$cam-U-Well_Jack$on
Superstar
Well, got boosted this morning.
Me and two Mexicans the only ones there.
Same effects as when I originally got vaccinated 10 months ago: nothing. Arm doesn't even hurt.
Anti-vaxxers are p*ssy.
I want another booster.
COVID-19 Pandemic (Coronavirus)
- Thread starter null
- Start date
I want another booster.
Dafunkdoc_Unlimited
Theological Noncognitivist Since Birth
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Read somewhere it's best to space them out at least 4 months apart. I'll go 6 just to make sure until/unless another variant occurs.
Theo Penn
on that Earl Stevens wine
WaveMolecules
Superstar
Well, got boosted this morning.
Me and two Mexicans the only ones there.
Same effects as when I originally got vaccinated 10 months ago: nothing. Arm doesn't even hurt.
Anti-vaxxers are p*ssy.
straight facts.
Neo. The Only. The One.
THE ONE
Fauci seems to be the only person out there right now saying, "yeah, let's do it.... but let's be careful."
Everybody else is running headfirst into the unknown.
Everybody else is running headfirst into the unknown.
BunchePark
Coli N Calisthenics
I finally have a cold
First time being sick since March 2020
Kind of relieved shyt was getting weird
First time being sick since March 2020
Kind of relieved shyt was getting weird
Rell84shots
Veteran
Well, got boosted this morning.
Me and two Mexicans the only ones there.
Same effects as when I originally got vaccinated 10 months ago: nothing. Arm doesn't even hurt.
Anti-vaxxers are p*ssy.
Hong Kong's success in fending off COVID comes back to haunt
Hong Kong’s success in fending off COVID comes back to haunt
By ALICE FUNG and ANIRUDDHA GHOSALtoday
1 of 18
Patients wait at a temporary treatment area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. For two years, Hong Kong successfully insulated most of its residents from COVID-19 and often went months without a single locally spread case. Then the omicron variant showed up. The fast-spreading mutation breached Hong Kong’s defenses and has been spreading rapidly through one of the world’s most densely populated places. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
HONG KONG (AP) — For two years, Hong Kong successfully insulated most of its residents from COVID-19 and often went months without a single locally spread case. Then the omicron variant showed up.
The fast-spreading mutation breached Hong Kong’s defenses and has been spreading rapidly through one of the world’s most densely populated places, overflowing hospitals and isolation wards and prompting measures to test the entire 7.4 million population and hastily build six isolation and treatment centers.
The surge shows what happens when COVID-19 strikes a population unprotected by immunity from previous infections, and has exposed a low vaccination rate among elderly citizens who are bearing the brunt of the crisis.
Only about 30% of Hong Kong residents over the age of 80 and around 58% of those in their 70s are fully vaccinated, lagging younger populations by a large margin. This is despite the fact that vaccines have been widely available in Hong Kong since early 2021.
The city has reported about 150 deaths in the past three days, many among the unvaccinated elderly.
Health authorities said that the vaccine reluctance among the elderly is an unfortunate side-effect of Hong Kong’s success in warding off the virus for months.
Many people thought that the risk of getting COVID-19 was virtually nil since there were no cases, and senior citizens were led to believe that the risk of vaccination was greater than not getting vaccinated, said Karen Grépin, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong.
Hundreds of millions of jabs have been given to people around the world and few serious risks have been identified after intense safety monitoring. But early reports of a few adverse reactions to the vaccine in Hong Kong created a false perception that people needed to be perfectly healthy to get vaccinated.
“Hong Kong is the world’s guinea pig, when it comes to omicron,” said Grépin.
The Hong Kong experience may also hold lessons for mainland China and its decision on when to re-open its borders and eliminate a two- to three-week quarantine requirement for anybody entering the country. Only a small proportion of the population has been infected, thanks to the Communist Party’s strict zero-COVID approach of mass testing and lockdowns.
The Hong Kong government’s response has been to ramp up a zero-COVID approach similar to the mainland. Chinese officials have urged Hong Kong to stick to the approach, despite grumbling from residents, with even leader Xi Jinping weighing in to make sure the message got through.
Under the zero COVID-19 policy, everyone who tests positive in Hong Kong needs to be isolated. While this worked in the past, Hong Kong, unlike the mainland, does not have the beds to isolate so many people in a large outbreak.
Construction teams from the mainland are rushing to build two permanent and four temporary isolation and treatment centers to handle more than 20,000 patients in an effort reminiscent of the early days of the virus when China threw up two temporary hospitals in the city of Wuhan in a matter of days.
Authorities also launched a vaccine pass on Thursday, requiring vaccination to enter shopping malls and other premises, and it is driving some to get the shot.
“If I don’t get vaccinated, I can’t even go to restaurants,” said 73-year-old Yu Mui as she lined up for her first dose Friday. “So I have to come here today even though I am worried about the side effects.”
Scientists believe that the omicron variant is milder than the delta version of the virus. But Hong Kong’s situation is nearly unique. In other nations where the omicron variant spread, people had immunity from vaccines or previous infections, and this blunted the severity of the disease.
