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Omicron anecdata?

Not_a_Number

By Not_a_Number,
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Roadrunner
Roadrunner

My mom’s neighbor lost a 4 year old daughter to Covid today. Yes she had previous heart surgery, so she was vulnerable. Also this is most likely not Omicron. So tragic. 

Laura Corin
Laura Corin

Mum no longer has any symptoms. 

mom2scouts
mom2scouts

I just tested positive for Covid this morning with a rapid test. It's unlikely I can confirm with a PCR since those appointments are in short supply this week. On Saturday I started feeling some chest

mommyoffive

mommyoffive

Posted
Posted

‘The situation in the hospitals is grim’: States face brutal virus fallout (msn.com)

Nearly 30,000 people currently in the hospital have tested positive for Covid-19, according to the CDC, up 30 percent since Thanksgiving — with New York, Arizona and New Mexico among the hardest hit.

“The situation in the hospitals is grim,” said David Scrase, secretary of the New Mexico Health and Human Services Department. “The death toll from this very serious virus continues to go up and really, hopefully, will create a sense of urgency in individuals and families to think about getting access to vaccines and also to treatments, should you test positive for coronavirus.”

A little more than 13 percent of Americans over the age of 5 have gotten their updated booster vaccine since it was released in September — including about a third of seniors, the group most susceptible to hospitalization, according to the CDC. Case counts in nursing homes are also up more than 30 percent since Thanksgiving.

And while the Omicron subvariants currently circulating are less lethal than previous variants, about 426 people are dying, on average, from Covid-19 each day — a nearly 62 percent increase from last week, according to the CDC.

“Most of the population — unfortunately — has forgotten about Covid-19 and moved on. As a result, we’re seeing a rise in cases and a rise in hospitalizations, and that worries me,” said Ali Mokdad, professor of global health at the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. “Right now with the rise of flu, RSV and Covid, our health professionals are exhausted.”

 

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Laura Corin

Laura Corin

Posted
Posted
On 12/9/2022 at 9:43 PM, wathe said:

Fever phobia and antibiotic mythology are stubbornly pervasive.  

There are loads of excellent information sources on both topics (like, pretty much every children's hospital's website, professional paediatric society websites, etc.)

And yet.  Fever phobia and abx myths remain deeply popularly entrenched.

It's a steep uphill slog.   

There was an interesting episode of the podcast Freakonomics MD that discussed antibiotic prescription expectations and how they varied by state. Prescribing and patient demand were locked together and culturally determined.

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KSera

KSera

Posted
Posted

This graph of deaths of nursing home workers in the US:

image.thumb.png.7cbad61c6da1ff6c54642a9d483f597c.png

https://www.cdc.gov/nhsn/covid19/ltc-report-overview.html#anchor_1594393307

 

That represents 80 healthcare workers in nursing homes having died in just the past 4 weeks. It's now at a similar rate as all the other post-vaccine peaks.

From the case graph, you wouldn't get the same story. More than ever, hospitalization currently seems to give a much more accurate view of the covid situation.

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Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

Mrs Tiggywinkle Again

Posted
Posted
32 minutes ago, TCB said:

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-02051-3
 

I apologize if this has already been linked but this is a recently published (Nov 10, 2022 I think) study about the risks of reinfection with Covid. 

It appears to be saying that vaccination status has no statistical difference in poor outcomes when it comes to reinfection.  If so, that’s depressing.

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TCB

TCB

Posted
Posted (edited)
12 minutes ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle Again said:

It appears to be saying that vaccination status has no statistical difference in poor outcomes when it comes to reinfection.  If so, that’s depressing.

Yes that’s a bit difficult to understand as I have seen what looks like pretty clear data showing decreased risk from hospitalization and death if vaccinated, although I think that this wanes over time. I think the categories they included were just 2 or more shots, without specifying how many boosters. Also, I think I remember them saying that one of the study limitations was that the vaccination data might not have been completely accurate.

 

ETA - It made me resolve to continue wearing a mask in public indoor areas.

Edited by TCB
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Spryte

Spryte

Posted
Posted

My parent’s nursing home has just (finally) reinstated masks. They had case after case in November, so it’s about time. 

