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

I find that going in once a week is perfect for catching up on those conversations I want/need to have in person, I don't need more than that

(to be clear, that one day a week is very helpful at times)

that's the other thing! it doesn't have to be all or nothing. purposeful time in the office can be great. there are certainly times in the last 18 months where i would have loved to get in a room with my colleagues and a whiteboard and figure something out and it would have been well worth the commuting time and other hassles.

> ...not take paid time off...

additionally I've not had a day off sick in two years because I'd only be sat here feeling ill in exactly the same seat as usual, might as well type something.

hopefully they'll stop using the phrase "back to work" eventually. we ARE at work.

my company expanded the "sick time" to be wellness time including mental wellness and let us take off for burnout and mental health and things like that. it did coincide with the pandemic but just about every day I took off using that time was one of those last year cos I was pretty much never sick.

My theory is that the pressure to rise to management, which suffuses white-collar workplaces, is at least partly because relatively few people would want to do it if it weren't better paid and richly rewarded with praise. Managing is stupid and boring. It's hard to do well, and easy to do badly, and it exposes you to scrutiny for things outside your control.

otm ime

that said wfh is here to stay in my country/sector and managers are usually just ppl with jobs as managers possibly it wouldnt translate

i'm v happy with my current work situation. the head of our department told us right before christmas that everybody gets a paid "research day" in january in which we are not to check email or open our computers. instead we are to just do whatever will make us feel good. binge a tv show, go to a museum, whatever. no need to book it into the leave system. and if we want to we can share what we did with the department but if not, not.

we're wfh all the time now obviously but the goal will be 1 day per week. which seems just about right to me.

Every time I've been threatened with promotion, I have found a way to avoid it. The long story of my career is of striving to remain a doer of stuff (an "individual contributor") rather than a person who tells people to do stuff.

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.

― chaos goblin line cook (sleeve), Monday, January 3, 2022 6:15 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

Think I might have to do this. Almost a week ago, I came down with a sore throat and cough. For two days in a row, my at-home (nasal swab) test was negative, so I figured it was just a cold. I've mostly shaken those symptoms, but now I'm super-congested and have a weird bitter taste in my mouth. Of course, it could still be a cold, but given that my wife just had COVID, it wouldn't be crazy that I would have it now, too.

I think there might be something to the throat thing.

Covid is burning through our high school at a seemingly impressive clip. My daughter with symptoms and positive test is already at home, but my other daughter (no symptoms, negative on test) was at school yesterday and said two of her six teachers were out, and each class had a few kids zooming in. And today, her English teacher (who was there yesterday) is also now out sick, and someone who sits across from my daughter in that class tested positive, too, and is out. And a neighbor down the street who is in her psych class is now out, too. And those are just the people directly connected to her in school. Have another family that we're good friends with whose kids tested positive a few days ago but mom and dad kept testing negative (despite, erm, bad cold symptoms). Yesterday the mom finally came up positive, so the dad assumes he's positive, too.

Just got off the phone with the (very patient and polite) covid response staff, and the number they gave me was close to 200 kids currently out, which is about, what, 6% of the student population? Which isn't tremendous but I imagine will continue to grow.

negative for me again, four day in a row, even w/ throat swab. four days removed from someone who I had one hour of unmasked contact w/ last Saturday.

with Omicron they suggest testing 3-5 days after exposure (as opposed to the old 5-7), so not out of thew oods yet, but no symptoms either and looking favorable. still precautious until a few more come back negative.

Dad's also negative. and also he doesn't have COVID

lol (congrats on the test results thus far though!)

i'm just amazed I could find tests.

I've had to use the following methods:

*UberEats (includes CVS, which has had a few on occasion, but it's a crapshoot - half the time they're out, order cancelled)
*Ordering from On/Go directly (takes about a week - https://www.letsongo.com/)
*ordering from SimplyMedical (they have the Quickvue test, but they run out very fast. fast shipping though - https://www.simplymedical.com/)
*Instacart - CVS had FlowFlex available one night, showed in the inventory.
*hours and hours of browsing the net

I have done a curbside test at a local pharmacy where they come out to your car, a bunch of iHealth rapid tests (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B09KZ6TBNY/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1), and the LabCorp test-by-mail thingy linked upthread. All negatory so far.

This morning I drove past a free testing site with a line halfway down the block. Not sure exactly what the dealio is with those. Personally I am not eager to wait for an hour or two outside in temperatures hovering in the 20s (F), but I am sympathetic with those for whom that is the best option.

oh I did the Labcorp one, it was mega convenient

Yesterday I was supposed to volunteer at the food pantry, but when I told them my daughter was positive (but I was not, and feeling fine) they still asked me to go home. On the way back I figured I'd stop at a couple of Walgreens just to see if there were any tests on the shelf. I figured, well, there are four of us, so if we ever need to test that's two boxes right there, better to have a backup or two. I go into the first Walgreens, lurk around, then eventually ask someone if I'm missing them. She says they're sold out but they're expecting a shipment on Thursday. On the way home I stop in a second Walgreens. The person I speak to there is grouchier and has no idea about tests. But on the way out a masked woman (not an employee) approaches me.

