COVID-19 (Novel Coronavirus) Update

[travis3000]

I still wear my mask at the gym and in any settings that are crowded. Nobody ever gives me any bad looks or has made any comments. Everyone seems to accept it quite well. That's just my personal experience.

[hw621]

It is interesting how mask wearing varies even in one region (York Region, ON). When I went to grocery and other big box stores in Markham, easily over 90% (can be 95%) customers and staff are still wearing masks, even in those places traditionally considered "mainstream" or "white", such as Loblaws and Costco. That percentage drops to around 50% in Vaughan. However I haven't seen anyone giving a hard time to others because they do, or do not wear a mask.

[O-tacular]

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

Thanks. I am now well on the mend. It seems to last about 6 days. My wife is almost back to normal now, barring a lingering bad cough and stuffed sinuses. She succumbed to Covid 3 days prior to me. i tested negative last night, so things are looking up.

Glad to hear that.

[niwell]

Took me about 7 days to feel ok, and another few to get totally back to normal. I did work on that 7th day, but there was no way I would have been able to go into the office - very much a laptop on couch situation. Again my symptoms were akin to that of a mild-moderate hangover that just persisted, with a few days of sneezing/sore throat. Not like a cold where you can just power through, but also not like a bad flu where you're in bed sleeping through the day.

One interesting thing I noted was that when I was able to get back on the exercise bike after feeling normal, my peak heart rate was about 10bpm faster than usual and it took quicker to get there. Didn't feel like the workout was harder than normal too. No idea if it was connected but odd nonetheless.

As an aside, one think I've noticed over COVID is that I don't think many people realize what the flu is, and confuse it with the common cold. I know there are mild flus, but the one time I've had it as an adult I was out of commission for well over a week and concerned I may have to go to the emergency room at one point. A far cry from being stuffed up and achey for a few days.

[SpongeG]

I tested this morning and it's positive. Last night I has a 3rd negative test. I don't feel bad other than my sinuses being stuffy. Sore throat went away now but a cough has developed. Work made me take a picture of my test and email it in. So far I am hanging in there.

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Nearly 15 million people died in first two years of COVID-19 pandemic, new WHO study finds


*Negative excess deaths could be a result of non-COVID-related deaths (such as deaths due to road traffic injuries and seasonal flu) that were averted due to public health measures (e.g., lockdown, social distancing, mask wearing, working from home).

MURAT YÜKSELIR / THE GLOBE AND MAIL, SOURCE: WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/worl...-who-estimate/

[thewave46]

Russian solution to high COVID mortality is to send survivors to be slaughtered in idiotic unnecessary invasion of Ukraine.

I may whine about the leadership here, but there is not a day I thank my lucky stars that we have the country we do.

[hehehe]

I've gotten Covid yet again. 3 times in Five months is not fun at all. I hope we can reach an endemic state soon.

[travis3000]

I don't understand why I haven't caught it yet. My partner had it and I lived in the same house while he was positive for 8 days. I've been to the gym daily all year, dozens of restaurants, stores. Been to social events, family get togethers. Nothing. My last vaccine was in December. I'm assuming I've just been lucky? It's gotta be coming for me soon.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by travis3000

I don't understand why I haven't caught it yet. My partner had it and I lived in the same house while he was positive for 8 days. I've been to the gym daily all year, dozens of restaurants, stores. Been to social events, family get togethers. Nothing. My last vaccine was in December. I'm assuming I've just been lucky? It's gotta be coming for me soon.

At this point I know a lot of people who've had it and the experience is all over the place. In some households everybody got it despite isolating, and in others some people didn't despite not isolating. I haven't been sick yet. Maybe I had it, but tests have always been negative. Everyone I know is vaccinated as is more or less back to normal lifestyle wise. A few people wore masks religiously out in public and they all got covid anyway, probably from personal contacts (not uncommon for people to go to say a party and wear their mask out in the hallway of a building when nobody is there).

At this point I've done 2 border crossings and got randomly selected for post-return covid testing both times. It wasn't just a rapid test, it was a PCR test sent to a lab. I don't think this is producing good value at this point. I'd guess the test cost the government in the hundreds of dollars. Last time it was at YVR with a weird setup where they asked for my passport then had people type in their info (with old people next to me doing the hunt-and-peck and taking forever). The person doing data entry marked that I consented to the test on my form without asking and I was told I simply had to do it. I wonder if they'll get sued eventually.

They still require the ArriveCan vaccine thing for arrivals from the US but you need to provide the official vaccine proof for the airline to even let you board.

