*** OFFICIAL *** COVID-19 CoronaVirus Thread. Fresh epidemic fears as child pneumonia cases surge in Europe after China outbreak. NOW in USA (9 Viewers)

[Biff84]

Yep.  People have short memories.  My red state did an absolutely terrible job of managing the pandemic during the pre-vaccine period.  It's been great since then, but it's good to remember how bad a job we did before we start pointing fingers at people in blue states over decisions that they're making now, when the stakes are lower.

This is where you lose me. SD has been consistently terrible at managing the pandemic. The only thing that changed was you got vaccinated and the risk to you personally decreased. It’s rather shortsighted to say that ‘doing nothing’ goes from terrible to great just because your personal risk is now lower. I’d love to see any category where SD is great. 

 

[worrierking]

Yea, I've been perplexed by this.  Our average daily deaths have been higher than they were at any point during Delta, but the narrative is that this is a "mild" variant.

The Delta surge hit different locations in the US at different times, while Omicron has roared through pretty much the whole country in a short period of time (Mid December through mid February).  Delta started in Arkansas and Missouri in June and was hitting the Northeast pretty hard until December when it was replaced by Omicron. When all of it is over, the Delta surge will likely have killed more US citizens than Omicron, even though peak daily was higher in Omicron. 

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Got my “4” government covid tests today. Am I the only person who assumed this was going to be 4 boxes???  Only 2 boxes received. 
 

Technically 4 tests but man, not what I expected. 

 

[IC FBGCav]

Not sure how contracting a disease that has killed millions is “the best defense”, but you do you. 

Fair

 

[IC FBGCav]

This is literally what all of us have been thinking about your posts for a year.

I get it

 

[IC FBGCav]

He'll be back in a couple weeks to answer. Got a job, you know.

Usually a couple days.  I was wrong on the 2k.  I admit when I am wrong.

 

[IC FBGCav]

Got my “4” government covid tests today. Am I the only person who assumed this was going to be 4 boxes???  Only 2 boxes received. 
 

Technically 4 tests but man, not what I expected. 

I got mine about 2 weeks ago.  All in one box.

 

[IC FBGCav]

Yea, I've been perplexed by this.  Our average daily deaths have been higher than they were at any point during Delta, but the narrative is that this is a "mild" variant.

I assumed this.  With vaxx and natural immunity.  It doesn't add up after 2 years.  I have no idea why.  I am sure science will flesh it out but perplexing.

 

[Dinsy Ejotuz]

When all of it is over, the Delta surge will likely have killed more US citizens than Omicron, even though peak daily was higher in Omicron. 

Nope.  Omicron has already killed more in the US.

 

[skol asylum]

This is where you lose me. SD has been consistently terrible at managing the pandemic. The only thing that changed was you got vaccinated and the risk to you personally decreased. It’s rather shortsighted to say that ‘doing nothing’ goes from terrible to great just because your personal risk is now lower. I’d love to see any category where SD is great. 

Their Governor is awful when it comes to the pandemic.

 

[ZADO]

Nope.  Omicron has already killed more in the US.

 we have such a weak immune compromised population in this country , how sad. 

Only the strong  survive 

 

[Osaurus]

Got my “4” government covid tests today. Am I the only person who assumed this was going to be 4 boxes???  Only 2 boxes received. 
 

Technically 4 tests but man, not what I expected. 

2 boxes? I got 4 tests in 1 box.

 

[Dr_Zaius]

Nope.  Omicron has already killed more in the US.

I don't think you can just do what the article does and say Omicron arrived on Day X, therefore this is the omicron death window now.  One, there's a lag between a case and a death (often 3 weeks or more).  Two, if you look at people who try to distinguish day of death vs. day of report, in some states for whatever reason you have deaths reported weeks or months after they actually occurred.  I would suspect there are a lot of delta deaths in the December and even January numbers.

That said, I agree with what is probably your larger point, in that collectively as a nation we seem to have gone from high alert to "it's over" despite the fact that death levels are still pretty darn high.

 

[ignatiusjreilly]

Got my “4” government covid tests today. Am I the only person who assumed this was going to be 4 boxes???  Only 2 boxes received. 
 

Technically 4 tests but man, not what I expected. 

IIRC the Binax instructions actually assume the two tests in each box will be taken by the same person a few days apart. Which is not at all how anyone I know uses rapid tests.

