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I have a question that is way too politically incorrect to ask in real life. But since there are many medical professionals here, I'd like to take the chance to find out.

This all stems from COVID research. I was going down the rabbit hole of how covid and obesity together makes the disease deadlier.

Looking at how once ppl get to a certain size, the cardiovascular system can no longee supply enough oxygen to every part of the body so parts start dying off.

Now, can the same be said about our nervous system? Our skin's feeling of touch. Is it possible that as your surface area expands while the amount of neurons stays constant, the feelings you get from the skin gets less intense?
 
Along with all the usual careless crap (denial, uninformed, not thoughtful, exhausted, etc.) I think there is a newish force at work with the people who got vaccinated or already had COVID. Some people with immunities may feel they can slack off on the safety protocols now. So you have a mix of that to contend with as well.
Yep.

There's the guy in post 1161 of Corona virus and oil crash who believes he's "invulnerable" now (I pointed to him before in this thread). The troll at COVID-19 aka 2019 (and 2020) Novel Coronavirus - Page 144 - My Nissan Leaf Forum who posts a lot of misinformation and has wacko views sure seems like he's not going to bother w/safety protocols now.
 
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I have a question that is way too politically incorrect to ask in real life. But since there are many medical professionals here, I'd like to take the chance to find out.

This all stems from COVID research. I was going down the rabbit hole of how covid and obesity together makes the disease deadlier.

Looking at how once ppl get to a certain size, the cardiovascular system can no longee supply enough oxygen to every part of the body so parts start dying off.

Now, can the same be said about our nervous system? Our skin's feeling of touch. Is it possible that as your surface area expands while the amount of neurons stays constant, the feelings you get from the skin gets less intense?

I believe related to the chronic inflammatory state that occurs with obesity.

Why is obesity a risk factor for severe covid-19?
In July Public Health England estimated that having a BMI of 35 to 40 could increase a person’s chances of dying from covid-19 by 40%, while a BMI greater than 40 could increase the risk by 90%.1 But why is this?

Stephen O’Rahilly, director of the Medical Research Council’s Metabolic Diseases Unit at the University of Cambridge, also speaking at the briefing, said, “Two things happen when obesity occurs: the amount of fat increases, but also you put fat in the wrong places. You put it in the liver and in skeletal muscle. And that disturbs metabolism. The key disturbance is that you get very high levels of insulin in the blood.”

This disturbance is associated with a range of abnormalities, including increases in inflammatory cytokines and a reduction of a molecule called adiponectin that directly protects the lungs, he says.

It’s also possible that fat increases in the lung itself, which may disturb how the lung handles the virus, he adds. “The simple stuff you read about—big chest, big bellies, et cetera—is all grossly oversimplistic. What is really going on is metabolic, and we know that because if we look at genetic markers for the metabolic disturbance they are much more closely related to the bad outcomes than genetic markers for obesity itself,” O’Rahilly says.
 
She ended up developing symptoms and testing positive on Jan 25th right after my wife got back home... Thankfully she had mild symptoms and feels fine and is almost done with quarantine now.

Is the conclusion that your daughter brought it in and maybe she was asymptomatic until 25th?

I just got the results back. Surprisingly (to me) they are negative too. I have been living in a small 1 bathroom house for many weeks with 2 positive COVID cases right next to me and I still don't seem to have caught it?!
I guess there is still a chance I could come down with it in coming weeks? Don't know how I made it this far...

If you isolate yourself from your daughter and wife it should be possible to avoid it, you are still doing that? Is your wife/daughter still contagious (have no clue how long one can be contagious)?
 
snip...

Looking at how once ppl get to a certain size, the cardiovascular system can no longee supply enough oxygen to every part of the body so parts start dying off.

...snip

I don't where you got this, but it is patently false unless you are something like 450lbs or more.

The body is remarkably adept at increasing cardiac output to adjust for obesity (i.e. the heart pumps harder to supply blood to all parts).

To be clear, without adequate blood flow, those body parts would literally die and fall off.
 
I believe related to the chronic inflammatory state that occurs with obesity.

Why is obesity a risk factor for severe covid-19?
In July Public Health England estimated that having a BMI of 35 to 40 could increase a person’s chances of dying from covid-19 by 40%, while a BMI greater than 40 could increase the risk by 90%.1 But why is this?

Stephen O’Rahilly, director of the Medical Research Council’s Metabolic Diseases Unit at the University of Cambridge, also speaking at the briefing, said, “Two things happen when obesity occurs: the amount of fat increases, but also you put fat in the wrong places. You put it in the liver and in skeletal muscle. And that disturbs metabolism. The key disturbance is that you get very high levels of insulin in the blood.”

This disturbance is associated with a range of abnormalities, including increases in inflammatory cytokines and a reduction of a molecule called adiponectin that directly protects the lungs, he says.

