Difference between revisions of "2279: Symptoms"

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[[Cueball]] reads these symptoms up from his phone to [[Megan]] who acts as if reassured that she doesn't have it, since her symptoms are the opposite. She has powerful lungs, thus no shortness of breath. This is a good thing. She also has icy skin, normally not a fever symptom, although heavy sweating caused by fever can lower temperature. She describes her self as having frenzied energy, the opposite of fatigue. These two symptoms could be a bit weird, but maybe she just works her self up so she sweats alot, and if running around sweating your skin can become really cold.
 
[[Cueball]] reads these symptoms up from his phone to [[Megan]] who acts as if reassured that she doesn't have it, since her symptoms are the opposite. She has powerful lungs, thus no shortness of breath. This is a good thing. She also has icy skin, normally not a fever symptom, although heavy sweating caused by fever can lower temperature. She describes her self as having frenzied energy, the opposite of fatigue. These two symptoms could be a bit weird, but maybe she just works her self up so she sweats alot, and if running around sweating your skin can become really cold.
  
But her last symptoms is an incredibly wet cough, and although that is the opposite of a dry cough it sounds quite bad, compared with her other two strange symptoms. So while she might not have COVID-19, she might wish to see a doctor nevertheless. (There are still other diseases out there although most of the world only talks about Corona virus these days, see the first of this row of comics: [[2275: Coronavirus Name]].)
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But her last symptoms is an incredibly wet cough, and although that is the opposite of a dry cough it sounds quite bad, compared with her other two strange symptoms. So while she might not have COVID-19, she might wish to see a doctor nevertheless. (There are still other diseases out there.)
  
 
An alternative is that Megan is being sarcastic, considering that these could be symptoms of a whole host of medical situations, specifically any kind of flu, many of which are not concerning at all.
 
An alternative is that Megan is being sarcastic, considering that these could be symptoms of a whole host of medical situations, specifically any kind of flu, many of which are not concerning at all.

Revision as of 13:27, 12 March 2020

Symptoms
This medicine says it may cause lightheadedness, dry mouth, and blurred vision, but my head feels incredibly heavy, water is pouring from my mouth, and I can see individual hummingbird wingbeats, so I think I'm fine.
Title text: This medicine says it may cause lightheadedness, dry mouth, and blurred vision, but my head feels incredibly heavy, water is pouring from my mouth, and I can see individual hummingbird wingbeats, so I think I'm fine.

Explanation

Ambox notice.png This explanation may be incomplete or incorrect: Created by a PERSON WITH ICY SKIN. Please mention here why this explanation isn't complete. Do NOT delete this tag too soon.
If you can address this issue, please edit the page! Thanks.

This comic is the fifth comic in a series of comics (with at least five in a row) about the 2020 pandemic of the coronavirus - SARS-CoV-2.

The comic states that the symptoms of a disease are shortness of breath, fever, fatigue and dry cough. These are the top 3 and 5th most common symptoms reported for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. This is thus the fifth comic in a row about this disease, released on the day that the World Health Organization declared the outbreak a pandemic.

Cueball reads these symptoms up from his phone to Megan who acts as if reassured that she doesn't have it, since her symptoms are the opposite. She has powerful lungs, thus no shortness of breath. This is a good thing. She also has icy skin, normally not a fever symptom, although heavy sweating caused by fever can lower temperature. She describes her self as having frenzied energy, the opposite of fatigue. These two symptoms could be a bit weird, but maybe she just works her self up so she sweats alot, and if running around sweating your skin can become really cold.

But her last symptoms is an incredibly wet cough, and although that is the opposite of a dry cough it sounds quite bad, compared with her other two strange symptoms. So while she might not have COVID-19, she might wish to see a doctor nevertheless. (There are still other diseases out there.)

An alternative is that Megan is being sarcastic, considering that these could be symptoms of a whole host of medical situations, specifically any kind of flu, many of which are not concerning at all.

The title text expands on this joke. Cueball reads up from the note on some medicine about the side effects. Here Megan again doesn't have the common side effects of the medicine but the exact opposite so she thinks she is fine. In such a situation they should see a doctor as soon as possible, because they obviously have some rare side effects that could be serious.

It also reflects on the whole concept of symptom/side effect warnings themselves as often people have no good frame of reference for when a particular symptom is actually abnormal. It is often easy for one to believe they match some or all of a list of symptoms because for someone to be absolutely sure they do not have the a specific symptom, they would need an almost comic level of "normality".

The medicine is supposed to make the user:

  1. Lightheaded, but Megan's head feels heavy.
  2. Have a dry mouth, but water is pouring out of Megan's mouth.
  3. Have blurred vision, but Megan sees so clearly that she can spot individual hummingbird wingbeats.

Having a heavy head, is not a good sign, even though the opposite is also not good. Dry mouth can be anoying but her condition sounds dangerous. And although blurred vision is a bad thing, it is impossible for a human eye to follow the 12-80 beats a second of a hummingbird. [citation needed]

Transcript

[Cueball and Megan stand facing each other, with Cueball looking down at his smartphone held up in one hand.]
Cueball: It says here common symptoms include shortness of breath, fever, fatigue, and a dry cough.
Megan: That's reassuring to me, a person with powerful lungs, icy skin, frenzied energy, and an incredibly wet cough.


