*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (14 Viewers)

[Doug B]

ridiculous

I havent paid for any of the 3 tests we took so not sure how thats ridiculous

I took joba to mean "ridiculous that this wasn't done long ago" based on his recent posts.

 

[jobarules]

I havent paid for any of the 3 tests we took so not sure how thats ridiculous

I assume you meant at-home tests would be free starting the middle of next month.

I was agreeing with you regarding this part 

but that may be too late by then

 

[jobarules]

I took joba to mean "ridiculous that this wasn't done long ago" based on his recent posts.

Of course that's what I meant

 

[jobarules]

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.

Are you saying in the first 5 days vaxxed may spread Omicron just as much as unvaxxed but after 5 days they do not? I think that's likely true.

 

[gianmarco]

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 tray and answer this and hope it makes some sense without it getting too political.  This is not meant as a way to blame either "side".

The main problem, from the very beginning, and has continued through now, is that a medical issue/crisis was trying to be managed by both the medical community as well as political leaders who were not following medical recommendations.  Essentially, a medical issue was turned into a political issue and we have all suffered as a result of it.  To start, the wearing of a mask should never have been made into a political issue but it was and it resulted in dividing a country and keeping a substantial portion of the country from doing something initially that could have helped (flatten the curve).  This then bled over into the vaccine. 

So, in a country with 50 states where we are all connected yet have different policies and positions from one state to the next, having a unified approach, which is what is needed to help get this under control, was never going to happen.  And even within states, you have some areas that may have certain mandates, policies, restrictions in place and others next door that do not.

The bottom line is that you can't have political leaders making decisions that isn't based on the consensus medical advice.  And, especially in the beginning, with a novel virus, that is difficult to accomplish even in the medical community when there just isn't enough data to get it right.  But, even as that data has emerged and the recommendations have come out, some leaders decide to follow it, some decide to take it even further, and some decide to pick and choose what to follow or ignore it completely. 

As an example, here in Missouri, they are withholding funding to school districts that enforce any kind of mask mandate.  So, if the medical community here recommends that children should wear masks and the political leaders are dictating that it can't be mandated or enforced, how are we going to get out of this?  You have people in charge without the medical background or experience to decide how to proceed actually deciding how to proceed.

And, unfortunately, we have far too many people who will follow their political leaders advice than their doctor's advice and as a result won't get a vaccine or won't wear a mask.  And at the same time, we have likely had too many school closures or unnecessary limitations not based on the existing data and science. 

This is and will likely continue to be a fluid situation for some time.  There are going to be peaks and surges and there are going to be times when it gets under control.  Until those are better controlled, there are going to be times where distancing and masking and increased protections will be needed and times they can be relaxed and can go away.  But governors and senators and mayors, etc shouldn't be the one making those decisions.  And having a more unified approach would be the best way to help control these surges but that will never happen either due to the structure of this country.  So, it turns to us to just do the right thing on an individual level.

Those goal posts will likely continue to move for some time.  Flatten the curve, wear a mask, get vaccinated, get boosted, wear masks again, etc.....What you are hearing is the best attempt to keep everyone safe, keep hospitals above water so they can take care of people, and get us through this until we eventually succeed in getting things under control or the virus gets it under control for us.

We are all tired of this. 

 

[AAABatteries]

I took joba to mean "ridiculous that this wasn't done long ago" based on his recent posts.

Yeah, it's crazy we haven't done a better job with testing.  Even though there's a lot of people that won't use the tests there's still a really large number that would and it would help keep some of the numbers down.  Every little bit helps.

 

[jamny]

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.

Thanks!

I hadn't even taken into account how long since someone was vaccinated.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

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".

Yeah, but most of us don't have young kids in the house.  If you have unvaccinated kids, it probably makes sense for you to take some additional precautions.  I don't think it makes sense any longer to use this as a justification for restrictions on adults.  That would be different if covid-19 was especially dangerous for kids of course, but it's not.  Originally, the reason why were shutting down schools wasn't to protect kids -- it was to protect grandma.  Somewhere along the line we lost the plot on this one. 

At this point, we're at the stage where everyone vaccinated is pretty well protected from covid-19.  Is this situation perfect?  No.  Does covid-19 still represent a meaningful background risk for vaccinated people?  Yes.  Should people alter their behavior somewhat in response to high levels of community spread?  Sure -- I've done that from time to time with the flu, although admittedly not very often.  But folks have different life situations and difference levels of tolerance for background risk, and we're going to have to live with that fact.

