COVID-19 2nd wave - Texas only - Stats and such

[Don Johnson 4755]

 

[Skipper 6197]

I just wonder how early we really are in this wave.  All anecdotal but I've known more people that got COVID the past 3-4 weeks than I knew in the Delta wave.  Vast majority diagnosed via at home test so not an official statistic. I just wonder if we're actually a couple of weeks away from peak cases in Texas cities regardless of what the official data says.  More people are almost certainly reverting back to official testing sites given no rapid tests are available for purchase and that may result in case growth appearing much steeper than reality simply because more cases will become an official statistic. There is a testing site about a mile away from my house and the line on Christmas Eve was as long as I've ever seen it (granted it may have also been some people proactively testing before Christmas gatherings ). 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

23 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I just wonder how early we really are in this wave.  All anecdotal but I've known more people that got COVID the past 3-4 weeks than I knew in the Delta wave.  Vast majority diagnosed via at home test so not an official statistic. I just wonder if we're actually a couple of weeks away from peak cases in Texas cities regardless of what the official data says.  More people are almost certainly reverting back to official testing sites given no rapid tests are available for purchase and that may result in case growth appearing much steeper than reality simply because more cases will become an official statistic. There is a testing site about a mile away from my house and the line on Christmas Eve was as long as I've ever seen it (granted it may have also been some people proactively testing before Christmas gatherings ). 

I echo everything you say. For the most part, my friends and colleagues were good about avoiding COVID over the last 2 years. The last few weeks? Not so much.

[Don Johnson 4755]

2 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

The last few weeks? Not so much.

 

[Anastasis 23484]

Same. This shit is burning through a bunch of people that avoided it for a long time. At least anecdotally all the cases I am hearing about among friends are mild and short. 

[JimmyJames 12271]

26 minutes ago, Skipper said:

 All anecdotal but I've known more people that got COVID the past 3-4 weeks than I knew in the Delta wave.  

Same. Although it really started a week or so ago. So far none hospitalized fortunately which did happen in the past, including the olds. 

[Harrison Bergeron 1798]

The obsession with cases is weird. What matters is mortality and hospitalization rates. We have a pretty good, consistent data at this point:

• If you believe the vaccines work (assuming you're vaccinated), it is irrational be be scared
• If you're younger than 60, it is irrational to be scared
• If you're not morbidly obese, it is irrational to be scared

It seems like is parts of the Idiocracy twitterverse, there is some virtue signaling about having not gotten it, i.e. you were a good little girl and stayed inside and wore your 100 masks. Now these people are getting it and feel like they've become heretics in the covid cult.

[LCHorn 2631]

1 hour ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

The obsession with cases is weird. What matters is mortality and hospitalization rates. We have a pretty good, consistent data at this point:

• If you believe the vaccines work (assuming you're vaccinated), it is irrational be be scared
• If you're younger than 60, it is irrational to be scared
• If you're not morbidly obese, it is irrational to be scared

It seems like is parts of the Idiocracy twitterverse, there is some virtue signaling about having not gotten it, i.e. you were a good little girl and stayed inside and wore your 100 masks. Now these people are getting it and feel like they've become heretics in the covid cult.

Cases still matter in as much as they result in behavior changes.  A lot of our friend group is back in qualified self-isolation and social events scheduled in the next couple of months are getting canceled.  

[Guest Lobo]

1 hour ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

The obsession with cases is weird. 

The obsession with cases is weird?  

"But we have more obsession because we have more cases!"  /axiosnews  

I'm sure I'll still get it.  I didn't stay inside, I didn't wear 100 masks.  My magic trick this whole time---avoiding stupid people.  Again, I'll get it sooner or later.  But so far---worked like a fucking charm.  I feel like Carnac now...I can look at an event invitation, a meeting question, or an actual human down the aisle---and I can just tell which are the high-transmission risks and which aren't.  But eventually, yeah, sheer volume is just gonna take over and I'll just get it at Trader Joe's like everybody else.  

[South Austin 52591]

12 minutes ago, LCHorn said:

Cases still matter in as much as they result in behavior changes.  A lot of our friend group is back in qualified self-isolation and social events scheduled in the next couple of months are getting canceled.  

The numbers have adjusted some of my behavior, but I'm not sure how much it makes sense or will matter. 

Case in point:  I'm not attending any large New Year's Eve gatherings.  But my girlfriend and I are going out to dinner tomorrow night with one of our closest couple friends.  Is that significantly safer?  Probably not with this variant.  

