# Covid experience of a CMF member



## moderator2 (Sep 20, 2017)

I had a private conversation with a CMF forum member, someone who caught COVID and had a relatively severe case of it. They were taken away by ambulance and ended up in the hospital for several days. I got this person's permission to post their text, because I think it's helpful to share these details. I'm posting this anonymously for their privacy. But I can tell you that they are under age 50, and quite healthy. This person has recovered and is doing fine now, thankfully.

_This person wrote:_
​I’ll admit I was quite surprised by how sick I got, being healthy and young. I figured I'd be able to fight it off at home. Realistically I probably should have gone to the hospital a few days before I did. I told my wife for a couple days I feel like I’m going to pass out, constantly feeling that all day. I didn’t have an O2 reader at home. I suppose looking back I was trying to be tough, and a bit embarrassed being so young and needing to be hospitalized with Covid. If I would have known how dangerous my O2 levels were, I would have gone earlier. 86% when I was taken by the ambulance. Apparently at 80-85% your brain is affected in certain ways.​​There is an Olympic gold medallist bobsledder in hospital, I think in Ontario. He’s 31 and on oxygen struggling to breathe.​​


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

A youtuber I follow (also under 50 and fairly healthy) contracted COVID a couple of months ago, and was sharing his experience with the virus through his channel every few days as he recovered. It hit him pretty hard though he did not need to be hospitalized--he said it was the sickest he has been in his life.

I'm glad the member in question recovered!


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## Flugzeug (Aug 15, 2018)

COVID seems to hit everyone differently regardless of age and other factors, especially the variants. I’ve known a few people who have had it, some were fine with only a loss of taste or smell. Others were quite sick for a couple of weeks.

Glad this person is ok now.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

I had a persistent cough last September. I treated it like COVID; just stayed home and lived off the food I had stocked up. I wasn't able to get a test in the first couple of weeks--it was around the time they changed the methodology for obtaining symptomatic tests and it was particularly difficult in my area. Once it had been a couple weeks I figured even if it had been COVID I likely already cleared it and wouldn't show up on a test anyway. I figured it most likely was not COVID since I otherwise felt fine; I didn't even feel sick, just a nagging cough. Probably just bronchitis.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

There are a lot of misconceptions about the risk from covid-19. The idea that being healthy is somehow a main determinant in one's outcome is probably one of the bigger ones.
Initial dose of infection is the biggest determinant of all covid-19 outcomes. It supersedes health status and it supersedes age. This is observed by the fact that you see people of all health statuses and age fall victim of a severe outcome from Covid-19.

The initial dose of infection is a combination of two things:

1) How concentrated is the source of virus you are exposed to - so how sick is the person who is infecting you AND are you indoors where the virus can concentrate, AND are you not wearing a mask.

2) How long do you expose yourself to that infected source.

This is not complicated stuff. Now think about what is going to happen to those two events when the vaccination program is over and we drop all precautions. The 30% to 40% of people who do not vaccinate are going to eventually get exposed more frequently, to a much more infectious, and a much more concentrated virus, for a much longer amount of time.

Perhaps the authorities will continue precautions as we continue to push this large number of people through our hospitals but a better idea would be for these people to think about what I just said above and vaccinate. It is the must safer route.


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

OptsyEagle said:


> There are a lot of misconceptions about the risk from covid-19. The idea that being healthy is somehow a main determinant in one's outcome is probably one of the bigger ones.
> Initial dose of infection is the biggest determinant of all covid-19 outcomes. It supersedes health status and it supersedes age. This is observed by the fact that you see people of all health statuses and age fall victim of a severe outcome from Covid-19.
> 
> The initial dose of infection is a combination of two things:
> ...


Your 2 "very valid" points are why if your going to be infected, its better to get the infection in the summer and outdoors where it more likely that you get lower viral load. The lower viral load will give your body time to build an immune response to withstand a more concentrated viral load. I think in a year or two the science will show that these lockdowns where intensifying the viral load.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

I would use the terminology that it is safer to be outdoors. I don't think there is a truly safe way to get an infection although if I had to get one, I could probably list a few ways that are better then others.

