Staying the Course -- Bye, Bye 2020 Edition

[Superbob]

Good Morning, Hearty Coursers! Happy New Year! Hope you are enjoying some refreshing R&R during the holidays.

Great to hear from you all in the festive thread before this one, including some thoughtful reflections from Steve that just came in this morning (Dec. 21 thread).

To state the obvious, we are about to end 2020 and start 2021. As always, this is a time to reflect on what's happened in the past 12 months, and to look forward with an eye to making a fresh start (with or without "resolutions"). Or perhaps just staying the course -- nothing wrong with that. : )

I am going to come back and edit this starter post with my own reflections -- tonight probably. Right now, the dawg is lobbying me for her morning walk (good dog!), and then I have an appointment with my dentist to fit a new appliance to hopefully knit my top layer of chompers together.

I have some health-related thoughts about the good and bad of 2020, and hopes for 2021, and I am sure you do, too. Look forward to your thoughts. Good Lord willing, I shall return.

Cheers,
Superbob

 

[rich01]

This is one time I'm not looking back and reflecting. I'm only concerned with the future. I listened to a podcast yesterday with 2 very smart people. They believe there is a good possibility that Covid-19 may replace the current seasonal flu and be with us for a long time to come.

If that's the case, it seems to me that implies a yearly vaccine for Covid-19, because it will continue to mutate just as the current flu does. Hopefully, once we have adequate treatment options and a vaccine, it won't be any worse than the "flu". Actually, the overall Covid-19 death rate is about .1% which is about the same as the flu.

As many of us here are over 65, we need to keep our immune system as strong as possible. Every year, age takes another whack at us and our immune system gets a little weaker. That's why so many older people are falling victim to covid. Do a lot of walking, eat right, and take your vitamins. Get plenty of sunlight and fresh air. Fasting every now and then can also prime your immune system.

I have been taking part in a Covid-19 clinical trial for several months. I have to fill in a form daily that takes about 30 seconds to fill in. You just click your selections and submit. They notified me a couple of weeks ago they are sending out antibody test kits to all of us. They are just a finger stick test where we submit a photo of the results and then mail the sample back to them. It will be interesting to see if I have any antibodies. There were a couple of times I thought I might have become infected because I became very tired and had really strange dreams for a couple of days. No other symptoms, but I think it might be possible I was exposed to a small dose of the virus and my body fought it off.

I think several universities are participating in the clinical trial, so if interested, check out your state medical universities.

I also take several supplements as recommended in the I-Mask+ protocol developed by the FLCCC Alliance. Go here for information on how the FLCCC came to be and how the protocol was developed and here for the protocol in pdf format. I don't have access to Ivermectin, so I take everything else but Ivermectin. If I get the virus and become sick, I have a copy of the I-Mask+ and I-Math+ protocols to give to the doctor.

 

[MartinF]

I'm not afraid to look back at the past year!
Here is what was good about 2020:
My health is better than at the end of 2019.
I'm still working.
Lost 15 lbs.
Running again. It's slow but I can run 3 hilly miles without stopping and it's more comfortable. It will get easier.
We're still social with some friends, but safe.
Life has slowed down.
Haven't lost any family members to Covid and only a couple had it.

 

[Protimenow]

Funny.

Before I had my crazy trio of arrhythmias in March , I started having crazy dreams. My memory of things that happened in my childhood flooded back. I can remember names and phone numbers of people who I'd known nearly 60 years ago. I can still pull those things up - including a memory of when I was about three or four years old.

In retrospect, I thought this may be the reasons some people talked about 'life flashing before them' at the time of death. Maybe they just extrapolated this stuff.

I wonder if I may have had COVID-19 in early March, and that it might have caused those 'crazy dreams' and kicked my heart rhythms way off - and my COVID-19 status became negative before I went into the hospital.

Now, it seems as if I've got CHF - something that I really didn't want. I'm seeing my cardiologist this afternoon - a week after a totally unremarkable angiogram - and I may learn more then.

2021 will be here. We can't stop it.

I hope that it's better for everyone.

 

[epstns]

I kicked 2020 to the curb without a second thought. It was probably the most difficult year for me of the past decade. Not health-wise, though. Both physically and emotionally I believe that I am doing just fine. 2020 was just a lousy year and I wouldn't want to repeat it. Too many restrictions due to Covid. Too many of our favorite activities and businesses are simply closed for good. Too many people (hey - politicians, I'm talking about all of you) are just too confrontational and plain nasty. This was not a year I'd want to repeat.

