Coronavirus (COVID-19)

[mission27]

3 hours ago, PurpleLion said:

I will be free writing this post and my own thoughts might possibly jump around. Not been on here awhile. First and very foremost is my thanks to everyone who responded and wished me well either in the other threads or via private message. Those who might not know I’m the first member who mentioned having the coronavirus in the original thread. Honestly don’t know if anyone here has got it since. Guessing there has been and hoping not many or hopefully none at all if you know my meaning. My own thoughts were kind of scattered in those posts in the original thread and it seems like a world ago. Few many it seemed had the virus then and much seemed confusing within me. Some treated me like a pariah. Medical personnel included and my own background previous to getting the virus kind of gave me a cynical affirmation that leaving forensic psych gigs behind was right. Doing many kinds of roles in hospitals after kind of was the real affirmation. My own realization was the medical workers who were treating me were maybe very unnerved because it then was rare somewhat. Pulling up the post history of mine or delving into the original thread and this will explain. Nearly about 7 months later got sick same kind of symptoms again. This was after long recovering from the first time sick. Debates about long haul because had not recovered all my taste yet and was at 90 percent. However this was my single symptom left after all those months and considered myself as being recovered. Those who don’t know I’ll tell you. Day getting sick the first time or at least knowing that I’d had coronavirus symptoms was waking up and drinking a sparkling strong apple drink that tasted plain like water no apples flavor. Breathing went away and the rest of that garbage want to forget. Taste did come back gradually up to almost whole however not total even after recovering. You kind of taste around food like it does not exist. It’s like the basics of food taste not complete with the nuances. Stuff like tea and mint or chocolate the many molecules food makeup are the hardest. Like you eat only with your memory. Questioned about why that I’m getting food and can’t wholly taste. Each of the other symptoms had long subsided. This months ago and still didn’t wholly taste food. January of this year got sick again same symptoms less intensity definite. Including not any taste like the original coronavirus sickness. Since all my own symptoms had went away months ago except having whole taste convinced me not going to my doctor appointment the October month. The likelihood from everybody was me getting infected with the virus again. Nobody told me that you could get this in the future again. This all 3 month or 6 month immunity stuff didn’t exist back when I originally got the virus because there wasn’t the 1 year of information or tests available. Recovered once more and this go around was a million times easier than previous. Got one hundred percent taste back recently and the subsequent infection became somewhat real positive. Definitely mentioned only with me. Thoughts are with those to who didn’t recover or have not recovered enough and their loved ones in this world.

Glad you're doing better

The taste thing is one of the scariest parts for me tbh.  Have heard some horror stories.  

[TVScout]

Not free:

A double-lung transplant recipient got covid-19 from her donor, report finds. She died two months later.

Quote

Three days after a woman received a double-lung transplant at a Michigan hospital last fall, she became seriously ill. She had difficulty breathing and a high fever, and her lung scans showed pneumonia — all symptoms of a severe case of covid-19.

 

When a nasal swab test for the virus came back negative, the woman’s doctor, Daniel Kaul, was not convinced she did not have the coronavirus. So, Kaul dug deeper. He ordered a coronavirus test of a sample collected from the woman’s new lungs.

When the results came back positive, Kaul wondered, “Could this [have] come from the donor?”

Additional tests would soon confirm Kaul’s suspicions: The unnamed woman, who died of covid-19 two months later, had indeed contracted the virus from her donor’s infected lungs. Kaul’s discovery was published in a peer-reviewed paper by the American Journal of Transplantation earlier this month.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2021/02/23/woman-covid-lung-transplant-death/

[Broncofan]

On 2/18/2021 at 2:04 PM, WizeGuy said:

Pfizer and the Israeli Ministry of Health have a study coming out that the Pfizer vaccine may be 90% effective against asymptomatic transmission. They need more reliable data to have more confidence, but things are trending in the right direction. 

 

Unfortunately, the article isnt in english, so I won't link it. Here's a tweet outlining the most noteworthy stuff:

 

I don't read Hebrew either, but I'd almost bet 10-1 odds that <10 percent is transmission after exposure within the first 2 weeks of vaccination, when the full immune response isn't there yet.    That's the pattern with studies on infection - almost all are occurring in the first 14 days (and first 10 even greater).   Serious infection/hospitalization is virtually eliminated.  Biologically speaking, it's not hard to forecast similar results with transmission.

 

[JBURGE]

On 2/22/2021 at 12:23 AM, mission27 said:

I hate to say I told you so in the middle of the pandemic.  However, I must return to one of mission's favorite topic, US-Canada relations.  As an American with significant ties, friends, and family in Canada I have been saddened to see our two countries torn apart by the pandemic.  

