I just got over Covid; my symptoms went away yesterday.

My friend, who has been over my house since Wednesday, had covid a little worse than me; only double vaxxed (last vax was Pfizer in Nov).

I had some fatigue and headache beteen Fri - Sunday with the brunt of it on Saturday evening.

This strain appears to not affect the lungs; only the upper respiratory. I think this is the beginning of the end of covid. I think the media is overblowing Omicron a bit; this is no worse than the common cold.

That said, I don't disagree with Obsy that Omicron is not dangerous like previous strains, espeically if you are vaccinated, according to the little data I have seen so far.

In fact, there has only been 1 fatality from Omicron in the U.S. - To the point of Shooty, the flu is more dangerous than this. 

Hopefully this virus follows suit with all major deadly viruses and keeps mutating to be no worse than the common cold.

My only concern, for those of us who have kids, is that the number of pediatric hospitalizations have gone way up with Omicron, due in part to the nature of Omicron in that it affects upper respiratory mostly and little to no impact on the lungs.

Anyway, figured i'd share my personal experience with Omicron.

Hope you all stay safe

Glad you are well, Buddha.

Wife got Omni Crayon snifles this weekend too. Not vaxfed. She recovered in the same timeframe as you. 
And the vaccinations are not necessary. But do you think those who have skimmed Billions off this "pandemic"

want to hear or acknowledge that ??

Common sense says "No"

Im in an airport lobby as we speak.

sheeple wearing masks boarding the plane

dutifully accept a Clorox wipe 

robotically handed out by a stewardess as they step through the door

"Symbolism over substance "  

IF you treat people like cattle...
They soon start acting that way.

Then they are easier to fleece, tax,

and work for less and less.

When does it Stop, Buddha? 
__SS

For Omicron, you and I agree. It's a cold, if that.

For Delta, it's more serious 

For prior to delta, it's a LOT more serious.

If we can be sure that Omicron is the only thing floating around, then yes, this thing should be ending.

THat said though, my aunt in Long Island is unable to get into the hospital because it is being overwhelmed with covid cases. Yes, less severe, but the hospitals again are being overwhelmed...Just because of the sheer number of cases.

It's actually causing more issues for pediatric patients

And just as we though this was mild, perhaps these two had the delta strain:

France's famed Bogdanoff twins die of COVID after rejecting vaccines (yahoo.com)

I am glad that things turned out OK, hope you do not go thru that again.

Covid has shown us two different methods the goverment can take when this type of crisis comes to the states.

Trump, made a point that each state would run the state individual program and the federal government would support them as needed.  On the federal level some travel to the states was restricted, but the states were allowed their very own mandates.  I remember that NO state went without what was required, there was NO shortage of anything. Because of state requests even Navy Hospital ships were made available, but not used.  Even our much debated vaccine was produced under Trump as he put the goverment to work managing what the materials needed and requested by the states.

Then came along Biden, as he took over he injected more and more federal control, more and more central planning, mandates started to come from the White House.  He started what many of us on the right consider, Socialism, big government control over our lives.  No wonder some started to reject, the socialist approach.  Now there is a shortage of tests and a shortage of treatment.  Bidens White House has taken control and failed.   for example both Regeneron and Eli Lilly treatments have to be ordered from the Department of Health and Human Sevices and not directly from the companies.  Why because the goverment needEd to control the supply, they failed to insure supplies were available.  The handling of COVID has now failed us as the incompetent goverment took over.  You will have a hard time convincing me that what Biden has done did any good, all it has done is put tax dollars into the pockets of his supporters.

In my mind this is a good example of what works and what fails!  It shows the value of the best goverment is the one closest to the people, "state governments".   It show the value of the 10 amendment, which Biden disregards and the failure of socialist type programs.

With Omicron, we are now learning that the strain is mostly like a cold.

With prior to Omicron, there were a lot of deaths. I just got word that my friend's husband died the last day of the year. It was ugly. I posted it above.

This pandemic has a lot of sides to it. I wholeheartedly beleive that it's better to be a little bit more on the cautious side than lax like Trump. 

What was even more concerning was why after Trump got the booster, did his own supporters boo him?

Boosters are great for preventing serious illness if you are exposed to Delta, or a previous strain. Those strains are still very real. 