Part of me wishes I would just catch COVID, because then I'd get it over with, and with the initial vaccine doses, my booster on Dec. 1, and infection antibodies, I'd be mega-vaxxed. 

[Skipper 6197]

1 hour ago, Harrison Bergeron said:

The obsession with cases is weird. What matters is mortality and hospitalization rates. We have a pretty good, consistent data at this point:

• If you believe the vaccines work (assuming you're vaccinated), it is irrational be be scared
• If you're younger than 60, it is irrational to be scared
• If you're not morbidly obese, it is irrational to be scared

 

I mean except for the fact that pretty much everyone knows and sees people regularly they care about in all of the above categories.  I'm not concerned with my individual COVID risk.  But it makes me a little more self aware about who we come into contact with.    It would also be nice if our kids Pre-K classroom isn't immediately shut down after Christmas break with COVID cases.   And even with what we hope is a milder variant hospitalizations will inevitably rise along with case count which isn't good for anyone otherwise needing medical care.  So I pretty much disagree the number of cases is irrelevant.  

[Hpara759 1780]

I can tell you this....wife came home last night 1.5 hrs after she normally does and she had that (1000 yrd stare) that I haven't seen since the last (our ICU is full and we are doubling up in the rooms) look.......

obligatory pic of wife

[Eskimohorn 5642]

I swabbed your mom’s throat last night.

You do not want exchange mama sex jokes with this man.

[InkaUtexas 26094]

Tell the wife Thank You please. 

 

[Ghost of LL 15539]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I echo everything you say. For the most part, my friends and colleagues were good about avoiding COVID over the last 2 years. The last few weeks? Not so much.

I think that's right.  Omicron is definitely more contagious than any of the other variants.  But there's also a lot less social distancing/mask wearing/quarantining than with previous variants.

I think a lot of blame can be placed on the CDC and other public-health officials for all of this.  But at the same time, I don't know what the messaging should have been (or should be) given some of the variables that remain unknown.

5 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I mean except for the fact that pretty much everyone knows and sees people regularly they care about in all of the above categories.  I'm not concerned with my individual COVID risk.  But it makes me a little more self aware about who we come into contact with.    It would also be nice if our kids Pre-K classroom isn't immediately shut down after Christmas break with COVID cases.   And even with what we hope is a milder variant hospitalizations will inevitably rise along with case count which isn't good for anyone otherwise needing medical care.  So I pretty much disagree the number of cases is irrelevant.  

This hits on an issue that I've been very curious about, but have very little actual information--how many people are purposefully avoiding taking a test so that they don't run the risk of getting a positive.

I had a coworker tell me to my face that he's not taking a test, because if he gets a positive then his kids have to stay home from day care for 10 days.  So if he gets a sniffle or a fever, he'll just stay home and work from there.  But he damned sure isn't getting a test, which might force his kids to stay him (and for him to get very little work done).  I wonder how widespread that sentiment is.

And he's a professional.  It's all fine in West Lake Hills to get a positive--you work from home for a few days.  But what if you have a job that doesn't give paid time off?  What if you're a waiter or plumber, and if you don't work, you don't get paid?  Are you real eager to take a test?  I don't think so.

4 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I get that the conventional wisdom is that omicron is much more contagious BUT not as severe. Well, hospitals are starting to fill up at same rate that we saw with Delta. Past history shows us that hospitalization trails new cases by a week or so, and deaths trail hospitalizations. 

Houston med center:

And so this hits at another issue I've been wondering about.  When Mrs.LL went in to Seton for surgery three weeks ago, a nurse came in with the full PPE and gave her a Covid test (which, she said, was by far the worst one she has had--the nurse stuck that swab up as far as it would go).  So I ask, "what if it comes back positive."  Well, they'd still go ahead with the surgery; it's just that the OR staff would have full PPE (e.g., face shields).

Ok, well that's interesting.  But how does that get categorized?  According to this one nurse at Seton, that would get counted as a Covid hospitalization.  Now, never you mind that Mrs.LL wasn't in complaining of Covid symptoms, and never mind that she wasn't going to receive any Covid treatment; it was going to go down as a Covid hospitalization.*

Now, if that's the case, then it's hard to glean any useful information from that.  Are those people going to the hospital because they have Covid symptoms that require hospitalization?  Or is it people who are asymptomatic but testing positive just because they're testing everyone who sets foot in a hospital right now?

