shazbot posted:

12 years ago when I dropped from 320 to 170 lbs, drs visits changed dramatically. anything I said was a serious concern and drs did everything they could.

and now that I’m fat again from depression/alcohol I’m back to getting for tests. gl you are a good poster and hope it continues

Pillowpants posted:

sorry I was typing and falling asleep during typing. my A1C was fine I don’t have it. he was just calling me fat.

Why Am I So Tired posted:

Great article. A good one to send to anyone who calls you a leftist extremist for caring about COVID.

https://twitter.com/ZurNull/status/1735158834795012445

Translation here. Figure I'll post it for those without twitter:

Edit - I screwed it up. Here's the full translation in one place:
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1735065431314977108.html

Didn't realize I'd only seen part of the article, it's even better than I realized.

U-DO Burger posted:

holy poo poo this is incredible. It's like this entire thread has been distilled into a single article. And the best part is that this isn't written by laypeople or researchers. No, these are instructions on how to retain your skilled workers during the age of Long Covid, written by the business community, for the business community.

Steve Yun posted:

https://x.com/ejustin46/status/1733870559170044173?s=46

apparently infected cells grow hentai tentacles and Covid virions surf across them onto new cells

https://x.com/ejustin46/status/1733870578195476592?s=46

Rochallor posted:

maxwellhill posted:

Pingui posted:

Yeah, there are already a bunch of articles out about it:








Honorable mention to Fortune for not following the pack:

I'm Crap posted:

Doing great, thank you!

(wastewater data, mid-2020 to present)

Steve Yun posted:

https://x.com/bnofeed/status/1733937558562689313?s=46

Thoguh posted:

People who have not crack pinged live in a completely different universe and just trust people in general.

Soap Scum posted:

bro everyone has covid rn

this is my anecdotal observation

RealityWarCriminal posted:

this came out a week ago, might have been posted already

https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/75-006-X202300100015

big headline: 3.5 million canadians had long covid (symptoms lasting at least 3 months post infection) and 2.1 million people still have it (as of june 2023). 2.1 million people works out to about 5% of the population

Platystemon posted:

She thinks that you have cancer lol.

JAY ZERO SUM GAME posted:

pillowpants im sorry. I hope you get more help and feel better

gently caress COREY PERRY posted:

gently caress COREY PERRY caught up on COVID thread

gently caress COREY PERRY posted:

world is a gently caress

get better/stay healthy goons

The Maroon Hawk posted:

as someone that’s admittedly less militant about masks than the rest of this thread, I will still never, ever, ever understand why medical facilities ever dropped their mask mandates

that’s, like, the most likely place that someone there will be sick!!! and not even necessarily with COVID, just with…well, anything!!!

Yossarian-22 posted:

Thread, how common is it that somebody gets two variants of COVID at the same time. Like say you are recovering or have just recovered from an infection but you are around somebody else who has COVID. What are your odds of getting it?

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-33910-9 posted:

The prevalence of Delta and Omicron (BA.1) co-infections and Omicron lineages BA.1 and BA.2 co-infections were estimated at 0.18% and 0.26%

quote:

The estimation of the SARS-CoV-2 co-infection prevalence had been performed in several studies before the emergence of SARS-CoV-2 VOCs and led to conflicting findings. Liu and colleagues reported about 5% of co-infections in the United Arab Emirates between May and June 202015. In the United Kingdom, Tonkin-Hill et al. found a co-infection in approximately 3–4% of samples collected in March and April 202016 and another study conducted in Brazil over a longer period (from May 2020 to April 2021) found a prevalence of 0.61%17. The low genetic diversity of SARS-CoV-2 observed during the pre-VOC period, the differences of genomic epidemiology depending on the geographical location, as well as the lack of standardization between the methods used may limit the interpretation of these results.

