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

Came up in a convo with someone at my favorite store (the wine store) where both the employees and I are still wearing masks: "I guess I got my MMR and tetanus shots like normal, and I don't go through life fearing getting measles, mumps, or rubella." Still wearing masks.

I went into work for the first time yesterday (voluntarily) for something. Wore a mask in the building and whenever I left my office. No one else in the office wore a mask, though there were only a handful of people there. Didn't stop our CEO (who has been coming into the office for at least several months) from coming into my office and talking to me in relatively close quarters for half an hour.

Maybe the weirdest part was the trapped-in-amber quality of finding post-its and notepads with notes of what I was working on in March 2020.

We're having a company-wide zoom meeting tomorrow to discuss the return to the office, which I understand will be 3 days in-office and 2 days wfh starting the week after July 4. That's about as good as I could expect I guess.

My work announced their plan yesterday as well and it’s quite similar. Return date is September 8th; Mondays and Tuesdays will be work from home option for the whole company, Wednesdays through Fridays will be mandatory in-office for the whole company. I think they said we have 87% fully vaccinated at the NYC office.

Israel starting to see new outbreaks: https://www.businessinsider.com/israel-seeing-new-covid-19-outbreak-despite-vaccine-success-2021-6

Off topic from vaccines, but seems like my work is following the pattern I'm seeing in far too many places around here in the past few weeks - talking up a big game about continuing some form of remote work and encouraging hybrid options, only to pull the rug out from everyone at the last minute and decide, "nope, after all we do want butts in seats every day, so plan to get back in the office full-time".

The hybrid model of deciding on two or three days / week to be in the office makes little sense to me. I would prefer it to be situational: I will come in for meetings. But just to sit and work? nah, if I can work at home on a Tuesday I can just as well do the same on Wednesday.

I could see being less productive on my WFH days if I had less of them, because of the inclination to cram a week’s worth of home-related stuff into those two or three days. Better to be able to spread that stuff out. I predict hybrid model will fail quickly. All or nothing.

they've confirmed that the office we thought we were eventually going back to is closing and we'll now be based, hundreds of us, in central London offices that were already over-crowded.

2 or 3 days a week in the office is apparently the new normal, which means lugging the laptop backwards and forwards.

Close the border all you want, the shit's going to be the prevalent strain anyway unless (like the US) you get the vaxx-hesitant off the sidelines.

Two weeks before this, the UK had half the number of cases per capita than the US.

https://i.imgur.com/4FAKUyi.jpg

Two weeks later, as the Delta variant has become the dominant strain, .UK infection rates are now five times higher than the US. Hospitalisations have increased 80%.

https://i.imgur.com/BbnoR5F.jpg

Due to vaccination rates, especially among the elderly, deaths are still low, but rising significantly.

https://i.imgur.com/48D8VBD.jpg

the vaxx-hesitant

Rollout was going at about the same pace this year, but the UK has surpassed the US.

https://i.imgur.com/w9L01j1.jpg

scapegoating the border when all that did was let the variant in

obviously we can't draw any conclusions, but my "actively importing the variant might possibly maybe mean people could potentially get infected with the variant" theory may yet stand up.

still, more money for the police ought to solve it, right?

Any other old messages you wanna dig up?

(re: rollout, you're not wrong, but the landmass and population of the US completely dwarf the UK. That said, I'm hardly defending the US - we're under 1 million doses a day right now)

obviously we can't draw any conclusions, but my "actively importing the variant might possibly maybe mean people could potentially get infected with the variant" theory may yet stand up.

still, more money for the police ought to solve it, right?

― bobo honkin' slobo babe (sic)

no offense, but what's the point of this

discussing and/or venting rational COVID-19 fears and experiences, iirc. sometimes I find it stressful or depressing when governments or heads of state deliberately pursue policies that will immiserate and kill many thousands of ppl

(neando, I didn't quote a name bcz I just wanted to vent/discuss the topic, not call anyone out. but also imo two weeks is not "old," seventy-six weeks into the pandemic!)

sic, US is not going back into lockdown barring some zombie apocalypse situation where covid victims start rising from the dead.

Even then, R governors would probably welcome covid zombies as sign of the final coming of Christ and give them special tax-exempt status.

