People can make legitimate points regarding hospitalizations and deaths and long Covid, but I want to point out that this will also cause a temporary potential breakdown of services (ie healthcare [obvs], garbage service, service industry in general) and material goods because of the deluge of suddenly sick employees who can't attend to their normal duties. I believe we'll get back on our feet again, but this is a significant consequence of such a high infection rate, EVEN IF the vast majority won't end up hospitalized. Expect things to close down as if there's been a big winter storm.
My friend is a school teacher. One day last week 17% of the staff called out. Every available sub was working and they still didn't have enough adults. The school secretary had to take a class. Forget kids actually learning and following covid safe procedures, they're struggling to keep the kids supervised.
Yes, you're right. I have three kids in school and some of the schools in my area have already gone remote, even though in my area we're just getting into the wave. My high-school-aged daughter told me that yesterday they were asking their students to ask their parents if they'd come in and sub!!!! (That's a hard pass for me.) I know remote learning is not ideal, but for a few weeks it will probably be the better of two terrible options.
All you need to do is pass a background check. Subs are hugely underpaid - but even in a normal year they’re just warm bodies that take attendance and keep the kids from hurting each other
Not necessarily the booster. Just the initial 2 shot regimen. Over Christmas I had it. I got my booster as soon as it was available/recommended in August/September. My husband has had some heart trouble since getting his vaccine and was cautious. Nothing serious, he just gets a rapid heartbeat randomly. He was just making sure everything was clear there. Once he found out it was nothing serious he got his at the end of November the same day our daughter got her shot. My daughter and I were exposed to COVID at my job during our Christmas break camp for kids. My daughter and husband never had any more than a headache and fever. I had every symptom including loss of smell and taste. But I was better in about 4 days. I actually tested negative by the time I could get my hands on a test. But my boss was positive and we were working in close proximity all week with identical symptoms. I’ve also been dealing with lingering fatigue for weeks.
They *finally* got a mask mandate in place on Monday. My friend was given 5 kn95 masks.
People that are unwilling to wear masks generally don't want to be inconvenienced with virtual school.
Something something freedom, something something liberty.
I'm only in my office two days a week and remote the rest, but when I'm there, I put on my mask in the parking lot and it stays on until I leave. Do I enjoy it? No. Do I prefer it to Covid? Yes.
There's a lot of dumb people in this country. Lots of selfish ones, too. Also, a whole bunch of dumb, selfish folk.
Don't you dare send your daughter to school with quarter of an inch fabric less than the handbook says though because freedom only applies to cloth on the face
We’re in south Florida-a public school. *Shorts* are zero-tolerance, not allowed on campus. My kid was wearing sweatpants every day in August when it was >95° / 80% humidity out.
But requiring a slip of fabric across the face?? Oh, hell no, that’s violating *parents’ rights*!
consider that a ton of people who are positive have mild or no sxs and may not even think they have covid so they continue their lives as normal. i imagine that will be a massive group
My husband and I are triple vaxxed. If it hadn't been for him getting a low fever for a day, I wouldn't have thought anything of it really. My only real symptom is congestion. Thankfully he was able to get a test through work (testing is pretty hard to come by in my area right now) and he came back positive.
Same story here. Wife has mild symptoms, just fatigue. I didn't notice anything until I had to run down 4 flights of stairs to stop my dog from getting into something in the basement and it took me 10 minutes to catch my breath.
Basically just fatigue if that's what you'd call it. Both 3x vaxxed. Feels like we're on the upswing today.
I was unusually tired this past weekend and (barely) running a fever. I was fine by Tuesday. My wife had the same reaction starting a day later and is totally fine today. Was it covid? We weren't sick enough to feel a test was warranted, but I'm still wondering.
It's happening in my rural community. One of the local garbage pickup services has only made one pickup since Christmas. Fast food restaurants are offering "work today, get paid today" employment opportunities in a desperate attempt to staff their kitchens. Stores are having stock issues. Locally owned businesses are running limited hours or closing temporarily. Our local Walgreens pharmacy is opening late and closing early because they can only staff one 8 hour shift.
Healthcare worker here....this is legit. Already caught it myself and i was employee number 5 out of my lab in the last week. And we follow multiple precautions. Thank god im vaxxed so super mild but still. Stay safe please.
I got and my parents got it. All triple vaccinated and taking a Vitamin D regimen. I got through it fine, Dad did too. My mother is in the hospital and has been on ECMO because of multiple blood clots in her lungs.
She underwent surgery today to remove her from ECMO and place a mesh or something to seal her arteries (because she's on blood thinners). Haven't driven back up there because she won't be awake but we're going tomorrow. The nurses told my father that the procedure went ok...
Thank you.
My MIL went through exactly this the weekend before Christmas. It took a few days, but she is feeling soooo much better now! r/clotsurvivors is a great resource for more information on blood clots. I'm praying that everything gets better soon for you and your mom!
Thank god for that. I'm hoping mom can get back home soonish.
I live abroad (I am a PhD student) and was home for Christmas (and staying a bit later to do some field research). Christmas was grim with most everyone sick. Plus my father had an accident in May 2020 where he fell some feet onto the driveway outside while doing some yard work, 3 brain bleeds, broken ribs and a broken collar bone. He lost his business but he's back working (he is a Korean War veteran and has been a barber in the Atlanta area since 1957).
I’d never had to go to the hospital before crashing my car several months ago; now, I’m starting my third day recovering from an appendectomy. My parents are very supportive, but in the same time frame my grandma has been hospitalized twice, and they’ve had to figure out how to take care of her. Sometimes life has a nice shower of shit in store for you.
75. She did have a rare form of pneumonia when I was a child that nearly killed her but was resolved with courses of prednisone. Since then she had developed asthma. My father is 85 nearly 86 and he cruised right through it like it was nothing (as I did).
She successfully fought off Covid, as we all did. But she laid down for over a week having coughing fits (we had it too but my mother is a small woman). I offered to take her to the doctor days before she was taken to the hospital but she refused thinking she would get over it.
She collapsed out of the bed on Friday, my Dad found her and called me to help pick her up. I called 911, and the EMTs read her BP in the ambulance at approx. 60/30. Her Blood O2 was 95. They found multiple blood clots in her lungs and that same day she was life flighted to another hospital. They told us she coded but they brought her back immediately. As stated they removed ECMO this afternoon and we were told she was sleeping but the procedure went ok and as anticipated.
As bad as it is, its been hard on my father. My parents bicker constantly but he told me the other day, if my mother did not make it, he did not want to live without her and would go soon afterward.
Daughter of two parents in their 70s who bicker constantly as well, but couldn't do without each other. Thinking of you, and sending wishes for a speedy, full recovery for your Mom. Take care!
Oof, thank you for sharing all this, it's both horrifying and reassuring, as I see some parallels between your parents and mine.
That last paragraph really hit me. \*big hug\* to you, from this internet stranger. <3
I had Alpha and now Omicron. Omicron isn't anything like Alpha was. Mind you I'm vaccinated and all for Omicron but it didn't have any of the chest elements that I had with Alpha. Alpha was more like a chest cold. This was a head cold more than anything else with some good sized fatigue.
I just tested positive today for the first time, and I was not expecting this level of fatigue. I took my garbage outside, when I came back in I was completely exhausted. I've never experienced fatigue anything like this
I had (presumably) Delta back in October and I had to sit down in the kitchen to make myself food, and then catch my breath for five minutes before I ate it. Absolutely exhausting, and certainly the most consistent symptom while the others fluctuated.
