Coronavirus General Discussion

[I Shrugged]

Apparently the lockdowns caused an increase in hepatitis in kids.

[vnatale]

Weekend before last I started my Saturday by doing recycling. No one wearing a mask there.

Went to see some girls softball tournament games. Plenty of players and fans at the four fields. No masks.

Then left that to hear live music. No masks among the many people there.

Therefore I was shocked when I went to Stop & Shop and there were at least 60% of the people wearing masks.

However, when I went to Stop & Shop last night ... saw no one wearing a mask.

[dualstow]

Maybe it was a costume party.

[vnatale]

MEDICAL EXAMINER
The CDC’s Confusing New Guidance for the COVID-Positive Is Actually Kind of a Relief
BY SHANNON PALUS
AUG 11, 20227:32 PM

https://slate.com/technology/2022/08/ne ... ow_twitter

[boglerdude]

Locking people in Ikea in Shanghai because covid

https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout ... _shanghai/

Redditors: "Seee MAGAtards, this is real tyranny and the US could never come close, because our (Dem) politicians are not power hungry.

...ps turn in your guns"

[dualstow]

Locking people in Ikea in Shanghai because covid

https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout ... _shanghai/
…

Glad I got to visit Shanghai. Looks like I may never make it back.

[dualstow]

Yeah, I’d probably go to Shanghai again before Chicago.

[Mountaineer]

Yeah, I’d probably go to Shanghai again before Chicago.

Or Philadelphia, New York, Los Angeles, Houston, or San Francisco - once relatively pleasant places.

[dualstow]

Yes! I feel like many of those cities are back in the 1970s-80s.

[Smith1776]

Vancouver update:

Nobody even talks about COVID anymore… much less wears a mask.

[barrett]

Locking people in Ikea in Shanghai because covid

https://old.reddit.com/r/PublicFreakout ... _shanghai/
…

Glad I got to visit Shanghai. Looks like I may never make it back.

I was there in 1984 and had a great time. People with ten words of English would try to converse with me. I got a great round of applause in a dumpling shop when I was able to use chopsticks (you are such a clever waiguoren!!) I guess those were just simpler times. Sigh.

My mainland-born wife became a US citizen in 2011 and had to relinquish her Chinese citizenship. At present Americans are just not able to travel to China and we are wondering if she will ever see her family there again.

[dualstow]

^ ^

That’s really sad. My wife still has Chinese citizenship and no plans to return in the near future.
On the surface it’s Covid. Of course, what it’s really about is how they’re using Covid as a pretext to set new draconian records.

[boglerdude]

https://www.ispot.tv/ad/bK17/pfizer-inc-open

How do you download this video? Could someone post the .mp4

[Hal]

Random post from the "Deep South"

https://caldronpool.com/charges-dropped ... book-post/

[I Shrugged]

Random post from the "Deep South"

https://caldronpool.com/charges-dropped ... book-post/

Do you think she'd get many votes if she ran for office?

It amazed me how easily the general public just fell into line. And I don't think that says anything about Australians in particular. I guess it's easy to abuse the general public, if a government is so inclined. And paradoxically, it might be easier to do in a liberal Western democracy, because they have a fair amount of trust in the government.

[Mountaineer]

This is a quite interesting excerpt from a booklet by Sarah Hinlicky Wilson.

... M

I had a great summer! I traveled coast to coast across the U.S. over the course of two months, connected with old and new friends, saw my family fully 3-D, went sightseeing in the South and hiking in the West, preached the same sermon eight times.

Oh yes, and I caught covid.

It was an extra-special covid experience, I must say. I got it at a family reunion. Everybody in one cabin got it; nobody in the other cabin did. By the time the symptoms caught up with me, I was near enough to my mom and dad’s house to double-back and hide out there, chauffeured by my as-yet asymptomatic husband Andrew. By then my parents had it, too; husband and brother soon followed suit. Only my son, away at camp, escaped.

Nothing like family togetherness in times of affliction! Misery loves company, and boy, were we miserable.

Then, one day, we weren’t. I stopped aching all over. The fever was gone. I wasn’t too fatigued to go for a walk.

Whew. That’s done with, I thought gratefully.

And then…

I was eating a piece of very nice, very dark chocolate. The kind so rich and bitter it’s slightly more like a vegetable than a dessert.

I tasted the first bite.

I did not taste the second.

Just like that—at the snap of some neurological fingers, in the twinkling of an evil eye—my sense of taste was gone.

Two months later, it’s still not back.

All Smells, Five Tastes, No Flavors

For five days, my sense of smell was also gone. It was worse than the worst congestion. An absolute zero in the schnoz.

