yoloer420 posted:

Thank gently caress that covid infection provides lasting and effective immunity.

Dreylad posted:

we had to go through the same thing with everyone wanting to see the new baby, but fortunately all the grandparents want to prioritize her safety first.

the provincial government has always just been about 10 steps too slow in reacting to even case count. we hit 5 digit cases before christmas and just cancelled all our plans and had to explain a few times that just because ontario hasn't done poo poo doesn't mean it's safe.

downloading public health on to individuals to make the best decision is a loving disaster lol

Ice Phisherman posted:

I'd hate to point out the obvious, but reinfection is not rare. People are getting reinfected within around six weeks of clearing the last infection when it comes to omicron reinfections as well as omicron variants. I have a friend that despite being careful has caught covid three times now: Covid classic, delta and recently omicron. Not careless. Just unlucky with a girlfriend who had a lovely, high risk job despite masking who brought it home the last time.

I remember reading that one of the Southern states, either Alabama or Mississippi, can't remember exactly, had already lost 1 in 100 people to covid. And that was months ago. Other states like Tennessee, Kentucky and Louisiana aren't far behind them due to just how loving dire their situations are. All of the old Confederacy, really. Some places within the US have already reached a 1% death rate and in a few years will probably reach 2%, though we may not know it when it happens because those deaths are hidden from the public. And your idea of 2% is flawed because it doesn't account for reinfections. Nor does it account for downstream deaths from despair like drug overdose, suicide or excess deaths caused by hospital collapse. And if you factor those in, you'll approach 1% and 2% far more quickly. And in some states we may be approaching that 2% number right now.

And I'm sorry to say that, because it's not comforting. I have no comfort. It's horrifying. But becoming aware of the horror and spreading that knowledge is a good thing if paired with a call to action. Part of the reason why people aren't clamoring for action in regards to mitigating covid is because material reality is being obscured. The longer that the true toll of covid is obscured, the longer it takes for some sort of reaction/backlash to current policies takes and the weaker it will be.

I don't believe that measuring and understanding reality makes me a doomer. It makes me a point from where good information can be spread. On small terms to help those close to me protect themselves. On the larger scale to get those people who I've helped to take the arguments that I've formed and communicate them to others. Because the rhetoric of "trust the science" so they can get back to brunch from the libs and "covid isn't real/is the flu/can be cured with horse dewormer" from the right wingers is vulnerable because it doesn't work. It just gets loving smashed by covid over and over again. And the stranglehold that these two groups have over narrative reality isn't all powerful. Eventually more and more people will be receptive to new narratives.

My own personal narrative is that zero covid is the only rational and sane thing to do. And what's happening to everyone else as we Open Biden across the world is social murder as coined by old Frederich Engels himself. And that social murder is perpetuated not just on a national scale, but internationally. And that covid transcends party politics because most if not all existing political parties across the world don't really have to care about the survival of their citizenry. Because if you look at their actions instead of listening to their rhetoric, you'll find that suddenly those in power have stopped giving a gently caress about you. You might believe this is a recent development. You may never have believed they gave a gently caress. Your mileage may vary. What matters is that you understand that they presently don't give a gently caress about the survival of regular people and that this fact isn't likely to change unless that change is forced upon them. So no matter if you vote D or R, you're still voting for D(elta) or R(oni). And it is very possible that voting will not solve your problems. At least not on a decent timeline. And certainly not with the crop of elites who've decided that mass social murder is acceptable.

It is my belief that political action should take place within what these ghouls worship the most. The economy. And that in order to force them to capitulate, people should strike or walk away from their jobs. The more critical that job is, the better, so long as you do not harm innocent people in the doing. Their purpose is to keep the economy open at all costs. Not just for their own personal profit as well as the profit of capital, but because forcing people to work is how people in power keep ordinary people distracted. Because if they weren't distracted, they would assess their reality, find it repulsive and lash out like in the case of the George Floyd protests which I personally believe sprung from in part from the lockdowns because people were able to pay attention to reality and had the free time and energy to do something about it.

