Coronavirus prep

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  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,371 Member
    kimny72 wrote: »
    I'm reading about long covid and I'm still not ready to say screw it, if I get it I get it. Middle aged women seem to be particularly at risk for long covid and they still don't understand it so I'd like to give them more time! I'm very fortunate to live the sort of life where it's not a huge sacrifice to make.

    Oh. Yippee. :|

    First day that masking hasn't been mandatory here in Ontario and I still saw, conservatively, about 40% of mall shoppers at lunchtime were masked. Seemed evenly split between older and younger folks too. My office isn't reviewing the mask policy for at least another two weeks so I'm wearing mine anyway.

    Locally our hospitalized patients have dropped a bit but our ICU number is up and we're averaging a death per week.

    I've heard of a few people that have had Covid twice so far this year and are getting much sicker with the second round. They're all younger people too (mid 20s, early 30s) but I imagine that just means they're hanging out in crowds more.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    ythannah wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Is anyone else planning to continue (permanently, for now) anything you started doing during the pandemic, that you didn't do previously? I was thinking about this, this morning.

    I used to have a tradition of dining at a restaurant every Friday night, I'd probably done it for over 30 years when the pandemic hit and the initial lockdown made it impossible. I tried with takeout for a few weeks but found the quality so diminished that I didn't continue. I haven't eaten dinner in a restaurant since March 2020, and very few restaurant lunches in that time, so I've lost the habit now and I'm not sure I'll revive it.

    I've found myself a lot happier with the big decrease in social obligations (I'm very introverted) and I think I'll try to minimize those going forward, only attend things that I will really enjoy.

    I don't enjoy crowded restaurants and have become good at saying No to invitations. I'm hosting for Easter. I'd much rather spend all day in my kitchen than a minute in a noisy, crowded restaurant.
  • kshama2001
    kshama2001 Posts: 28,052 Member
    edited March 2022
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Is anyone else planning to continue (permanently, for now) anything you started doing during the pandemic, that you didn't do previously? I was thinking about this, this morning.

    I'll probably keep buying milk a few cartons at a time, instead of just one, and freezing them: I think it reduces grocery trip frequency, so reduces gas use a tiny bit, as well as requiring less time. Probably ditto for lemon/lime wedges I like in my morning iced matcha, which I can cut up then freeze rather than keeping a smaller number of the fresh fruits on hand.

    This is all "luxury trivia" of privilege, though. I admittedly - so far, fingers crossed - have a pretty pleasant, uncomplicated life, including (speaking relative to others) during the pandemic.

    It makes me wonder, though, if others have stumbled over convenient or happy life changes that are worth continuing.

    While I am open to 100% remote work or non-office work, I plan to never work in an office again.
  • PAV8888
    PAV8888 Posts: 14,242 Member
    edited March 2022
    So looking at worldwide numbers I get to see things such as:
    Worldwide: Got it: 471,914,643 Died: 6,104,218

    Total deaths per year appear to be around 60,000,000 so roughly about 5% are "due to COVID" when taken over roughly two years. It places COVID "up there", though NOT at the absolute top of leading causes.

    To me there seems to be a huge absence of complete continents from the statistics... is this a reporting (under/over/who knows) artefact? Or are the effects of COVID so "streaky" and it's sort of luck of the draw if your area hits a magic transmission level?

    The top 20 GOT IT # vs (Death #) look like: USA (1), India (3), Brazil (2), France (10), UK (7), Germany (14), Russia (4), Turkey (19), Italy (8), Spain (17), S.Korea (57), Argentina (13), Vietnam (24), Netherlands (39), Iran (11), Japan (34), Colombia (12), Indonesia (9), Poland (15), Mexico (5)

    While top 20 "Death #" vs (GOT IT #) were: USA (1), Brazil (3), India (2), Russia (7), Mexico (20), Peru (29), UK (5), Italy (9), Indonesia (18), France (4), Iran (15), Colombia (17), Argentina (12), Germany (6), Poland (19), Ukraine (21), Spain (10), South Africa (27), Turkey (8), Romania (37).

