Covid - a thread (contain @)

[pixy0stix]

I'll start - We have to start talking about what covid analysis is starting to show. We can do so in ways where we all acknowledge that we (on this board) all did what we were told were best practices. What we're going to find is that certain measures just aren't as great as we thought they were at the time.

[lilac05]

Thanks for starting this thread. I’m looking forward to reading the articles and the discussion to follow.

I appreciate the acknowledgment that we all did what we thought was best at the time, given what we knew at the time. I do believe we’re going to find over time that some things weren’t the right things. That doesn’t mean we should have known better or done differently at the time…there was no way to know some of it.

It take a big serving of humble pie to acknowledge that what we once thought was absolutely the best and only way to do something…wasn’t. It’s how we can learn more to do better the next time.

[mpm]

It’s unfortunate that covid has become such a heated topic, and that the controversies of the past few years are still keeping us from taking a more measured approach now. The pendulum needs to be somewhere in the middle, and instead it’s just swung wildly towards both extreme ends.

For example, masks and other covid infection control policies in healthcare facilities. It’s beyond me why the pandemic didn’t teach us that maybe we should have always required masks in hospitals or rapid testing for communicable diseases as a prerequisite for entry to certain high-risk parts of a hospital or nursing home. Keeping @ preemies safe in a NICU or cancer patients safe on an oncology floor shouldn’t be decided by public opinion or vibes.

[tiki]

Can we link key reference data or studies so we all know what the latest analyses are? Admittedly I am out of date on where things stand scientifically.

mpm, I completely agree on healthcare facilities. I had surgery in December and was quite grateful for blanket mask policies (at that time) so nobody sneezed on me in an elevator post-op.

[jeaniebueller]

The right weaponized "mental health" so much during mental health that many people on the left have struggled to recognize that there were actual negative impacts because of masking, school shutdowns or distancing. And I acknowledge that people were operating under the information that they had at that moment. I am very close to people who work in public schools, public health, community mental health and other child welfare or criminal justice systems and things are very, very bad right now for many kids. There are kids in my state who wait for weeks and weeks in emergency rooms to find psychiatric beds. Our medical system is crumbling. They are seeing suicidal and homicidal behaviors in kids to an extent that they never saw before and there are not enough resources--because surprise! The people on the right who acted like they cared about kid's mental health during the pandemic, actually did not and nothing has changed. On top of that, there are education gaps even in districts that went back in person. I'm not trying to fault anyone for making decisions that were aimed at keeping kids and other's safe, but we also now have to deal with what to do next and how to rectify these issues.

www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160478454/the-kids-arent-alright-the-post-pandemic-teen-mental-health-crisis

www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8972920/

www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/headed-back-to-school-a-look-at-the-ongoing-effects-of-covid-19-on-childrens-health-and-well-being/

[fortnightlily]

I think the electorate has shown far more tendency to punish politicians for perceived overreach on Covid rather than for not doing enough. Including left-leaning voters. But I also don't think Covid is going to be a salient issue in the 2024 election.

[goldengirlz]

What’s notable to me is the U.S. mortality rate ended up being so much higher than what I’d consider our “peer” countries, in terms of wealth and healthcare infrastructure. By that measure, we did an abysmal job. And it’s not like Europeans ended up being so much more receptive to long-term covid lockdowns and masking.

But to get to the heart of that issue, I think we need to acknowledge the impact of racism. The communities facing the worst outcomes were disproportionately Black and Latino. We can argue all day about policies, like masking in hospitals, but if we don’t discuss systemic racism, we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle of What Went Wrong.

[tacokick]

Apr 28, 2023 12:24:43 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

What’s notable to me is the U.S. mortality rate ended up being so much higher than what I’d consider our “peer” countries, in terms of wealth and healthcare infrastructure. By that measure, we did an abysmal job. And it’s not like Europeans ended up being so much more receptive to covid lockdowns and masking.