"Hey," she whispered. "Were you just asking about covid tests?"

"Yeah," I answer.

She leans forward a little, though still distanced. "Well you know that other Walgreens over there" - she gestures - "the 24-hour one?"

"Yeah."

"I heard they'll be putting them on the shelves this afternoon at 1."

"Thanks, that's great," I say. And indeed, when I turn up at the third Walgreens around 1pm there's about half a shelf's worth of tests left, and maybe 20 people in line, about a third stocking up on tests (max 4 boxes per person), about a third stocking up on random bullshit (like the woman waiting in line for 15 minutes to buy two small bags of Takis Hot Nuts), and the usual coterie of dubiously-masked weirdos who have defied the odds and somehow made it this far into the pandemic apparently unscathed.

yeah we literally could not find tests when we were pretty sure we had COVID over the holidays, and by the time our tests arrived from demetech we had both been feeling fine for a week, i.e. longer than the amount of time the CDC says to quarantine after your symptoms resolve (which we followed). So we didn't really see a point of wasting our hard to get tests by then.

It seems so far fetched to me that there are many places in the world right now where this isn't true that I almost can't process it -- as with a lot of things about the current state of healthcare, politics, infrastructure, etc. in the US, if I thought about them much more I'd just be in a frustrated rage all the time. I'm privileged enough that it's a very comfortable dystopia for me I guess - any kind of bullshit consumer product I can imagine delivered in 48-72 hours, yet when our municipal hall gave out test kits, the line stretched around an entire block and they ran out in 20 minutes. Rumors fly about this or that walgreens having them but then it winds up being too late. No Jared Kushner to blame it on this time either, something is clearly more deeply fucked.

Today I realized that it is not worth the effort to swab the back of my 7 year old's mouth. She had a strep test a couple of years ago and hated it, so much so that when she needed another strep test months later we literally had to hold her down and clamp her nose. It was awful. I tried to talk her into the covid swab and she was crying and it was a whole fucking thing so I let it go. I should just be happy she has no problem with the nose test or wearing two masks.

By the way, has anyone found kids kn95 masks that they're happy with? We've tried loads of different brands and some are made so poorly that they fall apart, others don't fit right for one reason or another.

Yeah, I think depriving tens of millions of school children of an in-person education for a year or longer is absolutely on that magnitude. No question.

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) January 6, 2022

by "of that magnitude" he is literally talking about the Iraq War

Obviously a dumb comparison to make and only distracts from the issue, which is that it is, in fact, a very bad policy decision. And Jeffrey can't possibly think that the CTU is literally the only group in the country advocating for it to happen again.

in a year or two when there's a new mutant variant that has a 80% mortality rate and people are dying mid-Tweet, will be very interesting to see what happens to the discourse

nate silver's tweets would be much improved

have these people considered the fact that school sucks, just asking questions here

That's what the Iraq War was about

Cow_Art, sorry you’re having to go through all of that with your 7-year-old. I have a few friends with small kids who are at a kind of breaking point this month.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=avP8IyKw5_w

There’s “school sucks” and then there’s

3. Suicide attempts have risen, slightly among adolescent boys and sharply among adolescent girls. The number of E.R. visits for suspected suicide attempts by 12- to 17-year-old girls rose by 51 percent from early 2019 to early 2021, according to the CDC. https://t.co/9wHLBsI8mc

— David Leonhardt (@DLeonhardt) January 4, 2022

Cow_Art, we’ve had success with small size KN95s for our 7 and 9 year olds. Looks like the brand is MISSAA, but it’s just some generic Chinese manufacturer that i assume my wife is buying on Amazon. But they have tie-dye patterns that the kids like and they fit well enough that they’ll keep them on through the school day.

No idea what we’re going to do in 2 months when our toddler turns 2 and needs to start wearing one.

Eazy, well I am sympathetic to the vast majority of Leonhart’s points and find them compelling, that particular one has been getting pretty extensively debunked (I believe even upthread)

xpost Just get your toddler a fake ID showing they are under 2 and you're golden.

Good point we can just adjust the birth date monthly

i know this is whataboutism or tu quoque or some other thing but i'm running out of patience for that kind of article. the only reason these negative life consequences for kids are being talked about in the nytimes is that upper class parents are being affected by this. they want to say teachers are the ones harming kids by advocating for a brief period of online school while (at least where i am) many vaccinated teachers are testing positive and there are 0 beds available at many hospitals. and we have abandoned the "it'll be fine as long as there is good ventilation, masks, etc." teachers are literally fundraising for N95 masks because schools aren't providing them. but we have to keep bars open. like, haha:

Would it be ideal if all schools had daily tests & great ventilation? Sure, but that’s not reality. We cannot inflict further harm to an entire generation. This is not 2020: We have vaccines + masks, and Omicron is milder. Schools must be open. @ProfEmilyOster @biannagolodryga pic.twitter.com/kgllVcqqeh

— Leana Wen, M.D. (@DrLeanaWen) January 6, 2022

why are you guys at home then? go to a tv studio and do your interview.

lol yeah, seriously.

