COVID-19

[NTP66]

They think it might be because she got both the flu shot and her booster shot at once. It's only two patches, doesn't bother her (itch, etc.) at all, so it doesn't appear to be a big deal.

[meow]

One week after my wife has her hot dog water booster shot, she started noticing a few raised bumps on her back and stomach. Long story short, looks like the vaccine triggered shingles, so she’s gotta go on some meds for it.

So the timing of this is eerie to meow. A peer of mine got diagnosed with COVID about three weeks ago (breakthrough moderna). About a week ago, she started showing shingles too. She told me about it today.

This was largely unknown to me before about 12 hours ago.

[NTP66]

Well, if she did get covid, she was definitely asymptomatic. I had a bad sore throat a little before then, and my daughter now has a little bit of a cold.

[MR25]

As someone who got shingles out of the blue (I'm attributing it to going from 0-100 after recovering from my first concussion), I was told sometimes it just flares up from stress on the body. Wouldn't shock me if getting the flu shot + COVID booster at the same time was enough of a stressor on the system to trigger it.

[faftorial]

One week after my wife has her hot dog water booster shot, she started noticing a few raised bumps on her back and stomach. Long story short, looks like the vaccine triggered shingles, so she’s gotta go on some meds for it.

Interesting. I just started on antiviral because I have a spot of raised skin on my back that burns on and off. My doctor said it could be shingles.

[Tomas]

As of today (my own numbers):

Examples of states with 7-day average COVID cases per capita 18% or more BELOW U.S. average:

FL, MS, LA, TX, AR (all low vaccinated and/or no mask mandates)

Examples of states with 7-day average COVID cases per capita 10% or more ABOVE U.S. average:

WA, OR, VT, PA (all high vaccinated and/or mask mandates)

VT (the most vaccinated state in the US) is currently 59% above 234 cases/1,000,000 population (which is the most recent US average).
CA is below US average, but 20% ABOVE Florida!!

[Shyster]

I believe that may be a result of seasonality. Over the last year and a half, Covid has not hit every state at the same time, and there does appear to be a seasonal element to Covid infections. Over the last month or so, people in northern states have been heading indoors as the weather chills and school starts, and that is allowing Delta to spread more effectively here, as well as generating more breakthrough Delta cases. It's also a matter of Delta now getting to those unvaccinated folks that might have been able to evade the less-infectious earlier variants.

I think a better measure would be where states like WA, OR, VT, and PA are in terms of hospitalizations. Yes, those are going to go up too, but it shouldn't be as much as the low-vaxxed states saw.

[Shyster]

The google machine says that there do seem to be connections between the mRNA Covid vaccines and outbreaks of shingles. That probably wouldn't be too much of a surprise. Shingles are caused by a member of the herpes family, which like the others basically hides in the body forever. Herpes viruses notoriously love to reactivate when the immune system is busy fighting something else. That's why oral-herpes lesions are called names like "cold sores" and "fever blisters"; they often break out when a person is already sick with something else.

[NTP66]

Was the point of that post to show that masks and vaccines don't work? FL, TX, etc. is doing just fine? I know it's a cherry picked week, but...

[count2infinity]

If you go back to late august/early September, the south was doubling up any other region in cases per capita. Now they have started plummeting down as the other regions are just on the other side of the plateau of the delta surge.

Late October was when the Midwest started its winter surge last year, and then mid November is when the other four regions took off. I think this next month will tell us a lot about how this thing is going to play out.

[NTP66]

At what point do you take your kid for a covid test? My daughter's coughing up a storm now, runny nose, sore throat. No fever, though.

[meow]

As soon as possible would be my answer

[eddy]

At what point do you take your kid for a covid test? My daughter's coughing up a storm now, runny nose, sore throat. No fever, though.

Our school wouldn't let ours back in without a negative test if she showed any symptoms while she was home from school. She ended up being fine and missing an extra two days because the test didn't come back right away

[count2infinity]

Yup. Do it as soon as you can. The worst you’ll get is “it’s covid”, but then at least you’ll know.

[NTP66]

Should I be going to one of the results in 24 hours places, or is using the county (up to 3 days) the play? I imagine the former because of school.

[NAN]

Should I be going to one of the results in 24 hours places, or is using the county (up to 3 days) the play? I imagine the former because of school.

Depends how long you want her to miss school. But I'd get her tested.

[NAN]

The google machine says that there do seem to be connections between the mRNA Covid vaccines and outbreaks of shingles. That probably wouldn't be too much of a surprise. Shingles are caused by a member of the herpes family, which like the others basically hides in the body forever. Herpes viruses notoriously love to reactivate when the immune system is busy fighting something else. That's why oral-herpes lesions are called names like "cold sores" and "fever blisters"; they often break out when a person is already sick with something else.

I read this and just kept thinking about the office episode where Michael gets a cold sore and calls all his old girlfriends and says he has herpes.

