71 thoughts on “Raise your hand or honk your Horn if you Love Long COVID”

1. Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse.

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2. I understand your concern and appreciate you taking the necessary action to protect your health. You may be the one to get the last laugh.

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   • Maybe… Thank you.

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3. I can’t wait to get the next booster – the CDC just authorized it for people who haven’t had a shot for FOUR months – my last booster was SIX months ago.

   People really don’t want to get what I have or a version of LC that is similar to ME/CFS – I’ve been sick for 33 years, and it’s no picnic.

   Sometimes I think it would serve them right; other times I pray for the ones who follow the deliberate misinformation being peddled to them – by people who will not support them with income or healthcare if they get sick, and who have access to wonderful benefits because they’re in Congress.

   Future generations will look at us the way those of us who know look at the same nonsense post-1918-flu.

   Yes, it’s a pain to be careful; it’s a bigger pain to be sick; and the biggest pain to lose your life or a loved one. Grow up, people, and smell the hospital strength disinfectant.

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   • I understand. I was sick most of my youth up until soon after I turned 18 when my doctor told me I was cured and could live a normal life. He said there was no more sign of the virus that we’d been fighting for years. I was too young to remember the hospital visits where they had to put me in an oxygen tent to keep me alive. My mom went to several doctors before she found one who said he could keep me alive and save me. It took a long time. Shots every other day for I don’t remember how long. Left Arm. Two days later, right arm. Then left buttoch followed by right buttoch before starting over. In time, I hated needles. Still do.

     When I graduated from high school and went into the Marines I was 6’4″ and weighted 125 pounds. By the end of bootcamp, the Marines had put about thirty pounds of muscle on me.

     I do NOT like being sick. I am also waiting for the next booster.

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     • CDC has authorized it! Now, to get the shot, then it will take me two weeks to recover, and I’m safer going out to dinner with other residents.

       Did you ever identify the virus that almost killed you as a kid?

     • It was the early 1950s when the treatments started. All I remember is that doctor explaining to my mother that the virus was not the one that caused Rheumatic fever but was similar. I don’t even know what was in the shots. At that age, the hypodermic needles looked huge. Thinking back to the way I felt out of touch with the world around me, I think the drugs were doing something to my mind, too. I sort of livid in my imagination most of the time creating my own world.

       If the new shot is that good that it makes it safe to eat out with other people, it must be a step up from the previous vaccines.

     • Saf-ER. Isolation is bad for the soul, too. We’ll be eating outside, wear masks to and from, watch for obvious signs…

     • “That research shows people who are emotionally stable, self-reliant and autonomous, goal-oriented, friendly, patient and open tend to cope better in conditions of extreme isolation.”

       https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-patterns-persons/202004/why-some-personalities-may-thrive-in-isolation#:~:text=That%20research%20shows%20people%20who,in%20conditions%20of%20extreme%20isolation.

       I don’t know if I fit that description, Still, I work hard to stay emotionally stable through a combination of meditation, the two PTSD support groups I belong to, and daily exercise. I tend to rely on myself to get things done. About the only time I ask for help is when it seems impossible for me to do something all by myself. I set short and long term goals, write them down and check them off as I achieve them, So far, knock on wood, I have achieved all of my goals and continue to work toward continuing that habit. When I start a project, I stay patient no matter how long it takes. It took me three or four months to rebuilt the back fence for the fixer upper I bought back in 2016. It took me several months to tear out the old floors and replace them with tongue and groove solid wood. Some projects take a few hours, others hundreds of others. A couple of decades ago, I could work a 16 hour day with little rest. Now I’m down to 4 hours at most and crash after that.

       I wouldn’t say I’m living in extreme isolation. When the pandemic hit, I was in one group, a PTSD support group located at the Concord Vet center. We met in person each week. A few months into the pandemic and I’d joined two more critique groups on Zoom I found through MeetUp. Then an older PTSD support group that was located at the Martinez VA that had ended back in 2018 was revived during the pandemic and now it’s doing great, knock on wood. We meet online with screen time. During the holidays, Thanksgiving to New Years, I’d join my family face-to-face once or twice. My stepdaughter organizes all those get togethers. She’s very detailed and thorough, down to everyone taking COVID tests twice the week before we get together. Anyone that tests positive stays home. Last Christmas her husband family all tested positive so only half of us showed up for the Thanksgiving overeating feast.

       Although capable of violence since the Marines trained me to think that way, as a rule I’m not an aggressive person unless pushed by someone that goes too far.

       Maybe I qualify to cope better in isolation. I don’t think I want to try extreme isolation though. However, as I age, my body is falling apart, a little here, a little there, and that may end my ability to be self-reliant and autonomous. I admit that worries me.

     • I don’t have a thing to add to that list of what you’re doing and managing – you’re doing well and being careful at the same time.

       You’re not isolated – you’re talking to people regularly. We’d all like more in-person – hope it comes soon. I’m on the vulnerable list, so I’m antsy – I can’t add Long Covid or more stress to already being chronically ill (though LC might, paradoxically, end up providing the answers research should have been providing for decades).

       I get freaked out – talk myself down. Repeat. I’m almost finished with a tax problem that I found was hanging over us – long story), and will happily plunge into life in the retirement community after I’ve done my writing for the day, if there’s anything left. Pool, bike, riding my Airwheel S8 around Davis on the pedestrian/bike paths.

       But the writing first, because it’s been over a year since I could focus on LIMBO, and I want it DONE, published, etc.

       Now that I’m getting the tax thing under control, I’m a lot more stable, and a lot less stressed, but I need it OVER.

       Body falling apart – I know that one since 1989 – but I also know humans (and particularly my ancestors) are long-lived; my plan is to still be writing when I’m 115. We’ll see.