The powers that be do not want anything like that happening ever again, at home or abroad. And so I find it highly doubtful that there will be lockdowns or government checks or rent freezer ever again. Because that runs contrary to labor participation and the control that said participation creates and maintains over the citizenry.

Which is all very complicated. But it can boiled down into a few points:

1. Zero covid is the only rational and sane policy because...
2. If there is no zero covid policy being pursued, then the only other option is widespread social murder. And that there is no third way. The decision is binary. Either one or the other. Zero covid or social murder. Covid is just too virulent to allow for half measures. One does not use a moderate amount of water on a burning building.
3. If your country's elites choose social murder, they want to lie to you and keep you distracted from the fact that they've chosen social murder as their official policy despite what they actually tell you.
4.They lie to you and distract you in order to control you.
5. This is because they fear you.
6. They fear you because mass movements of people seeking change might push them out of power or even hold them accountable for their actions.
7. Reliance on electoralism as the only form of political change is yet another distraction. Elites who've chosen mass social murder are not trustworthy. So voting might be a way to affect change, maybe, but it's slow and unreliable and incredibly corrupt.
8. So the only rational and sane thing to do is to push for other political actions that force a zero covid solution.
9. The safest, most peaceful, most legal, most moral and arguably most effective way to create change is through withholding labor. Not individually, but cooperatively. At choke points within the economy. Points that have become brittle due to those positions being vacated due to covid.
10. So choke those loving points.

Weaponized Autism posted:

never realized a pandemic can be over so fast!

GXL posted:

I said that I'd post a review of my throat microphone and speaker setup once it came in the mail. Here's what I've been using for the last week and change:

Dual Transponder Throat Microphone - 3.5mm (1/8") Connector
VoiceBooster Voice Amplifier 12 watts Black MR1505 by TK Products

and to hold the speaker on my chest

OUFABE Binocular Harness Strap

Getting the mic was kind of a pain because the manufacturer iXradio (who is the only online source for the particular model) is based in Singapore, which meant that it took a little under four weeks (ordered Jan 10, arrived Feb 4) to get from there to here in Los Angeles. The build quality of the mic also isn't great: the wiring is stiff and waxy, the braces holding them to the rear are 3d prints, there are little dots of dried glue and plastic fibers sticking out, and the plastic arms feel thin and hollow, which makes adjusting their length feel like you're on the edge of ripping the entire thing apart. During a period where I thought the Singapore mic was lost in transit, I bought another mic (Assault-MOD Tactical Throat Mic Headset) from Ebay. Having the two in front of me now, the build quality of the Code Red is obviously a step above the iXradio model, which makes sense considering that it's a hair over twice the MSRP (I also can't comment on the quality of their respective audio outputs since getting a 3.5mm cable for the Code Red was roughly the same cost as the entire iXradio unit and I hadn't turned desperate enough at that point to completely write off the Singapore shipment as lost). The iXradio model is functional though, and having the entire unit consist of the transponders and a 3.5mm connector instead of a series of adapters, push-to-talk units, and superfluous earpieces like every other model I found online is a huge advantage in reducing overall bulk. You definitely get what you pay for in most other aspects, however.

The speaker is good. I have less to say about it because I have no other model for comparison. It's loud enough to be inappropriate in an indoor retail setting if you crank it up, and a charge will last for at least a week if you only turn it on for a couple of minutes at a time when you're ready to talk to someone. It does give your voice a kind of "flat" sound like Kylo Ren and is distorted enough that you might have to speak a little slowly so that the beginnings and ends of words are distinct. I've read that people have problems with the plastic strap on the rear snapping off after a lot of use, but mitigating the stress on the case through suspending the entire thing on a series of elastic bands (as the harness does) will hopefully help keep it undamaged over a long period.

