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

Burnt chemical smell becoming more metallic, like fingers which have been fondling a set of keys

hard identify with this. in the ilxors with the r0na thread i said something similar. it's a weird burnt chocolate / metallic taste/smell, like burnt hair and chicory or something

brb going to patent "eau de SARS"

Took a PCR test on Thursday, got my negative results back yesterday around noon. Got an email from a coworker at 10 last night, on my work account so I didn’t even see it until this morning, that she tested positive. Of course it was the coworker that still wears a shitty cloth mask. I was in an open plan office with her for eight hours Tuesday through Thursday, but thankfully not yesterday. Trying to figure out how to isolate from the wife and kid now. So fucking angry that my boss refused to allow remote working or even a staggered schedule.

Fwiw, no symptoms. The only reason I took the PCR test on Thursday was because I have free and easy access to them via work, so why not?

Hope for an all clear for you quickly man, that sucks

Thanks. Still no symptoms, trying to decide if I want to burn a precious rapid test or if I should just hold out another day or two, Tuesday would be day five.

Got a call from my sister this morning that her husband tested positive. Doesn’t feel awful, but coughing, runny nose and body aches for a couple of days. Kind of amazed that we made it to Jan 2022 before someone in our family caught it.

Our tally:

Kid 1 - vaxxed, two positive tests four days apart, mild symptoms
Kid 2 - vaxxed, boosted, two negative tests four days apart, no symptoms
Wife: vaxxed, boosted, one positive test, two negative tests, no symptoms
Me: vaxxed, boosted, two negative tests, extremely mild sore throat for three days, no other symptoms
All of us: ¯\_(ツ)_/

Today was day four. Still no symptoms but decided to take a rapid test anyway, negative. Assuming I still have no symptoms before then, I'll just take another PCR test at work on Wednesday and, hopefully, go back to dodging my next exposure.

The Pufflets went to school today, first time since December 15. We're testing frequently and have been spared so far.

Meanwhile my wife's father died last week (sad but not unexpected, heart not vid). She had to fly to South Carolina to deal with the aftermath, but the Pufflets and I stayed home.

Mercifully, it looks like they're not trying to do a funeral immediately. Rather, some kind of commemorative thing in spring or summer when travel is less fraught. I am relieved not to be trying to get four people through airports and such at this time. Not least because we literally JUST got back to something approaching routine after COVID exposure, holidays, and weather troubles.

Oof, sorry to hear that YMP. Sending thoughts your way. My son heads back tomorrow.

Sunday overnight my aunt passed (don't know if it was COVID or her other health issues). The friend of hers who gave me the news says that she saw Donna earlier that weekend--she wasn't terribly coherent but seemed to be at peace.

my condolences

My condolences too

Sorry to hear that j.lu, sending good thoughts you way.

Today is day 7 from my exposure, took a PCR test yesterday and it came back negative, thankfully. So it's on to dodging the next one. Unfortunately now my sister and both her kids seem to be positive as well, with symptoms ranging from a minor cough and runny noses (kids) to sore throat, coughing, congestion and fatigue (the parents). I say "seems to be" because only her husband and the younger kid tested positive, the other two tested negative on rapid tests but have symptoms that seem pretty certain based on exposure to the rest of the family (can't get PCR tests until Saturday where they live).

This may assuage you.

The Abbott BinaxNOW, a widely used at-home coronavirus test, can detect most people who are infected with the new Omicron variant and are carrying high levels of the virus, according to a new, real-world study of more than 700 people who visited a walk-up testing site in San Francisco.

Like all rapid antigen tests, BinaxNOW is less sensitive than P.C.R. tests, which can find even very small traces of the virus, and federal health officials have recently sent mixed messages about the usefulness of such antigen tests. But they have generally been good at catching people who have high viral loads and are most likely to be infectious.

The new study, which has not yet been reviewed by experts, found that overall the BinaxNOW detected 65 percent of the infections identified via P.C.R. testing, but 95 percent of people who had the highest viral loads. Among those with high levels of the virus, the tests caught 98 percent of those with symptoms and 90 percent of those without symptoms, the researchers found.

The test’s performance was roughly on par with what the scientists had observed in real-world studies before Omicron emerged, they said.

