At what point would you lock down again?

[Porridge]

11 hours ago, BeachGal said:

In the beginning of the pandemic, around March 2020, we began using a medical-grade ozone generator and oxygen to create ozone which we then self administered. No one was harmed in the least. We used it about every other day initially.

Did you self administer via IV?

[Lecka]

New numbers out for our state — I would be locking down now with unvaccinated kids.  Delta and overall numbers are both way up here.  72% of cases are the Delta Variant now, and if I am looking at it right the number of cases just doubled in a week (and aren’t tiny numbers).  

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Lecka said:

New numbers out for our state — I would be locking down now with unvaccinated kids.  Delta and overall numbers are both way up here.  72% of cases are the Delta Variant now, and if I am looking at it right the number of cases just doubled in a week (and aren’t tiny numbers).  

We've more than doubled here. But we're still at rates close to last summer. 

We've been wearing Happy Masks at playgrounds and will continue to do so for the coming week, at the end of which we have an outdoor party for DD8 (soon to be 9!). And then... I don't know. We're supposed to continue having outdoor meetups for my co-op, and they are currently at playgrounds. I'll have to think about whether to change anything about that.  

[Lecka]

I think we are about to be a national hotspot.  We might already be a national hotspot.  It’s actually seeming to blow up here.  
 

It doesn’t seem like — “it’s a little up but still really low overall.”  

[Murphy101]

Again? Oklahoma didn’t really lock down the first time. Heck. My city never even had a mask mandate.

For us we are in a particular bind bc husband just got laid off. If we were to go into lockdown before he is settled in a new job - we would be in dire poop rather quickly. 

Multiple people in my household would also either end up unemployed or reduced income.  At least 2 that don’t live here would have to consider returning to home.  One that could probably move out is extremely hesitant to do so before January bc they don’t want to be stuck in an apartment alone during lockdown and unemployed.

And *nearly* all the remaining covid relief measures come to an end September 1st. 

So for now, we are just going about our lives giving some distance when we can and trying to stay healthy.  And trying to not stress about what we cannot control. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Murphy101 said:

And trying to not stress about what we cannot control. 

Always a good decision, that. 

I'm currently just stressing about what I CAN control. I can control whether we go inside stores. I can control whether we go to playgrounds. I can control lots of things. 

[Lecka]

We moved here last July, and it was not locked down at all.  But all my family said “we were locked down before, for real.”  But it didn’t seem like it had been compared to other places.

Well — anyway…. this is from my memory but I think I read we are back at the same rate from February?  
 

Edit:  I looked back, we are back at numbers not seen since February.  

Edited July 16, 2021 by Lecka

[Scarlett]

12 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Always a good decision, that. 

I'm currently just stressing about what I CAN control. I can control whether we go inside stores. I can control whether we go to playgrounds. I can control lots of things. 

If I had kids too young to be vaccinated, I would be very concerned right now.  I don't know if I would lock down completely yet (if that was possible) but all non essential outings would probably be cut way back.  I am still masking in stores and avoiding big crowds even though I am vaccinated and have no young children.

I feel for you.

[Corraleno]

There are seven children hospitalized with covid in this one hospital. Three are on ventilators. All are unvaxxed.

https://www.thv11.com/article/news/local/arkansas-mom-regrets-not-getting-her-child-vaccinated/91-f6d38e7e-883e-4c98-a3f9-00f5f52e8bac

Angela Morris' daughter, Caia Morris Cooper, is fighting for her life at Arkansas Children's Hospital. She said the hardest part about watching her child suffer is that the entire thing was preventable. "It's very hard to see her in this situation. It's very hard not knowing if she's really going to come home anymore or not," Morris said. "It's heartbreaking. I wish I would've made better choices for her."

She has spent the last 12 days inside Arkansas Children's Hospital watching her 13-year-old breathe with the help of a ventilator. Morris said it started with only flu-like symptoms. "I really thought that since she stayed home a lot and when I went out, I always wore my mask. I really thought that she was going to be protected," she said.