But to get to the heart of that issue, I think we need to acknowledge the impact of racism. The communities facing the worst outcomes were disproportionately Black and Latino. We can argue all day about policies, like masking in hospitals, but if we don’t discuss systemic racism, we’re missing a huge piece of puzzle of What Went Wrong.

To tie it back into the original post—I don’t think Biden is going to focus on Covid at all but there are massive parts of the population who rightly feel like they were left to die and continue to be ignored and uncared for as even the tiny crumbs of help they were given are taken away under his administration.

People going to vote for Biden because there is no other choice but there is a massive amount of resentment and hate for him for how he has handled Covid in these communities that is largely ignored in these discussions.

It’s very telling of how insulated some people are and how little certain populations matter to the country at large when I hear things like “Covid is over, no one is talking about Covid anymore” over and over again. It’s simply not true.


Eventually it may catch up with the Democratic Party that many of the very people they count on to show up and vote for them every time are tired of voting for people who demonstrate that they don’t care if they live or die over and over again but the party doesn’t seem concerned with that now or really ever and keeps on keeping on.

[erbear]

It's been really hard for me to figure out where I stand these days, looking back on what 2020-2021 was like. I still genuinely believe that the policies we put in place were made from a place of trusting science, being compassionate, wanting to do everything we could to keep as many people as possible healthy and safe. I don't at all regret doing what we did and I agree that some public health measures are so common sense that there's no reason for them not to continue, even if they need to be government-mandated. People are still getting sick and dying from Covid, and that should matter in the decision-making.

@@@
And three years in, I am still very much seeing the impact of Covid and all of the closures on kids. The students I have taught in these years are struggling, hard, still. They missed a lot, academically and socially, and I'm not sure they will ever really truly recover. It's striking to me how hard school is for my kids still -- the kids who were 8th graders in 2020 are now 11th graders and more than 5 of them have left school entirely, or have entered rehab facilities or mental health treatment centers. My current 8th graders (5th in 2020) cannot do school. They can't focus. They can't concentrate. They can't read and write at the level they should.

I know I'm rambling. I have been teaching for 24 years and I have never doubted myself so much as over the last 3 years because nothing I know is working.

[mpm]

Apr 28, 2023 11:51:29 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

The right weaponized "mental health" so much during mental health that many people on the left have struggled to recognize that there were actual negative impacts because of masking, school shutdowns or distancing. And I acknowledge that people were operating under the information that they had at that moment. I am very close to people who work in public schools, public health, community mental health and other child welfare or criminal justice systems and things are very, very bad right now for many kids. There are kids in my state who wait for weeks and weeks in emergency rooms to find psychiatric beds. Our medical system is crumbling. They are seeing suicidal and homicidal behaviors in kids to an extent that they never saw before and there are not enough resources--because surprise! The people on the right who acted like they cared about kid's mental health during the pandemic, actually did not and nothing has changed. On top of that, there are education gaps even in districts that went back in person. I'm not trying to fault anyone for making decisions that were aimed at keeping kids and other's safe, but we also now have to deal with what to do next and how to rectify these issues.

www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160478454/the-kids-arent-alright-the-post-pandemic-teen-mental-health-crisis

www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8972920/

www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/headed-back-to-school-a-look-at-the-ongoing-effects-of-covid-19-on-childrens-health-and-well-being/

But also this:

www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2022/12/28/teen-suicides-fell-during-lockdown-rose-when-in-person-schooling-resumed-study-finds/?sh=694fbb4964d7

And this:

amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/08/covid-orphans-us

We were (are) in a pandemic of global proportions, something none of us have ever experienced before. Anyone alive and paying attention between 2020-present probably needs therapy as a result of what they’ve been through. The conversation needs to not just focus on the effects of being out of school but on the effects of living with *all this.* It’s all trauma. And I’m not sure it’s healthy to just pretend it never happened, which seems to be the current US policy response.

