Aaaaah! Reminder to self - keep skipping the restaurants!Come on down to my neck of the woods. We had dinner at our local Cracker Barrel not too long ago and about the time we were leaving, it started filling up with the after church crowd. Hacking, coughing, no masks...it was a sight to behold. As we walked out, I asked my DW if she enjoyed her dinner at "The COVID Barrel"
On one hand, I don't think getting it would be too terrible. Then, I think about the long haulers and what we don't know about long term effects. Throw in a few studies that have shown that some of those infected had their own antibodies turn on them. You just cannot win with this.
I guess this is sort of along the lines of what I have been thinking. I don't see much purpose in testing myself. If I feel even the teensiest bit sick, I stay away from other people so I can't breathe or cough or sneeze on them. If I don't feel sick, I go out to lunch and so on but still try to be considerate and maintain some distance between myself and others. We have a mask mandate.
I don’t think no herd immunity means every last person will catch it. It very much depends on the local prevalence of the virus.Based on the news that heard immunity is not going to happen (ie we all will acquire the virus eventually), Germany is giving up on testing "cases", and will concentrate on tests for clinical purposes.
Yes, apparently the experts are starting to admit that every person in the world will have the virus enter their nose. Of course vaccination will mean fewer people with symptoms, but they'll spread it. So this changes the calculus. If everyone will end up getting it sooner or later, the idea to test in order to contain is less important.
I've been on the "home test" soap box since early in the pandemic, and I'm thinking it's time to just take the "rip off the band-aid" approach, and get it over with. Anyone know where I should go to acquire just a few viral particles
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2021/09/covid-19-long-haulers-pandemic-future/619941/
+1 Pretty much same here.
The reasons now are not as strong as they once were. Now that people that DO the test on you aren't quite as afraid of taking the Covid dirt-nap (due to being vaccinated), the tests are widely available, as you indicate. And they're paid for by someone else, yeah, so there's that. If I had symptoms, I'd still prefer to do my own test, at home, just to protect the community. It's worth $12 to me to keep from being "part of the problem". If I stayed home, I would know for sure that I didn't cause other peoples' suffering, whereas if I ventured out for a test, I wouldn't have such confidence.
Reasonable people can disagree about how much of the world's population will escape getting the disease, but they were talking 70% for herd immunity, then up to 90%. And now some experts (Andrew Pollard, director of the Oxford Vaccine Group) have thrown in the towel and said it's just going to be around for many years, and pretty much everyone will get it.
Good news. First test results are negative. Tested ~84 hours after our last potential exposure and ~132 hours after our first. By potential, I mean only that we were talking in close proximity for a prolonged period of time with a large number of people whom we had not seen in years. And they traveled from all over the country to be there. Also, we did eat dinner indoors with a small group (all vaccinated).
I was able to snag a few from CVS online. They were $24/box for one box but I ordered 6 for $20 Ea. I got two each for us, DS, and DD. They are out of stock once again.
The CDC says it's "rare"...but here is a fairly recent article and the CDC study:
