Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

The internet equivalent of Gresham's Law is being played out here.

Still no word on the level of lethality or sickness for omicron, but at least for now it's looking like the current vaccines without a booster won't be strong. The good news is that targeted vaccines won't be far out. Whether or not people will actually get them, well, here's hoping.

Pfizer says their data shows third dose of current vaccine is effective against omicron.

https://www.pfizer.com/news/press-release/press-release-detail/pfiz...on-variant

According to the companies’ preliminary data, a third dose provides a similar level of neutralizing antibodies to Omicron as is observed after two doses against wild-type and other variants that emerged before Omicron.

There’s been ZERO severe cases out of 337 Omicron detections in all of Europe so far…

All cases for which there is available information on severity were either asymptomatic or mild. No deaths have been reported among these cases so far. These figures should be assessed with caution as the number of confirmed cases is too low to understand if the disease clinical spectrum of Omicron differs from that of previously detected variants.

We’re a couple weeks into this and nothing seems to have changed on the ground. European and American doctors are confirming what the South African doctors told us a week or two ago.

All this Omicron-specific “booster” chatter must be speculative precaution…

No, you're just filtering to suit the narrative so you can say that you're right and Fauci is a tool or whatever nonsense you're after. So far, the two anecdotes we have to work with is that a preliminary report from South Africa shows that Omicron reduces the efficacy of the vaccines, and as mentioned above, Pfizer today says two doses alone may not prevent infection, but likely severe disease, and a third dose at least short-term should do both well.

You insistence that there's any malpractice going on because we don't have all of the facts is stupid. After more than 5 million people have died and the global economy has taken a fair amount of damage, I think a little "speculative precaution" is pretty ****ing reasonable.

So are we back around to the "if you're not appropriately concerned, you're the problem" portion of the program?

There's a difference between appropriate concern and a general commentary that there is bad or unreasonable intent.

Here in Cleveland hospitals are once again (CLE Clinic in particular) postponing non-essential surgeries due to COVID. Speaking with my coworker (who’s wife is a nurse I believe at another local hospital), her floor turned into a COVID floor once again, which happens when they begin to run out of room elsewhere at the hospital. Her floor only a few months back went back to its original purpose, but again has switched back because of the case counts and capacity.

Supposedly another coworkers school district (Medina, just outside of CLE) is talking about closing and going remote-only because of the big increase in student COVID cases the past few weeks.

So if things continue to pick up steam (sure they will!), wonder when businesses start going remote-only and school districts doing the same now that we are approaching winter and people still not getting vaccinated...

At least at my workplace, we are remote 1-2 days a week but in-office with mask guidelines (if unvaccinated must be worn and tested regularly with mostly all remote-meetings) at this time. But we primarily follow whatever federal requirements suggest since we are government contractors. But I will be curious what unfolds over the coming weeks here.

In my line of work, there's no going back. I'm not saying there aren't exceptions, but everyone is remote and intends to stay that way or risk losing portions of their workforce. And the bigger positive is that the better functioning organizations are finding that overall productivity is way higher. Of course, the stereotype of software people not needing in-person social interaction is real, so there's that.

After the worst spike in Florida, we're now down to 8 cases per 100k, compared to the national rate of 36. I'm sure part of that is weather, but also, our vaccination rate is slightly better. In urban counties, it's actually significantly better (the panhandle is dragging the average down). Hospitalization here in Orange County is still high, but not breaking things like it was late in the summer. I fully expect that the precautions will continue to be enforced here, but I don't imagine that business will fundamentally change. Schools are the real question since our moronic governor isn't allowing local officials to make the call on mitigation.

I know we are moving forward to with our plans to reintroduce all in person events and programming in January. It would take an act of I don't even know what to postpone that for another time. Everyone is back in the office and short of 2020 style stay at home suggestions I don't think there's anything that would have us scale back at this point.

I thought we were supposed to let it go? Am I the only one that saw that GIF? No? Yes?

#whathashappenedtocoasterbuzzzzzzzzzzz

OMFG. Talk about topics, not people.

People that post the garbage he does deserve ridicule.

Edit: I took out the “I’m sorry, but” because I’m not sorry.

"Talk about topics, not people" should be added to the TOS.

Unless its Dick Kinzel.

People gotta talk

I'm tired of everyone talking about politics so I thought I would bring up religion.

Faith-based research groups find that about 10% of our population says they have a "conflict-of-interest", per se, with their religion and getting their vaccine.

Some take-aways if you're in a hurry:

1) Most Americans (60%) say "cry me a river" when it comes to using this rationale, and the same percentage think people are over-using this as a reason to avoid it.

2) White evangelicals are more likely to think this rationale is OK.

3) About half of our population actually thinks such an exemption should be granted if there is some type of documentation from a faith-leader explaining why. I guess, like a religious "letter of recommendation".

4) Shocker: Religious leaders are very influential in people's lives, and as the leader says and goes, the flock is likely to follow said lead.

I know I could google it, but I would actually like to hear what the crowd says first. I know people seek these out, but what, exactly, is the conflict of interest? Or are there multiple conflicts of interest? And do these same people refuse all vaccines in general, or is there something extra-special about this one that makes it different?

I’m an evangelical, and my experience and study of Scripture makes it seem like getting the vaccine would be more in line with the teachings in the Bible than not getting it. I’ve also not encountered a pastor at my church exhibiting any hostility towards said vaccine. My church also undertook some pretty solid mitigating precautions.

My experience with my churchgoing friends who are against the vaccine/certain mitigating measures almost never, if ever, actually present a theological argument against them. More than anything, it has seemed like they’ve used politics as their reasoning, which tells me (especially given how my pastors have not expressed any anti-vaccine sentiments) that if they’re trying to claim religion as the reason, it’s just as a cover for another reason.

Re: faith-based vaccine conflicts.

If someone has been consistent about this (for example, one of my colleagues is a devout Christian Scientist who avoids "secular" health care entirely), then I can at least understand it. I don't necessarily agree with it, but this is a complicated mix of the First Amendment plus lots of other things, and am glad figuring out those complications is above my pay grade.

If someone has generally gotten the "usual" panel of vaccines (e.g. DTaP, MMR, etc.) for themselves and their kids but suddenly finds a religious exemption to this particular one, I'd be interested in seeing how anyone can possibly thread that theological needle.

Edited to add: U-M reports its vaccine statistics. About 2% of the campus has an exemption for either health or religious reasons.

https://campusblueprint.umich.edu/dashboard/

In terms of school vaccination requirements, all states allow exemptions for medical reasons. 44 states and DC allow for religious exemptions. 15 states allow for philosophical exemptions (based on personal, moral or other beliefs).

https://www.ncsl.org/research/health/school-immunization-exemption-...-laws.aspx

Having exemptions isn't necessarily a problem if the numbers claiming them are low. Can create issues though if too many people claim them. States with more narrow exemptions are often states that had breakouts based on exemptions and thus exemptions were narrowed.

In terms of broader vaccines and religious exemptions, often times people pick and choose what they follow in terms of any given religion. So often times religious exemptions are more a matter of choice than religion. But choice doesn't carry the same potential weight as religion and people understand that.