As for the actual experience of using the mic and speaker: it's great! I didn't realize how much I missed being able to interact with random people through speech while outside (especially since I used to hate it in the before times). From the handful of encounters I've had, people will react to your voice without acknowledging that it's coming out of a weird little speaker, possibly because it's so unexpected that they slip into the kind of involuntary congenial reaction that you adopt when responding to any spoken prompt from a stranger. The general standard in mask usage and quality in my area is not great and I was expecting some kind of public social friction from wearing a strange contraption on my body, but the elastomeric has gotten way more stares and comments than the mic/speaker so far. The audio setup adds so much utility in being able to speak to people with the respirator on without having to shout or repeat words that it would take a huge amount of public heckling for me to stop wearing it. Nullifying the difficulty in communication while wandering the plaguelands in a good PPE setup really is transcendent, especially if we're talking about a few more years of surfing death waves before something changes. I would highly recommend that anyone who wears a respirator regularly look into getting a mic setup.

P.S.

I also saw a complete kit (TEN-4 Throat Mic & Speaker Amplifier Kit) that I passed on during my initial research because I was trying to pinch pennies. If I had to do it again, I would probably just take the one-and-done approach for an extra ~$30 instead of obsessively checking the mail for a month waiting for all the pieces to arrive. I have no idea what the quality of the IASUS gear is, but it sure looks nice.

Testvan posted:

even Open Biden is saying it

Iron Crowned posted:

This morning I learned that Mike DeWine is now withdrawing the national guard from hospitals. They had a big propaganda piece where all the nurses were clapping as they left, and talking about how great it was they were there.

I think they were there for maybe about a month.

Koirhor posted:

Tuxedo Mask meme

Chad Sexington posted:

Is there stock COVID shut-in rules to share with family re: a new kid somewhere?

Given the joy of reading about stillbirths and crunchy placentas, I'd really rather not let any family see my pregnant wife, but the fallback is going to have to be strict requirements about PCR testing and N95-wearing. But I'm sort of ruing having to draft it myself along with all the research to cite that they are still going to try and ignore.

Chad Sexington posted:

Is there stock COVID shut-in rules to share with family re: a new kid somewhere?

Given the joy of reading about stillbirths and crunchy placentas, I'd really rather not let any family see my pregnant wife, but the fallback is going to have to be strict requirements about PCR testing and N95-wearing. But I'm sort of ruing having to draft it myself along with all the research to cite that they are still going to try and ignore.

actionjackson posted:

the cheapest miele induction cooktop I could find was 2300 lol. that's more than my range (cooktop+oven), microwave and dishwasher combined

the real bougie tier is gaggenau tho

Zugzwang posted:

When I initially tried this back in 2006, I was being so militant about it that I'd like, check food labels for sodium lactate. Can't do that again for my own sanity.

Iron Crowned posted:

This morning I learned that Mike DeWine is now withdrawing the national guard from hospitals. They had a big propaganda piece where all the nurses were clapping as they left, and talking about how great it was they were there.

I think they were there for maybe about a month.

gradenko_2000 posted:

make everyone be vaccinated and boostered

make everyone get a test before they can see you

have everyone wear an N95, and have them wear it properly
no taking it off under any circumstances

do it outdoors if possible, or in a well-ventilated room otherwise (windows are open, fans are going; or a Corsi cube)
limit the interaction. I'd do no more than 15 minutes but there's really no way to quantify this besides shorter=better

ideally they'd also be masked in the days and weeks preceding their visit, especially if they're flying to you, but again, it's not something you can control, so you kinda have to snoop their social media or know how they've been behaving during the pandemic to get an understanding of how likely they are to catch COVID before they come to you

and I wouldn't even bother trying to come up with articles and citations justifying why you need to do this. Tell them that this is what you expect, and if they're not willing to abide by it, that it doesn't happen

having said all that, she's pregnant and it's a pandemic. I would avoid taking any chances at all.

