rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

as far as i know stet and i have it. anyone else?

Saturday 28 March
During the day i started feeling that classic tingly 'emergency' feeling that accompanies pretty much any fever. i had a scheduled aperatif/hangout at 7:15 with my wife's family, about a dozen of them shouting over the top of each other for an hour. my wife also said she didn't feel good, so we PRETENDED to drink by pouring some kombucha into wine glasses. it wasn't so bad.

by the time i was ready for bed i had a proper fever - 38.3C (101F). that night was terrible. classic delirium dreams. i was one of many little bundles or hashmarks that needed to be grouped and lined up inside a large pen somewhere in westminster. it was my job to do the grouping and lining up, and i was also one of the hashmarks. i tried every combination. it never was right. i woke up maybe 4 times and always returned to this same anxiety dream. my body ached. it was hard to get back to sleep.

Sunday 29 March
toast was bitter. coffee was horrible. i started coughing. not a lot, and it never felt violent, but it was there. i ached all over. in the afternoon i slept, which was massively helpful. after that i even started to feel okay.

my wife having similar symptoms to me, but milder. little or no fever, and less aches.

i went for a walk (allowed under NHS guidelines) keeping well away from everyone and feeling like the angel of death. as i walked i could smell something. it was persistent. extremely recognisable yet very unusual. i could smell it wherever i went. once i got back home i could still smell it. i finally figured it out. burning hair. since then i haven't smelled it.

another symptom began: little pain flashes at the base of my skull lasting for no more than a second or two. right side, left side, at random. no trouble breathing. but chest feeling tight and a bit... hollowed out sort of. there is some serious shit happening in there. prefer not to know.

whole family watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was WAY more trash than i had remembered. still kinda fun.

i started to feel even better. by this time i'd started taking paracetemol right up to the max dosage each day (2x 500mg tablets three times a day) and kind of trying to game it so that it would take effect at the ideal time but not put me over my limit. felt better going to bed.

Monday 30 March
night absolutely awful. worst yet. woke up needing to pee and couldn't go back to sleep for maybe 2 hrs because of the aches. finally realising i was being an idiot and should just take some paracetemol. did so, got to sleep in 10 minutes. some untold time later wake up absolutely DRENCHED. hanes beefy T just wet through. changes clothes.

realise there is an eerie resemblance between how i feel in the mornings and how i might feel after an almighty speed bender. metallic taste in mouth, insides feel totally used up and squeezed out, flashes of pain in head. strong urges to pee that result in very little.

actually take a shower and change into real clothes to try to feel more normal. it kind of works! and guess what - it's a homeschool day!

somehow my wife and i manage my kids through a few online classes, set them up with some videogames and lunch, are incredibly irritable towards each other and the kids. after the kids are in bed we have a big talk and apologise to each other.

Tuesday 31 March
new night strategy: keep two paracetemol by the bed and take as soon as i wake up in the middle of the night. IT WORKS. more or less. i basically sleep through. rise at 8:30 feeling like shit but at least i slept.

the first of several grocery drop-offs arrives courtesy of a neighbourhood friend. the lovely Emma B feels significantly worse and i'm about the same. we're basically holding steady. no shortness of breath is what i'm holding onto.

it turns out one of my bosses at work had it right before we were all told to work from home and it took him 15 days to come out of it. he urged me in a text message to completely disconnect from work for at least 3-4 days and get better. that's what i'm doing.

as i'm writing this my kids are playing PS4 and my wife is in bed.

i fully intend for this to be as bad as it gets. i'm not drinking alcohol at all. i'm having like a half a cup of coffee a day (as opposed to my usual 3-4). it tastes nasty now anyway. drinking lots of water. getting to bed around 11pm.

whole family watched Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol which was WAY more trash than i had remembered.

(get well soon stet and tracer obv)

Seconded.

