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

[-fish-]

Had one for about three weeks...so freakin' annoying.

Girlfriend?  I totally agree.

 

[gianmarco]

2 years into this thing, almost 1 million dead in this country alone and the leading cause of death in that time, and we still have posts questioning why people test, why we worry about "very small percentages", and even asking if we are hypochondriacs.

Time to just shake my head and back out for a little.  Frustrating and disappointing, to say the least.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

2 years into this thing, almost 1 million dead in this country alone and the leading cause of death in that time, and we still have posts questioning why people test, why we worry about "very small percentages", and even asking if we are hypochondriacs.

Time to just shake my head and back out for a little.  Frustrating and disappointing, to say the least.

"Two years into this thing" is a wild mis-framing of the situation though.  Vaccines are free and widely available and have been for some time.  If you're vaccinated, covid-19 is a respiratory bug not that different from the flu.  You know this just as well as I do.  It's not a controversial point.  If anything, I'm over-hyping it because a lot of people experience this as more like a cold.

(Unvaccinated people are still hugely at risk, but I'm not unvaccinated and there's not a thing I can do about the people who aren't so leave me out of that.  Take it up with them.)  

What we're asking is that people kindly recognize that it isn't March 2020 anymore.  I was all in favor of school closures, lockdowns, masks, distancing, etc. back then because we had a novel virus circulating among an immunologically naive population.  Circumstances on the ground are night and day different now, and it's frustrating that people refuse to accept that.  

You know how irritating is is when our resident anti-vax posters come in here and post quotes from like November 2020 or something and get all indignant about how folks have changed their tune since then, and you patiently explain that of course people change their behaviors when the facts on the ground have changed?  You're being that guy.

If you would like to argue that omicron is a big deal on a macro scale because of the sheer number of people getting infected right now, I agree with you 100%.  People should really attend to their personal health and safety for the next 4-6 weeks while this wave clears out.  But on a micro level, getting omicron is not a major issue.  If I get covid, I probably won't enjoy it but I will be fine.  It will not be a catastrophe that has befallen House Karamazov.  We've all been sick before and we'll be sick again.  It will be fine.   

 

[Andy Dufresne]

2 years into this thing, almost 1 million dead in this country alone and the leading cause of death in that time, and we still have posts questioning why people test, why we worry about "very small percentages", and even asking if we are hypochondriacs.

Time to just shake my head and back out for a little.  Frustrating and disappointing, to say the least.

But conditions are changing rapidly, aren't they? In which case talking about what to do now within the context of the last two years loses meaning.

If 96% of cases are Omicron and that variant is just not that concerning from a sickness & death standpoint (that's what I've heard/read) then really...who cares? 

Standing in line for hours to get tested to see if you have something that may make you slightly uncomfortable seems irrational to me.

And if you're getting hospitalized for Omicron symptoms (and don't have high risk factors) then I wonder what you're actually doing there.

There has to be a point where we stop with "just to be safe, we better panic".

 

[IvanKaramazov]

"just to be safe, we better panic".

I'm stealing for future use.  

 

[gianmarco]

"Two years into this thing" is a wild mis-framing of the situation though.  Vaccines are free and widely available and have been for some time.  If you're vaccinated, covid-19 is a respiratory bug not that different from the flu.  You know this just as well as I do.  It's not a controversial point.  If anything, I'm over-hyping it because a lot of people experience this as more like a cold.

(Unvaccinated people are still hugely at risk, but I'm not unvaccinated and there's not a thing I can do about the people who aren't so leave me out of that.  Take it up with them.)  

What we're asking is that people kindly recognize that it isn't March 2020 anymore.  I was all in favor of school closures, lockdowns, masks, distancing, etc. back then because we had a novel virus circulating among an immunologically naive population.  Circumstances on the ground are night and day different now, and it's frustrating that people refuse to accept that.  

You know how irritating is is when our resident anti-vax posters come in here and post quotes from like November 2020 or something and get all indignant about how folks have changed their tune since then, and you patiently explain that of course people change their behaviors when the facts on the ground have changed?  You're being that guy.

If you would like to argue that omicron is a big deal on a macro scale because of the sheer number of people getting infected right now, I agree with you 100%.  People should really attend to their personal health and safety for the next 4-6 weeks while this wave clears out.  But on a micro level, getting omicron is not a major issue.  If I get covid, I probably won't enjoy it but I will be fine.  It will not be a catastrophe that has befallen House Karamazov.  We've all been sick before and we'll be sick again.  It will be fine.   

