Novel Coronavirus COVID-19

[Piddy]

26 minutes ago, lana-banana said:

The stories of what they're calling "long COVID" are horrifying: months of extreme fatigue, short-term memory loss, even encephalitis among young and healthy people. It can apparently destroy immune systems, to the point where childhood shingles and other diseases suddenly flare back up. Eduardo Rodriguez, a Red Sox pitcher, is exhausted and unable to work after throwing 20 pitches. People can't go up stairs.

One of my husband's employees called someone and began exhibiting symptoms of aphasia (severely slurred/confused speech). After a while in the hospital they concluded she has viral encephalitis. While her COVID test came out negative, she had had a bad cold two months prior, and her doctor is suggesting that it may have been linked to COVID. 

Anyone measuring this in terms of deaths is out of their minds. This may end up physically crippling a substantial chunk of the population. How will we respond?

I heard a tragic story yesterday.  A young male nurse was on the front lines and got Covid 19.  He recovered, but seemed to have either caught it again, or it flared up again and he is now paralyzed from the neck down.  

It seems like the luck of the draw type thing.  My golf buddy who is 69 and his wife had it and are feeling much better.  It attacked their gut and not there lungs.  So they seem to have been lucky in that it didn't attack their lungs. 

Edited July 27, 2020 by Piddy

[Ellener]

21 minutes ago, lana-banana said:

How will we respond?

Well that's the issue isn't it.

Human life does not have surety.

My answer will be- with compassion, let's respond with compassion.

We haven't respected our world or each other enough because we valued too much the wrong things.

But people get destroyed in a depression or other world crisis, other people get rich.

Then that sways our ability for compassion.

 

 

[BaileyB]

Lol. My city of about 800,000 had an “anti-mask” protest this past weekend... It was published today that four people turned up! The organizer, her child, and two other lost souls... Thankfully, popular sentiment here is that people are happy to do whatever is required to keep themselves and others safe. 

[BaileyB]

5 hours ago, Piddy said:

It seems like the luck of the draw type thing.  

It does seem to be a luck of the draw kind of thing... sure there are things that place an individual more at risk - age, preexisting health conditions, obesity. But, there is no saying which category you will fall into if you get the virus - asymptomatic, mild symptoms, longer term symptoms, or death. There are many young people who thought themselves pretty immune who are dying and or suffering for months with this thing...

[QuietRiot]

8 hours ago, BaileyB said:

It does seem to be a luck of the draw kind of thing... sure there are things that place an individual more at risk - age, preexisting health conditions, obesity. But, there is no saying which category you will fall into if you get the virus - asymptomatic, mild symptoms, longer term symptoms, or death. There are many young people who thought themselves pretty immune who are dying and or suffering for months with this thing...

My theory is...just my thoughts...is the reason that young people are suffering is that they had in the past, subjected themselves to high viral loads (hanging in a bar , in doors with groups, all maskless).

A while ago, a guy was going to order pick-up (this was in March), turns out he had to wait at the bar longer than expected. He had a mask on, but all the restaurant patrons did not have masks. Crowded restaurant, indoors, a build up of aerosol and luckily the mask filtered out the brunt of it, so the end result was him having minor symptoms...although he had extreme fatigue and body aches (yes, that's consider minor).

[Ellener]

31 minutes ago, QuietRiot said:

hanging in a bar , in doors with groups,

That's when everyone got sick in Houston, when the bars reopened.

[FMW]

In the past week or so in my city there has been video on social medial showing packed dance clubs/bars with under 30 somethings without masks.  That age group accounts for most of the case increase where I am.  

We have a mask mandate so the Mayor announced they will fining and closing down those bars for two weeks that are caught in violation.  I appreciate that targeted (or as the Mayor put it "surgical") approach rather than punishing everyone by just closing down.  Three such locations have just been served with shut down orders. 

I go to small venues to hear live music and I really appreciate having that opportunity again.  Plus, I have a lot of musician friends and I'm dating a musician, so having the opportunity for even those smaller gigs means a lot to them financially as well as just being able to play.  We all have masks on at all times unless we're eating/drinking, the capacity is limited, the spacing of tables is more than 6 feet, and hand sanitizer is available everywhere.  

If people would just follow the guidelines we could do some of the things we enjoy, within reason.  Even though my City has had high numbers, I am not aware that I know anyone who has actually tested positive.  The people I spend time with have all taken it seriously and followed the guidelines.  We've been fortunate, obviously, but I really do believe that masks, distancing and hand washing/sanitizing makes a huge difference.    

