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

JUst seen it confirmed taht teh St patrick's day parades are bing cancelled. Heard Dublin, Cork, sligo so far.
BUmped into someone i know this morning who was coming from a meeting about the local one and told me taht our local community centre had definitely pulled out but the town as waiting for the decision from teh council.
I thought it was pretty likely that if there was a panic over the last week a large close crowd event like that next week may not be likely to go ahead.

Pretty sure the St. Patrick's Day response here will be to drink *more*.

They won't need to dye the river, it'll just turn that color from all the covid.

Went to Costco and the big asian grocery store in town. Costco seemed to be out of toilet paper but didn't notice anything else weird.

The asian grocery store was pretty cleaned out though - 90% of the rice was gone, all of the dried chinese noodles were gone except the very thin ones, and like 75% of the all the huge chinese preserved vegetable aisle was empty.

I'm kind of fascinated by what was gone and what was still around - I imagine some of it is supply issues for chinese products, the fact that the vast majority of customers are chinese, etc. There was still lots of thai/vietnamese rice noodles, korean sweet potato noodles, kimchee, pansit noodles, and some stray bags of basmati, sticky, sushi, and brown jasmine rice. My son and I were also the only people there not wearing masks this time.

I'm not very observant, so on Saturday I learned that brown basmati rice is a thing.

that's interesting, I shop pretty much only at Asian grocery stores (south but mostly east) here and I haven't yet seen anyone in a mask, nor any shelves unusually out of stock.

Probably also touching my face the average (160 times an hour, I've read). Yesterday I donned one of my dog's neck bandanas inside the apt, so at least I noticed each time I rested my chin on my thumb. I imagine I'd get habituated to that, too.

I've long been in the habit of touching my face with my knuckles, or the back of my hand. Like "The Thinker."

I have a work trip that I spun into a vacation for my spouse and I (me?), heading from SF to Paris then Amsterdam next week. We are both wondering aloud if this is a good idea or not.

As for the workplace itself, we are extremely deadline-driven in my dept and if we close it will have an enormous, unpredictable impact on them. it's definitely making me anxious.

I'm slightly nervous about flying this week: first to Raleigh (for a Destroyer show lol), then NYC. But other than sanitizing the airplane seat table, what can ya do?

wipe down the tv screens, arm rests, belt buckles, remotes, etc too (if they have them). suck on a zinc lozenge the entire flight?

We met another Chinese mother at the supermarket, her daughter is in my son's class and she doesnt speak English. She was complaining that people weren't taking it seriously enough and that it was still not socially acceptable to wear a face mask in public.

Last week I bought toilet paper at Trader Joe's (not hoarding; I had just put the last roll from the previous package on the spindle). The checker immediately comments on the TP, as there had been a run on that store earlier for TP and hand sanitizer.

Are people anticipating a civilization that has collapsed enough that TP is worth its weight for bartering?

People with relatives in China, including Taiwan, seem to be way more aware of the need to take this seriously. As for TP, we have one more package than usual, but we have squeeze bottles that can be filled with water and squirted directionally, if necessary. <<-- this thought is new to me and I thank ilx for its recent bidet conversation for bringing this to the fore of my mind.

i think the recent bidet conversation was the ilx highpoint of the week.

feeling good about my choice to travel by Greyhound this summer if only because I'll be locked in with 8-12 disgusting strangers as opposed to hundreds

As I understand it, traveling by plane is no worse (and in some ways better, thanks to the HEPA filters) than any other means of transportation. Assuming you are not within 3 or so feet of someone actively sneezing or coughing up a lung, the usual caveats apply: wash hands, don't touch face, and so on.

I was watching SNL last night, thinking, boy, this is so not funny. So my mind started to wander to a parody of Hitchcock's "Lifeboat" where four people are stuck on a tiny raft, and the number of TP rolls stacked in the corner keeps going down and they have to find the cheat secretly burning through all the TP.

I refuse to not touch face!!!

http://healthyinfluence.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/kiss-lady-tramp.jpg

I have always been the "eh I'm sure it'll be fine" person in my family, so it was weird yesterday to be having A Talk with my 67-year-old parents yesterday about how they actually need to take this seriously. I need to find a good all-in-one guide (hint) and email it out to the family. The world is truly upside down when I'm the responsible one.

The bougie grocery store I live near seems to still have everything. Stocking up today. Already secured a significant amount of Dr. Bronner's.

Nhs guide is pretty good, simple sos and don’ts and the common questions section is good, I thought. Uk references but replace with your local, obviously.

