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

So...I waited a while to get vaccinated because I barely leave the house. I got my second shot on 9/10. And a week later, I started coughing up blood. Not a lot, but, like, threads of blood in my phlegm, especially first thing in the morning. Naturally, I was somewhat disturbed by this, so after about four days of it, I went to my doctor, who sent me to get a chest X-ray. That was on a Wednesday. The urgent care clinic I went to three days after that, on Saturday, took more than two weeks to get my results back from the lab, and finally faxed them to my doctor last night. But meanwhile, the blood stopped the day after I'd first gone to the doctor. I was in the shower and I coughed up a pretty good-sized red-brown lump, and there's been no problem since. And my X-rays were negative - no sign of lung cancer or anything else. But it sure feels like the blood clot - or whatever the hell it was - was a reaction to the COVID vaccine. And I had no other reaction: none of the fatigue, or sore arm, or swelling, or fever, or anything else anybody has reported.

Weird indeed. Maybe just a strange outlier?

Will be getting my booster shot tomorrow.

Damn, unperson. Be well.

Ned, be prepared!

xpost - Oh wow, that sounds stressful, but I'm glad you are doing better and that it doesn't seem to be anything severe.

Huh, that's weird. Honestly, the one time I ever had anything like that happen was when I had pneumonia. After a night spent more or less banished to the basement, feeling like shit and coughing, waiting for my giant antibiotic to kick in, I finally coughed up this huge, gross ... well, basically what you described, unperson. And after that I was mostly all better.

Some time around the start of the pandemic I began giving myself a haircut. I figured I had the clippers, I don't have too much hair and I keep it pretty short, anyway, so how hard can it be? It turns out (in my case) not that hard. A few youtube videos later I was off to the races and have been cutting my own hair ever since, with pretty consistent results. There's something satisfying about giving yourself a haircut every few weeks, or whenever you feel like it, really. Keeps you feeling nice and tidy in the face of so much out of your control. Well, today it finally happened. I spaced out and forgot which clipper attachment I had on the clippers, and before I knew it, the damage was done. For the first time since March 2020 it actually *looks* like I gave myself a haircut, in the worst possible way. Like, scissors and no mirror bad. Like someone pulled a prank bad. Like I just got out of the hospital for a procedure bad. OK, maybe not quite as bad as all that, but still not good. Though honestly, I find it pretty funny. It was perhaps inevitable, and I have no one to blame but myself. I wonder if my family will even notice? It's just about hat season, anyway.

Go like Monster-era Stipe and let it all go!

Got my booster this morning, along with a flu shot. Amazing how simple an experience it is, didn’t even feel a jab.

I'm going to start airbrushing a streak across my eyes and no one will even notice my hair.

i started shaving my own head in apr 2020 and have just been a soccer hooligan looking ass dude ever since, honestly fine with it

has definitely led to some confusion as my employee badge is like a cheery bearded guy with a full head of hair, not someone that'll glass you for chatting up his uhhh bird or w/e

Allowing foreign fingers to style my thinning hair remains one of life's lasting pleasures
.

I cannot wait to get a professional beard trim again, sigh. Maybe in 2023.

My wife shaves my head for me about once a month.

https://www.remingtonproducts.com/products/mens/clippers-and-trimmers/hair-clippers/hc4250-shortcut-clipper-pro.aspx

i got this guy and honestly it rules

same! i posted that on your favorite little gadget or tool hoonja-doonja (physical world edition)

Ha. I bought the exact same one at the start of the first lockdown last year. Less than £30 in the UK

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Remington-Clippers-Lengths-Trimming-Detailing/dp/B012F8MS9A/ref=sr_1_6

I've been using the same Remington scalper for years. Once a week. Beard once a month or so. Job's a goodun.

I went to a work event this week - 30-40 people in a relatively airy room ... but not ventilated enough really ... so I felt a bit anxious - and I really noticed that others weren't wearing face coverings and so didn't myself. I think, in hindsight, if I'd walked into the room with a face covering, it might have changed the dynamics/expectations ... in a slightly different way than being in a room and thinking "Oh, I need to cover".

Officially boosted, thus immortal. (This may be wrong.)

good morning!

I should hope!

UK doing a disservice publishing raw case rates for vaccinated vs unvaccinated in age groups where (locally) vaccination is widespread.

and my god people want to be sure their vaccine lot number and middle initial are encrypted. they put the information requested on a goddamn card you leave in your glovebox.

FDA approves Pfizer jabs for kids.

hell yeah

jon! Good news!

Haha I've been paying close attention, believe me. To be fair, not full approval just yet (recommendation comes before final full approval), but an important milestone and full approval imminent. Definitely good news though!

Which isn't to minimize the great news at all, just noting.

Fwiw, the clinic I volunteered at during the earlier days of the vaccine is supposedly gearing up to get going again the second the approval formally comes through.

they've had storefronts with "Pediatric Covid Vaccine Clinic" signs set up around here for a month or so

Though of course "pediatric" means anyone under 18, and 13+ have been able to get the shot for months now.

