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

Yeah, we've had two different friends invite us over for a BBQ and a game night, and both were surprised when we passed, "but we're vaccinated". Great, you are, we aren't. Our son isn't. Your kids aren't. Forgive us for not being quite ready to throw caution to the wind.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, April 8, 2021 10:45 AM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Gee, I wonder why new cases in IL are higher than they've been in two months...

― You Can't Have the Woogie Without a Little Boogie (Old Lunch), Thursday, April 8, 2021 10:51 AM (ten minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I mean, with all due respect, no. It's not because vaccinated people are having outdoor BBQs.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/outdoor-transmission-accounts-for-0-1-of-state-s-covid-19-cases-1.4529036

The BBQ is likely safe but ymmv

I'm def not saying anyone should have a BBQ who doesn't feel completely comfortable having one, just saying that is *really* not what is driving spread and clucking at people who do things like that is not productive.

I find that Menaker thing vaguely annoying, like he sees himself (or the person tweeting sees him) as taking a bold stand against "COVID scolds" while... scolding people who are vaccinated but not going to bars -- it's like he has a very very limited notion of what "our lives" might mean.

The issue with this particular BBQ is that they invited about 10 different families, most of which I didn't know at all, much less know enough about to be able to judge the comfort level with how safe I believe them to be. Had been just our vaccinated friends outdoors, I might have considered it.

I feel that if we've gained nothing else from this pandemic, we have at least all gotten much more in touch with and given voice to our inner moral scolds. It's a uniting experience, and if you disagree you should be ashamed of yourself. You should be ashamed. FEEL SHAME.

If anything, I've never felt so little guilt over my deep-rooted misanthropy.

issue with this particular BBQ is that they invited about 10 different families, most of which I didn't know at all, much less know enough about to be able to judge the comfort level with how safe I believe them to be. Had been just our vaccinated friends outdoors, I might have considered it.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), jueves 8 de abril de 2021 12:24 p.m. (eight minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Ah! That's different.

i’ve expressed this in this thread before but i got very tired of judging ppl and being implicitly brought into an in-crowd of ppl who were singling out others for their carelessness or moral indifference. everyone’s dealing with their own shit, i can just deal with mine

the menaker piece seems annoying but i’m mostly annoyed podcast patreon boy has a subscriber only newsletter, gotta pay to witness these good thoughts

believing that i don’t really have the moral high ground over anyone is an important personal philosophy to me tho

What, you think refusing to take the moral high ground makes you better than me

lol

yeah get back to us when you've realized you occupy the moral nadir

Sorry sorry, I forgot, #tongueincheek

I just feel like I know a lot of people who have taken very different approaches, and -- why wouldn't I? Why wouldn't each person's personal calculus of risk vs need land in a different place? I am not gonna tell people I think they're being reckless because they do things I'm not doing, or that they're giving up on life because they're not doings I am doing. They're them, I'm me.

(That said, obv. there are limits and I do not really have "it's just flu and I go into stores maskless just to show who's boss" friends, that's a different story!)

It doesn't help that there's been so little top-down guidance over the past year, and what little we've had has been contradictory (remember when Fauci was all 'masks? who needs 'em!?').

The problem being, of course, that it's well and good to approach life in a way where you don't judge others, but a pandemic reveals the pitfalls. When you are forced, particularly by something like a job, to be in regular or semi-close contact with others, it becomes hard not to judge when those people are talking about the approaches and decisions that are, by your own individual metric, much less safe. It becomes difficult to not judge others in those times, and I don't think it's worthwhile to feel guilty for doing so.

We know by now -- lord knows I've done it enough -- you can hang out with minimal risk outdoors with a small group of people you trust, with our without jabs. Once you get funky with the Cheez Whiz and ask strangers in, that's a different species of recklessness.

remember when Fauci was all 'masks? who needs 'em!?').

Fauci never struck this pose.

