(CV19 hypothetical) If you had a crystal ball that revealed

[Pen]

Intro:

The < how are your kids handling the pandemic >  thread got me thinking about how different I might feel if I had a few kids 9 and under happily homeschooling, (and an okay economic situation, etc,) versus a late teen / young adult whose current situation and plans for future are hugely affected. 

So, my hypothetical:

If a crystal ball could tell us accurately (but not everything else so we would otherwise still be unable to predict future) that it would be 5 years before a reasonably safe and effective CV19 vaccine would be ready (still super fast compared to most vaccines!)—would anything about your current approach or attitudes toward handling pandemic change? 

For example, Would you be more in favor of “lock downs,” or of “opening up”, or no change? 

If willing to say what is going on where you are and what the change would be I would appreciate that.  I anticipate someone in Australia may have a very different sense of this from someone in Belgium or in various parts of USA with different approaches and different amounts of local pandemic outbreak. 

Also mention of kids ages/stages would be appreciated . 

 

 

TIA

 

[Not_a_Number]

I'm not FOR herd immunity, but I do think that if we let the pandemic rage for a while, the rates of transmission will go down significantly due to having enough people infected, and treatments will seriously improve. So do you want my crystal ball to also predict no change in the IFR and in the rate of transmission? 

[Terabith]

Honestly, I am assuming it will probably be at least two years and possibly five before we have a vaccine that's effective and deployed.  And that HAS effected how I behave, because while I so, so, so wish we had pursued a policy of eradication or major suppression early on, at this point I figure that ship has sailed.  And we can lock down to lower risk to a large degree, but mental health wise, we can't completely do that.  It's hard to figure out the balance of what is sustainable, mental health wise, for a situation that will go on more or less indefinitely versus maximal risk reduction.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Terabith said:

Honestly, I am assuming it will probably be at least two years and possibly five before we have a vaccine that's effective and deployed.  And that HAS effected how I behave, because while I so, so, so wish we had pursued a policy of eradication or major suppression early on, at this point I figure that ship has sailed.  And we can lock down to lower risk to a large degree, but mental health wise, we can't completely do that.  It's hard to figure out the balance of what is sustainable, mental health wise, for a situation that will go on more or less indefinitely versus maximal risk reduction.  

I guess I'm not as pessimistic 😉 . For instance, people HAVE gotten much better at testing. It's true that we're doing a cruddy job with this pandemic as a country, but people are (slowly) learning. And if you don't learn, lots of people get it, and that does cut rate of transmission... 

[Twolittleboys]

Well, I am kind of losing patience with this pandemic. I know that's horrible, but it is what it is. My immediate family is not high risk (I know of course that there are no guarantees) and kids are at an age where it is really problematic (oldest just started college, younger son in 10th grade) and I can't quite see us putting our lives on hold for five more years. An entire college education with mostly distance learning and little socializing? Another kid with no prom etc.? I really miss travelling/vacations...

I think I am okay with another 6 months to a year but much longer than that and I am not sure how reasonable I will /would be. That being said I am okay with wearing a mask, washing hands, taking reasonable precautions. But in the middle to long term I would probably go out to restaurants and travel again as long as it is allowed. I do work from home and don't see many people in my daily live so the risk of me infecting others after e.g. travelling would be fairly low.

 

[Terabith]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

I guess I'm not as pessimistic 😉 . For instance, people HAVE gotten much better at testing. It's true that we're doing a cruddy job with this pandemic as a country, but people are (slowly) learning. And if you don't learn, lots of people get it, and that does cut rate of transmission... 

Location seems matter a LOT for testing and learning.  It took me six days to get my test back last week, and if anything, people here are far less obedient with masking.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Terabith said:

Location seems matter a LOT for testing and learning.  It took me six days to get my test back last week, and if anything, people here are far less obedient with masking.  

Oh, sure. But it's all better than last March, right? 😉 

[Terabith]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Oh, sure. But it's all better than last March, right? 😉 

It's better than March, but probably worse than April.

[Spy Car]

I have one child, a son--who is 16.

Online school is working out brilliantly this year. I commend his teachers on a job excellently done. I've been enjoying listening in on some of the classes (including all of AP US History).

I think we blew it as a nation by not having a short--but very sharp--lockdown. I thought that was going to happen and continue to believe we could have contained this virus early. Had we done so the economic and social impacts--to say nothing of the death toll--would have been far less.

