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#pandemic isn't over just because you're over it
lamajaoscura · 7 months
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The pandemic messed with our perception of time - Vox
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liminalweirdo · 9 months
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The problem with "you can choose to wear a mask or not," is that masks mostly protect other people. So if you choose not to mask, you're actually removing someone's ability to try to protect themselves.
We know that if you wear a mask it does protect you, but only marginally. In the end, it's everyone wearing masks that prevents the spread of covid from one person to another. This is because if you have covid the mask catches the viral particles you are exhaling before they can get into the air, where covid is airborne and hangs in the air like smoke for several hours.
People who are masking are mostly protecting you. If you're in the presence of someone wearing a mask, it's literally common courteousy to do the same.
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I was looking up COVID numbers for my county and, for the umpteenth time in the pandemic, was struck by the fact that the CDC lists us as having 0% of our ICU beds occupied by COVID patients
This is hilarious because, while technically true, it is only true because we have zero ICU beds in the county
You could just as accurately measure pandemic severity here by reporting the percent of local dragons who are satisfied by the size of their hoards
(Hint: Unless there is a dragon I do not know about and the dragon is hoarding cattle, it is still 0%)
Nevermind the fact that the numbers have usually been straight-up wrong throughout the pandemic and this week was no exception - every source I looked at including the CDC said we had no inpatients with COVID, which I know is incorrect because I provided coverage for the only hospital in the county and am best friends with the other physician who covered the only hospital in the county and at no point did we have zero COVID patients in that hospital
I'm not sure why the numbers are wrong or misleading at best, but it bothers me, and it leaves my community with a sense that COVID is not present here and that we are safe when I assure you that is not the case
One day we are going to look back on this pandemic and figure out how to better estimate severity on a community level in ways that are appropriate for all settings, not just big cities, but that day is clearly not today
#I think a better estimate would be how much chaos the call schedule has been in due to physicians having COVID#At this point if you're a physician in the county and don't have COVID you're just kind of stuck staying in town and not drinking#Because we are dropping like flies and chances are very good you're going to get called to cover someone#Considering I can count the number of physicians in my county on my fingers and one of those is a General Surgeon this is an issue#So yes wish us luck cross your fingers wear your masks and get your shots#This pandemic isn't over yet#Despite all of this I still think#Rural medicine is the best medicine#Family Docs: We get the job done!#Without statistics that accurately reflect how widespread diseases are in our area!#Incidentally this is partly why I think rural docs would do very well in a zombie apocalypse or whatever#While city doctors are freaking out about not having information we'd just be over here going YEP THAT'S HOW WE ROLL#Probably we'd be doing this while treating patients as our spouses and kids stood on the roof with guns protecting us from the hoarde#Plus or minus the General Surgeon depending on how many trauma cases we had or if zombie bites could be cured via amputating things#Fun fact every physician in the county is part of the local shooting range/gun club#And so are their families#This is not a requirement to being a physician here but it is definitely a Thing That Happened#I am probably the worst shot among us but still if you give me a .22 I don't embarrass myself#Not sure how useful a .22 would be in a zombie apocalypse but hey it's better than nothing#Between that and the sheer amount of vegetables we grow every summer I think we'll do okay#Plus our pharmacists are scrappy as hell#One of the outpatient ones got liquid amoxicillin in stock last week#I am not sure where she found it how she came by it or who she had to threaten and/or kill to get it#And frankly I am too afraid to ask but by golly she has it#So once we get our families and our General Surgeon safely ensconced on the roof of the hospital with guns to keep the zombies away#Well things won't be great and there will definitely be more zombies than the CDC estimates but We Will Make Do
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I wouldn't wish this (catching covid) on my worst enemy. Unless of course, we're talking about my worst enemy, the politicians who lift all the safety measures against covid and pretend like the pandemic is over even though the numbers are spiking. Fuck you, politicians, you know what you did!
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lord-radish · 1 year
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Tens of thousands of people have been fired in the tech sector in the last six months alone. With the economy the way it is, and with people who are already unable to get a job, I wonder how an extra 20,000+ jobseekers are going to have any luck finding work.
