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

Important to remember that although reinfections (BA1 to BA2) have happened and been documented, but were fairly rare, consensus is BA1 infection should mostly prevent reinfection for the great majority of people, and vaccine efficiency against infection and hospitalization and death is comparable with BA1. so it's expected to perhaps lengthen the 'tail' of a wave for countries that had a BA1 outbreak first, but not necessarily create a new wave. and real world data from UK and SA contradict the (as yet not peer reviewed) Japan hamster lab study that BA2 is more pathogenic.

In South Africa, BA2 is dominant as of 2/10, but cases have continued declining since then (caveat that they had high rates of infection there PRIOR to their BA1 wave, at levels other countries didn't have). Rate of decline may have slowed (I don't know), but suffice to say, while BA2 isn't a 'nothingburger', nor should all restrictions be dropped, there are reasons for optimism here that there weren't when Omicron was brand new.

Denmark's also finally on the other side of theirs, and they were dealing with BA2 a bit earlier than most countries (albeit their situation was weird and not analogous to what was happening in other countries, where for a period of two weeks, cases were see-sawing before they finally started dropping.

In this thread we believe

Director-General of Health Dr Ashley Bloomfield has called the start of the university year "a nationwide super-spreader event".

that's what she said, am i right

Conspiracy theory time: in Austin, COVID stats have been dropping very rapidly, which is a good thing. In past waves, the decision to lower the risk level lagged the stats by a week or two, with public health officials taking a wait-and-see attitude toward it, making sure the stats didn't reverse first. This time around they've lowered the risk level 3 times in the space of a week, from Stage 5 (very bad) to Stage 2 (pretty good), with each reduction following the stats by maybe a day. Coincidentally, SXSW starts next week, but surely that isn't impacting these changes, right?

perish the thought

can't wait for the Ultra Festival here

I'm pretty cynical about stuff like that Moodles, but wonder if it's just as simple as someone with a bit of influence actually paying attention because the festival is coming-- it's reflecting reality, but might have taken a few weeks for anyone to bother updating in normal times, but since so much money is on the line, it's worth following hour by hour.

Going to a funeral for a relative tomorrow in central Illinois. I'm vaxed and boosted and also had COVID in early January, so I'm not particularly worried about getting reinfected, but I feel vaguely anxious about the basic protocols for everything now: Will people be masked up? Should I be hugging them? Will I seem like a wimpy big-city liberal for even thinking about behaving differently around a group of people I haven't seen in years? Will Ron DeSantis show up to yell at me?

Yes to the last question.

xxp

the previous delay in updating was 100% intentional, they said at the time they were waiting to see if the trend persisted before changing the risk level

Central Illinois? Tough to say. Everywhere I've gone has remained largely masked. But I'm going to guess ... largely unmasked. Unless your family down there has been diligent about masking all along, in which case probably still mostly masked.

> Going to a funeral for a relative tomorrow

in my experience (late january) nobody wore masks other than the church people but the church was large and airy so... the wake, however, wasn't and dozens of people tested positive a week later.

an artist i'm working with just did a show in the infamous florida villages and, though they masked at the post-show meet and greet, they reported no masks in the audience.

I was in FL over the weekend, definitely no masks down there.

In Madison they let the mask mandate expire, and my work removed the requirement too. Everyone's required to be vaccinated. Seems fine so far, probably about 50/50 at this point (in terms of people wearing masks).

I'd say masking in big box stores in Miami is at 50% but starting to slip. I worked out of a Starbucks on Wednesday after my WiFi went out for a few hours, and, well, for the first time I was the only person masked at a table.

where I live, which is a blue area, I'd say maybe 70% masks in stores, and they're rare everywhere else in the same area.

People are done w/ them, whether I like it or not.

Most folks still masking here in most settings. Kids report that although masks are are optional, very few of their peers are taking them off. Force of habit mostly.

We are in the bluest possible area and we literally don't know any anti-vax folks locally. Like, literally none. But we are all definitely seeing some relaxing about restaurants, bars, live music.

jaymc my take given your antibodies situation is: hug your family if they want to be hugged

I definitely have few acquaintances who are 'hoax' or 'anti-vax' folks, but like all things social media age, definitely know people who pretend to be more cautious on social media than they are IRL, even being rhetorically harsh about it on social media.

I always assume people are 25% full of shit at a bare minimum on SocMed though so it doesn't surprise me much.

the other phenomenon is also a thing - people who pretend to be pro-freedom, fuck the vaxx, mah rights, and you find out they've been vaccinated and mask everywhere lol

jaymc my take given your antibodies situation is: hug your family if they want to be hugged

i think the same, and also, just do you what makes you safe. any anti-covid, anti-vaxx etc etc is definitely doing exactly what they want, just for them and at the detriment of everyone else, so if someone like that gives you side-eye for feeling safe, it's tit-for-tat imo

At Universal Orlando I'd say it was maybe 1-2% of people masked.

Going to a funeral for a relative tomorrow in central Illinois.... Will Ron DeSantis show up to yell at me?

Yes, he loves death

Florida's positivity rate for the week was 3.3%, lowest it's been since...Fall I believe. Daily new admissions and current hospitalizations also consistently continuing to decline.

only took lots of people dying but hey, DeSantis says it's ok

for the entire country, hospitalizations just dipped under 40,000 for the first time in a looong while.

