Between the existence of various strains and the risk factors in different people like blood types, medical history, immune deficiencies, etc, there is still so much we just don’t know.
Most diseases we have had not just years but decades to study. We’ve got less than one lousy year on this one.
The only thing we know for sure is that it’s a coronavirus, and the vast majority of them cause the far milder common cold. We all know you have no vaccines, no immunities, and no cures for the cold. You’re safe for a few weeks and then you can get it again. That’s what makes this one so bad–a different type of virus with the same symptoms would be more easily vaccinated against and the vaccine would last a long time.
The best practice is definitely avoidance. Even if it doesn’t bother you too much if you get it, think of everyone you could infect before you knew you had it, and who they could infect. How many could potentially die and their infection could be traced to you? Maybe they would get it anyway from someone else, you don’t know, but isn’t it better not to even have to worry? It’s one thing to just be responsible for yourself, it’s another to be responsible for people you don’t even know.
Very well put. I am not too worried about it myself as I rarely get sick and have kept social contacts to a minimum since all this madness started - just work, shopping twice a week, only meeting with the immediate family and a few friends from time to time (went on a family vacation with my sister’s family in August).
I haven’t been sick so far this year (fingers crossed) and I think it’s important to be considerate and follow the rules, even if it is just out of respect for weaker members of society. Yeah you might get through it relatively unscathed but at the same time you are posing a risk to older folks and people with preexisting conditions if you act carelessly and don’t take this seriously. Wearing a mask and keeping distance doesn’t hurt anyone.
In today’s world there are so many ways to keep in contact, even in isolation, and if you have older family members try and get them to use the internet, it helps. I regularly call my great aunt via WhatsApp on weekends and she recently told me that it’s one of the things she looks forward to all week. We both get coffee and cake and just talk for an hour or two.
Ha…the irony of me posting that a couple weeks prior to contracting it.
Anyway - I’ve always been a healthy guy…never go to the hospital, never take any prescription drugs. Just generally good health.
Today, after a month of battling some other weird side effects I got a chest x-ray that confirmed pneumonia and associated pleurisy. Hopefully a short course of antibiotics and steroids will get me squared away in short order. The doc does want to do a CT scan to rule out a pulmonary embolism though due to some other issues that seemed to string together to point toward that. Fingers crossed that the CT scan comes back negative.
Anyway - I do credit my first dose of the vaccine with perhaps making my initial COVID symptoms pretty mild. But it is a reminder that for some people that contract the virus, getting through the initial phase might just be the start. It will be interesting to see what the long term health effects of this virus are for decades to come.
Stay strong, @BeachAV8R! A few friends of mine caught it (mostly through their children bringing it back from school), and that was not for lack of trying to respect social distancing and being careful. Most of them recovered after a few weeks, so I’m keeping my fingers crossed for you. It’s great to hear that in the US the vaccine distribution is ramping up… here in Canada the distribution is (painfully) much slower…
Canada has no ability to manufacture mRNA vaccines of their own, so rely on outside suppliers that are contractually bound to supply their own countries first. It’ll be about May till here in BC is mostly done. We’re currently doing 80+ year olds, with a ‘1 week per 5 years’ step down in age (so 75 - 80 next week etc), based on supply. We’ve done health care workers/doctors etc here already, but police/teachers etc are keen. Most remote communities up North have had their 65+'s done as well. Other than that, they are using it for outbreak clusters - our local Costco got all their employees vaccinated yesterday.
The Canadians are (obviously in retrospect) now building new mRNA plants for the future, but it’ll be about 2 years till they are up and running properly. Even without that they’ve ordered enough Pfizer, Modernera, AstraZeneca for about 100+ million people (with a population of ~37m, so overbought).
Keep well @BeachAV8R - according to my BillGatesVaccineTrackLogs your movements have been fine so far, so keep it going!
My Wife was able to get vaccinated over the weekend and I was today…It was much,much easier to register and book a appointment than it was 8 weeks ago…It took an “Act of God” to navigate and book appointments for my elderly Mom and Dad then.
They shouldn’t make a thing like this so hard for Seniors who are not very internet savy.
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Best of luck with the CT scan Beach. I suppose it’s either that or…
If you had had your first vaccine before catching the vid, it’s a shame that your lungs got hit the way they did. Here’s hoping the you and @NEVO get well soon lads.
Thank you very much for your wishes and thoughts guys!
Was just thiking about the health and stuff. Maybe for people with good health and particularly healthy lungs it is even more dangerous to contract the virus as the lungs are place where the virus wants to reproduce?
On the other hand our body has really good regeneration ability so I believe it can to some extent recover some of the damaged parts or at least use the healthy parts to support the damaged.
