Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #103

[Jsizzle]

There may be a pool of young unvaccinated people who could have had prior mild or asymptomatic infections and not gotten tested. Just a thought.

Which is entirely possible as I do not test my kids for every sneeze and sniffle either.

 

[CharlestonGal]

Which is entirely possible as I do not test my kids for every sneeze and sniffle either.

I'm a bit confused. If the dancers had to provide vaccination proof, why were unvaccinated people allowed to participate with no proof of vaccine? Why even ask for vaccination status for no point whatsoever? They still mixed vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in the same group activity.

I bet they don't do that again, considering the (predictable) outcome. jmo

 

[beatrixpotter]

My husband and I have gone almost 2 years running the Covid gauntlet only to be taken out by Omicron. We are both vaxxed. It’s not bad. Extreme fatigue, about 12 hours of fever and body aches but mostly annoying congestion and runny nose.
Something else of notice….my daughter entire dance company is all having a Covid outbreak. Some worse symptoms than others but all totally fine. Every. Single. Girl. Who is sick is vaxxed. Not one unvaxxed girl is sick. I find it super interesting and there is a group chat between us (the vaxxed and unvaxxed girl moms) about how that’s possible. Some food for thought. Also, they were all together during their dress rehearsal and rehearsals sat and Sunday and all attended a Christmas party together. Definitely makes you wonder.

Beyond odd. Almost everyone I know who has gotten covid over the last two years was unvaccinated.

 

[Jsizzle]

I'm a bit confused. If the dancers had to provide vaccination proof, why were unvaccinated people allowed to participate with no proof of vaccine? Why even ask for vaccination status for no point whatsoever? They still mixed vaccinated and unvaccinated kids in the same group activity.

I bet they don't do that again, considering the (predictable) outcome. jmo

Because the vaxxed dancers can dance without a mask on. That’s the only reason. We don’t need proof of vax anywhere in n my state to do anything. But if the dancers don’t want to wear a mask then they need to show proof of vax card.

 

[Jsizzle]

Beyond odd. Almost everyone I know who has gotten covid over the last two years was unvaccinated.

Like I said, I find it very interesting as do the rest of the moms.

 

[Jsizzle]

Beyond odd. Almost everyone I know who has gotten covid over the last two years was unvaccinated.

My daughter isn’t vaxxed and by the grace of God she didn’t catch Covid from me, either. And we are tied at the hip. Who knows.

 

[beatrixpotter]

I just ordered a few more of my favorite masks. The respokare ones since they kill virus on contact. Ugh, I'd been waiting for the smaller sizes to come in for weeks. So I snoozed on the larger sizes. And they sold out today while I was watching and counting what masks I had. The next cheapest place I could find cost me twice as much per mask. And many places charge literally 3 times as much per mask as the place I buy from. :/

We have N95 but for my kids needing to be indoors for hours at a time I'd much rather they wear these kind. They also fit much better around the face for me.

 

[beatrixpotter]

Like I said, I find it very interesting as do the rest of the moms.

I wonder what variants. The older variants were less contagious and I've known a lot of families where only part of the family got sick. With Omicron it seems like it's going to be less likely for only part of a household to get sick.

On the other hand how do we even know if the people who seem like they didn't get sick weren't just asymptomatic?

 

[CharlestonGal]

Because the vaxxed dancers can dance without a mask on. That’s the only reason. We don’t need proof of vax anywhere in n my state to do anything. But if the dancers don’t want to wear a mask then they need to show proof of vax card.

Sounds like a deficient protocol. My group therapy participants are vaxxed and masked if they want to attend in person. Those who are unvaccinated, or vaccinated but refuse a mask, participate via zoom. We keep the two groups separate. Which is likely why we have not had an outbreak like yours. I'm sure (I hope) the dance class evaluates where they went wrong and facilitated an outbreak amongst their mixed group. jmo

 

[Jsizzle]

Sounds like a deficient protocol. My group therapy participants are vaxxed and masked if they want to attend in person. Those who are unvaccinated, or vaccinated but refuse a mask, participate via zoom. We keep the two groups separate. Which is likely why we have not had an outbreak like yours. I'm sure (I hope) the dance class evaluates where they went wrong and facilitated an outbreak amongst their mixed group. jmo

They will likely keep status quo. We a

I wonder what variants. The older variants were less contagious and I've known a lot of families where only part of the family got sick. With Omicron it seems like it's going to be less likely for only part of a household to get sick.

