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

That's rough.

Josh, we know exactly zero people who have gotten the virus or tested positive. In the 23 months from January 2020 (when we visited New York for a medical conference just before things got serious) to last week, we didn't even have a close scare.

Note: We still don't know anyone who has gotten the virus or tested positive. We only know that a staff member at my son's school tested positive, and that someone at my wife's work lunch did as well. Those both happened on the same day last week. In both cases we don't know who it was, merely that there was such a person.

I don't know what to make of this. I think we've been decently careful, and so have most of the people in our orbit. But clearly the bug has its own plans.

One of the most cautious people I know caught it while out getting a booster shot last week.

I don't know if schoolkids in the US are wearing masks or not

In Seattle, the indoor mask mandate was only lifted for six weeks (at the start of July), and remained in place on public transport through even that window. Buses, trams, and each train carriage have mask dispensers by the door as you board. As of September, there's also a vax mandate to enter any indoor business with seating.

Other posters ittaos report different experiences.

Positive cases have only just begun in my extended circle. First my gf's niece last week (boostered) and now we just found out that her friend/our neighbor was with someone who tested positive. And my gf was just with her friend over the weekend. So now we're pushing xmas plans back a day just so we can be on the safe side when we test.

It will be a supreme irony when, after being super careful for two years and quitting a job that wanted me to come back to a crowded office, I ultimately wind up catching this shit. Or maybe that's just called 'life in the 2020s'.

I mean unless you were planning on being the same level of being super careful for the rest of said decade, I don’t think “ultimately” getting it counts as supreme irony no

being

I'm in the UK. Apart from my friend who died last winter, my circle has avoided any cases generally until October this year. It's been rife since - most people vaxxed and not very ill, except one healthy, sensible, vaxxed person who has only been able to work sporadically since, due to long-lasting effects.

Dude on the f train straight up eating an Egg McMuffin like it’s 2006 and not the andromeda strain

the McDonald's will kill him before COVID.

It’s like 5% just not giving a fuck in each car. Everyone is too strained to be the person who makes it a thing.

K has to have a CT scan in midtown tomorrow and tbh I am splurging on a Zipcar so that we can stay off the train

Josh, we know exactly zero people who have gotten the virus or tested positive. In the 23 months from January 2020 (when we visited New York for a medical conference just before things got serious) to last week, we didn't even have a close scare.

That's astonishing. I'm in London and knew about 8 or 9 people who got it in the first wave (March/April 2020) including one colleague who was hospitalised and one (elderly) family friend who died. About the same number who got it in the second wave (Dec 20/Jan 21) including a couple who are still suffering after effects a year later. And I've lost count of how many people I know who have got it/had it in the last two or three weeks.

It’s like 5% just not giving a fuck in each car. Everyone is too strained to be the person who makes it a thing.

― i cannot help if you made yourself not funny (forksclovetofu), Wednesday, December 22, 2021 11:21 AM (three hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is what riding the subway has been like since july 2020

possibly insensitive question: does anyone know anyone who has been hospitalized during the omicron run?

My brother-in-law's wife (vaccinated but not boosted) got infected by someone at her workplace and had to go to the hospital for a mitochondrial shot. She's back home now but she also infected everyone in their house (husband, their son and the son's girlfriend). My b.i.l. already had the booster and was affected the least, reporting the "weird cold" symptoms that are characteristic of omicron.

My dad is taking the cancelation of Christmas Eve at his house really hard, just sent us all an email saying he's just going to go ahead and cancel next year's too so he can start "processing that disappointment a year in advance". I'm sure it's all feeling raw for him right now and it's probably just how he's dealing with his frustration. I just wish I knew some supportive and helpful words so share with him, but tbh I feel pretty fucking bleak and hopeless about how ugly things will be next December too.

Don't even think about next December. Seriously? Your family is alive. Buy some good wine or beer and hole up the best you can. You're a good man.

Tell him to harden the fuck up

And we know nothing about next december.

To be clear, I'm not specifically worried about next December, I'm just not feeling very hopeful about things in general. So I don't feel like I'm the right person to call and try to console him, just wishing I did have the positive outlook to share with him is all.

Right thats fair but you could tell him to harden the fuck up and i think it would maybe help your own mood to do so tbh

Pick up phone dial number hi is this father hi father read your mail harden the fuck up gullad put down phone feel better

I also don't think he's specifically worried about next December either, he's just disappointed and I get it. 2019 was the first time he was in a place to host all the kids and grandkids for a Christmas Eve dinner, he was really looking forward to making it an annual thing. He took 2020 in relative stride, I just think cancelling it again for the second year in a row was a punch in the gut for him. Which I get, just wishing I had soem hopium or optimism to share with him right now, but I'm also fresh out.

Rarely works to tell someone to stop feeling the way they feel. Silence would be better than telling him 'man up'.

Woah woah woah i did NOT use the m u phrase thats toxic

HTFU otoh applies in specific cases and is applicable in specific cases and its not applicable to feelings its an instruction towards behaviour which fyi is constructive

lol, I was charitably assuming darraghmac was joking but maybe this is one of those cultural differences things, but that would most definitely be about the worst thing I could say to him tonight.