       I think what you are is called resilient – I hope I am, too. Keep it up.

     • May we both achieve our goals.

   • If you want boosters, go for it. As a free American, you have the right to choose what’s best for you, and you are free to try to convince others as well.
     But don’t try to force people who don’t want them to get them, through health department/government “mandates” aka coercion…no shot, no service…no shot, you’re fired…no shot, no school…no shot, can’t travel

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     • Gee, ManicMikey is back. The troll crawled out of its hole under a rock down there in San Diego County? Did the troll get bored and go through its list of trolling targets to find someone to rile up, huh?

       I have no idea what this troll is talking about. From what I’ve read, the federal government never mandated for anyone outside the military to get the vaccines. For most of us, that decision was voluntary. When I was in the Marines, it wasn’t voluntary. Employers could mandate it if someone wanted to keep their job.

       Yet, because I think I have a responsibility not to infect others, I wear a mask and got the vaccines. You see, unlike ignorant fools, I know the history of vaccines that go back more than a thousand years and have saved hundreds of millions of lives. I know that George Washington ordered his troops during the revolutionary war to get vaccinated for Smallpox, so he’d have an army left to fight the British. We know how that turned out. George Washington and his army won that war.

       I don’t hear that from individuals that sound like ManicMikey the troll. I think it don’t care about anyone else. Just like Traitor Trump only thinks about himself.

       I want everyone that is anti-vax that goes out in public without masks to get COVID. I want them to get Long COVID. I want them to get POTs. I want them to get what they deserve for being fascist-loving manic MAGA lunatics.

       I will say this. Because of individuals that do not get the jabs or wear masks in public, I rarely go out in public anymore. I used to eat out four or five times a week, go to a theater at least once a week, and do all my shopping in person.

       Those people I have no respect for took away my freedom to go out safely in public.

       Because of the anti-vaccine crowd and those that refuse to wear masks in public, I don’t to any of that anymore. The positive side is that I’m saving a lot of money that would have gone to the restaurants and theaters I use to go to. I wonder how many jobs were lost and businesses closed because of the selfish, anti-everything troll mob.

       I do not think I’m alone. A lot of money stopped flowing into the private sector, as we. who do not want to be victimized by idiots that have no idea what freedom really means, changed our spending habits and stayed home.

4. Lloyd Lofthouse, people like Alex Jones would say that Covid does not exist. What is to be done with people like that?

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   • It’s up to each of us to ignore them.

     Still, we can’t expect everyone to ignore greedy monsters like Alex Jones. He only exists because of the fools that continue to feed him what he wants, attention and money.

     Hucksters and manipulators like Alex Jones have been around for as long as our species has been walking the planet. It was probably easier to ignore them, or eradicate them, when we were a hunter gatherer culture without cities and billions of people.

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     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I remember expressing some hope for the Pfizer Covid vaccine. If you will indulge my curiosities, here are 2 questions I would be happy to get your thoughts on: 1: Assuming that adverse events took place, real but rare, would you be willing to take the reports at face value even if some cases were not able to be seen personally? 2: Even though I only watch him for the entertainment value, would it surprise you to know that I think he generally speaking is a nutcase?

     • While it is possible for some people to have a reaction to a vaccine, just like any medication, some foods, some drinks, it is rare. I have had all the COVID vaccines, five so far, I think. I might be off one. I had my shots at the VA and we had to stay for awhile (I don’t remember the exact time limit) and before we could go we had to have a VA nurse check the injection site to any sign of reactions and we were also asked if we felt pain there. I never did.

       I plan to get the next booster once the VA lets me know.

       Still, I’m lactose intolerant (no milk, no dairy) and allergic to penicillin. When I was a child, the first penicillin shot I had caused my arm to swell up like a balloon. I was given another shot to counteract that. Another time I overdosed on vitamin C and had to go see my doctor because if the itchy hives breaking out all over my body. I got a shot to counter that, too.

       It took my years to discover I’m also glucose intolerant. Once I stopped eating wheat, I stopped bloating up with indigestion. Then iII turned to organic oats but some people are allergic to that too, and I’m one of them. I seem to be okay with ancient grains and I don’t seem to be allergic to peanuts. Being allergic to peanuts can kill some people. Some people can die from a wasp or bee stings, too but not everyone.

       If you have had COVID shots with no reactions yet, you should be okay.

       I don’t watch creeps like Alex whatever his name is. I don’t need the anger that rises in me. I do not find their lies and hate funny. A long time ago I was a Rush Limbaugh fan, until I took him up on his daily challenge and started to fact check him learning he was a HUGE liar. I stopped listening to him. He also called his followers ditto heads and told us we didn’t have to think, he’d do our thinking for him.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, just to clarify, I have never been anti-vaccine to the extreme. I just believe that every person on both sides of the issue deserve a voice. Example: If someone got the Moderna vaccine with no ill effects and another person experienced excruciating migraines, however, no other issues and the migraines resolved with early treatment, I would be willing to lend legitimacy to both opinions. So I completely agree with your premise, however, I also do the best I can to do my thinking outside of the box.

     • Someone is always going to have a reaction of some kind to just about any medication. Whenever I get a prescription, once I get home, the first thing I read is the warnings. If the warnings of known reactions sound worse than my health issue, I usually don’t take the
       medicine. Stil;l, if my symptoms are worse than the warnings, then I will take the medicine,

       Here’s a recent example of me taking nothing but garlic tables after a friend told me taking garlic like that would keep insects from biting me when I was doing yardwork.

       A few days after I started taking the garlic tablets, I started to get horrible indigestion. I never suspected the garlic so I kept taking those tablets. After a few weeks of suffering with horrible indigestion and gut pain that was very unusual for me, It decided to check online to see if there were some kind of reaction to taking those garlic tablets.

