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Post by Celestial on Nov 29, 2021 13:34:24 GMT -5
Well, a finger has curled on the monkey's paw. I was complaining about not being able to get boosters, now everyone over 18 in the UK is eligible. Because of Omicron. It's on our shores. Cases only in the double digits so far (11, with one of them not being in the country any more). Some community transmission in Scotland, although not in my region, yet. UK still has high transmission of Delta and 80% of the population total is vaccinated. So, uh...
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Post by Thorn on Dec 2, 2021 23:19:45 GMT -5
Today is the first day of our new 'traffic light' system. My region is at Orange, which means life is pretty normal as long as you're double vaxxed.
I know it's silly, but the first time I went to a cafè and they scanned my vaccine passport to make sure I could enter, I felt like I was part of a secret exclusive club! xD (90% of the eligible population are vaccinated, so this Secret Club is most kiwis.)
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Post by Kat on Dec 5, 2021 9:00:01 GMT -5
Last week I was asked, "can we cite this antivaxxer employee for insubordination for refusing to get regular tests or a medical certificate to show ineligibility for the vaccine since he has made it clear they won't get vaccinated" and my answer was yes.
It's not like we're discriminating against unvaccinated people. We're not going to force you to get jabbed, but if you don't want to, then you submit to regular RT-PCR tests, or give us a medical certificate confirming that you're ineligible. But the fact that this person was straight up also unwilling to get tested on top of not wanting to get vaccinated because blah blah right to life and right to protect themselves against anything that may cause them harm and the vaccines are ~experimental~ is just...yeesh.
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Post by Carolyn on Dec 6, 2021 15:51:15 GMT -5
I was out birding with my mother and a friendly birder comes out next to me. We're looking for the same rare species. I offer to let him bird with us for a bit and he's like, "oh, that's nice, but I'm actually supposed to be in quarantine. My wife had covid over Thanksgiving."
... stepped back faster than you could blink. "But I'm negative," he assured me, before coughing out loud. "Just a bad head cold."
People. My God.
So glad I'm boosted. Too many folks don't care anymore and we're skyrocketing with cases AND there was an O variant case in NJ already AND someone with the virus went to anime NYC this year. It's going to be a long winter.
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Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Dec 17, 2021 18:50:40 GMT -5
*grumbles*
I've got a upcoming Sunday dinner with my parents at risk of being cancelled, thanks to Omicron and the rapidly rising cases. I'm going to check with them later to see if it is going to be cancelled. I haven't gotten my booster yet, but I'm hoping to book an appointment once the booster opens up to adults under 50 later on Monday.
Omicron's also put some familiar restrictions back in place. No lockdown, thankfully, but it definitely puts a damper on the holidays.
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Post by Celestial on Dec 19, 2021 8:34:42 GMT -5
I am now in self-isolation.
Not because I caught anything, but because I cannot risk catching anything. Lemme tell you about the strict anti-COVID measures for hospital inpatients.
I have been scheduled for some minor elective surgery just before Christmas, which despite everything, is still going ahead. On the 2nd of December, I got a call that told me to start social distancing 14 days before my scheduled surgery. This itself is fairly basic: work from home, avoid gatherings and crowds, wash your hands regularly, stay away from people with symptoms. So far, standard.
Then, you got to do a PCR. Most people do it as a drive-through, but because I don't have a car, they came to my house this morning. From then on, strict self-isolation. This means no contact with even members of your own household. As of right now, I am confined to my room until Wednesday, which is when I am admitted into hospital. Family are at least having fun with it: I have my own "leper bell" to ring if I go out for bathroom or such, so that they know to avoid the area.
It's...going to be an interesting experience. Already, I cannot image doing this for 10 days if I caught COVID. So, uh, I guess I'll be very reliant on folks here for my social interactions. xD
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Post by Huntress on Dec 21, 2021 11:00:48 GMT -5
Ow, my arm.
Booster shots have been available for anyone and everyone for... a while now (I went full cold turkey on reading the news a few weeks ago because two years' worth of doomscrolling is no joke as far as mental health goes, can heartily recommend). The caveat is that it should be done six months after the second dose, so I knew that I had until February.
Then a few days ago, with omicron omicroning all over the place, I realized that I don't know my calendar at all and six months from the second shot would be on January 10, which is actually pretty soon. So I reckoned that all things considered it'd be smart to get it done now.
In stark contrast with the long Soviet lines for an appointment this spring, we have vaccination sites with prior registration and sites that are simply walk-in, and one of those is at our freshly completed district community building, which is right behind our house. So today, after a store run and picking the kid up from kindergarten, I drove an extra minute, stepped into the vaccination room, was all "I should like to be stabbed, plz", they were all "fill in this form and pop a paracetamol if you explode afterwards" and wham, done.
My parents and Fraze got boosted a while back already, since they all became eligible for the first shots sooner, so the whole Christmas thing is probably still reasonably in the cards, but maybe I'm just getting tired of being apprehensive. Bah.