 

 

* Again, according to this one nurse at Seton.  That could be just how Seton handles it, and it varies from hospital to hospital.  Or it could be that this one nurse was talking out her ass.

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

in the NYT "update" article there's a chart of cases by state and it sure looks like some are already leveling off.   I decided to believe that.

 

Sorry to be this incompetent at posting the graph, but here's the article.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/27/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests/us-covid-cases-omicron

[Skipper 6197]

10 minutes ago, Ghost of LL said:

This hits on an issue that I've been very curious about, but have very little actual information--how many people are purposefully avoiding taking a test so that they don't run the risk of getting a positive.

I had a coworker tell me to my face that he's not taking a test, because if he gets a positive then his kids have to stay home from day care for 10 days.  So if he gets a sniffle or a fever, he'll just stay home and work from there.  But he damned sure isn't getting a test, which might force his kids to stay him (and for him to get very little work done).  I wonder how widespread that sentiment is.

I hear you on this.  Our kids were sent home with mild coughs that developed over course of the day during 2nd week of December.   Daughter had a fever the next day and we were on fence about whether to test knowing it would likely shut the classrooms down (and they had Christmas pageant the next week and we didn't want to be the family that ruined that for others).  This was also before people realized Omicron was probably already widespread here so it seemed unlikely. Given the fever we ended up doing an at home test which was negative and whatever it was passed through all of us.  She's 2 and squirmy so who knows if we even got a good swab.  We all stayed home rest of week/weekend but wife and I never tested.

We probably wouldn't have tested absent the fever and they were both fine the next day.  Certainly not an easy call when (i) kids (or adults) don't feel very sick and (ii) you can't exactly replace those tests these days easily.  Of course now that we know widespread probably more likely to test at first sign of symptoms before sending kids to school the next couple of weeks (at least one of them, we're pretty damn low on tests).

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

24 minutes ago, Liquor and Poker said:

in the NYT "update" article there's a chart of cases by state and it sure looks like some are already leveling off.   I decided to believe that.

 

Sorry to be this incompetent at posting the graph, but here's the article.

 

https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/12/27/world/omicron-covid-vaccine-tests/us-covid-cases-omicron

It could also be that some states haven’t reported data since Dec 23rd.

[The University 851]

ay caramba. about 90% of the relatives i saw for christmas are reporting positive test results. rarely shook hands or hugged, but it doesn't take much.

so far, no symptoms. hoping that my triple shot of moderna will give me an edge... 🤞

[BrazilHorn 6632]

Travis County updated deaths today with "week ending" being noted as 12/27 so not a true weekend. This is a 10 day run (last update was week ending 121/7) so the good news is even better in terms of the positive trend

Only 4 deaths 12/17 to 12/27. They break down as follows:

40 to 49 (1)

60 to 69 (1)

70 to 79 (1)

80+ (1)

[Trey3216 15355]

1 hour ago, Ghost of LL said:

I think that's right.  Omicron is definitely more contagious than any of the other variants.  But there's also a lot less social distancing/mask wearing/quarantining than with previous variants.

I think a lot of blame can be placed on the CDC and other public-health officials for all of this.  But at the same time, I don't know what the messaging should have been (or should be) given some of the variables that remain unknown.

This hits on an issue that I've been very curious about, but have very little actual information--how many people are purposefully avoiding taking a test so that they don't run the risk of getting a positive.

I had a coworker tell me to my face that he's not taking a test, because if he gets a positive then his kids have to stay home from day care for 10 days.  So if he gets a sniffle or a fever, he'll just stay home and work from there.  But he damned sure isn't getting a test, which might force his kids to stay him (and for him to get very little work done).  I wonder how widespread that sentiment is.

And he's a professional.  It's all fine in West Lake Hills to get a positive--you work from home for a few days.  But what if you have a job that doesn't give paid time off?  What if you're a waiter or plumber, and if you don't work, you don't get paid?  Are you real eager to take a test?  I don't think so.

And so this hits at another issue I've been wondering about.  When Mrs.LL went in to Seton for surgery three weeks ago, a nurse came in with the full PPE and gave her a Covid test (which, she said, was by far the worst one she has had--the nurse stuck that swab up as far as it would go).  So I ask, "what if it comes back positive."  Well, they'd still go ahead with the surgery; it's just that the OR staff would have full PPE (e.g., face shields).