We just returned from a trip to the EU, and saw very little masking anywhere at all. We were among the bare minority on the planes and in airports masked. They did have a mask mandate on trains — about 50 - 70% complied, but other than that we were most often the only people masked.

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Terabith

Terabith

Posted
Posted

One of the kids in my preschool class, who was in school on Friday (but out a couple days earlier in the week sick....we were told ear infection) apparently tested positive for covid on Friday after school, along with the whole family.  I wore my mask most of the day, but I did take it off to drink water and eat lunch.  I tested today and was negative.  I'm not sure how frequently I need to keep testing.  Maybe each evening?  

I'm annoyed that no other families are being told that there is a covid case.  I have other kids out sick with presumably other stuff.  Most of my kids are cared for after preschool by grandparents.  And Christmas is coming up very soon.  I would really want to know.  

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Harriet Vane

Harriet Vane

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, Terabith said:

One of the kids in my preschool class, who was in school on Friday (but out a couple days earlier in the week sick....we were told ear infection) apparently tested positive for covid on Friday after school, along with the whole family.  I wore my mask most of the day, but I did take it off to drink water and eat lunch.  I tested today and was negative.  I'm not sure how frequently I need to keep testing.  Maybe each evening?  

I'm annoyed that no other families are being told that there is a covid case.  I have other kids out sick with presumably other stuff.  Most of my kids are cared for after preschool by grandparents.  And Christmas is coming up very soon.  I would really want to know.  

Ugh, I'm so sorry.

I have noticed just about everyone doing this. Someone gets sick. It's proclaimed to be allergies or not covid. Until it actually IS covid. *banging my head on a brick wall here...*

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Terabith

Terabith

Posted
Posted
14 minutes ago, Harriet Vane said:

Ugh, I'm so sorry.

I have noticed just about everyone doing this. Someone gets sick. It's proclaimed to be allergies or not covid. Until it actually IS covid. *banging my head on a brick wall here...*

Well, I mean, if they test negative initially, it’s a pretty understandable conclusion, especially with toddlers for whom daily testing would be challenging. 

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Harriet Vane

Harriet Vane

Posted
Posted
39 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Well, I mean, if they test negative initially, it’s a pretty understandable conclusion, especially with toddlers for whom daily testing would be challenging. 

It is hard to test toddlers, very true. And parents' hands are tied--bills have to be paid, which means we all get to go to work, right? I was trying to express sympathy for your plight, but I think I've let other pandemic frustrations overshadow what I was trying to say. Sorry. In my own world, people are doing whatever they want and acting as though covid doesn't exist or that medical fragilities don't exist, and it bothers me a great deal. 

So to you what I want to say is that I am sorry you've been exposed and I wish this were not an issue. And I agree with you 100% that there should be more open communication about this. 

 

 

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Ausmumof3

Ausmumof3

Posted
Posted

On the anecdAta front one of the kids from DS tennis is positive. Hoping we escaped as they played together outdoors Friday. He would be the second reinfection I know of with no underlying circumstances. I think data here where it’s still being collected is showing approx 30pc reinfections now.

Our wave was predicted to be dropping by now but it hasn’t and hospitals look to be under the pump again. My feeling is if it hasn’t dropped now, all the Christmas functions will keep it going till the new year then it may drop hopefully.

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Terabith

Terabith

Posted
Posted

My favorite Catholic priest died of covid yesterday.  He caught it on a cruise with his family.  He was in his early to mid 70's.  I have no idea about underlying conditions or vaccination status, but honestly, I can't imagine he wasn't fully boosted, and he seemed incredibly active, healthy, and energetic.  

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BeachGal

BeachGal

Posted
Posted

A new drug, an ACE2 receptor decoy, neutralizes all known variants of Covid and is being manufactured for preclinical trials. Dr. Been talked about this on YouTube yesterday.

https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/973456

Scientists at Dana-Farber Cancer Institute have developed a drug that potently neutralizes SARS-CoV-2, the COVID-19 coronavirus, and is equally effective against the Omicron variant and every other tested variant. The drug is designed in such a way that natural selection to maintain infectiousness of the virus should also maintain the drug’s activity against future variants.