BC dropped basically all restrictions a while ago but my condo still has a bunch in place in violation of our bylaws. Email count and time there is up to about 30 and 6 weeks. They currently close everything down for 5 hours per day for cleaning (e.g. wiping down walls to save us from covid).

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by someone123

At this point I know a lot of people who've had it and the experience is all over the place. In some households everybody got it despite isolating, and in others some people didn't despite not isolating. I haven't been sick yet. Maybe I had it, but tests have always been negative. Everyone I know is vaccinated as is more or less back to normal lifestyle wise. A few people wore masks religiously out in public and they all got covid anyway, probably from personal contacts (not uncommon for people to go to say a party and wear their mask out in the hallway of a building when nobody is there).

At this point I've done 2 border crossings and got randomly selected for post-return covid testing both times. It wasn't just a rapid test, it was a PCR test sent to a lab. I don't think this is producing good value at this point. I'd guess the test cost the government in the hundreds of dollars. Last time it was at YVR with a weird setup where they asked for my passport then had people type in their info (with old people next to me doing the hunt-and-peck and taking forever). The person doing data entry marked that I consented to the test on my form without asking and I was told I simply had to do it. I wonder if they'll get sued eventually.

They still require the ArriveCan vaccine thing for arrivals from the US but you need to provide the official vaccine proof for the airline to even let you board.

BC dropped basically all restrictions a while ago but my condo still has a bunch in place in violation of our bylaws. Email count and time there is up to about 30 and 6 weeks. They currently close everything down for 5 hours per day for cleaning (e.g. wiping down walls to save us from covid).

Both Save-on-Foods and Safeway still have signs up encouraging people to pay by debit or credit to “prevent the spread of Covid”. And yet neither require masks.

I don’t know if they didn’t get the memo that Covid doesn’t spread through handling cash.

[Loco101]

It took me 3 weeks to fully recover from Covid although the last week wasn't bad but I still had symptoms. I ended up missing 4 full work days and worked two half-days due to being so tired. And I work from home. Of anything that helped the most in my experience was sitting outside in the sunshine. We don't get a whole lot of sun here so I took advantage of it. It wasn't the worst virus I've had but was similar to when I've had pneumonia in terms of being very tired. While my breathing wasn't great, it wasn't nearly as bad as having pneumonia or bronchitis. My last shot was the booster back in December. I'm definitely going for another booster before the Fall.

[Kilgore Trout]

Quebec finally dropped its mask mandate on Saturday. I thought it might be like Ontario where a lot of people continue wearing them, but I'm actually surprised at how gung ho everyone was to get rid of their masks. The only places I've seen where a large majority of people still wear masks are drug stores. At supermarkets, it's about 20-30%. Everywhere else, maybe 1%.

Maybe it's the fact that we had a mask mandate longer than anywhere else in North America, or maybe it's that people in Quebec (according to surveys) are generally less anxious than their ROC counterparts.

[MolsonExport]

Originally Posted by Loco101

It took me 3 weeks to fully recover from Covid although the last week wasn't bad but I still had symptoms. I ended up missing 4 full work days and worked two half-days due to being so tired. And I work from home. Of anything that helped the most in my experience was sitting outside in the sunshine. We don't get a whole lot of sun here so I took advantage of it. It wasn't the worst virus I've had but was similar to when I've had pneumonia in terms of being very tired. While my breathing wasn't great, it wasn't nearly as bad as having pneumonia or bronchitis. My last shot was the booster back in December. I'm definitely going for another booster before the Fall.

your experience sounds similar to mine...I am still recovering (I have tested negative for about 12 days). I had pneumonia once, and that was worse, but that aside, I would say that this is the worst virus experience I have had (well, Norwalk was worse in the 48 hours that I had it).
Bring on the boosters.

[jamincan]

FWIW, I've noticed here in KW that mask-wearing remained very high even after the mandate ended in all public settings, and that there has been a fairly steady decrease over time since then to the point now where the majority of people aren't wearing masks.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by jamincan

FWIW, I've noticed here in KW that mask-wearing remained very high even after the mandate ended in all public settings, and that there has been a fairly steady decrease over time since then to the point now where the majority of people aren't wearing masks.

I was in London two weeks ago, and I found people there to be wearing masks a lot more than in Metro Vancouver.

[Innsertnamehere]

Here it was at probably 60-70% immediately following the mandate dropping and it’s slowly declined to about 10% in the grocery store right now, if that. It’s gotten to the point where it’s becoming sort of unusual to wear a mask and the vast majority of people don’t wear them.

When I was in Florida in April it was like 0.5%, lol.