outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

For myself, I'll be with my dad in Eugene, Oregon here in a few days for the world track and field championships, and that's held outdoors. I gather the seats are comfortable individual ones where they used to be just wooden bleachers not even that long ago, but I still expect it to be packed, and am planning on wearing a mask out of caution. (The events we'll be attending will be at night as well so it'll be cooler in general, and therefore not as uncomfortable as it might be during summer; otherwise I suspect we'll be generally chilling in our rooms and doing individual ambles around town; I plan on taking all meals outdoors by default.) As my dad did recently have his bout but also then got his second booster when feasible, I'm not AS worried he'll catch it again given general reports on possible reinfection, but he's indicates he's wisely taking no chances regardless. Obviously we'll be masked on the flights up and back.

i keep worrying about my dad getting it in the hospital, but so far hasn't. i am masking around my mom at home because I keep visiting dad.

mom's recovery from surgery is progressing to the point where her oxygen levels are almost back to normal, so don't wanna fuck that up.

i sit outdoors when I can too. but quite honestly....I love being outside, so that's not a huge ask. granted, it IS stiflingly not, but most places have fans or shade or umbrellas.

SF has fully embraced the parklet/outdoor seating area model to the point where it's been fully incorporated into law/code here, so that's been a relief; numerous spots have heating options as well during cold times (which, of course being SF, can be any time of the year, depending).

I just continue to be annoyed by the prevailing sense online that the choices are "be terrified of getting COVID" or "live your life, act as if COVID didn't exist." I wear my N95 in stores and I eat outside whenever I have the option to (which is most of the time), so I'm not acting as if COVID doesn't exist, but I am also not terrified of getting COVID, I'll almost certainly be just fine when I get COVID, I just -- don't mind these minor modifications that much and in no way feel they prevent me from "living life"! I'm not single, I don't need to be in a bar where everybody can see my beautiful face.

otm

My face is beautiful enough to be visible through a mask, though.

the prevailing sense online that the choices are "be terrified of getting COVID" or "live your life, act as if COVID didn't exist."

Because the online world is basically 'flat' in terms of who can publish their opinions, the drive to frame those opinions in ways that attract the most attention promotes moving in the direction of opposing extremes, even when those extremes are transparently dysfunctional. It's how the thing is built.

I found this interesting/useful: https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/in-depth/470690/whose-breath-are-you-breathing

Ed Yong's latest

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/07/ba5-omicron-variant-covid-surge-immunity-reinfection/670485/

Using that logic, buttressed by some back-of-the-envelope calculations, some commentators have claimed that BA.5 is as transmissible as measles, making it among the most contagious viral diseases in history. But those calculations are “fully wrong,” Trevor Bedford, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, told me. Variants can spread rapidly without being any better at finding new hosts, as long as they’re better at slipping past those hosts’ immune defenses. That property—immune evasion—likely enabled BA.1 to oust Delta last winter. It might also explain why BA.5 is rising now.

glad this was called out. that Nature article bad math infuriated a lot of epis.

don't want to focus just on that, though, good article overall. just because this might not be quite like pre-vaccines, or because you got BA.1 already, doesn't mean you won't get (re)-infected and have a bad time, and it isn't going to be a great time.

I actually have done a fairly good job of rationing indoor time where possible (outside of being at the hospital with dad)

this discussion is ringing strangely from here in uk where there is almost total tacit consensus that we don’t really discuss covid and what might be done to control its spread (and nobody wears masks, anywhere, lol) despite a huge chunk of the workforce currently being off sick with it

Yeah, it's pretty weird to see non-UK people posting about big chunks of the population getting 4th jabs (Australia) or getting hold of Paxlovid (US) and meanwhile our govt/press is like "Covid doesn't exist any more even though you probably know more people than ever with it, and there's definitely no need for any further medical precautions, now shut up and watch the wacky Boris and the Tory Succession Show"

It's kind of funny to see nobody masking in the shops any more and people going back to work with no masks and no apparent need to follow any guidance more than whatever they think is a good idea in the circumstances and meanwhile we moved house last year and told ourselves we'd have a housewarming once Covid was less scary and now I'm just thinking "will I ever feel safe to invite 10+ people to cram into my living room all at once ever again?"

(ok I am a socially anxious misanthrope who hates parties so maybe the answer to that was "no" all along, but it was a nice hypothetical idea, possibly only because at the time it could only be hypothetical, and now I don't even know if or when it could be un-hypothetical)

can you host outdoor?

I wear FFP masks in shops, spacecadet, and was the only one masking at a school meeting (I did have a non-covid cold). and on buses etc. I'm still pretty relaxed about outdoors but then I avoid crowded events anyway cos I don't like mobs of ppl. I kind of forget I'm wearing one. we're the only household I know apart from our parents where no-one's had covid.

we are lucky to be able to avoid offices etc in the main - if I was going to a busy workplace every day I might feel differently.

