COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Pandemic

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Asa

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My college, Glendale Community College began to do fall classes remotely today.

I'm not gonna bother doing them. I prefer to wait until my college reopens so I can retake my design, ceramics, and sculpture classes in-person.
 

AdrenalineRush1996

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BA owner IAG faces revolt from shareholders over pay awards to its top executives, adding City institutions to the list of stakeholders, who have clashed with the company during a turbulent coronavirus crisis.
 

wonderfly

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So I'm just going to come out and share: I'm pretty sure my family and I had Covid-19 in August.

There was, what I thought to be a "bug" that swept through our family in August, at first I thought it was allergies, then thought it was a summer cold. But we learned it probably was Covid-19. I don't know exactly where we caught it from.

I'm going to give a timeline of events:

July 28th - July 30th: We did take a mini-vacation to Branson, Missouri around these dates (stayed at a private condo), and then attended a church activity at a different church on July 31st.....if I had to guess where we got it from, it was at some point on the Branson trip. We wore masks at public events, we tried to social distance ourselves, but one of my kids probably slipped up somewhere and contracted it from some stranger, maybe at one of the restaurants or shows we attended.

On Saturday, August 2nd, my oldest son had to be tested for Covid-19, as he was having ear surgery on Tuesday, August 4th (it's a hospital requirement prior to surgery). The test results came back negative. I took him to the hospital for the surgery on August 4th. I suppose it's possible we got it there at the hospital, but, I don't think so.

On Wednesday evening, August 5th, I took my other son (not the one that had surgery) to church with me, and he started coughing his head off. Though our seats are all "social distanced" apart from other families, I eventually took him out to the car. So I think he had started coming down with it that day or the day prior. I think he was the first one to get it.

Anyway, with my son, we thought it was allergies. The coughing fits were bad, but he didn't appear that bad off, and he got over it in 2 to 4 days. On those same days, my other kids had a minor cough (again, we thought it was allergies). My younger son had it the worst, among the kids.

By Sunday evening, August 10th, I felt a little bad, and I felt miserable on Monday evening, August 11th. I was sick with something from August 10th to 13th. I thought it was allergies at first, then concluded it was a "summer cold", because I had heard Covid-19 "feels like the worst flu bug you ever had". Well, it definitely didn't feel like that. I had a headache, and my throat felt like it was on fire, and I felt drained of energy. And most striking was the loss of smell and taste, for a few days (even though I didn't have major nose congestion). All of which are symptoms. I don't think I had a fever....but maybe I did.

My wife and my oldest son (the one who tested negative back on August 2nd) started getting sick after I got sick, from roughly Saturday, August 16th to Wednesday, August 22nd. And then my parents came down with it that same week (my dad says his symptoms might've started around the 13th, my mom was sick on the 16th). Full disclosure, I work from home (on the computer) and we don't go out much...but my parents live down the street, I do part of my "work from home" out of their house (it's quieter) and I check on my parents all the time.

Anyway, my mom started to get better by the 19th (though her cough lingered for several days beyond that), but then my dad (who had started to get better)....got worse. They called the doctor's office on Friday, August 21st, trying to schedule an appointment to be seen, but going by his symptoms, they wouldn't let him in unless he did one of the drive-thru Covid-19 tests. He took it and suffered through the weekend at home, and we got the test results on Monday, August 24th. And that's when we learned he had tested positive! And in retrospect, I'm almost certain he contracted it from me. But again, I didn't realize what raced through us was Covid-19.

They had a "virtual" (online) doctor's appointment on Monday, August 24th, and the doctor prescribed him some medicine, (some steroid inhalers and cough syrup, basically). My dad had been running a fever of 100 at times, from the 21st to the 24th, and the doctor said if he got a temperature of over 101 and the fever didn't break with Tylenol, to take him to the emergency room. Basically, they wanted him to rest at home, as the goal was to try and avoid coming down with pneumonia (because that's when things can get really scary, as my dad is not in the best health anyway).

My dad slept a lot of the last week. And with yesterday being 11 days since he had tested positive, the doctor's office let him come in yesterday and get a chest x-ray. My dad actually resumed doing his work in the garage yesterday, for the first time in a couple of weeks (he likes to work on stuff with his tools). I think the worst is past, though he's probably going to need to rest a while longer.

