It turns out that I’ve very likely been dealing with Covid-19 but didn’t know it. I had a slightly suspicious unspecified viral sinus infection after traveling at the end of January, and there were a couple of things out of the ordinary—I had a slightly unusual degree of chest tightness and the infection kept lingering on. Still, I get really bad illness-induced asthma after even the tiniest of colds which can last for months, so chest tightness and the dry cough that hung around wasn’t particularly noteworthy, and no one other than my husband got sick. It wasn’t until the other day when I noticed I was getting a pox-like rash and I stumbled across this story that I was like “Oh DAMN! I might have actually had it!”

https://time.com/5827912/coronavirus-skin-rashes/?amp=true

My doctor agrees that it is VERY likely Covid-19 (I’ve even since developed one little “Covid Toe“), but told me to wait to be tested until there are widely available antibody tests. While I’m not completely asymptomatic, I definitely have had pretty much the mildest case I think you can have without being symptom-free. Even so, there are some definite things that I think are hugely important to consider when everyone is shouting to reopen everything.

1. My “almost symptomless” case still drove me to go to the doctor twice. To put this in context, I am the sort of person who would rather google “self-amputation” than have to go to a doctor. Even if the vast majority of people get mild cases like me, that’s still a huge additional burden on health care systems beyond the critical cases, and we still don’t have enough PPE for the doctors!

2. This virus LINGERS! I’ve felt “off” for essentially 3 months. Not so off that I couldn’t work and I even ran a half marathon 2 weeks ago, but I’ve spent a lot of this time feeling like I was maybe getting sick again.

3. I’m hugely lucky that I don’t seem to have been a “super spreader”. I was with my elderly parents as I started feeling ill, and told them not to hug/kiss me, but didn’t take any additional precautions with them. I was at work for 6 weeks surrounded by 600 or so people. I was in multiple gyms, working out on treadmills and taking classes. No one other than my husband has gotten sick that I know of.

4. I’m concerned that I still don’t have immunity against the more virulent strains. And given how this strain made me feel, I really REALLY don’t want to deal with anything worse!

I’m not against a slow, methodical reopening, but I really feel like we really need to make sure even the regular doctor offices have the supplies they need to assess an increase in minor cases before we go crazy opening up all the things. And for the people who are still steadfastly in the “We don’t close for the flu!” camp, that standard is at least consistent—we don’t close for the flu, but we make sure the doctors have the supplies they need on hand to treat it.

The articles I’ve read say that it’s mostly 20-30 year olds who show these symptoms, so at least I can say I have the blood of a much younger woman, even if the rest of me feels my age!

With everyone in lock down , I thought there would be alot more people on pinside but as far as I can tell it seems as though numbers are the same or even less . Does anyone have official numbers .

World War Z tonight .

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I used to arrest illegal aliens in my home town for identity theft all the time who worked at the local meat packing plant. They traveled from mostly Mexico, but also Guatemala, and Honduras that I recall to work in a terrible job (our father worked there most of his adult life til retirement to support us as did many of the parents of people I grew up with - it's not fun - they weren't encouraging us to go work with them when we got old enough). I don't pretend to know the first thing about this virus, but I can see how it or anything else could spread quickly in that environment. Something might be less than ideal in their home countries to make a dangerous trip to get here and make their way a thousand miles inland for a $10-$15/hr job in harsh conditions. Is it possible there are areas of those countries you have not seen? I spent three years in England but don't know what it is to be a Brit.

Sorry, I misunderstood you. I'm critical of both I guess although the wet markets (China and yes - US) seem to be a lot worse from what I've been hearing. BOTH (Wet and Animal Processing plants) are pretty f'en barbaric. My wife and I still eat chicken and fish so we are not beyond reproach on the whole subject. Basically, what I'm trying to say I'm not a nutty, hyper vigilant or too judgy' however its something to think about. The newer plant based meat substitutes are much much better as of late so we are making meals using those more. My pallet is a bit wider though having traveled to 30 plus countries in my early years so I'm more open to trying foods than most. People are always going to want to eat meat but at what cost to the environment and our health? Most people are oblivious to even stop to consider the impacts.

The forward to Michael Crichtons, "The Lost World" always stuck with me after reading his book. The premise was how "behavior" could have been the demise of some dinosaurs. He goes on to talk about the behavior of humans might make "Us" extinct as well. His books are pretty deep considering they are fiction based from science. All bad ass and highly recommended but Jurassic Park, The Lost World and Sphere were incredible.

----- “Human beings are so destructive. I sometimes think we're a kind of plague, that will scrub the earth clean. We destroy things so well that I sometimes think, maybe that's our function. Maybe every few eons, some animal comes along that kills off the rest of the world, clears the decks, and lets evolution proceed to its next phase.”

