I live in rural New England. I’m pretty sure the millennial landlord who lives next door has never worn a mask since the pandemic began. (His parents gave him a house to rent out.) As far as I can tell, no one in that family has gotten sick.
Around town, about four old people have either died or vanished within the last few months, not necessarily because of covid, although it’s definitely a possibility.
Another guy I know who lives a few streets over and who has considered coronavirus an overblown joke since the very beginning now finally has it. I’m pretty sure he’s a “moderate” Mormon. His wife is pretty cool though and has taken the pandemic almost as seriously as me. For awhile she would also complain about him every time we ran into each other. I would say hello and she would respond with something like: “I hate my husband.” That was how she said hello. They have two elementary-aged children.
Another neighbor, a white woman whose husband is a boomer lobsterman who can barely put a sentence together, has been coughing very loudly for weeks, like loudly enough for me to hear it from my house. A month or so ago I ran into her when she was unmasked at the post office along with several other unmasked neighbors.
At yesterday’s trip to the grocery store, a bunch of people were coughing. One white millennial worker was coughing and looked quite sick. None of these people were masked, of course.
One of my friends still has a cough from getting the 'rona around two months ago. I was telling a coworker about it, and he said that the same thing had happened to his girlfriend, but that she still had the cough after six months.
This coworker then said he wasn't going to get the next booster shot because "the last booster shot made [him] feel worse than when [he] actually had COVID".
Gotta love rural New England
I've got four neighbors with massive Trump flags on prominent display, an additional 10 with less prominent Chud shit, and there's at least five houses with 3% or Patriot Front regalia
The absolute best part is that this has been a developing issue, two years ago these folks just had American flags and now they've gone so far out I can't even bring myself to offer the standard "I live here too, so howdy" wave
My only hope is that with them all doing big get-togethers, they're just gonna weaken themselves with repeated COVID infections
Really don't want to think about having to flee my home in the middle of the night against a hail of bullets
Someone who lives the next town over had a yellow snake flag which became an armed forces flag after the presidential election. Now it’s a ukraine flag.
That's my next town over, just festooned with Ukrainian flags back when this shit first popped off
They've been coming down lately, replaced with U.S. flags, but there's still a few holdouts
AFAIK all the ukraine flags are still up where I live. It’s super super lib here.
The only person that I personally know that has died from Covid was a racist, anti vaxx, small business owner who paid late, under the table, and a dollar fifty below the federal minimum wage. He was a gay cowboy who was a walking example of how being part of a marginalized group does not exempt from harboring extremely reactionary beliefs. Shit, it almost seemed as though he leaned into the overly masculine more-conservative-than-thou shtick as a counterweight to any perceived lack of reactionary bona fides because of his homosexuality. Who knows. His family tried to downplay the Covid part of his death by stating that he had been in bad health from an electrocution he suffered several months prior. Whatever the case, he went out for Halloween without a mask and was dead before December. I can still hear him saying his oft-repeated catch phrase of sorts: "It is what it is".
i had the realization this weekend that in my lib ass city, there are tons and tons of people who are walking around in crowded public spaces with no masks. you know covid is still around, you know masks help prevent the spread. all you have to do is put the paper and string on your face while you're grocery shopping. you could be SAVING LIVES by doing so. my asthmatic mother may never fully recover after her recent battle with covid and these people are out there flaunting their indifference to our lives. not wearing a mask is physical assault and makes me want to do some self defense.
The only time I’m around anti-maskers is inside grocery stores and if I do anything to them there I won’t be able to eat anymore. Big sad.
ive taken the pandemic pretty seriously and been relatively cautious...but i have done a bunch of social shit too with and without a mask and I have yet to contract covid. Honestly no idea how that's happened other than I suppose the vaccines are doing their job for me. i also take the bus everywhere which idk i'd guess that if i'd get covid anywhere it's the bus cause the highschool kids dont put their masks on right.
Yeah it's gone through my workplace several times and I've had people I live with get it, I've been in and out of hospitals (visiting). By all accounts I should have gotten it by now but I've got nothing.
that is weird..normally the french don't congregate in herds. I assume this has something to do with climate change.
Just getting over my third time having it, seems like half of everyone I know locally has had it in the past month or so. My friend who has had it this past week needed a doctor's note to go back to work after day 5, went to two clinics to get it, still apparantly pretty sick, and finally got the note without doing a test. Seemed a bit weird
I was a bit shocked thinking even a doctor would go with the 'better not to know' strategy, but then I realised its probably just because they are rationing tests lol
last week, I skipped a meeting of supposed VIPs, some internationally traveling, because I was recovering from my first bout of COVID, and because I didn't want to go since it was bullshit and 90% of the attendees are lame.
anyway, a comrade went and informed me the room was tiny, he was the only one in a mask (which invited dirty looks from the "return to normal"-ers. comrade sat well away from everyone and stayed masked. and it turns out one of the local clowns popped positive for COVID, though the adults in the room have chosen to withhold that info from the workers, including people that attended. my friend only found out because his boss isn't a psychopath.
just when I think my respect for our institutions couldn't get any lower, one of our leaders steps in to reveal an express elevator that only goes down.
