[HN Gopher] CDC Updates, Shortens Recommended Isolation and Quar...
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CDC Updates, Shortens Recommended Isolation and Quarantine Period
Author : infodocket
Score : 46 points
Date : 2021-12-27 21:59 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.cdc.gov)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.cdc.gov)
| lettergram wrote:
| Lol man, this is kinda insane.
|
| I just hope everyone understands Florida, Tennessee, West
| Virginia, Georgia, Texas, etc
|
| They've basically been normal the last 2 years. Take a second and
| imagine, everything you've gone through. Being isolated, holidays
| ruined, frustration at other, drinks missed with friends, awkward
| conversations about covid (don't know where people stand), etc
|
| At the end of the day those states have about the same death
| figures as anywhere else. Now the cdc is suggesting changing the
| isolation period. You know who's not isolating? People in the
| states I mentioned. They stopped 18 months ago.
|
| I think it's time to face reality, this thing is over. Let's all
| celebrate; have fun! Lockdowns failed, as the experts initially
| suggested they would. Masks don't do anything, as the experts
| agreed prior to media censorship. The country wide experimental
| results are in. We can't control an airborne pathogen, we can
| only treat it. Maybe we slowed the spread a bit, but almost 2
| years in, it's endemic
|
| If you're nervous stay inside, we will miss you, but we
| understand.
| dragontamer wrote:
| When this pandemic started, a 35-year-old family friend of mine
| got infected with COVID19, infected his father, and then both
| died. Then we couldn't attend their funeral because the
| devastated family was worried they would spread COVID19 to
| everyone else during the funeral.
|
| You can't live like normal in these social circumstances.
|
| -------
|
| Florida's death rate has been far higher than the rest of the
| country due to their decision. And for what? Omicron arrives,
| and their "natural immunity" is falling apart like a paper
| tiger.
|
| "Natural immunity" gave them absolutely no protection at all.
| warning26 wrote:
| Was this written by GPT-2
| dpeck wrote:
| | Georgia
|
| I can only speak for that as I lived there for the last 20
| years or so of adulthood. But just like political maps
| generalize on red/blue when it's a 48/52 swing so does the way
| that people are experiencing and responding to Covid-19. This
| is both in Atlanta, as well as other rural parts of the state.
|
| I've had numerous friends in the last week isolate due to
| getting a positive test result, or to make sure they didn't
| have any inadvertent exposure before holidays with family.
|
| I've also had friends in other states ignore the virus and live
| their life to the extent that they're able to with whatever
| government mandates are in place.
|
| Without any value judgement on right or wrong my takeaway is
| that there's so much individual variation, lax/nonexistent
| enforcement, that locations and policies seem to matter very
| little in practice. It basically just means if people are going
| to have mask around their chin or none on at all.
| syshum wrote:
| I would says 25-30 states as this point have been normal for at
| least a year....
|
| I would also say the demographic here likely leans more to
| states that have not been normal and still steeped in COVID
| hysteria.
|
| >Now the cdc is suggesting changing the isolation period
|
| They are also doing it not for scientific reasons, but economic
| reasons further reducing the trust one can place on the CDC.
| Air travel and other industries have been massively impacted by
| these mandatory isolation for asymptomatic COVID positive
| people requiring them to take time off work.
|
| >>I think it's time to face reality, this thing is over.
|
| I think the problem here is the belief there is a singular
| reality, My Reality, and likely your reality is not the same as
| many others reality. I am not sure how we move beyond this
| fact. There are a large number of people that believe COVID has
| a 60% fatality rate, and that you have contract COVID you have
| a 90% chance of going to hospital, when in reality the numbers
| are many many many factors lower than that.
|
| Fear is what the government, and the media needs for control
| over the population, they have peddled in many narratives of
| fear, COVID is just the latest.
|
| COVID will not end until they find something new that will
| scare the public more than COVID, the problem is their
| disinformation about COVID was too good, the boogeymen too
| perfect, the psychological effects too strong... I am not sure
| they can find anything to replace it.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I would love to see them provide references and links to studies
| they are using to make these decisions. As it is this just reads
| almost like propaganda or a very strong, "trust us, we're the
| CDC".