From the Yong article:

Though previous immunity has been dialed down a few notches, since BA.5 showed up, it hasn’t disappeared entirely. “We’re seeing that new infections are disproportionately people who haven’t been infected before,” Meaghan Kall, an epidemiologist at the U.K. Health Security Agency, told me. About 70 percent of those who currently have COVID in England are first-timers, even though they account for just 15 percent of the country’s population. This clearly shows that although reinfections are a serious problem, the population still has some protection against catching even BA.5.

This is somewhat reassuring, especially coming from Yong, who I've never found hyperbolic but certainly doesn't sugarcoat things.

I don't think BA5 changes my current risk calculus (mask inside, don't eat in except for short visits to airy cafes, don't wear a mask outside unless there's a big crowd). My toddler caught covid last week and seems to be recovering, so if anything I hope I can worry about her less for a bit.

yeah and he cited Kall, who I like a lot too.

Hang on, so only 15% of England has not had Covid before? Official total cases is 19m, but I know they are loads of community survey studies going on - guess I hadn't realised the comparative figures.

As I read it, 15% of people are first-timers, so there's still another percentage who are zero-timers (i.e. have never caught it and still don't have it)

I'm actually not sure what that's trying to say. Obviously everyone isn't going to have COVID at the same time -- are they saying 15% of the entire population of England has COVID for the first time right this minute?

from the study
https://www.mrc-bsu.cam.ac.uk/blog/latest-real-time-tracking-of-covid-19-5/

Our estimates for the attack rate, that is the proportion of the regional populations who have ever been infected, is up to 84.8% nationwide, and now exceeds 80% in all regions. However, the estimated total number of infections to date (67.7m) far exceeds the size of the population of England.

So yes, they're saying 84.8% of people have had an infection at some point

15% have never been infected, but of the people currently infected (presumably chipping away at that 15%) 70% of them are first-timers

15% have never been infected, but of the people currently infected (presumably chipping away at that 15%) 70% of them are first-timers

Yeah, I got that (not being sarky) - just thought 15% was a small number of people! Thanks for the details. It certainly seems anecdotally and locally that people who have avoided it until now are now getting it. <looks around nervously> I'll go and read the full article now :)

I mean, it varies by region but we are talking about Britain, the covid island

In other "COVID is over because we say so" news, my place of employment picked this week of all weeks to quietly kill off our tracking dashboard and remove all quick links to our COVID informational pages.

The directive also came down that all COVID signage is to be taken down.

I cannot possibly imagine why we continue to get new variants.

https://st.depositphotos.com/1760261/1345/i/450/depositphotos_13450038-stock-photo-denial.jpg

oops, screwed up my tags there

handy looking evushield guide, similar to the paxlovid guide i shared a while back

https://covidsafe.fyi/evusheld/guide/

Being a shoegazer rather than a death metaller finally pays off

scene immunity not herd immunity

― avellano medio inglés (f. hazel), Wednesday, 3 June 2020 23:39 (two years ago)

Genuinely think about this blessed joke about once a week, thanking u

This sure looks like massive underreporting:

https://preview.redd.it/tj1xgicpofc91.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&auto=webp&s=549ccec87e48be8a84ba807f5c066d5934ddc687

The lack of funding for testing like what was in place before is really rotten. I count myself lucky I can do multiple PCR tests monthly per my employer but that’s a small slice of people in the city, to put it mildly.

my area's wastewater report is pretty on point, but the reporting line is... zero, due to non-reporting

I reported my own case to the county health department website but I have no clue where that number went

that said, this is here, and the curve seems relatively flattened, if bubbling
https://i.imgur.com/Ajgg67e.jpg

I've heard anecdotal conjecture in an article that says wastewater isn't collected/measured the same way at all locations and that is why sometimes it's hard for laypeople like me to interpret

Florida for instance always seems to look like it's seesawing

Yeah, the company the local farms out to is biobot, and this is their protocol: https://biobot.io/covid19-report-notes/

their calibration to determine concentration of human waste seems decent tbh, but I have no idea how many companies are doing comparable testing or how they calibrate

the newest thing I've heard, from a friend and her coworker who both tested positive in this last week and both took paxlovid:
friend is lethargic and got both the metallic taste and some nausea from paxlovid. she recently flew to a conference in Portland, Oregon and picked it up somewhere along the way
her coworker did not attend a conference and probably got it locally. took paxlovid for two days but it was giving her mega-nausea and she stopped taking it

I feel like if you're in a higher-risk group due to age, disease, or any other risk group it's worth it but I don't really regret not looking for antivirals tbh

That SF wastewater thing seems unlike anything in the rest of the US.

