Covid Update April 2022

Covid update

April 2022

As best I understand it

It appears that recently the CDC, followed up by many towns that had mask mandates, has said we no longer need to wear masks in public buildings. Or, at least, that’s what we think they said.

Sigh. Ignore that advice – unless, of course, you want to catch Covid.

The new variant – Omicron B2, I believe it’s called – is here. It’s even more contagious than the last very contagious variant. You can catch it even if you’re fully vaccinated and boostered. You can catch it even if you’ve already had Covid.

So why did the CDC suggest we don’t need to wear masks in public? Partly because they have no idea how many people out here are catching Covid. They only know how many get sick enough to land in the hospital; and of those, how many are on respirators; and of those two categories, how many die. Because most people are now using the rapid antigen tests at home to determine whether they have Covid, the CDC hasn’t a clue.

For that matter, a number of people walking around with mild or asymptomatic cases of Covid don’t know they have it, either. Sometimes because they don’t test, and just assume the sniffles and sneezes and sore throat is just a cold, or seasonal allergies, or whatever; or they’ve taken the test incorrectly and gotten a false negative; or, if they’re asymptomatic but have been exposed, either don’t know they’ve been exposed or assume they don’t have it because they don’t develop symptoms. And there are still people out there who falsely believe that because they’ve already had Covid, they can’t get it again. You can get it again: how long your acquired immunity lasts depends on your general health and the vigor of your immune system. You might get 2 weeks’ worth of acquired immunity, you might get up to 3 months’ worth of acquired immunity. Rule of thumb: the younger you are and the healthier you are, the longer the acquired immunity MIGHT last.

I went into a local store the other day that, until a week ago, was stringently insisting on mask wearing. Now they’re not. And while I was there – a very rapid 15-minute run-through – I counted at least 10 unmasked people, and heard coughs, hacks, sneezes, and more coughs. I got out fast.

So, once more, what I understand about the various tests:

PCR tests are the ones someone else does to you by swabbing one nostril deeply; the sample goes to a lab and in most cases it takes 24 hours or so to get results. This test is the most accurate for people who have no symptoms, because it tests for a protein that’s associated with the Covid virus. If the virus is there, the protein is there; and yes, there can be errors, if the swabbing wasn’t done well or the packaging was messed up or some other human error. Also, this test may give a positive result for some time in someone who has recently had Covid but has recovered from the active part of the infection; and often in people with long-term Covid, it can produce a positive result for many months.

Rapid antigen tests are the ones we’re using at home, and give results in 15 minutes. If used properly, they’re very accurate. However,  many people don’t use them properly. So here’s a few things to be aware of:

          They have expiration dates. The tests the Federal gov’t sent out have an early expiration date, Aug ‘22 on the ones I’ve seen; the ones the state of NH sent out don’t expire ‘til Nov ’23 – they are two different brands – and I’ve heard of people who’ve bought rapid tests that had already expired. The expiration date can be tricky to find, but make sure you have a good one.

These tests check for antigens, which are produced when your immune system begins to fight the Covid virus. It takes some time to produce enough antigens to be detectable. So:

-If you don’t have symptoms, you’re likely to get a false negative. Symptoms are the sign your immune system is fighting the virus. People who are asymptomatic, or who test prior to developing symptoms, are most likely to get false negative results. You can’t use these tests to accurately determine whether you have Covid unless you do it at the proper time and in the proper way. Taking one this morning so you can go see Grandma without a mask on this afternoon doesn’t tell you anything except that there aren’t enough antigens in your snot to be detectable by the test. You could still infect Grandma.

-Wait for about 24 hours after you start showing symptoms to take the test. If you get a positive result, you have Covid.

-If you know or suspect you’ve been infected but don’t yet have symptoms, protect the people around you by careful mask wearing and hygiene for 2-3 days; if you still have no symptoms and get a negative test, you might not have Covid, but to be certain, continue mask wearing and hygiene for another 2-3 days, then re-test. If you still get a negative test, you probably don’t have Covid. Probably don’t, not definitely don’t.