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Post by Carolyn on Dec 22, 2021 17:41:04 GMT -5
New Jersey and New York are nearly exponential case numbers from Omicron. A non-insignificant number of people I know and their families have been hit by Covid (some of whom are fully vaxxed, a few even boosted) and many have canceled Christmas plans. We have more cases now than we ever have in a single day and it's freaking exhausting... And NYC is practically in a state of emergency right now. Things are BAD there. Like, even more of a vertical line of bad than NJ. People are fatigued, people aren't caring anymore, and this is the result. We're going to see Probably over 100,000 people in NJ alone getting hit with Covid before the end of the year... and our state's population is 9million. It's yikes.
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Post by Kat on Dec 23, 2021 7:13:33 GMT -5
Got my Astra Zeneca booster.
Yeowch the side effects started slamming into me in the afternoon. Guess I'll sleep early and call in sick tomorrow.
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Post by Celestial on Dec 23, 2021 7:30:11 GMT -5
Got my Astra Zeneca booster. Yeowch the side effects started slamming into me in the afternoon. Guess I'll sleep early and call in sick tomorrow. Ah, yeah, I got AZ for my regular doses, and the side effects of the first dose were pretty brutal. Fever, aches, getting so cold my lips turned blue...it was rough, but only for about a day. So hopefully yours will also go away soon. <3 Carolyn, if it makes you feel any better at all, the UK has been hit hard by Omicron, and we are still currently in our wave, but it shows early signs of stabilising. It's only been about a week and a half. Right now, our experts are being cautiously optimistic over the data coming out of London (the worst hit region) that shows that hospital admissions are increasing, but not at the rate that cases are. Plus a lot of people who are called as COVID admissions are coming in for something else, just they also happen to have COVID. It also seems to be displacing Delta. This matches the data coming from South Africa too. Should you be cautious? Yes, absolutely. But the situation is not as apocalyptic as it might appear at first glance. Get boosted, look after yourself and your loved ones (physically and mentally), and ride this out. It will get better, and much more quickly than you would expect.
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Post by Carolyn on Jan 3, 2022 8:02:13 GMT -5
Guess who was exposed? Spoiler: It was me. I was exposed.
I took the chance of doing a few night trip with my fellow fully vaxxed and boosted friend who had tested negative 5 days ago. Blah. We did everything that we could and it wasn't enough to avoid an issue. D:
Conclusion: Covid sucks. Time to get tested.
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Post by Ian Wolf-Park on Jan 3, 2022 13:45:08 GMT -5
Great, more restrictions in place, thanks to the latest variant, as we had record setting amount of cases over the past few days that we're at risk of being overwhelmed by it (and this is despite the fact that the majority is double vaccinated). Not a complete lockdown, but it's getting close to one. What a way to start off the new year.
Fortunately for me, I haven't gotten Covid yet, but I'm still going to dread it as I did book my booster, which is not until mid-February at the earliest. It's going to be a long wait, that's for sure.
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Post by Gelquie on Jan 4, 2022 20:53:46 GMT -5
With a new job posting where I have to scout out multiple locations, I'm back to place-searching. As part of my search, I research the area's state and local covid cases and restrictions. I've done this before the last time I had to do a location scout like this, and I still have the data for when I looked up covid data for those areas. And I've noticed... the surge in cases is huge.In just the past few days/weeks, the data (which I've gotten mostly from Google (which sources New York Times) but sometimes I get it from the CDC site), covid cases in the US have risen astronomically. Today there's hit a million cases per day. To which I went "okay, but maybe some states have it better?". So I went and checked each of the states too, focusing on my focus areas, and then checking all of them because in most states, the amount of cases now on a 7-day average has begun to eclipse the case rate of previous waves, and this one looks like it's only just beginning. It's been attributed to omicron due to the sheer transmissibility, though it's early enough that I don't have enough information to determine how much of the cases are omicron. I've heard some preliminary news reports that omicron is milder and is far less likely to infect the lungs due to the different nature of the protein spikes, and instead infects the upper respiratory tract. That leaves a silver lining that if it is omicron, it wouldn't be as bad, and is far likely to result in lung problems. (Though it will still strain the already-strained hospitals just because of the sheer volume of cases.) In fact there's hopes that omicron could just run itself out, because viruses that propagate that quickly tend to die out faster. (I'm personally concerned with mutations from these things. I'll still take the silver lining where it comes.) ( Reuters article on the topic) Of course, this is still early data. It's something, it's just early data. For now, I'm just keeping an eye on it and doing what I can, at least for myself. (Continuing my masking and limiting my store trips, for instance. I got plenty of stuff to do and enjoy at home, and the weather kinda sucks now anyway.) And I'm holding hopes that it stays mild and that it's true that it runs out as fast as it starts, because if that turns out true, it might hold good news for this whole pandemic's arc. I've been debating on getting a booster because I wanted to wait for more scientific data. On the one hand, it almost seemed like a rich-country reactionary thing at first, and that such boosters would come at the expense of lower-income countries who need the vaccines more so as to prevent areas for variants to develop. On the other hand, more data has come since then that there is a decline in efficacy, and that the boost in efficacy may be more important with developing cases. And I figure that if I'm ever around immunocompromised people or if I need to travel, then sure, I'll get it. With this acceleration in cases, I wonder if maybe I should? I definitely don't want to be a spreader, even if I'm asymptomatic, and me getting that would mean potentially one less person straining the health care system, directly or indirectly. Plus, even with a mild case, covid is terrible. x'D Either way, getting one can't really hurt me, at least not beyond the same-day aches. Maybe I just shouldn't overthink it. xD The good news is that these sort of things are pretty widely available. All I need to do is step into a grocery store and go "hey, I want one". So there's definitely not a question of availability here, and as far as I know, there's accessibility accommodations still too. (Meanwhile I continue to strongly side-eye people balking at vaccines or taking any precautions or even just wearing a mask in public places at all. There's lots of vaccine information by this point, or even with just mask-wearing... I've seen people balk at the bare minimum and it just seems so reactionary anymore. I get people are tired, but it's not tired of us, and there are still lots of people paying the price for such impatience; sometimes a dire price. I don't even know what to say about it anymore; I want to help, but I have my own issues and I'm quite frankly at the limits of my patience with these people, so I don't think anything I say would help anyway.) So yeah, just... stuff going on.
