Omicron-where things stand lately

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bykfixer

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Ok, so let's try this again.

To start out: opinions are welcome. Politics, religion, personal attacks are not. We're all adults and understand what those are.
Ok? Here we go.

How about a little humor to kick this one off?
B55F827B-C2CF-4FF6-A214-BFDDCF87A7F5.jpeg
 

bykfixer

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Here we are, winter #3? If I recall it showed up in the winter across the big pond from America in late 2019 and began to spread. Maybe this is winter #2? I dunno. Anyway point being, here we go again.

While all of the news is about the omicron, let us not forget the delta, and other previous variants are still lurking. So we as a family here at CPF know what to do. Stay 6 feet apart, wash your hands and wear a face cover if you cannot social distance. The don't touch your face thing still applies but who can honestly say they can do that all day, every day?

It seems so far omicron aint so bad. In my state they said last week a person tested positive every 3 SECONDS. That's insane! Now that we know of said omicron is it just that one everybody is catching? In the meantime a vicious cold is poliferating in my area. Under the previous variants sneezing was not a symptom. Under the new variant it is now. Uh oh! Is it a cold or is it covid? Last year that was simple. If you're sneezing it wasn't. Yet this new one looks and acts an awful lot like our old friend the head cold. Is it as deadly as previous versions? It seems the jury is still out but Vegas has odds it's not. (just kidding there but data so far shows it appears to be milder.)

It's still early but so far symptoms seem to be sneezing, headache, muscle weakness, scratchy or sore throat, a fever but not always a high fever and this time not such a dreadful cough like before but more of a chest cold in the late stages.

I've heard some experts say if you think you've been exposed, please wait 5 days to see if symptoms show up. If they do go get tested by a pro since home tests are pretty much all sold out lately. Wear a face cover around people to lessen the liklihood you spread it and stay at home if you're sick. All pretty common sense stuff we were supposed to be doing before covid-19 hit the planet.

Let's hope this one peaks quickly.
 

thermal guy

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there are so many kids out in my children's school I can't believe it's still open. It's a small school. 650-700 students K-12 there down to 550 or so.
 

xxo

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Ok, so let's try this again.

To start out: opinions are welcome. Politics, religion, personal attacks are not. We're all adults and understand what those are.
Ok? Here we go.

How about a little humor to kick this one off?
View attachment 22129
Greta has something to say about that.

 

tech25

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To add. Please don't swarm your local ER for testing or if you have minor symptoms. There is generally a skeleton crew working while sick themselves (thanks CDC) with few supplies available.
 

Poppy

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I think one of the differentiators of covid, omnicron included, is the loss of taste and smell. Whereas with a head cold (unless you are too stuffy,) those senses remain intact.
 

bykfixer

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Poppy I read "possible" "minor" loss of taste or smell with the omicron.
The data I read was from doctors' statements out of India and Africa.

We had a cold in our house at Christmas so the Mrs got tested and they said it was a cold. Where I work nearly everybody is coughing and sneezing but no fevers (so far). We all had a "change" in taste and smell. Me, I kept seemingly smelling latex paint fumes and tasted was seemed to be what lighter fluid would taste like.

My neighbor's wife tested positive, and so did a guy he gives a ride to work, but 3 weeks later he has tested negative twice.
 
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Poppy

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It seems that everyone knows someone who has it or had it recently.

I think the general consensus is that we are all going to get it sooner or later. Let's hope that any additional mutations are less dramatic, and less dangerous.
 

thermal guy

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My school tests 7 days a week for students and families of the school. My kids have all been tested at least 8 times each. when asked for symptoms they don't even ask about fevers anymore. They said90-95 % that test positive have no high temperature at all. Just regular cold symptoms. That's what makes it so hard to tell if you should get tested. People just think it's a regular old fashioned cold.
 

Hooked on Fenix

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I think the biggest problem with the Omicron variant right now is that it's causing the hospitals to become completely overrun. With the loss of workers due to the VM, it created a perfect storm to use up all of our hospitals' capacity at a time of a labor shortage. To add insult to injury, California is so short staffed, it is telling nonsymptomatic COVID positive nurses to get back to work instead of quarantine. Things are about to get very bad. When there is little to no capacity in any hospital, anyone sick or injured from anything won't have the resources to get help and people could die, not just from COVID. They keep saying this variant is mild. I don't think so. Maybe a smaller percentage of infected people will die versus Delta, but way more have been infected and it hasn't peaked yet. It's too early to say if it's less deadly, so don't assume it is and err on the side of caution. You might want to limit your trips away from home for the next few weeks to prevent infection. You might not be able to get help if you get sick.
 