As you've always been a reasonable and level-headed poster, I'm going to ignore the "you're being that guy" comment in the current setting. I will offer this:

Our hospital numbers now are the worst they've been in the last 2 years and that's WITH vaccinations. Covid positivity in the hospital here is almost 50%. And most of those aren't just "with Covid". Of course I'm speaking about a macro level because that affects all of us. 

And, based on some of these comments (not just from you), I don't know if all are aware that you don't get admitted and stay in a hospital because you want to or ask to be there. That's not how it works. Those in the hospital (with Omicron) are there because they need to be there (risk factors or not). And those numbers are through the roof and affecting every aspect of medical care. 

I don't expect everyone to have a full understanding of what's going on now in the healthcare setting but I would suggest giving a little benefit of the doubt to those that do (like some in this thread) and believe when it's being said that things are not good now. Because they are not.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Those in the hospital (with Omicron) are there because they need to be there (risk factors or not). And those numbers are through the roof and affecting every aspect of medical care.

Okay, why ARE they there if it's Omicron and no risk factors? 

 

[IvanKaramazov]

As you've always been a reasonable and level-headed poster, I'm going to ignore the "you're being that guy" comment in the current setting. I will offer this:

Our hospital numbers now are the worst they've been in the last 2 years and that's WITH vaccinations. Covid positivity in the hospital here is almost 50%. And most of those aren't just "with Covid". Of course I'm speaking about a macro level because that affects all of us. 

And, based on some of these comments (not just from you), I don't know if all are aware that you don't get admitted and stay in a hospital because you want to or ask to be there. That's not how it works. Those in the hospital (with Omicron) are there because they need to be there (risk factors or not). And those numbers are through the roof and affecting every aspect of medical care. 

I don't expect everyone to have a full understanding of what's going on now in the healthcare setting but I would suggest giving a little benefit of the doubt to those that do (like some in this thread) and believe when it's being said that things are not good now. Because they are not.

No, that's all fair.  I wasn't being sarcastic or anything when I said that I agree with you about the macro effects of omicron.  I get that an extremely contagious virus can be damaging to our health care system even if it's a little less severe than previous variants.  

I'm just saying that that's a "right now" thing, not an "over the past two years and a million dead" thing.  

 

[gianmarco]

Okay, why ARE they there if it's Omicron and no risk factors? 

Well, it's one of 2 options:

1) Doctors across the nation have no idea what they are doing since they are the ones who decide who gets admitted to the hospital and who doesn't

Or

2) Omicron is still Covid and still gets some people really, really sick. Risk factors are just that. Higher risk means you are more likely to get sick than low or no risk. But low and no risk can and still do get sick.

I'll let you decide for yourself which of the above it is. 

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Well, it's one of 2 options:

1) Doctors across the nation have no idea what they are doing since they are the ones who decide who gets admitted to the hospital and who doesn't

Or

2) Omicron is still Covid and still gets some people really, really sick. Risk factors are just that. Higher risk means you are more likely to get sick than low or no risk. But low and no risk can and still do get sick.

I'll let you decide for yourself which of the above it is. 

1) Indignance isn't an argument, but I'll let it go

2) It's unfortunate that Omicron makes "some" people "really, really sick".  But this is still a way different dynamic than the other variants that caused death.

So, yes, I still question the DEFCON level we're ascribing society wide.

 

[humpback]

Okay, why ARE they there if it's Omicron and no risk factors? 

Is this a real question?

 

[jobarules]

Okay, why ARE they there if it's Omicron and no risk factors? 

You said it already on the last page

 

[Andy Dufresne]

Is this a real question?

Of course it is. All I've seen and read is that Omicron symptoms are, relative to the other variants, really not that concerning for the overwhelming majority.

I'm just asking for elucidation since I have never been one to eat/sleep/breathe COVID.

It's difficult to find that without a heaping of snark, though.