We've had a national leader setting the worst possible example and our response has been a disastrous embarrassment. Too may people have died needlessly.  

I'm as mad as hell and will vote accordingly.

Bill

[regentrude]

10 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I guess I'm not as pessimistic 😉 . For instance, people HAVE gotten much better at testing. It's true that we're doing a cruddy job with this pandemic as a country, but people are (slowly) learning. And if you don't learn, lots of people get it, and that does cut rate of transmission... 

I don't see people learning. Rural Midwest here. Rates are going up, masks are rarely seen in the general population away from the college campus.
Yes, testing is better than it was in the spring, I give you that.

Edited October 18, 2020 by regentrude

[Jean in Newcastle]

I wouldn’t do anything differently on an individual level. I started masking before there were any mask mandates or even strongly worded suggestions.  While new information on this particular virus continues to emerge, my understanding of how viruses in general operate has not been affected. 
 

My 18 year old was able to get a good paying steady job after the pandemic started. My 23 year old is doing well in college. If they were younger we would have been even less affected. 

[Not_a_Number]

7 minutes ago, regentrude said:

I don't see people learning. Rural Midwest here. Rates are going up, masks are rarely seen in the general population away from the college campus.
Yes, testing is better than it was in the spring, I give you that.

Oh, I don't mean the general population. I just meant testing and treatments and such. 

[Spy Car]

15 minutes ago, Twolittleboys said:

Well, I am kind of losing patience with this pandemic. I know that's horrible, but it is what it is. My immediate family is not high risk (I know of course that there are no guarantees) and kids are at an age where it is really problematic (oldest just started college, younger son in 10th grade) and I can't quite see us putting our lives on hold for five more years. An entire college education with mostly distance learning and little socializing? Another kid with no prom etc.? I really miss travelling/vacations...

I think I am okay with another 6 months to a year but much longer than that and I am not sure how reasonable I will /would be. That being said I am okay with wearing a mask, washing hands, taking reasonable precautions. But in the middle to long term I would probably go out to restaurants and travel again as long as it is allowed. I do work from home and don't see many people in my daily live so the risk of me infecting others after e.g. travelling would be fairly low.

 

"It is what it is?"  

Bill

[Not_a_Number]

11 minutes ago, Terabith said:

It's better than March, but probably worse than April.

Really?? You aren't running more tests than in the spring? Oh, that sucks. 

[kbutton]

No clarity here...my son is currently missing his vocational high school program because their very good re-opening plan was not guaranteed to be an all-year plan, and I am high risk. I'm flying blind. I can't imagine doing this for five years, and I'm all in for the time being.

34 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm not FOR herd immunity, but I do think that if we let the pandemic rage for a while, the rates of transmission will go down significantly due to having enough people infected, and treatments will seriously improve. So do you want my crystal ball to also predict no change in the IFR and in the rate of transmission? 

I really think our nation is going to grope blindly through this and make it take as long as possible while being as painful as possible.

I don't even really think we need hard lock downs as much as compliance with masks, and creative solutions (work from home, etc.) being protected by law. In our state, that has kept a lid on things for months, but people are over it and now holding festivals and such. We could implement just a few well-placed restrictions and still have a LOT of mobility with much, much lower rates. But people in our area can't do it. They are politicizing every bit.

So, five years from now...I guess wishing we lived in a different part of the state where people are more reasonable. 

[kbutton]

1 minute ago, kbutton said:

No clarity here...my son is currently missing his vocational high school program because their very good re-opening plan was not guaranteed to be an all-year plan, and I am high risk. I'm flying blind. I can't imagine doing this for five years, and I'm all in for the time being.

I really think our nation is going to grope blindly through this and make it take as long as possible while being as painful as possible.

I don't even really think we need hard lock downs as much as compliance with masks, and creative solutions (work from home, etc.) being protected by law. In our state, that has kept a lid on things for months, but people are over it and now holding festivals and such. We could implement just a few well-placed restrictions and still have a LOT of mobility with much, much lower rates. But people in our area can't do it. They are politicizing every bit.

So, five years from now...I guess wishing we lived in a different part of the state where people are more reasonable. 

I should say, "re-implement." Our lockdown as early and moderately strict, but effective. 

