Looks like Russet's observatory dodged a possible COVID outbreak!

[thewayne]

The dude's test came back negative, so likely an early bad flu. The cleaner had already gone through and done a deep cleaning, and that's never a bad thing.

So lots of relief.

Thank you all for your well wishes.

Comments

[rain_gryphon]

That's good. Here, I continue to know only the one person who got sick from it. I may get tested next week - the state is offering it free of charge.

[thewayne]

I'm planning on getting tested at the end of the month.  We also have free testing, and the uni did a massive test of staff and faculty on the first day of class.  I just didn't see any sense to testing then when we hadn't been exposed to anyone new at that point.  At the end of the month, I will have been exposed to a lot more people, THEN it makes more sense to me getting tested! But I feel fine, I check my temperature and SpO2 levels regularly.  The problem is, I've manifested four or five COVID symptoms - FOR A DECADE.  So it's hard for me to say "I don't feel well today."  I NEVER FEEL WELL.  There's always something that doesn't feel well about me, it's a question of whether something feels majorly out of whack.  Fortunately I've built up a rapport with my immunologist and have one growing with my ENT and when I say "I think I have a sinus infection developing", they take it very seriously.

[rain_gryphon]

What I'd really like to have is the antibody test, to see if I've already been infected. All the state is covering is testing for current infections. I suspect it's probably polymerase-chain testing, since they say it will take a few days to yield results. I don't know if you've ever done the reaction, but it's pretty cool. Years ago, I had a favourite chemistry professor who was working on developing a bacterium that would scavenge and fix arsenic from landfills and dump sites. I helped her out a few times by doing a PCR reaction on candidate bacteria when she was spread too thin. The point was to get a lot of DNA, so as to be able to analyse it easily. I'd burst the bacteria with a sonic disrupter, then start growing DNA, then wind it up on a wooden stick. In large amounts, it resembles nothing so much as snot.

Afterthought: And, whilst setting the time delay on the sonic disrupter (You can't be in the room whileit's activated. It's that loud), I could not help but channel the deranged mouse from "The Rescuers Down Under" - "Activate the epidermal tissue disrupter!"

[thewayne]

Winding up DNA on a wooden stick!  That sounds really cool!  Sounds like a really awesome job. For me, I'm pretty confident that I have not had the virus.  The only illnesses that I've had this year are a couple of sinus infections with no further compounding symptoms, so I'm pretty sure a PCR would be negative.

My problem is, since I'm on antibody replacement therapy, I can't do antibody testing because I receive antibodies from 10,000 people every week!  You have to do PCR testing on me for any accuracy.  I had a doc do a Epstein-Barr test on me to see if I had Mono, and guess what - it showed I'd had mono.  Didn't prove a thing because it's guaranteed that among 10,000 people, some of those people had had mono!  We told her in great detail about my immune disorder, about the antibody replacement therapy, and that antibody testing didn't work and you had to do PCR testing.  That was the last test she did on me, never saw her again. Right now, my donor pool probably does not contain people who recovered from COVID.  It takes over 6 months from plasma donation to get through the filtration/processing/bottling/shipping process to my door, and I don't know how long it was before plasma donation centers reopened or even if they are.  But if I do get the virus, I'm a prime candidate to get the donor plasma therapy since half my immune system pretty much isn't there. In another 6-12 months, theoretically, antibodies from people who have recovered from COVID will start appearing in my meds and that will improve my resistance.  Won't be an absolute guarantee, but eventually we'll have a fairly safe vaccine that my NIH doc will say is safe for me to take, and that's the point that me, my wife, family, and friends will relax quite a bit. Meanwhile, tomorrow I get my flu shot: there's a lot of overlap between flu and COVID symptoms, best to avoid one if you can.  Last month I got my first Hep-A vaccination, I'll get a second one in January.  And probably late September I'll get my first Shingrex vaccination.  I need to look up the dates on my two pneumonia vaccinations and check those with my immunologist and see if those are coming up: with two vaccines, they cover different strains and I get both on staggered intervals.  Since I had pneumonia five times in seven months (11 yrs ago), I make sure I get pneumonia vaccinations!

[rain_gryphon]

We told her in great detail about my immune disorder, about the antibody replacement therapy, and that antibody testing didn't work and you had to do PCR testing.

For that same teacher, I used to grade pre-med chemistry papers. Honest to God, that pretty much rubbished any ideas I had about doctors having to be knowledgable about all the disciplines that impinged on human health.

Edit: I'm surprised too that you get vaccinated. I wouldn't have expected it.

[thewayne]

Normally when a person is diagnosed with a primary immunodeficiency, they do what's known as a Pneumovax Challenge.  They're given a pneumovax pneumonia vaccination, then a month (or whatever interval) later, they're tested to see if they've developed any pneumonia antibody titers.  In my case, since I'd had pneumonia four times that year already, they decided that starting antibody replacement therapy was more important. It is not known with certainty whether I develop antibodies with the vaccinations that I get, but with one exception I haven't had the flu in the last decade.  So I get vaccinated and we hope for the best. The only way we could do a Pneumovax Challenge would be for me to stop the replacement therapy for six months and let my body reset, then do the challenge.  But I'd be extremely vulnerable to infection and would have to isolate.  We're not really interested in doing that.