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

I dunno. It used to be that kids had to go to school, and would get in trouble if they didn't. Further, parents had to send their kids to school, and would get in trouble if they didn't. Were there reasons for that? It's so long ago that I don't remember.

We're currently four weeks into a two-week break, and we're managing somehow. Yet I still think it's strange the way school has just kinda become optional, or even come to be considered a frivolous luxury product that only weirdos insist on.

what

Sorry to sound flippant there - I mean I totally understand that saving lives is more important.

What I'm trying to express is a sense of whiplash. Like, for more than a century it was "go to school and learn things or else," now it's "meh, everyone will catch up somehow."

yeah, all the teachers are just going "meh" because they want to stay home in their jam jams

is anyone saying the latter?

What I hear: "Kids will miss classrooms and have gaps in their learning, everything sucks right now."

harbl, did I say that? I did not.

sorry you're right i'm just frustrated but you did say "kinda become optional, or even come to be considered a frivolous luxury product that only weirdos insist on." which no one is doing and no one is saying meh

This thread might be somewhat improved by not characterizing anyone's attitude to covid/restrictions as "meh." Honestly I'd almost love to see someone be genuinely nonchalant about the pandemic rather than using a transparent veneer of nonchalance to cover seething intensity

Lord Alfred's formulation is the right one, sorry, didn't mean to stir shit, everything sucks and everyone's frustrated

i know! that's all i'm looking for at this point! xpost

couple of observations based on talking to family back home:

the stakes for schools and teachers are incredibly high in the US because of the lack of a social safety net, difficulty of accessing good healthcare, lack of competent national and local public health, how widespread child poverty is, etc.

additionally there's a complete lack of social trust (USA!), and local and regional variation that i think is pretty unimaginable to people outside the US (did you know schools are funded with local property taxes?!?!?! and there's literal corruption and incompetence and ideology that has lead to the majority of federal covid money for schools being unspent!).

and one specific issue is rapid tests could have helped, and have been largely ignored for the past two years, until like 3 weeks ago, and now you can't get them anywhere.

these have combined to give us 1) schools that are forced to close regularly with little or no notice (which *does not happen* in any european country as far as i can tell) and 2) a debate about schools that is completely and utterly unhinged.

i realise a lot of the people posting here and on twitter and in comment sections about this are incredibly unsympathetic, but honestly, it's a shitshow to an extent that may not be obvious to people in other countries (or even people in the US who aren't parents or teachers). it's driven a lot of people crazy.

a big problem here is that omicron is so infectious that hunkering down and waiting for it to pass just isn't a real option. you can sort of try to spread out infections so that fewer happen at once, but then you deal with this for longer. that takes a small amount of pressure off hospitals, but doesn't help much beyond that. when it comes to schools, you are just faced with a few different equally bad options.

I mean, ILX alone, most of us are living pretty responsibly and look how many of us have gone down with it. it's just an insane level of spread, and it's easy to forget how bad Delta already was in that regard and how much beyond that this is.

throughout this pandemic, I think the problem is we've been expecting a general public that in the US is incapable of collective critical thinking to do critical thinking.

at the beginning of the pandemic, the messaging was simpler, because we knew less about the virus, and so everybody kind of just echoed each other. resistance was high but from a more predictable sect - conservatives, anti-vax loons, etc.

The general public does a poor job of understanding evolving science and views changes in guidance as "flip-flopping", but....also, the goalposts have moved a ton in two years. I don't mean that in a pejorative sense, but the general public includes millions of people who have done what has been asked of them (or more) only to find out it's still not enough, and due to things beyond their control (like vaccine inequity, other irresponsible people, unpredictability of the virus, etc). Even the best folk can get burnt out by that.

but it doesn't help now when we're being failed by the CDC and in many ways also the WHO, to where the slogan has changed from "trust the science" to "trust the science, but WHOSE, exactly, is the right science?". some people just fracture under the stress of it all and give up and just do whatever. not defending that behavior, but I understand why it happens.

that said, I haven't minded a quieter existence the last few weeks as it has been well-timed with my dad's return to the house as well as just me needing calm for the sake of mental peace. but I don't expect I'll feel that way in several weeks.

I haven't minded a quieter existence the last few weeks

?!

off-line, jfc

message received all.....

Neanderthal i appreciated your formulation. Lots otm in what you wrote. We can have compassion for people who are struggling to make decisions, making bad ones, and freezing under the information overload and the hardship.

