I may optimistic here, but I think my chances are pretty low. Not zero, but I really don’t expect to get it, at least not until effective medications have been made widely available to negate its effects, i.e. quite a ways in the future.
I’m this optimistic (or foolish, take your pick) because I’m
single
unattached at the moment
with grown kids out of the house
working on a project (a novel) that requires zero human contact
otherwise retired
getting my food delivered
getting my exercise by lifting weights indoors and swimming in a pool alone
not very sociable by nature
and wearing a N95 mask on the rare occasions I need to shop
Also I don’t really need to shop for a few more weeks, by which time I expect they’ll understand more precisely how transmissible Omicron is and I’ll adjust my protocols.
Anyone see any flaw in my optimism?
ETA: Not that it much matters, but of course, I’m triple-vaxxed (Moderna) up the wazoo.
I’m not sure I’m going to win, but I kind of like my odds.
The odd thing to me is why so many people I know have simply given up. These are people who’ve been extremely cautious for the past two years, have turned their lives inside out to minimize the dangers, have driven hundreds of miles to get their first vax, etc. but now are saying “It’s hopeless.” I feel like an idiot being optimistic I can avoid contracting the virus, but that’s how I feel --“It’s worth a shot.”
My next-door neighbor, a smart and rational man, just looked at me puzzled when I told him that I wouldn’t be joining our small lunch group for at least the next weeks (five retirees eating outdoors in a restaurant). “But you’re vaxxed!” was the sum of his protest, as if he were explaining it to a small child.
Driving hundreds of miles to get vaxxed makes more sense to me than remaining a total recluse indefinitely.
We had our kids over for Christmas dinner this year. Everyone vaxxed and boosted, and we all tested that day, shortly before briefly visiting my mom. (I had a longer visit with my mom, after i took her home.)
I obviously don’t mind being a total recluse as much as you do. I’ve spent two years adapting my daily life so as not to get infected, so what’s another few months to me?
Admittedly, I’m lucky in that I’m in a position, outlined above, where I can isolate at only a minor inconvenience for a few more months, and that it doesn’t seem to drive me as crazy as it drives other people to do that.
Covid is endemic. It will still be out there in some form in another few months. Don’t know how much, but the risk is nonzero even at that point.
You, I, all of us will also get old and die of something anyway if we shelter in place forever. So that goes into people’s calculations. Risk versus quality of life. They are spending their quality of life time every day they shelter in place. That’s what a few months means.
It’s less being “it’s hopeless” and more being “it’s relatively safe”. I mean, I know a guy who almost died from West Nile virus. Weeks in the hospital. I also West Nile virus is out there. But I don’t stay indoors all summer to avoid it. When I wasn’t vaccinated, I was a lot more cautious because the consequences of COVID were much much more likely to be dire.
I totally respect that other people might have different levels of inconvenience/risk tolerance. But I don’t think it’s “odd” to decide to shift your behavior when the risk of serious consequences changes dramatically. I don’t think it’s ever getting better than this.
I got quite lucky - I had a 3 month trip to South Africa that was rescheduled from 2020, and I would not have cancelled that again. But it fell between the Delta & Omicron waves, and I was mostly alone in a car in game reserves taking photos. I got a full booster shot before I went, and if I caught it Delta it was completely asymptomatic.
I have been back in the U.S. since Omicron started, and similar situation to you - no need for human contact, so I’m back to avoiding people and wearing an N95 when I have to shop. If I though it was going to be another year of isolation, I’d probably be in the “given up” camp. But I think there’s a good chance that Omicron blows through the population and fades within a couple of months. If I can avoid it, it’s worth trying a bit longer.
Although I’m less optimistic than you - even trying to stay isolated, I think there’s probably a >50% chance I’m exposed at some point in the next 6 months.
