COVID personal experiences

[Bootstoots]

The main COVID-19 thread moves quickly and is mostly focused on the disease in general. I'm starting this thread to discuss people's personal experiences with getting the virus and/or suffering financially because of the recession.

A week ago, I posted:

My GF is a counselor at a women's prison. She has a bunch of coworkers with her in the same relatively small room, up to 13 at a time. Yesterday, a coworker who is simultaneously a know-it-all and an idiot was coughing repeatedly while insisting it was just allergies. Last night, she went to urgent care or something and turned out to have pneumonia, which she announced to a group chat. No COVID test but that's obviously by far the most likely candidate. At least she didn't show up to work today.

Meanwhile the prison just gained an inmate with a 102-degree fever and a cough, and placed this person in a cell with two other prisoners who have other illnesses. They'll probably end up transferring those people to other cells eventually, thereby infecting the rest of the facility. They have also continued to hold group counseling sessions with ~10 people and a counselor together in a room the size of a decent-sized closet.

This coworker and one other one were tested for the virus. I found out today that the other person is my (small) county's first confirmed COVID case. The prison told the whole mental health office to get tested immediately and not come back to work unless/until they had a negative test. So my GF and the other coworkers all got tested at a drive-in testing facility today.

She did have a cough in the morning but it went away as the day went on. She's feeling kind of off and has a temperature of 99 F compared to the usual 96-97 - not really a fever but still a bit suspicious. I have a tickle in my throat but otherwise feel okay.

I told my boss about this and was told to leave work and self-quarantine pending the test. So that's what I did. We might have it, might not.

Two people in their 30s with COVID should have a probability of both surviving of around 99.6%. The 0.2% risk per person is a little more than one year of death risk for a US man ages 20-35 (0.14%), so overall I'm not too worried. Even after adjusting for both vaping and my being male, the odds are strongly in our favor. And there's probably about a 50-50 shot of not having it at all.

It's still more than a little nerve-wracking though, knowing the virus may be lurking in our lungs and slowly getting more entrenched, cruising under the radar like the sneaky little bugger it is.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I hope you get well quickly @Bootstoots

 

[Bootstoots]

Thanks. I might not even be sick, though - either from not having the virus at all (ballpark 50% chance) or ending up almost asymptomatic. That's the weirdest part right now.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I hope your gf is fine too.

 

[r16]

not having it also counts ? Because with all the talk raging about high body temperature , yours idiotly decides to take action and go find some thermometer . Turns out the thermometer ı had in my mind has been discarded years ago and we have one of those newer ones . Also mercury is an environmental hazard and what's this thing again ? Yes , 5 minutes of it and the result is ... 35.5 ??? Guess am fine , but will hasten to add that am not that cold a person .

edit : May all avoid the illness .

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I lost both of my jobs.

The future seems very uncertain atm and our government has effectively abandoned us to rot, starve and die.

So yeah.

 

[Zardnaar]

I lost both of my jobs.

The future seems very uncertain atm and our government has effectively abandoned us to rot, starve and die.

So yeah.

Roof over your head chief?

 

[Cloud_Strife]

Roof over your head chief?

Not if my landlord has his way.

Absolute scumbag of a person, even as the pandemic rages on all he cares about is making as much profit as possible.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I lost both of my jobs.

Not if my landlord has his way.

Absolute scumbag of a person, even as the pandemic rages on all he cares about is making as much profit as possible.

If you don't mind me asking, what were your two jobs?

And would your landlord be able to get a replacement tenant in, in the current circumstances?

If not, the most likely real reason for eviction would be to intimidate other tenants.

 

[Gorbles]

I really hope you get through this @Cloud_Strife without any more harm coming to you.

My own experience with the virus is technically still hypothetical, but in my opinion pretty conclusive. I came down with a bunch of symptoms more than a couple of weeks ago now, in the same week I had a report from HR that another worker had displayed symptoms. We'd started working from home that week; I only popped into work on the Monday for half an hour to pick some things up. That said, with the incubation period, who knows. The UK wasn't taking it that seriously at all back then, and especially people in my social groups. There's still grumbling now about how necessary the measures are, which staggers me.

Anyway, I was feeling (in hindsight) rough from the Monday onwards, but felt really bad on the Wednesday. I was shaking throughout the night, burning cold and hot. We don't have an adult thermometer, so I was just kind of rolling with it. I didn't have a cough, really, at all. From Thursday into Friday I had a really weird chest feeling, like restricted breathing. Spells of dizziness as well. By the time the weekend came around I was recovering, but my energy levels were absolutely shot. I didn't really move for a week, in the end. And even after that I had to force myself to do things, because my wife is second trimester and I just didn't have a choice. I tried my best to self-isolate for that entire first week, but it's very difficult in a two-bed house where one bed is for the adults and one is for the toddler!

