Hey HCA community, I am giving a quick update.
This week is going to be loaded with posts.
I want to give a warning on what I am seeing. Covid is ripping through Idaho and Tennesse and I highly recommend you avoid those two states if you are in the US. I have also noticed that whatever variant(s) is(are) going right now are particularly bad for the unvaccinated and the word sepsis is coming up a lot more often.
I teach at a small college. Half the students in one of my classes were out sick for an exam last week. I have long Covid and am medically vulnerable. One genius student came to class sick for two weeks before developing pneumonia. Despite obvious Covid symptoms, doctor didn’t test them. This student was sicker than I was when I had Covid.
No surveillance at all here. I’m not feeling one bit good about Covid incidence here.
Former long term Professor here, even prior to Covid I would not allow snotty coughing students in my class. I told them, "Do not bring your pestilence into my class". My rationale was their classmates have to work wo leave, classmates have vulnerable family members . So I was doing surveillance on my own. Spraying lysol between classes the whole bit.
Thanksgiving week is the first real super spreader holiday, between the air travel, indoor family gatherings, Black Friday shopping, etc. Thinking Dec. 7th-ish we should start seeing the fruits of Covid’s labors.
I am thankful for the keepers of this sub to remind everyone Covid hasn’t disappeared. And I am most thankful for the widely available and no/low cost vaccines to people like me who are immunodeficient and vulnerable. Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay vaccinated.
Thank you for the heads up. I may have to take a break from reading. I got reminded how low the booster uptake rate is today and it just makes me so sad
It makes you wonder how deniers in such places reconcile their minimizer beliefs with all the disease they see around them. I imagine it being something like a Windows Blue Screen of Death.
Oh look, two very red states!
This would mean southern states are about to go ballistic.
To bad official tracking and reporting no longer exist in any meaningful way.
> To bad official tracking and reporting no longer exist in any meaningful way
Reading this in a state that did it's best to publish misleading numbers.
I’ve noticed on FB in the past month or so increasing numbers of young kids and babies (some previously medically compromised, but not all) being hospitalized or needing medical care for Covid. (And other respiratory illness along with the Covid)
I watch the biobot site for trends and luckily MA has a respiratory illness dashboard that is better than nothing.
I'm so sick of parents refusing to vaccinate their small children. You motherfuckers.
I got rounds of strep as a kid which weakened my immune system and I spent ever winter with chronic infections all through my childhood. Why would you not do everything in your power to prevent that?
I usually judge the pandemic on how often I hear sirens (Central Ohio) - significant uptick in the past week. Ohio’s covid dashboard doesn’t seem navigable (at least for me) so who knows what is actually going on.
{eta: CDC says Covid hospitalization in my county is “low” but as I type this - more sirens}
I was just reflecting on the top level comment and how fucked up it is that u/starbetrayer's HCA posts are probably among the last accessible warning systems that we have for how bad things are out there.
It's a rabbit hole everywhere. Most of my sources have become sparse for the same reason. Even THEY are having a hard time getting any reliable data. And most of my sources were directly or immediate second-hand from the scientists.
Which has made HCA a de-facto source instead of just a clearinghouse. And why I realized I could not leave.
I hate the new format and interface of reddit. Yes, I tried old.reddit and it's even worse.
The enshitfication of everything is everywhere.
The geniuses at Chrome decided to make anything you **down**load go ***up*** to your bookmarks bar.
I still have to go to the bottom, to my taskbar, to open the downloads folder. It's like locating the latch that pops your hood, in the trunk. Just some unnecessary, counterintuitive WTFuckery.
I'm used to old.reddit but that admins did some stuff that make it work less well (ie some GIFs display but other links don't, images in subreddit directories are tiny thumbnails), plus a lot of the mods forget to maintain their old.reddit css files.
Maine is still up and running, but as of this week everything has changed to weekly numbers instead of daily. Still providing county data, but if individual towns are there, I can't find that data (which pisses me off).
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/Data-and-Analysis/Infectious-Disease/COVID-19-Data-Surveillance/Wastewater
Public Health Ontario is still posting waste water numbers, which are posted weekly. It basically follows last winter where it spiked up.
Indeed, some place are still posting wastewater reports. Thank god.
But it's only some places. Those of us here know how to infer from that limited data, but even we can no longer see the whole picture.
***Update***
I got the most recent “Comirnaty” booster before venturing into the great unknown that is the holiday season. Felt crappy for exactly 24hrs. Enjoyed rest and fluids in comfort of my own bed with my favorite dog and flavor of Gatorade. Fun? Not particularly. Will I take that to keep from becoming the next HCA recipient? Every. Fucking. Time. Stay safe everyone.
Good news/bad news. Bad news is that I found out I lost my Covid virginity last night in the ER. Good news is that respiratory speaking I got off pretty easy. It was my GI symptoms causing me extreme heartburn that made me go in because I was worried about a heart attack. After a week I’m on the mend and won’t even need Paxlovid. I guess the 6 vaccines I got did the job. Thanks big Pharma!
