A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
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A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
1–10 of 37 posts
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#2I'm not saying this isn't COVID, it sounds like it might very well have been, but isn't "picking up the con crud" a stereotype of all conventions?
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#3This is a fascinating article. To retrospectively test attendees might shed a lot of light on the early spread.
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#4Isn't it considerably more likely that the flu they all had from CES was... well... the flu? Given January is the tail-end of flu season?
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#5To explain the cavalier attitude expressed by people with symptoms: the “CES Flu” is a real thing. I’ve gone 11 years in a row now, and either me or my brother usually catches it every year. Something about thousands of international visitors in the same space, touching all the same things I guess.
Interestingly, I took a really proactive approach this year with liberal hand sanitizer usage and neither of us got sick!
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#6Retrospective antibody testing should be viewed carefully, given the relatively low specificity (i.e., high rate of false positives).
If there’s a high clinical suspicion (could be relevant in this case, though it may also represent the normal flu), the utility of the testing improves.
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#7Color me deeply skeptical. All the data we see out of "real" hotspots like New York seem to show a fairly clear progression on infection rate, days-to-show-symptoms, days-to-go-south, and days-to-die. If ConFlu was Covid, we would have seen a much more clear connection and growth. I would expect for Nevada to have been in a New York scenario.
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#8To explain the cavalier attitude expressed by people with symptoms: the “CES Flu” is a real thing. I’ve gone 11 years in a row now, and either me or my brother usually catches it every year. Something about thousands of international visitors in the same space, touching all the same things I guess. Interestingly, I took a really proactive approach this year with liberal hand sanitizer usage and neither of us got sick…
Drupal Flu too. DrupalCon, an event with just a few thousand attendees practically always spread illness. Read https://groups.drupal.org/node/294978 this post from 2013, it'll be eerily familiar:
> Learn to wash your hands properly. We all think we know how to wash our hands, but most of us don't. Really.
> Wash your hands regularly, especially after lots of handshaking (Some people even wish we could avoid shaking hands), or handling money — and always before eating.
> Don't touch your face, especially your eyes, nose or mouth.
Really, covid instructions are nothing new.
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#9To explain the cavalier attitude expressed by people with symptoms: the “CES Flu” is a real thing. I’ve gone 11 years in a row now, and either me or my brother usually catches it every year. Something about thousands of international visitors in the same space, touching all the same things I guess. Interestingly, I took a really proactive approach this year with liberal hand sanitizer usage and neither of us got sick…
This is a known phenomenon at science fiction conventions as well, typically known as "con crud". It's not uncommon for a large percentage of attendees to all get sick immediately after an event.
It turns out conventions of any type are excellent vectors for spreading contagion.
Re: A Covid-infected attendee emerges from CES in January
#10To explain the cavalier attitude expressed by people with symptoms: the “CES Flu” is a real thing. I’ve gone 11 years in a row now, and either me or my brother usually catches it every year. Something about thousands of international visitors in the same space, touching all the same things I guess. Interestingly, I took a really proactive approach this year with liberal hand sanitizer usage and neither of us got sick…
My first time at CES (and AVN in the same week), a number of years ago, I left with something that resembled the flu and a sinus infection. Everyone told me that's typical.