@@ November thread - covid/rsv/flu and general

[CallingAllAngels]

Nov 11, 2022 9:13:27 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Do we know if we're seeing a lot of the flu cases in people who were vaccinated? I'm wondering if the shot we got is effective against this strain.

Anecdote, but I tested positive for flu A about 2 weeks after I got the flu shot.  I was so sick - fever for 10 days and couldn't get out of bed for 5 of those days. Tested negative for covid and strep.  

[fancynewbeesly]

Nov 11, 2022 9:13:27 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Do we know if we're seeing a lot of the flu cases in people who were vaccinated? I'm wondering if the shot we got is effective against this strain.

It's going to be a long winter. Hopefully the extended school closures near Thanksgiving will help and not hurt the positive rates.

One of my best friends got her flu shot and had a bad case
Of the flu a few weeks later. She was out of commission for almost a week. The flu is super bad here.

[waverly]

We didn't get the shot in time before we got flu. I was waiting for our new insurance to start Nov 1, and we got the flu the last week in October.

[breezy8407]

I'm sorry for everyone dealing with sickness.

I am anxiously awaiting it to hit our house. DS said half his class was out sick today. It sounds like its mostly influenza.

[seeyalater52]

www.reuters.com/world/us/us-will-renew-covid-19-public-health-emergency-january-2022-11-11/

Public health emergency extended. This is great news - as early as last week we heard in closed door meetings with HHS officials that they would announce the end this week (would have ended mid-Jan) and I’m guessing the decision was primarily motivated by the overwhelm in pediatric (and increasingly all) hospital systems right now with multiple serious viruses hitting people really hard this year.

[heygrey]

DS woke up with a nasty, barking cough. He's been sick so rarely in his 8 years, but it looks like our luck is running out.

I'm bummed because we were finally feeling distanced enough from Covid that we could meet our friend's new baby, but that will have to wait again.

[erbear]

My 13 year old is on day 2 of a really high fever (103.5 this morning). She has a little cough, sore throat, headache and is sleeping a lot. I’m wavering about whether I need to call the doctor.

[Poppy]

Nov 11, 2022 7:53:25 GMT -5 abs said:

I cannot recall ever seeing purple on the flu map before. Holy yikes.

www.cdc.gov/flu/weekly/usmap.htm

DD said half her ELA class was out yesterday. Sure hope this peaks soon. I feel so bad for all the kids and all the teachers dealing with being sick and the absurd make up work that follows.

Just to be clear, the page says this: "This system monitors visits for respiratory illness that includes fever plus a cough or sore throat, also referred to as ILI, not laboratory confirmed influenza and may capture patient visits due to other respiratory pathogens that cause similar symptoms." So could be RSV, flu, COVID, or even colds and the like. Definitely interesting (and worrying), but not super helpful if you are specifically wondering about flu.

[breezy8407]

Nov 11, 2022 17:42:09 GMT -5 breezy8407 said:

I'm sorry for everyone dealing with sickness.

I am anxiously awaiting it to hit our house. DS said half his class was out sick today. It sounds like its mostly influenza.

Quoting myself because DS woke up with a fever yesterday. So far its mild, 99-101 and he has a lot of congestion in his lungs. I am sure I will get it since I have been home taking care of him as H and DD are at her basketball tournament. I am sad for DS he also hasn't been sick in what feels like forever, and I am also sad I am not at DD's games. 

I haven't given him a covid test yet, but I might today. It sounds like what is going around school is influenza. 

[kath16]

i read an interesting article about how for the youngest kids, a lot of this is a result of not having exposure to as much during the pandemic. CHOP was heavily involved, which I think is why it showed up on my feed. i'll dig to see if i can find it again


ETA
www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/101360

[curbsideprophet]

Nov 14, 2022 7:58:05 GMT -5 kath16 said:

i read an interesting article about how for the youngest kids, a lot of this is a result of not having exposure to as much during the pandemic. CHOP was heavily involved, which I think is why it showed up on my feed. i'll dig to see if i can find it again


ETA
www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/101360

Links to sources in the thread.

The population level version of "immunity debt" (a term only used since 2021) isn't nonsensical like the individual level version is, but it is pretty clearly not consistent with how immunity to RSV and flu work, nor with epidemiological data from the past several years. 🧵

[kath16]

Nov 14, 2022 8:42:27 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

Nov 14, 2022 7:58:05 GMT -5 kath16 said:

i read an interesting article about how for the youngest kids, a lot of this is a result of not having exposure to as much during the pandemic. CHOP was heavily involved, which I think is why it showed up on my feed. i'll dig to see if i can find it again


ETA
www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/101360

Links to sources in the thread.

