DH has had very few issues with his (high school) students, either. A handful of times where he's needed to ask someone to pull a mask over their nose, but no one has given him any trouble at all. Whether all the other teachers they see during the day are being as vigilant, I can't say of course.

Teachers just got pushed down on the list in Georgia, as the governor is moving everyone over 65 and first responders into the 1A group (teachers are 1B). I don't begrudge seniors and firefighters their vaccines (and I'm very glad this means my 67 year old mother will be able to get it soon), but seems like maybe the governor could also do SOMETHING to protect teachers while asking them to wait indefinitely...at the very least a statewide mask requirement for schools. A teacher in a neighboring county--in his 40s I believe-- just died of covid on Christmas.

DS's college is (or did first semester; I assume it will be similar this semester) requiring a test before coming back then another one after getting there. They're supposed to sort of quarantine (only go out for food, basically) for the first 10 days they're there, I think. And then they test 15% of the campus randomly every week. They didn't have any on campus cases at all until right before the end of the first semester. Of course, they also were doing most classes online, had everyone in single dorm rooms, limited how many people came back, etc. etc. He's kind of on the fence about whether it was worth being on campus at all, but he did get to see some friends and have different walls to stare at for awhile at least.

I read a lot of speculative fiction this year; apparently I wanted to get as far away from the real world as possible. I think the one that will stick with me the most is The Sparrow. I'd had it on my list ever since I saw Stacey Abrams speak back when she was running for governor....the primary, even, so very early on. Someone asked her for her favorite book, and she wouldn't narrow it down to just one, but she did single out The Sparrow as one favorite, and said something about how it was about what would happen if Jesuits were the first to make contact with aliens, and that got my attention. So finally read it, and it was excellent: entertaining but also well-written and smart and thought provoking. I'd put The Glass Hotel in the runner up spot.

That's what we have, too. We almost never use the regular oven anymore.

The AP just reported the other day that deaths are up 15% this year (after a slight drop in 2019)--the largest increase since 1918. https://apnews.com/article/us-coronavirus-deaths-top-3-million-e2bc856b6ec45563b84ee2e87ae8d5e7

I was a little nervous about the names turning into exclusively girl names thing. I have an Ari and an August...both are sometimes used for girls, but I think both are also uncommon enough in general (although August has shot up in the rankings since we used it) that they won't ever really become established as "girl names." It also seems like the old truism that once a name is used for girls it becomes exclusively female seems to be changing along with attitudes toward gender? Elliot is one that comes to mind....it's on the charts for both boys and girls (didn't appear on the girl chart until 2011), but the popularity for boys has increased right along with girls. And then in Elliot's case it's a surname that was appropriated as a first name, so there's no reason for it have been a "boy name" to start with anyway.

He's only talked about it before to establish that it was safe to take the flu vaccine. He has the same understanding that the vaccine should be safe for him to take since it's not a live vaccine...it's just a matter of maximizing the effectiveness. He's very lucky in that he COULD stop taking it temporarily and it would likely not be a big deal as long as he only skipped a month or two...whereas he can't really limit his contact with people until/unless we're sure he's immune since he works at a school.

I know no one knows the answer yet about the covid vaccine specifically; I'm more trying to figure out how it's worked with other vaccines and whether whatever benefit he might get from temporarily stopping the taltz would be erased as soon as he restarts. I mean...is the measles vaccine he got as a kid less effective because he takes an immunosuppressant now? Or do you keep the immunity once you establish it? I just don't know enough about how biologics work to know. He doesn't have a rheumatologist--just a dermatologist for the psoriasis (who hasn't been particularly helpful so far with this). And then he's seen my NP a time or two for other stuff, but doesn't have much of a relationship established with her.

yeah--we're going to be figuring this stuff out for years, I imagine. Totally anecdotally, I know of so many heart attack deaths in young (30s and 40s), seemingly healthy men over the past few months. It could be completely coincidental or it could be that they're just standing out to me more because I'm on high alert from covid.

