Coronavirus

[tampa24]

Thanks guys! I'll respond more in the morning.

 

[tampa24]

Hey Mark and all,

In answer to your questions above I started feeling not so great on Monday night of July 12th. It went downhill from there through the rest of last week. As I said above I was in denial with it as just a cold for a few days. But I did still call my doctor's and get an appointment set up for last Friday. While I still didn't think it was Covid, I wanted to be seen anyway. But then my doctor had a family emergency, couldn't see me Friday and the soonest they could re-schedule me was this past Tuesday. Even my doctor seemed skeptical that it might be Covid. Because I've been treated by him for upper respiratory infections and bronchitis before. And no. I've never been a smoker. But I have been around second hand smoke from family members, friends and others for most of my life. Not in the last few years though thankfully. Except on rare ocassion when I went out to clubs in pre-Covid days.

Anyway obviously I did test positive on Tuesday the 20th. So 14 days from then means I have to quarantine through August 3rd. And then re-test and hope that I'm negative. Which would also mean that I am no longer contagious or shedding virus.

As to the other question of what precautions I've taken in my life up to now, I was very strict in pre-vaccine days. When I went out to public places I wore my mask, a face shield and disposable gloves to go to the grocery store, pharmacy, doctor's office, etc. I was suited up more than most. And I used hand sanitizer that I carried with me constantly (when out in public places) whenever I touched strange surfaces like elevator buttons, door handles, etc.

After the vaccine I did let my guard down more. I stopped wearing the gloves and the face shield. But I kept wearing the mask. I haven't been as picky about using hand sanitizer in public. Although I have always stayed strict about washing my hands as soon as I got inside at home. I did start going out to restaurants again a few times. But I haven't done anything crazy like going to a Rays baseball game for instance even though I would love to. haha I have still purposely avoided places with large crowds, both inside and outside. (Other than Walmart for instance.)

So the gloves and hand sanitizer might have made a difference. Not going out to any restarants might have made a difference. I don't know. In my area up to now I have sometimes been either the only person, or among 5-10% of customers in a grocery store at a given time still wearing a mask. After this I will be more cautious again in public.

But the upside to my story as I see it is still the fact that I truly believe the vaccine has saved my life. We were told that Pfizer and Moderna offered about a 93-95% protection. And they even said that among the clinical study participants who did get Covid, that there were no hospitalizations or deaths among the vaccinated. That those who came down with Covid were able to recover from it using OTC cold and flu treatments and taking care of themselves at home. And that's been exactly my situation. Last week at its worst I probably could have used some cough supppressants. But I didn't feel like I absolutely needed them. I have taken OTC Tylenol for the muscle aches because they were so uncomfortable in the beginning that they were interfering with my sleep. But the muscle aches are getting better and they don't bother me much during waking hours anyway. They're just a little nuisance.

I have people in my own extended family (who are Not at all in the medical field) and are still vaccine skeptics. And upon hearing my news their reaction was to say they are justified in not getting the vaccine because they don't work anyway. That because I got Covid proves that the vaccine is suspicious. Their favorite line is: "We don't know what's in it."

Well I don't know what's in the annual flu vaccine. I don't know what's in the polio vaccine, the shingles vaccine or the tetanus shot. And frankly I don't care. I just want the protection from them. haha I don't really know what's in Tylenol even though I can read the label. I don't really know what's in just about any OTC medicine that helps me feel better when I'm struggling with something. But that doesn't mean I'm not going to take them. haha Sorry for the rant.

But I see my situation as a success story for the vaccines, as counter-intuitive as that may seem at first glance. I'm not thrilled at all that I still got Covid in spite of the vaccine. But... The vaccines were not designed with the new Delta variant specifically factored in. And (so far at least, praise God) the manufacturers delivered on their promise to keep me alive and keep me out of the hospital even if I did get Covid.

 

[BrokeStraightBoys]

Thanks for sharing that is really interesting. I am vaccinated as well so I appreciate you sharing the details. I hope you feel better soon.

 

[tampa24]

After my post above I got more info on severe breakthrough cases of Covid among fully vaccinated people in the U.S. On my local news channel (Bay News 9) they said that the new stats for severe cases of Covid among the fully vaxed are as follows. (I wasn't aware that that were any deaths from Covid among the vaccinated.) But I guess it shouldn't surprise us that spread out among the whole population that there would be some exceptions.

