April Covid Thread

[Velar Fricative]

Taking a stab at doing a monthly thread.

Cases are slowly but surely increasing here. I'm just hoping the surge isn't as crazy as the initial Omicron surge. At work we had zero cases since January until mid-March, when we had just one case. Then we've now had three since Saturday (different sites). 

Feeling very grateful for my warehouse's worth of at-home test kits. Doesn't help that it's allergy season for me.

[madDawg228]

I've been going back to the office fulltime since last month, and there have been bus cancellations here and there, but they've become more frequent. And it's gotten to be so much that I'm working from home today (I commute via public transit).

I've been tracking my county's case-rate/100K (is that still a good metric?), and in the last month it's gone from 180/100K (02/28) to 47/100K (03/07) to going back up - 84/100K (yesterday). I would guess this is the next surge approaching.

Ditto OP, I'm thankful for the stockpile of tests I have.

[rubytue]

Apr 5, 2022 7:49:28 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Taking a stab at doing a monthly thread.

I was contemplating if that was something to do back in the fall. And then…. Nope. Fingers crossed this time it actually works. 

[Velar Fricative]

Apr 5, 2022 8:52:45 GMT -5 rubytue said:

Apr 5, 2022 7:49:28 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

Taking a stab at doing a monthly thread.

I was contemplating if that was something to do back in the fall. And then…. Nope. Fingers crossed this time it actually works. 

Would have worked for March given low cases! Not sure how well it will work for April...

[konapoppy]

Our city’s cases have stayed right around 90 for a solid month. It’s like just enough to have some constant circulation. Sigh.

[macmars45]

My county and state as a whole are still decreasing. That has to be at least in part because so many people got BA1 I'm guessing. We're at 3 cases per 100K. All other counties are under 20 cases per 100K.

ETA: the covidactnow.org isn't recording positivity until March 31st and they still aren't recording it (at least in my state).

[bimbi284]

We’re back up to 1.6% positivity and hit 10.5 in 100k cases yesterday. It’s been creeping up the past few weeks. Testing is decreasing a lot also, so it’s probably actually higher than that.

[picksthemusic]

My brother has covid now. His wife/SIL had it last weekend, and now it's his turn. What sucks is that our grandfather's funeral is this Friday so he might not be able to attend. He's vaccinated and boosted, so he's doing okay, it's just terrible timing.

Our local numbers remain low (60/100k), so that's nice, but I'm still masking everywhere.

[spindle92]

I just received 2 more sets of tests in the mail yesterday and was wondering if maybe it was overkill.
Sounds like I better hang on to them and not give them away.

[mrsukyankee]

We now have a higher hospital admission rate than the earlier Omicron (Dec/Jan) rate. And my area is now at a much higher rate of Covid, in general, than ever before and that's with LESS testing. Ugh. At least my MIL has had her second booster so, if either my H or I get it, if we pass it on, she'll hopefully be okay.

[Michelle]

Our community transmission is very low, hospitalizations continue to slowly decline system-wide (we have fewer than 50 cases compared to over 800 in January). We have ended our screening stations and mask requirement for non-clinical areas, unless you are staff who are unvaccinated due to an exemption. Those staff must remain masked at all times except meal periods.

[wildrice]

Apr 5, 2022 10:50:47 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

We now have a higher hospital admission rate than the earlier Omicron (Dec/Jan) rate. And my area is now at a much higher rate of Covid, in general, than ever before and that's with LESS testing. Ugh. At least my MIL has had her second booster so, if either my H or I get it, if we pass it on, she'll hopefully be okay.

My parents are on a tour in the UK right now and I'm hoping they are able to finish it out and get home without any problems. It ends Friday, so crossing my fingers. They said a couple of people came down with COVID on the tour already, but I think that was more than a week ago at this point so hopefully that means it didn't spread. The people who got it had to leave, of course, which would be such a bummer.

My parents have both already have COVID and have boosters (my mom even got a 4th shot a month ago) so I am not particularly worried about their health, just about the logistics of it. 

[wanderingback]

I’m supposed to go to an in-person conference at the end of the month in Florida, ugh. I really want to go and was kind of planning to wait last minute to decide, but just realized conférence registration ends this Friday because they do extensive security checks on everyone attending.

The actual conference is requiring us to be vaccinated, get tested and wear masks, but I just looked and it’s located at a large resort and I’m sure there won’t be other masks in sight.

I’ve been looking forward to going but not sure if I really want to. Up until now when I did more "risky" things I always thought to myself would I regret if I got covid doing this, and typically the answer was no, so I did it, but with this I feel like I would regret it.

Of course I know getting covid is luck of the draw and I’m just lucky I haven’t had it so far but it’ll just be so stark going somewhere so different than here in regards to covid mitigation strategies.

[mrsukyankee]

wildrice, hope your parents stay Covid free!

