I think that you are pretty much right. This isn’t going to magically disappear. We have to learn to live with it and get on with our lives.
Where I am, you don’t see people wearing masks much now except at the medical facilities.
The local grocery store was kind of funny in May 2020. They had a sign up saying that if you had been exposed to covid in the previous two weeks, not to come into the store. Instead, you could tell them what you needed or wanted and they would bring it to you at the door.
So after I got over covid, I jokingly asked them if I had to stay out of the store for two weeks because I had been exposed to myself the previous two weeks. I was quickly banned from entering the store for two weeks.
Now, nobody wears masks or cares much if you’ve been exposed to it. I’m the only one at my company who hasn’t had covid for some part of the period since Christmas. (I’m also the only one at the company who previously had covid and also the vaccine, if that matters.) My latest exposure was last Friday. Nobody cares. I do avoid going to the home of someone who is elderly (i.e. anyone older than me).
But, yeah. We have to learn how to get along with our daily lives with the presence of the virus around us. Take precautions, but don’t be ruled by the virus.
But if you get a dirty wound, they advise you to get a tetanus shot if it’s more than a few years old. At least, they made me do it in the ER after a bike accident that gave me some bad scrapes.
I got a PCR test at a state testing location on Friday morning. I still haven’t gotten my results. I called the number they gave me (which is only open 9-3 M-F), and the recording says there are more than 10 people waiting ahead of me. All day long.
Went to Florida last week for a funeral. Got to see many cousins I haven’t seen in years. Went to the funeral, the get-together after- no masks or real social distancing. Went out to eat in a group of seven without masks. Had a great time except for the part about having lost my aunt. For three days, I behaved just like I would have in the same situation three years ago.
Now I’m back home. Back to isolation and masking up in the stores. I’m vaxed and boosted. A few more days should tell if I went too far out on that limb last week!
I think they do that because 1) it’s relatively cheap and harmless and 2) people are often wrong about when they got the last one. At a certain age, “it was a few years ago” can turn out to be 10-15 years ago!
I’m thinking we should start a pool, for who is the last person to catch it.
Gonna google and see what percentage of the US pop has had it.
Almost feeling like I’m doing something WRONG by being a holdout!
Two years ago (?) when Wuhan was just hitting the news, we returned from two weeks in St Martin. People were starting to say, “don’t touch your face” and I had 5 days of illness unlike any I’d ever experienced. I had “bad diarrhea”, not that there’s good diarrhea, but this was bad. I will say no more.
I also had fever and a cough unlike any cough I’ve ever had. Every time I coughed it felt like my head might explode. And I was lethargic, very lethargic.
Then I got better. Maybe I had it already, who knows.
According to this site, there are 20 million active cases in the US right now, which is about 6% of the population. Of course, this only notes the cases that were tested and reported. So the real number is almost certainly higher. I suspect most of these people are symptomatic enough to be a problem, otherwise why get a test?
Got my travel test (negative), picked up some rapid tests at WalMart at 7 am this morning, got the ArriveCAN app all filled out, got all my paperwork. I’m going! Only a 14 hour drive… The US has put out a level 4 “Do not travel” for Canada. Montana has 103 cases/100k, Gallatin county has 293, BC has… 56.
Dammit! I’m jealous but very happy for you. Let us know how it goes but have the decency to not have too good a time.
Some of the European countries are starting to loosen entry restrictions and we are now thinking that we may get out there before the end of the season.
We already have two weeks booked in Austria for early April but it is all cancelable if need be.
I’ve heard this a lot, including some in my own family. I find it unlikely, because if it was already community spread, we would have seen high hospitalization rates.
When I first had covid in May, 2020, I got tested. Overall, if not for the strange disruption in my sense of smell for a few hours, it was very mild and just resembled allergies.
I think that I had it again in October, 2020. Except for the disruption in my sense of smell, everything else was identical. I didn’t realize that it was probably covid until I was just about over it so I didn’t get tested.
I did get into an argument with a PA (Physicians Assistant) at the doctor’s office. She urged me to get tested and I responded with “It wouldn’t make any difference – by the time the tests come back, I’d already be out of isolation anyway.” She told me that I was wrong and that isolation would begin on the test date. Clearly, she hadn’t read and/or didn’t understand the guidelines on this.
Knowing that they would insist that I isolate for the next ten days after the test was a good reason to not get tested. If I felt more argumentative, I might have gotten tested just so I could refuse to isolate based on the CDC and state guidelines.
