Covid19

The Pub
1

Man, I caught the dreaded virus!! Last Sunday I wasn’t feeling to hot and went for a covid test Tuesday to be safe. I have elderly parents and in-laws along with my co-workers to consider. Came back positive as I suspected. I have to admit that it felt like a seasonal head cold in the sense that my only symptoms were head congestion/runny nose, headache, body aches and extreme fatigue. I honestly do not get sick, ever, so when I started to experience symptoms I sort of knew what the outcome was going to be.

In my case case, I am a 58 year old male with no medical conditions except high blood pressure and elevated cholesterol. Like I said earlier I rarely if ever get sick. My covid experience was mild and I am thankful that it was not more serious and for the most part I am fully recovered except a continuation of a congested head and a lack of taste and smell.

It is the lack of taste and smell that has been the worst part. Throughout the last 5 days of illness I did not lose my appetite at all except that first full day which was Monday and which was the most severe.

I could not imagine going through life with a permanent diminished sense of taste and smell. My life seriously revolves around food and drink in so many ways from socializing with friends to a quiet evening creating a dinner at home for myself and wife. Making beer and wine is more than a hobby for me, it is a way to connect with friends, family or a new acquaintance and it is shared on a daily basis as a means of human connection. If not with friends and family who on any given day may drop in for a discussion on the days events and a glass or two of cheers then it can easily be with just myself on the back porch listening to music or reading.

This is slowly subsiding and I can almost taste the delectable and subtle flavors of a Czech Pils I am sipping on as I write this story.

I can only hope that should any one of you have the unfortunate experience of catching covid that you recovery fully and quickly as I have and that you do not lose your sense of taste and smell. I never realized how much we take for granted something as simple and yet so complex.

Cheers!

2

Yes, losing my sense of taste and smell is the scariest thing for me personally about covid as I am in reasonably good health (setting aside the possibility of infecting and hurting other people and contributing to the continuation of this awful partial shutdown). My enjoyment of life would be quite diminished.

3

Glad to hear you’re recovering.  Take care of yourself

4

At least you got it back pretty quickly, I lost my sense of smell for a few months, and then went through a really odd spell of things not smelling right - hot chocolate smelt of toast and so on.

Aside from the pleasure of eat/drinking, you want to be aware of the dangers that you may not know about - I still can’t really smell gas or burning, which is worrying.

5

I had all the symptoms last week, but tested negative.  I have recovered mostly but still have a partial loss of smell and some things don’t smell right.  For instance I was chopping garlic last week and it smelled a little like spoiled meat.  I’m 68 and have some asthma so I am in the risk group - I really think the test was wrong, so next time I give blood I’ll get the antibody test.  In the mean time, I am still coughing and wheezing a bit.

6

Unfortunately I haven’t.

Did you lose yours from covid?

I think I would have a difficult time if this lets a few months. From what Ive read loss of smell and taste usually subsides after 10-14 days. I certainly hope that’s the case!!

Here is the strange thing at least for me, I can sense heat, sour, bitter and sweet but not the food that is transporting them.

7

Just a curious question Jeff, did you have the rapid test performed or was it the PCR test?

The reason is that if it was the rapid test and it was negative with symptoms it is more likely that it was a false negative. At least that is what mt neighbor who is a nurse practitioner explained to us.

8

Yes, it was the rapid test, self-applied drive through at the Walgreens.  I am pretty sure it was a false negative, just from all the symptoms, but glad it wasn’t worse.

9

That is correct.  The rapid test is known for a lot of false negatives.  If it comes back positive, it’s a real positive, but if negative, well there’s really no such thing.  They should actually call the result “inconclusive”.  My sister is a nurse practitioner and told me this, and it makes sense based on what I’ve heard from other friends from work.  My brother-in-law had the rapid test, tested negative, but had all the symptoms for over a week and still suffers from fatigue months later.  My brother tested positive more than 20 days ago and all the symptoms are gone except for smell & taste, he’s really bummed about that but said he is just starting to barely be able to taste some things now so it’s coming back, just slowly.

