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THIS is why we can’t have nice things!


PinkTulip
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1 hour ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

Presumably the downstream effects (illness, disability, death) are being felt by elderly and at risk family members.  Shrug.  I'm a generally risk averse person, so I'm accustomed to observing other humans doing crazy stuff like sky diving or installing swimming pools in their backyard or keeping guns in the house.  When a family member drowns or shoots themselves, it's the family who suffers and they get to live with that.  That punishment seems appropriate.  

And I suppose it affects me in the sense that if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid patients, then that puts me at risk if I need to be admitted for any reason.  Valid, but our local hospitals so far are not overwhelmed.  But our hospitals generally don't have excess capacity for anything as they aren't established to serve the public good but to serve their bottom line.  That's a larger problem than the covid issue.   

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others?  Live and let die.  

Interesting question. I guess because it makes me feel less safe being in public spaces and also doing routine stuff like going to the doctor/to the store/etc? 

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1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

From what I have seen the majority of cases are tied to home exposure.  The cases were 10 people at a party, fifteen people at a bar get publicity, it ignores the fact that 2 cases in this home, three in this home, over and over again is where most infection occurs.  So, I do think a lot has to do with where you live.  But, I also see no reason to believe that the average 20-year old's behavior is significantly different September 1 than it was August 1--or whatever day college starts.  In fact at the school where I teach (which has appeared on one of the highest rate of infection lists), bars in the area are not even open.  Many of the students who came back to campus were going to bars when they were home over the summer. 

A lot of transmission happens in the home but the home is a dead end for transmission.  There has to be a “node” that connects homes together for it to continue spreading.  If my home gets it five people might get it but no more.   The nodes are workplaces, parties, library shops.  Some of those are essential and unavoidable but some aren’t and identifying them can stop transmission to the “branches”.

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Just now, Ausmumof3 said:

A lot of transmission happens in the home but the home is a dead end for transmission.  There has to be a “node” that connects homes together for it to continue spreading.  If my home gets it five people might get it but no more.   The nodes are workplaces, parties, library shops.  Some of those are essential and unavoidable but some aren’t and identifying them can stop transmission to the “branches”.

Oh, thank you for phrasing it so clearly. And some of those are REALLY not essential, like gatherings inside people's homes. That's not even supporting the economy much... 

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1 hour ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

Presumably the downstream effects (illness, disability, death) are being felt by elderly and at risk family members.  Shrug.  I'm a generally risk averse person, so I'm accustomed to observing other humans doing crazy stuff like sky diving or installing swimming pools in their backyard or keeping guns in the house.  When a family member drowns or shoots themselves, it's the family who suffers and they get to live with that.  That punishment seems appropriate.  

And I suppose it affects me in the sense that if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid patients, then that puts me at risk if I need to be admitted for any reason.  Valid, but our local hospitals so far are not overwhelmed.  But our hospitals generally don't have excess capacity for anything as they aren't established to serve the public good but to serve their bottom line.  That's a larger problem than the covid issue.   

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others?  Live and let die.  

 

Because if one of the staff members at my mom’s senior complex is engaging in the stupid behavior, then they are putting her at greater risk, all the while she is basically confined to her apartment. And those in the complex who aren’t able to do most things for themselves are at even greater risk because they are constantly interacting with staff members.

The same goes for any situation where some people have no real choice but to be there (e.g. work, dr. apt, etc) and someone else there is engaging in the risky behavior. This puts others who are following all guidelines at greater risk than they would be if everyone was following the guidelines.

Edited to add that is also unfairly restricts the activities those following the rules can do. So each time there is a breakout among staff at my mom’s complex, they shut almost everything down. Then things are slowly opened back up until the next break out, when another shut down occurs. I mean nothing has ever been normal for her as she moved into this brand new place back in the Spring about ten days before the first major lockdown. But it sure was nice when she could sit outside, masked and socially distanced, and chat with other residents. Or when she could go be the only customer at the on-site beauty shop with both her and the beautician masked. Or occasionally have a meal delivered from the on-site restaurant when she didn’t feel up to cooking. That’s all gone again.

Edited by Frances
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2 hours ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

Presumably the downstream effects (illness, disability, death) are being felt by elderly and at risk family members.  Shrug.  I'm a generally risk averse person, so I'm accustomed to observing other humans doing crazy stuff like sky diving or installing swimming pools in their backyard or keeping guns in the house.  When a family member drowns or shoots themselves, it's the family who suffers and they get to live with that.  That punishment seems appropriate.  

And I suppose it affects me in the sense that if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid patients, then that puts me at risk if I need to be admitted for any reason.  Valid, but our local hospitals so far are not overwhelmed.  But our hospitals generally don't have excess capacity for anything as they aren't established to serve the public good but to serve their bottom line.  That's a larger problem than the covid issue.   

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others?  Live and let die.  

 

OP here. For me, personally, I am upset at the stupid behavior of others because it is directly having an impact on me right this second. Like I said in the OP, the positivity rate in my very zip code and the adjacent zip code where the kids at this high school live is right around 14%.

I was informed by my county health department on Friday that I was in close contact with an individual who tested positive, so I need to quarantine for 14 days. I have been extremely careful about not going out, always wearing a mask, etc. because DH has a compromised immune system and is in a very high-risk category for serious problems, if not death, if he gets this.

So I am sitting here, isolating in my bedroom for the last 3 days, talking to my kids in the next room via FaceTime, asking them to slide a tray of food onto the bench we put in front of my bedroom door.  To help pass the time, I’m scrolling through Instagram and see post after post of the pictures from these moms of their homecoming dance they had to have. The presumptuousness, sense of entitlement, and selfishness of these people Is upsetting, to say the least. 

Edited by PinkTulip
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2 hours ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

 

 

Because the more spread in the community, the riskier it is for all of us to go out in public. If everyone was being more cautious, we could do more things safely. 

My mom is super super high risk. COPD, high blood pressure, and is missing a lobe of her lung. Her pulse ox isn't good on a good day. But she had, until this, an active life - babysitting grand kids, traveling, etc. She isn't ready to die or whatnot, not by a long shot. She is having groceries delivered (at higher cost), etc but had to travel from Florida to Duke in North Carolina for her cancer follow up. So that meant stopping in public restrooms, etc. If people are being risky, and not cautious, and getting infected, that puts HER at risk of dying when she comes across them at a gas station restroom or what not. Not to mention waiting rooms at the hospital, etc. She's had to have many other doctor visits as well since this started - she can't be totally isolated at home due to needed medical care. That's just one example. 

Another is myself - I have to go to the dermatologist tomorrow for a follow up post biopsy. The lesion is on my nose - I can't wear a mask while they work on me. Other people being risky, and contagious, in that space would put me at risk. (like a client in there before me, spewing germs into the air). 

Again, when community spread goes up, it puts everyone at risk. That's why they call it "public health" - it effects everyone when on person is being unsafe. It also damages the economy, because when positivity is up, people like me are a heck of a lot less likely to say, go to the store, etc. I need new shoes, badly. But I do not want to expose myself. The safer people are, and behave, the safer it is for me to go to the store. The safer it is for me to take my kids to a nature area and use the bathrooms while there, etc. We can't get back to "normal" right now, but we could do more normal stuff if people are safe about it. But a whole lot are not. 

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

From what I have seen the majority of cases are tied to home exposure.  The cases were 10 people at a party, fifteen people at a bar get publicity, it ignores the fact that 2 cases in this home, three in this home, over and over again is where most infection occurs.  So, I do think a lot has to do with where you live.  But, I also see no reason to believe that the average 20-year old's behavior is significantly different September 1 than it was August 1--or whatever day college starts.  In fact at the school where I teach (which has appeared on one of the highest rate of infection lists), bars in the area are not even open.  Many of the students who came back to campus were going to bars when they were home over the summer. 

