Coronavirus (COVID-19) Discussion Thread

[haxxiy]

SvennoJ said:

New measures announced in Ontario:
- limit of 5 people indoors
- most shops/venues closed or limited to 50% capacity
- schools stay closed for 2 weeks
First two for at least 3 weeks.

This might have been effective if we had done that before Christmas, too late now.

I like the specific "indoor" dining to close and limited capacity outside, while it's -11c lol. Finish your food before it turns solid!

At least they're honest now, we're not going to stop it, it will hit us like a tsunami, hundreds of thousands of cases a day, we're just trying to blunt the impact to keep the hospitals going.

Hospitalizations are already going up, 20 to 30% absenteeism expected across the board due to people getting sick.

Meanwhile I don't think Israel is considering much in the way restrictions despite coming to the same conclusion:

https://www.timesofisrael.com/up-to-a-third-of-israelis-predicted-to-get-covid-in-next-3-weeks-tests-running-out/

Speaking to Army Radio, Segal said that “from a certain stage — 20,000 or 30,000 infections per day — we will become oblivious to the numbers because we don’t have enough tests. The test apparatus is already collapsing.”

“What will happen, like what is happening all over the world, is that the restrictions that somewhat worked [against other variants] will simply be ineffective against Omicron, and the stop will only come when almost everyone who could get infected gets infected,” he told Ynet, predicting that would take around three weeks before numbers start to drop.

In the end I think any measures at this point will only marginally prolong the pandemic, although in a few places they might be socially necessary.