Physician here. The best marker we have of covid prevalence is wastewater testing. With the availability of home kits (and no reporting) and people refusing to test when symptomatic, the old markers of positivity rates and number of positive tests aren't as valid. Even hospitalization numbers can fluctuate for multiple reasons. Municipal wastewater testing truly gives a sense of covid in a population.
this post was submitted on 01 Sep 2023
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Covid deniers gonna start shitting in the back yard
Naw, they're going to shit in their neighbor's yard as god intended. As the golden rule states, do unto others before they do unto you.
*poo unto others before they poo unto you
Or in their septic tanks.
Which I suppose are in their back yard.
I laughed and then realized that is not out of the realm of possibility.
Sounds like a shitty way to get data.
Wastewater-based emidemiology guy here. Thank you for your recognition of the field! I work at a competitor of Biobot, and what I find interesting is the article claiming Biobot data showing a plateau, as our data is showing a significant uptick over the month of August.
On a different note, the majority of funding for WBE and wastewater surveillance comes from state/federal coffers, so please ask your colleagues to write to your representatives and ask for more funding towards WBE.
Which is interesting, because at least here in Boston, we're seeing an increase, but not a huge spike: https://www.mwra.com/biobot/biobotdata.htm
That's what I've been thinking. I can't even recall the last time I heard of anyone I know taking a PCR covid test.
And that makes it challenging trying to manage behavior. I've definitely noticed a marked uptick in people I know that have gotten covid in the past couple weeks, but when I try to look at the data to validate my anecdotal experience, it's difficult to find compared to two years ago. Oregon, for example, has wastewater monitoring, but the page used to convey the data doesn't work on mobile and is confusing to use at best.
We can barely find test kits around us, and they are stupid expensive when we do find them. Like 10 bucks apiece.
If it's still running rampant, maybe the tests should still be affordable (or better yet, free).
Just wear a mask, jeez.
Just wear a mask, jeez.
If only. I was so hopeful early in COVID that Western countries would embrace mask wearing when sick. But noooo, dipshits had to politicize it and make it a wedge issue.
You were hopeful? Hah! Leave it to US/Canada to politicize the pettiest shit.
But mah freedum!
Morons are morons and beyond common sense or rational thinking.
Yep, starting back up with that now. We’re also coming into flu season soon which is def mask season.
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I want to know if there's a random unrelated bug going around too, or if this new strain just has heavy impact on the back of the throat and that is it. Seems like everyone I work with has had had some weird impossible-to-clear-your-throat virus that doesn't lead to much coughing or any sneezing so folks aren't staying home. If that's the new covid it makes a lot of sense why it would be spreading.
Ugh, I had that a few weeks ago and I still have that catarrh sensation. Gross.
had exactly this, one of my worst illnesses in my life, but neg on the test. similar thing ripped through work
Same here. Took multiple rapid tests, all negative. Maybe the new strain does not work well with the test, or it is an unrelated illness. Canada here BTW.
The mutations in this strain (EG.5) shouldn't be affecting the rapid-test target. Most kits use both the N -gene and S-gene to account for potential future mutations, and both genes have only small number of point-mutations across those two genes. If you want to waste an afternoon check out outbreak.info and look at the lineage comparison tool.
My experience with the tests has been very mixed. My wife has had COVID multiple times, and she has tested negative many times, both at home and at the doctor and then as she's starting to recover, around day 4 or 5 she will test positive.
I, in the other hand, have never tested positive although I did feel slightly under the weather for a couple days the last time she had it.
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Everyone at my work aside from two people have COVID. I was the first one to get it. I was told that I wasn't the reason it spread through the office, but I still feel responsible. I got COVID from my mom and didn't know I had it until I had already exposed coworkers. :(
It doesn't matter what you did before you knew.
It matters what you did after
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I find this article weird, I can't think of anyone I know who currently has COVID, and despite the fact most people are going around maskless things seem pretty quiet on the viral front. This makes it seem like just everyone has COVID. I realize numbers are going back up but I don't think it's quite like they make it out?
I will still be masking until the dawn of time and am at six shots and counting. I absolutely do not understand why anyone stopped masking.
contrastly I know at least a handful of people in the last couple months that have had it
I work in a hospital. We have a scattered handful of people who are there for something else and also have a mild case of COVID, but nobody unvaccinated on a vent or ECMO or anything.
It's not that surprising. "Only" about 0.2 % - 2 % get infected per week (depending on where you are), so there got to be some people who don't know anyone who got it recently.
Yep knew some ppl who had it last month but I don't know any one with it lately
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Completely off topic,
But wild to me that I know exactly where that Walgreens is. Surprised there ain’t a drunk stumbling in that photo.
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A few countries still have somewhat precise numbers. UK has the ZOE health study, which found over 1 million people currently being infected out of roughly 50 million (from memory; I don't know how many people live in UK). Germany has the SentiSurv study, indicating incidences approaching 1000 again. While the latter is only a survey in a few major cities, it allows calculation of a dark figure when put in relation to officially registered cases, which can then be applied to all regions that have the same criteria for when to test.
Overall, not great that millions will miss a chance to get the upcoming vaccine that would provide very decent protection against the most common strains.
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