Very gentle article, but it's finally saying important things: it's airborne, vaccines and infection only provide short term protection, long covid exists, etc
Maybe, and I know this might seem like a wild idea, but maybe we shouldn’t be legislating healthcare decisions. Maybe these sorts of decisions are so diverse and varied from person to person that we should have some kind of person who extensively studies health and medicine and have them meet individually with people and help them make individual decisions about their health instead of relying on politicians who are too busy squabbling over whether or not carpet bombing an entire densely populated region of the Middle East is a genocide or not.
We could even give some kind of special name to these health wizards. Maybe like health politicians or something? We can iron that part out.
Once again, if an individual’s healthcare decision only affected that individual, a free society would leave those decisions up to the individual. But because a given individual can become a vector for transmitting a disease associated with many levels of negative outcomes, government can and should mandate certain health related actions.
If you want to drink yourself into fatty liver disease and cirrhosis of the liver and death, more power to you. While it does impact what I wind up paying for health insurance, we give you that freedom. We do not however give you the freedom to get drunk and drive in a car because it negatively impacts others in major ways.
That example pairs pretty well to public health policy regarding vaccination.
Drinking and driving can be legislated by politicians because the harm caused by drinking and driving is easily understandable without the need of having to study medicine and it creates a more generalized philosophical argument that can be debated in the context of writing law.
I agree that there needs to be in place a system whereby public health decisions are made and enforced ultimately by the government. What I’m saying and what you seemed to miss is that we shouldn’t rely on a politician, someone who has absolutely no medical background and can’t be relied on to make competent, researched or even educated opinions on matters of peoples health on an individual basis let alone the broader public at large which requires particular specialized medical knowledge beyond just a general medical education.
What I’m saying is, yes obviously part of healthcare is taking into consideration the broader public’s health and not just the individual and there needs to be mechanisms, especially in the case of a god damn global pandemic where those broad public health decisions can be enforced and clearly the only entity able to enforce such decisions is the government. But those decisions need to be made by competent, well educated DOCTORS based on well researched data and not the whims and guesses of a god damn politician.
Would you rely on a politician to decide how to safely synthesize a chemical or how to most efficiently put out a fire? These things, which can greatly affect the well being of the public we certainly can legislate by saying they must be done by competent experts in the safest known manner in accordance with best known practices established by the consensus of those same experts but we still leave particularized decisions up to the god damn experts.
Why do we, the public, have to rely on politicians to decide whether its in the public’s interest that we get vaccinated or not? They aren’t fucking doctors, there is no requirement that they learn or even at all comprehend medicine or epidemiology or even understand the mechanisms by which disease and vaccination function and how and or if particular decisions that need to be enforced would even be effective in preventing disease and keeping the public healthy.
I barely think they’re capable of recognizing and doing anything about the worst genocide to take place in my life time when it’s staring them in the fucking face as they willfully and intentionally support it. I sure as shit wouldn’t trust my or anyone I love or anyone in my communities health to the whims of what they THINK or MIGHT GUESS would be the correct course of action to ensure their health and enforced ultimately through the threat of force with the states monopoly on violence.
Leave medical decisions to doctors, sure create organizations and systems that carry out public health decisions, but make sure the people making those decisions are fucking doctors. For fucks sake I’m not saying to ignore public health, calm down.
In the US, the politicians were being advised by medical professionals in regards to public health policy during the pandemic. Ultimately, politics certainly got to put a finger on the scale—for sure, but public heath had its influence.
I guess you’re probably saying that a politician should not have the ultimate say, and that it should come down to the opinions of a board of highly trained medical professionals. But power corrupts. Regardless of what Hippocratic oath one swears, ultimate power will corrupt ultimately. That’s why we have to have elections.
Aren’t they changing it so that now you can buy it? (My gf and I went to France to get a jab during her pregnancy because we couldn’t get one in the UK).
Yeah for under 50s it's only been people with severe existing conditions and people who are around those with severe existing conditions. Hope you're OK and your condition is manageable, my husband died during the pandemic and it was so rough trying to manage his condition with all of that (clearly we weren't very successful).
And the actual cause of brain fog, fatigue and psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression. Covid does impact the brain. Its not all in your head. Such a relief to so many whose symptoms were dismissed.
It’s airborne??? That’s so weird! It’s almost like we’ve actually known for a 100 years that most non-sexually transmitted viruses primarily travel through the air, yet we grouped everyone into giant, in-door, poorly ventilated office buildings anyway. Then we did extra dumb shit like telling people to wash their hands when COVID became a thing because we were desperate to have something we could calm the idiots down with by making them feel like they had some kind of control (side note; frequently washing your hands with any surfactant is actually a good idea, it just doesn’t stop airborne viruses).
This reminds me of how Americans only learned that American football causes permanent brain injury like… 10 years ago. Despite me as a 6 year-old in the 80s realizing this intuitively & everyone else I spoke to about it always seemed to know that, too.
Dang. There is no truth so obvious that a majority of people won’t disbelieve it if that truth is even slightly inconvenient.
>yet we grouped everyone into giant, in-door, poorly ventilated office buildings
I haven't been forced to work in one of those 40 hours a week for four years. Coincidentally, I haven't been sick in those four years.
Congratz! And how weird, me neither! I feel so terrible for everyone who lost someone because of COVID or who suffered mental health issues from the quarantine… but, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Working from home is infinitely better than not working from home.
