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

Thankyouforyourservice forks

I've registered with NJ to be put on the list for a vaccine. I'll be ahead of some others 'cause of being diabetic, but behind plenty of health care workers and old fucks. I'll probably be shot up by June.

I think our village/town has a similar medical reserves system up in place, can't remember if I signed up or not weeks ago. Maybe? I have lots of friends that have conveyed stories of their parents managing to get shots through Byzantine means. A couple of my friends apparently have leads themselves, but to their credit don't feel ethically comfortable cutting the line. One of them does have three kids, though, one with asthma (I assume a priority group), one who is about to turn 16, and a 10-year old. He's worried that we'll hit a point where everyone in his family will be eligible for an available vaccine *except* his two youngest, which would put them all in an awkward position, with 3/5 of them vaccinated but two of them (one more vulnerable) literally unable to get the shot.

I do know that supposedly 500 teachers got their first doses at our high school yesterday, so things are moving along. Also, been watching the Washington Post's vaccine counter, and it's been creeping up a percent or so every day or so, which is encouraging. Right now it says 37.4 million first doses have been given, which is 11.3% of the population, and 30.7% of the prioritized population, so as long as those numbers keep ticking up I'm feeling positive.

My parents got their first doses in MI! I didn't get the whole story but it seems like ppl just registered themselves online and then were contacted with an appt? I'll ask her. Not like in NY where ppl have been refreshing sites for a week for available appts, apparently.

A local mutual aid group was told by the county that public-facing food pantry workers qualified for doses, so it felt really good to tell our volunteers & people who have been staffing food distribution for a year that they were recognized & protected. I do my volunteering remotely from home so I didn't even try.

The food pantry where I volunteer has all been vaccinated, but just the staff. They haven't let regular volunteers do any public-facing work/home delivery/etc. for months, though.

great news io!!

The Seoul government said it had found its first case of covid-19 in a cat on Monday, shortly after offering free tests to pets in the Korean capital.
Experts say there is no evidence cats or dogs can pass the novel coronavirus to humans, but they have nevertheless placed the cat in a 14-day quarantine. It was tested after having symptoms of vomiting and decreased activity.

lol "vomiting and decreased activity" is pretty much a symptom of all cats, all the time.

the program i was in was unceremoniously shut down this week.

A little-known program that allows New Yorkers to get a Covid-19 vaccination if they volunteer at vaccine distribution sites has stopped accepting new applicants who do not have experience in health care.

Vaccine distribution began in New York State in mid-December. To fill out staffing shortages, New York City had enlisted its Medical Reserve Corps, a volunteer network that responds to public health emergencies. Without fanfare, the agency recruited volunteers — medical and nonmedical staff alike. In exchange for 36 hours of service, volunteers were eligible to receive their first dose of the vaccine.

On Thursday, the Medical Reserve Corps told The New York Times in an email that it would only accept health care professionals going forward. “The NYC MRC has traditionally been used for medical/health care volunteers. As the number of volunteers swelled — including city employees serving in the hubs — we went back to limiting MRC to recruitment of healthcare professionals,” the agency said.

Volunteering was a way for many New Yorkers who are not yet eligible for vaccination to jump to the front of the line, as receiving the vaccine has proved elusive. According to data gathered by The New York Times, about 10 percent of 11 million eligible New Yorkers have received their first dose.

The task of vaccinating is daunting: A single vaccination site might require people to act as administrative employees, security officers, medical greeters, translators, emotional support staffers, schedulers, traffic monitors and, of course, vaccinators.

Some volunteers bristled at the idea of working three 12-hour shifts without receiving a single penny from the city, even if they did receive the vaccine in exchange.

Others, though, thought they struck gold. “I thought that it was the best deal in the world, the three shifts,” said Seth Rosen, the director of development at the National LGBT Bar Association. He volunteered in the South Bronx. “I was happy to do that in order to be vaccinated.”

But nearly all volunteers complained that signing up was opaque and convoluted.

Enrollment instructions on the city’s website are targeted only to licensed clinical professionals. In response, a number of unauthorized documents outlining the sign-up process for general staff began popping up on the internet: circulating around social media or forwarded among friends.

Adam, a filmmaker who did not want to use his last name because volunteers were told not to speak to the press, registered for his volunteer service after receiving an unofficial document. It detailed the steps required for registration over four separate websites, each one requiring different accounts and passwords. Users were taught how to create an account on the city’s official website; then how to register on ServNY, the state’s volunteer program; then how to register with the state’s Department of Health Public Account Management System; and, finally, how to create an account for the Public Health Responders program.

