tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post7929921503639946655..comments2024-03-28T21:56:51.675-04:00Comments on Face to Face: Reflections on getting COVID in April 2020agnostichttp://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comBlogger5125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-84970196706701343922021-06-07T17:05:43.798-04:002021-06-07T17:05:43.798-04:00It wasn't a mistake to act that way in March /...It wasn't a mistake to act that way in March / April 2020, when little was known -- at least, among us peons in the general public.<br /><br />Novel pathogen to humans, respiratory, kicking people's ass, mode of transmission unclear (again, to us). Made sense to take extra precaution until matters became clearer, as a short-term thing (not an indefinite state).<br /><br />I was out of the house by May or June, whenever things opened up again. Did wear the mask, like everyone else, not necessarily because I thought it was working but because it was the condition for getting to go back to public places again.<br /><br />But after that explosion in the fall/winter, it was clear they weren't doing anything, so I started to wear it less, then stopped altogether in April.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-86710086764750174942021-06-07T03:44:05.695-04:002021-06-07T03:44:05.695-04:00Haha, it’s hard to imagine you (as you come across...Haha, it’s hard to imagine you (as you come across on this blog) going all Howard Hughes like that! At least you’ve learned from your mistakes, which is more than most people have managed.Wm Jas Tychonievichhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07446790072877463982noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-44555422405957742082021-05-29T01:34:40.044-04:002021-05-29T01:34:40.044-04:00This was also the first time in 10 years that I ha...This was also the first time in 10 years that I had gotten sick. I normally don't even get colds or flus (not since high school, anyway). Or if I did get exposed, I didn't come down with symptoms.<br /><br />All of a sudden, WHAMMO. Bed-ridden for days. Definitely something new and out of the ordinary, hence more reason to assume it was COVID.<br /><br />But then, this thing is twice as contagious as the flu (R0 of 4 vs. 2), so even if your health and immune system is good enough to avoid colds and flus, it won't necessarily stand up to COVID.<br /><br />That cuts the other way, for the failed protocols -- something that might reduce flu transmission might fail pathetically against COVID (like masks).agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-9370081988159461092021-05-28T20:39:00.382-04:002021-05-28T20:39:00.382-04:00COVID is not an STD, so gays spreading STDs more t...COVID is not an STD, so gays spreading STDs more than lesbians is irrelevant.<br /><br />Gays being less puritanical about hygiene is also irrelevant, since it's not bad hygiene practices that spread COVID.<br /><br />The only gay online I've heard of getting it is Jack the Perfume Nationalist, who is pretty outside the norm of gays in other ways. Whereas Heather Habsburg is a fairly representative lesbian.<br /><br />Again, if it were a gay or gay-adjacent thing, 90% of the Red Scare podcast subreddit would have war stories and battle scars about having gotten COVID -- or at least having several members of their social circle getting it -- especially considering how many of them live in the two epicenters of NYC and LA.<br /><br />I don't have hard data on it, and you'd need to control for other factors. It's just a hunch from how absent it seems to be from the very girls-and-gays sectors of online world, aside from my lads-and-lesbians comrade Heather Habsburg.<br /><br />Severe dehydration did eventually get listed on the symptoms of COVID, but I think it's more common in "young" people (under 60/70), so was not emphasized early on.agnostichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12967177967469961883noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-19346366.post-55620948342267324972021-05-28T15:55:51.861-04:002021-05-28T15:55:51.861-04:00"It also makes me wonder whether lesbians lik..."It also makes me wonder whether lesbians like Heather were more likely to get it than gays"<br />Gays are notorious for spreading disease around in a way lesbians aren't. I know some of that is related to a specific act associated with one rather than the other, but it was part of a broader reckless disregard for hygiene & health in gay culture which remained for a surprisingly long time in the face of its terrible consequences. And even after AIDS has become treatable, my understanding is that their lifespan is still significantly shorter (possibly related to their higher rates of drug use) and a number of STDs are vastly more common among them (particularly now that many use PrEP as an excuse not to use condoms).<br /><br />"After 2-3 days of not even being able to drink a cup of water, let alone eat food"<br />I don't think I'd heard of that symptom. It does make sense that we hear less about the less extreme cases where breathing isn't the big problem.TGGPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11017651009634767649noreply@blogger.com