneezing on every surface and into your mouth? I sure don't. Cuz that never fucking happened. 99% of people know to stay home when sick, and if they don't, chances are they aren't coughing and sneezing without covering their fucking face. I'm not sure I can even think of a single moment in my entire life where someone who was/looked sick was out in public coughing or sneezing without covering their mouth.

Anyways this whole "stay home when you're sick" is some of the most "no shit" advice I've ever heard.
 

Thaedolus

Gold Member
"Stay home if you think you're sick" is the most redundant fucking messaging of all time and smacks of revisionist history.

Hey remember back in the old world, before COVID wiped out large segments of the earth, when people weren't afraid of the person standing next to them? Remember when people with the cold/flu were out in public coughing and sneezing on every surface and into your mouth? I sure don't. Cuz that never fucking happened. 99% of people know to stay home when sick, and if they don't, chances are they aren't coughing and sneezing without covering their fucking face. I'm not sure I can even think of a single moment in my entire life where someone who was/looked sick was out in public coughing or sneezing without covering their mouth.

Anyways this whole "stay home when you're sick" is some of the most "no shit" advice I've ever heard.

Uh, lots of people living paycheck to paycheck are at jobs where they don't get paid if they don’t go to work. US food service employees, for example, are notorious for working while sick because they don't have paid leave and don't even make minimum wage, they survive off tips. Every company I've ever worked at tries to remind people every year to stay home if they're sick...why? Because your 99% number is nonsense. People used to go to work sick all the time.
 
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Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Your minds go strange places.

That pick just made we wonder how he still got covid if he also shields himself. 👀

It wasn't some hidden vaccines are useless message.
Um.....do you think he was wearing that whole setup literally every minute of every day?


Do you think everyone else around him was as well?
 

FireFly

Member
"Stay home if you think you're sick" is the most redundant fucking messaging of all time and smacks of revisionist history.

Hey remember back in the old world, before COVID wiped out large segments of the earth, when people weren't afraid of the person standing next to them? Remember when people with the cold/flu were out in public coughing and sneezing on every surface and into your mouth? I sure don't. Cuz that never fucking happened. 99% of people know to stay home when sick, and if they don't, chances are they aren't coughing and sneezing without covering their fucking face. I'm not sure I can even think of a single moment in my entire life where someone who was/looked sick was out in public coughing or sneezing without covering their mouth.

Anyways this whole "stay home when you're sick" is some of the most "no shit" advice I've ever heard.
Here in the UK, my experience pre-COVID was that if you were able to work, you were expected to come in.
 

th4tguy

Member
"Stay home if you think you're sick" is the most redundant fucking messaging of all time and smacks of revisionist history.

Hey remember back in the old world, before COVID wiped out large segments of the earth, when people weren't afraid of the person standing next to them? Remember when people with the cold/flu were out in public coughing and sneezing on every surface and into your mouth? I sure don't. Cuz that never fucking happened. 99% of people know to stay home when sick, and if they don't, chances are they aren't coughing and sneezing without covering their fucking face. I'm not sure I can even think of a single moment in my entire life where someone who was/looked sick was out in public coughing or sneezing without covering their mouth.

Anyways this whole "stay home when you're sick" is some of the most "no shit" advice I've ever heard.
The amount of times I had to go to school or work while sick when I was younger is just astounding to me. Literally serving people food with a runny/ crusty/ stuffy nose.
It was that or get let go.
People (in the US at least) have never been considerate about spreading sickness. It has always been you stay in only if you are so sick you can’t do the thing. Otherwise, go do the thing while sick.
Even with my current job, I’ve had to tell coworkers not to come into the office if they are sick (pre Covid) and we have the ability to work from home.
 
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Thaedolus

Gold Member
I mean, I still have to fight the urge to go in when I’m feeling sick and I’ve been able to work from home instead for the past 7 years. We’d have to use our vacation time at my first real job out of college so even that sucked
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
Remember when people with the cold/flu were out in public coughing and sneezing on every surface and into your mouth? I sure don't.
I sure do.
99% of people know to stay home when sick, and if they don't, chances are they aren't coughing and sneezing without covering their fucking face.
Not in America they don't. All throughout school, students would come to school sick as long as they weren't incapacitated. This pattern continued in the workforce, especially for people who couldn't afford to miss work or for people whose bosses treated them like shit or for people who couldn't afford decent healthcare.

