Coronavirus

[Twoapenny]

Do you look at the 'Dear Pandemic' website as well, Hopsie?  I find that one very useful, I like the way they explain things in easy to understand terms but they also put the links to the science stuff at the bottom so you can check those bits if you want to as well (they're all scientists so they're good at assessing risk and crunching the numbers).

Anyway - in positive news, I just had the plumber round to do the boiler, he's a local chap and he said that his business has thrived during the lockdowns and he really enjoyed having more time at home with the kids and the kids loved being home educated.  He also said that all the other people he knows who are either small traders or self employed have all seen a real boom in business while all of this has been going on, as people have shopped local and/or online, rather than going to the big retail parks.  It was just nice to hear someone say actually, while it's been awful for some, we've all done pretty well and we know plenty of others have as well.  Made me feel hopeful for the future and was nice to hear someone say they enjoyed being home with their kids more xx

[Hopalong]

That is a nice story, Tupp! Plumbers rule.

Thanks for the website suggestion, I appreciate it!

Finally figured out that what's recently been confusing me is the conflicting statements coming from our CDC (less rigorous caution) vs the WHO. The CDC got tragically politicized and is still trying to come back from that. I could be wrong but the WHO strikes me as more objective/scientific.

My laptop cursor got paralysed and I'm terrible on the tablet, so I'll hush for now....

Hugs
Hops

[Twoapenny]

We've got the same problem here, Hopsie - the new health secretary is adamant all masks, social distancing and lockdown restrictions will be gone by mid July while all docs, science people and WHO are saying significant risk, we're in a fourth wave here and so on.  The problem we have here is that I don't think people will tolerate another or an extended lockdown now.  The former health secretary had to resign after he was caught snogging his aide during (a) work time, (b) no contact Covid rules and (c) they're both married to other people.  He's one of a number of high up people that simply haven't bothered to follow the rules.  They've got 20,000 plus turning up for football matches, Ascot, G7 summit (in which they were all pictured not observing social distance) but they're still not letting people accompany their loved ones to hospital and visits to care homes etc are still restricted.  It is all very hypocritical and I just don't think people will put up with it for much longer.  We're lucky that we can stay home a lot and if we do go anywhere we can go at quieter times but a lot of others just don't have those choices.  I'm keeping everything crossed that the vaccines do their thing and keep the severe cases low but I guess just by a numbers game the more people that catch it the more that will be poorly from it.

[Twoapenny]

And I've just peeked at the local numbers and they've gone up another two hundred cases locally in the last two days.  Definitely looks like we'll be staying in regardless of what else happens now.

[Twoapenny]

Do you think 'old fashioned' attitudes have been more adept at dealing with the pandemic?  I was just thinking today about how differently people have handled it.  Some have adapted quite quickly and have just got on with it - they've seemed to me (just among the people I know) to be the people who don't need to be out all the time and have the ability to be 'make do and mend' about their lives - whether it's just coming up with games or activities for the kids to do, being able to knock up a meal out of left overs and odd and ends in the fridge, or being able to change their businesses and/or take on a different job for a while.  They always feel to me like things that are considered old fashioned now (ie, not sorted out by your phone/Facebook feed, home delivery etc).  It's across the age groups; I know younger people who've got on like that as well but I just wondered if consumerism/being used to having things done for you has made it harder for some people to cope?

[Hopalong]

I think consumerism definitely makes the culture weaker.
In my head, I'm a frugal pioneer woman.
But to my body, grocery delivery is a game-changer.
And the cleaner. And the garden helper. Can't keep it up $
so I'm imagining more clearly what might become impossible
(for me) about living alone one day.

I shouldn't pick today to look inward about these things.
The shoulder is just painful as hell and amazingly limiting.
But PT starts soon.

What I think consumerism does is damage the sense of self.
Do I have the RIGHT:
clothes, furniture, tastes, appearance, etc etc ad nauseum?