“It’s working as it was designed,” said Joseph DeRisi, a biochemist at the University of California, San Francisco, who is a president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and an author of the paper. “There does not seem to be any performance deficit with Omicron.”

This “Center for Covid Control” is the closest testing place to me, in what used to be a convenience story. They were especially busy around the New Year’s, with a line down the sidewalk. I’ve been there once, had a negative test within an hour or two.

This report below is from Florida, but there have been others. Disappointing if true, because otherwise the place is convenient and fast.

A company called, ‘Center for Covid Control,’ with testing sites around the country, is allegedly administering fake covid tests with all negative results. This ‘Wink News’ investigation began in FL. The AG of FL has been notified but has not yet responded to request for comment. pic.twitter.com/FMIUeUcOQ4

— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) January 11, 2022

*convenience store (damn autocorrect)

Yeah, they shut down one of those in our city last week. Crazy how easy it is to get one of those scam sites up and running.

I took one of those tests and it said I didn't have COVID but that I was pregnant from marijuana

congratulations on your weed baby

I will name her Ganja Forksclove Tofu in your honor

I have been to one of those testing sites, too.

My mild COVID symptoms have mostly subsided. I took a rapid test on Monday, and was still positive, but took another one last night and am now negative. I'll take another one tomorrow, but I'm going to assume that I can stop quarantining. (I'm not really planning to do anything beyond maybe going to Walgreens with a mask on.)

Oops, I forgot this wasn't the "rona moved in" thread.

No hire started on our floor and I'm alarmed by how they somehow can't even get a KN95 mask to stay over their nose. Constantly an exposed nose, all day. It almost seems like you have to want to suffer additional discomfort to wear a KN95 like that.

"New" hire, wtf autocorrect?

No fun
Omicron and done

boy, I'm wearing my first N95 ever, and, wow, it does shut off smell. I can't smell a single thing in here.

This may be TMI, but you don't detect any ambient smell from your own nose?

take it to the gay thread, sailor

Lol

I'm just as God made me,sir, despite an appreciation for Fassbinder, Sirk and The Great American Songbook.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gbaq_qxjmPw

boy, I'm wearing my first N95 ever, and, wow, it does shut off smell. I can't smell a single thing in here.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Thursday, January 13, 2022 2:44 PM (fifty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I bought a pack of n95s this week too. Whereas cloth mask burps were moderately unpleasant, N95 mask burps are a distressing event. Gotta watch what I eat before I go out into the world, I guess.

boosted this morning, Moderna after two lots of AZ. 5 minutes in and out.

been twelve hours now and it's just kicking in. time for paracetamol and bed...

nice going koogs

Alice in Chains (2022): Here we come to get the booster

— KKUURRTT (@wwwkurtcom) January 14, 2022

t/s

some kind of booster

vs.

when the world is a booster
bad to swallow you whole

try to see it once my way

hit me with your boost shot

inject away

don’t stop
doin what you’re doin
don’t stop, baby
get your shot

Don't bring me down.

Boost!

booster jab as bad as the first two.

went to bed with paracetamol about 10, 12 hours after jab when I'd started shivering and aching, woke up at 3 with the worst of it gone, but didn't get back to sleep.

went to bed before 9 the second night, woke up several times sweating, but i guess I gained back some of the sleep. another day of taking it easy, i guess.

I really braced myself for my booster (five days ago) because it was my first Moderna shot, and so many people I know were knocked out by that. (First two were Pfizer.) My arm was a tiny bit sorer, otherwise nothing.

I heard a rumor that one factor in how badly the MRNA vaccines laid you low was one's testosterone levels. btw, all three of my Pfizer shots were uneventful. Figures.

I still got hard after exposures to Jamie Dornan photos!

koogs i also had bad side effects for all three shots, cool club we belong to!

2 and 3 kicked my ass, 3 less than 2

Cool. My work just sent out an email that essentially boils down to "wow, contact tracing with this many cases is hard, so we're not gonna do it anymore, make sure you guys notify all of your contacts yourself, good luck!"

thought this was good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TFRvOgqsTUQ

I can say that being in SF right now is a combination of

1) car horns, cheers and fireworks

2) my entire Twitter timeline dunking the fuck out of Aaron Rodgers with every COVID/vax joke known to humanity.