Ok, I'll go first again. I'm still fine. Nothing has changed.
Still fine here. Still glad to be on the meds.
We're still the same, except now we have Skyrim and cupcakes.
I've recently discovered that, for small groups, whereby is much nicer than either webex or zoom.
Still here, slightly horrified that my boss wants us all to be on a work video-happy-hour call at five this evening and play two truths and a lie.
Still here. Last day of "school vacation week", where the 7-year-old has been even more feral than previously, and wondering how much he's going to return to "normal" next week.
"I'm not at all horrified by this call, I treasure working with all of you, I used to work as an astronaut for the C.I.A.."
Teaching 5 year olds concepts like "happy" is hard with only half a face.
That's why Harvey Dent went to law school.
5 is exactly the situation in which Alison Green from the wonderful Ask a Manager website says you just go for the most bland things possible. Get it over with and don't think too much about it.
"Hi all! My battery is about to die!"
7: Speaking only for myself, I cannot fucking believe this multitasking is going to go on for another 6 or 7 weeks. I feel like I've tried all the tricks to relieve pressure, and this is now a level of burnout I had not previously unlocked. And yet so many families seem to be basically fine with it; do they just complain less while each being unhappy in their own way?
I'm taking time off from work to rest/catch up.
This has been the hardest week for us so far, but today is going okay. I'm going to drink some whiskey this evening (the pandemic has changed my alcohol-moderation plan from "At Social Gatherings" to "On Fridays").
I was coding until 1 am last night. The university going fully online for an indefinite period means a lot of fundamental changes have to happen in a hurry, and yesterday was one of the days where I mostly spent business hours supervising the third grade. I'll pour a glass of wine, or more, while sitting down to work; a minute later the glass is empty and I don't remember how it got that way.
Do you have a drunk dog? I've seen that happen.
Admittedly, it was beer and somebody may have been immature enough to pour it into a bowl on the ground.
Hydrobaby is sleeping less at night and still not napping off of me (I am a cow and a mattress). The Well Baby clinic had good covid-19 preventive measures but the public nurses didn't, furthering my mood dislike of them. Fortunately our number of cases has leveled off (26?) so the premier is talking about some things reopening. I think we've been lucky so far rather than having particularly good social distancing. It will be interesting to see how the tourist season evolves. We've started talking about our upcoming move and there is way too much uncertainty to make any plans. Fingers crossed we can get something settled by beginning June since we have to give notice for our rental then.
The news of the mass killing in NS is still hard to hear and I can't stop refreshing the news. Covid-19 seems to have impacted it by preventing group mourning and reporting by non-locals (they didn't get exemptions from the 14 day quarantine period). Some of the resent details are horrible (pulled people over in his fake cop car and shot them; RCMP didn't know they missed him until next morning), some unsurprising (started with domestic violence), and some okay (the dogs survived (but one vet recognized the dog as her friend's before knowing what happened)).
Anyway, I only tear up once a day which I think is totally reasonable. Also I have wine and fancy donuts.
It really is a shocking and horrible tragedy - I'm so sorry.
Thanks. I am having a hard time not being able to talk it through with other people/my family. Plus I don't feel like it's MY tragedy any more than other mass shootings except I drive through the area regularly. So I feel a bit like I'm overreacting? I don't even have a 'it couldn't happen here' feeling that got destroyed but that alone makes me a little sadder.
Oh also there are more reports of shots today with 'stay inside' issued by the RCMP so that's great. NS is def on edge right now
22.1: The local synagogue shooting was similar for me. I wasn't directly affected by it more than by other shootings, but it was just "there" in a way other shootings were not because I need to drive by that corner to get to the grocery store.
Alive and well still. My wife was in a funk, but confided her fears yesterday around noon, which seemed to help her. Her stomach has been bad at anything but bland the last few days. I'm plodding along stolidly; work's been fine -- yesterday I added another work video conferencing platform (BlueJeans) -- I think that's #6.
Work's mostly fine, but I'm more prone to falling down rabbit holes, and haven't been springing out of bed half as promptly -- even though it's all theoretically still the same work from home as I've been doing for years, the background noise of the world's made even routine harder.
