A Story of Covid
This isn't from a newspaper or TV, and probably breaks a bunch of HIPA laws, so make of it what you will.
Nurses talk, and docs do too even if to a lesser extent. They shouldn't but they do, and this is the story roughly as told to me.
There are lots of infections downtown in younger people, they don't die as much but with so many infections in the 30 to 50 age group a lot are ending up in the hospital. It was the most common age group for hospitalized patients here, not sure if that's still true with numbers hitting the roof. We're a healthy population, always score high on those lack of obesity by state surveys. We bike and run and climb and kayak and all that.
Somehow this whole family was infected. Not sure if the kids brought it from school or what. Kids doing well, like kids, no outward signs, just tested positive, not even teenagers yet. Both parents in the hospital, young 40s, healthy. Both in serious condition. Dad got worse, moved him up to the top floor where the ICU is. They cut me in this hospital, big place, lotta serious operations all the time. Probably shouldn't say the name. They knew dad wasn't going to make it, they've seen so many they know which one's are goners. They let the wife go up to say goodbye. They don't usually do that but she was already infected, same hospital.
Nurses and docs all choked up. I guess they can imagine that being them.
Comments
It is a horrific thing,
knowing that someone you know and love is drowning in their own fluids.
I missed 4 funerals this year, during the first peak while we were locked down. Two passed due to diagnosed Covid that progressed beyond what the respirators could do for them, and two passed from heart issues because they did not want to go to the hospital with it full of Covid patients. They figured that the pains in their chests would get better the next day, and in both cases it turned out that there was no next day.
I also have two friends who survived diagnosed Covid despite having had to go on respirators: one, now 35, used to be a very gifted vocalist and is still on supplemental O2 even after 5 months. The other, 41, was able to wean himself off O2 finally, but it is unlikely that he will be able to return to his job as a scuba instructor any time soon. The other knock-on effects will slowly become known. The friends who contracted the virus but had relatively light symptoms are paying very close attention to see what comes next.
A buddy is a nurse at the nursing home that was Denver's first major hotspot, and had just started to mentally recover from watching many of his charges pass in the first wave. He's now working on a career change. We are now staring at the ramp up to the second peak, with the onset of cold weather. It is going to be much worse, at least up here where it really does get cold.
This will be a very long, hard winter. It really isn't "just the flu", as many people who have grown tired of taking the precautions have found out. Everyone, please take as much care as you can, and be as safe as you can.
Twice bitten, permanently shy.
My 74 y.o. brother in Tenn.
is recovering from Covid. He's on his fourth month and is still a little foggy in the head (his words not mine).
He said it was horrible and thought sure he wasn't going to make it.
His roomate was also infected and hospitalized with blood clots in his legs and lungs. Both are guardedly recovering at home.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
My 73 year old brother-in-law in a nursing home
had it for three weeks. He recovered. COPD & diabetes. Go figure. Some are strong and some are not. Not being blase. Just an observation. Many questions about this disease that no one (except lay people here) seem to be investigating. Just "rush a vaccine and all will be well". So we don't need to study treatments (and why is there a (D) treatment and an (R) treatment? Medical treatments should be apolitical.
His former neighbor got it after chemotherapy for colon cancer. Just two weeks, I think.
Or are the tests not all that accurate? They didn't really have it? BTW, both are Northern European ancestry. Brother-in-law is Swedish/Norwegian/Northern German. Neighbor and wife are Polish.
I've seen lots of changes. What doesn't change is people. Same old hairless apes.
Surviving Covid doesn't seem to be only
about how strong or healthy a person is. There are factors the doctors are trying to understand. They think part of it is your body's immune system and what sort of defense it mounts against the virus.
Have to agree
No rhyme or reason. Brother and roomie both Irish bloodlines.
Wives of two former co-workers passed from Covid. WASP lines.
The deaths of close and distant connections beginning to pour in.
Just when I thought I was gonna get through this without anybody I know succumbing to this.
Thanksgiving for two. Just earthling2 and I. We usually have a minimum of thirty.
Sad but necessary.
Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.
My probate for a COVID-19 mortality
involved a sad story.
The decedent felt bad a couple of days, then sat on the commode, almost bled to death. It spewed from him, both ends. He died in the hospital the next day.
He was in his late 70's, healthy, such a good man, such a tragic death.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
Some of the symptoms just sound...NUTS.
I've never had flu, but I thought I more or less understood what it did; this is something else.
Between that and the weird alacrity with which they've been able to arrive at vaccines...it's hard not to be open to the hypothesis that it was engineered.
In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.
Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!
Early on ACE2 receptors were identified as a key factor,
because the ACE2 receptor offers a ready docking station for the virus. These receptors are found in lungs and several other major organs which helps to explain the wide variety of symptoms that could manefest with COVID infections. But the exact mechanism is not a simple thing to understand, or predict.
This Wired article is an interesting read and goes into some of the nuances and indirect effects of a COVID infection on your bodies ability to both fight the virus and maintain essential organ’s proper functions. There are a number of ways COVID can gum up the works, and a variety of different symptoms that may appear depending on where the virus has made a beachhead and how your bodies immune system attempts to fight the virus.
