[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

I remember thinking ab the beginning of this "what if is like chicken pox?" you get it as a kid but then years later after 50 you can get shingles which is extremely painful and can be deadly. Very easily the virus could live in the body for a few year and then poof you get a new and more painful disease.

Even if it isn't deadly, inflammation is a critical component of many severe ailments plaguing our elderly (diabetes, arthritis, asthma...)

farley3k wrote:

I remember thinking ab the beginning of this "what if is like chicken pox?" you get it as a kid but then years later after 50 you can get shingles which is extremely painful and can be deadly. Very easily the virus could live in the body for a few year and then poof you get a new and more painful disease.

It is a coronavirus (Type IV). Chickenpox and Herpes (Type I) are the ones that hang around like that. The coronavirus can do damage to our bodies but once we beat them, the virus itself is gone.

Edit: The video was released at the beginning of the pandemic so some of the info relating to COVID is dated.

Moderna's vaccine for kids under 6 is going to be submitted to the FDA for approval in the next few weeks. It generates antibodies on par with the adult version, and while it's efficacy against infection took a hit with omicron, all vaccines did and it's efficacy against infection with omicron was still comparable to the adult version. Moderna has also started the submission data for their vaccine for kids 6-12, which is already approved in Canada, the EU, and Ausralia.

Yes!

Two kids under 4 over here ready to go to preschool/daycare.

Apologies for the tangentiality, but some may find this relatable.

It finally seems to be hitting the powerful - just saw Nancy Pelosi tested positive, as well as Merrick Garland, and Adam Schiff.

I mean, it's been hitting the powerful from pretty early on, they just have the money to afford the very best treatments so most of them come out fine.

Is this the new variant that people have oddly been very quiet about?
Initial reports were that it is even more transmissible and no less lethal...
That info is a week or two old though.

farley3k wrote:

It finally seems to be hitting the powerful - just saw Nancy Pelosi tested positive, as well as Merrick Garland, and Adam Schiff.

Including me. 3x vaxed and it's definitely not fun.

On a positive note a started a new job today and it's 100% remote. Yay for not showing up to an office today because that is (hopefully soon was) the norm and infecting a bunch of people.

Stengah wrote:

I mean, it's been hitting the powerful from pretty early on, they just have the money to afford the very best treatments so most of them come out fine.

yes but I have been amazed that people who routinely are in contact with dozens if not hundreds of different people each week like Pelosi, Schiff, etc. managed to avoid the virus.

Some powerful Democratic politicians are now announcing they’ve got COVID. On the other hand, powerful Republican politicians announced they had to stay home or were hospitalized for a “flu-like illness” months ago.

And it shouldn't surprise anyone that many of the cases appear to stem from a fancy political dinner where most of the guests weren't wearing masks. Although the guests were required to be vaccinated, they didn't need a recent negative test.

Stengah wrote:

And it shouldn't surprise anyone that many of the cases appear to stem from a fancy political dinner where most of the guests weren't wearing masks. Although the guests were required to be vaccinated, they didn't need a recent negative test.

Checks out. Democrats decided the pandemic was over, policy-wise.

Here in Oregon only a minority of people wear masks anymore. The pandemic is over.

Because we apparently haven't been jerked around enough, the FDA are apparently planning to delay even reviewing the data from the Moderna vaccine trials for kids under 5 until Pfizer is ready to submit theirs sometime in June. Supposedly it's because they want to "avoid confusion" if they grant approval to Moderna first, and then a few months later the Pfizer vaccine possibly offers better protection. To which I say as a parent of a child under 5, "I don't f*cking care!" If Pfizer's might potentially have a slightly higher effectiveness if it's not going to be available until July." That's an extra two months with zero protection, especially since mask mandates have ended in most places and how frequently people forget kids under 5 can't be vaccinated yet. Delaying Moderna's approval for over Pfizer's problems is utterly ridiculous.

The risk reward of a vaccine for a child under 5, even today is not good enough to need a vaccine rushed in. If we can get to the point where we have one that has a lower risk then COVID itself and is highly effective, then I would be fine with it but I would rather wait the 2 months then rush into a sub-par vaccine.

I suspect we might find that the vaccine under 5 is not effective because the dosing needs to be low and that might be delaying things more then anything. As a parent of a 6 month old, COVID is far from my biggest concerns for my child. I am more concerned with me catching it and having adverse effects and leaving her without a father.

Right there with you Stengah. 3.5 and 1.5 kids here and tired of this sh*t. Want to send them to pre-k/daycare at some point but not doing it without a vaccine and no masks.

Yeah they might not die, but long covid has all kinds of wild symptoms and it's not worth maybe wrecking the rest of their lives.

Seems like this Is trying not to cut Pfizer out of the loop. Very suspect when former commissioner Gottlieb is in on the Pfizer board.

kazar wrote:

The risk reward of a vaccine for a child under 5, even today is not good enough to need a vaccine rushed in. If we can get to the point where we have one that has a lower risk then COVID itself and is highly effective, then I would be fine with it but I would rather wait the 2 months then rush into a sub-par vaccine.

