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

a friend of mine from childhood shared this piece of shit this morning (https://www.aier.org/article/woodstock-occurred-in-the-middle-of-a-pandemic/) and I got angry enough that I spent two hours researching and debunking the article. The author ignored most of my points the first time and acted defensive, saying it wasn't meant to be an "academic text". So I replied with this. I doubt he'll retract it but his central point is undermined by the data itself.

"Obviously, I know it was a serious pandemic. But I see you failed to address my other points.

The purpose of your article appears to suggest we're being irresponsible "shutting down". One friend of mine has already shared your article to suggest we shouldn't shut down, and this is a friend who has already violated social distancing measures. If that wasn't your intention - that's how it's being used.

I read your document shared (actually before you shared it with me), but it doesn't actually bolster your point. The death toll (100,000) is one you flout as evidence of its comparability to COVID-19, but you fail to realize this was a death toll arrived at over 4 years (https://academic.oup.com/epirev/article/18/1/64/447194). The initial epidemic (September 1968 - March 1969) killed 33,800, approximately (https://www.co.washington.or.us/Emergenc…/…/pandemic-flu.cfm, https://www.globalsecurity.org/…/hsc-scen-3_pandemic-1968.h…). It returned another three seasons, but incidentally, the second wave (1969-1970) was much milder than the first in the US (which the article you attached indicates). So Woodstock occurred during a 'pandemic', yes, but the death toll was much lower that time (which is the opposite of how it worked in Europe). The death toll was probably in the 10,000s based on what I've read in the articles above.

Hong Kong Flu came back two more times, so combined, there were about 98,000 "excess deaths" (or deaths above forecast) due to this strain of the flu in a 4 year span. It didn't all happen in one season.

COVID-19 has killed just shy of 80,000 people in about a 3 month span. That's many more deaths than Hong Kong flu killed in the first 5 months it existed If COVID-19 returns in waves like the Hong Kong flu does, I don't think I have to tell you what that will mean from a death toll perspective. The consensus is that the 1968 Hong Kong flu, while serious, held a low death rate compared to other pandemics (https://books.google.com/books?id=WBx6McA35iYC). It is theorized that one reason for this is because it was similar to the 1957 Asian flu pandemic, so many civilians may have had antibodies to the flu (https://www.medicinenet.com/script/main/art.asp…). We had no such antibodies for COVID-19, which was a novel strain.

This strain still exists, btw - which is what we're trying to avoid with COVID-19. If not careful, COVID-19 could become endemic, meaning on top of seasonal flu, we'll have seasonal coronavirus. Far less lethal by then, of course, but who wants to fight off multiple diseases?

So, you can knock off your irresponsible "merely asking questions", and realize that these two situations aren't comparable."

I probably fucked some of my interpretation up but I did my best

Preach it!

ugh I hate nasal swabs but glad it's done. went to Publix, lots of people with no masks, not following arrows, not distancing, so I got mad and wrote a pretty angry FB post about the collective ignorance of people who deliberately don't wear masks and put people at risk.

Wow. Ordinances really do vary county to county. In Miami-Dade, you must wear mask to Publix, Whole Foods, Target, Walmart, etc. The stores will not allow you in.

I wish that was the case here! Walmart is actually managing the number of people that can go in at a time, Publix is not. However, the people who go to Walmart seem to care less and pay no attention to the signage or the arrows and don't wear masks, whereas the Publix customers mostly wear them (though still too few for my liking).

then again, given how many shootings have happened when people just tried to ask someone to put on a mask, I can understand why stores are nervous. but I hope that is coming here soon.

article writer updated his article, but he cherry-picked what he wanted to update.

he's still doubling down that the 100k death toll was from two consecutive flu seasons (rather than the 4 seasons it appeared to be). but even if he were right that 100k did die over two flu seasons, thats 10-12 months worth of deaths, as opposed as 80,000 deaths in a mere 3 months for COVID. Likewise, I couldn't find much information on how the Hong Kong flu spread, and whether asymptomatic spread was as large as it is suspected to be with COVID-19. Because if it was mostly spread by symptomatic people, that's a pretty major detail.

i'm done arguing for the day.

it is suddenly hitting me, like actually hitting me, that this is likely going to go on for the rest of 2020 (the wave of summer/fall cancellations is starting); and of course I feel like shit for feeling this, but I miss having anything to look forward to

You’re very hard on yourself for feeling things that are totally normal to be feeling

Sorry your life feels rotten, katherine. It takes a lot of optimism to dig around in a pile of horseshit and still maintain the hope you'll uncover a pony somewhere in there. I hope your today is a bit better than your yesterday and you find what it is you can look forward to.

