6 ms·

Me and my SO have now almost fully recovered from COVID-19 after a rough few days. Now that I have these anti-bodies in my blood, should we not be allowed outs

by neals 7y ago

Me and my SO have now almost fully recovered from COVID-19 after a rough few days. Now that I have these anti-bodies in my blood, should we not be allowed outside, spend our money and help the economy? There are must be at least 100 000 people in my (small) country that are now immune. A number that is growing faster than published number of infected. Let's make a plan for our return to society. Let us wear a mark or put a stamp in our passports or let's think of something clever. I feel like I could be doing a lot more than just working from home with my newfound super-power.

wbronitsky 7y ago
How do we prove, to everyone on the street for example, that you are immune? This problem is much thornier than you wanting to go outside because you believe you have already had and are now immune to this virus.
- neals 7y ago
  I totally agree. I also don't really want to go outside. I've been working from home for 10 years. It's not about that. There is, however, a big opportunity here for thousands of people to contribute.
zozbot234 7y ago
If you've "almost" fully recovered, i.e. still showing symptoms, you're still shedding viral particles when you go out and putting others at risk. Wait 14 days after all symptoms have totally subsided, then going out would be relatively safe. But really, you should have multiple tests to be sure.
- neals 7y ago
  Yes. But let's look ahead. What do we after that? How we help rebuild the economy?
  - threeseed 7y ago
    Stay. At. Home. One of the biggest problems right now is social behaviour. People see others on the street and downplay the significance of what is happening.
    - neals 7y ago
      Yes. Staying at home is key. Everybody should do that. And people in the US should probably have been doing that at least one or two weeks earlier. Some countries are a little ahead though. I mean not just socially, but in the spreading of Corona and figuring out what works and what doesn't. Sometimes there are clear rules and guidelines in some cases the military is even enforcing national corona policies. So when we're all used to staying home and that is working. We should not forget about the economy and start figuring out ways to kickstart it.
hypnotist 7y ago
are there any results/tests that show that one becomes immune after covid-19?
- twomoretime 7y ago
  No, and there have been at least three reports of reinfection cases from multiple countries. Though it's not clear if they failed to build immunity or if the virus was never totally eliminated. Also, because of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), which the virus is speculated to have like SARS and MERS, a reinfection could be deadly, e.g. triggering cytokene storms. This is why vaccine trials in animals failed for SARS and I think MERS.
  - nil-sec 7y ago
    Or, those patients were false positives.
  - neals 7y ago
    Not a doctor here, but I also read that people can test negative when tested orally but still test positive anally. Three cases sounds a little anecdotal. Let's brings some facts into the discussion.
lordnacho 7y ago
Do we know how long immunity lasts?
- neals 7y ago
  There are a lot of people who got to this point a few months earlier than me. Let's find them en test them.
  - threeseed 7y ago
    > Let's find them en test them We have very limited resources which need to be focused on sick/dying people.
    - adventured 7y ago
      That's not necessarily the correct calculation if you want to maximize how many people you save. Italy started intentionally letting people over 60 die, to try to save more people. For their dire circumstances, it was probably the right decision. It might help to save a lot more lives if we understand how many people have already had Covid and what immunity looks like post-infection. Every 1% jump in the unemployment rate kills a large number of people. If we're about to see 20% unemployment in the US, a hundred thousand people or more will die directly from that economic event alone (that's an intentionally conservative number, the routinely taught economics figure would imply upwards of half a million deaths over several years). Getting the economy back to functioning may be just as important as limiting the Covid deaths of the most vulnerable. Understanding the spread of Covid, how many people are asymptomatic, how many have had mild cases, and what immunity looks like, is critical to that process.
      - threeseed 7y ago
        > If we're about to see 20% unemployment in the US, a hundred thousand people or more will die directly from that economic event alone. Provide evidence of this. And in most countries there is a constraint over medical equipment and personnel. Also a person can be asymptomatic and still contagious which means merely testing these people can come at a serious cost.
DoreenMichele 7y ago
What we need to be doing is envisioning what the future can look like in a world with permanently higher standards for germ control, not rushing to return to business as usual. Historically, humans often lived in small villages surrounded by a relatively small number of the same people. Their entire lives could be mostly or entirely lived out in a five mile radius. The drop in air pollution has measurable economic value. It can be measured in reduced need for medical care, reduced corrosion of expensive infrastructure, etc. Running around all over the place like crazy is not the only approach to life which has measurable economic value. How we live today in developed countries is not the historical norm for humanity. There's no reason it needs to be held up as sacred and a standard we must strive to return to as promptly as possible or even at all. People can and do live full and happy lives without galavanting all over the world. It's fine if we promote that as a value generally to enhance germ control and shrink our carbon footprint.
- neals 7y ago
  I agree. But what are your thoughts on walking to a local pub?
  - DoreenMichele 7y ago
    I think takeout is reasonably safe and I approve of walking more and actively try to encourage that. I think we should be moving to a takeout culture over a dining out culture. We also need to be updating our design standards to make dining out safer. Due to increasing distances between tables and similar, I think this will be even more expensive than what we do currently and make dine-in restaurants mostly limited to more expensive restaurants. I've left remarks about that elsewhere on HN. I am actively trying to encourage people to get takeout to try to support local eateries and hopefully reduce the damage to the economy. I've been promoting Little Caesar's as a good example of what works well. They're entire business model is takeout and delivery. They had a pizza portal for contactless pickup before covid19, but it wasn't being used locally. The past few days, it is being used. There are pizzas in the customer facing pizza portal warming ovens for the first time ever. I would also like to see Walmart write the handbook for how to design public bathrooms. The cleanliness of the bathroom is often a make or break for me personally in being a customer, especially for a fine in experience. That cleanliness is highly dependent upon good design. No amount of maid service can really fix a badly designed bathroom. I like motion activated faucets, motion activated hand dryers and motion activated paper towel dispenser and soap dispensers. Motion activated toilets are a nice to have, but less important to me than being able to properly wash my hands afterwards. One of the best features of Walmart bathrooms is the lack of doors. Most people use a paper towel to open the bathroom door to leave rather than touch the door. This is hard to do at a smaller scale. Walmart has large stores with large bathrooms. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means we haven't really tried to solve for this before because it wasn't a priority. I see no reason why we can't come up with better practices for public bathrooms on a smaller scale than what you typically see today in smaller establishments.
throwaway_pdp09 7y ago
No offence, and your attitude is what we need, but what are you sure it was covid. Perhaps it was flu. Saying it was a few days doesn't fit with what I've heard other people who've had covid.
- neals 7y ago
  Let's figure out a way to be sure and scale that and save the world!
JoeAltmaier 7y ago
Donate blood! Plasma (?) can be separated and the antibodies used to treat other sufferer!
- neals 7y ago
  I love this idea! Is this true? 100 000 people doing this would be awesome.
- threeseed 7y ago
  If you have had coronavirus you can only donate at minimum 3 months after symptoms have ended. And no. Antibodies can not be used to treat other sufferers.
  - l_davis 7y ago
    Using antibodies to treat patients appears to be on the pipeline - https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/infectious-disease-experts-recommend-using-antibodies-from-covid-19-survivors-as-stopgap-measure.html https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/infectious-dis...
JTon 7y ago
Happy to hear you've recovered. Could you share your experiences? (e.g. your earliest symptoms, later stage symptoms, tips/tricks you used that helped, etc)
l_davis 7y ago
Almost fully recovered is probably not good enough yet for your not to endanger others -https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/steps-when-sick.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/st... Congratulations for heading in the right direction.
babypuncher 7y ago
I believe CDC guidelines are to wait at least 3 days after your fever subsides.
tzs 7y ago
If you definitely had it (i.e., you actually tested positive as opposed to inferring that you had it from your symptoms), and are definitely over it and past the point that you can infect others--maybe get a temporary/part time job as a delivery driver for take out food or groceries?

