Covid-19 News/Discussion

[Xenos]

21 minutes ago, ET80 said:

Presented with no comments:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/ajherrington/2022/01/11/study-finds-cannabis-compounds-prevent-infection-by-covid-19-virus/

I rather people take this then ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.

[BullsandBroncos]

1 hour ago, Xenos said:

I rather people take this then ivermectin or hydroxychloroquine.

Covid cocktail of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, MCABs, and sticky bush.  Still not as bad as the idiots that tried to use prednisone 

[ramssuperbowl99]

2 hours ago, MWil23 said:

I wanted to or said that it was inevitable using "may as well". There's not another solution at this point, which I later clarified, and that was also largely ignored here. That's fine, but I don't think anyone was open minded to what I was saying, which I clarified later on.

Only because you did this to me a week ago... *ahem*

[MWil23]

43 minutes ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Only because you did this to me a week ago... *ahem*

I absolutely stand corrected, you quoted me with Bucs comment and had my back on what I said.  

[WizeGuy]

I posted this on another forum, but I figured some of y'all may be interested to read a firsthand account of how Omicron is impacting my ICU in Upstate NY:

Update at my hospital (personal account) /county with Omicron:

 

Omicron started surging on Christmas. So it's been two and half weeks. We're seeing a big rise in hospitalizations, but how much of that is Delta and how many of those are incidental positives?

 

The good news is- our ICU population has fallen from 144 (12/22) to 117 (1/10). Looking at the graph- it's clearly following a different path than previous waves, which would be seeing a big increase in ICU populations by now. This is reflective of my personal experience. My unit is always one of the last ones to flip to a COVID ICU, and we have not had to do so this winter where as last winter we were full of COVID patients (even had to hold some in the children's hospital). Our vaccination rate saved our ***** against Delta (comparing to Florida and states that had lower vaxx rates at the time they were hit).

 

On top of ICU admissions going down- there are some positive signs that the surge is beginning to plateau. 7-day average has dipped for the first time since the surge started. On top of that- percent positive has been slowly declining for the past few days. This is very strange to me because I thought the surge typically lasted 4 weeks, and its only been two and half weeks. We had a pretty high prevalence of Delta when Omicron hit, so perhaps there's a lot of competition that's making it tough for Omicron to take off as quickly and stay at high levels? We're also 70% vaccinated, so maybe that's having an impact? Although NYC seemed to have its cases rage for longer, though they are way more densely packed.

 

Now, onto how COVID is impacting our workers: Well, lots and lots of people are getting infected. The trend seems to be 50% of the workers on our units have had to quarantine in the past few weeks. Most of them have had extremely mild illnesses, but I do know one nurse who got pretty damn sick. She's a young woman (early-mid 20s) who is in really good shape. She didn't need a hospital visit, but she's still struggling with shortness of breath a  few weeks after testing positive. She was fully vaccinated, but not boosted, so there still is a chance that you'll get pretty damn sick if you do have a breakthrough infection, though it seems pretty rare. It's possible she was infected with Delta since she was infected on Christmas, and that's just when Omicron began surging.

 

All in all, I really think we're headed in a positive direction, but we're not out of the woods yet. Cases take a week or so to turn to hospitalizations and hospitalizations take a bit to turn to ICU admissions, and our ICU admissions have seen a slight uptick over the past couple of days, but it's become more clear that we're unlikely to see a big surge in admissions (ICU).

 

I was EXTREMELY worried about the Omicron surge due to dealing with Delta at the same time. People can look back at my posting history, but it's not materializing into overwhelmed ICUs. I cannot speak on the EDs. I'm sure they're getting hammered, but things are MUCH BETTER on my side of the hospital than it was last year. That's good news, although I'm still cautiously optimistic.

Edited January 13, 2022 by WizeGuy

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

20 hours ago, MWil23 said:

I wanted to or said that it was inevitable using "may as well". There's not another solution at this point, which I later clarified, and that was also largely ignored here. That's fine, but I don't think anyone was open minded to what I was saying, which I clarified later on.

I get what you’re saying, but there ARE solutions to a lot of these issues.
 

The fact that people refuse to implement those solutions doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

I realize you’re speaking from a point of realism, but the fact remains if we actually followed science and common sense we’d be light years ahead of where we are currently. It doesn’t have to be this bad.

[TVScout]

Nearly all teenagers needing intensive care for covid-19 were unvaccinated in a study of more than 1,000 hospital patients in the United States.

The Pfizer-BioNTech coronavirus vaccine prevented 94 percent of hospitalizations and was 98 percent effective at keeping patients out of the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or from requiring life support, per the peer-reviewed analysis published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine.

