COVID-19 Thread [V2.0]

[CheezWizHed]

[sarcasm]I sense much fear in you from the business world. Fear becomes hate. Hate leads to the dark side.[/sarcasm]

 

I can't speak for every business place, but my workplace sent as many to work from home as possible (I've been in the office ~6-8 times since April), mandated masks, cleaning your desk daily, temperature checks, self-health assessments, social distancing (including workstations in the factory and cubical offices), increasing HVAC airflow, removing most of the tables from the cafeteria (we are encouraged to eat at our desks if possible), and mandating masks (including giving us reusable and disposable masks to use).

 

That is a huge difference from what you will find from eating at someone's house.

 

Yes, companies certainly want to stay in business. Big ones, small ones, and medium ones... Sorry to say, but I sure enjoy having a paycheck coming every two weeks too. Kind of unrealistic to think everything just stops.

[PeaveyFury]

 

At least that's what the science says!

 

I’m assuming you have links to show that anyone is actually saying this?

 

What? I need a link to show that pretty much every government official, elected or appointed bureaucrat, is saying that getting together for a family gathering is a really bad idea. But on the other hand, there isn't one peep from them saying that piling into a workplace, with 100 people from 100 different households, could be a significant risk? I really need a link for that? Last night on the way home from work I drove past one of the local steakhouses and the parking lot was jammed packed. So if I get together with 15 relatives from 5 different households for a Christmas dinner, that is a completely unnecessary risk, but the 100 people from 50 different households that were in the steakhouse last night does not present an unnecessary public risk?

 

Best part is that the people who make up all these rules are the first people to ignore their own rules.

 

Clearly, you were asked for a link for the very sentence that was quoted along with my asking for one. Is anyone claiming that workplaces are safer than family gatherings? Is there any science suggesting such? You added the 'sarcasm' indicator in your subsequent edit, for the record.

 

Cheezwiz is right. Many employers HAVE taken significant steps to implement safety procedures. As of literally today, I haven't worked from my company's office for 10 months. That wasn't a personal choice either, they sent basically everyone home.

 

Regarding your steakhouse, I believe you've noted that you live in Wisconsin previously. You and I both know why there's been conflicting stances on restaurants and bars in the state. Throughout all of this, there have sadly been 'sides' that prioritize different things in different cases, and very little common ground has been found along the way.

 

It is again worth noting, however, that restaurants and bars HAVE had restrictions on capacity, spacing, etc. on them basically since day one of the initial lock down and subsequent reopening.

[JosephC]

[sarcasm]I sense much fear in you from the business world. Fear becomes hate. Hate leads to the dark side.[/sarcasm]

 

I can't speak for every business place, but my workplace sent as many to work from home as possible (I've been in the office ~6-8 times since April), mandated masks, cleaning your desk daily, temperature checks, self-health assessments, social distancing (including workstations in the factory and cubical offices), increasing HVAC airflow, removing most of the tables from the cafeteria (we are encouraged to eat at our desks if possible), and mandating masks (including giving us reusable and disposable masks to use).

 

That is a huge difference from what you will find from eating at someone's house.

 

Yes, companies certainly want to stay in business. Big ones, small ones, and medium ones... Sorry to say, but I sure enjoy having a paycheck coming every two weeks too. Kind of unrealistic to think everything just stops.

 

And if working for just a medium sized business....there is a pretty good chance the average person goes to into a workplace 240 times during the year and risks spreading the virus in an environment where there are people from 50 different households present. That is opposed to a few family gatherings a year, where a person goes into a home 3-5 times a year and risks spreading the virus in an environment where there are maybe people from 5 or 6 different households present. That's a big difference when considering what the government says you shouldn't do and what behavior is considered perfectly fine.

[PeaveyFury]

And if working for just a medium sized business....there is a pretty good chance the average person goes to into a workplace 240 times during the year and risks spreading the virus in an environment where there are people from 50 different households present. That is opposed to a few family gatherings a year, where a person goes into a home 3-5 times a year and risks spreading the virus in an environment where there are maybe people from 5 or 6 different households present. That's a big difference when considering what the government says you shouldn't do and what behavior is considered perfectly fine.

 

So just to be perfectly clear, you're stating that you think there should be a full-scale hard lock down implemented by the government?

