Covid-19 and Life

Think the PA helping may be sifi

 

Lol

 

I don't know about that, but I can do it by spinning a wastebasket on my left wrist and standing in a fish tank as I chew on tin foil, so there may be some merit.

 

oh wow, I get about 40mbps. I use 2 of them (30 gigs each) and they cost 30 bucks each line. it's not bad; I physically turn them off after work because I noticed they would use 1-2 gigs overnight randomly.

 

covid is a real pain in the neck and I feel so bad for you guys but how is everything now?
as things are already getting back to normal

 

Well, that's nice to hear @Hubby&Missy since you said her workplace had reduced those strict rules, and it's now a more friendly environment.
When you said your second shot, do you mean the vaccine? As in the covid vaccine? People should really be scared of this vaccine, especially from the number of not-so-good reviews we see on the internet. Tbh, I've never gone to take this covid vaccine cuz I'm a bit scared. All I do is test myself and my family with the https://www.confirmbiosciences.com/covid19-instant-coronavirus-test-kit/ test kits. I know that this is not a safe practice, but those severe side effects of the vaccine terrify me, honestly. Btw, how was the first shot? Was there any severe side effect?

 

This is NON political.

A vaccine prevents the contraction and transmission of a disease. The shots do neither. NOR do the manufacturers claim that they do. (only decrease symptoms if you do catch the disease)

Therefore, the shots are not vaccines. They will not prevent contraction or spread of the disease.

The current decrease in cases we see right now is essentially due to seasonal patterns and natural herd immunity.

Decide on your own if you feel the shots are a benefit to you. "death" is a symptom, so reducing that symptom may be important to you.

But they are not even claimed to be vaccines by the manufacturers.

 

My wife and I also have done both of the Phizer shots. Ache in arm couple of days. Did it 6 weeks ago since second round.

Continue safety protocols anyway since I travel so much.

Everyone has to make their choices.

 

Have to agree with maid_carrie on this does davidowen takes paracetomol and other pain relieving drugs and even these have side effects.

Here in the UK both my wife and I have had the Astra Zeneca Jabs after the first one she had nothing apart from an aching arm me on the other hand felt chilly at night and had a headache for 2 days and that was it

 

Ummmmm…..that is exactly what the current vaccines do, and they are, in fact VACCINES. 60 seconds of reading literature outside your Facebook feed would educate you on the facts. I’m not going to try to convince you to get vaccinated, but your statements above are simply wrong. Make your decision, but make them based on facts rather than some bizarre flat-earth conspiracy theory you read online.

 

Barb,

I appreciate your passion here. Even Webster changed the definition of "vaccine" to accommodate the new jabs. You are being lied to.

But, the important point is that NEITHER of us will know who is right until about 5 years have passed.

So, give me a holler in five years, let's see how each of us are doing.

Laz

 

I don't know what latitude you live at, but check out Elon musk's company starlink that is providing excellent internet to higher latitudes now, and that will be expanding it's coverage worldwide.

 

When it comes to Covid you have a lot more to be afraid of from the disease than the vaccine.

Vaccines work. Look what happened to smallpox and polio when there was nearly universal vaccinations. Of course, in this conspiracy-filled disinformation environment, we could never achieve that again -- and smallpox and polio would be part of the daily lives of humans for generations to come. Just like Covid probably will be.

I figure you're either part of the solution -- and get vaccinated -- or you're part of the problem.

As for needing to wait to see if the Covid vaccines actually work -- wait no longer. Just look at the decreasing case numbers. The results are already in!

 

Sorry, this will be a bit long but I'm so tired of hearing the nonsense that a lack of understanding is causing that I can't keep quiet any more!

I'm going to keep out of the whole vaccine debate, to me it's a matter of personal choice if someone decides to get vaccinated or not. Read the scientific evidence, look at the information on risks & potential side effects and make your own decision based on your own risk profile.

What I will take issue with is the entire raft of largely pointless 'safety' measures springing up everywhere. To understand why I use the word pointless, we first need to look at covid's principal methods of transmission.

There are three main routes :

By contact with a contaminated surface
By droplet (particle greater than 5nm in size)
By aerosol (particle smaller than 5nm)

Of those three, there have been no recorded cases of infection due to contact transmission. Yes, none. It remains a theoretical risk/possibility as the virus can survive for significant periods on surfaces but that's all. All but the most paranoid can safely discount contact transmission (so you can stop bleaching your shopping & rubbing your skin raw with alcohol!)

