The Biden administration on Monday said it is offering another round of free at-home Covid tests to U.S. households ahead of the holiday season, when more people gather indoors and the virus typically spreads at higher levels.
Starting Monday, Americans can use COVIDtests.gov to request four free tests per household. Those who have not ordered any tests this fall can now place two orders for a total of eight tests, according to the website.
The administration in September allowed people to request an initial round of four free tests through the site, resuming a federal program that temporarily shut down during a political fight over Covid funding.
Sewage studies show COVID is still an issue pretty much everywhere. People just don’t really care at this point. Hospitals aren’t full anymore because the most vulnerable have already died, been vaccinated, or now just avoid public places. So now we just get to roll the dice on long COVID and deal with lasting side effects every year or so.
(Recently got COVID here. I sing in multiple choirs, and COVID fucks up my singing voice for a while even after I recover. It’s such a pain in the ass.)
In Colorado I haven’t heard of anyone getting Covid in over a year. Now I know my group of friends and co-workers are all vaccinated so experience may vary, but it’s just not a thing in the Front Range. In the Ski Towns, that’s another story.
People are likely still getting Covid, but they are not testing, so it’s not confirmed. The strains around now are not severe for most people, varying from a sniffle to a flu. For some it’s severe, but with a combination of vaccinations, previous infections and the death of the most vulnerable already, it’s less of a public health problem.
A lot of my friends are vaccinated against this new strain too. They’re still catching it. It’s just a super sneaky variant. I’m severely immunocompromised and in congenital heart failure so COVIDs never gotten to leave the forefront of my decision making. So fucking tired of it
Vaccines don’t prevent infection. They do have a very high probability of preventing serious disease, hospitalization, and death.
I’m one of the lucky ones who are completely immune to covid. Tested countless times after being the only person in a group of people who did not catch the virus or test positive for the virus. That said, we did catch MERS in Europe in 2009 which was a early covid virus so we’ve felt that is why we are immune today.
The vaccine may still be worthwhile to protect your friends and family
We are fully vaccinated too.
If you don’t test, you won’t see it. 40-50% of cases are asymptomatic. So if one were vaccinated, and/or had already had the disease, conferring some immunity would likely make the symptoms less severe. Lower severity, decreased hospitalization, decreased death, that’s what we can reasonably expect, and are seeing.
Been tested loads of times, never comes back positive. My immune system kills it too fast.
LoL, you are fortunate. But don’t count on luck, as some point luck fails.
Thought I was asymptomatic until I caught it a month ago.
Twice I’ve been the only person in a group that didn’t get covid. I should have at least tested positive but had no symptoms, but no. There was two weeks I was the only healthy person in the office. Now RSV and colds, I get them constantly. One element my doctor said is due to my exposure to military burn pits and internal scarring as a result, covid might not even be able to get into the spots it likes to grow.
Yeah, obviously it’s a bigger issue in places with more population churn. Larger cities, big events, travel hubs, tourist destinations, etc.
It’s also not very potent for many people at this point. People probably just assume they have a cold (which is kind of to be expected as variants become less severe and more transmissible) and wouldn’t know it’s COVID without a test. After all, the nebulous category “common cold” already contains other coronaviruses IIRC (though I think the bulk are rhinoviruses).
What is crazy is that if your exposed to the measles and vaccinated you might get nothing or it is just a cold. No actual measles symptoms.