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

(It wasn't compulsory afaik but I think the uptake was still significant)
Parents of younger kids were supposedly testing 2x a week too. (I was doing so but not particularly regularly)

Even more anecdotal local data: just got back from Costco, where I'd say about half of the clientele (though very few of the staff) were masked. Also, I think I now know more people that have recently had to quarantine/test or are quarantining/testing due to possible exposure to a positive or suspected case than I knew people who had to do either at the peak of the pandemic.

pub nearby has live music right now for the first time I can remember.
local kids are going to clubs for the first time ever.
meanwhile rates in my town are higher than they've ever been. It's a bit surreal.
pub band is playing Sweet Home Alabama obviously.

And still more data from me: Trader Joe's staff was mostly masked, shoppers maybe 50/50? When I checked out I asked if it was company policy or personal, and they said just personal choice. It's def. strange to see all the social distancing markers and plastic barriers removed, but the staff still masked. Just adds to the choose your own adventure confusion.

I think we're going to look back on that May 13th announcement from the CDC as one of the more unfortunate landmarks along the pandemic path. Saying "hey, masks off, vaccinated people" and leaving it all up to the honor system was a bad move at the wrong time.

yeah I really felt like it was done 2-3 weeks early, like lets get a prolonged and steady drop before we just whip 'em off like that

No way to win, though. At the time the CDC thought offering clear, crisp incentives for the fully vaccinated would encourage more vaccinations.

Still seeing majority masking indoors (both employees and customers) in my highly vaccinated city

It's hard to believe, but as late as late April the CDC had still not issued guidelines about safe outdoor behavior.

unmasking isn't the primary cause of the uptick in cases - the Delta variant, which was only here in small numbers at the time (Alpha was the dominant) is the cause.

Unvaccinated people not masking definitely contributed to spread, but we'd probably still be seeing drastically increasing cases even without the CDC's statement. maybe not as high, no but a lot of the unvaccinated people who took advantage of the loophole by pretending they were vaccinated probably were regularly going places sans mask or dicknosing.

just feel like the CDC was caught between a rock and a hard place. messaging wasn't great, but the issue is that there was ample science to suggest that vaccinated folk didn't need to mask, and there was nothing wrong with *that* message. the problem was that the mask mandates in cities and states were for *everybody*, and because the CDC abruptly rolled out the new messaging, cities/states/businesses had to decide whether to keep their mask mandates and risk pissing off the vaccinated, or using the honor system and telling unvaccinated people they needed to mask without any way to verify.

I do think there's merit to caek et al saying that the mandate rollback should have been tied to specific milestones rather than abruptly rolled out, but we would have hit those milestones fairly quickly anyway, given how steeply the vaccines dipped in a short period of time.

To be clear, I'm not faulting the CDCs line of thinking, but it was sort of the icing on shitty cake in abandoning mask wearing in quite a few areas to the honor system and essentially put the onus on individuals and businesses and letting state and local officials off the hook way too easily. Just saying it came at the wrong time.

And, yeah, definitely the variants are the larger issue, without a doubt. But I still maintain that the timing and wording of the CDC announcement didn't help things a bit and made the pandemic marginally worse.

To be honest though, considering that messaging around the pandemic has been an absolute shitshow (sometimes for legitimate reasons like evolving science, but more often for shitty political reasons) from the word go, I'm surprised to see how many people defend that particular one.

think we're going to look back on that May 13th announcement from the CDC as one of the more unfortunate landmarks along the pandemic path. Saying "hey, masks off, vaccinated people" and leaving it all up to the honor system was a bad move at the wrong time.

if you look back now you’ll find plenty of ppl itt saying it was a bad move within minutes

The most recent figures from the Israeli Ministry of Health, released late this week, suggested that Pfizer’s vaccine was just 39 percent effective in preventing infection in that country in late June and early July, compared to 95 percent from January to April.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/23/us/covid-vaccine-boosters.html

fuckin….. eek

Preprint, small sample size, study conducted in a country where the average fully vaccinated person got their second dose a long time ago, doesn't square with recent PHE findings (88% for Pfizer, 67% for AZ), etc. But yeah, it's hardly comforting.

I hadn't realized just how insanely contagious the Delta variant is compared to other viruses:

https://ichef.bbci.co.uk/news/976/cpsprodpb/1050D/production/_118892866_r_variant_comparison_2x640-nc.png

Not pictured: the 2009 swine flu, whose R0 was between 1.2 and 1.6 according to the WHO.

No fucking way we'll ever reach herd immunity with reproduction numbers such as these, especially if anti-vaxxers have their say.

football's back then. you could virtually see the covid in the air of the pub over the road, full of middle age football fans, the kind that wouldn't be seen dead in a mask. putting the toxic into toxic masculinity.

I think the only football rn is pre-season friendlies with unusually high attendances. Despite the sign on the local Onestop now politely requesting people wear masks rather than insisting - I've not seen any mask-less shoppers yet. The local pub last night though, jfc I'd have to have an industrial respirator and body suit to go in there.

this would be qpr, although pub was maybe away fans given the lack of colours. (man u apparently, seems a long way to come)

supermarket was probably 50/50 today, worse than usual but then i was 2 hrs later than usual.

putting the toxic into toxic masculinity.

Yes, it's overwhelmingly men I'm seeing without masks, young to middle-aged men.

Preventing infection might be *a* goal, but it can't be *the* goal. While the mRNA (at least) vaccines may or may not retain their effectiveness at preventing any infection, according to that article they do remain (so far) "more than 90 percent effective in preventing severe disease, and nearly as effective in preventing hospitalization." Or put another way, per someone in that Times article, "the goal of this vaccine is not to prevent mild or low, moderate infectious disease, the goal is to prevent hospitalization to death. Right now this vaccine has held up to that.” We've always known boosters were likely, even before there was a vaccine, and given the focus (in that article in general, or apparently in Israel specifically) on boosters to those most at risk, you've gotta assume the 10% or so for whom vaccination does not prevent severe disease or hospitalization remains the most vulnerable population, with various preexisting conditions or co-morbidities, which should make it easier to monitor or focus on booster administration, should it come to that.

