At what point would you lock down again?

[Not_a_Number]

9 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Probably wise. My son likely caught it in NY - up near Lake George. He's thinking an arcade they went to is really the only likely place, as there were a lot of tourists and kids too young to be vaccinated

Could also be the plane, right?

[ktgrok]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Could also be the plane, right?

Possible but unlikely. Plane there was a week ago, and first symptom was today. With Delta they are saying incubation is usually shorter, I think? And I'd blame the flight and the overnight stay in the airport but that would be too soon for him to have tested positive today, I think. Flight left Monday afternoon, late. Then he landed in Charlotte and ended up hving to sleep in the airport and got on a flight home Tuesday morning. Tested positive Wednesday morning. 

All his friends that he was with so far tested negative, thankfully. 

And he masked on flight with KF94, and in the airport. He specifically mentioned when he first got home that if he can sleep in a mask, in an airport, others can wear them for an hour at the store. 

I'm betting he was not masked the whole time at the arcade, as he'd likely have gotten a drink or food. 

Edited July 29, 2021 by ktgrok

[Roadrunner]

I just want to know how China is managing to keep itself protected. Massive, massive country with insanely huge borders. Delta was here just as soon as somebody sneezed in India. Yet Chinese are managing to keep this damn virus mutations from penetrating their borders. Does anybody know what sort of travel restrictions they have or how they control things from sipping into the country? We should be doing whatever they are doing at their borders. Today it’s Delta, tomorrow it might be something else. This stupid virus has endless surprises. 
 

I will say my friends of all persuasion (they are all mostly liberals with an exception if some immigrants) are very agains the mask mandate for vaccinated. Nobody around me has kids younger than 12, so that most certainly affects the thinking, but most around me would turn on the governor if restrictions are mandated again for vaccinated. I can only imagine what it looks like on the other side of the political divide. 
 

 

[mathnerd]

14 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

Yet Chinese are managing to keep this damn virus mutations from penetrating their borders.

or not ... hard to know what the actual situation is where China is concerned. We only know what they want us to know from what I hear from my chinese immigrant friends.

[Roadrunner]

26 minutes ago, mathnerd said:

or not ... hard to know what the actual situation is where China is concerned. We only know what they want us to know from what I hear from my chinese immigrant friends.

Their numbers look amazing. Miraculous really. 

[KSera]

 

58 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I will say my friends of all persuasion (they are all mostly liberals with an exception if some immigrants) are very agains the mask mandate for vaccinated. Nobody around me has kids younger than 12, so that most certainly affects the thinking, but most around me would turn on the governor if restrictions are mandated again for vaccinated. I can only imagine what it looks like on the other side of the political divide. 

interesting. It’s the opposite here. The people who are vaccinated are most likely to mask. Masking had recently very rapidly dropped from universal to a small minority masking, but with the new Delta developments, masking is now reversing here again and people are starting to mask up in bigger numbers again. Will be interesting next time I go somewhere to see what it’s like now. 

[Melissa in Australia]

1 hour ago, ktgrok said:

Possible but unlikely. Plane there was a week ago, and first symptom was today. With Delta they are saying incubation is usually shorter, I think? 

In Victoria they are findi g that with delta incubation us both shorter and longer

People were exposed at the same event. They all went into isolation in their own homes. 

 Some tested positive in as little as 24-36 hours some have just tested positive at day 13. They have all been tested multiple times.  

[Corraleno]

34 minutes ago, KSera said:

 

interesting. It’s the opposite here. The people who are vaccinated are most likely to mask. Masking had recently very rapidly dropped from universal to a small minority masking, but with the new Delta developments, masking is now reversing here again and people are starting to mask up in bigger numbers again. Will be interesting next time I go somewhere to see what it’s like now. 

I'm seeing that here, too. We went from pretty much universal masking to hardly anyone except cashiers masking, but then when I was in Whole Foods this morning nearly everyone was masking again — total reversal in just a week. And DS said the local fencing club just reinstated their mask mandate today: masks on everyone, at all times, even when competing, regardless of vaccination status. I'm sad that it's necessary, but very glad that people here are taking it seriously.

[Clarita]

1 hour ago, Roadrunner said:

Does anybody know what sort of travel restrictions they have or how they control things from sipping into the country? We should be doing whatever they are doing at their borders.