The population level version of "immunity debt" (a term only used since 2021) isn't nonsensical like the individual level version is, but it is pretty clearly not consistent with how immunity to RSV and flu work, nor with epidemiological data from the past several years. 🧵

thank you - i am (obviously!) a layman and was interested. it's an interesting topic, thank you for sharing this

[eddy]

My poor sister and her fam have gotten rocked with illness. In mid-Oct she got covid from a business trip. She had not gotten her booster yet. Add in a couple more illnesses for my 2-year old nephew and they hadn't had a chance to get flu shots. Now they all have influenza A, ugh. My BIL has escaped it all but he had gotten both shots due to an international trip. So I guess that is an N of 1 that the shots are holding up well. FYI, she said influenza was WAY worse then covid. It really knocked her down. Could be because she had been mildly sick with covid earlier.  Kids just had general cruddy symptoms.

H had covid last week due to our Disney trip. His symptoms were really mild but he just lost taste and smell on day 5. We didn't do anything at home to prevent spread. It just makes it more stressful and miserable.  All of us have stayed healthy thankfully. We all got our boosters between 8 weeks ago (H) and 3 weeks ago (oldest son.)

[Velar Fricative]

In my IRL experience, it seems like covid isn't spreading at home (or in otherwise close quarters) from people who've had boosters (even the old ones). So while the boosters don't guarantee you won't get infected, they seem to really be great at reducing transmission even if you don't isolate within the house or wear a mask. I'd be curious to see if there are studies showing this too. Maybe there are and I've missed them.

[StrawberryBlondie]

IDK what this is but I'm on day 4 of a random wet cough. Just the cough. I feel completely fine just once or twice an hour I I go cough up some gunk.

It's weird.

[pixy0stix]

Nov 14, 2022 9:33:10 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

In my IRL experience, it seems like covid isn't spreading at home (or in otherwise close quarters) from people who've had boosters (even the old ones). So while the boosters don't guarantee you won't get infected, they seem to really be great at reducing transmission even if you don't isolate within the house or wear a mask. I'd be curious to see if there are studies showing this too. Maybe there are and I've missed them.

When I got covid I had one booster. I gave it to DH who had one booster, and not the kid who had *just* received his second dose of the vaccine.

Then the kid got covid, but didn't give it to us that we know of. I'd gotten the omicron booster and didn't get it. DH didn't get it and hadn't gotten the omicron booster at that point.

So... who knows.

[seeyalater52]

Nov 14, 2022 8:42:27 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

Nov 14, 2022 7:58:05 GMT -5 kath16 said:

i read an interesting article about how for the youngest kids, a lot of this is a result of not having exposure to as much during the pandemic. CHOP was heavily involved, which I think is why it showed up on my feed. i'll dig to see if i can find it again


ETA
www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/101360

Links to sources in the thread.

The population level version of "immunity debt" (a term only used since 2021) isn't nonsensical like the individual level version is, but it is pretty clearly not consistent with how immunity to RSV and flu work, nor with epidemiological data from the past several years. 🧵

I was going to say the same. The concept of “immunity debt” as it is currently being used is a real misrepresentation. It also ignores several important factors, including that the areas hit hard are not necessarily the areas where children were shielded after a very very brief time in 2020, which means most kids actually had fairly normal immune inputs (like the southeast, where masking and other precautions weren’t prevalent.) Plus a lot of these kids were born after most precautions were lifted AND viruses seem to be hitting kids harder than they have in previous years even absent the number of infections (more kids hospitalized) which is unusual. Flu, RSV, and Covid all don’t confer sterilizing immunity post infection, especially year to year so having been infected in prior years wouldn’t really have any impact on either contracting those viruses now or the severity of the response. It’s a weird as fuck theory from multiple angles.

[msmerymac]

Our surrogate is being induced on Thursday. Her younger son got COVID last weekend. Then, just as he was recovering, her two other kids tested positive on Saturday. 

[seeyalater52]

Nov 14, 2022 10:55:15 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Our surrogate is being induced on Thursday. Her younger son got COVID last weekend. Then, just as he was recovering, her two other kids tested positive on Saturday. 

That is so stressful I’m sorry. Sending you all lots of warm fuzzy thoughts. ❤️

[Velar Fricative]

Nov 14, 2022 10:55:15 GMT -5 msmerymac said:

Our surrogate is being induced on Thursday. Her younger son got COVID last weekend. Then, just as he was recovering, her two other kids tested positive on Saturday. 

