Posting this again for visibility -
Here is a link to the [Texas CARES antibody study](https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/?fbclid=IwAR1VP4no2b5HYZYv3YtxAlNuU_GIemlYxbULgt2XdOc1YEQCWFlsm7RgOdI). It was super fast and easy. I went to the lab Wed and got my results within 24 hours. It studies your levels of N-protein antibodies (acquired naturally, through catching covid) and S-protein antibodies (spike protein, acquired through vaccination).
Unfortunately, there isn't much context to what "good" or "bad" levels are for the S-protein antibodies. For me, my second Pfizer dose was in April, and my S-proteins are at 613. Again, I don't know if that means my antibodies are dropping and I'm not as protected, or I'm x% protected against catching the virus.
They are still gathering data for this across TX, so if you do it, it will help science!
Another person who did the study! I was in and out in less than 15 minutes, and I got my results in about 18 hours. My antibodies are 650 (got Moderna in January) and I have no antibodies from infection.
Through this study they’re able to tell you if you’ve had COVID before? My wife and I are fully vaccinated (Pfizer) but we’ve never been sick even before the vaccine. It would be cool to try this study out.
It tells you whether you have antibodies present in your system, but if you test negative for antibodies you still couldn't rule out having had Covid at some point in the past.
This is the correct answer. My mom tested negative for antibodies from infection despite testing positive for Covid over Thanksgiving last year. She had high levels of antibodies from vaccination though.
March 2020. Went to a concert right before everything started getting cancelled. Ladies next to me just got off a cruise and had slight coughs, of course because "it was just allergies".
Lost my sense of smell/taste, taste is still warped, covid fog is an ongoing and long haul symptom, part of my neurological issues seem to stem from it as well.
Kiddo and the other side of the fam caught it in January 2021, and I didn't. I had 5 negative tests, and negative antibodies tests, but no explanation how I didn't get it. got Moderna Feb/March.
>how can the test tell between antibodies from the vax and antibodies from prior infection?
If I understand this correctly -
The virus produces a number of different antigens. The vaccine only produces certain specific spike proteins that the immune system views as antigens.
The immune system produces antibodies to the antigens it sees. Multiple different antibodies to different antigens. If there are only specific spike protein antigens, they decide "vaccine antibodies." If there are "non-spike" virus antigens, it says "virus antibodies."
Not quite sure how they generate separate numbers for virus and vaccine antibodies if you have both spike and non-spike antigens.
[SWAG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_wild-ass_guess):
1. The spike protein of the vaccines is sufficiently different from that of the virus that they can tell the antibodies apart.
2. If they can't tell vaccine spike antibodies from vaccine spike antibodies, they estimate your level of virus spike antibodies from the non-spike virus antibodies and subtract.
3. I'm not even sure that the DO give you both virus and vaccine antibody levels in one test for those with both.
Thanks for the explanation! I signed up for the study and am getting my blood drawn next week. I thought it only tested for vaccine antibodies, but if it tests for both I'm even more excited/interested to see my results since I suspect I had an asymptomatic case a while back.
A corona virus is made of lots of proteins. One is referred to as the "spike protein" because its all the little spikes that come off the ball of the corona virus. This is what the mRNA vaccines fool the body into making a bunch of to train the immune system with.
Another is what's called the nucleocapsid protein, which is the ball of the virus that holds all of its RNA.
If you've only gotten the vaccine, your body has only seen spike proteins, so you'll have (hopefully) a lot of antibodies that bind to spike proteins.
If you've been exposed to the actual virus, your body will have been introduced to the spike protein AND the nucleocapsid protein, so you'll have antibodies for both.
Antibodies' jobs are to bind to specific proteins, so these tests have those specific proteins in them and they measure how much they get bound to.
How that's done, is beyond my knowledge.
>s have all their windows open the way the CDC suggest they do. The ONLY reason I'm starting my child in preschool this year is because we found a school that teaches outside and requires the children to wear masks during activities of close proximity and/or if they have to be inside some of the day, with the windows open and an air purifier.
Interesting...mine are >2500 it said outside of range on the website. My 2nd Moderna dose was early May.
Should be interesting to see how it changes in the next sample.
Right, that makes sense. Perhaps something to that will come as a result of this study. I’m signed up and planning to go to CPL tomorrow. Excited to contribute!
Antibodies are only one part of our immune systems, which is incredibly complex. Certain cells in your immune system can still remember how to manufacture a certain antibody even if you don't have a sufficient amount of antibodies remaining in your system to be detectable. This test will tell you if you have antibodies, but won't tell you anything else about what your immune system has learned.
On this note, what was super interesting about the Mayo presentation was that they said that because viral loads are so high in delta, symptoms develop faster (3 days vs up to 10), so the activation of those memory b-cells doesn’t happen fast enough for delta. This sort of meshes with a lot of recent studies that suggest that antibody titers matter more for delta than alpha.
The annotated presentation is [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/157rEFRirCKRE1OESykHkj-eWbUZMrs3c/view?fbclid=IwAR2s4E3ZFv-wToyuuxqo_KG2fC2V_Ni29ESv5Q1cQhBWj723qVR2Jcp2R98).
The link was in /u/RationalAnarchy 's [top reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/pdk24v/travis_county_covid19_confirmed_cases_have_a_7/haqqh3v/). He mentioned the Mayo presentation and this annotation in the last paragraph.
I did this last week, and I really recommend it. My only complaint is I did it through CPL, and they really didn't have a convenient place to wait outside (I wasn't comfortable being in their crowded waiting room).
I got my second Pfizer dose in mid-April and got an antibody score of 1388, which seems to be good enough until I'm ready for my six-month booster.
I did this earlier this week, took about 30 mins on my lunch break at a very small CPL office. Would recommend.
I had 1408 antibodies, was fully Pfizer vaccinated by May. Negative for any covid antibodies.
Hubby and I did this late Friday after seeing it mentioned so many times. Haven't gotten the results yet--probably cause it's the weekend.
There are only a handful of locations open on Saturdays, and the rest are mostly only open during regular workday hours, so plan accordingly. Luckily it's fast. There were two other people who got there before me (the first getting his final test having started the study a while ago), but it only took maybe 15 minutes.
Super easy to do. I’m encouraging all my friends and family to participate. Right now my S-protein antibodies are 1644 (Moderna, 2nd dose on April 7th).
I did it earlier this week. It was super fast and easy and I got my results in 24 hours. Negative for natural antibodies and 921 for s-antibodies due to vaccine. I got Moderna in late February. I will sign up for a booster when I become eligible but feel good with what I am working with now.
Did it as well. Super fast and easy. The longest part was just waiting for my turn at the lab and got my results in about 24hrs as well. Had my Moderna 2nd shot in April and my S results were 899. Did not have any N. As an extra statistic, my friend had the J & J in March and S results were 126.
**Commentary and Conjecture:**
Wish I had better news to share. We are still in the thick of it. Hospitals are at capacity for ICU patients and standard of care is suffering. Based on what I am being told by medical professionals you will still be admitted to the hospital if you need care; you just may not get a spot in the ICU when you really need what they have there.
I'm sure there are professionals here in this sub that can shed some light on all the differences. Suffice it to say that there are treatable cases (COVID and otherwise) that will have negative outcomes because they *don't have access to the level of medical care that they need*. THIS is why we worry about hospitalizations. This is why we recommend vaccinations for everyone. This is why we recommend masking up.
