The upside to coronovirus!

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The last few years I've frequently found myself commenting that I don't envy fiction authors. Trying to come up with interesting, crazy, mind boggling or dystopian story lines has gotten really fucking hard when reality has turned to fiction and basically said, "hold my beer". Reality has taken it to eleven.

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I'm back to work, because obviously we don't need distance work any more:shade:!

(We've got 2806 new cases - 86.49% unvaccinated - and 178 deaths/96,07% unvaccinated, only in the last 24 hours... boosted by a number of antivaxxers. I'm looking forward to getting my booster dose ASAP, because fuck it, the stupid outnumber us:devil:!)
 
One unexpected effect of the COVID crisis seems to have been more research and writing about the Black Death and plague epidemics in general. There's been a good deal of this in the last 20 years or so anyway, but it seems to me there's been something of an uptick in the last 18 months. Since I'm interested in plague, personally and professionally, I guess this constitutes a 'silver lining.'
 
...unexpected:shock:?
Well, yeah, to me anyway. Plague is about as different a disease from COVID as you might look to find: it is bacterial rather than viral, is largely zoonotic with human infections as byproducts of epizootics in various rodents, can be treated by antibiotics, and if not so treated has a very high fatality rate (40-70% in the bubonic form of plague infection and much higher fatality for pneumonic and septicemic forms).

I wouldn't have been surprised if the COVID pandemic had led to an upswing in research and writing about diseases more similar to it: influenza, SARS, etc. But plague is a strange comparison. It is true that most public health responses to COVID can trace their roots to steps taken to deal with plague epidemics.
 
Well, yeah, to me anyway. Plague is about as different a disease from COVID as you might look to find: it is bacterial rather than viral, is largely zoonotic with human infections as byproducts of epizootics in various rodents, can be treated by antibiotics, and if not so treated has a very high fatality rate (40-70% in the bubonic form of plague infection and much higher fatality for pneumonic and septicemic forms).

I wouldn't have been surprised if the COVID pandemic had led to an upswing in research and writing about diseases more similar to it: influenza, SARS, etc. But plague is a strange comparison. It is true that most public health responses to COVID can trace their roots to steps taken to deal with plague epidemics.
You're clearly a specialist in the medical or a related field.
Which also means, with all due respect, that you're missing the way most people see it...luckily, that's my specialty:grin:!

Riddle me this: what was the last sickness before COVID that affected life in the whole of Europe and beyond, caused the death of many, many people and caused people to keep a distance?
Since there are more than one, which even I'm aware of, which one of those is the best-known...maybe even something people have heard being mentioned in school, but most of them didn't pay attention:devil:?

There, now you know now why people suddenly showed an interest in the Black Plague:shade:!
 
I was at my brother's wedding down in England at the weekend, with my daughter, and let's just say that mask guidelines there are much looser than they are in Scotland. And hey, guess what, turns out I and my parents got infected, probably at the wedding (I'd done a lateral flow test before flying).

My daughter's okay, tested negative. My ex has been around both of us, but hopefully her PCR test will come back negative too (Edit : It was negative).

Currently I feel like I've got a bloody awful cold, so manageable, just shit. And I'm double-vaxxed, so that should head off the worst effects. But I have to isolate until next week, obvs.
 
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Currently I feel like I've got a bloody awful cold, so manageable, just shit. And I'm double-vaxxed, so that should head off the worst effects. But I have to isolate until next week, obvs.
Get well soon!

My children have a lot of birthday parties to attend. I don't know where people get these ideas, it's like ventilator manufacturers hand out catalogues for the venues.

Mummy: Now, little Johnny, where would you like to go with your friends?
Little Johnny: Oh… I don't know… how about the park?
Mummy: Oh no, that's so… like a desert,… large and empy, maybe you'll see a mirage of another person on the horizon somewhere. Remember, your therapist told you to be more gregarious because of all those quarantines and lockdowns.
Little Johnny: What about the zoo, then?
Mummy: That's better, but still, it's outside, and think of all that fresh air! You might catch a cold!
Little Johnny: I want to go to a museum.
Mummy: Oh, but that's so dreadfully stuffy, felt slippers and no touching. And they even might make you wear a mask, dear!
Little Johnny: Laser tag?
Mummy: Great idea, tiny rooms, no circulation at all, any many, many fun persons around trying to infect you. I mean shoot you.
Little Johnny: Indoor sports park? Like what Lizzie and Bobby did last week and the week before?
Mummy: Got it! Lots of children coughing their lungs out from the exertion. And expensive, too! I'll ring them up this minute!
Little Johnny: Then we'll have to get tested.
Mummy: Oh, don't worry, the last two places we went to didn't check our certificates, either.
 
