How has the Pandemic affected you as a cancer patient/survivor
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The new variant is terrifying me and making me so angry at the same time. My daughter hit the nail on the head when she cried to me "I haven't been to a college party, or a club, or a concert EVER because I'm trying to do my part to stop this disease, but NOBODY else cares!!! Nobody else is doing what needs to be done! They don't get that I'm wearing a mask and its protecting THEM, not me. They don't get I got my vaccines and booster, and when they travel maskless and bring back variants, my vaccine is protecting THEM not me! WHEN DO I GET A TURN?!"
Her boss at her weekend job, vaxxed and booster but not masked, is currently hospitalized with a breakthrough case. My daughter is the only one who wears a mask at work.
I am so tired of how selfish everyone is. Its not about the individual. We all have to coexist. Some of us live in dense areas that are STILL not back to "real" life yet. If you can't bring yourself to understand that all actions have consequences, go be a hermit!!!!! Don't go shopping. Don't send your kids to school. Don't let your kids play with others. Don't visit your mom in another state.
I miss my parents and family. My DH misses his. Everytime we think its almost safe to travel, potent new variants fly, boarders close, and the US eases protective rules.
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marinochka,
Personally I find this all disappointing, however, I do believe that intentions for vaccines and treatments all significant and moving in the right direction but things evolve in ways we can’t always predict or control. Unfortunately, I’ve accepted that this is not something we can eradicate, people are likely going to have to live with a modified lifestyle and those who refuse are probably going to learn some tough lessons.
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The new variant has me even more afraid than I already have been. The US isn't closing the borders so it will be here soon I fear (if it isn't already). My stupid estranged husband doesn't mask (lies and says he does...I have proof he doesn't). While he and I have had 3 doses each, my 17 year old can't get the 3rd dose due to her age. She has CP and is high risk for severe Covid. Teen and I are so good about double masking and avoiding crowds and doing what we can to prevent getting it. But since estranged husband does nothing to prevent illness and lives with us, well, I feel like we are fighting a battle we will eventually lose. This new variant just terrifies me.
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This just came out, "U.S. to follow Europe with travel curbs as COVID-19 variant sparks global worry"
https://www.reuters.com/business/healthcare-pharma...
however, i suspect the variant is probably already here. the U.S does barely minimum sequencing. Also the travel ban is essentially useless as US citizen is not banned, and we do not have any quarantine or even contact tracing in place.
some positive news:
https://twitter.com/megtirrell/status/146422563861...
from the reporter's tweet "-Pfizer/BioNTech can adapt mRNA vaccine within 6 weeks, ship initial batches within 100 days in event of escape variant (2/2)"
"-Moderna notes it's shown it can get into clinic (human trials) within 60 days; question is regulatory process from there. Manufacturing new doses could take a few months."
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This new variant doesn't change anything for me. A travel ban won't make any difference unless all air travel is grounded - never happening. There's a mild case of it in Belgium in an unvaccinated traveler without any connection to South Africa. Household members were not infected.
Vaccinations are still working. There's no evidence yet of any variant beating the vaccine in preventing serious illness. I will get a booster shot when eligible (end of January). The Swiss cheese pandemic measures will work, but many communities are ignoring them. It's foolish to think this virus was ever in control. Predictably, variants will continue to develop in low vaccination areas. It's vital to get more first doses globally. Happy that younger kids are getting vaccinated now. Keep masking.
cm2020 - Sorry that your husband isn't masking. The booster does help prevent infection so he's less likely to get sick. If he does, can you improve ventilation/filtration in your house? Opening windows helps unless it's freezing outside. I've seen a DIY filtration device built using a box fan and a bunch of air filters.
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thank you for your input, dear ladies. Yes, it will be here, no doubt about it(in USA), and we will know more in 2 weeks, when will be more data. Meanwhile I am trying to keep doing what I am doing and try to stay calm(don't know how this will be going, I am prone to anxiety espessialy when it comes to health issues).
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So the Belgium omicron case: the person returned from Egypt via Turkey on 11/11 and showed symptoms & tested positive on 11/22. Either this person caught the variant in Belgium or omicron has long incubation period like 11 days, which is unlikely. I wonder if the variant has anything to do with the current wave EU is going through. I know UK does a lot of sequencing but not sure about the rest of Europe.
