Probably does! WA state.
Pennsylvania. Very odd.
Costco has the FlowFlex tests back in stock, but theyāll probably go quick, too.
Omicron may be less severe than other variants of COVID-19, but is probably still more deadly than the flu.
US faces wave of omicron deaths in coming weeks, models say | AP News describes an estimate of 191,000 deaths from mid-December 2021 to mid-March 2022.
Disease Burden of Flu | CDC lists the worst recent year for flu deaths at 52,000.
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Just listened to the second to the last TWIV. They said that neither lateral flow tests or amplifying tests are good for testing when someone becomes non-infectious after being infected. They said that both will test positive after a patient isnāt infectious. Their exact example was an asymptotic patient on their sixth day post-infection. Their claim, there is no way they are still infectious at that point, but their rapid test will very likely be positive.
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In other words, you are saying that they are saying that any test could overestimate the contagiousness at the back end of an infection.
What about at the front end of the infection?
Yes.
I was a little distracted when they were taking about front end though (house remodel 
). They were proponents of rapid testing though. Their concern is that PCR in previously infected patients is too sensitive and will potentially misdiagnose them if they return with new symptoms. They proposed limiting amplification cycles to 30 to reduce the sensitivity.
The most important thing they talked about was a paper that showed that we canāt equate PCR cycles to viral load as was previously intuited.
This is the VERY interesting thing. They prospectively measured Infectious Viral Titers (IVT), in multiple variant, vax status, age, etc. groups at five time points and found LOW correlation to replication number. It effectively throws everything we thought we knew on its head. Viral load, as measured by PCR cycles, does not equal infectiousness. 
Episode 853, 8:55
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This caught my eye āOmicron vaccine breakthrough infections did not show elevated IVTs compared to Delta, suggesting that other mechanisms than increase VL contribute to the high infectiousness of Omicron.ā
So something other that what weāve been measuring (viral load) is thought to be fueling transmission. Might this explain why past mitigation measures (masks, social distancing etc) arenāt working?
I donāt know that these arenāt working per se. They have some impact, but for many reasons, can be defeated.
If you do the math on a R0 of 3 vs. a R0 of 10 and then put even pretty effective mitigation strategies in the disease path, the R0=10 version is still going to be impressive. The exponential growth at 3 is scary. Itās crazy at 10.
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could Omicron actually be transmitted via surfaces and live longer on surfaces, and thus the big R0 number. AT least this is what they are implying in China.
Maybe. My suspicion is that it has some mechanism to better evade our immune system though and that weāre still getting it via airborne transmission. Total guess though.
Things Iāve read seem to indicate that the immune-evasive nature of omicron is what has allowed it to spread so rapidly. The antibodies from vaccinations or previous infection are not as good as detecting omicron and so the body is relying more on the cellular (T cells, B cells) response.
This yet to be peer-reviewed study published by Nature: How does Omicron spread so fast? A high viral load isnāt the answer
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Highly doubt that. The Chinese have been using every excuse possible to keep the lockdowns going. There have been findings of previous strains on surfaces of multiple things imported into the countryā¦ I am very skeptical of anything reported by the Chinese at this point.
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Also, there are studies indicating that apparently Omicron spares the lungs and settles in the upper respiratory tract.
No one knows for certain. Even the experts. Since weāre all guessing, Iāll add mine: 
In addition to its ability to better evade our immune system, Omicron can probably linger in air much longer than other variants, thus infecting more people over longer distances and longer periods of time.
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+1
Hereās a question for the smart and knowledgable folks of this thread: My kid has a high school trip to NYC in mid-March, chaperoned by teachers, organized by a private tour company. The tour company is requiring everyone to get a negative PCR test 2 to 3 days before departure. Anyone who has had COVID in the past 90 days is encouraged to get a doctorās note affirming date of COVID diagnosis and that the person no longer exhibits symptoms, etc. ā in case that person is still carrying lingering, but noninfectious, virus that results in a positive PCR before the trip.
Hereās my question: isnāt it possible, perhaps very possible, that a student could get COVID in the next few weeks, and never know it, either because asymptomatic or extremely mild symptoms. And then 3 days before the school trip ā boom ā tests positive due to lingering but noninfectious virus. COVID was never diagnosed, so no way to to prove that the student is on the backend of their infection, rather than the front end. (Of course, student could be on the front end.)
School is no longer doing surveillance testing due to shortage of tests and lab capacity because of Omicron. School has vaccine and booster mandate for all, and parent demographic is such that Iām guessing basically all parents are vaccinated/boosted as well. Point being that so much vaccine protection, which is great, means itās perhaps more likely a COVID positive student might never discover that they are positive, because anyone they pass it to might not exhibit symptoms either.
What do you think? Would it make more sense for the tour company to require a negative antigen test the day of travel? Should we conduct our own surveillance testing of child, using at home tests?
That summary in Nature seems to have conflicting information, saying both viral load isnāt the thing, and then that viral loads are higher longer. It reminds me of the national ski coach saying that we shouldnāt focus on results at a young age and then complaining that our young kids donāt perform well on the international stage. 
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