Ok, well that's interesting.  But how does that get categorized?  According to this one nurse at Seton, that would get counted as a Covid hospitalization.  Now, never you mind that Mrs.LL wasn't in complaining of Covid symptoms, and never mind that she wasn't going to receive any Covid treatment; it was going to go down as a Covid hospitalization.*

Now, if that's the case, then it's hard to glean any useful information from that.  Are those people going to the hospital because they have Covid symptoms that require hospitalization?  Or is it people who are asymptomatic but testing positive just because they're testing everyone who sets foot in a hospital right now?

 

 

* Again, according to this one nurse at Seton.  That could be just how Seton handles it, and it varies from hospital to hospital.  Or it could be that this one nurse was talking out her ass.

Here's another question to add...

Are a bunch of the folks testing positive right now in the group that has done everything possible not to catch the virus and, as many have acknowledged many times in this thread, don't understand the true statistics of the issue and go to the hospital for treatment when they really don't need treatment?  i.e.  I got COVID and I'm gonna die!  I did everything to not get it now I have it!  I have to go to the hospital!  Or some such.   They get there and have a slight fever and some congestion.  They're still a COVID hospitalization at that point.  

Saw some data points in Vermont (will try to find) that showed many of their current "hospitalizations" are folks showing few to no symptoms, but came in after they tested positive.  Fear is a powerful drug.  

[Skipper 6197]

2 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Here's another question to add...

Are a bunch of the folks testing positive right now in the group that has done everything possible not to catch the virus and, as many have acknowledged many times in this thread, don't understand the true statistics of the issue and go to the hospital for treatment when they really don't need treatment?  i.e.  I got COVID and I'm gonna die!  I did everything to not get it now I have it!  I have to go to the hospital!  Or some such.   They get there and have a slight fever and some congestion.  They're still a COVID hospitalization at that point.  

Saw some data points in Vermont (will try to find) that showed many of their current "hospitalizations" are folks showing few to no symptoms, but came in after they tested positive.  Fear is a powerful drug.  

I mean people showing up to ER is one thing but I can't imagine people are getting admitted without Covid Pneumonia or similar that actually needs monitoring.

[Immaculate Vibes 114]

 

[Don Johnson 4755]

40 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I hear you on this.  Our kids were sent home with mild coughs that developed over course of the day during 2nd week of December.   Daughter had a fever the next day and we were on fence about whether to test knowing it would likely shut the classrooms down (and they had Christmas pageant the next week and we didn't want to be the family that ruined that for others).  This was also before people realized Omicron was probably already widespread here so it seemed unlikely. Given the fever we ended up doing an at home test which was negative and whatever it was passed through all of us.  She's 2 and squirmy so who knows if we even got a good swab.  We all stayed home rest of week/weekend but wife and I never tested.

We probably wouldn't have tested absent the fever and they were both fine the next day.  Certainly not an easy call when (i) kids (or adults) don't feel very sick and (ii) you can't exactly replace those tests these days easily.  Of course now that we know widespread probably more likely to test at first sign of symptoms before sending kids to school the next couple of weeks (at least one of them, we're pretty damn low on tests).

Once you get that negative test for a kid its like a get out of jail free card.  We usually tested if they had symptoms.  And strictly talking about kids getting Covid, most parents I know are more scared of the 10 day quarantine than they are of their kids actually getting Covid.

My kids haven't missed a day of school since going back in August 2020.   Haven't missed a football, soccer, basketball or baseball practice/game either.  But there's no way they haven't been exposed multiple times.  It's just impossible they weren't.  I assume Parents probably just didn't test. 

And I can't say I'm upset about what I didn't know about.

[Don Johnson 4755]

5 minutes ago, Immaculate Vibes said:

 

Huge

[InkaUtexas 26094]

Just got a call I was dreading. Business partner who lives in Kenya got it. Dude has been quite careful, but had to go visit one of our project sites and wham. Tested positive on the 24th (his birthday) and went into isolation with a few friends at a hunting camp. They cooked great steaks that evening, the man can cook, and had a bad ass bottle of scotch and a few bottles of wine. Could not taste any of it! 

Main issue for him as been heavy congestion and just feeling like he is constantly hungover, which he may be. Double AZ. Wife and daughter tested negative. 

[Guest Lobo]

34 minutes ago, Trey3216 said:

Here's another question to add...

