Quaratine?

[Padmapani]

1 hour ago, RTP said:

Cases rising here in Europe too though ... people coming home from "Ballermann" bringing the sickness - a "Summer Ischgl"...

But actually, believing what experts say - that you have not much immunity and are immune only for a short time - the re-infection or "coming in contact with the virus again" can MAYBE even have a good side: when the virus is not completely gone but the body encounters it still (in sub-sickening concnetrations), the defenses maybe remmber the virus longer and will not entirely stop the antibody production, thus maybe resulting in greater resistency or even immunity when the virus returns "big time" in winter...?

sadly, people are really getting careless now (i also understand it a little. i too want this shit to be over and finally go to parties again). right where i work we are austria's hotspot now.  and almost daily people are coming in to ask for directions to the corona test station…

 

that's a definite possibility (just to be clear, the virus has to be gone from the body, but the immune system does keep some memory even if it's not enough for complete immunity). with some other coronaviruses you can get infected by exactly the same virus again after a year or two. maybe the only reason they aren't as serious as covid-19 is that we all have aquired a bit of immunity because everyone has already come in contact with them as children? who knows?

[astralprojection]

I really feel for the Americans. Let alone covid but election coming up, with two morons, and then you have the lockdowns and youre losing your lifesavings and the BLM riots going on, and just average murder rates going up especially in Boston, wtf is going on in Boston? Well, this whole world has gone to shit and every day I live I consider a lease. It shouldnt have to be like this, but what can you do.

[RTP]

22 hours ago, Padmapani said:

i also understand it a little. i too want this shit to be over and finally go to parties again

I fully understand that ... yes, three times yes, we all want it to be over (well maybe really bad people don't, but we don't care about these) ... however, it may not be taken lightly. One overlooked cluster and you are back to the start. I think it's better to cut down on partying this year and then we can be the merrier next year in return...

It's bad to hear that from your town ... I hope the situation does not escalate ... at the moment it's getting worse still, I'm even a little worried to stop for a break on the motorway in that area (mostly I have to go for a wee around there) ... have been procrastrinating a few travels, but I can't procrastrinate forever. Then again, we here aren't any better - cases in Vienna are rising too.

22 hours ago, astralprojection said:

Well, this whole world has gone to shit and every day I live I consider a lease. It shouldnt have to be like this, but what can you do.

I have begun to think, what if we, as humanity, really have seen the peak of "everything", the best state possible? We have been there in 2019. At the peak. Now we are below again, we still see the peak, it's "just up there", but I don't think we will climb it again. Not in our life. First there's still Coronavirus to beat - and this might be a very long race - then we will face ever-worsening climate problems (38 degrees Celsius in Siberia already right now ... I mean, come on) ... it's going to be tough. And it's a really de-motivating outlook that it will all only get worse, slowly and not steadily, but still in downwards direction...?

"Whatever you wanna do in life, do it now, it'll only get worse with time." ...

[the goa constrictor]

My hopes of attending ZNA next summer feel like a pipe dream right now. Few countries are even allowing USA passports to travel into their countries and this will likely hold until a vaccine is approved and released. Maybe if we get a new government in place after this election we can get some global collaboration going on but the election is still four months away...

 

[RTP]

So it's 4 months later since the last post in this thread now -- and unfortunately almost everything has changed for the worse here.

AUSTRIA is the country with the 5th highest infection rate per 100k people (positive return rate per 100k tests) _worldwide_ right now ... that's right: USA, India - all behind us.
Not many people on this forum will live in a country with higher positive test return rates.

We are in second "lockdown" - which is a joke though, you can go out and even get Coffee to Go, nobody will say anything.

And top of all: I woke up in the middle of last night with a very peculiar metallic blood taste at the back of my throat which reminds me very much of the shit I went through in March...
You can imagine how happy I was about it ... I panicked so hard I couldn't sleep for a long time after that.
The metallic taste is gone, but I have a strange feeling of a foreign object in my throat that does not go away no matter how hard I swallow. It's nothing I panic over right now, but I think it will be different in the night if it doesn't get better, I assure you of that...

That thing with the metallic taste is especially significant because: it apparently is FINALLY talked out loud that hemoptysis alone can be a symptom of Covid-19 - has not reached mainstream doctors, but first publications are available: https://bmcpulmmed.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s12890-020-01312-6
I strongly believe that what they write about here is the same manifestation of Covid that befell me in March, alhough I was fortunate enough not to catch it so severely that they had to put me in hospital - and I "fortunately" had a positive swab test, otherwise we'd be none the wiser until this day!

