Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

Question about testing strategy: I understand that there are strong advocates for full testing, all people in high risk areas should be tested weekly, regardless of symptoms, etc. They've started rolling out testing in our area for free though whether or not they will actually test you without symptoms seems to not be settled. The advocates for full testing seem to all be...well, health professionals, and epidemiologists, etc... but I'm not hearing that from the city, the state (California), or the federal government (no surprise there) or the CDC. So while there may be non health officials stating this is what we should do....should I bother doing it? I mean, absent an organized strategy around this, I see no point in testing myself weekly when I have no symptoms, am rarely in close quarters with anyone outside my family, etc.

does not seem like a good use of their resources or your time and effort, pending that organized strategy

Health professionals and epidemiologists know that having the fullest, most complete data about who is infected and who they have been in contact with will provide them with the best chance of containing the virus and stopping its transmission. theoretically, with enough testing and a strict quarantine effort, pursued on a nationwide basis, they could throttle new cases down to a trickle and throw a cordon around any new hot spots that emerge. compared to voluntary efforts, this would be much more effective and would allow a 'reopening' of society with the fewest restrictions on large gatherings, while keeping deaths to a minimum. This is textbook stuff for them.

Watching how this has played out so far, politically and practically, no such thing will happen in the USA.

so this morning, I find out my checking account is compromised. not my debit/credit card - an actual ACH charge I didn't recognize, with someone else's name in the identification field. It was only $20, but I spent the entire morning having a hold placed on the account, then opening a new checking account with the same bank, turning off my monthly debits for the old account, and setting up brand new ones for the new (since we're nearing the first of the month).

as I'm wrapping this up, the same friend whose kids I talked about up-thread started bringing up some COVID developments in FL. Now, this is a dude who just 3 weeks ago, was taking COVID seriously...was minimizing visits outside of the house, doing Zoom band meetings, even told me I shouldn't go on the flight I had in March. so imagine my shock today when I realize he's basically swallowed the conspiracists' line. Only immunocompromised should wear masks! Mandating masks is stupid! The death toll has been inflated due to them counting all deaths as COVID-19.

It was shocking. Just two weeks ago we had a lucid convo on this. And then I find out - he was influenced by Elon Musk.

so he begins by saying "let me guess, you hate Elon Musk?" and I answered honestly that yes, I didn't care for him, and he laughed and said "man I find it hilarious how liberal you are" (as if Elon Musk was some alt-right guy that wasn't well-liked amongst many liberal folks as far as back as a year ago), and then tells me if it's between me and Elon Musk, he's going to take Musk's word over mine (as if having a BS in Physics makes one an expert virologist). once he started ad homming me, I lost any desire to be nice and I tore him apart. he couldn't provide any sources for his claims, and I sprinkled him with data to interrupt his attempts at gish-gallop, and he finally gave up.

Now, best friends will argue and argue hard, sure. and yes, this is a dude I've known 15 years, went to his bachelor party, went to his wedding, held both of his kids the week they were born, watched both grow up. I house-sit his dog 3-4 times a year. We consider each other family.

and yet the last two years, he's started emotionally bullying me at times. he will lecture me about the political stuff I post on social media, condescendingly telling me I shouldn't care so much about this stuff, and that it's alienating people and that I'm narrow-minded. Even though he unfollows me frequently (which I am fine with), he'll still tell me I need to change my behavior, with concern trolling language like "I'm trying to look out for you as a friend", after which I point out he's literally the ONLY person complaining about my behavior. He'll dump his problems on me on Lync at work, then if I bother to talk about myself, he'll complain that I "only talk about myself". He cancelled plans with me one Sunday, so I made plans with another friend, and when I arrived at the bar we were going to, demanded I come over and hang with him, and when I wouldn't ditch my other friend, lit me up with this two paragraph essay about how I wasn't holding up my end of the friendship (to which I aggressively responded "YOU CANCELLED OUR PLANS, ASSHOLE"). and then there was last week's tirade against me for criticizing the score of people who weren't wearing masks, telling me in private I was an angry person and that I needed to start trying CBD oil and that I thought I was better than everybody etc etc.

I'm not perfect myself or anywhere near it, but I've never done anything like this to him - he and I are different in many regards and I let him be. I give advice when I'm asked for it but that's it. Each time one of these blowups happens, I blow my stack at him, don't talk to him for a few days, but....today convinced me that I'm going to have to deliver him an ultimatum that he can ignore the shit I write if he wants, but he doesn't get to try to change who the fuck I am.

idk where any of this has come from. he's not even a conservative, he hates Trump. and prior to two years ago, yeah, we had arguments like any friends did, but he wasn't constantly trying to tell me how to live (though this is because he WASN'T ON SOCIAL MEDIA).

five minutes later, I post online that there are 76k excess deaths over the last 7 weeks and ask rhetorically what could be causing this if not for COVID, only to have an old friend who is a lawyer and very liberal/smart suddenly start spouting the conspiracist's line that it's just flu/pneumonia (even though pneumonia's increase is correlated with COVID-19 cases, and flu can't cause excess deaths cos flu is baked into the death forecasts). People who I used to respect are just weakening and falling for this shit en masse.

so I know I can't quit social media due to my weird addiction to it, but am going to cut back my usage and stop posting COVID stuff because 99% of the people on my feed reading it already agree with me and the other 1% are annoying people I don't want to talk to and will probably defriend.

tl;dr exhausted by COVID.

ime stress and Being In A Bad Place can really ramp up the conspiracy engine in people you'd previously thought brain-worm-free. Sometimes it goes away, like a dream or a bout of eczema.

