Same here. It’s trivial, around here, to find a virtually empty movie theater showing what you want to see, when you want to see it. The trick is catching blockbusters in their third week of release or later, and everything else in their second week or later.
All that said: A movie theater, with high ceilings, vigorous A/C, and spread-apart recliner seating … I wouldn’t think that even a crowded movie theater to be especially risky.
This was the part that always had me puzzled about nursing home rules.
I went to see the SPECTACULAR remake of “West Side Story” under these conditions. I went by myself, and there were probably five of us in the whole, cavernous theater. The a/c was set for a full crowd and I about froze my delicate parts off. Fortunately I was prepared and wore a down vest and a wool shawl. It was glorious seeing it on the big screen!
I’ve been back to before Covid for a while now. I’m in an area that had just about 100% compliance while restrictions were in place but everything is back to normal. Even hospitals and doctor’s offices when back to no masks months ago.
The only thing that I’m doing differently is completely avoiding large gatherings instead of mostly avoiding them. As I stated in another thread some time ago, I really want to go to the casino some time, but I really don’t like the idea of being inside with a bunch of other people for an extended period of time, regardless of masks or not. I’ll still eat inside at restaurants occasionally, but generally have no reason to most of the time. I’m not in the grocery store very long, so I don’t bother with a mask there, but I would if I had to work there.
Pretty much 95% back to normal. The only thing that I find myself doing is unconsciously socially distancing in lines and such. I shop in stores, I eat in restaurants, I go to movies, and so forth.
Now there are some COVID-era practices that I still keep up. Stuff like curbside ordering is firmly part of our family shopping experience at a few stores, and I still work from home 3 days a week. But they’re totally for convenience, not disease prevention.
I think for a lot of people, the fact that COVID is at almost historically low transmission rates, and that for a LOT of them, getting COVID was very anticlimactic after all the hype, and doesn’t seem like anything to be afraid of.
Take me for example; I got Flu-A last April, and COVID in July. Honestly, the flu was far worse I felt, and nobody, including me, does anything special to avoid catching the flu except get vaccinated. So COVID just doesn’t feel like that much of a threat anymore. Of course, I’m fully vaccinated and twice boosted, so that may have something to do with it.
I try to avoid flu, too. I think you’re crazy if you don’t.
Sure, but what do you actually do other than wash your hands more in that time of year and get vaccinated?
I ask employees to stay home if they are sick. I’ve postponed a social visit because someone was exposed. I avoid people who appear to have symptoms. And now that it’s somewhat socially acceptable, i wear masks in a lot of public settings. And i get vaccinated every fall.
(Washing hands is good for stomach bugs and maybe the common cold. I don’t think it much matters for flu, honestly.)
Could look for links if anyone is interested: My understanding is that recent study of COVID transmission kind of broke the “dirty surface/dirty hands” model of respiratory virus transmission in general. All manners of cold-causing viruses, legacy coronaviruses, influenza, and COVID – none apparently caused by touch excepting contrived just-so circumstances.
Bacterial infections like strep throat may be different. And you are right on about most common stomach bugs, which are carried by different biological media than respiratory viruses.
Interesting. I used to see claims about how colds were transmitted by dirty hands, including one claim that that a study had been done of bridge players with an air barrier and no hand hygiene, vs hand hygiene and no air barrier. I always thought that was weird and implausible, and have always personally tried to avoid respiratory transmission.
(Hepatitis A and norovirus are known to be spread via “fecal oral contact”, which is typically mediated by hands, although food is usually also involved.)
I’d like to see those links, thanks!
Hmm. First, I don’t have a subscription, so I can’t read it. Second, it seems to be about the coronavirus, not say the common cold, but that’s based on a couple of paragraphs.
I don’t know about a bridge study, but here’s a poker one (from 1987):
Here’s an excerpt from the Atlantic article:
… the pandemic has piled on evidence that the transmission of the coronavirus via fomites—that is, inanimate contaminated objects or surfaces—plays a much smaller role, and airborne transmission a much larger one, than we once thought. And the same likely goes for other respiratory pathogens, such as influenza and the coronaviruses that cause the common cold, Linsey Marr, an environmental engineer and aerosols expert at Virginia Tech, told me.
This realization is not an entirely new one: A 1987 study by researchers at the University of Wisconsin found that a group of men playing poker with “soggy,” rhinovirus-contaminated cards were not infected, while a group playing with other sick players were. Now Goldman intends to push this point even further. At a conference in December, he is going to present a paper arguing that, with rare exceptions, such as RSV, all respiratory pathogens are transmitted predominantly through the air. The reason we’ve long thought otherwise, he told me, is that our understanding has been founded on faulty assumptions. Generally speaking, the studies pointing toward fomite-centric theories of transmission were virus-survival studies, which measure how long a virus can survive on a surface. Many of them either used unrealistically large amounts of virus or measured only the presence of the virus’s genetic material, not whether it remained infectious. “The design” of these experiments, he said, “was not appropriate for being able to extrapolate to real-life conditions.”
The upshot, for Goldman, is that surface transmission of respiratory pathogens is “negligible,” probably accounting for less than .01 percent of all infections. If correct, this would mean that your chance of catching the flu or a cold by touching something in the course of daily life is virtually nonexistent. Goldman acknowledged that there’s a “spectrum of opinion” on the matter. Marr, for one, would not go quite so far: She’s confident that more than half of respiratory-pathogen transmission is airborne, though she said she wouldn’t be surprised if the proportion is much, much higher—the only number she would rule out is 100 percent.
See, that study totally aligns with my intuition!
(It says aerosol transmission totally dominated, and fomite transmission didn’t happen in that study )
Anecdotally, my brother’s partner is immune compromised. She avoids touching surfaces. As she was awkwardly pulling her sleeve over her hand to interact with some object, she said, “i know they’ve found it doesn’t matter much for covid, but I’ve picked up many fewer random illnesses since i started doing this.”
So there probably are random things she used to pick up that are spread by fomites. And of course, there was a huge jump in patient survival when doctors started washing their hands. Especially obstetricians and other surgeons.
Well, it told me it was my last few article, but let me read it. It ended by saying:
On Friday, with respiratory-virus season looming, CDC Director Rochelle Walensky tweeted out three pieces of advice for staying healthy: “Get an updated COVID-19 vaccine & get your annual flu vaccine,” “Stay home if you are sick,” and—not to be forgotten—“Practice good hand hygiene.” She made no mention of masks or ventilation.
Which i find incredibly frustrating. Speaking as someone who is more susceptible to respiratory viruses than to stomach bugs, i desperately wish we would get new ventilation standards for public buildings. They could be phased in like the handicap accessibility stuff, so as not to instantly put everyone out of business. But Asia priced that improving ventilation works. And before the pandemic, I’d seen evidence that it worked to reduce flu transmission. (You don’t even need outdoor air, you can kill most viruses by slowly passing the air in front of a strong UV light source, for instance.)
Tax credits or other benefits would certainly help, since it would have a clear public health benefit.
As for the Atlantic article, a 1987 study based on a sample of 18 people isn’t really working for me, especially when that study cites in its notes a different study that contradicts it, but I’m certainly open to the idea that we’ve overemphasized hand hygiene.
This is a thread in which the passage of time actually keeps it relevant. At this point, and speaking from the viewpoint of a healthy person without any issues, I am completely back to normal. One exception is that I still keep a clean mask folded in half and hanging from the lever of my turn signal. It;s a “you never know” thing because, under certain circumstances it could still be requested or even mandated. For example, you have to wear one at the DMV if you take a road test, but you don’t if you are just taking the written or eye exams or paying the bill.