Omicron hit the UK relatively early and they have lifted most mandates about a month ago. You can have a look at the effect on cases, the healthcare system as well as deaths here: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
Actually the number of infections did not increase (I have to admit that I am not sure how much they have been testing) and there were much less hospitalizations as well as deaths despite much higher infections numbers with Omicron.
Thank you, in the post it says:
Anti-war demonstration in front of the USA embassy Kiev, Ukraine.
“Happening now - an antiwar rally in Kiev in front of US embassy in Ukraine. The protesters demand from US to stop intereference in Ukraine and pushing it to war with Russia. I bet no West MSM covers anti-NATO protests in Ukraine (they report only about our far-right militants preparing to fight russians, as I can see).”
It looks like this is not the original source. All I can find in that regard is lots of tumblr posts (this seems to be the first one: https://fuckyeahmarxismleninism.tumblr.com/post/675720711979008000/happening-now-an-antiwar-rally-in-kiev-ukraine) referring to Dmitri Kovalevich.
Can you give a little more context please? Do any news outlets report on this, how many people did protest?
While I think this is very interesting, this submission kinda breaks
Please only post links to actual news sources, no tabloid sites, etc
doesn't it?
What are you talking about? There’s no linear downward path for COVID variants that assumes each new variant will be milder than the last.
Well, most of our top virologists/epidemiologist (Klaus Stöhr, Christian Drosten, Hendrik Streeck, Alexander Kekule) expect COVID-19 will soon be endemic. Drosten thinks it will still take a little longer and more vaccinations but Stöhr says that the pandemic will end in summer.
The Spanish Flu ended after people stopped dying in high numbers, and people adhered to quarantine rules which played a huge factor in the Spanish Flu ending.
Let me cite Wikipedia about the Spanish Flu for you:
By 1920, the virus that caused the pandemic became much less deadly and caused only ordinary seasonal flu.
Why are you cherry picking a single country?
I am not. Check for yourself and tell me how there are more countries with Omicron having a higher death toll than previous variants: https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html I picked the UK because they already went through the Omicron wave and I thought their visualization was good, that's the only thing you could consider cherry picking.
Please do check your facts before claiming I am wrong.
And what amount of deaths per day in a nation would you find acceptable enough to give up on precautionary restrictions? The USA’s seven day average is 2600 deaths per day. You believe that at that current rate, the USA and other nations equally impacted by COVID should remove restrictions?
If the healthcare system can handle the number of patients admitted I am fine with lifting pretty much all restrictions. I really do not like how the goalpost has been moving (at least in my country) during the pandemic. A lot of people seem to be unable to understand that we can not save everyone, as sad as it is. Before COVID-19 happened a lot of vulnerable people died because we didn't do lockdowns during flu waves. I ask you: How could you accept so many people dying, while we could have locked down the whole world for each flu wave?
Again, people were willing to take precautionary measures during the Spanish Flu. By your logic, we shouldn’t have worn masks at any point in the pandemic and we should have just let the various COVID variants rip through the population. You’re completely misunderstand what most researchers are saying, and instead you’re reading up what “some” researchers are explaining.
Lol, no of course that's not what I am saying! The Spanish Flu has been a lot more dangerous than the Omicron variant is now. What I am saying is that there probably is going to be a point in time where COVID-19 is mild enough that no restrictions are needed anymore. I personally think we will reach this situation pretty soon / have reached it with Omicron.
You’re quite plainly wrong and you’ve yet to provide a single valid reason as to why we should stop wearing masks.
Are you telling me you can see into the future and know that a more dangerous variant is just around the corner which would make wearing masks necessary? Also note that this is the first time I said that I expect the pandemic to be over soon.
Wrong again. The long-term implications of contracting COVID, even for young, healthy adults, can be devastating.
Please give me numbers. I do not believe this is very common and have yet to see a study that confirms that those devastating effects are causing deaths in high numbers.
people like you can’t be bothered to wear a mask
Thanks for that... I do wear a mask but comments like this only provoke me to throw shit back at you. This is exactly what I meant with being more friendly and refraining from ad hominem attacks. This only weakens your point and makes me angry.
Your comparison is ridiculous and I cannot believe I have to explain that car crashes aren’t contagious-- if you drive by a car crash, that has no impact on the likelihood of you getting into a car crash.
