Octavious wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 11:55 am
Well we are getting to test out the herd immunity angle. So that's fun at least. I can't imagine working in healthcare right now. I'd be punching the people that didn't get the vaccine.
Had a call yesterday. The CMO, an ER doc by trade, said that last time around everyone was charged up and ready to pitch in. Surgeons, PCPs, all kinds of nurses, PAs, etc. were all ready to work nights in the ICU or whatever. This time around there is great fatigue and it's going to be harder to get them filling gaps. Also, back in spring 2020 the state shut down all elective procedures. Not happing now. Yet, anyway. It's going to be hard to get providers to leave their practice to do a double hospital shift.
Gotta go to the dentist today. I don't wanna. But it may be my last insured visit to the dentist for the foreseeable future. Still, I don't wanna.
Runny nose, headache, sneezing are now among the top 5 symptoms
...That the day is a day ending in y for me.
I have to rely on fever, loss of smell and/or, persistent cough. I did have some beyond normal digestive issues, rash, ache, and fatigue that drove me to get my first ever test a couple of weeks ago. None of those were the traditional symptoms but then the tester told me the me that ache and fatigue were actually the top current symptoms in Michigan and it was a good decision to get tested. Both test came back negative but who knows, this was right at the coming Omicron. I could have just tested too early or it evaded detection for all I know.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:40 pm
by malchior
Today has been a real bad day. My wife's company sent out an exposure notice to people due to a close contact with a COVID positive person two days ago. They all took tests (including my wife) and only one positive. That person who tested positive also spent the weekend carousing in Hoboken (a SantaCon based super spreader event). Anyway, the production people in her facility got wind of it and weren't notified. It's a bad, bad scene. COVID has pushed people to the limit and the people at the top...haven't been even a shred humane. The spice must flow even if it starts a riot.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:46 pm
by Zaxxon
malchior wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:40 pmThe spice must flow even if it starts a riot.
Starting to get this feeling across the board (or rather, this feeling has been incrementally solidified over the past few weeks). Multiple friends of my kids have tested positive (thankfully all extremely minor symptoms). Not a peep from the school nowadays--have to rely on parents sharing the info.
Isgrimnur wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:23 pm
Spring allergy season should be fun.
This one also rings true. I've never been someone with major allergies, but occasionally will get a bit of a sniffle for an hour or so after a run. Never worried about it before, but now I spend that hour trying and failing to not wonder whether Christmas will be cancelled.
Really hoping the JWST launch/deployment goes well, as I needs me some positivity of the non-COVID kind.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 12:48 pm
by Smoove_B
Yeah, haven't you heard? It's mild. We know you're vaccinated because who isn't vaccinated now? So you're fine. It's just like the flu.
Meanwhile a 38 year old from my town died over the weekend. He was fully vaccinated.
During earlier stages of the pandemic, most of my friends were spared a direct brush with the virus. Perhaps they used to be much more careful. Or perhaps they were just lucky. Whatever the reason, their good fortune has now run out. Seven close friends recently told me they had tested positive. Several more strongly suspect they have COVID but are unable to get their hands on a test. Thankfully, everyone has decidedly mild symptoms (no doubt in part because they all are vaccinated and they are not in high-risk categories).
The pattern among my circle of friends fits with what’s unfolding in South Africa, where the coronavirus’s new Omicron variant was first identified. The number of cases in the country shot up quickly, but the number of deaths has so far increased much, much more gradually—possibly indicating that Omicron is more contagious but causes less severe disease than previous variants.
Early signs from other places are a little more concerning, however. And even a significantly less deadly strain could cause a whole lot of carnage if it spreads very quickly.
Muddy early data mean that, for now at least, the immediate epidemiological future is uncertain. We could be in for a few months of relatively mild inconvenience before Omicron goes out with a whimper. Or we could be about to experience yet another exponential rise in hospitalizations and deaths.
And yet I wager that, whatever course Omicron—or future strains of the disease—might take, we are about to experience the end of the pandemic as a social phenomenon.
No, but it could be - that's an excellent article that I'm sure no one will read or take to heart. Maybe in the Spring of 2022 when the next variant is surging elsewhere on planet, we can all read it again.
I'd add a counterpoint to the idea that we are collectively about to see the end of the pandemic as a social phenomenon.