by neals 7y ago

wbronitsky 7y ago

How do we prove, to everyone on the street for example, that you are immune? This problem is much thornier than you wanting to go outside because you believe you have already had and are now immune to this virus.

neals 7y ago
I totally agree. I also don't really want to go outside. I've been working from home for 10 years. It's not about that. There is, however, a big opportunity here for thousands of people to contribute.

zozbot234 7y ago

If you've "almost" fully recovered, i.e. still showing symptoms, you're still shedding viral particles when you go out and putting others at risk. Wait 14 days after all symptoms have totally subsided, then going out would be relatively safe. But really, you should have multiple tests to be sure.

neals 7y ago
Yes. But let's look ahead. What do we after that? How we help rebuild the economy?
- threeseed 7y ago
  Stay. At. Home. One of the biggest problems right now is social behaviour. People see others on the street and downplay the significance of what is happening.
  - neals 7y ago
    Yes. Staying at home is key. Everybody should do that. And people in the US should probably have been doing that at least one or two weeks earlier. Some countries are a little ahead though. I mean not just socially, but in the spreading of Corona and figuring out what works and what doesn't. Sometimes there are clear rules and guidelines in some cases the military is even enforcing national corona policies. So when we're all used to staying home and that is working. We should not forget about the economy and start figuring out ways to kickstart it.

hypnotist 7y ago

are there any results/tests that show that one becomes immune after covid-19?

twomoretime 7y ago
No, and there have been at least three reports of reinfection cases from multiple countries. Though it's not clear if they failed to build immunity or if the virus was never totally eliminated. Also, because of antibody dependent enhancement (ADE), which the virus is speculated to have like SARS and MERS, a reinfection could be deadly, e.g. triggering cytokene storms. This is why vaccine trials in animals failed for SARS and I think MERS.
- nil-sec 7y ago
  Or, those patients were false positives.
- neals 7y ago
  Not a doctor here, but I also read that people can test negative when tested orally but still test positive anally. Three cases sounds a little anecdotal. Let's brings some facts into the discussion.

lordnacho 7y ago

Do we know how long immunity lasts?

