Maybe I'm confusing waning immunity with antibodies, but do antibodies last forever? If I had Covid in March of 2020 and took an antibody test today, 2 years later, I'd know whether I had it at any point in the past?

About a month since the stats I posted above from CDC. So looking like +1.5% per month right now for >12. So about 5 more months before we hit 80% if it keeps up.

(The >5 was just approved in Nov so that drags down the average. The <5 not yet approved).

> 12 is at 72.6 up from 71.1%.

At least one dose ...

> 12 is at 85.2 up from 83.5%.

Great until you start saying that anyone who hasn't been vaxxed in the past 6 months, either from the primary, two shot regimen, or from a booster, is no longer considered vaccinated. It's the growing definition in Europe. Given that the initial push of vaccines was early on, it's been almost a 11 months since my initial shot, you'll see the overall percentages drop. But the good news, imo, is that it's moving toward an overall solution with Omicron being so infectious and less deadly. The initial push of Omicron related deaths happen, eventually humans will adapt and it'll be more like a cold or flu, that can still be serious, but will largely be accepted as another thing we deal with regularly.

I imagine in a few years--at least in the developed world--they will just roll the flu and COVID booster together and it will just be one shot you get every Fall.

Has the CDC not Said that it is likely that the big difference between 1 and 2 Dose recipients (and no other country has one even remotely as big afaik) is at least partly due to 3rd doses registered as First doses ? Also "we know who they are" sounds way too confident. Who exactly would have that data considering you could get vaccinated at so many different Locations run by different entities ?

Anyway, as to Pilotmans point, John-Burn Murdoch from the FT (whose coverage has been great overall) has a stellar graphical illustration of this and why the US lags much further behind than the raw vaccination numbers indicate. And even those look worse If looking at the correct denominator: 80% vs 90% (as an example) isn't "only 10% less" but "twice as many unvaccinated" .

Here’s vax uptake and waning among the elderly in the US and several European countries.

Note how that red "unvaxxed elderly" segment extends much further right for the US, with millions still vulnerable well into its summer Delta wave.

Far more severely waned second doses, too pic.twitter.com/nIjM4rwWl2

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) January 31, 2022

(Whole thread is well worth a look)

Booster protection looks to hold up considereably better (adjusted for variant etc) against serious cases. There has also been many studies showing much broader antibody and Cell Response Leasing many immunologists to consider IT ab3 dose vaccine (as are plenty of Others). Just one of those Things that could only be figured out as time passend.

Also, "less deadly" will still result in many more dead this Winter/spring than any flu season despite a much better vaccine protection and coverage. I don't think it is a stretch to say that best case scenario for the next few years at least will still result in a big uptick in people dying from any 'respiratory' disease one behaviours fully revert towards prepandemic times and flu et al make a real comeback. Not saying there's much alternative on a societal level, but i also think people (especially those in positions to, for instance, allocate Funds and drive messaging) need to consider this.

I’m having to get a third dose as a first dose on Friday as my previous clinical trials aren’t recognized by the state, and the doctor is recommending I don’t get a 4th until 6 months after, so I’m going to be part of those lapsed second dose statistics soon.

Frustrating as obviously I won’t get a completed vaccine card until late summer at best, but most things seem to be moving away from requiring them anyway.

Some antibodies (there's a lot of different ones in reaction to different areas of the virus and/or vaccine) do indeed last a long time with some even increasing (thus getting easier to detect). The german institute tasked with doing quality controll on these tests just released a study showing certain tests targetting certain combinations of antibodies and Antigen Target having a near 100% detection rate up to 430 days out (cut off point for data).

However most of the common tests are 'tuned in' to Antibodies that 1) don't hold up as Well + aren't produced always (depends in how bad the illness was to some degree) and 2) are also produced in reaction to the vaccine. I don't think you can get an answer to that via an over the counter test If you were vaccinated as well. A test (or rather a Sample Testes a dozen different ways) run in a lab by professionals would be a different story, but that's not exactly practical on a large scale.

I survived 5 days at Disney theme parks in Orlando with my girlfriend's family and am still testing negative more than a week out now. There was some talk of postponing the trip but honestly, I just find it hard to care one way or another anymore. I've had so many exposures. Still no symptoms or positive tests. I haven't taken any precautions besides masks since probably early last summer. And I'm really glad I haven't intentionally passed up any life experiences by my own choice, though I've missed out on plenty through the choices of others, which I completely understand.

On the one hand I kind of feel immune now, on the other it wouldn't surprise me if I picked it up somewhere stupid now.

But hooray for vaccines.

I hate having covid :(
It's been several weeks now and I'm still not well :(

Yeah, it fucking sucks.

3 weeks of the actual "sickness" for me but the recovery is glacial

Yeesh, sorry dudes. It kicked my butt, but I only had it for a matter of days, weeks would be hellish.

