Covid will it ever end??

[teachme]

I recall my mom showing me around the cemetery where all her relatives were buried. She could point out grave after grave (friends and neighbors as well as relatives) who had died due to the 1918 pandemic. She remarked that she should have been there as well!

Was recently speaking with a retired doctor (87 yo) who knew 2 doctors that worked during Spanish Flu and one thing he brought up that I didn't know at the time was the large dosages of aspirin that were being recommended (and taken) during that time since it was the "wonder drug" (his words, not mine). Point being some people were probably dying of aspirin toxicity and may have distorted the numbers and there is some information, albeit controversial but plausible, that is out there but until he brought it up would never have looked it up.

Will be interesting years from now what treatments being done today will be looked back on as improper but, unfortunately, that is how science evolves and learns.

Example:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm

 

[Closet_Gamer]

I don't think Covid will be going away in my lifetime...I think it will become the new cancer. A major health issue that society must deal with, science will fight with an increasing success rate, but that will claim lives at some scale regardless.

In terms of Covid fading as a force that shapes our social interactions?
Sadly, I think we have a ways to run on that as well.

The UK seems to be the place where we accidentally test approaches to Covid. We're doing that again now.

Society is just ignoring this thing. Over the last month, DW and I have gone to three plays. You could literally count the number of masks you saw without running out of fingers & toes. Even transit works are largely not wearing masks. Rider mask wearing has to be less then 25% based on my experience. Kids are fully back in school.

Case counts are exploding, careening back towards the worst of the previous peak. I attribute some of this to UK's unreal testing...6M+ tests per week in a country of 66M people. 10% or so weekly. The age brackets suggest that the unvaccinated child population is really where the action is...but they're giving it to their parents.

The country was super effective in the early days of the vaccination era...but is now also among the first to see vaccine efficacy fade at scale. The government is struggling to get its booster program moving.

The press and government are now flirting with "Plan B" which is some level of government enforced measures, encouragement to work at home...constraints on social interactions loom I'm afraid.

Buckle up.

 

[EastWest Gal]

Mask wearing is really dropping here too. I work with a college class and that is the only place I see virtually 100% appropriate mask wearing.

Entering a building for a band rehearsal at the same time as a 20 something year old I know, she saw my mask and asked “Are we supposed to be wearing masks?” I answered that I follow CDC and PA health department guidelines regarding masks. She reacted with a blank look.

I think few people take the time to even find simple resources about health and Covid, even though they have access to them in their purse or pocket (cell phone) with them at all times.


Covid is going to be with us a long time. Especially because so many have long term sequelae, unlike flu.

 

[Badger]

Society is just ignoring this thing. Over the last month, DW and I have gone to three plays. You could literally count the number of masks you saw without running out of fingers & toes. Even transit works are largely not wearing masks. Rider mask wearing has to be less then 25% based on my experience. Kids are fully back in school.

You just reinforced our decision to not attend any indoor entertainment. It would be ignoring the safety of distancing and avoiding enclosed environments with large numbers of people not wearing masks.

The exceptions for us is Dr appointments (which has limited people in the waiting room and in our area requires wearing masks) and grocery shopping. I tend to shop early in the morning when the store has been empty for many hours and there are less people in the store.
I even stopped taking classes at the local college a few years ago and doubt that I will be attending any time soon.



Cheers!

 

[pacergal]

We still have a mask mandate, so the majority of folks have one on.
I am hoping they don't loosen up on it anytime soon.

 

[harllee]

We have a mask mandate in my county and it is enforced. The only issue I see is that for some venues there is an exception for someone "actively eating or drinking." I went to an indoor event recently and there was a young man about 12 sitting near me eating popcorn. He ate one piece of popcorn a minute so he was able to keep his mask off. I got up and moved away from him.

 

[Alan]

3 out 4 of the countries in the UK have mandatory Covid restrictions such as masks and Covid passports for indoor events. England has very few mandates so my wife’s sister is in for a surprise when she drives down from Scotland on Tuesday to stay with us for a few days.

 

[brett]

We are masked where we live in Western Canada. Masks are required in all public areas, including businesses/arenas. Proof of covid vaccination is required for all dine in restaurants.

Several restaurants in our area have been closed. Had their heath certificates and business licenses yanked for failing to ask for proof of vaccination prior to allowing customers into the indoor dining areas. It has resulted in very bad PR for those businesses.

Several faith leaders have been jailed, fined, etc for not following masking, social distancing, and percentage capacity regulations. Somehow they think their positions and their faith makes them immune to health and safety regs. They have quickly discovered that this is not the case.

