- Location
- Bloomington, Indiana
- Name
- Mike
I think you're right about the bug being here to stay. I have read more than a few docs saying that everyone will probably eventually catch it. Therefore, keep your vaccinations up to date...
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Coronavirus 🤧
- Thread starter Kevin
- Start date
-
- Tags
- coronavirus covid-19
Richard
All-Pro
- Location
- Marlow, UK
Descendants of the 1918 influenza virus (which killed more people than the First World War) still circulate today, so I think it's a safe bet that Covid 19 will be with us long term. I managed to avoid it for nearly three years, but socialising with others in the holiday season was my eventual undoing.
There's no law which says this must be the case, but my understanding is that viruses such as influenza and coronavirus generally mutate and adapt through time to become more easily spread and less lethal to the host. An ambitious, go-getting virus wants us up and about and coughing over each other rather than crawling off to expire somewhere, is how I see it.
I assume from the symptoms (and what's in fashion these days) that I have the Omicron variant, and that seems to be less unpleasant than the earlier versions of Covid, but we shall see.
-R
There's no law which says this must be the case, but my understanding is that viruses such as influenza and coronavirus generally mutate and adapt through time to become more easily spread and less lethal to the host. An ambitious, go-getting virus wants us up and about and coughing over each other rather than crawling off to expire somewhere, is how I see it.
I assume from the symptoms (and what's in fashion these days) that I have the Omicron variant, and that seems to be less unpleasant than the earlier versions of Covid, but we shall see.
-R
archaeopteryx
Regular
A lag of two or three days from symptoms to rapid tests showing positive has been characteristic of omicron for some time. There's maybe some evidence to suggest BQ.1 and BQ.1.5 may be a bit more challenging for rapid tests than previous variants but the way that usually goes is the data's not in and analyzed until after a wave has passed.
I've come across many calls to update rapid tests to omicron, which seems reasonable enough to me. However, I've stopped following the back and forth on that since there hasn't appeared to be much interest from the parties capable of actually making an update happen. But hopefully something's getting done and I'm just not aware of it.
I'm afraid the last bit's it's more of a common misunderstanding. The selection pressure for viruses is very much to spread and, if their host dies after infecting a bunch of others, that's a longer term thing which doesn't usually have much of an effect. We've seen that plenty with SARS-CoV-2, for example, where hospitalizations and deaths consistently lag infection waves and BA.1 doubled to quadrupled death rates.
Reconstruction of 1918 H1N1's genome offers another perspective, by comparison with currently circulating genomes and sequences from post-1918 flu epidemics. Doesn't seem to be much an inverse relationship between spread and lethality. If anything maybe the opposite. But it's a little hard to tell since higher spread and higher lethality both create greater variant awareness, increasing the chance of being able to get historical samples to sequence. There's also been a lot of ancient DNA recovery of Yersinia pestis and, whilst it's a bacterium, those efforts make it another reasonably good source on this. Similar results, from what I understand, though it's been a couple years since I last looked into plague studies.
On the host side, yes, there's selection pressure to adapt to make the virus less debilitating. The primary adaptation mechanism, however, is removal of less resistant hosts from the gene pool through mortality. So it's not a fun process for the hosts and, to the extent one's susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 is determined by genetics and aging, there's nothing you can do about it. What one can do is layer protection—vigilance, ventilation, distancing, masking, vaccination, and staying in the best health you can manage—which isn't evolution in the classic sense. But it is a suite of adaptations which better one's odds.
Yup, see Souilmi et al. 2021 for example. Only exception so far is smallpox, and even that's potentially temporary should someone decide to pull it out of a weapons vault.
- Location
- Seattle
- Name
- Andrew
Raging sore throat throughout most of the first part, lots of tiredness/lethargy, variable temperature and aches and pains were our most prominent symptoms when we had it early in 2022. My wife lost most of her smell/taste, and it took several months to really return. That was her least favorite symptom. I had a pretty high fever the first night, then it mostly evened off. It was the constant feeling of exhaustion for almost two full weeks that was by far the strongest symptom. In that sense, even though we didn't have any acute symptoms or chest congestion, it was much worse than any colds or flus I've ever had, the only analogue I can think of was when I got chicken pox at 17 and was out of commission for a full month.
