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Not to be that guy, but isn't there a surprising correlation between the availability of the upcoming booster shot and the "uptick" in covid cases? The shot has

Not to be that guy, but isn't there a surprising correlation between the availability of the upcoming booster shot and the "uptick" in covid cases? The shot has been in development for a while, and it was only recently announced to be ready, followed shortly thereafter by a bombardment of articles about the covid uptick. How convenient. Every time I've read these breathless claims of a resurgence of the pandemic, I've attempted to verify it through data analysis (number of positive covid tests) and the data has yet to validate the headlines. So please forgive me if I assume it's not the risk of contracting and dying from Covid that's suddenly increased, but rather the readiness of the latest pharmaceutical intervention.

thfuran 3y ago
When a new variant that evades prior immunization arises and starts to spread, that both causes an uptick I cases and prompts the need for a new booster.
Reki 3y ago
Testing data is dependent on actually testing people, which we aren't doing. However, more accurate measures like wastewater are very consistent with the current narrative.
tharkun__ 3y ago
Anecdata of one: I got Covid recently, multiple other people around me got Covid recently. None of us got a new booster shot. Not even available yet. Now I don't need it either. So from my point of view, you can keep your conspiracy theory.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  I'll stick to my conspiracy theory if you take a second to look at the data for daily Covid cases, and admit to yourself that it shows no significant spike: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
  - mkoryak 3y ago
    I don't trust any of those sites anymore because as covid becomes more normalized people stop testing / reporting their test results. Most of the countries on that list have 0 new cases. Is that the reality or are they simply not reporting anymore?
    - TechBro8615 3y ago
      Yes, I agree with the general premise, that "as covid becomes more normalized people stop testing / reporting their test results." But it's hard to reconcile this justification for lack of data, with (a) the current headlines claiming a new surge in cases, and (b) the headlines from two years ago, insisting Covid prevalence was not simply overinflated due to prevalence of testing.
      - tharkun__ 3y ago
        I have never reported any of the 3 times I or anyone in the family have had Covid and that comes out to more than 3 because we didn't all get it at the same time. And that was not just "after", this was even when you had all the 'test centers' everywhere and all that. I know nobody I know who had Covid that ever reported their case. All just self-tested and stayed at home for the appropriate amount of time. Why stand in line with lots of people that very probably have Covid to get tested and if you don't actually already have Covid, get Covid? Just stay home and isolate and get better. Again just anecdata of a few but extrapolate that up to a population level and you know why they are now doing the analysis through levels in waste water to get numbers. It's way more accurate.
        TechBro8615 3y ago
        One thing we can probably agree on is that those centralized test centers were the dumbest idea of the entire pandemic. For the same reasons you state, they always seemed absolutely insane to me. So you think you have Covid? Get in your car and drive to a gathering of a bunch of other people who might have Covid. If you don't have it now, you definitely will after!
rzimmerman 3y ago
I just had COVID for the first time. It's been two weeks and I still feel like total garbage. I'm thoroughly done being nice and pretending to be open minded about conspiracy thought at this point. If people want to "just ask questions" they need to be prepared for answers, which exist and are easy to find. The whole time I've been sick I've had to smile and nod at people trying to justify their dumb decisions two years ago. "Your body has an immune system..." and "are they just calling all respiratory infections COVID now?" is the kind of nonsense I don't want to hear when I can barely get out of bed. It's trivially easy to find evidence in data that cases are trending up. Positivity rate is up and hospitalizations are up where I live (LA county). http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#graph-positivity http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#gra... http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#graph-hospitalized http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#gra... This booster has been in development and testing for months. Any correlation between uptick in cases and booster availability is obviously just good planning. It's almost COVID/flu season and vaccine makers try to have a booster/shot ready in time for the predominant variant. Everybody (at least pretty much everybody) should get a booster when it's available. COVID is awful and you don't want to get it. Feel free to "make your own choices" and "read the evidence". But if you want to go that route, be prepared to accept the answer that getting a vaccine is statistically the right choice for 99%+ of people.
- TechBro8615 3y ago
  > I just had COVID for the first time. It's been two weeks and I still feel like total garbage. I'm confused how you open your comment with this statement, as if to express regret that you didn't get the vaccine and that's why you suffered from the symptoms of Covid. But from the rest of your comment, you don't sound like someone who's avoided Covid vaccines. In fact you go onto promote them. So I feel it's worth asking: are you vaccinated against Covid? How many times have you been boosted? And if the answer to those questions is "yes" and "more than zero," then what is your basis for scolding others into "getting a vaccine?" I mean, did it work for you, or did you still get Covid and suffer from its symptoms? For full disclosure, wary as I am of karmic retribution (from the universe, not HN users) for admitting it: I've not been vaccinated, I've not been boosted, and as far as I know I've not had Covid. I did have a sore throat and runny nose on a trip to NYC a few weeks ago, but if that was Covid, I hardly see the urgency to get vaccinated against it, and in fact I'm glad that I suffered from such a minor infirmity since it would mean I'm now immune to potentially deadlier variants, and likely to a degree more than anyone who's been vaccinated against earlier variants (research has consistently shown natural immunity from infection to be longer-lasting and more efficacious against a wider range of unknown variants than any vaccine).
mindslight 3y ago
You are on to something. There definitely is a correlation between the availability of the upcoming booster shot and the "uptick" in Covid cases. It's not surprising though. It's called cold season. The entire point of the new booster shot is that it is targeting specific strains that are likely to be prevalent this fall.
bsder 3y ago
> but isn't there a surprising correlation between the availability of the upcoming booster shot and the "uptick" in covid cases? No conspiracy required: everybody going back to school was going to cause an uptick irrespective of booster. However, things are exacerbated by the booster being late. The booster was supposed to be out in August before everybody went back to school.

thfuran 3y ago

When a new variant that evades prior immunization arises and starts to spread, that both causes an uptick I cases and prompts the need for a new booster.

