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Coronavirus 7: Ring in Delta Plus and then Omicron Takes Over


Coconut Flan

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On 1/14/2022 at 4:13 PM, Ozlsn said:

 

Not a grandmother but same - trying to balance all the risks and find the line I can walk while feeling that my family and I are as safe as possible. I want the sports, the festivals, the shops, even some in person work back (the commute I could live without). Mostly though I want to be able to go to parks and the beach without worrying I will get sick, and to see my elderly parents and in laws without being paranoid I'm carrying an asymptomatic virus that could kill them. I swear the paranoia is exhausting.

 

It is exhausting. And adding in trying to make decisions for the family you're in as a whole, balancing physical/mental/emotional health, is hard. I've been paranoid the whole way to protect my kids and my parents and in-laws, but I can only do so much and still let my older son, for instance, see other kids and get a preschool education. Right now I'm having to balance all those with the additional concern of being nine months pregnant during cold and flu season, during another year where a sniffle is never "just" a sniffle but I can't really miss doctor appointments because of a concern with the pregnancy itself. I just want to stop worrying for a few days. I can't, but I want to.

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On 1/15/2022 at 9:17 AM, adidas said:

 Domicron said that the number of infections isn’t what we should look at, it’s hospitalisations and deaths which are the focus. Well I’m looking at that and it’s not good at all.

Between May 2020 and May 2021 we had 11 recorded covid deaths. Today alone we had 20. Domicron Perrotwat thinks all is fine.

On 1/14/2022 at 8:17 AM, Ozlsn said:

Meanwhile Hillsong in Australia are a super special bunch to whom the rules don't apply.

Seriously, fuck them. Allegedly they got supplied with "requisitioned" RATs so they could run their "totally not a music festival church camp" safely. Meanwhile RAT supply in the rest of the eastern states is patchy at best. To be fair the Scouts ran a major event a week ago - but it followed the state rules, their covid plan worked reasonably well from what I hear, in that yes, they had cases but it doesn't seem to have been a super-spreader event that I've heard of so far. But for Hillsong to run a singing/dancing event when music festivals have had to cancel is just annoying.

Why am I not surprised? Meanwhile, there’s this:

9F84631D-284D-40D4-9E57-EA8A1483638D.jpeg.1916c1c88a301c9a68a68848a618cfd4.jpeg

 

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That is both unbelievable and completely on message for that ship of fools.  They don't like the NDIS, they have shown they don't care for the welfare of any bar their own tiny cohort of cronies - diverting RATs and tests and vaccines for their own political purposes the whole way through. They want the glory but are so incompetent they make it worse every time. Allegedly epidemiologists and Treasury officials met with them to ask for more mitigating measures, but didn't get them because this mob apparently doesn't understand that the economy is made up of people, and relies on people being well to function. To quote Crikey:

It seems the government has been so excited about pushing its narrative of success it forgot to plan for reality. 

The sooner we can get these incompetent, mediocre, egotistical, souless buffoons out of office the better. 

Edited by Ozlsn
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My COVID complaint of the day (aside from lack of saltines in the store) is I wish the medical establishment would find a better word than mild to use associated with Omicron.  My visit to get my hair done has shown me the average person hears Omicron usually results in mild symptoms translates that to it's like a mild common cold.  By that they do mean barely a cold.  What the medical establishment means by mild is you didn't end up in the hospital.  That's contributing greatly to the 80 somethings I saw getting their hair done maskless.  

This from Los Angles proving this is not a mild cold:

https://www.kcra.com/article/la-county-most-daily-covid-deaths-since-april-2021/38780719

My doctor sent out a message to his patients reminding us that mild does not mean what most people think it does.  He said his "mild" COVID patients are seeing symptoms about halfway between a bad cold or flu and the original COVID.  Thus ends today's rant.  😄

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6 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

My COVID complaint of the day (aside from lack of saltines in the store) is I wish the medical establishment would find a better word than mild to use associated with Omicron.  My visit to get my hair done has shown me the average person hears Omicron usually results in mild symptoms translates that to it's like a mild common cold.  By that they do mean barely a cold.  What the medical establishment means by mild is you didn't end up in the hospital.  That's contributing greatly to the 80 somethings I saw getting their hair done maskless.  

This from Los Angles proving this is not a mild cold:

https://www.kcra.com/article/la-county-most-daily-covid-deaths-since-april-2021/38780719

My doctor sent out a message to his patients reminding us that mild does not mean what most people think it does.  He said his "mild" COVID patients are seeing symptoms about halfway between a bad cold or flu and the original COVID.  Thus ends today's rant.  😄

This. "Mild" does not mean it's like a cold. I'm currently waiting to hear back from a friend whose toddler just went to the hospital for a high fever from covid. (Good thoughts/mojo/prayers/vibes would be appreciated.)

