I have had a dozen friends and family die from COVID19. I read the opinions of several AAC members that are inconsistent with my personal experience. I have to ask why these people are not empathetic to the victims of the pandemic Why they personally refuse to acknowledge what I see. If you had12 friends and family die suddenly, would you still refute what you saw?

I can't speak for anyone else. I'm asking for personal experiences because those are the only thing I trust anymore. Thank you for providing yours. I am sorry for your losses. If it's not too painful, can you say how old they were and where they lived?

 

I guess my answer covers #2 ...

So you know several who have died? Do you mind providing ages and locations?

Do you know anyone who was hospitalized but didn't die?

 

Where have you been hiding?
People don't have face-to-face conversation anymore. It's mask-to-mask!

I've been hiding in my daily life, where people still have face to face conversations. Masks are only worn in stores. People get sick, stay home for a week or two and come back just like they always have. I don't know anyone who knows anyone who has been hospitalized, and I ask most people I talk to.

EDIT:
the above isn't meant to imply that I "don't believe in it." Just that around here, it isn't taken as seriously as in some other places, and there doesn't seem to be any abundant evidence to indicate that it should be. And i am asking here, to uncover anything that might challenge my observations. My mind is open. I am receptive to other people's observations. Just not to "the news" or biased articles.

 

So you know several who have died? Do you mind providing ages and locations?

Do you know anyone who was hospitalized but didn't die?

1. I know firsthand of an entire family that got sick, and none died, thankfully. As expected, the parents (in their late forties) were the worst hit, but they managed and didn't have to be hospitalized. Of their three kids, their 19 year old son, and 17 year old daughter experienced mild symptoms, but their 15 year old son went through it asymptomatic.
2. Then there was the case of the uncle of a friend of mine that I already told you about, who was hospitalized and eventually died. He was in his mid 70's
3. I have an aunt (about 83 years old) that lives in a home care facility where one of the residents died about a week ago. But the idiots didn't test the victim until after he died, and turned out positive. My guess is that either they were too greedy to pay for the test, or that they thought that the victim could ride out the illness on his own, or that they simply were negligent and looked the other way, hoping that this thing would miraculously go away... or all of the above... what a bunch of idiots. Now the entire residence is being disbanded for the time being. Everyone is being sent away temporarily to their families or anywhere else they can find until further notice.
   
   And of course, I've heard of many, many cases second hand. And I don't doubt that most, if not all, of them are true.

 

Does your son work at a nursing home?

No, he is high functioning although disabled and had a job at an auto parts house as their delivery driver to all the local shops. Not only did their customers completely ignore the need for facemasks and keeping their distance but they were having problems keeping anyone working due to so many getting sick and regular customers of theirs dying along with the guy who serviced their drink and snack machines. So he asked for medical leave to care for his parents (us) which was denied so he resigned. It was a "dream job" for him. And not only at work, one of his doctors has also died.

 

Do you know anyone who was hospitalized but didn't die?

I don't have good info to answer that. But here's a bit of statistics. Down here a patient has a probability of about 60% of dying if he's attended at a government sponsored hospital and is connected to a respirator.

 

I can't speak for anyone else. I'm asking for personal experiences because those are the only thing I trust anymore. Thank you for providing yours. I am sorry for your losses. If it's not too painful, can you say how old they were and where they lived?

Their ages ran from 26 to 63. They were all from the southern Boston metropolitan area.

 

Ok. Now official information had been released up to July. In my town there has been no cases. I know of no-one that had been diagnosed. My mom works at a place where one person was diagnosed, that person went through quarantine and is fine.

This is in BC, Canada.

This summer more people died of phentanyl overdose than from COVID.

I have multiple questions that will never be answered about how it is covered/presented. For example asymptomatic transmission - early symptoms of immune response kicking in often go unnoticed (sleeping more, phatigue, headache - are symptoms of a healthy immune response) - how accurate is the data? Why am I saying this? Last few years I have been much more in tune with my body. If I feel tired when I shouldnt etc, I have been taking a sick day and increasing my vitamin C intake. Since I started doing this, I have not gotten sick.

 

I have had a dozen friends and family die from COVID19. I read the opinions of several AAC members that are inconsistent with my personal experience. I have to ask why these people are not empathetic to the victims of the pandemic Why they personally refuse to acknowledge what I see. If you had12 friends and family die suddenly, would you still refute what you saw?

