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

think a better definition than "hasn't left their house" is "still scared to leave their house"

OK but those are totally different!

xpost I was trying to figure out what the f was going on in IL in this regard. Ohio, for example, is more or less on par with Illinois, in terms of total population, demographics, etc. And yet the gov of Ohio said they'd open it up to everyone 16+ by the end of March, iirc, but the governor of Illinois said maybe May 1 for "all adults." I know things are changing by the day, but why would the gov of Ohio think their state would be ready by the end of the month, but the gov of Illinois pick a date a month after that?

(A month isn't much, tbf, but it probably feels like more if you've been waiting to be vaccinated.)

Mississippi and Alaska are already vaccinating anyone who asks. I assume in Mississippi’s case part of the answer is low vaccine acceptance. Easy to offer it to everyone if few people are taking you up.

we're in the taxiing on the runaway phase at the end of a 12-hour flight... we have arrived but it's still going to be like half an hour before we get off the damn plane and it's far worse than when we were sitting in the dark halfway across the Atlantic.

er, runway

i just want it to open up to everybody because I'm tired of watching friends of mine get asked by assholes "oh how did YOU get the vaccine? you're not old and I presume you're not high risk even though I don't know your medical history", and all of the other "you don't deserve the vaccine" shaming bullshit.

well that and because i want everybody vaccinated

One time we had to disembark from the plane onto the actual runway in the middle of a crazy storm because the plane couldn't make it to the gate. So I'm expecting it to be a little like that, to extend the metaphor just a touch.

xpost

Population of Mississippi is a fraction of MA. Population of Alaska is a fraction of MI. Populations of Ohio and IL are about twice that of MA. Populations of IL and OH a fraction of CA and TX. I've got to assume vaccinating a small state (like West VA) is easier than vaccinating a bigger state, which is why I picked OH and IL, which are about the same population.

NHS now doing the 50+ people and i got text this morning. one of the possible venues was the Science Museum, which would've been cool, but is an hour's walk away so instead i get to go to the place that's so anonymous its address includes "(Next to Sainsburys)" (on sunday lunchtime)

There's a Guy Works Down the Vaccine Shop Next to Sainsburys Swears He's Elvis

think a better definition than "hasn't left their house" is "still scared to leave their house"

OK but those are totally different!

That Massachusetts announcement suggests to me that, barring the next fuckup, everybody in MA who wants to be fully vaccinated by the end of May will be. That's great news and has me trembling a bit..

I have a friend whose debit card was cloned, and he had to cancel it. Bank says he'll get a new card in the mail in two weeks. He was talking about this on Facebook, and when people said, "Hey, just go to a branch and get a temporary card, they have safety protocols in place," he told all of those people that they were crazy.

He and his wife have been having their groceries delivered *for the past year.*

He's a bookseller and record seller, and he *pays someone to drop off his pre-paid packages* at the post office.

I love the guy to bits, he's one of my dearest friends, so I know it won't help to do this, but sometimes I just want to say, "YOU'RE BEING PARANOID AND CATASTROPHIZING, STOP IT STOP IT STOP IT"

i should mention, too, that he's in his early 50s and has no prior conditions.

well, for a lot of people getting COVID and needing to be hospitalized for it means they'll end up either dead or bankrupt, so it's not really catastrophizing.

It's sort of like, "man, your mental and emotional state would be better if you would...leave your house." his wife takes long walks on a daily basis. he thinks that it's dicey to do so... not a whole lot that i can say except clearly there are emotional and mental health issues happening, but it's just sad to see.

f. hazel, he thinks that I'm insane for going to the grocery store.

I agree with him, and I'm not insane. I go outside and exercise, but I recognize that everyone is going to land somewhere on the spectrum of precautionary measures and it isn't necessarily going to be where I did.

funny how you frame it as i'm being insane, but if i cast judgment on you, it's out of bounds.

i'm getting the fuck off this board.

I guess one question to ask is whether there is any evidence that doing some small to moderate amount of errands while observing masking and distancing has led to COVID transmission. I'm not aware that it has, but I certainly could be wrong.

Nah tabes I totally read you. Everything comes with risk but some people want to reduce the risk to absolute zero which just isn't possible without taking extreme measures well beyond what your friend is doing.

And he's then judging you for doing low risk things safely, masked etc. When millions are vaccinated, reducing transmission, and when everyone being masked in a grocery store reduces risk significantly.

That's fine if that's how he wants it, but considering COVID will probably be endemic, he will probably need to make peace with the fact that risk will never be zero

It'll be much lower due to vaccines and building of natural immunity, and it'll probably mutate to a weaker strain at some point, but risk will be there regardless.