#i just want to point out that this isn't just automation. it's different for every company but a lot of it comes down to profiteering imo#the video game industry made disgusting amounts of money during the pandemic. best three years of sales in history#but that momentum was never going to keep up forever. even when the momentum was at full swing people were getting laid off#Activision-Blizzard laid off over a hundred people just before christmas while bobby kotick got a $250 million bonus#thst might have even been before the pandemic#but you're seeing it with microsoft and ubisoft. wouldn't surprise me if sony and nintendo were following suit in a less public manner#microsoft - arguably the biggest tech conglomerate in the world (next to tencent) - laid off 10 thousand workers alone#i live in a town with just over 10 thousand people. in my entire fucking town. in my perspective that's more or less the world around me#all of those people - jobless#facebook - didn't like 7k people just get fired? that's hot on the heels of john carmack leaving too#john carmack is probably one of the top 100 people in the tech industry. his tech improvements helped aging PC hardware keep up for years#DOOM might be a meme but it ran that well because id software under john carmack revolutionised rendering techniques and scrolling#and stuff like that. john carmack has been at the forefront of graphical technology and game development for 30+ years#that's resulted in a couple duds like RAGE. he was also all-in on voxel technology before he moved into VR#all of that was context for this: john carmack left meta (who bought oculus) and lambasted the company for poor management on the way out#saying that he'd never seen such unnecessary and wanton expenditure in his career. meta were throwing their money at things thay don't work#here's john carmack trying to lay the groundwork of a successful game for meta's metaverse. here's meta chasing superfluous buzzwords#meta spent almost $14 BILLION on buzzwords and marketing at the behest of the actual tech. and then they FIRED 7000 PEOPLE!!!!!!#they had a HAIL MARY working on their game - because metaverse IS A GAME - and they prioritised SELLING THE PRODUCT BEFORE BUILDING IT#IT COST THEM $14 BILLION + THEIR HAIL MARY - AND THEN THEY FIRED THOUSANDS OF PEOPLE!!!!!!#Ubisoft and Activision-Blizzard have been facing mass resignations after years of abusive and toxic workplaces#and on top of that they're firing people too. google stadia just went under. it wouldn't surprise me if 2k and rockstar were firing people#I don't know how many other unemployed people there are in america - hundreds of thousands? but 20k more is even worse for everyone#keep in mind that even with a $14 billion loss - meta still makes billions. Microsoft is in no financial danger#tech is more lucrative now than ever. i genuinely believe that these cuts are to keep record profits at record heights#because the pandemic boom is ending and their ALREADY OBSCENELY LUCRATIVE revenue flows are going back to normal#so 20k+ tech workers are losing their jobs to keep $80 billion instead of $79 billion. all of those people - jobless#that's 20 thousand people with individual lives and families and expenses. lost their jobs in the last six months#that example i gave - $80 billion instead of $79 billion. that's not revenue. that's profit.#all of those people out of work due to incompetence at best and rank orofiteering at worst. their salaries and benefits come under revenue
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cognitiveinequality · 2 years
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cosmicanger · 2 years
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Prior bouts of COVID-19 do not protect you from new infections.
Every time you get COVID-19, no matter how severe, you have a 3-in-10 chance of developing Long COVID—if you survive.
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revginapond · 2 years
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THE PANDEMIC ISN'T OVER
No matter what you think.
Keep masking friends.
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meowingatthesea · 2 years
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ajk;hfdiosa;hefk  okay we all know disability tax exists but like the complete mismanagement of the pandemic has really added another one, huh. looking to buy new, really high quality n95s for the summer cause i’m working at a location where i’m 100% going to be exposed to covid, and for 60 n95s (two months! of a four month summer contract) it’s ~$87. And I just have to pay this???? forever?????????? should i invest in like a reusable P100? it might be fucking cheaper long term, but they have replaceable filters so that’s also ridiculous. and like i wouldn’t be so concerned about proper fitting high quality n95s (i’d still wear a mask though) if the pandemic were under better control and everyone else was also masking and people still treated the pandemic like a current issue. I don’t have $87 to drop every two months on masks! but i also dont have however the fuck much to drop on a hypothetical hospital bill or new chronic illness that could arise from covid. so, y’know.
