The Covid19 thread

[Falcon Horus]

I don't know about a super cold virus but the thing is due to all those lockdowns we had, we haven't been in contact with other people much so the flu and colds were at a minimal level.

Basically we have to disappoint our immunesystem with a the news that flu and colds are back, and unfortunately for most of us it means we're entirely unprepared for it.

[SGalisa]

I don't know about a super cold virus but the thing is due to all those lockdowns we had, we haven't been in contact with other people much so the flu and colds were at a minimal level.

Basically we have to disappoint our immunesystem with a the news that flu and colds are back, and unfortunately for most of us it means we're entirely unprepared for it.

I still believe in zinc'ing up with the other vitamins that help boost its healing properties. Except for my back pain (spasms) from degenerating cartilage, which is a completely separate health problem (been on-going since before I was in my 40's), I have been fortunate to avoid getting super sick with respiratory problems for the past 2 years apart from chronic grass, dust, animal dander, and other type of allergies. Been using the formula I mentioned many pages back on this thread/topic, and it seems to have some sort of positive help.

However, that might change next month. Will find out how effective all those precautions are when I am surrounded by crowds for the Santa events (as I got volunteered by my hubby years ago... yeah, it has its nice moments, but sometimes I wonder...). I got my masks ready to go and hope to have wisdom to say the proper things, than ramble on what I *really* feel...!

[Falcon Horus]

I have tickets to go see the Carmina Burana next sunday. It's a covid safe ticket event which means that your QR-code better turns green upon entry. In general that means facemasks can be off but I'm thinking about leaving it on for the duration of the performance. After all, I know my sister and best friend are covid-free (as will my Dad and his girlfriend) but anyone else around me might not be and not even know it (unless they tested negative to get a positive QR-code).

Then two weeks from now my company has a "sip & socialize" event among its employees of the Antwerp office. It's not a CST event, facemasks won't be mandatory and neither will the 6ft distance be. Heck, our company has decided to continue the minimum 2-day at the office thing because hey 95% of employees are vaccinated so we're safe... blah blah blah... NO, WE'RE NOT you damn idiots.

And the final straw for today was my colleague posting a diatribe by a "life coach" about her freedom being taken away because she has to use a health pass to get anywhere, comparing it to -- and I kid you not -- the Jews Star of David during the Nazi reign of Germany.

I wanted to post a worded comment to her post but I still have to work with her. She's a direct colleague so that would become problematic were I to do that. I have to remain professional and learn to ignore it. But it's damn harder than I thought it would be.

Ah well... people can surprise you, I guess. I certainly get to see a whole new side of her, I had no idea even existed.

[SGalisa]

Update 11/26/2021: COVID variants on the loose again. Shutting down borders, freaking (some) people out...hair proverbially on fire... Fear factor activated again... Stock markets worldwide crashing... deja vu.
HELLO??? This problem is NOT going to go away no matter how many times the experts say *Oh, we CAN get this under control. We just need to...* yada, yada, yada.

*Boy who cried wolf* of the opposite extreme (*all will be better soon!*) syndrome.

So tiring hearing the news. Same old, same old. Brace yourselves!!! People are getting their 3rd vaccinations or COVID # booster. 2 people I personally know both had their booster and both got sick from it, one was sicker (almost immediately for a few days) than the other (who felt full blast ill for about 2 days, but run-down for more than a week). Extreme fatigue, nausea, sweaty hot/cold chills, dizzy, headaches, other usual stuff. Took a lot of energy out of both of them, even after they recovered.

Meantime, seems like just as some good news pops up, some portion of the world crashes again. Over and over like a roller coaster. The *new* normal.

"Coronavirus: Countries shut borders over new variant"

BBC News, November 26, 2021

More countries are tightening their travel restrictions after a new coronavirus variant was identified in southern Africa earlier this week.
. . .

The new variant is yet to be given a more memorable name, like Delta or Beta, and right now is known as B.1.1.529. The WHO is expected to name it on Friday, and announce whether it is a variant of concern or just a variant of interest.
. . .
One case was detected in a person who returned from Malawi, according to Israeli media reports quoting the country's health ministry. Another two suspected infections were yet to be confirmed with test results. All three are said to have been fully vaccinated.
. . .

[Falcon Horus]

Dad had his booster and felt nothing. Best friend got her booster and nothing, except that the person who gave her the shot aimed a little too high and thus gave her a bruise in all the colors of the rainbow.

