Am I alone? I don't know anyone who has died of Covid.

Drew68 | 12/25/2021 | Me

[Drew68]

So I'm on this debate on Twitter.

Here, fellow FReepers is the God's honest truth.

I am 53 years old. I'm not a recluse. I have family, friends, co-workers, all over the United States. I'm socially active.

I do not know a single person who has died from Covid. I do not know a single person who has been hospitalized with Covid. I have not once received a phone call that someone I know has died from this.

I DO KNOW several people who have gotten Covid, all have recovered. Most said it felt like a weird cold. One friend of mine said it kicked his ass. None of them went to the hospital with it. All have been fine.

I read about hospitals overwhelmed with patients on life support, dying.

Seriously, am I living some strange sheltered existence where this disease doesn't exist?

[BozoTexino]

I don’t know anyone personally. It’s all ‘friend of a friend’ stories. I’m 61, unvaxed and work in the service industry. I’m around hundreds of people per week. We’ve been out and about to restaurants, bars, you name it, since the lockdown was lifted. We’ve been on at least six trips via air and auto. We have been on ivermectin and supplements for over a year.

[hecticskeptic]

Guess who sat next to him at the table?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Given all the recent reports that the moronic variant tends to attack more of the EGT’d than the non-EGT’d, that would seem to stand you in good stead! It will be very interesting to hear a follow up report from you... who at the dinner got sick and who didn’t as based on their EGT status....

[Osage Orange]

Glad to hear...about recovery.

I've seen people that you wouldn't think would make it...Make it.

I've seen folks..get the 19..and they aren't dying...but very debilitated going forward.

VapoTherm's and the like...are HiFlo humidified machines..that can deliver an exact FiO2...and an exact Liter Flo per Min.

Many COPDer's need the LPM (FLOW) more than they need the FiO2 (O2).....

These 19 pt's....are all over the ballpark...

Seen a lady...somewhat obese..and older near 70yrs of age....do well on the VapoTherm..and now on 3 lpm of O2...and doing well.

FWIW

[Trumplican]

I don’t support vaccine mandates. I don’t support destroying individual rights. All I know is that is my 55 years of life, I don’t personally know anyone that died of the flu. I don’t even think I know of someone that died from the flu. I do know too many people that got covid, got seriously ill, went into the hospital and died.

That seems like something is different about covid.

Is it all a big conspiracy? Are hospitals being prevented from treating patients so big pharma and all their corrupt politicians can get rich? Very possibly that is so.

Was Covid designed to kill the old and the fat? All the universal health supporters always blame the old and the fat for all the health care costs.

All I know is that Covid is real. Covid kills. And politicians all over the world are using Covid to totally control the population of the world.

[Theophilus]

...if the deadliness of the virus warranted it...

I hope and pray to God that even if a 99% lethal disease were to run rampant across the face of this Genesis 3 earth that, in whatever time I had left, I would not surrender my God given rights nor seek to seize any of yours.

1 Corinthians 15:55
O death, where is thy sting? O grave, where is thy victory?

Job 19:25
For I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth:

[Phoenix8]

Much truth here.

My old ex-neighbor Sam (passed away last spring from a fall on ice) said his dad told him in the Spanish Flu of 1918 their family had multiple deaths. It was also a brutally cold winter (unlike what we’ve been having the last decade..something like the conservative COVID deniers we need to eventually discuss openly and without anger, that is conservative climate change deniers) and the ground was frozen so hard they HAD TO STACK THE BODIES ON THE PORCH LIKE FIREWOOD until the spring thaw came and they could bury them.

So yes, I agree COVID is real, I also agree it’s blown out of proportion.

[wardaddy]

That last sentence tickled me...lol

You were smart.

Covid has a low death rate but it does kill....no question

I take hydroxchloroquine now for my rheumatoid arthritis....I wonder that’s why it’s effective against Covid as well

Like the second drug you took..

UPMC is a good hospital

[hecticskeptic]

Drew… thanks very much for this posting and rl for your thoughtful comment in Post 236.

I’ve been through all the comments on this post and perhaps not unexpectedly for someone who frequently peruses FR, the comments are quite diverse…. There are some who don’t have much regard for the WuFlu (they and the people they know rolled through it quite easily with ‘no muss, no fuss’) to the other extreme (comments from posters who know numerous people who died, had long term health issues etc.). Then there are those who got EGT’d… and some who didn’t have a problem and some who were very much harmed by it. All this is very diverse…..

Let me state what is in the back of my mind before I continue. What I’d like to know is this…. What are the common denominators as to why we are seeing this wide range of diversity to the responses? For starters, is a person’s propensity for catching the WuFlu something they have control over or not? Or are there very simple things that one can do that drives up or reduces the odds that a person will catch it? Although all the comments (nearly 250 as of this post) were very interesting, I don’t think that I learned anything that was valuable in addressing an understanding to the basic question of this….What are the things that I can personally do that will let me roll through this thing called covid and come out the other side in the best way possible (hopefully relatively unscathed)?

In the end, I’m not sure that many conclusions can actually be drawn from the post, and this is due to the information and context for each anecdote that is missing. Here is but one basic issue…. What is the age of the person who is reporting their anecdote? Unfortunately (and this is not intended as a criticism), an FR post such as this doesn’t really lend itself to doing a ‘survey of this type’ but that is really what is needed because context is so important to everything…. and frankly, this is very unfortunate since I’d trust a survey done of FR posters far more than I would a survey by just about anyone else. There are many surveys ‘out there’…. but I’m highly skeptical of them (just like I am of just about everything). Although this may not be critical, a survey of FR posters has a far greater likelihood of being of people ‘who are to some extent, more representative of people like me’.