Are a bunch of the folks testing positive right now in the group that has done everything possible not to catch the virus and, as many have acknowledged many times in this thread, don't understand the true statistics of the issue and go to the hospital for treatment when they really don't need treatment?  i.e.  I got COVID and I'm gonna die!  I did everything to not get it now I have it!  I have to go to the hospital!  Or some such.   They get there and have a slight fever and some congestion.  They're still a COVID hospitalization at that point.  

Saw some data points in Vermont (will try to find) that showed many of their current "hospitalizations" are folks showing few to no symptoms, but came in after they tested positive.  Fear is a powerful drug.  

I'm sure there's an uptick in that kind of behavior/activity...but I would think after almost two years of this...any decent health care facility would know how to triage that.  "Yes, your test shows positive and you have a couple of mild symptoms but your vitals are fine.  You can hang out in the waiting room/parking lot if you feel worse, but we are not going to fully admit you."  Yeah, it's a bit of a drain to have a nurse have to run through VO2, heart rate, etc.  But the two massive hospital systems I know intimately in Austin are doing just what I described.  You can't just show up with a test and be admitted to a double room.  It does take some resources to triage this kinda bullshit, but they are not technically "hospitalizations" (not sure about VT obviously).  You don't have to be admitted to receive care at a hospital, my bachelor party is a great example of that.  I think there will be several weeks of this kinda activity in hospitals/24-7 clinics to be sure, but they'll work it out as they have the last 24 months. 

The two heads of the hospital systems I mentioned have expressly indicated that the strain on resources/personnel by unvacc'd being admitted/hospitalized for long periods of time (often into ICU and intubation) far outweighs the strain of some Covid-positive Karens showing up and demanding observation for 45 minutes in the lobby.  

It goes back to what's been talked about in detail on here.  Our modern health care system was never intended to onboard so many sick people with very preventable illnesses at the same time.  Now diabetes, cancer, organ failure, etc.  Those are also very preventable, but thankfully---they don't hit communities in massive waves in short periods of time.  We also have Tier I trauma centers and military hospitals which can absorb 50 victims of a tornado, gun shooting, building fire, or 20-car pileup that do hit all at once-things that are very, very hard to prevent (unlike healthy lifestyle and risk mitigation).  But our system just isn't built out for both to happen at the same time.  

And yeah to your point---pouring a bunch of paranoid Omicron folks on top of that won't help, at all.  But I think we're already seeing dispatch mitigative efforts being deployed to see who among them may actually be really sick and telling the rest to hang out in the parking lot if they want to, but no admission will happen.  They're a lot better at this than most critics realize.  Obviously there have tragically been anecdotal stories of somebody being turned away and then dying in the parking lot waiting for treatment.  But by and large, the people that need to be admitted are being admitted, the people that don't go home, and somehow our health care system manages to save way more than I ever thought possible.  The fatality rate of this thing in our country, despite our age and co-morbidity albatross around our fat necks, has been helped immensely by our hospital systems being able to triage and care effectively...all under extraordinary pressure and with very limited support from incompetent governments at every level.  /rant

[MonkeyDoughnut 10356]

51 minutes ago, Skipper said:

I mean people showing up to ER is one thing but I can't imagine people are getting admitted without Covid Pneumonia or similar that actually needs monitoring.

Shortness of breath gets you admitted. Most people are going to say yes after they have tested positive and are asked.

[Ag with kids 581]

6 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

They to worry about breaking the law if the employer releases someone's covid diagnosis or even to an extent that the employee's identification can be easily guessed. I bet even if the employee said that they were ok with releasing the info, HR would be hesitant.

An employer should be very relaxed with their work-from-home/call-in-sick policies in the next few weeks unless they want their entire workforce out.

FWIW, that wouldn't be a HIPAA violation...

It would be wrong, though...

[williemackgarza 1826]

Got moderna booster in oct. Kids dance group all popped positive early last week. Got some sniffles last week and finally got in for a test today. I was positive. Still waiting on daughters results. Felt like flu or a cold for a couple days. No taste or smell though.

[Skipper 6197]

21 minutes ago, MonkeyDoughnut said:

Shortness of breath gets you admitted. Most people are going to say yes after they have tested positive and are asked.

I had family that had a rough go that went to ER during peak Delta wave.   Definitely had shortness of breath and basically no energy to move/eat for like 10 days.  Oxygen levels weren't low enough (whatever threshold they had at the time) to be admitted and I think basically told her they couldn't admit below "X" number and to keep monitoring and come back if it hits it.  Maybe would have been admitted at a different time but I'm guessing they aren't admitting everyone that claims shortness of breath when there is a surge.