I do know that once they've identified an area with COVID they will do heavy lockdown in the area (and can do it much better due to authoritarian government). Lockdown as in you can not leave your house, contact tracing which would trigger privacy concerns, etc. Also these would be implemented with real punishments (at the very least a huge fine). Which is not implementable in the US, because we have freedoms.

[SoCal_Bear]

On 7/27/2021 at 2:57 PM, bibiche said:

Not Not a Number, but I am in an area with a lot of Russians and know only one who is vaccinated. It stinks, because a number of them are friends and relatives so we don’t see them now. I’ve seen the same refusal of vaccines from nearly all the people I know from former Soviet and Eastern bloc countries as well. 😞 

Is that what's going on? I noticed a few very VOCAL ones I know locally in homeschooling circles who have been anti-masking, anti-vax... It is interesting to know this isn't random.

[Ausmumof3]

2 hours ago, mathnerd said:

or not ... hard to know what the actual situation is where China is concerned. We only know what they want us to know from what I hear from my chinese immigrant friends.

Yeah.  There were pics on Twitter last week of empty railway stations etc in one area, and reports on Chinese media of testing etc going on so presumably there’s some kind of outbreak.

[SoCal_Bear]

@RoadrunnerThe way the Chinese achieve this is by what you would consider fairly draconian measures. Complete and total lockdown. None of this halfway stuff going on. Total shutdown of movement in and out of the areas in questions. Large scale testing (on the order of millions of citizens at a time) and meticulous contact tracing that is easily achieved because of the fact that China has mass surveillance. I read recently there's 1 camera for every 2 citizens in China. On top of that, it's sophisticated surveillance, they track your phone everywhere and the face recognition with their surveillance means they really know what you are doing. Plus everyone has to have the pass on their phones to be able to go anywhere or do anything. It automatically will flag you if you had contact with someone who tests positive or was exposed because they know with your phone if your phone has been in range of other people. It's a highly controlled population and media. If you don't cooperate and behave the way the gov't wants you to, they will compel you to by blocking access to a wide variety of services from the ability to travel, limit your internet speed, access to schooling for your children, pets confiscated, blocked from higher education, ability to purchase things, ability to borrow money, etc. There is a whole social credit system that they use which tracks your social media footprint, behavior and financial activity. China has "vanished" people as well who they felt were disruptive/troublemakers.

 If it sounds dystopian, you wouldn't be wrong.

Personally, even though I am a US citizen by birth, I don't feel safe travelling to China because I have been openly critical on social media about what's been happening in Hong Kong. I don't have the same right a non-Chinese American citizen has. China considers themselves to have authority over any overseas Chinese when within their borders.

Edited July 29, 2021 by calbear

[Roadrunner]

4 hours ago, calbear said:

@RoadrunnerThe way the Chinese achieve this is by what you would consider fairly draconian measures. Complete and total lockdown. None of this halfway stuff going on. Total shutdown of movement in and out of the areas in questions. Large scale testing (on the order of millions of citizens at a time) and meticulous contact tracing that is easily achieved because of the fact that China has mass surveillance. I read recently there's 1 camera for every 2 citizens in China. On top of that, it's sophisticated surveillance, they track your phone everywhere and the face recognition with their surveillance means they really know what you are doing. Plus everyone has to have the pass on their phones to be able to go anywhere or do anything. It automatically will flag you if you had contact with someone who tests positive or was exposed because they know with your phone if your phone has been in range of other people. It's a highly controlled population and media. If you don't cooperate and behave the way the gov't wants you to, they will compel you to by blocking access to a wide variety of services from the ability to travel, limit your internet speed, access to schooling for your children, pets confiscated, blocked from higher education, ability to purchase things, ability to borrow money, etc. There is a whole social credit system that they use which tracks your social media footprint, behavior and financial activity. China has "vanished" people as well who they felt were disruptive/troublemakers.

 If it sounds dystopian, you wouldn't be wrong.

Personally, even though I am a US citizen by birth, I don't feel safe travelling to China because I have been openly critical on social media about what's been happening in Hong Kong. I don't have the same right a non-Chinese American citizen has. China considers themselves to have authority over any overseas Chinese when within their borders.

Oh good lord. I didn’t realize the extent of it. 
 

