How things are going in your area?

[strawhat]

A bit of the plague-drama with the nephews.

 

Elder Nephew had a close friend that caught the crud.  Luckily, Elder Nephew tested negative and hasn't had any symptoms.

 

Younger Nephew had started feeling a little under the weather (scratchy throat, etc.) after one of his friends tested positive, but was generally fine.  He tested positive.  My brother and sister-in-law have (so far) tested negative.  Pa Strawhat, who was having YN show teach him new things about his phone prior to YN showing symptoms, is still feeling fine.

 

All vaxed and boostered (thank goodness).

[Cyradis]

4 hours ago, Cranky Dog said:

Probably the only "positive" of the Omicron variant is that despite it's incredibly high levels of contagion, the number of deaths has not noticeably increased, essentially flat. So it really is far less deadly.

 

Still sucks that we're all much likelier to catch it now. It still sucks to be sick. And we have little idea about long term effects, or how long until any of it ends appreciatively enough to return to normal life. Despite all the goodwill many of us are still willing to give, society as a whole is pretty tired of it.

 

Not sure where you saw that the death rate is flat. Pretty much everywhere except for the UK (unknown reason) has an increase in deaths correlating to omicron. Less deaths/infections, but so many infections mean more deaths.

 

A friend in CO's toddler tested positive for plague (they test him regularly just in general). No symptoms. His wife, the mother also tested positives (very mild symptoms). Despite toddler sneezing in friend's mouth, and sleeping with his wife.... he's consistently tested negative. Fortitude saves like a champ.

[Cranky Dog]

27 minutes ago, Cyradis said:

 

Not sure where you saw that the death rate is flat. Pretty much everywhere except for the UK (unknown reason) has an increase in deaths correlating to omicron. Less deaths/infections, but so many infections mean more deaths.

I've been following the numbers and general trends for nearly two years on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus. Assuming the numbers are properly reported, with the explosion of Omicron cases, globally we're not seeing the same explosion in total deaths.

 

Maybe I'm too optimistic considering that it can take weeks for someone to pass away from Covid, so the numbers of death may be offset. I'm just hoping it is better.

[Cyradis]

I've been using https://outworldindata.org/covid-deaths. Get nice graphs. Subject to discrepancies depending on how countries report data, but a darn good compilation of data nonetheless. I guess the UK actually is up, but starting to stabilize. Germany is down. But Canada is up. US creeping up (never really got out of Delta deaths, so there is more overlap), France is up.

 

The death rate is not as explosive as for other waves, nor is the hospitalization rate/infection, at least by comparison, thank friggin' goodness. Still a LOT of infections, so a lot are going to the hospital just by sheer number. The rate of incidental hospitalizations is harder to measure but is apparently pretty high too. Asymptomatic for covid issues, but someone goes in for something like appendicitis or getting their tonsils removed or broken bones or "whoops how'd that get stuffed in an orifice" .... then tests positive in screening. They have to go to a covid ward to prevent cross-infecting other patients, putting more burden on system even if it isn't directly needing covid treatment.

[Chaoswolf]

...and now my wife has Covid. It was probably kind of inevitable, since she works in a pharmacy, but I was still hoping we'd dodge that bullet. We're both fully vaxxed, so she's mostly just really tired and super sniffly; hopefully it won't progress beyond that. 

So far, I feel fine.

[Cyradis]

May you continue to roll Nat 20s on your fortitude saves, Chaoswolf. If it amounts to being tired and shniffly, that's not the worst that could happen at least. Still would be great to avoid that if you can!

 

[Corsair]

@Chaoswolf praying for you guys here

[Chaoswolf]

Much appreciated.