Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Heath: Australians, home, transfer)

[queerfaith]

Originally Posted by id77

This sends mixed signals. The instructions I've read indicate that someone who has Covid should not seek medical help unless symptoms become more severe than cough/throat/etc. Now, I can remove "who has Covid" from this and say someone should not seek medical help unless symptoms become more severe than cough/throat/etc and it would still be accurate.

Whether or not my particular ailment is Covid should not change when I seek medical help, thus knowing whether it's Covid or something else becomes irrelevant. It only serves to heighten one's sense of panic as it one then perceives they are exposed to a nascent danger rather than a familiar one.

I feel like if the tracking and monitoring was that critical, mandatory testing would have been a thing. As it is, the data communities do have is accepted to be inaccurate and thus of less value than it could have otherwise been. How many people had cold or flu-like symptoms in the last year and never took a Covid test to confirm? How many people didn't and never took a Covid test to eliminate asymptomatic infection? I'd contend we were and still are 'flying blind' in this regard.

Except that with monoclonal antibodies treatment must begin early in the course of the infection to be most effective. I saw my first PSA on TV supporting this tonight-but I have not been watching TV much lately. This is also true for the best effects of Ivermectin if it is ever encouraged to be used for its antiviral (early infection/prophylactic) uses or for its anti-inflammatory uses in more advanced COVID infections. Currently only used as an anti-parasitic medicine in the USA but it is generic and inexpensive. MD's are afraid to prescribe it because CDC does not favor it. Some COVID ICU MD's do use it.

[queerfaith]

Originally Posted by lrfox

FWIW, I went to MGH Urgent Care in Brookline a few weeks ago and they (individual doing check-in at the door) were handing out surgical masks to anyone who walked in with a fabric mask on. They did allow people to throw the fabric masks on top of the surgical mask. I had a surgical mask on and they didn't even ask me to take one of theirs. I wore the surgical mask because I had gone to MGH Urgent Care last summer for a COVID test and the practice was the same back then so I assumed I'd be better off going in with one and I was right.

I'm not sure what they'll make you do about the N95, but if it doesn't look like their standard surgical mask, you may be asked to swap it with one of theirs. I certainly don't think it can hurt to wear it in and ask, but I wouldn't go in expecting to be able to keep yours on or wear the surgical on top of it. They may let you wear the surgical mask underneath the N95, but I'm not positive.

If they insist just put the floppygaping surgical mask on OVER you well fitted N95 or cloth mask! I would never take my mask off to place someone's inferior mask on UNDER it! I made my cloth masks-I know the layers in it-but I purposely now leave an extra filter out because they are going to make me put a surgical mask over. I usually add filtration for grocery shopping/as well as double sided tape across the top and down next to the filtration panels.

[queerfaith]

My child works with someone who lost a good friend a couple of weeks ago. A Fully vaccinated 60 years old-to COVID. These variants are tricky-remove your masks at your own risk. Mine is staying on indoors for a long time. And outdoors around strangers-they may be vaccine refusers. And I hope everyone who gets hay fever or sniffles of any kind always wears one from now on-we can't take chances anymore.

[id77]

Originally Posted by queerfaith

Except that with monoclonal antibodies treatment must begin early in the course of the infection to be most effective. I saw my first PSA on TV supporting this tonight-but I have not been watching TV much lately. This is also true for the best effects of Ivermectin if it is ever encouraged to be used for its antiviral (early infection/prophylactic) uses or for its anti-inflammatory uses in more advanced COVID infections. Currently only used as an anti-parasitic medicine in the USA but it is generic and inexpensive. MD's are afraid to prescribe it because CDC does not favor it. Some COVID ICU MD's do use it.

