Yes, it’s called a filter bubble. Covid was extremely easy to avoid pre-Omicron even without vaccines if you don’t go to nightclubs and don’t work in an office and have no kids.

But what about weddings? Church? Hospitals?

Even during the lockdown, a family friend of mine needed to go to a hospital for an unrelated issue, and that's when a nurse from there passed COVID19 to him. Then he passed COVID19 to his father. He was 35, no kids, didn't work in an office. Still got COVID19 and spread it with deadly results. Etc. etc.

Church, Weddings, Thanksgiving / Christmas / New Years, Birthday parties and other social events? Choir practice? Indoor sports like basketball or racketball? Gyms? Restaurants?

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There's a lot of social interactions between people when you start counting them up.

Hospitals can be unavoidable if you're unlucky and get hurt. Grocery stores, too, but you can minimize your trips. But the other ones? Totally voluntary and avoidable. The public health guidance around COVID has been atrocious, even as scientists learn more about how the disease spreads indoors. We're going to probably need to change our "indoor event" focused culture if we want to have any hope of getting this behind us, but it's unlikely to happen because it's inconvenient to people and there's seemingly no way to enforce a mandate. And heaven forbid people temporarily inconvenience themselves to stop a deadly pandemic!

There's no need to change our indoor event focused culture. Now that we have vaccines and other improved therapies we can just accept the risk and move on. In fact, outside the HN bubble people in some states already did that months ago.

We're not all watching the same movie.

> In fact, outside the HN bubble people in some states already did that months ago.

The issue, and this remains true today, is that hospital space is filling up fast (and did fill up in those states months ago).

A discussion must take place about balancing our individual social needs with the needs of our public health system. There was a train-derailment in Montana in 2021, and COVID19 filled up their hospitals so much that the injured needed to be driven 2+ hours away to look for hospital space / treatment.

Is that the kind of community you want to be a part of? Where your nearby doctors and nurses are not accepting any of the injured train passengers due to the overwhelming COVID19 case numbers?

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We definitely need to do our part as individuals to minimize the damage we cause to our hospital systems.

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There's something to be said that "Yes, this tradeoff is worthwhile but only for the end-of-year parties". Vs overwhelming your hospital space just to "own the libs" when no major parties / social events are even happening in the middle of August.

The thing is you can't stop it. So that leaves the question, should we stop all social gatherings for the foreseeable future and lock ourselves in our homes?

> inconvenient to people

Certainly. But why is it inconvenient to people? We don't really discuss personal issues in the public space, so I'm forced to use my own examples.

My grandma is in her late 80s and soon will be 90. She's had brain cancer decades ago, recovered, but maybe that's finally catching up to her. Our family pretty much murmurs about it behind her back, but her sharp mind simply isn't as sharp as it used to be. Every year is a diminishing of her memory, her ability to focus, her ability to hold discussions and interact with us.

To the point where she's pretty much locked herself inside her own house (we're worried about her but she refuses to live with any of her children) in most situations.

So what does this have to do with parties? Well, parties are one of the only ways we can manage to draw her out of her house and interact with us.

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I can't imagine that I'm the only one who is dealing with the diminishing mental abilities of an elderly grandparent (or parent). But my grandma's extreme stubbornness and pride makes this entire exercise more difficult.

Now sure, maybe we do have to worry about COVID19 killing her. But on the other hand, her lack of socialization and isolationism is another issue that our family struggles to find a balance with. That certainly can't be healthy either, and arguably the social part takes priority at this point.

Furthermore: COVID19 has vaccines and booster-vaccines to mitigate that particular disease. But we don't really have a "Treatment" for the social isolation she's put herself into, or general aging issues as her mental state deteriorates over the near future.

Frankly, this is probably signs that she's on her last legs. Its something we will have to come to terms with as a family, but hosting parties where she can still see us (even in this state, before she gets worse) is a priority.