I assumed the lost taste was the result of the lost smell, but I didn’t quite experience it like with a cold. I could still taste salt perfectly well. I could tell that something was sweet, but not what kind of sweet—a ripe peach and a chocolate chip cookie were distinguished by texture, but not by flavor. Steak was unctuous in the mouth, yet I savored not one whit of beefiness. Sour was obviously acidic but not obviously lemon or lime or vinegar. Coffee tasted like bile, or battery acid. Communion wafers tasted exactly the same.

I glumly cancelled plans for exploring southern BBQ and ate instead a steady diet of scrambled eggs and corn tortillas. In case you’re wondering, without their flavor corn tortillas are basically soggy cardboard.

Then one day, strolling the streets of Savannah and wondering why I had not yet encountered any wealthy eccentrics as per Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil, I stopped dead in the sidewalk. I clutched Andrew’s arm. “I smell something!” I hissed frantically.

I turned and beheld a candle shop, the kind that is normally so odiferous, you get a headache after just a minute inside. I ran through the store snorting deeply of each and every candle.

It was exhilarating.

Later in the day I smelled horse manure! Hurray!

And cigarette smoke! Oh joy!

My taste, I figured, would race along in smell’s wake.

Alas, how wrong I was. Taste has, at best, poked along in smell’s wake. Now and then I pop my ears, wiggle my sinuses, or clear my throat, and for a brief shining second I’ll get a little flare-up of sunflower seed or bacon. But then it will be gone again.

These days I’m eating a lot of hot sauce, because at least I suffer the heat. I can detect the menthol of mints but not their minty flavor. Salt is still good. Texture is good. But the complexities and delights of flavor are all but gone. It’s like I’ve kept the five basic tastes but none of the flavors, none of the aromatics. Everything is monotonously, disappointingly bland.

If this isn’t a theodicy crisis for a theologian-cook, I don’t know what is.

[dualstow]

I missed the first line and I was thinking, oh no, M had covid! M’s parents are still alive? he has a husband??

[Mountaineer]

I missed the first line and I was thinking, oh no, M had covid! M’s parents are still alive? he has a husband??

[Kbg]

No surprise I think...covid vax latest recommendation is to get an annual shot.

Old flu, new flu. Wonder if they can be mixed so you only get one jab?

[joypog]

I missed the first line and I was thinking, oh no, M had covid! M’s parents are still alive? he has a husband??

Who would’ve guessed mountaineer was our own Andrew Sullivan, Lutheran version!

[dualstow]

Wow, this has been a very long con

[I Shrugged]

I have the feeling that they are rushing this vax update through the process, again. I don't care what anyone says, the first vax was a fail. It underperformed bigly, and there have been more side effects than everyone hoped. Rushing this update is not giving me confidence.

[I Shrugged]

We live in a 55+ community. Most are 70+, haha. Quite a few people have gotten it this summer, mostly from traveling. The acute symptoms were not bad. Some of them have had lingering issues with fatigue. Most, if not virtually all, of these people are vaxxed.

[vnatale]

We live in a 55+ community. Most are 70+, haha. Quite a few people have gotten it this summer, mostly from traveling. The acute symptoms were not bad. Some of them have had lingering issues with fatigue. Most, if not virtually all, of these people are vaxxed.

I'm 71. Had never had a flu shot until last year. Have had four covid shots. ZERO reactions to any of the five shots.

A friend believes that both of us may have had covid without knowing it. I don't know if I believe that.

I only wear a mask when required to do so and with all the music events and sports events I'm at I am near a lot of people albeit with most of those events being outdoors.

But I also have spent many hours in a day in close proximity with totally unvaccinated people.

Either I have had it and been totally asymptomatic or the right conditions have not yet presented themselves for me to get it or maybe the vaccines have worked in some way.

I'm all set to get the new vaccine plus trying to squeeze in two Shingles shots this year.

[Kbg]

I have the feeling that they are rushing this vax update through the process, again. I don't care what anyone says, the first vax was a fail. It underperformed bigly, and there have been more side effects than everyone hoped. Rushing this update is not giving me confidence.

I wish I could remember where I read this but it was a good read.

The effectivity of the initial vaxes do wear off quite quickly. The best "vax" for longevity is having had Covid. They all "worked" which for vaxes includes prevention and mitigation of symptoms. I had both the initial and booster and got way sick but not dangerously sick. At least personally I wonder what might of happened if I didn't have a little of that mitigation stuff going for me.

In any event, I think we are both endemic and this thing really is now like any version of the flu. You can opt to get your annual flu shot or not. If you are young and healthy most likely not a big deal. If you are older and/or have other health issues, it's probably wise to get both shots.