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Omicron anecdata?


Not_a_Number

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4 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

This is the case level in my county.  Eeeks.  And this is getting better than what it was.   

 

372.59 cases per 100,000 from 707.53 cases per 100,000 the previous week.

 

Wow. Are those daily or weekly averages? We peaked at around 350 per 100,000 per day in my county mid-January and are now down to around 25 per 100,000 per day and 7 percent positivity. I’m in Southern CA.

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On 2/10/2022 at 10:07 AM, Pam in CT said:

re what engaging in Civil Disobedience protests means

Right.  We recently covered this ground fairly extensively on @Quill 's second Confederate Flag mondo thread.

Any act of Civil Disobedience -- whether it's sitting in the front of a bus/ at a lunch counter/ walking into a Whites Only municipal swimming pool; or entering a restricted area of a medical facility to protest abortion; or entering unauthorized into a courthouse to protest an act by LE against a black man; or entering the same courthouse unauthorized to intimidate DACA immigrants in renewal proceedings; whether it's planting unauthorized Confederate flags in a graveyard, or removing them -- whatever "side" the protest supports...

... "civil disobedience" has two parts:

  1. The "civil" part, which means non-violent, even if -- as routinely happened to the pioneers of the method, violence is used against you; and
  2. The "disobedience" part, which means you recognize that your action is against the law and are prepared to accept the consequences

Civil rights activists routinely kept a prison bag packed. 

 

Heck, I was watching Mary Poppins with my youngest this weekend and it mentioned activists in jail!

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15 hours ago, Pam in CT said:

YASSSSSS, Connecticut! 

Yael, here's hoping y'all are orange tomorrow!  You're right on the edge.

I hope we make the cut to orange too. But I'm really thinking what I will do different. Omicron is so contagious. It seems to have almost burnt itself out of the Jewish community here but it's February vacation week so the week to ten days out from when everyone comes back should be interesting. I might go back to surgical masks for general stuff and only wear my Totobobo fitted with N94 filters for Jewish stuff. My daughter's been in her Totobobo with N99 filters all year long because almost no one wears a mask at her high school. 🙄

Purim (Jewish holiday) is coming and we're eating the festival meal with two families who are recently recovered from covid and somewhat COVID conscious. We expect everyone to test in the days before. Hope that's not going to bite us in the tush. We ate solo last year.

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re synagogues & Purim

20 minutes ago, YaelAldrich said:

I hope we make the cut to orange too. But I'm really thinking what I will do different. Omicron is so contagious. It seems to have almost burnt itself out of the Jewish community here but it's February vacation week so the week to ten days out from when everyone comes back should be interesting. I might go back to surgical masks for general stuff and only wear my Totobobo fitted with N94 filters for Jewish stuff. My daughter's been in her Totobobo with N99 filters all year long because almost no one wears a mask at her high school. 🙄

Purim (Jewish holiday) is coming and we're eating the festival meal with two families who are recently recovered from covid and somewhat COVID conscious. We expect everyone to test in the days before. Hope that's not going to bite us in the tush. We ate solo last year.

CCAR put out guidelines back in December that gave discretion, but institutional cover, for local-conditions-responsive temporary Omicron closures.  So we went back online only from mid-December through to last week; and we're still doing some stuff that are elderly-congregant-heavy, like Torah study, online for a few weeks more. 

And we've kept indoor masking for everyone except those at the bimah throughout; we now have a vax mandate for 12+ entering the building (which has NOT been at all controversial, quite the reverse; YMMV); and -- you'll appreciate the controversial tradeoffs herein, lol -- that includes NO EATING inside the building.  Lots of grab-and-go single portions of things (the landfill/ food waste implications of which making my skin crawl, but, choose your poison); lots of set-up and take-down time spent on tents and heaters; and lots of chronic anxiety about weather conditions.  But on the plus side, we have figured out all kinds of ways to utilize a very nice courtyard space, which is where our synagogue wide Purim festivities will be (please pray for us on the weather front).

ETA it helps Reform congregations A GREAT DEAL, in weighing the online / IRL tradeoffs, to be OK with electricity on Shabbat. Obvi.

I'm looking ahead to what Passover will look like. We ate alone in 2020; added (at the time half-vaxxed) FIL and wife in 2021.  Our extended family culture/routine these days is everybody tests before any kind of small/ large gathering; nobody blinks an eye, it's expected and appreciated.  I WANT TO DO THE WHOLE THING in 2022.

If this is going to last 40 freaking years... and we're only going into year 3 here...we have somehow to figure it out.  Is how I'm looking at it.

(As always... seriously, not literally...)

Edited by Pam in CT
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20 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Another bad headline. That makes it sound like the risks are elevated for as long as one year and then aren’t. Which isn’t what the study’s conclusion was. The study found the elevated risk lasted for the year long study period. What happens after that we don’t know, because the studies aren’t there yet (we’re going to have to get farther out from when this all started before it’s even possible to have truly long-term data). 

