Corona Virus Now Spreading

[les26]

Yes, it is extremely stressful and any cold, flu, sinus/URI can mimic they symptoms.

I contacted my doctor's office today and ran how I feel by them, then got a message back from my doctor and they said since I don't have any of the main Covid symptoms and my symptoms seem mild just see what happens, I guess they really can't say either way unless I would get worse and then they said let us know and we will test you. I was a bit concerned as I go back to work tomorrow, and really don't feel that great, but I have no fever or cough or extreme body aches or loss of taste and smell, and my wife who works in the medical field said everyone that she knows of that had it lost taste and smell, and no one had a "mild" case of it they all got hammered and KNEW they had it, but I know everyone is different, so I guess time will tell, it'll go one way or the other and very well may be some other virus that is born out of this wacky weather!

 

[muffy]

I live in assisted living and one of the aides here said that one of the residents tested positive for Covid last week. He is only the fourth person to get the virus here. That is a pretty good record.

She also told me that a man she knows on Facebook was saying how he got the vaccine and that he was feeling fine. The next day they found him dead. He was only 40 years old.

 

[denice]

There are going to be stories like this about the vaccine. The media is reporting the allergic reactions but I don't know just how prevalent they are. The media doesn't bother with dull statistics like how many people have been vaccinated with absolutely no issues whatsoever in comparison to the number of allergic reactions. Of the allergic reactions how many were serious reactions and how many were mild reactions?

As far as social media goes I take things off there with a grain of salt. It is the modern day version of the origins of urban myths. Social media is just the new version of an age old issue. I believe it was Mark Twain who said that a lie goes around the world in the time it takes for the truth to put on it's shoes.

 

[artiemom]

Found out this week-end that my cousin, his daughter and wife all came down with Covid... ugh

They are all adults and work.. My cousin has a very serious heart conditions. He said he has been feeling rotten since the end of October; like a cold. Suddenly, he woke up with a warped sense of smell, and taste.. not completely absent, but diminished.

He went to get a Covid test.. Took a week for the results.. While he was waiting, his daughter started to feel the same way. She also lost her sense of taste and smell for one day. She immediately got a test---positive.

His test came back positive... A few days later, his wife's test came back positive.
So the whole family is isolated. They do not seem to have a bad case of it..

The doctors and the Board of Health are telling them to just stay home, take tylenol, be in contact with your doctor... and if worsening, call... They are doing contact tracing on them.