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Yes. Its "inconvenient" to cut out the yearly parties out of our life. And I'm sure other people have similar stories about why _THIS_ Thanksgiving / Christmas was like no other, and why it was very important to meet up again.

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Don't get me wrong. I'm largely pro-lockdown, and pro-mask, pro-vaccine. But you cannot underestimate the importance of social interactions or family, especially since we all are in different circumstances. Sickness and health changes the calculus in many ways.

I didn't share this story last year, because I felt like the lockdowns were a needed step (pre-vaccine). But this year, I'm speaking towards opening up again and relying upon the vaccine to keep us safe. Perhaps its two-faced for me to take different stances just one year apart, but things really have changed and pushed my calculus towards the other way. After losing Thanksgiving/Christmas 2020, people are aching to see family again. And 2021 has vaccines, dexamethasone, monoclonal antibodies and the Pfizer pill. We've cut the death rate by 80%+ on treatment alone and vaccines can cut it by 90%+.

2021 is just not the same year as 2020.

The specific cases of people experiencing dementia has not only been noted during the covid-19 era, but also evidence shows that dementia patients have experienced a huge number of excess deaths. I'm personally sure my grandfather was one; he'd had it for years, and it pretty much sat at a steady state for years, while family was interacting with him enough to periodically jumpstart his mind back into lucidity. The decline after lockdown was precipitous.

That disease doesn't somehow make in-person interactions with family and friends unavoidable, though, when people don't have the disease. The fact that people with dementia requiring stimulation to stave off decline are also members of families doesn't magically make all interactions with family members medically necessary.

I generally agree with your conclusions about the change in circumstances, but I personally limit in-person social activities to a small circle of people who are also limiting in-person social activities precisely because I want to continue visiting my grandmother without killing her.

There's no reason at all in your comment on reasons to make your parties indoor, instead of outdoor like the GP said. It's like you are replying to a different comment.

Would you have a late 80s great-grandmother outside in the cold? Its 30F right now and I'm not even in a cold part of the country. I got some buddies out in the mid-west that are in 0F weather and -20F wind chill.

Realistically speaking, the party is going to be at a house of one of her children, or grand-children.

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An "outdoor" party these days is a closed tent anyway with heaters. Its practically an indoor party with the same air-flow issues except much much more expensive. Do you think I haven't looked into this?

died from omikron ?

Nah, covid in general. Clarified.

edit: Please don’t downvote the user, it was a relevant question and I only clarified my comment afterwards.

This is a very disingenious take, don't you think?

I am also German with an average social circle as I would say. Until the end of last year, I just knew of one case of Covid among all of them. Since then, a few families got it - most of them via kindergarten.

Say what you want about our Covid response but from my point of view we made it fairly well through the pandemic so far.

I also live in Germany, and similar experience. I rarely know people who have been infected with Covid, and none with Omicron. Omicron is also a bit delayed in Germany (which is good).

I live in Ireland and I know at least 100 people who have had covid, including my wife, father, mother and 2 sisters.

Omicron is prevalent here right now.

I think you know more people who have had it than I know in total.

Everyone knows everyone in Ireland. It's a blessing and a curse.

Germans are notoriously „under-tested“

My sister recently had her PCR anniversary of 100 tests. OTOH, I’m at 2 quick tests and one PCR, but I work from home and only leave for stores.

Not sure about the under-tested in general, all the public testing stations were always super busy.

I didn't know that. Is that because of access to PCR testing services or a "head in the sand" attitude?

We're in a situation now where our PCR test system has pretty much fallen apart.

I live here and know many ;) But in the north, we generally made it through it better (recent club openings with mass infections notwithstanding, I do not know people who go to mega-clubs during a pandemic).

If I compare it with Belgium it's cases are better but deaths is relatively worse to the other stat, which is kinda weird. Unless they don't test much.

But Belgium also overcounts deaths ( should be /2 when I checked in 2020), which means any untested death is counted as COVID. Most people don't seem to be aware of that.

https://www.dw.com/en/belgiums-coronavirus-overcounting-cont...

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/0...