38, up to date with vaccines (3 initial, 2 boosters, I just qualify for immunosuppressive), tested positive Friday morning 7am after having fever / chills, antivirals delivered to me 3pm same day.
Blocked nose, mild cough, & everything tastes a bit dull, other than that managed fever with Panadol for first 24 hours.
First time I’ve had it, finally got me.
Anti virals cost over $1k before Govt subsidy.
I’ve had a number of Unicorn Friends who have not previously had COVID, finally succumb to it in this round.
Quite a bit of it is getting around in Dubbo now.
Christmas parties may not help.
1 of my mates has ducked and weaved this whole time but tested positive yesterday.
It’s time for my 4th shot me thinks.
4 shots and double infected right here. I’d get a 5th shot if they’d let me, but the side effects of the vaccine have been worse than bloody covid.
I’ve had minimal issues from my vax…so far.
Vax working well then….
Does the latest Vax actually give protection against Omicron or any of the new variants?
The last booster I had didn’t actually protect me from the variant I got.
Moderna Bivalent generates “modestly higher” antibody response against multiple Omicron variants.
It’s not really the magic bullet I was hoping for but the way everything is going atm, something is better than nothing.
Also Pfizer Bivalent is available.
Even the original vaccine/s will protect you somewhat from even the newer variants on a sliding scale - least from infection and most from hospitalisation and death.
Boosters don’t protect as much additionally as your original 2-3 vaccinations, but still add some additional protection, for at least weeks and maybe months.
The bivalent boosters will protect a little better against Omicron variants than original boosters initially, and possibly even better over the following 6-9 months, which is yet to be confirmed, but likely based on ‘vaccine science’
The nuance for boosters is that for the very young, especially young males, the risk of Myocarditis and Pericarditis reactions to additional boosters increases. Mostly these reactions are temporary, but they can do some permanent damage or become chronic. The risks are very small, but large enough to contend with risk from COVID itself, especially in young, fit males. A few months ago, boosters were not recommended for anyone under 30, but that has been revised to under 18 currently. ATAGI is far more cautious than the CDC in this regard, where 2 vaccines plus a bivalent booster are recommended for everyone over 6 months old.
Also, regardless of age, boosters are not recommended within 3 months of a previous vaccine/booster or a confirmed infection. Which makes it tricky if you’ve had a suspected infection in the last 3 months. If that were the case, then I’d be inclined to err on the side of safety (get the booster) as your risk profile increases, i.e. age or underlying conditions, but probably best discussed with your regular doctor.
@Hoffy posted an article from the AMA above reminding us about how post infection risks from COVID continue to increase as we have subsequent infections. While I believe it’s very hard to avoid COVID altogether, you can strike a balance with your risk of subsequent infections with boosters, and generally being a little more conservative socially, especially during peaks of new waves. I know people on both extremes, some who are still terrified of COVID, and others who don’t take any precautions at all. As usual, somewhere in the middle is probably more sensible. To me, vaccinations and ventilation/air filtration are the most obvious and least intrusive precautions you can take that still allow you to be more sociable. Masks still make a lot of sense to protect others if you have a respiratory illness and have to go out.
This unseasonably cold weather in Victoria, right as this wave is peaking, and just before Christmas/New Year is perfect timing to make Victoria’s COVID figures look worse than more Northern states. For some reason, Victorians can never catch a break with this thing!
When does the ‘everything tastes like crap’ part go away?
I thought that was first Gen stuff:
Yuck.
I’ve heard it’s back in this latest round.
So ummm, turn your back if someone coughs?
Conference call tomorrow morning to discuss mask mandates returning to work. Got around 10-15% of staff off with it and probably a similar number who are at work with it.
Masks have limited value and are not the panacea for everything - HK which still has mask mandates in all public settings is getting 10,000 cases a day - This is only the reported cases and my information is that only 25% at most report cases to the Government - So you do the maths ! The problem is that people don’t use masks in private settings ( which is an unreasonable expectation ) and this is big factor in COVID spread - I know that if the Government removed the mask mandate in HK, then probably 30 or 40% of people would still wear masks in some settings.
How about just walking the other way if someone coughs, and if they sneeze, run!
Also, if that grainy graphic display was the best a ‘supercomputer’ could produce, they may need better programs or programmers. I reckon many games on ordinary PC’s can create way better graphics based on very similar airflow physics.
Was on an escalator so not sure how you can run.
For me, masks make the most sense for those with respiratory symptoms - coughing, sneezing, runny nose. And more generally in hospital settings or around vulnerable people.
Masks certainly reduce spread of many diseases quite significantly, even for the person trying to avoid the disease, but I think much less so for COVID due to its infectiousness. I’m not sure there’s any point in wearing masks in private settings, as we spend so many hours together in a week in a private setting, and for most, the same applies to workplaces where we spend the day together in the same building. The times when masks will reduce our personal risk of infection more, are when we are indoors for less than a few hours a week with others, so perhaps in shopping centres, supermarkets, restaurants indoors, cinemas and the like.
They certainly have limited value on their own in places reporting 10,000 cases per day.
Limited is still not zero, and I’d suggest not even close to zero.
Of course not all masks being used are N95’s. Some are flimsy things that aren’t even close to airtight.
Some are being used more than once. Some are being used more than twice.
I think we need to be very careful when we say that masks aren’t the total and complete answer, especially in heavily infected areas, because unfortunately complete morons (and there are a Lot of them) will read that as, ‘masks are completely ineffective, an affront to my freedumbs, and an attempt to ostracise me and other very clever people like me…somehow.’