Real Mean Queen posted:

It reminds me of last year when breakthroughs were starting to show up and the official line was “no they aren’t, shut up.” People are so desperate for this to be a clear cut situation where the virus can’t do some things, and all those things are the things that are covered by being vaccinated and maskless. It’s going to keep being “well you can’t catch it twice though” until everyone is on round three or four, and then there’ll be some good news about how that’s actually very safe. Until then, you can’t catch it twice, even if you did.

One thing I don’t think the virus can do is get small enough to get through these p100s, but that’s inconvenient, so we have to just say it can’t do things that we know it can do until something makes us stop.

Sex Arse of Calais posted:

I loving love this thread.

When my mom told me her boyfriend tested positive, my brain broke in half. They're both immunocompromised, and my mom is a really sweet and forgetful lady who once tried to comfort my climate change anxiety with "Biden will fix it, sweetheart!" My dear, vulnerable, bunny-turned-human mother who just wants to see the sunny side of things, who hand sewed me an apron with heart-shaped pockets, who has trouble remembering if she took her medicine or missed a doctor appointment today is stuck in a windowless apartment with Typhoid Mary and her survival depends on how well she can adhere to airborne disease prevention protocols she just learned about secondhand from her idiot daughter (that's me!)

So when I heard her boyfriend is sick, I wanted to cry and burst into flames, because I thought she'd never listen to me the way no one ever listens to me, because no one likes a Cassandra and I can't help myself. I thought I'd be met with resistance, tears, and arguments when I told her how many people are really dying, that there's no lasting immunity, the cloth masks don't work well and they knew at the start, on and on. She was actually receptive to all of it which means she must be seeing enough for it to form cracks in the illusion propaganda built for her. She was just as heartbroken to hear all this as I have been knowing it. And while it wasn't GOOD it was cathartic in a way I can't describe. I know I can't protect my family but I feel like I'm giving them tools to protect themselves, and that's not nothing.

Despite being in a small windowless apartment with a positive partner, she's still negative ~10 days out. They're wearing N95s inside, they use separate bathrooms and don't mingle together. She said she thought if she were going to get it she surely would have by now, and I said NO it doesn't work that way, please keep being cautious because that's why you are not sick! She says "oh? Oh, of course!" And she's sticking to it, or seems to be.

From the valuable information posted ITT to the emotional support, this thread unironically saves lives and y'all are loving wonderful. Thank you. (And forgive the rambling, I'm not all the way awake and full of feelings)

Greg Legg posted:

3 people quit over the weekend from the preschool program. Things are barely running at this point.

Edit: I should clarify that I get it. The pay is poo poo and there are no benefits. The public health nurse is also out because she slipped on some ice.

Jokerpilled Drudge posted:

This belongs in the i hate cars thread but they skipped plowing most of the sidewalks after the last storm and there was a melt followed by a snap freeze. Sidewalks are so icy there is no question it's going to kill some olds

Joementum posted:

got me on friday. i fell and banged up my wrist. spent an hour in the hospital waiting for the xray machine including twenty minutes of "oh hmm all the rooms are full, well, ok wait in this tiny room with this rando for a bit". fun times.

got to see cars zip by on the nicely salted and plowed road while laying on my rear end on the ice sheet of a sidewalk.

Testvan posted:

even Open Biden is saying it

silicone thrills posted:

lol my period was hosed up and weird after all 3 of my shots and my pain levels have shot back up.

Glad they are finally investigating it / taking it seriously because it sure as gently caress seems weird.

gradenko_2000 posted:

oh man Joe I'm sorry if you went through all that trouble with the building inspector only to have to do this at the hospital

in your respirator trust!

Fried Watermelon posted:

Sex Arse of Calais posted:

I loving love this thread.

