Coronavirus: Miles away from ordinary.

"I only had one drink."

 

"We were just meeting up for kisses"

 

I read a lot of opinions and accounts on here and I am curious, because I live a different reality it sounds like to many of you. I work in an essential industry - I go to work 90% of the time, I go to restaurants, I go get groceries, my kids go to school, I go to events (youth sports, etc.)- some of these things are by choice and some are by necessity. I wear a mask and take precautions (hell, I've been tested and quarantined several times along the way) and I live in Florida - where the mandates are very "flexible." Is what I am doing really different from all of you? How are places like Florida not the ground zero impact spots compared to places that locked down harder/longer? I read what a lot of you go through and are saying and it sounds as though we are on different planets, not just across arbitrary lines on paper?

 

The truth is that nowhere really locked down hard. California, supposedly the fascist anti-COVID center of the world, has been holding parties and going to restaurants and everything else for months. And that's just liberal LA, much less conservative Huntington Beach, who have been spitting in each other's mouths as a political statement. Everywhere fucked up their response to this thing.

 

I'm the same boat. My wife and I both work in essential industries and our day to day lives really haven't changed that much. Still go into the office/shop five days a week. Still need to hit the grocery store. Try and support our local restaurants etc.

edit - As far as northern CA goes, it's been pretty locked up. I saw a guy walk into Lowe's without a mask on the other day and that is the FIRST time I have seen someone in a store without a mask in months.

 

You get outside metro Orlando and nobody is wearing a mask unless they are elderly and even then it's spotty. Same goes for other parts of the State as well.

 

Even on native reservations here, who don’t necessarily have to follow “The Rules”, you have to wear a mask. I haven’t seen anybody in public defiant about it in almost a year now.

The only ones around here who make noise are the Church Of God in Aylmer, but they’ve always been pretentious and incestuous child-abusing fuckheads so they should simply be ignored.

 

Lung xrays are clear thank god. Doctor put me on a 10 day round of antibiotics and a 10 day round of dexamethasone. Still waiting on blood work to confirm I don’t have any issues with my heart or anything else. Was told to take aspirin for a month to decrease chance of blood clots.

 

Anyone coming back into Australia spends two weeks in hotel quarantine, at times if you went across state lines this was also the case. I have to get a test today and isolate myself until I get a negative result so I can cross the border to see my Mum and some friends and if I'm there on the 5th and 12th days I have to get tested again. When my partner and I came into Victoria we had to get tested and isolate ourselves until we had negative results come back from the test.

I've got a slight tickle in the back of my throat but I can't see any real way I could have caught Rona as I haven't been anywhere near where we have had the few cases we've had but I'll find out by the end of tomorrow one way or the other.

 

When my son and I went to Florida, we drove the 13 hours. We were careful. We paid at the pump for gas, got food and coffee from drive-thrus, only entered stores that weren't busy for bathroom breaks.

When we got to Florida, I went to the the grocery store one time. We didn't go to any restaurant. We went to the beach, the pool and rode the trails in the campground. We just enjoyed the weather, about 30°F warmer than back home. I did stand in line for some Mexican street corn from a food truck.

Oden is right, nobody wears a mask down there, except us. I still think we got in and out of Florida safely.

 

This is an interesting retrospective look at one of the first instances of a "superspreader" community transmission event in Alberta, way back before we really knew what we should be doing about COVID. The published paper is linked in the article.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/bonspiel-superspreader-edmonton-covid-1.5907514

 

(replying here instead of the financial thread where it started, nett trying to provoke me into getting a tattoo because stonks or something; I agreed that at least I can feel safe getting a tattoo now)

Both my primary doctor and CDC (when they called to contact trace) said 90 days after first symptoms I can and should get the vaccine. Apparently if you get covid, there is still a high demand for plasma for the antibodies -- the efficacy of that treatment I'm not sure about, but hospitals are still scrambling for donations of it and I'm happy to oblige. But if you get the shot, you cannot donate.

My doctor said that generally the worse someone comes down with covid, the stronger their antibodies are going to be, based on his anecdotal evidence of testing people who were asymptomatic then their antibodies barely registered on tests, whereas people who had a horrible covid bout (high viral load) tested positive for antibodies much quicker. The most reliable info I've gotten is that the antibodies are good for roughly 9 months, though there isn't enough research out yet to prove that your body cannot produce them indefinitely.

Regardless, I'm going to continue to wear a mask and sanitize and stay clean like I always have, because I don't want to risk anything and I certainly don't want to subject anyone to the hell that I went through on the off chance that I could still be contagious for some other variant and not know it. Until Fauci says we're good, my routine is staying the same.

 

Got the lab work back, complete blood work up. Basically my liver got absolutely fucked.

fortunately I have a recent lab to compare it to, a few months ago, where those same levels were on the lower end of the normal range (two years of no alcohol and the body heals itself turns out). But I am absolutely mortified of what would have happened to me if I had been drinking alcohol when this shit hit. As it is, I’m sure they will eventually get back to normal, either through natural recovery or medication, but suffice to say I am anxiously awaiting what my doctor advises and considering myself extremely lucky that I no longer consume alcohol — that would have easily pushed it over the edge. And likely killed me. When otherwise completely healthy people die from covid, I do believe this is the kinda shit that happens.

just dodged a major bullet. Again.

 

celebrating with a club soda and bitters (smoked chili + ginger)

I would have been more than a little pissed if my lungs were fucked up, as I still enjoy the nice cigar once in a while and that would have been a very clear hard stop for me if there were any issues at all. Fortunately, lungs are all clear — as in, completely clear — so finally had a celebratory cigar today while the snow came in.

returning to work and life as normal next week assuming the damn state decides to even open. A few inches of snow and ice and everything shuts down. Regardless, I’ll take “no smell and about half what my taste used to be” in exchange for “well I didn’t die.”

that would have really sucked.

I was headed down a really not good path before with drinking, and not that there was any doubt in my mind that I would continue to stay off the booze, but suffice to say the lab results today made damn sure there are no lingering doubts about that choice.

now I just think about how many people had that one little variable that changed their outcome. What if I had even been “moderating” and had a hangover when covid hit? Fuck me, that’s another body.