[count2infinity]

Higher levels of stress can also cause shingles... not that we're in a stressful time or anything like that.

[eddy]

Should I be going to one of the results in 24 hours places, or is using the county (up to 3 days) the play? I imagine the former because of school.

Depends how long you want her to miss school. But I'd get her tested.

Pretty much this, in my case, we went for longer and I got to enjoy the time off with my daughter.

[King Colby]

If you go back to late august/early September, the south was doubling up any other region in cases per capita. Now they have started plummeting down as the other regions are just on the other side of the plateau of the delta surge.

Late October was when the Midwest started its winter surge last year, and then mid November is when the other four regions took off. I think this next month will tell us a lot about how this thing is going to play out.

Speaking to PA only, last fall's surge began in September and peaked in early December. The delta surge began 6-8 weeks earlier in July and plateaued in late September. So I don't necessarily think last year's timeline is much of a predictor as it doesn't seem like apples to apples.

[King Colby]

The good news is large gatherings don't appear to be causing any major issues. Granted college football is played outside, those 100k unmasked people aren't just going to the outside portion of the stadium and then home. Should get confirmation here soon with the NHL back in play. I went to the Penguins game on Thursday and I would estimate 1% masks.

[NTP66]

Negative rapid test, but they sent the PCR test to the lab, so it looks like she'll have to be home for 2 days anyway. Could have saved a lot of time by simply going to the free testing center nearby.

[genoscoif]

Wife got a Covid test yesterday...and we just got notified that it was negative. (not the rapid test, but results in less than 24 hours!)

She woke up last Thursday with a sore throat and cough. Didn't feel horrible, just a little throat tickle (phrasing!) and chest congestion. No fever and could/can smell/taste. She's in that 'every time I lay down I cough' scenario, so night time sucks...figured better to be safe and make sure.

It's weird...it's like we've almost forgotten that we used to get sick. We were talking about it last night. Basically the 'would you be worried if this was 2019?' test.

Covid has changed so much in our daily lives. Everyone is so hyper-focused on how they feel, or rather what doesn't feel right. That can be an absolutely great thing, or the beginning of something a bit negative. Basically, as a hypochondriac, I'd like to formally welcome y'all to my little anxiety riddled world. Lol.

[Troy Loney]

Wife got a Covid test yesterday...and we just got notified that it was negative. (not the rapid test, but results in less than 24 hours!)

She woke up last Thursday with a sore throat and cough. Didn't feel horrible, just a little throat tickle (phrasing!) and chest congestion. No fever and could/can smell/taste. She's in that 'every time I lay down I cough' scenario, so night time sucks...figured better to be safe and make sure.

It's weird...it's like we've almost forgotten that we used to get sick. We were talking about it last night. Basically the 'would you be worried if this was 2019?' test.

Covid has changed so much in our daily lives. Everyone is so hyper-focused on how they feel, or rather what doesn't feel right. That can be an absolutely great thing, or the beginning of something a bit negative. Basically, as a hypochondriac, I'd like to formally welcome y'all to my little anxiety riddled world. Lol.

Similar experience, my wife got a test last week because she had a nagging cough. I was just like, can you taste and smell? Yes, then you probably don't need to get a Covid test.

[Tomas]

If you go back to late august/early September, the south was doubling up any other region in cases per capita. Now they have started plummeting down as the other regions are just on the other side of the plateau of the delta surge.

Late October was when the Midwest started its winter surge last year, and then mid November is when the other four regions took off. I think this next month will tell us a lot about how this thing is going to play out.

But if you believe unvaccinated/unmasked are the core of the troubles, then any idea of "seasonality" should go out of the window. The numbers and proportions of unvaccinated&maskless people without COVID in South&Midwest are still FAR higher than those in vaccinated states, even after the big summer spike (which, naturally, had nothing to do with cold weather).

In my opinion, what this trend shows me is that COVID infections provide at least as good prevention of further spread of COVID than vaccines. I see one benefit of COVID based on network (my area of expertise): while vaccines are applied mostly to people who are freaked out by COVID (and thus likely behave in a way that would have limited further spread regardless), among unvaccinated COVID tends to hit the "most central" spreaders in the network (people who got COVID because they behave the most irresponsibly - and thus would have been likely to continue the spread). Once these "central" players achieve immunity, the spread stops fast and the whole network gets healthier.

[There are further arguments that COVID generates stronger protection than antibodies after vaccinations (which I do not feel qualified to judge). ]

Now, does it mean that Southern/Midwestern unvaccinated population was smart by saying "ef it, I'd voluntarily play the role of alternative to vaccination"? Absolutely not - especially since the unvaccinated population in those states are likely self-selected unhealthiest left tail of population (high BMI, other diseases) - so thus more likely to suffer from negative COVID consequences. But, now that the network is partially vaccinated+devoid of "superspreader nodes", the sharply declining values (especially in FL, TX, MS) shows that states with high proportions of COVID cases likely achieved good degree of herd immunity.