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Post by Celestial on Jan 5, 2022 7:45:18 GMT -5
GelquieI have been following the UK data religiously, and COVID data for the rest of the world more generously, so I'm going to try to address some of the things you mentioned in your post. A lot of what I am saying is taken from this Twitter thread written by John Burn-Murdoch of the Financial Times, who has consistently being doing awesome reporting during this pandemic. It's Twitter, so watch for bad stuff, but the thread is good and professional. Caveat, I will be talking about UK stuff, mostly. US also has a big Delta wave, as do other countries, whereas for us, it did not land on a Delta wave (more like a rippling back and forth). Yes, the spike is due to Omicron. The same thing has happened in the UK. Our case rate is insane, and it is happening across all four nations (England, Scotland, Wales, Northern Ireland) at a fairly similar rate despite the fact that some have different levels of restrictions (in Scotland, for example, big gatherings are banned and there is 1 metre social distancing in shops, pubs, restaurants etc. In Wales, nightclubs are shut. In England, things are still open and there's no distancing yet, only mask wearing). This thing is just so hideously infectious. You cannot escape it anywhere. HOWEVER, yes, the thing about it attacking the lungs less than Delta or other variants is true. I have seen that study multiple times, and the hospitalisation rates in the UK and South Africa pan out to say that yes, it is milder. More people are now being admitted to hospital with COVID and not strictly because of COVID (for example, they came in for a broken bone and turned out to be positive on top of that). While the rates of hospitalisation are climbing, they are not matching the rates of hospitalisation in previous waves. ICU numbers are actually coming down. The virus has also shown that it burns itself out very quickly. South Africa's rates are coming down, and London, the first place in the UK to be hit, has also turned a corner by the looks of it. Cases for London and hospitalisations. It's now radiating outwards, but I suspect we will see the same pattern there eventually, and that's when the UK wave will turn too. I do not know when the US rates will head down. However, Omicron is going to replace Delta very quickly. It's already done that in the UK. Omicron burns itself out rapidly. So I think we're in for a very rough ride, and hospitals are going to feel a ton of pressure because of lack of staffing, but the picture will be much better by end of January. One way or another. That said UK also has a massive rate of vaccination and boosters. I am aware the US...is less so. So I wish you all the best of luck there. Regarding boosters, I suggest you go get it. The grocery store or wherever you choose to get it has a stock available anyway. That stock will expire whether you go get it or not. That vaccine is much better off in your arm than anywhere else. You are absolutely correct that boosters are a first world privilege, but not taking them out of that principle is not helping anyone. The vaccine will not get transported to a country that needs it more because someone in a richer country does not want it. That's too much logistics. Plus, for your peace of mind, a booster will definitely help. I know you have a ton of anxiety surrounding COVID, so hopefully any protection that you can get will ease that. Not to mention, yeah, lack of chance of spread. (People who are not taking vaccines or precautions suck though, and I strongly suggest not wasting your energy on them. There is nothing, I repeat, NOTHING you can do that will change their mind. Your strength is better used elsewhere.)
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Post by Carolyn on Jan 5, 2022 7:50:05 GMT -5
Good news: I'm negative. Edit: Bad news: my friend, who I was with in a hotel.... is positive. Dang it. Looks like I'm going to need another swab test. I unfortunately don't have time to write any sort of significant reply because of work, but I will say this: I've been reading the work of an epidemiologist who I very much respect and this is her take on some Covid-related good news. Good news that we all really, really need right now. yourlocalepidemiologist.substack.com/p/there-is-good-news?justPublished=trueI'll try to pop on later to comment more.
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