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

United Kingdom update:

Cases rising in Wales & Scotland. Stable/down in Northern Ireland & England.

Hospitalizations rising in all nations except Northern Ireland.

Deaths are up, but >90% below prior peak. Vaccines holding up better in UK than most peer nations. pic.twitter.com/rORpmZvbPQ

— (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) August 27, 2021

BREAKING Florida

Better news as we head into weekend.

Hospitalizations substantially ⬇️.

ICU COVID ⬇️meaningfully for 1st time this wave.

We are losing close to 300 Floridians every day, right now. We can still save lives: mask, vaccinate, test, avoid high risk events. https://t.co/M8ufk9jxR5 pic.twitter.com/BvLd7pYkyb

— (((Howard Forman))) (@thehowie) August 27, 2021

fwiw the only person i know who was intubated is now back at work (trucking) and not 100% but continues to improve.

i still think, on balance, it's better to get vaccinated than intubated though. that's just my opinion.

I dunno, a brief prick in the arm versus getting something traumatically jammed down or possibly even through my throat? It's a tough call.

that's what's getting frustrating to me in this "natural infection v immunity" debate after that controversial report yesterday. whether or not infection provides better immunity, it also provides the opportunity to get sick, maybe hospitalized, maybe intubated, maybe DIE, or spread to someone who will do one of those things.

when it comes to vaccine passports, I get that they're having this convo because of deciding whether to include 'infected plus vaxed once' as 'immune' on a vaccine passport b ut that's a hell of a lot harder to track as well. do you self-report the infection? do you have to have a lab diagnosis in paper form? it's just easier to do them for vaxxed people and to get vaxxed, ffs.

Last week, I made the decision (not lightly) to refuse a contract that would have required me to teach in-person, mostly because my husband told me that the mid-acuity ICU at his hospital is full of Covid patients, which is as bad as its been. And we live in a city and general area with a pretty high vax rate. All the nurses and other healthcare workers I know are telling horrorshow stories.

xpost to Neanderthal - I've noticed a big uptick in random redditors and twitter folks pushing for "proof of recovery" option in lieu of "proof of vaccination", not sure why the sudden uptick in (I'm guessing) folks who had it once but are still anti-vaxx, afaict?

Looks like I'm going to be traveling into NYC this coming Thursday for the first time since February 2020. I will be double masking and staying well the fuck away from people to whatever degree possible. I wouldn't be doing it if I wasn't being paid.

went back to work last week for the first time since march 2020. would guess that in the shop I work in at the airport around 10% of passengers have no mask, another 10% have mask around their neck, and 20% have mask covering mouth only, with 60% properly masked. was expecting a bit better considering it's an airport tbh. not exactly thrilled to be stuck in a shop for 8 hours a day in these circumstances. just hope when I get it it is mild I guess.

nyc feels pretty safe if one is not being a jag @ unperson (mass transit feels 98% safe all the time tbh)

Not implying u r a jag obviously just saying that if you’re behaving in a way that is comfortable for you ppl respect it

yeah. i have been going via subway to outdoor concerts, parks, grocery stores and the occasional movie for several months without incident. Masking when indoors/underground/cabbing and been testing myself on a weekly basis. I don't want to test hubris but folks out here continue to be taking this mostly seriously and are mostly unmasking only if in open air. There's about six on each subway train that don't of course, but what can you do except move down and hope the stats play out.

please do not c+p that if I die

in any case, i'm at 6 months since my last jab and thinking about next steps for a booster.

(will be going to little island for a show tonight and have plans to get outdoor dinner with an ilxor tomorrow, life is sorta going on)

trying to get my folks to do the booster early but mom refuses. she's in relatively good health, her diabetes is managed (blood sugar often more at pre-diabetes levels than high). but if she catches it somehow i'm making her do the monoclonal shit.

fwiw neither of my kids are eligible for vaccinations, both are heading back to in-person school, one at a secondary school with kids up to 18.

we have all these though, the school gave them to us free.

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

so the idea is two tests per week (purely voluntary) and like.. hope you don't get it afaict

I'm going to an event in Bristol tomorrow, so I had to do one of those NHS LF tests this evening as its no entry without proof of a negative test within the last 24 hours.

It was my first time logging test results online and I was struck by how easy it would be to just tap in the test number (avoiding even using the QR code, so no picture of the test), then saying it was negative and submitting the result.

If honesty is the only thing stopping potential positive cases from attending mass gatherings then its kind of sketchy imo.

