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Jul 12, 2022·edited Jul 12, 2022Liked by John Dee

December will include a lot of people who only got tested because they wanted to safely visit their elderly relatives for Christmas.

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Jul 12, 2022·edited Jul 12, 2022Author

Now that is a cracking observation! Peak days were 20 Dec through to 7th Jan. Crazy Christmas COVID that appears and disappears in next to no time supports the notion of a testdemic.

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Jul 23, 2022Liked by John Dee

I am working in a pneumological practice since ever. Between 2020 and Christmas 2021 we had tested (all PCR) some 3000 people, of which 200 were tested positive and 20 only had symptoms.

Changed from one day to another Christmas 2021: every day some 40-60 symptomatik (rather severe) people- vaccinated a/o boosted - very few unvaccinated with light symptoms. Lasted until beginning of february.

So to my observation old Covid itself I would not have noticed at all without testing. Only Omicron.

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Great feedback - thanks! I did an analysis of several thousand admissions to a large UK NHS Trust Emergency Department a while back with focus on respiratory Dx. It turned out the really big peak in respiratory illness was Nov - Dec 2019, with nothing showing for Mar - Sep 2020. Unfortunately I don't have data for winter 2021/22 to assess Omicron.

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Jul 24, 2022Liked by John Dee

Just to continue: after February we had a small wave in March with rather slight symptoms, from April onwards until now we do have PCR negative respiratory illnesses lasting quite a while with rather severe general symptoms, but following this infection patients are not really as healthy as before and rather sickly. Not too few experience one respiratory (or other) infection after the other. Until now. This could be VAIDS, however lab results are - and we search a lot - quite normal and do not clarify anything. Since March we didn´t see one unvaccinated with URI.

In our practice we are dealing with about 1500-2000 people in a quarter. Location is Berlin.

From beginning of January the lab didnt sequence the results anymore as they were overwhelmed with swaps.

Symptoms during the first or Christmas wave were: 3 or 4 days rather severe symptoms, home antigen tests only later turning positive.

Thank you so much for the wonderful work you do, keeps me alive in this horrible and completely stupid times.

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Valuable insight once again!

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