Omicron: risk goes way down, panic goes way up.

Do I have COVID, the flu, or a cold?

I was at a large sporting event over New Year's and started feeling bad this morning when I woke up. For reference, I am a 24F, run 40mpw, and I'm double-vaxxed (not boosted). So far my symptoms are:

-fever (100F)

-chills and body aches

-neck pain

-sore throat

-loss of voice

-cough w/ mucus

-runny nose

-headache

-loss of appetite

What do y'all think? I haven't been able to find an at-home covid test or see a doctor. I definitely need to be tested for the flu and covid, but do you think I have?

joed|rttt wrote:

I tried to pull up the raw data by age group from the website, it only runs through 10/24/2021. They do not have age group data after that point. You can look through the raw data here:

https://data.ontario.ca/en/dataset/covid-19-vaccine-data-in-ontario

You were probably pulling up the chart level data and did not bother looking at the dates on the age group breakouts.

I was asking an honest question because I haven't been tracking the ontario data as closely as you seem to be.

I looked now though and here's my take.

You have 14.5 million people living in Ontario. Of those 11.3 million are vaccinated. That leaves about 3.2 million unvaccinated.

Current report for January 4, 12:11 pm (EST) is that there are 303 unvaccinated people hospitalized compared to 667 vaccinated. There are 86 unvaccinated people in ICU compared to 54 vaccinated.

Given those numbers, vaccinated people are being hospitalized at a rate of 5.9 per 100,000 compared to 9.5 per 100,000 for the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people are being hospitalized at a rate of 1.6 times the unvaccinated.

Unvaccinated people are being admitted to the ICU at a rate of 0.47 per 100,000 compared to 2.68 per 100,000 for the unvaccinated. Unvaccinated people are 5.7 times as likely to be admitted to ICU as the unvaccinated.

Where did you see that the vaccinated are being hospitalized at a rate 30% higher than the unvaccinated? Did the data have a different time stamp?

The reason I asked about the age groups is because locally we're seeing more kids under 5 being hospitalized who are obviously ineligible for vaccination. Obviously whether or not you include them in your math changes the rate, so I was curious what Ontario was doing, but it seems like they're not publishing that right now.

feelin_ill wrote:

Do I have COVID, the flu, or a cold?

I was at a large sporting event over New Year's and started feeling bad this morning when I woke up. For reference, I am a 24F, run 40mpw, and I'm double-vaxxed (not boosted). So far my symptoms are:

-fever (100F)

-chills and body aches

-neck pain

-sore throat

-loss of voice

-cough w/ mucus

-runny nose

-headache

-loss of appetite

What do y'all think? I haven't been able to find an at-home covid test or see a doctor. I definitely need to be tested for the flu and covid, but do you think I have?

You can't tell by symptoms alone since different things all have the same symptoms. I had it last year and would have never known based on my symptoms. My wife lost her taste and smell otherwise I'd have assumed I just had a cold. I never had a fever and didn't lose taste or smell. If I were you I would just quarantine for 5 days since you can't get a test in America without waiting in line for 5 hours.

Sounds like COVID. The telltale symptoms for me were a mild fever and sore throat. I was exhausted for two days and basically spent my time lying in bed and reading. I was double-vaxxed when I had my delta breakthrough infection back in November. The vaccines do not appear to do anything to stop Omicron (and part of me thinks the vaccines may actually make one more susceptible).

As an aside, I was at a Christmas party with ten people a couple days before Christmas and four people that were at the party tested positive on Christmas eve, Christmas Day or the day after Christmas. All were fully vaccinated, three had boosters. Everyone with a booster tested positive. Of the six that did not test positive, 3 were fully vaxxed (two of whom had previous delta breakthrough infections) and three unvaxxed kids did not test positive.

That was the one thing to come out of South Africa (I don't put too much stock in the stats that come from Africa because the cost of testing individuals represents a significant financial burden in a country like that, so the stats will underrepresent the full scale of a problem) that was of concern to me was kids under 5 had the second highest hospitalization rate during the Omicron wave. I don't know if this is due to the fact their lungs are smaller or their lack of frontal sinuses in how Omicron is able to invade tissue.

I honestly don't buy the narrative that Omicron is as mild as everyone is proclaiming it to be. I think that the CFR has been understated because of data lag between caseloads, hospitalizations and death. I hope vaccination and prior infection provide some level of protection against severe outcomes, but I don't believe there is sufficient data to make that statement. I am gravely concerned that staffing shortages due to quarantines at the same time others are seeking care will create a very bad situation. I find it absurd that many places are mandating vaccines that largely do nothing against Omicron (and may actually aid in its transmission) while simultaneously not enforcing disposable mask mandates (that may actually decrease transmission and lessen the burden on the healthcare system). Unfortunately, the situation with pediatric hospitalizations would be the same with or without vaccines.

Omicron is very mild.'

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zk_t4qTfAfw

all that matters is the hospitalization rate and death rate.

The vaccinated are walking around again, and the anti vaccers haven't stopped.

Omicron is more infectious, so those testing numbers are going up. Some of us vacced are still staying clear. Eventually everyone will get it I suspect.

