Coronavirus

[GO-NAD!]

In Sweden I can't get the booster until January when it'll be released for a wider population.

Britain hands out the booster as Christmas present:

Thousands line up for ‘jingle jabs’ on Christmas in England

Health Secretary Sajid Javid urged people to “make the booster a part of your Christmas this year.”

www.politico.com

Our age group (50-60) just became eligible for the booster. My wife and I have appointments for January 10th and 12th.

 

[Verdinut]

Our age group (50-60) just became eligible for the booster. My wife and I have appointments for January 10th and 12th.

You are still young and less vulnerable than older people. I'm 81 and I got a booster Moderna jab last Sunday. By tomorrow, this third dose following two Pfizers will be fully effective. According to one of our immunologists, the third dose is fully active after 7 days at the most.

 

[Swerd]

The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington is predicting 60% of the U.S. will be infected within 2-3 months, but the director of the IHME says 90% "might never show symptoms."

Yesterday, I spoke with a neighbor's son who is now in his 1st year of Internal Medicine residency at a hospital in New York. He told me that he became positive for Covid-19 sometime in November. He had very mild symptoms, easily overlooked. So did nearly all of the residents and staff at his hospital. The entire staff was regularly tested each week (if I remember correctly). At the time, no one in the US knew about the omicron variant. He, of course, had been fully immunized.

He also said (since he started as a resident, July 2021) he was not aware of any patient dying with Covid-19 if they had been immunized.

He said he believes the same will happen to most people in the USA, if it hasn't already happened . Get your shots and get ready.

All of that is just one young MD's opinions based on half a year's work on the pandemic front lines, but it is consistent with what your links say.

 

[GO-NAD!]

I feel more comfortable talking about my own COVID scare now.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, I had rapid tests at work, with negative results each time. Then, starting Wednesday afternoon/evening, I developed a sore throat and congestion. I started my Christmas holidays on Thursday, so was staying home anyway. We have some rapid test kits, so I did another test - still negative. Regardless, just to be certain, I made an appointment for a PCR test for Christmas Eve. I just received the results this morning - negative.

Looks like I have an old-fashioned cold. I just hope it's cleared up before January and return to work.

 

[Mr._Clark]

I feel more comfortable talking about my own COVID scare now.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, I had rapid tests at work, with negative results each time. Then, starting Wednesday afternoon/evening, I developed a sore throat and congestion. I started my Christmas holidays on Thursday, so was staying home anyway. We have some rapid test kits, so I did another test - still negative. Regardless, just to be certain, I made an appointment for a PCR test for Christmas Eve. I just received the results this morning - negative.

Looks like I have an old-fashioned cold. I just hope it's cleared up before January and return to work.

That’s a relief.

I’ve had 3 colds this fall (probably from my son who probably got them at school). My experience was similar to yours. Get a cough, stay home, get a PCR test. So far no COVID but I’m not sure what will happen with omicron circulating.

 

[GO-NAD!]

That’s a relief.

I’ve had 3 colds this fall (probably from my son who probably got them at school). My experience was similar to yours. Get a cough, stay home, get a PCR test. So far no COVID but I’m not sure what will happen with omicron circulating.

It feels like a continuous dodging of bullets and I don't know how long I - or any of us, for that matter - can avoid it. I just hope we can get our boosters in our carcasses before we get hit.

 

[Trell]

It feels like a continuous dodging of bullets and I don't know how long I - or any of us, for that matter - can avoid it. I just hope we can get our boosters in our carcasses before we get hit.

We are highly unlikely to avoid being infected, and when then happens we can hope that the health care system isn't totally down on it's knees and that the vaccines sharply reduces the risk for serious illness or death. With the abundance of COVIDIOT of various stripes, even here on AH, the chances for a health care meltdown remains very high.

 

[mtrycrafts]

I feel more comfortable talking about my own COVID scare now.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, I had rapid tests at work, with negative results each time. Then, starting Wednesday afternoon/evening, I developed a sore throat and congestion. ...

