Just the Facts, the Crown virus.

[WV Sawmiller]

    Update on mom - she is still in the hospital in Pensacola and I suspect the staff are about ready to go on early retirement or strike if they can't get her out soon. She is off oxygen and the cortico steroids and they are trying to make arrangements with a home health nurse to visit as needed. She is still not mobile apparently just weak from the virus and such so that may be the limiting factor.

   My younger brother calls daily with updates. He is home with  the virus and sounds like making the call every day just about exhausts him. So far SIL does not seem to have it. 

   I read yesterday where a doctor in Boston had a serious anaphylactic shock and had to self administer his epi pen. He was allergic to shellfish so I don't know if that tied in but I forwarded the article to my daughter who is allergic to shellfish/iodine (the ingredient in the shellfish that gives her problems) just in case. She is scheduled to get her vaccine next week. It still sounded to me like the reaction to the vaccine was less serious than the virus as the doctor recovered quickly when he got his epi shot.

[alan gage]

Thanks for the feedback. Did a little searching on the accuracy rate of testing and saw a lot of different things but I think all that can be distilled down to "we don't really know for sure yet," which I can understand.

So I think I'm just going to assume I was positive and follow quarantine guidelines, which, assuming I keep improving (feel very good today), will keep me away from work next week. By the time I get retested and wait for results I'll still miss work next week due to the holiday. 

Stay safe everyone and happy holidays!

Alan

[barbender]

I know a young man that attended a company Christmas party, everyone ended up coming down with Covid. The boss had everyone get tested, they all came back positive, except this guy I know. He got sick, had all the same symptoms as everyone else (including loss of taste and smell) but tested negative- twice🤷🏽‍♂️

[Hilltop366]

Would have been a good year to skip the company Christmas party and give everyone a little bonus with the money saved. :

[Don P]

My folks are in one of those retirement communities where you move in closer as your needs dictate. They are in the outer independent houses area. The whole "campus" has been on lockdown since things began and they have had I think one covid death and several small scale quarantines, staff still has to come and go as well as supplies but pretty tightly regulated and clamped down. Dad built some visitation booths with glass partitions out at the entrance, think of prison visitation but it has allowed families to visit face to face-ish. So it has worked pretty well compared to the many stand alone nursing facilities that have been breeding grounds. Their whole facility including staff will get their first shots Jan 10th. With all the failures in assisted living and nursing facilities some have been able to do it right.

[breederman]

My guess is liquid nitrogen is too cold. Its about-320 f. Seems like if they could use it they would as at least in the U.S. the infrastructure is there and the ln refrigerators are cheap.
   

[kantuckid]

The TV pics showed them pour what looked like dry ice cubes in the shipping boxes.
Any retirement community would severely crimp my style?  Sawmills and wood shops allowed there?
 I think my better plan is to go out on a motorcycle ride and "ride off into the sunset", never to return. Kind of like when the Lone ranger rode off each episode :D

[doc henderson]

a few of the retirement villages have wood shops, not heard of a sawmill though.  that could change!   :D :D :D

[Ianab]

The TV pics showed them pour what looked like dry ice cubes in the shipping boxes.

Sublimation temperature for dry ice is about -78C, that's in the range that the vaccine needs, so dry ice makes sense for that transport stage from the main distribution freezers to the local clinics. The local clinics then have several days to use the vaccine when it's stored in a regular freezer. 

The allergic reaction seems rare, but not unknown. I think a couple of the stage 3 test subjects suffered from it. So maybe 1 in 10,000 ? But that's also not unusual with other vaccines. That's why they make you wait at the Dr or pharmacy for 15 mins after you get a flu shot, and they have an epi-pen in the cupboard if you do fall over. The allergic reaction is treatable as long as medical help is near at hand, so the actual risk there seems pretty low.  

[Gary_C]

Now there seems to be another problem developing. The twin city news reported last night that of the 43,000 doses MN has received, only about 1300 had been administered. No one seems to know what is causing the delay but inventory of vaccine seems to be outrunning the administering of shots in the arm. They reported similar numbers for surrounding states. 

Earlier this past week I called my clinic and they seemed to have no information on when or how both I and my wife (both over 75) would be called or notified that it was our turn. I checked the MN dept of health website and only learned we are in the 1c priority group but no other info. And yes our incompetent governor is complaining that MN was shorted in the initial shipment.  :

[firefighter ontheside]

We have 2 nursing homes in our coverage area, neither of them are nice, but one has always been known to be one of the worst.  I've been running medical calls there for almost 29 years and I have talked bad about it more times than I can count.  They have not had a single positive case there.  They have been testing on a regular basis.  Last week when the FD was in a bind trying to get our firefighters tested so they could come back to work, this nursing home offered to test all our guys that needed it.  Then they tested several more guys who came down sick and needed to be tested.  I sent them four people and all 4 tested positive.  It was the first positive tests they had done during the whole pandemic.  I'm sure conditions at this facility will always be less than perfect, but its hard to not commend them for keeping covid out and for stepping up to test our people when we really needed it.  They would not let us pay for the tests.