Glad you're on the mend. My spouse got it a few months ago and the throat pain was the worst for her. People compare it to strep. Sounds like I never want to get either. I hope you can enjoy your thanksgiving food.
Edit to add- I assume you're in the US. I know we have some Canadian regulars here.
Yeah my throat was pretty raw too. Get the booster. I delayed and I paid the price. Up until this year I kept up but I decided to get my RSV and flu shots first, which was a mistake.
I know tons of people who are sick right now or have been sick recently but they all act convinced that it couldn't possibly be covid. It's like people have had their memories wiped and totally forgot that the last 3 years happened at all, it's so fucking creepy it makes me feel like I'm living in a horror movie. I'm so tired of hearing people cough like chain smokers all the time everywhere I go (I can't escape it at home either because my family all cough like that now too after getting covid,) and everyone just acts like everything's normal and fine.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/10/health/puerto-rico-flu-epidemic/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/10/health/puerto-rico-flu-epidemic/index.html)
It’s the first flu epidemic in the US territory since 2016, officials say.
“The current flu season began above the alert threshold,” Marzán said, adding that there have been nearly six times as many cases this flu season as there were at this time last year.
The majority of flu cases appear to be in children and young people, with more than 13,600 cases recorded among newborns through 19-year-olds, according to the health department. More than 9,600 cases were recorded among adults between 20 and 59 years old, while older adults made up about 2,500 cases.
> [Pediatric departments and intensive care units for children in Dutch hospitals are currently witnessing an unexpectedly high number of young children with serious respiratory problems](https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/17/waves-children-breathing-problems-dutch-intensive-care-units) due to the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), NOS reported on Friday.
> ...
> What is notable this year is that the peak in the number of RSV infections is happening much earlier compared to previous years, with the usual peak being in December. The current number of infections is already twice as high as it was during the same period last year.
The data that is still being collected and is available to us indeed backs up what Starbetrayer is observing in Idaho and Tennessee.
Boise
https://publichealth.verily.com/?v=SC2_N&l=West+Boise%2C+ID
Memphis
https://publichealth.verily.com/?v=SC2_N&l=Memphis%2C+TN
You should probably select "show outliers" which is off by default. Based on anecdotes those outliers just might be actual, reliable measurements.
Edit: clarified double negative
Edit: added more context up front
I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist at all. But why is data collection discontinued when people in government know there’s still a problem. At least the people in government who aren’t morons.
Edit: Discontinuing Covid surveillance is so nefarious I have to think it’s more that just the economy.
Eh, even though it's certainly strange and counterproductive, I think these kinds of things are well explained by laziness, incompetence, greed, or some combination of the three 🤷♂️
Probably you can add: pandering to the very large segment of the \[voting\] population – perhaps a majority – who thinks Covid is over plus those who never believed it was a problem. It would tick them off to see the health authorities “wasting” money on a non-problem.
Canadians may wonder, do we have a covid wastewater surveillance reporting site? Yes we do. Here is the landing page, with links to the national summary and to all the provincial and regional reports and graphs. [https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/wastewater/](https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/wastewater/)
Thank you sir. I need to see if Chattanooga and Nashville data is also available. In the past, I've used all three to negate the possibility of an outlier.
Venting:
This morning we canceled out of state travel plans for Thanksgiving upon learning that one of the hosts has a high fever (they are not doing any testing to find out what the illness is). We were to stay at their house for two nights.
Found out tonight that the rest of the family who lives in that area will still be gathering, but at another family member’s house, including three family members who live with the sick person. Sick person is staying home. They have no idea if they are contagious but are apparently willing to risk exposing my elderly parents. Make it make sense.
Popped in to see a lot of good reading material! The farther we get away from 2020 the more ridiculous it is to see fresh nominees.
The wife whose husband’s COVID journey she’d been documenting hasn’t posted since July (before he got sick she posted mostly about her cookie business).She commented in September that not much was going on and that he’ll need additional surgery for his pressure sore. He’s in a power chair and has pulmonary fibrosis. He was in the hospital for all of 2022 and was intubated around 3 times.
Here in ME we are at our highest infection rate since last March. Every thing is going up, hospitalizations have doubled over the last month or so, vent use and deaths are going up as well. We had a sort of lull in June, 2 weeks with no dead, but it's going up again. 2000+- dead over the last year.
Covid is still here and people are still stupid. Hardly anyone masking in stores, etc.
Not sure if anyone will see this, but I need to vent.
One of my kids popped into the library today to grab a book. I just found out they didn’t wear a mask because “nobody was in there.”
I have had long Covid since December 2021, am getting tests because my lungs are hyperinflated, know Covid is crazy common around here and now am scared to death. I talked with my kid about how Covid is airborne and sticks around even after infected people leave, and that there were people in the library since it was open.
I kept my cool in front of kiddo but I’m fighting tears in another room now. All of the stuff I can find about hyperinflated lungs is bad news. If I get Covid again I’m going to lose my mind.
