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

Getting my first dose on Thursday - guess I count as vulnerable or something.

my experience so far is that folks past 65 who are partially or fully vaccinated are somehow of the opinion that everyone is vaccinated or that in any case "it's okay now"

Haven't 80% of all covid deaths in the US been among those 65+? If I was in that demo I'd probably be done with it, too.

My fully vacc'd parents are gearing up for travelling too, though it's more in the vein of post-retirement seeing the world stuff (though they're not planning on leaving the US yet) rather than family visits. I do feel esp bad for my dad, who was basically immobilized with a back problem for about 6 months before Covid hit.

Man, my pal was telling me about his friend's older dad who caught H1N1 on a cruise, which lead to pneumonia, which almost killed him ... a month before covid hit.

News story today in my local media about a nurse who ended up testing positive two months after getting fully vaxxed. Not a terrible case, but symptomatic.

Well, 95% effective is 5% not effective, right?

my experience so far is that folks past 65 who are partially or fully vaccinated are somehow of the opinion that everyone is vaccinated or that in any case "it's okay now"

― G.A.G.S. (Gophers Against Getting Stuffed) (forksclovetofu), Monday, March 15, 2021 7:41 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is absolutely 100% true in my experience, too. My dad hasn't even had his first shot, and my parents already booked a cruise for the NYE period... news of which was met by me with absolute silence, then a "You think that you might be being a bit hasty?" and then asking "hey, you got travel insurance, right?"

xpost

Yep. Will be interesting to see where the ongoing infection rates settle once we hit peak vaccination. (And of course hopefully the hospitalization/death rates get very, very small.)

Cruises were a gigantic germapalooza even before COVID. It was in the news and everything. I am boggled that anyone thinks a cruise is a good idea.

me, my wife, and all my family - parents, aunt and uncle, sibling and cousin and their spouses, all of whom live within a few minutes of each other - are all going to be double-dosed within month and my mom is already INSANE about wanting us to come and hang out.

my only hesitation is if we hang out there would be six kids and ours is the only one not attending in-person school, so I don't know how to handle that yet

I’m going to be doing so much hanging out once my friends and I have the juice tbh

lol same and I don't feel the least guilty about it

The discrepancies in vaccinations across Europe, while I guess to be expected, do throw up some pretty strange anxieties - my wife's parents in France both have vaccine dates while my mum in Portugal says they're still at vaccinating the 90+ group, I get despairing e-mails from German relations wondering when will this ever end while here in the UK everyone's crossing their fingers to be out of it by late June.

Oh, I mean, some friends and I already have a dinner date for the exact day two weeks after the last of us gets the second dose. We're going to get LIT THE FUCK UP.

lol, both my parents have been vaccinated and my dad was like "I can't wait to get back to our place in FL so we can quarantine someplace warm"

Tbh i don’t really get the difference between hanging out with your friends and going on a cruise when you’re vaccinated

News story today in my local media about a nurse who ended up testing positive two months after getting fully vaxxed. Not a terrible case, but symptomatic.

― a man often referred to in the news media as the Duke of Saxony (tipsy mothra), Monday, March 15, 2021 12:17 PM bookmarkflaglink

why in the world is this a news story? obviously some folk are still going to contract it. by framing it as a news story, the media positions it as an anomaly and people extrapolate OMG VACCINE DOESN'T WORK from it.

honestly, I'll be wary of going on cruises well past this whole mess, largely because the idea of being stuck on a cruise ship when the next pandemic strikes is pretty much my worst fear

i woulda thought the "Poop Cruise" of a few years ago was enough dissuasion for everybody

next pandemic

Invent a Terrifying Scenario in Ten Words or Less thread

Tbh i don’t really get the difference between hanging out with your friends and going on a cruise when you’re vaccinated

― groovemaaan

You don't get the difference b/w hanging out with four or five vaccinated people vs a boatful of potentially hundreds of other unvaccinated strangers in close quarters, possibly with other illnesses?

I assume they would only let you on board if you're fully vaccinated no? If that's the case, I don't really see the problem.

There’s no vaccine for legionnaires disease

i feel like there is huge overlap between the population of idiots who love cruises and the population of idiots who won't get the vaccine

I sense a unique marketing opportunity

One thing to remember, I think, is that people in their seventies and eighties are used to living with a level of risk that most of us are unused to and would be very uncomfortable with, because when you're that age everything is risky. The vaccine drops your personal Covid risk down to a level that still feels high to many of us but probably feels familiar and acceptable to people who are older.

I enjoy cruises, but even in non-pandemic times, consider the following scenarios:

*Your plane experiences a technical malfunction in flight. It is detected in plenty of time, and you return to the original airport, get on a new plane, and you're on your way. If you crash into the water, you're dead, and it's over fast.

*Your cruise ship experiences a technical malfunction while on the water. it stops moving altogether, another ship has to come out and rescue you, and for three days, you are told to shit into a bag and hand it to the stewards of the ship. because of the malfunction, all of your shore excursions are cancelled, you don't get to do anything other than cry in your stifling hot room.

These are also literally small c cruises where the only people under 50 on board are workers, tbh— they're cultural cruises marketed to middle and upper-middle class people who have college degrees. (I've seen the brochures lol). It's not like my 72 year old parents are going to be rubbing skin and pounding frozen margs by a poop-laden pool.

that sounds like about every Regent cruise ever.

where all cruises are like $100,000 and mostly people spending pensions on it

everybody poops

i know nothing and wish to know nothing about cruises. i find the whole idea bizarre.

sorry i just assume every cruise is a poop cruise now

70,000 Tons of Metal cruise was amazing and life-changing. but apparently one year on that cruise the pool area was cleared out and someone was thrown in the brig because he ate this lady's ass in full view of everyone in broad daylight while in the hot tub

(i mean it was consensual , don't want to suggest otherwise, but y'know if you're inches away from someone do u wanna watch them eat ass?)

I was disappointed to find out that 'Viking river cruises' didn't involve rowing a longboat up the Danube and pillaging.

70,000 Tons of Metal cruise was amazing and life-changing. but apparently one year on that cruise the pool area was cleared out and someone was thrown in the brig because he ate this lady's ass in full view of everyone in broad daylight while in the hot tub

"he was away at sea so long, he tried things he never had before"

When the people have nothing more to eat, they will eat the ass.

i went on a coupe music-themed cruises years ago that were pretty awesome, both times it was just a small subset of the cruise, like 400 punks mixing with 2000 midwestern old people, a pretty great combo. no poolside asseating afaict tho

You didn't spend enough time with the old Minnesotans, clearly. Lutefisk and rimming, two great tastes that taste great together.

"come on, if i didn't tell you what it was, you'd love it"

"Let them eat ass"

-Marie Marley

(i mean it was consensual , don't want to suggest otherwise, but y'know if you're inches away from someone do u wanna watch them eat ass?)

unavoidable collateral damage from wanting to watch someone get their ass eaten

cruise immediately renamed to 70,000 Tons of Tossed Salad

70,000 Tons of Butthole

in four and a half weeks!

Class options: window, balcony, butthole.

I've been on two cruises, one of which was last minute and dirt cheap and had awesome food and easy to avoid Texans and Oklahomans, and the other a cruise to Alaska which was incredible in every regard. Which is to say, do I ever need to go on another cruise? No, but if someone invited me on one I'd at least consider it.

70,000 Tons of Butthole

this is extremely zen, I mean how do you assign weight to a hole