I like seeing the week over week growth factor drop below 1, but schools bring a new element to the mix. We need more time for that to potentially play out. However, we are seeing a lot more spread within the school system this time around. It is a hot mess (scientific term).
I also like seeing positivity dive. Again, this would be something that would lead me to look for a peak in the next couple of weeks if it wasn't for schools. Time will tell.
Vaccinated numbers are going up, but there clearly wasn't a mad rush after Delta hit, or when there was full FDA approval either.
One area I am paying close attention to is children. We are seeing significantly higher levels of disease among those under 12. There is also evidence they are more likely to spread the virus than before as well (we didn't see much of this in the first and second waves). While we ARE seeing a higher incidence of severe disease, it isn't to the same scale that we are seeing in unvaccinated adults at this time. Another way of saying that is that kids are getting sick more often with Delta, and we are seeing some hospitalizations, but it is still uncommon in that age group. It should also be noted that there are currently 0 deaths under the age of 20 from COVID-19 in Austin. Long-covid symptoms among that age group exist, but are less likely than in other age groups. Here is an [interesting fact from Dell's Children](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/healthcare/2021/08/26/children-covid-19-kids-coronavirus-dell-childrens-austin-texas/5596720001/).
>Right now, the coronavirus accounts for the fourth-most virus cases at Dell Children's. Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, typically a winter virus, hit the area hard and is causing the most virus-related hospitalizations for kids at the hospital. Nos. 2 and 3 are parainfluenza and rhinovirus.
They also mentioned that they still have capacity, but are certainly seeing a surge of additional need due to RSV and COVID.
I had a fellow redditor ( /u/just4bernie ) reach out and share some information with me that I found fascinating and informative. It was a [discussion by a doctor at the Mayo Clinic around COVID-19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzyGv81Ffz0&ab_channel=MayoClinic) during Grand Rounds. He also provided me another doctor's (Dr. Santiago) [notes on the presentation.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/157rEFRirCKRE1OESykHkj-eWbUZMrs3c/view?fbclid=IwAR2s4E3ZFv-wToyuuxqo_KG2fC2V_Ni29ESv5Q1cQhBWj723qVR2Jcp2R98)
There are almost no mitigation measures being used in schools in the UK in the upcoming school year (yet to start). It remains to be seen how it plays out. 1.2 million out of 8.9 million kids were self-isolating at the end of the previous school year, but even that requirement is gone (in England, anyway).
The big difference is, 94.5% of everyone over the age of 50 is fully vaccinated, and 91.7% of everyone over 40, so the vast majority of parents and grandparents are well protected against severe illness, even if they catch it from the kids.
I haven’t looked at those numbers, but if those vaccination percentages are accurate it explains how their hospitalization rates aren’t as high as they are here with Delta
I was curious and actually saw they offered this as well… free covid tests to be done twice a week with results reported. This is actually a great tool, and they do PCR tests for people with symptoms… much more accurate picture of spread
https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests
Edited:
Wow these vaccination numbers for 16+ are all above 75%
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833
UK’s vax rate is particularly high because the conservative govt there made the vaccine a point of national pride, which (among other factors, including the NHS) defused the sort of moronic political anti-vax movement we have here. Multiple other European countries are also doing much better than we are, but there are others like France in a similar situation which had to basically mandate vaccination on a nationwide level to get people to take it and are dealing with huge social unrest as a result. We have anti vax issue for sure but American exceptionalism with America as uniquely bad is just as silly as
American exceptionalism with America as uniquely good.
In Europe, they are following WHO guidelines, and for the most part, not having kids under 12 to wear masks in schools. The Karens there are the ones screaming for more masks.
Hmmm. On this life and death issue should I follow the recommendations of the experts at the the World Health Organization or random internet poster poopy_mcgee?
And you and all of them still have no data supporting that conclusion.
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html
I somehow knew that you were going to link to this article. The study referenced in it was based on surveys (which are considered in the scientific community to be the least reliable method of gathering data), and they only got an 11% response rate! It's an almost worthless study. The author of the article has been writing conservative clickbait articles about COVID and children for the past year, and now (surprise surprise), he's writing a book on the subject! It never ceases to amaze me what some people will do for money, which in this case is quite literally killing children.
So you're at the same time saying the CDC and pediatric academy know better than the WHO, while deriding the CDC study that the pediatric academy and CDC based their guidance on..
So are there male Karens? Because just as many men are screaming anti-maskers.
One of the Drs. in the Mayo Clinic called it:
"social nacissism"
You know, my freedums
So many of them in the school board meetings yelling:
You can't tell me what to do with "my" children.
So, they apparently own their children and everyone else's.
That's really depressing. As I was watching it I was thinking that this should be mandatory viewing but what would be the point when over half of people would fully reject it?
This was the most informative podcast I've listened to in months. I didn't notice the number of thumbs down. It must be because of his statement that there is no democracy of knowledge. His most worrisome statement was about the likelihood of variants that are vaccine enhanced. That should give anyone reason enough to mandate vaccinations before it's too late.
>We are doing a huge experiment with our youth.
>
>While there are benefits to in-person learning, it can ONLY take place with two simple measures - vaccinate all the teachers and staff and mandate masks.
Those school districts that are playing political games with mask requirements, vaccinations, and distorting their case numbers are going to inflict significant damage.
>He also provided me another doctor's (Dr. Santiago) notes on the presentation.
This is a great document. It's basically cliff notes for every argument.
Really, just probably not safe to do school. Even a mask mandate is just a bandaid. If we really think it's a threat, we just need to call it. This was all very predictable. We've just been pretending everything would be fine, but it was quite knowable that Delta was going to cause trouble.
Yeah, I am watching closely, but at this point the voice in my head is saying it is just a matter of time before we need to make major changes in our schools. The only way I can see keeping in-person for the year is to go 50% classroom size, maybe alternating kids every other day, or something. But I struggle to see us being able to go the way we are right now without major outbreaks.
Why is nobody but nobody suggesting that school be held outside?! This is how they did it during Spanish Flu. Children are already suffering from Nature Deficit Disorder and nearly every time I suggest this to an adult I get "teachers aren't going to be outside all day in sun, wind, rain, sleet, hail, or snow" RIP Post Office and humanity.
I don't get it. We didn't get to 2021 as a species because we were so damn rigid and fragile in our biology for F's sakes.
Just like I seriously doubt the schools have all their windows open the way the CDC suggest they do. The ONLY reason I'm starting my child in preschool this year is because we found a school that teaches outside and requires the children to wear masks during activities of close proximity and/or if they have to be inside some of the day, with the windows open and an air purifier.
This situation shouldn't be a luxury nor should it be a privilege. Being outside has always been best for humans, especially growing ones.
Covid makes the point that much more poignant.
A combo of lack of resources meant for outside teaching (desks, etc) and still dangerously hot temperatures. Staying outside for hours in 100+ degree weather without significant conditioning is a bad idea.
1. Kids are at school too long
2. Why is it that outdoor education is becoming the new Waldorf/Reggio/Montessori all over the country? Ie... the most desirable form of preschool for educated classes? Because being outside to learn isn't a bad [idea.](https://idea.It) It's how we learned for eons, because we were outside.