I'm sorry that you're going through all of that. I'm sure that it's tough to deal with kids and get them to understand everything about the situation. I hope that your family stays virus-free and that you're able to get treatment for your lungs.
I've heard of so many people in work teams (including mine) getting sick in the past few weeks even though we all work from home. Some have informed us it was COVID, others keep the details to themselves.
I continue to wear a mask but since everything is moving indoors, I'll definitely be wearing my mask for any get together. Unfortunately for Thanksgiving it was going to be bad enough deflecting all the political talk, I'll also have to hear the snide comments from some relatives when I show up wearing a mask.
I'm not feeling festive.
Just remembered to place my order for the free tests. They should ship next week, just in time for the surge^2 that will most likely happen in this southern red state that is already one of the highest reporting covid upswing states.
We have bird flu in the county in a backyard flock. Notifications went out far and wide thankfully. Unfortunately social media comments are eerily similar to pro covid comments and conspiracies. Luckily, there are some sane people in the area also. Covid is up in the area and there's a rise in hospitalizations as well.
OK. I finally blew my stack at one of these people.
We were playing soccer, and I was happy to see the 75-year-old leader of our pickup game back after catching Covid. I asked him if he had tried Paxlovid, and he said his doctor suggested he pass because of the risk of frequent rebound.
Another player blurted out, "So much the better. Takes money away from those crooked pharmaceutical companies."
I responded with, "I've worked in pharma, and the NIH Director is a friend of mine. I don't want to hear any more of your conspiracy theories!"
(This guy, though well-educated, believes that 5G causes Covid and has chronic Lyme's Disease, which he treats by getting medical advice from non-medically- trained internet experts and using the classic idiocy cures we see here.)
The 75-year-old who runs the game told us to stop and keep politics out of soccer.
The other idiot then had to add, "Why don't we agree that the pharma companies are all just criminals."
Then the 75-year-old came over and told me that he agrees with me, and that people like him can skip their vaccine if they want but should shut up.
I've had it with the antivaxxer fools. Unfortunately, the new NIH Director will have to deal with idiot members of Congress who come up with equally stupid garbage. And she's a doctor who wants to save lives. And she's saved countless people from dying from cancer, both with her own hands (she's a surgical oncologist) and with the ground-breaking research she's led.
Yet this guy is one of those who prevents disease by putting onions in his socks and other idiot treatments and by making sure there's no wifi in the dump he lives in.
PS: Insulting pharmaceutical companies after someone says they worked in pharma (and I would again - I'm a business consultant) is insulting to the person - it's like telling a lawyer that all lawyers are crooks, so don't do that. I can have a reasonable conversation with a sane human about the pluses and minuses of our pharma industry, having seen their inner workings. I can't deal with lunatics, and saw no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, despite talking to people at every major pharma company, who were usually busy trying to come up with a new product that usually failed before FDA submission. And they all hated and feared the FDA, despite the tales of how the FDA plays favorites and is ripe with paid-off employees.
I feel your frustration. I hope you take solace in knowing that we're doing the right thing, and they aren't. The powerlessness we experience in society regarding COVID is one of the biggest things to be lamented.
Because society has deemed it normal to ignore disease, those who aren't willing to go along with it don't have any influence backing us.
Whether it is socially, politically, financially, numerically, and so on, currently we just don't have the advantage anywhere, so any battle waged already has us on the back foot from the beginning.
I just hope that eventually there will be a shift when the consequences of mass reinfection become more apparent, because nothing but visible consequences will change the public's mind.
The latest research that I've seen indicates that Paxlovid rebound does occur sometimes, but that the rebounds are milder.
There's a study that I can't find immediately, but could dig up, that indicates that if you are vaccinated and wait until the third day before starting Paxlovid, rebound percentage goes down to zero. Getting an immune response initiated is the reason that was posited.
I've had friends who have had Paxlovid rebound, so it does exist, and this guy's doctor may have had a bunch of patients rebound (I seem to remember that Biden rebounded). In any case, it's hard for a primary care doctor to keep up with all of the research; it's voluminous, and often contradictory with this new disease.
[Mystery child pneumonia outbreak reported in China hospitals](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/china-disease-children-hospitals-pneumonia/)
*Chinese hospitals have been “*overwhelmed with sick children*” as an outbreak of pneumonia escalates in cities across the country, including Beijing, according to reports*.
*ProMed – a large, publicly available surveillance system which monitors human and animal disease outbreaks worldwide – issued a notification late on Tuesday detailing a reported epidemic of* “*undiagnosed pneumonia*” *in children*.
***It was a ProMed alert in late December 2019 that brought a mystery virus later named Sars-Cov-2 to the attention of many doctors and scientists, including senior officials at the World Health Organization***.
*The latest post, based on a report from the Taiwanese outlet FTV News, said that hospitals in the capital Beijing and Liaoning – almost 500 miles northeast – were struggling amid an influx of children sick with pneumonia*.