Again, it's good to keep in mind that whatever you're currently doing to keep your kids safe from covid-19, there is somebody out there who is still cooking his mail who thinks that you personally are endangering the transplant recipient that he lives with.  If you understand why you feel comfortable imposing risk on that guy, then you should understand why people like me are comfortable imposing risk on you.  

 

[jobarules]

Yeah, it's crazy we haven't done a better job with testing.  Even though there's a lot of people that won't use the tests there's still a really large number that would and it would help keep some of the numbers down.  Every little bit helps.

We're having a holiday gathering (as I'm sure a lot of people are) this weekend. There is no way I am standing on line for 4 hours 2 days before Xmas and hoping I get results by Xmas. We are not asking our guests to get tested either. Now, if I had an at-home test and all my guests do I would 100% ask everyone to take a test and I would do so myself. Its a damn shame 2 years into this thing we cant do that. Yes I know at-home tests are available but A) they are expensive (2 for $24, for a family of 4 that means $50) B) the demand is so high now they are not available in any stores.

 

[Doug B]

Are you saying in the first 5 days vaxxed may spread Omicron just as much as unvaxxed but after 5 days they do not? I think that's likely true.

No - that for vaccinated infected people, Omicron's "window of opportunity" to spread may be shorter than it was for Delta because of the faster, more sudden onset & offset.

Bu again ... time component. Unboosted people that were double vaccinated back in March & April 2021 are a much greater risk to spread COVID now than people boosted recently.

 

[AAABatteries]

We're having a holiday gathering (as I'm sure a lot of people are) this weekend. There is no way I am standing on line for 4 hours 2 days before Xmas and hoping I get results by Xmas. We are not asking our guests to get tested either. Now, if I had an at-home test and all my guests do I would 100% ask everyone to take a test and I would do so myself. Its a damn shame 2 years into this thing we cant do that. Yes I know at-home tests are available but A) they are expensive (2 for $24, for a family of 4 that means $50) B) the demand is so high now they are not available in any stores.

We have some at-home tests but I'm saving those for now.  All 6 of us are getting tested Wed/Thur in anticipation of holiday get-togethers.  My wife is currently recovering and is 7-8 days in.  She's getting tested Thursday.  We are still up in the air on what to do if she still tests positive but we will most likely reschedule as we are somewhat easily able to do that with all our family being local.  It would suck to be in the position many are in with having to decided and make calculated risks.  We were in that situation last Xmas and to be here again is really tough for a lot of folks. 

 

[jobarules]

We have some at-home tests but I'm saving those for now.  All 6 of us are getting tested Wed/Thur in anticipation of holiday get-togethers.  My wife is currently recovering and is 7-8 days in.  She's getting tested Thursday.  We are still up in the air on what to do if she still tests positive but we will most likely reschedule as we are somewhat easily able to do that with all our family being local.  It would suck to be in the position many are in with having to decided and make calculated risks.  We were in that situation last Xmas and to be here again is really tough for a lot of folks. 

Wait times for tests here are about 4 hours. How about by you?

 

[AAABatteries]

Wait times for tests here are about 4 hours. How about by you?

We can schedule rapid tests well in advance - we had these scheduled for a day or so now.  You drive up at your allotted time and you are in and out and get the results in about an hour.  I guess one of the benefits of living in a red state?   

ETA - yeah, not sure what I would do if I had to wait four hours since I've not had any symptoms at all.  If we were not doing Xmas then I wouldn't bother and would just stay home

 

[[icon]]

At a Publix in Bradenton FL. The GF is getting boosted. Surprisingly 75% mask compliance here. Impressive for Florida. 

 

[humpback]

Yeah, but most of us don't have young kids in the house.  If you have unvaccinated kids, it probably makes sense for you to take some additional precautions.  I don't think it makes sense any longer to use this as a justification for restrictions on adults.  That would be different if covid-19 was especially dangerous for kids of course, but it's not.  Originally, the reason why were shutting down schools wasn't to protect kids -- it was to protect grandma.  Somewhere along the line we lost the plot on this one. 

