COVID-19 Megathread 6: Return of the Omicron

[100% pro-life no matter what]

Vice President Kamala Harris tests positive for Covid

Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday after returning from a weeklong trip to California, the White House announced.

Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday after returning from a weeklong trip to California, the White House announced.

Allen added, "She has not been a close contact to the President or First Lady due to their respective recent travel schedules. She will follow CDC guidelines and the advice of her physicians. The Vice President will return to the White House when she tests negative."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/26/politics/kamala-harris-positive-covid/index.html

Why was she tested in the first place?  That's pretty much always going to be my reaction to "xyz tests positive for covid" stories at this point.

[Matty]

Kamala Harris is going to have zero symptoms

For gods sake


STOP TREATING IT AS NEWSWORTHY WHEN A VACCINATED PERSON TESTS POSITIVE

I AM AT MY WITS END

[Raccoon]

Vice President Kamala Harris tests positive for Covid

Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday after returning from a weeklong trip to California, the White House announced.

Vice President Kamala Harris tested positive for Covid-19 on Tuesday after returning from a weeklong trip to California, the White House announced.

Allen added, "She has not been a close contact to the President or First Lady due to their respective recent travel schedules. She will follow CDC guidelines and the advice of her physicians. The Vice President will return to the White House when she tests negative."

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/26/politics/kamala-harris-positive-covid/index.html

Why was she tested in the first place?  That's pretty much always going to be my reaction to "xyz tests positive for covid" stories at this point.

And this pandemic now!

Stop testing!!! Unless you show REAL symptoms.. for the love of god.. stop testing. This is how we go back to normal.

[emailking]

Yeah I'm not with you all on that. I think it's significant. Yes she'll probably be OK, thankfully.

[ملكة كرينجيتوك]

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-being-anti-science-is-now-part-of-many-rural-americans-identity/

In subsequent research conducted before the pandemic, Motta and his colleagues found possible paths to countering vaccine hesitancy. “One way we can try to get skeptics on board with vaccinating is to just make an effort to understand why they’re skeptical, and portray the benefits of vaccinating in those terms,” Motta said. For example, Americans who felt that vaccines tainted their moral/bodily purity were given information about how viruses also attacked and invaded the body, which raised their opinions of vaccines.

The COVID-19 vaccines, however, were rolled out without much of that targeted messaging. Worsening the matter, then-President Donald Trump and his administration made a series of missteps and promoted misinformation, which only further hampered the country’s ability to form a coherent plan. On top of that, the virus was fast moving from the beginning of the pandemic, and the United States is a big country with multiple public health agencies, each with a different level of authority. The authority that state and local health departments have varies by state, which meant communication strategies were varied as well. Meanwhile, in much of rural America, hospitals had already gone through waves of closures, in addition to decades of underinvestment in rural public health.

Importantly, Barker and his colleagues defined anti-intellectualism not as a respondent's ability or personal level of education. Instead, it was about respondents having positive feelings about trusting one’s gut and having negative feelings toward experts, schools and “the book-smarts of intellectuals.” In their paper, the researchers wrote that those who distrust scientists and other official sources of authority “distinguish those who are ‘book smart’ from those who have common sense, the latter of which they view as a superior means of ascertaining truth.”

“It’s more how people think of themselves versus where they are,” Lunz Trujillo said. She cited the political scientist Katherine J. Cramer’s well-known work on rural resentment, which illustrated that many rural people disdained anything perceived to be urban — racial and ethnic minorities, liberals, the LGBTQ community, cultural elites — and tied it to their rejection of intellectuals and intellectualism as well.

The key insight to all this work is that those who distrust vaccines, science and expertise aren’t doing so necessarily because they have a knowledge gap or a misunderstanding. Distrusting experts is part of their identity. Motta and his colleagues’ work suggests that being anti-vaccine has become an identity, too. In some respects, distrusting experts has become a political choice, which means that any message from an official source — whether it’s a researcher, head of a government agency or a journalist — is more likely to inspire the opposite of its intended reaction from those who view that source as part of the political opposition.

This is what I'm talking about when I say national Dems are tone-deaf and have messaging issues. Experts really need to be able to communicate with people they're trying to reach on their own level and signal that they have common (cultural/identity) ground with them.