Morris said that she decided against vaccinations for both herself and Caia due to misinformation . "I just had a false sense of security that it was just like the flu and it wasn't that serious. Obviously it is that serious and it was that serious. Now, I can see," she said.

Caia is one of three patients at Arkansas Children's Hospital on a ventilator and one of seven currently battling COVID-19.

Dr. Jessica Snowden, Arkansas Children's Hospital Chief of Infectious Diseases, said they are seeing more sick children as the Delta variant surges in the state. "This is looking more like what we saw this winter and less of what we had been seeing during the springtime," Snowden said.

The various symptoms they've seen in children range from mild to severe, according to Snowden. "We've had perfectly healthy children who end up in the hospital, in the ICU, with COVID-19 infection," she said. "So it is definitely something that could impact anyone." 

The age range is wide too, but Snowden said there's one common denominator. "All of the children we have admitted who are seriously sick with COVID-19 are either too young to get vaccinated, or haven't been vaccinated yet," she said.

While her daughter continues to fight, Morris doesn't want anyone else's child in the same situation. "I just want people to get their kids their shots. Everybody just needs to get the shot. It's a much better route than the one we're in," she said.

[KSera]

8 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

She said the hardest part about watching her child suffer is that the entire thing was preventable. "It's very hard to see her in this situation. It's very hard not knowing if she's really going to come home anymore or not," Morris said. "It's heartbreaking. I wish I would've made better choices for her."

I keep seeing stories like this, with family members of people who are either very sick or who died urging people not to do what they did, and to get their shots. Saw a heartbreaking one a couple days ago where the hospitalized Dad told his wife right before going on the ventilator to take the kids immediately to get vaccinated (she did so the next day), and he didn’t end up surviving 😢. All of these preventable. 

[historically accurate]

nm

Edited July 16, 2021 by historically accurate

[Jean in Newcastle]

16 hours ago, Pen said:

Probably eventually we will see one way or the other

 

not all that long ago any suggestion that SARS2 came from a laboratory was met by similar Strident ALL CAPS type Denials 

now, a few people who were formerly absolutely sure of it being from wet market are starting to admit that it could have come from a lab

 

perhaps some of what I wrote will turn out similar 

or not

 

 

The source of the virus was always hard to determine. People could never pinpoint the source with 100 percent certainty. The argument was not so much on what the source was. It was on whether the source really mattered when we were trying to get people to wear masks, social distancing and limiting group size. And I stand by that. Prevention of new infection, illness and in many cases death trumps knowledge of where it originated. (The origin in a lab would only be of practical help if there was an antidote out there.). 

[Lecka]

My city did have a mask mandate.  My husband’s family was bragging to him about how Texas got rid of their mask mandate, and he said — we never had a state mandate.  
 

My city did, but it was *extremely* controversial, and my location lost a city council seat about 49% to 51% over the mask mandate and a vote to not increase the police budget (to keep it the same instead of increase).  The seat went to someone opposed to mask mandates.  I don’t know if our city would pass another mask mandate.  
 

Honestly though — I still think this is a great place to live!  
 

And I like the not-locked-down life, too.  Sigh.  
 

I don’t know what is going to happen in the Fall when students come back.  

[regentrude]

10 minutes ago, Lecka said:

My city did have a mask mandate.  My husband’s family was bragging to him about how Texas got rid of their mask mandate, and he said — we never had a state mandate.  
 

My city did, but it was *extremely* controversial, and my location lost a city council seat about 49% to 51% over the mask mandate and a vote to not increase the police budget (to keep it the same instead of increase).  The seat went to someone opposed to mask mandates.  

My state never had a mask mandate. Because,  politics.

My city had for a while, and all four progressive city council members lost their seats over it. 

People here seem determined not to take Covid seriously... vax rate 30%, hospital and icu at capacity, 270 active cases in a county of 40k... it's a shit show.

I just hope our college students have more sense and get vaccinated before the semester.

