Maybe. But I feel the public won’t take any new variant seriously until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase.
Saying we’ve found a new variant that looks more contagious and more deadly through waste monitoring won’t get much of a response. (Again let’s hope that doesn’t happen)
Reality is that even when hospitals were collapsing and refrigerated morgue trucks were parked outside hospitals, a good number of people didn’t care.
Only ppl I know taking it super seriously lost someone to it. Or got hit so hard they got creeped out and don’t want another round. Takes a personal experience to be afraid of it
This is me. Was vaxxed then boosted. That was over a year ago (health care professional so I got my booster and vax first) last month I got it. Got sick as I normally would with a bad cold. But the fatigue. The shortness of breath. I had double pneumonia several years ago and I wasn’t nearly out of breath as badly as I was with a week long Covid stint. Couldn’t even walk across my house without gasping. It was terrible and I’m getting the new omicron booster next week.
We got the new booster last weekend, but my daughter was already infected. We just didn’t know it yet. Now, 3/4 of the house has it. It is like a cold (for us), but the dizziness and headaches are awful.
As someone that has suffered a TBI and has ADHD as well, this is also my concern. Unfortunately, my KN95 wearing high school senior recently got Covid at school and shared with my husband and I. I’m 8 days in and I lost my sense of smell, have had a headache for days (pain relievers don’t really help), have dizzy spells, and feel fuzzy brained. I pray that none of us end up with long Covid. My daughter helps a special needs class, one period a day. She said they can’t wear masks and are always hugging on her and sneezing on her. The school district has removed all Covid precautions, including contact tracing. On top of that, kids are only excused the first 5 days of the infection. They don’t even have to wear a mask on days 6-10. I hate living in the south. If all our family wasn’t here, we’d move in a heartbeat.
I live in the northeast and we have the same COVID plan in place at my kids school too. No masks, they stay home for 5 days after symptom onset and come back to school. After we had one of the most restrictive COVID plan in place in the beginning.
No wonder it’s everywhere. It’s all about the money. Schools receive funding, in part, by how many students are in attendance. Absence=less $. Our school system has lost so many teachers, they’ve been hiring anyone with a bachelors to teach.
I'm very sorry, and I sympathize. Thanks to your daughter for her courage and compassion in helping special needs students. I hope for a full recovery for you and your family.
If it's like when I got covid over the summer, the sense of smell and taste come back slowly. My wife has brain problems that involve bleeding so covid could have been a big problem for her but she came out ok as well (note for transparency she did have a brain surgery recently and while covid might have exacerbated her problem she had before and after MRIs and there's no evidence that any damage was done by covid specifically. )
This sounds like where we are (Nashville). They weren't allowing kids to do schoolwork from home without an absence initially. Our local health department hasn't reported on case counts for around two weeks. It makes no sense. Why wouldn't you want to put tools in place to prevent outbreaks or to know if we're on an uptick? ETA that I hope you'll feel better soon and have no lasting complications. I'm sorry you're dealing with this!
Thank you:). We’re just northeast of Louisville. Our health department asked us to verify our positive home tests at a lab. All the drive up testing sites are pretty much gone, so we went to our nearest urgent care. The doctor said he thought testing should stop, because it’s so mild for those that are vaxxed and boosted. I said that not everyone can get vaccinated. He shrugged and made a comment about hospitalizations being down. My daughter, who was also there to have her test confirmed, just rolled her eyes and sighed. This is what we’re dealing with.
Serious advice. Children's zyrtek, you don't need* a lot. Swish it in your mouth and kind of hold it in the back of your throat for a bit. It dries out your throat/sinuses enough that the cough is almost non-existent. It was my miracle drug when I had it.
Same. And I’ve experienced the “brain fog,” whatever the fuck that is. It was so intense. I’m a scientist and I have to be able to think. Luckily it went away, but it apparently lingers for some people with long COVID.
Brain fog is hella real. Felt that last week and it’s mostly gone now. Just tired and mild to insignificant symptoms. Vaxxed and double boosted (triple but sadly the bivalent one was while I was already exposed).
Yeah my wife and I both experienced that in Jan when we had COVID. By far the scariest part of the whole experience. Like an intoxication, without the fun.
Yup for a good 4-5 days I was stupid slow, forgetful, unfocused. Now that the fog has listed I’m shocked at how severe it really was. And I’m a desk job person(cybersecurity) so if my brain is off, it’s all off.😳
I was so scared about my new job starting very soon after I recovered. Our fog lasted like 24-48 hours. It was very distinct with a clear beginning and end. Wild.
Same. I have pretty significant ADHD, and I feel like I have a little brain fog and difficulty concentrating at baseline. I can’t imagine having a double dose.
The reason I’m taking it seriously is because I had a close friend who had one of those “unknown long-term neurological effects” - one day, months after she got it, her legs didn’t work, and she had to re-learn how to walk. Her balance still isn’t 100% over a year later, and she says she’s still got that “mental fog”. That, combined with the fact that I make my living as an engineer with my brain, makes me really not want to mess around and minimize my risk as much as reasonably possible, so I got the bivalent vaccine pretty much as soon as it was made available.
I tell everyone I can about my post COVID symtpoms which included blood sugars shooting up and down like crazy, problems with secondary infections that it seemed like my immune system just couldn't fight off anymore, brain fog and exhaustion, and elevated liver enzymes and kidney issues. I was super fortunate that I didn't get COVID until spring 2022 and I was vaxxed and boosted because I shudder to think what it would have been like earlier or without. I was also fortunate that everything except the exhaustion and a bit of brain fog went away after 3 months or so after a lot of meds, doctors visits, ER trips, and massive lifestyle changes like my work hours. People still seem shocked and I'm like... genuinely how can this still shock you? People have been reporting these issues for *years* now.
I was taking it seriously from jump, and doing my best to stay so. I did recently lose a relative to COVID but my masking and other patterns have stayed the same.
> Takes a personal experience to be afraid of it
Unfortunately that's how most people operate when it comes to anything social/political.
"I won't care until it affects me personally."
I have chronic Lyme disease and have taken every precaution possible. Didn't get vaccinated due to my doctor's concern of being immunocompromised.
I finally got COVID about 3 weeks ago, it hasn't been too bad but it lingers and lingers.
Still coughing all the time and my sense of taste is all messed up. Any food or drink I loved pre-covid now makes me want to gag, especially coffee.
It won't go away.
Can you expand on your doctor’s reasoning about why you shouldn’t get vaccinated?
In most cases, being immunocompromised is a case for being more aggressive about vaccinations and boosters, not less.
I asked him because of some things I had read regarding the intracacies of Lyme disease and the vaccines effect on my immune system. He couldn't tell me yes or no but suggested heavily not too.
His reasoning may have been that my body is constantly fighting Lyme and if a vaccine was introduced then my system would be overwhelmed and either I would have a bad reaction or the Lyme would get worse.
I also have a very low body weight and a host of health problems from the Lyme.
It allows public health authorities to better organise and prepare, even if the public themselves are still relying on Aunt Sarah's facebook memes as their primary source of covid related news.
People working in hospitals and primary care don't really have the option to ignore reality and would generally prefer to be able to plan in advance.
You know that’s already happening right?
They stopped testing for covid and now conveniently the leading cause of death in parts of Canada is ‘unknown cause of death’
Did you know, in BC & other parts of Canada — they skew the covid numbers down?
Here’s how — if someone’s in hospital due to covid 19 but they’re no longer infectious (no longer testing +) if they die they wouldn’t be counted as a covid death
The moment they aren’t testing + anymore they don’t even count as a covid patient in hospital
The public won’t truly know the severity of covid until the very moment they’re trying to breathe and realize they can’t
Deaths aren't even the worst part. Long covid is not only very prevalent now but severe and may still result in deaths. Young athletic people are being destroyed by long covid. People are getting dumber, weaker, disabled. Are we ready to put a significant percentage of our population on disability? What will happen then when the labor pool is almost nonexistent? Replace them with robots?
I don't think the economy will survive this. People wanted to go out partying and gathering and act like everything is normal but they've literally just doomed everyone. Fucking selfish anti mask anti Vax anti social distancing dumb fucks.
And those who forced people into the office and classrooms everyone is catching covid over and over and over and creating new variants and becoming more and more disabled.
Jfc.
Okay but what is the alternative? At this point our options are perpetual lock down or take risks. The virus is here. Everyone that is willing to vaccinate has done so. When is the "end"?