-If you’re living with someone who has symptomatic Covid but you test negative, protect everyone you come into contact with anyway: use good masks and hygiene. Asymptomatic people can infect other people with Covid, it’s just harder to do it. It’s a respiratory disease, so coughing, shouting, kissing, talking too close to other, unmasked people, sneezing, etc can contaminate someone else.

-When you’re doing the rapid tests, you need to think and act like a scientist. Clean your hands first. Put a clean paper towel down to protect against contamination from the surface you’re working on. DON’T put the clean swab on your work surface; leave it in the package until you use it. Be careful not to contaminate the solution. Swab slowly and deeply and long enough – it’s not comfortable, but don’t speed it up or go easy on yourself. Once you’ve swabbed, immediately put it into the solution – don’t set it down first or wave it around; and when you’re doing the solution thing, be sure to do it thoroughly and squeeze the swab out well into the solution. DON’T put the used swab down anywhere but in the trash,that would just be gross. Don’t leave the solution with its test strip for either too little time or too long a time or your result will be incorrect.

If you have Covid: it’s still true that you’re potentially contagious for up to 3 days prior to developing symptoms, and you’re contagious for 3 days after your symptoms are gone. For most people with mildish cases of Covid, the symptoms last for around 5-6 days. The CDC has said that people who tested positive should isolate for 5 days, then can go back to work after 5 days BUT for the following 5 days must wear a good mask in public (good = KN95 with no gaps, or preferably N95 that’s fitted) AND must also mask around the people you live with,. THAT’S BECAUSE YOU’RE STILL CONTAGIOUS!

          There has been a shortage of essential workers because of Covid – by essential, what’s meant is health-care workers, people in the food industries, other businesses that are truly essential to us all living and not starving, etc. In order to help close that gap, the CDC changed the isolation rule of thumb to the 5 days plus the well-masked 5 days. However, if you aren’t an essential worker – most of whom who, when at work, will wear full personal protective gear to keep from passing on their still-contagious virus – don’t stop your isolation after 5 days. If you’re still having to wear well-fitting masks for the next 5 days even around your family or other household members – why wouldn’t you continue to isolate? It’s easier on you and safer for everyone else.

If you sally out into the world without a mask, you’re taking a pretty big risk. Cases are on the rise again; the “hidden” cases are in the dozens. And into your risk calculations, don’t forget that in the US, we are still far from a safe percentage of vaxed and boostered population – we aren’t even at 75%. And the numbers of sick enough to be hospitalized, on respirators, or dying are still way too big. Protect yourself; and others.

 

Viral Loads O' Fun

 

Yup, well, predictably, I caught Covid from the Husband. I mean, really – unless you know someone’s likely infected you, everyone who’s vaxed and boostered thinks – oh, I’ve caught a cold. So you don’t mention it, until a couple of days later, when it becomes obvious. Which usually means: worse.

There’s no way to effectively disinfect a small house, especially in the winter, when it’s too cold to open windows for ventilation, you use a woodstove for heat which not only dries out the air but adds a fair amount of ash and dust to it, and the only full bathroom’s in the downstairs living area, one room amongst four very small rooms with no doors between them except on the bathroom. So even though I chased the husband upstairs to his bedroom and told him to stay there, by then he’d spread the virus through the downstairs pretty completely, and while I disinfected what I could – how do you disinfect a household, really? You can wipe horizontal surfaces and door handles and phones and tv controls and sinks and toilets and faucets and anything else the one with the plague may have touched, but what do you do about the afghans and throw pillows and piles of paper, and lampshades and sofa and cloth-covered chairs and CATS and stuff you don’t even think about that the pestilence coughed out by the culprit has landed on? Short of a bonfire of your entire house contents, that is. I considered it and rejected the idea.

So predictably, I caught it exactly three days later.