[Guest]

Quote

a crystal ball could tell us accurately (but not everything else so we would otherwise still be unable to predict future) that it would be 5 years before a reasonably safe and effective CV19 vaccine would be ready (still super fast compared to most vaccines!)—would anything about your current approach or attitudes toward handling pandemic change? 

For example, Would you be more in favor of “lock downs,” or of “opening up”, or no change? 

If willing to say what is going on where you are and what the change would be I would appreciate that.  I anticipate someone in Australia may have a very different sense of this from someone in Belgium or in various parts of USA with different approaches and different amounts of local pandemic outbreak. 

Also mention of kids ages/stages would be appreciated 

For reference: Mid-Atlantic of US; current stages of kids: one graduated from college, working, living independently; one in third year in state university, living in an apartment off campus; one at home, doing virtual public school 10th grade. Also, my area has had a more government-led response, though we have a Republican governor and that is less typical of Republican governors. Otherwise, the state as a whole is very Democratic. 

I, in my personal behavior, don’t think I would change much. I might make a bigger effort to host some family parties outdoors before our weather totally tanks. I just saw, driving past a house, what looked like a family party outside under easy-ups and I thought, “I don’t know if that’s a family doing a ‘Thanksgiving’ now before the weather turns, but that would be a great idea.” So if I knew we had years to go before we can really have a normal holiday season, I might be trying to figure out how to do it differently but still pretty safely. I’m not that bothered to miss one holiday season, though. 

Also, although I was not against our March lock-downs and I did agree largely with the staging of our reopening, it would be hard for me to get on board with a new lockdown. I just think the civil unrest it could cause is not worth it. I don’t have an issue with tightening up certain things, though, like if they back up with bars or casinos, say. I am in favor of our mask mandate and I hope that continues for as long as necessary; I do not trust people to make the most pro-social choices without a mandate. This board and what people report on here proves to me that compliance is high where masks are required and not where it is merely requested. 

One thing I don’t know would be if dd gets engaged, which I think will happen either 2020 or 21. I think if COVID hadn’t turned up, they would have gotten engaged this year. I know dd does not want a pandemic-influenced wedding; she wants a normal celebration with friends and family. So I can’t foresee how all those nuts and bolts will work out. If she knew we were five years from a normal wedding, I imagine she would get married anyway, but I doubt she will choose that if things are looking up. 

I don’t think I would do anything differently with college ds, but I would be sad that his college experience was severely curtailed by COVID. I would not expect to return him home, though, unless our financial situation changed so severely that he simply had to. I do like for him to have a sliver of college experience by living away from home. 

I would keep things the same for high school ds, too, but would also be sad that he didn’t get a normal high school experience. It’s ironic that the main reason we wanted our kids to go to school for high school - social interaction, being out of the house - is moot at the moment. But at least I don’t have to craft his whole high school program and implement it. 

[TravelingChris]

My kids are all adults and all employed and currently none living in my house-- that may change in Feb for another six month stay or may not.   Are we doing things differently- yes.  Less eating out = much more ordering in.  Wearing masks when we are indoors or crowded outdoors (but we hardly ever go to crowded outdoors).  We obviously can't attend musicals and vocal concerts.  But our state is mostly open (except for restaurants, bars, stores, etc that have permanently closed because of COVID)/  I can't go to in person classes.  I am not going to church in person because there are small children who aren't masked.   There will be no parties for Christmas.  

But travel-- We have gone on two vacations with no issues.  We will still be travelling.  Art museums, for example, aren't crowded at all and the one in my city wasn't crowded even before pandemic.  

[Not_a_Number]

10 minutes ago, kbutton said:

I really think our nation is going to grope blindly through this and make it take as long as possible while being as painful as possible.

Yep, pretty much. But again, eventually the virus will just run out of people to infect 😉 . Maybe not permanently, but when most people have had it, things may very well taper off themselves, with occasional outbreaks but not a huge pandemic. 

What I don't want is to be part of the "herd" with immunity for the time being 😉 . 

[Tap]

Nothing would really change for me. I work in healthcare. We already do basic precautions. I think that a slow and steady path of COVID is the most reasonable. We aren't going to stop it and honestly, half of the people I know say they will refuse the vaccine anyways. By allowing it to slowly go through the community, the healthcare system can deal with the load and they are learning more about treatments each day. 

