Japan is planning to open up more. More tourists will be allowed, they'll still need to sign up with some tour group (for tracking purposes) but won't need to actually do any specific tour. Japan has been high on my list to visit.

China is still doing lockdowns with their zero Covid policies. Still require quarantines etc. I had thought they were going to give it up after the Olympics but obviously not. I've also read possibility to proclaiming a win and giving up zero Covid policy after Xi is re-elected for third term, but who knows. I would like to visit China again also.

I think we are all in the "new normal" other than a few countries.

Looks like Omicron-specific boosters should be available in the next week or two.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/08/31/healt...zed/index.html

SI

Another one. Right on schedule.

I assume salaried employees are still paid. The hourly workers are getting hurt.

So my symptoms are vertigo and tiredness.

The vertigo really sucks, leads to nausea.

I called my doctor to call in a prescription. Nope, cant do that, have to have a phone appt. so I can pay her $25 for me to say I have covid and vertigo and then she will write a script. I hate our health care system.

My FIL has been pretty ill. Wife is going to a niece's wedding in same city, they'll do a live stream for the FIL.

Told the wife to make sure she does a Covid test before going to see her dad.

Interesting stat but think it's premature. Can't blame young adults continuing to parents right now ... sure we are pretty much over Covid (for now) but we have a (looming) recession that is worse than anything since 2008-2009.

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3,000 US covid deaths last week, just a fun fact for the "it's over" crowd

Any idea how many of those were vaccinated vs not?

I can tell you that one of them was a pilot from my company. It was complications from long covid that got him. Still covid, even though it wasn't a recent infection.

Getting my O-specific booster tomorrow (along with a flu shot)
Mrs. A getting hers on Thursday

I'll be interested to see flu shot numbers this year.

I suspect that the anti-vaxxers have made enough headway that less people will get flu shots than in pre-pandemic years. Hope I'm wrong.

Are those 2 separate shots?

Let's us know if you start experiencing any zombie side effects.

They are 2 separate shots. I'm going through Walgreens, and the online signup said "Hey, while you are here . . ." and that made a lot of sense to me, so I'm knocking them both out.

I'm getting my 2nd shingles vaccine on Friday afternoon. The first shot took me down for about 36-48 hours so I decided to get it on Friday to completely ruin my weekend so that I'm good for work on Monday. I figure I'll save the flu shot for another day.

I got shingles over the pandemic. It’s not a good time and I had a mild case. Do you still have to be 50 to get the vaccine?

I don't know if there's an age restriction but I'm over 50 so it was recommended.

Yeah, my first shingles shot really kicked my ass.

I've heard the 2nd one is worse.

The wife and I signed up for the updated booster since they started offering them today. We got an appt with Rite Aid on Friday.

Yeah, that's what the head doc at my wife's work said. Can't fuckin wait.

Those shots sucked.

"some idea" I guess:

United States: COVID-19 weekly death rate by vaccination status - Our World in Data

something like a 6:1 differential to scale

I continue to be sad for many families in this country and elsewhere still losing loved ones irrespective of what persuasive loudmouth they chose to listen to, as well as the many people who are immuno-compromised, disabled, or otherwise not a good fit for the societal consensus to "move on" ... and again confess that I don't really have a prescription for what we should be doing right now.

Something I don't understand:

I see some people wearing masks in areas where they are not required (most areas now, of course). And they are wearing them below their nose, which we all know by now is useless.

So why? I get wearing a mask. I get not wearing a mask. And I understood people wearing them incorrectly when they had to wear them but didn't want to.

But I just can't understand the mindset that goes through the trouble of wearing a non-required mask and then does it wrong.

I see the same thing, and while it's been going on since masks were mandatory, I can't help but think dumb shit like this, which essentially mocks the proper use of masks (note the below the nose picture says "yes" as if that's the correct way to wear it), is at least partly to blame.

Starting today, masks will be optional in some places where they had previously been required, including on mass transit. pic.twitter.com/5zTT4uRB6h

— Governor Kathy Hochul (@GovKathyHochul) September 7, 2022

I've seen grocery stockers at my local Krogers do that, and once in a while, older white males at Costco.

I still see a fair number of Asians at Kroger & Walmart wearing masks properly.

I don't see it anymore but at one time I saw drivers wearing masks in cars that had no one else. I thought that was really weird.

I've seen that quite a bit recently, actually. The car thing. I rarely see masks much, but I've noticed them hanging off of driver's faces, or under their chin, more than a few times in the past week. I can only assume they are medical workers, or came from a job or appointment where they needed to wear one, and instead of taking it off, they pulled it down reflexively.

I thought about Uber/Lyft drivers, and that probably makes sense in a lot of cities, but not around here. Maybe one of those I saw, but it wouldn't account for all of them.

FWIW, I have had both, and neither one affected me badly at all. So it could be one of those sometimes it's bad, sometimes it's nothing type of things.

I have done that because I will forget I even have the mask on. If you wear one for a long period of time, you just get used to it.

Wife will be getting the updated booster tomorrow for her trip. She wouldn't be getting one right now other than because of her dad is so ill.

So this is her 4th vaccination/booster, 5th shot in 1.5 years.