You don’t want to catch this virus. There were 36 hours of what felt like swallowing shards of glass, and nothing, NOTHING, touched that pain, western or Chinese. Not everyone has that symptom as badly – Husband says his sore throat lasted longer but wasn’t as bad, and an NSAID worked for him. Nothing worked for me, including Chinese meds, cursing, and cursing some more. I heard from a patient whose relative – vaxed if I remember correctly, but not boostered – had the glass shards sore throat for 10 days, during which time he couldn’t eat or drink and lost 10 pounds. I would have killed myself if it lasted that long. The other part of that misery is that the sore throat causes coughing which makes the sore throat worse which causes more coughing…and one couldn’t sleep, because too sore and coughing. Wracking coughs. Continuous, wracking coughs. For hours. Mostly at night, for some reason. Probably because that’s when the evil imps that lurk in the shadows in the corners of bedrooms and hallways are busiest and most creative.

So friends of mine, you who claim to have had this and insist it was no worse than a cold and it was over in 3 or 4 days? I DON’T BELIEVE YOU. You now reside on my mental list of people who forget how awful something is, once it’s over – along with women who have gone through childbirth.

So it’s true that depending on what variant of this sneaky virus you catch – and you won’t know – and how excellent your immune system is at the moment; and what version of the vaccine you got (J&J people, you’re doomed); and whether you’ve been boostered; and how long ago you got vaxed and boostered; and whether you have a living situation that lets you easily and completely isolate the sick person, and whether they went into isolation as soon as they realized they were coming down with something – all those and a hundred other variables – you might experience something that’s only as bad as a bad cold and you might get over it in ---let’s say 6 or so days. But – you won’t know ‘til you catch it and the fun begins.

 And then, you have to remember you were able to transmit the virus for three days prior to having symptoms, and you’ll be  able to transmit it for at least three days after your symptoms have completely disappeared – so to do the right thing, you’ll call everyone you came in contact with maskless for those three days prior to showing symptoms to give them a head’s up. Do this  before the coughing and glass shards throat kick in on day two or three. You’ll most likely hear horrifying stories, as the Husband did, of dozens of local people who also caught it from the one place he regularly went and didn’t wear a mask. In his case: Old Farts Tennis. Yup, I know, but you can’t tell Old Farts anything, and it had been safe and the place had been carefully disinfected daily and monitored until just about a month ago. And then it wasn’t, because everyone got sloppy and decided Covid was no longer a risk. Surprise!

When you do get ready to go back out into public, here’s some more advice from the sickbed: until your symptoms are completely gone – and that means completely gone, not that you’re feeling better and even though you’re still harfing up a hairball every so often you figure you’re safe – you can still give this little giftie to someone else for at least the next three days post symptoms. This advice has changed several times during the two years we’ve been inflicted with Covid, partly because we know more now, and partly because the different variants all act differently and have different rules – so just believe it, you’re still contagious. WEAR A MASK. Everywhere.

So now I’ve had personal experience with the rapid Covid tests, here’s what I can tell you:

No point in wasting one before you have symptoms, you’ll just get a false negative.

If you suspect you’re coming down with something but don’t actually have symptoms yet, don’t go anywhere in public without a good mask on, keep your hands sanitized/well washed, and isolate at home after telling your spouse what you suspect. It won’t kill you. Two or three days later, if you have symptoms, use a test.

If your test is positive, you’ve got it.  Stay isolated. Wear a mask when your family comes to feed you. Don’t touch stuff they’re going to touch. Don’t cough/snot/harf all over everything, and put your used rapid test and all your snotrags in plastic bags that you can seal up once they’re full so the trash folks don’t have to touch them, either.

Stay to hell in your room until you’re really, truly over this. If you have a fever, take acetaminophen or ibuprofen or aspirin; ditto for the sore throat. My personal experience is that only 3 ibus worked and not perfectly, I had no fever worth mentioning, and from a Chinese medical point of view, this is a truly bizarre virus, and weird mix of cold and hot invasion and pretty much nothing has made an obvious difference. I finally tried a fire-toxin formula which may, or may not, have helped the sore throat. Or, it may be that it just stopped hurting when the virus decided to change symptoms. I have no idea.

Should you take a second rapid test? Don’t be confused by the instructions that come with the test: the 2^nd test they refer to really means IF you get a negative result after the first, BUT you develop symptoms in the next few days while you’re carefully wearing a mask in public to protect the innocent, THEN take a 2^nd test to see if the antigens have built sufficiently to test positive. IF you still get a negative result, you most likely do actually just have a cold, but wear a mask in public or even better, stay home, because your cold symptoms are going to freak everyone out and no one wants to catch that from you, either.

