this doesnāt directly address this, but i read that thereās a particular signature from the regular pcr test that gives them a āthis is probably omicronā guessā¦ hrmā¦ let me dig that up
In standard PCR tests, Omicron has whatās known as an āS-gene dropoutā (which Delta hasnāt, in most cases) and that gives a clue that it could be the new variant.
But not all āS-gene dropoutsā will necessarily be Omicron - full genomic sequencing is needed to be sure.
which i just thought was interesting.
it sounds like? they think rapid tests should work just fine with omicron, but maybe manufacturers are being conservative so they donāt get sued into oblivion in the off chance it doesnt
tl;dr, working. Leave this here for later consideration.
Just quickly: AFAIR antigene lateral flow devices are basically all working with antigens for the nucleocapsid.
Not sure if this is affected by mutations in Omicron, havenāt heard about it / donāt remember from the articles I scanned. But this can be looked up.
Yeah, I had a dig (medrxiv,scholar.google) for info but only came up with a note in the Lancet that false negatives on antigen tests (pre-Omicron) are less well understood because they tend to get discarded without being recorded. False negatives have suddenly become more importantā¦ delays in manufacturers getting the re-certification done are less benign.
TIL that a friend of my wifeās passed away last week. She had been fighting metastatic breast cancer for 5+ years, and her husband had also been fighting cancer for several years until his passing just after Thanksgiving. (My wife attributes her passing to that event; she believes her friend was hanging on to life largely because her husband was with her.)
Because of their respective cancer treatments, they both had compromised immune systems, and had been essentiallly housebound since the first lockdowns early last year. People from the county health department came to their house to administer their COVID vaccinations because they couldnāt risk going out in public to get their doses.
Every day, my wife comes home with stories of the people who come into her gift shop unmasked; when asked to please put a mask on, they reply āOh, this is one of those places?ā, or āI would rather shop elsewhereā, or something similar which makes it perfectly clear where their priorities lie. Meanwhile, my wife just lost a friend she hasnāt been able to see for almost two years, who no doubt would have given almost anything to be able to go out in public.
When I hear about people like these customers, or the owners of a local gym who flat-out stated that they would not be observing Governor Hochulās (NYS) mask mandate because āwe donāt take orders from unelected officialsā (demonstrating both their ignorance about how Lieutenant Governors come into existence and their lack of empathy for the rest of humanity), I want to grab them by the shoulders and shake them until their brains rattle, all the while yelling āWhat the @&@#!# is WRONG WITH YOU???ā at the top of my lungs.
(Sorry for venting - it just got to me this morning.)
Cubans have wholeheartedly carried out masking, social-distancing, testing and quarantining. Cubaā s bio-medical research and production facilities created five anti-Covid vaccines. As of December 3, 90.1 percent of Cubans had received their first dose; 82.3 percent of them were fully vaccinated. Only seven other countries have higher rates. (1) Trials showed that Cubaās workhorse Abdala and Soberana 02 vaccines were protective for over 90 percent of vaccine recipients.
Cubaās Covid vaccines donāt need extremely low-temperature refrigeration as is the case for major U.S. vaccines. In that regard they are particularly useful in poorly resourced countries. Cuba has sent, or is preparing to send, vaccines to Vietnam, Venezuela, Iran, and Nicaragua. Cuban scientists are elaborating a version of their Soberana Plus vaccine that will protect against the Omicron variant.
Cubaās achievement in producing anti-Covid-19 vaccines is remarkable in the face of shortages of equipment, reagents, and supplies due to the U.S. economic blockadeā¦
The message here is that a society coping with a major pandemic must draw upon reserves of unity and learning. Cubaās recent experience shows that long attention paid to schooling and science is bearing fruit.
Of course in ācertain circles,ā this will be held up as proof certain the vaccines, masks and anything else involving giving a damn about your fellow citizens is a communist idea full stop. I hate this timeline.
Overall, there was a 94 percent reduction in relative risk among those over the age of 65.
Among the moderate-risk patients, data is only available on 673 participants so far. But the numbers here also look good: a 70 percent reduction in hospitalization and no deaths in the treatment group.
Whatās less good is that Paxlovid didnāt help people feel much better. The moderate-risk trial asked patients to report if they experienced an alleviation of symptoms from their treatments and checked whether this was sustained over four days. There was no significant difference between those receiving Paxlovid and those receiving placebo by this measure.
So pretty effective at keeping you out of the hospital, does not make you feel any better any faster. Unless the pricetag is way low, I suspect this will not be widely in demand.
Not quite the right question? (Since the obvious answer to that one is or should be āno.ā)
So is it worth gathering for the holidays if everyone is vaccinated?
Iāve been struggling with that oneā¦ 
Ontarioās 
Science Table seems to have had enough, directly labelling the governmentās measures as inadequate and calling for ācircuit breakerā measures today to reduce contacts by 50%.
Takeaways from the December 16th modelling:
- Omicron transmits very quickly, infecting between four and eight times more people than Delta.
- Initial data from Denmark indicate that the percentage of cases requiring hospital admission is not lower with Omicron (0.81% vs. 0.75% previous strains). Early evidence suggests it can produce severe disease.
- Regardless of any further government-imposed restrictions, Ontarians (and, I imagine, anyone else, really
) should
- get a booster as soon as they can,
- wear the highest-quality mask they can find and
- avoid crowded indoor spaces.
So is it worth gathering for the holidays if everyone is vaccinated?
Iām struggling with being the ābad guyā on this one, but the answer is ānoā in our household.
That, while early and preliminary data warnings certainly apply, is fucking terrifying. If that bears out on a widespread basis, we are utterly fucked.
Got my Pfizer booster yesterday. If I thought dose 2 was bad, dose 3 thus far has been an absolute nightmare. I barely slept last night - arm hurts a lot, body temperature wildly swinging from freezing cold to boiling hot, mind racing like crazy, and contending with one of my worst headaches in recent memory. Hopefully this will all pass soon like before because Iām pretty fucking miserable right now. (But I guess it beats getting COVID, right?)
We are going to have to fly between Christmas and new year. I am not thrilled. But weāve delayed visiting a relative bc of covid for nearly 2 years now and he is running out of time. Iām suprised he is still hanging in there. If we want to see him before he dies, we have to go. We adults will be boosted and the kid a month out from her 2nd dose. KF94 masks for each of us. Careful as we can be. Sigh.
Hey, at least you know its working right? My first shot left no pain and no after effects. I sincerely questioned whether they had serum in the syringe at all. 
I got my Moderna booster last Thursday afternoon. By bedtime, I felt sick and went to bed early. At 7 am, I could hardly walk down the steps to feed the cats. It was awful. I had all the symptoms you describe. Spent all day on Friday in bed, mostly sleeping, and was recovered by Saturday morning. I hesitated telling people this story since I didnāt want to influence anyone into skipping their booster. Covid is pretty awful. Image feeling like that every day until your oxygen level drops enough to get hospitalized and intubated. No thanks.