The investigational drug, described in a report published today in Science Advances, is not an antibody, but a related molecule known as an ACE2 receptor decoy. Unlike antibodies, the ACE2 decoy is far more difficult for the SARS-CoV-2 virus to evade because mutations in the virus that would enable it to avoid the drug would also reduce the virus’s ability to infect cells.  The Dana-Farber scientists found a way to make this type of drug neutralize coronaviruses more potently in animals infected with COVID-19 and to make it safe to give to patients. 

This report comes at a time when antibody drugs used to treat COVID-19 have lost their effectiveness because the viral spike protein has mutated to escape being targeted by the antibodies.   

The researchers, led by first author James Torchia, MD, PhD, and senior author Gordon Freeman, PhD, identified features that make ACE2 decoys especially potent and long-lasting. For example, they found that when they included a piece of the ACE2 protein called the collectrin-like domain, it made the drug stick more tightly to the virus and have a longer life in the body. Their experiments showed that ACE2 decoys have potent activity against the COVID-19 virus because they trigger an irreversible change in the structure of the virus - they “pop” the top off the viral spike protein so it can’t bind to the cell-surface ACE2 receptor and infect cells.

The SARS-CoV-2 virus is covered with projections called spike proteins that enable the virus to infect cells. The spike protein binds to the ACE2 receptor on the cell surface and then refolds, driving the spike into the cell, enabling the virus to enter. ACE2 decoys lure the virus to bind to the decoy instead of the cell, “popping” the spike and inactivating the virus before it can enter cells. This explains the drug’s surprising potency: not only does it function as a competitive inhibitor, but it permanently inactivates the virus.  Since binding to ACE2 is required for infection, variants can change but they must continue to bind to ACE2, making the drug persistently active against all variants.

The researchers say that, in addition to treating antibody-resistant variants of SARS-CoV-2, the drug described in this study could be useful to treat new coronaviruses that might emerge in the future to infect humans.  This is because many coronaviruses in nature poised to enter the human population also utilize ACE2 to infect cells.

While the drug, called DF-COV-01, has not yet been tested in humans, manufacturing development is nearly complete and preclinical studies needed for regulatory approval are underway, with the goal of advancing the drug to clinical trials. 

This work was supported by a Department of Defense CDMRP Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program Technology/Therapeutic Development Award.  Additional support was provided by a National Instititutes of Health grant, an Evergrande MassCPR award, and a grant from COVID-19 FastGrants.

The work was performed by a collaborative team including scientists from Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts General Hospital Vaccine and Immunotherapy Center, Boston University Aram V. Chobanian & Edward Avedisian School of Medicine, the National Emerging Infectious Disease Laboratory at Boston University, Colorado State University, and Boston Children’s Hospital.

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Corraleno

Corraleno

Posted
Posted
4 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Long Covid: An update and gauging risk (substack.com)

Those stats are really sobering: 8% of working-age Americans have long covid, including 2-4 million people who are not working because of it, with a estimated economic cost of $3.7 trillion. And presumably those numbers — both people and dollars — will keep going up as long as covid continues to circulate and until we have more effective preventatives and/or treatments.

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catz

catz

Posted
Posted
26 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

Any thoughts or links on Xclear lately?  I am wondering if it works and should I add right now?  My kids are all doing some Nutcracker shows and they would like to maskless for the shows, but man I don't want them to get sick.

I've been using Xclear.  It actually is nice in general for my allergies and sinus issues, I don't know if it helps covid wise but I have not had it!?  Including when my teen got it.

I will say my daughter has been doing regional shows and they are masked off stage and NOT masked on.  And there have been pop up covid cases the past year and a half.  But no spread in the cast.  They had a covid+ last weekend and they're running with understudies right now.  No one else got sick!  For dance/MT, there just isn't more than a few moments of face to face on stage.  Which is a huge open space with good air flow.  They are all required to be vaccinated and this population has been really good with staying home if in doubt. Anyway - it's been an ok compromise for us and I'm comfortable with it now.

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mommyoffive

mommyoffive

Posted
Posted
8 minutes ago, catz said:

I've been using Xclear.  It actually is nice in general for my allergies and sinus issues, I don't know if it helps covid wise but I have not had it!?  Including when my teen got it.