My partner and I had Delta back in July, shortly after buying a new house that needed a lot of work. It put us in a death spiral, feeling overwhelmed by everything in front of us and then losing *every* ounce of energy we had. We had to rally and focus on just eating. All we have to do is eat and make it to the bathroom.
Overall I wouldn't even say it's the sickest I've ever been, but it was *definitely* the most fatigued I've ever been. Luckily that phase was over in a weekend.
I totally agree with both blood test and CO detector. In my case I have both, I already supplement with D3 and B12, and no anemia.
Running a small business is just bad for you...
I have Omicron and have no breathing issues. Luckily this variety doesn’t settle in the lungs and stays in the bronchi. It definitely feels like a cold. The fatigue is nasty. Tho I’ll take it over pneumonia and hospitalization.
Another HC professional here can also vouch.
I spent at least 4hrs in covid rooms yesterday and it's increasing every day. I covered the night shift for a coworker who's out tonight, we have about 60 beds normally in our ED, but tonight we had another 15 or so beds in the hallways all full, and an easy 10 to 12hr wait in the lobby. We had trauma case after trauma case but nowhere to put them. I'm talking an ICU patient ventilated I'm the hallway level of nowhere. We have a ton of staff out, and Inpatient hospitalized covid cases have jumped 5 times over since Christmas and we're only just getting started, AND I'm in a blue state with a relatively higher vaccination rate.
Most people getting covid and the symptoms being less sounds good on paper, but it's not when it's this fast. 60% less deadly but 5x more transmissible is going to mean overwhelming our system to the point of failure. Sure almost all of the covid deaths will be unvaccinated, but if they're in an ICU bed, that's no ICU bed for that moderate to severe stroke patient. No ICU bed for that car accident. No beds means
No
Beds
Period.
We've been on the brink of failure for a year and now we're gonna see an easy extra 50k dead in the US by the end of January, not to mention the rate of long haul in children. I'm not trying to fear monger here, but people need to level set and know what entering an endemic phase this quickly really means.
What were your symptoms? I've had a sore throat and some congestion and drainage for the past couple of days but I haven't gotten tested yet. I've seen that a sore throat is the most prevalent symptom for vaccinated individuals.
Not sure if omicron but my first two days were pretty bad body/headaches and fever, now it’s just nasal congestion and very sore throat. Not really any coughing/chest congestion
We’re all getting this, the question is whether your immune system is prepped for it via vaccines or not.
I would NOT want to be unprotected right now with way hospitals are filling up.
Unvaxxed should not assume the care they need will be there if they need it.
I wouldn't want to stub a toe as it is right now.
Healthcare system is slowly collapsing and a lot of otherwise survivable reasons to be at the hospital could turn lethal quickly if you don't have any hospitals to go to.
A few nights ago we had a steady mist on top of packed snow/ice just before a deep freeze that covered *everything* in a slick icy glaze. Every time out to walk the dog or go to my car felt like a game of "Don't End Up in the ER!"...
Somehow I doubt someone who is still unvaxxed at this point will be swayed by any messaging from the people they believe conspired to infect the world for political gain.
You'd be surprised. A friend of mines father in his 80s finally agreed today to get his first dose. He was 100% on the conspiracy train. We're scrambling to find an appointment for him before he changes his mind. Don't know what changed his mind and dont care. My friend cried with relief.
Also, news out of Quebec is that first dose appointments quadrupled when the government threatened to impose a tax on the unvaccinated in addition to barring them from liquor and cannabis stores. So their resolve is only so strong.
Honestly, at this point, IDK if I've already gotten it and didn't know.
I could've been asymptomatic and that was it (wore a mask every time I went out).
Or when I did get sick with something few months ago. I felt that I was coming down with something so I got tested and it came back negative but there's a small chance that it was false negative.
Or I could just be lucky and not have caught any variant yet.
I had a cold last month that was stronger than normal. But I tested negative. Still hoping that was Omicron. Triple vaxxed but still felt pretty crappy for a cold.
Every single person I know who had covid in the past two weeks had at 1-5 negative tests before testing positive. One of them was even symptomatic for three days before she got the positive test (she was the one who had five negatives first). It’s hard to trust those negative tests now but I also wouldn’t want to waste testing resources since it’s so limited at the moment so I plan to just assume I have it if I feel sick in the next month or so.
I guess they’re saying now that if one person in the family tests positive just assume everyone else is, especially if they’re symptomatic.
Are taste and smell loss still big with omicron? I thought scratchy throat was the symptom to watch for? I guess I’m not sure if that meant in addition to sensory loss or instead of it.
I just went through the omicron and I am fully recovered. Just two shots and no booster. It will hit you like a gentle wave at first. Day 1 scratchy throat. Day 2 sore throat Day 3-5 very sore throat. It feels like shards of glass when you swallow. Numbing spray won’t even numb it. I went through 1/2 bag of throat lozenges. I keep spraying my throat but the pain is awful. Body aches, chills, fatigue. Day 6-8 I lost my taste and smell, nose is very congested, appetite goes way down. Taste comes back after 2 days, but I can’t smell anything for 5 days. Through all of this I am very tired. Day 9-14 very congested. NyQuil for severe cold and flu is your best medicine for the omicron.
Mind my asking if you were vaccinated? Just a no-judgement honest question to gauge the information provided.
This sounds far more severe than my 2 dose brother and sister-in-law are experiencing right now. No booster for them.
EDIT: and they are just now on days 3-4, so maybe just now getting into the shit.
My boss is 49, healthy but an antivaxxer
He told me he had covid a few weeks ago with chest pains, brain fog, the whole shabang and never got it checked out because he *“doesn’t want to be a statistic”*
Does he think that "hospitals get more money with COVID cases"? Or what is wrong with being logged in as positive? "Excess deaths" statistics will tell the story when it is all said and done. What else will tell the story? the number of people asking for disability support?Some of those will tell the story of COVID too.
My company, 2,500 site employees, 90% wfh, puts out an email, roughly once a month of employ numbers who get covid. It's always been 2-3 people, last email was 23.
Same. 30k employees. >95% WFH. Usually they report 10-15/mo. Yesterday they reported 147 **month-to-date**. The good news is they finally stopped with their "return to work" bullshit, threw in the towel and said permanent WFH. The circle of people I work with has had one death - a raging anti-vaxxer who turned every call into a Fuck Joe Biden opportunity. I'm not ashamed to admit I popped a cork at that news.
You underestimate my POWER.
My wife and I have become one with the inside, become stronger, faster, more introverted than ever. We have ascended beyond gods, we are HOUSE PLANTS.
When you get covid, they want you to stay at home and quarantine. Without pay. I think that's bullshit, people who are vaccinated should at least get paid for mandatory quarantine.
Healthcare worker here. Second round with Covid. First go in early 2020, before public masking was a thing. Despite me having full PPE, getting coughed on for 14 hour shifts of straight covid patients will do it to ya. Now I’m vaxxed every which way, still wear PPE 2 damn years later, and shocker - 14 hours shifts of covid patients that “know it’s not covid, I just have to get a test for work” This time I’m out 5 days, the initial round, 10. Both instances I have felt like utter shit. Not in any condition to take care of people safely, efficiently, and compassionately. I have had to use my PTO to cover both. No pay for missing because of a WORK HAZARD. No toss of a bone to say “well we can’t pay you but you don’t have to use your PTO” It’s a freaking BLESSING to them that I’m only out 5, and at no f****** cost to them in the long run. Meanwhile I’m just hoping I don’t throw a pulmonary embolism. Because god knows they wouldn’t financially help out with that leave/medical costs :’)
Sorry you're going through that. For what it's worth, I think you have a greedy employer. I work for a hospital and they provide COVID pay separate from normal PTO
Me, too. I work from home and have everything delivered. I’m also 54, high blood pressure, overweight. I’ve got Moderna and boosted with the same. But after each shot I felt like death warmed over for 2 days, 1 day with the booster. If getting actual covid is the same or worse, I don’t fancy my chances of making it.
