Octopus Overlords

People in England are being asked to work from home again if possible and face masks will be compulsory in most public places, as part of new rules to limit the spread of Omicron.

Covid passes will also be needed to get into nightclubs and large venues from next week.

Boris Johnson announced the government was moving to its back-up plan of extra Covid rules at a news conference.

"It's not a lockdown, it's Plan B," the prime minister said.

He said moving to the tougher measures was the "proportionate and responsible" thing to do.

Mr Johnson said more is still being learned about new variant Omicron and the picture might get better, but that it "could lead to a big rise in hospitalisations and therefore sadly in deaths".

He said the new variant was "growing much faster" than Delta and early analysis suggested cases could be doubling every 2.5 to three days.

BREAKING: New York Governor Kathy Hochul announces mask mandate for all indoor public places, except where proof of vaccination is required

Carpet_pissr wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 1:18 pm How easily (or not) do vaccinated ppl spread the virus? Especially after 3rd shot.

Smoove_B wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 1:10 pm Meanwhile in NY:

https://twitter.com/BNODesk/status/1469322601759657987

BREAKING: New York Governor Kathy Hochul announces mask mandate for all indoor public places, except where proof of vaccination is required

It's better than nothing, but knowing that people that are vaccinated can still spread the virus, there shouldn't be an out. It's also much easier to remember and you don't need to message it around whatever a business is or isn't enforcing.

Almost two years and we still can't message this right.

Carpet_pissr wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 1:18 pm How easily (or not) do vaccinated ppl spread the virus? Especially after 3rd shot.

Red and blue
As is often the case in our politically polarized era, the situation differs in red and blue America.

In Republican-leaning communities, the biggest Covid problem remains a widespread refusal to take the pandemic seriously. About 40 percent of Republican adults have not received a vaccine shot, according to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation poll. As a result, the Covid death rate is far higher in heavily Republican counties than in Democratic ones.

Red America’s Covid denialism doesn’t seem to be abating, either. Fox News continues to spread disinformation, as Margaret Sullivan of The Washington Post has noted. Many Republican politicians spend more time complaining about mask and vaccine mandates than trying to persuade conservatives to get a potentially lifesaving shot.

Blue America, by contrast, has taken Covid seriously. Fewer than 10 percent of Democratic voters have not received a vaccine shot. Political liberals also tend to be comfortable wearing masks to reduce the spread of the Covid virus.

Yet many Democrats, both voters and politicians, have been almost blasé about the costs of Covid precautions — the isolation, unhappiness, health damage, lost learning, inflation, public-transit disruptions and more. Democrats have sometimes focused on minimizing the spread of Covid, regardless of the downsides: Closing schools, for example, almost certainly harms children more than it protects them, given the minuscule rate of severe childhood Covid, even lower than that of severe childhood flu.

Maximizing health
There are few easy solutions here because trade-offs are unavoidable.

Although Covid presents relatively few risks to children and vaccinated adults under 50, it presents more to older people and some with specific immunodeficiencies. The current Covid surge has led to a modest rise in hospitalizations and deaths among the vaccinated and a much sharper rise among the unvaccinated. This surge justifies an increase in masking, testing and some other measures.

But it’s worth remembering that the point of those measures is to maximize people’s health and well-being. And maximizing health and well-being is not the same thing as minimizing Covid.

If that sounds strange, remember that society would cease to function if it tried to minimize every medical risk. Schools and offices don’t close each winter because of the flu. Families travel in cars even though crashes harm vastly more children than Covid does. People jog, play sports and ride bicycles even though thousands end up in emergency rooms.

The economic and social costs of our Covid precautions are real. In some cases, those precautions are clearly worth it — and in other cases they’re not. Figuring out how to control the virus while addressing the other Covid-induced crises is one of the great challenges of the pandemic’s next phase.

The study, which was published Thursday in the journal Pediatrics, estimated the number of losses from April 1, 2020, through the end of June 2021 at 140,000. And that number has risen in the past three months: Hillis estimates it is around 175,000 today.

