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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)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @02:18AM (1 child)
We have multiple campuses, and some classes have been offered with partial remote participation for 10+ years now. Sure, one remote classroom is easier to handle than a zoofull on Zoom, but if the students find it annoying, they can come back to class in person.
Newsflash: People get these conditions called diseases, some being contagious. Quit your bellyaching, wear a mask if you want, or stay home. There's many others out there that want to work.
"Their extravagant salaries"? Admins make good money, but its extravagant only when compared to adjuncts.
Damn sure finances take a priority, the point of a university is to process oodles of money for its stakeholders. Before Trump threatened to cut off the gold mine of foreign students paying cash, my expectation was that the administrators you are blaming now were going to pull out the "all classes online!" card a week before start of classes, when it would be too late to make alternate plans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 14 2020, @07:32AM
There are many problems with your comment.
Actually, students may not have the choice of coming back to class in person. Classes will be in rooms with reduced capacities, but section sizes aren't being reduced. In many cases, those rooms will be unable to properly accommodate all of the students. The reality is that students may well be required to sign up for which class periods they want to attend and may be forced to attend some classes online. Something resembling this scenario is nearly ubiquitous across universities campuses.
Most of these contagious diseases do not pose the risk that COVID-19 does. They are either not as infectious or not as severe. The combination of being very infectious coupled with the relatively high probability of serious complications makes COVID-19 more dangerous than most other diseases. Additionally, because it is caused by a novel virus, virtually nobody was immune to it when it first appeared. Even now, most people haven't been infected and, therefore, lack immunity. So your implication that it's just a contagious disease is ignorant.
Additionally, the current advice from medical experts is that most masks don't provide all that much protection for the wearer. They are intended to prevent the wearer from infecting others if they are infected and don't know it. Your advice to "wear a mask if you want" isn't really helpful.
Hundreds of thousands of dollars is extravagant when compared to most people.
At least with state universities, the purpose of the university is to serve the needs of the state's residents. Finances matter, but universities really aren't fiscally responsible. They spend extravagantly when finances are good, but end up with serious shortfalls in times like this. Fiscal responsibility in salaries and building projects would be prudent.
I agree that the administrators should be more forthcoming about their plans. The reality is that they're not, to the detriment of both students and faculty.
Part of the reason that students don't learn well online is that faculty aren't well-trained in how to teach well online. Sure, any faculty member can teach a class online. The key is teaching that course well, in a way that delivers a good product for students. The prioritization of research over teaching at many universities means that students don't learn effectively. This is definitely true in most large classes. Most instructors don't have much training in how to teach effectively. Instead of continuing to tell students classes will be in-person when that may well not be reasonable or safe, universities could have spent the time working with faculty to make sure they were prepared to deliver high quality classes online.
Many universities are shortening their semesters, making the situation already difficult for students. If classes have to be moved online mid-semester and students have to leave campus under those circumstances, it will be particularly disruptive for everyone involved. This seems inevitable, given the high probability of COVID-19 outbreaks on campuses this fall. It would have been better to plan for classes to be fully online, then spend the time working with faculty to make sure they're prepared to deliver high quality instruction remotely.