The case I was talking about was just one bar. Those people could then spread it to their friends and families, and it wasn't the only bar. And I wasn't referring to colleges starting back up - this happened months ago. My beef is not with "college students" it is with people congregating indoors in crowds, unmasked, shouting over loud music, etc. Taht's a bad idea no matter how old you are. Hell, our health department still says we should avoid crowds and gatherings larger than 10 people - and yet we just went to "no restrictions" for the state. Bars and restaraunts at full capacity, no masks required because they are eating/drinking. Oh, and our governor is saying that counties can't enforce mask mandates anymore..anywhere. This is bigger than "college students". It's about behaviors, not identities. Be that a college party at some off campus apartment or bar crawl or house party thrown by the ridiculously rich in Palm Beach. 

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

I haven't been able to find good statistics about whether this is the case or not.  I know there has been a lot of information about that group being the fastest growing number of cases in the past several months (at least in my state), but I do not know if positivity, especially controlling for testing--and whether the testing is because of symptoms or random--is different.  This is one of the reasons I think most policy and people's views are based on anecdotal information, not evidence--no matter which side their view comes down on.  

Again, my answers are based on positivity rates, not cases. 

Edited by Ktgrok
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2 hours ago, Not_a_number said:

The thing is, I think we all know there's spread at home. It's an environment where you spend lots of indoor time with each other. There isn't anything you can DO about that. 

So if young people are going to go to work, or the store, or bars, or parties, or whatever else 20 year old's do--and then go home and expose people at their home (and who then go to their work or to visit relatives) you can have MORE spread than if the young people do those same things and then go back to the dorm together and don't expose their siblings and parents.  So, you might have five people in one home, two people in another home, three people in another... but no one is counting that as 100 cases from XYZ students because the aren't "connected"

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2 hours ago, daijobu said:

 

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others?  Live and let die.  

 

Because the people behaving like morons are infecting others who are trying to be careful and don't want to die or their family members to die?

I'm sorry maybe your question was sincere but do you not understand this is a highly contagious disease and a good portion of the population falls into "high risk" categories?

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2 hours ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

[b]Presumably the downstream effects (illness, disability, death) are being felt by elderly and at risk family members. Shrug. [/b] I'm a generally risk averse person, so I'm accustomed to observing other humans doing crazy stuff like sky diving or installing swimming pools in their backyard or keeping guns in the house.  When a family member drowns or shoots themselves, it's the family who suffers and they get to live with that.  That punishment seems appropriate.  

And I suppose it affects me in the sense that if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid patients, then that puts me at risk if I need to be admitted for any reason.  Valid, but our local hospitals so far are not overwhelmed.  But our hospitals generally don't have excess capacity for anything as they aren't established to serve the public good but to serve their bottom line.  That's a larger problem than the covid issue.   

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others? [b] Live and let die.[/b]

 

Wow. Why are people upset at the stupid behavior of others??? Seriously??? 

How nice for you to be able to shrug and say, “live and let die,” because maybe you don’t have any high-risk family members.

I don’t have that luxury.

Some idiot who refuses to social distance or refuses to wear a mask could potentially KILL my dh. So yeah, I’m upset about the stupid behavior of others. Because of that whole “potential death” thing. 

The people who are refusing to take proper precautions to help slow the spread of Covid DO have a very strong effect on families like mine. Do any of those people stop to consider that my family would like to be able to leave our house and safely go out and do things, but that we can’t because some idiots have no consideration for the lives and health of others? Apparently, those people are perfectly fine with the idea that we can’t go anywhere, because they feel they deserve to do All The Things whenever they want to do them, with no regard for public health. So I’m not exactly feeling warm and fuzzy toward those people right now.

And is it right that elderly people should have to self-quarantine in their homes during what were supposed to be their golden years, just so other people can have a homecoming dance or hang out in bars? A lot of elderly people are used to living very active lives, but the irresponsible actions of others are making normal life impossible for them.

I’m sorry if my post seems rude — my anger isn’t directed toward you, and I am assuming that you were asking an honest question, so I hope you’re not offended. It’s just that I get so tired of people having the attitude of, “If you’re SCARED, just stay home.”  Because we have been staying home. Since FEBRUARY. And there is no end in sight.

Our only upcoming trip out of the house will be to travel to one of our other houses... and we have to do the very long drive in one long haul, and we have to pack all of our own food and drinks and figure out how to rig up a way to go to the bathroom inside our SUV because we can’t use any public restrooms or buy any food along the way. The only time one of us will be able to get out of the car is when we need to get gas, and we will need to find gas stations that aren’t busy. It’s going to be a lousy trip, but we have no other options, because we need to make the trip, but we can’t take the risk of coming into contact with people on the road. 

So yeah, I’m feeling pretty resentful of people who do stupid things regarding Covid. 

 

Edited by Catwoman
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33 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

This probably varies quite a bit from school to school  There are no fraternity houses here.  And, there is nothing keeping 21-year old's from having parties just because "college isn't open"

Well, I don't know. I actually think the presence of parents can be pretty dampening. Kids feel freer at college. 

My sister just went back to school, and I gotta say, she's seeing WAY more people than she did when she was home. WAY more. 

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2 minutes ago, Not_a_number said:

Well, I don't know. I actually think the presence of parents can be pretty dampening. Kids feel freer at college. 

My sister just went back to school, and I gotta say, she's seeing WAY more people than she did when she was home. WAY more. 

I just checked the statistics for my area--I live two blocks from a college campus that made the WSJ and all of the major news outlets as a major hotspot several weeks ago--our positivity rate in July was in the upper teens--hitting 20%.  The positivity rate was 11% the second week in August; our college started the third week in August; our positivity rate is now 9%.  Case counts are running 1/2 of what they were in early August.  So even though it looks bad when it is reported that 20 students in one dorm are positive (out of 100), it isn't really being compared to 100 people living in 40 different houses in town and there being someone positive in 20 of those houses.  While numbers on the campus appear high, positivity rate in the community and case numbers have fallen.  

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1 minute ago, Bootsie said:

I just checked the statistics for my area--I live two blocks from a college campus that made the WSJ and all of the major news outlets as a major hotspot several weeks ago--our positivity rate in July was in the upper teens--hitting 20%.  The positivity rate was 11% the second week in August; our college started the third week in August; our positivity rate is now 9%.  Case counts are running 1/2 of what they were in early August.  So even though it looks bad when it is reported that 20 students in one dorm are positive (out of 100), it isn't really being compared to 100 people living in 40 different houses in town and there being someone positive in 20 of those houses.  While numbers on the campus appear high, positivity rate in the community and case numbers have fallen.  

Great! So it sounds like there currently isn't a problem that's spreading to the community. 

The next question is whether that'll stay true. For instance, if you open bars, that will probably make campuses less isolated. As the weather gets colder, people will spend more time inside in general (although maybe not where you are?) 

I guess it's possible we'll have serious outbreaks on college campuses that don't bleed into the community because the students don't have enough contact with that community. That seems fragile, though. But we'll see. 

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14 minutes ago, Not_a_number said:

Great! So it sounds like there currently isn't a problem that's spreading to the community. 

The next question is whether that'll stay true. For instance, if you open bars, that will probably make campuses less isolated. As the weather gets colder, people will spend more time inside in general (although maybe not where you are?) 

I guess it's possible we'll have serious outbreaks on college campuses that don't bleed into the community because the students don't have enough contact with that community. That seems fragile, though. But we'll see. 

Yes, I think there are lots of variables that might make spread happen more in some college towns versus others. My mom’s city is well known for its active bar season which only gets busier when students return. One of the three colleges is a tech school where the majority of students are working full or part time in the community. One of the colleges is known for partying. The three colleges combined add quite a bit to the city population when in session, compared to one small college in my much larger city.The winter will bring cold, snowy weather with people spending most time indoors. Then you have all the different regulations concerning masking, what’s allowed to be open, capacity, etc. that varies by state, county, and even city. Different college towns are going to have different risk factors.

