wuhan - coronavirus

[Ausmumof3]

In Aus case numbers 

NSW 48,768. 2,576 in hospital. 193 in ICU. 20 deaths.

Vic. 25,526. 1,054 in hospital. 115 in ICU. 23 deaths.

QLD. 19,709 cases. 649 in hospital. 46 in ICU. 6 deaths.

ACT 1,320. 30 in hospital. 3 in ICU. 0 deaths.

Tas. 1,139. 22 in hospital. 1 in ICU.

No update yet for here but we had over 5000 yesterday after a couple of lower days.

[Ausmumof3]

Anyone else watching South African data still? Deaths are still ticking up and now rolling average is at 125 a day. (About 1/3 of the Delta peak).  It’s weird because even though the case curve is like a dramatic spike the death curve starts our very similar in shape to the previous ones. Hopefully it peaks much lower but there’s no real indication of that yet.

There seem to be some reports of people getting omicron twice. There’s two different versions of it and one has many more mutations so it’s possible that one is not protecting against the other. 

[Ausmumof3]

Also from VIC

74 per cent of ICU admissions in Victoria are unvaccinated

Mr Weimar added that there is "nobody in ICU who has had a third dose".

[Ausmumof3]

Oh in other news the ventilation audit in SA schools is complete. Apparently they bought 1000 air purifiers on advice from NSW but have decided they won’t work due to not enough air exchanges so we’re just relying on unnailing windows and fixing broken air cons.  Also the $500 per class was deemed too much.  
 

$500 per class when they get roughly $14,000 funding per student doesn’t seem excessive to me.  I hate to thing what the cost long term of in school outbreaks will be in comparison. Pretty disappointed.

[bookbard]

3 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Mr Weimar added that there is "nobody in ICU who has had a third dose".

I am glad he made that point. I've now met so many people who are saying 'no point getting the booster because it doesn't stop you catching it'. 

I felt pretty tired after booster but hey it was Friday and a long stressful week anyway. No other real symptoms. My co-worker who is sick has gone from 'not really sick' to 'man, never been so sick'. She got it from her husband who probably got it from work as a number of his work colleagues are sick. 

My husband is going to an outdoor social event (sport) with friends who are anti-vaxxers. He isn't boosted. We'll see how it goes I guess! 

[LMD]

It's going through my friends and extended family in Melbourne. So far it's been fairly mild.

Eta - almost all vaxxed. A couple of unvaxxed in the same houses have no symptoms and keep testing negative. I guess they maybe already had it asymptomatically? 

Edited January 15, 2022 by LMD

[Ausmumof3]

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/long-covid-hit-to-immune-system-lingers-for-months-after-infection-20220113-p59nww.html
 

Study shows long Covid patients have elevated interferon levels up to eight months after initial infection.

[popmom]

17 hours ago, Laura Corin said:

UK figures: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/30/covid-uk-coronavirus-cases-deaths-and-vaccinations-today

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. What does it mean under the graph?—“These are the weeks before that particular variant comprised 50% of sequenced cases as per…”

I apologize if this is a stupid question. 

[popmom]

1 hour ago, Ausmumof3 said:

can anyone verify this or is it not true? I’m not familiar with the source but seeing it quoted a lot.

That’s alarming! Surely not! 

[popmom]

2 hours ago, TravelingChris said:

We just aren't having that many people sick over here.  Not sure why.  Maybe because we had higher vaccine usage and therefore we just have a lot of asymptomatic people walking around.  I mean unless you have symptoms, how would you ever know to test???   When my dd2 and dsil1 got it about ten days ago, they got tested and were positive but they had symptoms.  Dh and I didn't and didn't test because we just quarantined for 5 days and still had no symptoms/  But I have no idea if either of us ever had it asymptomatically,  either Omicrom or any other variant  Unless you are testing all the time. you have no idea.

And the wonderfully iincompetent administration just ordered insurers to reimburse for tests or send home tests  but not for either Medicare or Tricare.  Now, that really makes sense- huh- the people most at risk can't get the tests.

The numbers on the state dashboard aren't showing much difference between our counties actually. Our 7 day average new cases per 100,000 is 1051. Your county is 897. Neither is good. 

I'm in north Shelby, so much of my "community" lives in Jefferson where they have 1300 per 100k. 

Y'all do have a higher percentage of fully vaxxed population, but I would think that would affect hospitalizations more than cases. 

