E Jean Carroll asked on March 17, 2022, What Did Covid Steal from You? and I replied:
COVID stole from me my belief that other people's actions (not being vaccinated) do not affect me to the degree they do.
If I had the 2 years back, I would have spent more time in Ceramics and on the kick wheel.
It did give me more solitude which I appreciate.
Why would the House Democrats not understand that stripping Covid funding from a “must-pass” bill was giving away their power to the Republicans who can now dictate their requirements for the administration to spend the GOP-approved funds? Now, this angers me more since both parties are going to pass another spending bill that “includes $773 billion for the Department of Defense.” How sweet! I guess since covid funding is a human investment, it is strip-worthy.
“White House’s Covid aid proposal, designed to shore up the nation’s stockpile in pandemic supplies and treatments, is now without a clear path to passage, given it would require at least 10 Republicans to vote for it in the Senate.”
I have finally figured out what is totally bothering me, which is asymptomatic long covid! This unnamed phenomenon has been bothering me for several months, since I live with my eighty-one-year-young vaccinated and boosted mother, who had a stent put in her heart about twenty years ago; so she has heart disease. Early in the pandemic, I was obsessed with asymptomatic transmission and, while writing this, I finally Googled "asymptomatic long covid" and one of the results was an article from January 10, 2022, Fact Check-People with asymptomatic COVID-19 in acute phase may later develop long COVID symptoms. The two important quotes are:
"A study released in January 2021 found that even among those with mild or asymptomatic initial infections, there were cases of medical complications long after the infection had subsided (here).”
“Another model estimated that 59% of all transmission came from asymptomatic individuals - 35% of those from pre-symptomatic individuals and 25% from those who never develop symptoms (here), (here).”
(Side Topic: In 1991, I heard Metallica's Enter Sandman on the radio and learned about “grain of sand”. If you rub a grain of sand in your hands, it causes friction. Melting thousands or millions of grains of sand at high temperatures produces glass which refracts light.
An airborne virus is smaller than a grain of sand.
I am vaccinated and boosted against Coronavirus’ “Grain of Sand”. 😀)
Even though this article is from December 14, 2021, I think it has relevant information about asymptomatic testing: More than 40% of people with COVID-19 never show symptoms, study finds. What experts have learned about these cases:
"The study also showed the highest number of asymptomatic cases occurred in nursing home residents or staff, air or cruise travelers and pregnant women. That doesn’t mean those populations were more susceptible to asymptomatic infections, Wells said, just that they were more likely to be tested."
I disagree with the CDC's hospitalization metric because it gives a false sense of "progress" when the current covid numbers are more meaningful. It makes me feel that I am being pulled in two different directions - that it is OK to go out and be around people but the daily numbers are still too high. So, I stay home.
“The new framework instead focuses on the situation in hospitals — how many people are being admitted for COVID-19 and how much capacity is left.
Critics of CDC's new approach say the agency seems to have moved the goalposts to justify the political imperative to let people get back to their normal lives.”
While researching “omicron” “long covid”, I clicked on this KHN.org article and found this AP article, Scientists: COVID-19 may cause greater damage to the heart.
“COVID-19 can spread through the bloodstream, leaving damaged cells. The same virus proteins so adept at attaching to cells in the lower respiratory system can also attach to heart tissue, said Richard Becker, a physician, professor and director of the Heart, Lung and Vascular Institute at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine.”
Is our healthcare system ready for the onslaught of asymptomatic and symptomatic long covid ramifications since the CDC caved to political whims and public insistence that said covid is "over"?
After a year of the onset of asymptomatic long covid, the person may get diabetes and heart disease before then. Instead of becoming introspective, they will just be angry and blame everybody but them self. I believe this will wrongly help the Republicans since the person's year later diabetes diagnosis will be "angrily disconnected" with the original asymptomatic long covid onset because they did not want to wear a mask or be a home-body. Oh, the evil ploy the Republicans are employing to gain more voters.
I am not focusing on vaccinations and boosters since there are breakthrough infections and it is not settled on whether vaccines prevent long covid.
Understanding Long Covid (NY Times’ subscription required) says:
“If you’re vaccinated and you get Covid, are you less likely to have long-term symptoms?
Basically, we don’t know. A couple of studies have suggested that if you’ve been vaccinated and are then infected with Covid, it might make you less likely to have lingering symptoms, but at least one study suggested that vaccination didn’t make any difference.”
Evidence grows that vaccines lower the risk of getting long COVID say that it is inconclusive on vaccine effectiveness for preventing long covid due to the process, which includes looking at digital files vs self reporting, in observing the results.
However, what is more mind-blowing is:
‘ "I don't think in good faith I would be able to distinguish between someone who has a breakthrough case of long COVID versus a pre-vaccine case of long COVID," says Putrino, director of rehabilitation innovation at Mount Sinai. "The symptoms are very consistent." ‘
In late 2021, I became very excited about Pfizer's Paxlovid, which is an oral anti-covid pill that is 89% effective when “taken within five days of symptom onset”. Due to being hard to get and unsettled results, I have decided that Paxlovid-type drugs are not effective for dealing with long covid.
Can drugs reduce the risk of long COVID? What scientists know so far says:
‘ Beyond vaccination, it’s unclear whether any existing COVID-19 therapy has an effect on long-COVID risk. In theory, a drug that reduces disease severity might reduce the severity of long-term symptoms, says Altmann. But long COVID is not always associated with serious acute illness. “There are loads of people out there who are really destroyed by long COVID and had asymptomatic or near asymptomatic infections,” he says. “It’s really hard to grapple with.” ‘
Now, comes the BA.2 variant…
03/30/2022 Update:
I found these maddening articles about the Dallas County covid backlog.
The Dallas Morning News emailed me an article on a different topic, which I read on their website since I graduated from Ursuline in 1996, that is listed first:
(Subscription Required):
Jesuit Prep, Dallas Diocese settle lawsuit over priest sex abuse
Dallas County’s health director says backlog in COVID case reporting will continue
Dallas County reports backlog in COVID case updates, citing omicron wave
The uncertainty is mentally exhausting and does make it so hard to know what to do. I hope both you and your mother stay COVID-free.