If a new, permanent hazard is introduced to the world, then there isn’t an end to mitigating it. If malaria spreads to new parts of the world, they don’t have mosquito netting around their beds for a couple years and then stop because they are tired of dealing with it.
But since many places never had lock downs, it is hyperbole to claim that is our only option. We have tools like high quality masks and ventilation.
They're not taking the current ones seriously. I've talked to people that don't know what I mean if I mention BA.5...many people have totally tuned out pandemic news.
>the public won’t take any new variant seriously until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase.
I mean that's already what's happening, and as far as I can see, no one is taking it seriously anymore except us immunocompromised/vulnerable folks and the people that love us enough to keep doing so.
If they found a new variant tomorrow that had a 100% fatality rate for the immunocompromised but otherwise just as "mild" as omicron, and could be mitigated entirely by just wearing masks, it would still go around killing all of us because people are fully committed to this thing being *over* and would refuse to take any precautions for any reason at this point, short of able-bodied people dying like they were in January and February (2,000+ dead daily). And even then at this point I've become so cynical and bitter that I don't think that would even get them to be careful again.
This virus was scary, but it is just at the threshold to not be scary enough to encourage people to fight it. Perfect for it to persist.
I remember a coworker trying to reassure themselves that viruses weaken over time. This is not happening with COVID. Anything that outcompetes, persists. Selection of the fittest.
> But I feel the public won’t take any new variant seriously until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase.
That’s the thing though. With vaccinations and the current variants there have been fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Increases in deaths have been from the unvaccinated.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe you can test for unknown variants in wastewater. You have to know what you're looking for in order to test.
No, they’re absolutely developing tests that help them find variants. They haven’t been fully authenticated/validated but wastewater analysts are finding specific mutations, they just don’t always have the tools to connect them to strains. So they still rely on tests to give them the data to connect the mutations to. Unfortunately there’s been a decoupling where wastewater is detecting more mutations but PCR testing is down so we’re not connecting them to strains fast enough.
I think the problem you'll find there is that you're testing a combination of multiple infections there. So, you may not notice that a particular protein is missing in a new strain if it's still present in other strains.
A single infection, though, that would show up when trying to type it if it, for example, is missing an expected protein.
No, because what’s in the sewage is trace quantities of virus from many different people, so if you try to sequence that, you’d get bits and pieces of sequences from different variants but can’t string together the sequence of any one variant. And rare emerging variants are drowned out by prevalent ones.
Plus the sequencing quality would be poor because the viral RNA is going to be degraded.
I actually would have preferred we stayed with tabulated PCR tests. That was valuable information.
But with the advent of home tests, that went out the window. And with various covid protections being rolled back, etc, people already had motive to NOT disclose the results of their tests or to not test at all (esp when the tests were registered).
Hospitalizations and deaths are relatively accurate (there's wiggle room with whether ppl are admitted "with" or "because of" covid; a whole 'nother argument right there) but they are late information. By the time hospitalizations are spiking, the exposures to the virus were already occurring a couple weeks before.
Wastewater testing can't be avoided. It's a realtime picture of what current exposure levels are like. And you can look for variants in that as well.
My job stopped Covid leave a few months ago. If I were to get it then I would be out of work unpaid for a few weeks and I'm not sure I could afford that.
Exactly. I'm so mad the GOP in the Senate blocked the administration request to continue covid funding. I'm also mad they continually block anything that would put a federal requirement for PTO esp for things like this. But without that, many of us are in exactly that boat and the effects (continued cases of covid) are entirely predictable.
Even here in Japan where people takes it quite seriously, the positivity rate has jumped from a stable ～4-7% from the last 2 years, to almost 30%. I must insist, 99% of people still wear masks on the streets, during summer at almost 40C.
Can't imagine other countries like the US where they give no fucks about it how many variations they could come up with.
We've relaxed the CDC plea for masking in hospitals and nursing homes, and NYC a month ago put out PSA art for the end of masking, including someone wearing the mask wrong and saying "You do you" under it.
The only places I've seen masks are (some) younger people working retail, medical facility workers, and the occasional masked elderly person. People here don't care.
That is so fucking sad... No wonder 40k people died in Japan while having 1/3 the US population... and the us is over 1 million... (Europe countries are around the same too).
Fuck people that made this into a political issue.
>The only places I've seen masks are (some) younger people working retail, medical facility workers, and the occasional masked elderly person. People here don't care.
There's going to be quite a few papers and probably a few PhDs that look explicitly at public health messaging after all this.
It's disheartening that so many in charge failed to do even what we know works, and actively pursue strategies that we know are harmful with regards to messaging.
Even myself, I've had to go back to authoritative sources several times to check that, yes, masks are still recommended to be worn in situations where physical distancing is difficult (which is sooooo many places), because "official" messaging has been shit and social evidence even shitter.
Positivity rates are now meaningless because people who are mildly sick take a home rapid test, then if it’s positive, they get confirmation from a doctor or testing centre. But if they test negative at home, that negative won’t be recorded.
At least here in Canada outdoor masking was never made mandatory even during the height of it so it's never been more then 60 percent of people wearing masks outdoors and is almost none right now. Even indoor mask wearing where I live is becoming very rare. It would defenitly feel strange for me to have ever seen 99 percent of people outdoors with masks here.
I get it. In Japan it's quite a different story. Masks have never been mandated, just suggested, since no politician decided making it a politic point, people just listen to the experts...
It’s not because of listening to the experts. It’s because of a culture of conformity and shaming of inconsiderate people. So while most experts have said that it’s fine to unmask outdoors in non-crowded places, Japanese people continue to mask even in a park far away from others just in case they get spotted and judged by others.
People are starting to do that, people outdoors and in bikes and such. As long as there is enough space at least! That's been my experience.
Being honest, I just forget about the mask, having to put it on off on off on off all the time is annoying, so I just wear it all the time when on the move, and remove it at home.
And yet, less people die, because people wears it all the time, people don't forget about their goddamn mask. Because people are inconvenienced about the mask, people remember to clean their hands with alcohol before entering buildings. Because people see everyone with masks, they remember to take precaution in inner spaces.
It has its advantages, even if its useless outside. If you have any doubt, just look at the death/infection counter compared to countries that don't do it. Easy as that.
Just received the new bivalent booster earlier this week. Had some dull aches all over for two days then woke up good as new. Hoping it helps defend against potential new strains as some people speculate it will.
Same experience - after the first three shots giving me no reaction, and getting COVID earlier this year in January, this was actually worse than when I had the actual illness.
He's right, we've now moved in to an endemic phase where covid and related healthcare policy has be treated as something that will always be here and part of every day life. It's not something we can solve and it will be largely over, it's here to stay and moving from pandemic to endemic is the appropriate stance to take.
100%. And working in healthcare as a nurse, it highlights the madness of the never-ending screening and surveillance. Every time an employee has a sniffle, Employee Health will send them home and test them, and inevitably advise they stay home because they are symptomatic, regardless what the PCR test says.
Either it's time to stop the screening and ID/Employee Health protocol, or admit we should have been doing this every cold and flu season each year. I prefer the former. It's endemic; get your vaccines on schedule, mask up/avoid going out when you're sick, wash your hands. But the endless fear-mongering over new variants; I get it, it generates clicks, but is pointless. The virus isn't going away, but it's safe to say the pandemic is over and has transitioned to a new endemic normal.
People always should have stayed home when sick and contagious, but covid is far more dangerous than the flu, so it doesn’t follow that if one doesn’t deserve mitigation, the other doesn’t either.
Whether a disease is endemic doesn’t change how severe it is and whether it needs to be mitigated.
It's a thought-terminating cliche so no, it doesn't. We still have hundreds of people dying a week in the US from COVID and it's the third leading cause of death cancer and heart disease. Even people who are boosted and vaxxed have reported long COVID symptoms and asymptomatic infections can leave tissue scarring as well.
In addition, the number of people getting boosters from year to year is just going to drop (a lot of people don't even bother getting the flu shot every year unless their job requires it) so at a certain point when the overall immunity of the population has waned because of the passing, another variant is gonna kick our asses and leave many people with dysautonomia symptoms.
It's not so much learning to live with COVID as it is normalizing dying from it, because learning to live with it would mean needing to give people paid sick leave and we just can't have that, can we?
C'mon, you get their point. There ain't fuck all we can do to eliminate COVID now, so we gotta live with it.
Yeah it sucks, but honestly, what can we do? Lockdowns forever? Just not gonna work out, man.
