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

My sister had nausea two of the three times she had covid (og strain & Alpha iirc).

Three times! Poor thing.

More anecdata on the home tests: A friend who is currently COVID-positive (for the second time) was positive she had it because of symptoms, but home test was negative. While she was waiting for PCR results she did another home test, this time swabbing her throat rather than her nose, and the home test was immediately, strongly, pinkly positive. (As was the PCR test when it arrived.) I remember reading that omicron seemed to be concentrating more in the throat than nose, but I haven't seen any guidance about home-test swabbing for it.

I think I mentioned my friend that tested positive three times in a row with a home kit, but negative two times with a PCR test, which is ... weird. Then again, there was so much pop-up PCR clinic fuckery that in those instances maybe the home tests *were* more reliable.

I do know that when my younger daughter tested positive, there was no doubt. That line went dark almost immediately.

Three times! Poor thing.

regarding "rapid tests" - from the rapid test guru Michael Mina (epidemiologist), here's the low-down on PCR vs rapid antigen:

Rapid tests are later to pick up infection than PCR because it's less sensitive and requires a higher viral load to pop 'positive', but it definitely does pick it up when you're at your most contagious. These tests are good to determine when you are likely no longer infectious.

PCR tests are much better at determining initial infection - however, because they are more sensitive and pick up trace elements of viral RNA, they are not good at determining when you're no longer contagious, as they pick up dead virus that isn't viable. You can test positive on a PCR test for a few months after you've cleared the virus, but that doesn't mean you're contagious.

so PCR is good to confirm that, yes, you ARE infected, then rapid tests will usually start picking up the virus days later than the PCR, and will continue to show you are infected until your viral load drops and you're no longer contagious. (me, personally, I will require two such negative tests separated by 24 hours before I feel safe). Definitely should NOT treat a single negative RAT as a definitive negative if you have symptoms, should isolate and test again, perhaps get a PCR test if you can get an appointment. If you're not sure, agree with above, assume you have it.

Likewise, if you can't acquire/take RATs to confirm you've cleared the virus, I'd just isolate for 10 days (in the NBA study, something like 31% of players were still contagious after 5 days of symptoms, only like 5% after 10 days).

I'm in that boat right now, a PCR test picked up my positive, but at home antigens haven't yet. I'm not thrilled by health centers abandoning antigen tests as they have been proven to pick up Omicron, just not right away, and people who were already infected that are trying to be responsible might go to get a PCR test on like Day 14 and think "oh shit, I"m still infectious" when they're not.

More on that:

Are Ag tests Neg when PCR is Pos?

You may be misunderstanding relationship between rapid Ag tests & PCR @UtahDepOfHealth

As cases fall, we should EXPECT Ag to be POS <50% vs PCR

But its bc PCR stays pos AFTER ppl are contagious… and as cases fall, it is exaggerated

1/ https://t.co/Lf0CO6hAO2

— Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) February 10, 2022

Laboratory based PCR or Rapid tests

Which is most appropriate for pandemic response?

For public health it’s clear - #RapidTests are more effective

Lab PCR is great for a doctor. But public health is not same as medicine

By @RickABright @ZekeEmanuel https://t.co/u1cETLh0Cu

— Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) January 28, 2022

For those upthread: nausea, vomiting, and diarrrhea may not be the main COVID symptoms to watch out for rn. But they're still on every questionnaire we have to fill out.

Every day, for both kids, we have to fill out a screening questionnaire attesting that they do not have any of these symptoms. Or else they cannot get on a school bus or enter a school. Ditto to participate in sports or theater or music or go to the dentist.

Hence my hesitation on the "if you think you might have it, act like ypu do" guidance.

