Covid. The big shift

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I had Covid last November. I'm a long-hauler, and it has been very rough. I overheard my DH telling a friend "She hasn't been the same since, and I'm afraid she never will be." So yeah, for me personally life is not the same.

But the societal shifts are huge, of course. The vast numbers of folks who are still WFH, and the folks who will only be willing to do remote work going forward. Oh, and remember how going to work sick was a badge of honor? Lol, those days are over. Also, someone went to shake my hand the other day and it felt awkward and I couldn't put my finger on why and I realized it is because post-Covid we don't do it anymore. Probably good riddance on that one.

That’s so weird. I’m a guy. I shake hands all the time when I meet people.

Stop putting your hands in your mouth and you’ll be fine.

Who's shaking hands? No one is doing this anymore. Why would you want to touch a stranger anyway?

Everyone does.

It's totally back to normal now. Shaking hands is a fine way to greet someone

Not in my business they're not.

[Anonymous]

The world is worse for it but my family and I are better for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid turned into a hermit. Anxiety about getting COVID was high. This pandemic affected their learning and social development.

We had to play catch up getting them prepared to move away to college. Even then, there were gaps. They’d never used a debit card for instance. They rarely went out and, when they did, used our credit card.

The learned to drive “late.” Once they did, that helped to accelerate their growth.

They caught COVID finally and felt pretty sick. In a sense, it was probably good to finally catch it and get that over with.

Zoom and telehealth have saved me hours.

We missed saying goodbye to a dying parent due to hospital COVID protocols. Still hard to believe that.



Long COVID is a disease of inflammation, a doctor told me. I hope you feel better every day, OP.

How do teens end up with anxiety about covid? I truly don’t understand that

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

I’m sorry about your aunt, really I am. But please be honest- how old was she? What other health conditions?

NP here - so it wasn't my aunt. I lost a cousin - age 43, no health conditions. So go ahead please rationalize that because you know covid ONLY affects the old, the sick, and the fat right, and if anyone else worries about it they're paranoid, right?

The ignorance about who covid affected 3.5 year later is astounding. Also like the PP doesn't even care if they people had medical issues or not like their life lost didn't matter. Like what is wrong with people? Their souls are missing.

For the record I lost two HEALTHY uncles in their early 60's from covid.

It's a defense mechanism - bad outcomes can only happen to the OTHER and they somehow deserve it. They're old, they're fat, they have other medical conditions. Me and my perfect family look who fit and skinny we all are, only eating organic blah blah. Honestly that's what most people did to convince themselves to urgently return to normal bc those bad outcomes, those are for OTHER people so they should stay home, we can go back to packed stadiums and restaurants and wherever we want to go.

[Anonymous]

I think the Trump presidency had a significant shift, then covid had a different shift, then george floyd and the cultural fall out, then January 6th.... All that put together, I feel things are VERY different from 2015, and that almost seems like "before times" to me rather than COVID itself. And someone more conservative than me maybe feels that when Obama was elected was another big shift. It may have been, but that was about the beginning of my post-college adulthood, so I paid less attention to "adult" things.

Life is always changing. Before that there was the 2008 crash, before that 9/11.

COVID accelerated remote work trends. I prefer in-person when I have a short commute... but I"m currently doing my job from 500+ miles away for several months for personal reasons, and not sure I could have sold that plan pre-COVID. We are also more divided/partisan as a country - but I think COVID just amplified trends that were already happening.

The learning loss for kids is troubling. My kids were below elementary age, but I am worried in general about kids who missed out on learning.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My kid turned into a hermit. Anxiety about getting COVID was high. This pandemic affected their learning and social development.

We had to play catch up getting them prepared to move away to college. Even then, there were gaps. They’d never used a debit card for instance. They rarely went out and, when they did, used our credit card.

The learned to drive “late.” Once they did, that helped to accelerate their growth.

They caught COVID finally and felt pretty sick. In a sense, it was probably good to finally catch it and get that over with.

Zoom and telehealth have saved me hours.

We missed saying goodbye to a dying parent due to hospital COVID protocols. Still hard to believe that.



Long COVID is a disease of inflammation, a doctor told me. I hope you feel better every day, OP.

How do teens end up with anxiety about covid? I truly don’t understand that

One read the news and when our aunt died of Covid, it galvanized into anxiety.

I’m sorry about your aunt, really I am. But please be honest- how old was she? What other health conditions?

