What I’ve learned from having Covid
scottaaronson.blog
scottaaronson.blog
I try not to go out and when I do I avoid crowded places and keep far from people without a mask even when outside. I'm sure I'm transmitting my distress to my family. Furthermore, the feeling that my behaviour is not understood and judged extreme by people around me, including colleagues and relatives and maybe my wife, is making me feel more isolated.
I think that this only happens to the western world, where people misunderstood freedom for something else. I have recently been to South Korea and I felt much more at ease there, as for example not wearing a mask in public is considered socially deplorable and you might be reprimanded by other people.
This might be the first time I stated it explicitly, but I think that though not having been infected yet, probably my life got ruined irreversibly.
Also, Omicron spread like wildfire there too, despite South Korea being one of the few countries where people wear not just surgical masks but high quality KF-94 respirators.
Not yet, we humans are resilient creatures. I'm pretty sure you can rebound from this.
Maybe you can try to find psicological help, to help you deal with this problem.
Best of luck
I’ve had covid twice, I’m fine. With that said, my experiences are entirely different.
It’s fine that he writes about this. It’s his blog after all.
I simply wish I could downvote it on HN. IMO, this submission doesn’t belong here as it isn’t that novel (if at all) and the opinion is pure subjective. So a non-novel subjective opinion is what I’m seeing. Allow me to vote that it doesn’t belong here.
The submission reeks of ignorant survivorship bias.
Even though fatalities were a fraction of contagion, and even though long COVID seems to only bother those who suffer from it, it's highly ignorant to in the same breath complain about basic public health measures like lockdowns and pretend everything was ok because a) the author survived, b) vaccines were unexpectedly rolled out afterwards.
I don’t wear a mask unless mandated. I go to my open plan office 5 days a week. I go to the gym or fitness classes 5 days a week. I dine indoors and visit bars twice a week. I fly twice a month.
And while I was a bit more careful during the January Omicron wave, I still did all of the above but at a lower frequency. And I’ve tested myself after exposures (of which I’ve had countless).
What’s even weirder is that I haven’t even had a fever or the sniffles since 2020, when I used to fall sick every other month pre pandemic. Maybe it’s because my office is much less crowded than it was in 2019? Or that there are just fewer colds in circulation?
Edit: What’s your reasoning for this claim?
> Probably never will.
More or less the same as yours.
If he had it, he was asymptomatic.
If he gets it, he'll be asymptomatic because see above.
Besides you can always have it asymptomatic once and then worse later. My girlfriend had a light (well it was still comparable to a bad flu) case in the beginning of the pandemic and then a year later a much worse case that took more than 6 months to fully recover from.
Similarly the treatment protocol of - if you have a minor infection with no additional risk factors, rest and drink fluids, if the infection is major talk to a doctor, is how we handle pretty much all infections, and the obviously sensible thing to do.
For virus based diseases, generally vaccines have been the most effective thing. Other treatment options have generally been very difficult. Best success story for non vaccine treatment is probably AIDS, and that took decades.
Its not for lack of trying.
They did though [0].
Out of 73 contracts with governments, only 5 were published, and those had "significant redactions". All vaccines were bought on condition of full legal indemnity.
> There seem to be not much research into why there are such differences in people's reaction, how virus actually spreads, the treatment protocols
Why research any of that when you can say that you just need this totally safe and effective [TM] vaccine, no you can't see the safety data, and if you question us then you're a murderous plague rat who hates old people!!
So far they're getting away with this; if anything people's trust in pharma has gone up. Ugh.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/05/wall-of-secr...
It should be noted that that's exactly the whole purpose of basic higiene and public health measures: lower contagion rates by putting in place low-effort measures that hinder contagion rates.
Initial studies were done with non-vaccinated risk groups and it showed a good efficiency. Since then most people have already been vaccinated and the benefit for them is probably lesser. The post-marketing studies showed that it doesn't help people under 50 y.o.
The other issue is with covid rebound when using Paxlovid. In the studies rebound was something like 2-3%, in practice it happens much more often which can also indicate that the study population that was benefitting from Paxlovid is different from the one that is taking it now.
For example, someone taking immunosuppressants due to organ transplant may have treatment failure which can lead to transplant rejection. This is the reason why it is the prescription only medicine and is prescribed only after assessing the patient.
Those other benefits are minor compared to potential harm.
