"Lots of" does not begin to describe the amount of chatter there has been about the CDC and various other entities shortening the isolation and quarantine times. Some medical people support the decision while others don't. There is certainly some confusion out there as to exactly why this decision was made. Says a senior pastor of a church in Chicago, "Either we're in a surge that we need to take very seriously or are we winding down the pandemic and that's why we're shortening the isolation and quarantine times. They might want to give us a little more information to go with."
The CDC director explains that, "Not all of these cases are going to be severe. In fact, many are going to be asymptomatic. We want to make sure there is a mechanism by which we can safely continue to keep society functioning while following the science." And what does the science say? Omicron may have a shorter incubation period, 72 hours. It was four to six days for Delta and the original virus. People infected with Omicron may thus become non-contagious faster than people with other forms. Cutting the time-out length will help keep hospitals staffed, airplanes flying, and the continuation of other services depending on number of workers. As for the public health side, the CDC director also noted that the decision to shorten the isolation period was driven by the evidence on transmissibility but also what isolation period people "would be able to tolerate."
I go back and forth as to whether this is a good idea. I guess that people staying isolated or quarantined for five days is better than their looking at 10 days and saying, "Screw that! I'm going out!" England has shortened its period to seven days and also requires two negative lateral flow tests taken a day apart. I've seen nothing about negative tests on this side of the pond. Some of the professional sports leagues have testing requirements, but I haven't seen any mention in what I've read about the CDC,
Cases are going crazy. We may very well hit the half million mark today or tomorrow. The seven-day average number of cases is 267,305, up 126 percent over two weeks. Closer to home, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia all broke records on Monday. For the District, there have been almost 1,000 percent more new cases over the past two weeks and over 9,000 new cases since December 24. Maryland's seven-day average for new cases is more than double the previous high in January 2020.
And really, really close to home, the local university is seeing surging cases among faculty and staff. There were 54 new cases Monday, and 53 more new cases yesterday. Since those numbers represent only tests given or processed at the university, there are likely more out there who tested privately. The Professor notes that he is glad not to be one of them. No word yet on classes in January. The interim January term is supposed to start on Monday. I wonder how the profs teaching those classes are doing.
I wonder what the over-under on cases tomorrow should be....
2 comments:
We have had much media screaming about the new record breaking number of cases. I really do despair of people's inability to think. Did we not just have Christmas, a two day holiday here? Might it not have caused delays in reporting the numbers, leading to a catch up spike? It's the same reason that there's always been a dip at the weekend and a spike on a Monday. Do we not report by the date of the test date as well as date reported? That graph doesn't show the newsworthy spike, gosh, I wonder why that could be? The post-Christmas spike is yet to come.
I know more people having their surgery cancelled than are having it as planned. It's down to not enough staff for the recovery because of the numbers isolating. I can see why we would want people who are not sick back to work, we know more about transmission and it's not the disease that it first was. Here and now the symptoms can be the same as a cold so my guess is that's where the transmission is. They don't get tested, why would they as they have none of the original symptoms that would qualify for a test, they never isolate, they are never recorded as a case. There's no way of controlling that.
That will teach me to speak too soon, there was not one day's catch up but several so now both graphs have the newsworthy spike.
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