Well Walgreens says I'm positive. Nice knowing you all.

I hope for mild symptoms that resolve quickly.

Hope you get better soon

... but that isn't as important as your other update? :)

Can I have your stuff?

I can't believe I don't have it, and, more specifically, that my kids don't have it. Their schools have been overrun (and still haven't switched to virtual). But no positive tests in the household so far! It continues to feel like it's only a matter of time, or that we all got it and were asymptomatic and didn't test on the right days to catch it. What a world.

There's to be a fight to a death at my funeral. Winner takes all.

My symptoms earlier this week lasted about a day. My son had them for about 36 hours or so. I am getting tested this afternoon just to see if I have it. I don't know if I will show positive if my symptoms were on Tuesday.

Apparently, all of the unvaxxed players on my daughter's softball team came back to school with it after the holiday break. All of them have tested positive and have symptoms. None of the vaxxed are showing symptoms so they haven't been tested. I'm assuming they all have it at this point.

"And here at the estate sale, we move on to lot number 47. It is a rejected letter to a publisher with notes for a dating book here called 'How to be Cocky and Funny' with a foreword by Kyle"

SI

Hope that all here who test positive have mild symptoms and quick recoveries

I'd fight to the death for that.

Hope all impacted get better soon.

I'm really trying hard to understand the purpose of testing with no symptoms.

If you have close contact but no symptoms and are fully vaccinated, the recommendation is to get tested after 5 days. I did this. I was told a rapid test is unreliable and a full PCR test is needed. It got sent to a lab and took 5 days for results. So at that point, it's fully stale information. If it's positive, that was 5 days ago (let's even say 3 days if a test comes back a little quicker) and I still have no symptoms, so I've been living my life, masked. Now that I'm positive, guidance is to isolate for 5 days and wear a mask an additional 5 days. But I've already blown through the 5 day isolation period? So WTF cares anymore? I'm back to ... mask for 5 days?!

I'm frustrated because my daughter is in the same boat now, but with the complication of playing HS basketball. Two teammates tested positive this week and the season is continuing as usual. Coach emailed everyone to strongly encourage everyone to get tested this weekend and if you have any symptoms, stay away. My daughter is symptom-free. That means a PCR test and wait for results. In the interim, she'll be practicing and playing games. If she comes back positive, the damage is already done because of the delay in test results - plus, she has to sit out even with no symptoms.

It seems useless to test if there's that kind of lag in results. It made sense during 2020 when we were mostly sitting in our houses with limited interactions, but now, we're supposed to go about our normal lives and then act on stale information if a positive results comes back.

She's a senior and has like a dozen games left in her career. Unless she has symptoms or is forced to test, I'm not testing her on the off-chance she has to miss games because she now knows she had Covid several days ago and may not have it now (which we won't know for ... 3-5 more days!).

My county gives us results w/in 12 hours, so testing after contact makes sense.

I agree that any lag in results makes testing pointless.

sliver of good news:

Data is coming in, and it looks like lockdowns did not/do not have the negative mental health affects on kids (increased suicides, etc.) that we had feared they might:

/1 THREAD: I knew this day would come.

While pediatric societies & "hospital organizations" did "science by press release," breathlessly discussing a correlation on a parent survey or releasing a statement about 1 month of admissions in May 2021, I knew we would get REAL DATA.

— Tyler Black, MD (@tylerblack32) January 13, 2022

Anecdotal counterpoint - all my friends' kids are unpleasant weirdos now.

That may be unrelated to COVID though.

I decided this morning to cancel my test for this afternoon. Someone who really needs it should get tested.

I stay at home 98% of the time and the only people I will see in the near future are my wife and son. My son is headed home tomorrow.

While ready your post I was thinking I just wouldn't have my daughter tested. If anyone asks, I would say she didn't test positive and let it be. I guess you can 'Aaron Rodgers' people. :) You don't have to say she tested negative. Just say she didn't test positive. Let her have the rest of her senior year.