A cold coming on perhaps. That is how mine usually starts. Then the dam breaks for a few days.

 

[Mr._Clark]

It feels like a continuous dodging of bullets and I don't know how long I - or any of us, for that matter - can avoid it. I just hope we can get our boosters in our carcasses before we get hit.

I hear yah on the boosters. It was a relief once I was eligible.

N95 masks seem to be available. I stocked up a couple months ago when it looked like COVID infections would take off locally.

My sister had a breakthrough case just before she became eligible for the booster. She had 2 negative rapid tests and figured it was just a cold, but then she found out one of her coworkers tested positive. She then got a PCR test that came back positive. Fortunately she had a very mild case. Chills one night but that was about it. For her, the loss of income while quarantined was the main issue (she felt well enough to work)

The hospitals are definitely under tremendous pressure. Locally, the demand for antibody treatments has far outstripped the supply. The shortage of antibody treatments unfortunately leads to more people that need to be treated in the hospital

Stay well my Audioholic brothers!

 

[GO-NAD!]

A cold coming on perhaps. That is how mine usually starts. Then the dam breaks for a few days.

Oh yes, my noggin is full of snot right now. It's kinda weird; I haven't had a cold like this in probably 5-6 years.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Various news outlets are reporting a paper (2nd link below; not yet peer reviewed) that found that the coronavirus can persist throughout the body for many months.

Here's the abstract from the paper:

>>>COVID-19 is known to cause multi-organ dysfunction in acute infection, with
prolonged symptoms experienced by some patients, termed Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-
CoV-2 (PASC). However, the burden of infection outside the respiratory tract and time
to viral clearance is not well characterized, particularly in the brain. We performed
complete autopsies on 44 patients with COVID-19 to map and quantify SARS-CoV-2
distribution, replication, and cell-type specificity across the human body, including brain,
from acute infection through over seven months following symptom onset. We show that
SARS-CoV-2 is widely distributed, even among patients who died with asymptomatic to
mild COVID-19, and that virus replication is present in multiple pulmonary and
extrapulmonary tissues early in infection. Further, we detected persistent SARS-CoV-2
RNA in multiple anatomic sites, including regions throughout the brain, for up to 230 days
following symptom onset. Despite extensive distribution of SARS-CoV-2 in the body, we
observed a paucity of inflammation or direct viral cytopathology outside of the lungs. Our
data prove that SARS-CoV-2 causes systemic infection and can persist in the body for
months.<<<

Coronavirus Can Persist for Months After Traversing Body

https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-1139035/v1_covered.pdf?c=1640020576

 

[highfigh]

I feel more comfortable talking about my own COVID scare now.

Last Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, I had rapid tests at work, with negative results each time. Then, starting Wednesday afternoon/evening, I developed a sore throat and congestion. I started my Christmas holidays on Thursday, so was staying home anyway. We have some rapid test kits, so I did another test - still negative. Regardless, just to be certain, I made an appointment for a PCR test for Christmas Eve. I just received the results this morning - negative.

Looks like I have an old-fashioned cold. I just hope it's cleared up before January and return to work.

My brother called on Christmas Day and during the call, I started to cough, occasionally. That progressed as we talked and I started to feel achy, had sinus congestion and sleeping was difficult, at best- woke up coughing several times. Yesterday wasn't great, but I had periods of no coughing while I worked on the clean & lube of one of my bicycles but I really wasn't terribly motivated to work on it for a long period of time. My abs feel like I did 1000 crunches. I had looked for a list of Omicron symptoms and they still mention loss of taste and smell, but it's not as severe as it was for the other variants and I haven't had any GI issues.

Pretty sure it's a cold, but I have no idea where I got it- I don't remember anyone coughing or sneezing near me, although I was working at a house last Thursday and their son was hacking up a lung, so....

Going to try to be tested but many of the places near me have been swamped- first cold in almost four years.

 

[GO-NAD!]