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inkskinned · 9 months
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so while i was writing the book, i became violently suicidal.
this was mostly due to the fact that i had a very bad reaction to some meds and my brain stopped producing any serotonin. also i was in the last semester of grad school where it's actually illegal to feel anything but dread. so it wasn't going well.
somewhere in the fog of it i became aware i needed help. nobody was taking clients or my insurance. i didn't want to do inpatient care - it wasn't right for my needs. there's not really an "in between" stage between "inpatient" and "no care," but i was trying to do the right thing. i was trying to activate the chain of command that was my emergency plan. i knew i needed help now.
i used betterhelp.
i know, i know. i'm a straight-A student and so smart and so clever, how could i ever use something so blatantly bad. to be honest with you, i didn't feel particularly keen on it from the getgo - things that seem too good to be true usually are. also, if something online is free, the price is usually your privacy.
the thing is that there was kind of a global pandemic happening at the time and i worked 5 jobs alongside of being a fulltime student and also like writing a book on the side. it is a miracle that i even thought about getting help. i would love to tell you i had the mental wherewithal to like, process whether this was the right choice for me. mostly i was desperate. i was so suicidal that i was trying to find a reason to stay inside of fortune cookies. i was the kind of suicidal that looks like splatterpaint. i hadn't been that bad in an entire decade.
they took my data. i gave them it freely. somewhere out there, they have a dossier on me. on everything i survived. my story in little datapoints, scattergraphed beautifully.
the first woman told me that really i should be grateful, because (and this is a direct quote): "at least you're not anne frank." i said that i felt that statement was antisemitic, as anne frank's life and experience shouldn't be compared to like, a nonbinary lesbian in western massachusetts. the therapist said that i should try to use lucid dreaming to try to picture myself in an actually scary situation, like running from nazis.
i applied for another therapist. i was willing to accept the possibility that there was a bad apple in the bunch. the next therapist and i even laughed about how inappropriate that statement was. and then, in our next session: the new therapist said if i was struggling with body image issues, i should just work harder on my appearance. she spent 3 sessions in a row talking about how she was grieving, and made me memorize facts about her grandmother so "she can live on through my clients."
i am a three's-a-charm kind of person. okay, so what if the last person made me uncomfortable. i figured it was just a misunderstanding of priorities - she had felt she was sharing with me, i had felt like i had to take care of her. i applied for another therapist.
the last woman asked me to help her pray. she bowed her head. i stared at her, frozen, while she said: lord, i beg you: cure her. take the pain of being gay away from her.
i spent somewhere between 2.5 and 3 months on betterhelp. in that whole time, i was not getting the professional help i so desperately needed, even though i was fucking trying.
in the end, i survived this because i finally could get off the meds that were literally killing me. a request for a real therapist finally went through. i survived because my friends saved my life. because nick let me sob myself dry in his arms. because maddie took the razors out of my room when i asked them to. because grace slept over in my bed for like 3 weeks in a row since nobody trusted me not to hurt myself when i was alone. i survived because i got fucking lucky. because even when i was desperately suicidal, i was too old and too self-aware to take "you need to be prettier" as good advice.
the thing is that there's a 19 year old me who isn't like that. who would have heard "just think about how grateful you should be" and said - oh, i see. i would have assumed that is what it means to be in therapy: the same thing my abusers used to tell me. that i am just pretending and lazy. that i am ugly and unworthy.
betterhelp positioned itself to take advantage of an incredibly vulnerable community. it preys on desperation. it knows it is serving people who are not doing well mentally. it saw that there is a huge need for real, immediate, compassionate mental health care: and then it fucking takes your money and privacy.
i still get their ads on instagram. last night i watched as a woman in a pool pretends to talk to a different woman. they discuss her anxiety.
there's a 19 year old version of me, and she didn't survive this. she was too tired, and drowning. i almost fucking died. this thing almost fucking killed me.
in the ad, the woman playing the therapist takes a note on a clipboard and then nods once, sagely.
i have to admit it's a pretty scene. the steam and light coming off the pool water lands on the actresses. like this, it almost looks baptismal, holy.