What struck me most about my time with Naylor and Jackson is that they were both also hunters and, despite being experts in their field, already had a level of trust with the hunters they were trying to convince. They spoke with mid-Southern accents, drove trucks and wore camo. They’re well-educated experts, but it’s hard to imagine that local and out-of-state duck hunters would see them as eggheads that could be easily dismissed. When Booth described his staff’s expertise to me, he said they had “dirt under their fingernails,” which was similar to how Lunz Trujillo explained the kind of experiential knowledge valued by farmers and other rural folks.

But not every issue manifests locally, with local experts able to gather people for friendly dinners. Regarding climate change, Fisher says in her work now she is finding that people are often spurred to action only when the environmental damage becomes an extreme personal risk to them and their family, and when it is seen as preventable. Part of the problem with mitigating COVID-19, she said, was that many people didn’t see the virus as a personal risk — they thought they themselves would be OK, even if so many other people were dying.

[Frodo]

At this point, it would be more noteworthy if you haven't had COVID.  Most of us have had little to no symptoms (thank you Pfizer and Moderna), so it is entirely plausible:

More than half of Americans have had Covid, including three of four children
A CDC report showed a striking increase in those with coronavirus antibodies between December and February

More than half of Americans show signs of a previous Covid-19 infection, including three out of every four children, according to a new report released on Tuesday.

The findings from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) come after researchers examined blood samples from more than 200,000 Americans and looked for virus-fighting antibodies made from infections, not vaccines. They found that signs of past infection rose dramatically between December and February, when the more contagious Omicron variant surged through the US.

For Americans of all ages, about 34% had signs of prior infection in December. Just two months later, 58% did.

“I did expect it to increase. I did not expect it to increase quite this much,” said Dr Kristie Clarke, co-leader of a CDC team that tracks the extent of coronavirus infections.

In the CDC report, the most striking increase was in children. The percentage of those 17 and under with antibodies rose from about 45% in December to about 75% in February.

[emailking]

I certainly haven't had any symptoms.

[Bandit3 the Worker]

I'm sure it's way more than 58%.

[MiddleRoad]

Long Covid is worse than the initial infection.

I had Covid in January 2021. It was like a bad sinus infection with a fever in terms of my symptoms. I took Vitamin C, Tylenol to fight the fever and drank plenty of water. I was fine and back to baseline within a week

However, afterwards I had no energy and began sleeping as much as 15 hours a day.

I still have issues with sleep (both insomnia and paradoxically, sleeping too long when I do sleep), and with having the same level of energy I did pre Covid, and I’m a 31 year old male.

The actual infection, for myself, wasn’t at all bad or scary; I’ve had worse bouts of strep. It’s the longer term effect that is a major pain in the neck.

[Raccoon]

Long Covid is worse than the initial infection.

I had Covid in January 2021. It was like a bad sinus infection with a fever in terms of my symptoms. I took Vitamin C, Tylenol to fight the fever and drank plenty of water. I was fine and back to baseline within a week

However, afterwards I had no energy and began sleeping as much as 15 hours a day.

I still have issues with sleep (both insomnia and paradoxically, sleeping too long when I do sleep), and with having the same level of energy I did pre Covid, and I’m a 31 year old male.

The actual infection, for myself, wasn’t at all bad or scary; I’ve had worse bouts of strep. It’s the longer term effect that is a major pain in the neck.

are you sure that is all actually the result of your covid infection?


Most people do not get "long covid". That is largely a fear mongering scare tactic from the ONLINE LEFT.

Take some pills and get better.

[MiddleRoad]

Long Covid is worse than the initial infection.

I had Covid in January 2021. It was like a bad sinus infection with a fever in terms of my symptoms. I took Vitamin C, Tylenol to fight the fever and drank plenty of water. I was fine and back to baseline within a week

However, afterwards I had no energy and began sleeping as much as 15 hours a day.

I still have issues with sleep (both insomnia and paradoxically, sleeping too long when I do sleep), and with having the same level of energy I did pre Covid, and I’m a 31 year old male.

The actual infection, for myself, wasn’t at all bad or scary; I’ve had worse bouts of strep. It’s the longer term effect that is a major pain in the neck.

are you sure that is all actually the result of your covid infection?