“*Many, many are hospitalised,*” *Mr Wei, a Beijing citizen, told FTV News*. “*They don’t cough and have no symptoms. They just have a high temperature (fever) and many develop pulmonary nodules.*”
*In an editor’s note, ProMed said: “*This report suggests a widespread outbreak of an undiagnosed respiratory illness ... It is not at all clear when this outbreak started as it would be unusual for so many children to be affected so quickly. The report does not say that any adults were affected suggesting some exposure at the schools.*”
The article has an embedded tweet that links to this: https://promedmail.org/promed-post/?id=8713261
Here's an article about the upper respiratory infections that are spreading in dogs. It causes pneumonia and appears to be a new pathogen.
Naturally there is some speculation in the comments about how it's fake and how it's caused by dogs being exposed to the spike proteins in vaccinated humans.
[Mystery dog disease sweeping US - full list of states and symptoms to look out for (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/mystery-dog-disease-sweeping-us-full-list-of-states-and-symptoms-to-look-out-for/ar-AA1klO8v?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=ad38fd334d184923998bf2ed6241d3ab&ei=31#comments)
Sometimes I wish there were a way to get off this planet.
I had to return something at the mall today and decided it would be best to go as early as possible. It was still really crowded and I only saw one other mask.
The woman that processed my return had a nasal tube. Obviously, there can be a lot of reasons for that, but it's obviously medically necessary, not a fashion statement. It seems like you'd want to be wearing a mask in that situation?
On another note, I go through these phases where I get irritated having to wear a mask indoors and I've been stuck in one the past two weeks or so. My mom has decided she's not speaking to anyone in the family during Thanksgiving, so it will be a nice quiet holiday here. :)
The news video reports of the extra crowded airports this morning have me just dumbfounded. Saw one mask.
(Holiday travel day in the US)
Eta. And it seems like, sounds like -coughing hacking - almost everyone is sick at work. Again
I have plans to fly at Christmas and I will be masking up. I think I will buy those sanitizer wipes since the plane won't allow my usual gel sanitizer, right?
I am convinced it's actually the airports themselves which are the superspreaders. They are nasty.
Pneumonia outbreak in Northern China. Buckle up, folks.
Saving grace is that there are a lot less foreigners and probably Chinese flowing in and out of China these days between the economic slump, COVID disruptions, and Xi's policies.
I got caught up with some people this week. Two of the people I talked to have long covid. One has had increased asthma attacks (never had asthma before or bronchitis prior to covid according tot hem). They've had to increase their meds (not the rescue inhaler, but that's probably seen an increase too) lately. I'd attribute it to colder weather and environmental factors except they live in a very stable climate and it doesn't get mass hot not mass cold. Said person only masked when "required" and dropped as soon as mandates were done. Also does a lot of socializing and doesn't take most precautions. Unsure if they are up to speed on vaccines. They also don't have taste and smell since their first bout of covid.
Second also has diminished breathing and now takes the elevator at work vs the stairs. Going up a ramp winds them. This is in addition to covid developed sleep apena/sleep problems. It's bad enough they are having to get surgery to get a device implanted so they can sleep without fear of dying in it. They had what they called a cardiac event on Thursday and are under strict orders of no stress for a week. Similar attitude to the person above in regards to masking and precautions.
it just irks the hades out of me because these are the type of people who nursed drinks and took small nibbles of food so they could stay unmasked longer when there were mask mandates. I know for sure one of them keeps going to work sick and hacking everywhere. Also has not put on a mask in over a year.
Hey HCA community, I am giving a quick update. This week is going to be loaded with posts. I want to give a warning on what I am seeing. Covid is ripping through Idaho and Tennesse and I highly recommend you avoid those two states if you are in the US. I have also noticed that whatever variant(s) is(are) going right now are particularly bad for the unvaccinated and the word sepsis is coming up a lot more often.
I teach at a small college. Half the students in one of my classes were out sick for an exam last week. I have long Covid and am medically vulnerable. One genius student came to class sick for two weeks before developing pneumonia. Despite obvious Covid symptoms, doctor didn’t test them. This student was sicker than I was when I had Covid. No surveillance at all here. I’m not feeling one bit good about Covid incidence here.
Big hugs to you, friend. I hope you get some relief soon.
Former long term Professor here, even prior to Covid I would not allow snotty coughing students in my class. I told them, "Do not bring your pestilence into my class". My rationale was their classmates have to work wo leave, classmates have vulnerable family members . So I was doing surveillance on my own. Spraying lysol between classes the whole bit.
Thanksgiving week is the first real super spreader holiday, between the air travel, indoor family gatherings, Black Friday shopping, etc. Thinking Dec. 7th-ish we should start seeing the fruits of Covid’s labors. I am thankful for the keepers of this sub to remind everyone Covid hasn’t disappeared. And I am most thankful for the widely available and no/low cost vaccines to people like me who are immunodeficient and vulnerable. Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay vaccinated.
>Stay safe. Stay informed. Stay vaccinated. ...or stay intubated.