The only number that makes in sense is the Hospitalization number, and the dead.

joed|rttt wrote:

I honestly don't buy the narrative that Omicron is as mild as everyone is proclaiming it to be. I think that the CFR has been understated because of data lag between caseloads, hospitalizations and death. I hope vaccination and prior infection provide some level of protection against severe outcomes, but I don't believe there is sufficient data to make that statement. I am gravely concerned that staffing shortages due to quarantines at the same time others are seeking care will create a very bad situation. I find it absurd that many places are mandating vaccines that largely do nothing against Omicron (and may actually aid in its transmission) while simultaneously not enforcing disposable mask mandates (that may actually decrease transmission and lessen the burden on the healthcare system). Unfortunately, the situation with pediatric hospitalizations would be the same with or without vaccines.

Do you not trust the SA hospitalization and death stats? Omicron did not cause a ton of problems there, likely given the high prior immunity from vaccines and infection + intrinsically milder disease course.

The US is older and more co-morbid and likely has more non-immune co-morbid people, so I expect us to suffer more from Omicron.

As for hospitalizations, we saw the same thing in the UK during it's Delta wave. Without de-convoluting age groups you're going to get all worked up over a Simpson's paradox in hospital admissions in highly vaxxed communities.

Everyone was apoplectic that a majority of hospital admissions were vaxxed in August/Sept in the UK, but when you broke it out by age group, VE was still >90%.

All actual data on VE_hospitalization shows 90% efficacy or greater against Omicron. I'm not clinging to anything -- that is the data. You are going out of your way to cherry pick and construct elaborate scenarios to support your priors.

I wonder what it would take for you to admit that vaccines work. You never admitted you were wrong about Delta and vaccines.

Update: tested neg for Covid. Could be a false neg though, it was a rapid self-nasal swab. Still feel awful.

Um no. This is false. You clearly don't work in a hospital. I actually do, on all floors including the ICU. Our Covid hospitalized vaccinated rate has been higher than unvaccinated for months. I have daily data reports to verify this. What do you have? You just literally made your statement up, and that is the problem here. People like you that are not even remotely related to this and have no real numbers say these things with actually zero behind it. Vaccinated people with Covid are in the hospital and ICU just as much if not more now. This is truly a pandemic of the people that have no critical thought.

It is a pharmaceutical, by its own admission- that you can READ on its label-should you choose to do that, that neither prevents contracting the virus nor prevents transmission. They "hope" it lessens your symptoms. Based on our hospital admissions, and all of you "break through" cases, it doesn't. Vaccinated people continue to get Covid, then turn around and beg everyone to get vaccinated...because...its working??? No. The vaccines aren't working. It is clear. But if you have made this your political stance, you will continue to refuse to look for other solutions to the problem and will keep addressing the problem with your one tool...the ineffective "vaccine."

feelin_ill2 wrote:

Update: tested neg for Covid. Could be a false neg though, it was a rapid self-nasal swab. Still feel awful.

I'm getting clobbered with some non-COVID illness this week. Tested multiple times including a PCR test -- all negative. I figure after all my breathless COVID-posting over the last 2 years I've manifested some ultra-immunity.

I just want to thank Dr Malone and Joe Rogan for clearly explaining what is happening.

Not being sarcastic one bit.

One of the most important videos that has come out in a long time.

Serious political battles are going on in the background. The Biden administration Covid policy is in disarray and chaos.

04JAN2022

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention amended its controversial Covid-19 isolation guidance on Tuesday, declining to add a testing requirement as public health officials expected after the agency cut its recommended quarantine time in half.

In its updated guidance, the CDC said people who have recovered from the virus and have isolated for at least five days can take a rapid test if they want, but they don’t have to — falling far short of making an outright recommendation to get a negative Covid test before ending isolation.

“I do not think that the clarification helped at all and I actually think that it made things worse,” emergency physician Dr. Leanna Wen, the former health commissioner of Baltimore, said in an interview with CNN. “I think they should be upfront and say they can’t do this because they don’t have enough tests.”

You are lying or being disengenuous. No one works at ‘all floors including the ICU’ unless you’re a housekeeper. No way you’re a nurse or physician.

I’m an ICU doctor at one of the largest academic medical centers in the country.

We are definitely seeing more vaccinated patients admitted w Omicron recently, although still a lot of unvaccinated .

Omicron is tearing through your city in a way that Delta never did, I think in part because many people’s symptoms are so mild they don’t realize they have it. Also more contagious. We’re all going to get it if we leave our houses.

However the ICU is still greater than 90% unvaccinated.

Obviously vaccinations rates vary by location and this will affect your admission numbers.

Have to go now to intubate a fatso (400 lb) w COVID. First pass bougie, not messing around.

All floors including ICU? What's your profession?

You might have more covid patients that are vaccinated, but that doesn't mean the rate is higher.

His profession is a troll farm manager in Moscow. Privyet Boris!

If you’re on the west coast, you probably haven’t seen the influx they are starting to see on the east coast, but you will in time. As a doctor you should at least acknowledge that patients typically don’t go straight to the ICU. It takes time for organs to start failing. These things take time.

I don't have exact numbers, but it's pretty common for a patient to go from ED to ICU without hitting med/surg

Harambe wrote:

feelin_ill2 wrote:

Update: tested neg for Covid. Could be a false neg though, it was a rapid self-nasal swab. Still feel awful.

I'm getting clobbered with some non-COVID illness this week. Tested multiple times including a PCR test -- all negative. I figure after all my breathless COVID-posting over the last 2 years I've manifested some ultra-immunity.

You've probably got COVID. The tests are not always accurate. My father and my wife's aunt had symptoms for days and had multiple negative tests before finally testing positive (they, like you are triple vaxxed). If you are early in your symptoms, you may need to wait a couple of days. Or you might have the flu or some other URI.