How are you dealing with life now with the Covid-19 virus situation? (1 Viewer)

[Josh Steinberg]

I use Spock’s advice to rationalize it.

“The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.”

I think you can make that work as justification for using your sick days too - the needs of the many (your coworkers who aren’t sick and need to stay healthy) outweigh the needs of the few (the sick person who isn’t used to staying home).

 

[bujaki]

Thanks. Me too. I have too much going on at work and felt really guilty and a bit ashamed for calling out today so I could quarantine and keep others safe. It’s how I was raised (don’t call out sick, ever, for any reason… ever) so, even though I know it’s the right thing to do, I still feel awful for doing it.

You're all doing the right thing. I wish your wife a speedy recovery and no contagion to you.

 

[Clinton McClure]

Well, I had a good run but Covid finally caught up with me. I imagine my wife gave it to me Thursday evening while she was starting to feel bad before she tested positive. It took a full 15 minutes for my test to show positive today. My wife’s viral load is so high that hers went positive in less than a minute. Her test strip is on top and mine is on the bottom. So far, I just have a low grade fever of 99.8° and a slightly scratchy throat. She has a recurring fever at night, horrible cough, headache, congestion, and barely has a voice. Yesterday and this morning, she sounded like she had whooping cough.

 

[Mark Booth]

EVERYONE is going to eventually get COVID. Everyone except me and my wife (famous last words). At least, that's what we hope.

We are among the very few that continue to wear KN95 masks RELIGIOUSLY when we are near others. We do not eat in indoor restaurants either. Nor even in a crowded outdoor seating area.

We've been going to our favorite casino pretty regularly. Lots of other people, most without masks. But we wear our masks and don't touch our faces. We haven't been infected (yet). Knock on wood.

Mark

 

[Clinton McClure]

So far, my symptoms have been mild. I ran a fever between 100° and 101° for two days and have been tired and had minor congestion and a slightly scratchy throat that makes me dry cough every once in a while. This is most likely from post nasal drip. My worst symptoms are a stuffy nose with lots of sneezing. Since I’m off work, I took lots of naps yesterday and today.

My wife, on the other hand, describes her symptoms as feeling like she has the flu with strep throat. She’s had a headache and bad cough since Friday (it’s been productive since Sunday) and she’s just starting to regain her voice today. I think she slept most of yesterday in between coughing fits.

 

[Mark Booth]

Clinton, Did either one of you lose your sense of taste or smell? Just curious.

Hope you both feel better ASAP!

Mark

 

[Clinton McClure]

Clinton, Did either one of you lose your sense of taste or smell? Just curious.

Hope you both feel better ASAP!

Mark

My wife has lost most of her sense of taste. She can only taste very sweet and very spicy now. Everything in between is gone. She still has a productive cough (who knew the body could make so much phlegm?) and is sleeping most of the day. Her fever has been gone for a few days now. It’s hit her especially hard because she has a chronic immune system issue (gluten intolerant with IBS) plus she’s diabetic (non-insulin dependent) and the Covid has caused her sugar to remain 160-190 for a week now.

My taste and smell have both been unaffected. My biggest issue is stuffiness with sudden runny nose and lots of sneezing. Yesterday, my occasional cough increased in intensity and I’m now coughing fairly regularly, although it’s dry and non-productive at this time. Also, the stuffiness has affected my hearing and everything sounds muffled so I’m having to turn movies and tv shows up louder than I normally would just to understand dialogue.