I really, really think COVID and the versions it mutates into, are going to be like the flu each year. It is here to stay and we will be vaccinated for it yearly or every few years. Some people will vaccinate and some will not. Some will get sick and recover, some will die. It sucks, but I think that this is our new normal to some extent. 

Hopefully, what we learn from this is how to reduce illness spread overall and to encourage people to stay home when they are sick. 

Edited October 19, 2020 by Tap

[TCB]

Whatever we may choose I think hospital overwhelm is the limiting factor. You can’t really choose your way out of that. That really ‘is what it is’

[mlktwins]

4 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Straight up, what would change is that I might very well become LESS cautious.

My DH might not be here in five years.  I would rather go to Disney with DH and my kids and take the chance that he's gone in 2 or 3....than hibernate at home for another 5.  

 

But then a favorite song of mine is "Live Like You Were Dying."   So....yeah.

I totally, totally get this!!!  I’m so sorry for your situation.  But...what if it is you that gets it and goes before your DH?

[Junie]

37 minutes ago, Spy Car said:

I have one child, a son--who is 16.

Online school is working out brilliantly this year. I commend his teachers on a job excellently done. I've been enjoying listening in on some of the classes (including all of AP US History).

I think we blew it as a nation by not having a short--but very sharp--lockdown. I thought that was going to happen and continue to believe we could have contained this virus early. Had we done so the economic and social impacts--to say nothing of the death toll--would have been far less.

We've had a national leader setting the worst possible example and our response has been a disastrous embarrassment. Too may people have died needlessly.  

I'm as mad as hell and will vote accordingly.

Bill

I totally agree with this.

We have been very tightly locked down in our house.  I figure we either stay home or become part of the problem.

[Junie]

What would I do differently if I knew it would be 5 years?

We would not be locked down as tightly as we are, but we would space our interactions out (family, maybe some friends) and quarantine for two weeks on either side.  So we might go to visit my mom one month, have my sister visit another month...

And I would try to work in some doctor's appointments that I am afraid of doing right now... 

[mlktwins]

My family is still is phase 1 lock down mode (our choice) to be able to care for 3 elderly parents.  We will continue this way until the beginning of next summer.  Then we will re-eavluate.  I am most at risk of my family of 4, but am starting to work on the health things that make me more vulnerable.  

I have twin 10th graders.  School is going well.  They miss their year round competitive swim team.  I don’t want this life for my boys.  For me, I’m not sure I will continue putting my children’s lives on hold to care for people who have lived a full life.  I feel stuck between a rock and a hard place.

[Carrie12345]

I’d still need more information, like a quantitative definition of “effective”.

Now that ds’s grandmother appears to have a reinfection (and I know that concept is still being investigated and debated), I’m feeling like everything is up in the air. I’m still digesting that information.

[BakersDozen]

2 minutes ago, Tap said:

Nothing would really change for me. I work in healthcare. We already do basic precautions. I think that a slow and steady path of COVID is the most reasonable. We aren't going to stop it and honestly, half of the people I know say they will refuse the vaccine anyways. By allowing it to slowly go through the community, the healthcare system can deal with the load and, the are learning more about treatments each day. 

I really, really think COVID and the versions it mutates into are going to be like the flu each year. It is here to stay and we will be vaccinated for it yearly or every few years. Some people will vaccinate and some will not. Some will get sick and recover, some will die. It sucks, but I think that this is our new normal to some extent. 

Hopefully, what we learn from this is how to reduce illness spread overall and to encourage people to stay home when they are sick. 

This.

I'm not in favor of lock downs but I sure wish some restrictions/guidelines had been kept in place. I thought the 2 people per cart rule in Costco and Wal-Mart was fantastic and I'd love to see mask mandates in stores (not just for COVID but basic health/illness reasons).


 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

Then, there's the fact that I myself am in my low 40s, very healthy, have the luck of very long lived genes, plus the statistics that those in my age group are still showing less than 20% even hospitalized, let alone death rates.  

Less than 20% hospitalized is... a ton 😉 . Just to be clear. 

 

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

Generally speaking, if we apply statisicas generally, Covid is more likely to kill me than driving.  But...if I look at my ACTUAL actions....honestly....without doing the actual hour by hour statisical break down....I believe that I am more likely to die in a car wreck than of covid. 

Well, that's an interesting question. It's probably a little hard to calculate. I wonder what one's chance of doing in one hour on the road is? One could calculate and see :-). 

