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My question about Omicron running out of victims answered


MickinMD

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Last week I wondered in a post here if the Omicron virus was infecting so many people it would run out of victims in several months.

Now ABC is reporting:

Omicron may be headed for a rapid drop in US and Britain

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.

The reason: The variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa.

“It’s going to come down as fast as it went up,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

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13 minutes ago, JerrySTL said:

I'm betting that Covid settles down and becomes like the flu. Still that will be a lot of sick people with some deaths each year.

Still in the pandemic, so not yet in the more "endemic" phase.  But we all have to hope there is a giant upside to the omicron, because the amount to deaths recently shows there is still quite a downside. :(

I do miss the old optimism (was that it?) of "COVID isn't even as bad as the regular flu some years".  

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4 minutes ago, Razors Edge said:

Still in the pandemic, so not yet in the more "endemic" phase.  But we all have to hope there is a giant upside to the omicron, because the amount to deaths recently shows there is still quite a downside. :(

I do miss the old optimism (was that it?) of "COVID isn't even as bad as the regular flu some years".  

I’m guessing many of the optimists got sick and/or died or had loved ones who did. 

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9 minutes ago, groupw said:

I’m guessing many of the optimists got sick and/or died or had loved ones who did. 

Anything with more than 839,000 deaths is bound to capture the attention of anyone with a brain.  I heard that the US has issued a don't go to Canada warning.  They can't be serious can they?  We are the world pariah.

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18 minutes ago, maddmaxx said:

Anything with more than 839,000 deaths is bound to capture the attention of anyone with a brain.  I heard that the US has issued a don't go to Canada warning.  They can't be serious can they?  We are the world pariah.

Not everyone uses their brain.  

Case in point the other day.  

This was told to me:

"Omicron is not killing people. I refuse to wear a mask.  Moderna doesn't work.  I don't trust the medical industrial complex.  Pharma is only out for money and the vax is not safe"  

<groan>

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17 minutes ago, Dirtyhip said:

Not everyone uses their brain.  

Case in point the other day.  

This was told to me:

"Omicron is not killing people. I refuse to wear a mask.  Moderna doesn't work.  I don't trust the medical industrial complex.  Pharma is only out for money and the vax is not safe"  

<groan>

I heard something worse from a sister-in-law of one of my daughters. The gal caught Covid and said something to the effect that it wasn't all that bad and she was smart to not get the dangerous vaccine. 

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Just now, JerrySTL said:

I heard something worse from a sister-in-law of one of my daughters. The gal caught Covid and said something to the effect that it wasn't all that bad and she was smart to not get the dangerous vaccine. 

...and all the people who eschewed the vax will clog up the hospital.  We should try very hard to be safe and not go to the hospital right now.  Not sure about your area, but we are starting to head into the threatened category for available beds.  We have one hospital and it is small.  HODH said that the icu beds are 1/1 for nursing staff.  There just isn't enough people to supervise those patients.

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1 minute ago, Dirtyhip said:

...and all the people who eschewed the vax will clog up the hospital.  We should try very hard to be safe and not go to the hospital right now.  Not sure about your area, but we are starting to head into the threatened category for available beds.  We have one hospital and it is small.  HODH said that the icu beds are 1/1 for nursing staff.  There just isn't enough people to supervise those patients.

That's the problem here as well.  While death rates are down, hospitalizations are up because even a relatively small number of serious cases is a very large number given the outrageous numbers of cases that are out there.  

I've already lost most of two years of the not so many I have left not being able to do the things that were supposed to be done during the golden years.  Fuck people.

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16 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

That's the problem here as well.  While death rates are down, hospitalizations are up because even a relatively small number of serious cases is a very large number given the outrageous numbers of cases that are out there.  

I've already lost most of two years of the not so many I have left not being able to do the things that were supposed to be done during the golden years.  Fuck people.

I am so sorry to hear that.  I fully agree with you.  

It will be scary if someone has an accident and the hospital is too clogged with this to treat them.  Triage might send someone home to die or leave them in ER till they are dead.  So sad.

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19 hours ago, MickinMD said:

Last week I wondered in a post here if the Omicron virus was infecting so many people it would run out of victims in several months.

Now ABC is reporting:

Omicron may be headed for a rapid drop in US and Britain

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically

Scientists are seeing signals that COVID-19′s alarming omicron wave may have peaked in Britain and is about to do the same in the U.S., at which point cases may start dropping off dramatically.

The reason: The variant has proved so wildly contagious that it may already be running out of people to infect, just a month and a half after it was first detected in South Africa.

“It’s going to come down as fast as it went up,” said Ali Mokdad, a professor of health metrics sciences at the University of Washington in Seattle.

I am suspicious of this news, have the authors of the article not seen Americans in action?  We will find a way to be sure everyone has a crack at it!

