Am I taking too many risks?

[Anonymous]

Back in March, we did not leave our house and immediate street.
In April, we got groceries delivered, went hiking and saw no one.
Around Memorial Day, we rented a beach house with a heated pool. Still got groceries delivered and avoided all people.
In June, kids started going to tennis clinic outdoors. My parents visited us from NY.
In July, we went to our friend’s beach house and hung out with them.
In August, we rented a beach house with one other family. My kids started having soccer practice. I hosted 2 backyard play dates and attended 1 outdoor play date.

We still get our groceries delivered and don’t eat out.

Is this normal? I feel like I am taking too much risk.

What risks have you taken?

[Anonymous]

Totally normal

[Anonymous]

Same. Outdoors is so much safer, and we realized that what we can do for six weeks we can’t do for 18 months.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Back in March, we did not leave our house and immediate street.
In April, we got groceries delivered, went hiking and saw no one.
Around Memorial Day, we rented a beach house with a heated pool. Still got groceries delivered and avoided all people.
In June, kids started going to tennis clinic outdoors. My parents visited us from NY.
In July, we went to our friend’s beach house and hung out with them.
In August, we rented a beach house with one other family. My kids started having soccer practice. I hosted 2 backyard play dates and attended 1 outdoor play date.

We still get our groceries delivered and don’t eat out.

Is this normal? I feel like I am taking too much risk.

What risks have you taken?

Most people are taking a lot more risks. I think you are perfectly fine.

[Anonymous]

You are taking many more risks than my family, but I realise there is a continuum of comfort levels.

[Anonymous]

Op, we have been much like you, with the added note that we have gone grocery shopping every week (never stopped).

[Anonymous]

More risks than my family, but you know that - that's why you asked.

[Anonymous]

What is the point of grocery order if you saw another family and stayed in a same house?
Eating out, meaning indoors and even outdoors seems like the riskiest thing to do, imo. So all good on that.

[Anonymous]

No mixing of households indoors.

No socializing closer than 6ft outdoors, even with masks.

Starting from June, you took many risks with viral transmission.

[Anonymous]

More risks than we are taking but nothing that makes me go "OMG stop."

We've been shopping at the grocery store (in masks, only one person goes, social distancing) since the beginning, though. We did it originally because early on it was hard to get a grocery delivery slot, and then I read a story about how people who cannot shop in person (disabled, very vulnerable to Covid, or other issue) were struggling because so many people were doing grocery deliveries. So we've continued to just be careful about our grocery lists to minimize how often we have to go, but accepted that this is a risk that is going to be part of our lives.

I share this simply to demonstrate that it's not even just a continuum of risk from "safe" to "dangerous". It's a pandemic. We're all making choices. Do your best and try to stay vigilant.

[Anonymous]

You are doing what you feel comfortable doing. Are you masking seriously and consistently when out doing the shopping etc.? Not making lots of unneccessary trips just to "shop for fun"? If so, you're probably OK. I would not do play dates myself, or kid sports, especially after the recent study showing that children are especially and horribly terrific at spreading the virus to others even if they don't get sick themselves. (In this past week's Post.) I hope you keep up with the science (not the DCUM rumor mill) and are willing to change your families' activities accordingly if you feel you're "back to normal" too much. It was going back to normal too soon that set up some regions for massive spikes in infections.

[Anonymous]

I thought this was interesting:

https://www.latimes.com/sports/story/2020-08-12/column-bill-plaschke-covid-19-experience?utm_source=pocket-newtab

He got it from a socially distanced outdoors lunch, without masks. Honestly I am not comfortable doing outdoors/distanced get togethers without masks at this time. I agree with PP about not doing kid's sports. I know some kids who still have taste/smell damage (neurological) months later.

But you have to gauge your own comfort level. Everything is risk mitigation, so even taking less risks along the continuum even if you don't totally eliminate risk will help you not to be too exposed. The thing that keeps me in check is knowing how badly the situation here has been managed on a national scale. Background transmission is not under control, and there are real issues with testing. Many people are pretending there is no pandemic. If I were in another country, I might behave differently.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You are doing what you feel comfortable doing. Are you masking seriously and consistently when out doing the shopping etc.? Not making lots of unneccessary trips just to "shop for fun"? If so, you're probably OK. I would not do play dates myself, or kid sports, especially after the recent study showing that children are especially and horribly terrific at spreading the virus to others even if they don't get sick themselves. (In this past week's Post.) I hope you keep up with the science (not the DCUM rumor mill) and are willing to change your families' activities accordingly if you feel you're "back to normal" too much. It was going back to normal too soon that set up some regions for massive spikes in infections.

You should try to keep up with science. One biased report does not equal science. Read through the bias, please!

[Anonymous]

So are you high risk or immuno-compromised? If not, I wouldn't neccessarily let my guard down or become complacent, but you can give yourself permission to do routine things again (ie grocery store shopping) - assuming mask/face shield, social distance, etc.

[Anonymous]

I think the parents visiting from Ny was risky and the beach house with friends was too. Everything else is normal.