I just listened to the latest Death Panel podcast which, to no one's surprise, has a pretty bleak outlook (with good reason) about the covid situation in the USA right now and in the near future, but I also recently traveled a little through Canada (leaving quarantine, more or less, for the first time since the pandemic began, masking outside our car or hotel room almost 100% of the time) and had a quick look at the covid data for the USA and the world. I know the data is purposefully inadequate and incomplete, but globally and within the USA it looks as though—dare I say it—covid is on the decline. Will there be another massive spike or some vicious new variant in the winter or fall or some other catastrophe which makes us long for the days of covid, maybe. Is this pure and hopeful speculation, probably. Are there still a ton of people who are sick, disabled, or seriously affected by covid (losing wages, jobs, family, etc.), 100% yes. But is it also possible that we will soon get a vaccine from our comrades in Cuba/China/Vietnam that will stop covid and all its variants permanently? Also possibly yes.
Anecdotally, traveling through Quebec, it honestly did seem like covid is over, or at least that very few people care about it. Few people were masked but nobody seemed sick. I just got back from a bus station in the rural northeastern USA, however, and there was one dude there who almost certainly had covid—he was coughing like crazy, I mean he had one of the worst coughs I've ever heard, and he looked like shit. School has also been in session for about three weeks where I live and I haven't heard anything about anyone getting sick there. We homeschool our kids because of the pandemic but they still play (masked and outside only) with neighborhood kids in the afternoon and as far as I know they haven't said anything about serious health problems at the school—which is super lib and where I believe most of the people inside the building are vaccinated.
So I'm curious about what everyone is feeling/thinking about covid right now based on the limited data we can access as well as your own personal experience with what's up around you. Am I right, am I wrong, is this post a total waste of time? Let me know.
I'm actually being somewhat ostracized at work because I'm vaccinated. Nearly everyone I work with is some kind of conspiracy theorist now. I've had double digit numbers of family members die of covid, so I'm not taking the chance of being unvaccinated.
My family has kind of fallen apart. No more gatherings or anything. Lots of empty houses. Kids growing up without grandparents. It's bleak.
I'm tired.
Where I am, daily deaths and hospitalizations for COVID are both hovering around 40% of the all-time high. This has apparently been determined "acceptable" by the government and media, which have put out propaganda stating COVID is over, which leaves us with two main groups:
- "Believe the science!" Liberals, who now believe COVID is over
- Frothing hogs who think COVID was never real in the first place
The number of people at my work who have gotten COVID has been getting progressively worse all year since they lifted our internal mask mandate, but they'll never be reinstated. Personally, I'm still living like it's 2020 because I don't want to risk long covid and the myriad other negative health outcomes of multiple reinfection.
I think that Joe Biden is a genocidal maniac on par with some of the worst US presidents, which is a long list of genocidal maniacs, and deserves to be flayed alive and strung up outside the White House for causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands and the disabling of millions.
Have a friend who has an immune deficiency and is perpetually furious/horrified that society has essentially decided she has to remain isolated for the foreseeable future because they can't be fucked to wear masks or get vaccinated.
I developed asthma or some other kind of respiratory issue post covid so that hasn’t been ideal
My grandma has heart / lung issues and after getting covid lost a substantial amount of her lung capacity, her stamina is comparable to what it was before when she wasn't using her oxygen machine.
lol i went to the doc when i had my first flare up and they ran a bunch of tests, charged me over 1k dollars, and told me to use my inhaler when it gets back "lol idk, probably allergies"
Check the wastewater reports and excess morbidity rates; Covid is far from over, people have just stopped caring about it. Long covid is gut punching the population while making sure there's just enough people vulnerable to get killed by the initial infections. The world is going to look dramatically different in 10, maybe even 5 years. And not in a good way.
I'm doing my best to look through the data here (https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#wastewater-surveillance) but they make it as complicated and annoying as possible. As far as I can tell, it looks like the overall covid situation is still really bad. It also seems like they may be decreasing the amount of covid wastewater testing they'll be doing in the future, but who knows.
