Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

but it's worth noting that if you're uninsured, it's listed as free up front!

i mean, let's see when i get the kit and then get the results but here's what's on their site:

We currently offer three payment options for an individual at-home Pixel by Labcorp COVID-19 collection kit on the Labcorp OnDemand website:

Bill insurance ($0 upfront)*
Access public funding for uninsured ($0 upfront)*
Pay out of pocket ($119 for COVID-19 or $169 for COVID-19 + Flu)

*Individuals are eligible for $0 upfront cost if they meet one or more of the clinical guidelines for COVID-19 testing:
Experiencing mild symptoms
Exposed to someone with COVID-19
Live or work in a congregate setting
Asked to get tested by a healthcare professional, contact investigator, or public health department

Your health insurance is not billed until after testing is complete.

I'm confused about this lack of test kits. My company has provided us with test kit every week, per the Gov's mandate 100 plus employees. The box we get has two test that we take at the start of every week. Has this not taken effect on a large scale?

Naive question: is it possible to get re-usable FFP2 face coverings?

wifes parents visited for xmas and we asked them to take rapid tests when they arrived (wife & I also got PCRs a few days before). much to our pleasant surprise they complied without a fuss, but were very bemused & befuddled at the whole idea and process, eventually revealing that they had never taken a test before(!), and had no idea there were different kinds of tests. on the one hand it warmed my heart that they tested for us & we were able to enjoy a holiday without transmitting covid to each other (apparently/hopefully). on the other hand part of me was v depressed at the thought of people who do not think of themselves as "covid deniers" spending the last 20 months travelling, working at their jobs, etc & never once thinking about seeking out a test, and being reminded of how normal that attitude must be. idk, maybe they will be more likely to try a test another time now that we demystified the process for them.

xp i don't know where you are but i haven't heard of anyone getting their hands on rapid tests that they didn't have to personally seek out. instead we have this and this. pathetic!

xxps thank you forks and neanderthal that's good to know about

Never tested, is everyone testing now, is not testing covid denialism now, seems a jump

sure, didnt mean to directly equate that with denialism, just the dispiriting dissonance btw how informed they feel vs how informed they actually are: dad kept remarking that they probably tested him for covid when he had surgery a few months ago, seems like a waste to test again a second time, if nobody has symptoms anyway whats the point, doesnt it take many weeks to get the results back, etc.

i felt exactly the same when my dad did his first ever test a few weeks ago. it's just not on a lot of people's radar.

same re relatives who don't even consider testing when they have a temp or lose sense of smell, because when it happens to them it's just because of a cold/flu/virus, not covid.

I only got tested for the first time a month ago prior to travelling across the US border. Prior to omicron, there was no free rapid testing system here in Quebec--you could only get a free test if you had symptoms. It was a bit of a surprise to see free testing facilities everywhere in Chicago tbh

I've taken my temperature a whole lot for the past many months and the one time it was ever elevated is the only time I've gotten tested (and pretty sure the elevated temp was due to the booster). I don't think I would personally bother testing unless I had an elevated temp plus another more conspicuous potential symptom, because soreness and tiredness and the like are pretty run of the mill for my age.

I'm super thankful my mom is both safe/cautious (relatively speaking) and as angry and frustrated as I am about those that are not safe. My UK family is all boosted, but their kids are still too young; dunno how much proactive testing they do. My Aussie family is all vaxxed and boosted as able, afaik, but testing there is currently a shit show.

it's just in the UK every public place has had posters up saying you must get a free pcr test if you have one of: a temp, a continuous cough, or a change in sense of smell or taste. for nearly two years.

so I thought it would be odd for it not even to occur to you if (as per this person) you were ill enough to stay off work with a fever. but actually I think it's fairly common.

in the US prior to the pandemic, we were pressured to go to work with fevers all the time, so I think that's ingrained in us.

so my brother works at Universal Studios and a lot of his co-workers have COVID. he mostly works outside and they have masks, but Universal makes them wear cloth masks (I gave him KN95s and told him to wear them underneath the cloth mask).

but he visits my folks tonight while I'm out and he's here when I get back, and he has two cloth masks on. folks aren't masked. a little frustrated cos I think the best way to mitigate the risk of his potential exposure (we don't know that he's been exposed for sure), everybody should have been. he kept his distance, but he was indoors with them so y'know....

so now I wait and see if they get sick. I'm guessing it's low likelihood, based on all the unknowns, and two cloth masks are better than zero msks. and while I've been worried about them, chances are they would fare ok because they're triple vaccinated, neither are immunosuppressed. but I don't want to TEST that damn theory, ya know?

Definitely feel this wave inching closer - as noted we had 23 months without a scare, then two in one day. But my little tribe remains lucky. On Christmas day we delivered some cookies to my sister, who we felt needed cheering up. Spent ~15 minutes distanced/masked/outside. Two of her kids are positive now, with one sick.

My immediate fam all tested negative this morning, but as close calls mount, we're getting anxious, ngl

are there any figures on how many boosted individuals have died of covid? have any at all? might be nice to have this sort of thing in the news. my suspicion is that the risk of serious illness for triply jabbed individuals is essentially zero.

There was news early last week of a dude in Texas but was unjabbed.

are there any figures on how many boosted individuals have died of covid? have any at all? might be nice to have this sort of thing in the news. my suspicion is that the risk of serious illness for triply jabbed individuals is essentially zero.

oh yes i recognise all sorts of people will continue to be very vulnerable. i mean for reg’lar folks.

