In a lot of states that waited longer to open vaccines to everyone, people are only now getting, or are still waiting for, second shots. There are a lot of issues with this new guidance, but in the very least it seems premature until everyone is able to finish their series and be two weeks out. Ideally including the 12-15year olds vaccines just opened to. I only just got my second shot, and have been looking forward to so many things, and now I fear this new guidance will spoil it all, because I don’t trust anti-maskers to continue masking if they’re not vaccinated. I had also been considering what things I might feel comfortable to take my too young to be vaccinated child to do, and now this messes that all up as well. I’m not taking her indoors around unmasked, unvaxed people at this point. Besides not wanting her to get it, we have elderly grandparents we’re finally going to be able to see, and we can’t do that if a kid might be carrying Covid.

Same with virologists, apparently (worth a click through for Schitt's Creek fans 😂)

The problem is that I don't think this is going to have this effect whatsoever. The people who don't intend to ever get vaccinated are the same ones who have been screaming about masks this whole time, and they will drop their masks immediately, without getting vaccinated. Some of those same people might have decided to finally get vaccinated if that was what was needed to get more things able to open up. I think this makes things suddenly much LESS safe to open up. Fortunately, much of the US has pretty low cases right now, so in those areas with low cases and good vaccination rates, it might go okay. Those places with low cases but also low vaccination rates, I expect will see some resurgence. Perhaps it will wait until Fall though (which isn't good either, because we have had a really good shot at things being normal in fall if people get vaccinated). Ugh. Just like it was never true that those wearing masks were less careful about social distancing (studies showed they were more careful than those who didn't wear masks), it doesn't seem at all likely that those who don't want to be vaccinated are suddenly going to decide to keep wearing masks and social distancing for the sake of keeping their communities safe. And the people who genuinely can't be vaccinated, or whose immune systems make the vaccine not very effective, will suffer most of all. They will keep wearing masks, but without the unvaccinated being masked, they will still be at elevated risk. As far as preschoolers go, I think people make much ado about nothing with that. Masks are a non event for my preschooler and all the others I know. Kids follow their parents' leads at that age. The only ones traumatized by it are the ones whose parents are constantly on about how terrible and traumatizing it is for them.

I’ve had this worry before as well. It’s a lot of trust to put in the location that does your vax that they’re doing everything right. The real world numbers are looking good enough that I expect overwhelmingly they are.

I don’t know anyone with family in India right now whose family is untouched. That alone tells me the numbers can’t be right. So many people were just preparing to fly home to India to visit their parents before this started 😢.

I’ve been trying everywhere all day, and I’ve only found two portals open for 12 to 15--year-olds nearby, and neither has appointments left this week. I did end up finding one this week by driving into the nearest big city. I had hoped to avoid that. Still, it’s good.

Where is Australia now on the acknowledgment that Covid is airborne? I know Australia and Canada were both among countries very reluctant to do so, but I’m wondering if that has changed now with the WHO acknowledgment.

I don’t know if zofran would work, but seems like a good chance it would and seems worth trying. I agree that would be a far preferable solution to a benzo.

At the pediatricians office, I wouldn’t expect I need to show anything. Our pediatrician is actually scheduling 12-15--year-olds along with 16 to 18-year-olds for their vaccination clinics, but their spots are all full. They know all my kids’ ages, so they wouldn’t need it. I have had a kid vaccinated at Walgreens once, but I can’t remember if I did anything other than sign forms and provide my own ID. I’ll make sure I can lay hands on the birth certificate, in case it’s needed. I expect that would make a barrier for more people getting their kids vaccinated though, because not everyone has birth certificate copies on hand.

I’m so sorry. Does your loved one need a higher level of care? Many programs at a higher level of care than outpatient also have a wraparound family support component. (I realize it’s possible that your loved one is already hospitalized, but it does seem like residential and partial hospitalization programs frequently have more of a family component than full on inpatient.)

Does anyone know how ages will be verified for these kids who are too young for most of them to have ID?

Does anyone know how you would go about scheduling one for a kid on the Walgreen site who isn’t part of your pharmacy account? My kid has never had a prescription ( I just realize that typing this, that’s weird), and when I try going through the motions just to see how Walgreen site works, it automatically fills me in as the patient, in an uneditable field. It takes me a while to even get there, because as soon as I go to look up the closest vaccine site, it logs me in and boots me back out to the main Walgreen site and I end up in a loop before I can finally get it to actually show me vaccine sign up stuff. I want to be ready to know how to do it when it opens up. Anyone have any instructions? We have a lot more Moderna around here than anything else right now, it seems. It doesn’t seem right to shift all the adults to Johnson and Johnson though, given that the adults are at higher risk than the kids. I realize Pfizer is the only thing they can give the kids, I just don’t think they should be prioritized ahead of adults in this particular case. Perhaps they’re finding that adults who have delayed getting a shot to this point tend to be more amenable to the one shot vaccine anyway?

If anyone finds a chain that is allowing under 16‘s schedule already, can you share which chain? (I say chain because it’s unlikely anyone else is going to live near the same place.)

