I think you’re spot on. I’d ask for an antigen test, or a PCR limited to 30 cycles (not that I know why that’s the magic number; I’m just parroting TWIV).
Maybe so. I found this article, and while it was more about Delta, the tldr version is that Omicron has a more positively charged spike protein compared to Delta and perhaps that keeps it more protected in an aerosol, as it would attract more mucin around itself.
Yes. And test every day during the travel, so that those who start travel infected but pre-contagious, or get infected during the travel, are found as soon as possible during the travel, so that mitigation measures can be done.
Testing only 3 days before travel means that the following scenarios are possible and likely:
- Person tests on day -3, infected on day -2 or -1, starts travel on day 0, becomes contagious during the trip.
- Person infected on day -4, tests on day -3 before virus is detectable, starts travel on day 0 and is probably contagious then.
- Person infected during travel, becomes contagious later during travel.
1 Like
“ Daniel Rhoads, MD, vice chair of the College of American Pathologists microbiology committee who is also at the Cleveland Clinic, said PCR sensitivity for detecting COVID-19 is actually around 80%.
That means “one in five people would be expected to test negative even if they have COVID,” Rhoads told MedPage Today.
And that’s a “best-case scenario” for sensitivity, he added, noting that it’s likely to be different in a real-world scenario.”
1 Like
Weekly COVID-19 cases per 100,000 population, by vaccine type and doses:
| Period | No vaccine | Any | Any + boost | Mx2 | Mx3 | Px2 | Px3 | Jx1 | Jx2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct/Nov 2021 | 347.8 | 87.7 | 25.0 | 75.0 | 20.0 | 93.9 | 27.1 | 107.5 | 26.0 |
| Dec 2021 | 725.6 | 254.8 | 148.6 | 221.6 | 130.4 | 280.1 | 162.6 | 246.6 | 132.7 |
Weekly COVID-19 deaths per 100,000 population, by vaccine type and doses:
| Period | No vaccine | Any | Any + boost | Mx2 | Mx3 | Px2 | Px3 | Jx1 | Jx2 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oct/Nov 2021 | 7.8 | 0.6 | 0.1 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 1.0 | 0.1 |
3 Likes
JnJ, doing great in the stats. Pfizer a little less so. Thanks for the tables.
We must be looking at different data. To my eye, Pfizer is better against death than JnJ for initial dosing and the same with a boost. The bottom line is that they are so close, and both so much better against death than no vaccine, that it’s splitting hairs.
3 Likes
Maybe I am misunderstanding the table. It looks like there are less people hospitalized with two JnJ jabs than three Pfizer. But I agree, great numbers both on hospitalizations and mortality. The over 18 in our family have two Pfizer and one Moderna and the numbers are reassuring.
Edited. Just noticed the first table is not hospitalizations but cases. Oops. Trying to read this on my phone.
1 Like
For case rates after primary vaccination series, M < P < J. For case rates after boosters, M < J < P (based on primary vaccination; booster may be different).
However, boosted < primary vaccine only < unvaccinated by much larger margins than the differences between the different vaccines.
1 Like
On “long Covid”:
Same article for NYT subscribers:
2 Likes
Here’s a version of the article w/o requiring NYX subscription.
They identified four risk factors for long COVID-19 that can be assessed at the time of diagnosis:
- Pre-existing Type 2 diabetes
- SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in the blood
- Epstein-Barr virus DNA levels in the blood
- The presence of specific autoantibodies
3 Likes
This article needs to be read carefully, and the list is not by any means complete.
From the article, note that type 2 diabetes is probably just one of many chronic illnesses making people vulnerable to long COVID:
The final factor is having Type 2 diabetes, although the researchers and other experts said that in studies involving larger numbers of patients, it might turn out that diabetes is only one of several medical conditions that increase the risk of long Covid.
and this:
The most influential factor appeared to be autoantibodies, which were associated with two-thirds of the cases of long Covid, Dr. Heath said. The article mentions lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, but this covers many autoimmune disorders including type 1 diabetes. (Yet the list specifies the more common type 2, probably because the rarer form type 1 could not be studied. Interesting because type 1 is autoimmune, type 2 is not.)
Epstein Barr has recently been posited as a factor in MS and has been a suspect in CFS.
4 Likes
Agree.
And EBV causes multiple different types of lymphomas and carcinomas.
EBV is a nasty virus. A recent article in Science linked it to MS.
https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.abj8222
Here is a summary:
2 Likes
EBV is nasty. My H’s oncologist told us that 95% of the world’s population carries it, but there seems to be some, as of yet figured out relationship between those whose exposure manifests as mono and the subsequent development of Hodgkins lymphoma.
My kid had to be hospitalized because their throat was closing with aggressive strep throat. Turned out to be EBV/mono, and they were out of commission with fatigue for weeks. This kid had a brain injury a year before and the virus attacked a nerve or part of the brain that controlled eyes and they were cross-eyed and could not walk. This lasted more than a week. So many people get Epstein-Barr and never know it?
The vast majority of the population get it and don’t know it (about 95% of the population). Children who are infected are either asymptomatic, or it looks like one more light to moderate cold. If you are older, it generally is like a more serious flu, except when it becomes mono. Since most people get it as children, they don’t actually know, and people who get a more mild, flu-like case when they are older, simply assume that it was the flu.
Because it is a Herpes family virus, you never actually get rid of it, similar to chickenpox or cold sores. While chickenpox and cold sores hid in the spinal ganglia, EBV hides in B-cells.
1 Like
COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 240,797 lives and prevented an estimated 1,133,617 hospitalizations between December 12, 2020 and June 30, 2021, according to
COVID-19 vaccines saved an estimated 1,087,191 lives and prevented an estimated 10,319,961 hospitalizations between December 12, 2020 and November 30, 2021, according to
Note that the latter study assumes a huge (Delta) spike peaking in August / September 2021.
5 Likes
6 Likes
“Researchers agree that Omicron is a recent arrival. It was first detected in South Africa and Botswana in early November 2021 (see ‘Omicron takeover’); retrospective testing has since found earlier samples from individuals in England on 1 and 3 November, and in South Africa, Nigeria and the United States on 2 November.”
In other words, by the time it was noticed in late November, it had already found its way to many parts of the world.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00215-2
This page also describes Omicron’s volume of mutations.