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Coronavirus 8: One Million Dead in 2022 and We're Only in August


Coconut Flan

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I got Pfhizer this time after 3 doses of Moderna, mostly because I wanted to get the bivalent booster at the same time as my flu shot this month. All I had was a sore arm where the booster went in. Moderna #2 was what kicked my butt with a mild fever and some nausea. The fever went away after taking Tylenol. 

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Some predictions for the winter surge are for a 30% bump in cases.  Hopefully that works out and we don't get a rogue mutation that runs rampant.  

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Interesting article on a hybrid virus caused when influenza and RSV co-infect a cell.

Once formed, the hybrid virus was also able to infect neighbouring cells – even in the presence of antibodies against influenza that would usually block infection. Although the antibodies still stuck to influenza proteins on the hybrid virus’s surface, the virus merely used neighbouring RSV proteins to infect lung cells instead. Murcia said: “Influenza is using hybrid viral particles as a Trojan horse.”

As well as helping the viruses evade the immune system, joining forces may also enable them to access a wider range of lung cells. Whereas influenza usually infects cells in the nose, throat and windpipe, RSV tends to prefer windpipe and lung cells – although there is some overlap.

Possibly, it could increase the chances of influenza triggering a severe, and sometimes fatal, lung infection called viral pneumonia, said Dr Stephen Griffin, a virologist at the University of Leeds. Although he cautioned that more research was needed to prove that hybrid viruses are implicated in human disease. “RSV tends to go lower down into the lung than the seasonal flu virus, and you’re more likely to get more severe disease the further down the infection goes,” he said.

“It is another reason to avoid getting infected with multiple viruses, because this [hybridisation] is likely to happen all the more if we don’t take precautions to protect our health.

 

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I lost track of the FJ covid threads and so recently posted the following story in a "minor annoyances" thread.  But now that I found/followed this thread I'm reposting it here just to see if others have comments.

I plan to get my bivalent booster in the next couple of weeks.  Not sure which options my county offers.  I've gotten only Moderna so far, with unpleasant but tolerable side effects each time.  I'll plan the booster for when I can spend a few days on the couch, for sure.

 

OK, my recent covid close call story: 

About six weeks ago I spent 30 minutes in a car with someone who developed covid symptoms the following day, and tested positive the day after that.

She told me the evening she tested positive, and I immediately took a home test each day for three days, all negative.  Then on the 4th day I developed symptoms, but not of covid:  I had a high fever that first night and then two days of lower fever, plus felt queasy and had a metallic taste in my mouth for 2-3 days.  (And a slight headache but that's common for me.)  That was it, no congestion or coughing, no sore throat.

Two days after I started symptoms, I got a PCR test at the local hospital and that was also negative.

The next day I was googling to see, if I didn't have covid, what else could it be, when I recognized when else I'd had similar symptoms -- after vaccinations!  Not just covid vaxx but also after my two shingles shots in 2020.  It was the metal taste in my mouth that was unique to vaxx side effects for me.

I googled that and apparently it's a thing -- so it seems that my immune system responded to an actual covid exposure in the same way as it responded to the vaccines.  So I was exposed, my body recognized the covid virus, but "fought it off" so that there was not enough viral load to register on the PCR test.  Yay immune system!

Has anyone else experienced this?

 

And then, two more weird aspects to it -- one is that about 2 weeks ago I got my annual flu shot.  This is the 3rd year I've gotten them and I never had more than a sore arm as a side effect.  But this year I had a fever reaction to the flu shot.  Only one night I think, but still.  I've had a few instances of metal mouth since then, and each time I wonder if it means I was exposed to covid and my immune system is fighting it off.

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Julie Powell died at 49. She was a food writer whose blog was the basis for Julie & Julia. It's not clear why she died, but she had COVID six weeks ago. 

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2 hours ago, Bluebirdbluebell said:

Julie Powell died at 49. She was a food writer whose blog was the basis for Julie & Julia. It's not clear why she died, but she had COVID six weeks ago. 

The report of black hairy tongue as a possible post-Covid symptom freaked me out (she mentioned on twitter she had that). Most reports I've seen have said heart attack, which may be linked to her covid infection. Either way much too young.

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Pretty bummed Isabella Eckerle (Centre of Emerging Viral Diseases Genevais thinking about quitting social media altogether following Musks takeover of Twitter. She is the head of the WHO Covid-19 reference laboratory in Geneva so she is one of the few - maybe the only? - virologists who tweets about the situation in Switzerland.

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if this was Musks goal - to shut down Twitter, the place where many scientists share their information.

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On 11/6/2022 at 4:09 AM, Smash! said:

Sometimes I can’t help but wonder if this was Musks goal - to shut down Twitter, the place where many scientists share their information.

He's too smart for that. Scientists could just move to another social media platform quite easily. There'd be no point in buying it if that was the reason.

