outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

i think a big part of the disconnect on this thread is ultimately due to this:

With a variant that spreads so far and so fast, the Omicron wave more than any other will be exceptionally good at seeking out the last few unprotected people, so even a small difference in the immunonaive share of the population could make a big difference to ICU pressure pic.twitter.com/693OU68C96

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) January 4, 2022

slow down the rate of hospitalizations

rate of hospitalisation vs case numbers FITE

(xpost and also add yr own italics)

That’s how effective wearing a mask is https://t.co/2z9z6tj5oR

— Dondrè (@Boss_Emotions) January 9, 2022

lol

I know referencing Camus is very April 2020, but this feels familiar (to my surroundings at least):

"It was now that Rieux and his friends came to realize how exhausted they were. Indeed, the workers in the sanitary squads had given up trying to cope with their fatigue. Rieux noticed the change coming over his associates, and himself as well, and it took the form of a strange indifference to everything. Men, for instance, who hitherto had shown a keen interest in every scrap of news concerning the plague now displayed none at all.

Rambert, who had been temporarily put in charge of a quarantine station — his hotel had been taken over for this purpose — could state at any moment the exact number of persons under his observation, and every detail of the procedure he had laid down for the prompt evacuation of those who suddenly developed symptoms of the disease was firmly fixed in his mind. The same was true of the statistics of the effects of anti-plague inoculations on the persons in his quarantine station. Nevertheless, he could not have told you the week's total of plague deaths, and he could not even have said if the figure was rising or falling."

Private insurers will be required to cover the cost of up to eight at-home coronavirus rapid tests per person per month, the Biden administration said Monday, as the country continued to battle record levels of newly reported cases fueled by the omicron variant.

The plan, announced by the Department of Health and Human Services, will take effect Saturday and applies to all at-home tests approved by the Food and Drug Administration. Consumers may purchase the tests online or in person at a pharmacy or store, and the cost will be covered upfront or be eligible for reimbursement after the fact, HHS said in an announcement.

appreciated this thread, tho it made me sad

I keep getting asked if SARS-CoV-2 is endemic yet.

Record-busting case counts are not endemicity. https://t.co/bk1LUJICZ3

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) January 11, 2022

Yeah, that's a good thread, but a sobering reminder that we may not have even reached the halfway point towards endemicity.

I had to argue a little about endemicity with our local health department last week, when I was challenging their decision to move to weekly data reporting in the midst of our current surge. One of the admins gave me the "Well, COVID's just going to be here from now on ..." line, and I practically yelled, "Yes, but not registering 1000 cases a day like it is right now!"

Massive amount of wishful thinking going on.

I'm starting to wonder if there isn't a decent chunk of the wishful thinking just being a part of coping strategies for otherwise well-intentioned folks at this point. I mean, practically every level of American government messaging at this point is, "shut up and get back to work", so I can see how people might want to just throw up their hands, realizing that no further form of government support is coming.

(Which isn't to say said people aren't still masking and isolating when necessary, or otherwise taking appropriate precautions, but when everything else is beyond their control and the government has absolutely fucked off without any further support, a certain element of "well, this is how things are now" kicks in.)

Not Panglossian, but:

New York’s Covid-19 infections may have reached a peak, about a month after the city’s first case of the omicron variant was identified.

The seven-day average of people visiting New York emergency departments with Covid-like illness has dipped significantly in all five boroughs since the end of December, according to data from the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. The Bronx saw the biggest drop, with the 7-day average retreating 35% in the week through Friday.

Citywide, the rate of positive tests also appears to be declining, with the 7-day average down to 31% on Thursday, from a peak of 34% on Jan. 2.

New York officials warned the recent data are subject to revisions and are affected to a degree by the holiday effect, which can artificially depress trend lines due to delays or underreporting. Gatherings during the New Year’s Eve holiday could also prolong the Covid spike.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-01-10/new-york-sees-signs-of-omicron-peak-as-icus-remain-pressured

I will note it has once again become easy to schedule a rapid or PCR test in Miami. The lessening of travel has surely helped.

everyone i know in new york is basically waiting to hear that we've hit the spike and are starting to come down. If that shit doesn't happen by February, panic is gonna set in.

The friend who send this link said Bellevue was seeing a drop.

our daycare has 6 classes each with about 8 kids. they're making every kid take a PCR test today for the first time. any class with >0 positive results on monday will close next week. any class with a kid who has a sibling in a class with >0 positive results will also close.

over/under on how many classes there are next week? i'd be surprised if 3/6 are still open.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, January 7, 2022 3:31 PM (four days ago) bookmarkflaglink

6/6 are still open, but not because everyone tested negative but. it's because 40% tested negative and the other 60% are still waiting for test results 2-5 days after being tested.

So here's the word from my workplace re current patient counts with COVID:

Unvaccinated: 11
Primary vaccine series (2 doses): 23
Boosted: 4

Of these total, only 6 are ICU, thankfully. But it absolutely underscores that 1) you need the booster and 2) even that might not be enough. And again, this is not the city as a whole, just one spot. As I know no further details beyond this count, I wouldn't speculate further but again, I'm essentially hunkered down as noted beyond necessary trips, and shows/movies/etc are simply not happening for the moment for me, even if they are for others.

Youch, six in the ICU?

xpost Yeah, was gonna say, getting a PCR test here is relatively easy. Getting the results back, on the other hand ...

I got a PCR test at some shipping container pop-up last Tuesday and still don't have results, and if I ever finally got them what good are they now? Even less shady spots are taking several days.