Good news though! It does look like our state has peaked and is coming down. Praying that's the case. Of course that's number of cases--hospitalizations and deaths will continue to climb for a time.

 

Edited January 15, 2022 by popmom

[Ausmumof3]

 

[TravelingChris]

3 hours ago, popmom said:

The numbers on the state dashboard aren't showing much difference between our counties actually. Our 7 day average new cases per 100,000 is 1051. Your county is 897. Neither is good. 

I'm in north Shelby, so much of my "community" lives in Jefferson where they have 1300 per 100k. 

Y'all do have a higher percentage of fully vaxxed population, but I would think that would affect hospitalizations more than cases. 

Good news though! It does look like our state has peaked and is coming down. Praying that's the case. Of course that's number of cases--hospitalizations and deaths will continue to climb for a time.

 

It is.  Our hospitals are not overwhelmed.

[popmom]

33 minutes ago, TravelingChris said:

It is.  Our hospitals are not overwhelmed.

Good to hear! I think our hospitals are okay overall—except the ERs have been overwhelmed. 

[Ausmumof3]

Europe’s medical authority has recommended a warning about transverse myelitis be added to AZ and J&J vaccines. I can’t get the link to work for some reason but Reuters and others are reporting on it.

I have to say I never felt 100pc convinced that that was coincidental with the initial incident where the study got paused. Glad we have the MRNA options here now.

[bookbard]

4 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Europe’s medical authority has recommended a warning about transverse myelitis be added to AZ and J&J vaccines

Apparently you can get it from Covid, too. I'd never heard of it before.

[lewelma]

We all know it is not going to last, but still no omicron in NZ, and delta cases continue to be under 30 per day for the entire country. Vaccination of children 5-12 begins tomorrow.

[Laura Corin]

5 hours ago, popmom said:

Interesting article. Thanks for sharing. What does it mean under the graph?—“These are the weeks before that particular variant comprised 50% of sequenced cases as per…”

I apologize if this is a stupid question. 

I'm not clear. Because that case line for Omicron definitely includes the past week when Omicron has been almost 100 percent of cases. It would make more sense if it was 'after' not 'before'.

[matrips]

15 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I'm glad that's not the case where you live, but it certainly is the case in many places. It's not just my area. Heck, orange county is a big place. So is Palm Beach County. It isn't like this is just one small town.

We’ll get to see how it is today.  Taking ds for testing.  Last night it would have been 5 minutes, but dh didn’t think to stop.  A Saturday though…. This is Tampa, Hillsborough County.  Hope your local situation improves soon for everyone.

[ktgrok]

2 minutes ago, matrips said:

We’ll get to see how it is today.  Taking ds for testing.  Last night it would have been 5 minutes, but dh didn’t think to stop.  A Saturday though…. This is Tampa, Hillsborough County.  Hope your local situation improves soon for everyone.

I hope it goes well! Let me know if they ask for where you live or if the testing is only for residence of your county. Because if it’s as fast as you say it might be faster for people in my part of the state to drive there and wait in line here.Let me know if they ask for where you live or if the testing is only for residence of your county. Because if it’s as fast as you say it might be faster for people in my part of the state to drive there and wait in line here.

[matrips]

4 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

.Let me know if they ask for where you live or if the testing is only for residence of your county.

You need to pre register so that does ask for address etc, but we live the next county over and it’s never been an issue.  They don’t turn away people.  But I’ll let you know how it is today.

Eta- the preregistration is so they have your contact info for results, not for an appointment 

Edited January 15, 2022 by matrips

[BeachGal]

21 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Not Covid related, but did you all see the study that showed that Eppstein-Bar is the likely raise of multiple sclerosis?

“In a large cohort of military service members followed over many years, infection with Epstein-Barr increased the likelihood of developing multiple sclerosis, or MS, by more than 32-fold, a team of scientists led by Harvard University’s Neuroepidemiology Research Group reported in the journal Science on Thursday.”

https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/13/strong-new-evidence-suggests-virus-triggers-multiple-sclerosis/

 

And Moderna is working on an EBV mRNA vaccine.

[kbutton]

22 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Not Covid related, but did you all see the study that showed that Eppstein-Bar is the likely raise of multiple sclerosis?

