Nuts. I’m over 65. So is my wife and almost everybody I know. We’ve all taken proper precautions (except a couple of libertarians that I stay away from) and have used the latest CDC advice since the beginning.
The OP did not mention Dopers and I don’t remember the thread shifting that way. It’s always been about the general public and general guidance.
If you want to keep wearing masks, do so. If you want to avoid public spaces, do so. If you feel that being over 65 is a special risk, behave that way.
My wife and I have been closely and carefully monitoring the situation every day since it started. We talk about current needs and evaluate how we should react every time we go outside. We are scheduled to get the flu and Omicron shots next week. I’ll put our thoughtful consideration of precautions up against yours any time. We don’t want to die, nor do we want anybody else to die. And we’re acting that way in reality.
I want our public health authorities to continue to remind people that wearing a mask reduces the odds you transmit covid to others. And there are lots of vulnerable people who need to leave their homes and do stuff.
Again, I’m not asking for a mask mandate. But you know, if you have a mild sore throat today, maybe it would be considerate to wear a mask when you go shopping. Maybe it’s a good idea to require visitors to old age homes to wear a mask while they are there. The CDC could encourage that kind of behavior, and not ignore the value of outward masking.
I really feel betrayed by our public health authorities.
That’s the rule where I live. It’s the only time I do wear a mask these days, when visiting my 90 year old mother. The residents don’t wear masks, however.
If I’m following the CDC recommendations correctly … every single thing you’ve mentioned is specifically addressed in the CDC’s masking guidelines (current as of Sept 9, 2022).
If you’re not asking for further mask mandates, what are you asking for? Maybe greater/more frequent public messaging about masks? Maybe a level of in-public “better safe than sorry” 2020-style masking, voluntarily, by the general public?
EDIT: After looking more closely at your first paragraph … it appears you do, in fact, want more public messaging encouraging masking. In your shoes, I’d be pessimistic about the status quo changing without mandates.
Yes, i see lots of groups saying that we should only be doing one-way masking, to attempt to protect the masker, because the CDC says that’s completely fine.
And i don’t see anything on that link suggesting that wearing a mask protects others from you. Only that if you or a household member is at high risk you should mask.
That’s a really bad message. Or at least, a really inadequate message. IMHO.
Maybe I’m not explaining myself well (or I don’t understand what you’re saying).
It doesn’t matter whether it’s better for the world if covid got milder. I’m just talking about the biology of the virus and its host.
Again, there is much more evidence that immunity is playing a larger part in the reduction in deaths than a possible weakening in virulence of the virus. That’s all I’m saying.
Disagree, because again, Omicron immediately followed Delta. You’re arguing that an unrelated “increase in immunity” occurred simultaneously with the changeover from Delta to Omicron. I find this extremely unlikely.
No, that’s not the argument. The argument is that if you look at the actual outcomes of people who had Delta, and separate them based on people immune history, you find that Omicron was just as bad as Delta.
Why did it look less bad at first blush? Probably because so many people had caught Delta, and therefore had prior immunity when Omicron struck. But that’s just a potential explanation, it’s not what led to the claim that Omicron is just as dangerous.
No. Omicron did not immediately follow Delta. The start of the Delta wave in the US was six months before the start of the BA.1 wave in the US. Their peaks are about 4.5 months apart.
I’m arguing the differences in immunity from % of population immunized and how fresh their immunization was before a wave caused by a particular variant.
I’ll try one more time and then I give up.
Virulence. Delta (summer 2021) was definitely more virulent than OG and Omicron BA.1 (December-Feb surge). BA.5 is likely more virulent than BA.1. So arguing for virulence over immunity makes no sense since the BA.5 wave was relatively mild even though the virus is supposed to be more virulent than BA.1.
Vaccination-induced immunity in older people was waning by the time omicron BA.1 wave started. That made numbers in older people worse for BA.1 omicron than Delta because old people were getting vaccinated in Feb-April, 2021. Antibody levels were still high in older people in July 2021 when Delta came along. By December they had waned.
Vaccination-induced immunity in younger and middle-aged people. Worse for Delta than BA.1 Why? Because by the time Delta came along, in July 2021, only 50% of people 25-49 and 67% of people 50-64 were vaccinated. 81% 65+ were vaccinated at that point. By Christmas of 2021, 67% of 20-49 yr old and 80% of 50-64 yr old. Meanwhile vaccination of 65+ only increased to 88% by Christmas.
Infection-induced immunity. Infection-induced immunity in ages 25-49 increased from 22-27% in June 2021 to 31-40% in Dec 2021. Infection-induced immunity in 65+ increased from 12% in June 2021 to 17% in Dec 2021.
To summarize, younger people were better equipped to deal with BA.1 omicron than delta because of their increased immunity in that timeframe. They experienced major increases in both infection and vaccine-induced immunity in the six months between the beginning of the Delta surge and the beginning of the BA.1 surges. Older populations experienced only modest increases in vaccination and infection rates during the same timeframe. Plus, it is known that antibodies levels decline faster in older people.
@puzzlegal is saying exactly the same thing. Maybe she can articulate it better than I can.