       That’s were stupid me discovered I should have checked before i started. Garlic tablets can cause painful indigestion and also there is no scientific evidence form studies that garlic protects us from bug bites. I stopped and within a day the indigestion was gone.

       Here are the known reactions to those COVID shots: “Some people have no side effects. Many people have reported side effects, such as headache, fatigue, and soreness at the injection site, that are generally mild to moderate and go away within a few days.”

       I found this info on the CDC’s site just now.

       Did you notice “They are generally mild to moderate?” Read between the lines and for sure, someone did not have a mild to moderate reaction. If their doctor had them stay long enough to make sure they were okay and someone had a serious reaction, the doctor would probably give them a shot to counter to reaction.

       I just found this at the CDC site too: “Anaphylaxis, a severe type of allergic reaction, can occur after any kind of vaccination. If it happens, healthcare providers can effectively and immediately treat the reaction. Learn more about COVID-19 vaccines and allergic reactions, including anaphylaxis.”

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, that makes sense. I know that there are a lot of people who disagree with both men, however, in a neutral setting, I would not mind an open exchange between Joseph Mercola and Anthony Fauci.

     • I had to look up Joseph Mercola, never heard of him before.

       “Joseph Michael Mercola is an American alternative medicine proponent, osteopathic physician, and Internet business personality whose net worth, as declared in 2017, had grown to over $100 million. He markets largely unproven dietary supplements and medical devices.”

       Then we have this about Anthony Fauci. I only went up to COVID but not past COVID.

       “As a physician with the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Fauci has served the American public health sector in various capacities for more than fifty years and has acted as an advisor to every U.S. president since Ronald Reagan.[5] During his time as director of the NIAID, he made contributions to HIV/AIDS research and other immunodeficiency diseases, both as a research scientist and as the head of the NIAID.[6] From 1983 to 2002, Fauci was one of the world’s most frequently cited scientists across all scientific journals.[6][7] In 2008, President George W. Bush awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award in the United States, for his work on the AIDS relief program PEPFAR.[8]”

       “Western medicine provides diagnosis through lab test and it focuses on eliminating symptoms but normally fails to address adverse effects on the body. Chinese medicine focuses on the body’s overall response to treatment and recognizes the body as one interconnected biosystem.”

       I’m not interested in having Fauci debate Mercola. Why bother? I suspect Mercola would turn that into an opportunity to promote himself and spout all kinds of unproven crap. What is alternative medicine? “any of a range of medical therapies that are not regarded as orthodox by the medical profession, such as herbalism, homeopathy, and acupuncture.”

       Now, I have some respect for traditional Chinese medicine since eastern medicine focuses on what’s good for the body vs what’s bad so people don’t eat or drink themselves into disease. That’s why I became a vegan and decided to keep that lifestyle after six month trial run. I had a lot of health problems and p ain from eating the traditionally western diet, eating anything you want and drinking anything you want. My brother died in 1999 at 64 living life like that. he was a mess. If I hadn’t changed, I would have died before he did.

       As a vegan, my lifestyle became closer to what Chinese Medicine is all about instead of western medicine that lets idiots stuff or guzzle whatever they want and then when that shit starts killing them, they rush to the doctor who then cuts them open to remove the damage, radiates them and uses poisons to wage chemical warfare on their entire body that was damaged by the sick idiot that drank too much coke or ate too much meat, cheese and milk.

       Still, the odds are that even if we do everything right, there’s still about 15% change we may still come down with a serious disease like cancer. But when we don’t do anything right, we have an 85% change. Many reputable studies have come up with those numbers.

       I had a friend, a fellow teacher, Larry, a science teacher no less, who listened to someone like Mercola and he started to make his own colloidal silver and drink it. He tried to talk me into doing that too, said it would kill any threats to our health. His parents were both in their 90s the day he dies two years after he retired from teaching at 60. His body was riddled with cancer. It was everywhere, but up until he started making and drinking that colloidal silver, there was no sign of any diseases in his body.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, an open exchange of ideas between Anthony Fauci and Joseph Mercola is something I would be happy to see. Not overly confrontational. Just a discussion of different ideas.

     • Discussions like that have already happened.

       Google Western vs Chinese medicine or Western vs Eastern medicine and you may end up reading for hours or days.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I will. Did you ever get the chance to look into that book by Gregg Hurwitz, Trust No One,” that I suggested to you?

     • I think I read it, but I don’t remember for sure. I read too many books to remember them all. I’m also behind in reviewing books. a lot. There are 11 stacked next to my computer to review. The were a lot more in the to-be-reviewed stack, but I culled them. The ones I still sort of remembered I kept to be reviews and the one’s I’d forgotten I decided weren’t important enough to review.

       Then there’s the 20 stacked on the small table beside my bed. I know I shouldn’t’ keep buying them if I’m not reading them, but it’s not easy to say no to a book that interests me.

       Oh, and then there are the audio books I only listen to when I’m driving. I seldom review one of those because it takes me so long to finish one. Since the pandemic I don’t drive as much as i use to so I don’t finish them as fast. I used to fill up my tank every two weeks. Now I fill the tank about twice a year.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I am a book enthusiast personally.

     • Does that mean you have stacks of books waiting to be read and book shelves everywhere?

       On that note, I read one of the newer SF books recently that was amazingly imaginative. When I finished reading it, I thought is this unique or has modern SF changed so much that it isn’t. I’ve never read anything like MERU before. I think the autor must have an incredible imagination.

       It’s called MERU by S. B. Divya. She has a few other books. Your comment reminded me of them. So, I thought, I should order it before I forget, again. Then I thought, Wait, I still have twenty waiting to be read. Darn!