NP here - so it wasn't my aunt. I lost a cousin - age 43, no health conditions. So go ahead please rationalize that because you know covid ONLY affects the old, the sick, and the fat right, and if anyone else worries about it they're paranoid, right?

The ignorance about who covid affected 3.5 year later is astounding. Also like the PP doesn't even care if they people had medical issues or not like their life lost didn't matter. Like what is wrong with people? Their souls are missing.

For the record I lost two HEALTHY uncles in their early 60's from covid.

It's a defense mechanism - bad outcomes can only happen to the OTHER and they somehow deserve it. They're old, they're fat, they have other medical conditions. Me and my perfect family look who fit and skinny we all are, only eating organic blah blah. Honestly that's what most people did to convince themselves to urgently return to normal bc those bad outcomes, those are for OTHER people so they should stay home, we can go back to packed stadiums and restaurants and wherever we want to go.

But it is true. Those people aren't dying from Covid. The statistics don't lie.

[Anonymous]

I lost a sibling to Covid. Life won't be the same. A huge shift.

I'm coping and living life fully as they would want. Some days it's still hard to believe.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

"Common sense" was restored when we had vaccines.

Your lust for punishing people who "took COVID seriously" is noted. I get psychopathy vibes from you.

The self-appointed covid police were still loudly shaming well past vaccines being out and the only reason anyone went back to school was laws were passed (in VA at least) and our kids still spent part of that year wearing masks (aka chin straps/napkins/tissues). Please note I am not anti-mask I am anti-useless masks worn improperly by young children as virtue signaling. Always have been.

It wasn't common sense. You got forced and outnumbered eventually.

And the self-proclaimed COVID experts who denied that it existed or denied precautionary measures worked, were loudly shaming those who chose to act cautiously. Or bi---ing about private institutions covid policies. AD NAUSEUM. I had to witness some vapid, ignorant Karen lecture the 18 year old receptionist at my hair salon (this was MAYBE late 2020 and they required masks and spacing) about her scientific analysis and why Fauci was a terrorist. Took every ounce of me not to tell that B to STFU and move along. Which is what the admin told her, albeit much more nicely than I would have.

Unless you are an expert. Unless you understand the scientific process. I simply do no give a flying rat's F what you thought or think now (with 20/20) about Covid or Covid policy.

No one needs to be an expert to see what covid policy did to kids. Widely reported data. If you don't have kids, it's still very much our collective problem. It affects all of us.

Actually, I do and are unaffected. Lots are unaffected and any issues are not just "covid policy" during that time. BTW, Covid policy developed in real time due to a fast-moving and changing situation. And again, unless you're an expert, STFU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

So you are happy that people are having trouble rebuilding their lives because they tried to control and shame others.

NP here
Fixed it for you.

And yes, I for one am very happy at ANY misery brought upon those who tried to force others into isolation, unwanted vaccinations, and other horrors. They fully deserve it.

This is exactly why it's hard to move on. People who are angry about COVID restrictions believe that anyone who followed them is equally as responsible for the measures and their consequences as those who made the decisions. Yes, every single person who tried to avoid contracting and spreading COVID was actively policing the activities of others, reporting them to authorities, lobbying for more and longer restrictions, and otherwise trying to make your life miserable. ALL OF US. We did nothing but try to ruin your life for more than two years. We deserve to suffer.

What exactly do you want here? If it’s sympathy and empathy you’re going about it the wrong way. You’re making things even worse for yourself.

I think PP is saying to move the f-- on from whining about COVID restrictions. It's tiresome. Nasty (see the bolded). And pointless. The anti-science crowd saying things like the bolded and you're whining about the PP and lack of sympathy/empathy? That's. rich.

So what do you want? Its a simple question. Do you want to rejoin society or keep spinning your wheels?

What are you even talking about? My life is ongoing. I'm in society. Living life. Traveling.
I believe my statement above was crystal clear. Your obfuscating for to make some point that only you seem to understand.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

This. Exactly. There is no excuse, for example, for young people to think at all now about covid, let alone still be anxious about it in any way. If your kids are still afflicted by covid worry it is 100% the fault of their parents.

While I agree with you, it's not so black and white.

