Coronavirus prep

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Replies

  • 33gail33
    33gail33 Posts: 1,155 Member
    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.

    I plan to continue working from home as much as possible. I have been going into the office throughout, lock downs affected how much time I spent at the office, but we were never locked out completely. I don't ever plan on going back to the office 5 days a week - right now I am doing 2 in the office and 3 at home which works well for me.

    Other than that nothing much changed for me. We isolated at the very beginning out of fear of health care capacity if we got sick, but we have been vaccinated for close to a year now. Since we got our vaccines the only restrictions we have followed are those that were mandated - as soon as restaurants opened we went back to dining in, when stores opened we went back to shopping in person, since gatherings were allowed we have family/friend get togethers. Took a little local trip which included hotel stay earlier this month. Pretty much back to my regular life. Was planning a vacation in January which Omicron ruined - now I can't go until May (because of work) - but plan on taking one then. I rarely even thing about Covid anymore.
  • ReenieHJ
    ReenieHJ Posts: 9,724 Member
    SuzySunshine99 wrote: »
    ReenieHJ wrote: »
    Seeing many more people without masks now, I'm just curious as to area's numbers of Covid cases and deaths. I haven't kept up but have things improved that much?

    In most areas, yes, it has improved that much. But it depends on where you are...there are still hotspots. For in the U.S., here's a county-by-county map from the CDC...
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/community-levels.html

    Thanks for that :) We're in a medium level.
  • The_Enginerd
    The_Enginerd Posts: 3,982 Member
    edited March 2022
    SuzySunshine99 wrote: »
    ReenieHJ wrote: »
    Seeing many more people without masks now, I'm just curious as to area's numbers of Covid cases and deaths. I haven't kept up but have things improved that much?

    In most areas, yes, it has improved that much. But it depends on where you are...there are still hotspots. For in the U.S., here's a county-by-county map from the CDC...
    https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/science/community-levels.html

    The CDC currently has my county and all surrounding areas in the Low category.

    The cases were low and continuing to drop rapidly here when the mask mandate was lifted, and cases has continued to drop. Masking seems to average around 50% right now the several times I've gone to the grocery store this week. I kept wearing a mask the first week after the mandate was lifted and kept an eye out on our case numbers. They continue to drop rapidly, so at this point, it feels safe to stop for day to day life.
  • oocdc2
    oocdc2 Posts: 1,361 Member
    Couple of thoughts:

    1. No more "Disagree" button, which was a big issue on this thread and others. I'm glad it's gone.
    2. I work in state government, and they just relaxed the mask mandates and health surveys for employees starting today. Employees only have to be masked if they have been exposed to COVID per CDC protocols. Testing for unvaccinated employees continues.
  • glassyo
    glassyo Posts: 7,582 Member
    oocdc2 wrote: »
    Couple of thoughts:

    1. No more "Disagree" button, which was a big issue on this thread and others. I'm glad it's gone.
    2. I work in state government, and they just relaxed the mask mandates and health surveys for employees starting today. Employees only have to be masked if they have been exposed to COVID per CDC protocols. Testing for unvaccinated employees continues.

    I need the disagree button for this. :p
  • cwolfman13
    cwolfman13 Posts: 41,876 Member
    edited March 2022
    ReenieHJ wrote: »
    Seeing many more people without masks now, I'm just curious as to area's numbers of Covid cases and deaths. I haven't kept up but have things improved that much?

    My state is pretty much back to pre-pandemic overall hospitalization levels and COVID deaths are way, way down to almost be non-existent. Tracking new cases is pretty much meaningless at this point...there have been a ton of them since December but it's like trying to count the number of new cases of the common cold. My state saw the brunt of it in January and numbers have fallen off substantially over the last couple of months...which is either attributable to declining new cases or people just going about their lives and no longer testing every time they have a sniffle...probably a combination of both.

    My state lifted all COVID related mandates, including mask requirements. We were pretty heavy mask compliant here, and I hardly see anyone with a mask on these days. I had a dentist appointment this morning and took one with me because I wasn't sure...but they weren't even required there except by employees.

    According the the CDC, most of my state is Green
  • ythannah
    ythannah Posts: 4,365 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: 27,881 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: 27,881 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: 13,525 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: 3,673 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: 2,844 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.

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