What do you mean here? We shouldn’t be doing one-way masking to protect the wearer … so we should be doing … ??? What can ‘two-way’ masking mean here aside from pre-vaccination late-2020 virtually-everyone-everywhere masking? What exactly are you advocating here? I assume there is a spectrum – where on it do you fall?
And i don’t see anything on that link suggesting that wearing a mask protects others from you.
Near the top of the page, in a light blue box: Masks can help protect you and others from COVID-19. Perhaps it should be reworded or made more plain?
…
At least around here … one thing I rarely see these days is people just out and out sick in public. I’d like to think that even in the absence of widespread public masking, an ethic seems to have set in that open sickness in public is to be avoided. And that’s good, that’s what we want. Maybe in lieu of consistent two-way masking, we’ve instead gotten effective social pressure to not take sickness out into public?
If nothing else we can hope that maybe we have largely eliminated those idiot workaholics that would drag their asses in to the office with dripping sinuses and a hacking cough because “it’s just a little cold.” I’d count that as a substantial win. Baby steps towards more considerate co-workers would be worth something.
Of course we also need more generous ( federally or state mandated) sick leave policies to go along with that. Mine is pretty solid, but a lot of people are getting pretty minimal sick leave allowances in this country.
Perhaps it should merit a mention in the advice part? Just maybe?
Outward masking is more effective than inward masking. If two people are meeting, and one of them is sick, you are more likely to prevent transmission of an airborne disease if the sick one masks than if the healthy one does.
Yes, maybe we’ve discouraged sick people people from going out in public. And that’s great. But people sometimes need to go out. Sick people need to buy food and medicine. As @Tamerlane points out, many Americans need to work, and can’t afford to take sick time if they can possibly drag their asses to the workplace.
The CDC could recommend masking in those circumstances, in clear language. Not just a mealy-mouthed “can help protect others” but a “you should mask in these circumstances”. Hell, a nursing student told me that if she saw someone in a mask she assumed they were immune compromised, and it didn’t occur to her they might have a cold. Bloody hell, a couple recovering from covid who still tested positive on antigen tests came to my local bridge game without bothering to mask. “Oh, you can test positive for months”. (Not on a rapid antigen test. Not if you’re actually better.)
You need to define what you mean by more virulent. By more virulent I mean more damaging on a case basis, more hospitalizations, more deaths per infected person. Not aggregate counts at a particular time. You yourself are saying that it is less virulent. I do not know what you mean by that.
This is what I read you saying. Omicron would have put as many people in the hospital, killed as many people, as Delta, but it didn’t because of immunity. Despite somehow being less virulent as well. Because what people saw in real time with Omicron which influenced them to say that it was milder was a complete illusion because of a simultaneous change in immunity.
Omicron would have put as many people in the hospital, killed as many people, as Delta, but it didn’t because of immunity. The impact of the omicron wave was milder (due to prior immunity.) Because what people saw in real time with Omicron which influenced them to say that it was milder was a complete illusion because of a simultaneous change in immunity.
Also, if I’m not mistaken, he ranked raw virulence (how bad it would be without prior immunity, or with comparable prior immunity) as:
Many Americans need to go to work and have inadequate sick leave policies, but hell, better remote work policies would go some way toward enabling people in jobs where remote work is possible not to go to work sick and infect people. How about starting there? My employer has flat-out told everyone not to come to the office sick. Why can’t that be the norm?
(Of course some people need to be reminded, like my colleague the first-year law firm associate who had to have it enforced that really, legal research can basically all be done remotely these days, and BTW, go home if you have COVID symptoms, get tested, and don’t set foot in the office again until medically cleared. She did have COVID, btw. People who need to be reminded to have common sense are a large part of the reason that I will happily take my remote work ADA accommodation for as long as it’s available to me.)
The owner of our favorite restaurant told workers that they had to come to work even if they had COVID. We’ve done only two pickups there since learning this, both of poor quality. Looked it up and the place sold a few months ago, though the previous owner may still be managing. Off our list now.
@Jay_Z I’m using the term virulence as a property of the virus that dictates the severity of disease. This could be the types of cell it infects, replication ability, cell/tissue damage, etc. It’s hard to tease out virulence when you have a population with variable immune statuses, but we actually have that data. Ideally, you’d match the data by vaccination status, time of vaccination, prior infection and time of infection, and age so that those confounding variables don’t mess with interpretation. Scientists have done this with several variants. As @puzzlegal said, that’s why the notion that omicron ba.1 was so much less virulent was dismissed. Fresh immune status had a much larger effect.
But omicron is less mild than delta, but delta (and maybe Lamda) were the most severe (virulent) if you remove the confounding factor of immune status.
So I agree with: Delta>omicron BA5>omicron BA1 and BA2~OG.
I think the CDC does recommend exactly this in clear language:
“It is important to wear a mask or respirator when you are sick or caring for someone who is sick with COVID-19.” (link)
“If you are sick, wear a well-fitting mask” (link)
Though at this point it strikes me that your point more regards lack of emphasis of this message rather than exclusion of this message. I would note that when the CDC has said “jump”, the U.S. populace, as a collective, has not tended to ask “how high?” Still, there’s no reason that the particular message of “mask when sick” can’t have (say) frequently-broadcast commercials the way vaccinations and antivirals do.