With many people unvaccinated and vulnerable, Michal Head, a global health expert at University of Southampton, fears that it may have a “worryingly high burden of severe COVID-19 in coming weeks”.
“Omicron has been described by some as ‘mild’. But it’s certainly still severe enough to have a high mortality rate, far higher than flu or other similar respiratory infections,” he warned.
Irene Leung, who is 70, said she didn’t feel the need to be vaccinated earlier because the pandemic was under control in Hong Kong. On Friday, she lined up for her first dose.
“But now it gets worse and so I decided to come and get vaccinated,” she said. “It protects not only myself but also my family members.”
And Hong Kong has announced it will test everyone in the city next month, taking another page from the mainland playbook. China has sent in experts and others to put up temporary labs to handle the volume of tests.
But Benjamin Cowling, who studies epidemics at Hong Kong University, advised against mass testing in March since it would be hard to deal with the sheer number of confirmed cases that the approach would throw up. Instead, he suggested using the nimbler, rapid tests to alert people to isolate at home if they were infected and had mild symptoms.
The ultra-contagious nature of the omicron variant means that unless you have incredibly stringent lockdown measures, mask-wearing and social distancing norms, you’re not going to stem the spread, said Dr. Jimmy Whitworth, an infectious diseases expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Even China is battling multiple outbreaks, though they are much smaller than Hong Kong’s. China on Saturday reported 249 new cases in the mainland, of which 156 were among people who had arrived from overseas.
Hong Kong, by comparison, reported more than 17,000 new cases in the latest 24-hour period and 66 deaths.
Whitworth said that Hong Kong’s priority right now should be to encourage vaccination. “That is by far and away, the most important message. And particularly targeting the elderly,”
Hong Kong’s success in fending off COVID comes back to haunt
By ALICE FUNG and ANIRUDDHA GHOSALtoday
1 of 18
Patients wait at a temporary treatment area outside Caritas Medical Centre in Hong Kong, Saturday, Feb. 26, 2022. For two years, Hong Kong successfully insulated most of its residents from COVID-19 and often went months without a single locally spread case. Then the omicron variant showed up. The fast-spreading mutation breached Hong Kong’s defenses and has been spreading rapidly through one of the world’s most densely populated places. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)
HONG KONG (AP) — For two years, Hong Kong successfully insulated most of its residents from COVID-19 and often went months without a single locally spread case. Then the omicron variant showed up.
The fast-spreading mutation breached Hong Kong’s defenses and has been spreading rapidly through one of the world’s most densely populated places, overflowing hospitals and isolation wards and prompting measures to test the entire 7.4 million population and hastily build six isolation and treatment centers.
The surge shows what happens when COVID-19 strikes a population unprotected by immunity from previous infections, and has exposed a low vaccination rate among elderly citizens who are bearing the brunt of the crisis.
Only about 30% of Hong Kong residents over the age of 80 and around 58% of those in their 70s are fully vaccinated, lagging younger populations by a large margin. This is despite the fact that vaccines have been widely available in Hong Kong since early 2021.
The city has reported about 150 deaths in the past three days, many among the unvaccinated elderly.
Health authorities said that the vaccine reluctance among the elderly is an unfortunate side-effect of Hong Kong’s success in warding off the virus for months.
Many people thought that the risk of getting COVID-19 was virtually nil since there were no cases, and senior citizens were led to believe that the risk of vaccination was greater than not getting vaccinated, said Karen Grépin, a public health expert at the University of Hong Kong.
Hundreds of millions of jabs have been given to people around the world and few serious risks have been identified after intense safety monitoring. But early reports of a few adverse reactions to the vaccine in Hong Kong created a false perception that people needed to be perfectly healthy to get vaccinated.
“Hong Kong is the world’s guinea pig, when it comes to omicron,” said Grépin.
The Hong Kong experience may also hold lessons for mainland China and its decision on when to re-open its borders and eliminate a two- to three-week quarantine requirement for anybody entering the country. Only a small proportion of the population has been infected, thanks to the Communist Party’s strict zero-COVID approach of mass testing and lockdowns.
The Hong Kong government’s response has been to ramp up a zero-COVID approach similar to the mainland. Chinese officials have urged Hong Kong to stick to the approach, despite grumbling from residents, with even leader Xi Jinping weighing in to make sure the message got through.
Under the zero COVID-19 policy, everyone who tests positive in Hong Kong needs to be isolated. While this worked in the past, Hong Kong, unlike the mainland, does not have the beds to isolate so many people in a large outbreak.
Construction teams from the mainland are rushing to build two permanent and four temporary isolation and treatment centers to handle more than 20,000 patients in an effort reminiscent of the early days of the virus when China threw up two temporary hospitals in the city of Wuhan in a matter of days.
Authorities also launched a vaccine pass on Thursday, requiring vaccination to enter shopping malls and other premises, and it is driving some to get the shot.
“If I don’t get vaccinated, I can’t even go to restaurants,” said 73-year-old Yu Mui as she lined up for her first dose Friday. “So I have to come here today even though I am worried about the side effects.”