I suspect I'm one of those lucky few who just are not suspectable to it.
How are any of his points news to anyone, two years on? And there's some very dangerous stuff in there.
1. This was obvious very quickly. The idea that we would vaccinate the virus out of existence with leaky vaccines was always absurd.
And yes, sickness is inevitable. Did SA really think he could avoid an airborne global pandemic, rife across the planet for years, without living in hiding? No? Then how is this a learning?
2. This isn't a very helpful thing to "learn". Before a test result or major symptoms, there's no real way to tell foreboding from paranoia.
A feeling of foreboding is often described by patients before major events, for good reasons, and they are often pooh-poohed by doctors, especially if the patients are female, old, young, or poor.
3. Hold on. We need less oversight and care of novel vaccines? Rather than more open, more distributed, more scientific and consistent analysis?
Large pharma companies refused to share their safety data. Accurate statistics on Corona, mortality, and vaccine side effects are still impossible to find, partly because our institutions failed us, partly because we don't expect companies to share their data and work together in the common good.
For all the praise they've gotten for "speedy" development of vaccines, the fact remains that in the non wealthy parts of the world, most vulnerable people don't have even one shot. In wealthy countries, the shots are being pushed at children, supposedly to protect their grandparents who are on their fourth shot. This is demented - and the solution sure af isn't fewer delays and less regulation.
If the sprays are very effective, and shown safe (I'm not saying they are or aren't - I haven't looked into it as they're not even available to me), then how do we know there isn't a clause in Pfizer et al's contracts forbidding their use? We don't know the text of Pfizer's contracts in most cases; the excerpts we've seen are ridiculously draconian and onerous. [0], [1]
> Pfizer has formalized 73 deals for its coronavirus vaccine. According to Transparency International, a London-based advocacy group, only five contracts have been formally published by governments, and these with “significant redactions.”
And Scott thinks we need more action, less regulation, even than providing full legal indemnity while declaring the vaccine safe on the other side of our mouth? Booo.
4. I don't know much about Paxlovid. A ten second google reveals that it's not recommended for people with serious illness, liver or kidney issues, or people on medication. Telling people to pop it like candy seems fucking irresponsible.
As far as the point is that our response and guidelines were insufficient, yes, point very much taken - but this isn't news.
5, 6, 7. Brooo.... People have been saying all of this since the "bad cold" of Winter 2019. You say it like it's news because it just happened to you. Did you not have friends who told you this? Did you not read a single account? ... Didn't your son get this 6 months ago??!! I'm sorry you fell sick guy, but it's a bit fucking tone deaf to complain about your "milder than a cold" symptoms 2 years and millions of deaths into a global pandemic.
Not impressed by these "learnings" at all. Anyone who learns anything from this hasn't been paying any attention; and if people walk away with the impression that we need less regulation and faster blind action then that's bad, and Scott should feel bad.
I'm left with a very strong impression that SA lacks empathy in a major way. I can't diagnose narcissism but I'd go so far as to suggest that he looks into it.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/05/wall-of-secr...
[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2021/10/19/secret-vacci...
I believe he has a substack.
Damage from all the lockdowns was devastating. My business and marriage fall apart, lost many friends, became alcoholic and now I have heart problems from overweight.
I used the extra time together with my wife to make our relationship better because we spent more time together and started doing walking for exercise. If you became a fat friendless alcoholic with a failed marriage that is completely and totally on you. Nobody made you trash your marriage. Nobody made you have that drink. Nobody made you eat that twinkie. The sooner you take responsibility for crashing your life the sooner you can get back up on your feet.
Second, yes, great, you improved your marriage, I am really happy for you. But many people had it really bad. I can tell you what my life was in 2020-2021. In the first lockdown I watched my gf at the time going into a full-scale psychiatric meltdown and slowly losing grip on reality. I believe it was mostly caused by the stress of lockdowns. It completely destroyed our relationship because I didn't have experience nor expertise nor resources to be a full-time mental health nurse on top of everything else. All energy I had at that time I spent on trying to keep her from suicide (luckily I succeeded).
