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

oh shit did I just get cancelled

The local school system lifted its mask mandate about two weeks ago. One week ago, my daughter brought home a sinus cold that had her and I both very sick for a few days (we tested negative for covid). All her friends have been out too. This is exactly what I expected to see when mandates were lifted.

I still notice some other people wearing masks at the supermarket, but when I went out to the record store and comic shop during the lunch hour today, nobody had them on. The record store guy had been particularly stringent about masks and social distancing during the pandemic too - he had kicked people out of his store on more than one occasion. I am definitely continuing to wear mine because I'm still getting over this cold.

Yeah. As my COVID fears recede, sinus colds and colds general, after three years, start to worry me more

We are 8 days out from lifting the mask mandate and 0 cases in all three schools. We had two of my daughter's friends over for dinner indoors, first time doing something like that, and happiest I have seen her since this started. Next day I heard from the parents of one of them that the brother was sick, but test negative, turned out to be a cold. Our kids also got colds a bunch of times when the mask mandate was in place.

Living someplace where most people have mostly not been wearing masks for months, I haven't had any problem being the only or one of the only masked people in many situations. But when our county ticked over into yellow last week, I figured, what am I waiting for? Our daily numbers are back down to very low. I mean, we all draw our lines different places and that's fine, but as fucked up as the CDC is it's still been my basic guide in the absence of anything better. So, I'm back to mostly not wearing masks. If I find myself in a setting where a lot of people are masked — like our local food co-op — I'll put one on mostly for other people's comfort. And I'll go right back to it if/when we climb back to red status.

In the meantime, our kids are still wearing masks at school because the school board is under a federal court order to mask, which has the local anti-mask brigades just freaking the fuck out nonstop, but they can't do anything about it because — as they have only slowly and reluctantly realized — you can't tell a federal judge jack shit.

And to Alfred's point, my recent bout of Disney World-induced food poisoning reminded me how much it sucks to be sick from anything. One absolute benefit of everything the last few years is that I hadn't had so much as a sniffle for two years.

I know this is just one person's anecdotes vs another's, but I noticed zero difference in the amount my kids got sick in the last two years, at least once they were back in full time school.

I lunched indoors today, one of the first times since November. Cases and positivity have dropped below pre-delta levels in Miami-Dae, so I figured, "If not now, when?" We may well get another variant, so let me do this now. Besides, everyone in my circle is boosted and still masks (like I do).

To speak to a bartender like I used to felt -- well, I nearly teared up.

I don’t think I saw this story posted here:

NEW: for the first time in the pandemic, a Covid infection now carries less mortality risk than a flu infection in England, the result of widespread immunity and the emergence of a less virulent variant in Omicron.

Our story: https://t.co/BnFWG7xwaS pic.twitter.com/ck4Db9jEjk

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 10, 2022

JBM's charts are the best

but also, it's a week or two since the mask mandate has been dropped in the uk and, to nobody's surprise:

https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/

"Patients admitted
Last 7 days
9,328
There has been an increase of 1,379 (17.3%) compared to the previous 7 days."

Positive tests up nearly 53% in last week.

not sure if it's as simple as that - a thread:

So this is not good.

Both new COVID cases and hospital admissions are rising again in England.

Just how bad this is remains to be seen. But trying to work out how worried we should be (if at all) requires some understanding of *why* it's happening, and honestly🤷

/THREAD pic.twitter.com/9UIwNqGcQ0

— Colin Angus (@VictimOfMaths) March 9, 2022

and he chased it with this:

This also looks like good news - the recent increase in people in English hospitals with positive COVID tests is mostly driven by patients who are being treated for something else, *not* COVID. pic.twitter.com/S617p7hudd

— Colin Angus (@VictimOfMaths) March 10, 2022

I noticed zero difference in the amount my kids got sick in the last two years, at least once they were back in full time school.

My kids have definitely been sick less, and the oldest one I don't think has been sick even once (apart from having to quarantine when he tested positive for COVID, but he had no symptoms. But the younger one has had a few bugs, it's not like it's been a total shut-out.