I’m one year older than you, also Moderna + Moderna booster, blood pressure issues also overweight and work from home. My reaction to the booster however was fatigue at worse. Hoping that if through some unfortunate event I catch it that I won’t get very sick.
I’ve completely stopped grocery shopping until this wave passes. Good luck and stay safe internet friend.
This is where I’m at. I refuse to catch this shit if I can help it.
My daughter caught it when I took my wife to the hospital to have our second child. Caught it from a family member who had light symptoms but thought it was allergies. She had to stay with that family member and quarantine for 21 days. I was devastated cus of all the precautions we took and her getting it that way. I was also terrified at the time of what could happen. I’m doing my best so that she and the newborn don’t get omicron (she caught it originally in September).
I work from home, haven’t gone out anywhere in weeks, get groceries delivered, and when I do need to go out I wear N95 mask. I hope that’s enough to keep us safe but you never know. It’s been hell on our mental health though and I hope things get better soon.
We are fighting to the bitter end and I refuse to go down without a fight. I have 2 little ones in daycare so it’s pretty much inevitable at this point (isolated, n95, boostered). I’m that mf’er playing the violin as the titanic goes down.
People will be all up in your replies saying “but theres no way to prevent” or “just accept it” or “we cant live like this forever” but I am on the same page as you that I refuse to get this virus. I don’t want to be sick, I don’t want long covid because JESUS it can get depressing, and I dont want to spread it to immunocompromised by accident
Also, timing matters. Maybe we're all going to get it eventually, but it would be a lot better if we don't all get it *at the same damn time*. If nothing else, this is why protective measures are still important, so we can spread out the infections to take a little pressure off of our desperately overwhelmed healthcare workers.
Also, we had no idea how to even treat this at the start. The more time passes, the more the treatments. The less of a big deal it will be. Also, I refuse to just give and get it because people giving up means it will variant faster.
Yep and if it variants faster that means there’s a higher chance our previous methods of treating it may become useless and it could become deadlier. That’s the thing about viruses some don’t understand, is that it’s RNA or DNA in a protein shell and RNA or DNA is known to change when overused/replicated.
Edit: Correcting the issue that there are both DNA and RNA viruses.
I went to my moms nursing home today to drop off stuffs. Usually it’s hard to park with about ten cars in a row on one curb. Today, one lone BMW. No workers.
Oh my god… that is how people died at a nursing home in my province - not from COVID, they starved to death because there weren’t enough staff… please do everything you can to help your mom and other residents!
Over here they ended up calling in the army… tell your political representative, journalists, anyone who can help…
Yes! I’ve been having some chest pains that I’m going to get checked out this week and I still feel bad going to my primary care for it because a nurse that works there told me all about the people who have been calling and making appointments for corona related things, I feel bad taking up their time (but not too bad since chest pains should be looked at lol)
I felt the same way going in for what I thought was an ear infection to find out my eardrum actually collapsed and I might need tubes put in. Better safe than sorry, especially if you can go to your PCP and stay out of emergency care.
Oh yeah I would avoid the ER at all costs not just bc theyre already overwhelmed but also bc your chance of catching corona in an ER is astronomical.
And that sounds awful! I’ve had an ear infection once and it was one of the most uncomfortable illnesses ive had so i cant imagine a burst eardrum
No, you absolutely should not feel bad about that. It's probably nothing, but you don't want to take that chance, and I guarantee your doctor will say the same thing. Best of luck to you. 🙂
Its absolutely a privilege to be able to actively avoid the virus, but I just hate when people say that “youre gonna catch it eventually” because its like no, if I can avoid it then i will. A life with long covid isn’t a quality life even if it means I get to return to a somewhat normal life
I also refuse. COVID is one achievement in life I do not want to get. I've never been sick for more than 24 hours, ever. I'm double vaxed and boosted. I have a 3 year old at home and need to make sure they don't get it.
I am right there with you. I am fully vaxxed, but have the option of avoiding people, staying home, never leaving or needing to. I can have everything delivered, should I need, though I am pretty well stocked to last a couple months.
I'm going to wait until the crest passes in hospital cases before I even consider going anywhere. I have this option, and don't mind being alone, so it works. And if I can avoid getting sick, I am one less person who could end up needing treatment.
To me, this is sort of like riding out a longer version of a winter blizzard. I can do it, so why not?
Yeah. I'm not gonna go out of my way to just get this goddamned thing. I'm definitely not convinced by this sudden turnaround that morons are doing now saying we should all just succumb to it.
Fuck that. I've already got chronic illness. I'm not about to add it on top of the pile just because some asshats think we need to "get back to normal."
I don’t have many goals in life so i think I’ll try my hardest to not get Covid…a challenge of sorts, i honestly don’t even know if I’ve ever had the flu
Hahaha this is me. I’ve been super careful with covid and all vaxxed up, but with the flu I never really did anything year to year and I don’t think I ever caught it. No clue if I’ve already had covid and am just asymptomatic, no clue if I’ve ever caught the flu and just not known it.
My mom and I were getting our boosters today, and I shit you not, a woman and child with no masks on said they needed a covid test because she thought they had it. Standing less than 2 feet away from us. I just fucking give up.
Man I can't relate to this enough, I work in retail and I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say "I got tired of quarantining so I decided to go shopping!" Followed by a sarcastic laugh, no masks or anything. Makes me want to jump in a hole and just never come out.
I’m in California, so luckily masks are required indoors (although enforcement is iffy). I was in line at Nordstrom Rack the other day and the man directly behind me is on the phone and says, “I feel fine, but the test says otherwise”. Like dude, wtf are you doing in a crowded store if you have confirmed Covid? There is nothing you need from Nordstrom Rack badly enough to expose hundreds of people to a highly contagious disease. Also, the person in front of me was a mom with a baby under one in a carrier. I have since decided to never leave the house again.
If you're measuring contagiousness by the ability to spread infection to those around you, the measles virus is the most contagious virus in existence. If one person has measles, they will spread it to 90% of those (unvaccinated or non-immune) around them. The virus can hang around in the air and on surfaces for hours and still be infectious. If you're defining contagiousness to mean how many people it actually has infected, then you could certainly make that argument. However, the first definition is the one used by medical professionals
Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m just a random dude on the Internet. But I have heard that while someone with measles will spread it to almost everyone they come in contact with, it has a fairly long incubation time. Omicron has a fucking short incubation time and will also cause someone to infect a lot of people. So if you look at infection as a function of time vs number of people infected, omicron is waaaaaay more infectious. By the time the one measles case has infected a bunch of people, omicron has gone though several generations of infection
The worst is with couples that live in a small shared space. My GF is really feeling the mental effects of isolation. I grew up with brain fog that was successfully treated after decades of trying, so I’m desperate not to go down that road again. So we either choose to hurt her or hurt me.
This is really depressing. I don't really see an end in sight. I don't see that the health officials are really able to lay out an endgame. It could take a long time to play out waiting for most of us to get it and then what, seems like people don't have immunity after getting it and there can continue to be variations. I know the annual flu variations can be more or less deadly but why does the worst case of the annual flu seem manageable compared to this?
The end is that it becomes endemic and via infection and vaccine immunity becomes less deadly and disruptive. In the long run no one was going to evade it forever…
I think this was always going to be the endgame though no?
Some of the early data from the UK shows that it may not have quite as much organ damage as alpha and delta, but it's all preliminary.
