Philemon

I am in the North of England. I have no idea what is happening. We had 8 weeks of full lockdown begining end of March. Ended sometime in June. Then had "bubbles" where you had to choose one other household that you visit and no one else. They opened years 1,2,3 in schools, but not other years or colleges or uni's.
They began opening other things up. Then masks on buses but not in shops. Then a couple of weeks later masks in shops. Then two different household "bubbles" could meet but only outdoors. Gatherings of up to 6 people, but from 2 "bubbles" only. Then pubs opened. But not doctors surgeries. All routine hospital appointments treatments and operations still cancelled. Including chemo. Churches not opened.
Museums, gyms etc were meant to open last week, but then that was "put back" Now parts of the country are going back on full lockdown. Don't know if these parts are just restricted to their own households or their "bubbles" it's not clear.
Like I said, I have no idea what is going on I don't watch the news or TV in general. I just know what's happening by other people telling me.

Aellyce

NYC has become pretty lax about the social distancing and PPE by now. We did a pretty good job earlier in the spring to "flatten the curve", I guess people are just fed up with it now. I had a dentist appointment today (first one since February) and was quite surprised that they don't seem to be doing things very differently, except taking temperature upon checking in and the hygienist that cleaned my teeth wore a face shield on top of her mask and googles. There were quite a few people in the small waiting room, not much social distancing. The dentist only wore a mask and gloves for the quick exam, as he always does. I asked about it and they don't seem to be very concerned about infections much, but the dentist said he can put on the face shield and googles when I go back to have more treatment done; today just had a regular cleaning. The other treatments are not really urgent and some just cosmetic, so I'm a bit nervous about it... but decided to go ahead and make the next appointment as there is really nothing we can expect to be much different this year, and probably less chance for COVID to spread a lot again in the summer than later in the fall and winter. I have great dental insurance now, but plan to quit my current job sometime next year, so not sure what coverage I'll have then. It's a bit of risk taking as I will need at least three appointments to complete the treatment I want, of course.

Dee74

I'd think you could ask your dentist to take all necessary precautions if it makes you feel safer Aellyce...ether that or find a new dentist?

D

Aellyce

Thanks Dee, yes I did ask. That's what I mentioned, he said in response that he would use all that PPE when I go back for the other, invasive treatments. Also showed me his equipment. I don't want to find another dentist unless these guys do something really undesirable as I am very happy with their services in general and they are in the top tier of my insurance network, meaning that a surprising number and range of treatments are covered completely or very significantly, which is not so common for dental work in this country. The office has also always been super clean. I'll remind them to use the PPE from the beginning when I go in next time. They did change some of the tools used for cleaning though, to exclude those that generate a lot of aerosol and water, so that was a good sign.

courage2

Today I extended my range in the city by a long way -- I took a bus downtown and a subway back. Hung out in Union Square park, which is being beautifully maintained. I've seen it under circumstances of severe urban blight, and it wasn't that way at all. Lots of people of all shapes, colors, and apparent affluence (or lack thereof), chatting and playing in the shadow of plane trees and a statue of Abraham Lincoln. No more than your ordinary allotment of Union Square wild-ones. Just a lovely day. The subway was fine -- clean cars, and everyone was wearing a mask . There are numerous shops out of business, but the streets are lively, and the bus was full -- everyone there had on a mask too.

The last few days there have been very few COVID deaths per day here, like 1 a day. That compares to the peak in mid-April when daily deaths were in the 500s.

A good day. I admit I found myself wondering, what has the per capita alcohol consumption been in the city over the last 5 months? I'd love to know....

biminiblue

I'm so relieved to hear that the death rate(s) are so low in some of the harder hit areas. It's the same way here. Once the nursing homes and hospitals got their protocols straightened out, those very vulnerable populations stabilized. Our DOH released the news yesterday that one half of all deaths in our state have been in nursing homes and assisted care facilities.

Even though the new case numbers are alarmingly high, they seem to be mostly recovering younger people. It's still dangerous to be old, yo. I mean, for so many reasons viruses are more dangerous as age increases. That's just a fact of nature.