Definitely a possibility that I’ll catch it anyhow, No one can guarantee that he’ll be 100% safe no matter what he does, Like I say, I’m naturally drawn to seeing fewer people on a daily basis than many others are, but I can’t possibly isolate 100% of the time forever. Just as much as I can, and for the next few weeks or months. That I can do, and that I will do. If I contract Covid anyway, that means that pretty much everyone will, and I can live with knowing that I did everything I could have done to avoid contracting it and it didn’t work.
Probably a 33% chance I catch it consquent to the holidays. If I make it through the holidays then I’m solid.
The holidays have been tricky because my immediate family are all vaxxed/boosted and are in denial that we probably should scale back our already-modest plans. And I can’t use data to back up my position since reporting for 2021 effectively stopped on Christmas Eve.
I do. It was better last summer (and yes, i took advantage of that) and i expect it to get better again. This virus is relatively slow to mutate. I expect we’ll eventually get ahead and stay ahead. And drug treatments are about to get dramatically better. And we’re learning more about long covid, and I’m hopeful we will learn more about how to avoid it (that will take longer, i think.)
But it’s already a lot better than this time last year. We have vaccines and rapid tests, and good masks are abundant and affordable.
I’ve been invited to two large, in-person, tested-but-unmasked events that I’d really like to go to. I’m pretty sure i won’t go to the one in early February, but i might go to the one in March, depending on how things look. I guess my odds of getting covid vary a lot based on my choices.
(And conversely, if i catch covid and recover before either of those events, the odds that i attend go up dramatically. And i suppose, if i catch covid and i die, or remain seriously ill, the odds go down a bit. The odds of my attending are pretty low, so they can’t do down a ton.)
In addition to better vaccines and improved treatments, we’re likely to continue evolve toward less virulent strains. It makes sense that Omicron is outcompeting other strains: it’s better at infecting upper respiratory tissue and shedding a lot of virus, but with milder symptoms so people are less likely to isolate. We could get really unlucky with a strain that has mild or nonexistent symptoms early to facilitate spread, and then kills you, or has unpleasant long term effects. But that’s less likely - milder symptoms early will usually mean milder symptoms overall. The virus is not trying to kill us, it’s just trying to make more virus.
We’ll all probably catch some form of this eventually. But if the social sacrifice is acceptable, the longer we can delay it the better.
I’m guessing my odds are pretty high. Not out of any specific risky behaviors my famiily intentionally engages in, but more because of a perfect storm of dumbassery on the part of elected officials.
First, our idiot governor has banned mask mandates and lockdowns entirely. Second, our nominally non-partisan school district board has become overrun with right-leaning people who have managed to force the superintendent to resign. The superintendent who has been named “Texas Superintendent of the Year” a couple of times by a couple of different organizations. Before that, they managed to force a cessation of all virtual learning accommodations and to make masks optional in the spring semester.
So now we’ve got no masks on most kids and no virtual school facing right into the teeth of this Omicron surge. We’ll have our kids in good masks, and we (my wife and I) are likely to scale back on out-of-the-house stuff and go back to curbside pickup on things, but I’m also not convinced it’s not going to burn through the schools like wildfire
I feel like if they’d kept the superintendent and just kept the mask mandate in place from the spring semester, we’d be in a lot better position than we’re in now.
I think my chances are moderately high. On the one hand, we have strict vaccine and mask requirements which are mostly followed well. On the other hand, I’ve started to go back to some sense of normalcy: I go out to shop all the time, I’ve ridden mass transit, and I’ve even started to travel and go to large concerts again. Thanksgiving weekend I went to an outdoor concert with about 70,000 people.
Oh yes, I’m vaxed and boosted, and so is everyone I meet up with regularly.
I live alone and everyone I work with is vaccinated. They also wear masks in the common areas of our office.
I think my biggest chance of getting it is either at the grocery store or the gas pump. Strangely, the percentage of patrons wearing masks at the grocery story has been going down in the last couple weeks (based on my anecdotal observations). I might try making larger (and therefore fewer) shopping trips.
Been meaning to get a booster shot but haven’t made time for it. There’s a couple walk-in clinics nearby.