I don't necessarily mean to a small amount of cases. I'm trying to wrap my head around what the next couple months will be looking like. It's not enough, but at least in my state the mask mandate is back everywhere and we're opening more testing sites/improving numbers at current sites. Our vaccination rate is also over 80%. The vaccine is widely available and easy to walk in and get.
The problem is still no mandatory lock down, not enough proper time off, and not all jobs pay workers (outside of PTO) who take off for covid related issues. Those are pretty big road blocks to number of cases going down.
Do these numbers ever go down to noticeable degree without proper measures in place? If not, I wonder what it'll take to get a real response again
Yeah, there was an OSHA reg for larger companies that went into effect in the winter and was promptly blocked by the 5th Circuit Court. The stay issued by the court was just overturned in the past week, so those companies have until February 9th to get their shit together before they start racking up fines for non-compliance.
It wasn't really a vaccine mandate per se, though -- just a requirement for fully vaccinated employees to provide documentation, and for unvaccinated people (or those who refuse to provide proof of vaccination) to wear masks and test weekly. Moot point with Omicron, since it has such a high breakthrough infection rate.
More details here:
https://www.osha.gov/coronavirus/ets2