Conoravirus ...

[Olaf Hart]

Over here a study early in omicron suggested the background rate of infection was ten times the known rate.
Our son avoided the virus in Denver but managed to catch it at a wedding in Melbourne (Oz)!

[SemiSalt]

I do wonder how much of the general impression of "Omicron isn't as bad as Delta was" is caused by better drugs (EG: Paxlovid) and other superior care techniques our medical professionals have developed over the last two years.

My sources (https://www.microbe.tv/twiv/twiv-901/) think it's a vaccine effect as well: milder cases among the vaccinated. They may not have mentioned it the the episode at the link.

[SemiSalt]

This is my own graph based on numbers posted by the State of Connecticut. Note that the Y-axis units are percent, so 1.0 means 1/100, and 0.5 means 5/1000. You can see that mortality is higher in the Delta and Omicron spikes. I don't know the reason for that. Reports at the time suggested that unvaccinated persons were a high proportion of cases then.

2022-05-27_10-05-47.png

[BeauV]

Over here a study early in omicron suggested the background rate of infection was ten times the known rate.
Our son avoided the virus in Denver but managed to catch it at a wedding in Melbourne (Oz)!

I can't re-discover the source, but serum data from a large number of folks (over 10,000) showed that 75% of kids under 18 showed antibodies to COVID-19. There weren't any vaccines for that age group at the time, so that's all naturally derived antibodies from infection. (Proving that your kids and grandkids can kill you if you're an old geezer.) Sadly, natural immunity fades between 6 and 18 months. There are thousands of cases of 2nd and 3rd infections.

Other data:
- A study of the use of Antibiotics showed that 45% of Americans do not finish their full course of whatever antibiotic they are prescribed. They stop as soon as they feel better.
- Paxlovid has some relatively common and uncomfortable side effects, primarily diarrhea.
- Therefore, I'd propose that the claim that there is something wrong with Paxlovid because there is a 1-2 percent chance of relapse is absurd. Clearly, a significant number of Americans will stop taking Paxlovid long before the end of the prescribed course and symptoms will re-emerge.

[SemiSalt]

Dr. Griffin, at the link I gave above, is adamant "no antibiotics". Good studies have shown them to be not helpful. Other studies have shown that patients are routinely given antibiotics anyway.

Cats are easier to herd than physicians.

[Panope]

A friend of 40+ years keeps sending links to this sort of stuff:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9062939/

He has bought into it - hook, line and sinker. I have no idea how to respond. So far I have been silent.

It reminds me of the near destruction of my Ex's family because of the Y2K bug non-sense.

...or the attempts of well meaning family trying to save me from eternal damnation.

Ugh.

[BeauV]

Steve, (Warning - a bit of a rant)

I have a lot of friends and x-friends who have bought into various versions of this sort of thing in different domains. Generally, I think this is a "bad" byproduct of the tremendous "good" we in the tech industry did by breaking down the barriers of communication. It first began to come off the rails in the late '80s when Stewart and Larry observed this behavior at The Well. I'm guessing you are too young to have been a member of The Well. I joined in '86, when it was one year old. Since then, larger and larger versions of the on-line-community that Stewart and Larry created have emerged: AOL, REDIT, Facebook, Twitter, etc.... etc.... etc..... They are currently fracturing into balkanized sites where "members" of these online communities have self-selected by joining those they agree with. Often, agreement within one of these communities includes derision aimed at some other community or multiple other communities. Similarly, disagreement with the consensus view is typically greeted with tremendous hostility. Put another way, you either sign up or get out.

I suppose this isn't new. Physical Countries have often demanded conformity of belief as a condition of living within their boundaries, be it religion, philosophy, marriage styles, slave ownership, or economic model, the list of ways that people have demanded conformity is long and covers most aspects of how humans think and behave. Currently, something as relatively boring as pronouncements from the CDC has been added to the list.

Your friends link to the scree describing the evils of all sorts of un-named people and their various conspiracies to run roughshod over the medical profession is just one example. I have a lot of friends in the medical profession, some of whom are here on this site, and I really feel for them. An example is a lovely woman who is our local County Health Officer. She was "doxed" (Meaning all her personal info was posted at various hate-filled sites online). As a result, people have hung blood-soaked face masks on her mailbox, sent her death threats as emails, and harassed her intensely. These thugs feel this is justified because she required citizens to wear masks indoors. Sadly, this has happened all over the US. Fortunately, our local police and sheriff departments have tracked some of these thugs down and tossed them in jail. That resulted in many of them losing their jobs and a few being driven out of their own families. But, in the end, the hate has kept pouring in. I don't know how she puts up with it. I've no idea how Dr. Fauci puts up with it.

