So far, knock on wood, I've managed to escape COVID for twenty-eight months, despite having had more exposure to the larger world as the primary grocery shopper in the family and the person who has worked most outside our home, and despite having fairly close exposure to both my daughter and my wife when they were infected with highly infectious variants. I've been careful to social distance and mask, for as long as that was being widely done and then in addition in higher risk situations when it wasn't required or widely normative. I've had four jabs, each almost as soon as it was possible, with one of the boosters mixed from the type that I had for the original vaccination. Still, to some extent I've simply had good luck.
I'm in my 50s, I have been obese for most of the pandemic (there was a couple of month period when I wasn't but I've slowly gained back a lot of weight that I lost), and have underlying conditions so I'm at fairly high risk for a severe case if I received one, although being vaccinated and boosted definitely reduces the risk and other people are older and have more severe underlying conditions that place them at greater risk.
Not everyone is so lucky.
My son had Delta and Omicron, despite two jabs and in the case of the Omicron infection, a Delta infection several months earlier. My daughter had Omicron or one of its BA variants, despite being fully vaccinated and boosted once. My wife had a BA variant of Omicron (and unlike my son and daughter, no really plausible way to explain where she could have gotten it), despite four jabs, three of one kind and one of another.
Fortunately, in the case of my kids, in part because they were in their early 20s and vaccinated, and in the case of my wife, because she is overall in good health and is vaccinated and boosted, none of them have had long COVID or symptoms so severe that hospitalization was a possibility that needed to be seriously considered. I think it is also likely that my daughter and wife had exposure to fairly low viral loads probably each in single incidents, while my son my have had higher viral load exposures. I also think it is possible that some of the later variants often don't cause quite as severe cases. All of their cases were mild to moderate in severity.
We have extended family members who've had much more severe cases, although none were hospitalized and it was much less severe in the children than in the adults, in one case causing an underlying condition to become much more severe. The most severe case involved an extended family member who stubbornly refused to get vaccinated and refused to allow his children to be vaccinated to the great dismay of the rest of the family. The vaccinated family members and the unvaccinated children had comparative mild cases, although they were seriously sick compared to most pre-COVID infectious diseases.
A close family friend has had long COVID for many months only to be reinfected and suffer from long COVID again. Several people who worked in my office (including about half of the people working in my office when the pandemic began) have had severe cases, with one hospitalized and also suffering from long COVID. A healthy significant other of one of my employees who was in her 20s had a fairly bad case of COVID, as did my employee, and they thought that she had recovered fully, but she was then hospitalized for weeks with kidney failure about a month after her COVID recovery.
A close family friend in her 50s, a former co-worker in his late 30s, and a client in his 40s all had very severe cases of COVID, although not quite to the level of hospitalization.
The COVID death most personally hitting close to home was a high school student whom my children knew of with multiple, very severe conditions who was one of the first children to die in the pandemic, fairly early on in the pandemic. So far, no one closer to us than that has died of COVID.
7 comments:
Somehow I've managed to dodge it for the entire pandemic myself, in spite of working as a delivery driver. I wear a mask, inside my helmet. I stay away from people. Contactless deliveries have no doubt contributed. Now that the mandates are gone, I feel very vulnerable. I'm almost exactly 20 years younger than you, though riddled with asthma and other health troubles. My girlfriend and acquaintances have stopped caring about taking any precautions. One of my closest friends has decided the pandemic response was a program by the government to confiscate our freedoms. Scares me witless to think I'll get it and be one of those "young people who died/was severely maimed" headlines. I don't have much left to live for, but god in hell, I will not be wiped away by something preventable like this.
Huh... 4 jabs. Tested positive once this spring, maybe 24 hours of flu like symptoms but almost two week before I tested negative. Three of the four mature daughters have tested positive and two of the son-in-laws. Nothing serious. The three grandkids have never shown symptoms.
Spent the 1st year 95% isolated except for spouse and two grandkids that we watched during the day as they took virtual classes (total waste of time, or maybe just 75% waste). On-line gaming instead of in-person. 2nd year got jabs as soon as possible (both RNA types) and have gone mask free except for commercial flights, work (and therefore I work from home instead) and at medical facilities.
Because of HIPPA it's hard to tell if some the deaths at work the last two years are Covid related. One death in the family that was partially due to Covid, apparently a year of isolation, except for nurses visits three times a day, is not good for your mental health. At the least the long-term care facility never had a Covid outbreak.
The one death we experienced was a 26-year-old we had known since birth.
@Anonymous
It is a weird kind of fear. Visceral, especially when you learn of someone having a very damaging case, and yet so ever present that your "fight or flight" response can be counterproductive.
@Guy
"At the least the long-term care facility never had a Covid outbreak."
Remarkably good luck on that score. About half of all COVID deaths and a large share of serious cases are nursing home based, and we should really think about reforming how we regulate that industry. Yes, people there are vulnerable to start with and half of people admitted to them die within a year or two. But, even small reforms could make a big difference and this example illustrates, it isn't impossible to avoid COVID outbreaks at long term care facilities.
@DaveBarnes
:( Tragic.
At the hospital I work in, we are seeing very few cases, and almost none that progress to needing ICU. I work step-down ICU and for the first 2 years of it, did almost nothing but care for covid patients. Personal anecdote matches the stats:
1 Vaccinated are mostly protected (except those with weak immune systems like cancer patients) from serious disease.
2 Overweight, especially very overweight people suffer and die. The worst seem to be bulky, muscular men with fat bellies. I have seen no research, but for some reason having lots of muscle appears to be a negative.
3 Diabetics are severely affected. So-called 'pre-diabetics' become diabetic. Many develop ketoacidosis.
Personally I worked the first year unvaccinated and did not get covid. Got the vaccine sooner than almost anyone except the test subjects. Worked the second year and did not get covid, until February of this year. Probably Omicron, but who knows? Very mild case, back to work in 7 days. Took Paxlovid.
I was furious with my doctor, who refused to prescribe me a blood thinner. Covid causes blood clots and that kills. Our first big break in saving people was when they figured that out and we started giving Heparin to almost all covid patients. But politics has made doctors extremely timid. They are afraid to prescribe anything that isn't approved by DC. Simply advising patients to take an aspirin a day might save many lives. Instead, they send people home with nothing but Tylenol.
By the way Andrew, how do you have any idea which variant your people had? This isn't something that is routinely tested for. Basically irrelevant for medical purposes.
@TomBridgeland
Very interesting and helpful information.
"By the way Andrew, how do you have any idea which variant your people had?"
I don't know for sure but can make reasonable guesses based upon the strains that were prevalent at the time in the places where people got them.
...I don't know for sure but can make reasonable guesses based upon the strains that were prevalent at the time in the places where people got them...
Okay, makes sense. That's why I assumed I had Omicron, but still could easily have been Delta or some other variant.
When your family was sick, did the doctors give you any practical advice? I'd like to compare with what I got. I got Paxlovid only after I requested it (it was brand new at the time).
I used everything I had learned from many hours reading research papers over the last few years. I believe my hospital's doctors are not following what should be obvious protocols. If any of your family gets it again, contact me privately and I'll let you know, nothing illegal, nothing expensive, nothing sketchy like Ivermectin. NOT a doctor, so I won't give my opinions on an open forum.
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