COVID19

[David75]

Social distancing, masks, we have that with a myriad of exceptions, laws that end too soon and your usual politicians/journalists fake news/opinions making things over complicated...
When basically it's simple:
-social distancing is the first basic rule, avoid all unecessary social activities and try to minimise the unavoidable ones. That includes shopping and all activities where you meet people even from your friends or familly circles when you don't live under the same roof.
-wear a mask whenever social distancing is impossible.
-wash hands a lot more frequently, yes even after going to the bathroom. Strange idea isn't it ?
-wear a mask whenever you're away from home is a good practice too, especially in dense cities/places even if social distancing is easy but you cross paths with lots of people.
-if you are out but in non populated places like walks in the forest/treks/empty beach, do as you please if you're sure to never cross paths with anyone.

But the problem here like everywhere on earth, is that we have a massive pandemic that kills a lot: idiocracy and idiocy...

[Kraco]

I don't personally know anyone who would have had Covid-19, let alone died because of it. Finland went pretty hardcore on it early on and it really helped. There have only been mask recommendations here and there, aside from airplanes with obligatory masks, and most people don't wear one. I only wear one on a bus. I most certainly wear gloves a lot more, though, and use hand sanitisers in stores.

[Death BOO Z]

by brothers' girlfriend has mild disease, and her father was hospitalized in a critical condition. both recovered since then.

masks are mandated here, not everybody wears them properly (even i sometimes wear it below the nose), bars and restaurants are somehow packed, and it doesn't feel like they are limiting the number of people.
the number of new cases did skyrocket in the past few weeks, but it's hard to say how much of it is actual new cases (due to school re-openning at some form) compared to more testing (specifically, politically motivated testing). we might be going into "lock-down" next week (the jewish new year holiday), but it's still not clear whether it's going to be just the cities with high rates, all the country, and what restrictions will be set.
it's all in the hands of the prime minister, so things can change without a moments' notice.

[Buffalobiian]

I broke out a set of masks I had stocked up back in 2018 or something because I had a respiratory infection then. The quality difference is very apparent compared to what I'm using at work right now. The older stuff was thick and comfortable. The Quilton of masks if you will. Current stuff is thin toilet paper and it hurts to wear.

But you know, if they work to the same protection standards and cheaper means we have enough to use then I'm okay with that.

[shinta|hikari]

My American friends still keep doubting the seriousness of the pandemic, to the point that they say they are tired of dealing with it, despite having basically done nothing to actually deal with it... The terrifying thing is my wife likes hanging out with these people for her mental health (gets lonely easily), despite them being an infection risk. I'm basically given a choice of depressing my wife or possibly getting infected by reckless Americans.

I've tried convincing them to be more careful, but that doesn't really work when they think they are invulnerable and don't "truly" give a shit about others. It is a bit shocking how propaganda can affect even generally reasonable people. They buy into Facebook posts with no context or source and won't listen to me even though I go through several articles a day to keep up with covid developments nationally and globally. When I send links to articles, they treat them with the same level of trustworthiness as some rando posting on their feed.

[Buffalobiian]

On a side note, I've kept following/friending old highschool aquantenances on facebook who have quite bogan/objectionable opinions about some stuff in general just to keep my perspective broad.

Annoyingly, my google feed decides that all I want to know about these days are COVID,watches and gaming/PC hardware. All those topics are cool, but it's stuff I already subscribe to on facebook and actively seek out. I'd rather now about other news from a Google feed. Back to actual news outlets we go.

[Death BOO Z]

actually, i think that's kind of a problem, the whole echo chamber thing.
most of the people in my facebook feed are either friends or people who become friends. it's mostly people with similar backgrounds and political opinions. and the facebook algorithem hides away the few people who don't share my views. it's getting tough to see whats going on outside the small sphere.

[shinta|hikari]

I actually visit Reddit regularly for that. I don't have any other social media, and I don't even have a reddit account. I just go to the front page and scroll to see what pops up. The top voted comments usually have a good trail of sources, including opposing views. The r/Conservative and similar subreddits really give me a glimpse into the other perspectives, although I have to say it makes me understand where they are coming from even less. The most evident thing is how they have very narrow sources of information and basically reject everything else.

[Buffalobiian]

So how is the rest of the world doing right now (meaning you guys)?

For some time now, it's felt like "COVID exists" and I'm just living life while responding every now and again to an outbreak (like how bad weather would keep me indoors on certain days and make me take an umbrella etc).

One or two of our (Australian) states are wanting to open up, the rest less keen I think. Mine in particular hasn't had much COVID at all and is taking a zero-COVID policy essentially. I'm used to it, but my job security and pay is unaffected by all of this. I can see other people getting hit hard by flash lockdowns and apparently overseas you guys find our practice strange.

So what's actually happening abroad?

[Death BOO Z]

we had a delta resurgance for a month or two, which seems to going down as more and more people either got it or recieved the booster.
restuarents are open, small events are allowed (weddings, parties), sports are also back,but some massive events aren't.

people who didn't get the shots are supposed to be tested 'daily', and there are all sorts of test scehduales in the education system, but I'm not close enoguh to know the details.

[David75]

France:
-it feels like the pandemic is receding, maybe still a little high in the southeast.
Social distancing and masks are still the rule, but nobody seems to really care anymore.

Delta did scare us for a while.

I just hope we won't get another wave.

[Ryllharu]

Northeast Corridor at least:

Even more moderate people are sliding past exhaustion and slipping to apathy. We have a high vaccination rate, but the media and political onslaught doesn't let up anyway. The rules seem to change arbitrarily, and there's also a undertone of shame and guilt when the fully vaccinated aren't wearing masks even when they're not required by corporate or local mandate. There's a lot of skepticism with the boosters in this group. How many, how often? Because they don't seem to make any difference. So similar to France it sounds like.