So far the most common feedback I have gotten is: "Are you trying for the Edmond Dantes look?"
https://www.evernote.com/l/AAHb--8V6nJEpJfVDO0I1jdB41pNDRx1MJwB/image.png
So far, one second cousin in Austin with the disease (but he's young), one friend's 90s mother dead of the disease in her nursing home, my wife's RA on a ventilator for a week but now kicked out of the hospital but still on oxygen. Some relatives getting serotested today to see if they had it. And wondering if I actually had it in early February--a deep, dry cough and a fever from which I did not bounce back, quickly, as I usually do...
Still doing fine here. The nonprofit board that I'm on had a meeting over Zoom today to substitute for the annual in-person "retreat" we usually have, but we've been doing quarterly Zoom meetings for years so it really wasn't that different from our routine.
Plus I don't feel like it's MY tragedy any more than other mass shootings except I drive through the area regularly. So I feel a bit like I'm overreacting?
I don't think you're overreacting, not at all. It's not MY tragedy either, and I have no specific connection to the area whatsoever. But, you know, someone faking RCMP status in order to pull people over and shoot them dead, must be scary and upsetting to anyone in Canada...The mass killing in NS has really shaken me.
I'm okay, thank God, but these days my mood tends to vacillate between high anxiety and extreme boredom. I just signed up to be a 'pet care' volunteer for those in self-isolation who cannot walk their dogs, or who need someone to pick up pet food or meds for their canine or feline companions. I just need to be doing something useful, and as a lifelong dog lover, I'd be happy to walk a few dogs...
Still okay here. I've restarted blogging, link in name. Not that anyone ever knew about it to begin with, just college-era friends and spammers, for years I've just used it as a URL to store links at, but I might make a brief comment here and link to something long-winded there, that sort of thing.
Two things happened that have taken me from "everything's fine" to two days of low level freak out - first, we were at a friend's house (outside, with whiskey and distancing, first in-person socializing in weeks) and they had a pulse oximeter, and I was the only person with low readings. Wtf? But my readings varied, they climbed from 89 to 94 or something, so OK. Second, I read the 20 April NYTimes thing about how people show up at the ER with no covid symptoms but low oxygen saturation and they have hidden covid pneumonia. And then bad covid things happen to them. So everyone should get an oximeter and be on guard for low readings. So while for the last month I have been very disciplined about not freaking out - if I imagine chest tightness or something I say "it's just pollen" - now I am paranoid, and my chest does feel funny (or does it? I can certainly take a normal deep breath). I bought my own pulse oximeter and my readings are usually quite normal (95+, phew!) but sometimes they do drop down to 92, 91, maybe 90, and then five breaths later they climb back up (I'm the only person this happens to - everyone else in each family, n=6 stays above 95 consistently). The flulike symptoms I had were a month ago, so the timing is wrong for developing covid pneumonia, but I really don't want to have hidden pneumonia. Or damage from an undiagnosed bit of lung involvement if I did have covid a month ago. I am suddenly a bit scared in a way I definitely was not up til now (even when I did have a 102.5 fever).
Aside from that things are still good though my work motivation is slipping a bit as we drift toward summer.
I'm not a doctor, but I do know that drinking bleach is bad. Maybe you just have poor peripheral circulation? Are your hands cold?
I'm also feeling unsettled by how hard I've taken the shootings. I don't live in the province anymore, and it's not my part of the province anyway.
But then I see how crushed people back home are, and I get completely enraged that the RCMP didn't use the emergency alert system once they knew there was a gunman on the loose. Several people were murdered because the cops used Twitter (!!) to send alerts to a rural community full of seniors. Some of those people would almost certainly be alive if the cops had done their jobs.
33, no, good circulation, no nail polish. It could be something random. But once things are back to normal (wait!) I kind of want to have a dr. evaluate things. Blow into tubes and all those things medical professionals don't want you doing around them now.
