It seems like everyone has Covid-19. Here’s why this wave is probably worse than official data suggests
It seems like everyone has Covid-19. Here’s why this wave is probably worse than official data suggests
Covid-19 certainly didn’t take a vacation this summer. Virus levels in the US have been on the rise for weeks, but it’s hard to know exactly how widely it’s spreading.
Rates of severe disease may be staying at relatively low levels, but experts agree that there are probably more infections than the current surveillance systems can capture.
“There is more transmission out there than what the surveillance data indicates,” said Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists. “And we should be paying attention to it, because we are starting to see an increase.”
Weekly hospital admissions have nearly doubled over the past month, including a 19% bump in the most recent week, CDC data shows. And a sample of laboratories participating in a federal surveillance program show that test positivity rates have tripled in the past two months.
There are some hopeful signs: Biobot data shows that wastewater levels may be starting to flatten, and relatively low hospitalization rates suggest that there may be a lower risk of severe disease for many.
Physician here. The best marker we have of covid prevalence is wastewater testing. With the availability of home kits (and no reporting) and people refusing to test when symptomatic, the old markers of positivity rates and number of positive tests aren't as valid. Even hospitalization numbers can fluctuate for multiple reasons. Municipal wastewater testing truly gives a sense of covid in a population.
Covid deniers gonna start shitting in the back yard
Wastewater-based emidemiology guy here. Thank you for your recognition of the field! I work at a competitor of Biobot, and what I find interesting is the article claiming Biobot data showing a plateau, as our data is showing a significant uptick over the month of August.
On a different note, the majority of funding for WBE and wastewater surveillance comes from state/federal coffers, so please ask your colleagues to write to your representatives and ask for more funding towards WBE.
Which is interesting, because at least here in Boston, we're seeing an increase, but not a huge spike: https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
We can barely find test kits around us, and they are stupid expensive when we do find them. Like 10 bucks apiece.
If it's still running rampant, maybe the tests should still be affordable (or better yet, free).
That's what I've been thinking. I can't even recall the last time I heard of anyone I know taking a PCR covid test.
And that makes it challenging trying to manage behavior. I've definitely noticed a marked uptick in people I know that have gotten covid in the past couple weeks, but when I try to look at the data to validate my anecdotal experience, it's difficult to find compared to two years ago. Oregon, for example, has wastewater monitoring, but the page used to convey the data doesn't work on mobile and is confusing to use at best.
Just wear a mask, jeez.
Just wear a mask, jeez.
If only. I was so hopeful early in COVID that Western countries would embrace mask wearing when sick. But noooo, dipshits had to politicize it and make it a wedge issue.
You were hopeful? Hah! Leave it to US/Canada to politicize the pettiest shit.
But mah freedum!
Morons are morons and beyond common sense or rational thinking.
Yep, starting back up with that now. We’re also coming into flu season soon which is def mask season.
What for? Does not work
I want to know if there's a random unrelated bug going around too, or if this new strain just has heavy impact on the back of the throat and that is it. Seems like everyone I work with has had had some weird impossible-to-clear-your-throat virus that doesn't lead to much coughing or any sneezing so folks aren't staying home. If that's the new covid it makes a lot of sense why it would be spreading.
Ugh, I had that a few weeks ago and I still have that catarrh sensation. Gross.
Sure rhere is, notice how ibfluenza was erradicated when everybody blamed anything that happened on COVID?
Everyone at my work aside from two people have COVID. I was the first one to get it. I was told that I wasn't the reason it spread through the office, but I still feel responsible. I got COVID from my mom and didn't know I had it until I had already exposed coworkers. :(
I find this article weird, I can't think of anyone I know who currently has COVID, and despite the fact most people are going around maskless things seem pretty quiet on the viral front. This makes it seem like just everyone has COVID. I realize numbers are going back up but I don't think it's quite like they make it out?
I will still be masking until the dawn of time and am at six shots and counting. I absolutely do not understand why anyone stopped masking.
contrastly I know at least a handful of people in the last couple months that have had it
I work in a hospital. We have a scattered handful of people who are there for something else and also have a mild case of COVID, but nobody unvaccinated on a vent or ECMO or anything.
It's not that surprising. "Only" about 0.2 % - 2 % get infected per week (depending on where you are), so there got to be some people who don't know anyone who got it recently.