My husband is on a biologic (Taltz) for psoriasis and is a high school teacher so should be able to get a covid vaccine in the next couple of months from what I hear. I'm concerned about whether and to what extent his medication will make the vaccine less effective. What I've been able to glean so far is that people on immunosuppressants were excluded from the vaccine trials, so there's no actual data on it at this point, but if it's like other vaccines it will likely be less effective. Fauci says people on immunosuppressants should take it anyway because some protection is better than no protection. Sure. But I would like for him to have as much protection as possible. So what I'm wondering--and what no one will tell him (not his doctor and not anyone at Taltz) is whether it makes sense to stop taking Taltz for a month or two right when he gets the vaccine. He can skip a couple of months without noticing too much difference; it's not a particularly big deal to do it....but he can't get anyone to tell him if it will help. Like...will that give his body time to build up immunity and then that will stick around? Or will restarting the Taltz weaken whatever immunity he has the same as if he'd kept it up all along? Does that make sense? It's also possible he'll need to get titers drawn and maybe have additional boosters, but given that he's in a high exposure job immunity sooner is better. I know the odds someone here will know the answer is small, but it seems like SOMEONE has to know, and I'm frustrated that I can't figure it out!

My brother attempted to tell me he and SIL were "in a bubble" with her entire extended family, before sheepishly saying he guessed not really since all those people were going to work, school (in the county with no mask requirement and a zillion cases), restaurants, trips, etc. This was either right before or after he went to Disney World. https://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/another-dull-quarantine-weekend-at-home-target-chipotle-home-depot-and-our-nieces-graduation-party

The Georgia numbers (which show a substantial DECREASE) are through the beginning of December. I understand that there's more to mental health than suicide numbers, but suicide is talked about a great deal wrt covid, including in this thread (and in your own posts). Here's a link to a survey that was just released that shows that most students describe themselves as "doing okay" during the pandemic: https://www.gqrr.com/news/student-voices-in-the-time-of-covid/ One other note on how this stuff goes both ways: I was thinking about why it might be true that teen suicides are actually down at least in some places, and I thought about my own kid (not the clarinet kid) who does struggle with anxiety. This year has actually been something of a respite for him with that, because a lot of his anxiety triggers are things that he's not doing because of COVID. But I wouldn't suggest everyone is obligated to keep the pandemic going longer so my kid won't struggle as much.

It's worth noting that, despite everyone's fears, suicide numbers actually don't appear to be higher this year: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/10/21/suicide-rates-pandemic-unchanged/ In my state, teen suicide is actually down substantially from 2019: https://www.gpb.org/news/2020/12/14/the-impact-of-covid-19-on-youth-suicide-rates-in-georgia That's certainly not to say that there aren't plenty of people having a hard time with how the pandemic is affecting mental health or to downplay those very real issues. But I see a whole lot of people (not saying anyone here--just in general) trotting out "mental health issues" to justify doing pretty much whatever they feel like doing. And these things go both ways. My 17 year old is a serious clarinet player. We were letting him go to his youth wind symphony until recently because they were rehearsing outside and had done a lot of research on precautions, and we felt like the risk was small and worth it given how important music is to him. As soon as the weather got cold they moved everything back inside despite skyrocketing covid numbers and we had to tell him we aren't comfortable with him going anymore until numbers are better or a vaccine is widely available. So he had to stop doing something he loved because they weren't willing to keep up the precautions they were taking once it got inconvenient. He's fortunate in that he doesn't have mental health issues and, honestly, I think long term it will be a good thing for him as a person to have had to give up something important to him for awhile because he knew it would protect other people, even though right now I hate that he has to do it. I think that's true for MOST kids, and that doesn't mean I'm indifferent to the struggles of those for whom it's not true.

This also demonstrates that South Korean contact tracing is AMAZING.

That's what the CDC said at first; now they say it can also be transmitted through aerosols under some circumstances, like in enclosed spaces: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/more/scientific-brief-sars-cov-2.html Honestly, I think it was clear pretty early on that was true, based on actual evidence of when and where transmission was occurring.