I remember when my dad was hooked up to one of those. Watching the little number caused so much anxiety.
and I get completely enraged that the RCMP didn't use the emergency alert system once they knew there was a gunman on the loose.
I know. That nice lady who was shot dead while taking her daily morning walk? She wouldn't have been out there walking, had she received an emergency alert...
25: I enjoyed your piece on the Hoover Institute-goes-Doublethink about its COVID predictions.
like tonstant weader, I am tonstant wurker, and I am still here although I never comment.
but having arrived - let me just say that some time ago there was a long thread at LGM about a Sully column that was peripherally about dick-measuring, and I kept thinking as I read it "have these people never been to Unfogged?" because years ago there is a loooooong (pun intended) discussion here about this very topic; I remember was very funny, there was a lot of input (again p.i.) from Ogged himself and I can't be arsed to find it and link to it but those of you who have been here for YEARS will no doubt remember it.
Alas the LGM commentariat is clueless and so, so deprived.
FIN.
That was before my time, but I think the key search term would be "hand stretched".
I believe this is the original thread.
I srupidly bought cassis instead of grenadine. Please advise.
41 and 42: "Hand-stretched" - yes, that is the artisanal term I vaguely recalled, and upon revisiting that thread I am struck by the fact that I have been reading your witticisms for more than 15 years, and let's just say they hold up well.
Thank you, Moby Hick and JP Stormcrow.
and to echo Ogged: gnoleD! sounds like you are in the thick of COVID-19. CA's curve is flatter than any other state, so that's good.
Make kir and pour it over vanilla ice cream. Then buy some grenadine.
That should be: make kir and drink it. Pour more cassis over the ice cream. Two things.
Boy, we just don't riff like a bunch of 20-something dudes yanking their dorks anymore. That thread is really funny, though.
Also, esnetroh, am I right that you've occasionally commented, maybe under your forward name?
Not sure if this will be paywalled but Halifax Examiner did a summary of the timeline of the killer https://www.halifaxexaminer.ca/featured/13-hours-of-terror-tracking-a-mass-murderers-rampage-through-nova-scotia/
I still can't stop reading about it.
Also, I'm sorry for those of you reeling from the NS shooting - I hadn't read much about it, but the more I hear, it seems calculated to devastate.
833 new cases here today. This is not a flattening curve.
This was a very moving tribute to one of the NS victims
50: Jesus, that timeline. Was nothing being released to the news? Think of the Christopher Dorner or Boston marathon manhunts here. Pics, descriptions, last known location, etc were on every channel.
I'm bummed because I'm pretty sure there's a Trump/drinking bleach/Heathers joke and I can't refine it and anyways, two days later is too late.
55: The lack of announcements by the RCMP is a big scandal. They basically didn't release any warning until 10 am and that was through Twitter. US citizens got an email saying shelter in place from the consulate. Apparently they were working on wording for an emergency text when the guy was shot.
From the timeline it seems like they were running well behind this guy's activities - like not knowing he had four(!) replica cop cars until the next morning when the girlfriend emitted from the woods. So I'm not too mad at them for their lack of alerts.
We're basically down to one major news organization here (CBC) with one? on the ground reporter. Some of our other media just laid off a bunch of reporters and/or have closed. So we really don't have a media to cover breaking news. The federal government has given funding to keep local media alive but somehow (/sarcasm) there's been a lot of layoffs anyway.
Wow. There are some wrong words and confusing theys in that comment.
Maybe better stated as "not knowing he had a fourth replica cop car." That is, the knew about the first 3 and they were all accounted for, they didn't know he had a fourth.
@49 - Indeed, Dr. Geebie, I may have commented under my forward name - depends on whether I am coming or going that day/hour
plus who can remember? it's been like 15 years
I'm in the hospital. They were originally worried was the Virus of the Day (I was coughing a lot), but it was something else. It's not life-threatening, but OMG do I feel like shit.
oh no, I'm so sorry. If not the 'rona, then what could it be?
Oh geez, Walt, please get better very soon.
I hope you make a rapid recovery. Maybe not the best way to get out of the house and have a change of scenery.