(Big Star's) Thirded

Sounds horrible TH, hope that’s as bad as it gets & you both get better soon.

the most amazing part, which i had completely forgotten, goes something like this:

cruise: 'you're an analyst?'

renner: 'that's right'

cruise: 'pen'

renner: 'excuse me?'

cruise, more pettily: 'give me a pen!'

renner gives cruise a ballpoint pen. cruise then starts drawing on his own palm with the pen. as he's drawing, he's talking. cruise: 'if you're such a hot shot analyst, i'm looking for a european male, mid-50s, blue eyes, looks like this' and then cruise HOLDS UP HIS PALM to show him the BALLPOINT SKETCH and renner says...

'well.. it's crude sketch, but it could be...' and pinpoints the exact dude, rattling off the guy's postdoctoral degrees

xpost lol thanks all

feel better tracer! and stet!

yes but had you any criticisms of this perfect movie or were you just going to detail its awesomeness

I didn't think I had seen this movie but now that you described the scene, I have totally seen it.

Get well!

Good luck Tracer! Judging by your post it sounds like your kids are just bowling through this without any ill-effects at all, which I guess is both a blessing and a curse right now?

Good luck & get well soon, Tracer & stet & families and any other ilxors with bugs to report!

and thanks for the symptoms diary, it's interesting to have an idea what to expect (or not)...

take care TH (and stet, and yr respective households), good to hear you've been able to function on some level during the day

Matt: bingo

tbh the thing i’m almost dreading more than contracting the ‘rona is trying to look after a 21-month-old while feeling like hammered shit for a week or more

Get well, this is riveting 'rona-blogging

from what i understand stet is much further along in this. would be interesting to see to what extent our experiences line up.

Ilxor stevie had it too iirc, but I think he's out the other side now

!!! i did not know

Get well sooon, tracer.

Very best wishes to both of you.

i hope you all get well soon xx

the most alarming symptom i’ve heard about so far tbh

― a struggle to make meat-snacking fit (bizarro gazzara), Tuesday, March 31, 2020 8:17 AM (eight hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Well loss of taste is a common symptom

roasted

lol

a+

I mention this just to cheer you up, Tracer Hand (hoping you find humour in such things): I was going to post on that first-ILX-mention thread, so I looked up "coronavirus," and, well, I'm sure you can guess the rest.

rona moved in: ilx0rs with the bug report on their progress

Huh? Wrong link.

'Professor Wickramasinghe admits there is no hard evidence for his theory; and researchers who have been working on Sars reacted with a mixture of disbelief and ridicule.
There is nothing strange about the Sars coronavirus, they said; it certainly evolved from other known viruses.

One leading expert said Professor Wickramasinghe's letter "must be a joke"; another said it is simply ridiculous.'

surely it is the Professor's name that is the joke here?!@@

― Tracer Hand (tracerhand), Friday, May 23, 2003 11:59 AM (sixteen years ago) bookmarkflaglink

http://www.asiantribune.com/files/images/Chandra1%20-%20Chandra%20Wickramasinghe_0.jpg

Wow!

I am ashamed of making fun of what at this remove I now consider a rather brilliant, grand and gnarly name. :/

Also if that be he, he is clearly A Dude

And he is claiming extraterrestrial origins of coronaviruses to this day.

Unfortunate joke. I was reminded of how, 25-30 years ago, when my friends and I came across someone with an unwieldy name we would exclaim "Gesundheit!" As kids this just seemed silly, but now I have to wonder if it ever came across as racist.

pigs! in! space!

Wednesday 1 April
Best night yet. I didn’t need my emergency paracetemol.

Two massive naps today. Worryingly, Paul comes down with a 103F fever and sleeps for hours as well.

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation on the teevee with the kids. Goodness me what a movie. The opera scene. The ‘water torus’ scene. The car chase in Morocco. Kidnaping the Prime Minister. The final cat-and-mouse shootout / knife fight among the foggy alleyways of Tower Hill. The delicious conclusion. Best MI hands down imo.

Appetite still good (though still no sense of smell) and breathing still fine.

Thursday 2 April
Rocky night. However Paul has woken up in a great mood, and no fever.

Went for a longish walk today with the lovaly Emma B. Made avologmeno for lunch and was then attacked by a headache the ferocity of which I have probably never felt before in my life. It wasn’t all-encompassing like a migraine but it somehow felt worse - it was sudden, implacable, vice-like, a heavy boot holding me down. Utterly defenseless. Slept three hours in the afternoon and the boot was still there when I woke up.

