Covid 19 CRISIS

Some news from the US that I would say is positive that was sent to me from HR.

Summary of requirements

On January 10, the Biden Administration issued guidance requiring all group health plans and health insurers to cover OTC COVID-19 tests without member cost share effective January 15, 2022.

The new OTC coverage requirement:

  • Allows consumers with commercial health coverage to seek reimbursement from their health plan for OTC tests they purchase online or in-person without the direct involvement of a health care provider.
  • Requires health plans to cover, without cost sharing, up to 8 OTC tests per member per 30 days (if kits contain 2 tests, then no more than 4 kits per 30 days).
  • Maintains the policy that plans are only required to cover tests intended for diagnosis or treatment (versus routine screenings for employment, school or recreational purposes).
Note: This mandate is in effect until the end of the federal public health emergency. Any tests purchased pursuant to a physician’s order will not be subject to the quantity limit. This mandate does not apply to claims incurred outside the U.S.

Our strategy for compliance

While we can administer the required coverage of OTC COVID-19 tests in various ways, due to the urgency of this mandate, we have made the decision to cover OTC tests under the pharmacy benefit.

We are immediately implementing the strategy below for your pharmacy plan to help ensure you have a path to compliance tomorrow, January 15, 2022.

  • Direct Member Reimbursement: Reimbursement for OTC COVID-19 tests without a prescription after purchase, starting January 15, 2022. Members should hold their claim submissions until we have further details. Claims will initially be reimbursed at the billed cost until the direct coverage arrangement is in place.
  • Direct Coverage: We are working to implement this arrangement through our retail pharmacy network as soon as possible. Plan will cover the cost of the OTC tests with direct reimbursement to the pharmacy and no upfront out of pocket cost for members. We will adjudicate claims at a rate comparable to the pharmacy’s U&C rate. This is necessary to encourage broad pharmacy participation and adequate access to care.
Coming soon

Next week, we will contact you about the direct coverage option and provide details for members to submit direct reimbursement claims. We will include a proposed member communication.



So it looks like there is more information to come. Apparently this became effective Jan 15th, but I only just now received this.
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Ahh, I see that's the site that is forwarded from covidtests.gov, which was originally supposed to go live tomorrow.
 
Word is that today's opening was a sort of beta test, and still officially going live tomorrow.

The first 20% of fulfilled orders each day will be prioritized for zip codes with the highest case and death rates.
 
NecroJoe said:
Word is that today's opening was a sort of beta test, and still officially going live tomorrow.

The first 20% of fulfilled orders each day will be prioritized for zip codes with the highest case and death rates.
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FECK OFF, CHICAGO!
 

View: https://youtu.be/_WnTXFUYmJM
'Bout sums up where I am with this crap at this point, too.

via https://sports.yahoo.com/mexican-news-anchor-slams-anti-155157541.html:
Leonardo Schwebel of Telediario Guadalajara unleashed his fury during a broadcast on the Mexico-based TV program this week.
"You damned anti-vaxxers, gaggle of morons," Schwebel railed, adding, "Stop with your bullshit, and at least put on a goddamned face mask!"

A furious Schwebel continued, "And stop hitting the brakes for the entire world!"
"Yes, you anti-vaxxers, you are a moron! Put on a face mask!"
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"Stop hitting the brakes for the entire world" says it pretty well.
 
ninjacoco said:
"Stop hitting the brakes for the entire world" says it pretty well.
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In a way, I disagree.

Disclaimer: I am not an anti-vaxxer, and I am not arguing in favor of the things below.

Since the pandemic started, we never optimized towards a fast way out of it. With different approaches and results, we are trying to find the delicate balance between preventing loss of life and economic collapse. What that means for the timeline of getting out of this mess has never been a priority.

If we take viral evolution as a fact, and as a function of number of oppurtunities to reproduce, aka infections, then without vaccines, masks and social distancing, the whole story up until the Delta variant would with some likelyhood have played out within early 2020. The Omicron-style immune escape would have been the 2020/21 winter wave, and probably we'd be out of the pandemic by now, at the prize of easily five times the loss of life, plus cases of long covid.
This is not an approach any sane person could advocate for, and under the premise that we assing any kind of value to the protection of human life, not taking the vaccine is a grave mistake, but in terms of "hitting the brakes" any infection prevented prolongs the pandemic.

I'll return to real-world content with a Finland update during my lunch break.

EDIT: The amount of cases in Finland did stay more or less constant compared to last Wednesday (8300 vs. 8600), but the Helsinki region is down to contributing "only" just under 3000, instead of way over 4000 a week ago. This is the third day in a row the Helsinki region has reported less cases week-over-week, so with moderate confidence I'd say we have reached the peak of Omicron in Helsinki, and the wave is now moving Northwards.
Hospitalizations in the HUS hospital district (again, basically, the capital area) also seem to have peaked, but officials warn that it's too early to call it a "trend".
 
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Dr_Grip said:
Bars are shut down in what I believe to be a futile attempt to slow down Omicron (which will not stop government ministers from taking credit once the wave peaks in a few days, probably over the next weekend).
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Trend of declining infections continues, so peak happened as expected. Also as expected today our Ministry of Social Affairs and Health took credit for imposing "wave-breaking restrictions".
 
I think the gist of what he's saying about the unvaxxed/anti-mask set screwing things up for the rest of us is spot on, though, at least where I am—even more so if you or someone close to you is immunocompromised and you have to care, and are surrounded by idiots who don't. My mom complains a lot about feeling like she's being kept at home by the dumbest, most selfish people on earth, and the isolation is crushing—all because she's in an area where people don't care. There isn't a clear way out of this, but Austin's local "rEcOmMeNdAtIoNs" get tied to hospitalizations, which are overwhelmingly of unvaccinated folks at this point.