By any accounts, I had it mild, but it absolutely knocked me out for a solid 48 to 72 hours. I don't get ill easily, or for very long (I've always had a robust immune system), but my main worry was for my wife (and toddler, even though he's low risk). I have anxiety, so that twinned with the breathing problems did my paranoia no favours, hah. All seemingly behind me now, though I was worried about a secondary infection for a little while. Wife and child seem to be doing okay, but obviously will continue to see.

 

[Morty]

My wife is a nurse in our local hospital - she's effectively been re-assigned from 'elderly care nurse' to 'covid-19 nurse'
So I tend to hear stories most evenings - when's she's not so dead on her @rse that she just wants to collapse on the sofa before going to bed, to repeat it all the following day!
So I'm working from home and home educating our son, and sort of waiting for the inevitable day where it actually enters our home. We're all fit and well and relatively healthy so hopefully it'll pass through us fairly easy, but it has reached the point where if anybody coughs you're wondering if its the start of something!

 

[Cloud_Strife]

If you don't mind me asking, what were your two jobs?

And would your landlord be able to get a replacement tenant in, in the current circumstances?

If not, the most likely real reason for eviction would be to intimidate other tenants.

Retail.

All of their fellow tenants are in the same position.

What do you think? Landlords are mostly scum.

I really hope you get through this @Cloud_Strife without any more harm coming to you.

I don't really forsee me surviving this, I was already close to the edge in terms of money before this happened, with our government going full laissez-faire and abandoning us to the whims of a mercurial president who doesn't care about vast swathes of the population, i think it's safe to say ALOT of otherwise preventable and needless suffering and death will occur, but it's okay though because something something business

 

[JPetroski]

Hope you land on your feet, Cloud.

My wife took a pay cut but survived a layoff for now. Her business relies on other businesses hiring so I'm not sure how long we'll have two checks for. Her company is trying to keep at least a nucleus because, at some point, business will be booming for them and they want to be ready for it, but if "at some point" becomes far too distant... Who knows.

My job is fairly secure and I make enough to support the four of us though we'd need to make significant changes. Frankly, we should probably make at least some of them now and save up some more nest egg before she loses her job. I might spend the weekend researching where we can cut some waste.

We were fortunate in that both our employers allowed us to work from home before it was mandatory in our state so we've been home for a few weeks and health seems good for now. We're staying careful and healthy as we can and avoiding going out.

Hope everyone gets through this OK and it turns into one of those experiences we can draw on for the next several decades when storms come from time to time again.

 

[The_J]

I had recently posted this in the main thread, which is a good summary of most of my situation:

Monstrously, but not critically.
On the plus side we have that I'm a computer scientist at the university and can work from home (although I'm really inefficient). Neither my employment, my overall career or my employer are threatened by this, so I'm good on that side.
My parents should also be okay. My dad is retired, so no danger. My mom is still working (canteen of the German railway company), so she's in quite some danger of catching it, and also reaching the risk group, but I think she'll be fine.
My brother-in-law anyways has been temporary unemployed (employment scheduled again for summer), and my sister is employed at a junk yard, which has temporarily closed down, but will for sure start up again. They are now working on renovating their house.
Most of my friends are researchers at universities, so their employment should be fine too.

Many other things are horse feces.
In February I moved for a new job from the Netherlands to France.
In February I didn't manage to find a nice apartment. So I'm spending the pandemic in a small and temporary AirBnb, while still somehow trying to find an apartment (impossible). Not much storage space here, so my stocks are basically non-existent. There is a supermarket down the building, so not a problem, I guess.
I don't know how the medical system here works, I don't have a GP yet, and I don't speak the language. If I get sick, then I don't have any friends here on whom I could rely on, and if I get seriously sick, I'd be in big trouble. I barely know my colleagues from work. Social life has been put on hold before it even started here.
I'm also a person who barely ever stays at home. I watched in the last 5 days more movies/series than I did in the previous 5 years (except sick times).
Most of my friends are in a country where I neither work nor am a resident there. So I hope they will stay fine, because I will not able to support them.
One of them is a photographer and has his house move scheduled for easter. He's not having an easy time.
My ex gf is concerned about her dad. He's having multiple underlying conditions, he's Turkish, and Turkey is seeing a massive surge in cases.
So... this is far away from perfect.

Additionally, my dad got tested, because he's sick, but it got back negative. So it's just a cold, very good .
My mom is sick too, staying at home for a week, test is on its way. She probably has the same as my dad has, and she also has a sore throat, which is not a widespread symptom of the virus, so I'm feeling quite confident that it's not (the doctor feels confident as well).



A friend of mine from Romania (living in the Netherlands) just talked to me yesterday.
Apparently they reactivated her mom for medical services. Her mom is retired, so she's now at high risk.
She said that the head doctor of one of the departments of the local hospital has asked her. He is undergoing chemotherapy, and might need a replacement soon. Without a head doctor, the department officially needs to shut down. It's the dialysis unit, serving for 4 different cities in the region. Seems they can't get someone younger/who is still active, because she said that younger doctors are quitting.
She is very concerned that her mom will get it, and that she can't help her, because she'd be quarantined herself if she flies back :/.

