Powell was fully vaccinated. But he was also suffering from multiple myeloma, a kind of cancer that directly harms the body's ability to fight infections.https://t.co/8OzvwxqybR
— Mike "That's Ben Gardner's Boat" Calia (@Michael_Calia) October 18, 2021
Powell’s wife Alma also had a breakthrough case but responded to treatment, according to CBS’ David Martin. Powell battled other conditions including Parkinson’s. He went into the hospital last Monday. https://t.co/kDieZvaxaj
— Gabrielle Ake (@gabrielle_ake) October 18, 2021
The covid infection, in other words, just made things worse.Colin Powell dies at age 84.
— Manu Raju (@mkraju) October 18, 2021
‘General Colin L. Powell, former U.S. Secretary of State and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, passed away this morning due to complications from Covid 19. He was fully vaccinated,” his family says in a statement https://t.co/9iw8j8Zweb
Requiescat in pace.
You can do everything right, wear a mask, social distance, get vaccinated and still get COVID-19, especially if a significant portion of the population refuses to engage in commonsense. Today was my first day back to work in almost two weeks. My wife, who works remotely, wears a mask at the store and has little outside contact because of our recent move, felt ill after a flu shot. It lingered for a few days so she did a rapid COVID test we had left over from testing our son. Positive. She called me at work and I immediately left (my work requires masks and social distancing). We picked up our son from school and after a lot of running around and online searching managed to get ourselves PCR tests that day, a Tuesday. We didn't get our results until Friday (a serious problem if we want people to isolate, testing is still too slow. Work colleagues in the UK get PCR results in less than 24 hours). Both of us positive, our son negative. In between we tested him with a rapid test which was also negative. Since he had no symptoms and was negative on the rapid test, his school said he could attend, which was good since he has not done well with remote school. My work required a 10 day quarantine from a positive test. Our sons swim team required a 10 day quarantine from practice if exposed to someone positive. So a week and a half of all of us isolating from each other in our house. For the first time since the pandemic began we actually had groceries delivered since we wanted to keep everyone else safe. Our son never tested positive, my wife was modestly ill but nothing like people we have know who have had COVID. I had barely any symptoms at all, they were the same as I frequently get in the fall from allergies. We had no contact with anyone that we know was positive, we have continued to mask when shopping, no indoor restaurants or social gatherings, all fully vaccinated. We know almost no one since we just moved and everything is closed down or we are avoiding it. It's just bad luck and community spread. Since others aren't as careful, we were at higher risk. We have to think we both had good outcomes because we were vaccinated, the masks meant we likely got smaller viral loads to start, and we kept our son safe and negative. But every day is a roll of the dice on a tilted board. Our governor and his Republican political cronies just turned down $27M of federal money to boost vaccinations in our state of New Hampshire. We have the lowest vaccination rate in New England, but passed on the money due to rabid anti-vaxxers in their own party. It makes me angry that more people like us will get sick since our elected leaders fail to not only protect us but actively work to make this worse. For a small state of 1.3 million people, $27M is serious money that could have made a difference. We have met the enemy and they are us.
ReplyDeleteStay safe, vaccinate, mask and keep tilting the odds in your favor. May you be lucky too.
That's terrible, I hope and pray you have good outcomes.
ReplyDeleteMy niece works at UNH, I fear for her every day.