I don't want to freak you guys out but
https://imgur.com/a/le1gWWc
What does this tell me exactly? I can't really read the graph beyond seeing that more infections is worse.
Each reinfection increases the likelihood of the stuff listed on the chart
Chart on left. Hazard ratio. 3 would be 3 times more likely compared to baseline. Mean age is 60 here. American males. Study here https://www.researchsquare.com/article/rs-1749502/v1
"Here we use the national health care databases of the US Department of Veterans Affairs to build a cohort of people with first infection (n = 257,427), reinfection (2 or more infections, n = 38,926), and a non-infected control group (n = 5,396,855) to estimate risks and 6-month burdens of all-cause mortality, hospitalization, and a set of pre-specified incident outcomes."
the sample size is quite large. Info about the demographics is available in supplementary table 1
:jesus-christ:
So basically over the next 10 to 15 years or so there's gonna be a massive wave of heart attacks and strokes in otherwise-healthy people.
(long story) A few days ago during a trip to the beach my kids and I randomly ran into a birthday party held by one of the neighborhood kids. We had not been invited, why I don’t know. We ran into a kid there we haven’t seen in years. His parents were anti-vaxxers before the pandemic even began. They pulled this kid out of school because our state made vaccination a requirement for attending public school (again, before the pandemic, and pretty sure this law doesn’t apply to coronavirus vaccines now). His dad honestly is not a bad guy (I know, I know), I just think he’s been driven insane by his wife, who is a Gen X blue-haired Californian white woman with like an alternative “medicine” business, basically a walking cliche. I checked out her website once—among other things, she sells water that’s been left in like the sun-shadows of rock crystals for a few hours. The dad also has who knows how many kids from several different ex-wives. His kids though are wonderful and it sucks that they’re stuck with such shitty parents.
We were happy to see this kid, but he wanted to high-five my kids, and my kids immediately hesitated to return his high-five (I’ve brainwashed them into little commies). I said we couldn’t do that because we’d get killed. (We were the only ones masked at the beach—I know this might seem extreme to lib hexbears but plenty of countries (like Cuba) have outdoor mask mandates and for good reason.) My spouse is also a nurse and none of us are happy about these fucking pieces of shit prolonging the pandemic for everyone. All of us have gotten covid at least once because nurses were having meals together indoors unmasked and also going to social gatherings unmasked. This is also because the government and the media decided last summer that covid was over.
Anyway, after the high-five incident my kids played with this kid (as well as a bunch of hogs’ kids) at the beach without incident. The hogs, by the way, were sitting under a small tent in very close proximity and none of them were masked. I kept pretty far away because I just can’t get into covid arguments with these nuts while my kids are around.
The next day I checked FB messenger and I saw that the anti-vaxx dad had messaged me, saying something like “how dare you talk to my kid like this, we’re going to have a talk the next time we run into each other.” This guy has gotten in trouble for threatening violence or being violent with people before so I chose to just ignore him. I actually left FB months ago but messenger still works for some reason.
Before the pandemic began this guy and I used to argue so much about vaccines—I actually managed to get through to him once when I asked if the Cuban government was also in on the big pharma conspiracy. Ideologically I have no idea where he’s at right now. AFAIK he is not into QAnon, although he’s mentioned the Rothschilds (to me, a Jew), has called people who get vaccinated sheep, also thinks that criticizing Israel is anti-semitic, etc., etc., just a mental grab-bag of horse shit. He used to live nearby but a few months ago they moved out. I thought they were headed to some kind of anti-vaxx colony in Mexico or something but my kids learned from the high-five kid at the beach that they had just moved to a different town elsewhere in the state. I’m pretty sure the dad’s family owns the house they used to live in nearby. His family tends to be a bit more chill than he is, so they may have actually thrown him out because he was arguing with them too much about vaccines. I really wouldn’t be surprised.
I lived in Asia for awhile, pre-pandemic it was normal to wear a medical mask if you got sick.
Oh, hey, I watched that recently, too. Did you read about the life story of the female lead? Wild stuff. She was born in Manchuria to Japanese parents and starred in propaganda films during the war. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_Yamaguchi
At the end of World War II, Li was arrested in Shanghai by the Kuomintang and sentenced to death by firing squad for treason and collaboration with the Japanese. As tensions subsequently arose between the Kuomintang and the Communists, she was scheduled to be executed at a Shanghai horse track on December 8, 1945. However, before she could be executed, her parents (at the time both under arrest in Beijing) managed to produce a copy of her birth certificate that proved she was not a Chinese national after all, and have her childhood Russian friend Lyuba Monosova Gurinets smuggle it into Shanghai inside the head of a geisha doll, and Li was cleared of all charges (and possibly from the death penalty).
