Coronavirus prep

gradchica27 wrote: »

Local health dept is now discouraging people from getting tested unless they “feel sick” or have been exposed to someone with Covid bc testing is backlogged.

Fine, but what is “feeling sick”? The more I read (too much, probably) the more people I see testing positive with vague symptoms (so not the “big three” cough/fever/shortness of breath). At this point I would assume I had Covid if I had fever, cough, shortness of breath. What I would have questions about (and therefore want a test) would be something like sore throat, sinus pressure, etc...the stuff you can easily attribute to allergies or a cold.

So this seems to me like it would discourage the asymptomatic/presymptomatic/mildly symptomatic people from getting tested—so the people who would likely continue about their normal business and come into contact with others.

Which leads me to another problem I’m seeing with reopening, esp for schools. What is “sick”? At what point do you trigger an automatic Covid test/quarantine? I’ve had my son sent home from preschool bc he had green snot. The kid has snot from Aug through January. And again from March onward. So do I. Sometimes there’s a brief break bt spring allergies and summer grass pollen. Sometimes not. We’re allergic to SW TN. I had to bring him to the dr and actually say the reason I’m there is “he has green boogers” after having a faucet of snot for months. No other symptoms. Surprise, dr diagnosed allergies.

So what will happen this year? If snot and/or sore throat/sinus issues are a red flag, I’m never going to leave the house. I’ve had sinus pressure and post nasal drip for about 5 weeks, with intermittent sore throat from post nasal drip (we had spring this year, so I had a 3 week break bt spring and summer allergies!). Since I have no fever, a history of ever widening environmental allergies (every year since I moved to this allergen-ridden place it seems like there’s a new demon weed that causes me problems, so I have a solid 4-6 weeks in the dead of winter when I don’t have at least a mild sinus headache and post nasal drip), and no other symptoms have appeared, despite my obsessive temperature/pulse ox checking, so I’m assuming this is the usual allergies.

But...can’t be sure. My kids have snot too. I’ve kept them home for two weeks...but when can you ever be even reasonably sure it’s not Covid and just a cold/allergies? I’m not sure where I’m going with this, just musing that opening schools and offices is fraught with difficulties when testing is not readily available (or backlogged so much it takes a week or more to get your results).

I want to be responsible, and it’s somewhat easy for me to be overly cautious (homeschooling, no outside job), but do I lock us down for 2 weeks at every runny nose or scratchy throat?

It is a difficult situation. We are in that situation to protect my Dad who lives next door and comes up for dinner every day. No friends for the kids. We only do camping. And the teens go rollerblading at a big park. DH is working from home. We homeschool. (I know we've talked before but this is a big thread and I know that there's a chance that your mind has been occupied with other things more important than remembering what I said 10 pages ago. ) There's even a side of the family we can't see b/c they don't believe in COVID, or didn't, more specifically now they believe they will never get it. We did a camping trip with them around the 4th, and we just finished quarantining from poor Dad. He gets super weird when he's away from people for a long time. We are all he has as my sister lives in Houston and due to a bad childhood he's estranged from his family. I still mask up and bring him dinner daily during quarantine. It all sucks for us. But we know for a fact we don't have it unless we've gotten it from groceries or take-out Hubby brings home. I figure we are being as careful as is possible. He was very happy last night to be back to normal.

For public schools, it's going to be a mess. I saw a newscast on Alcoa's schools and that they have started back, making kids wear masks and doing temp checks. Small classes on different days. That's nice and all but this virus is asymptomatic in a lot of folks. There's still spread there. Kids do nothing better than spread illness. Other than be noisy and wreck a place. We haven't been sick since the inlaws brought us a bad flu home from their cruise for Christmas. I was on the younger ones like stink on a skunk in January and Feb for sanitizing hands and covering sneezes and coughs at church and co-op. After the lockdown hit, we obviously haven't been near anyone. It's been really nice not being sick for over 6 months. But it also sucks for the kids missing their friends, but they chat on Discord and "meet up" to game. It's still not ideal, but it's what we have to do to keep Dad safe. What other decision is there? Be socially irresponsible? That's not even on the radar for us.

