| > If Omicron is really like a cold/flu then no it's not worth it, but do we know this for sure? Well... look at the rest of the world. I caught Delta when it burned through the American South last September. Omicron overtook Delta in January 2022 in the US, and since then the US has seen ~25m confirmed cases. If you don't know the effects of Omicron "for sure" with a sample size of 25,000,000 cases... when will you? FWIW, while Omicron is statistically significantly milder than previous variants, I don't think it's "like a cold/flu". I also don't think it's anywhere near bad enough to justify locking down a city. When I had Delta, I had about three days where I was miserable and basically useless followed by a week of being very tired and another week or so of feeling like I was recovering from the flu. I'm 38, overweight, a non-smoker, and the only relevant medical condition I have is obstructive sleep apnea. If I had to characterize my experience in "like the flu" terms, I would say that Delta was about 2-3x as bad as the worst flu I've ever had. There were three mornings where I woke up feeling like I couldn't breathe. That was scary, but a few minutes in a hot shower was sufficient to break it up enough that I didn't feel like I needed medical attention. About a week after those initial intense symptoms, I was testing negative and had no respiratory issues but was still very tired overall. I called my doctor and asked for an inhaled steroid to speed things along a bit so I could be productive. Other than that, and guaifenesin that I took when my symptoms began, there was no need for medical intervention at all. Everything I read tells me that Omicron's symptoms are substantially less pronounced than Delta's. |