I'll be honest, not too worried because she is more fit & healthy than me, and she's hasn't had any negative side effects. But 5 shots in 1.5 years seems a lot to me. Is there precedence?

Interesting article about COVID "super-dodgers." I'm sure I've had it, maybe multiple times, but never had symptoms and only tested a couple times shortly after being exposed, each time negative. Who knows.

So you haven't yet caught COVID. Does that make you a superdodger? : Goats and Soda : NPR

Also, my 2nd shingles shot was no problem at all. Perhaps getting 3 vaccines at once back in June wasn't such a great idea... :D

Out of our family of four, only one of us has ever tested positive.

Every time I've gotten any COVID-like symptoms, I've at-home tested, and it has been negative.

I may have had it, but if so it was so mild that I either never got symptoms enough to test or never had enough virus that a test came back positive.

Me also. Of the 4 of us, only my daughter. But I don't think I have magical genes. The first year, everyone was indoors. In the second and current, I've gotten the 3/4 shots which reduced my chance of getting infected.

But yeah, if there were these true super-dodgers, it would be great to prick-and-prod them and figure it out.

The stuff about HIV research is amazing.

None of the 5 people in my house have gotten Covid, but we've all been pretty careful. Heck, my 17-year-old still wears a mask to school every day.

We have 4 in our household. None of us has ever had it. We were pretty careful until vaccines came out but have been largely 'life as before' lately. We have no common genetics in our house. Our 2 kids are adopted so we have 4 unique sets of genes.

As I've mentioned on here I'm 99% positive I got it before testing was available but no on in our house has ever tested positive. That's despite my son playing baseball year round and me working every day at a hospital. My coworker that I share an office with tested positive twice which I had to quarantine for.

My wife had the exact same symptoms a couple weeks ago a day before I did (very sore throat and general aches/pains) but cleared up after a day and never tested positive.

She's not immunocompromised, so I'm guessing that explains the difference in our test results and experience but still - it's clear there are a huge range of experiences and outcomes with this thing, and we still don't really have a great handle on it. It's kinda amazing with the number of people walking around who either have no idea or just think it's a mild cold that it's not a bigger restriction on our day to day life to be honest.

Meanwhile, my FIL has had covid 3 times.

(That increase in the 50s is Maos reign of terror and that comparatively tiny but noticeable one in the 60s was a flu pandemic)

Joe said it.

I agree.

https://www.cnn.com/2022/09/18/polit...tes/index.html

I don't quite understand this declaration.

Like the people who are never voting for him thought it was over a long time ago or never even existed. However, when we get our inevitable winter surge, they'll be bringing this back up like a "Mission Accomplished" banner.

The ones who voted for him aren't looking to the White House as to when the pandemic is over.

So is there some sort of mythical voter than can be woo'd for November that's low information but will listen to the President as for cues as to how things are going?

SI

I think it's important to keep trying to separate politics from health, even if it's not possible.

People are still dying, yet we've been on a trough for about six months now. One question is whether a new variant will emerge and inevitably produce a new spike this winter, like its distant cousin, the flu. Do the initial vaccines still provide protection? Will the yearly vaccination be changed and offer protection? Even on the lowest points of the trough, this still kills about 1 in every 2,000 people per year. The worst of the spikes amounted to about 1 in every 200. And people over 60 overwhelmingly are affected.

What that means is that this is still potentially deadly and seniors are still vulnerable. Plus, they're now going around without masks and returning to "normal" life.

I don't know what this means for me. I doubt I've had it. I am vaccinated and boosted, but the third shot was late last year. For my wife and I, it could be that a new strain this winter could be just as serious a threat as all of this ever was. I worry about her parents, who are 80 and returning to "normal" life (mine were two-pack-a-day smokers and unfortunately no longer with us a long time ago).

What's clear is that COVID didn't just kill the most vulnerable and stop. It's still killing, and many of the most vulnerable just haven't had it. It was important not to overreact at the height of this, and take reasonable precautions. We probably shouldn't underreact today.

There's hasn't been any alarm bells on a new mutation (not that I've heard of yet). So I think the bet is not a significant spike in deaths (but maybe infections) before mid-terms at least.

Biden is proclaiming this now because it'll be used for mid-terms in the next 1.5 months. If he's proven wrong, it'll probably be after elections anyway. He's covered by saying "it's over but we still have a problem and we'll continue working on it".

BF7. No info yet about severity but appears to be more transmissable than BA5 and is beginning to make its way to the US.

Just in time for fall, there's a brand new COVID variant making headway in the U.S. | Fortune

Right or wrong, until BF7 (or something else) is causing significant # of hospitalizations and deaths for vaccinated folks, I'm not going to worry that much about it.

Me neither. But there's always something mutating out there.

https://twitter.com/lauramiers/statu...ZjrUOwfAvhnBzA

Just alarmist stuff, I guess.

I think at this point there's just too much pandemic fatigue. To the point that the majority of Americans probably feel it's either get your vaccine or take the risk without thinking about the nuance surrounding those that are immuno-compromised.

IMO if they tried to move forward with masks, ect again there'd be a lot more pushback and ignoring the safety measures than we saw in the past, even by those that have previously followed them.