I digress though. Locally, there is a lot of poverty and if they are forced to do online options, that's nice for middle class kids and up, but there are a lot of families barely keeping fed who have no internet and there are still places where no internet is available. They have had 4-5 months to work on this conundrum at least. But they still haven't announced their plans. Other than to say school starts Aug 10th. My friend teaches special ed at the middle school. She'd sure like to know what's going to happen soon with her and her kids! I have no point either, I guess, other than to rehash was a mess we're all in.

@gradchica27 Are your co-ops meeting out west? Locally, our small co-op is planning on in-person meetings as far as I know but I haven't been able to attend church due to keeping Dad safe, so I miss conversations they have in-person that they don't post on the FB group. I feel like I basically don't exist right now since I'm not at church. They've left me behind. I don't think my "church buddies" are as like this as many others locally, but I can't be sure there's not any shade cast on me due to my decision to withdraw for now, considering the attitude of everyone else I know. The other co-op the next town over is doing strictly Zoom classes. I would do that but I'm not really excited about any of the classes enough to go jumping through those hoops. Plus our internet SUCKS, we have ComCrap...I mean Comcast, and Hubby has a lot of conference calls so the bandwidth can't sustain that kind of load. It was being stupid yesterday anyway while the kids were trying to get their school done.

@baconslave , our usual co op is going ahead w in person classes (tbd about masks), but we had already decided to sit out this year before pandemic bc we’re having a hard time fitting our own work in w co op and music. Pandemic decided us for sure on not going—older kids would move to Zoom, and they really didn’t like that this spring. Plus I send them for hands on stuff and social experience...which they’re not getting from Zoom.

Local Classical Conversation am is going ahead as well, from what I hear. Our HS band and choir program is looking for a place to meet in the fall bc their current church home will not let them meet until we reach phase 3. Which may never happen at the rate we’re going. But they are requiring students to be in class or off campus—no study hall or family room to wait. That’s not feasible for 3 kids in 3 classes one after the other, w little guy just hanging around. I can’t sit in the car w them for 3 hrs, and possible locations are all too far to drive there and back for a 1 hr class. So we’re looking into private instrument lessons and piano instruction.

gradchica27 wrote: »

@baconslave , our usual co op is going ahead w in person classes (tbd about masks), but we had already decided to sit out this year before pandemic bc we’re having a hard time fitting our own work in w co op and music. Pandemic decided us for sure on not going—older kids would move to Zoom, and they really didn’t like that this spring. Plus I send them for hands on stuff and social experience...which they’re not getting from Zoom.

Local Classical Conversation am is going ahead as well, from what I hear. Our HS band and choir program is looking for a place to meet in the fall bc their current church home will not let them meet until we reach phase 3. Which may never happen at the rate we’re going. But they are requiring students to be in class or off campus—no study hall or family room to wait. That’s not feasible for 3 kids in 3 classes one after the other, w little guy just hanging around. I can’t sit in the car w them for 3 hrs, and possible locations are all too far to drive there and back for a 1 hr class. So we’re looking into private instrument lessons and piano instruction.

Super interesting. Thanks for replying.
I second you on the co-op being high maintenance. My 16-year-old's classes were so intensive they were basically taught at the college level, which means instruction was good, but there was so much work that he had to put off finishing Biology and Spanish until this summer. He's getting them done now but...it was super stressful at the time and messed up my schedule of courses. I'm still catching up my younger kids from what I had to push off b/c of co-op deadlines last year. And that science fair project...x3 kids all due the same day. My 9-year-old won 2nd place. But getting there...and them all constantly having big papers, projects, or presentations due and a lot of reading b/c the schedule was compressed to smaller than the public school-year to begin with. Plus, the day the co-op meets is basically an entire day of loss of instruction for our non-co-op courses.