Would trust a non-US guide more at this point. Thanks.

https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/89254135_10158107111544281_2827637525147811840_o.jpg?_nc_cat=109&_nc_sid=8024bb&_nc_ohc=o7Xzg3JoZJoAX-k7MEd&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=2146ac8edf449b784e233df4f9175cd9&oe=5E940207

"The Bidet: like a wet kiss for your bottom face."

lool!

Or as I call them: the kitchen and bathroom sinks.

we purposefully removed our only bidet as part of a bathroom renovation last year because our kids kept touching inside of the bowl with their hands

and now I can only buy 20$ sheets of toilet paper from a stranger out the back of his van

run on tp -> tp shortage -> widespread use of the wrong kinds of paper -> plumbers' heyday -> buy chemed stock

Flying to Colombia for a wedding at the start of April and I'm slightly nervous at the prospect of getting off the plane and immediately being quarantined in a strange country. Weirdly this is worrying me more than getting the virus itself.

I need to find a good all-in-one guide (hint) and email it out to the family.

This guide, PSA regarding Covid-19, posted to r/Edmonton subreddit, is the best I've seen anywhere.

xp Yeah my 17 year old daughter is scheduled to go on a youth service trip to Panama in June and this is my main concern—that she’ll get stuck there

I had our CFO tell me this morning that he thinks the entire coronavirus story is overblown and no one will be talking about it a month from now. Too early for I told you so?

people are dealing with this in super strange ways. I don't know if they are trying to soothe themselves but it was annoying me when people would try to talk other people out of doing their own precautions.

For sure, idk if it’s a reaction againsr the panic but the competition to be the most sanguine about this seems to have turned a lot of normally smart ppl on my feed/in my life into quasi anti vaxxers - fortunately less in the sense of irresponsible actions so much as thoughtless statements so far but it still is annoying. No, cancelling some music festival or whatever is not “mass hysteria” ffs it’s a basic sensible precaution and they wouldn’t be doing it at great expense otherwise!

that's the thing that bugs me. the media response and some community response to Ebola *was* ridiculous, people sharing a pic that alleged improper handling of an Ebola patient that was actually well within recommended procedures, people talking about banning flights from Africa, banning teachers who happened to be in the city where 40 miles away from where someone was infected from coming to school. and yet everybody around me was like THIS IS SERIOUS SHIT MAN, THE GOVERNMENT, NOBODY IS TAKING THIS SERIOUSLY.

now this, and they're criticizing the media/community/government for "hysteria" when taking proper precautions(even though the government SHOULD rightfully be blamed for a lot of mishandling of this scenario).

like have they not noticed the size of the events cancelled thus far? many of which have 50,000 or more attendees? Mostly international? that's a no-brainer cancellation.

everybody gets so fixated on the mortality rate of these diseases because they always come at it from a "will I die from it?" focus only.

Yeah it’s like getting your flu jab: not everything is about you, personally, the protagonist of life

Anyway I have a hospital appointment next week, should be interesting - of course this thing cannot touch me because I am super young and healthy but I have a feeling the atmosphere will be very fraught

Also have a staff meeting tomorrow where management will go into detail re their covid contingency plans. Pretty much none of my work can be done from home so any kind of asymptomatic self-isolation would just be a paid holiday for me I reckon - the only downside might be that the business can’t take the impact and goes under, but that’s not worth worrying about at this stage

I've been virtual for 8 years so I'm already at home. but if my students don't show up to the office and can't WFH, that equals no classes for me.

none of our locations are in areas severely affected.....well, ok, most.

Since Friday I’ve developed a powerfully unpleasant dry cough with an accompanying wheeze, which makes it nearly impossible to get a good night’s sleep (including for my family, who have to deal with me waking up every 2-4 hours hacking and scrabbling about for my ventolin inhaler).

I’m 99% sure this is an allergic response to our new cats, especially because leaving the house for a couple of hours seems to be an almost perfect cure, but what if? What if indeed.

The answer is I probably can’t get tested at all, since I’m not running a fever. So I’ll sort of self-quarantine? See above: leaving the house is the thing that helps the best.

I heard moderating ILX for a few hours is just what the doctor ordered

No, cancelling some music festival or whatever is not “mass hysteria” ffs it’s a basic sensible precaution and they wouldn’t be doing it at great expense otherwise!

Surely these events are only getting cancelled because the attendees are canceling and dropping below profitable levels, not because any of the promoters care about public health?

My brother's company cancelled their part of a convention but the organizers asked them to delay announcing it by a day so that they don't tank the rest of the convention. That one day will surely make all the difference.

i saw someone discussing last week how it seems that our economy was totally run on superfluous conventions.
True true.