 

[Not_a_Number]

6 hours ago, Corraleno said:

I'm seeing that here, too. We went from pretty much universal masking to hardly anyone except cashiers masking, but then when I was in Whole Foods this morning nearly everyone was masking again — total reversal in just a week. And DS said the local fencing club just reinstated their mask mandate today: masks on everyone, at all times, even when competing, regardless of vaccination status. I'm sad that it's necessary, but very glad that people here are taking it seriously.

I'm seeing the same. All the masks were off, but the last couples of times I've been out, there was a lot more masking, including outside. 

I think things like masking are very socially-driven, so I'm glad people are easy about them here. 

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

8 hours ago, mathnerd said:

or not ... hard to know what the actual situation is where China is concerned. We only know what they want us to know from what I hear from my chinese immigrant friends.

Frankly, I assume they’re lying.

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

Frankly, I assume they’re lying.

Almost certainly. However, it's also almost certainly easier to control a pandemic if you have a harsh authoritarian government. 

[ieta_cassiopeia]

6 hours ago, calbear said:

@RoadrunnerThe way the Chinese achieve this is by what you would consider fairly draconian measures. Complete and total lockdown. None of this halfway stuff going on. Total shutdown of movement in and out of the areas in questions. Large scale testing (on the order of millions of citizens at a time) and meticulous contact tracing that is easily achieved because of the fact that China has mass surveillance. I read recently there's 1 camera for every 2 citizens in China. On top of that, it's sophisticated surveillance, they track your phone everywhere and the face recognition with their surveillance means they really know what you are doing. Plus everyone has to have the pass on their phones to be able to go anywhere or do anything. It automatically will flag you if you had contact with someone who tests positive or was exposed because they know with your phone if your phone has been in range of other people. It's a highly controlled population and media. If you don't cooperate and behave the way the gov't wants you to, they will compel you to by blocking access to a wide variety of services from the ability to travel, limit your internet speed, access to schooling for your children, pets confiscated, blocked from higher education, ability to purchase things, ability to borrow money, etc. There is a whole social credit system that they use which tracks your social media footprint, behavior and financial activity. China has "vanished" people as well who they felt were disruptive/troublemakers.

 If it sounds dystopian, you wouldn't be wrong.

Personally, even though I am a US citizen by birth, I don't feel safe travelling to China because I have been openly critical on social media about what's been happening in Hong Kong. I don't have the same right a non-Chinese American citizen has. China considers themselves to have authority over any overseas Chinese when within their borders.

There's also the matter of information control. It's hard to gauge how the fidelity of the Chinese data at this point in the pandemic compares to the fidelity of data from other countries, and it would probably take information from people who have knowledge of the current Chinese collection methods (as distinct from those earlier in the pandemic) to be sure. Bear in mind England has changed its collection rules at least 6 times in the past 18 months, some of which made a big difference to the results.

Edited to add: Despite all of the above, China has confirmed it has problems in several different provinces, partly due to an outbreak at one of its airports and partly due to refugees from Myanmar who are accidentally bringing the virus with them. I'd suggest that the relative non-efficacy of the Chinese vaccines compared to others is why a larger proportion of their outbreaks involve vaccinated people than happens in the USA or UK.

Edited July 29, 2021 by ieta_cassiopeia

[ktgrok]

7 hours ago, Melissa in Australia said:

In Victoria they are findi g that with delta incubation us both shorter and longer

People were exposed at the same event. They all went into isolation in their own homes. 

 Some tested positive in as little as 24-36 hours some have just tested positive at day 13. They have all been tested multiple times.  

well, that's not helpful!

So back to no idea when/where he got it. He saw my parents (vaccinated) on last Wednesday, and they tested and are quarantining for 10 days from when they saw him. (assuming no symptoms and test was negative). 

[Ausmumof3]

I did find more information on the China outbreak it’s from Nanjing.

This is from Global Times

https://www.globaltimes.cn/page/202107/1229733.shtml

This is from the BBC journalist who I tend to think of as reasonably reliable as far as he has access to information 

 

and this is from Reuters.

Whether or not the numbers are accurate it seems that Delta is also causing issues in China.