97 times more likely to die.

In the first week of December, individuals who were unvaccinated 97(!) times more likely to die compared to those who were vaccinated and boosted, according to data from 28 jurisdictions presented today by @CDCDirector.

Getting boosted could save your life. pic.twitter.com/cawaRCxAac

— Benjy Renton (@bhrenton) February 2, 2022

I have started going back to work. working like 4 hours and at the end of it i'm exhausted. Still have a little wheezy feeling and my sinuses still have little stuffiness and drainage.

If you don't mind sharing, what were your symptoms at the "peak" and what are the lingering symptoms you're having now?

SI

I damn near died? lol. That's how I'd describe my symptoms.

In more realistic terms, I ran the gamut.

I had 2+ weeks of coughing, total lethargy, the worst might have been the days of being unable to keep anything (even water) down. The fuzzy brain, I could literally go on and on. If it was a symptom associated with Covid, I probably had it with the exception of loss of taste & smell. That zero tolerance for food or hardly any liquid at all lasted 5-6 days (again, it's kinda fuzzy, Will was mostly taking care of me at that point)

If I had to bet, I'd bet I had "flurona" which gave me the fun experiences of both 'rona AND a pretty hardcore case of the flu.

Lingering? That's kinda mixed in the last 24 hours.

I'd mark my "coming out of it" as starting about a week ago. I started being able to keep down fluids consistently, the overnight hours of dry heaving stopped, I wasn't chilling, I wasn't constantly nauseous, etc etc. That seems like a good benchmark for "start recovery". So that was Thursday, by Saturday I ate 10 ounces of Progresso chicken noodle soup which was my largest meal (or daily total in fact) in fifteen days. That'd be another milestone.

But I still can't eat/drink several things -- not taste related mostly, just ... texture. Things that are staples for me that still get larger with every chew.
I've gone from 3 pots of coffee a day to I haven't made 3 pots in the past week (it doesn't taste right AND does not sit well on my stomach at all). I've picked up the stereotypical "lingering dry light cough" over the past 72 hours. And for most of the past 24 hours I've been dizzy to the point of queasiness way too often. Yesterday was very demanding -- physically and emotionally -- with things related to my wife and her medical situation and I'm sure I'm today paying some of the price of "don't try to do too much too soon after Covid". That price I'd describe as "regressing", not quite "relapsing" thankfully.

I'll put it like this

48 hours ago, if I absolutely had to, I could have driven 70 miles to her hospital. I'd have paid a price but I could have done it somehow. Today? Someone would have had to drive me, I'd put the chance of doing it myself at 0.0.

I FUCKING COULDN"T EAT KETCHUP OR TABASCO!!!! IT WAS THE WORST!!!!

Well, that is what the science says, but what does Joe Rogan say?

My boss and his wife got it. What's weird about how they were treated is that she was first diagnosed with pneumonia but tested negative, so she got antibiotics and other medicine and her symptoms were over about 4-5 days after diagnosis. Two days after her pneumonia diagnosis, my boss tested positive and then his wife tested again and was positive. He got nothing other than a pat on the back and told to quarantine. About a week later, he was still feeling bad and went back to the doctor and tested positive again but mentioned that he thought a sinus infection had developed so they gave him antibiotics and some other stuff, and all of it was gone in about 3 days.

Get Covid, get no drugs. Get Covid with something else, get drugs and recover much quicker.

He says he's still tired all the time, goes to sleep much earlier and wants to sleep much later than he's ever done.

My son -- not boosted -- lost his sense of taste a bit ago (got it back). Doesn't report much else, says he's gotten better.

On the same call he also complained of a lack of energy/motivation. Chalked it up to Senioritis. Probably the case, but it makes me wonder...

I think we all have that. It's called "living in 2020/2021/2022".

At the risk of sounding controversial, I'll say that three positive tests in my household over a two week span and what you mention very much matches.

3 cases, the only medication given to any of us (1 with direct doctor contact, 1 with remote doctor contact, and 1 "what's the fucking point in doctor contact?") was "here's a pill for the cough that's we're sure will linger"

Otherwise, a positive test that doesn't come with hospitalization largely seems to be "go fuck yourself, good luck"

Yeah, that could be it too, though on campus things are opening up some. Plus he's now over 21 which brings its own benefits.

Honestly (and this probably belongs in another thread) I think it's also a combination of a) band is over, and b) worrying about eventual job prospects. While he has another year in a combined BS/MS, he has encountered classmates who ONLY LIVE AERO. Like, 10AM on a weekend they want to Zoom to talk about their project. The types he thinks will gladly work 16hrs/day for SpaceX, etc. because they simply have nothing else they want to do.

At any rate it's a little out-of-character for how he's performed academically until now. But yeah, could just be hitting some burnout.