[t]

My H has traveled twice for work since Feb of 2020. The first time was last summer and then Delta happens and they shut down travel. Then he went back in December and travel was shut down again for omicron right after. So I am assuming there will be another spike after his next trip, which is in two weeks.

[Velar Fricative]

Apr 5, 2022 12:12:22 GMT -5 t said:

My H has traveled twice for work since Feb of 2020. The first time was last summer and then Delta happens and they shut down travel. Then he went back in December and travel was shut down again for omicron right after. So I am assuming there will be another spike after his next trip, which is in two weeks.

This is like how both of my sisters are here visiting from out of state this week after they last visited during Christmas. One sister brought Omicron to the house and infected my other sister (but magically not my household even though we were together for Christmas), so they were stuck here quarantining for longer than their planned trip period. As soon as I saw our wastewater numbers going up a couple of weeks ago I texted them and cursed them out lol. So far, so good though...

[pugz]

Health dept no longer tracking negative tests so our metrics are worthless now.

[Velar Fricative]

Yeah, the scary part is that tracking is just not happening, and there is less (or no) federal funding for resources. Local urgent cares are charging for covid tests now, although NYC does have free testing through city-run testing sites and mobile vans.

And mrsukyankee always gives us a sneak peak with what's going to happen on this side of the ocean, but hopefully this is not like December/January...

[estrellita]

I hope cases stay low at least for a few more weeks. H and I are taking a vacation in 2.5 weeks and we need this so badly. I've been so stressed and in a bad place mentally. I just need to get out of here! Obviously there are other reasons I want it to stay low, but that's my selfish reason!

[aprilsails]

My city has the highest wastewater signal right now of the entire pandemic. Positivity rate over 30% but you can’t really get a PCR test anymore. I know lots of people who are getting it and we’re supposed to travel in just over two weeks. FML.

[noodleoo]

Apr 5, 2022 11:55:37 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

I’m supposed to go to an in-person conference at the end of the month in Florida, ugh. I really want to go and was kind of planning to wait last minute to decide, but just realized conférence registration ends this Friday because they do extensive security checks on everyone attending.

The actual conference is requiring us to be vaccinated, get tested and wear masks, but I just looked and it’s located at a large resort and I’m sure there won’t be other masks in sight.

I’ve been looking forward to going but not sure if I really want to. Up until now when I did more "risky" things I always thought to myself would I regret if I got covid doing this, and typically the answer was no, so I did it, but with this I feel like I would regret it.

Of course I know getting covid is luck of the draw and I’m just lucky I haven’t had it so far but it’ll just be so stark going somewhere so different than here in regards to covid mitigation strategies.

I just got back from Florida yesterday.  It was so weird to be there, it is like living in 2019.  The only reason we went is because we had Covid in January, so we booked the trip to visit my parents while we had some immunity.  It was awesome, but I've lost all perspective on what is risky and what isn't anymore.  We even went to Disney for 1 day, and I haven't been around that many people at once in a LONG time.  We were waiting in an indoor queue for a ride, packed shoulder to shoulder with probably about 150 people and bad ventilation.  I told H if you hadn't had Covid before entering that room, you did now!  Other than at the airport, we saw very few masks anywhere during our trip.

It was very strange, but also reeeeaaaaally nice to have an actual vacation after so long.

I don't know, we tried *so* hard to prevent getting covid but we got it anyway.  I'm kind of done putting my life on hold.  At least until the next surge.  

[Saudade]

Our rates are really low. However, BA2 is now the prevalent strain here and we've had to pivot to another monoclonal antibody treatment since sotrovimab is not as effective against BA2.

I worked covid therapeutics today and had a noticeable increase in the number of patients compared to last week. Thankfully, Paxlovid access is much better and we have a great supply of it.

[Dznyprnces]

Apr 5, 2022 11:55:37 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

I’m supposed to go to an in-person conference at the end of the month in Florida, ugh. I really want to go and was kind of planning to wait last minute to decide, but just realized conférence registration ends this Friday because they do extensive security checks on everyone attending.

The actual conference is requiring us to be vaccinated, get tested and wear masks, but I just looked and it’s located at a large resort and I’m sure there won’t be other masks in sight.

I’ve been looking forward to going but not sure if I really want to. Up until now when I did more "risky" things I always thought to myself would I regret if I got covid doing this, and typically the answer was no, so I did it, but with this I feel like I would regret it.

Of course I know getting covid is luck of the draw and I’m just lucky I haven’t had it so far but it’ll just be so stark going somewhere so different than here in regards to covid mitigation strategies.

I went to a conference (in Colorado) last month. I decided to go because they said masks would be required and I am fully vaxxed and had Covid in January, so I figured I was in a safer window. I got to the conference and I was basically the only one wearing a mask. :/ It turned out ok, but had I known they wouldn’t enforce their own mask policy, I might not have gone.

