A report from the USA (I changed some names & made places unrecognisable, for the persons to remain anonymous):

QuoteTested positive on Jan 4, after symptoms beginning on Dec 27.  We didn't go anywhere or see anyone.  X, Y and I were all sick.  W. never had any symptoms.
 
We all tested negative on Jan 8.  And I have since tested negative again for work again on Jan 25.

I lost my sense of taste and smell completely for about 36 hours.  I ate a whole lemon and could feel the acidity on my tongue and in my mouth but couldn't taste it.
 
We had been doing the right thing; wearing masks in public, washing hands regularly, hand sanitizer, and generally just staying home. I had to test regularly for work, so that was the barometer that what we were doing was working.

Then, Y flew to ... .  She was calling us saying "the coronavirus might as well not exist in South Carolina" ie no one wore masks and u could still eat inside and do whatever u wanted. 

Next thing you know, we were sick... imagine that.
It sucks because we had done the right thing for many months, and this one slip up made it all for naught. 

Before I had it, if someone was sneezing and coughing near me in a store, I would drop everything and run out. Now I'm just like whatever...

I know it hits everyone differently. Thankfully in our family it was very mild.

Quote from: Ulrich on February 05, 2021, 13:09:04It sucks because we had done the right thing for many months, and this one slip up made it all for naught.

Here in Australia, where we're taking it much more seriously than people in the US, the person going exposing themselves on a trip to a place with community transmission would have been compulsorily quarantined (at their own expense) for two weeks on the way back into their home state, if they'd actually managed to get a travel permit to go out and back; and even in general, people now know to self-isolate and consider themselves potentially infectious in circumstances like that, so as not to expose family members.  (They don't all do it, but it's pretty much hammered home by public health here.)

That one slip can make it all for nothing (in terms of catching it yourself) is exactly the point with this virus - and this is exactly the same with HIV.  You can't say, "I used condoms for casual sex for ten years, and just one time I didn't and I got HIV, it's so unfair!" because fair or unfair has nothing to do with it, it's a virus and it does what it does, every time things get "leaky" with an infected person - and you can't tell who's infected by looking at a person.

And by the way, just so there's no misunderstandings, condoms aren't perfect protection from HIV either, just like masks aren't perfect protection from SARS-CoV-2.  It's part of an arsenal of approaches, in which testing, commonsense, honesty and vigilance are paramount, with either virus, and any other serious transmissible disease.

Here's the Swiss Cheese Model of risk management as applied to the pandemic:  https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/05/health/coronavirus-swiss-cheese-infection-mackay.html

One other hugely important point to make is that from a community point of view, people being careful is never "all for nothing" - because if you've been extra careful and as a result even just delayed getting infected with SARS-CoV-2 for six months (etc, the longer the better and preferably you don't catch it at all), you're still helping to slow the spread of community transmission.  This reduces the overall number of people who end up getting ill, and also the number of people getting complications, long-term effects or losing their lives to this disease.  How is that "all for nothing"?

Quote from: Ulrich on February 05, 2021, 13:09:04Now I'm just like whatever...

I find this part especially sad.  Does their country not have a sense of community?  "I've had it, so why should I care now?"  Do they not understand that we're all interconnected and what one of us does affects us all?  That it's not just about our own selves, or even just about the people in our own circle?

We know that getting and recovering from SARS-CoV-2 doesn't necessarily stop us from getting it or another strain later on, or from transmitting the virus to other people.  It reduces the chances, but not enough to go around without taking any further precautions.  If you don't care about your own self, and you think it's always going to be just mild if you get it yourself (no guarantee of that either), at least think of other people with vulnerabilities who might like to live a little bit longer.

I honestly don't understand some cultures.  I frequently find American attitudes profoundly appalling.

Quote from: SueC on February 06, 2021, 02:12:20I find this part especially sad. 

You got him wrong there. The only thing he said was that he doesn't "panic" any more if anyone in a store close to him is sneezing or coughing. That is all.

"Whatever" is a bit more than "no longer panicking" - it's the diametric opposite, and neither extremes are useful - not disproportionate panic where intelligent action is needed (all he needed to do was socially distance, wear a mask and practice good hygiene at the store, not panic and run bodily from the store) - and not "whatever" when we're still in the middle of a pandemic and have responsibility for ourselves and for our community.  Sadly, it's often the people who respond irrationally in the first place (things including panicking, panic buying, hoarding toilet paper, and other ways of going senselessly over the top instead of just following commonsense health protocol) who also go "under" as time goes on (don't care anymore / dismiss it from their minds etc).

