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

Mellow out or you will pay
Mellow out or you will pay

I laughed

Spiked a modest fever last night, a little over 100, enough to feel bad, though other than that no other symptoms. Well, general loss of appetite, too, but not due to nausea or anything. Took a home covid test and it came up negative. Slept the fever off in the basement, feel fine this morning/today. We'll see if my temp creeps up again later. I likely had a mild case of covid in spring of 2020, I've been vaxxed, I've even had my booster, and I have not been recklessly hanging out indoors without a mask with groups of people, so odds are relatively low it's covid, but I still went in for my first ever PCR test this morning. Should supposedly have results in about 12 hours. Better safe than sorry.

new rapid test EUA just dropped https://wyze.com/covid19-test-kit.html. IIUC this is now the cheapest you can get in the US, unless you have access to walmart.

So one thing for me is that I have spent months and months being annoyed with "it's just the flu" types who constantly complain about big-city liberal ninnies who take a kind of mad pride in their hypercautiousness about COVID. But I have to admit -- it's real. Maybe not commmon. But real. Like, read this:

https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/10/trust-broken-parenting-advice-care-feeding.html

Now as a parent of a tween I completely get that it's important that you can feel your kid can be trusted to follow house rules. But I think their house rules are absurd! Their kid is barred from going to school in person. When socializing with another kid, OUTSIDE, she has to be 5 feet away, AND MASKED. The parent says she doesn't know "how to start building trust back" because her daughter "put her life at risk." (Notice that the parent doesn't seem to think, or doesn't consider it work mentioning, that by her risk calculations her daughter put her friend's life at risk!) This having happened, the parent didn't get the kid a rapid test, she quarantined the kid in the bedroom for two weeks! And "cleaned the house thoroughly" -- why?

Is this a big problem compared with millions of adults refusing to get vaccinated because they think covid is just flu or because they think the vaccine is a Big Pharma plot? No. It's a much smaller problem than that. But I guess it just particularly gets up my nose somehow.

eephus, the woman who wrote that letter seems unhinged tbh.

it seems like she wrote it because she was looking for affirmation of her unhingedness

Yeah that's bonkers; how did Care and Feeding not point out or even seem to notice that this parent chose to punish her kid by locking her in her bedroom for two weeks? When the kid has no symptoms, the parents are vaccinated, and they have access to Covid tests, that's not quarantine, that's abuse.

honestly one of the hardest parts of this to me - we have two kids, 6 and 4, and there were times when other kids would come over and we'd try to keep them separated but it was real awkward especially when the less Covid-cautious parents were around. now that a lot of us are vaccinated I don't care as much - we still take some measures to protect them, but statistically isn't pneumonia more dangerous? idk they've just developed so much in the 2 1/2 months they've been in school, I don't wanna take that away from them

Lily Dale otm. I wonder if they received any letters pointing that out— I hope so.

This was doing the rounds a while ago - I'm not entirely sure it's not a pisstake/troll?

I think the letter is probably fake; what alarms me is that Care and Feeding treated it as real and responded as if locking a kid in her room for two weeks was a reasonable response to her having a friend over.

care and feeding is a Bad Column and most of slate is idiotic

the exception being d4nny l4very imho

want to know how to lick boots and wring hands at the same time just tune into the latest weekly installment from william saletan or lili loufborouw (sp?)

yeah the reply is bonkers too

It didn't occur to me that the letter was fake, but when you say it, it makes sense. I sort of feel like the response is kind of "back away from the clearly unhinged person and gently suggest they're overreacting without saying something that will set them off" but I'm probably being too charitable.

PCR test came up negative, no covid detected. Not that I really expected a positive result. Our working theory right now is that any mild symptoms I had (12+ hours of fever, loss of appetite, aches and fatigue) were a delayed reaction from the booster, which I'd had a week earlier. I mean, I suppose it's possible. My wife had a "covid arm" rash show up exactly 7 days after her first shot. Or maybe I was exposed to covid and my body/vaccine/mRNA easily fought it off? Who knows.