Good move, this; let’s see more of it

https://www.sfchronicle.com/health/article/This-Bay-Area-county-sorts-COVID-into-vaccinated-16275590.php

(xp) Zombies vrs Anti-vaxxers, I'd play/watch/vote for this

sic, US is not going back into lockdown

have you tried driving to Canada from either the US or the UK lately

driving to Canada from ... the UK

You go first. We'll watch.

I can get the same result by trying the other one.

They're drowning people in their cars now just for trying to cross the US/Canadian border?! Harsh.

Easier to swim from France to Canada

I've had laryngitis since last Tuesday. the cause was fairly non-controversial - I screamed for two hours while watching a soccer game while also drinking and by the time I got home I could barely speak, and I had to train people all week, so it didn't heal.

but because my paranoid ass googled "COVID laryngitis" and learned about COVID voice, I freaked out and got a COVID test (rapid, one of the two rapid tests approved for international travel). it's negative.

i hate how any time you're not 100%,you always have to worry "is this COVID?"

Just spent all weekend chatting with buddies, yelling over one another, trying to be heard over pouring rain, etc., and my voice is so rough and out of practice from lack of group socializing that I barely made it home able to speak. There's your Covid voice.

Adding to my data points, with each state around here I visit for things - first Wisconsin, then Missouri, just now Michigan - the echo of covid gets dimmer and dimmer and fainter and fainter. Michigan was the first trip where I didn't see a single mask anywhere, not at stores, not out and about, nothing.

Horrid

Tbf, the Wisconsin and Michigan destinations were relatively underpopulated.

Depends. I had a similar experience as Josh, down to the rain. Every man and woman at this 12-person party was jabbed.

So vaccination rates of about 14% probably?

in my group it's 100%.

Miami-Dade sits at 66% fully jabbed as of yesterday.

I meant “rural Michigan” not people Josh knows!!

Well, the bait shop we went into to, not only did I sense the proprietors were perhaps not vaxxed, I also got the impression they perhaps thought Michigan had fought for the south, if you follow. On the other hand, kayaking around a big lake, looking at various flags, I didn't see one Trump banner, and while I did see one Don't Tread On Me snake flag, someone had stuck a Hate Has No Home Here sign right on the property line. A house divided!

My parents live in one of the most rural parts of Michigan and the vax rate there is 42.8% with at least one dose.

Although the section of MI where rich people from Chicago go is heavily Calvinist Dutch influenced so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a lower vax rate there.

the party of small government has done it again!

https://i.imgur.com/VsSsJJH.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/DnKjc69.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/tYuhvKW.jpg

(4.68 is way higher than I've previously estimated from available public figures)

Was going to say, the figure in the 9 newspapers has barely cracked 3%.

Seems like a wine on beer / beer on wine az/Pfizer regimen works very well. This is not the booster schedule that seems likely in the uk but suggests that if implemented a booster would pretty much make you immortal, someone who can see time and space.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/06/28/health/mixing-pfizer-astrazeneca-results.html

someone who can see time and space

I've been doing that ever since I learned the big hand from the little hand.

I admit that I am spending way more mental energy worrying about this Delta variant than I was prepared to be spending. Seems like at least every other day I see an ALL CAPS tweet being shared on Twitter from someone saying they were really sick for 24-48 hours with the variant, even though they were vaccinated and we should BE SCARED. Obviously I don't want to put to much faith in random ass tweets because, a) not sure how people know for certain which variant they had, especially if they don't go to the doctor/hospital; b) it's a random ass tweet.

I guess on the one hand, it's a helpful reminder that we are still in this pandemic and we still need to be cautious but, I also kind of feel like fear mongering like this isn't really going to help with the hesitant.

someone posted this in the other thread:

DELTA variant. To discuss this, let's actually start with discussing the spike protein of the virus. Remember, the spike protein of the virus is how the virus binds to our host cell. The spike protein is the protein that is encoded by the mRNA & adenovirus-DNA vaccines (J&J) pic.twitter.com/IaLEfRa6Yd

— Monica Gandhi MD, MPH (@MonicaGandhi9) June 16, 2021

xpost Understandable. Some things it'll help to remember:

Vaccinated people are definitely going to catch the Delta variant. they also caught the Alpha variant. they also caught the original version of COVID. this isn't new, nor is there any study showing that significantly more vaccinated people are getting Delta, or that they're developing severe COVID at a higher rate (at least not yet). Likewise, there's a pretty good chance that those who get breakthrough infections may have a greatly reduced viral load (or be prevented from spreading it).