At this point, we're at the stage where everyone vaccinated is pretty well protected from covid-19.  Is this situation perfect?  No.  Does covid-19 still represent a meaningful background risk for vaccinated people?  Yes.  Should people alter their behavior somewhat in response to high levels of community spread?  Sure -- I've done that from time to time with the flu, although admittedly not very often.  But folks have different life situations and difference levels of tolerance for background risk, and we're going to have to live with that fact.

Again, it's good to keep in mind that whatever you're currently doing to keep your kids safe from covid-19, there is somebody out there who is still cooking his mail who thinks that you personally are endangering the transplant recipient that he lives with.  If you understand why you feel comfortable imposing risk on that guy, then you should understand why people like me are comfortable imposing risk on you.  

A pretty large segment of society has young kids in the house, and when you include elderly and immunocompromised and other comorbidities, it's a substantial amount.

I suppose you can define "especially dangerous" any way you'd like, but we have several beds occupied in the pediatric ICU now when we never have before. It's too early to say this is a nothingburger for kids, but you've been pretty consistent in your "this is over" camp so I don't expect you to waiver on it.

 

[Doug B]

I hadn't even taken into account how long since someone was vaccinated.

Yeah ... the time component is almost always ignored in media coverage and even in a lot of research.

This article gets into the why the time component is so critical and what it means for accepted vaccination status as we move forward. Cliffs Notes: Second vax in February 2021 = unvaccinated by February 2022.

Fully Vaccinated Is About to Mean Something Else (Atlantic, 12/17/2021)
 

By this point in the pandemic, it’s quite clear that adding on more shots can come with big benefits, especially now. Months have passed since many people got their shots, leaving antibody levels relatively low. And the heavily mutated Omicron can hopscotch over several of the antibodies that are left, taking hold more easily in vaccinated bodies compared with its predecessors, and perhaps transmitting more rapidly out of them. But a booster’s bump can skyrocket both the quantity and quality of frontline immune defenses, and restore much of the body’s ability to pin the coronavirus in place. Early data suggest that while two doses of an mRNA vaccine deliver kind of meh protection against Omicron infection, tacking on another dose brings the body back to a Delta-like benchmark. Omicron will still spread within vaccinated bodies, and among them. But it will do so less often with a booster. At this point, “I don’t think we can meaningfully interrupt transmission without three doses,” Saad Omer, a Yale epidemiologist, told me. Our viral opponent has clearly upped its offense, and boosters—a bolstering of defense—have never made more sense.

Looping boosters into “full vaccination,” then, could clinch the importance of these shots. “We’ve hit a tipping point,” Jason Schwartz, a vaccine-policy expert at Yale, told me. It’s become essential to “encourage and promote boosters,” and sticking stubbornly to a now-obsolete definition of 'fully vaccinated' could undermine that effort.

A modification wouldn’t be without precedent. The measles/mumps/rubella vaccine first debuted as a single shot, but it became a double-doser in 1989 to better contain outbreaks; the chicken-pox vaccine underwent a similar tweak in 2006 ...

... [Experts] like Grace Lee, a Stanford pediatrician and the chair of the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, thinks we might be better off shifting the conversation entirely—asking whether people are “up-to-date” on their shots, rather than whether they’re fully vaccinated. Whereas 'fully vaccinated' implies a sort of finality, and has, to some, even become shorthand for fully protected, 'up-to-date' is more flexible and forgiving. The phrase, which is already used among health professionals when discussing vaccines, might leave more room for individual tailoring, and it accommodates the unpredictability of our circumstances. 'Up-to-date' is also a little more agnostic on the primary-versus-booster distinction. And asking “Did you get your shot this year?” rather than “Are you fully vaccinated?” could be an especially useful framework, Lee told me, if we end up having to retool and readminister our vaccines somewhat regularly, much like we do with vaccines for the seasonal flu.

 

[gianmarco]

A pretty large segment of society has young kids in the house, and when you include elderly and immunocompromised and other comorbidities, it's a substantial amount.

I suppose you can define "especially dangerous" any way you'd like, but we have several beds occupied in the pediatric ICU now when we never have before. It's too early to say this is a nothingburger for kids, but you've been pretty consistent in your "this is over" camp so I don't expect you to waiver on it.