Scientists believe that the omicron variant is milder than the delta version of the virus. But Hong Kong’s situation is nearly unique. In other nations where the omicron variant spread, people had immunity from vaccines or previous infections, and this blunted the severity of the disease.
With many people unvaccinated and vulnerable, Michal Head, a global health expert at University of Southampton, fears that it may have a “worryingly high burden of severe COVID-19 in coming weeks”.
“Omicron has been described by some as ‘mild’. But it’s certainly still severe enough to have a high mortality rate, far higher than flu or other similar respiratory infections,” he warned.
Irene Leung, who is 70, said she didn’t feel the need to be vaccinated earlier because the pandemic was under control in Hong Kong. On Friday, she lined up for her first dose.
“But now it gets worse and so I decided to come and get vaccinated,” she said. “It protects not only myself but also my family members.”
And Hong Kong has announced it will test everyone in the city next month, taking another page from the mainland playbook. China has sent in experts and others to put up temporary labs to handle the volume of tests.
But Benjamin Cowling, who studies epidemics at Hong Kong University, advised against mass testing in March since it would be hard to deal with the sheer number of confirmed cases that the approach would throw up. Instead, he suggested using the nimbler, rapid tests to alert people to isolate at home if they were infected and had mild symptoms.
The ultra-contagious nature of the omicron variant means that unless you have incredibly stringent lockdown measures, mask-wearing and social distancing norms, you’re not going to stem the spread, said Dr. Jimmy Whitworth, an infectious diseases expert at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.
Even China is battling multiple outbreaks, though they are much smaller than Hong Kong’s. China on Saturday reported 249 new cases in the mainland, of which 156 were among people who had arrived from overseas.
Hong Kong, by comparison, reported more than 17,000 new cases in the latest 24-hour period and 66 deaths.
Whitworth said that Hong Kong’s priority right now should be to encourage vaccination. “That is by far and away, the most important message. And particularly targeting the elderly,”
Family Thought Unvaxxed 13-Year-Old Beat COVID–Then She Died
Family Thought Unvaxxed 13-Year-Old Beat COVID–Then She Died
‘SADNESS’
Kensey Dishman thought she was in the clear as she returned to school after quarantining. Then she was found “slumped against the wall” in a bathroom.
Michael Daly
Special Correspondent
Updated Feb. 26, 2022 2:29AM ET / Published Feb. 25, 2022 8:44PM ET
Courtesy of Brett Gibson
After a bout of COVID-19 and the required quarantine, 13-year-old Kensey Dishman arrived back at Wayne County Middle School in rural Kentucky on Tuesday morning.
Her mother, Kim Gibson, had driven her there, as they had an appointment to see a counselor. Kensey had still been experiencing occasional difficulty breathing, but that was deemed common after COVID, and her oxygen levels had been good.
Kensey seemed fine as Kim dropped her off at the front, where she joined the crowd of classmates returning from a holiday weekend. The students were no longer required to wear masks, as the Wayne County School Board had voted unanimously the previous Thursday to permanently lift a mandate that had been keyed to the number of cases. The message was one that similar relaxations have been spreading across the country: the danger of the pandemic is receding.
Kim parked and had just gone into the school office when her cellphone rang. The school was calling to inform her that Kensey had passed out in a bathroom.
“Well, I’m here, I’m here,” Kim replied.
Kim rushed to the restroom, where the school nurse had already responded.
“Her mom had got to her and she was slumped against the wall,” Kensey’s stepfather, Brett Gibson, later told The Daily Beast. “She was responsive at that time. It seemed like she just kinda fell and braced herself against the wall.”
Kensey then had a seizure, but came out of it. She reported having intense pain in her side.
“She was asking her mom for help,” Brett later said.
When EMTs arrived, Kensey had begun to lose consciousness.
“They said, ‘There’s nothing else we could do. They couldn’t get her heart rate up. They couldn’t get her pulse. She had no brain activity.”
— Brett Gibson
“They couldn’t get her intubated,” Brett later said. “Her airway was filling with blood, which is one reason why they seem to think she might have had a blood clot.”
Kim remained with Kensey in the ambulance and at the hospital.
“She got to hold her,” Brett told The Daily Beast. “She was with her the whole time.”
Brett arrived as the doctors and nurses fought to save Kensey’s life. Their best efforts were not enough.
“They said, ‘There’s nothing else we could do,” Brett recalled. “They couldn’t get her heart rate up. They couldn’t get her pulse. She had no brain activity.”
Brett is a reporter/photographer at the local newspaper his family owns. But The Clinton County News is a weekly and he reported Kensey’s death with a Facebook post. The Lexington Herald-Ledger quoted his account in a story that noted the school had declined to comment.
Wayne County Coroner Gordon Hicks told The Daily Beast that the state medical examiner would have to do more testing in Louisville before he could give an official cause of death. Brett said that he and Kim had been given every impression by the medical professionals that the death was COVID-related. And that raised the question of whether Kensey had been vaccinated.
“She was not,” Brett told The Daily Beast. “We wanted her to get vaccinated and we had been [vaccinated], but when you have a split household, you have to have both parties. And we didn’t have that.”
