How is everyone in the current situation? General Chat

Just wanted to say a quick hello. It seems I may finally be through my post concussion syndrome. Working a lot on foundation for new house, long days, in the heat, and I seem to be doing ok. I know if I’ve pushed too hard when at the end of the day I can’t balance on one foot in the shower while I wash the other one. Happy to be able to share this. Ok, off to work I go!!!

Thanks for the update Marc - and I am so happy to hear that you are feeling so much better. As for not being able to balance on one foot in the shower - I cannot even balance on both feet!!

Yay!!!

Glad you're doing better! It's always kind of weird how you can sit at "almost better" for an anniyingly long time. And then all of a sudden you realize "wait. I'm actually ALL better now".

New job or back to the old one?
Glad you are feeling better. One foot in he shower? OMG, I have a distant memory....

I meant working on my new house, which is nothing more than the girders that it will be built on, which sit on 5 tons of concrete that I rented a mixer to mix, 165 sixty pound bags. This project gets my full attention, probably through October. I need to get it weathered in before much rain, and I haven’t even started on the floor joists for the first story. I’m going to do as much of it as possible by myself. I’ll obviously need help standing up walls and hanging some big 4x12 beams.

Definitely not going back to my old job...

Much as I hate to get back to the subject of the virus, we are on the point of going into our fourth lockdown. The figures are now over 8,000 new cases a day - on Monday there were nearly 9,000. And one of the cases is Amit, who has, of course had both vaccinations, and being a first responder, was due for a booster. At the moment he is the only member of his family who has tested positive - he is now at day 5 and his fever has gone down, but he is still coughing and feeling lousy. He is isolating from his family at home but his son, who is in the army, is also now coughing so is going for a test this morning.

I am not sure whether his son has had the vaccinations - like me he has a medical history of severe anaphylactic reactions to various things and always carries two Epipens, and I know that he was strongly advised against being vaccinated. Amit's daughter is 13 or 14 and of an age where vaccinations are being given, but I forgot to ask him whether she has had them or not.

I hope Amit and his son are not too badly affected. I know that he is your best friend, and you must be feeling worried for them. Figures in the UK seem to show that although the number of cases remain significant, the vaccinated patients are having less serious symptoms, so I hope Amit will soon be out of quarantine. My best wishes for the health of his family.

I second that. It is scary. We're going back to wearing masks indoors regardless of vaccination status. I get asthma and allergies and have hot flashes and we have a huge wildfire to the north and the smoke blows down here for days at a time - it felt really good not wearing a mask for a few days when out in the heat. But it's not worth the risk. I need to buy some new ones tomorrow.

Right now, there are healthcare workers who are being told "get vaccinated or don't come to work". They are complaining about personal rights and religious beliefs. I hope the government stands firm on it - if you don't want to be vaccinated that's fine, but stay away from sick people. Your personal beliefs don't allow you to put others at risk. Especially those with health issues that prevent THEM from getting vaccinated.

On a positive note, I finally got a security door installed at my back door. Now I can open the main door and let the breeze blow right through the house while keeping The Twooney (cats) safely inside. Tornado-dog took only twice before realizing he had to wait for me to open the second door before racing outside.

So sorry to hear about Amit, Juli. I hope he recovers soon

This flaming virus just won't go away will it? Our numbers are slowly and steadily rising so who knows what autumn will bring.

They are saying that the over 50s and those younger but in the vulnerable category will be given an extra jab in the autumn to boost immunity. Let's hope it works

Boosters are already being given here Chris, and Amit qualifies on two counts. First because he is 54, but also because he is a first responder. I thought it was a bit strange that I had not heard from him for a few days, as he is always checking up on me, then yesterday morning he telephoned just gone 10am - and woke me. He knows I always go to bed late and surface late, but thought I would be awake by then. I could not think straight so he said he would call later.

I did not hear from him so guessed he would be busy - then I checked my emails. I should add that I do most things on Firefox, including accessing my Gmail account on it, and even though I saw a notification that there were emails in my IP address account, which I access on Thunderbird, I did not bother to check - they are mostly online newspaper emails and Google Alerts that I have set. So when I finally opened Thunderbird and saw his email - which was timed at 9:21pm and read

Hi darling .. The corona unfortunately caught up with me too ... I recover at home slowly ........................... do not worry about me everything in control its the day 4 love you Amit

it was rather too late to call him, so I had to wait until he called this morning! And yes, he does call me darling - and always ends calls, or if he has been here, with 'love you'. His English makes me laugh at times - because it is always "everything in control". I think he is slightly mis-translating the word "motek" - which sort of means 'sweetie' - it is a word that you call young children if you do not know their names - or a close friend maybe - a term of endearment really. Just a bit more than just calling someone "dear".

Aw, I think his greetings and goodbyes are lovely. Such a great guy

I have just heard from Amit - I do not want to telephone him in case he is sleeping - cannot send an SMS [have not the slightest idea how to on this little fliptop phone] so I sent a quick email as a reply to the one he sent last week - and just received this in response:

Yes, I'm deer i am feeling better.....mess you 2... love you amit

I am still worrying but at least I have heard from him. It is not hearing that worries me the most.

We’ve had masking requirements reinstated yesterday at all indoor businesses in my county. Most counties near me had done this 3 weeks ago

Oh dear. It doesn't sound as if we will be in the clear for a while yet!

I don’t think we will be in the clear until the whole planet is mostly vaccinated. Variants will keep arising in unvaccinated populations. This is a global issue. Even then this is going to be endemic, something we will probably have to manage for possibly forever...Countries that have the ability really need to donate billions of doses to countries that can’t afford it. Manufacturing of vaccines needs to be ramped up. As well I don’t think all vaccines are created equally, despite the best of intentions.

Now they are saying that possibly the regular yearly flu vaccination might not be so effective, as the vaccine laboratories have been concentrating on vaccines for Covid. The yearly flu shots are a combination of the major strains of the previous three years, and last winter, because more people stayed in and/or were in quarantine because of Covid, the actual cases of regular influenza was far less than usual.

So there is limited knowledge of which strains should be concentrated on for the flu vaccine for this coming winter.

Anyhow, I have just heard from Amit again

Hi my deer..
its not simple game...
(Corona) ...
Thank G-d
I am recovering slowly ...
feeling a little better..
healing is slow
Hug & kiss..

which worries me, as this is day 11 and for him to be recovering slowly - he is just about the fittest person I have ever known so he must have been hit quite hard.

I don’t think covid cares how fit you are.

I hope Amit is feeling better soon

I hope he's feeling better soon too

Here there is talk of a booster vaccination for all over 50s and the vulnerable. If they decide on it, the flu vaccination will be given at the same time.

I've seen the reports that say it's going to be a bad winter for flu. It just gets scarier and scarier

Boosters are now being given to the over 30s here. They started with the over 40s, then over 40s, and now down to the over 30s. And here I am, sitting here, unable to have the vaccination - with it looking very much like I will never be able to leave my home again. Oh well, it is just coming up to 18 months now, so I guess it does not matter any more now.

The rate of new infections per million inhabitants is now higher here than in the UK.

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We're getting there, Julie.

It's madness at the moment. Very few seem to be taking any precautions at all now all the restrictions have been lifted and it's reflecting in the daily rise in cases and deaths