demagogue on 19/11/2020 at 01:45
I'm telling you man, magnesium. Only 2% of Covid cases are lethal in the acute stage, and ~15% severe cases, or I should say non-mild, where the vitamin D matters. But 40% of cases develop long covid symptoms, dwarfing that number, where magnesium matters. I mean, you can take both.
Pyrian on 19/11/2020 at 02:26
Quote Posted by Kolya
...I know several people who separately and retrospectively came up with the idea that their minor February cold might/must have been Covid.
Me, too. Practically a pandemic in its own right.
hopper on 19/11/2020 at 18:49
Quote Posted by Kolya
I'm kidding, but I know several people who separately and retrospectively came up with the idea that their minor February cold might/must have been Covid. So they would be immune now. Wishful thinking against the fact, that there were no infections here back then. Understandable, but still.
Not really retroactively on my part, as I thought at least of the possibility back then already. Data points in favour include dry cough, loss of taste and smell, and the fact that I got tested for regular seasonal flu (tests for covid weren‘t available back then, unless you were severely ill already), which came back negative. Not exactly a watertight case to be sure, and I‘ve never been really convinced it was Covid.
That being said, you can’t claim as fact that there were no covid cases back then when nobody really got tested.
Tony_Tarantula on 19/11/2020 at 19:16
Didn't they find it in sewage samples from December and January in a bunch of cities?
Kolya on 19/11/2020 at 19:43
You're right, hopper. It's not a fact I can prove, it's just unlikely. The people I mentioned also haven't tried to prove that they are immune, although they could easily do so.
And none of them seemed entirely convinced either. They're still wearing masks etc. They just have a strong motivation to believe they are immune (and talk about this belief), as a way of softening/relieving the fear of infection.
Briareos H on 20/11/2020 at 09:28
We don't know much about long-term immunity after infection but we already know that antibody counts drop rapidly after 3 months and while it's not the complete picture, antibody decline is correlated with immunity decline for most illnesses; IMO until better evidence comes out everyone should treat covid-19 as seasonal and assume they have the same risk of getting infected again 10 months after a previous infection (if we are talking about February).
It is possible I got it in early March (change in sense of smell, strongest fever I ever had, joint and body pains), I was taking it easy afterwards for a couple months but I've been in full paranoia mode again since July.
mopgoblin on 20/11/2020 at 13:03
Yeah, the time-limited immunity would match the pattern for other coronaviruses as I understand it. Another reason why getting a vaccine is only half the battle, arguably the harder part is making sure governments don't treat it as a silver bullet and end up weakening the other measures enough that the virus can't be completely eliminated.
Starker on 21/11/2020 at 14:00
Went out today and where I'd usually see 1-2 people in a group of 20 with a mask, today it was more like 80%, maybe even higher. Perhaps the huge increase in cases scared people straight or maybe it was the fact that masks will become mandatory in public indoor spaces next week.
heywood on 21/11/2020 at 15:08
As of yesterday, my state finally has a mask mandate. We were the last state in the Northeastern part of the US to do so.
Previously, we did have a lot of places that required masks: restaurants, bars, supermarkets, retail chain stores, auto dealers, libraries, town halls, etc. But otherwise it was voluntary. I always made a note of how many masks I saw when I stopped to fuel up or go on a beer run, and how many I saw outside in public places like walking trails, parks, and sidewalks in town.
A couple of months ago, the vast majority of people were wearing them voluntarily. I'd say something like 80%. But that started to drop off in October. I don't know if it had anything to do with the election, but as we got close to election day there seemed to be more people complaining about wearing masks. And over the last two weeks, voluntary mask wearing dropped WAY off. Meanwhile, our case curve started turning into a hockey stick in October, shooting up exponentially. We now have as many people in hospitals as we did at the beginning of June.
So right when people should have been responding to the case growth by being more diligent with wearing masks and sanitizing, they did the opposite. People are just fucking stupid. That's the number one lesson learned in 2020.
We're coming up on Thanksgiving, which is a holiday where families come together for a celebratory meal. There's usually a lot of travel. But we have travel restrictions all over the place now. I can't take my wife and kids to her sister's place which is an hour's drive away. That's where most of our family will be. A neighboring state, Vermont, just banned multi-household gatherings in general. I don't know how they could ever enforce that, but it indicates how bad things are getting. We're rapidly headed towards another stay at home order.