How has the Pandemic affected you as a cancer patient/survivor
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Serenity,
I am glad it was easy to move up your booster appointment. Here some seniors are being turned away when they don't have appointments. What are the chances these people will come back for their boosters?
our VP was quoted today saying how the administration didn't expect new variants. It's like wtf. Enough with the excuses and gaslighting. The administration has access to cdc, nih, fda, and an army of blue check influencer mds, except they are just as out of touch as the politicians.
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I would be shocked if the coronavirus suddenly stopped mutating. Have we not learned that every time mask mandates and attendance control have been lifted, we see a surge/new variant? Let's learn from our mistakes. Limit attendance both indoors and outdoors and keep mask mandates for at least six months, I would prefer longer, and let this virus run its course. And keep pushing for people to get vaccinated. Talk about history repeating itself. It's beating us over our heads to wake up!
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https://twitter.com/jonlemire/status/1472009383886393348?s=21
Here is the quote from vp.
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Chowdog - At least she’s for masks. Here’s the airline CEO speaking for hours in a closed room against masks while coughing into his hand days before testing COVID+.
https://twitter.com/ronfilipkowski/status/1472016822639677450?s=21
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I hope they upgraded their ventilation system!
My current air filters are MERV-11, and MERV-13 is required to filter out virus particles. I found MERV-13 filters that are just a little smaller than what I have. I need to measure the opening to see if they'll work. This only works to prevent transmission in my own home though.
We need clean air measures like we have for clean water.
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Looking at this anecdote as showing that 3 mRNA shots + prior infection is not bulletproof against omicron when challenged enough. Be safe out there.
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I need to vent again. I am going to explode with anger soon.
nyc is feeling like early March 2020 right now. I was missing kids from every single one of my Classes last and this week. One class had 6/8 missing. One school I go to has 4 classrooms closed.
Our restaurant had ALL today's reservations cancelled.
My daughter at college who is supposed to come home to help me with her little brother and my upcoming surgery was exposed by a thoughtless friend of housemate.
After school conversation with my 11 yesterday: "Hi how was school?" "They gave us kits to take home in case we go virtual cuz there are a lot of cases."
Oldest fully vaxxed, mask diva, got breakthrough- most likely from a small gathering (5 including 3 who are roomates) where all are fully vaxxed and work from home except the one who works in a law firm with a vax mandate, but no masks. Guess who was sick first.
We lost most of 2020, all of 2021- everytime i felt it was just about safe to travel, a new surge came along , and now I'm spending 2022 doing surgery, rads, oral treatment, more surgery...still can't travel.
Haven't been to see family or in laws in almost 3 years.
I really vehemently and violently HATE anyone who thinks masks are useless, that vaccines are a choice, and anyone who may prevent me from getting this stupid book removal. Fuck them all.
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Wrens, congratulations!!! I hope soon.
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also, it's funny that my phone keeps auto correcting boob to book! Yes phone, its a "boob" removal
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Dancemom - Hope your kids are ok and that your treatments don't get delayed.
wrenn - I'm sorry you're missing out on being there to meet your grandson.
Too many people are ignoring Canada's request to avoid non-essential travel. Hopefully they have contingency plans in case they can't fly back when planned.
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Wrenn, congrats!
This popped up late night on my tweeter feed. Scott is some vp at Gilead, and Monica is one says cases don’t matter and hospitalization matters. She just published a big oped on nyt last week about this.
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Chowdog - QC public health have said the same thing. They’ve implemented policies to allow children to be exposed while unprotected. I don’t know what their reaction to the baby who just died of COVID is. It certainly can’t be that the baby had “one foot in the grave”.
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I might be outing my tweeter handl, but so be it. I wasn't planning to say this here but thought about this and decided to, since UCSF is one of the leading breast cancer centers in the us.
I have been having issues with some of the Twitter mds from ucsf for awhile. At first it was Bob, who co-wrote that NYT oped in Jan about how us should go with age once vaccinating >55, & lottery system. I emailed him and asked him to advocate for young ladies living with stage iv cancer, only to be dismissed. If it weren't for the disability communities who got #HighRiskCovid trending, healthy ppl would have gotten vaccine priority over those of us living with stage IV cancer. And bob was the one tweeted “support" following Colin powells death, which I thought was performative.
As for Monica, yes she is the one I mentioned earlier about wanting to unmask kids 8 weeks since vaccine approval while her owns kids go to private school.