Had a nice zoom birthday party today for my mom (86!) with sister (Cali) brothers (Minn & Ohio). It's been 4 years, I think, since we were all together.
How come your whole family has pool-sharp names?
71: indeed -- "The Ohio Carp" is the best name for a heavyweight, moustachioed denizen of the deep recesses of the card room.
Walt, get well soon!
Best wishes for a speedy recovery, Walt. Keep us updated.
Thanks everyone!
Going to the hospital really is an excellent loophole in social distancing. I see a steady stream of nurses, and the occasional doctor. It looks like way they're handing the virus is to keep all possible corona patients separate from everyone else. In the emergency room all the doctors and nurses were on the full goggles and face shields treatment. Then I was moved to a room that was clearly a four-person room that they had converted to an isolation room. If I hit the button for the nurse, it would take a long time because they'd have to put all of their isolation stuff back on. After my test came back negative, then they moved me to a regular room and things become more normal. The nurses still all wear masks, though. I have a surgical mask they gave me for when they moved me, and I managed to put it on backwards and upside down. They also told me that they would only give me paracetomol (acetominophin) because the elevated COVID risk that comes with ibuprofen. So if I die, I will at least die pwning ajay.
Where I live hasn't been that hard hit by the coronavirus, essentially because of dumb luck. A friend of mine reported that his nurse neighbor is actually less busy than normal. It would be completely terrifying to be in the hospital in a place where the outbreak was severe.
I've heard good things about Vicodin, if they have that.
That sound frightening, Walt, glad that it sounds like you're stable, and hope you continue to recover.
It sounds like nurses are less busy than usual is much of the country. Cancelling elective surgeries and fewer people out and about to cause accidents are lowering hospital usage.
Did I make it up that Walt is in Europe these days? I somehow got that impression.
They don't have TV commercials for prescription drugs in Europe, so they probably frown on asking for Vicodin by name.
An idle thought about my courses:
This semester I have three 200 and 300-level courses. My approach for this past month is to create something where everyone can succeed, and so I'm spoon-feeding them and eliminating all trip-wires. Everyone has a path forward to get at least a C, and there will be an outrageous number of As in my classes, and I super don't care.
I went into work on Friday, and visited with a lecturer who teaches 100 level courses. She has not changed anything in her course. She's lecturing online during classtimes, recorded for those who can't be there. She's covered basically the same exact course that she would have in person. The same with the other lecturers.
She was debating what to do with the final exam, because her online tests so far have broken down: cheaters are getting 100, and honest kids are doing worse than usual. The other algebra lecturers are having the same issue.
My solution is to water down the material until the honest kids get As, and not overthink it beyond that. They're very concerned about cheating, and tell me that the cheating in their classes is much different than the cheating in my classes, which is probably true.
The net result is that it's another example of the way the haves catch the breaks, and the have-nots have it harder. If you're able enough to be in an upper level math class, you've got a course where you can readily achieve an A. If you struggle in math, you've got a course which has ratcheted up in difficulty and is layering on top of your pandemic stress.
There's no such thing as calculus in real life. Don't worry about it.
Are the cheaters just paying someone to complete their work? I figure basically everyone should consider this a partial semester and remediate every subsequent semester.
My son is really angry that so many kids are not doing the work. He feels that this is cheating him. Pointing out they are only cheating themselves because the real treasure is the material you learn along the way isn't very convincing.
I don't think I did quadratic equations in 8th grade, but I guess science is moving faster now.
+929 new cases here today. Fucking hell.
82: My guess is they've got that app where you hold your camera up to the algebra problem and it solves it for you. Or they just google the problem.
84: They are accelerating math, and it's so dumb and counterproductive. Kids can now take geometry in middle school. There are so many better ways to enrich math for bright kids, other than accelerating the playback speed to 1.5x as fast. Cover the same material, but more deeply. Or cover some interesting things that get left out. The path of math topics is so narrow and uniform.
I entirely blame textbook manufacturers for this mechanical approach to math curriculum. I know it's more complicated than that, but I choose not to educate myself on it right now.