"Whatever" has a very particular flavour in the English language, typified by its use by teenagers when they want to say, "Up yours!  I don't give a shiitake!"

I'd not be using "whatever" when talking about pandemic response.

Quote from: SueC on February 06, 2021, 11:20:34"Whatever" is a bit more than "no longer panicking"

Well he clearly said " I would drop everything and run out", which would seem extreme to me. Now he knows (as he mentions above) that mask/distance do help. Hence his wording, which could be better or worse (like "I don't give a toss").

I won't be sharing private reports any more, if one word becomes such a big problem.

What struck me in this, was how certain states within the U.S. seem to have no "rules" or "measurements" at all (as he describes what the person saw in South Carolina)! 

Another report from the U.S., this time shared publicly by Tony Visconti (Bowie producer etc.):

QuoteThe Covid vaccine rollout in this country is disgusting.  Although I qualify right now it is impossible to get my first shot, and that's because the production is slow too.  I blame it on the former regime, who should have acted much earlier taking the pandemic more seriously.  Another four years of that regime would turn the USA into a third world country, with black market vaccines, militia in the streets and inflation.  Sorry, but I'm really upset.  I'll keep wearing a mask, avoid contact with other people, including my own family and get tested regularly.

Is there's any ETA for when you guys will get the vaccine? It looks like it will be until autumn until I get my shot. Looks like another year wasted. Everything's closed, it's ghost town in Bratislava.

Quote from: dsanchez on February 07, 2021, 13:00:42It looks like it will be until autumn until I get my shot.

Could be for me too. Especially if they move on as slowly as they started...

On a side note: I received 2 snail mail letters yesterday; a lady from the UK (80+) reports that she had her 2 vaccinations (but can't do anything, because it's all closed)!

A mate (almost 60) who lives in Germany in a home for senior citizens & disabled has also received his vaccination! 

A friend from Scotland (60+) has posted on FB that he's been to the vaccination center.

QuoteSound and lighting technicians, guitar/keyboard/drum techs, truck drivers, tour accountants and road managers, caterers, and union workers at the venues are just some of the behind-the-scenes talent that have made good solid middle-class livings for doing their part in the live music music business, and they're dying on the vine because it has stopped.

Many artists think of their crews as family and have done all they can to help them during this crisis, but even an artist with deep pockets is suffering after a year without the lucrative revenue that comes from being on tour.

The venue landscape will undoubtedly look different when some normalcy returns to the business. Indie venues were already in trouble world-wide thanks to gentrification, increased insurance rates, and city zoning laws. Most smaller venues live month-to-month even during the best of times, so being closed for a year or more is a sure knock-out blow.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbyowsinski/2021/02/07/live-music-venues-are-hurting-but-so-are-the-crews-that-make-it-all-happen/

Quote from: dsanchez on February 07, 2021, 13:00:42Is there's any ETA for when you guys will get the vaccine? It looks like it will be until autumn until I get my shot. Looks like another year wasted. Everything's closed, it's ghost town in Bratislava.

Here they are starting at the end of the month with medical and quarantine staff, elderly people and people in high-risk groups in the first round.  Brett will get his shot then because he works for a medical practice.  They may or may not offer it to family members of that staff then and if they do, I'll take them up on it.  The thing is though, Australia has barely any community transmission, and I don't know how long the post-vaccination immunity lasts - if it's anything like the flu shot, that's got a peak activity of around three months and then declines, and high-risk people for influenza then require re-immunisation if the flu season is extended (plus influenza mutates a lot and always produces new infectious strains so pretty soon, a flu vaccine becomes outdated and you need a new lot against the new strains - and some of the new strains of SARS-CoV-2, such as the South African one, aren't effectively/as effectively counteracted by current vaccines).

I mention it because unlike, say, a tetanus shot, it's not going to be a long-lasting immunity and therefore it would actually be best if everyone in the world was immunised in the same "window period" - but that's basically impossible, so instead it looks like we're going to have temporarily (and imperfectly) protected vaccinated people side-by-side with unvaccinated people who are going to be a continuous infection pool, and one in which new mutations of SARS-CoV-2 can evolve in the interim.

Australia hopes to have its population mostly vaccinated by mid-year - uptake won't be 100% - but will be a damn sight better than in America, where online pals of mine are seriously discussing treating themselves with animal wormer instead of getting the vaccine  and these are normally intelligent people too; you'd expect it from fulltime idiots; the US is like another planet sometimes... "Oh, so-and-so got vaccinated and was sore and dizzy for three days!" but hey, compare the average adverse responses of people getting vaccinated to the average adverse responses of people with actual SARS-CoV-2 infection...

