Covid 19 CRISIS

People in my area (upper Southern US) are largely ignorant and some will publicly call you out for wearing a mask. Just today, I had a man tell me "covid is just a hoax" as I was casually filling my car with fuel. He was ignored, obviously. Meanwhile, I've gotten the full dose of Moderna and a booster.
 
People in my area (upper Southern US) are largely ignorant and some will publicly call you out for wearing a mask. Just today, I had a man tell me "covid is just a hoax" as I was casually filling my car with fuel. He was ignored, obviously. Meanwhile, I've gotten the full dose of Moderna and a booster.

Woah, hello fellow forum old timer!

So up here in the Midwest, if I live the Chicago suburban bubble, nobody cares or wears masks. So far, I’ve never been called out, weird looks, yes. Even had an oreilly’s auto parts worker treat me weird. Like, all I wanted was oil disposal and to have the cans back. But he answered slowly and was like “so you want me to give you back the containers?” But in a weird assertive tone. Otherwise, nothing.
 
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Every time I see this poster from my desk I get the feeling Mario is trying to infect me...
 

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I had a man tell me "covid is just a hoax"
I had that too last year: a lady whose house I pass regularly by when I walk told me a couple of times that Covid was a hoax and that I was wrong in wearing masks. And that the vaccines are a scam, obviously.
I learnt a couple of days ago that she is in a hospital now, because of Covid, and has been for the last ten days. I sincerely hope she gets better, but I don't think this will improve her chances of convincing me of her no-vax ideas.
 
People in my area (upper Southern US) are largely ignorant and some will publicly call you out for wearing a mask. Just today, I had a man tell me "covid is just a hoax" as I was casually filling my car with fuel. He was ignored, obviously. Meanwhile, I've gotten the full dose of Moderna and a booster.
Ugh, I hate this. What is it about ignorance that entitles people to be rude about it, too?

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Just checked local numbers out of curiosity. We've had a higher percentage of vaccinated folks than most of Texas (not hard, admittedly) and at least most folks in the city seem to take it pretty seriously—although tourists coming in and out are a bit of a wildcard. (Can we also vote to disown Alex Jones and Joe Rogan? Just straight-up vote them off the island "Survivor"-style. Thanks in advance.)

The case numbers chart doesn't look as bad as the national one CraigB posted—or at least we haven't exceeded our prior peak yet to that extent:

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...but the steep upswing on the hospitalizations one looks......ominous.

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Still, here's hoping that most of these cases are milder and that graph line doesn't shoot up much more. I know several folks who got sick this round, but none of them are dealing with severe cases, thank goodness. The vax helps, for sure.
 
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An absolute certainty that they are right. You can see similar behavior on most political discussions, or indeed anything on which people hold strong opinions.
 
Modelling said 25,000 daily cases by end of January. What do we get for meeting the stretch goal early?

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Here's how Omicron develops in South Africa. Of course testing is even lower there (as evident in the share of positive tests hospitalized), so we can assume the absolute numbers to be off by quite a bit, maybe ten times even. But the relative trend should be sound. And what we see is that the peak in cases comes pretty much bang on three weeks after the wave set off.
Ironically, that is because the spread of Omicron was so unhinged that it ran out of people to infect so quickly. With a higher vaccination rate (which does not do nothing) and a degree of boosters, we in Europe reduce the spread from "super unhinged" to "unhinged", which on the one hand prolongs the ordeal, but on the other hand of course distributes load to healthcare services.
In the UK, Omicron took off "for real" on December 15th. It will be interesting to see when they will peak. I certainly hope it will be this week, early next week latest.
Here in Finland, I'd put the "Omicron kickoff" on Dec 22nd, so we have at least another week to go until it peaks.
 
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Meanwhile in Germany, the numbers seem to indicate that Omicron takes off just about now. Of course, it will be another week before the Christmas/New Year's testing break is over and numbers are on the same level of reliability as usual again.
Perhaps we will have missed a bunch of cases, people having been infected on Christmas and having beaten the virus before they get back to work/school this or next week, entirely... :D
On the other hand, it could well be that with work and school resuming, the cases will explode this and next week.
 
The curve is going straight up up up here right now.
 
The curve is going straight up up up here right now.
I am positively surprised at how small the steps up are. Would have expected worse. But good news is, ICUs hold up, with occupation even dropping for the moment.

EDIT: On the other hand, given how congested testing is, probably the jumps up are a lot steeper in reality.
 
Vasabladet just put out an article saying that the ICUs are at max capacity.
 
