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

I feel like my body doesn't fit in my body anymore.

I've sat at a restaurant bar if it's outside (in Miami there are plenty) or, last week, at a restaurant whose bar is by open doors and windows and uncrowded at lunch. I'm not ready to go to a free-standing bar yet. Just last night a careful friend posted photos from inside a newly opened gay bar on the beach; the combination of masked and unmasked patrons in a tight space mingling gave me the willies.

I went to a bar last night to play music. Even outside and mostly masked, it felt weird. I'm fully vaccinated (and so are my bandmates) but it's still odd.

So much of this seems to be about modeling and courtesy. A vaccinated person who still wears one or two masks - even when outside - is simply signaling care, and willingness to be inconvenienced for the safety of, others.

I double mask and have gotten bemused "Why? You're fully jabbed" from relatives.

Ha, I was going to ask if those of you that were fully vaccinated are still double masking. For the near future, I plan to still do it when I am in a shop or store.

Lots of people on the right are screeching about how Biden still double-masks even outdoors.

I see it as "if I can do it, so can you" and "I'm not exempt."

i still wear mine, but it's habit by now. I barely notice

Lots of caveats, of course, but:

Public health experts remain cautious, but said that while they still expect significant local and regional surges in the coming weeks, they do not think they will be as widespread or reach past peaks.

“We’re clearly turning the corner,” said Michael Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.

Across the country, the outlook for the pandemic has indeed improved, putting the United States in its best position against the virus yet. The nation is recording about 49,000 new cases a day, the lowest number since early October, and hospitalizations have plateaued at around 40,000, a similar level as the early fall. Nationwide, deaths are hovering around 700 a day, down from a peak of more than 3,000 in January.

In the past, lulls in the pandemic were short-lived, giving way to the surge across the Sun Belt last summer, and the painful outbreak that stretched across the United States this winter.

But now, there is one crucial difference: More than half of American adults — 148 million people — have received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine, perhaps the biggest reason experts are optimistic that the improved outlook may last. Cases, hospitalizations and deaths have also fallen at a time when the weather is getting warmer, which, in many places, will allow people to spend more time outdoors, where the virus spreads less easily.

the good thing is that when cases did go up for about a month, after the 'burn-in' month or so (since it's a trailing statistic), deaths didn't increase in tandem. i'm hoping this means they'll decrease in about 2-3 weeks .

My wife has a half-vaxxed co-worker whose father was refusing to get vaccinated, so the co-worker flew down to Florida to try and convince him. She not only failed but caught covid on the trip.

Oops

The nation is recording about 49,000 new cases a day

I guess? this is good, or better.. but it still sounds bad

It IS too high to be comfortable, but was 71,000 a day three weeks ago. Decreases are usually a gradual thing, but a decrease like this is promising, as we were going the other way not that long ago and suggests the vaccinating is starting to bend things a little.

Governors saying COOL, NO MORE NEED TO WEAR MASKS was the wrong response entirely.

Vaccination is definitely slowing but we just hit 45% of the population with at least 1 shot. 50% nearby.

Also looks like the number of cases is going to drop more this week, as the 49,000 average included last Thursday and Friday which both had nearly 60,000 cases, and today, we're finishing somewhat around 45,000.

I pay way too much attention to this shit lately

https://thenib.com/pandemic-archive/

http://thenib.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/05/A-Chapin-1200x1461.jpg

Fascinated that the artist felt necessary to write in “voices from above” with an arrow to make this cartoon legible to the audience

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L7fLvmi1hFs

We're all gonna fuckin' die.

*Grumbles in Lizardman* pic.twitter.com/tjvfHr6Kkn

— Tie Crimes (@TieCrimes) May 8, 2021

Welp, that's a wholly irrational covid fear, so this must be the thread for it. Nice bizzaro-world touch there about 'the genetic material being shed from you', because that's almost the whole of what the real virus is. You know, the one that kills people.

Honestly, they are doing us all a service

If I have a friend with that note on their door, two hours later I have a friend with a house on fire

Can you break down those 2hrs schedule wise?

Can you break down those 2hrs schedule wise?

― Clara Lemlich stan account (silby), Sunday, May 9, 2021 10:24 AM (two hours ago)

brace yrselves folks

00:00 - find gasoline canister
00:15 - find matches
00:30 - just do it and be a legend, man
00:45 - ask neighbor if he feels 'protected' from the vaccinated now?