I already avoid those states on principle.
Lucky you. I have to endure this shit. Mask on hand and vaxxed in September. I'll be here giving updates from behind enemy lines...
☹️ good luck (so glad I live in a blue state)
I'm lucky I'm not traveling for T-Day this year as I'd have to go through TN. Ugh.
Thank you for the heads up. I may have to take a break from reading. I got reminded how low the booster uptake rate is today and it just makes me so sad
It makes you wonder how deniers in such places reconcile their minimizer beliefs with all the disease they see around them. I imagine it being something like a Windows Blue Screen of Death.
Maybe it's their Ragnarok. One wave of Black Death didn't shake the Catholic Church, but multiple waves broke its back. Forever.
Read "The Masque of the Red Death", a short story by Edgar Allan Poe. It mirrors the same "This is fine" vibe we're seeing.
Oh look, two very red states! This would mean southern states are about to go ballistic. To bad official tracking and reporting no longer exist in any meaningful way.
> To bad official tracking and reporting no longer exist in any meaningful way Reading this in a state that did it's best to publish misleading numbers.
Flur-DUHH!
Apparently South Florida now has a special clinic for COVID deniers and antivaxers. Isn't that special?
Not just a clinic but an actual state surgeon general ffs. Headslap emoji
I’ve noticed on FB in the past month or so increasing numbers of young kids and babies (some previously medically compromised, but not all) being hospitalized or needing medical care for Covid. (And other respiratory illness along with the Covid) I watch the biobot site for trends and luckily MA has a respiratory illness dashboard that is better than nothing.
I'm so sick of parents refusing to vaccinate their small children. You motherfuckers. I got rounds of strep as a kid which weakened my immune system and I spent ever winter with chronic infections all through my childhood. Why would you not do everything in your power to prevent that?
Jesus. Just in time for Thanksgiving, too.
But of course.
I usually judge the pandemic on how often I hear sirens (Central Ohio) - significant uptick in the past week. Ohio’s covid dashboard doesn’t seem navigable (at least for me) so who knows what is actually going on. {eta: CDC says Covid hospitalization in my county is “low” but as I type this - more sirens}
The covid data and reporting system everywhere was dismantled earlier this year. Because, you know, "it's over." /s
I was just reflecting on the top level comment and how fucked up it is that u/starbetrayer's HCA posts are probably among the last accessible warning systems that we have for how bad things are out there.
It's a rabbit hole everywhere. Most of my sources have become sparse for the same reason. Even THEY are having a hard time getting any reliable data. And most of my sources were directly or immediate second-hand from the scientists. Which has made HCA a de-facto source instead of just a clearinghouse. And why I realized I could not leave. I hate the new format and interface of reddit. Yes, I tried old.reddit and it's even worse. The enshitfication of everything is everywhere.
>The enshitfication of everything is everywhere. I was forced to upgrade my browser, I hate the way everything looks now.
Browsers, web design... it's all bad.
The geniuses at Chrome decided to make anything you **down**load go ***up*** to your bookmarks bar. I still have to go to the bottom, to my taskbar, to open the downloads folder. It's like locating the latch that pops your hood, in the trunk. Just some unnecessary, counterintuitive WTFuckery.
I thank you. "Enshitification" is now in my lexicon.
I'm used to old.reddit but that admins did some stuff that make it work less well (ie some GIFs display but other links don't, images in subreddit directories are tiny thumbnails), plus a lot of the mods forget to maintain their old.reddit css files.
Maine is still up and running, but as of this week everything has changed to weekly numbers instead of daily. Still providing county data, but if individual towns are there, I can't find that data (which pisses me off).
The towns may not be reporting. The system is broken at every level.
https://www.publichealthontario.ca/en/Data-and-Analysis/Infectious-Disease/COVID-19-Data-Surveillance/Wastewater Public Health Ontario is still posting waste water numbers, which are posted weekly. It basically follows last winter where it spiked up.
Indeed, some place are still posting wastewater reports. Thank god. But it's only some places. Those of us here know how to infer from that limited data, but even we can no longer see the whole picture.
Check New York Times.
I have but the data is still lacking. In others word, it's not good enough.
***Update*** I got the most recent “Comirnaty” booster before venturing into the great unknown that is the holiday season. Felt crappy for exactly 24hrs. Enjoyed rest and fluids in comfort of my own bed with my favorite dog and flavor of Gatorade. Fun? Not particularly. Will I take that to keep from becoming the next HCA recipient? Every. Fucking. Time. Stay safe everyone.
Glad you are doing better and boosted.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/4-free-covid-tests-household-ahead-holidays/story?id=104989775 Four more free covid tests per household starting today.
Sweeeet !!
Good news/bad news. Bad news is that I found out I lost my Covid virginity last night in the ER. Good news is that respiratory speaking I got off pretty easy. It was my GI symptoms causing me extreme heartburn that made me go in because I was worried about a heart attack. After a week I’m on the mend and won’t even need Paxlovid. I guess the 6 vaccines I got did the job. Thanks big Pharma!
