IMPORTANT Coronavirus

Whew! This virus is a beast. My family caught it back in late February and were reeling from the effects up until most of April. Life is finally returning to a state of normalcy. For a while there, I was hearing about daily deaths of people I knew (personally or through someone else). Fortunately not many criticals in the family. And luckily only a few deaths within extended families. Some positive, we have immunity and hopefully this is all behind us now. The virus did really help us focus on the important things in life. I've been communicating with my parents and siblings far more. You know not taking anyone for granted.

I wish this virus on noone and hope you all have been safe.

 

Glad to hear you're OK and that there were no great tragedies StalaggtIKE !

I've got a couple risk group people within the family. I haven't been having stress over it but now the government announced schools are reopening and we kinda fear if it's going to start spreading faster - it's been slowing down quite some now but we really would be better off not playing Russian roulette with this thing. I've already once spent almost two weeks by a hospital bed and and that was just some regular flu gone bad.

 

I hear you. This thing spreads easily and is highly contagious. My wife and I are pretty introvert, we're also thorough about washing our hands, the kids hands, as well as wiping off things we buy off the shelf (ie groceries). You have to remain vigilant. If you can get your hand on a proper mask; it will help. Also leave your shoes at the door.

 

Thanks! Initially we thought it was seasonal allergies. It was pretty bad this time, so my wife and I were taking about a week off to recover. We would have left it to that..., A little back story; at the end of Feb, I attended a funeral for a family member. I didn't sit near anyone, only talked to a few people, no touching and promptly left. The following week, I was informed that not only both my parents were suffering from "seasonal allergies", but a good chunk of extended family that had attended the funeral. Then that weekend an article was written about possible COVID-19 spread in the area, linked to two funerals. My mouth hit the floor when I saw my late cousin's name in the news. Apparently his widow, as well as several other people in attendance at these funerals were being rushed to the emergency center. After this revelation we were able to convince the local hospital to allow us to be tested, and began self isolation. Mind you, all of this is weeks before any stay-at-home orders announced in our state.

My wife began to have a nagging cough. Then started having on-and-off fever and was very lethargic. Then one morning I woke with severe body aches, headache and a high fever. I never got much of a cough, but had shortness of breath. Like I had to consciously take deep breaths to not feel light headed at times. Also limbs felt heavy. The worst part was the psychological effect. I suffered from lack of sleep, due to the body aches. Also, you'll have a few really bad days, then a day of feeling like your on the mend. Wham! It then hits you again the next day, harder than before. So I got to the point when I didn't know if my wife or I would wake gasping for air. In hindsight, the lightheaded-ness from lack of oxygen was dangerous. It was comforting and welcoming like a siren song. Had I no will to live, I could have easily succumb. Really changed my perspective on life. Been constantly researching and learning about the disease. It's, I dare say, remarkable.

Sorry for the novel. Lol. I got plenty more if anyone have questions.
Quick answer; the virus is cunning. Symptoms fluctuate from mild to severe. I see why this kills the elderly and sickly. The recent cases of blood clot leading to strokes due to the virus is alarming. Also, possible re-infections means I can't quite breath a sigh of relief.

 

Damn. Glad you are feeling better.

 

I'd be more than happy to read on more about anything you have to share. Also your note about the funeral - I pick up food from the back of the market but I realize I pay the groceries to the worker who lifts them into the car... One of them gets sick and that's like 50+ people infected in a day, with prepaid you just pop open the trunk and he closes it after lifting the crates in.

 

I've been lucky here in Hawaii, we've had 0-1 cases for a number of days now, its essentially non-existent and people are wearing masks anywhere and being careful. However, once the flights open back up, its coming back, it'll be an interesting experiment to see how and when it surges back...

 

I really think the entire air travel system needed a bit of an overhaul, dontcha think?

 

I mean, they've never -actually- been current. I'm just hoping that this actually pushes them to improve seat comfort. I hate being packed in like canned sardine.

 

Its basically impossible to make air travel 'safe'. It would require isolating travelers to some degree, which would drastically reduce the number of passengers per plane, thereby multiplying current flight prices by a large number. However, one way I can think of limiting transmission via flights, especially island locations where spread is really concentrated just on those incoming planes, is availability of testing. We have 45 minute tests in all our hospitals in Hawaii, there aren't enough to test everyone, but everyone who is being admitted to the hospital does get one. If those can be scaled up you could, essentially, test everyone either leaving or coming via air travel and have a pretty good idea who has it.

 

If we counted all the flus and other diseases being spread via travelers and international travelers etc. we could make some big impact on how diseases spread and form more of insulation on national level.

As I look at it, there are less international flights than flights. While everything is peachy we didn't need to test anything. Step one would be to introduce quarantine as a standard Step 1 for international travel, on first step just testing people coming in and if positive then tracing the people and their contacts. Step 2 being a stay at quarantine conditions once you've landed. Possibly cover this either from traveler's or from state budget. It would reduce unnecessary traveling since people don't to spend their vacation in quarantine.

Not that this speculation matters. It's not as if someone's coming asking me to draft international travel standards

 

But what if airlines started using more of planes like this?

(Beechcraft king air... Well it's a king air. Not sure on the beechcraft part. If that is the company name or what. I think hawker and beechcraft merged. And they might be two divisions under a different name. With beechcraft doing props and hawker doing jet engine. I think it's Textron aviation and they own beechcraft, hawker, and cesna)

 

Smaller planes would not solve the problem, you'd still have the same space restrictions with less space to utilize. Really the only reasonable solution would be the installation of dividers, but even that would require a significant amount more space between the passengers, considering a divider isn't going to solve a damn thing if you're sharing the same armrest and your knees are struggling to share the same space as well. Long and short they're going to have no choice but to space the seats apart from each other, at least far enough that leg and handspace is not shared. Dividers could then eliminate the requirement for six feet between passenger.

 

Dammit. I just found something I want to bring up but there in airship thread. I could create one. But this stuff wouldn't be in there.

 

Meanwhile in Finland:

 

I am definitely not a fan of this thing.
Early I lost a distant cousin.
Then a cousin caught it and gave it to my aunt. Then an uncle and several of his kids (more cousins) caught it. They were all fine.
Then my dad caught it. He went into the hospital on December 5th or 6th. He passed on the 11th. We buried him on 17th. Last time I saw him was in October and I talked to him a little after Thanksgiving. He went that fast.
Another uncle tested positive the day of the funeral.
We are now in quarantine until New Years to be safe.

I hate Covid.