Edited July 16, 2021 by regentrude

[SlowRiver]

Things would have to be very extreme to get us to really curtail things. We still have an indoor mask mandate which we follow, but I think it needs to go. To me, we are at the point after more than a year that we are seeing significant bad effects from restrictions, things like mental health, lack of testing in other areas because testing is all directed to covid, etc.

I don't consider kids to be high risk for covid compared to other things kids do, so I would not be restricting my kids who can't get the vaccination on that basis.

At this point, I consider hospitalisation rates more important than numbers of positive tests.

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

Always a good decision, that. 

I'm currently just stressing about what I CAN control. I can control whether we go inside stores. I can control whether we go to playgrounds. I can control lots of things. 

We honestly have enjoyed less inside shopping and that hasn’t changed much. It has but not much. I still enjoy curbside pickup which I didn’t do much before covid. I still buy a lot more online than before covid. I still have masks and anytime we are inside and unable to distance - we still wear them. Dh and I are vaccinated. The grown kids have made their own choices about it, all but one got it. Myself and one of them really felt slammed for about 3-4 days after the second dose but otherwise okay. None of my minors have gotten it yet. I’m literally split equal part on how I feel about it for them at this time.

1 hour ago, Scarlett said:

If I had kids too young to be vaccinated, I would be very concerned right now.  I don't know if I would lock down completely yet (if that was possible) but all non essential outings would probably be cut way back.  I am still masking in stores and avoiding big crowds even though I am vaccinated and have no young children.

I feel for you.

I think playgrounds are fine when I go to them. We don’t play on them with other other kids. It’s outside, in the sun radiation and we are usually not in them at the same time as other kids. The risk is greatly minimized on outside surfaces with an airborne contagion.  But again. I have never liked crowds to begin with. We always wait until all the schools start back up to go to the zoo and such. 

We’ve been going to the lake. We’ve been fixing up the house and yard. I have coffee at 6am once a week with my 2 friends that are vaccinated.  We go to mass which is completely open now. And the teens have rejoined youth activities.  These are probably my only areas I could limit.

That’s my boring life.

Edited July 16, 2021 by Murphy101

[BeachGal]

 

14 hours ago, KSera said:

So you administer it via IV into the bloodstream? And you do it at home?

 

2 hours ago, WTM said:

Did you self administer via IV?

No, I do insufflation which can be done in ears, vagina or rectally. It's a small amount of gas. Dave Asprey is a big fan of insufflation and has written about it.

https://daveasprey.com/ozone-therapy-at-home

It is also used in a special sauna that you sit in. One of them is called the HOCATT. Some doctors have them in their office. Your head sticks out and you don't breathe the ozone/oxygen in.

 

12 hours ago, KSera said:

Since it’s not FDA approved, I’m thinking in many/most states, doctors could be in trouble for using it, couldn’t they? 

They are legally allowed to provide it as long as they don't say it's a cure for Covid. Cure is not the right way to describe it anyway. It's a treatment that is seeing good results when it's used. Not 100% but good enough to warrant more studies.

An MD in California in the Palo Alto area is setting up what is necessary for FDA approval. He uses ozone therapy for quite a few conditions.

Ozone therapy was used in the US and other countries before antibiotics were discovered. Around the 1900s. It's an old treatment. Other countries continued to use it because either the drugs were too expensive or they thought the ozone therapy was worth keeping around.

 

4 hours ago, ktgrok said:

You keep talking about home use of ozone - how is that done?

Also, the risks of ozone are from actual ozone, not just impure ozone or whatever....

Yes, ozone breathed in is not safe. When doing the treatment, ozone is not breathed in and is captured in a totally enclosed, ozone-safe container where it cannot escape until it's needed. Ozone is unstable and breaks down quickly into oxygen but a device called a deconstructor can break down the ozone even faster.

If doing this at home, a person should only use medical grade equipment and pure oxygen. Asprey has those details in the link above. The cheap devices should never be used.

Ozone in small amounts is fine to breathe in. That fresh, sweet smell after a thunderstorm is ozone.

