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COVID-19 vaccine discussion


Texas Jeff

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22 minutes ago, statsman said:

https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2023/01/03/health/covid-variant-xbb-explainer/index.html
 

The bivalent booster not so great with XBB. My thoughts:

1. We need a regular operation making annual unique Covid vaccines, like we do with flu (if that’s even possible; I really don’t know, and I gather Covid is still mutating quickly)

2. A year ago, I posted that there are three protections from bad Covid outcomes- being young, being fit and being vaccinated. If you can’t have all three, you should at least have two. Now, I think it’s time for the government to start doing what it has been reluctant to- start being vocal about the need for people to be fit. Especially the olds (like me). My reading of the CNN article is that being fit will do more good against XBB than being vaccinated (with our current vaccines). 

Young... ehhhh

Fit... Check

Vaccinated... Check

Honestly, I wonder if I would feel much if if wasn't cedar fever season.

(famous last words)

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1 minute ago, texasdago said:

Young... ehhhh

Fit... Check

Vaccinated... Check

Honestly, I wonder if I would feel much if if wasn't cedar fever season.

(famous last words)

Life long allergy sufferer here.  I’ve had  allergy spells that were way worse than my Covid experience.  

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3 minutes ago, HouTex said:

Life long allergy sufferer here.  I’ve had  allergy spells that were way worse than my Covid experience.  

I can usually cope relatively well as long as I don't do a couple of key things...

1) go out and leafblow an assload of leaves during a high pollen day

2) go take a more strenuous hike like River Place

3) rub my eyes

So of course yesterday I did 1 and 3 compounded by the onset of Covid. Today I'm not doing 1 and 3 and feel a lot better.

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To be fair- it’s not helpful to tell people, “This new disease we have? You really need to lose 30 (or 50 or 80) pounds.”

Three years later? The message is, “It ain’t going away. We have tools to fight it, but, really…you need to lower your BMI to help avoid a bad outcome”. 

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I tested positive for the first time last Monday.  It's been pretty much just sinus pressure and allergy like symptoms for me up until yesterday when I realized my sense of smell was totally gone.  I can't really taste much either, but it's not 100% gone like my sense of smell.  It's the strangest f'n feeling.

Anyone else have this happen with the latest variant going around?  I'm wondering how long it's going to last.

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5 minutes ago, The Royal We said:

I tested positive for the first time last Monday.  It's been pretty much just sinus pressure and allergy like symptoms for me up until yesterday when I realized my sense of smell was totally gone.  I can't really taste much either, but it's not 100% gone like my sense of smell.  It's the strangest f'n feeling.

Anyone else have this happen with the latest variant going around?  I'm wondering how long it's going to last.

I had it in June, so probably not the latest variant, but my symptoms were similar.  I lost my sense of smell and taste a few days after most of my symptoms went away. My senses came back in about 36 hours.

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1 hour ago, The Royal We said:

I tested positive for the first time last Monday.  It's been pretty much just sinus pressure and allergy like symptoms for me up until yesterday when I realized my sense of smell was totally gone.  I can't really taste much either, but it's not 100% gone like my sense of smell.  It's the strangest f'n feeling.

Anyone else have this happen with the latest variant going around?  I'm wondering how long it's going to last.

I'm on day 6 or 7 and it's been a non-event.  I'm assuming this is the latest and greatest strain. 

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Any updates on current infection rates?
the other thread is not on the first 2 pages and search sucks  

My mom tested positive after getting home from inpatient rehab. They had like 12 cases plus her. Had some sinus congestion is all. Stepdad did not get it. 
 

Anecdotally the cases I’m hearing about from pcps are mild and none of the hospitals I work at are seeing many inpatients 

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  • 3 months later...
On 7/30/2023 at 2:37 PM, Celery Man said:

Does COVID fuck with your shits at all? I had my latest round of "is this just a light flu or some covid" recently but the test came up negative.

There’s rotavirus and norovirus running through Texas and much more likely to mess up your GI tract than Covid.

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1 hour ago, Don Johnson said:

 

65+ rate would be higher ideally. Doesn't appear to be much need among the younger, esp those with hybrid immunity. Which is most of us. Would like to see the rates across mutually exclusive categories of age with some more granularity.  

