Open Mike: Thank a Nurse

["Open Mike" is the often off-topic, anything-goes Editorial Page of TOP, wherein Yr. Hmbl. Ed. vents opinions. It appears on Wednesdays.]

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I just had a conversation "offstage" with a reader who's a nurse. Thoughtful guy. And it just struck me that, for all we like to thank military people for their service in this country, right now it's nurses, doctors, and other health professionals who have been on, and are on, the front lines. It would not seem out of place to say to an ER doc or nurse or EMT, "thank you for your service."

Where would we be without them?

Cuomo comes through
Here in New York State the news has been very good and getting better. A world hotspot just a few months ago, with massive infections, mounting deaths, and hospitals and health providers under enormous strain, New York on Monday had just 860 COVID-19 hospitalizations throughout the entire State. The State conducted 60,045 tests on Monday, of which 912 (1.5%) were positive. Six New Yorkers died on Monday of the disease.

That's from yesterday's "NYS Coronavirus Update," which I get in my inbox daily.

The State has done this the hard way: by assiduously doing mostly the right things, following the recommendations of health experts, and through good, consistent, firm leadership. Many people here might have thought our Governor, Andrew Cuomo, was distant and kind of hard, a bit of a cold fish. But he has risen to this occasion admirably. For the most part he's done a thoroughly excellent job throughout the crisis here. He came through when it counted. We had leadership at the State level which is so sorely lacking at the national level.

Here in my county—the third-least-populous in the State, and largely rural—we haven't had a new case identified in several weeks. There have been 48 known positives (probably many more unidentified). Six deaths in total so far. But there haven't been any additional deaths lately. (We do have some "anti-maskers" here and there—citizens behaving badly. There's no room for personal interpretation: wearing masks in public and at group functions is mandated.)

Curiosity
I want to get the COVID-19 antibody test. I'm just curious. I was sick last Winter with a very strange malady unlike any I've ever had before. It was definitely respiratory, with a dry cough that would come and go. Several times I had coughing fits so bad I thought I was going to have to go to the Emergency Room. Twice I spiked a fever which then went away abruptly. The sickness hung on for more than six weeks, also a first in my life. I went to the doctor's office twice during that time, and the second time, my primary care physician, who's a good diagnostician I believe, said it looked like I had gotten one sickness on top of another one.

As soon as we heard about the coronavirus, my first thought was "aha, so that was it." Then I did the timeline and thought, no, that couldn't have been it, because I was sick too early. But later they began saying that maybe the coronavirus was here a lot earlier than they first believed...and I remember what the doctor said about it being one sickness on top of another. I've ended up thinking that there's a non-zero chance it was what I had. So, mainly because I'm interested to know, I'm going to go try to find out. I have to pay for it myself, though. (Curiousity doesn't make it medically necessary.)

My son who tested positive has had no further complications, thank God. He quarantined for two weeks after being diagnosed, but he was already feeling fine when his quarantine started. No further symptoms in the weeks since.

Ctein and the unkindness of ravens
Lastly on this subject, if you receive Ctein's Occasional Newsletter, be sure to read the essay "Birds and Bad Science" in the July 9th newsletter. I loved it. One of the best things he's written in my opinion. (Not on the Internet, so no link, but you can sign up for the newsletter at his site.) I loved the bird story. It might be the most involved analogy I've run across in some time, but it's great.

Mike

[ADDENDUM Thursday morning: I need to acknowledge that several readers have taken strenuous issue with parts of this post (one to the point of cancelling his Patreon support for this website). My view of them is that they have fallen for a false narrative from fake news, namely a right-wing meme that Fox News picked up from the partisan New York Post; they, on the other hand, think they are in possession of facts and I am not, that something very close to a crime has been perpetrated by the Governor, and that my judgment is extremely poor. So, okay. I did label this post "opinion" right from the top, but maybe we have something more elemental than a difference of opinion here—closer to conflicting beliefs. A microcosm of wider disunity. We are not going to fray everyone's nerves in an attempt to hash out the details in the Comments section, but to be fair I thought I should acknowledge their dissent.]

Original contents copyright 2020 by Michael C. Johnston and/or the bylined author. All Rights Reserved. Links in this post may be to our affiliates; sales through affiliate links may benefit this site.

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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:

Fred Haynes: "I totally agree with this post on all levels! Add to the list those underpaid, largely foreign-born women and men who work as nurses aids, and clean and comfort the patients, and help them with their personal needs. In 2018 I was hospitalized for two months, and thank God for them all. There’s a special place in heaven for these people, I am sure."

Jamie Pillers: "I'd add public school teachers and administrators to this list of fellow citizens going above and beyond during the mess. They are having to deal with an amazingly tough array of problems right now, trying to make sure our kids get something even close to quality education. They're trying to deal with major problems around distance learning technology, social distancing, food service, etc."

Stephen F Faust: "The American Red Cross is testing all blood donations for COVID-19 antibodies (and of course letting the donor know the results) so if you are eligible and willing to donate, this is an excellent way to have the antibody test (at no cost) while at the same time doing enormous good for the community."

David Lee: "I agree with you on Ctein’s piece on birds. I actually copied and shared it. Just don’t tell him please...."

Rene: "Just a note of support for your opinion piece. Cuomo made some mistakes in the beginning (as did many others), but quickly corrected himself. Sure, he can look, and be, arrogant but he did the hard stuff well. I live in a State next door to you and am thankful for the actions he took which I'm sure influenced our Republican governor to move in the right direction.