A facetious take but he did initially advise against masks early on when we thought there would be a shortage of PPE.

He did, yeah, but wasn't glib about it. I bet the CDC rue the day it happened; this empowered Lil Trumps like my governor.

Yeah, any quibble or shift from more authoritative voices has (naturally) added fuel to contrarians looking to actively muddy the waters.

This sounds like one occasion where a nationalized health service where you have absolutely no choice but to sit and wait your turn is preferable. Of course you could end up waiting a long time and I don't see that flying in the US - though that would be true whether there was a pandemic or not.

The problem being, of course, that it's well and good to approach life in a way where you don't judge others, but a pandemic reveals the pitfalls. When you are forced, particularly by something like a job, to be in regular or semi-close contact with others, it becomes hard not to judge when those people are talking about the approaches and decisions that are, by your own individual metric, much less safe. It becomes difficult to not judge others in those times, and I don't think it's worthwhile to feel guilty for doing so.

― soaring skrrrtpeggios (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, April 8, 2021 12:36 PM (twenty-nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Sure, but the corollary to this is that, when under that kind of stress, it becomes all too easy to misdirect your judgment.

Oh absolutely, my point was more just to say that it's both a) easy to understand why people who normally don't judge others might find themselves doing so in a pandemic, and b) reasonable to not beat ourselves up or feel guilty for slips into moral judgment or despair during the largest health crisis of our lifetimes.

it also seems very easy to participate in meta-shaming of others, apparently

I do think one major source of crossed wires is the huge chasm of experience, exposure risk-wise, between urban and suburban or rural areas. when a lot of people talk about hanging outside they mean getting in their car alone and traveling to a relatively secluded park. when a lot of other people talk about hanging outside they mean coming into very close contact with hundreds of people just in the act of transit, then going to a park that is not secluded at all. two very different experiences.

can't read the whole thing but (like a lot of chapo-related detritus) i think menaker is reacting to a very specific type of person you run into mainly on twitter, not just people presenting some over-cautiousness. "I think a certain kind of person has gotten addicted to a new kind of self-righteousness that they’re not going to want to give up so easily" - i don't think there is a statistically significant number of these people, but they exist. there are people who will create moral ideologies out of anything and covid restrictions provide a lot of ammo for that.

i've been more careful than most people and i'm in little rush to get back to "normal" cause i'm a natural shut-in anyway, but i do get annoyed at the "we should have been masking before covid and we should keep masking after covid (because some people in japan did/will)" crowd. if you wanna do it fine, but judging others for loosening their own restrictions strikes me as desperately clinging to a newfound moral angle they aren't ready to give up. i guess i don't buy into "masks are inherently good regardless of ongoing public health crises"

but again these people probably aren't that prevalent, not enough to write a whole thing about as 99% of americans will surely be acting like 2019 in a few months. twitter as a platform just makes everyone talk louder and scoldier than they actually are

xpost Yeah, seriously.

The pandemic has made me extremely jealous of people who have a yard.

yeah I'm aware this is a urban vs suburban vs exurban divide. When I mean "outdoors," I mean "someone's yard."

I appreciated a take recently about improving ventilation and HVAC systems...the point was, PPE is for when you CAN'T control or adjust the environment...but moving air and/or filtration is far and away the most protective thing we can do for shared spaces. I'm very grateful that the slight gamble we took last year, that outdoors was virtually low or no risk, has turned out to be accurate.

on the other hand it is not a great look, especially right now, to talk about how something that, pre-covid, was an asian cultural norm is insane or wrong

Of course you could end up waiting a long time

Australia yesterday cancelled their target of everyone getting a first jab by 2022.

