They were open to much of the public months before that (I was later than most people here, and my turn came up in April), but that doesn't matter, because Delta didn't arrive on our shores until later in Spring, and didn't start growing rapidly until beginning of Summer. We had enough time to stop this. Even with Delta here and the vaccine being less effective than it used to be at preventing transmission, everyone being vaccinated would be very likely to drop R0 below 1 and we would have avoided this wave. Wouldn't that be a good outcome? I don't understand people not wanting the vaccine to be highly effective. It's like the people who earlier in the pandemic clearly wanted the evidence to show that masks weren't effective. I asked repeatedly if they would be glad to find out they actually were very effective, and not a single anti-mask person would answer that question. It seems the same with the vaccine now.

This would make a huge difference. I would feel much better going in businesses, and even taking my unvaccinated kids, if people were all wearing really good, well fitted masks. I know people can't all get fit tested, but testing on real people shows a good mask with a good fit doing a really good job.

I'm not seeing anyone wanting the government to go around injecting people against their will. People want vaccines (or legitimate exemptions) required to participate in things, so that people who are participating in the solution to this aren't having their lives completely upended by those who refuse to. Had that happened as soon as we had vaccines, I don't believe we would be here at all. Delta wouldn't have found enough hosts to become dominant, R0 would have dramatically dropped, and we wouldn't be trying to figure out what is safe for our kids to do this fall while hospitals around the country once again fill up and thousands and thousands of Americans die an easily preventable death each month. It sucks.

I can see in theory this may be true, but it hasn't been that way in practice in my experience. In the medical specialty I was trained in, they had a bad reputation because it was very much recipe medicine, where someone comes in with abc, so you give them a handout on xyz, which is quicker and cheaper than doing qrs, which is actually more effective and also promotes better patient satisfaction with outcome. I'm further colored by my parents' experience with them, and while they are very happy because it's all they've known for fifty+ years, my siblings and I bang our heads against the wall because their care is substandard compared to what the rest of us experience with our own doctors and their doctors miss things and they now have lasting negative health consequences as a result, not to mention it takes so much for them to be able to see a specialist, with their primary acting as gate keeper. I realize this is a more cost effective way to provide medical care, but it's not had good outcomes from where we stand. A chiropractor is not trained to be a primary health care provider. I know some like to bill themselves that way and sell their services that way, but if you compare their education to an MD (or nurse practitioner, or PA, or other PCP), you'll see it's not anywhere comparable. It's just not the focus of their education. Yes. Mine has been tested by several doctors. The new PCP I saw in October tested my D and called me after the results to say it was too low and to advise me how to supplement (and actually recommended the right kinds and amounts).

Ah, that is important context. That is the experience I'm familiar with with Kaiser as well. There can tend to be a cookie cutter, assembly line kind of approach for many (not all) doctors in their system.

I'm still stuck on the fact that even if people don't know someone personally who did, can't they look at the numbers in the US and across the world, and come to the conclusion that it clearly is a very big deal for a very large number of people, and that it just appears they have been lucky so far to not know someone? Why does it have to be someone they know personally?

The people not vaccinating for these reasons, are actually the most reachable. I think we should do whatever we can to help people in that situation be able to be vaccinated. I’ve thought from the beginning of vaccination that we need to be providing employers and employees with a way to compensate for any missed time due to vaccine side effects. That’s a doable thing to accomplish. For most of the people I’m hearing on the news who have just lost unvaccinated family members to Covid and are pleading with people to get the vaccine though, that hasn’t been the reason. Most of them say they were duped into thinking that Covid was no big deal and the vaccine was dangerous and now they regret it.

Came looking for this thread to see how your son is doing. I hope he has turned the corner and is improving. Are you all staying healthy?

Just the wording of “unauthorized” vaccines is a tip off though (they are currently “authorized” under the emergency use authorization. There are strict, time-based protocols in place to move from that to full approval), and being against an employer requiring employees to either be vaccinated or to test and mask. And I actually fully believe you that you don’t intend any of this to be about skin color. But I gently say that it might be worth at least being aware that as a new poster, you very quickly came across that way, because you have a pattern of jumping into or starting topics related to race and doing a lot of race whataboutism, as stated above. Those examples I gave all come from your posts. Again, you were relatively new and it immediately stood out to me. I don’t expect you’re doing it on purpose, but it might be something to have an awareness of. I have issues with all people who are choosing to remain unvaccinated without a health contraindication, despite having vaccine available, and I’m all for much;’much more testing. Sure. Let’s do it.

