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

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

how often do you come into physical contact with her? I'd probably just respond with something like "oh, that is good news!"

(i.e., while whatever it was I had did, ominously, start around the 18th or so, that's still early enough that it would have made me patient zero in new york, and if that were the case, you'd think my roommates at least would have gotten it, let alone everyone else I interact with)

I posted somewhere about that 44 yr old, too, because in many ways he reflected me: my general age, my general health, and so on. But fwiw he said in his original post that it had been years since he was a marathoner, because it killed his knees, and he also may have understated the extent of his asthma. Or at least, I'm not sure what exercise induced asthma is, exactly. Is that a permanent condition exacerbated by exercise?

Re: the importance of testing, we were just talking with my neighbor, and his wife had something a couple of weeks ago: a fever, extreme fatigue, lasted for just maybe three days. That's almost exactly what my daughter had around the same time. The only way to know if either of them had it is to test.

Here's a slightly non-trivial question: if our upstairs neighbours have this virus, as certainly sounds to be the case, will it simply find a way through the cracks to us, or is the only chance of transmission when we go up to check the post

Viruses do not have legs or wings. They are not very heavy. I'd say the chances of them finding their way through the cracks would depend on whether there was a flow of air traveling through the cracks in your direction.

I have exercise induced asthma and seasonal. I just usually puff on my inhaler 10 minutes before I do something super arduous because it's unclear if it will be a problem as I get older.

I had some weird mono-like thing (minus fever, swollen glands) for three weeks while I was in hawaii. But I figure since there was no sudden spike of hospitalizations/deaths, it likely wasn't it.

If this 44 yr old dude has any kind of asthma no matter the type I imagine he’s exactly the sort of person who would be more vulnerable to getting particularly hit hard by CV.

we’re moving almost exclusively to delivery boxes for the time being, though I might have to sneak out for a few things.

Los Angeles Public Library just moved the due dates on all materials we have checked out to June 30.