Covid. The big shift

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Adding: I think it is crazy that masks aren't required in doctor's offices while COVID is still going around.

They’re required in every doctor’s office I go to. In my family, that’s a pediatrician, a GP, two oncologists, a rheumatalogist, two dermatologists, an asthma and allergy specialist. Even the dental practice we go to requires them if someone isn’t actively in your mouth.

For real?

Bc in the past 12 months, I've been to 2 different urgent cares, 2 different dermatolists, 1 GP, 1 dentist and 1 periodontist.

None have required masks. And tbh, only of my doctors (a derm) wore the mask during the visit (besides the dentists who only put them during the inspection)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think you know it is silly to assign moral value to having Covid or the lack of it, so I will not flame you on this.

I'm not assigning moral value - I've lived my life 100% normally for the last 2.5 years, and probably did some "risky" things in the first year pre-vax (regular gym use, for example).

After a while, I thought I might have been genetically gifted or something! Nope, turns out I just hadn't met the right covid+ person to get infected by

These are the weirdest stories to me. Because I do think those of us who have never had it (myself included) start feeling like we must be immune. I know several people who slept in the same bed as their spouse all the way through spouse's covid illness (because they figured isolation was futile in the same house) and never got it. Testing the whole time. But then some of those people eventually have gotten it. So weird. If not some natural born immunity, how did they (we) avoid it in so many "high risk" situations?!

This is exactly what DH did when I had Covid.

our DS brought it home, and he was mildly sick for about 8 hours. A few days later, I started to feel lousy and then got hit HARD for about 7 days.

DH basically said "I probably already caught it from DS, and am maybe a day or two behind you. I'm not going to sleep on the basement sofa when I'm certain I'll catch it anyway"

And we shared our bed the whole time I was sick. And he never caught it.

So hard to understand

I suppose stories about this odd virus are part of the reason some people become so resistant to continued COVID precautions. For many people, COVID is a blip, even if others get hit hard. It's hard not to form opinions about COVID measures without being influenced by personal experience. The CDC guidance for isolation early in the pandemic for both actual COVID cases and close contact exposures was extremely burdensome and disruptive. When we went through the Omicron phase, the vast majority of people weren't getting seriously ill (when you consider how many people had the virus during that time), and many people lost patience after that. Even now, the current guidance that COVID-positive people isolate for at least 5 days, while well-intentioned, is a burden for anyone who is unable to work or learn remotely. The same is true for the recommendations for close contact exposures. Even if you are COVID-aware and cautious, it's not easy to accept missing out on life for the greater good (protecting others you have incidental contact with) when so many people exposed to COVID in their households don't wind up getting sick. This virus is puzzling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

I think you know it is silly to assign moral value to having Covid or the lack of it, so I will not flame you on this.

I'm not assigning moral value - I've lived my life 100% normally for the last 2.5 years, and probably did some "risky" things in the first year pre-vax (regular gym use, for example).

After a while, I thought I might have been genetically gifted or something! Nope, turns out I just hadn't met the right covid+ person to get infected by

I'm a covid spinster but who knows, maybe I will find my covid+ match!

I live in a red flyover state and there are still people who routinely mask--in the grocery store/gas station, at events I go to. Remote work, a small circle of acquaintance, and limited time to spend in person with people are probably why.

I have a niece who got it in Aug (vaxed and boosted although not since the first booster). No pneumonia, just miserable non-stop coughing at home, but has not been able to return to work, and she only takes sick days when her bosses force her to (and even then she resists--she's a restaurant cook and loves her work). She gets out of breath if she so much as talks on the phone for too long (she had told me about this, but first experienced it in real time last week, it was frankly scary). They had her on steroids for a couple of weeks with no improvement. Just had a heart monitor patch for a week and has an echocardiogram coming up. She's 35 years old.