“In a large cohort of military service members followed over many years, infection with Epstein-Barr increased the likelihood of developing multiple sclerosis, or MS, by more than 32-fold, a team of scientists led by Harvard University’s Neuroepidemiology Research Group reported in the journal Science on Thursday.”

https://www.statnews.com/2022/01/13/strong-new-evidence-suggests-virus-triggers-multiple-sclerosis/

Wow. That's an important but pretty devastating discovery! The CDC says most people will get EBV at some point and not have symptoms. https://www.cdc.gov/epstein-barr/index.html I would be curious if they will be able to refine who is at risk and who is not subsequent to EBV infection if it's that ubiquitous.

20 hours ago, popmom said:

I'm praying we are peaking. Based on what is going on at my church, it's bound to be near. Everything other than main worship services has been cancelled due to so many leaders, facilitators, and staff currently sick or quarantined. 

Meanwhile, our state is clearing a backlog of cases. Our county is something like #8 in the state for cases/100,000. That calculation is a two week average that probably cannot yet include the backlog of cases, and yet our former church is enthusiastically sending their (large) youth group on a retreat this weekend out of state to mingle with bunches of other youth groups. The last time they did this, they had a mini super spreader event afterwards and had to cancel activities, and we didn't have particularly high numbers then. 

I am glad yours is cancelling activities. 

[prairiewindmomma]

My county created three mass vaccine clinics this week. We were able to do a drive thru one…bit surreal to drive through a tent being illuminated by a floodlight and heated by a propane heater. The original mass clinics were fully wired, had electronic records, etc. Still, better than nothing.

I would wish for mass testing sites but I know that isn’t going to happen.

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, kbutton said:

Wow. That's an important but pretty devastating discovery! The CDC says most people will get EBV at some point and not have symptoms. https://www.cdc.gov/epstein-barr/index.html I would be curious if they will be able to refine who is at risk and who is not subsequent to EBV infection if it's that ubiquitous.

Meanwhile, our state is clearing a backlog of cases. Our county is something like #8 in the state for cases/100,000. That calculation is a two week average that probably cannot yet include the backlog of cases, and yet our former church is enthusiastically sending their (large) youth group on a retreat this weekend out of state to mingle with bunches of other youth groups. The last time they did this, they had a mini super spreader event afterwards and had to cancel activities, and we didn't have particularly high numbers then. 

I am glad yours is cancelling activities. 

Yes it seems like there must be other factors as well, given how prevalent it is.  I wonder what? I have a friend who had it during pregnancy and her kid has developmental issues though no idea if it is related I haven’t wanted to ask.
Or whether it’s just bad luck that in some people it causes it. In a way I feel like it’s good news because it’s some information and hopefully that will eventually move us closer to being able to treat or prevent these worst outcomes.

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, BeachGal said:

 

And Moderna is working on an EBV mRNA vaccine.

Hopefully immunity lasts a bit longer than the covid ones! I’m guessing it should because it’s the changing virus itself that’s partially the issue with covid. I don’t see too many people lining up for three monthly vaccines to prevent EBV

[Ausmumof3]

NSW 34,660 cases 20 deaths

VIC 28,128 cases 13 deaths.

Data is so messy with the RATs etc that it’s hard to tell but it does seem like numbers are stabilising slightly in those two states.

[BeachGal]

2 hours ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Hopefully immunity lasts a bit longer than the covid ones! I’m guessing it should because it’s the changing virus itself that’s partially the issue with covid. I don’t see too many people lining up for three monthly vaccines to prevent EBV

Phase 1 just started. This will be interesting to follow.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/roberthart/2022/01/14/moderna-starts-human-trials-of-mrna-vaccine-for-virus-that-likely-causes-multiple-sclerosis/?sh=2de0c6e01a04

Ascherio said the findings were a “big step” and suggest most cases of MS could be prevented by stopping infection with EBV, as well as opening up the possibility of a cure for MS by “targeting EBV.” 

https://www.massachusetts.edu/news/phase-i-clinical-trial-moderna-mrna-vaccine-epstein-barr-virus-starting-umass-chan

[bookbard]

I think I had an anxiety attack today - I was convinced I either had Covid or cardiomyopathy from the booster. I am feeling completely normal now. It's just that I can't 'just stay home' - I work with the public 6 days a week, and now school is on hols, the kids come with me wherever I go. Yes, we can stay distant, wear masks, use air purifiers, but I still have to remind people daily to put the mask on (it's in their hand), pull the mask up (it's over their chin), and even then some refuse. There's only so much I can do.

