am doing a bit of reading on cytokine storms, it’s a fascinating read on the immune system and how it’s reactions are playing a part in all this. .
We hit peak testing capacity well below the nominal limit of 100k per day, I don’t think it has actually reached more than 80k/day. A lot of that is regional, apparently, or was - but now PCR tests are simply restricted to high-risk and essential worker populations. Rapid tests have largely been exhausted outside health care. The instruction for the general population is to assume you have Omicron if you have cold/flu symptoms. So it is not the data fuckery you are seeing in FL, but we are damn close to flying blind now with the management metric being the state of the health care system.
The outrageous thing is the Science Advisory Table predicted exactly this scenario on December 16, in a public presentation, including a scenario showing that it would still be bad in January if measures were taken on that day. The measures enacted on December 19 were just hand-waving. Hell, the IDEA model I did on November 25 based on the SA reports showed we would be in crisis by the end of the year. Omicron is too contagious to have been stopped, but the current crisis we are in was preventable in its present form.
I have tried the same, but I just don’t have the background in life sciences to really get much traction. The macro picture is much more intelligible and predictable to me.
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The inflammatory response is a component of the larger immune system. The same response that makes your ankle swell when you go over on it are the same thing that causes symptoms like congestion, mucus, and headaches, when you feel sick after getting an infection*. This is the result of the production of inflammatory molecules called cytokines that will respond to mechanical tissue trauma or the call of the immune system in response to identifying a foreign body. They’re also the same thing that make you feel shitty in an allergic response.
It is sometimes the case that some infections will promote an excess inflammatory response beyond that which is needed to fight the infection. This then ramps up to such a degree that this response becomes the health challenge rather than the infection itself. Sometimes acutely (such as blood coagulation leading to heart attack and strokes), but sometimes in producing permanent tissue damage. This is typically referred to as a cytokine storm (cytokines being inflammatory molecules generated by the response). This is why we sometimes see anti-inflammatory steroids given as treatment, which is something that we see has some utility for Covid.
As this is a response of an actually well functioning immune system, when we have diseases that cause this we tend to see hospitalizations and death in different age groups than we see for normal flu. It is still unclear how much of a role this is playing in covid, but obviously at least a small degree given the utility of dexamethasone. It is also likely the cause of long covid, and so the challenge is figuring out the variability in response among the infected populations. But this is the case with cytokine storms in general. We understand what they are and how to treat them. There is just isnt very good understanding of why some diseases generate them, and only in some patients (outside of it generally being seen in the young and healthy).
*This is largely why asymptomatic infection was so common in the earlier waves. This was not a reflection of a strong immune system able to fight it off without issue, but of an immune system that was blind to it and so barely registered any sort of inflammatory response.
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There’s been a sharp but small upturn in UK death figures over the last day or so but also a very slight hint in a slowing of the case numbers.
Still far too easy to judge anything but there are possible trend changes about to occur
Pretty sure I’ve just had it, or still have it I suppose. Was fine, went to the shops in the morning to get some eggs, breakfast already being prepared at home. Got home and appetite was gone completely and just looking around was like trying to forward a YouTube video and buffering, pretty nasty headache but no other symptoms. Had a nap, got up to watch the game with very much the same symptoms except with a rapid fever developing and feeling pretty chilly. Just about made it through the game then went straight back to bed feeling damn cold but with by now a definite fever. Fever dreams, gee whizz, and I am pretty sure I was borderline delirious at a point because I kept wanting to wake my wife up to tell her we’re behind on the pass and customers were waiting for their food (we’ve been binge watching Masterchef, lol).
Anyway, a looooong Sunday night passed, fever had broken by morning and midday I slept off a bit and by mid afternoon it was almost like it never happened. The wife had similar symptoms of a very milder version on New Years Eve and Day, she works in an office and I from home. We haven’t been tested since aside from the trip that morning we have not been anywhere or in contact with anyone, kids are fine and no issues so we’ve stayed put rather than pay a pretty steep amount for a test privately or brave a long wait at government facility which seems silly when we’re both 100% in next to no time.
So… yeah.
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The trends are messed up by the Christmas reporting period. The numbers lagged considerably. I’d say that deaths might actually be trending downwards again but we really need at least another week’s data to be sure.
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Very possible but for clarity I ignored the dip and assumed an up kick from the start of the shaded area on the graphic you’ve posted. For me I tend to look for trends rather than actual numbers and I agree we need to see what happens over the next day, maybe few days before jumping in one direction or the other.
Damn that made me laugh…
One of the things that hit me today is that it’s entirely likely I’ve been coinfected at some point over the past 2 weeks and not known it.
Ive been sick with something starting in early Dec that I confirmed was not covid. But even now it’s not really cleared with some shitty chest/lung stuff remaining. My symptoms go up and down while all around me people are coming down with covid, but I’ve continued to put my ongoing symptoms down tot he initial non-covid illness. I decided to use my last at home test to test again after an outbreak occurred at an event I was at and that was negative, but there have been a further 2 weeks since then. I now have no more at home tests, but even if I did, what is the right approach to continuing to confirm that my residual symptoms are not in fact caused by a new infection of covid?
I’ve had about three illness this year that, at the time, made me think ‘this must be covid’, but the LFTs say nay.
I still think I’ve had it but, I suppose we’ll never know.
Check out India. No omicron wave yet. Imagine what that will look like.
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had a cold since Dec 23rd evening that hasn’t gone away. no fever to speak of or anything.
I’m wondering if a particular vaccination limits the severity of the illness but at the same time doesn’t allow the virus to produce markers in the body which will identify the virus on the test?
I’m no doctor, but I find it awfully strange that after a whole year of zero influenza (2020-21) that we’re having a near record cold/flu season?
I bet the tinfoil hat brigade comes up with some conspiracy theory how the drug companies have re-introduced life flu virus back into society to start selling cold/flu medicine again. LOL
Isn’t it because our covid measures (masks, isolation, lockdowns etc) have also shielded us from colds for about two years and our natural immunity has waned?
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I had a cold earlier in December that was exactly like that. Wasn’t bad after a day, but just would not go away. During that time I must have had at least 5 rapid tests.
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I’m guessing that if nobody is reporting the flu then no records are being kept
To only have 55 cases of influenza reported in the whole country over a week period…
I think there is an element of that, plus the effect of still extensive use of masks and sanitization.
The average Indian has an immune system that knows no fear
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Omicron cannot kill a Vindaloo?
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