SARS II: Respiratory Boogaloo

Hearing from relatives in the UK about the situation there is awful and I honestly don't know how everyone isn't completely drained at this point.

These sorts of restrictions seem like they will be necessary until enough of the population is vaccinated that any spread has a rate of less than 1.

yeah kids went to school with covid. They have 25 in a class three feet apart. Masks. Allegedly cohorted at recess. I don’t mind the quarantine. What I am mad about is that the school isn’t honest about it. We found out from other parents and then at drop off this morning there was no traffic. That lead me to dig into it and discovered the extent of the outbreak.

there’s two weeks of school left. They’re on school two and a half hours a day for four days a week. They don’t do any work at school. It’s still al done at home like it was before school restarted in March. At this point why risk contracting covid just so my kids can visit school for a few hours a day? We all know the level of study the last two weeks of elementary school after all. The risk benefit isn’t there.

I don't disagree with people having a positive PCR having to isolate. I just wonder if taking out a whole class and affecting the mobility of the huge number of families who haven't, "just in case" they've contracted it, is now necessary. Where I am (as I'm sure is the same for others) is semirural so it has a big impact locally and people are struggling. Especially because it's not a one-off thing and you're bouncing in and out of 10 days lock-up. I think most families would be happy to keep up with an LFT routine and isolate the second it comes back positive if it allows children to stay in school. That is no different to how it is until someone in the bubble triggers it to pop in the first place.

Well, I didn't agree with Matt Hancock using that line on students and I'm not keen on having it levelled at me tbh. It's emotionally manipulative and it's not like isolation has no impact on people mentally or economically. Things are different today from when the close contact isolation rule was first rolled out, Granny and the most vulnerable have been vaccinated in droves and we have easy access to LFTs and quick turnaround PCRs. We're down to people in their 30s who statistically aren't as at much risk from serious affects or death getting vaccinated so the landscape has improved but the rules haven't.

To be fair, I would never comment on how much easier or harder someone has had it, because even with the closest of friends and family, just don't know what goes on behind closed doors. I worry that we're at (or fast approaching) the tipping point of restrictions killing off more people than Covid. One of the little boys in my kid's class has recently had chemo and he's now got to miss his consultation appointment this week because he's got to isolate. I think they're doing some kind of video call thing but still.

And if it's anything like the U.S., they probably have an army of right-wingers doing their best to make sure that will never happen.

Well, there's a toy show this weekend, so I'm dipping my toe in the deep end and going to my first public gathering in 17 months. I'm vaxed and I'll be masked. We'll see how the other nerds behave.

Fricken sheep - tighten those collars, bitches.

Well, look who's back. MAGA Boy himself.

Fellas, is it communist to think about other people from time to time?

Don't you think all the governmental restrictions are having a negative impact on other people tho? I honestly think we're about at a point where it's a bigger risk than becoming infected with Covid (which will never be fully eliminated or controlled).

Also, given the UK government's tendency for self-serving twattishness, I trust them not one jot and can well believe they will be mismanaging this for their own benefit and that of their cronies.

No, but it may be communist to dupe the masses into another authoritarian system using sentimental rhetoric about "the people" as the sales pitch.

Which vaccine did you get?

We ARE completely drained at this point.

You're not vaccinated?

If you are, masks are not recommended by the CDC.

"Don't you think all the governmental restrictions are having a negative impact on other people tho? I honestly think we're about at a point where it's a bigger risk than becoming infected with Covid (which will never be fully eliminated or controlled)." - Summerteeth

THANK YOU! If I said that I'd be chased by leftforge villagers with torches! YES it's having a negative impact on many people. But that doesn't fit the narrative, so the concern is brushed aside or downplayed for the most part. The psychological impact - especially on kids - is really severe in many cases. And this puts kids academically behind in many cases. The economic impact is off the charts. Sorry, but the world can walk & chew gum at the same time. Covid is a contagious, deadly disease - I get that. We are "learning as we go" and I get that too. But making the cure worse than the disease is just jumping from the frying pan into the fire.

Will we ever get to the bottom of the covid origins? Not a fucking chance in hell. Did it likely escape the lab environment in China? There's a high probability it did, because China has a history of playing it fast & loose with safety protocols. That said China's ability to contain the true story is without equal, North Korea not withstanding.