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butchcockiness2 · 8 months
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able bodied people who follow me PLEASE READ THIS i am literally begging you
hey. y'all are wearing masks right? kn95s or n95s if they're available to you? indoors when you're in public? when you go to the grocery store? to the mall? to your crowded job? to the DOCTOR?
i'm immunocompromised, and it isn't safe for me to go out anymore. including to get medical care, but i don't have a choice. i have to do it anyways. and i'm one of the "lucky ones," who can go off my immunosuppressants if i have to, and "all" i'll deal with is an extremely painful very long pain flare that will render me severely dysfunctional for at least a month (as in, unable to turn a doorknob dysfunctional), to make it less likely (but still not impossible!) that i die from the infection. there are people with organ transplants, with other conditions that don't allow them to lessen their immunocompromised status. these people are dying because no one wants to put a piece of cloth on their face.
i live in a very liberal area and most people still do not mask. the pandemic isn't over. 1 in 10 infections lead to long COVID. they're starting to find that long COVID is a neurological disorder. do you realize what that means? for each infection you get, for each infection you spread to a disabled person because you refused to wear a mask because it's "inconvenient," there's a 10% chance you or they will become permanently, severely disabled. you could literally kill people. is it really worth it just to be able to "breathe a little easier?" if you have trouble breathing under a mask you should see a doctor if you can. you probably are high risk, too.
most of my followers here are trans. you all know how terrifying it is to have your government, the people around you cast you aside and care less if you get hurt, if you Die. that's what it's like for disabled people. you all know that what the government says means bullshit. the CDC doesn't give a fuck about disabled people, their guidelines leave us to drown. eugenics is normalized. i don't have to tell you how demoralizing it is to know that most people don't care if you're dead. please, please, please extend compassion to disabled people around you. because there ARE disabled people near you, it is the biggest minority that exists (other than women).
news articles will say it's safe to go out in public without a mask (which is false) and then in tiny lettering add "vulnerable populations should protect themselves." my pharmacy has a message that says "the CDC recommends avoiding vulnerable populations." so what about us? what are we supposed to do? masking doesn't protect you unless those around you mask. do we have to never leave our houses ever again so that we don't DIE? we all know how horrible lockdown was. i am very depressed day to day because i am stuck at home almost all of the time.
y'all love my writing, clearly. i hope you also care about me as a person, and people like me, enough to take a small, simple action that will literally save lives. i hope you can hear the desperation i feel through my words and that you decide you won't cast people like me's well-being aside, the way yours has been cast aside by others. because otherwise, disabled people's suffering and deaths are in Your hands. i am begging able-bodied people: WEAR A MASK.
do not argue with me about this. i will block you. able bodied ppl should rb if ur blog is 18+. idc if it doesn't fit the "aesthetic"
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lamajaoscura · 8 months
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liminalweirdo · 10 months
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karliahs · 2 years
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i often see people say they can't go to the library because they lost/never returned/dropped some library books in a bath or something, and now view themselves as heinous library criminals who would be yelled at and/or hit with a huge bill if they ever went back
and obvs i can't make promises unless you came into my specific library and were served by me but here are 10 reasons i think if you went in and politely explained the situation to a member of staff it'd probably be fine:
consider this from the library's perspective. those books are probably never coming back regardless. that value (having the books back), which is probably the reason the library has a fines system to begin with, is not gonna happen. the value of retaining you as a customer though is right there in front of them
if you explain that a fine is too high for you to pay and that that is keeping you from coming back to the library, what you've basically said is that there is an impediment to your library access. part of the job of anyone who works in a library is to remove that impediment
library computer systems will vary hugely and if it's been a long time there is a significant chance there isn't even a record of your lost books anymore
the pandemic affected library access significantly and a lot of libraries will have had amnesties once they reopened to get people over the hump of oh god oh god i've had these books FOREVER i can never show my face again. even if that amnesty is officially over, the fact that there was one helps the person in front of you justify waiving the fee (which, if they're like me and you aren't being cruel, they are probably looking for a reason to do!)