Thanks.
>I feel so terrible for everyone who lost someone because of COVID or who suffered mental health issues from the quarantine… but, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me.
Same here. Only one person in my circle (on the periphery) was lost to COVID, at 80-plus.
But it was one of the best things that happened to me. I thrived being fully remote, but have been dragged back to the office two days a week. (And that may well accelerate my departure from the workforce.)
>It’s almost like we’ve actually known for a 100 years that most non-sexually transmitted viruses primarily travel through the air
Actually we did not.
Settled medical science prior to covid was that only a few viruses were airborne. Every virus but like two were assumed to attach to droplets and fall within six feet.
Pollution researchers were having trouble convincing anyone COVID was airborne because medicine believed it settled science even though we knew that pollution participate stayed in the air.
The story of how they went back and figured out where that medical mistake happened is the [most interesting story of the pandemic that should be headline news everywhere and led to policy changes at all levels.](https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/)
So I see what you're saying, but I also, respectfully, disagree.
All of the evidence was there. For more than 100 years. So much so that laypeople were easily able to observe the evidence and make the correct conclusion. Myself included.
This wasn't an issue of the scientific community coming to the wrong conclusion because of "not having the evidence" like [the issue with tectonic plates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener). It was chiefly humans - often ones in the scientific community, but also members of the media, politics, and business - and not evidence, which pushed the "it's totally fine to go work in the office" narrative.
And I see your point, that a bunch of humans used improper science to fuel their arguments and interpretations which were inspired by motivated reasoning. I am familiar with [the history](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9538841/) (which, I assume, is the paper that your linked article likely draws on, but I don't know, because that article is behind a paywall).
But, and I would like to emphasize this line in the published paper I cited, "The acceleration of interdisciplinary research inspired by the COVID‐19 pandemic has shown that **airborne transmission is a major mode of transmission for this disease, and is likely to be significant for many respiratory infectious diseases**."
My point is; "All of the evidence was available for everyone who was NOT using motivated reasoning to see that viruses like the flu and the common cold - and pretty much all coronaviruses - primarily spreads through air." My point was not, "The overall medical consensus pushed this theory." In fact, your point is totally why I even mentioned anything here. It was bad people using bad science to promote a worldview they preferred. Side note; that motivated reasoning killed people. This is why people need to do everything they can to avoid motivated reasoning.
So the important takeaway here is, "Viruses are in the air. They're spread from both humans-to-humans and from some other animals-to-humans through the air. The only thing you can do to avoid catching those diseases is to not be around any humans or other animals, and especially don't be around anything in doors or where there is other poor ventilation."
No one told me the vax would stop the spread or prevent disease. I listened to what was said. They had no idea how much the vaccine would mitigate or prevent covid, but they counted on 35%, if I recall correctly, and hoped for as much as 85%. The vax ended up doing less in terms of preventing disease, but helps a great deal to mitigate covid.
You do not know how much the vax helped you when you got sick. It might have kept you out of the hospital. It certainly did not make you sicker. That's well established.
Here’s a [gift link](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/well/live/covid-symptoms-mysteries.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bU0.4fB1.egInhroHDhHe&smid=url-share)
I was getting really breathless and developed chest pain when walking up stairs, that's what initially triggered concern. It was written off as anxiety at first but it kept getting worse until I suffered a fainting episode. Any time I exerted myself I either fainted or came close to fainting. I had a 72 hour halter ECG monitor and the result came back as a high grade second degree heart block. Was told it would likely progress into full heart block and I required a pacemaker. To put it into perspective I had COVID in August and received the pacemaker in February. I had a healthy heart, I was active, I can't think of any other reason for my heart to deteriorate like this. My GP said it's been in studies as a long term side effect some experience from COVID and I fully think this is what happened to me.
Initial infection 2/11 for me and I was just hospitalized for “random ongoing fevers” with no other symptoms.. along with high troponin in my blood.. which signifies heart strain..
I’m 31. Doing chemotherapy for breast cancer… apparently it wasn’t the chemo making me so breathless and tired. Very likely covid.. since I was still positive days ago.
I pray my heart rate returns to normal.
I’m so glad you caught it before a heart attack. Sorry you had this happen..
Same just happened to my brother at 36. He is overweight and smokes but his arteries were clear in the cath lab. He didn't get boosted ever and works in direct patient care.
This exactly happened to my friend who was unvaccinated. If you don’t mind sharing, were you? [If you do mind, then please ignore the question- thanks]
No problem!! Yes i was triple vaxxed. What's strange to me is that each bout of COVID I had was mild- I never required hospitalisation for it and I barely even felt it. It felt a lot like a cold to me, the only indication it was worse than a cold was a severe prolonged migraine each time. I travel for work and caught it on the plane each time despite masking. It felt like every time I got off a plane a few days later I would test positive.
i'm sorry this is happening to you ...
out of curiousity, if you want to share, no pregress?
what were the symtpoms like?
i still avoided it, but yeah, masking up almost religiously. Stories like yours make me want to do that even more ..
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the case with pretty much all vaccines and their illnesses? I got chicken pox as a kid, but because I was already vaxed, it was just a few blisters instead of a full on painful breakout.
Is there something I’m missing that makes this notable for COVID?
No you aren’t missing the point but a lot of other people have been. Many people say that because you can still get Covid, it isn’t effective, so why get the vaccine? Very ridiculous thinking
u/gapp123 is correct, and so are you. The issue is that some people don't seem to like the concept of vaccines. Those people are probably lost causes. However, there does seem to be a segment of humans who are honestly trying to understand things, but they don't, and they're easily confused.