[mpm]

Apr 28, 2023 13:17:09 GMT -5 erbear said:

@@@
And three years in, I am still very much seeing the impact of Covid and all of the closures on kids. The students I have taught in these years are struggling, hard, still. They missed a lot, academically and socially, and I'm not sure they will ever really truly recover. It's striking to me how hard school is for my kids still -- the kids who were 8th graders in 2020 are now 11th graders and more than 5 of them have left school entirely, or have entered rehab facilities or mental health treatment centers. My current 8th graders (5th in 2020) cannot do school. They can't focus. They can't concentrate. They can't read and write at the level they should.

I know I'm rambling. I have been teaching for 24 years and I have never doubted myself so much as over the last 3 years because nothing I know is working.

It sucks that kids missed out on so much the last few years. But it also sucks that schools have dug their heels in so far about the pandemic being over and moved 100% back to “normal”, leaving no room for accommodations for families who need or want them.

In-person school doesn’t *have* to include all-school indoor assemblies, or field trips with no option but to eat in crowded indoor public venues. Kids should be able to go to in-person school without having to navigate all that extra stuff that can easily turn into a superspreader and without feeling ostracized if their families decide these aren’t activities they’re comfortable with. There needs to be a middle ground where we can make reasonable accommodations for families that have a lower risk appetite.

[wanderingback]

Apr 28, 2023 12:24:43 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

What’s notable to me is the U.S. mortality rate ended up being so much higher than what I’d consider our “peer” countries, in terms of wealth and healthcare infrastructure. By that measure, we did an abysmal job. And it’s not like Europeans ended up being so much more receptive to long-term covid lockdowns and masking.

But to get to the heart of that issue, I think we need to acknowledge the impact of racism. The communities facing the worst outcomes were disproportionately Black and Latino. We can argue all day about policies, like masking in hospitals, but if we don’t discuss systemic racism, we’re missing a huge piece of the puzzle of What Went Wrong.

Exactly.
The reason people have moved on is because it wasn’t a bunch of rich white people dying by the thousands. And by moved on I mean not prioritizing stronger public health systems (healthcare, workers conditions, food security, etc etc). Covid put a magnifying glass on what’s fucked up in this country, but in the end it doesn’t matter because we’re now back to business as usual (recognizing that things are even worse for many people).

[jeaniebueller]

Apr 28, 2023 13:20:29 GMT -5 mpm said:

Apr 28, 2023 11:51:29 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

The right weaponized "mental health" so much during mental health that many people on the left have struggled to recognize that there were actual negative impacts because of masking, school shutdowns or distancing. And I acknowledge that people were operating under the information that they had at that moment. I am very close to people who work in public schools, public health, community mental health and other child welfare or criminal justice systems and things are very, very bad right now for many kids. There are kids in my state who wait for weeks and weeks in emergency rooms to find psychiatric beds. Our medical system is crumbling. They are seeing suicidal and homicidal behaviors in kids to an extent that they never saw before and there are not enough resources--because surprise! The people on the right who acted like they cared about kid's mental health during the pandemic, actually did not and nothing has changed. On top of that, there are education gaps even in districts that went back in person. I'm not trying to fault anyone for making decisions that were aimed at keeping kids and other's safe, but we also now have to deal with what to do next and how to rectify these issues.

www.npr.org/2023/03/01/1160478454/the-kids-arent-alright-the-post-pandemic-teen-mental-health-crisis

www.who.int/news/item/02-03-2022-covid-19-pandemic-triggers-25-increase-in-prevalence-of-anxiety-and-depression-worldwide

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8972920/

www.kff.org/coronavirus-covid-19/issue-brief/headed-back-to-school-a-look-at-the-ongoing-effects-of-covid-19-on-childrens-health-and-well-being/

But also this:

www.forbes.com/sites/nickmorrison/2022/12/28/teen-suicides-fell-during-lockdown-rose-when-in-person-schooling-resumed-study-finds/?sh=694fbb4964d7

And this:

amp.theguardian.com/world/2023/apr/08/covid-orphans-us

We were (are) in a pandemic of global proportions, something none of us have ever experienced before. Anyone alive and paying attention between 2020-present probably needs therapy as a result of what they’ve been through. The conversation needs to not just focus on the effects of being out of school but on the effects of living with *all this.* It’s all trauma. And I’m not sure it’s healthy to just pretend it never happened, which seems to be the current US policy response.