It does seem frustrating to me that the prospect of a booster is coming before any of the vaccines have even received full FDA approval. FDA approval (here) would certainly bump the needle (so to speak) a little bit, in terms of getting shots in arms, or allowing schools and whatnot to require the vaccine. I live in a heavily vaxxed area, with people happy to get vaxxed, and yet the high school is still not requiring vaccines. I can only assume that's because they legally can't until the FDA formally gives it the OK.

I too read the article and thought, "Well, what's changed?" We knew we'd need boosters.

Re that new Israel data, the first question I’d have after “is this solid” is what shape is that curve after vaccination? We got our second Pfizer on April 1st so where does that put us after almost four months? But I’m getting ahead of myself.

I saw an article recently about how the UK was right to have a long gap between first and second doses because it does, in fact, make the vaccine more effective.

I’m thinking that “breakthrough” cases - that pretty much always end up being mild - will be par for the course if it’s been 6+ months since your last shot. Which is probably… good, right? A little booster of immunity all by itself.

But maybe not so good if you’re spreading it to unvaccinated people…. ugh

Eight weeks was the sweet spot, right? Suits me.

2xp

*is, rather

As far as I know, mild symptoms (that is, typical post-vax symptoms, should you even have any symptoms) make it pretty hard to pass on to anyone else.

I likely had a mild case of covid back in early March 2020 (and fwiw did not give it to anyone else in my family). Ever since then I've been participating in a Red Cross antibody study, and because of that I know my residual antibodies had been fading. March 2021 was when I got fully vaxxed, but the Red Cross was still interesting in tracking the strength of my antibodies. For bureaucratic reasons I can't get tested again until mid-August, which will be almost six months post vaccine, but I'll report back what they tell me once I get my results a few weeks after that.

The thing that drives me nuts about the Israel study is that it's all I heard about yesterday despite it not being peer reviewed, published, and despite one of the study's committee members (Ran Balicer) saying to take the results with a grain of salt.

The NEJM published study showing 88% efficiency from three days ago, I didn't hear anything about until Eric Took used it yesterday to contrast the Israel study. It's like we only believe negative news re: COVID anymore

*Topol

Truthfully we shouldn't treat any one "efficiency" study as gospel anyway.

i thought this was the appropriate thread for this particular rational/irrational vent

oh it is! just to be clear i"m not objecting to you posting that. I'm complaining about the media's coverage of it.

I apologize that I didn't make that clear.

(mostly because a dear friend of mine, single mother of 3, started ugly-crying last night because her favorite immunologist shared the study as if it was gospel and made no mention of the NEJM study or other recent studies, basically addressed her audience as if "welp, this is the new efficiency, guess vaccines don't work against symptomatic infection anymore". gave her an outright panic attack)

But maybe not so good if you’re spreading it to unvaccinated people…. ugh

― Tracer Hand, Saturday, July 24, 2021 9:36 AM bookmarkflaglink

I think the good news here is that if you're vaccinated and get infected, they have noted a 50% less likelihood of spreading and a much decreased viral load, fortunately. but it is still a worry, yes

I saw an article recently about how the UK was right to have a long gap between first and second doses because it does, in fact, make the vaccine more effective.

― Wouldn't disgrace a Michael Jackson (Tom D.), Saturday, July 24, 2021 9:22 AM bookmarkflaglink

yeah supposedly it boosts antibodies a bit.

lol Neanderthal no worries :)

My wife said about a quarter of the shoppers at our local outside farmers market were masked this morning. I just had to pick something up at a remote Best Buy in the far West suburbs, and I'd say a smaller percentage than that was masked. Some entire families, the occasional staff member, the occasional couple, the occasional solo shopper. I have to keep reminding myself that even in heavily vaxxed areas there are still 20% or so who have not been vaxxed, or maybe aren't fully vaxxed yet.

I saw an article recently about how the UK was right to have a long gap between first and second doses because it does, in fact, make the vaccine more effective.

― Wouldn't disgrace a Michael Jackson (Tom D.), Saturday, July 24, 2021 9:22 AM bookmarkflaglink

yeah supposedly it boosts antibodies a bit.

― making splashes at Dan Flashes (Neanderthal), Saturday, July 24, 2021 2:55 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

Although that also leaves a longer time for semi-vaccinated people to potentially become infected. Which is where other tactics come into play, i.e. distancing, masks etc. Someone tell the UK government!

Re: ideal time between jabs, these conversations never seem to talk about differences between the vacines in that context, yet at least the initial periods were different depending on which one you got - was that just a formality?

https://twitter.com/BristOliver/status/1419193587170959361

do tweet not auto-embed anymore?

I'm seeing "You’re unable to view this Tweet because this account owner limits who can view their Tweets."

ohhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh - I guess you have to be a follower to read.

that's fairly ridiculous when you're a Tweeter actually sharing helpful information on the pandemic. I guess he's getting attacked a lot but geez.

will see if I can share a screenshot.

Would anyone stop me if I went to Walgreens and asked for a third shot?

I've definitely been considering layering some AZ on top of my pfizzer.

walgreens won't do it if 1) you gave your insurance details for the first two shots, and again attempting to get a third 2) your name is recorded in a state database vaccinated people database (e.g. california).

https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2021-07-01/reports-of-some-getting-pfizer-moderna-boosters-after-j-j-vaccine-prompts-calls-for-more-guidance