My main point here is that, no matter what inhibitions one has against vaccination. I have heard people talk about:

1)Bad side effects from previous vaccinations. 
2)Needle hesitancy. 
3)How healthy they currently are. 
4)How well they have faired against other viruses without vaccinating.
5)Covid is no different then the flu.
6)Herd immunity means they will be safe if they don't vaccinate.
7)Concern about some unknown chemical in their body

There may be more. All of the above are invalid objections. I will take them one at a time and try to be brief.

1) The side effects from covid vaccinations are just a day or two at worse. Must shorter then the same effects or worse that you will experience from covid-19, which you will inevitably be exposed to, at some point in your future, if you plan to still live on earth.
2) A phobia. Just do it. It will be quick. People in the ICU are getting them regularly. Would that be better?
3) As the virulence of the variants increase, as they have been, and as your dose of infection increases, health status will make little difference to your outcome from infection. It will not save you from a bad outcome.
4) Covid-19 is wayyyy more infectious then the flu has ever been. Covid-19 is significantly different. 
5) Covid-19 is not the flu. When was the last time you saw our hospitals cancelling surgeries and getting overwhelmed from a flu outbreak? They never have before, in your lifetime, with any virus outbreak.
6) This virus is not like other viruses where herd immunity was achieved. It is way too infectious, with much longer pre-symptomatic transmission and it also offers asymptomatic transmission. With those characteristics we will need close to 90% vaccination rates/infection rates before anyone can hope to avoid this virus. We will not get that for many years, if we ever get it at all.
7) Would you rather have a known, living, violent, organ destroying virus inside you instead. Is that really safer?


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

OptsyEagle said:


> I would use the terminology that it is safer to be outdoors. I don't think there is a truly safe way to get an infection although if I had to get one, I could probably list a few ways that are better then others.
> 
> 6) This virus is not like other viruses where herd immunity was achieved. It is way too infectious, with much longer pre-symptomatic transmission and it also offers asymptomatic transmission. With those characteristics we will need close to 90% vaccination rates/infection rates before anyone can hope to avoid this virus. We will not get that for many years, if we ever get it at all.
> 7) Would you rather have a known, living, violent, organ destroying virus inside you instead. Is that really safer?


Yes, there isn't a safe way to get an infection. However, all things equal (especially not enough vaccine), I would want a lower viral load infection with the hopes of developing some sort of immunity. The problem with Covid-19 is this is now a seasonal virus. It isn't going away. Everyone will be infected as time goes on. Canada should have developed its own vaccine lab to respond, relying on others good graces is not how to handle this problem.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

afulldeck said:


> Yes, there isn't a safe way to get an infection. However, all things equal (especially not enough vaccine), I would want a lower viral load infection with the hopes of developing some sort of immunity. The problem with Covid-19 is this is now a seasonal virus. It isn't going away. Everyone will be infected as time goes on. Canada should have developed its own vaccine lab to respond, relying on others good graces is not how to handle this problem.


We are. The feds partnered with Sonofi on a plant in the GTA.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

afulldeck said:


> Yes, there isn't a safe way to get an infection. However, all things equal (especially not enough vaccine), I would want a lower viral load infection with the hopes of developing some sort of immunity. The problem with Covid-19 is this is now a seasonal virus. It isn't going away. Everyone will be infected as time goes on. Canada should have developed its own vaccine lab to respond, relying on others good graces is not how to handle this problem.


Huh, COVID19 is a seasonal virus?
What are you talking about? 

yes it will be here, and it likely isn't going to be irradicated, but I have no idea what you are trying to say by "seasonal virus".

You have to realize that we have all had many coronaviruses already. The difference is that 2 recent strains (SARS now COVID19) happen to be deadlier than the various strains that we get sick with all the time.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

OptsyEagle said:


> There are a lot of misconceptions about the risk from covid-19. The idea that being healthy is somehow a main determinant in one's outcome is probably one of the bigger ones.
> Initial dose of infection is the biggest determinant of all covid-19 outcomes. It supersedes health status and it supersedes age. This is observed by the fact that you see people of all health statuses and age fall victim of a severe outcome from Covid-19.
> 
> The initial dose of infection is a combination of two things:
> ...