Biggest problem we have is with the rural areas and those who seem to facebook musing over hard science. Until a week ago our ICU's were over capacity. 90 percent of those in the ICU were not vaccinated. This is taking a terrible toll on our health care workers. I expect some will leave their respective professions.

It is finally getting better but we have a long, long road to go on this covid business. It is not over by a long shot.

 

[Trailwalker]

Once one gets out of the larger Wisconsin cities, mask use drops quickly. Our governor tried to order an emergency mask mandate, but our state supreme court took that power away, ruling that an emergency can't continue on and on. The legislature could act but hasn't. I see maybe 25% of people masked in the grocery store. The liquor store has a mask required sign,but people routinely ignore it, and the clerk doesn't want any confrontations. I walk by a yard sign every day that says "freedom matters." We had a fall spike in Covid deaths but that is on the downward trend. I'm hoping that delta doesn't morph into something worse, but hope isn't much of a plan.

 

[disneysteve]

This is completely anecdotal but I do seem to be seeing fewer positive COVID tests coming back. The volume of testing hasn't really slowed since we're getting into respiratory season so we're seeing plenty of sick people. Not many of them have COVID though.


Our big question at work is if our current protocols are going to remain in place indefinitely. The way we register, screen, and see patients with COVID symptoms is way more time consuming that the way we used to see patients pre-COVID. We've gone from seeing around 4 patients/hour to seeing 2-3 because of that, but our volume is higher than ever, so that's created a big bottleneck. I mentioned earlier that we were given permission to close registration and stop accepting patients if we hit capacity prior to closing time. Yesterday, I shut us down at about 3:20 (we close at 4:45). Today wasn't nearly as bad but I still cut it off at 4:15. The fact that we are turning patients away on a daily basis is quite astonishing to me having worked here for over 5 years now.

 

[Ronstar]

Some strain of Covid will probably be around for the rest of our lives. I don’t see how Covid will end on its own given the amount of global social interaction with lax safety measures. A large Covid breeding ground still exists.

 

[Koolau]

Was recently speaking with a retired doctor (87 yo) who knew 2 doctors that worked during Spanish Flu and one thing he brought up that I didn't know at the time was the large dosages of aspirin that were being recommended (and taken) during that time since it was the "wonder drug" (his words, not mine). Point being some people were probably dying of aspirin toxicity and may have distorted the numbers and there is some information, albeit controversial but plausible, that is out there but until he brought it up would never have looked it up.

Will be interesting years from now what treatments being done today will be looked back on as improper but, unfortunately, that is how science evolves and learns.

Example:
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091002132346.htm

I guess the good news is that so many folks actually are surviving the pandemic AND we now have very effective vaccines. I see these as bright spots that folks in 1918/19 didn't have. The 1918 pandemic affected my mom until the very end of her life. It was still on her mind as she slipped into Alzheimers. YMMV

 

[ivinsfan]

Why are people still posting about masking and not masking. We must have been told a 100 times not to post on it. At least two posts on this very page are simply political opinions and people bashing.



I live rural and believe me ,I know in that post rural is a code word for something else. Oh, and I read FB too, be nice if some here could quit labeling people.

 

[Trailwalker]

Why are people still posting about masking and not masking. We must have been told a 100 times not to post on it. At least two posts on this very page are simply political opinions and people bashing.


I live rural and believe me ,I know in that post rural is a code word for something else. Oh, and I read FB too, be nice if some here could quit labeling people.

I'm relatively new here so I went and read the sticky in this part of the forum--not seeing anything about avoiding the topic of people masking or not masking? Did I miss something?

Also, I'm rural too. I have neighbors five miles away. I don't consider rural to be a code word. I grew up in a city, and there's no way I would ever move back to one.


Edit: The moderator has spoken several posts below. I'll avoid Covid threads in the future.

 

[Chuckanut]

FWIW, less than 2 months ago local hospitals had 35% of their ICU beds filled with Covid patients, virtually all non vaccinated people. Today, that is down to about 17%. We are now on the downward slope of the current Covid wave. I have no doubt there will be future waves. If the new variants aren't worse than Delta, hopefully, the waves will have lower crests. Time will tell.

 

[flyingaway]

FWIW, less than 2 months ago local hospitals had 35% of their ICU beds filled with Covid patients, virtually all non vaccinated people. Today, that is down to about 17%. We are now on the downward slope of the current Covid wave. I have no doubt there will be future waves. If the new variants aren't worse than Delta, hopefully, the waves will have lower crests. Time will tell.

I guess many people got immunity from infection and the new infection is now downward. However, I am surprised that the new waves would be a problem even if people was infected before.

