outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

doing mine tomorrow. fuck it, getting out of way. mom is doing week after.

Since I live in semi-antivax-land I was able to schedule one this morning for this afternoon (our county only has about 65% with the OG doses and even fewer for the old boosters). Silver linings I guess.

Got mine last night. The local CVS still had appointments available (the one in Arcadia was taking walk-ins up to 9pm)

I was exposed on Monday... a friend tested positive yesterday, and while we were mostly outside, she did give me a ride home, maskless

I guess you need to wait a few days before testing, so I'm not gonna bother until Friday; just avoiding everyone

I mean, just walk out. Who going to stop me???

It was the cvs security person’s first day on the force

All vestiges of COVID have finally been scrubbed from my place of employment. Data tracking disappeared in May, any and all signage even hinting at the existence of COVID was pulled down in July, and just learned today (by trying to schedule one) that our free on campus testing has been quietly killed as well.

Sigh.

I mean, better not to know old chap. Blow your nose on the grindstone and all that.

Says a lot about the blowback they knew was going to come when they didn't send out a single announcement about the testing sites closing, despite nearly 18 months of weekly emails reminding us to take advantage of it as a resource.

Within like a week of school being back in session, (at least) two of the faculty with offices in our (tiny) building now have children with COVID.

Thank god COVID is over, though, amirite

The tacit acceptance and even encouragement that a lot of people are going to be coming to work COVID positive is quite a thing.

Especially when mask wearing is pretty much non-existent. Of the 9 people in my immediate open office area, I'm the only one left wearing one. My coworker who had been super diligent about wearing one as well got COVID about a month and and hasn't worn one since.

Btw, still catching up on other threads, glad you are feeling better tipsy.

In the public library now, I'm the only patron out of 27 (yes, I counted) masked; two out of nine visible employees are masked.

Maybe they're right! Chances are low that I'll catch it when the ceiling's so high and the nearest patron is 30 feet away. But still.

xpost thx! Got an actual fully negative test this morning, so I am cleared to rejoin society. If I want to ...

huzzah

tips, it sounds like you completed the textbook 10-day cycle.

My office has something like 150 people and there are usually less than 5 people masked.

I am currently negotiating an ADA accommodation request where I would work from home until we get back to test positivity 5% (or alternately, average daily cases per 100,000 5 or less). I don’t know if they’re going to approve it. I’m in my fifties and I’ve got conditions.

I was working from home on a don’t ask don’t tell basis (agreed to by my manager) for the last several weeks since the numbers escalated, but someone blew us up.

Ugh sorry to hear that, good luck with the request.

kid started kindergarten yesterday. Something like 1 out of 10 kids wearing a mask. She's never had it. My wife and I have never had it. A friend of mine just told me he's taking a year off work because his long covid symptoms are so bad. Getting booster 2 on sunday.

Got Bivalent booster and flu shot yesterday! (Yay!)

Found out shortly after that someone I spent hours with on Tuesday tested positive yesterday (Ugh!)

So of course now I have side effects from the vaccines and I have to figure out if it's that or actual VID!

Idk if it's inevitable that I get it. I had an exposure much later than that (day before positive test) and nobody got it.

But boy will I be mad if I got that close to avoiding it!

So far neg

My immediate coworker and I are, I believe, the only people still consistently masking up in the office. I'm the undergraduate liaison for the department, supporting (counts) at least 750 students as of the new academic year, and she works the graduate side (we're severely understaffed because our programs just exploded in popularity over the past year). If one or - god forbid - both of us get sick and are out of commission for basically any time at all, the department is sooooo fuuuuuucked.

But I can't imagine why that would ever happen. COVID? Pssh. gwb-missionaccomplished.jpg

For Alfred and others involved in academe— I am teaching two in-person seminars this semester, and I have found it near-impossible to keep a KN95 mask on for *3 hours* while doing a lot of talking. My voice becomes more hoarse and nobody can hear what the fuck I'm saying. Any suggestions?

xp - hope you stay neg, Neanderthal

pharmacist just told my wife NOT to get booster and flu shot at the same time. I did with the last booster and was planning on doing it again. Not sure why.

xp I have been wearing a KN95 for 2.5 hour sessions. Every once in a while I step away/aside as much as possible and pull the mask away for a couple of breaths, drinks of water, etc. My student group is small (12–15) so I don't have to speak very loud and I feel safer taking the mask off for a bit because there aren't that many others around. Prior to the erasure of my school's mask mandate I wore surgical masks instead of KNs, that was a lot better and I barely noticed it after a while.

xpost only reason I can think of is that some experts say it's too early to get a flu shot now, but there's nothing harmful about doing both at the same time afaik

well they can both make you feel pretty rough for a day. might as well avoid the potential double whammy. or i guess you just need to ask yourself… “do i feel lucky?” well? do ya??

a couple i'm friends with did both on the same day and it really kicked their ass. anecdotal, but enough to make me not want to take that route.

weirdly this is the mildest response to any COVID vaccine I ever had, though this time I had Pfizer booster and previously had Moderna.

