Here in Houston, I don't think I've had to wear a mask for anything outside a doctor's office since April.

i thought the houston schools do? or did? :shrug:

HOUSTON, Texas (KTRK) -- When students return to Houston ISD campuses on Aug. 23, they'll be required to wear a mask after the district's board of trustees voted Thursday to approve a mandate. ... All staff, students & visitors will have to wear masks on all @HISD schools, buses and facilities.Aug 13, 2021

bingo!

I was under the impression that masks and such were made illegal?
As soon as all the old people got vaccinated here the masking rules were ripped from the windows of most businesses. Most businesses didn't close for the lockdown either, since everybody was able to get an "essential" waiver. It helps that outdoor dining was already a thing.....

Aren't most people still masking in stores like HEB or Costco? Here in Austin at least half (usually more depending on what part of town) are wearing masks while shopping in these venues. People often are seen masking when standing in line to order food and elsewhere. On the other hand, bars and restaurants are full of mask-less patrons. It is kind of a strange dichotomy. I mask at the super market mainly because I am old and think the extra ounce of precaution might be worth the bother.

I live in a different school district but there was a huge fight between them and the state; the districts wanted the ability to mandate masks while state said no. It's been debated in courts ever since and not sure where things stand now but I think Texas is losing that battle though.

Tons of people still wear them but it's largely optional at this point even if it's technically 'required' you wear them if you're unvaccinated but who is going to check. About half the people at my local HEB wear them and I live in a highly conservative area...Dan Crenshaw territory.

The pandemic is gonna be over and they will still be fighting in the courts about it? :haha:

Today, for the first time since the pandemics, there were ZERO deaths registered in São Paulo state (45 million inh.).

81% of the state population got at least one dose of the vaccine and there were 153,000 deaths since March 2020.

18 days in a row with zero COVID deaths in New Orleans. https://twitter.com/Crimealytics/sta...71399523684354

We are going to see the Tootsie musical Wednesday evening at the Saenger, and I can't wait. We will need to show our vax card along with our ticket, but that isn't a huge inconvenience.

Concerning when mask mandates were in effect in Louisiana. They initially took effect in June 2020 and remained in effect until May 2021. The mandate was reinstated in early August during the Delta wave and ended on Oct. 29th. There has never been a vaccine mandate to enter businesses in the state. That only applies to businesses (other than essential services like grocery stores, pharmacies, and medical offices) with in the confines of the City of New Orleans. Given the low infection rates, lack of deaths, and dearth of hospitalizations (only 34 hospitalized in the entire metro area) I would venture to guess that herd immunity has been reached.

Son is scheduled for his first shot this Sunday at his pediatrician, with the second shot on December 5th. My wife has been an uber-cautious person regarding COVID, so I'm going to be glad with all of us vaccinated she'll consent to us dining indoors and taking the kids to museums again and the like.

I have set a personal deadline that I'll stop (voluntarily) masking up indoors when local cases decline below 10 per 100,000 again. However, COVID shows no signs of burning out locally. Cases haven't really spiked here, but they've been vacillating between 30 and 40 per 100,000 for basically two months now, which surprises me, because I thought it would be burned out by this point. It does look like it's burning through a different population though - the early wave was in black neighborhoods, but now it's in white suburbia primarily.

^ Perhaps it is dawning on you that COVID will never "burn out"

Did Influenza and the Common Cold, with us for centuries, "burn out"?

How many shots and boosters are people going to take before they wake up from this mental illness?

A mask is not a huge inconvenience, other than sometimes fogging up my glasses. I keep it in my back pocket, and wear it when I duck into a store. I take it off if I'm eating or drinking. That's all.

Plus my workplace still (at the moment) has mandatory masking rules, and I work in person, so it's nice to stick to the habit.

Now that it's getting colder, sometimes I wear my mask while biking just because it keeps my face warmer.

^ My 12 year old vaccinated son is definitely sick of masking. From the mindset of kids, I can understand how they see the hypocrisy:

1. "A few months ago they said you don't need a mask if you are vaccinated"
2. "Now that I'm vaccinated, why do I still have to do this?"
3. "Why is it that I have to wear a mask at school but when we go out to dinner we don't have to wear them? Why is it when we stayed at the hotel in Chicago back in August half the people in the lobby were wearing masks and the other half weren't, and nobody really cared?"

When adults behave like nimrod buttheads, kids get confused.

Adults are behaving like nimrod buttheads. Masks are mostly about personal preference and mass paranoia. Kids can see through it.

Same.

^ I now have a beard. It serves that purpose well

My kids (8 and 12) don't really complain about masking at all. My son has a bad habit of chewing on his mask though, which means we have to wash them quite frequently.