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I will look them up and will also do my own research. We seem to have the same taste in books from what I can tell.

     • Disagree or agree with Mercola or Faucie isn’t what’s important here.

       The safety of vaccines vs a mortal virus was proven centuries ago in China with the first documented uses of a vaccine method that was a lot riskier that modern vaccines.

       My question is: Why is this even being debated? It’s stupid to question the use of vaccines to save lives. Its careless to refuse to wear a mask or take a vaccine when a pandemic breaks out.

       “Measles is a highly contagious, serious disease caused by a virus. Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1963 and widespread vaccination, major epidemics occurred approximately every 2–3 years and measles caused an estimated 2.6 million deaths each year.”

       What was the death rate of diphtheria before vaccine?

       “During the 1920s, 100,000 to 200,000 cases of diphtheria (140 to 150 cases per 100,000 population) and 13,000 to 15,000 deaths were reported each year.”

       “Before pertussis vaccines became widely available in the 1940s, as many as 200,000 children got sick with whooping cough each year in the US and about 9,000 died as a result of the infection.”

       “Four million deaths worldwide are prevented by childhood vaccination every year. More than 50 million deaths can be prevented through immunization between 2021 and 2030.”

       “Between roughly 1855 and 2005, measles is estimated to have killed about 200 million people worldwide.”

       “Polio vaccine was licensed in the United States in 1955. During 1951-1954, an average of 16,316 paralytic polio cases and 1879 deaths from polio were reported each year.”

       What was the success rate of plague vaccine?

       “He tested the vaccine on himself to prove that the vaccine was safe. Later, Haffkine conducted a massive inoculation program in British India, and it is estimated that 26 million doses of Haffkine’s anti-plague vaccine were sent out from Bombay between 1897 and 1925, reducing the plague mortality by 50%-85%.””

       “Polio health care workers who administer polio vaccines have also delivered more than 1.3 billion doses of vitamin A since 1988, saving over 1.5 million children’s lives”

       “The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.”

       “The Black Death (also known as the Pestilence, the Great Mortality or the Plague) was a bubonic plague pandemic occurring in Western Eurasia and North Africa from 1346 to 1353. It is the most fatal pandemic recorded in human history, causing the deaths of 75–200 million people, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.”

       “The Spanish flu was previously the disease event that caused the biggest loss of life in the United States; the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that 675,000 Americans died during the 1918 pandemic, in waves of illness that stretched out over roughly two years in this country. More than 50 million died worldwide.”

       “Yellow fever epidemics caused terror, economic disruption, and some 100,000-150,000 deaths. Recent white immigrants to southern port cities were the most vulnerable; local whites and blacks enjoyed considerable resistance. — What is the mortality rate for yellow fever vaccine?
       The estimated death rate was 0.89 for 1,000,000 YF vaccine doses (95% CI 0.12-6.31/1,000,000 doses).”

       And today, there are fucking, selfish, ignorant idiots refusing to take vaccines of any kind and some of these disease that we thought we’d beat are making a comeback and killing people again.

       There isn’t anything to debate here.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I agree with you on these points by and large. Where you are way off-base is when you say, “And today, there are fucking, selfish, ignorant idiots refusing to take vaccines of any kind and some of these disease that we thought we’d beat are making a comeback and killing people again,” which has some truth, however, it omits the fact that there are some vaccines that cannot safely be taken due to underlying health conditions. Example: My having Epilepsy disqualifies me from getting the Pertussis vaccine for whooping cough. When I was much younger I also had that situation, so I already have a built-in immunity.

     • Correct, I did omit the fact that there are some vaccines that cannot safely be taken due to underlying health conditions. I regret not mentioning that. I should have. Since I’m allergic to penciling and that recent reactio nto garlic tablets, I should have thought of it. In fact, there’s a lot of stuff besides vaccines that some people can’t take due to genetic differences and/or underlying health conditions.

       Peanut allergies can kill
       Lactose intolerance
       Gluten intolerance
       I suspect this list is a lot longer than my knowledge

       This morning I read about a father and son with a genetic mutation that allows them to get enough sleep in 4 to 6 hours and still be alert as someone who sleeps the average that most humans need. Years ago I read about a family in Italy that had a genetic mutation that allowed them to eat all the fast food they wanted without any health dangers. Meaning they could eat McDonalds for every meal every day and never get sick or add weight.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I ask this question in all sincerity, however, do you believe that people who say that they cannot have certain vaccines because of underlying health conditions and yet want for those to be available to other people are pro-vaccine or anti-vaccine?

     • That depends on what they do after they say that cannot have a certain vaccine because of underlying health conditions.

       Do they isolate as much as possible?
       Do they wear masks around others?
       Do they sanitize all exposed skin after being exposed to others?
       Do they have support from their medical doctor if they have a doctor?

       If they do all of that, I think they demonstrate that they are taking the pandemic seriously and that they are probably immune compromised in some way. As someone on the Agent Orange list, I may be immune compromised in some way, so, just in case, I isolate as much as possible, wear masks in public, wash my hands, sanitise as much as possible, et al.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I agree with you. By the way, when I expressed some optimism and hope for the Pfizer Covid vaccine, I hope that you did not take that to mean that I am rendering an unfair judgement against the rest of them.

       i’ve read a couple of good explanations but do not remember all the details about the differences.

     • Pfizer and Moderna are different than the vaccines we are use to. As I understand the difference, the vaccines we are used to come with sa weaker or dead strain of the virus to warn our body to be alert to that particular virus. The Pfizer and Moderna does something else at the genetic level, teaching our cells how to protect themselves from the virus.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, that makes sense to me. Assuming in good faith that some of the stories that people share about adverse reactions to the jabs are true, who should get the reports first: The manufacturers? The media? One’s primary care specialist or an MD otherwise depending on the situation of the patient in question?

