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

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.

I haven't checked any of my old restaurant industry websites/forums in over a year because I haven't had the heart. I've supported a couple of local ones but have a feeling when things open up again that it will be like survivors of a nuclear war leaving the bunker to find smoldering ruins everywhere.

I had a dream the other night about eating hotpot with friends, and how it might be years before such intimate food-sharing will happen again...

https://gizmodo.com/a-womans-tragic-covid-19-death-traced-to-tainted-donate-1846335623

"A Woman's Tragic Covid-19 Death Traced to Tainted Donated Lungs, Report Finds"

oof, at this. but also, isn't it an obvious to want to avoid?

Was there a time last year when the virus was being presented as being almost completely stable and not changing in th eway that most viruses do. is that the thought process behind various countries talking about herd immunity coming naturally. I mean worst examp;le being Sweden and other places like UK & US giving spoken credence to the idea.
Or was taht like specific areas propaganda about the fight with the virus.
JUst was something I was picking up on at the time.
& i don't remember when the different variants became common knowledge to any wide degree. Just listening to somebody talking about variants and that's about the 3rd thing I've heard today that mentions them.

xp to people who have learned how to live, this profile of a centenary covid survivor

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/23/nyregion/new-jersey-lucia-declerck-covid.html

Ask Lucia DeClerck how she has lived to be 105, and she is quick with an answer.

“Prayer. Prayer. Prayer,” she offers. “One step at a time. No junk food.”

But surviving the coronavirus, she said, also may have had something to do with another staple: the nine gin-soaked golden raisins she has eaten each morning for most of her life.

“Fill a jar,” she explained. “Nine raisins a day after it sits for nine days.”

Her children and grandchildren recall the ritual as just one of Ms. DeClerck’s endearing lifelong habits, like drinking aloe juice straight from the container and brushing her teeth with baking soda. (That worked, too: She did not have a cavity until she was 99, relatives said.)

“We would just think, ‘Grandma, what are you doing? You’re crazy,’” said her 53-year-old granddaughter, Shawn Laws O’Neil, of Los Angeles. “Now the laugh is on us. She has beaten everything that’s come her way.”

... is that a life worth living, though?

by the time I'm 65 I anticipate I will resemble a gin-soaked raisin

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.

I'm waiting for that shoe to drop where I am. The two rep theatres I was going to (different cities) seemed to be just hanging on before the pandemic; when they reopened for two or three months during the summer, there were fewer than 10 people for any screening I went to. How they recover--they're still closed--I don't know.

we appear to have lost a cinema I used to frequent but I think it was changing before the pandemic closed it down. i thik it had lost the cheap afternoon showing prices that had had me going to it. First dropped down t only being one day per week instead of 5 then it either stopped completely or the place shutdown cos of lockdown
Well had a decade and a bit I think.
JUst not sure what its future is

I want everyone to get the jab whenever they can, but I'm also starting to become angry at the people I know who don't have front-facing jobs, aren't immunocompromised, and are getting theirs now.

I already spent most of a year avoiding everyone I know and love and staring down death, only to have six "normal" months, then emerge into this. I just want to scream at these people, "Fuck your working from home, healthy early 30s self— I should have gotten that vaccine before you, and you know it."

Irrational, I know, but writing it out and acknowledging it makes me feel better.

JUst hearing the variants discussed on Pod Save tH ePeople. So up until a certain point there was a broadly recognisable main strain that did pick up a few regional variations etc but that just meant you had a more recogniosable version of teh same broad virus. But the recent variants are behaving differently.
I just remember thinking it odd taht it seemed that the virus wasn't changing cos I thought taht was a normal result of a virus going through a population and encountering its different anti bodies etc and therefore mutating so it would automatically change over time. BUt it did seem to be more stable than previous viruses from what i understood. Didn't see how that worked .
But this does seem pretty evolve anyway, more dangerous because it did seem largely symptom free until it had spread etc

https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/22291959/covid-vaccines-transmission-protect-spread-virus-moderna-pfizer

And nursing homes are lookin' better.

Throughout the pandemic, there has been perhaps nowhere more dangerous than a nursing home. The coronavirus has raced through some 31,000 long-term care facilities in the United States, killing more than 163,000 residents and employees and accounting for more than a third of all virus deaths since the late spring.

But for the first time since the American outbreak began roughly a year ago — at a nursing care center in Kirkland, Wash. — the threat inside nursing homes may have finally reached a turning point.

Since the arrival of vaccines, which were prioritized to long-term care facilities starting in late December, new cases and deaths in nursing homes, a large subset of long-term care facilities, have fallen steeply, outpacing national declines, according to a New York Times analysis of federal data. The turnaround is an encouraging sign for vaccine effectiveness and offers an early glimpse at what may be in store for the rest of the country, as more and more people get vaccinated.

