American mask makers are going out of business

Re:American mask makers are going out of business by dehrmann on Sunday March 13, 2022 @12:26AM (#30658269)

I'm not quite convinced. It's estimated 45% of Americans have been infected. The mRNA vaccines are still reasonably effective at stopping infection against Omicron. Lots of states have been open and it's spread; what's left is lockdown-happy coastal cities, but they're heavily vaccinated. I do expect some bump, though.

China has problems. They have essentially zero natural immunity, their vaccines aren't very good, and Omicron spreads really well. So well masks aren't even close to enough. Once contact tracing is overwhelmed, China will have to do large-scale lockdowns on-and-off for a while.

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Re:American mask makers are going out of business by pengaru on Sunday March 13, 2022 @01:17AM (#30658472)

One thing omicron seems to have made abundantly clear is that this virus is undergoing recombinant replication. That doesn't bode well for existing vaccines when so many hosts are unvaccinated/unexposed globally, where it can replicate and mutate readily.

The optimist in me wants to believe omicron is a sign of things to come; more infectious but less deadly variants we can largely ignore like the common cold. But what's preventing another variant emerging that's both more infectious and more deadly after ripping through one of the less vaccinated nations? The lethality aspect seems somewhat random from where I'm sitting, not an expert.

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Re:American mask makers are going out of business by daxfohl on Sunday March 13, 2022 @01:16AM (#30658469)

Also wars tend to make viruses evolve to more deadly variants since it's harder to isolate the sick, or at least that's the hypothesis about the 1918 flu.

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