"I say all this as a retired public health and health care professional with 40+ years of experience, not that such experience would matter to your former supporter. A lot of the work I did was in both infectious disease (started with the US Public Health Service in 1968) and in health education and, as I quickly learned, 'There are none so blind as those who will not see.'"

Comments

[KeithB]

At least here in New Mexico, if you give blood they throw in an anti-body test for free.

[Patrick Dodds]

Good luck with the test Mike. My antibody test came back negative a few weeks ago but there are so many problems with it as a test it is hard to know how much weight to put on it. Just as a matter of interest, how much will it cost you? Here in the UK it was "free", though I work part-time in a hospital and I'm not sure how available it is otherwise; also of course it gets paid for through taxation.

[Stuart Phillips]

Hi Mike,

Just be aware that COVID antibodies may not be long lasting and it may be too late for a definitive test for you now. If memory serves me correctly, they peak at one month post infection and a recent study shows they may have vanished by month 3-4.

https://www.sciencefocus.com/news/coronavirus-antibody-immunity-could-last-just-months

T-cells may provide a longer lasting immune response, but as far as I know there's no simple COVID specific T-cell test.

Stuart

[Robert Roaldi]

I may be in the same boat. Both my wife and I had bizarre illnesses in late Jan/early Feb, symptoms similar to yours but much less severe. I'd like to know if I had it, if for no other reason than to know that it won't kill me.
My understanding is that the available anti-body tests may not be accurate enough, but even if they are, the absence of anti-bodies a long time after the infection (where long = undetermined at this point) may not be indicative of much. That is, it's possible that your body could still fight off a future infection, i.e., be "immune", without a high anti-body count. I'm told the body has other ways to protect itself.
In any case, my wife's doctor told her that Covid anti-body tests here in Ottawa are not widely available at the moment. So it's sit and wait, make the best of it. She's an artist, which is as solitary an activity as photography, so in that sense we're fortunate.

[Trevor Small]

Note of caution from a GP (read: Family Physician) in Australia: the antibody tests almost all have a significant false positive rate. So, where the likelihood of a true positive result is low (like in your situation) a positive test result is far more likely to be false positive rather than true positive. Bottom line is you won't be able to trust the test result anyway.
Just as an aside, over here we've deliberately avoided using the antibody tests and stuck to PCR. Unpleasant to have the sample taken, and misses some cases, but reliable when positive.

[Thank you Trevor. Some others have raised this caution as well. --Mike]

[ASW]

If anything good comes out of the pandemic, I hope that we all acknowledge that so-called "essential" workers (teachers, health care providers, restaurant workers, construction workers, janitors, transit workers, grocery store personnel, etc, etc) deserve to be paid a fair wage for their work.

Among the many injustices visited upon us by a certain political party here in the US is the hypocrisy that a large portion of our society is essential to the functioning of that society, yet is not worthy of a living wage. We can quibble about how to define "living wage," but for me it means that if you work and live responsibly you should be able to support, feed, and house your children and over time, you should be able to save money in hopes of starting a business, buying a home, or (gasp!) being able to retire some day.

[Neale MacMillan]

Thanks Mike for your thoughtful post on the Covid-19 situation in New York and the importance of strong political leadership. Here in Canada, the strongest leadership and most intelligent public health responses have come from British Columbia (unfortunately, not my province). On another note, I don't comment often, but I'm realizing I'm moved to comment not by photography discussions, but by your 'Open Mike', off-topic pieces. Keep up the good writing!

[Dan]

I had that same flu on early January and it was weeks before I felt better. My wife said it was by far the sickest she had ever seen me. I now have asthma since that flu. I know two people who had to go to Urgent Care from the Jan/Feb flu.

Larry Brilliant, the doctor that helped to defeat smallpox, was on Al Franken's (who had the same flu) podcast and said no it wasn't Covid 19. Yet I still wonder...

[John Krumm]

Yeah, I also had a weird respiratory infection too early in the winter to be Covid. It likely wasn't, but it was nasty, and ended up causing both pneumonia and a heart murmur, and made me really, really not want to get Covid.

[James]

Hi Mike,
My comment is on the Thursday addendum.
I can't figure why anyone would cancel their support for TOP for reporting something like that.
One of the greatest benefits of TOP is the knowledge and varying views the comment section always seems to bring. Even if they are polar opposite views from that of the article.

[wts]

My response to "anti-maskers" is that it's not a matter of Personal Freedom in a Free Country, but it's a matter of public health. There's a reason that laws against performing certain bodily functions in the street are on the books - not about modesty, but about public health. I urge them to study up on how unsanitary streetscapes contributed to plagues.

[Ken R]

The problems with antibody tests are many - some people don't mount a vigorous antibody response but may be immune through "cell mediated" or T-cell immunity. Antibodies can be short lived - nobody has a long term perspective on Covid. In addition, if you do a lot of tests on a low incidence population, there are more false positives than true positives (statistics were never my strong suite, but that's what they say). So, the devil is in the details, and in this case the devil is interpreting a test result where the situation and the tests themselves are rapidly changing.

[Jason Hindle]

So, state doesn’t elect a clown; has better COVID-19 outcomes. Call me Mr. Slow on The Uptake, but do I see a pattern emerging around the world? Except Sweden. Let’s not mention Sweden.

[wchen]

My wife was working as a resident physician at a community hospital at Yonkers, NY and went through its Covid-19 peak with panic and anxiety and then calmness and confidence.

It was kind of sad that you had to add that addendum (for what happened).