From late December to early February, new cases among nursing home residents fell by more than 80 percent, nearly double the rate of improvement in the general population. The trendline for deaths was even more striking: Even as fatalities spiked over all this winter, deaths inside the facilities have fallen, decreasing by more than 65 percent.

my doc offered as part of my bloodwork to test for COVID antibodies to see if I still had them after the vaccine. Me being a rube, I said "yes".

It came back "negative" and I got anxious, but then I read this IN THE ACTUAL EXPLANATION OF RESULTS:

"Individuals who have received the COVID-19 vaccine will
have a negative result. This assay tests for antibodies
to the N (nucleocapsid) antigen, which is typically
positive in persons who have been previously infected with
COVID-19."

and then I find out the CDC recommends against antibody testing for this reason.

WHY'D YOU OFFER THE TEST THEN, DOC?

Meet you at a crowded bar, Neanderthal, for happy hour.

mother in law got her second shot two days ago, mother got her second shot yesterday, partner is in line for her second shot now, sister just got her first. that's most of the core people that i was most worried about. I'm two weeks off from my second. i know it's only my small world but it matters a lot to me.

It does -- congrats! Me, if everyone in my immediate circle has the vaccine, then I'm totally cool with my not getting yet.

Yeah, as I stated in the KIP COVID thread, I'll breathe a lot easier when both of my parents, both of my wife's parents (and her stepdad) get appointments on the calendar. So far only one of them does, my mother-in-law's first jab is tomorrow, but I guess that's a start!

congrats forks. it's an incredible feeling when the people you most care about/are worried about get their final shots. I couldn't believe the relief I felt with my folks.

love hearing good vaccination news itt

Boy, I just heard a whole bunch of troubling covid-adjacent news. A good friend of mine is a top cancer doc at Stanford, and she told me she has been busier than ever treating cancers that are bigger than ever, because so many people postponed going to the doctor for so long. I have a feeling there might be similar stories from other medical fields, too. And then there's colleges, which have been seeing record numbers of applications at the top level (like, 110,000 applications to NYU, for 6700 spots; my Stanford friend told me over 10,000 applications for 90 medical school slots), which not only makes those top schools even tougher to get into, but have actually led to delays in acceptances, because the admission staff is overwhelmed. At the same time, applications to other typically easier to get into schools are apparently way down, because so many families are in such dire financial straits that their kids can't even consider school right now. The longterm impact of this thing is potentially going to be terrible in ways many didn't even imagine.

Meanwhile, my daughter is qualified for the current vaccine phase here, but because she is under 18 (but old enough for the Pfizer vaccine) no one will give it to her. Frustrating. And my mom still can't manage to get one in PA.

Yeah, that worries me too (the medical thing specifically). I have a couple of things I'm supposed to get checked for every six months, because I'm at a somewhat elevated risk for them, and I've just been completely letting that slide because the risk of getting covid seems higher than the chance that I'll turn out to have cancer at age 36. But then when I think of everyone else who's making that same calculation - many of them much older than me - it's very scary.

In case that seems clueless, I realize I am still taking a risk by not going to the doctor, it's just a matter of trying to balance risks. Don't know if I'm making the right call.

I've been to the GP twice since the original (UK) lock down and, to be honest, it seemed as safe as anywhere.

No routine appointments - everything triaged via the phone. Nobody in the waiting room - some people waiting outside. Face coverings. Use of different doors than usual to avoid wondering through the building.

A subsequent visit to hospital was remarkably unstressful (few people hanging around etc). I'd at least talk it through on the phone with someone.

Yeah, I've been to the doctor, dentist, eye doctor, etc., as needed this past year, and so has everyone in my family. Our reasoning each time was always that hey, you never know when these places might get shut down for real, so might as well go while you can. We've also used Teledoc once or twice, which was a great experience.

Ugh, I really hate those last two posts of mine, I feel like they came across as dismissive of the reality that lots of people do have cancer young (and I certainly know people who have.) Was just trying to say that throughout the pandemic I've been scared to go to the doctor and nervous about the long-term effects of not going, and that's the sort of calculation that can work out fine for the individual if you're lucky but is disastrous if you have a whole country full of people making it at once.

I should probably start going to the doctor; my parents have had to a couple of times, and it's worked out fine for them.

every time I go to the doctor, I get worse news about my health, which isn't surprising because I depression ate really badly and still am, so COVID giving me an excuse not to go and get bloodwork done was something I took wholeheartedly

Part of why I haven't made it to the doctor is that my doctor retired rather than work through the pandemic (as did my dentist), and lockdown has made me even worse than I was before at dealing with things like finding a new doctor.