Most people do not get "long covid". That is largely a fear mongering scare tactic from the ONLINE LEFT.

Take some pills and get better.

Pretty certain yes. In the immediate aftermath of having it I began sleeping 15 hours per day, which lasted a good two or three months. And since then just an overall decreased level of energy and physical stamina, compared to beforehand. Example: I used to work 15 hour overnight shifts with ease, prior to Covid. Now, I could barely get through an 8 hour overnight shift at a new job and had to be transferred to a day shift

[Omega21]

Long Covid is worse than the initial infection.

I had Covid in January 2021. It was like a bad sinus infection with a fever in terms of my symptoms. I took Vitamin C, Tylenol to fight the fever and drank plenty of water. I was fine and back to baseline within a week

However, afterwards I had no energy and began sleeping as much as 15 hours a day.

I still have issues with sleep (both insomnia and paradoxically, sleeping too long when I do sleep), and with having the same level of energy I did pre Covid, and I’m a 31 year old male.

The actual infection, for myself, wasn’t at all bad or scary; I’ve had worse bouts of strep. It’s the longer term effect that is a major pain in the neck.

Anecdotal, but whatever:

A friend of mine got better by supplementing with:

Zinc
Magnesium
Vitamin D3+K2
Omega 3

There is also actually very good scientific evidence that prophylactic D3+K2 and Zinc are a great predictor of whether one will develop serious sickness & if they will experience long Covid.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34684596/

Also, if you are male, you should supplement with this anyway, as it helps with maintaining healthy T. levels. (Vitamin D stimulates receptors in the testicles for T production). Magnesium is needed for Vit D activation, so also plays an important role.

As for Omega3, another plus is that it substantially lowers Cortisol (Stress Hormone), and also improves anxiety in many people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024589/

[Zohranism is OUR future]

Long Covid is worse than the initial infection.

I had Covid in January 2021. It was like a bad sinus infection with a fever in terms of my symptoms. I took Vitamin C, Tylenol to fight the fever and drank plenty of water. I was fine and back to baseline within a week

However, afterwards I had no energy and began sleeping as much as 15 hours a day.

I still have issues with sleep (both insomnia and paradoxically, sleeping too long when I do sleep), and with having the same level of energy I did pre Covid, and I’m a 31 year old male.

The actual infection, for myself, wasn’t at all bad or scary; I’ve had worse bouts of strep. It’s the longer term effect that is a major pain in the neck.

Anecdotal, but whatever:

A friend of mine got better by supplementing with:

Zinc
Magnesium
Vitamin D3+K2
Omega 3

There is also actually very good scientific evidence that prophylactic D3+K2 and Zinc are a great predictor of whether one will develop serious sickness & if they will experience long Covid.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34684596/

Also, if you are male, you should supplement with this anyway, as it helps with maintaining healthy T. levels. (Vitamin D stimulates receptors in the testicles for T production). Magnesium is needed for Vit D activation, so also plays an important role.

As for Omega3, another plus is that it substantially lowers Cortisol (Stress Hormone), and also improves anxiety in many people.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6024589/

I usually roll my eyes at those who talk about “cures”, but there is some decent literature to support D3 deficiencies may be linked to worse outcomes and like 40% of Americans have a deficiency. As for the others…literature is very mixed at best. In fact there are some studies that show hypermagnesemia may have been more common in hospitalized patients with worse outcomes. Point is, yeah make sure you don’t have deficiencies, as those are not good, but the actual ability to help against Covid is mixed and probably won’t help too much if at all if you aren’t deficient.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

This entire thread be like:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=dzvzKK-Bzfg

[emailking]

Moderna seeks emergency use authorization for Covid-19 vaccine for children ages 6 months through 5 years

Moderna is seeking emergency use authorization from the US Food and Drug Administration for its Covid-19 vaccine for children 6 months through 5 years of age, the company said Thursday.

"We believe mRNA-1273 will be able to safely protect these children against SARS-CoV-2, which is so important in our continued fight against COVID-19, and will be especially welcomed by parents and caregivers," Stéphane Bancel, chief executive officer of Moderna, said in a news release.