 

[gianmarco]

Not sure why I'm even bothering, Just came across this in the past hour. Excerpt:

We are starting 2022 in a place we never wanted to be, as COVID-19 has resurged stronger than ever. Our patient cases and hospitalizations are climbing at a rate we have not experienced before, and our own team members are getting sick in record numbers. We have been making plans to alleviate pressures on our team members and continue caring for patients through this latest surge.   With inpatient COVID census at more than 500 this morning, which is the highest level we’ve seen since the pandemic started, we will be taking all but urgent and emergent procedures off the schedule until further notice, beginning Thursday, January 6. This decision is not being made lightly and a great deal of thought and planning has informed our next steps. While it’s impossible to know how long the current surge may last, we anticipate the worst to continue through the month of January. 

 

[Penguin]

New Variant found in France

While the world is grappling with the highly infectious Omicron, strain of Covid, scientists in France have identified a potentially worrying new variant, which has 46 mutations.

Named IHU, the new B.1.640.2 variant has so far infected 12 people living in southeastern France. The first case was linked to a person with a travel history to Cameroon, western Africa, said researchers in a paper published on medRxiv.

However, experts were quick to announce that just because a new variant had been discovered, that did not necessarily mean IHU will prove as infectious as other strains, including Omicron.

In the analysis, the authors found “46 mutations” which had not been spotted in other countries, nor labelled a variant under investigation by the WHO.

The genomes were obtained by next-generation sequencing. The authors of the paper claimed that the person who was idenitifed with the IHU variant, was fully-vaccinated. The person tested positive for covid after returning from a three-day trip to Cameroon.

The authors of the research paper said "subsequent detection... of three mutations in the spike gene to screen for variants... did not correspond to the pattern of the Delta variant involved in almost all SARS-CoV-2 infections at that time”.

 

[IrishTwinkie]

We are starting 2022 in a place we never wanted to be, as COVID-19 has resurged stronger than ever. Our patient cases and hospitalizations are climbing at a rate we have not experienced before, and our own team members are getting sick in record numbers. We have been making plans to alleviate pressures on our team members and continue caring for patients through this latest surge.   With inpatient COVID census at more than 500 this morning, which is the highest level we’ve seen since the pandemic started, we will be taking all but urgent and emergent procedures off the schedule until further notice, beginning Thursday, January 6. This decision is not being made lightly and a great deal of thought and planning has informed our next steps. While it’s impossible to know how long the current surge may last, we anticipate the worst to continue through the month of January. 

This makes me sick to my stomach. Really hoping I don't see a letter like for my wife. Ugh.

 

[ghostguy123]

If omicron didnt spread X number of times more easily, maybe it wouldn't be a huge issue.  Sending 0.001% of people to the ICU is a problem when you talk about millions upon millions of people due to vastly increased spread.

I just found out both sides of the floor I work will become all Covid starting possibly tomorrow.  Damn it.

 

[humpback]

Of course it is. All I've seen and read is that Omicron symptoms are, relative to the other variants, really not that concerning for the overwhelming majority.

I'm just asking for elucidation since I have never been one to eat/sleep/breathe COVID.

It's difficult to find that without a heaping of snark, though.

Just hard to tell- what's the other plausible answer to why they're in the hospital other than "they're sick"?

With the caveat that omicron is still very new and we're learning more by the hour, your statement is true, on the surface. The key part is "relative to the other variants", and yes, in a vacuum, it appears to be "less bad" than others. However, that doesn't mean it isn't still bad, and it spreads significantly faster than the other variants. There are hospitals all over the country being overwhelmed with patients right now, and lots of healthcare workers are out sick themselves or got burned out and left the field, which means those who do require care often times get sub-standard care or none at all.

As for the "overwhelming majority", that also appears to be true, however even a small percentage of a huge number is a fairly large number. There are also many people who are walking around with risk factors that they never even knew they had until they caught covid, and by then it's too late, you can't get a do-over.

As with most things, there are extremes on both sides, and IMO the truth lies somewhere in the middle. On this particular issue, I can't fathom people seeing the data and thinking "this is a cold, it's over", but that also doesn't mean we should all be cooking our mail. There's tons of good information in this thread from people who are dealing with this every day. I'd suggest going back a bit, the PSF thread on covid was shut down a few weeks ago and the noise-to-value ratio went way up right around that time.

 

[Doug B]

Okay, why ARE they there if it's Omicron and no risk factors? 

@Terminalxylem, @gianmarco, @ProstheticRGK, @ghostguy123, @growlers and other medical folks:

Isn't there a kind of inherent chaotic quality about COVID in general? Such that even people with no risk factors -- and plenty of them, even if percentages are small -- often end up with poor outcomes?