So, situation in Romania doesn't seem good, and they don't even have that many cases yet.

 

[IglooDame]

Retail.

All of their fellow tenants are in the same position.

What do you think? Landlords are mostly scum.

I don't really forsee me surviving this, I was already close to the edge in terms of money before this happened, with our government going full laissez-faire and abandoning us to the whims of a mercurial president who doesn't care about vast swathes of the population, i think it's safe to say ALOT of otherwise preventable and needless suffering and death will occur, but it's okay though because something something business

I hope you do get through this, and that you're taking advantage of the expanded/expedited unemployment benefits made available, or is the department in your state as overloaded as in some states I've heard about?

Edit: And in many states, the governors are taking executive action to prevent evictions for exactly this reason, is yours one of them?

 

[hobbsyoyo]

This epidemic has taken a heavy toll on my mental health and I'm having regular anxiety and panic attacks now. It's to the point where I'm going to figure out if my insurance covers any sort of mental health care and if it does, I'll have to see if there are any therapists doing virtual sessions.

One of my friends just got furloughed but so far the impact to my industry has been light. If this drags on too long or if unemployment truly reaches Great Depression levels, I expect my industry to begin to fold like the others.

My wife has been sent to work from home, which is really nice because I haven't gotten to hang out with her a whole lot for the past ~9 months due to her grad school work.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I hope you do get through this, and that you're taking advantage of the expanded/expedited unemployment benefits made available, or is the department in your state as overloaded as in some states I've heard about?

Edit: And in many states, the governors are taking executive action to prevent evictions for exactly this reason, is yours one of them?

Yes.

No.

**** The gop

 

[civvver]

Retail.

All of their fellow tenants are in the same position.

What do you think? Landlords are mostly scum.



I don't really forsee me surviving this, I was already close to the edge in terms of money before this happened, with our government going full laissez-faire and abandoning us to the whims of a mercurial president who doesn't care about vast swathes of the population, i think it's safe to say ALOT of otherwise preventable and needless suffering and death will occur, but it's okay though because something something business

I don't understand what you expect. Is your landlord a millionaire slum lord or something? Many landlords are just regular folks also trying to survive.

The government is tripling unemployment in most cases and giving everyone $1200 tax free. Have you not gotten on unemployment yet? What other steps do you think the government should be doing to help your situation?

My situation, still don't know anyone personally sick. The closest infections have been one kid confirmed at a school in our district which my neighbor teaches at a couple weeks ago and one of the grocery stores nearby that I don't shop at had a worker sick. A church in the area also had a couple with confirmed cases.

Work has cut everyone's pay by 20% temporarily. It will not be repaid. I have no idea how long it will last, I think two months is the minimum. We're doing fine right now, as we are under a stay at home order and I'm working from home our spending is way down. Can't go out to eat or movies or any entertainment and we're not spending anything on gas. Our grocery bills are really high as we're eating at home all the time and kinda stockpiling food though. But so far no immediate cash flow issues. If it goes two months the stimulus money will basically replace all my lost income. If it goes 4-5 that will suck but we probably we'll just have to tighten our belts. If it goes longer than that we'll probably have to incur some extra debt and make some major changes to discretionary spending.

Work also furlough a bunch of people and let go of many contractors. Within my group about 8 contractors were let go and another 8 or so employees furlough because they do plant support for Ford and Ford has shutdown those plants.

Biggest adjustment really is Michigan just cancelled the rest of the school year so everything will be online at home. My wife mostly handles it while I work from home, but it's a big adjustment and a lot of work.

 

[Cloud_Strife]

I've been laid off. I have no goddamn income, what do you want me to do, go out onto the street and prostitute myself? I'm not the only one of his tenants to be in the same situation and i don't care much for your apologetics

You don't get it and you never will, people like you disgust me; "Many landlords are just regular folks also trying to survive." By what? Threatening to kick people out after years of dutifully paying rent as soon as it's no longer economically conveniant for them? Demanding full rent when they KNOW for a fact that their tenants have been laid off with no income, What the **** is wrong with you? Landlords hold the whip hand, pray to your god that you're never in on the recieving end of their blows, because if you ever are you'll quickly find out how utterly miserable and scary it is.

You've really pissed me off Civver, I hope you know that, don't talk to meokay? Just go away if you're going to come in here, defending and licking the boots of landlords

Moderator Action: Cloud_Strife, settle down. This is borderline flaming. --LM

 

[shadowplay]

My father has lung cancer and was told this week, simultaneously, that without radiation, in a few weeks he might be struggling to breathe, and also that because of the covid pandemic, they might be forced to shut down radiation treatments altogether.