I try to do the best I can to minimize up-close contacts and I wear a mask when I can't. If we all keep doing that, it seems to be working.

Washing my hands has gotten more automatic, too. I did have to return a recalled hand sanitizer. Nothing is safe! C2, I'm glad you got to take a small trip and that NYC people are using masks.

Prayers for the blue planet.

Meraviglioso

I am really angry right now. Italy did SO GOOD at the start of this. We had the strictest lockdown in the western world and it paid off. We had several weeks of no new cases or very minimal. Now we are exploding again. People are acting irresponsibly and just don't seem to care anymore. Just last weekend a 18 year old girl returned from Greece and had a test done as she wasn't feeling well. Instead of waiting for the results she decided to go out to a disco and dance the night away with over 1000 other un-masked young people, not respecting social distancing at all. Her results came back as positive the next morning. Restaurants, beach clubs and night-life spots are supposed to be registering everyone who comes in so they can do contact tracing if someone tests positive. This club did not take names, did not do temperature checks, masks were no enforced, nor social-distancing (like how do you do that in a disco anyway???) I am furious at this girl, and also her parents- how could they let her out of the house when they knew it was a risk? We are headed for another lockdown, I can feel it. I am just so over this. I was planning on going to the US with my sons for Christmas, but have already accepted that it will not be possible this year. I have no idea when I will see my family again.

Aellyce

For me, it has always been quite predictable that people would go more relaxed with the COVID precautions over time, and that would lead to waves of new infections at various locations. I really don't think any of this will change very much now, until we have an effective and widely available vaccine.

I did my plasma donation a couple weeks ago, and the institution where I donated is looking for more from the same donors as well, they encourage doing it multiple times for a research study. So I'll have yet another blood draw first for antibody testing today, to see if my levels are still high enough for it. If they are, I'll go for more rounds. This is actually interesting for me, to see how the antibody levels change over time... today will me my 4th test so far since May.

Dee74

I;m sorry Mera - I know its frustrating to watch people not take this seriously...I had that a few weeks ago with a cluster here...I don't get not taking this seriously... but thats humans for you.

You and I can only ensure that we keep doing the right things and stay safe and healthy.

D

least

Here in Ohio masks are required in all public buildings/stores. But I still see people without masks walking around.

I have gotten used to it and it's now second nature to put a mask in my pocket when I walk Billie - just in case I should need it.

EndGameNYC

From one perspective, the more terrified a person is about more or less specific but unwanted outcomes, the more irrational will be their explanations about their increasingly erratic speech, thinking, and behavior in response to their internal terror. (To say nothing about feeling so much out of control.) We’ll even go as far as to concoct delusional conspiracy theories with zero plausibility. (And then we wonder why no one texts us anymore.) Or simply deny reality by playing make-believe; that everything’s okay, and everything’s back to normal. (Just don’t make any sudden moves. Or smile in public unless you’re wearing a mask.)

Everyone else is just “overreacting” because, well, one hundred and seventy thousand deaths is a very small percentage (~0.0005%) of the entire population. Break it up. Show’s over. Nothing left to see here, folks.

"Do you know how many people die every day from all kinds of different things?" Missing the point is another, albeit more insidious route to indifference toward "those people," the people who need help in managing their way through a world crisis that can also be painfully local in our personal lives.

Face the fear, take an action to help make things better and you've automatically learned something very important about yourself.

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/2...le-stop-caring

Aellyce

That is a great article EndGame, thanks for posting. When I was reading it, an analogy occurred to me between this phenomenon of "emotional numbing" that can lead to careless behavior amidst the pandemic and addiction. How we are biologically wired for survival (here: detach from stress and tragedy to be able to move on and to seek rewarding experiences), but the same mechanisms and instincts can get out of control and become excessive and reckless. I think this normal, evolutionary "predisposition" is why addiction exists and why people react the way they react to the pandemic - to change that, we would really need to turn into something else than human. Of course there is a lot of individual variation, like in everything, but I really believe this to be true in general.