In late March, Moderna announced results of a clinical trial that included 2,500 children ages 6 months through 24 months and 4,200 children ages 2 through 5. The company said that two 25-microgram doses of its vaccine led to a similar immune response in young children as two 100-microgram doses for adults ages 18 to 25. And it said this should predict protection from Covid-19 and severe Covid-19 down to 6 months of age.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/04/28/health/moderna-vaccine-eua-young-children/index.html

[Hollywood]

Long Covid is worse than the initial infection.

I had Covid in January 2021. It was like a bad sinus infection with a fever in terms of my symptoms. I took Vitamin C, Tylenol to fight the fever and drank plenty of water. I was fine and back to baseline within a week

However, afterwards I had no energy and began sleeping as much as 15 hours a day.

I still have issues with sleep (both insomnia and paradoxically, sleeping too long when I do sleep), and with having the same level of energy I did pre Covid, and I’m a 31 year old male.

The actual infection, for myself, wasn’t at all bad or scary; I’ve had worse bouts of strep. It’s the longer term effect that is a major pain in the neck.

are you sure that is all actually the result of your covid infection?


Most people do not get "long covid". That is largely a fear mongering scare tactic from the ONLINE LEFT.

Take some pills and get better.

I think you're correct.

There's been long-terms effects found with many seasonal viruses.  One symptom of (for argument-sake) 'long-influenza' is loss of taste. 

It's a result of the pharmaceutical companies using the left to re-market drugs.  For example, the opioid industry created the pain index illustration with faces indicating pain as a non-scientific indicator to increase patient access to the drug.  They knew patients would over-exaggerate their agony, and consequently, hospitals and doctors would be pushed into prescribing pain medication based on pseudo-science.  The pharmaceutical industries put out fake studies and guidelines, so Doctors would think they were committing malpractice if they went against the grain.  I've had only one pediatrician that tried prescribing opioids to me, and my parents took me to another one, because highly-educated people knew this was happening. 

[Horus]

Flew post mandate for the first time yesterday.

I'd say maybe a quarter of people are still masking. Mostly women, no real correlation with age or race.

[ElectionsGuy]

Flew post mandate for the first time yesterday.

I'd say maybe a quarter of people are still masking. Mostly women, no real correlation with age or race.

Interesting... Quinnipiac shows a slight majority of people favor the mask mandate repeal, but a majority still say they're going to wear a mask on planes.

At this point, it's fairly obvious to me that polling questions on mask have a massive social desirability effect. It's like if you're to ask how many books people read in a year, people are going to overestimate compared to reality so they don't look "stupid/uneducated". Some people are just always going to say they wear a mask to a stranger because the pro-maskers have intimidated/shamed others as a bad person if you don't.

My curiosity at this point is, how far back did this really stop becoming popular. It wasn't February, that's when the DNC panic memo went out.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

Flew post mandate for the first time yesterday.

I'd say maybe a quarter of people are still masking. Mostly women, no real correlation with age or race.

Interesting... Quinnipiac shows a slight majority of people favor the mask mandate repeal, but a majority still say they're going to wear a mask on planes.

At this point, it's fairly obvious to me that polling questions on mask have a massive social desirability effect. It's like if you're to ask how many books people read in a year, people are going to overestimate compared to reality so they don't look "stupid/uneducated". Some people are just always going to say they wear a mask to a stranger because the pro-maskers have intimidated/shamed others as a bad person if you don't.

My curiosity at this point is, how far back did this really stop becoming popular. It wasn't February, that's when the DNC panic memo went out.

Probably April 2021. I use this story a lot, but my mother could never talk about doing anything within earshot of my brother when he was little because he didn't understand the concept of changing plans and uncertainty. I think the majority of the American public has yet to learn this concept as well. Ever since April 2021, it has been unpopular because a return to full normalcy was expected with these vaccines, and when circumstances changed...well it was too late to take it back.

[GregTheGreat657]

Flew post mandate for the first time yesterday.

I'd say maybe a quarter of people are still masking. Mostly women, no real correlation with age or race.

Interesting... Quinnipiac shows a slight majority of people favor the mask mandate repeal, but a majority still say they're going to wear a mask on planes.

