Covid-19 miscellany

[bilby]

I tried but hit a couple of snags. I am going to call my primary doctor tomorrow when her office is open.

Just before my recent whirlwind trip to Canada over the weekend I learned that I needed a test before entering. I was able to get one the same day no reason required and free. Massachusetts. I don't know where you live so I guess things may be different.

I hit a couple of snags yesterday. This morning after some time, phone calls, and yada yada, I was able to schedule a test and I got my result minutes ago. They said it was negative. Also, my wife and older son have started developing symptoms now, too. We have all had Pfizer 2 doses (except my youngest) which would make it odd for it to be covid. So, we probably all have a cold/flu and since my younger son and I developed symptoms days sooner and simultaneously, it appears we acquired it at the same time, which would be the pharmacy most likely...but not covid. A common cold or flu. I've never had a common cold like this give me chills all night, though, but anyway it's not covid, whatever it is.

Gmbteach and I both had severe 'flu like' symptoms a few months ago. There's no Covid here, but authorities are constantly alert for it, so we had not only to get covid tested (negative), but also further testing to identify any other viral infections. In previous years it would have been written off as 'a cold', but due to the testing, we now know it was Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).

RSV is considerably more contagious than Covid (R₀ between 5 and 25 ), which explains why it was still able to circulate despite our strict social distancing and mask wearing protocols.

It's not likely to cause hospitalisation, much less death, but it's a very unpleasant week of illness nonetheless.

 

[crazyfingers]

I tried but hit a couple of snags. I am going to call my primary doctor tomorrow when her office is open.

Just before my recent whirlwind trip to Canada over the weekend I learned that I needed a test before entering. I was able to get one the same day no reason required and free. Massachusetts. I don't know where you live so I guess things may be different.

I hit a couple of snags yesterday. This morning after some time, phone calls, and yada yada, I was able to schedule a test and I got my result minutes ago. They said it was negative. Also, my wife and older son have started developing symptoms now, too. We have all had Pfizer 2 doses (except my youngest) which would make it odd for it to be covid. So, we probably all have a cold/flu and since my younger son and I developed symptoms days sooner and simultaneously, it appears we acquired it at the same time, which would be the pharmacy most likely...but not covid. A common cold or flu. I've never had a common cold like this give me chills all night, though, but anyway it's not covid, whatever it is.

Hopefully not Covid. I heard that the 15 minute rapid tests have a lot of false negatives but that was a year ago.

 

[ZiprHead]

 

[Shadowy Man]

View attachment 34149

So close…

 

[ZiprHead]

Trump Wanted to Send COVID-Infected Americans to Guantánamo Bay, Book Says

Former President Donald Trump was so frightened that rising coronavirus cases would hurt his polling numbers that he suggested a group of infected Americans being brought home from Asia should be sent to Guantánamo Bay. “Don’t we have an island that we own?” Trump reportedly asked aides in February 2020, at the start of the pandemic. “What about Guantánamo?” The story features in Nightmare Scenario, a new book by Washington Post journalists Yasmeen Abutaleb and Damian Paletta, capturing the chaos of the Trump White House as COVID-19 hit. The pair report that Trump was incensed that official testing was boosting case numbers and shouted at Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar: “I’m going to lose the election because of testing! What idiot had the federal government do testing?” “Uh, do you mean Jared?” Azar responded, referring to the president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner. According to the Post, the book suggests that the president’s own infection was “far more serious than officials acknowledged.”

What an asshole.

 

[ZiprHead]

Angered By Youth Vaccine Promotion, Tennessee Republicans Threaten To Defund Health Department

Republican lawmakers are threatening Tennessee health officials with defunding their department if they don’t curtail what they see as marketing the COVID vaccine to children. The saber-rattling arises from a state memo explaining how teenagers could legally be vaccinated without parental consent.

This letter, sent to vaccine providers in May, states that under legal precedent, children 14 and up are usually considered mature enough to make medical decisions for themselves, if necessary. But Republican officials already skeptical of the COVID vaccine saw it as the state trying to go behind the back of parents.

Dr. Lisa Piercey, the state’s health commissioner, was grilled this week at the state capitol, and Republican legislators had more points to make than questions to ask. Rep. Iris Rudder, R-Winchester, held up a social media ad featuring a teenager, smiling with a bandage on her arm.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I hit a couple of snags yesterday. This morning after some time, phone calls, and yada yada, I was able to schedule a test and I got my result minutes ago. They said it was negative. Also, my wife and older son have started developing symptoms now, too. We have all had Pfizer 2 doses (except my youngest) which would make it odd for it to be covid. So, we probably all have a cold/flu and since my younger son and I developed symptoms days sooner and simultaneously, it appears we acquired it at the same time, which would be the pharmacy most likely...but not covid. A common cold or flu. I've never had a common cold like this give me chills all night, though, but anyway it's not covid, whatever it is.