After I wrote my post above, I went to workout and got a call from my daughter that tonight's game is off. Not for Covid on her team, but the other team. I sure hope this peaks and recedes quickly or the end of basketball and the start of spring sports are going to be severely hampered/compromised. Again...

None of that should be surprising. The "increase in suicide" crowd was just using it as an excuse to get kids back to school. Pressures from school/work is a large contributing factor to suicides in general, and time taken out of those pressure cooker situations is going to be pluses to mental health for most. The only caveat would be for people in abusive situations, but you would hope that would be a tiny fraction of people.

The lockdown has been better for my kids, school-wise. Since they are homeschooled, they are more excited about learning and have done better with their schoolwork. They are able to work at their own pace and are able to get any special accommodations to meet their needs. My wife and I are playing this out on a year by year basis.

We've also been able to get braces, with the myriad of checkup visits, and address any other issues without worrying about missing school.

It's good to see that children were not as negatively impacted by the lockdowns as we initially feared.

Spring 2020 was a clusterfuck for schools, for the obvious reasons. No one was prepared for going online. 2020-21 was much better when they had to go online.

Nothing outside of normalcy is ideal, of course, but we aren't living in ideal circumstances.

The turnaround time and availability of testing varies from area to area; I think advice/guidance should vary based on that as well For example, unlike KSyrup's report of a 5-day turnaround, mine was 24 hours for a PCR test. So I really think it just depends on some of those factors.

Tried to post this yesterday but it got botched in the thread. Here's where I was tested. More and more I'm reading about them, it seems like they weren't even really testing samples and just telling everyone they were negative.

Seems like maybe there should be a bit more oversight over these places. They were operating out of a number of states and I guess just now being shut down.

EXCLUSIVE: The Center for COVID Control opened pop-up testing sites across the US.

Now, it's temporarily closing amid federal+state investigations & mounting complaints.

We got a copy of a federal report that says the chain wasted 40,000 tests — & more: https://t.co/Pe0fBYLdz2. pic.twitter.com/3oXwLql7L6

— Block Club Chicago (@BlockClubCHI) January 14, 2022

Also seems like a bad idea that they were all over social media bragging about buying lambos and stuff. Should have watched Goodfellas for an important criminal lesson.

This makes me think the death counts are going to get real ugly soon.

�� I’d love to understand why the federal government will no longer require hospitals to report the daily number of #COVID19 deaths as of February 2nd

Cc @HHS_Spox @HHS_ASH @hhs @Cyrusshahpar46 pic.twitter.com/dlugV4Vm7P

— Jorge A. Caballero, MD (@DataDrivenMD) January 14, 2022

I work in two elementary schools. Have not seen any increases in mental health needs. Have seen far more kids not prepared for school behaviorally and academically. I was in support of safety first before this year but let's not kid ourselves and deny it has had an academic impact for younger kids.

Fuck. I blew my voice during an audition on Tuesday. Wed-Thurs my throat felt...uncomfotable. Yesterday I was sneezing a lot and tired. This morning I felt stuffy and sinus achey. And now I have pretty bad congestion. Hope to fuck it isn't....well you know. Hopefully it's major allergies due to the weather changes.

It would be good to have data. My wife is an education professor and some of her new research is in remote learning, but she's more a qualitative researcher, so this isn't the type of issue she would address.

We talk about it. It's a tricky subject. She made many modifications to her own classes when they went remote. Even had some oral finals over Zoom rather than written exams. I don't want to assert I know everything she has considered, but she feels that lecturing students is far more difficult - they're often just online and doing who-knows during class. But using the classroom software to manage smaller sub-discussions among students on class topics is working and students are even happy to have some interaction in that world.

Her university returns to mostly in-person learning next week with the new semester, though she's still doing one online section.