I authentically don't see what's weird about having groceries delivered -- I go to the grocery store but I make one big shop every several weeks instead of going once a week (and I plan better so I don't just drop in to get one thing) and I supplement with farmer's market and delivery for perishables. This is not because I think I'm in grave danger when I go to the store, it's because I think that everybody reducing their time spent indoors with other people by x% is a public health good.

expense of grocery delivery has something to do with it.

plus it's just hard to stay cooped up inside for an entire year

Moodles I don't profess to know but I've always understood the risk to be greater to the actual employees of the grocery store, since they're working an 8-10 hour shift and even masked, exposed to possible airborne germs. definitely employees caught COVID, though probably more before mask mandates.

the risk is much lower if you pop in to shop for say, 5 minutes.

jfc, NY just lowered its eligibility threshold from 65+ to 60+. Big fucking deal. C'mon Cuomo use your big hands for something useful like signing an executive order opening this shit up. He's going to fucking stretch this out forever as a big power play. At this rate I'm getting vaccinated in fucking August.

I know for a fact that tons of people are lying to get the vaccine and it pisses me off, but with this shit I just think I'm the big sucker for waiting.

Expense and also selection! I'm not going to pay out the ass for a bunch of wilted, shitty vegetables, when I know that if I go to the same store, I can get better stuff.

My local grocery is a Trader Joe's so I'm already used to having to go to the farmer's market if I want non-shitty vegetables...

i go to the grocery store several times a week bc i can only carry so much myself without a car :D

i could get them delivered i guess but slots were so hard to get at the start of the pandemic in nyc that i just haven't even bothered trying again

and i'm covid-free baby

it is pretty insulting that they reliably pick the stuff that goes off, like, tomorrow. two packs of bacon that go off tomorrow. thanks fuckheads

Yeah, at the start I couldn't ever even get a grocery delivery slot, so I never bothered. Now, in all the months of going to store would I have gotten sick, had I not most likely already had covid last March? I'll never know. I do know that no one else in my household has had it.

Everything comes with risk but some people want to reduce the risk to absolute zero which just isn't possible without taking extreme measures

Which is what I more or less was getting at on another thread re: the (lack of) flu this year. Now we know that the flu can be more or less put in check. That saves tens of thousands of lives, hundreds of thousands of trips to the hospital, millions of cases (which translates to lost school, lost work etc.). But we now also know what it takes to get there, and I doubt people would prefer what we've done for the past year to a certain degree of acceptance of risk and potential consequences.

I go to the store regularly and my wife is a retail cashier, neither of us have contracted COVID, and as far as I know, none of her co-workers have contracted it from customers. Absolutely could be dumb luck though.

UK grocery store delivery is a totally different world from US grocery store delivery, at least in London and other big cities. I haven't been in a grocery store for a year, we already did a lot of our groceries online, and it was pretty easy to fully switch. We go to the farmers' market every week for fresh, and Toby occasionally runs into the little local shop for something like avocados at 7am on Sunday morning when he's literally the only person in the store.

I'm not judging people who feel comfortable grocery shopping, but it's not something I need to do, or really miss, so it's been a pretty easy transition.

I look forward to going to the store. As a single guy, I need to get out of the house and see people.

to Josh's point, I will continue wearing masks in certain situations for a long time, possibly forever (going to the market or the airport; any place where masses gather). I don't mind them.

Also: I've grown so accustomed to outdoor dining that even in July and August I don't see myself heading indoors unless it's sweltering.

Yeah I mean I think the real point here is that everybody is different both in their level of risk tolerance and which things they particularly mind forgoing, what matters is that people reduce indoor time with others in whatever way is agreeable to them, which for some people is gonna mean going to the store half as much and for others is gonna mean not going to the store at all and for some people is gonna mean going to the store as usual and forgoing something else that doesn't affect their life as much as the store, from each according to their abilities usw., I don't think there is much merit in telling other people they're insane unless they are literally not forgoing ANYTHING, which I think is just about as rare as being an absolute shut-in.

My nearest supermarkets are five and 10 minutes away so I’d rather go in and do my own shopping. There’s also a fab veg stall next to Holborn station and an Asian one next to the Bloomsbury post office, so I’ve been lucky that way.

yeah supermarkets really do take the piss in constantly fobbing off short-date stuff (that you'd never put into your physical trolley) onto home delivery customers.

UK grocery store delivery is a totally different world from US grocery store delivery, at least in London and other big cities.

this is extremely true. i hadn't shopped in a supermarket regularly beyond like a four pack and frozen pizza on the way home for years when i left the UK in 2010. going to the supermarket in germany and then the US was weird to me.

there might be paranoia and mental health issues involved in whatever some people are doing with getting stuff delivered, but i don't think avoiding supermarkets and post offices is ipso facto crazy fwiw.

Population of Mississippi is a fraction of MA. Population of Alaska is a fraction of MI. Populations of Ohio and IL are about twice that of MA. Populations of IL and OH a fraction of CA and TX. I've got to assume vaccinating a small state (like West VA) is easier than vaccinating a bigger state, which is why I picked OH and IL, which are about the same population.

