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

this shit is stressful!

damn straight! every single time my body feels a bit weird in any way it sets me wondering about possible covid-19 exposure until it goes away. and that's getting off easy compared to having a known source of exposure and having to test.

one of my close friends (for well over ten years) posted this today:

"I find vaccine-bragging to be incredibly tacky and in poor taste. If you don't like hearing this, just scroll on by please, and let me have my opinion."

On the one hand, she's a teacher, considered essential, and Florida isn't exactly going out of their way to bump teachers or other essentials to the top of the list.

on the other hand, that reaction seems a little...odd? I understand the anxiety of getting vaccinated and that seeing other people getting it can play into that, but I would also think they'd be happy that friends of theirs are getting it.

Even weirder is this friend is married to someone whose parents just publicly posted about their vaccine getting so...idk, obviously since I got it I'm not the best judge of it, but is this actually poor taste?

one side of me thinks it helps promote encouragement of getting vaccines, the other does sympathize. not going to like....confront or anything, just...this was the first person I saw elucidate this.

even more weird is I think what prompted this was another one of her teacher friends and boyfriend posting about how they got it because there were vials of vaccine that would go to waste otherwise that they got at closing time at one of the places, but this friend actually had COVID last year and it laid her out, and is also a teacher, so....

idk....this is why I only read social media an hour or two a day

I think it’s ok to be excited about getting vaccinated and on the margin sharing that excitement probably encourages others to get vaccinated.

I agree that I think it can only be a good thing for people to see their friends and family get the vaccine and have no serious complications, to try to counteract the rest of the crap on social media.

The good: my parents were finally able to schedule a vaccination appointment

The bad: They are currently in FL and the appointment is in MN, meaning they will being flying there and then isolating at their home in the woods until they get their second dose, returning to FL in March

aggravating

oh geez :/. sounds like a logistical nightmare.

I want to know whose idea it was to have FL vaccination appointments done via web registration, like queuing up for Ticketmaster

the 'getting in line' first started with the Unemployment website last year when it was clear that the DEO couldn't handle the volume - they'd make you 'enter the queue' like with Ticketmaster, and sometimes hours later, it was your ten minute window to file your unemployment claim!

I guess based on the ~overwhelming praise~ civilians heaped on the antiquated DEO system, DeSantis directed his web designers to do the same for vaccine pre-registration on the state-sponsored website. it's really dumb.

It's a good thing that people are being vaccinated and can understand the desire to share that but there's certainly something provocative when hearing that some specific people have had theirs without good reason or because of who they are not what they are.

I will say I've seen a couple of people on Twitter this week saying they got their first shot, but also saying they have no idea why they are considered "essential" and they only got the shot because their work handled it for them.

I can understand how that might frustrate, say, a teacher who still can't get an appointment.

My parents, both just over 65, won’t get theirs before fuck knows when because lol Quebec, whereas all of their friends back in Romania are already vaccinated.

my parents (>65) haven't heard a thing about when they will be vaccinated but Brony B who works at Fancy Company X not only gets his entire family vaccinated but also brags about it on social media? I personally find it nagl and it does not get me excited for vaccination whatsoever. I am plenty excited on my own.

Mom told me this morning she and Dad get their first shots on Saturday. Although I'd registered them through the Florida site, I'm afraid to ask if they found other means.

i would cut my foot off if i could get the vaccine today and it makes me extremely frustrated to think that i wont get it for what, 9, 10 months, or more? but the person whose fault it is has retired to mar a lago so what are ya gonna do, shrug. i'm beyond relieved that my parents and teacher siblings have been able to get shots.

Nothing even in the pipeline for my family members that are eligible, so I'm not hopeful at all. But I won't say much more since I've already had my hand slapped for being too despairing about the roll-out. Just to say that I can see absolutely see why the inconsistent roll-out and seemingly random approach to who has gotten the jab and who hasn't might be incredibly frustrating to those worried about their families.

