Coronavirus

[unclevlad]

4 hours ago, Old Man said:

I, too, have apparently never caught it, despite having two teenagers going to in-person public schools.

 

I'm up to six shots now.  Seriously, how many will it take before my mutant powers manifest?  I'm not even slightly magnetic.

 

You need the *radioactive* vaccination.  

[Doc Democracy]

23 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Far as I know, I never caught it.  Mind, never been tested for it, either.

 

Well, I have, in all this time had cold symptoms a total of two times, tested twice each time, all negative.  Used to test at work once a week

 

In the UK, had two boosters, no options for anything this year.  Apparently we are just hoping it will go away.

[Hermit]

I got another booster. Along with a flu shot to boot. Sore shoulders but worth it

[DShomshak]

Never had it (yet), though my brother did. I had to bring him his meals at the far end of the house, both of use masked, and do his covid tests until we were sure he was over it.

 

I was pretty seriously worried after spending a few hours unmasked among hundreds of people to visit a Lovecraft=themed Hunted House attraction in Tacoma, then out to a Lovecraft-themed bar afterward for nachos. (Devil's Reef, also in downtown Tacoma. Tki bar, but the drinks all have names inspired by "The Shadow over Innsmouth." Proprietor recommends you not have the Third Oath of Dagon.) But it's ten days out and I've still shown no symptoms and my tests are negative.

 

I live with and help care for my very old, very frail mother. If she caught covid, it would certainly kill her. So I dislike taking chances.

 

Dean Shomshak

[Lord Liaden]

I got it once, a little over three years ago. I was already vaccinated, so it was no worse than a bad head cold. Symptoms started to lessen after two days, and were gone in a week. I have no doubt that without vaccination it would have been much worse.

 

I never stopped wearing a mask indoors with large numbers of people, and use hand sanitizer after I touch something that other people touch. Besides the bout with COVID I've caught one cold in three and a half years while doing that, and no 'flu. I like not being sick, and intend to keep it that way.

[Cancer]

When I did get it, we did succeed in having the other two people in the house NOT get it, which is something.

 

My cross-section for catching it now is much diminished, since with retirement I no longer am in rooms with dozens of other people -- mostly young adults -- for multiple hours a day, five days a week.

[Old Man]

44 minutes ago, Cancer said:

My cross-section for catching it now is much diminished, since with retirement I no longer am in rooms with dozens of other people -- mostly young adults -- for multiple hours a day, five days a week.

 

How are you liking retirement so far?  (Aside from not having to constantly expose yourself to young adult plague rats.)

[Cancer]

Well, now that summer is gone, I change my answer from the other times I was asked that.  (Back then, my retirement felt a lot like my non-retirement, since I wasn't teaching most summers.)  However, one thing remains true: my attention is dominated by unwelcome things unrelated to any job or retirement state. 

 

Still (considering the annoying inconsistency of the local NFL franchise) it is pleasant not to have to grade papers -- especially labs -- which I often did with football on TV to provide distraction from my ineffectiveness as a teacher. 

 

A passing annoyance is ... dealing with Medicare for the first time.  Not helped by my being the first of my circle of friends to reach retirement, so I am walking point through that jungle. 

 

Social Security was a snap, once I was told all the forms I had to fill out (and I was told them one at a time, so I ended up doing them serially rather than in parallel); happily the physical SSA office is a ten minute walk from my house so needing to go there was not a problem at all, and almost uniquely in this town, that office has air conditioning, a real plus in August when the highs were in the 90s.

[unclevlad]

It's amazing how popular I got since the summer...went onto Medicare the first of the month.  My, my...I went from, gee...maybe 5 pieces of mail a month, to 2-3 a day there.  Humana, United HealthCare, AARP, private Medicare brokers in town, Blue Cross, .....................

 

But push come to shove?  My retirement benefit only includes 1 plan.  That rather simplified the process, from my perspective.  And meant my shredder's been busy.....

 

Social Security was trivial.  I set that up a bit earlier;  right or wrong, I figured, get onto the books before Q4, should hopefully mean I get the CoL increase.  Yep....  And I'd checked the calculators, it was gonna take quite a while to see any increase in initial benefits.  All mine was online thru, IIRC, myssa.gov.  

