First and foremost, I hope all goes well and safe for your son and your mom’s funeral.
I think you sort of hit it on the nose. In many cases our perception of the current COVID situation is a result of our personal daily experiences. People who don’t vary their places of frequenting may have a smaller view (key word, MAY). People who work in schools or health care may have a different view. People who run with a smaller crowd may have a different view than those who hang with a wider/bigger group of people.
In my work life it’s still very present. I work in a hospital/clinic setting and we continue to mask in public areas 100% of the time and Covid is around us. In my home life, I keep my circle small and while I don’t hibernate at home, I don’t require a lot of going out so I can keep my exposures to a somewhat minimum. I know it’s there, that COVID. I weigh out each occasion - store, public venue as to whether I want to participate - and when I feel I should continue masking.
I don’t think anyone is saying COVID is gone. Perhaps we have learned to live with in - meaning, we know how to try and avoid it, how to treat it, how to handle exposure with care, etc.
Hi @jpga13 - seems like that PGA code is no longer accepted; it was great for my brother’s Hawaii trip. Now we’re all trying to book cars for a wedding next summer - is there an updated code? Thanks much!
Never mind, @jpga13 - got the code to work (shouldn’t have listened to my brother). It gave about a 10% discount so not too dramatic but that was looking at Newark - maybe car rentals there are back to vaguely competitive.
I haven’t stopped wearing a mask, except when I’m outdoors, distant from others - I’ve been vaccinated and one booster. I’ve traveled a few times out of the state (flown). I continue to distance, and don’t go to large indoor crowded events…my D’s graduation was the exception. To date I’ve not gotten Covid. I believe these measures work.
I only wore masks where absolutely required. I’ve been going to restaurants since the first opened. I’ve gone to many indoor crowded events and I’ve flown many times. I don’t take any extra precautions. I was initially vaccinated but no boosters and no intentions to get boosted. I also have never gotten Covid without those measures.
I’m curious to know what part of the population actually hasn’t had Covid vs being totally asymptomatic and not realizing they had it. I seem to recall a place wanting to do a study on it and not being able to since 90% (?) of those who felt they hadn’t had it yet were incorrect. If I’m recalling correctly, does that play out to the whole population - or just those willing to do the study.
Does anyone else remember reading about the study?
The preprint at https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.11.19.22282525v3 says that “By November 9, 2022, 94% (95% CrI, 79%-99%) of the US population were estimated to have been infected by SARS-CoV-2 at least once. Combined with vaccination, 97% (95%-99%) were estimated to have some prior immunological exposure to SARS-CoV-2. Between December 1, 2021 and November 9, 2022, protection against a new Omicron infection rose from 22% (21%-23%) to 63% (51%-75%) nationally, and protection against an Omicron infection leading to severe disease increased from 61% (59%-64%) to 89% (83%-92%)”
How could they know? I don’t think I’ve had covid. I took a test when I had a bad cold and it was negative, so I don’t think I’ve had it. Did I ever have it and been asymptomatic? I don’t know.
Was the study using blood tests that show a history back 2+ years?
The paper above that estimated 94% used mathematical / statistical models.
However, an alternate method that involves sampling the US population could check for anti-nucleocapsid antibodies, which are induced only from infection, since vaccines used in the US induce only anti-spike antibodies (this method would not work in places like China where inactivated whole virus vaccines are commonly used).
The one I had read about tested people’s blood to be sure they hadn’t had it before enrolling them in the study. They had to cancel the study due to not finding enough participants. The vast majority of those who thought they hadn’t, had.
Yep. I posted about this. A friends husband, a clinical researcher was involved in the planned study. They are now trying to devise a study about those with asymptomatic infection only but that’s harder to verify.
I knew I had read about it somewhere… thanks for updating! My old brain sometimes has trouble remembering the details, but tries to focus in on the important parts.
Now that we are 10 days past our trip, I can say that I am shocked that nobody came down with covid/flu/RSV. We (group of 6) spent 9 days in Austria. It seemed that everyone, everywhere was coughing, sneezing, hacking. I was the only person who wore a mask at all, and that was rare past the flight over. And we were in plenty of crowds and restaurants, indoors and out. In addition to the two 9 hour flights, we had two 4 hour train rides, and lots of buses, subways, streetcars, etc. even cable cars and a funicular lol
We all were vax’d and boosted. 4/6 had the bivalent booster, though mine/H was in late September. Last known covid infection for anyone was in April. As far as I know I haven’t had it yet, but I can’t believe that’s true.
Anyhow, the only person who came down with anything was, of course, me. The morning of the flight back, I got a cold. Covid test said it was negative, so while I felt somewhat bad flying back, it wasn’t like plenty of others weren’t coughing unmasked. And I wasn’t even that. I only had a stuffy nose. No fever, cough, etc. unfortunately the baby cold turned into a sinus infection this past weekend, but I got antibiotics this morning and already feel tons better. And I did take 6 covid tests over the last 10 days and they were all negative. But again, until this past weekend, even my energy level felt great. If only I could have cut off my nose and out my eyes, life would have been just fine. And nobody else in my family got whatever I did. I consider it a Christmas miracle
We went to Washington, DC for Thanksgiving, and both came home with just a regular old cold. But we had covid tests in the cupboard, so I took two, both negative. This is just a new regular habit, I believe, from now on, test if you have a cold, just to make sure.
We are still in Argentina. We left in mid December and have never worn a mask and I would say 99% of everyone is not wearing a mask. So far no Covid to our knowledge.
H just finished booking all of our hotels for our ski/road trip next month. We will be away for 17 days starting at Revelstoke then heading to Banff then to Big Sky in Montana and finishing up in Jackson Hole Wyoming. We are so excited to finally get to go ski in Canada. We will also be visiting Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks on this trip. The snow is amazing right now in the west and we hope it keeps on snowing! Headed out to ski at Mammoth again in a couple of weeks to keep ourselves in shape for next month.