They have COVID, they have the normal COVID symptons just people are not crazy about it
A few countries still have somewhat precise numbers. UK has the ZOE health study, which found over 1 million people currently being infected out of roughly 50 million (from memory; I don't know how many people live in UK). Germany has the SentiSurv study, indicating incidences approaching 1000 again. While the latter is only a survey in a few major cities, it allows calculation of a dark figure when put in relation to officially registered cases, which can then be applied to all regions that have the same criteria for when to test.
Overall, not great that millions will miss a chance to get the upcoming vaccine that would provide very decent protection against the most common strains.
Completely off topic,
But wild to me that I know exactly where that Walgreens is. Surprised there ain’t a drunk stumbling in that photo.
Bs
That they know where that Walgreens is or that there's a drunk stumbling around outside that Walgreens? Because I totally buy the latter.
Permanently Deleted
Hahhaahaha here it comes another jab!!!
well that's encouraging
Hahahahha ohhhh my God!! Another Covid whatever. Lets all lockdown hahaha fucking idiots
I've been wearing a mask in public since I saw people start dropping dead on the streets of wuhan in january of 2020, right through when fauci himself was advocating against public mask wearing (a purposeful lie at the start of the western pandemic, to free up ppe for first responders), and the entire time since then, i'm as vaccinated and up to date on the latest bivalent boosters i can possibly be, and I'm still agog at home many people are walking around like it's over, there's nothing to worry about, grammy will be fine, maybe
right through when fauci himself was advocating against public mask wearing
It was specifically advocating against people who were stockpiling/hoarding disposable masks, which were in limited supply and needed far more by first responders, doctors, nurses, etc. Hospitals at that time literally were running out of masks.
The CDC recommendation at the time was to use reusable cloth masks, which werent/arent as good most of the time, but way way better than nothing at all.
It was a temporary recommendation as the economy was pivoting to bump up supply to compensate. The US proceeded to enlist a bunch of fabric companies to start producing more masks as fast as possible to compensate, so there was about a 2~3 week period where the public needed to prioritize.
It's unfortunate a lot of people have taken to misquoting this time period as "Dr Fauci said using masks was bad" or such, which is deeply misrepresenting the state of things.
yeah people don't seem to get nuance. Ive seen folks complain about people with insufficient masks as being useless and its like. They are not useless and as a matter of fact there are diminishing returns on quality which is why I use a kn95 over an n95 and keep a gater around in case I went out not expecting to be near folks but stumble into needing one. Is it as good. No. Is it wwwaaayyy better than nothing. Yes.
Bite me : https://www.newsweek.com/fauci-said-masks-not-really-effective-keeping-out-virus-email-reveals-1596703
Fauci knew precisely what he was purposefully doing and what he was saying, and sided with trying to defend as many first responders/medical professionals as he could, which is completely understandable, but it's a choice that was made by him, and the trolley question he answered at that time which he later revised to "for gods sake everyone should be wearing masks", which anyone who was watching the people drop dead in Wuhan, already knewIt’s unfortunate a lot of people have taken to misquoting this time period as “Dr Fauci said using masks was bad” or such, which is deeply misrepresenting the state of things.
Let's dispel once and for all with this fiction that he doesn't know what he's doing. He knows EXACTLY what he's doing.
I still mask not because of covid but because I have not been sick in any significant way since 2019. Maybe even late 2018. Before that I used to get sick about once a year. maybe go 18 months without being sick but maybe being sick again in 3 months. Now I have went practically 5 years (I don't recall the last time I was sick I just remember the approx rate it showed up in the before times) and if I don't have something specific I need my mouth hole for then its staying covered unless im at home or outside without being near anyone (like when I walk my dog)
The mortality rates were overstated, even in The beginning. The science around the vaccines still isn’t fully complete. Actually having the virus and allowing your immune system to fight it has shown to give you better immunity response than boosters. Even when the messaging said otherwise. Even in light of that some in the community are sticking to the original hypothesis.
At this point the CDC advisory board is showing concerns that too frequent “boosting” may actually be training your immune system to ignore the disease and could have adverse affects.
Unless you have some serious Comorbidities (ie: severe hypertension, super high BMI, arrhythmias, cancer, organ transplants and on immune suppressants etc) then I don’t see much point in severely altering your life around it. If you feel bad, stay home. But otherwise treat it like the flu.
Have had it multiple times c including incredibly recently and it’s just a bad cold for most healthy folks. Just incredibly transmissible.
I don’t really understand all the dog whistling that is still going on about masks and being “bivalent protected”. Also, what China did literally locking people up in their apartments was far more authoritarian and disturbing than anything I saw of the virus in wuhan.