This is a rant.

I shit you not my lib family member is now doing a PSA on the importance of getting the flu shot in our family chat, because there is a medically vulnerable over 65 year old in the family.

And this would be fine if this wasn't the same person who brought themselves and their family to a family gathering in August with an active covid infection and this over 65 year old vulnerable person was in this same party, just recovering from a long course of IV antibiotics! They gave covid to me, my partner (who is also medically vulnerable two times over now, thanks to covid) and my brother (who just got a sleep apnea diagnosis a week ago). Good times!

I mean I am all for flu shots, but this is just... I don't know what this is.

Just got mine...last year it wasn't a big deal, but this year it fucking HURT. I'm already a giant baby who hates getting my vaccines but this was way worse than usual. When I started telling people about my reaction this year a number of people agreed that it hurt way worse this year and/or they had different reactions than previous years.

Please note I'm not looking for any conspiracies about it being worse or different somehow in a bad way, and I'm not trying to scare people into not getting it; even if it fucking hurt this year please get it, the temporary pain is better than getting and spreading covid.

But it definitely felt different in my arm and in my body this year and I have heard the same from others. Did something change or are we just misremembering? Or are our bodies reacting different somehow this year for other reasons? Or is it just random and this year for whatever coincidental reason I know a bunch of people who had a worse muscle reaction to it.

Jeanne Marrazzo, new leader of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, everyone:

Can I make a quick digression? We recently had a long Covid [research] meeting where we had about 200 people, in person. And we can’t mandate mask-wearing, because it’s federal property. But there was a fair amount of disturbance that we couldn’t, and people weren’t wearing masks, and one person accused us of committing a microaggression by not wearing masks.

And I take that very seriously. But I thought to myself, it’s more that people just want to live a normal life. We really don’t want to go back. It was so painful. We’re still all traumatized. Let’s be honest about that. None of us are over it.

So there’s not a lot of appetite for raising an alarm, especially if it could be perceived subsequently as a false alarm.

Edit - thanks for the help in bypassing the paywall.

Article text below

More than 1,000 new COVID deaths were reported in the U.S. this week, taking the death toll for the past two months to more than 10,000, according to figures collected by BNO News. New cases, however, are dropping nationwide in the aftermath of the summer wave.

At least 91,800 new cases were reported between September 30 and October 6, down from 117,284 the week before (-23%). Those figures were collected from state health departments and, where necessary, estimated based on hospital admissions.

Actual case numbers are higher because many hospitals and states are no longer reporting detailed COVID data. Laboratory testing is also low as most people and doctors are using at-home tests which are not included in official statistics.

“Nationally, COVID-19 activity has continued declining in most areas. COVID-19-associated ED visits and hospitalizations are decreasing overall,” the CDC said in an update on Friday. “ED visits for COVID-19 are highest among infants and older adults. Hospitalizations for COVID-19 are highest among older adults.”

The CDC is also monitoring a new variant, XEC, which is now comprising an estimated 2-13% of new cases in the U.S. The new variant is recombined from two JN.1 lineage viruses, for which vaccines already provide protection. The CDC says there are currently no known impacts on tests, treatments or symptoms.

During the past week, cases increased in only 3 out of 30 states with consistent but limited data. In those states where increases were reported, the changes were only minimal, with longer-term data showing overall declines.

The CDC estimates that COVID cases are currently rising in 0 states (unchanged from last week), declining or likely declining in 45 states (up from 41), and stable or uncertain in 2 states (down from 7). Nationally, COVID test positivity is 11.6%, which is unchanged from last week.

Only 32.8% of hospitals in the U.S. submitted COVID data this week, which is similar to last week. Mandatory reporting is expected to resume next month. Those limited figures reveal that at least 4,187 Americans are currently hospitalized with COVID, down from 4,657 last week.

1,209 new COVID deaths were reported during the week, the eighth week in a row with more than 1,000 new deaths. It’s also the 13th week in a row with more than 500 new deaths and the 237th week with more than 400 new deaths.

So far this year, more than 5.6 million COVID cases have been reported across the U.S., causing at least 381,888 hospitalizations (limited data) and 45,132 deaths, according to BNO’s COVID data tracker.

So recently I'm reheating food in the microwave at the staff room, and 4 teachers are having a whine. Students and staff are taking a lot of time off these days. "Don't they know that COVID was over", "we've all had it and we're fine" said white people with well to do parents. Maybe they didn't see me come in or they forget that I'm seeing long COVID every day when I come home. I just gave it a second stare before continuing on, I don't need to fuck with my livelihood. My meals are eaten outside, away from liberals, with a book; and my life is way better for it. Sometimes I chat with the maintenance or cleaning people and the convos are way more genuine, without all the weird bragging that middle class people like to do.

