This is Jack Huttig in Portland. Is your group hosting any in-person events? Why/why not?
If you are, what kind of conditions are you setting (vaccinated only, etc.) and/or what precautions are you taking? Would love any feedback you can offer.
I am not sure about what you are looking for.
If you are asking about this forum, the question is senseless.
If you are asking about our life, I can try.
The only group of which i am a member is a group of Table top role players. During the lock-down and curfew periods, we played by net. Nowadays we play together every week. Every one is vaccinated and i will get my booster next week.
In France if you want to leave your usual life, go to cinema, restaurants and so, you need a sanitary pass and masks in closed places.
To get a sanitary pass you must be fully vaccinated and if last dose is six months old, you must get a booster. Or you must test and the validity test lasts 24 h.
France is very worried as a new wave of the virus is spreading variant D, and the variant omicron is also present.
How many French are upset that they need to take medical precautions such a masks?
In France, wearing a mask is compulsory in closed public places, and it is globally respected. It is recommended in crowded open public places, as markets and it is more or less respected. It is rather not in places as stadiums. In places as discotheques, it is not.
A study has just been published :
Google translated:
Where are we most at risk of getting infected?
Unsurprisingly, “in bars, at sports and at school”, states the one who is also a member of the collective Du Côté de la Science. Results verified by comparing the activities of infected people with those of control people. By combining the data, we obtain what specialists call the “adjusted odd ratio” or aOR, a number that allows you to assess the risk of getting infected compared to the average.
Thus, bars (aOR of 1.9, or 90% more chance), and parties (in discos or private, with an aOR of 3.4) are places particularly at risk for those under 40. The aOR there even exploded to 5.2 and 15.1 for this age group between June 13 and July 12. This is also the case more generally for private ceremonies (marriage, funeral, aOR of 1.7) and at work, the aOR of retirees and the unemployed being 0.5. In short, “all the times when we take the mask off” and where there is relaxation, explains Michaël Rochoy.
Parents over 40 with children in nursery or primary (1.6 and 1.4) are also more exposed. And when it comes to sport, only those practiced indoors seem problematic with regard to the famous aOR.
Regarding transport, air travel and long-distance train travel increase the risk of contamination (1.7 and 1.3), as well as subways. But this is not the case with other public transport, contrary to popular belief: on the contrary, the adjusted odd ratio goes down to 0.7 in the bus and the tram, “where there is better control of the port of mask, ”insists the doctor. The results were differentiated in the use of the car: the risks of contamination are much higher when taken with family and friends (1.3) than in the context of carpooling (0.5). If it would first be necessary to confirm that the mask falls or remains on the nose as the case may be, “this can be a good demonstration that even in an enclosed space, we are much less at risk by wearing the mask”, estimates the specialist. .
[Covid-19 : Quels sont les lieux où on se contamine-t-on le plus ?]
Masks are globally respected - that’s worth underlining
Not to wear mask when it is compulsory can cost you a fine of 150 US $
Beyond that, except a minority, everyone accepts the necessity.
And, for instance, the restaurants and coffee shops must check that theirs guest have their sanitary passes. the police controls. every guest who has no pass risks a fine of 150 $ and the restaurant owner risks to be closed for 7 vdays and if he commits 3 offenses during 45 days, a fine up to 10 200 $, and one year of detention.
NETHERLANDS - The Dutch gendarmerie announced this Sunday, November 28 that it had arrested a couple on a plane at Amsterdam-Schiphol airport who had “fled” a hotel where passengers who were positive for Covid-19 from South Africa had been placed in quarantine.
“The Dutch Royal Constabulary at Schiphol arrested a couple this evening who had fled from a quarantine hotel,” spokesperson Stan Verberkt told AFP.
“The arrests took place on a plane about to take off. They were on a plane leaving for Spain, ”he added.
The couple, made up of a 30-year-old Spaniard and a 28-year-old Portuguese woman, were handed over to health authorities, according to the gendarmerie.
The incident comes after Dutch authorities announced that 13 people, out of 61 who tested positive for Covid-19 on two flights arriving at the airport on Friday, had been infected with the new Omicron variant.
Prosecutions for “endangering public safety” were being launched this Sunday evening.
A spokeswoman for the Dutch health authority, Stefanie van Waardenburg, said the couple were again in solitary confinement, but not in the same hotel. One is positive, the other negative but subject to quarantine.
A comment ? Einstein said :
“Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I’m not sure about the universe!”
Epidemic in France:
France is getting it fifth wave. We have as many daily cases then during the first ones in April/ May 2020, and October 2020. The big difference is that there are many less people admitted in hospital, roughly 1200 every day, against 3500 or 2500, many less people admitted daily in intensive care units, 250 against more than 500, and many less daily deaths in hospital, 120 against more than 400 hundreds .
The reason: more than 75 % of adults are fully vaccinated. Vaccinated people represent only 10 % of entries in intensive care units.
My writer group of five had one in person meeting outdoors, then we went back to zoom once the variants started
About the Omicron variant, the French scientific council cites two impressive sources of contagion. The first took place on November 26 at a restaurant in Oslo: 70 of the 120 doubly vaccinated people present at a Christmas dinner were infected, along with 50 others who were in the restaurant. The second cluster, on the other hand, happened at a night out between high school students in Denmark: 53 of the 150 participants were infected.
He recommends strengthening barrier gestures, hoping that tri-vaccinated people will be better protected.
My sister-in-law is a Canadian hospital doctor in Toronto, Ontario.
Canada registers 10,000 cases per day for a population of 38 millions. The hospital is full, including extra beds to be kept for extreme emergencies. Staff are lacking for many reasons.
They no longer accept the claim of unvaccinated about their individual freedom. They consider that they have no respect for the nursing staff.
People who have been vaccinated are still less likely to end up in the hospital.
For information, Canada has a population of 38 million inhabitants, and a vaccination rate of about 75%.
By way of comparison, France has a population of 67.4 million, an equivalent vaccination rate and more than 50,000 new cases every day.
At this point, to me, unvaccinated people are fools, cowards, and selfish people.
[How Omicron Evades Natural Immunity, Vaccination, And Monoclonal Antibody Treatments]
Edited on the 29th of december, 2021, given the three posts limit
I have listened on TV a very interesting debate in medical ethics.
Hospital receiving too many patients must choose whose ones will go in ICU. Must they give priority to the vaccinated ones over the unvaccinated ?
All doctors said no. But they said that as one of the criterion for choosing is the probability to recover, vaccinated people get an advantage.
The other topic was : What they should say to a patient with a cancer whose surgery is postponed that it is because an unvaccinated case of COVID takes his place, and that he looses a serious chance of recovery, his cancer which is phase 1, risking to become a phase 3 cancer ?