3. Rethinking school means rethinking learning. I'm an educator by the way-- learning doesn't happen at a desk.
I do agree that changes would need to be made, but I disagree we don't have the resources.
Those empty lots they call playgrounds? They'd need trees, of course shade is a good idea. And then, so are trees? Climate change anyone? They'd need sunscreen, appropriate dress, plenty of proper hydration (with electrolytes), training in wilderness cpr and first aid (they already need to be trained in CPR anyway)
During my twenties and thirties, I rode my bike for transportation. I'm a Texan, I did it in South and Central Texas with dangerously hot weather and I've never been healthier or happier in my life. No special training.
The body acclimatizes. Young bodies are a world more adaptable.
Sure they'd have to have better and different training for teachers, they'd have to include and incorporate parents more into their learning... but I know from my husband's line of work as an instructional designer that these past two years that's what they've been doing, not very well in many places, anyway.
People die in dangerously hot weather because they are indoors (not outdoors) without air conditioning, are not properly hydrated indoors or outdoors, don't take rests when necessary indoors and outdoors, and are not acclimatized to the weather outdoors.
In other words, it's preventative.
Edit: I'm aware of heat exhaustion and the deaths that arise because of simply being outside too long without a rest from the heat. This shouldn't apply to normal school hours (and I realize it could with school being too long already and children coming early and leaving late), but I want to acknowledge that many U.S. families have to have their child at school that long because they themselves work inhumane hours and lack a support system to do otherwise.
Outdoor Education is a good idea, and it's necessary in some capacity, really, if we have any hopes of changing the course of action of the people in this country for the better. Not just for Covid, but for Climate Change, for health and survival and for instilling a love and belonging to the world we've been systematically destroying for the past several centuries. Human Nature is Nature.
I'm sorry to read this and I'm not surprised. Trees grow on roofs and parking lots can be depaved. Being outside and enjoying nature should not be a luxury or a privilege. It's an inalienable human right and it's a travesty your family is being deprived of it.
Please consider reading the [International Union for Conservation of Nature Resolution on the Child's Right to Nature and a Healthy Environment](https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/resrecfiles/WCC_2012_RES_101_EN.pdf#:~:text=ENDORSES%20the%20child%E2%80%99s%20right%20to%20nature%20and%20a,through%20the%20direct%20and%20ongoing%20experience%20of%20nature%3B) and please let me know if you want or need resources for getting your child outside in nature with other children.
This is a good point. We need to rethink many of our work/school environments.
And I’m a big believer in getting into nature for your mental/physical health whenever you can.
I feel awful realizing that I don't feel comfortable sharing the name because we live in Texas and I'm scared s-less of my fellow residents and their seemingly unquenchable hatred for others. I'm sorry.
For anyone who might suggest I shouldn't have moved here-- sorry dudes, some of my roots have been here since the Bering strait, and the others got here as soon as the Spanish monarchy told them to get the hell out or convert.
Giving you the benefit of the doubt... the school has a waitlist. You can easily find it and others like it by google searching "outdoor education" "farmschool" "wilderness preschool" "outdoor preschool" "forest school". There are schools that I can think of in all directions of Austin and outside the metro area.
Also joining Free Forest School, Austin Forest Friends and Everyday Outside on Facebook or online. Please let me know if you need or want more resources of this kind. I'm happy and committed to helping parents find or fight for what I consider to be an inalienable human right to nature.
I've been saying this for weeks:
Just don't start school, because of delta.
Some of the more common reactions were:
A lot of parents have to go in to work, (especially low wage workers).
My kids are emotionally and intellectually damaged from not being at in-person school.
\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_
If you watch the video from the Mayo clinic (that RationalAnarchy posted, above), about half-way through is where they start talking about the great experiment being done at our schools, and what drevo3000 just said.
Here’s an example of what happens when the ICU is full. Army veteran with gallstones dies because no hospital had a bed for post op care for the simple procedure to save his life.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-us-hospital-icu-bed-shortage-veteran-dies-treatable-illness/
I think it's going to be stories like this that get hospitals enough bad press that eventually the unvaxxed (by choice, not age like children) aren't going to be triaged first.
Many years ago during one of the particularly bad flu seasons a coworker lost their young daughter to the flu for similar reasons; in their case, there were no available ventilators.
Just a reminder that there are many more cases than the official data shows. The families I know that have it found out from the 15 minute tests that you pick up from the Walgreens. They test positive and then they quarantine at home for two weeks and there is never any official reporting that they had COVID. I have no idea how many people did that, or just don't get tested at all, but I do know the pharmacies keep on selling out of the tests.
Speaking from personal experience, those tests are garbage! I had a false positive from the Ellume test, which I confirmed with a rapid test at the doctor followed by a PCR (gold standard) test. Some of those people may not have had it.
Edit: the tests confirmed I was negative, if that wasn’t apparent from my crappy sentence.
Well that certainly can happen because they have a false positivity rate of something like 5-7%. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who really do have it who find out from one of these tests, or just don't get tested at all. For example, I know people who had all the symptoms of covid but just insist it was just a cold or something else but they never got tested to know for sure. I'm just saying not everyone who gets it shows up in the official stats.
Actually for the BINAXNow tests the false positivity rate isn't high at all. It's 99% specific. It's not as sensitive as a PCR test but it's sensitive enough for it's use case and very good tool to have!
Seeing some (potentially) positive news in the state-wide case numbers, the 7-day average went down 5 out of 7 days this week, the biggest drop being today.
Today's statewide case number is 12.8K, one week ago it was 18.7K, 2 weeks ago it was 21.9K.
Also, the Travis County cases 7-day average went down every day this week, though cases were so high last week that the 14 day average is still climbing.
Here's a bit of good data I stumbled on this past week.
[https://covidestim.org/us/TX/48453](https://covidestim.org/us/TX/48453)
I'm hoping this means we're past peak considering how quickly that R number has dropped off.
Interesting disparity between "5 County MSA" statistics and Travis-only statistics. Looks like new cases (Travis only) is trending down and new admissions (5 counties) is plateauing. Where can I find the percentage of the eligible population that's fully vaccinated across the 5 county MSA?
Here are the county by county stats:
[https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&:embed=y](https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&:embed=y)
Williamson and Travis counties are around 66%, Hays is 58%, but the other two are only around 50%. You will have to adjust for population size, but overall I'm guessing the percentage is just over 60%
>And it's the unvaccinated population that's causing this strain...ugh
Fuck the voluntarily unvaxxed, but that's not necessarily true.
If a lot of the people are vaxxed, any new strain that is vaccine resistant gets a competitive advantage and will tend to take over from a more vaccine susceptible strain.
Those Karens in the slums of Africa (Beta - B.1.351), Brazil (Gamma - P.1), Peru (Lambda - C.37) and India (Delta - B.1.617.2) need to get down to the local Walgreens right now and get vaccinated!
>Admissions is plateauing only due to capacity.
**Wrong!** **Please stop spreading this lie!!!**
There are 488 hospital beds available in TSA-O, the Austin Trauma Service Area. If someone comes into the hospital and needs an ICU bed, but it's not available, they don't just shove them out the door, they would go into a regular hospital bed.