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Twice vaccinated and boostered friend (the one who we were looking for a home for her cat) who was a hermit and the only possible vector for her to have contracted covid was from a delivery has died of covid.  

We did find a home for her cat.  Her landlady's daughter who liked Lea has a friend who would like kitty.  

It's a damned tragedy.  She absolutely could not have been more careful to mitigate her covid risk.  

That said, she was in very poor health prior to infection and was on oxygen even pre-covid.  

 

Edited by Terabith
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I’m skeptical, to be honest. I’m still seeing as many patients with Covid as I was a month ago—but they’re taking home tests and not reporting them. Mostly self isolating but since NYS and the local health departments gave up on contact tracing, and it’s still hard to get testing slots, people are getting positives but not reporting them.  We had 16 positive cases reported yesterday in the county I work in—and 11 patients transported by ambulance to the ER with Covid.  I think between no longer needing quarantine paperwork and no contact tracing, people aren’t bothering to self report home positives, and they aren’t seeking out PCR tests.

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15 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

I’m skeptical, to be honest. I’m still seeing as many patients with Covid as I was a month ago—but they’re taking home tests and not reporting them. Mostly self isolating but since NYS and the local health departments gave up on contact tracing, and it’s still hard to get testing slots, people are getting positives but not reporting them.  We had 16 positive cases reported yesterday in the county I work in—and 11 patients transported by ambulance to the ER with Covid.  I think between no longer needing quarantine paperwork and no contact tracing, people aren’t bothering to self report home positives, and they aren’t seeking out PCR tests.

Tiggy, everyday I just wish I could hug you, and do something nice for you. Your service to humanity is very, very much under appreciated. Just know that I think you Da Bomb!

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Haha I’m enjoying myself in sunny Florida this week at the pool.  I don’t know what I’m going to do when my brother in law PCS‘s out of here this summer.   I have had an absolutely terrible last two weeks and it was either take a vacation or go to the psych ward.


My husband is home and working this week and has been keeping me up to date on the Covid numbers.  

Edited by Mrs Tiggywinkle
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40 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

I’m skeptical, to be honest. I’m still seeing as many patients with Covid as I was a month ago—but they’re taking home tests and not reporting them. Mostly self isolating but since NYS and the local health departments gave up on contact tracing, and it’s still hard to get testing slots, people are getting positives but not reporting them.  We had 16 positive cases reported yesterday in the county I work in—and 11 patients transported by ambulance to the ER with Covid.  I think between no longer needing quarantine paperwork and no contact tracing, people aren’t bothering to self report home positives, and they aren’t seeking out PCR tests.

I've been wondering this about my area as well, because the numbers have been dropping a lot. Since last Wednesday, I, ds21, then dh have all tested positive on home tests. The test says to notify your pcp of positive results, and I understood that the doctor is supposed to report them, but I have no idea if they do. I sent a photo of the test to their patient portal so it would be on record. For ds, I was smarter and put it on a piece of paper with his name and the date on it. Dh did his this afternoon, and I don't know if he took a photo of it or not.

ETA: All vaxed and boosted.

Edited by Jaybee
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28 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

f3d388c3-6bd9-463b-9253-20e1e68051ac

This is a nice graphic summary. One thing I wish they had found a way to work in there that I don’t see, is that the type of myocarditis they see after vaccination is different from what they see with Covid. The vaccine induced kind tends to be mild and self-limiting and resolves quickly. Myocarditis from Covid infection on the other hand has a high fatality rate.

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5 hours ago, cintinative said:

I want to be excited about Ohio but it's only due to averages that we are orange. My county is still at 21% positive and the local zips are still at  263 to 369 cases/100,000 average over the last two weeks.

DH is seeing a lot less Covid in the ER. I wonder if now that that the holidays are over, fewer high risk people are being exposed, so the number of people seeking care is lower. During the holidays, there is just tons of pressure to get together. The more careful people relied on testing vs. isolation to do so safely, and rapid testing is rather time/symptom-sensitive for Omicron. Less so for Delta, but still an issue. 

Anyway, I wonder if the holidays skew toward greater need of ER and hospital care since most people feel like they can't skip gatherings, and they often need to go to multiple gatherings in a really short time (sometimes more than one grandma's in a single day, etc.). 

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https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00414-x?fbclid=IwAR27U7iyAyykHfqe19x8XcgiqpRu8y18aq7yaAr5K8lcSYb17RR_6yVwRAs

Quote

In May 2021, health economists at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine estimated that COVID-induced disability might account for roughly 30% of the pandemic’s overall health burden13. Theirs was an early, necessarily limited attempt at quantification. It excluded mental illness, for example. More recent estimates, made in the light of accumulating but still partial knowledge about long COVID, indicate that disability is likely to account for the lion’s share of COVID-19’s burden, and might disproportionately affect women, especially those who were infected young14.