But in reality, the president’s message didn’t give it to anyone straight, or even accurately. That’s because Long Covid — a dizzyingly lengthy list of new, returning, or ongoing health problems some people experience for months (and in some cases, close to two years) following their initial infection — wasn’t mentioned as one of the potential outcomes of Omicron infection. In fact, Biden didn’t mention Long Covid at any point during his speech. Here’s why that’s a problem.
It’s still unclear how many people infected by the novel coronavirus end up developing Long Covid, but the researchers behind a recent study published in the journal JAMA Network Open estimate that at least 50 percent of those who survive their initial illness go on to experience a number of physical, psychological, and neurological symptoms for a minimum of six months.
Yeah, but this variant is new.
At this point, it’s not yet known whether Covid infections caused by Omicron can result in Long Covid, but experts, including Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Dr. Anthony Fauci, have indicated that it appears to be likely. Speaking at a White House press briefing on Dec. 17, Fauci said that while there’s not currently enough information on Omicron and Long Covid, he “would not expect it’s going to be any different” than previous variants, including Delta, which have left an estimated 9.4 million Americans with the chronic condition.
Of note:
This far into the pandemic, we should be well beyond the point of thinking that Covid-19 infections end in either a full recovery or death. When Biden failed to mention Long Covid during his remarks on the Omicron variant, he further perpetuated that false dichotomy.
When he reiterated that if a vaccinated person does end up with a breakthrough infection, they’re most likely to have a mild case of Covid-19, he neglected to mention that mild, or even asymptomatic infections can result in Long Covid. And when the president told the American people that if they “are vaccinated and follow precautions” they should “feel comfortable celebrating Christmas and the holidays” gathered with family and friends, he may have prompted some people to take a much bigger risk than they realize.
I know we're almost 2 years into this, but truly -- vaccination reduces hospitalizations and deaths; masking reduces spread. Vaccination without masking means we are in a never ending loop.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:06 pm
by LawBeefaroni
But Biden said that if you were vaccinated, don't cancel any plans!
The UK's new cases reported today of ~120,000 is approaching double any prior day of their pandemic. And would be equivalent to almost 600,000 cases in the US
For reference, the UK has better vaccination rates and more consistent mask policies than the United States. I'm sure we'll be fine.
But even where tests are being performed and processed, Americans are about to lose their ability to see the results, thanks to the way holidays interact with COVID testing and data reporting. On and around major holidays, thousands of people whose labor makes testing and data-reporting pipelines function go home. As a result, testing slows, and reporting through the various levels of public-health agencies tanks, along with the last-mile work of getting the data into public view. This effect produces the illusion that cases are dropping, or are dropping faster than they are—and tragically, this false decline in the numbers comes just as the risk of transmission increases, because holidays also involve a rise in large get-togethers with friends and family.
...
The result of these cascading testing and data problems is that just as Omicron transmission really takes off in the United States, the large-scale movement of the pandemic is becoming impossible to discern, while at the scale of the individual, millions of people will be unable to know whether they have COVID. Case numbers will be artificially reduced, along with testing counts. And, at the same time, many people will be unable to get the rapid tests required to tell whether they’re likely to be infectious. Just about the only numbers that might be reliable throughout the holiday disruptions and testing collapse are those in the hospital-utilization data set from the Department of Health and Human Services, which powers visual tools such as The New York Times’ extensive county-level hospitalization maps and trend charts. Of course, hospitalization numbers tend to trail case numbers because people take time to become seriously ill. Far from being an early-warning system, rising hospitalization numbers are a record of things—lives, outbreaks, and attempts at public-health interventions—that have already gone badly wrong.
And in closing:
In this information vacuum, some of us will tend toward caution and others toward risk. By the time Americans find out the results of our collective actions, the country will have weeks of new cases—an unknown proportion of which will turn into hospitalizations and deaths—baked in. In the meantime, the CDC’s COVID Data Tracker Weekly Review has wished us all a safe and happy holiday and gone on break until January 7, 2022.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:37 pm
by Zaxxon
Don't make me say it again...
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:38 pm
by malchior
Smoove_B wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 1:21 pmFor reference, the UK has better vaccination rates and more consistent mask policies than the United States. I'm sure we'll be fine.