What I find troubling is that one of them works at a major grocery store chain..I cannot say that they re not routinely testing, but... it seems weird. tested...
~
This makes the second cousin and family who came down with Covid.. and both have family members who work in grocery stores.. different chains, different towns..
~~~~~~~~~
Another thing I am finding so weird.. people's allergies are so rampant this year.. extending into the winter... so weird... and the house is so dry.. It is not just me, in this building, but at other friend who are in their own homes... weird..

Geoffrey has been sneezing terribly... started 6 weeks ago.. and my allergies are fierce.. dry air, and who knows what else...

 

[denice]

Grocery store workers are among the essential workers that have some priority on vaccine. I always use the self checkout but the clerks at the other lanes have plexiglass shields. I think it would help if they did their main stocking while the store is closed. Those employees have no protection but a mask. They also have their pallets in the aisles which adds to congestion in the aisles. Of course it costs money to have employees and a manager working during closed hours.

 

[LTS3]

Even Marty the robot is wearing a mask Winchester

(Please, no comments on such robots being used to spy on customers, etc )

 

[Willowy]

It's not covering his mouth!

My aunt and uncle went to his brother's funeral (heart attack, not COVID as far as we know) about a month and a half ago---unmasked of course, because this is South Dakota :/---and after the funeral EVERYBODY who attended got sick, most did not get tested but the widow tested positive so everybody assumed they had COVID. Now my uncle was going to get cataract surgery so they made him get tested, and he tested positive. No symptoms at this time. So. . .idk if it's residual or he got re-infected or had the flu before but now has asymptomatic COVID or what. But it's weird.

 

[muffy]

There are going to be stories like this about the vaccine. The media is reporting the allergic reactions but I don't know just how prevalent they are. The media doesn't bother with dull statistics like how many people have been vaccinated with absolutely no issues whatsoever in comparison to the number of allergic reactions. Of the allergic reactions how many were serious reactions and how many were mild reactions?

As far as social media goes I take things off there with a grain of salt. It is the modern day version of the origins of urban myths. Social media is just the new version of an age old issue. I believe it was Mark Twain who said that a lie goes around the world in the time it takes for the

truth to put on it's shoes.

Yes, it does sound kind of fishy. It it is really true it would probably have been on the news. All the nurses and aides I have talked to here said they are going to wait to get the vaccine because they want to see how it effects everyone else. I will be getting one as soon as they come around with it.

 

[Willowy]

The media is reporting the allergic reactions but I don't know just how prevalent they are.

Allergic/anaphylactic reactions are fairly rare for any vaccine. This vaccine, however, seems to provoke a stronger immune reaction in many people, or maybe it's just reported more.

A co-worker, who is a volunteer EMT in the community, got vaccinated, and she's had pretty bad side effects for a few days. Nausea, chills, general fatigue and achiness. So she recommends that anyone getting it make sure they can get the next couple days off work, of course not everyone has such a strong immune reaction but just in case.

 

[ZombieTiger]

She also told me that a man she knows on Facebook was saying how he got the vaccine and that he was feeling fine. The next day they found him dead. He was only 40 years old.

I don't mean to be disrespectful in any way, but some people die young? Just because he died now and not later doesn't mean it had anything to do with a potential vaccine.

And yeah, someone knowing the neighbour of someone that knew is pretty much the beginning of an urban legend. I'm sceptical to things to, but don't base your scepticism on plain gossip.

 

[les26]

It might have been discussed on here already but does anyone know how accurate the Covid tests really are? Any way to tell?

 

[molly92]

It might have been discussed on here already but does anyone know how accurate the Covid tests really are? Any way to tell?

There are 2 main categories of tests: PCR and antigen/antibody.

The PCR is super reliable and very accurate at detecting COVID whether you have symptoms or not. It latches on to 1 piece of genetic material from the virus and multiplies it until there are literally billions of pieces, so it can detect even a very small starting amount of the virus. User error in the lab is pretty much the only way to get an incorrect result, and this procedure is highly refined at this point so I doubt that's common. The drawback is it takes a few hours to complete, so people often don't get this back the same day. While it's very accurate at telling if you had COVID by the time you were tested, it's only a snapshot of that day, so you have to be very careful to have zero exposure to people until you get your results or you can't be sure you didn't pick it up in those few days.

There are a lot of antigen tests, and they're kind of all over the place in accuracy. But, usually they're pretty good if you're symptomatic, not so much if you're asymptomatic. Most of them have a high rate of false negatives in asymptomatic people. A lot of the virus has to be present in the body for it to be detected. The advantage is these can take as little as 15 minutes so you can get results right away. If you do take this test as a precaution before travelling/visiting people/etc, then ideally you would take it several times to be more confident in the result. But, even with a string of negative antigen tests, you can't be absolutely certain.

 

[LTS3]

It's not covering his mouth!

 

[DreamerRose]

NBC News this evening reported that this season's flu cases are down by 98%. I expected as much because of all the precautions we are taking for Covid, which work for the flu too. They reported that the decrease was caused by three factors, first the precautions, second the lack of transmissions from the southern hemisphere due to travel restrictions, and third the flu vaccine. Last summer, mani and Silver Crazy said that there were few or no flu cases in Australia. Little to come north and infect us. This has been a bit of good news for hospitals, which don't have to deal with flu hospitalizations on top of the pandemic.

 

[denice]

I knew more people got the flu shot. When I got mine the first place I went in October were out of the stronger shot for older people but the second place had it. Some areas were out of flu vaccine by the end of November. Even though there wasn't enough vaccine to meet the demand so many people getting vaccinated helped the people who didn't get the shot.

 

[mani]

NBC News this evening reported that this season's flu cases are down by 98%. I expected as much because of all the precautions we are taking for Covid, which work for the flu too. They reported that the decrease was caused by three factors, first the precautions, second the lack of transmissions from the southern hemisphere due to travel restrictions, and third the flu vaccine. Last summer, mani and Silver Crazy said that there were few or no flu cases in Australia. Little to come north and infect us. This has been a bit of good news for hospitals, which don't have to deal with flu hospitalizations on top of the pandemic.

There's a heap more of the Southern Hemisphere than Australia : New Guinea, southern Indonesia, the southern part of Africa and a fair whack of South America.

 

[Mia6]

Found out this week-end that my cousin, his daughter and wife all came down with Covid... ugh

They are all adults and work.. My cousin has a very serious heart conditions. He said he has been feeling rotten since the end of October; like a cold. Suddenly, he woke up with a warped sense of smell, and taste.. not completely absent, but diminished.

He went to get a Covid test.. Took a week for the results.. While he was waiting, his daughter started to feel the same way. She also lost her sense of taste and smell for one day. She immediately got a test---positive.

His test came back positive... A few days later, his wife's test came back positive.
So the whole family is isolated. They do not seem to have a bad case of it..

The doctors and the Board of Health are telling them to just stay home, take tylenol, be in contact with your doctor... and if worsening, call... They are doing contact tracing on them.

What I find troubling is that one of them works at a major grocery store chain..I cannot say that they re not routinely testing, but... it seems weird. tested...
~
This makes the second cousin and family who came down with Covid.. and both have family members who work in grocery stores.. different chains, different towns..
~~~~~~~~~
Another thing I am finding so weird.. people's allergies are so rampant this year.. extending into the winter... so weird... and the house is so dry.. It is not just me, in this building, but at other friend who are in their own homes... weird..

Geoffrey has been sneezing terribly... started 6 weeks ago.. and my allergies are fierce.. dry air, and who knows what else...

Mine are as well.I usually only use Vicks for congestion but I had myhelper get Sudafed and Mucinex, just in case they got worse.

 

[CatladyJan]

Got my first dose of Pfizer vaccination today

 

[denice]

I am glad you were able to get started on these. It will probably be sometime in the Spring for me. I turn 65 in February so I think I am right ahead of the general public that is younger then 65 so it will be awhile. I work from home so I can continue doing what I am doing.

 

[artiemom]

I ran into the building's director yesterday. I asked him, if he had any idea when the Vaccine would be coming into our building. Told him I am not panicking about it, I just need to plan since the second Dose of the Shingles Vaccine is due next week. I have 3 months in which to get it, before I have to start over..

He said the earliest he has been told is that the clinic, CVS, will be here, is Jan 21... so I will wait and plan on the Shingles vaccine in Early April... do not want to overload my immune system..

Update on my cousin and family:
They are all feeling fine.. They are bored with quarantine.. They do not realize how fortunate they are... OMGosh...

What I find strange is that they have been told, to just stay home, take tylenol, after 10 days of quarantine, go back to work.. no repeat Covid Test... no 14 days.. They were also told, to go out for walks.... I find that weird...
Personally, I would want a repeat Covid test, before I went back into public, for anything.. They are all dealing with people at work... and the public...