Omicron

Well to Marcie’s point, I have certainly never reported a negative home-Covid test. I’d be more likely to report a positive one though.

well yes that’s true. i’d at least consider reporting a positive over the counter test and then probably not bother.

Seems high? How about that is the average daily rate for the last week (Sat to Sat). 0.38% of NYers every day. Increase over last week? 18.3% to 20.8% over 1 week. Over 500,000 cases reported this week. Likely under-reported as well.

i’m confused. it wasn’t 0.38% every day. it was 0.38% over the week.

I am not confused. The 7 day average of the daily rate is 0.38%. Check out 91-divoc.com

This is problematic with people with things like kidney disease and having COVID worsens their kidney failure.

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My daughters school had over 300 positive cases last week. We figured it’s a matter of when not if she brings it home.

Right. I think we’re in agreement. But to add some color to it…

Suppose 100,000 people have a kidney condition. Pre-Covid, any given week, 100 of them (0.1%) would need to be hospitalized. But if those people have Covid then there’s a 10% chance that their kidney problem will require hospitalization.

Now if 1% of them contract Covid the number of hospitalized kidney patients is:

10/100000 x 99,000 + 0.1 x 1000 = 99 + 100 = 199

So now there are 199 patients hospitalized with this kidney issue, 100 of them “with Covid”. Because they’re not there for the Covid symptoms, they’re there for the kidney symptoms.

But without Covid, only 1 of those “with Covid” folks would be hospitalized. 99 of the “with Covid” folks are really “for kidney complications due to having Covid” and in one case the Covid is incidental to them being in the hospital.

I made up those numbers but something along those lines seems extremely plausible.

Ugh… can’t use multiple asterisks to indicate multiplication because then the software thinks I’m trying to italicize something. :woman_facepalming:

:astonished: I think you’re right. That’s insane. Is this going to result in herd immunity to omicron within weeks?

Well, if the rate stayed constant at 2.5%/wk, and roughly 80% haven’t been infected, that’s still 32 weeks, assuming no reinfections. Not a happy 7.5 months. Of course that’s way too simple, but just an example.

It seems to be increasing though, not staying constant.

Also I think that stat is undercounting by a lot.

Fingers crossed that the Omicron wave here looks like it did in South Africa: exponential growth for a short time, then a rapid decline


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That is a possible outcome. Over-stressed resources for the next month, with a possible payoff. I don’t know if this exponential increase in cases will lead to multiple new variants.

if the new variants are more mild that might not be so bad?

Nate Silver is theorizing that even with the huge numbers of cases being reported now, there’s far more underreporting now than last winter. His rationale:

  • At home tests now likely >=50% of overall volume
  • Huge demand overwhelming in-person test facilities
  • Omicron milder = cases easier to miss

Makes some sense.

so, this “nate silver” guy is saying what we all already know but he’s getting credit for? great.

yeah, that’s why i think we’re gonna get heard immunity to omicron really fast.

I would say let’s just start throwing Omicron COVID parties like we did with chicken pox, but I send my kids to school every day, so basically the same thing.

(I don’t think we should be intentionally exposing ourselves or our kids to COVID to get it over with, that’s medically irresponsible with hospitalization rates what they are)

No chance in hell this is true. I would think Nate is smarter than that