Hopefully not Covid. I heard that the 15 minute rapid tests have a lot of false negatives but that was a year ago.

Trying to navigate which test and where was confusing, made more complicated by places showing up in google that were "lying." Like 2 nearest places said they had covid testing but it was some other branch much further away of the same entity. One other place couldn't schedule me until tomorrow. These places had me filling out plenty of web forms but only told me the location and day/time after I gave tons of info in forms. I could have scheduled somewhere 50 miles away using that method or continued going through "covid testing near me" sites until I found one close that had a more honest setup. However, I took a step back. I went to the state portal, it said I should contact my doctor because I was having symptoms, rather than a walk-in clinic or normal way. So I waited for Monday morning when the office was open. I called and the office said she was on vacation 2 weeks and I should go to a walk-in clininc. So, I started looking up walk-in clinics and found one that did testing not that far away. They asked me which test and how I was paying. I said rapid and using my insurance. I am not certain my insurance will cover it if the doctor never ordered it. I also read today that doctors will order rapid for symptomatic patients and if the result is negative, they will then order a pcr test to be sure. When I read that, I was thinking "aw fuck." Given I am uncertain about funding and all 2xvaccinated adults in my house have it, it seems a pcr test is impractical. I mean, if Pfizer is 88% effective against symptoms of delta and three people independently show symptoms, the odds of that not being covid are like 99.8%. It's weird that my 13 yr old son had such light, quick symptoms of it but on the flip side, the rapid test says negative. So that's where I am with it.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

I hit a couple of snags yesterday. This morning after some time, phone calls, and yada yada, I was able to schedule a test and I got my result minutes ago. They said it was negative. Also, my wife and older son have started developing symptoms now, too. We have all had Pfizer 2 doses (except my youngest) which would make it odd for it to be covid. So, we probably all have a cold/flu and since my younger son and I developed symptoms days sooner and simultaneously, it appears we acquired it at the same time, which would be the pharmacy most likely...but not covid. A common cold or flu. I've never had a common cold like this give me chills all night, though, but anyway it's not covid, whatever it is.

Gmbteach and I both had severe 'flu like' symptoms a few months ago. There's no Covid here, but authorities are constantly alert for it, so we had not only to get covid tested (negative), but also further testing to identify any other viral infections. In previous years it would have been written off as 'a cold', but due to the testing, we now know it was Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV).

RSV is considerably more contagious than Covid (R₀ between 5 and 25 ), which explains why it was still able to circulate despite our strict social distancing and mask wearing protocols.

It's not likely to cause hospitalisation, much less death, but it's a very unpleasant week of illness nonetheless.

Interesting. I'd love it if US healthcare did follow-ups like that, too. It's weird that we don't considering what we pay.

 

[repoman]

Has anyone here gotten Covid and had their doctor hit them hard with a protocol of medicine even before it got bad?

 

[untermensche]

You mean to try to prevent it from getting bad?

 

[ZiprHead]

A COVID-19 outbreak at a Florida county building killed 2 IT staffers and hospitalized 3 others

Two staffers in a government IT department in Manatee County, Florida, died of COVID-19 following an outbreak at their office, the county said Friday.

The first staffer died at a local hospital Monday, County Administrator Scott Hopes told the Bradenton Herald. A second staffer died Thursday at their home one day after being diagnosed with the virus by a doctor, Hopes told the outlet.

Three other employees were hospitalized, according to the report, and a sixth person who worked in close contact with the infected people was vaccinated against COVID-19 and did not contract the virus.

None of the employees who fell ill or died from COVID-19 were "elderly," he said. Hopes told the Herald he feared that the severe cases may be a result of one of the stronger variants of COVID-19.

The two people who died were both in their 50s, according to the report. The youngest person of the three others who were hospitalized with COVID-19 was in their "late 30s," according to the report.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

At a White House briefing on COVID-19 on Tuesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health said 20.6% of new cases in the U.S. are due to the Delta variant.

https://www.npr.org/sections/health...iant-coronavirus-unvaccinated-u-s-covid-surge

 

[DrZoidberg]

Now I'm off to an anti-vaxxers funeral. She died from Covid-19 but was also in the last stages of lung cancer. So it's not a huge tragedy for that reason. The tragedy is because she was also against chemotherapy.

She was a rabid anti masker and would in sheer defiance of what she thought was a conspiracy, ride around the Copenhagen subway without a mask. A woman with late stage lung cancer refusing to wear a mask during a lung disease pandemic. Crazy.

It's a strange world.

