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.
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 was in hospital for non-Covid reasons, in an 'airy' open ward with only 6 spaced-out beds, but the usual plethora of hospital staff coming and going.
The patients were tested for Covid frequently and one day [Edit: By this time I had been in hospital for about 2 months, one of those in ICU - long story!] the Ward Manager let me know I had tested positive and I was wheeled off to a 'red' ward.
I was sent home after 2 weeks, but came back in a week later with a mild chest infection, so I had another 2 week stay for oxygen, observation and antibiotics.
My sense of taste was out of whack for about 6 months afterwards and many of the foods I enjoyed beforehand tasted 'rank'. I lived on mostly acidic things such as fruit, beetroot, prawn cocktails, tomatoes (OK, they are a fruit too); I couldn't stand any form of meat, bread, rice or plain pasta.
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.
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
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.
Afterwards I developed a strong abnormal heart rhythm (PVCs). I had had these previously, but the ones post-COVID were really intense. They were on and off for a few weeks accompanied by acute fatigue.
If you're an athlete / active person pay attention to your heart after infection. I gradually ramped back up to high intensity activities.
Just as I was starting to feel invincible, I got the faintest possible line on a lateral flow test. All I had was a very minor sore throat for an afternoon - I would never had tested that on its own, but apparently it was COVID! (Tested positive for about 5 or 6 days after).
I suspect a lot of people saying they never got it probably have got it but never realised.
Nice thing now is I don't worry about it. 4 jabs now I think, plus natural immunity from infection. The main thing though was the kids were 100% unimpacted by it all so there feels like there is nothing much to worry about. We regularly get way way way worse infections from nursery - COVID was literally nothing compared to some of the stuff we've had from nursery that has totally floored us for days and weeks!
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"?
Very frustrating.
Going into it, I was in extremely good physical condition. Coming out of it, it took me about 4 months of training to get back to baseline.
I'm only now (~10 months later) back to where I was, in terms of my aerobic and anaerobic conditioning, speed, endurance, etc. FWIW, my strength didn't take much of a hit.
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.
They checked me out and were sure I had it because everyone "coming in here has it". Brought me up to the Covid ward, my own room...
Next morning test came back negative. Just a respiratory infection. They sent me home. Other than that, I haven't really been sick in the last two years, despite working two jobs, exposed to multiple people that had it. Seems strange but oh well.
I feel like my life has been shortened by at least a decade, maybe 2. I find it incredibly hard to focus on any task, and haven't really be able to do anything productive since.
It's only the grace of being barely within retirement that has saved me and my family from going homeless, so far. If I can just make it to partial social security, at the end of 2025, we'll be ok.
I'm still masking and even wearing gloves and otherwise taking any/all precautions to not get it again. The anti-vax around me seem to have all gotten it multiple times. (They would likely report they never had it despite whether or not they owned up to it at the time they were sick.)
It was quite ironic. Then went on a 3 month trip across Europe meeting hundreds of people and spending lots of time dancing with them. No masks or anything either. Didn’t get Covid then either.
Subways in nyc, man.
October 2021 - Delta - 2 weeks of fewer without break, loss of apetite, first few days fatigue I could hardly move around apartment, though only relatively mild coughing, 3 weeks without smell. wife caught it from me just days later, she was quite the opposite, almost no symptoms besides pretty horrible cough for more than a month, we have both extremely healthy BMI, no chronic issues
~June 2022 and September 2022 - Omicron - <12-16 hours of fatigue, headache and mild fewer, next day already fine
I am fully unvaccinated and I'm grateful to my own immune system and mother nature for opportunity it provides for us to feel safe, if you take care of your body.
Flipside, I'm also dealing with daycare syndrome. It absolutely exists, seems to be related to if the daycare does a poor job at cleaning everyday.
My coughing fits were fixed when my RMT re-adjusted my ribs. My "heavy fatigue after one activity" was fixed with acupuncture.
Take it with a grain of salt, but there are options out there.
Did some tests but never got a positive result.
I used to be sick with flu almost every year before (but I did not had vaccine against flu before).
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.
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...
It killed a healthy colleague of mine in Feb 20...
Edit: my wife was a 10k runner, and it has destroyed her running ability. She still can only run about a mile. She is getting heart rhythm issues to...bit worse than the flu I would say
It seems like I was completely laid out by the immune reaction to the virus, not the actual virus, which was a pussycat after the over-attention from my internal defense force. Still assuming that was what "viral fatigue" feels like, and what (non-malingering) chronic fatigue sufferers live with every day. Also suspect that the next step after the feeling of fatigue I had would have been the covid-related organ failure that everyone used to talk about, i.e. the "cytokine storm."
Managed to avoid it for years -- locking down initially, then slowly expanding our social bubble of trusted friends (not family). N95s when picking up to-go food from our favorite restaurants once they started reopening, while going to OB/GYN appointments, etc.
WFH was something I was already accustomed to, and working on the peripherals of public health government contracts, working on projects directly related to COVID surveillance and vaccination was quite humbling.
After hosting a vaccination pod in our living room in March 2021 (a pharmacist friend had J&J doses that were to be tossed by end-of-day -- and had multiple epipens on standby), and our social bubble also getting vaccinated, we collectively started to relax. After the Pfizer booster that fall, we at least felt better prepared should we get infected.
After a pregnancy of multiple OB/GYN visits, an emergency C-section, and a few business and leisure trips with airfare, we managed to remain unaffected as far as we could tell.
Then, after a short outing to a local bottle shop with some friends last week, we felt cold-like symptoms. After a few more days of worsening symptoms, and a couple at-home tests, there was the undeniable positive line for my wife and I. I had the brain fog and cough, she had complete loss of olfactory senses.
A week and change later, we're still waiting for that negative test to mark the end of our precautions. All symptoms but a few after effects are gone, and thankfully others in our group managed to avoid it, or were asymptomatic.
COVID is far from over, far from gone.
Much of society has deemed it endemic or irrelevant, and so for the masses, that'll be how it is until the next spooky variant, or similar virus exploits the lack of holistic societal changes that could still be employed.
I, for one, would have liked social distancing, masking when ill, innovative and sustainable packaging for to-go food from local establishments, and investments in public health infrastructure to remain.
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.
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.
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.
I know people who haven't had it, but they also don't have children.