10
votes
Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of February 14
This thread is posted weekly, and is intended as a place for more-casual discussion of the coronavirus and questions/updates that may not warrant their own dedicated topics. Tell us about what the situation is like where you live!
"THE MILLIONS OF PEOPLE STUCK IN PANDEMIC LIMBO: What does society owe immunocompromised people?"
Ed Yong has been doing a lot of good journalism highlighting overlooked aspects of the pandemic, and this is one of his best yet. He wrote a little on Twitter about this article:
I'm not traditionally immunocompromised; I just have a weird immune system and illnesses that are likely to get worse long term if I get COVID. But yeah. This kind of reporting does help.
I am traditionally immuno-compromised. My mother-in-law sent this article to my partner--the first time she has really acknowledged the difficulties we are facing in this super crappy situation. Mostly she has acted like my isolation was an excuse to not give her attention. So thanks, Ed Young.
I have basically been in house arrest since the day Covid appeared in my state. I haven't been in a store, or attended any social gatherings in two years. I was already disabled and pretty limited. At the beginning of this I was my mothers sole caretaker as she died of cancer. (we had some help before covid but it wasn't safe to keep them.) We still haven't had any kind of memorial service and her ashes are sitting in my house. My partner is a teacher and it was nice when everything was distance learning but this year that changed and we have split up the house to be a functional duplex. We only see each other outside and masked.
Just when it seemed like we might be able to rejoin our households omicron showed up. Now our state has abandoned all of the safety protocols. I am supposed to be on one of those medications that basically renders the vaccines worthless-- I stopped it for my booster, and I'm now trying to decide if it would be better to risk exacerbation of my disease and maybe spend some time with my family or get back on it, stay isolated or risk pretty certain death if I get infected. I know I'm luckier than someone in my position who is forced to work, because I'd probably already be dead.
I'm so sorry - it's outrageous that it took 3 years and an article in The Atlantic for your mother-in-law to recognize your risk, but thank you Ed Yong indeed.
I haven't been as isolated, but it's still a struggle. I've been delaying necessary doctor appointments and tests, and currently the only people I see are my spouse (who I live with and luckily works from home) and my mum who helps me around the house (my disability makes chores difficult).
It makes me so angry when people tell us to stay home, ignoring that we have social needs just like everyone else, not to mention medical appointments, work, school, etc. And as the article mentioned, it sucks to be ignored, but to be mocked for trying to stay alive/not worsen disabilities is even worse.
I am grateful for your comment and I am so sorry you are going through this, too.
Looking at the graphs at Washington Post's US statistics page, US cases are down 42% since last week, to 53 per 100,000. Every US state is declining except Maine, which is the highest after rising 117% (!). Also, Maine is the only state that increased.
For a while I've been wondering why Maine was so low. It looks like test positivity is declining there, and hospitalizations haven't changed. I don't see any news stories about things getting bad there. This suggests that it's some kind of problem with a test backlog rather than a real rise.
There are only two other states above 100, Alaska and Kentucky.
New York is back where they were in November, at 24 per 100,000. The Omicron wave seems basically over there, though it's still 10x what it was last June. California at 58 is about where we were January 1, but the trend is good like in other states.
South African scientists copy Moderna’s COVID vaccine
[...]
[...]
[...]