 

I think the point that you missed from Cheezwiz's post was that precautions are taken in a workplace that likely fall short on a family holiday. Food/drinking without masks, hugging/kissing, shared utensils, closer contact indoors due to space restrictions, etc. Perhaps you have a different workspace/environment than I, but none of these items are problematic in our space, and they've STILL sent us all home.

[AKCheesehead]

 

I'm very concerned about the folks in my area right now. Many of them are Russian Orthodox, which I don't really have much of an understanding of, but it's the beginning of the week of Slaaviq holiday for them. Typically that means all week long several different families host a feast each night and people go from house to house, lots of singing and it goes on all night. If they don't just completely scrap it this year it's going to be an absolute nightmare.

 

Quoting myself here to give this update context. Late last night walking the dog before bed I saw quite a few pedestrians walking with little plastic bags. (they always give little bags of treats, candies, etc at Slaaviq gatherings) We already have a very high rate here right now. If people are Slaaviqing this year as much as I fear, mark my words. Bethel, AK is going to be one of if not the darkest spot on the nation's covid map in a couple of weeks. Good grief.

 

ETA: I just looked, we already are. Sigh.

[igor67]

Given that we have at least 50 states, and 1 federal government making recommendations some level of inconsistency is pretty much a guarantee, and in at minimum 2 parties with distinct values controlling those decisions in different locations... More relevantly the decisions both on the business and political levels on how to restart are mostly months old. Or where governments could (like MN) do more restrictions they were clearly moving that direction during the holidays so I don't see a philosophical inconsistency. Public health officials aren't really in a position to go back and refight the old battles (unless you believe that strategy was likely to succeed). So the real question does come down to does it make sense to target a single type of event that will involve about 1/3 of the population (based on 2019 travel numbers) moving?

[thebruce44]

Certainly. They did spread out at mealtime, not congregated all around the table like normal. I too suspect that may have been the culprit. Or, heck, maybe even from serving utensils for all I know. Or from doing the dishes which no doubt Mom and Dad did since I wasn't there. Or, maybe breathed right through one mask and into another, we'll never know. I do know that there's really not a safe way to get together. I wasn't willing to take the chance. And the hell of it is, the reason I wasn't willing to go is because I was afraid I might pick it up on a plane or in an airport and get my parents sick with it.

 

It's an airborne virus, they were in the same house & rooms for extended periods of time and they had masks off for extended periods of time.

 

None of this is surprising at all.

 

To further add anecdotal stories, I was exposed to the virus for nearly 2 weeks straight in close quarters from my MIL and then my wife. I had 2-3 days where I didn't feel very good (felt like a head cold and then some drainage into my lungs), but never tested positive through 3 rapid tests. I don't know if that means I am immune or if I got it and recovered between tests, but this is definitely a strange virus.

[jerichoholicninja]

Former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden is warning that the U.S. may soon face “close to a worst-case scenario” as a new, highly-contagious strain of Covid-19 spreads around the country, warning that full hospitals in the U.S. may soon be the norm.

 

...

 

Frieden said of the strain that is rapidly spreading around the U.K. and Ireland that “I've never seen an epidemic curve like this.”

 

The U.K. is averaging nearly 60,000 new cases a day now, after averaging around 15,000 new cases a day at the start of December, while Ireland’s rise has been even more rapid.

 

Both countries are under strict lockdowns, yet cases continue to rise at a rate Frieden—who has spent decades working in public health—says he has never seen.

 

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2021/01/08/close-to-a-worst-case-scenario-former-cdc-director-issues-horrifying-outlook-for-new-covid-strain/?sh=69d541ed3738

 

So I have to laugh because I read this article right after I read an article where the expert said the new COVID variant isn't really anything to worry about - maybe it's more contagious but current protective measures and the vaccine should work just as well. I get it, this thing is still new and we're learning but can we quit with the "murder porn" quotes in COVID news stories. Everything is "this is only going to get worse" and "more and more people are going to die". Every news story reads like Bill Hader doing a Dateline skit on SNL where the reporter just gets more and more excited the worse and more grizzly the story gets.

[TURBO]

The media loves the negativity, keeps us all fearful, which is what they like.

 

I'm to the point now that I am tuning out anything covid related, politics related, and basically anything being reported by our media. Every once in a while I a do a clense, and it improves my mood, and just plain makes me feel happier. The doom and gloom really gets old.

 

The recent events, plus what is coming down the pike makes this a pefect time to tune out for a couple of weeks.