The saddest part frankly has been the unjustified smugness from Canadians who have used a global health emergency as an excuse to engage in an all-Canada circle jerk of America bashing, meanwhile keeping their border shut tight as can be, consequences be damned.  The same could be said for Europe although Canadians are second to none when it comes to their unhealthy obsession with comparing themselves to the USA.  And also second to none in their economic and social dependence on the USA.

Of course tribalism exists in the US too but most of us are blissfully unaware there's a country north of our borders so the rivalry really only exists on that side, where the attitude all along has been "look at the dumb Americans, we don't need the USA, keep those sick people out of Canada." 

Well, I'm sorry to say the chickens have come home to roost.  As it stands the US has administered 60 million vaccines.  Canada is languishing with less than 3% of their population vaccinated, still struggling to source vaccines from Europe rather than the US.  Its looking increasingly likely the US will reach herd immunity sooner rather than later while Canada will be lucky to get there by the end of 2021 or early 2022.  Canada's borders may need to remain closed for another year not because of sick Americans but because of lack of vaccines. 

My sincere hope is that US reaches herd immunity as soon as possible and that we do what we can to help our neighbors to the north and get the border open.  Hopefully when we save the day Canadians are reminded that US-Canada may be two sovereign nations but has historically been one community of which Canada only represents 10% of the population and 8% of the economy and that looking down on and cutting themselves off from the other 90%+ of that community, when they share borders with literally 0 other countries, is a mistake.

@JBURGE and fellow former British colonist @Shady Slim lmk your thoughts.

@TLO

I am not going to respond to this lol. If you are going to sit here after what has happened over the last few years and say that Canadians are smug then idk what to tell you.

[Zukhyubern]

Hey ya'll, I've got a bit of a predicament...

I work as a baker and yesterday the owner frantically sent all of us  a message on WhatsApp saying he had secured a sign-up code for vaccination appointments. I live in LA County which has made food and agricultural workers part of the next batch of prioritized workers, I'm "essential." But what we've since learned is that these codes were meant for BIPOC communities that have been slow to get vaccinated and the codes were essentially "leaked" to circles of people that work from home and affluent areas. It's gotten to the point where LA has frozen and cancelled appointments from some codes.

My dilemma is whether or not to keep my appointment that I'd made. There is an option to cancel the appointment and since these codes were meant for more vulnerable communities I'm leaning towards cancelling and continuing to wait it out. I doubt it'll be much longer before I'm able to get one and I've made it this far. I have pretty severe asthma and other than working (where we take great precautions) I am completely isolated at home and antisocial, bordering on agoraphobic.

But then I also read that it's best to just go ahead and get the vaccine if it's available to you so as to not waste doses and to get us to herd immunity more quickly. What do I do!

[BobbyPhil1781]

https://reproduction.live/world/US has us estimated at under 400k currently infectious. Numbers not seen since October 14th.

[BobbyPhil1781]

29 minutes ago, Zukhyubern said:

Hey ya'll, I've got a bit of a predicament...

I work as a baker and yesterday the owner frantically sent all of us  a message on WhatsApp saying he had secured a sign-up code for vaccination appointments. I live in LA County which has made food and agricultural workers part of the next batch of prioritized workers, I'm "essential." But what we've since learned is that these codes were meant for BIPOC communities that have been slow to get vaccinated and the codes were essentially "leaked" to circles of people that work from home and affluent areas. It's gotten to the point where LA has frozen and cancelled appointments from some codes.

My dilemma is whether or not to keep my appointment that I'd made. There is an option to cancel the appointment and since these codes were meant for more vulnerable communities I'm leaning towards cancelling and continuing to wait it out. I doubt it'll be much longer before I'm able to get one and I've made it this far. I have pretty severe asthma and other than working (where we take great precautions) I am completely isolated at home and antisocial, bordering on agoraphobic.

But then I also read that it's best to just go ahead and get the vaccine if it's available to you so as to not waste doses and to get us to herd immunity more quickly. What do I do!

This is an internal dilemma that only you can deal w/ lol. I am kinda in the same boat as my side hustle allows me to (potentially) jump the line and I could get in next week due to a new opportunity. From what I understand, there's been a fairly low amount of those eligible signing up so I am not really thinking twice about it. Since J&J will be available in the next couple weeks, we're only going to have more available. I think my state is fairly ahead of those though so I'd honestly look at the rates in which CA is vaccinating people and then make your own decision if you can morally live w/ yourself assuming you took leaked info for your own benefit. 

[Deadpulse]

2 hours ago, Zukhyubern said:

Hey ya'll, I've got a bit of a predicament...

