"My Friend The Bartender"
A 🧵 about "mild" COVID.
#CovidIsNotOver
#LongCovid
#PascalPraud
A longtime friend of mine is a bartender. Let's call them Sal. Sal is about 30. Single, no kids, owns their own home. Sal is on the payroll at seven different bars and event venues.
@hutchleah
That therapist should find a job in another field. Why is her personal phone on during session? My last therapist regularly fell asleep during my sessions. I quit therapy. If I want my trauma to be ignored, I have a family for that.
@1stForAll
She did not "say former President Donald Trump damaged her reputation by calling her a liar after she accused him of sexual assault." A jury of his peers found that he did, based on facts and the law. It's a fact, not hearsay. He is guilty.
Because no one is doing a damn thing. I feel increasingly hopeless. I know good and well that no one is coming to save us. I guess I really wasn't expecting that I wouldn't succeed in paying someone, anyone, to care about their own damn kids. /end rant
#CovidIsIAirborne
#PASC
What are we doing to our kids and young people? How is this acceptable? This friend has no idea that all of these health problems are likely sequlae of SARS-CoV-2 infection. Escalation of a previously manageable autoimmune disorder. Treatment resistant Strep. Positive TB test.
My conclusion is that *all* the HVAC needs to be upgraded. So, how do we a.) educate folks that COVID is ruining their health and their futures and b.) get the government to clean indoor air. Or don't we? How did the AIDS activists accomplish this task?
@LauraMiers
The other weird thing is that people really don't seem to remember that prior to having COVID, they were rarely, if ever, sick. Now they are sick constantly and don't seem to even wonder why. As if they've always been this way. It's bizarre.
(Shit, hit the wrong button.)
My point is that Long COVID/PASC is literally everywhere and the average person is simply not connecting the dots. Doctors are not connecting the dots. Our governments and public health agencies are absent and unaccounted for.
I provided links to both written and video instructions for making a Coris-Rosenthal box. I re-posted my offer on Saturday and Sunday. Not one person took me up on this. I literally could not pay a single friend to protect their school or college aged children from COVID.
They think Long COVID is a one-in-a-million event, not a one-in-five event, (as the CDC itself has indicated.) They don't have the information, nor the ability to calculate risk. If they do get PASC, they do not connect the dots. My FB friends list is small.
The only precaution the general population will accept is cleaning the air in buildings, but they aren't going to do it themselves. I know this because I did an experiment. I offered my FB friends $100 to protect their kids from COVID, by posting this last Thursday night:
In fact, many of their lives seemingly revolve around their kids. I think they just don't believe me. I post incessantly about COVID and how dangerous it is. Facts. Figures. Graphs. Links to research with short summaries. They tell me they don't know anyone with Long COVID.
@curiousdatacat
My brother told me on Sunday that when he's sick, he never takes a COVID test, because if it was positive, he'd have to stay home from work for 10 days. He works at a hospital. I was appalled. Especially since I know all of his coworkers are obviously doing the same.
Begging people who go to bars and restaurants to wear masks the rest of the time, so as not to seed community spread, also isn't working. And public health is MIA. How much longer will people like my friend be able to work? Two years? Five?
They tell me that their doctors tell them that the vaccine protects them from Long COVID. They tell me that their local health departments no longer recommend masks, so they must be unnecessary. They think I am paranoid and hyperbolic.
@WonderKing82
trump is of DP (Dark Personality.) It would be no surprise if Barron is, too. I'm currently reading a doctoral dissertation on DP. Fascinating stuff, if you have several hours to spare.
@1goodtern
My brother told me that the reason I'm sick all the time is because I isolate myself, so my immunity is bad. I'm pretty sure I screamed at him that immunity debt is a made up thing before I hung up on him. It's simple. They don't want to wear masks, or to feel guilty about that.
@yaneerbaryam
Just wait until we find out the results of sending kids back to school with zero precautions and allowing them to get infected over and over and over again. I suspect that, too, will be worse than we thought.
Bartenders aren't going to wear masks at work. They just aren't. Having been in the bar business 20 years ago, I kinda get it. Customers aren't going to either. And bars aren't going to close again, no matter how bad things might get.