Do you think it would do any good if I stopped smoking, like, today?

Yes, I have no idea about how it might help you with corona virus, But fuck yes.

in orbit, if I was there I would smack it out of your hand. (and then hand you a drink so maybe I am not the best person to ask)

It's a shame I still have like 5 whole packs. Maybe I can use all these extra cigarettes for bartering after the collapse of the supply chain starves us all in our houses.

Undoubtedly, yes. I smoke when I go out on occasion and have been using this as an opportunity to quit altogether.

xp

Surely these events are only getting cancelled because the attendees are canceling and dropping below profitable levels, not because any of the promoters care about public health?

― change display name (Jordan), Monday, March 9, 2020 5:28 PM (sixteen minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

replace "attendees" with "sponsors" and i think that's it

xpost, you can hold on to them and get them doled out one by one until they become so stale and unsatisfying and you can no longer trade them for nudies.

Read this:

https://tobacco.ucsf.edu/reduce-your-risk-serious-lung-disease-caused-corona-virus-quitting-smoking-and-vaping

boomers do not understand epidemiology!

This new vaccine kicked my ass. I got it at noon and had full-body chills all night starting at around 10 PM. Woke up this morning completely drained of energy. Breakfast helped, but I'm still shivering somewhat.

re: "covid detritus" upthread:

https://covid-signage.net/

OK, here's some anecdotal data. I watched the football game with friends Saturday night. There were five of us in the living room, total, including the host. He was sipping tea because we was feeling a little run down, but had tested negative for covid, and wasn't coughing or sneezing or anything. The next day, however, Sunday, he was feeling worse and *did* test positive. So far the rest of us are negative. But here's what's (perhaps) useful to know. I asked him if he had gotten the most recent vaccine, and he said no. In fact, he had only gotten the first two, apparently. He's not an anti-vax guy, just lazy, but two things. One, fwiw he and his family have had covid more than almost anyone else I know; they are all more recently vaxxed than he is, and so far no one else in his family is sick. And two, he says this most recent bout has been the worst one yet. So ... get vaxxed! You heard it here first.

Also I've been seeing an uptick of local mask wearing, too.

Sounds very similar to what I posted in one of the other covid threads:

Completely anecdotal, but I thought it was interesting nonetheless. Back in early December I went to go watch a friend's band play in a local, small bar. It was unannounced and a pretty small bar, so I went (unmasked) figuring it was relatively low key and a rare risk I was willing to take. And it mostly was, the bar stayed pretty sparse, though near the end of their set the bar was crashed by a very large group of folks on some ugly sweater bar crawl type thing. It got crowded fast and I was kind of kicking myself for not at least having a KN95 in my pocket to pull out, as I usually do.

Fast forward to a few days later and my buddy texts me to tell me that the guy who owned the bar (a friend of his) heard that the travelling ugly sweater thing was rumored to have turned into a super-spreader and that we should test. Long story short, of the group of 8 people that we were with, 4 ended up getting (fortunately mild) cases of COVID. The other four of us never fell ill and never tested positive. The interesting part though, was confirming that of the 4 who tested positive, 2 had never gotten more than the initial two vax doses and the other 2 had only gotten the first booster. The 4 of us who never tested positive had all gotten each booster as they'd come available.

Coincidence? Luck? Probably. Maybe. But still served as a good reminder to stay current. (Also learned that folks I knew who I'd assumed were vigilant about boosters were actually not - fortunately they all agreed to get back to getting boosted.)

I think I already posted the same thought in one of these threads, but my big COVID conspiracy theory is that staying up to date with the vaccine does actually help protect you from infection

I don't wanna jinx myself, but aside from an asymptomatic infection in September 2022 (not so much a sniffle, detectable only b/c my doctor gave me an antibody test a month later) I haven't gotten sick after seven jabs.

one concern w/covid is the possibility that multiple infections can fuck you up over time. anecdotally the people i know who have had it a few times have been increasingly sick w/not-covid illnesses as well, just really knocked flat by various viruses.

meanwhile on my local next door someone is claiming they'll never get a vax because they know five(!) people who died right after they got a shot. i have my doubts about that tale.

i'm really fortunate to WFH, i feel terrible that my poor kid is on the front lines, especially with the new Cali guidelines which give full permission for covid-positive but asymptomatic kids to be sent to school.

A good friend of mine's son, after catching covid some three years go, lost a lot of his sense of smell and taste, and when it came back there were certain things he mysteriously could no longer stomach, like eggs and meat. Well, three years later and his taste for eggs and meat has returned ... after he got back from a semester in China! Maybe they engineered a new counter-virus?