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COVID 19 Poll For the New Year


2021 Covid 19 Poll  

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Last month a close friend died from covid that he contracted at his assisted living facility. He was the contact person who I met that introduced me into the organization that I'm still in now, knew him for forty years.

Maybe because I'm in California, but I see 2021 as a year that will be in a continual stay-at-home mode, off and on, throughout the year. It's impossible to plan anything. I'm responsible for planning a big, five hundred person hotel conference event; had to cancel 2020 and forget 2021. I've postponed it to 2025, but even then, who knows if that kind of event is possible even then given the new reality.  

I'm trying my best to be responsible and attentive to others. I always wear a mask outside or in a public area. When I have to go to in-person large group meetings with others from out of state, I always test afterward (there's a good, accessible program in Napa). My big fear is what the present situation is doing to our society, it seems as if a generation of students are being lost with the shut downs. Even when schools open, who knows what the quality of their eduction will be, and I don't mean this as a criticism of teachers or school administrations, it's a difficult situation and there's no easy way out. The elderly have it bad, a lot of people out of work, despair is getting more prevalent, who knows where it all lead.  

Still, I'm hopeful that things will work out for the good, and eventually, some kind of normalcy will return, hopefully by the summer of 2022.

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A friend of over 35 years has been in the hospital for close to six weeks after testing positive. It looked like he was improving to the point where discharge to a rehab facility was being discussed, then he took a sudden turn for the worse right before Christmas. He was moved to ICU and placed on a ventilator, and came very close to death on Christmas day. The last update I had was that his oxygen levels had significantly improved since then, but he appears to have suffered damage to his lungs and possibly other vital organs. It seems likely that if he is able to survive (and that is still a big if), his life will be far different from what it was previously.

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I now have two people I know who have died from it.  My sister's mother-in-law died in the spring.  She was 89 and had advanced dementia, so not a shock.  But just a week ago, we had a neighbor who lives very nearby who passed away - 46 years old and extremely active.  Horrible disease.  We are OK so far.  My wife works in medical profession, so is likely to get vaccinated before I do, though she won't be a priority in the medical community.    My sister-in-law had a bad case of it a month ago, but recovered.   I have been WFH since last March, and will be until at least this coming April (and I anticipate well beyond that), and don't expect to ever have to go back to the office five days a week again, as remote has worked so well for our group (and my primary technical partner is in Bangalore anyways).  Working for a healthcare IT company (Cerner) has the advantage that they are very aware of the realities of the situation.  We (Cerner) did a lot for Northwell and other client hospital systems when this all first hit last spring.

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1 hour ago, Dave Garrett said:

A friend of over 35 years has been in the hospital for close to six weeks after testing positive. It looked like he was improving to the point where discharge to a rehab facility was being discussed, then he took a sudden turn for the worse right before Christmas. He was moved to ICU and placed on a ventilator, and came very close to death on Christmas day. The last update I had was that his oxygen levels had significantly improved since then, but he appears to have suffered damage to his lungs and possibly other vital organs. It seems likely that if he is able to survive (and that is still a big if), his life will be far different from what it was previously.

Fuck.

Really sorry to hear that Dave.  Hope your buddy pulls through and has a thorough, rapid recovery.

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I’m reasonably optimistic that the disease’s trajectory will be improving in Europe and North America by the spring and maybe a little sooner.  The combination of vaccinations (the current logistical problems will be overcome) and better weather will turn this thing around.

I do think as we head to the fall there will be a pretty big disparity between regions of the world that have been thoroughly vaccinated and those that are not.  I suspect many of the latter will be shunned by travelers.  Additionally I expect that a lot of employers and airlines etc will require proof of vaccination.

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35 minutes ago, soulpope said:

I believe "normalcy" (prior to COVID-19) will never return, as this status (aka normalcy) will be newly defined on ongoing basis onwards .... 

Yes. And even a redefine normalcy won't apply to boring old farts like us. Dead is dead, keep away from it.

MG

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My dad's nephew died from it. He had cancer and was at the point of full recovery. Than his wife caught Covid and days after it he did too. A few days alter he was on the intensive care unit. Couple of days later he died. Feels so unfair, almost beating cancer and then there's Covid and you die anyway. A colleague of my sister lost both her parents on the same night.... What a nightmare.