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7 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

I wish the medical establishment would find a better word than mild to use associated with Omicron

Totally agree. It's a real failure in messaging as some people hear mild and think a case of the sniffles, not I can't get out of bed for a week but I'm not sick enough to need a hospital bed. Mild influenza knocked me out for two weeks when I was in my twenties. The other problem is that omicron (like the other variants) has a wide range of outcomes - for some people (more likely to be younger, healthier and vaccinated - but no guarantee) it really is a case of the sniffles, for others at higher risk it isn't. The messaging around how to evaluate your actual risk from getting infected needs to improve and be better communicated.

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@Howl We‘re in the same boat, I‘m terrified of Longcovid and ME/CFS (Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome) as well.

I think society has underestimated viruses and it‘s long term impact on our body enormously. If I recall correctly research of viruses and anti virals wasn‘t well funded pre-pandemic. 

I shudder when I think how careless I was even a few years ago while travelling through remote places in South East Asia. I didn‘t properly protect myself from mosquitoes that cause Malaria, Dengue Fever and Chickungunya Fever and thought it wouldn’t be that bad if I caught one of those diseases. Of course I didn’t think of the possible long term complications.

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The coworker at a sister plant posted on Facebook earlier that her husband passed after they removed him from a vent.  He’d been on the vent for over 10 days.  To keep him on the vent, they needed to do a tracheotomy.  And that requires the patient to remain on their back.  In this case, he did very badly on his back and did best face down.  They’ve got a couple of kids.  
 

And I agree on the “mild” label the media keeps using.

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4 hours ago, Smash! said:

I didn‘t properly protect myself from mosquitoes that cause Malaria, Dengue Fever and Chickungunya Fever and thought it wouldn’t be that bad if I caught one of those diseases.

I know that dengue fever is occasionally reported near the Texas/Mexico border but two or three years ago I was gobsmacked to learn that at one point dengue fever was endemic in the southeastern tier of the US and Texas.  In one particular outbreak in my city in 1885, about 25% of the residents were stricken with dengue and outbreaks of dengue continued until the 1940s, when spraying DDT for mosquito eradication became common.  But it's coming back.

Dengue, aka “Breakbone Fever,” Is Back   The vicious virus has re-established itself in the South, and mosquitoes are carrying it north.

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My 5yo sounds like she is losing her voice but claims she is fine/nothing hurts. I am exhausted and had a killer headache last night, now I’m getting a sore throat. I have ONE rapid test. Do I a) wait and see if further symptoms crop up, b) test myself, c) test my daughter, d) line up for hours together for PCRs?
I just did a week’s shopping and we’re not going anywhere else, but we live with my sister & I very much do not want her to get it.

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Oh gosh @Smee … I don’t know what you should do. It’s a hard one. I wish I could send you one.

Personally I would assume I have it and go with waiting for more symptoms. But only because I know 4 people who have recently had negatives in both pcr and rat in the early days - it took them a week to show positive. But that makes it really difficult because you live with your sister.

I’m not much help sorry. 

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If your sister or a friend can get more RATs while you isolate I think that would be the best option available. I agree with @adidas though, assume you have it and wait for more symptoms. It might be worth ringing the chemist to see if they have any RATs - odds are no, but worth a try.  Obviously isolating from your sister is essential - any signs of infection she needs to let her team know asap. If she can get hold of a pulse oximeter that would also be good. Best wishes, and damn that sucks.

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@Smee I agree with the others, assume you have it. I would definitely wait for more symptoms and in the meantime open the windows as often as possible. I just realized you have summer and probably high temps. So this is maybe not good advice then.

My teenage cousin recently had Covid and didn‘t infect her mother. I assume it‘s because they cross ventilate their house often so lots of fresh air.

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After nearly two years of pandemic where none of the patients I was actively treating got COVID (all of them are high risk, and most of them took precautions), I'm now having a bunch test positive.  I'm an outpatient provider and don't see active COVID.  My schedule is getting very empty.  

I still have not had a confirmed exposure.  I honestly have no idea how.  I've been generally cautious, but it's varied depending on active COVID rates in the area, and I've definitely maintained a fairly active social life since I got vaccinated (my mental health needs it).  

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2 hours ago, clueliss said:

US residents, the link for the federal government free Covid test is active.  One order of 4 tests per household/address.  Just placed mine.  https://special.usps.com/testkits

Thanks, I just placed my order, although I expect it may not arrive until maybe mid February.  They don't start to ship until late January and Louis De Joy is still inexplicably head of the USPS....

 

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Seeing how we’re entering the third year of this pandemic, I’ve been thinking of how this all started and how much I enjoyed reading the discussions here during the first ever lockdown. Someone here (unfortunately can’t remember who) plotted an entire potential childrens book series about the pandemic, American Girl style, back then. I can’t find the post anymore, but if I recall correctly it was almost eerily prescient regarding school, length of the pandemic etc. I wonder how much of the plot would have to be adapted in retrospect; at least the anti-vaxers were almost certainly not included… And I don’t think anyone here expected just how big the strain on everyone, especially medical care providers and teachers, would continue to get. I’m feeling a bit hopeless today tbh. 