[JonStark]

33 minutes ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I get what you’re saying, but there ARE solutions to a lot of these issues.
 

The fact that people refuse to implement those solutions doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

I realize you’re speaking from a point of realism, but the fact remains if we actually followed science and common sense we’d be light years ahead of where we are currently. It doesn’t have to be this bad.

There are solutions, but unfortunately that's where the politics come into play. As long as the poorer countries aren't able to get themselves vaccinated, new variants are always going to be popping up. 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

22 minutes ago, JonStark said:

There are solutions, but unfortunately that's where the politics come into play. As long as the poorer countries aren't able to get themselves vaccinated, new variants are always going to be popping up. 

For sure, but even as it pertains to this country if everyone who could get vaccinated did and people wore masks when appropriate (large gatherings, close proximity, etc) hospitalizations rates, deaths, healthcare staffing shortages, schools having to close (our HS is remote learning until 1/24 as of today due to staffing shortages r/t covid), etc., would be non-issues.  Or at a minimum a fraction of the issue.

[MWil23]

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I get what you’re saying, but there ARE solutions to a lot of these issues.

That people haven't used in 22 months, or at least in the last 10 months.

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

The fact that people refuse to implement those solutions doesn’t mean they don’t exist.

Nor did I insinuate as much. I'm speaking strictly from a societal and sociological point of view.

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

I realize you’re speaking from a point of realism,

Exactly

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

but the fact remains if we actually followed science and common sense we’d be light years ahead of where we are currently.

Different conversation altogether IMO

1 hour ago, LETSGOBROWNIES said:

It doesn’t have to be this bad.

Definitely. But, I think we've even seen the CDC look for this exact window by relaxing quarantine and other guidelines due to this particular strain. They saw their opportunity and basically said "Yep, this is it..." and here we are.  Those who decided to get a shot are probably going to be fine, and those who haven't could be in some trouble. (Don't take my word for it, that's coming straight from the data and Fauci on Tuesday.)

Given that we've done this for 22 months now, there's unfortunately not a more realistically good end game here. It is what it is at this point, and better with this strain than other(s).

JMHO

[TVScout]

European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible.  

Repeat booster doses every four months could eventually weaken the immune response and tire out people, according to the European Medicines Agency. Instead, countries should leave more time between booster programs and tie them to the onset of the cold season in each hemisphere, following the blueprint set out by influenza vaccination strategies, the agency said. Boosters “can be done once, or maybe twice, but it’s not something that we can think should be repeated constantly,” Marco Cavaleri, the EMA head of biological health threats and vaccines strategy, said at a press briefing on Tuesday. “We need to think about how we can transition from the current pandemic setting to a more endemic setting.”

[MWil23]

6 minutes ago, TVScout said:

European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible.  

Repeat booster doses every four months could eventually weaken the immune response and tire out people, according to the European Medicines Agency. Instead, countries should leave more time between booster programs and tie them to the onset of the cold season in each hemisphere

So basically like an annual flu shot. That makes sense.

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

 

3 minutes ago, MWil23 said:

Definitely. But, I think we've even seen the CDC look for this exact window by relaxing quarantine and other guidelines due to this particular strain. They saw their opportunity and basically said "Yep, this is it..." and here we are.  Those who decided to get a shot are probably going to be fine, and those who haven't could be in some trouble. (Don't take my word for it, that's coming straight from the data and Fauci on Tuesday.)

Given that we've done this for 22 months now, there's unfortunately not a more realistically good end game here. It is what it is at this point, and better with this strain than other(s).

JMHO

Perhaps, but I’m not certain that’s the motivator. Fauci even mentioned previously about how many people were quarantined with the FDNY and now it’s not sustainable.

I think the CDC has done ok thus far given the novelty of things and such, but the new guidelines seem like a misstep aimed and keeping the economy going more so than best practice.

Maybe I’m just not up on the data (I’ll readily admit I’ve lost interest in keeping up with a lot of this), but ending quarantine after 5 days for people who are still symptomatic doesn’t sound great or like best practice.

It seems like this is just another example of people easing restrictions because they “don’t wanna and ain’t gonna” as opposed to doing what needs to be done to actually start moving forward from this thing.

[skywindO2]

20 hours ago, BullsandBroncos said:

Covid cocktail of ivermectin, hydroxychloroquine, MCABs, and sticky bush.  Still not as bad as the idiots that tried to use prednisone 

don't forget the warm cup of home made urine to go with it! 

[LETSGOBROWNIES]

2 minutes ago, skywindO2 said:

don't forget the warm cup of home made urine to go with it! 

Is the source of the urine important? Looking for a side hustle.