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Omicron doesn't change fundamentally where we were with Delta. Its infection enough that everyone will get it. Vaccines protect you (they are banned for kids un

Omicron doesn't change fundamentally where we were with Delta. Its infection enough that everyone will get it. Vaccines protect you (they are banned for kids under 5). Pfizer's treatment (Paxlovid) is a very effective cure (currently banned). The death rate for vaccinated individuals is extremely low, at its current rate its about 26 per 100,000. The flu killed 24 per 100,000 in california. We are at the endgame. These are the last things left to "end the pandemic", and they are all policy decisions: (1) allow peditricians and parents to decide if they want to vaccinate their under 5 year olds. (2) Stop banning Paxlovid (3) Stop any mandates, there just isn't the numbers to justify them. (4) Ensure people have reasonable rights to keep wearing masks or something in public.

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago
If we're only looking at deaths, only for vaccinated people - then yes. If hospitals still get overwhelmed, that seems like an issue. Unless you say hospitals shouldn't treat unvaccinated people (doubt it) - unvaccinated people are going to be causing problems on the hospital system for a while still.
- Otek 5y ago
  To be fair, In my country hospitals were also overwhelmed pre-COVID, only by regular flu
  - dragontamer 5y ago
    We pushed H1N1 flu mandates back when that flu started overwhelming our hospitals back in the early 2010s.
oneoff786 5y ago
It’s not “banned” it’s just not approved yet. The US is making plans to buy tons of it in advance. Banned has a very specific connotation that is wildly out of place.
- deelowe 5y ago
  Part of the approval process is ensuring there’s enough supply to support the intended use and, if there’s not enough, do a limited approval. That’s likely what’s going on here.
  - s1artibartfast 5y ago
    If you mean supply the population, this is not correct
    - deelowe 5y ago
      My understanding is that the FDA is considering limited authorization in cases where there's not enough to cover all individuals.
      - s1artibartfast 5y ago
        I think that would be a first for the FDA, but I suppose it is possible. Normally they approve based solely on safety and risk/benefit. Sometimes products have limited approval for high risk groups, but for these reasons, not because of supply. Pricing and availability is not their job.
- noname120 5y ago
  Doesn't “not approved yet” fall into the opposite trap since it has the connotation that it's somehow justified / natural? I think that it subtly masks the responsibility of our bureaucratic system. It is literally killing people by preventing them from having access to a potentially effective treatment (that would be accessible if not for this legislation / bureaucratic burden). Due to this I think that “banned for now” is more appropriate. It highlights the fact that our legislative framework bans medicine by default (it could allow them by default in another world, and then selectively ban medicines that prove dangerous / ineffective).
  - oneoff786 5y ago
hutzlibu 5y ago
"Ensure people have reasonable rights to keep wearing masks or something in public. " When was that ever forbidden, except on demonstrations?
- marvin 5y ago
  Can't speak for the US, but e.g. generally Norwegian teachers aren't allowed to wear masks at work. Unless things have happened behind the scenes that I'm not aware of, this is under threat of being fired, although I doubt anyone has actually been fired over it. Surely there must be other professions with similar rules, or cultural quirks to the same effect.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    Are we talking about health masks, or burkas for example?
- spacechild1 5y ago
  Austria has made it illegal to hide your face in public. They did this to effectively stop women from wearing Burkas but because of equality principles they couldn't spell it out like that. Instead they added lots of exceptions (scarfs, carnival, sports, street artists, etc.) It's ridiculous.
  - systemvoltage 5y ago
    We should let people do whatever they want. Wanna wear a helmet all day? You bet. Wanna wear Burkha everywhere you go? Sure, I just wish it wasn’t a symbol of oppression. To me it’s the same as someone wearing a Swastika. Knock yourself out with whatever fits your mojo. Don’t expect me to show respect for it though and don’t tread on my rights to speak against it. We have a deal.
    - hutzlibu 5y ago
      "Sure, I just wish it wasn’t a symbol of oppression." For me it is such a symbol, too. But there are women who say it means something different for them and they want to wear it out of their own free will. And I am not the one telling them what they have to think, because you know, that would be opression? edit to your edit: And the swastika is a perfect example, too. Because the swastika is thousands of years old and the Nazis are not and just occupied it. So someone who wears that symbol might do it for way other reasons, than because he likes the Nazis. (less likely in europe, though, but more likely in india or mongolia for example)
tunesmith 5y ago
We could have saved so many more lives. I remember midway through the first year (pre-vaccine) people arguing against mandates and masks and lockdowns, while severely underestimating the damage. One exchange I had here was from a person allowing that maybe they'd reconsider if we ever reached US deaths at something like 350,000, as if that were an astronomical figure. And the vaccines... one thing I haven't found yet is an article that tries to make a well-studied estimate of where we'd be right now if the vaccine hadn't come out, or had been just a year later, or had the kind of (lower) efficacy that people were initially trying to set expectations for. In contrast to that, the kind of numbers I believe we would have seen or experienced... makes all our fighting about masks and mandates and lockdowns seem pretty irrelevant. I doubt we can even fathom the difference.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  > And the vaccines... one thing I haven't found yet is an article that tries to make a well-studied estimate of where we'd be right now if the vaccine hadn't come out, or had been just a year later, or had the kind of (lower) efficacy that people were initially trying to set expectations for. At the beginning of the pandemic, I saw an estimate of projected deaths from COVID in a scenario where mitigations were taken and in another scenario where none were taken. It was the difference between projecting 300k to 600k dead in the US after more than a year, and 2 million to 6 million dead in the US.
def_true_false 5y ago
Hospitalizations and deaths lag behind cases, mortality shoots up above some case load threshold (hence attempts to flatten the curve), etc. Feels like most people skipped their 2020 homework. Aside from that, most countries are not even on pace to triple vax their population by end of winter, so letting it rip is a not an option. The countries currently led by populists will lock down just like the rest, only later and with more deaths. Food for thought: Has China changed their pandemic strategy? Why not?
stjohnswarts 5y ago
we don't know yet that omicron won't help more than it hurts if catching it helps with future infections, say delta comes around to those who aren't yet vaccinated

onlyrealcuzzo 5y ago

If we're only looking at deaths, only for vaccinated people - then yes. If hospitals still get overwhelmed, that seems like an issue. Unless you say hospitals shouldn't treat unvaccinated people (doubt it) - unvaccinated people are going to be causing problems on the hospital system for a while still.

