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Weekly coronavirus-related chat, questions, and minor updates - week of December 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!
Usual personal update:
The Thanksgiving wave rose and crested last week. It was... really bad. It was the toughest week of this pandemic I've had so far. I wish I could give more details without being identifying, but things were looking pretty damn terrifying for me locally for a bit. I also was on the receiving end of a contact tracing message that ended up being a miscommunication, but it was acutely frightening and really rattled my cage. Things don't look as bad now, and my anxiety has ebbed a bit, but I also feel like I'm just getting habituated to higher and higher plateaus, rather than anything actually getting better. Relief isn't relief -- it's simply the relative comfort of a brief and temporary break from rising numbers.
Overshare
I feel like I'm a waking zombie. I'm tired all the time (even moreso than normal), I'm not sleeping well, I'm constantly anxious, and I am not operating at even 50% of my normal capacity. I struggle to get done with normal, basic tasks. I cry a lot, often without provocation. There's often a lingering need-to-cry pressure in my forehead and behind my eyes, and the tears sort of find their way through whenever they want. Emotionally I'm either dead to the world or hyper-sensitive. Seeing the pictures of people getting vaccinated in the US today should have flooded me with feeling, but I got nothing but numbness. Correspondingly, I cried the other day because of an ad stuffed in my mailbox. The tears are nonsensical. I'm even aware of this while they're happening. It's weird to experience the act of crying without feeling the weight of it.
I'm usually exceptionally good at regulating my teacher persona for students. They deserve a teacher who is well, not anything like I am right now, and up until this past week I'd been able to keep up that appearance for the most part. I think they're starting to see some cracks though. A substitute teacher once again closed windows in the classroom, and I was less than polite with how I handled that situation. I also am losing the ability to fake the funk in normal, everyday interactions. Part of me feels I'm being unfair to my students, but the other part of me feels that pretending like everything is okay is actually modeling the wrong behavior -- that maintaining a cheery, happy-go-lucky persona is teaching them that they should just act like everything's okay when things are distinctly and obviously not okay.
More than anything though, I miss my husband. Since I started going back to school in person I've been keeping my distance from him at home to minimize any potential spread. On any given day there's a non-negligible chance that I'm infectious but don't know it. As such, I feel like it's safest if we eat at separate tables; sleep in separate rooms; talk to each other from a distance. I feel unsafe inside my own home, and I feel I have to stay away from the person whose companionship I need most right now.
We watched a livestreamed concert from our favorite musical artist this weekend, and during the concert she played our wedding song. Before it began we were sitting on separate sides of the room. Once it started, I saw the tears in my husband's eyes and I went over and sat next to him and held his hand for the duration of the song, both of us crying now, and then, hyper-aware that we had just spent ~5 minutes in close contact, I moved back to the other side of the room -- a much safer distance of 15 feet or so. It should have been a beautiful moment, and in some ways it still was, but I couldn’t turn off the fear to truly appreciate the beauty. Also it was a reminder that my distance is as hard on my husband as it is on me. I wish I could make it easier for him.
Part of me thinks I'm being too paranoid; too cautious. Then the other part of me considers that we're about to hit 40 cumulative confirmed cases in my school of less than 1000 people. I also believe that the number of confirmed cases is far lower than the number of actual cases. With that kind of reality, is anything I do genuinely too cautious?
I'm coming up on winter break. The most exciting part of it is that I'll have a definitive point of last exposure, which means I can initiate and churn through a quarantine period. Assuming all is well by the end of it, I can reasonably assume that I don't have COVID and I'm not infectious and we'll actually be able to spend time together like normal for a few days before I have to go back.
For as navel-gazey as I get about my situation, this has ultimately shown me just how hard our healthcare workers have it. I've only been doing this since September. They've been doing this since March, with greater exposure, higher stakes, and less support. I remember seeing pictures of healthcare workers seeing their families through windows at the beginning of this. I now have a small firsthand understanding of the kind of heartbreak that they convey.
Update to my update:
I'm better. Far better than I was when I wrote the above comment. A big thanks to everyone here who cares about my situation. I'm okay right now.
I'm sorry to hear about all the stress you're under. Please accept my internet hug of sympathy. We're at a low point right now, but that means that things can only get better.
I know you're being cautious right now, but if it does help, I have heard that the transmission rates of COVID-19 from children to adults is very low. I even found a paper about it if you'd like to read it: https://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/146/2/e2020004879
Thanks Akir. It sounds like you’re going through a difficult time as well, so know that I’m returning your internet hug with one of my own.