Last year I taught the high school Health class. I never want to do that again. So much work and stress! If I had to teach it again it would be easier since I have all the materials, presentations, projects, videos, quizzes and tests made now. But putting all that together was insane on top of dealing with homeschooling 4 kids, one of them graduating soon and all of that extra mess. This year I have to prep my junior for the ACT. And like I said he's already behind my plans since we start the school year in July.

I, too, don't NEED co-op. I'm perfectly capable of doing a good chem lab. And teaching all the courses. I sent them for the classroom experience which they'll need in college, the accountability to an authority they can't try to manipulate, and the social interaction.

I hope you have success finding good private music teachers!

MikePfirrman wrote: »

gradchica27 wrote: »

jenilla1 wrote: »

Covid 19 is bigger than just some flu that a small number die from and everybody else just "recovers." This crap lingers. I'm young and fit and I worry about the long term effects for those who don't die, even healthy young people...

Back in the early days of this thing I had about a week where I was getting hot flashes (without actual fever), randomly waking up in the middle of the night gasping for air, had a constant low grade headache (when I literally never get them) and everything tasted like dirt (wrecked my appetite). At the time, they wouldn't test without a fever, so I was not eligible to test.

It really wasn't that bad of a sickness for me personally. I'd say it was a very, very mild case. It was just stressful because of the whole pandemic and wondering if I had it or not, and whether it was gonna take one of those scary turns for the worse. But it didn't.

Not much suffering at the time, but the lingering after effects have worsened over time. I was good for awhile, but then a few weeks out, lung symptoms started ramping up. It's 4+ months later and I've just been prescribed 2 inhalers because now I have a chronic cough, and pain from chest cartilage inflammation. Gotta get my lungs calmed down - inhalers will hopefully only be temporary. My doctor thinks I probably had covid, but it's been so long that an antibody test likely wouldn't show it anymore.

I'm a healthy, fit life-long runner and mountain biker and I've still been able to exercise throughout all of this, but my pace has been slowed way down, my endurance is lower, and I take more rest days now. Sometimes it feels like part of my lungs are missing. And the random shortness of breath is so bizarre and new to me. But happily, the inhalers seem to be helping! Just grateful I can still get my fitness on. If I couldn't, it would be the end of me. Physical activity is my therapy. It's the joy in my life.

I feel terrible for all those re-habbing from covid. Many have it way worse than me. Ugh. Stay safe everybody. ❤

I hope your after effects are manageable and eventually disappear. That sounds awful and exactly like what I said to my husband—I’m scared of the after effect. Statistically the odds are on my side for survival (Although that’s clearly not a given), but I am hearing more about lingering after effects. My boys and I live for recreational physical activity and the thought of losing significant lung function for any of us is scary and depressing.

I do think if you're in seriously good cardio shape that the effects will be temporary, but there's certainly no guarantees with Covid-19. One of my online rowing buddies is also an epidemiologist (though infectious diseases aren't his specialty). He's also an amazing biker.

He posted up a study last week (I'll see if I can find it) where they believe that strong aerobic functions would be a very protective mechanism against Covid-19, in particular from the lung damage -- the famous cytokine storm.

Since it seems the mechanism of protection is through Superoxide Dismutase, which you can also buy as a supplement, I asked him if the supplement would help (I'm an endurance athlete but many of my siblings can't or won't exercise). He felt that there was no real replacement through supplementation to replace being well trained.

Here's the study he was referring to.

https://neurosciencenews.com/coronavirus-exercise-16169/

I'm like you, I do cardio six or seven hours a week and love it. It would seriously depress me to have impaired lung function that I've worked so hard to improve for many, many years.

Since a good-sized subset of the USRowing women's national team got Covid, we may have a decent but small case study right there, it would seem. We already know the acute phase wasn't necessarily a walk in the park for those very fit women; we'll see if there are longer-term deficits. It doesn't seem like USRowing has been very forthcoming about it, but there's been coverage of individual women who were affected, estimated to be about a dozen of them (not all were able to be tested at the time, but had consistent symptoms).