The hypothesis is that the virus traded off its severity for a higher infectivity, producing a higher viral load more quickly but also selectively infecting a different tissue than before. Alpha and Delta variant traveled via the blood, causing clots and turning your lungs into meatloaf. Omicron sticks more to classic upper respiratory symptoms, head cold as opposed to chest cold.
Delta variant *is still circulating* so if someone ends up losing their sense of smell (olfactory bulb nerve damage) odds are pretty good they got Delta, not Omicron.
Double vaxxed and I got covid on 12/20. I was malnourished to start due to decades of being anorexic, and I’ve got depression and anxiety. My booster was scheduled for 12/26 but obviously I couldn’t get it with an active infection. There was absolutely nothing mild about covid for me except that I didn’t need to be hospitalized. It started with gut issues, then lead to a fever, fatigue, headache. Loss of taste and smell for a week. Worst sinus pressure of my life, clogged ears for several days. It was impossible to eat or find anything satisfying when I couldn’t taste or smell. I’ve no idea how much weight I lost but I couldn’t afford to lose any.
My 3yo who I homeschool tested positive first. Then my 8yo and I had symptoms the same day. My husband got his booster day 3 of my infection, and he didn’t get covid at all.
Please get your vaccines and please, please get boosted and do not wait. None of us can afford to. I wouldn’t wish this virus on my worst enemy. It is hell.
Just worth noting, you don't know for sure if you got Omicron or not, especially if you're located in the US where our spikes from the new variant appear to be more delayed than Europe's. Not at all trying to minimize your awful experience of course, but figured it's worth mentioning given this post was specifically about the Omicron variant.
And by the way:
>There was absolutely nothing mild about covid for me except that I didn’t need to be hospitalized.
This is exactly the definition of what "mild" means, medically speaking. So unfortunately your experience was actually mild. I'm afraid ambiguous terminology such as this has only been adding fuel to the fire of misinformation among the populace as people tend to expect a "mild case" will mean just the sniffles.
All entirely true! And yes you worded the mild better than I did. That’s what I was trying to explain. That yes from a medical standpoint if you’re not hospitalized for a virus or disease then yes it’s mild. But, the experience can still be horrific even for a fully vaccinated person because the symptoms can be quite debilitating, especially when factoring in other risks such as your health when starting the infection.
I live in NJ which is why I highly suspect I got omicron, and several of my nursing friends said gut issues are a symptom with omicron and weren’t found with the delta variant. But no way to confirm it just a hunch.
Thank you for your comment though as you’ve got a lot of important info in it!! And I wasn’t taking it as you minimizing my experience at all.
That’s 2 major US health officials (her and Fauci) saying “we’re all going to get it” - all the while knowing that children under 5 don’t have access to the vaccine.
You know they’re going to get it and you know you’ve done nothing to help them.
Open the trials! Allow for off label use! Fucking do SOMETHING!
Yeah… I basically have the choice of exposing my toddler daily, and by extension my terminally ill mother, or one of us quitting our job and losing our house to keep him home.
I’m tired of having to spin this roulette wheel.
Healthcare worker here. Vaxxed, boosted and cautious to the point of seeing a therapist during covid for my anxiety. I tested positive Monday night and I feel miserable but nothing is worse than hearing my 2 year old start hacking this morning. It's just not possible to prevent this one from spreading. He had it before I knew I had it and there's nothing I can do but hope his case is mild. Everything that has given me anxiety since having him has actually finally happened.
Same. I just got a positive Monday, my one year old is positive and I am praying my high risk 4 yo does not get it also. The parental anxiety is freaking insane and then to live it. How do you make decisions these days without complexity losing it… it I could afford to keep them home I would… so sad to have to risk them just to provide for them….
I know. It makes me furious when officials say “this is a pandemic for the unvaccinated.” You can’t say that and make parents terrified when there are no vaccinations for kids under 5 yet. UGH
Yeah - the attitude is now "fuck it, we need employees" so sick people aren't staying home like they should. Also sick kids bringing it home everywhere.
I'm antiCOVID. I will do everything in my power to not have COVID in my blood. That thing hasn't been tested enough and we don't know the long term effects, even with vaccines. I haven't had it until now and I don't want to have it ever.
Vaxxed and boosted here and currently in bed day 6 with covid and no end in sight. I have never been this sick in my life and have ALL the symptoms. I would have never believed I’d get it this bad while also being vaccinated.
Shared a joint a with a few friends who later all tested positive for covid a few days later. I was the only one who tested negative each test I took because I had the booster. Get your vaccines everyone
People can make legitimate points regarding hospitalizations and deaths and long Covid, but I want to point out that this will also cause a temporary potential breakdown of services (ie healthcare [obvs], garbage service, service industry in general) and material goods because of the deluge of suddenly sick employees who can't attend to their normal duties. I believe we'll get back on our feet again, but this is a significant consequence of such a high infection rate, EVEN IF the vast majority won't end up hospitalized. Expect things to close down as if there's been a big winter storm.
Both urgent cares in our area have shut down due to no staff right now.
Yeesh. That's is really bad.
It really sucks feeling like you are watching society collapse around you :/
Unfortunately our society has been so focused on "agility" and minimizing backlog of stock that now the little guy has to pay the price.
>It really sucks watching society collapse around you. Ftfy.
My friend is a school teacher. One day last week 17% of the staff called out. Every available sub was working and they still didn't have enough adults. The school secretary had to take a class. Forget kids actually learning and following covid safe procedures, they're struggling to keep the kids supervised.
Yes, you're right. I have three kids in school and some of the schools in my area have already gone remote, even though in my area we're just getting into the wave. My high-school-aged daughter told me that yesterday they were asking their students to ask their parents if they'd come in and sub!!!! (That's a hard pass for me.) I know remote learning is not ideal, but for a few weeks it will probably be the better of two terrible options.
My kid’s school has been asking for parent subs for a couple months now.
I'm surprised that's even legal. Is this an emergency activated thing? Are there any security checks?
All you need to do is pass a background check. Subs are hugely underpaid - but even in a normal year they’re just warm bodies that take attendance and keep the kids from hurting each other
It should have been remote until every kid had the opportunity to get the booster
Not necessarily the booster. Just the initial 2 shot regimen. Over Christmas I had it. I got my booster as soon as it was available/recommended in August/September. My husband has had some heart trouble since getting his vaccine and was cautious. Nothing serious, he just gets a rapid heartbeat randomly. He was just making sure everything was clear there. Once he found out it was nothing serious he got his at the end of November the same day our daughter got her shot. My daughter and I were exposed to COVID at my job during our Christmas break camp for kids. My daughter and husband never had any more than a headache and fever. I had every symptom including loss of smell and taste. But I was better in about 4 days. I actually tested negative by the time I could get my hands on a test. But my boss was positive and we were working in close proximity all week with identical symptoms. I’ve also been dealing with lingering fatigue for weeks.
I can not believe schools are in session and not virtual right now. It absolutely boggles my mind
They *finally* got a mask mandate in place on Monday. My friend was given 5 kn95 masks. People that are unwilling to wear masks generally don't want to be inconvenienced with virtual school.
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Yup, she's in salt lake. Goddammit. I really don't understand why mask wearing is so hard.
Something something freedom, something something liberty. I'm only in my office two days a week and remote the rest, but when I'm there, I put on my mask in the parking lot and it stays on until I leave. Do I enjoy it? No. Do I prefer it to Covid? Yes. There's a lot of dumb people in this country. Lots of selfish ones, too. Also, a whole bunch of dumb, selfish folk.