Patterns 😁: https://behealthyusa.net/collections/small/products/posh-kf94-kids-mask-a03?variant=39611981037732 My kids all had cute patterns for their cloth masks, but they like these so well they prefer them now over cloth usually. Fortunately none of them have had any issue wearing masks, though. It’s like wearing a seatbelt, I guess. It’s just what you do to be safe. But seriously, I see no issue with the Happy masks for the situation as you describe. I think outdoors they’re mostly functioning as droplet protection anyway. No aerosols are going to build up outside.

That’s interesting and new info for me. Did you see this on their website somewhere? Broken record alert: I’d buy one pack of these and be done with it: https://www.amazon.com/20Packs-KIDS-KF94-Protective-Individually/dp/B08X47VFH7/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=bluna+snall&qid=1620691775&sr=8-1 They’re tested, adjustable, comfortable, and super breathable. My kids are all perfectly happy to wear them and have no issues with them slipping at all. I just rotate them so the same one isn’t being worn in a row. Preferably five days in between, but if we’re just outside, I don’t worry about the number of days. Only if I had to go inside, like when I got my vaccine. I was good cloth masks all the way in the beginning, and made lots of them, but I switched to these once the variants arrived and cases were surging. Partly because of the washing issue. The inner layer of my cloth masks is the same material as a surgical mask, but once I wash it, I don’t trust it retains its electrostatic properties. I think your plan with a happy mask sounds fine as well, especially since you’re using them for outside. If your kids were going back to school or something I would think differently.

Was it a chain or independent? I immediately started trying various places online, and (unsurprisingly) got kicked out every time I put in the (correct) birthdate. I had the same thought, that I could schedule for the end of the week (and cancel if for some reason it doesn’t come through by then).

I wonder how many residents are in each of those nursing homes. It was 17 people in one nursing home and 10 in another. The really good news is they are asymptomatic, but I think this does show how elderly people aren’t as good at completely suppressing the virus.

Right? And people say they want kids back to school and such for the sake of their mental health, but now they seem to not want mitigation measures in place to make it safe for everyone. What about the mental health of the kids who won’t be able to attend school if people aren’t wearing masks or getting vaccinated?

This makes sense, but then strikes me as funny in the context of the conversation about how people are just going to fake their immunization card anyway. In this case, the conversation is about what is legal, but in the case of immunization records it’s all about how people aren’t going to follow the rules, so it should be done in a more secure way. I think the fact that someone can technically have two licenses that appear valid at the same time is a bigger deal than two immunization cards that appear valid at the same time.

That’s not even ticketable where I am. You’re required to update your address in their system after you move, but you’re not required to have a new card issued with the new address, and in fact have to pay if you want to do that. Otherwise you just wait until the next time you get a new card, and at that point they will put the new address on it. A web search shows me there are other states that operate the same way. (which has absolutely zero to do with the vaccine record issue and I’m losing track of the conversation too much to decide if it would even have anything to do with the duplicate drivers license issue— in my state, the outdated license would have a hole punched in it). eta: although!! It just now struck me that my most recent license renewal happened during the pandemic when they were doing it all by mail, so they sent me a new license in the mail and my old one doesn’t have a hole punched in it. It doesn’t mean I considered it still valid, but there certainly was an overlapping period of time when the dates on both the old license and the new license were valid.

Oddly, this makes me feel better, even though it’s terrible. I had this happen regarding something that was super frustrating and unhelpful to have misrepresented by the doctor, and it’s always bothered me ever since. I switched doctors over it because I didn’t trust him after that. It somehow makes me feel better that it wasn’t just something about me. Although that’s bad, because it’s not good for it to happen to anyone.

That seems so strange. Our family members have gotten their shots at multiple various locations, and everyone showed ID and filled out information forms about who they were, as well as answering basic health questions to make sure the shot wasn’t contraindicated. Seems that has been the case for the majority who have replied about that on this thread, but there are a few of you who have said this. I wonder if you’re all in the same state?

Definitely not the only one. This has been an incredibly disheartening time, and I truly don’t know how Christianity is going to weather it, at least in the US. I think it may take a generation or more to come back from, unless it just keeps going this direction. None of the young people I know want to identify as Christians any more, because the name has been so tainted and they don’t want to be associated with that in any way. It bears no resemblance to the teachings of Jesus. Certainly there’s not much to be appealing about it right now to people viewing it from the outside. It’s so sad. Exactly this. And who can blame them? 😢

Is it not normal to have that happen sometimes? All my life, I have that happen occasionally. I’ve always been under the assumption that everybody sometimes has that. Is that not the case? Isn’t that where the saying “are your ears ringing?” comes from?

Oh, I 100% agree. I included the above as explanation to Where’s Toto or anyone else about where that particular thing was coming from. Unfortunately, there clearly are some number of people who are getting sucked into this. Including the poster in question, who didn’t start out this way. Then it’s like a pyramid scheme, where each of them brings in one or two new people.