Pandemic: Life on the ground

[Jersey Girl]

Do you have any idea how many nights I have checked a board before I went to sleep to see if you were there? Twenty three years with only one period of absence, Gunnar.

I'm very thankful that I managed to dodge Covid long enough to get this variant and a very mild case. Incredibly, I don't feel like I am sick at all so the booster is definitely doing it's work. Thanking my God for the smart scientists who made these vaccines and boosters, and for the first candidates who had the courage to participate in the trials. I don't think I would have been brave enough to do that myself.

We're both doing really well and looking forward to negative tests! I hope it's not too much longer! Until I am free, I shall bore you all with my nonsense!

G'night!

I similarly check the board frequently to see if you are there, along with a few of my other favorites. I repeat what I added to my last post. I hope JB realizes how lucky he is to have you!

Good night (or should I say good morning?) I ought to go to bed now!

So...many...times...you were the last person I communicated with on many nights. There must be something incredibly wrong with us. I just somehow feel better knowing you are out there. I guess if you are used to having someone in your unreal life (as Craig called it) for so many years then it really is a comfort to know they are there when they are part of your world. It never mattered what side of an argument we were on or how much we disagreed on an issue like religious topics. We are just who we are and friends. I'm happy that all of you from back then didn't write me off!

JB and I are polar opposites. That said, when a situation warrants it, I think we make an unbeatable team. I'll just leave it at that.

He's still symptomatic and fatigued but I wouldn't categorize myself as symptomatic. He'll describe a symptom and I'm like...I don't have that. He's taking all sorts of meds. I take Tylenol before sleep and I'm not even sure why. Preventing fever? Fever is actually good for you but I'm not feverish at all. I'm going a bit stir crazy, not that I don't have things to do but I dislike being trapped so...I went to the CDC website and here's the guidance.

Everyone, regardless of vaccination status.

Stay home for 5 days.
If you have no symptoms or your symptoms are resolving after 5 days, you can leave your house.
Continue to wear a mask around others for 5 additional days.

If I get the absolute urge to bolt, I'll do the N95 mask though I wouldn't go linger anywhere. Maybe a quick in and out some place. I dunno.

Meanwhile...decorate for Christmas!

[Gunnar]

It's disheartening that a presumed medical professional could be so clueless!

I don't believe that such an abuse of civil rights should be the prerogative of an unelected bureaucrat based on one single factor. Sure, a few more old people might have died 1 year sooner. How was that worth what has happened to kids educations or the current state of the world economy.

Do you remember your thread about how Vietnam was able to achieve little to no COVID? Australia and New Zealand had it all right, didn't they? China is still welding people into their apartments as a part of their zero COVID policy. Do you still agree with that policy since it saves more lives? I guess if the government brings them food for their families, they don't have any right to complain about being stripped of their right to go to work and earn a living, do they? It's a good thing they kept those little kids with COVID banned from the Emergency Room in the hospital. Sure, they died, but there's a 0.04% chance they could have infected someone else with COVID. Are you about ready to shut the schools down again seeing we're going to see an increase in cases of COVID this winter? Online school has really helped their test scores out.

Look, like it or not, countries like Vietnam, South Korea, New Zealand and Australia handled the pandemic much, much better, overall, than the USA did under the Trump administration. Given the fact that our country, with only a little more than 4% of the world's population had more than 20% of the deaths from Covid-19, it is dishonest and foolish to even try to deny the fact that probably no government on earth (with the possible exception of Brazil's Bolsonaro regime) handled the pandemic worse than the Trump Administration did.

And, for the record, I don't regard honest attempts to safeguard the health of our population and minimize the effects of a pandemic as abuse of civil rights. I generally trust the advice of medically qualified medical professionals in matters of health and well-being, unelected or otherwise, more than I do the dictates and whims of elected officials as authoritarian, narcissistic, corrupt and self-serving as Trump and his cronies proved to be.

By the way, I am not claiming that no mistakes were made by scientists and medical professionals along the way as they begin to tackle and learn about the characteristics of this new virus, especially in the beginning, but as they learned more about the nature of what we were dealing with, the responses and outcomes did improve, as did the remedies and tools they developed along the way. Remember also that the morbidity and death rates in red areas that rejected the vaccines and masking were twice as high as those in areas that tried to follow the guidelines that were developed. The difference may even have been enough, in some cases, to prevent Republicans from winning elections in areas where they probably would otherwise have won!

[ajax18]

Gunnar there's more to quality of life than just avoiding death. Itbevame clear early on that people over 65 were the most at risk. The schools were shut down way too long. Unvaccinated kids were not the public health threat they were made out to be. There is no such thing as a nonessential worker. We should have protected the vulnerable and sent everyone under 40 back to work right away. And Novak Djokovic was no threat to anyone at the 2022 US Open. I still pissed we didn't get to Alcaraz play him.

[Vēritās]

Gunnar there's more to quality of life than just avoiding death.

What do you know about quality of life? You're the one who was willing to send millions of Americans to their deaths for the sole purpose of helping your autocrat get reelected. You're anti-life.

