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

that's one way, but we've been contacted through conventional sign ups via the county, city, village, etc.

via the county, city, village, etc.

It's hardly news to Americans that our medical system is not actually a system at all, but a hodgepodge of medical providers operating under a crazy quilt of corporations on the make.

xpost I live in a Village! That's the official title of the municipality.

xpost I live in a Village! That's the official title of the municipality.

Posh in Chicago morelike

(But still a bit convinced I'm gonna be the last ilxor to get a jab!)

― kinder, Monday, 29 March 2021 5:18 AM (six hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Hello from Australia, we are 3.5million does behind our original 4 first vax goal for March and 1.5million behind our revised goal. I’m starting to wonder if I’ll get vaxxed this year.

I’d like to say Australia is missing it’s goals because it I sending it vaccine to countries that need it more, but no it’s just general government incompetence.

If you’re taking about the “no waste” lists separately maintained at drug stores across the country then it does seem to get you vaccinated sooner but that is not a simple system. It’s a very American system.

Do you have to be eligible to get on these lists?

I have had two otherwise ineligible friends get vaccinated this way (one in VA and one in CA) so apparently not.

as a Torontonian under 40 with no real health problems who can WFH, I suspect I really might end up the last one jabb'd.

I made a note of itt.

OK I sort of gestured at this upthread but -- what is the right way of handling you and your spouse having different views about what now counts as "safe enough"? I have a pretty "everybody needs to make these judgments for themselves and people will end up in different places and that's OK" attitude but you know, running a household, you actually have to make joint decisions! Obviously one answer to this is "it's no different from any other household decision you have to make where you and your spouse have different ideas about what would be best, just deal with it as you would anything else," which I would say basically describes what we've been doing, but I'm curious if anyone else is experiencing this.

today we had non-family inside our home for the first time in many months. They all had COVID previously (i.e. entire family), my wife is vaccinated, I'm 1/2 way there, and my kids have had it (one officially, the other tested negative but had the same mild symptoms at the same time). In spite of this, my wife still thought I should wear a mask. I obliged because I'm just not gonna pick a fight over something that small, although I found it really unnecessary (and we also opened all the windows fwiw). I would suspect that there's a tendency in couples to defer to the person with the higher safety standard - what was at stake for me was obviously much lower - a minor social barrier - so I'm not going to pick a fight over it.

But I could see it being harder if it was over something more consequential, e.g. should the kids go to school or something like that.

sorry Ed and others, didn't mean to be so flippant.
The waiting sucks. As I mentioned upthread my sense of urgency has increased as a family member has cancer and we have no idea when we will be able to visit them. But glad we have a decent vaccination programme here.

we have no idea when we will be able to visit them

having multiple family members in this situation earlier this year and going forward, we have bit the bullet and visited them and will continue to do so. My FiL passed recently from cancer and if we hadn't taken the chance to see him a couple of times we wouldn't have been able spend some quality time with him and his passing would have been much harder on my wife. My mom also has cancer now and we are planning to visit soon. We are fortunate in being mostly wfh and now older family are fully or partially vaxxed. If you can swing it relatively safely, I suggest you visit.

today we had non-family inside our home for the first time in many months. They all had COVID previously (i.e. entire family), my wife is vaccinated, I'm 1/2 way there, and my kids have had it (one officially, the other tested negative but had the same mild symptoms at the same time). In spite of this, my wife still thought I should wear a mask. I obliged because I'm just not gonna pick a fight over something that small, although I found it really unnecessary (and we also opened all the windows fwiw). I would suspect that there's a tendency in couples to defer to the person with the higher safety standard - what was at stake for me was obviously much lower - a minor social barrier - so I'm not going to pick a fight over it.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive),

This looks normal. As your wife socializes more often, I suspect she'll let her guard down more easily.

PBKR, I'm really sorry to hear that. What a horrible time for you & your family.

Thank you. This year has been challenging. I wish you and your family the best with your fight as well.

Sorry to hear the news PBKR.

what is the right way of handling you and your spouse having different views about what now counts as "safe enough"

I mean, the easy answer is to just follow the official CDC guidelines that are constantly being updated. Everything after that is a personal decision that will, yeah, no doubt evolve as the situation changes.

By the summer three out of four of us will be fully vaccinated. Our younger daughter just asked, clearly realizing that she got the short end of the stick, what it means for her, and specifically what it means for her and her fellow too-young-for-vaccine friends hanging out together, having sleepovers, etc. And we said we'd play some of it by ear but also take into account the official guidelines re: masks, number of people at a gathering, etc. She, of course, is astute enough to recognize the contradiction of standards loose enough to allow her to attend hybrid school with lots of other kids (including kids with even looser standards) but strict enough to limit her interaction with friends outside of school. It's a bit of an ethical tightrope with no obvious safety net.

Yesterday on one of the morning shows one of the CDC docs implicitly acknowledged with a sort of duck of the head that Biden's July 4 wish to celebrate Independence Day with small BBQs was too conservative; if we continue the current pace of vaccination, the parties will be...bigger.

