I wonder how under-reported mild breakthrough cases are, due to self testing?
I'm fully vaccinated and boosted, and I had what I suspect is Omicron about 10 days ago. I had a mild fever (approaching, but not reaching 101), a sore throat, sneezing and nasal congestion for 3-4 days, and I tested positive with an over the counter rapid test. Overall, it was like a very minor cold. My girlfriend also tested positive, and she had no symptoms at all.
I never got any "official" test (I didn't want to put additional strain on the health care system), so my case was not counted in any official stats. If I hadn't tested positive, my girlfriend would not have even tested, and her case would have been totally unknown.
The number --- 871 cases per day per 100,000 unvax'd, for the week preceding 1/10-- is an amazing rate (7 day average). It tells us that 6.1% of the unvaxxed population became a case during a 1 week period. This doesn't count people who were infected and did not test or did not test in a way that got reported.
Your point about whether mild infections are slipping through is interesting. Probably the vaccinated have more paucisymptomatic infections. The unvaccinated and vaccinated probably test at different rates (which way? required workplace testing of unvaxxed vs. unvaxxed more likely to be deniers who don't want to test). Etc. So there's some confounds here, for sure. But boy that 871 per 100k number is fascinating.
Without reinfection (which we don't suspect is likely for Omicron-following-Omicron), it certainly can't stay at 6% of the population per week for long. I doubt they have spotted more than a third of infections.
A quick warning: be wary of that computation because of how it's likely made, and it's worse than higher the vaccination rate gets.
The sources section says:
> Sources: California Reportable Disease Information Exchange; California Department of Public Health, California Immunization Registry; the U.S. Census Bureau, 2015-2019 American Community Survey 5-Year Estimates.
So the the numerator (number of cases) from the reportable disease database and/or department of health data (which probably includes vaccination status, or alternatively is matched against the registry). The denominator for the rate amongst the total population is the population estimate from the census bureau. The denominator for the rate amongst vaccinated comes from the immunization registry.
The rate against the unvaccinated? There is no count of them, so instead you subtract the number vaccinated from the population. The problem is that both of those are estimates, and as they get closer the error on that denominator goes through the roof. So the rate amongst the unvaccinated becomes meaningless.
As an example, take a hypothetical place with around 100 people. Might actually be anywhere from 98–102, that is ±2%. If you've got a very high vaccination rate (yeah!), say there are 96 people on the immunization registry. You could have anywhere from 2 to 6 people unvaccinated. You'd report 4, but the error is now ±50%, which is huge. And when you use that as the denominator, you get very different answers. (OTOH, of half the village was unvaccinated, 50±4% is a much smaller error!)
Yes, this is a good point. On the other hand, while S.C.C. has a high vaccination rate, it's not high enough that a small population uncertainty makes such a huge difference.
Here in Ontario Canada, the official government guidance is to not get tested if you have a mild case, due to a province-wide shortage of PCR tests [1]. Several friends have likely contracted COVID in the past 2 weeks (38-39 degree fever for 2-4 days with some coughing). Nothing serious enough to go to the hospital, but enough to take some time off work. All their cases are also unreported.
I have heard of people hoarding tests (I’m in the US) and regularly testing even with no symptoms, I honestly don’t understand that. I imagine these are the same types of folks who double mask when they are driving alone.
Is it really important to report mild cases determined by self testing? Frankly if I have the sniffles due to a cold, allergies, or even covid…I simply don’t see why the government needs to know. If I am not utilizing health care resources and self isolating, its nobody’s damned business but my own.
It’s useful for virologists and policy makers to understand the transmission rate of COVID and its accompanying variants since it’s a novel virus.
If unreported cases are 10-50x reported cases, then the hospitalization and death rates become minuscule. And then it means we might actually be closer to natural herd immunity.
Point taken about balancing this with a right to privacy though and I think that’s why no one is seriously pushing for reporting at that level and why it is optional to report your at home test results. The use case of contact tracing is long gone.
But, there are many valid, non-authoritarian reasons for wanting data as granular as possible with a new virus.
hundreds of thousands in NYC alone. I'm one of them too, similar situation to your gf. Triple vaxed, was asymptomatic but got positive home tests across different brands. Was unable to get a PCR test, so I didn't get in the official numbers.
I agree. However I am fed up with the cdc, youtube, facebook and others trying to control the narrative in any way they can. For instance not considering past infection as equal to a vaccination. Follow the science or don’t but do whatever truthfully. The next time when the cdc needs us to have faith in their recommendations we won’t have. This shouldn’t even be fathomable but here we are.