This is such a nuanced discussion. The first study says is that the pattern of decreased suicides that normally occurs during the summer months started in March 2020, as opposed to waiting until the summer months, and that once kids returned to in school classes, the patterned of increased suicide began. Correlation between suicide and in person school, which has always been documented.  The study did not examine the long term effects on students that were out of the classroom for over a year, or outside factors. So I'm not sure how useful of a study it is overall as we look at long term patterns for kids coming out of the pandemic.

>We document three key findings. First, using data from the National Vital Statistics System from 1990-2019, we document the historical association between teen suicides and the school calendar. We show that suicides among 12-to-18-year-olds are highest during months of the school year and lowest during summer months (June through August) and also establish that areas with schools starting in early August experience increases in teen suicides in August, while areas with schools starting in September don’t see youth suicides rise until September. Second, we show that this seasonal pattern dramatically changed in 2020. Teen suicides plummeted in March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in the U.S. and remained low throughout the summer before rising in Fall 2020 when many K-12 schools returned to in-person instruction."

[jeaniebueller]

Apr 28, 2023 13:17:09 GMT -5 erbear said:

It's been really hard for me to figure out where I stand these days, looking back on what 2020-2021 was like. I still genuinely believe that the policies we put in place were made from a place of trusting science, being compassionate, wanting to do everything we could to keep as many people as possible healthy and safe. I don't at all regret doing what we did and I agree that some public health measures are so common sense that there's no reason for them not to continue, even if they need to be government-mandated. People are still getting sick and dying from Covid, and that should matter in the decision-making.

@@@
And three years in, I am still very much seeing the impact of Covid and all of the closures on kids. The students I have taught in these years are struggling, hard, still. They missed a lot, academically and socially, and I'm not sure they will ever really truly recover. It's striking to me how hard school is for my kids still -- the kids who were 8th graders in 2020 are now 11th graders and more than 5 of them have left school entirely, or have entered rehab facilities or mental health treatment centers. My current 8th graders (5th in 2020) cannot do school. They can't focus. They can't concentrate. They can't read and write at the level they should.

I know I'm rambling. I have been teaching for 24 years and I have never doubted myself so much as over the last 3 years because nothing I know is working.

Truly, I'm extremely concerned for our kid's generation right now. 

[mpm]

Apr 28, 2023 14:30:56 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

Apr 28, 2023 13:20:29 GMT -5 mpm said:

This is such a nuanced discussion. The first study says is that the pattern of decreased suicides that normally occurs during the summer months started in March 2020, as opposed to waiting until the summer months, and that once kids returned to in school classes, the patterned of increased suicide began. Correlation between suicide and in person school, which has always been documented.  The study did not examine the long term effects on students that were out of the classroom for over a year, or outside factors. So I'm not sure how useful of a study it is overall as we look at long term patterns for kids coming out of the pandemic.[

I’ve also seen the first cited in conversations regarding the stress and anxiety from the risk of being shot at school. It’s definitely a nuanced conversation, and there are a lot of factors to consider.

I think there’s also a general desire to “blame covid closures” for everything that’s wrong with (chronically underfunded) schools because it’s a convenient scapegoat. Lots of schools in my state reopened in fall 2020 and they still blame covid for low test scores that were low nationally well before the pandemic started. I’m not saying that there wasn’t an effect on learning from the pandemic, but blaming everything on pandemic choices is also preventing us from having important discussions about education that we should have been having since before the pandemic.

[VillainV]

I’m constantly shocked by all the germy disgusting things we used to do without thinking about it. Like kids blowing out birthday candles on a cake that their friends would eat. Or shaking hands. Or not wearing masks or staying home when we felt ill.

