# How dangerous is COVID? Bad flu or lifetime consequences? **URL:** \ **Category:** The Quarantine Zone\ **Created:** [September 13, 2024, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234 "2024-09-13T22:06:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Velocity](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/velocity/32/18006_2.png) [@Velocity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Velocity)\ **Post date:** [September 14, 2024, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234/41 "2024-09-14T17:22:22Z")
> [@China\_Guy](#): > > Just an ancedote. My sister in law got poked late in the first round of availability because she wanted to fly (with a bandana as a mask), and a first booster. Then stopped. Half a year ago, she caught covid, and now has vertigo so severe she has trouble sitting up, much less can no longer leave the house to watch grandkid play baseball in a nearby park. So about 3 years elapsed between her vaccine shot and her contracting Covid? ---
**Author:** ![kayaker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kayaker/32/441_2.png) [@kayaker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kayaker)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2024, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234/42 "2024-09-15T16:08:57Z")
My sister’s husband was the first person I knew who had COVID. He wasn’t intubated, but his doctor was considering it. He spent three weeks in the hospital then a month at home on oxygen with a visiting nurse daily. Two of his brothers and a sister-in-law were also hospitalized. Today he is fine. He says he has no long term effects, but when I’ve seen him he looks way older than I’d expect. I seldom see him, mostly because he and his family are hard core trumpers ---
**Author:** ![kenobi\_65](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kenobi_65/32/13178_2.png) [@kenobi\_65](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kenobi_65)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2024, 4:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234/43 "2024-09-15T16:16:58Z")
I’m still good friends with my college girlfriend. On Facebook this past week, she shared that she came down with COVID a couple of weeks ago. She has asthma, and despite the fact that she’s fully vaccinated\*, COVID hit her hard enough, with serious breathing difficulties, that she spent over a week in the hospital. \*- I do not know if she’d gotten the recently-released new booster; given the timing of when she got sick (i.e., at the end of August), I suspect she hadn’t had a chance to do so before she became ill. ---
**Author:** ![puzzlegal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/puzzlegal/32/3827_2.png) [@puzzlegal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/puzzlegal)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2024, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234/44 "2024-09-15T17:10:24Z")
The first two people i knew who caught covid (my uncle and aunt) died from it. But that was early in the pandemic, before vaccines were available. And they were very old. Now that everyone (who is still alive) has been exposed through some combination of infections and vaccinations, covid really isn’t as dangerous as it was then. ---
**Author:** ![Ellecram](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellecram/32/18948_2.png) [@Ellecram](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ellecram)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2024, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234/45 "2024-09-15T17:15:10Z")
My ex father in law died from covid. He was in his eighties but pretty healthy at the time. I am recovering from a recent case of covid caught late August of this year. My sense of taste and smell have not recovered totally although it is getting better. I was planning on getting the newest vaccine but that didn’t pan out. I am 66 1/2 years old and am not going to stop living my life despite the new risks we all have to deal with. Maybe I would feel different if I was younger. ---
**Author:** ![susan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/susan/32/17537_2.png) [@susan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/susan)\ **Post date:** [September 15, 2024, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234/46 "2024-09-15T17:30:03Z")
A friend in chemo was exposed either at a grocery or a chemo center and it has interrupted his treatment schedule. His spouse was not vaccinated and had lived reclusively since 2020, but also got it and is jocularly pretending it was the flu. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-dangerous-is-covid-bad-flu-or-lifetime-consequences/1007234.md?page=2)