It's highly likely that we'll have to repeat vaccinate at intervals those people in the population who volunteer for the vaccine, just as is the case with flu shots - and I really hope that the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine will be less ephemeral than the flu vaccine, and get a greater uptake...

Once again, German only, but...

QuoteEs müssen nicht erst die großen Dramen und tragischen Schicksale sein, die zeigen, wie sehr das Andauern der Corona-Krise zum sozialen Problem geworden ist. Psychologinnen und Psychiater beobachten bereits zunehmend Angst- und Essstörungen, Sozialverbände warnen verstärkt vor Vereinsamung unter Seniorinnen und Senioren, die zum Rasten und damit zum Rosten verdammt sind, und Krankenkassen mahnen längst, unter Berufstätigen steigen die Fallzahlen bei Depressionen.

Alle, die diese Kolumne relativ regelmäßig verfolgen, wissen, dass ich nicht gegen Corona-Maßnahmen bin. Im Gegenteil, gehöre ich doch selbst zur Risikogruppe. Es ist jedoch unverantwortlich, wie wir insbesondere mit Kindern und Jugendlichen in dieser Pandemiezeit umgehen. Kaum Konzepte, kaum Aufmerksamkeit, keine Schnelltests, kein Sport, keine Hobbys, keine gleichaltrigen Freundinnen und Freunde ... einfach nichts. Dieser Zustand wird bei sehr vielen jungen Menschen Wunden hinterlassen, die nicht so einfach zu heilen sind.

Wirtschaftlich vermag Deutschland den Lockdown noch lange durchhalten, gesellschaftlich nicht. Bei der künftigen Gestaltung der Corona-Maßnahmen müssen die gesundheitlichen Entwicklungen im Fokus bleiben: 1. die Todeszahlen, 2. die Entwicklungen in den Krankenhäusern, vor allem auf den Intensivstationen, 3. das Infektionsgeschehen. Je länger die Pandemie allerdings dauert, desto stärker treten soziale und psychische Schäden neben ihnen in Erscheinung und gewinnen an Relevanz. Wenn Bund und Länder nächste Woche zusammentreten, müssen sie das endlich berücksichtigen!

https://www.t-online.de/nachrichten/deutschland/id_89544226/corona-in-deutschland-die-krise-belastet-uns-als-alle-immer-mehr.html

QuoteThe White House medical adviser Dr Anthony Fauci, has spoken about the challenge of containing more infectious variants of Covid-19 even as vaccines are rolled out, in an online conversation with Australia's chief medical officer, Prof Paul Kelly.

"Here is the challenge: are we going to chase each variant in an almost whack-a-mole way, or are we going to try and get a vaccine that has a good degree of protection against several strains and get the level of virus so low that we don't really have an outbreak?" he asked. "Both strategies are being pursued in the United States."

In the online discussion hosted by the US Center for Strategic and International Studies, Fauci said the US was working with Moderna to develop a vaccine specific to the variant identified in South Africa, and Pfizer was exploring whether a booster shot if its vaccine might offer additional protection against the variant first identified in the UK.

But the best thing countries could do was to contain large outbreaks, he said, because the more a virus circulates, the more opportunities there are for mutations to occur, eventually leading to more virulent variants.

"The best thing that we can do really is to get as much control over the existing replication and dynamics of the virus," he said. This was something the US had not managed to do in the same way as Australia, he said, because Australia's lockdowns were more stringent and effective. The US reopened after lockdowns while cases were still in the tens of thousands, which meant control of the virus was impossible.

"Just this past winter and late fall we were averaging an extraordinary 300,000 to 400,000 cases per day, and 3,000 to 4,000 deaths per day. That's just a completely different galaxy than what Australia was experiencing."

He said he was concerned that even as vaccines were rolled out in the US and new cases fell, the case numbers may plateau "at an unacceptably high level" – still high enough to give the virus more opportunity to mutate.

"Viruses don't mutate unless they replicate," he said. "And the more spread that you have in the community, the greatest chance you're going to have of the initiation and propagation of variants. And that's what we're seeing in the United States."

Kelly said Australia had recorded 140 cases of the variant first identified in the UK and 25 of the variant identified in South Africa – "but mostly they've remained in hotel quarantine".