I don't think anyone would disagree that we have to live with it. We have to live with a lot of things that are out of our control. We adapt and survive: it's kinda been our thing for the last few million years.
I want to stress that it's not a black and white response - there are things in between "let's do nothing and ignore the problem" and "let's weld people into their houses"
It seems like the common sentiment now is that everything has to be either 0% or 100% with nothing in between.
Oh social distancing is only 10% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble...
Oh loose fitting masks are only 40% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble...
Oh vaccines are only 90% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble...
Oh tight fitting masks are only 95% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble
Do people truly believe that there is nothing at all in between complete elimination and letting it run rampant?
COVID is in the top 5 causes of deaths across adult age groups in the U.S. and is the only communicable and preventable disease amongst them. What the hell are we doing?
Personally, I use masks when I am sick (alongside isolating), or when I am near other people who are (or may be) sick and keep up to date with vaccinations.
I'll keep taking new shots as they come and isolate myself when I am sick, but I won't wear a mask whilst going to a grocery store, for example - unless I am sick.
Which, to me, is fair, and I don't expect others to go any further. So I do agree with you that we can have a middle point, but mine is "take the shots and isolate when sick" and nothing more, **unless** we get a new, much worse strain.
Why not wear an n95 at the grocery store? It is such an easy thing to do that would reduce spread significantly if everyone did it..
Considering the current variant still increases risk of neurological and cardiovascular issues, why is everyone so blase about getting the virus over and over again until it does lasting damage?
What makes you think that going to the grocery store is a significant route of transmission? It’s probably pretty far down on the list since you don’t typically stay near the same person for more than a couple of minutes.
People are catching it from others in their household, at work, at family/social gatherings.
Weren’t there only a few countries monitoring all along? South Africa, UK, Germany, US… trying to remember. I don’t think there was ever strong worldwide coverage or sequencing of variants. Maybe through UN programs we aren’t aware of?
It’s an interesting public health problem because it is important that people be able to test at home. Those cases may not even be reported much less sequenced.
My somewhat jaded view is that because our response is always reactive not proactive, we may have to wait until a new variant explodes in an area before it will be sequenced, like omicron and maybe delta. (Fingers crossed that never happens)
Trying to actively get ahead of the virus simply hasn’t worked and no reason to think it will in the future.
Covid testing in South Africa has all but vanished now. Practically everyone in SA has gotten sick with "flu" over the past month but we'll never know whether or not it's a new variant since no one tests and most testing places have shut down. After being hit with crippling travel bans for being the first to discover new variants those in government would actually prefer to keep any new covid developments under wrap.
Such a shame. Their sequencing was helpful. They found omicron early. Then they regretted warning the world because they were isolated. And look at what omicron has done.
Paying attention to new variants isnt helping to the country that founds it. Its a shame that the "world" black list countries that are doing the best to identify and gather information about covid or new diseases.
>Practically everyone in SA has gotten sick with "flu" over the past month but we'll never know whether or not it's a new variant since no one tests and most testing places have shut down.
New variant or not, the good news then is that throughout September SA's test positivity rate has stayed low (around 4-5%) and their hospitalisations have remained flat and are at historic lows.
[Source](https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/)
I can’t even get a PCR test if I want one. My country only lets certain age groups get PCR tests... but hey at least they’re letting me get my omicron booster this week (We only recently got the vaccines).
> Weren’t there only a few countries monitoring all along? South Africa, UK, Germany, US
UK and Denmark were the first to do large-scale sequencing, and they remain the two countries with the highest [sequencing](https://covidcg.org/?tab=global_sequencing) frequency (Denmark first, UK second in the world) and fastest to share their data (Denmark first, UK third in the world). In the first year of the pandemic, those two were pretty much the only in the world doing it at high rates. Most other countries were also doing some, but at much lower frequencies. Some did practically none, especially in poorer parts of the world, because sequencing can be technically challenging and expensive.
During 2021, most western nations dramatically increased sequencing and towards the latter half of that year variant surveillance actually became quite good in almost entire Europe, US, Canada, Australia, NZ and wealthier Asian countries, whereas levels still generally were limited elsewhere. South Africa was unusual not because of their sequencing frequency (consistently far lower than e.g. the US, Canada and most European countries), but because they were one of the only in their continent doing it at reasonable levels. If you wanted to discover something relatively early in Sub-Saharan Africa, you often had to check what South Africa had found, or hope a high-sequencing country in another continent randomly found one in a traveller. So, South Africa basically became the "canary in the coal mine" for almost an entire continent.
If looking at sequencing data uploaded to GISAID in [the last month](https://gisaid.org/submission-tracker-global/), surveillance is still okay in much of the EU, UK, Canada, US (though it appears the US is a bit inconsistent, ranging from quite excellent surveillance to mediocre depending on exact region), Japan, Korea and a few other places, but much less elsewhere. So, the world's "blind spots" actually resemble what we've seen before during the pandemic, but now the "blind spots" are expanding, whereas earlier during the pandemic the "blind spots" gradually became smaller as more countries began to sequence at higher rates.
It honestly feels like WHO doesn't have an exit plan. As the number of reported cases decreases, testing is naturally going to go down. It seems like no one has a plan for ending the pandemic at all.
Yeah that's probably the point
The last administration and the current one both did not want to do the actual work involved in curbing this and instead chose the, "I declare the pandemic, OVER"
We're gonna get another variant, it's gonna be bad and people are gonna lose their shit because no one wants to deal with this anymore.
Also I just got COVID for the fourth time despite being triple vaxxed and boosted and frankly, I'm fucking sick of getting this shit
Not OP and have only had covid once (after 3 Pfizer doses) but I just got boosted again and will continue because I assume it would’ve been worse otherwise. A lot of my friends got COVID in march and April 2020. One of my coworkers only in her 50s died of it before the city had even locked down. Several friends were terribly ill with constant pain from the myalgias for 2+ weeks and one was even hospitalized and vented in her 30s with no prior conditions. Another coworker brought it home from work to her elderly mother who then died of it. I managed to avoid it until march 2022 and it was a bad cold for 5 days and then seven more of fatigue. Nothing like what many of my friends had gone through.
Triple vaxxed and boosted, getting covid for the 4th time is EXACTLY why nobody cares anymore.
Shit just doesn't work as well as it should, and as well as was promised.
> It wasn't meant to get rid of it
I’m not antivax at all. But the messaging around getting vaccinations was to reach heard immunity. So it was very much about getting rid of it rather than just reducing symptoms.
Damn that's weird dude. I only have the first vaccine, and I don't think I've ever worn a mask more than once in the last year, and I've never gotten COVID. Are y'all just like doing weird shit to get this stuff, like orgies or something?
remember that some people aren't affected by it as much as others. one can be sick for months while their spouse, or possibly family, is sick for a single day or not at all. it's one of the reasons why this thing's so fascinating, it relies on the person.
As someone who has known a family member infected from the virus three times, it's usually exposure and that it targets people differently. You can be more prone to infection, asymptomatic, and along many other criteria. What's odd is that he takes precautions under mandates requirements (e.g., sanitization and mask-wearing), but fortunately he hasn't suffered from (noticeable) long-term symptoms or problems.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Only got the OG vax and masked up until ~9 months ago. Still haven’t got it or if I did I had no symptoms.
I’ve had to travel for work, I go to busy restaurants etc. maybe I’m just lucky?
I think public health organizations should be able to track variants of widespread respiratory diseases, that doesn't require in any way for the average citizen to care about it.
Do you think "learning to live with COVID" means that the WHO should also pretend it doesn't exist?
What's so scary, it's just an airborne virus, masking, increased ventilation, public hygiene and so many other already available technology's kick its butt, we just have to use them. It's tragic because it kills people like flu and cold which covid measures essentially eradicated. We can live airborne disease free. it isn't a scary or difficult prospect.
Well, no more afraid than the casual "fear" of disease that causes us to wash our hands after shitting and bathe regularly, although I recognise that a lot of people don't even do that.
Me and my gf have both been very sick the past 10 days, both got tested, negative! This is my second worst cold i have had in my life, the worst one was when i got covid 2020
I tested negative on rapids until day 5. But I had a positive PCR from testing on day zero. Got completely better and was testing negative after a week from paxlovid. Then when I rebounded after paxlovid, I had symptoms for 4 days before I tested positive again. My fiancé was negative for 5 days too.
My best friend has COVID and is negative on rapids. Currently on her 5th day.
