Coronavirus

[Hoosier]

Something I was thinking about... would there be a problem if somebody is unknowingly carrying covid while they get the vaccine?  Like, would it improve, worsen, or have no effect on their course of covid?  It's bound to happen at least on an isolated basis.  

How about somebody who gets the vaccine, then feels like crap and attributes it to the vaccine but it's really covid?  That would really take some perfect timing though.

[dan11295]

California Hospitalizations: 13,960 (+550) LA County: 4,203 (+206)

 

[StormfanaticInd]

Tennessee with over 11k cases

[StormfanaticInd]

6 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

California Hospitalizations: 13,960 (+550) LA County: 4,203 (+206)

 

California is going to be ground zero. 

[Wmsptwx]

It’s getting pretty bad in new places again.

[nwohweather]

Good news! Came in close contact with a friend that had covid and got tested. I do not have it but did test positive in the antigen test. Turns out in December in Las Vegas the illness I did catch was indeed the coronavirus

[dan11295]

7 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Good news! Came in close contact with a friend that had covid and got tested. I do not have it but did test positive in the antigen test. Turns out in December in Las Vegas the illness I did catch was indeed the coronavirus

Last December?

[nwohweather]

Just now, dan11295 said:

Last December?

Yeah. Last year me and my dad were hit with a terrible cough and had bronchitis. Both missed 4 days of work and both my boss and a coworker got it as well and missed time. 

[dan11295]

19 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Yeah. Last year me and my dad were hit with a terrible cough and had bronchitis. Both missed 4 days of work and both my boss and a coworker got it as well and missed time. 

There have been reports of it in circulation in Italy and Iran back in December 2019 as well. It seems that the virus was in circulation in some form in many areas even prior to first reports in late December 2019 from Wuhan. Strongly suggests the wet market was just the first major outbreak location as opposed to the source of the virus. Guess for whatever reason those earlier introductions did not trigger major epidemics. Studies have shown that superspreader events are much more important for transmission of Covid compared to influenza.

https://www.news-medical.net/news/20201211/Data-confirms-early-cases-of-SARS-CoV-2-in-Boston-area.aspx

Here locally there were multiple introductions of the virus into the region, including a college student in late January 2020, but those did not result in large amounts of transmission. Of course the Biogen Conference was the major trigger event in this area (and was shown to have have major impacts not just here but nationally and internationally).

 

 

[KokomoWX]

19 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Yeah. Last year me and my dad were hit with a terrible cough and had bronchitis. Both missed 4 days of work and both my boss and a coworker got it as well and missed time. 

I caught something mid December last year which knock me down harder than I had experienced in the past.  I was off work for an entire week and then spent most of the two weeks over winter break down.  (I work at a school.)  I had a cough that last into summer and couldn't be diagnosed.  Several rounds of antibiotics and steroids and it finally went away on it's own.  I still think it was COVID.  I did several winter commencements at colleges and was interacting with both students in close contacts and their families from all over the world the days before catching whatever I had.  

[StormfanaticInd]

44 minutes ago, Wmsptwx said:

It’s getting pretty bad in new places again.

Yes it is.

[StormfanaticInd]

Data suggests hundreds of Hoosiers infected with coronavirus more than once

Data suggests about 400 Hoosiers who contracted the virus were re-infected months later.

 

Author: Bob Segall

Published: 8:00 PM EST December 10, 2020

Updated: 11:38 PM EST December 10, 2020

 

INDIANAPOLIS — New statewide data obtained by 13News shows, for the first time, how many Hoosiers appear to have contracted COVID-19 multiple times.

The analysis shows about 1-in-1000 Hoosiers who tested positive for the virus received a second positive result during separate testing that took place more than 90 days later. Based on the current number of individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Indiana, the data suggests about 400 Hoosiers who contracted the virus were re-infected months later.

“We’ve known for a while that’s it’s possible to get the virus more than once. What we didn’t know is if you get COVID-19, how likely are you to get it again,” said Dr. Shaun Grannis, who oversees data and analytics at the Regenstrief Institute, a research institute that collects and closely monitors health care data in Indiana. “The data suggests that it is in fact possible, although it is rare.”

The COVID-19 re-infection data from Indiana provides doctors, researchers and the public a rare glimpse at a statistic rarely tracked and reported. Health care experts say the challenge now is to determine what the data means – and what it does not mean -- for public health during a pandemic that shows no signs of ending soon.

