Were you feeling ill for that two months, MJ?

I find the whole "symptoms" question difficult, as many of the symptoms of covid match those of my chronic conditions. I cough, I sneeze, I'm short of breath, I have no sense of smell.... But with all that, I feel fine - it's how I always feel.

We haven't reached a second lockdown yet, but 'promised' for early December. Our cases are higher than they have ever been.

agony, I am with you, no sense of smell, shortness of breath, sneezing and sore throat, but nothing to do with covid.

It is the no symptom cases which are scary. I had a plumber servicing my boiler (furnace) on Monday and he was telling me that earlier in the year his wife was poorly with it so he was tested and it came back that he had had covid, and recovered. Obviously we were in lockdown when he had it, but if it was after lockdown then he could have passed it to vulnerable people.

Yes. I got worse during that time frame. It was about six weeks after the positive test that I finally started to feel better.

I know what you mean by Covid symptoms sounding like so many other things. I started the year with a sinus infection that didn't get better. But I knew something was different, something was worse. Plus, cornoavirus was running rampant where I live in March. The tests used in the United States are not the tests used in the rest of the world. We don't use the test developed by WHO. The early tests here, the ones used in March when I took my first test, have a high false negative rate.

No matter. I'm prone to developing pneumonia once or twice a year. Yes, I have had the pneumonia vaccine. I used to have pneumonia 3-5x a year since I was a child. I was put antibiotics for the sinus infection but they didn't seem to do much. A nurse was coming to my house daily to give me IV antibiotics for months. I was prescribed 3 inhalers to use daily. I used them 2-3x more per day than is normally prescribed. Eventually I was given steroids and a home oxygen machine to use. The migraines were the worst I've ever had. My temperature had been 102.5-102.8 in March. It went up to 103.1 in the day and up to 103.8 at night starting around late March. All this was before I got the second test. My doctor didn't believe the first test was correct.

After April and into May .... Well, I don't remember a lot of that. The antibiotic I was on I've taken in the past. It always gives me hallucinations. I was on it once while taking a final for Early Medieval Literature. During the all essay final, I saw three dragons in the room. They were friendly dragons, at least. One stood by my desk and told me what to write. No one minded that I was talking to them either. Yes, the professor made sure I was driven home that night. The high fever made my mind swirl around even worse. And oh I was sooo exhausted! I tried to stand up from my couch, fell to my knees, fell over sideways, and slept on the floor for hours. I already have blackout curtains on every window because of migraines. On my front door I have a fake stained glass transom window. For two and a half years I would love the soft afternoon light coming though that window. It would throw pretty patterns of light across the walls of my living room. But the covid induced migraines made those patterns of light unbearable. I had to wear sunglasses inside. I couldn't bear the sound of the television and had the sound on mute for months. Close caption tv watching leaves something to be desired!

My covid was found not by a test but a lung x-ray. I was waiting for the results of the second test when my Dr. had a lung
X-ray done. It showed those long strands common in people with people with cornoavirus. I had, have, covid lungs. Why aren't lung x-rays done more often to diagnose Covid? I know some people are afraid of being exposed to "unnecessary radiation". I suspect the cost of the x-ray won't be covered by insurance. How am I now, months later? I find I need to sleep a lot more. My fall allergies are bothering me more than normal. The killer migraines have not gone away. I still wear sunglasses inside and have my fake stain glass window covered up.

Some people are beyond stupid. This is a report in the local media regarding a young woman, I have removed the name.



She is now seeking a change in law here (not going to happen) so that people cannot be named when they break the law. She said that her life has been ruined, people have been abusive towards her, she has lost her job which involved being in a care home. When interviewed she seemed to think that it was very unfair for her to be treated this way, not a suggestion that she had been selfish, stupid, dangerously reckless - she was the wronged here!

With people like this then it will spread more.

Cases down to 168, 1632 known contacts.

She works in a care home. Sheesh!

Her excuse was that she was so excited to see her friends again. Jaw droppingly selfish.

Well, we are on quarantine #2. My husband has had to go into work 4 times total since Covid started... and times 3 and 4 (Monday and Tuesday) he was exposed to someone who came down with Covid. So we are all quarantining again for 14 days. Separated my husband at bedtime and told him to wear a mask around us. He's going to spend more time in the basement and we had him eat dinner in the dining room instead of the kitchen with us, trying to keep distance.

Emailed my son's school to say we're quarantining and he won't be going. My sinuses have been acting up (well Since September) so I'm not feeling 100%. Hopefully the masks everyone at the meeting with my husband wore help prevent further... but they were in all-day meetings.

I don't understand business's need to have meetings when there are viable alternatives. You don't have to be in a room together. If you need to show something, set it up and let the clients play with the item while you Zoom call and talk with them so you stay separate. Don't risk this. Masks are not 100%.