 

Here is a YouTube video explaining the history of ozone therapy, how it works and showing a 10 pass treatment. A 10 pass is what many athletes use. After it's done, people usually have a lot of energy.

The procedure: an MD removes up to 200 ml of blood into a glass vessel that has a tube connected to it. The ozone is generated in a medical grade ozone generator using oxygen. A tube from the ozone generator is connected to the vessel. A valve is switched and the ozone flows into the vessel, swished into the blood and then the ozonated blood is reinfused back into the patient. That is one pass.

For Covid in Italy, they are only doing 1-3 passes per day for 5-10 days so not even a 10 pass. In the US, MDs that I follow and who use ozone are giving Covid patients a full 10 pass and then waiting a day to see how they feel. Many of their patients begin to stop coughing during the treatment and their headaches and pains also start to subside.

 

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by BeachGal

[Scarlett]

10 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

 

I think playgrounds are fine when I go to them. We don’t play on them with other other kids. It’s outside, in the sun radiation and we are usually not in them at the same time as other kids. The risk is greatly minimized on outside surfaces with an airborne contagion.  But again. I have never liked crowds to begin with. We always wait until all the schools start back up to go to the zoo and such. 

We’ve been going to the lake. We’ve been fixing up the house and yard. I have coffee at 6am once a week with my 2 friends that are vaccinated.  We go to mass which is completely open now. And the teens have rejoined youth activities.  These are probably my only areas I could limit.

That’s my boring life.

I think that sounds reasonable!

[Jean in Newcastle]

People keep bringing up medical restrictions - on treating and testing for other illnesses (respiratory or otherwise).  That must be regional.  And at least here, was only in place when there was threat of hospital overrun or in the very beginning when there wasn't enough PPE to go around.  I can definitely see in areas where Covid rates are high, that that might happen again.  It's not that doctors don't care about other diseases etc.  It's a matter of scarcity of resources.  The way to keep this from happening in a region is COVID VACCINES! 

BTW - here anyway, doctors are begging people to come in for other vaccines (esp. for kids), for routine health checks like physicals and mammograms etc.   All types and severity of illnesses are being treated (and in fact severe illness of all kinds were always treated here even in the early days of the pandemic). 

[Not_a_Number]

42 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

I think playgrounds are fine when I go to them. We don’t play on them with other other kids.

I have to say that the only reason for us to go to playgrounds is literally to play with other kids, lol. If I wanted my kids to play with each other, I'd go somewhere else! 

I'm in Manhattan and playgrounds are a big social gathering place. Honestly, I like that -- it makes the neighborhood feel like a community. But it does mean that when I say "playground," I mean that there are like 20 families there. 

[Penelope]

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/kids-and-the-delta-variant-should
“Kids and the Delta Variant: Should you Act Differently?”

First part: Delta more contagious, probably not more severe, but for sure no indication it is worse for children in particular. Then:

Quote

Should you do anything differently? 

I revisited my calculator as a window to what changed. First: the presence of the variants may mean that case rates go up, especially if you are in an area with limited vaccinations. So you want to watch those — independent of the variants, you want to watch them. The NYT Tracker can show you rates in your state or county. 

Second: the more contagious virus warrants an update of the transmission risk, which I did in the calculator. 

More generally, let’s say you thought through some case rate cutoff for various activities before, under the wild type virus. Like, maybe you thought: I’m comfortable with my child in day care as long as daily case rates are below 60 in 100,000. The presence of the variant should reduce that threshold proportionality, since it’s based on an assumption about transmission risk. If the variant is twice as contagious, your new threshold should be 30 in 100,000. 

And if an activity is extremely low risk — like being outside, even unmasked — this shouldn’t change what you do. Twice a close-to-zero risk is still close to zero. 

In this way, you can use the decisions you made before. Don’t force yourself to remake them all. 

A Final Thought

As I reflect on on our continued discussion around kids, I am recognizing a distinction in some of our thinking. It boils down to this: Do you want to think of COVID-19 for kids the way you think about other illnesses, or does the fact that it is new mean you want to treat it differently? I think at the core this distinction is what colors a lot of our continued disagreements or differences in approach. 