My sense... and there's no data yet. I could be wrong... For affluent parents, there have been "pods" and tutors and a home life with more interaction. Opportunities that single parents closer to the poverty line might not be able to provide. This might be particularly difficult in more closed-in settings, like an urban apartment building. Just being able to run around in the back yard with a couple of friends could mean a lot to a young kid.

I think COVID is going to end up taking a hammer to any recent progress on closing "gaps" in achievement. As for the suicide stuff... that would take years to properly analyze. Damage today does not necessarily have a specific result tomorrow. We just don't know yet and can't make assumptions.

Not about mental health (how is that defined) but more academic impact ...

Wife is a Special Ed teacher (autism etc.) and she is of the opinion that remote doesn't work as well for the kids. Can't get the kids near as focused when they are at home.

But it's better for her. She doesn't have to deal with the inevitable small "dramas" that occur between the kids and the physical stuff (e.g. she gets hit, has to sometimes restrain a kid etc.).

Misleading Viral Claim on Government Tracking COVID-19 Deaths Debunked

Anecdotal, but the general consensus in our town is that curriculum has definitely been scaled back the past couple of years, at all levels K-12. We have friends who have both our kids & older kids, so can do a comparison between "normal", say, 8th grade, and what we've seen recently. Educational attainment is definitely going to be down. It'll be interesting to see what impacts this has in the future. Probably not great.

Edit: plus, you have issues like currently where my 13-year-old son told me he had a sub in his math class yesterday who had to leave halfway through the class (reason unknown) and no adult replaced him (other parents have told stories of similar experiences). They weren't learning much in math prior to the sub leaving, but definitely didn't stick with the work after he left.

Average Daily New Covid-19 Hospitalizations By Week (Monday-Sunday) - Texas Medical Center

Two weeks ago, Texas Med Center registered its highest new hospitalization rate of the entire pandemic at 401 per day. This past week, they shattered that with 497 per day. So that's basically 3500 last week alone. Not cases - those numbers are going to be suppressed by testing capacity. These are straight up hospitalizations.

Total TMC Covid-19 Positive Patients In Hospital - Texas Medical Center

We're not quite at our peak hospitalization total yet, tho (we're at around 2500 vs a peak of 2800). But I suspect we'll see a new high this week once the numbers are tallied on Monday (or maybe Tuesday due to the holiday).

SI

Hand-wringing over potential suicides, collective shrugs over school shootings.

We have data for our students. I'll add that I work for a lower ses area and I'm sure that plays a part. As you said I imagine more affect areas likely have much better outcomes. The shutdowns definitely widened the gap further from those with and those without

I think I'm done with that. I asked her out. She gave a non-committal response. There also may be some complications I'm not going into on this board. But don't be worried I know I will be asking for more fruitless answers on this board before too long.

I've decided if I don't get a girlfriend before I turn 40 then I'm just going to get realdoll2 and go to town.

Heh

There's always a boyfriend if all else fails :D

Yeah, there is a lot of concern trolling over mental health and development in kids. The people who are the loudest about this have also been the people who fight the hardest against providing more educational opportunities, mental health resources, and general health care for children.

It's all a pretext for shutting down government-run education so private Christian schools become indoctrination incubators to create a white majority of Charlie Kirks, MTGs, and Madison Cawthorns.

Captain Kirk and Magic the Gathering?

I particularly love the people who like to compare group A now to group A in 2018, like there isn't the giant obvious variable of a global pandemic that's different. It's one thing to compare achievement gap now vs then because then you are comparing apples to apples and oranges to oranges and it's a fair comp. But like you said, the people advocating loudest for it are the ones who don't give a damn about kids anyways and are just using them as pawns in their anti-mask culture war and have no sincere belief in actually trying to better things.