[Hyacinth]

6 hours ago, calbear said:

@RoadrunnerThe way the Chinese achieve this is by what you would consider fairly draconian measures. Complete and total lockdown. None of this halfway stuff going on. Total shutdown of movement in and out of the areas in questions. Large scale testing (on the order of millions of citizens at a time) and meticulous contact tracing that is easily achieved because of the fact that China has mass surveillance. I read recently there's 1 camera for every 2 citizens in China. On top of that, it's sophisticated surveillance, they track your phone everywhere and the face recognition with their surveillance means they really know what you are doing. Plus everyone has to have the pass on their phones to be able to go anywhere or do anything. It automatically will flag you if you had contact with someone who tests positive or was exposed because they know with your phone if your phone has been in range of other people. It's a highly controlled population and media. If you don't cooperate and behave the way the gov't wants you to, they will compel you to by blocking access to a wide variety of services from the ability to travel, limit your internet speed, access to schooling for your children, pets confiscated, blocked from higher education, ability to purchase things, ability to borrow money, etc. There is a whole social credit system that they use which tracks your social media footprint, behavior and financial activity. China has "vanished" people as well who they felt were disruptive/troublemakers.

 If it sounds dystopian, you wouldn't be wrong.

Personally, even though I am a US citizen by birth, I don't feel safe travelling to China because I have been openly critical on social media about what's been happening in Hong Kong. I don't have the same right a non-Chinese American citizen has. China considers themselves to have authority over any overseas Chinese when within their borders.

And this is why people push back against mandates here.

The fear of authoritative overreach is real, and they think, "If we give them an inch, they'll take a mile." So they resist.

If the powers-that-be could speak to this concern--clearly, compellingly, unitedly--we might get somewhere. (I don't know exactly how that happens or what it looks like. Just helping identify one of the problems from where I observe.)

ETA: Should've put this in the Vaccine Divide thread.

Edited July 29, 2021 by Hyacinth

[jrichstad]

9 hours ago, mathnerd said:

or not ... hard to know what the actual situation is where China is concerned. We only know what they want us to know from what I hear from my chinese immigrant friends.

My boss flew to China recently for work. He had to take THREE COVID tests, subject to another one rather invasive one there, and then spend two weeks in actual, literal quarantine--they took him (and the other travelers) from the airport to a hotel, where he stayed, by himself, with food deliveries, for the next fourteen days. And then he had to spend another week "self-isolating" before he was allowed to conduct his business. 

So, while I'm sure the numbers are massaged a bit, they do have VERY strict protocols in place. 

[SKL]

1 hour ago, jrichstad said:

My boss flew to China recently for work. He had to take THREE COVID tests, subject to another one rather invasive one there, and then spend two weeks in actual, literal quarantine--they took him (and the other travelers) from the airport to a hotel, where he stayed, by himself, with food deliveries, for the next fourteen days. And then he had to spend another week "self-isolating" before he was allowed to conduct his business. 

So, while I'm sure the numbers are massaged a bit, they do have VERY strict protocols in place. 

Also, I'm pretty darn sure I wouldn't report or get tested in China unless I was just about dying, and maybe not even then.  I know too much about what happens to people who don't fit the ideal.

[rebcoola]

Well our ICU is officially  full and starting to move people to other hospitals.   17 out of 20 icu beds are Covid.  Mostly people in there 40's and 50's all ICU patients are unvaxxed. 

[mommyoffive]

And my state turned red on covidactnow

 

[Not_a_Number]

3 hours ago, Hyacinth said:

The fear of authoritative overreach is real, and they think, "If we give them an inch, they'll take a mile." So they resist.

I don’t know if that’s why people push back. I think realistically most people push back because someone they trust told them to.

Ironically, if our country was less divided about common sense disease control measures, we’d probably need fewer mandates.

[Jean in Newcastle]

3 hours ago, Hyacinth said:

And this is why people push back against mandates here.

The fear of authoritative overreach is real, and they think, "If we give them an inch, they'll take a mile." So they resist.

If the powers-that-be could speak to this concern--clearly, compellingly, unitedly--we might get somewhere. (I don't know exactly how that happens or what it looks like. Just helping identify one of the problems from where I observe.)

ETA: Should've put this in the Vaccine Divide thread.

They push back because Fearmongers have put out a narrative of "if we give them an inch, they'll take a mile". 

[LucyStoner]

12 hours ago, Roadrunner said:

Their numbers look amazing. Miraculous really. 

What they report looks good but honestly, who knows?  

My school district vastly under reports the number of times they use restraint or isolation with special education students.  They point to their good numbers but since they generate the numbers themselves and have redefined most forms of restraint and isolation as not restraint and isolation no one who is up close and personal with this issue puts any stock into it.  I don’t think China’s reports are necessarily accurate.  