    There are exists an un-enviable and somewhat simultaneously both surprising and yet not surprising to me result in the #1 position.

    A lot of non surprises in many of the other positions. But then there are some surprisingly "positive" outcomes: Turkey #7 in incidents yet #19 in deaths? Vietnam #13 in incidents yet #24 in deaths... do these places have surprisingly effective medical systems, or is this also a reporting artefact... in which case the numbers remain as iffy as I think they actually are?

    I note that in areas of Canada we haven't even been bothering to test people with symptoms at times. The first widely available rapid tests are getting distributed to people in British Columbia... any day now (2+ years later)!

    Not sure what got into me to look into this. I guess the 6 million number sounded quite high to me for the nonchalant level of concern I see around me and I wanted to see how it rated in terms of other causes of death.

    But I am also wondering whether Africa, for example is "spared" because people are not getting sick... or because the numbers are not reported?

    --please consider all numbers as somewhat approximate... just grabbed them from random web sources on March 21, 2022.
  • spiriteagle99
    spiriteagle99 Posts: 3,743 Member
    I think many countries had very limited testing, so no way of knowing who actually had covid and who didn't and who died from the disease and who died because of the comorbidities. Other places that did more testing, they counted people who died with Covid as people who died of covid. That was especially true in the US.
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    PAV8888 wrote: »
    So looking at worldwide numbers I get to see things such as:
    Worldwide: Got it: 471,914,643 Died: 6,104,218

    Total deaths per year appear to be around 60,000,000 so roughly about 5% are "due to COVID" when taken over roughly two years. It places COVID "up there", though NOT at the absolute top of leading causes.

    To me there seems to be a huge absence of complete continents from the statistics... is this a reporting (under/over/who knows) artefact? Or are the effects of COVID so "streaky" and it's sort of luck of the draw if your area hits a magic transmission level?

    The top 20 GOT IT # vs (Death #) look like: USA (1), India (3), Brazil (2), France (10), UK (7), Germany (14), Russia (4), Turkey (19), Italy (8), Spain (17), S.Korea (57), Argentina (13), Vietnam (24), Netherlands (39), Iran (11), Japan (34), Colombia (12), Indonesia (9), Poland (15), Mexico (5)

    While top 20 "Death #" vs (GOT IT #) were: USA (1), Brazil (3), India (2), Russia (7), Mexico (20), Peru (29), UK (5), Italy (9), Indonesia (18), France (4), Iran (15), Colombia (17), Argentina (12), Germany (6), Poland (19), Ukraine (21), Spain (10), South Africa (27), Turkey (8), Romania (37).

    There are exists an un-enviable and somewhat simultaneously both surprising and yet not surprising to me result in the #1 position.

    A lot of non surprises in many of the other positions. But then there are some surprisingly "positive" outcomes: Turkey #7 in incidents yet #19 in deaths? Vietnam #13 in incidents yet #24 in deaths... do these places have surprisingly effective medical systems, or is this also a reporting artefact... in which case the numbers remain as iffy as I think they actually are?

    I note that in areas of Canada we haven't even been bothering to test people with symptoms at times. The first widely available rapid tests are getting distributed to people in British Columbia... any day now (2+ years later)!

    Not sure what got into me to look into this. I guess the 6 million number sounded quite high to me for the nonchalant level of concern I see around me and I wanted to see how it rated in terms of other causes of death.

    But I am also wondering whether Africa, for example is "spared" because people are not getting sick... or because the numbers are not reported?

    --please consider all numbers as somewhat approximate... just grabbed them from random web sources on March 21, 2022.

    Epidemiologists have been wondering about Africa for a while now. There was a theory that Africa was spared because the population skews much younger and young people mostly don’t get severe Covid. But then South Africa and surrounding nations got hit hard by Omicron. But even that was less catastrophic than expected. It’s possible something about their lifestyle or diet or even genetics offers protection to some of the population. No one knows yet.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,098 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    @kimny72 I agree about long covid not being worth the risk.