I mean, I don't feel GREAT, but i haven't felt the need to take NSAIDs, and normally I'm ODing on the things.

but ymmv and all immune responses vary, so I can get not wanting to do both.

xpost - Just read an article this morning about the doubling up and the doctor interviewed just said that they wouldn't recommend a flu shot just yet, it's too early, so they would just stick with the COVID jab now and get the flu shot later. No health concerns about doubling up where mentioned though.

How is it too early for a flu shot, when the flu shot is based on what is already circulating elsewhere? Is the idea that the flu shot's effectiveness might wane before the strain reaches here? Anyway, I got both shots, which means one in each shoulder, which means two sore shoulders. I've never had any side effect from the flu shot, so I imagine my overnight aches was a response to the Covid booster, just as it has been in the past.

We are swimming in vax appointments here, because I suspect a combination of so-called covid fatigue and also poor/miscommunication is at work. For example, if there is no clear agreement as to how early you should get your flu shot (why offer it now if it is too early?), or whether you should get it at the same time as you booster, then that means people will put off the flu shot, and any delay always means a certain number of people will just not get it. Anecdotally, I sense much less of a rush among people I know to get the latest booster, too, because its benefits (for those already vaxxed and boosted, or twice-boosted) have not entirely been clarified, imo. Or at least its benefit seems less urgent, fwiw.

Last week we went to the first in-school open house in two years at the high school, so hundreds of parents spilling through the halls. We wore a mask at first, but we were really in a tiny minority. After about 20 minutes I took mine off, figuring 1) some of these parents I have literally not seen in person for years and I wanted to say hi and 2) my daughter spends every day, all day, in there with no mask, among her maskless peers, who are all but guaranteed to be (even) less cautious than adults, and if she and her friends have not been getting sick after weeks of commingling for hours inside, I felt a little less worried about my own chances of getting sick in there. Not that I can't or won't get sick, just that based on the experiences of me and my friends, my chances of getting sick don't appear much worse in one situation vs. another.

For example, my other daughter took a bus from Madison, WI, to Bloomington, IN last weekend. First leg, an overnight bus full of people heading to the airport (travelers). The second leg, hours spent on a bus apparently full of Amish (so probably unvaxxed and definitely not showered). Then she spent the weekend with friends at another big school full of returning students before repeating the trip backwards. She wore a mask on the bus, but there's no way she didn't spend at least some amount of time maskless among the cootied. All seemed like an invitation to get sick, but she was OK. Her booster was in December 2021.

idk I got both a bivalent covid shot and a flu shot an hour ago

let's goooooo

For Alfred and others involved in academe— I am teaching two in-person seminars this semester, and I have found it near-impossible to keep a KN95 mask on for *3 hours* while doing a lot of talking. My voice becomes more hoarse and nobody can hear what the fuck I'm saying. Any suggestions?

― broccoli rabe thomas (the table is the table),

My film and rhetoric courses, both almost three hours, have different demands. While the film course allows me breaks when I show clips or full films, I'm non-stop for the rhetoric class. I don't have problems breathing with KN95s. This will sound facetious, and I don't intend it that way, believe me, but facial structure -- muscles, bones, whatever -- may play a role. I haven't had a problem since July 2021.

When a student asks a question, I'll take advantage and remove my mask for a sip of water.

I'm signed up for both covid and flu shots on Monday, maybe I'll ask if there's any issue with that when I go

From the CDC site:

A recent CDC study published in JAMA suggests people who received a flu vaccine and an mRNA COVID-19 booster vaccine at the same time were slightly more likely (8% to 11%) to report systemic reactions including fatigue, headache, and muscle ache than people who only received a COVID-19 mRNA booster vaccine, but these reactions were mostly mild and resolved quickly.

Regardless, they recommend getting the flu shot in September or October, with the end of October being ideal.

maybe I'll vaxmaxx and get a second flu shot

interesting. I generally don't have much reaction to vaccines, flu or otherwise, and got my last booster at the same time as a flu vaccine and was fine, guess I'll see what they say at my appt.

I'm wondering if my reaction will be any different now that I've had a case of covid approximately three months ago. Probably not.

might get a Negroni and my bivalent booster together idk

I'm going to hook myself up to a negroni drip tonight.

i just scheduled my flu/booster combo next week while sitting on my balcony drinking a negroni

oh sure NOW I check the thread after returning from the errand driving past the bar with the nice negronis

So far never had Covid and absolutely no reason I couldn’t work from home in perpetuity except guess whose boss has decided “it’s time” people all come back to the office.

No COVID either despite exposure to grotty college students for fourteen months.

Hey, ya'll, any booster side effects?

I just got through 24 hours of post-booster flu-like, yeah.

Booster on Wednesday (no flu shot), took a solid nap a few hours after and otherwise fine. (Was groggy but fine after previous shots.)