Chaos all over...

Sounds weird, but: I hope you did what you wanted to do in this life. I don't think good times will roll so soon again for us all...
Did I do what I wanted to do in life? Well, fairly yes - I maybe should have written more (wanted to become a writer) and it was stupid of me to be lazy and give up blacklight painting, talking french (lost that ability) and maybe I should have travelled more, but travel was fairly okay with approximately one trip each year. Had I known it would come to this, I'd have done more, but I didn't know. Partying was fine - purists may give a weird look and say "what, so little?", but I don't care because I feel fine - that is most important ... I also feel fine about my video game consumption. No regrets. Friends? Fairly okay, but I could have done a bit more in this department, calling people more up, keeping in contact more. Girls? Not fine at all! But I am enough of a realist that I say I'd be as timid or stupid next time I'd come into those "girl situations" again ... just isn't my thing. Maybe I knew I needed my capacity for something else instead of messing with girls - i.e. having my kind of fun. I'm not unhappy about it.
Career decisions may have not been optimal, but are meaningless to me - best was to give up the second university study and focus on having the last bit of a good time in life!

What about you?

Edit (so this doesn't come across as a total depressant): don't worry I have not lost motivation and I think I will (or should) also make a post stating the goals / outlooks I still have, even despite the current situation.
Oh and I have a GF right now, so I don't wanna say "Girls = all went bad" ... could have been better (lots better) in my youth though

[Veracohr]

Did I do what I wanted in life? Hardly. I guess I had some good times in my 20s but I wasn’t as social as most people. I haven’t accomplished anything. Haven’t made any music in a long time. I’ve got various electronic projects in the works, but at this point in life I pretty much just feel like I’m waiting around to die.

[Padmapani]

On 11/20/2020 at 10:32 PM, RTP said:

AUSTRIA is the country with the 5th highest infection rate per 100k people (positive return rate per 100k tests) _worldwide_ right now ... that's right: USA, India - all behind us.
Not many people on this forum will live in a country with higher positive test return rates.

We are in second "lockdown" - which is a joke though, you can go out and even get Coffee to Go, nobody will say anything.

 

What about you?

if you don't count tiny countries like andorra, then we're at the #1 spot now. things are not looking good. almost 1% of the population is currently diagnosed with an active sars-cov-2 infection in the area where i live. indeed, the lockdown is a joke and if we open the country when they say, we'll be up where we were a week ago in no time.

 

i'd write something very similar to your paragraph on that. only no gf at the moment, which is not likely to change any time soon due to the coronavirus which is a bit of a downer.
also work wise if you had asked me 10 years ago, i'd have imagined working on a vaccine rather than taking nasal swabs to test for covid. i blame that on capitalism.

[astralprojection]

I decided to stop drinking alcohol. 

Not sure if it's topic related, but I don't wanna live life in a tired, depressive haze when I have no energy and say and do things I regret all the time. Lately I began to feel suicidal after i was drunk each time. 

 

Got myself to the ICU, and am now at hour 48h.

First 12-24h they tried diazepam, got 90mg but was unresponsive. 155/115 blood pressure, 150 heart rate. 

Then they switched to Clomethiazole. Two capsules 4 times a day. Blood pressure have yet to drop but heart rate is around 105.

I had 3.3 per mille when admitted. (I'm not sure why I drank so much that day, 3.3 is literally insane.) 

I hope I get better soon. They want to keep me here at least 2 more days to make sure I don't get DT. 

I've drunk every day for almost 2 years now, but on and off for roughly 10 years.. 

 

So if you ever wanna change something about your life for the better, now is the time to do it. Hope this comment is worth something to someone. Take care everyone. 

[RTP]

Jep - welcome to Austria, the country with the "quite highest" rates of positive tests ... but we don't need to worry because the news are declaring the situation already to "relax" 
They probably will open for xmas because "economy" ... and they we'll be in the same spot in January

At least my throat relaxed and the taste is gone. Hope it stays that way.

On 11/22/2020 at 5:51 PM, Padmapani said:

i'd write something very similar to your paragraph on that. only no gf at the moment, which is not likely to change any time soon due to the coronavirus which is a bit of a downer.

Well, I can't really see my GF in these times because she does not live in Vienna. Even though the Lockdown is a joke and I could visit her, we are both not doing that ... especially not right now ... thus I don't feel so much better off.
But I second that "dating" or going out trying to talk to girls is practically not doable in Corona times ... maybe just pass the time with a nice computer game or two and then get going when the days get longer and brighter again. (And if you don't game, then paint or write or learn a language or work for whatever other goal you have )
I think girls must feel the same way though. Corona doesn't erase people's wishes...