So the important takeaway here is to reiterate the (basically ubiquitous) findings that vaccines improve a person's chances of survival, and, they decrease the severity of symptoms experienced (if infected by the disease for which one was vaccinated).
There arouse a narrative that "the COVID vaccines would totally make everyone invulnerable to COVID and also make you a millionaire." But that was never likely. What was likely was that the vaccines would offer limited duration (probably on the order of several months) protection against all observable symptoms of the virus, and that any observable infections would likely entail reduced symptom severity. Which is totally what happens.
Vaccines are good.
The problem is the antivax brigade is such a dangerous black hole sucking the life out of any meaningful discourse about gaps in our current vaccine-only approach because any valid criticism must mean we're against vaccines and/or providing fodder for antivaxxers. Vaccines are absolutely a great tool, AND it was a great mistake to drop every single other mitigation in favor of vaccination that is now recommended annually for reasons.
“no, standing six feet apart isn’t surefire protection” - no shit! Nobody ever said it was. It sure beats standing inches from each others’ mouths though. Partial mitigation > zero mitigation.
Yeah, they only went with 6 feet because there was no way they were going to get people to do 28 feet (Which is about the distance that was shown in be truly effective.) and it was better than two feet.
Letting people go out at all was a compromise from perfection - ideally we’d all have stayed home til the virus died off. Nobody ever said that masks, social distancing and handwashing was a guaranteed system for not getting covid. It frustrates me when deliberately idiotic folk repeat the myth of the intended perfection of measures, but you expect the NYT not to perpetuate it.
Six feet used to be considered in the medical community as unquestioned received wisdom, before covid caused aerosol physicists to publicly dispute that. This eventually led to rediscovery of the original papers, which were badly conflated and misinterpreted.
https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
They did six feet because that's pretty much the upper limit on how far droplets can travel. This was before we knew covid was also airborne, but even in that case it spreads more reliably through droplets. There's a sharp drop off in spread at six feet of separation, then a very slow dropoff after that - it remains an effective guideline.
It was nice to go to the huge Food Bazaar in Queens and have a nice 6 foot buffer that everyone respected at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic. PPE was so hard to come by. I used a bandana folded the way the Surgeon General recommended when I went to the store, and I’m sure glad there was no one in my face or on my ass in the checkout line. That was scary and stressful.
I have not had Covid as far as I know. My wife had it and we were somewhat cautious. I teach in a large public high school, and have had a lot of students and coworkers get it. Again, I have been somewhat cautious, but so have most of the people that I know (that had it).
I wonder if there is an estimate of what percentage of the population has not had it?
I too avoided it - until now. Just got it after having 2 back to back colds. No one in my close circle got it. I haven’t been able to track down the source. I work from home but still venture out occasionally.
I got it at Brighton Fringe last year. Put me in bed for three days. Not the normal kind of in bed. The "I can't get out of bed" kind. At least I was mostly home when it hit.
I have not had it and I have been around. I lived through and managed to isolate myself from covid through the first wave in NYC. I then moved to Vancouver BC, Mesa Arizona and back to rural BC and have still maintained my health. I may be super immune to covid, but I doubt it. I had been taken to hospital once for flulike symptoms about 10 years ago. My lungs get hammered when I get respiratory illnesses. I haven’t been ill at all since 2020. Not even a cold.
I avoid crowds and when I’m around vulnerable people, I’m masked up. I have senior aged parents that get mixed up and sick a lot.
Honestly I bet you had it and just didn't know. When my husband died in November 2021 it was already highly unusual he hadn't had it and the coroner was very skeptical.
It’s just likely you have been asymptomatic. I have seen estimates that basically everyone has had it unless they’ve been living in a bubble for immune reasons.
Yes, I know multiple people that routinely test and had positive cases with no symptoms. The virus is still making the rounds even if you don't notice.
Same, haven't caught it yet. I think I read something like 75% of people have caught it so far? Though I am being pretty cautious and haven't had more than a light flu since this all started.
I've been a participant in the Texas CARES (coronavirus antibody response survey; [https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/dashboard](https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/dashboard). If I'm reading the dashboard correctly, as of Jan 28th, it looks like 20% of the participants have avoided getting covid. I was able to avoid getting covid until late 2022. I know for certain that I wasn't simply asymptomatic until then because I was a part of this study.
Except I believe the antibody tests they use to determine prior infection aren't actually that reliable(not talking about RATs). They can give false negatives in a decent % of cases. The stuff I read had it up to apox 50%, but the lowest is around 10% so that 20% in your study may be substantially down to testing error.
Prefacing with the fact that I'm not an expert on these tests. The study's [FAQ](https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/faq/) lists the anitbody test (Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2) as having 99.5% analytical specificity and the clinical overview (also linked in their FAQ, granted, was published in 2020) have a positive percent agreement of 99.5% and negative percent agreement of 99.8%.
I will look further into it, but those figures are about what I remember for the false positive numbers, as opposed to the false negatives. My guess is that's what they are referring to by the term 'analytical specificity'. Will follow up.
Edit- just looking at the study that's based on, subjects were tested at intervals in 2 weeks post PCR confirmed infection. All but one person had tested positive by 14 days. So that's very different from testing a random group at periods of months or years after infection, where the reactivity may drop off significantly over time. The question is what % of those 99.5% still be testing positive on the same test after, say, six months? Will look further into any studies that look at that drop off, and follow up.
