Virological characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 BA2 variant: more pathogenic than BA1

"a group" -->There are many reasons why people are not getting vaccinated.

"oppositional defiant disorder" -->This seems like a diagnosis, sans any solid source data. Unwise, inadvisable, and not helpful, IMHO.

Reasons I've been given for not getting a vaccine:

>Concern over side effects / complications.

>Unable to trust. This is general, ranging from corruption / financial motives, to media inconsistency, and more.

>Large parts of the world lack vaccine. This is mostly linked to boosters, supply, other concerns.

>Religion -->Don't ask, I don't fully understand either.

>Defiance, as you say, mostly political.

>Desire to seek natural immunity, coupled with lack of desire to catch an infection.

>Waiting it all out. This is a dead end, "maybe I won't catch it and it all goes away" fantasy, maybe your "disorder" in action. I don't know and won't diagnose for shits and giggles either.

Given my, admittedly broad but also anecdotal data collected from various parts of the nation, this "group" is far looser than your statement would align with. There is a fair amount of basic defiance out there. I'm not at all convinced it is a disorder, in the sense of needing treatment, or coercion as we've seen happening in various ways.

Personally, I'm not judging anyone for their choices in this matter. I also very strongly urge anyone I can to get a vaccine. Not anti in the least, however I am anti-conflict, and I've got what I feel is a solid basis for that:

Given we do grant some serious weight to the word "novel", as in we are getting data the hard way right now as much as we are through science, the fact is we just don't know things we would really like to know. And by "know", I mean having high confidence here, not necessarily absolutes, just to be ultra clear.

Given that, many people presenting trust issues, cite inconsistent statements made by officials, the media, and a very strong financial motivation they consider a matter of concern. Fact is, I don't agree with their reasoning, but I would definitely NOT characterize it as some disorder.

Let me re-frame the question:

How long are you willing to endure pandemic control measures?

TL;DR: As long as it takes.

My family just got over a case of Omicron. We caught the O.G. Covid early on in 2020. And that was rough. Details are in my comment history, but let's just say this is not something I would ever want to repeat. We got through it, and some longer term fatigue lasting far beyond the infection running it's course aside, returned to normal some months after. Vaccines were available some time after that, and we got them, except for our youngest who is just now about to turn 6 years old later this year.

We got the mRNA type, Moderna and Pfizer. We then got our boosters basically on schedule, aaaaaaand then?

Yeah, we caught Omicron. Whoop-de-doo!

It's not as rough as O.G. Covid was. We got it from an event where some people sent sick kids and basically infected some 50 families, ours included. Some of those families are unknown to me, a few were not vaccinated, and the remainder were vaccinated. We were one of the few families who had Covid of any kind and were vaccinated.

Our cases were all similar, and I again have longer term fatigue running longer than the course of the infection did. Not happy about that. Our cases were far less severe than O.G. Covid was. Notably, we did not infect anyone else with O.G. Covid, but we did end up infecting someone else and we used the same control measures we did originally. Omicron is said to be far more catchy, and our experiences align with that well enough.

I'm writing this because characterizing people who have not vaccinated as having some disorder isn't helping anyone.

Clearly, one can become infected and see a full case of Covid whether they are vaccinated or not. One can become infected whether they have "natural" immunity too. And that sucks. The numbers on that are small, and there is some variance in play too. I don't know how much.

If you ask me, everyone is going to get Covid. Ideally, it's a lower severity than the O.G Covid was.

IMHO, best move for everyone, sans the smallish set of people who may see a high risk of side effects / complications from the vaccine, is to get vaccinated.

Our biggest problem remains communicating that in a way that more people will trust. That is not all on them. In some cases, yeah it is on them, but who really knows what those numbers are?

Right now, it does appear like Omicron will "vaccinate" a considerable number of people. We do not know how effective that will prove out to be. We are not even all that sure the vaccines will prove effective beyond keeping death rates low, and for how long, against which variants, all of them? Nobody really knows. That data is coming in live, as we all experience this mess.

We are much better at treating Covid now.

When we had O.G Covid, the death rates, computed from outcomes (dead people / survivors ) were somewhere around 10 percent!! I myself should have been in a hospital, but at the time that was a scary proposition. Many people were put on ventilators and everyone hoped for the best. Not good. I had a couple very rough nights, but remained lucid with low, but not critical O2 levels, so I powered through.

Today, the death percentages are harder to compute from outcomes, due to home testing and various reporting inconsistencies, gaps, but they appear a few orders lower than they once were. This is GREAT news in general, but still a healthy risk people will want to avoid, and those numbers do include too many people in the hospitals getting treatments we are short staffed for and will be for some time yet, but that we are much better and more successful at beating the disease now too.

Now, to answer your question:

For us? As long as it takes. Seriously. Nobody likes any of it. Masks. Limiting travel. Avoiding crowds. Wiping crap down. So. Much. Wiping. Crap. Down...

But, there are positives. We are not catching the usual parade of crud. That has been nice enough to be notable! Frankly, almost worth it for that alone. No joke. It's been very nice to not be sick off and on through normally crud heavy times.

The negatives are ugly though. No joke there either.

I work with someone who is immune deficient. She got her vaccine and had a pretty rough time of it. Booster was a bit better, but not good. My own vaccine experiences were moderate to fair. Nothing I would consider a worry. Same goes for my spouse.

But yeah, as long as it takes.

In my family, we are roughly split. Those of us living in the more rural part of the State are wanting the controls to end yesterday. When I visit, and I just did recently, people are not doing it for the most part anyway. Saw masks on some people, but most of them were just doing their thing, maybe snagging a glob of hand sanitizer more than one would expect of pre-Covid times.

Some of them just got Omicron. The others may vaccinate, but it may all be too late now too. I don't know. Very soon, we can compare experiences. Omicron, sans prior infection, sans vaccine. Chances are great I won't be attending a funeral.

I will be ultra frank here:

Not sure we know enough yet. We are staying on control plan for a while. This is all going to have to play out and our decision is to keep risks to a minimum. We are basing that on us getting Covid again, despite vaccination and having an infection prior to getting the vaccine. Who is to say we won't end up with a third case? I sure can't say that. I am not sure anyone can!

A whole lot of people are having to come to grips with what "novel" really means too.

The other thing I can say with increasing confidence is we won't be returning to "normal" pre-covid times anytime soon. It's the world plus Covid now. I am quite sure I just don't know what that means.

For the most part, we think the controls are a PITA, but not the end of the world. Our biggest worry is school for our young granddaughter. She's going to turn 6 this year and we do not have a vaccine approval yet.

Work is an adjustment, but a whole lot of that has been a net positive!! Who knew? We can do a lot more remotely than we realized, and that has been good all around. One person is higher risk, and that does mean maintaining good protocols at work, and that's not so good in the quality of work life sense, but overall no big deal.

Plan?

In all honesty, "Stay on control plan, maintain a low risk profile and watch it play out." Not sure what else we can do, besides abandon it all, and for what exactly?

Finally, I realize this is long, but I also feel your question should be taken seriously. Maybe more of us having these conversations would do some good. I know it has done our family some good with some deciding to get vaccinated, who just a short time ago were "never going to do it."