Shut up, dipshit.

Yes, being vaccinated and masked is about as safe as you can be AFAIK. As for the CDC guidance businesses, schools, and entire states still reserve the right to enforce masking and social distancing, which I fully support & respect whether I like it or not. Allegedly Walmart doesn't require masks for the vaccinated, but they still have their "masks required" signs displayed so I mask up, despite carrying my vaccination proof with me in my wallet.

While both Forbin and myself are conservative, I took a different approach to covid protection. I've been going to my local Gold's gym without a mask several times a week for the duration, except for the three weeks or so last year in April when they were forced to close. ZERO covid cases traced to my gym, so they must be doing something right. Hundreds if not thousands of people cycled through there since covid. I would say maybe five percent of the patrons wear/wore masks at any one time. None of the staff wore masks that I ever saw anyway.

Bottom line different strokes for different folks - you do what you need to do to comply with your state & local laws to stay out of trouble and/or feel safer.

great response! Did you think it up all on your own?

You have my condolences. Right about now I'm very glad that I don't have school aged children! That "virtual" learning is a joke, especially for kids with special needs or without tech-savvy families.

I generally agree with that, but it was a necessity this past year. The alternative would have been far worse. Kids can make up a year of school. Dead people, however, are just dead.

And what percentage of the people died? Granted even one is too many, but thousands of kids getting even more behind their peers and families getting financially devastated (some demographics more than others) is pretty fucking bad. That doesn't have the shocking optics of bodies, so "out of sight, out of mind" I guess, right?

They only track human cases.

Damn those speciesphobes!

Of the ass.

and thankfully the otters have a lot of dexterity working those syringes. Granted you have to throttle down the conveyor belt for maximum safety.

Same. I wouldn’t mind the virtual learning aspect, but I do feel bad for the kids who are old enough to know what they are missing in terms of getting out to play with friends. Very grateful my little one is too young to know anything different.

There's a difference between questioning if the problem has been dealt with enough to start returning to some normalcy, and ignoring the threat in the first place.

The former is what Summerteeth seems to be doing, the latter is what people like Trump and Boris did, which directly led to the need for such prolonged restrictions in the first place.

Oh, honey, you don't understand. BoJo just pretends to be a buffoon, while Trump actually was one. There's a big fuck difference. Because, eventually, BoJo & Co, will grasp the concept that the health and well-being of the masses are necessary for the functioning of society. Trump, etc.? Nope. They get back in power (which might very well happen), and the US is basically fucked like a porn star going for a world record. COVID can be beaten, if the right people are willing to take up the mantle. In my lifetime, we've eliminated smallpox globally, polio is on its last legs, and the Guinea worm is also on its way out. That's three scourges of humanity that are basically gone. All within a single human lifetime. The technology that led to the development of many of the COVID vaccines holds out the promise of stopping a host of other diseases. For a fraction of the cost of what current treatments entail.

Yeah, I know, the lockdowns and restrictions are a bitch to deal with. But I live in a state that's ran by folks who think Trump is god, and who did everything they possibly could to undermine the efforts to slow the spread of the disease. Despite that, we're starting to get a handle on it, and cases are going down, even if people aren't rushing out to get vaccinated. As of right now, 30% of my state is fully vaccinated, that's a little lower than the total percentage of people in the UK who've been fully vaccinated. The population of my state is roughly the same as London, and we live in an area of just under half the UK in terms of square KMs. As your vaccination numbers increase, you'll see a big dip in the number of new cases. Probably won't be too much longer before this happens, either.

Dude.

Dude, what? I live in one of the poorest states in the US, that has one of the lowest life expectancies, where even people with "good" health insurance can't afford to go see a doctor, where large numbers of people failed to obey even the mildest of mask mandates, and, in general, is just all-around shitty. I don't fucking care how bad things might be in the UK, I'd give my left nut (and the right one, for that matter) to just have the same kind of access to a social safety network that she does. People openly carry fucking guns here, and you don't even need a permit or training to do so. Yeah, I get that shit is stressful for her. I know refugees from the Balkans who've talked about having to let their kids outside to play, even though they knew there was a good chance that the kids wouldn't survive (because of snipers), so I get that being trapped inside with your kids all the time isn't fun.