a lot of libraries have reduced or no fines for children, so if you lost books as a kid there's even more of a chance there won't be a fine
the person you speak to at the front desk at a library is probably not an accredited Librarian TM but a nice underpaid person who has to deal with a lot of difficult customers going off on them for no reason (also accredited librarian tms are also pretty nice usually). i would take 100 people politely explaining that they've lost books and are very embarrassed over one person whose purpose that day is to belittle me, a captive audience who has to be nice no matter what. library assistant jobs are often not that different from customer service jobs! a lot of library assistant jobs now explicitly are customer service jobs! it is so so likely that that person wants nothing less than to have an adversarial conversation with you
if you haven't been to a library since you were a lot younger, it is almost certainly no longer what you're picturing. most modern libraries are actively trying to move away from the image of severe quiet building where you will be shhhhed and sternly told to look after your books or else. we're trying to be vibrant community hubs full of friendly people who will do their best to help you
library employees, bizarrely enough, probably don't think of each individual book as being that valuable compared to other readers. if you own a book and keep it forever and read it maybe twice, barring any crazy accidents it'll probably last decades. if a book is on the shelves of a public library and is regularly borrowed, it'll last...3-5 years, maybe. a busy library will discard large volumes of stock every year because that's just how it works. you lose that sense of the sanctity of every copy of every book pretty fast in these kinds of jobs
libraries need people to use them! a huge huge part of getting library funding is demonstrating how many people use and value your service. you and the library staff are on the same side: they also want you to be able to use the library again
a public library has witnessed behaviours the likes of which you cannot imagine. people have shoved books down our toilets. people have looked at porn on library computers in full view of everyone around them. people have thrown chairs out of the window. losing books happens all the time and is so unlikely to phase staff who are probs a little bit dead inside
tldr: come back to the library, we need you visiting and using the service more than we need the books you accidentally lost, also if the person you talk to is anything like me they're probably just glad you aren't yelling at them
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fuckyeahgoodomens · 9 months
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David Tennant and Michael Sheen on The One Show 10.7.2023 ❤ :)
(also there Zoe Saldana and Nicole Kidman, and Alex Jones and Jermaine Jenas as interviewers :))
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Int1: Well, this is lovely for Wednesday, isn't it?
David: It's a lovely way to spend a Monday night, innit?
Zoe: I was excited to see you both.Likewise.
Int1: Now, Good Omens. I mean, people love the first series. It's back for a second. If there's anybody watching who didn't see the first one, they don't know what we're talking about. Go on, Michael. Fill them in.
Michael: I play an angel on Earth to do angel things.
David: I play a demon. I'm Hell's emissary on Earth.
Michael: And we decide that it's a lot easier if we team up because it saves on shoe leather. So we come to an arrangement, and then we realize that we actually quite like it on Earth, and we don't really want to deal with our respective head offices. And in season one, we save the world from the apocalypse. Season two...
David: And get excommunicated by our respective...
Michael: Yes. Exactly. So season two picks up. We're now...
David: We're at liberty.
Michael: Yeah. I'm in my bookshop, having lovely meals and watching lovely shows and hanging out with my best buddy here.
David: I'm living in my car, unfortunately, becausemy apartment came with a job.
Michael: And then John Ham turns up naked at mybookshop in Soho one day with no memory. And so the mystery begins. Int2: The plot twist. We know we've got a clip.
Nicole: I don't understand why he's [Jon Hamm] not on the couch.
Michael: Well, exactly. Nor me. I think everyone's asking the same thing.
David: Apparently it's a BBC rule you have to be clothed, so he was having none of it.
Int1: Yeah, that would push Monday over the edge. Let's see the clip.
Int2: Let's see the clip.
[familiar trailer plays, nothing new there]
Michael: When I said that line in the scene [I think I may have just started a war.], I knew it would be in the trailer. Do you know when you sometimes go, yeah, this is a trailer, and I got really nervous .I couldn't do it. Doing it over and over again.