I have Covid, tested positive on Friday from a home test. All mild symptoms, nothing to worry about. But having read about home tests not being reported and causing the overall figures not to be accurate etc, I dutifully left a message with my doctor's office saying I had it. But got nothing back at all from them to acknowledge it or ask how I was doing. Wish I hadn't bothered now.

Sucks they didn't call you back, but I'm guessing in most doctor's offices right now they're not expending a lot of energy on people who tell them they're doing OK. But I hope you keep doing OK!

Meanwhile, speaking of wishful — or just weird — thinking:

When you read Speed the Spread of Omicron, you know we've got a problem 🤯https://t.co/bWziC47qH5 pic.twitter.com/j8GYxoSwUn

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 11, 2022

xpost - Worth a try I guess, at least you attempted to get counted. I wouldn't be surprised if we are closer to 2.5 to 3 million cases, just going by anecdotal stories of people with positive rapid tests or even people who are isolating and sure they have it but can't find rapid tests.

I'm not a virologist, but I don't think the logic of "oh just let everybody get it" holds up to any kind of scrutiny. First, when you say that you're acknowledging up front that a bunch of people will die as a result — mostly unvaccinated and/or with pre-existing conditions but still a lot of actual people who are alive now being dead soon. But also, we don't really know how long acquired immunity from infection lasts, Omicron has infected tons of previously infected people, so it's not like even a 100 percent Omicron-exposed population is going to stop circulating the virus, enabling new variants, etc. People act like "prior infection" is some kind of magic potion, but it isn't any more than the vaccines are. (OK, statistically, maybe somewhat more than the vaccines. But not a lot.)

I get the impulse to "get it over with," but I'm not sure how that is actually supposed to work.

I called our daughter's doctor just to let them know she tested positive and to update her files, and they actually called me back a few hours later just to check up, which surprised me.

Noticing something new the last couple of days in the way the Canadian news is reporting hospital admissions: those who were admitted for COVID, and those who were admitted for something else and tested positive. That was running about 55/45 in the direction of COVID today. Is this an important distinction?

It's a super important distinction and I wish that data were more readily available.

More from Bob W on SF numbers and elsewhere. Per final post, he’s sticking with awful January leading to better February, but it’s a really awful January.

Covid (@UCSF) Chronicles, Day 665
I haven’t done a SF update for a week – it’s a good time to catch up. Any impact of holiday gatherings should now be baked in, we all know scores of people with Covid, & hospitals are getting overwhelmed. So is SF’s high vax rate helping? (1/20)

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) January 11, 2022

http://www.bccdc.ca/health-info/diseases-conditions/covid-19/prevention-risks/covid-19-and-sex

Use barriers, like walls (e.g., glory holes), that allow for sexual contact but prevent close face-to-face contact.

for/with is an important but extremely subtle distinction, and it's often used as FUD by people who suggest people admitted with covid are somehow not relevant to the pandemic.

people who are admitted to hospital (for anything) are more likely to have comorbidities that makes covid more dangerous, and getting covid doesn't improve the prognosis of anything else. so the implication that people admitted with covid are not in danger from covid doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

you can't see it in case data yet (it lags a few days, and testing capacity is saturated and growing, so reported cases may continue to grow even while real cases fall) but ... based on boston shit, seems like the north east may have peaked

😃💩 pic.twitter.com/LaOdDahuDA

— free the young (@theripsnorter) January 11, 2022

Getting weird out here

Trump says politicians who won't say whether they've been vaccinated are "gutless."
Trump said, "Say it. But the fact is that I think the vaccines saved tens of millions throughout the world. I’ve had absolutely no side affects.” #TrumpVaccine https://t.co/SfN1rTS21s

— Rick Folbaum (@RickFolbaum) January 12, 2022

https://www.wsj.com/articles/as-omicron-spreads-some-nations-offer-a-second-covid-19-booster-11641911892

second booster? :|

I mean, I'll take all the boosters you have, whatever. I'm going to be coming up on 6 months since my boost in April.

I've kinda been anticipating boosters every six months, so doesn't surprise me too much. I'd much prefer to get on an annual booster thing, but whatever.

same here - also figured it'd be a six month deal, annoyingly. hopefully less often after next year

It's very hard to watch today as the US hospitalizations climbed above 150,000, ICUs more than 25,000, and nearly 2,700 deaths—the vast majority were preventable by vaccinations and/or boosters.
And >900,000 new cases, some of whom will progress to severe disease or #LongCovid

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) January 13, 2022

It's getting to the place where a significant number of 'excess deaths' beyond the expected baseline death rate during the pandemic are from causes other than covid, but from diseases or conditions that were left untreated or under-treated due to lack of resources or preventive measures designed to reduce covid transmission.

in the UK the new baseline for calculating excess deaths over and above the baseline is the average of 2016, 17, 18, 19 and 21. Until recently it was 2015-19.
Some debate over whether it's reasonable to include 2021.

Why, if they’re they’re including 2021, would they omit 2020?

There was a positive case this week in my son's class at school. The sick kid was already at home, but had been in school the day before. The one unvaccinated kid in the class was sent home to quarantine, but otherwise life basically went on as usual. Seems like a reasonable way forward.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10397797/Man-claims-lost-1-5-inches-length-penis-Covid-vascular-damage.html

otm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koro_%28medicine%29

xps I think the intention was always to omit 2020 as a pandemic year skewing the average. I don't know why you would include 2021 unless it's worse to use old data than it is to use likely atypical data.

By any measure 2021 was also "a pandemic year skewing the data".

well yeah of course

maybe it's the new normal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5QErPDNcj4

smoke weed every day

https://news.ohsu.edu/2022/01/13/study-shows-hemp-compounds-prevent-coronavirus-from-entering-human-cells

https://i.imgur.com/cawTD5I.jpeg

I feel the same way