SI

Part of the issue is the toll this has taken on education providers who have been largely villainized and unappreciated. There are huge staff shortages and it's likely going to get worse. It has been a terrible time to work in education, people are leaving the field or choosing not to enter it. Credentialing programs are lowering their standards and its going to be an uphill battle

I finally got my test results back, 10 days after I first made the appt & 4 days after getting tested. Even the lab processing is gummed up at this point. My symptoms were gone like a week ago & I quarantined the whole time, so it's almost purely informational at this point.



Absurdly, part of me was relieved by the positive, if only because positive feels like the only definitive result. Considering the testing delays/hiccups/conditions I wouldn't have entirely believed a negative result.

I get it.

My negative really doesn't mean a whole lot to me since I've been sicker since the negative than I was before it (and by the time I got tested, my symptoms were largely gone).

And there's not much point in testing again since I'd likely be in the same situation if I tried anyway(with the worst seemingly behind me and a 3 day delay to get tested)

Its like this in retail and the service industry. You basically have a segment of the population who are insulated from the risks getting upset at people for not taking risks with their lives for substandard pay.

Oof, accidentally clicking on the first page of this thread and reading some of the opinions is a bit painful (and not a shot at those people either as I don’t think any of us saw this happening in our most vivid nightmares early on)

It's a good thing we could laugh at a televangelist who was transparently a snake oil salesman for what he is. Boy, it would be embarrassing if the President would make statements that sounded like using sterilizing UV light and ingesting bleach, millions wouldn't take a free vaccine, and more people seemingly listen to some meathead making $100M on Sirius and quacks on YouTube recommending horse dewormer then legions of scientists who study this for a living. /nervous chuckle/

SI

You could do the same in the Ebola thread. Though that one was politically swapped - the conservatives were telling us that we were all going to die and needed to shut the country down.

and then there was the Lost series of threads...oh my!

I have a feeling when this is over we're going to find out some really scummy stuff went on with the testing. I posted about that large testing company that appears to just be a scam at this point. And with how easily those people were able to get into the testing industry (they owned an axe throwing bar a year earlier), I think we'll find a lot of similar stories.

I wish I had a positive test too like thesloppy mentioned. At least it would have made sense. My symptoms were pretty mild so it could have been other stuff, but it happened during the surge and at the same time some people around me got it. But seems pointless to get tested now that it's past me and I doubt I can trust a test from a company that seems like a scam.

Are there any accurate tests out there to show you had it? It would be more for informational purposes at this point.

when this is over, he says...

I believe (and you should really double/triple check, because I'm just repeating third hand info myself) that the PCR-type tests are more accurate but will report positive for several weeks & perhaps months after you've had covid & those need to be sent to a lab to be tested and take at least a day and maybe 4-5 days to get results.

The antigen-type tests will report positive if you are actively shedding a critical amount of covid at that very moment, so you might test negative even if you have it but it is in the early stages or if you just had it but you're below that indicative level. I think those results are available onsite within a half-hour or less. I think these are also predominantly/exclusively the kind of test you can order online and do at home. You can get some of this type on Amazon, if you want to be proactive about a possible next time, but they are still taking like 3-4 weeks to ship.

The dedicated testing place where I got tested (https://curative.com/) offered both types of tests & you could select from one or the other. I think you can get faster access to testing if you have a primary care doctor or through an urgent care facility, if your insurance will cover it, but they might not have a full selection of tests available.

They may do so, but on average it really is 3ish weeks. It does simply show infection very accurately even at low 'dosage'. There are instances it does give a positive for longer but that isn't the norm.

What Rainmaker is looking for is an antibody test, which starts to show positive about 2-3 weeks after being infected. There's some cases it doesn't and won't work forever (both dependend on your body building antibodies and how much/long they stay above the detection threshold)

@rainmaker: EUA Authorized Serology Test Performance | FDA

Bit of a clusterfuck to read and i am sure there are articles on this giving you simply a list but here you get Evaluation performance of all FDA authorized tests under their marketed name (so you could crosscheck what you find available to buy or what your doctor/pharmacy/testing center offers).