----- “Other animals fight for territory or food; but, uniquely in the animal kingdom, human beings fight for their ‘beliefs.’ The reason is that beliefs guide behavior, which has evolutionary importance among human beings. But at a time when our behavior may well lead us to extinction, I see no reason to assume we have any awareness at all. We are stubborn, self-destructive conformists. Any other view of our species is just a self-congratulatory delusion.”

another great quote...

-----“What makes you think human beings are sentient and aware? There’s no evidence for it. Human beings never think for themselves, they find it too uncomfortable. For the most part, members of our species simply repeat what they are told—and become upset if they are exposed to any different view.”

Many of the immigrant workers here get paid reasonably well, they cohabitate to save money on housing meals etc. then send a good portion of their wages back home to support the rest of the family. This is one theory as to how the virus has spread through the packing plants so rapidly here in southern Alberta.

Here's one: When NAFTA was signed into law, the U.S. flooded Mexico with cheap corn. The Mexican farmers could not compete and had to go look for work. Guess where they came.

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/01/10/after-20-years-nafta-leaves-mexicos-economy-ruins#

https://www.eater.com/2018/9/19/17878946/nafta-mexico-america-trade-agreement-farming-diet

https://money.cnn.com/2017/02/09/news/economy/nafta-farming-mexico-us-corn-jobs/index.html

" As cheap American corn came pouring in from the border, it had a devastating effect on her family. Her father, Benancio Mendoza, couldn't compete and make a living wage selling corn. He had to give up and move to the United States looking for a job. He took up a job as a cook in Tennessee, saving up money to send home so his kids could attend school.
.
"He went north looking for a job and I didn't see him again for 18 years," says Mendoza, who now works as a secretary for the local government.
While NAFTA did boost Mexico's manufacturing industry, it gutted many farming towns -- especially mom and pop corn farmers like Benancio's.

That is a good article.

"If we can trust them to go into a chicken plant every day, why not just release them?” Pollard asked. “Incarceration should not exist to provide workers for Tyson.”

I think I have an answer to that question: Privately run prisons.

Privately run prisons, instead of state run prisons, have to turn a profit. That means they have to keep those cells full. And when a judge has a stake in a prison ( yes , it has happened) he is going to be ruining peoples lives so his prison stake can pay its bills.

This. All of it. I got sick March 8th, and I'm still feeling minor effects from whatever that illness was, nearly 8 weeks later. And I also have a small toe that has a blister located under the nail of the toe. Just showed up a few days ago. I thought maybe I'd stubbed it a few days back, but I don't remember doing that. Odd!

So much to learn.

^^
I took my youngest to Sonic last night, and he literally did that as they are still building new houses on our road and he remarked at how many new ones since he left the house last.

Was quite humorous.

This is spot on.

Daitude, you missed your calling. You should be on SNL with some of these pics you put up.

April wasn’t so hot.

Maybe May will be better!

There's some good sh#it here: https://www.reddit.com/r/CoronavirusMemes/

I like this one!

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Maybe we will get lucky and this will be like that volcano in Hawaii a couple of years ago. For several weeks in was disrupting lives in Hawaii with no estimate for how long it would last. And then on one day it was all over.

I'm looking forward to the day my wife and I can return to NYC and meet you, Levi.

Given it was January when you came down with it (heart of old and flu season) and didn't spread it to anyone at work or elsewhere, what makes you so sure it was Covid 19 given how common respiratory diseases are that time of year?

I hate to even reply to this... but I will anyway.

100,000. People are straining against the "Stay Home" stuff. Part of that is obviously rabble-rousing, groups of people that are being "directed" to protest by external influence. But even without that, people are sick of staying at home and are going out more. As we stupidly open up too early, I am expecting lots more infections, and therefore lots more death. So I think that will hit hard in a couple weeks.

Cottagers flocking North here . I have noticed but don't care. These people paid for their properties and have every right to occupy their cottage. Northern people are chastising people who live south...on radio now a year round northern person vs a rich Toronto cottage owner. Close to yelling at each other.

I’m returning from a short business trip, the hotel experience was a lot better than anticipated. I booked the room through an app with my credit card linked to it. There was no handing a CC or DL. I just told them my last name at check in and I used my phone as my door key. The hotel was at 15% capacity and all rooms sit empty for 5 days before it is occupied again. Obviously no room service, pool, gym, breakfast etc. Extremely boring but I did feel fairly safe.

I’m sorry to hear this. I’m starting to fear I may have had the virus also. I’m not in a rush to go out and get the antibody test - I’ve been home since the second week of March. I was in Boston a ton in February.

I was sick once in December and again in the first week of March.