 

[jamny]

It is now clearly overdue for the United States and the CDC to acknowledge natural immunity as a partial path to protection, as has been previously done in several countries. The term “fully vaccinated” needs to be redefined. For people who have received 2 mRNA vaccine shots, without prior infection, a third shot, booster, is needed to protect against symptomatic and severe disease. On the other hand, for people with natural immunity, with proof of a positive PCR test, one-shot is all that is necessary to be considered “fully vaccinated.”

By providing immunity certification in this way, the polarization between natural and vaccine-induce immune camps will be bridged, at least to some extent. The evidence has become overwhelming and its adoption as policy will likely help get the low American vaccination rate of 64% , ranked worse than 60 countries in the world, to a much higher level, further building the immunity wall for the whole population.

It’s also about sticking to the science when a large and ever-increasing body of data can no longer be ignored. One can fully understand why vaccine mandates would be repudiated when there was evidence of protection conferred by infection. Now, as the virus evolved, we are at a time when natural immunity alone is not sufficient, but with a single shot it’s as good as three.

link

 

[Alex P Keaton]

I don't think you can just do what the article does and say Omicron arrived on Day X, therefore this is the omicron death window now.  One, there's a lag between a case and a death (often 3 weeks or more).  Two, if you look at people who try to distinguish day of death vs. day of report, in some states for whatever reason you have deaths reported weeks or months after they actually occurred.  I would suspect there are a lot of delta deaths in the December and even January numbers.

That said, I agree with what is probably your larger point, in that collectively as a nation we seem to have gone from high alert to "it's over" despite the fact that death levels are still pretty darn high.

Shocked to see such numerically illiterate reporting from the NY Times

 

[IvanKaramazov]

Low stakes? 60K dead in January. That seems like kind of a big deal even late in the game (we hope).  

I'm vaccinated.  Covid-19 is a very low-risk proposition for us.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

This is where you lose me. SD has been consistently terrible at managing the pandemic. The only thing that changed was you got vaccinated and the risk to you personally decreased. It’s rather shortsighted to say that ‘doing nothing’ goes from terrible to great just because your personal risk is now lower. I’d love to see any category where SD is great. 

"Doing nothing" is great when your personal level of risk suggests that doing nothing is the optimal protocol.

To be fair, it's not as if policy makers in my state looked at the data in, say, May 2021 and decided after careful deliberation that it was time to go back to normal.  They decided on "do nothing" as our official state strategy early on in 2020 and stuck with it the whole time.  What happened is that circumstances on the ground changed in such a way that "do nothing" became a really great approach, but that was sort of just an accident.  Still, speaking as somebody who has to live with whatever rules my rules-makers come up with, I'm happy with the rules as they stand today even if we arrived there irrationally.

 

[James Daulton]

Our hospitals covid cases are still low.  Overall hospital census is still crazy high though.  Hoping that settles back down to normalcy soon so we can start relying less on agency nurses and stop losing millions each month.

I've got a feeling that it's going to be a very good and open spring and summer for the US and world hopefully.  If there had been more anti-vaxxers our hospitals would indeed have been completely overrun by Omicron and I can't imagine how many would have died just from lack of medical care.

Scary to think about. 

 

[worrierking]

Nope.  Omicron has already killed more in the US.

That's a terrible analysis.  It intentionally leaves out all July deaths, which are all Delta, and begins counting Omicron deaths in late November.  Basically, all the November deaths were Delta, and a majority of the December deaths were Delta, but it attributes them all to Omicron.  Omicron did not overtake Delta in cases in the US until Mid December and deaths typically lag cases by about three weeks.  It's counting Delta deaths as Omicron.

Since Omicron has overtaken Delta, it's likely that at some point down the road it will have killed more Americans than Delta, but this story does not come close to showing that it has done so yet.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

Our hospitals covid cases are still low.  Overall hospital census is still crazy high though.  Hoping that settles back down to normalcy soon so we can start relying less on agency nurses and stop losing millions each month.

I've got a feeling that it's going to be a very good and open spring and summer for the US and world hopefully.  If there had been more anti-vaxxers our hospitals would indeed have been completely overrun by Omicron and I can't imagine how many would have died just from lack of medical care.

Scary to think about. 

This is speculative, partisan BS. 

 

[GoBirds]

This is speculative, partisan BS. 

Yep, more spamming.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Nope.  Omicron has already killed more in the US.

It’s just math. The Omnicron wave was so much larger than anything we had seen to date and we still have plenty of unvaccinated and compromised people here.   I mean this wave crushed the spikes of last winter and delta exponentially. 

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

IIRC the Binax instructions actually assume the two tests in each box will be taken by the same person a few days apart. Which is not at all how anyone I know uses rapid tests.