I remain hopeful that a Biden administration will eventually get things rolling and I am happy to see the national distribution numbers keep creeping up, but its an absolute shitshow on the state and local levels in many places and we certainly haven't seen anything improve even the slightest around here.

I know a couple who were vaccinated recently because their child is on the autism spectrum, and as caregivers to a person with a disability they qualified as a priority.

I guess I don't begrudge them for getting poked, but. I'm in the same predicament and I figure I can wait while truly essential workers get protected. I'm not sure that intellectual disabilities are that much of a risk factor, compared to better-known and -documented medical conditions. My son's nonverbal and epileptic but otherwise healthy; he's been in school since November. We've heard nothing from our jurisdiction about bumping him (or us) to the head of the line.

Oh absolutely, don't get me wrong. I'm not worried about myself or my immediate family at this point, but I am, to put it mildly, disappointed that my father in law, who is both over 80 and had a very scary brush with pneumonia a few years ago, is still waiting to even get an appointment on the calendar.

US currently averaging administering about 1.3 mill doses per day. be nice if we can get that up to 2 mill, but that's probably a long shot for the immediate future.

A few states (like Florida) have seen their averages go down in recent weeks. not sure if whether lack of doses or something else

Apparently, the issue in Illinois is that the doses being delivered week after week are still decreasing.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/02/02/biden-administration-will-start-sending-covid-vaccines-directly-to-pharmacies-as-it-ups-shipments.html

I thought the Illinois deliveries were supposed to be going up? By 10K or so?

Even my mom, a retired 75-year old physician who is still licensed in two states (PA and DE) and wants to volunteer administering the vaccine, hasn't been able get the vaccine herself. Yet my 35-year old cousin in DC managed to get vaccinated, partly for bullshit reasons but partly for just being in the right place at the right time (which is kind of bullshit, too). My hope is this will be like the toilet paper shortage, a month or two of limits and frustration followed by a return to full shelves. Fingers crossed, I guess.

Sorry JiC, certainly not singling you out here, but when you look at the data, it very clearly isn't going to be "a month or two". There are still some very, very significant problems to be addressed in the supply and distribution chains.

I'm annoyed that people keep talking as if we are just around the corner from a magical land where vaccines are being jabbed left and right, on every corner, and I think it's getting people's hopes up to an unrealistic degree and taking unnecessary chances and pushing for reopenings that don't make sense at all.

I’d like to clarify — everyone should get the vaccine as soon as they can. Right place right time? Great, get stuck. It’s the public bragging I have beef with. Glad Brony B is vaccinated, don’t need to know how satisfied he is with it and himself. That’s also just a personal preference for privacy in general and an allergy to public boasting.

And I'm not saying ilxors are being unreasonable about things, but I've seen several friends and family, whom I'd assumed to know better and be doing better, saying things on social media that are effectively, "well since the vaccine is almost here we are more comfortable taking risk X, Y or Z". And again, these risks are all highly personal, calculated things for which I'm not going to fault anyone else for taking if it makes sense to them, but I do see an element of faith in an imminent vaccine that isn't yet backed up by the data.

Oh, I fully expect it to take months and months, I'm just hoping for a surprise. Biden has been president for, what, two weeks? Let's see where the power of the office plus actually taking things seriously might get us.

taking a bunch of risks because the vaccine might be coming makes zero sense even if it's only a week away, let alone months

yeah, generally vaccines don't help if you contract the virus before getting them. you don't avoid the flu if you expose yourself to someone with the flu and then get the vaccine 5 days later.

taking a bunch of risks because the vaccine might be coming makes zero sense even if it's only a week away, let alone months

100%, which is why it annoys me and makes me worry about more spikes in the near future. But I think Biden's rosy, "everyone who wants one will have it by summer" is feeding this idea that we're much closer that we actually are. Fwiw, the NYTime's tracker says that if the current rate holds, we will hit 70% on September 11, 2021.

