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

wishing you and your family the best of possible outcomes

Many thanks. None of us are too worried, because the data says we shouldn't be. Here's hoping the data is right!

yikes! sorry to hear that tipsy mothra. at least he has that entire awesome upstairs area to hang out in! is your drum set still up there?

that room is second only to my friend's childhood attic in which i discovered 1) many bands i liked and 2) an old dish that had been under her bed for...months? lol i had a childhood attic room too but mine wasn't redone; when i moved up there i just shoved all the stuff to the other side and lived in the clean half.

Ha, yep, the drums are up there along with his banjolele. Plus, and more importantly from his point of view, his gaming laptop and a bunch of books and comics.

Good luck tipsy

Yeah, good luck. Hasn't happened to us yet, but I'm braced for the possibility.

We've just started to hit several bad news anniversaries in this pandemic, which has been ... surreal. For example, my old friend's daughters (triplets!) were supposed to have their collective bat mitzvah a year ago, but it was of course cancelled, delayed and moved multiple times, in hopes that they could have it a year later. Yet ... no dice, still a Zoom mitzvah. And then one of our best friends, her wonderful mother died a year ago today, of cancer, but they were unable to have a service then, let alone a memorial. Similarly, they hoped they could do it on the one year anniversary, but instead we had a (beautiful) Zoom memorial today. Even us, my daughter had a pared down in-person version bat mitzvah in September, and we're still hoping to celebrate a year later with a party at the end of this summer, but who knows, right? And my sister, by the time we ever get to see her again she'll have had two children that I've never met before. When this is all done it's going to be so strange having literally years of missed occasions to finally make up.

tipsy, best to your family. Hope it's mild and no one else gets it!

4.6m doses today in the US. A 24 hour record.

You get so used to the idea that the US government can't do anything and doesn't really want to do anything.

They definitely can but they rarely want to.

Best of luck tipsy, thinking of you

The friends I saw most regularly before the end of the world started comparing vax notes - five weeks until we're all at max safety, then we can sit around a table, drink Shiner and figure out how to interact with non-family again.

Lengthy thread of stats and where-we're-ats:

NEW: big international Covid data thread, focusing on the contest between vaccines & variants

First to the UK, where things are looking very good. The vaccine effect is still crystal clear, with more than 10,000 lives already estimated to have been saved https://t.co/bbuHMcyVhU pic.twitter.com/t48RNzZGZA

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) April 9, 2021

My Aussie SIL was telling us yesterday about their ongoing vaccine frustrations. She, for example, only knows a single person (healthcare worker) who has been vaccinated, and while life back there sounds more or less normal (one kid is at camp, she's at a retreat with girlfriends), she's stuck, unless she wants to quarantine on return, which both comes out of pocket ($1000 a day?) and, iirc, doesn't even as of yet take into account whether or not you have been vaccinated! She had been planning a visit to the US in December, when everyone that wants to be vaccinated here will likely be vaccinated and when even she would likely be able to get vaccinated, but didn't want to deal with paying all that money and spending all that time to quarantine when she comes homes. So ... yeah, frustrating.

Also saw in passing a news story about a troubling milestone in the US, that we're hurtling close to meeting vaccine demand, which unfortunately falls short of the numbers needed for herd immunity. Gonna have to find a way to convince all the slowpokes (ha, good pun!) to get their shots.

my partner just got his second dose yesterday, and honestly the most... I don't want to say frustrating, that's the wrong word, but delicate part of this has been navigating the fine line between expressing that I do miss him, and that all studies indicate that having both doses of the vaccine provides excellent protection against both infection and transmission so the safety is much higher now, but without coming off like I'm being pushy or pressuring him to do something he feels uncomfortable or unsafe with, or like I only have one conversation topic. way better to err on the side of too careful in that kind of thing.

(I know what it sounds like, but it's not that; he himself has to walk the same line with his roommate, who is even stricter, and even seeing each other outdoors with masks kind of skirts very close to that line)

Is he working from home?

posting this a bit late but this seems positive:

Queens College will host a temporary COVID-19 vaccine pop-up site today, Sunday, April 11 until 4:30pm.