[OldSchoolSnapper]

Certainly. They did spread out at mealtime, not congregated all around the table like normal. I too suspect that may have been the culprit. Or, heck, maybe even from serving utensils for all I know. Or from doing the dishes which no doubt Mom and Dad did since I wasn't there. Or, maybe breathed right through one mask and into another, we'll never know. I do know that there's really not a safe way to get together. I wasn't willing to take the chance. And the hell of it is, the reason I wasn't willing to go is because I was afraid I might pick it up on a plane or in an airport and get my parents sick with it.

 

It's an airborne virus, they were in the same house & rooms for extended periods of time and they had masks off for extended periods of time.

 

None of this is surprising at all.

 

To further add anecdotal stories, I was exposed to the virus for nearly 2 weeks straight in close quarters from my MIL and then my wife. I had 2-3 days where I didn't feel very good (felt like a head cold and then some drainage into my lungs), but never tested positive through 3 rapid tests. I don't know if that means I am immune or if I got it and recovered between tests, but this is definitely a strange virus.

 

That isn't all that strange. No virus ever gets to everybody even if they are in close contact with it. The hysteria over this has naturally led people to assume if they're around someone who had it, they have it, but even if nobody took a single precaution, there would be millions of people who never get infected.

[thebruce44]

It's an airborne virus, they were in the same house & rooms for extended periods of time and they had masks off for extended periods of time.

 

None of this is surprising at all.

 

To further add anecdotal stories, I was exposed to the virus for nearly 2 weeks straight in close quarters from my MIL and then my wife. I had 2-3 days where I didn't feel very good (felt like a head cold and then some drainage into my lungs), but never tested positive through 3 rapid tests. I don't know if that means I am immune or if I got it and recovered between tests, but this is definitely a strange virus.

 

That isn't all that strange. No virus ever gets to everybody even if they are in close contact with it. The hysteria over this has naturally led people to assume if they're around someone who had it, they have it, but even if nobody took a single precaution, there would be millions of people who never get infected.

 

But I literally had COVID shoved up my nose (our toddler thinks its hilarious to stick a Neosporin bottle cap tip up her nose and everyone else's). I think it is more likely that a portion of the population already has antibodies without getting the virus. I had a head cold a week before exposure, which I read can be caused by other types of Coronaviruses. Maybe that helped? Again, all anecdotal and speculation on my part.

[owbc]

I could be wrong, but I thought the rapid tests can only detect large viral loads, otherwise they give you a negative. So the fact that you were largely asymptomatic suggests that you probably had COVID with a low viral load.

[Fear The Chorizo]

 

But I literally had COVID shoved up my nose (our toddler thinks its hilarious to stick a Neosporin bottle cap tip up her nose and everyone else's). I think it is more likely that a portion of the population already has antibodies without getting the virus. I had a head cold a week before exposure, which I read can be caused by other types of Coronaviruses. Maybe that helped? Again, all anecdotal and speculation on my part.

 

Sounds like you probably had it and recovered before they got it - potentially as an asymptomatic or incredibly mild symptomatic case. There's also the chance you just weren't symptomatic while your significant others were, as the rapid testing doesn't do a good job at detecting true asymptomatic cases (for a random group of 3 infected people it would be expected that at least 1 not be symptomatic based on testing results to date, anyway). I think the false negative rate for rapid testing on asymptomatic cases is very high - basically to the point where there's not much benefit in even taking that test instead of a PCR test.

 

On the other hand, if your only primary direct exposure to someone who you knew had it was your toddler and a wayward Neosporin cap, and you did your best to maintain as many mitigation measures as possible to limit prolonged exposure from your wife - it's not surprising you didn't get infected from your toddler. Young children rarely have an immune system developed enough to carry a high enough viral load to infect adults.

 

The only way to really tell at this point is to take a COVID antibody test, and even that has the potential to return a false negative if you had COVID long enough ago with limited/no immune system response.

[Machu Peach]

It's not that strange at all. There's no reason to assume you've had COVID if the tests were negative. It certainly possible that you had a low level infection that isn't detectable via the 3 rapid tests, but it isn't likely. The false negative rates of the rapid tests are only around 20%.

 

I think many people overestimate the infectivity of COVID (and viral diseases in general). Think of how colds or the flu spread; sometimes everyone in a household is infected but sometimes only one person.

 

Edit: I should add that I don't really trust the at-home rapid tests. I'm sure kits themselves are ok, but I'm skeptical that they'll be used appropriately by everyone.