I guess I'm confused about how people choosing to do risky stuff is the fault of Biden messaging

we can always find a way to blame centrist democrats

see ilx handbook page five

I have been assured (sans actual appointment) by my GP that I'll get my first dose within the next 12 days. My dad has an appointment next week.

Just the 3 months or so until we're kicking a pub door in together *

*obviously UK and Scot govt will have already opened everything long before then

xpost - Well, here's a specific example from a work colleague that gets to what I'm talking about. They mentioned in a meeting about how they were signing their kids up for an indoor sports league that starts in March since "the kids really miss sports and the vaccine is here". A few people expressed surprised and asked if they had gotten the jabs and they said no but "enough people will have it by March" that they will feel comfortable with indoor sports again.

And very likely they may not end up deciding to send their kids if things haven't improved enough by then, but that really felt like a decision driven more by a hopefulness about the vaccine than a more data based decision.

thing to keep in mind re: 'if current rate holds' = they're saying if the vaccination rate stays what it is now, which seems unlikely given the expansions mentioned in the article I shared above. we've definitely seen a non-negligible national increase over the last two weeks.

I agree that's an extremely stupid assumption for them to make, but again, it's not clear how that is the fault of messaging on the vaccine rollout.

xxp

is any official actually saying anything along the lines of "a whole bunch of unsafe activities will totally be safe again by March"?

No, not that I'm aware. And, again, I'm not defending that example, it just stuck with me. I would not make the same call, at all. Maybe I'm not explaining it well, but I just feel like there is (understandably, after all we've been through) this sunny outlook that things are just on the cusp of being "normal" again and it absolutely is feeding some folks' decision making. I'm not pinning it on any specific comment or statement, I'm just hearing and reading a sense of optimism and imminence that I'm not seeing reflected in the data.

If anything I have seen the worst case scenario being propagated. It's all about the underpromising.

Our high school, which just implemented very limited hybrid, announced that all faculty and staff will start getting vaccinated next week. That implies sourcing must be getting better.

if J&J gets approved for tertiary usage, that can also help as even though it comes with a lower efficacy, it is largely effective (supposedly) in reducing severity of the disease, and some protection better than none.

it's gonna be rough for a lot longer tho obv.

Yeah, it's going to be awhile. I think that's the heart of my annoyance right now because I'm seeing a lot of folks talking about a "more normal" summer or fall, but I've effectively written off 2021 completely and I'm just hoping we can have a "somewhat more normal" summer of 2022.

My parents, both just over 65, won’t get theirs before fuck knows when because lol Quebec, whereas all of their friends back in Romania are already vaccinated.

The US is going to be supply constrained to something like 1.3-1.5m/day for a couple of months. It supposedly goes up to 2m/day after that (factories come on line in spring). But the big thing that will get us up to double that rate and herd immunity much faster is approval for the single dose J&J (this year some time) or the easy/cheap AZ (lol maybe never).

x-posts

I might have said before, I quite like the idea of "writing off 2021" but not in an absolutely negative way.

More, I find the idea of "It'll be over in 12 weeks", "We'll be fine by Summer", "Christmas? Everything will be smashing!" a bit draining.

I sort of need to find a way of being "This is what we've got - Find a way of staying okay."

That said, I don't mean that to sound passive or as if I don't want Boris Johnson and pals to be held to fucking account.

Which vaccine are they using in Romania?

So far, Pfizer-BioNTech. Moderna doses will also be administered very soon.

I think a lot of my despair atm is coming from the cognitive dissonance of seeing how far out we are with the vaccine hitting any meaningful landmarks at the same time as restrictions are being lifted left and right. Schools are opening back up! Indoor dining is a-ok again!

Could we just order the mRNA from our local oligonucleotide suppliers and then eat it?

I think opening schools more may be somewhat defensible, but there have been multiple data points just in the last week showing that indoor dining even with distancing restrictions is just a bad idea

Yeah, I know schools are a much thornier proposition right now, so maybe that wasn't the best example. The indoor dining thing absolutely kills me though.