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Which horse film is your favorite? This poll is closed. |
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|---|---|---|---|
| Black Beauty |
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2 | 1.06% |
| A Talking Pony!?! |
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4 | 2.13% |
| Mr. Hands 2x Apple Flavor |
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117 | 62.23% |
| War Horse |
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11 | 5.85% |
| Mr. Hands |
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54 | 28.72% |
| Total: | 188 votes | ||
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I was thinking of writing a long "here is what I went through living in the USA then going to Australia during COVID" post. I can go into the details of what I saw family on each side going through & how they talked about covid, the process of getting to Australia and getting through quarantines, and finally what I'm now witnessing happen in New South Wales, all from a "self-imposed 18 month lockdown goon" perspective. Should I bother or would that be too tl;dr e/n for the D&D thread?
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Dec 28, 2021 23:26
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| # ¿ May 15, 2024 00:34 |
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Professor Beetus posted:Love to get slightly different perspectives in here, and a little comparing/contrasting would be nice to read from someone with multiple, yeah. Cool thanks boss. Late February 2020 California. My ex's 31 year old best friend Jane is in ICU with pneumonia, induced coma and vented. She's on vent a long time but I can't remember the specifics, except in March the hospital is saying "It's not COVID". It wasn't until May or June that she was informed that it was COVID (I'm not sure how, probably a measure of antibodies later?), but that was the official diagnosis much later. She still has trouble walking, and I think she's diagnosed with brain damage. At least she regained her taste. Her relationship fell apart because she had to go live with her mother in the central valley while her boyfriend barely treads water on minimum wage in a share house. The state doesn't provide enough money or care for her to stay in the big city with him. So ended 10 year era for Jane, now back where she started in worse health and no lover. In late February I remember getting a fever, achey, and being extremely tired for a day, but instead of it developing into snot/sore throat like my colds always do it went away very quickly. Never got tested for antibodies because you know, scared of leaving my apartment and dying because I'm a fat computer toucher alcoholic that could work from home. So COVID March 2020 kicks off and my employer tells us we're 100% remote working now. I was already giving all workers laptops, split tunnel VPN always on, enterprise Zoom, metro area so fellow workers all had decent broadband internet, we actually did really well my work life didn't suddenly become harder. It actually became a lot easier, more productive, and I got so much more time back not having to commute in a big California city. Rent was going down as fellow computer touchers and techies left the city for elsewhere. I could get groceries delivered. If I didn't read real news sources and SA I might have been almost happy...but My fellow American workers in other jobs though were absolutely fed into a meatgrinder of fear, depression and death. The governments in the USA seemed to do nothing. It seemed like after the initial month or two of lockdown, the powerful decided they could open it all up and let the virus take its course. I remember reading about some American states not being able to run their unemployment/dole systems, unemployed workers unable to call and state websites erroring out. So months with no assistance, hungry. Charity food pantries and kitchens with lines around the block. The tents lining the streets of my neighborhood grew in number. There are SO many homeless people. Literal shanty towns have appeared, too. Corrugated iron and tents attached to scrap wood structures. Australia closed it's borders and seemed to be doing covid zero really well. My family were really scared for me, we 'Zoomed' but their lives were basically exactly the same until Victoria Melbourne had its first wild-type outbreak. Then after a short lockdown even Melbourne was back to normal except my cousins couldn't fly to Bali to haggle over a $2 watch, OMG did they suffer. During Australia's first lockdown the governments implemented 'Jobkeeper' (As opposed to Jobseeker which is their branding for unemployment welfare), pumping money into businesses and workers to keep them afloat. Extra money for workers to pay their rent and buy food. But I recently learned that governments funneling millions into corporations that don't need it, a redistribution of tax money back to Capital, isn't only an American thing, it happened in Australia too. But overall it seemed that the Australian feds and state governments did a better job supporting workers vs. say California/NY. That was my impression from afar and through my mums calls. Where I lived in California there is still no city or state run check-in for tracking system. I don't recall even hearing about an opt-in 'report it and let us know' system, though I've never tested positive on PCR tests to perhaps be brought into such a tracking system. Pretty sure it just doesn't exist. But in Australia they have QR codes that you scan, everywhere. The state notifies you of a close contact with someone that is positive, so you quickly know to isolate and get a test. Contact tracing seemed like it was really good in Australia, comparatively. Then this happened earlier this month:  On the news today according to mum NSW is abandoning contact tracing. Australia started opening 'er up just as Omicron hit, and didn't re-implement any NPIs while cases started exploding. It seems like the governments just collectively gambled, and didn't want to reverse anything for political reasons just as Australians were heading into their 2nd 'normal' COVID Christmas. My dreams of a zero covid vacation in Australia were dashed a long time ago, but my runner-up dream of a properly managed pandemic vacation was just dashed last week. Now my dream of a properly run healthcare system vacation is possibly going to be destroyed, too. Too early to tell I guess, but I feel for the Aussie healthcare workers, their governments have just completely screwed them. Specifics of getting into Australia follow. Prior to widespread vaccination and 'open-er-up' in Australia, aka zero covid .au era, citizens and permanent residents were allowed to enter. Australian states set up hotels (now very empty since tourism was not happening) with COVID floors where returning people had to quarantine for 14 days. Some hotels were better about feeding their guests, but I did see some horror stories of rotten fruit and airplane-quality sandwiches. All this costing the returning person thousands of dollars, it wasn't free. Getting into Australia was still not easy though. Getting on a flight without being bumped off was luck of the draw or extremely expensive. This was because the quarantine hotels might be full and telling the airlines there was nowhere for the passengers to go, so the airlines would bump off the cheaper economy passengers and keep the business+ passengers only for the few spots in quarantine. The