outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Oh good. I had a whole bunch that I have since distributed to coworkers and neighbors in addition to using them in our house. I signed up for Test to Treat a couple weeks ago because it felt weird to have so few available in the supply shelf.

same here!

High five to our favorite nurse friend!

I just got shingles vaxx #1 today (another in 2-6 months).. the nurse warned me that this one is an asskicker and that I should NOT get a flu vaxx the same day

When I got home my bowels cried to be evacuated, immediately... she didn't warn me about that

I had no reaction to either shingles shot, besides a sore arm.

good to hear!

Yeah I got the shingrix vax and flu vax at the same time, similar soreness in each arm but the shingrix ache lingered longer.

So, Shingrix doubles as an effective laxative as well? Hmmmm...

the 1st shingles one fucked me up way more than any covid or flu vaccine I have had to date, ymmv

the 2nd shingles one was fine for me

Both shingles shots were definitely worse for me than any COVID shot. Glad I was able to zone for a couple of days afterward for each of them.

My second Covid shot fucked me up for a good 6 weeks, but no subsequent shot has.

Had been having trouble scheduling an appointment through CVS so I asked at the pharmacy when I picked up a prescription refill, as of Friday morning they still had not received any doses.

Even more fun, had dinner with a friend for their birthday Saturday night at their house. Got a call late last night that they tested positive. Ugh.

Yeah, Walgreens cancelled on me and hour before my appointment on Friday due to not having received their shipment. Bummed, but now I'll just wait for Kaiser. I've been able to not be around too many folks the past couple weeks, but Mr. Jaq, his sister, and his daughter are returning from the UK on Wednesday and I'm picking them up and feeling doomed.

the ease with which I was able to get the new vaccine is paradoxically making me worry that it’s a sign that they’re relatively evenly distributed, it’s just that no one else in my region is getting one

outside of the people working at the pharmacy, that is. they were gossiping about when they were scheduling theirs due to side effects, sore arms, etc

Speaking with two other coworkers this morning, they have also not yet been able to schedule appointments, anecdotally it seems very hit or miss around here.

Yeah, weird, I had dinner with an actual CVS pharmacy tech a week or so ago, and she said they were supposed to start rolling out last week.

Yeah, the pharmacist I spoke with told me they had heard the same thing, but nothing had showed up yet.

the sassy pharmacy tech with a tattoo inspired by disney's the little mermaid on his forearm assured me he'd juice me up with as many vaccines as I wanted

What the world needs now are more sassy pharmacy techs with tattoos inspired by The Little Mermaid.

Free ordering of more tests now live:

https://www.covid.gov/tests

Thanks Ned, ordered!

Done!

Thanx Nedbama

Nedicare

Ordered.

Meantime finally got a vaccine appointment finagled -- next Friday but I can live with that (if I went for this Friday and I felt off that would mean missing the Church and the Third Mind at Hardly Strictly this weekend, which would be sad).

i couldn’t find one near me until a month out— going to try to get one a little earlier by searching around, but i guess i am okay with waiting!!

Seem to have avoided catching anything from the exposure mentioned upthread, thankfully. Though now my son was exposed yesterday, apparently. Tbh, it feels inescapable around here right now, I am personally aware of at least 15 people I know who either has it, or someone in their family has it. Pretty much everyone I work with seems to know multiple people with it as well.

Hey hey, you can get another batch of free tests if you're in the US

https://www.covid.gov/tests

I heard on the radio that so far only 11% of Chicagoans have gotten the most recent vaccine. That's a pretty low number, and Chicago has got to be among the most compliant, so I have to figure that a lot of places around the country have an even lower (fresh) vaccination rate. I guess we'll see soon enough just how effective or important up to date vaccines are when it comes to protection against serious illness.

thank you to whomever suggested reading Katelyn Jetelina. very interesting new article re: scientific discoveries: https://yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/covid-19-research-roundup-jan-11

I'll second that recommendation. The author summarizes very recent Covid findings succinctly and in plain language.

