8 ms·

I'm 28, fit, physically active (bouldering / running / gym), no pre-conditions whatsoever, take vitamin D supplementation, I don't take any medication. I'm goi

by vasco 7y ago

I'm 28, fit, physically active (bouldering / running / gym), no pre-conditions whatsoever, take vitamin D supplementation, I don't take any medication. I'm going through a nasty pneumonia that hurts my lungs just breathing and I've never had something like this before. I get tired just walking around, whereas 2 weeks ago I did a 40 minute 10k. Take that anecdata as you will, but if you can protect yourself, do. So when you say it's just a "bad cold", I chuckle a bit. What's going to happen to the millions of overweight, high blood pressure / diabetic Americans? Sure don't panic, but be safe.

arcticbull 7y ago
Oh yeah, it'll be a bad cold. You may well have it now. By no means am I suggesting people run out there and hug the nearest stranger they see, but what I am suggesting, is they not panic. The numbers are in their favor. This could have been much, much worse.
CriticalCathed 7y ago
To be clear, the evidence seems to be that your outcome is still in the minority of cases. Some unknown but double digit percentage experience no symptoms at all despite testing positive, another large proportion only experience upper respiratory symptoms and never get a lower respiratory infection or pneumonia, finally there are so called "mild" cases which I believe are "a bad flu." What these proportions are exactly is unclear, but it is clear that the vast vast majority people are not at risk of death. The data is unreliable and all over the place, but it's trending in this direction: in otherwise healthy people, this isn't particularly lethal. I am not a doctor but you should probably get tested.
- vasco 7y ago
  I cannot get tested. I live in the Netherlands and unless your case is serious enough that you either have very high fever or a great difficulty breathing, the official instructions are to not even call the health line, much less go to a hospital. I have friends in Portugal, Spain and Italy that have similar symptoms to mine and are home and doing the same because those are the official guidelines. I agree with these guidelines, the phone lines and hospitals should be open for people who are at risk of dying. But that means that the numbers you're looking at are barely the tip of the iceberg for a lot of these european countries.
  - CriticalCathed 7y ago
    That's too bad. We really need to ramp up PCR tests as well as begin serological studies (there is one I am ware of, and a product on the way.) Immediately. We will not get this under control if we don't. We need to know how fast it's spreading, where, and so on. It is clear that in some ways our hands are tied on testing, but a case like yours at this time knowing if you have it or not could affect your course of treatment.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]
    - arcticbull 7y ago
      Viruses do have treatments. There aren't as many as for bacteria, for a number of reasons including that viruses don't really clearly fall into "alive" or "dead" in the same way. They hijack your cellular machinery to produce more of themselves but they're not much more than a strand of genetic code wrapped in a bundle. It's hard to say they're more alive than any computer virus. However, we've studied the way in which viruses do this hijacking and are able to disrupt the process, for instance by blocking their mechanism of entering cells, by blocking their mechanism of exiting cells or by disrupting their ability to replicate their genetic information. There are even some (albeit new) broad-spectrum antiviral medications such as Remdesivir which was explored in COVID-19. It does work, well even, though as the COVID-19 infection is primarily in the lungs it's difficult to establish a sufficient concentration to be hugely effective. Hydroxycholorquine is interesting [1] both as an anti-inflammatory and immune modulator. The Azithromycin probably does nothing against nCoV-2 but may well help control secondary infection. [1] https://watermark.silverchair.com/ciaa237.