I posted numbers earlier on that this thing is pretty evenly distributed now amongst the population for each decade of life (~15% for each decade).  About 30% of cases are in those under the age of 20.  Hospitalizations for kids are going up here.

 

[jamny]

Yeah ... the time component is almost always ignored in media coverage and even in a lot of research.

This article gets into the why the time component is so critical and what it means for accepted vaccination status as we move forward. Cliffs Notes: Second vax in February 2021 = unvaccinated by February 2022.

Fully Vaccinated Is About to Mean Something Else (Atlantic, 12/17/2021)
 

and even that fails to recognize another component - those that had the virus.

 

[humpback]

We're having a holiday gathering (as I'm sure a lot of people are) this weekend. There is no way I am standing on line for 4 hours 2 days before Xmas and hoping I get results by Xmas. We are not asking our guests to get tested either. Now, if I had an at-home test and all my guests do I would 100% ask everyone to take a test and I would do so myself. Its a damn shame 2 years into this thing we cant do that. Yes I know at-home tests are available but A) they are expensive (2 for $24, for a family of 4 that means $50) B) the demand is so high now they are not available in any stores.

Did you miss the link that's been posted in here a few times? Don't even need to leave the house.

 

[FBG26]

We're having a holiday gathering (as I'm sure a lot of people are) this weekend. There is no way I am standing on line for 4 hours 2 days before Xmas and hoping I get results by Xmas. We are not asking our guests to get tested either. Now, if I had an at-home test and all my guests do I would 100% ask everyone to take a test and I would do so myself. Its a damn shame 2 years into this thing we cant do that. Yes I know at-home tests are available but A) they are expensive (2 for $24, for a family of 4 that means $50) B) the demand is so high now they are not available in any stores.

Did you miss the link that's been posted in here a few times?

All of the Walmarts in my area are sold out. I did see plenty on the shelf at a CVS a few days ago when picking up a prescription, but they were $24 as Shady mentioned. And they probably sold out pretty quickly because I saw several people buying them in the two minutes it took to get the prescription. Just reiterating Shady's point that it's not easy to get a hold of these things at a reasonable price in all areas of the country. 

 

[skol asylum]

12 year old woke up in middle of night two nights ago and threw up. Chalked it up to eating Dominoes pizza to close to bed time. Seemed fine by morning. No other symptoms. Went to a softball clinic from 9-12. By night time last night had a low grade fever 99.6. At midnight was 100.0. A little stuffy and warm face but no other symptoms. Will probably test for Covid today. We went to an after season softball party at a kids bounce/play type place for 2 hours last Saturday. We both masked for most of it except when in party room at end (only ones masking up in our group, frustrating. Most of rest of kids/adults also not masked at place.) Hopefully just a little minor bug.

 

[jobarules]

Did you miss the link that's been posted in here a few times? Don't even need to leave the house.

NO availability

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

We have some at-home tests but I'm saving those for now.

This is how I feel as well. We have a few rapid tests at home and so far have only used one -- my 6 y.o. had a mild fever that was probably a delayed side effect from his second shot, but we wanted to be sure before we sent him back to school the next day (it was negative but we kept him home anyway because he still had the fever). At $12 a pop, I don't think I would use the tests prophylactically before a family get-together or even as a result of a potential exposure.

Fortunately, in Miami the testing infrastructure is pretty good; there's a place two blocks from my house that rarely has much of a line and gets PCR results back within 24 hours or less. There's another about 10m away that has slightly longer lines (~15-30m) but can do both antigen and PCR tests simultaneously. Between those options I feel like I can have all my testing needs met with minimal hassle.

 

[Mile High]

Wait times for tests here are about 4 hours. How about by you?

Sometimes in pays living in a smaller town in a blue state. My testing here is drive up and takes about 10-20 minutes 

 

[jobarules]

Sometimes in pays living in a smaller town in a blue state. My testing here is drive up and takes about 10-20 minutes 

https://gothamist.com/news/its-not-just-lines-nyc-labs-report-longer-waits-covid-test-results-amid-omicron-crush

 

[humpback]

All of the Walmarts in my area are sold out. I did see plenty on the shelf at a CVS a few days ago when picking up a prescription, but they were $24 as Shady mentioned. And they probably sold out pretty quickly because I saw several people buying them in the two minutes it took to get the prescription. Just reiterating Shady's point that it's not easy to get a hold of these things at a reasonable price in all areas of the country. 

