28 thoughts on “C-19 Chat Post – December 26 2021”

  1. Tom,

    When my son had covid last December, he tested negative 3 times before finally testing positive. He knew he had covid, yet the tests said no. And btw, these were the PCR tests.

    I would obviously assume your wife has it and act accordingly.

    Hope you are both feeling better soon.

  2. Tom, I echo what JPD is saying. For some reason, Omicron doesn’t show up early, at least on rapid tests. My daughter mentioned this to me. She tested negative at first, and then 36 hours later tested positive.

    In a perverse way, the variant has `learned’ a new way of efficiently propagating. If someone tests negative, he/she figures everything’s okay, spreads it to others, and so on and so forth.

    The good news is that Omicron appears to be less severe in most adults. It’s really hard to examine severity as we don’t have many people left who are both unvaccinated and don’t have natural immunity. Ideally, you’d want to compare Delta to Omicron in that group.

    Omicron does appear to impact older folks very similarly to Delta, AND, it impacts younger people – 0 to 17 – significantly worse than previous variants.

  3. Mama Mia, your thesis sounds incredibly similar to the one I wrote at around the same time. When Omicron subsides it would be nice to discuss with you (and other WHW folks who are interested), over a cup of coffee at a downtown Boston cafe.

  4. Covid-19 reporting is done in Europe comprehensively pretty much every day, including Christmas, Boxing Day, etc … You do see a `Sunday effect’ on a day like Christmas, but not like you see here. We tend to think of Europeans as folks who have long vacations, and they certainly do compared to us. But, their public health agencies do not take breaks like ours. I’m sure they have lots of substitute shifts. But, the agencies are busy with data collection, the agency chiefs and other spokespersons give interviews on Christmas and every day. Meanwhile, our CDC is NOT providing a data update until January 7th!

    In Europe, we see that countries that have locked down or instituted strong countermeasures are seeing plummeting cases, hospitalizations, and deaths. Countries that are not implementing strict measures are seeing cases and hospitalizations rise steadily, and deaths are plateauing for now. There is of course a tradeoff, as no-one wants a lockdown. It’s a rather depressing thought. However, if a country uses its lockdown period to boost the heck out of the population systematically – which is what Holland is doing; it’ll get to >80% by mid January and we’ll be stuck at 45% – it certainly helps with all Covid indicators.

  5. I suspect you may be right re Mrs Tom BUT my daughter in law managed to escape it both times my son had it. Unlike my DIL, Mrs Tom has two children in addition to a husband to care for which exposes her more.

    Frankly, and I said this the last time my DIL escaped covid, I think health experts should do a study of those who don’t seem to come down with the disease when directly exposed.

  6. We trusted the binaxNOW tests yesterday. Partly because we know my son and DIL have had several PCR tests and my grandson is tested daily in school. His RI school is doing remarkably well also. But then they have a hybrid option so kids are not piled on top of each other. I was nervous but I was nervous before my sons wedding also. Maybe we were wrong; but after two years of not being together, having all three kids, their spouses, and all six grandkids together was as perfect as it gets.

  7. Mama…..I went back to read your comment. I am so upset about the position we are putting out children in that I had to move away from covid for a few days. We, as adults, can make our own decisions. Children have only the adults to make the best decisions for them. And we have failed them beyond measure.

    The saddest part of all is that much of this was preventable. It literally makes me sick.

    1. I just went back to see how many students tested positive in Acton-Boxborough the last week. It reported 17 the week before and 89 the week ending 12/23. It clearly was out of control. I’ll check some other towns when I have a minute also that had high numbers last week.

      As for our healthcare….1998. Good grief and we have only moved forward a bit thanks to ACA, but there was and is so much pushback against that so it was just a minute fraction of what we need

      The reason most opposing it give is that universal healthcare doesn’t work. Well, Medicare is a breath of fresh air. And AFAIC it is universal. It is seamless. And many Americans don’t know even that much. A friend told me the other day that with Medicare you can’t see most doctors. I can see any doctor I find without any preapproval. I can schedule any test anywhere without prior approval. Prescription part D is not good but it is getting better.

  8. Thanks for that info everyone, I will let my wife know.

    Good news is she has a covid test scheduled at her dr´s office tomorrow.

      1. Oldest is feeling the best. She probably is in day 6 or 7 based on when her symptoms first appeared.

        Youngest has turned the corner. I think she´s probably at day 5 when the symptoms first appeared. She´s better overall, but still has a more frequent cough.

        I´m at day 2 by my test and today would be day 3 by my symptoms and I´m probably in the heart of it.

        Tired, coughing and a head cold. Really, feels like a good old fashioned winter cold. But, I can take deep full breathes without any discomfort.

