outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

I recently rediscovered a bunch of photographs I took in May 2020. I walked all around the neighborhood and took pictures of every "we're closed due to covid" sign on businesses in the area. Some were handwritten, some basic word processor documents, many in multiple languages, some were extensively branded (like the Wells Fargo bank branch, etc). Looking back over them now, I was surprised and how many were really optimistic in tone! Like, "we will be back in ________ days/weeks, be safe, take care of each other, wash your hands, stay 6ft apart" and so on. It was also clear that the optimism was misplaced, like the date for reopening was the end of April, and it was a couple of weeks into May when I took the photos. Also this was in Minneapolis, so a couple of weeks later the cops murdered George Floyd and things changed a lot, again.

my only social activity in the summer of '20 was meeting two buddies by the lake after work, where we'd each drink our own six pack & flask while sitting in a big wide triangle.. then just walking home alone, there was nothing else going on

speaking only for the US, new hospitalizations and existing hospitalizations with COVID nationally are the lowest they've been in the time period that the CDC has data available (August 2020 - present). and weekly deaths are the lowest since the pandemic began.

that's not exactly grounds for celebrating when you consider the millions that died or got hospitalized or have long COVID due to the haphazard way we managed the pandemic, particularly in its earliest phases. and it's a complete travesty how many people died overseas while we sat on stockpiles of vaccines that nobody has wanted (the bivalent uptake is embarrassingly bad).

but it does show how things have sort of turned a corner in terms of severe outcomes, that was somewhat unthinkable a year ago.

the nation was obviously divided before the pandemic, but Trump's mishandling of the early days did more to cement that polarization than anything else - sowing mistrust of Fauci, promoting horse de-wormers, all that bullshit
Rather than using a national tragedy to unite a people, he employed it as a wedge for political purposes.. in that sense, we really are worse off than prior to covid

I was miserable the spring and early summer of '20.

it doesn't even just boil down to not being able to see people for me - I was terrified for the majority of my friends and family for how they were going to be financially impacted as all of the legislation was being worked out. and then the unemployment snafu in FL impacted so many on top of that.

frankly thankful as fuck that pretty much everyone I know turned out ok. I really didn't expect the enhanced unemployment to pass with a Republican Senate and though it was imperfect and implemented horribly (esp in Florida), it saved most of my friends and family who were furloughed from utter ruin.

my second kid was born march 12 2020, so i have a lot more photographic evidence of that time than most people, but i can't remember it at all.

It was a really uncertain time and I don't do well with uncertainty. Luckily my kids' grandparents never got it (?) that we know of. Unluckily a good friend died from it at the end of 2020, so on top of grieving for him that really highlighted the unpredictability of it. I was able to stay fairly cautious and didn't get covid until this year.

caek, the early months of a second child do seem to pass by in a blur anyway, everything is so up and down! I can't imagine having a newborn in covid though. My eldest kid was only a few months into school when they shut the schools - that was terrifying tbh.

My partner worked in the biggest ER in the city at that point, and so we were exceptionally cautious that first year.

But unlike many of my friends, I found myself establishing new routines— I wrote most of my most recent book in the first six months of the pando, and I also started the poetry workshops that continue to sustain me in some way. I also started taking longer walks with the dogs and doing a lot more exploration of places in and around Philly. I also became a much better cook, because I insisted on making dinner for my traumatized husband every evening. I have to say— it was kind of great for me in establishing my priorities, and as the crisis has ebbed and waned, those priorities have remained, which I am glad for.

I credit the pandemic for concentrating my writing and for making the morning walk -- which began as a means of eating away at the hours -- an essential component of my routine (I just got back from the walk).

I’ve just let my life become smaller and more circumscribed and generally fucked until I’m utterly miserable. I don’t recommend this as an approach.

Was a very strange time. Lived close to the NYC "epicenter", lots of sirens. Decamped to in-law's house in the NJ suburbs for 6 or so months. Child was young enough to not yet be in school so was spared that hassle, but we wanted to make sure she had room to run around. Quickly established a routine of working remote out of the guest room, dinner with the family, watch TV, repeat. Felt like a vacation at times, though with this nagging sense of...is this ever going to end? Had lots of plans to be productive but wasn't. Made a few DJ mixes. Had a plan to buy a bike and exercise but you couldn't buy bikes any more and suddenly I had a torn meniscus in my knee making walking/running increasingly difficult. Put on more weight, after the weight I had put on in the years before by taking a full-time computer desk job and having a child (easy excuses I know). Spent summer weekends sitting in a kiddy pool in the back yard. Moved back to Queens in September or October of 2020 and slowly worked to get back to normal, whatever that was. Only got COVID november of last year and have felt extra fatigued since then. Currently working with a cardiologist to determine if I have heart disease, long covid or am just in terrible shape. Latter is the likely answer.