At the end of your ordeal, if you’ve isolated ‘til symptom-free PLUS isolated an extra 3 days minimum, no point in taking a test. You can get a positive test for months after having Covid, but it won’t mean you’re still contagious.  Yes, you personally will gain some limited extra immunity from the variant you personally contracted – could be for 2 weeks, could be for 3 months – but you don’t know how long, it’s very individual, and you don’t know which variant you had, and you don’t know which variant everyone else is spreading around, so don’t take a chance – WEAR A MASK IN PUBLIC and around anyone you don’t know for certain is masking and vaxed and boostered and being careful.

WHY does the CDC now say you don’t need to wear a mask? Because they have no idea how many people are still catching the virus. All they know is how many people who caught it needed to be hospitalized, and how many of those died. The CDC doesn’t know about the local break-out of dozens of locals who caught it: rapid test results aren’t reported.

And maybe no one who works at the CDC has actually experienced a rotten case of this virus in their own body or the body of someone close to the, and they actually believe the thing is “no worse than a bad cold” for vaxed and boostered people. That’s true for some people; it’s true for part of the time you have it; but it ignores that getting it, bad cold symptoms or not or worse, disrupts lives – sick people can’t work, sick people’s families often can’t work, sick people give it to other people, and some of those people will indeed wind up in hospital or dead.

Yes, mask wearing is a pain in the butt. Proper mask wearing and sanitizing is a worse pain in the butt. But worse things could happen. How many really sick people, how many days of someone else’s lost work, how many hospitalized and dead people are you willing to be responsible for in order to not wear a mask?

Personally, I’m not ready to risk even one. And I hope the person who did the bad thing which gave the Husband Covid, which gave me Covid, which has caused already 10 days of him not being able to work, and me 8 days of not being able to treat patients, and another week moreat least of neither of us being able to work – should I add those dollar amounts up for you? – plus the days and nights of real discomfort, the risk and trouble to family and friends who have had to run errands for us, the civic work that had to be cancelled, the volunteer work that can’t be done --- you’re getting the idea, right? I hope that person who wasn’t careful who handed the virus on to me and he and the dozens of others who caught it – I hope someone slaps that person upside the head. Hard.

So, this is my contemplation from the middle of my own Covid world. Think twice before deciding it isn’t your responsibility to wear a mask.

And when you catch it, don’t give in to the urge to take your unmasked, Covidy self to visit the vax-denying, mask-refusing friends and relatives who think they’re immune. Just to cough a bit in reflective thought, and see what happens.

Because it won’t be just them.

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com    8 March 2022

All art and photos Deb Marshall: 

 Me; Two of a Kind (Rasta and Lynx); All Duded Up; Thinking About Stuff; Lynx

 

 

 

Time Off

 

 

It’s March: finally. It’s also Mardi Gras. And it’s snowing: of course.

In my house there aren’t any wild parties or colorful beads. Instead, I’m doing my best to isolate the Husband in his bedroom – very hard in a small house in the middle of winter when it’s too cold to open windows for ventilation and we use a woodstove for heat and my arthritis makes it impossible to haul the wood inside efficiently. Yes, he managed to catch Covid, in spite of being careful and wearing a mask in public places. I’m blaming it on the Old Fart Tennis Guys, all of whom claim to be vaxed and boostered, but who knows? They don’t wear their masks while they’re playing, and they sweat and shout and huff and puff…

It seems that a number of locals have recently caught Covid; he’s been hearing from them ever since he had to call everyone he’s been unmasked around (see Old Fart Tennis Guys above) for the last week. I’ve consequently had to cancel my patients this week – might be next week too, depending on: 1. How fast he gets over this, and 2. Whether I come down with it.  So I’m spending my days following him around with disinfectant wipes in hand, snarling at him to wash his hands wash his hands wash his hands not to touch anything I’ll also touch without first washing his hands, and stay the hell out of the kitchen!