Ahead of schedule, nice work.

Just heard about someone else quaking in terror from the vaccine shedding thing, so I guess it's a new conspiracy theory whirling around the idiotnet.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccine_shedding

Vaccine shedding is a term used for the release of virus following administration of a live-virus vaccine. Shedding is a popular anti-vaccination trope,[1][2][3] but, with the exception of the oral polio vaccine (OPV) in the 1950s, there have been few documented cases of vaccine-strain virus infecting contacts of a vaccinated person.[4] Viral shedding is part of the normal mechanism of virus transmission.[5]

Shedding is impossible with killed vaccines, RNA vaccines or those made using only isolated proteins (most vaccines fall into one of these two classes), but a small number of vaccines contain live attenuated virus which can theoretically infect others. Not all pathogens are shed; shedding does not equal transmission; and transmission does not always cause disease.

weren't there some cases of something being picked up by parents changing the nappies of their recently injected children? i think that was polio as well.

(yeah, Ireland in 2001 and others)

Got another text yesterday asking if i wanted a first shot jab . Came from the same medical centre taht rang me at the start of the week to see if I wanted to take an unused jab appointment and who I told I'd had the jab a month earlier.
So what is happening with th edatabase. Surely they would want to keep a tab on who they had already given a jab to or at least who had already had one.

Looks like they have expanded on who is giving jabs now. I think they're not all being done out in a place that one needs public transport to get to from town which seems like a dodgy idea in the first place. & people are now getting jabs in their dr's surgery. My ex has said she is on hold for one so needs to hang around near the dr's office next week on a couple of days.

Had somebody else saying they had heard taht teh 12 week interval wasn't actually necessary but had to do with how much of a supply the country had. Everything I've seen refers to this 12 week interval between jabs. So do wonder if I have missed hearing different. & the 2 jab ofers since do seem to rely on it being a first jab.
JUst would hope that they had better organisation of who had and hadn't been vaccinated. Would have thought that was something necessary for this being fully effective or is the reaction of anti maskers and anti vaccers so built into the system that they know there are inevitably going to be gaps. Still doesn't seem like the best way to keep tabs on the situation.

I thought the vaccine shedding conspiracy theory was related to the menstrual cycle disruption conspiracy theory? I suppose in the end if someone really doesn't want the vaccine they can make up any number of stupid reasons. I did see someone make a joke, following the bust of the that North Carolina bar selling fake vaccine cards, at the expense of those willing to pay for a forgery when the real thing is essentially free. That kind of sums things up pretty neatly.

I had a surprisingly strong anxiety attack over the weekend, when I was unexpectedly stuck inside a restaurant to pick up dinner. I'm only a few days away (now) from being fully vaxxed up, but I guess I'm not ready for crowded situations just yet.

Short version, was supposed to do curbside pickup for a Mother's Day meal requested by my wife, but the place got absolutely slammed and there were over thirty cars waiting for pick-up. Called a few times and got hung up on every time, so I double-masked and went inside to grab the food. They were clearly unprepared for everything - there was a line of like 15-20 waiting for pick up and a separate line of more than 30-35 for walk-in orders, plus they had 6 or 7 tables with people indoor dining. Our food ended up being over half an hour late, I was stuck inside waiting for more than 20 minutes. They were behind on everything, so they just kept shunting all the people waiting to the same area and it was impossible to distance. You had to stay inside to hear your name called for pick up, they weren't willing to call on the phone due to how busy they were. Maybe 35-40% of the people were unmasked, either indoor diners not wearing them at all or dicknosers and chinstrappers waiting for their food. It was just the most uncomfortable I've been inside throughout basically all of the pandemic.

That's going to be more and more of a phenomenon. I've reached the point of thinking, "Well, if I'm stuck in a situation like this, that's why we got jabbed."

Yeah, exactly. I mean, I've had both shots, I was double masked, I've done what I can do - I was just surprised by how quickly and intensely the discomfort kicked in.

and at this point we can assume some or most of those eligible diners got jabbed too?

I would hope anyone actually eating indoors at this point is jabbed but, uh, who knows.

It's going to be an ingrained reaction for a while with all of us.

Our brain won't forget our conditioning and instinctively reacts to dangerous situations.