neals 7y ago
There are a lot of people who got to this point a few months earlier than me. Let's find them en test them.
- threeseed 7y ago
  > Let's find them en test them We have very limited resources which need to be focused on sick/dying people.
  - adventured 7y ago
    That's not necessarily the correct calculation if you want to maximize how many people you save. Italy started intentionally letting people over 60 die, to try to save more people. For their dire circumstances, it was probably the right decision. It might help to save a lot more lives if we understand how many people have already had Covid and what immunity looks like post-infection. Every 1% jump in the unemployment rate kills a large number of people. If we're about to see 20% unemployment in the US, a hundred thousand people or more will die directly from that economic event alone (that's an intentionally conservative number, the routinely taught economics figure would imply upwards of half a million deaths over several years). Getting the economy back to functioning may be just as important as limiting the Covid deaths of the most vulnerable. Understanding the spread of Covid, how many people are asymptomatic, how many have had mild cases, and what immunity looks like, is critical to that process.
    - threeseed 7y ago
      > If we're about to see 20% unemployment in the US, a hundred thousand people or more will die directly from that economic event alone. Provide evidence of this. And in most countries there is a constraint over medical equipment and personnel. Also a person can be asymptomatic and still contagious which means merely testing these people can come at a serious cost.

DoreenMichele 7y ago

What we need to be doing is envisioning what the future can look like in a world with permanently higher standards for germ control, not rushing to return to business as usual. Historically, humans often lived in small villages surrounded by a relatively small number of the same people. Their entire lives could be mostly or entirely lived out in a five mile radius. The drop in air pollution has measurable economic value. It can be measured in reduced need for medical care, reduced corrosion of expensive infrastructure, etc. Running around all over the place like crazy is not the only approach to life which has measurable economic value. How we live today in developed countries is not the historical norm for humanity. There's no reason it needs to be held up as sacred and a standard we must strive to return to as promptly as possible or even at all. People can and do live full and happy lives without galavanting all over the world. It's fine if we promote that as a value generally to enhance germ control and shrink our carbon footprint.

neals 7y ago
I agree. But what are your thoughts on walking to a local pub?
- DoreenMichele 7y ago
  I think takeout is reasonably safe and I approve of walking more and actively try to encourage that. I think we should be moving to a takeout culture over a dining out culture. We also need to be updating our design standards to make dining out safer. Due to increasing distances between tables and similar, I think this will be even more expensive than what we do currently and make dine-in restaurants mostly limited to more expensive restaurants. I've left remarks about that elsewhere on HN. I am actively trying to encourage people to get takeout to try to support local eateries and hopefully reduce the damage to the economy. I've been promoting Little Caesar's as a good example of what works well. They're entire business model is takeout and delivery. They had a pizza portal for contactless pickup before covid19, but it wasn't being used locally. The past few days, it is being used. There are pizzas in the customer facing pizza portal warming ovens for the first time ever. I would also like to see Walmart write the handbook for how to design public bathrooms. The cleanliness of the bathroom is often a make or break for me personally in being a customer, especially for a fine in experience. That cleanliness is highly dependent upon good design. No amount of maid service can really fix a badly designed bathroom. I like motion activated faucets, motion activated hand dryers and motion activated paper towel dispenser and soap dispensers. Motion activated toilets are a nice to have, but less important to me than being able to properly wash my hands afterwards. One of the best features of Walmart bathrooms is the lack of doors. Most people use a paper towel to open the bathroom door to leave rather than touch the door. This is hard to do at a smaller scale. Walmart has large stores with large bathrooms. But that doesn't mean it can't be done. It just means we haven't really tried to solve for this before because it wasn't a priority. I see no reason why we can't come up with better practices for public bathrooms on a smaller scale than what you typically see today in smaller establishments.

throwaway_pdp09 7y ago

No offence, and your attitude is what we need, but what are you sure it was covid. Perhaps it was flu. Saying it was a few days doesn't fit with what I've heard other people who've had covid.

neals 7y ago
Let's figure out a way to be sure and scale that and save the world!

JoeAltmaier 7y ago

Donate blood! Plasma (?) can be separated and the antibodies used to treat other sufferer!

neals 7y ago
I love this idea! Is this true? 100 000 people doing this would be awesome.
threeseed 7y ago
If you have had coronavirus you can only donate at minimum 3 months after symptoms have ended. And no. Antibodies can not be used to treat other sufferers.
- l_davis 7y ago
  Using antibodies to treat patients appears to be on the pipeline - https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/infectious-disease-experts-recommend-using-antibodies-from-covid-19-survivors-as-stopgap-measure.html https://www.jhsph.edu/news/news-releases/2020/infectious-dis...

JTon 7y ago

Happy to hear you've recovered. Could you share your experiences? (e.g. your earliest symptoms, later stage symptoms, tips/tricks you used that helped, etc)

l_davis 7y ago

Almost fully recovered is probably not good enough yet for your not to endanger others -https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/steps-when-sick.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/if-you-are-sick/st... Congratulations for heading in the right direction.

babypuncher 7y ago

I believe CDC guidelines are to wait at least 3 days after your fever subsides.

tzs 7y ago

If you definitely had it (i.e., you actually tested positive as opposed to inferring that you had it from your symptoms), and are definitely over it and past the point that you can infect others--maybe get a temporary/part time job as a delivery driver for take out food or groceries?