Coronavirus

[rushyrulz]

Re: Coronavirus

been recovering from covid for last 2 weeks, shit sucks, even if vaxed.

[gold stinger]

Re: Coronavirus

I have covid for the second time. Woot woot.

this terrifies me

[kmay]

Re: Coronavirus

Well I was fully boosted... my fiance was one week post booster and got covid, minimal symptoms i.e cough, tired, headache... nothing terrible. I was TRYING to get it from him. I wanted to get this round over with while I was at my peak vaccination, but I was unable to get it from him.


Hope that helps someone

[rushyrulz]

Re: Coronavirus

Yea I was telling people that if you're gonna get covid, now's the time to do it. Symptoms weren't really all that bad, worst side effect is Christmas getting cancelled.

[Sanjixcon]

Re: Coronavirus

I'm unvaccinated and I haven't gotten sick yet... was hoping I'd get it by now so I could have natural immunity but somehow I've been able to dodge it for the last 2 years.

[aperson]

Re: Coronavirus

Trying to get "natural immunity" against something that spins up new variants every few months seems like a less than optimal strategy.

[radioamor]

Re: Coronavirus

Trying to get "natural immunity" against something that spins up new variants every few months seems like a less than optimal strategy.

...especially when omicron has proven to be particularly evasive against enhanced mitigation strategies, much less something as risky and tenuous as catching the virus to acquire an ephemeral natural immunity. We are never getting rid of this, so catching COVID to acquire immunity would be roughly analogous to intentionally getting the flu one year so you could be immune the next.
We live in a dispiriting state of affairs.

[HBar]

Re: Coronavirus

I can't believe I have to say this, but DO NOT GET COVID INTENTIONALLY.

Even a so-called "mild" case can mean permanent damage to your lungs, to your vascular system, to your nerves, to your other organs, lost sense of smell, increased risk of early-onset Parkinsons, and increased risk of death from other causes. And it doesn't provide any kind of guaranteed or long-lasting immunity either, re-infections are common. So then if you get it a second time, the damage from the first infection will be a co-morbidity that makes the second infection even more likely to be severe. And then the damage from the second infection will be compounded on top of what you got from the first time.

Getting covid also means putting everyone around you at risk. Do you want to live with the knowledge that you're responsible for the death or disability of someone close to you? Or even if they seem fine, they could also go on to infect others, who go on to infect others, etc. There's no way to know in advance how many people will be affected and how much suffering it'll cause.

This is also one of the worst possible times to get it. Suppose you guessed wrong and you or the people you give it to end up needing hospitalization? Hospitals are all overwhelmed right now, you could end up with a multi-day wait in the ER, only to end up on a gurney in a poorly-heated tent in the parking lot in the middle of winter because all the rooms are full, barely attended to by a numbed, sleep-deprived skeleton crew who might also be sick but forced to work anyway, even though they ran out of the supplies and equipment that they'd need to give you proper care.

And likewise, do everything you can not to get (or spread) covid unintentionally either. If you're vaccinated, that's a good start, but you need to keep acting as cautiously as if you were unvaccinated. Against Omicron, two doses barely provide any protection against infection. Getting a booster is important, it provides partial protection against infection, but it might be as low as 37%:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.12.30.21268565v1

So everyone, even vaccinated+boosted, still needs to be wearing masks. And they need to be effective masks too. Cloth and surgical masks are NOT effective protection, they don't block enough viral particles even through the mask itself, and they tend to leave gaps around the sides where air is completely unfiltered. You need a N95/FFP2/equivalent rated mask or better, and it should be well-fitted so that there aren't any gaps at all anywhere around the perimeter of the mask. In contact situations where everyone is wearing surgical masks, even when those masks are worn correctly and properly fitted, and for only 20 minutes, the chance of infection is still 10%, because surgical masks aren't good enough protection. That might seem like an OK percentage if you only ever had to have a single encounter, but when you have to encounter many people every day and it's potentially a 10% risk each time (and even higher if the other person is unmasked or their mask isn't well-fitted), then that quickly compounds to a high chance of getting it.

https://www.pnas.org/content/118/49/e2110117118


(TIL means total inward leakage, the percentage of particles getting through the mask. The inset shows how much worse surgical masks and unadjusted FFP2 masks are than adjusted FFP2 masks: surgical masks are about 6 to 15 times worse than adjusted FFP2 masks, unadjusted FFP2 masks are about 4 to 9 times worse than adjusted ones.)



(The infection risk is still 10.14% if you're in contact for 20 minutes with someone infected, even if you're both wearing well-fitted surgical masks. That's a risk 75 times higher than if you're both wearing well-fitted FFP2/N95 masks.)

If you want a N95 mask, I've been really happy with 3M Auras. The padded strip along the nose means they're comfortable and it's easy to get a good seal, they're surprisingly breathable and don't build up moisture as easily as other masks, they don't fog up my glasses, and they don't bunch against my nostrils or mouth so it's easy to breathe and easy to speak. They're sold in the paint aisle at Home Depot, they were plentiful last month but this month they might be harder to find. There are also plenty of places to order them online (I got mine from industrialsafetyproducts.com because I wanted the 9210 version with elastic fabric straps instead of the 9205 version with rubber band straps. But it took them two weeks to arrive even in late November, I'd expect the wait to be longer now.) Just don't order masks from Amazon, some suppliers have been selling counterfeit masks on Amazon and Amazon warehouses mix together the inventory from different sellers if it's supposed to be the same item.

If you're worried about the price or scarcity, N95s don't have to be single-use, as long as they're clean and dry they're generally good to use repeatedly, for maybe 40 hours of total use or more. It's still a good idea to rotate through multiple masks if you can, so you don't have moisture building up in one mask repeatedly.

Finding effective masks for kids can be a lot harder, because there are fewer options and a lot more possible variations in head size. There's a google doc with a comparison of different options at:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1i06OAItoOwIUaMjElr8mhh0Rw-it6WL-ODIQMZUOQxE/htmlview?fbclid=IwAR3VCIfWPXX3zkvqlv8kOuBHj_WnBZBoSkqo-ksqYoQdAgCrMRQ24Vv8MPk#gid=0

TL/DR:
-Covid is bad, folks. Don't get it. Don't spread it.
-Get vaxxed+boosted for partial protection against omicron, but don't use that as an excuse to take any extra risks.
-Always wear a mask around people from outside your household. Yes, even after you're vaxxed+boosted. Cloth and surgical masks aren't effective enough, wear N95 or better and make sure it's fitted well around your face.

[Phynx]

Re: Coronavirus

Huh.

This thread still exists?

No useful input. Ignore this post.