[Eternal Sunshine]

18 hours ago, lana-banana said:

The stories of what they're calling "long COVID" are horrifying: months of extreme fatigue, short-term memory loss, even encephalitis among young and healthy people. It can apparently destroy immune systems, to the point where childhood shingles and other diseases suddenly flare back up. Eduardo Rodriguez, a Red Sox pitcher, is exhausted and unable to work after throwing 20 pitches. People can't go up stairs.

One of my husband's employees called someone and began exhibiting symptoms of aphasia (severely slurred/confused speech). After a while in the hospital they concluded she has viral encephalitis. While her COVID test came out negative, she had had a bad cold two months prior, and her doctor is suggesting that it may have been linked to COVID. 

Anyone measuring this in terms of deaths is out of their minds. This may end up physically crippling a substantial chunk of the population. How will we respond?

I think that in rare cases, this is true for most influenza viruses. Sounds like post viral fatigue syndrome. It just seems like it's more frequent because COVID is more frequent. "Long COVID" is not the norm. 

[Angelle]

A friend of mine has been sick with a post viral syndrome for about ten years, in remission for six (thanks to Obamacare, allowing her to find a doctor who helped her). She had a fever for at least eight days, and is feeling really awful, thinks it's post-covid symptoms - she just posted a quick update to facebook, because she hadn't been around for a couple of weeks. She said she's in agony.

[lana-banana]

2 hours ago, Eternal Sunshine said:

I think that in rare cases, this is true for most influenza viruses. Sounds like post viral fatigue syndrome. It just seems like it's more frequent because COVID is more frequent. "Long COVID" is not the norm. 

Even if it's not the norm, it's still pretty scary and worthy of our attention. A professor I know says he can barely remember basic tasks and hasn't felt like himself since being infected four months ago. People are complaining about old wounds suddenly hurting like they just happened. My husband's employee has lost her driver's license and is now trying to figure out how to care for their kids (her husband's unemployed). Whatever is going on, we should pay attention, because it doesn't look like we'll have a vaccine or effective treatment anytime soon, and there are going to be far-flung consequences on people's lives and local economies. 

[BaileyB]

It’s one of those things that if you do get it, you hope for the best... But I would still prefer not to get it. 

It really is very strange how some people just sail through and others, are devastated by this virus. The suffering and the grief is really heartbreaking. 

[Ellener]

1 hour ago, Angelle said:

She said she's in agony.

The chest pains were bad at first for me but it was impossible to rest because of the diarrhea. I think most of us are used to shaking off things within a week, and this is more severe. Even when I had pneumonia years ago I didn't feel this weak after. It's been a fear issue though too, I didn't want to die alone this way. The people I feel worst about @BaileyB are the people who were terrified at the start of the pandemic and dying in hospital alone. They must have been terrified when they first saw all the PPE.

[BaileyB]

1 hour ago, Ellener said:

The chest pains were bad at first for me but it was impossible to rest because of the diarrhea. I think most of us are used to shaking off things within a week, and this is more severe. Even when I had pneumonia years ago I didn't feel this weak after. It's been a fear issue though too, I didn't want to die alone this way. The people I feel worst about @BaileyB are the people who were terrified at the start of the pandemic and dying in hospital alone. They must have been terrified when they first saw all the PPE.

I agree. To think, they were taken to hospital, had no contact with family... it must have been terrifying for the individual. And, so very sad for the family members who were never able to say goodbye. 

Glad you are on the road to recovery...

Edited July 28, 2020 by BaileyB

[QuietRiot]

10 hours ago, FMW said:

In the past week or so in my city there has been video on social medial showing packed dance clubs/bars with under 30 somethings without masks.  That age group accounts for most of the case increase where I am.  

We have a mask mandate so the Mayor announced they will fining and closing down those bars for two weeks that are caught in violation.  I appreciate that targeted (or as the Mayor put it "surgical") approach rather than punishing everyone by just closing down.  Three such locations have just been served with shut down orders. 

I go to small venues to hear live music and I really appreciate having that opportunity again.  Plus, I have a lot of musician friends and I'm dating a musician, so having the opportunity for even those smaller gigs means a lot to them financially as well as just being able to play.  We all have masks on at all times unless we're eating/drinking, the capacity is limited, the spacing of tables is more than 6 feet, and hand sanitizer is available everywhere.  

If people would just follow the guidelines we could do some of the things we enjoy, within reason.  Even though my City has had high numbers, I am not aware that I know anyone who has actually tested positive.  The people I spend time with have all taken it seriously and followed the guidelines.  We've been fortunate, obviously, but I really do believe that masks, distancing and hand washing/sanitizing makes a huge difference.    

