I honestly can't believe people still are working at home because their jobs haven't asked them to come back or they are scared. At this point, I have to wonder about the business you work at or your mental state. This is insane.


NPR always talks about Covid and the hosts always ask "when will we get back to somewhat normalcy?"

HUH

Who isn't living their lives with "somewhat normalcy?" If your life is still significantly different today than it was in 2019, you are the issue. Leave the rest of us alone to live our lives.

I work in person, my kids are in school...everything is almost back to normal other than wearing masks. And now that my son is two weeks out from his second shot, we can start actually going to restaurants and museums and the like with both our kids...which is the one remaining pre-COVID activity we hadn't been doing.

My two kids just got their second shots this afternoon.

We're making plans for a pretty damn normal Christmas.

Praise Cheesus!

Lot of moving parts with huge companies. We return to work at the end of January after being WFH since March 2020. We are in a dozen or so countries so trying to coordinate full RTO has to be complicated. My wife's company fully opened back in May 2020. Privately owned by someone who opposes WFH.

Lolla. Did I get a whiff of that there Turkey pizza?

Don't worry, the media and the "health experts" (who don't speak for all, or even most physicians btw) will find a way to spook you back into hiding. Then Pfizer can collect another $100 billion in more products that we don't need

We return to normalcy when we decide to.

COVID is more of a mental illness than anything else at this point.

California
 

We're going backwards here in California. Starting today, a statewide indoor mask mandate goes into action. It will last until at least January 15th. Since June 15th, when California dropped the colored tier covid system, I haven't worn a mask indoors/outside anywhere with the exception of the doctors' office and I haven't been asked to produce proof of vaccination anywhere in San Diego County.

Life was basically back to 2019 normalcy since June and really much earlier here in SDC when they relaxed the indoor capacity limits in the late winter through early spring.

in chicago, a traditional Xmas dinner consists of a hotdog, that's placed inside a gyro, that's placed inside a burrito, that's placed inside a deep dish pizza, that's then drizzled with a malort/old style reduction.

You could always move to Frisco.

https://apnews.com/article/coronavir...241851c79627f9

^That's why NYS worded the new indoor mask order to require masks in all places that do not require proof of vaccination for entry. It seems kinda silly that California didn't do the same.

Or Oroville! It's a sanctuary city for antivaxxers, anti-maskers, and anti-social distancers.
source

Californians are ridiculous.

I needed something from Apple so I went to the store here (in Miami) yesterday. It was closed as apparently are all Apple retail stores worldwide. Don’t they know that there’s no Covid in Florida? No, let’s just impose that Bay Area nonsense on everyone.

But why do you care? You’ve had two (maybe even three) doses of vaccine, right? And you’ve probably had Covid before (if not you’ve been either lucky or too careful).

We need to get past this crap where a Covid case can close an office or a restaurant or cancel an event. It’s like flu now - a mostly not so severe, temporary illness that occasionally kills older people (a large absolute number of them, but not so significant in percentage terms).

Just checked the Apple website. The Brickell Centre store is closed today and tomorrow, but other Miami area stores (Lincoln Road, Dadeland, The Falls) appear to be open. The Aventura store seems to be closed indefinitely for some reason. I did a bit of searching, and Apple does seems to close (and re-open) stores regularly based on some kind of covid criteria.

That's bullshit. I just called the Pasadena store and they're open until 9pm today.

So here's one...

My wife, kids and I are in Sweden until January visiting her family; Wife and I both had covid 2x (once pre vaccine and once post Moderna vaccine) and we received our booster before we left the US.

We were headed to Napoli for a quick weekend trip to see my family, and decided to get tested prior to flying...You guessed it, all 4 of us (Me, Wife, 3yr old, 11 month old) all tested positive. My wife's family who we've been visiting, all positive too. Nobody has any symptoms, I actually have been working out really hard since I've been here and have had great energy.

I've now had Covid 3 (!!!!!) times, same with my wife, and my kids now twice, and not a single symptom.

Fake news.

All Apple stores are currently open in the Bay Area.

I dunno about you but, regardless of whether I might've had it before, I don't actually want to have COVID lol. I especially don't want to catch it right before the holidays...

Is he friends with the virus or something? Yeesh.

All of the Apple stores here in Pittsburgh have been opened for like a year, but they still make you wait in line forever as their stores have stupid limits.

On a sidenote, some businesses never dropped the mask rule here and its ridiculous because whenever Im walking around town, the stores that still make you mask are empty because most people dont want to wear the stupid pointless things. Also, I havent had a mask in my car for almost a year so if they require one, too bad I cant go in. Real great business practice...

lol same people everyday day still having meltdowns over Covid. One thing I will give Covid it has made entertaining reading here but it also made me realize that many are mentally weak or have some sort of mental disorder.

Just because you don't like masks doesn't mean they don't work to limit the spread indoors.
Source please.
Some spectrum stuff no doubt, especially with the "can't see cues!".

^
I am vaccinated, have been since Feb 2021, thats plenty of protection. The virus is so incredibly tiny it goes right through the pointless masks. If youre vaccinated, wearing a mask is pretty damned ridiculous. And if you arent vaccinated than its not my responsibilty to keep those people safe from a not at all deadly virus in the first place.

But I digress, people like you want everyone to wear masks til the end of time, so you can wear one if you want and look like a paranoid weirdo if you want.

case in point

Science and technology have replaced religion for certain swaths of our country and some people are finding themselves particularly "religious".

Neurological complications are common post-COVID. I wouldn't be surprised if some of these folks have long COVID brain fog.

Blaming an isolated Miami Apple store temporary closure on California? Clearly cognitively impaired.