     • Once the watchdogs, whoever they are (CDC, WHO, et al.) knows something about adverse reactions, they should issue a press release to everyone. There are a lot of scientists and doctors (thousands – maybe in the low millions – in countries around the world reporting in detail about COVID and results from the use of the vaccines daily. I do not think anyone has the power to cover up all of that information. Countries, universities, hospitals, and doctors are sharing information with each other.

       If the entire world was ruled by one government similar to North Korea, China, Russia, or Iran, that government might be able to hide data for awhile, that didn’t want the public to know, but not more than190 countries and more than 8 billion people, no way. Even in brutal authoritarian countries facts would leak out somehow.

       I think I read in National Geographic Magazine (could have been another source but I don’t think so) the 40 year history behind the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. It was well written but I don’t remember all the names and details. The science behind those vaccines goes back longer than four decades now.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I am somewhere between wanting it just so we can get back to normal as quickly as possible and also wanting a little more time to pass just to be safe. While I have never feared vaccines, nor even needles, I think it would be just as reasonable to validate people’s concerns as it would be to encourage the vaccines. Best of both worlds. For what it is worth, I am not parroting an Alex Jones talking point. Just basically speaking for myself.

     • For your own protection, I think you should isolate as much as possible and wear a mask around people, vaccine or no vaccine. If your immune system is at risk, be safe instead of sorry.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I agree with you on that.

5. Lloyd Lofthouse, unless they are paid to act in such a manner or we were lied to about the safety and effectiveness of these jabs, I have reason to believe that people who report adverse events are being truthful. Those who say there are no adverse events are just living in denial and want to smear people who report adverse events as being liars.

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6. Hi Lloyd. Just found this post, and I have to add my voice to your concerns. The Offspring and I both have vulnerabilities with regard to Covid so we are still in protective self-isolation. It isn’t quite as strict as it was back in 2020 when there were no vaccines or treatments at all, but life is definitely not back to normal. We still wear N95 masks when we leave the house, and decontaminate everything that enters the house, including all shopping and our clothes. This despite having had 5 jabs, including the most recent Moderna one that is tailored for the Omicron variant. That 5th jab allowed us to catch up on much needed medical procedures.
   Do we want Covid to be over? God yes. Do we want to risk dying just because we’re sick of taking precautions? No.
   As you say, Covid isn’t done with us yet, and it will be some time before we know whether the Omicron variants remain ‘less deadly’. So long as the virus keeps changing at its current rate, the next sub-variant could turn out to be another super bad one. 😦

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   • I started reading recently about a new sub-variant that might be that bad one. None of the previous vaccines work to protect us from this one, and it is spreading fast. This one may be doubly dangerous since so many people are not paying attention as they attempt to return to what life was like for them before COVID arrived. That means maskless and going out in public taking no precautions. That carelessness by the many makes it dangerous for the few who are still wary.

     I read that the vaccine to help us from this variant should be approved this month and be available soon.

     Still, I will continue to self-isolate as much as possible and wear masks when I do go out on a supply run, rare these days. I have no problem staying away from other people, self-isolating. That seems to bother them more than it does me. I’ve already been badgered by people I know to join them in public. I keep refusing. If they keep bugging, I block their calls and emails.

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     • Ah! Thanks for the headsup. I used to research everything Covid related but I wore myself out with worry. I should probably dive back into some research. Do you know the name of this new variant? I’d like to see whether it’s arrived in Australia already.
       Re socialising. -sigh- I know. Friends keep asking me to go for coffee and I keep saying no. No coffee, no birthdays, no xmas get togethers. Not fun, but some risks are just not worth taking. And at least we have the internet. 🙂

     • https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharmaceuticals/highly-mutated-covid-variant-found-new-countries-pandemic-a-different-phase-2023-08-24/

       “A new coronavirus variant is raising alarm, but much about it remains unknown.”

       https://www.yalemedicine.org/news/new-covid-variant-ba286-pirola

       Keeping up with what’s going on regarding COVID doesn’t worry me. I stopped worrying in Vietnam in 1966 after too many close calls. After that, my philosophy is to live one day at a time and hope for the best while doing all I can to stay as healthy as possible. Every morning I wake up healthy and alive is a new day to celebrate life without celebrating in the traditional way. A few times I have opened my eyes feeling like I’d been hit by a bus and thought that day might be my last. Then I force myself to get up and keep on moving. Fortunately whatever ailed me that day soon left me alone and my health returned to normal.

       I’ve only been to the ER once, December last year. The next day I was fine.

     • Honestly? I wish I had your courage but without the Vietnam experience. 😦 For me, there’s the personal fear, of course, but there’s the far greater fear that I might inadvertently catch Covid and pass it on to the Offspring who also has medical vulnerabilities. That I could not bear.
       I read both articles – THANK YOU! – and I’ll make sure we both get our most important medical checkups done while the 5th jab is still working. I’ll be keeping an eye out for the next booster as well as we tend to get them a bit later than the US.

     • I would not think like I do without the Marine and Vietnam experience. I’d be a very different person. Maybe more like my dad and brother.

     • I don’t think it’s possible to go through something like that, for such a very long time, without it fundamentally changing your outlook on life. 😦

     • My parents dropped out of high school at 14, during the Great American Depression in the early party of the 20th century. They never finished high school but were both avid readers.

       They wanted me to go to college. I didn’t, so I joined the Marines without telling them. In Vietnam, a couple of very close calls with death convinced me to change my mind. One was close enough for me to feel a sniper’s round brush my left ear.

