Coronavirus, Mid November Edition, 2022
Nationwide,
the estimated number of cases, using official numbers, has continued to
drop. From 348,000 on Oct 12 to 256,000 on Nov 14. The
official numbers continue be
under-counted by a factor of 3-10, depending on the source of the
estimate.
More
in keeping with reality, the number of people hospitalized with Covid
for this wave has stabilized at around 22,200 for around the same time
period.
The New York Times Interactive graph ( It can be found here...) has slightly different numbers and is reporting a slight rise in the number of cases. My source may not be as accurate as theirs, but I'll stick with it because it is an easy scrape, and is good enough. This is more about trends than anything else.
Dominant Variant in the US:
The number of significant variants (more than 1% of the total) has exploded since last month.
BQ's 44.2%, up from nearly naught in mid October.
BA.5 32.5% This was the main variant in October, now down from 79%.
BA.4's 5.7% Down from 14.4% since mid Oct.
BF.7's 7.8% Up from under 4.6% mid Oct
All of these are Omicron (BA5) descendants. The latest booster, which was designed with BA4 and BA5 in mind, and should work very well against all of these.
Per CDC tracker...
Personal experience
We managed to avoid the plague in our house till last week, when my son came down with it. He was fully vaccinated and double boosted. So now I have a personal time line.
Saturday Night: experienced sore throat.
Sunday Morning: tested Negative.
Monday Morning: Fever, tested Positive, went into quarantine. Official start of covid time off with his company.
His doctor NEVER got back to him over the possibility of an antiviral prescription. He may not have been eligible. But the lack of response was aggravating. Contrary to what I reported earlier, none of the pharmacies I called had a streamed line system in place for one stop shopping in this regard.
Late Tuesday: Fever breaks, quarantine continues.
Wednesday: Feeling much better. Allowed to roam the house with a mask. But mostly he just kept to his room.
Thursday: Allowed to roam the house with a mask. But mostly he just kept to his room.
Friday: Free to roam the house maskless, per CDC guidelines. This may have been a mistake, but Joanne and I seem free of any effects.
Sunday: Still feeling fine, but tested POSITIVE, though lightly so. From estimated time of infection, either Wednesday or Thursday 2 weeks previous till now, 10 days. This is also 4 days after the first "feel fine".
Free Tests
Free test kits are no longer available via government sources, but are available, free to the user, if you are willing to jump through the hoops, from various stores, paid for my your health insurance.
For example. Google Blue Cross free covid tests. you will get a CVS advertisement for 8 free tests, per month. See Here... Also available via Medicare, and probably many other insurance plans and outlets like WalMart, Rite Aid, etc...
