COVID

Again

I haven’t posted in a couple of days. After managing to make it two years without COVID, I have managed to catch it twice in as many months. The odd part is that the two episodes have differed in symptoms.

The first time consisted of large amounts of congestion and coughing that lasted eleven days. I had no fever and COVID tests came up negative, but I lost my sense of taste and smell.

This latest bout had me with a mild stuffy nose and cough, no fever, and only lasted four days. I was so tired, I couldn’t stay awake. I wasn’t sure that I had COVID until my wife got sick, took a test, and it was positive. So I took one too, and what do you know, it was positive. Then yesterday morning, I woke up without a sense of smell or taste. This second bout with COVID has been MUCH milder than the first. The only other symptom is copious amounts of sweating.

I have no idea how we caught it. With my wife being a teacher and me working in a busy emergency room with daily contact with COVID patients, who knows?

By Divemedic, ago

Math, it’s a thing

Moderna claims that its COVID vaccine is 44% effective on young children who are 6 months to 2 years old. Doesn’t that mean that it failed 56 percent of the time? Even worse, it was only 38% effective on children aged 2 to 6 years. How can you call a vaccine that fails to work more that half of the time a “success?”

Moderna said the vaccine effectiveness for children under 6 years old against omicron was consistent with the currently approved vaccine for adults 18 and older.

So you are telling me that the vaccine fails to work 62 percent of the time on adults as well? That’s a far cry from the 95% success rate that was sold to us back in 2020.

By Divemedic, ago

It Took Two Years

But the coof finally caught up to me. It started on Day 1 with some post nasal drip, mild fatigue, and a sore throat. No big deal, but I knew I was coming down with something.

Day 2, and I woke up to discover that I had a stuffy nose and my throat hurt so bad I couldn’t swallow. After some cold water and Ibuprofen, it eased up enough that I figured it was a mild cold.

Day 3 was more fatigue, congestion, and a mild cough. Dayquil worked fine. I took a home COVID test and it was negative. I was tired and fatigued, so I spent a good bit of the day napping before going to bed early with a dose of Nyquil.

Day 4: I went to work and pulled a 12 hour shift. I felt slightly under the weather, but still not too bad. I have had far worse. Symptoms to this point were mild fatigue, a runny nose, and a mild, non-productive cough. I went to bed at midnight with Nyquil and Robitussin. I didn’t sleep well.

I woke early on Day 5 (at 0430) because I couldn’t breathe. I sat up in a chair, eating Vick’s cough drops like candy. That and some extra strength Robitussin DM seemed to work. A second at home COVID test of a different brand also showed negative. I slept on the couch for a good bit of the afternoon before getting up to take a shower. I was shaving when I realized that I couldn’t smell the Vick’s shower tablet. Then I realized I couldn’t smell anything- not my soap, shaving cream, nothing.

My wife and I did some experimenting. I couldn’t even smell Vick’s Vaporub when it was rubbed on my upper lip. The only thing that I could smell (very faintly) was vinegar. That’s when I knew. COVID.

It’s now day nine, and I have spent the last few days sleeping in the recliner, coughing up large amounts of mucous. It feels like I am breathing through a straw. That and fatigue are the only remaining symptoms. Even my senses of taste and smell came back after two days.

My wife doesn’t think that it is COVID, mostly because the home tests say that it isn’t. I don’t want to take an official test, because my job would require me to quarantine for 14 days. Regardless, my wife woke up with a sore throat this morning, so now it appears as though she has it.

By Divemedic, ago

FEMA on Fallout

In keeping with my post on fallout, FEMA has come up with some “helpful” advice concerning shelter from radioactive fallout. I am not kidding, this is the newest plan from the Federal Government agency that is in charge of disaster response:

Go to the basement or middle of the building. Stay away from the outer walls and roof. Try to maintain a distance of at least six feet between yourself and people who are not part of your household. If possible, wear a mask if you’re sheltering with people who are not a part of your household. Children under two years old, people who have trouble breathing, and those who are unable to remove masks on their own should not wear them.

I did take the liberty of bolding the dumbest part.

They go to tell you what supplies you should bring with you:

If you are able to, set aside items like soap, hand sanitizer that contains at least 60 percent alcohol, disinfecting wipes, and general household cleaning supplies that you can use to disinfect surfaces you touch regularly.

Again, I was going to bold the stupid parts, but I decided to leave their links in place.

If you have to take shelter from nuclear fallout, whatever else you do, make sure that you don’t expose anyone to the illness that 99.6 percent of the public manages to survive.

By Divemedic, ago

Pitchforks Needed

This needs to be spread far and wide:

Scientists have found that a section of the genetic material that makes up the COVID virus is the same as one that Moderna patented in February of 2016. The sequence is 19 base pairs long, meaning that there is only a one in three trillion chance that this happened naturally.

COVID is the only coronavirus of its type to carry 12 unique letters that allow its spike protein to be activated by a common enzyme called furin, which allows it to spread between human cells with ease.

If in fact the virus is engineered using genetic material that was patented by Moderna, this would explain how a vaccine was ready for market within months. They already knew how to vaccinate against it- it was their property.

By Divemedic, ago

Job Interferes with Blogging

COVID has again begun running amok at work. In less than a week, we went from no COVID patients to about 100. Even worse, this variant seems to be more contagious to younger people than the previous versions, so many hospital employees are getting it.

We still have about 100 COVID patients admitted, enough for an entire wing of one floor. So far, that is less than what we had back in August and September with the Delta variant. We had one COVID patient die on Sunday, and none on Monday that I am aware of. Our hardest hit patients are the elderly. Nearly every seriously ill patient is over the age of 80. Most have serious underlying conditions like COPD or end stage renal disease. The one who died on Sunday was 92 years old and had COPD.

This Omicron variant seems to be a lot milder than previous strains, but MUCH more contagious. There are over 100 hospital employees out with COVID as we speak, but the symptoms appear to be somewhat similar to a bad cold for most people.

The problem for me is that I have two employees out with it, one of whom had to be sent home an hour into her shift. She had mild symptoms (cough, fatigue, runny nose) but there is no way she can stay at work with a positive test, so I went in to cover part of her shift on Sunday and on Monday. That means I worked my normal 12 hour shift plus four hours of hers. Two days in a row.

Hence, blogging had to take a back burner. Don’t feel too bad. I get a weekend shift differential plus a cash bonus to work extra shifts. Plus, as soon as I hit 40 hours, I get time and a half. It’s only the second day of the week, and I already have over 35 hours on the clock. It will be a good paycheck, at least.

By Divemedic, ago