~*Official #COVID-19 Thread of Doom*~ Revenge of Omicron Prime

[CitizenVectron]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

 

And yet:

 

 

[Jason]

I bought some at home COVID test on January 18, tried to submit the claim to my insurer but their online submission system was failing so tried again on the 19th and got it in, now nearly a full month later the claim has finally gone from not appearing at all in my claims history to showing as "pending". Sure is a great system the Biden administration set up here.

 

I can afford to float the money, but way too many people can't.

[Brick]

I don't think I'm ready for restrictions to be loosened. Not with so many idiots around who still can't do a simple thing like keep a mask on. I feel like Ford is just caving to the pressure, and we'll see an increase in cases and deaths yet again, which will lead to another lockdown repeating the cycle over and over. 

 

I'm also worried about my girlfriend who has been very worried about the pandemic the whole time, and I'm not looking forward to what it will do for her anxiety. Her immune system sucks, her parents are high risk, and her grandmother lives with them so she's been super cautious. 

[Guest]

5 hours ago, Brick said:

I don't think I'm ready for restrictions to be loosened. Not with so many idiots around who still can't do a simple thing like keep a mask on.

The data is overwhelming on this point: one way masking with high quality masks (N95 equivalent) works better than two way masking with cloth or surgical masks. 

[TheLeon]

I’m not remotely qualified to say what we should do as a society, but I’ll say that for me personally, I’m not really thinking about Covid any more. I’ve had my three shots, and if/when they say I should get another one, I will. I wear a mask at work with no complaints. Other than that, I’m just living my life. A life that, even before Covid, didn’t generally involve crowds or much socializing at all, but hey, it is technically a life. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

5 hours ago, Brick said:

I don't think I'm ready for restrictions to be loosened. Not with so many idiots around who still can't do a simple thing like keep a mask on. I feel like Ford is just caving to the pressure, and we'll see an increase in cases and deaths yet again, which will lead to another lockdown repeating the cycle over and over. 

 

I'm also worried about my girlfriend who has been very worried about the pandemic the whole time, and I'm not looking forward to what it will do for her anxiety. Her immune system sucks, her parents are high risk, and her grandmother lives with them so she's been super cautious. 

You don't have to change your behaviour.  No one is forcing you to go places you feel uncomfortable (restaurants, bars, etc.).  When you do go out, wear a properly fitted N95 mask (I got mine at Costco).  An N95 mask will reduce the amount of virus that you would be exposed to by 100x (if not 1000x) vs. two people wearing cloth masks. 

 

I've completely stopped wearing cloth masks for this reason.  When in the office/shopping/etc. where masks are required, I wear a KN95 (the type with the ear loops).

 

When I am in close contact with a LOT of people (i.e. on an airplane), I wear an N95 mask (the kind with the straps that go behind your head).

 

Not sure what I will do when the mask mandate goes away.

[thewhyteboar]

 

[Anathema-]

7 minutes ago, thewhyteboar said:

 

 

Very surprising philosophy to come out of the "customer is always right" generation. 

[Brick]

21 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

You don't have to change your behaviour.  No one is forcing you to go places you feel uncomfortable (restaurants, bars, etc.).  When you do go out, wear a properly fitted N95 mask (I got mine at Costco).  An N95 mask will reduce the amount of virus that you would be exposed to by 100x (if not 1000x) vs. two people wearing cloth masks. 

 

I've completely stopped wearing cloth masks for this reason.  When in the office/shopping/etc. where masks are required, I wear a KN95 (the type with the ear loops).

 

When I am in close contact with a LOT of people (i.e. on an airplane), I wear an N95 mask (the kind with the straps that go behind your head).

 

Not sure what I will do when the mask mandate goes away.

 

Oh sure I know to wear a mask, but I'm talking about the people who don't wear anything at all, and at one of my works I have to constantly remind people to keep their mask up or I'll have to ask them to leave. Had to kick a girl out of my establishment Friday night because I gave her too many warnings. One guy on Sunday tried to argue with me that we need signs posted saying everyone needs to be masked (we do) until his wife/girlfriend had to tell him to let it go and just keep his mask on. 

 

People are just dumb, and I'm tired of it. 