I swear to God, just immediately they dropped the names of 3 other young teachers who have new chronic health conditions. One has persistent low energy, another brand new allergies and asthma, yet another has to go back and live with her parents as she can't cope with work and illness. Everyone's stressing about using up all their sick time.

The less I care about the opinions of comfortable white liberals, the happier I am. Amen.

https://subium.com/profile/dtwyman.bsky.social/post/3l5verrrxfu2s

Usually meta analyses are pretty solid, although I feel like this needs more clinical research. Ya I'm not in medicine.

Death to america, of course

This mucosal/nasal vaccine is called MPV/S-2P and it is developed by the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID). From a 2023 study:

A single dose of MPV/S-2P was highly immunogenic, and a second dose increased the magnitude and breadth of the mucosal and systemic anti-S antibody responses and increased levels of dimeric anti-S IgA in the airways.

Obviously don't dox yourself on Hexbear, but the phase 1 trial sites are:

so if you live near one of those, maybe you can participate.

They want to enroll 60 people, no clue how close they are to that goal

To try to enroll, contact them by phone or email.

The spray is called "Pathogen Capture and Neutralizing Spray" (PCANS) for now

This data suggest PCANS as a promising daily-use prophylactic against respiratory infections.

The study is paywalled, and the abstract doesn't list its ingredients beyond

The formulation consists of excipients identified from the FDA's Inactive Ingredient Database and Generally Recognized as Safe list to maximize efficacy for each step in the multi-modal approach.

Based on that description, its ingredients might not be very different from Covixyl, though it claims to be much more effective.

Edit: Apparently its already for sale, I included some details in a comment

It's not enough and not often enough, but may as well take your free tests when you can.

I know we're all still masking, I'd been a little slack and it got me sick (we isolated immediately when our friend tested positive the next day), this is your reminder.

This round of covid was as bad as every other, the symptoms were different (I was so nauseous), but as bad as it always is.

My hoarding paid off though, we didnt run out of food or anything.

They tested people to check for evidence of asymptomatic infection and found that people who had two doses of the nasal vaccine showed no signs of infection after three months.

CONCLUSION. A 2-dose intranasal vaccination regimen using NB2155 was safe, was well tolerated, and could dramatically induce broad-spectrum spike-specific sIgA in the nasal passage. Preliminary data suggested that the intranasal vaccination may establish an effective mucosal immune barrier against infection and warranted further clinical studies.

https://insight.jci.org/articles/view/180784

"At least 86.2% participants who completed 2 [nasal vaccine] doses maintained uninfected status, likely without even asymptomatic infection, for at least 3 months.

https://xcancel.com/EricTopol/status/1838937705977110991#m

Seems like we are getting closer to better vaccines being approved.

Make sure to consult a doctor before doing self treatment.

Nearly everything in the comments is at the early stage of research. Be careful being your own doctor

Some posters asked me to make a sticky threat on long COVID recovery, including medication, supplements and behavioural changes. Thoughts y'all? Is this a good idea? If the response is positive, I can make this a sticky.

I'm afraid that it possibly could link to unproven recommendations, but frankly I haven't looked enough into the issue.

Feel free to comment on any method on long COVID recover that you know. Please link to research and medical papers. Sadly overly weak or pseudo-scientific stuff will have to get removed, but please no hard feelings for making an effort. I'm very comfortable with Wikipedia's policy on medical sources, so I might err in that direction if it's OK. I'm definitely not working in medicine, btw.

Thanks!

edit: I just worry that a lot of this below is early stage research. I know that comrades are suffering, but we could be doing real damage if people go out and do self treatment, they can very seriously hurt themselves worst. I'm sorry that medical stuff is hard, expensive, and unfair. But I have a duty to inform people to be careful with self treatment.

My comment : this study is high quality af

Abstract

Background

Cognitive impairment can be caused by infections with various pathogens, including SARS-CoV-2. Research has yet to determine the true incidence and course of cognitive impairment in older adults following COVID-19. Furthermore, research has theorised that COVID-19 is associated with dementia progression and diagnosis but this association has yet to be fully described.

Methods

A systematic review was registered in Prospero and conducted on the databases PubMed, Embase, Ovid, CENTRAL and Cochrane Library. Studies reporting cognitive impairment and dementia outcomes in post-acute and post-COVID-19 patients aged ≥65 years, and which included control data, were included in this review.

