outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

My real friends know me well enough to know that I don't want a fucking hug.

That’s valid dude

I'm not anti hug, really, but I am not looking forward to the explosion of everyone wanting to hug next year.

i am done with handshakes after this.

you just need a body man standing by with purell, like Tony Hale in veep

I would be so happy if the handshake was relegated to the dustbin of history but there is very much a specific type of dude (always men) who just love the ol' handshake and love turning it into some weird ass power move, so I don't think we'll be so lucky.

agreed fuck the handshake

When I graduated high school we all had to walk across the stage and shake hands with the principal, so when the students in my row started walking up there I squirted a very thin coating of cold vaseline into my palm right before getting out of my seat, and the look on the principal's face and watching him frantically wipe his hand on his robe before shaking hands with the next batch of people remains one of my most treasured memories of adolescence.

The amount of men I see not wash their hands in a bathroom, I will never shake hands with anyone

yeah you should just give wannabe handshakers a disgusted look and shake your head slowly.

xpost - haha that's amazing.

yup re: handshakes

“I’ll do it to protect my father and organise a big family weekend get-together,” declares Belgium’s chief scientific adviser.

i... did he really say this? with the implication it's only the elderly who need to worry about covid??

(i mean, i read the article and it doesn't say, and i don't expect you guys to have read the primary belgian literature, so i guess this is both a rhetorical question and irritation at the reporting, which doesn't give a lot of context to its quotes)

how does the vaccine interact with newly infected patients? if someone tests positive and gets the vaccine right away, would they be more likely to just suffer mild symptoms?

I don’t think there are a lot of data on that question, but in that scenario I would not expect the vaccine to do much

Daps can stay IMO

one interesting thing I read about the vaccine is that even if you were unlucky enough to catch Covid anyway it was more likely to be a mild case, that's why I'm curious. or does the flu vaccine work that way as well? I'm not exactly "Doctor Science" here

can’t believe the Lancet publishing this worst case scenario tabloid hyperbole

6-month consequences of #COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study. Six months after illness onset, 76% (1265 of 1655) reported at least one symptom that persisted, with fatigue or muscle weakness being the most frequent. https://t.co/G7ENUDUeuI

— Patrik Brundin (@BrundinPatrik) January 16, 2021

Xpost - I think that’s mostly how these vaccines work? They don’t necessarily mean you won’t get it (though there is less of a chance) the big thing is that if/when you do they lessen the severity significantly and you won’t get super ill or need hospitalization.

I had my first shot earlier this month and my second is scheduled for March 25th. Can’t for the pole licking.

i have a friend who still has a few persistent symptoms from covid, it’s good to know they’re not lying to themselves or mindlessly consuming tabloid media hyperbole xxp

I have 4 coworkers who have had it. Two now have long Covid. One of those two had it in March and still can’t smell/taste.

Both of them are still ill enough so that they’re working reduced hours.

I think Lily is right when she says upthread it’s not dissimilar to post-viral syndrome too to an extent but that it being more widely acknowledged, understood and hopefully treated is a good thing

otm

Xpost - I think that’s mostly how these vaccines work? They don’t necessarily mean you won’t get it (though there is less of a chance) the big thing is that if/when you do they lessen the severity significantly and you won’t get super ill or need hospitalization.

― Benson and the Jets (ENBB), Thursday, January 28, 2021 7:27 AM (twenty-one minutes ago)

this is true, I took froggy's question to mean what would happen if you happened to get covid and the vaccine on the same day, in which case you wouldn't have had time to develop an immune response yet

Ahhhh ok I wasn’t reading it in relation to his question before that. There’s been stories about people that’s happened to but I think Kevin’s right in that they prob don’t have enough data to know if someone who catches it at the same time or right after being vaccinated will have less severe symptoms.

can’t believe the Lancet publishing this worst case scenario tabloid hyperbole

6-month consequences of #COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study. Six months after illness onset, 76% (1265 of 1655) reported at least one symptom that persisted, with fatigue or muscle weakness being the most frequent. https://t.co/G7ENUDUeuI
— Patrik Brundin (@BrundinPatrik) January 16, 2021
― scampish inquisition (gyac), Thursday, 28 January 2021 10:51 (two hours ago) link

That would be 76% of hospitalized cases, which make up about 3.5% of COVID cases. So about 2.8% of COVID cases. But having fatigue six months after being hospitalized with a severe case of a virus doesn’t necessarily mean you have a permanent disability. Most likely not.