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAmswggJnBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJYMIICVAIBADCCAk0GCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMnVSw_PiQyDwD4zT7AgEQgIICHgCEx9lmXrD1rjL8O6yYRwpG2p_t9Ot5sbuMYKziscixLyLlgtRv8_eBTmhHb5TSmLNsDeWEcsfVHMYuI9oU38KiHn9y3Knje7xhGnnbdmfvqgNpXOB5qpSr_icPNYRG0dpDJNCGCMui-AvJo9c3s29VL9SaeHlVcm1JTPfzItncf26sAdmOGiGbtvt33rah7yqjHjqxtcwtRZdpGMqW2xPf3O7kh6EWN-5M63uAFczu_Nk0gt7L9oPwM1Sq21yD-UZXIr9lQXeCvpz8yaRDPb5SB3_JXNOFQi7rwbniGIclHH6qjEGDh8Oo_AY5U5oOrm7a8oYre72FGmVPNl_25R2ltCLizklMHVISTrJxD4bAAKYto3lVu7ZejEHFcdbHXlBhNow3pgLINczTZ_scpX6Imt07CYjah8VA5HFGcBFBGOcZyXIUJyk5HGY1w7jShSSmruP1oluJKwPG6H8obSarZC4TZKKIHO4q9ayrIrI5Unn2D2X9WWJ_CMeghNWUvNJ4icl2mUS0Sc4FhB_c2m_vztqY7qgXvZdn64QX_I50uRCtbffUU86DCwpYk_BOn8IzuNyazYsaeBEWlR7cPTtKgJFB24aoZt-nJIIzMHnLIAryZjp0602cqPlUUy8o7eKlXVXPoRzllrq0EZkuYfMlUwIM6C_ZKtejGXixVMuAJLRrSIR8ggLWWgCfmyCuzt1Iy_mU-Es6v21stNmo https://watermark.silverchair.com/ciaa237.pdf?token=AQECAHi2...
jeltz 7y ago
An anecdote of my own: I am in my mid 30s and can run a 46 minute 10k and I have had what you describe twice in my life, both times probably caused by the flu. One of the times I had to get penicillin for the pneumonia the other time it resolved itself. You should not underestimate the influenza it can be pretty nasty for your lungs too.
chiefalchemist 7y ago
Yes. But you'll live. You getting past it - as much as it sucks for you - lowers the overall threat. Now you're immune. The more we have lime you, the better off we are. We can't stop it. But the more immune there are the better.
pyuser583 7y ago
Yeah my family and I were hit by a nasty, nasty, flu/cold. Just when we were done, covid hit. We were hoping it was covid so we’d have immunity. My wife was just tested - no such luck.
MikeAmelung 7y ago
This is interesting... I wonder if we're eventually going to see that this virus is worse for Italian/Spanish/Portuguese genetics. Italy has been hit super hard, New York (the most Italian ancestry in the US) is being hit hard. Just a hypothesis, don't everyone try to kill me at once, please.
- arcticbull 7y ago
  Interesting hypothesis of course, I suspect it's because the outbreak was in Lombardy which is much older on average and has 3X the average number of comorbid conditions.
  - blaser-waffle 7y ago
    Italy as a whole has a higher proportion of elderly folks. Also a lot of Italy and Spain have adults who tend to live at home or with (older) family, which also makes it far easier to expose them on an individual basis.
andrepd 7y ago
Well, yes. You have 1 data point. How does that undermine what the OP said about an IFR of 0.5% or the average age of victims being 80?
BLKNSLVR 7y ago
More personal anecdata: I got pneumonia three years back. A couple of weeks beforehand I'd run a 12km that I'd trained for over the three months prior. Once cleared of pneumonia (after another couple of weeks) I was puffing just walking 100 metres. And apparently, once you've had pneumonia, you're more susceptible to get it again. Something that didn't particularly help in my case was that I was prescribed an antibiotic that helps against "most" pneumonia causing bugs, but my pneumonia was actually caused by one of the less common bugs. Once put on the right antibiotic I felt much better within a day - after making no progress for two to three days on the original one. Pneumonia is no joke.
blaser-waffle 7y ago
I'll jump into this anecdata thread too: used to by in the military, regular gym rat, but totally got my butt kicked by the swine flu a few years back (like ~2010-ish). Never got sick, rarely a head cold, but this laid me out for a week.