The schools were shut down way too long.

Says who? The disconnect here is so obvious. It didn't matter if schools closed down or not because parents weren't going to be sending them to school anyway during a global pandemic. Most school closures were at the behest of the parents who clearly aren't anti-life like Trumpers.

It is also hilarious that for decades Right Wingers have been pushing homeschooling because the public system was apparently too liberal. They insisted that it made kids smarter and there were no drawbacks whatsoever. But then when everyone is kinda pushed into homeschooling suddenly it becomes a national catastrophe in your minds, insisting all kinds of BS like it driving kids to suicide. All of your idiotic opinions are shaped by whatever helps your politics at the time. You have no real principles or standards, just hypocrisy in the name of "stick it to the libs."

Unvaccinated kids were not the public health threat they were made out to be.

Yes they were. They were effective carriers and transmitters of the virus even if they didn't get sick they were getting their grandparents killed.

We should have protected the vulnerable and sent everyone under 40 back to work right away.

This is why I say the Right Wing is anti-science. You don't understand how viruses work or how global pandemics work. To mitigate spread to have to reduce social interactions in crowds among all humans who have a functioning respiratory system. You can't say, "Oh only the old die from this, so let's just quarantine them alone and go about our business as usual." That would have resulted in another 10 million deaths. But you're anti-life, so you'd be OK with that. The only thing you cared about was that upcoming election in November.

And Novak Djokovic was no threat to anyone at the 2022 US Open. I still pissed we didn't get to Alcaraz play him.

Case in point. This is the dumb crap you care about. Not life. Not quality of life. Nothing but your politics.

[Gunnar]

And Novak Djokovic was no threat to anyone at the 2022 US Open. I still pissed we didn't get to Alcaraz play him.

Case in point. This is the dumb crap you care about. Not life. Not quality of life. Nothing but your politics.

Yeah! That and his hateful, bigoted views on race, ethnicity. religion and diversity.

[Doctor CamNC4Me]

[Gunnar]

Gunnar there's more to quality of life than just avoiding death. Itbevame clear early on that people over 65 were the most at risk. The schools were shut down way too long. Unvaccinated kids were not the public health threat they were made out to be. There is no such thing as a nonessential worker. We should have protected the vulnerable and sent everyone under 40 back to work right away. And Novak Djokovic was no threat to anyone at the 2022 US Open. I still pissed we didn't get to Alcaraz play him.

Nothing you said or tried to say here even begins to negate anything that I pointed out in my post. All you succeeded in doing was to underscore once again your essential cluelessness about reality and about the pandemic in particular. I greatly appreciate and admire Vēritās's answer to your post. He said it much better than I could have!

[Jersey Girl]

It's disheartening that a presumed medical professional could be so clueless!

I don't believe that such an abuse of civil rights should be the prerogative of an unelected bureaucrat based on one single factor. Sure, a few more old people might have died 1 year sooner. How was that worth what has happened to kids educations or the current state of the world economy.

Do you remember your thread about how Vietnam was able to achieve little to no COVID? Australia and New Zealand had it all right, didn't they? China is still welding people into their apartments as a part of their zero COVID policy. Do you still agree with that policy since it saves more lives? I guess if the government brings them food for their families, they don't have any right to complain about being stripped of their right to go to work and earn a living, do they? It's a good thing they kept those little kids with COVID banned from the Emergency Room in the hospital. Sure, they died, but there's a 0.04% chance they could have infected someone else with COVID. Are you about ready to shut the schools down again seeing we're going to see an increase in cases of COVID this winter? Online school has really helped their test scores out.

Listen buddy, start your own thread. This isn't a political thread. Knock it off.

[Jersey Girl]

We continue to survive. The Boy has got a cough but it's nothing horrible or debilitating. We both feel like we're nearly 100% recovered from whatever symptoms we developed. I guess my symptoms were mainly feeling sinus-y like you do when you have a cold but not really stuffy? I didn't recognize it as a possible symptom at first. It's been nothing I can't live with. I woke up feeling normal today. Still making ourselves take periods of rest though because we think that it makes sense.

One unexpected thing. I stepped on the scale earlier and my weight has dropped to 102 which is not good for me. I reported that on the Score thread in SSP. It might be dehydration so increasing fluid intake and will try to increase calorie intake.

I really need a negative test before next Wednesday's class I signed up for and already paid for. I've been SO looking forward to it. Hoping for that!

[Jersey Girl]

Dear Covid Diary (because that's what it's come to),

I am not a happy camper. I got two faint lines on my test today. Thanks for messing with me, Covid, just when I had a hope of breaking out of here.

What is this bad taste in my mouth? Is that another one of your tricks? Your parting shot? It's gross. I don't like it. Stop it.

Hey, how'd you like that mRNA vaccine, huh? Didn't know what you were walking into, did ya?

LISTEN. I need to go to class on Wednesday. You better come through with a negative test, got it?

I kNoW wHeRe YoU lIvE cOvID.

Get OUT of me. GET OUT!!!




[/tantrum]