Pestilence or: How I Learned to Worry Constantly and Live with COVID

[Joe Appleby]

Not reading what you guys are writing. Screw that noise.

Here's an update from my school. Surgical or FFP2 masks are mandatory, as all of our students are 12 or older, the number of vaccinated students is rising steadily.

We do have a small but steady number of new Covid cases almost daily however. Students in close contact of a case (sitting close to them etc.) are being quarantined as well. Yesterday I sent a girl home telling her that she has to quarantine until Dec. 25th. She doesn't celebrate Christmas so it isn't too tough on her. She can get tested on the 21st if she shows no symptoms. If the test is negative the quarantine ends there.

Classes go until Wednesday 22nd btw.

Today we had an Omicron case in a class. Now the whole class, including the teachers of that class have to quarantine until the 29th. Since we have courses with students from several classes I just had to call three families to tell them that their child has to quarantine until 29th. Since this is Omicron, no testing can end the quarantine early.

Fuck this noise.

[GeromeDoutrande]

Anti-5G necklaces found to be radioactive
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-59703523

[erichkknaar]

Wut? did Joe not just say anti-vaxxers are being 'esoteric' (i read that also as holistic) and then saying the Nazi's were esoteric?

If no I misunderstood and apologize.

Hel was wondering when esoteric ideas became right wing because he thought believing in energy fields was a lefty/hippy/öko thing. I pointed out that esoteric ideas where something even original Nazis were into and how that isn't new or surprising.

As pointed out by the Wiki you linked, occult personal obsessions (Himmler, Heß) whaven't had any impact on the overall Nazi ideology.

Esoteric in the nazi scene became a thing after the war, though. Though the esoteric community in Germany after the war mostly aligns with left-leaning ideas. As demonstrated by the fact that the current German anti-vaxxer movement, which was started in Baden-Württemberg, mostly recruited its followers by people from the antroposophic/homoepathic spectrum ("Waldorf-Schüler"). The exterem right happily joint the fray though and these days make up the majority of it.

And both groups happily demonstrate together, which is the part that I find very odd.

Are you sure? As I understand it there was an enormous explosion in interest in occultism and esotericism in western europe in general between about 1900 and 1930. That's when people like Crowley and the various German occultists were at the height of their influence. A lot of books about that sort of shit were translated into English and German at about that time.

Of course those guys spanned the whole political spectrum but the far right association with occultism in the early 20th century is pretty strong.

The parallels between times of social and economic difficulties going hand in hand with the rise of "alternative" explanations of how the world works then and now are compelling as well. Those guys were fully the flat earthers, antivaxxers and conspiracy theorists of their day. I guess those people run the gamut of the political spectrum at any time.

Erwinn Schrödinger (of cat fame) was quite into it interestingly

Well, it may be just my interpretation of the difference between "occult" and "esoteric". The former are e.g. seances, which indeed we're already a thing in the Victorian age and later.

As "esoteric" I consider these flower-power new-age things: healing gem stones, homeopathy, miracle healers, Wiccan, Druids etc. If I'm not mistaken, these became more widespread in the 70s here in Germany and were adopted by the more left-leaning folks. There are crossovers, ofc.

But I really haven't done any research into it at all. It's just what I personally think about it, so I my very well be wrong.

We have those in the US too. Marin county in the Bay Area was the hotspot for them prior to covid, with regular outbreaks of measles due to anti-vax, etc. People who have irrational belief in healing crystals and chakra power.

[Duckslayer]

Anyone here a JO bro though?> That's the one crystal that definitely works.

[Cosmin]

A lockdown is no substitute for your immune system or for your country's healthcare system. They're a kneejerk reaction and stopgap measure at best that makes the government look like they're in control by replacing short term consequences for long term ones.

Dude, after all the discussions we've had here you learned literally nothing about epidemiology and how this fucking pandemic actually works. Calling a lockdown a kneejerk reaction is simply ignorant, sorry to say it.

Yes lockdowns have an impact on your mental health. Get a fucking therapist like everybody else and go through it like everybody else is trying. We're all fucked and mentally fried but it beats being fucking dead* or with long COVID. FFS.

*to further explain this, e.g. if the hospital is full with COVID cases your Acute Coronary Syndrome may go unnoticed and you have a chance to die in a really dumb way of something treatable. Even if you're vaccinated against COVID, there are still other illnesses that can kill you and that can fly below the radar in the context of a overworked and burned out medical staff with full hands 24/7/365.