To add insult to injury, the humidity in Arkansas has been absurdly high for the past week causing both of our heat pumps to not cool very well. They were both serviced a month ago so they should have been ready for summer, but the humidity has been unprecedented and they simply can’t keep up. The master bedroom upstairs is getting down into the low 70s at night and up into the mid-80s during the day and all of downstairs is mid 70s. This is with both the upstairs and downstairs thermostats set on 68° and several large Vornado 783 whole-room air circulator fans strategically placed and running nonstop to create airflow for passive cooling. The heat doesn’t bother me, but my wife is the exact opposite. So she doesn’t have to keep going up and down the stairs while she’s sick, my wife has been sleeping in the guest bedroom downstairs and it was hitting above 80° in there by noon yesterday so I broke down and bought a portable 10,000 BTU air conditioner for that room. (Don’t worry - I bought online from Lowes and picked up contactless curbside so all the loader had to do was shove the unit in the open hatch of the waiting SUV and he never got within 6 feet of me, plus I was masked the entire time.) After about 3 hours of runtime, the temp had dropped from 81° to 70° and she was able to sleep comfortably last night for the first time in a week.

 

[Clinton McClure]

I finally tested negative Sunday afternoon and was able to return to work Monday morning. My wife was negative and returned to work last Tuesday. Besides a nagging dry cough, I’m feeling pretty good.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

That’s great to hear, so glad you’re on the mend! Best wishes to your wife as well.

 

[jayembee]

So...my wife was going to be going over to spend part of today with her parents. But she talked to her father earlier, who said that her mother tested positive (he hasn't been tested just yet, but will be doing so). The last time my wife spent any time with them was last weekend, but I took my FIL to a medical appointment on Monday, and took both of my PIL to the hairdresser on Tuesday.

So...my wife and I took home tests today (Quidel QuickVue). Our results -- assuming we didn't screw it up -- were negative. I wouldn't have been surprised if we were positive, despite our both being completely asymptomatic. But we've managed to stay (to our knowledge) Covid-free since the beginning of the pandemic, and figured it was only a matter of time before we got it. We've both been vaxxed and boosted (only the first booster, though; we've been dragging our heels about getting the second).

I've been lax lately about wearing a mask all the time when I'm out. I've tended to wear one if I'm going to a store where there's likely to be a significant density of people, but if I don't think there will be too many people for the space, I won't bother. I may be rethinking that.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I've tended to wear one if I'm going to a store where there's likely to be a significant density of people, but if I don't think there will be too many people for the space, I won't bother. I may be rethinking that.

My personal feeling of late is that it’s worth it for me to wear it at a store or any other similar errand because grocery shopping isn’t worth potentially getting gravely ill over. I feel like it’s one thing to get sick because I’ve been in close quarters with family or friends I love spending time with (assuming an imaginary world where I actually had the time to do those things!), but that I’d be really bummed if I contracted it picking up toilet paper.

 

[Kevin Hewell]

I'm worried that with the long fourth weekend, we will see another spike in illnesses. I have eight more testing kits so I will be testing quite a bit next week even though I only go to the stores every now and then. If I catch it I don't want to spread it around.

I've been fully vaxed with both boosters.

 

[Malcolm R]

It was my understanding that the home tests don't detect COVID unless you actually have flu-like symptoms. Random home testing would seem to almost assuredly always return a negative if you are not feeling sick.

My state has stopped reporting case counts since May, so no one really knows what is spreading around here. They say with all the home testing with results that are not reported and others that may be symptomatic but don't get tested at all, the numbers were not even close to accurate so they've stopped sharing them.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

It was my understanding that the home tests don't detect COVID unless you actually have flu-like symptoms.

That wasn’t my understanding, though we’ve gotten so much…incomplete information that who can say anymore.

I have had not firsthand experience but the experiences of people close to me that I trust who have caught asymptomatic positives because of rapid testing.

Omicron seems to have sped up the timeline from weeks to days - it seems like in many cases, if you think you were exposed, self test on days 2-5 after exposure, and if they all come back negative, you’re probably in the clear.

 

[Clinton McClure]

From what I understand, the rapid NAAT test is more sensitive and more likely to pick up trace amounts of virus in asymptomatic people than home tests, however, the home tests are pretty accurate. Both of our first positive tests took close to 15 minutes to show the sample line, as did my wife’s test on day 11 and mine on day 14 as we were recovering. At the height of our sickness, our viral loads were so high the sample line would appear within 30 seconds. In all, we burnt through either 17 or 19 home tests and I’m so glad they were all the freebies offered by the usps.