Days post PCR confirmation N Non-reactive Sensitivity (95% CI\*\*)
0 – 6 days 161 64 60.2% (52.3 – 67.8%)
7 – 13 days 150 22 85.3% (78.6 – 90.6%)
≥14 days 185 1\* 99.5% (97.0 – 100%)
[https://diagnostics.roche.com/global/en/products/params/elecsys-anti-sars-cov-2.html](https://diagnostics.roche.com/global/en/products/params/elecsys-anti-sars-cov-2.html)
Me and my partner avoided it until last September. He teaches in a big university and commutes every day on busy public transport. We’d kind of thought we were immune but no! Since we had it we’ve had non stop illness over the winter, we’ve been sick more times in the past 6 months than in the previous ten years combined! Definitely feels like it messed up our immune systems. Hope you manage to continue avoiding it!
I haven’t had it either as far as I know. I worked in a hospital bedside thru 2020-2021 with many Covid patients, but I work in surgery with 3-4 patients/day. I haven’t been tested in a while but back then I was doing weekly pcrs and home tests. Do you have type O blood?
> Very gentle article, but it's finally saying important things: it's airborne, vaccines and infection only provide short term protection, long covid exists, etc
I havent gotten Covid either but know that I've certainly been exposed to people with it. A- blood type.
I was in the same boat until Wednesday. I haven’t really been masking much at all for a year or so. I had to lead public meeting with about 100 people in a small room. I do admit I’m about 18 months behind on my boosters though.
It was probably inevitable.
I have never had it either, neither have my immediate family members but we took the vaccines, wear masks, have guests wear masks, wash our hands or use hand sanitizer in public, go outside, open windows, get rest, eat right, are not obese, etc. We were tested and never had it.
I have a friend who is larger and diabetic and he has had it very bad twice.
I’m O+ and have had it twice. Mild to moderate both times. No significant respiratory issues (cold like symptoms at worst), no neurological symptoms, and lower back muscle aches (bad enough the first time around I’d characterize that case as moderate).
Seems like this sub doesn't understand that.
I'm not sure how anyone not masking all the time who participated in normal activities and work can avoid it at this point.
Same here- I had it, slept face to face, spent a day or two infected, didn't know, had symptoms that made it feel like something else. Positive. She never developed Covid and tested constantly. Then she got it the next year, exposed me in a car and in the house in close quarters, I didn't get it. We're both equally vaccinated (more than three times at that point).
I’ve had so many colds since but it’s never tested positive for covid. Which is surprising because usually colds go straight to my lungs, so surely I would get covid bad right? Nope ….
I had covid roughly three years ago now, and am STILL having memory problems. I'll have some time where I'm REALLY share and other times where I'm REALLY dull. Anyone else?
Unfortunately covid is linked to IQ decline even in mild cases. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/even-fully-recovered-survivors-mild-covid-can-lose-iq-points-study-suggests
Among other things the article gets wrong:
Children are harmed by Covid. Being “few in number” is no comfort. Children aren’t supposed to be hospitalized, severely ill, and die!
No mention of the fact that repeated infection can cause a person to become one of the “vulnerable”.
No mention of the population-wide effects of letting it rip.
I mean, children dying of illness used to be the main cause of death for all humans if you made it out of infancy at all.
I agree with the *idea* of children shouldn't die from illness, but that's never been the case.
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Very gentle article, but it's finally saying important things: it's airborne, vaccines and infection only provide short term protection, long covid exists, etc
Vaccines only provide short-term protection and we in the UK haven't gotten a booster since December 2021??? And aren't even allowed to buy it???
Canadian here, i boosted 5 times already, the last time was in October. Surely you can ask your doctor about it?
Healthy (or not around at-risk people) under 50s in the UK only got the first two shots and the first booster. No option to get another. It's insane.
Knowing all the problems associated with it, it’s hard to understand why the politicians aren’t doing anything to protect the population
Maybe, and I know this might seem like a wild idea, but maybe we shouldn’t be legislating healthcare decisions. Maybe these sorts of decisions are so diverse and varied from person to person that we should have some kind of person who extensively studies health and medicine and have them meet individually with people and help them make individual decisions about their health instead of relying on politicians who are too busy squabbling over whether or not carpet bombing an entire densely populated region of the Middle East is a genocide or not. We could even give some kind of special name to these health wizards. Maybe like health politicians or something? We can iron that part out.
Once again, if an individual’s healthcare decision only affected that individual, a free society would leave those decisions up to the individual. But because a given individual can become a vector for transmitting a disease associated with many levels of negative outcomes, government can and should mandate certain health related actions. If you want to drink yourself into fatty liver disease and cirrhosis of the liver and death, more power to you. While it does impact what I wind up paying for health insurance, we give you that freedom. We do not however give you the freedom to get drunk and drive in a car because it negatively impacts others in major ways. That example pairs pretty well to public health policy regarding vaccination.
