Chadstroma
Footballguy
My friend has progressed and was released from the hospital today. She has to take an oxygen home with her and has a ways to go to recover but it looks like she is out of the woods and will be home for Christmas.
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*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (13 Viewers)
- Thread starter Big League Chew
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Far from an expert on Oregon, but I'm thinking your data isn't very robust. I'm seeing your 7 day average cases up ~15% over the last week, but they've only found 3 cases of Omicron with a tiny sample size of 6 in the last week. They're still quoting the national estimates for Omicron of 2.9%, which tells me they're a bit behind.
I'm guessing these numbers go way up shortly.
belljr
Footballguy
This is all I want an answer too from the people really involved .....
I will admit of covid fatigue.... I did everything "right" - we sheltered our lives for over a year, masked up (still do where required and some places its not), we are boosted....... but I mean the end goal I feel keep changing.
It was flatten the curve, then I feel it switched to eradicate the virus (which isn't going to happen) too many people not follwing guidelines..... I'm not making this political , I'm just asking what is the current "plan/goal"?
I've done everything that was asked of me but it appears that in the end its really not going to matter
I will admit of covid fatigue.... I did everything "right" - we sheltered our lives for over a year, masked up (still do where required and some places its not), we are boosted....... but I mean the end goal I feel keep changing.
It was flatten the curve, then I feel it switched to eradicate the virus (which isn't going to happen) too many people not follwing guidelines..... I'm not making this political , I'm just asking what is the current "plan/goal"?
I've done everything that was asked of me but it appears that in the end its really not going to matter
Navin Johnson
Footballguy
For someone like you with a fully boosted family you should be living your life as normal as possible. While there's a high chance we all get omicron over the next few months there's also an almost 100% chance that you only get cold like symptoms from it.
The media coverage over this right now is scaring a lot of people when it shouldn't be.
I know several people canceling holiday plans and it makes little to no sense to me. We are still having people over for Xmas and if we get sick so be it. We'll be fine. I understand staying away from elderly or immunocompromised for now until we know more.
Navin Johnson
Footballguy
I think the initial numbers for omnicron skewed to the vaxxed because they were more likely to sequence it if a vaxxed person tested positive.
beer 30
Footballguy
I'm going to try to walk the line here:
There will be a message delivered later today by a person who has an incredible amount of influence not only over the United States but the world that is going to triple down on this message to an awful lot of people.
That message isn't helping.
Even these sports leagues are completely overreacting acting as if it's still 2020. They should be testing symptomatic players only. They should let players play once symptom free. Majority of players in these leagues are vaxxed. What are we doing here? If we keep acting like it's 2020 there will be no end game.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
My goal always was and still is for me and my family to not die and to not spread it to others. I’m not sure individually we can really do a lot beyond that - save advocating for others to do the same.
themeanmachine
Footballguy
Sounds like there is a good chance the 73% number is wrong. It will surely get there soon enough, but it’s not there yet. No, 73% of US COVID-19 cases aren’t Omicron yet: how the press got it wrong
However you want to define "awhile" or "overrun" is fine by me. That doesnt change anything, it's just parsing words.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
I definitely understand the frustration and fatigue. But do keep in mind that this is a novel virus and what we know has changed as we have learned more. Things have also changed as new variants have emerged. Treating it like the situation has been the same the entire way through isn’t really fair.
And whenever circumstances change, I think it’s only natural to be more conservative until we have enough information to relax more. There are certainly negative consequences to social isolation and shutting things down and I do think that health officials and politicians do not always take those things into account, but at the same time, if we go with more lax standards only to find out that things are more serious than we thought, it’s hard to undo the damage and walk things back.
Never should have changed from flatten the curve exactly because of your last sentance. You're seeing things clearly now.
GroveDiesel
Footballguy
When does the definition of novel virus go away? Its been 2 years now. Do we still call the Spanish Flu a novel virus?
jamny
Footballguy
IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Right now, I think there's just a lot of disagreement over what the current goal should be, but it's a conversation that's either not taking place at all, or it's taking place in a very diagonal manner.
On one hand, there's a group of people who are arguing, in essence, that the emergency phase of the pandemic is either over or nearly over, and the goal should be how we live with covid as an endemic disease, like influenza. Those people tend to downplay the importance of NPIs because they view them as not sustainable and/or excessively costly relative to whatever benefits they provide. These people don't worry much, relatively speaking, about case counts when those cases involve people recuperating at home. (Obviously I'm painting with a pretty broad brush, but I want to try to state this position charitably).
On the other hand, there's a group of people who are arguing, in essence, that our goal should be eradicating covid-19, the same way that we eradicated smallpox and polio. These folks tend to emphasize NPIs as essential complements to vaccination as part of a multipronged effort to control spread, with the long-run goal of getting cases down to zero. These people worry relatively more about case counts. (Again, broad brush, charity, etc.)