86: We did quadratic equations in 8th grade for sure. It was Algebra 1. I think public schools waited until the 9th grade.
You're younger too. We didn't have anything to do with algebra in 8th grade where I was.
My oldest rocked his freshman year of high school and is being very mature about the fact that it might only be reported pass/no record for his college transcripts. I would have been super mad when I was in high school because I was a prissy little grade-grubber.
Stay safe, Barry! Also, I'm sorry, that's brutal.
The headlines about immunity doubts. Key bit here:
As of Friday, the WHO said, "No study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans."
What's more, data reported from the world's early COVID-19 hot spots, such as South Korea and China, have shown that a growing number of recovered patients appear to have suffered a relapse of the disease.
By mid-April, Korean health authorities said that just over 2% of the country's recovered patients were in isolation again after testing positive a second time. And in Wuhan, China, data from several quarantine facilities in the city, which house patients for observation after their discharge from hospitals, show that about 5% to 10% of patients pronounced "recovered" have tested positive again.
It remains unclear why this is occurring -- whether it is a sign of a second infection, a reactivation of the remaining virus in the body or the result of an inaccurate antibody test.
I feel like I need to buy a case of beer or two.
I've heard that the concerns in 92 are overblown.
Most (maybe all?) of the "re-infections" are believed to be false negative tests or reemergence of the infection in the same person, not re-infection by new transmission.
A lot of headlines took the "No study has evaluated" as "No evidence" when there is a lot of evidence just not a systematic study: Behavior of immunity with previous coronaviruses, primate vaccine test showing immunity, convalescent blood transfusions conferring resistance, isolation of antibodies from convalescent blood that neutralize viral infection in cell culture.
The math is better for the course of the disease but it's not exactly reassuring if there are significant numbers of people getting well enough that they are considered past the disease but are really just in a brief remission.
You know the studies that say roughly 5% of New York has antibodies? I find it sort of stunning in contradictory, opposite ways: holy shit, 1 in 5 has acquired this virus. Holy shit, 4 out of 5 are still vulnerable.
I think that shows how distancing is effective.
People have been more willing to do social distancing than I would have bet when this started.
75: Thanks for the tip re: acetaminophen versus ibuprofen. I'd seen conflicting accounts, but bought some Tylenol a few weeks ago, just to have on hand (I generally use ibuprofen as a pain-killer), just in case. I hope you are continuing to recover, and as quickly as possible.
85: yikes! Thinking of you, Barry.
98: I would find it a bit harder to comply if more places were open, by which I mean there are some things other than groceries I'd like to buy at this point. Like clothing that I usually rely on fitting rooms to try on. On the other hand, who needs to dress in non torn clothes at home?
(Yes, I could buy online but returns are more complicated right now.)
I was going to buy some socks, but decided against it because I have lots of socks. For obvious reasons, I was also going to buy kit to make a lightweight inflatable packraft. I decided to wait until things open a bit just to support the general effort.
I'm having trouble filling my lungs again and will probably call the doctor to ask wtf and whether anyone should care. We also had our first major mental health/behavioral meltdown today, but avoided needing ER or anything like that. I'm hoping we can keep it that way because things have been generally decent. It's so much easier for me with Odile here and her semester ends this coming week, so she'll be more available to help with work around the house and so on.
I know it's not a good time to go to the doctor's office, but being able to fill your lungs sounds like something you should care about. Take care of yourself.
I was on an asthma medication (tablet) for most of my childhood. I also had one of those inhaler things. I sometimes still wonder if either did any good.
Yeah, I've been using my inhaler as well as a daily allergy medicine and nasal spray. Using a humidifier helps and rest does too, not that I'm very good at that. The antibiotics and accursed steroids really did help a month ago (or whenever it was since time has lost all meaning) when I had bronchitis, so I'm willing to believe this is something bacterial again. I'm definitely going to ask for help and curious whether this will mean I get a virus test, but I have no reason to believe that's what's going on.
My son has had a low-grade bronchitis all winter. It keeps getting better, but never goes away.