Sadly, since about 2015 I've tried hard to use facts and logic to persuade some of the authors of things like the document at the link you've posted that they are mistaken. Basically, I have failed. Occasionally, when finally pinned into a corner and forced to face a simple fact like "After tens of millions of people have been vaccinated there aren't any hospitals filling up with people being sickened by the vaccines." many times the response is something like: "You don't know that. The CDC isn't telling us what the side effects are because it's a conspiracy." or "Just wait, the side effects haven't emerged yet. Those vaccines have screwed up your DNA and you'll get cancer." (Both of those examples are lifted from emails sent to me by college-educated friends.) Or, they react like your friend's post and shift the argument to one about "process" vs "facts". The author in that scree simply glosses over any real discussion about how public health issues and decisions are actually addressed and gropes around for someone to blame, coming up with un-named bureaucrats.

You probably haven't noticed, but I've given up. After a long and depressing night of discussing this problem with a group of friends, I quit. The most discouraging thing was an associate of mine in the financial services business who has decided that this sort of person is a gullible target for all manner of dubious investments. He is now marketing various investment vehicles to this sort of group following the formula used by Black Rifle Coffee. Wrap it up in an American Flag, claim some percentage of the gain will go to some veteran's group, and soak them for advisory fees that are five times what Schwab charges. It's disgusting and brilliant at the same time. His business is growing like crazy. It must be appalling to companies like USAA who actually do good things for veterans.

I'll just wrap this up by saying that whenever I'm presented with an article with this level of histrionics, I immediately start reading the "REFERENCES" section at the end. There you'll find that many of the citations lead to things like newspaper articles and rants similar to this one. In the link your friend sent you, many of them don't actually support what the author believes they do. But, again, I have had zero success in pointing this out to any author of a piece like this. When I receive one now, I reply to the sender that I looked at it, it didn't make sense, but it wasn't worth their time or mine to debate it. Then ask them to stop sending things this if it's the third or fourth time they've done it. If they send another one, I tell them their email address has been blocked and if they wish to reach me, call me on the phone. Not one person has ever called me on the phone after that, despite my mobile number being listed at the bottom of every email.

Sorry to sound so down about all this. Generally, the medical profession has come close to performing miracles in fighting COVID. Sadly, the political profession has decided this was an opportunity to further divide our country. One way of looking at the author of your friend's link is that he is someone in the medical profession desperately trying to deal with his own sense of guilt that over a million Americans were killed by COVID, and as a percentage of our population it makes us one of the worst at protecting our own population. This wasn't a failure of the medical profession.

End of Rant.

[BeauV]

So, to be brief:

Personally, I'm feeling a lot better. I'm on Day-14 of COVID, I am still testing positive, but I haven't had a fever since Day-3. However, I have had various periods of intense coughing: Days 0-3 and again Days 10-12. I am double vaccinated +1 booster (all Moderna). On Day-1 I started Paxlovid and took all five days' worth. My coughing became bad again on Day 10, so I guess I'm in the small percentage that had a "rebound infection". At no time did I ever test negative after my first positive test. (Daily Testing with antigen tests Abbot & iHealth)

As a result, I'm not entirely sure what I should do. I haven't found any clear description of when I can stop isolating myself on CDC, Johns Hopkins, or UCSF Medical websites. My GP, who prescribed the Paxlovid says he doesn't know because there are so few "rebound infections" that no one seems to have figured it out. So.... I guess I stay locked up until I test negative.

I'd be very very grateful to anyone with a link to any scientific info/advice on this.

[Olaf Hart]

This is the formal advice from our local public health people who have been on target throughout this illness. They seem to ignore testing at the end of the quarantine period.

https://www.coronavirus.tas.gov.au/keep ... g-covid-19

On Steves article, a lot of the facts are correct, but I think the conclusions are not. I have worked in this space in the past.

My take is summarised by the three universal laws of human affairs

1. If you have a choice between conspiracy and chaos, its always chaos

2. If you want an explanation, follow the money

3. If it happens once, it happened. If it happens twice, its circumstance. If it happens three times its enemy action.

[SemiSalt]

So, to be brief:

My coughing became bad again on Day 10, so I guess I'm in the small percentage that had a "rebound infection". At no time did I ever test negative after my first positive test. (Daily Testing with antigen tests Abbot & iHealth)

The "rebound" phenomenon is just now coming into focus, maybe because of the effectiveness of Paxlovid. Previously, there was no "suddenly feel better after two days". Per Dr. Griffin, there are two varieties of rebound: the one you experienced at about 10 days, and one that come at about 21 days. Cases like yours have had more study, and have determined that the patient does have a high viral load and is presumptively contagious. As far as isolation goes, the guess from this non-doctor is that it puts you back at day one of 5-6 days of isolation.