Correct. As does the iHealth ones which is what came in the mail. 
 

You are supposed to use both as a kit (not saying this is what happens in practice all of the time). Like you feel a little sick Monday, you are to take it then. And if you’re negative but still have symptoms a few days later, take the second one.  You really are supposed to test double negative a few days apart for these. 
 

So given that every OTC test kit comes with two “tests” in the box, I assumed that we were receiving 4 kits from the federal government. Not just 4 swabs. 
 

So not only are they too late, but they are lacking in numbers. People with 4 or more people in their household are undersupplied.  

 

[IvanKaramazov]

It’s just math. The Omnicron wave was so much larger than anything we had seen to date and we still have plenty of unvaccinated and compromised people here.   I mean this wave crushed the spikes of last winter and delta exponentially. 

Imagine if omicron had been the OG variant.  Masks and social distancing weren't perfect by any means against alpha, but they at least did something and allowed us to get by as a society until the vaccines rolled out.  This would have been so much worse if the original strain had been more infectious.

 

[Leeroy Jenkins]

Imagine if omicron had been the OG variant.  Masks and social distancing weren't perfect by any means against alpha, but they at least did something and allowed us to get by as a society until the vaccines rolled out.  This would have been so much worse if the original strain had been more infectious.

 

as much as things have sucked, we really are lucky this wasn’t as infectious in the beginning, wasn’t deadlier, and that we were able to roll out vaccines so fast. 

 

[Doug B]

Yea, I've been perplexed by this.  Our average daily deaths have been higher than they were at any point during Delta, but the narrative is that this is a "mild" variant.

Hospitalizations-per-case and deaths-per-case have been much lower for Omicron than for Delta. That's where a (very) crude analysis may conclude "Omicron is a milder illness than Delta".
 

 

[Doug B]

Regarding deaths in the U.S. -- the 7-day average has dropped for 19 consecutive days from 2,660 on January 29 to 1,913 yesterday (Worldometers' 'Daily New Deaths in the United States' chart here).

...

** 7-day case count average in the U.S. peaked at 821,375 on 1/13/2022, and was 115,335 on 2/17/2022. That represents 35 consecutive days of decrease in 7-day average of cases.

Thought I'd update these numbers four days later to see where things stand from a top-of-the-mountain view. In the United States:

CASES: 7-day average of confirmed COVID cases in the U.S. peaked at 821,375 on 1/13/2022, and was 82,004 on 2/21/2022. That represents 39 consecutive days of decrease in 7-day average of cases.

DEATHS: The 7-day average has dropped for 23 consecutive days from 2,660 on 1/29/2022 to 1,662 on 2/21/2022.

(Worldometers' U.S. COVID charts here)
 

EDIT: Low-water marks in the U.S. from summer 2021, after the main thrust of vaccinations and before Delta.

CASES: 12,105 on 6/21/2021
DEATHS: 247 on both 7/8/2022 and 7/9/2022
 

 

[James Daulton]

This is speculative, partisan BS. 

I literally work for a hospital system and 80% of the hospitalizations from Omicron were unvaxxed.  And 95% of the deaths were.  We were holding patients in hallways for goodness sakes.  Every single hospital official across the country reported the same thing. What do you think would have been the result if even more of the country were vaxx-deniers?

And how is that partisan?  Geez

 

[stbugs]

I literally work for a hospital system and 80% of the hospitalizations from Omicron were unvaxxed.  And 95% of the deaths were.  We were holding patients in hallways for goodness sakes.  Every single hospital official across the country reported the same thing. What do you think would have been the result if even more of the country were vaxx-deniers?

And how is that partisan?  Geez

All the real results of the current studies make people, who avoided the vaccine for political reasons and took Twitter posts as their science, look dumb. You are seeing people lash out after realizing that they were following the same conspiracy nuts they laughed at before for chem trails and UFOs.

 

[Biff84]

as much as things have sucked, we really are lucky this wasn’t as infectious in the beginning, wasn’t deadlier, and that we were able to roll out vaccines so fast. 

What made Omicron ‘mild’ was vaccines, previous immunity, improved treatments and having a general understanding of how the virus works. Just imagine if all the people you know who got Omicron were getting it in March 2020. We would have had a true lockdown and devastating death tolls. 

 

[Biff84]

"Doing nothing" is great when your personal level of risk suggests that doing nothing is the optimal protocol.

