Literally if you're breathing in anything and notice ANY smell, you're technically taking in outside particles (even if you don't smell it but for sure if you do). So if you can still smell someone's perfume or BO through the mask then the mask aint workin at all.

I am kind of paranoid now that i am going to Australia April 1st and have to take a covid test. I wish vaccinated people didn't have to test. I am not afraid of getting sick but i am afraid of testing positive and having it ruin my vacation.

The only impact Covid continues to have here is staff absences, which are still creating problems in hospitality and travel in particular.

As of April 1st you no longer have to self-isolate after a positive test. But obviously people want the days off, and employers are hesitant to say “if you feel fine, get your ass to work”, so people in hourly jobs (not professionals) are taking their week off and hanging out.

Yeah, this is subtle, not often talked about impacts of governmental actions. This isn't sustainable. I have not been on a plane since Covid started and I certainly will not be booking an overseas trip until all the insanity is stopped 100%. I am not that wealthy and my off-time is precious, a canceled trip would be devastating.

Overall, NYC is making progress, but is nowhere near pre-pandemic economic activity, based on my own following experiences.

- Chinese restaurants in Flushing and Chinatown used to regularly stay open until 1-2 AM. Nowadays, you would get lucky to find more than a handful who stay open that late. Most close by 9-11 pm, even on weekends.
- Subways still aren't anywhere near as full as they used to be during the weekday rush. Before, you wouldn't be able to even squeeze into the Q train on the UES sometimes.
- After my basketball coaching on Saturdays in Kew Garden Hills, I drive to the UES around 6-7 PM to drop off some moving stuff & pick up my parents to eat and go back to Fresh Meadows. Nowadays, that trip takes me about 30 minutes. Before the pandemic, I dreaded driving into the city during that hour. Due to the hordes of cars & cabs bringing people into the city to have fun on Saturday night, it used to take around 1 hour. It would probably be slightly faster nowadays if the Queensboro Bridge wasn't undergoing upper level construction (which has knocked out 1 out of 2 lanes going into the city).

The U.S. seems like it may avoid a second wave entirely? Cases are increasing somewhat in parts of the Northeast (New England, New York, and New Jersey) but this is being essentially canceled out by drops elsewhere, and even the case rise isn't that rapid (maybe doubling every month from a low base).

It seems like in Europe the BA.2 "wave" was over in like three weeks anyway, with cases falling again. I still don't understand how Western Europe has sustained such elevated COVID numbers for so goddamned long though. It can't all be due to testing.

Hasn’t the US already had a second and third “wave”?

The only reason it has come in so-called waves is that countries kept reimposing restrictions. Otherwise everyone would have just gotten it.

But then, you can and will get this repeatedly. Like 5 million people in the UK had Covid last week according to the testing data. Nobody cares.

I had a positive test in December (which was probably omicron), but got another test the next day so that I could fly. I’ve probably had whatever this new variant is too by now, but wouldn’t know because I don’t test.

Of Omicron? Nope. The case decline seems to have bottomed out, or slowed a lot. We're down to 27,000 cases a day, which isn't that different from the 30,000 or so two weeks ago.

Yeah, I don't think a variant as infectious as Omicron even will protect against further waves for longer than say six months max, since antibodies from prior infections do wane.

2021 DOB Report. Not as high as previous years but 2021 wasn't to bad overall. Still lagging compared to before covid.

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Last night I was in the Theater District, just north of Times Square, and it looked like 2019 -- absolutely packed. The last time I was in the Theater District was on a Friday night early last summer, and it was almost a ghost town then.

I have no frame of reference for pre-pandemic, but from my experiences last week (vacation trip), Times Square was packed, even at 9pm on a rainy Wednesday night.

Houston: What is this 'Covid' you speak of...

Haha

My wife is from Texas and last year around this time her mother went on a weekend trip with friends to DC and somewhere in Maryland (I think). She kept getting messages like “They say the bar in our hotel is closed! And so many restaurants we wanted to try are closed! What’s going on!”

She was like uhh, mom, there’s been a pandemic, maybe you’ve heard about it on the news…

San Diego County has faired well throughout the pandemic compared to the rest of California.