EDIT: A CDC advisory about rebounds is here: https://emergency.cdc.gov/han/2022/han00467.asp Advice for patients in a bullet point: Advise people with COVID-19 rebound to follow CDC’s guidance on isolation and take precautions to prevent further transmission. Patients should re-isolate for at least 5 days. Per CDC guidance, they can end their re-isolation period after 5 full days if fever has resolved for 24 hours (without the use of fever-reducing medication) and symptoms are improving. The patient should wear a mask for a total of 10 days after rebound symptoms started.

[SemiSalt]

This is the formal advice from our local public health people who have been on target throughout this illness. They seem to ignore testing at the end of the quarantine period.

https://www.coronavirus.tas.gov.au/keep ... g-covid-19

On Steves article, a lot of the facts are correct, but I think the conclusions are not. I have worked in this space in the past.

My take is summarised by the three universal laws of human affairs

1. If you have a choice between conspiracy and chaos, its always chaos

2. If you want an explanation, follow the money

3. If it happens once, it happened. If it happens twice, its circumstance. If it happens three times its enemy action.

Considering any possible conspiracy, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin: Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Any theory requiring 1000s of people keeping a secret is certainly false, especially if revealing the secret could get a reporter a Pulitzer.

[BeauV]

This is the formal advice from our local public health people who have been on target throughout this illness. They seem to ignore testing at the end of the quarantine period.

https://www.coronavirus.tas.gov.au/keep ... g-covid-19

On Steves article, a lot of the facts are correct, but I think the conclusions are not. I have worked in this space in the past.

My take is summarised by the three universal laws of human affairs

1. If you have a choice between conspiracy and chaos, its always chaos

2. If you want an explanation, follow the money

3. If it happens once, it happened. If it happens twice, its circumstance. If it happens three times its enemy action.

Considering any possible conspiracy, remember the words of Benjamin Franklin: Three people can keep a secret if two of them are dead. Any theory requiring 1000s of people keeping a secret is certainly false, especially if revealing the secret could get a reporter a Pulitzer.

OH & Semi -- You guys are GREAT!! I had never heard the quote from Ben Franklin, that's now seared into my memory. I also came up with this guidance published by the CDC for folks like me HERE.

BTW, and this could be really good news, there is an organization that is going after supposed scientific journals that have either been taken over or simply invented with various nefarious purposes. You can read about in HERE. (I have no idea if this Retraction Watch and Highjacked Journal Checker is legit, I'm still checking.) If it's legit, it could explain a lot of the crazy journal articles like the one that Steve's "friend" sent him.

[Olaf Hart]

Thanks Beau, that CDC paper is useful, antivirals aren't used much down here to date, especially in the community.

[BeauV]

Personal Update: I'm now officially out of COVID-Jail. According to the CDC and UCSF Medical guidelines, I'm allowed to PARTY ON!

[H B]

Steve, It is interesting that a Neurological Surgeon is also an expert on Covid Conspiracy..He must be an authoritative source since he has "MD" behind his name.

[Slick470]

Well shit. After our entire household avoiding it (or at least testing positive for it), Ella came home from camp yesterday with a fever. Tested her last night and the result was inconclusive, this morning, positive. So far everyone else in the house is negative, but it's probably only a matter of time...

Sucks in a lot of ways, especially as being sick sucks in general, Covid more so, but also both kids and Sarah were at a day camp they really enjoy this week, Ella was scheduled to go to Girl Scout sleepaway camp next week, and my best friend from back home and his family were going to come visit next week and stay with us for 4 days. He'll still be in the area, (conference in Baltimore) but will need to figure out new lodging plans, and depending on how we do, we may or may not see them while they are here.

Our house is relatively small, so we can only keep somewhat separated. It's also pretty hard to tell a kid that they can't leave their room for a week, so lots of masking and general cleaning while we are able to. All of us are vaccinated and Sarah and I had the first round of boosters, so hopefully that keeps the symptoms down.

[Tim Ford]

Into day ten today, yet another Positive test. Thing is, I was testing Negative very nicely until I read this paper from a former client of mine (ASM).

Ignorance is surely bliss...

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/spectrum.00217-22

[H B]

Into day ten today, yet another Positive test. Thing is, I was testing Negative very nicely until I read this paper from a former client of mine (ASM).

