I'm curious when folks are calling COVID-19 "over". Most of our regular staff went back to the office on Tuesday, and it's a cluster fuck. The admin team said "one case, and this is over" and the counter measures so far look like they mean it. In SC, folks wearing masks has dwindled to a trickle. I may actually take a vacation this year. So....when is it over?
For us, it'll be over when all age groups have vaccines. Unfortunately, some immunocompromised aren't ever going to have full protection. So their community infection rate and their personal risk tolerance will dictate how they behave. The numbers have gone way down in our area. We aren't doing anything super crazy but are creeping out. I'm visiting a neighbor with the baby today. We went to the good playground this weekend. We visited a store in off peak hours with the kiddo and just did our best to avoid other shoppers. If the rate continues down to a negligible number, we will be visiting the water park daily over the summer and possibly doing library story time. If kiddo gets vaccinated, we won't sweat sitting on a plane as a family or doing more indoor events. Our kid really, really needs social interaction. We went into lockdown when I was in my last trimester and it's been about like that ever since. We just want our kid to be safe and healthy.
Obviously depends on the person. CA is saying children won't be required to wear masks at school shortly (March 12th?) and some people are having complete meltdowns on social media. Based on their reactions, I'm expecting to see mobile morgues on school properties to handle the sheer number of dead kids. Other than still having to wear a mask up until a few weeks ago, I've been "back to normal" for a long time. Up until recently, (damn diet) we were eating out ~4 times a week, went to a few concerts, BBQ's, weekend trips, social events etc etc.
For me, it's when the edge cases are being handled. My sister with MS, for instance... they're still waiting on the science around vaccines to come back when it comes up against her meds. Sure, she's got the shots, but have her meds made them 0% effective? Nobody knows. Once they do, and they have a favourable solution/result, then I'll consider it over. Until then, it's "mostly" over... more over than not.
It was over when people decided the death rate was acceptable. Even if they didn't know what the death rate was.
https://twitter.com/EvanDonovan/status/1499086276519239680 What an asshole. Nearly a million dead and we still have an entire political party that has made an identity out of opposing any effort to reduce the impact of COVID.
950k dead and 78 million cases....both of which my nerds suggest are low estimates. Actual could be as high as 1.12 million dead and 84 million cases, which is wild. Minimally, that's 8 million people with new chronic health conditions, possibly as many as 30 million. On the high end, that's going from 6 in 10 living with a chronic health condition to 7 in 10. https://www.cdc.gov/chronicdisease/tools/infographics.htm Our healthcare costs are going to skyrocket because of this idiocy, as if the economic damage wasn't already bad enough. You can add tourette's to the list of COVID-19 complications, because every time I hear it for the next few years, I'll just have to spontaneously curse.
Because they are the ones most invested in him as a presidential candidate, the fucking of which begins later this year....
https://sfist.com/2022/03/02/new-st...s-cause-infertility-and-erectile-dysfunction/ I know we live in the dumbest possible timeline when scientists have to refute claims made by Nicki Minaj about testicles....
Our 7 day average has gone down to 10 people for my county of over 80,000 people. Even if that's actually 10 percent of the actual rate, I am feeling confident about getting out there a bit. The mask mandate drops for this state after March 11 so we might hang back a little for a couple weeks just to see if there's an uptick but I doubt it will happen. @downndirty from the info you have access to, does this look like it's really burning out or is there a new variant to watch for?
It's declining precipitously. The question is what happens when there is a resurgence, and when that will be? There is a great deal of paranoia about new variants, which I think is a good thing. We won't be surprised again. However, the misinformation, fatigue and discrepancy in risk assessment means the the next time an outbreak occurs the response might be insufficient. I'm saying by May, this will be over. The damage it did, however, will take years to untangle, if we ever do.
We weren't in the office a full day before we had a positive test (in a group of about 40 people) that I know of, and one dick bag who was unvaccinated and refused to get tested to gain admission into the building. He made a scene, DHS Security had fun. So.....maybe roll slowing is in order.