Looking at the recent discourse has made me really upset.
Covid is still a massive problem that is killing people, and almost no one is taking it seriously
It so so hard to do anything when you're worried about dying, and not in an anxiety disorder way. edit: stop speculating about what medical conditions I have, thank you kindly
I've accepted that there is basically nothing I can justify doing during bad weather that involves people outside my 3 person bubble (it used to be larger, but folks have decided to be less cautious without communicating about it) both in a moral obligation and a personal safety sense, and that's despair inducing because the way things are going this is a "live with it the rest of your life" sort of thing
I want to go out, I really do. I miss hanging with friends. I miss going to concerts and parties and drag and commie shit. But I can't, and not in a "something is wrong with me" sort of way. I've tried to find new social circles who take the pandemic seriously. It's been an exercise in having my boundaries pushed and my (these next two words are the one part of this post I encourage you to make fun of) evidence based perspective on the pandemic pathologized.
And I know this will be alleviated when the weather outside is suitable for outdoor masked stuff, but god, I haven't been able to see people besides my partners since the holidays, and there is still months and months left until I can hang out with friends again.
I'm so fucking tired. I can't keep going on like this without my mental health deteriorating and I can't stop acting like this without being reckless with my body and abdicating my responsibility to others
Where I live, I haven't seen a mask in months. No one wears them anymore. It's just a free for all. Unless I plan to go full protocol, which includes wearing an n95 type mask in an airtight manner (which involves shaving, no adjustment of the mask when outside, no touching the mask) there's no point in masking up with a basic cloth mask or poorly/unsealed mask when leaving home, when literally no one else is doing it. And I have to leave home, to go to work, to buy food, to do all these things necessary to live. I can't just live in my room forever, it's impossible.
I held out with masking as long as I could, and it was disappointing to see people drop them so fast. Looking at the numbers, because my country failed so much with containing the virus that it seems we hit some kind of "herd immunity", excess deaths are within normal levels in every province. For people under 60 it is at completely normal levels, and people over 60, it is within upper bounds of normal. So it's not the same risk as peak COVID times. I guess this is what the government found acceptable for a full reopening. But tonnes of people are dealing with long COVID.
Over a year ago, me and another family member both got COVID. We both only had one vaccine dose at the time, due to poor rollout of the vaccines. I have pretty much recovered, but my family member developed damage in their lungs, and now has to live with this, taking meds daily.
I have health conditions that could easily compound the effect of COVID, I don't fancy getting it again. But like so many other people with similar conditions, we have to just carry on with life and risk an unknown chance of permanent damage just to go to work and buy food. Not every immunocompromised person can get a work from home job. They are the people stacking the shelves, the people delivering societies essentials.
The world has moved on without us/them (like it often does if you have any sort of health condition) and there's nothing anyone can do about it. I've just accepted it at this point, not because I want to, but because I have no other choice. Even China has opened up. As someone else said a lot of the people are just coping, and don't want to admit that this is how it is now.
As for socialising, I don't know honestly. I don't really go clubbing or to bars often, I mainly hang out with close friends and do stuff with them.
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The flu this season was the H1N1 variant, or at least I'm assuming cause that was one of the ones in the vaccines. If H1N1 isn't familiar, it was the one in 2009 that freaked out the world a little, swine flu.
And in 1918, the Spanish flu.