Ironically, I've never had symptomatic covid even with roomates who had both the original covid variant and more recent strains.
Other than a few weeks of feeling tired one time, I've never actually managed to test positive. This is after living in new york for the past four years.
Anyone else had this experience? The only palpable side-effect or long-lasting effect has been increased noise sensitivity, tinitus in one ear seemingly out of nowhere and now I have mild exima which never was an issue in years past.
I caught COVID during the first wave and a second time in 2021.
The first time, the hardest, I lost my sense of smell, everything had a smoky or oily nauseating odor. About a month later, gradually, my sense of smell returned.
I had an excellent sense of smell, perceiving odors from quite a distance, in a varied and precise way, to the point of sometimes having a headache when they were strong. This level of olfactory performance, which I never made use of, never returned. On a vague comparative basis, I'd say it's returned to standard. In fact, that's the only positive point I can take from all this, as strong odors no longer seem to bother me.
At the time of my first infection, I was experiencing, like many, a real series of rather difficult life problems as well as major events. I'd say that could be partly to blame, but the COVID definitely diminished my cognitive abilities as well as my memory. I had what is commonly known as mental fog.
Here I am, having studied all my life, doing art, design, programming and build many great stuff with passion, speed of execution and a mastery that I'd describe as fairly good, unable to learn anything new and in a permanent state of anxiety. I haven't coded anything good for 3 years now, and my physical health is deteriorating despite my continuous physical and mental efforts.
I forced myself to take a job well below my capabilities which, even so, sometimes poses certain difficulties for me. Telling myself that it would pass and I'd soon be back into it in no time, but it's quite the opposite that's happening. I'm getting dumbed down and sinking around juniors who are now far superior to me in terms of how.
Where I live, COVID seems to have been relegated to an old story that no one wants to talk about anymore. The doctors are burnt out and none of the ones I've consulted seem to be able to diagnose long COVID or that sort of thing.
I'm beginning to harbor a deep resentment towards this illness, seeing it as the major trigger that screwed up my career. A career that was so difficult to build because I put my know-how ahead of my network.
I've overcome so many hardships in the past. Since 2020, I've been unable to bounce back.
I'm simply disgusted.
If you recognize yourself in this profile and impostor syndrome no longer seems so theoretical, I'd really appreciate not feeling lonely.
You might want to look into books by Alan Gordon and those he has worked with (they get recommended from time to time round here for chronic pain). Whilst they do primarily talk about pain, there’s some evidence to suggest that some of the neurological problems caused by post-viral conditions are to do with the brain getting stuck in a heightened state of “fight or flight”, which is also one of the causes of chronic neurological pain. This would also tally with what you are saying about your anxiety.
I still do as does my household. I don't care what others think - they are not the bosses of me and I'm responsible and paying for my own health, so, they (you!) have no say. People used to wander butt-naked, now everybody wears underwear. Masks are similar. Plus, we all know who laughs best, right? So, enough you laugh while it lasts!
Then you should probably be taking measures to protect yourself from severe respiratory infections. You can remove a mask, but you can't remove pulmonary scarring.
Re. communications style, no, I am choosing to reflect a shitty sentiment brought into the discussion previously.
Have tried the high roads and proper form. There often isn’t very much there.
There is no position. Only impact. Only attention. Only self-respect. There is no position.
Regarding evidence: There is no need for interpretation of the evidence on SARS-CoV-2, on transmission mechanics or the harm it is capable of causing. It’s either based on reading the literature or not.
—To expand on that: Any conclusions of COVID being harmless or like other common illnesses, or inevitable, or unstoppable always–always–require blatantly ignoring concrete and clear results based on verified physics or molecular biology.
Do you really trust the literature? I was a scientist for a few decades and I find much of biomedical literature to be ... hard to draw conclusions from. My PhD is in Biophysics and I've studied viruses in detail; I don't have the level of confidence you do in your beliefs.
I think I’m often ascribed beliefs and desires I do not have. It’s often accompanied by people reaching for “your beliefs” and “your beliefs” some more. I point to precisely what I wrote. SARS-CoV-2 is not a death machine but it is not harmless. It is not like other common respiratory illnesses. Infection is not inevitable and COVID-19 is not unstoppable as the transmission of it is by aerosol and that can be filtered out of the air.
I mean you are free to keep masking, but the rest of us have paid our dues and aren't going to live the rest of our lives in constant fear.
Its nothing personal, but if you're in a uniquely high-risk position its typically on you to take precautions, not every other living being in your country.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?”—what I said—is not nice.
“Maybe just don't even go out in public!” is not nice either. It did not at all have to be that way that my unborn and newly born child and his mother— both high-risk-from-COVID—were in extreme social isolation during the pandemic. We weren’t isolated because we isolated ourselves. We were isolated to our surprise and grief because people simply dropped out of contact due to the hostile socially accepted sentiment captured so well by “Maybe just don't even go out in public!”. Not nice. Not nice at all. There was a gross and ugly and blatant societal failure to protect infants. Infants.