I have not personally gotten so much as a cold, however. Some allergies is it. (And the aforementioned food poisoning obv.) I can usually count on at least one bad cold a winter. So I think the masks and everything else really have helped on that front.

Yeah we had a strep case and a stomach bug in the last two years, no covid. While none of that was pleasant, it was far less than any prior similar period - bear in mind we were used to getting quite a lot of colds (not to mention head lice, because ugh, don't want to talk bout them).

Distance and staying home and masking have been demonstrably good things from that perspective.

i've had a weird amount of bacterial infections since 2012, and thanks to those not being viruses, those haven't stopped, though I haven't had as many of them.

at least two brutal sinus infections though.

fwiw my lad's group chat is 9 people, 7 in the UK, and of those 7, 5 of them have covid right now.

apparently JBM got a lot of flack for that tweet thread (undeservedly) yesterday. not surprised - his take is basically my feeling on what discourse on COVID has devolved into

Some absolutely wild takes out there in response to our Covid vs flu story.

Increasingly looks like for a vocal minority of people, talking about Covid has entered religious purity test territory.

— John Burn-Murdoch (@jburnmurdoch) March 11, 2022

My company has been saying for three weeks now that our masking guidance will change, effective March 14th.

However, we are currently sitting on March 11th and they still have not decided on what that change will look like. Either way, really not giving folks any time to mentally prepare for what Monday would look like. If my small office group is any indication of the larger population, we have five of the nine who have already (loudly, repeatedly) said they will immediately ditch the masks as soon as even the hint of the chance and two who are furious that masks are going away. It's going to be an interesting week next week.

My company just announced today that the phased return to the office will begin in one month and that masks will be optional for vaccinated employees. We are a large, scientific organization with many public health experts in our leadership. My take on things throughout the pandemic has been grounded in whatever the company has been doing. They've basically said that's it for now, but if shit gets bad again, we may have to change course.

In our school district there was a scheduled vote about making masking optional, but a week before the vote the Superintendent sent an email saying that the mask policy would no longer be enforced. People were trying to figure out what happened, since no one was prepared for the change. The superintendent ended up telling our friend that a bunch of anti-masker parents had sent their kids in without masks and when they were sent to the principal’s office refused to come pick them up. Then the Teacher’s Union had pleaded for an immediate policy change because they were receiving such angry calls from anti-mask parents that they were sure someone was going to come shoot up the schools. So basically bullying works!

The hodge-podge of guidelines and etc was strange for me today. At my gym, they don't check vaccine cards, and there's no mask requirement. Which is why I still wear a mask when there.

Today I visited a friend's gym...and they had a mask requirement and vaccine check, had to search in my phone for a photo of my card.

Not angry or miffed at inconvenience, obv, but more just like— the lack of predictability in guidelines when going out is going to be a headache for a while to come.

Staff were told today that moving students who were uncomfortable sitting with unmasked peers would be considered an offense "akin to racial discrimination". Just so all the bat-shit, people in my union's mentions know what were dealing with.

— Mr Niiiiick (@nrdizzle) March 12, 2022

two years i've been wfh now

(i started a couple of days early because i was feeling unwell, the 'office closed' notice came whilst i was out. have been in twice, first to pack up my desk and again to clear my locker when we vacated the floor)

Two years ago I fled NYC a couple days early, fearing the airports would close.

I started a new job on March 15, 2020. The first day in the office they announced that we'd be working from home temporarily starting on Wednesday, March 17. I only worked there till June anyway, but I never saw any of them face to face again after the 17th.