I observed this in multiple states. Yay America.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Canada is the same. You go to work or school unless you got a fever or bad flu. But anything minor like a cold or sniffles you get up and go.

As Thaedolus said above, not everyone gets sick pay or is on salary. If you a low level hourly worker you dont get paid unless you show up.

And as bad as that seems, those kinds of jobs (front line workers) are the ones with the most exposure to the general public.
 
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ManaByte

Gold Member


top gear ladies GIF
 

Dr.Guru of Peru

played the long game
"Stay home if you think you're sick" is the most redundant fucking messaging of all time and smacks of revisionist history.

Hey remember back in the old world, before COVID wiped out large segments of the earth, when people weren't afraid of the person standing next to them? Remember when people with the cold/flu were out in public coughing and sneezing on every surface and into your mouth? I sure don't. Cuz that never fucking happened. 99% of people know to stay home when sick, and if they don't, chances are they aren't coughing and sneezing without covering their fucking face. I'm not sure I can even think of a single moment in my entire life where someone who was/looked sick was out in public coughing or sneezing without covering their mouth.

Anyways this whole "stay home when you're sick" is some of the most "no shit" advice I've ever heard.
How about no?
People showed up to work all the time if they were sick.
People would get on planes and public transit all the time. Chances were pretty good if you were flying during the cold and flu season that someone sitting next to you would be sick and you would pick up their bug.
Did you ever go out in public before COVID?
 

Clear

CliffyB's Cock Holster
Eh. I can understand some of the hesitancy to automatically assume what happened in SA would happen in the UK, or any other country with markedly different social structures, infrastructure, weather, and population densities. Respiratory viruses can and do behave differently in different environments. However, cold, hard data cannot be ignored, and that data is very much starting to show that omicron is characteristically similar in every country or population it spreads in. I'm an more than happy for governments to be very cautious while awaiting firm evidence pertaining to their own population, but once that does come in, and it shows that undue caution is unwarranted, I also expect those governments to act accordingly.

What grounds were there to suspect a worse outcome?

For instance, when people bring up the data-point that SA has a generally younger population than UK, why would you consider that a positive exactly? I mean isn't that just a nice way of saying there are less old people in SA? And that being the case doesn't average longevity suggest better healthcare?

If you look at vaccination rates the UK is way ahead (especially in older cohorts) and if climactic conditions (like Vitamin D3 deficiency due to being in the dead of winter in the Northern hemisphere) are so impactful, public health initiatives should be easily accommodated given the relatively high GDP.

Expecting a drastically worse result always seemed to me a real "power of nightmares" proposition, precautionary principle running wild.
 
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How about no?
People showed up to work all the time if they were sick.
People would get on planes and public transit all the time. Chances were pretty good if you were flying during the cold and flu season that someone sitting next to you would be sick and you would pick up their bug.
Did you ever go out in public before COVID?
Yeah I agee. There is a big difference now and that's the one thing from this pandemic I like.
 

Malakhov

Banned
Bullshit lol, I’m double vaxxed, and got worse around day 8 or 9. Getting better in two days is some bullshit that I’m sure counts for some but certainly not all.
No vaccines, had delta, 3 days my taste was back, by 4th day im top shape. Same for my ex-wife, kids had nothing but a runny nose. None of us had any vaccines so yeah, what he says is pretty spot on
 
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pel1300

Member
He's talking to some people here. The posters here being so militant about vaccines were the same ones advocating for strict lock downs since the beginning:



He says:

"Many folks whose jobs are unaffected by lock downs talk down to the masses about what is right"

on NIH Director Francis Collins' e-mail exchange with Fauci to smear The Great Barrington Declaration and its authors:

"These words from Francis broke my heart. I could steel man them, but at best to me they showed a failure in leadership"

His talk from two months ago with Francis Collins:

 
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BadBurger

Many “Whelps”! Handle It!
He's talking to some people here. The posters here being so militant about vaccines were the same ones advocating for strict lock downs since the beginning:



He says:

"Many folks whose jobs are unaffected by lock downs talk down to the masses about what is right"

on NIH Director Francis Collins' e-mail exchange with Fauci to smear The Great Barrington Declaration and its authors:

"These words from Francis broke my heart. I could steel man them, but at best to me they showed a failure in leadership"

His talk from two months ago with Francis Collins:



Regarding the content of these videos, I try to stay out of lockdown discussions for a few reasons myself. The main reason is because I know there's a good chance I could come off as dismissive and insensitive to those who haven't had the luxury of working from home since March 2020. Comfort can breed ignorance and all. I am sometimes reminded of that when I have discussions with coworkers who are care providers, technicians, orderlies or materials management, etc (I.E. frontline).