I wanted to say, during 2020, I learned quite a bit about covid, vaccine from Monica. However, once vaccine got approved, her view changed drastically. She was one of the critical supporters of the “great unmask" in may. She attended a mask cutting ceremony in one of the Bay Area counties. I tweeted to her and asked what about immunocompromised ppl. She tweeted me back and told me she was gonna tweet about immunology and immunocompromised ppl. Well she never did. For a long time I thought she just didn't care about immunocompromised ppl. Now I realize it was coz she couldn't find any immunology support for her “health ppl can unmask, immunocompromised keep masking and will be fine" thesis.
edit to add, Monica claims to be the big supporter is mental health and mental health of children, but what about the mental health of immunocompromised ppl? I guess we don’t count since we are only 5% of us population?sorry for the long rant, but when I saw her tweet last might supporting “everyone is gonna get covid anyway", I just had enough and I quoted her tweet to ucsf and bob and asked them if that was ucsf view and if that has been something they r telling their patients.
It's a long way of saying, if one of the leading cancer institutions, doesn't give $hit about terminal cancer patients, what other hopes do we have? Their whole business is relying on those of us who are sick but believe in science & research and support clinical trials, so why dismiss us? I guess maybe they think there will always be more cancer patients, so who cares if some of them die from covid?
Mods, if you are reading, I hope you understand those of us who are living with stage iv, are at breakpoint. Cancer & the incompetence from politicians, I can sort of deal with, but the dismissive tones from leading cancer institution, no I can't deal with. I really hope BCO can be more supportive and be an advocate for those of us who don't have voices in social media and media.
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A very good friend, who was living with us until recently has tested positive for covid, delta, I presume by how terrible he feels. We haven’t seen him for 2 months since DH found out he was going to bars. A few days ago he went to a small venue indoor concert, gleefully unmasked. Of course I hope he recovers ok but geez, what a stupid and risky decision. Not sure when we’ll see him again, he obviously can’t be trusted.
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My husband works in the state court system, and just about every week, he comes home and tells me that some co-worker in our local courthouses has tested positive. The latest was a deputy from a division in his building, and that person had just attended a (stupid, stupid, stupid) holiday party in that division. The damn virus is more manageable than the fucking idiots. They should get their own planet.
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I guess in Biden's speech on tuesday, we might be shifting towards using hospitalization rather than total cases? Wow, what a wonderful holiday gift! What's the next level of being beyond disappointed yet not surprised at all? I think the formal President or whoever the republican candidate is laughing his ass off and all the way to 2024.
https://www.cnn.com/2021/12/18/politics/white-hous...
Also to add, while other countries implement public health measures, UK, Neatherland, we are going to live with omicron during the worst time possible? WTF!
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Tonight’s snl canceled due to covid. Shit is getting real out there again.
https://twitter.com/michaeloptv/status/1472418206547689474?s=21
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when things were looking a lot better in late October, I booked a very expensive NYE hotel party experience. With the new surges and Omicron, I’m glad I can get a full refund. The data out of the Oslo holiday party where 89% of the 90+ people infected by one Omicron carrier were fully vaccinated (and all but one had symptoms). I just can’t.
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Well, my short term goal of a beach in February is gone, but the general situation here in London is pretty bad and the media/politicians are using this as a way to play political games. The Prime Minister is about to be ousted to be replaced by someone even less competent, and possibly sociopathic, TBD. People are protesting the threat of another lockdown and the background stress level of uncertainty, anxiety, fear, and anger is very high and very unhelpful. Trust in the government and trust in social institutions is completely destroyed and now the Mayor of London says there may not be enough non-isolating critical workers like fire responders to you know, respond to fires.The same thing happened to the ambulance service (and still is) but at least you can more or less get yourself to the hospital if needed, but you can't put out your own house fire yourself!
An older friend of mine got delta a few weeks ago and was fine after a few days of nasty head cold like symptoms. I thought I had one of them the start of this week, but tested negative three times, so who knows. For the most part people seem to naturally be "isolating" themselves, at least in this area - traffic is way down, its a lot less hustle and bustle than you would expect for this last weekend before Christmas. Partner went to the larger grocery store the next town over and he said it was completely dead at 5pm when normally it would be heaving.
We are all going to probably Omicron in the end, but until the data is through in a few weeks about severity and death rates, all the media opinion pieces and fear and guesses really don't help.
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He ended up deleting the tweet, but omicron is spreading like they want. A major hospital downtown said their ER is full. The small hospital close to me has closed its maternity ward over the weekend due to staffing issues.
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I have to share this here, the numbers are simply staggering. This report looks at data from when vaccines became available in Canada (Dec 14, 2020) to Nov 14, 2021 period and tracks hospitalization, ICU and death by vaccination status.
Number of Covid deaths during this period in Ontario per age groups & vaccination status:
- Under 60: 6 fully-vaxxed vs. 580 unvaxxed
- 60-69: 18 vs. 713
- 70-79: 35 vs. 1146
- 80+: 119 vs. 2369
And in Ontario have a very high vaxx rate (82% with at least one dose right now). So this is even before taking that % into account.
