Omicron Comes for Everyone: My Vaccinated Experience With COVID

[appalachiablue]

- Daily Kos, Jan. 6, 2022. - Ed.

My entire family & our nanny got COVID this week. It’s a story I keep seeing on social media. Suddenly, everyone I know has the virus. And yet I struggle to find detailed firsthand accounts of what the disease looks like in the vaccinated. In their place are a million scary headlines, shoddy science from anti-vax nutjobs, and a public health infrastructure that seems to have left us all to figure it out on our own. So I thought that, if you’re like me and wondering what to expect, it might be helpful to read of someone else’s experience. I’ll update this every day until I test negative.

- Our Approach to COVID: How We Got Here - I received the custom urn for my daughter’s ashes on the first day that people in my state began talking seriously about COVID quarantine. We lost her at the end of my pregnancy, after we had bought a crib, picked a name, gotten our birth plan approved & seen her little face growing & smiling on ultrasound, to a random genetic defect with a 1 in 70,000 chance of occurring. Ever since then, I’ve thought about odds differently. So “it will probably be ok,” “just a 10% chance of hospitalization,” & other empty promises meant nothing to me.

COVID scared the shit out of me. My older daughter had just seen me go to the hospital, come home without a baby, then go to the hospital again nearly bleeding to death from a postpartum hemorrhage. I knew that even if you survive, the trauma of a hospitalization is immense to a young child. So we agreed that we would fully & completely quarantine. My husband & I are both self-employed, with the privilege of being able to work from home. We had N95 masks from my prepper dad in those early days. We locked down about 2 weeks before everyone else did, then watched people begin to get sick. We thought we’d be in lockdown for about 2 weeks, then we’d know what to expect. Two weeks later, things were worse.

Everyone was still talking about flattening the curve (Remember those days? When we all thought our friends & neighbors could be rallied to look past their own petty desires & care about others?). So we committed to another 2 weeks, figuring we’d know how serious it was by then. We’ve been living our life in 2 week intervals ever since. In 2 weeks we’ll know if Delta is coming. In 2 weeks we’ll know if Omicron is coming. In 2 weeks we’ll know how serious Omicron is. In 2 weeks we’ll be fully vaccinated. - We’ve managed to get through 47 sets of 2 weeks without getting COVID. We never unquarantined. - When CDC told vaccinated grandparents to visit their unvaccinated children, I read the data suggesting this was a bad idea.

The grandparents stayed away, except for masked outdoor visits.

When my mother died, her funeral was on Zoom.

When people stopped wearing masks because they were vaccinated, we started double-masking, knowing that there was no evidence the vaccinated couldn’t spread COVID.

At every step of the way, we have been the most cautious people we knew.

We haven’t been to the grocery store in almost 2 years.

We have foregone all family visits, all celebrations.

I’ve given birth to a third child without anyone other than my husband to welcome us home..

.. Relaxed public health guidelines are inevitably going to encourage a false sense of security, and lead to COVID spread...

- More + 88 Comments, https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2022/1/6/2073101/-Omicron-Comes-for-Everyone-My-Vaccinated-Experience-With-COVID
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- COMMENT: New guidelines—meanwhile, * “Deadly Omicron should not be called mild, warns WHO,” BBC, Jan. 6, 2022
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-59901547

The World Health Organization (WHO) has warned against describing the Omicron variant as mild, saying it is killing people across the world. Recent studies suggest that Omicron is less likely to make people seriously ill than previous Covid variants. But the record number of people catching it has left health systems under severe pressure, said WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. On Monday, the US recorded more than one million Covid cases in 24 hours. The WHO - the UN's health agency - said the number of global cases has increased by 71% in the last week, and in the Americas by 100%. It said that among severe cases worldwide, 90% were unvaccinated.

"Just like previous variants, Omicron is hospitalising people and it is killing people…

[Grasswire2]

1. my triple vaccinated adult daughter told me tonight that she has a very sore throat and a cough.

Her twin pre-teens are feeling well and are vaccinated. Partner is already self-isolating in the house for three days now with mild cough and nasal congestion, triple vaxxed.

They've all spent close holiday time with a family member who is a member of the House of Representatives.

One day at a time,,..

[Scrivener7]

5. Oh, no. Be well. I hope they come through with minimal hardship.

[brewens]

2. That describes me almost exactly as far as precautions. One exception was that for two weeks

last summer when cases were at their lowest here in Idaho, I went to a bar twice and drank unmasked. That was my reward for recovering from a hip replacement. As soon as I could walk to the bar, I got to drink.

That was when I was first hearing about the delta variant. By the end of the two weeks, cases hand deaths had tripled, and I locked down again.

What has me worried now is I'm recovering from having my right knee replaced and am in physical therapy. I had to go ahead with that surgery for a few reasons. With omicron coming, I want out of there fast. So far, we have no cases officially, but it's probably already here. PT is in Washington state, but only half the patients are masked. I've been snowed out of PT twice, but I'm an animal about the home exercises and stayed right on track. I think I could finish on my own. I'm going next week and will hope I can bail out. Then I'm going full on hermit.

[Scrivener7]

4. If they aren't masking, you can do it on your own. There are some

excellent Youtube videos that show what to do and how to advance the therapy as you improve.

There are two guys, Bob and Brad, on youtube. They're as geeky as can be and pretty amusing and they have terrific advice and exercises for getting your range back.

Omicron is EVERYWHERE where I live. It will eventually hit everywhere where people aren't being careful (and lots of places where they are.) You don't need that.

[BigmanPigman]

3. DU member wrote about her Covid experience today...

Fully vaxxed and boosted too.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=16220248