I feel like I should also go over my symptoms in case anyways has the same. I didn’t want to talk about because Pinside can be brutal, but I think the timing is okay now.

My health profile:

I’m 21. 5’10” & 235 lbs. Former smoker for 3~ years, quit about 18-24 months ago. No health problems, only meds are allergy related. Used to be about 255 lbs, and had high blood pressure issues, but nothing too severe.

1. I’ve strangely been having shortness of breath going up stairs since around the beginning of the year - when I stand up super straight, and go really slow it isn’t as bad. I’m also experiencing a lot of sporadic and sharp chest pain. This could happen several times in one day for a couple minutes each or once a week for twenty minutes or so.

2. When I was ill, I never really developed a heavy dry cough. I was extremely tired, had a very sore throat, a slight cough and had minor difficulty breathing. The second illness was not as bad as the first one.

3. I’ve been having fatigue problems since - I can sleep for 12 hours now, that was pretty much out of the realm of imagination before all this.

4. I’ve been experiencing pretty significant joint pain. I had some joint pain before, but it’s pretty bad now.

Conclusively, I feel like I’ve aged about a decade in the last 3 months. I’ve gotten “better” from the spurts of illness, but haven’t really recovered.

Unfortunately I think even your estimate is optimistic. Both officials and news reporters seem to be ignoring the fact that if you climb UP to a peak that is only halfway... you still have to climb back down. Hopefully hospital resources will be less scarce from now on which will reduce the fatality rate.

If you're still having chest pains you should definitely get that checked out. You're young but that ain't normal!!

I had an EKG about a year ago.

Finally a funny corona meme!

I’m looking forward to it also. Nycpc 2021?

I’d love to go stay with my folks in Florida as there are rumblings we won’t return to the office til October. My parents say great, all you gotta do is self-quarantine in a hotel for
2 weeks once we get down to Florida. Seems like that would be tough to pull off with no room service!

Really just a fantasy it’s probably not gonna happen. But we have some other friends who might have a huge empty house down there at the end of May, we might consider that.

It’s a fair question, and believe me I’ve been open to any possibility, but since I’ve had ongoing (mild) symptoms for 13 weeks straight, it’s not unreasonable to think the two are likely connected. If I was infected more recently I would expect at least my son or husband to be sick bc they’ve both been home with me the past 6 or 7 weeks. Back when I first got sick, my husband also got a really bad cold with a dry cough and a lot of fatigue, but hasn’t gotten sick since. And that bug was super hard for him to shake, same as it’s been for me, although he seems fully past it now. As for other people, I’ve read that some people stop being contagious as soon as a couple of days after they start having symptoms, and I was mostly at home the first 4-5 days, so that could be the reason why I didn’t see more people around me getting sick. I also shared these timelines and symptoms with my doctor, and he thought it was quite likely that I have been dealing with Covid-19 this whole time. That said, I will never be 100% positive and while I’ve been trying to be super careful maintaining social distancing, I have been out for the periodic grocery run so I certainly could have gotten exposed more recently.

Everyone's new best friend:

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Probably not, although that looks like a pretty cool thing to check out!

We go to NYC quite often, just for the hell of it.
I know you are right next to the High Line.
Just never got the chance to check out your place yet.

E

Yeah, I had to use Door Dash and they just dropped it off at the table set up by the front desk.

I just got my most recent credit card statement and my immediate thought was a mistake had happened. It looks like my bar tab and I haven't had a balance this low since 1989.
I always pay immediately and in full each month but this time I kinda giggled while making the payment.

...except for the fact two-thirds of a major subdivision and a few smaller towns were completely obliterated. The news crews split as soon as the lava stopped flowing, but it definitely still sucks for the people who used to live there. On the brighter side, the big island is now a little bigger...

If you're not worried, neither am I.

That’s a valid point. Massachusetts hospitals are struggling - I will go for a routine checkup when things wind down.

So have any of you guys been able to get hand sanitizer where you live? I'm well stocked on pretty much everything else, but I haven't been able to find hand sanitizer at all since this whole thing started.

Circle-K has small bottles in stock regularly now.

Sam's Club briefly had big packs of Charmin Ultrasoft available to ship today. I add one to my cart, go to checkout and boom! OOS...

I use isopropyl alcohol and a towel. When I was at Sams, they only had it (sanitizer) for the employees and when at Walmart this morning I saw no stock of it either. No masks to.

No Circle-K around here, I'm afraid.

I just want to find some rubbing alcohol so I can clean my bongs.

That sucks. The same thing happened to me with a webcam the other day at Best Buy. To be honest, I'm kind of amazed that it's still so hard to get toilet paper. Doesn't every home in America have like a two year supply at this point?

This is 100% correct

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