I don't even mean death, necessarily. Hospitalization, being hit much harder than statistics would dictate, lingering symptoms, not being "back to normal" for an extended period, etc.

There's going to be a point where society has to kind of collectively "let go" and take whatever damage COVID can still inflict. I agree with the medical folks that time is not yet upon us. And no, I don't know when we'll be on the off-ramp -- probably won't see it coming.

 

[The Z Machine]

@Terminalxylem, @gianmarco, @ProstheticRGK, @ghostguy123, @growlers and other medical folks:

Isn't there a kind of inherent chaotic quality about COVID in general? Such that even people with no risk factors -- and plenty of them, even if percentages are small -- often end up with poor outcomes?

I don't even mean death, necessarily. Hospitalization, being hit much harder than statistics would dictate, lingering symptoms, not being "back to normal" for an extended period, etc.

There's going to be a point where society has to kind of collectively "let go" and take whatever damage COVID can still inflict. I agree with the medical folks that time is not yet upon us. And no, I don't know when we'll be on the off-ramp -- probably won't see it coming.

We can only do that if our health care system has the capacity to handle the flux of patients coming through the doors.  Obviously, it cannot right now.

Generally, you're right though.  We will have to live with this thing and adjust our society accordingly. 

 

[Biff84]

Of course it is. All I've seen and read is that Omicron symptoms are, relative to the other variants, really not that concerning for the overwhelming majority.

I'm just asking for elucidation since I have never been one to eat/sleep/breathe COVID.

It's difficult to find that without a heaping of snark, though.

I think you’re buying too much into ‘Omicron is milder’ and that’s where the disconnect is. Yes it might be milder to many but that is largely due to vaccinations, prior natural immunity and improvements in treatment. There are still many people who are and will get seriously sick from this variant and fill up hospitals.

Most of those people are unvaccinated and as someone who has spent the last year vaccinating and boosting as many people as I can, I understand not caring one bit about those people. But it won’t be just them that it effects. There will be serious breakthrough cases and there will be people who will other health care treatment disrupted by what’s happening.

But most of all when we see these declarations of COVID being over it’s a slap in the face of the healthcare workers who have no choice but have their life revolve around COVID. People being asked to keep working while sick. But when we speak up and say things are really bad it’s met with ‘can you keep it down over there, we’re trying to live our life’. I’m just a retail pharmacist, I can only imagine what it’s like for those people on the frontline watching these patients die. Trust me, we all want this to be over, probably more than you. It’s not.

 

[ghostguy123]

@Terminalxylem, @gianmarco, @ProstheticRGK, @ghostguy123, @growlers and other medical folks:

Isn't there a kind of inherent chaotic quality about COVID in general? Such that even people with no risk factors -- and plenty of them, even if percentages are small -- often end up with poor outcomes?

I don't even mean death, necessarily. Hospitalization, being hit much harder than statistics would dictate, lingering symptoms, not being "back to normal" for an extended period, etc.

There's going to be a point where society has to kind of collectively "let go" and take whatever damage COVID can still inflict. I agree with the medical folks that time is not yet upon us. And no, I don't know when we'll be on the off-ramp -- probably won't see it coming.

It's an enormous strain on healthcare in general.  Forget Covid for a minute.  NON COVID people are ending up with worse health outcomes than they normally would when health care was more accessible.....say 2 years ago. 

And yes, only looking at death rate is a mistake.  Ask someone who needed a ventilator and not only will have some issues maybe forever, they probably just missed a couple months or more of work not to mention all the stress and strain on their family.  Situations like that should probably be lumped in with deaths into a new category called horrific outcomes or something like that.

 

[-fish-]

roverkid got sick on Sunday.   Fever, cough, aches, etc.    Went to urgent care, where they tested her for Covid, influenza A and influenza B.  All negative.   Sent her home and told her to take over the counter cold meds.   This is exactly what they did to two other people I know, both of whom ended up having viral pneumonia.   Tried teledoc, where after 4.5 hours they gave her a cough suppressant.

She spiked a fever of 102 last night.   Her primary is two weeks out and says go to urgent care.   

