Can we talk COVID and how it affected you financially, emotionally, physically, etc?

[Like2Plan]

For my own reasons I wanted to get started on the pneumonia vaccine. The pharmacist decided he did was not going to give me the vaccine because I was not inside the group you listed and did not have any of the predetermined conditions listed by the CDC. When I asked what those conditions were, he said "it wasn't his job to educate" me. After looking up the list myself, I returned an hour later. In that hour I had discovered the pleasures of cigarettes and was now a smoker, which is a listed group.

Oh my gosh, that was extremely rude. I thought the age guidelines used to be lower, but I found this regarding (ACIP) updated recommendation in 2022:
"Vaccination is not recommended for healthy adults less than 65 years of age. Although the risk for pneumococcal disease starts to increase at age 50 (figure 2), analyses have suggested initiating vaccination at that age would not be cost-effective; thus, the ACIP did not lower the recommended age for vaccination in healthy adults [5]."

Complete article here: https://www.uptodate.com/contents/pn...tion-in-adults
ACIP=The United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) updated its recommendation in 2022

It's actually kind of confusing because there are several pneumococcal vaccines.
Here is an article on Simplifying Pneumococcal Immunizations for Adults

https://www.aafp.org/pubs/afp/issues/2022/0600/p580.html

I believe the Prevnar20 was just released a year ago.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Any Pharmacist here? My doctor ordered atorvastin at 9:30 am today. I show up at 11:30 am. Pharmacist says half hour wait or come back later. I ask if he can do it quicker (no one else in pharmacy only me). He says they are back logged. I sit down. 1 minute layer it's done. What gives?

[disneysteve]

Any Pharmacist here? My doctor ordered atorvastin at 9:30 am today. I show up at 11:30 am. Pharmacist says half hour wait or come back later. I ask if he can do it quicker (no one else in pharmacy only me). He says they are back logged. I sit down. 1 minute layer it's done. What gives?

The average pharmacy fills about 200 prescriptions a day. A busy one might do 300-400. Understandably, they try to do them in the order received which is really the only reasonable way to attack that sort of volume. But if someone is standing in front of them waiting, they'll push that one to the front of the line. Assuming there's no issue with insurance, it only takes a couple of minutes to fill a basic prescription.

Just because you were the only one physically there doesn't mean they didn't have 50 or more prescriptions waiting to be filled. Most prescriptions today are transmitted electronically, not brought in with a written prescription, so nobody has to be there for them to be super busy.

We use CVS and they send a notification when a prescription is ready for pickup. We never just walk in unless we've gotten that notice.

[QuarterMillionMan]

During the height of COVID how scared were all of yall, on a scale of 1 - 10, I would rate myself as 9 due to the 1 saving grace of being able to work from home. It would have been 10 if not able to WFH.

[disneysteve]

During the height of COVID how scared were all of yall, on a scale of 1 - 10, I would rate myself as 9 due to the 1 saving grace of being able to work from home. It would have been 10 if not able to WFH.

Being someone who was literally on the front line seeing sick patients every day without good protection or processes in place yet, I was very concerned. It was a tremendously stressful time. Our hospitals were packed. I had coworkers getting sick regularly. We were told we might get pulled from our jobs to help staff the hospitals. I even had a training day for that but thankfully it never happened. Our policies were changing literally on a daily basis. We went from having a monthly meeting to having a weekly one so we could keep as up to date as possible with the latest info, and even then we were getting emails pretty much daily with new info. I was afraid of getting sick. I was afraid of transmitting COVID to my family, especially my elderly mother, who just didn't get why I wouldn't come into her building which is nothing but senior citizens. I was the last person they needed walking through the door and potentially infecting dozens of high risk people.

It took a few months before we finally had adequate supplies of PPE and a solid screening process to limit our exposure as much as possible. Not that we weren't still concerned at that point, but the stress level was certainly much lower once I felt we were doing all of the right things to protect ourselves.

[ua_guy]

During the height of COVID how scared were all of yall, on a scale of 1 - 10, I would rate myself as 9 due to the 1 saving grace of being able to work from home. It would have been 10 if not able to WFH.

Is 1 = Not scared at all and 10 = Scariest thing ever?

About a 5 for me. But I was working for a health system (far removed from front lines) before and after the pandemic and so have had great access to information and people to talk to, who helped shape my response at home and put my fears in perspective. We were also very lucky to be able to work from home and isolate in the early days when so much was still unknown. Our families took it pretty seriously, which helped. But, that didn't stop covid from claiming the lives of a few of our friends and family who caught it in the early days.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Yes 1 = not scared and 10 = scared to death. Wow, ua_guy 5 is just like "nerves of steel."

[ua_guy]

Yes 1 = not scared and 10 = scared to death. Wow, ua_guy 5 is just like "nerves of steel."

I wouldn't describe that as nerves of steel, but I also didn't have a fear of imminent death.

Stress level, on the other hand, a solid 12 out of 10.

A lot was going on during Covid times. I lost my mom, was stuck living in Minnesota, hated my job, was contemplating divorce. Then when we came to our senses and said we're not going to let jobs destroy us, we completed a highly contentious home purchase/sale while moving back across the country without the promise of continued employment. Oh, and then, my mom (the one who raised me) became seriously ill, and our dog became seriously ill...there were days when I was like Covid, just come at me bruh!!