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@Smee How are you doing? I hope it was just a cold and not Covid.

Interesting Twitter-Thread (unroll) by Akiko Iwasaki on why even mild Covid can cause neurological damage.

Quote

How can a mild respiratory SARS-CoV-2 infection lead to longterm neurological symptoms? Possibilities include 1) direct infection of 🧠, 2) autoimmunity, and 3) inflammatory impact of infection distal to the 🧠. In this study, we focused on 3) 👇🏽 (2/)

 

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Well my work location has decided to mask through February 5 if you’re in the office now. They’ve done an assessment of local case counts based on the counties people actually live in the distribution of who lives in which counties and county case rates so yeah high per capita.

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14 hours ago, Smash! said:

@Smee How are you doing? I hope it was just a cold and not Covid.

Interesting Twitter-Thread (unroll) by Akiko Iwasaki on why even mild Covid can cause neurological damage.

 

Thanks for thinking of me ❤️ I think it’s nothing? Neither of us have any worse symptoms and I used my final RAT on myself, which was negative. Daughter still sounds hoarse but feels fine. They had their first vax dose a week ago so maybe a side effect?

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10 hours ago, Smee said:

Thanks for thinking of me ❤️ I think it’s nothing? Neither of us have any worse symptoms and I used my final RAT on myself, which was negative. Daughter still sounds hoarse but feels fine. They had their first vax dose a week ago so maybe a side effect?

I‘m glad it doesn‘t seem to be Covid! I know lots of people who felt the effects of their mRNA vaccines for well over a week and I guess it‘s not that different for kids.

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Our case numbers look to be dropping but due to a combination of RAT unavailability and long lines for PCR testing it's also likely that people have just given up on testing. So far we've had 671 deaths in 21 days of January - or, to put it another way, approximately half the number of deaths we had from flu in 2019 (15% of the 2019 flu/pnuemonia combined total deaths) in less than a month in summer.

Western Australia has decided to keep state borders closed, after watching both Victoria and NSW's hospital systems become overloaded - Victoria has cancelled all non-essential surgery and we have at at least three nights where no ambulances were available and warnings about this were released. Mostly this is due to staff shortages - people are sick, they are taking care of sick family or isolatimg due to close contact exposures. 

Some of the commentary around this has been bizarre - yes, life continues, and if you're a person who thinks their risk is low then you're probably living fairly normally, right up to the point you need non-essential surgery or an ambulance. This is not a good reason for WA to open up and overload their hospital system too. (Although I understand that two of the lowest vaccinated regions in WA are also mining regions - which are also remote and have limited medical facilities, and the original plan was to open state borders but have restrictions on entering those regions... and the mining companies objected, so the whole state is staying shut.)

The hospitalisation/death rate is a couple of weeks behind the case numbers, so we will likely continue with high numbers of deaths for at least another month. Yesterday the NSW CHO came out with lists of underlying conditions which the 24 under-65 aged people who had died had apparently had. This pissed off a lot of people - yes, one was in palliative care, but they still wouldn't have died at that time in a really crappy way without covid. Also if one of them was vaccinated with no underlying conditions what does that say exactly? (Two of the conditions listed were "obesity" and "asthma", which between them cover about 50% of Australia's population aged under 65.)

One of the things that really bemuses me about the deaths from covid here is how invisible they are. If we had 56 people dying in a day from a bushfire the papers/media would be all over it, there'd be photos, and bios and interviews with surviving family. There is almost nothing - not even deaths of children are being mentioned past "died age x, had underlying conditions" and I find the silence deeply weird and troubling.

 

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Someone in my pod that I spent multiple hours with, unmasked, this week, tested positive yesterday. I woke up with a wicked bad sore throat and stuffy nose today. I have a box of rapid tests but my doctor said to not test until Monday, so it will unfortunately be a very long weekend for me. I have food, meds, milk, so I’ll be fine, just anxious.

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Now it’s my turn to be anxious.  Yesterday I came down with a sore throat and mild stuffiness.  I had been at the clinic for a blood draw a couple days before, and of course dreaded what I might have caught despite best efforts.  I decided to hydrate and nap, and fortunately woke up this morning feeling much better, but it’s sad how frightening cold symptoms have become.  Sigh.

I’m currently boosting my immune system with chocolate chip cookies and coffee.  🍪 

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Hey does anyone know of good masks that don't have ear loops and instead have straps that wrap around a person's head?  The ones with ear loops are starting to dig into my ears and causing sores and other discomfort so I want to give my ears a break for a while. 

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