I don't know what the solution is, but this week has been the first time I've really seen the stress getting to my kids. One is stuck at home in quarantine and she's freaking out about falling behind, getting assignments, not getting to ask questions, not being with her friends, and so on, and the other one who is still going to school is freaking out about catching covid from someone there as teachers and cohort call in sick.

My wife teaches in a very crowded NYC school, likely had COVID over christmas break, and I likely had it from her. Also, I know I made this point a while back, but any parent who advocates kids being in school is necessarily exposing themselves to whatever COVID risk comes from that school, so it's not like they have no skin in the game.

between the "not being in school is LITERALLY KILLING CHILDREN" histrionics, and the inflammatory, OTT bullshit of the Dr Kim Prather/Jose-Luis Jimenez "#covidisairborne" cult that literally tell random tweeters their tweets are putting thousands of lives at risk, this was a good week to finally stop reading Twitter, lol.

Wen's been disappointing lately, I much prefer Katherine Wu, Ph.D.

I don’t know if anyone else knows this but man alive really wants his kids to go back to school

wen has been disappointing for a long time but that's how CNN picks their contributors

saying you want schools to be open even though you personally might get covid is different than saying teachers/unions are harming a whole generation out of their own self interest, which seems to be the line. teachers being a famously selfish group.

i saw leana wen at my local wine store once, pre-covid

o rly, Wen?

saying you want schools to be open even though you personally might get covid is different than saying teachers/unions are harming a whole generation out of their own self interest, which seems to be the line. teachers being a famously selfish group.

― towards fungal computer (harbl), Thursday, January 6, 2022 9:07 AM bookmarkflaglink

yeah someone I know tried to use the "where do YOU teach?" dig in response to the teacher criticizing that Leonhardt tweet thread, as if it was the nastiest dig alive ("looks like we got ourselves a TEACHAH here!").

no wonder so many of my friends are leaving the teaching workforce or getting ready to.

I assume most people out to smear teachers unions has a preexisting vendetta against them and are opportunistically capitalizing on the situation. I don’t think they are bad, I just think some of them are wrong here. But I’ve also given up on the idea that I can know what’s best for the children of Chicago. I know what’s good for my kids and what’s going on here, and I take my wife’s word on what’s good for her students.

teachers/unions are harming a whole generation out of their own self interest, which seems to be the line

That might be the line among talking heads and twitter personalities, but in real life, as a parent of elementary school-aged children, virtually all parents I know who fall into the "we need to prioritize keeping kids learning in-person" (which at times includes myself) are deeply sympathetic to teachers and trying to weigh a lot of shitty circumstances and variables against each other. ofc it is in the interest of getting kids back to schools to make teachers feel comfortable and safe doing so! In spring 2021, when vaccines were rolling out (and here in Massachusetts teachers were infuriatingly not in the first waves of those eligible), our whole school community - staff/teachers/administrators and parents - all busted ass to make sure that teachers would be able to get vaxxed before in-person learning resumed. My kids go to a very small school so how it's been handled is not generalizable to everywhere but it felt respectful to all parties.

Anyway it sucks for kids to get caught in the crossfire of the politicization of this. People arguing on their behalf in bad faith or for political reasons should not affect the merits of the arguments.

As a teacher, I think it's better for kids to be in school, but I also think the closures are about a lot more than individual or even collective risk. When you have a lot of kids out quarantining, you can't really keep the kids who are out caught up, trying to adds another hour or so to your day, and inevitably a lot of the kids who were out will just never look at the materials you upload. So you don't know whether to forge ahead with important material or do review or what, because you suddenly have two groups of students. Meanwhile a lot of your colleagues are sick and the whole school system is on the verge of not having enough staff to stay open, and you are probably having to cover for other teachers during your prep period. You know that at any moment you could be out for ten days as well, and there's no good way to plan for that because you don't know when it will happen. It adds another layer of impossibility to an already unsustainable profession. Going remote makes the work and the expectations more predictable at least.

yep. also I think the Cron changes the discussion too, much easier to spread like wildfire in a class full of poorly masked folk, when we have record-breaking transmission going on atm, than previous variants.

the whole "but we did this before during a prior wave" debate that people are doing isn't sufficient rn.

for sure kids are not the best maskers. around here though schools are now requiring kn95s+ which should in theory at least be one measure against that wildfire spread. at my kids' school they also have masks on at all times indoors - eating snack and lunch outside even though it's been 20 degrees all week.

xp Those are good points, Lily Dale. I would say the social-emotional piece of being in person is the most important anyway, so even with all of that just getting to be around and be socialized by other kids has tremendous value. But unpredictability and trusted adults dropping out of your life for unannounced periods all the time also has negative social-emotional impact, so there's obv no good answer.

nb I live in a fairly privileged community

KN95 requirements definitely would go a long way to quell that spread for sure. are the schools supplying them, or just requiring parents to supply them for their children?