Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

As I predicted, hospitals are starting to let positive but asymptomatic staff work with confirmed covid patients:

Hospitals Short Staffed

Probably not a bad idea. It would be very bad if such a worker infected a patient of the hospital, but really, how could anybody tell? Hospitals are very dangerous places right now. Stay away if at all possible.

A guy from my vanpool went to Costa Rica for Christmas and NYE with his wife and kids for the holidays. A friend of his was DJing a set for NYE and he want down for support.

Came back with a sore throat on SU 01/02. Was off from work on MO 01/03 anyway. Came to work TU 01/04 and WE 01/05. Corp told him not to come back to work until he tests negative.

Couldn't get an appointment until SA 01/08.

Stayed home MO 01/10 pending test results. Corp told him to come to work today TU 01/11 without test results. We arrived at work at 06:30 am. The rider came to me at 07:10 am telling me the test was poz.

Corp sent the van home and we're to test on FR 01/14...but we can work from home in the meantime.

I made the poz guy take a taxi home. Corp paid for it

I like to watch an independent truck owner/driver channel on YouTube "JustTrucking". It's usually him booking and driving loads around the Carolinas, but last week he and his hot wife took off for Cancun. They spent the whole time there in a Covid isolation suite because she tested positive. Asymptomatic, but it's nice to know the Planet Hollywood resort and the airlines are following the WHO protocol.

Hopefully, if you do turn up positive Rick, you will have the same results. Unfortunately not in Cancun, but that's your fault for not planning better!

Imagine having rapid test kits delivered for free to the public like other countries. If only their was a federally owned distribution system to deliver parcels to Americans. Maybe even n95 masks could be delivered as well.
Oh well. Unicorns and rainbows as the scolds would say.

Here is a pretty important preprint:

Infectious Viral Load

A group of researchers in Geneva performed the experiments that can actually tell us some facts about Delta and Omicron variants, and about the effect of vaccinations have on them. MSM and even public health agencies have been making a lot of claims, with zero or shoddy evidence.


In short:
Delta was more infectious than previous variants of concern.
Vaccinated people can get infected but they shed very little infectious virus, for a shorter time.
PCR is not a reliable measure of infectious virus being shed. (my belief: "killed" virus fragments)
Not much difference between Delta and Omicron variants. (my belief: more people have immunity)
Five days post symptom onset is probably too short an isolation period. (my belief: eight days would be safer)

The last line of the conclusion from the study you linked to:

“ Omicron vaccine breakthrough infections did not show elevated IVTs compared to Delta, suggesting that other mechanisms than increase VL contribute to the high infectiousness of Omicron.”

Kinda important, that bit.

So here’s a study that focuses on Omicron shedding that would imply a longer period of isolation for a margin of safety:

“ Since December 3, 2021, the National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) and the Disease Control and Prevention Center within the National Center for Global Health and Medicine (NCGM/DCC) have jointly initiated an investigation on Omicron cases in collaboration with several medical facilities in Japan. Here, we examined the duration of infectious virus shedding in Omicron cases identified early in this investigation. A total of 83 respiratory specimens from 21 cases (19 vaccinees and 2 unvaccinated cases; 4 asymptomatic and 17 mild cases) were subjected to SARS-CoV-2 RNA quantification using quantitative reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and virus isolation tests. The date of specimen collection for diagnosis or symptom onset was defined as day 0. The amount of viral RNA was highest on 3-6 days after diagnosis or 3-6 days after symptom onset, and then gradually decreased over time, with a marked decrease after 10 days since diagnosis or symptom onset (Figure). The positive virus isolation results showed a similar trend as the viral RNA amount, and no infectious virus in the respiratory samples was detected after 10 days since diagnosis or symptom onset (Table). These findings suggest that vaccinated Omicron cases are unlikely to shed infectious virus 10 days after diagnosis or symptom onset.”

Active epidemiological investigation on SARS-CoV-2 infection caused by Omicron variant

Looks like 10 days may be a safer period but YMMV.

As far as “ Not much difference between Delta and Omicron variants. (my belief: more people have immunity)”, not sure what your referring to. It’s severity or transmissibility or both? The jury is pretty much in that it’s more transmissible. One only has to look at the time, numbers of infections and geographic spread.

My understanding of the differences with omicron is that it replicates better than previous variants in cells that have high ACE2. Earlier variants liked having ACE2+TMPRSS2. It replicates worse in cells that have low ACE2. Deep lung tissue has low ACE2. Hence it stays in the bronchial tree and doesn’t go lower, causing the covid pneumonia ventilation and deaths.

Seems like a lucky break with regard to fatalities but we got that there long covid to worry bout. I believe there’s other tissues in the body with high ACE2, no?
There’s some numbers out that show a % of asymptomatic cases go on to become long haulers let alone symptomatic cases. Or as a recent report from Finland has expressed:

“There is a threat that Finland will see the emergence of the largest, or one of the largest, new groups of chronic diseases, and that not only too many adults will suffer from a long-term COVID-19, but at worst also children,”

Long COVID could become Finland's largest chronic disease, warns minister

To me, long covid is the stalking horse in all this. What percentage of infections will result in debilitated lives? Guess we’re gunna find out. Sorta. The economic incentives will certainly be there to not look to hard in some quarters.

Corp just put out a new policy that says if your fly interenational, you have an automatic 10 days off from work no matter what and you're required to show a negative test the day before you're to return to work.

Gee, I wonder what that is response to... ,

That policy should have been in place from the get-go.

I was to fly to the Bay Area this weekend, but cancelled two weeks ago. I bought the ticket in October 2021 before Omicron was even in the news.

Even flight crews are now getting COVID where before they were not with Delta. What are people thinking taking an airplane these days?

Like human behavior, for example. Large unmasked gatherings like family get togethers for Christmas or New Years Eve parties. As I said before, immune evasion is causing more infections with Omicron, but every infection involves an infected person shedding virus and a victim inhaling enough virus to get infected. Two people behaving in ways that contribute to spread, that they probably could have avoided.

And I agree 100% that Long Covid is going to be a huge expensive long-term public health mess. One point of interest in that topic is that nobody has ever found intact virus in human brain tissue, or even in other nerve tissue. They find RNA fragments from "killed" virus that was floating around in the blood, since brain samples taken at autopsy contain blood vessels. They find intact virus in the physical support cells of the nasal "smell sensors", but not in the nerves of those sensors. One hypothesis for brain injury is anoxia and cytokines. Those might be easier to avoid than actual viral infection of brain cells.

I have an appointment for the PCR test at 10:15 am tomorrow.

On Sunday or Monday, I'll do an in-home quick test as well so I can return back to the campus on TU 01/18.

I trust the PCR test more than an in-home test.