I kinda admire China's zero Covid policy but being unexpectedly locked down like this would really, really suck. What will they do if they find Covid inside their Olympic venue? Need to read up on their Olympic controls.

My guess is they know zero covid is untentable with omicron but they want to wait until Olympics, Chinese New Year (when a lot of people travel), get more people booster #3, and somehow ease/transition into it.

Or I guess they can continue to shut down cities when cases are found but I have to believe that would cause social unrest and adversely impact the economy. Interesting experiment walking the tightrope there.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/17/china...hnk/index.html

Let's just say i would need to be very well paid in a job i reaaallly love to travel there for the Olympics.

Thanks for the testing info. I'll ask my doctor and if they can offer a way to get tested, I'll do it. But I'm done with the pop-up testing places for now.

Good job GOP.

We are a stubborn, stupid country.

Who are the "plans to get vaccinated" group at this point? I feel like a good portion of those are people who definitely aren't getting vaccinated but are embarrassed to say so, even for a poll.

I mean, they could just accidentally have hit the wrong button on the survey. Seems just as likely at this point, honestly.

SI

Google "Lizardman Constant." It helps explain those weird survey results that always pop up.

Or they're just big procrastinators, like I am in regards to the booster shot.

It actually makes me really sad. If you think back to the beginning of the pandemic, there was a sense of "we are all in this together." A "we will all sacrifice for the greater good." It felt somewhat like what it must have felt like when we were all banding together to beat the Nazis. It was nice. The virus was horrible, but we were going to get it under control because we were Americans and were humans and we were undefeated.

Then Russian propaganda trolls got on your great aunt's facebook page, and we lost all of that.

USPS now has their site up for the free testing kits. Seems pretty easy to use.

COVID Home Tests | USPS

With autofill in Chrome, it took me less than 60 seconds to order mine.

That seems kind of long actually lol

Yeah, I believe it took me 15 seconds.

This, too. So many deaths after the vaccinations became available.

Got mine ordered-no hassle, very quick

Got mine ordered also. Let's see how long it takes to get here.

Also saw that Biden is making N95 masks available also. This one seems to be an afterthought and gimmicky (e.g. wasn't announced at same time as test kits).

Good ole american antivaxxers, professional grifters, Republican politicians and professional contrarians did more damage than Russia could ever do. I'm not saying they didn't try pretty hard. Heck, the manufacturer of their own vaccine spread out of context 'information' about other vaccines. Which i am pretty sure backfired. People constantly overestimate other peoples ability to differentiate. They don't read "1 vaccine good, all others bad" but get doubts about the 1 as well. Same with "elderly vaxx (kinda maybe sorta) good, but 40 year olds ? Never !"

https://www.counterhate.com/_files/u...8663366ee5.pdf

Not the best plan.

Hana Horka: Czech singer dies after catching Covid intentionally

The Orange County, FL Health Director has been put on leave by the Governor's office because he was strongly encouraging his staff to get vaccinated.

DeSantis really is going to make his push for the GOP nomination based on "Trump isn't pro-virus enough"

Bold strategy, etc.

The timing probably doesn’t line up in this instance but I have to wonder how many of these Mr Djokovic is going to influence. He certainly seems to have legitimized the “get infected, have immunity and get allowed to do stuff again” theory more than anybody else, even if he did end up not being allowed to do the thing.

And some of Trump's recent reactions to him strongly suggests that he feels threatened.

EDIT--Post moved to Trump thread.

It won't happen, but I hope him and his kids are in jail by the time 2024 gets here.

I have reached the point where getting a swab up my nose and twirled around is as normal as getting a needle in my arm.

I'm not sure if I'm going to laugh at how obstinate Novaxx is or applaud his unflagging dedication to the cause if he is also forced to miss the French Open for the same reason.

It's also actually harder to get a vaccine right now than it was in the spring/summer/early fall, at least in my area. We're no longer in 'unlimited supply, just walk in whenever and get one' but there's an appointment protocol, which is a small additional obstacle.