Thank you for the well wishes Old Guy. I felt like a zombie (no pun intended) on Sat/Sun, but feeling almost back to normal now. I'm fairly certain I had Omicron as I was triple vaxxed - 

In reality Trump was not lax, he exorcised the power he had, if anyone was lax it was some of the states.  Your state killed many more by horrific decisions.  All Trump did was down play something so there was no out of control citizens.  If the constitution is to be the rule of the land, then Trump did awesome,  he did push federal power when needed and allowed states to pursue different avenues.

you have taken the booing all wrong, people did not Boo Trump because he took the vaccine, they booed the vaccine.  if you consider the right believes in personal responsibility, why would they Boo when someone takes it.  They just Booed the vaccine, they will Boo it, anytime it comes up.  It is not what people were told it was, it may help once you get COVID, but other heath issues may have a bigger effect.  The vaccine is not the most popular thing in the US, Trump is more popular.

why do you on the left always look at the federal goverment for help on any issue?  It appears that you always think the federal government has the answer for all of us.  The constitution does not say that the government will provide Heath and welfare, it says the government should promote Heath and Welfare, big difference.  But for some reason the left always wants to give it away (for free), control and regulate our lives, cradle to grave.    Biden is a prime example and it has lead to failures in all his programs.

Old guy, it sounds like you have held leadership positions in your life like I have. 

A leader sets the tone and coordinates all the resources; that's why we have a federal government and agencies like the FDA, FCC, FAA, NTSB, etc. They're not perfect, but they do a good job considering beurocracy of organizations. 

When a pandemic affects the nation, which it did and is, it is the responsibility of the federal government to take the lead as opposed to 50 states having their own stratgy. There are other things that are better left to the state governments, but this is not one of them. That's why Obama created the pandemic repsonse and monitoring teams, which were largely defunded under Trump. It's so sad that the Pandemic monitoring team in China left months before the pandemic started. 

"Your state killed more people"? How so?

When Trump downplayed the severity of the virus and muzzled experts, that caused damage and harm. It created a culture that the Virus is really not that serious and we shouldn't be concerned about it. I don't have to play back all the soundbites where he led people into believing it's no worse than the cold or even the flu.

The data is real:

Not only have I had management positions, I have owned and operated a Helicopter Company.  One of the few Bell 214 operators there was, yes I have been around the block.  That is why I have a very hard time with you thinking the federal government can set the tone and coordinate the resources, my experience they are a huge failure at many of their endeavors.  Have you gone fire fighting, what about forestry contracts, sky lift construction on goverment property, I can't think of any of goverment job that didn't have issues.

I can remember once when we needed to get the ship inspected to fight fires, the government experts needed to inspect it and issue a fire fighting card.  When they showed up for the inspection the ship was out working.  Crew called us in and as we approach the landing site the inspector said "God, that is big".  He had never seen a real S61 before!  That is your great goverment at work!  I have thousands of stories just like this.  If you think about it so do you, as you work with the FAA.

I have no reason to not to believe you about red vs blue death rates.  I do know for fact that state you live in had the highest death rate in the world at one time.  Currently you are at number 3.  There is much more that goes into a generic death tate than politics.  Such as general Heath, available care and  religious concepts.  And for any of us to think that a goverment can make plans to control a virus, is foolish.  Most of the time all they can figure out is when to have lunch.

Never flown a 214! Looks like a pretty bad ass helicopter. Used to enjoy flyign the B3 and L3 for the news back in the day. Wish the 429 was granted the MGW increase so it could be used for Medevac.

That said, we will always be able to find examples of government inefficiencies. I've seen some disasters happen that just were beyond words. Not only here, but in governments in other parts of the world. 

I'll never forget...I was on an African Safari a few months ago (I do nature photography for fun). We went to go pay our park fees and two government employees were sitting there doing ZILCH. When the three of us asked to pay, they said "You can pay at the base camp if you want". The tour guide was like, "Well, we're here now, why don't we just pay here". They didn't want to be interrupted.

Yes, this kind of mentality exists with some employees, not only government employees...

That said, imagine Air Traffic Control or the FDA was on a state by state basis? That would be an absolute disaster. There are some things that are better to be managed on a federal basis (like the military, FAA, FDA, CIA, NSA, etc) and others that I agree, should be left to the state.

