Coronavirus general discussion and chit-chat

The Quarantine Zone
203

I got my contactless card early in 2020 as it was being encouraged, and almost immediately got used to the idea of having no loose change or cash to give as a tip. In the end I just posted crisp $50s and a nice anonymous card to the places where I most frequently went after a few months, partly as tips and also partly as thank yous for them for staying open for my amenity. Its about time to do it again.

More generally, one of the most useful things that those of us with solid jobs and good pay can do is to spend our money faster than usual to keep local businesses and places we want to be around long term buoyant.

204

Please, please, please come and live in my town.

205

Sorry, can’t, going broke.

206

I always tip cash, because I want the tip to be in the control of the server, not the owner.

207

Maybe I’m just not awake enough but I don’t think I understand the alarm in a NYT news brief this morning that testing in the US is down 35% since mid-January. Back in mid-January we averaged well over 200k new cases a day as opposed to around 60k cases now. Why would anyone expect the testing rate to remain steady when cases are less than a third of what they were then?

208

I’m not sure if the test rate needs to stay constant, but it should not necessarily be dropping in line with cases.

Test data lets us see whether some areas are re-spiking (as seems to be the case following the premature dropping of restrictions in some states) and therefore anticipate any issues with medical resource provision.
Also, while the vaccines have been tested extensively, it doesn’t hurt to have the additional data following millions of vaccines to get very accurate numbers on efficacy.

209

Here in Arizona, testing has crawled to a semi-stop. Those of us who have been vaccinated aren’t testing because why would we? The ones who aren’t vaccinated never thought that COVID was an issue because of politics.

Yes, I do know that some folks can’t be vaccinated, but I am the only one in my social group who has been vaccinated. If one thinks that COVID is a hoax/non issue, they won’t bother to get tested if they start feeling sick. They will continue just “working through it”.

Thank goodness most of the nursing home residents who survived long enough are vaccinated because at least 50% of their care givers aren’t.

210

I can’t begin to imagine what that means…

The following is a tale about potetially resuming an emotionally-charged activity under conditions that only vaguely resemble normalcy:

I’ve mentioned before (for those following my story in minute detail, i.e., stalking me) that I’ve sung in a local community college choir for the past 20 years. Of course, it shut down a year ago, which was a huge loss in my single life. I really missed it, not just the singing, but the routine of regular human contact, the camaraderie, the performing, those occasional sublime moments of connecting with others through music. But I’ve gotten resigned to being without it.

Well, I was in touch with the choir director this past Wednesday and she told me the college choir has resumed meeting in person. :scream: My mind was completely blown. I felt like Linda Blair in The Exorcist when her head spun around (minus the vomiting). I assumed that event was waaaaay off in the future, maybe postponed until the fall 2021 semester. It was like hearing that the spouse/lover you assumed would be away for the next year or so was back in town and you could go have coffee with them if you wanted to. Brain could not comprehend. :exploding_head:

She said they’re doing some people in person (currently only 10-ish, or whoever shows up) and some people on Zoom (about the same number). She sent me the link to the Zoom class the next day so I could check it out. The kids are seated quite far apart in the big choir room, and they’re wearing special singers’ masks, which are very thick and completely envelope the entire lower part of your face. The Zoomers were in our various settings mostly on mute. The camera in the room was stationary so we couldn’t see much. The Zoom experience was pretty unsatisfactory, but there was my beloved choir room, and my teacher, and the piano, and songs I already knew.

The experience stirred up many feelings. Without going into lengthy detail, suffice it to say that I have a deeply rooted connection to this choir, the choir director, the music department, the school, and to the memories associated with the past 20 years in that group. A whole boatload of emotional highs and lows. I want to go back, but I’m not ready to sit inside with people-- even masked-- who haven’t been vaccinated. Most of them are too young to be eligible yet.

I haven’t worked it out internally. I will likely keep Zooming just to feel connected. Maybe I’ll just focus on the fall. I hate the idea of them going on without me… I’m just a soupy stew of feelings about this…

211

Sounds like a good plan. Too bad they can’t organize a once a month sing fest outside that you could join in.

(And no, I’m not stalking you. It’s just if there was an Olympic competition on Boo’s favorite Doper you would be on the medal stand!)

212

My daughter was up Wednesday through this afternoon. Whenever she’s home, she likes running around to all the places she doesn’t have in the small town where she resides. In past times I didn’t mind bopping around, but I have to say this time was very emotionally difficult.

Like more than a few of you, I’ve spent the vast majority of the past year alone. Just my cat and I. Yes, I would see my mom or my sister once every few weeks, and my daughter and her fiancé have come up a few times. The only other physical interactions have been going to the grocery stores or small markets and my monthly labs. It’s been a very solitary life.

We did normal stuff, but all felt so alien. Ate in a restaurant for the first time in over a year. Twice. Went to Target - haven’t been inside one in I don’t know how long. Gardening centers. Farmer’s market. Freaking Coldstone. I don’t know if was too much people-ing or what, but the anxiety was real.

Today I drove my daughter back down, and I have to say I was so glad my sister rode shotgun. She usually drives me nuts, but I so needed her inane chatter. When I unlocked the door, entering my own little safe haven / prison, hearing my cat chirp her little greeting, I made it to the kitchen table before all the stress, the anxiety, the emotions I had held in finally broke.

