Saturday, August 22, 2020

Coronavirus News (214)

 I had COVID-19, and these are the things nobody tells you  I was so fatigued I could barely walk from my office chair to my bed .........  In an instant, my fears for others became prayers for myself. ..........  I had the incredibly good fortune to avoid hospitalization. .........  behind every coronavirus statistic there is unquantifiable human suffering. .........  My temperature hovered in the upper reaches of 102. It felt like my head was on fire. One night I sweated through five shirts. I shook so much from the chills I thought I chipped a tooth. My chest felt like LeBron James was sitting on it. My fatigue made it feel as if I was dressed in the chains of Jacob Marley’s ghost. I coughed so hard it felt like I broke a rib. ...........  I would fall asleep in a chair and wake up terrified from a hallucinatory dream where I was chased through a playground by old women with giant heads. During phone calls I would get confused and just stop talking. I would begin crying for no reason. I lost my sense of taste, smell, and five pounds in the first four days. .........   Everyone knows what happens, even if they never believe it will happen to them. ..............  things that stick with you long after the fever has spiked and the headaches have stopped. ............  Once you realize you have a virus that could kill you and there’s nothing anybody can do about it, you live in constant fear. .........   Then there are the late nights, when your quarantine feels most acute — when you are the most alone. You start coughing into a wet pillow and you can’t stop and your breath becomes ragged and your bed is soaking and you wonder, is now the time? Do you try to drive yourself to the hospital? Do you call an ambulance? Are you just being a baby? You can’t call any friends or family for help because they can’t be exposed. You can’t call your doctor because he’s already told you there’s nothing he can do. You don’t know what to do, so you simmer alone in the darkness doing nothing, paralyzed by fear and chasing your breath and praying that 102.1 does not become 103.1. .................   the anger. You followed all the rules, you wore countless masks, you never strayed far from home, you spent four months battling this thing, and still it hits you with a sucker punch. ..........  The weekend before my symptoms appeared, for the first time in four months, I met friends for two dinners at two socially distanced patio tables. Nobody is required to wear masks at the tables, so I removed my mask when I sat, as did my dining partners, and we left them off during the entire time we were at the table. ...................   and now my mistake could fester in my system forever. ...........  It didn’t take much for COVID-19 to make my unexciting life hell. ..........  COVID-19 is real enough to rise up and beat me senseless. We need to stop giving it license to do the same to others.

Coronavirus will be with us forever, Sage scientist warns  people would need to be vaccinated at regular intervals. .........  in order to control the pandemic, "global vaccination" would be required, but coronavirus would not be a disease like smallpox "which could be eradicated by vaccination". .........  Coronavirus has so far killed 800,000 people. Nearly 23 million infections have been recorded but the number of people who have actually had the virus is thought to be much higher due to inadequate testing and asymptomatic cases.  

Chart showing cases per 100,000 people in Spain, Germany, Italy, France and the UK up to 21 August


Coronavirus: Why Spain is seeing second wave Spain saw one of the most draconian Covid-19 lockdowns in Europe, but two months after it was lifted, the virus is spreading faster than in any neighbouring nation. ...........  Most of the transmission is now between young people, and around three-quarters of positives are in patients who show no symptoms. ..........  Only around 3% of current cases require hospital treatment, less than 0.5% need intensive care and the current death rate is as low as 0.3%. ..........  Spanish politics has lacked any consensus or spirit of collaboration in managing the coronavirus crisis.   



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