Regardless, being banished to the basement got me my first uninterrupted night's sleep in months last night, which is better than any vaccine. I think the cat couldn't find me and bothered someone else.

Is there anything good to read about how to evaluate whether to get a booster? I'm trying to understand (1) how much my risk would have increased by "waning" antibodies by now (2) how much a booster decreases that risk and (3) whether the booster has any benefit in decreasing the likelihood I'd get infected and transmit to someone else, even aside from any risk I'd have of severe illness. If I'm not at a dramatically increased risk myself and it's not going to have a big impact on my likelihood of transmission, I'm not eager to get one.

(1) that's somewhat hard to know and different studies have shown different effects (and different vaccines may be different too) but for (2) and (3) the answer seems to be that the booster very substantially reduces risk of both infection and serious illness.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2114255

I got mine as soon as I could.

why would you not get a booster?

they're free
you might get sick for a few days
but it will help your immunity????

what's to think about???

Yeah, the booster won't do anything but help. Antibodies absolutely do wane, and the only way to know what that means in terms of risk is to be exposed to covid and see what happens, which is a gamble at best. Last I heard, the hope with the booster is that after this one, or maybe one next year, you'll be able to several years without another one. Depending on the state of covid, I guess.

And "sick" is relative. I had chills and night sweats for two nights; my parents and friends felt nothing.

. Last I heard, the hope with the booster is that after this one, or maybe one next year, you'll be able to several years without another one.

got my booster few weeks ago and have been wondering about this

Got the double whammy booster + flu shot combo yesterday. Instantly melted into a pile of goo. Don't even ask what semi-gelatinous body part I'm using to type these words. Gonna try to remove the toxins via borax bath if I can figure out how to turn on a faucet.

Or, rather, I had a little trouble sleeping last night because two sore arms kept me from rolling onto my side comfortably. Otherwise nbd.

Get the goddamn booster, for christ's sake.

Um, is there a way to obtain the regimen where you ACTUALLY get melted into a pile of goo? Because that suddenly sounds attractive.

Asking for a friend

Um, is there a way to obtain the regimen where you ACTUALLY get melted into a pile of goo?

Repeated daily exposures to Jake Gyllenhall pics at the beach.

I remember those all too well

I was going to post a pic or clip from "Street Trash" but ... decided against it.

the problem with the booster rollout is that at first, people were rightfully pushing back on the idea due to the disparity of available vaccines globally, and the lack of data. but a lot of data has come in since then, and some of these same people are still doubling down that boosters aren't the answer. some even calling a booster rollout "immoral", believing getting more people initial doses to be better.

undoubtedly that's true, but the spread of the disease impacts the entire globe, and if getting a booster could curb the spread more, the virus copies itself less, less chance of variants, etc, and less people dying unnecessarily.

I think the booster opposition introduced too much noise too soon - it went from 'wait and see' to "it's immoral to do it" and often a lack of engagement with the new data or kneejerk dismissal.

I don't think "why not, couldn't hurt" is very compelling, especially since (1) T-Cell immunity does not wane, and (2) there is evidence of elevated myocarditis risk. It would be helpful to have some kind of information to actually be able to weigh the benefits and risks.

Or even guidance. There isn't even really any clear guidance on who should get the booster when.

well, there's the journal article eephus posted.

E.g. here's someone from the FDA's vaccine panel.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/10/15/heart-inflammation-risk-in-young-adults-caused-by-mrna-covid-booster-continues-to-worry-scientists-dr-levy-says.html

Granted, I guess I don't count as a "young adult" anymore. But I'm also relatively low risk overall, both in personal health and amount of contact I have with others or time I spend in crowded settings. So, again, just not seeing a reason to rush out and get one.

man alive, I was actually more sympathetic to your flurry of posts last week, but you're tiring me out. There is no shortage of information in newspaper and scientific journals.