[Anonymous]

I believe it has had a huge impact on healthcare. I've heard that 10% of doctors in the US left the profession in 2022. There are many systemic things going on, but Covid made the pot boil over, and many of them seem to be hanging in there just because they can't afford to leave with student loans hanging over their head, because they haven't figured out a career outside of medicine. They're angry at insurance companies, they're angry at the government, they're angry at Medicare (reimbursement cuts), they're more easily angered by difficult patients, and they're really angry at healthcare admins and CEOs. Ditto nurses and other healthcare roles.

That's an area that is going to affect every one of us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe it has had a huge impact on healthcare. I've heard that 10% of doctors in the US left the profession in 2022. There are many systemic things going on, but Covid made the pot boil over, and many of them seem to be hanging in there just because they can't afford to leave with student loans hanging over their head, because they haven't figured out a career outside of medicine. They're angry at insurance companies, they're angry at the government, they're angry at Medicare (reimbursement cuts), they're more easily angered by difficult patients, and they're really angry at healthcare admins and CEOs. Ditto nurses and other healthcare roles.

That's an area that is going to affect every one of us.

Well the fact that a good portion of the population abused and took health care providers and their willingness to care for them completely for granted didn’t help one bit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

Modeling from anxious parents.

IME, the teens with anxiety over COVID lost loved ones or people close to them to COVID.

[Anonymous]

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.

Could be teacher shortages too… our school is understaffed and has provisional teachers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

It did bring into stark relief what a terrible sickness narcissism and lack of empathy is. Many people thoughtlessly decided that their experience was universal to the point of believing the whole thing never happened or was no big deal, which is truly insane.

[Anonymous]

I used to have so many friends. I had book club, a moms group and would meet up on the weekends with friends.

When Covid happened my mom friends still got together but they wouldn’t get together with me because my Dh was essential and working in person even though I was remote. It stung. They’d check in every few months and see if he was still in person. After everything was over it had been like 2 years since they’d seen me so I’m still not invited to anything (and now it’s been 3.5 years) I really don’t know how to make new mom friends. they don’t even have to be moms. My hobbies were hanging out at friends houses, bbqs, holiday parties and outings to pumpkin patches.

I feel like Covid made me kick it into high gear at work. I got a big promotion and two new jobs.

[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.

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.

That response is very hyper-focused on yourself. Do you appreciate that others had very different experiences?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I’m a nurse who worked during Covid in the hospital. I think the weirdest thing I see is that sometimes it feels like people went through it but came out with different realities? Like when I read someone say “I can’t believe how much we overreacted, etc etc” and my memory of it is still lots of people dying and/or getting really sick. Including co-workers. Like yes, it involved. But it was surreal in 2020 and even parts of 2021. So yes, it changed me. It also made me aware how the US is so politically divided and the days of uniting over something big (pandemic or something else) are gone.

It did bring into stark relief what a terrible sickness narcissism and lack of empathy is. Many people thoughtlessly decided that their experience was universal to the point of believing the whole thing never happened or was no big deal, which is truly insane.

But the point is now in 2023 life is back to normal. That was then and this is now. Just not seeing a huge societal shift. What’s different? People don’t go to as many potlucks as they used to? Nobody is saying didn’t happen, rather it did and we are in the other side now. How is society different not just an individual experience?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think things are gradually going back to “normal”, as they do after any pandemic. Covid did hasten the acceptance of things like WFH and video calls, but that was going to happen eventually anyway.

When I say “the before times” I still mean pre 9/11. Those of you born after about 1985 or so really have no idea how much things have changed.

That is interesting. I agree 9/11 brought far more permanent changes to life.

I don’t know. I lived in NYC on 9/11 and experienced the aftermath up close, and yes, a lot of things changed in very obvious ways. But the Covid shift feels like more of a slow burner—insidious and impossible to quantify just yet.

