outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

That looks like my kid's homework.

She's done the projections, and it's even worse than we thought:
https://i.imgur.com/xbTsj9B.jpg

personally i'm taking the same approach to man alive's posts that he takes to good faith attempts to answer that same question he asks every two weeks, i.e. ignoring.

New York Reports Over 20,000 Covid-19 Cases, New Daily High

gonna post this very sane advice from former ILXor kate78:

"Hi friends! The number of deaths from COVID-19 surpassed 800k in the US yesterday, the very same day the UK had reported their highest number of cases ever (and that's *without* counting any reinfections) and some of you have been asking questions. My answers and thoughts:
On a scale of 1-10? As of today, I'm at about a 6.5 on omicron. I was 5.5 on Sunday and last week I was a 4.

If it's been 6 months since your last vaccination, yes, go get boosted now, don't wait. Yes, you can mix and match, but take what you can get. Appointments are getting scarce again; as ever, let me know if you need help tracking one down.

I know everyone's collected an array of cute cloth masks, but it's time to upgrade your game to an N95, KN95, or KF94. You can still wear the cloth masks over 'em. Find some here: https://www.projectn95.org/

Because it takes a few weeks for the data to catch up, the jury is still out on what exactly Omicron will do and how well current treatments and vaccines will end up working. While the picture becomes clearer every day, it doesn't look like we're gonna have a very fun winter. We do not yet know whether omicron is "the virus getting milder" or if this is what infection looks like within a highly immunized population. They're different things and it's probably the latter. Omicron is likely not milder in the unvaccinated (which includes little kids) or those with waning immunity (which includes older people).

But what does "milder" even mean? If you're vaccinated and you catch it, you will almost certainly fare better than if you were unvaccinated. However, lots of people with long COVID have had mild cases and we still know frighteningly little about just what the fuck is going on there (if I can look into my crystal ball for a sec, I think we're still years away from being able to assess the full extent of the long-term damage being done--physically, cognitively, neurologically, especially in kids--and we'll look back on this pandemic as a mass-disabling event).

Omicron really seems to be so much more infectious than previous variants and a variant that spreads more rapidly, even if it's "milder", has the opportunity to cause many more deaths and overwhelm the medical system. In the UK and Denmark, cases are doubling about every one and a half days, an almost perfect example of an exponential increase (schools there have begun to close early for the holiday break). If you get this, you will likely pass it along to other people, some of whom the infection will not be so mild. I really wish we could get away from some of the "whatever, it'll be mild, what me worry?" that I've been seeing. Your personal risk isn't the only thing that matters here.

Seattle, you are doing so much better than most other places on Earth right now: we wear masks, our adult vaccination rate is over 85%, and we only hang out indoors with other vaccinated folks, please continue to rock on. HOWEVER, omicron is circulating in the community, even among the vaccinated. Make good choices. Download the WA Notify app.

Some suggestions: swing by the drugstore and pick up some COVID tests to have on hand. These are very good at telling you if you're positive and less good at telling you if you're negative, but they're better than nothing. If you are planning on being in a crowd for the holidays, take it immediately prior to walking into the event. If you happen to test positive, the only place you should think of going is to get a PCR test. I only mention this because if you end up experiencing long-COVID symptoms, it might be helpful for future treatment to have an official test result with your name on it (for insurance or, god forbid, a disability claim). Obviously, if you are feeling at all unwell, take a test and isolate, even if you think it's just a cold. Data from the Zoe COVID symptom tracker study has indicated that people in London who are reporting typical cold symptoms are more likely to have COVID than a cold. Don't get on a plane if you can avoid it and maybe don't go to that holiday work potluck. Parents, perhaps you should prepare for a return to virtual learning for a bit.

As for my plans, I've starting shrinking my world for the winter: reducing my contacts, avoiding crowds, and not doing stuff like dining indoors. I've only been to one indoor rock show (back in September) and the next one I have tickets to is in March. I am not traveling for pleasure and have stopped traveling for work for the time being. International travel hasn't been a good idea since March of last year and remains not a good idea.