The secondary reason is that as an American in a state that only very briefly and truly locked down once, I have no earthly idea what it must be like to live under the kind of harsh compulsory quarantines of other countries that I only catch glimpses of in the odd news articles I may come across, or via the brief sharing of opinions by reporters and the like in news podcasts.

--

In depressing news, Maryland and Ohio set records for daily hospitalizations in their states this past weekend, and here just days later, broke them. Well, Ohio has been setting new hospitalizations records every day since December 26th, actually. Both California and New York are now trending that way as well (hell they may already have set new daily records but the data just hasn't been published yet). This all while we haven't even reached the peak for major cities across the nation (the usual suspects at the outset of each wave), let alone the impending national peak (major cities should peak in a week and change, the entire nation by the final week of the month, if the patterns of the previous four waves repeat themselves).

I really hope omicron is setting a new trend for mutations, and the next is even less severe.


Vaccinate the entire population, keep up on boosters, then adjust mask policies based on current risk factors. That seems to work well enough without draconian lockdown measures.

It would be really nice if we could get everyone who could be vaccinated vaccinated already - the world over preferably. I remember being so optimistic way back when the Trump administration came up with Operation Warp Speed, and then even more optimistic when the vaccines actually - by some miracle - were developed so quickly and proven effective. I may have even gushed here on these forums about hopes that the entire nation could be vaccinated by 2022 (I am fairly certain I did elsewhere, perhaps social media) like an event right out of the movie Contagion. Well, we see how that unfortunately played out.

Here's to hoping that we at least get there in the US by summer. Even 80% with two shots would be extraordinary. Australia is at 90% double vaccinated, right? I realize they have a fifth or so of our population but still, we're the big greedy rich pig in the room hoarding all the vaccines. We could do it I think. I hope anyway.
 

Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
Vaccinate the entire population, keep up on boosters, then adjust mask policies based on current risk factors. That seems to work well enough without draconian lockdown measures.
Yeah but my mom's aunt's favorite hairdressers girlfriend's 3rd cousin on Facebook said the vaccine made her sick.


Also muh rites! :messenger_angry:
 
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Malakhov

Banned
Regarding the content of these videos, I try to stay out of lockdown discussions for a few reasons myself. The main reason is because I know there's a good chance I could come off as dismissive and insensitive to those who haven't had the luxury of working from home since March 2020. Comfort can breed ignorance and all. I am sometimes reminded of that when I have discussions with coworkers who are care providers, technicians, orderlies or materials management, etc (I.E. frontline).

The secondary reason is that as an American in a state that only very briefly and truly locked down once, I have no earthly idea what it must be like to live under the kind of harsh compulsory quarantines of other countries that I only catch glimpses of in the odd news articles I may come across, or via the brief sharing of opinions by reporters and the like in news podcasts.

--

In depressing news, Maryland and Ohio set records for daily hospitalizations in their states this past weekend, and here just days later, broke them. Well, Ohio has been setting new hospitalizations records every day since December 26th, actually. Both California and New York are now trending that way as well (hell they may already have set new daily records but the data just hasn't been published yet). This all while we haven't even reached the peak for major cities across the nation (the usual suspects at the outset of each wave), let alone the impending national peak (major cities should peak in a week and change, the entire nation by the final week of the month, if the patterns of the previous four waves repeat themselves).

I really hope omicron is setting a new trend for mutations, and the next is even less severe.




It would be really nice if we could get everyone who could be vaccinated vaccinated already - the world over preferably. I remember being so optimistic way back when the Trump administration came up with Operation Warp Speed, and then even more optimistic when the vaccines actually - by some miracle - were developed so quickly and proven effective. I may have even gushed here on these forums about hopes that the entire nation could be vaccinated by 2022 (I am fairly certain I did elsewhere, perhaps social media) like an event right out of the movie Contagion. Well, we see how that unfortunately played out.