[Ianab]

We have 2 nursing homes in our coverage area, neither of them are nice, but one has always been known to be one of the worst.  I've been running medical calls there for almost 29 years and I have talked bad about it more times than I can count.  They have not had a single positive case there. 

Being "nice" doesn't keep Covid out. Taking the virus seriously and being strict on the isolation, testing and sanitising etc does.  I bet they are on a "no-visitors" regime? That's certainly not nice for all involved, but it's pretty effective at keeping the virus out. 

[Walnut Beast]

I'm not very fond of nursing homes!! Most are money hungry. They want to keep the residents at the facilities and not send them to the hospital unless they absolutely have to. Because they want that money to stay at the facility 💰. It's sad!!!!!. They can bleed a person or there family dry of every dime 

[Don P]

a few of the retirement villages have wood shops, not heard of a sawmill though.  that could change!   :D :D :D

Dad talked them into a shop. The head of maintenance, who I think has come to realize he answers to my old man  :D, poor guy, decided they needed a "storage building" then they turned it over to the old guys to outfit. He does a lot of repurposing, the stuff they throw away in those places is amazing.

[SwampDonkey]

I think they are being set up in the main cities, and stocks can be dispatched from there to local clinics, packed with dry ice etc .

Some are in the boon docks. Miramachi City here in NB, has everyone wondering. And nurses are not allowed time off to drive up there to get it. :  You'd have to travel there for 1-1/2 to 4 hrs this time of the year. It would be over 3 hrs for me because I have to travel south for about 2 hrs, cross the river and follow the Miramachi river another 1-1/2 hrs. Why they never set it up in Fredericton is a real mystery.

[SwampDonkey]

Moderna COVID-19 Vaccine was just approved here the other day as well. For 18 years of age or older. Also need 2 doses, 1 month apart.

[kantuckid]

My state issues much daily general info as to vaccine plans, who got it, etc.,  but not one bit filters down to those of us (myself and wife) who they say are due next for the vaccine after the first level given to first level care givers.
 Once you get past the 60 bed nursing home here (it has ~ 80% of beds occupied and locally owned by a local man who made his bucks as a building supply owner and FHA home builder) which was vaccinated on 12/21/20 there's zero information. In a county with no radio stations, no real newspaper and the main source of information coming from a Facebook Community group done by the county library manager (who's not been open for months on end themselves and only very recently went back to lending books!) what I see on that listing is church services recorded on videos of several local churches each Sunday & Wednesday and a "covid head count" the County Judge Executive's secretary passes along from the area health dept.. 
In my wife's home county, 75 miles east, where her 96 year old (ALZ) Mom is cared for 24/7 at home, they were contacted that she'd get the shot next week in home. 
If there is a plan they owe me information?  ??? No, I'm not in any sort of frenzy but lets hear what happens next.  

[doc henderson]

In other countries they line you up, and you get it, like it or not, and if they miss you,... oh well.  Since the vaccine is a benefit of the US government, they follow a chain of command and resources.  so the biggest recipient in our county was the "free clinic"  that is a rural health care clinic.  they get grants and mandates from the fed. government.  The county health departments in Ks are on near daily phone meetings with the state health department, and they are getting info from the Fed. government.  contact your health department, or if you have a VA or or Fed. subsidized clinic.  they can tell who to call locally and or put you on a list.  there are those who do not go to any doctor, and they may fall through the cracks.  all the clinics are trying to search their rolls via computer systems to get at people who qualify by age and or medical condition.  It may sound easy, but most are struggling to have their IT folks figure out how to do this.  nothing about a paperless medical record has made anything easier.  your doctors office may have a plan.  you can wait and see if they call you, but you can call and ask.  I was asked on a Monday who all of my docs wanted the vaccine.  I got a text.  next day we got it.  hopefully your local will advertise a plan soon.

[WV Sawmiller]

  Update on mom is they released her yesterday at 2:00 pm and sent her home. My previously/so far negative SIL went and got her and was to spend the night with her in her home with her. Now we just have to figure out long term health care for her as she lives alone and evidently passed out and unable to get help for over 16 hours as she had and rejected/returned the fall warning necklaces and buttons in lieu of a cell phone she won't carry and can't/won't use. I'm wondering if we can modify a police ankle bracelet for her. Funny but not funny I know. Hopefully the home health nurse can help offer some suggestions when she comes by later today.

