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

My point being, obviously, yes, I get that we don't know everything yet. Maybe both the optimists and the pessimists need to tone it the fuck down until we do know a little more.

I like doom and gloom as much as the next person, possibly more, but on that last point, check out this needlessly alarmist WaPo headline:

British vaccine developer Sarah Gilbert says next pandemic ‘could be worse’ than coronavirus.

Well, yeah.

I asked my mom, a retired but still licensed physician who spent most of her career working in low-income pediatric clinics, if we (the world) would have handled covid better had it been much more deadly, and her response was "we'd all be dead." Love ya, mom!

Stick with Peter Hotez imo. He's been ahead of the curve most of the pandemic. And isn't a doomer or a false-hoper

Q: Will we be made safer and saner by obsessive following of each new tweet and each potential new interpretation of a potential new development - plus the subsequent tweets saying why the previous new interpretation was wrong?

Or will we be better off just getting our shots and wearing our masks and keeping our distance as we have been all along?

Like, seriously, is there some different way I should go to the grocery store because of the new name of the flavor of thing we're all justifiably terrified about and doing our best to curtail?

Good read:

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/omicron-variant-best-strategy-omicron-boost-original-vaccine-rcna7451

Okay I read that but really I just want to know whether to sometimes go to the grocery store because we need milk and I don't quite understand why delta means I probably can, but omicron means maybe I shouldn't... or... something?

Like, I am really not following what this stuff means in terms of how to live

wear a mask, get boosted, get milk

I mean, fuckin delta is still a big problem. Take the usual precautions.

Thanks, Alfred. Right, so, is there any reason for normal citizens to obsess over which variant is burbling where, and what the leading edge of science is saying about, like, any of this?

Because I don't have the time or energy to follow the twists and turns, and I don't quite understand how or why any normie non-scientist is supposed to keep up with it. Like, if any of you are doing so, um, cool, I guess, but I don't quite understand why this is where you're putting your mental energy rn

I like doom and gloom as much as the next person, possibly more, but on that last point, check out this needlessly alarmist WaPo headline:

British vaccine developer Sarah Gilbert says next pandemic ‘could be worse’ than coronavirus.

that headline is lifted from the guardian. when people complain about the nominally serious press in the US getting things wrong, i am always like "how many levels are you on you are like a little baby".

Alfred otm, really.

I do agree that obsessively following every new wrinkle, not to mention the thousand hot takes spurred by each new wrinkle, is probably doing all of our heads a disservice. I had consciously stepped back again in recent weeks and was fairly successful in doing so, but Omicron being omnipresent everywhere has made that even more difficult.

I sort of keep going back and forth between "things will be better again someday" and "well, I guess today is the new normal and I should adjust to that fact and plan accordingly". The latter is probably more healthy overall and avoids the false hope of the former, but it also means not planning to someday resume some of the things we still aren't doing (vacations, indoor concerts, indoor dining, etc.), which can lead to a different sort of despair.

xxxpost I mean the thread is quite literally titled Mostly Apolitical Thread for Discussing/Venting our Rational/Irrational COVID-19 Fears and Experiences in 2020

where I live there's been a sense of things trying to get back to a manageable level, so Omicron news is definitely a factor in keeping the guard up for the foreseeable future.

YMP, your approach is entirely sane and sensible, but it's unrealistic to think that the masses of data and interpretation being produced by the world's scientific community in their efforts to address a deadly global pandemic won't be combed over obsessively by people experiencing heightened fear and anxiety in regard to that same deadly global pandemic.

maybe we could start a thread for people to say "i'm following this stuff the right amount and the rest of you are following it the wrong amount".

They were enforcing capacity at the UPS store just now, line out the door. First I've seen that in a long time. I guess it's possible it's just more of an issue right now because of the holiday season.

YMP otm but also otm for it to be pointed out that this is the thread for the behaviours seen in this thread

Were it not it would be fair to tell the five posters itt to stop posting about covid its not doing them or anyone else any good but this is the thread for it

point taken! if you are following things the right amount for you, then you are following them the right amount

my statement was that I don't get it - but hasten to note that I don't need to get it. It is not so say that you should care less or more or whatev, sorry that I wasn't clear there

Going to admit: I will continue to mask and do the proper things, but I was at a crowded piano bar on Saturday night that required boosters to get in, I don't have regrets, I'm tired of not living a life worth living.