I don't get the swipes at Neanderthal at all, gotta be honest. He posts a lot, but the vast majority of it is clear-headed, reasonable or informative and often with some appreciated levity. But tbf, I still don't think I've grokked what is supposed to be the "right" way to use this thread, just lots of pointing out of what is "wrong".

?!

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek)

dude shut up

No other poster since March 2020 has avoided doomposting + Panglossian bullshit like Neanderthal.

it's just an insane level of spread

One million new US cases reported in a single day! Johns Hopkins reports that the total number of US cases since March 2020 is only 57 million. No matter how many contingent factors may have contributed to inflating that one-day number, it's clear that omicron is (to quote Dr. Fauci from a recent interview) "like nothing we've ever seen before".

Yet, I am optimistic I can get through January without becoming infected. My optimism may be misplaced, but it helps me stay afloat in this sea of troubles.

I mean, if you're going to the store masked and not lingering, staying home, or confining activity outdoors, you may beat it!

But who fucking knows.

We've really hunkered down again, but I still have to go to the office every day and sit in an open plan office and my son (as of right now, anyway) starts back up at school next Tuesday, so there are two potential sources of infection right there that I just have to accept.

I mean we're all fully vaxxed and boosted as can be and wear KN95s when we're in public places, beyond that it all kind of gets out of our hands.

I forgot who I read last week who said, don't underestimate the power of good masks even at this stage. If you and most everyone around you indoors masks in an enclosed space, you may yet escape.

But tbf, I still don't think I've grokked what is supposed to be the "right" way to use this thread, just lots of pointing out of what is "wrong".

Hey m bison, I'm sorry for your losses, that sounds really terrible. I don't really want to keep arguing about this with you man, it's not good for me either. I really don't want to compare suffering either, but I do want to say that my wife has had students for whom being stuck at home was deeply, extremely bad, and I'd rather not get into that further esp since they're her students not mine but let's not dismiss the fact that there has been very real suffering from school closures that has dwarfed anything my own comfortable kids experienced.

i will agree to disagree if u stop posting in these threads

No one has denied that fact, though, and, as a college instructor, let's say I speak for millions of colleagues for whom this state of affairs has not been delightful either; but no one is suggesting going remotely permanently. At worst it's something like a two-week period until the holiday cases work themselves out of the daily case/hospitalization numbers.

But tbf, I still don't think I've grokked what is supposed to be the "right" way to use this thread, just lots of pointing out of what is "wrong".

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Thursday, January 6, 2022 10:20 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

this thread is mostly the dialogue between space marines in Aliens, and the "right" way is to try and approximate Ripley.

Not trying to draw anyone's fire here, but I will say that pretty much the only thing I think our local government has done right about COVID was keeping schools open as an option during the 2020-21 school year. Remote learning was also an option. It all worked pretty well, combined with a mask mandate. I was really, really glad for my kids that they were able to go to school in person last year.

This school year has been more of a clusterfuck, the school administration finally caved to the COVID deniers and lifted all restrictions — masks, distancing, quarantines — and also the state severely restricted virtual options. What is saving us right now to some degree is a mask mandate imposed as a temporary injunction by a federal judge, which could theoretically be lifted at any time (although the judge has shrugged off parental anti-mask hysteria and a series of hyperbolic motions by the school district's attorneys to try to get it reversed). I have good friends who are teachers here and they are all exhausted and feel basically abandoned — plus they're now having to do some basic janitorial duties, because the district can't find enough janitors.

In general I think in-person schooling should have been and should be an option through most of the pandemic, with appropriate precautions (masks etc) and with a willingness to just shut shit down when we go through bad spikes. But I understand all sides of the arguments. I just know that for my own kids it has been much better to be in person — even though they did both end up with very mild cases of COVID last April, which we managed to contain and nobody else got infected.

_But tbf, I still don't think I've grokked what is supposed to be the "right" way to use this thread, just lots of pointing out of what is "wrong"._


It's simple, really. Expressing the ways in which the pandemic has driven me quietly insane is 'right' and others' descriptions of same are 'wrong'. And then naturally getting my hackles up in asserting the wrongness of others just serves to further erode everyone's dwindling reserves of remaining sanity.

P.S. All else aside, we are in the midst of a major, worldwide mental health crisis that will never ever ever ever be addressed with any adequacy.

gonna be honest with you there is a hard limit to which human beings can remain in constant fight or flight mode from being terrified of a hypothetical situation without going completely bonkers and i reached it quite a while ago https://t.co/zeT3T0NrRJ

— millie (@bigdybbukenergy) December 22, 2021

And also, quietly? Quietly?!

