I would have gone with claiming that the lockdowns will resume, since that generates much more fear than the boosters or masks.

Yeah, I just have COVID argument fatigue. One of the primary reasons that this has gone on so long is precisely because of people whipping up personal liberty hysteria about every solution that has been presented to us. Some of the same people who have no problem putting their kids into school mandated uniforms are shitting bricks about the school telling them that their little pumpkins also have to wear a mask, lol. It's ridiculous.

There is no crossing of any bridge. The loonies have taken over the world! :titanic:

^ And I question your ability to question my questioning your sanity :D

you mean 10023?

i don't think he's lived in the windy city since the dubbaya administration.

and he certainly wasn't in chicago for any part of covid, at the very least.

try again.

FTR, i'm not shitting bricks about anything.

all i did was express hope that school masking rules might get relaxed now that the 5-11's can get vaxxed.

that's all i said, quoted below:


no bricks coming outta my butthole.

That's who I meant, and it still counts though!

TUP and jtownman? :haha: Both claimed the city was the worst of all time during COVID.
^both not actually from the City too, I bet.
They will no longer be required to wear masks when they get vaccinated, might take a month or two, but the end is near.

Wearing a uniform is a pretty normal thing, throughout history, for quite a lot of people. One could even argue (and I would) that every lawyer, banker, or other businessperson that puts on a suit and tie in the morning is in uniform.

Wearing a mask over your nose and mouth and trying to interact with other humans without being able to discern facial expressions or really know what they look like is not normal. It’s either meant to hide identity (like, say, ninjas) or de-humanize a person (like women in the Arab world).

Unfortunately if you look around the world there are lots of places that have imposed just about any conceived measure but none of them have managed to eliminate covid as a problem. At best they've created "walled gardens" that are hard to get into or out of, or they still have cases but keep deaths relatively low through a high vaccination rate.

We've had a mask mandate and vaccine passports for months here and there was no discernible impact on infection or death rates. We're also up over 90% of eligible vaccinated yet there's still nothing resembling herd immunity. At various times I've heard that masks, a high vaccination rate, or vaccine mandates will bring us back to "normal", or weird goalpost moving/gaslighting about how the current situation (e.g. requiring PCR testing to travel 50 km around here) is normal.

No, wearing masks are not limited to concealing identity or dehumanization. People have commonly worn masks throughout history to protect their faces against the weather, dress up in costumes, and to mitigate the spread of airborne viruses. We've worn masks to protect against airborne viral spread for as long as we've understood the concept of airborne viruses.

Allergies, smoke, high altitude training, dirt biking, and spare the air days.
At least he is being honest about the fact that he just doesn't like to wear the thing.

Only TUP has young kids in public school. And we already mentioned him. He's one of the few people in this thread in that boat like me. And as I said before, it's merely a coincidence that we both live in Chicagoland.

Jtown doesn't have kids. he lived here in Chicago briefly for school, but I believe he has already moved on, or has at least made his plans to do so. As one of our forum's more ridiculous reactionaries, he never had the mettle to handle a city like Chicago in the first place, not even in the "before times".

Oh the qualifier is they have to have kids? I was just assuming since they hated every step taken by the City previously (which were correct steps), that they would also hate this one. I don't have kids so I will shut down and cancel my discussion of the issue. I will mention that the people who are making the policies for y'all are in the same boat as some of us who don't have kids.
There is new booster science coming, so direct yourselves to the CE.

To be clear, a nomad at the moment. I am in Spain, but coming back to Chicago for Thanksgiving. I'm actually thinking about planting a stake in Chicago and buying a condo, or renting an apartment. Remote work is here to stay, and if I am going to live anywhere, I would prefer Chicago. I thought about Miami for a few months, but short-term rentals down there are just too much for my liking Jan/Feb/Mar.

So, there's one positive impact on Chicago from Covid. It brought you one more person to live in the city you can add to your 2030 census total ;)

Now, my parents grew up in Evanston/NW side and most of my family is there now. Plus, I just freaking love the city. Always have.

If you can work from wherever you want now, why not work from where you want to actually live.

^ oh yeah, now that you mentioned it, I do remember you talking about considering buying a condo here as a "home base" because real estate in Chicago is so inexpensive.