The reason it's a major threat is that there are tons of immunocompromised people who might not be benefitting from the vaccines the same way you or I do, who could be at greater risk of dying from it, and under 50% of our country is fully vaccinated (though getting closer), and it has the ability to spike in less vaccinated areas, overwhelming hospitals, bringing death with it, and not just of unvaccinated people.

also, people fundamentally misunderstand what 'vaccine effectiveness' is, which is where I think a lot of the panic comes from. I'll go over in another post.

So I think many folks have misinterpreted the 88% effectiveness of Pfizer against the Delta variant to mean 12% of people who get vaccinated will still get COVID-19. Not what it means - these vaccines wouldn't be seen as a modern miracle if it did. It means the risk is reduced 88% for vaccinated people.

It's calculated as follows:
First, we calculate the Risk Ratio. To do this, we need to calculate the attack rate for both vaccinated and unvaccinated groups, meaning the percent of vaccinated/unvaccinated people in the study who became infected.

For example:
If I have 2000 vaccinated people and 2000 unvaccinated people in my study. Let's say 50 of the vaccinated people get COVID, and 400 unvaccinated people get it.

50/2000 = .025 or 2.5% attack rate for the vaccinated
400/2000 = .2, or 20% attack rate for the unvaccinated.

Risk ratio = 20/2.5 = 8, which means you are 8 times more likely to get COVID if you are unvaccinated than if you are vaccinated

Now, to calculate the effectiveness (assuming this is a real world study):

You take the attack rate for the unvaccinated, subtract the attack rate for the vaccinated, and divide that total by the attack rate for the unvaccinated.

So...
(20 - 2.5)/20
17.5/20 = 87.5%

This means the vaccinated group experienced 87.5% fewer cases than the unvaccinated group. Notice how the vaccinated group didn't have 12.5% of its participants catch COVID - the percent was far lower (2.5%). The real percentage is likely far lower than that - I just made up numbers to make a point.

Sources: https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson3/section5.html, https://www.cdc.gov/csels/dsepd/ss1978/lesson3/section6.html

(not referring to anybody HERE, mind u, this is more "my FB feed/people I know"

xpost - Yeah, I left off another few sentences about how tweets like that kind of prove that the vaccines are, in fact, doing their job nicely. I mean, if you only get sick for a day or two and don't end up in the hospital, that's a win, thanks to the vaccine!

Our state is doing pretty good, our local city even better (far better, I'm seeing some reports of over 87% vaccinated in our city), which is great. But, yeah, with an unvaccinated kid, I'm still nervous.

definitely understandable. I have a friend who is immunocompromised AND has three unvaxxed little ones. the concern is real and palpable

Although the section of MI where rich people from Chicago go is heavily Calvinist Dutch influenced so it wouldn't surprise me if there was a lower vax rate there.

― underminer of twenty years of excellent contribution to this borad (dan m), Monday, June 28, 2021 2:50 AM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Vax rates in West MI seem to track with financial & educational privilege and/or urban areas? The counties containing Grand Rapids, Grand Haven, Kzoo, are 60%+; the lakeshore counties with tourism industries are around 50%; and the more rural interior counties are in the 40% range. All up and down the state.

Data from https://www.michigan.gov/coronavirus/0,9753,7-406-98178_103214-547150--,00.html

I would guess there's some political affiliation mapping over this but not entirely, as some of those areas lean hard right. They still got vaccinated because they're educated white ppl and they know how science works despite being Culture Warriors who purposefully mislead their followers.

I was in ... Vandalia?

thank you for that link, Alfred. seems like she's saying the "mRNA only 33% effective against Delta variant after one dose" was misleading because it was taken over the first two weeks post-shot, whereas it was closer to 80% after two weeks after first dose.

the HANDS FACE SPACE roadsign at the park gates gets keeps getting put face-down by naysayers.

wembley doesn't look very socially distanced...

I go back to work hosting karaoke this weekend at a local bar and the woman they hired to be the new cocktail waitress is proudly telling everyone how she is not vaccinated and thinks vaccines are bad. I’m very vulnerable to infection and have a zillion reasons to not even do the job but I’m going to do it and I’m gonna tell her directly to not get within ten feet of me until she gets a shot and waits a few weeks