"This number will continue to grow as long as our pandemic deaths increase," Hillis says.

As COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations rise sharply in Missouri, local health departments are abandoning efforts to stop the spread of the pandemic disease, saying their hands have been tied by the state's attorney general and a recent court ruling.

One local agency, the Laclede County Health Department, northeast of Springfield, announced that it has ceased all COVID-19-related work, including case investigations, contact tracing, quarantine orders, and public announcements of current cases and deaths.

"While this is a huge concern for our agency, we have no other options but to follow the orders of the Missouri Attorney General at this time," the department wrote in a Facebook post on December 9.

Laclede county, which has around 35,000 residents, is averaging 17 new cases per day, a 71 percent increase over two weeks, and test positivity sits at around 9 percent. Hospitalizations have risen 48 percent in the last two weeks. Only 35 percent of the county is fully vaccinated.

Overall, Missouri is currently seeing a surge in COVID-19 cases. The state is averaging over 2,700 new COVID-19 cases per day, a 68 percent increase over the past two weeks. Daily hospitalizations are averaging over 1,700, a 45 percent increase over the past two weeks. Approximately 52 percent of the state is fully vaccinated, well below national coverage, and around a dozen of the state's 114 counties have vaccination percentages in the 20s.

Zarathud wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 1:06 pm It’s God’s will to strike down the faithless and faithful alike.

These stupid people are the reason plastic bags come with a warning of suffocation risk.

LordMortis wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 2:36 pm
I also have a dentist appointment on the 13th. Not real excited about going there either.

Kraken wrote: Fri Dec 10, 2021 5:38 pm If I lived in MI I'd be sealing my doors and windows with duct tape, but my family there are also going about their lives as if covid is an afterthought. The situation's not much better in MA. Commerce is bustling and masks are rare. Transmission isn't as bad here as you've got it, but it's bad enough and getting worse.

*COVID hangs its own MISSION ACCOMPLISHED banner*

Thread: how to really improve kids mental health during the pandemic.

Short version tip: stop the spread and impact of this virus.

Short version scolding: "ending covid policies" will NOT improve kids' mental health

Vaccination. Ventilation. Outdoor spaces. Sick policies. Closures when necessary. $$ support when closures are necessary. Access to rapid testing. Masking when in crowds/smaller spaces. Keeping symptoms at home.This protects kids' mental health.

This is great! Colorado is following in footsteps of UK/Europe

Anyone can order a box of 5 rapid tests for FREE from CO, EVERY WEEK!

(This, despite condescending views by our White House on the feasibility of sending people free tests in a pandemic)

El Guapo wrote:I assume that *anyone* means anyone in Colorado, right?

But yeah, glad to see that being done. I also found out that rapid tests are available on Amazon for $18, which is great (the CVS ones that we've been buying so far are $25 and often out of stock).

This is a really awful decision. And contrary to patient centered medicine, especially for immunocompromised patients. University Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic reverse orders; will allow unvaccinated caregivers to stay on the job

The Cleveland Clinic is requiring contractors and workers to get flu shots. Please note the following: For the 2016-2017 flu season, please note Cleveland Clinic is beginning to require flu vaccination for specified contractor groups.

dbt1949 wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 12:03 pm It seems so strange that the rest of the world is resisting vaccine mandates as much if not more than the US.

dbt1949 wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 12:03 pm It seems so strange that the rest of the world is resisting vaccine mandates as much if not more than the US.

Kasey Chang wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 2:27 pm It's only in the Western countries like US, UK, Australia, and some parts of EU that have antivaxxers, who, as my late grandma used to say, "stomach full, brain empty" and needed something to amuse themselves.

Kasey Chang wrote: Sun Dec 12, 2021 2:27 pmIt's only in the Western countries like US, UK, Australia, and some parts of EU that have antivaxxers, who, as my late grandma used to say, "stomach full, brain empty" and needed something to amuse themselves.

California announces statewide mask mandate beginning Dec 15