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

just gonna pay peple to dress up as antibodies and walk around with me

Places like Staples can make credit card-sized laminated versions of those vax cards, I might plop for one of those.

They've recommended against laminating cards, iirc, because they might need booster information added in the future.

Yeah, not saying you ditch the oversized paper card, just downsize and laminate to fit in your wallet. Paper card gets updated with booster info, then it's back to Staples.

I have scans of everyone's here, and I've already emailed them to various places for various reasons.

fwiw we keep them tucked into our passports, where we know we won't lose them.

Beginning to think it would in fact be a lot more convenient if they *had* pumped 5G into our veins.

If I was magnetized and broadcast 5G there would be a place for me in the MCU.

I have scans of everyone's here

omg how did u get my info

Neanderthal's a first-class extortionist.

vax cards should be like those giant checks they have in sweepstakes or gameshows

Gotta say I'm kinda surprised to see the vehemence in Twitter replies to these venues, bars and restaurants around here that have announced they are requiring vaccines. I'd say a little more than half is positive replies, happy to see the announcement, but the other replies? Holy shit, even the pro-mask, pro-vaccine contingent, liberal presenting crowd is suddenly screaming "TYRANNY", "MY FREEDOM". Holy fuck so many broken brains.

How many of these people are legitimate, though, and how many are telephone tough guys. Assuming the 'MAH FREEDOMS!!!' crowd wouldn't be contributing heavily to these venues' bottom line under other circumstances.

At any rate, fuck 'em. Seeing a show isn't a god-given right, you fuckin' mush-brained human prolapses.

Oh yeah, I'm sure 95% of them would crumple the first time they were asked to present their cards, still just obnoxious to see them pushing the same MAGAt agenda and helping do their work for them.

My patience with anyone who's resistant to the common sense measures we need to collectively take in order to get back to anything resembling normal has eroded completely at this point. Get on board or forfeit your right to be treated like a mentally-sound adult (basically forever imo). I'm done with you mewling toddlers and your cwanky widdle naptime tantrums.

You aren't wrong, I'm with you.

Seems Pitchfork Fest announcing they will requires masks is breaking a shit ton of brains this morning, if the absolute meltdowns on Twitter and reddit are any indication.

I'm going and intended to be masked weeks before delta became a thing. People are weird.

some of the responses to the news I've seen:

stupid as fuck. sick of catering to those who have severe anxiety problems. I did my part, I got vaxxed, I wore masks for more than a year. I dont give a fuck about moronic anti vaxxers and people afraid to leave their house, fuck off. This science flip flopping shit is insane.

I’m for sure getting a refund. Get a life. Masking outdoors after full vaccinations? People seriously need to get a new hobby. Being a free range hall monitor is so 2020.

Twitter?

I mean, I guess this is all non-shocker news that Americans are fine until the specific thing they want gets impacted and then it's back to, "fuck you all, my freedom!"

xp - reddit for those, but saw some similar takes on twitter (yes I need to stop looking at both)

Also, this is not news:

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/pitchfork-announces-lineup-for-2021-festival-set-for-september/2511895/

tldr: masks were always required when not eating and drinking

tbh I wasn't planning to go this year anyway, so I didn't pay much attention. something seems to have set off a new round of freakouts this morning though, maybe they re-posted the rules and people didn't pay attention before?

(was not criticizing you btw, just the usual alarmism)

fwiw I have been masking again indoors, however my guess is that anything other than a properly fitted N95 is going to make little difference with the contagiousness of Delta and the increasing awareness of transmission by small aerosols that build up in indoor air. Vaccinate and accept there's a pretty good chance you'll still get a mild case of COVID sooner or later imo. It's here to stay.

If the point is to protect the unvaccinated (1) masks aren't going to do a great job at that (2) it's hard for me to care if people don't bother to get it (yes there's a tiny, tiny fraction of a percentage of people who can't, but my guess is that there are ten people who have a bullshit medical reason for every person with a real one), (3) the CDC had better tell people what the target % vaccinated is where the restrictions aren't necessary. We can't structure life around a forever war against one virus.

Didn't think you were, it's cool. I get that wearing a mask outside is less than ideal, I was just taken aback by the vehemence of some of the responses.

On another, more personal note, we had a near miss in our house last week. My son had been attending a "sports camp" (literally just a 4-hour day camp) that was 80% outside, fully masked, good distancing - we've been really happy about how the programs this summer have been run. I picked him up last week and he said something about a kid who had gotten back from vacation, came for one day, then was out sick and I instantly cringed a little inside. Sure enough, the email about our son being in "close contact" came about an hour later. We've all stayed fine with no fevers and no symptoms, just finished our second round of PCR tests this morning (the 7-days after exposure as recommended) and they were all negative, thank god. But he's still gotta quarantine until the 12th and I was supposed to start back in the office full time Monday, so we're still dealing with child care struggles, but really thankful to have (knock wood) hopefully avoided it. My wife and I are both fully vaxxed so mostly just worried about our son, particularly worrying about him at the exact time of all the dire news over the last week. Credit to his camp and the public health contact tracers for doing a thorough job too.

some of the responses to the news I've seen:

personal request to keep this shit on reddit and twitter

Cool, love to be the only one consistently policed for what I can and can't post itt. Instantly regret sharing anything personal on this thread.