Reki 3y ago

Testing data is dependent on actually testing people, which we aren't doing. However, more accurate measures like wastewater are very consistent with the current narrative.

tharkun__ 3y ago

Anecdata of one: I got Covid recently, multiple other people around me got Covid recently. None of us got a new booster shot. Not even available yet. Now I don't need it either. So from my point of view, you can keep your conspiracy theory.

TechBro8615 3y ago
I'll stick to my conspiracy theory if you take a second to look at the data for daily Covid cases, and admit to yourself that it shows no significant spike: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/
- mkoryak 3y ago
  I don't trust any of those sites anymore because as covid becomes more normalized people stop testing / reporting their test results. Most of the countries on that list have 0 new cases. Is that the reality or are they simply not reporting anymore?
  - TechBro8615 3y ago
    Yes, I agree with the general premise, that "as covid becomes more normalized people stop testing / reporting their test results." But it's hard to reconcile this justification for lack of data, with (a) the current headlines claiming a new surge in cases, and (b) the headlines from two years ago, insisting Covid prevalence was not simply overinflated due to prevalence of testing.
    - tharkun__ 3y ago
      I have never reported any of the 3 times I or anyone in the family have had Covid and that comes out to more than 3 because we didn't all get it at the same time. And that was not just "after", this was even when you had all the 'test centers' everywhere and all that. I know nobody I know who had Covid that ever reported their case. All just self-tested and stayed at home for the appropriate amount of time. Why stand in line with lots of people that very probably have Covid to get tested and if you don't actually already have Covid, get Covid? Just stay home and isolate and get better. Again just anecdata of a few but extrapolate that up to a population level and you know why they are now doing the analysis through levels in waste water to get numbers. It's way more accurate.
      - TechBro8615 3y ago
        One thing we can probably agree on is that those centralized test centers were the dumbest idea of the entire pandemic. For the same reasons you state, they always seemed absolutely insane to me. So you think you have Covid? Get in your car and drive to a gathering of a bunch of other people who might have Covid. If you don't have it now, you definitely will after!

rzimmerman 3y ago

I just had COVID for the first time. It's been two weeks and I still feel like total garbage. I'm thoroughly done being nice and pretending to be open minded about conspiracy thought at this point. If people want to "just ask questions" they need to be prepared for answers, which exist and are easy to find. The whole time I've been sick I've had to smile and nod at people trying to justify their dumb decisions two years ago. "Your body has an immune system..." and "are they just calling all respiratory infections COVID now?" is the kind of nonsense I don't want to hear when I can barely get out of bed. It's trivially easy to find evidence in data that cases are trending up. Positivity rate is up and hospitalizations are up where I live (LA county). http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#graph-positivity http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#gra... http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#graph-hospitalized http://publichealth.lacounty.gov/media/Coronavirus/data/#gra... This booster has been in development and testing for months. Any correlation between uptick in cases and booster availability is obviously just good planning. It's almost COVID/flu season and vaccine makers try to have a booster/shot ready in time for the predominant variant. Everybody (at least pretty much everybody) should get a booster when it's available. COVID is awful and you don't want to get it. Feel free to "make your own choices" and "read the evidence". But if you want to go that route, be prepared to accept the answer that getting a vaccine is statistically the right choice for 99%+ of people.

TechBro8615 3y ago
> I just had COVID for the first time. It's been two weeks and I still feel like total garbage. I'm confused how you open your comment with this statement, as if to express regret that you didn't get the vaccine and that's why you suffered from the symptoms of Covid. But from the rest of your comment, you don't sound like someone who's avoided Covid vaccines. In fact you go onto promote them. So I feel it's worth asking: are you vaccinated against Covid? How many times have you been boosted? And if the answer to those questions is "yes" and "more than zero," then what is your basis for scolding others into "getting a vaccine?" I mean, did it work for you, or did you still get Covid and suffer from its symptoms? For full disclosure, wary as I am of karmic retribution (from the universe, not HN users) for admitting it: I've not been vaccinated, I've not been boosted, and as far as I know I've not had Covid. I did have a sore throat and runny nose on a trip to NYC a few weeks ago, but if that was Covid, I hardly see the urgency to get vaccinated against it, and in fact I'm glad that I suffered from such a minor infirmity since it would mean I'm now immune to potentially deadlier variants, and likely to a degree more than anyone who's been vaccinated against earlier variants (research has consistently shown natural immunity from infection to be longer-lasting and more efficacious against a wider range of unknown variants than any vaccine).

mindslight 3y ago

You are on to something. There definitely is a correlation between the availability of the upcoming booster shot and the "uptick" in Covid cases. It's not surprising though. It's called cold season. The entire point of the new booster shot is that it is targeting specific strains that are likely to be prevalent this fall.

bsder 3y ago

> but isn't there a surprising correlation between the availability of the upcoming booster shot and the "uptick" in covid cases? No conspiracy required: everybody going back to school was going to cause an uptick irrespective of booster. However, things are exacerbated by the booster being late. The booster was supposed to be out in August before everybody went back to school.