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

Should also note: at both gatherings the hosts allowed no one to enter the house without a mask and because these things were held in blessedly large backyards we stood, like, 10 feet apart.

Since that date I've had three PCR and two rapid tests,

This is more tests than I've been able to locate in the entire last two weeks and more than I've had since the start of the pandemic.

It's impossible now -- the next available slots are for next week. Like I wrote, I reserved them before omicron dug in its claws.

I've tested every 7 to 10 days since November 2020 because I deal with students.

I went to visit family in northern MI over the last week and hung out with my parents and at my sister and cousins houses for the first time in two years - every adult is vaxxed and boosted, all kids have had second shots, etc. No real worries and it all felt pretty normal.

My cousin’s husband told me he was going to visit the town I live in to go to a hockey game with friends and go out to eat and stay in a hotel which is something I wouldn’t do at this point but he was doing it after we left so whatever. Yesterday I saw a pic of him at a bar with like a dozen unmasked people, and today my cousin texted that he got covid which is utterly not shocking to me at all but really messes up their first week back to school.

Btw, of the two families I know with any covid-positive members, for whatever reason only a couple of the family members have it. One family, it's the dad but no one else, not his partner, not his 3 kids (though they are all quarantined together by default). In the other, it's the mother, daughter, and a young cousin who was visiting, but not the cousin's father or mother or their other kid. Either the test didn't pick up asymptomatic cases, or covid is picky about where it settles in.

After two days of symptoms and negative home tests, spouse tried to get a PCR test at our healthcare provider's site. The line was many many blocks long and they had to close down and send everyone home. We've had a week of nasty weather and icy streets with it starting to defrost yesterday, so that might also be part of the equation.

yikes. yeah that concerns me, the difficulty of getting a timely PCR result.

I've been telling friends and relatives to not bothering getting tested if you have cold-like symptoms unless their pre-existing condition or a boss demands it. Stay home, especially if the backlog is so extensive.

I have two shows the weekend after next, one in WI and one in Minneapolis, and neither show any signs of getting canceled so far so hey we'll see how all that goes.

I'm not particularly concerned about it personally, but it's just hard to get a sense of how differently things are being handled in different places.

part of me wants to keep proactively testing and part of me is like...unless I feel sick why bother now? I tested religiously through all of 2020 and on and off in 21 even after getting vaxxed, but mostly only when I felt ill. We tested before hosting friends for the holidays, but at this point with tests hard to find, I feel it's best to not take up time doing it when people who are actively ill should be able to get them more easily. also, selfishly, I'm afraid I'll test positive while completely asymptomatic and then feel compelled to stay home.

to be clear, the only reason I would want a timely positive PCR test is to have documentation for any long term issues with insurance coverage

our daycare just announced they're going to require a negative PCR test taken on friday, saturday or sunday to return to daycare the following week.

so we're making plans to take out 4 year old and our 20 month old to get tested every friday morning (has to be friday am to have even a chance to get results by monday) to get tested for the forseeable future. call it two hours waiting around and ~$1000/month, so we can be confident the kids *didn't have covid four days ago*. great stuff.

^ that sounds like a classic 'legal liability nullification' move by your daycare provider and therefore it has no resemblance to sensible harm-reduction policy, but it certainly makes a good cover story if a child there catches covid and is hospitalized or worse.

It's impossible now -- the next available slots are for next week. Like I wrote, I reserved them before omicron dug in its claws.

I've tested every 7 to 10 days since November 2020 because I deal with students.

― So who you gonna call? The martini police (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Sunday, January 2, 2022 4:52 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

I was in Florida over Christmas and had to book the PCR for my return to England a week in advance. While there though I thought I had Covid (lol it was good poisoning from bad Bailey’s) and got a test at the health department 30 mins after I called them. No lines - results in 15 mins. Florida is wild though. Not a single one of my dad’s friends give a shit about it anymore and his neighbors are all unvaxxed. Honestly after working in a hospital through all of this, traveling, and being in Florida I kind of can’t believe I haven’t had it yet.

What part of Florida?

Miami-Dade County's gotten serious again. Until the second week of December, I noticed masking at stores had dropped to about 60%, yesterday closer to 8 or 9 out of 10. The young (18 y/o to 35) do not give a shit though.

i think rapid tests in the parking lot in the morning 2-5 times/week would be more protective but i'm not going to argue this because they've simultaneously made a separate change that i think is actually justified, and probably going to be more disruptive.

i.e. no exceptions/no wiggle room stay home policy on "the sniffles" (i.e. any mild unexplained symptoms). based on the previous three months and how often kids get colds, i would be surprised if we have daycare more than 6 weeks out of the next 12, even if we don't get covid.

After the flight back I got a notification that someone on the plane had tested positive but I’ve done a PCR And two LFTs since and all we’re negative.

After the flight back I got a notification that someone on the plane had tested positive but I’ve done a PCR And two LFTs since and all we’re negative.

Al - Vero Beach. I’d say about 30% of people in shops were masked. Def not more than that. Coming from London where it’s all been so strict it was like being on another planet.

(Sorry for the double post. Don’t know what happened.)

Thankfully as you said we were almost always outside. Think I’d have been more freaked out if we had been indoors the whole time.

The weather's been lovely! No reason to be.

assuming the only positive person you came into contact with was on the plane (not the airport or whatever) and you weren't unlucky enough to be sat very close to them, and you were wearing a good mask, you should be fine! air filtration on passenger jets is very very good. if you have to be 10 ft from someone with covid for 8 hours a plane is a pretty good option!