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18 hours ago, JerrySTL said:

I heard something worse from a sister-in-law of one of my daughters. The gal caught Covid and said something to the effect that it wasn't all that bad and she was smart to not get the dangerous vaccine. 

Geez.  I guess counting the number of friends and acquaintances that have caught covid isn't compelling enough when compared to the billions and billions dying from the vaccines, smart lady.

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1 minute ago, Randomguy said:

I am suspicious of this news, have the authors of the article not seen Americans in action?  We will find a way to be sure everyone has a crack at it!

Clearly it depends a lot on how long folks remain resistant after having it.  At this point there are plenty of folks who have had COVID more than once, so what's to say we ever burn through folks if it can just re-infect later on down the line. Sure, the vaccinations help tamp down its impact, but as long as folks are dying in large numbers, it's hard to move on to the less difficult "management" phase from this more acute one.  

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18 hours ago, maddmaxx said:

While death rates are down, hospitalizations are up because even a relatively small number of serious cases is a very large number given the outrageous numbers of cases that are out there.  

1.2 million DAILY cases in US at the peak?  Shoot, that is gonna fill a lot of hospitals for a long time!  At least until the next big mutant variant pops out at us, that is.  Masks and staying away from political rallies, parties, monster truck rallies, churches, concerts, drag queen hugathons, and vaccinations are just going to be too oppressive for those that want to take zero reasonable precautions, then blame everybody else for everything.

---------------------------------------------------------------

“There are still a lot of people who will get infected as we descend the slope on the backside,” said Lauren Ancel Meyers, director of the University of Texas COVID-19 Modeling Consortium, which predicts that reported cases will peak within the week.

The University of Washington's own highly influential model projects that the number of daily reported cases in the U.S. will crest at 1.2 million by Jan. 19 and will then fall sharply “simply because everybody who could be infected will be infected,” according to Mokdad.

In fact, he said, by the university's complex calculations, the true number of new daily infections in the U.S. — an estimate that includes people who were never tested — has already peaked, hitting 6 million on Jan. 6.

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10 minutes ago, Randomguy said:

1.2 million DAILY cases in US at the peak?

The challenge with Delta vs Omicron is that the two have different rates of hospitalization.  Of course, omicron makes up for it in numbers, but I know a lot of omicron-infected folks now (or, ones infected in the last month so mostly omicron), and not one of those has gone to the ER or had a stay in the hospital (lucky so far and hopefully it keeps up).  Lots of people ARE dying as the rate has creeped up again to near Delta levels of dead/day :( but using that daily rate versus the other rates available like actual hospitalization rates and death rates skews the picture a bit.

Where that rate comes in handy is showing how the healthcare system (and other businesses or schools) is impacted and then unable to keep up due to staff shortages.

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3 hours ago, Randomguy said:

Have you been riding?

No.  I was starting to consider when I might start again yesterday, but, today I have had a lack of energy again. With the "regular" flu, I would wait until I felt like exercising again, then wait one more day.  As a WAG, I am hoping Tuesday the 18th.

Unfortunately it has not been a hard decision not to ride or lift; I just havent felt like it.  The funny thing is (depending on your sense of humor, that is), a week ago I felt as strong as I have in a long time:  good times for me on challenging 100K and 200K brevets, good lift sessions....

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2 minutes ago, az_cyclist said:

No.  I was starting to consider when I might start again yesterday, but, today I have had a lack of energy again. With the "regular" flu, I would wait until I felt like exercising again, then wait one more day.  As a WAG, I am hoping Tuesday the 18th.

Unfortunately it has not been a hard decision not to ride or lift; I just havent felt like it.  The funny thing is (depending on your sense of humor, that is), a week ago I felt as strong as I have in a long time:  good times for me on challenging 100K and 200K brevets, good lift sessions....

Ah, maybe you needed a break.

Where did you catch it at, any ideas?

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Just now, Randomguy said:

Ah, maybe you needed a break.

Where did you catch it at, any ideas?

I was going to get a break anyway, travelling to the MIdwest.

I still have no idea where I got infected. If the incubation time was about 2 days, it had to be at the gym..... but, I am never within 3-6 feet of anyone there, and I frequently use hand sanitizer there. 

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4 minutes ago, az_cyclist said:

I was going to get a break anyway, travelling to the MIdwest.

I still have no idea where I got infected. If the incubation time was about 2 days, it had to be at the gym..... but, I am never within 3-6 feet of anyone there, and I frequently use hand sanitizer there. 

So not a New Years party?  I'm sure you'll be chomping at the bit to get back into it soon.  Snow here has beat me down, and I get a lot of energy from exercise, so I'm in a funk. Better a funk than COVID, though.  

Get well!

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