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

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*.

Some pockets of the country will see most of their 5-11s vaxxed up really quickly

I doubt it. All surveys suggest maybe 1/3 of parents of 5-11s are planning to get their kids vaccinated right away, way lower than the proportion of vaccinated adults. I live in a highly vaccinated area and I'd be surprised if more than 2/3 of kids at school were vaccinated. And mandated COVID vaccination for elementary school attendance would create a political shitstorm like none we have seen yet.

And mandated COVID vaccination for elementary school attendance would create a political shitstorm like none we have seen yet.

Yeah but who the fuck cares? Obviously not directing this at you, but I'm tired of hearing about this heading our way. Lots of vaccinations are required, adding another one should be an absolute slam dunk. Add this to the list of requirements ASAP and who gives a fuck if Joe Trumper and his wife pull their kids out of the district. Good riddance. I'm just fucking tired of the refusers holding all the power. Fuck 'em.

I care but I can't make you care, and it would absolutely not just be Joe and Mrs. Trumper. (It also wouldn't be me, to be clear.)

At rick of violating the "mostly apolitical" part of the thread, though I fear we're already there, are you arguing that we should absolutely not make a COVID vaccination mandated for elementary school attendance?

Sorry, I forgot the mostly apolitical part!

my partner's grandma, who also is showing some signs of dementia, is dying of Covid in Spokane right now.

Why did a woman in her late 70s not get vaccinated? Her idiot chiropractor son told her not to.

One of this woman's daughters is a right-wing exec type who helped fund anti-lockdown protests, and the other daughter (my mother-in-law) is a nurse...who won't tell my partner if she's vaccinated or not, which we assume means that she is not.

My partner works in the busiest Emergency Department in Philadelphia, and has seen a lot of shit over the course of the past two or so years. When his mom told him that she had gone to an anti-lockdown protest with her sister, he didn't speak to her for a month, then called her drunkenly and ripped her a new one.

He is beside himself with anger and sadness. If anyone raised him, it wasn't his mother, but his grandmother. A very nice old woman who really knew how to cook, from my limited experience with her.

Rough weeks ahead.

Our school district (3700 students) scheduled a vaccine clinic Tuesday for 5-11yo and the 200 or spots filled up in 20 minutes which feels like a good sign.

I'm shattered, table. My deepest sympathy. xpost

He basically had to tell her to get a DNR on record if they didn't want her to suffer.

tell his mother, that is.

jesus it's fucked up.

These people are also what I would call "friendly honkies," in that they're not overtly callous or cruel, but they are certainly invested in white supremacy, nevermind the fact that my husband and one of his sister is half Chinese.

I'm sorry table, that's awful.

very sorry to hear this table, completely avoidable and unnecessary. :(

I wish people knew the harm they were doing in spreading their misinformation. or cared. there are a lot of new cemetery plots due to people who were conned by family members or friends into not protecting themselves and it's heartbreaking.

Agreed re quarantine of kids

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

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Friday, 5 November 2021 14:48 (two hours ago) link

The example she gives is not even extreme or unusual. I may have mentioned this upthread, but last year a boy in my daughter's class got a rapid test so he could go to a baseball game. He tested positive. The family subsequently got him MULTIPLE negative PCR tests, he never developed symptoms, and no one else in the class tested positive or developed symptoms. Nonetheless, whole class quarantine ten days. This school year there's a new interim super and he has made policy slightly better by reducing the definition of close contact so that it really means close and not the entire class (I think the county DOH has also revised its guidelines).

my partner's grandma, who also is showing some signs of dementia, is dying of Covid in Spokane right now.

Why did a woman in her late 70s not get vaccinated? Her idiot chiropractor son told her not to.

One of this woman's daughters is a right-wing exec type who helped fund anti-lockdown protests, and the other daughter (my mother-in-law) is a nurse...who won't tell my partner if she's vaccinated or not, which we assume means that she is not.

My partner works in the busiest Emergency Department in Philadelphia, and has seen a lot of shit over the course of the past two or so years. When his mom told him that she had gone to an anti-lockdown protest with her sister, he didn't speak to her for a month, then called her drunkenly and ripped her a new one.

He is beside himself with anger and sadness. If anyone raised him, it wasn't his mother, but his grandmother. A very nice old woman who really knew how to cook, from my limited experience with her.

Rough weeks ahead.

― I'm a sovereign jizz citizen (the table is the table), Friday, November 5, 2021 11:26 AM (thirty-four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

This is horrible table, sorry. I find this to be a really hard thing, that sometimes the people who won't vaccinate, even high risk people who refuse, are "nice people." They aren't getting sucked into this stuff because they are evil, but because they are fearful, and perhaps even not so bright, or just have weird cognitive biases/errors that even sometimes very smart people can have. But they're not out to hurt anyone, they believe someone is out to hurt them. And then they wind up hurting others as a result.

We had a friend with a newborn who refused for months, and we really like her, and she has some reasons to be mistrustful of medicine, but thankfully she caved when her work mandated the vaccine. There's only so much you can do to convince someone (my wife, who is good friends with her, tried), and dropping them as a friend doesn't make things better (although you might make a calculated safety decision about how much time you spend with them in certain circumstances).

My personal take on vaccine mandates for school is yes but not until next schoolyear. Too chaotic otherwise, and also by then it should have full approval to further dispel any rhetoric around this being an "emergency approval."

My 7 yo is getting his first shot in an hour. Yay!

Jealous of you guys who were able to get 5-11 appts so quick, we MIGHT get Monday but a week or two from now seems more likely

xpost - yeah, I don't expect it to happen until full approval happens. Once that arrives though, I think it should be a slam dunk. Guessing next school year, should things proceed as with other phases of approvals.