To Vaccinate or Not---The Rat Flu Odyssey Continues

Saw my 2nd covid patient in MONTHS......family wanted patient to get checked out. Day 8 of illness, doing absolutely fine. 80+ yrs old, triple mRNA vacc, no 4th shot. Lung ultrasound really unimpressive, chest xray looked great, was just tired. Kind of mirrored a lot of what we saw since the new year. Elderly being admitted with minimal hypoxia, typically being admitted for weakness/dehydration.

My point, while there may be a lot of covid, we have seen very little with any significant disease burden since Delta.

It’s interesting to see how death rates differ in different parts of the country. Where I live, we seem to lag behind other areas of CA but our spikes last longer. While other rural counties, like Del Norte county, have long, tall, and sustained peaks.

Death rate in the country per 100k was second highest during omicron b1 surge. First was Jan 2021. Currently, at national level, we are at the same level as the beginning of the delta surge back in late July. I hope we stay that way, but b4 and b5 apparently are concerning.

I was happy to seen the testers at my only local county clinic (there’s another in truckee) finally wearing better ppe. The first time I went in mid 2020, most worker at the clinic were only wearing face shields and the attending nurse was only wearing her reading glasses.

Today, there was an old hippy man (70+ years) that tested positive today from the clinic’s AG test who was super confused and getting into everybody’s business as he was struggling to hear what staff at the testing center were telling him and they were struggling to hear him. They finally got him connected to the attending nurse at the clinic about 20 minutes later with a fair bit of anxiety for him and the staff. Felt pretty bad for the guy.

I was at my DIL's osteopathic med school graduation. Masks required for grads, faculty, and audience but I was surprised that in that setting few of the faculty and grads wore good masks.

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Originally Posted by old goat

I was at my DIL's osteopathic med school graduation. Masks required for grads, faculty, and audience but I was surprised that in that setting few of the faculty and grads wore good masks.

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You and your sons are real doctors and you let one of them marry a fake doctor?

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Originally Posted by skaredshtles

Look on the bright side - by then it may not be *worth* coming back in.

:fmicon:

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Well, I have been pressing her to move forever, maybe the CDC is trying to hrlp me out

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Originally Posted by Trackhead

Saw my 2nd covid patient in MONTHS......family wanted patient to get checked out. Day 8 of illness, doing absolutely fine. 80+ yrs old, triple mRNA vacc, no 4th shot. Lung ultrasound really unimpressive, chest xray looked great, was just tired. Kind of mirrored a lot of what we saw since the new year. Elderly being admitted with minimal hypoxia, typically being admitted for weakness/dehydration.

My point, while there may be a lot of covid, we have seen very little with any significant disease burden since Delta.

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In my lengthy briefing last week I said:

"BA 2.12.1 Omicron is so contagious that there will still be some staff who get sick. Our vaccines prevent us from getting severely ill, but you don’t have to be severely ill to be unable to work
...
• The severity of this wave is expected to be significant, peaking in June or July, though less severe vs the initial Omicron wave this last winter (25-50% the impact).
...
• Expect some staffing disruptions and to a lesser extent an increase in patients (larger if BA.4/BA.5 become dominant)."

We're between 7 and 5 days in here.
Daughter caught it at prom (who the fuck was responsible for putting 600 students into 1500 square feet hotel suite?).
Wife and I developed symptoms 2 days later.
Both wife and I double vaxxed (pfizer), double boosted (one pfizer, one moderna), daughter is double vaxxed, single boosted.

We all had faucet nose the first 2 days. After that the most common symptom was slight fever, fatigue and some body aches. My body aches became really severe days 2-4 to the point where my hip flexors hurt so badly I couldn't sleep. Last night was the first time I've slept soundly all night in 3 nights. All we do is water and vitamin C, with an aspirin for me last night to deal with aches.

Daughter tested negative last night, wife is still testing positive, I'm not bothering until I feel 100%, which is getting closer today.

Wife has been taking care of her 90+ y.o. double vaxxed, double boosted parents 10 minutes away, managed to not infect them and got her brother to finally cover for the interim.

All in all, it's been the weirdest illness I can remember with symptoms of a severe cold, maybe a little fever, but incredible body aches. We're all hoping for no long term symptoms.

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Originally Posted by riser4

You and your sons are real doctors and you let one of them marry a fake doctor?

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You don't even know what you're talking about. How are they a fake doctor?

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Originally Posted by riser4

You and your sons are real doctors and you let one of them marry a fake doctor?