There are benefits to economies of scale and centralized management in many, but not all instances. The response to covid, being uniform and attempts towards lack of ambiguity are key so that a common and consistent message goes across the airwaves...

Now, as far as PPE, that's up for discussion. As far as vaccines, I prefer that to be on the national level.

btw, how have you and your family been with Covid? 1/5th of the people I know in New Jersey have gotten covid, or so it seems. Luckily everybody I know was pretty mild (they were all vaxxed).

The death rate in New Jersey may had been high in the beginning, in part because it is the most densely populated state in the nation, its proximity to NYC, which was the hub for the most cases coming ino the country. Once the CDC changed the guidelines and recommended masks, their numbers dropped.

I guess that's to say that I'm a trends guy. I look at trends....not a singular point in time. I look to see, in the long-run, what worked... In the beginning, we are in information gathering mode. As we gather data, we forumlate a strategy, apply it, then re-measure and re-assess. 

The 429 got it's weight increase of 500 a while back, two of them are used here in Idaho for EMS.  They have been in service now for 5 or 6 years.  From what I know, the flight crews love them, but the owner says the cost per hour is much higher then projected.  The 214 was awesome, sooo much power!  Trans would take 1800 HP and the engine at sea level produced over 4,000 HP.  It had a VNE for climb.

I can not think of a single thing that free enterprise could not do better than the government, not one thing!  
It has been said that if the government produced beer it would be over $100.00 a 6 pac.  One of the big items about costs is goverment math,  None of the goverment works on standard accounting rules and procedures.  For example they don't account future retirement funds as current costs.  Funny goverment accounting does not indicate true costs, I really think they have NO clue.

Did they finally approve the MGW increase to 7500 in the USA? Last I recall, the FAA was the only authorzing agency that did not allow the increase. Transport Canada did. I hope I am wrong about this as I'm friends with a product manger who was on the 429 team years ago; she has since left. 

Bell Announces Weight Increase for 429 - Vertical Mag

I flew it twice, demo machines, at HAI and at the Eastern Region Helicopter council event. Great helicopter I thought. Very powerful. Politics, unfortunately, prevented the MGW increase, last I recall - Let me know if you find otherwise - I took a look at the Bell website and they are still listing it as 7,000 MGW for the US.

I will not disgree with you that free-enterprise, more times than not, is more efficient. Why? They have a profit incentive and motive. The question is, what SHOULD be privatized and what should remain under the government.

Healthcare is a topic near and dear to my heart. Having been on a volunteer rescue squad for more than a decade, then as medevac pilot for almost a decade, I've seen my share of the good and bad with healthcare. I've been on the end of standing by on a flight because the patient's insurance would not pay for a procedure or the patient didn't have healthcare and they were looking to get charity care to pay for a specialized procedure. I remember we had to fly a patient from New Jersey to manhattan to get a specialized heart procedure at Columbia Presby (where they saved my Father's life, God bless that amazing group of Doctors).

So, my thoughts on our healthcare system. We haver reverse socialism in this country. Our health cost per patient is 2x that of the next highest in the world. Our outcomes are the same or worse than many countries.

On the other hand, the medicare system, run by the government, seems to be one of the most efficient forms of health insurance in this country. They don't work to try to deny claims, unlike private health insurance companies. 

We have a splintered system where the negotiating power of the individual insurance companies is so small with drug and medical device companies. Their limited negotiating power creates far higher costs for the consumer, whereas, in single-payer systems, the negotiated price for medication is significantly lower.

You can argue, and I would partially agree with you, that in certain single-payer systems, like Canada, there is rationed care. Not all single-payer systems are setup equally. 

A system like France is probably a model for the rest of the world. Here are some graphs that show healthcare spending

This shows how private enterprise stacks up against government run ...

Private enterprise spends dramatically more on healthcare in the US with same or worse outcomes...

I'm just clearing up a chest cold.

Fully flu and covid vaxxed, but nothing for colds. The good news is that hot toddy of whisky, honey and lemon work really well, even after you run out of honey and lemon. Out of whisky? Rum works too.

And I had an excuse to skip the massive family gatherings for Christmas and New Years. You vill zit zere! And you vill enchoy yourzelf! Ve haf vays! My 24 year old 6 foot son still gets the kids table....