Here are but a few of the questions that a survey would need to tabulate…. and these are only being stated as to whether or not they are relevant to a survey. It is acknowledged that they may NOT be suitable to folks (like me) who are hugely reluctant to state much of any personal information even for a legitimate survey… unless there is some level of encryption that is guaranteed. This would seem to be just a detail that needs to be worked out…..Does anyone know of a comprehensive survey that is being done by a third party outside the world of FR? Regardless, I think a survey that provided meaningful value would need to include the following…and all of this is just mentioned off the top of my head and so with some thought, much more would be needed to refine this into a useable form that would yield valuable information that one can act on…. On the other hand, there may be some who would say “Naw… this is too much trouble. Just take your ivermectin if you start to feel you get sick and you’ll be fine.” Fine… that may be the case but this too is something that should be supported by a good survey.

Basics of the person taking the survey:
- Age
- Sex
- Race
- Location where live (and further description of rural/urban etc).

General characteristics:
- How many live at the household ….
- Profession or type of work one does
- Retired or not
- Family status questions
- Education status
- Income level
- Type of health care

Personal information concerning the health of the person doing the survey:
- Self-perceived level of health
- Vaxxed or not vaxxed…. Fully, partially or also with booster.
- Any known pre-existing conditions….diabetes, cancer etc
- Disabilities
- Alcohol consumption
- Tobacco consumption
- Food consumption details
- General health issues…. Blood pressure, asthma, heart disease, stroke etc.
- Current medications being taken
- Weight, BMI etc.
- Most recent illnesses.
- History of past hospitalizations
- Family history

General activities that may be relevant….
- Exercise details?
- Generally take vitamins and supplements?
- Generally prescribe to covid health protocols such as the one that the ‘critical care doctors’ have prescribed
- Interactions with others who may or may not have had covid….
- General advisory/precautionary issues such as washing hands, wearing mask, avoiding large groups of people, ‘social distancing’ etc.

Experience with covid….
- How many times? When?
- Symptoms…
- Test results… what/when/what kind of tests/results
- Treatment that was taken
- Tested for antibodies?

Experience with the covid vaxxes….

Etc…..

Last question....The above was just off the top of my head and does not make any pretense of being what a good survey should look like. That’s fine.... but is anyone aware of a good survey that one could take online that would spit out results along the lines of “based on the information you provided, here are what are seen as the highest risk factors for you....” Or perhaps a conclusion of “you are doing all the right things and are in good shape.... here are some more things that would improve your odds....”

I know, I’m probably asking for too much....

[stylin19a]

Interesting.

I looked but haven’t found any COVID stats on those with RA or Lupus that take hydroxychloroquine.

[stylin19a]

how about blood type and RH type

AB blood type seems less susceptible as is RH-.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8286549/

[hecticskeptic]

That is an excellent point... and no doubt it is just one of many excellent things that can be included.

Now I just need someone wiser and smarter than me to either put this together or perhaps inform where it has already been put together!

[wintertime]

Re: Spanish Flu 1918

I grew up in the heart of Philadelphia among the hardest hit areas in the nation. The adults in my life **never** spoke about it. I learned about it as an adult by reading an article in the Philadelphia Magazine.

**If** the Spanish Flu was such a horror certainly my family would have mentioned at least once in all those years.

[Gaffer]

I personally do not know anyone who has died but that doesn’t mean there aren’t. My grand daughter, unvaxxed got it almost a year ago and survived after three days of feeling puny. My daughter, unvaxxed has it now and is just now coming out of it and feeling better after a week at home.

I suspect that if I got it I’d be in trouble because of multiple contributing conditions and being 72 years old, however. But my doctor told me early on that I probably shouldn’t be vaxxed because of them. Blood clots related to blood thinners and also kidney problems....

[House Atreides]

If Omicron turns out to be the cold-like variant it’s currently looking to be, it may be your best way of picking up a measure of immunity with the least risk. Good luck to you.

[Gaffer]

Here’s hoping it IS the universe’s Kwisatz Haderach to all this politically instituted control nonsense and provides the immunity....

[jjotto]

People were sturdier in those days. Not everyone cowered at every misfortune.

Sometimes families can only deduce how the Spanish Flu affected their ancestors by noting dates on gravestones.

[wintertime]

Were the people who died people you knew personally....or...friend of a friend of a friend type of person?

[wintertime]

When I asked my family members about the 1918 flu, the response was uniformly, “What flu?”

Odd. I have never been able to square that circle. Perplexing.

[wintertime]

What my family **did** remember was TB.

[Pelham]

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1232869/

This is where the HCQ is effective idea began. It’s a PubMed NIH paper. Notice the 2005 date. It was with regard to SARS-1, Covid-19 being SARS-1’s close cousin. I had found the paper sometime before Trump first mentioned it, maybe March 2020, by looking for what I could find about SARS-1. I posted a link here on a Covid thread and it got exactly zero interest.

The study was done on Green Monkey tissue in a laboratory. SARS-1 had burned itself out before HCQ could be tested against SARS in human beings. It worked on Green Monkey tissue in the lab but that doesn’t mean it will work in vivo in people. Covid-19 provided the chance to put it to the test and the studies that I’ve read indicate that it just didn’t do much. Nursing staffs were given it hoping that it would protect them from catching Covid but they came down with it at the same rate as without using it. Maybe it would provide some protection if you aren’t confronted with high viral loads that nurses are exposed to. It just didn’t work out as the 2005 study had hoped.