Anyone changing behavior due to the latest uptick in Covid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes, too many friends testing positive.

I'm back to wearing a n95 indoors while in public.

Same here. Friends who caught it in recent weeks were all traveling and going on planes and through airports unmasked. Interestingly, just after another friend who had done this got home and tested positive, there was a big article in the Post or somewhere about how airports and airplanes are particular hotspots for getting infected and people should mask up to travel again. (Before someone insists, "But planes circulate air in ways that you don't pick up stuff" etc.: I know this, but if you are next to someone who is infected, well, you're too close to them to avoid breathing some of their exhalations, air circulation or not.)

We are planning international travel in early fall to see older relatives. If any of us gets Covid at the wrong moment, our whole expensive trip could end up screwed. Or if we catch it during travel and then give it to our relatives while we're there, well, that endangers them, possibly, plus we ourselves would be infected and infectious while on what's supposed to be a long-awaited family visit after years apart. Masking up here at the grocery store or drugstore, at highway rest stops when we're out, at the theater etc. is no big deal compared to wrecking a trip. And those who claim "covid is over" are sticking their heads in the sand about new, more transmissible (not more virulent, so far, but more transmissible) variants now creating the uptick. Masking is nothing compared to being sick, even mildly sick, to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes not going inside anywhere I don't have to and masking when I do. But haven't been inside a store or anywhere in a while bc I saw the wastewater shoot up.

"Shoot up."

LOL.

We need better math education in this country!

Almost 5x in the last month. “Shoot up” is an accurate description of this graph:

https://biobot.io/data/

We need less BSing in this country.

That chart is for the last six months, showing us rising up from very low levels. However, you get a different picture if you click on the button on the upper right hand side that says "total results" which provides the picture since 2020. There, you see we're still much lower than last summer. Given current low levels, even small increases can generate large percent increases but that doesn't mean that we're at significant levels. Without context, percent changes are not useful.

Let’s put it this way: is there another place on the “since 2020” graph where the line rose 5x in a month and ended up someplace we liked?

[Anonymous]

[twitter]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:People really need to stay home. I’m debating whether the kids should go to school virtual or maybe home schooling them.

Please be kidding.

+1. If schools start threatening this en masse again there are going to be riots.

Cope.

No. If schools close again I’ll be leading the riot. Kids are just not affected like adults. There’s absolutely no reason to damage their education like that

It’s been a lot higher than this before and the schools didn’t close. They’re not going to close again. They learned their lesson.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes not going inside anywhere I don't have to and masking when I do. But haven't been inside a store or anywhere in a while bc I saw the wastewater shoot up.

"Shoot up."

LOL.

We need better math education in this country!

I guess you haven't looked at the wastewater charts they sure did SHOOT UP. I guess you're laughing because you're too stupid to figure out how this works LOL.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Who’s still testing for covid? Come on, it’s 2023.

Sounds like you do not have anyone in your life who could be seriously affected by even the so-called "mild," "it's like a cold" Covid. If you did, you might understand why YOUR masking and testing is important--not to you but to a loved one, or even a stranger who is someone else's loved one, for whom Covid could become a very big problem indeed. But the idea of people doing things for the greater good, to protect the vulnerable, to protect strangers they'll never meet, definitely died with people like you during the past few years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who’s still testing for covid? Come on, it’s 2023.

Sounds like you do not have anyone in your life who could be seriously affected by even the so-called "mild," "it's like a cold" Covid. If you did, you might understand why YOUR masking and testing is important--not to you but to a loved one, or even a stranger who is someone else's loved one, for whom Covid could become a very big problem indeed. But the idea of people doing things for the greater good, to protect the vulnerable, to protect strangers they'll never meet, definitely died with people like you during the past few years.

Exactly.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Yes not going inside anywhere I don't have to and masking when I do. But haven't been inside a store or anywhere in a while bc I saw the wastewater shoot up.

+1 too many people have got covid the last few weeks no taking any chances. Who wants long covid, heart problems, POTS or a shrunken brain?! NOT I.

[Anonymous]

We are masking again including kid in daycare and two starting elementary school soon will. My oldest in fifth grade is really upset. Should I let her go unmasked? I feel like she needs to understand how to navigate peer pressure.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Who’s still testing for covid? Come on, it’s 2023.