       The U.S. Marines hammered discipline into an undisciplined adolescent. Without that, I would not have kept my nose to the grindstone of learning for all those years in college, something I never did grades K through 12. My dad worked in construction most of his adult life. He was a gambler who taught himself how to handicap horse races so pick more winners than losers. He was an alcoholic who managed to quit in his 50s and live alcohol free for almost thirty years before he died. He was a womanizer and cheated on my mother often but I think that stopped when he retired around the same time, he stopped drinking. My brother worked mostly poverty wage jobs, was an alcoholic and womanizer all of his adolescent and adult life, destroying his health. He died at 64. He also spent 15 years of his life in jail or prison cells.

     • Education really is the Open Sesame of life. My Dad’s Dad was a turner and fitter and his Mum had a food stall in the Budapest market, but Dad became an engineer and his sister was an opera singer for a while. Getting a good education was something I took for granted, not realising until much later how fortunate I’d been.
       And here we both are, writing. In many ways we’ve led fortunate lives.

     • Agreed.

7. Lloyd Lofthouse, one person I listen to regularly is a uy named Paul Cottrell. He is on Brighteon.com and I have found a podcast, Decoding Covid-19 on a website named player.fm and have learned a lot. While I do not think that reported cases of adverse events post-Covid jabs are misinformation or disinformation, I think that it would be perfectly reasonable to give every person a voice on both sides of the matter. Robert W. Malone, the inventor of the MRNA platform had indicated that the technology had been misused and had indicated that it would reset the immune system and that there have been cases of heart damage that were irreversible. If he actually intended to create vaccines but wanted to devote more time to them to work out all of the bugs, maybe at that point there could be mass production of such vaccines. While I agree with you on a fundamental level, I believe that every person, those who experience adverse reactions and those who do not, deserve to be given a voice and to be heard.

   Reply

   • I just read/heard your voice.

     So, I asked Google, “Who created the mRNA vaccine?” I do not see Robert W. Malone mentioned. A mystery maybe?

     “After a chance meeting in the late 1990s while photocopying research papers, Karikó and Weissman began investigating mRNA as a potential therapeutic. In 2005, they published a key discovery: mRNA could be altered and delivered effectively into the body to activate the body’s protective immune system …

     https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/katalin-kariko-and-drew-weissman-penns-historic-mrna-vaccine-research-team-win-2023-nobel#:~:text=After%20a%20chance%20meeting%20in,the%20body's%20protective%20immune%20system.

     Then I asked if “Robert W. Malone invented the platform for MRNA. That landed a lot of hits.

     The verdict: Dr. Malone is NOT the inventor of mRNA vaccines. He is one of many.

     “Inaccurate: The development of the mRNA vaccines is due to the work of hundreds of researchers, one of which is Robert Malone. Together with his co-authors, Malone contributed early evidence that mRNA could be delivered and produce proteins in cells. However, because crucial hurdles to develop the mRNA vaccines were resolved by many researchers , Malone cannot be claimed the inventor of this vaccine technology.”

     You may want to click the next link and read the review:

     https://healthfeedback.org/claimreview/the-development-of-mrna-vaccines-was-a-collaborative-effort-robert-malone-contributed-to-their-development-but-he-is-not-their-inventor/

     Reply

     • I will. Are you familiar with a Dr. Paul Cottrell? He is one of the people who clearly buys the official narrative about “Covid” and these so-called variants. According to a lot of people, many cases of Covid are diagnosed with a badly misused PCR test, which, according to its late creator Kary Mullis, was never meant to be a diagnostic tool. A lot of people talk about how we are in a pandemic of the unvaccinated and a lot of people can get sick and still risk infecting people despite being fully vaccinated.

     • My son-in-law has had COVID twice.

       “The pandemic has triggered an unprecedented mobilisation of the scientific community”

       https://www.oecd.org/sti/science-technology-innovation-outlook/crisis-and-opportunity/thepandemichastriggeredanunprecedentedmobilisationofthescientificcommunity.htm

       I’m not putting my trust in the hands of one or a few individuals that may “think they know it all” when there is literally a global army of scientists and medical doctors working on COVID.

       COVID was not isolated in the United States. That virus triggered a global pandemic and thousand, tens of thousands, of scientists around the world have been working on understanding this virus strain and how to combat it.

       Click the link, read it all.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I know that there are some people who may very likely dismissed as quacks or not credible in the eyes of some people. Excluding the Covid vaccine issue, one person I really enjoy listening to is a cardiologist named Peter A. McCullough. He seems to be opposed to the Covid vaccines, however, not to the point of infringing upon freedom of choice in that regard for people who do elect to get it. For me the matter boils down to freedom of choice and the right to fully-informed consent for any medical issue. So I agree with you in a broader sense, however, I also believe that people should just leave each other alone.

     • Debate by the rules when having a debate, and leave each other alone when they disagree.

       What is that old saying about agree to disagree.

       Still, we now live in a time when one side alleges the other side wants to control how we live and think, while the group doing the accusing is passing laws that control how we live and think. Hmm, I hope that makes sense.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I agree on all counts.

     • Don’t forget how Galileo was accused of heresy and then centuries later the Church apologized, I think. I’m not fact checking that, so I might be wrong.

       “On April 12, 1633, chief inquisitor Father Vincenzo Maculani da Firenzuola, appointed by Pope Urban VIII, begins the inquisition of physicist and astronomer Galileo Galilei. Galileo was ordered to turn himself in to the Holy Office to begin trial for holding the belief that the Earth revolves around the sun, which was deemed heretical by the Catholic Church. Standard practice demanded that the accused be imprisoned and secluded during the trial. …

       https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/galileo-is-accused-of-heresy

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, while I agree with a lot of people who express concerns about the Covid vaccines, I also believe that all liability protections should be removed from the manufacturers. I also believe that a 10 year minimum should be had before mass distribution of any medication, vaccine and so on is available to the public. Emergency Use Authorization should be available in a medical setting, however, there should always be the right to fully informed consent.