Yep, just recently a concert in the Hamptons (NY) showed a video of a HUGE crowd of young adults (chances are they are trust funders, as the tickets were 1500 to 2K a pop), just crowding the field. They were suppose to stay in their cars, but with the booze flowin', there is nothing good that can come of that.

[SincereOnlineGuy]

21 hours ago, BaileyB said:

It does seem to be a luck of the draw kind of thing... sure there are things that place an individual more at risk - age, preexisting health conditions, obesity. But, there is no saying which category you will fall into if you get the virus - asymptomatic, mild symptoms, longer term symptoms, or death. There are many young people who thought themselves pretty immune who are dying and or suffering for months with this thing...

 

Isn't it far more logical  that who gets hit hardest (and weirdest) is NOT at all "luck of the draw", but instead is tethered to very real traits/factors which we as a society simply have not identified yet ??

 

Kinda like when they used to call TB  "Consumption" ...  because they didn't yet fully understand what they were talking about...

 

 

[Piddy]

I heard something recently where people with milder cases have more antibodies than people who've had a bad case of Covid.  At first you'd think that the bad cases would have built up more antibodies to fight the virus.  But that may not be the case.

It may be in the milder cases, they were able to produce more antibodies faster to fight the virus, thus have a milder infection.  Again, luck of the draw.  I don't want to have to find out which type I am.  

Edited July 29, 2020 by Piddy

[sothereiwas]

1 hour ago, Piddy said:

I heard something recently where people with milder cases have more antibodies than people who've had a bad case of Covid. 

At first blush that sounds like a reasonable example of cause (more antibodies produced) and effect (milder symptoms) but it's possible I'm not seeing the conundrum. Not everyone is going to have the same immune response I reckon. 

[BaileyB]

Lol, the governor of Arkansas says that there is no correlation between reopening and the increase in coronavirus infections the state is currently experiencing. That’s akin to the Georgia governor saying in April that he had just learned in the last 24 hours that the virus could be transmitted asymptomatically... How do these men get themselves elected? It would be one thing if no harm could come from their stupidity, but there are people losing their lives because the leadership has just been so obtuse! 

[Piddy]

Here in Florida our cases as reported went down.  However, the closing of state wide testing last Thursday because of the storm coming had a lot to do with that.

Edited August 2, 2020 by Piddy

[schlumpy]

My sister who lives in Florida told me the other day that the father-in-law of her married son has Covid and that means two weeks isolation for everyone. She has to inform a friend of hers who she met with just the other day.

I wonder if I'm just putting off the inevitable?

[Ruby Slippers]

Cases are still high where I am, and wow, many people were crowding all up in my business at the grocery store today, coming right up against me in the produce section, reaching over me, not even close to "social distancing." Perhaps I should start a hacking cough toward anyone who does this. It's very annoying, and stupid.

[QuietRiot]

8 hours ago, Piddy said:

Here in Florida our cases as reported went down.  However, the closing of state wide testing last Thursday because of the storm coming had a lot to do with that.

Actually, well..they didn't stop testing in my county.

[Piddy]

5 hours ago, QuietRiot said:

Actually, well..they didn't stop testing in my county.

My guess is it was probably the east coast where the storm was potentially going to hit where they stopped testing.

Didn't hear details, just that it was stopped last Thursday.  

[elaine567]

On 7/28/2020 at 6:05 PM, BaileyB said:

It really is very strange how some people just sail through and others, are devastated by this virus.

Researchers are now looking for genetic markers in people  badly affected by the virus, in the hope they can identify those who are super high risk.

[elaine567]

Quote

Plastic visors fail to provide adequate protection from coronavirus infection and should only be worn in combination with a face mask, Swiss authorities have announced.

Health officials came to the conclusion after discovering that only people wearing plastic visors were infected during an outbreak the canton of Graübunden.

They found a worrying trend when investigating the cluster among staff at a hotel, namely that all of those infected wore plastic face shields, while those wearing face masks came out unscathed.
Rudolf Leuthold, head of the cantonal health department in Graübunden, said the face shields were the common denominator in infections.
“It has been shown that only those employees who had plastic visors were infected. There was not a single infection among employees with a mask.” 
The Telegraph UK.

Hardly surprising.
The leak around visors worn alone is massive.
Visors are there to protect  the eyes and face from splashes and stray secretions they do nothing to save anyone breathing in the virus.
They are often used in place of masks by front facing staff but they are useless.