The one I know was not back at full pre-infection performance after 3 months, and some of her teammates had a longer intial struggle (she seems to feel the most acute phase for her was around a month, but reports it being twice that for some other team members).

https://buffalonews.com/sports/even-for-olympic-gold-medalist-emily-regan-covid-19-was-a-nightmare/article_57fa2f1c-c7c2-11ea-8d3e-13d9f7f6e00d.html

gradchica27 wrote: »

Which leads me to another problem I’m seeing with reopening, esp for schools. What is “sick”? At what point do you trigger an automatic Covid test/quarantine? I’ve had my son sent home from preschool bc he had green snot. The kid has snot from Aug through January. And again from March onward. So do I. Sometimes there’s a brief break bt spring allergies and summer grass pollen. Sometimes not. We’re allergic to SW TN. I had to bring him to the dr and actually say the reason I’m there is “he has green boogers” after having a faucet of snot for months. No other symptoms. Surprise, dr diagnosed allergies.

If it's any consolation, I work in a large human service organization and for the past few weeks have been listening to the two women who sit beside me as they draft policy and procedure for day care centers around exactly those issues. At first it was automatic 14 day isolation for anyone, child or staff, who had a symptom. But that would have meant that probably no center would ever be open so that got scaled back. There are no easy answers. And we're lucky here that we can get same-day test results, although that could change if demand got higher than the lab's capacity.

On the other hand, I do a screening questionnaire every morning at work where I have to assess my own symptoms, and the last question refers vaguely to "feeling unwell". If I answer yes to any question, I'm supposed to self-isolate and get tested. Well, gee, I'm 56 years old and sleep like crap, I generally feel like a bag of *kitten* every morning... so I lie.

The difficulty seems to be difficulty in meeting criteria for testing??

Wher I live, anyone can get tested if they have the insiest symptom - so one could have a runny nose
Iike every other allergy reaction in the past and get tested anyway and get a result by next day.

Ok, so disincentives to testing, like cost or difficulty getting there or not meeting 'sick enough' criteria is going to lead to under reporting and obviously to more spread.

my workplace is being super careful and if you are ill, you self quarantine. period. Regardless of test or not and they do the contact tracing immediately regardless of test or not. We lost our first co worker to this disease last week. So far we have not had any community spread internally but Tx is such a hot spot it's difficult for us to not know anyone at this point. The return to work criteria changes almost weekly and it's a complex flowchart of things but mostly it is 7 days starting the 3rd day after any symptoms are gone. So 10 days post symptom. And no longer is a Dr release required because I don't think Drs want to take the risk and they are pretty busy these days.

Again things continue to change rapidly but mostly as we learn more and deal with more I think.

Diatonic12 wrote: »

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200710212247.htm

Study links abnormally high blood sugar with higher risk of death in COVID-19 patients not previously diagnosed with diabetes
Date:
July 10, 2020


https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/26227/20200626/high-blood-sugar-levels-detected-coronavirus-patients-suggesting-covid-19.htm


High Blood Sugar Levels Detected in Coronavirus Patients, Suggesting COVID-19 Triggers Diabetes

So many weird symptoms and effects. Very scary disease this thing. Hope all it’s little legs crack off and it dries up in the dust.

Transmission

The onset and duration of viral shedding and the period of infectiousness for COVID-19 are not yet known with certainty. Based on current evidence, scientists believe that persons with mild to moderate COVID-19 may shed replication-competent SARS-CoV-2 for up to 10 days following symptom onset, while a small fraction of persons with severe COVID-19, including immunocompromised persons, may shed replication-competent virus for up to 20 days. It is possible that SARS-CoV-2 RNA may be detectable in the upper or lower respiratory tract for weeks after illness onset, similar to infections with MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV. However, detection of viral RNA does not necessarily mean that infectious virus is present. Based on existing literature, the incubation period (the time from exposure to development of symptoms) of SARS-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses (e.g., MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV) ranges from 2–14 days.

CDC