Numbers considered encouraging

Researchers at the Regenstrief Institute have been collecting detailed COVID-19 data from hundreds of health care partners across Indiana since the beginning of the pandemic. The data – including the total number of coronavirus cases and deaths, localized positivity rates, and detailed hospitalization and medical resource availability information – is analyzed daily and reported publicly on the institute’s COVID-19 dashboard.

Currently, data collected by Regenstrief and the Indiana State Department of Health shows more than 2 million individual Hoosiers have been tested for coronavirus, resulting in more than 400,000 positive cases.

Last month, at the request of 13News, Regenstrief staff began to closely analyze its re-infection data to answer the questions: Can someone be infected with coronavirus multiple times and, if so, how many Indiana residents have contracted COVID-19 more than once.

 For researchers, it meant analyzing hundreds of thousands of positive test results dating back to March. Grannis says only PCR test were included in the analysis (not the less-reliable “rapid” COVID-19 tests that are more susceptible to providing a “false positive” reading), and researchers ran the analysis on two separate dates with the same results.

“We've looked for individuals who tested positive more than once at least 90 days apart,” Grannis told 13News, explaining that the passage of three months between positive test results highly suggests that a second positive result would indicate a new infection, not the detection of the original COVID-19 infection that resulted in a positive test months earlier. (The CDC also recommends using the 90-day timeframe when investigating potential cases of COVID-19 re-infection.) The Regenstrief researcher said the first analysis was performed when Indiana reported between 250,000 and 300,000 positive cases of coronavirus, revealing between 250 and 300 people who met the search criteria.

“What we found is that about 1-in-1000 cases showed evidence of two positive tests more than 90 days apart,” Grannis said. “I think these are encouraging numbers. They’re not 1-in-10 or 1-in-100. They’re at least 1-in-1000 if not greater. I hoped the numbers would be low, and I am encouraged those numbers are low.”

The numbers suggest the vast majority of people who get COVID-19 get some level of immunity to protect them from further infection. But how much immunity and for how long is still unknown, and not every researcher contacted by 13News sees the new data as reassuring.

 Re-infections still “worrying”

“The 1-in-1000 number, that's a bit higher than I would have expected,” said Dr. Justin Lessler, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where COVID-19 cases are closely tracked worldwide.  “I think it's a worrying signal in that the potential of long-term immunity is not perfect.

Lessler believes the Indiana data is valuable in helping to shed light on how frequently people are re-infected with COVID-19, but he also wants to know WHY those people are re-infected while others are not.

“Understanding the “Why?’ of this is really important,” he said. “Knowing something is going on is the first step, but without the ‘Why?’ it's really hard to know what it means.”

The Johns Hopkins researcher wants more details to know whether the second set of positive cases might have been the result of faulty testing or simply detected previous infection that was still detectable longer than expected. He also wonders what types of symptoms the patients experienced around the time of their first and second tests.

“When we’ve seen these re-infections, it’s usually been people who had mild cases and then got infected again. People who get really sick usually have a more robust immunity response, so it would be very helpful to know what happened here,” Lessler explained.

Dr. Nir Menachemi, chairman of health policy and management at the Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health, agrees.

“There are more open questions here to answer than conclusions to be drawn at this point,” Menachemi told 13News. “I think this is a new and important piece of information. Now that we know, at least in Indiana, it's 1-in-1000, to me that's a little bit reassuring. We are not seeing a ton of people become reinfected, including folks who are in high risk jobs. [But] what puts you at risk for having a second positive test? We just don't know that yet. I think the science on this is unfolding so rapidly that it’s just difficult to know, and more research is needed in this area.”

 A warning about the data

Grannis acknowledged the Regenstrief data is simply a starting point meant to help quantify the prevalence of re-infections.

“We have a lot more exploration to do with the numbers,” he said, adding that more epidemiological study will be needed to more fully understand how and why certain individuals are re-infected with COVID-19.

For that reason, he cautions against using the data to draw too many conclusions. While it might sound reassuring that only 1-in-1000 people have gotten COVID more than once, Grannis says those who have already contracted the virus should not use the new data to overestimate their immunity.

“I wouldn't necessarily use these numbers to say, ‘Well, I think I was infected, so I probably don't need the vaccine,” he said. “I wouldn't conclude that from this data at all.”

