i’m sort of assuming a lot of people will get it and we’ll eventually get omicron heard immunity. i’m not wanting to be in that group of people, but if i am, seems that it’s mild so might be okay. although, new variants might be even milder. tough decision here.
Hard to get exact data here, but I did find one source from December that corroborates:
“It’s nearly impossible to get a precise read on exactly how many home tests are used in the U.S. each week, but her best estimates show that home testing now accounts for the majority of Covid testing and the number will grow as more tests become available. Aspinall says by her tally, roughly 40 million Covid tests are performed each week. Of those, she estimates, 12 million are PCR tests and roughly 28 million are antigen tests. Among the antigen tests, the vast majority are taken at home and never reported to public health agencies, she said.”
this is not surprising. if you have access to an at-home test and don’t need an official test for any purpose, why would you not go that route? especially if you’re not feeling well and it’s cold outside.
40M at home tests per week? Maybe I am way underestimating home testing, but that seems very high. For reference, I am seeing about 60M tests performed in the month of December from the CDC/state data. If that 40M/week number is correct, then for December that means that at home tests make up about 70% of all tests.
Tests are very hard to find. And 1/3 of the country would never buy/take one under any circumstance. Is there subset of the population that is stockpiling and taking one every day?
That’s a good point. It’s not such a big deal if COVID is the secondary dx rather than primary.
The media has been irresponsible all along. The desire for headlines (with bias) continued to trump actual reporting that should sometimes show something counter to that particular media’s bias. Sometimes unspun relevant facts do come through, but not enough. The anecdotal stuff about one 4-month old on a ventilator is terrible, but it is not relevant to the overall picture.
It is bad that hospitalizations are very high. I personally don’t care exactly what % is “from” COVID. But I do know COVID is a very significant factor.
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That source didn’t say 40M home tests per week, she said 40M total tests per week were being done with the “vast majority” of the 28M weekly antigen tests being of the home variety. Assuming all of her 12M weekly PCR tests are included in the CDC/state data and a small number of the 28M weekly antigen tests are, that could roughly tie to the monthly number you cite
Ok but I bought 6 tests (3 packs) over a month ago. Since then we used two tests (1 pack). I gave 2 (1 pack) to my daughter and I am hoarding the other pack.
So are they counting all 6 tests as “used”?
Thinking of ordering more to have on hand when I need them. Starting to feel it’s only a matter of time before Omicron hits my house. I would like to have at least one for each person in my household.
I don’t know how they are counting anything, but as a datapoint everyone I know who has gotten COVID since New Years has done the at-home test but not the PCR test to confirm. Somewhere around 10 people. Nobody that has talked to me about their symptoms have had it that bad, just a cold pretty much.
I do know somebody who got COVID before Christmas and then confirmed the at-home test with a PCR test but I think it’s more difficult to get an appointment for a PCR test these days.
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Same for me. No one I know who has tested positive in the last few weeks has been able to get a PCR test, used a home test only (or couldn’t find a home test and assumed positive based on known exposure and symptoms).
I’m going to disagree with this - my anti-vax brother took an at home test (positive). I wouldn’t have ever guessed they would, but they did when they were feeling sick enough. Couldn’t find an appointment for a PCR one for 4 days.
Between my family and his, 8 sick with symptoms with my 1 PCR test being the only official one reported to the state.
My kids school just shut down suddenly without warning, because a bunch of kids/teachers got omicron. Well okay, virtual, but at her age it’s the same thing.
Hospital rates are through the roof right now, so it makes sense for now probably. Though maybe they could have figured that out sooner???
Also I’m worried that her school is going to stay shut down over the next 6 months, ad it tries to fight outbreaks, and there simply is no stopping omicron within a school.
It also does not bode well for any future of normalcy.
That makes more sense. Thanks for clarifying that.
I’ll blame my reading comprehension on being up late watching Chargers/Raiders.
I have friends who are routinely testing twice a week. I’ve taken a few since my mom caught covid. And I’ll probably take another before I go out tomorrow.
I guess I am way off in my assumptions regarding how prevalent at home testing is.
But also people on this board seem to be way more Covid conscious than the “regular person” and skewed towards the NE that is getting slammed right now so I think our views can get skewed a bit regarding the general population.
Uhhhh. Yeah, welcome to the omicron. Where I am the previous peaks look like little rolling hills next to mount everest.
Are you sure that the previous numbers were “from covid”? My guess is that “with covid” is all we ever had. But maybe with omicron, “with covid” is less useful as a proxy.
IMO, “with Covid” and “from Covid” are both less useful than just “available beds/staff”, since the shortage is what matters here.
I agree that a lot of news organizations are profit seeking. Not really sure what there is to do about that. Capitalism has always been a bad model for information, but hard to improve upon. Also many of them are also just bad at math.
This is what I’m thinking. If anyone has any sort of data that might indicate ‘with’ vs ‘from’ over time I’d be really interested.
Clearly the answer is what the White House is already pivoting to. We need to accept we’re going to be living with COVID. The kids in the school are at no risk from Omicron, there’s no way we’re containing this thing, so we’re just depriving small children of education.
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