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Well, the better half and I hunkered down and buried ourselves and came through the plague just fine. Then things started to slowly open in stages while we remained the same. School started back again, not sure what precautions in effect, while the kids I raised and their kids got fairly back to normal. I know I never saw them take masks with them, etc. We still took all the precautions and got some strange looks for wearing masks when the govt said we didn't need to. A couple of weeks ago one of the school age kids was diagnosed with covid, then another older kid. All of them have been coming and going and a couple are staying with us. The better half slowly reported symptoms, and late Friday we took her to emergency. She was admitted to isolation with active covid. And they wonder why I'm pissed and still wearing a mask. No fool like an old fool.
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The bottom line…..
Is that Covid, like Influenza, is here to stay. I have been exposed multiple times over the past two years, and luckily enough with the exception of a very mild dry cough when I was exposed the first time in May of 2020, I have not had any symptoms or issues. My spouse and two of my sons have each had it twice, and many of my co-workers have also had it once or even multiple times. My spouse and I slept in the same bed the entire time, and my sons lived in the same house as me the entire time.
I am luckily one of those people who never seems to get sick, or at least much beyond a sniffle or mild cough. Of course, that did not keep me from developing melanoma or suffering from the side effects of immunotherapy to treat it, but I do have a very high resistance to most infectious diseases. I have ever since I was a child, but truly discovered it to be true while overseas in the service and being exposed to lots of nasty things.
The best option is get vaccinated, and stay on top of any boosters or additional vaccinations you may need - just like getting a regular flu shot, a tetanus shot, shingrix, or any other preventative measure. As a population we have gotten complacent about health care, and we suffered because of it - even though we have access to some of the best health care in the world. Consider this a wake up call.
I live my life to the fullest every day, and I take preparedness to heart.
Like I told my family when I was diagnosed with stage 3C Melanoma, I will do whatever I have to in order to beat it and still be around and kicking for a long time. My past four PET scans have been 100% clear, and I will do whatever I have to keep them that way while living my life.
Vaccines are not perfect, but they are a tool. A tool that is worthless if it is kept on the shelf and not taken advantage of. If you refuse to be prepared to fight with all the tools available, then you should prepare to see the worst.
It’s that simple.
I hope that you and your family recover and stay healthy. Keep in mind that although masking helps - the true help is when the sick person wears a mask, as they are the ones spreading the disease.
Until we get everyone to wake up and get vaccinated, including our children, we are fighting with one hand tied behind our backs. That’s why vaccinations are mandated for children prior to entering school. Until we enforce that for ALL children and ALL vaccinations, we are spinning our wheels.
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Masks and Vaccines
I still wear masks when I go out, or even answer the front door, accept deliveries, etc. Even when most people around me aren't masked.
I've had the first booster shot. I should check if my age range can get the second one yet...
2.5 Years
I made it 2.5 years of not catching it, even though I work in a field that I had lots of chances, due to being cautious and getting vaccinated/boosted as soon as I could. I had several trips through June/July where I had close encounters and by all rights should have caught it, but it wasn't until the end of July that I did catch it. Definitely sucked until my body cleared the main part of it in about 48 hours with Paxlovid being prescribed. Given some health issues I have I would probably have gotten much worse without that and being vaccinated/boosted.
As someone else said at this point unfortunately this is going to be an endemic virus that's going to be around for a long time. I believe we'll probably be talking about COVID seasons just as much as Flu seasons for the next twenty to thirty years at least. We had a good chance to knock it down with proven health measures of vaccines, but the hysteria and disinformation prevented us from getting enough of that out there. Add to the fact the the wealthy western world that developed the vaccines did not also make certain there was enough elsewhere to stop it and keep from seeing these new variants.
The one bright side though is that it's like 98% in the US at least that have either been infected or vaccinated. Bright side? Because it's no longer the 'novel' virus that it initially was. People at least have a chance with their immune system recognizing it as something to fight before it gets too bad. Unfortunately we will see people continue to die, and also unfortunately this stupid bug is contagious like nobodies business!
Anyone who has severe health impairments does need to keep wearing masks probably, but the question is how long does that really sustain? I have a cancer survivor friend who had already worn them during flu season, so maybe that's what this evolves to. One thing is certain, this event has altered the course of the future more than anything else in my lifetime.
"did not also make certain
"did not also make certain there was enough elsewhere to stop it and keep from seeing these new variants."
Yeah... don't blame "The Western World". Keep in mind a huge number of those "elsewhere" areas are ones where witch doctors are the preferred physician, or anything that's brought in is immediately seized by the local 'governments' to be sold for whatever weapons they can get. Others are so suspicious of "The Western World" that if they were told that the sky was blue, they'd immediately deny it and insist it had to be green. There's a reason that Ebola is still endemic. It's the same reason that coronaviruses keep hitting humans in new strains. People won't stop eating wild animals that are known viral reservoirs.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Paxlovid
While my wife and I have been fortunate enough to not contract Covid, to spite being twice exposed, I have several friends who have contracted it. Both my youngest daughter and her daughter (my granddaughter) have had it. One person I knew died from it. My wife's best friend from high school had it and it was touch and go, but she recovered. Another person I know has had it twice. The first time she was in the hospital for several weeks and they thought she would die, but managed to get well. The next time she got it they prescribed Paxlovid . She said it took about 3 days to alleviate the symptoms, though she still tested positive for over a week. She tells me that for Paxlovid to be effective it needs to be administered in the first five days of symptoms.
