I've Reached the Age of WTF (Covid Etiquette)

[Joe Guy]

As I began to wander aimlessly through my local Safeway a couple hours ago, inside the entry door was a disheveled looking guy who looked like he is in his 30s, wearing a mask - on his chin.

I headed for the bakery area and witnessed two children - about 5 and 7 - wearing very loose-fitting masks - handling several bags of bread. taking some of them off the shelf and moving them around to different places very quickly while they jumped up and down and laughed. I guess their mother was the lady nearby who didn't seem to know or care what her children were doing. She looked like a zombie pushing a shopping cart and talking on its phone. I started to head toward the bread handling kids, with the meanest look I could come up with a KN-95 masking covering most of my face. I grunted and the older of the two possible illegal aliens grabbed his sister protectively and walked her away from the mean guy glaring at them. It made me think he's a cool older brother who watches out for his sister because his mother isn't interested very much in having disciplined children. I held my breath and walked away from the scene.

I decided to head over to the produce section (where I'm sure everyone glovelessly picks through the green beans like Sue U does) and while passing the pharmacy section I noticed a man/customer, who looked like he was in his late 20s, standing at the counter. He was sufficiently masked but I held my breath as I walked by, which is a habit I've picked up whenever I'm within 6 feet of others. The guy was wearing pajama bottoms and a T-shirt. I'd be embarrassed to wear what he was wearing even if I was alone at home so I assumed he was either a practicing crackhead, or thought he looked cool and wanted to impress the ladies.

When I reached the produce section there were two more children that I would guess to be between the ages of 8 and 10. They were picking up clear plastic packaged nuts, trailer mix, etc. and moving them around to other shelves while telling each things like, "Hey look! This one has chocolate candy in it." I figured they were orphans because they didn't appear to be under the supervision of one or more adults. (there were no adults in sight)

I carefully picked a couple of vegetables and walked away toward the self-checkout stand. After paying, I walked out the front door and Mr disheveled guy, the same dummy who was in the store when I arrived, asked me if I had any money. If his mask hadn't been hanging from his chin and because of his ugly face, I ignored him. He didn't seem to care much because he was too busy begging from other people who were arriving and others that were exiting. Besides, he is probably employed by Facebook and just wants to make some extra cash.

It seems like a lot of people around here are, more than ever before, attempting to be as un-Covid conscious as possible. Either that or I'm only coincidentally seeing stupid people every where I go. And whatever happened to the idea of keeping your kids under control in public - ESPECIALLY DURING A PANDEMIC!

That's why - even though I've had two vaccines and a booster - I expect to become Covid positive this year. I'm going to blame it on extremely bad parenting, Trump idolizers mimicking Donald Trump's apparent lack of concern for Covid, and the fact that most people are stupid. [/rant]

[BoSoxGal]

If you are wearing medical grade KN95 masks properly fitted indoors around other humans, you should be fine.

I never hear any of the public health officials talk much anymore about hand washing or hand sanitizing or washing down groceries. This virus is airborne. Fomites are not a primary mode of transmittal.

There is no cure for bad parenting and no vaccine either. You can’t really blame the children, they are just being children. If anything have sympathy if mother and father aren’t paying attention to them in public spaces imagine the neglect in the home.

[dales]

Time to get out of RWC.

[Long Run]

The Atlantic has a good article on the divide within the vaccinated population:

A virus that seems both pervasive and mild offers an opening to people who are, let’s call them, “vaxxed and done.” The attitude of the VADs is this:

For more than a year, I did everything that public-health authorities told me to do. I wore masks. I canceled vacations. I made sacrifices. I got vaccinated. I got boosted. I’m happy to get boosted again. But this virus doesn’t stop. Year over year, the infections don’t decrease. Instead, virulence for people like me is decreasing, either because the virus is changing, or because of growing population immunity, or both. Americans should stop pointlessly guilting themselves about all these cases. In the past week, daily confirmed COVID cases per capita were higher than the U.S. in Ireland, Greece, Iceland, Denmark, France, the U.K., Spain, Portugal, Italy, Switzerland, and even Australia, one of the most COVID-cautious countries in the world. As the coronavirus continues its unstoppable march toward endemicity, our attitude toward the virus should follow a similar path toward stoicism. COVID is becoming something like the seasonal flu for most people who keep up with their shots, so I’m prepared to treat this like I’ve treated the flu: by basically not worrying about it and living my life normally.