I feel our family was very measured in our response to Covid. After April 2020, we were never in super shutdown mode and have been socializing, going to the grocery store, etc. all along. There have been times when our socializing has been mostly outside. We wore masks most of the time prior to vaccines (this was standard in our community and it was as much to help others as it was for ourselves). We got vaccinated when they were made available to us but we also didn't freak out when vaccines weren't available to us or our kids immediately. I think we're pretty middle of the road -- we took Covid seriously and are not anti-mask or anti-vaccine, but we're also measured and don't view Covid as some amorphous terror. We've also balanced concerns about Covid against believing it's important to be social and maintain family and community ties, to get out, etc.

BUT I still feel the impacts of Covid because we live in an area where a lot of people are very intense about it. Our school is not back to normal, there is still a TON of anxiety around Covid in our community, there's still a lot of very black-and-white thinking and prejudiced attitudes about it, some people are still very much defining themselves by their approach to Covid and evaluating others by theirs. It's crazy to me but here we are. We loved this area before Covid, now we're thinking about moving. Plus there are these other externalities that are worse since Covid -- crime is worse, teacher turnover at our school is worse, city services are worse. Then add in stuff like inflation... the idea that if you are just really balanced in your personal approach to Covid, then everything is great, assumes that everything around you is really balanced and easy too. It's not realistic.

Where the he!! do you live that this is the case in October 2023?? If I were you I'd move. They are clearly NEVER going back to normal.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

Yeah the George Floyd stuff happening at the same time as Covid was so rough. I had a social group implode because of it. not because of difficulties/disagreements between people in the group, but because the group’s parent org didn’t handle the overall situation in the best way and people knee-jerk reacted by disbanding their own chapters of the larger group. We used to raise money for charitable orgs in the area and do donation drives - not anymore since the group disbanded.

That was the beginning of the end. Social gatherings were wrong and deadly, unless it was a BLM march. How stupid did they think everyone was? Life went back to normal after that.

No, it didn't.
School didn't fully open in person for another year after that.
Masks were still mandatory everywhere for almost a full year after that.
Large events, like college/pro sports, plays, concerts, movie theaters, etc. didn't start happening for quite a while after that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

So you are happy that people are having trouble rebuilding their lives because they tried to control and shame others.

NP here
Fixed it for you.

And yes, I for one am very happy at ANY misery brought upon those who tried to force others into isolation, unwanted vaccinations, and other horrors. They fully deserve it.

This is exactly why it's hard to move on. People who are angry about COVID restrictions believe that anyone who followed them is equally as responsible for the measures and their consequences as those who made the decisions. Yes, every single person who tried to avoid contracting and spreading COVID was actively policing the activities of others, reporting them to authorities, lobbying for more and longer restrictions, and otherwise trying to make your life miserable. ALL OF US. We did nothing but try to ruin your life for more than two years. We deserve to suffer.

What exactly do you want here? If it’s sympathy and empathy you’re going about it the wrong way. You’re making things even worse for yourself.

I think PP is saying to move the f-- on from whining about COVID restrictions. It's tiresome. Nasty (see the bolded). And pointless. The anti-science crowd saying things like the bolded and you're whining about the PP and lack of sympathy/empathy? That's. rich.

So what do you want? Its a simple question. Do you want to rejoin society or keep spinning your wheels?

What are you even talking about? My life is ongoing. I'm in society. Living life. Traveling.
I believe my statement above was crystal clear. Your obfuscating for to make some point that only you seem to understand.

Your point makes no sense because it's not clear which PP you're even talking about. Some of the people in here are complaining about the big shift and lack of acknowledgment for their "trauma". I think a lot of that was self inflicted. If you wanted the schools closed for years, quit complaining about learning loss and then demanding empathy for your troubles. Because those same people didn't show a lot of empathy with parents who wanted in person school and were unsympathetically told schools were not daycare. So its rich now that people are like whatever, it's tiresome let's not talk about that, but feel bad for me because I can't move on from my "trauma" of sitting home in sweats for years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

"Common sense" was restored when we had vaccines.

Your lust for punishing people who "took COVID seriously" is noted. I get psychopathy vibes from you.

The self-appointed covid police were still loudly shaming well past vaccines being out and the only reason anyone went back to school was laws were passed (in VA at least) and our kids still spent part of that year wearing masks (aka chin straps/napkins/tissues). Please note I am not anti-mask I am anti-useless masks worn improperly by young children as virtue signaling. Always have been.

It wasn't common sense. You got forced and outnumbered eventually.