Results

15,124 articles were identified by the search strategy. After eliminating duplicate titles and completing title, abstracts and full-text review, 18 studies were included comprising of 412,957 patients with COVID-19 (46.63 % male) and 411,929 patients without COVID-19 (46.59 % male). The overall mean Montreal Cognitive Assessment (MoCA) score in COVID-19 patients was 23.34 out of 30 (95 % CI [22.24, 24.43]). indicating cognitive impairment. The overall proportion of patients identified as having new onset cognitive impairment was 65 % (95 % CI [44,81]). Subgroup analyses indicated that time since infection significantly improves overall MoCA score and reduces proportion of patients with cognitive impairment.

Conclusion

This study indicates that cognitive impairment may be an important sequela of COVID-19. Further research with adequate sample sizes is warranted regarding COVID-19’s association with new-onset dementia and dementia progression, and the effect of repeat infections. There is a need for development of diagnostic and management protocols for COVID-19 patients with cognitive impairment.

It was a liberal party doing it with a new woman leader and the people protesting treated as some kind of total misunderstanding of reality or an excuse for government crackdown for conspiratorial reasons.

I imagine this is more or less how it would go if it really happened. Maybe if it had more enforced air ventilation/quality upgrades in buildings and expansions to health services and workers right to stay home sick it'd go over better, but I kinda' doubt it too.

I am in my postcovid phase again. This is the third or fourth time and every time I've lost more of my overall health. The first time was the worst and longest, ended up in the hospital that time. After the Omicron one I developed plantar fasciitis and pains so bad that my running and jumping has ended for good. There's been so many weird issues, even teeth breaking. Also flared up my sciatica that has been fine for a decade or more.

But the thing that disables me the most is the nausea and gagging, the GI stuff and POTS I get from it. And it's back again. This time no bad coughing and thankfully not too much mental stuff, but oh man the heart/GI symptoms suck! I spend months gagging on the side of the road when leaving for work after I get it every damn time. It is always worse in the morning and I was just rid of it when I got infected again by my "living like it's 2019" family, for the second time within a year.

I am four weeks in this time and I have a high pounding heartrate after eating and on standing up, some nights I wake up to my heart pounding. Also very hightened stress response, feels like I am just wired all the time. This has happened to me every time, the first time it even gave me the worst panic attacks ever that came fully out of nowhere, it was wild and felt 100% physical.

Oh and interesting new pain stuff along with the foot and joint pains: Yesterday I did a bit of foam rolling to my back and neck to see if it might help with the nausea ans stress. I have done this for years with no issue. Today I feel like someone rolled over my spine with a truck. It's like my entire back is inflamed.

This post covid inflammation is hell. I wonder if I'll still make it, if my heart will.

Just a bit of rant, I am just scared and tired of this. My life is pretty good atm otherwise, I finally would have steady work and income after decades of poverty, I even like my work. Life is more secure and I am just happpier because I know I am audh now and have gotten rid of a lot of brainworms. But this virus feels like it will end me and it feels like there is nothing whatsoever I can do to truly prevent this. We are and have been very cautious, but extended family keeps bringing it to us or we are forced to get it from work/studies. I am not sure my body can keep rolling this dice even once anymore. And we can't even get boosters here, they just aren't available to us.

My partner who was high risk to begin with has developed diabetes after the infection we got for Christmas 2023. And after this time he is just very very brain foggy and has been irritable, not at all himself. I don't know what I'd do if I lost him to this.

For instance are there any neat filtration systems I can install in wall cavities? I'm also trying to be mindful of soundproofing but am willing to make tradeoffs.

This is a pretty succinct overview of what your options are if you live with people who had their empathy circuits fried by the pandemic and can't be bothered to care about disease transmission anymore.

Aside from masking: Setting up air filters is probably the lowest effort for biggest return on safety.

All these tips will help against actual regular colds and flus, too, since we are coming up on that time of year.

Also a reminder that it's never healthy to be infected by virus.

I have switched from an N95 mask to an Aura today, well in a few days as I wait for them to arrive. Seeing everyone cough their lungs out in crowded public transit is absolutely horrible and especially cause no one seems to care about that either. Depressing to see I'm one of the only ones wearing a mask in a huge city, at maximum I see one person every few days with a mask, often wearing it incorrectly. Of course I get harassed for it cause "you're the paranoid one" they say while they had covid 6 times at this point or worse, exposing little kids too, and I'm the one who gets weird looks just because I protect myself. The amount of justifications I have to say to various people to leave me alone is perplexing, I have to either say a person in my family has autoimmune problems (which is true), or that I'm not wanting to get the flu which apparently is a better excuse than Covid for some reason.