In a non-covid-19 universe, I would have been roaming the Four Corners area with my wife on an organized small group tour this past week. Instead we walked around our neighborhood, dodging neighbors who were doing the same thing, slept middling poorly at night, and we spent a lot of hours indoors looking at glowing screens.

When I remember to, I feel lucky to have it this good. I have someone I can hug ten times a day and snuggle with at night.

What Mordy said, Katherine.

I've frequently thought: I have my health, I have my income, I have my work (albeit in a home-working way that doesn't suit me) and, in the scheme of things, I'm not massively inconvenienced (there was a week that getting hold of alcohol was an issue), but it can still feel hideous.

i don't participate, but if someone wants to clap and cheer nightly for our essential workers, that's cool

i do draw the line at setting your fucking car alarm to go off at seven every evening tho

in general, making a ton of meaningless noise at some preappointed time as a way to show your very minimal contribution feels a bit too on the nose for this moment

car alarms are totally worthless for any purpose other than making a loud annoying noise. it's not like they stop car prowling or theft. so your neighbor is simply using it for its highest and best use, which is also its worst use, and its only use.

xp -- it isn't really "my life," per se, but life, in general, the existence of genuine and not mediated social connection for anyone, and the atrophying of what exists already

and it's also difficult not to "be hard on myself" when people who do want this to end get slammed by, potentially, tens of thousands of people, the very clear message sent being "it is wrong to think this, so don't do it, or you're next." if anything I am far less hard on myself than people are on people in general

when people who do want this to end get slammed

I think 'wanting it to end' is a pretty universal position. Where people differ is the desirability of different approaches in trying to arrive at less social disruption. Because there is no known way to remove the virus from our midst that does not entail stopping transmission from person to person, it is all a matter of how much transmission can be tolerated without the disruption of society becoming far worse than we are now experiencing. Governors and their expert advisors are wrestling with that problem everywhere.

Allowing the virus a free path into every home would be catastrophic to society. Without effective isolation measures the virus spreads rapidly and intensely, as has been proved in places like Iran or Ecuador already. In the face of that situation, people would spontaneously revert to voluntary isolation asap, but with the added problem of millions of infected people requiring care, and essential services decaying from the attrition of workers.

There's just no better way to go right now than what we are doing.

Another one of the Chinese takeout places I order from regularly reopened, so I walked over there today (they're two blocks from my apartment) and there was some maskless dickhead (fedora, Teddy Roosevelt mustache) in there ahead of me. I stood as far away from him as possible while waiting for my order, and the urge to stab him in the neck — and yeah, I could have — was nearly overwhelming. If he had said anything hostile or conspiratorial or otherwise chud-ish, I would have kicked him in the balls without an instant's hesitation. I am not typically a person who gets angry in public, not for the last 20 years or so, anyway, but I was awash with rage at that asshole.

i think if you took a poll of 100 ilxors and asked them "do you want this isolation to end", 'yes' would win '99-1'.

this is perhaps true but also not is what being said

I don't really believe the majority of the world or the country wants to stay locked down forever for the hell of it. Some people, sure, but most everybody I hear from is miserable, including those who support social distancing measures, and are talking about missing the pleasures of life, their friends, families, etc. most of the vitriol is what Aimless has said - thinking that going back to normal now would be deleterious to our way of life, and will cause a second wave worse than the first, meaning more of this endless isolation.

I would like for everything to go magically back to normal but I don’t actually want to spend any time around people until the new case count in my locality is approximately zero for several weeks

i don't have a good feeling about Orange County, FL, because a friend told me he drove by downtown yesterday and saw a slew of people at local restaurants where the requirements Desantis put in place (outside seating, 25% capacity, social distancing) were being completely ignored.

IMO they should all be invited to a party at Joysticks, the local video game bar, and then the bar should be sealed from the outside.

I don't really believe the majority of the world or the country wants to stay locked down forever for the hell of it. Some people, sure

Some people? What? Who? Where?

I don't actually KNOW anybody who is enjoying the lockdown and/or wants it to continue, but could see a really extreme introvert hypothetically liking the arrangement.

I'm amazed Orange County doesn't have tighter ordinances, given its blue-ness and Walt Disney World.

you'd think! but hell, our Democratic Mayor Demings was the one who solicited Desantis to re-open salons, which weren't originally going to reopen this month.