After her fever spiked again her primary said to go to the ER to get checked for pneumonia.   It was a zoo, but to the credit of the health care workers, we were in and out in just over 2 hours.   She was triaged at the check-in desk, got a chest x-ray, and was examined by an ER doc in the lobby.   Some people were getting seen in the hospital chapel.   Nobody was taken to a room unless they were being admitted.   Most people were examined in the lobby or an adjacent hallway.

She likely doesn't have pneumonia, covid or the flu, so they sent her home with the recommendation for OTC cold meds.

I guess there are a lot of people in the same boat.   There's nothing left.

 

[[icon]]

So an all over mouth swab, but you don't need to swab the throat?  Is this how we should be doing all of the at-home tests now?

correct... all around the mouth but not throat for some reason. I just followed protocol for the study. 

Seriously, I think a lot of people talked themselves into the proposition that getting covid-19 is some kind of moral failure on their part. 

I get the point of the post, but if the goal is to stop the spread of disease for a host of reasons (pick the poison that matters to you)... getting the virus is a failure.

Not a moral one (which was your point), and certainly a very common one... but a failure nonetheless.

Girlfriend?  I totally agree.

This post deserved a rolling smiley 

 

[Payne]

I think you’re buying too much into ‘Omicron is milder’ and that’s where the disconnect is. Yes it might be milder to many but that is largely due to vaccinations, prior natural immunity and improvements in treatment. There are still many people who are and will get seriously sick from this variant and fill up hospitals.

Most of those people are unvaccinated and as someone who has spent the last year vaccinating and boosting as many people as I can, I understand not caring one bit about those people. But it won’t be just them that it effects. There will be serious breakthrough cases and there will be people who will other health care treatment disrupted by what’s happening.

But most of all when we see these declarations of COVID being over it’s a slap in the face of the healthcare workers who have no choice but have their life revolve around COVID. People being asked to keep working while sick. But when we speak up and say things are really bad it’s met with ‘can you keep it down over there, we’re trying to live our life’. I’m just a retail pharmacist, I can only imagine what it’s like for those people on the frontline watching these patients die. Trust me, we all want this to be over, probably more than you. It’s not.

Or....maybe like a lot of viruses throughout history, it is weakening as it mutates. ??

 

[Alex P Keaton]

The Girlfriend (moderna boosted the week before Christmas) has been fairly sick for a few days now. Cough with a rattle, head cold. Have tested her twice, including once with the omicron-preferred oral swab following the main study's methodology (no food/drink for 30mins, cough into hand/arm 3-4 times, then swab inner cheek / tongue / gums / palate for 30 seconds).... negative both times.

A buddy's wife and daughter had the same symptoms and he ran a PCR on them (owns 3 children's clinics who do testing) and they were negative. 

Seems like there's a good head cold going around too. 

Yep.  I had that head cold for the past 6-7 days.

 

[fatness]

Why in the hell would an asymptomatic person test?

Is this a serious question?

I scheduled a PCR test weeks ago for around the Christmas family gathering at my house, the first family gathering we've had indoors for ages. I wanted to let my family know if I was contagious, despite no symptoms. It's such an easy thing to do for people I love. Test was negative.

Then on Saturday 1/2 I woke up feeling like ####, like I was drowning in snot. Felt like hell all day. So Sunday I did an antigen test at home so I could know my status before I went to work Monday. Test was negative. It's such an easy thing to do for the people that work for me.

It's really not unusual for people to give a #### about those around them. In fact I'd say it's normal.

 

[fatness]

In my brother and his wife's case, they were both close contacts and wanted to get off work for a week.

Sorry to hear they're behaving like bums.

 

[Judge Smails]

I don’t see how people who never step foot in a hospital can argue with those who are in one everyday.  The majority of my LinkedIn feed is from hospital CEO’s, doctors and nurses. What Gianmarco is saying is what’s going on just about everywhere. Hospitals stopping elective procedures. Turning away heart attack victims because they don’t have staff. Staff getting sick at record rates. Patients in bad shape in ICU’s. Sure the majority are non vaxxed.

And businesses starting to get really affected again. My buddy owns a custom cabinetry business. Gave his workers off for Christmas week. Today 5 of the 8 are very sick with COVID. All vaxxed. 

Anyway, people can say that they got a mild case. Great. But they don’t know the outcome of the cases of the 1.8 people they infected. 

 

[fatness]

Ah no, the at home tests are unreliable.  Not sure if that is the same or different from drive through.

They are still pretty reliable, especially if symptomatic.  Nothing is 100% these days.

