Coronavirus

[spork]

College students are super-spreaders:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/covid-colleges-nursing-homes.html.

[Caracal]

College students are super-spreaders:

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/12/us/covid-colleges-nursing-homes.html.

People aren't super spreaders. You have super spreading events. And groups of people certainly can't be super spreaders. I've been persuaded it is really important to avoid terminology that puts blame on people or groups of people.

[clean]

People aren't super spreaders

Was Typhoid Mary a Super Spreader?

I think that she was so I disagree that people can not be super spreaders. 
A pilot downing 5 planes is an Ace.  What should it take to become a Super Spreader?
Contaminate one other, you are a Spreader
How many to become an Ace?  How many more to become a Super Spreader (or is Ace sufficient)?

[Aster]

One of my concerned family members forwarded me "documentation" purporting that the new covid vaccine will give you AIDS if you take it.

Oh, and the flu vaccine is also a scam created by Big Pharma.

My concerned family member also wants me to ship him some hydroxychloroquine. Because he was told by "fellow veteran health practitioners" that it was the only truly effective treatment for covid.

It was a very interesting telephone conversation.

[Caracal]

People aren't super spreaders

Was Typhoid Mary a Super Spreader?

I think that she was so I disagree that people can not be super spreaders. 

Mary Mallon is a good example of how stigmatization is a bad idea and is generally counter-effective. The evidence suggests that the reason she became known and quarantined was because she was an Irish Catholic woman. She kept cooking because she didn't have any other options and nobody seems to have considered that if you wanted her not to cook or adopt better hand washing practices (which weren't common at the time) you might need to  provide some alternative source of employment by which she could survive or actually try to understand her, instead of forcibly taking various medical samples against her will and confining her.

So, in that way, I think she's actually a good example of the way we have completely failed to deal with the economic and social issues surrounding Covid. Moralistic posturing is easier and more fun, even if it won't help.

[Puget]

One of my concerned family members forwarded me "documentation" purporting that the new covid vaccine will give you AIDS if you take it.

Oh, and the flu vaccine is also a scam created by Big Pharma.

My concerned family member also wants me to ship him some hydroxychloroquine. Because he was told by "fellow veteran health practitioners" that it was the only truly effective treatment for covid.

It was a very interesting telephone conversation.

https://xkcd.com/2397/
The hidden text is also great on this one (hover mouse over to see)

[mythbuster]

Caracal has good points about Mary Mallon. Nowadays she would be described as an asymptomatic carrier or reservoir of disease. Her case reached fame just as germ theory was becoming widely accepted, but we also lacked knowledge of modes of transmission etc. Handwashing before surgery was still a radical concept. Compound that with prejudice against her religion ans ethnicity, and she ends up spending her life in jail. Nowadays, she would simply be treated with appropriate antibiotics.

[apl68]

I was in Little Rock on Friday and Saturday.  Crowds weren't that large by holiday-season standards, but the mercantiles weren't exactly ghost towns either.  Rates of mask compliance were very high (Although I did see a couple of people here and there who were faking it--wearing a mask without actually covering everything).  Social distancing was generally being practiced as well.

I did encounter a different form of health hazard.  In one mall I walked into the long, winding hallway that led back to the mall's public restrooms, and immediately ran into a funk that I'm surprised didn't leave some people on the floor in a swoon.  Evidently somebody, or several somebodies, had been having a bad time back in there.  The corridor was just off the food court, too.

[Aster]

Mall bathrooms. That's bravery even in normal times.

And the mall bathrooms servicing a Food Court? Sometimes it's worse than a truck stop.

[RatGuy]

I've been known to get sinus infections around this time of year, for all the normal reasons people get sinus infections.

I go to the faculty clinic for treatment (and to rule out strep). I take a COVID test to enter the building. Fine, it's negative. Nurse does the pre-exam, I list my symptoms and say "it's a sinus infection, but I'd like to make sure it's not strep." When the doctor comes in, she says "It says here that you think you have a sinus infection. Well, it's probably COVID."

"I just took a test. Negative. I get sinus infections this time of year."

"A negative test doesn't mean much. Your symptoms of congestion and sore throat point to COVID."

"OK, but I've got no fever, cough, fatigue, or any of those other things. I'm pretty familiar with how my body does sinus infections."

"I'm pretty sure it's COVID, but I guess I'll examine you." She looks briefly in my ears, and even more briefly in my throat. "Yeah, it's COVID." Then she enters my info into the COVID protocol for the university, tells me to take plenty of fluids and get rest. Won't give me antibiotics because "They don't help covid."

So my covid caseworker notifies my department chair, who then emails me to say "You can't come to campus." I've since been tested again (negative) and been allowed back after the 10 day period. But those nasal swabs are bad in the best of times -- guess how it feels with a swollen and tender sinus?

There's a reason that zero cases have been traced to classrooms this semester, but it also means I'm still dealing with this dang sinus infection.

[mamselle]

Sorry that happened, those are NO fun, and yes, only Abx can help.

Ding-bat nurse.

I've worked with some very good ones, but there are definitely blinkered, see-what-you-want-to, don't-see-what-the-real-issues-are ones as well.

Can you find an alternative health care place and get an Rx there?

M.

[apl68]

Just learned that a staff member's husband has tested positive.  He was exposed to somebody at work or someplace.  Now that staff member will be out for a week.

She is a back-office worker who has kept everybody else shooed out of her work area.  So it's unlikely that she has had recent close contact with anybody else on staff.  I'm still trying to determine for sure.  At any rate, the hysteria among the staff is headed up once again.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

My mother wants the entire family to get together, in a restaurant, for Christmas.

We are in a place where cases are jumping up, up, up! Not gonna happen.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I've been known to get sinus infections around this time of year, for all the normal reasons people get sinus infections.

I go to the faculty clinic for treatment (and to rule out strep). I take a COVID test to enter the building. Fine, it's negative. Nurse does the pre-exam, I list my symptoms and say "it's a sinus infection, but I'd like to make sure it's not strep." When the doctor comes in, she says "It says here that you think you have a sinus infection. Well, it's probably COVID."

"I just took a test. Negative. I get sinus infections this time of year."

"A negative test doesn't mean much. Your symptoms of congestion and sore throat point to COVID."

"OK, but I've got no fever, cough, fatigue, or any of those other things. I'm pretty familiar with how my body does sinus infections."

"I'm pretty sure it's COVID, but I guess I'll examine you." She looks briefly in my ears, and even more briefly in my throat. "Yeah, it's COVID." Then she enters my info into the COVID protocol for the university, tells me to take plenty of fluids and get rest. Won't give me antibiotics because "They don't help covid."

So my covid caseworker notifies my department chair, who then emails me to say "You can't come to campus." I've since been tested again (negative) and been allowed back after the 10 day period. But those nasal swabs are bad in the best of times -- guess how it feels with a swollen and tender sinus?

There's a reason that zero cases have been traced to classrooms this semester, but it also means I'm still dealing with this dang sinus infection.

Wow! Sorry you went through that. Can you lodge a complaint?

[kaysixteen]

Interesting-- what would you all do in this sort of circumstances?   How could one go about forcing the doc/ nurse to give you the swab culture test for an actual sinus infection, so you could get antibiotics?   This would be especially true for one who has a history of getting such infections, which should of course also be in one's record?