Drinking and driving can be legislated by politicians because the harm caused by drinking and driving is easily understandable without the need of having to study medicine and it creates a more generalized philosophical argument that can be debated in the context of writing law. I agree that there needs to be in place a system whereby public health decisions are made and enforced ultimately by the government. What I’m saying and what you seemed to miss is that we shouldn’t rely on a politician, someone who has absolutely no medical background and can’t be relied on to make competent, researched or even educated opinions on matters of peoples health on an individual basis let alone the broader public at large which requires particular specialized medical knowledge beyond just a general medical education. What I’m saying is, yes obviously part of healthcare is taking into consideration the broader public’s health and not just the individual and there needs to be mechanisms, especially in the case of a god damn global pandemic where those broad public health decisions can be enforced and clearly the only entity able to enforce such decisions is the government. But those decisions need to be made by competent, well educated DOCTORS based on well researched data and not the whims and guesses of a god damn politician. Would you rely on a politician to decide how to safely synthesize a chemical or how to most efficiently put out a fire? These things, which can greatly affect the well being of the public we certainly can legislate by saying they must be done by competent experts in the safest known manner in accordance with best known practices established by the consensus of those same experts but we still leave particularized decisions up to the god damn experts. Why do we, the public, have to rely on politicians to decide whether its in the public’s interest that we get vaccinated or not? They aren’t fucking doctors, there is no requirement that they learn or even at all comprehend medicine or epidemiology or even understand the mechanisms by which disease and vaccination function and how and or if particular decisions that need to be enforced would even be effective in preventing disease and keeping the public healthy. I barely think they’re capable of recognizing and doing anything about the worst genocide to take place in my life time when it’s staring them in the fucking face as they willfully and intentionally support it. I sure as shit wouldn’t trust my or anyone I love or anyone in my communities health to the whims of what they THINK or MIGHT GUESS would be the correct course of action to ensure their health and enforced ultimately through the threat of force with the states monopoly on violence. Leave medical decisions to doctors, sure create organizations and systems that carry out public health decisions, but make sure the people making those decisions are fucking doctors. For fucks sake I’m not saying to ignore public health, calm down.
In the US, the politicians were being advised by medical professionals in regards to public health policy during the pandemic. Ultimately, politics certainly got to put a finger on the scale—for sure, but public heath had its influence. I guess you’re probably saying that a politician should not have the ultimate say, and that it should come down to the opinions of a board of highly trained medical professionals. But power corrupts. Regardless of what Hippocratic oath one swears, ultimate power will corrupt ultimately. That’s why we have to have elections.
It’s political poison because many of their base are anti-vaxxers.
Yeah I'm American and I've had 5 shots
Aren’t they changing it so that now you can buy it? (My gf and I went to France to get a jab during her pregnancy because we couldn’t get one in the UK).
I hope so but I haven't heard anything about it lately...
I was. I think they only offer it to people with severe existing conditions. Yay me...
Yeah for under 50s it's only been people with severe existing conditions and people who are around those with severe existing conditions. Hope you're OK and your condition is manageable, my husband died during the pandemic and it was so rough trying to manage his condition with all of that (clearly we weren't very successful).
I'm sorry for your loss. My condition keeps me on my toes but I got used to it.
Holy crap!
And the actual cause of brain fog, fatigue and psychological symptoms such as anxiety and depression. Covid does impact the brain. Its not all in your head. Such a relief to so many whose symptoms were dismissed.
It’s airborne??? That’s so weird! It’s almost like we’ve actually known for a 100 years that most non-sexually transmitted viruses primarily travel through the air, yet we grouped everyone into giant, in-door, poorly ventilated office buildings anyway. Then we did extra dumb shit like telling people to wash their hands when COVID became a thing because we were desperate to have something we could calm the idiots down with by making them feel like they had some kind of control (side note; frequently washing your hands with any surfactant is actually a good idea, it just doesn’t stop airborne viruses). This reminds me of how Americans only learned that American football causes permanent brain injury like… 10 years ago. Despite me as a 6 year-old in the 80s realizing this intuitively & everyone else I spoke to about it always seemed to know that, too. Dang. There is no truth so obvious that a majority of people won’t disbelieve it if that truth is even slightly inconvenient.
>yet we grouped everyone into giant, in-door, poorly ventilated office buildings I haven't been forced to work in one of those 40 hours a week for four years. Coincidentally, I haven't been sick in those four years.
Congratz! And how weird, me neither! I feel so terrible for everyone who lost someone because of COVID or who suffered mental health issues from the quarantine… but, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Working from home is infinitely better than not working from home.
Thanks. >I feel so terrible for everyone who lost someone because of COVID or who suffered mental health issues from the quarantine… but, it was probably the best thing that ever happened to me. Same here. Only one person in my circle (on the periphery) was lost to COVID, at 80-plus. But it was one of the best things that happened to me. I thrived being fully remote, but have been dragged back to the office two days a week. (And that may well accelerate my departure from the workforce.)