Bah... Last month I went to a 5-day festival. Nobody got in without a proof of vaccination. And! It! Was! FUN!
OMD, ELO, The Jacksons, Starship, Human League, Nena... and many other 80's bands. And a new-wave moshpit for between the acts.

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Since last weekend we can also go back shopping or to a restaurant or cinema without mask. :grin:

It's just on the train and in the office where it's still mandatory, to protect the anti-vaxers. :fu:
 
Get well soon!

My children have a lot of birthday parties to attend. I don't know where people get these ideas, it's like ventilator manufacturers hand out catalogues for the venues.

Mummy: Now, little Johnny, where would you like to go with your friends?
Little Johnny: Oh… I don't know… how about the park?
Mummy: Oh no, that's so… like a desert,… large and empy, maybe you'll see a mirage of another person on the horizon somewhere. Remember, your therapist told you to be more gregarious because of all those quarantines and lockdowns.
Little Johnny: What about the zoo, then?
Mummy: That's better, but still, it's outside, and think of all that fresh air! You might catch a cold!
Little Johnny: I want to go to a museum.
Mummy: Oh, but that's so dreadfully stuffy, felt slippers and no touching. And they even might make you wear a mask, dear!
Little Johnny: Laser tag?
Mummy: Great idea, tiny rooms, no circulation at all, any many, many fun persons around trying to infect you. I mean shoot you.
Little Johnny: Indoor sports park? Like what Lizzie and Bobby did last week and the week before?
Mummy: Got it! Lots of children coughing their lungs out from the exertion. And expensive, too! I'll ring them up this minute!
Little Johnny: Then we'll have to get tested.
Mummy: Oh, don't worry, the last two places we went to didn't check our certificates, either.
Another benefit is obviously that I've started to respect health inspectors a lot more. Except when they aren't doing their jobs, that is:shade:!
 
Since last weekend we can also go back shopping or to a restaurant or cinema without mask. :grin:

It's just on the train and in the office where it's still mandatory, to protect the anti-vaxers. :fu:
It also protects people who legitimately can't be vaccinated for whatever reasons (For example, if they're pregnant or immunocompromised). And breakthrough infections are still possible.

I don't actually like them, and I don't want to still be wearing a mask, but I'm still in favour of them to protect other people from infections I may have had without knowing. It's a very low level of effort required to do something nice for other people; even without COVID, they help slow the progress of things like cold and flu viruses. I kinda hope they stick around in the west, like they have always done in Asia.
 
It also protects people who legitimately can't be vaccinated for whatever reasons (For example, if they're pregnant or immunocompromised). And breakthrough infections are still possible.
Just as a note, South Korea is recommending vaccination to pregnant women. According to their research, it's not dangerous (at least with some vaccines, I doubt they've researched them all:thumbsup:).

I don't actually like them, and I don't want to still be wearing a mask, but I'm still in favour of them to protect other people from infections I may have had without knowing. It's a very low level of effort required to do something nice for other people; even without COVID, they help slow the progress of things like cold and flu viruses. I kinda hope they stick around in the west, like they have always done in Asia.
I keep wearing a mask because I'm often around kids, and my kids can infect other kids. And they can get sick, as has been shown. Our information site has started publishing ages and medical history of all deceased, without names or locations, and one of the recent cases was a 12-old girl:shade:. Now if there's an innocent victim, that's the one!

If it was just the anti-vaxxers, I'm not sure I'd have bothered to wear mask beyond where it's mandatory...they're free to make choices. Like I did - and unlike most of them, I actually have medical conditions which normally preclude me from getting a vaccine (I travelled in Thailand without the normally mandatory vaccines). I took a risk to get injected with Pfizer, according to my doctor...who actually told me she can't advise me either way.
So I decided that not getting vaccinated could get me killed, and getting vaccinated would be less likely to, but it would also protect other people, so it's a no-brainer. It seems it wasn't a no-brainer for all people, which deeply disappointed me...:shock:

BTW, last day's total was "85 out of 91 dead are unvaccinated"...and I know very well that not all vaccination certificates are genuine - like, I've been told the going rates - so it's more like "at least 85 of the deceased weren't vaccinated".
The virus obviously doesn't care if you have a fake piece of paper:devil:.
 
You're clearly a specialist in the medical or a related field.
Which also means, with all due respect, that you're missing the way most people see it...luckily, that's my specialty:grin:!
Alas, no. I'm not even a medical historian--though I play one on T.V. :smile:
Riddle me this: what was the last sickness before COVID that affected life in the whole of Europe and beyond, caused the death of many, many people and caused people to keep a distance?
Since there are more than one, which even I'm aware of, which one of those is the best-known...maybe even something people have heard being mentioned in school, but most of them didn't pay attention:devil:?

