I also recommend trying driver's education companies. The driving school we went through will "rent" their cars for the purpose of taking the test.

Cases and deaths are down in Hennepin county. It has been by far the hardest hit part of the state, and yeah the numbers still aren't great. That, of course, made the protests there all the more worrisome. I'm not sure what those % increases mean. Deaths are way down over the last week. I'm wondering if they reflect a cumulative change in which case they would always increase. Well, I'm not sure you'll ever get that. But my state saw this as a data gathering opportunity. They went out of there way to look for spread that came from the protests. They say (and the numbers verify) that they haven't found evidence of that. On the other hand, Minnesota opened bars and restaurants on June 10. Already 2 clusters of cases have been linked to bars. If there had been any clusters linked to protests, I'm confident we would have seen it by now.

It has now been 5 weeks since protests started in Minneapolis. I have tracked the Hennepin County numbers from June 3 until today. They have remained relatively unchanged despite a significant increase in testing. Hospitalizations and deaths in Minnesota have also been decreasing over this time. I think we are to the point that we can say that the protests did not cause a spike here.

I have been fairly skeptical that the virus was lab modified in the first place. I have, however, seen a few things that led me to be open to the idea. The most convincing was the study that showed the mutations that would have taken place between the animal virus and what we have now. The authors said that the likelihood of the virus making those changes based on the current timeline was virtually impossible without outside help. (This was linked in this thread. I can look for it if you want but I will probably never find it now...) If a form of this virus was circulating (and undoubtedly modifying in many ways) 9-10 mos before we thought, then the piece of evidence I found most convincing no longer applies.

This is interesting if it holds true. It seems to make this less likely to be lab modified (a theory I have been open to...) This, along with the article @Ktgrok posted gives a possibly clearer picture of how this virus evolved.

Did it start with the ambien story? I can't find that. Which stinks, cuz whether or not that was the origin that was hilarious.

I actually just read a different article about this yesterday. Only they came at it from a different direction. They said that viruses in general often bring T1 to light and they are seeing this in COVID patients as well. I read it as these people would have T1 either way, the virus just brought it to light because they started running bloodwork. I wonder which way is the more accurate way to view this?

Two groups were families of 5

Yes, and I have spent a fair amount of time wondering why these cases are so different than what you hear in the news. Maybe viral load? I also suspect that this is more typical when testing is easier to come by and you pick up the mild cases.

If anybody finds anecdotes helpful.... I know 13 people who had COVID. 6 were kids (under 15 yo) - all had no symptoms or mild symptoms. Low grade fevers in a couple, diarrhea for one 6 were between 30-45. They had symptoms like low grade fevers, fatigue, and dry cough except for one woman in her early 30s. She had several days of high fever and horrible muscle aches. She also had hallucinations. 1 woman was in her early 60s. She had a slight cough and a little fatigue. She is my mom's coworker and told my mom she would have not even paid attention to it if she hadn't been tested. All these cases cleared up within days. They have all been resolved for a month or more with no lingering effects.

I'm going to try to tackle this so work with me here. 🙂 Statistically there are essentially zero deaths in the under 20 crowd. (To be clear, this does not mean there are zero deaths in this age group! I trust you understand this but want to make sure I'm not misunderstood.) The next age bracket seems to be 20-29. In my state the CFR is .03% meaning the IFR is probably more like .003%. (Does my logic make sense here? I'm not very confident...) The hospitalization rate for 18-49 year olds is 2.5 per 100,000. If we assume 1% of the population has been infected than the percent hospitalized would be 2.5/1000 = .25% hospitalization rate. That would be for such a wide age range, so clearly the percentage would be much lower for the 19/20 year old. Fwiw, if I were in your shoes, I would want to keep my kiddo in NZ. With so many unknowns still floating around, that is where my gut is at. Having said that, a lot of this is going to come down to what the young adult wants. If my teen was in your son's shoes, she would choose to go... It's a tough call no matter what.

