CR: COVID-19 --Political Talk

[Anastasis 23402]

Clown show marches on...

 

[Neonmoon 38127]

How would one obtain one of those tests?

[GreenspointTexas 9568]

Yall seem to be forgetting the fact that despite the weaker strain/less risk for a hospitalization overall, we could still see the healthcare system overwhelmed just because of how fast its moving and how many people this thing is infecting. 
 

 

Even if this thing isnt that bad, itll still suck for the unvaxxed and the weak… specially if 1 million people a day are contracting it

[atomheartbevo 89466]

Kevin Sorbo has been bitching about COVID being made out to be worse than it is.

Let’s see how he’s doing today.

 

[PenelopeWitherspoon 19096]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Kevin Sorbo has been bitching about COVID being made out to be worse than it is.

Let’s see how he’s doing today.

 

It has always been hard to get into some NYC restaurants, especially if you are a D list nobody.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13418]

5 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Kevin Sorbo has been bitching about COVID being made out to be worse than it is.

Let’s see how he’s doing today.

 

It should also be extremely easy to vote. Strange how some conservatives think that voting should be an obstacle. Like having to pass certain tests. Pay a poll tax. Only be allowed to vote if your grandfather voted. Be white. 

[Bookman 4611]

21 hours ago, Sawbonz said:

For omicron he’s probably correct

"Probably" doesn't sound like good odds to me. 

[Incredulity 11564]

40 minutes ago, Bookman said:

"Probably" doesn't sound like good odds to me. 

 

obligatory

[4th&Five 41461]

 

[achooloco 1065]

11 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Even if this thing isnt that bad, itll still suck for the unvaxxed and the weak… specially if 1 million people a day are contracting it

Probably asked so sorry in advance, but is there data on omicron in the unvaxxed? Keep seeing that it is mild here and elsewhere but nothing definitive on whether the mildness is true for everyone or only the vaxxed. Although people have posted that boosted have the least effects.

[DDD Dad 14268]

2 minutes ago, achooloco said:

Probably asked so sorry in advance, but is there data on omicron in the unvaxxed? Keep seeing that it is mild here and elsewhere but nothing definitive on whether the mildness is true for everyone or only the vaxxed. Although people have posted that boosted have the least effects.

I've not seen anything concrete.  I did hear one report (I think it was on NPR last week) that outcomes for those hospitalized with Omicron are not discernably different from those with Delta.  However that was an anecdotal report.

I've seen numbers of other reports suggesting that Omicron seems to affect upper respiratory tract (ENT) versus other variants that attack the lower respiratory tract (lungs).  Again, no hard data, however.

[Brisketexan 104725]

2 minutes ago, achooloco said:

Probably asked so sorry in advance, but is there data on omicron in the unvaxxed? Keep seeing that it is mild here and elsewhere but nothing definitive on whether the mildness is true for everyone or only the vaxxed. Although people have posted that boosted have the least effects.

This is what I'd like to see -- fundamentally, how bad is this disease for the vaxxed, vs. how bad is it for the unvaxxed?

Now, NPR had a doc on this morning (I didn't hear from what hospital/state), but he said plainly "YES, we have a good number of COVID patients in our ICU, but they all come from two groups: 1) the immunocompromised who don't produce good antibodies, who we've always been worried about, and 2) the unvaccinated.  We don't have any fully vaxxed patients in our ICU."

I'd like some actual data on that.  That sort of information actually could be really helpful in vaccination outreach efforts.

[jimmyjazz 45589]

4 minutes ago, achooloco said:

Probably asked so sorry in advance, but is there data on omicron in the unvaxxed? Keep seeing that it is mild here and elsewhere but nothing definitive on whether the mildness is true for everyone or only the vaxxed. Although people have posted that boosted have the least effects.

Purely anecdotal, but my unvaxxed stepdaughter had a pretty mild run of it.  Significant fever (~ 101.5 F) for about 36 hours, some fatigue, but it mostly resolved in a couple of days.