   My younger brother sounded stronger when I talked with him last night but if anything ever happens to his wife I figure both he and mom are institution bound.

[Ljohnsaw]

Getting closer to home :-\  Our friends with the cabin I use when working on mine had a friend pass and another family of 3 they know all have it.  They are older than me and we haven't been around them except for once early summer.  They stay away from everyone as they have their mother (90+) living with them.

My daughter works at a feed store and her manager tested positive yesterday and will be out for a bit.  They all wear masks all day at work but they had a get together the weekend before Christmas.  Time to wait and see...

[kantuckid]

 Update on mom is they released her yesterday at 2:00 pm and sent her home. My previously/so far negative SIL went and got her and was to spend the night with her in her home with her. Now we just have to figure out long term health care for her as she lives alone and evidently passed out and unable to get help for over 16 hours as she had and rejected/returned the fall warning necklaces and buttons in lieu of a cell phone she won't carry and can't/won't use. I'm wondering if we can modify a police ankle bracelet for her. Funny but not funny I know. Hopefully the home health nurse can help offer some suggestions when she comes by later today.

  My younger brother sounded stronger when I talked with him last night but if anything ever happens to his wife I figure both he and mom are institution bound.

As part of the 24/7 alz care my MIL gets at home, they watch her on a monitor same as commonly seen with babies in a crib. 

[firefighter ontheside]

Some of our guys who were sick a few weeks ago are starting to come back to work.  Still have several more out sick.  Had another one go home sick today with Covid symptoms.  He will get tested tomorrow.  

I read an article which suggested that even though 2 doses are required for full protection, folks are as much as 90% protected within weeks of getting the first dose.  There has been a suggestion that they skip the second dose for now, which would free up more doses and therefore vaccinate twice as many people with vaccine that is currently available.  Doesn't sound like its gonna happen, but its good to know that you get very good protection in a short amount of time.  I'm happy that my wife is likely already well protected.  I always fear that I'm bringing it home from work, especially now that we have so many sick at the department.

[firefighter ontheside]

Well, I find myself at work again for mandatory OT.  One of the guys who was due to come back to work developed a fever again last night.  They were already short a guy because he went home sick, so I just came in to work at midnight last night and will work until tomorrow morn.

[kantuckid]

In other countries they line you up, and you get it, like it or not, and if they miss you,... oh well.  Since the vaccine is a benefit of the US government, they follow a chain of command and resources.  so the biggest recipient in our county was the "free clinic"  that is a rural health care clinic.  they get grants and mandates from the fed. government.  The county health departments in Ks are on near daily phone meetings with the state health department, and they are getting info from the Fed. government.  contact your health department, or if you have a VA or or Fed. subsidized clinic.  they can tell who to call locally and or put you on a list.  there are those who do not go to any doctor, and they may fall through the cracks.  all the clinics are trying to search their rolls via computer systems to get at people who qualify by age and or medical condition.  It may sound easy, but most are struggling to have their IT folks figure out how to do this.  nothing about a paperless medical record has made anything easier.  your doctors office may have a plan.  you can wait and see if they call you, but you can call and ask.  I was asked on a Monday who all of my docs wanted the vaccine.  I got a text.  next day we got it.  hopefully your local will advertise a plan soon.

I am very much aware of government stuff-10+ yrs of military and being a state employee for many years I've been indoctrinated to the drones way of doing stuff. ;D
  I called today, Monday a.m. to the regional/county health dept nearest me-they know nothing and said to call back in a week as front line was being vaccinated first. I then called the local clinic operated by a small regional hospital and where we go for most regular medical needs-operator said they know nothing and call back in a week. I'm OK with that but would be better if I could buy groceries and feel safer.  

[Bill]

Although I ve read most of this thread I m sure I ve missed parts so maybe this has been covered already.

Masks - though many foks are wearing them I m seeing

> masks only over someone's mouth
> masks that don't make a good seal - there's a colored video out there showing a person's breath coming and going out the top bottom and sides of the mask
> and some of my favorites - at a gathering ( think like church ) lowering one's mask to sneeze or cough . . . prompting me to move though now sitting/standing at the very rear so the contagion is where I can see it coming ?

Hand washing - likely true - leastways from what I can tell

> many restrooms have paper towels - no problem - even use them to open close doors on the way out. (  does it help to leave some sanitizer on your hands ? )
> Forced air dryers - wow . Remember reading some stuff on how a terrorist would distribute biologicals/toxins - set it up and then aerosolize it for maximum coverage preferably upwind from height )  - so forced air dryers seem like a a great way to aerosolize cv19 and force it around the room . Especially since many seem to only wash their hands for 5 to 10 seconds ?  imho - to be avoided.

On "Hill St Blues " a desk sergeant used to say " Let's be careful out there "

And Happy New Year - 2021