That's not a source. Some masks are better than others, like chemical warfare or HAZMAT ones.

I have to say that first, and remember my area of California does not have mask requirements. Even with Newsom's current mandate, it's not being followed and I can certify that. I still don't have to wear one :haha:

https://sorendreier.com/list-of-30-s...inst-covid-19/

Heres a bunch more links

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/47...ealth-effects/

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/med...n-t/ar-AANfurl

https://www.studyfinds.org/face-mask...covid-indoors/

My guess is that one store probably is temporarily closed due to x-amount of workers testing positive for COVID. Because you know, freedom. :haha:

You got these when you typed in "masks are useless" in the google bar. Not that hard to go to google and type in "masks work".
Still doesn't disprove what I said, especially for HAZMAT and NBC masks. Just be honest and say you don't like them instead of saying they don't work, when some of them actually do. That doesn't mean I have to wear em though! That's the worst part of all...

^
Who the hell is wearing hazmat masks? Nobody. Everyone wears the not at all effective cloth masks. Sure there might be some weirdos wearing hazmat masks but Ive never seen that.

People like you are impossible to please. I show you sources but nope those arent good enough. I guess you only take CNN and MSNBC sources as fact, even though they would never report on how pointless masks are because that wont fit their or your narrative.

It's really not necessary to be equally ridiculous in the opposite direction. I don't think masks are effective enough to be mandated by the government, but they also aren't completely ineffective. My biggest beef with masks is that they've become more of a political tool to look "tough on covid" than a tool that actually effectively mitigates covid. Much like travel bans. Mostly useless.

Well then don't say "masks don't work" when there are ones that do. Expensive masks on Amazon would work better than a piece of cloth. That doesn't mean that I'm paranoid about it though, considering I don't wear em at all. Sanctuary county!

You found some websites that I have never heard of before which fit your narrative, but I still took them. They don't disprove the higher-end masks that work, and yes medical personnel will wear HAZMAT masks. People working with dead COVID bodies wear HAZMAT masks, because those are masks that actually work. People like you won't take CNN and MSNBC sources so that's a conversational tie.
Gimme some Fox News ones and I'll take it.

^
Fox News, CNN etc are all bullshit sources. Again, nobody wears HAZMAT masks, outside of hospitals. The mask mandates are therefor completely and utterly pointless because 99% of people walking around wear the cloth ones. So what exactly are you arguing with me about?

You didn't expect me to say Fox News, so I said it. They are the place that would best suit your narrative for sure, since they absolutely hate COVID measures.
That's not my fault people aren't buying better masks, and there are ones that work better than pieces of cloth (obviously!). Like I have been saying and they don't have to be bulky HAZMAT ones, they can be smaller than that. Those are just the best examples and are irrefutable in their abilities to stop particulates.

At least 50% of the people here wear blue surgical masks (yes I'm aware the filter rating on these vary from ASTM-1 to ASTM-3). I'd say another 10-15% or so wear KN95 or better. But that's Vancouver for you and we take our masks seriously due to the heavy Asian influence.

So no, 99% of people wearing flimsy cloth masks is an exaggeration.

Yeah KN95s are pretty common. Looking around the train I'm on, about a quarter of people are wearing them.

I took a photo of the sign on the door (to send it to people) and it read simply: “Our retail stores are closed until further notice.”

I took that to mean that they have closed their retail stores.

I don’t want to have a cold or the flu either. But I’m not willing to forego normal human interaction in order to reduce the already small chance of that.

I just don’t speak to anyone who is wearing a mask anymore. I tell them I can’t understand what they’re saying and walk away.

Yep. Everyone is going to get it all the time. We probably have flu virus and various rhinoviruses or coronaviruses that cause cold in our system all the time as well, but we don’t have to shell out money for lateral flow or PCR tests for those every time we want to go somewhere.

Yes. People who are still afraid of catching Covid have a mental disorder.

I dunno about you but I've always avoided people who have colds/flu.

Oh the irony.

There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."

Not the ones who don’t have noticeable symptoms. Most of these positive Covid cases don’t either.

Didn’t the UK run out of Covid tests for a few days? Are cases that much higher or did everyone just run out to take a test?

Lol, it beats thanksgiving. Whaddya wash it down with is the next question…

Right, and it may be that people who worry they will miss their Florida vacation are having a mental breakdown. Lol

You are a character out of a funny but not quite finished short story.

Guy at work tested positive today, I was talking to him on Friday. The plague is amongst us all!

Eh... that's been occurring before the plague. Brain fog is common amongst the sheep. That's why they are sheep and often flock to the Shepard which will guide them thru the fog. That Shepard could be the media, could be others, could be some form of guidance or instruction that does not come from them or... or it could just be self-realization that its not the end of the world and there have been much worse things out there.

Of course the Shepard could be bad and poison the sheep. With fear, with lies, with political manipulation.

I air on the side of self realization. Understanding the moment, and also respecting nature. Covid is not to be feared. Because it would be futile to fear it. So long as one gets the vaccine and aims for some sort of improvement in general health, you probally have a better chance of getting into a car wreck and dying that you do with Covid. And also, on a positive note, Covid could be a blessing. Because it made the sheep really miss the little things in life and how quickly they can all be taken away.

The minute we respect nature, if its Covid or Tornados or Climate... the better we will be. We are not above it, we are nature's bitch if she wants us to be.

On a side note, one has to be cognitively impaired to pay 200% more for the same shitty Apple product. Just relax... no need to get the latest thing. It's a phone, the past stuff is just as good, no need to panic. It has a camera, texts, internet, can call folks... that's all you need.

No covid in florida? What? It's getting like 5k cases a day. And its probably more because Florida doesn't really report it's real numbers.