Compared to:

But there is an opposing group. Let’s call them the “vaxxed and cautious.” Here’s my best summary of their perspective:

Why on earth would we suddenly relax measures now, during the largest statistical wave of COVID ever recorded in the U.S.? We shouldn’t treat Omicron like any old seasonal flu, because it’s not like any old seasonal flu. It’s likely deadlier for those without immunity and almost certainly several times more transmissible for everybody else. We have no idea what the effects of Omicron on long COVID will be, but evidence of lingering symptoms should make us wary of just letting tens of millions of people get needlessly infected. Moreover, the health-care system is already worn down and at risk of being overloaded. Record-high caseloads are societally debilitating, creating long chains of infections that are bound to reach some immunocompromised people and the elderly, thus causing needless death. For all these reasons, we should take individual measures to throttle the spread of this virus.
If you feel a bit torn between these ideologies, I understand. I’m a bit torn myself.

[Bicycle Bill]

Who said Shakespeare is irrelevant in these modern times?



-"BB"-

[Scooter]

[Burning Petard]

There are too many people (some, less than a handful, on this board) who cannot process data that is expressed in words of more than one syllable
or sentences contain more than three words.

"Vaccinated and boosted" No person of reasonable public health authority (That excludes Dr. Ben Carson, former Secretry of HUD and probably still a brain surgeon) certainly Dr. Oz, once a noted cardiac and thorax surgeon) has said that the V&B status means you will not get Covid--only that when you get it, it probably will not kill you or put you in the hospital. Several (anecdotal data, not statistically significant) of my friends and acquaintances have come down with all the symptoms and say they have never felt so rotten in their life, but only far a few days and then they got over it. They were V&B.

No virus is gonna last very long if it always kills its host.

A local restaurant I frequent has a sign informing customers that 'masks are optional, both for customers and staff. Please exercise restraint and do not comment to those whose choice is different than you own.'

I hope they took the sign down because this morning a Delaware state rule went into effect that every body must wear a mask unless they are outside in the open or in their own home.

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

Unfortunately, there has been a lot of public health messaging that the vaccines would ‘stop the spread’ because they would prevent infection.

And the vaccines DO prevent infection in many people who have a very robust immune response to them. I suspect that given my exposure risks it is very likely I have encountered delta or omicron virus spores in my upper airway and my immune system has SHUT IT DOWN, which is how vaccines prevent infection when they do.

However the range of response to vaccines is broad depending on the overall health of the vaccinated individual and multiple other factors - some research is revealing a genetic component to the body’s response to covid19, as well as (genetic linked) a blood type difference as there appears to be a lower incidence of serious illness in people with type O blood.

In the initial vaccine clinical studies there was a clear reduction in infection and that was the original messaging. Those studies were also done during a time that masking was much more prevalent and real world conditions are different now. So there is widespread infection in the vaccinated and yes they are also able to transmit the virus - thus the vaccines don’t stop the spread. But they reduce the spread and they absolutely reduce the risk of serious illness/hospitalization/death after infection.

The problem is widespread ignorance of basic science concepts + distrust of government agencies including public health agencies + politicization/disinformation. Far too many people cannot grasp shades of grey and complex answers to questions, which is exactly why we have rising authoritarianism in this country and the widespread inability to understand the way the the covid19 vaccines work and that they are, in fact, a miracle of modern medicine that have saved tens of millions of lives.