“I think that would be faulty logic to jump to that conclusion to justify bypassing a vaccine,” echoed Menachemi. “We just don’t know that yet.”

Lessler said be believes the Indiana numbers, while quite low, might actually suggest the opposite.

“I think this is a reminder that even if you think you've been infected, it's no guarantee of safety and that you can't still go out and spread it to other people,” he said. “Regardless of our infection history, it’s a reminder that we need to remain careful and vigilant."

[OSUmetstud]

49 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Good news! Came in close contact with a friend that had covid and got tested. I do not have it but did test positive in the antigen test. Turns out in December in Las Vegas the illness I did catch was indeed the coronavirus

You mean antibody test? Antigen test is for current infection. 

[Hoosier]

10 minutes ago, StormfanaticInd said:

Data suggests hundreds of Hoosiers infected with coronavirus more than once

Data suggests about 400 Hoosiers who contracted the virus were re-infected months later.

 

Author: Bob Segall

Published: 8:00 PM EST December 10, 2020

Updated: 11:38 PM EST December 10, 2020

 

INDIANAPOLIS — New statewide data obtained by 13News shows, for the first time, how many Hoosiers appear to have contracted COVID-19 multiple times.

The analysis shows about 1-in-1000 Hoosiers who tested positive for the virus received a second positive result during separate testing that took place more than 90 days later. Based on the current number of individuals who have tested positive for COVID-19 in Indiana, the data suggests about 400 Hoosiers who contracted the virus were re-infected months later.

“We’ve known for a while that’s it’s possible to get the virus more than once. What we didn’t know is if you get COVID-19, how likely are you to get it again,” said Dr. Shaun Grannis, who oversees data and analytics at the Regenstrief Institute, a research institute that collects and closely monitors health care data in Indiana. “The data suggests that it is in fact possible, although it is rare.”

The COVID-19 re-infection data from Indiana provides doctors, researchers and the public a rare glimpse at a statistic rarely tracked and reported. Health care experts say the challenge now is to determine what the data means – and what it does not mean -- for public health during a pandemic that shows no signs of ending soon.

Numbers considered encouraging

Researchers at the Regenstrief Institute have been collecting detailed COVID-19 data from hundreds of health care partners across Indiana since the beginning of the pandemic. The data – including the total number of coronavirus cases and deaths, localized positivity rates, and detailed hospitalization and medical resource availability information – is analyzed daily and reported publicly on the institute’s COVID-19 dashboard.

Currently, data collected by Regenstrief and the Indiana State Department of Health shows more than 2 million individual Hoosiers have been tested for coronavirus, resulting in more than 400,000 positive cases.

Last month, at the request of 13News, Regenstrief staff began to closely analyze its re-infection data to answer the questions: Can someone be infected with coronavirus multiple times and, if so, how many Indiana residents have contracted COVID-19 more than once.

 For researchers, it meant analyzing hundreds of thousands of positive test results dating back to March. Grannis says only PCR test were included in the analysis (not the less-reliable “rapid” COVID-19 tests that are more susceptible to providing a “false positive” reading), and researchers ran the analysis on two separate dates with the same results.

“We've looked for individuals who tested positive more than once at least 90 days apart,” Grannis told 13News, explaining that the passage of three months between positive test results highly suggests that a second positive result would indicate a new infection, not the detection of the original COVID-19 infection that resulted in a positive test months earlier. (The CDC also recommends using the 90-day timeframe when investigating potential cases of COVID-19 re-infection.) The Regenstrief researcher said the first analysis was performed when Indiana reported between 250,000 and 300,000 positive cases of coronavirus, revealing between 250 and 300 people who met the search criteria.

“What we found is that about 1-in-1000 cases showed evidence of two positive tests more than 90 days apart,” Grannis said. “I think these are encouraging numbers. They’re not 1-in-10 or 1-in-100. They’re at least 1-in-1000 if not greater. I hoped the numbers would be low, and I am encouraged those numbers are low.”

The numbers suggest the vast majority of people who get COVID-19 get some level of immunity to protect them from further infection. But how much immunity and for how long is still unknown, and not every researcher contacted by 13News sees the new data as reassuring.

 Re-infections still “worrying”

“The 1-in-1000 number, that's a bit higher than I would have expected,” said Dr. Justin Lessler, an infectious disease specialist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where COVID-19 cases are closely tracked worldwide.  “I think it's a worrying signal in that the potential of long-term immunity is not perfect.

