The U.S. is facing the biggest COVID wave since Omicron. Why are we still playing make-believe?

[Nevilledog]

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2024-01-04/covid-2024-flu-virus-vaccine

No paywall link
https://archive.li/pxrzC

The pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2. This variant is a derivative of BA.2.86, the only other strain that has carried more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein since Omicron first came on the scene more than two years ago. This should have warranted designation by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern with a Greek letter, such as Pi.

By wastewater levels, JN.1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.

In several countries in Europe, wastewater levels reached unprecedented levels, exceeding Omicron. Clearly this virus variant, with its plethora of new mutations, has continued its evolution with mutations adapted for infecting or reinfecting us.

There is, however, some good news about this big wave of infections. It has not resulted in the surge of hospital admissions seen with Omicron. The “updated” booster (based on the XBB.1.5 variant that rose to dominance in the U.S. in February), available here since September, has some cross-reactivity with JN.1 in lab studies for inducing neutralizing antibodies to the virus, and a recent Kaiser Permanente report showed the booster provided protection from hospitalization in the range of about 60% against JN.1 and other recently circulating variants.

*snip*

[walkingman]

1. Why? Well, one of the reasons is because people

like the Florida Surgeon General is calling for a halting the use of COVID-19 vaccines based on his personal beliefs that they cause issues, etc. When you have government leaders especially or even celebrities spread this type of stuff you have a segment of the population that uses that as an excuse to rebell even when could endanger their own lives.
I call it stupidity but I'm sure there is a better way to describe their actions. I personally have no empathy for people like this.

[bluestarone]

2. Yea, because they want to KILL 100,000 more

People gotta wake up!!

[2naSalit]

5. Or wise up.

[former9thward]

47. Florida is one state out of 50.

I really don't think this person is controlling the national response. Is there any statement from the White House?

[WhiskeyGrinder]

3. Politics and ThE EcOnOmY

[WarGamer]

4. I actually have COVID right now...

First day was terrible... second was rotten, third not so hot and 4th day, today... mehh

[Nevilledog]

8. I wish you a speedy recovery.

[WarGamer]

9. TYVM!!

[MLAA]

15. Did you take Paxlovid? I'm a day behind you, starting symptoms Tuesday evening. Just got home from a CVS

Minute Clinic to get Paxlovid. My Primary and his nurse practitioner were both out until Monday.

[WarGamer]

18. I did not.

This is #3 for me... I've had the original shots and then a couple boosters... but none in 23.

Judging by my past experience with it and my age and health... just thought that I'd work my way through it in a few days.

[MLAA]

20. Wishing you the best!

[Celerity]

21. hope you soon feel healthy again

[WarGamer]

22. thanks!!

[Celerity]

23. sorry for the misspellings, I sorted them

[niyad]

53. Hope you feel better soon.

[SergeStorms]

59. Same here.

I came down with it Tuesday. I'm extremely careful to guard against it. I'm fully vaccinated, always wear a mask in public places, hand sanitizer is almost a religion for me, and yet it still snuck by all the defenses.
My Dr. started me on Paxlovid yesterday since I have several comorbidities.
Yesterday I felt like dog doo-doo, but today, other than gunk loosening up in my chest, I'm feeling better.
Feel better quickly, War Gamer!

[Stinky The Clown]

6. If you haven't been vaxed, fuck you.

[MLAA]

19. Chill just a bit. I am fully vaxed and boosted. I get appointments with a day of a new one being available.

And I still got it, for the first time, on Tuesday. Feels like a bad cold/flu with fever and chills. Though I’m sure it would be way worse if I were not on top of my boosters.

For those who would not get vaxed that medically, legitimately could be, those are the fuckers out to kill the rest of us (or at least make us sick for. Week or so).

[Stinky The Clown]

24. My fuck you is not to people who get a respiratory disease, it is to people who don't get vaxed.

You got vaxed.

Get well soon.

[MLAA]

25. ..

[Zeitghost]

34. At this point

Basically everyone has some basic immunity either from vaccination or exposure and in most cases both. Vaccination is probably still a good idea for many as it improves individual outcomes, especially for those at high risk. But it's not a barrier to the public spread of a now endemic virus.

