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

It's partly a question of messaging, I think. A headline that actively encourages people to plan a family trip with unvaccinated kids doesn't send a particularly good message, imo, even if you think that we're going to have to get used to some level of elevated risk in the years to come.

It's not like we're faced with a choice between locking down forever and instantly going back to everything we used to do pre-pandemic. It's reasonable to say, "Here are the risks, to us and to others; here are some useful ways to think about those risks in context so that you can decide what makes sense for you and your family." But just saying, "Go ahead, take your kids to restaurants, even if they have an asymptomatic case it's probably nbd" misses the point that most of our individual actions during Covid aren't that risky by themselves; what we need guidance on is knowing how the risk adds up for the community.

You can plan a vaccination with your kids that involves minimal risk: renting a cabin on a lake, driving there and eating food you packed on the way, doing a masked handover of keys with some weathered local at start and end. It's bonkers to actively encourage activity that spreads the virus while new variants are still eagerly generating themselves.

New Zealand reopened in June 2020. Western Australia didn't lock down until February 5th 2021, for five days. Pubs reopened in Sydney in May 2020. These places won't be vaccinated until late 2021 at best, but they stopped people from spreading the virus. Why not try that?

lol vaccination vacation

I totally agree; that's why I think the message should be: "Planning a trip with unvaccinated kids? Here are some ways to do that relatively safely!" rather than "Go ahead and plan your vacation as if everyone's vaccinated including your kids."

National Lampoon's Vaccination

There has got to be an easier way of doing this, but I'm starting to think Chicago and Cook County take the more difficult path at nearly every turn. For the past two weeks, we've had a whole series of announcements by the state of Illinois adding more people to the eligibility list, which is great, but each announcement is followed by Chicago and Cook County both saying essentially, "that's nice, but we're not opening up". So, the upshot is you have the most densely populated county in the state (where 40% of the population of the entire state lives) stuck in this constant state of "am I eligible or not"? No wonder people are frustrated.

My similarly frustrated friend in the city was having the toughest time, but she did eventually finally get her first shot last week after refreshing a website a few days. Sounds like Chicago specifically is doing things weird or slow.

Well, Illinois just announced Friday that starting today (3/22) they were going to add higher education staff, government workers and media workers to the list of expanded eligibility categories, but then this morning articles came out clarifying that both Cook County and Chicago were opting out of this expansion.

Dammit, hit 'submit post' before I pasted in the quote:

But when the state entered Phase 1B Plus, several jurisdictions, including the city of Chicago, suburban Cook County and several other counties in the area, announced that they would not expand eligibility along with the rest of Illinois, citing low vaccine supply.

I called my mother after I got my first shot on Saturday. She was THIIIIS close to swearing at me, because she hasn't able to get an appointment (in Montgomery County, MD). She refuses to get Internet access, and according to her the phone registration system is useless. I really don't want to have to make an online appointment for her, but if she can't work out something via phone....

“media workers”!??

Yep, that was a weird one. And, of course, helpfully, no further explanation of what that means or who that specifically covers.

America

Paints face and hair like the Joker, goes to South Beach, climbs up on a car with an American flag, screams “Fucking COVID is over baby!” and makes it rain. #BecauseMiami pic.twitter.com/JTLEjzCZps

— Billy Corben (@BillyCorben) March 20, 2021

MIAMI

Not sure what is happening, but Illinois' 7-day rolling average for vaccines administered has dropped every day for the last week. Guessing we still haven't seen the supply spike that we are supposed to be nearing, even so it's disappointing to see the numbers dropping instead of at least holding steady.

where are you seeing that? that's not correct according to the bloomberg tracker fwiw.

I've been keeping track at the IPDH page, using their dashboard:

https://dph.illinois.gov/covid19/vaccinedata?county=Illinois

The chart on the right hand side about halfway down. I guess there was one day last week where the 7-day rolling average increased, but otherwise down every other day. I'm sure it's temporary, but disappointing to see nonetheless.

IDPH, that should be

fair enough. in the last seven days, their rolling average was up compared to the day before on march 15 and 18, fwiw. and they may not have all the march 21 (sunday) data yet.

Yeah, Sunday's are always weird with reporting, I try not to put much stock in those days. Guess I was hoping for a little more stability by this point.

Really trying not to encourage my cynical nature but it's starting to feel like the impending supply surge is perpetually coming "next week".

eh, it looks extremely stable to me fwiw.

it would be better if it was going up, but i think you're going out on a limb if you say the orange line here is going up or going down (especially with sunday weirdness in mind).

https://i.postimg.cc/4NKP7LB3/Screen-Shot-2021-03-22-at-11-51-52.png

You are correct, overall it does appear to be fairly flat. Considering our end goal here, plateauing numbers are equally disappointing, I would argue.

king county WA is on like week 5 of plateaued doses available and I’m gritting my teeth

Oof, that's not a great sign either.

Do we have any updated information on the timing of the supply increase? Last I could find it seems like since J&J fell behind, it might be early April before the states really see more doses arriving.

xxp well, no. stable numbers are not equally as disappointing as a decline. but agreed it would be better if they were going up fast everywhere rather than on average and nationally.

Fwiw, the drive-thru clinic I volunteer at has been having two or three long shifts a week for the past few weeks, but this week has only one scheduled. It could be, though, that the one this week is the second dose follow-up to a single dose week a month ago. That largely seems like how it's been organized, one day it's first shots, the next day it's follow-ups from the previous month. Distribution and supply have been kind of inscrutable, imo.

king county WA is on like week 5 of plateaued doses available and I’m gritting my teeth

most recent date WDOH has full data for King County is March 10, rolling 7 average of doses administered is 14,889. 5 weeks previous to that, 2/13, rolling average is 9,747. 5 previous from today, 2/15, 10,259.

