4 ms·

Vaxxed and I caught Cov19 a couple weeks ago (likely omicron). Same with the wife. I've had allergies that were worse. It was a 3 day event with a very mild fev

Vaxxed and I caught Cov19 a couple weeks ago (likely omicron). Same with the wife. I've had allergies that were worse. It was a 3 day event with a very mild fever and a bit of a cough the last day. It was extremely mild, and if I hadn't decided to take a couple days off to catch up on my reading after getting tested, I would have probably just eaten a couple advil and continued on as though nothing happened. So now I'm considering skipping any future boosters unless they specifically target a new more dangerous strain. That said, I'm also still wearing a mask, although i'm having a hard time with the whole concept now too since i should be able to keep my immunity going simply by keeping myself exposed. I was a pretty strong advocate of mask wearing even when the CDC initially told people they could take it off, instead deciding to wait until more people were vaccinated (which never happened in TX). But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around.

layer8 5y ago
The main reason to wear a mask is to prevent yourself from infecting others if/when you get infected again. One usually becomes infectious before the symptoms become obvious, i.e. before becoming aware of the new infection. Wearing a mask is mainly for the benefit of others, not for your own. And it’s a game of numbers. The larger the proportion of the population who wears a mask, the more the spread of the virus is contained. It is a bit like democracy: One's own vote doesn’t make a significant difference, but the collective votes do.
- Tycho 5y ago
  What is your source for the claim that one usually becomes infectious before becoming aware of the infection from symptoms?
  - layer8 5y ago
    I thought it was well-known that the peak of the infectiousness tends to occur before the symptoms develop (if they develop at all), which is an important reason why the virus is so difficult to contain. For example from the WHO site: "Laboratory data suggests that infected people appear to be most infectious just before they develop symptoms (namely 2 days before they develop symptoms) and early in their illness." https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-how-is-it-transmitted https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cor...
    - bleuchase 5y ago
      > Laboratory data suggests What laboratory data? The page you linked doesn't provide evidence for that assertion. It's also been nearly 2 years so where is the real-world data? Also if what you claim is true, does this policy make sense? > Calif. health care workers who are asymptomatic with COVID won't have to test or isolate to work https://abc7.com/asymptomatic-california-health-care-workers-dont-need-isolation-covid-testing-coronavirus-ca-nurses/11447584/ https://abc7.com/asymptomatic-california-health-care-workers...
- sbierwagen 5y ago
  This is true... if all indoor dining, bars and clubs are closed. If we're allowing people to eat indoors, by definition unmasked, then what's the point of wearing a N95 in a grocery store? The US is doing a million new cases a day. Wearing a mask in some situations but not others is not going to make much of a difference. But it is a very visible thing to have partisan political fights about, which seems to be most of the appeal to many people.
  - layer8 5y ago
    > indoor dining, bars and clubs Yeah, you shouldn’t go there either if you care about the issue.
- StillBored 5y ago
  Where I live (TX) I would say less than 30% of the population is wearing masks, and the governor has gone so far as to mandate that mask mandates are illegal (using emergency powers, which creates a bit of circular reasoning and are quite likely not a legitimate order, but... that's beside the point for my personal decisions). I was one of the very small percentage actually wearing US made N95 masks, and assuring they were sealing. Probably 1/2 of the mask wearers are using surgical masks and various other pointless masks which leave massive gaps all around the mask, and are likely no more functional than simply coughing/sneezing into ones elbow. The other half recently seems to be using KN95's, which I used myself for a while before N95's became common. But, the vast majority of the amazon/etc KN95's are significantly thinner, and are very hard to seal. Maybe the actual KN95's for the Asian markets are better (definitely some of the early ones I sourced were closer to the N95s) but I'm pretty sure the majority of the ones I see people wearing are nowhere near N95 effectiveness even if people are taping the nose areas to assure they stay sealed, and I can't remember the last time I saw that. So, for the most part "cover your cough" is probably all that is being achieved outside of less than 5% of the population that is assuring quality masks and sealing them properly. I refuse the play the social signaling game, so it leaves the question. Am I going to legitimately continue to spend $ buying good masks, to potentially protect a small subset of the population when ~95% of people are doing basically nothing, or am I legitimately trying to protect myself. In the end, I will probably continue to wear a mask if I'm around my neighbor in his 90's, but like the decision to eat in a full restaurant (which was said to be 100% vaccinated) in an area full of foreign tourists. I think my risk profile is going to be less about stopping spread now, and just living my life. The US government has a party that blocks all attempts at instituting scientific reasoning (and the other is barely better) so I will look towards personally preparing for the next pandemic or the next bad strain, but I'm not going to count on the government managing to do anything but make decisions that are late and ineffective. The ~30-40% of the population that refuses to get vaccinated, and a government that can't manage to control the spread of disease across the border have sealed our fate. I came to the conclusion 6 months ago that it was only a matter of time before I got it because the vaccines were going to be bypassed sooner or later. Sure enough, it took ~2 months from the detection of the new strain until I got it.
  - landemva 5y ago
Diederich 5y ago
> But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around. Honest question: do you know of any source that indicates natural exposure to C19 and variants provides stronger (or equally strong) protection than vaccinations/boosters? Thanks!
- obrit 5y ago
  Perhaps it doesn't say exactly what you're looking for, but you might find it interesting anyway: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab999/6448857 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid...