It’s also possible that fat increases in the lung itself, which may disturb how the lung handles the virus, he adds. “The simple stuff you read about—big chest, big bellies, et cetera—is all grossly oversimplistic. What is really going on is metabolic, and we know that because if we look at genetic markers for the metabolic disturbance they are much more closely related to the bad outcomes than genetic markers for obesity itself,” O’Rahilly says.

Spot on. Obesity is a chronic inflammatory condition.

There are other, more nuanced, associations with obesity, but the above explains almost all of it for the lay person.

And before anyone asks . . . no, taking chronic anti-inflammatory meds will not counteract the effects.
 
Is the conclusion that your daughter brought it in and maybe she was asymptomatic until 25th?
In this situation, I think there is a tendency to want answers, but unfortunately it is a patchwork of imprecise data and guesswork that is frustratingly short of real conclusions.
The main question to me is "Who caught it first and how?" At this point, I don't think we will ever know.
At first I thought it could be my daughter who brought it to our house from her apartment, but she swears that she isolated carefully for 2 weeks before coming to visit.
Also the timing of her arrival to my wife getting symptoms was just under 2 days which would be record time from exposure to having symptoms.
Add to that my daughter got a negative rapid test a couple days after my wife had symptoms, and then turning positive almost 2 weeks later, I think it highly unlikely that she had it first.
Given my negative PCR test, negative antibody test, and no symptoms, I think it likely I still haven't had it.
So, to me, most likely scenario is my wife caught it first (not sure exactly how), then spread it to my daughter, and I somehow avoided catching it from either of them.

The various tests are not totally accurate, and the timing exactly when you take those tests can make a big difference, so we are still left guessing if the tests results are helping tell the story correctly as well.

If you isolate yourself from your daughter and wife it should be possible to avoid it, you are still doing that? Is your wife/daughter still contagious (have no clue how long one can be contagious)?
So the combo of a positive PCR test and having symptoms is the most important data point in time for tracking. The health/medical establishment wants to know that for quarantine guidance. Currently they recommend at least 10 days of isolation after a positive PCR test result.
So my wife was on "official" quarantine Jan 15-Jan 25 and my daughter from Jan 25-Feb 4 (tomorrow). So in theory my daughter could still be contagious until tomorrow. She plans to return to her apartment this coming weekend.
The other thing they care about is known exposure. I am advised to isolate for at least 10 days after last known exposure. Since I had no symptoms and no positive test, my official countdown clock never started, so it is just exposrue+10 days so my isolation clock keeps moving forward.
If my antibody test had come back positive, I could have started my isolation clock from when I took that test (Jan 30th) but since it was negative I am still considered at risk of catching it now.
Basically I have to wait 10 more days after tomorrow since in theory I could have made it all this time without catching then catch it from my daughter on the last day she could be infectious.

How I (apparently) avoided catching it so far is a mystery. Well, I could have it right now, and still no symptoms, but unless I do daily PCR tests I can't even guess well about that.
After my wife got symptoms and positive PCR test at the start of all this I assumed I was "screwed" at that point since we had been sleeping in the same bed, etc, and she should have been contagious for days before symptoms.
But I went through the motions of wearing a mask in the house, washing hands more frequently, trying to stay in other rooms (I even switched to sleeping on the couch for the following 10 days). I also increased some dietary supplements of questionable effectiveness in case they could help reduce symptoms if I caught it. I started using xylitol nasal spray... Just an assortment of things I read about online that might help a little just in case. Maybe they actually stopped me from catching it... Or maybe I was just lucky, or had some genetic factor, or mystery protections in my immune system.

Being younger, healthier, and less paranoid about catching it, my daughter was less careful about trying to keep some distance from her symptomatic mom. So she was more exposed than I was, doing more of the care for my wife while she was resting in bed for some days before going to the hospital.
 
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I think the "lab leak" theory will not ever go away because it somewhat fits Occam's Razor and it makes sense that various "powers that be" would want to burry it if it is true...

I doubt we would ever get a direct admission, so people are left trying to paint pictures of how it could be possible or even likely based on a lot of anecdotes and circumstantial evidence.
People can throw that Fox report into the conspiracy theory bucket if they want, but my BS detector was going off less on that one than usual.
 
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All the variants we are seeing aren't rapid changes?

Follow up on this from Bedford:

https://twitter.com/trvrb/status/1356997080976289794?s=21

On a number of substitutions basis in the area of concern of the genome, spike, SARS-CoV-2, for the variants of concern (VOCs) (which have elevated mutation rates), is similar to the most rapidly changing influenza (slightly faster in fact).

However, on a mutations per amino acid basis, in spike, even the VOCs have a rate of just a little over half the fastest mutating influenza.

Also, Bedford mentions that this may have been an unusually rapid period of evolution to optimize for the environment - to get to the local optimum as previously discussed here.