In the meantime, our nightlife is closed as of tonight.
Cafés and bars have to close at 11pm -- sitting around a table is limited to 6 people unless your family is bigger.
Parties are cancelled, except for weddings.
Having a coffee after a funeral is also still allowed -- we have the tradition of coffee and pastries after a funeral. I don't know if that's weird, but that's how it is over here.
Working from home is mandatory with 1 day at the office allowed (some go every day and don't care about the restrictions in place) but with only 20% of normal occupation allowed.

Yeah, our infections have been on the rise since 2 weeks ago... and we're looking to save Christmas/New Year in a way.

Ah well...

I guess the Carmina Burana of last Sunday was the one and only event I got to go to this year.

[SGalisa]

Have full blown Covid 19, Can't smell or taste anything. Had vaccines back in Feb and March 2021. Somebody lied.

Major hugs and thoughts for complete healing, if possible! This is a nasty virus. Be careful if getting any booster soon, if you have COVID antibodies in your system. There's usually a 3 month waiting period from getting sick with COVID before a person should get either the vaccine or booster. It's recommended to get a booster at either 6 or 8 months from the last vaccine, unless the virus shows up. Then, it's unknown what the waiting period really is, since it varies from person to person.

I still have swelling over 1/2 of the area in my armpit of the vaccinated arm (almost 6 months now). However, I noticed last week that my non-vaccinated armpit is beginning to swell too now. So obviously, to me it looks like whatever was blocking the vaccine in my vaccinated arm, sort of opened up a channel to travel to other parts of my body now. If I get a booster, it could inflame the area(s) all over again, or do worse.

For about a month now, I also started having an issue with shoulder/neck pain on both sides. Not sure what that is from, but heard rumors about if the spike protein gets into the brain--you'll be dead soon. That's not very comforting. I'm hoping it is from just carrying my shoulder bag in the same spot, and wearing down my muscles there, rather than some auto-immune reaction to the vaccine. Could also be arthritis in general from my DDD spinal condition.

[SGalisa]

Dad had his booster and felt nothing. Best friend got her booster and nothing, except that the person who gave her the shot aimed a little too high and thus gave her a bruise in all the colors of the rainbow.

My hubby got his booster and didn't show signs of anything serious until day 3. That's when he got sick and rested up. He ate only the basic foods, like applesauce, pineapple, and soup. I made him hydrate. He thought his symptoms were mild enough on day 4 to go to work. But he looked awful for the next 2 days when he came back home. He looked very drained of all energy. Plus, he complained he couldn't get much sleep, in spite of feeling over-exhausted.

Having a coffee after a funeral is also still allowed -- we have the tradition of coffee and pastries after a funeral. I don't know if that's weird, but that's how it is over here.

I think in the USA, most conservative / melancholic atmospheric funerals serve coffee, teas, and desserts or go out to eat with the relatives for dinner. Depends on who shows up and wants to stay to chat with the family of the deceased.

As for my dad's after funeral *festivities*, my (oldest) sister decided to run the whole *show* and dig into daddy's supply of liquor for all of the guests... some of whom my dad only met once or twice. I was furious. Back then, I thought it was very inconsiderate and rude to invade my dad's liquor cabinet, but I didn't think that "someone" had to drink all that liquid money up... My mom just let it happen, and partly because she wasn't supposed to drink due to her own medical conditions.

Unfortunately, the rest of the adults in my family were very liberal, social drinkers... "Party it up" was the attitude that day... *cheers* for the memories and the use of gobbling up all the free liquor they could tolerate. Several of my relatives liked to party hardy, and thus lived that afternoon the way my dad *enjoyed* living life, at least, that's how it was described to me (I was 22 years old). For me, it was heart-breaking and very sad (to me), since some of the *socializers* didn't really know or care about my dad or my mom.

[Womble]

Have full blown Covid 19, Can't smell or taste anything. Had vaccines back in Feb and March 2021. Somebody lied.

Vaccines don't protect 100%, nobody ever promised that. You have lower chance to get sick, lower chance to transmit, lower chance to develop complications. All those are relative. 95% protection means 5% chance of failure, that's 1 in 20 which is not so low.

Also, immunity to Covid declines over time for most people, so if your last shot was in March, it stands to reason that your protection has diminished.

Finally, "full blown Covid" isn't losing smell and taste, it's major lungs damage. Maybe you're getting the "light Covid" after all?

P.S. Israel is in a panic due to 8 cases of the new virus strain, "omicron", having been discovered in travelers who came from Africa.

(Apparently it came very close to being named "nu" to add a touch of much-needed surrealism to the entire thing).

One of the travelers took a bus ride halfway across the country, potentially infecting close to 70 people. The total number of people who may have been exposed by proxy may be as high as 800.

And our transmission rate has climbed back above 1.

