COVID-19: Chapter 9 - OMGicron

Looks like everybody flying to America, regardless of vaccination status or citizenship, has to get a negative PCR test within 24 hours of flying. Now another fee has been added to my holiday plans.

Another problem is that there’s a 6 hour gap between my departure from Prague and my departing flight from Munich to America. And Lufthansa checks the vaccine and PCR test for the first leg of the flight. This means that if I get a PCR test at 7 AM, it’ll be good for flying from Prague to Munich but become invalid while I’m waiting for my flight to America which is at 1 PM. This means either I get the test where I get the results within 24 hours and hope it arrives way earlier than that or I pay four times the amount for the ultra-expedited test to see my family.

Fuck.

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I’d by lying if I said it didn’t cross my mind.

https://twitter.com/DiseaseEcology/status/1467393232325648388

(cite is linked in thread)

20 posts were split to a new topic: Betting on COVID

Fwiw when I flew Barcelona → Frankfurt → USA in August I was told that a test prior to departure was good enough (though the requirement was 3 days back then). We ended up getting ours done in the airport literally minutes before the flight and I think it was ~$40/person. I imagine these airports labs churn out a tonnnn of quick tests and are pretty reliable. See if you can book an appt at the airport before you check in.

If you’re getting your test somewhere else, make sure it’s a lab and not a pharmacy. Lufthansa wouldn’t take our pharmacy test results (which is how we ended up getting tested at the airport minutes before departure…)

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Traveling in a fried-out Kombi
On a hippie trail, head full of zombie

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It’s one day before. Not a strict 24 hours.

Flight is Thursday night, you test can be Wednesday morning.

Rapid test here in Frankfurt. Getting it at 8:00 before 11:30 flight this Thursday. Colleagues say they get the result pretty quick.

Pharmacies don’t give tests here.

Apparently, the restriction is the day before not 24 hours before. Problem is that my departure time is at 6:50 AM. Even if I got the earliest 24 hour test the day before, it’d be at 7 AM. So there’s no guarantee that I’d get my results on time.

Expedited tests at the airport are super expensive in Prague. Talking close to $300. Could get the same test for about half the price outside of the airport. No idea how you got a rapid test for such a cheap price at an airport. Consider me a bit envious.

Of course I could get covid for real and the whole holiday would be fucked for me :frowning:. Being extra cautious for the next 2 weeks or so.

I don’t think you need a PCR test, and it looks like rapid antigen tests are available at your airport for 32 euro.

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This is what the CDC has

Not sure what some of those initialisms are. Are they types of antigen tests that are acceptable?

If you click on the viral test link, antigen tests are ok. That rapid test option will be fine for you.

It’s somewhat unreasonable to expect people to get PCR tests the day before. Not saying they wouldn’t do it, but it’s unlikely.

How long until we have some real data on covid vaccines vs omgicron and if the symptoms are less severe than covid?

Prolly at least another week is what I’ve heard.

Been really impressed by the ability to predict clinical outcomes based at least somewhat on changes in sequences of a virus. That, to my understanding, is unprecedented.

I tried but it keeps bugging out on me on mobile. Not around a desktop.

https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/1467928970092068864?s=21

Has anyone heard of an Omicron death?

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I’ve been dragging my feet on the booster. Just going to get it at Walgreens, since they’ve been giving me coupons for my other shots. They don’t have availability until 4+ days out. I’m waiting until the window opens up for a day that’s not Fri/Sat at a location near me. I don’t think it’s worth driving an hour to get it a few days earlier. The wait may be partially due to them requiring people to get the same manufacturer they got their previous shots with.

No, there are none known. Also, the UK has 336 known cases of whom zero are in hospital.

Against that, hospitalizations are rising fast in the hardest-hit areas of South Africa. But we don’t really know what the underlying caseload is there.

I’m cautiously optimistic that Omicron causes less severe disease than Delta, but there’s still a lot of uncertainty.