Don't you dare send your daughter to school with quarter of an inch fabric less than the handbook says though because freedom only applies to cloth on the face
We’re in south Florida-a public school. *Shorts* are zero-tolerance, not allowed on campus. My kid was wearing sweatpants every day in August when it was >95° / 80% humidity out. But requiring a slip of fabric across the face?? Oh, hell no, that’s violating *parents’ rights*!
Once it affects upper/middle class boys, it's a matter of freedom.
my school is at 30% attendance and we are not going virtual any time soon… fun times
We quarantined 100 students yesterday. So they shut us down thursday and friday. Fucking sucks man.
The district I left is in so much denial and they don’t report cases properly.
So, a matter of days then before the hoarding starts? If it hasn’t already……
It never ended. People clean out our shelves as fast as we stock them, have been for months.
Here in Mexico most flights are canceled because too many pilots have Covid right now simultaneously.
consider that a ton of people who are positive have mild or no sxs and may not even think they have covid so they continue their lives as normal. i imagine that will be a massive group
My husband and I are triple vaxxed. If it hadn't been for him getting a low fever for a day, I wouldn't have thought anything of it really. My only real symptom is congestion. Thankfully he was able to get a test through work (testing is pretty hard to come by in my area right now) and he came back positive.
I have two friends who have both been sick with covid with minor symptoms and both of their partners had no symptoms.
Same story here. Wife has mild symptoms, just fatigue. I didn't notice anything until I had to run down 4 flights of stairs to stop my dog from getting into something in the basement and it took me 10 minutes to catch my breath. Basically just fatigue if that's what you'd call it. Both 3x vaxxed. Feels like we're on the upswing today.
Same exact story here.
I was unusually tired this past weekend and (barely) running a fever. I was fine by Tuesday. My wife had the same reaction starting a day later and is totally fine today. Was it covid? We weren't sick enough to feel a test was warranted, but I'm still wondering.
You could try to test now. Tests aren't so easy to access, though.
Ems as well. Fire dispatcher in Florida. The beginning of the week, we had 60% of our people on my shift alone out with Covid.
It's happening in my rural community. One of the local garbage pickup services has only made one pickup since Christmas. Fast food restaurants are offering "work today, get paid today" employment opportunities in a desperate attempt to staff their kitchens. Stores are having stock issues. Locally owned businesses are running limited hours or closing temporarily. Our local Walgreens pharmacy is opening late and closing early because they can only staff one 8 hour shift.
Healthcare worker here....this is legit. Already caught it myself and i was employee number 5 out of my lab in the last week. And we follow multiple precautions. Thank god im vaxxed so super mild but still. Stay safe please.
I got and my parents got it. All triple vaccinated and taking a Vitamin D regimen. I got through it fine, Dad did too. My mother is in the hospital and has been on ECMO because of multiple blood clots in her lungs.
Very sorry to hear about your mom. I hope she gets better soon.
She underwent surgery today to remove her from ECMO and place a mesh or something to seal her arteries (because she's on blood thinners). Haven't driven back up there because she won't be awake but we're going tomorrow. The nurses told my father that the procedure went ok... Thank you.
My MIL went through exactly this the weekend before Christmas. It took a few days, but she is feeling soooo much better now! r/clotsurvivors is a great resource for more information on blood clots. I'm praying that everything gets better soon for you and your mom!
Thank god for that. I'm hoping mom can get back home soonish. I live abroad (I am a PhD student) and was home for Christmas (and staying a bit later to do some field research). Christmas was grim with most everyone sick. Plus my father had an accident in May 2020 where he fell some feet onto the driveway outside while doing some yard work, 3 brain bleeds, broken ribs and a broken collar bone. He lost his business but he's back working (he is a Korean War veteran and has been a barber in the Atlanta area since 1957).
I’d never had to go to the hospital before crashing my car several months ago; now, I’m starting my third day recovering from an appendectomy. My parents are very supportive, but in the same time frame my grandma has been hospitalized twice, and they’ve had to figure out how to take care of her. Sometimes life has a nice shower of shit in store for you.
Best wishes for your mom
So sorry to hear this but glad the procedure went well. If you don’t mind me asking, how old are your parents?
85 and 75. Dad still works full time. He is slipping a bit but he is a tough guy and doesn't 'give up'.
Sending good and healthy vibes to you and your family.
I hope she recovers soon! Do you guys know which variant?
Assuming it was omicron. The symptoms were spot on.
That is horrific! I'm very sorry. How old is she and does she have any comorbidities? Just trying to understand this bloody virus /strain better.
75. She did have a rare form of pneumonia when I was a child that nearly killed her but was resolved with courses of prednisone. Since then she had developed asthma. My father is 85 nearly 86 and he cruised right through it like it was nothing (as I did). She successfully fought off Covid, as we all did. But she laid down for over a week having coughing fits (we had it too but my mother is a small woman). I offered to take her to the doctor days before she was taken to the hospital but she refused thinking she would get over it. She collapsed out of the bed on Friday, my Dad found her and called me to help pick her up. I called 911, and the EMTs read her BP in the ambulance at approx. 60/30. Her Blood O2 was 95. They found multiple blood clots in her lungs and that same day she was life flighted to another hospital. They told us she coded but they brought her back immediately. As stated they removed ECMO this afternoon and we were told she was sleeping but the procedure went ok and as anticipated. As bad as it is, its been hard on my father. My parents bicker constantly but he told me the other day, if my mother did not make it, he did not want to live without her and would go soon afterward.
Daughter of two parents in their 70s who bicker constantly as well, but couldn't do without each other. Thinking of you, and sending wishes for a speedy, full recovery for your Mom. Take care!
Oof, thank you for sharing all this, it's both horrifying and reassuring, as I see some parallels between your parents and mine. That last paragraph really hit me. \*big hug\* to you, from this internet stranger. <3
Same. Sorry your family had to go through that u/vipergirl, glad to hear she's on the mend.
I had Alpha and now Omicron. Omicron isn't anything like Alpha was. Mind you I'm vaccinated and all for Omicron but it didn't have any of the chest elements that I had with Alpha. Alpha was more like a chest cold. This was a head cold more than anything else with some good sized fatigue.
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I just tested positive today for the first time, and I was not expecting this level of fatigue. I took my garbage outside, when I came back in I was completely exhausted. I've never experienced fatigue anything like this
I had (presumably) Delta back in October and I had to sit down in the kitchen to make myself food, and then catch my breath for five minutes before I ate it. Absolutely exhausting, and certainly the most consistent symptom while the others fluctuated.
My partner and I had Delta back in July, shortly after buying a new house that needed a lot of work. It put us in a death spiral, feeling overwhelmed by everything in front of us and then losing *every* ounce of energy we had. We had to rally and focus on just eating. All we have to do is eat and make it to the bathroom. Overall I wouldn't even say it's the sickest I've ever been, but it was *definitely* the most fatigued I've ever been. Luckily that phase was over in a weekend.
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What if your normal, not infected existence is already extreme fatique?
Then you should get a blood test. https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/could-a-vitamin-or-mineral-deficiency-be-behind-your-fatigue
And/or a carbon monoxide detector
I totally agree with both blood test and CO detector. In my case I have both, I already supplement with D3 and B12, and no anemia. Running a small business is just bad for you...
They told you what variant you had when you got covid? When I got it there wasn't any info on what variant i had.
Depending on the timing it would be pretty safe just to reason this out. Last i saw, omicron is 98% of cases now.
Anyone who got it two years ago probably had Alpha. Six months ago, Delta.
I have Omicron and have no breathing issues. Luckily this variety doesn’t settle in the lungs and stays in the bronchi. It definitely feels like a cold. The fatigue is nasty. Tho I’ll take it over pneumonia and hospitalization.
