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Omicron anecdata?

Not_a_Number

By Not_a_Number,
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KSera

KSera

Posted
Posted
1 minute ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Are there any updates to helpful preventative things to do after exposure? 

I'm mostly seeing people using various nasal sprays (iota-carrageenan or xylitol and I think there are others) and maybe upping zinc. I haven't seen any recent new research on those in vivo though.

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Corraleno

Corraleno

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8 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine: Karikó, Weissman awarded prize for mRNA research

2023 Nobel Prize in Medicine goes to Karikó and Weissman (statnews.com)

I was SO happy to see that Katalin Karikó had won! I read a long article about her when the vaccines first came out, and she struggled so long and so hard to get anyone to believe in what she was doing. Her work was dismissed, her publications and grant applications and requests to collaborate with other scientists were rejected, and she was demoted and denied tenure at U Penn. But she knew that what she was working on was important and would have far reaching applications and she was right. 

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mommyoffive

mommyoffive

Posted
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People's CDC Weather Report October 2, 2023 (substack.com)

 

The Weather:

 

Wastewater levels appear to have dropped slightly  in the West, Midwest, and South regions. The national average decreased, from 608 copies/ml to 509. However, wastewater levels remain higher than the past six months and as high as this past Winter of 2023. Until we see a significant drop, the risk for a COVID infection ranges between substantial to high. As an important reminder, when looking at wastewater data, it is important to examine your own region and/or county to estimate your current level of risk. Check your county or state for local information. Another source for wastewater tracking is SCAN.

As mentioned in previous reports, Biobot data has shown retroactive data updates in reports published up to several weeks prior, likely due to variations in the timing of reporting across wastewater sites. In the meantime, to account for retroactive fluctuation, we will continue to report the previous week’s wastewater data as it appears to fluctuate significantly less than the most recent findings. Note that the “September 30” date refers to the “data collection date” rather than the last data point reported (September 20).

Since the CDC stopped providing a national COVID transmission map, the People’s CDC has been working on something to replace it. The People’s CDC is building a new COVID transmission map that will be measured at the state level. We look forward to potentially sharing it in the near future.

 

Alt text: Title reads “COVID-19 Wastewater Levels September 30, 2023.” A map of the United States in the upper left corner serves as key. The West is green, Midwest is purple, South is pink, and Northeast is orange. A line graph on the bottom is titled “Wastewater: Effective SARS-CoV-2 virus concentration (copies/mL of sewage),” from Apr 2023 through Sept 2023. Using Sep 20th data, the line graph shows X-axis labels Apr ‘23 to Sept ‘23 with regional virus concentrations showing a decrease in all regions from April to mid-June, but rising from mid June to August nationwide. All regions show an increased trend as of 9/06 reported data, except for the South which shows a downward trend from its previous peak of 695 copies/mL on 08/30. All regions show a decreased trend as of 9/20 reported data. A key on the upper right states concentration as of September 20, 2023: 509 copies / mL (Nationwide), 449 copies / mL (Midwest), 704 copies / mL (Northeast), 395 copies / mL (South), and 418 copies / mL (West).

 

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Acadie

Acadie

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Posted (edited)

FDA finally approved Novovax and it may be available next week! Folks 12+ who had mRNA or any other vaccine eligible for one shot. Unvaccinated eligible for two. 
 

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/fda-authorizes-updated-novavax-covid-19-vaccine-formulated-better-protect-against-currently

Edited by Acadie
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kbutton

kbutton

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Posted
3 hours ago, Mom_to3 said:

I am very curious who will carry Novavax around here! 

According to the article:

“Once the FDA signs off on the batches, as is standard practice and expected to take no more than a few days, the Novavax vaccine will be available in Costco, CVS Pharmacy and Rite Aid, among other locations. It will also be available through the Vaccines for Children and Bridge Access Program, which provides free shots.“

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iamonlyone

iamonlyone

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Posted
13 minutes ago, iamonlyone said:

I was wondering about the "other locations." I hope that will include Walgreens! We don't have Costco or Rite Aid, but we do have a CVS on the other side of town. If it's not readily available in our city, I would be willing to drive to the larger city an hour away.

Hooray! Our Walgreens are currently stocking Novavax. In case anyone else is interested in checking, I selected the vaccine I wanted in my area on vaccines.gov.