Of course, we don't know it was omicron, but she did have a positive antigen test, so at the very least it was covid.

[Longhorn_Fan68 33851]

On 1/2/2022 at 7:44 AM, Fastbreak said:

Has anyone driven up south Lamar recently? There is a free test place setup on the corner of bluebonnet. The traffic waiting was backed up about a mile 2 days ago.

that location has been fucking up S Lamar traffic since before Christmas. It's pretty frustrating. I reroute now

[NameAlreadyInUse 5106]

On 1/1/2022 at 12:09 PM, HenryJames said:

Also AIDS.

Speaking of pandemics that Republicans tried to ignore..........

[Reynolds Woodcock 4675]

Question that may be dumb. Wife tested positive for COVID 4 weeks ago. Most of her symptoms went away 2 weeks ago, but she's run a 99-100 fever every single day in 10-12 hour increments, including the middle of last night. In between fevers she feels fine.

Today she tested negative with an at home test, and then negative again with a rapid antigen at a lab. Under CDC guidelines and/or general medical common sense, can she responsibly break quarantine due to the negative test results, or still contagious due to the recurring fever? 

 

[jimmyjazz 45589]

Why not get a PCR test?  She may be suffering from any number of things -- viruses, allergies, other.  Antigen tests have some tendency to produce false negatives, but a PCR test is pretty much the gold standard.

[Reynolds Woodcock 4675]

8 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

Why not get a PCR test?  She may be suffering from any number of things -- viruses, allergies, other.  Antigen tests have some tendency to produce false negatives, but a PCR test is pretty much the gold standard.

She is, it's just not rapid so won't know for several days (the nyc PCR backlog is silly at the moment). But, I had read that you can produce a positive result with a PCR test for weeks/months after having COVID due to its sensitivity, even though you may not necessarily be contagious for that long. 

She went to a primary care doc about a week ago, and they told her that the recurring fever for several weeks is actually pretty common. She was still testing positive at that time. 

[jimmyjazz 45589]

Yeah, the backlog is real.  Honestly, the conventional wisdom is that contagiousness peaks in the 4-5 day window straddling onset of symptoms.  In that sense, she's probably good.  I understand the desire to be careful, though.

[atomheartbevo 89466]

Dan Patrick has the covid.

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-tests-positive-for-covid-19/

 

[YChang 3432]

Dan Patrick has the covid.
https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-tests-positive-for-covid-19/
 

Is he willing to you know…

[Incredulity 11564]

17 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Dan Patrick has the covid.

https://www.kxan.com/news/texas-politics/texas-lt-gov-dan-patrick-tests-positive-for-covid-19/

 

Will the Danettes continue the broadcast while he quarantines?

Edited January 3, 2022 by Incredulity

[Guest Lobo]

Who are the Danettes?  

[Biff Tannen 45509]

26 minutes ago, Incredulity said:

Will the Danettes continue the broadcast while he quarantines?

This was my initial thought as well.

 

7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Who are the Danettes?  

He's referencing the good Dan Patrick.  Not the piece of shit in our state government.

[Guest Lobo]

Because let's be honest, "The Danettes" does sound like the all-female acapella group that know the Lt. Gov. privately belongs to on the sly.  I don't know if he can sing for shit, I but I promise you he's got all the costumes/wardrobe for it.  

[Sawbonz 27446]

17 hours ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Yall seem to be forgetting the fact that despite the weaker strain/less risk for a hospitalization overall, we could still see the healthcare system overwhelmed just because of how fast its moving and how many people this thing is infecting. 
 