[InBetweenDays]

I carpooled to a soccer game with a friend last night who tested positive today. We both wore masks on the way there (I was wearing a KN95). She forgot to put one on for the first 5ish minutes on the way home but we had the window open and I was still wearing my KN95. Hopefully it works!

ETA: People have taken masking VERY seriously here so I was pretty surprised by how quickly people dropped their masks once the mandate was lifted. At the grocery store I go to I'm in the probably 10% of people still wearing masks. 

[rubytue]

Apr 5, 2022 18:10:59 GMT -5 noodleoo said:

Apr 5, 2022 11:55:37 GMT -5 wanderingback said:

I’m supposed to go to an in-person conference at the end of the month in Florida, ugh. I really want to go and was kind of planning to wait last minute to decide, but just realized conférence registration ends this Friday because they do extensive security checks on everyone attending.

The actual conference is requiring us to be vaccinated, get tested and wear masks, but I just looked and it’s located at a large resort and I’m sure there won’t be other masks in sight.

I’ve been looking forward to going but not sure if I really want to. Up until now when I did more "risky" things I always thought to myself would I regret if I got covid doing this, and typically the answer was no, so I did it, but with this I feel like I would regret it.

Of course I know getting covid is luck of the draw and I’m just lucky I haven’t had it so far but it’ll just be so stark going somewhere so different than here in regards to covid mitigation strategies.

I just got back from Florida yesterday.  It was so weird to be there, it is like living in 2019.  The only reason we went is because we had Covid in January, so we booked the trip to visit my parents while we had some immunity.  It was awesome, but I've lost all perspective on what is risky and what isn't anymore.  We even went to Disney for 1 day, and I haven't been around that many people at once in a LONG time.  We were waiting in an indoor queue for a ride, packed shoulder to shoulder with probably about 150 people and bad ventilation.  I told H if you hadn't had Covid before entering that room, you did now!  Other than at the airport, we saw very few masks anywhere during our trip.

It was very strange, but also reeeeaaaaally nice to have an actual vacation after so long.

I don't know, we tried *so* hard to prevent getting covid but we got it anyway.  I'm kind of done putting my life on hold.  At least until the next surge.  

We went to Key West at the end of Feb. 99% of everything we did was outside, but the bolted is so true. We are back in heavily masked, but not required MD now, and as we were walking into Lowe’s the other day, I comments to H that FL broke him. He didn’t even have a mask with him. And before we left, he would barely leave the house, I was starting to wonder if his social anxiety had progressed to full out agoraphobia. But yeah, a week in Florida, especially when you come back without covid, really does change perspective.

[mrsukyankee]

I'll be honest and state that I will be travelling to the US this summer regardless of what Covid is looking like as I haven't seen my mom in 3 years and she's having major health issues so I NEED to see her. I don't even care if I get stuck in the US (which is privileged as it would be fine). I'm going to be a hermit the two weeks before we head there and masking like crazy in the airport and on the plane regardless of what other people are doing.

[erbear]

Apr 6, 2022 2:18:34 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

I'll be honest and state that I will be travelling to the US this summer regardless of what Covid is looking like as I haven't seen my mom in 3 years and she's having major health issues so I NEED to see her. I don't even care if I get stuck in the US (which is privileged as it would be fine). I'm going to be a hermit the two weeks before we head there and masking like crazy in the airport and on the plane regardless of what other people are doing.

I have a friend who is in the same boat going the other way. Her parents are in England and she’s going regardless. It makes total sense.

[erbear]

Cases are very low here. I’d say 50% of the people I see out and about mask still. I have started trying to wean myself off wearing it everywhere but it’s not been smooth and I may just keep masking for the time being.

[wanderingback]

Apr 6, 2022 2:18:34 GMT -5 mrsukyankee said:

I'll be honest and state that I will be travelling to the US this summer regardless of what Covid is looking like as I haven't seen my mom in 3 years and she's having major health issues so I NEED to see her. I don't even care if I get stuck in the US (which is privileged as it would be fine). I'm going to be a hermit the two weeks before we head there and masking like crazy in the airport and on the plane regardless of what other people are doing.

Oh no, I thought you were able to visit your mom recently! My partner went and saw his family overseas last fall after about 3 years and it was well worth the visit. I hope you have a nice trip!

[formerlyak]

Everyone I know, myself included, is sick. But not with Covid. We’ve tested. Luckily tests are still pretty easy to come by in my area. This week we all keep reminding ourselves that colds are still a thing. We just didn’t get them as much when we were all wearing masks. Our mask mandate ended a few weeks ago (Los Angeles), so all the colds isn’t surprising.

Public health is monitoring the variant, but says they aren’t concerned yet. They are ready to deal with it, and are doing very targeted outreach about vaccines and boosters for the over 50 crowd. They said hold on to your mask just in case, but I’d say about 50% are still masking in indoor public places anyway. I even went to my work campus last week for a training. They are known for thinking Covid restrictions are over the top. But every person in the room of 50+ people wore their mask all day.

I’m trying to stay hopeful.