So, shall we talk about the Coronavirus?

[GardArmighty]

I was #171 for 25 minutes. Then suddenly it was my turn. Monday is my day.

That was the prayers talking.

[LARPHawk]

I think that by early April, the supply-demand challenge will flip: As we move along the tiers and the AstraZeneca and J&J vaccines are approved for US rollout, it will be more about outreach, improving the signup process (which the public sector has thus far failed miserably at, hopefully it will improve, and if not the private sector should be better either way) and persuading skeptics.

I hope this is right, but I don't see it that way. I think if you're under 65 and not obese, your chances of getting a shot before early April are very slim.

Most places seem to have about half their population eligible right now (over 65 + comorbidities). I would guess it'll take us about 60 days to get through 60% of those people, at which point you probably start to see it open up. That's assuming we roughly double the number of doses we're given per day between now and early April.

[RoyalMule]

Psychotic symptoms in COVID-19 patients. A retrospective descriptive study


Psychotic symptoms have been related to other coronavirus infections. We conducted a single-centre retrospective and observational study to describe new-onset psychotic episodes in COVID-19 patients. Ten patients infected by the novel coronavirus with psychotic symptoms and no previous history of psychosis were identified by the emergency and liaison psychiatry departments. Nine of the cases presented with psychotic symptoms at least two weeks after the first somatic manifestations attributed to COVID-19 and receiving pharmacological treatment. Structured delusions mixed with confusional features were the most frequent clinical presentations. Hence, COVID-19 patients can develop psychotic symptoms as a consequence of multiple concurrent factors.


(For what it's worth, one of the psychologists I work with told me that we've seen cases similar to this in the Kansas City area. While this study included only 10 patients, it is apparently not uncommon.)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7311337/

Interesting that it’s noted that 9/10 received pharmacologic treatment. I assume that means steroids in a least some cases, of which psychosis is a known side effect.

[sean]

Pfizer dose #1 down. 3 weeks to vaccine dose #2. I read a study today showing this single dose reaches 90% efficacy after 21 days. I am about 5 weeks from going out to dinner.

[KUGDI]

Pfizer dose #1 down. 3 weeks to vaccine dose #2. I read a study today showing this single dose reaches 90% efficacy after 21 days. I am about 5 weeks from going out to dinner.

Too bad. You should take this one isolated example of the vaccine not working and extrapolate this to the entire country.

I’ll be stocking up on tortillas for the coming apocalypse.

[MissTCShore]

Too bad. You should take this one isolated example of the vaccine not working and extrapolate this to the entire country.

I’ll be stocking up on tortillas for the coming apocalypse.

I wonder if those are new strains. While the vaccines are supposed to be effective for most identified new strains, the news this morning reported that 7 new COVID strains have been identified in the past couple of months. There are probably multiple new strains that haven't been identified. This is one reason it's vital that we vaccinate as many people as possible as soon as possible. Yes, it's nice if someone develops immunity from having had the disease, and herd immunity is great and all, but the fewer people that actually get this disease, the fewer new strains we'll see. Not to mention, the fewer people will die and have permanent neurological or cardiac damage.

[sean]

~95% efficacy means that there will be people who do not get the benefits of the vaccine. I don't think they're isolated examples, but they are the expectation. That's why a society shoots for as many people as possible getting vaccinated to help protect the people who cannot get the vaccine or the people who are not realizing the vaccine benefits.

[KUGDI]

~95% efficacy means that there will be people who do not get the benefits of the vaccine. I don't think they're isolated examples, but they are the expectation. That's why a society shoots for as many people as possible getting vaccinated to help protect the people who cannot get the vaccine or the people who are not realizing the vaccine benefits.

You get the idea.

[NoPantsChico]

Some lower-stakes but still interesting insights from The Atlantic: Yes, the Pandemic Is Ruining Your Body

Among the earliest and most enduring (discomforts) have been the type I’ve experienced—aches and pains that emerge without obvious injury, then stick around. “By May, I was seeing a lot more neck and upper back pain, also accompanied with headache,” Jaspal Singh, a pain- and rehabilitation-medicine specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told me in an email. These problems have since taken over Singh’s practice—he estimated that before the pandemic, 70 percent of his patients were complaining of lower-back and leg pain. Now more than half have the kinds of aches that come from hours at ad hoc workstations—curving your shoulders forward, jutting your head out in front of your body to look at a laptop whose screen is too low, and maintaining that position for hours at a time, all while sitting in a chair meant to support a human for the duration of a meal, not a workday.