I myself have not had the virus and will continue to try to avoid people as much as I can.  I’ve been working from home almost all year since April.
When I go out I am super careful, sanitize everything and wash my hands the second I come home, etc.  Avoid bars, that’s where we’re all most likely catch it.

10

When I go out I am super careful, sanitize everything and wash my hands the second I come home, etc.  Avoid bars, that’s where we’re all most likely catch it.

Same here. We haven’t been to a brewery, bar or restaurant in weeks if not months save for a couple dinners on vacation in September. At this point I really have to question the effectiveness of masks. I know a number of people who have been consistent in their approach to avoid this virus and they too have been infected. Who knows?

11

HopDen - glad to hear your case was mild, in relative terms, and with fairly rapid recovery. Yes, losing sense of smell/taste would suck a goodly portion of pleasure out of my day-to-day. Even for folks who have not had severe symptoms the potential for lingering neurologic and possibly other consequences is very real, and disconcerting to me. And very much there is such a thing as a false negative COVID test. This is worrisome in terms of the potential for spread of the virus the small portion of folks who have tested negative and dismiss symptoms as attributable to other causes but may be contagious for a time (this can include health care workers). Thus reinforcing the importance for us all to be diligent with precautions including mask wearing and frequent thorough hand washing. I feel fairly convinced I had COVID last March although I tested negative. Masks do notably reduce the chances of catching and spreading the virus - are they 100% effective? No. And I see many folks don’t wear them appropriately, thereby negating their value.

12

I was told by a first responder the rapid test is 65% accurate. Mostly not detected being the incorrect result. My wife’s test was not detected. Fairly certain she had some virus, not 100% it was C-19. It caused problems with her blood pressure and we finally have that cleared up 8 weeks later. I hurt my arm while she was at her worst several weeks ago and kept it to myself due to her condition. Anyway, I go for an MRI tomorrow on the elbow and have a complete distal bicep tendon tear. Probably surgery next week. 2020 does indeed suck.

13

I’ve not had a test yet - I’ve got an antibody test on order which will decide how sociable I am at Christmas - but I had the equivalent of a medium flu with quite a bit of coughing and diarrhoea but not much of a fever, followed by loss of smell (anosmia) followed by weird mismatched smell (parosmia). Which all seems to tick the boxes - the loss of smell thing is quite unusual, so is probably the single best symptom for diagnosing Covid with.

The return to normal was weird though, having had no smell for quite a long time, I had what seemed to be just a normal cold, and it was like it pushed the Covid out of my nose, so I got the parosmia for a few days and now it’s generally much better (but I don’t think complete).

Still kinda annoying though, I was planning to do some WSET wine courses and I’m now not completely confident about my senses which is uncomfortable.

14

I’m no expert and everything that follows is anecdotal, so take it for what it’s worth (not much, in other words).  :wink:

I have a strong feeling a lot more people have had COVID than anyone can know.  And I think COVID has been here longer than the experts can find evidence of.

What I’ve seen:
My mother passed away last December which means a very large extended family was together more than once before and following the holidays.  My family consists of four sisters, four brothers, eight spouse and  22 grand-kids.  Add in more spouses and great-grand-kids and you have a crowd even before the hometown gets involved at the wake, the funeral, the funeral dinner…  In addition, we live all over the country and some of of us had made trips abroad.

One of my sisters, a nurse, had “something” in September thru November that antibiotics/steroids/etc could not kick.  Her doctor couldn’t identify what it was at the time.  Looking back she can check all the boxes for COVID. 
Throughout December and January we all had colds and flu that were worse than we normally have. 
My wife lost here senses of taste and smell in December. 
I didn’t lose taste or smell but felt run down and had lingering cold symptoms for 2 or 3 months. 
The same with the rest of my clan.  Each branch had their own version of “something” and it all looks, at some level like COVID.

It’s interesting that blood serum studies are coming out showing that COVID was in Iowa in December last year already.  It supports my theory a little, at least.

Since this started my family has had the opinion that the most interesting numbers would be how many people already had the antibodies prior to this being declared a pandemic.  I think a fairly large portion my extended family does.
For the record: I’m not one of the people claiming natural herd immunity will stop this thing but we already may be closer than anyone will ever know.