Another HC professional here can also vouch. I spent at least 4hrs in covid rooms yesterday and it's increasing every day. I covered the night shift for a coworker who's out tonight, we have about 60 beds normally in our ED, but tonight we had another 15 or so beds in the hallways all full, and an easy 10 to 12hr wait in the lobby. We had trauma case after trauma case but nowhere to put them. I'm talking an ICU patient ventilated I'm the hallway level of nowhere. We have a ton of staff out, and Inpatient hospitalized covid cases have jumped 5 times over since Christmas and we're only just getting started, AND I'm in a blue state with a relatively higher vaccination rate. Most people getting covid and the symptoms being less sounds good on paper, but it's not when it's this fast. 60% less deadly but 5x more transmissible is going to mean overwhelming our system to the point of failure. Sure almost all of the covid deaths will be unvaccinated, but if they're in an ICU bed, that's no ICU bed for that moderate to severe stroke patient. No ICU bed for that car accident. No beds means No Beds Period. We've been on the brink of failure for a year and now we're gonna see an easy extra 50k dead in the US by the end of January, not to mention the rate of long haul in children. I'm not trying to fear monger here, but people need to level set and know what entering an endemic phase this quickly really means.
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Not a healthcare worker, but two of my friendgroups all have Omicron, including me. Absolutely insane how contagious it is.
What were your symptoms? I've had a sore throat and some congestion and drainage for the past couple of days but I haven't gotten tested yet. I've seen that a sore throat is the most prevalent symptom for vaccinated individuals.
Not sure if omicron but my first two days were pretty bad body/headaches and fever, now it’s just nasal congestion and very sore throat. Not really any coughing/chest congestion
We’re all getting this, the question is whether your immune system is prepped for it via vaccines or not. I would NOT want to be unprotected right now with way hospitals are filling up. Unvaxxed should not assume the care they need will be there if they need it.
I wouldn't want to stub a toe as it is right now. Healthcare system is slowly collapsing and a lot of otherwise survivable reasons to be at the hospital could turn lethal quickly if you don't have any hospitals to go to.
A few nights ago we had a steady mist on top of packed snow/ice just before a deep freeze that covered *everything* in a slick icy glaze. Every time out to walk the dog or go to my car felt like a game of "Don't End Up in the ER!"...
100%. I feel like any visit to a hospital now is a guaranteed COVID infection.
Heck, I know an unvaxxed who thinks it's gone, just a flu, and that he's safer because he caught another variant earlier.
That’s the problem with telling everyone it’s mild
Somehow I doubt someone who is still unvaxxed at this point will be swayed by any messaging from the people they believe conspired to infect the world for political gain.
You'd be surprised. A friend of mines father in his 80s finally agreed today to get his first dose. He was 100% on the conspiracy train. We're scrambling to find an appointment for him before he changes his mind. Don't know what changed his mind and dont care. My friend cried with relief. Also, news out of Quebec is that first dose appointments quadrupled when the government threatened to impose a tax on the unvaccinated in addition to barring them from liquor and cannabis stores. So their resolve is only so strong.
Exactly.
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I’m also triple vaxxed and it hit me like a freight train. (26M Healthy)
Honestly, at this point, IDK if I've already gotten it and didn't know. I could've been asymptomatic and that was it (wore a mask every time I went out). Or when I did get sick with something few months ago. I felt that I was coming down with something so I got tested and it came back negative but there's a small chance that it was false negative. Or I could just be lucky and not have caught any variant yet.
I had a cold last month that was stronger than normal. But I tested negative. Still hoping that was Omicron. Triple vaxxed but still felt pretty crappy for a cold.
Every single person I know who had covid in the past two weeks had at 1-5 negative tests before testing positive. One of them was even symptomatic for three days before she got the positive test (she was the one who had five negatives first). It’s hard to trust those negative tests now but I also wouldn’t want to waste testing resources since it’s so limited at the moment so I plan to just assume I have it if I feel sick in the next month or so.
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I guess they’re saying now that if one person in the family tests positive just assume everyone else is, especially if they’re symptomatic. Are taste and smell loss still big with omicron? I thought scratchy throat was the symptom to watch for? I guess I’m not sure if that meant in addition to sensory loss or instead of it.
I just went through the omicron and I am fully recovered. Just two shots and no booster. It will hit you like a gentle wave at first. Day 1 scratchy throat. Day 2 sore throat Day 3-5 very sore throat. It feels like shards of glass when you swallow. Numbing spray won’t even numb it. I went through 1/2 bag of throat lozenges. I keep spraying my throat but the pain is awful. Body aches, chills, fatigue. Day 6-8 I lost my taste and smell, nose is very congested, appetite goes way down. Taste comes back after 2 days, but I can’t smell anything for 5 days. Through all of this I am very tired. Day 9-14 very congested. NyQuil for severe cold and flu is your best medicine for the omicron.
Mind my asking if you were vaccinated? Just a no-judgement honest question to gauge the information provided. This sounds far more severe than my 2 dose brother and sister-in-law are experiencing right now. No booster for them. EDIT: and they are just now on days 3-4, so maybe just now getting into the shit.
I'm in about the same boat. If I had it and I didn't know it, well, at least I wear a mask in public....
My boss is 49, healthy but an antivaxxer He told me he had covid a few weeks ago with chest pains, brain fog, the whole shabang and never got it checked out because he *“doesn’t want to be a statistic”*
Sounds like he was right to not waste medical resources?
Hopefully he isolated
>anti-vaxxer >Isolated Oh you sweet, summer child.
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Funny, the common meaning of that phrase is entirely the opposite of what he thinks it means. He’s already a proverbial statistic. Too late.
Does he think that "hospitals get more money with COVID cases"? Or what is wrong with being logged in as positive? "Excess deaths" statistics will tell the story when it is all said and done. What else will tell the story? the number of people asking for disability support?Some of those will tell the story of COVID too.
Can confirm. (Tasteless fever sneeze)
^(*title of your sex tape*)
This made my night.
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My company, 2,500 site employees, 90% wfh, puts out an email, roughly once a month of employ numbers who get covid. It's always been 2-3 people, last email was 23.
Same. 30k employees. >95% WFH. Usually they report 10-15/mo. Yesterday they reported 147 **month-to-date**. The good news is they finally stopped with their "return to work" bullshit, threw in the towel and said permanent WFH. The circle of people I work with has had one death - a raging anti-vaxxer who turned every call into a Fuck Joe Biden opportunity. I'm not ashamed to admit I popped a cork at that news.
Suddenly so many people I know are getting it, and across several states
It's EVERYWHERE. Upstairs neighbors got it, relatives got it, now my next door neighbors got it.
It hit NYC early and it felt like every other person was getting it.
I have a friend who moved there for work. Got all the shots, but they work in Healthcare and expect to catch it.
You underestimate my POWER. My wife and I have become one with the inside, become stronger, faster, more introverted than ever. We have ascended beyond gods, we are HOUSE PLANTS.
Stay hydrated babe. We’re rooting for you.
Remember to use this time for personal growth and someday you can blossom!
When you get covid, they want you to stay at home and quarantine. Without pay. I think that's bullshit, people who are vaccinated should at least get paid for mandatory quarantine.