A medium-high “burn through the population”, to use a really weird term that I learned during the pandemic

hospitalizations just dipped under 40,000 for the first time in a looong while.

Pandemics do weird things to one's perspective, bcz 'under 40,000' sounds remarkably good to me at the moment. For comparison purposes, in all of 2019 the number of people hospitalized known to have covid was zero.

^add: in the USA

yup, it's def like how people my age talk about the 'cheap gas prices' that are nonetheless four times higher than they were in my youth, only....with serious health complications :/

below a 1000 deaths a week in the UK as well, half what it was a couple of weeks ago, but still 100x more than i'm comfortable with, and probably not reflecting the recent opening up yet.

increasing from 4% of US infections to 30% during February,

Increased from 10% to 28% in .au this week.

My gym made masks optional, announced with a new sign on the door. The woman at the desk said, "I don't know if you saw the sign, but..." And I interrupted her, saying, "Yes, but I wear a mask anytime I'm indoors in public." And she looked at me like was insane, then checked me in.

I wanted to tell her that the new policy was idiotic and reckless, but y'know.

I’ve been nearly the only person masked at my gym for months. I don’t really care about the looks, but starting to get more comfortable/waver.

Amazing how fast things have moved. Yesterday I was the only patron masked at the library. I suppose I'll move to some gradual unmasking except on planes (with or without a federal mandate), crowded places, and class, where those dirty fuckers might remain unvaxxed.

COVID aside, I've quite enjoyed being cold-free for three years.

i did get a cold in november and you know what, it fucking sucked

Seems like I caught a cold earlier this week which I still have whilst venturing forth after two and a half months of Omicron shut-in and yeah, not that fun.

My blue city dropped its indoor mask requirement last week and I can't honestly say I've seen a sharp change. People were already eating in restaurants anyway, maybe now they're not wearing a mask for the walk from the door to the table? People in stores still masked mostly. I mean, I'm sure it will change, it did last summer when there was no mask requirement, but it's gradual, not sudden, at least so far.

My university is dropping mask requirements on Monday - no masks required inside EXCEPT in classrooms. A bunch of students in a class I’m co-teaching were pissed and didn’t understand. I explained that teachers may have immunity issues that make them want to only be around masked people, and are required to be in classrooms but don’t have to go into dorms or libraries or public spaces. They stared at me blankly with no flicker of understanding.

I'll take my uni library any second over my packed classroom.

Masks are gone after spring break seems to be the mantra of my large Midwestern university system, too, except they announced it ahead of time, which means half the students just stopped wearing them immediately, 2 weeks before the actual date.

Masks are on the way out at my large Midwestern university, as well. But coworker I share an office with has health issues that will likely lead to the continuance of masks in our own (small) building, which is A-OK by me.

We still mask when visiting each other's offices or entering an interior space not our own offices. A reflex at this point.

I explained that teachers may have immunity issues that make them want to only be around masked people, and are required to be in classrooms but don’t have to go into dorms or libraries or public spaces. They stared at me blankly with no flicker of understanding.

masks still required by law in scotland for another 2 weeks or so but use is dwindling away. at a several thousand capacity event this afternoon i'd say mask wearing was at around 1-2% and on a bus yesterday about 20%. Covid numbers in Glasgow are meanwhile at their highest ever recorded level but it seems nobody cares.

I explained that teachers may have immunity issues that make them want to only be around masked people, and are required to be in classrooms but don’t have to go into dorms or libraries or public spaces. They stared at me blankly with no flicker of understanding.

They may be wondering: How did they protect themselves from getting sick prior to COVID-19 and at what point will they feel safe enough to work in a maskless environment?
― beard papa, Sunday, 6 March 2022 17:22 (thirty-one minutes ago) link

FP'd

i just heard that yesterday stirry, about the numbers in scotland. fucked up. what’s the explanation? is it that people were more careful up there for longer, and now that they’re not being careful the genie’s out of the bottle so to speak?

nobody knows really. one theory is that slightly less people had had it here than in england so there are more people who can catch it, but also the majority having totally given up on following any restrictions must be a factor.

saying that, i was on Arran for a couple of days earlier this week and mask use was almost 100% and it felt like 2020 with shops limiting to 2 customers, people spraying shopping basket handles etc. properly old school! so, in more remote / less urban areas situation is different.

i was in france last week and the French are not exactly renowned to be a rule abiding nation yet mask use there in shops and on public transport was around 99%.

these differences in attitude fascinate me.

I’m honestly confused on why the delta and omicron waves of cases never seemed to end in the uk, while cases in the US go to very low levels between those waves. I wonder how much of this is a real difference due to things like population density, mass transit, more domestic travel etc. and how much of it is due to testing being widely available, unconstrained and free (and positive rapid tests get reported more into stats reliably) in the UK, while testing is functionally impossible for all by the lucky or very symptomatic in the US.

When you see those attempts to model how many people actually had covid, the numbers in the UK and US are comparable, which is consistent with this shitty US testing infrastructure making the dips in cases seem deeper than they really are.