That said, I feel incredibly blessed to have family, health, work and hobbies to keep me whole. Once the virus thing is under some level of control, we can get back to rebuilding our social and personal lives, and then I'll feel better.

 

[Paleowoman]

I'm hoping 2021 will be a better year than 2020. I've managed 2020, I've been 'locked down' due to having to shield since end of last March, I don't mind that but there is a limit as there's things I have to do, people can't put their lives on hold for ever. I need to be able to do more things for our son who is having huge dificulties due to all the Covid restrictions, If it weren't for my son it wouldn't really bother me much at all having to stay locked down - in this age of the internet I watch lectures and talks online, all our groceries are ordered online, and I have my DH to keep me company.

It's the single young people and those with mental health problems who need support and help (like our son) who are suffering extremely badly. And people who have other serious health problems, cancer for example, who are not getting treated who are suffering.

I didn't have my annual cardiology checkup and echocardiogram in 2020 - that was, in a sense, a relief, it was nice to 'forget' my heart a bit. But those who have needed to have work on their hearts or any other health problems must have had extra stress in 2020.

Now the vaccine has been developed let's hope it is distributed as quickly as possible...that is the hope of 2021.

 

[skeptic49]

"Now the vaccine has been developed let's hope it is distributed as quickly as possible...that is the hope of 2021."

Amen.

 

[Superman]

Happy New Year every one! Nice to read the updates and thoughts and the new and old year. One thing that can be said about 2020 is people are sure not to forget it. No matter how much we want to!

Back to school and back to life tomorrow. Got our tree down and most of our interior decorations this weekend. Roof lights will wait for a big melt off if we get one. Sometimes they stay up until March! Not work risking a wheel chair over.

Still not sure on a full buy in on a rushed vaccine in this house yet. I think we’re all young enough and healthy enough where we will graciously step aside for those in a greater risk reward scenario than we are.

My wife is a front line worker but has has reservations about how quickly this we were rushed through the approval process. I’ll defer to her better judgment. I work in the basement, wear my mask in public, and generally don’t see many people so I’m not too worried at this point.

 

[rich01]

My wife is a front line worker but has has reservations about how quickly this we were rushed through the approval process. I’ll defer to her better judgment. I work in the basement, wear my mask in public, and generally don’t see many people so I’m not too worried at this point.

My understanding is the way they speeded up the trial was by using a new testing method that was much faster than the old way of animal testing and that in phase 1, they tested a much larger number of people than is normally tested. So the testing was speeded up by testing more people early in the process.

The other thing that speeded up the overall process was using mRNA, so they didn't have to spend time growing cultures of the virus. Add to that streamlining the process and you have vaccines within a year.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine uses a different process and won't be available for emergency use until February at the earliest. It only requires one shot and doesn't require ultra-cold storage.

 

[dornole]

My sister, a physician, got hers yesterday and said she would recommend either the Moderna or Pfizer without hesitation for me. For what it’s worth. Last I heard she was still looking at AstraZeneca one.

 

[Protimenow]

A few things:

I've heard that the mRNA vaccines (Pfizer and Moderna) aren't actually entirely NEW. The vaccine for Ebola were also developed as mRNA vaccines - have been extensively tested, and effectiveness and side-effects are pretty well known. China is said to have read the genome of Covid-19 and made this data available worldwide. Vaccine makers started developing the new Covid-19 vaccine once they got the genome data. They modified their mRNA virus to work on COVID-19 (yeah, it's all caps, but I didn't bother), so this isn't entirely new.

As far as heart problems during 2020 - I had some - a rather severe set of competing rhythms that probably could have killed me. The hospital had rooms set aside for non-COVID patients. I suspect that most hospitals have rooms for patients with other emergencies. I am not sure how stressed I was/am about them

 

[Superbob]

My sister, a physician, got hers yesterday and said she would recommend either the Moderna or Pfizer without hesitation for me. For what it’s worth. Last I heard she was still looking at AstraZeneca one.

Interesting, thanks! Raises the question whether we will be offered a choice of vaccine products. I found out that our local CVS will be administering we (75-and-older) oldsters' shots and will contact us when it is time to come hobbling on in for it. I assume CVS will have been issued one particular vaccine rather than having a variety of them available. I guess we could pass on the one offered, but then potentially have to wait months for another opportunity.

 

[dornole]

That tracks with what I’ve heard too. I’ll be in the 1c group as I am 53, so I’ll take what I can get.