Yes. We did some delayed vaccinations--not selective, since they wound up with everything eventually--but we spaced things out, which I jusitifed because my kids were not in day care so were at very low risk for either getting or transmitting illnesses. It seemed like a reasonable choice, and my assorted peds were supportive. I'm not sure I'd say I have regrets, exactly....but I'd very likely make different decisions if I had a baby now.

There was an outbreak on the softball team at my husband's school, but I wouldn't be at all surprised if it was because of socializing inside apart from practices/games.

yes. One of my big vaccine worries is that numbers will START to go down and everyone will be ready to throw out all the precautions and go back to normal too early.

It's possible to make churches safer than (most) schools. Ours is outside, masked, distanced, 50 person limit (you have to sign up in advance) right now. I wold be surprised if anyone managed to catch covid under those conditions--certainly a full scale outbreak would be surprising. But of course the opposite extreme is also possible and common--tons of people packed together much tighter than in any school, singing, shaking hands and hugging, no masks, etc. There's a lot more variability with churches than schools (though there's also plenty of variability with schools), and churches also tend to be more culturally homogenous, which affects the kind of precautions or lack thereof they're taking outside of church.

Probably, but that would be even harder to find out, since as spotty as reporting for schools is, it's pretty much nonexistent for churches, I imagine. I think things are further complicated by the likelihood that people who attend churches/live in school districts without mask mandates are probably less likely to get tested for mild cases.

I just did the math on the difference in incidence rates between the school district where my husband teaches (with a mask mandate) and the two adjacent districts (without mandates), and the contrast is stark. In my husband's district the rate for schools is a little lower than in the county overall (to be clear, the county numbers are pretty terrible, so this doesn't mean there isn't a lot of covid in schools--and I would also guess school kids are tested and diagnosed at a lower rate because they're more likely to have mild or no symptoms); in the two counties right next door without a mandate, the incidence rate is about DOUBLE that of the counties as a whole (the overall numbers for all three counties are very similar). It's got to take some serious mental gymnastics to ignore evidence like that and just keep on going with your "masks recommended but not required" nonsense. ETA: my math was very approximate/quick before, and it was bothering me. There's no way to get it completely apples to apples, but closest I can get for recent numbers is DH's county 142/100,000 over 7 days, next county over is 268/100,000 over 7 days. It's worse than that (424/100,000) for the other county with no mask mandate, but that's using the number of F2F only students + staff instead of the total enrollment (because I can't find that for the other counties)--so the nearly double figure is for the county where I do have F2F numbers (numbers are in the 400s/100,000 over 14 days for all three counties).

What I've learned from watching when schools around here shut down is that they don't do it because they've gotten smart or started to care that people are getting sick; they do it when they can't staff the school anymore. Sounds like they got to that point and didn't have a choice.

It just occurred to me last night to start worrying about how my husband's immunosuppressant that he takes for psoriasis will affect things with the vaccine (he's a teacher so should be able to get it on the early side). Googling tells me he can take it but, if it's like other vaccines, it will be less effective for him because of his meds. Well, crap. Now we have to try to figure out if it makes sense for him to stop taking it for a couple of months before and/or after getting the vaccine or not.

The part on heart damage talks about "recently recovered" patients, including asymptomatic, but doesn't how how recently. But, yeah, it doesn't say when the Diamond Princess study was done--I mean, presumably not actually ON the cruise ship. One I was looking at yesterday was showing lung damage in 75% of patients after 60 days, I believe, and still more than 50% after 90 days (I may have the number of days wrong; I'd have to find it again), but I don't think it distinguished between symptomatic and asymptomatic (and, of course, studies on asymptomatic people are tough because most of them don't ever know they're positive. Which is why the Diamond Princess population is a great one to look at....I'll dig around a little to see if anyone's still following them and looking at long term effects). ETA: the large study on long term lung effects I found is actually following up on hospitalized cases, so definitely not asymptomatic. So ignore me, except the part where I'm mad about indoor wind symphony rehearsals!