> For instance not considering past infection as equal to a vaccination
The CDC has published data on this multiple times... Vaccination seems to be more protective than a past infection. A past infection is approximately equal to a single dose of a two-dose vaccine.
e.g. CDC MMWR August 2021, https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7032e1.htm "These findings suggest that among persons with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection, full vaccination provides additional protection against reinfection. To reduce their risk of infection, all eligible persons should be offered vaccination, even if they have been previously infected with SARS-CoV-2."
The linked study does NOT say that past infection is less protective than two vaccine doses. It says that getting vaccinated in addition to having a past infection provides additional protection. It says nothing about the protection provided by past infection only versus two doses without past infection.
Just looked at the press release and there doesn’t appear to be any misrepresentation involved. The press release clearly talks about the benefits of vaccination even after a previous COVID-19 infection, just as the study did.
CDC credibility seems intact here, but online anti vaxxer credibility continues to decline…
The title of the press release is "New CDC Study: Vaccination Offers Higher Protection than Previous COVID-19 Infection". That is false. The first paragraph of the release says "These data further indicate that COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone". That is false.
Seems like you stopped reading . The full sentence you quote is “These data further indicate that COVID-19 vaccines offer better protection than natural immunity alone and that vaccines, even after prior infection, help prevent reinfections.”
Reinfections is the key word here indicating the study is about reinfections. You’re assuming it’s about initial infections. If they didn’t repeatedly say the word “reinfections” in the press release, you might have a point, but the reality is the CDC summary is accurate, as is the headline message that people will get stronger protection if they get vaccinated.
If someone says "X and Y", and X is false, then what they say is false.
You're arguing that someone who already knows what the study says can re-interpret the statements in the press release as being true, by adding a few additional qualifiers like "among the already infected" here and there, on the assumption that they were just omitted for brevity. But the intended reader, who doesn't already know what the study really says, will read the statements as written, and will receive a false communication.
The “only 1% will die” argument, sure I remember that one from early days.
But hospitals are currently overwhelmed with mostly voluntarily unvaccinated people. My advice is don’t break your arm or get in a car accident or have a heart attack right now - it could be lethal because health care resources are at a breaking point (in the US).
I am under the impression that many hospitals are overwhelmed because they have a lack of nurses, not a lack of rooms.
lacking nurses because they were already sparsely hired in efforts to maximize profits over patient comfort pre-pandemic,
of those that were working the field; many have left their job to make 5 times more money as a traveling nurse elsewhere (?) - many have left the job because they find it too stressful for the benefits it offers them - and many are out sick.
Does anyone think that hospitals are going to raise what they pay nurses now? are we going to invest in nursing in ways that gets lots more to choose it as a career path because X and Y things are going to be so much greater for them in the future?
I'm not holding my breathe that hospitals are going to change the pay rate for the most missed resource, or that they will hire twice as many as they've had in the past.. and that the future of nursing is going to be any better - so we better hope that treatment pills become a thing.
I don't think this is as widespread as people believe. Certain locales tend to be overwhelmed at any given time, but I don't think that's the case for the majority of hospitals in the country. Unfortunately I don't have any statistics.
>But hospitals are currently overwhelmed with mostly voluntarily unvaccinated people
This has been the narrative for a while now, but as vaccination rates increase the ratio of vaccinated:unvaccinated hospitalized patients is approaching and surpassing parity. And some not so recent government data from the UK[0] (I haven't seen any media report on it) suggests that for a number of age ranges, vaccinated individuals have a similar death rate per person-year, i.e. vaccines are not doing nearly as much as claimed. This data is pre omicron.
Check the death statistics instead of headlines and you'll see it truly is a novel situation - no previous year saw as many Americans die as 2020 and 2021. And excess deaths correspond closely to regions that saw high reported COVID-19 deaths, indicating "COVID-19 deaths" are people who would not have died had they not been infected with and killed by COVID-19.
2022 death rates are still high, nearing 2000 people killed by COVID-19 daily. We can hope that due to the death toll hitting mostly the unvaccinated, plus omicron being a somewhat milder than Delta, we won't possibly be able to hit the same high death rates all year long.
I think activating “crisis standards of care” is a bit more substantial and worrying than any previous claims of being simply “overwhelmed” which could be subjective. This is what we are seeing here in the US.
I'm fully vaccinated and boosted, and I had what I suspect is Omicron about 10 days ago. I had a mild fever (approaching, but not reaching 101), a sore throat, sneezing and nasal congestion for 3-4 days, and I tested positive with an over the counter rapid test. Overall, it was like a very minor cold. My girlfriend also tested positive, and she had no symptoms at all.
I never got any "official" test (I didn't want to put additional strain on the health care system), so my case was not counted in any official stats. If I hadn't tested positive, my girlfriend would not have even tested, and her case would have been totally unknown.