I'm sorry to hear that, Neanderthal - I think about quitting social media a lot these days, but even just cutting back sounds like a good idea.

<3 Neanderthal

And I second Andrew's suggestion; social media is a psychological blight on the best of days.

i'm going to visit my friend on Friday (the one diagnosed with Stage 4 colon cancer), another 'social distance' party. that should help.

also have officially discussed with my mother that I'm returning to my home after next week, but will make daily visits to check on them, and stay close to my phone for emergencies. mom actually wants me to go back sooner cos she feels bad, but I think it's too soon.

dad was discharged from physical therapy and home health care today! :)

he also snuck to the bathroom on his own when a scheduling snafu with my mom left him alone for 5-10 minutes. he grinned like he was a cat who ate the canary when mom incredulously asked why his walker wasn't where she left it :)

So apparently one of my co-workers - though I haven't worked in the same department as him in a long time - has died. No indication of the cause yet, so maybe I shouldn't be jumping to conclusions, but he was fine before all this started, as far as I'm aware. He did suffer pretty badly from arthritis, that's all I know about any underlying health issues, he was probably late 50s? I expect I'll find out more over the next few days. Everyone is a bit shocked.

― Is Lou Reed a Good Singer? (Tom D.), Tuesday, 19 May 2020 19:29 (one week ago) bookmarkflaglink

Confimed. Died of a Covid-19 related illness on May 14th. He'd worked for the organization for 43 years, so probably straight from school. I hadn't realized that people with (rheumatoid) arthritis might be in more danger of developing severe symptoms.

so sorry to hear that Tom, I hope you and your colleagues are alright through this

Didn't really know the guy that well, he just came into work, did his job, kept his head down, didn't get involved in any of the usual work-related nonsense, then went home at the end of the day. And did that for 43 years, I assume.

Hugs, Tom and Neanderthal.

yeah, we had a coworker die last week as well (not someone I worked closely with, he was desktop support though and I did use to see him daily in the kitchen). weirdly aside from an email from his manager, not a single person I work with has mentioned it; but water cooler talk isn't really happening because we use MS Teams which everyone hates.

.

is being outside in the heat for 5 minutes or more while simultaneously wearing a face-hugging facemask likely to temporarily inflate your temp?

my dad went to get bloodwork done today, and they refused to take it as his temp (taken 5 times in 10 minutes) was between 99-100, though it kept going down. after they left, two of the nurses followed my father out and said they'd be willing to see him after their lunch, but it was lunchtime and my mother was already flustered so she said they'd come back another day.

but he's taken his temp at home three times since then, and it's been normal each time, between 97.2 - 98.3. and I know a few times I've taken my temp after wearing a mask for hours, I've been in the upper 99s and it's come down.

just seems weird. obviously if he has a fever, we want to get him another COVID test (he was negative previously), but it doesn't...seem like he does? he coughs, but he was doing that even before his first COVID test, and usually after he eats or drinks, rather than randomly.

normal ranges vary and are dynamic over a day's time and subject to obvious influences like exertion and eating. i don't think any doctor or nurse i've spoken to in the past few months has been impressed by a temp under 100.

i've been watching my temp closely and it most certainly goes up after i leave the house to run errands.

k. thanks

wish I had been there, my mom has a tendency to get confused as to what people are telling her when she gets stressed. she got home and was barking at my dad and I saw my dad mentally shutting down so I had to take over for a bit.

still, glad both of us are on antidepressants. we stay *relatively* calm. if this was 2009, dad would be dealing with both of us shrieking.

i think doctor's visits are extra stressful right now. and staff are generally on high alert so they monitor the need to provide services very assertively/defensively. it can be overwhelming (on the patient end).

makes sense

anecdotal of course but I swear to god it's at the point where 50% of the people I encounter when I have to go outside have no masks whatsoever. no pattern to either the people wearing or not wearing them, just SO MANY

Outside outside or outside inside? I see very few people wearing masks outdoors here, but anywhere between 50-60% at the store, which is a decent enough range, I suppose, given that mask-wearing is not enforced in any way, shape or form by governments local and/or provincial despite Montreal being the hardest hit city in Canada by far.