And the self-proclaimed COVID experts who denied that it existed or denied precautionary measures worked, were loudly shaming those who chose to act cautiously. Or bi---ing about private institutions covid policies. AD NAUSEUM. I had to witness some vapid, ignorant Karen lecture the 18 year old receptionist at my hair salon (this was MAYBE late 2020 and they required masks and spacing) about her scientific analysis and why Fauci was a terrorist. Took every ounce of me not to tell that B to STFU and move along. Which is what the admin told her, albeit much more nicely than I would have.

Unless you are an expert. Unless you understand the scientific process. I simply do no give a flying rat's F what you thought or think now (with 20/20) about Covid or Covid policy.

No one needs to be an expert to see what covid policy did to kids. Widely reported data. If you don't have kids, it's still very much our collective problem. It affects all of us.

Actually, I do and are unaffected. Lots are unaffected and any issues are not just "covid policy" during that time. BTW, Covid policy developed in real time due to a fast-moving and changing situation. And again, unless you're an expert, STFU.

Is this enough expertise for you?
https://www.gse.harvard.edu/ideas/news/23/05/new-data-show-how-pandemic-affected-learning-across-whole-communities
Op-Ed from researchers on this study that summarizes: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2023/05/11/opinion/pandemic-learning-losses-steep-but-not-permanent.html

But glad your kids are unaffected.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of stuff just never restarted because of laziness. At my kids' ES alone, many field trips are not back yet, many of the assemblies/all-school gatherings are still not back, several grade-level musical performances are not back, field day and holiday celebrations are shadows of their former selves. None of this is due to fear of Covid. Its just shear laziness. Nobody can be bothered and its sad.

Same is true with neighborhood potlucks, wine clubs, poker clubs, book clubs, etc. Many aren't happening any more and the ones that are have a fraction of their former attendance. Again, not fear of Covid, just laziness and people's preference to just sit at home in their sweat pants. I'm not sure we will ever fully recover from that.

I have noticed the same and I agree. It seems like a fair number of people just don’t want to do anything anymore. It took the public libraries until literally LAST MONTH (September of 2023!) to get back to normal hours. I still don’t see as many preschool/little kid events there as I used to. There used to be a book club in my neighborhood, it stopped during Covid and never returned. The HOA used to put on a Christmas/holiday party - nothing big, just an indoor/outdoor thing at the clubhouse and in the parking lot, during the day for the kids to enjoy. Cancelled in 2020 and never returned.

It’s like we spent so long cooped up that we eventually came to prefer it + people are so burnt out after working and taking care of kids at the same time since schools and sometimes even day cares were closed, that no one has the energy to organize anything anymore.

Yes to all of this. I think this is one reason why it can really vary by person as to whether they feel everything has shifted post-Covid. I think some communities/schools have recovered and gone back to normal, but not all. Mine definitely isn't. I am one of the people who used to plan and participate more pre-Covid and I struggle so much more now. I'm so tired and my mental health isn't as good as it used to be, so I've just dropped the ball on more things because I don't have the energy or mental bandwidth. I think many others are the same. I don't blame anyone. I think Covid hit some communities a lot harder in terms of what we went through, and that has impacted it. The communities where everything is "back to normal" I think probably were less scathed in terms of not just death and illness, but also probably didn't deal with as much of the stress of being in frontline jobs, having kids home for extended periods, maybe had fewer dual income families where both parents had to work, etc. We have friends who have SAHPs, were able to spend much of Covid at second houses, or have kids in privates that reopened quickly, etc., and they are, I think, more over Covid and don't feel the same aftereffects.

Also some communities (including ours) were more impacted by a lot of the conversation around police violence, racism, etc. Those conversations needed to happen but haven't always been handled well or made things better (there is a level of "open wound" that we can't seem to heal) and it all adds to more stress. More homogeneous or privileged communities might not deal with as much of that.

Yeah the George Floyd stuff happening at the same time as Covid was so rough. I had a social group implode because of it. not because of difficulties/disagreements between people in the group, but because the group’s parent org didn’t handle the overall situation in the best way and people knee-jerk reacted by disbanding their own chapters of the larger group. We used to raise money for charitable orgs in the area and do donation drives - not anymore since the group disbanded.

That was the beginning of the end. Social gatherings were wrong and deadly, unless it was a BLM march. How stupid did they think everyone was? Life went back to normal after that.

No, it didn't.
School didn't fully open in person for another year after that.
Masks were still mandatory everywhere for almost a full year after that.
Large events, like college/pro sports, plays, concerts, movie theaters, etc. didn't start happening for quite a while after that.

