Have been reading the newest offshoots of the BA5 variant are reducing the effectiveness of Paxlovid (but newest booster is still very effective against BA5) - hope that doesn't turn out to be the case and you feel better soon

I'm feeling better today and the fever is gone for now. No telling what my temp was yesterday. I thought it was a steady 99.6 all day, but turns out that was the memory on my new thermometer and I only actually took my temp once, lol. 98.7 this morning. Probably not necessary, but **** it, I'm going to take the Pax anyway.

Just had COVID for the 2nd time.

My history

Vaccine 1:. May 2021 (no side effects)
Vaccine 2:. September 2021 (no side effects)
Infection 1:. Late December 2021 (very sick 1 day, mild cold for a few days, nagging late night cough a couple more weeks)

Infection 2:. October 2022. Very sick 1 day, progressively less sick for a few days. Seems to have passed within a week. Even exercised outdoors a couple of the days. Lived in close proximity with gf who had a 3rd shot 6 weeks ago. She didn't get sick.

Got the 3rd boost (+flu) Monday mid-morning. Slight headache that afternoon, felt like I had a fever, but it didn't register on the thermometer that night. Dragged ass Tuesday, just absolutely no energy at all that day. Wednesday was mostly normal. Almost no appetite for two days. Today, eating like normal, normal energy, etc.

Covid arm is still a little sore, probably the chip lodged in the muscle wrongly. Still not magnetic.

Planning on a concert this weekend, and some m/c riding.

Tested negative today, five days after first symptoms. Been pretty much 100% yesterday and today, not even a lingering cough. Guess I got Covid-lite, thankfully. I'm sure the Pax helped too.

Cool!
Now if you can just dodge the Paxlovid rebound ...

After I tested negative after taking Paxlovid, I tested positive again exactly one week after my last dose of Paxlovid.

I'm not sure when I would have first tested negative again after the rebound, but I didn't feel like doing squat so I didn't care about whether I tested negative or not. I didn't care about anything else either or want to do anything for about three weeks after that second positive test. Other than that I was fine

Probably going to get my first cocktail booster at my earliest opportunity after next weekend.

Congratulations, Mark! Earlier you were talking about not flying back to FW. Get home ok?

Fingers crossed. I don't need any help being lazy and unmotivated, for sure.
Yeah, I rented a car at DIA. Completely uneventful drive home. Got here around noonish yesterday.

Sorry I didn't think of this until this AM. If this can help anyone else, though. May not be true anymore, do your own research.

Some years back, someone (chopstick maybe?) was talking about renting a car for a drive up the CA coast. Apparently, you can sometimes get rental cars for dirt-cheap prices occasionally, if the cars are at point A (your starting point), but the rental company wants them at point B (your end point). Might even have been a deal where they pay you some minimal amount, can't remember.

No idea how to inquire if that's a possibility at the rental car place though.

Haha, that was definitely the case with this car. It had Tx plates on it that had been expired since January of this year. It was beat to hell and had 60k miles on it. The worst car I've rented since the old days of having to go to the shady places that would accept a cash deposit. It wasn't dirt cheap though.

It’s crazy to me how few people are getting boosters. I’m in MA and I think only 15% of people have gotten the most recent booster.

Told a guy at work I’m not doing Friday lunches out anymore. Wife is pregnant, and sue pretty soon. Trying to avoid flu/covid for her, and so I can be at the hospital for delivery.

Reminded this co worker to get his booster shot.

“**** no! How would that help me. Show me the evidence.”

**** moron

It's crazy to me that anyone is still getting boosters, so I guess we're even.

Good one.

FYI, since I had been ignorant of this until this month: if you have symptoms and suspect COVID, it will take 72 hours before it turns up as a positive test. I wasted a couple of tests taking them too early before a phone call to the local clinic clued me in. They were turning up negative early on, and I wasn’t believing it. Sure enough, at around 72 hours I got a positive.

I’m basically fully recovered now.

I mask everywhere and take every precaution you can imagine - got every available shot, including the bivalent in early October. Wife got it though a couple of weeks ago, and gave it to me. She had three bad days then felt better each day and by day 10 was out hiking. She didn't take Plax - drug interaction. I felt lousy three days later but didn't test positive until day 4, as in five days after my first symptoms, and I tested each day and felt BAD despite being negative! My doctor was stumped and thought I had something else, even though he knew I was probably in the 98% percentile in terms of how careful I am. By then the worst was basically over, so I didn't take Pax either. Since about day 7 though I've been stuck at about 80-85% of normal even now on day 10. One day I'll have congestion, the next my cough will reappear, then today I have a scratchy throat. Of course I worked through all of it (from home) and I'm sure that didn't do me any favors. I think I just need to take it easy for a couple of days and really focus on getting 100% better. At least now my wife says she will be more careful going forward.

My PCP encouraged against Paxlovid, said she doesn’t really like it as she’s seen it result in a lot of occurrences of rebound COVID. She didn’t refuse to prescribe it, but I deferred to her warning on that.

Does it ever cross your mind that the precautions didn't work? Or do you keep doubling down on boosters and masks even more, figuring your experience could have been even worse without them?

What are you trying to get at? I had never had COVID, due, I believe, to precautions I took being effective. Once my wife brought it into the house though, it was game over since we really can't effectively quarantine. Will I take the same countermeasures going forward? I think so. What I'm forgoing matters less to me than what I'm preventing.

Genuinely serious: you just got COVID. What are you preventing?

Death and serious illness?

I'm talking about the long run although a good friend of mine had three confirmed separate cases within less than 6 months. Yes, that's not the norm, but you do what you need to do to sleep and night and I'll do what I need to do. You might think I go overboard, but I'm sure there are situations where I'd feel the same way about you.

Fair enough - thanks

Covid finally got me. Basically feels like a bad cold with chills (tho no fever; i've been checking my temp. interesting imo). I had influenza A in 2019 and it was WAY worse than this.

Went to give blood at a blood drive at a school cafeteria the other day. I walked to desk with two volunteers at it. First thing they do is lift a box of masks up for me to grab one and put on.

They were both unmasked, as well as 80% of people in the room. I then watched them walk over to a man with a K95 mask on and ask him to put one of their masks on over his.

I don't think we're gonna make it.