1 I remember, dimly, a year ago when people were getting vaccinated and it looked like we might start to see light at the end of the tunnel.

Then the anti-vax anti-mask folks really got going and... here we are, wave after wave later, and I'm still highly anxious about ever leaving my apartment, double-booster and N95 regardless. At any rate: The hits just keep coming, don't they? I hope it runs its course and leaves you alone afterward! You've had enough!

2 Would you believe I got the second booster last week? 
Fat lot of good it did.

3 a) tests do have false  positive rates

b) don't treat a true positive as a death sentence

c) GreyDuck, what did you expect?  Colds are coronaviruses, and  rhinoviruses; there was always going to be too many  new strains from mutation and the distinct animal reservoirs  for a  single  vaccine targeting an old strain  to be worth spit.  The ordinary cold corona viruses and the ordinary flu viruses did not magically disappear from every population when the new strain of corona showed up.  The only way that anything would 'improve' is if i) there are tests good enough to distinguish bioweapons or whatever from ordinary colds  ii) journalists and health bureaucrats are honest and scientifically competent enough to distinguish ordinary cold corona virus events from the special corona virus events. 

d) There is suggestive rumor that the strain that the vaccine's signature was for went through the US the fall before the lockdown.  Certainly, there  is little reason to suspect that the lockdown  did much to prevent that strain from having spread through the US population by now.   Food logistics is too much 'just in time' to  allow for very many people to have had true isolation. 

e)  Continuing to respond to Grey Duck, if you revise your mechanics,  and your highschool level biology, from  texts  of more  than ten years of age, you can work  out something that you have overlooked.  Masking is at best a trade off, between bacteria and  virii. 

The masks are not chemically active, or electrically active, so that means that the mechanism of separation is mechanical.  Which means 1) trap bacteria  moving out 2) maybe trap virii moving in 3) the 'cost' of the separation is the pressure difference across the mask.  

Viral protection /cannot/ be present without good filter media, edges that can  seal, straps putting  enough tension to overcome  the pressure difference,  and some attention to fit; in no way was this made clear to the  public who were responsible for implementing the masking. 

With a proper mask, you do have a pressure difference, and your lungs have to work harder, which is a cost to your health. 

The public cost of the masking protocol partly comes from the university undergraduates; they are young enough not to have the life skills for good bacterial hygiene and do not have  their parents there to enforce  good hygiene for them.   And, it does not matter  if they keep separate while on campus,  having them  in town is a risk.  So, all  of the medical schools who did  not  have the main university abandon enrollment  for humanities majors?  This is a combination of profiteering and a disregard for the public by the medical faculty.  If the viral risk is enough to shut down businesses outside of the university, then the bacterial risks are enough to shut down businesses inside of the university.  Because respiratory bacterial infections promote respiratory viral infections.   So far we seem to have been  very fortunate that haphazard masking policy has not bred  up some sort of bacterial superbug. 

4 Wait!

You 'boosted', then tested a week after, and nobody suggested that this might raise the false positive rate of the test?

If they missed this, whatever friend or family member who is serving as your outside advice and support on medical suggestions may be missing  some other things. 

I don't suppose you can easily scare up some more eyes to look at your specific medical details?

5 Given how Elon Musk publicly got tested four times in one week and had two positive and two negative results, I'd've insisted on another test a day or so later, just in case of a false positive.  What with being in a rehab hospital (IIRC?) and all, isolating in between doesn't seem imprudent.

6 Nursing home. Yes, it's possible there's a false positive. The cough, stuffy nose and sore throat tends to make that point moot.
I'm literally the youngest resident here.  They're not going to let me out in the general population when I've already had a positive AND symptoms.
Safer to lock me away at the end of the Plague Ward and hope I don't die.

7 Fair enough.  I mean, it could be a cold or something, but they won't want to let that spread either.
Anyway, I hope you're on a generally improving trend.

8 @PatBuck:
The masks work to protect others by preventing small, wet particles from flying around the room as much when we talk and breathe. They are not meant to protect the wearer.
The "cost" of the pressure difference is nonsense, completely negligible. Go on YT and you can easily find a video of some frustrated nurse donning layers of masks, and then showing a 98% blood oxygen level. There is no health impact to the wearer whatsoever.

9 Can confirm. I had a full-blown PICC line inserted last night and I wound up with two basic masks under a fresh N95 that looked very much like those I'd worn hundreds of times before in the various scene shops.
O² sats stayed right at my normal 96, which it's been for as long as anybody's been interested  in my sat numbers, yknow? 
And that included a bit of panic when the installer explained it was going all the way into my heart (one of the Vena Cavas, I forget which one he said). The other two I've had were both "Mid lines" and didn't get anywhere near the whole heart thing.

10 Wow, PatBuck, fuck off.