Time for a Walgreens covid test update…….and a local Kansas City update

In light of the fear propaganda spreading through Kansas City, I decided it was time to have a look at the Walgreens covid test stats.  Kansas City proper has been issuing “moderate alerts” about rising cases.  I have noticed a lot more mask wearing in the waiting room at the office.  It has been about a month since the last check in so lets have a little lookie loo at what is goin on.

Positivity rates up slightly, they were in the upper 20 percentile a month ago, and now climbed to 35%.

The all age data:

31% of unvaccinated tested were covid positive

70.4% of 3 vax recipients were covid positive

And check out those 2 dose numbers……61% of those tested were positive.  Most of the population who chose to be vaccinated is double vaxxed not triple or quadruple.

Even the 1 dose group is higher than the unvaccinated in terms of percentage testing positive.

It does feel like beating a dead horse when I say that vaccination really does not make a hoots bit of difference in catching covid.  You have all seen the Pfizer data and know the stats of protection with the hokey pokey.  There is not much difference in the numbers of the age 18-44 category so just posting the all age group data this go round.  With each passing week, the numbers of vaccinated testing positive climbs higher and higher (from upper 30% this spring to 60-70% now).  Unvaccinated testing positive climbed about 15% (they were in the 16% range this spring and 31% range now).

So there is fear driven paranoia spreading through my workplace.  A few colleagues are worried that “cases are rising so fast” and its time to “batten down the hatches” for the wave of “cron 2.0”.  The county health department spewing fear on the television about cases going up.  Some fanatical ER physicians at hospitals are doubled down on the fear mongering as well, with “cases are rising, blah blah blah”.  Well, I am a show me the receipts kind of girl, so, off to the MARC Kansas City data I went.  What does IT tell us?

So you can follow the graph.  Left to right.  Alpha, Delta, Omicron 1.0, and now Omicron 2.0.  This round of cases is NOTHING like cron 1.0.  That round was seeing 5,000 cases per day.  In fact, cron 2.0 is nowhere near the case levels of the alpha wuhan or delta either.  This epidemiology data website covers a population of at least 2 million people.  So 622 new cases on 7-7-22.  When you look at the graph of covid in its entirety, we are basically at July 2020 levels here.  The data only goes back to July 10th, 2020, as that is when this site was created.

How many of these people are sick sick?  Like ICU level care sick?

Well, not many.  That number has been pretty flat since April 2022.  In the entire metro area of 2 million people, 20 are in the ICU due to covid.  And all but 4 of those are in urban core hospitals.  So the two major academic medical centers here in the Kansas City area have 16 total patients in the ICU for covid.

What does this tell us?  Omicron 2.0 is not running as wild as 1.0 did.  Not even close.  Cron 1.0 is when both my husband and I caught covid round 2.  We both had the OG version of  wuhan alpha covid in March 2020 as well.  The people getting cron 2.0 that I personally know of are mostly the ones who somehow avoided it back in January when 1.0 went on the warpath through here.  Also, anecdotally, the ones I know getting 2.0 are fully vaccinated.  I have encountered a handful who are on covid omicron infection round 2 and 3, and they are all vaccinated and boosted.  There is no sharp rise in the bell curve of cases it is a steady plateau of cases.  It is not filling up hospitals or ICU’s.  So why are we spreading so much fear about this?!?!?!   Ironic or not, the same thing happened with delta last year at roughly this same time, and it ended up sending kids back to school in masks and a mask mandate going back into place.  Lord help us, please do not let that happen again.  These kids need a normal school year.

We are all going to inevitably catch some version and variant of covid.  Just like we catch colds and flu and other crud that goes around.  Some will catch it more than once.  We had it in March 2020, after I caught it from an ICU nurse patient.  Then gave it to my husband.  And for the next 2 years we were both healthy as could be.  Did not even have a slight cold or sniffle.  Until Omicron hit, and the hubs caught it at the dealership while waiting for his truck to have the oil changed.  And 3 weeks later I caught it from a patient who came into my office on day 2 of cron sickness.  It happens.  I do find the irony that we literally traveled the entire country coast to coast and never got sick, but I went to work and caught it twice.  Does that mean I should spend more time on vacation?  I think so.  But we need to keep this all in perspective and stop reacting in fear, and approach this as we would any other seasonal illness that cruises through.

I am interested in seeing if “influenza” returns this year though.  After a two year hiatus, what will it decide to do this winter?