4 hours ago, astralprojection said:

I decided to stop drinking alcohol. 

Not sure if it's topic related, but I don't wanna live life in a tired, depressive haze when I have no energy and say and do things I regret all the time. Lately I began to feel suicidal after i was drunk each time. 

 

Got myself to the ICU, and am now at hour 48h.

First 12-24h they tried diazepam, got 90mg but was unresponsive. 155/115 blood pressure, 150 heart rate. 

Then they switched to Clomethiazole. Two capsules 4 times a day. Blood pressure have yet to drop but heart rate is around 105.

I had 3.3 per mille when admitted. (I'm not sure why I drank so much that day, 3.3 is literally insane.) 

I hope I get better soon. They want to keep me here at least 2 more days to make sure I don't get DT. 

I've drunk every day for almost 2 years now, but on and off for roughly 10 years.. 

 

So if you ever wanna change something about your life for the better, now is the time to do it. Hope this comment is worth something to someone. Take care everyone. 

That was really horrible to read about ... I hope you are OK mate.
3.3 is absolutely off the top and I hope you won't do that again - but I imagine it to be super hard if you try it on your own ... have you got some help or support from the AA or from Doctors? Hope so.

[RTP]

On 11/21/2020 at 1:28 AM, Veracohr said:

Did I do what I wanted in life? Hardly. I guess I had some good times in my 20s but I wasn’t as social as most people. I haven’t accomplished anything. Haven’t made any music in a long time. I’ve got various electronic projects in the works, but at this point in life I pretty much just feel like I’m waiting around to die.

Hey ... don't know if this helps, but maybe try doing something you want to get done for just two minutes a day (or even just two minutes a week)? I read that this helps ... important is that you do it for two minutes though. It tricks one's brain and often you end up doing it longer - or if not, then it's nothing for you anyway because your brain doesn't feel like doing it...

[astralprojection]

6 hours ago, RTP said:

 

That was really horrible to read about ... I hope you are OK mate.
3.3 is absolutely off the top and I hope you won't do that again - but I imagine it to be super hard if you try it on your own ... have you got some help or support from the AA or from Doctors? Hope so.

I'm sure AA can work for many people. 

To me it's a bit of a bunk science.. 

It's really an echo chamber where you sit around a table and everyone starts by saying hi my name is X And I'm an alcoholic ", constantly affirming yourself that you are an alcoholic. Everyone says the same things." today it was really bad yada yada ". 

To me it was extremely negative, nothing positive about it at all. And the fact that you constantly affirm yourself each time that you are an alcoholic - isn't really gonna progress your state of mind into something better. I'm not in the belief that once an alcoholic - always an alcoholic. I'm a firm believer that you can change your life/mindset around and the echo chamber that is those AA meetings keeps you in a perpetual state of being an alcoholic even if you stopped drinking, cause that's what you tell yourself and others each meeting. 

Anyway, if it works to keep people of booze then fine but it also keeps you stuck in the mentality that you're forever an alcoholic and I don't think that's a healthy mindset to have. Alcoholism is not a disease in my book, it's an addiction and once you break it I will never sit around calling myself an alcoholic year after year in those meetings. Negative affirmation isn't good I think. 

And to anyone reading that AA has worked for, then great on you and I'm by no means taking anything away from anyone, this is just my opinion on it as its certainly not for everyone. 

Hope I didn't come off as defensive

Thank you for your comment! 

 

[RTP]

Fair enough. I have no experience with the AAs.

I am "lucky enough" that I get terribly sick when I drink too much. Way worse than what people call a hangover. I _have to_ keep my intake low, there is no other way. That's the reason why I have not yet developed an addiction.

There's a drug that you can take which will invoke the same symptoms: it'll make you sick when you drink alcohol. Is that a possibility for you?

Best of luck that you beat it either way.

[Padmapani]

On 11/23/2020 at 10:53 PM, RTP said:

Jep - welcome to Austria, the country with the "quite highest" rates of positive tests ... but we don't need to worry because the news are declaring the situation already to "relax" 
They probably will open for xmas because "economy" ... and they we'll be in the same spot in January

At least my throat relaxed and the taste is gone. Hope it stays that way.