Keep in mind the reassortment phenomenon that can and does also happen fairly frequently in influenza (genetic shift), due to the segmented genome, and is one of the reasons for annual vaccination requirements, is separate from this analysis. (That being said, genetic drift is also a reason for updated vaccines.)

Anyway, we’ll hope for none of the crazy homologous recombination or reoptimization to another target occurring anytime soon - my impression is this tends to be more rare, and might be more common in things like bats that have immune systems that just let viruses fester, but we could always get unlucky. The secret to bats' immunity
 
Another data point in my story... Just got back my SARS-COV-2 IgM result... Also negative. Apparently they did IgG & IgM tests both on my blood draw.

My wife's doctor has concluded that my wife must have gotten it when visiting a sandwich shop with my daughter when she came to visit.
Previously that was deemed unlikely since it was just 1.5 days before my wife showed first symptoms. Maybe set a record for fastest exposure to symptoms.
My wife had basically been staying at home close to 100% for 10 months, and first "low risk" outing (social distanced brief indoor masked shop visit to get a sandwich) may have been a big mistake.
 
My wife had basically been staying at home close to 100% for 10 months, and first "low risk" outing (social distanced brief indoor masked shop visit to get a sandwich) may have been a big mistake.

Yeah. Hard to know. N95 plus eye protection worthwhile most likely. Even more important in more smaller closed spaces. Obviously can get it in just an instant at distance of greater than 6 feet, though probability is reduced. 6-foot 15-minute metric is for contact tracers follow up, for maximizing effectiveness of tracing - it’s not a metric to prevent infection.

Glad everything is working out for your family so far. Thanks for giving us all these details, to allow us to calibrate our risk tolerance.
 
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Yeah. Hard to know. N95 plus eye protection worthwhile most likely. Even more important in more smaller closed spaces. Obviously can get it in just an instant at distance of greater than 6 feet, though probability is reduced. 6-foot 15-minute metric is for contact tracers follow up, for maximizing effectiveness of tracing - it’s not a metric to prevent infection.

Note, her masking wasn't up to my standards. She used a homemade multi-layer cloth mask with no eye protection. She has always considered my P100 full face mask to be unnecessarily over the top.

She said she was in the shop for no more than 5 minutes. She ate that non cooked sandwich right away, so maybe caught it through the food?

Edit... So I went looking for online info about the sandwich shop she visited and found this (excerpt of) a scary report:

...County of Santa Clara Department of Environmental Health Consumer Protection Division
...OFFICIAL INSPECTION REPORT
...1/22/2021
...Major Violations K21 - 8 Points - Hot and cold water not available; 113953(c), 114099.2(b), 114163(a), 114189, 114192, 114192.1, 11419 Inspector Observations: Measured water at the 3 compartment and prep sink at 106F. Then measured water at the mop sink 76F which dropped to 68F. Remeasured water at the 3 compartment sink 68F. About 20 minutes later and beyond, remeasured water multiple times at 3 compartment sink at 77 F maximum. Handwash sink water felt cool. [CA] Provide hot water at minimum 120ºF to all sink faucets (except handwash sink faucets which must provide water at 100°F minimum, and if not easily adjustable at faucet,108°F maximum). Facility closed due to this violation. Cease and desist food operations until reopened by this department...
...This notice is to inform you that as of this date the Environmental Health Permit for the above mentioned food facility is hereby suspended and all operations therewith are ordered to cease. This action is taken in accordance with Section 114409 of the California Health and Safety Code which states 'If any imminent health hazard is found, unless the hazard is immediately corrected, an enforcement officer may temporarily suspend the permit and order the food facility or cottage food operation immediately closed.'...

I am no expert on food safety, so I don't know if this is some sort of routine thing, or worse. The above happened 10 days after my wife and daughter got sandwiches from there (and that health inspection was done while my wife was in the hospital fighting COVID.)

If they were sloppy enough with food safety to get shut down for that, maybe they weren't so great with COVID safety protocols either... This was an outlet of a national sandwich chain, not some random mom and pop shop.
 
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No second wave in India yet, not even a spike from their holiday season. Some odd studies, e.g. near-herd immunity Ab levels in some places and lower mortality above age 65. Many mysteries, few answers.
Not a single death or hospitalization in the vaccine arms
Pro tip - get the 2nd shot in the opposite arm.
She said she was in the shop for no more than 5 minutes. She ate that non cooked sandwich right away, so maybe caught it through the food?
Just tell her you brought it home on your clothes, apologize profusely and promise never to be so careless again.
 
The main driver of Israel’s rapid rollout — an efficient nationalized health system in which all 9 million citizens hold identity cards and register their electronic medical files with one of the country’s four national health maintenance organizations (HMOs) — is not something other nations can emulate on the fly.
Imagine that.