From Alberta’s chief health officer:

My point is, if you want to be taken seriously that your concern is the spread of Covid, then you need to be showing it through other words and actions as well. But if requiring vaccines is wrong in all other circumstances, but suddenly right in the case of immigrants, there’s no good argument there. It doesn’t help that this is part of a pattern of whataboutism, mostly having to do with minorities. “What about Black people having loud arguments in their apartments?” “What about BLM protests?” Etc. Let me be clear: I don’t think Covid positive individuals should be crossing the border and out among the public while positive, and I believe everyone who can be should be vaccinated against Covid. But I don’t believe that is true for immigrants, while not being true for all the millions of US citizens walking around unvaccinated and Covid positive. So, handle the border problems, but also the US resident problems, which are currently a much bigger cause of spread.

Have you seen Alberta, Canada’s new guidelines? They’re saying that as well, but also that kids with a positive Covid test don’t have a stay home from school !! They basically seem to be taking an extreme let ‘er rip position. Yikes. Talk about an experiment.

That would have some relevance to this topic if we were otherwise keeping spread contained within our country. As it is, this isn’t a problem coming from the outside. Much of the country has decided to just let it run rampant. If we were going to be getting serious about stopping the spread within our borders, then this would have to be part of it, absolutely. But right now, it’s a completely separate issue that has nothing to do with Covid.

I don’t know that answer, but saw this chart this morning that shows pretty starkly how well the vaccines are working there:

interesting. It’s the opposite here. The people who are vaccinated are most likely to mask. Masking had recently very rapidly dropped from universal to a small minority masking, but with the new Delta developments, masking is now reversing here again and people are starting to mask up in bigger numbers again. Will be interesting next time I go somewhere to see what it’s like now.

This d*^% virus! The more it transmits, the more it’s going to select for this kind of thing that evades our current strategies. We’re not moving fast enough to squash this before it mutates.

This seems obvious, so I'm guessing there's a reason it's been ruled out, but would it not be more likely to be from the eggs that went into the cake batter? I know flour can cause food poisoning as well, it just seems so much less likely, especially when there's no consistent link to type of cake mix.

I don't know which Covid thread to put this in, but this looks like the first study showing the possibility of long Covid in vaccinated people who get breakthrough infections 😔 https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/07/28/1021888033/breakthrough-infections-may-cause-long-covid-symptoms-small-study-suggests

That looks like a really good set up. I'm glad he's even able to have his bathroom contained. How long will you have him quarantine? Two weeks? Poor guy! Hope he stays feeling well and it goes by quickly for all.

Did they ever determine via imaging or anything if there actually were blood clots, or is it thought now that it's just a weird headache?

This seems like another case of whataboutism. One problem doesn't negate another. Let's find a way to get everyone vaccinated then. No hypocrisy then. (It's actually kind of crazy when I think about this, that being vaccinated is being talked about like a punishment, rather than a free health service that almost eliminates someone's chances of dying of a pandemic illness.) This keeps being left out when "mandatory vaccination" is talked about. In the majority of cases, it's not actually even mandatory vaccination. It's vaccinate or test and mitigate. I can't see what the problem would be with that unless someone is actually against preventing the spread of Covid. Some universities do just require vaccination (without the alternative option of test and mitigate) but those have exemption policies for those that can't be vaccinated.

Completely agree. As much as it totally sucks that he got it while fully vaccinated, the stats for the fully vaccinated show that it is incredibly unlikely that he is going to become seriously ill. I would make a different decision if he wasn't vaccinated, but with a vaccinated 22 yo who isn't feeling bad, and unvaccinated kids at home, this seems like the way to go. Does he have his own care he can drive himself in? Also, did he travel with anyone and are they infected? It would be useful to know when he likely acquired it.

I agree with this post, with the caveat I would see if we have any better advice on elderberry with Covid at this point. We use it usually in flu season at first sign of anything, but with immune system stuff, I know there have been some questions about whether it could over stimulate. Last I saw, I think it didn't look concerning, but I would want to be sure.

This is an older article (last year), but suggests that an older filter actually gets more effective as dust accumulates, but I don't know how that works if it's only MERV 11 compared to MERV 13. It also suggests not keeping the house as cool as usual, since the virus survives longer that way. That seems like a doable thing: you could turn up your a/c so the house is cool enough to not be dangerous or miserable, but maybe not as comfortable as you would usually keep it. https://www.businessinsider.com/turning-off-ac-could-limit-chance-of-infection-experts-say-2020-4?op=1 Also, so much frustration about people who say they really care about kids, but won't get vaccinated to protect them. I could cry about it every day at this point 😢.

What’s your bathroom situation?