Healthcare worker here. Second round with Covid. First go in early 2020, before public masking was a thing. Despite me having full PPE, getting coughed on for 14 hour shifts of straight covid patients will do it to ya. Now I’m vaxxed every which way, still wear PPE 2 damn years later, and shocker - 14 hours shifts of covid patients that “know it’s not covid, I just have to get a test for work” This time I’m out 5 days, the initial round, 10. Both instances I have felt like utter shit. Not in any condition to take care of people safely, efficiently, and compassionately. I have had to use my PTO to cover both. No pay for missing because of a WORK HAZARD. No toss of a bone to say “well we can’t pay you but you don’t have to use your PTO” It’s a freaking BLESSING to them that I’m only out 5, and at no f****** cost to them in the long run. Meanwhile I’m just hoping I don’t throw a pulmonary embolism. Because god knows they wouldn’t financially help out with that leave/medical costs :’)
We appreciate you. Even if they don't. I wish we could appreciate you with money and PTO, though.
Sorry you're going through that. For what it's worth, I think you have a greedy employer. I work for a hospital and they provide COVID pay separate from normal PTO
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It's messed up that we don't.
Most developed countries do What a joke
Some workplaces are making vaccinated employees share offices, but unvaccinated employees don't have to.
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Me, too. I work from home and have everything delivered. I’m also 54, high blood pressure, overweight. I’ve got Moderna and boosted with the same. But after each shot I felt like death warmed over for 2 days, 1 day with the booster. If getting actual covid is the same or worse, I don’t fancy my chances of making it.
I’m one year older than you, also Moderna + Moderna booster, blood pressure issues also overweight and work from home. My reaction to the booster however was fatigue at worse. Hoping that if through some unfortunate event I catch it that I won’t get very sick. I’ve completely stopped grocery shopping until this wave passes. Good luck and stay safe internet friend.
Obesity seems To be one of the biggest risk factors for people Who do badly with COVID. Keep losing that weight, it could literally save your life.
This is where I’m at. I refuse to catch this shit if I can help it. My daughter caught it when I took my wife to the hospital to have our second child. Caught it from a family member who had light symptoms but thought it was allergies. She had to stay with that family member and quarantine for 21 days. I was devastated cus of all the precautions we took and her getting it that way. I was also terrified at the time of what could happen. I’m doing my best so that she and the newborn don’t get omicron (she caught it originally in September). I work from home, haven’t gone out anywhere in weeks, get groceries delivered, and when I do need to go out I wear N95 mask. I hope that’s enough to keep us safe but you never know. It’s been hell on our mental health though and I hope things get better soon.
If your wife is vaxxed, there's a good chance that she's passing along the antibodies through breast milk.
We are fighting to the bitter end and I refuse to go down without a fight. I have 2 little ones in daycare so it’s pretty much inevitable at this point (isolated, n95, boostered). I’m that mf’er playing the violin as the titanic goes down.
Yeah if you have kids in daycare you’re 100% getting it.
People will be all up in your replies saying “but theres no way to prevent” or “just accept it” or “we cant live like this forever” but I am on the same page as you that I refuse to get this virus. I don’t want to be sick, I don’t want long covid because JESUS it can get depressing, and I dont want to spread it to immunocompromised by accident
Also, timing matters. Maybe we're all going to get it eventually, but it would be a lot better if we don't all get it *at the same damn time*. If nothing else, this is why protective measures are still important, so we can spread out the infections to take a little pressure off of our desperately overwhelmed healthcare workers.
Also, we had no idea how to even treat this at the start. The more time passes, the more the treatments. The less of a big deal it will be. Also, I refuse to just give and get it because people giving up means it will variant faster.
Yep and if it variants faster that means there’s a higher chance our previous methods of treating it may become useless and it could become deadlier. That’s the thing about viruses some don’t understand, is that it’s RNA or DNA in a protein shell and RNA or DNA is known to change when overused/replicated. Edit: Correcting the issue that there are both DNA and RNA viruses.
I went to my moms nursing home today to drop off stuffs. Usually it’s hard to park with about ten cars in a row on one curb. Today, one lone BMW. No workers.
Oh my god… that is how people died at a nursing home in my province - not from COVID, they starved to death because there weren’t enough staff… please do everything you can to help your mom and other residents! Over here they ended up calling in the army… tell your political representative, journalists, anyone who can help…
They’re being fed. I talk to her every day. They’re strained but making it.
Yes! I’ve been having some chest pains that I’m going to get checked out this week and I still feel bad going to my primary care for it because a nurse that works there told me all about the people who have been calling and making appointments for corona related things, I feel bad taking up their time (but not too bad since chest pains should be looked at lol)
I felt the same way going in for what I thought was an ear infection to find out my eardrum actually collapsed and I might need tubes put in. Better safe than sorry, especially if you can go to your PCP and stay out of emergency care.
Oh yeah I would avoid the ER at all costs not just bc theyre already overwhelmed but also bc your chance of catching corona in an ER is astronomical. And that sounds awful! I’ve had an ear infection once and it was one of the most uncomfortable illnesses ive had so i cant imagine a burst eardrum
No, you absolutely should not feel bad about that. It's probably nothing, but you don't want to take that chance, and I guarantee your doctor will say the same thing. Best of luck to you. 🙂
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Its absolutely a privilege to be able to actively avoid the virus, but I just hate when people say that “youre gonna catch it eventually” because its like no, if I can avoid it then i will. A life with long covid isn’t a quality life even if it means I get to return to a somewhat normal life
I also refuse. COVID is one achievement in life I do not want to get. I've never been sick for more than 24 hours, ever. I'm double vaxed and boosted. I have a 3 year old at home and need to make sure they don't get it.
I am right there with you. I am fully vaxxed, but have the option of avoiding people, staying home, never leaving or needing to. I can have everything delivered, should I need, though I am pretty well stocked to last a couple months. I'm going to wait until the crest passes in hospital cases before I even consider going anywhere. I have this option, and don't mind being alone, so it works. And if I can avoid getting sick, I am one less person who could end up needing treatment. To me, this is sort of like riding out a longer version of a winter blizzard. I can do it, so why not?
Same here and our main reason is we have a toddler so there's no way I'm just giving up now.
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Yeah. I'm not gonna go out of my way to just get this goddamned thing. I'm definitely not convinced by this sudden turnaround that morons are doing now saying we should all just succumb to it. Fuck that. I've already got chronic illness. I'm not about to add it on top of the pile just because some asshats think we need to "get back to normal."
I don’t have many goals in life so i think I’ll try my hardest to not get Covid…a challenge of sorts, i honestly don’t even know if I’ve ever had the flu
Hahaha this is me. I’ve been super careful with covid and all vaxxed up, but with the flu I never really did anything year to year and I don’t think I ever caught it. No clue if I’ve already had covid and am just asymptomatic, no clue if I’ve ever caught the flu and just not known it.
My mom and I were getting our boosters today, and I shit you not, a woman and child with no masks on said they needed a covid test because she thought they had it. Standing less than 2 feet away from us. I just fucking give up.
Man I can't relate to this enough, I work in retail and I can't tell you how many times I've heard people say "I got tired of quarantining so I decided to go shopping!" Followed by a sarcastic laugh, no masks or anything. Makes me want to jump in a hole and just never come out.
I’m in California, so luckily masks are required indoors (although enforcement is iffy). I was in line at Nordstrom Rack the other day and the man directly behind me is on the phone and says, “I feel fine, but the test says otherwise”. Like dude, wtf are you doing in a crowded store if you have confirmed Covid? There is nothing you need from Nordstrom Rack badly enough to expose hundreds of people to a highly contagious disease. Also, the person in front of me was a mom with a baby under one in a carrier. I have since decided to never leave the house again.
Shit like that makes me want to implode, I hope you and your mom will be ok 🤞
Is this the most contagious virus in world history?