It's also crazy that people seem to not get that we're just not seeing the true numbers. I saw people remarking that NYC leveled off and I just want to shake these people. It's always the same thing. Testing has capacity. We've got people standing in multi-hour lines in NYC. I wonder if that discourages people?! People are traveling. People aren't working and won't bother to test. Etc. People are just indulging in their fantasies.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:22 pm
by malchior
I just got a text from NJ saying to wear a mask, social distance, get a booster, and stay home is sick. That's the first message from the state since they notified that 12-16 year olds were eligible for vaccines in May.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:35 pm
by Daehawk
TN just added upwards finally. Still dont trust their numbers and Im surprised they even showed an upward trend.
Another "belabor the obvious" moment. If you have a mild case of Omicron bc you have vax or prior COVID immunity, it doesn't mean Omicron is mild.
It means you have some immunity.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 4:51 pm
by Smoove_B
Let's check in on a state that was actively encouraging the virus to spread to help increase "natural immunity"
More Americans have died from COVID this month than died from homicide all of last year.
And:
On the average day, there are more *VACCINATED Americans dying of COVID than Americans dying by homicide. Yet the former are seen almost universally by the press as insignificant – we should all just get over it – while the latter are seen as a national emergency.
El Guapo wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 3:12 pm
At least that show features an absurdly implausible virus spread.
I mean....on the show, basically everyone in the world gets the virus on the same day. I know that we're working on getting there, but we're not quite that bad yet.
Omicron is likely the **Fastest spreading disease known to man**
Conservatively, Rt =5
But what about measles in unvaxed population at R0=15??
Its all about generation time. Measles is 15 days, Omicron is <5
60 days after 1 case:
Measles: 50,600
Omicron: 244,000,000
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 9:17 pm
by malchior
Smoove_B wrote: Prediction - the airline industry announces on Monday that they're in big trouble - cannot meet holiday travel demand because pilots, airline staff, etc... are all sick.
UPDATE: Now Delta Air Lines is canceling 90+ flights tomorrow due to a “combination of issues” including the impact of the Omicron variant. “Delta teams have exhausted all options and resources.”
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 10:43 pm
by malchior
Next up will be stories about the waves of people who get stuck on their COViD trips.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Thu Dec 23, 2021 10:46 pm
by Smoove_B
Yeah, I think that's likely going to be the bigger story - people that were planning on leaving on Monday and are now stuck. Xmas Eve isn't a big travel day, so maybe I was an entire week off. I guess we're going to see.
El Guapo wrote: Thu Dec 23, 2021 2:44 pm
Hey Smoove, have you watched Station Eleven yet?
No. Somehow I hadn't even heard of this before you mentioned it. Added to the list!
Watched the first couple episodes with my wife the other night. I can't tell whether you'll enjoy it or whether it will break you. Maybe both!
At least that show features an absurdly implausible virus spread.
Based on your post I watched the first episode tonight. I figure that's what omicron will look like in 2 months.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 2:12 am
by Grifman
My brother just got notification that he has been exposed to covid by a co-worker while working out of town in Atlanta. Assuming he's not infected, he'll still miss Christmas with our family, stuck in his apartment in Atlanta as he has to quarantine himself until Monday. Such is life in the time of covid. I just hope he's ok, so far no symptoms.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 8:14 am
by Zaxxon
Grifman wrote: Fri Dec 24, 2021 2:12 am
My brother just got notification that he has been exposed to covid by a co-worker while working out of town in Atlanta. Assuming he's not infected, he'll still miss Christmas with our family, stuck in his apartment in Atlanta as he has to quarantine himself until Monday. Such is life in the time of covid. I just hope he's ok, so far no symptoms.
Sending positive vibes your way.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:15 am
by dbt1949
I like how the head of WHO is complaining that the "rich" countries vaccinating are going to prolong the pandemic.
It seems by doing this we're not giving the poorer countries enough vaccine, thus prolonging the pandemic.
I hate Trump with every fiber of my being but he was right in dropping out of WHO.
Re: Corona Virus: It's a Marathon, Not a Sprint
Posted: Fri Dec 24, 2021 9:16 am
by malchior
NY Times just sent out a blast that 2000 flights globally cancelled. One of my friends in Calgary got cancelled at the origin by Westjet last night which probably was a close call in her favor since it was to Halifax. That'd be a tough plane, trains, and automobiles journey back.