There's also zealots on both sides. Masks, vaccines and boosters forever, and they're still screeching at others to comply because they've been whipped up into a state of hysteria. Even if we were at 100%, these people would still permanently isolate themselves out of fear, even though they'd be fine if they did catch it. But they are going to make "the other side" comply by whatever means necessary. They fully support making the other side pariahs.
The other side of course is anti-vaccines for themselves for all manner or reasons, definitely against forcing kids to get unapproved vaccines, anti-masking, and usually flipping out at local school boards and teacher's unions (who are in the other camp).

So even in regions that were hit really hard by both variants, and have very high compliance with all medical recommendations, there's a growing sentiment of acceptance that the virus is here to stay, and growing resentment at the relentless hysteria.

There's a mixed bag of "returning to normal." I don't think a lot of people really want to go back to indoor events and businesses even though they're allowed to, and there's a big shift towards take out and home cooking instead of eating at sit-down restaurants. But at the same time, people are very much done with the masking and social distancing that don't seem to many any difference at all in the infection rates.

I'm in the moderate-turning-into-apathy crowd.

So we have a mix of everything.

[Kraco]

Things are returning towards normal over here, although the restrictions in Finland never were as strict as in some other European countries. All services are running. Vaccination percentage is pretty decent. Masks aren't even recommended anymore by the officials for other than really crowded events, although various businesses might still have their own opinions. Most people don't use masks anymore in stores. Yesterday I visited a few stores; in one I didn't wear it because the staff wasn't either, in the others I did, but about half of the staff didn't.

[shinta|hikari]

Upper midwest US here.

Practically no restrictions anymore. My wife and I went on a rave with thousands of people clumped together. There were no vaccine card check or any mask recommendations. A very small percent of people wore masks, but that's about it. This is in the urban areas. Rural areas never really followed any restrictions or lockdowns at all.

I personally know 2 antivaxxers who have not taken the vaccine yet. One of them has a husband who is NOT an antivaxxer, but she threatens him with divorce if he ever got vaxxed. Many people in their group are vaccine-hesitant but eventually got it. Me and my wife took the vaccine as soon as we can and followed all reasonable guidelines. We never got covid before or after getting the vaccine, even with our fairly frequent traveling. In contrast, the group with the antivaxxers ALL got covid at some point, family and friends.

We went on a over 2 week vacation to Mexico in 3 areas, the Yucatan, Oaxaca, and Mexico City.

The people there are more serious about the restrictions. You wear masks even in huge outdoor locations such as ruins. They spray your hands and body with disinfectants whenever you enter any building. The beach areas were more lax, while the urban areas were more strict. That said, people were still eating in restaurants and drinking in bars everywhere.

In the Philippines, where a lot of my friends and family still live, a lot of people are dying. My aunt died of covid, and my wife's family suffered a few deaths as well. Almost everyone I know is related to someone who died of it. Restrictions are still strict there, but it can only do so much in densely populated areas with bad healthcare.

[Kraco]

I personally know 2 antivaxxers who have not taken the vaccine yet. One of them has a husband who is NOT an antivaxxer, but she threatens him with divorce if he ever got vaxxed.

Truly a marriage founded on love. They must be living a joyous life full of bliss every day. When I hear about people like that, I can't help but wonder why they even bother to stay together.

[KrayZ33]

Germany:

I honestly don't know, feels like everyone got the vaccine. Roughly76% of the 18-100 range got it
My mother is thinking about getting a "booster shot".

Kids at the age of 12+ can now get the shot and I think they should.
Give it less room to breed and change, you know.

This whole thing has proven how important family doctors are for us.
As soon as they started working on it, the "injections per day" rate went up so freaking much.
I was too lazy to go to a vaccination hub myself. I was glad when I could call my doctor to get the shot.

[shinta|hikari]

Truly a marriage founded on love. They must be living a joyous life full of bliss every day. When I hear about people like that, I can't help but wonder why they even bother to stay together.

They have two kids, and I guess the husband has issues with ever giving up on his marriage due to his parents' divorce and the fall out of that on his family.

The wife is not only an antivaxxer. She is also a trump-supporting conspiracy theorist. She believes the vaccine shedding thing, and is also against ALL vaccines, not just the covid one. Never mind that her husband is an ex-marine and had tons of shots for that.

But she is generally a nice person. Just goes to show how effective social media "news" and "info" are at brainwashing people.

[MFauli]

They have two kids, and I guess the husband has issues with ever giving up on his marriage due to his parents' divorce and the fall out of that on his family.

The wife is not only an antivaxxer. She is also a trump-supporting conspiracy theorist. She believes the vaccine shedding thing, and is also against ALL vaccines, not just the covid one. Never mind that her husband is an ex-marine and had tons of shots for that.

But she is generally a nice person. Just goes to show how effective social media "news" and "info" are at brainwashing people.

If you're anti-vax and pro-trump, you're not 'generally a nice person'. It's called fake-politeness.

[David75]

France again: law has been prolonged for the pass needed for restaurants and other activities where deemed necessary by the decree.
We're still officially having special measures against the pandemy.
Stats for covid are on a low plateau of approximately 1000 people in ER for a national nominal capacity of 5000 nationwide.
It's a kind of in beetween. The previous wave is behind and with that plateau we can't know if next we get the end of covid... or a new wave.
Technically, with the presidential elections coming May 2022, prolonging the law was only possible now or at the end of summer 2022...

[shinta|hikari]

What do you guys think about this subreddit?

https://www.reddit.com/r/HermanCainAward/