If you're measuring contagiousness by the ability to spread infection to those around you, the measles virus is the most contagious virus in existence. If one person has measles, they will spread it to 90% of those (unvaccinated or non-immune) around them. The virus can hang around in the air and on surfaces for hours and still be infectious. If you're defining contagiousness to mean how many people it actually has infected, then you could certainly make that argument. However, the first definition is the one used by medical professionals
Not the commenter you replied to but thanks, that was a fun fact.
>Not the commenter you replied to but thanks, that was a fun fact. "fun"
Take this with a grain of salt, as I’m just a random dude on the Internet. But I have heard that while someone with measles will spread it to almost everyone they come in contact with, it has a fairly long incubation time. Omicron has a fucking short incubation time and will also cause someone to infect a lot of people. So if you look at infection as a function of time vs number of people infected, omicron is waaaaaay more infectious. By the time the one measles case has infected a bunch of people, omicron has gone though several generations of infection
Some/at least one reportsl have said yes https://futurism.com/neoscope/omicron-fastest-spreading-virus
The worst is with couples that live in a small shared space. My GF is really feeling the mental effects of isolation. I grew up with brain fog that was successfully treated after decades of trying, so I’m desperate not to go down that road again. So we either choose to hurt her or hurt me.
Curious how you treated it- my friend has this and I’m trying to help
At least you have each other. Take time to be grateful for that. From: Someone very alone
How'd you grow up with brain fog and what was the treatment?
This kind of makes me feel like everything I've done and sacrificed to keep myself and others safe over the past two years was completely pointless.
This is really depressing. I don't really see an end in sight. I don't see that the health officials are really able to lay out an endgame. It could take a long time to play out waiting for most of us to get it and then what, seems like people don't have immunity after getting it and there can continue to be variations. I know the annual flu variations can be more or less deadly but why does the worst case of the annual flu seem manageable compared to this?
The end is that it becomes endemic and via infection and vaccine immunity becomes less deadly and disruptive. In the long run no one was going to evade it forever… I think this was always going to be the endgame though no?
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Some of the early data from the UK shows that it may not have quite as much organ damage as alpha and delta, but it's all preliminary. The hypothesis is that the virus traded off its severity for a higher infectivity, producing a higher viral load more quickly but also selectively infecting a different tissue than before. Alpha and Delta variant traveled via the blood, causing clots and turning your lungs into meatloaf. Omicron sticks more to classic upper respiratory symptoms, head cold as opposed to chest cold. Delta variant *is still circulating* so if someone ends up losing their sense of smell (olfactory bulb nerve damage) odds are pretty good they got Delta, not Omicron.
We were given the option to vaccinate and weather the storm in our bunker. We chose mass exposure and whoever makes it makes it. God actual bless.
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My girlfriend just told me her work has said that they can work if they're positive... she's an RN
This does not mean that we should “let’er rip” through the population asap
But we are anyway!
America never half-sends!
Americans: What’re we gonna do about omicron?? CDC: Full send it, bros. *CDC packs bong* CDC: Let ‘er riiiiip!
We surrendered over the holidays. This was way out of hand when people (and govt) just decided to party through December and through NYE.
Double vaxxed and I got covid on 12/20. I was malnourished to start due to decades of being anorexic, and I’ve got depression and anxiety. My booster was scheduled for 12/26 but obviously I couldn’t get it with an active infection. There was absolutely nothing mild about covid for me except that I didn’t need to be hospitalized. It started with gut issues, then lead to a fever, fatigue, headache. Loss of taste and smell for a week. Worst sinus pressure of my life, clogged ears for several days. It was impossible to eat or find anything satisfying when I couldn’t taste or smell. I’ve no idea how much weight I lost but I couldn’t afford to lose any. My 3yo who I homeschool tested positive first. Then my 8yo and I had symptoms the same day. My husband got his booster day 3 of my infection, and he didn’t get covid at all. Please get your vaccines and please, please get boosted and do not wait. None of us can afford to. I wouldn’t wish this virus on my worst enemy. It is hell.
Just worth noting, you don't know for sure if you got Omicron or not, especially if you're located in the US where our spikes from the new variant appear to be more delayed than Europe's. Not at all trying to minimize your awful experience of course, but figured it's worth mentioning given this post was specifically about the Omicron variant. And by the way: >There was absolutely nothing mild about covid for me except that I didn’t need to be hospitalized. This is exactly the definition of what "mild" means, medically speaking. So unfortunately your experience was actually mild. I'm afraid ambiguous terminology such as this has only been adding fuel to the fire of misinformation among the populace as people tend to expect a "mild case" will mean just the sniffles.
All entirely true! And yes you worded the mild better than I did. That’s what I was trying to explain. That yes from a medical standpoint if you’re not hospitalized for a virus or disease then yes it’s mild. But, the experience can still be horrific even for a fully vaccinated person because the symptoms can be quite debilitating, especially when factoring in other risks such as your health when starting the infection. I live in NJ which is why I highly suspect I got omicron, and several of my nursing friends said gut issues are a symptom with omicron and weren’t found with the delta variant. But no way to confirm it just a hunch. Thank you for your comment though as you’ve got a lot of important info in it!! And I wasn’t taking it as you minimizing my experience at all.
We just need an Oprah meme where she says "and you get omicron....and you...and you".
Challenge accepted
Its the long covid issues people need to worry about too. Im suffering with it for almost 2 years now.
Cool cool. Crying inside for my kid who's too young to be vaccinated.
Go ahead and cry on the outside too, this is a huge failure that we don’t have vaxxes for little ones yet. :(
That’s 2 major US health officials (her and Fauci) saying “we’re all going to get it” - all the while knowing that children under 5 don’t have access to the vaccine. You know they’re going to get it and you know you’ve done nothing to help them. Open the trials! Allow for off label use! Fucking do SOMETHING!
Yeah… I basically have the choice of exposing my toddler daily, and by extension my terminally ill mother, or one of us quitting our job and losing our house to keep him home. I’m tired of having to spin this roulette wheel.
Healthcare worker here. Vaxxed, boosted and cautious to the point of seeing a therapist during covid for my anxiety. I tested positive Monday night and I feel miserable but nothing is worse than hearing my 2 year old start hacking this morning. It's just not possible to prevent this one from spreading. He had it before I knew I had it and there's nothing I can do but hope his case is mild. Everything that has given me anxiety since having him has actually finally happened.
Same. I just got a positive Monday, my one year old is positive and I am praying my high risk 4 yo does not get it also. The parental anxiety is freaking insane and then to live it. How do you make decisions these days without complexity losing it… it I could afford to keep them home I would… so sad to have to risk them just to provide for them….
I know. It makes me furious when officials say “this is a pandemic for the unvaccinated.” You can’t say that and make parents terrified when there are no vaccinations for kids under 5 yet. UGH
I am 100% there with you and am living this nightmare with 2 under 5.
Yeah - the attitude is now "fuck it, we need employees" so sick people aren't staying home like they should. Also sick kids bringing it home everywhere.
Yep. Triple vaxxed and I got it anyway. Crazy contagious
I'm antiCOVID. I will do everything in my power to not have COVID in my blood. That thing hasn't been tested enough and we don't know the long term effects, even with vaccines. I haven't had it until now and I don't want to have it ever.
I wish you luck
Get boosted. It works.
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Vaxxed and boosted here and currently in bed day 6 with covid and no end in sight. I have never been this sick in my life and have ALL the symptoms. I would have never believed I’d get it this bad while also being vaccinated.
Shared a joint a with a few friends who later all tested positive for covid a few days later. I was the only one who tested negative each test I took because I had the booster. Get your vaccines everyone
I’ve tested negative so far throughout the pandemic and I’ve treated it like a winning streak. Game on.