Coronavirus

n815e wrote: My three year old and I have been sick with a “stomach bug” for the last couple of days. Took him to his doc and they did a covid test. He is positive. So I went to the local clinic and tested negative, even though we have the same symptoms.

Maybe because I’m vaccinated? I don’t know.

But this is killing me. We are super careful with everything. I don’t know how he could have been exposed.

Sweet Baal, sorry to hear that about your young one! I hope they recover quickly.

ubarose wrote:

n815e wrote: I’m fully vaccinated and I’m still wearing a mask. I don’t see how it is anything more than a minor inconvenience (at worst).

The whole conversation around masks still seems to be about protecting yourself. Unless the science has changed, the last I recall seeing is that masks aren’t great at protecting the wearers from disease, but they are great at preventing the wearers from spreading disease.

Had a crazy making conversation with a woman who was complaining about CT’s indoor mask mandate. We had just witnessed a woman and her child being denied entry to a Dunkin Donuts for not wearing a mask. Despite the fact that she told me herself that her son had just received his first shot last week, she couldn’t connect the dots that:

1. We still have many under 35 year olds, like her son, that are not fully vaccinated.
2. There isn’t even a vaccine approved for children yet.
3. These yet unvaccinated people sometimes need to be in places like work, school, or even just shopping for essentials.
4. Without mandates, we can’t trust unvaccinated people to wear masks to protect other unvaccinated people.

It finally clicked when I asked her, “How old is your son?”
Her: 25
Me: About how old do you think the DD cashier is?
Her: About 20.
Me: About how old do think the woman and child who got kicked out were?
Her: About 25 and 7..... oooohhhh.

It took me way too long to make sense of this exchange, because in Utah, because of the terrible politics, our vaccination rate is around 31 percent, so kids 12 and up can get vaccinated. As much as I loathe the Trump administration, these regional differences seem to call for regional policies.

At church today there were about 220 people, and maybe five masks. I'm vaccinated and didn't wear one. 1/4 of our congregation is between 0-18. 20 percent is 60-100 years old. Of those, the fear of death outweighed the drone of Fox news and most of them got the needle, based on our conversations. I looked up the numbers today.

I have an elderly neighbor who is Qanon-crazy and thinks Obama was a gay prostitute in college. She lost her sense of taste and smell when getting sick, and thinks she's immune, but is scared to come to church. So 1/4 of the congregation is 21-29, but they are BYU kids who at one point in a fit of ideological outrage had a protest on campus and burned masks.

I'm thinking we had 80/220 are vaccinated. I guess we are following the CDC guidelines, but I really, really don't want to see my elderly friends, even the crazy ones, die from this.

I apologize for the disjointed nature of this post, but as rabidly maskish as I was, I can't make sense of this. I have the CDC saying don't wear a mask. And the unvaccinated adults who are healthy fall into three categories: the anxious and lazy who know they should, the chronically unorganized or who have logistical problems related to poverty, and those who have boarded the crazy train.

On top of this, my wife is all "I masked up for over a year to protect myself and those around me, but the people who aren't vaccinated now aren't going to hold me hostage"

I will wear one shopping and on public transit, or any really crowded indoor space. It makes me anxious to take it off. It feels transgressive to take it off. I don't want to be confused for a crazy. Talking about this, even in a friendly space, is exhausting.

Dr. Mabuse wrote:

n815e wrote: My three year old and I have been sick with a “stomach bug” for the last couple of days. Took him to his doc and they did a covid test. He is positive. So I went to the local clinic and tested negative, even though we have the same symptoms.

Maybe because I’m vaccinated? I don’t know.

But this is killing me. We are super careful with everything. I don’t know how he could have been exposed.

Sweet Baal, sorry to hear that about your young one! I hope they recover quickly.

Thank you.
He’s doing much better!

We’re all with you there, CB. All of us are coming out the far end with baggage of some sort or another. This is a life-change level event for all of us.

Msample wrote: I have seen multiple people declare that they don't need the vaccine because their prior positive case of Covid and the resulting antibodies "gives them natural immunity".. Cue the Picard face palm.

A close friend was back in town for a few weeks, and yesterday was our last chance to hang out before he flew back to Florida. We played one game twice then took a walk and a meal break. As we were getting ready to start a co-op game that handles up to several players, my friend said that he knew a group of guys at another location who would love this game and suggested that we drive over there to play. I asked him if he knew their vaccination status, and he admitted that he didn't, so I said hell no. My girlfriend has a weak immune system, but is finally on the verge of spending time with me again, because I have been very careful about masks and avoiding covidiots.

Partway into the game, my friend suddenly remembered that he had another friend who lived in my area who would love this game, and wanted to invite him over. Again, I asked my friend about this guy's vaccination status, and my friend said that this guy wasn't vaccinated. Before I could say hell no again, my friend than said "he is safe because he already had a near-fatal case of COVID and had a super-high antibody count after he recovered." Again, I said hell no. The elevated antibody level seems to only last for several months, so I don't consider this guy safe to bring into my home. I mean, I'm fully vaccinated and I could just lie and tell my girlfriend that no unvaccinated people have been in my house since the start of the pandemic. But I don't even know this guy's name and he sounds like somebody who puts his own selfish interests ahead of the science, so hell no he is not invited.

