With the O variant being touted as much less severe, I'm surprised that hospitalizations are in record numbers. I know several people who have had O in the last month, but none of them have required hospitalization. With the previous surges I knew several people who went into the hospital and a few that passed away.
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- Thread starter WesL
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With the O variant being touted as much less severe, I'm surprised that hospitalizations are in record numbers. I know several people who have had O in the last month, but none of them have required hospitalization. With the previous surges I knew several people who went into the hospital and a few that passed away.
Much of it is
a) incidental admissions (50+% of the hospitalizations from Omicron are "with" COVID, not "from" COVID)
b) just due to the much larger number of infections, despite being less severe a certain number of people will need treatment
c) because of how quickly it has spread, the entire country is having a wave on a very similar timescale. C wasn't really the case with the previous waves. Instead of one area rising while another area is falling, most all of the country has risen at roughly the same time, +/- a week or two. This leads to the national numbers having a higher peak.
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I haven't looked up any stats regarding this so it's entirely anecdotal but I've not seen hardly any of the major blood clotting issues with Omicron vs the original strains and it was even lower with Delta it seems as well. Initially with covid there was an outrageous amount of pulmonary embolisms, strokes and heart attacks caused by the coagulation effects of covid. I'm not sure if that's because these newer strains are less likely to cause it or if people are aware of it and treating themselves with aspirin if they catch covid.
Derek00
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Our school district has decided to go virtual tomorrow so they can "disinfect" the schools. I'm not sure what data they've read that shows that this will do any good, but whatever.
This may be overstepping my bounds here, but is it only my area that has basically ever pastor preaching that the vaccine is 'the mark of the beast' or 'grooming you for the mark of the beast'? Again, maybe I am overstepping my bounds, but I miss the days when you could go to church and not feel like you're at some political rally.
This may be overstepping my bounds here, but is it only my area that has basically ever pastor preaching that the vaccine is 'the mark of the beast' or 'grooming you for the mark of the beast'? Again, maybe I am overstepping my bounds, but I miss the days when you could go to church and not feel like you're at some political rally.
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Considering the shelf life of covid on surfaces, they'd get the same effect not cleaning at all for the duration of the closure. Surface transmission of the virus is between low to very rare. Whoever made the decision to disinfect the school for a day to reduce the spread is living in March 2020.
Derek00
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I agree 100%. We're still forced to take the temps of students in the morning, which we ('we' meaning some of the teachers) have tried to explain to the board/superintendent that it's not effective at all in preventing a COVID outbreak. Due to the small size of our district, the 'good ole boy' club is going strong and the superintendent got there because of who he knows/is related to rather than his qualifications. Many of us wish the superintendent was elected rather than selected by the board, but it is what it is, I guess.
I will be curious to see the number of resignations and early retirements that come out of this. Too many school districts are using personal opinions and posts they've seen on Facebook to determine their response to this rather than using proven data.
I work in plants that do the daily temperature checks and still spray/wipe down every surface daily. Drives me nuts.
You've mentioned your school district a few times, I'm curious what steps you think they should have/should be doing.
Derek00
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If the situation is as bad as what we're dealing with now, I believe they should shut the schools down completely or go to a hybrid schedule until we see some sort of improvement. Most of the kids are out sick and the teachers are as well. Last week they pulled some kids out of class so they could clean due to the janitorial staff being out sick. When it gets to that point, shut it down. Virtual learning isn't ideal, but it's just as awful when you're missing most of your class on most days. I think making masks mandatory would be the best way to prevent a shut down from happening, but that's such a controversial issue, there's no way they're going to do that. I'm no expert, but I feel like any of that would beat what they're doing now. Shutting down a day here and there to 'deep clean', having us spray the desks with Lysol between classes, and taking temps in the morning is more or less the people in charge pretending that they're doing something without actually doing anything. They're too worried about what the most ignorant in the community will think about them rather than worrying about the students and staff.
Fair enough, I had seen you mention it a few times so I was curious.