I really doubt it's going anywhere, but there has been growing resentment around my workplace about masks for folks in private offices versus those working in open offices. It's probably a 60% private / 40% open office split here and, perhaps understandably, the private office doors are increasing shut for almost all of the day so people can keep their masks off. The people who don't have that option are starting to complain more publicly, pointing out that they too would like the option to take a break from the mask, but I doubt anything will ever be done about it.

My friend was in a similar situation, no masks for private offices, and the result was that everyone realized if they were alone in their offices with their doors closed, they might as well just stay at home. Of course, they had that option.

I was just up in Wisconsin, where mask wearing appeared to be very much on the wane, assuming it was ever in the majority to begin with. When I mentioned it to my wife she told/reminded me that Illinois is one of I think just four states with any real sort of indoor mask mandate anyway, so maybe our perspectives are just skewed.

Kids are getting it this Sunday.

I'm kind of wondering at what point the school will end masking, distanced lunch, etc. I suspect most of our school will be vaccinated by January or so. Spread is extremely low where I live. As always, it would be nice to have some kind of more concrete metric/goal line.

I suspect the CDC's watching out for a winter surge.

There was some OpEd making the rounds recently making more or less that same point, that really soon most everyone that wants to be vaxxed will have been vaxxed, so there should probably be a public plan in place for phasing out any mandatory masking.

xpost

xpost - Yeah, I read that we are one of the only four states left with the mandate. Unfortunately, my department has zero WFH or remote option, so it's only adding to the bitterness about not getting the option to get a mask break.

man alive, I agree, it would be nice to understand what the goal line/metric is, but I don't know how easy it is to establish one. As Delta got bad again, Chicago said they would restore the mask mandate once daily cases got over 400 again, and both happened. This led to a lot of people to expect that it might get dropped again once cases dropped back below 400 daily cases again, but after a few weeks under, they said it the threshold was now 200 daily cases but then later the there was a press conference where it was hinted that the mask mandate would stay "likely through the winter to help combat other viruses".

Don't get me wrong, I'd prefer erring on the side of caution, but at the same time, it isn't hard to see why people would get annoyed about the lack of consistency and shifting goalposts.

All I know is that it's suddenly frost-on-the-ground, see-your-breath cold here, so if there's going to be a winter surge I imagine it's already making the rounds. As always, though, the surge will likely focus its infectious ire on the unvaxxed, and the unvaxxed getting sick shouldn't be a metric at all, hospital capacities aside.

Well, Illinois reported over 4,200 new cases yesterday when we'd been hovering around 1,800-2,400 cases per day for the last week or so, so we'll see. It could be a reporting error or catching up on some backlog of cases, but it could also be the start of the seasonal surge. I think we just have to wait and see.

This time last year cases were already well into an upswing here. They seem to be on a prolonged downtrend right now. We can play the "but what if x happens, let's wait and see" game forever. What especially bothers me is the disproportionate strain on kids. I don't care that much that I throw on a mask to go into the grocery store. I care that my kids have to wear one for seven hours straight, that they can't have a normal lunch, that we can't set foot inside their school for concerts and birthdays and holidays, that they are generally made to endure stress around COVID that adults don't have to. I thought it was excessive even pre-vaccine, but with the vaccine here I can't see any justification for continuing it much longer.

Yeah, we were definitely into our surge by this point last year, but it stayed unseasonably warm around here well through October, so I think it's early to say yet. My fingers are certainly crossed that, even if we do get the surge, it isn't nearly as bad.

The higher numbers here could just be the start of NHL and NBA seasons doing the heavy lifting.

I feel like the argument "if not unmasking once 5-11's are vaxxed, unmasking in school when?" is a pretty good one, but at the same time, as far as I can tell my own kids truly do not care.

Man alive is your school district mandating the vaccine for in person attendance for over 5s?

My guess is that we're going to see the same fight played out in schools that we're seeing most places. Some pockets of the country will see most of their 5-11s vaxxed up really quickly, while other districts will be fighting and fighting to get there. My guess is that districts can't flat out require kids get vaccinated until we're past EUA and it gets full approval, which likely isn't going to be done in time to make a difference this school year. Best case is the vaccine is worked in with the other health requirements for next school year, but I think we're going to see an uphill battle until then and as long as there are holdouts, districts that have mandates now are likely going to be hesitant to drop them.

My kids are used to it and won't complain about it on a day to day basis, but if it actually comes up in conversation, they very clearly care. I find them hard to wear for prolonged periods of time so I'd be surprised if my kids didn't.

The good news is that my district does not quarantine vaccinated kids, and I think the quarantines are the most disruptive measure.

Man alive is your school district mandating the vaccine for in person attendance for over 5s?

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, November 5, 2021 9:31 AM (twenty-one seconds ago) bookmarkflaglink

Have not heard yet.

Agreed re quarantine of kids

https://emilyoster.substack.com/p/school-quarantines-should-end

My high school kids don't complain about masking at all. This all might be the first instance in history when kids are complaining the *least*.