Yes, 83 years old. Had Pfizer and 3 boosters, Mid February it came with mild onset = gone in 3-4 days. Antigen profile showed I had had it Then I got an omicron booster about 10 weeks later - nothing since, but I mask in crowds.
Unvaccinated, never had any symptoms (actually, haven't been sick at all since covid, really strange), was working in public with lots of contact for the entire period before the vaccines were released. I never got tested for antibodies.
Zero times here (: I make all of my own meals and always wear a mask out. I interact with old people so there's no room for me to act like a child about health anymore.
I can't really fault the people who are vaxxed and choose not to mask up anymore. So many people are refusing vaccinations that we will never see the end of this disease.
Not in my case. Been using the best masks I can get my hands on (KN95 from late summer 2020, switching to N95 last spring when those started to become available. Surgical and cloth masks have basically been cosplay since at least delta.
I find people taking this strategy interesting, especially as we approach the 3 year mark. Do you plan on doing this forever? Is there something you expect to change that would lower your/the risk thus allowing you to live a more normal social life? ("Normal" for lack of better word)
For context, I've been back in the office for more than a year at this point (haven't worn a mask in a year either). I'm pretty sure people come to work sick like they always did and don't even get a covid test most of the time any more. It feels kind of like flu/colds were prior to Covid; where it's an honor rule with no benefit of being honest and staying home when sick. I'm pretty indifferent towards people still taking the extra measures (your choice) but it does seem like an inconvenience with no end in sight (IMO).
Edit: They added more context to their comment after mine. "Zero times here (: I make all of my own meals and always wear a mask out." is all there was previously. I can't comment so maybe I got flagged. No ill intention, you do you and I'm sure you have reasons that are none of my business but we're here to talk. I'm mostly just curious because I see this a lot online and it seems like there's a whole class of people that intend to just be hermits forever now (my assumption) and it intrigues me on why you'd just give in to it like that; unless you already had hermit tendencies or some increased risk factors.
I'll do it forever at the grocery store or any other place that has lots of people. I do plan on going to a maskless social weekend soon with a half dozen buddies, but everyone there will have up to date vaccinations and be tested
They said they interact with old people - the group with the highest death rates. Not that anyone has to explain why they don't want an infectious disease to anyone else.
I would like to see a lot more masking in general. In asian societies it has long been normal to see people masked up in public, not sure why we can't have that in the west other than a culture of extreme individualism. Why can't people who come to work sick just wear a mask? I kind of enjoy wearing the mask though so a bit biased. Just feels pretty rude to knowingly expose other people when you are/might be sick.
First, it doesn’t seem like it is the same as the common cold. I’ve had it twice now. It sucked both times, hard. I’ve had plenty of colds, not one came close. The flu felt worse but for a much shorter time, the duration of the suckiness I think wins out with covid.
Second, why did “they” need to test a new drug or so rapidly? Why couldn’t they just go through the normal process and make tons of money off of it like other pharmaceuticals?
> From talking to friends in generally high intelligence states, COVID basically _is_ the common cold.
The common cold doesn't infect organs through the ACE2 receptor, including: heart, pancreas, brain and so on.
Not sure what you mean with "generally high intelligence states", to me it's almost a meaningless statement. Whatever high intelligence you mean with that they're wrong, we know that COVID isn't the normal cold and that it can wreck your body much more than the common rhinovirus...
> Luckily, those free-thinkers saw the plan early and stressed to the community to not get the vaccine.
Why do you value contrarians in such higher regard than the medical and scientific community? Is it a search for a truth that only you know and to be special or are you just generally a contrarian, cynical person that loves to go against the grain?
I have many reservations about how governments tackled the pandemic, that doesn't mean that it's a hoax, that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. I had it twice and didn't suffer much more than the brain fog for a couple of weeks and losing my taste and smell the first time for 5 days, at the same time I know people who died from this.
I seriously cannot comprehend how people after 3 years into this can still believe it's all a hoax, it's mind-boggling and I've tried hard to empathise and understand where it stems from but it seems so far away from actual reality that I simply cannot comprehend. The depths of human stupidity are probably too deep for my simpleton mind to understand...
For someone who is hearing impaired masks are awful. I hope that wearing of masks is never normalized.
Why are people going to work sick. That is the issue.
Of course masks don't really do much for COVID.
