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

Last update, because I'm fucking furious and done for a while: appointments at nearest state facility now being given for May fucking 22 and still not actually available. Might as well schedule me for 2525.

pbkr and others, i would really not bother with rite aid, the site was wonky for me the entire time i tried to nab an appointment. nearly all the stores were unavailable and the ones that were would freeze rather than let you take next steps.

cvs is more reliable–if they have appointments available, they'll tell you and if you can't find anything by searching the zip code, try searching by city name. that's how i got my appt.

I wouldn't despair yet; that's how it looked in Seattle the day after they opened up eligibility to my group. It took a few days for the system to catch up to the change, and then a lot more vaccine came in and suddenly my coworkers and I were all able to schedule appointments within the next week.

this is all changing by the hour at the moment and that's to be expected given the seismic shifts in access over the past few days in many states; hopefully there will be some greater equilibrium by the start of the upcoming week

I’ve had stupidly good luck with CVS for my parents and myself. Check early everyday.

Just as a data point for you all in the US that are seeing expanded appointments, the UK has basically shut down 1st shots for the month of April because of shortages, so under 40s won't be eligible until May at the earliest. Local NHS trusts have even been told to stop using up leftovers on younger people, from what I hear.

The hope is that there will be enough stock for all the folks that got their first shot within the promised 12-week window.

26 hours after the second jab and no side effects other than the sort of woolly-headedness last night as if I were on Nyquil.

PKBR possible some leads in here

NYC peeps over 30 lookin to get jabbed: here are some good bots to follow for appointments! got mine in Feb with their help. @nycshotslots @turbovax @nyvaccine if there are others please reply in this thread!

— rachel handler (@rachel_handler) March 29, 2021

Perhaps I'm not versed in your brand of sarcasm, sic, but this is an absolutely vile thing to post.

this you? :)

I've said this before, and I usually don't say this sort of thing, but I wish that little fascist shit Cawthorn had died in that car accident. We'd all be better off.

It's been over a year. Anyone who's wilfully going out socialising indoors, unmasked, at this stage 100% knows what they're doing, and is directly risking the lives of hundreds of people as well as their own. If they've caught it while doing this, they have almost certainly also spread it. I don't want anyone to act like this, and then to catch the virus and die. But if they do catch it through truly sociopathic behaviour, perhaps we would be better off without their future actions.

So after stressing all day over trying to get a vaccine appointment, someone tells me: "Just go find the most Republican county near you and look them up."

Found ~ 150 slots in one county next to mine and ~ 100 in another. Signed up in less than 5 minutes.

— Major Hayden (@majorhayden) March 30, 2021

Contracting COVID to own the libs.

https://www.vice.com/en/article/7k9gya/stanford-scientists-reverse-engineer-moderna-vaccine-post-code-on-github

My housemate yesterday was stressing about how she's not going to be eligible for a vaccine for another month at least, so I suggested that she try driving out toward Eastern Washington and waiting outside a pharmacy at closing time in case they had surplus. Being a very practical person, she instead looked at a map, picked a likely-looking pharmacy, and called them to ask if they often had leftover vaccine. They said yes, and they get a lot of cancellations, so just call in the morning and if someone cancels you can take their place. She called this morning, they had slots for both her and her boyfriend, and they got vaccinated today.

I think if I hang out on the vaccine page for HEB grocery store long enough, it seems like an appointment will pop in my area. So far there have been a couple in San Antonio, but I'd prefer to keep it a bit closer.

younger hospitalizations also means that hospitalizations are going to become less predictive of deaths. Even in Michigan, the uptick in critical care and ventilators, so far, is not very big. Obviously v much hope not to be wrong, but I am still optimistic.

