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

And just like that, however many months down the line it's been, my wife and I now each have an acquaintance with covid, each a very different situation. Her friend was feeling under the weather, kind of like a cold though I guess annoying enough to get tested. She came up positive, and so did her youngest. Because she had been behaving as carefully as could be, she assumes she got it from her child, who must have got it from daycare/pre-school (no one else in the family tested positive). Right now they are locked up in an Air BnB, bouncing off the walls while they wait it out.

My friend had a much more serious case that begin relatively mild but soon sent her to the hospital, perhaps relating to a pre-existing heart condition. She's a newspaper columnist, and recently posted this (repeat emphasis on "this is not the flu" I assume is for the benefit of any dubious readers who follow her):

I took a turn for the worse midweek, COVID-wise, and ended up in the hospital. If all goes as planned, I should be leaving later today. It’s been a crazy stay: Two EKGs, an echocardiogram, a CT scan, an MRI, blood thinner shots, a lumbar puncture to check for white blood cells and protein in my spinal fluid, blah, blah, blah. They found some injury to my heart.

One of the doctors (a COVID survivor) told me “COVID goes where your blood vessels go.” (Which is to say, everywhere.) It’s not the flu.

Again, I’m so lucky. I’m getting phenomenal medical care. I have insurance to help me pay for it. I get to go home. X and my kids and our friends and family are being so incredibly supportive and wonderful. Y and I have been pretending I’m at a really disappointing resort and texting each other yelp reviews.

But also again, it’s not the flu.

Thank you so much for all of your kindness and well wishes. It has meant so much to me. I’m not sure I can even process yet how truly healing it has been to hear from so many of you.
I’m going to take some time to take care of my heart. Might be a little while before I’m up and at ‘em again.

“COVID goes where your blood vessels go.”

This, because the receptor the virus uses to enter a host cell are one of the most common receptors around, the disease seems like it can enter and affect almost any part of your body.

one of the guys who's been working on a project in part of my house for weeks (masked, separated, very careful on contact and washing) now has covid. he's a bit immunocompromised. and a super kind dude, i'm worried about him.

I’m starting to become unhealthily obsessed with non mask-wearers in this country... it’s upsetting me. I just can’t get over it.

and people who can’t resist eating out... wtf

I’m sorry. I’m generally a very optimistic person & have fought to keep positive these last few months. But today is hard. We are heading into a massive Covid spike & the people who are supposed to protect us are doing nothing & blaming us for being concerned.

— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) October 25, 2020

That whole thread really sums up where we are with shit leadership.

What I can't figure out is people who can't resist eating out ... at just generic Greek diners or whatever. Like, how badly do you need that?

yesterday I had to listen to a conversation between two people who were claiming it's all a conspiracy theory, "it's 1984 on steroids" and openly admitting that they had got themselves false mask exemptions because they didn't believe it was real. Fuck these people.

I feel you, brimstead. I was out and about in my building for maybe a sum total of five minutes yesterday and encountered about seven people (almost literally running into two of them as we simultaneously opened the stairwell door) and not one of them was wearing a mask. I'm finding it more difficult to be pleasant the more I encounter this shit. We aren't outside, this is a building where 100+ people live, a number of whom are older and/or infirm, you selfish fucks.

I’m really struggling today, it’s hard to feel anything but hopeless between the surging numbers, the administration admitting publicly that they’ve just given up and our state’s health official breaking down in tears during a recent briefing because the numbers are so bleak. I feel like we are so doomed and I’m having a hard time finding a glimmer of hope to focus on.

My Chicago-adjacent town has thus far managed to keep the daily cases in the single and low double digits but we broke our record along with the rest of the state yesterday. Given how cavalier an increasing majority of people are behaving, it's just a matter of when at this point.

Looking at the past month's trends, the next five or six months are going to be very grim.

yes. :( most of the time i feel angry about it, to be honest, not sad. probably because i haven't lost anyone close to me, yet. but the last week, as others here (and elsewhere) seem to be noting, it just feels worse. it is grim. for a lot of people (particularly those with seasonal affective disorder), the leaves turning and falling and the gray skies reinforces the feeling.

i don't know. hold on for dear life, i guess.

Like, how badly do you need that?

I live alone and I gotta say, I need that kind of diner moment having breakfast with a friend on some random Saturday very badly. Seven months of spending 2-3 weeks at a stretch not seeing anyone at all in person is breaking my brain. I can believe that beyond some threshold of loneliness that going to a diner with a couple friends is like jumping out of a high window when the building's on fire... your body simply does it without asking your brain first.

In San Francisco we're just starting to get back to some form of "normalcy". Places are reopening, restrictions are being lifted, my work is ramping up on site and I'm making a full paycheck again for the first time in months. For a few days I let myself get optimistic that we'd turned a corner and I might get to hug friends and family again within the next year but it's pretty hard to imagine the spikes all over the rest of the country not making their way to us, especially the way I see people getting more and more cavalier about mask use and social distancing.

The fact that we are no better positioned, at all, than we were in March is what stings the most. Did I think we’d have a vaccine or be back to normal by November? No. But I did think we be much better positioned than everyone standing around essentially saying, “well... fuck, I dunno.”