 

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31 minutes ago, Not_a_number said:

I guess it's possible we'll have serious outbreaks on college campuses that don't bleed into the community because the students don't have enough contact with that community. That seems fragile, though. But we'll see. 

FWIW, the positivity rate for off-campus students at DS's university is double the rate for on-campus. And they know for a fact that most of the on-campus cases came from off-campus, both from direct tracing (mostly to parties) and because every student in the dorms had to be tested before they could move in and anyone who tested positive was immediately quarantined. Maybe there are some small LACs in rural areas where there's not a lot of contact between campus and community, but I don't think that's typical of most colleges and universities.

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3 hours ago, Garga said:

My husband is medium-high risk. My friends know this. We got together on Friday night, outside.  

However, earlier in the week the hostess said that if the weather was bad, we would meet inside her house. I asked about masks in the group chat where the plans were being made.  The hostess and another guest said they didn’t want to wear them.  And the other 3 didn’t answer either way. 

It was hurtful. These are my friends. They won’t mask to protect my husband.

 

Yeah, I still don't get this at all.  I must be wired differently or maybe just more introverted than you.  I haven't attended any indoor social event since February.  

In fact, the only time I've been inside a building apart from my home was to get my flu and shingles shots. 

I have otherwise not been inside another building, and somehow I'm not angry and I'm doing fine.   I'm also super healthy and I literally am not acquainted with anyone who has come down with covid.  

It's your decision to stay safe.  It's your friend's decision to socialize and take that risk.  So whatever.   

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1 hour ago, Catwoman said:

Wow. Why are people upset at the stupid behavior of others??? Seriously??? 

How nice for you to be able to shrug and say, “live and let die,” because maybe you don’t have any high-risk family members.

I don’t have that luxury.

Some idiot who refuses to social distance or refuses to wear a mask could potentially KILL my dh. So yeah, I’m upset about the stupid behavior of others. Because of that whole “potential death” thing. 

The people who are refusing to take proper precautions to help slow the spread of Covid DO have a very strong effect on families like mine. Do any of those people stop to consider that my family would like to be able to leave our house and safely go out and do things, but that we can’t because some idiots have no consideration for the lives and health of others? Apparently, those people are perfectly fine with the idea that we can’t go anywhere, because they feel they deserve to do All The Things whenever they want to do them, with no regard for public health. So I’m not exactly feeling warm and fuzzy toward those people right now.

And is it right that elderly people should have to self-quarantine in their homes during what were supposed to be their golden years, just so other people can have a homecoming dance or hang out in bars? A lot of elderly people are used to living very active lives, but the irresponsible actions of others are making normal life impossible for them.

I’m sorry if my post seems rude — my anger isn’t directed toward you, and I am assuming that you were asking an honest question, so I hope you’re not offended. It’s just that I get so tired of people having the attitude of, “If you’re SCARED, just stay home.”  Because we have been staying home. Since FEBRUARY. And there is no end in sight.

Our only upcoming trip out of the house will be to travel to one of our other houses... and we have to do the very long drive in one long haul, and we have to pack all of our own food and drinks and figure out how to rig up a way to go to the bathroom inside our SUV because we can’t use any public restrooms or buy any food along the way. The only time one of us will be able to get out of the car is when we need to get gas, and we will need to find gas stations that aren’t busy. It’s going to be a lousy trip, but we have no other options, because we need to make the trip, but we can’t take the risk of coming into contact with people on the road. 

So yeah, I’m feeling pretty resentful of people who do stupid things regarding Covid. 

 

No, I'm not offended, and thank you, because now I have a better understanding.  My dh and I work from home, so home is where we stay, pretty much 24/7.  I haven't even seen my own parents since May.  As I said I haven't even been inside another building, except the flu shot clinic.

I catch up with friends online, and if they want to have a party without me, good for them!  But I do see that not everyone can work from home, and some people do need to go inside other buildings.

Mostly I'm sad that my dentist refuses to see me and clean my teeth.  Funny, I miss my dentist more than I miss my friends.  (He's a great dentist.)

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58 minutes ago, daijobu said:

Yeah, I still don't get this at all.  I must be wired differently or maybe just more introverted than you.  I haven't attended any indoor social event since February.  

In fact, the only time I've been inside a building apart from my home was to get my flu and shingles shots. 

I have otherwise not been inside another building, and somehow I'm not angry and I'm doing fine.   I'm also super healthy and I literally am not acquainted with anyone who has come down with covid.  

It's your decision to stay safe.  It's your friend's decision to socialize and take that risk.  So whatever.   

Hmmm. It’s actually refreshing to hear this. 

A couple of hours ago, another of the friends invited everyone to come to her house to watch Mulan. She said it would be indoors since she doesn’t have a projector and mentioned popcorn (can’t mask while you’re eating). I’m just going to give them a friendly “no”.  I think they are being very irresponsible for getting together, but you’re right. I don’t have to go. I’ll just stay home.  If the weather turns cold before we can get together again, I’ll just catch them next spring.

They clearly aren’t interested in considering ways to include me, and that stings, but honestly, even with masks, sitting in a room with everyone is risky. So, it’s best just to say no entirely and let them do their thing.

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10 hours ago, Garga said:

One of my friends works in the medical field as a nurse practitioner. She is serious about wearing her mask/ppe while at work, but she isn’t as serious out of work.  She’ll go eat at restaurants, she has flown on a plane for a wedding, she will sit indoors with friends at a graduation party. 

She said that there was some sort of event for a bunch of medical people and some of the doctors said, “Well, what if we go to the event and don’t wear our masks?” because they didn’t want to wear them.

Part of me thinks, “Huh. Maybe I am over-reacting if these medical people don’t think they need to wear masks,” and another part of me thinks they’re nuts.  

So, I just don’t know anymore. Will the 50 couples on the tennis court all be fine? Will it be the beginning of a huge breakout in the community?  Who knows. 

For me, I just can’t take the risk,  but for others, they’re ok with it.

There are doctors who are overweight and of doctors who smoke and doctors who drink too much.  That doesn't mean that these things are safe just that doctors are human and do stupid things like the rest of us.

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1 hour ago, Garga said:

Hmmm. It’s actually refreshing to hear this. 

A couple of hours ago, another of the friends invited everyone to come to her house to watch Mulan. She said it would be indoors since she doesn’t have a projector and mentioned popcorn (can’t mask while you’re eating). I’m just going to give them a friendly “no”.  I think they are being very irresponsible for getting together, but you’re right. I don’t have to go. I’ll just stay home.  If the weather turns cold before we can get together again, I’ll just catch them next spring.

They clearly aren’t interested in considering ways to include me, and that stings, but honestly, even with masks, sitting in a room with everyone is risky. So, it’s best just to say no entirely and let them do their thing.

Are you sure you’ll still want to be friends with them next spring? They don’t exactly sound like the most caring people in the world, and they don’t seem concerned that they are excluding you. (I know they are still inviting you to their events, but they aren’t demonstrating any concern for your family’s health and they don’t seem willing to compromise in order to enable you to attend.)

I’m not saying you should get nasty with them and flounce off in some big, dramatic way; I’m just saying that I’m not sure they deserve to have you as a friend. If the shoe was on the other foot, I have every confidence that you would be going out of your way to find the safest way possible to schedule events so higher risk friends could still participate... but these “friends” aren’t doing that for you, and that’s so disappointing (and hurtful!) I think if I was in your situation, I would politely explain why I wasn’t accepting their invitations, and leave it at that. But depending on the type of response I got from them, I might or might not reach a point of telling them what I really thought of them... 😉 

I think this pandemic is showing a lot of people who their real friends are... and who they aren’t. 😞 

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2 hours ago, daijobu said:

No, I'm not offended, and thank you, because now I have a better understanding.  My dh and I work from home, so home is where we stay, pretty much 24/7.  I haven't even seen my own parents since May.  As I said I haven't even been inside another building, except the flu shot clinic.

