Topic: Corona Virus Panic/Discussion Thread

@NedStarksGhost "I am beginning to think myself is it just hit the point where we take what mitigations we can (ventilation and masks) but continue and accept the risk exists? It's funny how much you can shift mentally after just a couple of years."

I mean, in those couple of years we've all had the chance to have multiple vaccines and they've developed other therapies, and in the meantime the dominant strains have become less dangerous so yes I believe we're definitely at the point of continuing and accepting the new risks. The zero Covid policies you hear about in some countries seems wild to me.. this thing isn't going away ever, as unfortunate as that is it's about living with it now.

@NedStarksGhost That sounds perfectly reasonable to me. I'm actually impressed they're really doing all they can to minimize the risk. Over here most people wouldn't care that much.

@NedStarksGhost And yes, sorry I meant in England not the UK

@kyleforrester87 yeah I guess that's true. Actually catching it and having to self-isolate for 10 days has made me go more cautious again to be honest. Before that I'd stopped caring about the risk and just followed the guidance. And no worries on the England/UK thing, it's confusing when England healthcare choices are made by the UK government but not the same for Scotland/Wales!

@Voltan interesting to hear that, especially how impressed you are with the measures being taken

Thanks for all of your perspectives! That's why I posted really, to gauge how people generally view it, and whether I'm perhaps thinking overly cautious

@NedStarksGhost Yes the isolation thing is a real pain, I have had it twice and it dawns on you pretty quickly how long 10 days is when you have to just sit on your sofa. It's 5 days in England now with 2 negative lateral flow results on each day prior which makes sense.

@NedStarksGhost In the U.S., it’s all over the map with how companies are limiting employee and customer exposure. Some places are doing what you’re describing and not even requiring masking, where others are still not allowing in person meetings even one-on-one. Isolation is now only 5 days from first day of symptoms, which by the time most people actually test they’ve had it for 2-3 days so effectively it’s only a couple days off work. And if you’re an essential employee like a hospital employee, apparently they tell you to just keep coming to work while you’re sick anyways and there is no quarantine. I’m reading about hospitals where nurses with active symptomatic COVID are told to come in and are working around patients, and only required to wear N95s.

So yeah, what you’re going to be doing sounds fairly reasonable.

Whether it’s right or wrong, I think the world is learning to go on and live with this thing. All this relaxation of restrictions, despite death numbers from COVID in the U.S. are really still just as high or higher than at any other time in the last 2 years, as far as I’ve read. Of course with vaccines, therapies, and the weaker strain, the probability of being that person who dies is now much less if you catch it. In the game of “COVID Russian roulette” there are fewer bullets in the cylinder each time you spin it and pull the trigger, but you have to pull the trigger more times, if that makes sense. So statistically, you still have the same chance of dying, just in a different way. (Kind of an over-simplification probably, but that’s how I see it. Obviously a given individual’s risk is lower if they are vaccinated, etc. But as a society, people are still dying in droves)

@Th3solution Interesting to read how things are in the states. Crazy that nurses with Covid have to continue to come in, that isn't right... I'm starting to view it that all things considered, risk and vaccines and measures taken into place, it's totally reasonable.

@NedStarksGhost "Crazy that nurses with Covid have to continue to come in, that isn't right..."

I'm not sure it isn't right exactly by default, it depends if the risk of spreading covid and associated deaths is higher than the disadvantage of not having adequate staff in a hospital to take care of other sick and dying people.

@NedStarksGhost The thing is that most people are scared of the consequences of testing positive, i.e. being forced to isolate, not the actual effects of the virus itself. I have always been on the extreme of feeling comfortable with the risk. At the very start I wanted more evidence before we took any drastic action. When we found out that kids weren't really affected I assumed that we would do everything reasonable to protect the vulnerable. I was shocked that people were talking about sacrificing our lives to maybe slow the spread of a virus that clearly was coming anyway and basically meant we'd have to effectively lock down until a vaccine was developed and we found time to distribute it. I was convinced that it would be more harmful to lock down, and it shook me to my core to find out that the liberal West turns pretty totalitarian at the drop of a hat and just followed China's lead. You can't really go far wrong by trusting people to make their own risk assesments. It is really bad that the government is training us to leave all the decisions to them. We should be responsible for our own safety and taking health measures voluntarily. Like gaming seems to be moving in a foreign and bad direction lately with all the GaaS and subscription talk, I have felt at times like I don't belong anymore and there are plenty of people who are willing to rat their neighbour out to the authorities. It does seem like the public mood has changed now, so I hope that we can move forward now.

I don’t expect I’ll get anymore jabs in the future (I have had 3) unless there is a crazy new variant. I take an immunosuppressant and have had covid twice but it was no worse than a usual cold, which I don’t tend to get either despite the meds.

I've been boosted so my anxiety has gone down considerably, but I still manage to find things to get anxious about, they need to come up with a cure for hypochondria.

@robhr @RogerRoger I thought the cure for hypochondria was alcohol? And lots of it?

@nessisonett That's more of a treatment than a cure, but having a drink and staring at a lava lamp for a long time has been a wonderful treatment for all my anxiety issues.

My Amazon warehouse has permanently stopped requiring people to wear face masks, starting this week. We're still expected to socially distance though, but I doubt that's going to be enforced.

I hope everyone else is doing okay these days, thread died in February.

It does feel quite strange how the government and media just suddenly stopped talking about covid. Even though there are still a lot of people still getting it.

Too busy covering The Johnny & Amber Show these days, I guess...

@ThereThere Hopefully you have a quick recovery and you suffer from none of the more severe symptoms!

@ThereThere
Yeah I been feeling fairly immune and invincible too as I've been working two jobs since it all started and just about everyone I know has it at some point, some more than once! But looks like numbers and rates on the rise again, maybe the boosters have started wearing off leaving people now more vulnerable.
Hope it's not too bad for you and you get over it soon.
... And especially hope you're not too ill to continue gaming.

@ThereThere Hopefully it’s not too bad, it’s the couple of weeks afterwards where you feel a bit breathless that’s the worst bit.

@ThereThere Oh Lord, don’t blame you for being worried about her given she’s pregnant. Glad she’s alright, hopefully the current strain’s one of the weaker ones.