But she was an adult and was entitled to take the decisions she did.

I'm still sad. She was a close friend.

 

[TSwizzle]

Matt Hancock, UK health minister apologizes (sort of) for breaching his own social distancing rules after being caught snogging his aide;

MATT Hancock has today broken his silence to admit he "breached social distancing rules" - but failed to apologise to his wife of 15 years after his explosive affair was revealed by The Sun. The Health Secretary, 42, refused to resign and instead said he "has let people down and is very sorry" as he faces calls to be sacked by Boris Johnson for his brazen steamy clinch in Whitehall. CCTV images published this morning showed him passionately kissing his aide - with the dad-of-three shamelessly asking for "privacy on this personal matter" just hours later.

TheSun


Hypocrite Hancock tells the citizens of UK not to hug their loved ones meanwhile he treats his place of work like a knocking shop. On the back of the revelations coming from Dominic Cumming how Boris called Hancock fucking useless, will Hancock survive this idiocy ? Well Boris the clown is no better so it's probably all going to be swept under the carpet.

 

[Swammerdami]

With airports and stadiums opening for business, attacks (especially against airline attendants) have skyrocketed.

Is this happening in many countries? Or is it, once again, mainly an Anglophonic thing?

[YOUTUBE]Rzp1jc-oZDk[/YOUTUBE]

 

[bilby]

With airports and stadiums opening for business, attacks (especially against airline attendants) have skyrocketed.

Is this happening in many countries? Or is it, once again, mainly an Anglophonic thing?

[YOUTUBE]Rzp1jc-oZDk[/YOUTUBE]

Based on this:


I am going to guess it's just an American thing.

 

[Swammerdami]

Bilby, Are all Daily Show YouTubes off-limits to you? How about other Comedy Central shows?

I'm in Thailand and sometimes see this message, though not as often as years ago. (SNL was off-limits until a few years ago.) I don't know how networks decide which countries to bar.

My jab at Anglophones was primarily directed at the English — with their racism, Brexit and Boris Johnson — in addition to America (though my impression is that Oz is also imperfect).

 

[bilby]

Bilby, Are all Daily Show YouTubes off-limits to you? How about other Comedy Central shows?

I have no way to know - I don't seek out online video, and as you can see, when it's embedded here, there's no indication of what the content was if it's blocked.

I'm in Thailand and sometimes see this message, though not as often as years ago. (SNL was off-limits until a few years ago.) I don't know how networks decide which countries to bar.

My jab at Anglophones was primarily directed at the English — with their racism, Brexit and Boris Johnson — in addition to America (though my impression is that Oz is also imperfect).

I get the impression that attacks on service staff are far more common in the US than elsewhere. The English are more reserved and passive-aggressive, rather than actively aggressive, and Australians tend to be much more egalitarian than either, and treat service staff as equals who are just doing a difficult job, rather than as servants who should be respectful or obsequious.

All three countries have plenty of racism, though it has very different expression in each of the three nations in my experience. American racism seems more structural, English racism is your run-of-the-mill ignorant blame-throwing by losers, and Australian racism is unthinking and casual stereotyping. Of course, I had no way to know that race was any part of your post, because any reference to it is in the video I can't watch.

 

[Rhea]

A COVID-19 outbreak at a Florida county building killed 2 IT staffers and hospitalized 3 others

Two staffers in a government IT department in Manatee County, Florida, died of COVID-19 following an outbreak at their office, the county said Friday.

The first staffer died at a local hospital Monday, County Administrator Scott Hopes told the Bradenton Herald. A second staffer died Thursday at their home one day after being diagnosed with the virus by a doctor, Hopes told the outlet.

Three other employees were hospitalized, according to the report, and a sixth person who worked in close contact with the infected people was vaccinated against COVID-19 and did not contract the virus.

None of the employees who fell ill or died from COVID-19 were "elderly," he said. Hopes told the Herald he feared that the severe cases may be a result of one of the stronger variants of COVID-19.

The two people who died were both in their 50s, according to the report. The youngest person of the three others who were hospitalized with COVID-19 was in their "late 30s," according to the report.

This is such a senseless loss. Volunteering to die.
Incredibly angry about the others they all encountered, those who maybe wanted a vaccine but couldn’t get one - now at risk from those who had a choice.

 

[TSwizzle]

Knock me down with a feather, world beating hypocrite Matt Hancock (UK health minister) has actually resigned after being caught breaking his own draconian lockdown rules. The fact that he hesitated and the clown prime minister not only failed to sack him but came out and backed him shows how utterly corrupt these Tory scum are.

Meanwhile tens of thousands of anti lockdown protesters March on Downing Street and the legacy media don’t even mention it.