Coronavirus prep
Replies
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snowflake954 wrote: »
Was anyone hospitalized?
The cases that we have here are mostly Delta, but hospitalizations and intensive care for COVID are way down.
No, thanks, I edited my post to add that no one needed to be hospitalized.0 -
kshama2001 wrote: »
@SModa61: does this happen to be Cymbalta? I've been prescribed this recently, am waiting for it to arrive in the mail, and meanwhile am wondering about all the side effects I've read about
I haven't been able to take the last two anti-anxiety meds so my doctor is starting me on a very low dose - 20 mg. And, funny story, my soon to be 84 yo mother has recently been switched to Cymbalta for pain (and depression) and she is getting 30 mg.
@kshama2001 OMG you guessed the exact med! I think her initial dose was 10 mg and if I recall correctly, she is now 10 mg twice a day. I hope you and your mother both benefit from the medication!3 -
greyhoundwalker wrote: »
In the UK we have a shortage of fuel (petrol/diesel) caused by shortage of long haul lorry drivers. People here are behaving like they did with toilet rolls back at the beginning of the pandemic. Queuing up to squeeze a tiny bit in their tanks to keep them full, causing long tailbacks and blocking roads and entrances. Luckily I already filled up last week and if I’m careful what I have will last me 2-3 weeks when hopefully people have calmed down.
Time for electric cars!
Just charge them up at home.
I've been driving electric for two years now. I don't miss the gas station stops in the freezing cold, or everytime I'm already late. lol5 -
HawkingRadiation wrote: »
Time for electric cars!
Just charge them up at home.
I've been driving electric for two years now. I don't miss the gas station stops in the freezing cold, or everytime I'm already late. lol
The US doesn't have the raw materials needed for batteries. Also poor chip supplies. Electric cars use 10X the number of chips conventional vehicles do.
Electric vehicles are a novelty unit these issues are addressed.
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »
The US doesn't have the raw materials needed for batteries. Also poor chip supplies. Electric cars use 10X the number of chips conventional vehicles do.
Electric vehicles are a novelty unit these issues are addressed.
And infrastructure. The only charging station I've ever seen in my life is at my doctor's office. I live in an old neighborhood near downtown in a pretty large city. Whether you're in a house or an apartment, it's not likely you have a garage to put a charging outlet in. I can't think of anyone I know in the neighborhood that even has a garage, much less one you could park a modern car in. It's all street parking and you'd need one heck of an extension cord to charge a car! Electric cars are intriguing, but not enough to banish myself to outer suburbia where I'd have the space to plug it in 5 -
In the San Francisco bay area we have plenty of charging stations (there's even a bank of 8 in our downtown parking garage, which is about a ten minute walk). A lot of parking lots have a couple, and many are free. We have a Bolt with an ideal range of 200 miles per full charge (a lovely fantasy), but there's plenty of miles to get my husband back and forth to work. We challenge ourselves with never having to pay for charging Realistically, we can't take the car on trips where we would have to charge along the way since we can't rely on there being a station when we need it, but we are fortunate that our circumstances allow us the luxury of having an electric car that reduces our fuel costs.
Of course, we're living on the edge, since there's always the possibility the battery will blow up before we get a replacement. Life has it's tradeoffs
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HawkingRadiation wrote: »
Time for electric cars!
Just charge them up at home.
I've been driving electric for two years now. I don't miss the gas station stops in the freezing cold, or everytime I'm already late. lol
Get back to me when there’s an electric van that can hold a power wheelchair, and doesn’t cost $50K or more.7 -
Italy has made the decision to go with electric (or hybrid) cars. I'm seeing more and more hybrids on the streets. The renter of one of our parking spaces asked my husband to authorize an electric hookup for his new hybrid. Going to the pool I pass a big government building. Out front are parked their government provided cars--75% are hybrids.
Sorry for the hyjack. Maybe we should start a new thread?6 -
HawkingRadiation wrote: »
Time for electric cars!
Just charge them up at home.
I've been driving electric for two years now. I don't miss the gas station stops in the freezing cold, or everytime I'm already late. lol
I love the idea of an electric car, but as has been mentioned, lack of infrastructure, chip shortages, and the lack of raw materials to produce batteries, not to mention the price tag kind of makes it a non-starter right now. There are a handful of charging stations in NM, most of which are in Santa Fe or the ABQ metro area. If you're just cruising around the metro or Santa Fe, you'd be fine, but NM is a large geographical state so getting around anywhere else would be a problem. I couldn't even get to my sister's house on a charge that most of these hold.
I would say right now, it's still in the early adopter phase. Definitely more out there these days, but infrastructure is a big issue IMO if you drive a lot. I drive roughly 20K miles per year.5 -
Theoldguy1 wrote: »
The US doesn't have the raw materials needed for batteries. Also poor chip supplies. Electric cars use 10X the number of chips conventional vehicles do.