Nicole: Well, I'm looking for something to watch. I'm watching that.
Zoe: Yes.
Int2: I like how you were like, yeah, that's the one.
Michael: On 28th.
Zoe: Okay, you watch ours and we watch yours.
Michael: Deal. We're in. We're in.
David: Yes, very good, very good.
Int1: Beautiful. This is the thing, at the heart of Good Omens is this unlikely friendship between you two, but in real life so you filmed it, you didn't know each other, and then they clicked. Look at them. They joined at the hip. They do everything...
Michael: It's true.
Int1: You even had babies at the same time.
Michael: We did.
Int1 [to David]: Your wife posted this picture of you two leaving the hospital.
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David: Look how in tune we are with each other.
Michael: And now those two little babies are nearly four, and they send each other little video messages. Yeah.
David: Well, they're babies of the pandemic, so that's how they think everyone communicates.
Michael: Exactly.
Int1: Is then when you went on to do Staged together?
Michael: Yeah.
Int1 [to Zoe and Nicole]: Have you seen that?
Zoe: No.Wait a minute. What are you guys doing on stage right now? Like a tour or something?
David: No, no it's a show .
Michael: It was a TV series called Staged that we did over Zoom. So we could work from our own houses.
David: Yeah.
Michael: We've done three series.
Nicole: They're extremely clever.
Zoe: That's insane. I have to watch it.
Int2: Now, Michael, apparently you turned down the opportunity to play David's character. Arguably got a better wardrobe. Is it something that you're regretting right now?
Michael: He gets all the best clothes. No. Neil Gaiman, who wrote the book that it's based on with Terry Pratchett. I've been friends with Neil for years, and so when we first started talking about the project yeah. We sort of both kind of, for some reason, assumed that I would play this one character, and then as he started writing the scripts, I was like, that's not the character. I'm not going to play that. So I felt kind of bad about saying that to Neil, and Neil was sort of feeling, because he was thinking thesame thing, feeling bad about saying it to me. So it all came out and then eventually it made way for the Tennant to emerge.
Int1: And he came in his lovely outfit.
Michael: Yeah. And his slinky hips.
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...
Int2: David.You're returning to Doctor Who. We had Catherine Tate on a couple of weeks ago.
David: Oh, yes.
Int2: o we spoke to her about it all. Now, she said it was like slipping back into a comfy pair of slippers. Was it the same for you?
David: Yeah. I mean, 15 years is quite a long time. And you do worry you won't be able to runf ast enough anymore, but...
Int1: Is it 15 years ago?
David: 15 years.
Int1: It's not, David, it can't be.
David: You're a lot older than you think you are.
Michael: I was only five when... I remember the David Tennant. I was just a little nipper.
Int2: On the Doctor Who subject. Watching... that's what inspired yo uas a child, wasn't it? Watching Doctor Who.
David: Yeah.
...
Int2: Good Omens Series Two on the 28 July on Prime Video and you can catch all three series of stage on IPlayer.
...
Int1: Let's say Nadoli Llawen.
Nicole: Yeah. [Tries]
Int1: Nadoli Llawen. Merry Christmas in Welsh.
Michael: Very good.
Int1: Michael, you can verify this. I mean, even the both of us are from South Wales, and even within 20 minutes car Journey, there'll be different dialects...
Michael: Within streets! Streets! Yeah, you can tell where someone comes from, which end of town people come from. [to Int1] I know which end of town you come from.
Int1: Say no more.
Michael: It's always been very clear, Alex.
Int1: Always very clear.
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lrt the key thing to remember about covid is that it isn't magic. It has to get in you first before it can infect you, and you have to have a certain amount of viral load before it can take over (it doesn't take much anymore, but it still has to reach that threshold).
The key to being able to do fun, indoor things is to find an n95 or higher respirator, test to make sure it fits you without leakage, and then do not take off your mask. ever.
This is where it gets people. I hear tons of stories from people who caught Covid even though they masked, and it almost always turns out they took it off for one reason or another.