I don't have any clue whether I will still be wearing a mask in a year but the strongest evidence for it actually being a good thing is the fact that the regular flu basically didn't exist last winter. (there's this, but "masks don't work to prevent the flu because people weren't wearing them indoors" is not a particularly convincing counter-argument https://www.healthaffairs.org/do/10.1377/hblog20200508.769108/full)

self-xp (Of course, this has nothing to do with the health service being public/national, and everything to do with the government being hideously corrupt and led by an aggressively incompetent moron. A few hours before announcing the slowing of the vaccine rollout, they hired McKinsey for $1.4 million to give them one month's advice about whether the rollout is going badly.)

the menaker piece seems annoying but i’m mostly annoyed podcast patreon boy has a subscriber only newsletter, gotta pay to witness these good thoughts

I think it's Krueger's newsletter tbf

newsletters suck

I do think one major source of crossed wires is the huge chasm of experience, exposure risk-wise, between urban and suburban or rural areas. when a lot of people talk about hanging outside they mean getting in their car alone and traveling to a relatively secluded park. when a lot of other people talk about hanging outside they mean coming into very close contact with hundreds of people just in the act of transit, then going to a park that is not secluded at all. two very different experiences.

The other thing is that this set of examples involve people who are, in both cases, looking to responsibly distance themselves from the people around them; I don't think either of the profiles in your scenarios describe the people who packed the Rangers' stadium.

I guess my main sticking point is: who gives a shit if someone wants to wear a mask for the rest of their life? unless you lip read (which some people have pointed out) it literally does not negatively affect my life in any way, and may well make it better by preventing illness. whereas, on the flip side, someone refusing wearing a mask is not going to benefit my life in any way, and may well make it worse if they're the person who gets me sick.

so, even in the most blunt non-moral "what's in it for me" thinking I think it's pretty clear what the answer is here? unless "what's in it for me" is the chance to shame people while pretending you're above that

on the other hand it is not a great look, especially right now, to talk about how something that, pre-covid, was an asian cultural norm is insane or wrong

― like, I’m eating an elephant head (katherine), Thursday, April 8, 2021 2:30 PM (forty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

i wasn't saying it's insane or wrong, just that it shouldn't be treated as a moral obligation. from what i understand the asian cultures in which it was a norm pre-covid generally didn't treat it as a moral obligation, and they masked for many reasons beyond just preventing communicable disease. i generally don't think americans should use "well that's how they do it in japan" out of context as a rhetorical device, as i've seen people do a number of times over the past year, which is why i mentioned it.

oh yeah i definitely did that a few months ago, whoops

i'm not trying to make anyone feel bad lol

i've become an advanced scold so i'm gonna stop now

I care zero if someone wants to wear a mask for the rest of their life as long as they're not advocating others be required to do so

what if the others in question are really ugly

xp -- that wasn't about you but the takes floating around

Planning a camping trip with friends, one of whom might not be vaxxed by the time we meet up since he's in his mid-30's and has never had a health problem in his life, and doesn't work in a frontline industry.

I'm stupidly excited to spend a few days in the woods with people I love.

Distant xpost, but does that mean Australia's borders will remain more or less closed at least through the end of the year?

Planning a camping trip with friends, one of whom might not be vaxxed by the time we meet up since he's in his mid-30's and has never had a health problem in his life, and doesn't work in a frontline industry.

I'm stupidly excited to spend a few days in the woods with people I love.

― it's like edging for your mind (the table is the table),

If the rest of you are jabbed, the risk is minimal: your friend infecting y'all and vice versa.

Oh, I know. That's why we're planning it.

Some notable SF vaccination numbers at this point. We're now over 400,000 with at least one shot -- 53% as noted of the eligible population. 1/3 of said population now has completed a shot regimen, while 2/3 of the 65 and over folks in the city have similarly completed theirs. (The 82% of those who have received at least one shot is a number that's barely budged in a while, though, and may indicate what levels of further resistance/unwillingness to get the shot will crop up further down the line.) Meantime, a number of neighborhoods in general have specifically passed over the halfway point for getting at least one shot, including once again both Excelsior and Bayview/Hunter's Point as well as Chinatown, Twin Peaks and elsewhere.