I want to like this because OMG BABY TIME!!! but how stressful.

[kath16]

Nov 14, 2022 10:14:58 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

Nov 14, 2022 8:42:27 GMT -5 curbsideprophet said:

Links to sources in the thread.

The population level version of "immunity debt" (a term only used since 2021) isn't nonsensical like the individual level version is, but it is pretty clearly not consistent with how immunity to RSV and flu work, nor with epidemiological data from the past several years. 🧵

I was going to say the same. The concept of “immunity debt” as it is currently being used is a real misrepresentation. It also ignores several important factors, including that the areas hit hard are not necessarily the areas where children were shielded after a very very brief time in 2020, which means most kids actually had fairly normal immune inputs (like the southeast, where masking and other precautions weren’t prevalent.) Plus a lot of these kids were born after most precautions were lifted AND viruses seem to be hitting kids harder than they have in previous years even absent the number of infections (more kids hospitalized) which is unusual. Flu, RSV, and Covid all don’t confer sterilizing immunity post infection, especially year to year so having been infected in prior years wouldn’t really have any impact on either contracting those viruses now or the severity of the response. It’s a weird as fuck theory from multiple angles.

i promise i am asking genuinely - is the source i cited garbage? it seemed legit, and had what i assumed were experts at CHOP involved. but it came up in an algorithm for me (i didn't seek it out) so i am more than willing to admit if it's crap.

[Bad Dingo]

From what I am seeing, there is one doctor at CHOP that is quoted in articles since 2021 discussing immunity debt.

Here are some articles that discuss other reasons that immunologists think are more likely the cause of the increased RSV hospitalizations:

- Less children were exposed so instead of staggered illnesses many are getting sick at the same time (due to decreased/virtually no mitigation efforts anymore).
- Mothers weren't exposed to RSV as much during Covid (because of mitigation measures) so they weren't able to pass immunity to their babies.
- Covid acquired immunodeficiency. 

www.infectioncontroltoday.com/view/respiratory-spread-flawed-concept-immunological-debt-new-understanding

www.mcgill.ca/oss/article/covid-19-medical-critical-thinking/claims-immunity-debt-children-owe-us-evidence

[seeyalater52]

Nov 14, 2022 14:01:37 GMT -5 kath16 said:

Nov 14, 2022 10:14:58 GMT -5 seeyalater52 said:

I was going to say the same. The concept of “immunity debt” as it is currently being used is a real misrepresentation. It also ignores several important factors, including that the areas hit hard are not necessarily the areas where children were shielded after a very very brief time in 2020, which means most kids actually had fairly normal immune inputs (like the southeast, where masking and other precautions weren’t prevalent.) Plus a lot of these kids were born after most precautions were lifted AND viruses seem to be hitting kids harder than they have in previous years even absent the number of infections (more kids hospitalized) which is unusual. Flu, RSV, and Covid all don’t confer sterilizing immunity post infection, especially year to year so having been infected in prior years wouldn’t really have any impact on either contracting those viruses now or the severity of the response. It’s a weird as fuck theory from multiple angles.

i promise i am asking genuinely - is the source i cited garbage? it seemed legit, and had what i assumed were experts at CHOP involved. but it came up in an algorithm for me (i didn't seek it out) so i am more than willing to admit if it's crap.

It’s just very circular since the term in this context was used by a CHOP doctor last year and then got repeated by people who are non experts. Plus in the article you cited it is really only the administrator using the term, not a subject matter expert. No one can say definitively exactly what is happening here but as a hypothesis it doesn’t adequately address a lot of key aspects of what is going on and there isn’t any real evidence to support it. It is gaining traction now because it is being pushed by a few talking heads who have consistently criticized covid mitigations and seems to feed a narrative the media loves: that covid lockdowns were terrible for kids in various ways, most of which have no or very scant data to support them.

[TR]

Nov 11, 2022 10:13:55 GMT -5 TR said:

Nov 11, 2022 9:13:27 GMT -5 icedcoffee said:

Do we know if we're seeing a lot of the flu cases in people who were vaccinated? I'm wondering if the shot we got is effective against this strain.

It's going to be a long winter. Hopefully the extended school closures near Thanksgiving will help and not hurt the positive rates.

This is not going to be super helpful because I can't remember where I saw it, but I did see something that this year's vaccine was a pretty good match.