I catch up with friends online, and if they want to have a party without me, good for them!  But I do see that not everyone can work from home, and some people do need to go inside other buildings.

Mostly I'm sad that my dentist refuses to see me and clean my teeth.  Funny, I miss my dentist more than I miss my friends.  (He's a great dentist.)

Thanks — It sounds like we are living pretty similar lives right now!  🙂 

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4 hours ago, Where's Toto? said:

Because the people behaving like morons are infecting others who are trying to be careful and don't want to die or their family members to die?

I'm sorry maybe your question was sincere but do you not understand this is a highly contagious disease and a good portion of the population falls into "high risk" categories?

Yes, I do understand.  This is why I stay home.  All the time.  The only other building I have entered since February is the local flu clinic where I got my shots and then yeeted myself out of there like my pants were on fire.  

Neighbors knocked on my front door today and I just went about my business and ignored them until they walked off.   If I'm walking the neighborhood and I spot you from 1 block away, I cross the street to avoid you.  Nowadays we walk after dark so we can really avoid people.  

Remember, I'm not part of the problem.  And at some level, yes I miss my dentist.  I don't miss my friends because we exchange communications regularly online.  

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5 hours ago, PinkTulip said:

 

So I am sitting here, isolating in my bedroom for the last 3 days, talking to my kids in the next room via FaceTime, asking them to slide a tray of food onto the bench we put in front of my bedroom door.  To help pass the time, I’m scrolling through Instagram and see post after post of the pictures from these moms of their homecoming dance they had to have. The presumptuousness, sense of entitlement, and selfishness of these people Is upsetting, to say the least. 

Maybe this is the real problem.  I'm a follower of Cal Newport and all but ignore social media, so I'm not really aware of the local social scene.  I just try to cope with the new routine and go about my day as best I can.  

Even if I were posting on Instagram, I would not be posting a boring photo of me on the sofa watching another episode of Sopranos with DH, because who wants to see that?  You know what else I didn't post on Instagram?  An exciting photo of me trying to figure out which batteries are charged and so I can see if my 20 year old digital camera still works, and whether it's worth selling or if I should donate it.  I also didn't post a picture of myself wondering whether they were taking donations during the pandemic or if that's shut down.  I also didn't post a photo of me putting non-rechargeable batteries in the battery charger.  

We the socially isolated don't offer much to brag about on social media, so you don't see us.

But we're here.   

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1 hour ago, Garga said:

Hmmm. It’s actually refreshing to hear this. 

A couple of hours ago, another of the friends invited everyone to come to her house to watch Mulan. She said it would be indoors since she doesn’t have a projector and mentioned popcorn (can’t mask while you’re eating). I’m just going to give them a friendly “no”.  I think they are being very irresponsible for getting together, but you’re right. I don’t have to go. I’ll just stay home.  If the weather turns cold before we can get together again, I’ll just catch them next spring.

They clearly aren’t interested in considering ways to include me, and that stings, but honestly, even with masks, sitting in a room with everyone is risky. So, it’s best just to say no entirely and let them do their thing.

You're sad to miss Mulan?  Seriously?  Can't you just watch it at home?  

Bonus:  If you watch Mulan at home (Mulan?  Seriously?), you don't need to wear a mask, AND you can make your own popcorn!  

Man if I pulled something like that, DH would lock me out of the house, and he isn't even high risk.  

 

I feel like I'm still trying to figure out this friendship thing.  I mean friends come and go from life, but my DH and family is everything.  I like my friends and all but jeez, I don't like them enough to sit through Mulan with them.  

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5 hours ago, PinkTulip said:

OP here. For me, personally, I am upset at the stupid behavior of others because it is directly having an impact on me right this second. Like I said in the OP, the positivity rate in my very zip code and the adjacent zip code where the kids at this high school live is right around 14%.

I was informed by my county health department on Friday that I was in close contact with an individual who tested positive, so I need to quarantine for 14 days. I have been extremely careful about not going out, always wearing a mask, etc. because DH has a compromised immune system and is in a very high-risk category for serious problems, if not death, if he gets this.

So I am sitting here, isolating in my bedroom for the last 3 days, talking to my kids in the next room via FaceTime, asking them to slide a tray of food onto the bench we put in front of my bedroom door.  To help pass the time, I’m scrolling through Instagram and see post after post of the pictures from these moms of their homecoming dance they had to have. The presumptuousness, sense of entitlement, and selfishness of these people Is upsetting, to say the least. 

I’m so sorry!  I hope you end up all clear and can get back to some version of normal soon.  

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4 hours ago, daijobu said:

Yeah, I still don't get this at all.  I must be wired differently or maybe just more introverted than you.  I haven't attended any indoor social event since February.  

In fact, the only time I've been inside a building apart from my home was to get my flu and shingles shots. 

I have otherwise not been inside another building, and somehow I'm not angry and I'm doing fine.   I'm also super healthy and I literally am not acquainted with anyone who has come down with covid.  

It's your decision to stay safe.  It's your friend's decision to socialize and take that risk.  So whatever.   

But she is not just risking her own health.  Think of smoking.  If a person smokes and they live by themself and only smoke at home then they are risking their own health.  If they smoke at work, on the bus, in the park, when pregnant they are inflicting their choice on others.  With Covid (or any infectious disease,) the more cases in the community the higher the risk for everyone including those not engaging in risky behaviour.  Some people say high risk people should just stay home so as not to inconvenience others but perhaps those engaging in risky behaviour should not be allowed to visit shops or go to work with those who are being responsible.

But people get upset and angry when they are afraid and when they feel like they are making all the effort and other people are taking advantage  Same as when one person does all the housework.

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12 hours ago, Bootsie said:

I have trouble with some of the "tracing" back to particular events.  The one person who went to the bar, or the wedding, or the grocery store, or wherever, when infected, got the infection from somewhere else.  So, if Abby got COVID at work and then goes to a wedding and someone at the wedding then goes to the grocery store, and then someone... does the spread get traced back to the spread that happened because of the wedding or the spread that happened because of Abby's work?  Perhaps if Abby had not gone to the wedding, she would have worked an extra shift at work and even more people would have gotten sick.  So, the tracing may show a chain of exposures, but it does not tell us anything about how many cases there are relative to what would have happened if that particular exposure had not occurred.

Why would we try to prove an unprovable? Where would that get us?
No one is trying to calculate how many times I didn’t contract the virus because I didn’t go to in-person meetings or how many exposures I might have avoided by not throwing a rager. They’re following what’s actually happening, whether Abby went to a wedding or work. In the proposed scenario, she went to a wedding. You trace those people, not the customers/clients/whomever she didn’t come in contact with.

As a person who does leave the house, I accept that I’m taking a degree of risk. But I strongly relate to the Russian roulette analogy, and I am very judgmental of the people carrying extra bullets in their guns for fun, especially without my knowledge. I have an EMT in my house and a spouse traveling for storm recovery.  That’s plenty of ammo. If they go and take their guns to a giant wedding, they’re just jerks. Why would we bother calculating “results” for them not going to a wedding?

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9 hours ago, Bootsie said:

So if young people are going to go to work, or the store, or bars, or parties, or whatever else 20 year old's do--and then go home and expose people at their home (and who then go to their work or to visit relatives) you can have MORE spread than if the young people do those same things and then go back to the dorm together and don't expose their siblings and parents.  So, you might have five people in one home, two people in another home, three people in another... but no one is counting that as 100 cases from XYZ students because the aren't "connected"

But the point is not that "students" spread it, the point is risky behaviors like congregating indoors without masks spread it. I don't care if they are on campus, off campus, or studying abroad - they shouldn't be partying in large unmasked groups. That's really the point, right?