Well, I can't really see my GF in these times because she does not live in Vienna. Even though the Lockdown is a joke and I could visit her, we are both not doing that ... especially not right now ... thus I don't feel so much better off.
But I second that "dating" or going out trying to talk to girls is practically not doable in Corona times ... maybe just pass the time with a nice computer game or two and then get going when the days get longer and brighter again. (And if you don't game, then paint or write or learn a language or work for whatever other goal you have )
I think girls must feel the same way though. Corona doesn't erase people's wishes...

yeah. the hospitals are working over their capacity, ages is cheating with the data (adding new available beds every time we hit 100% occupancy here in upper austria, while everyone knows that the personnell and machines available don't change),  and the biggest worries we hear in the media is the profits of ski lift operators.

have you seen the documentary in orf a few days ago? a woman there complained about having almost everything smell like rotten onions for months. so your smell and taste is back to normal now? how many months has it taken to return to normal?

good to hear of someone acting responsibly. apart from my family and closest friends i don't see anyone taking it seriously at all. even at work where people should know better we've had a colleage break the lockdown rules and meet lots of people, including k1 and now she's been tested positive. i tested everyone at work yesterday with an antigen test and will do so again next week (we still cannot be sure if she infected anyone else in the meantime. antigen tests not always turn up positive in the first few days, damn that wide range of possible incubation periods).

i do write music in the meantime, but creativity isn't as easy to come by as usual atm…

[astralprojection]

Im out off the ICU now, since yesterday and feeling allright I guess. Got tested for Covid too since we had it in the unit. But came back negative thank god. Dont think my body would have been fit to fight covid right now.

@RTP

Thanks brother, I totally got the sentiment of your comment and appreciate the kind words. Yeah that drug is called Antabuse (Disulfram) and Im currently on that. So even if I wanted to drink I would get very sick (or at least extremely uncomfortable). But I have no cravings at all, and Im very thankful for that. The worst thing now is that my dopamine/endorphin-regulation is way off, and I cant seem to find content in doing pretty much anything. Thats the "sickness" of addiction and it will take months if not years - to heal, so that I can feel happy from "normal" things again. Its gonna be rough but Im very thankful to be off booze for the first time in like, I dont even know.

And in case anyone is interested in pharmacology Im also on Quetiapine, Alimemazine, Venlafaxine and Mirtazapine. I am personally really interested in medications and the effects on the body and mind (I have erhm, "experimented" quite a bit in my days ) And some beta blockers and B-vitamins. Quite a bit of meds I guess but it takes what it takes!

Id also like to take this opportunity to apologize for my alcohol-fueled rantings and ravings over the years on here. Cringe to say the least.

 

Hope everyone is doing allright!! I dont envy anyone working in the medical field, and I dont envy anyone in countries heavily affected by this shit virus. (Sweden is heavily affected I guess if you look at the numbers - but honestly I dont see it/feel it) Btw - Are you guys gonna take the vaccine? I will NOT take it. At least not until its been at least 1 year and its proven safe and effective.

There was never a coronavirus vaccine before, not for the common cold or anything else - and now theres one that has only taken a year to produce while normally vaccines takes 5+ years to make. Im cautios.

[Padmapani]

6 hours ago, astralprojection said:

Btw - Are you guys gonna take the vaccine? I will NOT take it. At least not until its been at least 1 year and its proven safe and effective.

There was never a coronavirus vaccine before, not for the common cold or anything else - and now theres one that has only taken a year to produce while normally vaccines takes 5+ years to make. Im cautios.

i'm not gonna get a vaccination of one of the new vaccines (astra, moderna, sputnik) at least for a few months and until a few ten thousand people had gotten it. i'm also skeptical of how these were pushed though in such a short timeframe. however i'd take the chinese vaccine on day one (but i don't suspect it to turn up in europe any time soon). that one is based on tried and proven methods, although it probably won't be as effective as the others. i'm still waiting on the companies releasing the whole data from their now ongoing phase 3 studies until i make a decision. right now everyone is claiming >90% protection, which seems a little dodgy.

[RTP]

On 11/28/2020 at 4:15 PM, Padmapani said:

yeah. the hospitals are working over their capacity, ages is cheating with the data (adding new available beds every time we hit 100% occupancy here in upper austria, while everyone knows that the personnell and machines available don't change),  and the biggest worries we hear in the media is the profits of ski lift operators.