These estimates remain crude, not least because too little is known about COVID-19’s long-term effects on children. And they do not capture the impact of the predicted wave of disability on carers. Numbers will be refined as time goes on, and as data come in from ongoing studies, such as COVID-CNS (led by the University of Liverpool, UK, and King’s College London) and STIMULATE-ICP (led by University College London).

Well worth the time to read

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Can we talk about boosters?  Or if you got a third shot and are no inline for a booster?  If you already got your booster or third shot are you thinking of getting another booster?  I got mine in late October.  I thought the last thing i read was booster at 5 months.  Are you thinking of getting another one at 5 months, waiting until fall, or seeing where rates are?  What do you plan to do? 

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6 minutes ago, Starr said:

Are second boosters available? I thought only for seriously immune compromised . 

Yeah, I don't think they are.  There were rumors of an Omicron-specific vax being possibly ready in March, but here it is February and... crickets.  I really feel like they need an Omicron-specific one at this point.  I'd like some immunity against sickness, not just death.  I mean, the no-death thing is nice and all, but as we can see from how well the vax worked against the variant it was designed for, we can do better.  So why not do better....?

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4 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Yeah, I don't think they are.  There were rumors of an Omicron-specific vax being possibly ready in March, but here it is February and... crickets.  I really feel like they need an Omicron-specific one at this point.  I'd like some immunity against sickness, not just death.  I mean, the no-death thing is nice and all, but as we can see from how well the vax worked against the variant it was designed for, we can do better.  So why not do better....?

It has sounded like the omicron specific shots they have tried so far didn’t confer significant benefit over the original and they are still gathering data. I see Moderna is doing the same, with the same preliminary results, but is hoping to release an omicron specific shot in August, if it’s found to be beneficial.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-europe/moderna-eyes-covid-booster-by-august-not-clear-yet-if-omicron-specific-needed-idUSKBN2KL2G3

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18 minutes ago, KSera said:

It has sounded like the omicron specific shots they have tried so far didn’t confer significant benefit over the original and they are still gathering data. I see Moderna is doing the same, with the same preliminary results, but is hoping to release an omicron specific shot in August, if it’s found to be beneficial.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-europe/moderna-eyes-covid-booster-by-august-not-clear-yet-if-omicron-specific-needed-idUSKBN2KL2G3

This article doesn't differentiate, but another article I read on this subject said they didn't see a significant benefit when comparing death rates. Yeah, but what about sickness/contagion, the latter being currently the biggest problem in stemming the spread of Omicron...

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On 2/16/2022 at 3:13 PM, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

I’m skeptical, to be honest. I’m still seeing as many patients with Covid as I was a month ago—but they’re taking home tests and not reporting them. Mostly self isolating but since NYS and the local health departments gave up on contact tracing, and it’s still hard to get testing slots, people are getting positives but not reporting them.  We had 16 positive cases reported yesterday in the county I work in—and 11 patients transported by ambulance to the ER with Covid.  I think between no longer needing quarantine paperwork and no contact tracing, people aren’t bothering to self report home positives, and they aren’t seeking out PCR tests.

Yeah and NY is hinting at removing the school mask mandates since we’re “doing so well”… um, sure compared to December 26th but our rural area numbers are still higher than they were all of last school year. Cant see what could possibly go wrong…

Edited by Hilltopmom
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IL is dropping the mask mandate 2/28. Schools have dropped it, and there is a legal battle over that. I just saw the news about the BA2 sub variant. I will continue to mask. Numbers are down, but not enough. Plus flu. Still hoping when we get the ‘vid it’s mild enough for me to wonder what we have. 😔

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Michigan's new two day total was 3827 for an average of 1914 ish (can't really divide a person in half thought the math would suggest it 😁) per day. I do have a concern that there are many, many cases that are home test positives not being reported. My concerns about this are two-fold. 1st,  since long covid is a thing, it is important for their covid positive to be a part of their medical record however I suspect that mild case folks may not be informing their doctors. 2nd, I have not been able to find any evidence that those doctors who are aware of home test positives among their patients, have a reporting mechanism for making sure their patients are counted in the state totals. It seems as though it is pretty much lab data only. However, I am not sure.

So I have this queasy feeling. Cases are going down, a lot, and that is good. But, do we really have a remotely accurate picture of community spread? Doubtful.

I do think I will stick to my plan of getting a haircut while wearing my KN95 if reported cases go below 1000 per day, and there are no new school outbreaks.

