It's going to be something of a short one today but not because I've succumbed to the coronavirus. I tested negative this morning and feel much better than I did yesterday. The problem yesterday was that I did not sleep at all well having banished The Professor to the basement but not a boatload of anxieties about what might happen in the coming days. I slept much better last night, and it shows today. I'll keep testing myself daily or more often should I get at all symptomatic. We've been serious about living apart in the same house. If The Professor needs to leave the basement going, for example, to his home office to tape a lecture, I go outside or otherwise "hide." He gets his breakfast while I'm upstairs showering. I think we've actually seen each other for a cumulative two minutes since his test and both of us have been masked.
The Professor is in town right now. The doc with whom he spoke about getting Paxlovid wanted to check his renal levels before deciding on a dosage. Not wanting to be too optimistic about escaping the possibility of a Paxlovid rebound, I just emailed and put on hold a dinner with friends scheduled for next weekend.
The CDC has authorized the new booster and recommends all people over the age of 12 get it. There is a bit of disagreement about how soon to get it after infection or previous vaccination. Some experts say to wait two months after an earlier booster; others, four to six months. One report said to wait three months after having had covid. Epidemiologists estimate that having the booster available now, based on studies on mice, as opposed to mid-November when human results will be available will save between 7,500 and 18,000 lives by spring. That little fact about clinical trials in mice rather than humans sparked the one CDC vote against authorizing the booster now. A pediatrics professor at Ohio State University said he could not "make a recommendation for a vaccine that has not been studied in humans."
An article from the latest issue of the British Medical Journal looks at the social and political underpinnings of how and why WHO overlooked and even denied airborne transmission of the coronavirus for over two years. If you want to look at the article, let me say that it contains virtually no medical jargon that a non-medical person might not recognize. It's long and centered as you might expect on Britain, but I found it interesting.
I'm obviously hoping for another negative test tomorrow morning.
2 comments:
Hope you keep testing negative! If you do have symptoms and test positive no need to keep testing unless/until symptoms go away, but I hope you stay symptom-free. Masks in the house are a fabulous idea, and staying outdoors as much as possible is as well (for you). Wishing you both the best.
Good luck with keeping up with that single line
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