Finally after months, I get the go ahead they will prescribe Skyrizzi. But first, I must do a blood test. Test comes back POSITIVE FOR TUBERCULOSIS. Have to go get chest x-ray. Those come back perfect. Have to go to the Metro Center for Infectious Disease.
Yet another went to the gym maskless and infected their spouse, who then spent six weeks in the ICU and another two weeks on a rehab unit. Another developed diabetes a few months post-COVID (her father died.) Several who were never sick prior to 2020 are now "sick all the time."
Yet, in addition to Sal the bartender, many are experiencing Long COVID/PASC. One died of a new, aggressive cancer 10 months after "mild" COVID. Another is getting repeated strep infections, despite her only kid being in HS, and working in a small office.
Sal has been having health challenges all year. They've had COVID twice. The kind that people describe as "just a sniffle." Mild COVID. Their health challenges began in March of this year. They post updates (sometimes with photos) from time to time. Here is the latest episode:
I finally watched And The Band Played On. SARS-CoV-2 is HIV/AIDS all over again. Same struggle between science, politics, money, and human nature, different decade.
@dbdugger
is right. We've learned almost nothing. Didn't learn, doomed to repeat, little idea what lies ahead.
In two weeks, I will be on a medication where I can't have any alcohol for four months. My skin is still horrendous, and the insurance company is working on getting my med cost down (these shots are $8,000 and I'll be needing multiple) so fingers crossed I get some relief soon.
Life update-
Cliff notes to catch up- get strep in April. Antibiotics don't kill infection. Infection attacks my skin causing guttate psoriasis. Third time I've had this happen. Last time I left off on the most aggressive treatment, which is a shot called Skyrizzi.
Am I to conclude that my friends can't afford the materials to make the box? Nope, these are upper middle class people who've taken European vacations over the summer. Am I to conclude that they don't care about their children? Highly unlikely.
They do another blood test. Still comes back positive. (I am not contagious. This blood test is broken down into 5 categories. I tested negative for 4 and only 1 point over the limit on the 5th test.) Now I have to be treated for tuberculosis.
Can't get into my dermatologist. Have to go somewhere new and they WONT prescribe me the meds I need, but instead gave me another antibiotic even though that didn't work in the past. Infection now affects my joints causing arthritic psoriasis.
@MeetJess
"As a staff, we are grieving this horrific loss," she wrote. "I ask that you keep (her) family and our staff in your prayers and thoughts."
How about tests and masks?
Another was just diagnosed with POTS, and over the summer their well-controlled scleroderma was reactivated. Another is having emergency surgery Wednesday for an ascending aortic aneurysm.
@ChrisCillizza
Not a criminal: Advantage Biden
Not a rapist: Advantage Biden
Not a Putin puppet: Advantage Biden
Stock market hits 40th record high: Advantage Biden
Not a felon: Advantage Biden
Not bribing billionaires: Advantage Biden
Not worried about batteries/sharks: Advantage Biden
@Nadia03379363
@ColetteMandin
I think it's funny that anyone thinks they're important enough that anyone else wants to "control" them. I think it's just immaturity and selfishness. Oppositionally defiant and childish behavior. Masks absolutely slow the spread of airborne viruses.
@1goodtern
I sleep very well at night knowing that, in more than four years, I have caused zero people to get sick, or become disabled, and I haven't killed anyone, or been part of a transmission chain that did.
@melbourneISO
Send them an annotated bibliography of about 250 COVID studies from '23-'24 alone. Offer to send 500 more when they've read those. Let them know there are nearly half a million, and not one says it's safe to get infected with COVID. I'm so angry for you.
@TracyExplains
@MSNBC
@CNN
@NYT
@PressSec
Brava. 🏆🏆🏆
I am down to Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'Donnell. The rest seem to revel in throwing Biden under the bus, and who can do it fastest. It's exactly the same as Hillary's emails. Exactly. It makes me sick.
Where is the reporting on trump's rapes of teen aged girls?