The first year of lockdown was busy in a way for me, a month after the first UK lockdown was announced all my freelance work went up in a puff of smoke. So for my sins, I got a gig-style 'job' with a shitty courier company.

I live in rural East Anglia, and my assigned route was close by, in a kind of 5 x 3-mile oblong of very small hamlets, villages, country house estates, and farms.

I did 3/4 days a week, it wasn't super hard work and I could time out my route, maybe an average of 50 packages but mostly quite spaced apart. I got to know a lot of different people on the route who were all super kind and more than happy to pass the time of day.

By the summer, it felt like most folks had perfected their gardens and were feeling pretty bored, sitting out in the sun, probably a half bottle of wine deep by the mid-afternoon, buying any old shit off the internet. They were pleased to see me as I was usually bringing them something fun and frivolous.

Of course, I had the road to myself, or more accurately just me and a few other delivery/post office people, oh, and a lot of deer.

Quite often I'd find myself standing in the sun at the bottom of a farm track or lane with absolutely no unnatural noises occurring, just the stillness of the surroundings, marveling at just how peaceful it all felt, and even though the delivery company was shitty and the pay was too, I do kinda feel a little nostalgic for the rural quietude of being out and about.

The second the weather turned bad in October though, and the nights started to draw, well fuck that shit.

The whole thing possibly resulted in a positive turn for me in one way at least. When we came back things were cramped in the apartment when I was trying to work remotely. My desk is out in the open so it was easy to be distracted by my daughter. Half the time she'd come bother me. The other half of the time I'd look over and think "hmmm, what is she watching, that couch looks comfortable". Meanwhile friends of ours with a kid the same age who had a small art/design studio a few blocks away (rare in this neighborhood) had gone to the father's home of Hawaii for the pandemic, so I asked if I could sublet the space. They said as it was filled with their stuff I could really just use the desk, is $90/mo ok? I said absolutely and for the next few months I worked out of that space, getting to know the landlord as well, all the while thinking what could I do if I took over this space? Sure enough that family decided to stay in hawaii and hired movers to come pick up everything and ship it to them leaving me with the option of taking over the full lease. Soon as I had the space to myself I bought a giant inkjet printer and started a side-gig of fine art printing, something that was an interest of mine for a while but not tenable as space really is an issue in NYC obviously. Eventually the day job asked us to come back 2 days a week and that felt reasonable to me. And that's my life up to now. I sometimes wonder what I'd be doing if I didn't luck into taking over this space and then taking the plunge on the printer. I'd be working out of my house 3 days a week, which wouldn't be as difficult as before as the kid's now in school. But I wouldn't have this other outlet/project/whatever.

that first fall with the ongoing unrest here in the US and the election was a dark period, yea, even if it remained weirdly fruitful for my reading and creativity. went on some strange camping trips in the Catskills around then.

yeah, the workshops that i do on the side have proven a major source of income, but also a major element of community, release, and intellectual engagement.

I quit my job in Dec 2019, with the plan to spend the first six months of 2020 recovering from a concussion, and being a stay-at-home dad with my daughter, who was born Sept 2019.

The pandemic + quitting has basically ruined my career for the moment - it’s been hard to rebuild momentum although I’ve gotten freelance jobs here and there.

Having said that - it was worth it (as in, completely 100% worth it) for the extra time I got to spend with my daughter, rather than spend the same period peering at her over a Zoom meeting — plus the weather was great, and she was still young and spend most of her days asleep, so I sat in the back patio and read a bunch of books.

In 2023, my career hasn’t recovered! I’ve been unemployed for 6-7 months, the concussion symptoms came back after a few years off, and I’ll probably have to defer my degree for a year as I can’t afford the fees.

My dad also passed away in December 2021 (not Covid related) and we got to spend a lot of time together in 2021 post-vaccines, but I will always feel cheated of the time we missed with him and his granddaughter in 2020.