The thread title literally says that both discussion and venting are appropriate, as well as both rational and irrational content

And yet there are something like four covid threads on the go for the same people to breathlessly post updates about every related thought they have, while ilx itself is comatose, and you think this is normal? Fucking spare me.

there's a popular thread about cats, but it's true many are pictured sleeping

How dare you vent rational and irrational fears and share experiences related to COVID-19 in the thread explicitly designated for such.

I'm sorry someone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to continually open a thread you can't stand.

I'm sorry someone is holding a gun to your head and forcing you to continually open a thread you can't stand.

Anyway.

Here's some fun school bullshit for you all to enjoy. Back in spring of 2021 or so, the schools set up (through the state) drop boxes for saliva tests in preparation for a return to some semblance of hybrid in-class learning. At first it was staggered, with just some of the school there every other week or so, in groups/cohorts, but then beginning in summer/fall 2021 it was everyone back to school. And yet, inexplicably, the saliva testing for everyone *stopped* (this was a state decision) and they introduced an opt-in (yes, opt-*in*) saliva testing program which was offered at the most inconvenient limited times - during lunch hour and after school, specifically, when kids either don't have time to wait in line or need to get somewhere else, respectively. Needless to say, few regularly participated in the program. Like, 100 out of 3400 kids or something. This was at peak vaccinated student body, waning covid threat.

Fast forward to the end of the calendar year. Cases are ticking up slightly, so the school freaks out and cancels all extracurriculars with a late Friday announcement. Some parents, especially those with student athletes missing out on games and stuff, also freak out and accuse the school of overreaction which ... yeah, the school did overreact, imo, or at least was being wildly inconsistent, and by Tuesday activities were back in action. Only this time the school more or less required (short of actually requiring) as many kids as possible to get tested, just to get a more accurate case count, and made it easier, too, giving them QR codes and many more time slots and options. The system worked well, they snagged a lot of positives, and things are all good.

2022 rolls around and there is still no mandatory saliva testing *unless* you are a student athlete. Fine, that seems to be their symbolic compromise to make up for the previous shit show. Testing is after school on Thursdays. Today we send our not-quarantined student to get the test, figuring, hey, free test from a reputable source. And go figure, we were not the only ones with that idea. She said she and her friend were literally last in line before they *ran out* of tests, and behind them were by her estimate maybe 100 more kids, including several student athletes who were *required* to get tested in order to participate. She said she saw some sad athlete kids left in the lurch essentially asking "coach, what do we do now?!"

Sigh. Schools should have weekly testing for *everyone*, but I think equity issues prevent it as long as the state does not allow fully remote learning.

The complete debacle wrt testing at this point is inexcusable.

Yeah, comprehensive testing only makes any sense at all if it's actually comprehensive. Otherwise this sort of scattershot approach is not only limited in effectiveness, but the high cost and difficulty obtaining tests often means that the people who would most benefit have the hardest time getting them and vice versa.

Holy shit, one of my daughter's best friends has a mom who works with the health department, and unless I heard wrong, it sounds like there are currently 690 (!!!) positive cases in the high school. That's 20% of the school.

That number, by the way, I suspect largely stems from exposure *outside* of the school. Sports, family, friends, etc.

Okay bud.

Yesterday was Thursday. The kids had their first day of school on Tuesday. Omicrom is fast, but not that fast.

Not questioning why you conjectured; conjecturing why you don’t allow that info to inform your opinions about future mitigation including e.g. temporary shutdown

Huh? They can shutdown everything as far as I'm concerned. They should have taken a break after (um) winter break and had a plan in place to deal with this rather than just let cooties run rampant.

And yet there are something like four covid threads on the go for the same people to breathlessly post updates about every related thought they have, while ilx itself is comatose, and you think this is normal?

If there's a "Fuck COVID" thread I can't find it. My Aunt Donna's health has been fragile for the last several years. Last year she moved into assisted living. I just learned that recently 1) she had a UTI, 2) was briefly hospitalized for not waking up, and 3) while at the hospital was found to be COVID-positive (despite full vaccination and booster). Her mental acuity varies from day to day. She's back in assisted living, but for hospice/palliative care. Fuck COVID, and 2022 so far has more than the RDA of shittiness.

I'm so sorry, J.lu.