Who here has not gotten COVID? Who has long COVID?

Parents Forum Parent Cafe
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I’ve had Covid twice, both travel related. The first time I was the traveler, the second, someone who had traveled was in my house and spread it to many people, me included. I mask on planes but find myself getting lax. In general I mask in stores and in public places partially as I want to keep masking normalized but I really don’t want to be the cause of anyone getting Covid.

I worked in a hospital with Covid until October of 2021. Having seen long Covid and people severely disabled by Covid, as well as dying, I took it very seriously. Now, seeing myself as well as folks around me getting flu like cases and recovering, if sometimes miserable, it does seem less a big deal. So I get the casual attitude, but try to not let myself get complacent as I socialize with older folks and we are all at risk. And if not Covid, I’d prefer to avoid colds and flu as well.

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Are you suggesting this is a bad policy (asking people to BRIEFLY lower their mask as they are entering the store to show their face to security cameras, and then re-don their mask right away if they want to)? You can hold your breath for 3 seconds and show your face, whatever. The covid risk seems positively minuscule but the benefit to the poor shopkeepers and bodega owners and workers, etc seems immense. For those reading the whole article, the mayor and police are referring to the concern about people completely covering up their identity by wearing hoodies and masks up to their eyeballs. They cited recent killings in shops by people who covered their identities in such a manner. I really feel for the shop owners who deal with so much brazen theft and safety concerns for themselves and staff when criminals can choose to hide their identities. Why would anyone be angry about a suggestion that one lower their mask very briefly, just to show their face to the camera, which must give some peace of mind to those working in the stores?

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YLE writes about recent studies regarding long COVID:

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There don’t seem to be a lot of familar names here anymore (it’s been several years since I’ve posted at all regularly), but I thought I’d put in my own two cents.

At this point, I’m one of the very few people I know who hasn’t had Covid at least once. I’ve tried to be very careful because my health isn’t great to begin with, and (even though most people I know are having rather mild cases these days), I’m not getting any younger, and long Covid is still at the back of my mind.

In any event, I’ve had my two original shots plus three boosters (all Pfizer), and I still wear a KN95 mask (which I don’t find the least bit uncomfortable) in stores and medical offices, on public transportation, and in other indoor settings where there are more than a handful of people. Although on the rare occasions when I eat in a restaurant, I don’t bother anymore because I have to take it off to eat anyway. And I stopped wearing a mask outdoors a couple of years ago.

I’ve been to exactly one movie theater in the last three years, and didn’t leave the boundaries of New York City, by plane or otherwise, between late February 2020 and late November 2022, when I finally met my son in upstate New York to visit relatives for Thanksgiving, and then accompanied him back to Toronto for a few days. (He had come home a number of times, so it’s not as if I hadn’t seen him at all.)

Whether my good fortune is attributable to my precautions or not I can’t say, but I have no plans to change. None of it bothers me, and at least living here, nobody gives me a hard time. Not that I would put up with it if anyone did!

What surprises me more is that my son hasn’t had it yet either, despite doing quite a bit of travel, including to Europe, and – quite naturally at his age – being much more interested in being out and about and socializing than I am. He’s still up in Toronto, where he’s now ABD in a PhD program at the U of T., and no longer wears a mask other than in medical settings. I worry about him, of course, but I can’t tell him to be a hermit. The isolation at the beginning (especially with all the lockdowns up there, which were far stricter than anything that was ever imposed in New York City; he wasn’t even allowed to go sit on a park bench) was way harder on him psychologically than it ever was on me. So he’s pleased that life is more normal now.

Donna

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I was surprised to read that YLE goes to the gym unmasked, because the risk of getting covid is worth getting to work out. (Yes, she said that.) And she lives in San Diego, and can do so much outside! And can’t she get a home gym? She also has a good friend who is very affected by long covid.

About metformin – ucb will probably come up with the info very quickly, but I thought I’d read that metformin didn’t help everyone equally. I think people with normal BMI and who were vaccinated weren’t helped that much. I will look for that info later. ETA – Here is a table.

Figure 3.

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Good to see you and your precautions sound like a routine you are very comfortable with!

This week as far as I remember, really starts that “twilight zone” we all entered 3 years ago. I’m grateful the state of it has improved but recognize it’s a constant still in our lives to a degree - the important thing I think, is that the majority of people have found a way to live with “it” with safety for others but without judgement.

