New York and Miami are large east coast travel hubs. Most likely Omicron came in via airline passengers to both locations --- at about the same time. I will note that it is the southern counties (near Miami) in Florida which are having the greatest case rate increases. It should also be noted that Covid variants are poorly tracked in Florida -- we probably have no realistic idea about the percentage of Omicron in the state. This is coupled with the poor reporting of cases in Florida which -- even as they reach new record heights -- are significantly under reported.
We have had plenty of people around us test positive for COVID... the tests were not done to indicate which strain, it was just a straightforward test, same with my son. So how do people know what strain is causing what covid numbers?
I previously explained how the surveillance of positive tests work to determine sampling of the variant types present in the community. Here is the information I posted previously regarding Florida. ============================================= It is interesting to note the the DeSantis administration is also doing everything possible to stop the tracking of variants in Florida. First some background -- most states fund the sampling of Covid tests to determine the variant type as part of a surveillance effort. For example in North Carolina between 5% and 10% of the positive submitted Covid tests are sampled in private testing labs or state (university) labs to determine variant types. Funding is available to all states from the federal government to fund this Covid type surveillance. Florida refuses to fund or perform any surveillance of positive Covid tests to determine variant types. The DeSantis administration wastes the federal money on commercials that never mention vaccination and very expensive monoclonal anti-body treatments (which probably don't work for Omicron). The Covid type surveillance rate of positive tests for Florida is definitely under 1% -- and most likely under 0.1%. Most of the surveillance occurs by mere happenstance at private labs processing the tests. At these low levels the Covid type surveillance in Florida is nearly meaningless. Over the past few weeks several southern Florida counties facing the incoming tide of Omicron started funding their own county-level Covid type surveillance and publicly reporting the results of the variant testing. The DeSantis administration has done everything they possibly could to shut down these efforts by counties - threatening to defund them and trying legal angles to shutdown the the counties efforts. Including have the Florida Department of Health issue nasty statements about these counties. You would think that a state with a sane governor would applaud these efforts in the best interests of public health. Florida has an issue with Miami-Dade sharing omicron data with the public? Puh-leeze! https://www.miamiherald.com/opinion/editorials/article256759582.html
Not sure that answers the question... my son tested positive...how do they know if it is delta or omicron.. no one did any additional testing on it.... it was just a PCR and then an antigen test. So when the media says of the new cases 75% or whatever is Omicron... i think that is a little bullshit. Also my son took 2 tests and both were positive 3 days apart. Is that 2 cases? Also neither was further studied to see which variant so...
Only a "sampling of positive tests" are further tested for variant type. If 5% to 10% of these positive tests are sampled for variant type in a state then they can get a pretty good idea about the prevalence of each Covid variant -- especially if this sampling is further geographically targeted by county. The entire concept is similar to how "polling" works in surveys. You will not know which variant your family member has after a PCR or antigen test -- unless the test was done in a hospital on a severely ill patient and they did further testing & informed the family. The problem with Florida is that nearly no variant type sampling is done... and DeSantis tries to shut down any county which is doing this variant testing with their own funds. Multiple positive tests done on the same person over the span of a few days should count as one positive case -- and not more than one. Assuming the state has their act together with record keeping.