When my mom told me her boyfriend tested positive, my brain broke in half. They're both immunocompromised, and my mom is a really sweet and forgetful lady who once tried to comfort my climate change anxiety with "Biden will fix it, sweetheart!" My dear, vulnerable, bunny-turned-human mother who just wants to see the sunny side of things, who hand sewed me an apron with heart-shaped pockets, who has trouble remembering if she took her medicine or missed a doctor appointment today is stuck in a windowless apartment with Typhoid Mary and her survival depends on how well she can adhere to airborne disease prevention protocols she just learned about secondhand from her idiot daughter (that's me!)

So when I heard her boyfriend is sick, I wanted to cry and burst into flames, because I thought she'd never listen to me the way no one ever listens to me, because no one likes a Cassandra and I can't help myself. I thought I'd be met with resistance, tears, and arguments when I told her how many people are really dying, that there's no lasting immunity, the cloth masks don't work well and they knew at the start, on and on. She was actually receptive to all of it which means she must be seeing enough for it to form cracks in the illusion propaganda built for her. She was just as heartbroken to hear all this as I have been knowing it. And while it wasn't GOOD it was cathartic in a way I can't describe. I know I can't protect my family but I feel like I'm giving them tools to protect themselves, and that's not nothing.

Despite being in a small windowless apartment with a positive partner, she's still negative ~10 days out. They're wearing N95s inside, they use separate bathrooms and don't mingle together. She said she thought if she were going to get it she surely would have by now, and I said NO it doesn't work that way, please keep being cautious because that's why you are not sick! She says "oh? Oh, of course!" And she's sticking to it, or seems to be.

From the valuable information posted ITT to the emotional support, this thread unironically saves lives and y'all are loving wonderful. Thank you. (And forgive the rambling, I'm not all the way awake and full of feelings)

Nocturtle posted:

It probably won't take long for the public and health authorities to admit that reinfections aren't uncommon, as they're already happening with just the Omicron variant and the likely upcoming BA.2 wave will make it undeniable. However the next step will be the most dangerous IMO, as the argument will be that getting reinfected every 4 months is actually ok and mild if you're vaccinated. It will take time for whatever health impacts of repeated infections to become clear, and there will be a lot of social pressure to downplay their significance. In this light the push for normalcy and to abandon NPIs + testing over the past week has been especially concerning, as it's a clear signal the assumption will be repeated COVID infections are not a big deal going forward. Not even sure that will ever be effectively refuted, as the implications are so bad given the virus is everywhere.

Nocturtle posted:

It's bad enough we're living through some of the doomier outcomes initially envisioned about the pandemic. It's made worse the default assumption is always that a given bad outcome is impossible until the evidence becomes irrefutable. People assumed without real evidence that vaccine immunity was going to be durable, reinfections rare, and that the virus couldn't effectively evolve around vaccine antibodies. At each step overwhelming evidence was required to refute these assumptions instead of the opposite. It's terrible that the null hypothesis is always "the bad outcome won't happen so we don't need to do anything proactive".

It probably won't take long for the public and health authorities to admit that reinfections aren't uncommon, as they're already happening with just the Omicron variant and the likely upcoming BA.2 wave will make it undeniable. However the next step will be the most dangerous IMO, as the argument will be that getting reinfected every 4 months is actually ok and mild if you're vaccinated. It will take time for whatever health impacts of repeated infections to become clear, and there will be a lot of social pressure to downplay their significance. In this light the push for normalcy and to abandon NPIs + testing over the past week has been especially concerning, as it's a clear signal the assumption will be repeated COVID infections are not a big deal going forward. Not even sure that will ever be effectively refuted, as the implications are so bad given the virus is everywhere.

Real Mean Queen posted:

You’re lucky to have a mom like that, and she’s lucky to have a daughter like you. Good work.

ex post facho posted:

are not all states reporting anymore or......

Joementum posted:

got me on friday. i fell and banged up my wrist. spent an hour in the hospital waiting for the xray machine including twenty minutes of "oh hmm all the rooms are full, well, ok wait in this tiny room with this rando for a bit". fun times.

got to see cars zip by on the nicely salted and plowed road while laying on my rear end on the ice sheet of a sidewalk.