Coronavirus Pandemic

[TFO]

Rumour is the masks will stop to be mandatory as of this weekend, an the media is pushing hard for that (in the short intervals when they are not showing the Ukraine). I am planning to keep wearing them in enclosed spaces.

Eminently sensible
Like the UK when we stopped mandatory masks, you will see a national spike in cases again

[Dio]

Correlation does not imply causation.

[Rhythm]

Special shout out to the fella chatting to a staff member at Asda - he'd spotted my mask and was having a jibe at my expense, talking about the chances of dying from Covid being so low.

He then bought a lottery ticket and 3 scratchers

[Little stoned kiwi]

When I go through drive-throughs and the like, staff thank me for wearing a mask. I find that really sad as I wear it because it makes sense to.

[PFVA]

In answer to our media pressure our government just announced we may expect the masks to stay for a week or two counting from this coming Thursday because first they want to make sure there isn't a big surge in cases due to Easter.

The biggest fuss, actually the only one, seems to come from schools Teachers say they cannot proper teach with masks on. I'm no expert of that. They are specially saying that foreign languages cannot be taught wearing a mask. Taking from the fact that most young people speak Hollywood English I'm not so sure it's in school they learn it but...

[merman]

When I go through drive-throughs and the like, staff thank me for wearing a mask. I find that really sad as I wear it because it makes sense to.

I have seen several similar posts on Twitter this week, paraphrased as:

We still take our shoes off at airport security because of one guy 21 years ago.
But wearing a bit of cloth for five minutes in a shop is “too hard” or “infringes your liberty”.

[Cloudane]

Day 3 another drop to zero energy from around mid afternoon and LFT brighter and bolder than I've ever seen one!

That's me not going on a weekend beer festival trip tomorrow. Which my friend very kindly arranged and paid for for my 40th so I'm really grateful and really miffed that I "can't" go. (Thankfully he has a backup so trip won't go to waste)

Still, the amount of peer pressure I'm getting around "it's legal now mate, don't let a red line stop you"... no I'm not ready for that. Yes I may be vocally "we have to get on with life" myself sometimes, but I mean in a broader sense - if you KNOW you have covid then continue to stay at home imo. Putting yourself out of action for a week because you're sick is much less of a "YOLO impact" than spending years in and out of lockdowns on the offchance of being asymptomatic. Even if it doesn't hospitalise many, and seemingly has a much lower risk of long haul in the post vaccination era [more data needed] it's still bloody unpleasant and not something I want to walk into a beer hall and knowingly condemn dozens of people to.

[Little stoned kiwi]

Good for you. There's a lot who don't have that level of integrity and concern for others.

Happy birthday.

[Cloudane]

Thank you kindly.

At least I managed to be okay on the day itself!

Thought I'd picked it up at the pub on that day actually as one of my friends who turned up also since tested positive starting with a very faint line a few days after but must be a coincidence as no other regulars we're in contact with have reported back saying they have it and they're definitely the cautious types (insofar as any of us attending venues like pubs). My mum was with us and was also negative, though has now inevitably caught it from us (I tried, stayed holed in my room door shut window open... if viral load severity is a thing maybe helped that way)

Seems day 4's new feature is "throat like razor blades". Fun!

So far the symptoms aren't too bad they're your typical "I feel drained and like shit and I want to moan about it for sympathy" manflu kinda thing, it's just that the unknown is scary. What will it do next, what if any long term damage will happen, who knows...
At least in England if not all the UK we're all in the same boat as basically everyone has it or has had it before. It's just that the boat since around 2016 or so has been named "Titanic"

[Vargol]

I haven't had it officially yet despite living in he UK (there were two possible times I had it, once before testing was available and once when the nearest testing centre
with available slots was a couple of hundred miles away, all cold's, flus or bad allergic rhinitis attacks otherwise have tested negative).

The down side is, I'm having to dance around it, not going the Record Store Day Gigs at Rough Trade on Saturday cos I want to be fairly sure I'm not ill
for the Nick Mason gig (originally booked pre-covid) next Thursday and a birthday party the day after. RSD is basically a hundred or so people
in a small room on a rotating basis, its got covid party written all over it :-)

[PFVA]

It seems our government succumbed to the media pressure and declared masks no longer mandatory in enclosed public spaces, with exception of transportation, hospitals, health centers, nursing homes.

However the new resolution will only be in place when it's published. And they say they don't know when that will take place, it may take several days maybe till May 2nd. Now generally they publish those things in 24h, or 2 days. I don't know why this one is taking so long. Well, I understand, today the Assembly was busy because Zelensky was addressing them, tomorrow is Friday, Monday is a holiday, then the work week has only 4 days, things can move slower. It will take about 10 days which comes to what they had said they wanted to do to be on the safe side because of Easter.

Cloudane, I hope you get better soon.

[PFVA]

The masks soap opera continues. The President rushed the thing and as of today is no longer mandatory. But the President himself was just now on the news wearing one to talk to the media.

This morning in cafés and other places most people were still wearing them. Employees of cafés decided to continue to wear them for the time being. I'm keeping mine indoors too for at least a month to see how the numbers progress.

[PFVA]

Human beings.

I just came back from the pastelaria. It's packed. People sitting on top of each other. One can barely move in there. The large majority not wearing a mask. At least they had the doors open for air circulation. I went in, bought the (excellent) bread, got an espresso to go and left all without removing my mask.

Maybe I'm being negative but I don't think it's such a good idea.

Yesterday was Liberty Day, the anniversary of the 74 revolution that toppled the right wing dictatorship, and at the Assembly most of our leaders were not wearing masks. However the PM, and Health minister were, and some of us think that if the health minister is still wearing hers in closed crowded environments maybe we should too.

[Cloudane]

All well over the symptoms in the household (we've all had worse colds, to be honest, but the worry of "what comes next?" wasn't fun) and my line finally fucked off today after 11 days.

Glad to have had it in a way, gets it over with, shows that in its current form it's something the family can survive no problem, and some good immunity for a while. It's quite liberating to be able to draw a line under it.

[merman]

Saw an interesting thread from a US scientist on Twitter the other day, he argued that the way governments have handled this means the pandemic is over - the virus is now endemic, and we will all have to get used to catching it two/three times a year with a huge knock-on effect for healthcare.

China is now facing another wave, thanks to variants brought in to the country.