Droplet transmission is next up. It can and does happen but requires you to be in close proximity (closer than 2m) to an infected person for an extended period (usually considered to be 15 min or more) AND for that person to be doing something to create droplets (for example talking , singing, shouting, coughing or breathing heavily). Just breathing normally produces very few droplets.

Lastly we have the biggie. Aerosol. Initially it was thought covid didn't spread by aerosol but the WHO has recently revised that in the light of evide ce from some very determined scientists who've been screaming about it all along. Aerosols are generated by simply breathing. The particles are tiny & hang in the air. They cover long distances on air currents (potentially even travelling between rooms via vent ducts) & remain infectious until they dissapate.

In order of risk, they rank from low to high :

Indoors | Outdoors
Contact | Contact
Droplet | Aerosol
Aerosol | Droplet

Why is droplet more of a risk outdoors? Simple because aerosols are easily dispered by even the slightest breeze and quickly inactivated by sunlight. That's why it's harder to catch covid outdoors.

So, now we know how it spreads, lets look athe 'safety' measures I've seen :

Masks. A difficult one, because not all masks are equal.

Lets take the ones that work first. A proper protective mask is known as an ffp3 (or N95) respirator. These can protect you from inhaling both droplets and aerosols BUT the are uncomfortable to wear and need to be fit tested to work properly. Training is required and proper procedures need to be followed when putting them on or taking them off. They are NOT pointless - if you are fortunate enough to have the training to use them & access to fit testing kit.

Now, the ones that don't. Surgical masks, 'face coverings', bandanas and the rest. These DO NOT filter anything. They will partially stop droplets from being EXPELLED but do absolutely nothing about aerosol tranmission as they do not seal,against the face and do not filter the air. In my opinion, these are pointless in all but a very few situations.

Next up are plastic screens, visors, 'one way' systems and similar garbage. Remember, the primary transmission method for Covid indoors is by aerosol. It's literally in the air you breathe. All the screens, visors & one way rules aren't going to matter a damn.

On to my favourite, the 'social distance'. 2m, 6ft, 1m...whatever, it's pretty much a waste of time indoors. Why? That's down to aerosols again. Aerosols linger, spread and travel far more than 2m. Staying 2m away (or wearing a surgical mask) will help against droplets but will do damn all about aerosols. Now if you happen to be outdoors, keeping a distance WILL help as would both of you wearing a face covering.

Next up, arbirary occupancy limits on areas of the same room. Examples being 'one person i n the break area at a time' when the break area is nothing more than a corner of the same open plan office it shares it's air with..... I'm sure I don't need to explain about aerosols again!

So what does help?

Simple. Ventilate your rooms, offices and spaces well. The more fresh air that flows through your space the less covid particles will build up. If you must use recirculatimg air conditioning, make sure it has efficient UV decontamination elements in the ducts and that they're regularly cleaned & serviced.

Keep a sensible distance when speaking to people (it's good manners anayway!) and try to avoid speaking directly face to face to lessen the risk from droplets. Wear a face covering in this situation if you feel it's necessary (remember you're worried about droplets here).

If you made it here, well done. Living with Covid is an excercise in risk management, something we all do every day wirhout thinking about it. Covid is just another risk we'll need to learn to manage.

My personal rule of thumb : the risk of getting infected by Covid is about the same as getting infected by the cold (NOT the outcome, the risk of infection!). The methods of infection are broadly similar & the same precautions work for both.

Stay informed, stay safe and remember - knowlege beats fear every time.

 

I'd like to see a greater (or indeed any) distinction being made between a positive test result and developing a disease state.

Sars-Cov-2 is a virus that anyone can get. Covid19 is a disease state caused by Sars-Cov-2.
Not everyone who becomes infected with the virus will develop the disease state. These people are called asymptomatic carriers.
There is functionally no difference between a population of asymptomatic carriers and a population that has achieved herd immunity. In both cases there are no/very few disease cases.

The focus on positive tests serves only to heighten the paranoia.
And don't get me started on the rate of false positives, or crappy PCR test protocols. On the bright side, there does seem to be a growing body of informed scientists, qualified to have an opinion, speaking out about these and other issues - although they are running the risk of being suspended, deleted and cancelled from varous social media platforms.

The world is full of diseases that you don't want to get; Covid19 is another one of them.
Although you can make a guestimate of how badly ill you may get based on such factors as age, weight, sex, underlying conditions & ethnicity you still don't know how badly ill you will become until you develop the disease - so it seems sensible to do what you can to minimise your own personal chance of becomming infected.
But it's my belief that everyone will become infected sooner or later anyway. There is an element of hindsight involved here, but all the resources we've used on the attempt to stop infection could have been better spent on improving the treatments available to those who actually become ill.