[QuarterMillionMan]

My 9 rating was due to the belief that I could probably die from COVID, although I never got infected (knock on wood). I'm healthy with no underlying medical conditions but watching the news everyday scared the smithereens out of me. Watching Andrew Cuomo's daily news briefings and my mayor of Los Angles Eric Garcetti and the refrigerated container trucks filled with corpses, the morgues not being able to keep up with cremating all the dead bodied, etc. I was sort of preparing for my own death. My only debt was my 2018 Dodge which I paid off in 2020 and told my family if I died I have no debts and they could just sell all my belonging. I posted my revocable living trust & will in a picture frame above my door. Being a single guy if I died the coroner would see my documents above the door in order to notify my family if needed. I was like a hermit and only left my apartment once a week for grocery shopping and dreaded having to go out and was so tempted to use Instacart for groceries but never used them. At the grocery store I wiped down the cart from front to back and side to side rails where I might touch it. I would use disposable gloves. Upon returning to my car I'd use 70% alcohol or Purell to cleanse my hands and not contaminate my steering wheel and radio knobs inside my car. I've never been so hyper-clean in my life, lol.

[myrdale]

Well under a 3. And it would be lower if I avoided the MSM altogether.

I still frequented the gym, had Chinese buffet on some occasion, I wore a mask for a total of 15 hours over the last 2 years (12 hrs at hospital for my mother's knee surgery, <1 hr at dentist, <1 hr at annual dr appointment, <1 hr at urgent care due to eating wild berries). Number of applications of hand sanitizer (<10).

People I know who died of COVID (1), and he had heart failure and lung congestion issues and was 80 years old.

[rennigade]

In the beginning, I was probably at an 8. Wife was prego, then came baby. Didnt want him to catch it. Once more data came out and I turned off the fear mongering news, my stress level plummeted to probably a 3/4. At that point I knew a couple people who had it and got over it. And here I was, sick all the time from daycare things like RSV, hand foot and mouth...and just constant coughing, runny nose, congested. What I was dealing with was far worse than all the people I knew who had the round 1 big bag covid.

It hit home that mainstream news was a joke and the fear porn that they regurgitated each night was ridiculous. Dirty laundry by don henley...thats all I could think of. Its great for ratings, terrible for real information.

It also made me realize that its not my problem to keep other people healthy. Thats on you. If you are obese or have pre existing conditions, thats you're problem. You can hide in your home and seek shelter. Some people just have conditions and they were dealt a terrible hand in life. That sucks, but dont blame 100s of millions of people you never met. Those people have lives they want to live too. Again, its not my moral obligation to keep you healthy. Take it upon yourself to eat healthy and exercise. If you abuse your body your whole life dont expect others to have sympathy for you. These statements will be hard for people to accept but its the truth.

[ua_guy]

My fear level was probably helped by the fact that I get to work with care facilities and health systems so I've always had good access to information coming from the front lines and new research. If the people on the front lines were staying alive, then I probably would too--although, many lives on the front lines of healthcare were lost. Hospitals have protocols to deal with infectious disease. Contain it or stay away from it, wear a mask if you have to be around it, or around vulnerable people. None of this was shocking or onerous to me.

Admittedly, my fear was higher in the beginning because we did have people in our family get sick and die. My great aunt and uncle got it at the same time and were hospitalized for weeks and received ventilator treatments. She recovered, he passed. They were old, but healthy. Right around the same time a same age cousin of mine (40's) got it and died, left behind his wife and kids. He was healthy too. Our best friend lost two of his military brothers to Covid, all same age as us. I've had healthy friends have a rough roll with Covid, and others aren't affected by it or still haven't gotten it.

Even at the revised mortality rate for Covid, is still breathtaking the loss of life and destruction that we've all encountered. Sometimes we discuss it like it's over, on here, but it's not. I can show you heavily damaged financials from major health systems which are still reeling from the various impacts, and serious problems attracting and retaining nurses, doctors, and staff. We have providers on here who know another bad season is coming. It might not be a Pandemic anymore but that doesn't mean Covid has gone away.

[QuarterMillionMan]

The COVID fear factor must have been similar to about 5 years ago in Hawaii when they had the ballistic missle message blasted on everyone's cell phone there. A HS friend said he gather his family in a room, closed the windows and curtains and they all held hands and said a prayer. University of Hawaii students were shown on the news later all running into the nearest buildings. Cars were parked under overpasses and tunnels and along the freeways and people were running into storm drains or whatever shelter they could find. Or another similar event in 2018 was when hurricane Lane which was a cat 5 hurricane came so close to Honolulu but at the last minute veered off course. I was there at the time taping up windows, boarding up windows, battening down rubbish bins & loose things that could go flying, etc. Scary times.

[rennigade]

The COVID fear factor must have been similar to about 5 years ago in Hawaii when they had the ballistic missle message blasted on everyone's cell phone there. A HS friend said he gather his family in a room, closed the windows and curtains and they all held hands and said a prayer. University of Hawaii students were shown on the news later all running into the nearest buildings. Cars were parked under overpasses and tunnels and along the freeways and people were running into storm drains or whatever shelter they could find. Or another similar event in 2018 was when hurricane Lane which was a cat 5 hurricane came so close to Honolulu but at the last minute veered off course. I was there at the time taping up windows, boarding up windows, battening down rubbish bins & loose things that could go flying, etc. Scary times.

I wouldn't compare the threat of a bomb dropping on a city to covid. Those people who received the alert in Hawaii went from a normal day to a bomb killing a bunch of people. Covid was a slow burn that made people lose their minds.

People in Hawaii quickly realized that there was no where to run or hide. I did hear reports o people removing man covers and dropping their kids in storm drains or something. Could be fake though. Those man hole covers are almost impossible to move without the proper tool.

[QuarterMillionMan]

Tripledemic coming in winter per main stream media, RSV, flu, & COVID. I’m over it already. Anyone believe main stream media anymore?