The thing is, you'd only need to catch COVID once. Driving adds up over all time spent, as you say. So it's a little apples to oranges.  

[Pam in CT]

I think "this" likely *will* be at least another two-ish years from now. There may be a vaccine within a year, but given who we are as a nation and how we think about vaccines, it'll take at least a year to get to 70++% vaccination rates.

How that will affect the lives my husband, and to a lesser extent our nearly-adult kids and our elderly parents? Well, first and foremost, keep on strengthening those muscles of patience, fortitude and resilience.

We've already become more explicit and open about the language of mental health, about what each of us values most highly, about differentiating needs from wants and wants from crankiness, about prioritizing the needs within the concept of a "risk budget" that several posters have outlined on other threads.

We'll continue to get better at figuring out reasonably-safe ways to connect in real life, in small groups, outdoors, spaced, masked.

We'll support businesses that have successfully pivoted to delivery and curbside and/or online business models.

We will start using testing differently - not merely diagnostically (if we experience symptoms, or know we've been exposed to someone who has COVID) but also as a lifestyle tool, before visiting my mother or my husband's parents, or when the nearly-adult kids come back from school terms.

We will not travel by air (we used to be quite frequent fliers). We will not eat inside restaurants or stay in hotels (we used to be rather consistent hospitality industry consumers). We will not go to concerts and plays (we used to be consistent patrons of the arts). We will experience this as a great personal loss.  Since such places need customers like we used to be to support their businesses, they will experience the loss of like-minded customers as a business problem. Some may adapt by re-designing their business models around COVID-safety (forex: airlines could make rapid testing conditional for anyone boarding the plane); and if so we will re-visit our strategies.

 

It SUCKS.

We're not alone. The whole world is enduring it. And we may do relatively better under different leadership.

And treatments may get somewhat better even as we're still waiting on vaccine.

 

[Liz CA]

I think your hypothetical may well play out as realistic.

We would still take the precautions we are taking now. Nothing would change at my work - not due to CV19 at least.

I have been a middle of the road person. I take the precautions I can but also realize I am not in control of something like a virus and there is only so much I can do. 

I think, overall industries would have to reopen as we cannot sustain any kind of economy shut down for five years - even partially. People will have to adjust, work-arounds will be implemented. Seems like many more people are also looking to strengthen their health by developing better habits - not a single protective factor but a contributor at least.

 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

DH's biopsy was just cancelled and will be rescheduled to a date near Thanksgiving.  And if he gets a result that says 80% of the people with his diagnosis end up living another 20 years.....I am going to consider that a massive positive.  20% of 40yr olds hospitalized means that I would have an 80% chance of NOT being hospitalized.  And I would buy a lottery ticket if it said I had an 80% chancing of winning more than I spent.

I hope he gets a good result. That sounds very stressful. 

 

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

Driving doesn't add up over time.  It only takes a single drunk driver, a single missed stop sign, a single sleepy truck driver, to kill an *entire family.*  Or give every single one of them a live long permanent disability.  

And I usually drive with 3 of my 4 kids.  

Yes, driving does add up over time. Every hour you spend in the car, there's some chance you get hurt, and some chance you don't. The chance you don't get hurt is like 99.99999% (I made that up, but you get the idea), but then you have to multiply those together over all the hours you drive. That's how probability works. 

[Amy Gen]

It would not change anything for me. Dh would still be working from home. I’d still be homeschooling Dd14 and Dd10, but they have always been homeschooled so that is no issue. Wait, my 14 year old might be starting college by then, but she could do it online. Right now we have 2 adult kids staying with us which is awesome because they play with the younger kids and help me with meals and cleaning. 
 

We are fortunate that they are still able to participate in swim team so they get to see their friends every day. They wear masks until they get in the water and swim no more than 2 to a lane. I get to visit with my own friends (outside and masked) while the kids swim. 
 

I’m organizing our Halloween celebration now. In small groups, the kids will have a parade in their costumes and earn prizes. The coach is coming up with a plan for spooky relays that can be done while socially distancing. And I’m going to set up a couple of tables, where the kids can grab prepackaged food such as uncrustables, Capri sun, chips, and cupcakes. Even though we will be cautious, I’m not giving up on also having fun and celebrating.
 

There is talk of opening our church back up. I told Dh that I would go if services are outside. If they meet inside at 25% occupancy, I’ll understand if he needs to be there, but the kids and I won’t be joining him. 
 