And I'm sitting on tickets to Germany to see my family for the first time since the beginning of this madness, and Germany might be in lockdown by the time we depart...

[Falcon Horus]

He looked very drained of all energy. Plus, he complained he couldn't get much sleep, in spite of feeling over-exhausted.

Sounds like the symptoms of the Omicron version.

I think in the USA, most conservative / melancholic atmospheric funerals serve coffee, teas, and desserts or go out to eat with the relatives for dinner. Depends on who shows up and wants to stay to chat with the family of the deceased.

Over here, it's by invitation only.... like some can come to the funeral service and others are invited to join family afterwards.

During the height of the pandemic last year, when I lost both grandfathers. That wasn't allowed and funerals could only be held in the open or with a limited amount of people in church if you went with that. None of our family members are very religious so we don't have to sit through a long service.

I kinda liked the freedom of keeping it short and simple.

Vaccines don't protect 100%, nobody ever promised that. You have lower chance to get sick, lower chance to transmit, lower chance to develop complications. All those are relative. 95% protection means 5% chance of failure, that's 1 in 20 which is not so low.

Case in point, one of my best friends got her booster last week, and tested positive on Saturday. Her youngest brought it home from school. The kid had a fever but she had no symptoms.

P.S. Israel is in a panic due to 8 cases of the new virus strain, "omicron", having been discovered in travelers who came from Africa.

I think everywhere is panicking now.

[Falcon Horus]

It's my best friend's birthday this week and we decided to get together to celebrate that moment, so my sister decided that me and her should do a test (not a PCR test) to check whether we were covid-free (we are) since we had contact with other people this week (namely colleagues -- we have to go to the office a max of 1 day a workweek (5 days)).

It's one of the things reccommended by the experts in order to have safer get-togethers, and to keep a lid on further infections should you be infected and not know about it.

Oh my goddess, the swap thingy only has to go up your nose for about an inch but that was already too much for me to handle. It felt icky from start to finish. I sincerely never want to go for one of those PCR test where they stick that thing so far up your nose, it comes out in your throat.

My test came out positively negative, like the brightest negative you can imagine. Definitely covid-free so party was a go.

And when I say party, I actually mean an afternoon and evening of fun boardgames.

[Falcon Horus]

If you can, my sister happened to catch the broadcasting of the 44th Richard Dimbleby Lecture on BBC Monday evening. It featured Professor Dame Sarah Gilbert who worked on the development of the first covid vaccine in cooperation with Astra-Zeneca.

I have yet to see it. It can be "downloaded" or if you're in the UK you can also watch it on BBC iPlayer.

She talked about the development of the vaccine, the pandemic, viruses in general and how we were entirely unprepared for this pandemic, the economic costs, and what the future holds for us humans concerning future pandemics.

Her final words:

“This will not be the last time a virus threatens our lives and our livelihoods. The truth is, the next one could be worse. It could be more contagious, or more lethal, or both.”

One of the many articles on the speech: Covid not over and next pandemic could be more lethal, says Oxford jab creator (source: The Guardian)

[SGalisa]

Apparently, I haven't been on here in a while. But back in November I went pro-active in preventative measures against getting sick (not just COVID, but any and every germ out there!). So, story goes like this:

My co-worker who is literally on the other side of my floor to ceiling wall got the sniffles early November (2021). We both were having major allergy issues, so if she had a "cold-illness" she wasn't sure. She did have lots of sneezing and coughing then. Week before Thanksgiving, she was okay, seemed healthy, but wore her immune system down from not wearing a coat on 40 degree F and less days.

Days after the Thanksgiving holidays, my coworker came back to work coughing something awful. The moment she started coughing, which sounded like a deep bronchitis type of cough, I knew she was seriously, very sick. Yet, she never masked up... was a good trouper showing up and working. OMG! what if it was COVID?? I hate being right, but without knowing what she had at that time, I avoided her as far away as I could and disinfected everything around me, including our fabric desk-walls... several times each day I was there.

Anywho, I managed not to get sick at all then. But had to go participate on Santa's team that weekend, and amazingly, NO ONE on our crew got sick this year! It was a first for them! Every year prior, they all got some sniffly illness, even during the last few years some of us came loaded with cough drops, tissues, Nyquil!, and vitamins C with Zinc...

So picture this... Sunday afternoon, in between our Santa routines, I was hiding in my cubby-hole eating my lunch, and felt my cell phone ring... Really? Everyone I knew, knew I would not be able to talk to them that weekend... so I thought it was some scam number calling. Uhhh, not so... omg! Too funny. It was my coworkers chatting with each other for several times... First person was my *very ill* coworker who texted all of us to inform us that she tested Positive that week(end) with COVID... (CV-19 test). OMG... now what? ... oh, small detail, she was fully CV-19 vaccinated months prior, and due for a booster... which she now has to wait 3 months before she can get that.