Regarding your quarantine period - are you planning for a 2 week quarantine or 1 week + a test? I traveled back in the beginning of November and chose to wait 5 days then test. You can save a week's waiting that way.
Neither, it turns out.
I was hoping a plan would turn out where this coming Friday would be my date of last exposure, so I could initiate a quarantine and then get tested into next week. Testing is looking dicey in my area, so my fallback was running through a 14 day quarantine which would be achievable before I have to go back to work on the 4th.
Unfortunately, my plan fell through, which pushes my last exposure date to next Tuesday, which nixes the 14 day quarantine plan. Plus the testing sites near me are so overwhelmed with cases that they've moved to appointment only and are now booked pretty much indefinitely (you have to constantly check back to see if they've opened new times, which get booked almost immediately), so the likelihood of me getting tested is quite low, especially with bad weather and holiday closures on the horizon.
With next Tuesday being my last exposure, I can do a 10 day quarantine and be relatively confident that I'm okay on the 1st, which gives me a "normal" weekend home with my husband before I have to go back. Not ideal, but also the best I can do right now, and far more than many others get.
Have you considered an at home test?
This is the one I used. I got results less than 2 days after shipping it back. What I've read says that you will most likely avoid a false-negative after waiting 5 days.
I honestly didn’t know at home testing was a widely available thing. Thanks for this. I’m going to look into it.
On a personal note, my father (with whom my relationship is somewhere in the null to negative range) has been in the hospital for about the last three weeks and the latest update had his health deteriorating. And while I don't have much feeling for the man, be it good or bad, I don't exactly know how to deal with the reality of him dying.
He never knew how to take care of himself to begin with, so he has no assets to inherit. I feel that I should be at his funeral at least for the sake of my family. But given that I don't have much positive to say, I don't know how 'useful' I'll be there. Heck, I don't even know what the funeral will be like since we still have this pandemic.
I'm most worried about my grandmother, since it's her son. I'm worried that this might literally kill her.
The director of the White House security office was hospitalized for three months with COVID-19, had to have his lower right leg amputated as well as his left big toe, and needs a GoFundMe to help cover the costs.
A couple articles from Monday:
Los Angeles Covid-19 Update: Ambulances Waiting 4 Hours To Offload Patients As County-Run Hospitals Have Just 56 Adult ICU Beds Left, Orange County Has None
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Angelenos Urged To Avoid ER As COVID-19 Patients Crowd Hospitals
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And yesterday:
LA County coronavirus surge fuels Southern California ICU bed shortage
This isn't relevant to the articles above, but I was reading them and was reminded that I need to thank you for your constant updates regarding COVID content. Your posts over the months in these threads have kept me informed and aware, and they have saved me from having to sift through the noise of larger newsfeeds. I feel like you are choosy about what you share, and it's to everyone's benefit. Thanks for doing what you do, skybrian!
You're welcome!
More from the Washington Post:
Record numbers of covid-19 patients push hospitals and staffs to the limit
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'The Worst Is Still Before Us': LA County Sees Highest Single-Day Death Toll From COVID-19
This story reports the same numbers, but adds:
4 million Californians opt in to new smartphone COVID-19 exposure alert system
We installed it. For us, it seems unlikely to be useful since we go out so seldom, but it’s in support of the cause.
Exposure Notifications: end of year update
Reevaluating Children's Role in the Pandemic
@JustinTrudeau on Twitter
A man who crossed the Irish Sea from Scotland to the Isle of Man "on a jet ski" to visit his girlfriend has been jailed for breaching Covid-19 laws.
4.5 hours on a jetski to travel the 40 km / 25 miles, then he walked an additional 15 miles to his girlfriend's house.
Small islands have the most to gain from strict quarantine procedures and the most to lose from people breaking them.
That said - it's a hell of a story to tell.
What vaccine distribution planners can learn from Amazon and Walmart
New Zealand has been very lucky to have effectively been spared all of the worst tragedies of this saga—we haven't had any major community transmission in months, and with only 25 deaths, we're well positioned to come out of this ordeal with a population suffering no long term health effects (because practically no one has contracted it), and now we've acquired enough doses of four different vaccines to cover our population and our neighbouring countries in the pacific:
Ardern unveils New Zealand Covid vaccine deals as economy rebounds
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FDA authorizes first rapid, over-the-counter home coronavirus test
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Boris Johnson has announced new tier 4 restrictions for London, the south-east and east of England, amid a surge in coronavirus cases and alarm concerns about a new strain of coronavirus spreading rapidly in the region.