Managed to rouse myself for dinner, read to the kids before bed.

In some ways this is maybe the worst day so far. Just flattened. Currently watching Pitch Perfect, which is exactly my speed. Head still throbbing. I’ve heard that people can really take a nose-dive in the second week and I hope this isn’t the beginning of that.

fingers crosse tracer, i hadnt seen migraine as a common symptom but i have where possible just been avoiding too much of that reporting tbh

heartened that yr MI taste is back, that is indeed the best of them

Sorry you’re going through this!

Thanks for keeping everyone informed, I'm sure it's a struggle.

best wishes to you both

Best wishes to you both.

<3 <3 <3 <3

<<<<3333

Damn Tracer, hang in there.

,

fuck, tracer. get well soon. and thanks for keeping us updated here - this sort of thing really helpful (and dare i say it interesting)

Get well soon. Hope it does mean you can't get it again at least.

<3 Tracer all the best to you and family. thanks for posting your updates. what fizzles just said.

Hold tight Tracer. Honestly this sounds like a real motherfucker, something especially cruel about the way it seems to trick everyone into thinking they're improving for a bit before finding new and more horrific ways to brutalise them.

take care man, I've heard this latest variant can be nasty

The cultural weight of covid is kind of surreal, because at least here there *is* a flu test, but afaict one of the main reasons to get a flu test is to ... rule out covid, lol.

I mean it should still hit a little different than the others. It is different in that it has so many effects on so many systems of the body (esp the vascular stuff). IMO we still wanna avoid catching this fucker if we can!

Our family got hit with something and we can’t figure out what it is. At first the kids got it and then a week later the wife and I got it. Started with a tender area of skin, 2-3” in diameter, and the faintest rash. Not really a rash, you wouldn’t notice it at a glance. My daughter’s was on her inner thigh, mine was on my left side, wife’s on the back of her neck. Anything rubbing against this area was really irritating, the skin was hyper sensitive, almost raw but not. After a few hours this went away.

The next day we were really tired, like the onset of mono but it never got feverish or achey. Slight nasal drip, glands slightly swollen. Kids were tested for flu, strep,
covid, all negative. Wife and I tested for covid: negative. After a few days of extreme fatigue, it would get better for a few days and come back. I’m coming out of my third wave and I hope it’s fucking done.

The next day we were tired

Hmm. I know it's been a really bad couple of weeks for allergies and mold, but that does not sound like allergies. Everything you describe sounds viral, from the symptoms to the duration. There are a lot of other cooties out there besides covid and the flu.

It's kind of strange how covid is now both just another flu and somehow apart from all the other bugs because of

…the 10% chance of notable or significant damage to cardiac, cognitive, or other organ functions, doubling with every re-infection? Yeah pretty strange, seems too insignificant to note.

Wife and I tested for covid: negative.

PCR tests at a clinic?

Why the skepticism?

the 10% chance of notable or significant damage to cardiac, cognitive, or other organ functions, doubling with every re-infection?

Wait, wut?

Skepticism about what?

Sometimes you have a posting style that casts doubt on what a poster wrote.

Ain't THAT the truth.

JiC: https://medicine.washu.edu/news/repeat-covid-19-infections-increase-risk-of-organ-failure-death/

Why the skepticism?

― The Luda of Suburbia (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Tuesday, September 30, 2025 2:13 AM (ten hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

I didn't take sic's post this way— I took it as "hey, at-home tests don't always catch Covid, was it a PCR?"

I don't know that I want to claim 'long covid' but since I had it in April 2024, I have had a productive cough in the shower EVERY morning, coughing up some lung butter and spitting it down the drain, like a minute or so of hacking... I don't smoke, and I this was not the case before that bout

I suppose it could be caused by wildfire smoke but that would ebb from time to time

xxpost Hmm, that study is from three years ago, and nowhere does it say a 10% chance of all those terrible things, or that that number doubles with each reinfection. There have been at this point probably close to a billion people globally that have caught Covid at least once (reportedly more than 700 million as of year and a half ago), and millions of those that have caught it multiple times. Obviously it's best not to get it, but you'd think if there were a clear link to notable or significant damage to cardiac, cognitive, or other organ functions we'd have more, and more up to date, evidence, given the number of people that have had Covid. I hope not!