On the observables — serious illness, symptomatic illness, mortality risk — COVID-19 for kids (variants or not) is a risk comparable or lower than diseases like RSV or the flu. Again, I know the long COVID fears are real, but the fact is that RSV, the flu and other diseases have these long tails also. 

We’ve kept kids isolated to protect high risk adults, but as those groups get access to vaccines and we focus on kids, there is an argument for treating this like other diseases. Which means, in turn, accepting the risk that your kid might get COVID-19. 

For some people, the residual newness of COVID-19 means they do not want to think of it this way. They may worry about the unknowns — could there be unexpected impacts of COVID-19 infection a decade from now? — and no amount of current data will help with this. If this is your take, you may want to continue to take precautions which are greater than those you would take in the face of existing diseases. 

Both of these may be reasonable, but they do reflect a very different approach. And by recognizing this difference, we may be able to better understand our choices and — more importantly — the choices of others.

 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Penelope said:

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/kids-and-the-delta-variant-should
“Kids and the Delta Variant: Should you Act Differently?”

First part: Delta more contagious, probably not more severe, but for sure no indication it is worse for children in particular. Then:

I haven't liked Emily Oster on COVID-19 much. I liked her pregnancy stuff OK, but I've been pretty unimpressed with her on this. 

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, Penelope said:

On the observables — serious illness, symptomatic illness, mortality risk — COVID-19 for kids (variants or not) is a risk comparable or lower than diseases like RSV or the flu. Again, I know the long COVID fears are real, but the fact is that RSV, the flu and other diseases have these long tails also. 

First of all, this is lumping all "kids" together and also ignoring the fact that we can vaccinate for the flu. I would guess that it's true that the flu is riskier to a 1-year-old than COVID-19, but I'm not at ALL convinced that this is true for my 8-year-old.

In terms of the "long tails" idea -- it's possible that the flu has an equal range of long tails as COVID for kids, but that's certainly not true for adults from any of the studies, which makes me kind of suspicious about stating this outright. 

I feel like she's been on a mission to soothe everyone the whole pandemic. I'd love to be soothed. Honestly, I would. As soon as the data feels robust, I will feel MUCH better. 

At the moment, my personal sense is that DD5 isn't at much risk from everything I've read. But again, I have no clue what the chance of DD8 having lingering symptoms is and I don't feel like testing it. 😕 

 

7 minutes ago, Penelope said:

For some people, the residual newness of COVID-19 means they do not want to think of it this way. They may worry about the unknowns — could there be unexpected impacts of COVID-19 infection a decade from now? — and no amount of current data will help with this.

I worry about the unknowns mostly because of the knowns, though. Both long COVID and MIS-C make me feel like we do not understand the way this virus is able to interact with the human body all that well. If we had better understanding of our observations, I'd feel pretty different. 

 

[KSera]

1 hour ago, regentrude said:

My state never had a mask mandate. Because,  politics.

My city had for a while, and all four progressive city council members lost their seats over it. 

 

Almost a year and a half in, and I still can’t figure out why masks are such a major deal for some people. It’s weird. 

1 hour ago, SlowRiver said:

We still have an indoor mask mandate which we follow, but I think it needs to go. To me, we are at the point after more than a year that we are seeing significant bad effects from restrictions, things like mental health, lack of testing in other areas because testing is all directed to covid, etc.

See, and I’m confused why one would follow the other. To me, if removing restrictions is important for mental health and medical health reasons (which it is),  then that’s precisely the reason to support other NPIs like masking and especially vaccines, so that we don’t require as many restrictions in order to curtail the virus. It’s a small thing to do in the scheme of things.  

5 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I haven't liked Emily Oster on COVID-19 much. I liked her pregnancy stuff OK, but I've been pretty unimpressed with her on this. 

I didn’t know who she was until she published that article quite a while back saying that kids were basically the same as vaccinated adults. That got a lot of response from doctors and various virus scientists who wondered why such an article by an economist got such wide publication. Needless to say, the majority disagreed with her assessment. 