I think I understand where these "winter tourism profit worries" stem from ... there is indeed lots of money involved in the success of tourism ... did you by any chance see the last "Am Schauplatz" in ORF - I don't watch much ORF as I think it's brainwash TV, but I think that is a pretty good format (at least when they don't portrait quarreling neighbors all the time) - there they explained the real estate business in the Alps and it works like this: a rich person (it's called an investor) buys a luxury Chalet in the Alps for 3 to 5 million, then they rent these out to wealthy tourists and also have the right to stay 2 weeks there on their own ... the tourists pay back that investment over the years ... well, if these tourists don't come, not only do all these ski lift operators have nothing to do, it will also be that there will be no rent earned on the appartments (Chalets), meaning all the rich have panic for their money or these projects will even go bust.
I predict there's going to be a load of these luxury villas on sale next summer - if we don't get winter tourism. If we get it, all will stay the same. Tons of money involved. The problem is: us ordinary people will suffer too when they get bust, because let's be honest: the politicians don't care about us, they care about these rich ones and do everything for them - all the amenities we currently have are for these rich ones - if these people go elsewhere, it will get pretty dark and grim here pretty soon.

I did not watch that documentary you mentioned, but with me it was like everything tasted sour. Like, my mum brought me a soup as I was sick (bless her, that was really nice from her!) and I thought she must have done something wrong with it because it tasted sour. I called her, but she confirmed that soup was totally alright. Also had this with other food - I couldn't trust my senses if it was okay. But I didn't know that I had Covid back then, so I didn't make that connection...
What stayed after the sickness is a greater aversion towards perfumes or other strong smells ... I didn't have this before to that extent. Nowadays when I go out, I can smell some people's perfumes even if they are long gone and I don't like that!

Well I try to be responsible, but it's not possible to avoid people all the time ... so let's just hope I'm doing enough.

As for the vaccine, please read this - here is the trick how they claim to be 90% effective: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4347/rr-4
Let's face it, the guys from Biontech were just lucky that more people got infected in the control group. Everybody was (and still is) playing Roulette - the company with the most infected in their control group wins the jackpot.
There is just ONE of two things a vaccine can be: fast OR safe. You can't be fast AND safe. It is not possible. I will only get that vaccine if lots and lots of people have received it and some time has passed - if this thing for example kills everybody after one year, nobody would yet know
Simple question: I have heard that the vaccine injects a gene sequence that acts as a constrction plan for the body's immune cells to produce a specific antigen. That's fine - but how do the cells stop producing it if the threat is over OR if the body needs other stuff to be prioritized in production?
I imagined a funny thing as I thought that question through: that the body does not stop the production of the antigen anymore and is in the long run poisoning itself with these self-constructed antigens that were triggered by the alien gene sequence from the vaccine

[Padmapani]

6 hours ago, RTP said:

"winter tourism profit worries" 

As for the vaccine, please read this - here is the trick how they claim to be 90% effective: https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4347/rr-4
Let's face it, the guys from Biontech were just lucky that more people got infected in the control group. Everybody was (and still is) playing Roulette - the company with the most infected in their control group wins the jackpot.
There is just ONE of two things a vaccine can be: fast OR safe. You can't be fast AND safe. It is not possible. I will only get that vaccine if lots and lots of people have received it and some time has passed - if this thing for example kills everybody after one year, nobody would yet know
Simple question: I have heard that the vaccine injects a gene sequence that acts as a constrction plan for the body's immune cells to produce a specific antigen. That's fine - but how do the cells stop producing it if the threat is over OR if the body needs other stuff to be prioritized in production?
I imagined a funny thing as I thought that question through: that the body does not stop the production of the antigen anymore and is in the long run poisoning itself with these self-constructed antigens that were triggered by the alien gene sequence from the vaccine

risking continuing spread of the virus and longer lockdowns and closures puts the economy even more at risk. if you look at the economic data from elsewhere the countries with the highest growth rates are also those that acted quickly and decisively. if we did more against the virus, the ski lifts would maybe go bust we'd still have the rest going on relatively normally. now everyone suffers and of course more lives are lost in the process too.

with thousands of people getting the vaccine it's incredibly unlikely that it's just a statistical fluke. of course the number needed to treat (or vaccinate in this case) will sound a lot worse than 90%, but we really have to wait for the full data to be sure.
the thing with the rna vaccies is that those cells "infected" with the rna will produce the antigen indefinitely and ultimately be killed by the immune system. it's not much different than what a virus does. a virus also injects its rna into those cells, which will then never revert to normal again. only with the rna vaccine there is no spread to other cells because no infectios particles are produced. so i see no problem there. the only problem i see is that getting rna into the cells without a virus is tricky and maybe some of the tricks used here might have harmful consequences we haven't noticed yet.

