Have you or someone close to you had COVID-19? I was flying a lot in January/February and I got very sick. I had a cough and felt drained for almost two months. I was tested and it came back negative. I realize there are a lot of false negatives with the antibody test, so perhaps I should take it again. But, to date nobody in our family has had it.
We were in talks with a venture investor and he had to back out because he tested positive.
I hope you are all safe and healthy, but I'm definitely curious to know if the disease itself, and not it's ripple effects, have impacted you?
Be well!
Yes. Fuck that guy, indeed. Bummer you have to be near that. Herman Cain learned the hard way not to believe the president when he calls it a "democratic hoax."
Yes! Two direct friends of mine have tested positive. They both lost their sense of smell for a period of time but otherwise said it was no worse for them than the common cold. They’re both late 20s to mid 30s. An older coworker who’s probably 70 also got the disease. His story was different. He was hospitalized, intubated, and on a ventilator for days. Medically induced coma, all of it. He came very, very close to dying and still isn’t the same. I have no interest fucking around with this disease.
My sister and her husband tested positive for antibodies. They were both sick back in March but didnt have to be hospitalized. They didn’t recover until a week or two before my sister were due to give birth, so a stressful situation for everyone.
Couldn't get a test in early March (tried for three hours), couldn't get an antibody test until early July (tried for a week and a half), spent all of March and half of April with a massive ear infection, weakness, lethargy and then for about ten shitty scary days, burning lungs. Was biking 31 miles a day. Am now struggling to run 5 miles a week. Get backaches now. Have days where I can't do shit. Have a lingering cough. Was trying to see a doctor about recovery. He gave me so many vitamins that I threw them up. He decided I wasn't sleeping enough so he prescribed breathe-right strips. When I told him the vitamins made me throw up he told me "well you need your Vitamin B." When he decided I still wasn't sleeping enough he decided I had sleep apnea. I don't have sleep apnea. Thing is, he won't even let me come into the office until my cough is gone. Which precisely matches the attitude of Hollywood. I can't work until I can attest every morning that I have no COVID symptoms (which includes a cough), and should I show up and attest and then start coughing, they've told me they'll ban me for life. The FDA banned 22 antibody tests in late May. That doesn't mean the rest of them are good, that means they weren't patently obvious snake oil. One of our labs offered us rapid covid tests that give a result in an hour; they of course haven't been evaluated by the FDA because of course they haven't because the FDA is basically approving fucking everything conditionally and then taking things off the market when they're obvious shit. One of my wife's Facebook groups had a poll about antibody tests. 5,000 doctors, two people saying they'd seen positive antibody tests, both for people who had hospital stays of over a week. Here's the thing. Coronaviruses provoke really shitty immune responses. There are seven coronaviruses we know of that fuck with people. Four cause the common cold. Three fuck your shit up royally. The fact that we have no vaccine to the first four, despite them being known for 60 years, does not bode well. There are three coronaviruses that we know of that fuck with pigs. There's one with a vaccine. It provides a 60% reduction in piglet death if given within 5 weeks of farrowing and within two weeks after. Two doses. Within seven weeks. I'm a firm believer in science, in bureaucracy and in expertise. But there's been no reliable centralized authority on COVID. WHO has been suspiciously deferential to China; the CDC is run by a guy whose name is one letter off of "Renfield." Humanscale did a webinar yesterday. They basically said ...and observed that long term, our only real solution is to retrench back to the '30s with individual offices, operable windows and most people not being in a shared workspace because COVID is not going to be the last pandemic we deal with. I know you didn't ask? But the knock-on effects from this are going to be profound.I hope you are all safe and healthy, but I'm definitely curious to know if the disease itself, and not it's ripple effects, have impacted you?
I had a customer that got extremely sick in January/February, collapsed in a public place was knocked on his ass for several days, was ill and tired for a few weeks. He had no insurance so he suffered privately and was never seen. He had to test because he was contact traced as someone who might have been exposed and it was revealed that he was not currently infected but had the antibodies. There were no known local cases when he got sick but he suspects that he had COVID. I'm sure if he had thought it was COVID at the time he would have seen a doctor or let health authorities know. I've know a few people who have tested positive on the antibody test but never felt ill besides that one customer.
Not one of my friends, colleagues or relatives. My cleaning lady knows many though. Public health issues being what they are.
only yet friends-of-friends and friends-of-family i know people who knew people who got sick at harpers which was pretty freaky my mom and dad both had awful flu type stuff in february but when my dad took the antibody test it was negative so who knows i suppose
A couple I am friends with in the UK had it. He got sick for about a week then started feeling better, but she has been sick for months and is still weak. They were not admitted to hospital so this is still considered a mild case, but it has been quite incapacitating for her. They are in their 40s with young children who didn't seem to get sick (or only got sick very mildly) from it. My uncle and aunt, who are in their 70s, also say they have had it but it did not hit them as hard. I don't know that their cases were confirmed though. They may be mistaking another illness for it.
I know someone whose grandparent died of it. I remember an earlier post from Steve asking this question and the unasked question which I just answered. I don’t know anyone who has had it personally. Unfortunately the reading I’ve done suggests we simply have too many people in the US for herd immunity to be a viable option. It would take too long for everyone to get it.
My wife's cousin in Arizona got it. Recovered. A dear friend has the long-term version of it, and isn't recovering. I had a persistent cough when I went to the UK back in early March. Recovered eventually. No point in doing an antibodies test, because it has been too long now, and they are wrong 20% of the time anyway. There are others I know with COVID, but I can't think of them now because I just don't use social media any more... and I don't go out any more... so... yeah. But the hummingbirds have found my bird feeder finally. So that's nice.
I have had five coworkers test positive. One was sick for just over a month (back in April) with congestion, lethargy, and severe headaches. The others all lost smell and taste. Everyone is back to (remote) work. Another coworker lost her father and one lost a cousin. Thankfully my family has not gotten sick, even those that are still going to work (healthcare).
Cousin caught it from the navy, I think he's doing fine now. Unrelated aunt an uncle caught it. They were only diagnosed a couple days ago. Mom mentioned another cousin caught it but I forgot to ask who, and it might have been somebody else's cousin.
I knew of one person here in NZ. A good friend of mine was in one of the clusters that cropped up in an international conference hosted in Queenstown. She lost her sense of smell, had a ripping headache (at which point she was tested as she was at the conference and made it known to health authorities) and flu-like symptoms for a short while, then it dissapated and she's back to normal. Other than that, nobody close to me has been impacted.