At this point, it's fairly obvious to me that polling questions on mask have a massive social desirability effect. It's like if you're to ask how many books people read in a year, people are going to overestimate compared to reality so they don't look "stupid/uneducated". Some people are just always going to say they wear a mask to a stranger because the pro-maskers have intimidated/shamed others as a bad person if you don't.

My curiosity at this point is, how far back did this really stop becoming popular. It wasn't February, that's when the DNC panic memo went out.

Probably April 2021. I use this story a lot, but my mother could never talk about doing anything within earshot of my brother when he was little because he didn't understand the concept of changing plans and uncertainty. I think the majority of the American public has yet to learn this concept as well. Ever since April 2021, it has been unpopular because a return to full normalcy was expected with these vaccines, and when circumstances changed...well it was too late to take it back.

The CDC used the end of masks to persuade people to get vaccinated, yet they supported mandatory masking for most of the time since the vaccines became widely available to the general public. The public’s anger about being lied to should not be equated with a petulant child

[Fmr. Gov. NickG]

This is a very interesting article about differences in death rates by age and vaccination status across covid waves:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/04/29/covid-deaths-unvaccinated-boosters/

A few cliffs:

- In January and February, 42% of people who died of covid in the US were indeed vaccinated (13% were boosted).  Someone else posted this figure without a source before, but it does look like it’s true.

- Nevertheless, the death -rate- among boosted people was still 20x lower than the unvaccinated during Omicron.

- Deaths during the Delta wave were much younger than any other wave, with about 15% of deaths being under 50.

- Deaths during Omicron returned to being overwhelmingly among the very old, with two-thirds being over 65, and only 3% being under 50.

[Zohranism is OUR future]

Flew post mandate for the first time yesterday.

I'd say maybe a quarter of people are still masking. Mostly women, no real correlation with age or race.

Interesting... Quinnipiac shows a slight majority of people favor the mask mandate repeal, but a majority still say they're going to wear a mask on planes.

At this point, it's fairly obvious to me that polling questions on mask have a massive social desirability effect. It's like if you're to ask how many books people read in a year, people are going to overestimate compared to reality so they don't look "stupid/uneducated". Some people are just always going to say they wear a mask to a stranger because the pro-maskers have intimidated/shamed others as a bad person if you don't.

My curiosity at this point is, how far back did this really stop becoming popular. It wasn't February, that's when the DNC panic memo went out.

Probably April 2021. I use this story a lot, but my mother could never talk about doing anything within earshot of my brother when he was little because he didn't understand the concept of changing plans and uncertainty. I think the majority of the American public has yet to learn this concept as well. Ever since April 2021, it has been unpopular because a return to full normalcy was expected with these vaccines, and when circumstances changed...well it was too late to take it back.

The CDC used the end of masks to persuade people to get vaccinated, yet they supported mandatory masking for most of the time since the vaccines became widely available to the general public. The public’s anger about being lied to should not be equated with a petulant child

And for most of the period since then, we have had the Delta variant which wasn’t a factor the CDC could consider back in March 2021. This is exactly the same situation, the circumstances changed, and the CDC made the decision to change because of that. It is the childlike public who didn’t.

Again this is the type of stuff my brother would pull when he was younger. One time my mother said we’d go to an amusement park on Wednesday. Tuesday afternoon she was made aware of last minute work developments that meant she couldn’t just take the day off to go to an amusement park. My brother accused my mother of lying just like you are doing now. It’s the exact same situation, circumstances changed, and it’s the public who has not yet grasped the concept of uncertainty who is upset.

[Frodo]

Don't count on those government-imposed mask mandates coming back anytime soon, even in Democratic-controlled states that have gotten rid of them:

Officials are nervous about mask mandates — even in Covid hot spots
In an election year where more than 30 governors, Congress and many state legislatures are on the ballot, politicians have been loathe to consider mandates.

They are definitely in Camp 4.  

[GregTheGreat657]

At what point will COVID-positive individuals no longer have to quarantine?

[Hammy]

At what point will COVID-positive individuals no longer have to quarantine?

Why shouldn't people who are sick and contagious stay home from work/school? We already do this with the flu and norovirus, so why should covid be the exception?