Lol, how does this affect my comparison of death rates. Oh, right it doesn't! I am merely comparing death rates of car crashes and COVID-19 for people under 30. Like that I can roughly assess how dangerous COVID-19 is. Also note that the situation is the same with severe injuries due to car crashes and severe cases of COVID-19. Car crashes are more common and thus more dangerous for people under 30.
Again, let me repeat the one point that you conveniently failed to answer. Do you have any educational background in science or medicine that you’re basing your opinion off of?
Oh, nice more ad hominem attacks. As you insist: I have studied physics and now study mathematics.
but you can’t be bothered to wear a mask and exercise caution to potentially save a person’s life
As I already said, I have been wearing masks and done social distancing throughout the whole pandemic.
support your blatant confirmation bias
You do realize, that you haven't provided a single source for your claims and that your claims are also biased (and even wrong)?
First off, I'd encourage a more friendly tone :)
I think ad hominem attacks like questioning my credibility are unwarranted. Ask me questions and attack my arguments.
overwhelming majority of scientists and medical researchers continuously warn of new variants emerging, as they have throughout the last two years.
Yes, but those variants tend to be milder as a lot of researchers also have been telling us and as we have been able to observe with this pandemic as well as past ones. If this were not the case, we'd still be plagued by the spanish flu. Evidently this is not the case and I do not see why thinking this pandemic may soon be over is such a hot take.
How can you say Omicron is not dangerous enough for restrictions to make sense anymore when the variant’s high level of infection translated to more people dying?
This is not true, even though there are far more infections less people die. For instance check the data from the UK: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths Also note that the hospitalization rate is down quite a bit compared to previous waves: https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/healthcare
Quite some countries are lifting restrictions, in the UK as well as Denmark you don't even need masks anymore. That's why I can say that (a lot of the) restrictions don't make sense anymore.
Regarding variants getting milder: To me it makes sense and quite some researchers have been explaining it as well: While it's possible that a more dangerous variant may emerge it is unlikely because evolutionary pressure is going to select the variant that spreads best. If you get really sick or die you have less opportunities to transmit the virus and thus spread it. This is also how the Spanish flu ended: with a mild variant.
At the very least, mask wearing in buildings needs to continue to be normalized.
I think this is based on the assumption that COVID-19 is going to be dangerous for a few more years. If I am right and this is not the case, Denmark and the UK are right.
One more thing I'd like to note is that especially for younger folks COVID-19 never has been that dangerous. In my country there have been more deaths due to traffic accidents for people under 30 only in 2020 than due to COVID-19 from 2019 up to now.
Clearly it does work, as they beat one of the world’s best hockey teams 6-1. A five point lead at that level of competitive sports is a clear indicator of a thorough ass-whooping.
When I first read this I thought only the Canadians wore masks and won despite of that. Then I read the article. By no means I am saying ass-whooping did not occur :)
My point is that these women clearly knew that they could perform at an extremely high level while wearing masks.
That I understand. But how that's connected to the outcome of the game, I still don't understand.
I don't understand your argument about "ass-whooping". According to the article @[email protected] linked Russia was very much expected to lose:
Anna Shokhina scored ROC’s first goal of the game, which was actually the first goal a Russian team has ever scored against against Canada in Olympic women’s hockey.
Also it's not like only the Canadians played with masks, for most of the time the Russians did as well until their tests came out negative.
Well, you see... umm, I am a very creative person!
Haha, should have gone with: mpv --vo=tct --really-quiet $(echo aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cueW91dHViZS5jb20vd2F0Y2g/dj1kUXc0dzlXZ1hjUQ== | base64 -d -)
Even xterm is too distracting with mpv --vo=tct --really-quiet "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ" :P
Shouldn't the upper right panel be
What's your prospect on the future then. As the current vaccines evidently can not stop the virus, do you think we should keep wearing masks and limit social interactions indefinitely?
This may be a viable option for some, but I certainly do not want to live the rest of my life like this. I actually think a lot of people would consider such a life barely, if at all, worth living.
Umm, what do you mean? Has there been a study that shows a drop of life expectancy by 1-3 years for people with long COVID compared to those without, I'd like to see this study.