Relaxation of Restrictions, Part XII *Read OP For Mod Warnings*

"May as well" applies when deciding whether or not to have a starter with your dinner.

It has no place in a decision to keep restricting people lives.

Pretty sure most people just forget to take off their masks when going between shops or else just keep them on cos they know they’re going to have to put it back on again when going into another shop. Don’t think it’s cos all these people are terrified of catching covid.

Are queues outside shops still a thing? I haven't seen any in absolutely ages.

They didnt see the door was open!

The masks I wear are made of single layer gauze and they’re so breathable that I often forget I’m wearing them. So I semi regularly end up looking like a car mask idiot.

Oh, I thought it was for here...shíte.

Just got a text for a pcr test booking tomorrow, I never booked a test or was any where near the hse system.

Sorry to get your hope up! We’re still Irishing it out.

A very interesting study just published. Conducted in California from 30th November 2021 to 1st of January 2022 by Uniersity of California Berkeley, Kaiser Permanente and Center for Disease Control: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.01.11.22269045v1

study conducted on 70k patients, 53k infected with Omicron and 17k with Delta.

Couple of interesting takeaways:

1. Hospital admissions are 3x lower with Omicron than Delta.
2. ICU admissions are 4x lower with Omicron than Delta.
3. 1 dead from Omicron (53k patients) vs 14 dead from Delta (17k) patients. Ratio of 44 if we consider per-thousand-cases.
4. 26.6% cases of Omicron were unvaccinated vs 49.7% for Delta.
5. 52.9% and 13.4% of Omicron cases were mRNA vaccinated with 2 and 3 doses respectively.
6. Unvaccinated are 8x less likely to be hospitalised with Omicron than with Delta, and as likely as those vaccinated with mRNA 3 doses (2.2% vs 1.9%).

These are just some of the facts.

Omicron - the vaccine killer?

You need a code to your phone to verify, it's all a bit odd.

A lot of people got Covid in last few weeks. Current guideline is to get booster at least three months after an infection. I caught covid before the booster was rolled out to my age group. I would hazard a guess I am not the only one. Plus I think younger age groups are more likely to hold out until it suits them for travelling/Covid cert.

I think it is time to put the current ‘living with covid policy’ into context - the probability of death from Omicron is approx 0.002%.

it is time to get back to true normal. No covid passes, no pcr tests, no masks, no isolation. Omicron is a sore throat ffs.

I cant believe I'm saying this but I think its over.

Just read in my German daily newspaper interview with one of the leading virologists there. Mr. Drosten. Head of the Charite Unilinik Berlin virology department and inventor of the PCR test no less.

He says omicron is the chance we must take. The train we need to jump onto. The thing that will end this pandemic and enter the endemic phase. We should enter this phase as vaccinated as possible to avoid unnecessary deaths, but after that thats it. Multiple vaccinations every year will not be sustainable and due to omicron and endemic we wont have to. And then we will have our lives back like before all this. Fully.

And Mr. Drosten would have been fairly vocal and influential during the pandemic. And pretty much on the alarmist side too. Not quite like the Cork ntubag but McConkey-ish definitely. I couldnt believe my eyes tbh.

And of course England, now Scotland, Wales. Spain. Denmark. Many places.

The signs are everywhere are they not? Its really happening.

Was out at a dinner party tonight and get the distinct impression people are completely done with it, waiting for the government to announce the end of all restrictions, and will be very angry if they don't.

Even the most vocal of the group who's spent the last year arguing with me about everything from masks to getting vaccinated to (in the beginning) whether there would even be a pandemic declared, is now completely unwilling to entertain restrictions continuing beyond the end of January without a clear "back to a completely normal, 2019-type March" plan. Most of the rest of them the same, and these are people who would have been on the government page pretty much the whole way through