...from https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/mar/10/dr-fauci-praises-australias-covid-lockdowns-viruses-dont-mutate-unless-they-replicate

Speaking of social problems, @Ulrich:

QuoteWhat a lovely pandemic: Australia's 250 richest now own the equivalent of 25% GDP

Last year Australia's 250 richest people were worth a collective $377 billion. Today, they're worth $470 billion.

If you found 2020 a tough year, you're obviously not rich enough.

It's been a good pandemic for Australia's richest people, and The Weekend Australian (of all places) has now revealed just how good: the total wealth of the richest 250 Australians is up about 25%. That's a jump from $377 billion to $470 billion.

This fact was buried deep on page 82 of the paper's glossy magazine insert, The List. I'm sure you didn't expect the Murdoch media to go all Thomas Piketty with their rich list, but here we are.

Rich lists in Australia's media (the AFR has one too) are a 1980s hangover designed to draw in luxury advertisers in a celebration of wealth and the cult of the entrepreneur. Born in a gaudier time, they're now a sharp reminder of the policy slogan popularised by US Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez: every billionaire is a policy failure.

More here: https://www.crikey.com.au/2021/03/22/australia-billionaires-rich-list/

It's especially bad in Australia and America - both relatively recent additions to the white European colonial land grab.  When you start with a few people with all the power and most of the wealth (and you wipe the indigenous people off the map pretending God gave you ownership of the land because you're so superior), you're setting up a society that continues down this track unless there's some kind of grass roots revolution.

Here's some interesting reader comments on this Crikey article:

QuoteThese are the Bastards who deny citizenship to a kid who was born here – because he was born with cerebral palsy AND MIGHT BE A BURDEN ON.... ON THE PUBLIC PURSE CONTINUALLY RORTED AND ROBBED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE OBSCENELY RICH AND THEIR FLUNKIES POLITICIANS.

..that's a comment on the upcoming deportation from Australia of a kid born here with cerebral palsy to parents born overseas...and you guessed it, just like in the US, the party who does these disgusting things has members (our PM included) who make a song and dance about their evangelical Christianity-cum-prosperity-gospel...

QuoteYou will never get a wealth tax in Oz, the coalition driven by the Nats squattocracy would not countenance it and Labor won't want to alienate tradies who are becoming wealthy...
The Rich will continue to get richer, while ScoMo and Co spread the lie of "having a go to get a go"

QuoteWhen growth on assets is growing more than GDP it is a no-brainer that Australia would be far better off taxing wealth. Perhaps then some relief on tax for working Australians could then be introduced and actually build the economy. The benefits would also flow into the health system (in crises) and social welfare programs, which also flow into the economy. Any government that can't see that is not a government for the country, just a funding organisation for the rich and an enabler for the revolving door system to favour themselves.

QuoteSo they got a 25% hike in wealth thanks to Jobkeeper. Phase 2 will be a tax cut so they will barely pay tax on any income derived, if they are unlucky enough not to have their assets tucked away safely in the Caymans.

QuoteAnd #ScottyFromMarketing's response to this disgusting inequity is that he 'does not engage in the politics of envy'. One wonders when the 'politics of social and wealth equity' become relevant. Is it when the top 10% own 90% of the wealth?

On this, Piketty has proven beyond all reasonable doubt that the only effective way to reverse increasing inequity is an annual tax on wealth; ie not something half-arsed and avoidable like the dreaded death tax. Yet the electorate, almost all victims of increasing inequity are so easily convinced that even a death tax is terrifying. Never underestimate the stupidity of the electorate.

QuoteStuff like this is why I'm baffled that this gets dismissed from the political conversation as "the politics of envy" yet measures to crack down on the poor are a guaranteed vote winner. We are generating enough prosperity in a society that no-one would need to live in poverty, yet we choose this as a just society by the politicians we vote for and the policies they champion.

QuoteEvery voting Australian, around 12 million of us, allow this gross immoral unfairness to continue. These billionaires [and our elected government] know that as long as we are not hungry and the crumbs of wealth sent our way pacify us, there will not be a revolution. True democracy is 'a social condition of classlessness and equality'. I do not know how we obtain this equality, but it will require a fight.

QuoteWealth tax?
Who do you think you are?
Lenin?
The good news is the human race will soon be all but extinct, if not actually extinct.

Quote from: undefinedIf you found 2020 a tough year, you're obviously not rich enough.

Ah well, there's the problem, I'm obviously not... 

Just registered to get my Astra Zeneca shot here in Slovakia, should get it within 2-4 weeks