The site will be in the Student Union building at Queens College, located at 152-45 Melbourne Avenue in Flushing, NY.

The Johnson & Johnson vaccine is eligible to anyone over 18 years of age with a valid ID. NO APPOINTMENTS ARE NECESSARY.

Does anyone in the UK have a clue about this?

My wife is doing a training course over the weekend in Leamington Spa, I can book a hotel room for her because it's business travel, not a holiday.

BUT how about me and the kids? Am I going to need to drive there and back from Cambridge two days in a row with the kids in the back? Because they are really not going to enjoy that. But we are not there for business and it's not "self-contained accommodation" either.

Neither the Premier Inn or UK government websites seem to have much to say about this.

From the Guardian:

"Non-essential journeys between England and Wales can resume, as can weddings – with up to 15 people – and funeral wakes. UK self-catering holidays can resume but only with people in your household or support bubble."

Actually, re-reading ... that doesn't quite answer your question, does it?

Hmm:

"In line with the latest government restrictions, guests with bookings for work, education or other legally permitted reasons can still stay with us before 17th May. However, we’re unable to accommodate stays for leisure purposes until after this date. Please check that you meet the criteria set by the government and are eligible to stay before arrival."

Could you sack the Premier Inn and go self catering or self-cater with the kids for around the price of petrol?

I mean, you are essentially being a taxi ... which might come under "legally permitted reason" but there's never any clarity on this stuff!

I would imagine you'd be fine and no-one would check. (Assuming your wife isn't in a position to drive herself!)

Question... if my wife and I have both been vaccinated, plus additional two week maxing out period, but my 92 year old mom, who lives by herself, has not, what’s the current assessment of the risk if we go visit/stay with her for awhile? A few weeks ago my thought was no, too risky unless she also gets vaccinated, but it seems like the ability of vaccinated ppl to infect others is turning out to be even lower than expected?

I keep prodding her to get the shot (she lives in St. Paul MN and has vaccinated neighbor friends who could take her) but I am getting the sense that she is going to drag her heels on it unless I go there and take her myself.

You could say you won’t go until she’s vaccinated - might change her perspective!

If you have a good relationship with her and want to see her, I would not wait - I would go - then take her to the appointment if you can get one.

both otm

Your risk assessment is otm, and, at the same time, y'all should be fine.

xxp -- yes and no, mostly yes these days, more no earlier (hence getting the second dose earlier)

I sorta have the same issue w my 95+ grandparents who dont want to bother getting the shot, basically. We’re just going to go visit them; maybe get a 15 minute beforehand.

You could say you won’t go until she’s vaccinated - might change her perspective!

This has been my bargaining chip all along of course. But last night I said something like ‘maybe there’s a way we can come and take you to get the shot ourselves’ and she was like ‘oh that’s a good idea!’ and I thought okayyy I see how it is.

Lol, if it ends up with her vaccinated, that's a good result for everyone.

Since my mom and stepdad are fully vaxxed up now, we went to go see them for a bit yesterday. Was nice to finally be able to do that, although it was really disheartening to hear how absolutely awful vaccination rates seem to be out there.

My mom is fairly active on a library board and knows most of the town, she said "basically no one" out there is getting vaccinated and there is a lot of public shaming on Facebook for the "sheeple" who are mentioning they've gotten the shots. My stepdad said the company he works for, who employs a couple hundred people, has had maybe about 10% of their staff get vaccinated. They've made vaccination mandatory for the techs who have to enter people homes but, even then, they still haven't even gotten 40% of their techs to get it done so far.

Tempers the success of the vaccination improvements a little when I hear all this talk, coupled with IL's rise in cases again.