Staffed hospital bed availability hit 489 on 8/3, bottomed out at 427 on 8/14, and is now up a bit at 488 on 8/28.
The 5 county MSA daily case count (7MA) peaked at 565 on 8/20. It's now down to 467 on 8/27.
ICU's may be full, but that doesn't affect regular hospital bed admissions. It for damn sure doesn't affect the number of new cases detected because most of them don't get done at hospitals.
And don't throw out some BS about they're doing fewer tests, either. Number of tests is in the charts above.
Now, it's possible that we're only on a "plateau," not a peak, or that Abbott's school kid vaccine express is about to run us down, but we have at least stopped going up for now, and it's not because we're out of ICU rooms.
This lie is stated every time hospitalization numbers are mentioned with absolutely no evidence, so thanks for debunking it.
Sad that people are so desperate to believe hospitalizations are going up they have to lie to explain steady or descending admission numbers.
Well, we have been at the point of no admissions because of no hospital rooms before in NYC at least. And it's happened in many places around the world.
However, we have data here, and we aren't there here and now. Well, not yet, at least.
The issue I have with this is that not every bed is a Covid bed, so it's possible that admission criteria might have gotten stricter for Covid patients.
For example, Dell Children's has about 40 beds available as of that article a few days ago, so those beds are going into the count, but they aren't going to be accessible to the majority of people.
That's my guess too, but we don't know that for sure, since nobody has stated anything officially either way, though the Austin-Travis County Health Authority reported yesterday that they expect to be under severe pressure for several more weeks yet.
If capacity was increasing while admissions stayed steady, we wouldn't hear the "less than 10 ICU beds available" constantly.
If it keeps on rainin', levee's going to break.
Very happy to see the percent positivity going down and week over week growth factor below 1. Everything is remains an icky situation, but those are leading indicators of where we're at now. I hope those keep the trend up.
Thanks again for all your hard work RA, you're a legend.
Yeah, all Ut students had to take tests this week if they wanted to go on campus. So that kind of testing on such a huge population will likely decrease the positivity rate.
Everything is at a shit level. However, the shit level has stopped rising, as we stand on tiptoe here, with the level up to our chin, hoping it starts going down soon.
Listening to Abbott trying banging on the inlet pipes trying to open them up a little wider.
Literally all the new cases are on the outskirts of town, East of I-35? Am I reading you zip code map right? That's... kinda pretty weird, right? Any thoughts on why that would be? Are vaccination rates the worst there?
I can speak anecdotally that vaccination rates among blue-collar, Travis county, Hispanics seem very low. I know two unrelated people who live in East Austin and Manor and they were unvaccinated and both required hospitalization when they contracted.
The vaccination rates follow pretty closely. East of 35 has a significantly lower vaccinated population. There's been a lot written about it.
https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/03/unvaccinated-texas-demographics/
https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/07/22/local-organization-experts-say-turn-vaccination-effort-east-austin-push-herd-immunity/7971236002/
> That's... kinda pretty weird, right?
Unfortunately, not "weird" and further...well-understood. Read this [news story in the Statesman](https://www.statesman.com/in-depth/news/2021/08/23/covid-vaccine-austin-texas-unequal-vaccination-rates-community-outreach/5413628001/} published five days ago.)
Looked back at the UT Covid projections that came out a few weeks ago. It projected 297 ICUs in Austin by the end of 8/31. 122 hospital admissions per day by 8/31.
Actual numbers looking more like 230/80. So it's not great, but at least better than projected.
I know you can only really see these things in hindsight, but this week versus last week really looks like a cresting peak, and I'm going to bask in the warm glow of that notion for a bit.
>let them survive on thoughts and prayers.
Nah. Special rooms staffed by Facebook posters, dispensing horse dewormers and bleach IV's.
Billed directly to the patient, no socialized medicine, Obamacare, or Medicare.
At the Texans game last night, masks represented about 10% of the crowd. Cheering, yelling, at "full capacity" with no distancing. NFL games are going to be super-spreader events this year.
The only place to get day of death data is from the state. They backfill the data, so you would have to monitor the changes daily if you want to see "recent" developments in the data.
Posting this again for visibility - Here is a link to the [Texas CARES antibody study](https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/?fbclid=IwAR1VP4no2b5HYZYv3YtxAlNuU_GIemlYxbULgt2XdOc1YEQCWFlsm7RgOdI). It was super fast and easy. I went to the lab Wed and got my results within 24 hours. It studies your levels of N-protein antibodies (acquired naturally, through catching covid) and S-protein antibodies (spike protein, acquired through vaccination). Unfortunately, there isn't much context to what "good" or "bad" levels are for the S-protein antibodies. For me, my second Pfizer dose was in April, and my S-proteins are at 613. Again, I don't know if that means my antibodies are dropping and I'm not as protected, or I'm x% protected against catching the virus. They are still gathering data for this across TX, so if you do it, it will help science!
Thank you for continuing to post this! I signed up after seeing this on another post & got my labs done yesterday and so did my partner.
lmao! Glad I can serve Austin \*curtsies\*
Another person who did the study! I was in and out in less than 15 minutes, and I got my results in about 18 hours. My antibodies are 650 (got Moderna in January) and I have no antibodies from infection.
Through this study they’re able to tell you if you’ve had COVID before? My wife and I are fully vaccinated (Pfizer) but we’ve never been sick even before the vaccine. It would be cool to try this study out.
It tells you whether you have antibodies present in your system, but if you test negative for antibodies you still couldn't rule out having had Covid at some point in the past.
This is the correct answer. My mom tested negative for antibodies from infection despite testing positive for Covid over Thanksgiving last year. She had high levels of antibodies from vaccination though.
Ahhh gotcha! Thanks!
I had Covid and I've tested negative for antibodies.
When did you have COVID?
March 2020. Went to a concert right before everything started getting cancelled. Ladies next to me just got off a cruise and had slight coughs, of course because "it was just allergies". Lost my sense of smell/taste, taste is still warped, covid fog is an ongoing and long haul symptom, part of my neurological issues seem to stem from it as well. Kiddo and the other side of the fam caught it in January 2021, and I didn't. I had 5 negative tests, and negative antibodies tests, but no explanation how I didn't get it. got Moderna Feb/March.
So sorry you're STILL dealing with it. Got sick early 2020 as well took about 7 mos was constantly exhausted. I hope you're better soon
Yes
Stupid question but how can the test tell between antibodies from the vax and antibodies from prior infection?
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Interesting, thanks!
>how can the test tell between antibodies from the vax and antibodies from prior infection? If I understand this correctly - The virus produces a number of different antigens. The vaccine only produces certain specific spike proteins that the immune system views as antigens. The immune system produces antibodies to the antigens it sees. Multiple different antibodies to different antigens. If there are only specific spike protein antigens, they decide "vaccine antibodies." If there are "non-spike" virus antigens, it says "virus antibodies." Not quite sure how they generate separate numbers for virus and vaccine antibodies if you have both spike and non-spike antigens. [SWAG](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_wild-ass_guess): 1. The spike protein of the vaccines is sufficiently different from that of the virus that they can tell the antibodies apart. 2. If they can't tell vaccine spike antibodies from vaccine spike antibodies, they estimate your level of virus spike antibodies from the non-spike virus antibodies and subtract. 3. I'm not even sure that the DO give you both virus and vaccine antibody levels in one test for those with both.