Nice! One more year and I'll be able to say the same. 🙂

Everything I read says 14 days after onset of symptoms. I'll link one page, but I went to several and they all agreed. IgG antibodies appear as early as 7-10 day from symptom onset and most definitely by 14 days. The husband was 18 days out from his first symptoms. (The antibody tests are not always accurate and it appears from other studies that some people do not produce antibodies.) https://www.nationaljewish.org/patients-visitors/patient-info/important-updates/coronavirus-information-and-resources/patient-care/covid-19-testing-antibody-diagnostic/the-difference-between-tests-for-covid-19

Yep, he was. Yeah, strange no matter what it was. I assume this would have been short exposure by someone who was taking all the right precautions. It seems like he shouldn't have picked up anything. So maybe there is a completely different explanation like one of these... Would it work like that? If it came in through your digestive tract, would it stay in your digestive tract? That would be interesting.

Good to know. I love to debate/talk these things through. In person experience tells me that some people also enjoy this and others get offended really quickly. It is so much harder to tell which is which online!

Or the son (and daughter soon after) had whatever the dad originally had. This would make the daughter's "relapse" (this time with respiratory symptoms) her bout with COVID. I think we are going to have to agree to disagree. 😉 At this point we will never know for sure.

Doctor Who Friends Gilmore Girls

Well, I don't agree with the typhoid diagnosis either. I looked more into the antibody test this morning. The IGG test should be accurate 14 days past symptoms which was he was. So I have to look past 3 false negatives and no respiratory symptoms to assume this guy had COVID originally. Is it possible? Sure. But it is too big a leap for me. Again, the whole thing makes far more sense to me if he picked up COVID while in the hospital.

Blood work was consistent with a bacterial infection and he made a complete turnaround 24 hours after starting an IV antibiotic. The only reason they worried about clotting was when they thought it was COVID. 🤷‍♀️

I didn't get the part about the antibodies. Thanks for clarifying that. Yeah, it could be that he had COVID, but his symptoms don't really fit either. Which would be good to know - if it was COVID here is another bizarre case to file away. I don't know. 2 negative swabs and atypical symptoms seem to point in a different direction.

Fwiw, this is not directed at you. I should probably let this go but I seem to lack that ability... 😋 I find this so frustrating. I know some people take a seriously long time to recover and I know that the disease can reemerge just when you thought you were getting better. This article tho... I don't actually think her husband had COVID originally. He tested negative twice by nasal swab and once through blood work. He would have picked it up at Home Depot and she believes his symptoms were coming on by that evening? Meanwhile, she is working as a nurse and could have been exposed at work. More likely imo, she was exposed by her husband after he had been hospitalized for days. She keeps blaming "Dr Typhoid" but maybe her husband truly didn't have COVID and was exposed while at the hospital. The timeline makes far more sense and it changes the entire picture of what happened in this household. Ugh, it just frustrates me because we still have a very foggy picture of this disease. I wish stories like this could help clear this up, but this one does the exact opposite for me.

This article discusses excess mortality. I thought the most useful part was the chart at the bottom of the page. It lists each state and shows their COVID deaths compared to their excess deaths. (8 states are not included because the data was unreliable/insufficient.) https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/05/05/us/coronavirus-death-toll-us.html

I'm glad to see them being proactive before they are in a dire situation. This is what other places are going to have to do, imo. Scale back openings when cases spike, not hospitalizations. By the time hospitalizations are spiking the situation is out of control.

Yikes. And the article says that positive cases have been steadily increasing for the last 2 weeks. This is likely going to get a lot worse. 🙁 Georgia is also not looking good. Their positive cases and hospitalizations are jumping up. I don't know how they are on capacity but it seems worrisome to me.

Which puts them at 0.8% IFR. Sounds about right. I'm glad to see more confirmation of this lower IFR, but I hope my comments are never misunderstood. An IFR of 0.5-1% is still a staggering number of deaths. Sweden gives us clear evidence of that.