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Kassia

Kassia

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Posted

Ds3 is sick now - fever/sore throat/runny nose.  Does anyone know if those are current covid symptoms?  I figure he must have covid or the flu since it came on very quickly.  I don't think he has any covid tests - I'll ask him later today. My new ones that I just ordered are arriving today but we live three hours away from him.  He had no *sick food* in his apartment so I sent him some juice/crackers/applesauce with Amazon Prime and paid extra to have it delivered early this morning.

 

 

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Tenaj

Tenaj

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Posted
5 hours ago, Kassia said:

Ds3 is sick now - fever/sore throat/runny nose.  Does anyone know if those are current covid symptoms?  I figure he must have covid or the flu since it came on very quickly.  I don't think he has any covid tests - I'll ask him later today. My new ones that I just ordered are arriving today but we live three hours away from him.  He had no *sick food* in his apartment so I sent him some juice/crackers/applesauce with Amazon Prime and paid extra to have it delivered early this morning.

 

 

A virus is running through my kids with the same symptoms:  sore throat, congestion and two have had fevers but all COVID tests have been negative so far and it's not really knocking them out like the flu would - just a day or two with some lingering congestion.  

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mommyoffive

mommyoffive

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, Kassia said:

Ds3 is sick now - fever/sore throat/runny nose.  Does anyone know if those are current covid symptoms?  I figure he must have covid or the flu since it came on very quickly.  I don't think he has any covid tests - I'll ask him later today. My new ones that I just ordered are arriving today but we live three hours away from him.  He had no *sick food* in his apartment so I sent him some juice/crackers/applesauce with Amazon Prime and paid extra to have it delivered early this morning.

 

 

Did he order the free Covid tests? If he didn't maybe put in an order?  Maybe they will ship fast since the first ones ordered are  going out.

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Kassia

Kassia

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Posted
15 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

Did he order the free Covid tests? If he didn't maybe put in an order?  Maybe they will ship fast since the first ones ordered are  going out.

I'll ask him.  Good thought that he might get them quickly if he hasn't ordered yet.  I know I encouraged him to get them when they were first offered, so maybe he did.  I'll ask.  He's doing a bit better today but was completely out of it yesterday with fever.  He said he didn't get out of bed and didn't eat anything.  

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Kassia

Kassia

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, MEmama said:

I love that you can do that for him! 

yes, I am so grateful to have that option!  I'm sure I could have done Instacart or something like that but I've never used it before and I figured Amazon would be easier and cheaper overall but with fewer choices to get stuff there quickly.  He already got it this morning.  

BTW, I got my free covid tests today.  The date on them is June 2023 with a card directing you to a website to check how long the tests are good for past expiration date.

 

 

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KSera

KSera

Posted
Posted
9 hours ago, Kassia said:

Ds3 is sick now - fever/sore throat/runny nose.  Does anyone know if those are current covid symptoms?  I figure he must have covid or the flu since it came on very quickly.  I don't think he has any covid tests - I'll ask him later today. My new ones that I just ordered are arriving today but we live three hours away from him.  He had no *sick food* in his apartment so I sent him some juice/crackers/applesauce with Amazon Prime and paid extra to have it delivered early this morning.

 

 

I’m sorry he’s sick and hope he feels all better very soon!

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Ausmumof3

Ausmumof3

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Posted

Gah

had dds friends stay overnight and only found out when mum came for pickup that her siblings are home sick with “this really bad flu that’s going around, have you had it?” Apparently friend that slept over has already had it and recovered 🤞

Youngest just got over sickness from DH taking him out with no mask a couple of weeks back 

I’m trying to let my kids have some kind of a normal life. It seems impossible 

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bookbard

bookbard

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44 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

had dds friends stay overnight and only found out when mum came for pickup that her siblings are home sick with “this really bad flu that’s going around, have you had it?” Apparently friend that slept over has already had it and recovered 🤞

 

Argh that's hard! Hopefully will be ok. I allowed my daughter to go to a sleepover but asked if the child could do a RAT test beforehand (parent was a nurse and ok with that). Of course that doesn't pick up everything. 

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Mom_to3

Mom_to3

Posted
Posted (edited)

Looks like the next big thing for Moderna is a combined covid, flu and RSV shot.  https://www.statnews.com/2023/10/05/biotech-moderna-covid-flu-rsv-vaccine-histogen/

I wish they'd focus on making a better covid vaccine or at least updating it more frequently than once a year. I guess we can thank our governments and ourselves for not making that approach more profitable...