I think that hurts us in a deep way and skews our capacity
to determine between a need and a media-or-socially-stimulated want.
Too many people don't sit around and ponder humanity, theirs
and others', but ponder stuff and tribes and avoiding changes.

All of us, at times.

hugs
Hops

hugs
Hops

Will complain about it on the Health thread sometime.

hugs
Hops

[Twoapenny]

I'm so sorry about your shoulder, Hopsie.  I often wonder about people living more communally (in the past, multiple generations in the same house) and how it would have helped in some ways (practical help, company) and hindered in others (unpleasant relationship dynamics, lack of privacy etc).  No easy answers to these things we ponder.  I hope your shoulder starts to feel better soon, it's horrible when something hurts all the time like that.  I think this bit summed it up well:  skews our capacity to determine between a need and a media-or-socially-stimulated want.

There's also a need for comfort, I think - a squishy blanket might not be essential (a scratchy one would still keep you warm) but squishy makes you feel better.  We're probably more conditioned not to think about comfort as an essential, maybe?  Goes back to something else you said about telling people you'd felt lonely?  I can't remember if that was this thread now or another one?  It was just something I was pondering again over the weekend and wondering why some people had found this all easier to cope with than others, regardless of circumstance.

Worrying over here; government seems to be intending to abandon all measures from mid July despite rapidly rising cases and scientists advising them not to.  It will definitely mean much of the summer at home and/or away from people if that happens.  Many others will be in the same boat.  We'll have a car, at least, so getting out to quieter places will be an option.  Just feel sorry for son, with no social contact other than his worn out middle aged mother for all this time.

[Hopalong]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2021/07/09/live-chat-carolyn-hax/#link-f760ab16f6994a95a25cf131596cedc2

This is a Carolyn Hax chat excerpt but fits under Covid.
And maybe other threads too.
Hugs--Hops

HEADLINE: How do I get comfortable being assertive?
Guest:
Hi Carolyn, an unfortunate effect of the pandemic is that I often have to push back against unvaccinated people who want to interact with my infant daughter. Some of these people like to insult me and people like me online. Even believing that I am 100% in the right, I still find myself shaking whenever I attempt to respond, and thinking about it hours and days later. How do I get better about not letting this affect me?

[Reminds me of your/our struggles with rumination, Tupp...you're not alone!]

Carolyn Hax:
Practice. And it might never feel great, but it's like anything else that goes against your wiring or training. It will feel weird and wrong and draining until you're able to reach a point of habit or familiarity. Like learning a second language. Even if you never become fluent, you will still get better (and feel less stressed) with practice.
 
Think we could persuade Hax to join our forum? I am SUCH a fan-girl....

It will also help to get as much "online" off your schedule [as possible]. It gets so much harder to care "that these people like to insult me and people like me" if you're not there to read/see/hear it. Unless you use social media for a living or as part of it, you can step partly or fully away from it. (What if they had a culture war and nobody came?)

And that last quip reminds me of Amber-philosophy...

Any assertiveness you build for this unfortunate reason will at least be useful to you as a parent. You'll need it, whether it's to stick up for or stand up to your kid. No shortage of either scenario in my experience.

I'm also sorry so many people are abdicating their collective responsibility to a whole population of people now (under 12, immune compromised), and to all of us eventually if the mutations they enable are beyond the reach of vaccines.

Another commenter:
I'm a front line responder and though I know your readers are probably mostly on the vaxxed side of the fence, I want to put out a friendly plea for anyone who isn't vaccinated yet to hurry up and get on with it. Last year was really tough for those of us dealing with the consequences of all the ways this thing was mismanaged on both governmental and personal levels. We're all so freaking tired. I look at the rising numbers among folks who won't get the shot and I feel like I'm watching the water withdraw before the tsunami. We don't have to go the way we're going.