But I also know that she'll never have to worry about how much it's going to cost her to go see a doctor because she feels a little bit unwell. You want to know what it's like to lay in bed, gasping for breath because you're sick, and knowing that you can't see a doctor until your paycheck hits the bank, even though you do have health insurance? I have fucking been there. And that was with a mild case of pneumonia. When my check hit the bank, I was able to walk to the local walk-in clinic to get treatment, but I had to spend four days before that, gasping for breath, not daring to go see a doctor or call an ambulance, because were I to do so, I knew that I'd either get turned away for not being able to make the copay ($40) or spend the rest of my life saddled with debt.

You want to talk hardship? Talk about having to guess (as someone who is not a medical professional) if your symptoms are indicative of a condition that can be easily treated with inexpensive drugs, or is something that will require serious medical intervention that you cannot ever hope to afford. Because that's the reality for myself, and tens of millions of other Americans. I don't care how shitty it might be to be locked in a house with a bunch of screaming kids, it cannot compare to the reality of knowing that it is better for you to stay home and suck up how bad it might be, than it is to go risk going to see a doctor and losing everything that you fucking own because you can't pay your medical bills. I mean, being dead ain't great, but imagine being alive and knowing that no matter how hard you work, you'll never get back to the modicum of comfort you once had. And I'm lucky in that I don't have to worry that the debt I'll accrue from going to see a doctor will be passed on to my loved ones, no matter what happens. Imagine the folks with kids who have to juggle the idea of going to see a doctor and winding up destitute, or dying and knowing that your life insurance policy will prevent your loved ones from having to go through the same choices you had to make.

@Tuckerfan, if I gave you the impression I'm pissed off because I'm "locked in the house with a bunch of screaming kids" I'm sorry, I should've been more clear in my frustration - that really wasn't what my issue is. To the contrary, I love having my family around all the time and 99% of the time it's peaceful. Yes, we're bored and it's annoying being cooped up but I can cope with that.

My frustration is that this protracted lockdown and constantly bouncing in and out of isolation because we possibly-maybe have Covid after being in close contact with a confirmed case, is now harming more than it's curing. Worse, we have no control to address the issues impacting our lives. This is especially so now as we have rolled out vaccines that should have covered those most at risk of serious health complications or death if they contracted it. Given that in the vast majority of cases it's a relatively mild infection, how many people are we protecting from death or serious illness from Covid now by putting everything on pause?

In terms of schooling, it's not just the loss of education (which imho is a huge issue in itself). Anecdotally, I know, but in our own case my daughter has APD (like dyslexia but for hearing - it's suspected by specialists but undiagnosed because postcode lottery) and I can really tell not having access to school SaLT and interaction with peers has affected her progression in speech. She hasn't slipped back, but she's definitely stalled and at such a developmental age it's going to have a knock-on effect later in life. Then there's the vulnerable kids who get some kind of safeguarding protection from being in school. Where is their relief from being locked up in a toxic environment? Children with autism have found the constant disruptions in routine extremely distressing.

Then aside from school, the mental and physical wellbeing of people under these restrictions is absolutely life-threatening and unbearable for some. More so than the number at risk from dying of Covid, I'd be willing to wager, because this will be felt for years to come. You don't have to dig much to find stories of cancelled medical appointments, difficulties in getting repeat prescriptions for serious conditions, late diagnosis, serious mental health issues triggered by enforced isolation. I honestly can't even begin to think how difficult it must be for medical staff trying to balance covid protocol against patient demands.

That's all before you think of the economic impact this has had on families - again anecdotally but I know loads of people who have had their small business go to the wall or who slipped through the cracks of getting financial support initially and now have the weight of debt on their shoulders. My friend who is a single mum started a beauty business in the back end of 2019, and had all her income turned off overnight and struggled for weeks to get help, racking up debt on credit cards just to pay the bills. She's still got that debt and only just got started up again when her kids got put in isolation for being close contacts of a case and she had to close for 10 days.

So yes honey from what you say, I live in a comparatively privileged system to you and I'm genuinely very sorry it's like that. But the bottom line is I am seeing more and more people struggling because of the level of restrictions and in some cases it's fatal and I'm bloody sick of it.