[erbear]

Apr 28, 2023 13:54:49 GMT -5 mpm said:

Apr 28, 2023 13:17:09 GMT -5 erbear said:

@@@
And three years in, I am still very much seeing the impact of Covid and all of the closures on kids. The students I have taught in these years are struggling, hard, still. They missed a lot, academically and socially, and I'm not sure they will ever really truly recover. It's striking to me how hard school is for my kids still -- the kids who were 8th graders in 2020 are now 11th graders and more than 5 of them have left school entirely, or have entered rehab facilities or mental health treatment centers. My current 8th graders (5th in 2020) cannot do school. They can't focus. They can't concentrate. They can't read and write at the level they should.

I know I'm rambling. I have been teaching for 24 years and I have never doubted myself so much as over the last 3 years because nothing I know is working.

It sucks that kids missed out on so much the last few years. But it also sucks that schools have dug their heels in so far about the pandemic being over and moved 100% back to “normal”, leaving no room for accommodations for families who need or want them.

In-person school doesn’t *have* to include all-school indoor assemblies, or field trips with no option but to eat in crowded indoor public venues. Kids should be able to go to in-person school without having to navigate all that extra stuff that can easily turn into a superspreader and without feeling ostracized if their families decide these aren’t activities they’re comfortable with. There needs to be a middle ground where we can make reasonable accommodations for families that have a lower risk appetite.

My school is doing these things. The 2020-22 school year was insane (school was open but some kids were remote — we taught hybrid. It was really hard). Since then, things have “normal” but everything is accommodated (lots of people mask at indoor crowd events, we’re still offering remote conferences and meetings, etc). I’m not saying we shouldn’t have done the things we did and continue to make accommodations. I’m saying I’m seeing the effects of this, hard, still, and it’s part of the story.

[mpm]

Apr 28, 2023 15:12:27 GMT -5 VillainV said:

I’m constantly shocked by all the germy disgusting things we used to do without thinking about it. Like kids blowing out birthday candles on a cake that their friends would eat. Or shaking hands. Or not wearing masks or staying home when we felt ill.

All these things are still happening. We’ve learned nothing.

[lilac05]

mpm, I agree with you about school funding. That’s a critical piece of the discussion.

In our state, schools had to offer in-person education Fall 2020. However, teachers were not allowed to give out ANY instructional materials whatsoever or provide ANY education after March, when they left for Spring Break before the world shut down. So our kids completely lost an entire quarter of school. Then, when they went back, teachers had to somehow fit 25% of the previous year’s instruction PLUS account for “summer slide” that was 6+ months long, plus all of that year’s curriculum with students who had just lived through a highly traumatic storm that impacted our entire city on top of a pandemic. (Schools started late Fall 2020 because we had a storm go through and had too many buildings with damage.) There are some kids who weathered it decently academically, but any teacher in our district would tell you that there are significant lasting impacts on kids…and as far as public schools in Iowa go, we are reasonably “well-funded.” (Which is not at all *actually* well-funded, but certainly compared to many other districts, we’re doing well.)

[bronxgirl]

Apr 28, 2023 15:22:06 GMT -5 mpm said:

Apr 28, 2023 15:12:27 GMT -5 VillainV said:

I’m constantly shocked by all the germy disgusting things we used to do without thinking about it. Like kids blowing out birthday candles on a cake that their friends would eat. Or shaking hands. Or not wearing masks or staying home when we felt ill.

All these things are still happening. We’ve learned nothing.

I really thought the blowing out the candles on a cake would be over. I guess not.  Eww

[erbear]

Apr 28, 2023 15:10:51 GMT -5 mpm said:

Apr 28, 2023 14:30:56 GMT -5 jeaniebueller said:

This is such a nuanced discussion. The first study says is that the pattern of decreased suicides that normally occurs during the summer months started in March 2020, as opposed to waiting until the summer months, and that once kids returned to in school classes, the patterned of increased suicide began. Correlation between suicide and in person school, which has always been documented.  The study did not examine the long term effects on students that were out of the classroom for over a year, or outside factors. So I'm not sure how useful of a study it is overall as we look at long term patterns for kids coming out of the pandemic.[

I’ve also seen the first cited in conversations regarding the stress and anxiety from the risk of being shot at school. It’s definitely a nuanced conversation, and there are a lot of factors to consider.

