Covid 44: The Sickening

[mormont]

4 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Vaccine reactions are not always a response to what is in the vaccine but your immune system response to being vaccinated. My brother almost 60 years ago had that one in a million response to a polio vaccine and almost died. He still has the effects from that today. Even so he is still a staunch supporter of vaccinations. 

That's true but we're discussing long term adverse reactions, not immediate ones like immune system response. Nobody denies that those occur.

[Iskaral Pust]

Another data-driven study on long COVID shows that professional footballers experience a persistent drop in performance for several months after COVID infection, even though these are individuals in their 20’s* with no co-morbidities.

The Economist

*And the COVID strains captured in this study were the ones that had less impact on younger people.  Omicron has greater infection and initial effect on younger people but too early to say if it has similar long COVID as earlier variants.

[DireWolfSpirit]

So occasionally we'll have a worker "disappear for a week and come back, there's never an official announcing of so and so had the virus, HIPA privacy rules. Although the company keeps a running total that is posted of cases and what facilities had infections, without naming the names of course.

Anyways some people will freely talk about, most actually, but it's a matter of one's comfort of being forthcoming if they decide to share info with their colleagues.

What I've been wondering, but haven't asked anyone yet, do they tell you whether it was omicron or delta?

Is the strain specificity in your positive/negative test? How does one know which has afflicted them?

[BigFatCoward]

Shiiiiiiiiiit, the US did 1m cases in one day. Holy fuck. 

[Kalbear]

19 minutes ago, BigFatCoward said:

Shiiiiiiiiiit, the US did 1m cases in one day. Holy fuck. 

WE'RE #1! USA USA USA

[Tywin et al.]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Shiiiiiiiiiit, the US did 1m cases in one day. Holy fuck. 

Have you seen the NYC daily Covid tacking map? It's crazy to think there are areas nearing 50% infection rates. 

[lessthanluke]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

So occasionally we'll have a worker "disappear for a week and come back, there's never an official announcing of so and so had the virus, HIPA privacy rules. Although the company keeps a running total that is posted of cases and what facilities had infections, without naming the names of course.

Anyways some people will freely talk about, most actually, but it's a matter of one's comfort of being forthcoming if they decide to share info with their colleagues.

What I've been wondering, but haven't asked anyone yet, do they tell you whether it was omicron or delta?

Is the strain specificity in your positive/negative test? How does one know which has afflicted them?

My test just said positive for Covid. No other details.

[Larry of the Lawn]

1 hour ago, BigFatCoward said:

Shiiiiiiiiiit, the US did 1m cases in one day. Holy fuck. 

And that was even with some mixed messaging telling us not to get tested.

[rotting sea cow]

1 hour ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

What I've been wondering, but haven't asked anyone yet, do they tell you whether it was omicron or delta?

Is the strain specificity in your positive/negative test? How does one know which has afflicted them?

Ideally, you will need sequencing, which is slow and expensive and cannot be done at that massive scale.

But there is a trick. In some PCR tests, Omicron (and also Alpha) triggers a signal known as S-gene target failure, which can be used as proxy. Usually PCR tests look for particular pieces of genes and compare to a template. Due to mutations in the spike, that comparison fails. It doesn't happen with all variants, it does with Omicron, fortunately as that was the signal that triggered the alarm from S. African labs.

BTW. There is sub variant of Omicron dubbed the "stealth' because it doesn't trigger that signal. It seems that it less abundant, but it's actually different enough to be considered a different variant.

.

[williamjm]

12 hours ago, rotting sea cow said:

I keep worrying regarding the hospitalization rate. Despite this excellent thread posted earlier.

This is the situation in US with a somewhat deeper analysis here. Focused on the NYS situation that provides better data. Some info on the age specifics showing that hospitalization are unfortunately rising sharply in the elderly.

and again, the situation seems to be markedly different to the UK.

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-59862568

A possible explanation is that some parts on the US had rising Delta waves before Omicron hit. Also the focus on Omicron "mildness" might have made the people to take unnecessary risks.

There was a lot of Delta in the UK as well immediately pre-Omicron (unlike South Africa). Another difference would be that I think there has been a lot more booster doses in the UK, 52% of the population has had a third dose in the last 2/3 months which seems to be more than twice the US figure.

[KingintheNorth4]

I had another Uncle test positive for Covid. Thankfully, he's had two vaccine shots before the test.

[Clueless Northman]

8 hours ago, mormont said:

That's true but we're discussing long term adverse reactions, not immediate ones like immune system response. Nobody denies that those occur.

Reactions that only become obvious in the long terme, as opposed to reactions that appear in the weeks following the shot, which can include life-long consequences, alas.