I will say my daughter has been doing regional shows and they are masked off stage and NOT masked on.  And there have been pop up covid cases the past year and a half.  But no spread in the cast.  They had a covid+ last weekend and they're running with understudies right now.  No one else got sick!  For dance/MT, there just isn't more than a few moments of face to face on stage.  Which is a huge open space with good air flow.  They are all required to be vaccinated and this population has been really good with staying home if in doubt. Anyway - it's been an ok compromise for us and I'm comfortable with it now.

Thanks for the thoughts on what you are doing with your dd.  

There isn't a rule for people to be masked backstage. There was in spring.  So my kids will be some of the few who will.  And also I have no clue as the vaccination status of people.  That isn't required. 

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mommyoffive

mommyoffive

Posted
Posted (edited)

Fall bivalent boosters: Science update round 4 (substack.com)

 

We have ~9 lab studies and 1 real world study showing the fall boosters provide:

  1. Greater protection against infection and transmission, by boosting our first line of defense—neutralizing antibodies. (See my previous updates here.)

  2. Broader protection, or the ability to create antibodies that “see” more virus parts and “attach” more strongly compared to the antibodies we have right now. (See my previous updates on this here.); and,

  3. Longer protection against infection and severe disease, even just by a few months. We are still at the mercy of time for this, but have promising data from the Beta bivalent vaccine clinical trials.

Until now, though, we didn’t know whether they provided additional protection against severe disease and hospitalization. We now have three real world analyses, and things are looking good

 

 

 Scientists looked at hospitalizations from September 8 to November 30, 2022 among adults aged 65 years and older. This is what they found:

  • Compared to no prior vaccination, effectiveness of the fall booster against hospitalization was 84%.

  • Compared to 2+ previous mRNA vaccines, effectiveness was 73%.

Scientists assessed emergency room and urgent care visits (a proxy for more severe disease) from September 13 to November 18, 2022. They included patients of all ages, not just over 65 years old. They found:

  • Compared to no prior vaccination, effectiveness of the fall booster against emergency room or urgent care visits was 56%.

  • Compared to 2+ previous mRNA vaccines, effectiveness was 31-50%.

    • This depended on timing of last dose. If someone got their last mRNA shot 2-4 months ago, for example, effectiveness was 31%. If the last dose was 12+ months ago, effectiveness was 50%.

    • Bottom line

       

      The fall boosters work. There is now evidence fall boosters broaden protection, help against infection, protect against severe disease, and (we think and hope) provide longer protection. There is one major problem though: more than 150 million people are eligible for a fall booster in the U.S. and have yet to get one.

Edited by mommyoffive
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Spryte

Spryte

Posted
Posted
21 hours ago, mommyoffive said:

Any thoughts or links on Xclear lately?  I am wondering if it works and should I add right now?  My kids are all doing some Nutcracker shows and they would like to maskless for the shows, but man I don't want them to get sick.

We’ve been using it, along with swishing with mouthwash when we arrive home if it feels appropriate.

Just returned home from a long trip/flights to an area with high Covid numbers, and we didn’t get sick (we did mask as well, though, so it’s not like we threw caution to the wind).

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iamonlyone

iamonlyone

Posted
Posted

My husband and I made it this far without Covid infections, but dh tested positive Wednesday night. He started Paxlovid Thursday night. So far, I don't have symptoms and am testing negative.

Anecdata:

Dh: full vaccine course; bivalent in October (all Pfizer)

Me: full vaccine course (J&J and then Pfizer) except bivalent—last booster in August before my nephew's wedding and waiting now to get bivalent until after follow up mammogram at the end of the month

Dh felt crummy Wednesday night with fever, like a "bad cold or mild flu" during the day Thursday, but then felt bad and had fever Thursday night; felt like "a head cold" yesterday; and feels good but is very stuffy today.

Dh has been isolating in our master bedroom/bath, and we are employing all the Boardie tips: towel in door crack, air purifier, cracked window with fan blowing out, bathroom vent on, wearing masks, no access to the rest of the house for dh.