I totally understand the people who are saying 'just want to get it over with' . . . obviously I don't want to get it, but this everyday looking over your shoulder is just so anxiety-provoking. Anytime one of my kids says they're not hungry or they're tired or whatever, that's it, I am freaking. It's exhausting. 

[Ausmumof3]

48 minutes ago, bookbard said:

I think I had an anxiety attack today - I was convinced I either had Covid or cardiomyopathy from the booster. I am feeling completely normal now. It's just that I can't 'just stay home' - I work with the public 6 days a week, and now school is on hols, the kids come with me wherever I go. Yes, we can stay distant, wear masks, use air purifiers, but I still have to remind people daily to put the mask on (it's in their hand), pull the mask up (it's over their chin), and even then some refuse. There's only so much I can do.

I totally understand the people who are saying 'just want to get it over with' . . . obviously I don't want to get it, but this everyday looking over your shoulder is just so anxiety-provoking. Anytime one of my kids says they're not hungry or they're tired or whatever, that's it, I am freaking. It's exhausting. 

I’m hearing you 😞 This is not supposed to be an individual effort and it’s stressful and impossible when it is.

[kbutton]

https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/insurance-death-rates-working-age-people-up-40-percent?fbclid=IwAR2-4hf21lysoj2LBhgOaWa7zXbcjm2eSyXRswM1fd6D3C5lz65eFBJv7kk

Quote

“We’re seeing right now the highest death rates we’ve ever seen in the history of this business,” said Scott Davison, the CEO of OneAmerica, a $100 billion life insurance and retirement company headquartered in Indianapolis. 

“The data is consistent across every player in the business.”

Davison said death rates among working age people – those 18 to 64-years-old – are up 40 percent in the third and fourth quarter of 2021 over pre-pandemic levels.

“Just to give you an idea of how bad that is, a three sigma or 200-year catastrophe would be a 10 percent increase over pre-pandemic levels,” Davison said. “So, 40 percent is just unheard of.”

He said the data shows COVID deaths are greatly understated among working age Americans. 

Davison says OneAmerica expects to pay out more than $100 million in short- and long-term disability claims due to the pandemic.

“Whether it’s long COVID or whether it’s because people haven’t been able to get the health care they need because the hospitals are overrun, we’re seeing those claims start to tick up as well,” he said.

 

[matrips]

On 1/15/2022 at 9:02 AM, ktgrok said:

I hope it goes well! Let me know if they ask for where you live or if the testing is only for residence of your county. Because if it’s as fast as you say it might be faster for people in my part of the state to drive there and wait in line here.Let me know if they ask for where you live or if the testing is only for residence of your county. Because if it’s as fast as you say it might be faster for people in my part of the state to drive there and wait in line here.

We went today.  In and out within 5-10 minutes with only 2 people ahead of us.  It’s a walk up, not a drive thru though.  And the Bucs game was going on down the street, so I think extra good timing for us with not being a popular time to test.  But each day could be different.  We’ve just had good luck there overall.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

13 hours ago, bookbard said:

I think I had an anxiety attack today - I was convinced I either had Covid or cardiomyopathy from the booster. I am feeling completely normal now. It's just that I can't 'just stay home' - I work with the public 6 days a week, and now school is on hols, the kids come with me wherever I go. Yes, we can stay distant, wear masks, use air purifiers, but I still have to remind people daily to put the mask on (it's in their hand), pull the mask up (it's over their chin), and even then some refuse. There's only so much I can do.

I totally understand the people who are saying 'just want to get it over with' . . . obviously I don't want to get it, but this everyday looking over your shoulder is just so anxiety-provoking. Anytime one of my kids says they're not hungry or they're tired or whatever, that's it, I am freaking. It's exhausting. 

This doesn’t sound like a sustainable way to live.  Can you see a therapist even over telehealth?  You don’t want to worry for the rest of your life, and even getting it doesn’t mean anything—there’s no getting Covid and being done with it, as it seems most people will become reinfected at some point.   

[ktgrok]

25 minutes ago, matrips said:

We went today.  In and out within 5-10 minutes with only 2 people ahead of us.  It’s a walk up, not a drive thru though.  And the Bucs game was going on down the street, so I think extra good timing for us with not being a popular time to test.  But each day could be different.  We’ve just had good luck there overall.

That's crazy compared to here!!!!

[Hilltopmom]

@ktgrok

just wondering how your sister is doing?

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

This doesn’t sound like a sustainable way to live.  Can you see a therapist even over telehealth?  You don’t want to worry for the rest of your life, and even getting it doesn’t mean anything—there’s no getting Covid and being done with it, as it seems most people will become reinfected at some point.   