[astralprojection]

I think I read or heard somewhere that they are using a modified common cold virus that carries that messenger rna that tells the cells to produce the spike protein. 

So in theory this vaccine could potentially cure the common cold as well. When I say cure I mean it will aid the immune system in producing the correct antibodies. 

 

As opposed to a classic vaccine that uses dead animal tissue and an inactive virus to do the same thing. 

What worries me personally is that the virus may mutate, and now you have told the cells to produce an antigen that the actual virus is now immune to - and this could cause the body having to fight both the mutated actual virus - while also fighting the spike protein created by the vaccine. Double jeopardy? 

Plus, there's no way of knowing what the long term effects could be by "tricking" the cells to create this spike protein to trigger the antigen response. 

The whole vaccine thing is worrying to me in general - I'm very thankful for the old tried and true vaccines like measles, tetanus, rubella, dyptheria. 

But the first round of polio vaccines caused mass casualty, and there's even reports of a polio outbreak actually caused by the vaccine. Also, let's not forget the narcolepsy reports from the h1n1 vaccines.

I think there's alot to worry about without being labeled either "antivaxx" or a "conspiracy theorist". 

And let's be honest. Without the vaccine there's already a 99% chance your immune system will fight it off without much issue. 

And the risk groups are mostly the elderly. Sadly the life expectancy is around 80 years old in many countries which just happens to be the same age group as most of the covid casualties. 

 

Also I don't like Bill Gates and don't know why he is the worlds vaccine-tsar. 

[Padmapani]

there are three main kinds of vaccines currently in development:

one is the vaccine with adenovirus vector (sputnik, astra-zeneca). this uses a modified adenovirus (one of which also cause the common cold), which also contains rna for the the spike protein from sars-cov-2. this is probably going to provide nice antibody production because it uses alive adenovirus your immune system has to fight off.
the chance of such a vaccine protecting against the common cold are minimal, but if you've been infected with a similar strain of adenovirus before the vaccine might be elimiated by already existing antibodies against that sort of adenivirus without having to recognise the sars-cov-2 spike protein at all, rendering the vaccine ineffective in such people.

the second ones are the rna-vaccies (pfizer, moderna). the rna that encodes for the spike protein is shuttled into the cells using specially designed lipid nanoparticles. since the infected cells are also going to produce the spike protein until they're cleared by the immune system, we can expect good immunogenicity here, even though you have nothing replicating in your body. in principle rna-vaccines combine the positives from live and inactivated vaccines, but up to date no rna-vaccine has ever been approved for humans so there's a risk for unknown side effects.

the third ones are "classical" inactivated vaccines (sinovac), where the virus is grown in cell culture (no dead animals involved, it'd probably be a human cancer cell line that has been used in labs for decades) and then inactivated using chemicals (and probably heat). the advantage is that it cannot replicate inside the body, gives the immune system a chance to "look at" the whole virus, but on the downside all the antigens your body will ever see are inside the syringe of the vaccine already. so the immune response is most likely going to be weaker.

there's no "double jeopardy" here. if the virus mutates in one of a few particular ways that change the spike protein, your immune system will not recognise the new virus and have to start fresh with producing antibodies. but it doesn't matter if you've had the disease before or the vaccination.
a small concern i have here is that theres a small chance that some mutations in the virus might have old antibodies trigger a potentially dangerous overreaction from the immune system (as we see with dengue fever. if you're infected with one strain you have an unpleasant but managable disease and you're immune to that strain forever. if you however get a different strain than the one you've had before you're in for a really bad time). however this would also be of more concern for people who've had covid-19 before than vaccinated people because antibody levels would most likely be higher in the former group.

yeah, polio outbreaks from vaccination are real (in the few areas where not everyone is vaccinated), but since we're 99% there to eradicating polio forever it's a small price to pay. just like no one would want to return to a world where smallpox was still around. the smallpox vaccine was more dangerous than pretty much any vaccine we use today.

 

sure, in our age group there's a >99% chance that you'll survive the virus. and even a 2 in 3 chance you'll not get more sick than with the flu. but still in all age groups there's a ca. 5-10% chance for suffering long term consequences (including chronic fatigue for months, dizzyness, drop in iq of nearly 10 points, high blood pressure, and in some rare cases heart failure or demyelinisation (think multiple sclerosis)).

a friend is currently doing a study on post-covid changes in the brain and while it's too early to say anything definitely, he has seen activation patterns commonly associated with depression in the great majority of test subjects. also only a small proportion of subjects (even those who had mild disease) report feeling 100% healthy even after months.

this virus is no joke and we will only realise the full impact of this pandemic in the coming year.