Edited by Mom_to3
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kbutton

kbutton

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9 hours ago, Mom_to3 said:

Looks like the next big thing for Moderna is a combined covid, flu and RSV shot.  https://www.statnews.com/2023/10/05/biotech-moderna-covid-flu-rsv-vaccine-histogen/

I wish they'd focus on making a better covid vaccine or at least updating it more frequently than once a year. I guess we can thank our governments and ourselves for not making that approach more profitable...

These efforts seem aimed at vaccine uptake. I can only assume that this is aimed at people who don’t have the means for a million trips to the pharmacy for multiple shots because so many of the Covid cautious feel as you do—get us more updated shots!

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Matryoshka

Matryoshka

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14 minutes ago, kbutton said:

These efforts seem aimed at vaccine uptake. I can only assume that this is aimed at people who don’t have the means for a million trips to the pharmacy for multiple shots because so many of the Covid cautious feel as you do—get us more updated shots!

I agree, and also really don't want a combo shot.  If they do this, I hope it's an option, not the only option (still annoyed you can no longer separate MMR).  I just got the latest Covid shot, and will go back in a week or two for flu.

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Mom_to3

Mom_to3

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Posted (edited)

Not directly related to covid (maybe indirectly?), but an interesting articl on the resurgence of TB and, perhaps even more worrisome, mention of the muzzling of public health officials in NYC (I've heard of TB outbreaks elsewhere recently, so this is not only a NY problem). https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/04/tuberculosis-cases-rising-new-york-00119878

"Burzynski told staff not to respond to POLITICO’s inquiries about the city’s tuberculosis control efforts, according to a copy of the email sent to the bureau."

Edited by Mom_to3
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Ausmumof3

Ausmumof3

Posted
Posted
35 minutes ago, Mom_to3 said:

Not directly related to covid (maybe indirectly?), but an interesting articl on the resurgence of TB and, perhaps even more worrisome, mention of the muzzling of public health officials in NYC (I've heard of TB outbreaks elsewhere recently, so this is not only a NY problem). https://www.politico.com/news/2023/10/04/tuberculosis-cases-rising-new-york-00119878

"Burzynski told staff not to respond to POLITICO’s inquiries about the city’s tuberculosis control efforts, according to a copy of the email sent to the bureau."

Our TB outbreak has expanded to a third cluster as well 😞 

Covering up outbreaks is really bad!

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bookbard

bookbard

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Posted

Good news - Australian govt is going to cover the cost of the new Shingrix shingles vaccine. Up to now they've only funded the old one, but the new one is so much better. You have to be over 65 or over 50 and Indigenous, or over 18 and immunocompromised. I paid for it and it was over $500 so I am really happy the govt is funding it. 

Went to a shop I go to regularly. The young girl was like, "you always wear a mask, why?" I said, "I don't like Covid, it sucks." She said, "oh, but there's no Covid anymore, it's gone." I said, "No, 50 people are still dying each week plus my sister had covid for the 3rd time last week."

She had no idea at all, no idea. It is incredible how easily this has happened - it's not in the news anymore, so it does not exist. No wonder people aren't testing, if they don't think it exists.

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BeachGal

BeachGal

Posted
Posted

My youngest adult son is living at home this month and tested positive for Covid last week. Bad headache, achy joints, sore throat. He’s on the mend but will be taking it easy for a month or two.

So far, dh and I feel fine and are not positive. We live in a small place, maybe 1,000 sq. ft. Go figure. Hoping we stay negative.

Would love to get Novavax eventually.

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prairiewindmomma

prairiewindmomma

Posted
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Graph hasn’t been updated since 2019–the gradual decline up until 2019 has generally been attributed to more people getting vaccinated. https://www.cdc.gov/shingles/surveillance.html
 

This Aus article points to a recent US study which I cant find at the moment: https://www.auckland.ac.nz/en/news/2022/08/16/If-youve-had-Covid-look-out-for-shingles.html

but the general feel of things seems to be that dormant viruses like Epstein-Barr and Varicella can be reactivated in a % of the population.  It’s not covid itself that is causing the flareup, it’s the resulting autoimmune dysfunction post infection. Which…yeah…there’s all kinds of evidence that infections like influenza and covid and other stuff can trigger EBV flareups, etc., or new autoimmune based diseases. 
 

 

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bookbard

bookbard

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Yay on the shingrix, bookbard. We got our shots last year as it seems shingles is on the rise here.