I'm firmly in the camp that we've dropped the ball on testing, and they should have poured a ton more money into making and distributing them in huge quantities. However, it's about priorities- these tests were widely available until recently, when demand spiked right before the holidays (duh). Price is an issue for some, but again, priorities. Guessing the bill for booze at these gatherings will be much higher.

 

[belljr]

Of course that's what I meant

Dude we're not mind readers.... I'm not trying to turn this into a thing and respectfully but the reason things always get argumentative is you post a one word reply "ridiculous"  and you think everyone knows what you are talking about

eta: you could have meant ridiculous its too late or  ridiculous they are giving them away for free 

 

[Scoresman]

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

It seems like from reading various comments there and on reddit that the 73% may only be for new cases which appear to be 3% of all cases.  So, 73% of new cases are Omicron.  This does not mean that Omicron is the dominant strain in the US yet.  Normally I'd say it doesn't matter because we will be there eventually, but I figure due to upcoming holiday gatherings, the longer Omicron takes, the better the situation will be.  .

What's also odd is how the press ran with the 73% number seemingly without any statement from CDC.  They just saw that the CDC's variant proportion page was refreshed late last night and ran with it.  

I still say it makes no sense for almost 100% of all new cases in the PNW to be Omicron seeing how our total cases and percent positive stats should be climbing at a rate seen in NY and other Omicron hotspots, but they're pretty much holding steady.  

 

[Alex P Keaton]

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.

Fair enough.  Hyperbole drives me insane.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

A pretty large segment of society has young kids in the house, and when you include elderly and immunocompromised and other comorbidities, it's a substantial amount.

I suppose you can define "especially dangerous" any way you'd like, but we have several beds occupied in the pediatric ICU now when we never have before. It's too early to say this is a nothingburger for kids, but you've been pretty consistent in your "this is over" camp so I don't expect you to waiver on it.

Sure, but two points.

1) Elderly and immunocompromised people aren't going anywhere.  Those populations will always exist.  If you're arguing in favor of a particular NPI on the basis of protecting those populations, you are arguing for that NPI to exist forever, not just a few more months.  If you're wondering why people like me are increasingly just hand-waving this stuff aside without mustering much of an argument, it's because our attitude is increasingly "Yeah, no I'm not doing that forever.  They got me once with the take-off-your-shoes-in-the-airport thing.  Not happening again."  It would be different -- and was last year -- if we were actually talking about temporary things.

2) You don't have to answer this, but you should honestly ask yourself "After my kids are fully vaccinated, am I cool with setting public policy, especially policy related to K-12 schools, based on the needs of the elderly and immunocompromised?"  My guess is that for 95% of people, the answer is no.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  We don't shut down schools because of influenza, but kids get the flu and pass it on to grandma in the nursing home and then grandma dies.  That happens now, and we consider it an acceptable cost to keep other aspects of society up and running.  If you would continue to refrain from indoor dining (say) indefinitely for the rest of your life because it marginally reduces community spread and therefore makes people in nursing homes (who you don't know and don't interact with) marginally safer, that's great, but I doubt that would be your honest answer.  It's certainly not mine.  

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Fair enough.  Hyperbole drives me insane.

"I've been to Vietnam, Afghanistan and Iraq, and I can say without hyperbole that this is a million times worse than all of the combined."  

 

[belljr]

These will be at home kits. 

Yeah I edited my post

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

Here's where I'm at both at a personal and societal level:

Personally, I've accepted that even though my wife and I are boosted and my sons are both double vaxxed, we'll probably get Covid eventually, and I'm not particularly concerned with the health risks. I'll still take reasonable precautions to avoid it (wear masks in indoor public settings, avoid large indoor gatherings with strangers) but mostly I just hope we don't get it at an inconvenient time. I'm mostly going to do the things I want to do, but, especially for the next month or so, I'm more likely to ask myself "Is this really something I need to do right now?"

Case in point: Was supposed to have lunch with a friend tomorrow. She texted me yesterday saying she had recently been a close contact of someone who tested positive, and did I want to reschedule for January? Our lunch was going to be outside, and I knew the risk of anything happening was small, but it also wasn't like I absolutely had to see this person before the holidays (during which I will be spending lots of time with elderly/immunocompromised relatives), so I figured why take the risk? If it had been a friend who was only in town for a couple days, I might have made a different decision.

