Gregory's ServerLike, is it not weird that most people are acting like covid isn't a thing anymore?
 122 comments
 @BlackAzizAnansi what's extra weird is that people have been acting that way since it hit. Definitely people stopped caring like 6 mos. into it smdh @CShellz @BlackAzizAnansi i think a lot of people stopped caring before it hit there was that big rush to buy toilet paper for some reason and then people just sort of decided they had done enough @BlackAzizAnansi it is. Especially for those of us who are required to go into an office a couple times a week. @BlackAzizAnansi All the brainwashing. Even very informed, intelligent people whom I think think it's over and/or now "endemic"  @RiverEnodian @BlackAzizAnansi But, people get exhausted over the number of things to be alarmed about, so maybe they can't be better? @Urban_Hermit @BlackAzizAnansi People have NO idea what "endemic" means is a huge chunk of the problem.  @RiverEnodian @BlackAzizAnansi I mean, it IS endemic now. As in it is regularly found within the population. That we've let something this infectious and virulent become endemic is maddening. It's still harming huge numbers of people. Endemic does NOT mean "safe" or "not worrisome" @calcifer @BlackAzizAnansi Regularly found implies predictability. We have seasonal flu, etc. This isn't. It's the same levels now as we had when we had everything locked down. @RiverEnodian @calcifer @BlackAzizAnansi It doesn’t have to follow a predictable pattern to be endemic. Measles is endemic too and that’s not seasonal. @BlackAzizAnansi it definitely is. It feels like a mass delusion thing at this point. And when they finally get sick again they jump through hoops convincing themselves it’s not covid. Or long covid for that matter. @BlackAzizAnansi I feel like I'm in a very slightly alternate dimension from everyone else. I'm here, but just a little offset. It's been quite an illustration of how bad humans are at threat assessment and how quickly we become inured. @aleen @BlackAzizAnansi Completely agreed on both counts. I think I'd be slightly less put out by the "endemic" or straight up ignoring attitude if I didn't see it as so foreboding re: every other crisis we're facing. @BlackAzizAnansi @mj @BlackAzizAnansi Same, and I have made my home very comfortable and learned how to cook dishes I always thought I would go out for. Holidays are simpler. I wish other people would agree to mask for get togethers, but they won't. It's so simple, but they would rather complain because I don't want to have a party the way we used to than try for something new and safer. That's a shame.  @BlackAzizAnansi it's very weird. But it's the message that's getting pushed hard by.media and politicians so it's not that surprising.  @jdp23 @BlackAzizAnansi I cringe every time I read or hear a news report that refers to the #pandemic in the past tense. No! #CovidIsNotOver! @BlackAzizAnansi On the west coast, absolutely, on the east coast, I wonder if they ever thought it was a thing. @BlackAzizAnansi a whole lot of people have revealed that they basically believe in eugenics and that disabled people’s lives are worthless to them #CovidIsNotOver @mycorrhiza@kolektiva.social @OldAndCranky @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi It's been almost half a year since anyone I know has had COVID and probably four months since I wore a mask. The pandemic pretty much is over in my neck of the woods. I have no problem wearing a mask when asked or the numbers tell me otherwise. It's just nobody has asked lately including my local doctors and hospitals. @bryanruby @OldAndCranky @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi It appears "over" because no one is testing. The virus is still circulating. People are catching covid 1-3 times a year and calling it "a bad cold" without testing. My spouse has had long covid since last fall. It's a goddamn nightmare. Fully vaxxed & boosted, and yet still partially disabled by this horrible disease. Y'all have a 10-20% chance of developing long covid with each infection. Don't be fools. @bryanruby @OldAndCranky @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi Y'all have this stubborn habit of conflating the acute stage of the disease with the disease itself. The acute stage is "flu-like" after which people "recover" and feel "fine." With many viral illnesses (polio, shingles, AIDS) it can take weeks, months or years for the chronic stage to develop. Long covid isn't merely "lingering symptoms" after infection. Long covid IS the disease. Fuck around and find out. @pixplz @bryanruby @OldAndCranky @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi some of these people should look into ME/CFS and HSV, they've been doing this wrong for decades long term convalescing is REQUIRED and that's not even before getting into stopping spread itself @OldAndCranky @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi I will always wear a mask on a plane from now on. Especially getting on and off. People are way too close. @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi 4 days later, even though I was masked, I felt feverish, headachey, coughing. Antigen test was positive. If I could sue the Supreme Court, I would.  @mmlvx @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi I recently drove from NM to CT and back to NM just to avoid COVID at airports and airlines. Just not worth the risk.  @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi Its fatality rate is now about 4x that of influenza, getting it doubles anyone’s chance of death in the subsequent year. Long COVID presents a significant disability to probably 1% of those who catch it, vaccines reduce this risk no more than 17%. Sorry, your risk assessment is based on poor information. @donaldball Thank you for making this comment. I saw the inaccuracies, too, and scrolled through the comments to see if anyone had corrected them yet. The fact that people STILL think covid is "just like the flu" goes to show how poorly public health and the media has communicated the facts. Consider this though: each time you get COVID, you have about a 10% chance of getting Long COVID, which may mean incapacitating disability. And if you don’t take precautions, you can expect to get COVID about every year. So that’s a 90% chance of being ok this year, times 90% again for each year you expect to live… If you’re old now you should already be careful. And if you’re young and not careful, you will probably be disabled by this eventually. @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi This is a very succinct distillation of all of the talking points the oligarchy has put together in focus groups and with experts to make sure that the people who don't pay much attention to anything but their heroes on the television will be able to teach their friends how to normalize genocide without batting an eye  @TJ @BlackAzizAnansi I had your same mindset back in March. Went to one small indoor gathering unmasked and promptly caught COVID. I no longer hold that mindset. Edit to add: When I caught COVID, I was fully vaxxed and boosted. So were my husband and daughter, both of whom also caught it.  @BlackAzizAnansi It’s not weird when you consider the drumbeat of inevitability and minimization from media and public healthy. @BlackAzizAnansi It's very weird. Most people where we are aren't wearing masks anymore. @BlackAzizAnansi It's weird especially considering what we learned. How better ventilation can reduce the risks of many respiratory diseases and help cognitive function. How many aging and chronic diseases are finding links to long term effects from past viral infections. It hurts to think how quickly capitalism regained the momentum. @BlackAzizAnansi it is driving me crazy. The strange looks I get when I wear masks. My refusal to eat indoors if outside is at all possible is met with confusion. My contacting event organizers to ask if events are indoors or outdoors is often met with complete hostility. Like 1,000+ people are still dying a week from COVID in the US- but sure why would we want to take basic precautions. @alysondecker @BlackAzizAnansi My husband and I stay home and if we have to go out, we mask up. @BlackAzizAnansi 🌺️ Unfortunately, it's not very weird that they pretend it's over. The flu got memory holed after 1918 as well. Post-acute sequelae related to it were attributed to "mystery illness" because of the denial.
It is, of course, a much different matter now, as the virus isn't gone. @BlackAzizAnansi I can't believe that the entire healthcare industry doesn't care. I want to feel protected getting my teeth or eyes checked or seeing a doctor.  @Shan_is_sweet @BlackAzizAnansi it isn't the entire industry it's the people in charge who, as David Dayen keeps telling us, are corrupt AF. @Shan_is_sweet @BlackAzizAnansi This has been the most difficult for me. Even doctors that I thought were some of the "top tier," who have always acted like they cared *so much* about me, just...do not care whether or not they, or one of their other patients, infects me with something that could permanently disable me. This includes a retina specialist, who (apparently) doesn't seem to care about the fact that one of the current dominant variants is affecting some eyes very badly. What a mess. @BlackAzizAnansi I think it must be something like—historians wondered why there was so little cultural effect after the flu pandemic. Now we’re recapitulating what it must have been like back then. “Things we don’t think or talk about after the pandemic—“ @BlackAzizAnansi I think it shows how well propaganda works. The morbidly wealthy have made a concentrated effort to have the pandemic declared over, so that we will go back to making them wealthier. That one of us dies every two minutes is of no consequence to them.  @sennoma @BlackAzizAnansi "Morbidly wealthy". I'm stealing that one. Pretty much encapsulates the state of their being. @stonebear @BlackAzizAnansi It's not original with me, I only wish I could remember whom to credit. @BlackAzizAnansi it's even weirder when people try to act like it was never a thing. Like, are you seriously going to ask me why I'm wearing a mask?  