Herd immunity? We have seen that natural immunity does not last, as the people who have been hit by the bug 3 times and numerous studies have found out. Combined immunity is good but still a gamble.
Economy? We have the highest growth in 11 years. Real estate is booming. That will come crashing down if the death rate reaches higher levels than May. And that is what we’ll have with Omicron. Even if it is “mild”, it has a contagion rate that may surpass measles. So more people sick…more chance for complications.
Haven’t read this particular story, but I thought the point of shutdowns like this was to allow time for tracing and testing. Oh yeah, and “disinfection” and pointless mystery mist spraying, of course.
That’s the wrong way to look at it, if more infectious results in more cases, it will result in more hospitalizations, accordingly death and more people not able to work. Services go down, healthcare goes down. Many things just crash.
Well Norway, Denmark, South africa show its not the case even with very little restrictions…
Vaccination in Taiwan would be useless if it never is allowed to spread. Because it doesn’t hinder infections at all. Actually with omicron it seems to have positive factor on infection rate, but still helps against severe disease.
So in the wake of omicron a zero covid policy would be to not vaccinate, a policy accepting the unavoidable in the other had should vaccinate risk groups fully and let it spread.
That one you do not have to convince me, but the authorities. Actually, that one is doable, and it goes above the overseas hires/students, etc.
TBH, I do not understand why people with ties here, who are married/want to be married/ have children here/ cannot come. Seems a problem to be addressed by bureaucracy.
But us going abroad and coming back without quarantine? I am sorry to say it may not be a viable option at this juncture.
And I know what you mean and share the feeling. I also have elderly parents. I’ve lost relatives to this bug and others have gotten sick, from serious to mild. A Skype call is not the same.
Do you have a better explanation for the “persons of color” observation? As a “person of color”, I despise that sort of nonsense. @BiggusDickus was, I suspect, correct with the most obvious hypothesis that it’s just a dysfunctional-backgrounds thing and should be addressed as such.
Not taking my masks off until the AQI stops being regularly N of 100, even if I have to do without a prophylactic hit of ohmigod or whatever the flavour of the month is.
Well the common masks do more or less nothing for small particles. Are you correctly wearing n95 masks alll the time? That would be the only solution against smog.
The medical masks don’t filter much, you just breathe indirectly…