Josh, I've been reading the same stats for the last four years. I don't have percentages, but, yes, there are studies showing neurological and cardiac damage.

I just finished The Great Influenza. What made the 1918 flu epidemic so catastrophic was the violent pneumonia that flattened patients before killing them, especially the young and healthy. COVID, while not influenza virus, has its own pathologies.

xpost I believe it! But the number sic cited (and he's good at citation) is 10%, which is huge, and he said that number doubles with each infection, which is doubly huge.

xp just heard somewhere that the U.S. lost more soldiers in WWI from the flu than combat deaths

Not that anecdotes mean anything, but a friend of a friend just dropped dead at home from a pulmonary embolism, secondary cause was the Covid he had two weeks before.

well my GF just texted that she tested positive.. she was feeling kinda crummy yesterday morning

I stayed over Fri/Sat and we went to a wedding on Saturday... with a reception dinner in a small, poorly ventilated pub (the pelican inn at muir beach)

It is what it is.. I just got a booster about two weeks ago, so I'm not tripping... she just feels guilty for not testing before the wedding (she wasn't feeling any symptoms on Saturday). Fortunately there were not any really old grandparents there, it was mostly younger people

I'm just gonna hang tight and then maybe test in a day or two

I didn't take sic's post this way— I took it as "hey, at-home tests don't always catch Covid, was it a PCR?"

Yes, this is it — even before lack of containment led to rampant mutation, home tests were prone enough to false negatives that secondary testing and 24 & 48-hour follow-ups were advisable. Then US RATs fell behind European in both sensitivity and shifting variants. If the Cow family had advised that eg. they’d done a single test each with free USPS iHealth RATs that were past expiry, I would have tailored advice in response.

are there any free test kits being mailed out anymore?

I think I have one left in the cupboard

(nevermind, there's four tests in the box)

ah man I've been to the Pelican Inn - people always recommended it if I was homesick and wanted a British pub. I had a sore throat yesterday and dug out some tests that were just in date - negative luckily.

I mean I haven't been there in about 15 years so I didn't test due to that post :)

the bartender was telling me all the UK beers they can't get anymore, the distributor doesn't wanna deal with the tariffs

gutted :(

I tested positive this morning. I've had a stuffy nose since Friday, I think, so decided, heck, might as well test, the tests don't stay good forever, and indeed, fwiw the home test best-by date was about two years ago, but it gave me such clear, fast positive results I assume it's accurate. No sneezing, no coughing, no aches, no fever. Just a stuffy nose and a bit of a headache today. Maybe the mild symptoms are because I got my booster just a few weeks back.

ugh good luck, Josh

Oof I’ve had what I think are allergies (minor sore throat, some stuffiness) the last couple days but only have two good tests left. It’s been very dry here in the Mis-Atlantic and that always affects me.

Good luck Josh and family

And yeah, that's the only reason I tested. I don't have allergies, but that's sort of what my mild symptoms felt like, so after a few days of said mild symptoms I figured, well, might as well test. Thanks for the well-wishes, knock wood it doesn't progress any more than this mild stuff.

I just noticed my tests expired in 2024 but based on your results, I imagine they're still good

I don't feel any symptoms at all so I'm just gonna let it ride for now, we'll see if that changes

Some tests had their expiration dates extended, the FDA website would have a list with the new expiration dates

Maybe the mild symptoms are because I got my booster just a few weeks back.

I didn't, but I had it last month and it was very mild. Just a day of fatigue and then a few days of minor cold symptoms.

I don’t know how my wife and I still have not gotten this (****as far as we know!!****) but we are still strategically cautious, depending on the situation.

I caught an asymptomatic case exactly three years ago and dat's dat -- and since 2023 I've been footloose except in high-crowd scenarios.