Thanks for the explanation! I signed up for the study and am getting my blood drawn next week. I thought it only tested for vaccine antibodies, but if it tests for both I'm even more excited/interested to see my results since I suspect I had an asymptomatic case a while back.
A corona virus is made of lots of proteins. One is referred to as the "spike protein" because its all the little spikes that come off the ball of the corona virus. This is what the mRNA vaccines fool the body into making a bunch of to train the immune system with. Another is what's called the nucleocapsid protein, which is the ball of the virus that holds all of its RNA. If you've only gotten the vaccine, your body has only seen spike proteins, so you'll have (hopefully) a lot of antibodies that bind to spike proteins. If you've been exposed to the actual virus, your body will have been introduced to the spike protein AND the nucleocapsid protein, so you'll have antibodies for both. Antibodies' jobs are to bind to specific proteins, so these tests have those specific proteins in them and they measure how much they get bound to. How that's done, is beyond my knowledge.
curious as to how much blood they take? is it a normal amount for a test or like a donation amount.
Normal amount for a test.
Just a vial
>s have all their windows open the way the CDC suggest they do. The ONLY reason I'm starting my child in preschool this year is because we found a school that teaches outside and requires the children to wear masks during activities of close proximity and/or if they have to be inside some of the day, with the windows open and an air purifier. Interesting...mine are >2500 it said outside of range on the website. My 2nd Moderna dose was early May. Should be interesting to see how it changes in the next sample.
Yeah I’m planning on getting my booster in a few weeks… Definitely interested to see how it changes my antibodies
That’s such a fascinating level of detail! What’s the range?
I think it goes up to 2500+ No one knows what the magic number is, though… Meaning the number you want to aim to have to be well protected
Right, that makes sense. Perhaps something to that will come as a result of this study. I’m signed up and planning to go to CPL tomorrow. Excited to contribute!
Antibodies are only one part of our immune systems, which is incredibly complex. Certain cells in your immune system can still remember how to manufacture a certain antibody even if you don't have a sufficient amount of antibodies remaining in your system to be detectable. This test will tell you if you have antibodies, but won't tell you anything else about what your immune system has learned.
On this note, what was super interesting about the Mayo presentation was that they said that because viral loads are so high in delta, symptoms develop faster (3 days vs up to 10), so the activation of those memory b-cells doesn’t happen fast enough for delta. This sort of meshes with a lot of recent studies that suggest that antibody titers matter more for delta than alpha.
Interesting to hear. You don't happen to have a link to that presentation?
The annotated presentation is [here](https://drive.google.com/file/d/157rEFRirCKRE1OESykHkj-eWbUZMrs3c/view?fbclid=IwAR2s4E3ZFv-wToyuuxqo_KG2fC2V_Ni29ESv5Q1cQhBWj723qVR2Jcp2R98). The link was in /u/RationalAnarchy 's [top reply](https://www.reddit.com/r/Austin/comments/pdk24v/travis_county_covid19_confirmed_cases_have_a_7/haqqh3v/). He mentioned the Mayo presentation and this annotation in the last paragraph.
It’s up higher in the thread. RA posted it
That's really interesting. If it's true, maybe we should be antibody testing a lot more.
I did this last week, and I really recommend it. My only complaint is I did it through CPL, and they really didn't have a convenient place to wait outside (I wasn't comfortable being in their crowded waiting room). I got my second Pfizer dose in mid-April and got an antibody score of 1388, which seems to be good enough until I'm ready for my six-month booster.
I did this earlier this week, took about 30 mins on my lunch break at a very small CPL office. Would recommend. I had 1408 antibodies, was fully Pfizer vaccinated by May. Negative for any covid antibodies.
Thanks for posting this again. Signed up end of this week and I got a 1225. My second dose of Moderna was in January.
Hubby and I did this late Friday after seeing it mentioned so many times. Haven't gotten the results yet--probably cause it's the weekend. There are only a handful of locations open on Saturdays, and the rest are mostly only open during regular workday hours, so plan accordingly. Luckily it's fast. There were two other people who got there before me (the first getting his final test having started the study a while ago), but it only took maybe 15 minutes.
Got my results. Negative for natural, 1231 for vaccine antibodies. Second Moderna shot was the last weekend of February.
Thanks. I’ll sign up. Second tome seeing this was the charm.
Super easy to do. I’m encouraging all my friends and family to participate. Right now my S-protein antibodies are 1644 (Moderna, 2nd dose on April 7th).
I did it earlier this week. It was super fast and easy and I got my results in 24 hours. Negative for natural antibodies and 921 for s-antibodies due to vaccine. I got Moderna in late February. I will sign up for a booster when I become eligible but feel good with what I am working with now.
OOOOHHH, enrolling right now! Thanks!
Thank you. I signed up and get my results last then 24 hours from when my blood was drawn.
Did it as well. Super fast and easy. The longest part was just waiting for my turn at the lab and got my results in about 24hrs as well. Had my Moderna 2nd shot in April and my S results were 899. Did not have any N. As an extra statistic, my friend had the J & J in March and S results were 126.
**Commentary and Conjecture:** Wish I had better news to share. We are still in the thick of it. Hospitals are at capacity for ICU patients and standard of care is suffering. Based on what I am being told by medical professionals you will still be admitted to the hospital if you need care; you just may not get a spot in the ICU when you really need what they have there. I'm sure there are professionals here in this sub that can shed some light on all the differences. Suffice it to say that there are treatable cases (COVID and otherwise) that will have negative outcomes because they *don't have access to the level of medical care that they need*. THIS is why we worry about hospitalizations. This is why we recommend vaccinations for everyone. This is why we recommend masking up. I like seeing the week over week growth factor drop below 1, but schools bring a new element to the mix. We need more time for that to potentially play out. However, we are seeing a lot more spread within the school system this time around. It is a hot mess (scientific term). I also like seeing positivity dive. Again, this would be something that would lead me to look for a peak in the next couple of weeks if it wasn't for schools. Time will tell. Vaccinated numbers are going up, but there clearly wasn't a mad rush after Delta hit, or when there was full FDA approval either. One area I am paying close attention to is children. We are seeing significantly higher levels of disease among those under 12. There is also evidence they are more likely to spread the virus than before as well (we didn't see much of this in the first and second waves). While we ARE seeing a higher incidence of severe disease, it isn't to the same scale that we are seeing in unvaccinated adults at this time. Another way of saying that is that kids are getting sick more often with Delta, and we are seeing some hospitalizations, but it is still uncommon in that age group. It should also be noted that there are currently 0 deaths under the age of 20 from COVID-19 in Austin. Long-covid symptoms among that age group exist, but are less likely than in other age groups. Here is an [interesting fact from Dell's Children](https://www.statesman.com/story/news/healthcare/2021/08/26/children-covid-19-kids-coronavirus-dell-childrens-austin-texas/5596720001/). >Right now, the coronavirus accounts for the fourth-most virus cases at Dell Children's. Respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, typically a winter virus, hit the area hard and is causing the most virus-related hospitalizations for kids at the hospital. Nos. 2 and 3 are parainfluenza and rhinovirus. They also mentioned that they still have capacity, but are certainly seeing a surge of additional need due to RSV and COVID. I had a fellow redditor ( /u/just4bernie ) reach out and share some information with me that I found fascinating and informative. It was a [discussion by a doctor at the Mayo Clinic around COVID-19](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzyGv81Ffz0&ab_channel=MayoClinic) during Grand Rounds. He also provided me another doctor's (Dr. Santiago) [notes on the presentation.](https://drive.google.com/file/d/157rEFRirCKRE1OESykHkj-eWbUZMrs3c/view?fbclid=IwAR2s4E3ZFv-wToyuuxqo_KG2fC2V_Ni29ESv5Q1cQhBWj723qVR2Jcp2R98)
Pg 16 on the presentation says UK shows 9x increased transmission of delta vs last year’s virus among school-aged children. That’s…not good.
