#I did an antigen test and it isn't covid but who knows

[theirloveisgross]

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[12nb34]

Did I get COVID twice, or did it just never leave?

"PCR tests stay positive for a very long time -- 28 days, sometimes three or even four months. So that isn't a way to tell if you have a new infection," Doron said. "The other thing is, there is an underappreciation for how common false positives are, even with PCR tests."

Home antigen tests have 11% false positivity, she said, while with PCRs experts don't really know what the exact false positivity rate is.

"Anytime I have an expected new positive off someone who was positive a couple months ago I will repeat it," Doron said. "Most of the time the repeat is negative. So it is really hard. There's a lot of chatter out there about reinfection, but I think it's really hard to prove definitively whether two infections close together in the same person are or are not a new infection."

[corona-journal]

Covid Omicron is out and spreading, but spreading unevenly.....

So for the past few weeks, since the borders opened up, the Omicron strain has been galloping about.

We had two contact cases at work, so now it's a ghost town this Saturday...

The odd part is all the Christmas decorations still up. Because the office team got told to 'work from home' we got this weird frozen moment in time at the other side of the office....

I'm in the office solo today. No one except me on level 6, and the coffee machine is still out of coffee beans....

On level 5, the coffee machine still had coffee beans, if you're in desperate need of high powered coffee....

Wife's experience in the cancer care services, Adelaide hospital.

K, wife, has been sending out 7 day RATS (rapid Antigen tests) from the 4 million in stock for south Australia health services, and staying on top of covid in the cancer care services has almost completely displaced the primary job description of health and safety.*

*health and safety, given the after work venting/ debrief, often involves learning from situations where misdiagnosis or misreading clinical information leads to a poor outcome. Humans are imperfect, and cancer makes a shitty situation even shittier...

The medical staff are exhausted daily from covid + normal duties + responding to cancer safety issues + home life issues....

It's easy to extrapolate that the increased workload and knock on effects will be present across all medical sectors.....

Some team member is a contact, they have to quarantine, as does the family or other members of the house, holes in the roster, others must do extra time to cover the gaps...

So the system is stretched, and only at 20% overload....(according to K)

Covid Omicron is popping up in odd places..... an admin person gets it, but not the nurse team in the same floor, a patient gets it, but no visitors have any signs or symptoms.... add that to the list of puzzling frustrations.....

Erratic patterns of transmission.

So chatted with some people who I know by face and dogs only as I walked Sasha this morning...

He got covid from a nephew, flattened for three days, the wife and the kids didn't get it, nor did anyone else at the pre-christmas party....

He'd got the vaccine and booster, and he said it felt like a hangover from an old night drinking party when he was 18 years old.

Lining up for a drive through PCR from midnight to 800 in the morning made everything more tired...

Rapid Antigen Tests: false positive

If you use the RAT test on lemon juice rather than your bodily fluid (saliva or snot) you can generate a false positive. The trade off being a follow upPCR test, with a wait of maybe 8 hours...... no thanks.

Why are the borders still open?

Just watching and listening, both general chat and what others interstate are grumbling about, the main grumbling is 'why don't the borders get shut again?'

Probably because of double standard of 'get the jabs and booster shots, you're safe to work' compared to 'hard restrictions on numbers allowed as home visitors, or pubs, or night clubs, or weddings or funerals' even with jabs and boosters..

Covid cases sky-rocketing...the perception that Omicron is mild ... it isn't, but the perception is that it's less bad than normal or delta variant covid.

Essentially, it's the usual confusing mess, safe to work but not to party...

8 January 2022