I use biobot.io which is what the cdc uses but is presented differently. Most of the US still seems to be above, or around) the levels of the peak of last year's Delta surge, sadly. Yeah, idk what I'll do when they stop testing. Hermit mode for good, I guess.
every so often theres a person coughing their lungs out or wearing a mask who isnt me (not coughing lol). i still havent gotten it :party-sicko:
people glare at me for wearing a mask sometimes. and i forget to wear semi-often cause head empty and noone else is.
When they first lifted mask restrictions in my area I was going into a store and this rando came up to me talking about how happy he was to see everyone's face just as I was about to put my mask on and I was doing a little :side-eye-1: wondering if he was about to go into a rage.
I mask indoors and in my area at least I'm often one of if not the only one doing so.
Looking at the facts I feel like I'm not taking it seriously enough but then I go outside and feel like a covid fanatic...
shrug
They just literally stopped testing and for like a year only tested if you were symptomatic (I lied a lot about shortness of breath so I could get a real test). I remember the day masking requirements were lifted I still wore mine and the bus driver said I could take it off - like, I was wearing it because it's a good thing, it being mandated wasn't what was driving me to do it...
Covid isn't over and I'm just tired now. No one cares. I'm waiting for my fourth shot. There's nothing else I can do.
don't like pharma companies very much, but I'll keep taking that garbage
Covid is over, it's only the old and sick who are dying. :liberalism:
I think the amount of sickness we see this winter will be horrifying, and it will be blamed on people masking up in previous winters and "weakening their immune system". People who think covid is over won't bother to wear a mask or stay home when they get sick, and they certainly won't get a covid test unless they are hospitalized or they are sick enough to call a doctor for advice, so a lot of it will be blamed on whatever cold or flu circulates along with covid.
Staffing in stores and restuarants has been abysmal all summer, and it will get worse, so people will be added pressure into working while sick and to not test for covid. Back to normal, only much worse.
I've become accustomed to not getting sick with various resperatory illnesses every couple months, accompanied by lingering coughs, and will continue to mask up indoors and in crowded areas. I also live with and work with people who are likely to be hit hardest from a covid infection, so I'm doing what I can to not catch or spread that shit.
I expect a lot of excess deaths, heart attacks, strokes, and mysterious liver diseases in kids in the months following the peak of the winter wave. Since testing has largely been dismantled and discouraged, it may not even be a wave, just a slowly rising plateau of illness until at least one of the several covid strains now circulating develops to become immune evasive and everyone gets various degrees of fucked.
It all comes down to how much people are impacted by covid reinfections. I'm only seeing evidence that the damage compounds with each infection, including risk of long term heatlh issues, but some people are on their fourth infection, or have been going out all the time and partying and feel fine. I assume the younger you are, the more hits you can take on average before something becomes obviously and irreversibly wrong, but who knows?
But is it also possible that we will soon get a vaccine from our comrades in Cuba/China/Vietnam that will stop covid and all its variants permanently? Also possibly yes.
I'm sorry but this isn't happening. It won't. I'm pretty sure it can't. It's just not how this works. And even if it were, unless they force vaccinate everyone (lmao) there'd just be, once again, a massive population of idiots serving as incubators for new variants with a selective pressure on escaping the new vaccine.
No, but I can dream about these places not only catching up to the west but also surpassing them.
Mask always when inside stores. Weekly hangout with same two friends, no mask, chill in a room, all vaxxed. All other friends have pretended covid was over for at least two years. Return home, never leave or go anywhere besides the grocery store, sometimes a hiking excursion though i don't like going alone and it ususally feels impossible to schedule around friends' jobs. Experience feeling lonely, trapped, doomed and listless. Sleep, repeat. :duane:
I had covid, it was fine but I had asthma for a year. That sucked. Spouse was fine no long term.
My father in law died of opiod overdose and and everyone blames the vaccine. So now my family has stopped getting shots. So that's rough.
My father is elderly and frail and refuses to mask up or take any real procautions but I am considering this as him doing a suicide so I am not stressing about it anymore.
I worked through several waves of it and I have seen so many people die. Even young people. Still see a fair few come in with but few people die anymore.