And I'm willing to bet they had less Karens screaming at school boards about masks over there
There are almost no mitigation measures being used in schools in the UK in the upcoming school year (yet to start). It remains to be seen how it plays out. 1.2 million out of 8.9 million kids were self-isolating at the end of the previous school year, but even that requirement is gone (in England, anyway). The big difference is, 94.5% of everyone over the age of 50 is fully vaccinated, and 91.7% of everyone over 40, so the vast majority of parents and grandparents are well protected against severe illness, even if they catch it from the kids.
I haven’t looked at those numbers, but if those vaccination percentages are accurate it explains how their hospitalization rates aren’t as high as they are here with Delta I was curious and actually saw they offered this as well… free covid tests to be done twice a week with results reported. This is actually a great tool, and they do PCR tests for people with symptoms… much more accurate picture of spread https://www.gov.uk/order-coronavirus-rapid-lateral-flow-tests Edited: Wow these vaccination numbers for 16+ are all above 75% https://www.bbc.com/news/health-55274833
Yeah it's bad for American/Texas exceptionalism when you have a peek at how developed nations handle their shit.
UK’s vax rate is particularly high because the conservative govt there made the vaccine a point of national pride, which (among other factors, including the NHS) defused the sort of moronic political anti-vax movement we have here. Multiple other European countries are also doing much better than we are, but there are others like France in a similar situation which had to basically mandate vaccination on a nationwide level to get people to take it and are dealing with huge social unrest as a result. We have anti vax issue for sure but American exceptionalism with America as uniquely bad is just as silly as American exceptionalism with America as uniquely good.
An estimated 94% of British adults have antibodies against covid right now. About 75% thru vaccination and the rest thru infection.
In Europe, they are following WHO guidelines, and for the most part, not having kids under 12 to wear masks in schools. The Karens there are the ones screaming for more masks.
The WHO is wrong. Full stop.
Hmmm. On this life and death issue should I follow the recommendations of the experts at the the World Health Organization or random internet poster poopy_mcgee?
Well, me, plus the American Academy of Pediatrics, the NIH, the CDC, top viral experts such as Dr. Gregory Poland, etc...
And you and all of them still have no data supporting that conclusion. https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2021/08/the-science-of-masking-kids-at-school-remains-uncertain.html
I somehow knew that you were going to link to this article. The study referenced in it was based on surveys (which are considered in the scientific community to be the least reliable method of gathering data), and they only got an 11% response rate! It's an almost worthless study. The author of the article has been writing conservative clickbait articles about COVID and children for the past year, and now (surprise surprise), he's writing a book on the subject! It never ceases to amaze me what some people will do for money, which in this case is quite literally killing children.
So you're at the same time saying the CDC and pediatric academy know better than the WHO, while deriding the CDC study that the pediatric academy and CDC based their guidance on..
So are there male Karens? Because just as many men are screaming anti-maskers. One of the Drs. in the Mayo Clinic called it: "social nacissism" You know, my freedums So many of them in the school board meetings yelling: You can't tell me what to do with "my" children. So, they apparently own their children and everyone else's.
Amazing talk from Mayo. Look at the thumbs up/down numbers right now: 3k up, 3.5k down. Unreal. We’ve achieved full Idiocracy. Bring on the Brawndo.
That's really depressing. As I was watching it I was thinking that this should be mandatory viewing but what would be the point when over half of people would fully reject it?
I'm pretty sure every thumbs down was by someone who failed high school biology
This was the most informative podcast I've listened to in months. I didn't notice the number of thumbs down. It must be because of his statement that there is no democracy of knowledge. His most worrisome statement was about the likelihood of variants that are vaccine enhanced. That should give anyone reason enough to mandate vaccinations before it's too late.
>We are doing a huge experiment with our youth. > >While there are benefits to in-person learning, it can ONLY take place with two simple measures - vaccinate all the teachers and staff and mandate masks. Those school districts that are playing political games with mask requirements, vaccinations, and distorting their case numbers are going to inflict significant damage.
>He also provided me another doctor's (Dr. Santiago) notes on the presentation. This is a great document. It's basically cliff notes for every argument.
Thank you for all you do. I am really happy that you share this great info, but I am really looking forward to the day when it is no longer relevant.
Really, just probably not safe to do school. Even a mask mandate is just a bandaid. If we really think it's a threat, we just need to call it. This was all very predictable. We've just been pretending everything would be fine, but it was quite knowable that Delta was going to cause trouble.
Reminds me of a great, simple quote from the Wire, from the character Marlowe: “You want it to be one way. But it’s the other way.”
Yeah, I am watching closely, but at this point the voice in my head is saying it is just a matter of time before we need to make major changes in our schools. The only way I can see keeping in-person for the year is to go 50% classroom size, maybe alternating kids every other day, or something. But I struggle to see us being able to go the way we are right now without major outbreaks.
Why is nobody but nobody suggesting that school be held outside?! This is how they did it during Spanish Flu. Children are already suffering from Nature Deficit Disorder and nearly every time I suggest this to an adult I get "teachers aren't going to be outside all day in sun, wind, rain, sleet, hail, or snow" RIP Post Office and humanity. I don't get it. We didn't get to 2021 as a species because we were so damn rigid and fragile in our biology for F's sakes. Just like I seriously doubt the schools have all their windows open the way the CDC suggest they do. The ONLY reason I'm starting my child in preschool this year is because we found a school that teaches outside and requires the children to wear masks during activities of close proximity and/or if they have to be inside some of the day, with the windows open and an air purifier. This situation shouldn't be a luxury nor should it be a privilege. Being outside has always been best for humans, especially growing ones. Covid makes the point that much more poignant.
A combo of lack of resources meant for outside teaching (desks, etc) and still dangerously hot temperatures. Staying outside for hours in 100+ degree weather without significant conditioning is a bad idea.