 

Even if this thing isnt that bad, itll still suck for the unvaxxed and the weak… specially if 1 million people a day are contracting it

Not seeing this yet in North Texas. I guess the next two weeks will show us one way or the other. With all of the other surges by this point I was getting emails from OR directors to cancel non critical (ie life/limb threatening) surgeries at the big hospitals. Not seeing it this time

[PsychMike 1539]

 

 

[Anastasis 23402]

6 minutes ago, PsychMike said:

 

 

 

Boost in this setting is referring to the 2nd dose, not a 3rd dose boost correct?  Would appear so given the timeframes, but not clear from the manuscript.

[PsychMike 1539]

Some interesting descriptions written in lay terms by the Atlantic to help people understand why Omicron is successfully infecting vaccinated people and causing illness but usually not severe:

Quote

The unvaccinated remain most at risk, but this trend would have troubling consequences for the vaccinated and previously infected too, especially if they’re unboosted. Many of the antibodies we marshaled against previous versions of the coronavirus don’t recognize Omicron very well, and won’t be able to sequester it before it foists itself into cells. Eventually, a vaccine- or infection-trained immune system will “catch up,” Ryan McNamara, a virologist at Harvard Medical School, told me, churning out more antibodies and launching an army of T cells that can quell the virus before it begets serious disease. But those defenses take a few days to kick in and might not arrive in time to forestall the early, and often most potent, stages of transmission. The faster Omicron sprints, the more of a head start it gets against the body’s defenses.

Quote

Antibodies are powerful but simple sentinels. Squeezed out by B cells, they spend their days wandering the body, trying to glom on to a super-specific anatomical sliver on a pathogen. When they manage the feat, some of them—the neutralizers—can cling on so tightly that a virus becomes unable to interact with and enter cells. “That’s why we care so much about antibodies,” Andrew Redd, an immunologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told me. They can block infection solo; the rest of the immune system never has to get involved.

That perfect scenario doesn’t always play out, though. After vaccination or infection, antibody levels skyrocket—then, slowly but surely, they start to tick down, giving pathogens more opportunities to sneak by. Neutralizing antibodies are also easily duped by mutations that even slightly rejigger a microbe’s superficial features. Where they once clung on tight, they’ll simply slip off. Viruses, then, have both time and mutations on their side: Infections become easier as antibodies disappear and microbes metamorphose. And once a pathogen has foisted its way inside a cell, it becomes “inaccessible to [neutralizing] antibodies,” Alessandro Sette, of the La Jolla Institute for Immunology, told me. The relevant bits of the bug are no longer visible to them, so they just whiz on by.

But where antibodies stumble, killer Ts shine. Their entire raison d’être is rooting out infected cells—not free-floating viruses—and they manage that feat through an affinity for gore. As a signal of distress, infected cells can chop up some of the viruses they’re being forced to produce and display the mangled pieces on their outside. “They say, ‘Look, I’m infected with something,’” Avery August, an immunologist at Cornell University, told me. The dismembered bits are gross but effective: Nothing makes killer Ts go wild more than a hunk of mutilated virus splattered onto the surface of an infected cell.

While neutralizing antibodies pinpoint viruses by their external traits, the microbe equivalent of hair and skin, killer Ts can also identify them via their innards—the blood, muscle, and bone underneath. And because the virus is pretty mashed up at this point, T cells aren’t always as flummoxed by mutations as are antibodies, which care intimately about shape. “That all makes it much more difficult for the virus to evade T-cell responses,” Gadir, of Seed Health, said. SARS-CoV-2 would have to alter a lot more of its physiology to successfully disguise itself—revamping its outsides with plastic surgery, and reshuffling its internal organs with transplants—something the virus might not be able to accomplish without compromising its ability to hack into our cells.

 

[PsychMike 1539]

4 minutes ago, Anastasis said:

 

Boost in this setting is referring to the 2nd dose, not a 3rd dose boost correct?  Would appear so given the timeframes, but not clear from the manuscript.

Good question, I was going quickly to share and will catch up to it again after my work day .

[Walden Ponderer 12639]

One of the fundamental realities that anecdotal stories are missing is that from the very beginning, most Covid positive patients will experience mild symptoms.