I work as a baker and yesterday the owner frantically sent all of us  a message on WhatsApp saying he had secured a sign-up code for vaccination appointments. I live in LA County which has made food and agricultural workers part of the next batch of prioritized workers, I'm "essential." But what we've since learned is that these codes were meant for BIPOC communities that have been slow to get vaccinated and the codes were essentially "leaked" to circles of people that work from home and affluent areas. It's gotten to the point where LA has frozen and cancelled appointments from some codes.

My dilemma is whether or not to keep my appointment that I'd made. There is an option to cancel the appointment and since these codes were meant for more vulnerable communities I'm leaning towards cancelling and continuing to wait it out. I doubt it'll be much longer before I'm able to get one and I've made it this far. I have pretty severe asthma and other than working (where we take great precautions) I am completely isolated at home and antisocial, bordering on agoraphobic.

But then I also read that it's best to just go ahead and get the vaccine if it's available to you so as to not waste doses and to get us to herd immunity more quickly. What do I do!

This boils down to who you prioritize, yourself or others?

[Xenos]

Well this helps explain a lot of the craziness for CA during the winter season. Good thing it’s not as bad as the South Africa variant yet. But it’s still concerning about what it could still do.

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2021-02-23/california-homegrown-coronavirus-strain-looks-increasingly-transmissible-and-dangerous
 

Quote

In a study that helps explain the state’s dramatic surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths — and portends further trouble ahead — scientists at UC San Francisco said the cluster of mutations that characterizes the homegrown strainshould mark it as a “variant of concern” on par with those from the United Kingdom, South Africa and Brazil.

“The devil is already here,” said Dr. Charles Chiu, who led the UCSF team of geneticists, epidemiologists, statisticians and other scientists in a wide-ranging analysis of the new variant, which they call B.1.427/B.1.429. “I wish it were different. But the science is the science.”

Californians, along with the rest of the country, have been bracing for the rise of a more transmissible coronavirus variantfrom the U.K. known as B.1.1.7. But they should know that a rival strain that is probably just as worrisome has already settled in, and will probably account for 90% of the state’s infections by the end of next month, said Chiu, an infectious diseases researcher and physician.

The U.K. and California variants are each armed with enhanced capabilities, and the likelihood that they could circulate in the same population raises the specter of a return to spiking infections and deaths, Chiu said. It also opens the door to a “nightmare scenario”: That the two viruses will meet in a single person, swap their mutations, and create an even more dangerous strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

 

[Xenos]

4 hours ago, Zukhyubern said:

Hey ya'll, I've got a bit of a predicament...

I work as a baker and yesterday the owner frantically sent all of us  a message on WhatsApp saying he had secured a sign-up code for vaccination appointments. I live in LA County which has made food and agricultural workers part of the next batch of prioritized workers, I'm "essential." But what we've since learned is that these codes were meant for BIPOC communities that have been slow to get vaccinated and the codes were essentially "leaked" to circles of people that work from home and affluent areas. It's gotten to the point where LA has frozen and cancelled appointments from some codes.

My dilemma is whether or not to keep my appointment that I'd made. There is an option to cancel the appointment and since these codes were meant for more vulnerable communities I'm leaning towards cancelling and continuing to wait it out. I doubt it'll be much longer before I'm able to get one and I've made it this far. I have pretty severe asthma and other than working (where we take great precautions) I am completely isolated at home and antisocial, bordering on agoraphobic.

But then I also read that it's best to just go ahead and get the vaccine if it's available to you so as to not waste doses and to get us to herd immunity more quickly. What do I do!

Just keep the appointment. Either that or wait at the end of each day near a vaccination site and see if they have any extra doses left over.

[ramssuperbowl99]

4 hours ago, BobbyPhil1781 said:

5 hours ago, Zukhyubern said:

Hey ya'll, I've got a bit of a predicament...

I work as a baker and yesterday the owner frantically sent all of us  a message on WhatsApp saying he had secured a sign-up code for vaccination appointments. I live in LA County which has made food and agricultural workers part of the next batch of prioritized workers, I'm "essential." But what we've since learned is that these codes were meant for BIPOC communities that have been slow to get vaccinated and the codes were essentially "leaked" to circles of people that work from home and affluent areas. It's gotten to the point where LA has frozen and cancelled appointments from some codes.

My dilemma is whether or not to keep my appointment that I'd made. There is an option to cancel the appointment and since these codes were meant for more vulnerable communities I'm leaning towards cancelling and continuing to wait it out. I doubt it'll be much longer before I'm able to get one and I've made it this far. I have pretty severe asthma and other than working (where we take great precautions) I am completely isolated at home and antisocial, bordering on agoraphobic.

But then I also read that it's best to just go ahead and get the vaccine if it's available to you so as to not waste doses and to get us to herd immunity more quickly. What do I do!