I've also been out and about, or should I say in and about, though still avoiding crowds.

xpost honestly that's the hardest thing for me. i'm not living a life anywhere close to the one pre-pandemic (for reasons having to do with the pandemic and completely unrelated), but I get by because I do some things that provide social fulfillment while still being cautious.

at some point, i have to want to live for reasons other than "other people depend on you". I have those right now. idk if I would if I was stuck indoors all day for two more years.

for some reason, people hear that and they i'm about to attend orgies and roll around nightly on the bodies of 400 unvaxxed strangers in the remains of an abandoned Anglican church

no, that was me

I have multiple indoor things planned this week, some for work, others social. Most people at most of them will be vaxxed/boosted, but I'm sure not everyone. There is definitely still stuff I avoid, and I wear masks in stores etc even if I'm the only one, but we're definitely at a stage — especially as it's colder and outdoors is not a viable option in most situations — where there's going to be a lot of wing-and-a-prayer stuff. And of course if/when our local numbers turn bad again I'm sure I'll adjust as needed. But we're coming up on two years of this, there's only so much you can expect of people.

xpost @lfr3d S0t0, Lord of Sin

I love the specificity of "an abandoned Anglican church."

Me, I prefer the thrill of orgies that take place in the basements of Southern Baptist churches during services but who am I to police anyone else's behavior?

they call them 'revivals' for a reason.

I feel like most of the time, I am OK hanging out with my wife and cat at home, watching Netflix and going on walks and getting takeout. Well before the pandemic, my social life had dwindled to the point that I wasn't doing much else, anyway. But there are certain things I miss: movies in theaters, drinking in bars, impromptu hangouts. If I were living alone and starved for attention/entertainment, I'd probably venture out and take more risks. As it is, I can't convince myself that those are risks worth taking.

I guess the problem now, though, is that I don't know when they ever will be. I foolishly assumed that once vaccinations started, then it would just be a matter of time before the virus ceased to be a matter of concern, and that I would gradually ease back into a pre-pandemic lifestyle. But that obviously didn't happen. If only I knew when all of this would end, I could at least determine whether I was okay waiting that amount of time.

i would pay $400/hr for time in a british pub right now

This discussion is exactly right -- people are just different in what they need. For me, whether I go to a movie theater or a bar has negligible impact on whether my life feels worth living, but -- that's me. I went to a party last weekend with neighbors I like that I definitely didn't "have" to go to, I wore a mask even though few other people did, I recognize I elevated my risk by doing so, so be it. You do the things that really matter to you and you skip the things that don't matter to you, and which things are which are going to be different for everybody.

(Though at least for me, the pandemic has taught me that there are things I thought mattered to me a lot and which I just don't particularly miss. I will surely start going to see live music again; but I thought I would really feel a loss from not seeing live music and now I feel more like it was a habit. But a habit I expect to pick up again!)

Yeah. The point of enjoying life, it seems to me, is doing things you don't have to do. I don't need to eat inside a restaurant, I don't need to read 1100-page Rebecca West travel lit, but I do so because I feel like it.

xpost - jaymc puts it really nicely, that really sums up a lot of feelings I've been having.

A large part of my frustration has to do with the moving goalposts, which is only natural and expected as the pandemic evolves and science catches up, but it feels like they just keep moving further away from where we are today and rarely ever feeling closer. Most specifically in my case, the biggest influence on my decision making and risk taking in the past few months has been having an unvaccinated child under 12 at home. When he was scheduled for his first shot (he's actually getting the second today), I started to look forward to maybe easing back into a few things that I still hadn't felt great doing just yet. But with the science around Omicron still unsettled and some pretty dire forecasts, I've pretty much tabled those thoughts of reengaging in certain activities... at least until we (hopefully) know more in a few weeks.

I would LOVE if there were places to hang out and be social in this town that required vax checks or negative tests

Lately, looking at the vaxed numbers by ten-year increment age groups, I had the thought “I should hang out with more old people!” bc in this county they are 95%+ vaxed, compared to ~60% overall

the one and only time i've been asked to show my vax card anywhere has been at a backyard punk gig i went to over the summer

My guess is that the first four weeks of omicron data will be used to simply draw a circumference around where it is and how much of it there is. The next four to six weeks will allow a better idea of how rapidly it is spreading in various vaccinated and unvaccinated populations and how severe the symptoms are. The relevant point of comparison will ofc be delta, since it is by far the dominant strain atm.

iow, by late January, I think it should be possible to get our arms around what kind of a problem omicron presents. until then, I'll let the scientists do their jobs and try not to get too het up. delta's plenty enough to deal with already.