There were also periods when I was alone, totally alone, not seeing anyone IRL for weeks. This soul-crushing loneliness (together with lack of understanding from literally everyone) was the worst that I experienced in my entire life. If I could swap this horrific time for having covid five times in a row, I'd have done it without hesitation. If you told me that would mean 10% chance to die, I'd have done anyway. The only contact I had was occasional video chats with friends. Many of them were having more quality time with their partners and couldn't really relate why I was so miserable. Almost all of them recommended me more netflix to deal with this. It built up an awful lot of resentment. I lost some friends over this. Getting over a good friend telling you with a straight face "it is your fault you were unprepared for a global pandemic, if you started a family and had kids, you would have had it a lot easier" was pretty hard, believe me.
So for me lockdowns were devastating. Covid? YMMV, of course, but for me it was just a bad cold.
On the other hand angry people like the prior poster comparing covid to flu usually leads one way. We start with it was just like a flu to ME to it IS a flu and all the doctors and scientists are lying to us and we can no longer trust science and if we believe people died at all either they all died of normal causes and were just labeled covid or as likely we pretend they were killed by the vaccine. Hey maybe we weren't going that way but we probably were.
Conspiracy theories aside nobody became a fat friendless alcoholic because of covid and I would in fact not hesitate to predict the alcohol was a factor in literally every other issue. User will not experience any kind of positive movement on any front until they take responsibility for putting the bottle down.
Some had it pretty bad and breached this altruism threshold. I personally flew past it very early. My life turned from "the best period of my life" in early 2020 into my worst nightmare pretty much overnight.
In early 2020 I barely drank at all. I had perhaps a glass of wine once a month or two. I remember I was horrified when I read a BBC article "try to have at least one sober day a week" early into the first lockdown. By the end of the third lockdown I realized I drank every single night for the last 3 weeks. While I feel hundred times better now than back then, I still find it difficult to not drink at all for a week. Alcohol isn't a cause of any problem, it is one of the most accessible coping mechanisms. It numbs emotional pain and distracts you from constantly thinking how much your existence sucks.
I had covid early this year. It was the worst I've felt in the last 10 years. Waking up at night with 10 minutes of dry cough was one of those few moments when I wonder whether this is how I'd die. Luckily I didn't.
And second, I have never had these types of symptoms before - fever yes, dry cough no. Sure, I also have never been this old before, but if I get COVID and suffer the symptoms that health authorities say are typical of COVID, Ocam's razor would force me to discard the "it must have been something else" theory.
I firmly remember all the army trucks sprinting around my home city carting dead bodies and healthcare professionals, and the local government commandeering the local ice rink to serve as a makeshift morgue to handle the huge volume of COVID deaths that all the morgues and armed forces makeshift equipment were no longer able to handle.
I also remember that only the lockdowns were effective in reigning in transmission rates, hospital admission rates, and more importantly death rates.
I feel your personal take is ignorant and uninformed. I'm sorry your life fell apart during the past year, but the things you're choosing to pin the blame on are the things that saved millions from their deathbeds in understaffed hospitals from a disease with no treatment or cure.
I also remember many media outlets using extremely emotionally appealing images of "scary" hospital scenes and the like (I assume, to prey on our fears and insecurities to drive clicks and ad revenue). I also remember a picture of a pauper's graveyard being used as a image of how "horrifying" the Covid death rate was, and other visceral but misleading stories.
How many people actually died of Covid in your home town?
I don't know under which rock you lived, but in my home town the armed forces had to commandeer hotels and an expo hall to have enough beds to accommodate all the critical COVID patients.
Do you believe health services didn't struggled to handle the massive inflow of COVID cases?
> I also remember a picture of a pauper's graveyard being used as a image of how "horrifying" the Covid death rate was, and other visceral but misleading stories.
You ignore what you wish to ignore. Commandeering ice rinks to serve as makeshift morgues and local morgues having to work around the clock with piles of caskets and body bags piled up in freezers to handle all the dead was something that affected only the poor?
Our city council commandeered a football stadium as an emergency Covid field hospital. It was practically unused.
>Do you believe health services didn't struggled to handle the massive inflow of COVID cases?
The data for the UK health service shows that, overall, hospital capacity was at around 70% for the duration of the pandemic.
>was something that affected only the poor?
You missed my point. The image used showed cheap caskets piled up, in they way that they are in the normal operation of a pauper's graveyard, and may have even been taken before Covid. The point was that the imagery was used for its emotional response, with no context given.
That didn't happen, but what did happen is that all the old folks gave each other Covid and died anyway.