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

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.

Xp I’m very sorry for your aunt’s condition, but that actually underlines what I was saying, given the people in question are posting much more with much less reason.

posting much more with much less reason

"irrational" is right in the thread title. seems like an invitation.

jesus gyac, let it go. its in incredibly poor taste to use a post like that to underline your own bizarre point.

jesus gyac, let it go. its in incredibly poor taste to use a post like that to underline your own bizarre point.

No interest in popping off on anyone, I'm just tired of you beating this particular drum. I think you're wrong to be so annoyed by how people are posting itt.

If you think, gyac, LX is comatose, I direct you to the year-end music thread and the excelsior thread

here's a thing that I feel like this thread illustrates for me about ilx -- is that there seems like a big difference in how posters think of threads. Are threads more like conversations, where what to post and how often one posts is contextual in terms of other people's participation ... or, are threads more like folders, where the issue is "does my post belong in the categorical topic of this thread" and appropriateness is more related to folder-type issues like "searchability" ... from a "thread is like a folder" standpoint, yes, gyac's point is "bizarre" -- from a "thread is like a conversation" -- it is a pretty understandable and crucial point.

No interest in popping off on anyone, I'm just tired of you beating this particular drum. I think you're wrong to be so annoyed by how people are posting itt.

If you think, gyac, LX is comatose, I direct you to the year-end music thread and the excelsior thread

Get fucked, Alfred.

― mardheamac (gyac)

you're talking to a gay man, so wheeeee!

Literally read the initial post I made, if any of you are capable. Read it again and tell me I’m wrong rather than focusing on “wah wah mean!!!” or “ilx isn’t dead it’s just the same twenty people posting!” Honestly.

I've been in your corner, babycakes. If a majority of small posters "misreads" you, try another language or step awa.

*away

Fwiw I did read your complaint and I'm truly sorry about your struggles. I guess I just don't see anything THAT out of line with what people are sharing. Some of us do have to test quite frequently (I'm back to having to test weekly for work), so of course some people are going to share results far more often than others. I guess if you have a problem with people sharing their testing experiences in general, that's a different conversation I guess. And with people stuck at home, working remotely, isolated or whatever, maybe coming to this thread is one of the few outlets they have to share.

I mean, I know I did my fair share of doomposting last year that annoyed a whole lot of folks and, in retrospect, I wish I hadn't done so. But, hell, it was the reality of how (poorly) I was processing the pandemic at that point and I'll own it.

tl;dr - I'm choosing to give folks itt a ton of leeway with how they want to use it, even when it annoys. it's a still raging global pandemic and we all process it differently

I've been in your corner, babycakes. If a majority of small posters "misreads" you, try another language or step awa.

This is like Alito quoting Thurgood Marshall.

I’m not really bothered about the opinion of someone who read posts where I mentioned being suicidal and chose to focus on “ilx isn’t dead”, sorry.

the post was about a specific type of repetitive behavior, i think it was clear enough and understood it well. it wasn't a comment about individual posts being the "wrong" way to use a thread.

I apologize for using "dead" in a sentence. You made it sound in your posts, though, as if ILX's COVID posts had quashed other threads.

I don’t think you understood the point I’m making. It wasn’t your word choice that mattered.

I've reread the last day of posts a couple of times and have no idea what this argument is about, tbh. I'm just going to keep posting to this thread the way I always have. Lmk if it's out of line.

Id only weigh in to note that a retort of "where else should all the covid shitposting go, a NON-covid thread? dont be silly! !1!1!1!1!" is surely somewhat a wilful evasion of the points raised

But yis are correct ofc, nobody has to read any thread about anything, blogging vomitously in all threads is in fact good now

no posting occurs in a vacuum

Well maybe we should establish the correct number of posts per thread per user each day to give us a baseline about what is acceptable or not.

Dyson with death tbh

xp
lol r u trolling deems

But I heard a meteor just pierced the thread and may have let the protomolecule in so better put on vac suits, pronto! #onethread #xp

Dyson
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/A_Dyson_Swarm_Superstructure_%2821983905140%29.png

Well maybe we should establish the correct number of posts per thread per user each day to give us a baseline about what is acceptable or not.

― a superficial sheeb of intelligence (jon /via/ chi 2.0), Friday, 7 January 2022 19:28 (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Id happily set a maximum target per poster if that was in any way the actual point or i thought yed fuckin abide by it, but alas

Perhaps not the entire point, but it sure seems like given posters' logorrhea is the crux of the issue here.

diarrhea is in fact the word