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

Any American ILXers still waiting for their first jab?

Today in random anecdotal data, every single person at a run-of-the-mill grocery store and also at Costco was wearing a mask. Oddly, there were two people at Costco wearing half assed gaiters, which is weird, because the mask is totally optional now anyway, so if you're going to do it at all, why half-ass it?

At Target this morning around 8:30 I saw three unmasked employees and a handful of unmasked customers. So: more than the weekend, far less than I feared two weeks ago.

This weekend was the first time I've noticed a big drop in mask usage around here. At my son's baseball and soccer games, less than half of the parents were masked, despite the league having yet updated their original policies from March that require masks for all participants and spectators. No one was really enforcing it on the parents, just on the field and dugouts.

On two separate trips downtown, I'd estimate that 60% of the people I saw out and about were wearing masks but almost zero mask usage among college students.

were the parents outside?

My boyfriend's dad came for a visit for a few days and at dinner one night says (you have to imagine this in a heavy Polish accent) "I read on internet that masks not even work!" and I was like I AM NOT HAVING THIS CONVERSATION RIGHT NOW THANK YOU FUCK ALL THE WAY OFF.

Where did he read it? Who the fuck knows. This is the man who gave me a copy of The Closing of the American Mind and told me if I read it I would understand everything that's wrong with the world.

were the parents outside?

Yes and, to be clear, I'm not faulting them. The science backs them up, just noting that they were technically in violation of the league's rules.

I should add that the store I was at had an updated sign outside that said masks are required for unvaccinated patrons, but the sign looks almost identical to the old time, so maybe people just weren't reading it?

It's just all over the place right now. My son's soccer team (all 8 and 9 year olds) had their final game Sunday, so they gathered them all for a quick team picture in the goal. They took a bunch of photos, then one parent asked them all to pull down their masks for a quick maskless photo. Two parents very loudly and quickly objected, one of them screaming hysterically about it. Again, not passing judgment on anyone, it's just a weird time right now and reactions are all over the board.

his is the man who gave me a copy of The Closing of the American Mind and told me if I read it I would understand everything that's wrong with the world Allan Bloom.

The Trump numbers here seem to actually be pretty good, at least quite a bit better than I'd expect

The partisan vaccination divide, per new The Economist/YouGov polling:

Among Biden voters:
Fully vaccinated 76%
Partially 10%
Plan to get 7%
Won’t get vaxxed 2%
Not sure 4%

Trump voters:
Fully vaccinated 54%
Partially 6%
Plan to get 3%
Won’t get vaxxed 26%
Not sure 12%

— G. Elliott Morris (@gelliottmorris) May 26, 2021

Part of what's interesting about this is that the emergency authorizations of Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna and the massive pre-purchases of these vaccines were both done entirely under the Trump administration, while the most publicized hesitation expressed about this fact came from Kamala Harris.

as of today, we're now at 49.7% of Americans with 1 shot, 39.7% fully immunized. we'll hit 50% either tomorrow or Friday.

but the slowing continues - average is now 1.7 million shots a day, and yesterday's numbers were 898,000, today's only 1.42 million, very very low. not sure how much higher we're going to reach unless we release pre-12 vaccines. had hoped opening to 12-15 would give a boost but doesn't seem to have done so.

might just eventually hit a floor that it never goes below but still says relatively low so we eventually get to 60-70%, but idk. on the plus side, the case decline has continued this week (dipped under 25k/day).

getting to the point where I might just stop refreshing this shit daily and just look at weekly data.

I'm fine with just over a million a day and no herd immunity.

and a glass of bone-chilling chardonnay

The optimistic view, which is not totally unreasonable, is that we are ALREADY at a level of population immunity (vaccination + people partially protected by virtue of already having had it) which makes large-scale outbreaks impossible, so the speed of vaccination is merely affecting whether the exponential dropoff takes a month or takes three months, not whether it tips back into surge mode. The former matters too, but -- not as much.

Melbourne is back in lockdown after and outbreak of the B.1.617 variant. It did mean that I’m now eligible to be vaccinated and, after a 5 hour wait in line, I now have a first shot.

Good for you, I guess.

It is good!

The dawdling over the vaccine rollout in Australia is infuriating. We just hit our March target for doses yesterday. The prime minister and health minister have told people ‘it’s not a race’ and ‘it’s OK to wait for the vaccine of your choice’.

I was in the same convention centre for a conference a week ago and dropped by the vaccination Center and there was no line at all, one could walk in no trouble at all. I did ask about a dose of the feared and dreaded Astra-Zeneca that the government has been so busy in undermining the confidence in, but no dice.

Anyway it’s done now and I’m glad I queued yesterday because the computer systems broke this morning and everyone’s vaccine is being processed by hand today and waits are even longer.

I have my Astra-Zeneca booster shot today! Not expecting to die of any blood clotting disorder tbh. Am expecting mild fatigue.

wait are we on to boosters now?? i didn’t think that was a thing, yet

2nd shot I mean, although elderly people of my acquaintance are down for the autumn booster already

Anti-Lockdown protestors in Westfield this afternoon. In somewhere that obviously wasn't locked down, at least not until their protest caused it to be.

Hanging by a lake for a function in the northwoods of Wisconsin, people are pretty chill. Most have had two shots, some just one, mask requirements in the bits of civilization we've seen have been lax, but still lots of masks, considering shots more or less negate the most pressing need. All feels almost... normal.

Re Australia, my SiL is scheduled for her first Pfizer in June, which is earlier than she was expecting.

At a restaurant last night, I saw unmasked waiters for the first time, which knocked me on my heels.