Edited to add ( from the NYT obit ):
Ms. Yamaguchi, who settled in Japan in 1946, openly apologized for what she said had been her unwitting role as a propaganda tool during the war. And she was one of the first prominent Japanese citizens to acknowledge the history of Japanese brutality during the occupation, an episode for which many Japanese nationalists still refuse to apologize.
I mostly know him from Airplane!. Hard to take anyone seriously after that. His debut film (I think?), though, is an all-time great - Lubitsch's To Be or Not to Be. He plays a 19-year-old airman in love with Carole Lombard.
Which widescreen shots especially impressed you? My favorite shot in House of Bamboo was probably Robert Ryan's entrance. Or rather Robert Stack falling into Robert Ryan's room after he's been knocked out, and Ryan calmly surveying the situation. If you watched this on the Criterion Channel, they have another feature with Robert Ryan as a villain, also in a film that makes a stance against anti-Asian racism, Bad Day at Black Rock. Fuller's a more interesting filmmaker but Bad Day is a better film, I'd say.
You seen any other Fuller films? Definitely check out Shock Corridor if you haven't.
Oh yeah, Pickup on South Street is great. Widmark's sneer of "Are you wavin' the flag at me?" Love him as an antihero. I haven't seen Act of Violence; will put it on my list.
“how dare you talk to my kid like this, we’re going to have a talk the next time we run into each other.” This guy has gotten in trouble for threatening violence or being violent with people before so I chose to just ignore him.
what an absolute freakshow! i think you did the right/wise/correct thing ignoring him.
i hate people like this. too bad magic light rock water doesn't cure being aggressive and stupid.
So far, I have had interactions with two sets of people who have had COVID twice. All of the people are vaccine hesitant but one got the shots due to a requirement for working in the medical field (but got sick anyways). Two of the people seemed to have had milder cases. One of them still has breathing issues and she's been over her last bout of COVID for about a year now.
For awhile she would also complain about him every time we ran into each other. I would say hello and she would respond with something like: “I hate my husband.” That was how she said hello.
Lol
They have two elementary-aged children.
:sadness: Pretty sure my parents wanted to get divorced in elementary school and that was one of the things that fucked me up.
My covid anecdote is I have not gotten it to my knowledge. Last year I got very sick for half of the year but I had none of the usual covid symptoms, it was also a worse version of something I've dealt with since 2017. I don't know anyone who has gotten it recently unless they are not displaying symptoms. Most people don't wear masks anymore, only a few old people and nurses.
Last year I got very sick for half of the year but I had none of the usual covid symptoms, it was also a worse version of something I’ve dealt with since 2017
what were the symptoms?
none of my friends and none of my family have gotten it. Kinda wild. We work retail jobs, go to school, etc. Just good about masking, avoiding crowds, and a whole bunch of luck i guess.
Though a family member's partner had it and even though they share a bachelors apt, she never (knowingly) got it which seems beyond luck.
The amount of people on the street hacking up a lung in July during a heatwave does not bode well for the fall
anecdote: i had COVID two weeks ago; fever, smell alteration, etc. Symptoms have subsided and I'm rapid testing negative again, but I've had a smidge of sore throat when waking up and extra phlegm that comes up with a cough throughout the day.
Personally me and my family got off easy.
I got it after 3 vaccines and I got very very mild symptoms with no long term symptoms. Also my mother contracted with fairly mild symptoms but somehow managed to keep it away from my grandparents. We're all fully vaxxed.
I have one acquaintance that got some form of long covid, she can't really taste things the way she used to. She got used to it, it's not one of the extreme cases, but it seems like it's something that changed for life.
I've also heard about people as young as 40 dying from it.
Overall the experiences are all over the place.
Nobody except the very elderly (and even only some of them) wears a mask. I've had covid twice. First time was definitely a "I could actually die" moment. The second time it was like a cold, but I had just gotten boosted before the second time. The first time had been months since I had a shot.
I'm shocked I haven't gotten it again. I'm going to get boosted again in September to get me through the holidays.
First time was definitely a “I could actually die” moment. The second time it was like a cold
what happened the first time? and when was it
It was in Feb of this year and I had harsh symptoms. I didn't have to go to the hospital but it was the sickest I've been possibly ever. I had comorbities (I got rid of a couple since then) and had been vaping daily for years. I quit smoking/vaping all together after I got better. Started exercising more, eating better. I was worried I was going to be dying in a hospital next to a anti-vaxx chud. It had also been almost a year since I got vaxxed, so I don't think I had much protection.
The second time I got boosted because anti-mask people at work traveled. I knew they would bring it back. They did while claiming to test negative (home tests). I inevitably got it again. But it was so much milder. It was just like a harsh cold.
I figure I got about 3-4 months of protection from the first infection. Then I should get another 3-4 from the booster. So in Sept I'll go again.