Edited by Jackie3
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My friend put off her DisneyWorld trip all during covid. She and her family went the week before Halloween. She and her husband came home with covid. Her husband also had strep. They both took the antivirals and are better now.

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Husband tested positive for Covid just before Thanksgiving, I have pretty much the same symptoms but tested negative. Can’t figure that one out. So, I was doing some symptom googling just for kicks and saw this

 

D5339456-82C4-4CAF-973F-1272B3D5C916.jpeg
 

A: No shit. Really?

B: How the hell are we supposed to know which we were exposed to? It’s not like the viral particles are introducing themselves to you before they take up residence. 
 

Yeah I know the actual article had more info in it, but I’m a bit cranky this evening. 

Edited by AnywhereButHere
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10 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Husband tested positive for Covid just before Thanksgiving, I have pretty much the same symptoms but tested negative. Can’t figure that one out.

It often takes a few days after symptoms start to test positive on a rapid test. You might get more accurate results with a PCR test.  My daughter and her boyfriend didn’t test positive until most of their symptoms had gone away. One of her boyfriend’s last symptoms was losing the senses of taste and smell, so they retested and were both positive. This was at the beginning of October.

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I was staying with my daughter's family after breaking my hand.  We all got sick.  We all tested negative multiple times on home tests and I tested negative on a PCR test.  With me in the house, daughter called the doctor's office to see if we should do more testing or take one of us in for checking.  After going through everyone's symptoms, they said don't bring anyone in yet just continue to keep us hydrated and watch for low pulse ox, high fever, etc.  They believed it was RSV.  The kids and I had productive deep chest coughs.

It seems like without testing for all three common respiratory viruses, we can't be sure what we have this fall.  One week in my county we had more flu cases than COVID cases.  

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On 11/13/2022 at 12:37 PM, JDuggs said:

My friend put off her DisneyWorld trip all during covid. She and her family went the week before Halloween. She and her husband came home with covid. Her husband also had strep. They both took the antivirals and are better now.

Quoting myself. Texted with my same friend on Thanksgiving. She and her husband went to an out of town wedding (Nashville) the weekend before Thanksgiving and came home with the flu as did many who attended the wedding. Covid and flu in the same month.

I got my covid booster in October and my flu shot in November, but I have been interacting with people maskless a lot recently which hasn’t been my normal. I’m trying to convince myself not to beat myself up if I catch something now. It just feels so inevitable.

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2 hours ago, Coconut Flan said:

It seems like without testing for all three common respiratory viruses, we can't be sure what we have this fall.  One week in my county we had more flu cases than COVID cases.  

I really wish they would do routine pcr multiplex testing for respiratory viruses here, it would give a much better set of data about what is circulating currently. I think they do if it's hospital ordered or if you go to a GP and get a referral for testing, but if you just go to a covid testing centre they only test for covid (I know, logically you would expect that but right now with virus circulation patterns being different it would be useful to test for a wider range.) 

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Unrolled thread about covid-19 evolution possibilities. It's a very long thread with a lot of interesting information, some points below.

- current evolution is predominantly inter-host point mutations rather than the intra-host evolution that produced delta and omicron

- the more circulating strains the more likely intra-host recombination events between less related variants which could get the worst of both e.g. deltacron

- ping pong evolution when the virus mutates in an animal reservoir, transmits back to humans, mutates, transmits back to animals etc. is a possibility

- the landscape the virus is evolving in response to is constantly changing in terms of population immunity to strains etc., so what is not beneficial to the virus now could become so as things change

- lowering transmission and circulation lowers the odds of new variants

- really pretty map of omicron variants in spoiler

Spoiler

 

 

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I‘m just mad. Health care costs are rising and rising but nooo the coronavirus and the lack of measures to contain the spread of respiratory viruses have nothing to do with it according to our politicians. Good health care should be a basic right but after seeing how much more I‘m paying next year for the same insurance plan I‘m not so sure if that‘s the case here. I can afford it at the moment and don‘t have to take a plan (yet) where I can only choose from a list of doctors who are in the same network. But many struggle and if the projections for the next few years are true it‘s only getting worse. 

 

I know many people especially in the US are worse off, what I consider a downgrade insurance wise is perfectly normal in many countries. Still I took the right to choose whichever doctor my family practitioner and I think is best for granted.

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We just received notification from the assisted living facility where my MIL resides that due to the hospitals being swamped with Covid, flu, RSV, and everything else, local transportation services (I.e., ambulances) are putting the residents at low priority.  They say family members may be called on to transport to the hospital.  My MIL is mostly immobile, so this is basically impossible for us.  I think we are going to be in for a grim season in our area.

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There is a bit of good news.  RSV is trending down in some states so the feared normal time super high peak is not materializing everywhere.  Maybe flu will do the same.  COVID cases while on the rise are not skyrocketing.  

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My mom's care facility has done a really good job IMO dealing with covid, especially since I know it has been common for some employees to work at multiple facilities.  They've had some cases over the last few years, mostly staff but also some residents, but I always felt they responded appropriately with safety practices etc. and recently had only occasional cases with months of all clear in between.