Why not just wear a balaclava?

mine are 5 and 7 and masks really don't seem to phase them anymore either, and they still have to wear them all day at school (but i pray that will soon be coming to end now that the 5-11's can get vaxxed).

maybe it's because they're younger and they've had to do it for so long that it has just become a "whatever" issue for them, kinda like putting socks on your feet. they don't seem to even really think about it.

lol, its nov 2021, save the mask whine for the cheese. no they aren't. don't assume. we dont all live in the same place or density levels of the population. also history shows us that plagues tend to come back with a vengeance, so most prefer to remain on guard at least somewhat a while longer.

you can already see everywhere what a big difference vaxxing and protecting ourselves has done this winter vs last winter.

what's new is now the kids are getting vaxxed left and right. let'em. and maybe a few more stragglers along the way. then it will be over soon enough.

covid has fallen below 1k new cases a day in nyc, after 2k at the start of the fall. so its going well, just as one would expect. restaurants and businesses here already don't bother much after an initial vax confirmation. if it stays below 1k a day or less then transit and schools masking will officially drop off soon too. that puts covid effectively over around here. we are getting very close! :tup:

I had a beard... but that was in 2009-2010. :P
https://live.staticflickr.com/65535/...a32691af_n.jpg
Photo by my partner

__________________________________________________________


As of yesterday, LA restaurants now require proof of vaccination if you wanna eat indoors. Yesterday evening, my partner and I had to show our vax cards for the first time to eat out (though we've already shown them to go to a wine bar some weeks ago).

And we've scheduled our COVID booster shots for this Sunday---it's already been 6 months since our 2nd Moderna shots.

I fail to see why school masking should change if, as expected, only 25% or so of kids are vaccinated. Data from the UK is making it clear the infected unvaccinated can infect the vaccinated. Current vaccines are sadly proving more effective at protecting against severe disease than against infection and severe disease was never the issue with kids. The issue is that they serve as a reservoir or infection and transmission to vulnerable adults—their parents and others.

^ i'm just not capable of concerning myself with any of that anymore.

my wife and i are vaxxed.

all 4 grandparents are vaxxed.

we'll soon be getting our little ones vaxxed.


that's it, I'm done! the rest of the world can proceed to fuck off now.

this is as good as it's gonna get.

life is risk.

^^Have they all gotten boosters within 6 months? Waning effectiveness in that time period even for the vaccinated is another issue.

The West may lose the battle against covid just like we keep losing real wars: Impatience, unwillingness to persevere.

We are weak.

yep.




what's left to "win"?

covid ain't going away.

just call it "influenza 2.0".

this is our new world.

right effing now.

no winning or losing.

just reality.

What are the arbitrary milestones of "winning" against Covid at this point? It's pretty clear by now that a large portion of the population is not going to change their views, and achieving herd immunity without a significant amount of hurt is a pipe dream. Hurt mainly borne by unvaccinated assholes, but also some smaller part borne by us vaccinated as we accept the costs of living in a society with selfish people who have the same freedoms and liberties as everyone else.

so very true.

some people just plainly suck at life.

as it was in the beginning, as it will be in the end.

Non-expert opinion: a highly effective and widely administered vaccine, a highly effective and widely available therapeutic, or the virus naturally phases out. Globally.

There was an economic report released recently which effectively concluded that the global economy won't return to pre-pandemic normals until humans have become good at managing the virus on a global scale. No matter what anyone's opinion is about government overreaction and overreaching, it seems likely that governments are probably never going to be in alignment about global policy until one of those three criteria has been met.

I agree. Vaccines are available, they're not mandatory and some radicalized people won't take them.

Sorry if that might look insensitive, but at this point I don't care at all if a person decides not taking vaccine and suffers the consequences of that decision.

^ Or, to once again summarize your stance:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-cYNhmqmtF...0/paranoid.jpg

i care. somewhat because they continuing the spread and much more so because they are jacking up insurance rates for no reason. we all pay for that stupidity. :hell:

Is anyone here actually concerned about getting SICK from covid or are people here like me, and more concerned with the major pain in the ass getting covid causes, from kids home from school, quarantine, and all the other bull shit.

My 3 year old had covid, and his health was actually like the 3rd biggest concern, after all the inconvenience, and shockingly he felt fine every day he was home from school (24 total days).

I've had covid twice (fully vaccinated) and I felt fine the entire time, didn't even miss a day of working out/exercise. Just sitting around waiting to get "sick".

Ok, but what can we do about it? My opinion on those people couldn't be any lower, but they cannot be forced.

The US moving-average death rate is ranging from staggering 1,000-2,000 since the end of mass vaccination. Death excess in the country is getting close to 1 million. Now, 95% of those people are the ones that chose not to be vaccinated due ideological radicalism. We, as society, lose, but they'll lose more.

i dont care about them anymore other than the rest of us lose because they are tapping my wallet for their stupidity. and yes they can be forced. and we can do a lot. and are in fact doing a lot. the nyc mayor forced city employees to get vaxxed and what do you know? they did. for another example, as an employer i would mandate being vaxxed or lose your effing job. get out of my buildings. why does ownership and the rest of the employees have to pay for someone's obstinate stupidity during a plague? also, there are horrendous staffing issues continuing because of this nonsense. the bottom line is the time is over for compassion, so yeah i am just talking about money here. :hell:

:yes:

People who don't have kids (unfortunately a lot of the posters here, yet they still demand forcing upon us their opinion on kids and COVID) don't understand this. Most of us parents aren't all that worried about our kids' health when they get COVID, most of us are concerned about our community/school's OVERREACTION to it, and all of the hell it's going to cause in our lives as we are forced to figure out child care and make work arrangements should our child need to do a worthless 10 day quarantine for an illness that is statistically not worse than most other respiratory illnesses for children.