Vasabladet just put out an article saying that the ICUs are at max capacity.
ICUs or "normal" wards? Normal wards are taking quite a beating in the HUS area as well. We have to keep in mind that the capacity reserved for Covid patients is 50 ICU beds / 20% of capacity nationwide. We have been slightly above the threshold for weeks.

Also, it is entirely possible that while the wave is driven by Omicron in Helsinki and ICU load actually drops, it's still Delta to such a share that in Vaasa the load goes up, even with the overall trend nationwide pointing down.
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So...I have COVID at the moment.
Update...
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I have tested negative today. The symptoms did not get any worse than the stuffy nose and slight cough in the shower that I mentioned in the last post. I still don't know which variant it was but it came and went with me barely noticing it. Overall, not a bad deal for me to acquire some antibodies since I'm unvaccinated.

My vaccinated friend who transmitted it to me tested negative on Monday. Her symptoms were the same as mine but she coughed a bit more and has little bit of a cough still with her. Overall, she is fine.

Also, I notice we’re both in the “will never know if I had it in early 2020” club. Public transport in California in my case.
Yep, I am curious as well.
 
Found out my godmother's husband* died from it Monday night. 65, otherwise healthy. Spent 2 weeks thinking he was just fighting a cold, then flu, then his wife (who works in a nursing home) came home one day and he could hardly breathe, and made him go in to the hospital. Tested positive, had double pneumonia, and died 5 days later.

She's fine (as far as COVID goes). She was vaccinated, he wasn't. She was vaccinated because of her job. No jab, no job, when it came to the nursing home. He ran his own commercial architectural engineering company, was a ride-or-die (so to speak) Trumper (had a "Fuck Biden" bumper sticker in his work pickup truck's rear window), and not vaccinated.

*(I know that sounds like an odd connection...when my parents picked her as my godmother when I was born, she hadn't met him yet. Eventually became a close family friend, but someone else was already my godfather, so....)
 
Found out my godmother's husband* died from it Monday night. 65, otherwise healthy. Spent 2 weeks thinking he was just fighting a cold, then flu, then his wife (who works in a nursing home) came home one day and he could hardly breathe, and made him go in to the hospital. Tested positive, had double pneumonia, and died 5 days later.

She's fine (as far as COVID goes). She was vaccinated, he wasn't. She was vaccinated because of her job. No jab, no job, when it came to the nursing home. He ran his own commercial architectural engineering company, was a ride-or-die (so to speak) Trumper (had a "Fuck Biden" bumper sticker in his work pickup truck's rear window), and not vaccinated.

*(I know that sounds like an odd connection...when my parents picked her as my godmother when I was born, she hadn't met him yet. Eventually became a close family friend, but someone else was already my godfather, so....)
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Surprise mother fuckers! I ain't dead yet!

Since Thanksgiving I've been stuck at home in bed because of the worst sciatica pain I've ever had, so I've only been out of the house a few times when I had to do something critical like banking. My sister has been coming over to bring groceries and do laundry and the like, but it's high risk because most of her office has been infected and they refuse to let anyone work from home. We're basically doing things like a hostage exchange right now. We've all escaped unscathed up to this point, but short of having full on Outbreak suits there isn't much more we can do.

STL is a fucking nightmare right now. Hospitals are beyond capacity so they're canceling any sort of surgery that isn't life saving, no one can find tests anywhere, and to top it off several criminals have set up fake testing sites asking for people's SSN's and passport numbers.

STL passed another mask mandate, which the GOP cocksuckers have already vowed to sue over because fuck you. The shit has been hitting the fan and the people in charge just want to pretend all is well and there's zero reason to restore restrictions.

Fucking maddening.
 
So, I got my third jab today. I booked my slot in late december and there were tons of available slots today, nothing at any other date. January sixth is a public holiday which means many people get the day off. They obviously tried to get as many jabs into as many arms as possible on a day that would be as convenient as possible for everyone.

So, I went into the health station about 15 minutes ahead of time. Two steps into the building I was greeted by someone asking "vaccinations?" and pointing towards the staircase. I took the stairs. After emerging on the second floor I beeped my ID in a kiosk with a barcode scanner and a screen which told me "corridor C, room 6" and before I had a chance to find corridor C there was another nurse that pointed me in the right direction.

I had barely had a chance to find a seat outside room 6 before I was called in, ten minutes ahead of time. About 38 seconds later I was out again with a fresh jab of Pfizer in my left arm, and that included chatting about the cold weather we've been having and thanking her for the work she's doing.

11/10 would take another jab if needed.
 
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