So many things are so much weirder than I could have imagined a few years ago, and I didn't have a high opinion then. @BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to @BlackAzizAnansi I'm still taken aback when entering a medical facility with mask on and the person at the door says "Oh, we don't require masks anymore"  @BlackAzizAnansi @Nona1 I bet they also don’t wash their hands after using the bathroom, but we never had a way of telling in the past. @Nona1 @BlackAzizAnansi Any medical setting is a breeding ground of sickness, and most illnesss is transmittable. The only reason we are all not more sick is because of immunity, and the disease in question is not very infectious. Silly humans, all of our science and we still don’t get it. We are not superior to all life forms and I guarantee there is one lurking around that will bite us in the ass one day. COVID was not the one. Hardly a scratch. @ForeverTepsMom @BlackAzizAnansi 100% agree. Wearing masks could help all of us stay healthy, whether its COVID or a different germ. @ForeverTepsMom @Nona1 @BlackAzizAnansi covid is airborne and as infectious as measles. @BlackAzizAnansi Covid is like the #zombieantfungus. The more they get sick, the more they want to wander around without a mask. @BlackAzizAnansi Amazing how a society relinquishes its collective agency. Politicians and mainstream media aren't talking about it, so it isn't real. I'm still masking.  @BlackAzizAnansi I wouldn't call it weird; weird is a compliment in my world. Downright STUPID is what it is. Ableist, uncaring, worthy of high-speed attention from my steel-toed Danners for conduct unbecoming a human. (I will not apologise for my fierceness; I'm a 2-time cancer survivor, have a septigenarian in-house, and if I get Long COVID this family of six essentially dies. Fuck the maskholes with a bargepole.)  @BlackAzizAnansi About 15-20% masked or at least having a mask ready around their neck on the street now from what I’ve seen here in Sunset Park Brooklyn. I am typically the only one masked out of 20 at our studio. Didn’t anybody really enjoy not having a bad cold or the flu for the last few years? @BlackAzizAnansi @goodthinking Most people are selfish as fuck with potatoes for brains. So, no, it’s expected behaviour from them, unfortunately. @philsherry @BlackAzizAnansi just sucks that most of us work on potato farms ;) @BlackAzizAnansi historically it's normal. The new thing would be to take the 20th century knowledge of infection and contagion and apply it.  Very weird & very sad. I have stopped trying to understand it, I simply keep my and my family's protections up as well as is possible. Masking in all crowded situations, masking in all work meetings and when I do my lectures, HEPA filters at home. I hope that with time, people will develop the strength to acknowledge the facts. My wearing a mask is also a quiet signal that there is an alternative to denial. One encouraging thing: the people around me accept my masking.  @BlackAzizAnansi Not just weird but infuriating. They really do *not* care about the people around them...or even themselves, really. It depends what we mean by "personal risk model". I don't think that what people do is look at the pros and cons of masking, say, using the available information, and on that basis they then decide whether masking makes sense. Instead, they decide whether they want to worry about a potentially serious threat to their health, and they decide that they are more comfortable if they ignore it. Denial of a threat rather than acceptance of a given risk level. It has been incredibly disheartening to see society coalesce around the idea that there is a large class of people who just don’t matter at all. And everyone I love and am responsible for is in that group. This is not just the unforeseen consequence of otherwise reasonable choices. People have no shame being explicit about it: “You don’t need to worry unless you’re old or sick.” And if you •are• old or sick? Then die already. Who cares. I may delete this eventually, since I’m not an angry person by nature, and I try to keep things positive here. But if I sound pissed off about this it’s because I am. There’s a direct connection between everyone’s decision to go back to normal without any changes, and the fact that I’ll never know anything close to normal again as long as my vulnerable family members live. People born in the 1930s—especially in certain parts of the world—have more than paid their dues already. They do not deserve to live the rest of their days under house arrest to support your carefree lifestyle. At least wear a f*cking mask indoors. @mcmullin @BlackAzizAnansi I'm the only crew member masked up during this tech rehearsal. I do so to protect my wife, her mother, and anyone else who might be at higher risk for illness. @mcmullin @BlackAzizAnansi You shouldn’t delete it. People need to see it. People need to understand that their choice to deliberately expose everyone repeatedly to a mass disabling event WILL affect them, sooner or later. They chose to shove us off the cliff, not realizing our ankles are shackles together. When they are