Edited July 29, 2021 by LucyStoner

[Hyacinth]

12 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

They push back because Fearmongers have put out a narrative of "if we give them an inch, they'll take a mile". 

I completely agree that there are plenty of self-serving and unhelpful people promoting this view.

That doesn't make it a completely invalid concern. 

[kbutton]

A school local to me is feeling out how parents feel about setting up classes for K-6 where all the students would be masked and the rest of the classrooms would not require masks. They aren't promising they will or won't at this point; they just want to know if the idea is feasible. 

I really hope enough parents opt-in to make this possible! I don't have kids in the district or kids young enough to not be vaccinated, but I think it's a really nice idea.

I wish my church had offered to have a masked services that was truly masked but voluntarily so (and held first before they polluted the auditorium with germs); instead they mandated but didn't enforce masking, so many people didn't mask (or they wore them in and then took them off). It would've been a nice compromise for this area.

[SoCal_Bear]

Just a quick followup to China being able to data track...no one in China does any monetary transaction without their phone. It's all mobile payment like Allipay or WeChat. This is also why they know exactly where you are and what you are doing.

[Terabith]

27 minutes ago, calbear said:

Just a quick followup to China being able to data track...no one in China does any monetary transaction without their phone. It's all mobile payment like Allipay or WeChat. This is also why they know exactly where you are and what you are doing.

Are there not people in China who don't have phones?

[Frances]

8 hours ago, Hyacinth said:

I completely agree that there are plenty of self-serving and unhelpful people promoting this view.

That doesn't make it a completely invalid concern. 

While I agree there might be some small amount of validity to the concern, I do find it hard to understand some people’s supposed grave concern about something that might maybe theoretically possibly happen in the future (eg US imposing China like restrictions and monitoring) all the while embracing leaders who continue to lie about a stolen election, a direct threat to our democracy and freedoms that actually happened and continues to this day.

 

[Eos]

I read this and felt like crying.  From today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/

[SoCal_Bear]

14 minutes ago, Terabith said:

Are there not people in China who don't have phones?

Maybe in rural areas...but not really. There about 1.6 billion cell phone accounts in China. The population is almost 1.4 billion.

It's super common to see people with multiple phones.

 

Edited July 30, 2021 by calbear

[mommyoffive]

5 minutes ago, Harpymom said:

I read this and felt like crying.  From today:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/07/29/cdc-mask-guidance/

I can't see it.  What did it say?

[Frances]

21 minutes ago, Frances said:

.

 

Double post

Edited July 30, 2021 by Frances

[SoCal_Bear]

18 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

I can't see it.  What did it say?

This is the first 3 paragraphs:
 

The delta variant of the coronavirus appears to cause more severe illness than earlier variants and spreads as easily as chickenpox, according to an internal federal health document that argues officials must “acknowledge the war has changed.”

 

The document is an internal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention slide presentation, shared within the CDC and obtained by The Washington Post. It captures the struggle of the nation’s top public health agency to persuade the public to embrace vaccination and prevention measures, including mask-wearing, as cases surge across the United States and new research suggests vaccinated people can spread the virus.

The document strikes an urgent note, revealing the agency knows it must revamp its public messaging to emphasize vaccination as the best defense against a variant so contagious that it acts almost like a different novel virus, leaping from target to target more swiftly than Ebola or the common cold.

The rest of the article covers what is written about in this article without a paywall. Primarily about Provinctown, MA outbreak and the unpublished viral load data.

https://www.yahoo.com/gma/cdc-mask-decision-followed-stunning-204900053.html
 

 

Edited July 30, 2021 by calbear

[Eos]

And a later para: It cites a combination of recently obtained, still-unpublished data from outbreak investigations and outside studies showing that vaccinated individuals infected with delta may be able to transmit the virus as easily as those who are unvaccinated. Vaccinated people infected with delta have measurable viral loads similar to those who are unvaccinated and infected with the variant.

[mathnerd]

17 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

I can't see it.  What did it say?

I found it syndicated on another site. here you go ...

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article253130483.html

 

[whitestavern]

And this:

 

“I think the central issue is that vaccinated people are probably involved to a substantial extent in the transmission of delta,” Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University epidemiologist, wrote in an email after reviewing the CDC slides. “In some sense, vaccination is now about personal protection — protecting oneself against severe disease. Herd immunity is not relevant as we are seeing plenty of evidence of repeat and breakthrough infections.”