Otek 5y ago
To be fair, In my country hospitals were also overwhelmed pre-COVID, only by regular flu
- dragontamer 5y ago
  We pushed H1N1 flu mandates back when that flu started overwhelming our hospitals back in the early 2010s.

oneoff786 5y ago

It’s not “banned” it’s just not approved yet. The US is making plans to buy tons of it in advance. Banned has a very specific connotation that is wildly out of place.

deelowe 5y ago
Part of the approval process is ensuring there’s enough supply to support the intended use and, if there’s not enough, do a limited approval. That’s likely what’s going on here.
- s1artibartfast 5y ago
  If you mean supply the population, this is not correct
  - deelowe 5y ago
    My understanding is that the FDA is considering limited authorization in cases where there's not enough to cover all individuals.
    - s1artibartfast 5y ago
      I think that would be a first for the FDA, but I suppose it is possible. Normally they approve based solely on safety and risk/benefit. Sometimes products have limited approval for high risk groups, but for these reasons, not because of supply. Pricing and availability is not their job.
noname120 5y ago
Doesn't “not approved yet” fall into the opposite trap since it has the connotation that it's somehow justified / natural? I think that it subtly masks the responsibility of our bureaucratic system. It is literally killing people by preventing them from having access to a potentially effective treatment (that would be accessible if not for this legislation / bureaucratic burden). Due to this I think that “banned for now” is more appropriate. It highlights the fact that our legislative framework bans medicine by default (it could allow them by default in another world, and then selectively ban medicines that prove dangerous / ineffective).
- oneoff786 5y ago

hutzlibu 5y ago

"Ensure people have reasonable rights to keep wearing masks or something in public. " When was that ever forbidden, except on demonstrations?

marvin 5y ago
Can't speak for the US, but e.g. generally Norwegian teachers aren't allowed to wear masks at work. Unless things have happened behind the scenes that I'm not aware of, this is under threat of being fired, although I doubt anyone has actually been fired over it. Surely there must be other professions with similar rules, or cultural quirks to the same effect.
- hutzlibu 5y ago
  Are we talking about health masks, or burkas for example?
spacechild1 5y ago
Austria has made it illegal to hide your face in public. They did this to effectively stop women from wearing Burkas but because of equality principles they couldn't spell it out like that. Instead they added lots of exceptions (scarfs, carnival, sports, street artists, etc.) It's ridiculous.
- systemvoltage 5y ago
  We should let people do whatever they want. Wanna wear a helmet all day? You bet. Wanna wear Burkha everywhere you go? Sure, I just wish it wasn’t a symbol of oppression. To me it’s the same as someone wearing a Swastika. Knock yourself out with whatever fits your mojo. Don’t expect me to show respect for it though and don’t tread on my rights to speak against it. We have a deal.
  - hutzlibu 5y ago
    "Sure, I just wish it wasn’t a symbol of oppression." For me it is such a symbol, too. But there are women who say it means something different for them and they want to wear it out of their own free will. And I am not the one telling them what they have to think, because you know, that would be opression? edit to your edit: And the swastika is a perfect example, too. Because the swastika is thousands of years old and the Nazis are not and just occupied it. So someone who wears that symbol might do it for way other reasons, than because he likes the Nazis. (less likely in europe, though, but more likely in india or mongolia for example)

tunesmith 5y ago

We could have saved so many more lives. I remember midway through the first year (pre-vaccine) people arguing against mandates and masks and lockdowns, while severely underestimating the damage. One exchange I had here was from a person allowing that maybe they'd reconsider if we ever reached US deaths at something like 350,000, as if that were an astronomical figure. And the vaccines... one thing I haven't found yet is an article that tries to make a well-studied estimate of where we'd be right now if the vaccine hadn't come out, or had been just a year later, or had the kind of (lower) efficacy that people were initially trying to set expectations for. In contrast to that, the kind of numbers I believe we would have seen or experienced... makes all our fighting about masks and mandates and lockdowns seem pretty irrelevant. I doubt we can even fathom the difference.

heavyset_go 5y ago
> And the vaccines... one thing I haven't found yet is an article that tries to make a well-studied estimate of where we'd be right now if the vaccine hadn't come out, or had been just a year later, or had the kind of (lower) efficacy that people were initially trying to set expectations for. At the beginning of the pandemic, I saw an estimate of projected deaths from COVID in a scenario where mitigations were taken and in another scenario where none were taken. It was the difference between projecting 300k to 600k dead in the US after more than a year, and 2 million to 6 million dead in the US.

def_true_false 5y ago

Hospitalizations and deaths lag behind cases, mortality shoots up above some case load threshold (hence attempts to flatten the curve), etc. Feels like most people skipped their 2020 homework. Aside from that, most countries are not even on pace to triple vax their population by end of winter, so letting it rip is a not an option. The countries currently led by populists will lock down just like the rest, only later and with more deaths. Food for thought: Has China changed their pandemic strategy? Why not?

stjohnswarts 5y ago

we don't know yet that omicron won't help more than it hurts if catching it helps with future infections, say delta comes around to those who aren't yet vaccinated