So anyway, as it stands right now there are 159 million Americans who are fully vaccinated. Meaning at least 2 weeks have passed since their second dose of a vaccine. Or two weeks have passsed since their one and only dose of the J&J one. So among 159 million people the official numbers are that 5,400 people in that fully vaccinated group have come down with severe cases of Covid bad enough to require hospitalization and even resulting in death.

I don't recall this exact number but they said the failure rate of the vaccines to prevent severe cases of Covid was something like .003%. I suspect that among that group of 5,400 people that they probably had other significant underlying medical issues like severe asthma, obesity, diabetes, heart disease, weakened immune system issues like organ transpants, HIV, cancer treatments and so on. But that's pure speculation on my part.

But even so, with a failure rate of something like .003% I would get the vaccine and take those odds any day.

I've also been reading some anecdotal evidence that the J&J vaccine has been less effective against the Delta variant than the Pfizer and Moderna. But I do not claim to be an virologist. I'm just going on what I'm hearing in the media.

 

[chac54]

Hope you feel better Tampa!!

Cases of delta are picking up in South Eastern Mass where I am, so I'll be back to wearing masks again as I'm high risk being a T2 diabetic and overweight I'm fully vaccinated and had laid off the masks unless I was in a crowded place.

 

[tampa24]

Thanks Chac!

Yes. I will not be giving up the mask once I hopefully test negative at the end of my quarantine. Being vaccinated doesn't mean you're bullet-proof. It means you are much much less at risk than the unvaccinated. Masks, sanitizer and hand washing are still the way to go.

 

[tampa24]

Thanks for sharing that is really interesting. I am vaccinated as well so I appreciate you sharing the details. I hope you feel better soon.

Thanks Mark!

 

[tampa24]

I found this article on CNN to be helpful:

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/202...ted-positive-for-coronavirus-what-should-i-do

 

[tampa24]

I mentioned yesterday that I might take on the issue of the Broke Straight Boys site updating more often over on this thread rather than the one I mentioned it on. I'm concerned that as things stand in mid to late summer of 2021 that things with the virus are taking yet another bad turn. While that may already be obvious to some or many of us in here already, I'm concerned that the delta variant is just one big warning of quite likely more worse things to come further down the road.

With the delta variant being able to break through the first of the vaccines it's not difficult at all to imagine that these new variants are going to keep popping up continuously for years to come. Just like with new strains of the annual flu. But Covid is so much more deadly. With over 7 billion people in the world and most of those 7 billion being unvaccinated still, the virus is just going to keep on mutating on a regular basis. It's simple arithmetic and predictive algorithms. So right now it's the delta variant that's the boogyman. Next week or next month it could be the Manila variant, the Jakarta variant, the New Dehli variant, the Amsterdam variant, the Tanzanian variant, the Bogota' variant, etc. I worry that we will just be be playing a game of Whack-A-Mole with the vaccines. Just when we get one that seems to cover all the bases, another variant pops up that can break through the most recently administered vaccine.

Obviously in an ideal world we would get our own backyard under control first. Meaning about an 85% or higher vaccination rate here in the U.S. But with younger children still not yet approved to safely receive it, and with both the virus and the vaccine having become politicized, I don't see such a rosey scenario any time soon. But then we really do need to try our best to vaccinate the rest of the planet. And yes. That does mean that our tax dollars will have to go to both buy the vaccine and also likely help administer it in hard to reach places of the globe. But it's not just an act of altruism to help others (which in my book is reason enough alone) it's also self preservation for us too.

I'm thinking the next 2-5 years could still be very rough in getting things under control. I don't think this one will just fade away after 2 years like the Spanish Flu of 1918. In the short term once I'm fully recovered from my breakthrough Covid infection I'm going to be much more cautious again in getting out in public. Mask, gloves, hand sanitizer and maybe even a face shield again. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that having been fully vaccinated, plus having recovered from a bout of Covid, that my immune system going forward will be much stronger and able to tolerate and fight off some of the future nasty variants. But who knows.

All this to say that we are not out of the woods yet. And with this one delta variant alone we might have to retrench and scale back our high expectations of returning to a normal life.

 

[tampa24]

Amen sister. Amen! She conceptualizes everything I've been feeling about the virus, the vaccine, the anti-vaxxers, the virus deniers and the like. And she puts it out there very succinctly and eloquently.

