Recently we traveled to Seattle to visit wife's daughter's family there- just a short stop over, driving on Thursday, staying on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, and driving home on Monday.
It was a good opportunity to connect in person with extended conversation- many folks are not really inclined to being message writers, and of course the mother-daughter in person component is quite important, even though they talk a lot on the phone.
I did have some long face to face conversations with the son-in-law on Saturday when he was free; Sunday he had special plans going to a ball game (Seattle Mariners) with a group of associates from his insurance business, his son, and one of his friends- an option I declined to avoid crowds and spend time with the women folk. He noted that he had a bit of a summer cold, but that it wasn't really bothering him much.
Tuesday after we returned home, I noted a sore throat- odd- haven't had that or a cold in over ten years. Symptoms continued to develop Wednesday and Thursday, to the point that I questioned the summer cold concept, and located a CVS store with antigen tests in stock (most drugstores I checked don't carry them anymore) and masked up and went shopping for some, way over in Boise- none nearby.
well, boys and girls... no ambiguity here.
I was a target rich environment! A strong positive.
This lead to phone engagement with my health care provider, to determine if a PCR test was worthwhile, and what about anti-virals; coincidentally, I have an annual checkup scheduled for Wednesday this week.
I didn't really get much follow up from them until Friday- talked to the nurse in the morning, she was going to see if anyone had paxlovid on hand at drugstores, (again, hardly anyone, because as it turned out, the shipped stock had all "expired" and then been returned; subsequently the company said "just kidding" about the expiration date, but understandably the drugstores wouldn't take back product with an expired data code.
My doctor actually called me late Friday afternoon, because he already had a very busy schedule on Friday, and we discussed options, and found one store in Boise. But interestingly, I pointed out that many of my symptoms were dropping substantially in intensity by Friday afternoon, and as I understood it, anti-virals were design to slow/inhibit the growth of viruses in the early stages so that the body's immune system would have time to rally, which is why taking them later didn't really yield any benefit- he agreed that if my symptoms were tapering off due to my own immune system, taking Paxlovid at this point was probably not useful.
I did get back in touch with the in-laws after getting my positive test result- it turns out their 12 year old son also got sick, sick enough to be running a fever, but it hadn't occurred to them to test for COVID, even though they'd had COVID infections twice previously in 2021.
COVID is so last year for a lot of folks, however, the virus didn't get that memo.
Only two more tidbits before closing-
One of my closest friends/former colleague and his wife took their dream cruise to Alaska a little earlier this summer, with their older daughter. Besides coming back with lots of pictures, they also came back with COVID. OTOH, another friend took a cruise to Hawaii, and didn't come back with COVID. So, 50/50 chance? not odds I like. I had several colleagues die of this in 2020, and some acquaintances, like Jeff Bagby. I am fully vaccinated through the end of 2022. Many folks aren't, and they remain vulnerable, regardless of their personal beliefs.
Sadly, the only statistical tracking being done these days for the public at large is week by week hospitalizations, which as we all know is something of a trailing edge statistic, because it includes the original infection exposure, and the time to get sick enough that at home care is no longer adequate, and institutionalization is required. This most strongly impacts the "elder population", of which I am a reluctant member. (I don't like acting my age...). So this is a 4-6 week trailing statistic- this map is from a couple of weeks ago...
And this isn't showing absolute numbers, but the percentage change over the previous week. If you're in one of the yellow states, or light orange, congrats! If you're in the dark blue, well, maybe a little more care is in order. But hey, not that bad, right, just 20%+ increase?
This summary for June-July tells a slightly different story (keep in mind, statistical tracking is subject to "noise floor" artifacts just due to reporting delay and the like). Different source, and the color coding is a bit different, except that the dark blue is still the top problem area, but now it's a 40%+ increase...
This is the backdrop to the first chart, essentially. But now we're seeing increases in a week that approach what was happening in a month.
It's up to you if you think you want to adjust your activities any to take these changing realities into account. It's Monday after I started turning the corner on Friday, and I feel pretty decent- brain fog is lifting and energy coming back, too.
But I sure don't want to do this again. And no, I'm not going to any ball games or on cruises the rest of this year! And visiting in-laws is a question mark. though there, all I really need to do is administer antigen tests upon arrival before unmasking, right? This would likely have worked for this visit. My wife has a weak immune system, but fortunately she spent little time around her son-in-law. And she declined getting the booster vaccinations in 2022, because she was in bed several days after the second shot from the original COVID series, whereas I thought maybe they'd given me the sterile saline solution control shot instead of a real vaccine- but that's usually how my body reacts to vaccines since I've been doing the Pauling Protocol for about 15 years.