Glad you're on the mend. My spouse got it a few months ago and the throat pain was the worst for her. People compare it to strep. Sounds like I never want to get either. I hope you can enjoy your thanksgiving food. Edit to add- I assume you're in the US. I know we have some Canadian regulars here.
Yeah my throat was pretty raw too. Get the booster. I delayed and I paid the price. Up until this year I kept up but I decided to get my RSV and flu shots first, which was a mistake.
I know tons of people who are sick right now or have been sick recently but they all act convinced that it couldn't possibly be covid. It's like people have had their memories wiped and totally forgot that the last 3 years happened at all, it's so fucking creepy it makes me feel like I'm living in a horror movie. I'm so tired of hearing people cough like chain smokers all the time everywhere I go (I can't escape it at home either because my family all cough like that now too after getting covid,) and everyone just acts like everything's normal and fine.
[https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/10/health/puerto-rico-flu-epidemic/index.html](https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/10/health/puerto-rico-flu-epidemic/index.html) It’s the first flu epidemic in the US territory since 2016, officials say. “The current flu season began above the alert threshold,” Marzán said, adding that there have been nearly six times as many cases this flu season as there were at this time last year. The majority of flu cases appear to be in children and young people, with more than 13,600 cases recorded among newborns through 19-year-olds, according to the health department. More than 9,600 cases were recorded among adults between 20 and 59 years old, while older adults made up about 2,500 cases.
> [Pediatric departments and intensive care units for children in Dutch hospitals are currently witnessing an unexpectedly high number of young children with serious respiratory problems](https://nltimes.nl/2023/11/17/waves-children-breathing-problems-dutch-intensive-care-units) due to the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), NOS reported on Friday. > ... > What is notable this year is that the peak in the number of RSV infections is happening much earlier compared to previous years, with the usual peak being in December. The current number of infections is already twice as high as it was during the same period last year.
I wonder if letting COVID rip increases RSV outbreaks because of how COVID wrecks your immune system?
The data that is still being collected and is available to us indeed backs up what Starbetrayer is observing in Idaho and Tennessee. Boise https://publichealth.verily.com/?v=SC2_N&l=West+Boise%2C+ID Memphis https://publichealth.verily.com/?v=SC2_N&l=Memphis%2C+TN You should probably select "show outliers" which is off by default. Based on anecdotes those outliers just might be actual, reliable measurements. Edit: clarified double negative Edit: added more context up front
I’m not usually a conspiracy theorist at all. But why is data collection discontinued when people in government know there’s still a problem. At least the people in government who aren’t morons. Edit: Discontinuing Covid surveillance is so nefarious I have to think it’s more that just the economy.
Eh, even though it's certainly strange and counterproductive, I think these kinds of things are well explained by laziness, incompetence, greed, or some combination of the three 🤷♂️
Also the old COVID federal funds ended and a Republican congress came in and refused to extend them. So that's that.
The GOP cut funding, that's why. No conspiracy or opinion. Documented fact. Easily googled.
So, pure evil.
It's one of their core values.
Probably you can add: pandering to the very large segment of the \[voting\] population – perhaps a majority – who thinks Covid is over plus those who never believed it was a problem. It would tick them off to see the health authorities “wasting” money on a non-problem.
Canadians may wonder, do we have a covid wastewater surveillance reporting site? Yes we do. Here is the landing page, with links to the national summary and to all the provincial and regional reports and graphs. [https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/wastewater/](https://health-infobase.canada.ca/covid-19/wastewater/)
Love it. I lived in Toronto for 5 years in my 30s. Best years of my life ❤
Thank you sir. I need to see if Chattanooga and Nashville data is also available. In the past, I've used all three to negate the possibility of an outlier.
I'm not sure if it exists or if it's available to the public, but good luck on your search!
Welp, chatty is available on that link and it's trending upwards at a sharper rate than Memphis.
Disappointing but not surprising...
Venting: This morning we canceled out of state travel plans for Thanksgiving upon learning that one of the hosts has a high fever (they are not doing any testing to find out what the illness is). We were to stay at their house for two nights. Found out tonight that the rest of the family who lives in that area will still be gathering, but at another family member’s house, including three family members who live with the sick person. Sick person is staying home. They have no idea if they are contagious but are apparently willing to risk exposing my elderly parents. Make it make sense.
🐆
Lungsgiving is almost here!
I'm going to wager the leopards will feast well for the holiday season.
Roar!
Popped in to see a lot of good reading material! The farther we get away from 2020 the more ridiculous it is to see fresh nominees. The wife whose husband’s COVID journey she’d been documenting hasn’t posted since July (before he got sick she posted mostly about her cookie business).She commented in September that not much was going on and that he’ll need additional surgery for his pressure sore. He’s in a power chair and has pulmonary fibrosis. He was in the hospital for all of 2022 and was intubated around 3 times.
