Ask HN: Is the USA in a silent Covid wave? Over two years into this and now so many friends and family I know are coming down with Covid. Is anyone else experiencing this? |
Ask HN: Is the USA in a silent Covid wave? Over two years into this and now so many friends and family I know are coming down with Covid. Is anyone else experiencing this? |
The crisis isn't over... many of us suffered a fate worse than death, long covid. I'm one of a huge number of effectively disabled people yanked out of contributing to society in a fully productive manner. The estimates for how many of us there are vary wildly, but we're definitely a cost that hasn't been considered.
In the future, I suspect they'll look back and wonder how we missed the long term implications of this. The closest analogy of this disease is when the explorers from Europe brought a novel disease to the American continent. They weren't all wiped out in a year or two... it took decades. I fear we're in for a long term decrease in life expectancy as a result of the folly of setting the wrong goals in the initial response.
Shifting our framing of healthcare from a source of profit, to a vital part of our national security, might not be a horrible idea either.
They helped China stop SARS 1, then Trump fired them all, and then SARS 2 (Covid) happened.
The team should be rebuilt. They helped stop other, non-coronavirus pandemics too.
The number of cases is the least interesting statistic, and almost certainly the most inaccurate. Anecdotally people who get symptoms don't bother to test because, why would you[3]? Most cases are no worse than a common cold.[4]
The really important numbers are hospitalizations, and deaths. And from a personal point of view, I'd like to know the vaccination status and comorbidity status of deaths. If you tell me some significant proportion of deaths are not-up-to-date vaccinated, or that some significant proportion have specific co-morbidities, then I can adjust (or not adjust) my behaviour accordingly.
Put another way, I'm aware of many people who have tested positive for covid [1], and been just fine. Many more who got some level of sick, but not sick enough to bother testing. It's been a while since I heard of a specific death. And I assume [2] that those who are dying are either unvacinated or have some other health condition. And thus I behave accordingly.
I feel like most people are now in the same boat - get vaccinated, or don't, its your choice. Live normally, or don't it's your choice. I'm getting on with life and around me I see others doing the same. I might catch it and die. I might get long covid. But I'm fully vaxed and boosted, so those risks are in proportion to all the other risks I take every day.
[3] tests cost money here. If you're not sick enough to even see a doctor, why spend money on a test. Just stay home like you would (should) for any cold/flu.
[4] yes, I'm aware of long covid. It's not like I'm going around licking sick people.
I'm also aware of TB, malaria, Yuppie flu, and a million other things. I'm aware of road accidents, but I still drive. Life is full of risk.
[1] I'm talking about post-vaccination time scales here, - not 2 years ago.
[2] who is dying is not being reported here. In the absence of data I assume whatever data suits my preferred naritive. I'm sure there's a group that assumes all deaths are caused by booster shots in 20 year old.
If your news sources are not telling you about it, I recommend Violet Blue's Patreon (free), where she posts a roundup of covid news every Thursday. https://www.patreon.com/posts/pandemic-roundup-65708396 It's detailed enough to feel informative, and infrequent enough that I don't feel like I'm drowning in bad news all week.
This is what living with Covid looks like. A small portion of the population will have at any given time but it won't be overly disruptive.
Vaccinations means that for most people this will be like a multi day bad hangover.
And for those who have pre existing conditions, there are medications that can help prevent them from getting seriously ill.
The vaccines are working great and we have great medication. What we need is to get more people vaccinated and make sure every doctor understands when and how to prescribe the medications we have (especially Paxlovid). The fact that so many people are dying while Paxlovid is sitting on the shelves is a tragedy.
But if you look at the data for CA overall, you see a very different picture: yes, things are up, but they're at about 30% of last August. So the bay area trend gets lost in that.
Also, at-home tests are plentiful now, so I'm guessing that a large number of cases are not getting caught up in the reporting system.
https://covid19.sccgov.org/dashboard-wastewater
(These run about 6 days earlier than test results, and are not impacted by at-home tests.)
So, yes, it's similar to the August surge, but that one barely hit South Bay.
Anecdotally, our kids are in school, so we get all the respiratory diseases. There's a non-Covid cold going around south bay right now that's worse than Omicron (assuming you're fully vaccinated and boosted.)
Denmark gets it:
https://inews.co.uk/news/science/why-denmarks-covid-deaths-h...
Now...
I try not to get into discussions about COVID with people, because it's so fraught with politics and misinformation, but when I do it seems like most people I engage with on the topic of COVID claim they have long COVID. Hell, I try not to mention my own "long COVID" experience, but when I do, people are dubious about my claims.
So, how do you quantify those who are affected versus those who've just been inactive during the pandemic and are really out of shape?
> Shifting our framing of healthcare from a source of profit, to a vital part of our national security, might not be a horrible idea either.
1. Fluid, apparently, because I kept coughing that up for the next 8 months or so. Eventually, it cleared.
2. Very gradual cardio starting with quarter mile walks, pathetically enough. Also, deep breathing and diaphragm exercises.