Ignorance is surely bliss...

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/spectrum.00217-22

Sorry, Tim. I for sure don't want it again. We just got the "flooster" before we went out of country, but Laura came back not feeling well..she did have a neg rapid test before going back in to work, which is how we got it in March...hopefully just a plane bug. In March, when she brought it home from a co-worker, by the time she showed symptoms it was too late, even though I immediately went to the lower level of the house! I still think that is the biggest problem...by the time you show symptoms, you've already spread it around to family and friends.

[TheOffice]

Tim

I hope you are feeling ok!
We did not have our usual holiday gathering this year. Sue is having hand surgery tomorrow, and the last thing we needed was for her to get sick and need to cancel (even though MedStar is not testing patients).

As Sarge used to say on Hill Street Blues "Let's be careful out there!"

Joel

[Tim Ford]

HB, very true. This was most likely from asymptomatic family that came by for thanksgiving.

Joel, I hope the surgery went well today!!! One weird thing about having COVID in the house for the past ten days is, my wife didn't use her hands for much at all, while sick for a week or more, and now is wondering, since her hand is so much better, if she'll even need the surgery that has been suggested.

SILVER COVID LINING? plus (except for the ETOH laced Nyquil I have been swilling) I haven't had a beer or wine for nine days and the $$$ savings has been remarkable! I mean, I may as well drink frothy seltzer water, it tastes the same....

[BeauV]

Jeeeesh! I'm sorry to hear you all are so sickly, or soon-2-be sickly. I had the 'Vid for something like 18 days a while ago, including the post-Paxlovid rebound infection.

I did recently have a bad head cold for 10 days, so the 'Vid is not entirely to blame. I managed to keep my lovely Admiral from getting sick by wearing a mask as soon as I had any symptoms at all. Of course, that doesn't work for the 'Vid. Also, wearing a mast 24x7 for 10 days was a royal PITA. Sleeping was particularly difficult. I wish you all a rapid return to good heath!!

[Steele]

One of my jobs in our little yacht club is to arrange our off season dinner meetings at a local restaurant. I have been tracking the numbers. RSV has plateaued, covid is at a "low" level but has doubled since Thanksgiving (and as already noted identified cases are a small minority of true incidence), and influenza is on a rocket. I have not seen flu cases this high or this early in recent memory. I made the executive decision to cancel, the last thing I want is an outbreak at our club a week before Christmas. We will do a remote ZOOM happy hour instead. I suspect this will not make me popular among some of the members, but our club demographics mirrors boating in genteral, which is to say we have a lot of older high risk folks.

[TheOffice]

Steele,

You made the right call! Doing what is popular does not make you a leader, it makes you one of the flock!

[Tim Ford]

Absolutely!

We constantly have this discussion, at least as of late since the pathogens 'bin perkin' again. Next big deal is a formal dinner dance in late January. We've already paid for the room (at EYC) so I guess it'll be on, but the thought of 75 people bouncing around in a contained space three weeks after Christmas/New Years, is a bit frightening.

Can you spell SUPER-SPREADER?

[BeauV]

One of the organizations I belong to just had 550 people in a relatively large, but not large enough, space. I went as I really needed to support the team. But, I'm now testing myself daily. sigh.

[Steele]

So far our Christmas dinner has been reduced by 4 family members, all with covid, 2 for the second time. 3 of the 4 tend to attend group events such as church, theater etc. I am surprised by this because based on the public health data influenza is a greater risk than covid. I suspect covid is circulating in much greater numbers than predicted.

[Panope]

Our town's hardware store quit giving away popcorn in March 2020 (covid). This week, they resumed the tradition but it is no longer self serve (movie theater style popcorn machine).

Woohoo.

[H B]

Floosted!!!

At least I hopefully won't die.

We actually got the flooster right after Turkey Day, before our BVI trip. As it turns out, there is plenty of fresh air down there, and most restaurants are outdoor...although the airplane rides and being in a boat with 3 other couples was way more risky.

[TheOffice]

Got the Vid again. Feels like a head cold. I’ll be working from home this week.

[The Red Lady]

Got the Vid again. Feels like a head cold. I’ll be working from home this week.

Oh no, I hope you feel better soon!

We had a wave go through my work just after the holidays, we had 12 people out at the same time at one point and probably 20 total infections since the start of December. This new variant is no joke! Despite the fact I was in charge of testing workers who felt sick, I was able to escape the wrath of 'Rona. To the best of my knowledge, I have still never had it and have never tested positive. I'm sure that will change at some point soon.

Stay heathy everyone!