I think we are doing great adjusting, and have managed to still have a pretty amazing life. 

[Not_a_Number]

11 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

We've already become more explicit and open about the language of mental health, about what each of us values most highly, about differentiating needs from wants and wants from crankiness, about prioritizing the needs within the concept of a "risk budget" that several posters have outlined on other threads.

I definitely feel like we've gotten a better sense how to live our lives in a way that's conducive to everyone's physical and mental health. So, we aren't really taking many more risks than before, but we have a better understanding of how to stay safe and do more things. Like, we've figured out how to do Zoom socializing in a way that works, and we're seeing family... and that's a good balance for us. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, happysmileylady said:

Well if you are going that way...then doesn't, exposure to the public add up in terms of covid?  Doesn't than mean my lowered exposure to the public mean that I have a lower probability of catching covid?

Yes, you have a lowered probability of catching COVID, for sure.

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, happysmileylady said:

And that's what I mean...I think that from my probability factors.....DH is more likely to lose me to a car wreck than Covid.

It's an interesting question 🙂 . I do think death is not particularly likely as an outcome for COVID in your age group, but in NY, there were definitely more people who died of COVID than car accidents in your age group. I think by more than a factor of 10. 

[rebcoola]

I think we would have to loosen up some.  I don't think it would change much for me and the toddler. 

I have 2 middle schoolers that plan to go to public high school.  We have kn95's for anything  riskier now but would invest in some high quality reusable n95 like the castle grade.   

I would hope that we would have more access to rapid testing.  Also that contact tracing would be better.  Closures more pinpointed. 

[Not_a_Number]

6 minutes ago, happysmileylady said:

Right.  I understand how you are looking at that generally.

I am looking at it specifically.  I drive a lot.  I don't associate with people a lot.  I am more exposed to the dangers of the road than I am to the dangers of personal interaction.   So then there's a measure of actual personal exposure to the risk, as compared to the risk itself.  

No, I understand 🙂 . It's just you only have to get COVID once. So while your chance of catching it goes down with the personal interaction, it's an interesting question whether it goes down to very small or not. 

[Guest]

I have a high school senior. I really, really hope she will be able to reasonably go to college next fall. She is so ready emotionally and educationally for that step, and online from home is a step back. I think I could handle teaching with masks/socially distanced/online indefinitely, but she can't handle putting her life on hold for several more years. 

[Guest]

I have a high school senior. I really, really hope she will be able to reasonably go to college next fall. She is so ready emotionally and educationally for that step, and online from home is a step back. I think I could handle teaching with masks/socially distanced/online indefinitely, but she can't handle putting her life on hold for several more years. 

[Wheres Toto]

My 13 and 15 year old kids are homeschooled and always have been, my 26 year old is in her last year of grad school.    Dh is 64 years old but generally healthy (although obese), I'm younger but have obesity, high cholesterol (last time it was checked, been trying to improve it but don't know), asthma, and the wrong blood type evidently.   

Around here, most industries are open, most with limited capacity and distancing, and masks are required inside all businesses and outside where distancing is not possible.   Compliance inside public places is close to 100%.  Compliance outside even when not distanced is much much lower.   

If our mandates stay in place, things will not change much for us. 
-Dh goes to work and masks in a small office/lab situation, or he works from home.  I expect that to continue.  
-My business is open with masks required, frequent cleaning, air purifiers, distancing, etc.  If we manage to not have someone bring it in we will likely stay open.  If something happens where we need to close again (either spread there or new mandates), I'm likely going out of business.  
-Kids only do activities masked.  They come to my classes once or twice a week, dd does TKD distanced with masks.  
-Younger kids are homeschooled and extreme introverts so we could continue doing the same for a long time.  We would start college online when we get to that point (ds is trying classes through Coursera this year). 
-Oldest dd may have a delay in working in her field when she graduates, but maybe not.  It's hard to predict.  She currently has a management job at a store that pays well so she wouldn't be dependent on a new job to live, but she wants to work in her field, of course.  Her school has changed to mostly online.

If the mask mandates end before I'm comfortable with it, things will likely change for us.  I'm comfortable with our current activities because masks are required.  I would not be at all comfortable if we were someplace with a ton of community spread and no mandates.   