If you don't want to get a booster, don't get one. If you live in a county with a high percentage of fully jabbed people and don't much engage in high-risk activity, it's not a priority.

Like, what are you waiting for here -- a pat in the back?

I traveled last weekend. I ate indoors in a city requiring proof of vaccination and ID. I see more travel in my future. Therefore, getting a booster in late September made sense.

If you don't travel, eat indoors, see many strangers, forget the booster.

As I understand it, the elevated myocarditis risk affects maybe one in 50,000, mostly affects young (like teenaged and young adult) men, and is usually both temporary and mild. The study in Israel identified a handful of cases out of millions of boosters given:

https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/israel-reports-very-few-myocarditis-cases-after-pfizer-boosters-2021-10-01/

lol at summarizing the booster narrative as "why not, couldn't hurt?"

seems like you already know the answer and asking the board was a pretense

v funny to me that you care about the extremely negligible risk of contracting myocarditis from the booster but also think we shouldn't worry about immunocompromised people at all

Is there anything good to read about how to evaluate whether to get a booster? I'm trying to understand (1) how much my risk would have increased by "waning" antibodies by now (2) how much a booster decreases that risk and (3) whether the booster has any benefit in decreasing the likelihood I'd get infected and transmit to someone else, even aside from any risk I'd have of severe illness. If I'm not at a dramatically increased risk myself and it's not going to have a big impact on my likelihood of transmission, I'm not eager to get one.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Tuesday, November 16, 2021 10:23 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

You aren't trying to understand anything you fucking wingnut.

again, the New England Journal of Medicine article:

RESULTS
At least 12 days after the booster dose, the rate of confirmed infection was lower in the booster group than in the nonbooster group by a factor of 11.3 (95% confidence interval [CI], 10.4 to 12.3); the rate of severe illness was lower by a factor of 19.5 (95% CI, 12.9 to 29.5). In a secondary analysis, the rate of confirmed infection at least 12 days after vaccination was lower than the rate after 4 to 6 days by a factor of 5.4 (95% CI, 4.8 to 6.1).

CONCLUSIONS
In this study involving participants who were 60 years of age or older and had received two doses of the BNT162b2 vaccine at least 5 months earlier, we found that the rates of confirmed Covid-19 and severe illness were substantially lower among those who received a booster (third) dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine.

Like they can go anywhere else on the Internet or social media talk about vaccine risks and get all the "information" they are looking for but they have to talk about it here.

*and talk

Someone make a thread that we can bump wherever man alive wants attention, otherwise it’s going to be like


five years pass

Should I get the new new covid booster? I mean it’s entirely optional and there’s a lot of reading out there but I don’t see how it’ll affect me

Valuable resource for man alive:

There is no vaccine hesitancy like that of a 9-year-old staring down the glint of a hypodermic needle

And there is no remedy quite like Ollie, a 6-year-old goldendoodle therapy dog who is helping kids at Rady Children's Hospital-San Diego overcome it https://t.co/A9vb9mcHgW 1/5 pic.twitter.com/3oQEKbSdl5

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 16, 2021

We had a therapy police dog at the vaccine clinics I worked last week, its name was Pawcifer Howie.

The opposite:

Evil twin went first, barely felt the needle, and then turned to her siblings with a huge wicked smile and said,“wow that hurt a LOT.” Chaos ensued. She is not yet forgiven.

Anyhoo, Covid vaccine #1 in the deltoid. pic.twitter.com/zcmtnHbbUl

— Esther Choo MD MPH (@choo_ek) November 14, 2021

We had a therapy police dog at the vaccine clinics I worked last week, its name was Pawcifer Howie.

― Josh in Chicago, Tuesday, November 16, 2021 9:35 AM (seven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sorry not sorry, but the correct thing to do in this situation is to steal the dog, name it Howie, and train it to bite cops.