To be fair, it's not as if policy makers in my state looked at the data in, say, May 2021 and decided after careful deliberation that it was time to go back to normal.  They decided on "do nothing" as our official state strategy early on in 2020 and stuck with it the whole time.  What happened is that circumstances on the ground changed in such a way that "do nothing" became a really great approach, but that was sort of just an accident.  Still, speaking as somebody who has to live with whatever rules my rules-makers come up with, I'm happy with the rules as they stand today even if we arrived there irrationally.

The problem is that your focus is on personal risk and only personal risk. Is it really that much different than the people who refuse to wear a mask or get vaccinated because they don’t think they are at risk? The biggest difference is that you waited until you were protected before you stopped caring about everyone else.

 

[Ramblin Wreck]

All the real results of the current studies make people, who avoided the vaccine for political reasons and took Twitter posts as their science, look dumb. You are seeing people lash out after realizing that they were following the same conspiracy nuts they laughed at before for chem trails and UFOs.

I had a week long cough.  No one is lashing out.  The fact you and Daulton have to resort to calling people dumb, talk about "nuts", etc... says a lot about you guys.  Same schtick every thread.

 

[IvanKaramazov]

The problem is that your focus is on personal risk and only personal risk. Is it really that much different than the people who refuse to wear a mask or get vaccinated because they don’t think they are at risk? The biggest difference is that you waited until you were protected before you stopped caring about everyone else.

Well, one major difference is that an unvaccinated person is wrong about not being risk.  As a triple-vaccinated person, I am right about not being risk.  Being right is very different from being wrong.  

Also, the "you don't care about anybody expect yourself" card is getting a little dog-eared.  I am not the one trying to force everyone else to bend to my will so that I can feel slightly safer.  That's you guys.  I'm not stopping anybody from getting vaccinated or wearing whatever mask they want or skipping family gatherings or whatever.  It's long past time for you to return the favor and mind your own business. 

Edit: I also kind of don't understand the "you waited until you were protected" part of this.  Of course I waited until I was protected before I went to back to normal.  And it's not as if I pulled a fast one or anything like that.  Hundreds of millions of other people got protected right around the same time I did.  There was never any good reason for us not to consider that our off-ramp.  

 

[offdee]

I'm probably stepping into a bear trap here, but just genuinely curious..

What are the side by side numbers of  Influenza cases these days vs what they were 3-4 yrs ago (when Covid/Omicron wasn't a thing) ?

 

[Doug B]

The fact you and Daulton have to resort to calling people dumb, talk about "nuts" ...

Daulton did not call anyone "dumb" or refer to anyone as "conspiracy nuts". He did make mention of 'anti-vaxxers'. Were you meaning to call out that terminology specifically?

 

[Biff84]

Well, one major difference is that an unvaccinated person is wrong about not being risk.  As a triple-vaccinated person, I am right about not being risk.  Being right is very different from being wrong.  

Also, the "you don't care about anybody expect yourself" card is getting a little dog-eared.  I am not the one trying to force everyone else to bend to my will so that I can feel slightly safer.  That's you guys.  I'm not stopping anybody from getting vaccinated or wearing whatever mask they want or skipping family gatherings or whatever.  It's long past time for you to return the favor and mind your own business. 

Edit: I also kind of don't understand the "you waited until you were protected" part of this.  Of course I waited until I was protected before I went to back to normal.  And it's not as if I pulled a fast one or anything like that.  Hundreds of millions of other people got protected right around the same time I did.  There was never any good reason for us not to consider that our off-ramp.  

It’s fine to have the attitude you now have. You got vaccinated and did your part. But you have to realize how self-centered it is to focus only on your risk and ignore everything else. Calling SDs approach ‘great’ now or ever is just ridiculous. Go ask any health care provider in SD if they think it has been great.

 

[Gilroy34]

It’s fine to have the attitude you now have. You got vaccinated and did your part. But you have to realize how self-centered it is to focus only on your risk and ignore everything else. Calling SDs approach ‘great’ now or ever is just ridiculous. Go ask any health care provider in SD if they think it has been great.

self-centered?  Can you unpack that?

 

[PhillipPhoto]

The problem is that your focus is on personal risk and only personal risk. Is it really that much different than the people who refuse to wear a mask or get vaccinated because they don’t think they are at risk? The biggest difference is that you waited until you were protected before you stopped caring about everyone else.

Nobody is wearing masks anymore.  Every state but Hawaii has announced an end date to that.

 

[menobrown]

Curious if anyone has had longer term side effects likely brought on by the vaccines?