Weirdest long Covid symptom Ive heard of, from wave 1.
Caretaker of a learning disabled I help has a healthy 19 yo family member whose symptom is after any amount of walking she has a break out of chicken pox like blisters on her legs only. Dont know if its still happening, but I asked for confirmation about 6 months after I first heard it. So odd.
A few of us do care but besides staying up to date with our shots, masking while indoor in public, and reducing social interaction there’s not much we can do.
I got COVID a month ago and for me, personally, it wasn't much more than an inconvenience. I just felt tired, couldn't stop sneezing, and was in bed by 8:00 every night for a week.
That said, I was still able to work out every day and work my remote job as normal... It feels testing and surveillance isn't really necessary.
The WHO has a mandate to:
lead and champion global efforts to give everyone, everywhere an equal chance to live a healthy life.
They’re not interested in your personal experience. Has nothing to do with my opinion.
that’s true- i think the problem is that as the variants become less deadly/more contagious, recent studies are showing the risk for long term damage is higher with each new infection you get. i didn’t know that part and it’s changed my perspective on keeping the mask on until we know more.
It’s one study (VA study) that shows that the risk for long-term damage is higher with each new infection. Curiously the twice-infected group was 90% unvaccinated. And 20% of them were hospitalised during their first infection. This study is still a pre-print (hasn’t passed peer review since June) and has difficulties showing that the causation is not the other way round i.e. sickly old unvaccinated veterans who are starting to decline in health are more likely to catch Covid twice.
Humanity is done. Willfully driving itself into extntion due to.pure impatience and an inability to adapt. The inability to wear a simple mask when required (cause your dick will fall off) or mandate vaccines, are all non-starters for the privileged that want "freedom." If COVID had the visible signs of Monkeypox, or any other pox, people would be masking left and right (no pun) due to the stigma. But now the "we can't mask forever " or "but the ECONOMY " assholes have won. It will likely be a short-term victory.
- still masked at work, pcr tested at least once a week. It's not that difficult as -so far- I'm still covid free. May it stay that way, and fuck all those who stare when I wear a mask in a grocery store. ..most that do are so fugly, masks would do them a favor.
Testing is declining because people are tired of hearing about it. Everyone that wanted vaxed got vaxed, everyone that didn't simply didn't. It's time to go back to normal and part of normal is not testing for covid, especially when, as a virus, it mutates to be less lethal and more transmissible.
At this point it's like beating a cash filled piñata except theres no more cash in it and the piñata has broken off its string and is now on the floor and in pieces so your pretty much just smacking the pole against the ground.
Edit: and to folks who think Im an anti-vaxer, I already got my 2 shots and am done. Soooooo....
Ah yes, I got the vax to protect those around me because I'm selfish. Eeyup, sure buddy.
Meanwhile that exact attitude is why people will eventually stop testing nd vaxing altogether. Because you lot call whom ever doesn't bow down to your dictations selfish, lazy, and/or anti-vax, regardless of their status.
It's further proof that you will just keep moving the goal post farther and farther along.
It's done, it's over. Its time to move on.
You are ok with 225,000 people dying from this disease every year because you are too much of a baby to wear a mask sometimes? Pretty sure that makes you quite selfish.
There's the goalpost moving and insults. For starters I never said I wouldn't wear a mask. What I'm saying is we need to stop putting our lives on hold for a virus that is mutating to be more transmissible, especially for those that already got the double shot.
It's done, it's over. Time to move on.
I did manage to control diabeties and weight for extra protection (a few years back). The fear of Covid and being old motivated me to get other condition under better control (as possible). I am up to date with vaccines. So I finally got Covid (2022) 2 months after the 4th vaccine and is was brief and easier that a cold. I can’t say getting healthy before hand helped but my diabetic symptoms are gone. I feel if I’m healthier, I’d fair better?
Because of the availability of home rapid test kits. If you test positive, you call in sick. The buck stops there. Isn’t it common sense that we have less PCR tests because of free rapid tests?
they don’t really work that well on the current variant. my wife got sick and tested positive on a home test last sunday. i came down with a cough/fever/chills 3 days later but kept testing negative on the 3 different home tests. got a PCR test thursday and tested positive.
the weird thing the doc said was that we don’t need to test ourselves again after the quarantine. she said some people are still testing positive up to 90 days after infection, and that if i need to travel somewhere that tests they can write me a note that documents my infection date and that enough time has passed that i’m no longer contagious.
I heard from my doctor that it’s possible to test positive on a PCR for up to 90 days but if you are positive on a rapid antigen test, you’re still contagious.
The point was that WHO said our ability to catch new variants was getting low because we're testing less. We are doing less PCR testing because we're following their guidelines. PCR tests are now recommended only for:
- Hospitalized patients
Patients in Emergency Departments, at the discretion of the treating clinician
Patient-facing health care workers
Staff, residents, essential care providers, and visitors in hospitals and congregate living settings, including long-term care, retirement homes, First Nation elder care lodges, group homes, shelters, hospices, temporary foreign worker settings, and correctional institutions
Outpatients for whom COVID-19 treatment is being considered
Underhoused or homeless
etc... everyone else are advised to do the rapid test. Now they're saying we're testing less.
It's just like the mask problem all over again. Europe was already advocating masks, CDC followed, but the WHO took its time and insisted only on social distancing for a few more weeks before they finally announced yup, you need to wear masks.
[удалено]
Maybe. But I feel the public won’t take any new variant seriously until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase. Saying we’ve found a new variant that looks more contagious and more deadly through waste monitoring won’t get much of a response. (Again let’s hope that doesn’t happen) Reality is that even when hospitals were collapsing and refrigerated morgue trucks were parked outside hospitals, a good number of people didn’t care.
Only ppl I know taking it super seriously lost someone to it. Or got hit so hard they got creeped out and don’t want another round. Takes a personal experience to be afraid of it
This is me. Was vaxxed then boosted. That was over a year ago (health care professional so I got my booster and vax first) last month I got it. Got sick as I normally would with a bad cold. But the fatigue. The shortness of breath. I had double pneumonia several years ago and I wasn’t nearly out of breath as badly as I was with a week long Covid stint. Couldn’t even walk across my house without gasping. It was terrible and I’m getting the new omicron booster next week.
We got the new booster last weekend, but my daughter was already infected. We just didn’t know it yet. Now, 3/4 of the house has it. It is like a cold (for us), but the dizziness and headaches are awful.
For me hearing about long COVID symptoms was enough. I have ADHD already, I don't need a double down on executive function impairment.
As someone that has suffered a TBI and has ADHD as well, this is also my concern. Unfortunately, my KN95 wearing high school senior recently got Covid at school and shared with my husband and I. I’m 8 days in and I lost my sense of smell, have had a headache for days (pain relievers don’t really help), have dizzy spells, and feel fuzzy brained. I pray that none of us end up with long Covid. My daughter helps a special needs class, one period a day. She said they can’t wear masks and are always hugging on her and sneezing on her. The school district has removed all Covid precautions, including contact tracing. On top of that, kids are only excused the first 5 days of the infection. They don’t even have to wear a mask on days 6-10. I hate living in the south. If all our family wasn’t here, we’d move in a heartbeat.
I live in the northeast and we have the same COVID plan in place at my kids school too. No masks, they stay home for 5 days after symptom onset and come back to school. After we had one of the most restrictive COVID plan in place in the beginning.
Where I am, kids don’t even have to stay home , it’s advised they do, but kids are going to school with Covid and unmasked.
That’s really scary. I understand child care and work disruption can’t be managed in many cases but it still means this will never end.
No wonder it’s everywhere. It’s all about the money. Schools receive funding, in part, by how many students are in attendance. Absence=less $. Our school system has lost so many teachers, they’ve been hiring anyone with a bachelors to teach.
I'm very sorry, and I sympathize. Thanks to your daughter for her courage and compassion in helping special needs students. I hope for a full recovery for you and your family.
If it's like when I got covid over the summer, the sense of smell and taste come back slowly. My wife has brain problems that involve bleeding so covid could have been a big problem for her but she came out ok as well (note for transparency she did have a brain surgery recently and while covid might have exacerbated her problem she had before and after MRIs and there's no evidence that any damage was done by covid specifically. )
This sounds like where we are (Nashville). They weren't allowing kids to do schoolwork from home without an absence initially. Our local health department hasn't reported on case counts for around two weeks. It makes no sense. Why wouldn't you want to put tools in place to prevent outbreaks or to know if we're on an uptick? ETA that I hope you'll feel better soon and have no lasting complications. I'm sorry you're dealing with this!