Both from what I've read and from what my doctor told me today on my monthly appointment, antigen tests deliver about 20% false negatives. She wasn't worried about my negative antigen test on Sunday since I'd had a negative PCR test 6 days earlier.

 

[fatness]

Hard to say, Hogan said they're finding that this is 50/50 between Delta and Omicron. Omicron definitely seems to be the "preferred" wave to get hit hard with, but not when the health care system is already overwhelmed.

That'll be very different next week as omicron takes over.

 

[Harry Frogfish]

1) Indignance isn't an argument, but I'll let it go

It's difficult to find that without a heaping of snark, though.

LOL, nice.

 

[fatness]

Are we sure we haven't become a nation of hypochondriacs? 

I think you spelled "whiners" wrong.

 

[fatness]

To the degree that there's a silver lining associated with omicron, it's that it's ripping through blue states.  Once a critical mass of media/professional types realizes that vaccinated covid is just another bug, maybe we can chill a bit. 

You're not in the PSF, Ivan. And you have a short memory. When COVID first hit the country in 2020 there were some idiots who thought it was a good thing that it first hit points of entry, like NY and DC, since they were "blue". Over time that didn't work out so well for the rest of the country since it spread everywhere. In the more-vaccinated year of 2021, the "ripping through blue states thing" didn't work out so well for those thinking that would be a good thing.

For example: https://www.axios.com/year-in-covid-visual-c84387bc-ffd4-4c46-aff2-be2178a55d41.html

What's needed is a mass of unvaccinated types to realize this is a real ongoing thing and they're helping keep it going.

 

[fatness]

Girlfriend?  I totally agree.

 

[fatness]

Standing in line for hours to get tested to see if you have something that may make you slightly uncomfortable seems irrational to me.

Straw men seem irrational to me.

 

[fatness]

We will have to live with this thing and adjust our society accordingly. 

And hopefully for only 1-4 more months, until omicron spreads itself to all the hinterlands and they work their way through it. Because we all know it's headed almost everywhere. It's just  a matter of how long it'll take to get there, and how long they'll take to fight it off.

There's actually a possibility of a good May or June. Or things might still be overwhelmed then. But there's a chance omicron will subside to manageable levels. The obstacle to that is unvaccinated people , which numerous folks in this thread don't want to talk about.

 

[Dwayne Hoover]

The bigger problem that I see with Omicron and it being mild is that there are  a good amount of people that don't see a need to continue to get boosters.

At this point, I have no reason to think this is going to be over soon.  People are definitely going to let down their guard, which could be a bad idea for the next variant that will inevitably come..

 

[Judge Smails]

I don’t see how people who never step foot in a hospital can argue with those who are in one everyday.  The majority of my LinkedIn feed is from hospital CEO’s, doctors and nurses. What Gianmarco is saying is what’s going on just about everywhere. Hospitals stopping elective procedures. Turning away heart attack victims because they don’t have staff. Staff getting sick at record rates. Patients in bad shape in ICU’s. Sure the majority are non vaxxed.

And businesses starting to get really affected again. My buddy owns a custom cabinetry business. Gave his workers off for Christmas week. Today 5 of the 8 are very sick with COVID. All vaxxed. 

Anyway, people can say that they got a mild case. Great. But they don’t know the outcome of the cases of the 1.8 people they infected. 

Case in point

https://www-sandiegouniontribune-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/health/story/2022-01-04/covid?_amp=true

 

[Biff84]

Or....maybe like a lot of viruses throughout history, it is weakening as it mutates. ??

Maybe but the last two major variants Delta (severity) and Omicron (transmissibility and vaccine resistance) had mutations that were beneficial. So I’m not sure it’s good to assume COVID is like any other virus we’ve dealt with.

 

[Coach Morris Buttermaker]

I think you’re buying too much into ‘Omicron is milder’ and that’s where the disconnect is. Yes it might be milder to many but that is largely due to vaccinations, prior natural immunity and improvements in treatment.

South Africa made it through with a 26% vax rate, and 60%+ poverty rate. Its mild, and hopefully the beginning of the end of this pandemic.

 

[Jackstraw]

@Terminalxylem, @gianmarco, @ProstheticRGK, @ghostguy123, @growlers and other medical folks:

Isn't there a kind of inherent chaotic quality about COVID in general? Such that even people with no risk factors -- and plenty of them, even if percentages are small -- often end up with poor outcomes?