― longtime caller, first time listener (man alive), Monday, March 29, 2021 10:46 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

"younger hospitalizations also means that hospitalizations are going to become less predictive of deaths" would be true if nothing else had changed other than the average age of people admitted to hospital. that's not the only thing that's changed, and there's good reason to think we may see a higher death rate among admitted patients over the next couple of months than in the winter. we're certainly going to see more admitted patients.

assuming the epidemiologists at the CDC, who are under tremendous pressure to announce good news and bless reopenings, are catastrophizing seems ... weird? motivated reasoning? i dunno. anyway this article breaks down why they're worried.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2021/03/fourth-surge-variant-vaccine/618463/

basically everyone get vaccinated is how i break it down

we're certainly going to see more admitted patients.

more than right now, not more than in the winter i should say

Hey guys I was reflecting on my posting here and elsewhere and overall mood lately and I feel like I've been going down a contrarian and overly detached/trollish rabbit hole and I wanted to apologize. I probably need to log off for a while. I'm mostly just expressing frustration with the situation.

missing the office bathroom?

Canada’s third wave of COVID-19 is escalating at an alarming rate, driven by variants that are sending more middle-aged people to hospital, just as the country’s immunization experts recommend against giving the AstraZeneca vaccine to anyone under the age of 55.

Cases are increasing at such a fast clip in British Columbia that the government has imposed the strictest restrictions since the beginning of the pandemic. In Ontario, a new report shows variant infections are sending more people in their 40s and 50s to intensive-care units than earlier incarnations of the coronavirus.

“The third wave is really different, especially from the first wave,” said Katharina Plenk, chief and medical director of the department of medicine at Cortellucci Vaughan Hospital, a facility north of Toronto designated for COVID-19 patients. “Definitely there is a signal there that this is affecting a younger population. This is obviously something that hits close to home, and it’s been very scary to see.”

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-covid-19-variant-driven-third-wave-hits-middle-aged-adults-hard/

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky: “Our data from the CDC today suggest that vaccinated people do not carry the virus.” pic.twitter.com/9W1SHecSEm

— The Recount (@therecount) March 30, 2021

expando:

“Vaccinated people do not carry the virus — they don’t get sick,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday. That’s “not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real-world data.”

Walensky was referring to a new CDC study that suggests those fully inoculated with the vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer don’t transmit the virus. Researchers looked at how the shots protected nearly 4,000 health-care workers, first responders, and other essential workers toiling in eight U.S. locations against the virus and more-contagious variants. Following a single dose of either vaccine, the participants’ risk of infection was reduced by 80 percent, and that figure jumped to 90 percent after the second dose. Without infection, people are unable to spread the virus. The results are similar to what scientists saw in clinical trials for the vaccines, which found that two doses of either two-dose vaccine had an efficacy rate of around 95 percent.

The study is the agency’s first to analyze how well the vaccines worked among working-age front-line adults, who are at a higher risk of being exposed to the virus and spreading it. “These findings should offer hope to the millions of Americans receiving COVID-19 vaccines each day and to those who will have the opportunity to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated in the weeks ahead,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, said in a statement. “The authorized vaccines are the key tool that will help bring an end to this devastating pandemic.” Still, the CDC has not issued new guidance on how the vaccinated should behave; its current guidance is that they continue to take precautions such as masking.

More than 142 million doses of the Moderna and Pfizer vaccines have been administered in the U.S. as of March 30, according to the CDC. The third vaccine currently on the American market is a single-dose shot made by Johnson & Johnson, which was shown to be 66 percent effective in thwarting moderate to severe COVID-19-related illness.

its current guidance is that they continue to take precautions such as masking.

sounds about right to me. until society is safe, this is a reasonable expectation, if only because there is no visible way to know if the person in your space has been vaccinated or not and this gives a clear visual clue that they are at least taking precautions for your safety.

well, got my first shot this afternoon after a 5-hour volunteer shift. my second shot appointment? at 4:20pm on... 4/20 yeeeeeeeeeeeaaaaahhhhhhhh

Been doing a shoot this week in a tight space w 2 other folks who are not vaccinated in any way (I trust them to not have been reckless, but they are just normal folks being safe; I had my first shot 10 days ago) and I am still more nervous than that 80% stat might suggest. That two shots is effectively immune (and won't allow ME to transmit) seems like a million miles away

my second shot is also on 4/20, hi-five! xp

trudeau, give me astrazeneca, dickhead

that's my venting

I had my second shot earlier today. Some aches and sinus troubles but so far so good.

shot #2 this saturday woot

Appointments for me and Mr. Jaq booked for Friday afternoon, I have never been so excited to get jabbed. We won't know in advance which we'll get - the site is apparently doing all 3 US available.

