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Fear and beauty: two weeks living with Covid-19

joshuaweissburg.com

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

#51
post #41
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except the grocery runs. >A had taken a few hikes, grocery store and takeout runs. It is the worst possible place you could go. People touching everything, air not circulating well.

The alternative is starvation though. Hardly compelling. I guess you can wear gloves? But then you still have to wipe everything you bought down when you get home.

> the alternative is starvation

Is there not a middle ground of food delivery? Nonperishable foods can sit out for several days before use, significantly reducing the risk.

Likewise with wiping everything down when you get home. Supposedly soap is effective - it's not difficult to soak everything in soapy water. You can't completely eliminate all risk but you can certainly mitigate it.

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

#52

I'm also in CO and had COVID-19 like symptoms about a month ago (fever and GI issues without any other major symptoms for a week progressing into a dry cough/heavy breathing -- completely unlike any other flu I've had). I never got tested due to lack of test kits here in CO at the time and because my symptoms stayed manageable I never saw a health care provider beyond a virtual meeting to get a rescue inhaler. At the…

How did you know what your blood oxygen level was? What did you use for that and where did you get it and why did you have it earlier? Is this something that people with rescue inhalers also typically have?

not who you are asking but search for a “fingertip oximeter” to measure your blood oxygen level.

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

#53
post #5

So he claims that he got it despite practicing all the social distancing protocols, hand-washing, etc. Has anyone calculated what are the probabilities of infection in an area with an active infection cluster while practicing social-distancing and other hygiene measures?

I don’t know but I’ve become aware of just how difficult it is to remain pristine. Touch a door handle? After that did you touch your phone, keys or wallet at the store? Did you touch your car door handle? When you washed your hands, did you disinfect the faucet handle and soap dispenser after? It’s always a game of percentages even when you’re careful.

There's the simple expedient of 1) touching potentially contaminated stuff only with your left hand, 2) only touching clean stuff with your right hand, and 3) never cross contaminating your left and right hands. And whenever you can, wash or use 70% alcohol. When I'm out, I always carry a paper towel soaked in 70% isopropanol in my right hand, and periodically wipe my left hand.

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

#54

I'm also in CO and had COVID-19 like symptoms about a month ago (fever and GI issues without any other major symptoms for a week progressing into a dry cough/heavy breathing -- completely unlike any other flu I've had). I never got tested due to lack of test kits here in CO at the time and because my symptoms stayed manageable I never saw a health care provider beyond a virtual meeting to get a rescue inhaler. At the…

[deleted]

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

#55
post #5

So he claims that he got it despite practicing all the social distancing protocols, hand-washing, etc. Has anyone calculated what are the probabilities of infection in an area with an active infection cluster while practicing social-distancing and other hygiene measures?

I don’t know but I’ve become aware of just how difficult it is to remain pristine. Touch a door handle? After that did you touch your phone, keys or wallet at the store? Did you touch your car door handle? When you washed your hands, did you disinfect the faucet handle and soap dispenser after? It’s always a game of percentages even when you’re careful.

> Touch a door handle?

Like... with your hand? Not in a glove that you throw out immediately? I just can't fathom touching a door handle.

I saw someone just open a door at a public place the other day and it was utterly baffling to see.

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

#56

I think the risks shouldn't be downplayed, but the news media, aka advertising industry, frenzy over this pandemic is disgusting. Nobody that contracts this virus should fear death, yet that is what the mainstream media is selling and people are consuming: fear, death, uncertainty.

Agreed. There are cases of people getting this that are not recorded because there are people who get sick and stay at home and go through it as best as they can. I myself never go to a hospital when sick I just stay home to recover.

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

#57

I'm also in CO and had COVID-19 like symptoms about a month ago (fever and GI issues without any other major symptoms for a week progressing into a dry cough/heavy breathing -- completely unlike any other flu I've had). I never got tested due to lack of test kits here in CO at the time and because my symptoms stayed manageable I never saw a health care provider beyond a virtual meeting to get a rescue inhaler. At the…

How did you know what your blood oxygen level was? What did you use for that and where did you get it and why did you have it earlier? Is this something that people with rescue inhalers also typically have?

I have mild breathing issues during winters, which affects my sleep and I used to wake up with a headache. The fingertip SpO2 meter helps quantify the problem, so it was a good buy. According to my readings, headaches were bad when my readings were 92 or lower. Also helped when my son was having bouts of bronchiolitis when he was younger.

It's only about $50 and batteries last long, so I'd totally recommend it if you have breathing ailments. Maybe even otherwise.

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

#58

I'm also in CO and had COVID-19 like symptoms about a month ago (fever and GI issues without any other major symptoms for a week progressing into a dry cough/heavy breathing -- completely unlike any other flu I've had). I never got tested due to lack of test kits here in CO at the time and because my symptoms stayed manageable I never saw a health care provider beyond a virtual meeting to get a rescue inhaler. At the…

Which would in fact be good news in a certain way, because either it's as deadly as reported and nowhere near as contagious as your last paragraph suggests, or its far more contagious and widespread but thus nowhere near as deadly as is being seen from case fatality rates derived from known cases. I'm not stating anything new with this really, but your case is likely one of many, many others in which a person felt my…

I believe there have been several random studies and very educated estimates that came from these that show that the mortality rate is about 0.5% or even lower, which might put it close to the same order of magnitude as the flu. However, crucially, it is much much more contagious than the flu. With an R0 of 2 or more (some estimate up to 6) the difference after a few days, because of exponential growth, is as much as a thousandfold more infections.

My thought is that the mortality rate is rather low, especially for those that are healthy, but there's a ton of people that have it. More than 1% of New York State is now infected with Coronavirus. That's crazy.

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

#59

I'm also in CO and had COVID-19 like symptoms about a month ago (fever and GI issues without any other major symptoms for a week progressing into a dry cough/heavy breathing -- completely unlike any other flu I've had). I never got tested due to lack of test kits here in CO at the time and because my symptoms stayed manageable I never saw a health care provider beyond a virtual meeting to get a rescue inhaler. At the…

The U.S. has about 600k cases. One order of magnitude more is 6M cases. That's still very far from broadly spreading. It's worrying about the viability of the herd immunity theory (too few people had it), and opening the country soon (a few weeks of exponential case increases would overload hospital capacity, even after stemming the case growth through sheltering-- putting us back to square one). It feels, 1-2 months into this, we have no good options.

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

#60

I think the risks shouldn't be downplayed, but the news media, aka advertising industry, frenzy over this pandemic is disgusting. Nobody that contracts this virus should fear death, yet that is what the mainstream media is selling and people are consuming: fear, death, uncertainty.

If you are elderly than you should definitely fear death. But yes if you are under 50 it's more likely you will be killed driving to the hospital than by the virus.

Wait what?

Assuming a 10 mile journey, the probability of death is 1.25E-7.

CFR for 20-49 age group is 0.3% (probability 3E-3)

So either my math is wrong or you are wrong by only 4 orders of magnitude.

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