[bschoolprof 6272]

2 hours ago, Ghost of LL said:

 

And so this hits at another issue I've been wondering about.  When Mrs.LL went in to Seton for surgery three weeks ago, a nurse came in with the full PPE and gave her a Covid test (which, she said, was by far the worst one she has had--the nurse stuck that swab up as far as it would go).  So I ask, "what if it comes back positive."  Well, they'd still go ahead with the surgery; it's just that the OR staff would have full PPE (e.g., face shields).

Ok, well that's interesting.  But how does that get categorized?  According to this one nurse at Seton, that would get counted as a Covid hospitalization.  Now, never you mind that Mrs.LL wasn't in complaining of Covid symptoms, and never mind that she wasn't going to receive any Covid treatment; it was going to go down as a Covid hospitalization.*

Now, if that's the case, then it's hard to glean any useful information from that.  Are those people going to the hospital because they have Covid symptoms that require hospitalization?  Or is it people who are asymptomatic but testing positive just because they're testing everyone who sets foot in a hospital right now?

 

 

* Again, according to this one nurse at Seton.  That could be just how Seton handles it, and it varies from hospital to hospital.  Or it could be that this one nurse was talking out her ass.

I've been a big proponent of posting hospitalization data on this thread, but I remember grappling with this issue during the last wave.  A non-trivial proportion of "covid hospitalizations" are people in the hospital with covid, but not because of it. It's mind boggling to me that we are nearly two years into this thing and we still do not have good data on the impact of covid itself on the hospital system.  Regarding @Nice Guy Eddie's data, one could look at the total hospital census (it's down actually), but even that has problems.  Anyway, the data we have is shit. 

[Eastwood 4394]

9 minutes ago, williemackgarza said:

Got moderna booster in oct. Kids dance group all popped positive early last week. Got some sniffles last week and finally got in for a test today. I was positive. Still waiting on daughters results. Felt like flu or a cold for a couple days. No taste or smell though.

I'm day 3 or 4 in and finally lost some taste and smell. The cumulative study I read stated that it appears that those who lose taste or smell later in the process gain it back quicker, so fingers crossed for that.

[Brisketexan 105318]

1 minute ago, bschoolprof said:

I've been a big proponent of posting hospitalization data on this thread, but I remember grappling with this issue during the last wave.  A non-trivial proportion of "covid hospitalizations" are people in the hospital with covid, but not because of it. It's mind boggling to me that we are nearly two years into this thing and we still do not have good data on the impact of covid itself on the hospital system.  Regarding @Nice Guy Eddie's data, one could look at the total hospital census (it's down actually), but even that has problems.  Anyway, the data we have is shit. 

The fact that we largely don't even have any standardized ways to record/stratify data on a state level, much less a national level, makes it next to impossible to gather all the categories of meaningful data.

In the post-mortem of this pandemic, if I was a congresscritter (and imagining that we had a functional federal government), I would introduce Brisket's Pandemic Hospital Data Reporting Act (except I'd take the time to come up with words that make a cool acronym, like "BITCH" or something).  It would require all hospitals that receive medicare or medicaid reimbursement (so.....all hospitals) to report certain categories of admissions broken down in certain ways, upon either executive order or by order of the CDC (that is, they don't have to do it all the time, just in connection with certain infectious disease situations).  And we'd require things like the REASON for admission (so, the car wreck victim with COVID would be admitted for "Reason: broken bones from wreck," and wouldn't be recorded as a COVID case), etc. etc.

We need to have a more uniform approach to understanding and managing pandemics in the future.  If we don't 1) learn from this experience and 2) put what we learned to good use, then we're fucking morons.

SPOILER: we're fucking morons, and we won't do either 1 or 2.  But a boy can dream. 

[Nice Guy Eddie 13523]

16 minutes ago, Ag with kids said:

FWIW, that wouldn't be a HIPAA violation...

It would be wrong, though...

I believe the American Disabilities Act would come into play to prevent disclosing private medical information. 

[Liquor and Poker 3659]

2 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

It could also be that some states haven’t reported data since Dec 23rd.

Don't say things like that

[bschoolprof 6272]

13 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

The fact that we largely don't even have any standardized ways to record/stratify data on a state level, much less a national level, makes it next to impossible to gather all the categories of meaningful data.

