Norway and Denmark is open, no trouble. The health departementets are saying its not a public threat anymore. And by the looks of things they're right. Most people hospitalized are un-vaxxed and the ICU hospitalizations are down. Omicron is a mild flu if vaccinated.
While I don't disagree that highly vaccinated countries should gradually open up Omicron is not necessarily a mild flu if you are vaccinated. In fact everyone I know who has had it has had significant symptoms even when vaccinated/triple vaccinated. Nobody hospitalised who was triple vaxxed but still a very unpleasant experience. Of course there could be people who had mild or asymptomatic infections and didn't know.
Everybody i know has had very light symptoms. Including myself. If this was 2018 I would've gone to work without problems. 1 Pfizer 1 Moderna.
These are all Omicron at a time few had had a third shot While none were even close to hospitalised all needed 2-10 days off work. Ages from early/mid 30s to early 50's.
If we’re going to restrict people’s freedom because of “very unpleasant experiences” then we’re fecked for eternity. Then we have to lock down every time the flu comes around because that can make people feel shitty.
To be fair that's similar to illnesses that we've had for years with flu, bad colds, tonsillitis etc and we don't put restrictions up for those. We need to keep a close eye on it and keep vaccinating if that's found to be necessary to keep mortality and hospitalisation down, but it does seem that with Omicron we've been very lucky and it may be the right time to open now based on what we're seeing in the UK at least.
If they weren’t hospitalised then their illness was, by definition, mild.
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I know you know but still feel it worth pointing out that this was achieved because of the vaccines (and maybe less deadly variants), not because those people were correct 2 years ago.
Yup. I was careful to use the word “nonsense”.
This was always going to be a problem I think. We induced a lot of anxiety into everyday life as a way of dealing with the situation and the brain tends to normalise fears in a way that can be hard to adjust back from.
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Not to mention the people who have something to gain from keeping the pandemic going. One of our ICU nurses has been very outgoing in media and on Facebook and received some sort of local “citizen of the year” award, and now that almost all restrictions are lifted I still get notifications on Facebook about how she’s commented in this or that page about how the pandemic is NOT OVER AND SHE IS AN ICU NURSE WHO WORKS TIRELESSLY WITH THESE PATIENTS despite our ICU having zero covid patients right now and have had a maximum of two over the past three weeks.
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Right now it seems very much to me that we've reached that herd immunity we talked about at the beginning of the pandemic.
Have you all been called back to the office? This is my biggest fear
Italy has had a really rough time of it. I still remember the early months when it exploded and Italy was the epicenter.
Yeah.
If the second dose was 6 months plus ago, against Omicron AZ gives you next to no protection against infection. It does still gives you some protection against hospitalisation and death - roughly halving your risk compared to the unvaccinated.
Thanks.
If it was my dad I’d try and find a way to get him boosted early, before he travels. Or convince him to wait until after he’s boosted.
Ya, i'm trying to get him to take one somehow. he's concerned that it won't show up on his record, but that's less important than just getting it before travel.
Well she’s right that there is still a pandemic. Just that with the variant that’s around now we can live with it with common sense.
I saw one the other day, double the salary i'm on. But with only 10 years left until retirement i'm not sure i'm up for a move. I can do pretty much what i want at my job so i will see what happens later this month. A lot of our hardware is actually in peoples homes.
If anyone were to create a global league table of who has had the worst Covid, you’d probably sit atop it. In front of Trump and The Tories and Rogan and so many others.
Regardless of what the rules are…..
I still won’t be surprised at all to see restrictions next winter. If vaccine protection drops and it’s 10/11 months since most had their boosters and a new variant rocks up it seems inevitable.
To be fair, natural immunity gives better protection than vaccines alone do anyway. And that natural immunity should last a good long while. Even if it doesn't, omicron is one of the most contagious diseases in history. Everyone will probably catch a mild dose a couple of times per year and have their immunity topped up in the process. I think that will be enough to stave off new restrictions. Hopefully.