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Discussion

Coronavirus or Covid-19 should be tags. “That Guy from the Netherlands” (talk) 17:39, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Depending on how you count 2278, this series has been running continuously since 2275. So this is the 4th or 5th NCOV-2019 comic. The only problem is what should we name the tag? 172.68.211.34 18:37, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
"COVID-19" I'd say, for scientific accuracy.--GoldNinja (talk) 18:59, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I just added a Category:SARS-CoV-2 since Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 indicates that's the current official name. BTW, reCAPTCHA got very aggressive after I tagged the second page. I don't suppose there's a proper place to complain? 172.69.33.89 19:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I would use Category:COVID-19 instead. If I'm reading the Wikipedia articles correctly, SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, while COVID-19 is the disease. And "COVID-19" is actually in fairly common use in the media compared to SARS-CoV-2. --172.68.38.56 19:51, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I feel compelled to chime in here: SARS is by definition a syndrome defined by a symptom set, while COVID-19 is the designation given to this mutation of the virus itself. If Wikipedia has that backwards, somebody edited it wrong. Edit: I just looked & they're both a symptom set, so there really isn't a term in common use for the virus itself; Thanks, epidemiologists.
ProphetZarquon (talk) 12:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
That makes sense. But I'm not going thru that many reCAPTCHAs again. (I'm also not likely to make an account at this time, or to respond to further messages here. Sorry.) 172.68.46.179 20:24, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
You not creating account really doesn't make sense. Done. -- Hkmaly (talk) 23:20, 11 March 2020 (UTC)
I think Category:Corona virus would have been better. Since that is what everyone calls it and what it will be remembered as later. --Kynde (talk) 11:27, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
There are now many references to COVID-19 instead of Coronavirus. It seems to be replacing the former, socially speaking. 108.162.246.227 14:39, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
I would label it COVID-19, as that's the most common usage that's specific to this pandemic. Coronavirus is literally every cold, & SARS-CoV-2 (while accurate & more descriptive) is not a widely used term at this time.
ProphetZarquon (talk) 13:17, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Not every cold. Coronaviruses cause about 30% of colds. 173.245.54.183 00:45, 14 March 2020 (UTC)
Noted! #NotAllColds
ProphetZarquon (talk) 12:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Re. the title text, my reaction would be, "The medicine must not be working. I'd better take more." 172.68.38.120 18:38, 11 March 2020 (UTC)Pat

Again? I get that this pandemic is a big deal, but I was really hoping Randall would be a little more creative and come up with some other topics to talk about. Bischoff (talk) 14:35, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I have no clue if he's just jumping on the bandwagon to stay relevant or if he's legitimately extremely panicked over it. --Youforgotthisthing (talk) 19:49, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
@Youforgotthisthing: keep in mind that Randall's wife is a cancer survivor and most likely immunocompromised. I wouldn't blame him for being worried. Cellocgw (talk) 11:13, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Or for that matter if he, like most intelligent people, is dealing with what little danger there is by making fun of the people who are legitimately extremely panicked over it.172.68.174.128 20:01, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey, a hummingbird is only 80fps? That's nothing, people are now buying gaming monitors with 260 fps just because they claim they can see frame tear. Seebert (talk) 17:40, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Some tests (admittedly run by the companies which make hardware to enable gaming at 240+ fps) have shown benefits of high-refresh monitors in terms of snap reactions to sudden movement, but not the ability to perceive high-frequency cyclical phenomena. --NotaBene (talk) 21:14, 12 March 2020 (UTC)
Older cathode ray tube monitors running at 60Hz only appeared flicker-free because the phosphor-lit pixels faded gradually between frames. With the near instant on\off switching of LCD & LED monitors, 60Hz frame tearing can become quite noticeable (& 24fps looks downright "cinematic" in its flickering). For LCD, LED, & DLP displays, 75Hz is near the minimum for flicker-free perception, with many people still experiencing discomfort, eyestrain, headaches or nausea all the way up to 100Hz. Comparatively little content is produced at 100Hz, while traditional 29.97Hz & 60Hz content display relatively smoothly at 120Hz; in addition, most home 3D display systems rely upon alternating left-eye\right-eye opacity switching, so 240Hz has become a common standard display frequency (capable of displaying most common framerates without necessitating intensive frame-smoothing effects). For viewers with acute motion sensitivity, 240Hz displays & 120fps or higher content is a major benefit. Personally as a long-time video technician, I believe most low framerate video exhibiting noticeable frame-tearing is a result of sloppy mastering, as horizontal panning is notoriously well known to exacerbate this effect: Horizontal panning should either have frame-smoothing effects applied, or be rendered at >100Hz; anything else looks shoddy, or at best "retro".
ProphetZarquon (talk) 16:08, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Am I the only one reading Megan's reaction instead as being sarcastic about fitting that description most of the time, even when (relatively) well? I think it's not the first comic by Randall exploring being behind on the fitness/health curve relative to general population, so it felt like continuation of the theme. --162.158.91.131 12:10, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I was reading Megan's reaction as slyly trying to hit on Cueball. Especially with an expression like "wet cough." 172.68.90.64 14:21, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Whatever floats your goat man, but I doubt that any of her symptoms are considered sexy or otherwise desirable by most people. Especially since she seems to emphasise her incredibly wet cough. Bischoff (talk) 15:35, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Yep, there is a certain paucity of lung porn, especially as not many woman can hold their breath so long or have gills (needs citation) 162.158.93.3 13:56, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Did anyone else think that Megan might be simply sarcastic here, pointing out that the symptoms would be hard to distinguish as people often experience fatigue and dry cough as opposed to the strange-sounding wet cough, fervent energy, icy skin etc.? 162.158.238.4 23:46, 11 March 2023 (UTC)

EDIT: Just noticed a similar comment above, so there are more of us!

162.158.239.19 23:49, 11 March 2023 (UTC)