The numbers are getting insanely high. In my compliant, vaccinated New England state, 15% positivity now. And we’re at close to a quarter of a million positives yesterday nationwide. If you figure that for every positive test, probably ten times as many don’t bother to get tested, that means a new 2.5 million cases/day across the nation right now. If this runs anything like flu, it will peak about 4 weeks from now, and be largely over by about 6 weeks from now. This could be essentially the end of the pandemic, after that. It will probably then become like the other 4 endemic coronaviruses that cause the common cold.
If you go to a New Year’s gathering, Covid will probably be on the guest list.
Maybe 4-6 weeks for your area, but unfortunately there are plenty of parts of the country like mine where omicron hasn’t hit yet. We are still in the 30s/100K people for daily cases. And we are not a high vax area and I’d guess maybe 25% at best mask compliance in stores. But we have no interstate and no airport. Only one Amtrak train a day. It will take omicron a while to filter through the country. When it hits my area, I’m sure it will be bad.
She already set it up that way! A virus’ goal in life is to make and spread many copies of itself. So its evolution is toward becoming more infectious (spreads better), and less virulent (doesn’t kill its host, host is well enough to continue seeing other people to spread it). The reports that Omicron is more infectious but less virulent are exactly what would be expected. I really think that we’re about to turn the corner on the pandemic. Look what happened with the 1918/1919 flu pandemic. It quickly evolved to become less virulent.
The rapid test is not very good at detecting asymptomatic or early Covid cases. It does mean there is usually less viral lode present so less contagious but it isn’t great unless symptomatic.
There was a recent preprint paper studying long COVID. It was found in about 38% of unvaccinated cases, but breakthrough cases in previously vaccinated people were 4.5 times less likely to result in long COVID. (Vaccination after infection also reduced the risk of long COVID, but to a lesser degree.)
However, it would be best to check what the definition of long COVID is in each study, since definitions used do vary. (This study checked for symptoms and conditions 12 to 20 weeks after.)
It doesn’t mean that EVERY time when a lateral test detects active spike proteins, but the lab doing the PCR reports it did not detect the necessary threshold of RNA fragments, that the lab was right.
Yes, absolutely CAN you be infectious if lab reports a negative on the PCR test. It can be procedural errors, just as one possibility - like they must had in hundreds of cases in Australia!
I understand the point that you’re making - but with Omicron it is best to NOT reference SYMPTOMS, especially in the vaccinated.
The better way to think of it is that after having been infected, it takes several days of incubation for the virus to replicate sufficiently to be detected and (possibly) trigger symptoms.
So yes, you won’t test positive in the first few days - but after that you CAN test positive even if the person is not aware of obvious symptoms.
So I’m interested to hear more about how infectious covid positives are in various situations.
One recent example: close friend’s son (2 shots no booster) took a bus home on 12/23 from NYC where he attends school. Saturday 12/25 he wakes with a sore throat, tests negative for Covid on Binax test. Continues to feel sick and develops a fever. Monday 12/27 tests positive twice on binax tests. Friend, friend’s husband and D (all had 2 shots plus booster within the last couple weeks) all have no symptoms and tested negative as of today 12/29. S is feeling back to normal with a bit of fatigue. They all live in the same house. S was isolated in lower level of house and all were masking as of Monday, possibly sooner. I keep reading how infectious omicron is but I’ll be so surprised (and happy) if no one else is infected. Boosters seem to be working in this case? I read the benefit the booster confers wanes after 10 weeks so all 3 are early in that time frame.
The mRNA vaccines emphasize B-cell / antibody response*, which rises to high levels about two weeks after the shot (and higher for Moderna than Pfizer, probably due to Moderna’s larger amount of mRNA per shot), but then declines to a long term memory level later. While the memory level of B-cells / antibodies may provide strong immunity against the ancestral variant that the vaccine is targeted to, it may not be enough to stop infection against a variant like Omicron that the antibodies are less well matched for. (Note the beginning of second booster (fourth dose) vaccinations with Pfizer in Israel.)
In theory, an Omicron vaccine that induces B-cell / antibody response against Omicron may give stronger immunity once B-cells / antibodies decline to the long term memory level.
*Versus CD8+ T-cell response that the J&J vaccine emphasizes.
Yep. S19 negative for Christmas gathering via rapid. Didn’t have any symptoms. We all took rapids before the get together. That was Saturday. Started feeling cold symptoms on Monday. Negative rapid Monday night. Felt same on Tuesday but was able to run ten miles so we thoughr, eh, must be ok. Ran another ten today and said he just feels more fatigue than he should so took test at noon today, Wed, and is positive.
He got his booster but very recently (12/21) because he didn’t want to get it while at school. Our D got hers at school and had really bad side effects. He felt like he couldn’t risk being sick during the week before finals or during finals. So far, he doesn’t seem to be getting worse. Goes back to school for winter track training on the 10th so maybe this isn’t a bad time for him to catch it if it was inevitable.
Now we wait and see if any of the rest of us catch it. We were all boosted mid-Nov.
If multiple people with similar vaccination status are all similarly exposed to the same source at the same time, is it most likely that all or none get infected, or is it most likely that some but not all get infected?
From my own experience, not all get infected. I known few partners living in small apartments where one got Covid and another not.
My nephew has been infected twice already, while his living girlfriend has been fine.
My son in law was in a conference room with 10+ people for 3 days. 50% of got Covid, and 50% didn’t. They were all vaccinated.
I think there are people who are more susceptible to Covid.
Not your exact scenario, but D2 and her fiance attended a party together. Both were fully vaxxed, but D had gotten her booster 7 days prior to the party. Her fiance got really sick (athletic, muscular, low body fat, no prior tendency to get ill etc.) with Covid. D tested repeatedly, always negative, and she never experienced so much as a sniffle. They do live together and did not isolate from each other.
All of the people at the party who were not vaxxed got symptomatic Covid, according to D. Some, (not all) of the vaxxed guests got Covid, with mixed results in terms of symptoms.
As I said before D2 got Covid while our family was skiing last week. She had been to NYC the weekend before our trip. D1, D2 H and myself all spent 12 hours in a car with D2 two days before she developed symptoms and tested positive on a home test. We did not isolate from her as our Airbnb was not that big although she spent the two days she was not feeling well mostly in her bedroom.
None of us have had any symptoms and it has now been 10 days since D2 tested positive. We believe being fully vaccinated and having our boosters did the trick for us.
did you ever get tested yourself? My doc saying that, even if the rest of our family is asymptomatic, we all need PCRs on the fifth day after our last contact with S19 (who was positive yesterday). We are all getting PCRs on Monday.
Only D1 tested because she was flying to stay with bf and his family for Christmas. H and I have not tested yet, but we were going to test tomorrow prior to going to an outdoors New Year’s Eve with friends.
I have never tested. H tested when he had a cold. My kids tested in connection with travel plus D just did a PCR test before a gathering today. She got results in <24 hrs: —. Yay!