Maybe enough people will eventually die for them to get the picture (j/k there’s never enough death for them)

Jab one done, son! Walgreens was kind of a clusterfuck. 1st day of everyone 16+ in IL...but apparently not the first day for that category at Walgreens? I guess they've personally decided to wait to open it up to the rest of us folks a week from now? For reasons unexplained and otherwise unexpressed? So I (and presumably the twenty or so people who shuffled in while I waited) was m/l told to just lie about which other category of higher-risk people I belonged to before they'd give me a shot. So there was basically no point in waiting my turn. But what the goddamn ever, I'm jabbed, hooray.

Saw my parents inside their house for the first time in over a year yesterday. It was lovely, we had a chicken dinner and they met our new pup and it felt really great.

Congrats, that sounds so nice. Cannot wait to see my family again. Their absence from my life has been weighing heavily.

I got to do that last week - went to my parents' house for dinner and actually went inside instead of staying out in the yard. It was very nice but also sort of disorienting; for the first hour I felt a little claustrophobic and kept wanting to go outside and get air. By the end of the night it felt normal.

full-contact hifives for all the newly vaxxed and the reunited families! it's so great to hear. in contrast to the yawning terror invoked by the legions of anti-vax fuckers doing their fucking damndest to fuck things the fuck up for the rest of us. i swan, if they brew up enough resistant variants/outbreaks/lockdowns to wreck my summer then i am going on the most vengeful wedgie spree this nation has ever seen

Still no vax for me but saw family again for the first time since last summer which was really great. (Stayed outdoors, all other adults have had the jab, and kids have been off school for ~10 days, plus we did rapid tests)

I went into a restaurant to pick up takeout, had to wait for 2-3 minutes, I have to admit that despite being 2vax + 5 days (i.e. pretty seriously protected!) I felt some level of stress (the place was full, mostly college students, everybody unmasked.) I think this is irrational in the sense that risk is always duration * susceptibility * other factors and while the other factors were very high (i.e. I would go so far as to say unlikely there wasn't virus in the room) the first two factors were quite low.

But, I mean, I did it, so it's not like the irrational fear was denying me or the kids our food. I think we all gotta be gentle with ourselves about feelings.

I think we all gotta be gentle with ourselves about feelings.

yeah big time. as i wait for my 2nd shot i'm keenly aware that my learning curve of what makes me stressed and anxious is going to lag somewhat behind the curve of what the actual ironclad scientifically-validated risks are and i really dgaf, that's ok with me. the lines will coincide eventually, but until then just let me have my elbow room while i slowly ease back into the putrid bathwater of physical human society.

25% is ... not herd immunity. even rounding up for people who got it, it's going to be disastrous if this is what happens in every trump county. children who cannot be vaccinated are going to die.

Carteret County in coastal North Carolina is discontinuing a mass vaccination clinic because of a decline in appointments scheduled through its call center. Fewer than a quarter of residents have been vaccinated. https://t.co/SRlsmG6Nl6

— Isaac Stanley-Becker (@isaacstanbecker) April 12, 2021

Jesus, this shit is so disheartening.

By and large, no, the people who would die from this set of decisions are older people, not children, and the fact that they could have gotten vaccinated doesn't make me OK with their deaths. Somebody created the information environment that led them to this decision.

I think the only way to vaccinate the reluctant would be to require vaccines for various activities, whether going back to school or going to Disney World or taking a flight. But that seems unlikely, especially in the places with large numbers of people refusing the vaccine.

It seems like every day more and more colleges are moving to require it for this Fall and beyond, but I don't see what else would help much beyond that. Presumably, at some point, most school districts will require it - not a big stretch from what they already require, but we're still several months (at least) away from that even being an issue for the under high school crowd.

I really don't know what the solution is, but as eephus seems to be hinting towards, a better country would start with Trump answering for all the deaths he's caused already.

I don't mean just one somebody.

By and large, no, the people who would die from this set of decisions are older people, not children, and the fact that they could have gotten vaccinated doesn't make me OK with their deaths. Somebody created the information environment that led them to this decision.

I don't mean just one somebody.

Of course, it's a long list. But I want to start at the top.