Sounds like you do not have anyone in your life who could be seriously affected by even the so-called "mild," "it's like a cold" Covid. If you did, you might understand why YOUR masking and testing is important--not to you but to a loved one, or even a stranger who is someone else's loved one, for whom Covid could become a very big problem indeed. But the idea of people doing things for the greater good, to protect the vulnerable, to protect strangers they'll never meet, definitely died with people like you during the past few years.

Here we go with the self righteous guilt trips about killing grandma again.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are masking again including kid in daycare and two starting elementary school soon will. My oldest in fifth grade is really upset. Should I let her go unmasked? I feel like she needs to understand how to navigate peer pressure.

She’s going to take it off anyway when you’re not looking. No one is wearing masks in school anymore.

[Anonymous]

DCUM is not a good barometer for even the DC area. No one wearing a mask in the grocery store today. People have moved on

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes not going inside anywhere I don't have to and masking when I do. But haven't been inside a store or anywhere in a while bc I saw the wastewater shoot up.

+1 too many people have got covid the last few weeks no taking any chances. Who wants long covid, heart problems, POTS or a shrunken brain?! NOT I.

Agree. Too many people now want to shrug off the whole idea of Covid being serious any more, or long Covid being a thing. They are wrong to do so.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/wellness/2023/07/26/long-covid-brain-function-cognition-memory/

This link should get beyond the paywall, but the upshot is: Long covid can fry your memory and cognition for up to two years. And people can develop long covid symptoms after what seem like those mild "cold-like" cases everyone things are no big deal.

We don't have people dying horribly and alone, intubated, unable to see their family one last time, and we don't have trucks lined up as makeshift morgues outside hospitals any more, like in 2020. But people who shrug off Covid altogheter, and think they have zero responsibility to the community for helping keep it in check via vaccination, boosters and masking, are very short-sighted and intensely selfish.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is not a good barometer for even the DC area. No one wearing a mask in the grocery store today. People have moved on

Just went to the store and wore a mask. Always do now. A few others were wearing them. One coffee shop I go to (masked) has employees who mostly always mask. We were just on vacation out of state and we saw people masking inside some museums. Not in droves, but some, including us. My spouse was at a concert last night and wore one and said only a handful of people were masked -- but a handful is not "no one." Enjoy your covid, and your flu too, PP, when winter hits. But stop going around claiming no one masks anywhere anymore. It's not true.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Yes, too many friends testing positive.

I'm back to wearing a n95 indoors while in public.

Same here. Friends who caught it in recent weeks were all traveling and going on planes and through airports unmasked. Interestingly, just after another friend who had done this got home and tested positive, there was a big article in the Post or somewhere about how airports and airplanes are particular hotspots for getting infected and people should mask up to travel again. (Before someone insists, "But planes circulate air in ways that you don't pick up stuff" etc.: I know this, but if you are next to someone who is infected, well, you're too close to them to avoid breathing some of their exhalations, air circulation or not.)

We are planning international travel in early fall to see older relatives. If any of us gets Covid at the wrong moment, our whole expensive trip could end up screwed. Or if we catch it during travel and then give it to our relatives while we're there, well, that endangers them, possibly, plus we ourselves would be infected and infectious while on what's supposed to be a long-awaited family visit after years apart. Masking up here at the grocery store or drugstore, at highway rest stops when we're out, at the theater etc. is no big deal compared to wrecking a trip. And those who claim "covid is over" are sticking their heads in the sand about new, more transmissible (not more virulent, so far, but more transmissible) variants now creating the uptick. Masking is nothing compared to being sick, even mildly sick, to me.

Does the place where you are visiting relatives have a safe standalone rental house market (as opposed to a hotel where you could pick up COVID)? If so, stay there for a five days first before you share housing. Test everyday and see relatives outside. Basically I would just test yourself a lot and be prepared to leave the relatives house if you get sick.

And yes n95 and eye protection while traveling and for the week before you leave. And test before you leave obviously

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DCUM is not a good barometer for even the DC area. No one wearing a mask in the grocery store today. People have moved on

Just went to the store and wore a mask. Always do now. A few others were wearing them. One coffee shop I go to (masked) has employees who mostly always mask. We were just on vacation out of state and we saw people masking inside some museums. Not in droves, but some, including us. My spouse was at a concert last night and wore one and said only a handful of people were masked -- but a handful is not "no one." Enjoy your covid, and your flu too, PP, when winter hits. But stop going around claiming no one masks anywhere anymore. It's not true.

You do you, too. Just saying it’s definitely not the majority.