What you say makes senses, but as said before, it will impact everyone really differently. My coworker, who is extremely careful, just had COVID. He's in his early 50's. They don't see any except groceries, kid does go to a small school. They had a contractor in their house who tested positive. As result, the wife was considered a close contact as she was the one dealing with him. My coworker works on another floor with a door closed and doesn't leave during the day and was told he was not close contact. Wife tested negative, but still had to quarantine for 14 days from the family. Coworker noticed one morning he couldn't taste or smell his breakfast, no other real symptoms except a stuffy nose (allergies he thought). 

He went and got tested and was positive. His wife went back and got tested, and was still negative, and the son the same. He said he did getting worst after the lost of taste was detected with a cough and was extremely tired. This is a guy that runs 10km every morning. 

They can't figure out who he got it from. The contact tracers said he had no close contacts. He remember that he did have to come upstairs to help the contractor lift something across the room. They both had masks on, but were less than 6 ft. It was under 3 minutes both times in the same day. That's only person he could think of who may have had it, or if out grocery shopping, which is does quickly. 

This quite surprised me as I know how careful their family is, and how easily transmissible it can be. Maybe he didn't get that sick because of the low viral load, but I would have thought he would not have gotten sick at all.


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## sags (May 15, 2010)

I don't know where this notion of "viral load" comes from.

I have never heard any doctor or expert talk about viral loads.

A drop of virus and it immediately begins injecting it's DNA into normal cells which are constantly replicating until it reaches a level where the body identifies there is a problem with the normal cells.

Then the body goes into full emergency mode and the battle rages within our bodies and overloads the bodies ability to handle the inflammation and effects.

People are dying because of their own bodies autoimmune response to the virus, not because they got exposed to "too much" virus.

There is a school of thought that some of the mutations have occurred because the virus infected someone with an autoimmune system that was already battling inflammation or infection and was ready for the virus. The virus mutated to a strategy that defeated that natural defense.

The virus depends on stealth to be successful. Full blasts of virus are not necessary to accomplish their objective.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

sags said:


> I don't know where this notion of "viral load" comes from.


From biological science.








What is Viral Load?


Viral load refers to the amount of virus in an infected person’s blood. This is expressed as the number of viral particles in each milliliter of blood.




www.news-medical.net






> I have never heard any doctor or expert talk about viral loads.


Have you spoken to doctors about viruses?
It's a very common way to understand the progression of a virus.



> A drop of virus and it immediately begins replicating itself until it reaches a level where the body identifies it as a novel virus.
> 
> Then the body goes into full emergency mode and the battle raged within our bodies overloads dead white cells that fill the lungs and other deadly symptoms.


I've never heard of this "full emergency mode". Is that anything like going to Ludicrous speed in spaceballs?



> People are dying because of their bodies autoimmune response to the virus, not because they got exposed to "too much" virus.


Do you have a source for this?
The immune reaction could have an impact, but I haven't heard much about this idea that our immune system is killing us.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Sags. From your own analogy you should be able to see that if something starts replicating from an initial dose of 10,000 viruses, your immune system will have a better chance of fighting it then if it starts replicating from an initial dose of 1,000,000 viruses. Your immune system works at the same speed no matter how many viruses you force it to deal with. That is why it makes such a difference to a person's outcome from infection. It also explains very well why a 90 year old can be infected and have no problem with it at all and a 30 year old can be infected and die. Both being completely healthy for their age.

Your point about how few experts have explained this concepts is noted by me as well. Except for me, I find very few (there are some) people who talk about this most important concept. I believe it is because in the microbiology world it is so well known they figure people already know this. I did at first until I found so many people who did not know this about virus infections and I have done my best to explain it to as many people as possible. It would be nice to have some help.


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> Huh, COVID19 is a seasonal virus?
> What are you talking about?
> 
> yes it will be here, and it likely isn't going to be irradicated, but I have no idea what you are trying to say by "seasonal virus".
> ...


