[News] Coronavirus

A place to discuss the now-global coronavirus outbreak.

Sorbicol wrote:

2 and a half years after all this started and I’ve tested positive for the first time. Balls.

Sorry to hear that, hope it's mild. Welcome to the covid club, I guess?

fangblackbone wrote:

My wife tested positive on the 11th.
There is no one stop shop for what I'm supposed to do.
She continued to test positive and I for whatever reason continued to test negative.
She isolated. I mostly remained at home. I always wore an n95 mask when I did things like go to the grocery store. We did nothing but order in for at least 3 days. At some point I decided to wear the n95 and do 5-10 minutes in the store.
We are both double vaxed and boosted.

But finding all the "If I am repeatedly negative, can I still carry enough disease to infect someone?"
"After how many days do the risk of infection drop?"

I saw that people with more severe infections can stay infectious up to 20 days.

The fact that we are not keeping up with informing the public is a tragedy.
And we just in the last week have started seeing commercials for the antiviral, which would have been helpful last week...

2 weeks after no symptoms most places you are deemed okay even for a hospital setting.

Sorbicol wrote:

2 and a half years after all this started and I’ve tested positive for the first time. Balls.

Think of it this way; you won the COVID contest. It's absolutely clear this is part of life now, and everybody's goal really should have been to avoid it as long as possible so the virus could mutate to a less deadly form. That's where we're at, and, yes, it's still worrisome, but getting it now for the first time means you didn't get it two years ago when it was a much scarier thing.

JohnKillo wrote:
fangblackbone wrote:

My wife tested positive on the 11th.
There is no one stop shop for what I'm supposed to do.
She continued to test positive and I for whatever reason continued to test negative.
She isolated. I mostly remained at home. I always wore an n95 mask when I did things like go to the grocery store. We did nothing but order in for at least 3 days. At some point I decided to wear the n95 and do 5-10 minutes in the store.
We are both double vaxed and boosted.

But finding all the "If I am repeatedly negative, can I still carry enough disease to infect someone?"
"After how many days do the risk of infection drop?"

I saw that people with more severe infections can stay infectious up to 20 days.

The fact that we are not keeping up with informing the public is a tragedy.
And we just in the last week have started seeing commercials for the antiviral, which would have been helpful last week...

2 weeks after no symptoms most places you are deemed okay even for a hospital setting.

Lol. If you are in healthcare you won’t be waiting two weeks. My wife was cleared for return to work(RN) 5 days after testing positive.

My idiotic employer makes us fill out a COVID questionnaire every morning, any "Yes" answer to any of the ten questions would result in us taking a ten business day unpaid vacation. So if I ever find myself answering "Yes" I will not be able to pay rent.

I am a VERY low paid employee in the parking department as a contractor. At a MAJOR hospital.

F-ck this country, and everyone in it. Even me.

Need a coding degree to type here. haha

Drazzil wrote:

My idiotic employer makes us fill out a COVID questionnaire every morning, any "Yes" answer to any of the ten questions would result in us taking a ten business day unpaid vacation. So if I ever find myself answering "Yes" I will not be able to pay rent.

I am a VERY low paid employee in the parking department as a contractor. At a MAJOR hospital.

F-ck /s this country, and everyone in it. Even /s me.

No strikethru eh?

Put the square brackets around each one.

Drazzil wrote:

My idiotic employer makes us fill out a COVID questionnaire every morning, any "Yes" answer to any of the ten questions would result in us taking a ten business day unpaid vacation. So if I ever find myself answering "Yes" I will not be able to pay rent.

I am a VERY low paid employee in the parking department as a contractor. At a MAJOR hospital.

F-ck this country, and everyone in it. Even me.

Need a coding degree to type here. haha

I really wish I didn't have a job that makes me choose between potentially becoming homeless or potentially killing others if I get sick. I'm looking for something else but for someone at my end of the experience and ability spectrum, the choices are pretty thin.

Updated boosters have arrived.

CDC recommends BA.4/5-targeting COVID boosters from Moderna and Pfizer.

Got my Walgreens appointment for next Wednesday after work.

*Legion* wrote:

Updated boosters have arrived.

CDC recommends BA.4/5-targeting COVID boosters from Moderna and Pfizer.

Got my Walgreens appointment for next Wednesday after work.

EU just greenlit the BA.1/2 boosters here. I see little reason to bother since BA.4/5 boosters are expected to become available in about 6 weeks in Germany.

My wife subscribes to your local epidemiologist and she has a great post about the new boosters - https://yourlocalepidemiologist.subs...

TLDR:

Spoiler:

<2-3 months since infection/vaccination: Wait.

3-4 months since infection/vaccination: Consider a booster if you’re high risk, or have an event. (Get your booster 2 weeks before this event for optimal protection).

4-6 months since infection/vaccination: Get your booster at some point.

6+ months since infection/vaccination: Get your booster ASAP. This includes me—I haven’t been infected, and I had my booster last November.

Yeah last booster was Oct '21, a few weeks before we went to a wedding. Probably time for us.

I caught omicron in January. Time for me to get another booster.

I caught omicron last month - about a year after my booster - and let me tell you, “not as bad” is still really f*cking bad.

caught it at the tale end of a hospital stay last month. except for the body aches it really wasn't that bad for me

Wow, a whole month without a post. How far we've come?