The evidence is more on the side of my argument than not, tbh

Pneumonia also can have long term effects on hospitalized older patients.

O_O

It tends to kill them.

Pneumonia also can have long term effects on hospitalized older patients.

How is this possibly helping your argument that studies/coverage indicating the same can happen with covid are overstated?

can’t believe the Lancet publishing this worst case scenario tabloid hyperbole

🐦[6-month consequences of #COVID🕸-19 in patients discharged from hospital: a cohort study. Six months after illness onset, 76% (1265 of 1655) reported at least one symptom that persisted, with fatigue or muscle weakness being the most frequent. https://t.co/G7ENUDUeuI🕸
— Patrik Brundin (@BrundinPatrik) January 16, 2021🕸]🐦

You’re going to be shocked when I tell you this, badg, but Andrew Wakefield was a doctor.

How is this possibly helping your argument that studies/coverage indicating the same can happen with covid are overstated?

― Smokahontas and John Spliff (PBKR), Thursday, January 28, 2021 8:50 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Coverage is making it sound like COVID is some kind of never before seen monster virus that destroys the lungs and hearts of otherwise healthy people even when they have mild or no symptoms.

You’re right, it’s all a big deal over nothing.

I don't understand your end game here, man alive.

The fact that The Lancet is not infallible and has fucked up in the past doesn't mean its credibility is nil.

I found this article reassuring: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2021/01/giving-people-more-freedom-whole-point-vaccines/617829/

Yeah, someone linked to that yesterday, it raises some good points. Of course, we have to figure out how to actually get the vaccine into folks' arms before we worry about what comes next. We have a tremendously long road ahead of us just to get there.

COVID is a never before seen monster virus, though. Like, the fact that it's new is why we're in this situation.

I don't really know how this all works, but as I mentioned upthread, this does happen to people after other viruses as well, it's just more rare. It doesn't seem at all surprising to me that a new virus running through a population with no immunity would have more of the same after-affects that are associated with other viruses.

How is this possibly helping your argument that studies/coverage indicating the same can happen with covid are overstated?

― Smokahontas and John Spliff (PBKR), Thursday, January 28, 2021 8:50 AM (nineteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Coverage is making it sound like COVID is some kind of never before seen monster virus that destroys the lungs and hearts of otherwise healthy people even when they have mild or no symptoms.

But not studies, correct?

One thing I find intriguing is how much attention UK media has devoted to long covid compared to other countries. I can't speak for the US, but there's very little about this in Canada, even less in Quebec, and almost nothing in France and Romania. This is gonna sound weird, but… kudos to UK media?

6-month consequences of #COVID-19 in patients discharged from hospital

If you were admitted to a hospital, then your symptoms were severe, not mild or non-existent. People who can't figure that out have spent exactly two second or less thinking about what they are being told.

I've seen plenty about long covid in French media fwiw.

Interesting. My sense is that there have been fewer articles about this in Le Monde and Libération, say, than in The Guardian.

Possibly because our Prime Minister has been looking like death warmed up since he recovered from his bout of the 'rona?

xp that may be, I don't read Libé (though I follow their headlines on social media but that's an algorithmic crapshoot). But I follow a lot of French media on social media & like maybe through France Inter or something like that I keep seeing things about it

like for example https://www.futura-sciences.com/sante/actualites/pandemie-covid-long-sont-personnes-plus-risque-82241/