I'm really hoping he clears the virus and I don't get it. I'm sad that I missed my aunt's funeral yesterday and will miss my extended family's Christmas party on Sunday. We have rented an Airbnb house in my son's city 5 hours away for Christmas weekend for our family of five. (He is a retail manager who only gets Christmas day off.) I'm hoping and praying we will all be negative and will be able to celebrate together!

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KSera

KSera

Posted
Posted
10 minutes ago, iamonlyone said:

I'm really hoping he clears the virus and I don't get it. I'm sad that I missed my aunt's funeral yesterday and will miss my extended family's Christmas party on Sunday. We have rented an Airbnb house in my son's city 5 hours away for Christmas weekend for our family of five. (He is a retail manager who only gets Christmas day off.) I'm hoping and praying we will all be negative and will be able to celebrate together!

Hoping and praying along with you that he’s better quickly and you stay clear!

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TCB

TCB

Posted
Posted

I have been watching the discussion about possible immune damage from Covid with concern. Just saw a tweet from Sweden that they are having the same problems with children’s admissions from RSV etc, despite a big RSV wave last year, and, of course, not shutting schools or having kids mask during the previous 2-3 years. 
Just wondered what other people were thinking about this. To me it seems worrying. I don’t have young children now but have loads of nieces and nephews that I’m concerned for.

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KSera

KSera

Posted
Posted
1 hour ago, TCB said:

I have been watching the discussion about possible immune damage from Covid with concern. Just saw a tweet from Sweden that they are having the same problems with children’s admissions from RSV etc, despite a big RSV wave last year, and, of course, not shutting schools or having kids mask during the previous 2-3 years. 
Just wondered what other people were thinking about this. To me it seems worrying. I don’t have young children now but have loads of nieces and nephews that I’m concerned for.

I have the same concerns. It’s difficult to feel like the crazy one when hardly anyone else is concerned about it anymore, but I still feel like we just don’t know what we don’t know yet about this disease and I can’t in good conscience not do my best to minimize my kids’ chances of getting it until we have a better understanding of its effect longer-term on their bodies. Right now it seems to me that best case scenario is that it’s some thing akin to the way measles affects the immune system, and that in a few years their immune systems are back where they were before Covid. That’s still a lot of illness in those intervening years, but it’s better than some other possibilities. The difficult thing is I don’t know of any way other than waiting several decades to know what the true long-term impacts are, and I really don’t see us staying in the current life pattern for that long. On the other hand, I can see masking during periods of the year with a lot of illness as being a viable strategy going forward if it does turn out immune systems are damaged.
 

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kbutton

kbutton

Posted
Posted
2 hours ago, TCB said:

I have been watching the discussion about possible immune damage from Covid with concern. Just saw a tweet from Sweden that they are having the same problems with children’s admissions from RSV etc, despite a big RSV wave last year, and, of course, not shutting schools or having kids mask during the previous 2-3 years. 
Just wondered what other people were thinking about this. To me it seems worrying. I don’t have young children now but have loads of nieces and nephews that I’m concerned for.

I haven't seen the stuff about Sweden, but I am and have been worried about it also.

I feel like we're never going to be able to not mask. I don't really mind except that it means we also can't do things like eat with people.

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Ausmumof3

Ausmumof3

Posted
Posted
7 hours ago, TCB said:

I have been watching the discussion about possible immune damage from Covid with concern. Just saw a tweet from Sweden that they are having the same problems with children’s admissions from RSV etc, despite a big RSV wave last year, and, of course, not shutting schools or having kids mask during the previous 2-3 years. 
Just wondered what other people were thinking about this. To me it seems worrying. I don’t have young children now but have loads of nieces and nephews that I’m concerned for.

In fact Sweden were recommending children with infant siblings stayed away from school a few weeks ago, that’s how bad it was. 
 

It will be interesting to see what happens here next winter I guess.  

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Ausmumof3

Ausmumof3

Posted
Posted
18 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

Is anyone thinking of supply chain interruptions from China at all? If some of the predictions of infections ring true there, I wonder if we should be stocking up on things made there now?

 

Yes but not sure what to do anyway. There’s been a bit of a run on medications here apparently. There’s not much we need in that line. 

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