COVID-19 vaccines: medical concerns and recommendations

[pangloss]

Back when Delta was first making waves there was a minor uproar that patients and doctors weren't allowed to see which variant they had been infected with. The short story is the sequencing tests had been approved for research but not for diagnostic/medical use. And at that time, your treatment would be the same no matter which variant you were infected with. So as far as I know, no one bothered to get that approval to use sequencing for medical use.

But now we have Omicron, which as you note doesn't respond well to 4 of the 5 antibody treatments:


With ~56% of infections currently being Omicron, we should assume a majority of today's hospitalizations are still delta. So ideally we should save sotrovimab - which is in short supply - for those who have been infected with Omicron. But this can't happen as long as doctors and patients are kept in the dark...

Sequencing is only done on a very small fraction of positives samples. For Omicron, one of the three rt-pcr reactions that worked for Wuhan/Delta doest work, so a lot of places should be able to distinguish without sequencing. (If I understand everything correctly.) Whether or not that info can be used by the physicians will probably depend on how the lab publishes the results. There's obviously a great deal of clinical relevance.

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[farscott]

The new CDC guidelines that discuss how long people should quarantine based on vaccination status concern me. Not so much that the time is shorter, but what it implies about people who are truly mission critical and why the CDC shortened the times. We already have seen air travel impacted as flights are cancelled due to crew members being ill and not available. Air travel appears to be the canary in the proverbial coal mine as we lose people in other critical roles, such as LE and medical.

Once again I am seeing businesses close as there is no one who is not ill to staff them. My MIL had a pre-surgical consult this week change to a FaceTime call as there were not enough workers at the surgical center to do the consult "live". The fact that the CDC has "crisis" advice that states that healthcare workers testing positive does not pull a healthcare worker from the work says the CDC is concerned that is where we are headed. The CDC has been behind the ball for the entire pandemic; not a surprise as much of this is once in a century stuff. I spoke to a deputy back at my old home in Alabama who told me the day shift on 22-DEC had three deputies on patrol; the rest were ill for various reasons, mostly COVID related. Usually the number on shift would be ten times that number.

Almost two years into the pandemic, it appears more people are going to be sick than ever. What that means for society is a big concern.

[Stephanie B]

A local vet practice has five people out. They've canceled a lot of appointments and are mostly functioning as an urgent care clinic.

[Paul Blackburn]

Dr Peter McCullough knocks it out of the park again!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000546487910

[karandom]

Dr Peter McCullough knocks it out of the park again!
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcas...=1000546487910

Why is Dr. McCullough more compelling then other doctors that are talking about COVID?

[DC_P]

We already have seen air travel impacted as flights are cancelled due to crew members being ill and not available. Air travel appears to be the canary in the proverbial coal mine as we lose people in other critical roles, such as LE and medical.

Believing what the airline executives (meaning what the management types say to the media to cover themselves, not what you are told at the airport by the front line employees) is like believing campaign speeches. The bottom line is they schedule more flights than they have employees to cover, like they do every year, hoping people will pick up a bunch of overtime on the holidays. If the employees would rather spend time at home than even more time at their already over-stressed workplace, COVID is an easily accepted excuse.

These are the same people asking the CDC to lower the quarantine time.

[David S.]

IMO, this Dr John Campbell guy seems to be doing a darn good job parsing out data for US and the UK. (1.5x playback speed is a thing)

-Omicron is quickly displacing Delta as the prevalent variant.
-It's still early, but Omicron doesn't seem to be hospitalizing or killing at nearly the same rate as Alpha or Delta.
-Omicron is so contagious, everyone is going to get it in the next couple weeks. Assuming the variant is as mild as expected, that is probably a good thing. That may push us over the edge from "pandemic" into "endemic."

[JohnO]

I'm sick right now. Moderate headache, sore throat, I feel a little pressure/sensation behind my sternum, minimal nasal congestion and (started yesterday) occasional coughing. My voice was a mess when I first got up from bed and I feel a little weak. These symptoms started around 12/24 same as my wife.

I took my wife to a walk-in clinic Christmas morning. She tested positive for Covid. She had the exact symptoms I described above only as she described it "the worst headache ever", a wicked barking cough and complete nasal congestion. My oldest daughter now has symptoms similar to her mom and tested Covid positive on a home kit.

I have now tested negative for a 2nd time. 12/27 negative, 12/30 negative and I have done nothing to stay away from the Covid positive people. I've slept in the same room/bed as my wife every night. So what do I have and why haven't I tested positive???

[45dotACP]

I'm sick right now. Moderate headache, sore throat, I feel a little pressure/sensation behind my sternum, minimal nasal congestion and (started yesterday) occasional coughing. My voice was a mess when I first got up from bed and I feel a little weak. These symptoms started around 12/24 same as my wife.

I took my wife to a walk-in clinic Christmas morning. She tested positive for Covid. She had the exact symptoms I described above only as she described it "the worst headache ever", a wicked barking cough and complete nasal congestion. My oldest daughter now has symptoms similar to her mom and tested Covid positive on a home kit.

I have now tested negative for a 2nd time. 12/27 negative, 12/30 negative and I have done nothing to stay away from the Covid positive people. I've slept in the same room/bed as my wife every night. So what do I have and why haven't I tested positive???

Probably the same thing I've got.

Minus the hangover

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[Wondering Beard]

I'm sick right now. Moderate headache, sore throat, I feel a little pressure/sensation behind my sternum, minimal nasal congestion and (started yesterday) occasional coughing. My voice was a mess when I first got up from bed and I feel a little weak. These symptoms started around 12/24 same as my wife.

I took my wife to a walk-in clinic Christmas morning. She tested positive for Covid. She had the exact symptoms I described above only as she described it "the worst headache ever", a wicked barking cough and complete nasal congestion. My oldest daughter now has symptoms similar to her mom and tested Covid positive on a home kit.

I have now tested negative for a 2nd time. 12/27 negative, 12/30 negative and I have done nothing to stay away from the Covid positive people. I've slept in the same room/bed as my wife every night. So what do I have and why haven't I tested positive???

Speculation: you and your family have a bad flu (or sinusitis, or other similar illness); it just so happens that your wife and daughter also got Covid along the way (asymptomatic) and you didn't.