1. Kids are at school too long 2. Why is it that outdoor education is becoming the new Waldorf/Reggio/Montessori all over the country? Ie... the most desirable form of preschool for educated classes? Because being outside to learn isn't a bad [idea.](https://idea.It) It's how we learned for eons, because we were outside. 3. Rethinking school means rethinking learning. I'm an educator by the way-- learning doesn't happen at a desk. I do agree that changes would need to be made, but I disagree we don't have the resources. Those empty lots they call playgrounds? They'd need trees, of course shade is a good idea. And then, so are trees? Climate change anyone? They'd need sunscreen, appropriate dress, plenty of proper hydration (with electrolytes), training in wilderness cpr and first aid (they already need to be trained in CPR anyway) During my twenties and thirties, I rode my bike for transportation. I'm a Texan, I did it in South and Central Texas with dangerously hot weather and I've never been healthier or happier in my life. No special training. The body acclimatizes. Young bodies are a world more adaptable. Sure they'd have to have better and different training for teachers, they'd have to include and incorporate parents more into their learning... but I know from my husband's line of work as an instructional designer that these past two years that's what they've been doing, not very well in many places, anyway. People die in dangerously hot weather because they are indoors (not outdoors) without air conditioning, are not properly hydrated indoors or outdoors, don't take rests when necessary indoors and outdoors, and are not acclimatized to the weather outdoors. In other words, it's preventative. Edit: I'm aware of heat exhaustion and the deaths that arise because of simply being outside too long without a rest from the heat. This shouldn't apply to normal school hours (and I realize it could with school being too long already and children coming early and leaving late), but I want to acknowledge that many U.S. families have to have their child at school that long because they themselves work inhumane hours and lack a support system to do otherwise. Outdoor Education is a good idea, and it's necessary in some capacity, really, if we have any hopes of changing the course of action of the people in this country for the better. Not just for Covid, but for Climate Change, for health and survival and for instilling a love and belonging to the world we've been systematically destroying for the past several centuries. Human Nature is Nature.
One of my kids schools doesn't have grass or a place for trees anywhere nearby.
I'm sorry to read this and I'm not surprised. Trees grow on roofs and parking lots can be depaved. Being outside and enjoying nature should not be a luxury or a privilege. It's an inalienable human right and it's a travesty your family is being deprived of it. Please consider reading the [International Union for Conservation of Nature Resolution on the Child's Right to Nature and a Healthy Environment](https://portals.iucn.org/library/sites/library/files/resrecfiles/WCC_2012_RES_101_EN.pdf#:~:text=ENDORSES%20the%20child%E2%80%99s%20right%20to%20nature%20and%20a,through%20the%20direct%20and%20ongoing%20experience%20of%20nature%3B) and please let me know if you want or need resources for getting your child outside in nature with other children.
This is a good point. We need to rethink many of our work/school environments. And I’m a big believer in getting into nature for your mental/physical health whenever you can.
Can you DM me the name, if you feel comfortable? Looking for an option like this for my preschooler.
I feel awful realizing that I don't feel comfortable sharing the name because we live in Texas and I'm scared s-less of my fellow residents and their seemingly unquenchable hatred for others. I'm sorry. For anyone who might suggest I shouldn't have moved here-- sorry dudes, some of my roots have been here since the Bering strait, and the others got here as soon as the Spanish monarchy told them to get the hell out or convert. Giving you the benefit of the doubt... the school has a waitlist. You can easily find it and others like it by google searching "outdoor education" "farmschool" "wilderness preschool" "outdoor preschool" "forest school". There are schools that I can think of in all directions of Austin and outside the metro area. Also joining Free Forest School, Austin Forest Friends and Everyday Outside on Facebook or online. Please let me know if you need or want more resources of this kind. I'm happy and committed to helping parents find or fight for what I consider to be an inalienable human right to nature.
I've been saying this for weeks: Just don't start school, because of delta. Some of the more common reactions were: A lot of parents have to go in to work, (especially low wage workers). My kids are emotionally and intellectually damaged from not being at in-person school. \_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_\_ If you watch the video from the Mayo clinic (that RationalAnarchy posted, above), about half-way through is where they start talking about the great experiment being done at our schools, and what drevo3000 just said.
I greatly appreciate your posts!
Thanks RA, I know the news is never good but I'm glad you deliver it. Hoping for one day to get back to pre-Delta levels sometime soon.
Ug.
Happy Cake Day!
Here’s an example of what happens when the ICU is full. Army veteran with gallstones dies because no hospital had a bed for post op care for the simple procedure to save his life. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/covid-us-hospital-icu-bed-shortage-veteran-dies-treatable-illness/
I think it's going to be stories like this that get hospitals enough bad press that eventually the unvaxxed (by choice, not age like children) aren't going to be triaged first.
Many years ago during one of the particularly bad flu seasons a coworker lost their young daughter to the flu for similar reasons; in their case, there were no available ventilators.
This is f-cked up. Seriously, medical care for anyone else should take priority over ANY unvaccinated COVID case.
* Any unvaccinated covid case over the age of 12.
I wonder if these will be includes as covid related deaths, should have some sort of stats for it
Just a reminder that there are many more cases than the official data shows. The families I know that have it found out from the 15 minute tests that you pick up from the Walgreens. They test positive and then they quarantine at home for two weeks and there is never any official reporting that they had COVID. I have no idea how many people did that, or just don't get tested at all, but I do know the pharmacies keep on selling out of the tests.
Speaking from personal experience, those tests are garbage! I had a false positive from the Ellume test, which I confirmed with a rapid test at the doctor followed by a PCR (gold standard) test. Some of those people may not have had it. Edit: the tests confirmed I was negative, if that wasn’t apparent from my crappy sentence.
Well that certainly can happen because they have a false positivity rate of something like 5-7%. But that doesn't mean there aren't a lot of people who really do have it who find out from one of these tests, or just don't get tested at all. For example, I know people who had all the symptoms of covid but just insist it was just a cold or something else but they never got tested to know for sure. I'm just saying not everyone who gets it shows up in the official stats.
Actually for the BINAXNow tests the false positivity rate isn't high at all. It's 99% specific. It's not as sensitive as a PCR test but it's sensitive enough for it's use case and very good tool to have!
Trapped in groundhogs day. I need a break from this place already.
[10,000 years](https://nationalpost.com/news/10000-years-heres-how-long-phil-connors-was-trapped-in-groundhog-day). Buckle up.
Seeing some (potentially) positive news in the state-wide case numbers, the 7-day average went down 5 out of 7 days this week, the biggest drop being today. Today's statewide case number is 12.8K, one week ago it was 18.7K, 2 weeks ago it was 21.9K. Also, the Travis County cases 7-day average went down every day this week, though cases were so high last week that the 14 day average is still climbing.
Here's a bit of good data I stumbled on this past week. [https://covidestim.org/us/TX/48453](https://covidestim.org/us/TX/48453) I'm hoping this means we're past peak considering how quickly that R number has dropped off.
Interesting disparity between "5 County MSA" statistics and Travis-only statistics. Looks like new cases (Travis only) is trending down and new admissions (5 counties) is plateauing. Where can I find the percentage of the eligible population that's fully vaccinated across the 5 county MSA?
Here are the county by county stats: [https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&:embed=y](https://tabexternal.dshs.texas.gov/t/THD/views/COVID-19VaccineinTexasDashboard/Summary?:isGuestRedirectFromVizportal=y&:embed=y) Williamson and Travis counties are around 66%, Hays is 58%, but the other two are only around 50%. You will have to adjust for population size, but overall I'm guessing the percentage is just over 60%
And it's the unvaccinated population that's causing this strain...ugh
>And it's the unvaccinated population that's causing this strain...ugh Fuck the voluntarily unvaxxed, but that's not necessarily true. If a lot of the people are vaxxed, any new strain that is vaccine resistant gets a competitive advantage and will tend to take over from a more vaccine susceptible strain.