  9. Always have to carefully dissect data. Luckily I have several colleagues doing a great job in this regard. South Africa cases are past peak and are in fact declining, but hospitalizations are not following suit (yet). There appears to be a shift in the ages of those contracting Omicron. First, it was mostly younger folks. Now it’s mostly older folks. The older are more vulnerable. The longer tail than usual (than previous variants) in South Africa – regarding hospitalizations – is something to keep an eye on. This is really THE main reason to boost systematically in nursing homes and other facilities and in mass vaccination sites, like the Dutch are doing (and we are not, at least not systematically): Ensure that every nursing home resident is boosted, and every adult over 65, and methodically go down the age ladder rather than throwing it open to everyone, hoping (praying) that everyone gets boosted.

  10. Vicki, you are so right about Medicare. It is much better than private insurance. In fact, there are far fewer restrictions in Medicare than private insurance. I’ve done dozens of analyses that demonstrate this. Private insurance rations in ways that Medicare does not. Of course, there are exceptions, such as platinum coverage or Cadillac commercial plans. But, the premiums are beyond the reach of most. I know that in my case, the vast majority of private plans are too expensive for me. I am in the individual market. I am certainly not poor, but there’s no way I can afford, say, a $1,000 a month individual plan that has very few limits. So, I, like many, have to make do with a crappy plan with tons of limits for $480 a month (still a quite a lot of money).

    1. My kids struggle with this also, especially the two families that are self employed. I pay right around 400/month for Medicare, part D and BCBS medex top tier. Not one cent out of pocket for anything else. When Mac was fighting his battle, private insurance refused to cover an MRI of his brain even though his Dana and brigham doctors wrote repeatedly and explained he had most of his spine replaced with rods due to tumors. This was HPHC. Once he had Medicare and BCBS medex…..again there was no prior authorization needed and there was no out of pocket expense. Ever. With all he went through.

      1. I’m sorry you and Mac had to deal with commercial insurer hurdles. Appalling that there are barriers to access/care when one is faced with a life-threatening condition.

  11. This is horrific, and yet another indictment of our healthcare `system.’ See tweet below. I also believe it’s an indictment of our state and federal governments for not systematically conducting booster campaigns, with mass vaccination centers, billboard and highway signage announcements (which I did see for vaccinations, but never for boosters), prime time spots on TV, etc … https://twitter.com/thehowie/status/1475143020408303621

  12. Mostly, America does not give a damn about public health. Seriously, we are SO bad at it.

    Just got off the phone with my sister, who’s a doctor in the Philadelphia area. Hospitals are “brimming with Covid patients.” Most are unvaccinated, though not all. The ICU folks are exhausted.

    Just analyzed NY state data: 85% increase in hospitalizations in NYC in one week. Cleveland, Ohio is seeing similar increases. Many cities and states aren’t reporting at all, which means officials think Covid is off for the holidays, too. It’s so darn ignorant.

    In America, you don’t get what you paid for, because in that case you’d have a wonderful healthcare system. No, ours is a perverted system in which the more you pay as a society the less you get in terms of health outcomes. We spend ourselves silly on crappy health insurance in the commercial sector, hospitals that vastly overcharge, pharmaceuticals that are overpriced and often offer limited value, etc … Will this ever change? No. I’ve given up even trying to convince people that there are better ways of organizing healthcare. And no, they’re not necessarily single payer systems. In fact, there are many examples of multi-payer systems that do so much better than we do. Yet, we just don’t even try to adopt their regulatory practices, for the sake of the `free market.’

    1. Oddly, Romney tried to move to universal healthcare. But it has not been updated so it is ridiculously expensive.

  13. I just chatted with a cousin. I adore him and always have but I got a peek at information out there that is too easy to be found and not being very vocally discounted. He told me a doctor in Italy has the answer and cure. It is a bacteria and not a virus that can be cured with zinc and vitamin C and hydroxy. When I asked why Italy is in a mess if it has the answers, he didn’t know. I think that is a common reaction to a question of truth. He also said millions have died after the vaccine.

    I get that with our sadly mixed messages people have no reason to believe truth when it is presented in a half baked manner.

  14. Vicki, I count Romney as a person who really does care about public health. He understands the importance of having universal and regulated healthcare (regulated from a price, premium, and benefit minimum perspective). Senator Grassley (R-Iowa) also cares about public health, as does Lisa Murkowski (R-Alaska). Very few other Republicans in Congress and in governorships focus on public health and the healthcare system. Some want to derail it entirely: Stitt (Oklahoma), DeSantis (Florida), Johnson (R-Wisconsin), etc … But, it’s not as if all Democrats are gung-ho about public health or the healthcare system.

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