There, now you know now why people suddenly showed an interest in the Black Plague:shade:!

I think you're quite right, when it comes to general interest in the plague; it explains why people who know something about it were suddenly being asked to write op-ed pieces in the New York Times, for instance. I had in mind real research into historical plague outbreaks, though. The scholars doing that were, for the most part, thinking and writing on the subject long before COVID arrived.

Maybe what I'm seeing--or think I'm seeing--in the scholarly literature is purely accidental. It takes a fairly long time to write and publish an article in a historical journal, and even more so a book. So the fact that quite a bit seems to have come out in the last 18 months could be pure coincidence. On the other hand, I wonder if some publishers of books and journals have been 'fast-tracking' plague-related items lately.

There are, of course, some scholarly articles that explicitly make the plague-COVID connection, and hence were not begun before the current pandemic, like this one from 2020.
 
It also protects people who legitimately can't be vaccinated for whatever reasons (For example, if they're pregnant or immunocompromised). And breakthrough infections are still possible.

I don't actually like them, and I don't want to still be wearing a mask, but I'm still in favour of them to protect other people from infections I may have had without knowing. It's a very low level of effort required to do something nice for other people; even without COVID, they help slow the progress of things like cold and flu viruses. I kinda hope they stick around in the west, like they have always done in Asia.
People who are immunocompromised can get the COVID vaccine, fortunately. They’re just not really sure how effective it is on them.
 
Alas, no. I'm not even a medical historian--though I play one on T.V. :smile:


I think you're quite right, when it comes to general interest in the plague; it explains why people who know something about it were suddenly being asked to write op-ed pieces in the New York Times, for instance. I had in mind real research into historical plague outbreaks, though. The scholars doing that were, for the most part, thinking and writing on the subject long before COVID arrived.

Maybe what I'm seeing--or think I'm seeing--in the scholarly literature is purely accidental. It takes a fairly long time to write and publish an article in a historical journal, and even more so a book. So the fact that quite a bit seems to have come out in the last 18 months could be pure coincidence. On the other hand, I wonder if some publishers of books and journals have been 'fast-tracking' plague-related items lately.

There are, of course, some scholarly articles that explicitly make the plague-COVID connection, and hence were not begun before the current pandemic, like this one from 2020.
If profit is a factor timely material will always get a boost through process
 
Just as a note, South Korea is recommending vaccination to pregnant women. According to their research, it's not dangerous (at least with some vaccines, I doubt they've researched them all:thumbsup:).
I don't think that's filtered through to the UK (For example) and our health authorities; but even then, a lot of authorities and people are likely to be extra cautious with pregnant people, for the sake of the child. We'll see how it develops.

People who are immunocompromised can get the COVID vaccine, fortunately. They’re just not really sure how effective it is on them.
Yeah. Part of it comes down to a defense-in-depth strategy as well, and doing as much as you reasonably can in your situation; if you're vaccinated, great. If you're vaxxed and wearing a mask, better. If you're vaxxed and wearing a mask and other people are wearing masks (If they can), that's the best, but even if you can't do that then doing as much as you can is the best thing.
 
Just as a note, South Korea is recommending vaccination to pregnant women. According to their research, it's not dangerous
Same here. Vaccination is adviced for pregnant women since they apparently have a greater chance of serious complications from Covid infections than the average person. In fact, a friend of my wife, for whom it took a lot of effort to get pregnant through IVF, still got the express recommendation from her doctor to get the vaccine. She's doing fine.
 
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By the way, there'll be no more covid measures, guidelines and restrictions at my work starting Monday.
 
Replying here because it seemed more appropriate.
Future Me just wants to be reassuring.

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IT's crazy it really seems to me like we are closeish to a finish line with a vaccine for kids down to 5 looking likely and hopefully early next year one down to 6 months. That should be a source of happiness but everyone I talk to is just soooo burned out. I think now it's the massive labor shortage (here, US) that is just ripping everyone to pieces. My sister is a teacher and hasn't had computers to teach robotics since school started in early Sept. There are no substitutes so no one gets to have planning periods because they all have to fill in for the missing other teachers. The kids are a mess. I can't get much joy out of going to a fast food place and having almost every order screwed up because they're overloaded or randomly they don't have whatever they need. The whole don't go to school if you have even a sniffle and don't come back without a PCR test means I am now intimately familiar with a parking garage in the neighboring city as I wait in line. When I wanted a do over for 2020 I didn't mean a repeat.
 