“She did not want to take it. She was scared of it. I wasn’t going to force her to.”
— Alan Dishman
Kim and Kensey’s father, Adam Dishman, had divorced more than a decade ago. Adam told The Daily Beast that several members of his family had suffered “some health issues” as a result of the vaccine and he had decided not to get it.
“Her mother and stepfather had the vaccine,” Adam said. “I have chosen not to.”
He said he had let 13-year-old Kensey make her own decisions.
“She did not want to take it,” Adam said. “She was scared of it. I wasn’t going to force her to. I asked her if she wanted to and she said, ‘No,’ and that’s just the way she was. She was very pro-choice about everything.”
He added, “There’s gonna be people that’s going to say bad things no matter what you do. But, you know, I want it to be very clear that some may make us out to be evil or the bad guys, but she believed it was everybody’s personal choice.”
That might have been fine if we were not in a pandemic that had killed nearly 1 million other Americans and if the vaccine had not been universally accepted by all credible medical experts as safe and effective. Add to that the fact that Kensey had been asthmatic and therefore particularly vulnerable.
Adam said he figured Kensey had caught COVID at school in early February.
“I believe she got it at school and she brought it home and of course, naturally I got sick and then my wife and then the other kids,” he said.
They had suffered typical symptoms.
“The sore throat and everything like that,” he said. “It all kinda went away, but she was still having issues with the breathing. She had asthma and it didn’t help.”
He and Kensey’s mother had both taken her to the doctor.
“We have several medications here, you know, and nothing seemed to help,” he said.
However they differed when it came to the vaccine, Adam and Kim both recall feeling she would be ready to resume classes when the week-long quarantine ended.
“She loved going to school,” Adam said.
First came the holiday weekend. They divided it up and Kensey spent Sunday with Adam. He sounded like the most loving of fathers as he later spoke of an idyllic day with her at the farm where he lives with her step mother, Michaela Dishman, and their four daughters.
“It was so beautiful outside here; 65, sunshine,” he said. “It was just a perfect day here.”
Kensey hung out with her siblings and a collection of animals, which goes beyond the usual cows and chickens and rabbits.
“She’s got a hermit crab here,” Adam reported. “She called it ‘My Grandcrab.’ She set this hermit crab in front of the TV and she said, ‘I’m gonna give it a front row seat.’”
At the end of the day, everybody went out to a Japanese restaurant that was one of her favorites.
“She loved Japanese cuisine,” Adam said. “She had a big plate of rice.”
They then went to a multiplex movie theater. Kensey and her oldest sister asked if just the two of them could see Death on the Nile.
“They wanted to watch a movie together by themselves,” Adam said. “That made them feel like big girls.”
Kensey then spent Monday with Kim and Brett. The couple had caught COVID in October of 2020, before vaccine was even a choice. Kim had quickly recovered, but Brett had had a harder time, having suffered a fungal lung infection years before. He also developed cardiac complications and had to undergo major surgery.
They needed no persuading to get the shot when it was available.
“We got vaccines as soon as we were allowed to and we got our boosters,” Brett said.
Some 60 percent of Clinton County, where Brett lives, and of adjoining Wayne County, where Adam has a farm, have remained unvaccinated.
“People I think are afraid of it,” Brett said. “And there’s a lot of people in this area, they kind of think that [if] the government says that you need to do it, then we ain’t gonna do it.”
His family newspaper has been seeking to encourage vaccination by publishing a photo each week of a business where everyone has gotten the jab.
“It’s been hard to find businesses that are fully vaccinated,” Brett said. “A lot of times the ones that I’ve found that are fully vaccinated are like the barber shop where there’s only one person that works.”
Brett only wishes that Kensey had been vaccinated when he took a family photo of her after a big storm on Jan. 17.
“She really wanted to do a photoshoot in snow,” Brett recalled.
He did not have his camera, but he made do with his cellphone. She posed against the pristine white background, a teen who was at once outgoing and shy, a social butterfly and a homebody.
On Friday, her school said it still had no statement, other than a word to describe an all encompassing feeling.
“Sadness,” a spokesman said.
The coroner said that there was still no official cause of death, but the body had been released Friday morning. The photo of her on the snow remains a measure of all that was lost.
Family Thought Unvaxxed 13-Year-Old Beat COVID–Then She Died
‘SADNESS’
Kensey Dishman thought she was in the clear as she returned to school after quarantining. Then she was found “slumped against the wall” in a bathroom.
Michael Daly
Special Correspondent
Updated Feb. 26, 2022 2:29AM ET / Published Feb. 25, 2022 8:44PM ET
Courtesy of Brett Gibson
After a bout of COVID-19 and the required quarantine, 13-year-old Kensey Dishman arrived back at Wayne County Middle School in rural Kentucky on Tuesday morning.
Her mother, Kim Gibson, had driven her there, as they had an appointment to see a counselor. Kensey had still been experiencing occasional difficulty breathing, but that was deemed common after COVID, and her oxygen levels had been good.
