Ironically, this is the type of pandemic many feared was coming for years (not a Coronavirus). And now, this may be coming when, as a result of Covid, public health systems (and people’s faith in them) have been destroyed.
On the positive side, I think I read that there are 2 vaccines for H5N1 ready to be produced so unlike Covid, this vaccine should be much easier to get out faster and more like traditional flu shots. Of course, uptake could be low because of the public health system damage coming out of Covid. And we also don’t know the effectiveness of these vaccines.
But on the positive side, I think we would be in a better position with ramping up PPE production even if it would be received with mixed responses. I think some of the response systems are in a somewhat better state. Maybe.
But, yeah, I’m way more cynical than I ever was about it.
My guess is that there would be an even more heterogenous response by states than there was to Covid. So total time, in a death-and-destruction humor sort of way.
This is true. And I suppose there is a lot more available information about airborne viruses than there was 5 years ago … to the extent people want to find it. We know more about the value of N95s and clean air when it comes to prevention.
Not really. The unending headache continues to be unending. Thanks for asking though!
The Lyme doctor wanted me to do 3 back-to-back runs of oral antibiotics. 6 weeks doxycycline, then 2 weeks tindamax, then 6 weeks ceftin. Post-doxycycline bloodwork showed some minor positive flux in some indicators. Waiting on my post-ceftin bloodwork to come back now before next appt with her. No improvement at all in the headache. Possibly some improvement in my hand numbness (which is just an annoyance, not debilitating like the headache) but that could be a temporary anti inflammatory response from all the antibiotics that could return now that I’m no longer taking them.
Mayo wants me repeat some of the testing I had done back in…2018(?)…so trying to get that set up locally now through my local neurologist.
Debating flying out to California to get some additional testing done that I can’t find locally. Just to get more data.
There is so much overlap in my mess with Long Covid that I’m just hanging in there for a breakthrough there that will trickle over into Chronic Lyme (assuming that is what my issue even is), because the current treatments for Chronic Lyme are pretty hit-or-miss. My Lyme doctor says about 80% of her patients have things resolve following the protocol I just completed. Suspect I’ll be in the other 20%.
David Putrino is one of the leading voices on Long Covid, and he just opened a complex chronic illness clinic at Mount Sinai that explicitly includes Chronic Lyme.
Makes it sound like we’re in a window of opportunity to get this under control at the cow level. I have no idea how much effort is being put into that vs what is needed.
I haven’t read the twitter thread, but from what I’ve gathered … not nearly enough is being done to get the cow outbreak under control. Possibly because there are not any good alternatives right now without devastating the beef and dairy industries in the short term. And as we know from public heath efforts on other viruses, the short term takes a very significant priority over the long term.
On the subject of Covid. I had Covid at the end of November 2023. I’d had the vaccine and two boosters but was coming up on about 6 months since my most recent booster.
Now I know my immunity from having Covid is waning (or has waned) and I am trying to decipher the current recommendations. From what I am getting, people age 5 and over are supposed to get an updated version as long as they haven’t had one within the last 4 months?
As I was reading your saga I was actually wondering if it was going to pan out to be Lyme. I have a good friend who now has Alpha Gal as a result of a tick bite, and it seems to be the case whenever I know someone who has an illness that ‘mystifies’ all the doctors, it turns out to be highly suspected to be tick exposure. I was anxious about ticks to begin with… these newly-emergent potential tick illnesses don’t help. I really hope you get some concrete answers and healing soon. I can’t imagine how draining this must all be for you.
I could use some advice. DH suddenly got a positive test out of the blue, we have no idea how he caught it, although Maryland is having the covid surge right now. I honestly don’t know what to do, b/c protocols have changed so very much.
This diagnosis came too late to contact dr today, but we want him to be considered for Paxlovid. So was thinking to call his drs office (military base) tomorrow right when they open. Their protocols for covid changed so much that I have no idea what they are now, and military stuff is really not well updated at all on the web. DH might not qualify too for a variety of reasons, but we want it to be considered.
We already isolated him in the main bedroom and I removed all my current stuff for the guest bedroom. We tested everyone in the house and so far all are negative. But he had started feeling unwell last night and I was in the same room so, ??? Really hoping not to catch it, as it was so bad when I caught it in Sept on my cruise. All the rest of the familiy was sick then but DH miraculously didn’t catch it then, so he feels really bad that he finally got it.
Most likely it was somewhere he was indoors unmasked (though could be anywhere). Most people have so many potential routes of exposure now that it is hard to figure out where it happened.
Each family seems to have their own way of handling things. For what one example is worth, when one of our family members tests positive: we mask when in common areas of the house, run HEPA filters and open windows until the positive person has two negative rapid tests at least 24 hours apart.
Hang in there. Hope he feels better soon and that no one else tests positive.
We do this for our family “test-to-exit”. But our kids are all teens or older, so are able to be more independent and isolate a bit stricter.
We confine anyone positive to a bedroom and dedicate a bathroom to them until they “test out” as per above. And haven’t done the HEPA thing, although I keep feeling like I probably should. Mask anytime we interact (dropping off food, etc) and then wash hands.
We’ve had Covid on our house 7 times, I think, and I’ve surprisingly managed to avoid it so far (as far as aggressive testing has shown, anyway).
Definitely push for Paxlovid. Definitely seems to reduce risks for both acute and long Covid.
Add on the last month of politics, and the 2020s def remain“on brand”.
FWIW, Covid is surging in a lot of places. However, it’s harder and harder to tell. A lot of places have dropped out of reporting, and even a lot of the more general “respiratory illness” reporting is normally only done during flu season, so we’re largely flying blind.
But it’s pretty high here according to wastewater. Again. DD23’s work has it going around so bad that her boss () gave all her direct reports the option to telecommute the rest of the week, even though the company had been ratcheting back on that in general.
