outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I've been dealing with (what I hope are) brutal allergies since it warmed up around here. Had 3 tests in 3 days, all negative, but still can't shake the feeling I might be sick. :(

I know the feeling. The ways bodies respond to allergens is pretty hard to distinguish from how it responds to pathogens. At least the 3 negatives indicate whatever you're sick from, it's probably not covid.

there's a bad cold still going around, apparently

but agreed on the upper midwest allergy season having started

here too in phill

pollen in Florida has been in the 'high' category consistently for months, my car looks like Big Bird dry humped it. so both of my best friends and my mother have sounded like they have actual seaweed in their sinuses for about three months. i have to imagine if any of them did get a virus (COVID or otherwise), they'd have a hard time knowing it for days because they're already experiencing daily symptoms that feel like a cold.

I had a sinus infection a few weeks ago myself - the doctor thought it was a virus, I think it may have been a bacterial infection that had lingered for a month or so and just finally got worse enough for me to notice. wound up taking about 6 covid tests all negative. my body temp had been elevated for four weeks and I had attributed it to my exercise regimen but my body temp has returned to normal consistently since that infection disappeared so apparently not.

just soooo much going around rn.

I've had two bouts of relatively extreme allergy-seeming def not COVID or sinus infection sicknesses in the last 2 or 3 months. I figure it's results of COVID plus climate change plus we're all going to die.

I still have a lingering post-nasal drip causing cough that wakes me up in the middle of the night and makes me sit up and sometimes reach for a cough drop before going back to sleep, a longstanding habit I'm not a fan of because I'm sure one day I'll choke on a cough drop while sleeping and that's it.

I was hanging with a friend in Brooklyn last week and his allergies were so bad I thought he was going to fall right over. Just this persistent dry cough, no other symptoms. when he finally relented and started taking medicine it got better.

The ongoing road construction near my home may mercifully be finished now, but not all of the grass has grown back and dry, windy conditions mean I have a little dust storm outside. An entire side of my house is filthy, and I'm assuming all of the dust has been giving me some sinus issues

I was recently in San Francisco and was quite taken aback / fascinated by the contrast with regard to mask use compared with most places in Europe. It was startlingly high in SF in comparison with here.

Where I live the number of people currently wearing masks is very, very low, verging on non existent. Today I walked through the city centre and don’t think I saw a single person wearing one. Even among the significant population of Chinese students here who at one time had 99.9% adherence, even outdoors, it is dwindling away. At gigs and even at my local art house cinema where one might expect to see higher usage it is also almost non existent and the same applies to public transport.

On buses in SF mask use seemed particularly high and I notice the messaging on the buses recommended wearing them. So, I am curious if the high number of people wearing them there is down to public messaging, which here has gone completely? Is there a political dimension too? Here it was never really much of a political issue (outside of a small number of anti-mask freaks).

Practically no one wears them in Miami. When one of 50 students in my class wears a mask, I question whether they're coming sick with COVID to class.

Masks are still all over the place here in Cambridge, Mass. I'm even seeing people wearing them driving alone in cars, biking along the river, etc.

Oddly I’ve also noticed a sizable uptick in people wearing masks outdoors as well. Although, per allergy discussion, maybe are hoping for some mitigation there?

Masks are pretty rare in Austin, TX

Iirc masks may sometimes exacerbate allergies, because they trap pollen? And of course eyes remain exposed.

Seems kind of ad hoc here. I use my local Trader Joe's staff as a barometer. Sometimes some are masking, sometimes most aren't, sometimes most are, etc. Wherever I go, though - stores, airports, airplanes, buses, trains, sporting events, concerts, restaurants - the overwhelming majority are unmasked, perhaps because they (we) are more comfortable with the risks and will (hopefully) be responsible and stay home should symptoms arise.

Yeah I’m just trying to imagine reasons for seeing more masked folks outside these past few weeks.

On buses in SF mask use seemed particularly high and I notice the messaging on the buses recommended wearing them. So, I am curious if the high number of people wearing them there is down to public messaging, which here has gone completely? Is there a political dimension too? Here it was never really much of a political issue (outside of a small number of anti-mask freaks).

― stirmonster, Thursday, April 13, 2023 11:54 AM (one hour ago)

Hey stirry, long time no chat. :-P

In SF, my family wear masks on public transit and in crowded places/situations. Although there is a small uptick in COVID right now, there are a ton of other nasty bugs going around (flu, sinus infections, conjunctivitus, shingles even!). Better to avoid that.

We also recently traveled abroad (not to Glasgow sadly) and were happy to see masking in places that were most troublesome (airports, public transit, etc). Although I was not surprised to learn my cedar pollen allergy is still incredibly impairing.

My dad used to wear an N95 mask sometimes during allergy season pre-COVID. Looked weird as heck, but guess it wouldn't draw a second look now.

I was recently in San Francisco

Hey wait, you shoulda said something!

Mr. Shasta elaborates my current approach, though generally I just wear mine indoors, period.

Noticed masking in SF was better than say Cleveland, when comparing the two times I’ve left NYC. It’s us liberals.

yes, i think it's you liberals.

Hey wait, you shoulda said something!

it was a flying visit.

We also recently traveled abroad (not to Glasgow sadly) and were happy to see masking in places that were most troublesome (airports, public transit, etc).

i rarely see it on my European travels so happy to hear it is still happening in places. And hey, long time indeed!

Was in the South Bay/San Jose a month or so ago and the difference in masking there compared to southeast WI is probably 10-15x as prevalent.

