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For WHOm the Bell Tolls - Covid-19 #11


ithanos

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7 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

Coughing is a possible symptom, but should only be worrying if you have chest tightness (or chest pain), shortness of breath, or any kind of respiratory discomfort. IIRC you're rather young (younger than me ^^) and you smoke, so coughing fits are to be expected with Covid-19. You might also get bronchitis even after you're rid of Covid-19.
This being said do not hesitate to rush to the ER if you do have the other symptoms and think it's not anxiety.

As someone said on twitter: "A fun game to play with yourself is panic attack or coronavirus"

'cause yeah, panic attacks and Covid-19 symptoms are pretty damn close. And not mutually exclusive either.

Fucking virus, man. Anyway, take care, you keep this board funny.

But see that's the thing, given that variance, you really can't know. Also, I smoke very little these days compared to my past. Just a bowl at the end of the day or maybe some more because I'm being Jon Stewart from Half Baked. 

I also have some chest pains, but that could just be from working out multiple times per day on multiple days per week. Or from said minor burst of anxiety. 

And yeah, fuck this virus. We had to start wearing masks at work today, man does it suck. It's funny how much people are touching their faces, and I'm sure next to nobody is going to properly handle theirs. They're reversible, and they have the same patterns on both sides.......
 

14 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Oh hell, Ty.

I have done a lot of reading on the topic, lots of people have posted stories. The coughs range from nothing at all to real constant hacking, even coughing up blood. From a tickle in the throat to a non-stop cough. But typically a dry cough.

I understand Reddit has lots of threads about Covid-19 including one where people have posted their symptoms.

And look after yourself, you damn fool. Look after yourself. Tylenol.

 

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1 minute ago, Tywin et al. said:

But see that's the thing, given that variance, you really can't know. Also, I smoke very little these days compared to my past. Just a bowl at the end of the day or maybe some more because I'm being Jon Stewart from Half Baked. 

I also have some chest pains, but that could just be from working out multiple times per day on multiple days per week. Or from said minor burst of anxiety. 

And yeah, fuck this virus. We had to start wearing masks at work today, man does it suck. It's funny how much people are touching their faces, and I'm sure next to nobody is going to properly handle theirs. They're reversible, and they have the same patterns on both sides.......
 

 

You should get tested irrespective of anything else if you have yourself a cough, any other symptoms just reinforce that need to get tested. You may not get any worse than what you have right now, but if you're infected you could pass it on to others, or might have already passed it on to others. So for the sake of being able to do contact tracing and to limit future spread it's better to know than not to know.

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Hell...I can't even...the anxiety I get seeing someone I know proclaim himself, "the voice of reason" every time someone else we know comments on how people need to stay home, wear masks, flatten the curve...but he is the voice of reason telling us we're foolish that the models were wrong after they'd been adjusted down from their highest numbers because people.dod what they were supposed to.  That there is no reason to be doing all of the social distancing.  He can be presented with actual articles and facts, but he has his own (something labeled from the NEJM, as an example) that he interprets his own way.  

Frustrating. 

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5 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

But see that's the thing, given that variance, you really can't know. Also, I smoke very little these days compared to my past. Just a bowl at the end of the day or maybe some more because I'm being Jon Stewart from Half Baked. 
I also have some chest pains, but that could just be from working out multiple times per day on multiple days per week. Or from said minor burst of anxiety.

A bowl is still a lot if you're sick, and could definitely explain some of your chest pains. The virus inflames your lungs, and any smoke you inhale makes it worse.

It's extremely unlikely that you're in any real danger, but you should smoke as little as possible. First to make the symptoms less annoying, and second to get the whole thing over with asap. If you smoke too much during your two weeks of Covid-19 it'll leave you with bronchitis for another extra couple of weeks.

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19 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

You should get tested irrespective of anything else if you have yourself a cough, any other symptoms just reinforce that need to get tested. You may not get any worse than what you have right now, but if you're infected you could pass it on to others, or might have already passed it on to others. So for the sake of being able to do contact tracing and to limit future spread it's better to know than not to know.

My understanding is that it's still hard to get one, especially if the symptoms are minimal. My mom said she couldn't get one last week when she was feeling really ill.