I ask again: Who are you fighting? What is the cause?
An unborn child is strictly dependent upon the placenta for survival, let alone for development and maturation of physiological structures which we only get one of per life
time and we are hard-dependent on.
> It sounds like you have a lot of unresolved fear about Covid that you're not dealing with in a healthy way (denial, lashing out, projecting). Maybe seek out a mental health professional to talk through things, it might help.
I appreciate the concern, but I'm actually quite okay. I know many people who do continue to live in fear of COVID however, insisting on continuing mask and vaccine mandates. One even refuses to leave his house, opting to have food and groceries delivered all so he can avoid potentially catching COVID by going in public.
> The people wearing masks aren't living in "constant fear" any more than the people wearing seatbelts in their car are living in "constant fear" of car accidents.
There may be a portion of people who treat wearing a mask just the same as wearing a seatbelt, but in my anecdotal experience everyone I know who still actually masks is quite fanatical about it.
Downvote is not a strong enough disagree. Comment required.
Mask in public if you are not feeling well.
Healthy people masking in public for extended portions of their life is untested and could cause new and unforseen issues.
Exposure to regular levels of background bacteria and virus keeps our immune system tuned. See War of the Worlds for pop culture level introduction. While the mask likely does not protect you from background virus and bacteria it can host all sorts of new growth right against your mouth and face.
I had covid in 2021. I lost my sense of smell completely for a month, and I'm still not sure it's back to 100% pre-covid level. Now it looks like covid is going to be around for the rest of my life, but I don't want to have to go through that again every one or two years, losing more and more of my olfactory function after each infection. Until we get totally sterilizing nasal vaccines, I'm masking.
I’m sorry to break the news for you, but masking will not stop you from getting sick. It’s the other way around, it helps to reduce spreading when you are infectious.
That’s only true for cloth or medical masks. Well-fitting electro-static respirators (N95, FFP2, or better) do prevent you from getting infected with airborne diseases like Covid.
Here’s a recent meta-study coming to that exact conclusion:
> “[…] the subgroup showed a significant protective effect of using N95 respirators, particularly for medical staff.”
Please, please allow me to ask you to interpret my words charitably and not as if I were calling you out or shaming you.
That masks only stop infectious spread is a commonly held view due to the documented and provable failure of public health organizations to ingest scientific knowledge, understand it, and act on it.
Masks in general—speaking of masks without any further specification of mask type or form—those do very little. What little they do is yes, mostly reducing spread I believe.
Masks that lie fully against the face without gaps and are made out of modern filtration materials, these stop the infectious aerosol no matter which way it’s going. In or out. Properly thought out masks fit for purpose basically stop COVID stone cold. These masks are known as “respirator masks” for some unfortunate reason.
These people are stuck adhering to the mask propaganda from 2020.
The lies were 'justified' at the time because high adoption meant spreaders were covered.
Unless you have advanced medical grade masks and swap them regularly, surgical masks and other common covering do literally nothing to protect the wearer from COVID. Once spit particles are airborne, even N95s don't stop much. And yes I've seen the videos about static attraction. Which is maybe partially true for fresh masks, but the attic attraction fades quickly as your breath saturates the material with moisture
Not literally nothing. Some people will deliberately cough in your face, but most people will give you a little more personal space.
Rule of thumb: if you can smell what's around you – or what was around you 5 seconds ago – you're not protected from airborne biohazardous material. That said, there are masks that do protect you.
What are you even talking about? I've been masking with 3M Aura masks for years now and only got three vax shots so far (because I barely ever leave the house and I've developed a fainting problem and anxiety in relation to a lot of situations now, I would get more shots if I could but w/e) and I haven't gotten sick yet. My father and my stepmother have gotten all of the vaccinations but my dad who leaves the house more often stopped masking after a while and he got sick and then got my stepmom sick (they live in another house separate from me). As far as I can tell masks are the only thing along with limiting exposure that actually stop spread.
It's still unclear to me that we should expect continuous reinfection with additive impact (eg, continuously losing olfactory function after each infection, as you say). That sounds fairly speculative.
It both doesn't work, and if it did it would be net negative. Masks protect others from your spit, they don't protect you. If you are not ill and generating airborne spit the mask is useless
Masking at height of pandemic was possibly warranted. Masking in the summer of 2024 without medical reason to do so is weird. I feel no shame from your emotionally driven judgements, and instead shame you for trying to push your beliefs over others liberties.
Everyone should have a medical reason to be masking still. If you are alive then you don't want to get this! You know Long COVID? Do you know chicken pox? Do you know what shingles are? There are going to be a lot of things that we don't know that happens to a human who gets COVID even once let alone multiple times.
Other than a few weeks of feeling tired one time, I've never actually managed to test positive. This is after living in new york for the past four years.
Anyone else had this experience? The only palpable side-effect or long-lasting effect has been increased noise sensitivity, tinitus in one ear seemingly out of nowhere and now I have mild exima which never was an issue in years past.