My older brother died during this pandemic from something other than covid-19 (root cause, long term drug abuse). I'm very empathetic to victims but emotions don't change hard facts about how to be most effective in preventing more deaths from a virus or drug abuse.

 

Their ages ran from 26 to 63. They were all from the southern Boston metropolitan area.

It seems Boston had a 'Super-Spreader' event that makes it a somewhat special case.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/25/health/covid-19-superspreading-boston-study/index.html

'An unfortunate perfect storm'
The researchers -- from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in Cambridge and other various institutions -- conducted genetic analyses of coronavirus specimen samples in Massachusetts.
...
"Many factors made the conference an unfortunate perfect storm as a superspreading event. That the virus was introduced at the conference at all was unlucky," MacInnis wrote in the email.
...
Timing was crucial. In late February, people were not yet aware of the pandemic risk.
"When it happened was critical: it was scheduled just as we were collectively beginning to appreciate the imminent threat of COVID at home--if it had been a week later the event likely would have been cancelled," MacInnis wrote in the email.
...
"This is no offense to anybody, but at that point in time, nobody was wearing masks, nobody was social distancing, nobody was even behaving with concern about the presence of the virus at all. I mean all rules of the game with respect to that have changed," Baker said. "It speaks to the power of that virus to move from one person to another to another."

https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/08/boston-superspreading-event-seeded-thousands-covid-19-cases

Tens of thousands of coronavirus infections are likely linked to a biotech conference that took place in Boston in late February, including nearly 3% of U.S. cases and 1.7% of global cases for which genetic sequences exist, The Boston Herald reports. Following the superspreading event—a management conference at the biotech firm Biogen—researchers sequenced 772 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from across Massachusetts, revealing more than 80 unique COVID-19 introductions into the Boston area, they report in a preprint posted to medRxiv this week. The characteristic mutation linked to cases contracted at the conference appeared throughout the state—and made up more than 50% of cases in an early outbreak in Boston homeless shelters. Researchers say superspreading events can differ significantly in the number of new mutations, raising the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 might encompass disparate transmission dynamics.

 

It seems France is going through a US type covid-19 cycle.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53954562

France has recorded its biggest daily rise in coronavirus infections since March, as President Emmanuel Macron raised the possibility of another nationwide lockdown.
...
France was seeing an "exponential" rise in cases, the health ministry said.

The ministry said Friday's rise follows daily increases of 6,111 on Thursday and 5,429 on Wednesday.

Despite the sharp rise, hospital numbers and daily deaths were relatively stable, as young people less vulnerable to the disease make up most of the new infections, the ministry said.

Another 20 people were confirmed to have died with Covid-19 on Friday, bringing France's overall death toll to 30,596.

 

Here are my experiences:
1. In January, before when it officially reached our shores, my wife and I both got sick with what, in retrospect, sounds exactly like the symptoms of Covid19. I have never been that sick and my lungs still don't feel 100% since then. On the day that I had decided "if I'm not improving by then, I'm going to the hospital" I started to improve. It would have been the first time I had ever gone to the ER for something that didn't involve uncontrollable blood loss. I know there are conspiracy theories surrounding when the virus actually started and I'm not saying I believe them (I don't believe anything) but I will be asking my doctor for an antibody test at my next checkup to satisfy my curiosity.

2. My nephew had a sore throat. He gets strep any time there is any kind of anything wrong with him. Sister took him to the doctor, they tested him for a few things including Covid, he tested positive for covid. Everyone freaked out, sealed themselves in the house for 2 weeks not going to work. His sore throat lasted 3 days and he had no other symptoms. Nobody else in the house got sick. 2 weeks later they went back to work, and 1 week after that, my brother in law got sick and tested positive. He had a sire throat and a bad cough for a few days, and another 2 weeks out of work. A whole month no pay and they were already struggling.

3. 4 different people I work with have gotten sick, gone home and come back 2 weeks later unwilling to discuss what they had, or making up some b.s. like "H17N1.4, 3rd cousin to bird flu, nothing to worry about."

4. Family who lives next door all got pretty ill and said they were going to get tested for covid. They never told anyone the results and change the topic when it comes up.

5. I live in a town of 1700 people. According to the latest data, 86 people have tested positive here. That's 5 out of 100. My network of 2nd hand connections surely numbers in the thousands, and I can't find anyone around here who can say that they know who those 5 in 100 are, or anyone who knows anyone who has died from it.