     • “also believe that a 10 year minimum should be had before mass distribution of any medication, vaccine and so on is available to the public”

       I had five COVID vaccine shots/jabs, all through the Veterans Administration. Evertime, they had me wait 15 minutes after the jab to see if there’d be any reactions. I never had any.

       “Vaccinated people who received an updated COVID vaccine where 14X less likely to die compared to those who received no vaccine.”

       https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7206a3.htm

       How many people died from a COVID vaccine?

       “For the three Covid-19 vaccines, the CDC has stated that there’s no evidence from clinical data, death certificates or autopsies to confirm reports of them directly causing death. Compare that with Covid-19 infection, which leads to death in nearly 2 percent of cases in the United States. That means 2 out of every 100 people die from a COVID-19 infection.”

       https://www.covidvaccinefacts.org/questions/have-vaccine-side-effects-resulted-any-deaths

       How many more would have died without a COVID vaccine for 10 more years?

       “They determined the number of lives lost if there had been no vaccines. Based on reported COVID‐19 deaths, vaccinations prevented an estimated 14.4 million deaths (95% credible interval [Crl] 13.7–15.9) from COVID‐19 in a year. However, if excess deaths were used, this estimate rose to 19.8 million (95% Crl 19.1–20.4) deaths prevented (Fig. 1), equating to a global reduction of 63% in total deaths (19.8 million of 31.4 million) during the first year of COVID‐19 vaccination. Delivery of vaccines to low‐income countries has been far lower than promised. 2 In COVID‐19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Advance Market Commitment countries, an estimated 7.4 million [95% Crl 6.8–7.7] of 17.9 million excess deaths were prevented, but millions more lives could have been saved with better coverage.”

       https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9537923/

       What would holding the vaccine from release for 10 years have done to the global economy?

       “Using surprises in vaccines administered, we find that an unexpected increase in vaccination per capita is associated with a significant increase in economic activity. We also find evidence for nonlinear effects of vaccines, with the marginal economic benefits being larger when vaccination rates are higher.”

       https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8753340/#:~:text=Using%20surprises%20in%20vaccines%20administered,when%20vaccination%20rates%20are%20higher.

       “As long as there is no vaccine against the disease, the global cost associated with COVID-19 and its economic impact could be $3.4 trillion a year. If the poorest countries cannot access vaccines, the world could still lose between $60 billion and $340 billion a year in GDP.”

       https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RBA769-1.html#:~:text=Key%20findings&text=As%20long%20as%20there%20is,billion%20a%20year%20in%20GDP.

       How many people died or had reactions from the COVID vaccines?

       “People continue to be watched for rare side effects, even after more than 650 million doses have been given in the United States. Side effects that don’t go away after a few days are thought of as long term. Vaccines rarely cause any long-term side effects.”

       https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/coronavirus/in-depth/coronavirus-vaccine/art-20484859#:~:text=People%20continue%20to%20be%20watched,any%20long%2Dterm%20side%20effects.

       “Long post-COVID vaccination syndrome (LPCVS) is an increasingly recognized disease that occurs after SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations and lasts >4 weeks.”

       https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9706319/#:~:text=Long%20post%2DCOVID%20vaccination%20syndrome%20(LPCVS)%20is%20an%20increasingly,vaccinations%20and%20lasts%20%3E4%20weeks.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, you probably got saline, as is the case for everybody else who appears to be suffering no ill effects. Here is a video from Robert W. Malone where he explains the problems with the technology he created: https://www.brighteon.com/5fca0e26-7212-4ab3-bc82-e4be32146445 This is from him in his own words. He indicated that the technology he created was discovered to have all sorts of problems with it and was thought to have abandoned it early on. I am not putting words in his mouth. He tells it all in his own words.

     • Robert W. Malone has the right to his opinion. That’s all it is is one person’s opinion. The VA did not give me saline in place of the vaccine. I got the real vaccine all five times. Even with the vaccines we can still get COVID, but our chances of survival and recovery are much higher. My daughter’ family has had all the COVID vaccines, too. Her husband has had a minor case of COVID twice. They’ve also all had the common cold.

       I had a debate with a former friend of mine, before Trump rode down that elevator to launch his latest con came. That former friend ignored everything in my rebuttal to his 25 words or less opinion about something that I disagreed with. I spent hours researching reputable and reliable primary sources and reliable and reputable news sources — not blogs or websites that state one individual’s opinion. I then wrote hundreds of words with pull quotes and links. Then sent it to him.

       I don’t remember what the topic was about. Too stupid to waste memory space.

       Minutes later that former friend replied with ten words or less, dismissing everything in my rebuttal, and that former friends used an opinionated blog to support what he believed, including the link to that blog, written by an anonymous person called “rabbit”.

       That wasn’t the end of our friendship of more than sixty years, but it was close to the end.

       This is why I do not agree with Robert W. Malone. He’s been fact checked five times and proven wrong five times.

       https://www.factcheck.org/person/robert-malone/

       I think the more reputable and reliable sources that are used in a debate with the names of real people involved spread all over the world beats one person’s opinion with a real name and for sure, someone who hides behind a name like “rabbit.”

