Your Local Epidemiologist has a blog posting on comparing risks of COVID-19 to other risks of life that one may be exposed to:
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I love that blogger. She sure such a good job of explaining complicated topics in ways that people can understand.
Why don’t you check Orange County comparing to other counties, I think they are worse off than us. This is the death rate for all COVID since the beginning and not just for Omicron.
According to Google, this article from OC register back in May 2020, OC has the lowest death rate comparing to LA county, Riverside, San Bernardino, and San Diego.
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Not even close to accurate numbers. Many many more cases than not- whole households of people were testing at home or not even able to find a test to verify-and most of the omicron cases were not reported. For every one person that was able to be tested many had omicron and we’re not tested or reported. This has been acknowledged by Health department and researchers.
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Out of four testing positive during Omicron in our household only two were “reported” and counted. So there alone is a 50% undercount. I’m sure there are millions that were sick, took at home tests and didn’t end up reporting the results.
Not to mention the perhaps millions of asymptomatic or lightly symptomatic cases that didn’t test or didn’t get noticed. There’s definitely a larger percentage of the population that has been exposed to Covid.
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Sotrovimab, the only monoclonal antibody to treat omicron, has been found to be ineffective against the BA2 subvariant. It is no longer being shipped to states with high BA2 levels.
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I really don’t understand stopping shipments. Are we sure that every case is BA 2. So we can no longer treat previous variants because it may not be as effective against the newest variant. Makes no sense to me.
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Redirecting it to places where the main variants are still treatable with it is a more effective use of the supply.
Right now it’s just most of the states in the Northeast because the levels of BA2 are the highest there.
So no one in the northeast is getting the other variants. And if they do we just do t treat them because they have more of the newest variant. Still don’t get it.
Same thing happened with Regeneron. Wasn’t effective against Omicron. I remember in early December a notice going out that the last infusion in our area would be 12/24.
Whatever supply those states in the NE have is all they will get. I think Paxlovid still works.
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If one area has mostly cases that do not respond to the treatment, while another area has mostly cases that still do, would it make more sense to send the treatment supplies to the area where the cases still do respond to the treatment? I.e. where giving the treatment to the patient is more likely to be effective?
Of course, if there were a quick way to test individual patients for what variant they have, then some of the treatment supplies can still be directed to the area with more of the resistant variant, but that area needs less of it, since the treatment will not be used on patients with the resistant variant.
Isn’t a lot of the testing for trends like this done through waste water? Overrides concern about those who tested positive and didn’t report.
Yes, it starting ticking up in the Yale wastewater samples and Boston about 2 weeks ago.
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Are we testing everyone for the variants? So you’re saying if I get the a previous variant but my area has more Ba2 I don’t get treated. Just because a new variant appears, it doesn’t mean previous variants disappear. If we are not testing for the variants then how do you know if I would respond or not?
If the hospital is not able to test all patients for which variant quickly, then it needs to choose what treatment that is most likely to work, based on which variants are predominant in the area. In a high BA.2 area, this would mean choosing the treatments that are most likely to work on BA.2, even though a few may have something else (though they could choose treatments that also work on other variants known in the area).
It looks like genomic sequencing to determine variants typically takes 2-3 days, but can be done within a day for a rush job. But treatment decisions often have to be made sooner than that.
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