I think there’s also a general desire to “blame covid closures” for everything that’s wrong with (chronically underfunded) schools because it’s a convenient scapegoat. Lots of schools in my state reopened in fall 2020 and they still blame covid for low test scores that were low nationally well before the pandemic started. I’m not saying that there wasn’t an effect on learning from the pandemic, but blaming everything on pandemic choices is also preventing us from having important discussions about education that we should have been having since before the pandemic.

With all due respect, those of us in education have, in fact, been having that conversation for years. And there’s no question that kids were adversely impacted by school closures and Covid as a whole. Again, I am not saying that schools should have reopened with they did — if you have been posting in here since 2020, you will recall that I was one of the fiercest voices against reopening when we did. But there is no question that the last three years have been caused irreparable damage to school kids and Covid (including anxiety, isolation and death, not just school shitshow) is the driving factor.

[mpm]

Apr 28, 2023 17:00:59 GMT -5 bronxgirl said:

Apr 28, 2023 15:22:06 GMT -5 mpm said:

All these things are still happening. We’ve learned nothing.

I really thought the blowing out the candles on a cake would be over. I guess not.  Eww

My kid’s preschool just did an activity where they learned about wind by blowing with straws into each other’s faces.

I was given assurances that they’d deleted this from their curriculum when I complained about it when my oldest was this age, in April 2021. 😒

[mpm]

Apr 28, 2023 17:13:43 GMT -5 erbear said:

Apr 28, 2023 15:10:51 GMT -5 mpm said:

I’ve also seen the first cited in conversations regarding the stress and anxiety from the risk of being shot at school. It’s definitely a nuanced conversation, and there are a lot of factors to consider.

I think there’s also a general desire to “blame covid closures” for everything that’s wrong with (chronically underfunded) schools because it’s a convenient scapegoat. Lots of schools in my state reopened in fall 2020 and they still blame covid for low test scores that were low nationally well before the pandemic started. I’m not saying that there wasn’t an effect on learning from the pandemic, but blaming everything on pandemic choices is also preventing us from having important discussions about education that we should have been having since before the pandemic.

With all due respect, those of us in education have, in fact, been having that conversation for years. And there’s no question that kids were adversely impacted by school closures and Covid as a whole. Again, I am not saying that schools should have reopened with they did — if you have been posting in here since 2020, you will recall that I was one of the fiercest voices against reopening when we did. But there is no question that the last three years have been caused irreparable damage to school kids and Covid (including anxiety, isolation and death, not just school shitshow) is the driving factor.

I don’t disagree. My only issue is when discussing this is couched in a “we shouldn’t have done anything and should have gone straight to mass infection (because school closures were so bad)” argument. Maybe none on this board are in that camp, but I encounter it IRL regularly. I lost a friend to covid. A friend with kids about the age of my own who won’t get to live to see their kids grow up. Some learning delay is still preferable to more of that.

[penguingrrl]

Apr 28, 2023 17:13:43 GMT -5 erbear said:

Apr 28, 2023 15:10:51 GMT -5 mpm said:

I’ve also seen the first cited in conversations regarding the stress and anxiety from the risk of being shot at school. It’s definitely a nuanced conversation, and there are a lot of factors to consider.

I think there’s also a general desire to “blame covid closures” for everything that’s wrong with (chronically underfunded) schools because it’s a convenient scapegoat. Lots of schools in my state reopened in fall 2020 and they still blame covid for low test scores that were low nationally well before the pandemic started. I’m not saying that there wasn’t an effect on learning from the pandemic, but blaming everything on pandemic choices is also preventing us from having important discussions about education that we should have been having since before the pandemic.

