Gary's still a little hesitant for me to leave the house. I'm not going out into mosh pits, but he still needs to adjust.
For example, I went to the Bread Company last weekend and picked up an order INSIDE. I wore a mask, of course. Open door, walk ten steps, pick up bag. (Show absolutely no identification, which surprised me.) Walk back out. Gary was fine with it. I was fine with it.
But then a few days later I discovered Amazon has this new return policy where you walk in to a Kohls or a UPS store and just hand them the torn open plastic bag with the ill-fitting item wadded up inside and there, show an email, return done, later, bye. I told Gary is was heading to Kohls to try it and he said, quote, WHOA LETS NOT GO CRAZY HERE YOU WALKED IN TO A BREAD COMPANY THAT'S ONE THING BUT A DEPARTMENT STORE?
We compromised and I went to the UPS store, because he was fine with that.
Why? I think he's just being classist. On the scale of things here in St. Louis, the hierarchy of class has the opera at the top, then the Bread Company in the middle with its whole grains. As for the other two, I didn't get the distinction that ranked the UPS a notch above the department store. But now that I think about it, the UPS store is semi-attached to the second most pricey grocery, Dierbergs. Classy by proximity.
So I guess no visits to sports bars in my future, but I can handle that.
I could get "no department stores during or after busy hours" but honestly, department store on a Wednesday morning? Not a ton of people.
You're not going to accidentally get sucked into browsing for an hour at the UPS store, either.
(please tell me you're wearing a snug-fitting no-gappy n95 even though they're ugly?)
I would be Just Fine with no sports bars in my future, personally, but that is because they are loud and have screens all over them and neither of these things is my jam (... and sports: not my jam, either; and mostly men reverting to cave man ogle-and-grunt-and-drop-garbage-on-the-floor, not my thing, either).
Posted by: KC | May 03, 2023 at 10:33 AM
KC - the department store is not fancy, and I think he fears the ultra-right who might shop there. I wouldn't browse. I have shopped there before and nothing suits me at all. And of course I wear my tailored N95 that hides my chins. I would not leave without it.
Posted by: theQueen | May 03, 2023 at 12:18 PM
Oh, that's right, because not all population density equals germ density, at least as strongly suggested by the studies on R vs. D covid deaths. (although at this point, with the bulk of more left-wards people also having quit on social distancing and mask wearing, there is probably less of a difference in airborne germs per capita than there was while there was more of a strong difference in population activities and behaviors)
Posted by: KC | May 03, 2023 at 10:15 PM
KC - Did you hear the WHO says there isn’t a global crisis anymore? https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/05/health/who-ends-covid-health-emergency/index.html
Posted by: TheQueen | May 06, 2023 at 08:27 PM
The character of an "emergency" is more substantial than a "significant threat" so that sort of makes sense. But also: we're still at over 1000 covid deaths per week in the US: maybe not emergency-grade any more, but still something we should keep trying to reduce...
Posted by: KC | May 07, 2023 at 01:44 PM
KC - I wonder how it compares to the flu.Or if anyone thinks we have herd immunity. Those were the things I was waiting for.
Posted by: TheQueen | May 08, 2023 at 08:35 PM
Herd immunity doesn't work well with this because you can catch covid repeatedly, although once you have antibodies, then your next case is likely to be less severe, as long as your previous case of covid didn't do much damage to your systems (some people's second case is way worse than their first, though).
I think we may be below 2x the normal flu deaths if amortized over a full year, though, which... still isn't great. (so, if you take total number of flu deaths in an average year, divide it by 52, we're now fewer covid deaths per year than 2x that number)
There's also the question of long covid, which we're just sort of ignoring the individual and societal repercussions of, because if 10% of the workforce is, with long covid, 50% as productive as before they got ill (or less) then that's going to add up in terms of how many people it takes to cover a certain amount of work, etc. But it's a lot harder to count and quantify "mildly to severely disabled" in general, esp. during a period of time when a lot of people *also* have burnout and higher stress and cognitive challenges related to a wide variety of current factors.
I was kind of hoping that proactive community-protective masking during flu season or while one is mildly ill would Become A Thing in the US, but apparently not. Sigh.
Posted by: KC | May 09, 2023 at 12:32 PM
KC - I am terrified that long covid will be like post-polio syndrome, which took out my Mom. Gary thinks he's 80% recovered from his long covid.
Posted by: theQueen | May 09, 2023 at 06:17 PM
It will probably be different? Different-good or different-bad, we do not know yet, but at least a bunch of the mechanisms are different?
Posted by: KC | May 10, 2023 at 10:44 AM
KC - well, Dr Gupta at CNN said today covid is endemic and we just need to have a plan for when we get sick, and that it's like the flu. And the vaccination rates for the flu are way less than covid. So, have heart, I guess.
Posted by: theQueen | May 10, 2023 at 10:09 PM
... yeah, it is not quite like the flu, due to the whole long-covid thing not being parallel to the flu.
But yeah, the public messaging is that it will Just Happen and We're Stuck With It as opposed to Wearing Masks Can Actually Prevent This, Y'all.
True that vaccine uptake was greater than is normal for an average flu year, though!
Posted by: KC | May 11, 2023 at 03:33 PM
KC - still, surprising that flu vaccination is lower than I thought in a regular year.
Posted by: theQueen | May 12, 2023 at 07:14 AM
Yeah, flu vaccination uptake is honestly pretty low, *but* it is generally greater for 1. the people at highest risk and 2. nurses and teachers, who are high-risk-of-handing-it-on groups vs. the regular population. So. A low number, but at least that low number is spread "well" in some ways?
Posted by: KC | May 12, 2023 at 11:44 AM
KC - When I get worried about Covid I remember that the seasonal flu that doesn't scare me is related to the !918 flu.
Posted by: theQueen | May 15, 2023 at 08:31 PM
Yeah. We knew someone who died in the most recent "bad" flu year, so I'm somewhat less reassured than I would have been if I hadn't known anyone to die of the flu, but yes!
(also long covid is distinctly worrying. The common cold does not haul significant long-term health effects with it, generally. Some number of POTS cases annually are postviral from some virus or other, but it has spiked beyond belief with covid, and that's just post-covid POTS, not the stroke risk increase and the funky lung stuff and the funky neurological stuff.)(and the idea of an additional maybe-5% of any given country's workforce being partly disabled is a bit daunting from an economic/strategic/adequate-elder-and-child-care standpoint)
But also, as long as one is continuing to make vigorous plans to Not Catch The Thing (rather than stopping precautions), worrying over it doesn't do much good. So there is that.
Posted by: KC | May 16, 2023 at 11:55 AM
KC - I'm still wearing masks and washing hands - I need to be careful to return to not touching my face, though.
Posted by: theQueen | May 17, 2023 at 06:23 AM