My brother called on Christmas Day and during the call, I started to cough, occasionally. That progressed as we talked and I started to feel achy, had sinus congestion and sleeping was difficult, at best- woke up coughing several times. Yesterday wasn't great, but I had periods of no coughing while I worked on the clean & lube of one of my bicycles but I really wasn't terribly motivated to work on it for a long period of time. My abs feel like I did 1000 crunches. I had looked for a list of Omicron symptoms and they still mention loss of taste and smell, but it's not as severe as it was for the other variants and I haven't had any GI issues.

Pretty sure it's a cold, but I have no idea where I got it- I don't remember anyone coughing or sneezing near me, although I was working at a house last Thursday and their son was hacking up a lung, so....

Going to try to be tested but many of the places near me have been swamped- first cold in almost four years.

Well, I hope you feel better soon. I know exactly how I got my cold - from my daughter and/or her boyfriend.

This is just part of a pattern. Way back when she was in daycare, she brought Hand-Foot-and-Mouth home and passed it on to me. Later in Elementary school, she brought home Strep Throat and passed it on to me.

She's now in university and still bringing bugs home to share...but I'm not bitter.

 

[eljr]

fyi

the odds of catching a cold rather than Covid are very slim.

if you have a sniffle, you likely have covid

 

[Mikado463]

There are so many stats, numbers you name it out there right now it's probably safe to say that at least half the population has it / had it and didn't or doesn't know it ..........

 

[Mr._Clark]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say it's starting to look like the drop in new COVID cases in South Africa that started about 10 days ago is not just a statistical fluke:

The number of deaths has crept up recently, but (at least so far) it is well below the peaks of the prior waves:

I realize extrapolating from one country to another country in an effort to predict the future is guesswork. On the other hand, I'm glad the situation in South Africa isn't worse.

 

[Mr._Clark]

Yesterday, I spoke a neighbor's son who is now in his 1st year of Internal Medicine residency at a hospital in New York. He told me that he became positive for Covid-19 sometime in November. He had very mild, easily overlooked, symptoms. So did nearly all of the residents and staff at his hospital. The entire staff was regularly tested each week (if I remember correctly). At the time, no one in the US knew about the omicron variant. He, of course, had been fully immunized.

He also said (since he started as a resident, July 2021) he was not aware of any patient dying with Covid-19 if they had been immunized.

He said he believes the same will happen to most people in the USA, if it hasn't already happened . Get your shots and get ready.

Interesting.

Most cases I've heard about recently among friends, family, neighbors, etc. have involved people who were were either vaxed or previously infected, and these have been quite mild. The son and daughter in law of a neighbor were both unvaxed (I believe) and infected about 8 months ago. The daughter in law had relatively mild symptoms, but the son was quite sick (he was not admitted to the hospital, however)(not that sick, just miserable). They wife is now sick with it again, but the son apparently has no symptoms as of right now (I'm not sure if he's been tested).

 

[mtrycrafts]

Oh yes, my noggin is full of snot right now. It's kinda weird; I haven't had a cold like this in probably 5-6 years.

Yes, a curious whatever it is. Same here. One year I had two mild ones I think.

 

[TLS Guy]

My brother called on Christmas Day and during the call, I started to cough, occasionally. That progressed as we talked and I started to feel achy, had sinus congestion and sleeping was difficult, at best- woke up coughing several times. Yesterday wasn't great, but I had periods of no coughing while I worked on the clean & lube of one of my bicycles but I really wasn't terribly motivated to work on it for a long period of time. My abs feel like I did 1000 crunches. I had looked for a list of Omicron symptoms and they still mention loss of taste and smell, but it's not as severe as it was for the other variants and I haven't had any GI issues.

Pretty sure it's a cold, but I have no idea where I got it- I don't remember anyone coughing or sneezing near me, although I was working at a house last Thursday and their son was hacking up a lung, so....

Going to try to be tested but many of the places near me have been swamped- first cold in almost four years.

You have Covid until proved otherwise and need to isolate until you get a negative test.

 

[mtrycrafts]

....

She's now in university and still bringing bugs home to share...but I'm not bitter.

Is she a biology major?