This reminds me of people who say that "duck and cover" is useless in the face of a nuclear strike.

Obviously mitigations won't help if you're blasted in the face by an airburst (nuclear or biological), but it seems like it could still help if you're on the fringe of exposure.

I don't know how useless that would have been but in the case of Omnicron it does seem basically useless. I don't know, I don't have studies on hand or anything like that, but when you look at the numbers you have to wonder...

[edit]: maybe some of the more "extreme" (n95 masks, etc) have some decent level of protection, but I'm not sure anybody knows, at least with this variant. Even for previous variants all I've seen so far are models, which as we all know have a lot of assumptions.

Maybe it's more duck and cover in the face of lava like in South Park.

It seems active / non-retired people will have a hard time avoiding it but after all the current wave will stop like the others so maybe I'm wrong.

I don't see why that would be true if you just wear an N95 (or equivalent) mask indoors, or whenever you're in close proximity to others. Eventually, the spike will subside.

https://calmcovid.substack.com/p/youre-not-doomed-to-get-omi...

Vaxxed, wearing n95s inside and avoiding crowds outside, wfh, and not having any close personal contacts over the past few weeks, I just tested positive. Omicron is incredibly infectious and all my mitigation strategies from the past 2 years stopped working.

It's really hard to see the big picture when you're literally sitting there with a verifiable data point to the contrary (your own experience), but do you think your experience is a guaranteed outcome for everyone, or is it possible your specific situation (testing positive for COVID despite taking precautions) is either an outlier, or at least not the most common outcome?

I'm sorry you're sick, that really sucks. I hope it's asymptomatic and you can get back to living your life soon.

I think this is going to be a common outcome. I read a contact tracing case of Omicron from a Hong Kong quarantine hotel. They have a strict 21 day 0-contact quarantine for entering the country and only 4 cases a day in a city of 7 million. One positive traveler infected another traveler. The positive traveler opened the hotel door at the ordained time to retrieve food and the virus migrated to the hallway, then the other person opened their door hours later and was infected. Our previous sanitary regime is no match for something that spreads as easily as measles and that is evident in the skyrocketing case counts. How many people do you know who are positive at this moment?

"Airborne transmission across the corridor is the most probable mode of transmission."

For reference, this case is described here:

Gu H, Krishnan P, Ng DYM, Chang LDJ, Liu GYZ, Cheng SSM, et al. Probable transmission of SARS-CoV-2 omicron variant in quarantine hotel, Hong Kong, China, November 2021. Emerg Infect Dis. https://doi.org/10.3201/eid2802.212422

It’s not that they stopped working - it’s that they reduce risk to a low amount, but over time, you have more and more opportunities for something to break through that low amount.

No, it’s that Omicron is both more infectious and has significant effect immune escape.

Are you ... boosted?

A double vax from back in April or so would have substantially diminished protection by now.

Booster was scheduled for last week, 8 months post Moderna. Based on stronger Moderna immunity vs Pfizer and since I am careful, healthy and young, I decided to stretch a few more months out. Once I saw study that Moderna offered at least 10 weeks of moderate protection against Omicron, I scheduled booster. Could not get it due to symptoms.

Well, bummer, and best of luck to you then.

At least you know you did everything you reasonably could and didn't just give up like the "vaxxed and done" crowd.

Do you have any idea where you might have caught it?

It must have been while walking around outside or masked in the grocery store.