Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

I've always been paranoid about the webcam on my laptop so I've spent the past 2 years disabling it (repeatedly, because Windows kept re-enabling it every update) and covering it with stickers. I wanted to offer to Skype my mum on mother's day and it turns out the webcam doesn't even work

eventually I found & set up an external one and my mum did not want to Skype anyway

but I spent an hour on the phone, mainly just chatting but also asking intermittently if I should ask the Amazon delivery guy to leave her present on the porch rather than knocking (as she's high risk) and eventually she agreed that that was better and seconds later before I'd had a chance to change the delivery options he knocked on the door, so now I shall vibrate with worry about that for a while

(they did say on Friday they were theoretically fine with Amazon deliveries or I wouldn't have sent one at all - as it is the contents are rather crap since I left it too late what with worrying about it and Amazon had already made books etc non-urgent delivery-wise, which totally makes sense, except as far as I can see Amazon no longer has any stuff that might be "urgent" like food or hand gel/wipes etc in stock anyway)

fuck joggers in general (sorry JCLC, not you)

"testing doesn't matter anymore" is embarrassing nonsense

https://www.wired.com/story/coronavirus-interview-larry-brilliant-smallpox-epidemiologist/

Now that we've missed the opportunity for early testing, is it too late for testing to make a difference?

Absolutely not. Tests would make a measurable difference. We should be doing a stochastic process random probability sample of the country to find out where the hell the virus really is. Because we don't know. Maybe Mississippi is reporting no cases because it's not looking. How would they know? Zimbabwe reports zero cases because they don't have testing capability, not because they don't have the virus. We need something that looks like a home pregnancy test, that you can do at home.

We normally gather for lunch at my wife's mum's on a Sunday. We made do with a 4 screen 16 person video chat. It was as chaotic as you'd expect but it was good for us all to see each other and especially for my mum-in-law to see all of her grandchildren.

I know nothing whatsoever about how testing kits are made and what's in them, but would it not make sense for idle industries to be turned over (if possible) to mass-producing these things? Plus masks and ventilators. Maybe there are elements that go into them that can't be easily sourced or whatever, but if "we" are on a war footing then let's make the fucking weapons eh. Feel free to tell me how this can't be done though.

one of my friends has it. she can’t get tested, but she knows, bc if you get it and the symptoms are particularly strong, you’ll know you had it. you will have trouble breathing for days and will run out of breath doing the simplest activities. it will feel pretty gd horrible, according to her

xxpost Here at least I think the WH has invoked powers to compel factories and whatnot to do that, but afaict has not actually asked them to do that. Because they are stupid and incompetent.

My friend took his kids to the zoo last week. He said maybe 40 cars in the giant lot, and all the buildings were off-limits, so it was just a handful of people gliding around like ghosts in the big empty zoo.

xpost That's tough, because the regular flu feels pretty horrible! Out of breath doing the simplest activities sounds more specifically like stories I've heard from people with this, though. At least some people.

xxxxp iirc the uk govt is going to give a bung to Brexity Tory donors JCB to turn their production over to testing kits or masks even though there are already uk suppliers making those things that the govt hasn't got in touch with, so business as usual for Tory govts I suppose

I'd like more tests wherever they come from tbh but it would seem to make sense to talk to the people who already know what they're doing and don't need a setup time

oops, this is the apolitical thread. sorry, scratch that post! I will post about zoos instead

it’s a different horrible from the flu josh, that is what i was trying to say

I like my local zoo and I hope it can keep going with no visitors as it can't be cheap to run. I know people have mixed feelings about zoos and I can totally understand that but I'm sure wherever one is at on the "liking zoos" spectrum we can agree that them all shutting at once because they've run out of money and maybe staff would be bad. not sure what can be done, really - of course this is pretty low priority but I hope there'll be some sort of provision for them

(also I gave the bf a voucher for an experience day at the local one, and there's a time limit to use it by, so it would be nice if it doesn't become void, but tbh I like what they do and they must be having hard times so if it does expire, well, I'm happy to have made a donation...)

jeezus Brad, that's awful.

I'm feeling v weird about the possibility of getting sick because *here's where I curse myself* I didn't have a cold all winter. That never happens.

xxpost Yeah, it really does sound like a crapshoot (so to speak). The worst manifestation of it, anecdotally, seems to be reduction of respiratory function. Other folks I've heard of have vomiting, some just have high fever and chills, and so on. I don't know anyone (via friends) that has had to go to the hospital, thank goodness.

I've never had the flu, so I don't have anything to judge symptoms against tbh.

I saw a guy on twitter - v healthy 44 yr old - who is now intubated and in critical condition. His husband also had the virus but it was mild and passed quickly. This is why testing is important - we need as much data as possible if we’re to come up with a vaccine.

I've never had the flu

consider yourself lucky. as an adult it clobbers you!

So I've heard!

xxpost yeah, more testing is still needed. we have to know where the highest concentration is, as well as find out how well our efforts are actually working.

if there was a way to swab everyone, I'd be for it. to me it's infuriating that my friend in VA pretty much knows she has it but because she's not over 50 years old, they won't test her.

quite frankly there should be a way to swab everyone. there should've been a way to swab everyone weeks ago </political>

I do like the idea suggested upthread, the South Park head lice strategy of just lying and telling everybody in private that they have it and then locking down for 3 weeks.

