An Image for Autumn 2020
If there’s an image that sums up Autumn 2020 for me, this is it:
I can hardly go anywhere these days without seeing the disagreeable sight of a discarded face mask at some point. I wish people would take more care when disposing of these things!
Follow @telescoper
In the Dark 
November 18, 2020 at 12:04 pm
I don’t know. You can pick up cigarette butts and make a cigarette out of them when you have enough. You can’t do that with masks – not that that I’ve tried.
November 19, 2020 at 7:40 pm
I trust that when Covent Garden reopens it will be with a performance of Un Ballo in Maschera.
November 19, 2020 at 7:56 pm
Shurely “Covid Garden”?
November 19, 2020 at 11:19 pm
Can’t take issue with that – it’s most probably where I caught it! I said I’d see Fidelio if it killed me…
November 20, 2020 at 7:29 pm
Yes, and you can infer when. It’s no secret, but I don’t bore people with the full story. I still have what I’d describe as mild long covid. I’m disappointed to have got the extended symptoms but relieved that they have at no stage been so bad as to prevent me working at my computer with enjoyment.
November 21, 2020 at 12:00 pm
I lost all sense of taste many years ago, but I am pleased to say that I smell again.
In extreme summary, I lost those senses and spent a week with what felt like a regular cold (fist symptoms: March 25th), then 2 days remission, then 10 days with what felt like a heavy cold/mild flu. Then recovery, but with a variety of unusual symptoms that one doesn’t get with flu, one of which required antibiotics to shift. I got to about 90% better and looked forward to resuming hillwalking (rather than just canalside walking). Then, unexpectedly, my toes started to tingle and then go numb, and my hands although not as badly. This was in July and was associated with more tiredness and diverse weird feelings. These are slowly lifting. I read a newspaper article online about medics with long covid and found the email address for one and asked her some questions, to which she was kind enough to reply. (My GP is a good man but terribly busy, and I had no way of evaluating the quality of online information written at the smart lay level, while professional stuff was to technical to grasp.) The autoimmune system has many lines of defence and one takes three months to work, presumably against reinfection; this particular line can get over-stimulated by SARS-CoV-2 and that is what has happened in my case. I was told that when this happens with other viruses the symptoms typically take as long to go as to come. So I hope to be 100% in the winter. I’m taking vitamin D. I obviously would not accept a vaccine – which is designed to stimulate the autoimmune system – until my own autoimmune system has stopped buzzing, although I’m all for vaccines generally. And I’ve had it a lot less badly than some; I’ve never been unable to work at my computer.
November 21, 2020 at 4:17 pm
The bloke on the bus is socially distanced and wearing a mask…
Nobody knows how long immunity lasts. It is now known that one type of antibody has a halflife of about 3 months (the media wrongly assume that this is the only type of antibody), but I’d take a vaccine to reduce the probability of getting it again (remember too that it mutates) once I’m sure it wouldn’t send my autoimmune system crazy. Please see my comment and link on another thread re vaccine strategies.