[Cancer]

My decision to wait to retire until I turned 67 meant I had more pieces of paper needed to affirm that yes, I had not just slacked off on doing the paperwork (or more correctly, I had slacked off on doing it, but in a way that was explicitly permitted.)

[unclevlad]

Ahhh....OTOH, I retired early...I could've started collecting SS a few years ago, but the benefits get significantly reduced if you do.  I might've waited a while longer, but as noted...a large cost of living increase this year meant that the 2-3 years of additional benefits were at higher levels.  And it would've taken...I think 3 years...to see a large increase.  I considered many of the same things in the past...I technically retired a few years before I stopped working...but was able to swap over to a consulting employee contract.  Same job, similar pay...but also while collecting retirement instead of paying into retirement.  (Right when the employee percentage was gonna go up, too.)  

[Cancer]

Another factor in my hanging on into last summer was ... it made inordinate sense to stay double-covered on health insurance.

[Starlord]

I got it twice so far - one year apart.  The first time it manifested as a bad flu and I lost my sense of smell and taste for 9 months.  2nd time was just a regular cold but i got antivirals very early on right after i tested positive.

[Rich McGee]

I had it (I think) once in very early 2020 when tests were still near-impossible to get and was bad-flu levels of sick for a week.  Since then I've ducked it, and have kept up with my shots.  Absolutely refuse to de-mask.  Used to get terrible lingering sinus infections once or twice a year without fail for well over a decade, and since masking I haven't even had a head cold.  Turns out japan was right all along.

[Lord Liaden]

In 2021 when COVID was at its height and mask mandates and sanitizer were everywhere, the rate of fatalities from influenza in the United States dropped nearly eighty percent from the previous year.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

In 2021 when COVID was at its height and mask mandates and sanitizer were everywhere, the rate of fatalities from influenza in the United States dropped nearly eighty percent from the previous year.

 

Not only that but I believe one of the four major strains of flu might have been driven to extinction.  I wonder if it came back.

[unclevlad]

Flu mutates regularly...it's notorious in that regard.  Unfortunately, it looks like the coronavirus does too.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

Yesterday I got a booster for COVID, and a 'flu shot. A little pain in the site of the former, and throat a little raspy. Otherwise, no problems.

 

I've been very lucky with my vaccinations to date.

 

BTW I'm told that in Canada the Pfizer vaccine is the most popular. Anyone here get a different one? I had a choice of Pfizer or Moderna, and picked Moderna because I had Pfizer last time, and I read research suggesting that varying your vaccine type promotes the strongest immune response.

[unclevlad]

Hey, there IS a use for those silly cards they're still filling out...

Pfizer for the first 2 rounds (spring 21), then Moderna 4 times (fall 21, spring and fall 22, fall 23)

 

Heh, a 6 pack!

[Lord Liaden]

Hey, my first two doses were AstraZeneca.

[Cygnia]

Florida Surgeon General Cites Debunked Claims In Calling For Halt Of COVID Shots

[unclevlad]

I'm wondering if the AMA is gonna move to decertify Dr. Lapado for this extreme exercise in disinformation.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

Better half and I both ended up with covid over new year's. The first day we were bed ridden, but it got less severe the next few days. Mostly like a bad cold now. We're vaxxed to high heaven for the record.

[death tribble]

India has 4 times the population of the USA yet only half the deaths.

Germany and Brazil have a similar number of total cases yet Brazil has about 4 times the death rate of Germany.

 

I am encouraged that things seems to have slowed down.

[unclevlad]

India has half the *reported* deaths.  With India, there's always a serious question about the completeness.

 

Brazil's medical care, considering the population as a whole, is several steps behind Germany's.  On that basis alone, a higher death rate could be expected.  

 

And...OK, yeah, it's nice they're down...but...WorldOMeters reports 1800 deaths in the last 7 days;  over 1900 in the 7 prior days.  We're still talking 90-100,000 deaths per year, world wide.  So it's still a significant problem...just not a major crisis.  And it looks like we may have reached a steady state.

 

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/worldwide-graphs/#daily-deaths

 

That's a good 6-7 months of steady numbers, with just expected random variation.  Unless something dramatically changes insofar as treatment goes, it's likely this is the norm.  The GOOD!! news?  This should be lower than deaths from the flu.