Electric vehicles are a novelty unit these issues are addressed.
Tesla has figured out how to take old chips, reprogram them, and use in new vehicles. Elon Musk shared this in August as the explanation why Tesla has not been affected by the chip shortage as other vehicle manufacturers have been. So in reality, the chip supply is more relevant to traditional gas vehicles made by major automotive manufacturers and not electric Tesla vehicles. Obviously any electric cars made by other manufacturers will be affected by the chip shortage just like gas cars.3 -
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.09.10.21263385v2
J&J released study data, showing around 80% effectiveness against moderate disease and against hospitalization. Study cohort was almost 400,000 people and was done over this summer so it includes Delta.
They also released data reporting a small lab study that didn't seem to show much improvement from a 2 dose initial dose rather than the one. It does seem to show a nice boost from a booster 6 months out. But again this was a Petrie dish study and I believe it is preprint.
Those effectiveness numbers are pretty good considering they include delta.6 -
Not everyone uses the media. I informed someone about to take a longer road trip that there were pressures on the fuel system caused by a shortage of drivers not poor fuel levels and he had not heard. People filling up is happening, so petrol stations are out of fuel till their next delivery arrives.
I observed a stream of traffic going to one supermarket yesterday which was out of fuel till they get a delivery. At a service station near a traffic light controlled crossing cars were backing up to the lights and others were trying to cross lanes. Then at the nearest supermarket it was impossible to get into the carpark for food, for the line of vehicles going to the pumps. Its outrageous. Given a week I would hope those who actually use less fuel will not be filling up again leaving more for more responsible persons.
This made the news on public radio here in the US tonight. (And likely other nights - I mostly listen in my car, and am not in my car most days and don't always listen to the news when I am.)
When I got home first I told my partner that I'd forgotten to leave some "lovely filth" at Mom's (compost; a reference to a scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail) and then I told him about the fuel issues story, and he immediately started reciting this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2c-X8HiBng 4 -
And infrastructure. The only charging station I've ever seen in my life is at my doctor's office. I live in an old neighborhood near downtown in a pretty large city. Whether you're in a house or an apartment, it's not likely you have a garage to put a charging outlet in. I can't think of anyone I know in the neighborhood that even has a garage, much less one you could park a modern car in. It's all street parking and you'd need one heck of an extension cord to charge a car! Electric cars are intriguing, but not enough to banish myself to outer suburbia where I'd have the space to plug it in
Last week, I noticed a charging station for the first time in our soon to be new town. My partner said there is also a station at the hospital in our soon to be old city.
I googled "charging stations near me" and see there are actually a lot - I'd just never noticed.
I don't know how this work - do you have to leave your car on the charger for hours? I guess the hospital is a good location for this. Maybe they should put them at libraries.2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »
Last week, I noticed a charging station for the first time in our soon to be new town. My partner said there is also a station at the hospital in our soon to be old city.
I googled "charging stations near me" and see there are actually a lot - I'd just never noticed.
I don't know how this work - do you have to leave your car on the charger for hours? I guess the hospital is a good location for this. Maybe they should put them at libraries.
Here they talk about "super charging" which would get you a charge in less time. I really don't know how it works though. We're still just beginning. However, Rome is to go electric in the future--there is a plan. 3 -
Normally you never charge at a charging station. My Tesla has a 300 mi charge capacity. The newer ones will have 500mi (soon or already?) I commute about 100 mi total each day, so theoretically need to charge it up once every couple of days. I just plug it in my garage every night though.
I agree that this is not currently viable for apartment dwellers. Constantly supercharging the car is not considered good for the battery.
Apologies, I didn't mean to hijack thread.
I live in a high-vacc state and hubbie and I are both double-Pfizer. We have a 3 yr old that we are always very worried about though. I don't want him to end up with lifetime heart/lung problems because there are people who still won't get vacc'd.
In a few years we will find out just how much damage the virus has wreaked on even the 'mild' cases.
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On the topic of electric cars, due to the time required to charge a vehicle, I can’t comprehend how charging would be handled for residents of large apartment/condo buildings.1
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And infrastructure. The only charging station I've ever seen in my life is at my doctor's office. I live in an old neighborhood near downtown in a pretty large city. Whether you're in a house or an apartment, it's not likely you have a garage to put a charging outlet in. I can't think of anyone I know in the neighborhood that even has a garage, much less one you could park a modern car in. It's all street parking and you'd need one heck of an extension cord to charge a car! Electric cars are intriguing, but not enough to banish myself to outer suburbia where I'd have the space to plug it in
There's a surprising amount in the US: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30031153/ev-charging-guide/
Apparently as of March 2020, there were 1,645 in the Chicago metro area (where I live), and there are more now. I figured there had to be plenty although I haven't personally noticed them, since I see plenty of electric cars. We are only the 5th ranked metro area in number of chargers.2 -
kshama2001 wrote: »
Last week, I noticed a charging station for the first time in our soon to be new town. My partner said there is also a station at the hospital in our soon to be old city.