He, of course, is wearing a mask – another set of hygiene rules that need constant repeating (don’t touch the inside and then something else without washing hands first, don’t lay it down on anything I’m going to also touch, don’t don’t don’t! And I’m wearing a mask whenever he’s not in his room and for at least a half hour afterwards. And my hands are so sore and raw from washing washing washing and handling disinfectant wipes that I’m slightly bloody.

It’s going to be a long, long week.

Here’s a Life Lesson: last Saturday I was thinking how much I’d like a couple of weeks off. (This was before Husband’s Covid symptoms appeared.) BE WARY OF WHAT YOU WISH FOR. This wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

If I’m clever, and don’t get sick also, I’ll use the time to tackle a couple of the piles of paperwork I didn’t have time to deal with last year when I was too busy dealing with my Florida friend’s stuff. I’ll read a couple of books and take a couple of naps – things I keep promising myself but never, ever, have time for. I’ll sort all the seeds that have come in the mail into groups: Plant Early; Plant In June; Flowers. Maybe I’ll go through the Files in the Fireproof Box and remove the stuff that doesn’t need to be there anymore. And start a pile of yard sale stuff. Maybe I’ll catch sight of the suet-stealing ravens: I’ve heard them several times this winter but not made it to the window in time to watch their thieving deed. I could edit the indoor plants and put the ones that really aren’t doing well into the compost.

I could……dust. 

Or make a list of all the things I’m going to change when it’s my turn to be god. Or hunt for my magic wand, which I seem to have misplaced years ago. If I could find that, I wouldn’t have to wait ‘til it’s my turn to be god.

Right now I’m going to go heat some soup for supper.

I heard in passing on NPR a quick comment that there’s yet another new variant in the States, including NH and other New England states, that’s even more contagious than Omicron. I only caught part of the report so fact-check me on this, but they said  it already accounts for – could it be? – 19% or more of new cases in NH. Don’t stop wearing your masks yet – it’s too soon.

Unless, of course, you want a couple of weeks off.

 

For the blog: herondragonwrites.blogspot.com      1 March 2022

 All photos Deb Marshall

 

A Lost Year

 

For me, last year was a lost year. A year when time got lost, the world as I knew it was lost, energy was lost, feelings got lost, my illusions about other people got lost, my temper got lost very badly over and over and over again, sleep was lost…and to  a large extent, my contact with joy was lost.

In Pandemic Year 2021, people lost their minds, and so far, they haven’t regained them. People who used to be rational  now live in a science-fiction fantasy world where secret cloning labs in apartments in NYC are producing, with the help of alien DNA, fully mature look-alike clones of a list of people in the public eye; brains were transplanted from one adult male politician’s into another’s; microchips were inserted into vaccines so “they” can track us; vaccines were going to turn us into zombies; the Emperor and Saviour of the World was going to be crowned by people long thought to be dead; immortal tentacle beings were put into vaccines to live inside us for some bizarre reason; oh, and much more.

That’s the group who went completely nutso, and they’re so very crazed they’re actually funny – except that they actually believe this nonsense, which is scary.

 Another group that lost their minds and their grip on reality lives in a political thriller novel where mass voter fraud was perpetrated by a series of means that could only be taken seriously in a work of fiction.  This group of people sees enemy combatants hiding in every poll booth, voter registration list, paper manufacturer, state election official, vote counter, ink manufacturer;  and trickles down to classrooms, teachers, school boards, state legislatures, state officials, school boards, town officers, news agencies, reporters  --- you name it. What’s imagined by these people would be truly impressive if it were actually possible to pull off. It’s a tangled scrum of self-entitlement and hate that weaves a lowery net over too many areas of our lives.