Let me help you.....




__





Upper Respiratory Tract Infection: Practice Essentials, Background, Pathophysiology


Upper respiratory tract infection (URI) represents the most common acute illness evaluated in the outpatient setting. URIs range from the common cold—typically a mild, self-limited, catarrhal syndrome of the nasopharynx—to life-threatening illnesses such as epiglottitis.



www.medscape.com





Do you realize H1N1 had two major waves then drifted into a seasonal virus pattern? We don't talk about it any more although its still propagating through the population mainly during winter months (dry air, closed spaces) but not always...this will happen with Covid-19. It will be a matter of time...


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

afulldeck said:


> Let me help you.....
> 
> 
> 
> ...


No doubt COVID19 will fade away into the background. But we'll end up with a new virus of some sort to deal with, maybe another flu virus, maybe another coronavirus, maybe a rotovirus, who knows.

By the time COVID19 becomes a less lethal virus, nobody will care about it, and it might drift into the seasonal spikes in virus spread. But we're not there yet. It might be dangerous enough that we'll have to go for global eradication.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

moderator2 said:


> But I can tell you that they are under age 50, and quite healthy. This person has recovered and is doing fine now, thankfully.


Very glad this person recovered. Truly, any of us can catch this (even if young and healthy).


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## afulldeck (Mar 28, 2012)

MrMatt said:


> No doubt COVID19 will fade away into the background. But we'll end up with a new virus of some sort to deal with, maybe another flu virus, maybe another coronavirus, maybe a rotovirus, who knows.
> 
> By the time COVID19 becomes a less lethal virus, nobody will care about it, and it might drift into the seasonal spikes in virus spread. But we're not there yet. It might be dangerous enough that we'll have to go for global eradication.


Global eradication will not happen.


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## GreatLaker (Mar 23, 2014)

Thank you for posting.

Here is a report from blogger Paula Pant on her bout with COVID as a young fit person. I re-read it when I start getting blasé about the risks of COVID. She does a good financial blog and podcast called Afford Anything, although it is fairly basic relative to the experience level of a lot of CMF members.
I'm 36 and I tested positive for coronavirus. My so-called "moderate" case is brutal. - Afford Anything


Paula Pant said:


> I’m the poster child, the ideal candidate, of someone who would only experience a “mild or moderate” case.
> My experience of coronavirus was sheer brutal hell. It was the most intense prolonged physical agony I’ve ever felt.



Dr. Celine Gounder's EPIDEMIC Podcast did a good episode on COVID and how different viruses adapt and how we get immunity (or not).
EPIDEMIC with Dr. Celine Gounder - S1E71 / Is SARS CoV-2 Here to Stay?


Epidemic Podcast said:


> "I don't think that herd immunity is a possibility for SARS CoV-2. I think there's going to be a different kind of equilibrium that we reach in the future where humans and SARS-CoV-2 co-exist in a much milder, more benign way." -Jennie Lavine
> 
> The end of the pandemic might not mean the end of SARS-CoV-2. In fact, many scientists think COVID is here to stay, even with vaccines. In this episode we'll hear why we may never reach herd immunity, how the coronavirus could change over time, and why kids are the key to reducing the severity of the disease.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

afulldeck said:


> Global eradication will not happen.


I expect it will be difficult, but I think there is enough interest to at least attempt it. 








Eradication of infectious diseases - Wikipedia







en.wikipedia.org


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## GreatLaker (Mar 23, 2014)

afulldeck said:


> Global eradication will not happen.





MrMatt said:


> I expect it will be difficult, but I think there is enough interest to at least attempt it.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The Wikipedia article mentions global eradication of diseases, but not viruses.

