Coronavirus (No Politics)

Since writing my previous post I got mild symptoms as well. Hopefully it stays this way.

My daughter now has a light fever as well, while my son is pretty much like normal.

In normal circumstances I would've gone to work with such mild symptoms (very light headache, itching in my throat/chest, and a slightly runny nose). I'm longing for normality to return, since the restrictions make my work life a lot more stressful and my life in general boring.
 
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Just anecdotally, what I'm seeing fits with the pattern the broader evidence suggests - a lot more people catching it, but almost exclusively as fairly minor illness. I know one guy who his in his 80s, with serious OPD, and his family thought that catching it would be the end of him. He was admitted on that basis, but he brushed it off like a light cold.



We should be cautious, of course - there will still be a lot of people being hospitalised and dying, and we could still be unlucky and get sideswiped by an aggressive new variant. But over here the policy is shifting towards basic precautions, but pretty much starting to live with it. Between the somewhat milder Omicron, and the proportion of the population with vaccination and/or previous infection, it looks like the beginning of becoming a tolerable endemic.



The signs are all over - the data protection dept and civil rights charities are starting to talk about ensuring the tracking systems are verifiably decommissioned. Let's just hope we're not being premature!
Hopefully when this wave is over (in Sweden they expect the peak around the end of January) things will go back even more to normal.
 
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Everyone should have accepted by now this virus is now part of our lives. It isn't going away anytime soon. We'll need a shot every year just like the Flu shot from now on.

Maybe not even that. Our current march down the Greek alphabet notwithstanding, SARS-Cov-2 has a built-in "proofreading" mechanism and appears to be significantly less mutable than the influenza virus, which returns in a different guise every season. Of course, the more of the buggers there are in the world, the higher the chance that one of them will mutate.

The vaccines are needed to soften the brunt of the first impact, but I'd wager that once it's gone endemic, frequent re-infections will provide a pretty good base immunity for most people most of the time, with additional shots being mostly required for the vulnerable, and perhaps occasionally if and when a major new strain happens to develop.

It's just a personal guess, but if I had to pick the most likely scenario for an endgame, this would be mine.
 
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As I posted earlier in this thread, I have personally had a *double* positive antigen test (on the same day, same occasion), followed up by a negative PCR test but this is a very rare occurrence.

False negatives are way more common than false positive antigen tests. The hospital I am working at is currently conducting hundreds of antigen tests per week and false positives are extremely rare while there are always people who slip through the antigen test and only show up positive when PCR comes into play.

From personal experience: I have gone to a test center almost daily in December in spite of being fully vaccinated (and boostered since 12/30) because I needed the tests for nursing home visits and for work.
The quality of the actual testing varies A LOT in my experience but it is generally pretty poor. It depends a lot on the person who is performing the test.

The way the test (instructions for the very common Roche test) is supposed to be conducted is that the test swab should be inserted into both nostrils, turned at least four times and remain inside each nostril for about 15 seconds.
With the Roche test it is not even required that the swab is inserted deeply into the nostrils like with other tests. Only 2cm is sufficient.

However, the test center that I still go to several times per week perform a classic invasive deep nasal swab. They only swab one nostril and most of the time the swab is inserted for only a maximum of about five seconds. Sometimes the test is performed extremely poorly with a quick in and out movement and barely any turning of the test swab.
I would say that at least about 70% of the tests they performed on me were near useless and, if I would have been infected with CoVid, the tests probably only would have turned up a positive result if I would have been like super-infected with actually visible virus or something .

TL;DR I would definitely say that antigen tests are quite unreliable and that only a fraction of actual infections are detected due to poor test execution. False positives, however, are extremely rare, but it can happen… like it did to me twice in a row for whatever weird reason.
Thanks! I've booked a Pcr test for me tomorrow anyway, just to make sure we get one proper test for the family.
 
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Yeah, PCR is definitely the way to go and I wish you all the best :) . I remember when I had that double positive antigen result and went to get a PCR test and then had to wait 24h for the frickin' result. It was not a very pleasant wait... every time there was the slightest itch in my throat it was like "Oh, is it starting? Am I dying?" .

I was also more than a little pissed off, to be honest, because if someone has had a double positive antigen test, you know, you'd think that they would maybe expedite such PCR tests and use the express lane for confirmation but I guess not… it was a little over 24h until I finally got the result and my F5 key was worn out big time by then ;) .

Best wishes!
Hehe, yeah every itch and tiny reaction seems like a sign of impending doom. Though I'm not very worried :)

The laboratories here are so overloaded there's a four day waiting time for getting an answer. I'll likely get the answer around the seven day mark from my first symptoms.
 
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Well, my kids have Covid, which means we adults almost certainly have it as well. It was like a mild flu for the kids and my wife. For me it was like a little worse cold than usual. Almost back to normal after having the first symptoms on monday.

Me and the wife are both vaccinated, my last shot was in the end of August and my wife's was in beginning of June. She had her booster planned for next week, but will postpone it now.
 
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My youngest has been sick with Covid this week. Fully vaccinated so symptoms were mild. Daddy wasn't particularly worried.