By the way, there'll be no more covid measures, guidelines and restrictions at my work starting Monday.
I should add that we're still supposed to call in sick with any symptoms and get ourselves tested.
 
Replying here because it seemed more appropriate.

IT's crazy it really seems to me like we are closeish to a finish line with a vaccine for kids down to 5 looking likely and hopefully early next year one down to 6 months. That should be a source of happiness but everyone I talk to is just soooo burned out. I think now it's the massive labor shortage (here, US) that is just ripping everyone to pieces. My sister is a teacher and hasn't had computers to teach robotics since school started in early Sept. There are no substitutes so no one gets to have planning periods because they all have to fill in for the missing other teachers. The kids are a mess. I can't get much joy out of going to a fast food place and having almost every order screwed up because they're overloaded or randomly they don't have whatever they need. The whole don't go to school if you have even a sniffle and don't come back without a PCR test means I am now intimately familiar with a parking garage in the neighboring city as I wait in line. When I wanted a do over for 2020 I didn't mean a repeat.
Overall, things are looking up here as well. There's some concern about clusters of unvaccinated civilians in our Bible Belt so they're doubling down on getting as many people there convinced to take the vaccine as possible. The same goes for neighborhoods with large groups of non-Dutch speakers who have had no access to proper information.
 
almost every order screwed up because they're overloaded or randomly they don't have whatever they need.
The food industry has been hit particularly hard by the employee shortage. Not only are we dealing with having staff shortages, we're also having to deal with our delivery companies dealing with staff shortages. My last job would get linens and food delivered, the food shipments would always have missing items and the poor linen company was so short staffed that their manager literally brought us a batch of mop heads that got missed on the regular order.
This year is almost a total reversal of last year, with last year having everyone out of work, and this year not having enough people in work.
 
The food industry has been hit particularly hard by the employee shortage. Not only are we dealing with having staff shortages, we're also having to deal with our delivery companies dealing with staff shortages. My last job would get linens and food delivered, the food shipments would always have missing items and the poor linen company was so short staffed that their manager literally brought us a batch of mop heads that got missed on the regular order.
This year is almost a total reversal of last year, with last year having everyone out of work, and this year not having enough people in work.
Yeah I'm not mad at the folks working there but it does dampen my desire to go out. I go out to buy food as a break from me cooking all the time for me and the kids. If doing that means I both pay money and then have to cook something because the order is screwed up or they don't have something it's hard for me to justify doing it. I neither get my joy from the food I'd like nor the less work and these days I get to pay extra for it. It just kind of bites because that something I used to really enjoy.
 
Replying here because it seemed more appropriate.

IT's crazy it really seems to me like we are closeish to a finish line with a vaccine for kids down to 5 looking likely and hopefully early next year one down to 6 months.
This is a global issue, it really needs a global response, not the piecemeal nation-by-nation that it's had, including the ongoing politicisation of keeping yourself safe from lethal diseases. I really hope we all do better next time, because we have a lot of lessons to learn. In addition, until vaccines roll out to second / third / fourth-world countries (Where they were tested, but governments don't have the money to buy enough stock of them), it'll leave reservoirs for the virus to continue and mutate. Like, this is not over, we're getting there but it's still a long time away.
That should be a source of happiness but everyone I talk to is just soooo burned out. I think now it's the massive labor shortage (here, US) that is just ripping everyone to pieces. My sister is a teacher and hasn't had computers to teach robotics since school started in early Sept. There are no substitutes so no one gets to have planning periods because they all have to fill in for the missing other teachers. The kids are a mess. I can't get much joy out of going to a fast food place and having almost every order screwed up because they're overloaded or randomly they don't have whatever they need. The whole don't go to school if you have even a sniffle and don't come back without a PCR test means I am now intimately familiar with a parking garage in the neighboring city as I wait in line. When I wanted a do over for 2020 I didn't mean a repeat.
We've spent two years rapidly alternating between "nothing to see here" and "PANIC!!!"; nobody's had any time to stop and rest, process, mourn. It's really no surprise that people are burnt out, and frankly I'm surprised at how well people are coping.
 
The number of positive Covid tests is rising as are the numbers of Covid patients in hospitals and the ICs. Since a large majority of those are unvaccinated people it is possible that new measures being taken will concern primarily the unvaccinated. Let's hope so.
 
From Pluto, man. From Pluto.

Actually, the job market for giant robot heads is quite depressed back home, so I've had to relocate.
Bummer that. No wonder you look so cross. At least with the COVID labour shortage the market for giant robot heads is likely to pick up. Best of luck, bro.
 
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