8 hours ago, daijobu said:

Yeah, I still don't get this at all.  I must be wired differently or maybe just more introverted than you.  I haven't attended any indoor social event since February.  

In fact, the only time I've been inside a building apart from my home was to get my flu and shingles shots. 

I have otherwise not been inside another building, and somehow I'm not angry and I'm doing fine.   I'm also super healthy and I literally am not acquainted with anyone who has come down with covid.  

It's your decision to stay safe.  It's your friend's decision to socialize and take that risk.  So whatever.   

Ok, well, that you have no real need/desire to go out doesn't mean a lot of people don't need to or want to. I'd like to see my mother who I haven't seen since March even though she lives an hour away. My kids can't see their cousins or any friends. My kids went 6 months without leaving my property which is frankly, not healthy for a developing brain - thy have now been to a few parks, avoiding the playground, and an outdoor plant nursery. That's it, and again, especially with one kid who has anxiety and some OCD already, could lead to issues in a developing brain. With puppies we talk about how important it is to socialize them to new people and places while their brains are developing.....and we can't do tht with puppies OR kids right now. 

And that's not even getting into all the people that have to work outside the home. My son works outside the home 5 days a week in a vet clinic. My neighbors work in grocery stores, restaurants, and hospitals. Every person out their partying increases the spread in the community which puts my son and others like him, working in the community, at higher risk. 

And then there are all those who need to access doctor's offices, etc. Like me. I leave in half an hour to go to the doctor where I have to take off my mask to treat a lesion on my nose. 

All those are reasons to want spread to go down. We can't all stay home 24/7. And we are angry that other people think partying is more important than other people's lives. 

 

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6 hours ago, daijobu said:

Yes, I do understand.  This is why I stay home.  All the time.  The only other building I have entered since February is the local flu clinic where I got my shots and then yeeted myself out of there like my pants were on fire.  

Neighbors knocked on my front door today and I just went about my business and ignored them until they walked off.   If I'm walking the neighborhood and I spot you from 1 block away, I cross the street to avoid you.  Nowadays we walk after dark so we can really avoid people.  

Remember, I'm not part of the problem.  And at some level, yes I miss my dentist.  I don't miss my friends because we exchange communications regularly online.  

We’ve been trying to live like this, and we mostly do, but it’s close to impossible. I need to go to the dentist, because last time I went far too long without seeing one and there were negative repercussions. We needed to take the kids to the dentist and doctor. We had to buy a car when our last one became unusable. My kids need some social interaction, so we’ve had a pod with our in-laws... but my SIL is pregnant and can’t just not go to her OB.

We’re in the Northeast, so none of this is currently high risk. However, I do expect things here to get worse as it gets cold, and that’s stressful. And I didn’t want to plan dental stuff stretching into November, because I don’t have a sense how that’ll be. 

Anyway, it’s possible to be close to maximally locked down (we haven’t been in a grocery store since March), and still worry. 

Oh, and we live in an apartment building and we HAVE had neighbors with COVID. That’s stressful, too.

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8 hours ago, daijobu said:

Yeah, I still don't get this at all.  I must be wired differently or maybe just more introverted than you.  I haven't attended any indoor social event since February.  

In fact, the only time I've been inside a building apart from my home was to get my flu and shingles shots. 

I have otherwise not been inside another building, and somehow I'm not angry and I'm doing fine.   I'm also super healthy and I literally am not acquainted with anyone who has come down with covid.  

It's your decision to stay safe.  It's your friend's decision to socialize and take that risk.  So whatever.   

But your summary ignores the fact that the risk is not just borne by her friend. If it was, I'd agree with you. But the cost(s) of that friend's (& other people's) risk(s) are paid for by the most vulnerable and those least able to pay it: the elderly, minorities, front-line workers, students, working parents, whose ability to stay safe & keep a roof over their heads and food on the table is dependent upon other people minimizing virus transmission by making wise choices. 

*****************************************************************************

It's actually been really eye-opening to me to be in this country during a pandemic. My observation is that the good-ole-American individualism has now metastasized into an attitude of "it's my RIGHT to not give a f*ck about you & your fill-in-the-blank.....concerns, health, perspective, experience".  (Note: I'm not saying or implying this is you personally.)

And I've actually reached a point where I am not even that upset about it anymore. After a long & frequently-angry struggle, I'm ready to face reality that, yes, this is actually what the society/culture in this country has become. Now I'm just weighing what it means for my future and what I want to do about it. It is/will be definitely a fork in the road in my life.

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13 hours ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

Presumably the downstream effects (illness, disability, death) are being felt by elderly and at risk family members.  Shrug.  I'm a generally risk averse person, so I'm accustomed to observing other humans doing crazy stuff like sky diving or installing swimming pools in their backyard or keeping guns in the house.  When a family member drowns or shoots themselves, it's the family who suffers and they get to live with that.  That punishment seems appropriate.  

And I suppose it affects me in the sense that if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid patients, then that puts me at risk if I need to be admitted for any reason.  Valid, but our local hospitals so far are not overwhelmed.  But our hospitals generally don't have excess capacity for anything as they aren't established to serve the public good but to serve their bottom line.  That's a larger problem than the covid issue.   

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others?  Live and let die.  

 

Because one of DD's friends, who was not particularly elderly or high risk (57 with mild hypertension controlled with medication) who caught COVID, almost certainly when she went out for a medical appointment, died a little over a week ago due to COVID complications. She had last seen her grandchildren July 3, outside, family only. She had last seen DD in March. She was being very careful because her husband is older than she is and at higher risk. She still died. The world lost a wonderful woman who was NOT on death's door in any way, shape or form, because other people decided this didn't affect them. 

I am upset at the stupid behavior of others because it affects other people. While there may have been some folks who died of COVID who really were on death's door already and where their families and friends had already made peace with their deaths, those aren't a majority of cases. Most are leaving shattered, distraught families behind, families who could not even be there at the end, and probably avoided gathering for the funeral, or at least attended masked and socially distanced, because they didn't want to spread this disease further. 

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13 hours ago, Garga said:

It was hurtful. These are my friends. They won’t mask to protect my husband.

I am feeling very judgy right now because I think they’re unwise for not taking it seriously and trying to protect others.

So I'll just toss this out, but there are other things in life where this happens too. When I was very chemically sensitive, it was harmful to me to have people come into my space with fragrance, ANY fragrance. Like the scented laundry detergent you use and never notice. Your deoderant. Very seldom did I have someone wanting to curtail their behavior to be around me. It was my problem, even if it would have been very thoughtful for others to help. In the moment, I wanted others to be more thoughtful, but it's just not how it rolls. Your mother will do extreme changes for you, but not most others. At least that's my experience. 

I think this is the value of the mandates in that they can, if people comply, eliminate those debates. Joint social agreements on it. But if your location doesn't have mandates or your pool of friends is not interested in enforcing them in their own homes, then really it falls to you not to attend if necessary to protect your health. I have relatives who have not showed up for *outdoor* events out of caution. People have to make their own risk assessments. 

 

 

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8 hours ago, Catwoman said:

Are you sure you’ll still want to be friends with them next spring? They don’t exactly sound like the most caring people in the world, and they don’t seem concerned that they are excluding you. (I know they are still inviting you to their events, but they aren’t demonstrating any concern for your family’s health and they don’t seem willing to compromise in order to enable you to attend.)

I’m not saying you should get nasty with them and flounce off in some big, dramatic way; I’m just saying that I’m not sure they deserve to have you as a friend. If the shoe was on the other foot, I have every confidence that you would be going out of your way to find the safest way possible to schedule events so higher risk friends could still participate... but these “friends” aren’t doing that for you, and that’s so disappointing (and hurtful!) I think if I was in your situation, I would politely explain why I wasn’t accepting their invitations, and leave it at that. But depending on the type of response I got from them, I might or might not reach a point of telling them what I really thought of them... 😉 

I think this pandemic is showing a lot of people who their real friends are... and who they aren’t. 😞 

I think you’re sort of right. At this point, I’m expecting more out of the group than they are ready to give.