I suspect we might find that the vaccine under 5 is not effective because the dosing needs to be low and that might be delaying things more then anything. As a parent of a 6 month old, COVID is far from my biggest concerns for my child. I am more concerned with me catching it and having adverse effects and leaving her without a father.

It's not being rushed in though, it's being held back. The vaccine is safe and as effective as the adult version, they're saying they aren't even going to look at it yet because a competing company doesn't have their data ready yet.

Woke up with a runny nose and sore throat. Home antigen test positive, ran to a public test site and was negative. Getting a PCR to be sure but looks like it's time to live in the basement for a few days until results come back.

My PCR came back positive on Wednesday, so living in the basement for a bit. My son and his girlfriend were around last weekend, and, based on them getting their symptoms and positives a few days after me, I guess maybe I gave it to them? We sat around as I made them cocktails on Sunday evening, so that's the likely point of transmission, though I basically never leave my house so I'm less likely to be exposed than almost anyone I know.

Mostly feels like a bad cold, stuffy/runny nose, feeling blah, occasional bouts of nuclear-level lung hacking. The thing that has hammered me is the fatigue; my wife put some stuff at the top of the basement stairs and I went up to get it, and that was 10 minutes ago. I'm still breathing a bit heavily. My son was back in the dorms at the University of Minnesota; I went up to get him last night so he could quarantine here, and it took me a solid 15 minutes to recover from walking from the basement to the garage to get in the car.

I have "felt sicker" before without question, but this whole fatigue thing is absolutely unprecedented. I just can't move much or I feel like I've done an intense workout. It, uh, sucks.

And to think of how much worse it could be with all the asymptomatic cases.

Or people like me, my wife, and my son who got it in Feb 2020 and didn't get the test because 1) it didn't exist and 2) according to Trump it wasn't in the US.

UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Or people like me, my wife, and my son who got it in Feb 2020 and didn't get the test because 1) it didn't exist and 2) according to Trump it wasn't in the US.

We're pretty sure this happened to my mother in law, she was in the hospital with not-pneumonia for about a week a month before the pandemic.

I know with certainty that I've been infected with Covid twice -- once in June 2020 (mostly asymptomatic other than very mild cold symptoms and a complete loss of smell for a week or so) and again this past Christmas/New Year's. However, this second time I had recently gotten my booster (about a month or so prior) so even though I know I was infected via my tested-positive daughter (I wasn't tested, but honestly not necessary at that point) I credit the vaccination with keeping me asymptomatic this time.

However, in the past month or so I've now found my sense of smell and taste somewhat suppressed (it varies, but especially the smell) and even more frustrating, my sense of smell is just wrong now. Examples: when my deodorant isn't masking it, my armpits reek like onions to me, but my wife and daughter say I don't smell bad/different to them. Sometimes other people's breath has an almost overpowering stench of ammonia to me, but it's not noticeable to anyone else. Scented candles can sometimes give me horrible headaches with unbearably strong smells whereas I've never been affected like that by such things in the past. But then some other smells I simply don't pick up -- like random food smells that just don't register with me now.

Between all that and generally more fatigue and aches in recent months than I've had in the past (yes, I'm sedentary and out of shape, but that's nothing new; I've started forcing myself to get out and walk to start getting healthier) I rather suspect I may be one of the people who is going to be stuck dealing with chronic issues stemming from prior Covid infection.

Gotta love the new normal!

NathanialG wrote:
UpToIsomorphism wrote:

Or people like me, my wife, and my son who got it in Feb 2020 and didn't get the test because 1) it didn't exist and 2) according to Trump it wasn't in the US.

We're pretty sure this happened to my mother-in-law, she was in the hospital with not-pneumonia for about a week a month before the pandemic.

There is a Facebook post my wife made on Valentine's Day 2020 that seems oddly prophetic...

Mrs. Iso on Feb. 14, 2020 wrote:

Spending all of Valentine's Day with both of my Valentines. JT is home sick with some sort of virus (that isn't Strep, Flu A/B, or RSV) that is causing some respiratory issues. Adam is taking care of him so that I can work.

My wife got sick with a cough and body aches that lasted for weeks, and I got sick with a fever that would cause me to sweat through the sheets and have a lingering cough.

For the record, it would not be until months later that anyone thought that this mysterious illness was Covid.

Farscry, have you had any head trauma?
Some of what you describe can be attributed to concussions or mild stroke... (perhaps other head injuries)

I've genuinely never had any head trauma. I had definitely considered that possibility!

I have bad sleep apnea (I do use a CPAP) so maybe I've had low O2 saturation in my sleep at times? I dunno.

Of course, the scarier possibility is "micro-strokes." My maternal grandfather died of stroke (he had multiple in his elder years) so that's always a concern, but I'm only in my 40's so shouldn't be having problems like that yet.

I mentioned the problems to my doctor when I went in for my annual checkup and she didn't seem too concerned, but since these weird symptoms have persisted so long maybe I should go back in for a follow-up. Just seems like it's most likely in line with some of the long covid stuff I've read about, so I figure it just is what it is.

I just mentioned it because my uncle recently collapsed and hit his head. He suffered from vertigo for a few months but has made a great recovery. The only thing still lingering is loss of taste and smell. (it frustrates him to hell and back the thought that it might be permanent)