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

I agree that we should be getting as many people vaccinated as we can right now, but goddamn it I still reserve the right to be absolutely infuriated that my 83 year-old FIL can't get one, but I see people who aren't first responders, aren't essential workers, and are well under 50 happily sharing their vaccination news on social media.

Vaccine's won't be distributed on basis of need - nothing else is.

I mean, this might be an argument worth having if NY was doing a really, really good job of vaccinating nursing home residents and frontline healthcare workers quickly and efficiently, but it is not.

man alive otm x a bunch

My employee's husband is a doctor doing private research for a US firm, who has volunteered to do something like two shifts at an NHS hospital so he can get the vaccine. My employee thinks he'll also be able to get it through this connection. Both are early 40s with no health issues. So yeah, totally cool. (he was saying this like he was bragging and I had to hide my disgust)

Sorry, I know man alive is otm and I don't disagree. Just tired this morning and spent an hour listening to my wife cry in frustration because her high risk 83 year-old father isn't getting any clear information about when he might be able to get vaccinated.

He had a pneumonia scare three years ago and I think he's having a really hard time hearing about people he knows getting the vaccine, but getting blown off when he tries to find out more. Like he's not even demanding to get it now and he's happy to wait for first responders, but the unclear communication isn't helping his (or by extension, our) nerves.

Literally more people are going to die because selfish fucks want to get their vaccine before the more needy.

Like, if the line isn't working, fix the line! Or maybe...the line isn't working because selfish fucks don't want it to work.

i get what you're saying euler, but this is andrew cuomo we're talking about.

de blasio should just start vaccinating anyone over the age of 80 and challenge cuomo to sue the city.

(i mean not personally, i wouldn't let that mad oaf near me)

i know different people who have gotten the vaccine because someone they know hooked them up. late 30s/early40s, no health issues, not healthcare or frontline workers - one is a standup comedian ffs

ok yeah I don't know the specifics of the NY fuckup. we're having our own fuckups here, where doctors say 2/3 of the vaccine is currently being wasted because of inefficient administration.

the specific situation in NYS seems to be that the rules are so insanely tight that you can't get enough eligible people in a room before a vial expires.

Just want to say that people who are immunocompromised and under the age of 50 exist, and I'm a little tired of being absolutely terrified every time I leave the house.

yeah it's the same here

xp

the dakotas and WV are the only states doing a good job in the US

https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/covid-vaccine-tracker-global-distribution/

IIUC WV in particular has done a particularly good job with nursing homes etc.

Literally more people are going to die because selfish fucks want to get their vaccine before the more needy.

Like, if the line isn't working, fix the line! Or maybe...the line isn't working because selfish fucks don't want it to work.

― All cars are bad (Euler), Friday, January 8, 2021 1:24 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Yeah, I'm just going to say that this is an opinion based in a sentiment that sounds right in your mind for good reason but has no connection to the reality on the ground. No one is dying because of "selfish fucks jumping the line" right now. People are going to die because NY is making it too hard to get the vaccine in order to prevent hypothetical selfish fucks, i.e. placing more emphasis on the "wrong people" not getting the vaccine than the right people getting it. You have to do one or the other.

If Cuomo stopped focusing so much on the "wrong people" not getting it, more of the right people would get it, in other words.

Just want to say that people who are immunocompromised and under the age of 50 exist, and I'm a little tired of being absolutely terrified every time I leave the house.

Oh absolutely, and no knock intended on anyone in that situation! But there are absolutely folks who are not immunocompromised jumping the line even if you do discount the politicians, those are where I'm directing my ire. Basically still infuriated that Marco fucking Rubio was vaccinated before my high-risk, 83 year-old FIL.

my dad’s 86 and had a 7-hour heart operation a year and a half ago but isn’t considered a high priority in tennessee. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ he’s incredibly placid about it (i think it makes him feel young) but i’m kinda like... idk he probably would not do too well if he got the vid. what can you do though.

xxxp Penalizing, reactionary bullshit response to, for instance, the ParCare fraud/vaccine diversion, whatever that turns out to be, exactly. Andrew Cuomo: Why use the carrot when the stick is right here?