It is a total anything goes environment here. So if the new Omicron/Probably Needs its Own New Letter, Michigan will be right back down that hole again. My hope is we make it to spring without another surge because everyone heads outside, and all the outdoor Michigan living stuff kicks in which will help tamp it down, and I will feel a lot better. Puttering about outside, getting the boat ready, buying plants, putting in the fledgling garden, and walking the beach will make me feel much, much better.

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On 2/14/2022 at 9:45 AM, catz said:

Just to update this, my college kid was PCR tested again and was negative.  The inconclusive is often considered a presumed positive.  You may get this result early or very late in an infection when viral levels are low but not high enough to hit the threshold for a positive.  So it is possible he may have been positive for a couple days last week?  He was PCR tested Tuesday w/negative and then inconclusive on Friday.  Negative on Saturday.  He did a negative rapid somewhere in there too (this group is taking covid seriously!).  He was certainly exposed repeatedly.  SIX people in his performing group he was with the previous weekend tested positive last week (out of like around 25 of them, 5 had it a couple weeks ago.  All vaccinated, some are newly boosted).   This college kid was boosted at the very end of December so hit the 2 week point right as he went back to campus around January 12.  So he did have a very well timed booster for this wave.  

Anyway - I for sure thought he would be positive, but just thought I'd put that out there for anyone else who might get an inconclusive.  He tests all the time at the same place on campus, so I'd be surprised if the inconclusive was due to sample issues.  This was his first non-negative result.  

Oh I hate to update again but my college student is covid + this week. He is completely asymptomatic thus far.  Honestly after the inconclusive and talking about a scratchy throat last week I wonder if maybe he did have it and just now had enough virus in his nose to test positive.  So he's in lock up until at least Tuesday and out of performing group for 10 days.  He's totally fine though.  

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2 hours ago, catz said:

Oh I hate to update again but my college student is covid + this week. He is completely asymptomatic thus far.  Honestly after the inconclusive and talking about a scratchy throat last week I wonder if maybe he did have it and just now had enough virus in his nose to test positive.  So he's in lock up until at least Tuesday and out of performing group for 10 days.  He's totally fine though.  

Sorry he’s in isolation, but glad he’s feeling fine.

I keep seeing that same progression here. Mild, mild symptoms with negative tests, then 5 - 9 days later all symptoms are essentially gone but a positive test pops up during some routine testing. It’s hard to tell if they had two different bugs back to back and the Covid is just asymptomatic, or maybe it was Covid all along and the tests were not reliable. Makes me wonder how many people thought they were in the clear, it was just a cold and didn’t test again a week later? Maybe some of those would have become positive, too? Or not.

Whatever is going on, I’m grateful for the vaccines working as well as they are!

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1 minute ago, Spryte said:

Sorry he’s in isolation, but glad he’s feeling fine.

I keep seeing that same progression here. Mild, mild symptoms with negative tests, then 5 - 9 days later all symptoms are essentially gone but a positive test pops up during some routine testing. It’s hard to tell if they had two different bugs back to back and the Covid is just asymptomatic, or maybe it was Covid all along and the tests were not reliable. Makes me wonder how many people thought they were in the clear, it was just a cold and didn’t test again a week later? Maybe some of those would have become positive, too? Or not.

Whatever is going on, I’m grateful for the vaccines working as well as they are!

That has seemed to be the pattern through his whole performing group.  I think they are only catching these cases because they are so aggressive with testing because they performed unmasked (singing).  That whole group is vaxxed x3.  It's kind of fascinating.  I just read an article yesterday estimating like 60% of omicron cases are asymptomatic.  Campus numbers are coming down there this week so maybe it's on it's last legs.  

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Just now, catz said:

That has seemed to be the pattern through his whole performing group.  I think they are only catching these cases because they are so aggressive with testing because they performed unmasked (singing).  That whole group is vaxxed x3.  It's kind of fascinating.  I just read an article yesterday estimating like 60% of omicron cases are asymptomatic.  Campus numbers are coming down there this week so maybe it's on it's last legs.  

Oh, I do hope it’s on its last legs, too! So ready for us all to catch a breather.

And yes, here, I’m seeing that pattern in the nursing home (we have three elders plus knowledge of many staff and residents in a home). It’s a very clear pattern, and they are only catching these cases because they test everyone twice a week.

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Immune-compromised are now able to get a booster 3 months after their third shot.

I got my third shot/booster 4 months ago, and according to the latest news, protection is way down, even against ER visits and hospitalizations by 5 months. Perhaps this is only because a lot of positive tests for not at risk people simply don't get reported? Nevertheless, why is this not being talked about more, instead of all the pressure on the CDC to remove mask recommendations (deja vu)? My state removed theirs already. I am considering an unofficial booster in the next month or two. Anyone else? Considering how infectious Omicron 1 and 2 is, and since we are not squashing covid, I am feeling very uncomfortable.

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