There’s another group of self-involved, selfish, entitled neighbors and relations that have jammed their heads into some hollow place I truly don’t understand; a parallel universe where their decisions about health have no connection to the pandemic we’re in. This group has  somehow become immune to the reality of what’s happening around us, and also believes they’re free from any responsibility towards the rest of us, including the most vulnerable and fragile amongst us. They spout warped facts and figures to, I assume, soothe their guilty souls and try to confuse us into not paying attention to the stark damage each is doing. Each of their smoke-and-mirrors arguments  are connected with a twisted, barely there,  tiny thread of truth, or a truism that doesn’t pertain to the current situation, and they go on their merry ways putting everyone around them at risk of serious disease and potential death. Many of these lost souls deny it’s even happening, and many, even while they’re the ones dying, continue to deny it’s happening. They’ll tell you that it’s only vaccinated people who are getting sick, or only unhealthy people, or that because vaccinated people get sick and die from the virus proves the vaccinations don’t work, or that more people die of car accidents in a year than die of Covid, or or or – there are hundreds of claims, all warped, and none admitting that their unvaccinated selves are a major part of what’s causing the continuation of the problem. This group of people who have lost their minds tear families apart, cause untold amounts of sorrow and suffering, fear and disgust; and especially take a toll on the old folks in their families who are forced to risk serious illness and death, or give up seeing their grandchildren/great grandchildren/once dear friends again in the short time that may be left to them on earth.

 

I have lost my temper; I have lost my sense of humour (though I have to admit the sci-fi/fantasy group is pretty darn entertaining); I have lost some part of myself that used to believe that there is always possibility, that people will do their best and won’t choose to act so selfishly that they choose evil, and that love endures. I’ve found I don’t like people I used to like, and that when I lost that liking for them, I lost the love. I’ve discovered a part of myself that won’t be able to forgive.

Perhaps it’s because I’m tired, more tired than I ever remember being.  Pandemic restrictions, fighting nay-sayers, daily friction; followed by months of sequelae from a bad allergic reaction (nothing to do with Covid) and a long-standing injury that refused to heal; followed by near-shut-down; followed by the need to put my own life on hold for several months in order to help out a friend who, it turned out, needs more than just temporary help; two dead washing machines; a gardening summer that was partly lost to time I didn’t have, partly lost to a marauding horde of chipmunks that decimated at least half the food that should have gone into my freezers for winter. Inane, on-going arguments with people in the lost-their-minds categories; an on-going flea infestation; lost sleep from pain, and heat, and having to sleep in uncomfortable places for weeks on end. Rushing, rushing, rushing to try to catch up with my own life’s chores. Perhaps it’s also from on-going self-conversations about the terrible person I’ve become: the person who will not be able to forgive a relative who puts other people and my aged mother at risk; and disappointment that more than one person I’ve liked and loved are no longer people I can care about. My list goes on; exhaustion floods it.

We’re all tired. We ‘re all dis-spirited. We are all mourning people, or lost relationships, or altered health, or sometimes violently altered circumstances. This isn’t war time; this is war time. We have nothing to lose; we have everything to lose.  We are all dark spirits trying to find our ways home. And at the moment….at the moment, the circle of people we can rely on, look to for comfort, not fear, has narrowed. I no longer like those unmasked people I encounter daily, in mundane places, going about life’s business. I would no longer unquestionably ask those people for help, if I needed it. I no longer do anything but frown at them.

I want to sing a song of the new year, of new possibilities, of the under-current of joy. I want to; but I’m not sure I can, this year.

Not yet

 

Now it’s February, almost half-way through. I’ve been too tired and too angry to write; but life surrounds the ball of thunderclouds that usually float above my head.  Disregarding me, the moon fills and empties; the birds come and eat seed and the cat food my fussy furballs reject; a friend regularly sends letters I look forward to, especially because I know the writing of them is difficult. Every once in awhile I find something enjoyable on Netflix or Acorn. Every once in awhile a book in my To-Be-Read stack proves to be just wonderful.  Wild turkeys meander down from the witch poet’s hill to snack on spilled seeds and grains; my sweetest cat demands a full-attention love-up at least once a day; I make a soup that’s exceptionally wonderful. The seed catalogs are arriving; a bright red cardinal flits through the lilac tree; someone tells a story that makes me laugh and laugh.  Petie the Poodle visits my office. 

 

It could be worse!

 

For the blog, 10 February 2022. All photos Deb Marshall or Charley Freiberg.