Say not that im joking but rather perhaps presume that i knew you wouldn't necessarily follow my (good) advice to the letter

But srsly his slap out response is childish and unworthy and unhelpful and i would if i were you try to insulate myself from the urge to mollify him on the back of it, im sure you all feel shitty enough without that kind of scattergun bullshit

Oh absolutely wish he hadn't blasted that out, but after talking with quite a few friends and family these past few days, I'd hardly say he's entirely unique in not exactly processing this Omicron wave in an entirely rational and thoughtful way. It's not mollification I'm after either, but more of a, hey, there's lots of reasons to think that next holiday season might look a lot more hopeful. I just feel like maybe I should get myself back to the place of actually believing those words first before I say them out loud to another person.

all adult pouting should always be met with a solid harden the fuck up, darragh otm. no pity for adults centering their feelings at the expense of others’. My Dad died this year and my Mom (long divorced from him) tried to try me this Christmas. Won’t be seeing Mom this Christmas consequently. HTFU, Mom.

i think the worst part of this pandemic is when it stopped feeling surreal and started feeling...normal.

I don't know when that happened but I don't like it.

srsly otm Neanderthal; I went back and reread this entire thread yesterday and... it's really hard to locate when it went from wtf to meh and back to wtf, because everyone is on their own journey given their situations.

Me in March 2020: this is legit impossible

Me in August 2020: you know the stuff I thought was impossible 6 months ago? yeah still very difficult but almost kinda manageable for people with gobs of privilege and lots of options

Me in May 2021: whee! vaccinations mean a return to normal life

Me in November 2021: um, not so fast

Me now: lol wut? sorry, numb as fuck

lol umair hague wrote a doom piece on COVID. I will not post it here because a) fuck him and b) it's hilariously RONG, but man, everybody wants to participate in this huh?

Let’s just embrace the true miracles that are FaceTime
and Zoom this season. Hugs can come later, but it doesn’t mean we are completed in isolation.

^ first I ever heard of umair hague. did a name check on duckduckgo. I can see I have not missed anything of use. I got my fill of doomies in 1999.

Spending 3-4 hours so far today trying to even find testing so I can see my parents really puts me in the holiday mood. Testing is completely fucked.

I somehow got on haque’s email list a couple of years ago. Went from hilarious to infuriating to unsubscribe in about 60 emails/a week.

:( sorry to hear about that PBKR

There's one of those mobile testing vans parked across the street from where I sometimes pick up empanadas. The last few days the lines have been significantly longer (like, from 1-2 people to 6-7) but today there were about 30 people in line, all the way down the block. Some were couples and families, so I gotta figure they were trying to make sure they were safe to travel and see family, but there also seems to be a real fear of omicron in a way there wasn't for previous variants. The message about extreme transmissibility has definitely sunk in in NJ.

i'm getting an antigen done today at a proper lab. their website has gone back to advertising only "self pay" options, but when I logged in via my existing account and looked for products, only then could I find the 'free' insurance option.

wtf

did a name check on duckduckgo

I’d say do one on ilx but the photos are probably linkrotted

today I learned that lower back pain is apparently a new covid symptom? wtf?

That's so weird and random to bring up. Like, back pain and large muscle cramps are a symptom of running a fever in general.

My cautious friend that tested positive? She first felt like crap so took a rapid test. Negative. Then another rapid test. Negative. Then felt better. Then felt worse a couple of days later and took another rapid test. Positive! Then took a follow up PCR test. Negative! So weird. She figures she's close enough to 10 days that she's just going to wait out the last couple.

Happy to report that, as IL celebrates its second day in a row of breaking its daily infection rate record, right across the border in IN pretty much everyone is maskless or (at best) dicknosing in places like gas stations, right alongside lots of interstate travelers. There's a really rough winter encroaching on a whole bunch of feckless people.

incredible how back in march 2020 everyone was talking about how unprepared the US is to handle a pandemic and now it's 2 years later and the US is still completely unprepared to handle a pandemic

i know more people than ever are getting tested but there's no reason to not have a massive stockpile of testing infrastructure by now, is there? people around me are waiting 4+ hours to get swabbed at urgent care clinics. at that point if you didn't have covid when you walked in you walked in you probably will by the time you walk out.

when my dad got tested once after an exposure at his adult day care months ago, we made the mistake of going to a Centra Care (there were free rapid places nearby that we didn't know existed), and the doctor said "60% of the people who come here test positive, so you're probably going to have to get tested again after this"

i am thankful for the place 0.1 miles from us, as I got myself and my mother tested there on Xmas eve when I couldn't find rapid tests.

my brother also informed me (for US folk) that you can order free PCR tests through your insurance from Labcorp.com - not good for rapids but I ordered one. you just swab yourself and send it to da lab.

for those of us playing at home, that URL is
https://www.ondemand.labcorp.com/covid-19

thanks forks - should have included that!

just ordered mine, was relatively easy.

for anyone without insurance, you'll need to provide a drivers license ID/SSN

but it's worth noting that if you're uninsured, it's listed as free up front!

i mean, let's see when i get the kit and then get the results but here's what's on their site:

We currently offer three payment options for an individual at-home Pixel by Labcorp COVID-19 collection kit on the Labcorp OnDemand website:

Bill insurance ($0 upfront)*
Access public funding for uninsured ($0 upfront)*
Pay out of pocket ($119 for COVID-19 or $169 for COVID-19 + Flu)

*Individuals are eligible for $0 upfront cost if they meet one or more of the clinical guidelines for COVID-19 testing:
Experiencing mild symptoms
Exposed to someone with COVID-19
Live or work in a congregate setting
Asked to get tested by a healthcare professional, contact investigator, or public health department

Your health insurance is not billed until after testing is complete.