Here's to hoping that we at least get there in the US by summer. Even 80% with two shots would be extraordinary. Australia is at 90% double vaccinated, right? I realize they have a fifth or so of our population but still, we're the big greedy rich pig in the room hoarding all the vaccines. We could do it I think. I hope anyway.
In Qc 77.7% of the population is fully vaccinated with a population of 8.5m. We are hitting daily records this week (15k+ cases), something we never had since the start of the pandemic, even with drastic measures as lockdowns, time curfews, stores being closed on Sundays, no restaurants, theaters etc..

Just saying :(
 
In Qc 77.7% of the population is fully vaccinated with a population of 8.5m. We are hitting daily records this week (15k+ cases), something we never had since the start of the pandemic, even with drastic measures as lockdowns, time curfews, stores being closed on Sundays, no restaurants, theaters etc..

Just saying :(


Here in Ontario, we are entering back in to stage 2 at midnight tonight, which includes indoor dining closed, movies closed, gyms closed, 50% capacity in multiple settings like weddings, church......which makes no sense to me because the indoor limit for households is 5, outdoor 10, yet, you can have 50% of people in a church.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Here in Ontario, we are entering back in to stage 2 at midnight tonight, which includes indoor dining closed, movies closed, gyms closed, 50% capacity in multiple settings like weddings, church......which makes no sense to me because the indoor limit for households is 5, outdoor 10, yet, you can have 50% of people in a church.
Ontario (or regional) rules never made sense here.

I went to a Jays game in the summer and Skydome had 15000 max capacity and we were all sitting shoulder to shoulder as they didn't spread out the 15000. All they did was block off bleachers and level 500 stands so the 15000 people were all crammed into level 100/200 seats at higher prices.

And when covid first hit the fan in 2020, remember how every store, mall and business was shut down except the big box stores? Somehow important shops (which never have lots of people in them to begin with) like opticians and physiotherapy clinics were shut down for months.

Yet Taco Bell and KFC were open the whole time.

Then when things opened up, some regions opened up more than others, so it was all over the place. So people living in one in lockdown mode simply drove 10 minutes into a neighbouring region where things were open. I did that myself. Had to drive to York region to get haircuts for a while.
 
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Yeah, somehow, you couldn't catch covid in wal-mart because wal-mart has a barrier that keeps it beyond the front doors :messenger_smirking:

The 'rules' change so much here, it's hard to keep up sometimes.

Whenever Tam and De Villa come on tv, I just want to punch myself in the face. Ford disappeared for a while, but, he's back out now making his ridiculous announcements.
 

StreetsofBeige

Gold Member
Yeah, somehow, you couldn't catch covid in wal-mart because wal-mart has a barrier that keeps it beyond the front doors :messenger_smirking:

The 'rules' change so much here, it's hard to keep up sometimes.

Whenever Tam and De Villa come on tv, I just want to punch myself in the face. Ford disappeared for a while, but, he's back out now making his ridiculous announcements.
I dont know what the details were, but there must had been some kind of shady under the table deal where all the mom and pop sit down restaurants were forced to shut down, yet most fast food joints with big corporate wallets were allowed to stay open.

I dont think McDonalds ever even shut down the entire time. I think their drive thru service has some reason been allowed to be open since covid day one.
 
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At the end of the day, it's all about money. Costco rakes in the money, too, they were allowed to stay open. It's ridiculous there enough on a normal day.

I remember going to wal-mart during the first wave when there were capacity limits and the counter stood there, but, wasn't even counting, just let boatloads of people in.

I am glad omicron is nothing much to worry about for most people, but, if they really cared about the health of the people, like they always say (lolololol), they wouldn't do most of the shit they do.
 

Cyberpunkd

Member

I wanted to post it - although he did say he wants to ‘piss them off’ (emmerder) , he did not call them non-citizens. He simply said: 90% of population did their job, they protect themselves and others, you had a year to ‘educate yourself’, get on with the program and stop fucking around.

Another funny thing - opposition suddenly paused the legislation process for vaccine pass on midnight on Monday since ‘it is late and we should sleep’.
 
That's HCQ pusher Didier Raoult, modestly naming the variant (which may have been seen before) after his own institute. Compared to his other antics this is fairly mild, just grabbing some headlines.