Expand  

This is an internal dilemma that only you can deal w/ lol. I am kinda in the same boat as my side hustle allows me to (potentially) jump the line and I could get in next week due to a new opportunity. From what I understand, there's been a fairly low amount of those eligible signing up so I am not really thinking twice about it. Since J&J will be available in the next couple weeks, we're only going to have more available. I think my state is fairly ahead of those though so I'd honestly look at the rates in which CA is vaccinating people and then make your own decision if you can morally live w/ yourself assuming you took leaked info for your own benefit. 

Can we make a distinction between the source and the appointees here? I think there's a world of difference between someone taking vaccine appointments for disadvantaged communities and "leaking them to affluent communities" (I'm assuming this is code for selling) versus the people who got a code from their boss and just signed up.

The leaker needs to go to jail.

The appointee is in a tricky ethical spot. Depending on the logistics, you could argue either going or not going is the most ethical decision. If he goes, that's an appointment for someone else...unless the appointment was so close they couldn't fill it. In that case, by cancelling, everyone else gets bumped back one extra spot. And since in this case the OP is in the next group of eligible people, we're talking about, what, a few weeks of difference?

The whole situation sucks, but IMO, it's not worth rocking the boat. Go to the appointment, and if someone asks how you got the code, tell the truth. We find those scumbags and get shots in arms; 2 birds one stone.

[BobbyPhil1781]

3 hours ago, ramssuperbowl99 said:

Can we make a distinction between the source and the appointees here? I think there's a world of difference between someone taking vaccine appointments for disadvantaged communities and "leaking them to affluent communities" (I'm assuming this is code for selling) versus the people who got a code from their boss and just signed up.

The leaker needs to go to jail.

The appointee is in a tricky ethical spot. Depending on the logistics, you could argue either going or not going is the most ethical decision. If he goes, that's an appointment for someone else...unless the appointment was so close they couldn't fill it. In that case, by cancelling, everyone else gets bumped back one extra spot. And since in this case the OP is in the next group of eligible people, we're talking about, what, a few weeks of difference?

The whole situation sucks, but IMO, it's not worth rocking the boat. Go to the appointment, and if someone asks how you got the code, tell the truth. We find those scumbags and get shots in arms; 2 birds one stone.

I never thought of it as someone selling info. If that's the case, yes, they need jailed immediately. 

My case is legitimate as it's due to a business opportunity where I'll have to spend time in a Dr's office. Just wanted to make that clear. And it's not even a sure thing. I'll find out later this week.

I agree with your last line assuming you are correct in people selling this info bc that's ridiculous. 

Edited February 24, 2021 by BobbyPhil1781

[BobbyPhil1781]

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/johnson-johnson-vaccine-deemed-safe-effective-documents-released-fda-n1258712

And there we have it.

Start shipping this **** out now so we can be ready when given the green light.

[SalvadorsDeli]

Got the 1st dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday - eligible because I have a chronic kidney condition. The system to sign up in NYC is absolutely chaotic - basically just a lot of refreshing of websites hoping to find a needle in the haystack and get yourself signed into an appointment just as they are posted and before someone else fills it out. I was able to find a same-day slot yesterday just as I think a new shipment was coming in and new slots opened up. I will say though that the process once I got to the hospital itself was as smooth as it could have been. 

I feel extraordinarily lucky to have already gotten it - I know of many many people in NYC who have been striking out for weeks trying to find open appointments. And the uneven nature of all of this is pretty frustrating - I'm getting vaccinated and my frontline worker sister in Boston has been as well but my elderly father in Virginia is still waiting with seemingly no end in sight. Still though - it's such an incredible relief to finally be moving forward. My 2nd dose will come almost a year to the date that things started locking down in NYC. This is certainly the most hopeful I've felt since then. 

Edited February 24, 2021 by SalvadorsDeli

[Deadpulse]

23 minutes ago, SalvadorsDeli said:

Got the 1st dose of the Pfizer vaccine yesterday - eligible because I have a chronic kidney condition. The system to sign up in NYC is absolutely chaotic - basically just a lot of refreshing of websites hoping to find a needle in the haystack and get yourself signed into an appointment just as they are posted and before someone else fills it out. I was able to find a same-day slot yesterday just as I think a new shipment was coming in and new slots opened up. I will say though that the process once I got to the hospital itself was as smooth as it could have been. 

I feel extraordinarily lucky to have already gotten it - I know of many many people in NYC who have been striking out for weeks trying to find open appointments. And the uneven nature of all of this is pretty frustrating - I'm getting vaccinated and my frontline worker sister in Boston has been as well but my elderly father in Virginia is still waiting with seemingly no end in sight. Still though - it's such an incredible relief to finally be moving forward. My 2nd dose will come almost a year to the date that things started locking down in NYC. This is certainly the most hopeful I've felt since then. 

From a the standpoint of someone in my business, whoever is staffing those NYC clinics is making BANK right now