I googled "charging stations near me" and see there are actually a lot - I'd just never noticed.
I don't know how this work - do you have to leave your car on the charger for hours? I guess the hospital is a good location for this. Maybe they should put them at libraries.
Apparently the fast chargers will charge to 80% in 30 minutes. Most people do it at home, however -- the site I linked above says 80% of charging is at home and a decent amount is at work.3 -
There's a surprising amount in the US: https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a30031153/ev-charging-guide/
Apparently as of March 2020, there were 1,645 in the Chicago metro area (where I live), and there are more now. I figured there had to be plenty although I haven't personally noticed them, since I see plenty of electric cars. We are only the 5th ranked metro area in number of chargers.
There are 1.7M vehicles registered in Cook County, which isn't all of the Chicago metro area. There is a lot of expensive work needed be for EVs could even be a consideration for a small part of the registered vehicles.2 -
https://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/threads/battery-based-electric-vehicles-of-today-and-tomorrow.418191/
Here is an EV thread I started two years ago to help another thread stay on subject when we bought our 2016 Nissan leaf SL. I am sure there are others.
It's not behind a paywall but like here you have to register to post. As you can read it is a tractor/rural living theme. Currently it is 474 pages long and some have a need to chase 🐰.
Living with long Covid now for 9 months I think this thread needs to stay on focus. Since most will drive or own an EV some day we are told EVs may be more healthy for our lungs than tail pipe emissions yet the anti EV force is strong but they don't have science supporting their anti views.
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Theoldguy1 wrote: »
There are 1.7M vehicles registered in Cook County, which isn't all of the Chicago metro area. There is a lot of expensive work needed be for EVs could even be a consideration for a small part of the registered vehicles.
But EVs already are a small part of the registered vehicles. I see them all the time. I'm not expecting everyone to switch out their existing cars for an EV. (I don't currently have any desire for an EV, as I don't drive that much and am perfectly happy with my hybrid.)
The point is that there are lots of charging stations already, so someone who gets one is likely (at least in a number of areas) to be near more than they realize. I haven't sought them out, but they are in existence near me, although I'd not bothered to look around to find one, so hadn't realized until I looked them up.
Also, a large number of vehicles registered in Cook County (not to mention non Cook parts of Chicago metro) are going to belong to people with garages (I live in Chicago proper and have a garage), and the charging stations seem to be important for those who have EVs and nowhere at home to charge them). Like I noted before, approximately 80% of charging is at home.2 -
Paywall0
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https://youtu.be/_ItkYhFiGBI. As they say time changes all things. It seems like reality is starting to sink into the world's mind how lockdowns are hurting the poor and children the most while none of the vaccines have a long-term pandemic stopping effect and most of the world is not going to be vaccinated. We had to give vaccines a shot. They saved many as we learned better how to treat/live with it.
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Covid will likely be endemic (this is not news, people have been acknowledging that for a while, and it is different than a continuing pandemic), but that's not such a terrible thing in the long run and it certainly doesn't mean that vaccines did not work/should now be dismissed as a failure.
A couple of pieces I found reasonable and helpful:
https://cspicenter.org/blog/waronscience/why-covid-19-is-here-to-stay-and-why-you-shouldnt-worry-about-it/
"Sooner or later, as a result of both infections and vaccination, virtually everyone will develop some immunity against SARS-CoV-2. This immunity will not always prevent infection, but even if someone who has been vaccinated or previously infected gets reinfected, they will typically develop only a mild form of the disease, because while still not perfect the protection against severe illness that immunity confers is better and doesn’t wane as quickly as protection against infection. Even the protection against severe illness will likely wane after a while, but this won’t really be a problem because, since immunity is much less effective against infection and new people are going to get born who are completely susceptible because they have never been infected yet and won’t be vaccinated, the virus will continue to circulate so most people will be reinfected every few years. Most people see that as a bug, but in a way, it may actually be a feature. Indeed, those reinfections will typically be mild because immunity protects well against severe illness, but they will update immunity and therefore ensure that, the next time someone is infected, this reinfection is also mild....