|
| We're approaching a _megadeath_ of Americans from COVID-19 and
| cannot continue on this disastrous path.
| iherbig wrote:
| While I agree with both sentiments, I find the juxtaposition
| between the two interesting as it implies a relationship
| between them but they don't seem to be related at all.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Checkout Dr. campbell on Youtube. He is pretty good. I like how
| he goes over things and explains them.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I've watched him since the start and his quality of advice
| has strongly declined since the pro-Ivermectin/Joe Rogan
| crowd started filling his comments with nonsense. He was
| great in March 2020 when it was clear governments were too
| slow to react. Nowadays he seems resigned to fatalism that
| "we're all just going to get it, nothing can be done".
| timr wrote:
| We _are_ all going to get it. This isn 't fatalism. It's
| just a statement of fact.
|
| It's an endemic respiratory virus with multiple animal
| reservoirs, and there is no vaccine that provides
| sterilizing immunity. Elimination is a pipe dream.
| josephcsible wrote:
| There are plenty of other infectious diseases that aren't
| eradicated but that most people never get. Why that
| dichotomy for this one?
| phonypc wrote:
| Kinda stuck between a rock and a hard place. With the way case
| numbers are going, for everyone to strictly adhere to the old
| recommendations would necessitate pretty huge disruptions to
| essential services.
| codeddesign wrote:
| Megadeath? That's a little extreme considering that the death
| rate has been tapering for some time. On the other hand, the
| administration and CDC have been running propaganda the entire
| year, so this is nothing new. Expecting truth out of either of
| them about this is a lost cause.
| iso1210 wrote:
| Current US deaths is 815k, and increasing steadilly. At this
| rate it will hit 1Mdeath by the end of April
| TeeMassive wrote:
| There is no way to know if those deaths were because or
| _with_ Covid-19.
|
| Also correlation doesn't mean causation. Confinement caused
| a lot of hardships on people. Hell, fentanyl alone kills
| hundred of thousands each year, that's not even counting
| alcohol, other drugs, stress and solitude.
| wackro wrote:
| Excess deaths are over 1m. See
| https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-
| excess-...
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I remember when people said 240,000 American deaths were "a
| little extreme" when the IHME predicted it at the start of
| the pandemic.
|
| Wake up--we are far closer to an actual megadeath of
| Americans than not.
| Bombthecat wrote:
| Yes!
|
| The end is nigh! (in a good way :))
| pubg wrote:
| That's not what it says at all.
| Darmody wrote:
| I really hope Omicron is the strain that turns the virus into
| endemic and we can live with it as we live with the flu.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Eeehhhhh.
|
| Hard to say right now. Hospitals in my state have just
| activated emergency protocols, because our surge is already
| exceeding Winter-2020 levels. This means that 20% of surgeries
| are going to be cancelled, and other such care is going to be
| officially rationed off. (BTW: We're at 90% adults vaccinated,
| but "70% to 80%" of the hospitalizations are unvaccinated
| individuals).
|
| EDIT: To be clear: individual hospitals declare emergencies.
| Its not a state-wide declaration. Hospitals have begun to
| declare emergencies and activate hospital-specific rationing.
|
| Omicron has been a bitch so far. It seems like it is causing
| hospitalizations in the unvaccinated population, maybe not at
| the same "rate" as Delta, but in high enough numbers that we're
| going to run out of hospital beds in my area.
|
| -------
|
| Elsewhere in the country... Florida's 300% rise in cases this
| past week has demonstrated that natural-immunity from
| Alpha/Delta was completely worthless vs Omicron.
|
| Florida is well on its way to having a worse surge than it ever
| had before. It doesn't seem like we can natural-immunity our
| ways out of this.
| usaphp wrote:
| > This means that 20% of surgeries are going to be cancelled
| > We're at 90% adults vaccinated, but "70% to 80%" of the
| hospitalizations are unvaccinated individuals > our surge is
| already exceeding Winter-2020 levels
|
| Can you put any links to the data on any of these? I am
| really curious to know where you get that from, I can't find
| any hospitalization data from Omicron and vaccinated rates on
| those hospitalizations.