Anyway, last week, after learning my dad had tested positive, I decided I wanted to get tested. And apparently that's a difficult thing to do, if you're not showing symptoms (my doctor wouldn't give me a referral). I had to hunt down a clinic that was doing select screenings for free, and I scheduled an appointment, and got tested on August 26th. I got the results on August 28th, and those came back negative.

I was told I could do an "antibodies" test (which involves a blood draw), but it's not free, and all that shows is that you likely had Covid-19 at some point in the past. I've been around my Dad since he was diagnosed with Covid-19, and I haven't been feeling sick in the last couple weeks, so I remain convinced that I (and my family) were sick with the virus first, and we unintentionally gave it to my parents.

I share all this knowing full well that for others out there, the virus is much worse, and it can be a killer. But I wanted to share that we seem to have gotten through the worst of it.
 
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Light Lucario

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I'm glad that you and your family are all okay, wonderfly. That sounds so scary and overwhelming to me. I've been so afraid of getting sick in large part because of how it could lead to my parents getting sick. It's such a scary and nerve racking thought and I'm sorry that you and your family had to deal with that on top of being sick.

While the test results you got were negative, it's possible that you could still be carrying the virus, especially when it does sound that you got it. Losing your sense of taste and smell are pretty big signs that it wasn't just a regular cold. I hope that you don't mind me asking this, but are you planning on having your kids resume on campus learning? I ask this mainly because of my concern that they could still be carrying the virus even if they have recovered. Plus, having to deal with school and how other kids/teachers could treat them after learning that they were sick sounds like a lot for anyone to deal with. Not to mention they could easily get it again if they resumed regular school. I've seen so many headlines and articles about schools, even elementary schools, having to close or put thousands of people in quarantine because they're sick. I don't see everyone wearing masks or wearing them properly in my local dog park, so I don't have much faith that schools are handling this much better either. To be honest, I was already worried about them when you mentioned awhile ago that they'd be going back to on campus learning because of how unsafe schools are right now, but you're one of the parents so you decide these kind of things at the end of the day.

I truly hope that everyone in your family will continue to recover and be safe.
 

wonderfly

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Thanks for sharing, Wonderfly. Hope everyone makes a full recovery. Is your sense of taste and smell back?

Yes, though that's the symptom that lasted the longest. It lasted for over a week, maybe close to two weeks. My wife has a super sensitive nose, there was a period where she couldn't smell anything, and that freaked her out. She also may have been running a fever at times, whereas I don't think I ever had a fever....but I did feel drained and worn out during the worst days.

While the test results you got were negative, it's possible that you could still be carrying the virus, especially when it does sound that you got it. Losing your sense of taste and smell are pretty big signs that it wasn't just a regular cold. I hope that you don't mind me asking this, but are you planning on having your kids resume on campus learning? I ask this mainly because of my concern that they could still be carrying the virus even if they have recovered. Plus, having to deal with school and how other kids/teachers could treat them after learning that they were sick sounds like a lot for anyone to deal with. Not to mention they could easily get it again if they resumed regular school. I've seen so many headlines and articles about schools, even elementary schools, having to close or put thousands of people in quarantine because they're sick. I don't see everyone wearing masks or wearing them properly in my local dog park, so I don't have much faith that schools are handling this much better either. To be honest, I was already worried about them when you mentioned awhile ago that they'd be going back to on campus learning because of how unsafe schools are right now, but you're one of the parents so you decide these kind of things at the end of the day.

Well, speaking first and foremost for me, personally, since I work from home, I don't go to very many places. Maybe to Walmart once a week (though we wear a mask), and I actually haven't been to Walmart since we learned Dad tested positive, and we haven't been to church since we learned Dad tested positive. I do go occasionally mow yards of properties that my parents own, but that's outdoor work, I never step inside anyone's house.

But my kids did start up school last week (and we had already started them off to school and only later did we got the test results back on my father later that same day). My kids had recovered earlier in the month, it was already set in motion, and we made a judgement call.

Also, my dad was allowed to be seen at the doctor's office yesterday, once 11 days had passed, so if he was allowed to come into the doctor's office (with mask), then my kids can go to school (with masks). The kids are now a week and a half back into school. No reports of any kids calling in sick, or outbreaks (where kids were sent home), to my knowledge. The same for teachers. We're keeping an eye out and will see what the next few weeks hold.

Part of why I posted this was because of how hard (or expensive) it can be to get a Covid-19 test, if you're not showing symptoms. I wanted the test to ease my concern, but I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that done. I'm still thinking about getting the antibodies test, but they want to charge money for that as well.

I also don't think it's fair that my father couldn't get into a local clinic once he tested positive, and couldn't get a chest x-ray until yesterday. We were striving to avoid the hospital, but they wouldn't let us go to the local clinic. We're just thankful his fever never got worse and he didn't develop pneumonia.

I guess I'm just saying there's a lot of barriers in place for tracking/diagnosing Covid (for me) and for treating Covid (for my father). If you're not bad enough to be in the hospital, they don't want to deal with you.
 
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Dr.Pepper

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@wonderfly Thanks for sharing your story.

I don’t think I know anybody who had it. There’s a possibility that my uncle had it in March, but he was never officially diagnosed (as far as I am aware) and he’s perfectly fine now. I’m guessing it was probably just a bad cold.

My brother had a stroke back in June, so there was some suspicion that he had the virus, but was asymptomatic. I guess that blood clots in young people was a reported symptom. He was tested negative and lacked antibodies, so who knows.
 

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Well, speaking first and foremost for me, personally, since I work from home, I don't go to very many places. Maybe to Walmart once a week (though we wear a mask), and I actually haven't been to Walmart since we learned Dad tested positive, and we haven't been to church since we learned Dad tested positive. I do go occasionally mow yards of properties that my parents own, but that's outdoor work, I never step inside anyone's house.

But my kids did start up school last week (and we had already started them off to school and only later did we got the test results back on my father later that same day). My kids had recovered earlier in the month, it was already set in motion, and we made a judgement call.

Also, my dad was allowed to be seen at the doctor's office yesterday, once 11 days had passed, so if he was allowed to come into the doctor's office (with mask), then my kids can go to school (with masks). The kids are now a week and a half back into school. No reports of any kids calling in sick, or outbreaks (where kids were sent home), to my knowledge. The same for teachers. We're keeping an eye out and will see what the next few weeks hold.

Comparing your father going into a doctor's office with your kids going to school really doesn't make any sense to me. Ideally, your father wouldn't be going into the doctor's office nearly every day for hours surrounded by multiple other people. But students have to deal with that. It's like comparing going to a grocery store and going to a school for classes. Schools generally aren't designed for people to be six feet apart from each other. They're designed to cram in as many people as possible. I have an easier time believing that the doctor's office didn't have many people when your father went over there than schools are able to handle something like this.

While I'm glad that there hasn't been an outbreak yet, part of the reason I brought it up is because people can carry the virus and not know that they have it. They may not show any symptoms, but could infect other people. I obviously don't know if that could be the case for your children or if that could happen with other people at the school, but I just find it to be rather nerve racking. You and your wife clearly have a better idea of how the virus situation is in your area than I do though.

I hope that I didn't come off as rude or anything like that here. The notion of going to school during a pandemic just feels so unsettling to me. It doesn't help that the situation is still pretty bad here in California either. I don't think public schools can be reopened, or at least not within the part of California that I live in. Considering I live within walking distance to an elementary school, I'm pretty relieved about that, but it might not be that bad in your area by comparison. Plus, I can't help but think of how I'd process everything if I was somehow in middle school or high school again, which just makes me feel bad for anyone going back to on campus learning.

wonderfly said:
Part of why I posted this was because of how hard (or expensive) it can be to get a Covid-19 test, if you're not showing symptoms. I wanted the test to ease my concern, but I had to jump through a lot of hoops to get that done. I'm still thinking about getting the antibodies test, but they want to charge money for that as well.

I also don't think it's fair that my father couldn't get into a local clinic once he tested positive, and couldn't get a chest x-ray until yesterday. We were striving to avoid the hospital, but they wouldn't let us go to the local clinic. We're just thankful his fever never got worse and he didn't develop pneumonia.

I guess I'm just saying there's a lot of barriers in place for tracking/diagnosing Covid (for me) and for treating Covid (for my father). If you're not bad enough to be in the hospital, they don't want to deal with you.

Yeah, that is a tricky situation. I can understand why they don't make testing easier in a way. There was a testing area close to me a few months ago back when the pandemic really started to take off and they were overloaded with people coming in for tests that they had to limit it to people only showing symptoms. Plus, getting a negative might not be entirely accurate. It would show that you didn't have the virus that day of the test, but that wouldn't mean that you couldn't pick it up a few days later or even while you were in the place to get the test done.

Since it was a local clinic, I imagine that they don't have a lot of room for treating something like COVID and hospitals are trying to avoid being overloaded too. As understandable as that is, not wanting to deal with people unless they're bad enough to be in a hospital can be counterproductive. Some people may be harder to save if their condition gets that bad. I'm glad that your father didn't get pneumonia since that could have been really scary. Testing should be made easier since that would ideally help more people and that should have been done before any kind of reopening plans happened, but there are sadly a lot of reasons why that may not happen. Part of it comes down to how our health care system works and hospitals just aren't made to handle something like a pandemic.
 

wonderfly

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While I'm glad that there hasn't been an outbreak yet, part of the reason I brought it up is because people can carry the virus and not know that they have it. They may not show any symptoms, but could infect other people. I obviously don't know if that could be the case for your children or if that could happen with other people at the school, but I just find it to be rather nerve racking. You and your wife clearly have a better idea of how the virus situation is in your area than I do though.

I'll start by sharing a quote from this article:

"Most people with coronavirus who have symptoms will no longer be contagious by 10 days after symptoms resolve. People who test positive for the virus but never develop symptoms over the following 10 days after testing are probably no longer contagious, but again there are documented exceptions. So some experts are still recommending 14 days of isolation."

The majority of my kids were done with symptoms by August 10th, school didn't start until August 24th.

My oldest son might have had symptoms a few days beyond the 10th, but again, we didn't realize it was Covid yet. And he had already been to an "school orientation" thing on August 20th (and he wasn't symptomatic by that point), and all the kids were wearing masks, and again, all of my kids had already attended school on the 1st day when we realized my dad had tested positive.

I think the majority of kids will shake off Covid-19 fairly easily (or be asymptomatic) but there are exceptions, and there is a danger to adult relatives of the kids, and to teachers. I don't have all the answers, but enhanced monitoring and safeguards in place at schools, should help. We will just see how the next 1 to 2 months go.


Since it was a local clinic, I imagine that they don't have a lot of room for treating something like COVID and hospitals are trying to avoid being overloaded too. As understandable as that is, not wanting to deal with people unless they're bad enough to be in a hospital can be counterproductive. Some people may be harder to save if their condition gets that bad. I'm glad that your father didn't get pneumonia since that could have been really scary. Testing should be made easier since that would ideally help more people and that should have been done before any kind of reopening plans happened, but there are sadly a lot of reasons why that may not happen. Part of it comes down to how our health care system works and hospitals just aren't made to handle something like a pandemic.

I'm ticked off they wouldn't let him into the clinic without doing a Covid screening (and that means waiting 2 to 3 days for the results), and then when you test positive, they still won't let you in, they'll just do a "virtual" (online) visit. We were trying to see if he needed an antibiotic, to fight infection, but the doctor made a decision to see if he could fight it off with just steroid inhalers and cough syrup. I guess the doctor made that decision because his temperature never got over 100 and resting at home is probably best (and you want to avoid antibiotics, if you can). Still, it was very scary and he could've required hospitalization if he had gotten worse. He's not been in the best health for the last 2 years, and his coughing fits were scary to listen to, a week or two ago.
 

Light Lucario

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I'll start by sharing a quote from this article:

"Most people with coronavirus who have symptoms will no longer be contagious by 10 days after symptoms resolve. People who test positive for the virus but never develop symptoms over the following 10 days after testing are probably no longer contagious, but again there are documented exceptions. So some experts are still recommending 14 days of isolation."

The majority of my kids were done with symptoms by August 10th, school didn't start until August 24th.

My oldest son might have had symptoms a few days beyond the 10th, but again, we didn't realize it was Covid yet. And he had already been to an "school orientation" thing on August 20th (and he wasn't symptomatic by that point), and all the kids were wearing masks, and again, all of my kids had already attended school on the 1st day when we realized my dad had tested positive.