[Mashie Saldana]

Had my Moderna booster this week. Ended up with a very sore arm for the first 24h, after that all good. My first two jabs were Moderna as well.

[Jack Coutu]

A lockdown is no substitute for your immune system or for your country's healthcare system. They're a kneejerk reaction and stopgap measure at best that makes the government look like they're in control by replacing short term consequences for long term ones.

Dude, after all the discussions we've had here you learned literally nothing about epidemiology and how this fucking pandemic actually works. Calling a lockdown a kneejerk reaction is simply ignorant, sorry to say it.

Yes lockdowns have an impact on your mental health. Get a fucking therapist like everybody else and go through it like everybody else is trying. We're all fucked and mentally fried but it beats being fucking dead* or with long COVID. FFS.

*to further explain this, e.g. if the hospital is full with COVID cases your Acute Coronary Syndrome may go unnoticed and you have a chance to die in a really dumb way of something treatable. Even if you're vaccinated against COVID, there are still other illnesses that can kill you and that can fly below the radar in the context of a overworked and burned out medical staff with full hands 24/7/365.

The right wing shit people consume with glee basically is saying "GET THE PEOPLE BACK TO WORK" as the highest priority and not "SAVE LIVES". gotta simp for PRODUCTION

[Arkaday]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...-officials-74/

There seems to be some troublesome statements in there. I'm not quite sure. Some of it seems off? The "good guys" are "following the science" right?

[duckduck]

https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-...-officials-74/

There seems to be some troublesome statements in there. I'm not quite sure. Some of it seems off? The "good guys" are "following the science" right?

You have to put a bit more effort into your trolling. Which specific statements were troublesome?

[Lallante]

I got my booster and a clean PCR on Wednesday. Today I lat flowed a clear positive. Christmas cancelled fucking goddamn it.

[Paradox]

Christmas is terrible anyway

[Lallante]

Christmas is terrible anyway

Not when your kid is 2.5 and you have plans to see your parents for the first time in a year / since they beat cancer and you've booked your first foreign holiday in 2 years in the Canary Islands.

Then, cancelling really does suck, especially as travel insurance now routinely excludes COVID cancellation.

[August]

You might be better by the 25th. I postponed my flight to Dec 24 for other reasons and it only cost me a hundred bucks.

[Stoffl]

I got my booster and a clean PCR on Wednesday. Today I lat flowed a clear positive. Christmas cancelled fucking goddamn it.

Rip in snotty pieces

[Lief Siddhe]

The right wing shit people consume with glee basically is saying "GET THE PEOPLE BACK TO WORK" as the highest priority and not "SAVE LIVES". gotta simp for PRODUCTION

I don't know how you put food on the table and pay for utilities and keep your parents alive and survive day to day yourself, but the rest of us in the world have to work to get money for said things. But keep being a simpleton, I guess.

[August]

A lockdown is no substitute for your immune system or for your country's healthcare system. They're a kneejerk reaction and stopgap measure at best that makes the government look like they're in control by replacing short term consequences for long term ones.

Dude, after all the discussions we've had here you learned literally nothing about epidemiology and how this fucking pandemic actually works. Calling a lockdown a kneejerk reaction is simply ignorant, sorry to say it.

Yes lockdowns have an impact on your mental health. Get a fucking therapist like everybody else and go through it like everybody else is trying. We're all fucked and mentally fried but it beats being fucking dead* or with long COVID. FFS.

*to further explain this, e.g. if the hospital is full with COVID cases your Acute Coronary Syndrome may go unnoticed and you have a chance to die in a really dumb way of something treatable. Even if you're vaccinated against COVID, there are still other illnesses that can kill you and that can fly below the radar in the context of a overworked and burned out medical staff with full hands 24/7/365.

That's a kneejerk reaction too. The logical choice is to compare quality-adjusted life-years lost for lockdown vs no lockdown.

[Cosmin]

The logical choice is to compare quality-adjusted life-years lost for lockdown vs no lockdown.

We can't afford to do this now. You can dream how it'll be when your leg is healed whilst you're in the midst of healing a fracture but you don't have the luxury of actually going outside for a fucking run in a cast, now do you?