This new strain may or may not be a big deal, it's too early to tell.
IIRC, this was expected? Specifically, based on historical pandemics we expected the virus to gradually mutate to become more spreadable but less lethal (to some degree).
Well, eventually it might. However, the expectation is that any given mutation has no effect. Mutations happen all the time and are used to track the disease. Proving that a mutation does something is more difficult. Even a variant that spreads widely might have done so just by coincidence.
On the other hand, if it did have an effect, that means it would be assumed to probably be a coincidence at first, until a study shows otherwise. There’s no substitute for doing the scientific work to find out.
In the meantime, there is a question of what precautionary measures should be taken. It’s probably nothing, but do you kill all the minks, just in case? (For example.) It seems other countries have suspended flights from the UK for now.
BTW I’ve read that it’s expected that the virus will change enough that eventually new vaccines will be needed. (Unlike measles.)
With its global campaign to test and promote COVID-19 vaccines, China aims to win friends and cut deals
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Dramatic levels of “friendly fire” from the immune system may drive severe Covid-19 disease and leave patients with “long Covid”
Direct link to the preprint study (which, as the article notes, has not yet been peer-reviewed or published in a specific journal)
It's encouraging to see papers like this. My hope is that the large number of folks experiencing long term effects from COVID (10-20%!) will see a huge increase in scientists studying what's going wrong in their bodies, rather than dismissing it. They deserve to be seen and given answers.
Medical research has managed to neglect post-viral infections thus far, probably for a number of reasons. It's easy to not see those of us who just sort of... fall off the map in medicine because no one believes us or knows how to help. Plus it's hard to study us as a group because we didn't get sick at the same time or from the same virus. Biomarkers that might exist early on might not exist decades out, etc.
ICU capacity drops to 0% in Southern California as state reports 379 new deaths, shattering record
South Korea warns of first potential lockdown as coronavirus numbers continue to rise
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San Francisco mandates 10-day quarantine for travelers from outside Bay Area
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Really curious how they intend to enforce it. Article says the city official didn't specify.
They probably won't. These days, "mandatory" is just a word meaning they strongly suggest it.
And the thing is, they could enforce it, or something like enforcement. Put up barricades and booths on the highways leading into the area as well as the airports with interviews and mandatory hotel stays for the quarantine period, and it would happen, mostly. It's been done elsewhere, we could do it here.
When first lockdown started I thought there might be something like that. Some kind of police stop on the highway where they ask what your business is, similar to what happens when there is an area blocked off and evacuated due to a fire or hurricane.
Now I think it’s impossible. The police wouldn’t do it. There is less state capacity in the US than we thought.
We don't know that the police wouldn't do it because no one even tried. Of course, given that managing it for the greater Bay Area would involve coordination between nine counties and a few dozen peripheral cities, I'm open to the idea that the logistics are insurmountable, even separate from the political will
Yes, it's just a guess. I don't have all that much insight into law enforcement. But here are some things I've read about:
In some rural countries in California, the police have explicitly announced that they won't enforce state mandates regarding the pandemic, with apparently little in the way of consequences.
In most places, they are taking an educational approach, for the most part. Also, fining businesses sometimes (like in Santa Clara county).
Also, it seems the pandemic itself makes law enforcement harder? Sometimes courts need to shut down. Prisons spread the virus. There are police officers getting sick too.
And then, there is the mistrust in the community as seen with the anti-police protests over the summer.
All this seems to add up to organizations under siege, not likely to take on big new initiatives? Triage seems more likely.
True Pandemic Toll in the U.S. Reaches 377,000
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(Includes graphs for several U.S. states and regions.)
Mutant coronavirus in the United Kingdom sets off alarms but its importance remains unclear
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Stanford apologizes after doctors protest vaccine plan that put frontline workers at back of line
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Austria and Switzerland are imposing more lockdown measures again (Austria not until after Christmas), and Italy as well, over the Christmas and New Years holidays.
“The degree of civilization in a society can be judged by entering its prisons.”
Supermarkets in L.A. County see unprecedented coronavirus infection rates
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Countries across Europe halt flights from Britain over concerns about coronavirus mutation
California town says no to new rules, then yes
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