(01-16-2022, 05:36 PM)homebiscuit Wrote: The biggest issue I see with omicron is the word COVID associated with it is more harmful than the virus. There are no breathless reports of overwhelmed hospitals and morgues and everyone I know who has contracted omicron had symptoms as similar and brief as a bad cold. At what point do we stop overreacting and just start taking it in stride like we do with every other virus?

The really unfortunate thing is that it's killing people that are vaccinated/boosted. Hopefully, it's not a lot, but even a few is bad. I am seeing stories of COVID taking out people (including higher risk people) that are not only vaccinated but boosted. I am concerned for the more vulnerable people in the population who are doing everything they can to protect themselves. At least a few of my co-workers that have/possibly have COVID are higher risk. And I am concerned their symptoms may be serious as a few of them have come to work before and had milder cold symptoms but they still worked. This was some time before they ever tested positive for COVID.

One is a married couple, where the husband is high risk and the wife has gotten at least one COVID test before in the past, several months ago to see if she had it. She tested negative then, but they've displayed milder cold/allergy symptoms before and were able to either work or come back to work as quickly as they could. I think their symptoms had to be serious for them to be missing as much work as they currently are. They've both been out for a while now, and I am concerned for them especially the husband. 

There are other high risk people that are currently out that I think may have COVID including one who has been out for at least a couple of weeks now. 

One common thing I've noticed in this latest wave of COVID/possible COVID diagnosis is that a lot of the people may recently went on vacations/had large gatherings. Some of them had gatherings/went on vacation and tested positive before they were supposed to come back to work. They decided to test and I think that has helped with the exposure in our workplace, though it's still a lot. I think that people may need to limit the size of their gatherings/really think if they want to vacation now with how contagious this variant is. 

We had multiple people get COVID before at work after COVID first started happening. But that was before there was a vaccine and it was less people. The people that got it then were higher ups and I don't think they were wearing their masks a lot of the time when they were back in their own offices. I think those factors may have contributed to them getting it. It's a bit different this time around as a lot of the people that got it wear their masks regularly at work including the antivax people. And at least a few of them are vaccinated.

We are stretched thin at work and it doesn't help that I have other co-workers who like to call out on a regular basis. My governmental job is generous with leave, so we always have people calling out on a daily basis, sometimes leaving us shorthanded. We are very shorthanded at times now, especially with so many people out due to COVID. 

People really do need to be careful and I think get the vaccine or at least considering getting it/the booster. (Though vaccinated/boostered people are getting it as well).

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