Speak for yourself. My kids were back in school in Sept 2020. In person. Like many places in the US. We moved from a stifling bubble that stay closed well into 2021, which was insane, but we made the right decision. Everywhere isn't like your corner of the woods. Large events were also ongoing. Remember Super Bowl 2021? Some of you have amnesia about how much was actually going on around you.

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Anonymous wrote:I got Covid for the first time, a month or so ago.

It bruised my ego. I thought I was one of the special few who would never get covid. Then I got it.

I recovered, and it's been fine. But my ego has never been the same.

It finally got me, the kids and the nanny. I actually feel a little relieved. Was just a bad chest cold for me but I also took meds including Paxlovid. DH must have super immunity because he didn't get it with a household of sneezing and coughing people.

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Anonymous wrote:I work in education and people who came of age and were still in K-12 or college during COVID are developmentally stunted. They don't seem to have coping or problem solving skills and ignore deadlines and have trouble taking initiative.

We’re moving school districts next summer and are holding our daughter back - she’s young for her class and has diagnosed learning disabilities, and covid was a huge challenge to her learning.

I don’t know why it’s so difficult for people to acknowledge the intense trauma we all experienced. Just because some of us coped better or were less materially affected does not invalidate other people’s experiences. I guess that’s another fun legacy of covid: a notable decrease in empathy and compassion. Ironically.

But so much if it was self inflicted. That doesn’t make everyone a victim. People went way overboard and now have to suffer the consequences.

NP. You highlight what has caused is shift in my worldview from which I am having trouble recovering. You think that people went "overboard" by following public health advice, taking COVID seriously as a health risk, and trying to do their part to avoid spreading it when certain members of the community were at greater risk. Your "overboard" was my trying to be a decent human being. The new narrative is that any fallout from restricted activities or isolation was self-inflicted and, therefore, not worth acknowledging or addressing.

I'll say that my view of "experts" in various realms has become increasingly distrustful. This is particularly true with those in public health and education, where experts offered assurances that were solely focused on maintaining desired outcomes without honest acknowledgment or discussion of potential long-term consequences.

At some point common sense should have been restored. Some of the measures and actions were ridiculous and should have been obvious. Children never needed to be banned from playgrounds, masks weren’t needed on solo runs in suburban neighborhoods. I lived in a place where police were called on kids playing at a park. So we moved. A whole lot of this never made much sense and shockingly a lot of people blindly followed along and gleefully shamed their neighbors who weren’t in lock step. It’s hard to muster sympathy now.

So you are happy that people are having trouble rebuilding their lives because they tried to control and shame others.

NP here
Fixed it for you.

And yes, I for one am very happy at ANY misery brought upon those who tried to force others into isolation, unwanted vaccinations, and other horrors. They fully deserve it.

This is exactly why it's hard to move on. People who are angry about COVID restrictions believe that anyone who followed them is equally as responsible for the measures and their consequences as those who made the decisions. Yes, every single person who tried to avoid contracting and spreading COVID was actively policing the activities of others, reporting them to authorities, lobbying for more and longer restrictions, and otherwise trying to make your life miserable. ALL OF US. We did nothing but try to ruin your life for more than two years. We deserve to suffer.

What exactly do you want here? If it’s sympathy and empathy you’re going about it the wrong way. You’re making things even worse for yourself.

I think PP is saying to move the f-- on from whining about COVID restrictions. It's tiresome. Nasty (see the bolded). And pointless. The anti-science crowd saying things like the bolded and you're whining about the PP and lack of sympathy/empathy? That's. rich.

So what do you want? Its a simple question. Do you want to rejoin society or keep spinning your wheels?

What are you even talking about? My life is ongoing. I'm in society. Living life. Traveling.
I believe my statement above was crystal clear. Your obfuscating for to make some point that only you seem to understand.

Your point makes no sense because it's not clear which PP you're even talking about. Some of the people in here are complaining about the big shift and lack of acknowledgment for their "trauma". I think a lot of that was self inflicted. If you wanted the schools closed for years, quit complaining about learning loss and then demanding empathy for your troubles. Because those same people didn't show a lot of empathy with parents who wanted in person school and were unsympathetically told schools were not daycare. So its rich now that people are like whatever, it's tiresome let's not talk about that, but feel bad for me because I can't move on from my "trauma" of sitting home in sweats for years.

What if you didn't want schools to be closed for years? I guess those people are allowed to be angry because you seem pretty worked up.