This same friend asked me last summer about moving into my house so we could quarantine together and play lots of board games. He is one of my closest friends, but I said no because I know that he's an extrovert and I correctly predicted that he would end up hanging out way too often with people who are careless about the pandemic. It's almost maddening. He knows the science and he knows that my girlfriend has a compromised immune system, but he just keeps putting his personal interests ahead of common sense and caution.

Between my spouse and I, we are incredibly anti-social. It's problematic! We need friends! Barely know our neighbors. Anyway, we don't have these issues of folks wanting to invite other folks over because we never have anyone over.

We're heading down to San Diego on Memorial Day weekend to see some friends though (made them in grad school in a boarding house, so compulsory). We're going to meet outside with masks because we're a range of fully vaxxed through no shot at all between us and all the kids. Haven't seen them in three years or so. It should be earth-shatteringly awkward.

Here in Ohio, IIRC all restrictions will be lifted on June 2. I'm not sure if that's a little too soon, but I know all of the restaurants, stores, etc, will no longer require masks or social distancing. If you're immunocompromised, wear an N95 mask?

We are starting to have an outbreak here in Southern China. Some young adult brought it back from a vacation to Cambodia and slipped past the quarantine (perhaps multiple false negative tests) and transmitted it to their family. It seemed to slip out a bit from there.

The thing is with the delay we aren't going to see if there is an outbreak for another 7-10 days. Not really worried about the virus since my wife and I are fully vaccinated, my eldest has the first shot of two. Slightly concerned about the panic and government lockdowns and xenophobia. As a white guy I already get people putting their masks on when they pass me on the sidewalk (then taking it off again after they have passed). Going to pickup extra groceries this weekend.

I'm cool if the school goes virtual for the last two weeks. I can take administrative leave to cover half the time and my wife can take the other half. Also cool with the Consulate closing fully or partially. It's been very stressful for the last year here with us going full tilt but our support structures in Washington completely broken. It's mind numbingly low key stress to wait months on months for people to do five minutes of work. I have to spend more time every week keeping track of all the things I am awaiting than it would take for them to just do it.

I am slightly introverted and grew up as a mutant strain of latchkey kid, so I made it most of the way through this pandemic without any mental or emotional issues. It probably helped that my job required me to go to work most of the time, and interact with owners, co-workers, and job candidates. On the other hand, it was a difficult year because my girlfriend has a weak immune system and elected to quarantine elsewhere due to my frequent face-to-face meetings at work.

By the beginning of May, I was fully vaccinated and ready to rejoin society. But mentally I am not ready yet. A crushing sense of isolation finally arrived in April, and continues this month. I did hang out with my fully-vaccinated close friend while he was in town for a few weeks, but my girlfriend is still keeping her distance and now it has been two weeks since we last talked on the phone. I had plans to meet up with another friend this week, but they cancelled on short notice and we haven't talked since. I was invited to a double birthday party for next week, and it's just a few miles from my home. But I only know three people out of the 44 who have already RSVP'd. Everyone attending is required to send a scan of their vaccination card to one of the two hosts, so it should be really safe, but just thinking about that many people crowded into a small house now makes me anxious.

One of the owners of our company is planning to retire next year, and she is the CFO. The plan is for me to take over her financial duties, though not take on an ownership role or responsibilities. So they have finally relieved me of the burden of screening and hiring entry level workers for a business with fairly high turnover in an area with a shortage of available workers. This will give me the room to take on the higher level financial role, but now I dread the loss of interaction that I had with the job candidates. The HR work engaged an unused part of my brain and I could feel my EQ rising these last two years, so I don't look forward to relapsing into a relatively isolated role.

tldr: The pandemic has made me feel lonely and anxious.

Looking over the maybes on the facebook event for that party, I just noticed that my co-game designer unfriended me sometime during the pandemic, after over 20 years of friendship. The last time that I saw him face-to-face was at his girlfriend's funeral in 2019. During their relationship, he became a fairly radical lefty while I continue to slowly drift from moderately left to farther left. After her death, he became even more radical. So we had a few arguments about whether Biden was any better than Trump and then he apparently de-friended me.

So this is standard operating procedure for soldiers and marines coming out of theater and returning home. It's common to have them spend time on a base outside the warzone to decompress from the stress. Frankfurt is a common step for people coming out of Iraq and Afghanistan. During World War 2 the length of the ship journey was sufficient.

There is always a transition, always a period of reacclimating to situation-normal. This is to be expected, and rushing it will do you no favors. Proceed at the pace you're comfortable with. Given that "situation-normal" is no longer what it was, there's a need to find your new groove anyway.

Congrats on the promotion by the way. Stepping into the CFO's shoes is a nice step up. Here's hoping there's a bit of coin attached to the change.

Sagrilarus wrote: Congrats on the promotion by the way. Stepping into the CFO's shoes is a nice step up. Here's hoping there's a bit of coin attached to the change.

I got a decent raise last month, but it was accompanied with nothing but criticism. I have a decent upper middle class income, but it isn't CFO level pay so far.