It was a good opportunity to connect in person with extended conversation- many folks are not really inclined to being message writers, and of course the mother-daughter in person component is quite important, even though they talk a lot on the phone.
I did have some long face to face conversations with the son-in-law on Saturday when he was free; Sunday he had special plans going to a ball game (Seattle Mariners) with a group of associates from his insurance business, his son, and one of his friends- an option I declined to avoid crowds and spend time with the women folk. He noted that he had a bit of a summer cold, but that it wasn't really bothering him much.
Tuesday after we returned home, I noted a sore throat- odd- haven't had that or a cold in over ten years. Symptoms continued to develop Wednesday and Thursday, to the point that I questioned the summer cold concept, and located a CVS store with antigen tests in stock (most drugstores I checked don't carry them anymore) and masked up and went shopping for some, way over in Boise- none nearby.
well, boys and girls... no ambiguity here.
I was a target rich environment! A strong positive.
This lead to phone engagement with my health care provider, to determine if a PCR test was worthwhile, and what about anti-virals; coincidentally, I have an annual checkup scheduled for Wednesday this week.
I didn't really get much follow up from them until Friday- talked to the nurse in the morning, she was going to see if anyone had paxlovid on hand at drugstores, (again, hardly anyone, because as it turned out, the shipped stock had all "expired" and then been returned; subsequently the company said "just kidding" about the expiration date, but understandably the drugstores wouldn't take back product with an expired data code.
My doctor actually called me late Friday afternoon, because he already had a very busy schedule on Friday, and we discussed options, and found one store in Boise. But interestingly, I pointed out that many of my symptoms were dropping substantially in intensity by Friday afternoon, and as I understood it, anti-virals were design to slow/inhibit the growth of viruses in the early stages so that the body's immune system would have time to rally, which is why taking them later didn't really yield any benefit- he agreed that if my symptoms were tapering off due to my own immune system, taking Paxlovid at this point was probably not useful.
I did get back in touch with the in-laws after getting my positive test result- it turns out their 12 year old son also got sick, sick enough to be running a fever, but it hadn't occurred to them to test for COVID, even though they'd had COVID infections twice previously in 2021.
COVID is so last year for a lot of folks, however, the virus didn't get that memo.
Only two more tidbits before closing-
One of my closest friends/former colleague and his wife took their dream cruise to Alaska a little earlier this summer, with their older daughter. Besides coming back with lots of pictures, they also came back with COVID. OTOH, another friend took a cruise to Hawaii, and didn't come back with COVID. So, 50/50 chance? not odds I like. I had several colleagues die of this in 2020, and some acquaintances, like Jeff Bagby. I am fully vaccinated through the end of 2022. Many folks aren't, and they remain vulnerable, regardless of their personal beliefs.
Sadly, the only statistical tracking being done these days for the public at large is week by week hospitalizations, which as we all know is something of a trailing edge statistic, because it includes the original infection exposure, and the time to get sick enough that at home care is no longer adequate, and institutionalization is required. This most strongly impacts the "elder population", of which I am a reluctant member. (I don't like acting my age...). So this is a 4-6 week trailing statistic- this map is from a couple of weeks ago...
And this isn't showing absolute numbers, but the percentage change over the previous week. If you're in one of the yellow states, or light orange, congrats! If you're in the dark blue, well, maybe a little more care is in order. But hey, not that bad, right, just 20%+ increase?
This summary for June-July tells a slightly different story (keep in mind, statistical tracking is subject to "noise floor" artifacts just due to reporting delay and the like). Different source, and the color coding is a bit different, except that the dark blue is still the top problem area, but now it's a 40%+ increase...
This is the backdrop to the first chart, essentially. But now we're seeing increases in a week that approach what was happening in a month.
It's up to you if you think you want to adjust your activities any to take these changing realities into account. It's Monday after I started turning the corner on Friday, and I feel pretty decent- brain fog is lifting and energy coming back, too.
But I sure don't want to do this again. And no, I'm not going to any ball games or on cruises the rest of this year! And visiting in-laws is a question mark. though there, all I really need to do is administer antigen tests upon arrival before unmasking, right? This would likely have worked for this visit. My wife has a weak immune system, but fortunately she spent little time around her son-in-law. And she declined getting the booster vaccinations in 2022, because she was in bed several days after the second shot from the original COVID series, whereas I thought maybe they'd given me the sterile saline solution control shot instead of a real vaccine- but that's usually how my body reacts to vaccines since I've been doing the Pauling Protocol for about 15 years.
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