 What's going on you guys? Raif Derrazy here. So I'm definitely going to be going over a couple of things including what it means to be living with HIV and the inherent risks when it comes to the coronavirus. I also have a correction to make in my last video which was titled HIV medication cures COVID-19. I'll post a link up here. You can go ahead and watch that if you haven't seen it already. I made the mistake in referring to the name of the virus as COVID-19, which in fact COVID-19 is the name of the disease once you have acquired the virus. The name of the virus itself is SARS-CoV-2. The virus, SARS-CoV-2, the disease as a result of contracting the virus, COVID-19. Important distinction. Now that we got that out of the way, let's move on. So just to backtrack a little bit here, a few days ago I was feeling a little bit of like, you know, irritation in my throat and just this general feeling in this area that I know, I'm just acutely aware that that means that I'm starting to get sick. A lot of times people and even my doctor will say, oh, well, you know, if you're having sneezing or irritation in the throat and the sinuses, it could very well just be allergies. But for me, my personal experience growing up my entire life, there's a very, very distinct difference in feeling that I have when it's a viral or bacterial infection versus when it's allergies. And so I thought, oh great, you know, like here goes, we don't know what's going on. To be safe, maybe I should just, you know, keep myself at home, not go to the gym, which is, as you might have guessed, very difficult for me. It's that's part of my routine. It's part of my life. That's what I do every day. It's first thing I do in the morning and it gets me going. It makes me feel good and to have to give that up, I really had to like think about that and commit to doing it and understand that the importance of not going, especially if I don't know what's going on with my health is just really crucial, especially right now and that there are other things more important than my daily fix at the gym. So a few nights ago, I was feeling a little, I was sitting here at my desk on my Mac and I was feeling kind of like hot in my face. And feeling flush in general. And I thought, why don't I go just check my temperature? And sure enough, took my temperature and it was at 99.7. So immediately I was like, okay, an elevated temperature is a potential sign of having a flu. So I reached out to my doctor, I sent him a message, I just gave him a heads up, let him know. I immediately contacted anyone who I had plans to meet with in person, whether that was work related or personal, and I just canceled and I said, yo, I gotta just, you know, take extra precautions and stay home. The next day, I noticed that I started to have a light cough. So between the throat irritation and feeling like low energy and that one little moment of having elevated temperature and then this light cough, I was like, okay, I just really need to be careful here. And I didn't have groceries either. And I know it's been crazy at the grocery store. My agent Annette is amazing. She's a beautiful, lovely soul of a human being. And she insisted that I did not leave the house and offered to get me some groceries. So thank you Annette for doing that. She and her husband managed to get me, you know, a couple days worth of groceries to tie me over. While I hopefully can get some groceries delivered to me working on that, but we'll see if it actually comes through with, you know, how people are panicking at the grocery store right now. Today is Saturday and I'm, I woke up feeling like I have more energy. So I feel better in that sense. However, overall, I would say this still feels pretty much the same as it has. It's kind of just stable and plateaued. I had last night a temperature at one point of 99.1 or 99.2. But aside from that moment, it's been completely normal. So who knows if my forehead was just a little warm. I don't know, but it's been normal. Otherwise, and I don't have any other complications going on so far knock on wood. My doctor just said to keep an eye on it and to keep an eye on my temperature and to notify him if anything changes. He didn't tell me to come in. He didn't tell me to get tested. The reality is there aren't enough tests in the US to just test people like me. Most people that they're gonna test are gonna have, you know, fevers of above 100 for sure. And I want to talk about this a little bit because it's kind of confusing because people are saying, well, the symptoms of COVID-19 are flu-like symptoms. So you're gonna have like general cold symptoms like a cough and sore throat. And then you're also gonna have flu-like symptoms like fever and achiness and stuff like that. But then, you know, when I do mention, hey, I have a fever of 99. I had a fever of 99.7. I've had, you know, different medical professionals be like, well, you know, it's really gonna be fever over 100 that we're really concerned with. But the thing is, when they're talking about symptoms with COVID-19, they're saying it could be a full spectrum. You can have a really high temp fever and really extreme flu-like symptoms as far as pneumonia. Or you could have really mild cold symptoms or you could be asymptomatic, have no symptoms and just be a carrier of the virus. So I