The Dutch government is really making a mess of the whole vaccin program. They really had my backing and trust (it's easy to be cynical) but with the vaccines they really fail. Again were last with vaccinating in Europe. Starting now on the 8th of January initially with retirement house nursing personnel only... And on 18th January only 5 vaccination locations. I just couldn't believe my ears. The Netherlands is one of the richest countries with one of the best healthcare systems in the world. First it took ages to create a solid testing infrastructure. And now were fucking around with the vaccines. So yeah, I am pretty sure its going to take a long time here. Even the Belgians are faster than us :P (no offense to our southern neighbors)

Edited by Pim
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4 minutes ago, Pim said:

My dad's nephew died from it. He had cancer and was at the point of full recovery. Than his wife caught Covid and days after it he did too. A few days alter he was on the intensive care unit. Couple of days later he died. Feels so unfair, almost beating cancer and then there's Covid and you die anyway. A colleague of my sister lost both her parents on the same night.... What a nightmare.

The Dutch government is really making a mess of the whole vaccin program. They really had my backing and trust (it's easy to be cynical) but with the vaccines they really fail. Again were last with vaccinating in Europe. Starting now on the 8th of January initially with retirement house nursing personnel only... And on 18th January only 5 vaccination locations. I just couldn't believe my ears. The Netherlands is one of the richest countries with one of the best healthcare systems in the world. First it took ages to create a solid testing infrastructure. And now were fucking around with the vaccines. So yeah, I am pretty sure its going to take a long time here. Even the Belgians are faster than us :P (no offense to our southern neighbors)

Sorry to hear ....

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16 hours ago, Dave Garrett said:

A friend of over 35 years has been in the hospital for close to six weeks after testing positive. It looked like he was improving to the point where discharge to a rehab facility was being discussed, then he took a sudden turn for the worse right before Christmas. He was moved to ICU and placed on a ventilator, and came very close to death on Christmas day. The last update I had was that his oxygen levels had significantly improved since then, but he appears to have suffered damage to his lungs and possibly other vital organs. It seems likely that if he is able to survive (and that is still a big if), his life will be far different from what it was previously.

yeesh. Sorry to hear that.

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2 hours ago, Larry Kart said:

My best friend's younger brother was in the hospital for more than a month with Co-Vid, and is in rehab now. There's hope for him, they say, but he has several pre-existing conditions, including heart disease and prostate cancer.

Sorry to read this. What an awful disease and so scary how the infections keep spreading and overwhelming medical assistance. And these post-recovery problems and re-infections are disturbing. I am worried every day for my father.

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I'm thankful that the family and friends who had it required no hospitalization. But I'm freaked out by the serious cases you hear about where "they did nothing wrong." Only two possibilities exist. 1) They really did do "something wrong," only that something was of short enough duration that they thought they were safe, and aren't being completely truthful when they say they did everything right. 2) They really did do "nothing wrong" and it's possible to get a serious case even if you take every precaution known to man. The second possibility is what scares me.

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4 hours ago, riddlemay said:

I'm thankful that the family and friends who had it required no hospitalization. But I'm freaked out by the serious cases you hear about where "they did nothing wrong." Only two possibilities exist. 1) They really did do "something wrong," only that something was of short enough duration that they thought they were safe, and aren't being completely truthful when they say they did everything right. 2) They really did do "nothing wrong" and it's possible to get a serious case even if you take every precaution known to man. The second possibility is what scares me.

So upfront, I have a close acquaintance who was in general quite careful and has no idea where they got it; their 3 obvious potential contacts tested negative.  (It’s possible that one of those 3 contacts had it a few weeks earlier, was a symptomatic, transmitted it and recovered sufficiently to test negative by the time the acquaintance tested positive.)  Their riskiest activities were a masked doctor’s office visit, picking up to go food, and having a socially distant and masked outdoor hangout with a friend.  Fortunately the acquaintance’s case was very mild and they recovered quickly.