Kensey seemed fine as Kim dropped her off at the front, where she joined the crowd of classmates returning from a holiday weekend. The students were no longer required to wear masks, as the Wayne County School Board had voted unanimously the previous Thursday to permanently lift a mandate that had been keyed to the number of cases. The message was one that similar relaxations have been spreading across the country: the danger of the pandemic is receding.
Kim parked and had just gone into the school office when her cellphone rang. The school was calling to inform her that Kensey had passed out in a bathroom.
“Well, I’m here, I’m here,” Kim replied.
Kim rushed to the restroom, where the school nurse had already responded.
“Her mom had got to her and she was slumped against the wall,” Kensey’s stepfather, Brett Gibson, later told The Daily Beast. “She was responsive at that time. It seemed like she just kinda fell and braced herself against the wall.”
Kensey then had a seizure, but came out of it. She reported having intense pain in her side.
“She was asking her mom for help,” Brett later said.
When EMTs arrived, Kensey had begun to lose consciousness.
“They said, ‘There’s nothing else we could do. They couldn’t get her heart rate up. They couldn’t get her pulse. She had no brain activity.”
— Brett Gibson
“They couldn’t get her intubated,” Brett later said. “Her airway was filling with blood, which is one reason why they seem to think she might have had a blood clot.”
Kim remained with Kensey in the ambulance and at the hospital.
“She got to hold her,” Brett told The Daily Beast. “She was with her the whole time.”
Brett arrived as the doctors and nurses fought to save Kensey’s life. Their best efforts were not enough.
“They said, ‘There’s nothing else we could do,” Brett recalled. “They couldn’t get her heart rate up. They couldn’t get her pulse. She had no brain activity.”
Brett is a reporter/photographer at the local newspaper his family owns. But The Clinton County News is a weekly and he reported Kensey’s death with a Facebook post. The Lexington Herald-Ledger quoted his account in a story that noted the school had declined to comment.
Wayne County Coroner Gordon Hicks told The Daily Beast that the state medical examiner would have to do more testing in Louisville before he could give an official cause of death. Brett said that he and Kim had been given every impression by the medical professionals that the death was COVID-related. And that raised the question of whether Kensey had been vaccinated.
“She was not,” Brett told The Daily Beast. “We wanted her to get vaccinated and we had been [vaccinated], but when you have a split household, you have to have both parties. And we didn’t have that.”
“She did not want to take it. She was scared of it. I wasn’t going to force her to.”
— Alan Dishman
Kim and Kensey’s father, Adam Dishman, had divorced more than a decade ago. Adam told The Daily Beast that several members of his family had suffered “some health issues” as a result of the vaccine and he had decided not to get it.
“Her mother and stepfather had the vaccine,” Adam said. “I have chosen not to.”
He said he had let 13-year-old Kensey make her own decisions.
“She did not want to take it,” Adam said. “She was scared of it. I wasn’t going to force her to. I asked her if she wanted to and she said, ‘No,’ and that’s just the way she was. She was very pro-choice about everything.”
He added, “There’s gonna be people that’s going to say bad things no matter what you do. But, you know, I want it to be very clear that some may make us out to be evil or the bad guys, but she believed it was everybody’s personal choice.”
That might have been fine if we were not in a pandemic that had killed nearly 1 million other Americans and if the vaccine had not been universally accepted by all credible medical experts as safe and effective. Add to that the fact that Kensey had been asthmatic and therefore particularly vulnerable.
Adam said he figured Kensey had caught COVID at school in early February.
“I believe she got it at school and she brought it home and of course, naturally I got sick and then my wife and then the other kids,” he said.
They had suffered typical symptoms.
“The sore throat and everything like that,” he said. “It all kinda went away, but she was still having issues with the breathing. She had asthma and it didn’t help.”
He and Kensey’s mother had both taken her to the doctor.
“We have several medications here, you know, and nothing seemed to help,” he said.
However they differed when it came to the vaccine, Adam and Kim both recall feeling she would be ready to resume classes when the week-long quarantine ended.
“She loved going to school,” Adam said.
First came the holiday weekend. They divided it up and Kensey spent Sunday with Adam. He sounded like the most loving of fathers as he later spoke of an idyllic day with her at the farm where he lives with her step mother, Michaela Dishman, and their four daughters.
“It was so beautiful outside here; 65, sunshine,” he said. “It was just a perfect day here.”
Kensey hung out with her siblings and a collection of animals, which goes beyond the usual cows and chickens and rabbits.
“She’s got a hermit crab here,” Adam reported. “She called it ‘My Grandcrab.’ She set this hermit crab in front of the TV and she said, ‘I’m gonna give it a front row seat.’”
At the end of the day, everybody went out to a Japanese restaurant that was one of her favorites.
“She loved Japanese cuisine,” Adam said. “She had a big plate of rice.”
They then went to a multiplex movie theater. Kensey and her oldest sister asked if just the two of them could see Death on the Nile.
“They wanted to watch a movie together by themselves,” Adam said. “That made them feel like big girls.”
Kensey then spent Monday with Kim and Brett. The couple had caught COVID in October of 2020, before vaccine was even a choice. Kim had quickly recovered, but Brett had had a harder time, having suffered a fungal lung infection years before. He also developed cardiac complications and had to undergo major surgery.
