It's not needed here either although sometimes they do ask if you're vaccinated.
Good on your dentist. Mine still does it on paper when you arrive along with the temp check. Of course he also still uses films instead of digital x-ray technology.
And of course we all know that temp. isn't always a symptom of Covid, and asymptomatic people still spread the virus.
The hospital phones with an automatic covid screening prior to the appointment. Today I noticed they've changed it a bit. It said something about new sore throat, cough etc then added if you have these things as a chronic condition have they gotten worse. I like that. I wonder how much of these things will continue after covid is over. If it ever ends.
So I mentioned above that we should all be pushing for rapid testing(or more correctly called antigen tests), but I was wrong. It appears that a rapid test only has a 72% accuracy for people that actually have Covid symptoms and for those who are asymptomatic it falls to 78.3% within the first week and drops to 51% during the 2nd week of having Covid with no symptoms.
On the other hand, we probably don't have the lab capacity to be doing casual random tests for people wanting to make sure they are healthy before they go to grandma's so may be better than nothing. I know the solution is to not go see grandma but that's not going to happen. Too many people want Christmas to happen this year, though my extended family has already decided not to.
Not working as well as we thought how? Of the vaccines being used the studies done before being approved were about preventing serious illness. The data I see is a pretty good match, and that's with delta being prominent here. A slight reduction in the effectiveness, but only a few points lower. Omicron may be different, there's not much data yet.
Interesting, haven't seen the change in sore throat with chronic conditions but change in cough and shortness of breath have been stated here for over a year. I think there may be something about worsening of symptoms in general as well. Wording changes slightly one location to another.I have a couple scans and an infusion tomorrow. Yeah, I know how to have a good time.
I think the solution with rapid tests is more about education. I think they can be useful but people need to be aware a negative test doesn't mean they are covid free.
No one thought vaccines were going to end this. As Chemgal said, they keep you from getting seriously ill, not from getting the disease and that has been clear from the get go. The fact is, MLHU currently has 445 active cases and only 13 are in hospital per LHSC with under 5 in ICU. Compare that to the overwhelmed ICUs we saw in previous waves. Something has changed and I think a big chunk of it is vaccination. Omicron being less serious might be a factor, too, but that has yet to be confirmed.
I'm looking at Europe, with their high vaccination rate and infection rates of the regular covid. Other areas in the world are stabilizing or slowed except Europe and especially the UK.
Infection rates aren't what the vaccines were looked at to bring down though. It's hospitalizations and deaths. I think that's a big problem with how many people look at their vaccinations. Yes, vaccination reduces risk of spread but it's not really a case of hey I'm, safe to be around because I'm vaccinated. It's more of a case of hey, it's ok I go to a busy place where covid may be circulating as I'm unlikely to need to take up a hospital bed if I get COVID. This is a big part of why we allow vaccinated people to gather when unvaccinated people cannot.