I experienced similar with my plasma donation process. I had a chat with the staff at the donation center about how many donations they get from folks who recovered from COVID and how it changes over time. Instead of the number of donation increasing, to follow the "logic" that there are more and more recovered people and also awareness, given how accessible testing is now - apparently the number of donors is decreasing. Initially, many people who tested positive and recovered were quite excited to make their experience useful for others at the beginning, but a lot just stopped being interested over time. That's why the center decided to offer more money to returning donors recently (between $50-150 where I go, depending on how many times you do it), to try to motivate people. I don't accept money for mine but, generally, it can certainly be more effective than a fading, purely emotional inspiration to help.

I think many people also don't realize there is a variety of ways to motivate both ourselves and others to make contributions to society and be more agreeable. Altruism is just one of them. I definitely don't consider myself the most compassionate, wanting to help and be of service kind of person (I also cannot do jobs effectively using that incentive), I am pretty selfish. But get motivated in very powerful ways by curiosity, things that interest me, and by wanting to turn my experiences known and useful. And there is no emotional numbing working against that. I think it is perfectly possible to use quite self-centered motives for the greater good and the emotional reward/satisfaction can perhaps be even stronger that way, at least for those who have that kind of personality. We just need to think realistically to discover the variety of incentives to change or maintain behaviors that are constructive and helpful. I think this applies to addiction recovery and then helping other addicts as well - there are so many different ways for these!

CODPlayer

Ditto in Chicago (suburbs). It's remarkable that it happens.

Aellyce

I still love the social distancing in public places and the "rules" how to move around in a store, for instance. I always naturally tried to follow these and thought they were just means to efficiency. At last, the rest of the world recognizes it, too. Much less anger in the everyday, living in NYC

But perhaps the World is just picking up an OCD-type living and I identify....

courage2

You know it's still COVID when the most common type of trash on NYC streets is PPE: 7 disposable masks and 2 gloves in 4 blocks.

courage2

I saw a colleague mask-2-mask today -- a rare occurrence. She hasn't been tested, but thinks she had a mild case early on; her mother and sister had it. Her sister suffered lasting heart damage. Her mother, who's elderly anyway, had a heart attack yesterday, and I suppose she'll never know if it's COVID-related.

Maybe it was that -- or the Peru numbers, which are scary -- maybe it's the flu season coming on. Tonight, something in the air feels ominous. I have a feeling about the fall in the northern hemisphere -- that it might be a harder test than we've had so far.

To bring the topic to our SR themes, I'm posting this here now because I'm alone in my apartment and had thoughts that I'd like a drink. And if it does turn out to be a long hard march ahead, those thoughts may come more often, to me, maybe to us. So help also has to come, from me, from us. Not a great time to dial back on SR.

Dee74

I dunno about you Cour but drinking me is a lot less capable than sober me - especially dealing with worldwide problems with no real end yet in sight.
That AV knows nuthin

D

courage2

Yes I know Dee, but the drunk me is really better at hiding, and fear is a handy excuse for weak behavior. I haven't ever been afraid so far, even in NYC. How strong will I be if there's really and truly a second round? How will we help one another? I'm not planning a relapse or anything. Just wondering, now in the safety of early September, with NYC deaths & hospitalizations & even new cases still at wonderfully low numbers, and mentally preparing for the stranger times that may come.

Thanks for being here, Dee.

SoberLeigh

Cou, I have had the same sinking feeling about the Fall; it has been hard to shake it off; I hope that it is just my “worry-self” going into over-drive. Regardless, staying close to SR is a good thing.

Let’s hope we can celebrate the demise of COVID soon.

least

I'm ready for flu season cause I got my flu shot end of August when I was at the doctor for my semi annual checkup. It's been several years since I've had the flu. Last time I had it, I had had the shot that year and only had a mild case. Also my doctor prescribed Tamiflu and tho it was very expensive, it sure got rid of the symptoms and the illness itself in a short time.

I feel badly for the healthcare professionals and hospitals. They have not only covid to fight, but now flu season is upon us and they'll be inundated with both of them to treat.

I think it's going to be a rough winter...