I'm not sure the protocol with prescribing the anti-virals, but if it is just COVID with no other infection antibiotics won't help.

Screw "curing the covid" .. helping people manage the symptoms would be nice.

Not every situation has symptoms that need help managing, those that do seem s.o.l. unless they're lucky enough to be dealing with a doctor that actually gives a fuck about how their patient feels/functions.

(I know other areas where it's almost "what drug(s) do you want" while others it's "have fun, go fuck yourself")

Yeah I get that, and in the case of my boss and his wife, they both apparently had infections to go along with Covid where antibiotics helped. But aside from antibiotics, how about other things that could help with symptoms. You get nothing other than a couple OTC suggestions. In the past, for allergies, I've gotten things to help with cough or sinus that were stronger than I can buy off the shelf. Why isn't that part of trying to help people get better, quicker with Covid?

Given you mentioned one vice (coffee), I can't help but wonder...cigs? (Unless I missed coverage of them elsewhere.)

When I was a regular smoker getting seriously ill was definitely a whole 'nother layer of hell.

That's a good point. I do recall one time that I had a viral infection with a bad cough and they also gave me a cough suppressant prescription that I agree should be part of the treatment plan.

Oh hell, 1000% valid question.

My norm is approx 3 packs/day.

I smoked less than three packs total during the 10 day worst of it. And at least half of that was after a dry heaving event, usually just partially smoked.

There's a shared collective trauma that we're all living through (in different ways) that has manifest itself in may ways already and will be in case studies for decades or longer.

SI

Almost all. This whole deal has really hammered home how out-of-phase my existence is. I am legit like "sigh...shit." whenever I have to leave the house. I have no in-person friends to have to miss, no family that I've sacrificed seeing save my mom, who I only saw yearly at the most anyhow. Yeah, we don't go out to eat like we would. But the kids aren't around/interested in doing that anyhow, so...yeah. I'm cool with semi-weekly excursions to the Goodwill/library/used bookstore. And the occasional trip out to Purdue. (Which...I. mean, we went to football and volleyball games out there, so, normal?)

edit: and I am perfectly content with this

Is the perma cigarette smell a sign of covid? Cause I had that shit for a week or two. Like I'd spent a night in a dive bar in the 80s amount of cigarette smell.

I had forgotten. Fully approved now. I guess that's good, a formality but kinda meaningless all things considered.

Remember when that was the fake reason people weren't getting their vaccine for months? Good times, eh?

SI

Three pots of coffee a day? :O I mean, I drink a lot of coffee, but....

I felt a tremor in the force.

That'd be my pretty long-standing average. It'll vary from 2.5 to 3.5 depending on the amount of sleep I end up doing in a day but it's pretty consistent for an average.

I drink on avg 2 pots per weekday. First is half caffeine and second is decaf (Costco brand). 3 cups per pot so 6 cups a day.

I've mentioned (admitted?) this before but for those who might not recall:

Some years back, because of my consumption level, I switched to half-caf pretty much full time. That was probably around age 40 or so.

Did it ding my manhood a little to give in to that change? Yeah, some.
But there's a lot of things that come with age/aging that you just have to learn to accept.

Nah, no manhood issues on decaf. But some manhood issues after watching Yellowstone and not drinking my coffee black (but with sugar and coffee mate).

So its been 2 years since this thread started.

Year 1 was obviously pretty bad. Year 2, although not great, has been much better relatively speaking.

No idea how the 1918 influenza epidemic impacted people's daily lives (suspect much worse than we had it) but good thing we have TV and internet for entertainment in these times.

I mentioned earlier that there are rumors that Rogan is actually vaccinated and doesn't believe the bullshit he's peddling and pushing on his show. This clip is from 2020 and in it he's praising vaccines while mocking anti-vaxers. He's 100% behind the science and consistently was until there was money to be made off of the idiots.

This is my lack of surprise face.

Random practical Covid thought:

With all the stuff that tastes "wrong" in my aftermath, I wonder if the few things that have tasted "better" than normal will stay elevated? Or if all of it eventually just goes back to it's usual station?

Walmart Sour Cream & Cheddar knockoff Ruffles have been AMAZING for most of the past week, I've had a few with probably half my meals. Their regular flavor knockoff has been a close second.

Are you sure you didn’t take a pregnancy test by mistake?

That was actually the joke I made on my social media when I posted the positive ("Well, at least I ain't pregnant")

My lack of surprise face goes to the presenter in that clip not even addressing the difference between COVID vaccines and other vaccines.

Sour cream and cheddar chips are like crack to me. The only chip that I don't mind the "baked" kind.

It says the clip was from March 2020.

Edit: I get now that you're talking about the Rational National guy. I'm not sure why it matters, though. Rogan is just a charismatic (to some people) dumbass, he's in no way qualified to evaluate MRNA vaccines vs. Johnson and Johnson vs the measles vaccine.