For the sake of completeness, I should add that there's a third camp that thinks that covid-19 isn't real, or was always just a flu, or that we should really be watching out for hippos instead, or whatever the argument is these days. These folks were going maskless at their local Home Depot back in 2020 and they use terms like "pureblood" unironically today. They never worried about case counts. (A little less charity here).
So basically it's "zero covid" vs. "vaxxed and relaxed" vs. "MAGA." These camps don't share the same end goals.
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themeanmachine
Footballguy
Agreed, it just didn’t make sense that it could be that dominant, that fast. Watching Good Morning America right now, and they are repeating the 73% number every 10 seconds, the anchors and Fauci, treating it as fact.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
The current goal - the goal since vaccines came out - should have been simply to get everyone fully vaccinated, which includes periodic boosters when the science supports it. A secondary goal should have been to limit the spread to folks at high risk. A third goal should have been to keep our healthcare infrastructure from collapsing.
How can most of us contribute to the above?
1. Get vaccinated and then boosted
2. Wear a mask in indoor, high density settings (E.g. arenas, airports)
3. Get tested if you have symptoms and follow medical guidance on quarantining
Beyond that, get back to living. I’m doing the above. My wife is doing more than that — randomly I might add — and that’s fine. Others are doing more. Or less. The above is what I’m doing. Will some people get or spread Covid following those 3 simple guideposts? Sure. But this thing is endemic now. Almost everyone in the US has had the chance to get vaccinated and boosted. Time to let people make adult choices and move on with life.
Dinsy Ejotuz
Footballguy
I follow all this stuff pretty closely and am not seeing this at all. Who's arguing that we can eradicate it? Maybe at the very start there was a thought that could happen, but I'm not aware of anyone that thinks it will ever be gone now.
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Nathan R. Jessep
Footballguy
Agreed. Every study and analysis I've read indicates that while yes, vaccinated can still spread, they do so at much less efficient capacity AND for a shorter timeframe than those who are unvaccinated. But somehow that has become a "vaxxed can still spread it so why bother?" argument.
Navin Johnson
Footballguy
Leeroy Jenkins
Footballguy
I think the plan is to get cases to a point where this becomes seasonal/endemic through a combination of vaccination (3+ shots), masking in public and on transit, and staying home when you are sick. We were so close to less than 10,000 cases/day right before Delta hit. That is the sweet spot.
But otherwise, I think once we are through this tidal wave, it will be the above and just go about your business, knowing you could get it, but if you are vaxxed it can be anywhere from nothing/mild cold to a crappy flu.
But I think we need to hunker down a bit until we see where this peaks.
OK fair enough. Our medical system has no interest in transparency. It would be nice if the government made a better effort at peaking through the blinds sp the crazies had less fuel to their imaginations.
On the Thailand thing though - I am chuckling. I don't know what metrics you are talking about but there is no chance they have handled this right. I seriously doubt they are reporting what is happening accurately or honestly. Plus, they have almost completely destroyed their tourism economy which was about 18% of GDP. Think about it. Imagine destroying 18% of our economy. No thanks.
As an example of not reporting accurately how they report traffic fatalities is sad. If you die on the spot it is a traffic death and counted. If you get into an ambulance and are alive on arrival to a hospital and then die from injuries sustained in the accident it is not counted as a traffic fatality. They do it because right now they are second - oops. I was going to say second to Liberia but Thailand has jumped into the lead now. They have the worst traffic fatality death rate in the world. So I am skeptical of what they report regarding Covid.
They also dragged their feet on the vaccine because it would have cost them money to buy it. They failed to order Pfizer or Moderna early on and fell to the back of the pack in order of receiving it. Then they tried Sinovac because it was cheapest (some donated by China). And of course they lack the amount of co-morbidities that we enjoy here. No, I wouldn't envy anything Thailand has done about Covid.
Sorry for the rant. I just learned this morning they have discontinued tourist entry via "test and go". Unless they reinstate it before about January 6 my visit to see all my friends is off. And my friends who have hung on owning restaurants and hotels are seeing their last chance to survive this financially go down the tubes.
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IvanKaramazov
Footballguy
Hardly anybody makes this argument explicitly anymore, because like you said, eradication is impossible.
That said, every time somebody uses an expression like "when will this be over" or "when do we get through this" or something similar, I read that as being stuck with the eliminationist mindset that made sense in 2020 but makes no sense at all today. The same argument applies to people who get really upset over different states having different approaches to covid and/or really upset over the behavior of individual people. I don't mean "I personally wouldn't have made the same choice that that person made," but more like "these people are killing my grandma" type expressions. We all need to learn to live with the fact that we don't have the same views toward risk, and unless you're still cooking your mail there is definitely somebody out there being "more careful" than you and they probably blame you for endangering Nana so maybe extend a little charity to people who are marginally less careful than you. This virus isn't going anywhere, so we might as well try to get along.
Doug B
Footballguy
This is interesting -- where did you learn this?
I had thought the CDC was randomly sampling 1 in 7 PCR tests from 27 (?) sites scattered throughout the U.S. You've found out that vaccination status has an influence on this process?