I'm thinking how do I explain this to my Santa team crew?!! Seriously. I had very little contact, as in 10 to 15 feet if I had to pass my coworker's office. Plus, I wore a surgical 3-layered mask, washed my hands from touching anything not from my own desk, and kept my area disinfected as much as possible. Now, I was exposed to over 5,000 people (btw, no one got sick from my walk-thru's), had to wear a mask, and was literally covered from head to toe with some sort of layer between me and the rest of the world.

I Listerine'd the moment I got back to our hotel room, and used those Listerine tabs during my Santa team walk-thru's... which btw, worked better than candy or cough drops. I was annoyed because I figured this situation might just happen, and *just because* (Murphy's Law). Fortunately, my coworker's boss was talking much closer (about 6 feet away) to her than I was, and the boss tested herself for CV-19, which fortunately came out Negative.

Still, when I got home, I had to visit my primary doctor for another issue, but my doctor's office refused to have me show up, so I had to do a telecall instead with my doctor. Meantime, I'm in shock from what lengths I had to go thru to keep myself *safe* (zinc'd up, I think is what helped the most, plus doing all of the other precautionary measures), and keep everyone else I safe-distanced visited with (I also had gloves on) from gaining any exposure to what I went thru in the weeks prior to that weekend. Worst part was to see parents telling their kids to pull their masks down, while taking pictures with Santa's team. I never removed my mask the entire time, and partly because I was not permitted to (as part of our protocol CV-19 rules).

Totally unbelievable. But if it would happen to anyone, it would surely happen to me. If I could win the mega millions lottery the way I win bad luck moments, I'd be a multi-billionaire by now. LOL.

[Falcon Horus]

Over here, you would have been deemed a low-risk contact as you maintained distance and facemask the entire time.

The 3-month waiting period for the booster seems odd, since over here you only have to wait 14 days after testing positive if you haven't had your booster yet, or first or second vaccination.

My booster is scheduled for the 12th of January and I'll be crossing over into Moderna (I'm currently on Team Pfizer).

[SGalisa]

My booster is scheduled for the 12th of January and I'll be crossing over into Moderna (I'm currently on Team Pfizer).

Curious question: Why did you (FH) switch to Moderna?

BTW, I got boosted too... following you, but still with Pfizer. Arm is sore now, but didn't even feel the needle. The nurse was super good at giving the injection. I didn't want to say anything earlier, because I'd probably jinx myself.


Actually, I was scheduled as soon as my new doctor approved my health report, that I didn't need a biospy from the swollen armpit. It was still swollen when I got my booster, but more pea-sized ... 8 months after the 2nd vaccine..! News media has only reported on people who have had a reaction for a few days... NOT long-termed months on end swelling. Lymph nodes were normal, but the swelling was from Edema... ummm, okay... but 8 months in the same spot?

I've had edema in my ankles, feet and lower legs that showed up for a day and vanished ... at most less than 3 days. Why is it taking the armpit so bizarrely long to lose its water retention, IF that is indeed what was in there? Oh, and it's only in the one armpit (same arm as the vaccine), but not in the other armpit... well, not until 6 months later, and then some swelling started to show up in that side as well. So, it wasn't deodorant or baby powder that caused it (same amount daily on both sides)...

Why the mystery over this type of "swelling" reaction? Why can't the media be *honest* about reporting stories like that more often? Jeesh. I sat there for 8 long months concerned that I had cancer... which it might still be that, but kind of got under control from a better diet (cancer fighting veggies ) Of course, it would have been the lesser of the 2 evils... lymphoma. Cancer is still cancer, IMHO.

[Falcon Horus]

Curious question: Why did you (FH) switch to Moderna?

Fair question with a simple answer: we don't get to choose the vaccine. It is chosen for us, in a manner of speaking.

Our supply of Moderna happens to be bigger than the Pfizer one at the moment so there. We also don't get to freely go in or sign ourselves up for our shots, we have to wait our turns and receive an official invitation for the appointments.

Also, it was much more relaxed and fun this time around because they are also vaccinating the kids so the center is all dressed up with teddybears and a proper maze, and superheroes on the walls, and like colorful pictures everywhere. There's even a playground in the waiting area.

My side effects were restricted to a soar arm... nothing else, while most of my friends and family suffered flu-like symptoms in the first 12 hours, dissipating by the next day. I got lucky.