       On that note, I fact checked if people were being given saline injections and not the COVID vaccine and found:

       “Saline Switch sparks vaccine stir in Germany.”

       https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/suspected-saline-switch-sparks-vaccine-stir-germany-2021-08-10/

       “Anti-Vaccine Activists Use A Federal Database To Spread Fear About COVID Vaccines”

       https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/06/14/1004757554/anti-vaccine-activists-use-a-federal-database-to-spread-fear-about-covid-vaccine

       “Their mom died of COVID. They say conspiracy theories are what really killed her”

       https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2022/04/24/1089786147/covid-conspiracy-theories

       And both NRP and Reuters are on the top ten list (there’s more than ten but this list is the top ten) for the most reliable news media sources.

       https://www.purevpn.com/blog/unbiased-news-sources/

       I think that the more reputable soruces there are being reported by reputable and relaible news sources, the odds are that is the most correct information.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, Robert W. Malone invented the technology with purposes in mind other than what it turned into. If you got the real stuff and appear to be fine, then you either have a robust immune system or something else that allows you to tolerate the effects better than some people whose stories I have heard. I don’t require a lot of specifics related to the following questions I have. Generic answers are perfectly fine. Here are the questions: 1: Did the place where you got your Covid shots have only the Moderna option or all of them? 2: Are you personally inclined to believe that reports of adverse events should be taken seriously, regardless of the frequency of the reports? 3: Was there any suggestion as to if the vaccine was better with food or without?

     • “Messenger RNA, or mRNA, was discovered in the early 1960s; research into how mRNA could be delivered into cells was developed in the 1970s.”

       https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2021/the-long-history-of-mrna-vaccines
       “The tangled history of mRNA vaccines — Hundreds of scientists had worked on mRNA vaccines for decades before the coronavirus pandemic brought a breakthrough.”

       https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-02483-w

       “An enigmatic scientist’s work in San Diego in the late 1980s proved to be an important step in the road to the COVID-19 vaccines.”

       https://www.10news.com/news/in-depth/in-depth-did-robert-malone-invent-mrna-vaccines-in-san-diego

       There are three keydays and one word to focus on from those three pull quotes (with links):

       Hundreds
       1960
       1970
       late 1980s

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, in his own words, at least as I have heard and read, Robert W. Malone was the pioneer of the MRNA technology. He had indicated as much himself.

     • The history says otherwise. He was one of hundreds working on this science, and he didn’t join the effort until the late 1980s. Ignore what he claims and pay attention to the history.

     • Lloyd Lofthouse, I do pay attention to the history. The issue as far as I am concerned is that there are conflicting reports about this and many other things that it is not always easy to know who is presenting all of the facts and who is just offering an opinion but also uses facts to validate the opinion.

     • When it comes to issues like this one, I prefer reputable and reliable primary sources over one individual’s opinions (the guy from the late 1980s) that are stated as if they are facts.

       Believe what you want. This is the last comment on this topic I’ll approve from you. And this is my last answer in this thread to your comments on this issue that indicates you are going to refuse to bend your own opinions and keep this going wasting my time. I have better things to do then repeating myself without end.

       — UPDATE —

       ragnarsbhut has been blocked. AGAIN! It seems I forgot I’d blocked them before. If I’d remembered, i would have never been sucked into this discussion. I’ve made my case and I’m done. There’s no need to continue.

       The most recent comment I deleted was an attempt to manipulate me to continue. This kind of BS is tactics that trolls use.I meant it when i said I was done with this discussion thread with ragnarsbhut. But they didn’t believe me and attempted to bait me to keep it going by insulting me. When I went to block ragnarsbhut, AGAIN, I discovered I’d blocked them before.

       No more feeding this troll.

8. Lloyd Lofthouse, I lean more toward the idea that Covid is snake venom theory or possibly 5G. As far as I can tell, bats are not out there randomly attacking and infecting people of their own volition.

   Reply

   • In China, all animals are considered food, domestic or wild. If someone buys a wild bat at an open market, then they take it home, and cook it but an infectious virus survives for whatever reason, the human eating the wild, cooked meat can become infected.

     Between 1999 and 2008, we visited china at least once a year if not more. In Shanghai, I visited an open market, not to buy domestic or wild meat, but to drink/eat fresh tofu juice. Walking through aisles I saw the cages with live domestic and wild animals in them. I saw live fish swimming around in child sized plastic playing pools. Eventually, Shanghai moved those open air markets out of the city center into the suburbs away from tourists.

     How can wild animals harm humans?
     Sometimes wildlife can get sick with diseases that are dangerous (sometimes even deadly) to humans. Illnesses that humans can get from wildlife include rabies, plague, and Lyme disease. People can catch these diseases from the droppings of infected animals, by touching or feeding wildlife, or by getting bitten.Oct 3, 2016

     https://www.nps.gov/subjects/watchingwildlife/people.htm#:~:text=Sometimes%20wildlife%20can%20get%20sick,wildlife%2C%20or%20by%20getting%20bitten.

     China has made eating wild animals illegal after the coronavirus outbreak. But ending the trade won’t be easy.

     https://www.cnn.com/2020/03/05/asia/china-coronavirus-wildlife-consumption-ban-intl-hnk/index.html

     Since early 2022, more than 49 million birds in 46 states have either died as a result of bird flu virus infection or have been culled (killed) due to exposure to infected birds. This number is nearing the 50.5 million birds in 21 states that were affected by the largest bird flu outbreak that occurred in 2015.

     https://www.cdc.gov/flu/avianflu/spotlights/2022-2023/nearing-record-number-avian-influenza.htm#:~:text=Since%20early%202022%2C%20more%20than,outbreak%20that%20occurred%20in%202015.

     Domestic and wild animal population movements are important in the spread of disease. There are many recent examples of disease spread that have occurred as a result of intentional movements of livestock or wildlife.

     https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7119069/

     Reply

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