Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #112

[BetteDavisEyes]

I tested myself just this morning. For the last several mornings I've woken up with a stuffy nose. I've been pretty sure it's just from working outside in a dusty yard (digging in dry dirt as part of a landscaping project), especially because once I blow my nose, it's no longer stuffed up until the next morning.

But I was headed to a relatively crowded event this morning, an outdoor community breakfast, and the stuffy nose seemed a bit more than yesterday. So I tested just in case. Negative. I know the tests aren't highly reliable but lacking any other symptoms I decided that was sufficient.

I'm not a physician nor do I play one on TV, but your symptoms sound like allergies. I typically have four bouts of seasonal allergies/cough variant asthma each year. I'm actually in the midst of the summer session right now - continuous runny nose, itchy watery eyes, dry cough mostly at night. My symptoms are mild and not troublesome enough to take Claritin or use Flonase, but I do use my cortico-steroidal inhaler once daily.

Are you using an OTC allergy medication? DH takes Claritin when he is going to be cutting the lawn or working outdoors because he has allergies, too. He mostly sneezes - hard enough to blow the roof off

 

[slowpoke]

We went through a case of 86 tests in 4 days this week.
One box with two tests for each member of a family, free to take at the desk.
Many people still have not stopped masking, including coworkers.
At this point, the denial of the potential is still strong. Why wouldn't you test if you think you even have a cold? That's what I don't get.

I recently recovered from a long illness (about 1.5 months) of something—likely a bad flu and not Covid. I have a bunch of home tests (some may be expired by now,though) but did not test myself.

Here are my excuses (insert sheepish look here):

I almost certainly caught whatever I had from my husband, as he was ill first several days before I started not feeling well.

He tested himself two separate occasions/days during the illness, to a negative result both times.

I felt so unwell that I didn’t feel like opening up the box and fiddling with all the steps.

I don’t work, so I don’t have to leave the house—and I didn’t.

 

[gremlin444]

I am so very tired of having long Covid. After 2 years of this, I no longer remember what it feels like to not have painful joints, no tinnitus, and no brain fog. My high schooler has it too, and my heart just breaks for him for all he's going through. And the school just doesn't get it.

 

[BetteDavisEyes]

Biden has COVID-19 and didn’t wear a mask. The CDC’s guidelines say he doesn’t have to.

Biden emerged bare-faced from the motorcade after he arrived at the airport in Las Vegas, where he had made several appearances, and boarded Air Force One.

www.nbcnews.com

What the CDC says​

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention encourages people recovering from COVID-19 or any other respiratory illness to wear masks as part of an overall strategy to reduce transmission, but masks are not mandated.

The CDC recommends that people “stay home and away from others” if they’re feeling sick. They say people can resume normal activities when symptoms have started to improve and the person no longer has a fever.

The CDC describes masks as an “additional strategy” for preventing disease spread, but it generally leaves it up to individuals to decide whether to use them. It calls masks “especially helpful” when someone is sick and suggests they be used as a precaution during recovery...

What the White House says​

The White House has not responded to an emailed request for comment about why Biden chose not to wear a mask...

 

[Gemmie]

I recently recovered from a long illness (about 1.5 months) of something—likely a bad flu and not Covid. I have a bunch of home tests (some may be expired by now,though) but did not test myself.

Here are my excuses (insert sheepish look here):

I almost certainly caught whatever I had from my husband, as he was ill first several days before I started not feeling well.

He tested himself two separate occasions/days during the illness, to a negative result both times.

I felt so unwell that I didn’t feel like opening up the box and fiddling with all the steps.

I don’t work, so I don’t have to leave the house—and I didn’t.

Just curious how you came to the conclusion that you didn't have covid if you didn't test?

 

[slowpoke]

Just curious how you came to the conclusion that you didn't have covid if you didn't test?

Please don’t judge me too harshly for my faults here. I know I could have done better.

Yes, it’s an assumption on my part that it was not Covid. I’m much better than my husband is about protecting myself when we go out to the grocery store, or shopping, or wherever. I routinely don a mask, but he does not. He got ill first, and at home he is not good about protecting me from catching whatever he has. Because he tested himself and got negative results, I assumed I had what he had, and it would be negative, too.

I could be wrong and it was indeed Covid. But I did not go out in public at all, so I also don’t think I could have gotten anyone else sick.

 

[mickey2942]

I am so very tired of having long Covid. After 2 years of this, I no longer remember what it feels like to not have painful joints, no tinnitus, and no brain fog. My high schooler has it too, and my heart just breaks for him for all he's going through. And the school just doesn't get it.

I am with you on this. And I feel badly for your son. I seriously feel like I am just half awake. And I sleep so much now. I have to work, and it is exhausting. I know people say go exercise, you will feel better. Thanks. I can barely make it through a day of work. And then, I go directly to bed.

We have not been anywhere for years, I am too tired to drive anywhere. If I get time off, I want to sleep. Or catch up on yard work. No garden this year.

 

[Auntie Cipation]

why buy tests when we followed protocol and the dr never mentioned it?

