We're Seeing Lots of Respiratory Illness that Isn't COVID-19

 

Yesterday my sinuses felt somewhat irritated, my nose was running a little, and I had a little pang that could have been the beginning of a headache. I am fully vaxxed and boosted, so I wondered: Could I have a breakthrough case of the Omicon variant?

There is growing evidence that Omicron produces less severe disease. Some people are claiming that it has different symptoms than "classic" COVID-19 too, ones more like a common cold. 

Experts warn that it's too soon to tell if the symptoms are fundamentally different from those associated with Delta. But this doesn't stop people like me from wondering whether any respiratory symptom might be COVID-19.

At least four people I know—someone I work with, a friend, and two toddlers of another friend—have  symptoms of mild respiratory illness. They are all worried that they could have COVID-19 and have gotten or are seeking tests.

There are many other people in the same boat. Public health practitioners are saying that there are a lot of respiratory viruses infecting people now that are neither COVID-19 nor the flu. These include "rhinovirus, adenovirus, [and] a bacterial infection like strep pneumo." 

One reason we are seeing a lot of these infections this year is that last year those of use who aren't stupid stayed home, wore masks if we had to go out in public, and washed our hands a lot. "Because of that, we don't really have a lot of antibodies against any of this" stuff that's circulating now, according to Dr. Natasha Bhuyan, a Phoenix family physician.

Now that people are out and about once again and mask wearing has decreased, it's easier for these more benign bugs to spread. Because they have symptoms similar to COVID-19 we all get to worry about whether we've been infected whenever we get the sniffles or a scratchy throat.

When that happens we have testing options that aren't really satisfactory in the face of Omicron. It's just another little booster for the pandemic fatigue so many of us are suffering with.



Popular posts from this blog

Looks Like Immune Responses are Enduring After All

Image
 For some time, public health officials have fretted about whether immunity to COVID-19, acquired via infection or vaccination would stick.  Studies showed rapid declines in antibodies during recovery from infection and thereafter . It turns out that this concern was overblown. A study just released says bone marrow plasma cells are a persistent source of protective antibodies, and that "circulating resting memory B cells directed against the S protein were detected in the convalescent individuals."   Another study , yet to be reviewed, suggests that vaccines boost this effect. In fact, some are suggesting this situation this could actually mean  lifetime immunity .   Whether the same thing happens with vaccination is not clear. Most estimates suggest that vaccine immunity will last about a year . More pessimistic estimates putting the protection period at six months .  The possible shorter time frame, plus the appearance of the new variants, have the vaccine makers working
Read more

Another One Bites the Dust

Image
Hi all. Stepping out of retirement for a moment to say that the day has finally arrived. After four years of successfully avoiding COVID-19 infection I had a positive test yesterday. Symptoms are very mild—I've had worse colds. The provider at urgent care said almost all the cases they are seeing are the same. Mild symptoms may also be due to the fact that I had the original vaccine then the two boosters. All this time I thought I might be a NOVID —one of those people who never get the bug. But no, it must have been my assiduous mask wearing and avoidance of high-risk situations when things were bad. So here's double middle fingers to all the kooks who think masks don't work (I've not been wearing masks for months now). I don't know what variant I have but it's likely JN.1. It is said to be extraordinarily contagious and accounts for 60% of cases worldwide . It also tends to produce mild infections like the one I have.  This article claims that right now every
Read more

AZ Pandemic Numbers Summary for the Seven Days Ending November 9: Everything is Going South

Image
Here are the Arizona pandemic numbers and graph of statewide cases for the seven day period ending yesterday: Well this isn't good. The lull seems to be over. Virtually every number is up, both over a week and over four weeks. The most worrisome is hospital beds, which have been steadily trending up over the last several weeks.  Wastewater signals are all up except Tempe (dashboard is up again) which after going up last week (from 41 to 100) decreased by about 10%. The increases are worrisome because the latest data from ASU's Lim Lab (last updated October 31), where they sequence PCR samples to identify variants, shows that only about 46% of sequences showed BA.5. That is one of the Omicron variants the new bivalent vaccine was designed to protect against.  All the rest of the samples are BA.2.75 (7.7%), which I flagged several weeks ago, and BQ,1.1 (15.4%), and BQ.1 (30.8%), both of which I blogged about a couple weeks ago.  Those, new research confirms , are much more lik
Read more