(2022-01-04) ZviM Omicron Post #12

Zvi Mowshowitz Omicron variant Post #12. Schools, hospitals and all businesses face massive disruptions from people unable to work, even with the new CDC isolation guidelines.

So far, we’re holding up well, better than I expected even after previous severity estimates were adjusted

Still, brace yourself, and choose how you want to handle the next month or two. If you’re serious about trying to avoid Omicron, now is the time to show it.

Vaccine Effectiveness

Treatment

CDC lifts the pause on anti-Delta monoclonal antibodies, says they can be used if Delta variant is still in your region and there aren’t other options available

Quarantine, Isolation and Travel

Instead of ending all travel-based quarantines because they no longer make any sense, many new travel restrictions are being imposed.

At this point, quarantines even for people with large known exposures seem questionable. If you learn you’ve been exposed to Covid-19, you have not received that many bits of information

restaurants have been making sick people come in when they very much should not come in (even if it means closing the place down for a bit) for a long time and they are not about to stop now.

Doctors being told to come back in four days with no test means they’re going back while still infectious. Is that better or worse than having patients go without care due to lack of staffing? I don’t know.

Disruptions other than Hospitals

There’s a reasonable argument that I buy, which says that if you believe school is what its advocates say it is, schools should be kept open as long as possible. NYC Mayor Eric Adams (man saying that is such a relief) definitely buys that, saying that ‘the safest place for our children is in a school building. We are going to keep our schools open.’ The claim that a school is ‘the safest place for our kids’ in a pandemic is grade-A Obvious Nonsense.

Spread

This article highlights that 30% of EMS workers in NYC are currently out sick. The thing is, they’re not all out sick, they’re all sick or isolating (after exposure)

If you’re an EMS worker, yes, you’ve been exposed. That’s the job when 10%+ of the city has Covid-19 at once, how could you not be exposed?

Severity

this thread is on the situation in the hospitals and draws clear contrasts of those boosted, those vaccinated but not boosted, and the unvaccinated

Hospitals

Hospitals are in a bad way but holding. The scary scenario is if cases among the elderly are only now picking up and severity is much less reduced in that group while also starting out at a higher level, and things then get much worse.

If I needed a test, and didn’t have much in the way of symptoms, I’d stay the hell away from the ER right now. That seems like a very good way for you to test negative today and then get your symptoms two or three days later

Link to that article. A lot of this is much worse due to a failure of professionals to talk logistics

Threads

Thread calling for more effort to slow spread on the basis of ‘millions being crippled by Long Covid’ and claiming that getting Covid now makes you more susceptible in the future by ‘creating pre-existing conditions.’ This is very much not my view, but if I did believe that Long Covid was this bad, the rest would indeed follow. I don’t see any evidence cited here that would cause me to update on my view of Long Covid

Chance we are broadly looking at a future crisis situation with widely overwhelmed American hospitals, new large American lockdowns and things like that: 10% → 5%.

Daily cases in the the United States have peaked by February 1, 2022: ?% → 85%.