People go to work sick because their job doesn’t give them sick days. Or because they want a promotion and figure perfect attend next is how to get it. I don’t think it’s reasonable to stop people from coming to work sick unfortunately.
> like flu/colds were prior to Covid; where it's an honor rule with no benefit of being honest and staying home when sick
no benefit, except for your own health? If you have the flu, Covid or any other serious infection, you should definitely stay at home and get some rest - not for others, but for yourself.
Sure, but without mandated paid sick leave, people don't stay home. When it's the difference between going to work to scrape by, or stay home and have trouble making rent or buying food, most folks choose to go to work sick.
We're a society that doesn't value collective health very much.
You should add a qualifier that you are from the USA. Where I live it's completely frowned upon to go to work sick, to the point where you will be told off by your manager, your colleagues will think it's rude and disrespectful, etc.
I simply do not understand how the USA doesn't provide sick leave for workers, does that stem from a lack of trust between employers and employees? It seems to me that the only reason to make it difficult for people to get paid leave when they're sick is that employers feel it'd be abused and hence treat their employees as children, perpetuating the cycle of mistrust. I cannot see another reason for such a basic need for the general health of society to be missing...
That's fair that I should add a qualifier that I'm from the US.
The only reason I can think of is exactly what you pointed out: that it would be abused. It's really not. Most people want to work. Most people want to feel productive and that they're meaningfully doing something. It's why the myth of the welfare queen is so ridiculous or employees exploiting paid leave is equally ridiculous. The abusers are the exception to the rule, so don't punish the majority for the acts of an extreme minority.
>So many people are refusing vaccinations that we will never see the end of this disease.
I'm not the one making you wear a mask, you are. it's your choice to make yourself miserable and stupid looking. I can't believe there are still people like this, three years on. just get over it .. you're like those japanese soldiers who didn't know the war was over.
It seems to be luck more than anything. After I got vaccinated in April of 2021, I've just lived life normally: Going bowling with friends, going to bars, etc. I only wore a mask if someone ordered me to. I still haven't gotten covid. Meanwhile one of my friends has been living like a hermit since March of 2020 and he got covid the one time he left his house. He was outdoors and wearing an N95 mask.
Well, I was careful too trying to protect my elderly parents (86/87) - and then (in November 2021) I got it from my father! No idea where he managed to get it from, as he doesn't go out much, except when I drive hime somewhere - probably from a delivery guy (although I told him to wear a mask when going to the door - he was living on his own at the time). Needless to say I was worried sick, but, being vaccinated, he got through just fine. The way he tells it, he barely had any symptoms except for a sore throat (which was the reason why I insisted on testing him). My wife and I then both got it, were sick for ~ 5 days, nothing really bad, just losing your sense of smell is a bit scary...
Of course, this is all just anecdotal evidence, but it supports the point that vaccinated old people are generally not that much at risk anymore. What's bothering me most at the moment is that everyone's pretending things are back to normal, but to visit my mother in the nursing home I have to get an appointment, get tested, wear a mask the whole time, and, especially during wintertime, they will still regularly be in Covid quarantine for weeks.
>So many people are refusing vaccinations that we will never see the end of this disease.
I'm one of those people.
I didn't want the vaccine after having long covid, because I believed natural immunity was much better than training my immune system on an earlier version of the virus. I was right.[1] Not only that - but unvaccinated were shown to have the same viral load even if they did get infected.[2]
So why are you blaming the unvaccinated? Right now there are more excess deaths than any time during the pandemic.[3] Even people who were provaxx are questioning why it's happening now.[4] If the vaxx was so great less people should be dying or was that not the point?
Because the media did. Uncritically parroting what the media claims is a tried-and-true path to social acceptability.
Noting that the vaccines are non-sterilizing, and that their transmission attenuation was at best 15%, was a great way to get uninvited to the "right" kind of parties with the "right" kind of people.
Truth doesn't stand a chance against social conformity pressure, and it never has.
Same here, I handled covid fine, a full 2 years after it all started. Was 4 days of feeling lame with fever. Before I didn't take many precautions, stopped masking after it was obvious that the spread was mostly seasonal and cloth masks had no evidence behind them.
Now I've got an immune response based on the complete virus, rather than a no-longer-existing subunit of a single protein. I expect I'll fare better than the immune chaos of infinite boosters.
People at risk should take precautions of isolating, otherwise it's time to move on with life.