by vasco 7y ago

arcticbull 7y ago

Oh yeah, it'll be a bad cold. You may well have it now. By no means am I suggesting people run out there and hug the nearest stranger they see, but what I am suggesting, is they not panic. The numbers are in their favor. This could have been much, much worse.

CriticalCathed 7y ago

To be clear, the evidence seems to be that your outcome is still in the minority of cases. Some unknown but double digit percentage experience no symptoms at all despite testing positive, another large proportion only experience upper respiratory symptoms and never get a lower respiratory infection or pneumonia, finally there are so called "mild" cases which I believe are "a bad flu." What these proportions are exactly is unclear, but it is clear that the vast vast majority people are not at risk of death. The data is unreliable and all over the place, but it's trending in this direction: in otherwise healthy people, this isn't particularly lethal. I am not a doctor but you should probably get tested.

vasco 7y ago
I cannot get tested. I live in the Netherlands and unless your case is serious enough that you either have very high fever or a great difficulty breathing, the official instructions are to not even call the health line, much less go to a hospital. I have friends in Portugal, Spain and Italy that have similar symptoms to mine and are home and doing the same because those are the official guidelines. I agree with these guidelines, the phone lines and hospitals should be open for people who are at risk of dying. But that means that the numbers you're looking at are barely the tip of the iceberg for a lot of these european countries.
- CriticalCathed 7y ago
  That's too bad. We really need to ramp up PCR tests as well as begin serological studies (there is one I am ware of, and a product on the way.) Immediately. We will not get this under control if we don't. We need to know how fast it's spreading, where, and so on. It is clear that in some ways our hands are tied on testing, but a case like yours at this time knowing if you have it or not could affect your course of treatment.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
  - arcticbull 7y ago
    Viruses do have treatments. There aren't as many as for bacteria, for a number of reasons including that viruses don't really clearly fall into "alive" or "dead" in the same way. They hijack your cellular machinery to produce more of themselves but they're not much more than a strand of genetic code wrapped in a bundle. It's hard to say they're more alive than any computer virus. However, we've studied the way in which viruses do this hijacking and are able to disrupt the process, for instance by blocking their mechanism of entering cells, by blocking their mechanism of exiting cells or by disrupting their ability to replicate their genetic information. There are even some (albeit new) broad-spectrum antiviral medications such as Remdesivir which was explored in COVID-19. It does work, well even, though as the COVID-19 infection is primarily in the lungs it's difficult to establish a sufficient concentration to be hugely effective. Hydroxycholorquine is interesting [1] both as an anti-inflammatory and immune modulator. The Azithromycin probably does nothing against nCoV-2 but may well help control secondary infection. [1] https://watermark.silverchair.com/ciaa237.pdf?token=AQECAHi208BE49Ooan9kkhW_Ercy7Dm3ZL_9Cf3qfKAc485ysgAAAmswggJnBgkqhkiG9w0BBwagggJYMIICVAIBADCCAk0GCSqGSIb3DQEHATAeBglghkgBZQMEAS4wEQQMnVSw_PiQyDwD4zT7AgEQgIICHgCEx9lmXrD1rjL8O6yYRwpG2p_t9Ot5sbuMYKziscixLyLlgtRv8_eBTmhHb5TSmLNsDeWEcsfVHMYuI9oU38KiHn9y3Knje7xhGnnbdmfvqgNpXOB5qpSr_icPNYRG0dpDJNCGCMui-AvJo9c3s29VL9SaeHlVcm1JTPfzItncf26sAdmOGiGbtvt33rah7yqjHjqxtcwtRZdpGMqW2xPf3O7kh6EWN-5M63uAFczu_Nk0gt7L9oPwM1Sq21yD-UZXIr9lQXeCvpz8yaRDPb5SB3_JXNOFQi7rwbniGIclHH6qjEGDh8Oo_AY5U5oOrm7a8oYre72FGmVPNl_25R2ltCLizklMHVISTrJxD4bAAKYto3lVu7ZejEHFcdbHXlBhNow3pgLINczTZ_scpX6Imt07CYjah8VA5HFGcBFBGOcZyXIUJyk5HGY1w7jShSSmruP1oluJKwPG6H8obSarZC4TZKKIHO4q9ayrIrI5Unn2D2X9WWJ_CMeghNWUvNJ4icl2mUS0Sc4FhB_c2m_vztqY7qgXvZdn64QX_I50uRCtbffUU86DCwpYk_BOn8IzuNyazYsaeBEWlR7cPTtKgJFB24aoZt-nJIIzMHnLIAryZjp0602cqPlUUy8o7eKlXVXPoRzllrq0EZkuYfMlUwIM6C_ZKtejGXixVMuAJLRrSIR8ggLWWgCfmyCuzt1Iy_mU-Es6v21stNmo https://watermark.silverchair.com/ciaa237.pdf?token=AQECAHi2...

jeltz 7y ago

An anecdote of my own: I am in my mid 30s and can run a 46 minute 10k and I have had what you describe twice in my life, both times probably caused by the flu. One of the times I had to get penicillin for the pneumonia the other time it resolved itself. You should not underestimate the influenza it can be pretty nasty for your lungs too.

chiefalchemist 7y ago

Yes. But you'll live. You getting past it - as much as it sucks for you - lowers the overall threat. Now you're immune. The more we have lime you, the better off we are. We can't stop it. But the more immune there are the better.

pyuser583 7y ago

Yeah my family and I were hit by a nasty, nasty, flu/cold. Just when we were done, covid hit. We were hoping it was covid so we’d have immunity. My wife was just tested - no such luck.

MikeAmelung 7y ago

This is interesting... I wonder if we're eventually going to see that this virus is worse for Italian/Spanish/Portuguese genetics. Italy has been hit super hard, New York (the most Italian ancestry in the US) is being hit hard. Just a hypothesis, don't everyone try to kill me at once, please.

arcticbull 7y ago
Interesting hypothesis of course, I suspect it's because the outbreak was in Lombardy which is much older on average and has 3X the average number of comorbid conditions.
- blaser-waffle 7y ago
  Italy as a whole has a higher proportion of elderly folks. Also a lot of Italy and Spain have adults who tend to live at home or with (older) family, which also makes it far easier to expose them on an individual basis.

andrepd 7y ago

Well, yes. You have 1 data point. How does that undermine what the OP said about an IFR of 0.5% or the average age of victims being 80?

BLKNSLVR 7y ago

More personal anecdata: I got pneumonia three years back. A couple of weeks beforehand I'd run a 12km that I'd trained for over the three months prior. Once cleared of pneumonia (after another couple of weeks) I was puffing just walking 100 metres. And apparently, once you've had pneumonia, you're more susceptible to get it again. Something that didn't particularly help in my case was that I was prescribed an antibiotic that helps against "most" pneumonia causing bugs, but my pneumonia was actually caused by one of the less common bugs. Once put on the right antibiotic I felt much better within a day - after making no progress for two to three days on the original one. Pneumonia is no joke.

blaser-waffle 7y ago

I'll jump into this anecdata thread too: used to by in the military, regular gym rat, but totally got my butt kicked by the swine flu a few years back (like ~2010-ish). Never got sick, rarely a head cold, but this laid me out for a week.