[hueymahl]

37. Classy

[Stinky The Clown]

7. I wish the worst possible outcome to all the unvaxed MagatMotherfuckers

[hueymahl]

38. Being your best self tonight, huh?

[Stinky The Clown]

46. You defending them?

[hueymahl]

62. Is that what you think I'm doing?

[Stinky The Clown]

64. Did you catch any of that meteor shower the other week?

[hatrack]

10. Because this country is just flat-out full of stupid motherfuckers . . .

And they're supported by powerful, profitable Keeping Motherfuckers Stupid Industry.

[CCExile]

48. Thank Covid

for making America smarter every day! The people who are rabid anti-vaxers are exactly the ones we don't want in the voting booth.

[Ex Lurker]

11. My parents had it this week

My mother, 85, got out of the hospital yesterday. My dad, 88, gets out tomorrow. I had it last November and my immunity is holding up well. No symptoms, despite getting a good faceful of it from both of them.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. "The pandemic is far from over, as..."

While anyone with a brain knows COVID is still out there...

On May 5, more than three years since COVID-19 was designated as a pandemic, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared an end to the global Public Health Emergency (PHE) for COVID-19

For the first 18 months of COVID, we were demanding that people listen to the experts.
I'm still listening to them.
The pandemic is over, per the experts.
Can people still get it? Of course.
Can it make some very sick? Certainly.
Does it still kill? No doubt about it.
But, making a point about everyone protecting themselves doesn't need to be reinforced by making declarations the consensus of experts contradict is not helpful. It dilutes the strength of the argument, greatly.

[edisdead]

61. Well said

[Autumn]

13. Because Americans play make believe about a lot of things. That's what we do.

That's how we get by.

[Igel]

14. I watch the reported cases and death toll.

Fall 2022 saw me drive the most I'd in any 3 months since 2004. It was insane!

I drove 1000 miles in Fall 2022. Drove to Austin three times to move kid to college and make sure he was settled in. Summer 2024 I drove 2000+ miles one way, with hundreds of local miles before that nearly border to border move. My statement was true, but fairly pointless. No 4-day stint on the road, but commuting to work with 3 trips over weekends.

1/23 the 7-day moving had a daily average at one point of 570 COVID deaths. In fall 2023, the high was in November, 113. It's dropped since then. In Dec. '22, leading up to the January peak, daily cases nearly hit 70,000. Peak so far this year with JN has to hit 20,000.

113 isn't good. But it's not close to rivalling 570. And they've declined by nearly half since their November '22 peak.

Note that in December '22 week 50 the death toll to flu hit 160--COVID was higher, by far, but we're talking less than an order of magnitude. 160 in a week vs less than 700 in a week. COVID's worse, but it's not certain death.

Oh, then there's the distinction of "sick" (or dead) "with COVID" as reported, versus "sick" (or dead) "from COVID." I mean, cases like the COVID victim dead from a car crash but "dead with COVID" should be reminder of regulatory crazy.

Ironically, I read a blurb on the "rise of long flu" while rummaging for this post. Like that's new. It's not new except to folk like NYT brights. Symptoms are like those of long COVID. Except that "long flu" and ("long other diseases" got little notice until "long COVID"--same causation? Dunno. Different frequency? Depends who you ask. Those who researched "long diseases" say no, but some argue for COVID's being special.)

[MOMFUDSKI]

16. I haven't stopped wearing a mask since the pandemic

started. I see most people living life large. Restaurants, movies, plays, etc. Outdoor dining or take home for me. Flew 2.5 hours last summer and wore a mask the entire time. To each his own.

[haele]

17. Because Business. And Convenience

But mainly business.
The last shutdown cost shareholders money. Caused Supply Chain issues. Made more workers realize they were essential for the business owners to make profits and be able to get more money and better working conditions.
Oh, and got to keep the kiddies in school; the shut-down kept too many parents at home asking for taxpayer provided resources like computers and broadband to poor and underserved neighborhoods, instead of working to pay the rent or mortgage; sheesh. If they couldn't afford raising kids on their own, why did they have them?

Unfortunately, the wrong lessons were learned during the pandemic shutdown.
Primarily that if you have to kowtow to keep workers, but still want to keep costs down during a pandemic, at least if businesses pretend it doesn't exist, only the old people and people with co-morbidities would die in record numbers, reducing the amount of money and insurance costs needed to keep them alive, and just put up with employees calling in sick, occasionally having to replace the ones who become too sick to work.

So, we break the people in the US health infrastructure. No biggie, AI and insurance companies will take care of that, and Anti-Socialist Conservatives and Bottom-Line-Bean-Counters get to gut the ACA for maximum profit, like in the bad old days when if you were sick, you paid up or just put up with whatever ailed you until it either killed or bankrupted you.

Business and Convenience.

Haele

[DemocraticPatriot]

26. I am still masking in public....

Most of the time, I am the only one....

Those few stores I frequent probably recognize me by that feature,
"oh yeah, that's the guy with the mask, I know him"....

LOL so they don't ask me for "ID". lmao

[JenniferJuniper]

32. I spend about 20 minutes each day on a croweded subway car,

and I'm often the only one in the car wearing a mask.

Even if you are sure you're invincible, I don't get why anyone would not take whatever steps they can to avoid Covid, the flu, or even a cold. It's not like wearing a mask is painful.

[tanyev]

52. Yes. Assuming Covid eventually disappears as a threat,

I will still keep masks around for use during cold and flu season. Even my allergies have been better since I’ve been masking for Covid.

[OAITW r.2.0]

27. Seems like if you are vax'd and get Covid it's like a really bad cold/flu.....or a minor incoveniece.

If you are still unvaxxed, the bullet is chambered...are you feeling lucky?

[Botany]

30. 100% of Americans that die from C-19 are unvaccinated

[OAITW r.2.0]

31. No doubt. And, if you are still an anti-vaxer at this point and die from COVID-19, well,....

you FAFO'd. Expecting it to hit the MAGA crowd pretty hard. Oh, fucking well.......

[Botany]

33. They should be denied medical care and given a bible along with a tent (heated)

N/t

[hueymahl]

41. Classy

[OAITW r.2.0]

42. If you haven't gotten the shots by now, hospitals ought to make this an admitting qualification.

Why put hospital staff at risk? These folks probably are COVID incubators, if it hasn't killed them.

[Botany]

45. Non symptomatic hosts to the virus ready to spread new forms of the disease

Fox News should have to pay the costs for the new cases thanx to their broadcasts of
Russian disinformation about science and the virus.

[Zeitghost]

36. That is absolutely

not true.

IIRC, most are vaccinated, but the unvaccinated are still over represented.

[hueymahl]

40. You are correct

Lots of worked up people tonight.

[former9thward]

49. Absolutely false

As the chart here shows. The current rates of death between unvaccinated and vaccinated are very close.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/united-states-rates-of-covid-19-deaths-by-vaccination-status

[Delphinus]

57. Yes and...

we are still learning the ramifications of repeated COVID infections. Not just Long Covid but other things it can do to the body.

[Botany]

28. Why?

Russian, right wing, and born again idiots spreading disinformation. No vaccine equals you can
become a host for the virus to mutate into the next new strain of the C-19 virus.

Science is real.

[localroger]

29. Not playing make believe here

I have (fortunately low-grade, but very annoying) long COVID from an infection around Christmas 2022 and I suspect I got the long reaction because I skipped the omicron vax update. I got the latest one as soon as I could, fortunately jumped the line because I'm a senior now. Will never take that chance again.

[Takket]

39. I read in Discover magazine this month.....

that there is some belief among researchers that long covid might be tied to gut bacteria?

Can't say I know a whole lot about this, but might be something to keep your eye on if you are having issues......

https://bmcmedicine.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12916-023-02972-x

[Cheezoholic]

55. I would venture to guess a lot more than the possibility of long covid is caused by a corrupted or diseased gut biome

At the last yearly corporate get together before covid, the bio-tech company I worked for had announced they were going to invest 2.5 billion dollars over the next 5 years between creating and integrating noninvasive gut biome testing instrumentation for their point of care product and for their pharma division to begin research beyond just treating the symptoms of a messed up gut biome but also for a cure from transplanting to artificially reconstituting the gut biome within the body. Thats a chunk of change to commit.