This part isn't accurate IMO. Young kids can't even get vaccinated and 15 and under can't get boosted. We're just starting to get the data and report on the importance of boosters for this variant and I think it's what, 30% of people have received it so far?
IMO we need another month or so before "moving on with life".
AAABatteries
Footballguy
I mostly agree with this and would obviously put the two of us in the vaxxed and relaxed category - but I do think you could split our group in to two groups. What I want is being back to normal when and where it makes sense. I want us both individually and collectively to react to rises in cases/hospitalizations/deaths and not just always be back to normal. There's two key reasons why this hasn't worked well: 1. people aren't willing to be flexible and 2. our leaders have been really poor at making it happen (most seem to be all or nothing).
Until we aren't having hundreds of people die pretty much every day I think folks need to be prepared to not be normal, as things die down, pull back on the restrictions. As things get worse, enable more restrictions.
Obviously the devil is in the details and the biggest thing most folks can do is get vaccinated and boosted.
jamny
Footballguy
I can see it from a duration point so maybe I need to narrow it down.
Can a pre-symptomatic vaccinated person spread the virus as easily as a pre-symptomatic unvaccinated person?
fatness
Footballguy
Thanks for posting that. I'm a bit skeptical of that report since it comes from a prepper website that promotes products as well. But if it works out to be true, it does, and it seems we should know in a day or 3.
Nathan R. Jessep
Footballguy
Good point. Very possible. Will be interested to see the forthcoming data from Omicron analyses.
Doug B
Footballguy
IMHO, this isn't particularly important -- seems Delta and Omicron cases are equivalent, more or less. I understand that some in the media are reporting it as "more Omicron = bad", but I thinks that's way simplistic.
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Nathan R. Jessep
Footballguy
YLE has a pretty good explanation here: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/how-vaccines-reduce-transmission
jamny
Footballguy
I'm not asking it for evidence to say "why bother" but if a pre-symptomatic vaccinated person can spread as easily as a pre-symptomatic vaccinated person, calling this "a pandemic of the unvaccinated" would be poor messaging yet again and a continued attempt to point fingers and divide when what we need is unity to fight this.
Nathan R. Jessep
Footballguy
Definitely agree. And I didn't mean to sound like that was your argument. I meant it's become an anti-vax rallying point.
AAABatteries
Footballguy
Don't know the answer to your question and don't disagree but I've given up hope that there will be unity and people deciding to get vaccinated based on good messaging. We need carrot and stick approach here. Continued incentives for getting vaccinated and continued restrictions if you are not. At least until we are in the endemic phase.
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Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Fair - I should have written all adults re: boosted.
But really, you are nitpicking details because:
- most kids have been eligible for a dose or two now
- Covid is less deadly than the flu for kids, and we don’t shut down all of our kids’ lives for the flu
- It’s not fully clear yet whether it is the actual booster itself OR having a dose within the past 6 months which provides the primary benefit of reduced risk of hospitalization or death
So yes, you are correct. One minor, borderline irrelevant component of my comment could have been written more carefully.
Doug B
Footballguy
It might be even MORE true with Omicron, paradoxically enough. While the issue of Omicron's "severity" remains contested, one thing that seems clear is that -- in an infected individual -- Omicron comes on fast and then clears fast. That's why there's consideration now of decreasing the quarantine guidelines from 10 days down to 5.
belljr
Footballguy
I don't consider it nitpicking.
- Data is still coming in, but so far it's showing that "a dose or two" is far less effective than against previous variants
- Data is still coming in, but it's showing that this variant is worse for kids than previous ones
- Lot's of things aren't fully clear yet, hence the prudence in not "moving on with life" until it becomes more clear
Completely disagree that it's minor, borderline irrelevant.
Alex P Keaton
Footballguy
Appreciate the thoughts. End of the day, we both want to see people avoid dying. Thanks for the counterpoints.
Sputnikv8
Footballguy
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I forgot to include a very important point- next to no one is saying we should "shut down all of our kids lives". There's a huge range between that and living completely normally, and I don't think the hyperbole helps the situation.
Doug B
Footballguy
I looked into jamny's question last night right before hitting the sack. One thing I learned is that, like most issues concerning vaccination, there is a significant time component influencing how effectively a vaccinated person transmits COVID.
Freshly vaccinated? Very low incidence of transmitting to someone else if infected.
3 months out? Still better than unvaccinated, but slipping.
6+ months out? A little better .. maybe 20-25% better.
Reading material:
The Risk of Vaccinated COVID Transmission Is Not Low (Scientific American opinion page 12/16/2021, but cited). This author is strongly in favor of vaccinations, but her words here can be used against her. This is the kind of piece that can easily get misused if it went viral.
Vaccinated People Can Transmit the Coronavirus, but It’s Still More Likely If You’re Unvaccinated (Healthline, 11/3/2021).
N.B. The studies underlying vaccinated transmission concerned household transmission, as opposed to passing-up-people-at-the-grocery transmission. As always, transmission itself has, yes, a time element.
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