They needed no persuading to get the shot when it was available.
“We got vaccines as soon as we were allowed to and we got our boosters,” Brett said.
Some 60 percent of Clinton County, where Brett lives, and of adjoining Wayne County, where Adam has a farm, have remained unvaccinated.
“People I think are afraid of it,” Brett said. “And there’s a lot of people in this area, they kind of think that [if] the government says that you need to do it, then we ain’t gonna do it.”
His family newspaper has been seeking to encourage vaccination by publishing a photo each week of a business where everyone has gotten the jab.
“It’s been hard to find businesses that are fully vaccinated,” Brett said. “A lot of times the ones that I’ve found that are fully vaccinated are like the barber shop where there’s only one person that works.”
Brett only wishes that Kensey had been vaccinated when he took a family photo of her after a big storm on Jan. 17.
“She really wanted to do a photoshoot in snow,” Brett recalled.
He did not have his camera, but he made do with his cellphone. She posed against the pristine white background, a teen who was at once outgoing and shy, a social butterfly and a homebody.
On Friday, her school said it still had no statement, other than a word to describe an all encompassing feeling.
“Sadness,” a spokesman said.
The coroner said that there was still no official cause of death, but the body had been released Friday morning. The photo of her on the snow remains a measure of all that was lost.
Twins Were Inseparable Until COVID Killed the ‘Tough Guy’
These Twins Were Inseparable Until COVID Killed the ‘Tough Guy’
HELL IN THE ER
“I was older by a minute, but I always felt Ray was the older brother… Ray was just different. Growing up, Ray was knocking out bullies and all.”
Michael Daly
Special Correspondent
Updated Feb. 02, 2022 10:50PM ET / Published Jan. 31, 2022 10:27PM ET
Instagram
Raysean and Rich Autry of Ohio were born one minute apart in 1987 and they were nearly inseparable over the next 35 years. They roomed together in college, founded a media company, and launched the hip-hop website Kollege Kidd. They produced films and TV pilots and marketed music artists. And they had bigger than big plans for ever more projects.
“I believe we’re here to stay,” Raysean said in a video he made with Rich when they were starting out in 2009.
But something the co-founders of this fledgling empire did not do was get vaccinated for COVID. And their grand ambitions were then challenged by a microscopic virus when they both tested positive in early December.
Both brothers experienced symptoms. The folks at urgent care told Rich just to quarantine and he tried to weather it just as he would a touch of the flu.
“I thought it was something I could sleep off,” he later told The Daily Beast. “I was drinking like smoothies with ginger and garlic… and I was sleeping all day.”
But after three days, his usual homemade remedy was not working.
“I knew it was serious because I was getting weaker by the day,” he said.
On Dec. 12, the twins’ mother, Sandra, convinced Rich to go to the emergency room of a Toledo Hospital. Rich did not yet know his twin was sick when their mother persuaded Raysean to go to the ER two days later.
“I was already admitted,” Rich recalled. “I was in the hospital bed with an oxygen mask.”
Raysean was also admitted, but the twins were unable to see each other due to COVID protocols. Raysean has always been the stronger, more stoic twin. He remained calm as the twins texted each other.
“I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. I could barely lift my hands… I felt like I woke up in hell. ”
“I was panic-texting,” Rich recalled. “I was like, ‘Ray, they going to stick a tube down my neck, they going to sedate me…They said my condition’s getting worse by the minute.’”
Raysean remained Raysean.
“Ray was like, ‘For real?’” Rich recalled. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Ray said, ‘I’m just chilling with an oxygen mask.’”
He added, “If Ray was panicking too, that would’ve made me panic more. He remained calm so as not to panic me more.”
“I had a trach in my neck,” he recalled “I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. I could barely lift my hands… I felt like I woke up in hell.”
He berated himself for being what seems proof he was the weak twin.
“I was like beating myself that I couldn't barely handle COVID,’” he remembered.
He figured that Raysean, as the tough twin, must have already been discharged.
“I said, Ray’s at home working on KK (Kollege Kidd) with his daughter,” he recalled. “I’m here with a tube down my throat.’”
Rich was unaware that Raysean had also been intubated in the ICU. Their mother had fallen ill with the virus, but had managed to fight it off and she further demonstrated her uncommon strength as she did all she could for her twins.
“She said it was hell,” Rich recalled. “She said it was the most traumatic experience she ever witnessed in her life. Just having to go from room to room to where my brother was at and going to my room just to check on us.”
Raysean died the same day Rich regained consciousness. The family decided to keep the terrible news from Rich until he became stronger and better oriented. They made sure he did not have access to social media, where there was talk that one of the founders of Kollege Kidd had died.
On Jan. 7, Rich had what he later called ”wild dreams” through the whole night.
“Just different childhood memories of Ray,” Rich recalled. “I was thinking of my times with Ray…I didn’t know Ray was gone. But I did miss him. I was like, ‘Damn, I hope I hear from Ray, soon.’”
The next day, the family broke the terrible news to him.
“They had to restrain me,” he recalled. “When they first told me, I didn't want to believe it. I thought they were playing with me.”