Poppy

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Don't we have any hospital ships on the west coast?
During the first run of covid when NYC hospitals were over-run, the Javit's center was converted to an overflow hospital, and a hospital ship was brought in, with a 700? bed capacity.
 

scout24

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USNS Comfort was in NYC. 1000+ bed capacity, and it went largely unused. As did Javitz. And Central Park. All closed fairly quickly.

And yes, USNS Mercy is on the west coast.

The problem with "field hospitals" or ships is who is staffing them? The two ships maintain a skeleton crew unless deployed, so bodies are moved from existing facilities to staff them. Same with field hospitals. National Guard/Reserves have to be pulled away from civilian jobs they're already doing to staff them.
 
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turbodog

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Don't we have any hospital ships on the west coast?
During the first run of covid when NYC hospitals were over-run, the Javit's center was converted to an overflow hospital, and a hospital ship was brought in, with a 700? bed capacity.

Subtle point: practically impossible to grow your way out of a pandemic.

Also, my data on _overall_ US stats is projecting we are about 2 weeks away from a peak as a group.

MS appears to be ~7 days till our peak.

A complicating factor is that we went through 2 MAJOR holidays. So, data wise, it's harder to get an accurate take on this, especially with Omicron's ridiculously high R0.

Note about data... I'm showing the US is ~2 weeks from a peak. However, we are in the 'declining gains' phase... so increases appear to be tapering down to zero, at which point the graph turns negative and daily cases start dropping.

If you look at the prior surges... we had a 2-3 week lead in time, 2 weeks of very high numbers, and 2-3 weeks of taper down.
 

turbodog

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With covid being an emerging risk factor for type 1 diabetes, cardiovascular damage, etc... it's going to be years before we fully get an understanding of just how damaging this thing is to overall public health, insurance projections, etc.

I figure premiums will go up. There will also have to be impacts to medicare/medicaid due to claims and the shrinking workforce.
 

KITROBASKIN

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On TV I heard Willie Nelson say that we should live every day as if it's our last, and one day we will be right!

Living healthy, sleeping, handling stress... Seeing more and more people accepting reality without panic.

Hoping we'll hear more from this development:

 

idleprocess

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Test results in my county are spiking - possibly limited by the availability of testing kits:
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Hospitalizations are creeping up; whether effective capacity is being hit due to staffing shortages is unknown:
1641753373359.png
 

tech25

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The hospital ship and Javits center were fully staffed. They used traveling nurses among others including military and National guard. It was mishandled and mismanaged by the local and state government. The hospitals were bursting but we weren't allowed to make use of them.

As far as omicron, so far what we are seeing (anecdotally, not statistically) is much more mild than Delta. Again, we aren't testing for specific strains but by symptoms. It is possible the sicker pts have delta vs omicron but we don't know for sure.

Admitted pts for COVID are largely not vaccinated. Those who are vaccinated, generally have comorbidities that they are being admitted for as well.
 

Hooked on Fenix

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Deaths on Friday in the U.S. were at 2,056 with 870,702 new cases and 21,946 critical or serious cases (updated numbers). When Delta peaked, I think we had closer to 3,500 deaths a day. Once we hit 20,000 severe cases, our hospitals are pretty much full. I think it's too early to say this is a milder strain. This is a weekend, when fewer cases get reported. Come Monday or Tuesday, we'll start seeing how bad things really are and politicians will start freaking out and come up with whatever they can think of to try to help, which may make things worse. I'd expect takeout/drive-thru only to start again for restaurants, "non-essential" business closures, work from home orders, and (hopefully not, but possibly) lockdowns. I suggest planning to spend less time away from home for the next month.

We know now that Covid is treatable if you take care of it early before it causes breathing problems. With the hospitals overrun, treatment will get triaged or rationed depending on need. This means that people will not get treatment until it's too late for it to be effective, and more people may die because of that. When the hospitals have room to take in patients, you don't see that many deaths. When they only take care of people when it's too late, that's when you see the bodies piling up.
 
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