So if you even suspect that you have some symptoms, get tested and if you turn up positive, tell your health provider that you want Paxlovid right away. Here's a link that explains Paxlovid in detail.
https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/13-things-to-know-paxlovid...
Hugs
Patricia
Happiness is being all dressed up and HAVING some place to go.
Semper in femineo gerunt
Ich bin eine Mann
Hospitalization
Not surprising.
It would be of service to mention what is the age of those seriously afflicted.
There is still the myth that only the old and infirmed who are immunocompromised etc who can get severe cases.
This was narrative that was kinda pointedly pushed at me in a PM I received from another member of this site since his/her case seemed to have been very mild.
My partner's niece barely survived it too and she was only about 42 and she was very healthy. This was pre-vax but she could not get into a hospital and her mother beg borrowed and stole oxygen to treat her. As you can tell it was pretty touch and go.
I use the sleeves off old t-shirts
Back in early 2020 when I learned I would need a mask to go out I cut the whole sleeves off an old pistachio green t-shirt and found I could just slip it down over my head with the hemmed end across my cheeks and nose and the wider, cut end hanging down my chin. This was just a stopgap measure, until i could get a real covid mask; but when I obtained a bunch of them I found I liked my homemade ones better, and only put the "real" ones on over them when I went to the doctors or somewhere. My fabric ones didn't get tangled up with where my glasses hooked over my ears, and seemed about as good at preventing me from accidentally spreading viruses I didn't yet know I had in me- Which is the real purpose of covid masks (or the flu ones that they've been using in Asian countries for decades).
What people who act like being asked to wear a mask is an intolerable infringement on their personal freedom and refuse to do so on principal are REALLY saying is they don't care what happens to others, and when they trot out their peculiar brand of medical science to deride my concerns, claiming sneezing doesn't spread diseases or wearing a mask causes nose cancer I don't bother engaging them- they're too far down the whackamole rabbit hole to be reached. What's next? Refusing to stop at stop signs because no damn government sign can tell them what to do? Or to wipe their ass, because it's WOKE?! I wouldn't be surprised...
During the height of the pandemic when I saw someone running around unmasked I didn't say anything, just gave them a wide berth. I wore a mask for months longer than it was required to, partly to play it safe but also because seeing someone wearing one pisses the anti-masker/anti-vaxxer jerks off. Like the places in the US that have actually BANNED masks, they're big on their personal freedom, not so much on someone else's freedom to do something different.
Nowadays I wear my latest sleeve-mask (a pretty salmon color) around my neck, and only pull it up over my muzzle when I see someone else wearing one coming down the supermarket aisle, as a social nicety. I have a feeling this won't be the last pandemic in this century; and you can blame "those dirty foreigners" or secret labs in China but it's just nature doing what nature does, and we're all just bugs headed for one windshield or anyother.
~hugs, Veronica
"Government will only recognize 2 genders, male + female,
as assigned at birth-" (In his own words:)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C1lugbpMKDU
Masks Still Required In My Building
I have to wear one to get out of my building. On the street, I don't wear one if I am not close to anyone. Though, on my bike, wearing one seems to make breathing easier. Next week we are supposed to get wildfire smoke up here from the South. I think that we will eventually adapt to the Covid family of viruses. It may take 50 years though.
The future of covid
Well…60% of rhino viruses (common cold) are corona viruses (same family as covid). And the goal of viral mutation is to increase communcability and decrease virility (spreads faster and easier while making you less ill). So Covid will likely be around longer than we (humans) are.
BAK 0.25tspgirl
Um, I think you have that
Um, I think you have that flipped. The "Common Cold" is made up of rhinovirus, coronavirus, and RSV and parainfluenza. (yes, there's two ands. Those last two are usually lumped into one category) Coronavirus makes up between 20 and 60% of the "common cold" depending on .. things. Rhinovirus is 10-40%, and RSV and parainfluenza tend to be about 20%. There's generally a 20% that's "Unknown viruses".
Coronavirus and rhinovirus are two different families. That'd be like saying influenza is made up of norovirus.
I'll get a life when it's proven and substantiated to be better than what I'm currently experiencing.
Safe
The US CDC's current 'guidelines' are more politically based vs best practices based in the face of a population who is tired of the pandemic (even if the pandemic is NOT tired of them) and is tacitly allowing it to become endemic despite the large amount of deaths that will continue (for the foreseeable future) as well as the pain and suffering of illness and hospitalizations and economic hardship that comes out of it.
People may act as if they are 'safe' but, no, they are not but they don't like their delusions of safety to be poked at.