The mRNA vaccines do not prevent you from getting COVID or spreading it. All they do is prevent you from getting really sick and maybe dying. That's it.
Pfizer didn't even test if their vaccine prevents the spread of COVID because that's not what it was designed to do.
The politicians lied that if u got vaccine it would help prevent the spread of COVID. It does not.
Haven't had it even once. I'm vaxed (original 2 doses of Pfizer) but not boosted. I still mask when I'm indoors (outside of home). Don't go out a lot, avoid crowded indoor venues, WFH, still kind of cautious.
vaxed with all boosters, work from home, don't go out much, regular testing and all negative and no symptoms. When I did go out, I'd mask and distance. Now, easing up on that but still avoiding crowded areas and places. I have asthma so I've been as reasonably cautious as possible.
Not that I'm aware of for neither my wife nor I. I've been working from home and I always mask up when I leave the house, my wife worked in the patient facing part of the medical field (including long duration close contact with paatients), but she always masked up and neither of us have had symptoms matching COVID. Outside of the usual allergies I've been remarkably healthy.
Never, as far as I know. All the vaccines and lots of masking, even still. But I can only attribute it to luck, since I've traveled quite a bit and even had some known exposures at different times, like at the gym. But I also work mainly remote and avoided public areas almost entirely, pre-vaccine and during the peaks of some waves. I worked out in a mask for months- awful.
Vaccinated, no booster, caught it and gave it to my friends who were vaccinated + boosted. All 4 of us were sick for a week and a half and tested positive.
Is there any way to tell, after having had a vaccination?
I got unusually sick in February of 2020; felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Went to the hospital, and there were so many people there with the same symptoms we were a line past the ER and down the hallway. No one was thinking covid at the time. I remember the nurse checking me in asking if I'd had the flu shot (I had), then shrugging and guessing it must not be that effective that year. Was sent home after receiving fluids.
That being said, I never lost my sense of smell, nor did I have the brain fog, covid toes, any of the other supposed tells. Did take a solid month to feel fully human again in terms of energy levels, though.
I'm vaccinated and boosted (but never got the Omicron booster this fall). On day 6 of my first COVID-positive infection and while I never lost my sense of smell, I had a super high fever (104ºF-ish) and awful headache for 2-3 days, and have been having intermittent brain fog and fatigue and a cough since then but feel 65%-95% recovered at any given moment.
I also just finished my round of Paxlovid, which feels like it may have reduced my recovery time slightly, at the cost of an _awful_ constant metallic taste in my mouth and mild but increasing gastrointestinal upset.
You can have your antibodies tested. If you had the vaccine, you will only have spike antibodies. If you had the disease, you will have other ones as well.
Quest does offer it, don't know if you'll need a doctor's order or not because that's not an issue for me - I can order it myself or have my wife (also a physician) order it. You want a nucleocapsid antibody test to find out if you've had the disease - the spike antibody test will tell you whether or not your vaccine "took".
My family and I have been supremely careful Mar 2020. I read a lot of the research and preprints and am concerned about long term system impacts of repeat infections. Despite huge numbers of precautions, we all finally caught it about ten days ago. Still positive, still coughing, still tired.
We can lower risk, but it seems that no level of caution is truly enough, given that others don't care. I'm really not sure what to do – we don't want to keep getting it, but we really want some sense of social life back. My wife and I keep wondering / looking if there's anywhere in the world where people by and large take this infection seriously. I suspect it will come down to small communities, rather than states or countries.
> I'm really not sure what to do – we don't want to keep getting it, but we really want some sense of social life back.
Why bother doing anything different? Are you at specific risk or is this just general fear of some catastrophic outcome? Were you equally fearful of the common flu prior to covid?
> My wife and I keep wondering / looking if there's anywhere in the world where people by and large take this infection seriously.
Considering the overwhelming evidence that it's not statistically an issue for the vast majority of otherwise healthy people, and even more so if you factor in vaccination, what does it mean to "take this infection seriously"? Do you expect the world to wear N95 masks 24/7 and stop hugging each other just to assuage your personal fears?
For the old. For the not-old, it was a lot like the common flu, and for the very young, it was much milder. For nursing home residents (the old who are pretty bad off) it was like a coin-flip death sentence.
Part of the reason covid was so confusing is that the outcomes are extremely variable. Even among the earliest infections, many people were completely asymptomatic. Also, some young, healthy people end up dying from it. It's hard for a lot of people to understand that kind of risk.
