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Post by kds on Dec 13, 2022 14:02:15 GMT
My parents, both in their latter 70s, both tested positive for covid. My mom had been under the weather already last week, but her covid test was negative. The illness persisted and my dad caught it, and then they both took another test: both positive. Thankfully they're both vaxxed/boosted, and the symptoms have been pretty mild. But considering their ages and especially my dad's pretty poor health the past half-decade, I can't help but worry a little. I hope they both make a full recovery. When we met up with my father for dinner on Friday, he had a bit of chest congestion. He hadn't tested for the COVID, but it seemed more like a mild cold that he probably caught from my brother in law. He had it in August, and it was very mild.
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Post by Kapitan on May 11, 2023 12:32:20 GMT
Today is a landmark, if an anticlimactic one: today marks the end of the official COVID public health emergency in the U.S. I think for most Americans, the "emergency" ended a couple of years ago already. For others, it isn't over yet: for example, the bakery down the street that still requires masks and doesn't yet allow dining in... The end of the emergency is really (like everything in the world...) a financial thing. It's mostly about who is paying for what: testing, vaccinations, treatment, Medicare and Medicaid regulations, as well as the data gathering and reporting. One interesting thing I've heard a few times in the past week or so is that ending the emergency is somehow inappropriate because it disrespects or ignores those who have suffered or died from COVID. I don't understand that argument at all. To me, these are entirely different things. The argument is like saying we shouldn't have ended the Afghanistan or Iraq wars because people don't sufficiently respect or care for veterans. Anyway, obviously, COVID hasn't gone away, and isn't going to. But I'm glad the emergency is officially over, because whatever COVID is, it is most certainly not an emergency.
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Post by kds on May 11, 2023 12:49:53 GMT
This is good news. I'll admit I really haven't kept up with COVID in a while. We all got boosted in the fall, and it seems like we didn't see the big surge during the cold and flu season like we did in 2021/22.
But, either way, I'm glad the emergency part is over, and I really hope we don't see anything like it again in my or my son's lifetime.
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Post by Kapitan on May 11, 2023 12:56:21 GMT
This is good news. I'll admit I really haven't kept up with COVID in a while. We all got boosted in the fall, and it seems like we didn't see the big surge during the cold and flu season like we did in 2021/22. But, either way, I'm glad the emergency part is over, and I really hope we don't see anything like it again in my or my son's lifetime. I haven't kept up, either. I think I fit into that (presumably majority?) of people who, once the obvious and immediate risk--and even more so, uncertainty--waned, just let it all fade into the background. Not to diminish the actual risk, but the world is full of actual risks... It was scary at first because it was such an unknown. Once the threat was really quantified, and the initial efforts to protect ourselves proved mostly effective, it just wasn't such a boogeyman, and so I wasn't going to monitor infection rates, hospitalization counts, death rates, etc. I mean, people have lives to live. Ditto on hoping we don't see another one. I fear we will (just based on the ease of world travel to spread novel diseases), but I hope we won't--if nothing else, because it showed we aren't capable of all coming together even when it's a matter of life and death. That tells me there's NOTHING we won't make stupidly partisan.
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Post by kds on May 11, 2023 13:18:35 GMT
In the grand scheme of things, I consider myself pretty lucky in terms of COVID. By the time we finally caught it last summer, there was a vaccine and treatment. I had no financial setbacks as a result of the shut downs.
In fact, and I promise this is just me trying to find a silver lining in a bad situation not making light of anything, I actually kind of enjoyed the down time we had in the Spring and Early Summer of 2020. I grilled out a lot, we took leisurely drives to get out of the house, and just kinda took a break from always having to be somewhere.
Although....I'm still salty about missing that Paul McCartney show.
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Post by Kapitan on May 11, 2023 13:39:48 GMT
In fact, and I promise this is just me trying to find a silver lining in a bad situation not making light of anything, I actually kind of enjoyed the down time we had in the Spring and Early Summer of 2020. I grilled out a lot, we took leisurely drives to get out of the house, and just kinda took a break from always having to be somewhere. I almost feel guilty sometimes, but for me, the whole pandemic was a net positive. My work went from having remote work available on occasion (which I'd do about once a week) to more or less fully remote, just going in to the office every month or two. When things were mostly shut down, I absolutely enjoyed the peace and quiet (including--sorry, mom!--no family holidays). And it was very nice as a reminder of what I truly enjoy doing, and how simple it is to do when you set your mind to it. Nothing fancy, just taking walks, sitting on the patio with a book and a drink, grilling, gardening, cooking. It was a gigantic mental reset. Obviously that isn't everyone's experience, and I feel terrible for people who lost their lives or their loved ones, or their jobs, or who had chaotic family and work situations. Just speaking for myself, it was mostly a good time. (Media environment notwithstanding. That was awful. Our media did a great job at tearing society apart even further.)
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Post by kds on May 11, 2023 14:26:25 GMT
In fact, and I promise this is just me trying to find a silver lining in a bad situation not making light of anything, I actually kind of enjoyed the down time we had in the Spring and Early Summer of 2020. I grilled out a lot, we took leisurely drives to get out of the house, and just kinda took a break from always having to be somewhere. I almost feel guilty sometimes, but for me, the whole pandemic was a net positive. My work went from having remote work available on occasion (which I'd do about once a week) to more or less fully remote, just going in to the office every month or two. When things were mostly shut down, I absolutely enjoyed the peace and quiet (including--sorry, mom!--no family holidays). And it was very nice as a reminder of what I truly enjoy doing, and how simple it is to do when you set your mind to it. Nothing fancy, just taking walks, sitting on the patio with a book and a drink, grilling, gardening, cooking. It was a gigantic mental reset. Obviously that isn't everyone's experience, and I feel terrible for people who lost their lives or their loved ones, or their jobs, or who had chaotic family and work situations. Just speaking for myself, it was mostly a good time. (Media environment notwithstanding. That was awful. Our media did a great job at tearing society apart even further.) Yeah, no forced social gatherings. I definitely got used to that. In fact, even though it's been three years since the height of COVID, I still find myself getting annoyed when there's a place I have to be on a Saturday or a Sunday.
