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Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

joshuaweissburg.com

151–160 of 232 posts

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#151

I am in my early 30s and I also had COVID-19. My wife is a doctor and she caught it at work. She and 7 other doctors (8 in total) all fell ill in the same week. This was about 3 weeks ago. My wife had a bit of fever for the first 2-3 days (~38C), and she mostly suffered from a bad headache for about a week, and a cough (mild) for about two weeks and a sore throat (mild) for the first few days. After a few days she al…

Thanks for sharing, and glad you are well. However, you can't possibly know this to be definitively true: "People with a pre-existing health condition who don't know about it yet because no doctor has diagnosed it yet". It could be that some people just aren't as good as fighting it off, perhaps because they hadn't had the "right" set of previous illnesses, or who knows what else, that can lead to fatality. I don't t…

This is true, there is always some outliers, but I was just trying to speak generally that for the most part COVID-19 is not this scary crazy lottery. I see currently so many young people getting mentally more ill than COVID-19 would ever make them ill, because they are constantly being drip fed scary news stories which makes everyone believe that as soon as you step outside your house you can breath in a killer virus which will make you suffocate the next day.

Like with everything in life there are some outliers who just happen to have really really bad luck, but you can't look at those and be afraid. It's like with cancer, most people who get cancer are old because for obvious genetic reasons, but there are some poor children who also develop cancer, but no child should live in fear thinking that one day they could wake up with a bad bowl cancer. It's irrational.

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There's only two types of people who die from it: > - People with a pre-existing health condition > - People with a pre-existing health condition who don't know about it yet because no doctor has diagnosed it yet This is the kind of shit I expect from Facebook comments, I'm frankly flabbergasted to see someone making that kind of stupid assertion here.

It is true though. Where we live 70% of the COVID-19 patients which are currently in intensive care are very overweight men. Just being fat itself puts a huge strain on your health, you're more likely to get a lot of illnesses with age and a lot of these patients probably should be taking already medication in order to prevent a heart attack or other issues coming up and the only reason why some of them are currently…

> Where we live 70% of the COVID-19 patients which are currently in intensive care are very overweight men.

Not really true.

Here's data from the UK ICUs. Page 15 shows BMI.

Here are the numbers of people by BMI. First column is BMI, second column is the percentage of people in ICU.

   BMI   COVID-19
   
And here's the numbers of people dying or being discharged from critical care alive.

   BMI

   
Risk increases with BMI, but it's simply wrong to say that the only people dying are obese.

https://www.icnarc.org/DataServices/Attachments/Download/c31...

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If I had a blood oxygen of 89% I would have gone to the emergency room immediately. That's 80 year old smoker with emphysema levels. If you were previously healthy that is far more serious than the "light" covid-19 that many people get, assuming the reading was accurate.

That's what my friend said, too, but it didn't linger there for long and I felt comfortable enough with my breathing that I didn't feel it warranted going to the hospital. As my symptoms got better it gradually improved and the last time I did a reading it was at 99%, which I think is where I normally am (it's not something I measured before this though). I only suggest that it was the "light" version because it seem…

Anybody living in CO has already self-selected for being able to adapt to lower oxygen levels, maybe you were at less risk of getting really bad than the average for the US.

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#154
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this interpretation is that whatever the combination of deadly/contagious the virus is, we already have direct evidence that when it spreads without any containment it causes unacceptably extreme amounts of sickness and death. So exactly where the virus ends up on the grid of mortality/contagiousness doesn't seem to be all that important because it is well beyond the frontier of being problematic. Ho…

There is one problem with what you say about its spread at levels that saturate healthcare systems and cause extreme amounts of sickness and death: They may not be the case so much because the virus is particularly deadly or even much deadlier than the flu -which may indeed be the case: that it's only part of an order of magnitude deadlier than H1N1, we don't know yet until we get more concrete infection rate surveys…

[deleted]

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Amphetamines are also known as speed and, among other things, they raise your heart rate. Coronavirus is apparently also raising the heart rate and doing damage to the heart for some people. https://www.webmd.com/mental-health/addiction/news/20170210/... I would guess this is probably not something you want to take if Coronavirus is already elevating your heart rate.

I did say it wasn't a good choice, all I said it did is work as a decongestant. Nobody is making claims that you should take amphetamines (let alone street amphetamines), sick or otherwise.

It wasn't intended to attack you or your points. Just adding a little more info. That's all.

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#156

I am in my early 30s and I also had COVID-19. My wife is a doctor and she caught it at work. She and 7 other doctors (8 in total) all fell ill in the same week. This was about 3 weeks ago. My wife had a bit of fever for the first 2-3 days (~38C), and she mostly suffered from a bad headache for about a week, and a cough (mild) for about two weeks and a sore throat (mild) for the first few days. After a few days she al…

> There's only two types of people who die from it:

> - People with a pre-existing health condition

> - People with a pre-existing health condition who don't know about it yet because no doctor has diagnosed it yet

This is untrue. From the UK ICU data:

First column is discharged from critical care alive numbers (percentage), second column is died number (percentages).

   Assistance required with daily activities
   No 715 (50.5) 700 (49.5)
   Yes 66 (37.3) 111 (62.7)

   Any very severe comorbidities
   No 744 (49.8) 749 (50.2) 
   Yes 48 (38.1) 78 (61.9)

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#157
post #92
post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem with this interpretation is that whatever the combination of deadly/contagious the virus is, we already have direct evidence that when it spreads without any containment it causes unacceptably extreme amounts of sickness and death. So exactly where the virus ends up on the grid of mortality/contagiousness doesn't seem to be all that important because it is well beyond the frontier of being problematic. Ho…

>we already have direct evidence that when it spreads without any containment it causes unacceptably extreme amounts of sickness and death That hasn't happened in Sweden.

Sweden has a population of 10.2 million and has had over 1000 deaths, very roughly 100 deaths per million population.

Compare to Denmark (52 deaths per 1m) or Norway (25 deaths per 1M) and Sweden's tactics don't seem to be working that well.

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#158
post #148

I am going through pretty much an identical situation, except that a doctor prescribed antibiotics over the phone (assuming that the chest pressure and shortness of breath are due to the bacterial secondary infection) and I seem to be getting better. The uncertainty has been eased by a little gizmo to measure the oxygen saturation in blood, which I got on amazon for £75 as soon as it was obvious that I could not brea…

Blood oxygen saturation measurement techniques are pretty simple and well understood. Even the cheaper devices are usually accurate within a few percent. But if my level was getting to 85% I would head straight to the ER.

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#159
post #158
post #148

I am going through pretty much an identical situation, except that a doctor prescribed antibiotics over the phone (assuming that the chest pressure and shortness of breath are due to the bacterial secondary infection) and I seem to be getting better. The uncertainty has been eased by a little gizmo to measure the oxygen saturation in blood, which I got on amazon for £75 as soon as it was obvious that I could not brea…

Blood oxygen saturation measurement techniques are pretty simple and well understood. Even the cheaper devices are usually accurate within a few percent. But if my level was getting to 85% I would head straight to the ER.

Yeah, I heard a lot higher number myself. Here's a study I found online about it:

"Conclusion: Among outpatients with pneumonia, oxygen saturations https://academic.oup.com/cid/article/52/3/325/305087

Re: Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

#160
At this rate I'm fast approaching the point where I would rather have an infection positively confirmed and roll the dice that is heavily loaded in my favor.

Not knowing if you properly decontaminated that last batch of groceries is nerve wracking.

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