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Serenity, this seems to be the strategy the U.S. is heading into. There are chatters within CDC to shorten the # of isolation days for breakthrough omicron cases, particularly among HCW.
Sondra, at least it seems people in UK are "isolating". everything seems to be back to normal here. When I met with my friend for the last hike & outdoor dining yesterday, I overheard so many conversations about people's holiday plans. I warned my friend about holiday get togethers and proposed that either outdoor or bring an air purifier.
I feel like politicians have all collectively lost their damn mind. It's time like this I really wish I live in one of these Asian countries or New Zealand, where the leadership actually take public health seriously.
I couldn't sleep last night. It's just ironic, last year, around this time, my tweeter feed was filled with HCW getting vaccinated. I felt so hopeful: vaccine, new leadership actually follows sciences & no more "inject clorox" shit shows. Looking back, I was so naive.
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Chowdog - QC has loosened the isolation protocols. They like to do things their own way. It’s great for the pre-COVID vaccination portal and world-class snow clearing, but terrible for the pandemic.
wrenn - I’m sorry. ❤️
I just turned down a dinner invitation with beloved friends. No one has had their 3rd shots and testing is not easy. When we all have our 3rd shots andwe can get tests beforehand, I would be open to having them here. I have more space with a better ventilation system.
After reading up on air filters, I’ll stick to our MERV-11s. MERV-13 is a little better, but they won’t fit my system as well as MERV-11. The air exchange runs continuously.
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SondraF,
It is quite the opposite here. DH drove around town for curbside pickups yesterday and said shopping parking lots werecompletely packed. I don't understand. I'd much rather browse on my phone and then just pick it all up rather than deal with the crowds, Covid or not.
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Wrenn, I am sorry you can't meet your new grand baby.
So I keep tracking our local covid cases daily. well, cases gradually doubled from like 50/day pre thanksgiving to 100/day post thanksgiving. normal considering a lot of people probably tested after traveled during thanksgiving. guess what, on 12/14 (reporting lags by 5 to 7 days), cases doubled from ~100/day (on 12/13) to >200/day. hmm, omicron outbreak somewhere due to parties, if I have to make an educated case. Our peak daily case during the delta wave was ~400/day. we will see what omicron leads to us. but hey, let's shop, party, gather and keep the economy going coz it's "mild" and breakthrough cases are not a big deal. we all know CDC is not tracking non hospitalized breakthrough cases.
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kikomoon, I’m seeing the same, especially in the bigger cities. Seems people are desperate to get out and about, fortunately I’ve never liked crowds. I just wish more would wears masks and use caution.
I’m still hoping that omicron, with its suspected lower severity and common cold like symptoms will stomp out delta and keep hospitalizations low.
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In the past month our cases have quadrupled in QC while hospitalizations doubled. We’re about 80% with 2 doses.
Even if omicron causes less severe disease for most people, the higher infection rate will increase hospitalizations.
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Just so tired of it all. So sick of the anti-mask/anti-vax folks.
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I dislike hardcore antimask and antivax people.
TBH, the administration contributed to the antimask sentiment. They view masks as punishment, as evidenced by the great unmasking in May. Did they really not envision it will be tough to put mask mandate back once you remove it? I guess not since they didn't see Delta or Omicron coming.
Now, public health officials & businesses not only have to deal with hardcore antimask people, but also those who are vaccinated but hate masks. I have lost count how many "antimask" pieces published by our local media.
Serenity, give it couple of more weeks, our hospitalization will probably double too.
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There is no easy answer, unfortunately this pandemic will be with us for the next 5-10 years until it transitions into endemic, so isolation and putting life on hold for that long isn't feasible. Now we have tools that can blunt the impact of new waves (vaccines, rapid tests, mask, targeted restrictions & personal risk assessment). I'm fed up of irrational reactionary government decisions, you'd think we've learned by now. As soon as omicron news came out, our government banned flights from 10 African countries, only to reverse them last week. This has been massively disruptive to impacted travelers during these weeks without any real science behind it. It's just one example. We have a huge immigrant population with ties abroad, we can't expect them to cut ties with loved ones. It was ok for a few months until we learned more, but not ok for 10 years. It's complicated. And international travel is in a much more controlled environment than, say, a packed restaurant.
My cousin was at a conference in Florida last month and they were the only people with mask and were getting funny looks! In most of Canada that attitude doesn't fly.
Imagine if this mindset was prevalent when we were trying to eliminate smallpox, etc. we would still have smallpox and other communicable diseases. People just saw it as their collective duty to get the shot, now it's all about me me me.... and some misguided notion of freedom. It's like a soldier refusing to go to war because he's afraid to die. Public health is and has always been about cold calculated risk/benefit analysis. Yes, the cold fact is that vaccines may kill a few individuals, but the PUBLIC will be protected at the end and the benefits far outweigh the risks.
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