>I certainly understood with the original strain, with Delta, etc. - but the fact that our current vaccines don't prevent omicron>

A recent mRNA booster still seems to prevent Omicron infection at around 75%.

Initial Evidence: https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/us-fda-clears-pfizers-covid-19-booster-shot-12-15-year-olds-2022-01-03/

"Two shots of the mRNA vaccine are about 35% effective against infection from the Omicron variant, but a booster dose restores effectiveness to 75%, according to the CDC, based on data from South Africa and the United Kingdom."


> and vaccinated people can pass it around as much (or nearly as much) as non-vaxxed people - why are we still mandating it?

No proof that vaccinated people spread as much viral load for the same period as non vaccinated. Or no research I could find -but it's still really early days. But even if it's only a 10% difference then it'll help prevent the worse case scenario.

It makes sense that if you have less severe disease you likely have less of a viral load over a period of time than you would if you had a more severe case.

>It just seems to be a hugely divisive issue and in all
>sincerity - I'm so exhausted of being mad at or disappointed
>in the general public/people around me.

They'll likely be an updated vaccine that targets Omicron that'll get the effectiveness from two shots back to a much higher level.

But if we would have just sat back and had no masking and no vaccine mandates and the original more deadly strains circulated this widely then hundreds of thousands to maybe millions of more people would have died in the U.S.

The divisive is a mixture of well meaning folks (1%) , the fucking stupid (66%) , and the politically cynical using it for power (33%.)

Get ready for more people to go into the "fucking stupid" column because they are tired and have been beaten into stupidity. It's coming.

But yeah, can't pretend it's not exhausting.