We were told to set up a humidifier, but with one thing after the other, never did get around to it. Today was stupid humid anyway.
it's not exactly reassuring if there are significant numbers of people getting well enough that they are considered past the disease but are really just in a brief remission.
The reports I've read of possible reinfection mostly refer to cases of recovered patients who still test positive for the virus, or patients who have tested positive and then tested negative, and then later on test positive again.
I haven't seen any reports of patients who get the disease symptoms, test positive, recover, stop showing symptoms, test negative,and then get the symptoms again and test positive again which is really what one should be worried about.
Equally relevant I think whether they're infectious second time around.
110: good point. But I think if they're showing symptoms again, they'll presumably be shedding virus again?
As it is, there are lots of ways you could have apparent reinfection without it really happening. You could have people catching flu and thinking it's COVID, and then catching actual COVID. You could have false-negative tests followed by positive tests. The virus might hang around in detectable quantities after the infection is over. You could have people partially recovering and then relapsing.
109. I suspect, as Zhou Enlai probably didn't say, that it's too soon to tell.
World Health Organization officials said Monday not all people who recover from the coronavirus have the antibodies to fight a second infection, raising concern that patients may not develop immunity after surviving Covid-19."With regards to recovery and then reinfection, I believe we do not have the answers to that. That is an unknown," Dr. Mike Ryan, executive director of WHO's emergencies program, said at a press conference at the organization's Geneva headquarters on Monday.
A preliminary study of patients in Shanghai found that some patients had "no detectable antibody response" while others had a very high response, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's lead scientist on Covid-19. Whether the patients who had a strong antibody response were immune to a second infection is "a separate question," she added.
More than 300,000 of the 1.87 million coronavirus cases across the world have recovered, WHO officials noted, adding that they need more data from recovered patients to understand their antibody response, whether that gives them immunity and for how long.
"That's something that we really need to better understand is what does that antibody response look like in terms of immunity," Van Kerkhove said.
Ryan said there are questions about whether the virus can reactivate after a patient recovers and tests negative for Covid-19.
https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/13/who-officials-say-its-unclear-whether-recovered-coronavirus-patients-are-immune-to-second-infection.html
112: exactly. And this:
"A preliminary study of patients in Shanghai found that some patients had "no detectable antibody response" while others had a very high response, said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, WHO's lead scientist on Covid-19. Whether the patients who had a strong antibody response were immune to a second infection is "a separate question," she added."
could be "these people got COVID and recovered but have no antibody response and are therefore still vulnerable"
or it could be
"their original antigen test was screwed up and they never had COVID at all, they had flu"
or it could be
"they've got an antibody response but we screwed up the antibody test and missed it".
The last one is quite possible given how terrible Chinese antibody tests are turning out to be.
I'm curious, for people who had the virus and experienced damage to their lungs, will their lungs substantially recover? Will they ever be able to, for example, scuba dive again?
Doc, will I be able to play the piano after this?
I'm afraid not, but we can get you a 12 inch pianist.
re: 84
I was trying to remember when we did that sort of thing in Scotland. I'm guessing about the equivalent of 8th or maybe 9th grade? It's definitely on the current GCSE syllabus in England, and on the Scottish equivalent (which is the course you'd do between about 13 and 15 or so in Scotland). I would have been 13 when I started doing that level of algebra,* some would be 14 depending on month of birth.
* completely standard, not accelerated in any way.
Certainly 8th/9th grade equivalent in England in late antiquity when I was doing it.
Actually, I think that's right for me, too. Quadratic formula in 8th grade. So while I generally think acceleration of math is a bad idea, that's not an example of it.
So first day working Ramadan hours. We can work any five hours from 7 am to 7 pm and as I've been suffering from some truly terrible insomnia (sleep around 11, spontaneously wake up around 2ish and can't sleep again till after 5 am, sometimes 6) it's wonderful. Got up after 10 am and even though I was up at 2 am with the same pattern I woke up feeling refreshed. But a bit dissociated from my normal pattern. Still a vast improvement.
Maybe my school was just backward? There was no Calculus offered.