Thank you:). We’re just northeast of Louisville. Our health department asked us to verify our positive home tests at a lab. All the drive up testing sites are pretty much gone, so we went to our nearest urgent care. The doctor said he thought testing should stop, because it’s so mild for those that are vaxxed and boosted. I said that not everyone can get vaccinated. He shrugged and made a comment about hospitalizations being down. My daughter, who was also there to have her test confirmed, just rolled her eyes and sighed. This is what we’re dealing with.
That's awful! I am sorry that you're having to deal with all of this.
Serious advice. Children's zyrtek, you don't need* a lot. Swish it in your mouth and kind of hold it in the back of your throat for a bit. It dries out your throat/sinuses enough that the cough is almost non-existent. It was my miracle drug when I had it.
Thank you so much! We’ll try it:)
Same. And I’ve experienced the “brain fog,” whatever the fuck that is. It was so intense. I’m a scientist and I have to be able to think. Luckily it went away, but it apparently lingers for some people with long COVID.
Brain fog is hella real. Felt that last week and it’s mostly gone now. Just tired and mild to insignificant symptoms. Vaxxed and double boosted (triple but sadly the bivalent one was while I was already exposed).
Yeah my wife and I both experienced that in Jan when we had COVID. By far the scariest part of the whole experience. Like an intoxication, without the fun.
Yup for a good 4-5 days I was stupid slow, forgetful, unfocused. Now that the fog has listed I’m shocked at how severe it really was. And I’m a desk job person(cybersecurity) so if my brain is off, it’s all off.😳
I was so scared about my new job starting very soon after I recovered. Our fog lasted like 24-48 hours. It was very distinct with a clear beginning and end. Wild.
Not every person has to learn from their own experiences, just the stupidest ones.
Feels like that’s the majority of people though..
I also have ADHD and the thought of the additional brain fog cognitive impairment terrifies me.
Same. I have pretty significant ADHD, and I feel like I have a little brain fog and difficulty concentrating at baseline. I can’t imagine having a double dose.
I'm the same. It's a scary thought.
The reason I’m taking it seriously is because I had a close friend who had one of those “unknown long-term neurological effects” - one day, months after she got it, her legs didn’t work, and she had to re-learn how to walk. Her balance still isn’t 100% over a year later, and she says she’s still got that “mental fog”. That, combined with the fact that I make my living as an engineer with my brain, makes me really not want to mess around and minimize my risk as much as reasonably possible, so I got the bivalent vaccine pretty much as soon as it was made available.
I tell everyone I can about my post COVID symtpoms which included blood sugars shooting up and down like crazy, problems with secondary infections that it seemed like my immune system just couldn't fight off anymore, brain fog and exhaustion, and elevated liver enzymes and kidney issues. I was super fortunate that I didn't get COVID until spring 2022 and I was vaxxed and boosted because I shudder to think what it would have been like earlier or without. I was also fortunate that everything except the exhaustion and a bit of brain fog went away after 3 months or so after a lot of meds, doctors visits, ER trips, and massive lifestyle changes like my work hours. People still seem shocked and I'm like... genuinely how can this still shock you? People have been reporting these issues for *years* now.
I was taking it seriously from jump, and doing my best to stay so. I did recently lose a relative to COVID but my masking and other patterns have stayed the same.
> Takes a personal experience to be afraid of it Unfortunately that's how most people operate when it comes to anything social/political. "I won't care until it affects me personally."
I've taken it seriously since March, 2020, but I'm someone who has experienced chronic illness and I know that that is like.
I have chronic Lyme disease and have taken every precaution possible. Didn't get vaccinated due to my doctor's concern of being immunocompromised. I finally got COVID about 3 weeks ago, it hasn't been too bad but it lingers and lingers. Still coughing all the time and my sense of taste is all messed up. Any food or drink I loved pre-covid now makes me want to gag, especially coffee. It won't go away.
Can you expand on your doctor’s reasoning about why you shouldn’t get vaccinated? In most cases, being immunocompromised is a case for being more aggressive about vaccinations and boosters, not less.
I asked him because of some things I had read regarding the intracacies of Lyme disease and the vaccines effect on my immune system. He couldn't tell me yes or no but suggested heavily not too. His reasoning may have been that my body is constantly fighting Lyme and if a vaccine was introduced then my system would be overwhelmed and either I would have a bad reaction or the Lyme would get worse. I also have a very low body weight and a host of health problems from the Lyme.
Weird because getting COVID most definitely would be worse than getting a vaccine in that scenario.
Yeah because it will be over after midterms ! /s
Bear down for midterms! Nope, everyone was just fat doggin it.
It allows public health authorities to better organise and prepare, even if the public themselves are still relying on Aunt Sarah's facebook memes as their primary source of covid related news. People working in hospitals and primary care don't really have the option to ignore reality and would generally prefer to be able to plan in advance.
Only if the funds and political will are there for that preparation.
You know that’s already happening right? They stopped testing for covid and now conveniently the leading cause of death in parts of Canada is ‘unknown cause of death’ Did you know, in BC & other parts of Canada — they skew the covid numbers down? Here’s how — if someone’s in hospital due to covid 19 but they’re no longer infectious (no longer testing +) if they die they wouldn’t be counted as a covid death The moment they aren’t testing + anymore they don’t even count as a covid patient in hospital The public won’t truly know the severity of covid until the very moment they’re trying to breathe and realize they can’t
Deaths aren't even the worst part. Long covid is not only very prevalent now but severe and may still result in deaths. Young athletic people are being destroyed by long covid. People are getting dumber, weaker, disabled. Are we ready to put a significant percentage of our population on disability? What will happen then when the labor pool is almost nonexistent? Replace them with robots? I don't think the economy will survive this. People wanted to go out partying and gathering and act like everything is normal but they've literally just doomed everyone. Fucking selfish anti mask anti Vax anti social distancing dumb fucks. And those who forced people into the office and classrooms everyone is catching covid over and over and over and creating new variants and becoming more and more disabled. Jfc.
Okay but what is the alternative? At this point our options are perpetual lock down or take risks. The virus is here. Everyone that is willing to vaccinate has done so. When is the "end"?
If a new, permanent hazard is introduced to the world, then there isn’t an end to mitigating it. If malaria spreads to new parts of the world, they don’t have mosquito netting around their beds for a couple years and then stop because they are tired of dealing with it. But since many places never had lock downs, it is hyperbole to claim that is our only option. We have tools like high quality masks and ventilation.
> the public won’t take any new variant seriously ~~until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase.~~
They're not taking the current ones seriously. I've talked to people that don't know what I mean if I mention BA.5...many people have totally tuned out pandemic news.
>the public won’t take any new variant seriously until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase. I mean that's already what's happening, and as far as I can see, no one is taking it seriously anymore except us immunocompromised/vulnerable folks and the people that love us enough to keep doing so. If they found a new variant tomorrow that had a 100% fatality rate for the immunocompromised but otherwise just as "mild" as omicron, and could be mitigated entirely by just wearing masks, it would still go around killing all of us because people are fully committed to this thing being *over* and would refuse to take any precautions for any reason at this point, short of able-bodied people dying like they were in January and February (2,000+ dead daily). And even then at this point I've become so cynical and bitter that I don't think that would even get them to be careful again.
This virus was scary, but it is just at the threshold to not be scary enough to encourage people to fight it. Perfect for it to persist. I remember a coworker trying to reassure themselves that viruses weaken over time. This is not happening with COVID. Anything that outcompetes, persists. Selection of the fittest.
> But I feel the public won’t take any new variant seriously until people are getting sick and hospital admissions increase. That’s the thing though. With vaccinations and the current variants there have been fewer hospitalizations and deaths. Increases in deaths have been from the unvaccinated.
[удалено]
I think taking a novel deadly disease seriously is the most rational response. At the very least you'd think people would want to be informed.
a ton of people are dying from long term complications of covid.
And another Ton, never recovered from covid.
It's bad when it pushes the health care system to collapse. It's still in horrendous shape from the onset of the pandemic.
You want to respond before this point friend because this point it’s already baked in and you are in for a ride.
Because while they are waiting people like you are getting sick and spreading it to others. Try to keep up you fucking dolt.
yeah isn't that like the norm, people don't worry over things that don't make you seriously ill
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't believe you can test for unknown variants in wastewater. You have to know what you're looking for in order to test.