- Location
- Seattle
- Name
- Andrew
The Russian Flu pandemic might hold some really interesting insights as to how coronaviruses enter the scene, and what happens to them. Most interestingly, neurological symptoms were reported during that pandemic, which, if I understand correctly, aren't typically involved with influenza.
The enigma of the 1889 Russian flu pandemic: A coronavirus?
The “Russian flu”, which raged from 1889 to 1894, is considered as the first pandemic of the industrial era for which statistics have been collected. This planetary event started in Turkestan and hit the Russian Empire, before reaching ...
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
christilou
Legend
- Location
- Sunny Frimley
My husband managed to catch it finally at the beginning of December after a trip to the races. As the weather was bad he remained inside for most of the day with the crowds. This was on a Friday. By Sunday he was coughing a lot but as he's asthmatic this is not unusual for him. By Sunday I removed myself to the spare room just in case ..... on Tuesday he gave in and did the test .... positive and he spent the week loafing on the sofa feeling generally tired and under the weather but really not too bad. I noticed on Wednesday evening that I was clearing my throat a lot and had a sleepless night worrying that I had caught it. Thursday morning found me tired and with a slightly worse chesty cough, my "bad" shoulder was aching and I felt a bit nauseous . Got up and dressed and then lay down for an hour, took some Ibuprofen and was soon up and about washing the floors and feeling fine, apart from a slight chesty cough. I tested positive but honestly I've had worse actual flu and reactions to the initial vaccination than this so I consider myself lucky. I had only had my 4th booster a few weeks before so maybe this helped. My husband chose not to have a 4th vaccine for some reason.
- Location
- Awabakal Country, NSW, Australia
- Name
- Sue
I’ve still managed to stay free of it. But, I’m a hermit and have restricted myself in terms of socialising. Went to a concert in August and expected to catch it then, but no. I’ve had my 4th shot but its now 8 months since… I don’t feel very protected, at all.
My sympathies to those of you suffering now. Its just been mad. Masks, handwashing, distancing, not much more to be done.
My sympathies to those of you suffering now. Its just been mad. Masks, handwashing, distancing, not much more to be done.
Irene McC
Hall of Famer
- Location
- CPT, South Africa
To attempt an "every cloud" scenario here, I'd say at least this is happening now and that I'm glad you're in the right place, ie home. If you went through this in 2020/21 and had to be in one of those then mandatory quarantine hotels then trust me, that really would be hell.
- Location
- Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia
- Name
- John ...
An interesting research paper, thanks.
Jonathan F/2
All-Pro
- Location
- Los Angeles, USA
- Name
- Jonathan
The one thing I don't like about COVID is just how random the symptoms are. In fact, everyone in my household had different reactions to the virus. It was either vomiting, fever, extreme fatigue and in my case loss of smell. Also I was one of those people who just needed to exercise the virus out of my system!
- Location
- Seattle
- Name
- Andrew
I think that's a large part of what made/makes it so concerning, there is just no predicting what it will do. Aside from having certain risk factors which make an extreme case more likely, but even then it's unpredictable. I know several older folks with what I'd call an unhealthy lifestyle and risk factors (COPD, that sort of thing) who had very mild cases. And others who were younger and healthier but were hit hard and slow to recover.
Jonathan F/2
All-Pro
- Location
- Los Angeles, USA
- Name
- Jonathan
I've heard stories of people who are young, healthy and in excellent physical shape, but were hit hard by the virus. I know other people who are in terrible health and they recovered with no ill effects.
The one time I caught it was in a public enclosed space during a kid's birthday party. Plus my kids caught the flu bug at Chuck E. Cheese a few months ago. We just had dinner with friends this week and our friend's kid was positive the next day! No symptoms yet, but we'll have to test before my kids go back to school from winter break. This virus is definitely here to stay.
- Location
- Bloomington, Indiana
- Name
- Mike
Well, there you go - an excellent reason (if you need one) to stay out of Chuck-E-Cheese!
archaeopteryx
Regular
A recent boost very likely helped, yes.
I agree. IRL, I encounter plenty of wishful thinking where people implicitly assume if they get COVID they'll be one of the ones for whom it's not too bad. Often that's projected onto others, either by making the same assumption for them without checking or through thought processes like "when I got COVID it wasn't too bad so the next time you get it it'll be fine". I haven't seen much in the way of studies which have tracked specific individuals through multiple infections—longitudinals like that are tricky to set up and are often challenged by high dropout rates—but aggregate data does show each reinfection comes with new risk of long COVID. So, whilst everyone understandably wants to stay in the no big deal category, an inconvenient truth is that's just not actually possible.