I've tested possible on 2 occasions now, pre- and post-vax, and can confidently say I'm much more concerned about flu than covid (for me).
> Considering the overwhelming evidence that it's not statistically an issue for the vast majority of otherwise healthy people
Don't be an overdebunker. We have no long term knowledge because covid hasn't existed over the long term. Its love of eating brains and what seems like an ability to stick around in the nervous system indefinitely for some people like herpes or chicken pox are worrying. Especially for people who seem to keep getting repeat infections.
Since you trust the long-term safety of the vaccines 100%, I guess it's reasonable to trust long-term predictions of the effects of covid 100% for you then.
> We have no long term knowledge because covid hasn't existed over the long term.
The flip side of that coin is we have no knowledge that it has catastrophic long term damage. And even it if does we have a critical mass of people infected to justify research to solve it.
> Its love of eating brains and what seems like an ability to stick around in the nervous system indefinitely for some people like herpes or chicken pox are worrying.
Sure but worrying to the point of living as a recluse for years to come? For an otherwise healthy person that’s frankly absurd.
Ok but if it turns out to be fine, being overly careful means you didn't get to be as social as you otherwise would be. An inconvenience, sure, a degradation of your quality of life, yes, but nothing too major.
If it does turn out to have long term consequences, you could be losing years of your life, and making the years towards the end have a much lower standard of living.
I'd much prefer to isolate more than normal now when I'm healthy and have that turn out to have been unnecessary than to not, and end up forced to isolate due to poor health limiting my ability to live my life. For the record, I'm not a recluse or anything, but I'm not going to concerts or things like that, and am still wearing a mask.
> My wife and I keep wondering / looking if there's anywhere in the world where people by and large take this infection seriously
China? Seriously though, you might better to look for places where you can interact with others mainly outdoors. e.g. we often socialise at the beach, outdoor seating at restaurants/cafes.
I’m not sure how divergent evolution of strains is, but there’s enough travel that we probably can’t rule out the threat from a strain that exists anywhere near an active airport.
Boosters are extremely effective to stop the spread. A large percentage of those with at least 2 boosters experience no symptoms when exposed. However it is still important to continue to mask to protect yourself and others as boosters may not stop transmission, even if you never experience symptoms. Again, for most people covid will exhibit mild to no symptoms. It's our most vulnerable who are at risk from the unmasked and unvaccinated. So please, get your boosters and wear a mask.
You've got to be kidding. People aren't going to wear masks. The virus is never going away so we just have to live with it regardless of the risks. I'm certainly not going to spend the rest of my life wearing a mask in public.
My wife and I have a very similar situation and concern with you. One thing I'm sure is that we can't recall much from 2020-2021. It all seems like a black out to us where we went through extreme isolation.
And because of that I actually got some other health problem, related to the inactivities during isolation.
I think in the end we just need to think in terms of harm reduction. Mental health, as well as other health issues besides contracting COVID are also important. If we reduce the risk in one area too much, we increase the harm in other areas.
One thing that we need to be careful is not to swing to another extreme. Some would start giving up on mask. But to me having masks on us make me feel safer to go out which makes me goes out more. But we have teared down some extreme level of precaution that makes us very tired of getting outside (to be specific a small quarantine zone which is time consuming and troublesome.)
Have school-aged children, so have had COVID. It was, however, after my third vaccine dose (two + first booster). So symptoms were less bad than flu, but slightly worse than the common cold.
I know people who haven't had it, but they also don't have children.
Got it through my preschool-aged daughter around last Christmas (2021), shortly after first booster. Everybody else in my family got it and tested positive (wife, son, daughter, parents in law) but strangely I never tested positive. I have to assume I had it though, since I had the exact same symptoms as my wife at the exact same time.
We were really lucky in Australia, and didn't have a widespread outbreak (beyond Melbourne and Sydney) until after vaccines arrived. I've had three vaccine doses (need to sort out this year's booster) but never caught COVID (I'm also meticulously careful with mask-wearing and hand washing).
Covid wasn't really any worse than the flu for us, but the following week or two after getting Covid we got hit with something way worse. Unsure if it was just Covid in a lingering state, or whether our daughter brought home something new from school. Whatever it was kicked our butts.
We're all still in a hazy state ever since. Having trouble waking in the mornings, thinking straight, sometimes even forgetting where we are. I guess this is what they're calling "long covid"?