Still mixed signals. I’m not challenging any of what you’re saying, but it’s also not what’s being told to the population at large. Consider for a moment the following scenario:

I develop mild symptoms: cough and fever. They persist for several days, so I call my doctor’s office. If I don’t know what I have, the response I’ll get is to stay home, get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, and take OTC meds to treat my symptoms. If I test positive for COVID, the response I’ll get is to ... stay home, get plenty of rest, stay hydrated, and take OTC meds to treat my symptoms. In both cases, only if symptoms worsen am I to schedule an appointment to see my doctor. There’s no talk of monoclonal antibodies or Ivermectin. Im not in an ICU. I’m just another person with mild symptoms who is more likely than not to recover on my own; only when that changes does treatment change.

The point I’m making is that if the flow chart for how doctors are going to treat my illness doesn’t change until a certain point in my illness, there’s nothing to be gained by knowing what I even have unless I also progress past the point of mild symptoms. Moreover, if I do get worse, the next step on my end is the same: see a doctor.

If I’m at home with a cough and fever, what does knowing it’s COVID change other than creating anxiety around me as my friends and family proceed to freak out over it?

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by masssachoicetts

Effective 7/1/21 my company is requiring vaccine (Atleast one shot) if you want to return to office.

We arent a 9-5 corporate job, more of a hybrid/show up for presentations, meetings and group work. But still, to set foot in the office you need the shot.

I think the alternative is part time virtual. Which is a big pay cut.

Wow. That's really impressive. Our company is an old-school manufacturer, and while we briefly thought about requiring it, decided it wasn't worth the legal hassles in the end. We're "encouraging" everyone, of course.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by Space_League

Once the immune system learns to react this way, that learned response may override the innate immune system. That is the immune system that protects young people and others who have mild or asymptomatic carriers of COVID-19. So in the event that the vaccines work but not quite well enough, eventually a variant can develop that isn't stopped by the vaccine. If that were to happen, then everyone who took the vaccine (such as myself) might be extremely vulnerable to that strain, since the vaccine would be ineffective and we have shut off our innate immune response to the virus, leaving us utterly defenceless.

If that were to happen, it will happen regardless of whether we social distance or mask or whatever. Obviously those measures were not robust enough to stop the virus. If we had done a real true hardcore lockdown for six weeks with every street is a ghosttown and people getting locked up for leaving the house for any reason (not saying we should have done that) it would have been the only way to maybe possibly stop the virus. We are way beyond the point of that being an option now.

I agreed with most of this post except the highlighted section. Where on earth did you see any evidence of that??

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

The difference is my opinion that the Spanish flu was bad enough to take measures in comparison what we have today is no worse then the regular flu. I believe the numbers are dramatically inflated the regular flu seemed to disappear this year because the symptoms are the same as covid. they labeled the regular flu as covid. I am not the only one that believes this but a large population.

Stop it with these falsehoods already. For this to be true, every physician, nurse, medical examiner, coroner's office across the country (no, the world) would need to be in on a massive conspiracy just to make certain politicians look bad.

And you know why a "large population" believes it? Because a certain guy kept saying so in his failed bid to get re-elected.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by justyouraveragetenant

Dr Michael savage has a PhD in epidemiology said we should of had selective quarenting and not widespread like we did with covid 19.

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant "quarantining" and didn't misspell "parenting." How, in your infinite wisdom, would we have gone about selectively identifying what is often an asymptomatic disease if not for universal testing? Which many of your camp were against, because after all, "the more we test, the more cases we find".

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you meant "quarantining" and didn't misspell "parenting." How, in your infinite wisdom, would we have gone about selectively identifying what is often an asymptomatic disease if not for universal testing? Which many of your camp were against, because after all, "the more we test, the more cases we find".

If anything, we should have been quarantining people returning from certain areas abroad. We're way past that point now though.

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by massnative71

If anything, we should have been quarantining people returning from certain areas abroad. We're way past that point now though.

Agree. We stopped travel from China in late Jan 2020, but continued to let people in from Europe (where it was raging) all through February 2020. Part of that led to the infamous Biogen superspreader event. By contrast, countries in the Asia-Pacific region clamped down on all travel, and held fast. As a result, they've thrived amid normalcy without vaccines.