― Josh in Chicago, Wednesday, March 17, 2021 11:32 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

WV and alaska are kind of special cases.

WV is small but it's a very low density population, so it would normally be kind of tough there. they fixed that by involving local pharmacies https://newrepublic.com/article/161375/west-virginia-covid-vaccine-new-york-california.

alaska is another special case. they tribal govt IIUC that was rightly prioritized for supply and allowed to do its own thing for distribution, and they did the right thing, and that helped a lot. and then the non-tribal population lives in like 3 towns, so while it's a big state, the population is geographically very concentrated and relatively easy to reach.

OH and IL should be comparable to eah other, and be rolling out to new groups at roughly the same rate though, you're right. and they're at almost exactly the same point in terms of doses delivered per 100 people (35ish) according to bloomberg. so my guess is that we're starting to get into more reluctant populations, and there might be more of those in OH (and mississipi?) than in ohio, so places like that are figuring "let's just open up"? although i do get the impression that illinois is doing things in an extremely pedantic and complicated way every chance they get.

jfc, NY just lowered its eligibility threshold from 65+ to 60+. Big fucking deal. C'mon Cuomo use your big hands for something useful like signing an executive order opening this shit up. He's going to fucking stretch this out forever as a big power play. At this rate I'm getting vaccinated in fucking August.

Yeah, this is where I am right now, not NY but Illinois is moving glacially slow. As of today, afaik, Illinois still lists May 31 as the target for opening Phase 2, for everyone else 16 and over. Obviously this does not meet Biden's timetable, so I expect that to change, but even so they really need to step things up.

They opened up a mass vax site at the United Center to target zip codes that are harder hit and for neighborhoods that are underserved, to provide a more equitable approach - which is fantastic and I fully support it. However, there are a lot of anecdotal stories floating around that, since they are limiting it to specific zip codes, there are quite a few appointments going unused each day because the demand just isn't there in those vaccine hesitant communities. Again, I'm all for those groups and neighborhoods being first in line, but it sounds like Chicago might still be overcorrecting and letting appointments go unused rather than folks from other zip codes slipping in. Again, all anecdotal at this point, but I'm hoping we get some fuller reporting on it in time. The rise in daily vaccination rates in Chicago since the site opened are a little disappointing, given how much hoopla there was about this site starting up. But, then, it has only been a little over a week and hopefully they are still just working out some growing pains.

f. hazel, sorry for my hostility earlier. You're right that people are dealing with risk in different ways, and I shouldn't have been so aggro toward you.

I just worry about my friend and his mental and physical health. He's gained a ton of weight, and seems unhealthily fixated on things that he cannot control.

I just also truly don't personally understand where he's coming from, since my partner works in an emergency room, I'm immunocompromised, and we've been going grocery shopping ~2/week in-store throughout the entire pandemic. And neither of us have gotten COVID.

Like others, that could be dumb luck, but we've also been *extremely* careful in many regards. Just not in terms of food shopping.

no apology necessary! we're all struggling with this and I should have been more careful about my phrasing too.

I've been doing like 85% pickup and delivery of groceries for the last year. I miss going to the stores i liked to go to and - I still visit some of these but no where near as frequently or for as long as I did before. I absolutely do not miss spending two hours every weekend driving around to multiple places and wandering in huge chain grocery stores and have come to realized that I will happily spend money to have that time to use for literally anything else.

We get around 80% of our groceries delivered, which I would say is definitely more expensive - but I'm not so sure that it actually is. We tip the people really, really well for them being the ones to take on our risk for us, but I would imagine it all ends up in a wash since we are able to stick exclusively to our list and don't end up with tons of impulse purchases that shopping in person usually entails.

I just also truly don't personally understand where he's coming from, since my partner works in an emergency room, I'm immunocompromised, and we've been going grocery shopping ~2/week in-store throughout the entire pandemic. And neither of us have gotten COVID.

Same, more or less. I also know some people who have maintained a level of fear that is in my opinion unwarranted, even if it's understandable how they got to this place. Once I started going to stores it quickly became not a big deal. As long as you live in a place where people are wearing masks, I think it's (mentally) healthy to go into the world occasionally.

I think it's (mentally) healthy to go into the world occasionally.

I think there is a lot of slippage in this thread where the choice is presented as "go the store just as much as you always do" vs "never go into the world" when 95% of all people fall in the category of "going into the world occasionally or more than occasionally but also substantially less than under normal conditions"

otoh Wisconsin seems to be doing well, Gov. Evers just announced they're starting phase 1c on Monday where anyone overweight is eligible. which is like 75% of the state. my mom volunteers at a clinic and she says they're kind of encouraging people to just say they're an essential worker b/c they have a lot of appointments available and people aren't taking them right now. they think they've gotten everyone who fits into phase 1b already. granted idk if this is statewide or just in my little neck o' the woods