 

[flyingaway]

I have a feeling that the virus or its variants will be here for a long time if not forever. I cannot wait for them to go away. Just booked a trip to Mexico in December. Life has to go on.

 

[brett]

Same here. We are going to Panama in January. May or may not go into CR.

Just got our QR code/vaccine passport yesterday. Lots of nonsense where we live about private medical information being shared.

Ours has our name, DOB, and two lines....the dates of our covid vaccination and they type of vaccine. That is it. NO picture, no SIN/SS number, no address, etc

We also need to show our D/L (or passport). Both contain far more data than than our QR/vaccine passport does. I do not understand why some people think that the vaccine passport is such a big deal or an invasion of our medical history.

 

[RetMD21]

I think things are getting better. People are getting immunity via vaccines or delta. US infections are down 50% since the first of September. New England is doing well and the virus will likely burn out in hotspots like Wyoming and Idaho with time and more infections. I am staying away from indoor public events since positive tests are still 10% here. Although more waves could come I think they will be less dramatic since a smaller share of the population will be susceptible. I could be wrong about that

 

[flyingaway]

Same here. We are going to Panama in January. May or may not go into CR.

Just got our QR code/vaccine passport yesterday. Lots of nonsense where we live about private medical information being shared.

Ours has our name, DOB, and two lines....the dates of our covid vaccination and they type of vaccine. That is it. NO picture, no SIN/SS number, no address, etc

We also need to show our D/L (or passport). Both contain far more data than than our QR/vaccine passport does. I do not understand why some people think that the vaccine passport is such a big deal or an invasion of our medical history.

I m wondering where did you get your QR code/vaccine passport?

 

[Koolau]

Just got our QR code/vaccine passport yesterday. Lots of nonsense where we live about private medical information being shared.

<SNIP>

I personally don't have any big issues with showing my passport revealing that I've received my vaccines. However, HIPPA rules of privacy were put in place precisely because our health information IS NOW shared (in theory, needs to be shared) BUT only among those who have an actual medical need for it AND a legal right to view it. SOME folks are very touchy about such things, oddly enough.

I agree it's not much of an imposition to share such limited "health" data. BUT some folks see it as a slippery slope (etc.) that has NOT gone through legislation and the public comment process. As far as I know, there are no HIPPA exclusions for using medical data to fly (or especially) enter a restaurant.

To call people's concerns "nonsense" is to call HIPPA nonsense IMHO. As I said, I don't have a significant problem with the passports, but I DO understand concerns about using them by and for (essentially) non-medical personnel. You are entitled to a different opinion as YMMV.

 

[Aerides]

Mod Note:
Let's get this thread back on track and away from Masks and Restrictions and Mandates, please. Repeatedly, those topics have proven to lead to arguments and thread closures.

 

[tmm99]

You can use your driver's license or any kind of government photo ID that has your name and DOB on it, I think.

I live in Ontario, Canada and only fully vaccinated people can dine indoors, drink in bars, play sports indoors, etc. This came into effect on September 22, so it's been like that for over a month now. I haven't dined indoors since the change, but I've been playing volleyball indoors in leagues and other programs since the beginning, and all I have to do is to show the copy of my vaccine certificate (which contains the dates of the shots, the type and the number of doses, your name and DOB) and some kind of government photo ID to match the name on the vaccine certificate to my face. They do not photocopy or even write down your info. They just look at the ID like they do when you enter a bar to make sure you're old enough to drink.

Easy peasy.

Ontario has finally implemented an app, so I guess restaurants, etc can now scan the vaccine cert scan code instead of eye-balling the writing on the cert.

 

[brett]

I m wondering where did you get your QR code/vaccine passport?

Our Provincial Health Authority issues them. Same across Canada.... health is a Provincial responsibility. Each province keeps electronic health records. We have universal medicare so this is really a record of services provided. Everything is recorded there...travel, flu, vaccines, tests, going back to at least 2007 in my case.

Getting the QR/passport is a simple as logging into our health services account and downloading the document. In our case we dropped it on our phones, ipads, desktop, and made a hard copy. The document contains the QR code, name, DOB, and for me entries with the date and type of vaccine that was administered. We will need to update after we get the booster shot in late Nov/Dec. We both had our flu shots on a Saturday. We logged into our health accounts on Wednesday and the flu shot had been entered.

This is the proof of vaccination that is required when we go out to dinner in a restaurant. Next month it will be a requirement for air, train transport. I believe that it will become a new reality for quite some time into the future.

 

[maestro]

It's a virus. It's not going away. Live your life. There are other worse things going on in this country right now, all induced because of fear, that will make COVID look like a picnic in the park. But, hey, I'm optimistic. [emoji16]