All usual and customary caveats apply! This post will probably be obsolete in a matter of days, if not hours! Hope this has helped a little and not freaked you out too much. Happy holiday and good luck! xoxo"

Epidemic curve in Johannesburg/Pretoria that was straight up and continues straight down suggests we’re missing something fundamental about variant. Either attack rate is narrowed to sub segment of population, we’re undercounting mild or asymptomatic infections, or something else pic.twitter.com/CBOZweAlcL

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) December 17, 2021

xpost good post, thanks for that

yr welcome!

addendum to the Gottlieb thing I just posted

boston sewer tracker shows the same pic.twitter.com/IjpZvCcgyl

— alex lanstein (@alex_lanstein) December 17, 2021

they should make the graph a little more brown

good post and this is a good point:

If you happen to test positive, the only place you should think of going is to get a PCR test. I only mention this because if you end up experiencing long-COVID symptoms, it might be helpful for future treatment to have an official test result with your name on it (for insurance or, god forbid, a disability claim).

i kinda thought that went without saying but realizing a lot of health messaging has been poor so very good suggestion, adn I hadn't thought of the latter reasoning for it.

it hadn't occurred to me but i'm newish here and haven't internalized how hostile the health insurance system is.

Ah, well, nevertheless https://t.co/erKTro7w7q pic.twitter.com/r2hGUbIvAZ

— marc tracy (@marcatracy) December 17, 2021

as a lifelong American with a lot of contact with the healthcare system, I cannot stress enough how much this system hates you, personally, and is only interested in how much money it can extract from you and your silly desire to live

i got a little preview when they sent me a bill for quarter of a million dollars after my son was born, while he was in the NICU, and i had to spend 2 hours on the phone pointing out they had a typo in his name so he was covered by my insurance. good system.

jesus

i didn't have a quarter of a million dollars btw

is the us a dystopia??????????????

why aren't millennials having children?!!?!?!?

my cousin got a NICU bill for ~$650,000! incredible, luv 2 B free

I got one of those NICU bills as well after my son was in there for 10 days. Terrifying

The pre-insurance bill for my son's C-section birth was definitely north of a quarter mil.

jesus christ

so scary

one one level, https://www.amazon.com/American-Sickness-Healthcare-Became-Business/dp/1594206759 is a great book that identifies the problems and incremental solutions (and how to navigate it in the meantime). recommended for anyone using the US health system! on another level, i read it and was like "you all must be out of your fucking minds".

I think we all just want and need a strong guarantee that more and more corporations will be there to take larger cuts from our inevitable health problems as we age. it isn't much to ask for some security - for those companies.

Come on, don't be so selfish, you pay that $650,000 so that others only have to pay half that.

I can see why they want to bam abortion at those prices

You should see how much *keeping* kids cost.

hey, be nice to those kids. someday they'll be paying the $1.4M bill to keep your old ass alive for a couple more years

i want to be clear that i think everyone's ass here is old, especially my own

I guess it's good that this is the time that dad is being moved out of skilled nursing again because lord do I not want him there when Omicron really takes off.

(he's boosted, and not really immunocompromised per se, but 73 and not in perfect health, so y'know).

in other news, hey i guess I'll be wearing my KN95 in the house again for a lil bit. might be overcautious and gonna be uncomfortable but idk. he's not home yet so I have time to decide.

when covid first popped off I aws wearing a fucking balaclava in the house so this is better than that

FWIW, last year we wound up paying a total of around $470 for four PCR tests (two each for myself and my wife) that were supposed to be free. We went to a drive-up at a hospital, but you had to do an "intake call" first. They bill the intake call as "telemedicine." On top of that, we couldn't straighten anything out because we have separate medical and hospital plans and the hospital couldn't figure out which one to bill, billed the wrong one, and then it was too late by the time they realized they were wrong because the plan they billed had sent us like $10 "reimbursement" (out of network, hey hey) and therefore the claim was already considered processed. I actually wasted some hours trying to get this resolved and couldn't.

My wife also had an insane and sort of related experience trying to get a booster at CVS, spent 6 hours on phone/in person (two separate trips) because of our overcomplicated insurance (this time they couldn't figure out whether it was our health plan or our prescription plan, and we got stuck in a byzantine nightmare going back and forth between CVS and the two different plans).