just think it's kind of illogical the way that we're going about this. And I think that tests should have been so much more emphasized and put so much more resources into making sure that there were tests, that the tests were reliable, and that they were available to everyone who was experiencing any kind of mild cold symptoms at all. Because of the fact that the spectrum of symptoms can be so wide and so, from so mild to so severe. So to tell someone like me who had a very light fever and cold symptoms that I am not really a priority to get tested is kind of silly. I mean, yes, my doctor did tell me to self-isolate, but I think if we're really trying to track this thing and do it in a systematic, logical way, it would be prudent to be able to test people like me as well, just to know, right? Anybody disagree with that? I think that's pretty reasonable. So anyway, that's a little bit of frustration at my part, but regardless, I'm isolating and I'm staying quarantined. Dukie, I hear you getting up. What you doing, babies? Hey, dead boy, you hear me talking on the camera so you got to come in a wrap, huh? Come here. Come say hi. Come say hi, bubba. Come say hi, babies. Hey, the good boy. Say hi. Dad, can I kiss you? Oh, you're a good boy. Mwah. You're a good boy. Dukie always has to, as I was saying, Dukie always has to make his little appearance. And I know you guys would be remiss if I didn't include him anyway, so there you go. Okay, so enough about the testing. Shabupi, Shabakal, Dabakal, moving on. Okay, so now I really want to get into the crux of this video, which is what it means to be living with HIV and to possibly encounter the coronavirus. And what does that mean as far as our risks and the dangers present to our health? My present understanding is that those of us who are living with HIV, who are on effective treatment and whose viral load is suppressed, meaning undetectable, and our CD4 count is in a healthy range, then we have no difference really... Oh my God. Okay, I'm laughing because we're doing great now. Then we have very little to no difference in risk or danger when it comes to COVID-19. So those of you who are worried, or if you have a loved one or someone that you care about who has HIV, don't automatically assume, oh my gosh, this person is immunocompromised. Therefore, we have to be on high alert and really, really, really safeguard this person because if they have HIV, they have to be on high alert. We have to really safeguard this person because if they were to get COVID-19, then all hell would break loose. For those of us who are on effective treatment or undetectable or healthy, that's not a concern. I mean, it is a concern as much as it is for any other healthy, normal person because our immune systems are not compromised at that point. However, I say this with one small caveat. I was diagnosed with AIDS, as many of you know, and I didn't actually learn until maybe less than a year ago that those people who are diagnosed with AIDS, typically your CD4 count will only rebound or go back to a normal state, normal healthy state by about 300 points, I would call it, I guess. When we measure CD4 count, it's the number of CD4 white blood cells per milliliter of blood. So that's the number that I'm referring to is how many of those white blood cells there are per milliliter of blood. A healthy range for any given person average would be 500 to 1500 of those CD4 white blood cells per milliliter of blood. That's normal, 500 to 1500. When I was diagnosed with AIDS, I had 169. Anything below 200 is considered AIDS. So I was well within the range of having AIDS and keeping in mind that on average, when someone has AIDS and then they go on effective treatment and their immune system rebounds, the CD4 count on average only goes up about 300. So for me, that would be if it were average 469. And the reality is a lot of time, my CD4 is in the 400. It's gone as high as I think eight out of three. And I think my last one was maybe 750, but it fluctuates all the time. And it tends to hover between the 400s, 500s on average for me. That's pretty much my expected range of CD4. And on that spectrum of 500 to 1500 as being normal, mine's relatively low regardless. Bearing that in mind, I do have some concern for myself that my body just doesn't have necessarily the same amount of vigor to fight something like COVID-19 as the average human being. But that is mostly related to my AIDS diagnosis and how that has permanently affected my immune system. But that isn't to say that in any comparison to someone who actually does have AIDS and who has CD4 counts lower than 400 and is in the less than 200 range, that's a completely different story. And those risks are way higher and way greater. And that's a very serious, very real threat. But that is to say, I do have some concern that I'm at a slightly more risk because of just how generally low my CD4 count is. And on another note, I wanted to point out something that I noticed in a CNN article today that this has created some difficulties for people living with HIV, some real difficulties because, for example, in Hubei province in China, Wuhan is within Hubei province. There are approximately 1.25 million people living with HIV in Hubei province alone. And then within Wuhan, there's about 20,000 people living with HIV. This is