More recently, a study conducted on out-patients in the USA during the same period than the present study (November 2021 to February 2022) identified 20 Delta/Omicron co-infections out of 16,386 samples sequenced. The resulting prevalence of about 0.1% for Delta/Omicron is highly consistent with the prevalence found herein. However, no BA.1/BA.2 co-infection was reported by the authors as they specifically looked for Delta/Omicron co-infections using a curated list of mutations7.

quote:

Over the course of the past 7 to 10 days, I have become aware of a number of people who have COVID right now, almost more than at any point in the pandemic. This is remarkable, and what has been specifically interesting, if not challenging, is that many of these individuals have become infected for the very first time. These are people who avoided four years of virus out there, only now to come down with COVID. And in each instance, all of these people have been vaccinated and including the recent BAA vaccine dose. So the question is, what's happening? I don't know, there's surely something going on with this virus as it relates to the variant, and we'll talk more about that in a moment. And I think there's something also about host immunity that's playing a key role here, is that these people are now becoming infected, not just because of their behavior, because they're out and about in ways that they weren't before. The people I know who have become infected are people who are living their life today very similarly to how they did through the last four years. So it's really a challenge right now to understand what's happening.

quote:

There's a whole laundry list of countries that could go through, including Austria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Sweden, Finland and Canada, all of which are experiencing substantially elevated COVID activity. In some of these places, like Austria and Denmark, wastewater levels are among the highest they've ever seen in the entire pandemic. Otherwise, they've all reported very notable rises in hospitalizations, and I know we'll be covering this in more detail later, but we've been seeing some different reports in the media attributing these increases to the winter season and cold weather, basically framing it like it's part of some easy, straightforward and expected seasonal pattern.

Well, you've heard me say this many times before, there's just no evidence to actually support that. The data that I look at that helps me conclude that seasonality is not yet part of this whole situation, is explaining what's happening right now in the southern hemisphere. This is their summer. They're in the thick of it. And yet countries like Australia and New Zealand, both are experiencing major increases in cases, despite the fact it is this summer season. So that can't account for the fact that it's winter summer kind of seasonality happening right now. I think it has much, much more to do with the variant that we'll talk more about in a moment.

quote:

And as I've said before, this is not rocket science. This is more complicated than that. So when you consider that after almost four years, we're still dealing with these constant ebbs and flows, it doesn't really matter how complicated it is, because at the end of the day, it's a problem and we should want to do something about it.

quote:

So how do we get through the next few weeks with all of our family contacts not wanting to put mom or dad or grandpa and grandma in harm's way? Here's what I would say. First, get vaccinated. Everyone. Get your additional dose. Now, even if it doesn't stop transmission, it's an insurance policy against getting severely ill. Second of all, test, test and test. On the morning of getting together with any family members, friends, colleagues, whatever. Test yourself. And even though you have that little sniffle, you know it's not COVID. It could be. And I've had far too many reports to me of people whose only exposure they had to someone who was infected was being with them when they had the sniffles. However, the next day it wasn't just the sniffles. So if you're potentially at all, ill test. Even test if you're not to have more confidence, then finally masking.

You know, I hear from people all the time about how I don't concentrate enough these days on masking, and I'm trying to what I guess I would say is be practical. I have watched all around me over the past. Romance, not just here in the United States. Last week I was in London all week at meetings. I virtually saw no one wearing any kind of respiratory protection. Now, you know my lone voice out there saying, oh, well, you should wear your N95 to the family gathering. People would look at me and just say, no way, I'm not going to I understand that. I would say that if someone was at a high risk of becoming infected and having a serious outcome, then, you know, you might want to consider that even at a family event, to have them in an N95. But let's talk about reality. That's not likely to happen. So I would really count on vaccination, testing, avoiding events if you're ill, and I would always support N95 use in a family event like this, but know that the likelihood that's going to happen is pretty, pretty low. This is the challenge we have right now, but just know that there are going to be family events that are going to happen over the next few weeks, where there will be substantial transmission of COVID. All I can hope is that no one becomes seriously ill.

quote:

Chris Dall: Are we seeing any changes in illness severity?

Michael Osterholm: Chris, this is truly $1 trillion question because I think we would all agree, and I've said this many times and often it confused people. So I want to be clear now and not confuse people. If everybody in the world got COVID, but it never was more severe than a common cold, that'd be a great victory. If no one got long COVID because of their COVID infection, that would be a great victory. So we don't have to eliminate COVID to actually have a great public health success. But we have to do is figure out what not only causes COVID to happen, but why do we see severe illness and can we prevent that? Because that too would be a very important goal. So it seems like the illnesses that we've been seeing recently are less severe given the total number of cases. But let me dive into the data to see if this is actually the situation. The best way to analyze changes in illness severity is to look at how severity indicators such as hospitalization, ICU admissions and deaths have changed over time. If we look at hospitalizations versus death numbers, we get some idea of just how much severe disease is occurring among those hospitalized and compare it to the past.