I generally don't wear a mask walking around my suburban neighborhood, but I also try to give other people a very wide berth as much as possible.

i just throw grenades at passersby

outside outside (it's also impossible to give people a wide berth even if they're not taking up the whole sidewalk)

If it's impossible, that's perhaps a different story

the one nice thing about where I moved is that I could go for a run from my house (which basically is on a dead end street), and run a mile up the street and back, and most times of day, i'd run into two other people. very elder community

I only received the masks I'd ordered last week. wore it to the supermarket and saw perhaps 2-3 others doing likewise but there was hardly anyone in the shop. some staff were wearing the plastic visors. I still think, where I am, getting a mask needs a fair bit of knowledge/ research/ inclination.

A lot of people seem to think lockdown is over in all but name here anyway, stupid fucking govt.

Dunno if this makes more sense here or on the UK pols thread, but: really feels like everything's going slowly back to normal now, not because the danger has passed but just through a combination of apathy, lack of govt support/active govt encouragement to get back to normal plus the Cummings thing. Number of people wearing masks actually seems to be going down in my neighbourhood. It's disturbing, not only because it's clear there'll be a death toll to pay for it but also because it just feels like the people around me are just living in a reality separate from my own?

I don't know why you're surprised about that. If you are surprised.

Also (as per the other thread) the proposed end of Clap for Carers has an air of "well, that's over with at least, on to the next stage"

the nice weather is a big factor too. there's less risk outside, people want to go outside, therefore we all notice more people milling about, few wearing masks, because except in certain situations what's really the point of wearing a mask outside.

for that i say..... thank fuck!!

ridership on public transport is still 10% of normal from what i can tell. restaurants aren't open, cinemas aren't open, pubs aren't open etc. far from normal!

sad!

Tom, I don't know about surprised. Sad, unsure how to navigate it and when to start returning to my "normal" life myself.

Tracer, yes but it does feel like the stage is being rapidly set for restaurants, cinemas and pubs to reopen too, and it's really hard for me to put any trust in the idea the govt will hold off on that until it's quote-unquote safe.

I don't begrudge people the nice weather and hate the "people at the parK!!!" scold posts as much as anyone. It's just kinda disorientating.

yes, agree w that

This past week I decided to return to normal life which included going to QuikTrip in the morning to get breakfast and caffeine. I regret not having those things at home (I will next week) because only 20% of the morning customers (blue collar types) are wearing masks.

They probably won't, things have been reopening here, and lots of people are clearly still being cautious, but new case counts are spiking up again. Everyone is way too impatient.

xp

I read two more articles this morning, one on the NY Times, that a lot of businesses are going to institute "no public transportation" rules when they reopen and I just... I'm having trouble wrapping my head around how this is going to play out. I absolutely understand, from a virus transmission point of view, why this is on the table, but the implications are horrifying. Besides the most obvious problem of this completely fucking over millions of people who don't own cars and discriminating against the poor, that kind of traffic increase is going to absolutely cripple a lot of cities, not to mention the immeasurable impacts on the climate. Just, seems like this is being tossed out without a care about what such a rule actually means.

really feels like everything's going slowly back to normal now

Same here in Quebec despite the fact that our figures have scarcely improved. 80 deaths a day on average (almost all of them in Montreal) with no end in sight is absolutely nothing to be proud of, yet we're in full-on denial mode ('sumer is icumen in'). So Britain is sadly (well, you know what I mean) unexceptional in that regard.

My wife works for a (big) company, and her sense is that no matter what happens they will not ask people to return to the office unless or until there is a vaccine.

Also locally, by the way, I have heard horror stories about the state of the trains.

I heard this story on NPR yesterday or so, btw:

https://www.npr.org/2020/05/27/863422745/new-data-shows-the-coronavirus-is-less-lethal-than-first-thought

Yeah, thankfully my work says we are still a long, long way from being back in the office, although my role means I will have no choice but to be in from time to time (been about once a week for the past month).

My wife also has fully adapted to WFH and likes it, which was a surprise. She notes that one big plus is that meetings now start and end on time. One drawback is she doesn't have time on the train to read. But another related plus is that she is "home" from work an hour earlier each day, and gets to wake up for work an hour later.

I wish that were closer to my experience. I've found my commuting savings, as little as they already were, have been completely obliterated by longer hours. I'm working far longer than I ever had before. And meetings? Someone my work has even managed to perfect the art of dragging Zoom meetings on half an hour to an hour longer than scheduled.

that's inexcusable.

a slightly pass-agg way of dealing with that: you could try asking for the invite to be changed to reflect the meeting length, to make it easier for everyone to manage their diaries

It's been an ongoing problem that we bring up again and again, but we have two or three people that just love the sound of their own voices and can't stop talking, endlessly, needlessly. We have these biweekly department meetings that have about 30 minutes of actually good and valid info exchange but are scheduled for an hour and a half and routinely stretch well over two hours.

Calls need a moderator who is willing to cut ramblers short and keep things on track

that's Robert & his Rules

Get an airhorn and blare it anytime someone goes past the one minute mark of talking

we had one the other day that lasted two hours and the one lady who is ALWAYS shaming people for having their microphones on while someone else is talking left hers on the entire time
smh

agree about moderator. whoever’s meeting it “is” needs to periodically pipe up with “okay - we only have (x) minutes left - mary, can you take us through (y)?”