Yep. At the moment, it's plausible upwards of five billion out of the eight billion people on the planet have had COVID. Even if you're in an age group where the odds of severe disease are 0.1% that's still millions of people getting hit hard.
It also happens middle age, healthy, and in excellent physical shape is the central profile for getting hit hard by long COVID (at least pre-omicron, haven't seen a reanalysis with omicron data but I'm not aware of any reason to think omicron's different in this regard).
christilou
Legend
- Location
- Sunny Frimley
A recent boost very likely helped, yes.
I agree. IRL, I encounter plenty of wishful thinking where people implicitly assume if they get COVID they'll be one of the ones for whom it's not too bad. Often that's projected onto others, either by making the same assumption for them without checking or through thought processes like "when I got COVID it wasn't too bad so the next time you get it it'll be fine". I haven't seen much in the way of studies which have tracked specific individuals through multiple infections—longitudinals like that are tricky to set up and are often challenged by high dropout rates—but aggregate data does show each reinfection comes with new risk of long COVID. So, whilst everyone understandably wants to stay in the no big deal category, an inconvenient truth is that's just not actually possible.
Yep. At the moment, it's plausible upwards of five billion out of the eight billion people on the planet have had COVID. Even if you're in an age group where the odds of severe disease are 0.1% that's still millions of people getting hit hard.
It also happens middle age, healthy, and in excellent physical shape is the central profile for getting hit hard by long COVID (at least pre-omicron, haven't seen a reanalysis with omicron data but I'm not aware of any reason to think omicron's different in this regard).
Absolutely, the frightening thing about Covid has always been that no one can tell how they will be affected by it. A good friend of ours had a heart attack last year, marathon runner, aged 63 with nothing previously to suggest he may be at risk. He is rightly suspicious of the jabs he received. I think that by and large we have to accept that as with any inoculations , there will always be people for whom the cure is perhaps worse than the actual infection.
- Location
- Woodstock, CT
Good Evening,
And a belated Happy New Year to you all! After having my kids and grandkids fly in for the holidays (from Germany, California, Colorado and Nevada), it kind of set the stage for bringing the third round of COVID to my home. When I tell you we all got sick (from my 8 month old granddaughter to myself nearing 72), I mean from a mild fever to the "should we go to the hospital". All of us have had the original series of shots followed by at least 2 boosters; I've had three as of November. This is my second week of still testing positive, with moderate issues at this point, but there is no way I can be allowed back into school among my students and other staff. It was confirmed on Friday through lab tests that I do have the variant called XBB.1.5, and that even Remdesivir (anti-viral) has little to no effect on it. I just need to ride out the storm once again after bacterial Pneumonia followed by RSV. The schools are a cesspool of germs right now, with no requirement for masking, and sick kids are being sent to school because parents generally cannot work from home. Stay calm and carry on...
Regards,
Edd
And a belated Happy New Year to you all! After having my kids and grandkids fly in for the holidays (from Germany, California, Colorado and Nevada), it kind of set the stage for bringing the third round of COVID to my home. When I tell you we all got sick (from my 8 month old granddaughter to myself nearing 72), I mean from a mild fever to the "should we go to the hospital". All of us have had the original series of shots followed by at least 2 boosters; I've had three as of November. This is my second week of still testing positive, with moderate issues at this point, but there is no way I can be allowed back into school among my students and other staff. It was confirmed on Friday through lab tests that I do have the variant called XBB.1.5, and that even Remdesivir (anti-viral) has little to no effect on it. I just need to ride out the storm once again after bacterial Pneumonia followed by RSV. The schools are a cesspool of germs right now, with no requirement for masking, and sick kids are being sent to school because parents generally cannot work from home. Stay calm and carry on...
Regards,
Edd
- Location
- Beaumaris, Melbourne, Australia
- Name
- John ...
Christilou, that's always been the case.
We know that about 1 in 30,000 children will die as a result of childhood vaccinations. That's a bit more acceptable than 1 in 3 without them ...
I spent a week at a coroner's inquest into one such death. It was heartbreaking. Turned out to be caused by an unsterilised needle being used, followed up by incompetence on the part of the hospital staff in not recognising a "simple" wound infection.
That was in the late 1960s.