Someone harassed me and my friend yesterday for wearing masks because DeSantis removed the mandate.

Never wanted to hit someone so bad

However in Seminole County we've acted like his mandate never happened.

Jesus, sorry Neanderthal. People are terrible.

My state is full of stupid to where I have no expectations anymore

My prepared response to someone hassling me for wearing a mask in public (which no one has done and I don't strictly expect because most of the people I am willingly around in this part of MA are on the same page re: COVID protocols) is "I'm sorry, am I in your business? No? Then why are you in mine?"

One good thing about where I live is that I have experienced zero hassle about masks -- you wear a mask, it's fine, you're walking around outside without a mask, it's fine, you go in a store you wear a mask because that's the rule, the fact that people are basically on the same page means we give each other the benefit of the doubt that whatever they're doing they're doing it based on reality-based risk assessment

same here

Never been hassled directly, but around May or June last year I was standing at a stoplight waiting to cross and this unmasked lady stared directly at me, pointed to my mask and made very loud "baa-ing" sounds. I just rolled my eyes at her.

Americans can be such unbelievable jackasses, it's like a point of pride

I realise other people can be too, but still

It's definitely due to the SF bubble but zero complaints/harassment etc about mask wearing, if anything it would likely be the reverse.

That said: I have not been wearing masks myself for my solitary early morning exercise walks for some time now (we're talking 6 am here, like a scattering of other folks in the park all keeping to themselves). And I've been out a couple of times for long walks on quiet streets for errands where I keep my mask handy for when I get to relevant stores or the like, and otherwise keep distance as needed. Again, was lucky enough to have been vaccinated in January, and the city itself is nearing a variety of good numbers -- the actual total overall population, not just the eligible, is now at 2/3 with one shot and half with a completed regimen, hospitalizations are almost nothing, etc. It seems to me that there is space for a personal easing back as desired, and I've noticed others as well -- certainly even a couple of months back I would have assumed they were maybe being jerks, but now I'm much more inclined to think they're like myself, precisely because of those numbers. That said if I'm running my very local errands -- the corner store, the laundromat, my coffee spot, the Walgreens, etc. -- I just keep my mask on for convenience from start to stop, and generally if I know I'm walking on busier streets, again I'll just leave it on.

My friend had that happen and she said "hi my husband had COVID recently, want me to breathe on you?" and pretended she was going to lower her mask. Baa-er sprinted away. Shows you deep down, they know they're living a lie

I never see anyone in my building wearing masks ever, which is one more reason I never talk to any of them if I can help it. Most people are wearing them when I'm walking around town, though, and it's vanishingly rare for me to see someone in a store without one. Every once in a while someone will come into the dollar store with a guilty expression and pull their T-shirt collar up over their nose and mouth to run down an aisle and grab something, but that's it. Nobody tries any ostentatious huffing-and-puffing MAH FREEDOM bullshit.

In other news, I'm putting a record out in July featuring cornet player Graham Haynes, and I didn't find out until reading an email interview he did about it that he'd had the rona last spring, and took a while to recover, and viewed the project we worked on together as a "light at the end of the tunnel," which I have to admit felt really good.

https://wtop.com/dc/2021/05/dc-coronavirus-update-may-10/

DC to phase out most capacity restrictions from May 21 to June 11. Counting the days....

Went up north this weekend to Anacortes. Took my 82 year-old dad with COPD out to lunch at a tavern. Tables were pre-COVID distanced (5' or less of a spread), and filled up quickly. People were masked coming in, but removed them on sitting. I was expecting the tables to be spread out or signed "don't sit" on every other one. We're both past second shots, but still, pretty much confirmed my aversion to unfamiliar restaurant sit-downs for a long while.

Leaving town, stopped at grocery store. Watched the 4' and change female cashier ask an incoming guy my 6'3" height and 50 lbs heavier to put on a mask, only to get glared at. He then walked farther into the store, and she had to close her lane to follow him. Kind of hard not to say something, but when someone's obviously itching for confrontation, I'm not scratching.

Working on seeing the half-full glass and all the people looking out for each other here, versus the negative encounters.

Having trouble with that one myself. It increasingly feels like a whole lot of borderline maniacs have spent the last year (or last five years, even) assiduously chipping away at whatever borderline once existed for them.