If you follow Trevor Belford from Fred Hutch on twitter, his tweets suggested omicron started circulating in Oct.
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The biggest difference for me is the number of people suddenly travelling. We WANT and need our visitors here, but I wish they would respect the fact that masks work. I am so glad vaccines are necessary for most activities here now. But there is no way you can walk past me on the sidewalk and be more than 3 feet from me. When a store posts a sign saying "please wear a mask" and I call you out for sharing your exhalation, telling me "the sign said please, it didn't say we have to" is a BS selfish response.
We went to the ballon inflation on Wed after school. They checked vaccine cards, controlled the numbers allowed into the area at a time,5 almost everyone was masked, many local families out. Watched the parade on TV. Interestingly, in all the huge crowd shots in one area near the big hotels, nobody was masked- they were all crowded together for hours! The shots of the quieter areas full of locals showed mostly masked crowds.
I am with my kids on this one. When is it my turn? When do I get to visit my family and husband's family? When do I get to feel safe walking around in my own neighborhood?
The rejection of science in counties with resources to utilize and follow it is appalling. Just because you CAN do something doesn't mean you should.
Our family's jobs literally risk our lives everyday when travelers choose to not follow guidelines because they aren't mandatory and they don't feel like it.
People need to choose. Be a hermit, or respect the science. They're is no in-between.
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SerenitySTAT - you make a great point - we need to get the rest of the globe vaccinated. Even if our current vaccines can fight the Omicron variant, or even if Pfizer and Moderna can be retrofitted in a reasonable time to be offered as new boosters effective against Omicron - there will be other variants, and probably more lethal variants emerging until a majority of the world's population is immunized. Closing borders is a short-term solution at best.
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Amen, Jelson. A relative of mine (an MBA) told me that “other nations should get the vaccine only if they pay for it because the drug manufacturers deserve to profit from their work." I asked him where they were going to spend all those profits if the word falls apart. We are all in this together.
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However, Omicron was first reported in the most populous province of South Africa (around Pretoria). The vast majority of these cases occurred in late teens-young adults (Gen Z) who feel they're invulnerable. Fewer than 1/5 of the cases are breakthroughs--and in S.A., "fully-vaccinated" means one shot of J&J or AstraZeneca. And it's not a matter of "vaccine inequity:" S.A. has a surplus of vaccines, and actually halted more purchases, because demand is so weak--due to careless youth, disinformation and superstition. (Remember, this is the country which once had a President who insisted HIV did not cause AIDS, which he said could be cured or prevented by having sex with a virgin).
And even in the surrounding southern countries, the problem is not one of vaccine undersupply but of lousy logistics. Shots are not getting into arms. Again, if I need a tweaked re-booster, I'm not going to refuse my chance at continuing to live, just so it can sit halfway around the world on a dock or in a warehouse while petty bureaucrats squabble and selfish people decide that their freedom to enjoy unrestricted pleasure* is more important than their own and their communities' health.
Meanwhile, there are an increasing number of idiots in Northern Italy (especially Bolzano, the epicenter of the country's early 2020 pandemic death & destruction) holding "COVID parties," at which one infected person is invited and guests (again, mostly Gen Z & younger millennials) clamor to interact with him or her so they can acquire "natural immunity" via being infected. Just today, there has been at least one death reported in one such partygoer.
*That's also what will destroy life on earth via manmade climate change--thank you, drivers of obscenely large SUVs and city-dwellers who like to automotive-cosplay cowboys & ranchers in their pickup trucks.
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This variant was first identified in South Africa thanks to first-rate surveillance by their scientists. Punishing them with a travel ban will not help. The variant has spread already. We just haven’t detected it here yet.
This pandemic will not end until more people are vaccinated. Perhaps blaming them or offering them crumbs is not the best way to gain their trust.
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I agree that "closing" boarders doesn't do much because it's only closed to limited groups. Many people can hop around where ever. But the closures are good at making people think twice about unnecessary travel. The stricter the safety protocols are, vaccines+tests+masks, the lower the infection rate.