[Machu Peach]

For those interested in post-infection immunity.

 

https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/2021/01/06/science.abf4063

[thebruce44]

Regardless of what happened with me, my wife, toddler, and newborn, we will all be getting vaccinated ASAP. I truly hope there are no long term effects for newborns- my wife wore a mask up until yesterday since her symptoms are now gone, but with how close she and the newborn have to be, I'm assuming a mask can only do so much.

[LouisEly]

Regardless of what happened with me, my wife, toddler, and newborn, we will all be getting vaccinated ASAP. I truly hope there are no long term effects for newborns- my wife wore a mask up until yesterday since her symptoms are now gone, but with how close she and the newborn have to be, I'm assuming a mask can only do so much.

I'm pretty sure the Pfizer vaccine has only been approved for those 16+ and the Moderna vaccine for those 18+, so I don't know if the kids can even get the vaccine.

 

There have only been a little more than 100 total "COVID-involved" deaths of people 14 and under. That is less than the number of deaths "involving" influenza for those 14 and under, and influenza cases are way down this season.

 

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm

 

I don't know for sure, but I'd be willing to bet that a vast majority of those who are 14 and under are obese or have other underlying medical conditions or have parents who smoke at home.

[CheezWizHed]

Regardless of what happened with me, my wife, toddler, and newborn, we will all be getting vaccinated ASAP. I truly hope there are no long term effects for newborns- my wife wore a mask up until yesterday since her symptoms are now gone, but with how close she and the newborn have to be, I'm assuming a mask can only do so much.

 

If your wife happens to be breastfeeding, that might help protect the child, too

[thebruce44]

Regardless of what happened with me, my wife, toddler, and newborn, we will all be getting vaccinated ASAP. I truly hope there are no long term effects for newborns- my wife wore a mask up until yesterday since her symptoms are now gone, but with how close she and the newborn have to be, I'm assuming a mask can only do so much.

 

If your wife happens to be breastfeeding, that might help protect the child, too

 

The pediatrician said her antibodies will pass through her milk to our infant.

[PeaveyFury]

Two of my immediate family members were able to get their first shot today, and I'm over-the-moon excited about it. One was my moderately high-risk mother, who is still working in a high-risk job, so it's a huuuuge sense of relief.

[JimH5]

Two of my immediate family members were able to get their first shot today, and I'm over-the-moon excited about it. One was my moderately high-risk mother, who is still working in a high-risk job, so it's a huuuuge sense of relief.

 

Congrats to you and your mom!

 

Looking forward to the day when I can get mine. I'm a phase 2 person, which is gooe that I'm lower risk, but still would like those antibodies.

[igor67]

Super excited for you.

On a different optimistic note based on the success of the mRNA Covid vaccines, there are already plans for 3 different Phase I trials for a new flu vaccine, HIV, and a 3rd rare disease. I have a strong intuition that we have hit one of those rare perfect storm moments where the dramatically increased investment has really spawned a goldmine of new vaccine technologies that will keep having huge benefits for public health for years to come.

[Brewers Numbers]

Super excited for you.

On a different optimistic note based on the success of the mRNA Covid vaccines, there are already plans for 3 different Phase I trials for a new flu vaccine, HIV, and a 3rd rare disease. I have a strong intuition that we have hit one of those rare perfect storm moments where the dramatically increased investment has really spawned a goldmine of new vaccine technologies that will keep having huge benefits for public health for years to come.

Nipah virus (link to article about Moderna)

[Machu Peach]

On a different optimistic note based on the success of the mRNA Covid vaccines, there are already plans for 3 different Phase I trials for a new flu vaccine, HIV, and a 3rd rare disease. I have a strong intuition that we have hit one of those rare perfect storm moments where the dramatically increased investment has really spawned a goldmine of new vaccine technologies that will keep having huge benefits for public health for years to come.

I am significantly more skeptical. Both flu and HIV have specific features that make them very difficult to vaccinate against. COVID does not have those type of features. mRNA vaccines have already been extensively tested against both flu and HIV and failed. I'm hopeful that eventually effective vaccines will be designed against both, but using mRNA doesn't solve the underlining problems with flu and HIV vaccine design.

[igor67]

I do appreciate a good dose of cold water, Machu. Could you elaborate a bit on which characteristics are the biggest hurdles? I'm considering if I want to invest some time researching more for redesigning part of a unit.