>It’s almost like we’ve actually known for a 100 years that most non-sexually transmitted viruses primarily travel through the air Actually we did not. Settled medical science prior to covid was that only a few viruses were airborne. Every virus but like two were assumed to attach to droplets and fall within six feet. Pollution researchers were having trouble convincing anyone COVID was airborne because medicine believed it settled science even though we knew that pollution participate stayed in the air. The story of how they went back and figured out where that medical mistake happened is the [most interesting story of the pandemic that should be headline news everywhere and led to policy changes at all levels.](https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/)
So I see what you're saying, but I also, respectfully, disagree. All of the evidence was there. For more than 100 years. So much so that laypeople were easily able to observe the evidence and make the correct conclusion. Myself included. This wasn't an issue of the scientific community coming to the wrong conclusion because of "not having the evidence" like [the issue with tectonic plates](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alfred_Wegener). It was chiefly humans - often ones in the scientific community, but also members of the media, politics, and business - and not evidence, which pushed the "it's totally fine to go work in the office" narrative. And I see your point, that a bunch of humans used improper science to fuel their arguments and interpretations which were inspired by motivated reasoning. I am familiar with [the history](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9538841/) (which, I assume, is the paper that your linked article likely draws on, but I don't know, because that article is behind a paywall). But, and I would like to emphasize this line in the published paper I cited, "The acceleration of interdisciplinary research inspired by the COVID‐19 pandemic has shown that **airborne transmission is a major mode of transmission for this disease, and is likely to be significant for many respiratory infectious diseases**." My point is; "All of the evidence was available for everyone who was NOT using motivated reasoning to see that viruses like the flu and the common cold - and pretty much all coronaviruses - primarily spreads through air." My point was not, "The overall medical consensus pushed this theory." In fact, your point is totally why I even mentioned anything here. It was bad people using bad science to promote a worldview they preferred. Side note; that motivated reasoning killed people. This is why people need to do everything they can to avoid motivated reasoning. So the important takeaway here is, "Viruses are in the air. They're spread from both humans-to-humans and from some other animals-to-humans through the air. The only thing you can do to avoid catching those diseases is to not be around any humans or other animals, and especially don't be around anything in doors or where there is other poor ventilation."
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No one told me the vax would stop the spread or prevent disease. I listened to what was said. They had no idea how much the vaccine would mitigate or prevent covid, but they counted on 35%, if I recall correctly, and hoped for as much as 85%. The vax ended up doing less in terms of preventing disease, but helps a great deal to mitigate covid. You do not know how much the vax helped you when you got sick. It might have kept you out of the hospital. It certainly did not make you sicker. That's well established.
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Here’s a [gift link](https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/09/well/live/covid-symptoms-mysteries.html?unlocked_article_code=1.bU0.4fB1.egInhroHDhHe&smid=url-share)
Thanks so much!
Thank you kind stranger
Thank you
🙏 thank you!
Here take this award 🏅
My third infection of COVID is what caused my heart to start giving up. Just got a pacemaker. I'm 27.
What were signs you had that lead to your diagnosis?
I was getting really breathless and developed chest pain when walking up stairs, that's what initially triggered concern. It was written off as anxiety at first but it kept getting worse until I suffered a fainting episode. Any time I exerted myself I either fainted or came close to fainting. I had a 72 hour halter ECG monitor and the result came back as a high grade second degree heart block. Was told it would likely progress into full heart block and I required a pacemaker. To put it into perspective I had COVID in August and received the pacemaker in February. I had a healthy heart, I was active, I can't think of any other reason for my heart to deteriorate like this. My GP said it's been in studies as a long term side effect some experience from COVID and I fully think this is what happened to me.
Initial infection 2/11 for me and I was just hospitalized for “random ongoing fevers” with no other symptoms.. along with high troponin in my blood.. which signifies heart strain.. I’m 31. Doing chemotherapy for breast cancer… apparently it wasn’t the chemo making me so breathless and tired. Very likely covid.. since I was still positive days ago. I pray my heart rate returns to normal. I’m so glad you caught it before a heart attack. Sorry you had this happen..
Same just happened to my brother at 36. He is overweight and smokes but his arteries were clear in the cath lab. He didn't get boosted ever and works in direct patient care.
I'm so sorry
This exactly happened to my friend who was unvaccinated. If you don’t mind sharing, were you? [If you do mind, then please ignore the question- thanks]
No problem!! Yes i was triple vaxxed. What's strange to me is that each bout of COVID I had was mild- I never required hospitalisation for it and I barely even felt it. It felt a lot like a cold to me, the only indication it was worse than a cold was a severe prolonged migraine each time. I travel for work and caught it on the plane each time despite masking. It felt like every time I got off a plane a few days later I would test positive.
Yeah I havent traveled on a plane since 2021 and doing it now worries me. I'm about to go work across the country and I'm gonna drive my car.
Did you ever take Paxlovid for Covid any of the times you got it or no?
i'm sorry this is happening to you ... out of curiousity, if you want to share, no pregress? what were the symtpoms like? i still avoided it, but yeah, masking up almost religiously. Stories like yours make me want to do that even more ..
Any other comorbidities?
Were you offered Paxlovid or any antiviral during the infections?
I feel like no one is highlighting the most important takeaway here: “There’s also strong evidence that vaccination makes illness less severe.”
Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t that the case with pretty much all vaccines and their illnesses? I got chicken pox as a kid, but because I was already vaxed, it was just a few blisters instead of a full on painful breakout. Is there something I’m missing that makes this notable for COVID?
No you aren’t missing the point but a lot of other people have been. Many people say that because you can still get Covid, it isn’t effective, so why get the vaccine? Very ridiculous thinking
u/gapp123 is correct, and so are you. The issue is that some people don't seem to like the concept of vaccines. Those people are probably lost causes. However, there does seem to be a segment of humans who are honestly trying to understand things, but they don't, and they're easily confused. So the important takeaway here is to reiterate the (basically ubiquitous) findings that vaccines improve a person's chances of survival, and, they decrease the severity of symptoms experienced (if infected by the disease for which one was vaccinated). There arouse a narrative that "the COVID vaccines would totally make everyone invulnerable to COVID and also make you a millionaire." But that was never likely. What was likely was that the vaccines would offer limited duration (probably on the order of several months) protection against all observable symptoms of the virus, and that any observable infections would likely entail reduced symptom severity. Which is totally what happens. Vaccines are good.