Anyway:

Few Americans get new covid booster shot ahead of projected winter surge

Joe Gonzales, 37, said he knows there’s still a risk of getting covid — he believes he was infected with the virus this summer. But after getting two doses of the vaccine, the Flower Mound, Tex., man doesn’t understand why he needs the third and fourth “booster” shots urged by federal health officials.

“And then the president is saying things like, ‘The pandemic is over,’ ” Gonzales said of President Biden’s comments during a recent “60 Minutes” interview. “That doesn’t help” motivate him to get a shot.

Gonzales’s lack of urgency typifies the view of many Americans, worn down by a never-ending pandemic and unsure about next steps as the nation enters its third covid winter. Some have stopped paying attention to health officials’ recommendations altogether, despite projections of a fall and winter wave with the potential to sicken millions and kill tens of thousands, particularly the elderly and sick. About half of Americans say they’ve heard little or nothing about the shots, according to a recent tracking poll by the nonpartisan Kaiser Family Foundation.

“We have got to explain the value of these vaccines for the American people … [and] why this is probably the single most important health intervention they can make right now to protect themselves and their health for the next three to six months,” Ashish Jha, the White House’s coronavirus coordinator, said in an interview.

Early data shows that just over 11 million Americans — or about 4 percent of those eligible — have received the new bivalent booster shots. A third of adults say they eventually plan to get those shots, according to KFF polling.

Proudly in the 4% for once

Had to cancel my booster appointment when I realized that it was too soon after having been infected with COVID. Now enough time has passed to go ahead and get the shot. Joining that 4% either this weekend or maybe during the week.

Currently tender in both shoulders thanks to being boosted against Covid and the Flu in the same appointment. HUBRIS!

... and then had to tend a VR booth at a local high school career fair. Now I get to play: is it the booster or did my work finally infect me for the next few days.

The nurse administering the shots did inform me that they had starting receiving mumbles about a pediatric bivalent dose coming soon. Apparently most kids are still getting the old boosters at this point.

I've got another 2 months before I can get the booster
I am sure a lot of people are in that boat with how pervasive omicron is.
It got my wife. I somehow survived that only to get it from another source 1 month later.

I intend on getting the booster but I can’t get a solid yes or no as to whether my workplace is going to supply it the same way they did the primary shots and the first booster. I’m close to just going to CVS or something.

Just got my booster this morning, in fact!

Planning it next week. Our doctors office got them in last week but isn't doing covid flu shots together despite that being recommended. So just trying to schedule. One of the kids has a yearly checkup next week so it's likely we could just tag along and get a nurse to give all of us flu shots.

Rezzy wrote:

Currently tender in both shoulders thanks to being boosted against Covid and the Flu in the same appointment. HUBRIS!

I had them do both flu and covid in the same arm. I'd rather have one a little more sore than both fully sore.

fangblackbone wrote:

I've got another 2 months before I can get the booster
I am sure a lot of people are in that boat with how pervasive omicron is.
It got my wife. I somehow survived that only to get it from another source 1 month later.

What are you all seeing as the recommended interval? 4-6 months? I had Covid at the end of June.

90 days. You should be good to schedule an appointment.

I got my 4th shot 2 weeks ago. Luckily this time I had no immediate side effects. However, 2 weeks later I am having some fatigue issues that I’ve never had before.

Thursday I got the bivalent booster, a flu shot, and the shingles vaccine. Covid in left arm, the other two in the right. Today my left arm is still sore at the site of the shot.

I'm also on an antibiotic for lyme disease, which affects my sleep. It's been a fun autumn so far (/s), but I'm looking forward to not being sick or hospitalized this winter. Thank you, modern medicine.

Lyme disease is no joke either...

JLS wrote:

Thursday I got the bivalent booster, a flu shot, and the shingles vaccine. Covid in left arm, the other two in the right. Today my left arm is still sore at the site of the shot.

I'm also on an antibiotic for lyme disease, which affects my sleep. It's been a fun autumn so far (/s), but I'm looking forward to not being sick or hospitalized this winter. Thank you, modern medicine.

That sounds like a fever dream waiting to happen. Get some rest if you can

The Nightmare COVID Variant That Beats Our Immunity Is Finally Here

A new subvariant of the novel-coronavirus called XBB dramatically announced itself earlier this week, in Singapore. New COVID-19 cases more than doubled in a day, from 4,700 on Monday to 11,700 on Tuesday—and XBB is almost certainly why. The same subvariant just appeared in Hong Kong, too.

A highly mutated descendant of the Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that drove a record wave of infections starting around a year ago, XBB is in many ways the worst form of the virus so far. It’s more contagious than any previous variant or subvariant. It also evades the antibodies from monoclonal therapies, potentially rendering a whole category of drugs ineffective as COVID treatments.

“It is likely the most immune-evasive and poses problems for current monoclonal antibody-based treatments and prevention strategy,” Amesh Adalja, a public-health expert at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told The Daily Beast.

That’s the bad news. The good news is that the new “bivalent” vaccine boosters from Pfizer and Moderna seem to work just fine against XBB, even though the original vaccines are less effective against XBB. They won’t prevent all infections and reinfections, but they should significantly reduce the chance of severe infection potentially leading to hospitalization or death. “Even with immune-evasive variants, vaccine protection against what matters most—severe disease—remains intact,” Adalja said.

well at least the vaccines are still effective even if the treatments are not.