These women meant the world to me when all our kids were little and we got together. We were each other’s lifelines. We’d look forward to our twice-monthly gatherings and talk about how we just couldn’t make it without each other. (We could have, but we were all so grateful for each other to rely on.)

But now that the kids have grown, it’s not the same and we’re not all on quite the same page. It’s probably just a natural transition. I think I’ve been slow to understand that.  I need to adjust my expectations.

7 hours ago, daijobu said:

You're sad to miss Mulan?  Seriously?  Can't you just watch it at home?  

Bonus:  If you watch Mulan at home (Mulan?  Seriously?), you don't need to wear a mask, AND you can make your own popcorn!  

Man if I pulled something like that, DH would lock me out of the house, and he isn't even high risk.  

 

I feel like I'm still trying to figure out this friendship thing.  I mean friends come and go from life, but my DH and family is everything.  I like my friends and all but jeez, I don't like them enough to sit through Mulan with them.  

Movies are my thing. I used to go every Tuesday night to the movies—I’ve done that for years and seen a couple hundred movies in the past few years. They’re my little escape and I enjoy them greatly. When I was with the group on Friday, we were talking about things we were missing due to Covid and I said how much I miss movies. I had been looking forward to the newest James Bond movie and the live action Mulan movie when Covid hit.  So for me, yes, the movie is a big draw. People who aren’t interested in movies never seem to understand this and give me flack about it, like it’s some odd thing that I love movies when it’s actually a pretty common interest.   

And maybe you’ve never felt it and don’t understand it, but it’s not easy to lose 17-year-long friendships that used to mean the world to you. I’m well aware that friends come and go, but it’s still sad when they go, or even just change and become “less.”

1 hour ago, PeterPan said:

So I'll just toss this out, but there are other things in life where this happens too. When I was very chemically sensitive, it was harmful to me to have people come into my space with fragrance, ANY fragrance. Like the scented laundry detergent you use and never notice. Your deoderant. Very seldom did I have someone wanting to curtail their behavior to be around me. It was my problem, even if it would have been very thoughtful for others to help. In the moment, I wanted others to be more thoughtful, but it's just not how it rolls. Your mother will do extreme changes for you, but not most others. At least that's my experience. 

I think this is the value of the mandates in that they can, if people comply, eliminate those debates. Joint social agreements on it. But if your location doesn't have mandates or your pool of friends is not interested in enforcing them in their own homes, then really it falls to you not to attend if necessary to protect your health. I have relatives who have not showed up for *outdoor* events out of caution. People have to make their own risk assessments. 

Yes, I think this has become my moment to realize what you wrote in the first paragraph. I’m not feeling the anger toward them that I felt yesterday.  A little bit of sadness, but not anger.  They haven’t wronged me. They’re just doing their thing and I’m doing my thing and those things aren’t always compatible.  It’s hard for me to hold grudges, and I’m already beginning to let this go. 

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1 hour ago, dmmetler said:

Because one of DD's friends, who was not particularly elderly or high risk (57 with mild hypertension controlled with medication) who caught COVID, almost certainly when she went out for a medical appointment, died a little over a week ago due to COVID complications. She had last seen her grandchildren July 3, outside, family only. She had last seen DD in March. She was being very careful because her husband is older than she is and at higher risk. She still died. The world lost a wonderful woman who was NOT on death's door in any way, shape or form, because other people decided this didn't affect them. 

I am upset at the stupid behavior of others because it affects other people. While there may have been some folks who died of COVID who really were on death's door already and where their families and friends had already made peace with their deaths, those aren't a majority of cases. Most are leaving shattered, distraught families behind, families who could not even be there at the end, and probably avoided gathering for the funeral, or at least attended masked and socially distanced, because they didn't want to spread this disease further. 

Oh, I'm so sorry 😞 . And I wish we as a society would choose to take care of people like your DD's friend. 

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4 hours ago, Carrie12345 said:

Why would we try to prove an unprovable? Where would that get us?
No one is trying to calculate how many times I didn’t contract the virus because I didn’t go to in-person meetings or how many exposures I might have avoided by not throwing a rager. They’re following what’s actually happening, whether Abby went to a wedding or work. In the proposed scenario, she went to a wedding. You trace those people, not the customers/clients/whomever she didn’t come in contact with.

As a person who does leave the house, I accept that I’m taking a degree of risk. But I strongly relate to the Russian roulette analogy, and I am very judgmental of the people carrying extra bullets in their guns for fun, especially without my knowledge. I have an EMT in my house and a spouse traveling for storm recovery.  That’s plenty of ammo. If they go and take their guns to a giant wedding, they’re just jerks. Why would we bother calculating “results” for them not going to a wedding?

I am not trying to just we prove an unprovable.  What I am suggesting is that we not conclude we know more than we do.  That can lead to poor decisions and poor policies.  Yes, we can trace back what a particular chain of events was in the past; that tells us what that particular chain of events was.  But it overemphasizes the fact that Abby went to a wedding and then X cases occurred because.  Why not go back to the way that Abby got it and then tie X + 1 cases to that behavior?  It in now way indicates that there would have been X fewer cases if Abby had not gone to the wedding.  Abby could have exposed someone else during the time she wasn't at the wedding--she could have gone somewhere else and exposed a person who had even more contacts with a vulnerable population. 

To say that "X" number of cases occurred because of a wedding implies that we are calculating "results" for them not going to a wedding and we are calculating that number to be zero.  

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12 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I am not trying to just we prove an unprovable.  What I am suggesting is that we not conclude we know more than we do.  That can lead to poor decisions and poor policies.  Yes, we can trace back what a particular chain of events was in the past; that tells us what that particular chain of events was.  But it overemphasizes the fact that Abby went to a wedding and then X cases occurred because.  Why not go back to the way that Abby got it and then tie X + 1 cases to that behavior?  It in now way indicates that there would have been X fewer cases if Abby had not gone to the wedding.  Abby could have exposed someone else during the time she wasn't at the wedding--she could have gone somewhere else and exposed a person who had even more contacts with a vulnerable population. 

To say that "X" number of cases occurred because of a wedding implies that we are calculating "results" for them not going to a wedding and we are calculating that number to be zero.  

I've also seen you argue against masking, because we aren't sure it's helping. 

Where are we left after all this? I agree that the science isn't robust on any of this. I agree that people are spreading it at workplaces as well as at weddings and at parties. But what we have left if we apply this reasoning is forced inaction, because we aren't SURE of anything. Of course Abby could have gone to a wild rave instead of that wedding and it would have been even worse. Or maybe she would have come in to a very crowded workplace and spread it there, and that would have been worse. 

And then... what? We don't want to close workplaces, because people are suffering economically enough as is. We don't want to totally shut down restaurants or schools. So if we don't want to talk about how it's spread in optional, crowded events, and we don't want to make any conclusions about masking, what possible mitigations are left for us, exactly? NY has already funded some quarantine hotels that people could use if they don't want to infect their loved ones, but unsurprisingly, people don't love that idea, and I'm sure we're both not comfortable with forcing people to use them. 

I guess my question is... what do we do if we decide not to make conclusions from our limited, incomplete data? What are our next steps? 

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In my dc’s college town there hasn’t been an issue of spread within dorms. The issue has been Greek houses. Most have already had it run through and the entire house was quarantined for two weeks.
 

They’re doing random testing every week (youngest has been tested twice already). The positivity rate has fallen the past two weeks thankfully. Positivity rate within Greek houses is now down to just over 3%. The university has their own dashboard that they update weekly. The county positivity rate also has started dropping again. 
 

