From our readers
Too little, too late for containment?
The current climate to attempt to contain this virus, in my opinion is too little too late. I believe its been here a lot longer than officials are trying desperately to believe. In addition to that, current containment efforts seem to rely on people coming forward to be tested when they show symptoms. Let’s be realistic, it just isn’t going to happen.
Here is my personal story. On Dec 30, 2019 I felt a slight headache come on while at my desk at work, along with a sudden feeling of exhaustion, I went home for lunch to let our dog out and took my temperature, it was 100.9, not too bad. So I took some Ibuprofen and laid down. I ended up falling asleep and woke up around 4 p.m. when my husband called me as he was on his way home from work. The next day I started feeling like I had a sore throat coming on. I thought, oh great, I’m getting a cold.
On January 2 I had a dental appoint scheduled, but when I woke up that morning I had a fever of 102 degrees and a dry cough and a bit of a sore throat still, so I canceled. That night I couldn’t sleep, my chest hurt so bad every time I tried to breathe. My husband kept waking up asking if I wanted to go to the ER to see if I had pneumonia, I’ve had it once before. The first time I got it, it took a long while to get to that point, this was just so sudden, and excruciating. At 7 a.m. on Jan. 3, my husband had his father come over to watch the kids and he took me to the ER. After
a nasal swab and a chest x-ray, they determined I did not have pneumonia, just Influenza B. They gave me Tylenol and Thermaflu, told me to stay home from work for at least three days, and wrote me the lovely prescription for the flu medicine. I took my medicine as directed for five days and waited until the following Tuesday to return to work.
After that I had a low grade fever, on and off for about three to four more weeks. Our two toddler daughters also seemed to catch this same illness. On Feb 25 we finally took them in to the doctors office because they had missed so much school, and we just couldn’t seem to kick the fever that kept coming and going and the dry coughs were driving me insane. One of the girls was said to have had the Influenza A virus, the other we were told just had allergies.
Both seem to have recovered now, as have I. Except for the 4th bill I just received from my ER visit to Sutter in January, the latest one coming in at a whopping $2300. Mind you, I do have insurance, this is the part they don’t cover apparently. So happy I got them to give me Tylenol and the “OTC Flu relief medicine” as the nurse described it. The chest xray only cost about $400.
My point is all of our symptoms seem to correlate with this virus, however we were never tested. And if I were to experience them again, right now, no way would I go back in to a medical office. Could you imagine my bill for the Coronavirus compared to the flu?! No thank you, I’ll suffer through it.
Meanwhile, local officials encourage us to seek medical care if we experience these symptoms, and after reviewing the timelines, I’d say quarantines and travel restrictions should have taken place months ago.
We can’t contain this virus, because the reality is, it’s already here, it’s been here for a while now, and the only way you’d be able to have any chance of “containing” it, is if you were able to test every person who had any flu like symptoms, starting about four months ago. All of this hype now is just too little too late, the only pandemic that can be solved, is the needless fear the government is spreading by shutting down our economy.
Medicare for all debated by elected officials
Elected officials and candidates who believe in Medicare for all talk about it a lot, saying things like “Healthcare is a human right”. Our Congressperson, Mike Thompson, can talk about healthcare for 10 minutes without mentioning it, and has never said that healthcare is a human right, opting instead for the conservative version “Everyone should have access to affordable healthcare”. That’s a very different statement. Mr. Thompson also calls himself the co-author of a bill written by Rep. Pramilla Jayapal — a bill which he got pressured into co-sponsoring despite his continued opposition to medicare for all, yet he did not author any part of that bill.