This is all relatively quid/ag for us, we're fine, but just to confirm that, yes, the US healthcare and health insurance system is a nightmare and can't possibly be helping things here.

i didn't have a quarter of a million dollars btw

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, December 17, 2021 3:05 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

well not after you foolishly blew your pile on luxury intensive care for your newborn infant you didn't, what ever happened to personal responsibility in this country

love too be free to contract with healthcare providers

did not expect Dr Jha to be uhh this bold. I suspect he's about to take a beating from his peers (idk if he's wrong per se but wow brave)

For nearly 2 years, I've closely tracked infections

Because infections invariably led to hospitalizations and deaths

But I expect that in this upcoming wave

That link will finally break

Cases will spike

But among vaccinated/boosted people, it won't lead to serious illness

— Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH (@ashishkjha) December 17, 2021

what does he mean by "that link will break"?

"among vaccinated/boosted people, it won't lead to serious illness" is true but a significant fraction (perhaps even most) americans are going to get omicron in the next 4-8 weeks, and the vast, vast majority of over 65s are not boosted.

I don't see how that doesn't lead to a lot of hospitalizations unless he thinks it's intrinsically *very* mild.

weird tweet.

Even hospitalizations is a little squishy and ICU is probably a better measure of severity.

Seems like a weird thing to say but he might be trying to counter the AJ Leonardis of the world and overcorrecting

The Omicron wave is already here and is sure to be staggering large. But there has been some good news, too—at least relatively speaking. A thread (1/x) https://t.co/julic17Fym

— David Wallace-Wells (@dwallacewells) December 17, 2021

i haven't read the full article (and DWW is a climate writer not an epidimiologist, and he's had some dodgy covid takes before) but this thread is very reasonable IMO. there's a lot of reasons to be optimistic, including the possibility that omicron might in some sense end the pandemic?!

but he's also right that the US is very poorly prepared relative to other developed countries for what's about to happen. if you get it, you'll probably be fine, but try very hard not to give it to anyone else!

a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0) at 4:19 17 Dec 21

The pre-insurance bill for my son's C-section birth was definitely north of a quarter mil

we used to joke that we hadn't paid off our baby until year 2 haha

Hmm

Important🧵by Ravi and his team
Omicron-> Lung cell infectivity reduced, consistent with Hong Kong findings:https://t.co/4PO3uPERLC
Which, added to immunity wall of vaccination, would help reduce potential of Covid pneumonia 👍 https://t.co/r2SeXXxIoV pic.twitter.com/EvvPgO8I2s

— Eric Topol (@EricTopol) December 17, 2021

Xxpost yea I'm picking up tests tonight and testing mom and i

Breaking: Illinois hospitals are being flooded with patients more than at any other time of the pandemic, a Tribune analysis of state data has found. https://t.co/QOSI49Vxgp

— Chicago Tribune (@chicagotribune) December 17, 2021

I love how it looks like eazy broke in there

i've been going insane thinking about how omicron is going to be bad based on every sensible thing i've read about it and it's been infuriating to watch the CDC and media continually go, 'well... the cases are mild,' based on basically nothing. the infectivity supersedes the diminished symptoms, if the diminished symptoms are in fact an element of this variant which can't be confirmed. but it's okay because The Economy is churning along folks

The total bill for keeping me alive in 2019 was about 1.5 million. About 3/4 of that was covered by insurance, and I essentially showed the huge teaching hospital (U Penn) that I had no money to pay the rest, and they ate the rest of the bill. Very lucky in this regard.

This thread makes an interesting case for being extra cautious if you have symptoms and test negative

IMPORTANT:

RAPID TESTS DO WORK WITH OMICRON

"But why are some people staying negative in the first days they have symptoms??"

This is expected. Symptoms don't = contagious virus
This is literally a reflection of the fact that vaccines are doing their job!

PLEASE READ pic.twitter.com/YBJvNovQXL

— Michael Mina (@michaelmina_lab) December 18, 2021