I was texting with a friend visiting family in another close big city. She was complaining that despite regular announcements over the PA and plenty of signage, guest at her hotel were not respectful of the local mask mandates. She said when she went to the market "its so obvious who are the locals. The visitors all have chin straps"
Even my husband is complaining he's had enough of masks. But its because people are making up their own minds instead of following a collective plan, that we can't ditch the masks for a long time. Even fully vaccinated, we are nervous.
Corona viruses are not chicken pox. People don't have influenza parties, or chest cold parties!! I dont get it.
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The problem with closing borders is that it would discourage testing if reporting a new variant could lead to economic punishment.
We need more mandates for vaccines, testing, and masks. We need structural changes in public spaces for clean air. We need better public health education.
My millennial daughter attended a gala that required vaccine passports and masks. This was a few nights ago. She’s staying at her apartment for a while as part of her self-imposed quarantine away from work and us.
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Serenity, I wish everybody could be as responsible & sensible as your daughter!
On the other hand, every other country is screening for omicron except for the us. We just keep flying blind and hoping the virus will just magically go away & go shopping for Black Friday.I am more fatigued about the lack of leadership than the pandemic.
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how has pandemic affected us all? My father's best friend died yesterday (complications of Parkinsons). My parents are attending the Shiva via zoom.
The lack of human interaction is so hard.
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South Africa has plenty of vaccines and is the most-vaxxed country in Africa (at 30%), but demand is very low. Misinformation, conspiracy theories and superstition are huge problems in many parts of the world, particularly in the US, Africa and Central and Eastern European countries. These are harder to fix than throwing vaccines at them, which at this stage there are plenty to go around for everyone.
Not every country needs charity from the West, they have their own infrastructure and SA was amazingly efficient to identify this new variant, so I believe they are more than capable in getting the vaccines into the arms of willing participants, which may be in short supply.
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Chowdog - She's one of many her age who have been responsible. She's been pushing for better COVID protection where she works. I disagree that some age groups are more responsible than others. Younger people may not have the flexibility or power at work to follow pandemic measures to the fullest. Our local government has been no help, and young people are suffering more because of it.
Dancemom - I'm sorry for your father's loss and that he cannot attend in person.
ErenTo - I don't think charity is the right word for the support needed to increase vaccinations worldwide. It's true that disinformation is a big source of vaccine hesitancy. In some countries, social media is the sole source of information. Some phones only have social media apps with no direct access to other sites. How can we blame people when they are unable to avoid disinformation? Doing nothing for them seems to lead to more disease for all of us. It's in our self-interest to increase vaccinations in other countries.
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Wrenn, that's not surprising. I think we don't check for variants to begin with, how come SA identifies these variants so quickly. BTW, the previous variant from SA didn't cause any major global waves, it probably couldn't compete with Delta.
I don't blame anyone for being misinformed. But I don't think we can force a shot into anyone's arm, either. Misinformation is rampant, be it in Florida or Malawi. We have our share of misinformation in Canada too. Twitter is a house of horror with stupidity and irrationality, it's depressing.
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ErenTo - No one is forcing shots. There is misinformation in the West, but there's a big difference in the vaccination rates here versus in Africa. The whole world would be better off if social media stopped the disinformation spread in their apps. Sharing vaccine technology would help. People may be more willing to get the vaccine if it's made closer to home. Support doesn't have to be onlysupplying vaccine doses.
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I said it before and I'll say it again: logistics, logistics, logistics. Supplies are there. Information, infrastructure and personnel are not--and in many countries, petty bureaucracies, satraps, and veritable pissing contests are standing in the way of getting those shots into arms. Hundreds of millions of doses are expiring for lack of proper storage.
ErenTo is right: it is impossible (and inadvisable) to round up the ill-informed and forcibly either "re-educate" or inoculate them against their will. We should not blame those without the informational capacity to recognize and assume the error of their ways--but that doesn't mean we should effectively throw in the towel for our own populations. Must we, too, "go down with the ship" out of solidarity?