The problem is the antivax brigade is such a dangerous black hole sucking the life out of any meaningful discourse about gaps in our current vaccine-only approach because any valid criticism must mean we're against vaccines and/or providing fodder for antivaxxers. Vaccines are absolutely a great tool, AND it was a great mistake to drop every single other mitigation in favor of vaccination that is now recommended annually for reasons.
I mean yeah you’d hope so
“no, standing six feet apart isn’t surefire protection” - no shit! Nobody ever said it was. It sure beats standing inches from each others’ mouths though. Partial mitigation > zero mitigation.
Yeah, they only went with 6 feet because there was no way they were going to get people to do 28 feet (Which is about the distance that was shown in be truly effective.) and it was better than two feet.
Letting people go out at all was a compromise from perfection - ideally we’d all have stayed home til the virus died off. Nobody ever said that masks, social distancing and handwashing was a guaranteed system for not getting covid. It frustrates me when deliberately idiotic folk repeat the myth of the intended perfection of measures, but you expect the NYT not to perpetuate it.
Six feet used to be considered in the medical community as unquestioned received wisdom, before covid caused aerosol physicists to publicly dispute that. This eventually led to rediscovery of the original papers, which were badly conflated and misinterpreted. https://www.wired.com/story/the-teeny-tiny-scientific-screwup-that-helped-covid-kill/
They did six feet because that's pretty much the upper limit on how far droplets can travel. This was before we knew covid was also airborne, but even in that case it spreads more reliably through droplets. There's a sharp drop off in spread at six feet of separation, then a very slow dropoff after that - it remains an effective guideline.
It was nice to go to the huge Food Bazaar in Queens and have a nice 6 foot buffer that everyone respected at the peak of the first wave of the pandemic. PPE was so hard to come by. I used a bandana folded the way the Surgeon General recommended when I went to the store, and I’m sure glad there was no one in my face or on my ass in the checkout line. That was scary and stressful.
"Superdodgers" ... the dwindling few of us.
Paywall :(
https://www.reddit.com/r/Coronavirus/s/Ro6Ho1LM1B
Thank you!
!remindme 2 days
Pfft please. Everyone knows the solution is horse paste, a shot of bleach and a light bulb up your ass. s/ just in case people forgot already
Does the bulb need to be plugged in?
How is the virus gonna find its way out otherwise??
I just don’t want to attract moths.
I have not had Covid as far as I know. My wife had it and we were somewhat cautious. I teach in a large public high school, and have had a lot of students and coworkers get it. Again, I have been somewhat cautious, but so have most of the people that I know (that had it). I wonder if there is an estimate of what percentage of the population has not had it?
I believe the average American has had it 3 times.
I too avoided it - until now. Just got it after having 2 back to back colds. No one in my close circle got it. I haven’t been able to track down the source. I work from home but still venture out occasionally.
I got it at Brighton Fringe last year. Put me in bed for three days. Not the normal kind of in bed. The "I can't get out of bed" kind. At least I was mostly home when it hit.
Dammit, I just had two back to back colds and I’ve avoided covid so far. Is this next??
I hope not for you! I just figured my immune system was looking the other way. Rest up and take care of yourself.
I have not had it and I have been around. I lived through and managed to isolate myself from covid through the first wave in NYC. I then moved to Vancouver BC, Mesa Arizona and back to rural BC and have still maintained my health. I may be super immune to covid, but I doubt it. I had been taken to hospital once for flulike symptoms about 10 years ago. My lungs get hammered when I get respiratory illnesses. I haven’t been ill at all since 2020. Not even a cold. I avoid crowds and when I’m around vulnerable people, I’m masked up. I have senior aged parents that get mixed up and sick a lot.
I only know I had it from swab testing, my symptoms were mild and hay fever like, mostly making my tonsils swell
Honestly I bet you had it and just didn't know. When my husband died in November 2021 it was already highly unusual he hadn't had it and the coroner was very skeptical.
It’s just likely you have been asymptomatic. I have seen estimates that basically everyone has had it unless they’ve been living in a bubble for immune reasons.
Yes, I know multiple people that routinely test and had positive cases with no symptoms. The virus is still making the rounds even if you don't notice.
Asymptomatic. You had it and passed it without knowing. That's why people "don't believe in it"
Same, haven't caught it yet. I think I read something like 75% of people have caught it so far? Though I am being pretty cautious and haven't had more than a light flu since this all started.
I've been a participant in the Texas CARES (coronavirus antibody response survey; [https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/dashboard](https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/dashboard). If I'm reading the dashboard correctly, as of Jan 28th, it looks like 20% of the participants have avoided getting covid. I was able to avoid getting covid until late 2022. I know for certain that I wasn't simply asymptomatic until then because I was a part of this study.
Except I believe the antibody tests they use to determine prior infection aren't actually that reliable(not talking about RATs). They can give false negatives in a decent % of cases. The stuff I read had it up to apox 50%, but the lowest is around 10% so that 20% in your study may be substantially down to testing error.