I think I got it early to mid February 2020 when testing wasn't widely available. There wasn't a lot of news about COVID at the time and I caught something that wasn't the flu (tested negative) and hit me like a ton of bricks. I was having a hard time breathing, even when taking Mucinex. It wasn't bad enough to go to the hospital so I stuck it out at home. I managed the other symptoms well with Tylenol and Advil. I'm personally convinced that I caught it way earlier than most but its purely anecdotal.
Back in mid March 2020 I flew back from USA to Finland and had symptoms starting next day, but the official policy was only to test those with severe symptoms so I never got confirmation.
Had it before vaccines were widely available. Currently have both doses but no boosters. (Not opposed but after the exhaustion from the first 2 I am only willing to take it on a friday afternoon and never remember.)
Symptoms were mostly mild. Fever, crazy exhaustion and a cough for a few weeks. My dad who caught it at the same time died from it.
Was never able to work from home and people unmasked as soon as they could here in Arkansas.
We caught it for the first time a week ago (my entire family). Theoretically I was patient zero, but the preceding week I had only left the house once, which was go to to a doctor appointment where I wore a n95 mask (and the rest of the office was masked as well.)
Not that I know of, nor did anyone in my family. Got the original vaccine when it came out, and then a booster in early Jan (so the original booster, not the bivalent one). I stopped with the masks altogether back in the spring (with the exception of the dr's office), and was only nominally doing it before that.
I had mild cold symptoms once that I thought could be omicron, but the home test came back negative. Kids have been sick occasionally but negative for them any time we tested too.
A month ago, I got the same symptoms I got after getting vaxed (I got AstraZeneca, Biontech, and Moderna) just a bit more intense. Only took like 4 days and it was gone.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 211 ms ] threadI used to be sick with flu almost every year before (but I did not had vaccine against flu before).
For context, I've been back in the office for more than a year at this point (haven't worn a mask in a year either). I'm pretty sure people come to work sick like they always did and don't even get a covid test most of the time any more. It feels kind of like flu/colds were prior to Covid; where it's an honor rule with no benefit of being honest and staying home when sick. I'm pretty indifferent towards people still taking the extra measures (your choice) but it does seem like an inconvenience with no end in sight (IMO).
Edit: They added more context to their comment after mine. "Zero times here (: I make all of my own meals and always wear a mask out." is all there was previously. I can't comment so maybe I got flagged. No ill intention, you do you and I'm sure you have reasons that are none of my business but we're here to talk. I'm mostly just curious because I see this a lot online and it seems like there's a whole class of people that intend to just be hermits forever now (my assumption) and it intrigues me on why you'd just give in to it like that; unless you already had hermit tendencies or some increased risk factors.
Maybe a respirator type mask?
COVID is here with us just like the common cold/flu. It's never going away.
First, it doesn’t seem like it is the same as the common cold. I’ve had it twice now. It sucked both times, hard. I’ve had plenty of colds, not one came close. The flu felt worse but for a much shorter time, the duration of the suckiness I think wins out with covid.
Second, why did “they” need to test a new drug or so rapidly? Why couldn’t they just go through the normal process and make tons of money off of it like other pharmaceuticals?
The common cold doesn't infect organs through the ACE2 receptor, including: heart, pancreas, brain and so on.
Not sure what you mean with "generally high intelligence states", to me it's almost a meaningless statement. Whatever high intelligence you mean with that they're wrong, we know that COVID isn't the normal cold and that it can wreck your body much more than the common rhinovirus...
> Luckily, those free-thinkers saw the plan early and stressed to the community to not get the vaccine.
Why do you value contrarians in such higher regard than the medical and scientific community? Is it a search for a truth that only you know and to be special or are you just generally a contrarian, cynical person that loves to go against the grain?
I have many reservations about how governments tackled the pandemic, that doesn't mean that it's a hoax, that doesn't mean it isn't dangerous. I had it twice and didn't suffer much more than the brain fog for a couple of weeks and losing my taste and smell the first time for 5 days, at the same time I know people who died from this.
I seriously cannot comprehend how people after 3 years into this can still believe it's all a hoax, it's mind-boggling and I've tried hard to empathise and understand where it stems from but it seems so far away from actual reality that I simply cannot comprehend. The depths of human stupidity are probably too deep for my simpleton mind to understand...