Derek00
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I know everyone is probably really sick of me complaining on here, but it helps to vent. Today we found out that all of the school nurses in the district and a couple of local doctors went to the superintendent and asked him to shut the school down for at least a week due to the insane number of kids and staff that are sick and how fast it's spreading throughout the schools. Apparently he told them he would "never do that as long as he was in charge" and "it's just a cold, they'll be fine." We also found out today we have a staff member that is in the ICU and not doing well at all. I guess they didn't get the memo about it 'just being a cold.'
One issue with school closings is in previous waves schools being closed didn't create a statistically significant difference in the number of kids that caught COVID compared to areas that stayed open. Infections in kids still basically followed community infection rates in both places. I don't know if this wave will be any different or not in that regard.
Derek00
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To be honest, I worry more about certain members of our staff who are older. Not that I don't care about the kids, but I'm not sure some of our older staff could shake it off as easy as the kids.
Lovemesomesnow
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My grandson was diagnosed with Covid yesterday. His brother tested negative but the doc is treating him like he had it. Sure enough second grandson came down with it. Same symptoms. I also heard today that the CDC will make a complete Flu shot that also covers covid. Now if you want a flu shot you will have to take the Covid too.
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So the Biden Administration is offering 4 free at-home tests where you can sign up online and they mail them to you, and now are planning on distributing 400 million N95 masks starting next week.
Cases will be in free-fall before the first at home test makes it to somebody's mailbox, so it'll have absolutely zero effect on the current Omicron wave.
Anybody with half a brain knew we were going to have a winter wave this year. We didn't know that we'd get lucky and it be mainly Omicron instead of Delta, but we knew it was coming. If the at-home tests and N95s were going to make a huge difference, why wasn't the government doing this in October/November? Why do this on the backside of a wave?
The irony of the N95 announcement is England announced today they are dropping all mask requirements.
Cases will be in free-fall before the first at home test makes it to somebody's mailbox, so it'll have absolutely zero effect on the current Omicron wave.
Anybody with half a brain knew we were going to have a winter wave this year. We didn't know that we'd get lucky and it be mainly Omicron instead of Delta, but we knew it was coming. If the at-home tests and N95s were going to make a huge difference, why wasn't the government doing this in October/November? Why do this on the backside of a wave?
The irony of the N95 announcement is England announced today they are dropping all mask requirements.
Derek00
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While I do think that the tests should've been given out for free WAY before now and I'm happy they're doing it, I know from my wife having it that these at-home tests don't seem as accurate at detecting COVID (I believe someone else also brought this up in the thread). If that is turns out to definitely be the case, this is nothing more than a nice gesture. It seems like the one shining light right now is that Omicron is pushing out Delta as being the dominant strain. It's almost funny to look back and laugh at how a lot of us thought that this would be over within a few months or so.
CDC released a study today looking at people from New York and California during the summer/fall Delta wave. Prior infection was the longest, most durable form of protection against Delta in this study. People that were vaccinated with no prior infection were 16x less likely to end up in the hospital than unvaccinated with no prior infection. However, they were twice as likely to end up in the hospital than unvaccinated with prior infection, and 3x more likely to catch COVID than unvaccinated with prior infection.
This study shows that the vaccine was very effective against Delta, but it wasn't as good as prior infection was against infection and hospitalization. People that were vaccinated with prior infection had the same hospitalization rate as unvaccinated with prior infection, but there was some improvement against infection in this group.
(due to the different sizes of the groups, the hospitalization rates could all be within the margin of error)
This study shows that the vaccine was very effective against Delta, but it wasn't as good as prior infection was against infection and hospitalization. People that were vaccinated with prior infection had the same hospitalization rate as unvaccinated with prior infection, but there was some improvement against infection in this group.
(due to the different sizes of the groups, the hospitalization rates could all be within the margin of error)
Evan
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Statistically I can't say, but, anecdotally, my daughter's elementary school had very few cases during original COVID and Delta. I think we were notified one time pre-Omicron of a potential exposure.