I'm trying to figure out if the masks I had sitting in an open box in the basement is useful for anyone other than me. It was sitting open on top of my workbench, and there's a dead ant at the bottom. I carefully took them all out and removed that one dirty mask at the bottom and have about 10 N95 sanding masks.

I don't think they'd pass muster for anything other than personal use or giving to family or friends, but I'll keep an eye out for more information

fwiw they're the 3M ones meant for wearing when you're sanding

so i assume dropping off laundry is not a good idea in this climate.

Everyone except Οὖτις otm, test test test, it’s gonna be central to any response to this that isn’t completely insane

mh, you should try to donate them to a medical center. I would think they would be better than them having to reuse an old one multiple times or having to resort to handmade ones. I saw one medical center giving out instructions on how to make masks out of coffee filters!

just1n3, that 44 yr old has that website Above the Law, i was just posting about him in the other thread. He only has exercise induced asthma as an underlying (he runs marathons and does interval training.)

Am i wrong in raising an eyebrow at the fact that there was a girls softball team fundraising today in front of the Publix?

They had gloves, and they weren't exactly drawing a big crowd, but anytime somebody stopped, that thinned the walkway and increased people being right up on each other when leaving out that exit.

Otoh...i guess it's already happening inside the store? Thinking maybe a GoFundMe was a better idea.

xp I looked and the university hospital elsewhere in the state is taking donations but I haven't found a local one taking them yet. I'll keep checking!

Neanderthal... good luck to Florida, because... no

how do you all feel about volunteering right now (e.g., with red cross)

if you have no underlying health problems and are willing to take on the risk and responsibility (and your household has no objections), I think it's good.

Especially if you have a needed skill that can directly contribute.

yeah if you live alone, maybe

Plácido Domingo just tested positive.

2nd time he's been me tooed

I didn't dare say it lol.

now I'm wondering whether the thing that happened in January was coronavirus, it certainly was marked by shortness of breath; the only thing is, I don't remember it being accompanied by flu symptoms at all

assume it wasn't, imo

I've had a sore throat that has gone from mild to severe over 4 days and have developed a nasty chest cold. I haven't yet had a fever or shortness of breath though, and so far this feels like other bad colds I've had. I have enough supplies to last for a while so I'm staying home

At the tail-end of December I caught the worst flu I'd experienced in years and it went on for at least a couple of weeks before subsiding into a persistent cough that only vanished some time in February. It's tempting to draw a connection but the likelihood is so exceedingly low that I don't think it's worth entertaining.

Had a monster flu myself that lasted weeks following Thanksgiving. Probably too early in the timeline, though.

"now I'm wondering whether the thing that happened in January was coronavirus, it certainly was marked by shortness of breath; the only thing is, I don't remember it being accompanied by flu symptoms at all"

there certainly seem to be some outliers in symptoms. an old man in our town (berkeley) was just confirmed as a case and he only felt 'weird' and didn't get a fever until he had already gone into the hospital for fainting, or so they say.

Xps to yerac - yeah, I first saw him on my timeline when someone retweeted a personal update from him, and then yesterday another retweet of a family update that he was now critical. Very disturbing to see such erratic responses from different victims of the virus, esp 2 ppl living together. Very different from the flu, which hits everyone hard (obviously some much worse than others but the least severe cases of flu are still debilitating). I’m interested in what research will have to say about the varied immune responses.

Had a persistent dry cough and high fever late last year after visiting the Huanan Seafood Market and eating a bat, wondering if it was just allergies or something else

lol! if i knew my strange habit of rolling in bat guano before going for a Chinese takeaway would have such consequences...

xp -- it probably wasn't, chances are it was just iron deficiency, given that I've had past labwork confirming it, and after a follow-up lab last year came out OK had stopped taking supplements like an idiot.

but whatever it was certainly qualified as unignorable, continuous shortness of breath accompanied by fatigue

My mum (at risk with underlying respiratory issues) has just been to hospital today (for an unrelated problem, some kind of scan or camera thing). No one wearing masks, no one has been tested

also, I do feel a little better after looking at this, apparently the timeline of symptoms of first US patient diagnosed with coronavirus

https://www.nejm.org/na101/home/literatum/publisher/mms/journals/content/nejm/2020/nejm_2020.382.issue-10/nejmoa2001191/20200309/images/img_xlarge/nejmoa2001191_f2.jpeg

My landlady send me this, and I don’t know how to respond. We’re in an owner-occupied two-unit, and she’s a hard right-winger. I can’t antagonize, but I feel like I should respond somehow.

If you have a mild case of the virus you are immuned to getting it again. Per tests on monkeys in Germany it worked almost 100% of the time so you are absolutely immuned once you have it. Another test in Germany proved that you are no longer contagious to anyone from 10 days of the onset of the first symptom.

-Dr. Segal, FOX news, Sun Mar 22.

immuned