Some people? What? Who? Where?

Writers.

Oh weird, Neanderthal, I’m from Orlando, too.

Nice! Whereabouts? I'm near the University of Central Florida

I actually just moved, but yeah I’m from around that area as well. Lived there most of my life, left for school and work for several years, fucked up and had to come home and now I’m in Tampa.

Are you at UCF?

heh nah but I graduated from there years ago. I'm in the area because lost my previous lease so I found a new place to live and opted to look in that area, since I know the area. I'm less than 2 miles away from the campus though.

Ha, yeah, it’s been a while since I’ve been in college as well. Had to had to had to get out of Orlando though. Not sure I would have made it without a good enough reason.

Stepped out 2 hours and dad falls again while I'm out. Not violently but mom can't get him up.

Sigh. Gonna have to again ask for my bro to step up. Can't be freaked every time i go to the store

Richard Florida on Slate Money was pretty interesting, and one very catchy insight he offered was that the biggest problem for dense cities now isn't mass transit but the elevator. The kinds of queueing we would need to maintain social distancing and avoid multiple people in the elevator at the same time in large urban office buildings is pretty insane and almost unfathomable.

How are folks doing explaining this to their children?

My kids are understanding transmisibility surprisingly well, they are just struggling to grasp why they can't have their old life back right now

My son is old enough to understand it well, but I think he's much more paranoid about it. He's barely set foot outside of the house since the quarantine started.

I can't even. I just can't.

Desantis can argue the unemployment system was broken before him. He can't explain away how he's made it worse.

He waived work search requirements through 5/30, which was wise. he eliminated the one-week "wait" period. however, references to both still appear all over the site, confusing people.

Also - he suspended the need to log in and claim weeks every two weeks to avoid the overload on the server, a few weeks back. good move.

he just let that expire, so going forward, people have to log on every two weeks to claim benefits.

INEXPLICABLY, this is now requiring everybody who had a previously unprocessed application to request the PREVIOUS weeks they already requested. Requiring them to fill out pages and pages of information as to whether they looked for work or not, and if not, why not. I go out to the unemployment twitter and it says this is intentional, and we should just not worry about it because the work search requirement is waived.

What. the. fuck? so I answered everything smugly with a "this is not applicable, Desantis suspended work search requirements" for my mom. Finally...FINALLY on the last page, it asks IS THIS CLAIM DUE TO COVID-19? oh...nice of you to ask!

then after I submit both weeks, it says there are pending issues with both weeks claimed, and....says the first week won't be paid due to waiting period (which isn't true).

we're basically being told to trust answering "we aren't searching for jobs right now" isn't going to invalidate the application. the site, which had been functioning better in recent weeks, is crashing more often now as a result.

I am tempted to just take the stupid COVID-19 withdrawal and pay my mother she would have gotten through unemployment with it. then if we get any money from unemployment, great.

she's taken care of. I think a lot of Floridians in need are going to die if something doesn't happen. they shut the site down every weekend and...nothing happens.

I've been spamming this all over FB knowing it won't change anything but w/e:

https://www.krem.com/mobile/article/news/politics/local-experts-examine-the-question-are-stay-at-home-orders-unconstitutional/293-8575b5bf-6694-4389-8ce8-7d02736b8795

he's much more paranoid about it. He's barely set foot outside of the house since the quarantine started.

His lifetime experience of illness is limited enough that he has no real scale to measure this against and a child knows to his bones that if his parents are put out of commission, he is in deep shit, so I wouldn't be surprised if that was his primary fear.

his lifetime experience of anything, really, being a child

I don't blame him for it, plus he's a natural introvert, doesn't go out a lot either way, but I naturally worry.

Feeling under the weather today. I've been cold symptom-free since lockdown began, so it always makes you wonder when you suddenly feel sniffly, but hopefully it's just the spring tree pollen in the air.

. however, references to both still appear all over the site, confusing people.

it will not surprise me if this was the intention

o. nate if it makes you feel any better sniffles/congestion are pretty uncommon covid symptoms afaik.

his lifetime experience of anything, really, being a child

Not there’s much for him to experience atm. Our children are gonna be hardened masterminds of survival if they’re not traumatized into dysfunction.

we are all harlow's monkeys

omg

new borad description

What a great time for my wifi device to give up the ghost. Had to buy a new device, new plan, the whole shooting match - with EE, even though they're shite and have bled me dry for the last 6 years, because who can be arsed shopping around right now? As I said to the guy I spoke to on the phone, I hope EE give you a bonus for this.