Lessler believes the Indiana data is valuable in helping to shed light on how frequently people are re-infected with COVID-19, but he also wants to know WHY those people are re-infected while others are not.

“Understanding the “Why?’ of this is really important,” he said. “Knowing something is going on is the first step, but without the ‘Why?’ it's really hard to know what it means.”

The Johns Hopkins researcher wants more details to know whether the second set of positive cases might have been the result of faulty testing or simply detected previous infection that was still detectable longer than expected. He also wonders what types of symptoms the patients experienced around the time of their first and second tests.

“When we’ve seen these re-infections, it’s usually been people who had mild cases and then got infected again. People who get really sick usually have a more robust immunity response, so it would be very helpful to know what happened here,” Lessler explained.

Dr. Nir Menachemi, chairman of health policy and management at the Indiana University Fairbanks School of Public Health, agrees.

“There are more open questions here to answer than conclusions to be drawn at this point,” Menachemi told 13News. “I think this is a new and important piece of information. Now that we know, at least in Indiana, it's 1-in-1000, to me that's a little bit reassuring. We are not seeing a ton of people become reinfected, including folks who are in high risk jobs. [But] what puts you at risk for having a second positive test? We just don't know that yet. I think the science on this is unfolding so rapidly that it’s just difficult to know, and more research is needed in this area.”

 A warning about the data

Grannis acknowledged the Regenstrief data is simply a starting point meant to help quantify the prevalence of re-infections.

“We have a lot more exploration to do with the numbers,” he said, adding that more epidemiological study will be needed to more fully understand how and why certain individuals are re-infected with COVID-19.

For that reason, he cautions against using the data to draw too many conclusions. While it might sound reassuring that only 1-in-1000 people have gotten COVID more than once, Grannis says those who have already contracted the virus should not use the new data to overestimate their immunity.

“I wouldn't necessarily use these numbers to say, ‘Well, I think I was infected, so I probably don't need the vaccine,” he said. “I wouldn't conclude that from this data at all.”

“I think that would be faulty logic to jump to that conclusion to justify bypassing a vaccine,” echoed Menachemi. “We just don’t know that yet.”

Lessler said be believes the Indiana numbers, while quite low, might actually suggest the opposite.

“I think this is a reminder that even if you think you've been infected, it's no guarantee of safety and that you can't still go out and spread it to other people,” he said. “Regardless of our infection history, it’s a reminder that we need to remain careful and vigilant."

Holy hell on the formatting.  I fixed it the best I could.

[StormfanaticInd]

2 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Holy hell on the formatting.  I fixed it the best I could.

Don't know why it came out like that but interesting story lol. I wonder if the virus mutating has anything to do with this

[Hoosier]

Just now, StormfanaticInd said:

Don't know why it came out like that but interesting story lol

The covid reinfections or Kate Middleton?  

Yes, it is interesting.  Many of those few hundred cases probably are true reinfections but as mentioned, other explanations can't be ruled out.

[StormfanaticInd]

Even with states not reporting we broke hospitalizations records. Not a good sign.

[StormfanaticInd]

We need to shut the country down until the vaccines become widely available. Simply too many Americans sick and dying right now. Completely unacceptable for the wealthiest country in the world 

[StormfanaticInd]

Also, it appears now that herd immunity is not possible without a vaccine. 

[dan11295]

12 minutes ago, StormfanaticInd said:

We need to shut the country down until the vaccines become widely available. Simply too many Americans sick and dying right now. Completely unacceptable for the wealthiest country in the world 

Just not going to happen. Everything became too political. Plus a lot of people have kind of "checked out" over the virus and still having large social gatherings etc. Reading how in California some restaurants are still doing indoor dining despite the Governor's orders as enforcement is spotty (and they are trying to stay in business in many cases, so I can't see I entirely blame them). Its really hardly a shutdown there compared to the shutdowns in many states in April.

[StormfanaticInd]

5 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

Just not going to happen. Everything became too political. Plus a lot of people have kind of "checked out" over the virus and still having large social gatherings etc. Reading how in California some restaurants are still doing indoor dining despite the Governor's orders as enforcement is spotty (and they are trying to stay in business in many cases, so I can't see I entirely blame them). Its really hardly a shutdown there compared to the shutdowns in many states in April.

Where are we at on pandemic relief?

