COVID19 - How it's affecting you

For anyone interested in a Corsi Rosenthal box, this one is designed for the UK markets.

For anyone interested in a Corsi Rosenthal box, this one is designed for the UK markets.

Very nice!

I have to order my air purifier filter from the US, thanks to Brexit it's now hundreds cheaper to get it there rather than Germany. (It last 3-5 years) Having high quality hepa in the house managed to keep my husband from catching it the times I got sick.

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Yeah, the aerosols lab people at my former employer are adamant about using hepa filters - and fresh air.  Right now I only wish I could open the windows for fresh air, but we've got the smoke from the Canada wildfires again, so it's indoors with windows closed for me. But definitely on the hepa 13 (and higher) filters. Our power company (rather ironically, National Grid) sent out a flyer offering high-powered air purifiers for a really good (like 60% off) price, so I did buy one of theirs and it's fired up in the living room.  I've got the old one in the bedroom and it's doing it's job.  The new one is supposed to scrub a 500 Sq. ft. room in 30 minutes.  That oughta do it for the smoke!  It is amazing how well the Corsi-Rosenthal filter boxes do, though. Right up there with the best of the commercially available units, I understand, for a fraction of the price.

Just heard from my daughter. She's been notified she's been exposed to Covid at work - at the only event where she took her mask off for any length of time (to eat lunch).  Sigh.  She now lives alone, 3,000 miles away, no car, and has a ton of pre-existing conditions. I'm going to be a mess for the next week, worrying and waiting to hear. And then possibly worrying even more.    At least she's got a good healthcare plan there now. No ID card for it yet, but she should be at least in their system if she needs care - and if it's an emergency they have to see her anyway.  (I would assume Covid with her history would constitute a medical emergency.) And she did have a bivalent booster, but it's been longer than the "golden window" where it's really protective.

Crud. 

Hope all okay Nan, with your daughter

Thank you. Once a mom, always a mom, you know? Even when they're all grown up and moved away.    I believe the current wisdom is that if she hasn't tested positive in 10 days, she's probably not going to.

I sent her a box of "stuff" anyway - some N-95s, some test kits, a thermometer,  a bottle of Tylenol, Ludens sore-throat lozenges, a cool pack, instant ramen,  Instant Breakfast, Vitamin C, etc.  Thank Goodness for US Priority Mail and their flat-rate boxes!I handed the box across the counter yesterday morning here in NY and it should be on the West Coast and delivered by tomorrow evening.    It's no fun going out for any of that stuff when you have to take a bus to do it and you're not feeling well, so it'll be there if she needs it.

[Edit - Nope, I had it wrong. It's 14 days from exposure, after which time one is unlikely to get it if the tests are all negative and there are no symptoms. Of course, the existing over-the-counter tests don't necessarily accurately detect the currently-circulating strain. A PCR would be better - I assume she'll be able to get one if she needs one. She still seems fine though.  Fingers are seriously crossed. Especially since the latest studies are iffy on Paxlovid being as useful as they once thought, for younger people.]

I think she dodged it. 

I think she dodged it. 

Glad to hear.

I think she dodged it. 

Phew!

Mask wearing really makes a difference. Even if you take it off, it means that you're still getting exposed to much less over time.

Needless to say, I did not take mine off when the receptionist in my full GP practice said she couldn't hear me through my mask and asked me to. My husband has been with me wearing a mask for ~10 years when we are out, he never struggles to hear me. I wish people would stop treating masks as the barrier and ask for alternative communication if they need it. Now I know for the next time if it's that secretary to type the question on my phone and hold it up.

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Exactly.  Unfortunately, the kiddo has to mask until such time as they can either reconstruct a properly-working immune system for her,  they have a sure-fire cure for Covid (and several other nasties floating around), or there's a treatment that will keep her from catching it in the first place.  I'm just happy to hear that her employer is supporting her 100%. They are doing wastewater testing on every building, and are still doing contact tracing. As soon as the bosses get wind of an infection in their midst that could impact her, they let her know ASAP.