I don't even mean death, necessarily. Hospitalization, being hit much harder than statistics would dictate, lingering symptoms, not being "back to normal" for an extended period, etc.

There's going to be a point where society has to kind of collectively "let go" and take whatever damage COVID can still inflict. I agree with the medical folks that time is not yet upon us. And no, I don't know when we'll be on the off-ramp -- probably won't see it coming.

You’d think we could collectively at least wear a mask to the grocery store. Or do like….anything to do our part. But it is just too much to ask I guess. We are talking about reducing hours at my place of business due to people out w Covid. We aren’t even requiring masks. Nobody would do it. 
 

Its just so little to ask and literally the least we can do and it’s just too much to ask. Blows me away. We can ask our soldiers to die off in foreign lands but we can’t take a few simple precautions collectively. Just don’t get it. Really disallusioned about the state of our country right now. We have by almost any measure been among the worst in the world in our response to this. 

 

[zoobird]

I've been loosely following the announcements about the CDC's travel warning levels due to Covid-19 in various countries.  Each week, the list of 'Level 4' (highest level of Covid-19) countries is updated.  One thing notably absent from the updates is any mention of where the U.S. would fall on the list.  I finally did the math this morning.

Level 4 is 500 Covid-19 positives per 100,000 residents.  That comes out to 1.645m for the U.S. population of 329m.  We might officially hit that some day this week.  And if data were collected from all the at home testing, we'd already be there.

Then I realized...those CDC travel thresholds are for 28 DAYS.  We're so far beyond Level 4 that we're getting as many new cases each day as some of the hardest hit countries in the world are getting in a month.  How is that possible?  Am I messing up the math here?

 

[PinkydaPimp]

Both from what I've read and from what my doctor told me today on my monthly appointment, antigen tests deliver about 20% false positives. She wasn't worried about my negative antigen test on Sunday since I'd had a negative PCR test 6 days earlier.

Sort of.  Antigens do not amplify the sample so they wont detect minute amounts of it.  But what they are very good for is detecting when you are contagious which is what most people want to accomplish.  Often if you take it early and have it but test negative you arent contagious yet.  This is the reason that most instructions have you repeat the test after 24-48 hours. 

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

South Africa made it through with a 26% vax rate, and 60%+ poverty rate. Its mild, and hopefully the beginning of the end of this pandemic.

They also had a high infection rate and it’s summer. So hard to compare. We tend to trend with the UK. 

 

[Cjw_55106]

The bigger problem that I see with Omicron and it being mild is that there are a good amount of people that don't see a need to continue to get boosters.

To what end? 

TEL AVIV—Early data from Israel suggests a fourth dose of the Covid-19 vaccine from Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE will provide safe and effective protection against infection and severe illness for those with waning immunity.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

What's needed is a mass of unvaccinated types to realize this is a real ongoing thing and they're helping keep it going.

I agree.

How does wagging our collective finger at vaccinated and boosted people for living their lives normally help accomplish that goal?

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

We got an email from the principal today about numerous cases/close contacts stemming from Monday.  Typically the emails from him regarding COVID has said "a student has tested positive" but in this case it is very clearly several students. 

My kids' teachers are also still out this week.

 

[nysfl2]

Both from what I've read and from what my doctor told me today on my monthly appointment, antigen tests deliver about 20% false positives. She wasn't worried about my negative antigen test on Sunday since I'd had a negative PCR test 6 days earlier.

I don't believe this is accurate. Antigen tests can give false negatives because they are less sensitive than PCR tests, but false positives are very rare. Mostly only caused by doing the test incorrectly, or cross-contaminating samples when performing multiple tests.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/JCM.00083-21

 

[Nathan R. Jessep]

Just catching up the last 1.5 pages of discussion. I just read this this morning and seems relevant. 

The Omicron Paradox: If it’s milder, why are hospitals on the brink of disaster?

tl;dr: Hospitals started this wave fuller that previous ones and Omicron isn’t nearly mild enough.

Based on emerging data from South Africa and now the United States, it appears the rate of people infected with the Omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2 who require hospitalization is genuinely lower than what was recorded during prior waves. Does that mean the Omicron variant really causes milder Covid-19 illnesses than its predecessors, as has been widely speculated? Or are vaccines and prior infections just providing more protection?