I think we’re all dealing with a bit of mental adjustment down here. It’s gone from being a disease that’s so serious we lock down for three cases to a disease that half the leadership in the country doesn’t care about.

[prairiewindmomma]

12 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

I think we’re all dealing with a bit of mental adjustment down here. It’s gone from being a disease that’s so serious we lock down for three cases to a disease that half the leadership in the country doesn’t care about.

Yes. Y’all have had quite the shift in thinking and behaviors over the last month. Your case count had been so very, very low for the last couple of years that in many ways it seems like this is all new to you—you are scrambling for N95s, dealing with food shortages, etc. (it’s of course not new—but the shift has been so drastic).

[Ausmumof3]

1 hour ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Yes. Y’all have had quite the shift in thinking and behaviors over the last month. Your case count had been so very, very low for the last couple of years that in many ways it seems like this is all new to you—you are scrambling for N95s, dealing with food shortages, etc. (it’s of course not new—but the shift has been so drastic).

Yep.  And very real. We’re currently the third most infected country in the world at least as far as countries are reporting accurately. So the situation actually is kind of intense.

[Ausmumof3]

Viral persistence study - beyond 10 days

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971221012066

Results

Whilst E-gene sgRNAs declined before E-gene genomic sequences, some individuals retained sgRNA positivity for up to 68 days. 13% of sgRNA-positive cases still exhibited clinically relevant levels of virus after 10 days, with no clinical features previously associated with prolonged viral clearance times.

Conclusions

Our results suggest that potentially active virus can sometimes persist beyond a 10-day period, and could pose a potential risk of onward transmission. Where this would pose a serious public health threat, additional mitigation strategies may be necessary to reduce the risk of secondary cases in vulnerable settings.

 

[Ausmumof3]

Case Numbers have been pretty much stable here though likely inaccurate due to testing inadequacy. We do seem to be at some kind of peak.

[TravelingChris]

On 1/15/2022 at 4:00 PM, Ausmumof3 said:

Yes it seems like there must be other factors as well, given how prevalent it is.  I wonder what? I have a friend who had it during pregnancy and her kid has developmental issues though no idea if it is related I haven’t wanted to ask.
Or whether it’s just bad luck that in some people it causes it. In a way I feel like it’s good news because it’s some information and hopefully that will eventually move us closer to being able to treat or prevent these worst outcomes.

My youngest has had EBV three times, I believe.  Yes, we all know she has a wacked up immune system.  

[TravelingChris]

On 1/16/2022 at 2:17 AM, bookbard said:

I think I had an anxiety attack today - I was convinced I either had Covid or cardiomyopathy from the booster. I am feeling completely normal now. It's just that I can't 'just stay home' - I work with the public 6 days a week, and now school is on hols, the kids come with me wherever I go. Yes, we can stay distant, wear masks, use air purifiers, but I still have to remind people daily to put the mask on (it's in their hand), pull the mask up (it's over their chin), and even then some refuse. There's only so much I can do.

I totally understand the people who are saying 'just want to get it over with' . . . obviously I don't want to get it, but this everyday looking over your shoulder is just so anxiety-provoking. Anytime one of my kids says they're not hungry or they're tired or whatever, that's it, I am freaking. It's exhausting. 

I have a lot of autoimmune diseases and side effects from both those diseases and medications too.  This is specifically about anxiety with COVID, it happened a few years before and it was with heart attacks.  I have GERD, costochondritis frequently enough= part of my AS, bad neuropathic pain in my arms at times, etc and all these various symptoms could be of a heart attack since they include nausea at times, fatigue frequently since my AI diseases are always causing fatigue, and my dysautonomia sometimes causes my medications to go in effect up to 12 or so hours later (very slow digestion at times or very fast at times).  The only thing I could do is do all sorts of testing to check whether I already have junk in my arteries or heart, EEG, etc, etc,  Then I just had to learn to drop it-- I could not be going to check whether my other symptoms were really heart attacks with weekly or daily ER visits.  