In all, it required 32 steps.

“It was so bureaucratic — right out of Kafka,” said Adam.

And now it’s over.

The city Medical Reserve Corps sent an email to volunteers on Thursday saying general staffing roles were “at capacity for the foreseeable future.”

“Leadership has decided that NYC staff will be filling in the gaps moving forward,” the email said. “Given where we were with staffing four weeks ago, having this role entirely covered is a significant accomplishment — and a relief. Once again, thank you.”

link: https://www.nytimes.com/live/2021/02/18/world/covid-19-coronavirus?referringSource=articleShare#nyc-vaccine-volunteers

Does that mean you don’t get to finish out your set/get your second jab? Or are you grandfathered in?

i scheduled it on site and am in the system so i'm okay. my understanding is that the second jab is specific to the first; they don't see it as two inoculations so much as two appointments that have to follow one another. No one else can claim the number of my second vaccination. But i actually wanted to do this again; i felt helpful! Go figure.

it seems like it's not "shut down" so much as that there were shortages, and now they're not?

*there were, christ

Short update: My friend whom I posted about earlier itt was just this morning released from the hospital to go home, nearly three months after she was first put in the ICU with COVID. She was on a ventilator for more than a month, which puts her in a small percentage of people who actually recovered after that long on a vent. I am very, very relieved and happy for her and her family. Probably her age (mid 50s) and relatively good health are what pulled her through. Of course they still have to see what the long-term effects are going to be, both from the virus and the intensive treatment. They will likely be significant. But she's home with her husband and kid, so that's a victory.

all of my immediate family has it now - parents, my sister and her family. my dad is still in serious condition, but he was in really bad shape when he first went in, so that's an improvement. i'm back home, or at their homes, rather. i'm not familiar with the area where they live, but it's pretty small. i'm here to exist in meatspace and run care packages from one home to another, pick up medicine and groceries, and do funny dances in the snow for my niece and nephew

Love and strength to all who have loved ones suffering this illness.

great news km, I imagine being of practical use maybe alleviates some of that internal conflict around questions of guilt, forgiveness, responsibilty, etc.

I'm in MI now to see family, drove out here in one straight shot. We all quarantined and tested first, my sister, mom and stepdad having had their first shots. This year+ is the longest I've gone w/o seeing them, and they seem to have aged so much...getting a glimpse into these next years, the assistance they'll need. A real sense of winding down and in turn ofc feeling my own age...how these years accelerate, how quickly this whole thing goes by....

uh

https://www.cnn.com/2021/02/19/us/florida-women-dressing-up-coronavirus-vaccine/index.html

TS: these two vs. anti-vaxxers

Two women were caught trying to get second doses of the Covid-19 vaccine by dressing up as "grannies," the Director of the Florida Department of Health in Orange County said Thursday.

The women came to the vaccination site wearing bonnets, gloves, and glasses in an attempt to receive their vaccines, Dr. Raul Pino said during a press conference. According to the sheriff's office, the women were 44 and 34.
CNN reached out to the women for comment.
Both women had valid vaccine cards from their first shot, Pino said. They were denied their second shot while dressed up due to issues with their ID cards. Health officials did not know how the women were able to get their first vaccine shots and whether they had dressed up then as well.

They had the first shot already, why did they think they needed to dress up for the second, and also is this how they got the first, and is this part of why my parents had to fly back to MN to get vaccinated, and can you deliver the second vaccine does with a baseball bat

So they jumped the line somehow for the first shot and only got caught when they came back for round two? Is that how I'm supposed to read that?

Apparently yes, but I don't get the continued subterfuge because they had the first dose

maybe they were hoping for the second dose and a slap

Getting Little Red Riding Hood vibes.

Well they def deserve the slap it sounds like. Was just trying to parse the story.

it seems like it's not "shut down" so much as that there were shortages, and now they're not?

I think a found a picture of their kids

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-I-W964IUv1I/XAGmdaWejQI/AAAAAAAAAFU/wrk6vhhEMW4_T58VX0a0s7FpE2pIykVJgCLcBGAs/s1600/kids.jpg

I don't see any kids, I see a regular, definitely normally sized adult human.

Named Vincent.