layer8 5y ago

The main reason to wear a mask is to prevent yourself from infecting others if/when you get infected again. One usually becomes infectious before the symptoms become obvious, i.e. before becoming aware of the new infection. Wearing a mask is mainly for the benefit of others, not for your own. And it’s a game of numbers. The larger the proportion of the population who wears a mask, the more the spread of the virus is contained. It is a bit like democracy: One's own vote doesn’t make a significant difference, but the collective votes do.

Tycho 5y ago
What is your source for the claim that one usually becomes infectious before becoming aware of the infection from symptoms?
- layer8 5y ago
  I thought it was well-known that the peak of the infectiousness tends to occur before the symptoms develop (if they develop at all), which is an important reason why the virus is so difficult to contain. For example from the WHO site: "Laboratory data suggests that infected people appear to be most infectious just before they develop symptoms (namely 2 days before they develop symptoms) and early in their illness." https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/coronavirus-disease-covid-19-how-is-it-transmitted https://www.who.int/news-room/questions-and-answers/item/cor...
  - bleuchase 5y ago
    > Laboratory data suggests What laboratory data? The page you linked doesn't provide evidence for that assertion. It's also been nearly 2 years so where is the real-world data? Also if what you claim is true, does this policy make sense? > Calif. health care workers who are asymptomatic with COVID won't have to test or isolate to work https://abc7.com/asymptomatic-california-health-care-workers-dont-need-isolation-covid-testing-coronavirus-ca-nurses/11447584/ https://abc7.com/asymptomatic-california-health-care-workers...
sbierwagen 5y ago
This is true... if all indoor dining, bars and clubs are closed. If we're allowing people to eat indoors, by definition unmasked, then what's the point of wearing a N95 in a grocery store? The US is doing a million new cases a day. Wearing a mask in some situations but not others is not going to make much of a difference. But it is a very visible thing to have partisan political fights about, which seems to be most of the appeal to many people.
- layer8 5y ago
  > indoor dining, bars and clubs Yeah, you shouldn’t go there either if you care about the issue.
StillBored 5y ago
Where I live (TX) I would say less than 30% of the population is wearing masks, and the governor has gone so far as to mandate that mask mandates are illegal (using emergency powers, which creates a bit of circular reasoning and are quite likely not a legitimate order, but... that's beside the point for my personal decisions). I was one of the very small percentage actually wearing US made N95 masks, and assuring they were sealing. Probably 1/2 of the mask wearers are using surgical masks and various other pointless masks which leave massive gaps all around the mask, and are likely no more functional than simply coughing/sneezing into ones elbow. The other half recently seems to be using KN95's, which I used myself for a while before N95's became common. But, the vast majority of the amazon/etc KN95's are significantly thinner, and are very hard to seal. Maybe the actual KN95's for the Asian markets are better (definitely some of the early ones I sourced were closer to the N95s) but I'm pretty sure the majority of the ones I see people wearing are nowhere near N95 effectiveness even if people are taping the nose areas to assure they stay sealed, and I can't remember the last time I saw that. So, for the most part "cover your cough" is probably all that is being achieved outside of less than 5% of the population that is assuring quality masks and sealing them properly. I refuse the play the social signaling game, so it leaves the question. Am I going to legitimately continue to spend $ buying good masks, to potentially protect a small subset of the population when ~95% of people are doing basically nothing, or am I legitimately trying to protect myself. In the end, I will probably continue to wear a mask if I'm around my neighbor in his 90's, but like the decision to eat in a full restaurant (which was said to be 100% vaccinated) in an area full of foreign tourists. I think my risk profile is going to be less about stopping spread now, and just living my life. The US government has a party that blocks all attempts at instituting scientific reasoning (and the other is barely better) so I will look towards personally preparing for the next pandemic or the next bad strain, but I'm not going to count on the government managing to do anything but make decisions that are late and ineffective. The ~30-40% of the population that refuses to get vaccinated, and a government that can't manage to control the spread of disease across the border have sealed our fate. I came to the conclusion 6 months ago that it was only a matter of time before I got it because the vaccines were going to be bypassed sooner or later. Sure enough, it took ~2 months from the detection of the new strain until I got it.
- landemva 5y ago

Diederich 5y ago

> But now, I suspect I might be doing myself a disservice by not exposing myself to all the variants and things floating around. Honest question: do you know of any source that indicates natural exposure to C19 and variants provides stronger (or equally strong) protection than vaccinations/boosters? Thanks!

obrit 5y ago
Perhaps it doesn't say exactly what you're looking for, but you might find it interesting anyway: https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid/ciab999/6448857 https://academic.oup.com/cid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/cid...