I ate at a place for lunch today where most servers were unmasked but one or two still were.

Also seen lots of joyful hugs the past couple of weeks.

Anti-lockdown dorks all along the north side of Hyde Park and on the Central Line after their demo; my friend and I were in Hyde Park having a meet-up for our puppies, who are litter brothers. As soon as we saw them - loads were dropping in and out of the demo to sit in the park - we very pointedly put on our masks. Tube VERY crowded with them afterwards, and most of them were crusties or those weird middle-class white women who exude mediocrity and winter colds.

most of them were crusties

like... punks? Maybe I don't know what this word means now

Anyway why are there anti-lockdown protests in places that... aren't locked down

They’re anti-vaxxers and pRoTeSTiNg aGAiNsT tHe SyStEm too. A Scottish friend went to photograph the demo today and got a good vantage point on a centre island, when all of a sudden this old man surrounded by a dozen young women asked if he could take that spot; friend was like NAW, GET TAE FUCK to none other than Piers Corbyn.

Anyway why are there anti-lockdown protests in places that... aren't locked down

OK I'm sorry I read Hyde Park and thought you were in Chicago, but you're talking about London, which I guess is actually more locked down than here, my bad

FL officials indicated they aren't reporting any COVID case data this weekend and presumably a few other states are in the same boat.

Can't wait til everyone freaks out at the 'spike' when a three day backlog gets reported all at once

it's barely locked down in London, there is another stage of "fully back to normal" in late June, but really almost everything other than nightclubs is already open, just some limits on capacity. I saw a headline that they were protesting "vaccine passports" and suspect they are general antivaxxer conspiracy theorist jerks.

Crusties thing checks out, I was having a coffee at a tattoo parlour in letchworth yday and the proprietor and his mate, v much in that demo, were talking about ppl they knew going down to London for it & trying to get them to go (they were saying the protests are a load of bollocks but I did get the vibe that they were truther/anti lockdown/antivax all the same)

like... punks? Maybe I don't know what this word means now

No, they're basically hippies.

The work colleague who told me she wouldn't get the vaccine hasn't got the dreads, the tattoos and the piercings but she is fundamentally a hippy. They're a menace.

I think those vape-shop owning tattooed + bearded types are part of that same anti-vax subculture, perhaps not as crustie but made from similar pastry.

Basically it's people who see the world through the lens of magic rather than anything provable. There's a part of me that would love to see them held down screaming by black-visored security operatives and forcefully vaccinated, probably not the best part of me that's thinking that I will admit but I can't lie.

:D @ Hyde Park

Hyde Park, Perth (1899)

Hyde Park, Chicago (1889)

Hyde Park, Los Angeles (1887)
Hyde Park, Kansas (1880s)
Hyde Park, Tampa (1880s)

Hyde Park, Glasgow (1874-1897)

Hyde Park, Boston (1868)

Hyde Park, Townsville (1860s)

Hyde Park, Utah (1860)
Hyde Park, Minnesota (1858)
Hyde Park, Vermont (1839)

Hyde Park, Sheffield (1824)

Hyde Park, NYC, New York (1810)

Hyde Park, Leeds (c. 1800)

Hyde Park, Sydney (1810)

Hyde Park, Long Island, New York (1715)

Hyde Park, London (1536)

ok you still can't do par breaks in h tags

tickets for the NHL playoff game in Raleigh are actually gettable and affordable but we're not ready to have the kids inside a big ol building with a bunch of adults yet :(

[ hyde ] park

lol

haa

Anti-Lockdown protestors in Westfield this afternoon. In somewhere that obviously wasn't locked down, at least not until their protest caused it to be.

Just saw this on youtube

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdBGyzKcwX8

This is quite confusing. There are some people outside that want to go in, and then some other people inside that want to go out. And some of them are protestors and others are just shopping

Just got back from our trip to the Northwoods of Wisconsin. The region itself is overwhelmingly Republican, but the mask stuff was pretty reasonable. That is, a mix of those with and without, but nowhere did it feel weird or uncomfortable to don or doff. Most consistent mask wearing was among the small set, kids either too young to be vaccinated or too young to have had more than one shot at this point. The event itself (a three times rescheduled bat mitzvah, of all things, on a lake at a decommissioned summer camp where ... actually, the whole thing is a fascinating story, beginning with the parents, a loud Jewish mom from Long Island and a quiet non-Jewish creative writing teacher born and raised in a small town in Wyoming, now residing in the Northwoods, but that's all for some other thread) was supposedly mostly populated with double-vaxxed folks, with a smattering of single vaxxed and a few unvaxxed (for various reasons) locals scattered among them. The ceremony was outside, and the party was in a big tent, so I suppose there was some risk, but more or less minimal for a large gathering.

Anyway, it all felt pretty good, psychologically, to spend a long more or less carefree weekend with folks, strangers and friends alike, for the first time in forever.

Other anecdotal data from a backyard gathering last night from a friend who owns a few restaurants and concert venues is that for all the guidance the city and state has offered here, places like his are more or less on their own in terms of safety precautions at this point, and even if they weren't, he said the vibe and attitude among those in his industry, vaxxed and not alike, employees and guests alike, is that covid is over and it's time to move on. (Semi-related, he said the labor shortage is real and significant, and that those he's hired as everything from cooks to bartenders have been immediately using the job to bargain for better paying jobs for other places similarly desperate for employees, even when he offers higher pay or cash bonuses, but that's another story as well).

Another take from another friend last night is that with all the unknowns about variants and fall outbreaks and whatnot, those vaxxed (like all of us in the friend group) might as well try to enjoy what we can this summer, because it's easy to see it all getting shut down again in an instant.