And people aren’t just working in more challenging physical circumstances; they’re also spending more time doing it. “In the office, people work for eight or nine hours, but now they find themselves working 10 or 12 hours at home just because there’s no commute time,” Natalia Ruiz, a physical therapist at NYU Langone Orthopedic Center, told me of her patients. “Expectations of productivity have increased because you’re working from home.” In her practice, she’s seen more complaints of back and neck pain, but also more “repetitive strain” injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis in the hands and forearms, and pinched nerves in the elbows.

I'm definitely not working more than I did before (boundaries, yo!), but I did endure some bad ergonomics before it became clear that the pandemic was here to stay and I needed to invest in a proper WFH setup. I still have some lingering shoulder discomfort from that time, but not bad enough to make an appointment somewhere before I get vaccinated, so I'm holding off. Eye strain has also been an issue at times.

[MissTCShore]

Some lower-stakes but still interesting insights from The Atlantic: Yes, the Pandemic Is Ruining Your Body

Among the earliest and most enduring (discomforts) have been the type I’ve experienced—aches and pains that emerge without obvious injury, then stick around. “By May, I was seeing a lot more neck and upper back pain, also accompanied with headache,” Jaspal Singh, a pain- and rehabilitation-medicine specialist at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York, told me in an email. These problems have since taken over Singh’s practice—he estimated that before the pandemic, 70 percent of his patients were complaining of lower-back and leg pain. Now more than half have the kinds of aches that come from hours at ad hoc workstations—curving your shoulders forward, jutting your head out in front of your body to look at a laptop whose screen is too low, and maintaining that position for hours at a time, all while sitting in a chair meant to support a human for the duration of a meal, not a workday.

And people aren’t just working in more challenging physical circumstances; they’re also spending more time doing it. “In the office, people work for eight or nine hours, but now they find themselves working 10 or 12 hours at home just because there’s no commute time,” Natalia Ruiz, a physical therapist at NYU Langone Orthopedic Center, told me of her patients. “Expectations of productivity have increased because you’re working from home.” In her practice, she’s seen more complaints of back and neck pain, but also more “repetitive strain” injuries such as carpal tunnel syndrome, tendinitis in the hands and forearms, and pinched nerves in the elbows.

I'm definitely not working more than I did before (boundaries, yo!), but I did endure some bad ergonomics before it became clear that the pandemic was here to stay and I needed to invest in a proper WFH setup. I still have some lingering shoulder discomfort from that time, but not bad enough to make an appointment somewhere before I get vaccinated, so I'm holding off. Eye strain has also been an issue at times.

Are you deducting those expenses from your taxes (for the set-up), or did you turn those in to your employer? Also, do you get to deduct a portion of your home expenses from your taxes?

[KUGDI]

I’ve had a lot of conversations about increased productivity not being the new norm. People aren’t going to keep working 12 hour days much longer. Smart companies will get out ahead of it. Reactionary companies will be replacing massive portions of their staff. People can be just as productive from home as from any office (overall), but that doesn’t mean the long hours a lot of people are putting in is sustainable.

[NoPantsChico]

Are you deducting those expenses from your taxes (for the set-up), or did you turn those in to your employer? Also, do you get to deduct a portion of your home expenses from your taxes?

As a result of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, home office expenses for people who aren't self-employed or gig workers are no longer tax deductible, but we did get a one-time stipend to help with our setups back in the spring. Then when I changed jobs in the fall I factored in a chunk of my utilities (among other rationale) into my counter-offer that I wouldn't have considered otherwise.

[GardArmighty]

BMI.jpg

[MissTCShore]

With a BMI of 28,000, that guy needs a serious diet and probably some insulin. Also, 6.2 cm, isn't that 15 inches tall?

[KUGDI]

With a BMI of 28,000, that guy needs a serious diet and probably some insulin. Also, 6.2 cm, isn't that 15 inches tall?

That’s what I tell people, anyways.