And I really hate to say this, but it doesn't take that many unvaccinated or "COVID-naive" (i.e., never-infected) people to be incubators for new variants & mutations. We could vaccinate 95% of the world--but the remaining 5% are human Petri dishes, roughly 350 million of them, many of them traveling freely across borders and oceans. It's like when the oxygen masks fall from the ceiling of an airplane: put yours on before you help your children do the same, lest you quickly be of no use to anyone. If nations with the wherewithal & greater inclination to preserve their citizens' (including potential international volunteers') health choose not to take every effective measure (yes, even boosters) within their own borders, how are we supposed to be able to get our expertise and personnel to the Third World to assist them and show them how to take the baton and run with it?
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I am hoping the new state of emergency in NY won't affect my surgery plans. Covid has really been drawing things out for me, and I'm sure for many others too.
To all the above, yes. Logistics, education, misinformation...it still all boils down to understanding that one's personal actions and choices affect others.
Dude on the elevator, subway, bus: just pull up your chin strap. Mom who sends her kid to my class; I know you aren't vaxxed cuz you are one of the few who adults aren't allowed in the building. That means your kid definitely isn't either. Just stay home and don't expect us to accommodate your whack ideas but putting our lives on the line. To the Dad who "forgets" to wear his mask everytime: dude, they didn't let you past the front desk without it, why do you insist on taking it off as soon as you pass security?!
They just don't understand they are part of the problem. I hope these don't add up to no surgery again.
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ChiSandy - Below is a snippet of a conversation between a vaccine expert and a UN goodwill ambassador to work on vaccine development capacity in Africa. You may not be up to the challenge, but they are. I’ve seen here in QC that as our vaccination rate increases, the spread slows (until our local government lifts more restrictions). We’re around 80% vaccinated with 2 doses. I said it before: I’m listening to the experts.
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My son and his girlfriend who've lived together several years have decided to go their separate ways. They're parting as friends. One of them plans to move out by the end of December. They both work from home, both vaccinated and are very responsible about following covid guidelines. They each went to their own parents' house for Thanksgiving for a few days.
They learned on Saturday that the girlfriend's father has Covid. He is vaccinated. From what I can tell, he is sick but hanging in there. She spent Thanspksgiving with family like grandparents and brother. Ds and gf are supposed to be getting tested, I hope it is today. Ds is unhappy about this turn of events but what can he do at this point? He'd planned to get his booster this week and now he wants to wait to see if he has contracted Covid. I am hoping neither he nor his gf gets it. Her grandfather is on chemo and was at their gathering, so I have big concerns for him and hope he's okay.
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Wrenn, that made me laugh out loud!🤣 BUT, my observations on the bus to work lately lead me to believe that masks are ACTUALLY to cover the lack of facial hair on far too many high schoolers' chins?
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hahaha wrenn
I have an English friend who lives and works in Malawi. She said there are some practical reasons for people not bothering to get vaxxed, main one being that it costs them half a day's salary to get to and from a vaccination centre. It is apparently a big problem, she volunteers and transports people who want to get the shot.
Another reason is indifference mixed with social media mistruth. In a country/continent that HIV, accidents, childbirth, malaria are still killing people in droves, getting vaccinated against a disease that is likely not going to kill them (it's a very young continent) isn't simply a priority in their minds.
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DivineMrsM - I hope your son, his ex girlfriend and her family members do not contract Covid and the one relative who did, recovers quickly.
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Wait - you can get a fourth Covid vaccine?
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Thanks Jelson. Ds's girlfriend called her doctor who told her to get tested five to seven days after exposure so she plans to get tested tomorrow and Friday. Ds is a bit miffed that the gf's dad had symptoms Friday but waited till Sunday evening to tell his daughter. Her parents are big church goers and initially were not going to get the vaccine but changed their mind in early summer. Bet they are glad now that they did.
I keep thinking of my neighbor who stood at the fence between our yards last October cynically saying Covid would be gone by the end of the following month. Because he thought it was all a ploy to somehow fix the election against the former President. Even tho he and others from his church had Covid.
Went to line dance class today after not having it last week due to Thanksgiving. A few women were hugging and kissing each other. What the what? Not a good idea after everyone' s just getting back from traveling all over to see family!
One woman asked if anyone was getting the booster. I told her I already got it Another woman is on the fence about it—-her boyfriend died of Covid in January! While I was telling the first woman she should get it, the woman whose bf died was merely telling her to ask her doctor or go get an antibody test! In my humble opinion, some people are nuts!
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