Interesting article in the Atlantic:
1 Like
Seems that someone concerned about that may want to choose a J&J booster, since the J&J vaccine tends to cause the strongest CD8+ killer T-cell response, although it induces weaker antibody responses than the mRNA vaccines.
1 Like
I’m curious if anyone here has read anything about hypertension as a potential long-covid issue?
The questions many people have with respect to Omicron:
- How risky is Omicron to vaccinated people?
- How does this change with boosters?
- How does this change with brand(s) of vaccine and length of time since vaccination?
- How risky is Omicron to unvaccinated people?
- With or without prior COVID-19 infection?
- How risky is Omicron to health care capacity?
Quite a while ago, I read that it can become a long-term issue. Also diabetes.
Monoclonal antibodies are ineffective against omicron, and with its rapid rise, our hospital has informed the staff that the last day monoclonal infusions will be offered is December 23rd and to plan accordingly.
The good news is that my nephew is currently working on producing monoclonal antibodies that will be effective against omnicron. Hope his work pans out!
19 Likes
I assume they’ll still be offered if anyone has Delta?
Are you in the Northeast? Yikes!
Does every hospital have the ability to confirm Omicron status immediately or has the hospital simply predicted the date that all cases will be Omicron?
No it will not be offered at all. They will stop taking referrals on 12/21. Omicron is expected to be that dominant by then. Over a third of all cases are the omicron variant after 10 days or so, so by 12/21, very little to no delta, so infusions are shutting down until sotrovimab is available.
1 Like
Actually our institution does the most genotyping in the US by far. No other institution is even close. A few months into the pandemic, our lab was doing more than everywhere in the country combined. Other labs have since increased genotyping, but we still do more than the total of any US state. We were doing genotyping before the pandemic so could quickly pivot. We run them in batches, takes about 2 days for the machine, then half a day on either end for prepping and evaluation. So based on the increasing numbers in each batch and the doubling time of 2 days in other countries such as the UK, the projections are around Christmas to be 90% omicron. The batch on Sunday was 13% omicron and we were thinking the next batch on Wednesday would be 20%, but it was actually in the 30s (sorry, don’t remember exactly, maybe 32%?)
So we’re able to see this in real time for our patients but most places to not have this capability unfortunately.
I don’t work directly with these samples but this is what my colleagues who do the actual work tell me. Such a cutting-edge area of medicine - wish I worked in it.
6 Likes
Interesting. I wonder why they think Delta will go away, esp if people can get both at the same time as they originally said could happen. Delta has been really surging here. No Omicron in sight yet locally, but I’m sure it’s a matter of time. In the meantime, it’s Delta that has our hospitals overfilled.
H has a colonoscopy scheduled in Jan near here in PA. Now I’m wondering if that’s going to happen or if all elective things will be stopped as before. It took forever to convince him to get one.
Then we’ve got plans to spend a month in USVI in Feb - escaping winter. Will travel be stopped again?
Anyone else getting a sense of Deja Vu?
We went through the Delta surge already. I know different parts of the country are going through what we went through months ago. So our overall numbers are down, but going up rapidly now, because of omicron. Last Monday and Tuesday we had 76 positive tests. This Monday and Tuesday we have 306. Yesterday we had 73 employees test positive. As of Wednesday we had 150 employees test positive, had only 46 all of last week. And we are under a vaccine mandate.
One of my colleagues said when you see 1 wave, that’s 1 wave. Each wave can be different and this is different than delta.
Because it’s the most contagious strain, and theoretically confers immunity to the less competitive ones. IF it turns out to be less harmful, that will be a good thing.
2 Likes
Where are you? Texas? If you don’t want to be specifid, that’s fine, but can you give us the general area of the country? Thanks!
That’s the key. Do we know for sure if someone gets Omicron, s/he will be immune to Delta, at least for a while? There appears to be evidence in the other direction, that someone who got Delta can be re-infected with Omicron.
3 Likes
According to Moderna’s chief medical officer, some people can be infected by both Delta and Omicron at the same time:
2 Likes
In the south
Experienced delta during late summer/early fall
3 Likes
Thanks! I think many areas are far far under-sequencing and therefor under-reporting.
Wow! I assume this was through regular testing not all of them had symptoms? SO what do you do staffing wise with 150 employees out for 10 days ?
2 Likes