I’m starting to become unhealthily obsessed with non mask-wearers in this country... it’s upsetting me. I just can’t get over it.

― brimstead

yeah, honestly 90% of my anger is directed at regular people because i never had any reason to believe that trump would do anything useful, and with him at the top there wasn't a lot of reason to expect much out of other political leadership. regular people at least have some things they have control over to protect themselves and others, but so many of them just can't be bothered. every time i have to walk by a crowded break room at work or maskless yuppies in the lobby of my apartment building it's like, clearly i can't trust any of you.

we just set a new record for daily case increases, in a couple days the asshole is coming for a rally, then the two big state universities (both with significant recent student case numbers) are playing football here on halloween which for added bonus is time change night so one extra hour of partying (at least this is how we used to treat it, not sure about kids these days). plus rumour has it that lots of students aren't bothering to even get tested anymore so they won't have to hassle with contact tracing and are perfecting ways route around the local anti-gathering ordinances

i imagine it's going to be really shitty in the next month

To be honest, all of this feels like a version of the Onion school shooting article, "'No Way to Prevent This' Says Only Nation..."
etc.

Weird experience just now. I called up Walgreens to get a prescription refilled, but before I got to that point the automated voice announced (and I paraphrase, but this is very close) "we at Walgreens are pleased to announce that we are one of two approved locations to get your Covid-19 vaccine. Be aware that at this time there *is* no Covid-19 vaccine, but we will keep you informed of when one becomes available." I thought that was so strange. One of two? What's the other one? Are there places preapproved to give the vaccine (that doesn't exist)? Is this a thing? If so, why only two, why not a lot more? And why even announce that you will have a vaccine that doesn't exist available if and when it ever exists?

probably means there are two approved *right now*. there will be more.

we don't have any vaccines yet, but have a Snickers!

CVS and Walgreens apparently:
https://www.hhs.gov/about/news/2020/10/16/trump-aministration-partners-cvs-walgreens-provide-covid-19-vaccine-protect-vulnerable-americans-long-term-care-facilities-nationwide.html

most 2021 image will be a pic of a Walgreens coupon for COVID-19 vaccine plus 1lb bag of Starburst for $29.99

guess someone in the administration work with aetna, legally or otherwise

*works

i am correct that aetna owns cvs, or cvs owns aetna, or whatever? they're all fucking rich

guessing someone wants to make it sound like a vaccine is imminent before the election

shouldn't be hardees be distributing these as well, as an apology note to Andrew Puzder?

I just found it weird that it said one of two. Why not say they're "*one* of the approved locations?" Because yeah, there will be more, just as, uh, there will eventually be a vaccine. So why assert something temporary but irrelevant - one of two places you can get something that doesn't exist - when by the time it *does* exist it will be instantly transformed into "one of many places you can get something that *does* exist." Which, yeah, is as useless as proclaiming "we have Snickers!!!!"

Pick up your 2021 Travis $cott Value Meal, now with COVID vaccine!

how many people would be hospitalized for eating the needles

~ 10%?

"fuckin vaccine didn't work, i still went to the hospital"

ugh, my partner just tested positive. she had just gone out of town for a family emergency. i last saw her on wednesday morning, she took the test wednesday evening, and got the test result this morning. i'll be going to get my first test today, i guess.

i have about 4 hours until she gets back. one share a small one-bathroom apartment, but we do have a side-room that we use as an office. So I think she'll set up shop in there, I'll stay in the back, and we'll try to be as safe as we can with sharing the bathrooms.

sorry to hear that Karl.

my wife has been sick since Monday the 19th, she took a test on Sunday and it came back negative but it does really feel like it is COVID. she has a smorgasbord of the symptoms that have been reported in the media - headache, fever, aches, fatigued almost all the time, dry cough, sore throat, stomach problems, altered sense of taste, getting out of breath when walking (when she was still leaving the apartment last week) - and will feel better for a spell of like half a day before feeling worse that evening, or when she wakes up in the morning. I haven't been ill.

Aw, jeez, Karl. Best of luck to both of you.

:(, i'm sorry to hear that. one frustrating thing, in this first 30 minute or so of knowing, is that multiple people at work have expressed the thought that she'll be fine because she is young. also that after informing them of the situation, i was given more tasks to finish for today.

thinking of you Karl and jim.

i’m sure they think they’re being reassuring KM.

yeah, i don't blame them or anything, i know they're thinking positive things.

but yeah, it feels a little like playing roulette where 30% of the tiles are bad and 1% kills you, and everyone's like "you'll be fine, look at the 70% that's no big deal"

Crap, all manner of good thoughts to the Malones

Best to you both, KM and Jim <3

sorry to hear zs. she is asymptomatic?

best to your wife as well Jim

so far asymptomatic, yes

sorry to hear Jim and Karl, hope it turns out OK

yeah all the best karl and jim, hang in there

Sending good thoughts to you both KM and jim.

best wishes jim and karl

Good thoughts your way, Jim and Karl

best to y'all <3