The minority, however, is well above the threshold of statistical significance.

Omicron is fixing to fuck shit up. Milder? Well, maybe. But so virulent that "milder" don't matter a single fuck. For the next month and a half, the grim reaper is going to be working overtime.

[jimmyjazz 45589]

44 minutes ago, Sawbonz said:

Not seeing this yet in North Texas. I guess the next two weeks will show us one way or the other. With all of the other surges by this point I was getting emails from OR directors to cancel non critical (ie life/limb threatening) surgeries at the big hospitals. Not seeing it this time

I think South Africa, for all the demographic differences, probably provides some insight here.  Will hospitalizations rise?  Of course.  Will this be a severe as delta or last winter?  Highly doubtful.

Of course, the cautionary point is that a vastly more widespread disease that is not as virulent can still be a serious threat to our healthcare system.

[Sawbonz 27446]

27 minutes ago, Walden Ponderer said:

One of the fundamental realities that anecdotal stories are missing is that from the very beginning, most Covid positive patients will experience mild symptoms.

The minority, however, is well above the threshold of statistical significance.

Omicron is fixing to fuck shit up. Milder? Well, maybe. But so virulent that "milder" don't matter a single fuck. For the next month and a half, the grim reaper is going to be working overtime.

Ballgame?

[Longhorn_Fan68 33851]

 

[jimmyjazz 45589]

"Bonkers" as in "utterly predictable".

[Longhorn_Fan68 33851]

what's nuts about that is you march and along go: 15k deaths, 9k deaths, 23k, 20k, 5k, 11k, and then bam! Florida coming in with 59k+ dead. Texas not much better at 74k (with 9M more people... well, minus 74k)

Edited January 3, 2022 by Longhorn_Fan68

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33851]

 

[Sawbonz 27446]

Just got an email from one of the trauma centers. While Covid census is up, no plan to scale back elective cases for now. They look week to week. 

[Brisketexan 104725]

3 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

This is the sort of thing that should get bi-partisan attention and support to address.  All political stripes should have a problem with "bad government," and should work to implement 'better government."

Long lines at the DMV is something that governors and legislatures of all stripes generally try to fix, because the DMV shouldn't be any worse than it has to be.  The CDC has an important and valid role.  That role is not always well-suited for a pandemic, or for efficiency in general.  Striking the right balance between proper oversight and ability to be nimble and gather and publish information quickly should  be a policy discussion.

It won't be.  If this prompts ANY discussion, it will be a mudfight of "DISBAND THE COMMIE CDC!!!!" vs. "no, we shouldn't do that."  Lather, rinse, repeat.  Imagine the stupidest discussion that solves nothing, and that's what we'll do.  It's our brand.

[BrickHorn 18198]

16 minutes ago, Longhorn_Fan68 said:

what's nuts about that is you march and along go: 15k deaths, 9k deaths, 23k, 20k, 5k, 11k, and then bam! Florida coming in with 59k+ dead. Texas not much better at 74k (with 9M more people... well, minus 74k)

Also, it starts out with more populous / worldly blue states near the lead, which is where you’d expect a pandemic that originated overseas to initially erupt. More red states appear as the disease spreads across the country. Around the time that mitigation tools become better understood, blue states start falling back. That process kicks into full speed when vaccines become available, and the states basically sort out according to partisan lean. 

It’s really amazing to see the inflection points that correspond to wise versus poor choices by the respective partisan groups. 

[Longhorn_Fan68 33851]

7 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

Also, it starts out with more populous / worldly blue states near the lead, which is where you’d expect a pandemic that originated overseas to initially erupt. More red states appear as the disease spreads across the country. Around the time that mitigation tools become better understood, blue states start falling back. That process kicks into full speed when vaccines become available, and the states basically sort out according to partisan lean. 