Fast forward to Omicron and we were getting CONSTANT notifications as of last Thursday. By Saturday evening my daughter's teacher sent a message saying numerous students in my daughter's class had recently tested positive, the teacher herself was positive, and that the focus is now on everyone getting healthy and returning as making up assignments right now simply wasn't a possibility.
My daughter's school has done an excellent job throughout COVID. She also has a truly wonderful teacher who my wife and I both love. Extremely accessible via messaging on ClassDojo. Willing to give us recommendations on things my daughter needs help with or things she should focus on. Unquestionably the best teacher my daughter has ever had.
Oh, interestingly enough, my daughter said that basically only a 1/4 of her class was there early this week and several of the kids who were there have already recovered from a recent bout with COVID.
I have no idea what the vax rate is in my daughter's class, but I know my area in general is a pretty good bit BELOW average. So, I would imagine my daughter is one of only a handful of children in her class who is vaccinated (my daughter is 9). As of today, She still has not tested positive for COVID nor has she had any symptoms. My daughter is a bit of a drama queen so if she had symptoms we'd know. She received her 2nd dose of Pfizer in early December. Pretty much perfect timing to withstand the Omicron wave.
My family has been very fortunate thus far. Neither of my children have had COVID, neither my wife nor I have had it, and none of our parents have had it. Everyone is vaccinated. I masked pretty well until April/May of this year. Masked selectively during Delta especially in any crowded stores/events. I have only masked randomly during Omicron in very high risk situations. That said, virtually everyone at work is vaccinated and most of our clients we work on-site with have high vax rates or mandate the vaccine.
We gave our daughter a choice as it pertains to masking. She can wear one if she wants. We have a number of N-95s for her a ton of kid-sized surgical masks. I'd say she probably masks 50-75% of the time at school but I'm not there so I can't say for sure. We've told her it is entirely her choice, we but did recommend she do so during her return to school in January as our expectation has been that Omicron should be receding sharply in Alabama very soon. I told her if she could make it a few weeks it might help her. We still let it be her decision, though. Her school system had mandatory masks during Delta. She doesn't wear it during PE/lunch so I doubt it is really doing all that much except for maybe preventing spread if she was every asymptomatically positive.
My son generally does not wear a mask unless we go somewhere it is required. I'm sure most people can imagine how long that requirement gets followed by a 4 year old. He'll be getting the vaccine right after his 5th birthday at the end of February. I do wonder if he's already had Omicron asymptomatically. If things are calmed down on the testing front by then we may get him tested for antibodies first if his doctor agrees to do so. More out of curiosity than anything else.
Evan
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Hang in there, man. Vent all you want. I can't imagine doing your job right now. Especially with the idiotic parent stories I hear from teacher friends and from family members who are teachers. You're doing the Lord's work. Thank you for continuing to educate our children during such a difficult time.
I'm definitely not a "the school babysits my children" type of parent.
ARCC
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The accuracy of the quick antigen tests are a head scratcher. After two years we have covid officially in our home although I have little doubt it’s been here before. But as far as tests go, it’s very interesting and I’m not sure if the antigen tests are really doing much. My coworker got sick, tested negative then tested positive a couple days later. Our manager’s wife who is a nurse got a little sick, tested negative and then positive a couple days later. My wife had flu symptoms on Monday and then chest congestion for the past two days; tested negative today. My son had a fever today and didn’t feel good, tested positive today. Lastly one of my twins has the same symptoms as my son and she tested negative.
It almost seems like the time range to actually get a positive result is very small sometimes yet my coworkers sister had covid for three days and finally tested negative after three tests and like two weeks after symptoms were gone.
It almost seems like the time range to actually get a positive result is very small sometimes yet my coworkers sister had covid for three days and finally tested negative after three tests and like two weeks after symptoms were gone.
Evan
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Mmm that's more or less how the rapid antigen tests are supposed to function. You test positive when you're contagious. Not when symptoms begin. You test negative when you're no longer contagious even they you might still be symptomatic.
Check out Michael Mina on Twitter as he has thousands of tweets on exactly how the tests should function.