| dragontamer wrote:
| The first hospital to declare an emergency in my state
| was...
|
| https://www.umms.org/uch/news/2021/um-uch-moves-to-crisis-
| st...
|
| The 70% to 80% quote is from local-TV stations.
|
| https://www.wbaltv.com/article/um-upper-chesapeake-
| hospital-...
|
| > Barrueto said 70% to 80% of the hospitals' patients are
| unvaccinated. He said the move also sends a message to the
| community that it's not business as usual.
| timr wrote:
| > Elsewhere in the country... Florida's 300% rise in cases
| this past week has demonstrated that natural-immunity from
| Alpha/Delta was completely worthless vs Omicron.
|
| This is simply wrong. A rise in _cases_ is not evidence of
| much of anything related to immunity, let alone _natural_
| immunity. Plenty of vaccinated people are getting _infected_
| as well -- they 're not dying from it.
|
| > Florida is well on its way to having a worse surge than it
| ever had before. It doesn't seem like we can natural-immunity
| our ways out of this.
|
| Please stop speculating. The "surge" in cases is currently
| lower than what happened in FL over the summer, and
| hospitalizations are flat:
|
| https://covid-19.direct/state/12
| nickff wrote:
| > _" Omicron has been a bitch so far. It seems like it is
| causing hospitalizations in the unvaccinated population,
| maybe not at the same "rate" as Delta, but in high enough
| numbers that we're going to run out of hospital beds in my
| area. "_
|
| One of the problems seems to be that hospital staff are so
| expensive (because of their regulated monopoly) that we've
| been running with no spare capacity in normal times. Most
| other systems have 20% or more extra capacity.
| pjc50 wrote:
| > Most other systems have 20% or more extra capacity.
|
| I think it's been fairly clear in the pandemic that they
| don't.
| dragontamer wrote:
| We've literally never run out of hospital space before,
| including the 2020 winter surge of COVID19/Alpha (which hit
| us harder than Delta did).
|
| This Omicron is worse than anything we've seen before
| locally. Crisis levels / Emergency levels of
| hospitalization have been reached.
|
| Yeah, we've had a nursing crisis and our health care system
| is shoddier than many people realize. But Omicron is
| clearly different.
| bonzini wrote:
| So there are 9 times as many vaccinated people and 3 times
| fewer hospitalizations, that would be 1-1/27 efficacy (96% or
| so). Sounds like it's no worse, or possibly even better, than
| what was measured in the trials
| heavyset_go wrote:
| > _Florida 's 300% rise in cases this past week has
| demonstrated that natural-immunity from Alpha/Delta was
| completely worthless vs Omicron. Florida is well on its way
| to having a worse surge than it ever had before. It doesn't
| seem like we can natural-immunity our ways out of this._
|
| Tangential, but has Florida started accurately reporting
| their cases, hospitalizations and deaths instead of under-
| reporting them?
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > Tangential, but has Florida started accurately reporting
| their cases, hospitalizations and deaths instead of under-
| reporting them?
|
| AFAIK, the only underreporting they are doing is not
| counting positive tests as cases unless the person is a
| permanent Florida resident, while everyone else is counting
| tests conducted in-state. Which is significant, but really
| only effects the case count.
|
| (They may be doing a bad job of actually _doing_ testing,
| too, but that's not underreporting though it has a similar
| effect. But, again AFAIK, hospitalization and death numbers
| aren't impacted.)
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Tangential, but has Florida started accurately reporting
| their cases, hospitalizations and deaths instead of under-
| reporting them?
|
| Doesn't matter IMO. What matters is the change-in-percent.
| If Florida's "undercount" is 300% higher this week than
| last week, that's all the evidence we need, as long as the
| "undercount" remained consistent.
|
| The exact number isn't important. Its the change in numbers
| we can look at and rely upon. If you don't trust the
| numbers, you can still trust the change-in-numbers.
|
| Its not important to get exact numbers. Its more important
| to remain consistent in your reporting through these
| crisis. We care about apples-to-apples comparisons within
| the state, not against different states. A 300% rise is a
| 300% rise.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| I agree that you can glean trends from inaccurately
| reported data, but I'm asking because I want to know if
| there is a source that is attempting accurate reporting
| in Florida, or if Florida is counting things differently
| than they were a while ago.
