With Covid-19 becoming a seasonal recurring disease like flu how will this affect you as cuddler?

alphares

Covid-19 will be with us forever that is for sure. It will be like the flu. It is just a matter of how fast we all get it so everyone will be immune to it or how fast the vaccine will be developed.

How do you continue cuddling with this scenario in the future?

Each person uses his own judgement and makes such a decision based on what she or he deems best. It's a very personal choice. To each his own.

I will probably not be cuddling anyone for a very long time to come. My livelihood depends on my health. Right now and for the forseeable future cuddling as we know, as it has been practiced poses a serious risk to public health. It is just not worth taking that risk.

snugbuddy

I hope it's a vaccine instead of we all get infected and have immunity. That would take a lot of deaths to reach that point. That's why an antibody test is so important until a vaccine is hopefully discovered. At least that way people would know if they had it. There are many who had it but don't know because of no or mild symptoms. Then the question and problem is could people be reinfected. Since It's new I don't think anyone knows for sure at this time.

I also wont be cuddling anytime soon and possibly never (granted never is a long time and it's unpredictable how this will all unfold) unless a vaccine is discovered.

Even with a vaccine there is no guarantee. If the flu is all we have to compare it with. There are already more than 8 strains of this virus out there. There's no evidence it mutates. But it has certainly adapted in the hosts of the different locations in the world where it has been.
So any vaccine developed will have to provide protection for each of these strains. If the flu is anything to go by, no vaccine will guarantee protection from it. There have been years in the past I took 3 different flu shots in the same season and still got a horrible strain that shut me down for a whole month straight.
Interestingly, the deaths from the COVID-19 are not as dramatic as had been reported in the news media. While there are naturally new cases with increasingly positive test results because of greater availability of testing. People are recovering with thoughtful effective treatment. And the deaths are occurring in folks with underlying pathological disease.

And with natural residual shedding of the virus by the imnunoglobin protein antibodies that build up in our blood serum there is no guarantee of immunity either . It has been documented in Wuhan, China that some folks have indeed been reinfected with a completely different strain of the virus than they were originally infected with. Many of them are currently recovering and stable.

So as with the Flu people can be COVID-19 carriers and not even know it.

CaroCuddles

Hey all. Advanced practice nurse weighing in here.

So Coronavirus is most definitely not like the flu. It's not even in the same virus family (flu is influenzae). Coronavirus is in the same genetic virus family as SARS, which as you may recall wreaked havoc (albeit on a SIGNIFICANTLY smaller scale) almost 20 years ago. COVID-19 will not be "with us forever" in the same way that SARS wasn't. The flu likes to mutate and come back every season. Once COVID-19 has run it's course in a year (or 2 perhaps), then we'll get to breathe a sigh of relief... until the next coronavirus type comes along.

The reason why coronaviruses are so bad is that their ability to infect (virulence) and cause disease in a host (pathogenicity) is SOOO much worse than influenza viruses.

Snugbudy is on the right track saying that "an antibody test is so important until a vaccine is hopefully discovered. At least that way people would know if they had it. There are many who had it but don't know because of no or mild symptoms. Then the question and problem is could people be reinfected."

Until then... act as if you have it and could pass it along to anyone you come into contact with. Act also as if everyone you come into contact with has it, just isn't symptomatic yet.

Stay safe everyone.

JasonCuddles

Thanks caro

UKGuy

@CaroCuddles - finally a post from someone who knows what they are talking about instead of the nonsense posted by others.

geoff1000

@alphares
"Covid-19 will be with us forever that is for sure."
Another unequivocal statement with no factual basis.

@CaroCuddles
Global pandemics of one form or another, are a constant threat ; and the person who catches the next one, probably won't care if it is mutated Covid-19 or something completely new. However, to the medical people, that is an important difference.

What Covid-19 has done, is made the present world more globally aware of such threats ; like the 2004 tsunami, or the finding of the Chicxulub crater.

If we can get some good out of this, it will be that "global pandemic" stays, at least for decades, high on humankind's list of things to guard against. In 1796, it was found that people who had suffered unpleasant cowpox, were resistant to fatal smallpox ; perhaps the lessons learned from Covid-19, will similarly protect humankind from the pandemic of maybe 2030 or 2050, which would otherwise wipe us all out.

Those who live in regions of the world prone to tornados, take seriously, warnings of them ; many of those who live elsewhere, probably wouldn't.

The difficult aspect of this pandemic, is that those who die from it, are rarely those who irresponsibility pass it on. The Derby partygoers who defied the distancing rules, will mostly survive ; instead they will kill the vulnerable people they passed it onto, and the medical staff who tried to save them.

The big reduction in drink-driving was when it became socially unacceptable, because likewise the victim was rarely the perpetrator.

Melancholy

Cuddling isnt dead. Just postponed.
All these social distancing efforts are to flatten the curve. That doesnt mean stop the virus completely. We may all eventually get it they just dont want us all getting it at once.
So once you already get it or get a vaccine you can cuddle safely with someone who already had it too no ?
Considering how widespread it is and how so many won't even have symptoms good luck avoiding it til the vaccine comes out next year.

ubergigglefritz

"the deaths are occurring in folks with underlying pathological disease."

Definitely not entirely true.

"Those who live in regions of the world prone to tornados, take seriously, warnings of them ; many of those who live elsewhere, probably wouldn't."

Funny enough, I've found the opposite to be true. People who are used to the watches and warnings take a lot more to get worried than someone visiting who isn't used to them.

-Myself, I NEED to find a way to safely and respectfully continue on at some point once the restrictions and guidelines have listed. I can't even think about if I can't. This is my life. 😞

adorable48

@ubergigglefritz is correct about tornados here in the south in a way. There was a running (true) joke about us that when the tornado sirens went off , that was our cue to go outside on the porch and look for it, instead of taking cover. After April 2011 tornados ( YouTube it) that changed. I’m really hoping that people in my area take a hint about covid 19. I see too many people still congregating here. It’s upsetting.