I'm guessing it will be spread far and wide well before that

things in my metro area are worse than theyve ever been - hospitals recently passed 100% capacity and the national guard has been mobilized to assist, masks in public indoor settings are (still, in december 2021) as rare as hens teeth. wife & i were being extra careful in anticipation of thanksgiving with family, cancelled the day before due to multiple people getting breakthroughs. i'm assuming omicron - whether it turns out to be not-that-bad, bad, or very bad - is not going to improve the situation.

on the one hand i echo jaymc almost word for word - as much as i deeply miss crowded pubs, gigs, and theaters, it remains very easy to convince myself not to visit them. (it helps that we've been having friends over the house somewhat regularly.)

but on the other hand, i am getting lower & lower expectations that safe prepandemic life will return in my area anytime in the medium-term. i truly cant envision how the local situation will change for the better, short of mandatory vax or just massive numbers of the unvaxed population dying off. which i guess means that, as much as i dont want to, i probably am going to reach a point where i'm going to just resign myself and say fuck it. which is weird to realize.

I guess I feel like I have eased back a lot, as conditions have changed, and also, um, uneased, when conditions changed in the other direction. I don't feel like I'm clenched down tight and have to hold on for some never-specified timespan into the future. I feel like I ate inside in restaurants and went into crowded places more in the summer, then less again in the fall when delta got big (in part because I wasn't boosted and because I had an unvaxxed under 12), then more again after I got my booster and my kiddo got her shots (big family Thanksgiving, etc.) now maybe less again as I wait to see what the omicron situation looks like, but I'll do more again in the hopeful scenario we find out that my current vax/booster combo looks good again against omicron, and if that turns out NOT to be the case, I'll do more again once the omicron-specific booster is available, which it surely will be within a few months. So it hasn't been a grim "hold on just a little bit longer, no a little bit longer, no a little bit longer" situation for me, and maybe THIS is one answer to the question upthread of "what is the possible benefit of paying close attention to the COVID news as it comes in?"

otm

and if that turns out NOT to be the case, I'll do more again once the omicron-specific booster is available, which it surely will be within a few months.

Not trying to single you out eephus, but genuinely curious about this point because I've seen widely varying positions on the timeline for any theoretical omicron-specific booster. Some people seem to be saying that it would roll out in a few months, but I've also seen people saying we should pump the brakes on this idea and that the media has done a huge disservice by implying one would be just around the corner when the more realistic timeline for developing, approving, manufacturing and distributing an omicron-specific booster would land somewhere more in the 6-12 months range.

otm x 2

(To eephus)

the media has done a huge disservice by implying one would be just around the corner when the more realistic timeline for developing, approving, manufacturing and distributing an omicron-specific booster would land somewhere more in the 6-12 months range.

I agree, the Moderna prez is now saying March, whereas originally I feel like they were saying "we can do it in six weeks," but a lot of that has to do with what the ask from the FDA is going to be and I can see that changing. Anyway, if it's March, it's March, I can do that no problem; as far as I've seen what nobody is saying is "omicron could be square zero and we have to develop a vaccine all over again."

Anyway the best-case scenario of my booster still meaning I'm drastically unlikely to get really sick from omicron is very much alive and let's hope it pans out that way.

I'm glad we're having this conversation.

I think that for me, I know when I'm taking risks, and I avoid doing so as much as possible, but it's not April 2020 anymore, and at a certain point, I need to allow the little joy in this world into my life where I can. Sometimes that involves drinking too many whiskeys and singing showtunes in a piano bar filled with other queer people.

Not every night, or even every week, but once a month or so? They require proof of boosters at the door? Sure.

Omicron requires a new vaccine now?

Hopefully not? But there have been a number of stories about it because Moderna have said they are already working on one to combat it.

Not a new vaccine. An updated version of the existing one that targets Omicron

You can safely ignore anyone who claims that any variant will render vaccines useless (or that microneutralization assays to evaluate variant antibody escape will result in emergence of said variants). https://t.co/Cr4M5fy6yd

— Dr. Angela Rasmussen (@angie_rasmussen) December 6, 2021

afics, Moderna doesn't have to sink a lot of money into developing an omicron booster at this point. the real money comes into it when they have to ramp up large-scale production. they wouldn't be doing that until they've done trials and are confident about approval and large-scale demand. there's no reason why they wouldn't be working on an omicron booster. if omicron is a bust, they're not out much if they shut down the project.

This is, I guess, a biotech CEO, citing an analysis by an astronomy student, with no methods or data referenced, and some bizarre trends visible. Naturally, everybody is freaking out about it. https://t.co/RHkqGy4g34

— Dr Ed (@notdred) December 6, 2021