To find out, I asked researchers in South Africa for data from their recent Omicron wave. I wondered how frequent Covid-19 hospitalizations were during their recent Omicron wave compared to the prior Delta wave. They told me that after taking vaccination and immune status, age, and medical co-morbidities into account, the risk of Covid-19 hospitalization was around 50% lower during the Omicron wave compared to the Delta wave. That means Omicron hospitalized its targets less often than other variants had both as a result of its biologic characteristics and community immunity from vaccines and, likely to a lesser extent, prior infections.

If this sounds like good news, that’s because, in isolation, it is. Imagine if Omicron caused severe Covid-19 just as often as Delta and other previous variants while spreading as quickly as Omicron does; more hospitals would have overflowed sooner and by greater margins than what appears to be happening now.

However, any discussion of Omicron’s lower rates of hospitalization that is devoid of the context of its cinematic contagiousness misses a devastating and important point. Whether due to our behavior or its biology, Omicron is spreading through cities, counties, and states like fire in wind. Hospital beds are filling up fast because Omicron’s rate of spread appears to have quickly overtaken any felt benefit resulting from a lower rate of hospitalization.

The visualization below created for Inside Medicine by Dr. Kristin Panthagani demonstrates this concept dramatically. Using realistic estimates of emerging data, we show how a variant spreading as quickly as Omicron (“Virus O”, right) would be expected to fill up hospital beds faster than a variant like Delta (“Virus D”, left)—even if Omicron “merely” hospitalizes half as many of its new targets as Delta did.

(I can't link the GIF image, but it depicts the situation perfectly, worth a view)

As the visualization shows, even after a few "cycles," a less virulent pathogen like Omicron will cause far more hospitalizations (red) than one like Delta, largely because of how many more infections it causes (gray).

•••

Another important problem is that, unlike previous waves, United States hospitals entered the Omicron wave already facing pressure from high demand for non-Covid-19 care. In addition to other “typical” problems that seem to mount in winter, flu is back after a hiatus last year. Entering the Delta wave, on July 1st, 2021, around 67% of staffed hospital beds in the United States were full. Leading up to the Omicron wave, around 79% of staffed beds in the US were full. That 12% is important buffer territory that we desperately need. Things get dicey in hospitals the closer to full we get.

•••

But what about younger demographics getting Omicron? Does this not help in some way? Yes and no. On one hand, younger populations getting most of the Omicron infections means that hospitalization rates are likely to be lower. Indeed, that’s what we’ve seen so far. But that’s a double-edged sword. Younger people also staff hospitals. Right now, so many healthcare workers are being sidelined with Omicron that our ability to care for all patients, Covid and non-Covid alike, has been noticeably compromised in many places.

On top of that, the rate of Omicron spread is outpacing any benefit hospitals might have felt owing to lower rates of hospitalization. The graph below (made by Benjy Renton and me), shows how in Florida for example, the number of new cases needed for hospitals to exceed capacity has actually increased in the last couple of weeks (we call this number a “circuit breaker threshold”). If the hospitalization rate among Omicron cases is lower—which indeed we’ve seen in many places including Florida, where the rate of hospitalization among new SARS-CoV-2 cases has dropped by more than 50% since mid-December—a region should be able to “tolerate” more new cases before hospitals will fill up. (Note: some, though not all, of this lower rate of hospitalization reflects increases in testing among younger healthier people). Unfortunately, the graph also shows that Omicron’s rapid spread has already overcome that increasingly higher "circuit breaker" capacity threshold. In essence, Omicron’s lower hospitalization rate meant we had more money in the bank to spend. But we’ve already spent it all. In fact, whenever the yellow line is on or above the blue line, we've gone into debt.

•••

My friend Dr. Carter Mecher, who served as Director of Medical Preparedness Policy at the White House under both President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama, shared a great analogy with me over the weekend. “If Delta was a Category 5 hurricane, Omicron is a Category 2 that moves ashore and just sits there until everything is flooded and just about everything is damaged,” he wrote to me in an email. “Hurricane Omicron doesn’t have the windspeed to rip off the roofs and flatten buildings. It just damages the roofs enough and floods them with massive rainfall, destroying the building just the same.”

Just a little bit more water in a building that’s already water damaged is enough to cause irreparable damage. That's how life in many US hospitals feels right now. The looming question is, just where are we in this storm?