I was there Monday and had to wear mask.
We’re the city with the 2nd case of COVID after the first case in San Jose in California or my USA in general.
I don’t know about nursing homes around here. But our state has lifted mask mandate since March 1.
My parents play bridge two times a week at the senior center in their Southern California city. Even though the indoor mask mandate has been lifted in California the senior center still requires masking for any of their indoor activities.
The leading lady there said today is freedom day.
I hope they will start offering free lunch soon, they told us last year that they would offering lunch starting January, and I don’t know if it’s covid or not, but they have been delaying implementing the free lunch.
If the vaccines keep more vaccinated people from getting seriously ill and being hospitalized vs the unvaccinated (they do), then it’s not true to say that “vaccines don’t work on omicron.”
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to answer the original question…I would say I’m more cognizant than concerned, at least right now. Definitely keeping up with the news on it, and ready to return to more prudent measures around indoor socializing if need be, but not worrying further out than the day in front of me at this point.
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Not concerned but keeping an eye on numbers and will adjust concern levels appropriately as needed.
I’m not at this point more concerned than I was about January’s Omicron. I’ll continue to wear my mask in stores and when I meet with clients and to socialize with friends outside. My biggest danger at this point is my cleaning woman who wears a mask, but it doesn’t fit very well. We have a couple of HEPA filters in the house. I’m boosted so I trust my odds are good even if I get infected.
Research has not been completed on the vaccine and it’s effectiveness on omicron variant. The doctors are not against vaccines or boosters- and boosters may give a very short window of increased protection on omicron but there has not been enough time or research or severe illness studied to be sure. It’s seems information and recommendations by the cdc etc. are vaccines may help against omicron and it’s better safe than sorry so get boosted.
Below is recent research published from the NE journal of medicine:
Covid-19 Vaccine Effectiveness against the Omicron (B.1.1.529) Variant
List of authors.
- Nick Andrews, Ph.D.,
- Julia Stowe, Ph.D.,
- Freja Kirsebom, Ph.D.,
- Samuel Toffa, Ph.D.,
- et al.
March 2, 2022
DOI: 10.1056/NEJMoa2119451
“Our findings indicate that vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic disease caused by the omicron variant is substantially lower than with the delta variant.”
“We are unable to determine protection against severe forms of disease using the test-negative case–control method here owing to the small number of omicron cases resulting in hospitalization so far in our data set and the natural lag between infection and more severe outcomes.”
So basically- there is not enough severe illness causing hospitalization in omicron in general to be able to prove, at this time, that current vaccines, and if and how many boosters actually make a difference. Basically Omicron so far is so mild unvaccinated and people vaccinated over 6months ago are not having severe illness either- just like the vaccinated and boostered population. However there is data that shows if you had omicron (vaxxed or not) you have a great deal of long term immunity so far… natural immunity has not waned with time so far in those who developed omicron. Given there is much research to be done in general about omicron, covid and vaccines and boosters. Many people feel comfortable in that the illness has finally gotten to the point that most people (vaccinated and not) will not develop severe illness. Many people are worried that having a booster the needed every 20 weeks for best protection can overly tax the immune system and create autoimmune issues where there were none. Over exposure of a substance to the body can create an allergy or autoimmune reaction and that is a real concern that needs to be studied.
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I thought this was interesting…
The new COVID-19 variant taking root in the U.S. probably won’t pose a big health threat to many Americans, thanks in part to this winter’s Omicron surge.
Why it matters: Omicron set new records for cases and hospitalizations but gave built-in immunity to most of those who got infected. That temporary protection should help flatten the curve as the similar, more infectious strain known as BA.2 sweeps across the nation.
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Yes! My friends that are doctors have been saying since December omicron is what is finally going to get us out of this.
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As noted in post #19 of this thread, about 12% of the US population appears to have gotten COVID-19 between 11/2021 and 1/2022, when Omicron BA.1 was the main variant.
That may not be enough to provide Omicron-specific herd immunity that is being suggested here.
I’ve seen nothing about COVID on CNN lately. It’s all Ukraine. And I’ve been watching the channel a lot.
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Well, I saw you post the 12% number, but wasn’t sure you were taking into account that people could be infected more than once. It seemed like you were just doing simple subtraction between phases. But a lot of people who may have been infected with the original virus back in March, April 2020, could ALSO have gotten Omicron. Or people who got Alpha. Or Delta in September/October 2021 could ALSO have gotten Omicron in January 2022. I’m not sure that 12% is accurate at all. I personally know a lot of people who were infected multiple times. Given that we had almost a million people testing positive per day at the height of Omicron, and that testing opportunities were pathetic—-people were not bothering to get publicly tested due to massive lines around the block for hours in the freezing weather, while others had access to rapid home tests that were never going to be included in those numbers—I heard experts say they assumed if we had 800,000 test positive we probably had 5 or more times that many actually being positive, I think it’s pretty clear we had WAY more than 12% get infected with Omicron in its first iteration. Very hard to measure accurately, but I think it’s clear that 12% is an undercount. I know that post was referring to the seroprevalence, but I think that still wouldn’t account for people who had Alpha and then Omicron, or people who had Delta and then Omicron, etc. Not 100% sure on this, but it sounds to me like more than 12% could have had Omicron.
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Still, even if 43% of the population got Omicron BA.1 (including all of the 31% who got previous versions of COVID-19), that still does not look like herd immunity against Omicron BA.2.
True, 43% would not be herd immunity. But goes a long way towards flattening the curve when combined with people who are fully vaccinated and boosted, etc. MWfan’s post didn’t say there would be complete herd immunity , just that it wouldn’t pose as big as threat due to the large number of people who acquired immunity when they got infected with Omicron.
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Good to know. Very informative
You are exactly right. I’ve read that health agencies believe at least 40% of the population has immunity from having omicron
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Exactly. And it’s not a severe variant.
UK had an outbreak of Omicron on a scale comparable to the US and it has more people vaccinated than the US. Nonetheless, it’s having another surge due to the BA.2 variant.
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My wife and I attended a major sporting event recently. As far as I could tell, the goaltenders and I were nearly the only people in the arena who were wearing face masks. It looks like quite a few people are not taking COVID seriously anymore.
There were a few children there who appeared to be too young to be vaccinated.
Fortunately my wife and I are fully up to date on our vaccinations.
I would expect that this is true, and might even be a low number. The percent fully vaccinated plus the percent who have had COVID probably add up to more than 100%, but of course some people have both had COVID and been fully vaccinated.