Daily poll

[teaotter]

This is your check-in post for today. The poll will be open from midnight Universal or Zulu Time (8pm Eastern Time) on Monday to midnight (8pm Eastern Time) on Tuesday.

Poll #27050 Daily poll

This poll is closed.
Open to: Access List, detailed results viewable to: Access List, participants: 36

How are you doing?

I am okay
25 (71.4%)

I am not okay, but I don't need help right now
10 (28.6%)

I could use some help
0 (0.0%)

How many other humans live with you?

I am living single
15 (41.7%)

One other human
16 (44.4%)

More than one other human
5 (13.9%)

Please, talk about how things are going for you in the comments, ask for advice or help if you need it, or just discuss whatever you feel like.

Comments

[ratcreature]

It's really discouraging to see mask use decline despite still quite high case numbers (with less testing now so likely underestimated), even among sensible people.

Like, I'm in a language course that last autumn started out under strict masking, extra ventilation and vaccine mandatory for attendance policies, and at the beginning of May when masks stopped being required everyone still kept theirs on, but by this week it has eroded that now besides me only one other is still keeping their FFP2 mask on throughout. At least it's now warm enough that there's open windows throughout, rather than getting cold blasts every 20 minutes, so ventilation has improved, but still.

I really like having the course in person (for a while it was via zoom and that kind of sucks compared to in person language learning, imo), and so far attending hasn't yet gotten me any covid exposures, so I'll keep going even if most are unmasked. I just kind of wish others hadn't just given up on being worried about covid. :/

[fred_mouse]

Oh, I hear you on this. We are still at the peak of our first real wave (Western Australia) and heading in to winter/early pollen season, so people are starting to huddle indoors and to snuffle/cough more, and argh. Every week when I go in to work (in the office one day a week) there are fewer people wearing masks, and some of them doing it performatively at that (technically over the nose, but so loose that it is just gaping)

[ratcreature]

I really don't understand it. These aren't anti-vax, anti-mask people, griping how public health encroaches on them or such. I know several others in my course have also avoided getting it so far, so why not continue that way? I mean, I find masks annoying too, and it's fiddly to get them to fit tightly so my glasses don't fog up, but honestly, with the roulette of long-term complications and possible organ damage that keeps emerging, I'd really rather not.

Next we'll resign ourselves to get "mildly sick" with pox, the way things are going. >:(

[peardita]

Almost no one masks where I am anymore, and it causes me so much stress. I'm not high risk myself, but people in my social circle are, and I still care about them??? And we're still learning about long covid, but you can still get it if you have only a mild case, or if you're in a low risk group, and I'm honestly not interested in risking it.

[ratcreature]

Here it's still mixed in shops and such, though it's been declining, and for now FFP2 masks are mandatory on public transport, though there's always a few who ignore this, and also some dick noses.

In public places and with strangers it feels easier for me to mask regardless, than in places where you know people and meet for longer, like my language course, even though it's equally or even more important in the latter situations, just because it feels more awkward to be out of step with a group you know than with random people.

[fred_mouse]

Yeah, I don't get it either. But, ah, I have epidemiological training and work in disease modelling, so I suspect my 'argh' response is a bit more finely tuned than some. Also, I'm seeing a lot of very healthy people with no real understanding of the long term complications just shrugging it off, and *mumble* (I also have a post-viral fatigue syndrome, so yes, very very acutely aware of how badly it can go). I have to think that it is the human inability to correctly assess risk. Because otherwise I would probably assume malice, and I don't think that is fair.

[ratcreature]

I think in part it's also that alertness to risk is exhausting, so you just can't think about infection risk all the time and just get used to things. Like people don't think that much about ticks either, no matter that they can carry really nasty infections. Everybody has seen the warnings to use tick prevention and to look for ticks, but you don't see everyone systematically check themselves every time after having sat in the park near some bushes on a bit of grass either even though that's tick habitat. Some people are really careful of course, but most only think of it if they are doing something usual that they think makes ticks more likely such as a long hike in the woods.

Ideally we'd just establish adapted habits, so that mask wearing becomes like hand washing after using the bathroom and before handling food, rather than a conscious risk assessment, but then people aren't that great about hand washing either, and arguably it's a bit more annoying to have something on your face all the time. Though imo not as annoying as slathering on repellent and doing frequent body tick searches when going somewhere with plants.

[fred_mouse]

I must admit to not paying much attention on ticks at all. I may have to go and do some research about local habitats, because I associate them with kangaroos more than anything.

On the one hand, masking as an established habit would have its advantages. On the other, once the disease risk drops a long way, I'm going to be dropping the mask because of the number of things it makes more difficult (staying appropriately hydrated and oxygenated for two. Yes, I know that the airflow doesn't change that much, but medical conditions mean that walking can put me over the line into dizzy if I do it with the mask on for long distances)

[ratcreature]

No idea about Australia but here ticks carry Lyme disease mostly, but they can also carry a nasty encephalitis, that kills 1-2% but causes neurological damage like paralysis in more, though not everyone bitten gets the neuro form of the disease. It's one of those things that a bunch of people can get and don't notice as more than a flu like thing and it only shows in antibody prevalence in endemic areas, but a small percentage gets unlucky. You can vaccinate against that at least, but it's three doses and only protects for a few years. Then there are several diseases that didn't use to be endemic here, but further south and are extending their range with climate change. So now you can get babesiosis and some others, and Crimean Congo hemorrhagic fever has been extending its range in Europe too, though it's still mostly the Balkans, and human outbreaks not that frequent even there. Otoh it is quite lethal if you do get it, not quite Ebola but 40% or so.