@Pat I'm holding a very cautious hope that omicron is less likely to put you in hospital than the previous variants. If that's the case, we want omicron to beat delta.
Yes, if Omicron induces strong immunity to the previous variants and is much less lethal and less virulent, then it would be a benefit to have it spread through the unvaxed population. However, the article said that 15 of the guy's friends all got sick, so it sounds like it's still fairly virulent because previous variants had significant non-symptomatic spread.
We just got to wait to see how bad it is as the numbers come in.
>"So from this it is really difficult to draw any actual conclusions. without more information."
With regard to the virulence of Omicron, no, we don't really know yet.
However, it is likely that it spread beyond the group of 30, because the NYT article said that a Connecticut man tested positive for the Omicron variant after one of his relatives returned from the conference. Since that is Connecticut's first case of Omicron, the man likely caught it from his relative who attended the conference, indicating that it spread beyond those 30 people in that one group.
>"Several ways. First it encourages people to touch their face more as it can be uncomfortable and usally causes people to fidget or itch their nose."
You can't touch your nose or mouth while you're wearing a respirator, it's sealed to the face in an airtight seal. You have to take the respirator away from your face to actually tough your nose or mouth.
>"It also means you have to touch an infected mask and face everytime you drink or eat causing your hand and face to spread."
You can tough the outside of a respirator all you want, but the particles still won't penetrate the filter material.
You should never eat or drink in an area where there may be virus in the air.
>"Moreover masks are only supposed to be used for a few hours at a time, so if they arent washed and reused they become particularly infectious"
You shouldn't be spending that much time in an environment with possible virus in the air. You should only make short, essential trips. I've worn an elastomeric respirator for up to four hours at time without issue.
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> You can't touch your nose or mouth while you're wearing a respirator, it's sealed to the face in an airtight seal. You have to take the respirator away from your face to actually tough your nose or mouth.
Exactly, something I see them do constantly without almost any exceptions when I observe people. I almost never see someone who isnt constantly taking their resperator off and on.
> You can tough the outside of a respirator all you want, but the particles still won't penetrate the filter material.
Since touching the outside infects your hands and people are constantly touching their eyes or fidgeting the mask this is still a huge route for infection
> You should never eat or drink in an area where there may be virus in the air.
Except almost no one waits to get to a a clean room to take a sip from their water. So moot point. The problem with your analysis is the huge divide between what a perso should do and what virtually everyone **does** do.
> You shouldn't be spending that much time in an environment with possible virus in the air. You should only make short, essential trips. I've worn an elastomeric respirator for up to four hours at time without issue.
Again what you should do and what people actually do is the issue. In short if people had the rigor of a doctor doing surgery then respirators and masks would be quite effective Im sure. In practice however they make things much worse,