At a societal level, I think the types of lockdowns we saw back in March 2020 may have been a reasonable choice given what we knew at the time, but were ultimately too blunt an instrument, and in any event I doubt we could enforce such policies at this point without massive blowback. I think masks are fine as far as they go, but probably don't have a huge impact (and of course the people who are most likely to spread Covid are also the people least likely to wear masks).

That leaves the single most effective arrow we still have in our quiver: vaccines. Yes, Omicron may still spread among the vaccinated, but as a whole we will all be safer the more people get shots (both initial shots and boosters). That's one thing that frustrates me so much about the vaccine mandate conversation: The people who talk the most about how we have to get back to normal/learn to live with this virus are often the ones most opposed to mandates. Not trying to start a political debate here in the FFA, so I'll just say that I see the two as inextricably linked. 

 

[Alex P Keaton]

I posted numbers earlier on that this thing is pretty evenly distributed now amongst the population for each decade of life (~15% for each decade).  About 30% of cases are in those under the age of 20.  Hospitalizations for kids are going up here.

Going up from a very low base.  In an area where only 34% of kids are vaccinated (per the link).  Solution?  Vaccines.

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

Sometimes in pays living in a smaller town in a blue state. My testing here is drive up and takes about 10-20 minutes 

That's funny. I've often wondered if I benefit from living in a big city in a red state. Our local government has been very proactive about setting up testing infrastructure, but at the same time maybe the fact that the population is more conservative means smaller lines? Who knows?

 

[beer 30]

I keep telling y'all to take a 'vid vacation and visit SC. We got testing stations, no wait, whatever your vaccine of choice is, no wait and good weather (although today is overcast).

 

[jobarules]

Dude we're not mind readers.... I'm not trying to turn this into a thing and respectfully but the reason things always get argumentative is you post a one word reply "ridiculous"  and you think everyone knows what you are talking about

eta: you could have meant ridiculous its too late or  ridiculous they are giving them away for free 

Except everyone and their mother knew exactly what I meant except you

 

[belljr]

Except everyone and their mother knew exactly what I meant except you

I wish you well in the future, good luck to you.

 

[humpback]

Sure, but two points.

1) Elderly and immunocompromised people aren't going anywhere.  Those populations will always exist.  If you're arguing in favor of a particular NPI on the basis of protecting those populations, you are arguing for that NPI to exist forever, not just a few more months.  If you're wondering why people like me are increasingly just hand-waving this stuff aside without mustering much of an argument, it's because our attitude is increasingly "Yeah, no I'm not doing that forever.  They got me once with the take-off-your-shoes-in-the-airport thing.  Not happening again."  It would be different -- and was last year -- if we were actually talking about temporary things.

2) You don't have to answer this, but you should honestly ask yourself "After my kids are fully vaccinated, am I cool with setting public policy, especially policy related to K-12 schools, based on the needs of the elderly and immunocompromised?"  My guess is that for 95% of people, the answer is no.  There's absolutely nothing wrong with that.  We don't shut down schools because of influenza, but kids get the flu and pass it on to grandma in the nursing home and then grandma dies.  That happens now, and we consider it an acceptable cost to keep other aspects of society up and running.  If you would continue to refrain from indoor dining (say) indefinitely for the rest of your life because it marginally reduces community spread and therefore makes people in nursing homes (who you don't know and don't interact with) marginally safer, that's great, but I doubt that would be your honest answer.  It's certainly not mine.  

I think it was pretty clear that I was mostly referring to children, who either can't get vaccinated at all or can't get boosted. I only added the immunocompromised since it pushes the ~40% of households with children at home to somewhere around half.

In any event, again no one is saying to do anything forever. Looking at the trends it seems clear as day that there's going to be a huge increase in numbers over the next month or so, that's why I said we should wait to see what unfolds before we all act like normal.

Again, this seems way hyperbolic to me- you can take precautions while still keeping society "up and running". Essentially no one is calling for lock downs, and any lesser measures people do want to take are temporary.

 

[jobarules]

Going up from a very low base.  In an area where only 34% of kids are vaccinated (per the link).  Solution?  Vaccines.