The EPIDEMIC podcast to which I linked suggests that herd immunity to SARS CoV-2 is not even likely. While I'm not purporting to be an expert, I did find the podcast to be informative and worth a listen for anyone that wants to learn about virus transmission and immunity.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

OptsyEagle said:


> Sags. From your own analogy you should be able to see that if something starts replicating from an initial dose of 10,000 viruses, your immune system will have a better chance of fighting it then if it starts replicating from an initial dose of 1,000,000 viruses. Your immune system works at the same speed no matter how many viruses you force it to deal with. That is why it makes such a difference to a person's outcome from infection. It also explains very well why a 90 year old can be infected and have no problem with it at all and a 30 year old can be infected and die. Both being completely healthy for their age.
> 
> Your point about how few experts have explained this concepts is noted by me as well. Except for me, I find very few (there are some) people who talk about this most important concept. I believe it is because in the microbiology world it is so well known they figure people already know this. I did at first until I found so many people who did not know this about virus infections and I have done my best to explain it to as many people as possible. It would be nice to have some help.


I suspect it is because most science communicators think they should only speak to the lowest common denominator, and would be baffled by ideas like viral load. It's unfortunate, there are many well-educated and intelligent lay people who could grasp the virology 101 explanation and have a much better understanding of how risks work. And why the advice is all around severity and duration of exposure. It's almost like radiation exposure....


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

GreatLaker said:


> The Wikipedia article mentions global eradication of diseases, but not viruses.
> 
> The EPIDEMIC podcast to which I linked suggests that herd immunity to SARS CoV-2 is not even likely. While I'm not purporting to be an expert, I did find the podcast to be informative and worth a listen for anyone that wants to learn about virus transmission and immunity.


Smallpox is a virus and eradicated in the wild. Polio is caused by a virus and nearly eradicated (it has been in most countries). The main determinant of whether viruses can be eradicated is if they have natural reservoirs (ie in wildlife) of virus from which to reinfect humans. This is why it is unlikely influenza could be eradicated, for instance, as wild birds are a huge reservoir of the disease and we could never hope to vaccinate them all. We try to vaccinate wildlife with some viruses, like rabies. Governments drop fishmeal-flavoured packets with vaccine doeses in wooded areas to be eaten by raccoons and coyotes to at least reduce the prevalence of rabies. It has been largely eradicated in much of its former range but not completely eliminated from the wild.

The idea of seeking natural herd immunity with COVID-19 is really ill-advised as any virus this easily spread should not be given 7 billion opportunities to mutate. Even with only a relatively small percentage of the global population infected, it has mutated in unfortunate ways and there is no guarantee that it would not successfully mutate to reinfect someone who was previously exposed. This is actually a good reason for people who are immune through vaccination to still remain cautious. Giving viruses plenty of cracks at vaccinated people is an ideal breading ground for vaccine resistant viral strains.


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## Ponderling (Mar 1, 2013)

Then my 92yo mom caught it in a retirement home the same week she was immunized with first shot. Was loopy and out of it for a few days, but pulled though all in her room.


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## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

GreatLaker said:


> The EPIDEMIC podcast to which I linked suggests that herd immunity to SARS CoV-2 is not even likely.


IMO it will disappear just like SARS did which we didn't even have a vaccine for. Without covid vaccines I'd say we'd be in it for a long time but as long as we get a large percentage vaccinated I think it'll die off.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

cainvest said:


> IMO it will disappear just like SARS did which we didn't even have a vaccine for. Without covid vaccines I'd say we'd be in it for a long time but as long as we get a large percentage vaccinated I think it'll die off.


SARS was eradicated. I don't think COVID will be eradicated.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

Regarding what this person wrote about their oxygen levels:



moderator2 said:


> I told my wife for a couple days I feel like I’m going to pass out, constantly feeling that all day. I didn’t have an O2 reader at home . . . *If I would have known how dangerous my O2 levels were, I would have gone earlier. 86% when I was taken by the ambulance*.


Everyone might want to buy a pulse oximeter, which goes over your finger and measures your blood oxygen level. I bought one when the pandemic started.

If you catch COVID, you can monitor your O2 and watch for dangerously low oxygen. This might help someone know when to go to the hospital and seek help.

Here's a guide on COVID-19 and the pulse oximeter. A normal level of oxygen is 95% or higher, or close to 90% for some diseases. They suggest a guideline of watching for a decrease of more than 3% from the baseline reading.

This CMF member's experience matches the guidelines in that document.