People need to understand this - the pandemic isn't done. It won't be done for at least 2 more years and that's being high on hopium, it'll probably be 5-7 years if we actually have the luck of this shit virus not mutating into something a lot more lethal. But people still book fucking vacations and are complaining about 2 lost years when there's at least another two more years to go.

Get a fucking grip. We're in the midst of it and not even in the eye of the storm just yet. However, instead of putting our heads down and trying to swim harder most people are consistently complaining they can't go see a movie without being vaccinated. The entitlement is off the fucking scale.

A pandemic is a force of nature just like a hurricane or a flood or an earthquake. You can try to minimize the damage but this isn't done efficiently either because people are so fucking entitled. Entiteld to thousands of explanations on why vaccines are not going to kill you, entitled to vacations, entitled to anything. But apparently in the midst of all of this poor people aren't entitled to stay home and have their government pay their bills. Because they're poor by choice, they're not working, all that shit.

[whispous]

The right wing shit people consume with glee basically is saying "GET THE PEOPLE BACK TO WORK" as the highest priority and not "SAVE LIVES". gotta simp for PRODUCTION

I don't know how you put food on the table and pay for utilities and keep your parents alive and survive day to day yourself, but the rest of us in the world have to work to get money for said things. But keep being a simpleton, I guess.

Except there is plenty of money to sort these things out if tax dodging poeple and corporations weren't sucked off by the governments at every stage.

It's THEM who suck the productivity out of the economy, not people needing to work less because of a global pandemic.

[Lief Siddhe]

If you understood what I posted before, my beef IS with governments and corporations not doing enough and using this epidemic to pretend they're doing something worthwhile. But it's quite obvious you didn't. I never blamed the people who don't work, I blamed governments that implement measures that result in people losing jobs. Now, you can ignore these people at your own peril, but they're also victims of this epidemic and there's much more of them than the 5 million that died.

@ cosmin - As anecdotal evidence, I lost several jobs last year because of the pandemic (thank fuck we had earthquakes in the middle of all that shit so I could at least find some construction gigs), got exactly 0 money from the government for being a freelancer and not a big company, several of my friends that I worked with had to close down their companies and I have a father who is a serious mental case and who I can't even get fucking admitted because admitting new cases is not happening because of COVID and who I'm handling among 3 jobs I'm currently working. We're wrecking a whole country, kids and youth and working people because a virus is killing old and sick people (vast majority of fatal cases, 80+percent). It's sad for their families but it's what viruses do and I have nothing but understanding for the overworked and understaffed and underpaid medical workers but we can't all stop living and just hide away until this virus magically disappears because it won't, well with the current vaccines it definitely isn't happening. My hope is that this Omicron variant finally turns this virus into more infectious and less deadly and everyone stops being a hypochondriac.

I'm not complaining that I can't go see a movie for fuck sake. ALTHOUGH let me tell you: all work and no play make Jack a dull boy (and in need of psychiatric help, as can be seen from the data about overdoses and kids with depression I posted on a previous page) and that's also one of the reasons people (at least here) are getting increasingly against lockdowns, since I'd say their effect on the number of deaths isn't that big since the most vulnerable (the old and sick) don't go to huge mass gatherings, concerts and for coffee and whatnot that much anyway, I imagine. So, at best, you're "protecting" 20% out of 0.019% of people who actually die from COVID (according to https://covid19.who.int/) at the expense of literaly tens of millions of people around the world. How accurate these numbers are I dunno, but it's what we're at regarding lockdowns.

[Cosmin]

@ Lief - I know it's hard, dude. I know. I'm going through my own personal hell for over a year now and I can barely see the light. What we can do is try to make it through and understand that the people next to us go through the same struggles and fights, some harder than others, true, but crippling nonetheless. The problem I have is also with governments but unfortunately it's still the people who elected those cunts in the first place so the hope is to ride it out and maybe choose differently when the time comes. At the same time trying to maintain ourselves above water and trying to understand certain things.

One of those things is that TV and announcements are just intensifying the mental health issues we are all going through. I had a mother almost accuse me for her daughter's positive covid test. It's fucking heartbreaking that she even thought about something like that in the first place, I mean wtf. I have a beef with a lot of shit, but not with the people around me, and that's what we need to remember.

I've had decent results with therapy and jazz. YMMV, of course. Please be safe and sound, as much as you can.