On the other hand how do we even know if the people who seem like they didn't get sick weren't just asymptomatic?

we will see what my PCR says but from what I’m reading it appears me and my husband have Omi. Exact symptoms. Very mild. Cold symptoms and we have our taste and smell. But we’ll see.

 

[IceIce9]

I wonder what variants. The older variants were less contagious and I've known a lot of families where only part of the family got sick. With Omicron it seems like it's going to be less likely for only part of a household to get sick.

On the other hand how do we even know if the people who seem like they didn't get sick weren't just asymptomatic?

In the family medicine clinic where I had been covering for the past several months, if we had a patient who tested positive we tested all the other family members too, whether they had symptoms or not. If they tested negative we tested them again the next day, and then the following day. Nearly always by day 3 all family members tested positive. Many never developed symptoms.

Our rationale for testing all family members for 3 days was that one negative test gave a false sense of security. A person who tested negative might go to work, to school, shopping, to restaurants, exposing many people to COVID.

Most people aren’t going to get tested 3 days in a row. Nearly everyone who gets a negative test just assumes they don’t have COVID. But many times it doesn’t show up as a positive test for a couple of days.

In two cases we had very sick patients with all the classic COVID symptoms who repeatedly tested negative. One of our docs sent them for chest x-rays and sure enough, the radiologists interpreted COVID lung in both patients.

 

[anneg]

Regarding Pfizer's Paxlovid oral treatment (red text by me):

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes First Oral Antiviral for Treatment of COVID-19

Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for Pfizer’s Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir tablets and ritonavir tablets, co-packaged for oral use) for the treatment of mild-to-moderate coronavirus disease (COVID-19) in adults and pediatric patients (12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kilograms or about 88 pounds) with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 testing, and who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19, including hospitalization or death. Paxlovid is available by prescription only and should be initiated as soon as possible after diagnosis of COVID-19 and within five days of symptom onset.

“Today’s authorization introduces the first treatment for COVID-19 that is in the form of a pill that is taken orally — a major step forward in the fight against this global pandemic,” said Patrizia Cavazzoni, M.D., director of the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research. “This authorization provides a new tool to combat COVID-19 at a crucial time in the pandemic as new variants emerge and promises to make antiviral treatment more accessible to patients who are at high risk for progression to severe COVID-19.”

Paxlovid is not authorized for the pre-exposure or post-exposure prevention of COVID-19 or for initiation of treatment in those requiring hospitalization due to severe or critical COVID-19. Paxlovid is not a substitute for vaccination in individuals for whom COVID-19 vaccination and a booster dose are recommended. The FDA has approved one vaccine and authorized others to prevent COVID-19 and serious clinical outcomes associated with a COVID-19 infection, including hospitalization and death. The FDA urges the public to get vaccinated and receive a booster if eligible. Learn more about FDA-approved or -authorized COVID-19 vaccines.

Paxlovid consists of nirmatrelvir, which inhibits a SARS-CoV-2 protein to stop the virus from replicating, and ritonavir, which slows down nirmatrelvir’s breakdown to help it remain in the body for a longer period at higher concentrations. Paxlovid is administered as three tablets (two tablets of nirmatrelvir and one tablet of ritonavir) taken together orally twice daily for five days, for a total of 30 tablets. Paxlovid is not authorized for use for longer than five consecutive days.

(more at link)

 

[CharlestonGal]

That is what we discovered, too. These negative people were not uninfected, supposedly. But they were infected and pre-symptomatic. Give it a day or two and they indeed progressed to symptomatic and contagious a few days later. The problem is lack of follow-up. Your "asymptomatic" patient is indeed infected and starts spreading but you don't notice because you didn't bother to test them a few days later.