 

[jayembee]

I'm worried that with the long fourth weekend, we will see another spike in illnesses.

When my wife and I were watching the NBC national news last night, there was a story about the Boston Pops 4th of July Concert at the Hatch Shell making a comeback this year after being absent the last two. We saw images of previous years' concerts with crowds packed together like sardines, and I said, "That looks like a giant incipient outbreak of Covid to me."

(I was at a couple of these concerts back in the 80s, and it was crowded enough then that I felt no need to ever go again. I can only imagine it's gotten worse since then. So even Covid aside, I've no interest in going.)

 

[DaveF]

What is understood from 2020 and 2021 was that giant crowds outdoors were not superspreader events.

The biggest risk is being indoors, especially if crowded.

In practical terms for myself: Last month I didn’t worry about walking Disney parks or standing in lines, but put my mask on in interior lines and rides to be cautious.

 

[jayembee]

I'm not sure about outdoor events. Seems to me that big motorcycle event in Wisconsin? Michigan? was a super-spreader event, and I believe that was mostly an outdoor thing. I could be misremembering, but I think a similar event here in New Hampshire (we have "Motorcycle Week" here every year in June) also resulted in a bunch of Covid infections.

 

[Josh Steinberg]

I'm not sure about outdoor events. Seems to me that big motorcycle event in Wisconsin? Michigan? was a super-spreader event, and I believe that was mostly an outdoor thing. I could be misremembering, but I think a similar event here in New Hampshire (we have "Motorcycle Week" here every year in June) also resulted in a bunch of Covid infections.

From what I remember, what made it a superspreader wasn’t the outdoor event itself but the indoor components - people packing inside bars, congregating in the indoor portions of the host venues, etc.

There is possibility of outdoor transmission when there’s little air movement and people packed in together - I’ve seen reports of people picking it up in the general admission mosh pit in front of the stage at an outdoor stadium show with people jumping all over each other and body surfing, but people just sitting in the stands were fine. I’ve read a few epidemiologists and doctors say that if you can feel the air moving around you or wind on your face, it’s probably fine.

My takeaway is that I’d probably do an outdoor concert in a seated venue or in a relaxed general admission lawn setting, but that I’d mask up during the high foot traffic parts of the visit and while inside indoor areas of the venue. So mask off at my outdoor seat, but mask on while going through the indoor concourse to reach the outdoor seat, in the restroom, and maybe outdoors while entering/exiting if it’s one of those packed crowds with thousands of people slowly lumbering in one direction.

 

[DaveF]

I'm not sure about outdoor events. Seems to me that big motorcycle event in Wisconsin? Michigan? was a super-spreader event, and I believe that was mostly an outdoor thing. I could be misremembering, but I think a similar event here in New Hampshire (we have "Motorcycle Week" here every year in June) also resulted in a bunch of Covid infections.

As Josh said, what I read at the time was any outbreak from Sturgiss was attributed to all the indoors dining and bars and restaurants.

I press on this because we (collectively) need to stop denigrating people for going outside during a pandemic.

Especially in 2020, there was significant legal obstacles (public parks being closed, pools closed) and animosity from the camps trying to take the pandemic seriously.

I was sympathetic to those positions back then. I stopped going to the local farmers market summer of 2020 because it was getting so crowded and I was uncertain even masked if it was safe.

In hindsight, we know better. Being outside is the safest place to socialize, we’ve learned. Remarkably, mass gatherings, last I read, are not correlated to superspreader events.

I believe we should not mock or discourage people from social activities outside. This is no longer a fact-based attitude. Rather, if we’re serious, we should strongly encourage outdoor activities.

IMO.

And if Boston Pops 4th event turns out to be a major spreader event, then I’m wrong.