Since I went through that with the cardiac issues, when COVID rolled around, I did protective measures but decided I can't get into that anxiety state again.  So when dd2 got COVID a few times and I had seen her within a week or a few days of her getting it, I didn't freak out- I watched to see if I was having any extraordinary symptoms- none happened.  Same thing with dd1 and dsil1 where it definitely was a day or two before they got it that we saw them.  Neither dh nor I got any symptoms.  But Omicron, which is what you all have now, right?  is much, much safer than Delta.  I mostly hung around home in July and August.  [

Please see if your physician can prescribe something like hydroxyzine to help with anxiety- that is an allergy pill that lowers anxiety and you use it in much lower doses for anxiety- it still helps me at times.

[TravelingChris]

21 hours ago, kbutton said:

https://www.wfyi.org/news/articles/insurance-death-rates-working-age-people-up-40-percent?fbclid=IwAR2-4hf21lysoj2LBhgOaWa7zXbcjm2eSyXRswM1fd6D3C5lz65eFBJv7kk

 

We have had tremendous stress these last 2 years.  Stress kills.  Trauma kills- not just with whatever the actual trauma may do but with the immune system ramping up to kill whatever is causing the stress- but the stress is outward and there is nothing to kill and the immune system causes inflammation and there you go-  inflammation kills too if it is in your heart, in your lungs potentially, in your brain, potentially, etc.

I know that in my AI groups on Facebook, you can very easily see the trend of bad things happening and greater disease activity including often so bad that hospitalization is needed, etc.

Plus the story that Bldsmama related last week of the man with the tumor who had his surgery delayed numerous times and the tumor grew so it was much bigger when he was about to have his surgery.  I think that story can be repeated thousands of times if not tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands.

Over here, we had the story of the man with a heart attack that was denied admittance to several hospitals because of COVID and died before he got to the last hospital that would admit him.  He was in that ambulance for over 2 hours before he died.  Again- lots more have had that happen or just didn't go to the hospital at all because of COVID fears or no ambulances.  Last summer when we had Delta, we were warned that ambulance crews were so short and demand so high, that it could take an hour for the ambulance to respond.  We had a similar warning again recently but not an hour this time.  So for whatever reason the ambulances can't come or the hospitals are few means more people die.

I am not at all surprised.  This has been a royal f-up all the way.  We still haven't expanded medical school programs, nursing school programs, any type of PA program, anything.  We don't have the people, we don't have the resources, we allocate resources in a moronic fashion, etc, etc, etc. 

[catz]

Some potentially very good news!  Those who have been double vaccinated report no more long covid symptoms than the uninfected.  This is a small study, but hopefully holds!  Link to Israeli study in the twitter thread.

 

 

 

[Acadie]

3 hours ago, FuzzyCatz said:

Some potentially very good news!  Those who have been double vaccinated report no more long covid symptoms than the uninfected.  This is a small study, but hopefully holds!  Link to Israeli study in the twitter thread.

This is encouraging for sure!

Also looks like data collection took place before Omicron. 

[TravelingChris]

A study from Vanderbilt says that when you take a COVID test is very important since COVID seems to be affected by our circadian rhythms.  It says the most accurate tests are done midday and evening and night ones can lead to false negatives.

[Longtime Lurker]

1 hour ago, TravelingChris said:

A study from Vanderbilt says that when you take a COVID test is very important since COVID seems to be affected by our circadian rhythms.  It says the most accurate tests are done midday and evening and night ones can lead to false negatives.

Interesting!

[vonfirmath]

China says they brought in omicron with international mail.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/china-suspects-covid-19-might-arrive-overseas-mail-2022-01-18/

[catz]

59 minutes ago, vonfirmath said:

China says they brought in omicron with international mail.

https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/china-suspects-covid-19-might-arrive-overseas-mail-2022-01-18/

I am taking this with a HUGE grain of salt.  Seems more likely they are losing control of contact tracing with Omicron and are trying to divert discussion from that.  

[TCB]

Does any one in Canada know if pastors are being reported for something right now? I'm assuming it is something to do with Covid. My church just posted on FB about praying for Canadian pastors who are being reported by people watching the service they are streaming. I tried googling but only came up with information about Feb 21 and May 21. Would love more information about what is going on, if anything.

[Starr]

9 minutes ago, TCB said:

Does any one in Canada know if pastors are being reported for something right now? I'm assuming it is something to do with Covid. My church just posted on FB about praying for Canadian pastors who are being reported by people watching the service they are streaming. I tried googling but only came up with information about Feb 21 and May 21. Would love more information about what is going on, if anything.

It could be they are being reported for not following the province regulations for Covid. It's not hard online to see if too many people are in a space, if masks are being worn appropriately, social distancing, singing etc.