An annoying propaganda piece promoting infection, but it does resonate a little for me:
https://demo.thisischip.com/?q=https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2023/06/25/covid-precautions-summer-vaccines-deaths/&o=share
I've seen more #covid cautious folks loosening up in the past few months, more than ever before.
Is it 3+ years taking a toll? Is it low waste water figures that give confidence? Is it some ventilation that makes things feel safe? Do people truly long for unmasked companions?
Sometimes it has made me feel somewhat lonely & made me worry that the covid movement will slowly dissolve.
I've seen quite a few "you can't expect anyone to be perfect" / "we need to think about mental health" / "you can't go zero risk forever" / "you need to be reasonable, low risks are fine" and I get that others feel like that.
I'm not doing anything with other people around for fun. I just go to necessary appointments and abandoned places out in nature.
I don't want to take the risk & honestly I just also don't want people anymore. Sometimes I feel a little alone in that isolating sentiment.
Thanks for posting your thoughts. I'm finding it a particularly strange time to still be COVID cautious. Even the few people I knew who were still holding on as late as this past winter now openly wonder if my wife and I have gone mad. The same people who understood that we weren't going to attend holiday celebrations and didn't push it are now demanding that we give it up and join their BBQs and other events and talk about how we must be the only people left in the world who haven't thrown away our masks.
I posted this elsewhere, but on the one hand I get it. Our county quit testing and reporting at the end of last summer and it's been 10 months since there's been a single "official" COVID case at all here. The emergency declaration ended. There's no wastewater testing here. You couldn't buy a test or a mask in a store if you tried. It's really all testing the theory that if you can't see it, does it really exist?
Of course it does, but, you have to be actively looking for it, reading the scientific literature, and no one else is. You're not going to get that info without seeking it out, and obviously that's by design.
Personally, we're still hanging on, but, I admit to wondering whether the world will allow it for much longer or if we'll be forced to give it up before there's better vaccines and treatments. It seems to be trending that way recently and I find it pretty disheartening.
@beige_alert @begrudging_recluse
It really is weird, right? Amongst my in-laws, some of the ones pushing this, there's very clearly severe decline in health readily apparent in some of them, including my MIL whose mental facilities are slipping terrifyingly fast. There's nothing we can tell her that she will remember the next time we talk, and she often has very wild stories in her head about what's going on around her. When my wife brought this up to my FIL he just said "That's what happens in your mid to late 60's, right?" Gosh, I hope not...
Anyway, I could go on and on about what I see amongst people I've known for a long time, but, yes, I can't help but think of it as the classic sci-fi story plague sometimes where the infected keep telling you how awesome it is and you should just give in and go along.
@BE @beige_alert Exactly, it really feels like such a sci-fi story.
I've seen so much decline too. I've told the same things to my parents all the times we phoned over the last year. They don't remember anything anymore, so I can just recycle three stories endlessly.
They keep telling me not remembering, tiring from walking, not smelling things right, not being able to work fulltime, it's normal for their age! They're in their 50s and 60s, not even pension age... 😬
@begrudging_recluse @beige_alert
Glad you understood even though I somehow put mental facilities rather than faculties. Need to stop typing so fast before the caffeine hits :)
Even worse, my dad had COVID, spent months terrified of us getting COVID after he had severe brain fog, but after recovering "enough"(he is a former academic who I have never seen mis-spell a word, but now writes me e-mails that I'm often convinced can't have possibly come from him...but they did...) and now he's out there maskless again and I'm just waiting for him to tell me he's got COVID again and can't remember anything. I don't understand the "need" to get it over and over again.
@BE @beige_alert That's sad. Sometimes these people make me think of the stories about how women can forget the pain and trauma of childbirth, so they can go on to have a second child. But then some sort of must-spread-and-care-for-covid edition 😂
Problem is my parents are lower class & mostly know manual laborers. They're used to seeing people decline at an earlier age, so I can't convince them this is unique. Sad to see that starting in a more knowledgeable position isn't everything either
@BE It is disheartening, and I often worry about that too.
I've not known anyone who's been careful irl since 2020, so I'm mostly basing my views on the people I read online. The information is difficult to find, but I've also seen scientific people loosen up or even start to give up. I know these people have followed the science for years now. It has made my mind boggle.
It has made me fear a little for being 'left behind' again, but in the future by peers instead of by 'regular' people.
@BE @begrudging_recluse The weird thing to me is not only in there more and more solid information about the damage covid often does but I don't really know that many people and these days I know several people who have quite serious long covid problems. Do all those people with more friends that me just believe it what happened to so many others won't happen to them?