If those people really wanted to get the vaccine, they'd have an appointment already.

My parents are actually in this category, at least as far as the booster goes. They're Trumpers, got the vaccine because my brother (a doctor) told them to, but they won't get the booster. We're going to Hawaii in June and it looks like they are going to require the booster, so my parents said they'll get it in time for the trip. Then my mom proceeded to tell me about how many young athletes are dying after getting the booster shot. I was waiting for the "Betty White died because of the booster" comment, but to my surprise, they didn't go that far.

Oh for sure, it's really only an issue if you're on the fence/don't really want it/are procrastinating. I'm just saying there are a certain small 0number - don't know how many - who would get the vaccine without the appointment issue.

I haven't seen any polling on it, but 'vaccine fatigue' or what-have-you appears from my anecdotal observation to be having an effect on people getting boosters who already had the first two vaccine shots. I'd be interested in any hard info on that, but I've heard people who got the vaccine express thoughts along the line of regretting it and planning not to get boosted. How that plays out in the next year or two will be curious.

My mom is a Trumper too and she wasn't going to get the vaccine. She has heart problems and her heart doctor told her if you get COVID you're going to die. So, she got vaccinated.

She mentions being poisoned here or there, yet she'll keep on smoking a pack a day.

People are strange.

When you're a stranger.

For those keeping score (and since I've mentioned it), my home test tonight was indeed positive. Wife tested positive likewise on .. Tues?

She's moving clear of her symptoms, I'm a much slower recovery (having started with this shit 8 days ago) but am approaching 24 hours without an uncontrollable coughing fit for the first time in a week.

The one observation I might have is this: that stuff about "Covid brain"?
F'n real afaic. I ain't had this much lost time without liquor involved ever.

I had an absolutely horrible time sleeping, despite being constantly exhausted, during my covid bout & that really twisted time for me.

After the two longest days had passed, I realized that there were moments -- in the middle of the night when I coughed myself out of sleep I guess -- that I had some ... hallucinations.

The next day I'd realize that "hmm, X didn't actually happen overnight, it couldn't have"

The biggest issue is that most of these anti-vaxxers get their "data" from VAERS, which they think is an official database or something. I can write whatever I want, but it does not necessarily get removed from that system, and you do not even need to have the vaccine to submit things. My dad keeps telling me about the scores of people having heart attacks and strokes from the vaccine, but most of what he talks about is coming from VAERS.

Yesterday was my first time hearing about an active duty member of the military that was medically retired due to the after effects of having COVID. I am really curious how we as a country categorizes the different effects from having COVID moving forward. Not just in the military but in the civilian world as well. This is especially interesting when it comes to who has disabilities worthy of lifelong compensation and who does not.

i really hate covid. i have it now :(

Good luck!

In the last month our school district has had more positive tests for teachers than all of last year and almost as many student cases as last year.

Sorry CF! :( Hope you get over it quick!

Hope it's mild for you! My wife and kid tested positive last week - we are pretty sure it came from my son's daycare. He was completely fine (a runny nose was it, but that's normal daycare stuff). My wife had a sore throat which then became general congestion and she was super tired. Unfortunately she also lost her taste which has still not fully come back but she is more than fine otherwise.

I tested negative and had no symptoms at all. Go figure.

In regards to assessing for special education and section 504, our legal guidance is we have to consider long covid (if there is an official diagnosis)

Hopefully this is true and future mutations will be relatively less severe.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/01/22/world...cmd/index.html

@Edward: quoting myself from earlier in the thread:


So yes, what you posted is also my hope. Of course where this falls apart is when a variant is different enough that it can bypass any level of "immunity" gained from previous infection and/or vaccination.

Idle observation from the covid files:
that "Body Armor" drink?
That shit is nasty.

Kinda knew I was up against it when I saw coconut water on the label, despite the flavor being "orange mango"