"Hungry or thirsty?" Eat and hydrate beforehand or plan to stay until you get hungry. If you have a medical condition where you have to eat or take meds while you're out, find a place outside and bring multiple masks so you can put on a fresh one when you're done. For thirst, they actually make something for this. Do not take off the mask.
"What if we wanna take a selfie?" Take them beforehand or keep the masks on. Do not take off the mask.
"What about air breaks?" No air breaks. If you can't tolerate being in a mask for long periods, you cannot safely go to long events. Do not take off the mask.
Respirators have a seal. When you break the seal by taking it off, they do not work as effectively. The seal can also break after a certain amount of use, which changes depending on how many other people are masking around you. I used to have a diagram showing how long each masks last in different situations, but I sadly cannot find it so I won't say a specific time since I can't confirm it, but this is essentially why if I'm going to attempt something riskier, I wear a p100 because those are good for 8hrs before you have to change the filter, and anything that I go to indoors won't be more than 3hrs (simply because I'm old and I ain't staying out longer than that lol)
I really appreciate that op made a psa, because the point of that post I think a lot of people are missing is that we need to be in full pandemic mode specifically because of the wave. But the problem with writing Covid things in a sensational kind of way is that it makes mitigation seem like an impossible task that requires monk like sacrifice, and that makes people immediately shut down. It's not, even in a huge wave like this. Will you have to change your routine and behaviors, and some of those changes might be inconvenient? Absolutely. But they will never be impossible. It's important to remember that adaptation isn't sacrifice. You're not "giving up" anything. You're still gonna be able to have your social needs met, you'll just be doing it in a different way for awhile.
If you want to hang out with a small group of friends at their/your house, and it's too cold to be outside or you just don't want to, the safest way to do it is universal masking, full vaccinations, testing multiple times beforehand, and using at least one air purifier that filters up to 0.1-0.5 µm in the room you'll be gathering in. This can be done diy with a Corsi-Rosenthal box if you need something cheaper! Air filters suck in viruses faster than people can breathe them in, so the risk of getting covid would be incredibly low in this situation (but never zero). If you want to share a meal, know that taking off the masks will increase the risk, but at least let the purifer run at the highest setting tolerable for an hour before doing so
If you can't afford to stop reusing your N95s, I recommend either locating a mask bloc near you and ask for some mask donations, or buy an elastomeric n95 like this one. There are many to choose from and while they are more expensive, they're reusable, with the filter only needing to be changed after 8 hours (or sooner if in a big crowd)
Some people are currently inventing portable air-purifiers you can pair with masks, and you can 3-D print them!
You're at work/the dentist/some other situation where you absolutely can't go outside in a non-crowded space, and you need to take down your mask? Nasal sprays like this one can be a good extra layer of protection for these situations. You can always, like with most viruses, rinse out your nose after being in public and rinse your mouth with CPC mouthwash for even more extra layers of protection.
One of the frustrations I have with the current Covid advocacy is that it's still largely focused on near-total abstinence, which has never been and never will be an effective education tool. I prefer taking a cue from AIDS advocacy and focus on education and providing resources. Of course, staying home is the only way to stay 100% safe, and you should choose contactless options whenever you can as long as the pandemic is still going. But isolation is becoming less and less realistic for most people and I want to still show them that you can stay safe even if you can't stay home.
Covid is not an impossible task. It's not magic. You do not need to catch that wave. These are imperative facts we as a collective have to internalize if we want out of this pandemic. You are not helpless. We've had airborne viruses for years and years, and we've known how to protect ourselves from them as well. We've known how to protect from Covid, specifically, for years. The only reason it's gotten this bad and is still a pandemic is because our governments benefit more from the masses being sick and needing resources, full stop. Like climate change, we have the tools to beat this virus back at any point. Because of this, even in this huge wave, there is no reason you have to only exist online. There are ways you can see your friends safely.
All people like OP are saying is that, at least until this wave improves, you should do that without going to the bars, clubs, restaurants, concert venues, etc. Because it's not only extremely unsafe for you, but it's putting other people in danger too.
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