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

andrewf said:


> Smallpox is a virus and eradicated in the wild. Polio is caused by a virus and nearly eradicated (it has been in most countries). The main determinant of whether viruses can be eradicated is if they have natural reservoirs (ie in wildlife) of virus from which to reinfect humans. This is why it is unlikely influenza could be eradicated, for instance, as wild birds are a huge reservoir of the disease and we could never hope to vaccinate them all. We try to vaccinate wildlife with some viruses, like rabies. Governments drop fishmeal-flavoured packets with vaccine doeses in wooded areas to be eaten by raccoons and coyotes to at least reduce the prevalence of rabies. It has been largely eradicated in much of its former range but not completely eliminated from the wild.
> 
> The idea of seeking natural herd immunity with COVID-19 is really ill-advised as any virus this easily spread should not be given 7 billion opportunities to mutate. Even with only a relatively small percentage of the global population infected, it has mutated in unfortunate ways and there is no guarantee that it would not successfully mutate to reinfect someone who was previously exposed. This is actually a good reason for people who are immune through vaccination to still remain cautious. Giving viruses plenty of cracks at vaccinated people is an ideal breading ground for vaccine resistant viral strains.


I actually think that you make an important point.
We can't get rid of coronaviruses or influenza, just not possible. Just like we haven't gotten rid of pox viruses, only smallpox
I think we could possibly get rid of COVID19, or at least it's highly lethal variants, at least for a time. Fortunately/unfortunately the less lethal variants will likely continue to exist for some time. Also they're not sure if animals, or what animals can spread COVID19.

The interesting thing is someone mentioned H1N1 clearly thinking the recent bird flu, as if H1N1 hasn't been around "forever", and was the same subtype as the Spanish flu. But after the initial spike, it was effective elimiated as "the spanish flu", and largely ignored for decades.

Searching for details on this post I came across this article, which is interesting, particularly if you consider it was about a year before COVID19.








What if a deadly influenza pandemic broke out today?


It’s been a century since the Spanish flu claimed up to 100 million lives. It’s only a matter of time until a similar strain re-emerges. How serious could it be?




www.bbc.com


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## MrMatt (Dec 21, 2011)

GreatLaker said:


> The Wikipedia article mentions global eradication of diseases, but not viruses.
> 
> The EPIDEMIC podcast to which I linked suggests that herd immunity to SARS CoV-2 is not even likely. While I'm not purporting to be an expert, I did find the podcast to be informative and worth a listen for anyone that wants to learn about virus transmission and immunity.


Well we can't get rid of viruses, that's just not practical, and we don't care about virus. We care about the strains that result in diseases that cause us problems. For animal diseases, we often just engage in massive culls. 
We are talking specifically about COVID19, which is a specific strain of coronavirus that is potentially lethal to humans, just like smallpox was a strain of the pox virus that was particularly problematic.

FWIW I was pretty vocal that herd immunity and vaccines might not be able to stop COVID19, fortunately it seems to mutate slowly and we appear to have been able to generate a vaccine effective against the primary strain.
However there is likely 1 strain (South African), and possible others (1 Indian & 1 Brazillian) that the vaccine isn't very effective against.
With the disaster in India and Brazil, it is very likely they will generate a number of strains, the hope now is that the world can get them under control before too many new strains are generated.

Hopefully people realize the poor infrastructure is part of the problem, and we might get people supporting proper sanitation globally, out of self interest.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

So above I was whining about not getting much help in educating the masses about the importance of attempting to limit ones initial dose of infection so as to give them a better chance in fighting off this virus. I learned that lesson in my microbiology class I took in 1986 and it was so simple to understand I never forgot it. It was taught to help us with laboratory safety and it was vital to know to achieve the goal of protecting yourself and others.

So anyways, this article goes on to help people understand this concept with respect to indoor concentration of the covid virus. They did some kind of study to illustrate that 6 feet distance does not really help when you allow the virus to concentrate indoors. Again, something that was beat into us during our lab safety training, 35 years ago. "Don't let the virus concentrate and limit your exposure time to the absolute minimum".