Two years ago after recording for a week in Muscle Shoals as the ground seemed to be shifting underneath us -- SXSW cancelled during that time, in the music world we all collectively went "oh, that's big" -- I opted to eat my plane ticket home and drive 12 hours instead

lol I thought you were doing a bit with that opening before seeing your username

Two years ago we were somewhere around Barstow on the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold

In actuality, two years ago I was on a bus coming back from teaching in person for the last time watching a passenger cough into their bare hand, the hand they were using to hold onto the pole

Ah yes, the fomites
I sure was worried about the fomites

Really lovely tribute from our high school's teachers and staff to its students.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c3JBnwXm04U

Ethical dilemma: I have been really fatigued for the past week, to the point where I really think I must be sick. I stayed home today and yesterday, for the first time all year. I just tested negative for Covid on an at-home test. I have no other symptoms, just weird full-body tiredness. Should I go back in tomorrow?

(yes I know I should go to the doctor. I keep hoping it will pass, but apparently not so far. But in the meantime, would I be risking my students' health and not complying with the general directive to stay home if you have Covid symptoms? is being really really tired enough of a Covid symptom to count?)

Have you access to a PCR test? That's my standard answer. It will rule COVID out, leaving you free to consider other things.

That makes sense. As you can probably tell, my brain isn't quite working. So you think I should book another sub, book a PCR test tomorrow if I can, and resign myself to missing a whole week of school? That just seems so drastic for tiredness with no other symptoms. It's hard as a teacher to justify missing that kind of time without a test result to point to. I guess I should have gotten tested Monday, as soon as I decided to take the day off, but at that point it hadn't quite dawned on me that I was sick.

I also think it's very possible that I had a mild case of Covid a couple of weeks ago - I had something wrong with my stomach for a week - and that this is post-covid fatigue, in which case a test won't tell me anything and I'll never know.

I've had more than one friend catch a stomach virus in the last two weeks!

There are definitely suddenly some real bad colds and stomach viruses around that are not COVID. My whole family was sick and COVID negative.

Yeah, it could be any kind of viral or post-viral fatigue. It's the uncertainty that's confusing - trying to weigh the moral imperative to go in if not actually dying against the moral imperative to stay home if you might have covid, when my brain doesn't seem to be working right.

Book a sub, get a PCR test and sleep tomorrow, then figure out what is next.

Lily, city-run PCR testing centres return results in less than 12 hours: if you book one for first thing, you'll know in time to plan for Thursday. (or Curative have "rapid PCR" walk-up locations in the convention center on Pike and at Seattle U, which open at 10 am.)

No matter what or if you're sick with, you sound tired enough ITT to not be giving your best tomorrow - both you and the students will be better off with you rested.

Thanks, all. After all that, I actually started feeling quite a bit better shortly after I posted, and I'm starting to hope this might finally be lifting. My brain feels clearer right now than it has in a week. I even managed to walk the dog without collapsing afterward. So I think I'll get up tomorrow, see how I feel, and plan accordingly. But you're all absolutely right about the PCR test, and it's shocking to me that I didn't think of it myself, days ago - I guess it's one sign that this was really putting a damper on my brain's ability to function.

Out and about yesterday. I'm still wearing masks into stores. At the end of the day it occurred to me to ask myself how prevalent masking still was and... I have no idea? I truly think I am not registering whether people are masked or not.

Since masking became optional at my son's school, he's come home with a non-stop series of colds and (non-corona)viruses, despite being one of the kids who still masks.

Big conference in town brought lots of friends in. Definitely spent some time in places that were not, uh, "safe" so to speak. Freaking a little but I feel fine, my body is just old and recovering from drinking like a fratboy and doing too many poppers and smoking half a pack on Friday night.

You went -- cool! I've sat at a few bars in the last month, not one particularly crowded but a few more than I sat at, say, last year. If not now, when, I tell myself.

Most of our time was outside, and except for one bar, everywhere required vax check. Fingers crossed

man I used to huff poppers all night but I think I'd feel destroyed for a week if I so much as looked at a bottle of Rush now

I just listen to Rush.

I can do poppers once in a while, mostly as a fun party thing— never really understood the whole "huffing while fucking" thing.

In any case, I'm going to see Divide & Dissolve open for Low tonight, and will have my mask on the whole time despite masks not being required and vax checks. Too paranoid, but really want to see this show!

never really understood the whole "huffing while fucking" thing

we can get into this here if you want

*clears schedule*