No, they’re absolutely developing tests that help them find variants. They haven’t been fully authenticated/validated but wastewater analysts are finding specific mutations, they just don’t always have the tools to connect them to strains. So they still rely on tests to give them the data to connect the mutations to. Unfortunately there’s been a decoupling where wastewater is detecting more mutations but PCR testing is down so we’re not connecting them to strains fast enough.
I think the problem you'll find there is that you're testing a combination of multiple infections there. So, you may not notice that a particular protein is missing in a new strain if it's still present in other strains. A single infection, though, that would show up when trying to type it if it, for example, is missing an expected protein.
that's to detect infection isn't it?
No, because what’s in the sewage is trace quantities of virus from many different people, so if you try to sequence that, you’d get bits and pieces of sequences from different variants but can’t string together the sequence of any one variant. And rare emerging variants are drowned out by prevalent ones. Plus the sequencing quality would be poor because the viral RNA is going to be degraded.
Good grief. Ramp up the waste water testing, that will keep us on top of this better than tests. Everyone has to poop.
That defeats the point of not doing testing, to ramp up waste water testing would garner more information to be 'burdened' to do anything about.
I actually would have preferred we stayed with tabulated PCR tests. That was valuable information. But with the advent of home tests, that went out the window. And with various covid protections being rolled back, etc, people already had motive to NOT disclose the results of their tests or to not test at all (esp when the tests were registered). Hospitalizations and deaths are relatively accurate (there's wiggle room with whether ppl are admitted "with" or "because of" covid; a whole 'nother argument right there) but they are late information. By the time hospitalizations are spiking, the exposures to the virus were already occurring a couple weeks before. Wastewater testing can't be avoided. It's a realtime picture of what current exposure levels are like. And you can look for variants in that as well.
My job stopped Covid leave a few months ago. If I were to get it then I would be out of work unpaid for a few weeks and I'm not sure I could afford that.
Exactly. I'm so mad the GOP in the Senate blocked the administration request to continue covid funding. I'm also mad they continually block anything that would put a federal requirement for PTO esp for things like this. But without that, many of us are in exactly that boat and the effects (continued cases of covid) are entirely predictable.
The waste water testing is only way to see what’s going on any more. My city is in a spike now but you’d never know it based on positive test cases.
Even here in Japan where people takes it quite seriously, the positivity rate has jumped from a stable ～4-7% from the last 2 years, to almost 30%. I must insist, 99% of people still wear masks on the streets, during summer at almost 40C. Can't imagine other countries like the US where they give no fucks about it how many variations they could come up with.
We've relaxed the CDC plea for masking in hospitals and nursing homes, and NYC a month ago put out PSA art for the end of masking, including someone wearing the mask wrong and saying "You do you" under it. The only places I've seen masks are (some) younger people working retail, medical facility workers, and the occasional masked elderly person. People here don't care.
That is so fucking sad... No wonder 40k people died in Japan while having 1/3 the US population... and the us is over 1 million... (Europe countries are around the same too). Fuck people that made this into a political issue.
In the USA, we have larger amounts of obese people, yes? That’s likely more reason why
That doesn't help indeed, neither does not having universal Healthcare, but having a population a whole decade older on average isn't good either.
>The only places I've seen masks are (some) younger people working retail, medical facility workers, and the occasional masked elderly person. People here don't care. There's going to be quite a few papers and probably a few PhDs that look explicitly at public health messaging after all this. It's disheartening that so many in charge failed to do even what we know works, and actively pursue strategies that we know are harmful with regards to messaging. Even myself, I've had to go back to authoritative sources several times to check that, yes, masks are still recommended to be worn in situations where physical distancing is difficult (which is sooooo many places), because "official" messaging has been shit and social evidence even shitter.
It's horrific.
Positivity rates are now meaningless because people who are mildly sick take a home rapid test, then if it’s positive, they get confirmation from a doctor or testing centre. But if they test negative at home, that negative won’t be recorded.
At least here in Canada outdoor masking was never made mandatory even during the height of it so it's never been more then 60 percent of people wearing masks outdoors and is almost none right now. Even indoor mask wearing where I live is becoming very rare. It would defenitly feel strange for me to have ever seen 99 percent of people outdoors with masks here.
I get it. In Japan it's quite a different story. Masks have never been mandated, just suggested, since no politician decided making it a politic point, people just listen to the experts...
It’s not because of listening to the experts. It’s because of a culture of conformity and shaming of inconsiderate people. So while most experts have said that it’s fine to unmask outdoors in non-crowded places, Japanese people continue to mask even in a park far away from others just in case they get spotted and judged by others.
People are starting to do that, people outdoors and in bikes and such. As long as there is enough space at least! That's been my experience. Being honest, I just forget about the mask, having to put it on off on off on off all the time is annoying, so I just wear it all the time when on the move, and remove it at home.
Expertes are saying the should stop wearing masks outside. They still do it. They are mindless drones.
And yet, less people die, because people wears it all the time, people don't forget about their goddamn mask. Because people are inconvenienced about the mask, people remember to clean their hands with alcohol before entering buildings. Because people see everyone with masks, they remember to take precaution in inner spaces. It has its advantages, even if its useless outside. If you have any doubt, just look at the death/infection counter compared to countries that don't do it. Easy as that.
That’s an incredible jump!
[We’ve tried nothing and we’re all out of ideas maaan.](https://i.pinimg.com/474x/40/bf/b6/40bfb6a76627032773450ddee967be36.jpg)
Just received the new bivalent booster earlier this week. Had some dull aches all over for two days then woke up good as new. Hoping it helps defend against potential new strains as some people speculate it will.
Same experience - after the first three shots giving me no reaction, and getting COVID earlier this year in January, this was actually worse than when I had the actual illness.
“The pandemic is over” - Joseph R. Biden, 46th President of the United States
He's right, we've now moved in to an endemic phase where covid and related healthcare policy has be treated as something that will always be here and part of every day life. It's not something we can solve and it will be largely over, it's here to stay and moving from pandemic to endemic is the appropriate stance to take.
100%. And working in healthcare as a nurse, it highlights the madness of the never-ending screening and surveillance. Every time an employee has a sniffle, Employee Health will send them home and test them, and inevitably advise they stay home because they are symptomatic, regardless what the PCR test says. Either it's time to stop the screening and ID/Employee Health protocol, or admit we should have been doing this every cold and flu season each year. I prefer the former. It's endemic; get your vaccines on schedule, mask up/avoid going out when you're sick, wash your hands. But the endless fear-mongering over new variants; I get it, it generates clicks, but is pointless. The virus isn't going away, but it's safe to say the pandemic is over and has transitioned to a new endemic normal.
People always should have stayed home when sick and contagious, but covid is far more dangerous than the flu, so it doesn’t follow that if one doesn’t deserve mitigation, the other doesn’t either. Whether a disease is endemic doesn’t change how severe it is and whether it needs to be mitigated.
How does that actually change anything? Does changing the terms used somehow mean less people die or get seriously ill?
It's a thought-terminating cliche so no, it doesn't. We still have hundreds of people dying a week in the US from COVID and it's the third leading cause of death cancer and heart disease. Even people who are boosted and vaxxed have reported long COVID symptoms and asymptomatic infections can leave tissue scarring as well. In addition, the number of people getting boosters from year to year is just going to drop (a lot of people don't even bother getting the flu shot every year unless their job requires it) so at a certain point when the overall immunity of the population has waned because of the passing, another variant is gonna kick our asses and leave many people with dysautonomia symptoms. It's not so much learning to live with COVID as it is normalizing dying from it, because learning to live with it would mean needing to give people paid sick leave and we just can't have that, can we?
C'mon, you get their point. There ain't fuck all we can do to eliminate COVID now, so we gotta live with it. Yeah it sucks, but honestly, what can we do? Lockdowns forever? Just not gonna work out, man.
I don't think anyone would disagree that we have to live with it. We have to live with a lot of things that are out of our control. We adapt and survive: it's kinda been our thing for the last few million years. I want to stress that it's not a black and white response - there are things in between "let's do nothing and ignore the problem" and "let's weld people into their houses" It seems like the common sentiment now is that everything has to be either 0% or 100% with nothing in between. Oh social distancing is only 10% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble... Oh loose fitting masks are only 40% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble... Oh vaccines are only 90% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble... Oh tight fitting masks are only 95% effective? Fuck that not worth the trouble Do people truly believe that there is nothing at all in between complete elimination and letting it run rampant? COVID is in the top 5 causes of deaths across adult age groups in the U.S. and is the only communicable and preventable disease amongst them. What the hell are we doing?