– New cases per 100k in the past week: 63 (2,096 new cases, -13% change from previous week)
– Cumulative cases per 100k: 24,078 (803,799 total cases)
— 4.6% more cases per 100k residents than California
– Cumulative deaths per 100k: 155 (5,178 total deaths)
— 30.5% less deaths per 100k residents than California
– Population that is fully vaccinated: 77.2% (2,577,749 fully vaccinated)

Omicron is covid so that was the confusion we have had 4 major waves, omicron BA1 being the last one.

Europe and UK have had 2 omicron waves and still in The midst of BA2, but it is peaked and now waning.

We have recently in certain areas of the northeast had small increases presumably BA2 which we did not see a high second wave as Europe did. That’s still a question as sewage testing has shown increased levels of virus detection, which in the past was a strong indicator.

I was in Seattle for a few weeks for work and just got back.

I noticed that even now most of the chain businesses in newer areas such as South Lake Union are still takeout only, delivery only, etc and probably intend to be forever. Or closed for good. Similarly, that whole area is an utter wasteland of see-thru glass buildings and empty offices. It's all very very fancy and nice, if only because the security probably chases the bums away. I know with such sparkly new utopian developments that the sunk cost fallacy is really strong, but honestly this area needs to reboot. Tear out the streetcar, all it does is make bikes crash. If those office buildings can't be repurposed as apartments, the clock is ticking before imploding them and putting up apartments/condos makes more sense. Urban redevelopment is allowed to fail after all, things younger than that went up and came down in the 50s and 60s.

In contrast, where my hotel was in Lower Queen Anne was 100% alive. All the local businesses were open. Had to stand on the RapidRide D line and routes 10 and 13 that I rode occasionally. That whole area, including Seattle Center and Belltown, is so fascinating. Mostly residential, not a lot of stuff except little food places tucked away in the corner, but I could see why that would be a desirable area to live. Likewise up the hill, I almost killed myself climbing that grade and made it to the top around Kerry Park and also ventured around where the TV tower is, the secret stairways midblock covered in moss, etc. I love the midcentury modern 6-8 story apartment buildings so much and wonder why they can't build shit like that anymore.

Also the Downtown tourism core around Pikes Place Market and the waterfront was thriving, and the vicinity of the Westlake station area seemed to be coming back. I did some shopping there and ate in the plaza and it was nice. Mariners had a home game, also they were having some kind of anime convention so there were a bunch of cat girls and dudes dressed as mario walking around.

But a few blocks inland at 3rd and Pine it was a shitshow. Whoever owns that old Kress building with the vacant TJ Maxx, Qdoba, etc that's all borded up and allowing homeless people to camp there needs to be tarred and feathered and run out of town on a rail like the 1800s (who am I kidding, it's probably some douche in Miami). That McDonald's with the sidewalk walk-up window and everything else boarded up covered in graffiti looks like some shit from 1980s New York City. The fact this is apparently the central bus transfer point made my use of transit very stressful and is probably impacting ridership. I waited for my bus at dusk surrounded by crazies(some dude reaching into his pants and yelling at the sky to go fuck itself) once and decided next time to just walk all the way through Belltown. Which is pretty nice.

Definitely seems like a story of out-of-town landlords and chains maliciously complying with what they must have viewed as "nanny liberal covid rules" back in 2021 deciding they'd rather put their own places out of business while locals all took it in stride and have more or less gotten things back to how they used to be. Once you get off the beaten track everything seems to be fine.

Well i have been in Australia since April 1st and masks arent required anywhere. Probably about 10% of people wear them. I was supposed to go home on April 23rd but have caught covid a few days before so I am stuck here for now.

I'm in Florida and you would never know there was a Covid. And damn, it was nice not having to wear a mask on the plane.

^ Pretty much what needs to be standard everywhere. But idiots prevail....

Is there any Western country that is still living under Covid restrictions? Beyond maybe masking in specific circumstances? I haven't seen anything out of Australia in awhile, but I figured if life is completely back to normal in Ontario then everyone else must be as well.