Covid 19 CRISIS

The new scary shit is whatever helps you sell more stuff today.

Also, from that article.

Though the variant does not appear to lead to more severe illness[...]

As this keeps going on I just cement my belief that people learned nothing about thinking critically for themselves apart from "whomever I disagree with is an imbecile" and that some people really, really don't take isolation all that well.

If you're vaccinated, you'll be fine. If you aren't, you have a good medical reason not to. If you aren't and you don't...good luck...
 


Also from this article:

In Europe, the Omicron subvariants are powering a spike in cases of about 25%, though Dr. Michael Ryan, the executive director of WHO's Health Emergencies Program, has said that number may actually be higher, given the "almost collapse in testing."


So testing is not as consistent? How do you know how prevalent it is or isn't? What seems to be apparent is that the vaccine does not seem to be as effective against this variant.


I know that the title is a little click baity, but damn, it is better to have the information about what is happening than not. Yes?

It really is getting irksome with how some info is belittled!
 
I am not meaning to belittle you or the info you post, eventhough I still think tweet- and link-dumps are pretty low quality posts. But we had this discussion before, in the politics section, and I will not pick it up again.

So getting to your points: Testing is consistent. It's not widespread any more but in Finland for example it's almost fully focused on healthcare workers. So while the absolute numbers are not comparable to pre-Omicron times, they are definitely comparable to the BA.2 wave of January/February, since the same subset of people is getting tested.

Also, the vaccine is as effective against severe disease, hospitalization, and death, as it ever was. The article talks about effectivity against infection, which was pretty much wiped out by OG Omicron already. Again, here in Finland for example, case numbers are up, hospitalizations are up (even if between half and 80% of them are with covid as a side diagnosis), but ICU occupancy is down. You can check similar numbers for Portugal or South Africa, where the BA.5 wave came and went. Or just read the article you linked: "One good thing is [the BA.5-driven rise in hospitalizations] doesn't appear to be accompanied by the ICU admissions and the deaths as previous variants."

EDIT: When Omicron (then called 'Nu') popped up, every expert agreed that we are in deep shit, and actually it turned out better than expected. So we should take that as the measuring stick for any reports on new variants - if it'll be bad, the verdict will be a lot clearer than it is with BA.5 or BA 2.75.
 
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Prior infection with Omicron granted strong[...] protection: it was 79.7% effective at preventing BA.4 and BA.5 reinfection and 76.1% effective at preventing symptomatic reinfection.
 
Is there any way to determine if someone has been infected a long time ago? I'm just curious and I keep wondering why I never have symptoms, let alone positive test results, when I keep mixing with lots of strangers on trains and planes. I'm vaccinated, currently on the fence about a second booster and may have had a very mild infection in March of 2020, i.e. before testing was widely available.
 
You can take an antibody blood test. It should be able to detect Spike and non Spike antibodies (so vaccine and prior infection) separately. But since antibody levels are waning, a prior infection long ago may not show up in the screening.
 
But since antibody levels are waning, a prior infection long ago may not show up in the screening.

Exactly. I took two antibody tests last year and both were negative, one months before my first dose of BioNTech‘s Finest and the other a week after. IIRC, they were supposed to detect “natural” antibodies as opposed to vaccine-induced ones.

So basically, I would be looking at a test for COVID-specific memory cells. I must have given up on that because this article from May last year is news to me:


Perhaps a way to satisfy my curiosity. 🤔😂
 
Is there any way to determine if someone has been infected a long time ago? I'm just curious and I keep wondering why I never have symptoms, let alone positive test results, when I keep mixing with lots of strangers on trains and planes. I'm vaccinated, currently on the fence about a second booster and may have had a very mild infection in March of 2020, i.e. before testing was widely available.

I too have not tested positive, at least for a symptomatic infection and I do wish I could just check and see what's what just from a curiosity standpoint. To be fair though, I've still been pretty careful - I go into the grocery store when i need to, wearing my reusable N95, but still do drive up a lot of the time, I wore a 3M Aura to the 1 in person interview I've had in my job search, and I still haven't dined indoors: turns out I don't really do that pre covid so not a huge struggle for me or anything.

Hopefully everyone's continuing to stay safe and if you are sick, you have a quick and uneventful recovery!
 
I'm in Tennessee for something kind of resembling a vacation, and people I was set to meet are testing positive, some are in the hospital from it. I don't know if they were vaccinated or not. Another uncle of mine, who got his shots, caught it as well. Sister Bass probably has it as she has the symptoms but it's not confirmed yet.

On the journey down here I stopped at a gas station somewhere past the Kentucky boarder and literally every single person in that place started at me the entire time. I don't know if it was because I had at least a foot on everyone and they were shocked at my size, or the fact that I was wearing a mask while they were not. Or maybe both?

We'll see what happens, but I am worried my 2 1/2 year old streak of not catching it myself may come to an end down here.
 
So uh guess i'll throw a status update here - Still haven't had a symptomatic infection but to be fair, i'm not going out much. - I do wish i could find a place that does the testing for antibodies that doesn't include the vaccine in the results.

I've upgraded to a P100 Mask because I'm going to start going to shows again. It's been way too long and, thanks to the US govt declaring that COVID is over prematurely, we're fucked in this morass until new vaccines come out...so I gotta do what I gotta do.

I'll be seeing my Dad and Stepmom in December - I'll be driving down. Fuck Airports.
 
While Sister Bass has made it out unscathed from many close calls these past 3 years, she finally ran out of luck. My nephew brought it home to their house (everyone in their house has had 4 covid shots) and promptly gave it to his father. His father/my BIL went in to see him while quarantined with out a mask on and he admitted no one at his work is wearing masks either. So he's got it now and he has serious asthma issues already, I don't know why he did something so stupid.

Mama Bass and I saw her last week while masked up and at a distance, 6 days ago and other than some headaches and upset stomachs we've been fine, we've both taken tests and came out negative.

My nephew is still positive but work is demanding he comes in anyway, BIL is getting his ass kicked by it, and Sister Bass hasn't tested positive yet but she's running a fever and has several of the symptoms. So yeah, this sucks ass.

And I really need to replenish my stock of N95's because this winter is going to be rough.
 
I don't know why he did something so stupid.

My brother and who also was born premature has serious asthma. He got it in 2020, never admitted it but his job forced him to stay home. He thought nothing of it and just wanted to go to work.

Some people are touched in the head.
 
Little update, sister is still positive and still feels like shit but she's "ok", she lost her sense of taste and smell but they have since come back. BIL is still positive as well but he had fewer effects from it, I think my nephew is in the clear. They've actually run out of covid tests so we did a dead drop and I gave them some from my stockpile. We're just hoping she's free and clear by xmas time.
 
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