(Colorization, highlighting or enlargement of certain text is my own and not that of the author.)

*******************************************************************


HuffPost

I'm An ICU Doctor And I Cannot Believe The Things Unvaccinated Patients Are Telling Me

Thanh Neville, M.D., M.S.H.S.
Sun, August 1, 2021, 9:00 AM





“We can’t let COVID win.”

This was my colleague’s mantra when the pandemic started last year. And for the almost 18 months since, health care workers have rallied to the battlefields, even at times when we had no weapons to brandish.

We took care of the infected and the critically ill when no one else would. We reused N95 masks, carefully placing them in labeled brown paper bags in between shifts. We witnessed lonely deaths and held up iPads for families to say their heartbreaking goodbyes. We created elaborate backup schedules and neglected our personal lives. We stepped up during surges and when our colleagues fell ill. Camaraderie in the ICU had never been stronger because we recognized that this was a team effort and all of humanity was battling against a common enemy.

But as health care workers, we also were painfully aware of our own vulnerabilities. We can run out of ICU resources for our patients. We can run out of personal protective equipment for ourselves. We can be exposed on the job and get sick. And we can die — many of us did, more than 3,600 from COVID-19 in the first year.

Many of us quarantined away from our families to protect the ones we love. We counted the risk factors of our children, our elderly parents, our spouses, and came up with our own formulas to decide whether to come home at the end of the shift or hole up in a hotel room. One of our ICU directors wrote and rewrote our COVID-19 clinical guidelines to keep up with the evolving literature and somehow she carved out the time to write her own will.



The author receiving her COVID-19 vaccination. (Photo: Courtesy of Thanh Neville, M.D., M.S.H.S.)


I worked daily to adapt our end-of-life program to the changing needs and restrictions of the pandemic and signed up for a vaccine clinical trial as soon as one became available. I also updated my own advance directive and printed it out for my husband, just in case.

Then, effective vaccines became widely available in the U.S. — I briefly saw light at the end of the tunnel. The number of patients with COVID-19 in ICUs across the country plummeted. It looked like our sacrifices and commitment as health care workers had paid off. We believed herd immunity could become a reality and we could return to some sense of normalcy.

But the relief was short-lived, the hope was fleeting, and we are amid another surge. A surge that is fueled by a highly transmissible variant and those unvaccinated. My experiences in the ICU these past weeks have left me surprised, disheartened, but most of all, angry.

I am angry that the tragic scenes of prior surges are being played out yet again, but now with ICUs primarily filled with patients who have chosen not to be vaccinated. I am angry that it takes me over an hour to explain to an anti-vaxxer full of misinformation that intubation isn’t what “kills patients” and that their wish for chest compressions without intubation in the event of a respiratory arrest makes no sense. I am angry at those who refuse to wear “muzzles” when grocery shopping for half an hour a week, as I have been so-called “muzzled” for much of the past 18 months.

I cannot understand the simultaneous decision to not get vaccinated and the demand to end the restrictions imposed by a pandemic. I cannot help but recoil as if I’ve been slapped in the face when my ICU patient tells me they didn’t get vaccinated because they “just didn’t get around to it.” Although such individuals do not consider themselves anti-vaxxers, their inaction itself is a decision — a decision to not protect themselves or their families, to fill a precious ICU bed, to let new variants flourish, and to endanger the health care workers and immunosuppressed people around them. Their inaction is a decision to let this pandemic continue to rage.

"
I am at a loss to understand how anyone can look at these past months of the pandemic — more than 600,000 lives lost in the U.S. and more than 4 million worldwide — and not believe it’s real or take it seriously.


And meanwhile, immunocompromised people, for whom vaccines don’t generate much immunity, are desperately waiting for herd immunity. I have no way to comfort my rightfully outraged transplant patients who contracted COVID-19 after isolating for over a year and getting fully vaccinated as soon as they could. With angry tears, these patients tell me it’s not fair that there are people who are choosing to endanger both themselves and the vulnerable people around them. They feel betrayed by their fellow citizens and they are bitter and angry. I cannot blame them.

I am at a loss to understand how anyone can look at these past months of the pandemic — more than 600,000 lives lost in the U.S. and more than 4 million worldwide — and not believe it’s real or take it seriously. But the unhappy truth is that there are people who do not. They did not in the beginning and many are doubling down now.