Even though Omicron is very infectious, I doubt she will infect the rest of the family, since she resides in Berlin@NotInNorway, and our oldest is in Hamar@Norway, 500 km away from Bergen@Norway.

pibbuR who now aknowledges the blessing of offsping leaving the nest (or in his case, den)..
 
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Seems current wisdom dictates that Omicron could enforce "herd immunity" to some extent - which should eventually result in the pandemic being somewhat a thing of the past.

One can hope - though it will obviously cost (even more) lives.
 
Seems current wisdom dictates that Omicron could enforce "herd immunity" to some extent - which should eventually result in the pandemic being somewhat a thing of the past.

One can hope - though it will obviously cost (even more) lives.
Yes, even WHO seems to think we are nearing the end with a large part of the world catching it or being vaccinated.
 
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Do they? If I understood correctly, it is just someone at WHO Europe who has said something along those lines, with the formal opinion from WHO remaining on the end not being in sight yet.
 
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Do they? If I understood correctly, it is just someone at WHO Europe who has said something along those lines, with the formal opinion from WHO remaining on the end not being in sight yet.
Could be. Didn't research it, just saw a news flash about it.

Anyway, the current strain isn't very dangerous, it seems, and I'd guess a large part of Sweden will catch it before long. Which some experts on the subject seem to think is positive, due to the combined vaccination coverage and recently sick giving more or less herd immunity, at least for a while.

Edit: It was Hans Kluge, European director of WHO.

The Swedish newspapers interpreted his information a bit too optimistically, but the essence of his thoughts are: This could be the beginning of the end of large scale restrictions, and with careful monitoring of new variants and preparedness to protect the vulnerable, it could hopefully mean not having to reintroduce them later.

Anyone wanting to read his thoughts: https://www.euro.who.int/en/about-u...tabilization,-yet-too-early-to-drop-our-guard
 
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Well, we're opening up in Denmark and we have 40k+ infected per day. This is with a population of less than 6 million :)

So, it's pretty clear that the strategy is to go for herd immunity.

It makes sense, because the vast majority of us are vaccinated - and vaccines have more or less turned Covid into the flu, as they say.

While not ideal - I don't think there was any stopping Omicron. The upside is that it's not that big a deal according to current data.

Not exactly how I imagined this would end, but at least around here - it looks very much like a "permanent" return to normal.

Of course, that's until the next virus gets leaked from a lab - or some crazy mutation invalidates the vaccine.

Not to mention the upcoming power shift on a global scale :)
 
Well, we're opening up in Denmark and we have 40k+ infected per day. This is with a population of less than 6 million :)

So, it's pretty clear that the strategy is to go for herd immunity.

It makes sense, because the vast majority of us are vaccinated - and vaccines have more or less turned Covid into the flu, as they say.

While not ideal - I don't think there was any stopping Omicron. The upside is that it's not that big a deal according to current data.

Not exactly how I imagined this would end, but at least around here - it looks very much like a "permanent" return to normal.

Of course, that's until the next virus gets leaked from a lab - or some crazy mutation invalidates the vaccine.

Not to mention the upcoming power shift on a global scale :)
In Sweden the politicians are waiting two more weeks to see if the restrictions should be removed or not.
 
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covid_precaution_level.png


pibbuR who may say another thing about this in another post in another thread
 
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The restrictions in Sweden have been mostly removed since yesterday. As someone working in health care we still have the same precautions as before, but hopefully that is also just a matter of time.
 
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I hope things don't take ten steps in reverse for Sweden. I believe a lot of eyes will be watching just to see what happens there, for better or worse. Above all else, may the citizens be smart and wary.
 
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Denmartk and Norway have also released most of the restrictions (We keep the meter distance advice ATM in Norway, but probably not for more than a day or two).

I just followed the latest press conference from WHO, and they commented on the "nordic situation", pointing out that vaccination rate is very high up here. In Norway 91% of people above 18 have got at least 2 shots.

pibbuR who is no longer infected (haven't been infected at all, actually, but he couldn't resist including a MP reference).
 
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I hope things don't take ten steps in reverse for Sweden. I believe a lot of eyes will be watching just to see what happens there, for better or worse. Above all else, may the citizens be smart and wary.
I'd guess about 50% of our population will have had omicron soon (we do not test outside of health care settings since a week or two, so hard to know), and I think about 83% above 12 years of age have gotten two shots. 50% got three (though a lot were planning to get the third soon).

At the same time fewer and fewer people are in hospitals.

Just at my work, the last few weeks two thirds had covid, and even our only vaccination sceptic 50 years+ lady managed pretty fine. Us vaccinated got a few days of pretty light symptoms, while she had a week of sickness, and two weeks til complete recovery.

If/when a new mutation comes around it might change things, but at the moment it seems quite safe for vaccinated people.
 
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Yes, we're open again (all restrictions were removed yesterday). So according to the police things were back to normal yesterday. Lots of drunk, noisy, people in town. People figthting outside pubs, People quarreling with the police, urinating on police cars and ... people offered a free bed at the station....

Indeed, back to normal.

pibbuR who normally (also this time) stays at home
 
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