where novel coronavirus patients in serious condition get treated. But the people you see here are volunteers, risking their own health, trying to get medications for another group of patients, those living with HIV and AIDS. And so the government has initiated a lockdown in Hubei province, meaning people have to stay in their homes. And they're not allowed to leave their homes unless they're going to go to the grocery store, the market, things like go get medicine, stuff like that. And they can only go one at a time and they have to have express permission. Volunteers tell CNN the same strict policies make it tough for thousands of people with HIV and AIDS to get their meds. I don't know the exact situation, but I do know that for some reason in this area, if someone wants to leave and go get HIV medication, they're no longer able to do it in a private way, an anonymous way. And so a lot of these people living with HIV and there are a lot of people in this area are afraid to go out and get their HIV medication for fear that they will no longer be anonymous, that they will be outed for their HIV status, and that the stigma and that the judgment of the people in their community would have lasting negative consequences on their lives. So unfortunately, a lot of these people are opting to go without their HIV medication, which as you know, if you're not on proper HIV treatment, then the HIV will begin to replicate again and it will start to do its damage on your immune system and of course put you at greater risk if you were to actually come into contact with the coronavirus. So it's a really sad and really tough situation and they're doing the best that they can, but it just I believe it sheds light on the sensitivity and the importance of communities and of governments and officials to take into account the needs of people like those living with HIV and that because of the stigma, it's important to take into consideration privacy and anonymity and being able to get a hold of your medication in general. Now as I was talking about in my last video about a possible COVID-19 cure with the use of HIV medication Calitra, which is comprised of lopinavir and ritonavir, some HIV patients who have an excess amount of HIV medication are giving them up and collecting them to be dispersed amongst people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 in hopes that maybe it will help them be able to deal manage the with the disease and possibly help them to heal from it. Some with HIV outside of Hubei province were eager to help those diagnosed with coronavirus. Andy Lee is one of them. He called up other people with HIV to encourage them to donate what meds they could. Many people might think we are weak and we need help but that's just a stereotype. We are only virus carriers and we can also help others. There's no hard scientific evidence or facts at this point to prove that that is efficient or helpful, especially if it's just a general HIV medication. There's plenty of different medications out there and the one that's specifically being tested in clinical trials is Calitra. There's nothing to be said about other HIV medications whether they have any effect at all but just the very fact that those people who have been stigmatized and marginalized and made to feel ostracized and unimportant in society are so beautifully turning around and being able to relate their humanity to a group of people who are being diagnosed with COVID-19 and who are now being isolated in quarantine and estranged and stigmatized in a way and giving up their life-saving medication, the extra, the excess that they have on hand in order to maybe possibly help those people. I just think that's such a touching and beautiful development and just faith restoring so I think that's really cool and wanted to share that with you all. Anyway, so HIV and risks aside when it comes to coronavirus I think most people are going to be okay even if they get COVID-19 but I think the important thing to remember is that as a community we are helping to create herd immunity for those who are immune suppressed, for those who are elderly and have fragile immune systems and for those who are really young and who are maybe too young to have vaccinations, too young to be taking medications and drugs and the like and it's our responsibility as a community to make sure that we safeguard our health not just for our own sakes but to protect the people amongst us who are immune compromised or sensitive to viruses and disease. That's how we protect them is we keep ourselves healthy so isolation and self-quarantining is is so important for many reasons those included. Guys stick around I hope you like this video please like it if you did subscribe to this channel if you haven't already I'm going to be continuing this conversation I think it's an important one and it's really interesting how this whole pandemic and situation is running parallel to those of us living with HIV and our struggle and how it's kind of shedding light on those things and starting conversations about even bringing up AIDS epidemic in the 80s is really astounding and interesting and something that I want to touch on with you guys more. Stay tuned I'm not going anywhere I will also keep you updated on my health as well and I'll talk to you guys soon. Alright peace.