[KSera]

10 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I would guess that it's true that the flu is riskier to a 1-year-old than COVID-19, but I'm not at ALL convinced that this is true for my 8-year-old.

FWIW, from what I’ve read, your 8 year old would be safer than a 1 year old. The under 5 and over 10 age groups seem to be ones most likely to have serious cases. 

[Laura Corin]

6 hours ago, ktgrok said:

 

I'm assuming your GP would have that history and act accordingly, or there is the hospital, etc. 

Yes. My colleague who has a medically fragile child with susceptible lungs has instant access to the relevant respiratory ward at the nearest teaching hospital in Scotland. 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Laura Corin

[Penelope]

@Not_a_Number you quoted me as saying those things, when they are from the article.

Not everyone gets everything right, not Emily Oster or Dr. Fauci or Dr. Walensky or whoever. 

I thought some might find the article helpful as it kind of distills the difference in how different people think about these risks. 

You have a certain perspective, and that’s okay. Others see it differently, and that’s okay, too. Right now, one isn’t really any more evidence-based than the other, and each of our families has many factors to consider.

I thought her point about thinking about community cases differently when Delta seems to spread twice as quickly, was a really good one.

 

Edited July 16, 2021 by Penelope

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Penelope said:

You have a certain perspective, and that’s okay. Others see it differently, and that’s okay, too. Right now, one isn’t really any more evidence-based than the other, and each of our families has many factors to consider.

I don't think all points of view are equally evidence-based, lol. What I'm saying is that she projects more confidence than we have data and has the entire pandemic. 

 

13 minutes ago, KSera said:

FWIW, from what I’ve read, your 8 year old would be safer than a 1 year old. The under 5 and over 10 age groups seem to be ones most likely to have serious cases. 

Hm, interesting. You may be right about that -- I've seen statistics to that effect. Maybe it's just that I haven't seen many reports on sequelae in really young kids?? 

[Penelope]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I don't think all points of view are equally evidence-based, lol. What I'm saying is that she projects more confidence than we have data and has the entire pandemic. 

I don’t either. 🙂 But what we each think is in fact based more on opinion and risk perception than evidence, when evidence is lacking.

I haven’t read much of her. I know she was an advocate for opening schools, and I believe she, along with many others, was correct. But that’s about it. 
 

What do you think about her idea that since Delta has been around, you should halve the number of community cases you are willing to accept for certain activity levels? I am not sure if that makes sense or not. I haven’t really had a number in mind of when I would change things; I do have a threshold but it’s more “big picture” than a case number.

 

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, Penelope said:

I don’t either. 🙂 But what we each think is in fact based more on opinion and risk perception than evidence, when evidence is lacking.

Yep. That's fair. Or at least, it's not really rigorous evidence... it's squishier 😉 . 

 

2 minutes ago, Penelope said:

I haven’t read much of her. I know she was an advocate for opening schools, and I believe she, along with many others, was correct. But that’s about it. 

What do you think about her idea that since Delta has been around, you should halve the number of community cases you are willing to accept for certain activity levels? I am not sure if that makes sense or not. I haven’t really had a number in mind of when I would change things; I do have a threshold but it’s more “big picture” than a case number.

I agree with you about the big picture 🙂. Honestly, I'm paying more attention to the trajectory right now than to anything else. I don't have a precise cutoff. 

[Murphy101]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I have to say that the only reason for us to go to playgrounds is literally to play with other kids, lol. If I wanted my kids to play with each other, I'd go somewhere else! 

I'm in Manhattan and playgrounds are a big social gathering place. Honestly, I like that -- it makes the neighborhood feel like a community. But it does mean that when I say "playground," I mean that there are like 20 families there. 

LOL. Yeah.  No. That’s not even close it the norm in Oklahoma. I’m pretty sure if I saw more than 6 other kids on the small playground I’d be like sorry kids it’s too crowded.

Wven at the gathering place, there might be a hundred kids there but it’s so spread out that that still means only 2-5 kids in stuff at the same time and areas with none at all. 

