Stay Safe Everyone!

[dws1982]

I'm not sure what I had when I got sick in January, and I'm not saying it was COVID, but I've considered getting the antibody test. (It's not covered by insurance, and I don't want to pay if I'm not sure how reliable it is.) I had all of the common COVID symptoms, was negative for flu, went home with a diagnosis of a sinus infection and upper respiratory infection. I didn't believe the diagnosis at the time--I've always felt that sinus infection and upper respiratory infection were "safe" diagnoses that doctors went with when the symptoms were in that range but they weren't totally sure what the patient had. I felt much worse than I've ever felt with with minor infections, and it stuck around for a solid 2-3 weeks after I finished the antibiotic regimen. This spring, my seasonal allergies have been many times worse than normal, and my asthma has me using the inhaler almost daily, whereas I only used it after exercise or physical activity before. Again, I'm not saying it was COVID, and I doubt it was, but whatever it was, I'm still feeling the effects.

[Precious Doll]

Unfortunately none of the anti-body tests are very reliable as they are bringing up too many false positives and false negatives to be of any real value. We are probably a number of months away from a reliable anti-body test if we a lucky and there is a research and development group in The Netherlands who are also working on an anti-body test they will also indicate when people were actually infected. I wish them good luck with that.

It is probably more likely than not they these people had nothing more than 'festival flu' which I suffered myself in 2012 whilst attending the Melbourne Film Festival. Basically brought about by not only by catching a bug (of the coronavirus family or otherwise) but being personally comprised by a long overburdened days with little sleep, bad irregular eating habits, too much drinking of alcohol, extreme cold and in my case dealing with stressful work issues at the same time. My partner and I never felt as sick as we did back during that festival, so much so that we finished our proposed schedule a week early and headed back to the comfort of home.

Though our only symptoms were basically feeling unwell, developing terrible chesty coughs and a brief loss of appetite. I never ran a fever though I haven't experienced any fevers despite a few colds for over more than 20 years with the last I recall being just prior to Easter of 1997. I thankfully haven't experienced aches and pains since I cannot even remember since its been so so long.

[Sonic Youth]

COVID-19 may have been spread around the recent Sundance Film Festival:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/featu ... es-1293378

Since not a single person in this article has tested positive, I conclude this is irresponsible reporting-by-innuendo. Don't appreciate the conspiratorial undertone either.

Everybody and their mother now believes they were sick with COVID-19 last January, and even months earlier than that. The amount of excess deaths would have gone as sky-high back then as it is now.

[Precious Doll]

COVID-19 may have been spread around the recent Sundance Film Festival:

https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/featu ... es-1293378

[OscarGuy]

Next Pandemic, I hope we have an Obama in the White House. After all, it was through his swift and decisive action that Ebola didn't ravage the US. He left all the tools in place for the dipshit-in-chief who tossed them. I imagine as long as we have a Democrat in the White House, we may have better shot the next time.

[Sonic Youth]

Sonic Youth wrote:

Mister Tee wrote:

also find it VERY hard to believe the 60,000 death estimate everyone (including my trusted fellow Regis-alumnus Dr. Fauci) was tossing around last week. We're at 36,000 already, with only NY showing any signs of leveling (at a scary-high number), and many places still on the rise. How long before that model gets adjusted upward?

I think the number is lowball, but not ridiculously so. I'd guess more around 80-90 thousand by summer's end, which is more optimistic than the half-a-million I was thinking about a month ago.

And I'm talking about projected mass deaths like they were box office predictions. Quite a new normal we've got here.

We're going to be Sweden after all. Revising my prediction to quarter-of-a-million.

And I was so hopeful 2-3 weeks ago... For all the talk of how America bungled the response, I think we managed to do just enough to keep it from being an utter catastrophe. And now, since the worst-case scenario didn't happen, we're going to pay the price for it. Next pandemic, maybe we should just let the country die off.

[Mister Tee]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

An infuriating story.

This article does its best to be even-handed -- blandly repeating administration defenses, trusting the reader to recognize they're in full contradiction with reality -- but, even so, it exposes the complete incompetence and lack of empathy on display.

Bottom line is, we've made not close to the progress we need to move out of this, and the administration strategy now appears to be the one Sen. George Aiken famously suggested for Vietnam -- "Declare victory and leave." If the Times report today -- that we'll reach 3000 deaths a day by June 1st -- is accurate, no amount of gaslighting will keep people from seeing what an abject failure this has been. I think the "let's open the economy" approach is a transparent Hail Mary -- they know the epidemic/economic numbers as they are will crush Republicans at the polls, so they're trying to will the economy back to life. I don't see how that succeeds while most people are as afraid as they are. And a higher death toll will only make them more afraid.

Six months till we can do anything about it. Hold tight.

[Okri]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics ... story.html

An infuriating story.

[OscarGuy]

Let's hope. Let's also hope that Trump doesn't do something stupid to make it unaffordable for anyone but the wealthy.

[Greg]

Prof. Sarah Gilbert, a vaccinologist at the Jenner Institute at Oxford University in the U.K., says a potontial coronavirus vaccine the group she leads, in conjunction with several other groups, is researching could be widely available by September. They have already started human trials.

[OscarGuy]

Why do people think others are smarter than they actually are. There's a reason there are warnings on the side of cleaning products saying not to consume them. People are that fucking stupid. This is why you have to play to the lowest common denominator...

[Big Magilla]

Don't do this:

Article about two misguided souls who drank potentially toxic amounts of household cleaner in response to our irresponsible president's asinine comments and a warning about mixing cleaning products.

In the late 1980s or early 1990s, I had an employee, an otherwise very smart woman, who died a horrible death from lung disease at 62 that was attributed to cleaning her bathroom with a mixture of Clorox and other cleaning products.

https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regiona ... X2SjpEfjL/

[Big Magilla]

Good to hear from you, Greg. I was worried about you.

[Greg]

So, I decided to post again after getting a little burned out on my script. I have been mostly been doing fine, except for a minor temporary bout of depression. I recognized that as being a PTSD reaction to the current social distancing and memories of when I was a social outcast and did not have any opportunity to touch other people, but, I have been making progress in trying to keep that part of my past in the past.

Where I live, at least unti now, has been surprisingly spared, partticlarly compared to New York. Florida, which now has a population larger than New York State, has had 32K coronavirus cases and 1K deaths, compared to New York's 298 and 23. My county, with a population a little over a half million, has had 689 cases and 19 deaths, 8 of which were in nursing homes.

I have also made this trivial but interesting discovery recently. The light on my phone dims when the battery drops to 5%.

[Big Magilla]

Sorry to hear about your friend, Tee.

Three of the four people I knew who died in the last few weeks were nursing home patients, but only one was a confirmed coronavirus death.

My godmother, an aunt who is my oldest living blood relative, also in a nursing home, is "on her way out" at 101 per her eldest daughter, but it's not related to the virus. She's been in an advanced state for dementia for a while in one of the better nursing homes in New Jersey, one that has not been in the news connected to the virus.

Sabin, I share your concern. I worry about my nieces and nephews and all the other young people who think they're indestructible because they're young, especially those who were supposed to graduate from college next month and now have no idea what they're going to do.