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Time to calm down? Or time to panic?

The recently discovered Omicron variation of the COVID-19 virus provides us with two immediate options:

  • Calm down and wait for the epidemiologists to tell us just how dangerous it is.
  • Start the countermeasures now before exponential growth has a chance to really get exponential.

These are both bits of advice I've been hearing from people I trust to have reasonable opinions, but they are diametrically opposed to each other. What's the answer?

170 thoughts on “Time to calm down? Or time to panic?

  1. Pingback: The Omicron Variation | Just Above Sunset

  2. Vog46

    There will ALWAYS be those who will not get vaccinated. I get that. But lets clarify some things about Omi that are being played down by many posters on social media

    First - the symptoms are mild according to S African scientists. This is anecdotal of course. Just like previous variants we will not know for awhile how Omi will affect our population with our overall lack of good health

    Second, we don't know if this will evade the immune protections provided by previous cases OR vaccine. They are simulating this on a computer and saying it will evade protections, which is what Faucci and many others are worried about. If it DOES evade immunity protections then we have a new problem.
    This means that the long term protections provided by our B and T cells will NOT work against this virus. In effect, everyone will be starting over again, Our immune system works on memory over the long term. When something new comes along our immune system just won't recognize it and will not react to it. And I don't trust our pharma industry to tell us the truth on that. It is in their best interest to keep this thing going. This is why I tend to believe the studies from other countries who have national health care systems.
    From what little we know so far, people are concerned about Omicron due to it's ease of transmission. Thats worrisome. It anecdotally is "mild" so far which is a good thing. It affects younger people which is a bad thing.
    Should we over react? Of course not, but in todays day and age, one persons reasonable precaution is another persons infringement of their liberties.

    I DO THINK that recreational travel should be curtailed until we know more. That means cruises, etc. should shut down for several weeks, to see what happens. NOT because Omicron is dangerous but because if, IF, someone were to get sick on board a cruise ship and it spreads throughout the ship then some litigation happy lawyer will file a lawsuit against the cruise line citing the line for not being careful enough with - whatever. THIS is the problem in a nutshell. Legal liability. Our answer to everything these days is "I'll file a lawsuit". Air travel should be reduced to business travel only for awhile with social distancing, masking, and vaccine passports being required
    Israel suspended all travel yesterday - at the very start of Holy Season.
    China will go into lock down if they find it there. 9 weeks prior to the winter Olympics. Supply chains will get disrupted again.
    But if this disease evades immunity protection as they are suggesting then anyone who refuses to get vaccinated should be ostracized by the public. Why? Because if THIS variant mutates even further - and it will if it continues to spread then we are creating out own monster - when we have the tools necessary to slow the spread down. Delta may have spawned Omicron. What will Omicron spawn?
    I still believe that Faucci is waiting for something far more sinister than Omicron

  3. Vog46

    ADDENDUM
    The CEO of Moderna was on CNBC this morning and said he believes the efficacy of the Moderna vaccine is certainly LOWER against Omi than other variants.
    Considering that Moderna is the strongest vaccine by a wide margin over the others in terms of strength - then this means the other vaccines are impacted even more. He also said it would take 2 or 3 weeks to make a final determination on that.
    Given this little nugget of info then it makes sense that Israel locked down travel from abroad. They are using the WEAKEST vaccine - Pfizer - in their country. It makes me wonder why they had such a severe knee jerk reaction. Time will tell.

    But if the stories are true about evading the protections provided by vaccines then all the post infection immunity promoters have been wrong. All the vaccine hesitancy promoters have been wrong - all the new cases don;t count promoters have been wrong, and all the herd immunity folks have been wrong.

    The more this ting bounces around the more mutations it will spawn. The more mutations to the spike proteins the more problematic the new variants become.
    The overall health of people in the U.S. is very bad. There are far too many immuno-compromised folks in this country.
    Now we have a variant that not only affects THEM, but also may affect anybody who got sick with CV, or got vaccinated or both.
    I hope when this is all said and done that we look seriously at a national healthcare system, OR, at the very least - a mechanism for reporting cases than cannot be impinged upon by politicians from the other parties. We owe this to our scientific community to help future generations.
    Being a scientist means you WILL make mistakes. Edison believed that direct current electrification of the country could happen but he was wrong. and his DC system was replaced by alternating current which even he said was more efficient. Faucci has been wrong in the past but had heavy interference from the White House.
    His early prediction that COVID would continue evolving is unfortunately coming true.

  4. ddoubleday

    How are "waiting for science to tell us how bad this is" and "taking prudent countermeasures against the worst case" DIAMETRICALLY OPPOSED?

    Sounds like a plan to me.

    1. Vog46

      I agree.
      The ONLY thing I would add to the flight restriction is end all recreational cruises for at least two weeks.
      This will give the CDC time to analyze the disease a bit more

      And I suggest this because the cruise lines would be subjected to lawsuits should an outbreak occur at sea after a false negative test. which DOES happen

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