I cannot reconcile my observations with what is reported from news sources. I can't find anyone locally who can. The stories told so far in this conversation are the closest I've gotten to shattering my operating theory that this is a slightly-nastier-than-the-flu virus and not black death.

 

It seems France is going through a US type covid-19 cycle.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53954562

In BC we have had quite thw rise in cases in August. The number hospitilized is low as the people affected are mostly those in their 20s. The government is finally revising stats that they are releasing - it appears they will be releasing numbers by location. We have had a shitty summer and not a lot of cases. I am not sure what people expected, the young and healthy to saccrifice for the old and infirm?

Similarly with the long lasting effects of COVID. Is no one aware that you get those with the flu as well?

 

I cannot reconcile my observations with what is reported from news sources. I can't find anyone locally who can. The stories told so far in this conversation are the closest I've gotten to shattering my operating theory that this is a slightly-nastier-than-the-flu virus and not black death.

It's not 'Black Death' to the general population. If you're 65+ the risk starts to increase nearly exponentially with age.

 

Here are my experiences:
1. In January, before when it officially reached our shores, my wife and I both got sick with what, in retrospect, sounds exactly like the symptoms of Covid19. I have never been that sick and my lungs still don't feel 100% since then. On the day that I had decided "if I'm not improving by then, I'm going to the hospital" I started to improve. It would have been the first time I had ever gone to the ER for something that didn't involve uncontrollable blood loss. I know there are conspiracy theories surrounding when the virus actually started and I'm not saying I believe them (I don't believe anything) but I will be asking my doctor for an antibody test at my next checkup to satisfy my curiosity.

2. My nephew had a sore throat. He gets strep any time there is any kind of anything wrong with him. Sister took him to the doctor, they tested him for a few things including Covid, he tested positive for covid. Everyone freaked out, sealed themselves in the house for 2 weeks not going to work. His sore throat lasted 3 days and he had no other symptoms. Nobody else in the house got sick. 2 weeks later they went back to work, and 1 week after that, my brother in law got sick and tested positive. He had a sire throat and a bad cough for a few days, and another 2 weeks out of work. A whole month no pay and they were already struggling.

3. 4 different people I work with have gotten sick, gone home and come back 2 weeks later unwilling to discuss what they had, or making up some b.s. like "H17N1.4, 3rd cousin to bird flu, nothing to worry about."

4. Family who lives next door all got pretty ill and said they were going to get tested for covid. They never told anyone the results and change the topic when it comes up.

5. I live in a town of 1700 people. According to the latest data, 86 people have tested positive here. That's 5 out of 100. My network of 2nd hand connections surely numbers in the thousands, and I can't find anyone around here who can say that they know who those 5 in 100 are, or anyone who knows anyone who has died from it.


I cannot reconcile my observations with what is reported from news sources. I can't find anyone locally who can. The stories told so far in this conversation are the closest I've gotten to shattering my operating theory that this is a slightly-nastier-than-the-flu virus and not black death.

To reply to your observarions, as early as last year, there were multiple flu like illenesses in our region (i work at a hospital) that tested negative for seasonal flu so no one new what they were exactly. They were difficult to shake off. The Wuhan version of ground zero is not possible and I am not sure they will figure out the origin of this thing. Fear is not the way to go though

 

It's not 'Black Death' to the general population. If you're 65+ the risk starts to increase nearly exponentially with age.

Understood. If that's how it's being reported now, then something has changed since I tuned out.

 

Understood. If that's how it's being reported now, then something has changed since I tuned out.

The truth is US deaths are falling even faster than total new cases.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm


https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/new-cases

 

The truth is US deaths are falling even faster than total new cases.

Unless you live in Iowa - https://usafacts.org/visualizations/coronavirus-covid-19-spread-map/state/iowa

 

Do you know anyone who was hospitalized but didn't die?

My wife's kidney doctor. He got it and was hospitalized for a week, but is at home and quarantined now. Luckily she is on home dialysis and he since the outbreak has been doing "phone appointments" with patients like her. The clinic is now divided into two sections, with no one allowed to go between them. One for the home patients and one for the ones getting treatment in clinic. Most of those patients are in nursing homes and that is where the doc got the virus from.

 

Big problems at FDA concerning the over hype of convalescent plasma. https://www.usnews.com/news/nationa...y-miller-ousted-following-blood-plasma-fumble