I've got a hypochondriac friend (he always was) who still hasn't gotten COVID b/c he's a shut-in and rages against LONG COVID, and I always ask, "How many jabs have you gotten?" Well, all of them. (I actually have a couple more than he does). He won't hear me when I assure him that more jabs = less chance of Long COVID. Maybe this piece will help.

Completely anecdotal, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Back in early December I went to go watch a friend's band play in a local, small bar. It was unannounced and a pretty small bar, so I went (unmasked) figuring it was relatively low key and a rare risk I was willing to take. And it mostly was, the bar stayed pretty sparse, though near the end of their set the bar was crashed by a very large group of folks on some ugly sweater bar crawl type thing. It got crowded fast and I was kind of kicking myself for not at least having a KN95 in my pocket to pull out, as I usually do.

Fast forward to a few days later and my buddy texts me to tell me that the guy who owned the bar (a friend of his) heard that the travelling ugly sweater thing was rumored to have turned into a super-spreader and that we should test. Long story short, of the group of 8 people that we were with, 4 ended up getting (fortunately mild) cases of COVID. The other four of us never fell ill and never tested positive. The interesting part though, was confirming that of the 4 who tested positive, 2 had never gotten more than the initial two vax doses and the other 2 had only gotten the first booster. The 4 of us who never tested positive had all gotten each booster as they'd come available.

Coincidence? Luck? Probably. Maybe. But still served as a good reminder to stay current. (Also learned that folks I knew who I'd assumed were vigilant about boosters were actually not - fortunately they all agreed to get back to getting boosted.)

Two of my most COVID-conscious friends have not gotten the latest shot -- it's a new vax, not a booster, to be clear -- and look Quite Guilty when I remind them.

yea I just got the last shot 3 weeks ago, my wife and daughter had it shortly after, now my son does, but so far I'm feelin' fine

I feel a bit guilty about that, we were gonna get him a booster but just punted it down the road. my daughter I just assumed we didn't need one, since actually getting Covid is probably better for your immunity isn't it?

Not with these latest variants, I don't think.

Yes, thanks for clarifying that Alfred. Meant to say "each jab as they'd come available".

I mean, for sure you'll get some immunity for a couple months, hence why doctors recommend you don't get the vax after illness.

“It’s obviously detecting the amount of copies of the virus, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a direct match to the number of cases,” said John Brownstein, who directs the Computational Epidemiology Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and has studied how to use surveys to estimate the prevalence of coronavirus in communities. “We just need to be careful about extrapolating these results to numbers that could create fear and anxiety.”

“It’s obviously detecting the amount of copies of the virus, but that doesn’t necessarily mean it’s a direct match to the number of cases,” said John Brownstein, who directs the Computational Epidemiology Lab at Boston Children’s Hospital and has studied how to use surveys to estimate the prevalence of coronavirus in communities. “We just need to be careful about extrapolating these results to numbers that could create fear and anxiety.”

“The numbers are bigger, but is it meaningfully larger?” said Amy Kirby, who oversees wastewater surveillance at the CDC. “That will tell us there are more infections in those communities, but I don’t know if it’s going to have any impact. Our hospitals aren’t necessarily feeling greater stress than they did last year.”

More here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2024/01/12/covid-surge-january-2024/

good article, thanks. kind of confirms what others have pointed out - it can point out when a wave is starting and ending, but it can't really be extrapolated to volume by itself. especially when the amount of viral particles shed might differ by variant.

current wave seems very uneven across the US - wastewater much more widespread in the Northeast and Midwest than in the South and West, but again, not sure how much of that is down to transmission being higher or "the Northeast has cities that have many more wastewater sites that report".

apparently Florida's not doing too badly

yeah too many of us died already

Not enough of the right people.

otm

I got the new vax as soon as it was available this past fall and I got Covid anyway. (Sad trombone).

wastewater drops for second straight week, though most largely noticeable in the Northeast.

next week will show if it's a post-holiday correction due to people gathering and traveling less, but the epis I read seem to think peak could have been reached, with high transmission for another month but steadily declining.

These people are nuts https://t.co/dXOR74tIDy

— Roy Edroso (@edroso) February 22, 2024

our Surgeon General is a complete sellout quack