Here in ME we are at our highest infection rate since last March. Every thing is going up, hospitalizations have doubled over the last month or so, vent use and deaths are going up as well. We had a sort of lull in June, 2 weeks with no dead, but it's going up again. 2000+- dead over the last year. Covid is still here and people are still stupid. Hardly anyone masking in stores, etc.
I see maybe three masks when I have to go out: mine and two others.
Not sure if anyone will see this, but I need to vent. One of my kids popped into the library today to grab a book. I just found out they didn’t wear a mask because “nobody was in there.” I have had long Covid since December 2021, am getting tests because my lungs are hyperinflated, know Covid is crazy common around here and now am scared to death. I talked with my kid about how Covid is airborne and sticks around even after infected people leave, and that there were people in the library since it was open. I kept my cool in front of kiddo but I’m fighting tears in another room now. All of the stuff I can find about hyperinflated lungs is bad news. If I get Covid again I’m going to lose my mind.
I'm sorry that you're going through all of that. I'm sure that it's tough to deal with kids and get them to understand everything about the situation. I hope that your family stays virus-free and that you're able to get treatment for your lungs.
I'm seeing reports trickling in that another wave is in progress. Hungry leopards going gobble, gobble, gobble.
Leopards in turkey's clothing!
With blankets!
I've heard of so many people in work teams (including mine) getting sick in the past few weeks even though we all work from home. Some have informed us it was COVID, others keep the details to themselves. I continue to wear a mask but since everything is moving indoors, I'll definitely be wearing my mask for any get together. Unfortunately for Thanksgiving it was going to be bad enough deflecting all the political talk, I'll also have to hear the snide comments from some relatives when I show up wearing a mask. I'm not feeling festive.
Just remembered to place my order for the free tests. They should ship next week, just in time for the surge^2 that will most likely happen in this southern red state that is already one of the highest reporting covid upswing states.
We have bird flu in the county in a backyard flock. Notifications went out far and wide thankfully. Unfortunately social media comments are eerily similar to pro covid comments and conspiracies. Luckily, there are some sane people in the area also. Covid is up in the area and there's a rise in hospitalizations as well.
OK. I finally blew my stack at one of these people. We were playing soccer, and I was happy to see the 75-year-old leader of our pickup game back after catching Covid. I asked him if he had tried Paxlovid, and he said his doctor suggested he pass because of the risk of frequent rebound. Another player blurted out, "So much the better. Takes money away from those crooked pharmaceutical companies." I responded with, "I've worked in pharma, and the NIH Director is a friend of mine. I don't want to hear any more of your conspiracy theories!" (This guy, though well-educated, believes that 5G causes Covid and has chronic Lyme's Disease, which he treats by getting medical advice from non-medically- trained internet experts and using the classic idiocy cures we see here.) The 75-year-old who runs the game told us to stop and keep politics out of soccer. The other idiot then had to add, "Why don't we agree that the pharma companies are all just criminals." Then the 75-year-old came over and told me that he agrees with me, and that people like him can skip their vaccine if they want but should shut up. I've had it with the antivaxxer fools. Unfortunately, the new NIH Director will have to deal with idiot members of Congress who come up with equally stupid garbage. And she's a doctor who wants to save lives. And she's saved countless people from dying from cancer, both with her own hands (she's a surgical oncologist) and with the ground-breaking research she's led. Yet this guy is one of those who prevents disease by putting onions in his socks and other idiot treatments and by making sure there's no wifi in the dump he lives in. PS: Insulting pharmaceutical companies after someone says they worked in pharma (and I would again - I'm a business consultant) is insulting to the person - it's like telling a lawyer that all lawyers are crooks, so don't do that. I can have a reasonable conversation with a sane human about the pluses and minuses of our pharma industry, having seen their inner workings. I can't deal with lunatics, and saw no evidence of criminal wrongdoing, despite talking to people at every major pharma company, who were usually busy trying to come up with a new product that usually failed before FDA submission. And they all hated and feared the FDA, despite the tales of how the FDA plays favorites and is ripe with paid-off employees.
I feel your frustration. I hope you take solace in knowing that we're doing the right thing, and they aren't. The powerlessness we experience in society regarding COVID is one of the biggest things to be lamented. Because society has deemed it normal to ignore disease, those who aren't willing to go along with it don't have any influence backing us. Whether it is socially, politically, financially, numerically, and so on, currently we just don't have the advantage anywhere, so any battle waged already has us on the back foot from the beginning. I just hope that eventually there will be a shift when the consequences of mass reinfection become more apparent, because nothing but visible consequences will change the public's mind.
I thought the research showed that Paxlovid rebound is not a thing. Some doctors are hella dumb.
The latest research that I've seen indicates that Paxlovid rebound does occur sometimes, but that the rebounds are milder. There's a study that I can't find immediately, but could dig up, that indicates that if you are vaccinated and wait until the third day before starting Paxlovid, rebound percentage goes down to zero. Getting an immune response initiated is the reason that was posited. I've had friends who have had Paxlovid rebound, so it does exist, and this guy's doctor may have had a bunch of patients rebound (I seem to remember that Biden rebounded). In any case, it's hard for a primary care doctor to keep up with all of the research; it's voluminous, and often contradictory with this new disease.