"DeSantis for the win" -- New day, new record..... we can probably just re-post this every day on repeat. Florida COVID update: State surpasses 4 million cases and breaks single-day case record https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article256917562.html Florida reported 46,923 new COVID cases, the largest single-day increase of COVID cases since the pandemic began and nearly double the previous peak during the summer, when the deadly delta variant was surging, according to Wednesday’s report to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, based on Miami Herald calculations of CDC data. (More at above url)
Welcome to Florida under DeSantis' so-called "leadership". Let's see the perspective from a doctor in @Tsing Tao's hometown of Tampa. Florida Will Party on New Year’s Eve as Cases Hit Record Highs: ‘Nobody Cares’ https://www.thedailybeast.com/flori...hit-record-highs-nobody-cares-says-one-doctor As 2021 concludes with record numbers of new COVID-19 cases in Florida and the nation as a whole, Dr. Claudia Espinosa plans to spend New Year’s Eve quietly with her family in their Tampa home. “I am just going to stay in my house, probably go to bed early,” she told The Daily Beast. But she knows that even though Florida reported 46,923 cases in a single day, many people will be gathering to ring in 2022 as if the paramedics were not suddenly roaring back. “I know that nobody cares,” Espinosa, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the University of South Florida, said. “A lot of people are gonna get together and then we are going to have more cases. That is just the way it is going to be.” She added, “It’s discouraging because here we are again, just being the same.” Less than a month ago, COVID-19 in Florida seemed to have subsided into a manageable menace. Nearly two-thirds of Floridians were vaccinated. More than 4 million in the state had been infected and received a measure of immunity. Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis remained sunnily optimistic at a Dec. 17 press event even as a new COVID variant with a “Frankenstein mix” of mutations was spreading from South Africa to America. He suggested that anybody who did get sick could simply get an infusion of monoclonal antibodies such as President Trump received after getting COVID. The governor’s newly appointed surgeon general, Dr. Joseph Ladapo, mocked states that were seeking to fight the virus with mandates for vaccines, face coverings, and testing. “It’s the trifecta,” Ladapo said. “It’s lunacy.” But neither DeSantis nor Ladapo had much to say when two of the three main monoclonal antibody treatments—REGEN-COV and Bamlanivimab/etesevimab—soon after proved to be ineffective against the Omicron variant. “We cannot use those anymore because they are not working,” Espinosa noted on Wednesday. The third treatment, Sotrovimab, seems to be effective but is in very short supply. “Right now, we are trying to prioritize and just give it to people who most likely would die,” Espinosa said. “And those are the immunosuppressed people, or the ones that have a lot of risk factors. Those are the only ones that we are able to use these medications [on], because we have to be very conscious how we use the resources.” At the same time, Omicron was proving able to circumvent some of the protective powers of the jab. “The vaccine doesn’t seem to be working as well,” Espinosa said. “So that is scary. There are a lot of breakthrough cases.” Vaccinated patients were still better off. “The ones that get the vaccine, they have less time of infection, less chance to go into the hospital and die,” she noted. “So it is a good thing to just go ahead and do it.” In a bonus to breakthrough cases that seems to have more to do with economics and science, the CDC has halved the recommended quarantine time for the vaccinated from 10 to five days. The CDC does recommend wearing a mask during the five-day reprieve, but those who shun face coverings are not likely to comply. As it is, Espinosa sees few masks as she goes about Tampa. “It’s very seldom,” she said. “People are mostly without masks.” She remains mystified by the resistance of performing such a simple public duty. “Nobody should have a problem doing it,” she said. “I don’t understand that. I mean, come on, people, after two years, it should be like a no-brainer, right? I don’t know what we have to fight about that. We do it in the hospital. I don’t know why people don’t do it everywhere. Why kids don’t do it in the school. I mean, that just doesn’t make sense.” Her family does it as a matter of course. “We go out and we just use the mask,” she said. Last month, DeSantis enacted a law prohibiting mask mandates at schools. Espinosa’s 11-year-old daughter—who was vaccinated the first week she was eligible—nonetheless continued doing what common sense dictates. “She still goes to school with her mask and she still doesn’t take it off,” Espinosa said. “I don’t even have to tell her. She knows she doesn’t want to get sick. She hasn’t been sick and she doesn’t want to be there. And so she does it on her own.” Espinosa figures on being with her daughter on New Year’s Eve. She will then proceed into 2022, no doubt treating kids who became ill because their families ignored simple precautions that are everyone’s civic duty. She fears that the days ahead may see other variants emerge from places where too many people do not even have the opportunity to get the jab. “There will be another one unless everybody in the world gets vaccinated,” she said. “In places where there is not enough vaccines like in Africa or any other place where there are not good rates of vaccination, or they just don’t have it available, the mutations are going to occur. It will be later or sooner, but we are gonna have it.” She looked back over the past year and ahead to the one to come. “It’s really not reassuring, the panoramic view right now,” she said. “But, you know, we just have to keep working.” And as Espinosa works with critically ill patients, DeSantis might respond to calls from Orlando County Mayor Jerry Demings and other local officials that he do more to ensure there is adequate COVID testing available. People in Orlando waited in line for as long as five hours this week. In a more perfect Florida, DeSantis would also reconsider his position on face coverings. He used an 8-year-old girl who opposed them as a prop when he signed the law barring mandates in schools. Espinosa’s 11-year-old is the one for us all to follow.