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My college-age son has two buddies that popped positive this week.  So far our kid is negative.

Honestly, we haven't exactly been diligent about keeping away from him.  It's fascinating how 3 years, multiple vaccines and a personal infection or two changes one's defcon level when it comes to isolation.  I mean, I don't want it, but the one time I know I had it things were really mild.  I wouldn't have tested except another of our kids rang the bell and so we all lined up for the swab.  I won.  I was already recovered.

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1 hour ago, jimmyjazz said:

My college-age son has two buddies that popped positive this week.  So far our kid is negative.

Honestly, we haven't exactly been diligent about keeping away from him.  It's fascinating how 3 years, multiple vaccines and a personal infection or two changes one's defcon level when it comes to isolation.  I mean, I don't want it, but the one time I know I had it things were really mild.  I wouldn't have tested except another of our kids rang the bell and so we all lined up for the swab.  I won.  I was already recovered.

Yeah, I only worry about isolation/etc. if I'm going to be around an older relative that I know doesn't vaccinate.

Edit: We will still do the mask thing though if somebody gets sick, even if not covid. We would do that before for the flu, but we are a little more vigilant.

Edited by atomheartbevo
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Still knocking on wood and still Covid free, but I'm about to have to go back up to NY again to help the kid move into a new place (driving up there with her and some furniture in tow and then flying back).

Got the bivalent last October before helping take care of my cancer-ridden mother, who was in hospice at the time. I'm not overly concerned but would prefer to keep the streak at this point.

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13 hours ago, Anastasis said:

Does a COVID booster help with that for a relatively healthy younger 40s individual. Asking for a friend. 

Jury is out. Possibly. Natural immunity appears to last and at least mitigate Covid symptoms in the younger healthy population. The positive numbers (at least symptomatic) skew heavily in the older than 50 population without recent infection or boosters. This is pretty much been the case with every variant. I would be surprised we would see ha many young children with significantly symptomatic Covid unless we have a radical variant mutation.

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4 minutes ago, Newdoc said:

Jury is out. Possibly. Natural immunity appears to last and at least mitigate Covid symptoms in the younger healthy population. The positive numbers (at least symptomatic) skew heavily in the older than 50 population without recent infection or boosters. This is pretty much been the case with every variant. I would be surprised we would see ha many young children with significantly symptomatic Covid unless we have a radical variant mutation.

Thanks.  That seems to check out.  We just have a friend (mid-50s) with whom we were going to have dinner on Sunday cancel because she's down with COVID (second time).  Nobody else in her household (husband and 3 kids in their 20s all home for the summer) has popped positive.  She's staying isolated in a bedroom, and that seems to be working.

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13 hours ago, jimmyjazz said:

My college-age son has two buddies that popped positive this week.  So far our kid is negative.

Honestly, we haven't exactly been diligent about keeping away from him.  It's fascinating how 3 years, multiple vaccines and a personal infection or two changes one's defcon level when it comes to isolation.  I mean, I don't want it, but the one time I know I had it things were really mild.  I wouldn't have tested except another of our kids rang the bell and so we all lined up for the swab.  I won.  I was already recovered.

There's a part of me that is anal about "i need to do the thing that you're supposed to do" and that is the part of me that worries about isolating. The big driver 2-3 years ago was because we were going through the largest mass death event in American history and it was the decent and good thing to do to take heavy precautions. We're past that, it is a weird thing of... ok what is the agreed upon level of concern now if I have a runny nose.

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Just now, Celery Man said:

There's a part of me that is anal about "i need to do the thing that you're supposed to do" and that is the part of me that worries about isolating. The big driver 2-3 years ago was because we were going through the largest mass death event in American history and it was the decent and good thing to do to take heavy precautions. We're past that, it is a weird thing of... ok what is the agreed upon level of concern now if I have a runny nose.

Yeah, I think that's where we are now.  Both some heightened awareness and prevention (I've recently told people who had sniffles and a cough to stay the hell home; when we've had cold symptoms, we wear a mask in public as a courtesy), but also not freaking out when people get COVID.  Now that 96% of people have some level of immunity (either from vaccine, prior infection, or both), COVID is now largely another pain in the ass respiratory illness, like the flu.  You get it, it can suck, stay home and be sick, then get better.  And like the flu, if for some reason it doesn't resolve or puts you in distress, get medical help.  That just seems like reality now.