Yeah, I get it. I'm sorry to take out my frustrations here, just... well, y'know with all of this *gestures around wildly*, I'm on edge.

My FIL has been really placed and sometimes worryingly zen about it all, he called this morning and for the first time I actually heard some fear in his voice and it hit me hard.

"placid"

well shut my mouth! my dad just texted to say he’s getting the vaccine on monday!??

knox county got a grand total of... 500 doses a week or so ago. then they got some more. next shipment is monday a.m.

it turns out i’d read the criteria wrong - over-75s are in the priority group

That's great!

it's wild to me that this is happening, and like 6 weeks ago a vaccine wasn't even on the radar

i get what you're saying, but been on the radar for like 9 months, which makes the rollout all the more maddening.

well you know what i mean - most of us had no inkling of when it would be approved

it feels very sudden! monday!

oh totally. it's just unbelievably frustrating that the bottleneck is not vaccine manufacture. there's millions of unused doses in the US. more than half. there should be none.

I heard someone on the radio yesterday (where they take covid calls with a doctor every Friday) talk about her late '20s daughter who had a very mild case but then started to develop migraines not long afterwards, and the doctor of course said it can't be ruled out as an aftereffect because no one knows what exactly what damage covid does. Personally, I find that kind of stressful. I'm pretty sure I had it with mild symptoms last March, and indeed the first couple of times I donated blood I tested positive for antibodies with a couple of different types of tests. The last couple of times, though, including blood draws for a study I'm participating in, they informed me I tested positive for the initial antibody test but not the other, which is called an inconsistent result. The guideline on the Red Cross site explains:

Inconsistent test result: Indicates that your initial antibody test was reactive for COVID-19 antibodies, while your secondary test came back negative for COVID-19 antibodies. As with all tests, false positives, or a test result that incorrectly states the presence of antibodies, can occur. Alternatively, the level of COVID-19 antibodies may be too low to be detected by the second test.

One reason a donor may have an inconsistent test result is that they received a COVID-19 vaccine. This is because the initial and secondary antibody test target different parts of the COVID-19 virus. It is possible that the initial antibody test used detected the presence of antibodies to one viral region (the same one used in the vaccine), while the secondary test (targeting a different region of the virus), was negative.

Now, I haven't had the vaccine, but I'd like to think that I have at least some sort of vaccine-like immunity from (probably) having covid. At the same time, knowing or even suspecting I had it, even a mild case, I still every once in a while wonder if a stuff nose or a fleeting chest congestion or anything like that is a lingering symptom.

you need to act like you’re just as susceptible as anyone else

1- you may not have had it
2- you may have had it but the case was mild enough that your antibody response was so weak that you’re not as protected in the future
3- a mutation could mean that none of that matters anyway

so it’s not worth stressing or thinking too much about imo

I know that already. But I'm assuming I had it, which is what the Red Cross told me both in writing and over the phone when they called me, based on the stricter secondary test they used multiple times. My only personal stress is that if I had it, however mild, I might have some mysterious related ailment pop up months later, too. Keep in mind, I am to blessed to be stressed.

I somehow totally missed that we had two days in a row with over 4000 COVID deaths. Fucking horrifying.