[Padmapani]

.

[RTP]

Stunning info! Thanks @Padmapani

So the cells where they inject the RNA will die off eventually because they are killed by the own immune cells? I didn't know that.

I would still prefer the traditional way of a vaccine with inactivated real Covid virus without any messenger RNA trickery. The risk of "not all immune cells being able to take a look at the virus" I'd just mitigate with repeated injections: I'd take 10 doses of the traditional vaccine or even more just to get around that messenger RNA thing ... make it an intravenous infusion instead of a syringe if you want ... I really would feel bad turning my own cells into "factories for the bad stuff" that my other cells then have to kill (both the stuff and the factory cells) and even if it's only the "harmless" spike protein that they produce - all of this just sounds already like the beginning of an autoimmune disease to me ... what if the immune system doesn't only kill off the cells that the RNA was injected into but, due to an error, it also "learns" to kill off healthy cells? To this day I don't even know if that vaccine doesn't just kill everybody anyway after one year (unlikely though = I don't believe it ) ... nah, it's way too risky in my opinion.

What about synthetic antibodies? I think the company "Regeneron" and also another one in the US has made such a cocktail for example and I've heard Mr. Trump himself got that one administered during his infection. Are these less dangerous?

[Padmapani]

7 hours ago, RTP said:

Stunning info! Thanks @Padmapani

So the cells where they inject the RNA will die off eventually because they are killed by the own immune cells? I didn't know that.

I would still prefer the traditional way of a vaccine with inactivated real Covid virus without any messenger RNA trickery. The risk of "not all immune cells being able to take a look at the virus" I'd just mitigate with repeated injections: I'd take 10 doses of the traditional vaccine or even more just to get around that messenger RNA thing ... make it an intravenous infusion instead of a syringe if you want ... I really would feel bad turning my own cells into "factories for the bad stuff" that my other cells then have to kill (both the stuff and the factory cells) and even if it's only the "harmless" spike protein that they produce - all of this just sounds already like the beginning of an autoimmune disease to me ... what if the immune system doesn't only kill off the cells that the RNA was injected into but, due to an error, it also "learns" to kill off healthy cells? To this day I don't even know if that vaccine doesn't just kill everybody anyway after one year (unlikely though = I don't believe it ) ... nah, it's way too risky in my opinion.

What about synthetic antibodies? I think the company "Regeneron" and also another one in the US has made such a cocktail for example and I've heard Mr. Trump himself got that one administered during his infection. Are these less dangerous?

to be exact, it's not strictly neccessary to kill off the cells "infected" by the rna-vaccine. the rna is degraded in the cell eventually. but all cells present parts of the proteins they are making at the moment on the surface and if the immune cells see anything that's foreign, they designate the offending cell as damaged or infected and kill it off. this is also one point that should make rna-vaccines more effective than inactivated ones. if you just inject "dead" virus you never get infected cells presenting proteins and therefore lower t-cell response (however you still get b-cells producing antibodies).

a virus particle in itself is nothing more than a sophisticated delivery system for rna (or dna for dna-viruses) into cells. any live vaccine (except those for bacterial diseases) or any viral disease turns your cells into factories for bad stuff. so that's not the issue here, that happens all the time. the only differences here is that a new delivery system is used and that the rna cannot replicate inside the body.

it's rather the immune cells only getting a look at the spike protein instead of the whole virus rather than not all immune cells getting a look. so repeated injections don't make a difference for that. in theory it shouldn't matter much because the spike protein should be the only thing that sticks out of the virus particle and therefore be the prime target for any immune response, but reality is often more complicated than that.

autoimmune reactios are a possibility with lots of infections. especially with covid we see autoimmune response against heart muscle cells or the myelin sheats, that cover nerves, after the infection. typically we see a few orders of magnitude less cases of autoimmune response for vaccinations than for the disease itself.
also the risk for autoimmune disorders is mainly dependent on the similarity of structures of a pathogen that infects your body (and also your genetic makeup) rather than if the pathogen gets inside your cells. for instance campylobacter infections (responsible for about a quarter or so of cases of infectios diarrhea) can also cause antoimmune reactions because some structures on these bacteria look remotely similar to structures in human joints.

synthetic antibodies are only there for treatment and not for protection. they don't last very long inside the body so you woudn't get immunity for longer than a couple of weeks give or take. the main danger here is that when you introduce a large amount of foreign proteins into the bloodstream you always have the risk of a severe allergic reaction. of course that can be managed in the hospital setting where such antibodies are administered. i'd rather have any vaccine than to be in the situation where i'd need an antibody cocktail.