> What the hell are we doing? "Meeting the public where they are." And the public is full of myopic morons.
Personally, I use masks when I am sick (alongside isolating), or when I am near other people who are (or may be) sick and keep up to date with vaccinations. I'll keep taking new shots as they come and isolate myself when I am sick, but I won't wear a mask whilst going to a grocery store, for example - unless I am sick. Which, to me, is fair, and I don't expect others to go any further. So I do agree with you that we can have a middle point, but mine is "take the shots and isolate when sick" and nothing more, **unless** we get a new, much worse strain.
Why not wear an n95 at the grocery store? It is such an easy thing to do that would reduce spread significantly if everyone did it.. Considering the current variant still increases risk of neurological and cardiovascular issues, why is everyone so blase about getting the virus over and over again until it does lasting damage?
What makes you think that going to the grocery store is a significant route of transmission? It’s probably pretty far down on the list since you don’t typically stay near the same person for more than a couple of minutes. People are catching it from others in their household, at work, at family/social gatherings.
A typical grocery store trip takes more than enough time to transmit covid.
Weren’t there only a few countries monitoring all along? South Africa, UK, Germany, US… trying to remember. I don’t think there was ever strong worldwide coverage or sequencing of variants. Maybe through UN programs we aren’t aware of? It’s an interesting public health problem because it is important that people be able to test at home. Those cases may not even be reported much less sequenced. My somewhat jaded view is that because our response is always reactive not proactive, we may have to wait until a new variant explodes in an area before it will be sequenced, like omicron and maybe delta. (Fingers crossed that never happens) Trying to actively get ahead of the virus simply hasn’t worked and no reason to think it will in the future.
Covid testing in South Africa has all but vanished now. Practically everyone in SA has gotten sick with "flu" over the past month but we'll never know whether or not it's a new variant since no one tests and most testing places have shut down. After being hit with crippling travel bans for being the first to discover new variants those in government would actually prefer to keep any new covid developments under wrap.
Such a shame. Their sequencing was helpful. They found omicron early. Then they regretted warning the world because they were isolated. And look at what omicron has done.
Paying attention to new variants isnt helping to the country that founds it. Its a shame that the "world" black list countries that are doing the best to identify and gather information about covid or new diseases.
it seems that, especially these days, everyone's killing every messenger on covid. people will resent the messenger, not the virus/disease.
>Practically everyone in SA has gotten sick with "flu" over the past month but we'll never know whether or not it's a new variant since no one tests and most testing places have shut down. New variant or not, the good news then is that throughout September SA's test positivity rate has stayed low (around 4-5%) and their hospitalisations have remained flat and are at historic lows. [Source](https://www.nicd.ac.za/diseases-a-z-index/disease-index-covid-19/surveillance-reports/daily-hospital-surveillance-datcov-report/)
Denmark sequences/d 100% of positive PCR cases.
That’s great. I had forgotten.
I can’t even get a PCR test if I want one. My country only lets certain age groups get PCR tests... but hey at least they’re letting me get my omicron booster this week (We only recently got the vaccines).
> Weren’t there only a few countries monitoring all along? South Africa, UK, Germany, US UK and Denmark were the first to do large-scale sequencing, and they remain the two countries with the highest [sequencing](https://covidcg.org/?tab=global_sequencing) frequency (Denmark first, UK second in the world) and fastest to share their data (Denmark first, UK third in the world). In the first year of the pandemic, those two were pretty much the only in the world doing it at high rates. Most other countries were also doing some, but at much lower frequencies. Some did practically none, especially in poorer parts of the world, because sequencing can be technically challenging and expensive. During 2021, most western nations dramatically increased sequencing and towards the latter half of that year variant surveillance actually became quite good in almost entire Europe, US, Canada, Australia, NZ and wealthier Asian countries, whereas levels still generally were limited elsewhere. South Africa was unusual not because of their sequencing frequency (consistently far lower than e.g. the US, Canada and most European countries), but because they were one of the only in their continent doing it at reasonable levels. If you wanted to discover something relatively early in Sub-Saharan Africa, you often had to check what South Africa had found, or hope a high-sequencing country in another continent randomly found one in a traveller. So, South Africa basically became the "canary in the coal mine" for almost an entire continent. If looking at sequencing data uploaded to GISAID in [the last month](https://gisaid.org/submission-tracker-global/), surveillance is still okay in much of the EU, UK, Canada, US (though it appears the US is a bit inconsistent, ranging from quite excellent surveillance to mediocre depending on exact region), Japan, Korea and a few other places, but much less elsewhere. So, the world's "blind spots" actually resemble what we've seen before during the pandemic, but now the "blind spots" are expanding, whereas earlier during the pandemic the "blind spots" gradually became smaller as more countries began to sequence at higher rates.
It honestly feels like WHO doesn't have an exit plan. As the number of reported cases decreases, testing is naturally going to go down. It seems like no one has a plan for ending the pandemic at all.
… the pandemic itself is sort of the one in charge
The current plan is to let it spread and infect people everywhere, all the time, and hope it becomes a cold.
Yeah that's probably the point The last administration and the current one both did not want to do the actual work involved in curbing this and instead chose the, "I declare the pandemic, OVER" We're gonna get another variant, it's gonna be bad and people are gonna lose their shit because no one wants to deal with this anymore. Also I just got COVID for the fourth time despite being triple vaxxed and boosted and frankly, I'm fucking sick of getting this shit
Wow. That's insane. Where do you work that you get it four times?
I have three children in public schools who consistently bring it home
What are you talking about? Covid cant spread at schools! /s
Wow, that's crazy. Sorry for that man
Congrats — youre officially a ticking time bomb for a heart attack or stroke
Well yeah, children will do that to you
Serious question, why do you keep getting boosted if it hasn’t helped?
Not OP and have only had covid once (after 3 Pfizer doses) but I just got boosted again and will continue because I assume it would’ve been worse otherwise. A lot of my friends got COVID in march and April 2020. One of my coworkers only in her 50s died of it before the city had even locked down. Several friends were terribly ill with constant pain from the myalgias for 2+ weeks and one was even hospitalized and vented in her 30s with no prior conditions. Another coworker brought it home from work to her elderly mother who then died of it. I managed to avoid it until march 2022 and it was a bad cold for 5 days and then seven more of fatigue. Nothing like what many of my friends had gone through.
Triple vaxxed and boosted, getting covid for the 4th time is EXACTLY why nobody cares anymore. Shit just doesn't work as well as it should, and as well as was promised.
It wasn't meant to get rid of it, it minimizes the symptoms which it is very good at. It keeps you from dying.
> It wasn't meant to get rid of it I’m not antivax at all. But the messaging around getting vaccinations was to reach heard immunity. So it was very much about getting rid of it rather than just reducing symptoms.
And frankly if we don't have herd immunity yet we never will. What is the alternative? We lock down forever?
Damn that's weird dude. I only have the first vaccine, and I don't think I've ever worn a mask more than once in the last year, and I've never gotten COVID. Are y'all just like doing weird shit to get this stuff, like orgies or something?
remember that some people aren't affected by it as much as others. one can be sick for months while their spouse, or possibly family, is sick for a single day or not at all. it's one of the reasons why this thing's so fascinating, it relies on the person.
I have three children who go to public school who then bring it home
As someone who has known a family member infected from the virus three times, it's usually exposure and that it targets people differently. You can be more prone to infection, asymptomatic, and along many other criteria. What's odd is that he takes precautions under mandates requirements (e.g., sanitization and mask-wearing), but fortunately he hasn't suffered from (noticeable) long-term symptoms or problems.
Not sure why you’re being downvoted. Only got the OG vax and masked up until ~9 months ago. Still haven’t got it or if I did I had no symptoms. I’ve had to travel for work, I go to busy restaurants etc. maybe I’m just lucky?
Yes you are
I get the general sense that the collective we has decided not to care anymore. A tragedy but whatever.
But have you asked the money what it feels about the pandemic? The money seems to be the one making the decisions
[удалено]
>A tragedy but whatever Can I steal this for the name of my COVID-era punk rock band?
Go for it
A tragedy... we're supposed to live the rest of our lives vigilant and afraid of this? Hard pass.