[Guest]

38 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

Oh sure I know to wear a mask, but I'm talking about the people who don't wear anything at all, and at one of my works I have to constantly remind people to keep their mask up or I'll have to ask them to leave. Had to kick a girl out of my establishment Friday night because I gave her too many warnings. One guy on Sunday tried to argue with me that we need signs posted saying everyone needs to be masked (we do) until his wife/girlfriend had to tell him to let it go and just keep his mask on. 

 

People are just dumb, and I'm tired of it. 

As I mentioned previously, there is no need to worry about other people not wearing a mask if you are wearing a high quality mask yourself. Hopefully your employer comes to understand this and stops making you enforce the policy.

[Brick]

2 hours ago, Anathema- said:

 

Very surprising philosophy to come out of the "customer is always right" generation. 

 

Not sure if this is actually true, but I saw a friend post that the full saying is actually "the customer is always right, in matters of taste" meaning that no matter what the customer wants to buy, even if it's the ugliest shirt, if they want it, and they're willing to pay for it, then they're right and be happy to sell to them. Funny how corporate execs cut the phrase in half giving assholes leeway to treating retail and service workers like shit. 

 

1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

As I mentioned previously, there is no need to worry about other people not wearing a mask if you are wearing a high quality mask yourself. Hopefully your employer comes to understand this and stops making you enforce the policy.

 

It's not just about me, it's also about protecting the other guests. Everyone should be wearing a mask. Vaccination and masking are highly effective in stopping, or at least slowing the spread of this virus. So no hopefully my employer does not stop making us enforce the policy because while it's easy enough for me to stay masked, if guests 1, 2, and 3 aren't wearing masks, and one of them has the virus and is currently contagious, they're able to spread it to the other two, who will then likely spread it to others if they don't isolate and quarantine in time. In order to protect ourselves, and those around us, we need to keep wearing masks. Some people are selfish, and since the beginning have refused to wear masks. 

[BloodyHell]

52 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

Not sure if this is actually true, but I saw a friend post that the full saying is actually "the customer is always right, in matters of taste" meaning that no matter what the customer wants to buy, even if it's the ugliest shirt, if they want it, and they're willing to pay for it, then they're right and be happy to sell to them. Funny how corporate execs cut the phrase in half giving assholes leeway to treating retail and service workers like shit. 

 

 

It's not just about me, it's also about protecting the other guests. Everyone should be wearing a mask. Vaccination and masking are highly effective in stopping, or at least slowing the spread of this virus. So no hopefully my employer does not stop making us enforce the policy because while it's easy enough for me to stay masked, if guests 1, 2, and 3 aren't wearing masks, and one of them has the virus and is currently contagious, they're able to spread it to the other two, who will then likely spread it to others if they don't isolate and quarantine in time. In order to protect ourselves, and those around us, we need to keep wearing masks. Some people are selfish, and since the beginning have refused to wear masks. 

The vaccinated are at very little risk, the unvaccinated have made their choice, it's time to move on. As SBFilms said, nobody is preventing you from protecting yourself, but the rest of us who are vaccinated are ready to move on. To each their own, but I definitely support the removal of masking mandates unless a new variant comes along, and so do the majority, it seems.

[AbsolutSurgen]

59 minutes ago, Brick said:

 

Not sure if this is actually true, but I saw a friend post that the full saying is actually "the customer is always right, in matters of taste" meaning that no matter what the customer wants to buy, even if it's the ugliest shirt, if they want it, and they're willing to pay for it, then they're right and be happy to sell to them. Funny how corporate execs cut the phrase in half giving assholes leeway to treating retail and service workers like shit. 

 

 

It's not just about me, it's also about protecting the other guests. Everyone should be wearing a mask. Vaccination and masking are highly effective in stopping, or at least slowing the spread of this virus. So no hopefully my employer does not stop making us enforce the policy because while it's easy enough for me to stay masked, if guests 1, 2, and 3 aren't wearing masks, and one of them has the virus and is currently contagious, they're able to spread it to the other two, who will then likely spread it to others if they don't isolate and quarantine in time. In order to protect ourselves, and those around us, we need to keep wearing masks. Some people are selfish, and since the beginning have refused to wear masks. 