I honestly thought things were going to be much worse and am happy it seems to be going ok. Youngest has one three hour class on campus and dh and I have even felt comfortable enough to eat outdoors at restaurants there when we take dd. Then, we spend the rest of time walking around campus. Almost everyone is wearing masks even while walking around outside. It’s been nice.

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13 minutes ago, Not_a_number said:

I've also seen you argue against masking, because we aren't sure it's helping. 

Where are we left after all this? I agree that the science isn't robust on any of this. I agree that people are spreading it at workplaces as well as at weddings and at parties. But what we have left if we apply this reasoning is forced inaction, because we aren't SURE of anything. Of course Abby could have gone to a wild rave instead of that wedding and it would have been even worse. Or maybe she would have come in to a very crowded workplace and spread it there, and that would have been worse. 

And then... what? We don't want to close workplaces, because people are suffering economically enough as is. We don't want to totally shut down restaurants or schools. So if we don't want to talk about how it's spread in optional, crowded events, and we don't want to make any conclusions about masking, what possible mitigations are left for us, exactly? NY has already funded some quarantine hotels that people could use if they don't want to infect their loved ones, but unsurprisingly, people don't love that idea, and I'm sure we're both not comfortable with forcing people to use them. 

I guess my question is... what do we do if we decide not to make conclusions from our limited, incomplete data? What are our next steps? 

I am not sure what you think you have seen me argue about masks.  I have not argued against masking.  I have asked some questions about it.  I wear a mask and I hope it helps.  There is a big difference in continuing to ask questions--thinking about things and hoping to get better answers--and arguing against something.

We could be making policy mistakes if we, for example, count the number of children in a school that are positive and say X number of kids are positive--close the schools.  But, if schools were not open we might have more kids who are positive--we just are counting them as a group.  As we move around in families, societies, and groups, we are changing the size of the groups that we are comparing, and we need to be aware of that.  

I suggest that we begin by realizing that our data is limited and incomplete.  We do the best we can do with that--and continue to ask questions.  My starting point was agreeing with another poster that we should not confuse anecdote with evidence--whichever side of a situation our views are on.  I think there is a tendency to accept anecdote as evidence when it agrees with our prior without questioning and realizing that is what we are doing; it is much easier to see when someone we don't agree with is doing that and saying that is not logical, rational, or thinking.  

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2 hours ago, Happy2BaMom said:

 

It's actually been really eye-opening to me to be in this country during a pandemic. My observation is that the good-ole-American individualism has now metastasized into an attitude of "it's my RIGHT to not give a f*ck about you & your fill-in-the-blank.....concerns, health, perspective, experience".  (Note: I'm not saying or implying this is you personally.)

And I've actually reached a point where I am not even that upset about it anymore. After a long & frequently-angry struggle, I'm ready to face reality that, yes, this is actually what the society/culture in this country has become. Now I'm just weighing what it means for my future and what I want to do about it. It is/will be definitely a fork in the road in my life.

No, this is a fair assessment and pretty close to the mark.  If people really cared about public health, they would not have voted down Hillary Clinton's healthcare initiative in the 1990s.  I mean, who doesn't want public health care?  But apparently lots of people don't.  That plus a lot of other policies favored by conservatives has left me thinking that the best I can do is look out for myself and my family.   

I often wonder why I continue to let me heart bleed for other Americans when they don't bother looking out for their own best interests.  The corporatization of health care is one of so many problems leading to this crisis.  We just aren't set up to help the public good in this country.  

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15 hours ago, Not_a_number said:

Students don't party at bars. They party at frats. 

The uni I went to doesn't have frat houses. Students party at bars, in apartments, dorms and private houses. The uni my son went to also doesnt' have frat houses. In addition to the above, due to it's location, they also party on camping trips, hiking trips and other outdoor related activities. Students can & do party anywhere.

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47 minutes ago, Garga said:

 

Movies are my thing. I used to go every Tuesday night to the movies—I’ve done that for years and seen a couple hundred movies in the past few years. They’re my little escape and I enjoy them greatly. When I was with the group on Friday, we were talking about things we were missing due to Covid and I said how much I miss movies. I had been looking forward to the newest James Bond movie and the live action Mulan movie when Covid hit.  So for me, yes, the movie is a big draw. People who aren’t interested in movies never seem to understand this and give me flack about it, like it’s some odd thing that I love movies when it’s actually a pretty common interest.   

And maybe you’ve never felt it and don’t understand it, but it’s not easy to lose 17-year-long friendships that used to mean the world to you. I’m well aware that friends come and go, but it’s still sad when they go, or even just change and become “less.”

 

Yes, that's fair, and I feel bad for making light of this.  We all have our favorite activities that are now off limits, and we all must mourn that loss, even if mine may seem trivial to everyone else.  I looked into it and I had no idea there was a new version of Mulan.  I thought you were referring the 20+ year old disney cartoon, but as it turns out, even that movie got nearly 90% on Rotten Tomatoes.  (I haven't seen it.)  I also didn't know there was another James Bond movie coming out, but I stopped watching those in the 1990s.  

I think I have a better understanding of my thing about friendships.  I live in a high COLA, and I routinely bid farewell to good friends who left the area for greener pastures.  So I'm already accustomed to losing friends on a regular basis.  And even before the pandemic I had one homeschooling mom with whom I was close, our kids were close in age, we had regular play dates, park days, kept up with each other lives, etc.  I also really liked her.  After we launched our kids, I kept calling her to go on walks and catch up.  She started to get a little reluctant about these walks, and it dawned on me that she never called me to arrange get togethers.  So I thought I would experiment and just not call her anymore and see what happens.  True to my instincts, I never heard from her again.  I mourned that loss briefly but I think the larger effect is that I hold friends at an arms distance in terms of my emotions. 

In my life friendships come and go, but family is for keeps.  

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16 hours ago, daijobu said:

Okay, so first of all I totally agree these weddings and dances are irresponsible and deadly and all that.  But help me understand the emotional reaction people are having to the risky behavior of others.  

Presumably the downstream effects (illness, disability, death) are being felt by elderly and at risk family members.  Shrug.  I'm a generally risk averse person, so I'm accustomed to observing other humans doing crazy stuff like sky diving or installing swimming pools in their backyard or keeping guns in the house.  When a family member drowns or shoots themselves, it's the family who suffers and they get to live with that.  That punishment seems appropriate.  

And I suppose it affects me in the sense that if hospitals are overwhelmed with covid patients, then that puts me at risk if I need to be admitted for any reason.  Valid, but our local hospitals so far are not overwhelmed.  But our hospitals generally don't have excess capacity for anything as they aren't established to serve the public good but to serve their bottom line.  That's a larger problem than the covid issue.   

I guess my question is, WHY is everyone else so upset at the stupid behavior of others?  Live and let die.  

 

Because other people engaging in "stupid behavior" can lead to my death. Why should they get to make that decision for me? They live and I die. Understand?

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45 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I am not trying to just we prove an unprovable.  What I am suggesting is that we not conclude we know more than we do.  That can lead to poor decisions and poor policies.  Yes, we can trace back what a particular chain of events was in the past; that tells us what that particular chain of events was.  But it overemphasizes the fact that Abby went to a wedding and then X cases occurred because.  Why not go back to the way that Abby got it and then tie X + 1 cases to that behavior?  It in now way indicates that there would have been X fewer cases if Abby had not gone to the wedding.  Abby could have exposed someone else during the time she wasn't at the wedding--she could have gone somewhere else and exposed a person who had even more contacts with a vulnerable population. 

To say that "X" number of cases occurred because of a wedding implies that we are calculating "results" for them not going to a wedding and we are calculating that number to be zero.  

Ok, I think what you are missing regarding the emphasis on weddings, parties, etc is twofold:

1. Yes, Abby might have caught it at her doctor's office, or grocery shopping. And we SHOULD trace and find that out! But people need to eat, and get groceries, and go to the doctor, so knowing it can spread there is important, but we can't change that behavior. We can't stop using doctors or buying food. We CAN stop having large gatherings indoors. 