I am just an IT guy but Im a HUGE believer in the importance of that shit no pun intended. The second largest mass of neurons in our body is working right there in our gut along with the symbiotic critters, most of which in a healthy gut biome have been there since our mothers gave them to us at birth, to keep our bodies to keep us balanced, and more importantly free from the bad critters.

My whole life I use antiseptics externally and antibiotics internally only if there is a real need.

[localroger]

56. For me it's definitely a gut issue

It's exertional, but what happens is at first I get a little gas, then I get a lot nauseous, and if I keep exerting myself I throw up. I've found that I can hold off the gas and nausea if I notice them in time with GasX, but there's a limit to that. And "exertion" in my case means "standing around for more than ten or fifteen minutes." If I manage to hold it off with GasX and maybe original Dramamine long enough, then I'll get really, really exhausted. It also seems to help if I don't eat very much, and definitely if I don't eat carbohydrates. People have complimented me on the weight I've lost this year and I've been like, it's not an accomplishment it's that I can't effing eat anything. But on the whole I know a lot of LC sufferers are a lot worse off than I am, so I'm not complaining, just describing. In my case it's been getting very very gradually better, and I am hoping that this year I might be able to do almost normal workdays again. And I'm always looking for a med or food pattern that helps.

[Takket]

35. Cases are exploding because this new red hot variant was perfectly timed with the holidays

I cannot how many people I know who "got together with a a large group and now they have Covid."

I wonder, how deadly is Covid now? Before we had the vaccines we were looking at around 1% death rate. No doubt getting covid now is NOT as dangerous as it was in 2020. Just how bad is it? Is it close to the flu? If the death rate and hospitalization rates are now on par with the flu, do we really need to be that worried?

Reported cases are completely worthless to look at because almost no cases get reported. CDC has a wastewater tracking site which is the way to go, because everyone has gotta poop whether you test or not, whether you even believe covid exists or not. So no hiding your politics from your shit.

I still mask at the grocery store and am not really comfortable eating in restaurants. i go out to lunch sometimes because there are very few people eating out when i go. but going to a packed restaurant on a Friday night? No.

I'm not doing any crowds until this variant washes over us and at the rate it is going fueled by the holidays, i expect it will likely drop rapidly by February.

[OAITW r.2.0]

44. We need data on hospitalizations and the vax status for all admitted with Covid confirmations.

Some fully vax'd people will die and. I suspect.other complications will be contributors to their death, but what's the outcome for non-vaxers? Cost per admission?

[MichMan]

43. What are you proposing? Another lockdown?

[leftstreet]

60. The OP was linking an article, not offering medical advice n/t

[Skittles]

50. repukes politicized a fucking VIRUS

[DavidDvorkin]

51. I'm seeing almost no masks when I do the weekly grocery shopping.

[dsp3000]

54. covid now is much different then covid the first year.

we have vaccines, paxlovid, and know what to do now. My wife came back from a business trip and got covid. her symptoms were less severe than a flu we all had in 2022 and she rebounded quickly.

No offense but in my opinion is that any lockdown measures would be totally absurd at this point

[BlueTsunami2018]

58. What is there really to do about it?

We’re never locking down again, we’re never doing vaccination or mask mandates again. We have treatments we didn’t have before, it is what it is. People are just going about their lives as normal.

My jobsite has it running through right now. Some guys are sick enough to stay home, some guys are working through it, some people don’t get it.

I have personally never gotten it this whole time. Is it dumb luck or am I somehow immune? I don’t know. I don’t question it, I just keep plugging away.

[Ace Rothstein]

63. Because the vast majority of the population hated mitigations.

If you look around, what we're doing in the US isn't any different from most of the rest of the world.

[Yavin4]

65. It's a seasonal virus.

Infections explode during winter. Happens every year.