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Jury is out. Possibly. Natural immunity appears to last and at least mitigate Covid symptoms in the younger healthy population. The positive numbers (at least symptomatic) skew heavily in the older than 50 population without recent infection or boosters. This is pretty much been the case with every variant. I would be surprised we would see ha many young children with significantly symptomatic Covid unless we have a radical variant mutation.

My wife and daughter (9) are both sick and having quite a few symptoms. My wife also has the dancing sickness where she feels the need to come to the living room and touch too much stuff rather than keep away from the boys who are all negative.

Daughter has fever, neighbor kid had a fever, congestion, etc.

We all caught it last year, except my eldest (11) who has managed to avoid it. Natural immunity is overrated.
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Just now, Nivek said:


Care to visit my home? My wife and daughter (9) are both sick and having quite a few symptoms. My wife has the dancing sickness where she feels the need to come to the living room and touch too much stuff rather than keep away from the boys who are all negative.

Stick them in a room with Cheez-its, gummy worms, and crossword puzzles?

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A lot of my work calls today were with people(or their friends and family)who have tested positive in the last week.  Surge going on for sure.  I was getting Delta type vibes from the amount of people telling me about their COVID situation. Haven’t talked this much about it in quite a while.  Good news is I haven’t heard of anyone having very serious symptoms.  

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On 8/2/2023 at 6:10 PM, Incredulity said:

A lot of my work calls today were with people(or their friends and family)who have tested positive in the last week.  Surge going on for sure.  I was getting Delta type vibes from the amount of people telling me about their COVID situation. Haven’t talked this much about it in quite a while.  Good news is I haven’t heard of anyone having very serious symptoms.  

It's likely this "Arcturus" strain amped up to spread by July 4th travel. It doesn't seem to be any more virulent than the previous Omicron strains but those with weakened immune systems and the completely naive (infants and young children and people living under a rock) seem to be having a more pronounced symptom set. Saw a 4 month old with it last night. 104 fever and miserable but no pulmonary complications. Young kids with previous Covid immunity and healthy immune systems have mild URI symptoms for a couple a days then shrug this thing off like a common cold. 

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On 8/2/2023 at 7:10 PM, Incredulity said:

A lot of my work calls today were with people(or their friends and family)who have tested positive in the last week.  Surge going on for sure.  I was getting Delta type vibes from the amount of people telling me about their COVID situation. Haven’t talked this much about it in quite a while.  Good news is I haven’t heard of anyone having very serious symptoms.  

Ugh you activated my PTSD with the Delta vibes.  We are a long way from that and hopefully we never go back there again.

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1 hour ago, Dontshootrude said:

Ugh you activated my PTSD with the Delta vibes.  We are a long way from that and hopefully we never go back there again.

I can't speak for others experiences and Delta is a long time ago.

That said, my world has been swarming with COVID positives over the last 2-3 weeks.  Again, I haven't heard any severe cases.  Just over and over about coming back from vacation with friends and family then x,y,z and a,b,c testing positive, in bed with headache,.....

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Reflecting on the last couple weeks it is strange to me that so many people are still testing. 

I don't know if they are testing with the testing kits sent out a couple years ago or if people are still buying kits.  Personally up until this last couple weeks it wouldn't have even occurred to me to have anyone in my family test if they had come down with an illness, unless symptoms were severe.

 

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Man good luck finding covid tests. I called 10 places until I found some at the HEB on 79 and $10 ea at that.

I broke my cherry Monday. 4th and last vax was 1.25 years ago so who knows where my antibodies where. Mild flu and upper respitory symptoms and headache. I've had worse hangovers, just not as long lasting.  1st day was the worst and each day has been better.

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Man good luck finding covid tests. I called 10 places until I found some at the HEB on 79 and $10 ea at that.
I broke my cherry Monday. 4th and last vax was 1.25 years ago so who knows where my antibodies where. Mild flu and upper respitory symptoms and headache. I've had worse hangovers, just not as long lasting.  1st day was the worst and each day has been better.

I didn’t have issues finding kits. Walgreens told me they no longer stock them. CVS had plenty.

I reacted to Moderna with flu like symptoms so my doc told me to go fora pfizer booster and that was much easier on me.
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