It doesn't take a Ph. D in virology to know that 100% isn't it either, now that omicron is in the picture.

So I'm not sure what the intended end game of the people trying to limit the spread is. "Flatten the peak so hospitals are less likely to be overwhelmed" may or may not be realistic, but at least it's a coherent goal. "Keep vaccinating and closing things until COVID goes to zero on its own" just seems like denying the reality that COVID is endemic at this point, so any non-acute mitigation measures we want to take now had better be mitigation measures we're willing to keep taking forever.

To a certain extent, I blame the use of the term "reaching herd immunity" instead of "reaching an endemic state" for giving people unrealistic expectations.

> Keep vaccinating and closing things until COVID goes to zero on its own" just seems like denying the reality that COVID is endemic at this point

At this point, yes.

But last year? In Spring and early summer? Look at COVID cases compared to vaccination rates. Case counts were dropping fast, but then vaccination stalled. A couple months later, Delta began ripping through and we got our second wave.

I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.

I'm undecided if we should still continue masking and any restrictions at this point. I want to say "Fuck it. Everyone who wants a vax can get one, if you don't, I will have zero pity if you get infected.", but the fact is, ICU's are still being overrun.

> I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.

All omicron cases in the US can be traced back to infections from outside of the country. Getting 95% of eligible people vaccinated and getting cases within the country to zero prior to omicron being introduced would have been nice, but that alone would not have stopped the current omicron wave. We'd be in a somewhat better place now, but since a significant factor in hospitals being under load now is vaccinated medical personnel being out with covid, we'd still have a hospital load problem.

I can see maybe some justification in instituting restrictions to try to flatten the peak of the omicron wave, until such a time as case numbers start to decrease again. But such restrictions, if put in place, should be done with the understanding that all we're doing is shifting infections in time, not changing the total number of infections.

> I want to say "Fuck it. Everyone who wants a vax can get one, if you don't, I will have zero pity if you get infected.", but the fact is, ICU's are still being overrun.

This is basically where I'm at, except at this point it doesn't seem like there's any coherent idea of when the inevitable infections that occur won't overrun ICUs, and I don't particularly think it's worse to have ICUs overrun for a few weeks right now than it is to have ICUs overrun for a few weeks a month from now.

> I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.

It would not have made a difference.

Singapore, Israel and a large chunk of Western Europe had very high vaccination rates before they got pummled by a Delta wave.

And for anyone wondering if boosters are enough to quell Omicron: Israel is the perfect case study as they're currently being pummled by Omicron after having finished their booster campaign (they're onto their 4th dose now).

Are lockdowns the answer to Omicron? Well the Netherlands went into a preemptive lockdown several weeks BEFORE Omicron took off and I think their case trajectory paints a very clear picture now that Omicron has taken off (they are still in lockdown).

To me, it looks like the vaccine's efficiency in terms of reducing transmission wanes after 3-5 months and it's quite clear when you look at the different waves countries are experiencing around the world.

'I sincerely believe that we could have been through with this if we had reached 95% vaccination by July.'

Do you understand it crosses between humans and animals such as deer and even house cats? You can sincerely believe in the Easter Bunny along with sincerely believing all animals can be vaccinated on approximately the same week, but sincerely believing in something does not make it possible.

In the U.S. it's mostly kids that aren't vaccinated at this point. Among people over 18 years of age, 73.3% have at least 2 doses and 86.4% have at least 1 according to the CDC. Two shots and a booster is obviously better, but the number of adults that haven't been vaccinated at all and haven't gotten Covid at least once is dwindling.

Covid seemed to be on track to have be almost entirely wiped out in the U.S. until Delta and Omicron came along, and now it's not clear that even 100% vaccination rates would be enough.

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#vaccinations_vacc-...