In the post-mortem of this pandemic, if I was a congresscritter (and imagining that we had a functional federal government), I would introduce Brisket's Pandemic Hospital Data Reporting Act (except I'd take the time to come up with words that make a cool acronym, like "BITCH" or something).  It would require all hospitals that receive medicare or medicaid reimbursement (so.....all hospitals) to report certain categories of admissions broken down in certain ways, upon either executive order or by order of the CDC (that is, they don't have to do it all the time, just in connection with certain infectious disease situations).  And we'd require things like the REASON for admission (so, the car wreck victim with COVID would be admitted for "Reason: broken bones from wreck," and wouldn't be recorded as a COVID case), etc. etc.

We need to have a more uniform approach to understanding and managing pandemics in the future.  If we don't 1) learn from this experience and 2) put what we learned to good use, then we're fucking morons.

SPOILER: we're fucking morons, and we won't do either 1 or 2.  But a boy can dream. 

100% this.  This has been a major failure of government at all levels, and it's not even partisan really.  Blue states, red states, don't make a shit, incompetence across the board.  They've had similar issues in the UK, so it's not just us.  

[smoky 840]

The fact that we largely don't even have any standardized ways to record/stratify data on a state level, much less a national level, makes it next to impossible to gather all the categories of meaningful data.
In the post-mortem of this pandemic, if I was a congresscritter (and imagining that we had a functional federal government), I would introduce Brisket's Pandemic Hospital Data Reporting Act (except I'd take the time to come up with words that make a cool acronym, like "BITCH" or something).  It would require all hospitals that receive medicare or medicaid reimbursement (so.....all hospitals) to report certain categories of admissions broken down in certain ways, upon either executive order or by order of the CDC (that is, they don't have to do it all the time, just in connection with certain infectious disease situations).  And we'd require things like the REASON for admission (so, the car wreck victim with COVID would be admitted for "Reason: broken bones from wreck," and wouldn't be recorded as a COVID case), etc. etc.
We need to have a more uniform approach to understanding and managing pandemics in the future.  If we don't 1) learn from this experience and 2) put what we learned to good use, then we're fucking morons.
SPOILER: we're fucking morons, and we won't do either 1 or 2.  But a boy can dream. 

Oh man, the VAERS database is riddled with that kind of stuff.

"My 85 year old dad got the COVID vaccine. He fell and broke his hip two days later."

Similarly, in the 5-11 aged Pfizer trial, one of the kids broke his/her arm. Obviously (to most people) that's not a side effect of the vaccine, but it still had to be logged.

[Buzzrock 14937]

Cutting the quarantine time to five days is big.

[Brisketexan 105318]

6 minutes ago, bschoolprof said:

100% this.  This has been a major failure of government at all levels, and it's not even partisan really.  Blue states, red states, don't make a shit, incompetence across the board.  They've had similar issues in the UK, so it's not just us.  

Agreed.  While some of our failures in this pandemic have been acutely partisan, the overarching failures have been broad, and universal (similar failures by other nations, including our analog western democracies).

There's ALL kinds of stuff I would put in place if I was "in charge" that would try to cure our many shortcomings, as well as implement some of the lessons that even good planners might not have anticipated.  Nations should treat the threat of a pandemic as a national security threat -- we should have stockpiles of PPE, we should have a robust apparatus to respond to outbreaks, all kinds of shit like that.  We -- the global we -- did a pretty lackluster job with this pandemic.  Really, the only big success story was relatively rapid vaccine development, roll out, and administration, and even that has been far from stellar.

I am confident that there will be an excellent post-mortem analysis with all kinds of excellent recommendations.  I am also confident that 98% of them will be ignored, and we'll stumblefuck our way into the next pandemic just like we did with this one.

[Brisketexan 105318]

4 minutes ago, smoky said:

Oh man, the VAERS database is riddled with that kind of stuff.

"My 85 year old dad got the COVID vaccine. He fell and broke his hip two days later."

Similarly, in the 5-11 aged Pfizer trial, one of the kids broke his/her arm. Obviously (to most people) that's not a side effect of the vaccine, but it still had to be logged.

Here's the thing.....I don't have ANY problem with the VAERS database, so long as you understand it for what it is.  Hell, let's go with your example -- let's say the VAERS database ends up with an oddly frequent report of people who fell and injured themselves shortly after getting a vaccine.  Investigation of those reports reveals that almost all of the people in that group reported sudden onset vertigo.  Specialists investigate, and discover that something about the vaccine interacts with your inner ear, causing vertigo/balance issues.