People go to work sick because their job doesn’t give them sick days. Or because they want a promotion and figure perfect attend next is how to get it. I don’t think it’s reasonable to stop people from coming to work sick unfortunately.
no benefit, except for your own health? If you have the flu, Covid or any other serious infection, you should definitely stay at home and get some rest - not for others, but for yourself.
We're a society that doesn't value collective health very much.
I simply do not understand how the USA doesn't provide sick leave for workers, does that stem from a lack of trust between employers and employees? It seems to me that the only reason to make it difficult for people to get paid leave when they're sick is that employers feel it'd be abused and hence treat their employees as children, perpetuating the cycle of mistrust. I cannot see another reason for such a basic need for the general health of society to be missing...
The only reason I can think of is exactly what you pointed out: that it would be abused. It's really not. Most people want to work. Most people want to feel productive and that they're meaningfully doing something. It's why the myth of the welfare queen is so ridiculous or employees exploiting paid leave is equally ridiculous. The abusers are the exception to the rule, so don't punish the majority for the acts of an extreme minority.
I'm not the one making you wear a mask, you are. it's your choice to make yourself miserable and stupid looking. I can't believe there are still people like this, three years on. just get over it .. you're like those japanese soldiers who didn't know the war was over.
Of course, this is all just anecdotal evidence, but it supports the point that vaccinated old people are generally not that much at risk anymore. What's bothering me most at the moment is that everyone's pretending things are back to normal, but to visit my mother in the nursing home I have to get an appointment, get tested, wear a mask the whole time, and, especially during wintertime, they will still regularly be in Covid quarantine for weeks.
I'm one of those people.
I didn't want the vaccine after having long covid, because I believed natural immunity was much better than training my immune system on an earlier version of the virus. I was right.[1] Not only that - but unvaccinated were shown to have the same viral load even if they did get infected.[2]
So why are you blaming the unvaccinated? Right now there are more excess deaths than any time during the pandemic.[3] Even people who were provaxx are questioning why it's happening now.[4] If the vaxx was so great less people should be dying or was that not the point?
[1] https://brownstone.org/articles/how-the-cdc-buries-the-truth... [2] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3... [3] https://twitter.com/EthicalSkeptic/status/159384008954467942... [4] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGZJfVR9-wo
https://hms.harvard.edu/news/tb-drug-vs-covid
Because the media did. Uncritically parroting what the media claims is a tried-and-true path to social acceptability.
Noting that the vaccines are non-sterilizing, and that their transmission attenuation was at best 15%, was a great way to get uninvited to the "right" kind of parties with the "right" kind of people.
Truth doesn't stand a chance against social conformity pressure, and it never has.
Now I've got an immune response based on the complete virus, rather than a no-longer-existing subunit of a single protein. I expect I'll fare better than the immune chaos of infinite boosters.
People at risk should take precautions of isolating, otherwise it's time to move on with life.
Pfizer didn't even test if their vaccine prevents the spread of COVID because that's not what it was designed to do.
The politicians lied that if u got vaccine it would help prevent the spread of COVID. It does not.
Weird, everybody I know has had it one or zero times.
By January, I was back on my feet, and I think taste & smell were fully back by March.
I haven't had it since, and I really haven't been cautious. I was at the parade again last week.
They are getting better at not ripping the floats.
https://i.redd.it/1lhbtkhv9yz11.png
Been in giant festivals, meetups etc. Still haven't caught it. I can't tell if my luck just hasn't run out, or if I had an asymptomatic case.
Lot's of friends who hadn't had it yet have gotten it recently, so I am very confused.
vaxed with all boosters, work from home, don't go out much, regular testing and all negative and no symptoms. When I did go out, I'd mask and distance. Now, easing up on that but still avoiding crowded areas and places. I have asthma so I've been as reasonably cautious as possible.
It'd be useful if getting the kind of blood test that tells you if you EVER had COVID19 was not pay-out-of-pocket.
Fully vaccinated. If I had to self-rate my own mask habits, I'd give myself a B-.
[1] - https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2022/09/07/1121599...
I got unusually sick in February of 2020; felt like I'd been hit by a truck. Went to the hospital, and there were so many people there with the same symptoms we were a line past the ER and down the hallway. No one was thinking covid at the time. I remember the nurse checking me in asking if I'd had the flu shot (I had), then shrugging and guessing it must not be that effective that year. Was sent home after receiving fluids.