I can't speak for others but for me personally, I want to know if and when I have covid, primarily because of what we are learning about Long Covid. I want to know how many times I have it as the years pass, so that I can best prepare for/avoid as much as possible any lasting disabilities, the range of possibilites of which is now astoundingly long and getting longer with each research study.

A second good reason I'd want to know for sure is to be aware of the possibility of infecting others around me during the contagious phase of the infection. Of course I'd rather not give anyone a case of the common cold either, but I would much rather risk spreading a cold than risk spreading covid.

MOO

 

[killarney rose]

We are very particular about not infecting others no matter what sickness we have. 9 days in the house, not around anyone. That’s sufficient for whatever we might have. We’ve just come to accept that Covid is a part of our lives from now on. We have to learn to live with it.

 

[Auntie Cipation]

I'm not a physician nor do I play one on TV, but your symptoms sound like allergies. I typically have four bouts of seasonal allergies/cough variant asthma each year. I'm actually in the midst of the summer session right now - continuous runny nose, itchy watery eyes, dry cough mostly at night. My symptoms are mild and not troublesome enough to take Claritin or use Flonase, but I do use my cortico-steroidal inhaler once daily.

Are you using an OTC allergy medication? DH takes Claritin when he is going to be cutting the lawn or working outdoors because he has allergies, too. He mostly sneezes - hard enough to blow the roof off

Thanks for this, @BetteDavisEyes -- I hadn't thought about allergies.

My whole life I've had no known allergies -- no food allergies, no medicine allergies, no environmental allergies. I live somewhere with lots of pollen and other environmental allergies and I'm just coming to recognize that I might now have some, after 30 years in this region. I do have a frequently runny nose and occasional unexplained sneezes and that seems like the most likely explanation.

Unrelated, I had been on a daily antihistamine for several years to hopefully help with reflux issues, and stopped taking it several months ago but now have ordered more and will resume as soon as it arrives. I'll have to pay attention to whether the morning stuffy nose goes away then. Or when I stop digging in the dirt in the cool of the evening and then wake up with a clogged nose the next morning...

 

[Auntie Cipation]

We are very particular about not infecting others no matter what sickness we have. 9 days in the house, not around anyone. That’s sufficient for whatever we might have. We’ve just come to accept that Covid is a part of our lives from now on. We have to learn to live with it.

I respect and admire that degree of care to not infect others.

Don't forget, though, that something like 40% of all covid infections are entirely asymptomatic, or have symptoms that people don't relate to a contagious infection (such as a headache only).

This is IMO the number one reason why we were unable to get a handle on covid globally -- because how do you avoid spreading a disease you don't know you have? So many smart people still thinking "I know I'm not sick" because they feel fine. We don't have a good example of something that is both asymptomatic initially (like cancer) but also contagious (like flu). It's hard for us to grasp mentally -- if we had a good example we were all culturally familiar with, I think we'd have responded more appropriately early in the pandemic, as soon as we realized it was significantly asymptomatic.

It seems wise to just assume that in any crowd there are at least some covid-positive people -- either unaware of their infection or not taking it seriously -- and we should behave so as to not get sick to the extent possible: mask in crowds, ventilate crowded rooms, don't stay long indoors in public or crowded spaces, etc.

I will also share my personal "trick" which may help prevent an infection from taking hold after being exposed: I gargle with a little hydrogen peroxide anytime I've been in a crowd or other situation where I think there might be covid-positive people (medical office, etc). Just like you might pour a little on a cut to prevent infection, I picture it doing the same to the back of my throat, where the covid molecules would first take hold and start to reproduce.

I agree with you that covid is a part of our lives now, but I don't agree with accepting that that means we will all get it multiple times. Of course many people *will* do so and already are doing so, and the impact this will have on society will be far greater than we can currently imagine -- notice all the weird airplane mishaps and close calls recently? Just imagine how the world will work when 1/3 of the population is disabled and unable to work, needing care that the economy can't support, and another 1/3 of the population is operating under brain fog that inhibits their ability to think clearly, leading to more and more accidents and mishaps. Think I'm being overdramatic and hyperbolic? I don't think so...

I'm personally aiming to be in the 1/3 of people who have never gotten covid (or maybe only once) over the remaining decades (hopefully) of our lives.

MOO

 

[Seni]

I am with you on this. And I feel badly for your son. I seriously feel like I am just half awake. And I sleep so much now. I have to work, and it is exhausting. I know people say go exercise, you will feel better. Thanks. I can barely make it through a day of work. And then, I go directly to bed.

We have not been anywhere for years, I am too tired to drive anywhere. If I get time off, I want to sleep. Or catch up on yard work. No garden this year.

Gosh, Mickey and Gremlin, cannot imagine how awful it must be to have such debilitating symptoms for so long. What medical advice have you been given, any studies done on long Covid? Is it even recognised by the medical profession?

Best wishes for your recuperation.

 

[killarney rose]

DH was asymptomatic the when we had Covid in 2020. I had very mild symptoms. We caught it from my niece who chose not to quarantine even though she knew she had it with extremely mild symptoms. No crowds were involved.it doesn’t matter how careful one is. It’s out there and there will always be people that don’t care if they spread it.