Or, alternatively, even though there are some reports of falls after getting vaccinated, they are not at a greater frequency than would be expected in the population at large, so thanks for your report, but it doesn't amount to anything.

It's like a police tip line.  It gets a lot of calls from people who saw the silver truck, or tall bearded white man, that is the subject of the manhunt.  Most are false alarms.  But able investigators can hone in on the few reports that are worth a follow-up.

Data is good.  What it means, and what you do with it, is what ultimately matters.  

[DDD Dad 14348]

Daughter rapid tested again this morning. Still positive. Sigh.

[Brisketexan 105318]

2 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

Daughter rapid tested again this morning. Still positive. Sigh.

how is she feeling?

And...sorry the holidays are such a shitshow for y'all.

[DDD Dad 14348]

2 minutes ago, Brisketexan said:

how is she feeling?

And...sorry the holidays are such a shitshow for y'all.

She’s fine. She just dropped by to steal a couple bottles of wine to drink at home. 
 

she hasn’t had any symptoms other than typical allergy stuff. 
 

Nearly all of her friends are popping positive too. 
 

thankfully none of the boys have tested positive. Youngest has to fly to Wyoming Wednesday for work. 

Edited December 28, 2021 by DDD Dad

[ABSR 5323]

35 minutes ago, DDD Dad said:

She’s fine. She just dropped by to steal a couple bottles of wine to drink at home. 
 

she hasn’t had any symptoms other than typical allergy stuff. 
 

Nearly all of her friends are popping positive too. 
 

thankfully none of the boys have tested positive. Youngest has to fly to Wyoming Wednesday for work. 

Well good news is now she will only drink five days worth of your wine instead of ten!

[DDD Dad 14348]

2 minutes ago, ABSR said:

Well good news is now she will only drink five days worth of your wine instead of ten!

No she’ll be back over for more I’m sure. 

[InkaUtexas 26094]

Non Covid but kid stealing wine related. 

During the last World Cup I had to go spend a month on the east coast. Left my son and a good friend at my house. Boy was 18. Also left them with about 60 bottles of wine I had been collecting. Get back and the two of them were kind enough to leave me 2. I was pretty damn pissed until I heard their logic. Well dad, games started early and we could not watch a good match without something to drink. Oh, and you left me without any cash. I laughed and started over. 

[The Ace of Aces 5194]

8 hours ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

I get that the conventional wisdom is that omicron is much more contagious BUT not as severe. Well, hospitals are starting to fill up at same rate that we saw with Delta. Past history shows us that hospitalization trails new cases by a week or so, and deaths trail hospitalizations. 

Houston med center:

It’s really not the same rate as Delta. It looks like the hospitalization increase is 8% but the new case increase is over 1,000%. (I suck at math but believe I did the math correct …. fuck math!)

Delta had a much higher hospitalization rate, med center data showed iirc. Can’t find the old data specifically but that chart shows severe infections are drastically lower (which seems to be marking overseas and up here on the east coast where it’s a shitshow right now)

[Pato del Muerto 52588]

30 minutes ago, The Ace of Aces said:

It’s really not the same rate as Delta. It looks like the hospitalization increase is 8% but the new case increase is over 1,000%. (I suck at math but believe I did the math correct …. fuck math!)

Delta had a much higher hospitalization rate, med center data showed iirc. Can’t find the old data specifically but that chart shows severe infections are drastically lower (which seems to be marking overseas and up here on the east coast where it’s a shitshow right now)

The staff and bed availability is what it is.  If the hospitalization rate is much lower, but the transmission is equally higher, then the net to the hospital would be the same. 
 

feels like we are just now getting to the part where we really find out if the system will be in jeopardy again or not. 

[Surly Bevo 25145]

The system gets stressed because it really can't run with the slack it needs, sucks but it's the way it is.  I've watched Tarrant County hospital bed occupancy rates very regularly for the last two years and even in the valleyest of Covid valleys the lowest it gets is like 80%.   And that is usually in spring/summer when Covid and many other things that drive people to the hospital have been/are at bay.  

Along with things to learn post-pandemic, how to deal with the age old axiom of "you don't staff to the volume exception" when it becomes a matter of life and death (this ain't some busy call center on Black Friday) would be nice.