I say recommendations mockingly because while Texas doesn't care if we die, our city actually does, and they're prohibited by our stupid state from doing anything beyond "recommending" ways for individuals to deal with it. The recs are useful for those of us who care, but also don't have any teeth when it comes to keeping folks from being reckless dicks about this. Hell, folks even go into my damn pharmacy sans mask in the middle of the most contagious point we've seen, which is some big stupid Karen energy in the worst way. Ya really gonna go in where sick folks pick up meds and not care at all about anyone around you? GTFAC.

Events that I want to come back after two years of start-, stop- and sorta- also tie what they do to hospitalizations, and they'd rather cancel than have an outbreak linked back to them. And if you need medical care for anything else, welp...

Screen Shot 2022-01-20 at 9.48.22 AM.png


...looks like we haven't hit our peak yet on that front. Crap.
 
ninjacoco said:
...looks like we haven't hit our peak yet on that front. Crap.
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I hope it'll get better soon where you are. Omicron took off over Christmas in Texas so you should reach the peak sooner than later.
 
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Dr_Grip said:
I hope it'll get better soon where you are soon. Omicron took off over Christmas in Texas so you should reach the peak sooner than later.
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I hope so! Everything's on hold, even for my smaller clubs right now. I'm gettin' bored.
 
Face masks, working from home and social distancing and all that shiz getting dropped in Englandshire next week. Similar kind of deal in Scotland but face masks are still mandatory in indoor public spaces/transport.

Cases are currently on a steep decline because us Brits are always hot on the trends so did the whole Omicron thing before it was cool.

Father_70s has managed to contract it. Lord knows how given my parents live in the arse end of nowhere, presumably via work. He's triple vax'd so fingers crossed he'll be fine.
 
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captain_70s said:
Father_70s has managed to contract it. Lord knows how given my parents live in the arse end of nowhere, presumably via work. He's triple vax'd so fingers crossed he'll be fine.
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I hope your dad gets well soon!

www.nature.com

Deltacron: the story of the variant that wasn’t

News of a ‘super variant’ combining Delta and Omicron spread rapidly last week, but researchers say it never existed and the sequences might have resulted from contamination.
www.nature.com www.nature.com

Nature has a great article about the "Deltacron" hype the other week. Good read on how hype is produced, and how scientists are caught between the need to rapidly share info, and not causing unneccessary panic by miscommunication.
German media also reported about a French "super variant" sending people into ICUs by the thousands a few weeks ago, which turned out to be nothing but a "just in case" paper by some scientists who wanted to make sure that if the variant takes off, it's in the records that they found it*.

I'd like to add one crucial point: The whole mass media hype on "Deltacron" was built on the assumption that a Delta-Omicron hybrid naturally would combine the worst of both - the immune escape and spread of Omicron with the severity of Delta. The underlying assumption is that the aim of viral evolution is to kill as many people as possible, or at least that what is good for the virus is bad for humankind.
This is fundamentally wrong and dangerously close to ascribing an agenda of mass murder to the virus. The virus optimizes towards one goal only: Make as many copies of itself as possible, which means infecting as many people as possible. Any symptoms, severe or not, are side-effects of this, because our immune system does not want to spend it's precious energy on making viruses and thus kicks them out. So the perfect virus would be one that passes through your system without any symptoms, allowing you to roam the streets freely and spread it before your immune system kicks it out.
Consequently, one of Omicron's big evolutionary advantages is that is does not make as many people as sick, so they stay out and about and spread the Omicron love. So a "Deltacron" that is as severe as Delta does not make a lot of sense. On the other hand, Delta that hybridizes to pick up Omicron's lower severity, but not it's faster spread, would probably outcompete a super-severe "doomsday variant".

*Since an American named Eric Feigl-Ding was the first to ring the alarm on covid in January 2020, and built a media career out of being "Covid's Cassandra", mass media and Twitter "experts" (including Feigl-Ding) are obsessed with being the first to "ring the bell" on the next dramatic development in the pandemic, most of them for personal gain. So they scan preprint servers and genome databases for anyting that has the slightest plausibility of becoming the next dark turn in the pandemic (New variants, covid killing our immune system "like Aids", covid in your brain, etc) and then put it out on twitter as an "alert" (all caps and with fire engine hazard light emoji). Then once the first mass media outlet picks the "alert" off, all the interns in charge of "covid real-time news" copy and paste it. And then maybe even government officials feel compelled to make a statement on it...
 
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So…. My wife has it, and me and the kids don’t. I don’t know how this is possible but that’s what the tests say. Also because bullshit rules one kid can go to school and the other one can’t (since the youngest one was only vaxxed recently).

Also also, since I have no symptoms and I’ve tested negative I don’t have to quarantine. Very weird

Wife is sick but not terribly so.
 
To be honest the whole quarantine thing doesn't seem to work. Same situation with the in laws. MIL had it. FIL didn't. Since vaxxed (nevermind MIL also) he could just around and do whatever he wants. Doesn't make any sense - at least it's communicated so badly that nobody understands.

Which leads to...
people just not giving a shit: neighbours have it, dad & son, mom doesn't. Nonetheless, dad & son constantly out and about playing outside, running around. Quarantine where?

edit: got too annoyed - best wishes to everyone!
 
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