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

  • Pseudoplatanus22 [he/him]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I know better than most the dangers of the virus, but I've already had it and I'm triple-vaccinated. I never see anyone wearing masks anymore anyway except in medical environments. Not even on crowded trains and buses, which I get once per week. I suffered badly in 2020 during the lockdowns, and I'm not going back to that. So what do we do? It seems like the only answer is to give in and just get back to normal with the associated risks, or stay isolated. Unfortunately, COVID is here to stay.

      • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]
        ·
        2 years ago

        I had to get an endoscopy recently and I was wearing a KF94 and most of the staff were wearing blue masks. And then they pull me into the procedure room, have me take off my mask, and the fucking anesthesiologist isn’t wearing a mask and gets all up in my face :angry-place:

      • Pseudoplatanus22 [he/him]
        ·
        2 years ago

        So I've heard. I just read a study in the lancet which said that this is due to immune imprinting, where our immune systems have come to expect the ancestral variants they were exposed to in the community or by vaccines.

        The new variants are able to bypass this immune response, so it looks like the bivalent vaccines have outlived their usefulness already. Not that I was ever eligible for a bivalent booster, even though they've been in my country since August :jokerfied:

        I'm going to be a bit more vigilant now I think, and if nothing else this thread has reminded me that the pandemic is still happening.