JiC - are you saying they only have one shift scheduled this week? Or only one longer than usual shift scheduled? Assuming the latter, but I'm seeing some reports on Twitter that some locations aren't open this week because they don't have any supply - which would be a major bummer.

A small club show in between arena dates on Crowded House's current tour:

Nelson! What a cracker! A short trip in a prop plane and we’re back In Auckland to play Spark Arena tomorrow night. Friday is sold out but still tickets for Sunday night at @SparkArenaNZ. https://t.co/6WPL2qlV6a pic.twitter.com/bynybnwsHu

— Crowded House (@CrowdedHouseHQ) March 18, 2021

xpost Former, afaict. I'm in Oak Park, so still Cook County, even if there is some degree of independence in vaccine administration (hence: inscrutable). The past few weeks it's been more or less Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday for vaccines, either the first or second shot, from around 8am-3pm, about 250 cars a day, but I do know that some weeks they get less vaccine than others, or the supply could be interrupted by, say, a big snow storm. Could be a coincidence, but this week is about a month after that big snow storm, so if supply were interrupted then, then fewer vaccines were given, which would mean, a month later, fewer second doses, so fewer vaccine delivered, period. But again, just guessing! From what I've sussed out they sometimes don't find out the size of the shipment until the midweek. No idea why this is.

Thanks, just curious. I suppose that makes sense. I realize we are, in the grand scheme of things, still relatively early in the vaccination process, but I find it frustrating that there is still this much confusion and uncertainty. At some point we need to just figure shit out!

The lack of transparency on what's going on behind the scenes is frustrating, yeah. Human lives at stake and all.

^^ otm

That's the root of my frustration for sure. I mean, we're all told that a huge supply increase is just around the corner, but somehow no one seems to know when or how?

We've gone from 1.4 million doses per day to 2.5 million in the last month. The projected 70% partially vaccinated date has moved all the way up to June 20th.

I'm not arguing that we aren't improving nationwide, just reacting to the multiple reports of state leaders saying they are still "supply constrained".

We are not going to vaccinate the whole state/country/world on one day. We will always be "supply constrained."

No one is suggesting that we would be.

I agree that overall, things are going better than we had any right to expect. Vaccines with 95%+ efficacy? Vaccinating >2.5M people a day? When was the last time I used the phrase "best-case scenario"?

Would still love to have a clue about when I might expect to get vaccinated. (The universal eligibility dates only give the earliest possible date.) I'm not really mad about this, I believe that people behind the scenes are busting ass to save lives. But frustrating it is.

I signed up to volunteer to help with vaccine distro at my university next week, my cool manager is letting us bill volunteer hours as work hours so maybe I'll get a vaccine myself next week!

xpost - Exactly. I mean, might as well wish for world peace while I'm at it, but even an anticipated window based on factors X, Y and Z would go a long way.

arizona joining alaska and missisipi from wednesday

BREAKING: Arizona opening up vaccines to everyone starting Wednesday.

This will be for those 16 and up at the state run sites in Maricopa, Pima, Yuma. pic.twitter.com/RQ9KMA0xU7

— Nicole Grigg (@NicoleSGrigg) March 22, 2021

california aiming for the end of next month (i think it's likely they'll open up sooner than that tbh)

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local/article/California-poised-to-make-vaccines-available-to-16039784.php

NEWS: All Chicago residents are eligible to get vaccines at the United Ceter if they live in 60608, 60609, 60619, 60620, 60621, 60623, 60624, 60628, 60629, 60632, 60636, 60639, 60644, 60649, 60651, 60652, 60653. Call 312-746-4835

— Gregory Pratt (@royalpratt) March 22, 2021

caek, I understand your intentions but "earliest date of eligibility" doesn't mean all that much in terms of when everyone in that group will get their shots.

Phase 1B in Illinois started on January 25th and Chicago is still working on the backlog for that phase, which is why they are not expanding eligibility similarly to the rest of the state. So yeah, there were folks who became eligible two months ago but still haven't had their first dose, which I would say indicates a fairly large window within the eligibility groups.

To assuage some concern, a friend just posted a picture of a new mass vaccination site in a neighboring town, which supposedly "will open later this week and will start administering 1000 vaccines per day, ramping up quickly to 3000 per day."
https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/164370944_10158256578751094_1042401124208855774_o.jpg?_nc_cat=111&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=8bfeb9&_nc_ohc=DYBui1QRPTIAX8inpIC&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=15089141a43e90a2256463ab7e4e4213&oe=607E3758

That's something good to see! Let's hope that is up and running at maximum capacity asap.

I guess the Gov was there for a press conference this morning?

1. Crowded House, I have long enjoyed your music but read. the. room. Crowded is exactly the wrong place to be rn.

2. I realized way too late that I was technically eligible for 1A (caregiver to disabled child) but never acted on it, and it hasn't helped even one bit as far as appointments go.

Sorry to hear that YMP. I was hoping there was a way to somehow prioritize people from previous groups that hadn't gotten an appointment yet, for whatever reason. Disappointing that there isn't.

That's why I fear for appointments once the floodgates get thrown open for everyone next month. With Chicago holding back on all the incremental eligibility increases in the rest of the state, demand is going to be absolutely insane.