People have the tools to protect themselves, whether through effective masking or vaccination.  It's up to them to make the decision to do so.

 

Cloth masks made some sense when PPE needed to be conserved for health care professionals, and vaccines were unavailable.  In the context of the current situation, they don't.  The current mask mandates, which allow someone to wear a neck gaiter as a "mask", do little to protect other people.

 

People who are immuno-compromised or of advanced age are not going to be able to fully return to normal life.  That sucks.  But, putting in ineffective mandates won't change that.

[Jason]

3 hours ago, thewhyteboar said:

 

 

There are multiple reasons this is a bad idea. For one, if people hadn't been filming when United had the cops beat up and then drag that doctor off a plane, he would have been completely unable to fly because United was definitely going to mark him as an "unruly passenger" if they hadn't gotten caught on film.

[AbsolutSurgen]

Not a single one is wearing a proper mask themselves.

[CitizenVectron]

The babies are having a tantrum

 

 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Brick said:

It's not just about me, it's also about protecting the other guests. 

Anybody who wants to be protected from the maskless person can wear a high quality mask though. Are you still under the impression that two way masking is important, and the “my mask protects you, your mask protects me” adage?

[Jason]

18 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Anybody who wants to be protected from the maskless person can wear a high quality mask though. Are you still under the impression that two way masking is important, and the “my mask protects you, your mask protects me” adage?

 

Are you still insisting on being wrong about what constitutes reasonable public safety measures? 

 

 

[johnny]

im fine with mandates being dropped when out and about. 

 

while teaching idk, im stuck in my room almost all day 

[Chris-]

17 minutes ago, Jason said:

 

Are you still insisting on being wrong about what constitutes reasonable public safety measures? 

 

 

What’s reasonable about a policy most people just don’t want to follow at this point? Being right doesn’t really matter if it isn’t a realistic expectation. 

[Anathema-]

Capitalism has shown itself, time and time again, to have an implicit race to the bottom dynamic when it comes to protecting public health. As long as mask mandates make public health sense they should be put in place. Politics needs to temper capitalism. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

1 hour ago, Jason said:

 

Are you still insisting on being wrong about what constitutes reasonable public safety measures? 

 

 

That study showed that it would take 25 hours for an unvaccinated person to get an infectious dose of Covid while wearing a tight-fitting N95 mask, if they were staying within 2.5 feet of them.  Which is 50 times longer than the current mandate.  How much protection is enough?

[Guest]

18 minutes ago, Anathema- said:

Capitalism has shown itself, time and time again, to have an implicit race to the bottom dynamic when it comes to protecting public health. As long as mask mandates make public health sense they should be put in place. Politics needs to temper capitalism. 

Do mask mandates hurt commerce? I hadn’t seen anything to that effect. I can see how other public health measures would, but not masking in particular.

[b_m_b_m_b_m]

14 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Do mask mandates hurt commerce? I hadn’t seen anything to that effect. I can see how other public health measures would, but not masking in particular.

Capitalism isn’t just commerce but a system of power. Those most empowered and threatened by any encroachment of their perceived sovereignty and supremacy in our system by politics are those of your class, the petit bourgeoisie. From day one all mandates and impositions from the government were pushed back against by these people and they still push back today against vaccine and mask mandates. 

[CitizenVectron]

1 hour ago, sblfilms said:

Do mask mandates hurt commerce? I hadn’t seen anything to that effect. I can see how other public health measures would, but not masking in particular.

 

Yeah I don't really think that mask mandates have hurt businesses...other than the extreme anti-maskers perhaps not shopping there. BUT, that is not in a vacuum. An example:

 

A store normally would sell 100 apples in a month before the pandemic. With mask mandates, they are selling 90 apples as the anti-maskers aren't going in. Logically, removing the mandate would increase that back to 100...but what about the people who no longer feel (correctly or not) comfortable being in a store with unmasked people? That shop might now only sell 75 applies a month, even though the potential pool of customers has grown.

