COVID-19: Chapter 7 - Brags, Beats, and Variants

I knew some states did this, but apparently it’s all:

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That’s racist.

Vaccine side effects update: after about 48 hours, arm soreness is almost gone.

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Drop and give us 50!

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Brag: No sweat getting a testing appointment for my daughter today (probably too early for any of the rest of us to be detectable even if she got pozzed). Both rapid antigen and PCR.
Brag: Rapid antigen back negative right away, but it could also just be too early
Brag: Daycare says tonight that the positive test was a false positive. Daycare is back open, and there’s apparently nothing to worry about.

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It’s almost as of having a demagogue for President leads to overwhelmed healthcare systems and an environment ripe for more aggressive variants to proliferate.

Huh

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/younger-brazilians-are-dying-from-covid-in-an-alarming-new-shift/ar-BB1f0nLa?ocid=uxbndlbing

This reasoning is not exactly wrong. I mean, it is wrong, in that it’s absurd to run the risk of contracting a serious disease that can be prevented with 1-2 shots. BUT it isn’t wrong for an under-40 person in good health to conclude that their personal risk of dying from COVID is low enough that they don’t really care about it. I can’t find exactly apples-to-apples statistics, but there are something like 12k deaths a year from flu in people under 50. There have been 22.5k deaths from COVID in the same group, with two-thirds of those in the 40-49 age band. There’s a zillion caveats, but most healthy adults don’t worry about dying from the flu, and it’s reasonable not to feel especially concerned about dying from COVID.

What’s telling is that the argument that was persuasive was about the altruistic benefits of getting vaccinated. As I’ve posted before ITT, narratives are critical to persuading people. Different narratives convince different people, but “do this thing you don’t want to do out of exaggerated fear of the consequences (‘cowardice’?)” is not motivating to very many people. ‘Nobly sacrifice to protect the feeble and the elderly’ though is solid and effective (at least among a certain group).

Most under 40 probably just want to get back to the MOVIEZ and BARZ, so might as well get shots to expedite that.

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I wonder if he knows who Jim Fixx is.

Running time Being the metric of health is pretty 🥸

Lol Loco makes some hilariously bad posts from time to time, but there is no question he is one healthy dude. He has a low BMI, is quite strong for his body weight (at least compared to the average person, maybe not a serious lifter), and all his numbers (cholesterol, etc.) are pristine.

I don’t understand how it’s a year later and we’re still acting like dying is the only risk.

I know two people around 40 who were in good shape and had long haul covid symptoms. One still isn’t back to normal with his lungs 9 months later. The other still cant taste anything 3 months later. That would annoy the shit out of me.

Who the hell knows if years from now having covid will resurface into some other problem.

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Findings We report findings of 1077 patients discharged in 2020, from the assessment undertaken a median 5 [IQR4 to 6] months later: 36% female, mean age 58 [SD 13] years, 69% white ethnicity, 27% mechanical ventilation, and 50% had at least two co-morbidities. At follow-up only 29% felt fully recovered, 20% had a new disability, and 19% experienced a health-related change in occupation. Factors associated with failure to recover were female, middle-age, white ethnicity, two or more co-morbidities, and more severe acute illness. The magnitude of the persistent health burden was substantial and weakly related to acute severity. Four clusters were identified with different severities of mental and physical health impairment: 1) Very severe (17%), 2) Severe (21%), 3) Moderate with cognitive impairment (17%), 4) Mild (46%), with 3%, 7%, 36% and 43% feeling fully recovered, respectively. Persistent systemic inflammation determined by C-reactive protein was related to cluster severity, but not acute illness severity.

Interpretation We identified factors related to recovery from a hospital admission with COVID-19 and four different phenotypes relating to the severity of physical, mental, and cognitive health five months later. The implications for clinical care include the potential to stratify care and the need for a pro-active approach with wide-access to COVID-19 holistic clinical services.

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My m-in-law was never tested afaik, but was very sick, went to the hospital with respiratory problems early on, lost her sense of smell, hasn’t come back and consequently lost most of her sense of taste. Just yesterday we were giving her some super spicy stuff so she could taste it. Could have been something else I guess, but how many things make you lose your sense of smell?

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I posted yesterday that people were not keeping track of who got vaccinated. That turned out to be wrong, the CDC is requiring clinics to send them that info.

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Does it become easier to down crazy spicy peppers with no sense of taste or smell? I could imagine somebody eating a carolina reaper with no sense of taste like a legend

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fyi I have no clue. Never really gave a shit about a loss of smell/taste before covid.

I think they’re different things. My mother lost her sense of smell and taste years ago but she still can’t tolerate very spicy food.

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I’m more worried about wtf is going on with the nervous system when people suddenly lose one of their senses. Seems bad.

I mean yeah it has effects beyond taste like GI issues but the runny nose, teary eyes and burning mouth that result from consuming and smelling the food wouldn’t be an issue, no?

Dunno. I was sitting on the computer, probably posting here, and my wife, daughter and m-in-law were talking about it in the same room. I didn’t shoo them all away, so you got what I overheard. I don’t know whether my m-in-l liked spicy food before.

I did overhear her saying that she lost weight. Maybe that’s related. She’s not super overweight, but losing a little is probably good - and she has diabetes.