I have to say that science people I know are skeptical that you can clearly infer what's going on from the wastewater numbers, which are affected by a lot of things (that said, now that testing is rare, it's not clear there IS a way to clearly infer what's going on)

It's still remarkable that home tests don't come with a QR code that would make it easy to log a positive result.

they do in the UK

I think some US ones do.

however, there's a place nearby me that is free with insurance and does rapid PCR testing using a high quality rapid PCR (Accula system), and gets results within hours and reports to FL DOH, so I try to use them instead of home tests where possible so my results are counted.

if I ever test positive on a home test, I will definitely go there to get an official one logged.

btw, on my dad's saga (annoying):

so my brother (who had COVID recently, who knows if it was BA.2, BA.5, etc) went to check on Dad yesterday, using PPE as required, and he said they're saying now they think the roommate might be a false positive, but here is their (stupid) reasoning for that:

1) "hE DoEsN't hAvE aNy sYmPtOms!" - seriously, healthcare professionals saying this in 2022
2) "hE aLrEadY hAd COVID!" - ......seriously?!

so yeah, that plus the fact that I heard roommate cough the day before his positive test = I'm not assuming shit and testing myself regularly.

dad tested negative yesterday, they test him again on Thursday. mom is worried about getting it due to her recent lung surgery, though her oxygen levels are back to above 95 with no oxygen therapy, so at least she's not in the immediate aftermath of the surgery.

I avoided a party on Saturday out of caution and lol looks like it may not matter.

I filed complaints with the state health care association about how this was handled. they still haven't called us with updates - we had to call 5 times yesterday and visit in person to ask (ok, take me out of the equation, I didn't do anything because I was dealing with trying to work and dealing with the Medicaid nightmare).

are they continuing to test the roommate?

and is it PCR or antigen? it’s extremely rare for the latter to be a false positive as i’m sure you know.

if your dad is negative they should get him tf out of there no?

supposedly they don't test every day, though we requested them test OUR father every day. I'm not operating under the assumption that it's a false positive, because that seems like something the nurses say just to make it sound like we were overreacting. I have seen it happen with friends, but it's usually accurate.

as far as moving him out of there, apparently they don't have any spare individual rooms available, which is what they told mom (they called mom back while I was in a meeting to address the complaint we filed). I would just say 'bring dad home and we can wear masks and gloves while assisting him' but mom is extra nervous having just completed lung surgery and doesn't want to get it. but I feel like it'd be easier for us to deal with infection if we were all here than him there and us here.

it's hard to know what to do. I'm just mad at myself for not trying harder to force us to bring dad home after his hospital stay. Mom would literally shout, exasperated "I can't take care of him right now, and neither can you!", and get visibly upset, even when I tried to suggest "mom, we were originally planning for me to do everything myself while you recovered, it's time to let me try". and mom is the authorized decisionmaker and not me.

that isn't to say I blame her for making said decision, we did want him to get physical therapy. what doesn't help is my brother is trying to pressure mom into going in to see dad for a few minutes, I'm like - stop demanding mom expose herself to potential infection. at least with you, you had it recently enough to where you may be at less risk and you're not around us all the time to expose us.

like it's not that we don't want to see Dad, I feel terrible not going.

alright, i'm done, I'm not going to monopolize 70 threads about my folks....sorry :/

but thanks TH, believe me I'm with you on this. oi.....

dad's still testing negative, as are we, but too soon to be out of woods.

Florida wastewater, per Biobot's update this week, seems to be flat or mildly decreasing in most counties (except the one I live in, ho ho ho).

but I've noticed sometimes it looks like that one week, only to show an increase the next.

so exhausted by how high the transmission has been here. We've been at a plateau in FL for about 6-7 weeks now, at a very high level of transmission, never experiencing a decline like other states that got BA.2 outbreaks earlier.

I really hope the Omicron boosters are game-changers, starting to fear they might just be 'kicking the problem down the road a bit'.

and now what's the latest on BA2.75? is thata going to take over shortly after BA.5 did?

We've been at a plateau in FL for about 6-7 weeks now, at a very high level of transmission, never experiencing a decline like other states that got BA.2 outbreaks earlier.

Tourism.

there's that, but I think it's also due to timing. some states like NY that got BA.2 earlier than we did experienced a decrease before things plateaued due to BA.5, but I think by the time we were due to hit our drop, BA.5 had offset the BA.2 decrease to where we didn't experience one.

as of yesterday, reported cases (ha!) were actually 7% lower than the week before, but curious to see today's numbers. positivity rate hasn't really declined noticably.

Same here in MDC.

It looks like we got BA.5 instead of the earlier variants, no? We had a rather long lull b/w Jan and late April.

Anecdotally, it's all around me. Three coworkers out with it right now and I haven't had a conversation with anyone in the last two weeks that hasn't involved someone coming up positive.

More than slightly annoyed at the coworker that decided to come into the office (KN95 masked at least, thankfully) Monday and Tuesday, despite their spouse having been positive. In the least surprising development ever, they tested positive on Wednesday.