We have no plans to travel until this is much better managed, even if that ends up being years.   I suppose we may take a short trip to someplace we can drive in a couple hours, where we are on our own (camping in a tent or our own camper), but we have no plans and will not be getting on a plane for a long time.   The farthest we've been is to MIL's house (2 1/2 hour drive) because dh needs to go help her every other weekend or so.  Kids and I usually stay home but went once and may go for the holidays.  

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, happysmileylady said:

You only have to be hit by a drunk driver once.

Yes, but that's an unlikely event. That's how the probability calculation works. The point is that as soon as you get COVID, you get all the risk at the same time -- it's not additive. The probability of ACTUALLY GETTING IT is additive. But once you get it, all the risk comes at once. 

[prairiewindmomma]

I think this is our situation, realistically, and that we have had a fundamental societal shift—one that will accelerate a lot of changes already in the works in our society.

My kids range from 2nd grade-college sophomore. 
 

We all agreed that the priority is to protect the high risk members of our family. My kids have already lost one sister and they have seen me hospitalized a lot. So, this sh!t feels a lot more real to my kids than to most. We are realistic enough that if I got this there are no guarantees—serious enough we updated our estate plan, made sure passwords were available, and that I consistently leave unpaid bills in the same place. 
 

Ironically, if my kids were a bit older I might be more relaxed, but my kids very much need me here right now. 
 

As it is, I have several friends our age who are long haulers—-40s, marathon runners, no health issues—being young and healthy is no guarantee.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, happysmileylady said:

And my point is that, given my level of exposure, my catching it is an unlikely event.  

It's more likely, IMO, for me to catch Covid, than it is for me to be hit by a drunk driver.  

I would be surprised if that's true. But you're right that you have a low chance of catching it, comparatively. 

[Farrar]

I've only skimmed the responses, but my thinking would not change. My kids are 16.

Right now, I support continuing to research and tease out the best ways to open the most safely. I think as we're learning more, we're figuring out best practices for safer interactions as well as what makes things least safe. That includes changing our infrastructure to support more open air spaces and upgrading ventilation, continuing to enforce mask mandates everywhere, continuing to prohibit large indoor gatherings for social purposes. If we know we're in this long term (which very well may be true), then I don't think we can throw our hands up and hope for herd immunity (every scientific thing I'm reading suggests that's not happening effectively anyway, not to mention that I'm much more concerned about long term Covid effects than mortality rates). I think schools have to reopen, especially for young kids, but we have to expand the spaces, open them up (how many classrooms don't have openable windows? too many), improve ventilation, etc. I think if masking rates are good that outdoor gatherings can continue in good weather - but we have to be careful about events like the Sturgis rally, where main events were outside, but there was a lot of indoor, unmasked socializing at venues all around it with people from all over. I think indoor movies, theater, etc. is not coming back soon, heartbreakingly. And work from home should continue. Stores should continue to place some limits on customers.

[regentrude]

If I knew this would go on for five more years?  I would accept the Covid risk a transatlantic journey harbors both for me as the traveler and the family I am visiting and fly home so I could see my father alive. 
 

[regentrude]

1 hour ago, Not_a_Number said:

I definitely feel like we've gotten a better sense how to live our lives in a way that's conducive to everyone's physical and mental health. So, we aren't really taking many more risks than before, but we have a better understanding of how to stay safe and do more things. Like, we've figured out how to do Zoom socializing in a way that works, and we're seeing family... and that's a good balance for us. 

In my circle, Zoom socializing has pretty much dried up completely, because everybody is sick of Zoom since they are spending many hours a day on Zoom for work. 
In the beginning, I did attend quite a few Zoom events, but Zoom fatigue is very real. It just isn't a substitute for the real thing.

We have had a little bit of outdoor socializing, but a number of friends are not comfortable with even that. I am seriously dreading the winter when that won't be possible anymore, and at the same time the darkness will negatively affect my mental health (SAD.) I am already using my light lamp.

Edited October 19, 2020 by regentrude

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

In my circle, Zoom socializing has pretty much dried up completely, because everybody is sick of Zoom since they are spending many hours a day on Zoom for work. 

You mean with friends or with kids' friends? 

[regentrude]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

You mean with friends or with kids' friends? 

friends.
Our kids are grown up. My DD is all day on Zoom for work; I doubt she socializes much on Zoom after that

Edited October 19, 2020 by regentrude

[Carol in Cal.]