If hospitalization and death trends run parallel to each other over time would indicate that the infections have maintained the same severity over time. But what we actually see when we look at a graph of weekly deaths and weekly new COVID hospital admissions, as it since early 2021, while new hospitalization rates and deaths follow the same trends, the rate of new hospitalizations is far higher than the deaths are, indicating that those who end up hospitalized today are recovering much more often than they did earlier in the pandemic. In addition, if we look closely at the proportion of patients hospitalized by ICU status or not admitted to ICUs, we're seeing that there is a big difference today, with many, many fewer people being admitted to an ICU for their intense care needs, and that is a very good sign. So while we surely are seeing cases severe enough to lead to hospitalization, they aren't severe enough to lead to the deaths that we saw through the first three years of the pandemic. This is promising news. It seems we're finally moving in the right direction in terms of disease severity. Although I want to reiterate, we should never celebrate the fact that we continue to lose so many lives every day.

And let me just say that there are a couple options for explaining this less severe disease. First, I believe it has to do with an increase in population based immunity. Immunity that may not be protecting you against getting infected, but surely protecting you from severe illness. We're now four years into this pandemic, and there is both vaccine induced immunity and immunity from that previous infection. On the other hand, the decrease in severity could be due to the virus itself. We have seen different variants cause different surges, and it could be that the virus is just evolved to be less severe over time or and most likely it's both of these factors. It's increased population based immunity, and it's the emergence of variants that are not as likely to cause severe illness and hospitalizations resulting in deaths. Yes, we have seen a milder illness spectrum with cases, and that's surely a great thing. But when you're talking 1300, 1400 deaths each week, that still is, in my world, unacceptable. These are our moms and our dads, our grandpa and our grandmas, our brothers and our sisters, our sons and our daughters. Just unacceptable. So we can do better. But we surely are in a better place than we were three years ago.

quote:

And let me just conclude with an example of another infectious agent and how it's transmitted, and how it often surprises people to find out its primary mode of transmission. And that's norovirus. Many of us recognize norovirus is causing that diarrheal illness of several days duration with vomiting, diarrhea. It surely can be a very nasty bug to get. When I was at the Minnesota Department of Health, our group in the area of foodborne disease did a tremendous amount of research on the transmission of norovirus in the community, and we found many, many outbreaks of which respiratory transmission was the key and primary mode of transmission, I think. Wait a minute. This is an interrogation, you know, fecal oral. And in fact that can happen. But the actual respiratory component was very substantial. And so when I see some of my colleagues out there using norovirus to say, well, this is all a fecal oral transmitted virus, it's simply not. And it just points out the example of how you can have major respiratory transmission for an infection and still have another route.

https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/12/yes-a-lot-of-people-are-sick-right-now.html posted:

Yes, a Lot of People Are Getting Sick Right Now

Platystemon posted:

You heard it here, folks: Norwalk virus is airborne.

The Maroon Hawk posted:

as someone that’s admittedly less militant about masks than the rest of this thread, I will still never, ever, ever understand why medical facilities ever dropped their mask mandates

that’s, like, the most likely place that someone there will be sick!!! and not even necessarily with COVID, just with…well, anything!!!

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homeless-record-america-12-percent-jump-high-rents/ posted:

Homelessness in America reaches record level amid rising rents and end of COVID aid

Homelessness in America reached a new record earlier this year partly due to a "sharp rise" in the number of people who became homeless for the first time, federal officials said Friday.

More than 650,000 people experienced homelessness on a single night in January, a 12% jump from 2022, the report from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development found. That's the highest number since the country began using the yearly point-in-time survey in 2007 to count the homeless population.

Thousands of Americans joined the ranks of the unhoused population in the last year due to the end of pandemic programs such as the eviction moratorium as well as jumps in rental costs, the report found. The end of COVID-era aid such as the expanded Child Tax Credit, stimulus checks and other supports has also led to a spike in poverty last year, an issue that was particularly acute with children, among whom the poverty rate doubled.

"Homelessness is solvable and should not exist in the United States," said Secretary Marcia L. Fudge in a statement. "This data underscores the urgent need for support for proven solutions and strategies that help people quickly exit homelessness and that prevent homelessness in the first place."