[IWXwx]

1 hour ago, StormfanaticInd said:

Where are we at on pandemic relief?

Where we're at is also political. McConnell is holding up everything because he is trying to insert language in the legislation that will protect companies from being sued when their customers get Covid because they weren't using proper protections.

 

EDIT: I know that Hoosier will delete this because it's political, but you asked and that's the answer.

[StormfanaticInd]

1 hour ago, IWXwx said:

Where we're at is also political. McConnell is holding up everything because he is trying to insert language in the legislation that will protect companies from being sued when their customers get Covid because they weren't using proper protections.

 

EDIT: I know that Hoosier will delete this because it's political, but you asked and that's the answer.

Make it make sense. Americans our suffering and are about to be evicted out on to the streets in the middle of a national health emergency effectively will only make things worse. Just shameful!

[Hoosier]

1 hour ago, IWXwx said:

Where we're at is also political. McConnell is holding up everything because he is trying to insert language in the legislation that will protect companies from being sued when their customers get Covid because they weren't using proper protections.

 

EDIT: I know that Hoosier will delete this because it's political, but you asked and that's the answer.

Well, you're partially right.  I edited your post to remove some stuff.  McConnell wanting liability protection has been widely reported.  Hopefully something gets done soon.

[Stebo]

28 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

Well, you're partially right.  I edited your post to remove some stuff.  McConnell wanting liability protection has been widely reported.  Hopefully something gets done soon.

It gives an out for businesses to cut corners, it is incredibly stupid and dangerous, which is why it is being considered.

[nwohweather]

Just not going to happen. Everything became too political. Plus a lot of people have kind of "checked out" over the virus and still having large social gatherings etc. Reading how in California some restaurants are still doing indoor dining despite the Governor's orders as enforcement is spotty (and they are trying to stay in business in many cases, so I can't see I entirely blame them). Its really hardly a shutdown there compared to the shutdowns in many states in April.

I don’t blame them in the slightest. Unless the government is going to fully subsidize their revenues to be closed they should exercise civil disobedience.

Honestly as a weather forum we have seen so many major natural disasters that have been helped by govt assistance. With what is basically a contagious pneumonia you’d think we would treat this as a disaster and not let bars, restaurants and gyms that are not publicly traded to get full subsidies to allow for quicker recovery.

Seems much better than just writing everyone checks.

[purduewx80]

18 hours ago, Hoosier said:

Something I was thinking about... would there be a problem if somebody is unknowingly carrying covid while they get the vaccine?  Like, would it improve, worsen, or have no effect on their course of covid?  It's bound to happen at least on an isolated basis.  

How about somebody who gets the vaccine, then feels like crap and attributes it to the vaccine but it's really covid?  That would really take some perfect timing though.

I am curious about this, too. One of the HIV prophylactics (Truvada) can actually make HIV harder to treat if administered while someone is newly/already infected. 

[dan11295]

One point with the vaccine that is relevant here is it takes a few weeks to develop immunity after getting vaccinated from what I have read, plus the second shot for better efficiency. Usually that isn't much of an issue but in this case you have widespread community transmission ongoing. Between this, the fact it is takes time to actually get the vaccinations done, and the time lag in data reporting. It is going to take time for the vaccinations to meaningfully impact the numbers. 

probably talking toward end of January to early February to meaningfully impact CFR numbers at all. Cases won't drop (more than they would without a vaccine) meaningfully until you start getting vaccinations into portions of the general population. That isn't happening until probably for at least a few weeks.

[StormfanaticInd]

1 hour ago, dan11295 said:

One point with the vaccine that is relevant here is it takes a few weeks to develop immunity after getting vaccinated from what I have read, plus the second shot for better efficiency. Usually that isn't much of an issue but in this case you have widespread community transmission ongoing. Between this, the fact it is takes time to actually get the vaccinations done, and the time lag in data reporting. It is going to take time for the vaccinations to meaningfully impact the numbers. 

probably talking toward end of January to early February to meaningfully impact CFR numbers at all. Cases won't drop (more than they would without a vaccine) meaningfully until you start getting vaccinations into portions of the general population. That isn't happening until probably for at least a few weeks.

Months

[WaryWarren]

I just saw a graphic from the German government on their vaccine distribution that states that the vaccine will be widely distributed through their population by next November. January - April is the time frame that the first 8.6 million people will be vaccinated (essential health care workers, vulnerable populations).