I think with respect to vaccinating under-16s, one good thing is that once the trials testing vaccine safety for them are done (shouldn't be long now) they'll immediately be able to get vaccinated, unlike what happened with adults where the safety was confirmed but then we had to wait 3-4 months because supply was so constrained.

Yeah, I think that's true. I think I saw that at least one of the vaccines at trials going on for as young as 6 months!

xpost I bet Biden himself eventually acknowledges this. It's a fluid, dynamic situation, and just as he hit his 100 shots in 100 days mark in half the time and doubled the goal, I wouldn't be shocked if July 4th becomes less of a goal itself and more of a general celebration. I think the issue of course is that even when guidance was at its strictest and the virus at its worst and most destructive, millions of people still acted like irresponsible morons, which makes it a dangerous game to even hint that people can let down their guard, share food and plates and (formally) blow things up.

(addendum: looks like it'll first only be approved for 12-16 age group, if they're under 12 it might be a while)

I'm getting my first shot tomorrow (Pfizer) and I feel nervous like I do when I'm about to go on a long trip to another country!

My guess is that even if we see another modest uptick now, cases and hospitalizations will be low by summer, as they were last summer. It seems pretty likely that there's some kind of seasonal aspect to this, plus big #'s will be vaccinated by then.

So I got my first Pfizer in a small town, a Walgreen's right next to the bookstore I used to work at in high school. Open slots all day/week, also observed around 5 people straight up not wearing masks in the store in the ~20 min I was there.

I've yet to encounter anyone indoors without a mask (aside from people eating food or drinking or whatever). I assume when we drive south into the hinterlands of Redneckistan this week we will see a lot more.

i got my shot in a small town in a giant pop-up site set up in an abandoned kmart and there were many staff(!) chinstrapping their masks or wearing w/noses out. i was able to stay far the fuck away from them though.

xp to f. hazel, I felt the same way! All anxious and jumpy, constantly checking to make sure I had everything I needed, even though I didn't actually need anything except my printed QR code.

"the hinterlands of Redneckistan"

really dude?

Says the resident of the Village of Chicago

uk news yesterday had two stories back to back about

a) not stockpiling vaccine, giving the surplus to developing contries because of the 'pan' part of pandemic

b) over 50s should arrange a jab quickly because there are about to be shortages (and, or maybe because, april is going to be focused more on second jabs for the earlier crowd)

stories seemed to be complete opposites of each other.

I believe JiC meant "the fertile, black soil of southern Illinois, where one can see majestic thunderheads roll across the horizon while bathing in the green and delicious scent of young cornstalks"

Yeah, that place. Specifically by Anna, Illinois, subject of this very unflattering Atlantic story from a couple of years ago:

https://www.theatlantic.com/family/archive/2019/11/anna-illinois-sundown-towns/601111/

(Btw, re: cities, towns, villages et al. in Illinois, that's partly because Illinois has more units of local government than any other state - something like 8000 - and they're often all called something else. I can walk a mile or two in any direction and literally be in a different city, town, village, etc.)

Y'all do realize that a lot of rednecks proudly self-identify as rednecks, right? Signed, someone who has lived deep in the bosom of several rural redneck enclaves

Bosom Holler

I would say 40% of the male members of my high school graduating class in central Illinois would proudly have identified themselves as rednecks if asked. That said, I understand why the blanket dismissals of rural areas with such names are stupid and diminish the lives of people who are stuck there by family or circumstance.

cool, now you all can explain why it's amusing to say "-istan" when you're talking about a place filled with people you disdain

Second Pfizer jab complete!

xpost - I didn't see that particular part, was just addressing the recent "redneck" talk. Yes, that is not cool either, but maybe call out the person who posted instead of expecting everyone else to do it?

Congrats Alfred!

Specifically by Anna, Illinois,

I grew up near here until I moved away at age 14. All I will say is, I've never been back.

WHO WANTS TO PARTY ON APRIL 12

Sorry, gotta wait until May 12th.

All I will say is, I've never been back.

So am I way off base? The "-stan" suffix was not intended as a slight on the people, just as in "a place abounding in." Calling the people down there "rednecks," that part I'll own, with the acknowledgment that of course they're not all bad people down there (very fine people on both sides, etc.) and that there are plenty of people there for family or through circumstances. I'm just going by all the warnings I've either read or been given by people actually from the area. But I honestly look forward to be proven wrong!

I have been guilty of redneck shaming during my adult life and the recent pushback on ILX has made me reconsider it.

I did plenty of redneck shaming when I was in the middle of it growing up, definitely. It's been easier to see as I've gotten older, though, how unfair it is to paint an entire region or area, because I do know some people that stick in those areas, fighting the good fight to keep progressive politics alive.

Taking an aggressive pride in one's ignorance is an understandable reaction to being shamed for one's ignorance, and it's a reaction that's in no way confined to just 'rednecks', but it is never a helpful reaction and it usually ends up stunting otherwise functional adult humans.