But they are comparing to Nov 2020 when vaccines weren't available

 

[AAABatteries]

Except everyone and their mother knew exactly what I meant except you

Actually, I didn’t either.  I was starting to reply and ask you to clarify.  I was pretty sure but didn’t want to assume.  

 

[AAABatteries]

Do we have any good information on young kids and post-COVID?  I’ve heard a decent amount about long-haulers in adults but not kids.

 

[jobarules]

Actually, I didn’t either.  I was starting to reply and ask you to clarify.  I was pretty sure but didn’t want to assume.  

Why would I find it ridiculous that they were giving away test kits for free? That makes no sense at all. Anyway, I'm moving on, no need to discuss this further.

 

[AAABatteries]

Why would I find it ridiculous that they were giving away test kits for free? That makes no sense at all. Anyway, I'm moving on, no need to discuss this further.

Just to explain my position - there was another option - you found the idea that it would be too late ridiculous.  But yes, happy to move on.

 

[gianmarco]

Do we have any good information on young kids and post-COVID?  I’ve heard a decent amount about long-haulers in adults but not kids.

There's not a great answer to this.

Here's a recent article about it

The study they reference is here, about to come out in January.

There's not really any good studies on it at this point and this review of what's out there doesn't show much long-term, but I think it still needs to be looked at. 

 

[Doug B]

Are you saying in the first 5 days vaxxed may spread Omicron just as much as unvaxxed but after 5 days they do not? I think that's likely true.

No - that for vaccinated infected people, Omicron's "window of opportunity" to spread may be shorter than it was for Delta because of the faster, more sudden onset & offset.

Bu again ... time component. Unboosted people that were double vaccinated back in March & April 2021 are a much greater risk to spread COVID now than people boosted recently.

Further reading on Omicron's speed -- not specifically transmission speed among a population, but speed of viral replication within the infected host. It's pretty startling to me that Omicron's replication is faster still than Delta's. I had thought (for no good reason, really) that Delta was close to biologically maxing out.

How Long Does Omicron Take to Make You Sick? (Atlantic, 12/202021)

The new variant seems to be our quickest one yet. That makes it harder to catch with the tests we have.

It certainly might not seem like it given the pandemic mayhem we’ve had, but the original form of SARS-CoV-2 was a bit of a slowpoke. After infiltrating our bodies, the virus would typically brew for about five or six days before symptoms kicked in. In the many months since that now-defunct version of the virus emerged, new variants have arrived to speed the timeline up. Estimates for this exposure-to-symptom gap, called the incubation period, clocked in at about five days for Alpha and four days for Delta. Now word has it that the newest kid on the pandemic block, Omicron, may have ratcheted it down to as little as three.

If that number holds, it’s probably bad news. These trimmed-down cook times are thought to play a major part in helping coronavirus variants spread: In all likelihood, the shorter the incubation period, the faster someone becomes contagious—and the quicker an outbreak spreads. A truncated incubation “makes a virus much, much, much harder to control,” Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told me.

Already, that’s what this variant seems to be. In less than a month, Omicron has blazed into dozens of countries, sending case rates to record-breaking heights. If, as some scientists suspect, this variant is so primed to xerox itself more quickly inside us—including, it seems, in many people with at least some immunity—that leaves punishingly little time in which to detect the virus, intervene with antivirals, and hamper its spread.

A pause here. We are still just weeks into our fight against Omicron, and it’s not easy to gather data on incubation periods, which might differ among populations, or suss out exactly how the virus is tangoing with our cells. But the early warning signs are here—and as my colleague Sarah Zhang has reported, we know enough to act.

All of this, then, ups the urgency on having tests that can quickly and reliably pinpoint Omicron. “If Omicron has a shorter incubation period, that’s going to wreak havoc on how we test for it and deal with it,” Omai Garner, a clinical microbiologist in the UCLA Health system, told me. But testing in the United States remains slow, expensive, and, for many, infuriatingly out of reach. We’re ill-prepared for the incoming Omicron surge not just because it’s a new version of the coronavirus, but because it’s poised to exploit one of the greatest vulnerabilities in our infection-prevention toolkit. The coronavirus is getting faster, which means it’s also getting harder to catch.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Again, this seems way hyperbolic to me- you can take precautions while still keeping society "up and running". Essentially no one is calling for lock downs, and any lesser measures people do want to take are temporary.

