23 hours ago, Tigerpride94 said:

178.26 today.

161.81 today.

3 hours ago, Tigerpride94 said:

161.81 today.

I will admit defeat.  Omicron during the holiday surge seemingly lasted longer than expected,  atleast on my end.  I expected a peak and decline a few weeks ago. 

I had a very interesting conversation with an MD who also had a phd in epidemiology.  He feels, as we all so, that Covid is here to stay and, like the flu we should get a yearly vaccine..  He also said that he would not hesitate to get his 2 year old vaccinated because the mRNA technology has been studied for decades. On the bad side for me, he said there is a big push for all health care workers to wear masks from now on, as it has been proven to stop the spread of flu and other contagious diseases.  Wish I had more time to talk with him as he was very interesting.

8 hours ago, sportsfan41 said:

I will admit defeat.  Omicron during the holiday surge seemingly lasted longer than expected,  atleast on my end.  I expected a peak and decline a few weeks ago. 

Not easy to predict the exact week.

9 hours ago, sportsfan41 said:

I will admit defeat.  Omicron during the holiday surge seemingly lasted longer than expected,  atleast on my end.  I expected a peak and decline a few weeks ago. 

It is declining a week or so later than I expected and at a slower rate than I expected.

7 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

It is declining a week or so later than I expected and at a slower rate than I expected.

In my 20/20 looking back goggles, I do think my week or two into January prediction may have been accurate.  A lot of folks have stopped testing.  I don't know, it's hard to tell.  I'm just hoping things continue to trend in the right direction.  

3 hours ago, Beechwoodfan said:

I had a very interesting conversation with an MD who also had a phd in epidemiology.  He feels, as we all so, that Covid is here to stay and, like the flu we should get a yearly vaccine..  He also said that he would not hesitate to get his 2 year old vaccinated because the mRNA technology has been studied for decades. On the bad side for me, he said there is a big push for all health care workers to wear masks from now on, as it has been proven to stop the spread of flu and other contagious diseases.  Wish I had more time to talk with him as he was very interesting.

At this point, masks are, shall we say interesting.  I don't..... long pause,  racking my brain here.  I don't disagree that they're advantageous to an extent but I also don't think they're realistic. For every person I've laughed at for wearing one in a car alone.  I've seen just as many plus a lot, not wearing it properly in a role that mandates it.  Perhaps thay will change, time will tell.  

11 minutes ago, sportsfan41 said:

At this point, masks are, shall we say interesting.  I don't..... long pause,  racking my brain here.  I don't disagree that they're advantageous to an extent but I also don't think they're realistic. For every person I've laughed at for wearing one in a car alone.  I've seen just as many plus a lot, not wearing it properly in a role that mandates it.  Perhaps thay will change, time will tell.  

At this point, other than healthcare facilities, I don't see why people need to wear masks.

But then you get people like the man who sat across the desk from me a couple weeks ago coughing his head off with no mask claiming it was sinuses, only to test positive for COVID 2 days later. It didn't concern me for myself because I am triple vax plus a COVID breakthrough infection, and I got nothing from that meeting despite his coughing session. But I am concerned for him and anyone he contacted who wasn't vaccinated or previously infected.

Despite people like that, everyone has made their decision on vaccination and everyone can deal with the risks they have chosen. Time to take the masks off and move on.

4 hours ago, Beechwoodfan said:

I had a very interesting conversation with an MD who also had a phd in epidemiology.  He feels, as we all so, that Covid is here to stay and, like the flu we should get a yearly vaccine..  He also said that he would not hesitate to get his 2 year old vaccinated because the mRNA technology has been studied for decades. On the bad side for me, he said there is a big push for all health care workers to wear masks from now on, as it has been proven to stop the spread of flu and other contagious diseases.  Wish I had more time to talk with him as he was very interesting.

Next time you talk to him or anyone making this claim please ask for the science/studies that support it.  I sure can't find it anywhere and like I have said a long time ago, if there really was a legitimate, peer reviewed study showing the effectiveness of masks it would be plastered everywhere and we all would know of its existence, how to access it, know exactly which masks to wear and not to wear, and clearly understand the "science" of the masks.