[TravelingChris]

47 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

Yes. My colleague who has a medically fragile child withsusceptible lungs has instant access to the relevant respiratory ward at the nearest teaching hospital in Scotland. 

Thanks for the info

[SKL]

Case numbers are rising here too.  I was kind of hoping it would encourage more people to get vaccinated, as we've almost leveled out at about 50% (at least 1 shot).

I do anecdotally know one family who decided to vax recently, though they were still "waiting" a few weeks ago.  Hopefully there are / will be others.

I still don't believe I'd stop my young kids from playing outdoors at playgrounds nor make them mask at this point.  That said, masked playing is better than no playing, so I'd make them mask before I'd stop going to playgrounds all together, unless masking was a significant issue for my individual child.

Right now my bigger concern is whether it's still OK to visit my folks (my mom isn't vaxed).  We didn't make it out there for Father's Day, and I was hoping to go in July, but now I am wavering again.  😞

[Not_a_Number]

37 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

LOL. Yeah.  No. That’s not even close it the norm in Oklahoma. I’m pretty sure if I saw more than 6 other kids on the small playground I’d be like sorry kids it’s too crowded.

Wven at the gathering place, there might be a hundred kids there but it’s so spread out that that still means only 2-5 kids in stuff at the same time and areas with none at all. 

Sounds pretty different!

[Jean in Newcastle]

2 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

People keep bringing up medical restrictions - on treating and testing for other illnesses (respiratory or otherwise).  That must be regional.  And at least here, was only in place when there was threat of hospital overrun or in the very beginning when there wasn't enough PPE to go around.  I can definitely see in areas where Covid rates are high, that that might happen again.  It's not that doctors don't care about other diseases etc.  It's a matter of scarcity of resources.  The way to keep this from happening in a region is COVID VACCINES! 

BTW - here anyway, doctors are begging people to come in for other vaccines (esp. for kids), for routine health checks like physicals and mammograms etc.   All types and severity of illnesses are being treated (and in fact severe illness of all kinds were always treated here even in the early days of the pandemic). 

Quoting myself to keep on this tendril of the thread, because apparently this bothers me more than I realized!   Mild respiratory illnesses have never been treated much even before Covid especially if they are viral in origin.  Doctors might check you out but they will then advise, rest, fluid and perhaps something to help you to sleep.  Doctors doing that now for mild respiratory illness is not some sign of a conspiracy to only treat or take Covid19 seriously! 

Obviously treating bacterial infections that might develop in the sinuses, lungs etc. is important but I don't think that doctors have suddenly forgotten that.  There are many ways to get seen and treated now with the addition of video / telehealth visits in addition to in person visits. 

[whitestavern]

2 hours ago, Penelope said:

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/kids-and-the-delta-variant-should
“Kids and the Delta Variant: Should you Act Differently?”

First part: Delta more contagious, probably not more severe, but for sure no indication it is worse for children in particular. Then:

 

That was a really great article putting things in perspective. I don't have littles, but if I did, that would make me feel so much better about things. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, whitestavern said:

That was a really great article putting things in perspective. I don't have littles, but if I did, that would make me feel so much better about things. 

It doesn't make me feel better, lol. But then I have a pretty good sense of what the data currently says and don't find it comforting. 

[Murphy101]

22 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

It doesn't make me feel better, lol. But then I have a pretty good sense of what the data currently says and don't find it comforting. 

Me either. 

[whitestavern]

27 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

It doesn't make me feel better, lol. But then I have a pretty good sense of what the data currently says and don't find it comforting. 

Someone just posted on the Wuhan virus thread information about the severity of Delta compared to other variants. I don't know how to link over to it, sorry. 

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Murphy101 said:

Me either. 

And mind you, I want to be comforted. Like, I want some awesome study that makes me feel like long COVID isn't a thing and we can keep doing stuff. I don't feel nearly as worried about ourselves anymore, since we're vaccinated. (Of course, if I start reading about vaccinated long haulers, I'll feel worse again.) 