I still mask for all medical and dental appointments. If I go into a building where there are "too many" people - a subjective count, but if there's not a pretty discernible airflow and I have any nagging thoughts I just pop one on. 

The only place I've caught static for wearing a mask this summer was at a convenience store on the Creek Reservation in Oklahoma. A rather nasty-looking piece of old male white trash said some rather rude things as I passed him as I was going into the shop. I said nothing in return, but was thinking, well, I may look like a fool for wearing a mask, but looking like one is way better than BEING one. Because I can always take the mask off....  [That was a depressing place anyway (the Creek Res). We hadn't been stopped more than three minutes so that I could buy gas when that guy went by, some stoner off his head tried to panhandle me for money, and we saw a guy slump over and semi-pass out in the shade of the building, dropping his whisky bottle. At 9:30 in the morning. A very good place to never go back to.  All the other res we either went through or stopped at were clean and friendly places. Something's gone terribly wrong with the Creeks in Oklahoma.]

Phew!

Mask wearing really makes a difference. Even if you take it off, it means that you're still getting exposed to much less over time.

Needless to say, I did not take mine off when the receptionist in my full GP practice said she couldn't hear me through my mask and asked me to. My husband has been with me wearing a mask for ~10 years when we are out, he never struggles to hear me. I wish people would stop treating masks as the barrier and ask for alternative communication if they need it. Now I know for the next time if it's that secretary to type the question on my phone and hold it up.

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A GP's receptionist? Surely they should know better, FFS!  Have they not heard anyone in the last few years?!? 

Depressing findings, if once vetted it all proves accurate.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=4505315

And another tidbit...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-023-00904-7

Quoting here: "The oncoming burden of long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable, which is possibly why minimal high-level planning is currently allocated to it. If 10% of acute infections lead to persistent symptoms, it could be predicted that ~400 million individuals globally are in need of support for long COVID."

Hmmm. Lack of planning for the future. Now, does that sound familiar?   

And another tidbit...

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41577-023-00904-7

Quoting here: "The oncoming burden of long COVID faced by patients, health-care providers, governments and economies is so large as to be unfathomable, which is possibly why minimal high-level planning is currently allocated to it. If 10% of acute infections lead to persistent symptoms, it could be predicted that ~400 million individuals globally are in need of support for long COVID."

Hmmm. Lack of planning for the future. Now, does that sound familiar?   

Heh. And the cardiac complications of covid have taken far too many of my friends too soon. I can't count the number of active 50yo's who have had fatal heart attacks in the last 3 months. Not enough people are talking about resting after an infection and taking your time returning to fitness activities. PE's are sneaky and any covid infection can cause them.

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Yeah. And people are forgetting that people are still getting Covid (some for the umpteenth time). The more times you get it, as I understand it, the more likelihood of bad things happening.... And still developing Long Covid.

The Covid rate here is low at present, but beginning to tick up (from the results of the wastewater sampling, which is not being widely publicized). The folks-in-the-know are saying we need to watch for a resurgence in the fall in a more substantial way - along with the flu and RSV. All in the same time frame.

That won't be nice.    Talk about your overloaded hospital systems!

Yeah. And people are forgetting that people are still getting Covid (some for the umpteenth time). The more times you get it, as I understand it, the more likelihood of bad things happening.... And still developing Long Covid.

The Covid rate here is low at present, but beginning to tick up (from the results of the wastewater sampling, which is not being widely publicized). The folks-in-the-know are saying we need to watch for a resurgence in the fall in a more substantial way - along with the flu and RSV. All in the same time frame.

That won't be nice.    Talk about your overloaded hospital systems!

Yes, it seems like most people have forgotten about it. I still wear a mask when I do the shopping. I seem to be the only one now.
My husband was given a spring booster which almost surprised me but I was glad for. They said there's nothing now for the carers.. but perhaps in the Autumn,.