Seattle is still at about 40-50% masking in supermarkets and on public transport ime (though the free surgical mask dispensers on buses and trains are no longer restocked daily), eleven months after the mandate was dropped.

Various businesses still request mask wearing and supply them at the door.

Our two indie-est arthouse cinemas still require them; the smallest (60-ish seats) is planning to switch to masks-required and masks-optional screenings if spring ever happens.

But I went to a suburban mall (20-30 minutes across the lake) for the first time in four years last week, and saw about 2% masking, only on 70+ year old whites with walkers or 50+ year-old asian ladies.

And I made the mistake of catching the train home from work at 6pm a couple of Fridays ago, when baseball, soccer and ice hockey all had opening games at the stadia and arena near my flat: that knocks the statistics straight through the floor, from park-and-riders.

the smallest (60-ish seats) is planning

Last summer they were running two three-foot-tall air filters in the theatre, roped off the seats that didn't have any flow from the aircon, and propped open a door to the patio with a box fan.

I see a couple masks a week

Was in Seattle a couple of weeks ago, and yeah, maybe noticed a bit more than I see around here? Not much, though, iirc.

not as many as I would like to see in the PNW either

One major difference between then and now is that o don’t feel major rage/panic at the amount of unmasked people.

*i

I guess I missed that they were assigning fun names to subvariants too, there are a load of articles popping up on my phone about this new strain that was spreading in India (& is now in the UK) but now they are all calling it ARCTURUS instead of XB153.25546 or whatever

From a Forbes article dated March 31:

From reported sequences, we know that the variant has also been spotted in the U.S.—in California, New Jersey, Virginia, Texas, Washington, New York, Illinois, Minnesota, Georgia, Florida, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Nevada, Indiana, North Carolina, Louisiana, and Delaware, to be precise.

A descendant variant, XBB.1.16.1, has also been seen in Nebraska, Missouri, and Michigan.

i am surprised slightly at the lack of fuss about this, from 2 days ago, given that it puts the cat amongst the pigeons

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-65321937

"The death of a psychologist after his Oxford-AstraZeneca Covid-19 jab was due to "unintended complications of the vaccine", an inquest has ruled."

Shhh!

Human brains are comprehensively better at math than any other kind of brain we've studied. Heck, we can count past a hundred! But most humans are still amazingly bad at using math to understand probabilities.

A descendant variant, XBB.1.16.1, has also been seen in Nebraska, Missouri, and Michigan.

I misread this as "a decadent variant."

Well, yeah.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-65358308

There is no evidence that shielding benefited vulnerable people during the Covid pandemic, according to a study.
Swansea University compared 117,000 people shielding in Wales with the rest of the population of three million.
The study found deaths and healthcare usage were higher among shielding people than the general population.

Hmmm

You aren’t exactly comparing like populations here so surely higher deaths & healthcare usage to be expected anyway? But if infections weren’t lower in the shielding population that’s interesting/depressing (tho again the article says ppl would have picked it up at hospitals which makes sense)

speaking of: in the United States we're down to our lowest daily death rate since March 2020.

Meantime, still in double digits at my hospital in terms of patients admitted and in care. It's dipped into singles here and there this year but never completely gone. I'll be working there directly for the first time since March 2020 in a couple of weeks, but a combination of good ventilation, relative quietness and new building restrictions (as well as only working onsite four hours a day) means I'm reasonably sanguine, and of course I will keep masking regardless.

Fully admit that I’ve stopped masking as much as I was even a month ago— but found out a pal of mine got the vid this week after going to a rave last week. Not a behavior I would indulge in at this point, but it gave me pause about having drinks in a crowded bar last night.

Yeah I mean...I'm doing my live podcast recording event tonight, it could be fullish (maybe) and I'm masking, frankly. Just not interested in the risk, especially before an even bigger trip for the Pop Conference next week, and that applies to regular colds as well. People can do whatever, I guess, but I really don't see a downside for being practical (and now that we're moving into the warmer months, bring on outdoor dining and bars).

Went to the Chemical Brothers this week, the lowest-masked indoor environment I've been in for three years. Made my way to in front of the sound desk, and found it lined two-deep with all-masked punters.

The opposite in South Florida: we move inside after months of wonderful weather.

About the only place I don't mask, oddly, is when I eat indoors.

Concurrent headlines:

https://www.nbcnews.com/now/video/cdc-says-tinnitus-not-linked-to-covid-vaccines-170952773612

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/covid-vaccine-side-effects-tinnitus-may-linked-inflammation-rcna80675

I personally don't think it's related but the tinnitus in my left ear has gotten much worse over the last two months. My 3rd booster was last October, and that ear has had other weird tinnitus flipouts before.

(fuck you, Gary Numan, probably the main cause along with a few bad choices like accidentally being directly next to a main speaker for a snare hit soundcheck)

sorry for derail

I worked at a hearing charity for a while - iirc there are many procedures and medicines that can trigger tinnitus. It’s not unusual. I guess the volume of people getting vaccinated means the number of people with associated tinnitus is going to seem unusually high.

(I have tinnitus and have avoided some medicines like beta blockers because I’ve read that they can make your tinnitus worse. I don’t think it’s enough to make me avoid getting further vaccines but i can understand why it’s a bit anxiety inducing.)

I definitely have a slight tinnitus in one of my ears, possibly since one of my vaccines, though at this point who knows. I skimmed that article and it said people complaining were having serious serious tinnitus, like noise that drowned out other noises. Mine is nothing like that.