Another thing that perplexes me is looking for a temperature of over 100. I can't recall the last time I took mine before it became mandated at work, and I am consistently running around 96.5 before today. The benefits of working at a hospital is that I can get a direct line to employee health, so I think I'll call tomorrow and see if I should watch for a specific number in the raises rather than the one we've gotten based on averages. I definitely do feel warmer than usual. 
 

15 minutes ago, Rippounet said:

A bowl is still a lot if you're sick, and could definitely explain some of your chest pains. The virus inflames your lungs, and any smoke you inhale makes it worse.

It's extremely unlikely that you're in any real danger, but you should smoke as little as possible. First to make the symptoms less annoying, and second to get the whole thing over with asap. If you smoke too much during your two weeks of Covid-19 it'll leave you with bronchitis for another extra couple of weeks.

Most nights I can't sleep. It's why I self medicate. If you told me I could instantly become one of these types that falls asleep 5-10 minutes after their head hit the pillow, I would probably go weeks without doing either, but I do say that with the caveat of there being no sports. I'm drinking like no beer at all since they went away.

Still not worth missing Rafa leveling with Feds, but at least that damn Djoker has to lose another year of his prime window.

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26 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

 

Hell...I can't even...the anxiety I get seeing someone I know proclaim himself, "the voice of reason" every time someone else we know comments on how people need to stay home, wear masks, flatten the curve...but he is the voice of reason telling us we're foolish that the models were wrong after they'd been adjusted down from their highest numbers because people.dod what they were supposed to.  That there is no reason to be doing all of the social distancing.  He can be presented with actual articles and facts, but he has his own (something labeled from the NEJM, as an example) that he interprets his own way.  

Frustrating. 

Not sure if that's a shot at me, but we can never forget, it was YOU that Jaxomed us all!

I hope that Cubs title was worth it.:P

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Just now, Tywin et al. said:

My understanding is that it's still hard to get one, especially if the symptoms are minimal. My mom said she couldn't get one last week when she was feeling really ill.

Another thing that perplexes me is looking for a temperature of over 100. I can't recall the last time I took mine before it became mandated at work, and I am consistently running around 96.5 before today. The benefits of working at a hospital is that I can get a direct line to employee health, so I think I'll call tomorrow and see if I should watch for a specific number in the raises rather than the one we've gotten based on averages. I definitely do feel warmer than usual. 
 

Most nights I can't sleep. It's why I self medicate. If you told me I could instantly become one of these types that falls asleep 5-10 minutes after their head hit the pillow, I would probably go weeks without doing either, but I do say that with the caveat of there being no sports. I'm drinking like no beer at all since they went away.

Still not worth missing Rafa leveling with Feds, but at least that damn Djoker has to lose another year of his prime window.

If testing locally is limited to moderate to severe symptoms only I'd suggest still trying to get tested, but if they say no then you should just assume you are infected and act accordingly (ie. isolate yourself from everyone and let everyone you can remember being in close contact with in the last week know that you have symptoms but have been refused testing and you are choosing to act as if you have the infection. I think that would be the socially responsible thing to to.

Our daily update is 5 new cases (2 confirmed, 3 probable). We now have 101 active confirmed cases in the country, with a bit over 300 unconfirmed / probable cases. I think so long as moving to level 3 lockdown does not increase infection rate we should be under 100 active confirmed+probable cases at the end of that 2 weeks. 

I have little doubt that we would be somewhere near at least 50% of the Ireland situation if we were slack or slow in our actions. So I am very happy to have had to sacrifice some luxuries (but not even close to all luxuries) and recreations to save a couple of hundred lives, and the short term economic consequences will prove insignificant in the long run, because the govt has been spending a lot to help businesses and people get through financially. There are still businesses that folded unnecessarily, but the govt still believed it needed to act with some consistency to neoliberal ideology. The only longer term effect is foreign tourism and foreign education because we won't be opening up international arrivals any time soon, but that is pretty well irrespective of what happens here, if things weren't under such good control we'd still have our birders closed for most of the rest of the year until we can get some confidence that international arrivals wouldn't be bringing in more cases of disease.

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25 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

Not sure if that's a shot at me, but we can never forget, it was YOU that Jaxomed us all!

I hope that Cubs title was worth it.:P

First - No.  Outside forces grating on me.  The above was just a venting.