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DOs are absolutely real physicians.

Perhaps you were confusing with a DC, which is a fake doctor?

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Originally Posted by Summit

DOs are absolutely real physicians.

Perhaps you were confusing with a DC, which is a fake doctor?

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He’s usually confused


Sent from my iPhone using TGR Forums

Tune up the sarcasm meters folks.

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Tune up the sarcasm meters folks.

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This.

And yes, I'm perpetually confused about everything. Today I decided underwear goes on the outside. Who's with me?

The 80's thrad is with you

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Originally Posted by riser4

And yes, I'm perpetually confused about everything. Today I decided underwear goes on the outside. Who's with me?

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What’s underwear?

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Originally Posted by riser4

And yes, I'm perpetually confused about everything. Today I decided underwear goes on the outside. Who's with me?

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make sure the skid mark is on the inside

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

We're between 7 and 5 days in here.
Daughter caught it at prom (who the fuck was responsible for putting 600 students into 1500 square feet hotel suite?).

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We’ve been wondering the same at our home, too. Son’s prom was at a venue with capability to have hosted the event outside. It was a beautiful evening/night, too.

Middle school, which had a pretty large outbreak over the past 2 weeks (still going on - about half of the class so far), are re-tooling their 8th grade dance to be outdoors. This is because of the creativity of the school staff and the parent organizers.

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Tune up the sarcasm meters folks.

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Thank you.

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Originally Posted by Summit

DOs are absolutely real physicians…

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They even go to their own special schools in places like the Cayman Islands!

Wife came down with it Sunday night. I have a slight upper throat soreness today. Could I be coming down with it 5 days after her? I thought my Moderna boaster saved me.

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Originally Posted by liv2ski

Wife came down with it Sunday night. I have a slight upper throat soreness today. Could I be coming down with it 5 days after her? I thought my Moderna boaster saved me.

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That's familiar: my wife had "allergies" Saturday, test Monday was positive so Paxlovid Tuesday. I woke up with some nasal drip Tuesday but tested negative (and again Thursday). Seems like that and fatigue peaked by Wednesday (with noticable help from a sinus rinse--1% baby shampoo) and minor headaches passed as my ears slowly cleared. I think I've coughed maybe 20 times and I'm not rushing out for a bike ride, but hopefully in a day or two. Moderna #4 is about 6 weeks old now.

Her third pfizer was like 8 months ago and she has not had such a good time. Significant chest congestion, a rash, fevers (complete with dreams), very fatigued. She's been improving for a day or two, but if there's a big reset when the Paxlovid ends I think she's gonna be pissed--it's a lot of orange-zest and pennies on her tongue so far.

Pretty likely we were both exposed a couple days before her symptoms, where I was wearing an n95 and she was in a level 3 patient mask. Should have stuck to our routine. Precautions in public are a minor inconvenience, this is a major pain in the ass.

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Originally Posted by liv2ski

Wife came down with it Sunday night. I have a slight upper throat soreness today. Could I be coming down with it 5 days after her? I thought my Moderna boaster saved me.

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Yes. Yes you could be.

I tested positive yesterday, wife tested positive this morning, both kids still negative.

Double vaxxed/boosted. Tested myself randomly because I was supposed to go to the doctors today and I had “allergies” this week, so figured I’d take the test and check the box when they asked…

Symptoms have been pretty mild - minor sore throat, light cough. Had an hour or two of flu-like chills/muscle soreness but nothing since then. Walking around our house with masks on hoping we spare the kids.

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Originally Posted by Buster Highmen

Tune up the sarcasm meters folks.

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I think riser in his 4th Inkarnation has become evil and is dead serious. Leroy has done some research about it and wrote a well structured opinion piece about it.

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Originally Posted by jono

Seems like that and fatigue peaked by Wednesday (with noticable help from a sinus rinse--1% baby shampoo) and minor headaches passed as my ears slowly cleared. I think I've coughed maybe 20 times and I'm not rushing out for a bike ride, but hopefully in a day or two. Moderna #4 is about 6 weeks old now.

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Holy crap, you mean business. Never heard of nasal irrigation with baby shampoo! Can you smell it, or did the covid crush your olfactory nerve:)

6 weeks out from Moderna #4 with symptomatic covid reinforces (in my opinion) why most healthy people don't need 4th shots. Minimal, if any sterilizing immunity when hypothetically your nAbs should be raging high. Time to hang up the old mRNA vax and start fresh, or not at all.