Well, this was my comment that took us down this tangent:

It has been canceled on my end. Not a parent. I accept the rules.
I'm sure my positive message about them not wearing masks in a month or two should get a pass at least? Hopefully it makes parents a bit happier now.

It's not about wanting the booster; the CDC/ FDA (the science) are on the fence about everyone needing the booster shot which is why they haven't authorized widespread use yet. Though as of today, Pfizer asked for emergency authorization for everyone 18 and up. I was eager to get my two Pfizer shots because they were recommended and authorized for everyone 18 and older but until the science gives the all clear for the booster for my age group, I am in no hurry to get one and I am pretty sure the efficacy of my vaccine has dwindled.

For sure! IF that actually pans out.

Like many others here have expressed, I think a giant portion of our society has simply become very fatigued by the never ending string of goal post moves regarding everything covid.

CPS still has mask rules in place for its high schools, despite the fact that all highschool teachers, staff, and students have been able to get vaxxed for many months now, so I remain EXTREMELY skeptical about any timelines involving the elementary schools.

I received my booster jab today (healthcare worker). It feels like someone is drilling into my arm with a power drill. :(

we finally got our 5 and 7 year old kids scheduled for their first jabs over at our local walgreens next week!

Chicago (or at least our neighborhood anyway) is gonna have A LOT of vaxxed kids soon, slots for kids have been filling up within minutes as soon as they open up, which, though frustrating in the moment, is overall a very positive sign.

Perhaps in medical settings. The flu goes around every winter and we don’t wear masks, nor should we.

Also, the first sentence is false. Even places that have had tyrannical, draconian approaches to Covid (eg Australia, China) are still dealing with Covid. Everyone will have to deal with Covid forever. It’s not going anywhere. Enough of the bullshit.

Australia went almost a year with barely any new COVID cases, while having nowhere near the level of disruption to daily routines that has occurred in Europe and the U.S. The reason Australia has a COVID outbreak now is because of them needing to reopen their borders to Europe and the U.S., which have been COVID variant factories for the past year.

That's some serious cognitive dissonance. There's a fine line between preserving civil liberties and containing an outbreak and Australia shit all over it. There's no excuse for what they did and continue to do.

Australians had HUGE disruptions to daily life, starting with not being allowed to leave the country (or at least come back if they left). Their approach was not a winner. Nor could it have been replicated in the US or Europe, but that’s a different matter.

I was speaking with a customer of mine in Australia, and they were basically saying the exact opposite of you. Apparently it got to the point where people would carry empty coffee cups with them and pretend to sip to avoid masking mandates - and the police would check the cups to make sure there was liquid in them. No thanks.

..

Haha - in Milan last summer (2020), people were doing the same by just chainsmoking cigarettes (and the police would check that they were lit).

I gather that iheartthed does not have friends or family in Australia.

It's funny that Americans often look at Australia as a great example of #zerocovid but there are better examples right by the US border.

The Maritimes were ~0 covid for a lot of the pandemic (with isolation requirements but no travel bans), then got vaccinated relatively quickly, and are now open up to travel. Australia botched its vaccination rollout and Melbourne specifically just seems crazy, with a response that appears tuned to a pre-antibiotic Black Death level pathogen. I think suppressing transmission when the vaccine rollout was inevitable then opening up after general availability of vaccines is a pretty good trade-off.

Here in BC our fatality rate is 0.04% of the population after 20 months or so, or about 12 days of life lost per capita due to covid deaths. Looking at it that way, what would people suggest should have been changed to get that 0.04% down to 0.02% or even 0%?

Leaving the country is not a daily routine for most Australians. Australians did not have anywhere near the level of disruption to daily routines that we've had in the U.S. They didn't have a year plus of capacity restrictions, prolonged office closures, school closures/remote learning, etc., that we experienced in many parts of the U.S.

So Italians and Australians can adapt better to a situation than Americans? That's what it sounds like. Can you imagine some American princesses getting their coffee or cigs checked? :haha: that would be a lawsuit.

I think 0.04% is low enough to imply that the province did too much, not too little. All these restrictions have a cost.

You’re a bad troll, and I think I’m just going to add you to my ignore list now. See ya.