With all due respect, those of us in education have, in fact, been having that conversation for years. And there’s no question that kids were adversely impacted by school closures and Covid as a whole. Again, I am not saying that schools should have reopened with they did — if you have been posting in here since 2020, you will recall that I was one of the fiercest voices against reopening when we did. But there is no question that the last three years have been caused irreparable damage to school kids and Covid (including anxiety, isolation and death, not just school shitshow) is the driving factor.

there was no right answer. Leaving many kids at home was disastrous, which I don’t deny, but so was forcing folks back into the buildings before it was safe. Our district pushing us to send our kids before it was safe led to my middle developing extreme agoraphobia to the point that my 13 year old hasn’t entered a school building for more than 2 hours since the 3rd successive exposure she had in January of 2021 upon again bending to our school’s pressure to send her in. She has now missed 3 years of school.

[nothingcontroversial]

I suspect that a family member is using Covid precautions as an excuse to cover up domestic abuse.

Short story: The husband, "George" and the wife "Betty" are actually extended members of my husband's family. I met them when I married into the family 15 years ago, and by that point they had already been married for about 20 years. They don't have any children.

"George" had a history of being controlling long before Covid happened. For instance, several years before Covid, "George" was out of town on a business trip and "Betty" was invited to a family dinner that was about 5 miles away from their house. George forbade Betty from attending the family dinner because - this was his reason - their household would then have two autos on the road at the same time, and that could increase the chances of someone in their household having a car accident. That was his actual reason. We were told not to try to tell Betty that this was controlling behavior, because this would upset their household dynamic.

Fast forward to Covid. Even after everyone, including George and Betty, got vaccinated, George and Betty stopped visiting people. They even completely cut out masked outside visits, even now in 2023. We were told that this was because George is immunocompromised, and it would be very serious for him if he got Covid. Well, except that they didn't completely cut out visiting people - see below:

George is now retired, and Betty works from home.  George does all of the grocery shopping. (He does "real" grocery shopping. Not curbside pickup.)  Also, he visits my father-in-law by himself sometimes. He goes inside my father-in-law's house.  The big problem that I have with this is that Betty apparently can't visit anyone ever, not even outside, but George voluntarily goes by himself to visit my father-in-law. It's none of my business that they want to still take Covid precautions. However, we have all been told that George's health is the reason that they take Covid precautions. However, George still visits my father-in-law. Yet, he forbids Betty from visiting anyone at all. 

Betty "fell down the stairs" about two months ago. She was injured badly enough that she had to go to urgent care. We found out about this about a week after it happened. We weren't permitted to see Betty in person to see how she was doing because, again, "George is immunocompromised and it would be dangerous for him to get Covid."

After this happened, my husband asked them if we could expect to see them (outside, masked) for Easter. The answer was no. Also, they were very upset that we asked. 

Maybe Betty actually did fall down the stairs because she was "being clumsy," like we were told. Maybe we are getting concerned about something that's none of our business, just like my husband was told when he asked questions last month. Still, I'm wondering how common it is to use Covid to cover up abuse. 

[mpm]

Trying to move on from schools since it’s so much bigger then that:

“An estimated 1 in 10 infections results in post COVID19 condition, suggesting that hundreds of millions of people will need longer-term care."
-DrTedros, WHO

And here’s a source for this outside of Twitter:
uk.news.yahoo.com/arcturus-covid-variant-warns-who-102626400.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC0wK59JZaEx8-3xLQeYazwc53mL71rul8qUAC-WPl6aU-NIG_N6fQeX0KFvRvq_BH9rqdh1z6sUvDki35wUHOK4gv0GLnkNtnZt6jr6tyVHWGpfk0-2BMLHdOsM4WaPS2vXWllHq-cPNAZ1_COPkzzYuLLz5mexYnKQYlkqUgJU

That says 10% of infections lead to long-term complications, not 10% of the population. If we do nothing to curb spread, eventually that means everyone. This is why people are feeling abandoned by the US government’s “meh” attitude on covid.