ETA: lol I do NOT recommend searching Twitter for "flu vaccine" to try and find the answer. Holy yikes.

icedcoffee - I have a source! Laurel Bristow’s IG story lol fwiw

[neverfstop]

Nov 14, 2022 9:33:10 GMT -5 Velar Fricative said:

In my IRL experience, it seems like covid isn't spreading at home (or in otherwise close quarters) from people who've had boosters (even the old ones). So while the boosters don't guarantee you won't get infected, they seem to really be great at reducing transmission even if you don't isolate within the house or wear a mask. I'd be curious to see if there are studies showing this too. Maybe there are and I've missed them.

I'll offer myself up as a counter point....DH has NOT had recent booster, picked up COVID probably about 2 weeks ago (likely while traveling), started feeling off on Friday but he feels that way about 50% of the time & assumed it was fatigue/allergies/travel.  DD was coughing Friday/Saturday- just very hoarse, dry cough.  He tested positive Sunday morning.  We all tested negative, he masked in teh house, we slept in separate rooms, I took 2 pharmacy rapid NAAT tests that were negative Mon & Tues, traveled away from home Wed & Thurs, still testing negative on at home rapid test.  Took DD to doctor Tuesday- no covid, strep or flu her - just a regular nasty cold/cough (no fever or any other symptoms).  I slept in another bedroom Friday & we thought we were fine by Saturday....
NOPE...I tested positive this morning, I'd had the bivariant booster when it came out. Kids are still negative & just hoping I don't give it to them... I can't believe i made it this long. I'm on a plane every single week since mid-2020, without masks the last year, go to the gym, do all the things...  Zero symptoms, I only tested b/c I was traveling to meet people & had caught my DD's cold (last week on Wed/Thursday friday...still have slight cough/congestion).

[rubytue]

So apparently Sweden is saying to keep preschool kids home if there are babies in the house because they are also getting slammed with RSV, too. And, if I recall, they were all in in keeping schools open for Covid. I’m seeing the doctors I follow talking about this as a counterpoint to the “immunity debt” stuff.

www.thelocal.se/20211105/rsv-warning-in-sweden-keep-your-children-at-home-if-they-have-baby-siblings/

[kath16]

seeyalater52 Bad Dingo - sincere thank you. I do find all of these source’s interesting so I do appreciate the discussion!

[aprilsails]

Ontario hospitals are being slammed. Our local childrens hospital has opened up a second ER/ICU.

I’ve asked DD to mask up at school and she has been for the past week.

Someone has been sick in my house at all times for the past 3 weeks. DS(3) has some horrific disease right now where his snot is coming out of his eyes. He was sick with something completely different last week. We had everyone booked for flu shots this past Friday (first chance we could get them from our local clinic) but then had to cancel because DS and DH were sick and DD was barely recovered.

My office has been decimated. At the same time that upper management was making a big push for people to return to the office more we wound up with some daycare disease going around as well as CoVID. Our entire second floor staff got sick all at once.

While I feel ok, the double whammy of dealing with sick family members while also trying to keep shit afloat at work is murder. I’m going to crash and burn hard in the near future. I can tell.

[formerlyak]

I feel anxious like when Covid started again. We haven’t had Covid yet, despite many close contact exposures. We test like mad after exposure because my dad was battling cancer and we didn’t want to bring Covid to him. The younger one had a cold about a month ago, but only missed one day of school. The teen has a cold now, but is on the mend. Yesterday was his worst day and, luckily, it was the only Monday he wasn’t scheduled to work after school since he started working so he got to go to bed early. DH and I have had some mild variety of the cold, but nothing bad at all. The teen even has littles who go to preschool at his dad’s house and that whole household got Covid and DS hasn’t had any of it until the current cold.

I a total negative Nelly these days, and assume Thanksgiving week will be when we all get hit with the crap.

[Velar Fricative]

Nov 15, 2022 9:04:02 GMT -5 formerlyak said:

I feel anxious like when Covid started again. We haven’t had Covid yet, despite many close contact exposures. We test like mad after exposure because my dad was battling cancer and we didn’t want to bring Covid to him. The younger one had a cold about a month ago, but only missed one day of school. The teen has a cold now, but is on the mend. Yesterday was his worst day and, luckily, it was the only Monday he wasn’t scheduled to work after school since he started working so he got to go to bed early. DH and I have had some mild variety of the cold, but nothing bad at all. The teen even has littles who go to preschool at his dad’s house and that whole household got Covid and DS hasn’t had any of it until the current cold.

I a total negative Nelly these days, and assume Thanksgiving week will be when we all get hit with the crap.

Most of us have had covid before, but we are also hosting Thanksgiving dinner for the extended family and I am so nervous one of us will come down with covid (or the flu, or something else) that week. Then we'll just buy everyone Boston Market to have delivered to their houses lol.