1652

I haven’t been to the office since Feb of 2020, which isn’t surprising since I was classified as a remote worker before the pandemic started. My employer is getting over their COVID nervousness though, and next week they scheduled some “all hands” in-person activities at HQ. They actually moved offices since I last went, so I don’t even know where HQ is except in a general sense. But luckily for me, I had next week down as vacation in the calendar for months, so it’s going to be “all hands” except me.

I have some fairly right-wing colleagues that I don’t trust to be fully vaccinated so I’m pretty happy I’m going to miss the in-person events.

1653

Well FFS. On Friday a cabinet minister said that it had been decided that our lockdown was going to be extended until the end of July.

On Sunday another cabinet minister contradicted and said “we’ll let everyone know in the next few days”.

It’s now 10.30pm on Monday & lockdown is currently due to finish tomorrow …could you let us know guys do you think?

But as my wife says, 'This is Indonesia honey…it’s something common here".

I guess I’ll get used to it eventually.

1654

I’ve been mentally not, “in it,” with work since about 1/2 through COVID. It’s hard. My employer is still in a hybrid mode for back-to-work but they’ve paid an extensive amount for offices the last 5 years, the writing is on the wall for someone to push for a back to work for everyone, no date set yet though.

But even work from home has been a strange issue for me just due to my mental mindset over all of this. It’s gotten better, but the increase in drinking and malaise of having nothing to do took a hard toll. We’re just now planning for outings and getaways, etc. The strangest part was getting married during COVID with a small amount of people there. I feel like my relationship with my wife is +10 during COVID but my relationship with ANYONE else, friends/coworkers/family is -100. I try not to think about it much but it’s a nagging feeling that it certainly changed me and my wife in a big way.

The nagging dread is still there, like some pessimism that popped up in my life due to COVID and it’s currently pinging me with thoughts of, “what if this half-way-there COVID solution is permanent?” What if yearly vaccinations are needed? What if there will always be anti-vax people and this shit never goes away? How does the world move on?

1655

In the year 2024, with its citizens fed up with never being able to properly leave the house due to anti masker anti vaxxers, the government instituted a first of its kind “vaccinate or evacuate” program. Every citizen was given a choice, either vaccinate themselves or evacuate the country. If the citizen refused to do either, the government placed them on a cruise ship or airplane to their destination of choice, and then evacuated them at sea or at 35000 feet. One year later, the partying started. One man was sent back in time to 2021 to spread an important message and prepare the United States for the future.

https://youtu.be/eBShN8qT4lk

1656

This is kind of reminiscent of Golgafrincham Ark Fleet Ship B.

The Golgafrinchan Ark Fleet Ship B was a way of removing the basically useless citizens from the planet of Golgafrincham. A variety of stories were formed about the doom of the planet, such as blowing up, crashing into the sun or being eaten by a mutant star goat. The ship was filled with all the middlemen of Golgafrincham, such as the telephone sanitisers, account executives, hairdressers, tired TV producers, insurance salesmen, personnel officers, security guards, public relations executives, and management consultants.

Ark Fleet ships A and C were supposed to carry the people who ruled, thought, or actually did useful work.

The ship was programmed to crash onto its designated planet, Earth. The captain remembers that he was told a good reason for this, but had forgotten it, although the reason was later revealed to be because the Ark Ship B Golgafrinchans were a ‘bunch of useless idiots’.

1657

Someone was in our office last Monday talking with my boss for over an hour. I was in the opposite side of a very large room, nowhere near. We were all maskless, all got the vaccine back in March. That gentleman got really sick on Friday and got tested, and he tested positive. I tried getting tested on Saturday but couldn’t find an appointment. I guess cases are really surging again in this area.

I got an appointment in a few minutes though in the CVS drive-thru. Hopefully will get a negative test in a couple of days. Fingers crossed. I haven’t felt any symptoms.

1658

Yep. Not much concern for your health, but delta can be communicable even when asymptomatic on vaccinated people so best to stay home until you find out.

1659

We’ve found it helpful to buy a few Abbott home antigen tests. That lets us schedule the more reliable 48-hour PCR result, but also get a quick positive (if there is one, hasn’t happened yet) within 30 minutes of hearing someone near us had it. They’re two for $25 at Walgreens/CVS, possibly cheaper elsewhere.

1660

I recently found out there are real-time PCR tests being offered around here, you get the results emailed to you in 2 hours after the test. Expensive, but useful in a pinch (need to travel, need to go into a tricky meeting).

1661

Employer is back to requiring mask for all employees working on-site or in-store - doesn’t affect me since I’ve moved to fully remote but glad to see them taking precautions.

This weekend we held a small outdoor memorial. Found out when I was putting the masks away (no one took one) that my uncle was unvaccinated, thinking he was fine because he’d already had COVID. Wanted to beat him with the table I was putting away. I’m not worried for myself however there were a good number of older and immunocompromised people present. Hoping that they all got their shots.

1662

My 75 year old, fully vaccinated Mother has the delta variant (symptomatic, flu-like). She was here (southern california) visiting (from missisippi) for a whole month until Wednesday last week which means she probably had it while she was here. I have a wife and 2 kids, all fully vaxxed except for the 11 year old. My wife and kids left on Thursday to Iowa to visit her un-vaxxed parents. School starts in 2 weeks. FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

1663

I would be most concerned about your in-laws, to be honest. Your wife and kids should immediately leave the grandparents’ house and get tested, not returning until they come back clean.

1664

Strange that I posted this 15 days ago and within that time many employers have started requiring vaccinations. I like this new turn. I’m hoping this continues.

1665

Coronavirus will never go away, we lost that chance a year ago. It’ll continue to spread every year and just become another variant of the common cold. Some people will die every year, but most will do fine.

1666

Yeah, “Just the flu, brah” is kind of our goal, now.

1667

Yea, I expect the annual flu shot in the fall will contain something aimed at Covid.

1668

I doubt that very much. Don’t want to discourage wackos freaking out over the covid “bioweapon” from getting vaccinated from the flu.

1669

My test came back negative. Yay!

It’s interesting hearing about all the various people I interact with at various gas stations testing positive over the last couple of weeks. These are all people who avoided getting it in 2020 despite being front facing workers working at convenience stores. But then the city dropped masked mandates after the CDC said unvaccinated people no longer needed to wear masks, and everything changed at that point.

1670

We have a family beach trip coming with young children that are not Vaxxed so the adults and older kids have all finally confirmed vaccination, and most of us have arranged for a COVID test to be sure about a week prior to the trip. It’s the best we can do. The two small kiddies both have asthma, but all we can do is take precautions as we can. I’m hoping before that time (first of September) the green light for kids under 12 will also be given for the vaccine.

Strange but true, we’re actually following the guidelines of the CDC by testing before travel. I’m imagining everyone else there will probably NOT all be following those guidelines.

1671

Delta is maybe 3x as infectious as the older strains. OG COVID was R0 of maybe 2-3, delta could be up to 6-8. End result is if you aren’t vaccinated, you’re basically gonna get COVID.