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

Hope you make a swift recovery TH.

For any ilxors in or around Peckham/Camberwell, a local company (Smith & Brock) who usually supply restaurant fruit and veg are doing home deliveries now with about a week's lead time and are really good, and not nearly as expensive as Natoora.

Also just ordered a slab of salt beef from Monty's Deli which is arriving on Tuesday.

neighbour in my block emailed earlier to include me in their shop, i think i have become designated OAP in the building (as the oldest resident i have earned this of course): anyway i asked from a small bunch of useful stuff and they delivered complete with careful distancing in the stairwell :)

tbf we have always got on v well and chat a lot in normaltiems™ but this was unexpected and kind

by contrast after the huge political-mentalist blow-up yesterday the local mutual aid whatsapp has been entirely silent today

london ppl shd put maybe website addresses of places that deliver in the "give me soup mfers" thread?

it is being slept on imo

Cool and good luck TH!

I've been watching "Oxford mutual aid" on twitter/FB asking for volunteers, and thinking of some people I should really have offered help to and haven't (yet), and I know I should step up, but I'm scared of offering to step up and then not being able to, or of making things worse

e.g. if I offer to get things to people but the shops don't have them (local shops have fuck all atm), or I can't get to them safely after all (I don't drive or cycle - the other half does, but rather not drag him repeatedly into my ill-thought-out promises), or if I turn out to have it and manage to infect someone vulnerable, etc

I dunno why I'm posting this, to hear how people get past that fear? or just to be made to feel OK about my laziness and inaction?

(tbh I've been incompetent and clumsy and careless at everything I've ever done, and even though mutual aid is a good and noble concept this may not be a time for chronic bungling fuck-ups to wade in)

Oh man Tracer, will be thinking of you and family. Hang in there.

<3<3 TH

Sorry, Tracer. Beaming you some support here too.

So 38.3 is ... like 100? Keep an eye on it, obviously, but covid temps seem to be running a tad higher, like 103 (or closer to 40?). How do you feel otherwise? Good luck regardless.

put that virus in a headlock my good man

btw, that David Geffen boat thing? It's a huge fucking boat, so he's got to have a big crew, which means there's still a really good chance he has a luxury yacht outbreak, isn't there?

Take it easy, Tracer Hand (and Mme Main).

Echoing what all have said there — best to you both!

get well soon, TH!

Good luck, TH!

good luck Tracer!

Aww, best of all possible wishes to Tracer

sending best wishes to everyone in the TH household.

Question for anyone that knows the answer. My wife has been nagging me to donate blood, which means she's been reading stuff or hearing from people encouraging blood donation. Now, I don't have a problem donating blood, but of course I don't like it, and would prefer not to if it's just a general call for blood. Is there a particular blood shortage now, or is the concern only that fewer people are donating because of covid/isolation and they're worried they'll at some point run low?

some types are always low so that's the start of the answer

well, mine is not rare.

well done

Good luck, TH! Lots of fluids! I think respiratory therapists have been putting some good advice online to follow at home if you start to have slight difficulty breathing.

Stay strong tracer

Josh here I was hearing that blood donations are generally down because mobile drives near workplaces are cancelled and people haven’t been going out.

Good luck Tracer and family.

team tracer! hope you feel better soon.

Sending love and wishes for good health to you, dear Tracer.

Thanks everyone.

JiC, 38.3C is 101F - that was last night. it is really wild how much it fluctuates. This morning I practically had nothing and during the day it’s been zizagging up.

Body temp is usually a lot lower in the morning.

Already had a few entertaining arguments with my wife about most effective means of measuring temperature. According to her unless you’re sticking a thermometer up your butt you’re just not really committed to knowing exactly

Any other symptoms right now? How does it respond to fever reducers? And yeah, fevers are worst at night.

Seems to be a French thing. I had the same chat with my wife a few years ago.

xp

Lol it is at the level of dogma, it’s amazing.

Josh: in addition to the fever i have a weirdly altered sense of taste, dry cough, achy/buzzy limbs (hard to describe). immense tiredness. Not sure exactly the correspondence that the paracetemol I’ve been taking has had with the fever but it has helped with the aches.

JiC, 38.3C is 101F - that was last night. it is really wild how much it fluctuates. This morning I practically had nothing and during the day it’s been zizagging up.

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, March 29, 2020 12:11 PM bookmarkflaglink

interestingly, that was my friend's experience. the fever stuck around a week or more, and her temperature would constantly return to normal only to hit between 99.5 and 100.4 later in the evening. she said the trouble breathing was the worst - hoping you do not experience that.

please take care of yourself! but i know you will.

Already had a few entertaining arguments with my wife about most effective means of measuring temperature. According to her unless you’re sticking a thermometer up your butt you’re just not really committed to knowing exactly

― Li'l Brexit (Tracer Hand), Sunday, March 29, 2020 12:14 PM bookmarkflaglink

I did this once as an adult and uhhhh....I just don't like things going in my butt. I'll take the .3 - .4 degree inaccuracy.

lol.

no trouble breathing so far. Really crossing my fingers on that one.

she has however made a near full recovery so hopefully your trajectory is similar.

Dry cough and immense tiredness plus fever seem to be something to keep an eye on, tbh. Stay hydrated and rested but also calm, and keep staying in touch! I think a lot of people might be freaking out (for good reason), and that panic I assume sometimes exacerbates feelings of shortness of breath.

That's good to hear. It's helpful to remember that this is true of most confirmed cases thus far.

xp

you can put a thermometer in places other than your butt?

Welp my boyfriend's kids just got here from the city for a visit so I will be conspicuously not touching my face for three days and looking crazy wiping everything.

Tracer, please watch yourself.

Neanderthal, when did your friend feel symptoms and how long did a nearly full recovery take?

Pretty sure there is advice out there about how to understand the differences in temperature readings for sublingual, forehead, axillary (armpit) and rectal methods.

We usually did foreheads with little kids because they don't sit still well enough for other methods, and our doctors have always done the same and have been okay with what we are doing.

In 49 years as a human and 13 as a parent, I have never seen a nurse or doctor take a rectal temp, nor recommend one. And presumably they know a thing or two about fevers and accurate measurement thereof.

the fever wasn't there right away, but she felt symptoms like a cough and shortness of breath. this was about 13 days ago. Her boss told her to stfu about it and that it was statistically improbable that she had it. She went home that night, the low-grade fever showed up.

The recovery took a long time. She messaged me her temp every day and she was febrile for probably 8-9 days, never more than 100.4, usually in the 99s. Breathing at night fluctuated in ease. Some days she felt fine, others not so great.

I talked to her last night and she said fever was finally gone, she's mostly back to normal and her quarantine ends on Tuesday. so....probably a week and a half! and she's a 24 year old in good health.

but naturally the severity varies by person.

Pretty sure there is advice out there about how to understand the differences in temperature readings for sublingual, forehead, axillary (armpit) and rectal methods.

yeah there is. which prompted my anal probe experiment in 2012.

probably shoulda washed it afterwards

also probably shouldn't have done it post-dump, pre-wipe

(Forehead or temple, meant to say)

just lost my hit at a fuckin Twitch host of all people.

when shit that matters that little sets me off, that tells me I should find something else to do.

keep wanting to pull out the guitar but so lazy about it.

just yelled at my mom via about 3 dozen texts

she says NY has all the supplies they need