disabled by the 3rd or 4th or 5th round of infection, they’ll come to us, whining and shocked and upset, looking for help and compassion. I have a firm policy of Self inflicted gets no sympathy. @DaywalkingRedhead @BlackAzizAnansi I won’t feel better in 5, 10, 20 years when the people who don’t care about the sick and disabled now are sick and disabled themselves. I hope to have compassion even if they don’t. But I’ll remember though. @mcmullin @BlackAzizAnansi I won’t feel better either. I hope I’ll be able to be decent to them. Right now, watching them, having been abandoned for over three years, have nothing but rage and disgust. Maybe that will change. @mcmullin @BlackAzizAnansi they also endanger my "cautious close to normal" as an immunocompromised person because avoiding large crowds of people and wearing my mask in public when possible only protects me if at least a few other people also do that. wearing a mask to the grocery store only protects me if there aren't a lot of carriers shopping maskless. avoiding strangers only works when the people close to me are at all cautious. I'm grateful at least my spouse is, but a lot aren't :/ @raphaelmorgan  @BlackAzizAnansi I’ve been traveling this weekend. Almost no one masks now (shout out to some of the Starbucks workers though). My favorite was an older woman who had her mask on her chin in the airport, sort of sums up the moment. @BlackAzizAnansi yes. I was particularly distressed when nurse in Dr office told me that last week. I disagreed with her. And she told me no cases since December in their office. Still doesn't mean it is over.😮🥵 @BlackAzizAnansi @SammytheCat92 Ah, the no new cases bullshit. Part of the insidiousness of the mindset that people who get Covid deserved it is the shame that comes along with it when it does strike.  @BlackAzizAnansi two things i find absolutely wild: @BlackAzizAnansi it feels like this might be one of the few benefits of my complete lack of time sense.  @BlackAzizAnansi Yes, it's a kind of mass denial. Doesn't bode well for surviving climate change either. Looks like everyone's going to keep on dancing until the Titanic has sunk.  @BlackAzizAnansi Absolutely! I normally mask up at home (MA) and don't think twice about it. Most people don't, but I'm almost never the only one. But I'm out of town this weekend (MD) and realizing that I really stand out as the only person wearing a mask ANYWHERE.  @BlackAzizAnansi Human tendencies combined with pressure from above to act like all is well? Not sure that's weird, just disappointing. @BlackAzizAnansi weird/not weird. Kinda reminds me of the stunned feeling after Trump won in 2016. I’m walking around going who ARE you people? It’s sad, it’s sobering, a hard pill to swallow and a good hard slap across the face.  @BlackAzizAnansi it’s so bizarre. if we aren’t actively creating a shared reality through narrative and broadcasting, it… doesn’t exist???   @BlackAzizAnansi The responses are a great way to find new people to block. The people saying “I’ve never had it and I don’t know anyone who’s died of it” remind of the old joke about the guy who fell off the Empire State Building, and as he was falling he was overheard saying, “So far, so good!” #WearTheDamnedMask @BlackAzizAnansi It is SUPER weird, and the whole world is going to suffer for it. @BlackAzizAnansi It's weird, and sad, and infuriating to people like me who have health/age risks... and sadly not surprising. I personally witnessed AIDS being ignored while a whole bunch of my friends and community died of it. And there's the social history of tuberculosis, and numerous other diseases. Classist/bigoted societies have a bad habit of dealing with public health crises by shoving them and their victims under the rug. @BlackAzizAnansi this "Covid three years on" piece might be of interest. I am horrified by the amount of misinformation in the replies to your comment. http://adviceunasked.blogspot.com/2023/03/covid-three-years-on.html @BlackAzizAnansi@mas.to I went to Costco without a mask for the first time in years today. It felt really weird. @BlackAzizAnansi I'm so glad to live in an area where at least 10-15% of people still mask and don't go out as much as they did pre-plague. Makes me feel a lot more at ease about the potential risks to our new baby, who won't be vax eligible until September. A few weeks ago someone got pissed off at me for saying that even if people aren't wearing masks routinely anymore, they should at least still wear them when they feel sick. This apparently was a real asshole thing for me to say because covid has evolved so it isn't contagious anymore, or something. And I was like... even if you were right about that, you also shouldn't spread *cold* viruses? And he only got angrier. I will never understand the pro-biocontamination movement. @BlackAzizAnansi It is especially weird if you work in a hospital but they ended masking. 😱😡😢  |
@BlackAzizAnansi It's not weird in the sense that it's to be expected, but it's weird in the sense of it being profoundly, life-threateningly, willfully ignorant. Which is also, sadly, not at all weird.