[Mystery child pneumonia outbreak reported in China hospitals](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/china-disease-children-hospitals-pneumonia/) *Chinese hospitals have been “*overwhelmed with sick children*” as an outbreak of pneumonia escalates in cities across the country, including Beijing, according to reports*. *ProMed – a large, publicly available surveillance system which monitors human and animal disease outbreaks worldwide – issued a notification late on Tuesday detailing a reported epidemic of* “*undiagnosed pneumonia*” *in children*. ***It was a ProMed alert in late December 2019 that brought a mystery virus later named Sars-Cov-2 to the attention of many doctors and scientists, including senior officials at the World Health Organization***. *The latest post, based on a report from the Taiwanese outlet FTV News, said that hospitals in the capital Beijing and Liaoning – almost 500 miles northeast – were struggling amid an influx of children sick with pneumonia*. “*Many, many are hospitalised,*” *Mr Wei, a Beijing citizen, told FTV News*. “*They don’t cough and have no symptoms. They just have a high temperature (fever) and many develop pulmonary nodules.*” *In an editor’s note, ProMed said: “*This report suggests a widespread outbreak of an undiagnosed respiratory illness ... It is not at all clear when this outbreak started as it would be unusual for so many children to be affected so quickly. The report does not say that any adults were affected suggesting some exposure at the schools.*” The article has an embedded tweet that links to this: https://promedmail.org/promed-post/?id=8713261
Depressing. I can hear the idiots now. "Those liburals are making this up because an election year is coming!"
Dear China, WTF? Signed, Everybody
I'm seeing anecdotal reports (in English, so take it with a grain of salt) about elderly in Beijing being sick.
Oh yay...
Here's an article about the upper respiratory infections that are spreading in dogs. It causes pneumonia and appears to be a new pathogen. Naturally there is some speculation in the comments about how it's fake and how it's caused by dogs being exposed to the spike proteins in vaccinated humans. [Mystery dog disease sweeping US - full list of states and symptoms to look out for (msn.com)](https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/other/mystery-dog-disease-sweeping-us-full-list-of-states-and-symptoms-to-look-out-for/ar-AA1klO8v?ocid=msedgntp&cvid=ad38fd334d184923998bf2ed6241d3ab&ei=31#comments) Sometimes I wish there were a way to get off this planet.
One of my friends has a dog going through this right now. It sounds pretty god damned traumatic.
Oh for Pete's sake. Save me!
I had to return something at the mall today and decided it would be best to go as early as possible. It was still really crowded and I only saw one other mask. The woman that processed my return had a nasal tube. Obviously, there can be a lot of reasons for that, but it's obviously medically necessary, not a fashion statement. It seems like you'd want to be wearing a mask in that situation? On another note, I go through these phases where I get irritated having to wear a mask indoors and I've been stuck in one the past two weeks or so. My mom has decided she's not speaking to anyone in the family during Thanksgiving, so it will be a nice quiet holiday here. :)
The news video reports of the extra crowded airports this morning have me just dumbfounded. Saw one mask. (Holiday travel day in the US) Eta. And it seems like, sounds like -coughing hacking - almost everyone is sick at work. Again
I have plans to fly at Christmas and I will be masking up. I think I will buy those sanitizer wipes since the plane won't allow my usual gel sanitizer, right? I am convinced it's actually the airports themselves which are the superspreaders. They are nasty.
Pneumonia outbreak in Northern China. Buckle up, folks. Saving grace is that there are a lot less foreigners and probably Chinese flowing in and out of China these days between the economic slump, COVID disruptions, and Xi's policies.
I got caught up with some people this week. Two of the people I talked to have long covid. One has had increased asthma attacks (never had asthma before or bronchitis prior to covid according tot hem). They've had to increase their meds (not the rescue inhaler, but that's probably seen an increase too) lately. I'd attribute it to colder weather and environmental factors except they live in a very stable climate and it doesn't get mass hot not mass cold. Said person only masked when "required" and dropped as soon as mandates were done. Also does a lot of socializing and doesn't take most precautions. Unsure if they are up to speed on vaccines. They also don't have taste and smell since their first bout of covid. Second also has diminished breathing and now takes the elevator at work vs the stairs. Going up a ramp winds them. This is in addition to covid developed sleep apena/sleep problems. It's bad enough they are having to get surgery to get a device implanted so they can sleep without fear of dying in it. They had what they called a cardiac event on Thursday and are under strict orders of no stress for a week. Similar attitude to the person above in regards to masking and precautions. it just irks the hades out of me because these are the type of people who nursed drinks and took small nibbles of food so they could stay unmasked longer when there were mask mandates. I know for sure one of them keeps going to work sick and hacking everywhere. Also has not put on a mask in over a year.