Inside Medicine. What Are You Seeing? [COVID-19 medical news]

Me too.

Same here. No issues and received an email confirmation. Our S also had no issues (lives in an apartment)

Ditto.

I had no problem first thing this morning but about three hours ago, son said "I saw how traffic was slowing it to a crawl – I’ll probably try to put an order in later tonight. "

At some points, more than 750,000 people were accessing the website at the same time, according to public government tracking data, but it was not immediately known how many orders were placed. For a while, the surge in traffic saw the Covid test website outpace traffic to all other government websites combined.

Re apartments, the White House advised:

The USPS is aware of “very limited cases” of addresses that are not registered as multi-unit buildings being blocked from ordering Covid tests


“This is occurring in a small percentage of orders,” the USPS said in a statement, adding that those impacted should contact customer service at USPS to address the issue.

Tidelands is showing average ages now - a welcome addition which seems to add to the data that the older one gets, the riskier it is even with vaccinations/boosters. The sheer numbers are also showing the worthiness of vaccinations and boosters more now that higher numbers are hospitalized.

I wonder what the vax rate is for the area, though if they pull in from other areas too that’s not as useful.

I also wonder which vaccines were used in those hospitalized, but we don’t get that info either.

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Makes the case for boosters.

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I had no problem logging in and the site gave me a tracking number, but no confirmation email yet.

Yes, this was an example of terrible journalism, in my opinion. That first family’s anecdote seems to show how wonderfully effective the rapid tests were—presumably they were showing the son was not infectious, they were able to have a joyous reunion with the grandmother, no covid was spread. Success! The same with the other anecdote of the woman and her friends who gathered on NYEve
.the rapid tests indicated none were infectious that day, they gathered, the story doesn’t relay that anyone transmitted covid, although the lady later tested positive on PCR she didn’t give covid to her friends (or the article surely would have mentioned that). And I agree that in the case of the first family, the symptomless son’s positive PCR may have been an old artifact of an old case of covid. I mean, we all agree and understand the tests aren’t perfect, but I don’t see how a writer can write an alarmist headline like that and then use examples that do not indicate transmission. Weird and illogical.

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I agree that the title of the article may be alarmist, but it does highlight the issue of overreliance and overconfidence many seem to have on the rapid antigen tests. Another useful piece of information from the article is about the more sensitive and better antigen tests from Roche and Siemens that are coming to the States.

Yes, I did like learning about the new improved tests that will be coming out! I didn’t mean that the article shouldn’t have been posted and that it had no useful information. I am looking forward to those new tests!

But I actually think the article’s main thrust is somewhat wrong, and the examples the author chose actually illustrate how wrong it is!! The rapid tests are just to show if you are currently “infectious”, not that you are infected. I still deduce from the whole mix of articles I’ve read and experts I’ve listened to, that it’s incredibly useful to have a group that’s gathering take rapid tests right beforehand, and that strategy seems incredibly effective at preventing spread. Just like that family who met with the grandma
.even if one of the people may be incubating a new case of covid, it appears in most cases that they don’t pass on their covid if the gathering is soon after the negative rapid test. It’s not going to be easy for us to know the exact moment and circumstances that a developing case of covid crosses over the threshold to become infectious, but even our current rapid tests still appear to be an amazingly useful tool to reduce (not 100% eliminate) risk, and I have yet to come across any cases of people who test negative on a rapid test and the same day for sure prove to be responsible for transmitting the virus to someone else that same day (although I fully believe that there is some possibility/risk of this happening). If the grandson had passed covid onto the grandmother, that would indeed have been a total failure in that case. Anyway, I just take issue with article writers who don’t do critical thinking about what they are saying.

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There’s no firm evidence that says that, but originally I thought we could deduce that same conclusion. In reality, I think it’s probably far more complicated than that. It’s likely that unvaccinated, not previously infected people can build up more viral load pre-symptoms and be more infectious when asymptomatic. It’s also probably not a great indicator after a person is asymptomatic and afebrile. Who knows. It’s all conjecture on my part. Any conclusion beyond knowing the tested person still has some of that antigen floating around is ahead of the science as we know it.

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Fair enough. But I ask everyone I know about their rapid testing experiences and the results and if they had known spread when testing negative, and scour every article for evidence of spread when people had taken a rapid test that day (I do this because I myself do rely on rapid testing of groups at the start of a gathering to reduce risk, so I continually seek affirmation that it’s worthwhile). And I have yet to see examples of people spreading right after testing negative. Now I know that doesn’t mean it’s impossible (!), but it has certainly given a strong indication that this is a very valuable tool for us. (Of course, 100% of the people I socialize with are also fully vaccinated and I’d also say 100% boosted now).

Re: journalism, I find myself taking issue with headlines more frequently. Clickbait is a real concern, because I believe many readers never get further than the headline. Others will begin reading an article and never reach something substantive to the topic.

For instance, yesterday I was encouraged when I read the headlines suggesting Nick Saban signed a letter to Sen. Manchin about The Voting Rights Act. It wasn’t until paragraph 5, where I read Saban asked to include a footnote to the letter where he denounced getting rid of the filibuster. In my opinion many headlines were misleading in the coverage of this story.

Edited to add: as we read Covid articles, it helps to critically look at not only the source, but also the framing of the headline. The manipulation for clicks and/or to incite a strong reaction is something I personally find exhausting.

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It certainly played out that way with our son’s experience. No one he was in contact with prior to testing positive got it.

There was an early publication though about the transmission potential of Omicron, I think in Denmark, but I’m not certain. There were 115 in attendance, and 75 got Covid. Everyone tested negative prior to attending.

Where I think it gets more murky is after resolution of symptoms and fever. In the biggest contract tracing study, no one tested positive after 6 days. No one has isolated viable virus out of an immunocompetent patient after 10 days. There are reports of positive antigen tests, and certainly PCRs, beyond that time window. I’m very confident that they were neither infected or infectious.

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My 72 year old brother just advised that both his oncologist and immunologist have put him on their eligible list for Evusheld. His medical system is getting a supply. He has CLL with ongoing long term treatments, and has not been able to develop a strong response to the vaccinations and booster. He is very interested but understands there is a risk of heart events. He has never had any of those issues nor is there any family history of such.

So now he is hunting for information on “Phase testing drug vs. placebo cardiac instances for test subjects without cardiac histories”. But overall he is cautiously optimistic and excited over the chance of protection.

I remember that Scandinavian party, and was terrified/very discouraged after reading about it. Then I read that although everyone was tested beforehand, they were only required to have the test be within 72 hours. I consider that very different from having everyone test right before an event. So then I started feeling better again about the test-before-event strategy.

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72 hours presumably is to accommodate typical PCR test delays, but that fails for precautionary testing because the person tested on day -3 could get infected between day -3 and day 0, and a person could have an undetectable uncontagious infection on day -3 that could become contagious by day 0.

Precautionary testing depends on testing as soon as possible before the event in question, to minimize the window before the event when the person could get infected after the test or could have an uncontagious infection become contagious.

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https://www.walmart.com/ip/BinaxNOW-COVID-19-Antigen-Self-Test-by-Abbott-2-Count/142089281

Available now

Edited to Update: sold out 
sorry!

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Out of stock. Lol, that was quick! :rofl:

It still works for me
.I wonder if it depends on where you live?