There was a headline in the SF Chronicle / SF Gate today that Bay Area hospitalizations are flat, but that’s not true.
Seems like the CDC is using the same stat for Alameda and Contra Costa counties (though they have separate stats for cases).
Given the steady increase in cases, there’s no reason to expect a change in the hospitalizations trend, so Santa Clara will likely reach the High category next week.
Dr. Bob Wachter, the chief of medicine at UCSF, said in a tweet Tuesday that the asymptomatic test positive rate at his hospitals is now 6.2%, up from 4.8% last week. The test population, he previously explained, is mostly preoperative patients at UCSF undergoing routine screening tests before their procedures. The implication is that about 1 in 16 people in San Francisco without symptoms could test positive.
Bob has also a good twitter account with a lot of good SF covid related information
Yeah, I saw this. Recent articles like this have made me a convert about getting a second booster before fall. Ditto with my DH companion. She’s getting her 4th on Friday and mine is scheduled for next Thursday. I had a serology (antibody) blood test yesterday and it was negative, meaning, as I understand it, it’s very unlikely that I’ve had covid in the past.
Looks like the second Omicron surge has peaked in the SF Bay Area.
Santa Clara County has as I expected gone over to the “High” red zone, since their hospitalization rate is just over 10.
Seems likely the other counties will go into the red next before they drop back to green in a month or so. Unless the next variant evades immunity to BA.2.12.1.
Speak of the devil:
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Case levels haven’t peaked in LA County yet, though the rate of increase was lower this week, so maybe the peak is near. Hospitalizations are of course continuing to increase, though they’re half the level of the Bay Area.
Lordie, Lordie. Speak of the devil – and the devil appeareth.
BA.4, BA.5, …, BA.N+1 – ad infinitum?
And maybe masks on, masks off, masks on,… ad infinitum?
It’s like a warp in space-time.
If we must follow cases, those in SD County also seem to have peaked. Here’s a current plot, extending from June of last year to June 3 this year.
The peak value on this segment was on Jan 15, at about 14000 cases/day (7-day average).
The current (apparent) peak on May 27 was about 1400 cases/day (7-day average), almost exactly 1/10 of the peak in January.
Admittedly, these are reported cases, so that’s a caveat. (Source: NYT)
If the BA.4 and/or BA.5 variants evade immunity to previous Omicron variants, that could be just a slight dip before the next surge.
It’s not a good sign that omicron BA1 breakthrough infections protected against BA2 but not against BA4 and 5 - which most likely means that the vaccines will also have diminished protection
Based on just my experience, through contracting covid multiple times, weekly testing required by my workplace that also provided antibody testing by request, my antibodies went away in two months or so. This was early on in the pandemic, so it may be different with more recent strains.
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The Science-Immunology article focused exclusively on memory B-cells, which is important, but it doesn’t imply that T-cell protection against severe disease is also necessarily reduced with the new variants.
Thanks, wanderlustere. That’s interesting information.
T-cells are important in particular wrt severe/deadly disease outcome but we also need B-cells to have an immediate response which most likely is important for the likelihood of hospitalization. In addition, T-cell and B-cell “memory” are not independent and so if BA4 and 5 are much less recognized by B-cells of breakthrough “immunity” of early omicron variants it is not unlikely that the T-cell response will also be less efficient.
Vaccines haven’t provided much protection against infection by any Omicron variant, which is why the first Omicron surge was so huge.
It should be obvious within a few weeks whether lots of people who already had Omicron are getting BA.4 or 5.