Post-Flight Illness Action?

Back in Taiwan yesterday. I have only been in Turkey and Scotland (both low-risk areas for the novelty exploding cigar virus) but feel a bit unwell. Vomiting, cough, general malaise.

I vomited twice just before flying. This is unusual for me (can’t recall it happening in the last 30 years) and I attributed it to over-eating of fatty food (including fried shrimps) in a Spanish style restaurant that lunchtime.

On the second Istanbul - Taipei flight I developed a bit of a cough and put on a surgical mask.

I was pulled out of the line on arrival in Taiwan, for an ear temperature check, which was normal. I don’t know if this was random or a result of IR camera scan.

The cough is worse this morning (though musty air quality in my long-closed room may have aggravated it overnight) and I feel a bit unwell and nauseous, though I havn’t vomited again. Unfortunately I don’t have a clinical thermometer so can’t check my temperature.

Guess I have a bit of a cold, or maybe (gastric?) flu, the latter suggested by the throwing up, though I still think this is most likely to be due to overeating of greasy food.

I suppose I should probably report this as a precaution, (though reluctant to submit to half-assed Taiwan quarantine) but am not sure how to proceed.

Taiwan CDC advice online seems to be to seek medical treatment. This contrasts sharply with UK advice, which is NOT to visit a doctor (presumably to limit cross-infection), but to phone a dedicated hotline.

Is the advice available in Chinese any better/more specific?

Have you tried eating snails?

Since you fell ill prior to flying and haven’t been to any high risk countries, it’s almost certainly just a standard bug. Pop by your local clinic and see what the doc says.

There’s a cigar virus now? One more thing to worry about after the crazy flu and that corona thing.

Hey, Ed. Long time no see. You know your body. Just see your local doc and get some relief/typical over-medication. If there’s any issue needing reporting, your doc will see to that.

Bear in mind:

  1. Half-arsed is a generous description of the self-quarantee protocol, but I would try to follow it in the absence of a full-arsed option.
  2. Wear a mask at all times when in public, to be overly cautious and avoid the scorn of the locals.

Consistent with the coughing and vomit symptoms.

Ring 1922 and ask their advice. Regret having bothered to try and then go to your local clinic, they probably won’t let you in if they hear you were on one of those new fangled airplanes so go to a hospital ER instead. Will be a monumental PITA for you however that is how the idiots that be have decided things should be done.

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I was going to make a “Press F for respect” joke with @Ducked, but I think this is more serious…

I really recommend you to visit your closest clinic for a health check.
Better safe that sorry, man!

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If I was you:

  1. Yes, call 1922. Try to recall if you were in contact with any Asian folk. Be honest and follow their advice.

  2. If you really over indulged with fatty food and already have liver problems, my bet would be:

https://www.cedars-sinai.org/health-library/diseases-and-conditions/g/gallstone-pancreatitis.html

If it was an infection or the new virus, you’d be in the smallest room in the house way too frequently and uncomfortably.

Anyways, monitor your health, try not to self medicate as it would cover important symptoms. Hope you get well soon.

I’ve read somewhere that diarrhea is a minority (less than 10% of cases) characteristic of the novelty virus, associated with higher levels of infectivity, so its abscence wouldn’t exclude this infection.

Very unlikely I’ve got it though.

I did have the trots pretty bad in Turkey (dodgy kebab?) but thats about three weeks ago

Re gallstone pancreaitis, lack of pain seems to make this less likely.

Sounds like a bout of food poisoning to me.

Could be, though GF had (less of) the same stuff and she’s OK.

I suppose it only takes one bad shrimp with your name on it though.

How are you feeling today?

Probiotics may help you feel better. Wakamoto?

Wouldn’t say no, though I already have enough broken Japanese-ish motorcycles.

There’s a yoghurt drink called, IIRC, Aryan, that I used a lot in Turkey, which may have had a stomch-settling effect, plus I liked it, but of course not available here.

Currently I think I just have a cold. Vomiting was 4-5 days ago and might have just been overeating. I have 2 main excuses for that.

(a) Its the GF’s fault.