[Twoapenny]

It's difficult, isn't it?  I think the problem is that in so many countries now we've all had decades of being ripped off, done over, lied to and lied about by our respective governments, and the trust (understandably and quite logically, I think) just isn't there.  I know from my own personal experiences that the most deceitful, dishonest interactions I've ever had have been with public sector staff, including doctors, many of whom have fobbed me off whether with regard to my own health problems, or my sons.  The pharmaceutical companies have spent years pushing pills for all sorts of reasons and personal responsibility with regard to diet, exercise and so on has gone out of the window.  Add to that many years of pretty crappy education for many and fifteen or so years of unchecked, unmonitored social media use and we're really in a perfect storm - least equipped to deal with this and without trust in others who are telling us what to do (whilst not doing it themselves).  I think if it weren't for the fact I've had all of son's health problems to deal with and that's given me a good understanding and access to a range of sources that I know are fact based I might not be quite so eager to get vaccinated myself.  It's very hard, I think the current circumstances have been decades in the making and I don't know that we'll ever really get it all sorted out again?  It's a pretty sobering thought xx

[Hopalong]

I feel so badly for folks who are afraid of the shots. Criticism of government management is completely legit, imo, yet over here the trends are starkly black and white. In high-vaccination areas, cases are waaaay down. In vaccine-resistant states, waaaaay up. That part is science, not government. It's just sad.

The Delta and future mutations if they're double-contagious (as Delta is) will sweep across state lines and pretty much obliterate sanity in their wake.

There are always individual and anecdotal divergences from the major trends in science. Side effects, etc. M got very ill three weeks after his second Pfizer jab. His docs' theory is that his huge immune reaction triggered an underlying arrythmia (he'd already had a cardiac ablation for a rhythm problem 11 years ago) and this time, it became afib (which he didn't have before). The procedure went fine but they had to cauterize more misfiring electrical cells than they did 11 years ago.

Yet he has absolutely convinced himself that he is among the statistically very rare cases of heart inflammation due to the 2nd Pfizer shot (first identified in young people in Israel; he's 74.) I still don't know whether his doctors agree with him on that. He said repeatedly that he felt "poisoned."

I remember an unpleasant few hours in the middle of the night after Jab #2 with random and different-feeling chest pangs (like a little demon was running through my chest jabbing at things with a cocktail fork). I call them pangs rather than pains because it didn't feel like heart pain. I also had a new form of shortness of breath that felt like a bellows -- deep weird gasps. Not terrifying, because I was getting plenty of oxygen, but strange. Plus mild chills. After a few hours it was over and I went back to sleep. I had the same SOB on mild exercise off and on for a couple weeks afterward. Chalked it up to a combo of acceptable vaccine reaction plus my underlying deconditioning. (Haven't had it since despite still being low on exercise.)

All that said, I have zero hesitation in getting a booster when they tell me to. I'd go through my own reaction every night if that's what it takes to avoid this disease. I think we're very lucky that scientists went all-out to get vaccines out. They're continuing to refine them now and I still have faith in them.

M also is committed to getting a booster when recommended, though he'll switch brands in the hope it'll be easier on him. Meanwhile, he's bounced back and is feeling great. We're going swimming tomorrow afternoon. He finished a book and wrote 18 articles during the last year and a half of mostly-quarantine. Wow.

hugs
Hops

[Twoapenny]

Aw, the swimming sounds lovely, Hopsie!  Yes, I'll be getting myself loaded up with any shot for anything I can get lol, I had a great night's sleep after my first jab!

The problem I'm seeing here (and I don't know if it's the same over there) is the way that information can be presented to fit an argument.  So at the moment, a fair chunk of people who are dying from it have been vaccinated.  It makes sense; it doesn't guarantee you won't get seriously ill so some people will still die if they catch it and they'd generally be older or have underlying conditions.  The unvaccinated here are mostly younger, healthier people, and that's only because they haven't all been offered it yet - uptake generally is good, as I understand it.  But of course, they're less likely to die from it or need hospital treatment anyway, so people are using those stats as proof that the vaccine is killing people - it's not being presented in a fact based context, there's a lot of scare mongering and I think that puts some people off.  It's too difficult to figure it all out.  Social media's played a big role, I think.  Not right, in my opinion.