+957 new cases here today. That's almost flat, right?
Hipster high schools don't teach calculus, because it's too derivative.
This keeps reminding me that getting a good swab is apparently a surprisingly tricky craft skill and a big source of testing uncertainty.
I think that's because medical professionals are usually selected from the people least likely to pick their noses. I kept saying this would lead to problems.
From pictures and accounts, I am
almost more phobic about getting tested than about getting sick. I'm mostly hoping not to get it until there's a reliable spit test.
It's the same as the nasal swab test for the flu, isn't it? That really wasn't so bad.
I didn't know there was a nasal swab test for the flu.
Huh. I know I had a flu test a few years back, but I don't remember it as traumatic, or specifically at all, just that it came up positive. If that's it then I feel much better.
Doctors have to be pretty pissed off by now, what with lack of PPE and little federal support. Maybe they are putting the swab in deeper?
I thought it was much deeper than the flu swab. But I don't know.
Also I just found out that people are asymptomatic for the flu regularly too, which I didn't know.
132: Maybe, but for my flu test in February they stuck the swab about as far as it would go. They warned me it would hurt, and it was momentarily unpleasant.
131 kind of makes sense -- with all the talk of false negatives due to not putting the swab in deep enough, they probably are trying harder to get it in as deep as possible.
They stick in pretty deep. The nurse who did mine told me that if you don't gag, they didn't do it right.
But for me, it was like the least traumatic part of the trip to the hospital. It's less traumatic than having blood drawn, for example.
If they mark the swab right where it goes into the nose, it means they are gambling on finding the person with the deepest sinus.
What they should do is invent a tissue that you can blow your nose into. If it turns blue, you've got corona.
It should be "if it has an outline."
Also I just found out that people are asymptomatic for the flu regularly too, which I didn't know.
Right! We just don't test for it. You gotta figure almost everyone gets exposed to the flu during flu season, and many get a small amount of virus replication indistinguishable from a mild cold.
Also people with the flu have greatly increased risk for stroke, like in the alarming report about COVID-19 a couple days ago. And the flu is associated with blood clots and heart attacks. A lot of this is related to immune system overactivation, not new to this except that it's such serious immune system overactivation..
And I would be surprised if they can't find influenza RNA in some people after they recover with a sensitive enough test, like in the alarming report about people "testing positive again" after they recover from COVID-19. It doesn't mean they got infected again or are infectious again.
Now I have a theory spinning out in my head that goes like this: Some people tend to be asymptomatic to the flu over time, and some people will always be symptomatic. (And others vary depending on the year.) And maybe the degree of symptoms for flu is predictive of degree of symptoms for covid. Loosely.
The World Health Organization continues to put out unhelpful statements in my opinion. They seem to have a mandate to never say anything definitive to avoid creating any controversy, thus leading to controversy. Most recently I am trying to convince people to ignore this story: No Evidence Yet That Recovered COVID-19 Patients Are Immune, WHO Says.
If recovered COVID-19 patients aren't immune it would go against all principles of immunology. It would mean a vaccine wouldn't work and would mean the end of civilization as far as I can tell. You don't need "evidence", in the sense of some study that will take years to do, to presume that people who had severe illness and have a functioning immune system are immune. The real issue is that there are a ton of antibody tests being developed all over the place and we don't know yet which ones are most reliable and should be treated as the gold standard.
Still typing, though! Take care of yourself, Walt, and thanks for the update.
Yes, it's immensely reassuring.
Having just had both, I can confirm the COVID swab goes deeper than the flu one. I'm being treated for bronchitis again but got the test because my symptoms are weird and I count as asthmatic. Flu and strep were negative, and they took those swabs before I even entered the medical building. These are seriously weird times.
Hipster high schools don't teach calculus, because it's too derivative.
Back in the 1950s, Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to force high schools to integrate.
At hospital today for a regular appointment, everything eerily quiet and empty. And super-quick service.
I suppose you wash your hands very well after being in any medical facility.
Back in the 1950s, Eisenhower sent in the 101st Airborne to force high schools to integrate.