    There’s a theory that long covid is caused at least partly by reactivation of Epstein-Barr virus, based on blood testing of people who got long covid versus those who had covid but recovered fully being more likely to have reactivated Epstein-Barr in their blood. I have not had good luck with my immune system and Epstein-Barr in the past - I developed lupus following a severe bout of mono in my 20s. My early lupus symptoms, which went undiagnosed for a decade, sound very much like what long Covid victims are reporting. Crushing fatigue, weird problems with racing heart, muscle tremors. I read an article about long Covid and muscle tremors the other day and it sounded so familiar to me, I would be unable to sleep for days at a time because some part of my body was just vibrating and wouldn’t stop. I had been so active before and was so disabled after. For me, eventually, decades later, the lupus has mostly quieted down, but I did have a flare following each of my Covid shots, which makes me suspect that actually having Covid would cause a full on resurgence of the lupus. Trust me, you do not want this.

    I recall my neighbor at home talking with me summer 2020, how their household all got COVID. One of their grandsons that live with them brought it home from school. The wife in that home has been battling Lyme disease that was not diagnosed for years and without that early treatment became very systemic. She spends much of her time in bed. Anyhow, the husband shared with me that her contracting COVID somehow reactivated the Lyme disease inflammation and was keeping her sick long after recovery of the standard (if there is such a thing) COIVD illness. I have such sympathies for this household. They have been slammed repeatedly in various ways for the past 10 to 15 years.

    On the topic of tremors, for about the past two months, for random stretches in the day, I get twitching in the area of my eyes. Only one area at a time. I have felt twitching like this randomly in my life, but not with such frequency. I believe that it is not visible (I really should look in the mirror.) I am curious about the why now. My imagination comes up with booster shot, or my cold from hell that my pcp feels was COVID despite 5 family tests all coming out negative. But both of those events were in the first weeks of December. Anyhow, it is likely just life at 60. We'll see if they continue.

    On the lesser incidence in Africa, I remember much discussion in 2020 of the anti-malarial frequently taken there.

  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,098 Member
    Ok, all. What counts as "middle age"? As I get older, that sounds more and more confusing. When do I cross out and classify as old? I am 60 now.

    I do think these definitions have changed over the decades.
  • snowflake954
    snowflake954 Posts: 8,399 Member
    rheddmobile wrote: »
    My husband had to pick up horse feed at the tractor store yesterday and he commented that more shoppers were openly carrying firearms (six) than wearing masks (two, counting him.)

    Maybe they think they can shoot COVID?
  • kimny72
    kimny72 Posts: 16,011 Member
    edited March 2022
    SModa61 wrote: »
    Ok, all. What counts as "middle age"? As I get older, that sounds more and more confusing. When do I cross out and classify as old? I am 60 now.

    I do think these definitions have changed over the decades.

    I don't know if there's a sciencey answer to that question, but I think it's typically used in this sort of classification as not a young adult but not a senior. Or sometimes with women I think it assumes the upper cutoff is menopausal. So in my head it's 30ish to 60ish. Which is probably not helpful to you :lol:

    ETA: Britannica says 40-60.
    And I found a 20 yr old research paper that defined the study groups as young adult (18-35), middle-aged(35-55), and older-adult (55+).

    ETAA: It's quite possible that long covid is more likely in women in general, but it "seems" more prevalent in middle age because young women are less likely to report symptoms or seek care, and older women were more likely to have a serious case, which makes the dividing line between "i had covid for 6 months" and "I had long covid after covid" fuzzier.
  • Fuzzipeg
    Fuzzipeg Posts: 2,301 Member
    Yesterday in the UK there was a report of someone with a severely compromised immune system who had covid for 7 months of continuous positive testing had been given a covid vaccine and was reported to be doing well and now clear. It seems the vaccine gave the person the ability to make the required t-cells and other required attributes to combat the Virus. I do not know at which stage of the pandemic this person was first taken ill, I would think before the vaccination was first made available.

