To Test Or Not to Test?

Here is a compilation of information regarding COVID-19 testing from a variety of sources collected over the past week.

• The CDC updated its guidance to state that COVID-positive people who want to end their isolation periods after 5 days and have access to tests may choose to take them, but a test is not required to end isolation. If the test results are positive, they should stay home for another 5 days; if negative, and their symptoms are resolving, they may go out, but should continue to wear masks in public for another 5 days.
• President Biden’s coronavirus response coordinator said last week, beginning this week, Americans struggling to get tested for the coronavirus will be able to have the cost of rapid at-home tests reimbursed by their insurers, but offered no specific promises about when free tests would be available….. manufacturers will begin delivering rapid tests kits to the federal government this week, and the administration will set up a “free and easy system, including a website” where Americans can order them. Stay tuned…
• Recent studies indicate reduced sensitivity in some at home rapid tests to detect the Omicron variant during the first couple of days of infection, which meas that people can be spreading the virus because they received a false negative result. The message: if you get a negative result from an antigen test but have symptoms, assume you are positive and stay home to protect others! Get another test – preferably a PCR test – to confirm your status.
• Home Tests and Case Counts. “Home testing leads to marked underestimates of case numbers,” according to the chair of the University of California, San Francisco’s Department of Medicine. “Clearly many hundreds of thousands of people are now diagnosing themselves with positive home tests (generally plus symptoms) and these are not reported.” Even if you do report results, the information isn’t likely to move the needle on the public’s understanding of the virus. That’s because they’re not included in the data health officials use to produce their reports and policies. So the more people test themselves at home, the less the official numbers about new infections and positivity rates (that is, the percentage of tests that detect the virus) will provide an accurate picture of the public’s health. LA Times (Caveat: this is not to say the home tests are meaningless. If a person isolates as a result of a positive home-test, they are helping to minimize the spread, regardless of whether their test is included in the public count.
• Most of the at-home test kits that are available for purchase have a shelf-life of about two to three months according to New York Assembly Member John McDonald. McDonald, who is also a pharmacist, said that he's worried about panic buying when it comes to testing kits. McDonald also said that it's important for people to not stockpile testing kits because as pharmacists start to receive COVID antiviral medicine, they can't give it to sick people without a positive test result and if there are no tests for symptomatic people to take, they won't be able to get the medicine that could help them.

Covidpreneur

A new word that is formed by the combination of entrepreneur and COVID-19, used to describe individuals or businesses that thrive and innovate in a pandemic environment.

The increase in business startups is a national trend, and its participants have even earned their own nickname: “covidpreneurs.” The pandemic-induced turnover has created more opportunities for incoming businesses.

How many covidpreneurs do you know, and what kinds of businesses are they establishing?

Flurona

Israel has reported the world’s first case of “flurona”— a simultaneous flu and COVID-19 infection—in an unvaccinated pregnant woman who had mild symptoms. When an individual is infected with both at the same time the illness could be intensified.  Medical experts are expecting more cases to emerge as variants of COVID become more prevalent and cases of the flu fluctuate in intensity.

Will other new "diseases" be named as a result of more combinations - i.e. can an individual get chickenpox and COVID at the same time?  Medically it is both possible and probable.  (Will that be called "copox" or "poxrona?"  - a little tongue-in-cheek from WIBX Radio)

Remember, a person can get vaccinated for both the flu and coronavirus at the same time. 

Epidemiology is the science at center of public health.

While Omicron is causing record numbers of infections, the hope is that vaccinations, booster shots and prior infections by other variants will still protect most people from the worst effects of the virus. Early evidence supports this conclusion. However, Omicron may still greatly affect our daily lives in other ways: If teachers test positive and schools move to remote instruction; if flights, subways and buses are disrupted because of a lack of workers, or if elective surgeries are postponed because of staffing shortages….

The long-term implications of Omicron remain unknown, but in the near term, everyone should expect an intense month of disruption. Still, the familiar advice remains the best: get vaccinated, get booster shots and prepare for a bumpy January.

Opinion from The New York Times.

^{Source: https://www.vdh.virginia.gov/coronavirus}

49.3  &  21.2
49.9  &  20.3
59.5  &  20
41.5  &  18

^{cumulative total as of 01/10/22}