I believe that you believe this, but I don't believe policy-makers.  Fauci said the quiet part out loud recently by saying that we'll all be wearing masks on airplanes for the rest of our lives.  No thanks.  At this point, my impression is that the conversation has mostly shifted away from temporary, emergency measures toward what measures we're prepared to live with forever.  I'm going to actively oppose nearly every NPI mandate at this point because you'll never be able to persuade me that any of these are going to be anything other than permanent fixtures from now on.

(I'm implementing my own personal temporary measures to avoid omicron for at least a few weeks, but I trust myself to make reasonable decisions about my own lifestyle and to act nimbly when circumstances on the ground change.  Considering that we're now two years into the pandemic and our own policy-makers still can't get out of their own way on testing and boosters, I'm not assigning much credibility to those folks anymore.  Sorry.)

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

Further reading on Omicron's speed -- not specifically transmission speed among a population, but speed of viral replication within the infected host. It's pretty startling to me that Omicron's replication is faster still than Delta's. I had thought (for no good reason, really) that Delta was close to biologically maxing out.

How Long Does Omicron Take to Make You Sick? (Atlantic, 12/202021)

Possibly dumb question (and apologies if this is covered in that Atlantic article, which I'll try to read when I have time later today): If it makes you symptomatic more quickly, isn't that potentially a good thing? We've been hearing since the beginning that one thing that makes SARS-CoV2 dangerous is that you can spread it when you're pre-symptomatic. If you get sick shortly after infection, then theoretically you're more likely to quarantine yourself before you go out and expose others.

Also, that would potentially put evolutionary pressure on the virus to become less virulent (which is the reason influenza strains tend to become less dangerous over time): If the virus moves in quickly and puts you flat on your back, it will have less opportunity to propagate itself. But if your symptoms are mild, you'll be more likely to walk around and it will have more chances.

Anyway, just noodling on this. Feel free to tell me I'm off base.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

In case you want to know what Fauci actually thinks instead of listening to the cartoon caricatures:

Anthony Fauci: I do not think it’s going to be the way it is right now. Even with viruses that mutate and change, you reach a steady state where there’s enough infection and/or vaccination in the community that there is enough background immunity that the level of infection is both less in quantity and severe disease.

I don’t think it’s possible that we’re going to eradicate this infection, because we’ve only eradicated one infection in human history, and that’s smallpox. And I don’t think you’re going to eliminate it, because you have to have essentially a universal campaign for vaccination like we did for polio and measles. But what we can do is reach a level of “control” that we can live with—where it doesn’t disrupt society, it doesn’t disrupt the economy, and it doesn’t have us always looking over our shoulder wondering whether we’re going to get infected.

The short answer to your question is: I don’t think by any means we are going to be living with the kind of situation we’re in right now, where everyone is walking around testing themselves and worrying about outbreaks when you go to dinner or a movie. I really don’t see that. I see that there will be persistence of COVID-19, or at least SARS-CoV-2, but there’s not going to be the profound impact that it’s currently having right now in our society. Whether that’s this coming spring and summer or a year from now, I don’t know. But it’s not going to stay the way it is, for sure.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

I believe that you believe this, but I don't believe policy-makers.  Fauci said the quiet part out loud recently by saying that we'll all be wearing masks on airplanes for the rest of our lives.  No thanks.  At this point, my impression is that the conversation has mostly shifted away from temporary, emergency measures toward what measures we're prepared to live with forever.  I'm going to actively oppose nearly every NPI mandate at this point because you'll never be able to persuade me that any of these are going to be anything other than permanent fixtures from now on.

(I'm implementing my own personal temporary measures to avoid omicron for at least a few weeks, but I trust myself to make reasonable decisions about my own lifestyle and to act nimbly when circumstances on the ground change.  Considering that we're now two years into the pandemic and our own policy-makers still can't get out of their own way on testing and boosters, I'm not assigning much credibility to those folks anymore.  Sorry.)

Honestly masks on planes and mass transit should have already been common place during cold and flu season.  I had a terrible flu right before COVID that was 100% caught on the train ride home from work.  I felt the person's sneeze on the back of my neck.  And during the entire flu season, you constantly just hear people coughing and sniffling on the train.  Maybe people will stay home when they are sick now, with so many more remote work options, but still.