On 13 December, Denmark released data showing that hospitalization rates for people infected with Omicron seemed to be on a par with those for people infected with other variants. But this comparison was based on only about 3,400 cases of Omicron infection and 37 hospitalizations.
Small, preliminary, but same conclusion. Awaiting US data, but expect the same again.
So a guy I know from a local hobby forum has covid along with his wife, heâs in his 70s and claims to be in good health except for the 40 years of smoking.
Does not believe in the vaccine but says they have been taking precautions like mask wearing in public. He believes he got it from the gym where he canât wear a mask while exerting himself.
I asked if the antibody treatment was offered to him but he said his hospital doesnât offer any treatments like ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine only approved treatments. I pointed out that the antibody treatment was approved and he might have been getting bad information. I really like the guy and tried to convince him to seek it out but unfortunately in our state because of all the people refusing the vaccine the treatment is hard to come by plus I think heâs really leery of the treatment.
He said he was referred to a Frontline doctor by a freind who will provide him with a prescription for ivermectin. That same doctor also told him the antibody treatment posed the same risk as the vaccine. Heâs still waiting for the prescription 2 days later. His wife is working on finding the antibody treatment.
Iâve heard stories like this but this is the first time Iâm seeing it play out with someone I know. So far theyâre holding their own and I hope it all works out but my god, it could have been avoided.
We also have a family a few streets over, parents are in the hospital one child dead. I hate all of this.
At first, this home testing sounded great. Reading the process made me wish that the company behind it had a different name than Vault, because patient data that should be kept in one rarely remains there. There are references to programs like this in multiple states being federally funded, along with investigations like this:
I wonder what kind of magical thinking was involved in their thinking that sabotaging the response to covid made better business for them rather than getting it done and over with?
I get that Koch libertarian thinking is incapable of dealing with the idea of a public health emergency managed by government officials, but I donât see how it makes sense even on Galtsworld.
â The December case information, made public by the Philadelphia Department of Public Health Tuesday, shows a surge in cases this month thatâs likely to be among the worst of the year. The city tallied 11,201 COVID-19 cases as of Tuesday, the most in a single month since April, with still more than a week remaining in 2021. Of those, 3,300 were among fully vaccinated people. The data offer a first glimpse of case rates while the omicron variant is present in the city, but leaves unanswered a slew of important questions.
Among the unknowns: How many of the vaccinated people who tested positive had the omicron variant, how many had booster shots, and how sick did the virus make them?â
Before this gains too much traction, let me point out that this is not based on data, but on a projection. Allow me to quote from the article.
âWhat could that even be based on?â wrote Natalie Dean, a biostatistician and epidemiologist at Emory University, in an email to NPR. âEvidence on reduced severity is suggestive but still very premature.â
Justin Lessler, an epidemiologist at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, said that with so much unknown now about omicron, he would take any projection âwith a grain of salt.â
As I said, waiting for actual data. This isnât that.
re: npr, this morning one of the reporters said people could use rapid tests to make sure âkids are safe to see grandmaâ - it seems just so so wrong to meâŚ
i would understand the federal government working to get kits to institutions and doctors, but i donât get this push to get kits to individual people at home when, on a test by test basis, they seem so inaccurate.
npr not mentioning the inaccuracies seemed pretty irresponsible to me
The BinaxNow kit is pretty decent as home test kits go: 82% sensitivity and 99% specificity. Given untrained personnel, those numbers are quite good.
The rationale for home tests is that a lot of people have known exposure who never contract an infection. Doing two home tests within the correct window after exposure is much better than tying up overburdened health care resources doing testing. Folks who are symptomatic after negative home tests and folks who are asymptomatic after positive home tests should get a PCR test to confirm, but using the home tests as a screening step is HUGE in reducing stress on the system.
It kinda depends on what exactly youâre expecting the test to do. If you want to diagnose whether or not someone is carrying the virus, antigen tests do miss a lot of cases so they arenât great for diagnostics. But if your primary goal is to determine whether of not an individual is likely to be contagious at the time that they take the test, many experts say theyâre much more accurate (though, obviously, still imperfect) and can be a useful tool for those that are trying to reduce risk.
Anyone who gets a negative test result from either type of test and then assumes that theyâre definitely not contagious with covid is doing it wrong, especially given how quickly Omicron is spreading.
Even before Covid, this was my biggest pet peeve. You go out to dinner with friends or family and you have to scream across the table.
I can remember exactly the last time I went out to dinner: October 2018. My voice was gone by 10:30. I was so annoyed because I hadnât seen my brother for a year and we tried to catch up over dinner at a pricey restaurant with an open floor plan (TVs all around, singles scene down below near the bar and a small band in the corner).
This why not eating out has been incredibly easy for me. I had 18 months of practice.
There are references to programs like this in multiple states being federally funded, along with investigations like this:
