The Virus Outbreak Thread

@Wiimeiser  
At the start, the viral loads are the same in unvaxxed people, but after a few days, it drastically decreases.

@Wiimeiser
 
All disease are still contagious before you start showing symptoms. Just because a virus hasn’t spread in your body enough to start doing noticeable damage/start triggering visible immune responses doesn’t mean the virus won’t still hitch a ride on your saliva or sweat or etc.
 
That’s basically what “asymptomatic carrier” means.

@The Equestrian Zodiac  
@Dustcan  
Agreed.

@The Equestrian Zodiac  
@Dustcan  
That does make sense. But it seems to me like Covid is particularly special in this regard.

@Wiimeiser  
@Dustcan
 
The new trick is that some examples of the Delta variant of Covid have figured out how to survive in the airways of a human without infecting them. In other words, even a vaccinated person can be carrying this new Delta variant without themselves becoming infected. At least, that’s what my doctor spouse and our pharmacist friends and the CDC have been saying. So we’re all back to wearing masks, just because there’s no way of testing if we’re currently carriers.
 
Clever, clever virus.
 
This is what’s always so fun about “Novel viruses”. They can be unexpectedly clever in figuring out how to interface with their new host.
 
What doesn’t kill you evolves until it can.
 
Reminds me of a SciFi novel where an astronaut on an alien world gets an alien parasite that the local’s don’t even notice, but he almost dies from it because the parasite doesn’t know how to ‘coexist with its host’ without killing it when the host is a human.
 
After all, a virus that kills off all of its hosts dies too.

@Ciaran  
Ahh, interesting.

@Ciaran  
No wonder it defeated the previous USA president and prevented war, forcing many humans to do “work from home” with is a bless for me and many people, especially for jobs like Software Engineer, but may be curse for some other people whose job requires to do something in workplace even adapted. It restored some of the environments, slower population growth (well many humans are still breeding like rats, so COVID gotta step in), and also make us all introvert shut-ins (I am already one, but extroverts be screaming).

Pfizer and Moderna have raised prices, supposed to rake in more money for the sake of “innovation” and “research”. Another reason why I lean closer to socialism and hate corporations!

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  
American vaccines?? As expected.

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  
Apparently, drugs that cost $8 here in Australia can cost over $2000 in America.

I’m starting to feel cold and tired, and it had been three days since I got my 2nd dose. In the earlier days, I’ve been sweating and feeling hot
 
My Dad answered that it’s due to my body not having enough rest, and he keeps asking me to sleep early for this trash body to build more antibodies. I really hate sleep because it takes away precious time for my work, and I have to reschedule for yet another day! Curse this body!

@Wiimeiser  
America is such a capitalist dystopia.

@Background Pony #71A8  
@Wiimeiser  
@Background Pony #CB1B
 
Glad I didn’t live in a place with excessive costs and a workaholic mentality. More so with irresponsible leaders who let 600,000 people die from the virus, and a portion of refuses to allow vaccinations just for “muh freedums” – although my country’s stupid government has its fair share of ruin.

We seem to be getting a little political in here. If you’d like to talk about some of these topics, please use the Generals >> Politics thread.

@Ciaran
 
Sorry about that. I will stick to the point here, even though I was sometimes angry over the news.
 
BTW, I would like some help. Today I feel cold and tired, and for several days I’ve been sweating since my 2nd Pfizer jab. And my Dad is asking me to sleep early so the antibodies will fully develop.
 
I worry whether is there some serious effect on my body?

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  
It’s ok, this is all so tightly entwined in politics anyway. But as much as possible we’d like to keep the “capitalist dystopia” style stuff out of here.

@Ciaran
 
Understood. I’ve already moved it to the politics section.
 
And could you help me find out about the freezing, sweating, and tired body, three days after the vaccine? People said that it’s due to the vaccine making my body produce antibodies.
 
Dad is asking me to sleep early so the antibodies are fully-formed.

@HorsesandMuchMOAR & @HorsesandMuchMOAR
 
Re: your vaccination, I got the Johnson & shot, so I only got one.
 
But the info that I could find on the side effects seemed to indicate that the one shot had the combined side effects of both of the other varieties of the vaccine.
 
For those, it sounds like the first shot isn’t much of a problem for most people, but the second shot comes with a ton of symptoms. And the Johnson & Johnson tends to hit like the second shot of the others.
 
So, having much stronger side effects after the second shot is ‘normal’ based on reporting (keeping in mind that pharmacovigilance is entirely dependent on people accurately reporting their symptoms, which results in an accuracy which is more like Economics than Science).
 
For me, I was sweating, freezing, chilled, hot, all of those things over and over for a good week after the shot. But I had “long-haul” Covid and there’s a really good chance I still had Covid when I got the vaccine, so the vaccine and the virus were fighting it out. Thankfully the vaccine won.
 
But, for you, your dad’s advice is actually really good. Get to bed early, rest as much as you can - treat it like you have the flu or mononucleosis. The more you rest and keep yourself hydrated and get good nutrition, the better chance your immune system has to deal with the vaccine as well as whatever else you have going on in your body … which, if you live in the US, I’m guessing includes inflammation from breathing all the smoke in the air for weeks and weeks without a break.

@Ciaran
 
Thank you. I was also infected by Covid on April, three months before I got my first vaccine. Luckily for me, I was still able to taste and smell, even though I read that Covid usually destroys a person’s lungs.
 
The “Covid destroys lungs” makes it seem scarier. Even as a portion of people managed to recover without any breathing problems, that was before the Delta variant.

@Ciaran  
I mean, by comparison, last week I got the Shingles vaccine, and oh my god I thought I was going to freaking die. That vaccine is PAINFUL by ANY measure.
 
But, yeah, the Covid vaccines are teaching your immune system how to recognize a whole new set of ‘things that might be bad’ and that can take a lot of energy from your ‘also trying to be alive’.
 
Think of it like trying to run two games at the same time with one GPU. Sometimes you want to give it a break and just do one game at a time - which by laying down and just staring at the ceiling you are doing by giving your body one thing to deal with (or, you know, the usual background body stuff like digesting).
 
Energy is everything with stuff like this. You can do a lot at the same time, but sometimes it’s better to let one thing take center stage for awhile. And your immune system can really burn a lot of energy when it wants to.

@HorsesandMuchMOAR  

 
Ah! Yeah, ok, then expect extra fun side effects from the vaccine. You’ve already GOT in your body some of the stuff the vaccine is supposed to be fighting, so instead of just building up your defenses it’s probably also rooting out any lingering Covid in your body at the same time. So now you’ve got THREE games running on that one GPU.
 
Re: the lungs, that was a big part of Covid for me. It really fucked my lungs up - I’m still taking a weird steroidal inhaler twice a day, one of those ones that can also give you a fungal infection for reasons I don’t even understand.
 
“Steroidal Inhaler - Benefits: it helps your lungs recover from Covid! Side-effects: it might kill you!”
 
It’s working though, I’m able to get back to lifting weights and working out and doing stuff again that I had to give up when my lungs were shit. When I first started working out again I could barely work with 20 lb weights again, I was really fucked up. But now I’m back to the normal weights I’d been doing before, which is more like lifting a canoe every rep. I do a lot of portage canoeing, so working with ‘what my normal pack weighs plus the weight of the canoe’ is my goal, and I’m almost there again.
 
Just do all the normal stuff - sleep as much as you can, lay back in a chair and read or game if you can’t sleep any more, and drink lots of fluids - like stupid amounts of fluids. Like 2 liters a day or more. And chicken soup and sprite and a week or 2 from now you’ll feel better than you have since you caught Covid.
 
Or, at least, that’s what happened for me.

The situation in Sydney has gotten so bad the military is getting involved. If GLaDOS Berejiklian gets more than 1% of the vote next NSW state election I’d be genuinely surprised.
 
Meanwhile, Melbourne went under lockdown for a week and experienced ~50 new cases. At this rate lockdown could be extended to 69-420 weeks. Or become a standard feature of human society for Graham’s Number years…
 
I personally put Δ’s Я0 at 100 billion.
 
@Ciaran  
Th only side effect I had with my first dose of Pfizer was a sore arm.

So if what I’ve heard is true, then all non-food small businesses in Melbourne have permanently closed down or gone bankrupt, with a single exception. Truly dire times. Delta is a fitting name, given Chinese mythology and culture…

You guys ever heard of masitinib?

@Flutter_Lover  
Assuming you are not a veterinarian and are actually yourself or have a friend or family member who has been proscribed that medication, I’m sorry for your pain.
 
If you are instead talking about the claims that it might inhibit replication of SARS-CoV-2 then maybe say what you are thinking instead of fishing for a response with a vague opening line?
 
That is to say; “Yes. What’s on your mind?”