I had two confirmed cases (i.e. with testing) but also a curious illness in March 2020 that was very likely covid. I was taking CalTrain a lot on the SFBay Peninsula and I think U.S. Patient Zero was in Santa Clara or somewhere like that... the symptoms were the same as the later confirmed cases, with explosive D being the "Hey! I'm here!" calling card

I think now they know that it may have been in the U.S. as early as Dec 2019 but was misdiagnosed as other things

As far as I can tell this is my third confirmed case. I, too, probably had it March 2020 - lost sense of smell for a couple of days, before anyone knew it was a symptom, and later tested positive for antibodies when I donated blood. I had it again maybe some time in 2022 as well. That is, I know I had it, tested positive for it, but can't remember exactly when. I feel like the second time was the only time with a fever (briefly), though still only mild symptoms; I also took a dose of Paxlovid then. This time, I think I started getting stuffy around Friday? The test line was pretty dramatically present this morning, but if I've been sick for 4-5 days I assume it is already waning. Sudafed and Tylenol this AM knocked out any symptoms. If I didn't know I had covid right now I would have no reason to suspect I had covid.

Can't describe it exactly but there's a sharp nasal feeling I associate with having COVID (never lost my sense of smell thankfully...3x for me too, all pretty mild).

I did have the 'flavor dysphoria' thing in one of my cases... things tasting weird & gross, like garbage

I managed to pass through the peak of COVID without ever catching it, or indeed any other flu or cold-like illnesses at all, despite having to submit periodic swabs as part of my job which would presumably have picked up an asymptomatic infection. As far as I can tell I still haven't caught it, or if I did catch it the symptoms were undetectable.

As mentioned passim I visited Hong Kong and Shenzhen in October 2019. I sailed off to a couple of islands, did a bit of hiking, browsed the huge multi-story shop just across the Hong Kong / Shenzhen border, visited a theme park in Shenzhen, even a wet market. But so did lots of other people, and Shenzhen is five hundred miles away from Wuhan. I remember feeling strangely woozy after coming back, but that was probably just jet lag.

Perhaps I picked up something vaguely related to COVID that helped. But if that was the case Hong Kong would have sailed through the COVID pandemic unscathed. And yet it did do exceptionally well with the first wave - by the end of April 2020 Hong Kong had had just over 1,000 cases vs 171,253 in the UK, although obviously they're very different sizes (it would be more relevant to compare Hong Kong with London, but I can't find separate data for London). And yet that was because Hong Kong was managed more firmly than the UK, so who knows.

I'm reminded that Boris Johnson was in intensive care after catching COVID during the early phase. For a brief moment it was possible to imagine that he might have learned something from it and become more humble. It was as if God gave him a learning experience, and he totally ignored it.

Same with Trump! I remember it was announced that he had it and I was going on a three day camping trip in a remote part of the Catskills— it was a sweet few days off grid, imagining Trump dead

took a test: negative... a friend offered me a ticket to see Múm tomorrow night so I figured I better confirm I'm okay

But the line was very faint and the liquid was more like a foam, it was hard to drop into the test strip.. but I don't have any real symptoms, I feel as crap as normal.. GF took some paxlovid which she said kinda kicked her ass, almost more than the covid

its crazy that any cold or allergies appear and my first thought is, fuck is this Covid again? At one point I think I had done like 8 negative tests in a 2 year period. But for me, there's a fatigue level and an odd food-tastes-like-nothing feeling that are the tells. A little embarrassing but I have to admit I never got shots beyond the first three, and part of that is the guarantee I'd be sicker the next day than most of the days I actually had Covid....

I get a free flu jab though my job (UK). went to the pharmacy to get it and saw a sign saying private covid jabs are available for £85! I've long thought private covid jabs should be available but did not expect them to be that much.

I think older and more (even mildly) vulnerable people still get them free which is probably worthwhile.

that's 15 less than a friend paid.

i got my traditional birthday flu jab recently and it was £25, up 5 quid from last year. (the two years before that were free)

and yes my parents, uncles are forever at the doctor's this time of year for free jabs, flu, COVID, shingles or that other generic sounding respiratory disease (respiratory syncytial virus (RSV)).

I tested negative yesterday morning, Friday. Never had any symptoms really worse than a stuffy nose. Maybe that's because I am up to date with my vaccines.