And honestly, I wonder if there's ever been a vaccine with reactions who took a year to manifest themselves. After all, we're talking a few jabs over a year or more, we're not talking about taking pills every day for months - in which case of course there's a risk of long-term issues.

 

3 hours ago, lessthanluke said:

My test just said positive for Covid. No other details.

Like rotting sea cow said, it takes longer to sequence the virus and that's the kind of expensive and tricky process that isn't done for every single positive test - though UK actually is one of the leaders in the % of sequenced tests.

I hope you're better now and that all symptoms are over. Thankfully you most probably caught Omicron. Iirc you had a partner (who might not have been vaccinated, but my memory's faulty), so I hope both of you have been okay all this time.

[lessthanluke]

@Clueless Northman

We're both fine. No bad symptoms. (I felt a little dizzy and stuff for one evening), partner and parents had none thankfully! 

I read a lot of books last week and got a lot of work done so that was a positive!

[Zorral]

It's, well, it is what it is, and it ain't good.

https://gothamist.com/news/its-not-sustainable-nyc-public-school-administrators-teachers-struggle-staffing-shortages

 

[Jaxom 1974]

4 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Have you seen the NYC daily Covid tacking map? It's crazy to think there are areas nearing 50% infection rates. 

It's not that bad!  Just like a mild cold!  And you're vaxxed and boosted?  But it didn't work?  Why'd you bother then?   Well, Bob, I bothered because if I'm one of the 1,00,000+ people getting sick a day, maybe I'll only be out for five days, instead of three weeks, or dead.  And maybe the the country won't completely shut down because everyone is sick at the same time...?  

Gods I am really starting to hate anti-vaxxers and covid deniers...

[VigoTheCarpathian]

7 hours ago, Tywin et al. said:

Have you seen the NYC daily Covid tacking map? It's crazy to think there are areas nearing 50% infection rates. 

Our org in the NW has been at 41% case rate over the last week, and our sister site in GA is 52%, both climbing.  It’s ridiculous, and our models are predicting a peak week of Jan 31st, 33% higher hospital bed need  than our delta wave in September (when we had people in tents).  Banger of a year, so far.

[Luzifer's right hand]

Our government seems to have given up I feel.

They keep increasing pointless measures that don't work without enforcement.

They should just stop pretending if they can't be bothered to ensure proper enforcement of the measures that exist.

The closing of nonessential stuff is the only thing that has worked and they are against doing that again.

The people who mask and social distancing will keep doing that and the rest will do whatever they damn well please.

People who need medical care and the people who provide it will pay the price once more while people party in ski resorts.

https://nltimes.nl/2022/01/04/thousands-tourists-diagnosed-covid-last-week-1000-visited-austria

[Heartofice]

I guess goodish news from the UK is that, well firstly that cases might be starting to flatten abit, especially in London, the Omicron epicentre. But the bigger news is that while hosptialisations did rise, the percentage of those which were incidental admissions, as in not being treated primarily for Covid, is almost 40%. In September that ratio with Delta was more like 20%. It just shows that this variant is extremely contagious but is almost decoupling the case rate from the hospital rate, especially in a region with high levels of immunity from vaccination and previous infection. 

[A wilding]

I can't go along with "this variant is ... almost decoupling the case rate from the hospital rate".

We are seeing a big spike in people in hospital in the UK, lagging by a week or so a big spike in cases. Basically the number of people in hospital has doubled, and the army is now being called in to assist. There is also the beginnings of a spike in deaths. All more or less as you would expect.

However, the relatively good news is indeed that the hospital spike is indeed proportionally smaller than the cases spike, and the deaths spike looks like it may be smaller still. And the cases spike may be beginning to flatten too. I don't envy people working for the NHS right how though.

[Heartofice]

Just now, A wilding said:

I can't go along with "this variant is ... almost decoupling the case rate from the hospital rate".

We are seeing a big spike in people in hospital in the UK, lagging by a week or so a big spike in cases. Basically the number of people in hospital has doubled, and the army is now being called in to assist. There is also the beginnings of a spike in deaths. All more or less as you would expect.

However, the relatively good news is indeed that the hospital spike is indeed proportionally smaller than the cases spike, and the deaths spike looks like it may be smaller still. And the case spike may be beginning to flatten too. I don't envy people working for the NHS right how though.

One of the reasons the army is being called in to assist is the huge case rates are leading to large numbers of absentees from NHS staff. Maybe we need to reconsider our rules for those who test positive. 

I said almost decoupled, and I think it does seem to be going that way. The time spent is hospital is much smaller now, far less people are in ICUs. This is very different to previous waves.
There is a small spike in deaths, need to pay attention to the fact that there are reporting lags so you get big numbers and small numbers in the same week. But the spike is not all that scary.