It is complicated: harmless to some, a death sentence others. As terrifyingly diabolical as a game of Russian roulette.
“ …and when we destroy nature, we diminish our capacity to sense the divine,and understand who God is, and what our own potential is and duties are as human beings.- RFK jr. 8/26/2024
Correct and very important
eom
Vit. D deficiency is common in the US
about 50%, 80% in POC...and rare in Japan where their aging population has done very well.
Such a simple thing to check with a blood test, or just administer automatically...what would be the down side?
Why is Vitamin D is so important?
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/another-reason-vitamin...
T cell immunity is at least one way we are immune or asymptomatic to COVID.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/nov/02/t-cell-covid-immunity-pres...
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/05/t-cells-found-covid-19-patients-...
https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201023/searching-for-clues-to-covid-im...
Another simple prevention is an iodine spray or gargle
http://www.kaarid.ca/uploads/1/2/6/7/12670943/oral_vitamin_a_c_d.pdf
Why don't they educate folks? They want to sell you a $50+ vaccine, and hope we won't use these inexpensive prevention options. Ivermectin is another thing other countries have used with great success, but at less the $1 a dose they don't consider it either (although I think after 9+ months they finally started a study in the US).
So sorry to hear of all these stories of folks dying. Be smart. Be safe. Take care.
“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”
Vaccine costs
The US has contracted with Astrazenica to buy 300,000,000 doses for $1.2 billion or $4/dose with two doses required for immunity. Moderna wants about $35 per dose with two doses required for immunity. Pfizer will charge $19.50/dose, again with two doses required. Ivermectin is used a lot in latin America and I know people who have great faith in it. However, some of the countries where it is used a lot have very high death rates/million population e.g. Peru and Brazil, and there are big questions about bioavailability in the lungs. It's cheap and safe at the doses used to treat parasites, but if it works it confers no immunity, and you would have to use it repeatedly. In a couple of weeks it would cost more than the Astrazenica vaccine.
I studied Hippa extensively
Some years back. You didn't violate anyone's privacy telling the story. Doctors and nurses tell some themselves on Twitter because it makes them so sad. They just don't name names or places so privacy of patients is protected.
Thank You
I don't know anything about Hippa. I guess I'd never want to go public with anyone's personal story about anything for any reason. The net being what it is. Not sure where the line is for medical folks. I can't imagine doing their job now.
I follow a lot of doctors
on Twitter. They are exhausted. They are so overworked now. It upsets them to see so many people die. Upset isn't a strong enough word.
There are very clear lines for medical people about patient privacy. It is fine for them to speak in general terms without revealing any information that would indicate who they are speaking about. I think occasionally, with Covid, some people give permission for more to be revealed about them because they want others to take precautions and not get the virus.
"I can't prevent anyone from getting Covid...
... All I can do is try to keep Covid from killing you... so we are not the front lines, you know, we're the last line of defense ..."
Warning: The following video contains Reality, which some viewers might find upsetting to the extent that Reality is incompatible with their epistemologically unsound world-view.
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7WQg5ERoQ7A]
... except of course it's all just a big hoax, and the IFR is only
1/10,0001/1,0001/? and anyway 1/? might sound like a lot if you say the actual number like10,00050,000100,000300,0001,000,000 or whatever dead Americans but it's really only 1/? and why are we destroying ourselves just to save some old people's lives and anyway we're not because it's all a hoax and anyway it was engineered so that's why there's already a vaccine because otherwise why isn't there a vaccine for SARS they've had 16 years since the last recorded case and also too the vaccine is probably not safe because they rushed it and anyway it's micro-chipped poison that's activated by 5G mind control rays which also cause covid-19 but they don't because it's a hoax and doesn't exist and besides which the doctors know how to cure it for cheap but they won't because it's more profitable to sell people proprietary vaccines and exotic antivirals but it doesn't matter anyway because it's all a hoax and most of the positive tests are false positives so there's not really as many cases as they're telling us to scare us and also the IFR is way lower than they're telling us because most of the cases are asymptomatic so there are way more cases than they're telling us and how do we know she's even really a doctor doctors don't cry like that they learn not to in medical school and anyway they're used to seeing people die and my brother-in-law works at a clinic and he says they only get one covid case a week and the rest of the time they sit around playing call of duty because people who are too smart to wear masks are too afraid to come to the ER when they're having a heart attack but actually deaths from other causes are below average so obviously covid is a hoax.EDIT to add personal note: At a relative's church, the mid-20s assistant pastor and his wife both caught Covid-19 from their daughter. They also had a newborn, who of course was kept separate from the parents until they were both "clear". Months later, the new mother is still barely able to function -- she's got the "Fog". This is not an 88-year-old in already-failing health who probably wouldn't have made it to the New Year. She was a perfectly healthy young mother of two. Now, she's looking forward to ... what? Nobody knows.
But remember: It's a hoax, it's the flu, it's this and that and the other thing.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.