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posted by martyb on Monday July 13 2020, @10:50PM   Printer-friendly

The SARS-CoV-2 / COVID-19 pandemic has been with us for over six months. A recent check of https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ reveals just over 13 million cases, with over a half million deaths, and 4.9 million of which are listed as active. On a positive note, 7.6 million are listed as recovered.

Unfortunately, recovered does not necessarily mean being back to the same shape someone was in pre-infection (see below).

Statistically, there are bound to be some Soylentils who have been infected (or had friends or family members who were).

I'd like to offer an opportunity for us to pull together and share our collective experiences. If you've made it through, telling others of how it went can be helpful both for the one who shares, and also for those who were recently diagnosed. Fears, doubts, and worries act to drain energy better directed to recovery.

NB: Please be mindful that "the internet never forgets". I encourage all who respond to make use of posting anonymously.

With that caution, what has been your experience? How long between time of infection and onset of symptoms? How bad was it? How are things now? What do you know now that you wish you knew earlier? What did you hear about earlier but didn't realize they meant that?

Penultimately, I realize words are inadequate, but I sincerely wish and hope that all can be spared from this malady, and those who have been afflicted may have a speedy and full recovery.

Unfortunately, it looks like that may not be as likely as we would all hope and wish for...

Ars Technica has results of an analysis of COVID-19 victims' recovery. Be aware it was from a relatively small sample of patients who had been infected and then deemed to be recovered. Two months after infection, COVID-19 symptoms persist:

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues unabated in many countries, an ever-growing group of people is being shifted from the "infected" to the "recovered" category. But are they truly recovered? A lot of anecdotal reports have indicated that many of those with severe infections are experiencing a difficult recovery, with lingering symptoms, some of which remain debilitating. Now, there's a small study out of Italy in which a group of infected people was tracked for an average of 60 days after their infection was discovered. And the study confirms that symptoms remain long after there's no detectable virus.

[...] Roughly 60 days later, the researchers followed up with an assessment of these patients. Two months after there was no detectable virus, only 13 percent of the study group was free of any COVID-19 symptoms. By contrast, a bit over half still had at least three symptoms typical of the disease.

The most common symptom was fatigue, followed by difficulty breathing, joint pain, and chest pain. Over 10 percent were still coughing, and similar numbers hadn't seen their sense of smell return. A large range of other symptoms were also present.

Journal Reference:
Angelo Carfì, Roberto Bernabei, Francesco Landi. Persistent Symptoms in Patients After Acute COVID-19 [open], JAMA (DOI: 10.1001/jama.2020.12603)


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  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:04AM (9 children)

    Pretty sure we all had it in late December or early January. Whole neighborhood, including cats, got the couple week long lung crud, of widely varying severities. Nobody died except a couple of the neighbor's cats. Nobody was even hospitalized. Nobody went in to get tested because it wasn't supposed to be here yet.

    Nowadays, about half the folks in this county wear a mask that wouldn't stop a ping-pong ball, much less a covid-19 virus. The other half flat refuse. Restaurants, theaters, and bars are open but leaving empty seats. Nobody within two Kevin Bacon hops of me has contracted anything similar since whatever that bug around New Year's was.

    --
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  • (Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:16AM

    by HiThere (866) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:16AM (#1020943) Journal

    Maybe. And unfortunately the antibody test won't answer that question, because the antibodies don't seem to be persistent. I guess we just need to hope that that's not the arm of the immune system that's most important in this case.

    OTOH, if you've got a septic tank or a privy you could have someone run a test for RNA fragments. That's how they've detected most of the older cases so far. Or perhaps you city or county has someone already doing that monitoring for the public sewage systems.

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    Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by NotSanguine on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:42AM (5 children)

    Nowadays, about half the folks in this county wear a mask that wouldn't stop a ping-pong ball, much less a covid-19 virus.

    Face coverings (not N95 respirators) aren't meant to protect *you*. They provide *some* level of protection to others *from you*.

    If you care about the people around you, that's a good reason to wear a face covering.

    If you don't give a rat's ass about other people, there's no reason to wear a face covering.

    --
    No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:55AM (3 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:55AM (#1020983)

      No they don't. I see people take them off to talk, spit, cough, and sneeze. Nobody is going to walk around in a mask filled with spit and snot all day.

      • (Score: 2) by MostCynical on Tuesday July 14 2020, @09:02AM (2 children)

        by MostCynical (2589) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @09:02AM (#1021126) Journal

        why is the answer (often? usually?) education [facemaskmall.com]?

        --
        "I guess once you start doubting, there's no end to it." -Batou, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:46AM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @11:46AM (#1021166)

          Education isn't going to solve the problem that stopping the very stuff supposed to not get through the mask is incompatible with mask wearing.

          Are you going to buy everyone 4-5 masks/day to wear every time one gets sullied?

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @10:55PM

            by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @10:55PM (#1021534)

            Sounds like you need some education . . .

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:31AM

      by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:31AM (#1021013) Journal

      Where have you been? Uzzard *doesn't* give a rat's ass about anyone else, it's all he has that passes for a personality.

      --
      I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
  • (Score: 2) by tizan on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:51AM

    by tizan (3245) on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:51AM (#1020977)

    I heard this like several times now...I doubt it, we have seen how fast it spreads we would have been flooding the ICU earlier than we saw ...
    unless you were in NY state ...that is where it was roaming for quite some time before first id.

    I got terribly sick with a lung /cough / fever in February and it was RSV... Between the the different kinds of flu, cold and RSV there are other kind of lung related viruses that get us.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:14AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday July 14 2020, @03:14AM (#1021000) Journal

    Pretty sure we all had it in late December or early January.

    Covid isn't the only thing out there. Last winter had a flu that disrupted my workplace (tourism industry) for about a month split between December and January.