Rich later spoke to The Daily Beast of all he and his twin had been through together growing up on the rough-and-tumble northside of Toledo. Rich was the book-smart one. Raysean was an outgoing star athlete who knew how to carry himself and defend himself and was “that guy.”
“I was older by a minute, but I always felt Ray was the older brother,” Rich said, “Ray was just this tough guy…Ray was just different. Growing up, Ray was knocking out bullies and all.”
They went on to Bowling Green State University, where Raysean began to develop his video skills, making films and founding CNYv, shooting such college events as step shows and fashion shows and then promos that he posted online just as social media was coming into its own. Rich edited a school multicultural newspaper and interned at The Wall Street Journal. Ray worked at PBS and interned at CNN and CBS.
On Nov. 11, 2011—what they call 11/11/11—they founded Kollege Kidd, calling themselves the Write Brothers. They fused Rich’s writing talent with Raysean’s video and marketing wizardry. They focused on hip-hop culture in the Midwest while everyone else was focused on the East and West coasts. The twins introduced much of the country to Chief Keef and Chicago drill music.
On some days, there was so much traffic that the KK site crashed. They branched out onto Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, where they soon had 1.2 million followers. They made films and TV pilots. They talked about capitalizing on streaming and about publishing books.
When the pandemic hit, they both wore a mask. And they had less trouble than many people with observing social distancing and avoiding large groups. They just kept on building their company online and refining their complementary skills with the discipline that their factory-worker parents—Sarah and Patrick—had imparted to them by example.
“For people that go out every day and go to clubs and stuff, that was probably tough for them, but it was easy for me and Ray,” Rich said. “So it didn’t affect us quarantining. We were already home.”
But they had not been ready to get a COVID vaccine even though it had been proven to be safe despite the misinformation and conspiracy theories flying. Their father, Patrick, got the Johson & Johnson jab, but they were skeptical about it, And they were not yet persuaded by a scientific consensus regarding the others. Rich says they were not unwilling to get a vaccine; they just wanted to know know more before they did.
“We weren’t anti-vax,” Rich said. “Me and Ray were very thorough when it comes to things. We wanted to see how effective all the vaccines were in its first year of being released.”
As quick as they were to anticipate the latest in hip-hop culture, they remained cautious about getting the jab despite a scientific consensus that the unvaccinated are far more likely to get severely ill and die if infected. Rich was in the hospital when he discussed it with a nurse. She said that she thought Moderna was the best option.
“I wish we would have gotten Moderna or something,” Rich told The Daily Beast.
Without the vaccine, even someone as tough as Raysean had been felled by the virus. Rich was still in the hospital on Jan. 23, when he celebrated what should have also been Raysean’s 35th birthday.
Rich was finally discharged from the hospital on Jan. 27. And after briefly suspending operations, the media company is continuing on with just one of its founders because of a virus that obeys no logic as to who it claims among the unvaccinated.
“Me and Ray been through a lot, survived a lot,” Rich said. “I was just shocked that that took him out. A germ? Like seriously?”
These Twins Were Inseparable Until COVID Killed the ‘Tough Guy’
HELL IN THE ER
“I was older by a minute, but I always felt Ray was the older brother… Ray was just different. Growing up, Ray was knocking out bullies and all.”
Michael Daly
Special Correspondent
Updated Feb. 02, 2022 10:50PM ET / Published Jan. 31, 2022 10:27PM ET
Raysean and Rich Autry of Ohio were born one minute apart in 1987 and they were nearly inseparable over the next 35 years. They roomed together in college, founded a media company, and launched the hip-hop website Kollege Kidd. They produced films and TV pilots and marketed music artists. And they had bigger than big plans for ever more projects.
“I believe we’re here to stay,” Raysean said in a video he made with Rich when they were starting out in 2009.
But something the co-founders of this fledgling empire did not do was get vaccinated for COVID. And their grand ambitions were then challenged by a microscopic virus when they both tested positive in early December.
Both brothers experienced symptoms. The folks at urgent care told Rich just to quarantine and he tried to weather it just as he would a touch of the flu.
“I thought it was something I could sleep off,” he later told The Daily Beast. “I was drinking like smoothies with ginger and garlic… and I was sleeping all day.”
But after three days, his usual homemade remedy was not working.
“I knew it was serious because I was getting weaker by the day,” he said.
On Dec. 12, the twins’ mother, Sandra, convinced Rich to go to the emergency room of a Toledo Hospital. Rich did not yet know his twin was sick when their mother persuaded Raysean to go to the ER two days later.
“I was already admitted,” Rich recalled. “I was in the hospital bed with an oxygen mask.”
Raysean was also admitted, but the twins were unable to see each other due to COVID protocols. Raysean has always been the stronger, more stoic twin. He remained calm as the twins texted each other.
“I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. I could barely lift my hands… I felt like I woke up in hell. ”
“I was panic-texting,” Rich recalled. “I was like, ‘Ray, they going to stick a tube down my neck, they going to sedate me…They said my condition’s getting worse by the minute.’”
Raysean remained Raysean.