They had the first shot already, why did they think they needed to dress up for the second

this is the part that confused me. normally if you get the first vaccine here (even if it's because you happened to be in the neighborhood when a vaccine facility had extras it had to use before they spoiled), they generally guarantee you the second dose.

why the charade unless they were trying to be "funny" (aka assholes)

Both women had valid vaccine cards from their first shot, Pino said. They were denied their second shot while dressed up due to issues with their ID cards. Health officials did not know how the women were able to get their first vaccine shots and whether they had dressed up then as well.

Implies there may have been something hinky about the first shots, too.

or they could have simply showed up somewhere that had extras and got lucky. but even then they usually let you book a second appointment.

they might as well give them the second one at this point but the charade is the objectionable part

^^^

My stance is that the more people who are vaccinated, the better. Ultimately everyone needs it anyway and the faster it gets out there, the better it is for everyone, so while priority lists are good and should be respected, if someone found their way into dose 1 then give them dose 2

I wouldn’t be averse to someone kicking these two in the neck while they receive dose 2 but they should still get it

^ otm. even reprehensible humans need to get vaccinated, because it bestows a communal benefit for millions of non-reprehensible humans who cannot safely take the vaccines.

xpost "this will only hurt a little bit"
"oh I'm not afraid of needles"
"I wasn't talkin about the shot"

*kick*

Here, no matter how or why you get the first shot they automatically sign you up for the second.

mostly here, too. my friend and her boyfriend got some that were going to otherwise be discarded and they let her set up a follow-up appointment. it'd be fairly reckless not to anyway.

yeah, it's not even a question of YOUR health from the government's perspective; you become one less vector and drain on the system.

Learned this morning that our excellent local movie theater, which did a really admirable job of running both mega-blockbusters and the arthouse stuff, is never going to reopen. It's really bumming me out, coupled with the running list of bars, restaurants, music venues, playhouses, bookstores and record stores we are losing. Just because we have the vaccine doesn't mean it's not done killing local culture. I'm just feeling sad today about what exactly we are going to walk back into on the other end of this. Music venues got a little boost, probably too little too late for a lot of venues, but so many other ways that local cultural scenes are collapsing with no hope for bail outs.

I guess I'm just sighing wistfully and dreading the inevitable monoculture heading out way.

where do you live?

Just north of Chicago. So, yes, obviously many other theaters in the city, but losing one we could walk to is a big blow. Now we've got at least a 20-minute or more drive to get to a theater where we will have to pay pretty high premiums for parking. There are other theaters within 10-12 miles in the suburbs adjacent to us, but as far as I know almost none of them regularly carry arthouse stuff, just the big films.

In other words, not the end of the world by any means, but another way our post-COVID lives will be shrinking, culturally anyway. Obviously the loss of one theater isn't killing all culture, but it had me thinking of everything else we've lost since last March and it bummed me out.

jon, I've been putting two and two and two together lately and realizing we live in the same city, lol.

At any rate, I would guess that the theater in question will be bought up by another outfit down the road.

Wow, I had no idea OL.

Oh I absolutely believe it will eventually get bought out, but I fear it will be another AMC that will do away with the "arty" side with the nice lounge and replace it with an arcade or something.

I know, it's a weird thing to get bummed about. I just really liked having a theater within walking distance that we could take our son to see the latest MCU movie on a Saturday afternoon, or I could play hooky and sit through The Tree of Life on a random Tuesday. I'm sure the former part will be back when it gets bought, the latter I'm not so confident in.

Lol, one last post. Fully aware that this is small potatoes compared to the lives lost and financial devastation for those who have lost their livelihoods, but it just has me thinking about the quieter, more insidious ways this pandemic is hitting our communities and how different the landscape will be when we can truly call it "post-COVID".

Yeah, beyond the ground zero impact of COVID on people's lives, there's also going to be the subtle lingering trauma from slowly realizing how it's altered pretty much every aspect of the everyday routine we'd grown used to. Like we pretty much have to develop a new normal because the old one is just gone now.

Exactly. Which I think most of us know on a certain level, I think there are just certain local reminders that drive it home a little harder and make it more real. Which is, I guess, where I am today.

Totally sympathize about the movie theater. My local is a second home to me and I'm deeply afraid it's not coming back either.

not all that unusual. when all this is over, we're going to be hungry to resume some of our past activities, and some of the places we used to go to them won't be re-opening. Orlando lost the Parliament House, which was an institution here, although tbh that wasn't so much *because* of COVID, as the business was struggling for a while, but it was the straw that broke the camel's back more than likely.

lots of homes to lots of memories, it hurts when they close.