Eventually most people will have a primary infection when they’re children, which is perfectly harmless and, together with subsequent infections, will protect them against severe illness later, when infection would be more dangerous if they didn’t have any immunity. Since once people have immunity, infections are generally mild, most people likely won’t even bother getting vaccinated because the probability of becoming seriously ill due to SARS-CoV-2 will be very small since 1) the risk of getting infected in the first place will be low because immunity still offers some protection against infection and the virus will circulate much less after it has become endemic and 2) even if they are infected they will typically be well protected against severe illness. Elderly people will be the exception because their immune system is compromised, so for them it will make sense to get a vaccine booster on a regular basis and I expect that it’s what most of them will do, as they already do against the flu. Once it has become endemic, which again will take a few years or even decades for the transition to be fully over, SARS-CoV-2 will become just another respiratory virus and will never cause the damages it has just wrought on us again. At last, it will have become “just like the flu”, except that it probably won’t be as bad as the flu if only because immunity will be more effective and longer-lasting...."
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/08/how-we-live-coronavirus-forever/619783/
"The current spikes in cases and deaths are the result of a novel coronavirus meeting naive immune systems. When enough people have gained some immunity through either vaccination or infection—preferably vaccination—the coronavirus will transition to what epidemiologists call “endemic.” It won’t be eliminated, but it won’t upend our lives anymore.
With that blanket of initial immunity laid down, there will be fewer hospitalizations and fewer deaths from COVID-19. Boosters can periodically re-up immunity too. Cases may continue to rise and fall in this scenario, perhaps seasonally, but the worst outcomes will be avoided.
We don’t know exactly how the four common-cold coronaviruses first came to infect humans, but some have speculated that at least one also began with a pandemic. If immunity to the new coronavirus wanes like it does with these others, then it will keep causing reinfections and breakthrough infections, more and more of them over time, but still mild enough. We’ll have to adjust our thinking about COVID-19 too. The coronavirus is not something we can avoid forever; we have to prepare for the possibility that we will all get exposed one way or another. “This is something we’re going to have to live with,” says Richard Webby, an infectious-disease researcher at St. Jude. “And so long as it’s not impacting health care as a whole, then I think we can.” The coronavirus will no longer be novel—to our immune systems or our society....
The transition to endemic COVID-19 is also a psychological one. When everyone has some immunity, a COVID-19 diagnosis becomes as routine as diagnosis of strep or flu—not good news, but not a reason for particular fear or worry or embarrassment either. That means unlearning a year of messaging that said COVID-19 was not just a flu. If the confusion around the CDC dropping mask recommendations for the vaccinated earlier this summer is any indication, this transition to endemicity might be psychologically rocky. Reopening felt too fast for some, too slow for others. “People are having a hard time understanding one another’s risk tolerance,” says Julie Downs, a psychologist who studies health decisions at Carnegie Mellon University."
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Yeah learning to live with endemic Covid is going to be interesting. I have been home sick all week with a bad cold/flu (not Covid) - I need to go back into the office next week but I have a really bad cough which experience tells me will probably linger for a while. Not sure what to do - post viral cough can linger for weeks - and I can't stay home that long.9
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It seems like a wild card with endemic Covid is figuring out long-haul Covid (and any other downstream issues that may emerge post-infection longer term, if some do).
On another Covid subtopic, it seems like the new Merck Coronavirus treatment that's all over the news could turn out to be a helpful thing. Just to pick out one random mainstream source:
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/mercks-covid-19-pill-cuts-risk-death-hospitalization-by-50-study-2021-10-01/8 -
The transition to endemic COVID-19 is also a psychological one. When everyone has some immunity, a COVID-19 diagnosis becomes as routine as diagnosis of strep or flu—not good news, but not a reason for particular fear or worry or embarrassment either. That means unlearning a year of messaging that said COVID-19 was not just a flu. If the confusion around the CDC dropping mask recommendations for the vaccinated earlier this summer is any indication, this transition to endemicity might be psychologically rocky. Reopening felt too fast for some, too slow for others. “People are having a hard time understanding one another’s risk tolerance,” says Julie Downs, a psychologist who studies health decisions at Carnegie Mellon University."
It will be interesting to see how that all plays out. It's been difficult enough for health authorities to convince some folks that Covid needed to be taken seriously but for others it has instilled genuine terror. I think that will be a difficult switch to flip.
One of the grocery stores where I shop frequently is still disinfecting the checkout belt between customers, despite the change in messaging about surface contamination quite a while back.
On the other hand, we've all learned some useful practices about disease prevention that will hopefully serve to reduce germ transmission going forward. One of my coworkers who goes into child care facilities frequently caught every passing bug and was constantly sick, in one year she had strep twice and pneumonia once. She says she will continue mask-wearing indefinitely.7 -
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kshama2001 wrote: »
Don't you expect Australia to become red hot when they open up like most western nations are doing?5 -
GaleHawkins wrote: »
Don't you expect Australia to become red hot when they open up like most western nations are doing?
Not if everyone's vaxxed.7
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i1GmUu3c28Y
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