By the way, welcome back!

no, i am not really worried about my kids getting sick from covid.

statistically speaking, putting them in a car or letting them swim at a pool is an order of magnitude more dangerous for my kids than stupid covid is, and i definitely still put my children in cars and let them swim at pools from time to time.

it's all the other bullshit regarding kids and covid - the nonstop testing for every little sniffle or sneeze, the ever-present threat of a 2-week quarantine should they get exposed, the utter nightmare of an entire school BUILDING* or district BUILDINGS* shutting down and going back to remote "learning" for god only knows how long - that is worrisome/pain in the ass.


(*) extra emphasis on "BUILDING" for those afflicted with VSIS.





EDIT:

yeah, basically what TUP said.

Not everybody believes that getting their back cracked will fix infectious diseases, Russell.

once the kids are more fully vaxxed, as is happening rapidily it seems, it all goes away enough to drop the various school safety precautions.
:tup:

^Yeah it got approved and I know California is beginning to roll it out. This seems more like a metro Chicago issue than anything, or at least they are the loudest about it.

i had a ride across the city on the subway to work today and literally heard two sets of parents taking their kids for the vax right then. that was very heartening. the kids want the vaxx and after this large group is protected it will hopefully be enough vaxxed to not have to worry about the nitwit no-vax group that has been dragging this country down. :cheers:

i think it's more just the coincidence that TUP and I are the exception around here in that we both currently have 5-11 year old kids enrolled in public schools.

i know eschaton does too. how many other of the regular posters in this thread are in that same boat?

Investing, twister, and I'm sure there's more. Remember that list we came up with? All of them are gonna hate it too, and some might not have kids. Maybe they were all right about Chicago being the no fun/worst COVID experience. I still don't think it's actually that bad and that they were just overblowing it.

No offense intended, because I'm sure your heart is in the right place, but--My ass.....

People like you will come up with new bullshit even after that happens.

"Now all the kids are vaccinated but....gee there are still 'cases' of COVID so we better just be safe and keep those precautions until they get their booster"

Then, after the booster:

"Gee, I heard some guy in Louisiana caught COVID and died, so we better keep the precautions in place until they get the second booster against the Epsilon variant B that just emerged out of X corner of the world"

Classic goal post migration, classic shifting of standards and policy-making by the petrified minority of society

Investing in Chicago lives in suburban Minneapolis (yeah, I know, his username is confusing)

Twister neither has kids nor does he live in Chicago (nor anywhere for that matter, he's a modern nomad).

They all make it seem like it, so not my fault! 10028 also :D

What happened to "we're all in this together?" We're already talking about a move from a pandemic into an endemic phase of COVID here in the U.S. where it's mostly under control other than some occasional hot spots. Those occasional hot spots don't provide enough spread and load for the virus to mutate into more deadly forms. Everything (most of us) have done has been worth it or else we could have seen something close to 7 million deaths in the U.S. Both of my parents died of it last summer and both my sister and brother-in-law got very sick but pulled through, so I really don't take kindly to conversations about the risks and mitigation efforts being overblown.
https://www.axios.com/gottlieb-pande...0b892e6d2.html

^Many of them are more concerned about the mask being uncomfortable than their fellow Americans getting incredibly sick or dying. You can see it in their responses for a large portion of the pandemic, and my area got hammered the hardest in California (as a percentage). The worst happened, where medical facilities were so packed that patients were turned back or sent to other counties. Thankfully the bay area had a low percentage of cases during Delta so my county could send overflow there.

I question your authority to criticize my stance. I think you are just ignorant on the issue (and who knows how much else).

The problem is someone will find an excuse to move the goal posts. Oh, kids have been mostly vaccinated? Not good enough, they need their boosters before we can let up on the mask mandates and restrictions. 8 months after that. A second booster will be the new requirement. It's not about science anymore and simply refusing to relinquish power at this point. Unfortunately, those without a voice (kids) are caught in the middle.

The CDC determines the science, not the individual who no longer likes their science. Remember when they changed the rules for masks if a person was vaccinated? All of you loved that science, but now you guys don't like the science because you don't want a booster. Just say you hate the COVID measures now, instead of claiming that it's not science. It still is, and it's infectious disease experts determining it.
10028 knows what's up, he just says he doesn't care. None of that "it's not science!" bs.
Aaron Rodgers did the same thing, he claimed that all this stuff is not based on science. It actually is, it's just that some people don't like it anymore (or never liked it).

This sounds like a bridge that we can cross when kids actually get vaccinated.