@brownecfm
It'll be worst case. Second gen vaccines are nowhere near being available and Pfizer lobbyists will slow roll them. Vaccine uptake will remain low. People think COVID is a cold and endemic.
@BigBadDenis
So, they still don't understand that it was a pre- or asymptomatic person who got them all sick, that hand washing had nothing to do with it, AND that their spawn had already sickened numerous teachers and other kids at school that week before Thursday evening rolled around? 🤦♀️
@bhanlon15
Please let this pan out. If it reverses autoimmune disease it's not a vaccine, it's a treatment. Long awaited, desperately needed. Let's try it for ME/CFS and LC, too, just for shits and grins.
@LaCivitaC
COVID lasts for 10-14 days. He's on day five of Paxlovid and his physician released a full report on his condition today. He's feeling better and his vitals remain normal. Where's the report on trump's condition, treatment and prognosis after he was "shot?"
@michael_hoerger
This article, the CDC assessment, says the new fall booster should work fine against BA.2.86. Other scientists I follow have said the fall vaccine will be a poor match to BA.2.86. I'll believe the real scientists, not the CDC, which keeps telling me to wash my hands.
@CattleDog22
@MeetJess
I'm at my breaking point. My sister-in-law just said they'll understand if I can't make it for the family gatherings on the 22nd and 25th. I said, it's not that I "can't make it," it's that the rest of the family won't do the things that would make it safe for me to come.
@makeupartist524
That's really outrageous. When meds haven't changed, you shouldn't need an appointment more often than every 3-6 months. Depending on the type of meds, annually is sufficient. I'd report her to the state department of professional regulation (the licensing authority.)
@lukebryan
Head colds don't last for a couple of weeks. Your contract probably forbids you from saying the C-word. Just call it the Voldemort Virus. And rest, rest, rest, to lower the risk of post-COVID health problems.
@DaniMedia360
@moonlithoax
Because there is a pandemic of a vascular disease happening and she doesn't want brain or organ damage. Or to ruin her voice and never be able to sing again, since she's Stevie Nicks and that's kind of her thing.
@MeetJess
Late 2021 was wonderful. To go to a concert you had to be vaccinated, and masked unless eating/drinking in a designated area. A person in the row in front of me was ejected for walking back from the restrooms without his mask. No superspreaders.
@mmpadellan
@kingofkings0247
trump wasn't hit by a bullet. I'm a criminologist. My earliest memory is the doctors on TV after JFK was shot. I've lived through many political assassinations/attempts. There are ALWAYS detailed reports on the injuries/prognosis. trump wasn't shot. AR rounds mangle human flesh.
@ThePatriotOasis
@acnewsitics
He golfed 18 holes yesterday, and he wasn't shot. He was hit in the ear with a piece of glass or plastic and had a fake bandage on his ear tonight. Bedminster to PA and WI in three days is not "across the country." Look at a map.
@MeetJess
Four days of live shows was all it took. COVID must be rampant in NY. This does not bode well for the TV industry, which is no longer taking the COVID precautions that it did before.
I was on a ventilator for more than two hours, for an outpatient procedure, today at Northwestern Medicine Central DuPage Hospital. I have not been unmasked around another human being since 3/5/21 when I had a 90 minute play date with my grand toddler. 🧵
I spend a really absurd amount of time reading SARS-CoV-2 research, and I have never seen a number remotely *near* this. I've most often seen ~15% (i.e., LC risk lowered from ~20% to ~17%,) but nothing approaching 70%. How did I miss so many studies???
Beyond avoiding Covid infections altogether, the next best way to prevent
#LongCovid
is through vaccinations, reduced ~70% by recent reports and a meta-analysis of 24 studies (Figure)
@sciam
@sshall4
@1goodtern
I have Left Ventricular Diastolic Dysfunction. It is early stage heart failure. I have new EKG abnormalities post-2020 COVID. What are we doing to our children? 😱😱😱
@NateB_Panic
I thought they should have named the Eris COVID variant last summer "Eras," instead, since her tour was a series of super spreader events. It's such a missed opportunity, because she could singlehandedly get every girl and young woman on the globe to wear TS fashion respirators.