Our office is now doing masks in common areas and meetings again, but is requiring the remaining ~300 unvaccinated people (out of thousands) to get vaxxed.

jfc this thread is filled with links to Twitter threads of people saying obnoxious shit, but suddenly I'm called out for it? If that was just a tweet embed it would have been fine? I feel like there are separate unspoken rules around here depending on your ilx popularity. Fucking annoying.

the offspring drummer:
"Given my personal medical history and the side-effect profile of these jabs, my doctor has advised me not to get a shot at this time," his note read.

"I caught the virus over a year ago, it was mild for me - so I am confident I'd be able to handle it again, but I'm not so certain I'd survive another post-vaccination round of Guillain-Barre Syndrome which dates back to my childhood and has evolved to be progressively worse over my lifetime."

His 'doctor' advised him, and then recommended a magnetic bracelet and some colloidal silver spray

i think i should just block this thread tbh

from the UK, not....great, though I don't know that it's time to assume cases are climbing again just yet

First day in a while where reported cases data is higher than a week prior.

An 8% increase. pic.twitter.com/anCWwZWv5N

— Ryan (@ThatRyanChap) August 4, 2021

Not that many people have Gulliain-Barre, but it really does suck, and the one person I know who has G-B had a shitty reaction to the first dose of Pfizer and was advised by her doctor, an actual doctor, not to get #2 -- the person in question also has a PhD and can read studies -- I gotta say, if he has Gullain-Barre I'm on Team Offspring Drummer

xpost but the rate of drop had been slowing significantly so it's not a great sign

ie, the wave could be bouncy, down, up, down up

Yeah maybe he's telling the truth but I've always been very suspicious of Offspring drummers in general

what about Pearl Jam, huh -- 16 drummers in 25 years? Shifty bastards.

The offspring drummer also gave lip service to various personal freedoms-based reasons in some of his tweets, didn't he?

Yeah, he added this: "I do not find it ethical or wise to allow those with the most power (government, corporations, organisations, employers) to dictate medical procedures to those with the least power.”

So maybe he's in the clapton/van morrison school of public health

I read that something like 30% of antivaxxers have played drums for the Offspring at least once.

Fwiw I actually have been seeing stuff suggesting a significantly lower CFR in the delta wave. May not be clear yet if that’s the virus itself or who is mostly getting infected.

Not everyone has played drums for the Offspring, but every one of them has gone on to be an antivaxxer.

An amusing / sad snippet from the Offspring bloke’s Wikipedia is that he joined in 2007, is their second-longest-serving drummer, but the first album he played on in full came out in April. 14 years in the band, and he / his doctor sacked himself on the verge of touring a record he made, for the first time.

(Josh Freese played on all of and most of the previous two they released in the last 13 years, which you probably would have guessed if asked. (Atom from RFTC was touring with ‘em before this fourteen-year newbie.))

May not be clear yet if that’s the virus itself or who is mostly getting infected.

I would guess the latter -- but that's good! There's a lot of discourse about the irrationality of the public but one very clear "people in the aggregate are not totally irrational" signal is that in places with widely available vaccine, almost all old people are vaccinated, which means that whatever happens next, we have massively limited the potential amount of severe illness and death in places like the US and the UK -- that is unequivocally good!

Florida should provide more of a view on that soon enough -- state did a very good job vaccinating its elderly, mediocre job otherwise, is now getting hit hard by Delta. So far it looks like cases have increase eightfold over the last 30 days in Florida but deaths have only doubled. Not sure how that compares with past 30 day windows.

'deaths have only doubled'

Welcome to the horror of 2021

I'm on holiday with my spouse and kids; spouse and I are double-vacced. just went to a pub for dinner (early cos kids) that we'd chosen as it had a nice outside space and a decent menu. but when we got there the menu for outside was different and you had to sit inside for the "restaurant" menu. Bear in mind we never get to go out for decent food (cos kids) we chose our taste buds over covid safety (also there was literally no-one inside) but was pretty fucked off at this dumb system they wouldn't let us circumvent even after saying we wanted to be cautious re Covid and hadn't mentioned when we called to book.

Have been less cautious than normal for the past few days tbh, doing activities with the kids etc, but the only really iffy feeling I had was in the pool when they just let tons of ppl in despite having said they were limiting numbers to 25. will do rapid tests when we get home.