When the pandemic started, my mom was in their memory care unit but for the last 18 months she's been in skilled nursing.

Well, covid finally made it into the skilled nursing unit last week.  Starting with just a few cases, over the last few days they now have several staff and 19 residents with covid, including my mom.  Guessing that's at least half their skilled nursing residents.

I can't really be surprised -- once staff know they are infected, they of course go home until they are well, but residents can't very well distance when staff are needed to lift them in and out of beds and wheelchairs, etc.  Toileting.  Some residents can't feed themselves.  Lots of close contact with staff is unavoidable.  And many residents don't tolerate masks well.

They tell me mom is asymptomatic but the doc has prescribed Paxlovid anyway.  

In the meantime we got several inches of snow overnight in my town and the mountain passes will be bad for several days with more snow coming, so I'm hoping nothing happens that causes me to need to go down to Mom quite yet.

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@church_of_dog I hope your mom stays asymptomatic and the Paxlovid helps too!

Looks like children who don‘t get infected with RSV in their first year aren‘t worse off than their infected peers - quite the contrary. 

 

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2 hours ago, Smash! said:

Looks like children who don‘t get infected with RSV in their first year aren‘t worse off than their infected peers - quite the contrary. 

Pretty much anyone who had a premature baby would agree. Amazingly enough we all spent our babies' first winters keeping them as isolated as possible to give them a better chance at survival. My son was hospitalised with RSV when he was 2 and a quarter - we just avoided PICU and were in high dependency because he "only" needed 50% oxygen. This was pre-covid and all the PICU beds were full, many with children infected during that year's RSV surge. I have been watching some of the "it's better for kids to be exposed to dangerous pathogens early because it builds their immune system" rubbish in utter disbelief. No, it bloody doesn't and no it bloody isn't. Environmental bacteria in small doses maybe (probably don't let your baby eat faeces) but viruses that can and do kill children - yes, even those born at term with no other issues - every year in normal years - why is this even being debated? 

Honest to God I'm feeling like the anti-vaxxers won right now - may as well close down the hospitals, death is after all completely natural in children and adults.

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Our children's hospitals are so overrun right now that they have had to discharge children from the hospice care to divert staff. It is appalling. RSV cases are very high where I live. Same for Covid and influenza. But our influenza vaccine rate for this year is like 20%. It's unbelievable. No one seems to care. 

I read that most of the kids who have ended up hospitalized for rsv likely would have ended up in hospital whenever they first caught it. Part if the problem is that they are now all getting it at once and overwhelming the hospitals. You would think that people might decide it would be a good idea to take more precautions because you don't really know if your kid is going to be the one who needs hospital care and might now not be able to get it. But nope. So many kids have been sick in my son's class. My son always wears a mask at school. He has thankfully stayed healthy. Only he and one other kid in his class wear masks. People are stupid. 

Anyone who has had a baby get really sick with something will know that it's not great for babies to catch things. My son and daughter both got an infection when my daughter was a baby. My son's cleared up very quickly on antibiotics. My daughter's took 3 rounds of antibiotics to finally clear. Her development really stagnated during that month. Of course she was fine and caught up within a fairly short period of time. But it was very obvious that getting so sick was not good for her. 

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11 minutes ago, Baxter said:

Our children's hospitals are so overrun right now that they have had to discharge children from the hospice care to divert staff. It is appalling. RSV cases are very high where I live. Same for Covid and influenza. But our influenza vaccine rate for this year is like 20%. It's unbelievable. No one seems to care. 

I read that most of the kids who have ended up hospitalized for rsv likely would have ended up in hospital whenever they first caught it. Part if the problem is that they are now all getting it at once and overwhelming the hospitals. You would think that people might decide it would be a good idea to take more precautions because you don't really know if your kid is going to be the one who needs hospital care and might now not be able to get it. But nope. So many kids have been sick in my son's class. My son always wears a mask at school. He has thankfully stayed healthy. Only he and one other kid in his class wear masks. People are stupid. 

Anyone who has had a baby get really sick with something will know that it's not great for babies to catch things. My son and daughter both got an infection when my daughter was a baby. My son's cleared up very quickly on antibiotics. My daughter's took 3 rounds of antibiotics to finally clear. Her development really stagnated during that month. Of course she was fine and caught up within a fairly short period of time. But it was very obvious that getting so sick was not good for her. 

I am seeing reports about how past covid infection suppresses or even damages the immune system, so that a flu or RSV that a kid might have been able to fight off, instead becomes a serious illness.  And of course multiple covid infections do incrementally worse damage to our immune system, possibly permanently.  Maybe some effects don't show up for years, polio-like, even if the acute infection was mild or asymptomatic.

Even seeing some suggestions that covid might turn out to have latency, which I assume means it remains in the body even after the acute infection is gone, much like chicken pox/shingles or herpes.  

 

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