D&V would be a definite reason not to go to school here anyway! And not return until 48 hours after.

and a nurse I was working with (an old acquaintance) confirmed (again, at least anecdotally) that the home tests just don't seem to be consistently picking up omicron.

just as a reminder about anecdotes, in summer 2020 i was at one of those really awkward, weird, early pandemic period outside hangouts, standing 10 feet away in a backyard and talking to an old friend. not one of my smarter friends, i gotta say, haha. but an old friend. she was a nurse. she told everyone at the gathering that men were much more susceptible to covid than women. why? because she said in her hospital it was "about 10 to 1, men to women", and the men were getting it worse than the women. the gathering became even more uncomfortable. she was our friend, a nurse, someone with real life training and experience. and yet, it was so dumb.

this is how almost everyone is

but since the cdc and fda are now useless, we are left to just walk around the neighborhood and guess

Putting aside our disagreements, can we at least agree that it makes no sense that New York State lifted all statewide mask requirements EXCEPT in schools?

lol c'mon man

not really. computer models of the spread of contagions through social interactions consistently show that schoolkids are the most active vectors around, so the NY decision does make some scientific sense.

Putting aside the last time I farted on you....FAAAAAART

That is why we mask.

-Mims

not really. computer models of the spread of contagions through social interactions consistently show that schoolkids are the most active vectors around, so the NY decision does make some scientific sense.

― more difficult than I look (Aimless), Wednesday, February 16, 2022 1:38 PM (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

What computer models, and why isn't that born out by actual data on school spread?

I'm not being po-faced btw, I have literally never heard the claim that "schoolkids are the most active vectors around."

As long as we all agree that Neanderthal should be wearing a properly-fitted KN95 on his ass

What computer models

I just read The Premonition, Michael Lewis, published in 2021, which does a good job of describing the computer models and the data relating to schools. If you are looking for data from 2021, this does not provide it.

why isn't that born out by actual data on school spread?

This is a great segue to your linking (again?) to the actual data on school spread that you've been studying. It would be especially helpful if this data had some reliable numbers on asymptomatic cases among schoolkids, or genetic sequencing that described the paths of transmission observed in the public at large.

I agree with man alive that we should have more mask mandates

btw https://www.statnews.com/2022/02/14/controlled-studies-ease-worries-widespread-long-covid-kids/?fbclid=IwAR3rA9KGNVYvQ1t6sc1RbNxAnjZXaXTN0seUe-WGjy2T5BY-56kzF9MjNbA

We just received PCR test results for my older daughter. She got tested January 4th.

Holy shit, that's not even remotely in the realm of helpful.

well I should hope they actually tested it promptly and that this was just a result they forgot to communicate to you, otherwise it's useless

(i mean it's STILL useless, but the result itself would be completely invalid if they let it sit for a month and tested it now lol)

btIwAR3rA9KGNVYvQ1t6sc1RbNxAnjZXaXTN0seUe-WGjy2T5BY-56kzF9MjNbA

Twist.

Twist.

.....

twist.

I agree with man alive that we should have more mask mandates

― bad luck banging, or Lorna Doone (sic), Thursday, February 17, 2022 7:03 AM (yesterday)

lol jinxed myself 🙃

Good deal on Covid treatment at Costco right now. No limits!
https://i.imgur.com/aohNliP.jpg

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is expected to loosen its guidelines for when and where Americans should wear masks to prevent the spread of the coronavirus, allowing most people to go without them in public indoor spaces, according to two federal officials familiar with the matter.

The Associated Press, which first reported the change, said the new policy was expected to be announced Friday. The two officials who spoke to The Times did not confirm the timing.

Under the current guidelines, the agency recommends that anyone living in areas with substantial or high transmission of the coronavirus, as defined by case counts, should wear masks in public indoor spaces like gyms, movie theaters and full-capacity houses of worship. That means that people living in 95 percent of the counties in the United States should continue wearing masks indoors. The country is recording an average of about 76,000 new cases per day, a roughly 66 percent drop from two weeks ago.

The forthcoming recommendations are expected to hinge on newly defined metrics to determine whether people in a particular geographical area are at high risk from the virus. They will place less emphasis on case counts and give more weight to hospitalizations as a key measure of risk, according to a federal official who is familiar with the plans but was not authorized to speak about them.

Love to see the CDC issue sweeping guidelines that apply to 5% of the country and that will be adopted by 100% of the county.

Not sure it really matters, seems like pretty much every state was going to abandon mandates no matter what the CDC says at this point. Even the more liberal places around me are abandoning mask and vaccine mandates next week.