"I didn't sleep last night, so I am very worried. I am very concerned," she said. "I know this is a really big call, I know it's very tough – we've got Easter coming up, we've got school holidays coming up. But let's do it now and let's do it right and let's see if we can come through it the other end."

The lockdown will stretch until at least 5:00pm on Thursday.

Some of the ten infected people went to a hens' party / bachelorette at a pub in another state before getting diagnosed, and one person at that pub has tested positive. Three neighbouring local councils are imposing a five day mask mandate in retail shops, and reducing house parties to 30 visitors.

Yes, 30.

Whose house fits 30 people tho

People who can afford to live in that town tbf. (eg all three Hemsworths, a Real Housewife of NY, Olivia Newton-John, Nicole Kidman*, Sacha Baron Cohen, Zac Efron, dude from The Tea Party, surfer bro musician Jack Johnson, Paul Hogan, various models and TV stars I've never heard of, and any sharehouses that haven't been kicked out to turn into AirBNBs since it became internationally trendy)

* renting an "ecologically sustainable" "Spanish-style" homestead for $50,000 a week while filming a Hulu series during the pando

I stayed a couple of nights in a powered car park there, it's nice

If somebody takes my arm and sticks a dose of vaccine in it.
& its one of 2 shots against the vid.
& the next one is 12 weeks away.
Then does that mean that I have 3 months in which I can get half a rona.
Or that I therefore might get a full one in 6 months?
I mean I assume maths is a constant innit?

This has been covered itt earlier today, if you’re actually asking.

gosh you're so masterful, and oh so butch.

or in other words could you stop trying to gatekeep me because i have a very very low opinion of you.

what

Thread moves so fast it's difficult to keep up. I think the only people who've had two jabs in the UK are, like, 90, so US ILXors having their 2nd shot is blowing my mind somewhat.

If you’re asking the thread whether information is available about the rate of efficacy for different stages of the various vaccines, someone answering “yes” and telling you the easiest place to find it is... perhaps the exact opposite of gatekeeping?

If you’re just giving it some Basil Fotherington-Thomas “hallo vaccines, hallo mathematics, sa i,” nobody suggested that you shouldn’t.

xp Tom - that’s largely down to, I take it, the UK’s decision to push the second jab back for months against the manufacturers’ advice. Pretty much everywhere in the US afaik is sticking strictly to two weeks after the first.

(Australia’s fallen short on their “4 million first shots by March 31” target by 3.5 million: vaccine acquisition & distribution is m/l the first time any aspect of COVID public health has been handled by Morrison’s federal government, rather than states and local govs.)

Pfizer says Covid vaccine is 100% effective in kids ages 12 to 15 https://t.co/2xR8EfneuR

— Jay Yarow (@jyarow) March 31, 2021

xp Tom - that’s largely down to, I take it, the UK’s decision to push the second jab back for months against the manufacturers’ advice. Pretty much everywhere in the US afaik is sticking strictly to two weeks after the first.

afaik the reason that decision was taken was because we'd have run out of vaccine in about two weeks. We're used to having to ration stuff with a nationalized health service though.

meanwhile the US is taking a nationalised approach to a public health matter for the first time in decades, and finding its way more efficient than the local and private bottlenecks once the vaccines arrive

Suggests there'a a hell of a lot of vaccine in the US!

it's good to be king

hegemony isn't just for christmas