:haha:

Took you that long? That bitter weirdo's been on my ignore list for a very long time

I'm right though, Americans aren't as adaptable as Italians or Australians when it comes to COVID rules. What a horrible thing of me to say, meanwhile you can continue to say "let them die" which is not as bad? :haha: I actually gave you props for being honest about "not caring". Terrible!
Ignoring is the forum equivalent of canceling opinions a person can't handle. I can handle yours, but you can't handle mine.

Figures anybody willing to counter your statements gets ignored. It's much easier to just spout off pseudoscience and take jabs at dr ped without repercussions.

I'm getting rather tired of spoiled athletes:

https://www.sfchronicle.com/sports/c...h-16606485.php

IMHO, Mr. Garbers, you're a whiney b*tch and don't deserve sh*t. 44 cases out of 117 "players and staff" means something isn't being done right. You don't like getting tested why? Because you know you or other players are likely to test positive? And you think the people in whose faces you are likely to get on the field and in locker rooms don't deserve to know?

That's your opinion, which can't be right or wrong, you get that, right?

Additionally, i'm not sure if i'd agree with that though I don't know a ton of people in AU and the only people I know in Italy is my extended family, who anecdotally doesn't seem to be adapting any better/worse than Americans. Regardless, i'm not sure adapting to COVID rules is necessarily a positive.

^ The better solution is to stop testing people.

Because it's dumb. All of this is dumb.

Someone else said that over a year ago. I think his name was Donald Trump.

Trump said more Covid-19 testing ‘creates more cases.’ We did the math

Yes, so if people don't like it they can tell me why. Seems simple enough, even if it hurts to see what I typed.

I was basing it on the information you provided, but obviously it was dangerous enough to get myself ignored. Adapting to the COVID rules, or any situation (in general) is a positive and it makes things easier. Look how upset some forumers get when they see somebody wearing a mask. That won't happen to people who have adjusted/adapted to the mask rules. Other thoughts are possible instead of being angry at the mask wearer.
I was right again. Only willing to say stuff to ped while ignoring everybody else who talks back to him.

Information I provided? I gave an anecdotal story about police in Australia checking if pedestrians were carrying empty cups. That sounds completely insane to me.

Americans are volatile and we have guns (lot's of them) so our government isn't going to be able to get away with checking coffee cups the way the Italian and Australian authorities can. They are more pliable and complaint societies...to a fault.

I don't know enough about Australians, but I don't think pliable and compliant describes Italians at all.

Those numbers imply that 42 of the 44 players and staff with Covid are vaccinated. Which means that you are drawing the wrong conclusion from this.

The conclusion that should be drawn is that we’re all going to get Covid all the damn time despite vaccines, but won’t become seriously ill (and will have even less to worry about with new antiviral treatments), and that self-isolation requirements are therefore ridiculous and unworkable.

A weak retort at best just to bring up Trump. So what if he happened to say the same thing? Circumstances are dramatically different now.

We have a working vaccine, boosters, etc. It's time to stop testing healthy people left and right. It's utter nonsense.

Ding ding ding ding ding! Exactly.

People with brains and common sense get this. Senile germaphobes....well, you can hit them over the head with this but there is little chance that you will change their mind......

Over the last two years I have spent significant time (meaning weeks not days) in each of Italy, France and Spain, and can confirm that while the rules were strict in all 3 countries, the Italians did by far the best job of ignoring or flouting them.

Nowhere was remotely as open as Florida, but you really can’t keep the Italians from gathering in the street or lowering their mask to talk to someone. The Spanish were like slaves by comparison, but then I guess half the country remembers living under Franco.

Maybe it is, but they are dealing with it better than Americans would. Or they aren't and only the person that you talked to is handling it.

Maybe too volatile for an emergency situation. Consider if COVID was much more lethal, would everybody get with the program? Would there be such a huge backlash with a 70% survival rate?

You're startin to sound like a rebellious 'Murkin over here..... ;)

^ 20+ years of Texas has rubbed off on me. lol

That's the problem, the 'emergency situation' is being milked for a virus with a relatively high survival rate and despite effective measures and vaccines but society is still expected to 'obey' and be compliant because officials insist on kicking the can and move goal posts rather than surrender the power they surreptitiously assumed over the past year. I could not imagine living in Oceania...err Australia throughout this ordeal.