My daughter flew from Bergen to Hamburg yesterday, no mask required.

whoa

It's been interesting to see some of the venue owners around here decide they are going to follow the state and city in dropping the mask mandate, but are choosing to keep the vaccine requirement for now. I think that's actually a decent compromise in trying to navigate things for the next few months, but the blowback they've been getting is shameful. A lot of people, even those who were supportive of mask and vaxx mandates, seem to have hit a wall where they are just fucking done with masks and showing their cards and just cannot handle hearing private businesses still might want to see them.

I get being done with masks, but being mad about showing someone a thing to enter a venue is deranged

Yeah, I was honestly taken aback when I saw how furious people were getting over even that.

lol yeah, god forbid i show something at the door to get into a bar or venue that proves i'm legally allowed to be there

is this all going to end with the anti-vaxxer conspiracy minds agreeing to get a chip implanted in their hand so that they can enter and leave public spaces without being asked for credentials?

because bill gates runs that operation, that's a bad idea, anti-vaxxers

It's a long con.

Eric Feigl-Ding, the nutritionist covid doomer guy, has transitioned full-time into geopolitics and explainers about chernobyl now, a very strong sign that the pandemic is getting better

— your himbo boyfriend (@swolecialism) February 25, 2022

lol

Finally got around to getting my booster yesterday and I feel like a truck ran over me, had the chills/fever/lack of sleep most of the night.

Liberals are vastly overstating their risk of death from a nuclear blast. Only 60% of the people within the blast radius are actually instantly vaporized. 30% die days later, during which time in-person school could easily be safely maintained.

by Nate Silver

— J. Van Wyck (@TheRealJVanWyck) February 26, 2022

Lol

It's kind of fascinating at this stage just who in my friend and family group has tested positive (ever) and who hasn't. A buddy just tested positive for the first time a couple of days ago (he's fine), and his family has been among the most cautious/paranoid of my circle (his family has not tested positive so far). Another family of four has an immunocompromised teen son (type 1 diabetes), and the son is the only one that's ever knowingly caught it (back around Christmas, when every kid caught it; he was fine). Another family, two of the three caught it, but not the dad, who does the most traveling (often elective) and is most at risk at work, including multiple exposures; only one of their four visiting family members at the time caught it from them. A family of five close to us, no one has tested positive so far, not even the one that travels a lot for work and spent weeks in mask-free Ohio. A family of six we know, their eldest tested positive while away at college (pre-vaccine, like a lot of college kids), but no one else until this past Christmas (their youngest; she was fine). Neighbors across the street from us, just the father caught it, no one else, not even when they were all stranded in Mexico together waiting for him to test negative again. Just weird how, for an illness that spreads really easily, we've yet to see it spread through an entire household of anyone we know.

(Actually, I can think of one. It was also pre-vaccine, and his Texas republican mom, who stopped off to visit another conservative nut in Tennessee first, spread it to him, his wife and their son; the other son caught it at college around the same time.)

Just weird how, for an illness that spreads really easily, we've yet to see it spread through an entire household of anyone we know.

I hate to "well actually" in the thread but I'm gonna "well actually" in the thread -- it's not weird! The fact that it's not typical for a case in a household to infect the whole household, even when the infection isn't initially known and no precautions are taken, has been documented since the beginning of the pandemic. And it's not that surprising -- yeah it spreads easily, but what that means is that if you go around being infectious for a week, in that whole amount of time, the total number of ALL the people you interact with in that time who you infect is gonna be, I dunno, 3 (original strain) or maybe as much as 10 (omicron) but still -- not a lot of people compared to the total number of people you spend time with! Yeah you have more contact with the people in your household, but there are also people you're in a room with at work for eight hours! "Spreading easily" doesn't mean "you're sure to get it if you're in close contact with a contagious person" or even close.

Everyone was wearing optional masks at Walgreens this morning. We will see what it's like at Costco. One of my kids texted to say it was about 70-30 mask versus no mask at school, but that everyone feels weird taking them off, even if they want to.