While that is relieving that they didn't have school until a couple of weeks until after they were done with their symptoms, a part of me is still a bit worried when that article does point out that there documented exceptions. Not to mention medical experts are still learning about the virus, but I'm also paranoid about this situation, even more so about schools for multiple reasons. I do hope that this means that your kids likely aren't still carrying the virus and that there won't be an outbreak within your area.

wonderfly said:
I think the majority of kids will shake off Covid-19 fairly easily (or be asymptomatic) but there are exceptions, and there is a danger to adult relatives of the kids, and to teachers. I don't have all the answers, but enhanced monitoring and safeguards in place at schools, should help. We will just see how the next 1 to 2 months go.

I don't know about the majority of kids shaking off COVID easily. I've heard about kids getting pretty sick with the virus, we don't really know if having the virus could lead to more complications years from now and it's still stressful for kids to potentially give the virus to their friends, families and teachers. That's one reason why I feel bad for students who have to go back to on campus classes. Having to deal with the stress of school on top of the stress of a pandemic sounds like the absolute worst thing for anyone to deal with, let alone kids. I really don't think that on campus learning would be a viable option even with the safety measures in place, but I also don't have much faith in the public education system in general, especially for something like this.

To be fair, remote learning isn't necessarily an easier option. I think it's the only safe and viable option. Teachers and staff members should not risk their lives to do their work. Regardless of the safety measures in place, teachers doing on campus classes are putting themselves and their families at risk, but it is sadly complicated. Not every family would have the money for multiple computers/stable Internet connection, not every school can afford to get computers for their students and there are plenty of reasons why it wouldn't really work well for kids to learn from online classes. I've usually only had one or two online classes at a time, but having a full high school or college list of classes to take would be really overwhelming. Like a lot of things about the virus, the solutions shouldn't be complicated, but they unfortunately are for a bunch of reasons.

wonderfly said:
I'm ticked off they wouldn't let him into the clinic without doing a Covid screening (and that means waiting 2 to 3 days for the results), and then when you test positive, they still won't let you in, they'll just do a "virtual" (online) visit. We were trying to see if he needed an antibiotic, to fight infection, but the doctor made a decision to see if he could fight it off with just steroid inhalers and cough syrup. I guess the doctor made that decision because his temperature never got over 100 and resting at home is probably best (and you want to avoid antibiotics, if you can). Still, it was very scary and he could've required hospitalization if he had gotten worse. He's not been in the best health for the last 2 years, and his coughing fits were scary to listen to, a week or two ago.

I can definitely understand being upset. I'm sure that you wanted your father to get the best treatment possible instead of basically resting at home and hoping for the best. I can also understand how scary it must have been. While it isn't the same thing, I still remember how my Mom sounded when she had a terrible case of pneumonia years ago. She was able to recover thankfully, but her coughing fits were so loud and painful too. I'm sure it was so scary to see your father be sick like that, especially if he already had health problems before this. I wish that our health care system and hospitals were better to handle situations like this, but they are trying to not be overwhelmed and they're struggling with that as it is.
I just hope that you and everyone in your family will continue to recover.
 

AdrenalineRush1996

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Dr.Pepper

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To be fair, remote learning isn't necessarily an easier option. I think it's the only safe and viable option. Teachers and staff members should not risk their lives to do their work. Regardless of the safety measures in place, teachers doing on campus classes are putting themselves and their families at risk, but it is sadly complicated. Not every family would have the money for multiple computers/stable Internet connection, not every school can afford to get computers for their students and there are plenty of reasons why it wouldn't really work well for kids to learn from online classes. I've usually only had one or two online classes at a time, but having a full high school or college list of classes to take would be really overwhelming. Like a lot of things about the virus, the solutions shouldn't be complicated, but they unfortunately are for a bunch of reasons.
Where I work, middle and high school students have half their classes in Monday’s and Tuesdays and the other half on Thursdays and Fridays. Wednesday’s are a day for kids who need extra help or to do things on their own.

Elementary students have Zoom sessions with their teachers either in the morning or the afternoon on Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursday’s, and Fridays. Again Wednesday is for kids who need extra help.
 
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