In October 2021, the Mediapart online investigative journal brought to light an illegal clinical trial by Raoult and IHU of a treatment against tuberculosis, which they had been conducting since 2017. They started the trial without seeking the mandatory approval of the French clinical trial regulator, and continued it despite its strenuous objections to its protocol when they eventually sought permission. Many of their patients were minors, homeless, or illegal residents, and therefore could not legally consent to the trial. Several suffered severe side effects such as kidney failure from the known toxicity of one of the four antibiotics combined in the trial, and at least one patient contaminated several family members because the treatment was both ineffective and poorly monitored by IHU.
 
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betrayal

Banned
Plenty of people are vaxxed but still espouse many if not all of the same views as the un-vaxxed, which in the public square amounts to nearly the same thing. Like certain news agencies that had vaccine mandates for their employees months before it was fashionable, yet their anchors still diligently head on air each day and spread harmful disinformation and stir up dissent about beneficial public health measures.

So, what does that have to do with me? I have not once argued against vaccination or spread any other conspiracy theories.

People like you are so fragile that they get triggered even in a factual conversation and start babbling their standard reportoire of meaningless and contextless statements.


Yeah no shit their unhealthy habits contributed to their deaths.
If a smoker dies from lung cancer then you know their smoking pretty much caused it. If we had a free injection that effectively undid all that smoking damage - and then you see two 60 a day smokers didn't get it because they were 'doing their own research' and died then you start to question the refusal to get the medicine more than the smoking.

Please tell me you're not serious?

Of course, I'm criticizing smoking in the first place. It's a pointless and unhealthy activity. People like you are a smoker's and pharmaceutical industry's wet dream. They love to focus on the symptoms and not the underlying causes.

But whatever floats your boat my friend. That's just the way it is, as I have already written. Some people always react to everything they have caused themselves and cry about it, while others prefer to act and take their lives into their own hands.
 
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sinnergy

Member
Here in Ontario, we are entering back in to stage 2 at midnight tonight, which includes indoor dining closed, movies closed, gyms closed, 50% capacity in multiple settings like weddings, church......which makes no sense to me because the indoor limit for households is 5, outdoor 10, yet, you can have 50% of people in a church.
Like I said weeks ago, we Dutch where first . It’s all about hospital capacity , age of population and other factors ! Enjoy what you can , take it easy !
 

sinnergy

Member
The amount of times I had to go to school or work while sick when I was younger is just astounding to me. Literally serving people food with a runny/ crusty/ stuffy nose.
It was that or get let go.
People (in the US at least) have never been considerate about spreading sickness. It has always been you stay in only if you are so sick you can’t do the thing. Otherwise, go do the thing while sick.
Even with my current job, I’ve had to tell coworkers not to come into the office if they are sick (pre Covid) and we have the ability to work from home.
Much of the world is the same .. me me me or feeling social pressure to come into work.
 

sinnergy

Member
How about no?
People showed up to work all the time if they were sick.
People would get on planes and public transit all the time. Chances were pretty good if you were flying during the cold and flu season that someone sitting next to you would be sick and you would pick up their bug.
Did you ever go out in public before COVID?
The world has changed , how about yes? Help a little to fight this virus , nothing wrong with a little change from individuals.
 
He says:

"Many folks whose jobs are unaffected by lock downs talk down to the masses about what is right"

unless you were already working from home your job was affected, which is a percentage of a percentage…the people who were affected most were those that couldn’t work at home (factory, postal, healthcare, manufacturing, municipality services) and those that relied on the footfall of others going to work (cafes, bars, restaurants)

before the vaccine, lockdowns were all we had (and still have in some parts of the world) and had those affected been given the required support from government there would be no space for such divisive culture-war takeaways like people are talking down to others
 
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betrayal

Banned
Vaccinate the entire population, keep up on boosters, then adjust mask policies based on current risk factors. That seems to work well enough without draconian lockdown measures.
The problem with this is that you would have to boost every person every 3-5 months, because many people and politicians still do not understand the difference between protection against infection (very short/weak) and protection against severe disease (strong and much longer). So this is utopian and not practical anyway right now. In addition, with such a necessary frequency of vaccinations, many more people would certainly "drop out" of this vaccination loop and won't get a booster.