> For example, the site estimates it would take two days for 25 people wearing masks and talking to be exposed to the virus if an infected person entered the room.
> 
> If those 25 people are not wearing masks and speaking, that exposure time drops to 77 minutes. If they're singing without a mask, they would be exposed in three minutes.
> 
> ...







__





Staying 2 metres apart does little to limit indoor spread of COVID-19: study






www.msn.com


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

This is why I find it a bit ridiculous when people walk on the road to avoid passing you on the sidewalk. I don't think briefly passing someone on a sidewalk is much of a risk.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

Outside is wayyyyy safer. One could tell from the changes in infection numbers from summer to fall, that this virus was more then just coming from droplets. That is was airborne. If it was droplets then 6 feet indoors would protect you as well as 6 feet outdoors. The infection numbers, in my opinion, told me the opposite. 6 feet indoors was probably not working very well and that was probably my final observation that told be this virus is airborne.

If it is airborne, all you need when you are outside is the open space. The prevention of concentration of the virus. If it was only droplets, one would always need a breeze to protect you and most likely that breeze would just send whatever dose was headed in your direction, into the face of the person sitting beside you. But it did not seem to be happening like that.

No question, this is an airborne virus. Keep that in mind when protecting yourself. You need to let it ventilate or the clock (time of exposure) will get you. Without ventilation, it is just a matter of time.


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## cainvest (May 1, 2013)

andrewf said:


> This is why I find it a bit ridiculous when people walk on the road to avoid passing you on the sidewalk. I don't think briefly passing someone on a sidewalk is much of a risk.


If you've got the room might as well use it. Let's say you're walking outside (no masks) and they sneeze/cough at a bad time. Remember 2m is the minimum distance, the farther away the better.


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## Plugging Along (Jan 3, 2011)

andrewf said:


> This is why I find it a bit ridiculous when people walk on the road to avoid passing you on the sidewalk. I don't think briefly passing someone on a sidewalk is much of a risk.


I am one of those ridiculous people and I make my family do the same. The main reason is most people do not distance very well indoors. By having my kids distance in most scenarios it becomes a habit. On a side note, I have literally have someone pass me for just a second or two in a store, turn at that exact stupid second, pull down their mask that was only covering their mouth (not nose) and turn and sneeze on me and in my cart where I could see some of of droplets. Since then, I try to even reduce those one second interactions with anyone I don't know indoors or outside. 

I am not even sure how it would be okay in non covid times to sneeze on a strangers cart uncovered.


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## OptsyEagle (Nov 29, 2009)

If it is easy to do, full precaution is always best since safe is always better then sorry. That said, the main point is not whether it is totally safe to socialize outdoors, but more how incredibly dangerous it is to socialize indoors.

Apart from a major sneeze at the exact same time as one is passing, with no attempt by the sneezer to control it, I would doubt very much that a dangerous infection could be obtained by simply passing someone on the sidewalk. That said, I will always turn my head and take a pause on breathing a few paces before the approach of another and for how long that pause continues will probably depend on wind direction and perhaps a few other things.

The main point is that there are so many places that attention to safety is critical we could all use a few more times when we could relax a little and give our alertness a little break. Outside is about the only place I can think of where that can be done more safely.


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## james4beach (Nov 15, 2012)

cainvest said:


> If you've got the room might as well use it. Let's say you're walking outside (no masks) and they sneeze/cough at a bad time. Remember 2m is the minimum distance, the farther away the better.


Absolutely. This happened to me! I was walking (maskless) outside, passing near some guy when he suddenly started coughing without covering his mouth. Scared the daylights out of me. Ever since that incident, I leave more space between me & others -- there's no downside to it.



OptsyEagle said:


> They did some kind of study to illustrate that 6 feet distance does not really help when you allow the virus to concentrate indoors


Thanks, that's also an important point.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

What I have been doing is just walking to the side of the sidewalk (on the grass boulevard) for a few paces as you pass. I think briefly being within 5 ft of something while outside is not likely to be a risk. Very little infection is happening outdoors, and those situations are more like people having conversations outdoors, sitting on a patio, etc.


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