[konapoppy]

Is this what inspired this thread - the study talking about mask interventions? I’m still a little confused.

abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/masks-effective-study-respected-group-misinterpreted/story?id=97846561

[goldengirlz]

Apr 29, 2023 10:11:22 GMT -5 konapoppy said:

Is this what inspired this thread - the study talking about mask interventions? I’m still a little confused.

abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/masks-effective-study-respected-group-misinterpreted/story?id=97846561

I think it was started because the Biden campaign thread became a referendum on how he’s been handling covid — which then became a debate over whether he should have/could have been doing more in the first place. So that whole discussion is moving over here.

[NewOrleans]

Apr 29, 2023 6:01:09 GMT -5 mpm said:

Trying to move on from schools since it’s so much bigger then that:


“An estimated 1 in 10 infections results in post COVID19 condition, suggesting that hundreds of millions of people will need longer-term care."
-DrTedros, WHO

And here’s a source for this outside of Twitter:
uk.news.yahoo.com/arcturus-covid-variant-warns-who-102626400.html?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAC0wK59JZaEx8-3xLQeYazwc53mL71rul8qUAC-WPl6aU-NIG_N6fQeX0KFvRvq_BH9rqdh1z6sUvDki35wUHOK4gv0GLnkNtnZt6jr6tyVHWGpfk0-2BMLHdOsM4WaPS2vXWllHq-cPNAZ1_COPkzzYuLLz5mexYnKQYlkqUgJU

That says 10% of infections lead to long-term complications, not 10% of the population. If we do nothing to curb spread, eventually that means everyone. This is why people are feeling abandoned by the US government’s “meh” attitude on covid.

I wanted to post this for days, but there was no media coverage at all to even link.  People do. not. care. The media doesn’t care. 

Thank you for your consistent empathy.

[NewOrleans]

Apr 29, 2023 12:13:18 GMT -5 goldengirlz said:

Apr 29, 2023 10:11:22 GMT -5 konapoppy said:

Is this what inspired this thread - the study talking about mask interventions? I’m still a little confused.

abcnews.go.com/amp/Health/masks-effective-study-respected-group-misinterpreted/story?id=97846561

I think it was started because the Biden campaign thread became a referendum on how he’s been handling covid — which then became a debate over whether he should have/could have been doing more in the first place. So that whole discussion is moving over here.

I actually viewed it as a series of statements that he should not have done the little he did and that America should not have done its scraps of mitigation.  I don’t know how anyone could remember those pictures of medical staff collapsing under their work loads, the mobile morgues, how Doctors Without Borders had to come to Navajo Nation, and still think our national mitigation attempt was extraneous.

The CDC was scaling back quarantine as Omicron was (again) overwhelming the country.  That’s when I knew we had fully committed through policy to mass infection, mass disabling, and banishing at-risk people from participating in society.

Soon we will have no treatments again. We’ve already lost the antibody treatment. 



COVID will evolve to evade popular antiviral treatment Paxlovid, a critical line of defense for the unvaccinated and those at risk of severe disease and death from the virus—of this, Deborah Birx is certain.

“I’ve been really upset that the federal government has not prioritized next-generation vaccines that are more durable, next-generation monoclonals, and long-acting monoclonals,” Birx told Fortune in an interview at the magazine’s Brainstorm Health conference, held earlier this week in Marina del Rey, Calif.

Omicron is mutating to bypass the initial arsenal of weapons developed for use against it. Already, its changes have rendered every universal monoclonal antibody treatment—administered to people at high risk of hospitalization and death—useless. Eventually, it will take down Paxlovid, too, Birx says.

“Right now, we’re just accepting that 270,000 Americans died last year,” she said. “Two-hundred and seventy thousand. We’re going to easily lose over 100,000 this year. That, to me, is not success.”

fortune.com/well/2023/04/29/covid-antiviral-paxlovid-evade-deborah-birx-double-deaths/