Yep, that's why I paid for it privately, luckily I got Shingrix before I got covid. I know a lot of cases of shingles since covid and it sounds horribly painful. There's also a possibility that Shingrix may reduce some cases of Parkinson's or some forms of dementia (I think we discussed this earlier in the thread). I assume all of this is related to why the Australian govt is doing this - hurrah, usually I'm whinging about them. 

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Corraleno

Corraleno

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45 minutes ago, kbutton said:

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/10/07/yhmh-o07.html?fbclid=IwAR1HmKQ1rXi6vSYo-mCSDPxl_TzFJupaSLqCEJECA3L5GwAl_TOYIaes6zk_aem_AWCIDzDlMhbLjD9toc2IY2DRQL-GmYdhYRXVbK2W2Ct-OgGEEZoqerYd9RK0NX_bbc4
 

I found their discussion of the use of the term "endemic disease" to be absolutely spot on. So many of the people and media sources that downplay covid and oppose vaccines, masks, and other mitigation measures, have been insisting for a couple of years now that the pandemic is over and covid is just "endemic" now, as if that means it's relatively harmless and not worth trying to prevent infection. As Mateus and Murray point out in the linked interview, people who are referring to covid as endemic/NBD basically mean it's only going to kill people they don't care about — the elderly, immunocompromised, and others with high risk factors.

"Benjamin Mateus: With regard to our discussion on endemic COVID, where we see infection rates at some low-level steady state, that proposition that is being claimed by various pundits seems absurd to me. There are two issues with this concept that are problematic. 

First is the continuing convergent evolution of the coronavirus. It is constantly mutating with no end in sight in its ability to find new ways to adapt itself.... The second thing is because population immunity is constantly waning, we will never reach some meaningful population immunity where we will see low levels of disease where the reproductive number hovers around one. 

How do you square these with ... our discussion on the mathematical models for endemic disease? I don’t think we will ever reach endemic COVID. 

Dr. Eleanor Murray: Yes. And there is third aspect to the term “endemic.” ... [W]hen we actually look at the use of the word endemic—both currently and historically—there is an implicit and sometimes explicit part of the definition of that term that means a disease is endemic when the people who are bearing the burden of infection and disease are people who we don’t really care about.

When we talk about diseases that are occurring within a country that’s rich, endemic disease are those affecting groups that are marginalized, that are in poverty, minoritized race, ethnicity groups, that kind of thing. When we’re talking about other countries, we talk about endemic diseases in places like the former colonies of the British Empire: “Those people over there have an endemic disease.” 

Never do we talk about endemic syphilis in the United States or endemic herpes virus. We rolled out the human papillomavirus [HPV] vaccine several years ago. No one ever said, “Why do we need a vaccine? HPV is endemic.” We don’t talk about diseases as endemic when we care about the people that they infect even if they routinely and regularly happen. We say, “Seasonal influenza,” we don’t say, “Endemic influenza.” Health departments will put out reminders about the potential for norovirus outbreaks every winter in daycares and elementary schools because that’s norovirus season, but we don’t say we have endemic norovirus.

So, there’s this whole aspect of endemic where the use of the word conveys a disinterest in preventing the disease. And that’s not officially built into the definition. But if you unpack, explore, and ask how this is used and when this is used, what you see is that historically it’s very clear that’s the real meaning behind the application of the word endemic. And then more recently, you see all the places where it isn’t used. 

And when you go back and review the use of these terms in the media, the switch from talking about COVID pandemic to endemic COVID, you start to see this shift in how people refer to endemic COVID as being only a problem for people with chronic diseases, immune-compromised, or for the very old. It’s those people that have to deal with this disease, and not us. And if we take that definition, then, yes, I think a lot of the United States and the world has shifted to the idea that they don’t really care about who’s getting COVID, and so it’s endemic. But it’s also everywhere and all the time. And it’s worth asking ourselves whether we really don’t care about the people who get COVID."

 

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Ausmumof3

Ausmumof3

Posted
Posted (edited)

This is obviously only anecdata so definitely treat it as such. I saw someone recently who had Covid and had a season of constant sickness afterward (and felt that it was the cause). They are now over twelve months out and say they are back to normal and don’t seem to be getting sick all the time anymore. This seems promising. Obviously if you get reinfected maybe not but I’m glad that it does seem like the lowered immune system improves in time.

Edited by Ausmumof3
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