Capitol Hill Blue Forums Science and Technology Health, Medicine & the healing Sciences Coronavirus: The Plague of The 21st Century?

As everyone knows by now, Trump doesn't want ANYONE tested because the reporting of positive results make him look bad. As with everything in life, it's all about Trump.

It's not as simple. We don't even know yet if people who had it can get infected again. Levels of antibodies among those who have recovered, have varied greatly, from almost none to a lot.

And then, tests have false negatives and false positives.

Sure, I'd love to see more tests available... but it's not easy to test 330 million people.

The solutions are not as simple.

The only true solution will be an effective vaccine that confers lasting immunity and still works in case of mutation.

Until then (if we get one), we'll have to live with this new reality, test or no test.

I think there are a lot of things we do know, at a 95% confidence level. Like people who have recovered and have IgG, very likely will have some immunity. Sure, there are exceptions (like me) who were taking immunosuppressives that screwed around with certain white cells. But I fail the antibody test.

Opening back up is going to consist of a lot of bets: Hopefully well-educated bets. Like don't go back to work facing the public unless you are recovered AND have an antibody test that shows you have enough IgG to be safe. That means we need titre tests, not just qualitative. Until we get there, isolation works. Mask wearing in public and maintaining distance works. Countries that have done just those two things have very few new cases.

My thought was that was how it was supposed to be!

My point was that it is NOT! Not even close. Its also incredibly uneven. Some have tests, some don't and some that do have tests that don't work. As far as I can tell there are few antibody tests which, from my point of view, are REALLY necessary to get people moving with some assurance they will not get infected and die. I fear I had little or no ability of prognostication in this but did have a lot of wishful thinking involved.

As far as not knowing whether folks can get re-infected. I think that they cannot and tests to the contrary seem to be for isolated groups and not universal. This one, I suspect, just needs more time for general acceptance.

1. Trump will say Rome never burned, he's been there.
2. He doesn't know any guy named Nero, probably Deep State again.
3. It's fake news.

Well, a nephew in League City Texas has just tested positive for the Covid. He’s an EMT going to nursing school and presently living with his grandmother (my mother-in-law). She’s 93 and has advancing dementia, so he’s been taking care of her in exchange for a place to live while in school. She hasn’t been tested yet, but it’s highly likely she will test positive, too.

Should I thank Trump and Abbott for doing such a great job handling the pandemic?

Sorry to read that, logtroll. Things don't look good for your MIL. That's a very bad situation, what with nobody to take care of her. I'm pretty sure my mother actually died in early April from Covid-19. No testing was done and she was hospitalized with salmonella, but that was a time when nobody was especially careful about SARS-COV2 infection. She was 92.

I say probably, because I think she gave it to me, and then I gave it to my wife. Salmonella doesn't work that way.

If she does get sick, hopefully somebody can take her to get medical care. Or at least call the EMTs.

There is one case of a woman that did get reinfected, which sort of proves the general rule that they don't. Usually.

There are way more people who recovered only to find they continue to have problems long-term. I saw two health care workers on UCSF General Rounds (on YouTube) that took months to stop testing positive, and still are in lousy shape. The woman lost her sense of smell and three months later it's back but all she can smell is forest fire smell all the time! She says it's very hard to sleep with that. She's in an online "long haulers" group, and other victims tell her they have the same smell hallucinations.

They don't - the family had just decided to move her into an assisted living facility near us two days ago, and the very next day the grandson tested positive, so now she can't be moved anywhere (presumably). Her end was already near and she has been pretty miserable for a couple of years, so her imminent passing is accepted by all. But it would be very sad if she suffers excessively at the very end.

Grandson is not showing any symptoms yet, so maybe he can continue to care for her if she has contracted the virus.

That would be very preferable if she has it, too. My mom was in an assisted living facility and they shut down tight. So no visiting her at the end. She was signed up with hospice, and they did make phone calls for her to relatives. She couldn't talk near the end, but at least they said she heard and understood it was us. But I'm afraid the hospice workers probably all caught it from her.

She wanted a big funeral and even prepaid a mortuary and picked out a casket, a couple of years ago. But with the lockdown the mortuary just picked her up and did a direct burial, with no funeral. All I got to do was specify the headstone legend.