Since it was a general's solution, he added a constant.
14 consecutive days with no new domestic cases.
The first epicenter is coming back to life, but not as anyone knew it.
I don't know who needs to hear this, but remote raid passes are now possible in Pokemon Go.
151 is great, yes.
Just to be clear, I did not and do not believe that it's possible that there's no immunity to Covid-19, and it seemed like an absence of evidence/evidence of absence conflation, but I was curious to know what explained the weird "relapse" situations. Bad data explains everything.
I think the relapse situations are either the detection of RNA from dead virus particles, or a small amount of virus persisting in some weird cell type. I don't think there is a culture system yet for testing whether there is actually live virus in these samples, but when there is, I would be surprised to see live virus.
See here the dynamics of measles virus. Infectious virus disappears rapidly but it takes longer for virus RNA to become undetectable. For a small number of people this continued existence of measles beyond the usual symptoms becomes serious (encephalitis). I don't think the coronavirus would be getting into nerve cells but maybe it persists in a small number of cells of the blood vessel wall or something? Either way it may be a concern for the patient but the patient is no longer infectious.
My dad's cancer treatments resume this week after moving to a monthly schedule. The schedule change was planned pre-Covid 19 but a diagnostic that should go with it was delayed to reduce visits. The hospital is nearly empty as the outbreak isn't severe here and many people have put off visits. We decided to go ahead since the situation was pretty dire when treatments started and don't want to chance losing the positive trend.
Yes. Ailing parents and cancer are hard to deal with.
148 is proof the blog still has a function
Wish you and your folks the best, fa.
Okay, no cheating: what's your best (and by best, I mean funniest) explanation for this quote?
He added that electricity had finally been restored, but workers were still chopping off parts of the island.
Cryptic Ned, I see your 142 and raise you MIT Technology Review.
https://www.technologyreview.com/2020/04/27/1000569/how-long-are-people-immune-to-covid-19/
It may or may not be the end of civilisation as we know it if there's limited immunity, but I think that's a panic reaction at this point. The fucking Black Death (c. 30% of the population dead) didn't end civilisation as they knew it then, although it can be argued it led to changes over then next few generations.
The King of England and the King of France just carried on fighting the Hundred Years War as if nothing was happening. "Civilisation" is a lot more robust than you think it is; if there's limited immunity in the long run life expectancy at 40 in the developed world will drop by a few years, but Amazon will go right on ripping you off, Trump will go right on lying, Putin will go right on trying to fuck us all over, just as if it was 2018.
148, 166: If you parlay that pun (by infinitesimal increments, natch) into an entire short story you get Pynchon's "The Secret Integration".
I'm not really stalking ajay's comments.
My bank wants to give me a credit card emblazoned with dancing bears. I feel unserious.
175: MC, is that you? My first bank passbook in Japan had a cover that featured Micky Mouse, and I honestly thought when they showed it to me that they were taking the piss. It wasn't until several years later that I learned I could ask for a plain-covered one.
Of course there are choices! There is yellow: white bears on yellow field; and black: gray outline bears on black field (except the bear in the middle, which is solid white for maximum contrast).
It seems only the high net worth can get non-cuddly cards. Also architects, who can get a stylized turret.
+667 new cases here today. That is a drop.
175. Unless your real name is Simon Smith, I would reject that out of hand.
You guys suck. Except dal.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-africa-52286296
181: Huh, my guesses of what it really was were either 1) one of the intentional, populated floating islands in Lake Titicaca or 2) a poetic way to refer to some insular area in the Celtic fringe (or parts of Scandinavia) with a back-up peat-burning power station.
170: I think that's bad news because it means people who were infected and didn't realize it (i.e. this coronavirus to them was no worse than the common cold) could get infected again. It doesn't mean people who had a severe illness or people who are vaccinated in the future, aren't immune.
I saw the mention of the post-SARS surveillance study at the end. More information about how immune people were after recovering from SARS would be useful and I'm surprised there isn't more of it - that's the one study I was already aware of. Assuming the vaccine works we may well need a booster every 2 years based on that.