Just got my flu shot! More shots! More! I want them alllllllll!

sure would be nice if our government provided at home testing options

frankly i feel like it's the only way. most kids just don't wear masks properly. they just don't. even high school kids. if they are going to be in school, in person, which i think they probably should be, just have tons of testing all the time. i just don't know why it's not mandatory. i've never seen it explained. possible legal challenges? maybe they don't want the prospect of endless shouting matches with the vocal minority of parental assholes? i don't know.

no one wants to know, no one wants to deal with the repercussions, easier to let it get out of hand, god will sort it all out

my concerned friend is starting to send me videos daily of new info from scientists on TikTok and often times in these bite-sized videos they're not really doing a great job of providing context, so she'll freak out if they say there's a new strain of COVID (which happens...all the time, and they're not always significant), or if there's a new study out.

she also sent me a text from someone who is supposed to have a doctorate in epidemiology who said "I'm worried about Lamda cos they say the vaccines don't work" (????? - there's like two pre-prints, and both of them showed about the same efficiency as our current vaccines are doing against Delta).

entertaining it for now but really testing my patience. if I share any positive news (like hospitalizations decreasing), as i mentioned upthread, she thinks they're bullshit and comes down very aggro on me. to her credit, she told me to tell her if she's sending too much, but for now I just don't watch but 1 or 2 out of every 10 vids sent.

at least Twitter has tweet threads, where you can explain things further. these videos are often condensed to the point of diluting the content.

Lol. Eric Feigl-Ding just published an alarmist 20 tweet thread on Friday about the C.1.2 strain that is being investigated and one of the *authors of the pre-print* that Eric was using as a source basically tweeted at him to stick to facts and knock off the alarmism. Probably the sharpest rebuke to date.

Ready for some bonus fun? Since reopening at full capacity there's been a cold floating around our high school. So we have a whole bunch of kids and parents freaking out because everyone has the sniffles, either staying home out of caution until the negative test comes back (and all the stories I've heard so far have ended in negative tests) or staying home because stuffy nose and sneezing makes wearing a mask pretty intolerable. I expect after last year's (relative) caution and isolation, we're going to get more of this on a broader scale, colds and flus all over the place.

my single mother friend says she has more sympathy for parents than before because her whole household had a bad case of the 'ick' and everybody was negative for COVID but she said now it has her not trusting any sniffle at all and it's hard to determine what's allergies or what's COVID.

COVICK-19

heh

Coronambiguous

i was genuinely worried and nearly canceled a vacation this month that my friends and i normally do annually, which is rent a house in ocean city, md, for 4-7 days and basically live on the beach. we just got back and i tested myself and it's negative baby!!!

Real q:

I had plans with a childhood friend, one whom I haven't seen in 20 years, to meet up at the show of one of our favorite childhood bands tomorrow night. Outdoor, masks required, no neg test or vaccine requirement. I'm much more nervous than I was about it when he asked...what say y'all?

Fwiw, I don't care about these bands anymore, and know that it's not like this will blossom into a beautiful friendship again.

and outdoor show with masks required seems fine to me

again i survived phish in atlantic city

You must be indestructible then.

I'm going to an indoor King Crimson show tomorrow, no test requirements but it's a seated show and I'll be wearing a mask. Apparently this theater has installed a state-of-the-art filtration system, dunno what difference that makes. Plus I think the crowd will skew older & more vaccinated. I'm not sure if this is a smart idea but it's gonna be my last chance to see them so I kinda feel like I have to go

I've still got tickets to see Dead & Co. in just under three weeks. Our tickets are on the field, where all ticketholders must be vaccinated (otherwise everyone must show proof of vax or negative test result (though they have not yet confirmed 48 or 72 hours)). I'm still planning to go, though I struggle with guilt about whether I should or not.

I saw Wilco a week ago, outdoor venue/vax required, maybe 15% wore masks on top of that. Seemed fine. I'm going to a Michigan football game in two weeks, also outdoors of course but no vax reqt. as of yet so I am a bit more concerned about that one but will probably still go.

If it helps, Washtenaw County seems to be doing really well and when I was in Ann Arbor a few weeks ago, masking was very good. Not sure how that translates to a football game though.

Big 10 football crowd is gonna skew a lot more unvaxxed than Wilco

Yankee Hotel Vaxx Not

Maybe all they need is a shot in the arm.

Home football game days are frequently shitshows under the best of circumstances but assuming everyone is spraying covid around makes it so much more terrifying.

Josh in Chicago, excellent dad joke.

Wilco began their set with that song, which makes them an excellent dad band.

Getting some panicked texts from my daughter at school. She's got what appears to be a cold, just stuffy nose and sneezing, which are not generally symptoms of covid ... but sometimes *are* symptoms of covid among the vaccinated, so she's not sure if she needs to go home. Certainly if the standard for going home is snuffy and sneezing then in a couple of months *no one* is going to be at school. Meanwhile, just the threat of potentially missing two weeks of school to quarantine is adding significantly to her (and her sister's) stress level. This is pretty aggravating.

the stress of "do I have it?" is a thing in itself

I almost visited a vaxxed friend this weekend and he cancelled on me thrice. today, he and his wife think they have COVID.

might not be, but.....boy, bullet dodged.

My vaccinated father has reported what sound like cold symptoms -- mild sore throat, stuffy nose -- which he attributes to entering the air conditioned house after working up a heavy sweat during yard work. Oy vey.