This makes me happy!
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Sorry about your genetics. This is us now. We were scared but now Iâm scared of not living. This isnât going anywhere and we will get eventually anyway. I was pretty depressed at the begging of COVID and not doing things isnât good for my or my familyâs mental health.
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Anyone have âRussia accidentally bombs NATOâ on their bingo cards? 
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5 days later my arm still has a red spot with heat to it. Smaller and lighter than before, but still not cleared up.
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Well gee then whatâs the point. This article says that at home rapid tests can be false negative up to 75% of the time. Iâve relied on those many, many times, and several of those when the person is asymptomaticâŚ
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We have known that PCR tests can detect infections prior to rapid antigen tests for a long time. So thatâs accurate and not new.
Remember, the period when rapid tests can detect infections is believed to be roughly equal to the infectious period. Thatâs where they are useful. âAm I likely to infect someone else at this point in time?â So good for before holidays gatherings that donât involve overnight stays. (Youâd want to test daily for those.)
I havenât dug through this particular study, but many of the public health figures I follow continue to maintain that rapid tests are basically half-day passes. They arenât ironclad, but it is definitely better than no testing.
PCRs are better at detecting infections earlier in the course of disease, but with the delay for results, the rapid tests are more timely for immediate contacts.
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Small new study on Paxlovid rebound.
TL;DR - Paxlovid appears to have a rather small margin of greater frequency rebound than untreated, but not enough to out weight benefits against severe illness.
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Which booster did you get? How is your mom? I assume she got the same one.
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How is everyone in your family feeling now?
I agree onâŚ.why do we not apply the lessons weâve learned in the last couple of years going forward?! Have optional online to stop the spread. Or at least do something. Anything.
If more than 12% of the student body has the fluâŚ.mitigate in some way!
ââ
During our recent flu surge, our school did some things rightâŚall absences were automatically excused. All Assessments/quizzes, etc were automatically pushed a week out to take that pressure off. Instead of doing weekly assembly inside, they moved it to outdoors.
YET somehow sports need no mitigation procedures. The volleyball team made it to state playoffsâŚthe coach and half the team were sick on Monday (4 days before the Friday championship playoff) . Show must go on. And letâs have a fan bus to transport 60 of the 325 high school students to the game without masks or open windows. 
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I had Moderna and she had Pfizer. She is back to normal now. Thanks for asking.
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The article makes a good point - that home tests have limitations - but it does a poor job laying out what those limitations are, when home tests are most reliable, and how to use them most effectively to help mitigate the spread of disease.
I much prefer the YLE post on the topic. Iâd ignore the yahoo article and read this instead:
Itâs outdated on the âyou can get free testsâ front, but the testing info should still be relevant.
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Thanks for this. Key takeaways:
To get the most from your rapid test, wait at least 48 hours after symptoms and 5 days after exposure before taking an antigen test. If youâre negative, test again 24 hours thereafter. You can certainly test sooner, but any negative results will be unreliable.
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The DS12s went back to school Monday and seem to be fine, other than the uphill slog of makeup work. The district IT got hacked and was down most of last week, including the attendance and grade book systems, so the teachers are way behind putting in stuff, which isnât helping.
Pretty sure I caught what they had as of Tuesday. Cold symptoms, sweats/chills, some gastroâŚbut no fever or vomiting so not as severe so maybe not the same. Not sure it matters if it is the flu to bother to get tested. Negative on the Covid at home tests though. I went to bed at 9 last night and still took a 3 hour nap today. 
DM never had more than mild cold symptoms and some fatigue with her Covid. She started testing negative on at-home tests on Day 7, but is isolating through Day 10 per the policy of her retirement complex.
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FWIW, even though flu is running rampant right now, Iâve heard from a couple different sources that the flu vaccine composition for this year is actually a good match for whatâs circulating (H3N2 and H1N1).
Itâs a really good time to encourage people to get vaccinated if they havenât yet.
Our family had the flu vaccine in August. Even though the DS12s each missed 4-5 days of school due to lingering gastro issues, they each only had about 1 day where they were fairly miserable. They felt fairly well other than that. I havenât hit a miserable stretch yet at all. 
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I spoke to a school parent who is a pediatrician who showed me TCHâs numbers. She said the flu percent positives are beginning to come down here for a high of 40% weâre down to 30%. RSV is at 18% and covid at something like 1.5ish% (for those testing with symptoms). Itâs interesting to me that Covid has remained so low as these other cases surge.
She said to hang on for the ride - she doesnât expect things to get better until spring. (Sheâs not part of Texas Childrenâs, but treats low income families/refugees/immigrants. She sees a lot come through her door.)
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This is not going well. Regardless of why this is currently happening, the lack of interest by the public in doing anything to curb it is just astounding to me.
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There is now a thread of concurrent evolution floating to the top of the subvariant alphabet soup.
The last sentence in the footnotes is worth noting.
I put a pink mark next to all the noted subvariants with mutation R346T in the list above and also the diagram below.
So right now, even though theyâre coming off different branches of the structure, all of the subvariants in the US with the most notable growing market share have this mutation, with the exception of BQ.1 (its offshoot BQ.1.1 does have it). So that is likely whatâs driving the current tick up in hospitalizations and wastewater surveillance (case counts are pretty nebulous indicators at this point).
I glanced through some of the Twitter chatter on R346T. Itâs been noted as being immune evasive for a couple of months but the technical bits beyond that are a bit over my head.
Notably, my understanding is that it isnât in the bivalent booster formulas being used in either the US or Europe. The bivalents are still closer to all of these subvariants than the original formula, but this might be bit of a gap in the hedge. How significant that gap might be is still TBD.
Still true:
Booster is better than No Booster
Unfortunately, looks like we have out-mutated the usefulness of both Evusheld and bebtelovimab (the only remaining functioning monoclonal antibody) almost completely. Hoping Paxlovid continues to hold up.
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I thought this was a super interesting article. They polled some very well respected experts on their current behaviors and Thanksgiving plans.
Thought @DWJoe would find this bit especially interesting. Any ideas which device/app this is?
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Neat! The GSM-400 and Aranet4 can beep when CO2 thresholds are exceeded so it wouldnât be too difficult for a device to send an alert to your phone.
Thatâd be useful if youâre not carrying the CO2 device around with you. Say office workers get an alert from a stationary CO2 device that monitors their floor when levels exceed (say) 1000ppm, so you can open a window or put on a mask.
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