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

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.

LAUSD just announced they are requiring weekly testing for the month of January, to be reviewed for February.

Kid 1 gets tested daily by virtue of being in the cast of the musical ("Little Shop of Horrors," a fun twist of fate for these times)

Kid 2 is starting voluntary weekly testing (not a condition of attendance, just something that is offered)

Little Shop, little shop of virus

Bop-shh-bop, get the shot

First day at a new university job and also first day working in an office since March 2020. Students were already restricted to virtual attendance for the first two weeks of the quarter (also starting today) so I wouldn't have had much exposure anyway, but the chair of my department has already taken the further step of deciding that I and another assistant with whom I share an office will be alternating days in the office rather than being cooped up together every day. And this in a building that (afaict) is pretty much entirely empty of faculty atm. And we have COVID testing services literally across the street which we can employ as often as we want/need, free of charge. It's like the absolute ideal conditions under which I would have felt comfortable returning to in-person work atm and about a zillion miles from where my 'butts in seats, I don't know what a pamdimmick even is' former employer is at.

sounds like my setup exactly

I am many years removed from dealing directly with bosses, but it seems to me the managerial class has faced something like an existential challenge in the past 21 months… is it not true that some if not many managers end up as such because they are disposed or driven to manage or rather control —or to be charitable "guide"— the managed… and so it would follow that the managerial class is super super pissed that the managed are not only not showing up to be directly supervised/subjugated, but that the managed are also getting away with doing the bare minimum, slacking, trying to get away with shit, not only compromising the ability of the enterprise to function and produce revenue, but are actively undermining the natural order… I would be really interested if anyone had any anecdotes re: how managers are out of their minds angered that the managed are getting away with being paid and not submitting to their authority in person… and then there's the great resignation…

Little Shop, little shop of virus

― they were written with a ouija board and a rhyming dictionary (Neanderthal), Monday, January 3, 2022 10:44 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

no shot, Sherlock

it would follow that the managerial class is super super pissed that the managed are not only not showing up to be directly supervised/subjugated, but that the managed are also getting away with doing the bare minimum, slacking, trying to get away with shit, not only compromising the ability of the enterprise to function and produce revenue, but are actively undermining the natural order

i think there's also a greater underlying fear is that this has shown everyone that everything they said was so important - meeting, structure, "management", being in an office, etc - actually HASN'T had an effect on the company's performance, profitability, or productivity. that, in fact, as much - if not more - is getting done even as people are more flexible and devote less time to work (time which they got back from not commuting and going through all the motions and rituals of the office)

this is an existential crisis for the management class, showing that many of them are no help at all and are, in fact, a hindrance

our company had a great year and our leadership (who to their credit are very flexible and forward thinking) says they have been pleasantly surprised with how well it's gone and there is never going to be a mandate to come back to the office

and clearly there's an entire generation of ceos etc that literally are dying that they can't be the big man on campus anymore, wearing a suit and striking fear into people

ugh scratch that literally haha