It’s really amazing to see the inflection points that correspond to wise versus poor choices by the respective partisan groups. 

pretty stunning to think all of those states listed are above the national average right now

[DDD Dad 14268]

1 hour ago, PsychMike said:

Some interesting descriptions written in lay terms by the Atlantic to help people understand why Omicron is successfully infecting vaccinated people and causing illness but usually not severe:

 

The Daily's podcast today does a nice job of walking through Omicron for those of us who are only immunology experts on the Internet.  It covers a lot of stuff we've been talking about in here over the last week or so (among other things an interesting breakdown of what is likely behind the change in CDC guidelines--basically implies that because there aren't enough tests they left out negative tests from reduction from 10-5 days of post-symptom quarantining, e.g.).

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/03/podcasts/the-daily/omicron-variant-hospitalizations-cdc-isolation.html

Another analogy that was made between Delta and Omicron was: Delta is a Category 5 hurricane you just survived.  Then you're told, oh, a category 3 hurricane is coming.  You think, okay, that's not so bad, except then you're told it's not 1 hurricane but 4 of them right after each other.

If the rate of hospitalization is 1/4 that of Delta but the rate of infection is 4X or higher than Delta, you're in the same or worse spot, at least until things peak and subside.  

Basically January's gonna suck for a lot of reasons, but the silver lining might--MIGHT be that Omicron chokes out other variants and we might see an end to the pandemic coming.  Apparently they are seeing Omicron having a strong immunity response to Delta and the other prior variants, whereas Delta and other variants didn't offer much natural immunity to Omicron.

 

Edited January 3, 2022 by DDD Dad

[Incredulity 11564]

Been symptom free last two days.  
 

Neighbors families on both sides are now all positive.  I have gotten a laughable number of calls in efforts to inform of close contact in the last 3 days that I didn’t even think of when I tested positive.  The definition of close contact is obviously a bit subjective.

[workswithseed 2036]

 

 

[Bama Chick 28596]

This is a GREAT thread on what’s going on with this wave and Omicron.

It mirrors what I’m seeing too.

TL;DR - Omicron is much less severe and less deadly but because it’s so contagious the sheer numbers are still stressing already over stressed and under staffed hospitals.

[TwiceHorn 31313]

On 12/31/2021 at 3:31 PM, Bama Chick said:

Does everything in his power - and a lot of things that aren’t in his power - to not just ignore the pandemic but actually punish local leaders who aren’t.
 

 

Part of me wishes Biden was an asshole who would tell him to piss off.

 

He should still make Abbott go on TV and debase himself in order to get federal assistance.

"I am an asshole hypocrite and general purpose piece of shit" or something to that effect.

[tx 3 putt 76443]

1 hour ago, Bama Chick said:

This is a GREAT thread on what’s going on with this wave and Omicron.

It mirrors what I’m seeing too.

TL;DR - Omicron is much less severe and less deadly but because it’s so contagious the sheer numbers are still stressing already over stressed and under staffed hospitals.
 

 

people that use the emergency room for a dr's visit should be turned away, but still charged 

[Okie State 3788]

 
people that use the emergency room for a dr's visit should be turned away, but still charged 

I remember about five years back my daughter had a bad incident at her daycare that required emergency surgery. She was transported to the medical center and we had to wait in the ER area until the surgeon could get to us. It was absolutely packed. This was mid-afternoon on a Tuesday. I drove home to grab some things around 2AM and passed back through...still packed. Next morning was packed as well. I guess it's just always like that, but it seemed strange.

[Telegraph_it 3354]

12 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

Another analogy that was made between Delta and Omicron was: Delta is a Category 5 hurricane you just survived.  Then you're told, oh, a category 3 hurricane is coming.

I thought this was a pretty bad analogy. No way you could have 4 category 3s land around the same coast line back to back. The upwelling of colder water after the first or second storm would prevent that. 
 

Unless… there was a man made component!

 

Relax!!! I am talking about global warming or climate change.