But to be fair, we never implemented contact tracing and follow-up to any appreciable degree in the US. We simply don't follow these people. We don't have the infrastructure in place to follow up on these things. We had 200,000 cases today. If each of these people were in contact with even 5 people, that is 1 million people to follow up on. Nevermind the number of contacts those million people had.

We lost control of contact tracing way back in 2020 because we allowed our cases to explode beyond our capacity to trace them. The government put us on "pause" for a two weeks in 2020 in order to get these systems in place. 2 weeks, seriously? It would have taken months to get all that together. The infrastructure should have been in place long before this event occurred. But we did not bother and we are seeing the consequences now, after it's too late.

The US lost control of this pandemic within the first few weeks because they ignored the warnings of epidemiologists who had been warning for two decades at least that this was going to happen.

We are paying for that now, with the highest cases and highest deaths in the world. The US might be great at a lot of things, but public health is not one of them. jmo

 

[anneg]

More about the timeline on the Pfizer oral treatment:

In November, President Joe Biden’s administration announced it planned to purchase 10 million courses of Paxlovid for more than $5 billion. Pfizer says it expects to produce up to 80 million treatment courses by the end of 2022, with 30 million courses available in the first half of the year. In a conference call today, Jeffrey Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said 265,000 courses of Paxlovid will be available in the United States in January 2022. But because manufacturing of the drug can take up to 8 months, the full 10 million treatment courses ordered by the Biden administration won’t be available until late summer of 2022.

Ready for the next variant...?

 

[CrimeAway]

This week's Q&A with A&V

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

ETA: If you hover over the top of the video, you can right-click to open and watch on YouTube, where playback speed etc., can be changed.

 

[CharlestonGal]

More about the timeline on the Pfizer oral treatment:

In November, President Joe Biden’s administration announced it planned to purchase 10 million courses of Paxlovid for more than $5 billion. Pfizer says it expects to produce up to 80 million treatment courses by the end of 2022, with 30 million courses available in the first half of the year. In a conference call today, Jeffrey Zients, White House COVID-19 response coordinator, said 265,000 courses of Paxlovid will be available in the United States in January 2022. But because manufacturing of the drug can take up to 8 months, the full 10 million treatment courses ordered by the Biden administration won’t be available until late summer of 2022.

Ready for the next variant...?

We'll never be "ready" for the next variant. Each variant will be unique and unanticipated just like Omicron. And Delta. The virus is mutating and we cannot predict that in advance. Delta surprised us. Omicron surprised us. The next variant will surprise us as well.

What people refuse to understand is that allowing this virus to replicate any time, in any group of people, no matter how "mild", it is still SARS, and any replication anywhere is a recipe for disaster. IMO

 

[CrimeAway]

Yes. Virus replication leads to mutations. More replication increases the chance of mutations.

 

[Teche]

I just ordered a few more of my favorite masks. The respokare ones since they kill virus on contact. Ugh, I'd been waiting for the smaller sizes to come in for weeks. So I snoozed on the larger sizes. And they sold out today while I was watching and counting what masks I had. The next cheapest place I could find cost me twice as much per mask. And many places charge literally 3 times as much per mask as the place I buy from. :/

We have N95 but for my kids needing to be indoors for hours at a time I'd much rather they wear these kind. They also fit much better around the face for me.

Are the Respokare mask single use?

 

[nightowl1975]

Yeah you do sound pretty jaded. These are loving and responsible adults who will all do the right thing. They are making the best of a crappy situation.

Unfortunately, some seem to believe anyone who isn’t vaccinated is also out there while Covid positive just living it up, without a care in the world, trying to infect as many as possible. It’s like anyone who isn’t 1000% on board with every single precaution to the most extreme degree must be an ogre who hates mankind. It’s baffling, really. But yeah. It’s absolutely possible for a family to not be vaccinated and also not go galavanting around spreading disease and death once infected. People can think so….. black and white… and IME people are so much more complex than that in their beliefs and behaviors. All IMO.

 

[HongKongPhooey]

Which is entirely possible as I do not test my kids for every sneeze and sniffle either.

Its a real shame you dont have the system in place we do, where school kids have to test three times a week regardless of symptoms.