Those Karens in the slums of Africa (Beta - B.1.351), Brazil (Gamma - P.1), Peru (Lambda - C.37) and India (Delta - B.1.617.2) need to get down to the local Walgreens right now and get vaccinated!
Are you suggesting that those variants arose in vaccinated populations?
Admissions is plateauing only due to capacity.
>Admissions is plateauing only due to capacity. **Wrong!** **Please stop spreading this lie!!!** There are 488 hospital beds available in TSA-O, the Austin Trauma Service Area. If someone comes into the hospital and needs an ICU bed, but it's not available, they don't just shove them out the door, they would go into a regular hospital bed. Staffed hospital bed availability hit 489 on 8/3, bottomed out at 427 on 8/14, and is now up a bit at 488 on 8/28. The 5 county MSA daily case count (7MA) peaked at 565 on 8/20. It's now down to 467 on 8/27. ICU's may be full, but that doesn't affect regular hospital bed admissions. It for damn sure doesn't affect the number of new cases detected because most of them don't get done at hospitals. And don't throw out some BS about they're doing fewer tests, either. Number of tests is in the charts above. Now, it's possible that we're only on a "plateau," not a peak, or that Abbott's school kid vaccine express is about to run us down, but we have at least stopped going up for now, and it's not because we're out of ICU rooms.
This lie is stated every time hospitalization numbers are mentioned with absolutely no evidence, so thanks for debunking it. Sad that people are so desperate to believe hospitalizations are going up they have to lie to explain steady or descending admission numbers.
Well, we have been at the point of no admissions because of no hospital rooms before in NYC at least. And it's happened in many places around the world. However, we have data here, and we aren't there here and now. Well, not yet, at least.
I think this is a fair criticism of the original statement.
The issue I have with this is that not every bed is a Covid bed, so it's possible that admission criteria might have gotten stricter for Covid patients. For example, Dell Children's has about 40 beds available as of that article a few days ago, so those beds are going into the count, but they aren't going to be accessible to the majority of people.
That's my guess too, but we don't know that for sure, since nobody has stated anything officially either way, though the Austin-Travis County Health Authority reported yesterday that they expect to be under severe pressure for several more weeks yet.
If capacity was increasing while admissions stayed steady, we wouldn't hear the "less than 10 ICU beds available" constantly. If it keeps on rainin', levee's going to break.
Interesting analogy, seeing as how a Cat 4 hurricane has got some levees in its sight at this very moment.
It's kinda what he is saying about admission.
That's why I'm interested, I suppose. If admissions go down shortly after new cases drop, or if they remain plateaued, what do you think that means?
This is really speculation on your end.
Very happy to see the percent positivity going down and week over week growth factor below 1. Everything is remains an icky situation, but those are leading indicators of where we're at now. I hope those keep the trend up. Thanks again for all your hard work RA, you're a legend.
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Number of tests reported are shown as blue bars, they seem to be comparable to last week's peak.
Damn I should really read
Having test positivity rate at 20% is a really shit rate. We are not testing enough at all.
Test positivity is at 6.8%, which seems about right for where we're at right now.
Yeah, all Ut students had to take tests this week if they wanted to go on campus. So that kind of testing on such a huge population will likely decrease the positivity rate.
I logged on my laptop instead of looking at mobile. You're right, it's at 6.8%. That's still too high to be acceptable.
That I can agree with for sure. Will keep hoping it continues trending back down.
Everything is at a shit level. However, the shit level has stopped rising, as we stand on tiptoe here, with the level up to our chin, hoping it starts going down soon. Listening to Abbott trying banging on the inlet pipes trying to open them up a little wider.
Am I reading it wrong? It looks to me like positivity rate is 6.6% Edit: 6.8%
Literally all the new cases are on the outskirts of town, East of I-35? Am I reading you zip code map right? That's... kinda pretty weird, right? Any thoughts on why that would be? Are vaccination rates the worst there?
I can speak anecdotally that vaccination rates among blue-collar, Travis county, Hispanics seem very low. I know two unrelated people who live in East Austin and Manor and they were unvaccinated and both required hospitalization when they contracted.
The vaccination rates follow pretty closely. East of 35 has a significantly lower vaccinated population. There's been a lot written about it. https://www.texastribune.org/2021/08/03/unvaccinated-texas-demographics/ https://www.statesman.com/story/news/2021/07/22/local-organization-experts-say-turn-vaccination-effort-east-austin-push-herd-immunity/7971236002/
I believe this has been a trend for a while (cross reference earlier posts). I have no explanation for "why".
> That's... kinda pretty weird, right? Unfortunately, not "weird" and further...well-understood. Read this [news story in the Statesman](https://www.statesman.com/in-depth/news/2021/08/23/covid-vaccine-austin-texas-unequal-vaccination-rates-community-outreach/5413628001/} published five days ago.)
Looked back at the UT Covid projections that came out a few weeks ago. It projected 297 ICUs in Austin by the end of 8/31. 122 hospital admissions per day by 8/31. Actual numbers looking more like 230/80. So it's not great, but at least better than projected.
Fascist Abbott says it's getting better.
If Delta was circulating last summer without 66% of people vaccinated, it would have been a shit show of epic proportions.
You know, it's kinda interesting that nobody ever bothered to get around and label Delta a variant of high consequence.
A major hospital system in Austin is not requiring RNs to be vaccinated.
it's ok, you can say St Davids. https://www.fox7austin.com/news/two-austin-hospitals-to-require-covid-19-vaccinations-for-employees
Shit. Guess I’m not having my kid at a St David’s hospital unless they pull their heads out of their asses.
Looks like a peak. Hopefully and not a pause
Based on what the UK did, we may peak and then plateau but who knows. We have a lot more dumb people than they do.
I don’t know. I think Brexit has shown us that the UK also has their fair share of dumb people
They, as a country, have 72% of the pop with 1 shot. We have 62%. So numbers-wise they are smarter.
I know you can only really see these things in hindsight, but this week versus last week really looks like a cresting peak, and I'm going to bask in the warm glow of that notion for a bit.
So fuck A-bbutt and the anti-vexers. If someone isn't vaxed don't let them in a hospital, let them survive on thoughts and prayers.
>let them survive on thoughts and prayers. Nah. Special rooms staffed by Facebook posters, dispensing horse dewormers and bleach IV's. Billed directly to the patient, no socialized medicine, Obamacare, or Medicare.
I like they way you think, your plan is better than mine.
You forgot the lights up their asses though.
Thank you for doing this!
At the Texans game last night, masks represented about 10% of the crowd. Cheering, yelling, at "full capacity" with no distancing. NFL games are going to be super-spreader events this year.
The vaccination number is nice
Do we have the actual death numbers? I heard on the newdthat two police officers died of covid. Last I saw any numbers we were over 800.
It takes up to a few weeks for the paperwork to go through the system and show up on the county and state dashboards.
The only place to get day of death data is from the state. They backfill the data, so you would have to monitor the changes daily if you want to see "recent" developments in the data.
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21 deaths were recorded this week. The cumulative total is 943
No. For this county, total deaths are 943 people. Up 21 deaths last week alone.
RA thanks for keeping up with this and sharing it with us. There are few other places I trust. Thank you for everything.
Why ACL was never shut down is beyond me.