Who pays for the testing?

Insurance, luckily.

Here tests are part of our public health care, just show your card. They're restricting tests to those who have been exposed or have symptoms, though.

Had two tests so far . All free for elderly. Then the flu jab this week. Its all so exciting.....

They are starting to restrict them here too to those who have symptoms or were told to get tested. Well, my husband was exposed but he never got a call from a contact tracer or someone telling him to get tested... Argh, we just said someone told him to test since that's what's on the CDC's website

Problem is, every place is so booked up now. He should be testing today (day 7 of his exposure), but the earliest appointment I could find was for Friday (day 10).

What if you don't know if you've been exposed? What if you have Covid and are asymptmatic? Those restrictions are what helped to let Covid rage out of control here.

Technically, you walk outside you could have been exposed...

theoretically, we are supposed to be behaving in such a manner that our possibility of exposure is quite rare, so therefore easy to track. Theoretically.

What we know about transmission is that it's a function of proximity and time. So running into, say, a restaurant (while masked) to pick up your food that you had already ordered by phone would be highly unlikely to expose you, even if someone else in there had covid - you're in there for 90 seconds, staying distanced, and staying masked. Sitting in that restaurant for the course of meal, unmasked, while the person with covid is also there for that hour unmasked - well, that's a different story.

covid is spreading not because it is so incredibly easy to catch, but because people are not following the basic necessary measures - masking up, keeping distance, and limiting time indoors with people not in their pods. And this means, unfortunately, that those who are following the rules who make one little misstep can get sick because ten other people aren't following them at all.

That's what is frustrating - it's so simple to avoid most cases of Covid. But we have people who don't care or think this is all hype...

Also people who will not wear a mask because they won't be told what to do.

Hi all

I have been reading what you have been saying about what we in Australia call "The Rona", but haven't felt I had much to add. Sue's comment about people not doing what they are told to do made me think. I only read recently that Australia has maintained small numbers of the virus as we do as we are told (well, pretty much). Maybe it is a collective convict memory, although very few people are descended from the original convicts. A way of thinking perhaps. I think staying at home suits us too. So many people enjoy working from home. Commutes are hellishly long here.

Of, course that Australia and New Zealand are islands and that really helps. Our numbers are mainly limited to returned travellers, who are shut up in hotels for 2 weeks. Our internal borders are opening up, but I can't see the external borders being open until an effective vaccine is established. It could be 2022. For a soil and water poor country we still produce 3 times the food we need.

It is hot here as well. A couple of out breaks have been in meatworks where it is artificially cold. Even in winter, it is comparatively hot compared to your countries. With summer will mean going to the beach, but there are a tremendous number of beaches and ultraviolet kills the virus. If too many people turn up at one beach the police will close it and people will move on. A large percentage of people have home pools.

Our new word for 2020 in the Australian dictionary is 'iso' (isolation). That's enough from me anyway. Thanks

That is interesting Em, thank you.

I live on a tiny island, small enough that each year there is a 'round the island' walk for charity and it isn't just for the super fit. Within the same island group is Guernsey which has a different government to us and they tackle it differently to us, and as of yesterday had just one case to our 150. Basically Guernsey closed their borders and kept them closed, with just a few exceptions, we re-opened out borders at the beginning of July and the cases then started up again and kept climbing.

Our government have announced that they will be operating lifeline flights again in conjunction with a small airline here. Some medical treatment has to be carried out in the UK, like for cancer, so people must be able to get there and back. It means one flight per day each way and people need permission to buy a ticket. I would imagine that this has stopped this airline from folding in the pandemic as they have a guaranteed income from the government.

We had 35 new cases declared yesterday, almost all traced back to the same social event. Presumably this means that social distancing wasn't enforced nor masks worn. There is to be an investigation and possibly legal action as two of the infected people are children which has meant that literally hundreds of children (from two schools) have been sent home to isolate.

35 might not seem many but as a percentage of the 150-ish cases we had, it is enormous.

I just do not understand people, Sue. Why do so many people just ignore regulations - is it laziness, sheer ignorance, or the all-too-frequent belief that the virus does not exist and that it is all a worldwide conspiracy to control the population.

It seems so odd to me that people would rather believe in a world wide conspiracy than that something that has happened many times before in history is happening again.

Another 31 case today, again linked to the same event, or most of them. We now have 200 live cases which is horrendous for us.

This puts our current situation into perspective - the two figures below, at this rate we will have the same or more current cases as we had in total during the first wave. We have almost 1800 known contacts of the active cases.

Prior to 1 July
320

Since 1 July
620

It's a combination of people who are tired of being safe, people who believe this is nothing more than the flu, people who think they will get it no matter what and might as well get it now, and people who believe this is totally made up.

My county doubled the number of people who were hospitalized with COVID in ONE WEEK.