Australian feds hadn't bothered to build more space for returning Australians. So families with kids, people that couldn't afford business class, they kept getting bumped off flights. And economy wasn't cheap, either. Once Australia hit vaccination targets Victoria and NSW reduced 14 days mandatory quarantine for all returning residents and citizens. I was able to fly into NSW and stay in what they call "Isolation" for 3 days, provided I had a < 72 hour neg PCR in the USA, proof of vaccination, another neg PCR within 24 hours of arriving and promised to get one last PCR on day 6. Isolation could happen at home or in a hotel, I opted for a hotel and stayed 7 days because obviously such a policy is not based on the science of the time. All tests in Australia have been free so far, despite me not being a resident any more and therefor not being part of their Medicare universal healthcare system. Wait times were long, first one took an hour, second test we waited 3 hours, and this morning we found out some people just slept outside the testing clinic overnight, after being turned away at 7:30am the prior day because the line was already too long/all day. I think it's a combination of post Christmas testing but also interstate travel requirements for Queensland. Here's a flyer that I was handed as I arrived in Sydney:  In California I paid $90USD for a < 24hour turnaround PCR. This was a drive-through near the international airport. Booking was a 15min appointment window. I didn't wait, just drove right in. < 2hour test was $140USD. Self-administered, blow-nose-into-tissue-then-swab. Shhh don't tell the Australian feds it was self-administered >_> I really enjoyed waiting in the international terminal because I'd find an isolated spot to sit and someone would waltz over, sit down close by < 10 feet away then take off their mask to eat. I went through this 3 times, moving to a new seat further away each time. I don't know why those people were coming near me, the terminal was much emptier than pre-covid times. Cloth masks as far as the eye can see. On the flight itself mask compliance was generally pretty good. My fellow passengers nearby wore theirs when asleep, pleasantly surprised. So now I wait and see what happens to the Australian hospitals. My family is harping on about 'less severe omicron' but at this rate it seems like even this so called mild covid is going to overwhelm. I spent last Christmas alone because I couldn't travel to my ex's as southern california's hospitals nearly collapsed, so I couldn't risk getting ill or injured in other ways and that was absolutely my lowest point. My plans to travel in what seemed like a much better country are possibly heading this way too. At least I got to see mum one more time. Sorry I'm not a writer, please ask me specific questions but maybe some of this was interesting. Perhaps if just for the flyer. edit: new page sassy floofy cat tax. 
Bald Stalin fucked around with this message at 06:06 on Dec 29, 2021 |
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Dec 29, 2021 05:49
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Someone in the good auspol thread said a few days ago this would be amplified as a shiny distraction ball while NSW and VIC start their healthcare collapse. Voila.
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Jan 5, 2022 23:55
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Gynovore posted:I did some googling and found that IHealth tests have a false negative rate of 5% to 35% depending on who you talk to. WTF? A home pregnancy test that sucked that hard would never go near the market. Think about all the people with symptomatic covid out there taking a test, getting a false negative, shrugging and getting on the train unmasked. Honestly this would have been a great time to teach people to wear masks when they're sick with ANYTHING just in case but no, Freedumb.
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Jan 5, 2023 20:40
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The silver lining here is our systems of government are now extra vigilant and much better prepared for bird flu. Covid was the warmup round, now it's primetime and I am feeling very confident in the US and western nations abilities to rapidly respond to this far deadlier virus. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Feb 12, 2023 02:25
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There's no new evidence, the assessment has low confidence rating. Nothingburger.
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Feb 27, 2023 09:25
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Uglycat posted:There seems to be a series of influence campaigns designed to undermine relations between the US and China. There's two parts. This covid leak stuff is to be able to assign blame and therefore take the heat off neoliberalism's failures to handle the pandemic; failure to reduce unnecessary suffering and death. Deflection. The other stuff you're seeing is about preparing the west for starting a war. This other stuff is less on topic for the covid thread though.
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Feb 28, 2023 04:44
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CameronisGod posted:I don't care if this gets me suspended or banned. They shall do so because I speak the truth. They shall do so because they can not control that they themselves are inhabited by the demonic sins of our forefathers within their own genetic and cultural transmission. Is this your opinion or a factual statement?
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Mar 1, 2023 22:25
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small butter posted:It's pretty silly to say that just because one American entity stated that they think the virus leaked from a lab that means that "the West wants war with China" Who said this?
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Mar 1, 2023 23:46
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So no one said it, you're making something up to call it silly. The mod already stated that the war stuff is offtopic. You're trying to bring it back by making up that someone tied the COVID leak to war.
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Mar 1, 2023 23:57
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small butter posted:No one said it but a mod said it was off-topic? Correct. And you are quoting me yet trying to claim I wrote something else that isn't in my quote. You appear to be confused, but I suggest giving this same page another careful read through to try and understand.
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Mar 2, 2023 00:16
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killer_robot posted:the 'screw all the safety procedures, push push push!' the first vaccines were made under You sound like an anti vaxxer when you make ridiculous claims like all safety procedures were abandoned.
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Jul 23, 2023 01:02
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buglord posted:still nuts to me that theres still people who have lasted this long without getting it at least once. i just assume everyone's had it once, then a friend or coworker will get it and say its their first time and my mind gets boggled. First time they're aware of. I haven't kept up, is SARS-CoV-2 still largely asymptomatic?
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Nov 7, 2023 03:45
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