"somehow" -- maybe because there was a coup attempt

we had two days in a row with over 4000 COVID deaths

I don't feel very hopeful that there won't be at least one day over 5000 before mid-February or so, because when hospitals and healthcare workers exceed their maximum capacity the negative feedback loop will accelerate.

meanwhile in the uk, they have resorted to tv ads apparently featuring the chief medical officer saying "act like you have it" and "stay home or people will die". People are starting to get shook at how dire things are becoming. haven't seen my bubblemates since before xmas, we have agreed to cancel our weekly film night at least until he gets vaccinated - he works in the elderly care sector, but at a day centre where ppl are coming in and out and he also does relief work at a couple of other sites, which all feels like a recipe for disaster so I hope he gets the jab soon! He also told me a friend of ours just lost both parents to covid, a week apart. Awful :-( so it's all feeling closer than ever

how shook are ppl really tho? my bus to work isn't much less busy. I had to go to the supermarket yesterday and although ppl are wearing masks nobody is bothered about keeping distant & there were way more ppl in there than would have been allowed last summer. During the first lockdown I could p much step out into the road without looking, now there are fucking cars everywhere. The severe messaging has come too late and it just isn't sinking in, there has been so much vacillation - ffs the stupid cunts opened schools only to close them after 1 day all "oh actually you're right it is pretty drastic and they are a significant vector for infections, must have been looking at it upside down whoops" (& even so schools are a lot less closed now than they were in the summer)

fundamentally too the stay at home or ppl die message is pointless when they haven't abandoned their murderous "everyone get back to work" policy in any significant way. You are allowed out once a day for exercise and there must be absolutely no mixing of households - but you can still have a fucking cleaner come to your house. there is needless construction going on all over the place. as posted in the ukpol thread there are way more ppl taking the tube than there were last spring and the situation is far worse. we're fucked because the dipshits in power are allergic to helping ppl too much

it's ok tho because there's a plan to have all the over 70s & clinically extremely vulnerable ppl vaccinated by the middle of next month. The health service is being overwhelmed *now*. I haven't done the maths or read the sentences I just typed so I think it's all going to work out folks!

Yeah I'm wondering where all these people in cars are actually going, seeing as how no-one's supposed to be going anywhere. Scenic drives along the A406 or something?

I think a part is click and collect of one kind or another - food and shops are all still open, unlike March. That plus many more workplaces making people come in and I guess people trying to find less crowded parks.

(Parks are also likely more crowded because there are fewer hours of daylight. Ours are too busy but at least the big mixing groups have gone - as far as I could see it was mainly families and couples with the very occasional extra people)

masks have made people feel safer, which might explain the distance thing.

the stay at home or ppl die message is pointless when they haven't abandoned their murderous "everyone get back to work" policy in any significant way.

In real terms it's plain that the first message is pro forma and intended only to cover their arses and give the appearance of action, while the back to work policy carries the only message that's serious. good luck uk.

Woke up in the middle of the night to a brief wave of nausea/sweats on the second night home after spending a week visiting my father-in-law in hospice at my sister-in-law's. Started freaking out, but it has apparently passed.

Well damn, this quote knocked the wind out of me. This is the chief of emergency services at the hospital I work at (normally on-site, not now obv.)

"We are still admitting more than we are discharging which is obviously not sustainable long term," he said. "We still have capacity and are still able to care for both COVID and non-COVID patients, but filling up faster then we can sustain. We have never seen it this bad. I was the physician at the scene at the Columbine High School Shooting and in the ED for the Aurora Theater shootings and this is just as bad. Different, but just as bad."

I've seen people say similar about the 7/7 bombings. Hideous as it was, it was a one-off event and they had loads of outside support available.

ned, as a littleton resident present in area for both Columbine and Aurora i feel crazy shook reading that, and i hope you all to stay strong and smart. so sorry to read that, it's very rough news.

Hey, just an update from my last post of my elderly mom being released from the hospital.

Ok...so if your elderly parent/friend was given a prescribed steroid to combat covid, just know that your parent/friend can (and probably will - Christ, no-one told me of this was a very common side effect) suffer from mania! My mom is trying to buy me a condo, lol. I've been able to convince her that she's chemically instable for the next few weeks.
All the medical records tell me I have to navigate her for the next few weeks.

It's never over.

To be clear, I've done some drugs in my life - some of which made me feel like superman. And my mom is now feeling that way. LOL

I could tell she was way off after a minute or so of talking to her. She feels amazing now (of course, lol).