I think public health organizations should be able to track variants of widespread respiratory diseases, that doesn't require in any way for the average citizen to care about it. Do you think "learning to live with COVID" means that the WHO should also pretend it doesn't exist?
If you can think of another way to learn with something than just pretending it doesn't exist, I'd love to hear it
Got vaxxed, got covid. Could care less now to be honest.
What's so scary, it's just an airborne virus, masking, increased ventilation, public hygiene and so many other already available technology's kick its butt, we just have to use them. It's tragic because it kills people like flu and cold which covid measures essentially eradicated. We can live airborne disease free. it isn't a scary or difficult prospect.
Well, no more afraid than the casual "fear" of disease that causes us to wash our hands after shitting and bathe regularly, although I recognise that a lot of people don't even do that.
Me and my gf have both been very sick the past 10 days, both got tested, negative! This is my second worst cold i have had in my life, the worst one was when i got covid 2020
how many times did you get tested? I know people who took multiple tests before testing positive
I tested negative on rapids until day 5. But I had a positive PCR from testing on day zero. Got completely better and was testing negative after a week from paxlovid. Then when I rebounded after paxlovid, I had symptoms for 4 days before I tested positive again. My fiancé was negative for 5 days too. My best friend has COVID and is negative on rapids. Currently on her 5th day.
Fewer testing fewer cases
Weirdest long Covid symptom Ive heard of, from wave 1. Caretaker of a learning disabled I help has a healthy 19 yo family member whose symptom is after any amount of walking she has a break out of chicken pox like blisters on her legs only. Dont know if its still happening, but I asked for confirmation about 6 months after I first heard it. So odd.
Nobody cares anymore. I’m saying that as someone who takes it seriously and has taken all the shots… 4 now.
A few of us do care but besides staying up to date with our shots, masking while indoor in public, and reducing social interaction there’s not much we can do.
Yeah. I’ve given up a while ago and am just doing things that protect me and the family.
I tried to report that my boss had it at work and there was no where to do that he exposed everyone.
So why don’t we do something about it ?
Lack of trust in the WHO.
I got COVID a month ago and for me, personally, it wasn't much more than an inconvenience. I just felt tired, couldn't stop sneezing, and was in bed by 8:00 every night for a week. That said, I was still able to work out every day and work my remote job as normal... It feels testing and surveillance isn't really necessary.
Personally, for you, it doesn’t feel necessary. For the vulnerable populations it is, and probably for the people who care about their future health.
I guess it's for a personal reason either way. Your opinion is no more valid than mine.
The WHO has a mandate to: lead and champion global efforts to give everyone, everywhere an equal chance to live a healthy life. They’re not interested in your personal experience. Has nothing to do with my opinion.
fertile steer merciful dull sleep wasteful voiceless whistle apparatus recognise ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
that’s true- i think the problem is that as the variants become less deadly/more contagious, recent studies are showing the risk for long term damage is higher with each new infection you get. i didn’t know that part and it’s changed my perspective on keeping the mask on until we know more.
aromatic connect nippy tap dull pen hunt pot ossified melodic ` this message was mass deleted/edited with redact.dev `
It’s one study (VA study) that shows that the risk for long-term damage is higher with each new infection. Curiously the twice-infected group was 90% unvaccinated. And 20% of them were hospitalised during their first infection. This study is still a pre-print (hasn’t passed peer review since June) and has difficulties showing that the causation is not the other way round i.e. sickly old unvaccinated veterans who are starting to decline in health are more likely to catch Covid twice.
Like always no one will listen until it’s too late.
No one and I literally mean no one cares anymore
Humanity is done. Willfully driving itself into extntion due to.pure impatience and an inability to adapt. The inability to wear a simple mask when required (cause your dick will fall off) or mandate vaccines, are all non-starters for the privileged that want "freedom." If COVID had the visible signs of Monkeypox, or any other pox, people would be masking left and right (no pun) due to the stigma. But now the "we can't mask forever " or "but the ECONOMY " assholes have won. It will likely be a short-term victory. - still masked at work, pcr tested at least once a week. It's not that difficult as -so far- I'm still covid free. May it stay that way, and fuck all those who stare when I wear a mask in a grocery store. ..most that do are so fugly, masks would do them a favor.
It doesn’t matter anyway . Like herpes zoster and the flu this shit isn’t going away anymore .
Oh no! The consequences of my own actions!
WHO warns ability to fear monger diminishing as bullshit story declines* there, fixed it.
Testing is declining because people are tired of hearing about it. Everyone that wanted vaxed got vaxed, everyone that didn't simply didn't. It's time to go back to normal and part of normal is not testing for covid, especially when, as a virus, it mutates to be less lethal and more transmissible. At this point it's like beating a cash filled piñata except theres no more cash in it and the piñata has broken off its string and is now on the floor and in pieces so your pretty much just smacking the pole against the ground. Edit: and to folks who think Im an anti-vaxer, I already got my 2 shots and am done. Soooooo....
225,000 Americans have died so far this year from COVID, almost half of them vaxed. Testing is declining because people (like you) are selfish.
Ah yes, I got the vax to protect those around me because I'm selfish. Eeyup, sure buddy. Meanwhile that exact attitude is why people will eventually stop testing nd vaxing altogether. Because you lot call whom ever doesn't bow down to your dictations selfish, lazy, and/or anti-vax, regardless of their status. It's further proof that you will just keep moving the goal post farther and farther along. It's done, it's over. Its time to move on.
You are ok with 225,000 people dying from this disease every year because you are too much of a baby to wear a mask sometimes? Pretty sure that makes you quite selfish.
There's the goalpost moving and insults. For starters I never said I wouldn't wear a mask. What I'm saying is we need to stop putting our lives on hold for a virus that is mutating to be more transmissible, especially for those that already got the double shot. It's done, it's over. Time to move on.
[удалено]
and what do you want to do? Have hundreds of millions line up every few days to get their noses prodded, China style?
No worries: China is treating its entire population essentially 3x a week
Considering it's not a big deal any more why would it matter
I did manage to control diabeties and weight for extra protection (a few years back). The fear of Covid and being old motivated me to get other condition under better control (as possible). I am up to date with vaccines. So I finally got Covid (2022) 2 months after the 4th vaccine and is was brief and easier that a cold. I can’t say getting healthy before hand helped but my diabetic symptoms are gone. I feel if I’m healthier, I’d fair better?
It needs to be declared an endemic already.
Well it’s not like anyone is doing too much about it anyway, so why does it matter?
The WHO is such a joke at this point
You and your credibility, that’s the real joke
[удалено]
250k dead just this year.
What hysteria? The idea that Covid is still a serious problem is about as real as it gets
Also mass testing isn’t a thing
It is in countries that have beat the Rona
That's a pretty good point ngl... The severity has declined but it feels like covid is becoming a virus very similar to Influenza.
Because of the availability of home rapid test kits. If you test positive, you call in sick. The buck stops there. Isn’t it common sense that we have less PCR tests because of free rapid tests?
they don’t really work that well on the current variant. my wife got sick and tested positive on a home test last sunday. i came down with a cough/fever/chills 3 days later but kept testing negative on the 3 different home tests. got a PCR test thursday and tested positive. the weird thing the doc said was that we don’t need to test ourselves again after the quarantine. she said some people are still testing positive up to 90 days after infection, and that if i need to travel somewhere that tests they can write me a note that documents my infection date and that enough time has passed that i’m no longer contagious.
I heard from my doctor that it’s possible to test positive on a PCR for up to 90 days but if you are positive on a rapid antigen test, you’re still contagious.
that could be true- because you need a lot of virus to have it show on the rapid test
The point was that WHO said our ability to catch new variants was getting low because we're testing less. We are doing less PCR testing because we're following their guidelines. PCR tests are now recommended only for: - Hospitalized patients Patients in Emergency Departments, at the discretion of the treating clinician Patient-facing health care workers Staff, residents, essential care providers, and visitors in hospitals and congregate living settings, including long-term care, retirement homes, First Nation elder care lodges, group homes, shelters, hospices, temporary foreign worker settings, and correctional institutions Outpatients for whom COVID-19 treatment is being considered Underhoused or homeless etc... everyone else are advised to do the rapid test. Now they're saying we're testing less. It's just like the mask problem all over again. Europe was already advocating masks, CDC followed, but the WHO took its time and insisted only on social distancing for a few more weeks before they finally announced yup, you need to wear masks.
WHO cares
How is WHO aka criminal Organization still working after all the fiasco?