2. the focus on indoor parties/weddings/bars/etc is because if there is a person there who is a super spreader, they have more chance to infect a large number of people. At a gathering of 5 people for one hour, the most they can directly infect is 5. At a gathering of 150 people, they can infect many many more. Hence limits on gathering size. 

No one is saying that none of those people couldn't catch it some other way, but the fact is they DID catch it there, and it is those types of events that seem to cause greater spread (indoors, unmasked, large numbers of people) more quickly. 

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30 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I am not sure what you think you have seen me argue about masks.  I have not argued against masking.  I have asked some questions about it.  I wear a mask and I hope it helps.  There is a big difference in continuing to ask questions--thinking about things and hoping to get better answers--and arguing against something.

We could be making policy mistakes if we, for example, count the number of children in a school that are positive and say X number of kids are positive--close the schools.  But, if schools were not open we might have more kids who are positive--we just are counting them as a group.  As we move around in families, societies, and groups, we are changing the size of the groups that we are comparing, and we need to be aware of that.  

I suggest that we begin by realizing that our data is limited and incomplete.  We do the best we can do with that--and continue to ask questions.  My starting point was agreeing with another poster that we should not confuse anecdote with evidence--whichever side of a situation our views are on.  I think there is a tendency to accept anecdote as evidence when it agrees with our prior without questioning and realizing that is what we are doing; it is much easier to see when someone we don't agree with is doing that and saying that is not logical, rational, or thinking.  

I do realize our data is limited and incomplete. I don't think I have much less statistical training than you or am less likely to question my priors, so I don't think that's where this discussion is coming from. I think where the discussion is coming from is what exactly we DO with our limited data. And I'm not seeing you make concrete suggestions for what we can do, after we've done demolishing all of our evidence as anecdotal. 

I think what @Ausmumof3is exactly right: household spread is an endpoint and it's not something we can easily control. What we CAN control is the centralized super-spreading event. 

Here's a map of the recent New Zealand cluster, which as you can see is much better understood than anything in the US: 

https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/300086391/coronavirus-mapping-aucklands-new-cluster-now-one-of-the-countrys-biggest

So, what do we see? We see that there's a CENTRAL spreading event at a workplace. Most spread happened in households, but the thing that sparked the cluster was at a work place. 

This is what people worry about when they talk about spread at schools or in campuses or at parties or at weddings. They worry about events that seed a larger outbreak. 

Now, is it the case that these events are the main driver of the spread? I think that really depends on how people are behaving on their own time. If people are careful and getting tested and not going out if they know they are sick, spread is likely to end at most households, aside from the main central event. If that's not the case, the chains could look a lot more complicated. But again, the central events are going to be a big problem even if everyone is very careful. 

So, yes, you would want to work on both of those. But the central events are a huge problem no matter how you dice it. And then the question is which central events are easiest to eliminate. 

Edited by Not_a_number
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12 hours ago, Not_a_number said:

Well, I don't know. I actually think the presence of parents can be pretty dampening. Kids feel freer at college. 

My sister just went back to school, and I gotta say, she's seeing WAY more people than she did when she was home. WAY more. 

Many college-aged students don't live with their parents, whether or not their particular uni is open for on campus classes. They have  year long apartment and house leases near their universities and live there. Some of them get short term rentals for internships in other locations as well. It's not accurate to assume a student at a uni with a closed campus is living with their parents. Also, most parents of adult kids realize their kids are adults. They don't limit their adult children's social lives. If the parents aren't cautious re: covid themselves, then they may even let their adult kids throw a party in the family home.

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2 hours ago, dmmetler said:

Because one of DD's friends, who was not particularly elderly or high risk (57 with mild hypertension controlled with medication) who caught COVID, almost certainly when she went out for a medical appointment, died a little over a week ago due to COVID complications.

Wow, that really drives it home for me.  Because IRL I have not heard of a single person who has had any symptoms from COVID.  I read about it in the papers, so I assume it must be happening.  The closest I can think of is I heard about someone who was a long time friend of my father's who was in a nursing home and tested positive.  But now he's okay.  And that's it for me.

Every day I wake up and the sun is shining, people are walking their dogs, landscaping their front yards and showing courtesy about social distancing i.e., crossing the street as we approach so we don't occupy the same side walk at the same time.  In fact, there was one time when a neighbor and I were in such a rush to be the gallant one, that we both ended up crossing the street and then we had to figure out which one should be the one to cross back!  

I forgot one other anecdote about my flu shot experience.  After I checked in (this was indoors so I was freaking out a little) the admin directed me wait in the waiting area.  I did that for about 30 seconds, and then I told her I would wait outside on the sidewalk to enjoy a little of that Oregon Ash that blowing by at 150ppm.  She was not pleased but after a 10 minute wait, a nurse came outside to retrieve me for my shots.  So I guess I saved myself about 10 minutes of indoor shared air, FWIW.  

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for educating me and keeping me grounded here.  It's all so abstract given I hardly go anywhere, and I get all my news from the local papers which are dominated by stories of fires and small business failures and the like, because our hospitals are empty.  

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Just now, TechWife said:

Many college-aged students don't live with their parents, whether or not their particular uni is open for on campus classes. They have  year long apartment and house leases near their universities and live there. Some of them get short term rentals for internships in other locations as well. It's not accurate to assume a student at a uni with a closed campus is living with their parents. Also, most parents of adult kids realize their kids are adults. They don't limit their adult children's social lives. If the parents aren't cautious re: covid themselves, then they may even let their adult kids throw a party in the family home.

I think on average, older people are more cautious... but of course, that's not a rule. I'm more careful than my mom, for example. 

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Just now, daijobu said:

Wow, that really drives it home for me.  Because IRL I have not heard of a single person who has had any symptoms from COVID.  I read about it in the papers, so I assume it must be happening.  The closest I can think of is I heard about someone who was a long time friend of my father's who was in a nursing home and tested positive.  But now he's okay.  And that's it for me.

Every day I wake up and the sun is shining, people are walking their dogs, landscaping their front yards and showing courtesy about social distancing i.e., crossing the street as we approach so we don't occupy the same side walk at the same time.  In fact, there was one time when a neighbor and I were in such a rush to be the gallant one, that we both ended up crossing the street and then we had to figure out which one should be the one to cross back!  

I forgot one other anecdote about my flu shot experience.  After I checked in (this was indoors so I was freaking out a little) the admin directed me wait in the waiting area.  I did that for about 30 seconds, and then I told her I would wait outside on the sidewalk to enjoy a little of that Oregon Ash that blowing by at 150ppm.  She was not pleased but after a 10 minute wait, a nurse came outside to retrieve me for my shots.  So I guess I saved myself about 10 minutes of indoor shared air, FWIW.  

Anyway, I want to thank everyone for educating me and keeping me grounded here.  It's all so abstract given I hardly go anywhere, and I get all my news from the local papers which are dominated by stories of fires and small business failures and the like, because our hospitals are empty.  

Yeah, you're in a weird place for COVID -- early lockdown, but no one has had it. 

I know lots of people who had COVID. Only one of them died and he was very old, but something like half of them have had lingering issues. It feels pretty different. 

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2 minutes ago, Not_a_number said:

I think on average, older people are more cautious... but of course, that's not a rule. I'm more careful than my mom, for example. 

Perhaps, but college aged adults aren't "older people" and parents don't control their adult children (well, at least those who have healthy relationships don't control them).

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Just now, TechWife said:

Perhaps, but college aged adults aren't "older people" and parents don't control their adult children (well, at least those who have healthy relationships don't control them).

I didn't say "control them." I just mean that adults can urge caution... surely we all agree that college-aged people can learn from older and wiser folks if they are around? It's pretty different from living with an apartment with another bunch of 19 year olds. 

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