Encouragingly, a lot of people I've spoken to are still very cautious about the virus and they've said they'll carry on wearing masks for as long as the virus is still going.  Often because they've older parents or vulnerable relatives that they want to try to keep safe.  I'm hoping it's not going to get as bad as it was.  I think you're so much bigger over there that some of your states are like countries in their own right almost.  I guess it's much smaller here.  They've all been out at the football though, which I think was bonkers - tens of thousands of people and apparently they weren't checking vaccine status (which they were supposed to) before entry so who knows how that will play out.  I'm keeping things crossed.  I just wish the media was a bit more responsible, in all its forms.  Enjoy the swim, Hopsie, it sounds lovely! xx

[Hopalong]

From a comment on the Washington Post today:

People are feeling a false sense of security and immunity from the virus because of vaccination status but the Delta variant changes things. My fully vaccinated 66 year old husband, son in law, four month old granddaughter, two year old granddaughter and now my daughter and daughter in law have developed Covid in the last week from a family gathering in our home. We did not engage in any high risk exposure and all adults were fully vaccinated. We stopped wearing masks and let our guard down. We did not think it could happen to us. It did!
Please remain vigilant and continue to wear your mask. This virus is not through with us.

[Hopalong]

Another smart WashPost commenter:

....Prior to the CDC's surprise announcement, NC had a indoor mask mandate in place with a plan in place to go to the next phase of loosening when we hit specific vaccination targets.

The state rescinded the mask mandate within a day or two of the CDC announcement even though we were far short of the target vaccination level laid out in the plan. The decision about masking was kicked down to the individual business level.

Some businesses stuck with across-the-board masking for about a week, but then everyone bowed to pressure and posted that masking was not required for the vaccinated. But of course there was no way to verify whether a person is vaccinated or not.

Almost everyone abandoned their masks even though it is clear that many unvaccinated people were not masking. In fact, the only group still wearing masks in any numbers were seniors (and near seniors like me). Which of course was the age group most likely to be already be vaccinated  - the 65+ group was running at a 25 - 30% higher vaccination level than the adult population as a whole in NC.  The group least likely to wear masks was, naturally, the group least likely to be vaccinated - in other words young people who were "over" Covid.

So basically, behavioral science led to the opposite outcome of what the hard science suggested would be best. All because of people who, when given a choice to either mask or get the vaccine, chose "neither of the above".

It seems entirely predictable to me considering the polarization and general selfishness in our society. Only the CDC was naive enough to think it would go otherwise.

[Twoapenny]

There seems to be a lot of confusion over vaccines preventing infection; it's been made clear over here that doesn't happen right from the outset but the message doesn't seem to have got through.  Our case numbers here are through the roof and today is officially 'Freedom Day' - no more restrictions in any way.  Complete madness.  I went to the shop early this morning and most people were still wearing masks.  I just can't see an end in sight all the time airports are still open and people are moving about so much.  Son's annoyed that the papers are saying 'You can take your mask off' and I'm saying 'No you can't'.  He understands, but it annoys him that messages are mixed.  Everyone's exhausted, I feel so sorry for the people who have to work through it all and don't have any choice in the matter.  So hard for all of them to cope.

Re vaccines, I do know several people who've caught Covid since being jabbed - they've been ill for a couple of days and then okay.  That is encouraging, at least xx

[lighter]

My brother was dx'd with Covid.  He texted he's been to the doctor's twice, labs are ok..... he's bunkered down at home. 

We had lots of questions.  He answered 2.  Said it feels like the flu.  He doesn't think he needs help.

I pray he doesn't have a tough time and there's no lasting health issues.

Lighter