    I follow the Epstein Bar idea aligned to long covid. In my view so very many of the symptoms of long covid appear on lists for autoimmune conditions too. Then many who recover have deficiencies in some vitamins and minerasl.

    Its sad so many are not wearing masks now. (I'm glad I don't live where more people openly carry arms) I reported we were not having our case numbers reported, I'm now thinking I had missed that weeks announcement. The numbers announced last weekend, our case numbers went up from 2000's into the 3000's up by over an actual 3rd, can't remember the actual number, that thought left me stunned. I'm in a local authority area where they say 1 in 20 of us have it!!! I fear I heard 1 in 14 have it in Scotland. But we are confidently told, the pandemic is over, I don't think those with severely compromised immune systems are likely to be so confident like the first person I mentioned.

    Carry on, do what you feel comfortable with. Take care and Keep safe.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,098 Member
    @kimny72 Thanks for the insights. Yup, 60 and finished menopause in 2010, I guess I am that "older adult" that looks back in the mirror.

    @Fuzzipeg - Masks? I am guilty of currently not wearing them, but I am in the Florida keys. Lots of activity, and even dining, is outside. Our condo has a 24 ft slider on one wall with and adjoining 8 ft slider so we can be "outside" while "inside". Just looked at the Monroe Sounty cases, and last reporting of any cases was March 13th. When we head back to Massachusetts in May, odds are masks and such will be returning for me.
  • Fuzzipeg
    Fuzzipeg Posts: 2,301 Member
    SModa61, you sound to be in a lovely area. I know places are very different case rates vary so very much thankfully. I hope this summer can bring down our local cases though I'm not very hopeful, there are so many people who come to our area for days or week or more. I know covid not as bad as the first version but its sad the way we have to live with it now.

    Thinking architecture, I don't recognise the term "slider" might we call it/them sliding doors or full length sliding windows. Sounds wonderful to have so much light where one is staying. Have a very good stay.
  • SModa61
    SModa61 Posts: 3,098 Member
    Fuzzipeg wrote: »
    SModa61, you sound to be in a lovely area. I know places are very different case rates vary so very much thankfully. I hope this summer can bring down our local cases though I'm not very hopeful, there are so many people who come to our area for days or week or more. I know covid not as bad as the first version but its sad the way we have to live with it now.

    Thinking architecture, I don't recognise the term "slider" might we call it/them sliding doors or full length sliding windows. Sounds wonderful to have so much light where one is staying. Have a very good stay.

    Indeed, sliding glass door would be more correct. It does give meaning to the expression "living in glass houses". We are right on the very populated harbor, so I try and watch what I am wearing when in the living room/dining room/kitchen as the effect of the "invisible wall" (as it is also called) would be ruined by window treatments.

    Stay safe. Stay well!
  • rheddmobile
    rheddmobile Posts: 6,840 Member
    SModa61 wrote: »
    Fuzzipeg wrote: »
    SModa61, you sound to be in a lovely area. I know places are very different case rates vary so very much thankfully. I hope this summer can bring down our local cases though I'm not very hopeful, there are so many people who come to our area for days or week or more. I know covid not as bad as the first version but its sad the way we have to live with it now.

    Thinking architecture, I don't recognise the term "slider" might we call it/them sliding doors or full length sliding windows. Sounds wonderful to have so much light where one is staying. Have a very good stay.

    Indeed, sliding glass door would be more correct. It does give meaning to the expression "living in glass houses". We are right on the very populated harbor, so I try and watch what I am wearing when in the living room/dining room/kitchen as the effect of the "invisible wall" (as it is also called) would be ruined by window treatments.

    Stay safe. Stay well!

    The indoor/outdoor thing sounds delightful, but having visited Florida, I am picturing lizards on the dining room table!
  • Fuzzipeg
    Fuzzipeg Posts: 2,301 Member
    Thank you, both.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,496 Member
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Is anyone else planning to continue (permanently, for now) anything you started doing during the pandemic, that you didn't do previously? I was thinking about this, this morning.