I realized I don’t know how to get back into the world. I have kept coming up with reasons not to do things I did pre-pandemic, such as going to the gym (despite knowing how well they’re handling guidelines). I’ve declined invitations with friends and family, but now that we’re getting vaccinated the usual reasons are becoming thinner. I don’t know how to move past my own anxieties.

213

There are a bunch of small locally owned shops that have opened in the last year. I like to support local businesses and every time I drove past them, I wished it was safe to just shop and browse. I’m fully vaccinated now, but when I drive past those shops, I make excuses to not stop and go in.

I don’t think I could have handled all of the people stuff at once like you did.

214

I think that resuming “normal” activities will be harder for those of us who have been 95-100% alone for the last year than for those who have had regular family contact, co-worker contact, kids in school (physical or virtual), etc.

My synagogue is going to resume in-person services next Friday. Masked, distanced, no handshaking or hugs, no singing, no food (one might ask, “Then what’s the point, hmmm?”). No more Zoom, but if I don’t want to go, I can watch the streaming version. I have kind of gotten attached to the weird intimacy and coziness of the Zoom service. Seeing the faces of everyone (although only about 25 people regularly zoomed), and having the Rabbis’ faces right in your face. And during the High Holy Day services, you were up close and personal with the Torah reader instead of 20 rows away. I dunno. It will take some adjusting, but it’s in the right direction.

215

I agree with this. I’m late 50’s, single, and my covid bubble the last year has been 3 people I see very infrequently: a couple of friends one at a time and we’ll usually sit outside to visit, and my 22yo son who lives 2.5 hours away and I’ve seen probably six times since Pandemic Day Zero, and he’s so covid paranoid he wears a mask when he drives. Plus grocery shopping.

I’ll be eligible to be vaccinated on April 1, and I’m actually quite anxious about doing normal stuff like going to a restaurant: being in a crowd sounds stressful as hell and I’m not sure how I’ll cope. But at the same time I can’t imagine a more stressful thing than things not being normal again.

216

After much back-and-forth thinking, I’ve decided to forego in-person choir, since I’d be in a closed room (although a large one) for more than an hour, singing among unvaccinated people. I can continue to zoom that, however unsatisfactory the experience.

However, I will go to in-person Friday synagogue, since even though the service is right at one hour, attendees will be distanced in the cavernous space (can seat 1,200), masks required, no singing, no touching.

Creakily groping toward normalcy…

217

Today I am going to take a piece of needlework to UPS and ship it off. After that, I’m going to go to Humboldt Station and go into the little shops that have opened there. If I’m not totally overwhelmed by all the people, I will stop at April’s Attic, which also opened months ago.

218

You Wild Thang! :kissing_heart: Have fun.

219

I hate wearing a mask, and have avoided it whenever possible. And I’ve been working full-time the whole period. And I’ve been shopping when needed. In an environment of intermittent total lockdown (melbourne.australia)

And even I still feel paranoid and stressed when mixing in our new unrestricted, mask-free, COVID-free environment. It’s taking a little effort to get used to it.

220

Brazil in free fall

Deaths in Brazil are at their peak and the country is reporting more new cases and deaths per day than any other country, enabled by political dysfunction, widespread complacency and conspiracy theories. On Wednesday, the country surpassed 300,000 Covid-19 deaths, with roughly 125 Brazilians succumbing every hour.
Intensive care units face dire shortages and essential medicines are only available at an exponential markup. “We have never seen a failure of the health system of this magnitude,” said Ana de Lemos, the executive director of Doctors Without Borders in Brazil.

President Jair Bolsonaro has promoted ineffective drugs, played down the threat of the virus and fueled fears about vaccines. Many of his hard-core supporters believe his instincts are sound. “There was one solution: to listen to the president,” said Geraldo Testa Monteiro, who lives in Porto Alegre.
Mr. Bolsonaro and other politicians have also resisted lockdowns, which epidemiologists say could have been avoided if the government had promoted masks and social distancing, and more aggressively pursued vaccines.

My bold.

This would have been the USA if trump had gotten re-elected.

221

It was VERY peopley. I’m not used to seeing all those bare faces. I’m glad I’m back in my nice safe cocoon.

222

I’ve had no shortage of contact with people over the last year. I’m a teacher in my 50’s, and we’ve been alternately in-person, on-line, in-person, and on-line I er the course of the year so far. Kids wear masks in school except at lunch, as do I unless I can maintain a six foot distance from the nearest student, which you can bet I do. If I have to hand out paper I mask up if course. Having students in class, even with masks, is the closest thing to normal we’ve had this year, and I so look forward to the end of the pandemic or herd immunity at least. I’ve had my first vax and so have a number of my students. I’ve been to restaurants for pick up all the time in the past year and even did a sit down restaurant once a few months ago. I don’t think it’s going to be that hard to go back to normal. We just have to be sensible and take precautions. Most of the time you’re safe and if no one in the room has CoVid, masks are actually redundant as is social distancing. You can’t catch CoVid if there’s no CoVid present. What we need is better systems of detection.