| zaidf wrote:
| I think when the dust settles, we'll conclude that Omicron
| for the vaccinated posed very similar risks as the flu.
| Keyword of course is _for the vaccinated._ SF is seeing the
| highest case counts at _any point_ in the pandemic and yet
| there is no real change in hospitalizations /deaths.
|
| Anecdotally, I've attended two mega indoor concerts in the
| past couple of months. It is almost impossible that I haven't
| been exposed to or contracted COVID.
| dragontamer wrote:
| > Keyword of course is for the vaccinated. SF is seeing the
| highest case counts at any point in the pandemic and yet
| there is no real change in hospitalizations/deaths.
|
| It took about a week or two between our Omicron-surge
| before our hospitals filled up around here. COVID19 is a
| slow-moving disease, give it some time and prepare.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| To clarify, there's a lag for hospitalizations, and then
| there is another lag for deaths. COVID can even take a
| couple of months to kill from the initial infection if
| the infected person is being kept alive on a ventilator.
| zaidf wrote:
| What's the vaccination rate in your county?
| dragontamer wrote:
| 61.8% of total population. Lower than the state's average
| but still pretty good by American standards.
| zaidf wrote:
| Ah. SF is at 87% with at least one dose and 80% with at
| least 2 doses.
|
| I think 62% vs. 80% could be a big enough delta to
| explain the difference here versus your town.
| dragontamer wrote:
| Thanks for the additional data-point. That 18% difference
| could very well make the difference.
|
| I'll be keeping an eye on your higher-vaccination rate
| and how it works out in your city. I've been trying to
| tell my coworkers / people around me to get vaccinated
| (and boostered) but not everybody would listen.
|
| EDIT: The state's average is like 80% total population. I
| live in an area with far below the state's average in
| regards to vaccinations.
| travisgriggs wrote:
| Curious which state you're in.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| I remember when people said that about alpha, and then delta,
| and now omicron...
|
| When is it going to happen? The UK convinced itself alpha would
| give them herd immunity and stop future outbreaks. Then the
| same people came out to say ok now with delta in the UK we'll
| let it burn all summer and then be protected. And now the same
| people have the gall to say, ok ok _this time_ omicron will be
| the one that gives us herd immunity.
|
| It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete horseshit
| nonsense that it is.
| Robotbeat wrote:
| So there were high degrees of heard immunity... but then
| Omicron came which has pretty high immune escape, and so it
| spreads all over, whether you were vaccinated or not, had
| COVID before or not. And then it finds those who were neither
| vaccinated nor previously had COVID and puts them in the
| hospital. Spreads so quickly that the hospital system is
| overloaded even if the Case Hospitalization Rate isn't that
| high.
|
| So it's gonna expose everyone regardless, therefore it is a
| kind of herd exposure, if not herd immunity. Hopefully, in
| combination with the previous exposure, the transmissibility
| will be lowered by this "herd exposure" so in future waves
| the hospital system won't be hit as hard.
|
| It's roughly less than half as lethal as Delta, other things
| being equal. In combination with boosted+vaccination, the
| risk is pretty low, comparable to flu or perhaps lower now
| that we have better treatments.
|
| We need the pan-coronavirus vaccines, though, in addition to
| these less lethal variants, to really bring this down to
| background seasonal flu/cold virus levels. (And it wouldn't
| hurt if we finally fixed the HIV pandemic so variants don't
| mutate so much. And fix vaccine logistics further so we have
| a prayer to deploy vaccines before literally everyone gets it
| like Omicron.)
|
| Coronaviruses normally don't mutate as fast as the typical
| seasonal flu since they don't do recombination as
| efficiently. So we SHOULD be able to keep up with it. But our
| main vaccine strain is now 2 years old. You can't expect that
| to work well forever.
| TeeMassive wrote:
| > It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete
| horseshit nonsense that it is.
|
| Having non-stop sanitary edicts and booster shots every three
| months is not really a long-term sustainable policy either.
| nickff wrote:
| > _" It's time to call out this nonsense for the complete
| horseshit nonsense that it is. "_
|
| This is not helpful. I understand that you disagree with the
| parent, but you could have ended your comment on a more
| constructive and helpful note.