Not surprised about Vero behavior

Yeah no I know - I wasn’t worried about that really. I had a whole row to myself! It was just interesting to get the notification since we all had to have negative PCRs within 24 hours of boarding it just shows how quickly things can change.

x-posts - yes the weather was so amazing. It’s been so grey here I didn’t want to leave the sun!

presumably they rely on the person who tested positive after landing (?) to voluntarily (?) call the airline?

our daycare just announced they're going to require a negative PCR test taken on friday, saturday or sunday to return to daycare the following week.

so we're making plans to take out 4 year old and our 20 month old to get tested every friday morning (has to be friday am to have even a chance to get results by monday) to get tested for the forseeable future. call it two hours waiting around and ~$1000/month, so we can be confident the kids *didn't have covid four days ago*. great stuff.

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, January 3, 2022 4:12 PM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

wtf

Xxpost Yea my friend was negative yesterday and said "I'm not convinced I don't have it", she was miserable. Symptoms worsened this morning, and I drove her over a FlowFlex and it turned negative the exact second the drops hit the cartridge

presumably they rely on the person who tested positive after landing (?) to voluntarily (?) call the airline?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, January 3, 2022 4:49 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

No actually they make you take a test within 2 days of returning. You have to show that you’ve booked the test before you even get on the outbound flight. When you do the test you register your details on a website and that includes the flight number so I think that must be how they knew.

Talked to some people who send their kids to the super bougie private school here, and the school is giving every student a rapid test on Monday and Wednesday. Parents pay an extra $500 COVID fee per student per year (which is nothing on top of the college-level tuition they're paying already, presumably). I wonder where they're getting all those tests?

ALEC

Question for math ppl.

The Hill just ran an article that said Omicron is 36% more transmissible than Delta, and said that's a contrast from when they said 2-5 times more transmissible.

Isn't that two different measurements? 2-5 times doesn't mean "2-5%" as far as I knew

I honestly have no clue what those numbers mean. Delta was supposed to be "8x more transmissible"...does that mean you're 8x more likely to get it when in contact? or that it spreads on average to 8x more people? a percentage I can kind of understand at least. it definitely seems like this is the most contagious strain so far.

Well that seems a good assumption

It ultimately doesn't matter but the Hill's framing confused me as to if it was saying it was worse or better

Talked to some people who send their kids to the super bougie private school here, and the school is giving every student a rapid test on Monday and Wednesday.

berkeley pubic school district sent two rapid at home tests home with every single student before the break and they had to test and upload results before returning today. I kind of took it for granted that this was common practice. eek.

(xpost) The key, as I understand it, is being on the right side of the x-times more contagious/y-times less severe (meaning hospitalization) relationship. 36% sounds like a good number--less than the number for how relatively less severe Omicron is than Delta.

yeah i think many (most?) school districts in the US are doing some kind of on-campus PCR testing and/or home rapid testing. the "you have do do PCR, you have to arrange it yourself, and the you can't come back until you get the results" thing our daycare is doing is new to me though.

"transmissable" is usually a euphemism for R(t) or R(0). i have no idea what the hill means.

that daycare policy is psychotic

So far all of our 11 elementary schools and our giant high school are opening as planned, but one of the two middle schools is delaying their opening until Thursday because of staffing issues.

Talked to some people who send their kids to the super bougie private school here, and the school is giving every student a rapid test on Monday and Wednesday.

berkeley pubic school district sent two rapid at home tests home with every single student before the break and they had to test and upload results before returning today. I kind of took it for granted that this was common practice. eek.

Sorry, I forgot to pluralize the days here -- they're going to do it EVERY Monday and Wednesday moving forward, for the near future at least.

:thumbsup: to that from me. should be happening in every school in the country.

School here was supposed to reopen today, but didn't because sno. Tomorrow? Also no because sno.

There has been a two-week "pause" on activities like sports, theater, and chorus. I don't know what that means for my child, who does a sport, is in the school musical, dances, and has chorus as an actual *class.*. Like, are they just supposed to stare at each other silently for 45 minutes? Scatter throughout the school and do Zoomsinging? Face in random directions and think about music?

I wish there were ways that the general public could more easily get these tests rn. testing in my area = LOL u come back 5 days from now and maybe we test you. except for one place I know of that's a well-kept secret, but yesterday due to snafus, they were an hour backed up and I had to give up my spot.

managed to snag four at home tests over the last weekend, which was a minor miracle, only to have to give away two of them to the sick friend. my folks get PCR tested tomorrow, and I need some for them too for the days after that (if I wind up getting it).

I'm quarantining like I have it, and they rarely leave the house anyway, but for dad's sake I'd like to know for certain if they have it as my dad can't tell us his symptoms other than replying "yes/no" to things.

guess I'm going to have to rely on the place nearby and hope they got their recent issues fixed. have also managed to snag a few as local stores have gotten them this week, but that was dumb luck.

another PSA from former ilxor kate78, who is an RN in Seattle:

PSA: If you're doing an rapid test, don't forget to swab your throat for 15 seconds before swabbing your nose.

There's a growing body of literature (and anecdata) suggesting that omicron virally sheds earlier in throat and saliva, relative to nasal secretions. I have told numerous folks to try this after testing negative with just a nasal swab and they've all tested positive with the throat.

oops meant that for the main thread, sorry

helpful here too

Oh, should say that athletes are the only ones at the high school *required* to test weekly. And thanks to the events/advances of the last two years, there are no more snow days, afaict. They'll just become remote days, should we get significant snow.