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Yep! I looked back at my pictures. We opened corona gym (aka shed gym) on March 18, 2020. Hard to believe.

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I had been flying back and forth from Maine to Texas for several months because my dad was so ill. This week, three years ago, we canceled my mom’s move to independent living and I decided I needed to fly home to Portland because things were looking bad. I thought it would be the last time I saw my dad, so I focused on remembering all the little details about him. It turned out that I would see him again, but not my mom. :frowning:

Flying home on March 20 was surreal. The Austin airport was EMPTY. There was only a handful of people on the huge Southwest jet. It was so early that nobody knew what to do. I don’t think we practiced social distancing and I don’t think people were even wearing masks yet.

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Three years ago we were on vacation and coming back to the real world was very strange. On the plane back we saw a few masks. First experience having a hard time getting groceries, tp, etc. in limited quantities or not at all! H and I have remained Covid free. I’m glad life is mostly routine now.

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When people aren’t masking when there is high or substantial community transmission, aren’t testing, aren’t testing to end isolation, etc., then I don’t think people are living with “safety for others.”

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This is true - my comment was “the majority” - I think we do have “majority” for vaccination to some degree, testing, testing to end isolation and masking where required. What constitutes “safety for others” is debatable or personal opinion.

Never would I or did I pool “all” in this statement!

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I agree with infections and vaccination combined we are at a majority with some level of immunity (but relatively few people have received the bivalent vaccine, 27.1% of adults, 18.5% adolescents), but IMO I don’t think a majority of people are testing when they have covid symptoms or testing to end isolation if they know they are positive. Just another person’s perspective, but I tend to agree with @CTTC that many don’t care at all to lessen the spread of covid.

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Yes, the table suggests that the groups with higher rates of long COVID in the placebo group (female, obese, <45 years old, not vaccinated) got greater benefit from metformin than the other groups (male, non-obese, >=45 years old, vaccinated), although the latter did get some benefit from metformin.

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Never had it but I also don’t get tested everytime I have a sniffle… I avoid people if I feel sick like I have my entire life (common sense). But oddly I haven’t been sick in years… no colds, flu etc… I think I had a sinus infection a few years ago but that was it. Not Vax either but my husband and a few of my kids are. One child tested positive last xmas and nobody else in the house did.

Oddly when I was little I shared a room with 2 sisters who had full blown chicken pox and I never got them.

It’s possible in either case it was so mild I didn’t know. Or maybe I’m superwoman lol

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Probably most people have been “boosted” by an actual Omicron infection by now. But then the bivalent booster did not seem as highly publicized as previous vaccination rounds.

Probably most people are now relying on their hybrid immunity… though a non-trivial percentage of people do get COVID-19 again despite hybrid immunity.

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My sil’s stepdaughter, age 57, just died from covid. No idea about her vax status. She had comorbidities but lived with those for decades.

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As far as I know, I am one of those lucky few who have never had Covid. I’m fully vaxxed and boosted, including the bivalent booster (all Moderna). My husband caught it last fall, probably from someone at work, but I and my daughter (who lives with us) never caught it from him, despite the fact that we were in pretty close contact and didn’t isolate as much as we might have. My son who lives in the Bay Area has never had it either. I was very diligent about wearing a mask everywhere in public during the first two years, because my sister and I had to travel by plane regularly to clean out my mom’s house and settle her estate after she passed away in late 2019. And whenever cases have surged in the Los Angeles area, I’ve been a lot more careful. Now, things finally seem to be much more normal–we’re eating indoors again more regularly and only wearing masks in medical offices that require them. As of last spring, I have also been singing again in a women’s chorus I belong to (we wore masks in the beginning, but don’t require them any more). So far, so good.

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Regarding people who have not (apparently) gotten COVID-19, there are some studies trying to find out why:

There is a reference to a preprint finding that a certain HLA type is associated with a greater likelihood of a COVID-19 infection being asymptomatic:

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I have been in the hospital since Monday when my pulse oxygen dropped below 90 and I had to call 911. Long Covid sucks. I am so pumped full of steroids that I actually had very weird (totally benign, not scary) hallucinations. I am still not stable and will be here for at least a few more days. Poor poor pitiful me.

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Gosh I feel terrible for you! You truly have had a rough go of it. :disappointed:
Please check in every day or two so we know how you’re doing! :heart:

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