 

It's very complicated, and I don't think consumer confidence is going to magically rebound in places where adherence/belief in the mandates has been strong (such as Canada, urban centres in the US, etc). In fact, here is data released today (for Canada) that supports some of that:

 

 

Most people still are only comfortable doing things if they wear a mask. This poll didn't ask about other people wearing a mask, but I'm sure a % would fall into that category. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

I've decided to continue wearing mask because:

 

(a) I really like that I've not gotten the flu or even a cold in over two years, and

(b) I'm totally digging that only a portion of my face is visible to others, and when I rock a mask/sunglasses combination that I'm practically anonymous!

[Guest]

9 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

 

Most people still are only comfortable doing things if they wear a mask. This poll didn't ask about other people wearing a mask, but I'm sure a % would fall into that category. 

It would interesting to see the responses from the same group to doing the same activities with restrictions left in place.

[Guest]

45 minutes ago, b_m_b_m_b_m said:

Capitalism isn’t just commerce but a system of power. Those most empowered and threatened by any encroachment of their perceived sovereignty and supremacy in our system by politics are those of your class, the petit bourgeoisie. From day one all mandates and impositions from the government were pushed back against by these people and they still push back today against vaccine and mask mandates. 

Sure, but we are seeing the tide turn towards ending restrictions around the world without regard for the political and economic system of the country, so it seems a bit America centric to suggest this is simply “Capitalism!” at work.

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

26 minutes ago, sblfilms said:

Sure, but we are seeing the tide turn towards ending restrictions around the world without regard for the political and economic system of the country, so it seems a bit America centric to suggest this is simply “Capitalism!” at work.

 

I will absolutely agree with this as there is pushback in places like Trinidad that are certainly very far from any conception of "American capitalism".

 

The fact of the matter is that there is pushback because ultimately human beings are a pathetically weak-willed species.

[AbsolutSurgen]

18 minutes ago, CitizenVectron said:

 

Yeah I don't really think that mask mandates have hurt businesses...other than the extreme anti-maskers perhaps not shopping there. BUT, that is not in a vacuum. An example:

 

A store normally would sell 100 apples in a month before the pandemic. With mask mandates, they are selling 90 apples as the anti-maskers aren't going in. Logically, removing the mandate would increase that back to 100...but what about the people who no longer feel (correctly or not) comfortable being in a store with unmasked people? That shop might now only sell 75 applies a month, even though the potential pool of customers has grown.

 

It's very complicated, and I don't think consumer confidence is going to magically rebound in places where adherence/belief in the mandates has been strong (such as Canada, urban centres in the US, etc). In fact, here is data released today (for Canada) that supports some of that:

 

 

Most people still are only comfortable doing things if they wear a mask. This poll didn't ask about other people wearing a mask, but I'm sure a % would fall into that category. 

Maru also posted something, but from a slightly different POV. Rather than asking what people felt comfortable doing, they asked whether we should still be enforcing precautions on others...

Relaxing restrictions F 15 02 22 (squarespace.com)

Quote

Two-thirds (64%) of Canadians say it’s time to drop the restrictions and start to live with the virus— though, with a condition 

Overall, two-thirds (63%) of Canadians say it’s time to stop restrictions and start living

A majority (56%) of Canadians agree it’s time to stop pressuring those who refuse to get vaccinated

A majority (53%) of Canadians believe it should be left up to them to determine what precautions they take 

A significant minority (45%) believe it’s time for the chief medical officers and health officials to stand back 

 

[johnny]

21 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

I've decided to continue wearing mask because:

 

(a) I really like that I've not gotten the flu or even a cold in over two years, and

(b) I'm totally digging that only a portion of my face is visible to others, and when I rock a mask/sunglasses combination that I'm practically anonymous!

in the winter the sunglasses/mask/hoodie outfit was great. totally accepted by some people for the first time. 

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

1 minute ago, johnny said:

in the winter the sunglasses/mask/hoodie outfit was great. totally accepted by some people for the first time. 

 

I DEFINITELY don't own a hoodie

 

[Keyser_Soze]

5 minutes ago, Commissar SFLUFAN said:

 

I DEFINITELY don't own a hoodie

 

 

I can buy you one. You want a yellow one or a brown one?

[Commissar SFLUFAN]

6 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

I can buy you one. You want a yellow one or a brown one?

 

Why would I want one?

[Guest]

I wish I had more hoodie weather in Houston. Love a good hoodie