[Padmapani]

... i keep confusing the edit button with the quote button...

[RTP]

Ah so they just change the delivery method of the RNA into cells, I see. I'm not entirely sure that this is a good thing though...

Your mentioning of autoimmune responses to Covid-19 got me thinking. I found this article, quite good in my opinion: https://theconversation.com/an-autoimmune-like-antibody-response-is-linked-with-severe-covid-19-146255
I feel like that explains to me a bit why I felt so crap as I had it - it probably was this immune response I had to deal with and I was actually fortunate enough that it didn't turn out severe.
The only one thing that worries me personally is this sentence: "Would an ongoing autoreactive response help explain instances of “lingering” COVID-19 even after the viral infection has cleared?"
Could there still be a (low-key) autoimmune response active inside of me and that's the reason for these occasional "bad nights" as I put it? I keep having these - nothing too severe, but it makes me think.
What lab tests would I need to do to find these blood cells responsible for autoimmune responses ... we have this thing called "large hemogram" ("Großes Blutbild" in German) - would that suffice? And I assume I must do one when I feel the effects, not when I feel totally fine, right?

And on a second note: would that vaccine even help me when I had the sickness already and my immune cells therefore should know the virus already (obviously they do, because otherwise I would be dead long ago - said the doctor to me) or is it just pointless increase of risk if I took it?

[Padmapani]

2 hours ago, RTP said:

Ah so they just change the delivery method of the RNA into cells, I see. I'm not entirely sure that this is a good thing though...

Your mentioning of autoimmune responses to Covid-19 got me thinking. I found this article, quite good in my opinion: https://theconversation.com/an-autoimmune-like-antibody-response-is-linked-with-severe-covid-19-146255
I feel like that explains to me a bit why I felt so crap as I had it - it probably was this immune response I had to deal with and I was actually fortunate enough that it didn't turn out severe.
The only one thing that worries me personally is this sentence: "Would an ongoing autoreactive response help explain instances of “lingering” COVID-19 even after the viral infection has cleared?"
Could there still be a (low-key) autoimmune response active inside of me and that's the reason for these occasional "bad nights" as I put it? I keep having these - nothing too severe, but it makes me think.
What lab tests would I need to do to find these blood cells responsible for autoimmune responses ... we have this thing called "large hemogram" ("Großes Blutbild" in German) - would that suffice? And I assume I must do one when I feel the effects, not when I feel totally fine, right?

And on a second note: would that vaccine even help me when I had the sickness already and my immune cells therefore should know the virus already (obviously they do, because otherwise I would be dead long ago - said the doctor to me) or is it just pointless increase of risk if I took it?

autoimmune reactions are definitely a prime candidate for explaining long covid. just today i read a paper discussing that they found signs of inflammation in 60% of people 2 months after people had covid (they included about equal numbers participants from symptomatic and asymptomatic cases). that has me a little worried of what we'll see in long term cases from our second wave now. (just to be clear, the great majority of the study participants did not have any symptoms from this inflammation).

you'd need extensive lab work to actually find cells responsible for an autoimmune response. and afaik the markers aren't included in the large haemogram by default. but there are specific markers you can look for that might be positive that your doctor can order from the lab. but i don't know which ones they are or indeed if we know already which ones could be positive for long covid. from what i've read today you can specifically look for anything happening in the heart with a heart mri. there are probably other procedures to test for other kinds of inflammation. but i don't think that our doctors could get the insurance to pay for something like that if there are no clear symptoms? what sort of symptoms do you have in these "bad nights"?

since you've already had the virus, getting a vaccination would most likely be pointless. a good way to test if you have lasting immunity (up to now we only know that it lasts longer than 6 months for most people) right now is to do an antibody test. you can get a quick yes-or-no answer with those test cassettes you can get in the pharmacy for 15-20€ (the most widespread one is called "cleartest corona", but different companies offer exactly the same test for a cheaper price in a different packaging). of course a quantitative lab test would be even better, telling you exactly how good your immunity is, but i don't think there's already a standardised test at the lab institutes.
still, even without that information i'd bet my money on vaccinations being a pointless increase of risk in your case.