That being said, I never lost my sense of smell, nor did I have the brain fog, covid toes, any of the other supposed tells. Did take a solid month to feel fully human again in terms of energy levels, though.
Haven't been sick since, that I am aware of.
I also just finished my round of Paxlovid, which feels like it may have reduced my recovery time slightly, at the cost of an _awful_ constant metallic taste in my mouth and mild but increasing gastrointestinal upset.
We can lower risk, but it seems that no level of caution is truly enough, given that others don't care. I'm really not sure what to do – we don't want to keep getting it, but we really want some sense of social life back. My wife and I keep wondering / looking if there's anywhere in the world where people by and large take this infection seriously. I suspect it will come down to small communities, rather than states or countries.
Why bother doing anything different? Are you at specific risk or is this just general fear of some catastrophic outcome? Were you equally fearful of the common flu prior to covid?
> My wife and I keep wondering / looking if there's anywhere in the world where people by and large take this infection seriously.
Considering the overwhelming evidence that it's not statistically an issue for the vast majority of otherwise healthy people, and even more so if you factor in vaccination, what does it mean to "take this infection seriously"? Do you expect the world to wear N95 masks 24/7 and stop hugging each other just to assuage your personal fears?
I've tested possible on 2 occasions now, pre- and post-vax, and can confidently say I'm much more concerned about flu than covid (for me).
Don't be an overdebunker. We have no long term knowledge because covid hasn't existed over the long term. Its love of eating brains and what seems like an ability to stick around in the nervous system indefinitely for some people like herpes or chicken pox are worrying. Especially for people who seem to keep getting repeat infections.
and neither have the vaccines
The flip side of that coin is we have no knowledge that it has catastrophic long term damage. And even it if does we have a critical mass of people infected to justify research to solve it.
> Its love of eating brains and what seems like an ability to stick around in the nervous system indefinitely for some people like herpes or chicken pox are worrying.
Sure but worrying to the point of living as a recluse for years to come? For an otherwise healthy person that’s frankly absurd.
If it does turn out to have long term consequences, you could be losing years of your life, and making the years towards the end have a much lower standard of living.
I'd much prefer to isolate more than normal now when I'm healthy and have that turn out to have been unnecessary than to not, and end up forced to isolate due to poor health limiting my ability to live my life. For the record, I'm not a recluse or anything, but I'm not going to concerts or things like that, and am still wearing a mask.
https://twitter.com/yaneerbaryam/status/1596922071786741760
China? Seriously though, you might better to look for places where you can interact with others mainly outdoors. e.g. we often socialise at the beach, outdoor seating at restaurants/cafes.
38+ people infected by a runner in a park in China, of ~256 he passed that were identified.
https://twitter.com/rdmorris/status/1596978503429525504?s=20...
I’m not sure how divergent evolution of strains is, but there’s enough travel that we probably can’t rule out the threat from a strain that exists anywhere near an active airport.
And because of that I actually got some other health problem, related to the inactivities during isolation.
I think in the end we just need to think in terms of harm reduction. Mental health, as well as other health issues besides contracting COVID are also important. If we reduce the risk in one area too much, we increase the harm in other areas.
One thing that we need to be careful is not to swing to another extreme. Some would start giving up on mask. But to me having masks on us make me feel safer to go out which makes me goes out more. But we have teared down some extreme level of precaution that makes us very tired of getting outside (to be specific a small quarantine zone which is time consuming and troublesome.)
I know people who haven't had it, but they also don't have children.
We got the newest boosters two weeks before testing positive. Le sigh.
Covid wasn't really any worse than the flu for us, but the following week or two after getting Covid we got hit with something way worse. Unsure if it was just Covid in a lingering state, or whether our daughter brought home something new from school. Whatever it was kicked our butts.
We're all still in a hazy state ever since. Having trouble waking in the mornings, thinking straight, sometimes even forgetting where we are. I guess this is what they're calling "long covid"?
Symptoms were mostly mild. Fever, crazy exhaustion and a cough for a few weeks. My dad who caught it at the same time died from it.
Was never able to work from home and people unmasked as soon as they could here in Arkansas.
Very frustrating.
I had mild cold symptoms once that I thought could be omicron, but the home test came back negative. Kids have been sick occasionally but negative for them any time we tested too.
Did some tests but never got a positive result.