I don't think I've come across any reported cases of someone triple vaxxed who still died of infection, and even those triple vaxxed that have been hospitalized I think are often also dealing with some pretty serious co-morbidities.

We all flew on the 20th and came back on the 27th. No one got or felt sick during our stay, no one feels bad now (jetlag aside; or is it covid!?). Both kids want to hang with friends/have sleepovers on New Year's Eve, so we'll give them each home tests, and ask that their friends be tested, too, just to be safe(r).

I seem to recall seeing a chart recently that said something like 0.1% of infected, boosted people have died? They might not have been reg'lar.

From personal experience, of the 19 of us who caught Omicron at my running club Xmas party, 4 had had their boosters and were virtually asymptomatic.

The rest of us were double jabbed and were pretty rough for around 2-5 days before feeling better again. All recovered at home without needing any external treatment.

I feel like this is the endgame we’re striving for, bar another worse variant. Everybody’s just got to get vaxxed (if they can).

Wait, there are vaccines?!

From the Independent:

"NHS hospitals have been asked if they can host temporary “field” hospitals amid fears over bed capacity as Omicron admissions rise. The plans, first reported by the Health Service Journal, comes amid rising concerns over the coming wave in Covid admissions in January. According to the HSJ report, trusts were also asked to review their mortuary capacity."

what happened to the Nightingale hospitals? afaicr they didn't have enough staff to make them have any impact?

It's amazing how quickly things change. In heavily vaccinated Miami-Dade County two weeks ago I'd see about 60 percent of store customers masked; now we're back to eight or nine out of 10 masked.

masking is utterly shot here. maybe 20-25% in our stores is my guesstimate, in places that even during Delta were maybe 80-90%.

wow -- that high during Delta but not now?!

x-post to kinder: my impression was a combination of a) not enough staff and b) too basic (that is, the treatment was more complex than expected so needed more equipment than you'd realistically put in a field hospital. (With a disclaimer of not a health care professional in this field so might be chatting nonsense).

(UK) Prior to it becoming law again, face-covering wearing had seemed to increase dramatically, here ... in my local supermarket. It had become unusual to see anyone without a face covering, after a period of it seeming to slip a lot.

I think Omicron is moving so swiftly that it hasn't yet sunk in with a lot of people. I heard various holiday anecdotes of friends or relatives making "now that COVID is done" remarks. Masks will probably continue to ramp up as more realize how widespread it is once again.

Masking is so inconsistent, we spent the holiday with family in Ann Arbor and though we didn’t go many places at all, saw very consistent masking. That is until I had to run into the local Meijer to pick up a prescription for my mother in law and maybe 40% of the people in the shop, employees included, had masks on. A few had masks pulled down below their chins, but most didn’t even appear to have masks at all. Didn’t click until the way out that they had no signage posted about masks.

I think Omicron is moving so swiftly that it hasn't yet sunk in with a lot of people.

Where I'm at in NJ it's very much the opposite. I'm seeing more masks, and I'm seeing block-long lines outside pharmacies and lab vans for tests. People are scared here.

x-post to kinder: my impression was a combination of a) not enough staff and b) too basic (that is, the treatment was more complex than expected so needed more equipment than you'd realistically put in a field hospital. (With a disclaimer of not a health care professional in this field so might be chatting nonsense).

Boston area is pretty hard-core these days, I'm seeing runners and bicyclists wearing masks, single people in cars, etc.

I myself am starting to play Sidewalk Chicken again, when passersby approach.

In my part of Chicago (not bougie, lots of first-gen immigrants), I’m seeing mostly masked people even outside now.

wow -- that high during Delta but not now?!

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, December 29, 2021 2:40 PM bookmarkflaglink

really how it sort of materialized is that mask-wearing began declining immediately after Desantis made mandates illegal, so they were that high during Delta simply because many people were still doing it due to habit, but over time more and more people stopped.

Where I'm at in NJ it's very much the opposite.

well yes, different places are going to have different responses. Also, New Jersey has one of the highest concentration of cases in the country

I've never seen much of anything less than full mask compliance where I am, but today at a (shitty) supermarket I saw three people without so much as a dicknose.

people should wear masks, yes, in this omicron wave

government should be clearer and more forceful to even out the stresses on health provision

but goddamn unless i'm with my immunocompromised mother i am done with being worried about other people masking or not

if you wear a KN95 or an N95, chances are you're well protected. you'd be better protected if others had it on too, but you are still better off (significantly) than if you didn't.

I get more mad that they're not wearing it because they're prolonging this fucking pandemic though.

it is definitely better to mask up, especially right now, but more people wearing masks will not end the pandemic

Yup. But it does slow it down until some of the newer treatments become available.

Xpost it would drastically reduce transmission if everyone was supplied and wore N95s.

The pandemic is not ending through eradication, but containment. Masks are a measure of containment

it will only end when enough people have either been vaccinated, infected, or both

a mass change in behavior isn't going to happen, irresponsible people will continue to be irresponsible

Herd immunity is not happening. Just about every epi has given up on that
Esp when infection from one strain doesn't protect against all.

Containment, controlling the number of cases in circulation is going to be the way out. Countries will decide what acceptable levels of death are

Moodles, I'm not sure what you're arguing?

that masks are decent way to protect yourself and people around you, but they are not going to be adopted on nearly a wide enough scale, and even then, they are probably not the key to actually ending the pandemic.

There is no one key!