 

[stbugs]

I had a week long cough.  No one is lashing out.  The fact you and Daulton have to resort to calling people dumb, talk about "nuts", etc... says a lot about you guys.  Same schtick every thread.

You called his 100% truthful post (things would have been way worse if not for all the vaccinated folks) partisan BS because you were offended that someone blamed anti-vaxxers for making things worse. If more people got vaccinated right up front, the last peak might not have even happened. Folks like you always made me laugh because they refused to do the one simple thing that would have eased all restrictions much earlier. Easier to listen to some random barista on Twitter and complain why things weren’t back to normal.

If you are offended by the truth, your insecurity is showing.

 

[stbugs]

Curious if anyone has had longer term side effects likely brought on by the vaccines?

JFC, seriously? Why don’t you go ask all the folks suffering from long term COVID affects. They are a lot easier to find.

 

[PhillipPhoto]

Got my “4” government covid tests today. Am I the only person who assumed this was going to be 4 boxes???  Only 2 boxes received. 
 

Technically 4 tests but man, not what I expected. 

4 boxes one test each from the Feds.  5 tests all in one box from the State.  All made in China.

 

[PhillipPhoto]

You called his 100% truthful post (things would have been way worse if not for all the vaccinated folks) partisan BS because you were offended that someone blamed anti-vaxxers for making things worse. If more people got vaccinated right up front, the last peak might not have even happened. Folks like you always made me laugh because they refused to do the one simple thing that would have eased all restrictions much earlier. Easier to listen to some random barista on Twitter and complain why things weren’t back to normal.

If you are offended by the truth, your insecurity is showing.

The most vaccinated country in the world, United Arab Emirates at 94.1%, still peaked with Omicron.  

 

[IvanKaramazov]

It’s fine to have the attitude you now have. You got vaccinated and did your part. But you have to realize how self-centered it is to focus only on your risk and ignore everything else. Calling SDs approach ‘great’ now or ever is just ridiculous. Go ask any health care provider in SD if they think it has been great.

At this point, though, I literally don't know what you mean by the "self-centered" part.

I'm not at any serious risk from covid-19.  Neither is anybody in my family.  For us, the pandemic ended quite a while ago.

I get that some people are more risk averse than I am.  That's fine.  Get vaccinated, get boosted, and wear an N95 whenever you go out.  Problem solved.  You can more or less eliminate any serious risk from this disease by taking a few simple actions on your end without pestering other people.  "My mask protects you and your mask protects me" was okay when we were wearing cloth masks, but it's not a good basis for public policy now that most of us are vaccinated and high-quality masks are available for anybody who wants them.  Stop imposing your extreme risk aversion on the rest of us.  

 

[Doug B]

Nobody is wearing masks anymore.

Plenty of mask-wearing independent of mandates. Less today than in the past, but still common and unexceptional. At least around here (N.O. area) it will taper off gradually over time, I think, as opposing to going away suddenly.

 

[menobrown]

JFC, seriously? Why don’t you go ask all the folks suffering from long term COVID affects. They are a lot easier to find.

Whoa

 

[Doug B]

I'm probably stepping into a bear trap here, but just genuinely curious..

What are the side by side numbers of  Influenza cases these days vs what they were 3-4 yrs ago (when Covid/Omicron wasn't a thing) ?

Can't dive into this deep right now, but here's CDC estimated numbers from the most recent two flu seasons in the U.S. 

2020-2021 Flu Season Summary
2021-2022 U.S. Flu Season: Preliminary In-Season Burden Estimates

My understanding is that 20-21 was famously an unusually low flu season where flu in the U.S. just about vanished. While the ongoing 21-22 flu season is in line with typical flu seasons from the recent past.

 

[Gilroy34]

Curious if anyone has had longer term side effects likely brought on by the vaccines?

Yes, both my wife and daughter have had their menstruel cycle messed up after receiving the Pfizer vaccine and booster going multiple months missing.  We won't know the long term effects of these vaccines until much later.  I totally understand kids under 30 refusing to get vaccinated as the risk of harm from COVID is practically nothing and we don't really know the risks of the vaccine.  

 

[Doug B]

21 minutes ago, stbugs said:
If more people got vaccinated right up front, the last peak might not have even happened.
Expand  

The most vaccinated country in the world, United Arab Emirates at 94.1%, still peaked with Omicron.  

I'll riff off of stbugs' statement:

If more people got vaccinated and boosted pre-Omicron, the Omicron peak would have mattered a lot less and would have largely spared the U.S. healthcare system of sustained surges. Not completely in all places at all times, but largely.