I actually applied for a dream job in January of 2020 at a certain elevated movie "collection". It was going to be a huge drop in salary but I was willing to take it because it was so cool. They ended up deciding not to hire anybody for that role. A few months later they cut staff and a few years later they cut way more staff, so I guess I was lucky.

Hugs, all.

I credit the pandemic for concentrating my writing and for making the morning walk -- which began as a means of eating away at the hours -- an essential component of my routine (I just got back from the walk).

This rings true for me -- the COVID Coping series was a good exercise to do something regular in terms of writing, and did also indirectly lead to my continuing work at Shfl, which I'm very grateful for. Meantime, I remembered right when everything started thinking I would try and do three extensive walks each day, and I started with that but it ended up aggravating my hip a bit so I pulled back to the early morning walk, since that meant less people out and about anyway. I've continued that to this day and it has set each day excellently.

Still have never had COVID, despite having relaxed precautions for more than a year and by now basically taking none -- all this time I thought I was either prudent or lucky but turns out I was just an Ashkenazic Jew

I have also not had it, to my knowledge

I still mask in grocery stores, planes, and shows, but not going to a bar or restaurant

Also a Jew and never had it, I think we've cracked this one.

did anything come of the different blood type studies? is there a good synopsis of more recent research out there?

Ashkenazi and I've had it twice, whoops

I still mask in grocery stores, planes, and shows, but not going to a bar or restaurant

― out-of-print LaserDisc edition (sleeve),

Add "while teaching" to the list. But I don't when eating indoors. Go figure.

Sorry, also Ashkenazi Jew here, had it once. Maybe it was my one-sixteenths Portuguese Jew that caught it.

Going to Toronto later this week, wondering how it’ll be different, if at all, from over here

Right now I’m only masking on the tube and in big shops

In the autumn there’s a chance I’ll be doing a work placement in a hospital, so that’ll be a good bit of immersion therapy

Never had it. I'm masking in big indoor crowds (concerts, airplanes, etc.) but otherwise keeping on keeping on

https://theconversation.com/asymptomatic-covid-19-is-linked-to-a-gene-variant-that-boosts-immune-memory-after-exposure-to-prior-seasonal-cold-viruses-209774

I know a family of three that have had it 2x in the past 5 weeks. They've also had it like 6x at this point.

Do I need to mention that they were the most careful/cautious people we knew in 2020-2021? including one time they drove by our house and just threw a gift for us out the car window in the brief second that the window rolled down before speeding away lol....? I think I need to mention that, sorry.

i haven't opened this thread in a long time, and don't care to re-read it, but i remember that fairly recently

um, i didn't mean to post that yet! well, i'll go fast i guess. the editorial board* of the washington post published a very long piece today. paywalled, but i have "gift links":

https://wapo.st/3P5o3ML
In Wuhan, doctors knew the truth. They were told to keep quiet.

That's the last time I'll ever trust the Chinese government to give me the straight scoop.

Still wearing my KN95 in the classroom

I wore mine yesterday. Not a bother.

Yeah, I'll be wearing mine this fall, too.

I wore it to two grocery stores just now

I was one of maybe 4 or 5 to wear one on a plane today.

i wore 4 or 5 stacked on top of each other and went to 10 grocery stores

and got chicken pox

another friend sick from the new wave

wastewater decreased nationally this week for the first time in a month and a half. being that this recent wave was likely NOT caused by the new variant (which is as of yet not well understood), possible that this reverses and increases again, but a good sign.

mostly due to the South and Midwest beginning to decline.

i know a lot of people with it now. a friend and his kids have it. the kids have been knocked out for a week and only now getting better. he couldn't eat or drink for a couple of days, his throat was so fucked up. he had to go to an IV place to get fluids.

the others i know have milder cases. one high school where some friends send their kids has a 13% rate of covid right now. admittedly a lot higher than some other places but it's out there. personally, this is why i haven't really lagged in masking but a couple of times. the numbers are misleading and rapidly change, and i can't always keep up with checking them.

yeah I am basically in full lockdown mode now, canceling two events this weekend

Went on a plane for the first time in about a decade. Not only were we the only ones masking on the flight, we were the only ones in the whole of the heaving airport (that I could see). I mean, if there's any time where I consider it worth having a bit of paper on my face to reduce the risk of getting sick, it's when I'm about to have my only week of vacation abroad.

how do you define lockdown in 2023 -- staying home except for essential trips? xpost

good question Alfred, no I am still going out for an occasional beer but only where there is outdoor seating. masking for grocery trips etc.