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, whitestavern said:

And this:

 

“I think the central issue is that vaccinated people are probably involved to a substantial extent in the transmission of delta,” Jeffrey Shaman, a Columbia University epidemiologist, wrote in an email after reviewing the CDC slides. “In some sense, vaccination is now about personal protection — protecting oneself against severe disease. Herd immunity is not relevant as we are seeing plenty of evidence of repeat and breakthrough infections.”

That's certainly what it's looking like 😕 .

[Roadrunner]

I give up. Honestly. Come and get me. 

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

I give up. Honestly. Come and get me. 

Hey, it's all an immunity booster 😉 . If you're going to get infected, the earlier after being vaccinated the better... 

[Roadrunner]

7 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Hey, it's all an immunity booster 😉 . If you're going to get infected, the earlier after being vaccinated the better... 

you know how I feel? When you are scared of heights and you are close to the edge of a cliff and a crazy voice inside your head is screaming “ JUMP!” Almost want to jump just to be done with it all. 

I just looked at numbers. It’s depressing. What’s more depressing is CA will move everything back online and at this point the mental issues from being locked up are significant for my teens. My older DS already needs substantial help. Another year of this… I can’t even think. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Roadrunner said:

My older DS already needs substantial help. Another year of this… I can’t even think. 

I'm really sorry. Is there anything else you can do? Find a pod where he can socialize? Sign him for outdoor activities? Give him a gap year? 

We really tried to prioritize mental health this year. I have to admit that I knew that we were in for the long haul, so I tried to make it something we could do for a long time. 

[mommyoffive]

10 minutes ago, Roadrunner said:

you know how I feel? When you are scared of heights and you are close to the edge of a cliff and a crazy voice inside your head is screaming “ JUMP!” Almost want to jump just to be done with it all. 

I just looked at numbers. It’s depressing. What’s more depressing is CA will move everything back online and at this point the mental issues from being locked up are significant for my teens. My older DS already needs substantial help. Another year of this… I can’t even think. 

100% feel like this.  At this point I don't see us getting through this without getting it now.  My kids were just sick and I almost wanted them to have Covid to just get it over with already.  They just had mild colds so if that was what Covid was going to be it seemed easier to do that then to try to avoid it for so much longer.  The dreading it for this long is so exhausting.  

And yep I feel you on the mental issues.  I am more depressed thinking of going through this again, now knowing how hard it is.  

[Roadrunner]

13 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm really sorry. Is there anything else you can do? Find a pod where he can socialize? Sign him for outdoor activities? Give him a gap year? 

We really tried to prioritize mental health this year. I have to admit that I knew that we were in for the long haul, so I tried to make it something we could do for a long time. 

I have been trying to get him to apply a year early, but he is too terrified to consider it. I have decided he just needs good therapist for now. 

Edited July 30, 2021 by Roadrunner

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Roadrunner said:

I have been trying to get him to apply a year early, but he is too terrified to consider it. I have decided he just need good therapist for now. 

Well, maybe not apply a year early, but just... do something else other than sit at home, alone, on Zoom? That sounds ridiculously unhealthy. I know my sister got pretty depressed doing that, and she only did it for one term of her college experience. 

This year, she moved back to Chicago for college, and even though almost nothing was in person, it was still WAY better. She didn't feel as isolated. 

[Not_a_Number]

2 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

And yep I feel you on the mental issues.  I am more depressed thinking of going through this again, now knowing how hard it is.  

I don't think we have nearly as long, though. Kid vaccines will be here soon. We'll all get boosters. And then we should all just go out and catch it and toss the eternal dice. They'll be much less loaded to the negative odds, anyway. 

[Roadrunner]

Can we hope this surge mysteriously vanishes like it did in the UK? Just say yes. You don’t even have to believe in it. 

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Well, maybe not apply a year early, but just... do something else other than sit at home, alone, on Zoom? That sounds ridiculously unhealthy. I know my sister got pretty depressed doing that, and she only did it for one term of her college experience. 

This year, she moved back to Chicago for college, and even though almost nothing was in person, it was still WAY better. She didn't feel as isolated. 

We are rural and tied here to work (DH). I just don’t know what to do. The alternative to zoom is nothing sadly. I don’t want him to have an extra year at home by turning high school into 5 years. I think he needs to be around kids his age. Around actual humans.