“Ray was like, ‘For real?’” Rich recalled. “I said, ‘What are you doing?’ Ray said, ‘I’m just chilling with an oxygen mask.’”
He added, “If Ray was panicking too, that would’ve made me panic more. He remained calm so as not to panic me more.”
“I had a trach in my neck,” he recalled “I couldn’t walk. I couldn’t talk. I could barely lift my hands… I felt like I woke up in hell.”
He berated himself for being what seems proof he was the weak twin.
“I was like beating myself that I couldn't barely handle COVID,’” he remembered.
He figured that Raysean, as the tough twin, must have already been discharged.
“I said, Ray’s at home working on KK (Kollege Kidd) with his daughter,” he recalled. “I’m here with a tube down my throat.’”
Rich was unaware that Raysean had also been intubated in the ICU. Their mother had fallen ill with the virus, but had managed to fight it off and she further demonstrated her uncommon strength as she did all she could for her twins.
“She said it was hell,” Rich recalled. “She said it was the most traumatic experience she ever witnessed in her life. Just having to go from room to room to where my brother was at and going to my room just to check on us.”
Raysean died the same day Rich regained consciousness. The family decided to keep the terrible news from Rich until he became stronger and better oriented. They made sure he did not have access to social media, where there was talk that one of the founders of Kollege Kidd had died.
On Jan. 7, Rich had what he later called ”wild dreams” through the whole night.
“Just different childhood memories of Ray,” Rich recalled. “I was thinking of my times with Ray…I didn’t know Ray was gone. But I did miss him. I was like, ‘Damn, I hope I hear from Ray, soon.’”
The next day, the family broke the terrible news to him.
“They had to restrain me,” he recalled. “When they first told me, I didn't want to believe it. I thought they were playing with me.”
Rich later spoke to The Daily Beast of all he and his twin had been through together growing up on the rough-and-tumble northside of Toledo. Rich was the book-smart one. Raysean was an outgoing star athlete who knew how to carry himself and defend himself and was “that guy.”
“I was older by a minute, but I always felt Ray was the older brother,” Rich said, “Ray was just this tough guy…Ray was just different. Growing up, Ray was knocking out bullies and all.”
They went on to Bowling Green State University, where Raysean began to develop his video skills, making films and founding CNYv, shooting such college events as step shows and fashion shows and then promos that he posted online just as social media was coming into its own. Rich edited a school multicultural newspaper and interned at The Wall Street Journal. Ray worked at PBS and interned at CNN and CBS.
On Nov. 11, 2011—what they call 11/11/11—they founded Kollege Kidd, calling themselves the Write Brothers. They fused Rich’s writing talent with Raysean’s video and marketing wizardry. They focused on hip-hop culture in the Midwest while everyone else was focused on the East and West coasts. The twins introduced much of the country to Chief Keef and Chicago drill music.
On some days, there was so much traffic that the KK site crashed. They branched out onto Facebook and YouTube and Instagram, where they soon had 1.2 million followers. They made films and TV pilots. They talked about capitalizing on streaming and about publishing books.
When the pandemic hit, they both wore a mask. And they had less trouble than many people with observing social distancing and avoiding large groups. They just kept on building their company online and refining their complementary skills with the discipline that their factory-worker parents—Sarah and Patrick—had imparted to them by example.
“For people that go out every day and go to clubs and stuff, that was probably tough for them, but it was easy for me and Ray,” Rich said. “So it didn’t affect us quarantining. We were already home.”
But they had not been ready to get a COVID vaccine even though it had been proven to be safe despite the misinformation and conspiracy theories flying. Their father, Patrick, got the Johson & Johnson jab, but they were skeptical about it, And they were not yet persuaded by a scientific consensus regarding the others. Rich says they were not unwilling to get a vaccine; they just wanted to know know more before they did.
“We weren’t anti-vax,” Rich said. “Me and Ray were very thorough when it comes to things. We wanted to see how effective all the vaccines were in its first year of being released.”
As quick as they were to anticipate the latest in hip-hop culture, they remained cautious about getting the jab despite a scientific consensus that the unvaccinated are far more likely to get severely ill and die if infected. Rich was in the hospital when he discussed it with a nurse. She said that she thought Moderna was the best option.
“I wish we would have gotten Moderna or something,” Rich told The Daily Beast.
Without the vaccine, even someone as tough as Raysean had been felled by the virus. Rich was still in the hospital on Jan. 23, when he celebrated what should have also been Raysean’s 35th birthday.
Rich was finally discharged from the hospital on Jan. 27. And after briefly suspending operations, the media company is continuing on with just one of its founders because of a virus that obeys no logic as to who it claims among the unvaccinated.
“Me and Ray been through a lot, survived a lot,” Rich said. “I was just shocked that that took him out. A germ? Like seriously?”
R.U.L.E.
All Star
Home girl just lost her moms to covid.
she was 73 but fully vaxxed and boosted.
Fukk this man made shyt
she was 73 but fully vaxxed and boosted.
Fukk this man made shyt
MenacingMonk
Tranquilo
Cases and hospitalization are declining out here, but deaths are still pushing 40+ a day in LA county. 