All that said: My household wear our masks, wash our hands, use hand sanitizer, stay home and do all the stuff we have told to do to stop this thing.  And we will get vaccinated as soon as we possible can, when it’s our turn. The teachers (2), engineers (1 working and 1 in college), our resident chemist and myself will all be in different phases of the rollout.  I suggest you all do the same.

As I started this…
This is all just observation and conjecture.  There is still a lot to learn about this little buggard.

Stay safe everyone.

Paul

15

As far as taking a vaccine when they are available, I will be opting out. I am not in a high risk group and even if I were I would still opt out. After some time I may reconsider taking the vaccine but as it stands now there isn’t any reason for me to do so. Consider, as it currently stands, covid has a 99.5% recovery rate in my age/health category so I don’t see the benefit of taking a vaccine that has a 94% efficiency factor but that is just my opinion. I personally feel that there hasn’t been enough time to ferret out the side effects that are certain to rise once the vaccine is distributed on a larger and larger population.

Getting the vaccine isn’t a cure just as getting the virus doesn’t make one immune from future infections. This is here to stay like all SARS-CoV strains.

16

The reasoning would be so you have a lower risk of spreading it to those that are in the higher risk category.

Paul, I agree. I live in Iowa City and a lot of us probably already had this. Unfortunately, like the cold or flu, you can be re-infected. And from what I understand, you can also be a carrier if you’ve already had it and not know it. But I think we still know so little about it yet that that cannot really be 100% accurate. I wish it were more like the chicken pox or something where you really only get it once…

17

The DNA “clock” evidence is pretty persuasive, that COVID in its current form originates some time around early-mind November 2019. It’s possible that interpretation is wrong, but we’re getting towards “extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence” territory - it’s going to take more than a bit of anecdote to refute it.

There’s lots of things that can give similar symptoms - the loss of smell is just about the only thing that’s unusual about Covid and even that’s not unique. There are literally hundreds of viruses out there that can give a similar spectrum of symptoms, but it’s easy to get so focussed on one of them that the hundreds of others get forgotten about. Seriously - if we’re getting to “extraordinary claims” territory, then the only box that could be checked that would be convincing would be a PCR positive from a sample taken pre-November, or a Covid antibody positive shortly afterwards.

One of my relatives had something a bit similar - couldn’t shake it for weeks. But that was 5 years ago - I think we can safely say it wasn’t Covid, it was another of these hundreds of poorly characterised respiratory viruses that just “got” to her in some way. And to be honest, the respiratory bit of Covid doesn’t linger, it just gets on with putting you in intensive care, the “long Covid” symptoms are somewhat different.

18

I saw a few articles lately that speak to this. I am sorry I can’t cite them. I believe both were in the NYTimes.

  1. There is evidence that Covid got to the US much sooner than previously thought as in November December of 2019.

  2. CDC antibody surveys around the US suggest about 100 million people have had Covid already. It is approaching 1/3 of the population. Unfortunately, that is not enough for herd immunity.

My take away from number 2 was there is sort of a race for natural herd immunity versus vaccine herd immunity in the US. Obviously, vaccine based herd immunity is much safer for the community, but the virus isn’t letting up.

19

The benefits of getting a vaccine are more than just dying or not dying. It may limit your spread or prevent you from getting seriously ill. Given that a lot of people have reported feeling awful for months, losing their sense of smell, and/or heart or lung damage (even among elite athletes), I can’t imagine not getting vaccinated. The only downside I’ve heard is that some people have had a headache for a day or two.

I know Sweden has looked at where they’re at in terms of herd immunity and determined that they’re not even close. A few members of my homebrew club are in the hospital system here, and they’ve been seeing: staff on mandatory overtime for months, rising admissions, and staff only allowed to call in sick if they have a positive test and are symptomatic. I think deaths are going to rise over the next few weeks unfortunately.

20

“When this baby hits 88 mph, you’re gonna see some serious sh**.”

That’s where we are now.  Almost up to 88 mph.  No mistake about it, the next 3-4 months will be 3 times worse than the last 9 months, and might continue to get even worse into a few months beyond, depending on how many can begin to get vaccinated around that time.