Even if two to three shots offer good protection and have hardly any side effects, it is impossible to say how the whole thing will turn out if you need a booster three times a year for many years.

For this to be a realistic scenario, better vaccines are needed...and they already exist. Novavax, for example, offers similar protection compared to mRNA vaccines, has significantly fewer side effects (in studies there were exactly zero heart muscle inflammations or similar), already offers way better protection vs Omicron, it is cheaper to produce and longer and easier to store. The WHO and EU have already approved the vaccine. The FDA is working on it. Unfortunately Novavax has huge manufacturing difficulties and is having a hard time against Pfizer/Modern/BioNTech (money talks), even though they have a clearly better vaccine in all aspects.

But if Omicron sticks around and no new more dangerous variants emerge, then one vaccination will probably be enough every 1-2 years and can remain optional for most people.
 

Rentahamster

Rodent Whores
The problem with this is that you would have to boost every person every 3-5 months
No you don't (according to current data but that may change). As long as vaccination greatly reduces hospitalizations and deaths (any infection mitigation is a bonus), hospitals have less risk of being overrun, most people are only at risk for cold symptoms if any, people get better faster, transmission is reduced, and there is less virus circulating around which means less chances for mutations and thus variants.

Too many people are currently unvaccinated, which causes the reproduction number and mortality to be higher than it needs to be.

One of the causes of needing boosters is because of immune escape caused by the different variants. For the future, we either have to get more people vaccinated to prevent the development of new variants, or bring out new vaccines that target those variants specifically. Preferably both. If we had 90% vaccination coverage by the summertime of 2020, we probably wouldn't still be in this mess.

But if Omicron sticks around and no new more dangerous variants emerge, then one vaccination will probably be enough every 1-2 years and can remain optional for most people.
I don't see how that is the case (with some exceptions), since if no new variants emerge then there's no more immune escape possibilities due to changing antigens, which means long term immunity should hold, unless we see that over the long term T and B cell response doesn't hold up as long as we assume it would. Omicron itself would act as the booster shot for the majority of people.
 

betrayal

Banned
No you don't (according to current data but that may change). As long as vaccination greatly reduces hospitalizations and deaths (any infection mitigation is a bonus), hospitals have less risk of being overrun, most people are only at risk for cold symptoms if any, people get better faster, transmission is reduced, and there is less virus circulating around which means less chances for mutations and thus variants.

This is already clear to me and I have also expressed it in my post. But many still do not understand that. For this reason, some countries are already administering the 4th booster while having record numbers of new infections (which says nothing at all).


Too many people are currently unvaccinated, which causes the reproduction number and mortality to be higher than it needs to be.

One of the causes of needing boosters is because of immune escape caused by the different variants. For the future, we either have to get more people vaccinated to prevent the development of new variants, or bring out new vaccines that target those variants specifically. Preferably both. If we had 90% vaccination coverage by the summertime of 2020, we probably wouldn't still be in this mess.

No, that is not true, or at least only to a limited extent. To put it very simply, a short and mild duration of illness reduces the chance for the virus to mutate, but the main argument was and still is that infections must be prevented by vaccination.

The statement that if almost everyone is vaccinated, there will be no mutations completely false right now. The current vaccines simply do not achieve this. For mutations it matters much less whether 70 or 80% of the population are vaccinated, because the protection against infection is pretty short & weak.


I don't see how that is the case (with some exceptions), since if no new variants emerge then there's no more immune escape possibilities due to changing antigens, which means long term immunity should hold, unless we see that over the long term T and B cell response doesn't hold up as long as we assume it would. Omicron itself would act as the booster shot for the majority of people.

Aren't we saying the same thing here?

Even simple cold viruses can cause statistically significantly more severe courses of disease if one has had no contact with the virus for 1-2 years (the T and B cell activities decrease). So if Omicron stays and does not mutate in a negative sense, then almost all people will be infected with Omicron every year. This is also exactly what happens and takes place with almost all viruses. In the vast majority of cases, however, people have no symptoms at all or only minor symptoms. Even influenza is completely asympomatic in 50-75% of people.

So it's also like you say. An infection with Omicron is the booster shot and all people also (with or without pre-existing conditions) have the option to get vaccinated for improved protection.
 
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