Kiddo is launched and living a long way away, requiring plane rides to visit.  So while we have always been her backstop, we couldn’t plan to necessarily see her, and that is a long time.  I would invite her to come back and help her live nearby if she wanted to, since I think it’s awful to be that out of touch.

Other than that, our lives would not change much.  I’d keep working remotely—actually my career lends itself better to that then I would have predicted.  And my husband would keep working as long as he could but probably would get laid off as he works at a university.  We would have to figure out how to hunker down and manage, and he would have to find another job but I think that is doable.  I would continue to take my frail elderly parents to doctors appointments.  I would continue to be more than usually isolated for two weeks before and after those.

I have Zoom Bible class, Zoom book group, and Zoom business networking meetings regularly.  I’m not as lonely as I would have expected.  We do socially distanced wine socials outside with masks with the neighbors sometimes, very carefully.  We only shop at most twice a month.  So the isolation is pretty protective.  Church is meeting outside, distanced, masked.  It’s hard but it’s better than nothing.  I have lots of books and enough yarn to keep busy for the rest of my life.  If I needed to transition I’d probably start an art weaving business as well.

But this is all OK for me but not for society.

28,000 employees were laid off in Disneyland alone, and that is in an area where those jobs are badly needed.  Ironically, theme parks elsewhere in the country opened back up ages ago and AFAIK safely because they only opened their outside attractions and required masking and sanitation and control of crowds and social distancing in lines.  But despite all of that, and despite the fact that our governor knows the CEO of Disney personally, he is sending a delegation to Florida to ‘see how they do this’ instead of just checking with his former but now feuding friend.  Disneyland is the only park in their chain that was not allowed to open back up, and the current view is that it won’t be allowed to until the infection rates among low income people of color are as low as those in the rest of those communities, but the layoffs disproportionately fell on those folks, so it’s a double whammy against them right now, which is awful.  
 

No one with a plethora of kids has enough bandwidth to run a different zoom meeting all day for school for each of them, even if they have super duper service.  Let alone business meetings of parents in the next rooms.  This is a MESS.  I talked with a middle-high income friend yesterday who has two kids in high school.  One is doing PE in the garage first thing in the morning so the neighbors won’t see him doing it in the front yard.  The other is in their bedroom doing his school.  Whenever they have a major test, they have to use two devices to prove that they are not ‘getting help’—one to do the test on, and the other to show the rest of the room, with no one else in it to coach them.  The father is in the living room/dining room working, and the mother is in the master bedroom working.  They overload their super good internet every day, so they have devised ways to schedule things in bursts.  It’s a good thing they only have two kids and only one super intense but somewhat flexible time of day wise career.  

Families in poor neighborhoods are way worse off as they are crowded more and have less technology.  It’s sickening.  Domestic violence and property crimes have risen In both rate and seriousness, and a lot of the things that have been done to make the economy sustainable through a short crisis cannot possibly be maintained throughout a lengthy one.  It is unimaginable how bad things will get here if there is really a 5 year problem.  

And frankly, all the second guessing about Trump is stupid.  If he had tried to clamp down at the beginning, he would have been called a control freak and dictator in chief or The Latest Hitler.  He could not possibly have carried it off—he didn’t have the authority or the support to do so, even if it was clearly his responsibility, which it wasn’t.  That responsibility is clearly more with the governors, and even they were in an untenable position in this regard.  Something not going as wrong as it could have is never going to catch the public eye definitively like fixing something that was broken does.  

Bottom line—we can’t stay shut down, and we can’t open up safely.  That’s the reality of the situation.  I am a high risk person with a low risk of exposure, but I’m not sanguine about things.  I hope that general improved basic hygiene will become the norm instead of the exception in our country, but I don’t have much hope of that.  It would help with a lot more than just Covid, and it’s not that hard.  I also hope that we can commit ourselves to safer working environments, more working from home, and easier access to medical treatments and supports for the ill.  Those are basic public safety measures that will benefit everyone.  

Bottom line in 5 years, though—small businesses will have dropped like flies, and big corps will have consolidated their hold on society.  A lot of people will have died.  It will be ugly.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, regentrude said:

friends.
Our kids are grown up. My DD is all day on Zoom for work; I doubt she socializes much on Zoom after that

Yeah, I haven't caught up with friends that much 😕. But I'm an introvert in general. DH is keeping up with his friends.