    I'll probably keep buying milk a few cartons at a time, instead of just one, and freezing them: I think it reduces grocery trip frequency, so reduces gas use a tiny bit, as well as requiring less time. Probably ditto for lemon/lime wedges I like in my morning iced matcha, which I can cut up then freeze rather than keeping a smaller number of the fresh fruits on hand.

    This is all "luxury trivia" of privilege, though. I admittedly - so far, fingers crossed - have a pretty pleasant, uncomplicated life, including (speaking relative to others) during the pandemic.

    It makes me wonder, though, if others have stumbled over convenient or happy life changes that are worth continuing.

    While I am open to 100% remote work or non-office work, I plan to never work in an office again.

    Sounds like most offices are wanting people back at least part time so looks like you won't be working in an office.
  • lynn_glenmont
    lynn_glenmont Posts: 10,092 Member
    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Is anyone else planning to continue (permanently, for now) anything you started doing during the pandemic, that you didn't do previously? I was thinking about this, this morning.

    I'll probably keep buying milk a few cartons at a time, instead of just one, and freezing them: I think it reduces grocery trip frequency, so reduces gas use a tiny bit, as well as requiring less time. Probably ditto for lemon/lime wedges I like in my morning iced matcha, which I can cut up then freeze rather than keeping a smaller number of the fresh fruits on hand.

    This is all "luxury trivia" of privilege, though. I admittedly - so far, fingers crossed - have a pretty pleasant, uncomplicated life, including (speaking relative to others) during the pandemic.

    It makes me wonder, though, if others have stumbled over convenient or happy life changes that are worth continuing.

    While I am open to 100% remote work or non-office work, I plan to never work in an office again.

    Sounds like most offices are wanting people back at least part time so looks like you won't be working in an office.

    A business can "want" something, but it doesn't mean it's going to get it. Most business would likely be happy to have all their employees work for free. Not likely they'll get it.
  • Theoldguy1
    Theoldguy1 Posts: 2,496 Member
    lynn_glenmont wrote: »
    Theoldguy1 wrote: »
    kshama2001 wrote: »
    AnnPT77 wrote: »
    Is anyone else planning to continue (permanently, for now) anything you started doing during the pandemic, that you didn't do previously? I was thinking about this, this morning.

    I'll probably keep buying milk a few cartons at a time, instead of just one, and freezing them: I think it reduces grocery trip frequency, so reduces gas use a tiny bit, as well as requiring less time. Probably ditto for lemon/lime wedges I like in my morning iced matcha, which I can cut up then freeze rather than keeping a smaller number of the fresh fruits on hand.

    This is all "luxury trivia" of privilege, though. I admittedly - so far, fingers crossed - have a pretty pleasant, uncomplicated life, including (speaking relative to others) during the pandemic.

    It makes me wonder, though, if others have stumbled over convenient or happy life changes that are worth continuing.

    While I am open to 100% remote work or non-office work, I plan to never work in an office again.

    Sounds like most offices are wanting people back at least part time so looks like you won't be working in an office.

    A business can "want" something, but it doesn't mean it's going to get it. Most business would likely be happy to have all their employees work for free. Not likely they'll get it.

    People that want good jobs will go back if that is what the employer requires.
  • ReenieHJ
    ReenieHJ Posts: 9,724 Member
    SummerSkier wrote: »
    am I a lone wolf? I like being back in the office. I only stay remote when Covid is spiking. When I saw it dropping again I went back in mid Feb. If it spikes up again I will go remote. The flexibility is important to me. Of course I have a very short commute also.

    Commute may be part of the reason why you like it. :) Plus it can be a social time as well as work.
    I have 2 dds, 1 of them has a job that'd be truly difficult doing remotely. The other dd wishes she could work remotely more because she finds it less distracting than being in her office. And they both live an hour away from their job. That's a lot of your whole day taken up by driving alone.

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