@danaparish
My best friend died when I was 16. Drunk boyfriend showing off his muscle car. Slammed her into a tree, then a telephone pole. But not a single other person, K-12. It's not normal. Also, when you're a kid and your friend dies, you've got PTSD forever.
@thekrakensays
@MeetJess
My OB/GYN has a seething hatred of FB mom groups. She says they are the main reason that most of her pregnant patients are not vaccinated for COVID.
@Michael59503746
So cruel. The temporarily healthy can't seem to wrap their minds around the fact that many of us don't have such privilege, *and* we've been told we have to protect ourselves so everyone else can go maskless. So leave us alone!
@NickAnderegg
This explains why we're seeing so many new psychiatric disorder Dxs post-COVID infection. My inflammation issues almost certainly started with a near fatal fight with EBV/mono when I was 17. Anxiety issues began soon after. We need to stop infecting kids with COVID.
@MeetJess
A bigly disaster. SO many people planning on 2023 being wonderful. I don't have the heart to tell them. Or the time/money. I am stocking up on everything I can think of. China's troubles will soon be all of ours. Borders are figments of the human imagination.
@SeivwrightTrudy
@StevePhillipsMD
Because "public debate" has no place in science and medicine. It's not as if anyone's children will be vaccinated without their consent. Intelligent people want their kids vaccinated, unless the child is medically unable to be vaccinated, as determined by their physician.
and despite their claimed liability exemption, I will try to find a lawyer who will bring a case against them. I know for a fact that my brother, who works at the hospital, does not test when he is sick to avoid taking five days off of work, and it's safe to assume that many
willing to go up against a cadre of hospital system lawyers with an ADA case (I am disabled.) No one should risk getting COVID to have a procedure at a hospital. The propofol was nice, but not worth getting infected with a novel vascular disease. /🧵
@MeetJess
2024 may be the year when it becomes undeniable what COVID does to human beings. A certain group will blame the vaccines, of course. I wonder if the government and/or CDC will say a word. It's a presidential election year. It's unlikely the word "COVID" will even be whispered.
Until Katy Tur is off .
@MSNBC
, ABC's coverage is good so far today. Tur has done nothing but bash the Biden administration for the past four years, so I'm sure she couldn't wait to cover Biden's withdrawal from the race. .
@MSNBC
never learns. Viewers want Tur gone.
@DeMercy_
I always write "declined" on that depression screening, which was designed to get PCPs to prescribe more depression pills. I also dislike "denies alcohol use." If I state that I do not drink, use "states."
@MeetJess
I keep wondering when this nightmare will end. Then I remember that most people, including our government leaders, just don't care, so long as it's the people on the margins who are getting sick and dying.
as I was very dehydrated. Long thread short, I know exactly where I have been in the very few hours I have not been at home since last Sunday. If I get COVID in the next five days, I will be 99.99% confident that I contracted it at the hospital today,
@EricTopol
@TheLancet
High risk people who are masking at the store and otherwise staying home are not so much concerned about hospitalization/death outcomes. We are wondering if we'll ever again be able to reenter indoor settings or travel safely. We do not want re/infections and LC or organ damage.
@morganstephensa
The one thing I've learned in the last 2 1/2 years is that many people will do anything, including sacrificing their children's health, in order to keep eating in restaurants, going on vacations, or avoid making any changes in their lifestyles. It's beyond disappointing.
@1goodtern
He said, "I'd better not start the questions, I'll get in trouble." It was the end of the meeting and they were clearing the room. This is perfectly normal when POTUS needs to stay on schedule. Not sure what you think you're seeing here. Every POTUS is kept on schedule this way.
California, San Benito CISD conducts mass testing of high school students, staff for tuberculosis. The total number of people tested was 160 students and six staff members.
#tb
@SKDitta
@MeetJess
Doctors are not scientists. Most don't know the difference between clinical and statistical significance. Most have never conducted an original piece of research. Most practicing doctors know next to nothing about SARS-CoV-2. It's nothing remotely resembling the common cold.