I think it would have been possible (not necessarily practical) for this person to be even more careful - forgoing paid childcare, preventing their toddler from seeing other kids outdoors, etc.

My guess is that once prevalence in a community goes up sufficiently, a lot of medium risk behaviors become high risk and low risk behaviors become medium risk and very low risk behaviors become low risk.

Edited by Guy Berger
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1 hour ago, riddlemay said:

I'm thankful that the family and friends who had it required no hospitalization. But I'm freaked out by the serious cases you hear about where "they did nothing wrong." Only two possibilities exist. 1) They really did do "something wrong," only that something was of short enough duration that they thought they were safe, and aren't being completely truthful when they say they did everything right. 2) They really did do "nothing wrong" and it's possible to get a serious case even if you take every precaution known to man. The second possibility is what scares me.

The idea of "did nothing wrong" is in my opinion ludicrous. Mask use isn't something that perfectly prevents spread and no one should think that it will. It's the right thing to do in the aggregate.  And no one can avoid contact with others at all times and all locations.

What scares me is that you can be careful, get infected, and barely suffer. You can also get it, and end up at death's door, or with horrible long-term impacts, or die.  The odds of that happening is still known to be small. Let's say the death rate is 4%.  That's bad. That's still 96 people surviving out of 100 infected. Your odds of survival are good. I just don't want to end up getting it and drawing the short straw.

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14 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

The idea of "did nothing wrong" is in my opinion ludicrous. Mask use isn't something that perfectly prevents spread and no one should think that it will. It's the right thing to do in the aggregate.  And no one can avoid contact with others at all times and all locations.

What scares me is that you can be careful, get infected, and barely suffer. You can also get it, and end up at death's door, or with horrible long-term impacts, or die.  The odds of that happening is still known to be small. Let's say the death rate is 4%.  That's bad. That's still 96 people surviving out of 100 infected. Your odds of survival are good. I just don't want to end up getting it and drawing the short straw.

bingo to both of Dan’s paragraphs.

even 1% fatality rate (which is probably closer to the mark than 4%) with 25%-70% of all Americans infected means 850K-2.38M dead bodies.  That’s incredibly grim.

This pandemic is particularly insidious because it’s not dangerous enough to most individuals to discourage transmission-facilitating behavior, but dangerous enough to kill a lot of people once a ton are infected.  Couple that with asymptomatic transmission and we’re really fucked.

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14 hours ago, Pim said:

The Dutch government is really making a mess of the whole vaccin program. They really had my backing and trust (it's easy to be cynical) but with the vaccines they really fail. Again were last with vaccinating in Europe. Starting now on the 8th of January initially with retirement house nursing personnel only... And on 18th January only 5 vaccination locations. I just couldn't believe my ears. The Netherlands is one of the richest countries with one of the best healthcare systems in the world. First it took ages to create a solid testing infrastructure. And now were fucking around with the vaccines. So yeah, I am pretty sure its going to take a long time here. Even the Belgians are faster than us :P (no offense to our southern neighbors)

Mass vaccinations are a totally different endeavor than typical western health care - it’s not surprising to me that rich world governments are (initially) botching it.  More about logistics and efficiency than about health care.

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As some of you know my wife works at a assisted living facility and she has been working some incredibly long hours recently. Between staff and residents there must be a dozen people infected. For example the last 3 days she's worked nothing less than 12 hours/day. She might catch a break tomorrow and only work an 8-hour shift maybe 9. As of now she's off Tuesday but nothing's guaranteed. Of course it doesn't help when some of the staff regularly call out sick whether they are actually ill or not. She gets frustrated at times and I don't blame her.

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35 minutes ago, Tom 1960 said:

As some of you know my wife works at a assisted living facility and she has been working some incredibly long hours recently. Between staff and residents there must be a dozen people infected. For example the last 3 days she's worked nothing less than 12 hours/day. She might catch a break tomorrow and only work an 8-hour shift maybe 9. As of now she's off Tuesday but nothing's guaranteed. Of course it doesn't help when some of the staff regularly call out sick whether they are actually ill or not. She gets frustrated at times and I don't blame her.

Dos she know if she's in line for an early vaccination?   (I hope so.) 

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