I thought when this pandemic began that we were all in this fight together, engaged in a war against a common enemy. Now, I painfully realize: Perhaps we were never on the same side and we never had a common enemy. Perhaps the war has been among ourselves all along. We have won many battles but unvaccinated America is choosing to let COVID win the war.

Thanh Neville, M.D., M.S.H.S., is an ICU physician and researcher at UCLA Health. She is also the medical director of the UCLA 3 Wishes Program (an end-of-life program in which clinicians elicit and implement final wishes for dying patients and their families). You can follow her on Twitter at @thanh_neville.



This article originally appeared on HuffPost and has been updated.

****************************************************************


Source: https://www.yahoo.com/huffpost/im-icu-doctor-cannot-believe-130001363.html

 

[chac54]

I mentioned yesterday that I might take on the issue of the Broke Straight Boys site updating more often over on this thread rather than the one I mentioned it on. I'm concerned that as things stand in mid to late summer of 2021 that things with the virus are taking yet another bad turn. While that may already be obvious to some or many of us in here already, I'm concerned that the delta variant is just one big warning of quite likely more worse things to come further down the road.

With the delta variant being able to break through the first of the vaccines it's not difficult at all to imagine that these new variants are going to keep popping up continuously for years to come. Just like with new strains of the annual flu. But Covid is so much more deadly. With over 7 billion people in the world and most of those 7 billion being unvaccinated still, the virus is just going to keep on mutating on a regular basis. It's simple arithmetic and predictive algorithms. So right now it's the delta variant that's the boogyman. Next week or next month it could be the Manila variant, the Jakarta variant, the New Dehli variant, the Amsterdam variant, the Tanzanian variant, the Bogota' variant, etc. I worry that we will just be be playing a game of Whack-A-Mole with the vaccines. Just when we get one that seems to cover all the bases, another variant pops up that can break through the most recently administered vaccine.

Obviously in an ideal world we would get our own backyard under control first. Meaning about an 85% or higher vaccination rate here in the U.S. But with younger children still not yet approved to safely receive it, and with both the virus and the vaccine having become politicized, I don't see such a rosey scenario any time soon. But then we really do need to try our best to vaccinate the rest of the planet. And yes. That does mean that our tax dollars will have to go to both buy the vaccine and also likely help administer it in hard to reach places of the globe. But it's not just an act of altruism to help others (which in my book is reason enough alone) it's also self preservation for us too.

I'm thinking the next 2-5 years could still be very rough in getting things under control. I don't think this one will just fade away after 2 years like the Spanish Flu of 1918. In the short term once I'm fully recovered from my breakthrough Covid infection I'm going to be much more cautious again in getting out in public. Mask, gloves, hand sanitizer and maybe even a face shield again. I'm hoping, hoping, hoping that having been fully vaccinated, plus having recovered from a bout of Covid, that my immune system going forward will be much stronger and able to tolerate and fight off some of the future nasty variants. But who knows.

All this to say that we are not out of the woods yet. And with this one delta variant alone we might have to retrench and scale back our high expectations of returning to a normal life.

You just wrote what I have been thinking for the last few months, we are far, so very far from getting this under control. I hope to God that I am wrong on this, but I don't ever see us returning back to a "normal" for a long time. We will be fighting this for years and more likely, decades to come. With all the infighting/politicization and misinformation out there and the extremists, I'm not hopeful.

 

[Jaybifla]

Lady G tested positive for Covid-19.

 

[tampa24]

Lady G tested positive for Covid-19.

I wouldn't mind seeing a parody video of that. Or an SNL skit.

I'm assuming she will pull through of course.

 

[tampa24]

Since this is such a serious thread, I figured a little bit of levity (even if at Miss Lady G.'s expense) might be a welcome respite.

 

[tampa24]

 

[chac54]

Since this is such a serious thread, I figured a little bit of levity (even if at Miss Lady G.'s expense) might be a welcome respite.

My sides are now killing me from laughing so hard. Tampa, thanks for posting this hilarious video. Now I gotta get me some of that Twinkie cream on my lips

 

[tampa24]

LOL

I'm so glad you liked it Chac!

 

[br6205]

It looks like there may have to be a second booster shot.

 

[tampa24]

It looks like there may have to be a second booster shot.

I'm all for it if it will help.

 

[br6205]

The new strain attacks teens and younger kids as well.