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Post by Kapitan on May 16, 2023 12:36:39 GMT
Strange thing I noticed on the very day the "emergency" ended, but I kept forgetting to mention. As of that day, almost all of the "Little Free Libraries" (you know, the little birdhouse-looking things along sidewalks where you can take or leave a book...my neighborhood is loaded with them, much to my benefit!) have a handful of home COVID tests in them.
I'd never seen that before, and suddenly on that day, they're all over. Doesn't that strike you as odd? I am trying to figure out why. Did someone have a huge stockpile and then, seeing the emergency end, decide to unload them? Or did someone think "it's not over!" and decide to promote caution by giving them away? What is happening here?
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 14, 2023 19:54:42 GMT
New stories have been trickling out the past few days--with more expected including official government releases--giving more convincing evidence that COVID was indeed begun with a lab leak in China. Here is a new article published today. The UK Times did a story a few days ago. The names of the apparent first three victims were all of people working on those types of viruses in the Wuhan lab. Remember when you were a conspiracy theorist, a racist, or lunatic (or worse, GASP, a Republican? ) for suggesting the possibility? What will be interesting is, what will happen if it is confirmed? Will the world try to force some sort of restitution be paid by China? Or the companies involved? The damage has been so outrageous.
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Post by kds on Jun 15, 2023 12:45:48 GMT
This may be my cynical side, but I assume nothing will happen. I think it absolutely should. But, I have a feeling because the "it came from a lab in Wuhan" thing became such a rallying cry for the far right (I consider myself a moderate Conservative, and I've been believing this from jump BTW), and the emergency orders are over, that this might be swept under the rug.
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Post by Kapitan on Jun 15, 2023 13:16:22 GMT
My thing all along was, why is this seemingly plausible idea so immediately and vigorously condemned as a fringe lunatic position? A racist position?
I have to admit that a lot of the proponents of a lab-leak theory seemed to be pretty crazy, and yes, some of them did just seem happy to blame China out of their own nationalism. At least one of the proponents, Bret Weinstein, was a guy my opinion of whom sank consistently throughout the pandemic (on several fronts). He went from someone I really liked to listen to on a few topics to someone I couldn't really sit through, and saw no reason to bother. Literally just one fringe theory after another. So I get the skepticism of it.
But just because some crazy or dishonest people believe a thing, that doesn't make the thing wrong. You have to look at the evidence, and for the first couple years of this, even suggesting anyone look at the evidence was scoffed at.
I still don't pretend to know how the virus began. It has always seemed possible that it was a lab leak. Intentional? Accidental? A natural virus being studied that leaked, or a man-made virus that leaked? I could not possibly know. But the fact of that Wuhan lab alone seemed to legitimate the possibility. It does look like there has been quite a cover-up of evidence, even if it still turns out to be true that it was a wholly accidental, animal-to-human transmission as the popular narrative has always said.
Not a good look for all involved.
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Post by kds on Jun 15, 2023 14:58:06 GMT
My thing all along was, why is this seemingly plausible idea so immediately and vigorously condemned as a fringe lunatic position? A racist position?I have to admit that a lot of the proponents of a lab-leak theory seemed to be pretty crazy, and yes, some of them did just seem happy to blame China out of their own nationalism. At least one of the proponents, Bret Weinstein, was a guy my opinion of whom sank consistently throughout the pandemic (on several fronts). He went from someone I really liked to listen to on a few topics to someone I couldn't really sit through, and saw no reason to bother. Literally just one fringe theory after another. So I get the skepticism of it. But just because some crazy or dishonest people believe a thing, that doesn't make the thing wrong. You have to look at the evidence, and for the first couple years of this, even suggesting anyone look at the evidence was scoffed at. I still don't pretend to know how the virus began. It has always seemed possible that it was a lab leak. Intentional? Accidental? A natural virus being studied that leaked, or a man-made virus that leaked? I could not possibly know. But the fact of that Wuhan lab alone seemed to legitimate the possibility. It does look like there has been quite a cover-up of evidence, even if it still turns out to be true that it was a wholly accidental, animal-to-human transmission as the popular narrative has always said. Not a good look for all involved. i think this is just a testament of how divided we've become, that anything from the right, even if it makes sense, is treated like a conspiracy theory.
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Post by Kapitan on Jul 17, 2023 15:10:26 GMT
Some welcome, if anticlimactic, reporting from the New York Times this morning in their daily summary of the news: the United States has finally, for the first time since the pandemic began, returned to no excess deaths from the average. As they explain it (and with some bolding from me on interesting parts):
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Post by kds on Jul 17, 2023 15:14:44 GMT
That's certainly welcome news. I admittedly have not had my finger on the pulse of any COVID news in a long time. I was actually pretty surprised how many masks I saw when I went to the grocery store yesterday, and this was after seeing very, very few when I was in Ocean City for over a week.
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Post by Sheriff John Stone on Sept 6, 2023 0:22:39 GMT
Is COVID back? Did it ever go away? I'm seeing some prominent celebrities in the news testing positive for it, and through my job I'm seeing some workers wearing masks again. More vaccines? Booster shots? Oh, jeez...
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