She over-orders and then goes all dainty and I have to eat up the surplus.

(First time I said “Your eyes are bigger than your belly” she took it as a nice compliment.

Hee hee. Love that Lost In Translation thing.)

(b) Its the Damn War.

If you are old enough to have British (Scottish and Yorkshire in my case) parents who themselves grew up during/just after WW2, chances are you grew up not leaving food on your plate unless you wanted a clip round the earole.

I’d expect this would apply with equal or greater force around Europe. Maybe not in Switzerland.

History is on my side.

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Inside TAINAN’s PLAGUE HOSPITAL!

HARROWING SCENE!!

Well, I “sought medical attention” per the CDC advice.

Was against my better judgement, because:
(a) You don’t go to the doctors with a cold, (which is what I thought I had) unless you are Taiwanese.

(b) Taiwans health service has some very good features, BUT experience means I wouldn’t necessarily trust them to diagnose, say, GSW if presented with Butch Cassidy (recently deceased), several smoking guns, and shown the final scene from Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid as a hint (Fuego!).

However, I had the first in a probably final and fatal series of Why Do You Want To Change Your Grades? meetings on Monday, and they seemed to want the reassurance.

Might have been fun to shout “If I go you all go with me” and cough. Impolitely. But I resisted the temptation/chickened out.

Had to be A+E at NCKU hospital on Sunday.

They’ve upped security some. Only one entrance operating, with a couple of people wearing what looked like disposable 7-11 yellow plastic raincoats but were probably low-risk biohazard gear shouting at you to walk past the IR camera and not go in the exit.

(I hope they don’t keep the security up beyond this crisis, since the canteen is a good place to work, with free wifi, though I probably won’t need that again)

Cheapo-masked reception team then stamps your hand. Told them I was off a plane with a cough and they tagged me and scooted me through to a better-masked team that asked me the obvious questions and took my ear temp.

Short wait to see a doctor. Obvious questions, throat examination, chest sounding. No diagnosis or advice given but no blood test, so novelty exploding cigar virus obviously ruled out.

Everyone was masked up but taking my healthcard bare-handed (when they still thought I might be a threat) seems a bit of a loophole.

Lots of unecessary drugs prescribed, as per usual, which I probably wont take, as per usual, and that was it.

Oh, except for the HARROWING SCENE, which was paying.

800NT!

I’'d guess that might be a punitive/deterrent charge for going to A+E, which I suppose is understandable. Maybe if the shock had actually given me cardiac arrest I could have got a discount.

They had some vagualy military looking tents in the carpark. Nothing NBC-stylee fancy, just mess-tent type things, which didn’t seem to be in use. I’d guess they are for immediate action isolation of real suspects in the open air, so they dont get airbourne infection in the hospital.

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Glad you hear it all went fine!
But 800NT, even with insurance? That’s expensive. Where they charging for the meds or something else?

800NT

Price signal for all the hypochondriacs…

There would be no difference gloved or not gloved. Either way they are still touching something that was in your possession and then touching other things.

Gloves don’t magically repel the virus. That’s why when you go to see your doctor they almost always disinfect their hands before touching you and then disinfect again when they are done.

If wearing gloves, the proper way would be to dispose of the gloves after each and every patient. What a massive waste!

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Glad to hear everything is carrying on as normal and was a monumental PITA as predicted.

CDC was on the news last night asking people to stop coming to hospital ER’s asking to be tested for THE PLAGUE as they probably didn’t have it and the test capacity was full anyway. Given that genuinely suspect cases are being sent home for 3 days to wait for the result of their tests I assume that hospital isolation rooms are already full.

If the plague does take off, and I see nothing in Taiwan to prevent it doing so, we are in for a very rough ride ~ not due to THE PLAGUE but due to the mania that will infect the local populace.

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You get charged a premium to discourage you from visiting the ER instead of making a normal doctors appointment and getting a referral to the hospital if necessary. The fact that 1922’s instruction to go to an ER should be taken as a referral and the premium not applied doesn’t seem to count.

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Well, they weren’t doing that. Given that there was a queue, infection of the queue via healthcards would seem an ironic possibility with some agents.