I agree with that. The main societal 9/11 shift that persist are air travel and big venue security checks (but those are just as much about our out of control gun problem), and security/access to certain buildings (also contributed in part to the gun problem); so if you don't or never did a lot that (and many people don't fly at all or often), what other general shift are you seeing? I suppose there were shifts in views on religion and government and what to be afraid of, but those are and were fickle and have shifted several times since and will shift again.

Meanwhile, COVID changed education, social interactions, how we respond to general illness and personal hygiene in public, commuting, distance communication norms, attitudes about health care generally, the comparative number of deaths and families impacted by those deaths and related short- and long-term disabilities, the impact of same on the job market, peoples' general attitudes about their work and work/life balance, the stunted social development of huge swaths of children, how we shop and whether we can get what we are looking for in person, etc. etc. etc. Some of that was coming along anyway, but the accelerated shift was abrupt in many those areas.

[Anonymous]

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.

Could be teacher shortages too… our school is understaffed and has provisional teachers.

m
Yeah because people were horrible to teachers. People have long assumed that those in the caring professions will accept disrespect and low pay because they care. We learned that they have a limit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One daughter was a senior in HS in ‘20-‘21, the other was an eighth grader. Lack of socialization and more time spent online pretty much ruined their lives. They are not the same.

One of my kids graduated high school in 2020 and it's similar for him. His freshman year of college was a disaster with online classes, literally barriers at all the dining hall tables so you couldn't even see the people sitting near you, no in person activities like clubs or organizations.

Interesting. I have a college senior and his freshman year was similarly very tough, but I was just visiting him last weekend and was struck by how well he and his friends are all doing. I took him and 3 friends to dinner and we discussed this very topic, and the recurring theme was “we came through.” He and his friends all studied abroad last year, are doing clubs and sports and traveling and volunteering and applying for grad school and fellowships and jobs—all of it. My son and many of his friends are in serious relationships and they all seem to have active social lives, going to parties, concerts, etc. They know what they have to lose and don’t take their opportunities for granted.

I don’t doubt that there are many people who are still struggling but it’s certainly not a universal experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I believe it has had a huge impact on healthcare. I've heard that 10% of doctors in the US left the profession in 2022. There are many systemic things going on, but Covid made the pot boil over, and many of them seem to be hanging in there just because they can't afford to leave with student loans hanging over their head, because they haven't figured out a career outside of medicine. They're angry at insurance companies, they're angry at the government, they're angry at Medicare (reimbursement cuts), they're more easily angered by difficult patients, and they're really angry at healthcare admins and CEOs. Ditto nurses and other healthcare roles.

That's an area that is going to affect every one of us.

Agree with this and I think there is a parallel thing going on in education, with some slightly different dynamics but very similar attitudes from teachers and administrators.

For me one of the biggest shifts is the feeling of interacting with the education system, the way it feels at my kid's school or even just interacting 1:1 with teachers. Even teachers I've always liked and still get alone with! There's this feeling like everyone is at the end of their rope all the time. I always work hard not to be a burdensome parent when I deal with teachers, and that was true pre-Covid too -- I have lots of respect for what they do and I want to support them to do their job well, not get in the way or make their job harder. But since Covid, I feel like I walk on eggshells. I love my kid's current teacher, she's great, but I'm also pretty much afraid she's going to quit. Pre-Covid, I would never have worried that a teacher like this would quit, much less midyear. Now I honestly don't know -- if she gets fed up enough, she might. We had a teacher a couple years ago who was similar and she quit last year. Incredibly dedicated teacher, amazing with kids, I think she just hit a point of frustration and burn out that she couldn't come back from.

Education wasn't in a great place pre-Covid, but the degree to which the pandemic accelerated the worst things about it, and just made it less and less appealing as a profession, can't be ignored. I also think public education is never been more vulnerable for the kind of Betsy Devon-desired privatization, with a shift to charters and private schools and some kind of voucher system for people who can't afford them. I'm honestly not sure public K-12 education is going to survive in this country.