It's just super frustrating seeing people who are supposedly my brothers and sisters, who I've been there to the hilt, who know that my partner is struggling, who know that I'm terrified. We've gone through the science and racial and class inequalities together and they've voiced how they should mask a hundred times. And then they come to meet me IRL totally fucking unmasked, without even a fucking apology.
Well, if you're "back to normal", I'll sit and watch you eat outside, but I'm not taking my mask off in front of you. I'll wait till you finish your meal, and I'll head home early. If I've complained about no masking two times already, you heard it enough, I'm not going to complain again.
Am I overreacting?
Edit: for those of griping that you're not allowed to do COVID minimisation in this comm. These would be valid answer:
- Maybe your friend forgot
- Maybe your friend was tired
- Maybe your friend was hung over
- Your friend made a mistake but you should forgive him
- I'm not yet fully covid conscious, but I'm trying
- We can't all be perfect. Hopefully they do better next time.
Not acceptable:
- Oh here's a tidbit about masks that's been disproven in the science literature 10x already
- Oh the chuds and libs aren't masking, and I feel peer pressured
really... We're calling cinemas COVID death traps? Most movies I go to have no more than 10-15 people in the hundred seat auditorium.
The last COVID rates in the UK Winter period were 1.6%. The chances of one of them being in your proximity at a dying cinema is not very high.
Covid isn't being tested for anymore. where are they getting those statistics from?
GOV.UK https://www.gov.uk › news › ukhs... UKHSA and ONS release latest Winter COVID-19 Infection Study Data
They randomly sampled 26k people I think
To build on what Ivysaur said, the UK government published that Corbyn was a massive anti-semite and that trans health care is bad. Oh let's not forget the war on terror.
buddy. why do you trust the state line on Covid metrics? genuine question. do you actually trust them to be truthful about this? why? people literally can’t say the word aloud and you truly believe it’s all just a nothingburger now? they lied about the impact of aids for decades and they’re lying about this.
I was actually very surprised by the numbers. I had assumed it was a lot worse because I get most of my COVID news from Hexbear. I'm no expert, but judging by their methodology I felt it seemed like a fair test. The rate has fluctuated across the different seasons. Up and down. It just tracks with my lived experience: I had COVID non-stop a few years ago - I'd get it again near the end of my vaccine/natural immunity period every time. I haven't had it for almost a year now. It's the same for a lot of people around me too.
Perhaps the wool is being pulled over my eyes by business and the state. I don't know.
How do you know this for sure? If you’re in the UK, the state of public health is laughably pitiful just like it is here in the US. Rapid tests are often months, years out of date which means they are either expired and totally nonfunctional, or they won’t catch these evasive variants at all, and in order to have a PCR done at most clinics near me anyway state insurance won’t cover it and you need to be exhibiting “severe symptoms” to get one in the first place, which costs something like $100-$150 each time. I don’t even know how many times I’ve had it because no one wants to do anything about it. I am already disabled myself with lots of compounding chronic illnesses that existed long before 2020 which means that I am well-acquainted with public health and medical facilities by necessity. They will say you are “COVID-phobic” in your chart at some places now when you request staff to mask, and even knowing you are vulnerable like they do with my decades of medical history they still won’t do it. I’ve never seen anything like this response in my life. It’s madness.
All of this still ignores the reality that, like HIV, the acute phase passes and we don’t see or hear about lingering effects or sequelae for years, maybe a decade later, and then you are just laid on your ass or worse, and there’s all kinds of things to blame it on by then, continuing the minimization and further unmitigated spread. To call it a biblical level event is not exaggerating…and the response is always, even from people who ought to know better, “well me and all my mates at the pub seem fine so that’s that”. You’d never know looking at me that I have intolerable inflammations in my legs daily from walking to the grocery store that leaves me limping after only a few hours of movement if I’m lucky…and yet I do it every day, still. I may look fine, but I am not fine. A lot of us aren’t, and the less scrupulous of us will make sure no one else ever finds out until it’s too late. Sound familiar?
Knowing the history of the HIV/AIDS crisis will really change your mind about this virus, I promise you. We underestimate it at our peril, like we did with HIV in the 80s (until the right people- the ones other than the f*gs- started getting fucked up, that is), and like we have with climate change for the last century. It’s the same patterns, the exact same mechanisms at play. It’s not hard to connect the dots.
Again, I don't mean to be a debatebro, and I will check out those sources youre talking about, but I am asthmatic and COVID does fuck me up pretty bad. I would say I have a good chance of knowing when I've got it and when I don't. My mother also has autoimmune liver disease so takes immunosuppressants, and again, hasn't had COVID in a long time. It nearly kills her when she gets it.
PCR's near me cost about £1.80 per test... The NHS might be in a bad state but the UK is not as ravenous as the US.
I've probably just built up some immunity though, true. I'm sure it'll reap my lungs in the future.
Unless you know the theatre's ventilation specs, yes, they're an indoor public place and should be avoided. Immunocompromised people can still die of COVID, and regular people can still get long COVID even from mild cases. In March 2024, 17 million americans reported currently having long COVID, with disproportionately high numbers among trans people and disabled people.
As for case numbers, if it's anything like the US, the testing and reporting infrastructure has been completely destroyed, which leads to there being fewer cases on paper. I'd say to look at wastewater data to get a better idea of levels of COVID in the general population, but it looks like the UK hasn't done that in 2 years.