The number of people who became newly homeless between the federal fiscal years 2021 to 2022 jumped 25%, HUD noted in the report. The fiscal 2022 year ended in September 2022.
(..)

https://thehill.com/homenews/education/4363503-40-percent-student-loan-borrowers-missed-first-payment-since-pause-officials/ posted:

40 percent of student loan borrowers missed first payment since COVID pause, officials say

DickParasite posted:

as if I needed another reason to avoid Connecticut.

Platystemon posted:

It’s named for the Norwalk in Ohio.

You can still avoid Connecticut on account of Lyme.

https://www.cambridgetoday.ca/local-news/its-getting-worse-hospital-warns-as-covid-and-influenza-cases-rise-across-the-region-7989874 posted:

'It's getting worse' hospital warns as COVID and Influenza cases rise across the region
Cambridge Memorial Hospital is seeing a rise of respiratory illnesses in staff and patients as hospital admittance levels reach the highest level since the pandemic
(..)
Cambridge Memorial Hospital (CMH) has also taken notice of the rise in cases among patients and staff at the hospital, especially over this past month.

Communications manager for the hospital, Stephan Beckhoff said that patients coming to the Emergency Department with respiratory illness this year are "very sick" with 25 per cent of them being admitted.

With the exception of 2020 and 2021, the height of the pandemic, the admittance rate in 2023 for respiratory illnesses has been one of the highest the hospital has ever seen with Beckhoff said, adding "it seems to be getting worse."
(..)

https://www.euronews.com/2023/12/15/los-angeles-buries-unclaimed-bodies-from-covid-pandemic posted:

Los Angeles buries unclaimed bodies from COVID pandemic
"These individuals may be homeless or have no next of kin," US officials said.

Almost 2,000 people who died during the first year of the COVID pandemic and whose bodies were never claimed were laid to rest in Los Angeles on Thursday.

The cremated remains were put in a communal grave in a ceremony attended by religious and political leaders, as well as several dozen members of the public.
(..)

toggle posted:

studies have said that wearing masks CAN BE DANGEROUS

i just returned home from another flight and was stuffing pretzel sticks into my feeding hole/sip mask valve the entire flight. this is a game changer for aeroplane safety and feeding tbh. such freedom, it’s incredible lmao

blatman posted:

eating spaghetti through the food grommet in my mask 1 noodle at a time

maxwellhill posted:

mask
😡

toggle posted:

studies have said that wearing masks CAN BE DANGEROUS

i just returned home from another flight and was stuffing pretzel sticks into my feeding hole/sip mask valve the entire flight. this is a game changer for aeroplane safety and feeding tbh. such freedom, it’s incredible lmao

Bruce Hussein Daddy posted:

If anyone would like to walk down memory lane and remember all the fun during the pandemic (way back then) the CDC put together a website for you.

https://www.cdc.gov/museum/timeline/covid19.html

Dren posted:

is it nasty to be chewing and eating inside the mask?

when i eat quickly and put a mask back on i feel like the inside of the mask gets rank. gotta give it a few before i pop the mask back on.

Strep Vote posted:

Finally an on-planet excuse for astronaut food.

Pingui posted:

Sure, right, ok, i get that. But that sounds really hard compared to this old recipe:
0) Rinse them off
1) Dump them in water
2) Boil them into gruel

Edit: This also has the added benefit that once it cools down, you can put the gruel into bags and if you ever get hungry just rip of a corner and squeeze. Now you are eating like the astronauts! Cool right?

Hungry Squirrel posted:

I'm at urgent care for an infected hangnail (wash your hands, kids, even more than you do) and there is so much wet coughing in here that I cannot even. The doctors are wearing surgical masks, but the check in staff and pharmacy staff are not. Neither are the adults accompanying the hacking children. A number of people came in mask less and were given a surgical by the staff.

I'm almost wishing I'd risked gangrene instead of coming in.

Gunshow Poophole posted:

I found a dead rat in the basement the other day and was disposing of it outside with gloves on. I had a very Kevin Spacey in Outbreak moment when exactly one tiny thorn on a bush punctured one perfect hole in my left middle finger lmao

it started to swell up that evening and I was like GOD DAMNIT do I have to go actually seek care