Yes…
There certainly IS a another increase in covid cases….
Yes there are ‘hits’ across the entertainment and sports world that went back to normal…
Yes there are SOME new mask mandates…
And?
Yes it seems that that serious cases are Delta strains….
NOBODY is reporting deaths from Omicron strain infections….
Now more cases and hospital stays and deaths are nothing to crow about…
But?
The most infectious strain still seems to mild compared to the Alpha and Delta strains of covid….
At this rate?
It maybe that Omicron burns itself out much sooner that the other two…..
Humans have to live with virus’s….
We have no choice…..
The media ‘hair on fire’ coverage is NOT helpful and is actually a disservice instead of an education and is causing a drag on people…
…After a briefing on the omicron variant from his coronavirus response team Thursday, President Biden warned that for unvaccinated Americans, “we are looking at a winter of severe illness and death.” He added: “Omicron is here. It’s going to start to spread much more rapidly at the beginning of the year, and the only real protection is to get your shots.”
Yet some studies suggest that many people only experience mild symptoms from omicron, and vaccine boosters appear to protect against severe illness from the variant, inducing a sort of whiplash for Americans trying to determine how to live their lives and what precautions to take….
…
Ashish Jha, the dean of Brown University’s public health school, said leaders are struggling to navigate political resistance and pandemic-related fatigue.
“I’ve spoken to a few different governors over the last week, and there’s very, very little appetite for doing much at this point, which I think may end up being really costly,” Jha said. “Because if they don’t act now, we may find ourselves in a real challenge in a month, and then putting in these kinds of things will be far less effective.”….
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“Where it gets really complicated is that if we see many times of additional cases, you can still have a reduction in severity of illness and still have, in terms of absolute numbers, more cases requiring hospitalization or intensive care,”…
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Even some of the nation’s top health experts say that after nearly two years of dodging the virus, they are resigned to being infected by omicron.
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Celine Gounder, an epidemiologist and infectious-diseases specialist who also advised Biden’s transition team, said the administration has been too focused on the number of infections as a marker for the state of the pandemic. Hospitalizations and deaths are a better gauge, she said.
“The fact is that the vaccines we have are excellent, but they’re not going to prevent all infections, and I think setting that as a target — ‘We’re trying to prevent all infections’ — they have set themselves up for an impossible task,” Gounder said. “It makes it look like the vaccines are failing. They are not.”
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended on Thursday that Covid vaccines other than Johnson & Johnson’s should be preferred, after its advisers cited increasing evidence that the company’s shots can trigger a rare blood clotting disorder now linked to dozens of cases and at least nine deaths in the United States in the past year….
PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — While many nonprofits and businesses have struggled during the pandemic, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s anti-vaccine group has thrived. An investigation by The Associated Press finds that Children’s Health Defense has raked in funding and followers as Kennedy used his star power as a member of one of America’s most famous families to open doors, raise money and lend his group credibility. Filings with charity regulators show revenue more than doubled in 2020, to $6.8 million.
Since the pandemic started, Children’s Health Defense has expanded the reach of its newsletter, launched an internet TV channel and started a movie studio. In addition to opening new U.S. branches, it now boasts outposts in Canada, Europe and Australia and is translating articles into French, German, Italian and Spanish.
The group has become one of the most popular “alternative and natural medicine sites” in the world, according to data from digital intelligence company Similarweb. It now draws millions of monthly visitors to its articles — many of which sow doubt about the COVID vaccine — up from less than 150,000 before the pandemic.
As CHD has worked to expand its influence, experts said, it has targeted its false claims at groups that may be more prone to distrust the vaccine, including mothers and Black Americans. It’s a strategy that experts worry has deadly consequences during a pandemic that has killed more than 5 million people, when misinformation has been deemed a threat to public health.
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/12/17/nation/how-kennedy-built-an-anti-vaccine-juggernaut-amid-covid-19/
At RFK Jr’s own birthday party vaccination proof was requires. Jr said it was his wife’s idea.
RFK Jr is completely irrelevant in today’s Democratic Party anyway. Bit just wanted to point out how the ,”most influential” anti vaxx Democrat isn’t even influential at his own birthday party.
Nate Silver
@NateSilver538
Some of the disconnects in coverage of Omicron is really just about time horizons, because a variant that is considerably more transmissible but considerably milder could be bad news in the short run but good news in the long run.
Governors in Maryland, Colorado and New Jersey reject lockdowns and other restrictions…
More…
Trends…..
Every wave of the pandemic has posed its challenges, but Omicron offers the vaccinated a preview of one of the more frustrating aspects of endemicity: regular breakthroughs….
More…
But milder…..
Virus Testing lines around my way have grown in length