This article is another "deep dive" on the subject where German researchers evaluated 65 mask studies.  The research focused on undesirable side effects of wearing masks but it also included some relevant information to the efficacy of masks in general.  Here is just a little bit from this deep dive:

A recent experimental study even demonstrated that all mask-wearing people (surgical, N95, fabric masks) release significantly and proportionately smaller particles of size 0.3 to 0.5 μm into the air than mask-less people, both when breathing, speaking and coughing [98]. According to this, the masks act like nebulizers and contribute to the production of very fine aerosols. Smaller particles, however, spread faster and further than large ones for physical reasons. Of particular interest in this experimental reference study was the finding that a test subject wearing a single-layer fabric mask was also able to release a total of 384% more particles (of various sizes) when breathing than a person without [98].

In a meta-analysis of evidence level Ia commissioned by the WHO, no effect of masks in the context of influenza virus pandemic prevention could be demonstrated [130]. In 14 randomized controlled trials, no reduction in the transmission of laboratory-confirmed influenza infections was shown. Due to the similar size and distribution pathways of the virus species (influenza and Corona, see above), the data can also be transferred to SARS-CoV-2 [118]. 

A recently published large prospective Danish comparative study comparing mask wearers and non-mask wearers in terms of their infection rates with SARS-CoV2 could not demonstrate any statistically significant differences between the groups [132].

The potential drastic and undesirable effects found in multidisciplinary areas illustrate the general scope of global decisions on masks in general public in the light of combating the pandemic. According to the literature found, there are clear, scientifically recorded adverse effects for the mask wearer, both on a psychological and on a social and physical level.

Neither higher level institutions such as the WHO or the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) nor national ones, such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, GA, USA (CDC) or the German RKI, substantiate with sound scientific data a positive effect of masks in the public (in terms of a reduced rate of spread of COVID-19 in the population) [2,4,5].

The history of modern times shows that already in the influenza pandemics of 1918–1919, 1957–58, 1968, 2002, in SARS 2004–2005 as well as with the influenza in 2009, masks in everyday use could not achieve the hoped-for success in the fight against viral infection scenarios [67,144]. The experiences led to scientific studies describing as early as 2009 that masks do not show any significant effect with regard to viruses in an everyday scenario [129,145]. Even later, scientists and institutions rated the masks as unsuitable to protect the user safely from viral respiratory infections [137,146,147]. Even in hospital use, surgical masks lack strong evidence of protection against viruses [67].

https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/8/4344/htm

There is much, much more information available at the above link but in short they say more research is needed and the side effects of masks are clinically relevant.

4 hours ago, Voice of Reason said:

At this point, other than healthcare facilities, I don't see why people need to wear masks.

But then you get people like the man who sat across the desk from me a couple weeks ago coughing his head off with no mask claiming it was sinuses, only to test positive for COVID 2 days later. It didn't concern me for myself because I am triple vax plus a COVID breakthrough infection, and I got nothing from that meeting despite his coughing session. But I am concerned for him and anyone he contacted who wasn't vaccinated or previously infected.

Despite people like that, everyone has made their decision on vaccination and everyone can deal with the risks they have chosen. Time to take the masks off and move on.

It's kinda funny because I feel ya. I had the Vid in 2020.  I've done all of the Vax stuff.  It almost feels like a tour of duty. I spent some time on the sidelines, but right now, I walk around like it was 2019 99% of the time. 

1 hour ago, sportsfan41 said:

It's kinda funny because I feel ya. I had the Vid in 2020.  I've done all of the Vax stuff.  It almost feels like a tour of duty. I spent some time on the sidelines, but right now, I walk around like it was 2019 99% of the time. 

And that is where we all should be at this time.

________________________________

Ironic that the people complaining the loudest about all this are the very reason why it is still such a big problem now.

1 hour ago, Voice of Reason said:

And that is where we all should be at this time.

________________________________

Ironic that the people complaining the loudest about all this are the very reason why it is still such a big problem now.

Not sure I fully agree.  At this point, it just is what it is. 

5 minutes ago, sportsfan41 said:

Not sure I fully agree.  At this point, it just is what it is. 

True to some extent. I don't think COVID would be gone. I do think hospitalizations, ICU and deaths would have dropped a long time ago and we would be much closer to "normal".

8 minutes ago, Voice of Reason said:

True to some extent. I don't think COVID would be gone. I do think hospitalizations, ICU and deaths would have dropped a long time ago and we would be much closer to "normal".

I think folks are misreading decisions. My take. 

25 minutes ago, sportsfan41 said:

I think folks are misreading decisions. My take. 

 I don't understand what you are saying.