Instead, I know quite a few adults on this forum with long COVID and it sounds awful and debilitating and not like something I want for my kids, plus I simply don't have enough data on kids -- neither anecdata nor data from studies 😕 . 

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, whitestavern said:

Someone just posted on the Wuhan virus thread information about the severity of Delta compared to other variants. I don't know how to link over to it, sorry. 

Do you mean this? 

 

[whitestavern]

15 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do you mean this? 

 

That was part of it, yes. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, whitestavern said:

That was part of it, yes. 

I'd have to think about whether her graphs support her conclusions. I'll try to come back to that after pondering... 

[KSera]

22 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Do you mean this? 

 

This is what I think we would expect, since cases are in a younger population now. I would like to see the hospitalization per case data broken down by age group (is it there and I missed it?) I'm quite surprised they didn't address that in the article. With the older population mostly vaccinated, and the average age of those infected much lower, we would expect a lower hospitaliztion number. I don't think we can tell anything from this if not broken out by age.

[Jean in Newcastle]

35 minutes ago, KSera said:

This is what I think we would expect, since cases are in a younger population now. I would like to see the hospitalization per case data broken down by age group (is it there and I missed it?) I'm quite surprised they didn't address that in the article. With the older population mostly vaccinated, and the average age of those infected much lower, we would expect a lower hospitaliztion number. I don't think we can tell anything from this if not broken out by age.

Our county breaks out cases by age. But I don’t think that they do enough testing to break it down further by variant. 

[regentrude]

18 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Our county breaks out cases by age. But I don’t think that they do enough testing to break it down further by variant. 

Ours does too. Since 73% of sequenced new cases in the state are Delta, I assume most of these are.

This week for our county ( 7 day incidence 375 per 100k)

Average age of total active cases: 36.2 years

Percentage of active cases per age group:

0-19 years: 20%

20-39 years: 41%

40-59 years: 26%

60+ years: 13%

[Corraleno]

57 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'd have to think about whether her graphs support her conclusions. I'll try to come back to that after pondering... 

The bar graph doesn't make any sense to me and seems to have been purposely designed to make it look like Delta is less virulent. If you compare, for example, urban areas with a high % of Delta but also high vax rates to rural areas with low vax rates and mostly Alpha, then you're likely to artificially compress the difference between them. To accurately compare the virulence of Delta to the original strain you'd need to compare the rate of hospitalization in unvaccinated Delta patients with the rate of hospitalization in unvaccinated patients of the same age who had the original strain. But none of these "Delta isn't more virulent" folks are doing that. And without a focused study, like they did in Ontario, Canada, I don't think there's any way to do that just using general case & hospitalization numbers since the CDC is no longer tracking breakthrough cases that aren't hospitalized (so there's no way to subtract those from the case numbers). 

[Laura Corin]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

Ours does too. Since 73% of sequenced new cases in the state are Delta, I assume most of these are.

This week for our county ( 7 day incidence 375 per 100k)

Average age of total active cases: 36.2 years

Percentage of active cases per age group:

0-19 years: 20%

20-39 years: 41%

40-59 years: 26%

60+ years: 13%

How does that compare with vaccination rates? Here older people are more likely to be vaccinated. 

[regentrude]

10 minutes ago, Laura Corin said:

How does that compare with vaccination rates? Here older people are more likely to be vaccinated. 

Oh definitely! Only 30% in my county are vaccinated,  but a much larger percentage of old people are. That's why there are so many more cases among younger folks

[Drama Llama]

4 hours ago, KSera said:

FWIW, from what I’ve read, your 8 year old would be safer than a 1 year old. The under 5 and over 10 age groups seem to be ones most likely to have serious cases. 

I think covid might be a little riskier to a 1 year old than an 8 year old, but flu is far riskier to a one year old. So, I do think that a 1 year old is at higher risk of flu than of covid.

But we were on pretty close to lock down status during flu season before covid hit, because of a vulnerable kid, so the argument that "it's like the flu" is less reassuring to me than to other people.