It seems like everyone has Covid-19. Here’s why this wave is probably worse than official data suggests
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
Naw, they're going to shit in their neighbor's yard as god intended. As the golden rule states, do unto others before they do unto you.
*poo unto others before they poo unto you
Or in their septic tanks.
Which I suppose are in their back yard.
I laughed and then realized that is not out of the realm of possibility.
Sounds like a shitty way to get data.
Don't get all pissy about it, it works great!
You should toilet sewer your whole cock. Is that a good pun
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
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.
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).
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.
had exactly this, one of my worst illnesses in my life, but neg on the test. similar thing ripped through work
Same here. Took multiple rapid tests, all negative. Maybe the new strain does not work well with the test, or it is an unrelated illness. Canada here BTW.
The mutations in this strain (EG.5) shouldn't be affecting the rapid-test target. Most kits use both the N -gene and S-gene to account for potential future mutations, and both genes have only small number of point-mutations across those two genes. If you want to waste an afternoon check out outbreak.info and look at the lineage comparison tool.
My experience with the tests has been very mixed. My wife has had COVID multiple times, and she has tested negative many times, both at home and at the doctor and then as she's starting to recover, around day 4 or 5 she will test positive.
I, in the other hand, have never tested positive although I did feel slightly under the weather for a couple days the last time she had it.
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. :(
It doesn't matter what you did before you knew.
It matters what you did after
What fucking ever, COVID the lease deathly desease there is
Doesn't matter what disease it is, if it is communicable, you should stay home if you're sick.
If you had an STD you would use a condom, right? Right?
Dont know, lets ask the people who have STDs. Tipically LGBTQ people would have STDs :)
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.
Yep knew some ppl who had it last month but I don't know any one with it lately
I did read that the CDC says 1990 people died of COVID in July. But I just feel like it's pretty quiescent. Idk maybe just us.
Wasn't it closer to 2,000 per day during 2020?
I'm not sure.
They have COVID, they have the normal COVID symptons just people are not crazy about it
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.
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.
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
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 knew
This was pretty rude in response to a polite disagreement.
I can assure you: Nobody wants to put their mouth on you.
And immediately whatever you're about to say isn't worth reading, fucking child can't even handle a polite disagreement
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)
You wear a mask year-round just to avoid getting sick once? Whew.
Once a year. And yeah. I know. Crazy right. So. So. Onerous. To wear something on your face like you would your hands, or feet, or top of your head. For some silly reason like its a tad cold, or my religion says I should, or its in fashion. Yeah that is just the type of incredibly disciplined person I am. To take on such an arduous task.
Mmhmm.