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| 20 millions people worldwide are estimated to be dead so
| far in 2 years of this virus pandemic.
|
| It's time to call out the minimizers and downplayers on
| their _horseshit_.
| outside1234 wrote:
| For what its worth, I took this as an attack on the idea
| and the parent themselves as a person.
| fshbbdssbbgdd wrote:
| If you look at the data on hospitalizations in the UK, you
| see that the suffering really was much greater during alpha:
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/uk-daily-covid-admissions
| qbasic_forever wrote:
| And? Where was the herd immunity after it?
| pubg wrote:
| > If you:
|
| > Completed the primary series of Pfizer or Moderna vaccine _over
| 6 months ago and are not boosted_
|
| > OR Completed the primary series of J&J over _2 months ago and
| are not boosted_
|
| > OR Are _unvaccinated_
|
| So vaccinations received greater than 2-6 months prior are
| worthless in this context (still keeps you out of the hospital,
| doesn't reduce transmissibility).
|
| This signals that the provided "immunity" is quite short-lived,
| moreso than any other vaccine I can recall. How unfortunate.
| WaxProlix wrote:
| Yes, and with the continued prevalence of novel strains they
| fail to hit a moving target.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| Flu vaccines have a similar immunity cliff. Some HIV vaccines
| in trials also had similar rates. Some viruses are adapted, or
| are able to mutate, to avoid immune responses relatively
| rapidly compared to other viruses.
| cletus wrote:
| Are people who say this unaware of annual flu vaccines?
|
| To compare, we're still by some measures 103 years into the
| Spanish flu pandemic [1].
|
| [1]: https://www.history.com/news/1918-flu-pandemic-never-ended
| ohmanjjj wrote:
| Pharma companies realized the money is in subscriptions. Like
| Adobe, why offer Photoshop for a one time sale when they can go
| the SaaS model and get the juicy recurring revenue.
|
| Vaccine as a service...
| User23 wrote:
| It's really interesting how this pandemic has got formerly
| cautious people all in on big pharma. You are of course
| correct that pharma, like all businesses, loves recurring
| revenue. Statins made billions and billions to just give one
| example. Meanwhile Gilead made a Hepatitis B cure and while
| it did well the first couple years, profits dropped like a
| rock because, well, it was a cure. Goldman Sachs even
| helpfully pointed out in a research note that cures are
| economically inferior.
| yosito wrote:
| It seems that the CDC's logic is that reducing the quarantine
| will encourage people 1) to get tested, since 5 days of
| quarantine isn't as bad as 10 days and 2) to actually quarantine
| if they are exposed or positive. But no one is going to wear a
| mask for those 5 days after quarantine. You're either contagious
| or you're not. If you and/or others believe you're contagious,
| you're going to isolate. If you don't believe it, you're not
| going to wear a mask. No one is going to go around saying "yeah,
| I might still have COVID so I thought I'll still hang out with
| you, but I'll just wear a mask". Yeah right.
|
| And sadly, the CDC don't appear to be offering any advice or
| information about how long one is actually contagious, which is
| the information people really need to make safe and responsible
| decisons. Nor do they appear to be encouraging more rapid at home
| testing, which is really what needs to happen to start managing
| this virus. I spent the entire day today calling around for any
| kind of rapid tests anywhere in Ohio after someone from our
| Christmas Eve gathering fell sick. They're sold out everywhere.
| Was finally able to get some tests when a shipment came in to the
| county health department, but they were gone in a couple of
| hours.
|
| Meanwhile, I think Joe Biden is asleep. Why doesn't he issue an
| executive order and/or activate the Defense Production Act to get
| rapid tests to Americans now? He's had plenty of time to prepare.
| kevinavery wrote:
| See sentence 2.
|
| > The change is motivated by science demonstrating that the
| majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmission occurs early in the course
| of illness, generally in the 1-2 days prior to onset of
| symptoms and the 2-3 days after.
| yosito wrote:
| Yes, but they don't show any data.
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(page generated 2021-12-27 23:01 UTC)