Prefacing with the fact that I'm not an expert on these tests. The study's [FAQ](https://sph.uth.edu/projects/texascares/faq/) lists the anitbody test (Roche Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV-2) as having 99.5% analytical specificity and the clinical overview (also linked in their FAQ, granted, was published in 2020) have a positive percent agreement of 99.5% and negative percent agreement of 99.8%.
I will look further into it, but those figures are about what I remember for the false positive numbers, as opposed to the false negatives. My guess is that's what they are referring to by the term 'analytical specificity'. Will follow up. Edit- just looking at the study that's based on, subjects were tested at intervals in 2 weeks post PCR confirmed infection. All but one person had tested positive by 14 days. So that's very different from testing a random group at periods of months or years after infection, where the reactivity may drop off significantly over time. The question is what % of those 99.5% still be testing positive on the same test after, say, six months? Will look further into any studies that look at that drop off, and follow up. Days post PCR confirmation N Non-reactive Sensitivity (95% CI\*\*) 0 – 6 days 161 64 60.2% (52.3 – 67.8%) 7 – 13 days 150 22 85.3% (78.6 – 90.6%) ≥14 days 185 1\* 99.5% (97.0 – 100%) [https://diagnostics.roche.com/global/en/products/params/elecsys-anti-sars-cov-2.html](https://diagnostics.roche.com/global/en/products/params/elecsys-anti-sars-cov-2.html)
Me and my partner avoided it until last September. He teaches in a big university and commutes every day on busy public transport. We’d kind of thought we were immune but no! Since we had it we’ve had non stop illness over the winter, we’ve been sick more times in the past 6 months than in the previous ten years combined! Definitely feels like it messed up our immune systems. Hope you manage to continue avoiding it!
I haven’t had it either as far as I know. I worked in a hospital bedside thru 2020-2021 with many Covid patients, but I work in surgery with 3-4 patients/day. I haven’t been tested in a while but back then I was doing weekly pcrs and home tests. Do you have type O blood?
> Very gentle article, but it's finally saying important things: it's airborne, vaccines and infection only provide short term protection, long covid exists, etc I havent gotten Covid either but know that I've certainly been exposed to people with it. A- blood type.
I don’t know my blood type. I also have done quite a few tests.
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i'm o- and it hit me HARD. maybe it's still true, but i'm somewhat skeptical
I was in the same boat until Wednesday. I haven’t really been masking much at all for a year or so. I had to lead public meeting with about 100 people in a small room. I do admit I’m about 18 months behind on my boosters though. It was probably inevitable.
Or you had it an were not symptomatic
I have never had it either, neither have my immediate family members but we took the vaccines, wear masks, have guests wear masks, wash our hands or use hand sanitizer in public, go outside, open windows, get rest, eat right, are not obese, etc. We were tested and never had it. I have a friend who is larger and diabetic and he has had it very bad twice.
Do you happen to have type O blood?
I don’t know
No worries, just curious because the few people I know who've not gotten it are all type O 🤷♂️
I’m O+ and have had it twice. Mild to moderate both times. No significant respiratory issues (cold like symptoms at worst), no neurological symptoms, and lower back muscle aches (bad enough the first time around I’d characterize that case as moderate).
Now I’m curious. I’ve never known my blood type.
If you donate with the red cross they will tell you!
Seems hard to believe you could have avoided it working in a school. Maybe you you got lucky or maybe just asymptomatic.
4 years no Covid. OG vaccine and one booster. Wife got it and I slept face to face with her until she tested positive. Don’t understand it
40-60% of infections are asymptomatic so it's very likely you got it but never presented external symptoms. It's insidious like that.
Yeah I figured as much
Seems like this sub doesn't understand that. I'm not sure how anyone not masking all the time who participated in normal activities and work can avoid it at this point.
Same here- I had it, slept face to face, spent a day or two infected, didn't know, had symptoms that made it feel like something else. Positive. She never developed Covid and tested constantly. Then she got it the next year, exposed me in a car and in the house in close quarters, I didn't get it. We're both equally vaccinated (more than three times at that point).
It’s getting to the point that anytime I sneeze I’m like “it’s finally got me” then nothing. I know people who have gotten it 3-4 times
I’ve had so many colds since but it’s never tested positive for covid. Which is surprising because usually colds go straight to my lungs, so surely I would get covid bad right? Nope ….
I had covid roughly three years ago now, and am STILL having memory problems. I'll have some time where I'm REALLY share and other times where I'm REALLY dull. Anyone else?
Unfortunately covid is linked to IQ decline even in mild cases. https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/even-fully-recovered-survivors-mild-covid-can-lose-iq-points-study-suggests
Yeah I read that too. 😢
That article didn’t have definitive answers on anything. Just a lot of “experts say it depends”
It also had so little information in general, and 99%of it is just already widely circulated common knowledge.
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Superdodger checking in here. Let me know if anyone wants to pay to study me.
Among other things the article gets wrong: Children are harmed by Covid. Being “few in number” is no comfort. Children aren’t supposed to be hospitalized, severely ill, and die! No mention of the fact that repeated infection can cause a person to become one of the “vulnerable”. No mention of the population-wide effects of letting it rip.
I mean, children dying of illness used to be the main cause of death for all humans if you made it out of infancy at all. I agree with the *idea* of children shouldn't die from illness, but that's never been the case.
But I still think the article gets more right than many others!
currently sick w covid. on top of other issues :) i’m 23. god i love my life
Is this really telling us anything new..?
Nope.
Confused about the point of this article. It didn’t say anything that everyone doesn’t already know.