Second - Go Cubs!  (But her emails!)

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44 minutes ago, Jaxom 1974 said:

 

Hell...I can't even...the anxiety I get seeing someone I know proclaim himself, "the voice of reason" every time someone else we know comments on how people need to stay home, wear masks, flatten the curve...but he is the voice of reason telling us we're foolish that the models were wrong after they'd been adjusted down from their highest numbers because people.dod what they were supposed to.  That there is no reason to be doing all of the social distancing.  He can be presented with actual articles and facts, but he has his own (something labeled from the NEJM, as an example) that he interprets his own way.  

Frustrating. 

I recall very early on someone wise say that we will never know if we over-reacted or did to much, but we sure as hell will know if we didn't do enough.

"Enough" will vary from country to country, so even if someone claims to be a voice of reason in their own country and even if they are right, one would be foolish to merely assume that country's approach can be simply transplanted to another country. Humans are only fairly uniform across all nations and cultures physiologically and intellectually. Psychologically, socio-economically and culturally we are like different species from place to place, which can include within a country.

If the current approach seems to be working and be well tolerated by a sane majority in a country or territory, then under no circumstances should it be radically changed. If the current approach does not seem to be working then some significant change to improve the situation should probably be attempted.

Pretty distressing csegment from Dr John Campbell's recent youtube on the Africa situation. He focussed on Malawi and there seems to be a totally fatalistic attitude there. Basically because the health system is so shit that no amount of curve flattening will prevent the hospitals form being overrun, and any significant lockdown will probably cause deaths because of food shortages, there is no point in doing anything and the disease should just be left to run rampant and hit 80%+ of the population and probably kill upwards of 100,000 people. If that is going to be a case study in a complete do nothing approach and the human (and still economic cost) of reaching herd immunity "naturally" then it will be an interesting lesson for all of us, even for those of us in wealthy countries with good health care capacity.

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I saw a report yesterday about antibody tests that are supposed to be available at pharmacies in Germany soonish. They showed an American test for 39 Euros and a newly developed German test that is supposed to cost only about 20 Euros. Both were pretty accurate and were able to differentiate between 'antibodies, hence probably immune' and 'antibodies + still fighting the disease, hence probably still infectious for a few days'. The scientist who developed the cheap test said that the idea is that people do that test with the help of the pharmacist and then enter the result at a website (anonymously, i.e. the test will have an individual number, and you add the postcode). That way you can gather data how many people are already immune, and where.

edit: Both tests only required a drop of blood and delivered the result within 15 minutes.

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59 minutes ago, felice said:

The author has some known biases on this subject, I have to say. Will be interesting to see long-term, but from anecdotal evidence from a doctor at Karolinska in Stockholm, every single case he saw of a young person in ICU (as of a couple weeks ago) was overweight. 

That said, he did point to socioeconomics as being a factor -- most of the early cases were upper middle class, fit people who had brought it back from the Alps and practically none needed ICU intervention, now many of the cases who were of similar age are overweight, had more incidences of smoking, and tended to be from lower socioeconomic backgrounds.

But the thing about Sweden is that rich or poor, medical care is pretty standard, with everyone having pretty similar access to stuff like basic care, regular checkups, etc. So the outcomes aren't because we're treating people differently at the hospital, it's because the disease is more severe for those with higher BMI.

On a separate note, the prognosis for Gothenburg and my region, and probably Malmö and Skåne, is changing -- instead of our having a clear, distinct peak, it now seems they're planning for a very long, low plateau given the fact that just as Stockholm has flattened quite a lot, so too have our big cities and their respective regions, just at a much lower level. The analogy they used is a forest fire -- Stockholm broke out into dozens/hundreds of fires (due to the flood of people returning from the Alps), so the infection "burned" hotter and faster, whereas most other regions have started from just a couple of "fires" and will have a slower spread.


Also, one of the 25 provinces in Sweden -- Blekinge, next door to Skåne -- hasn't had a new confirmed case since April 15th, and has no one currently in ICU for it. Presumably some of this is due to the sharp fall in inter-province travel since FHM recommended people avoid it, but to the degree that it indicates that no one wanted to visit Blekinge anyways, I'm not sure. ;)

 

 

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