COVID life in your area

Started by Kaesekopf, January 17, 2022, 04:26:28 PM

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ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez

Quote from: Pæniteo on January 18, 2022, 02:36:48 PM
Quote from: Pæniteo on January 18, 2022, 02:12:46 PM
It is either evil in itself or evil in the circumstances.

The act has to actually be evil, either because it is intrinsically so, or it would be evil under the circumstances.

The evil object is the mandate, not the mask itself.

And just to head off a silly place that this shouldn't go:  I don't need to demonstrate that the mask is evil.  Otherwise, we're back to James' policeman who orders you to jump up and down.  It should be obvious that you don't need to comply with this order, and it should also be obvious that it would be disingenuous to ask for proof that the act of jumping is evil.
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queen.saints

Quote from: Jayne on January 18, 2022, 07:08:33 AM
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Quote from: Jayne on January 18, 2022, 09:27:56 AM
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We have an obligation to be polite and kind to people who are grieving.

This level of behavior is really crossing the line.


" At no time does solemnity so possess our souls as when we stand deserted at the brink of darkness into which our loved one has gone. And the last place in the world where we would look for comfort at such a time is in the seeming artificiality of etiquette; yet it is in the moment of deepest sorrow that etiquette performs its most vital and real service.
All set rules for social observance have for their object the smoothing of personal contacts, and in nothing is smoothness so necessary as in observing the solemn rites accorded our dead."

" She meets small kindnesses at every turn, which save unnecessary jars to supersensitive nerves."


Etiquette 1922, Emily Post
I am sorry for the times I have publicly criticized others on this forum, especially traditional Catholic religious, and any other scandalous posts and pray that no one reads or believes these false and ignorant statements.

james03

That's not the definition of justice.  It is giving what is owed.  For government, that is policies that support the common good.  That includes balancing the harm the policy causes.  Ironically if the government had imposed form fitting N95 masks, you'd have a better argument.  The one study showed an 11% reduction (assuming no placebo effect).  Then you'd have to balance it against the harm done.

The existing policy is unjust.  The CDC admits that cloth masks do nothing.  And they knew that from the start.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

GaudeMariaVirgo

#123
I guess in answer to the OP:

In my experience, there's variation in "COVID life" depending on where you live, but the global changes affect everyone. In the city of Chicago (not necessarily the suburbs), life became semi-normal for the wealthy/"laptop class" after a year or so, but was still bizarre and grim for those with small businesses, those working in healthcare, and the churches. We lived in a South Side neighborhood that was a cross between "wealthy limousine liberal" and "Section 8," and life there under COVID got very weird very fast.

Per governor's order, mask mandates at ALL indoor venues went into effect last year. We delayed putting our daughter in preschool because of mandatory masks and "social distancing" for kids. At the expensive coffee shop where I worked part time, we had a "2-person capacity limit" that resulted in inefficient service and torturously long lines, as well as a periodic angry customer cursing us out, etc. Some management personnel would turn customers away for not having masks; other supervisors and staff would wave them through (illegally) if they gave us a verbal promise that they were fully vaxxed. Customers would sometimes whisper to me that they were scared about their kids/husbands getting fired for not wanting a vaccine; one lady mentioned that her son was an airline pilot who was suing United in order to save his job, and that he had 2 young kids. Other customers would make small talk to me about "idiot antivaxxers prolonging the epidemic," and I would just say something noncommittal and hand them their coffee. I never bothered going to any store, restaurant etc. without a mask because most venues would angrily turn you away. The thing that really struck me was the aggressive but weirdly uneven enforcement, especially in the healthcare and service industries. You could tell who was a "true believer" and who was resentful of the mandates & passively resisting. It made society feel polarized and unfriendly, because you never knew who you would be dealing with in a social/business/service context. Businesses were suffering enormously because of labor shortages, and many of our local businesses closed down. We noticed a steady increase in panhandling, homelessness and riots in our immediate area. Many remaining storefronts would be boarded up for days at a time due to concerns about looting. It would have been fine if I'd been single, but trying to raise children in that environment wasn't ideal. Due to my husband's employment, we weren't able to leave the city when we would have preferred to do so. We're very grateful that we finally got out.

All of that was irritating and unsettling, but by far the biggest consequences were to healthcare and employment. The major hospital in our neighborhood wouldn't see me initially for my (high risk) pregnancy because they were prioritizing COVID cases, and I was forced to switch to a hospital an hour away in the suburbs that allowed "elective visits." By the time those restrictions relaxed, I was past the cutoff point for the local hospital accepting new maternity patients, and we continued to drive an hour each way. About halfway through the pregnancy, I was allowed to get the specialist care that I needed at a maternal-fetal clinic. When I finally gave birth, rules about "visitors/support people" at the hospital were unevenly enforced. I was told that my husband would be able to remain with me for the "mandatory" 48-hour hospital stay; then, following a staff change a few hours after my delivery, he was unceremoniously removed from the hospital with no prior notice (the new staff informed us that the hospital had "changed its policy recently" and that it wasn't being evenly enforced depending on what nurse was in charge :o). They refused to grant an early discharge and I was forced to stay in the hospital overnight and all day the next day until 10pm, alone in my room with my newborn, with no ability to have my husband or family visit. And I was one of the unusually fortunate ones! Earlier in the year, a friend who was a first-time mom was forced to give birth alone (at a different hospital), because they wouldn't allow even her husband in. The rules were constantly changing because no one had any idea what was going on, or how to enforce the arbitrary "social distancing protocols" that were being handed down by the government.

Loss of employment was constantly looming over our heads and those of our friends. My husband was working at a Chicago-based company and was perpetually at risk of getting fired if he refused Infinity Boosters. A number of his friends who worked for the University, in healthcare or even remotely in high-tech fields were getting vax'ed under duress for fear of losing their jobs, although they had medical reservations about the shot. They didn't feel they had a choice. Through a stroke of good fortune, my husband was able to get a better-paying job based in another state, which allowed religious vax exemptions. No sooner had we moved out of Chicago than the mayor imposed vax passports for indoor venues (gyms, restaurants, coffee shops), which meant I wouldn't have been able to take our kids to a restaurant or museum without showing proof of multiple boosters (in addition to being masked up).

Now we are in the Grand Rapids, MI area and our situation is closer to what KK described. Some venues in the city (restaurants, museums etc) require masks but it's on a case-by-case basis and not as strictly enforced as in Chicago. Concerts and certain public gatherings require vax passports. Here in our suburb, neither of those things are enforced at all and life feels relatively normal -- almost eerily so, after living in our previous neighborhood.

Important to note that, despite local variations, the entire national climate is different as a direct result of COVID. COVID was used as a pretext for the mail-in ballots that altered (possibly falsified) an entire Presidential election. It also restricts interstate travel for those of us who need to travel out of state to see family. Our kids' ability to see grandparents out of state is much more limited now, and 2 out of 4 of our parents are "true believers" and refuse to travel to see our children until they're up-to-date on boosters. We haven't seen either of my parents in over a year due to travel issues. So even though we're in a less restricted area now, our overall quality of life is still reduced, and the general climate/political situation in our country as a whole has been radically altered. That's not even counting the situation in other countries, which can get way worse than even the worst parts of the US.

Sorry for long post, but I'm trying to convey the weird, uncertain "texture of life" that lingers on under the COVID regime(s). Even apart from our concern over the world generally, these things just hit different when you have kids to raise and family out of state.

Severinus

#124
Quote from: GaudeMariaVirgo on January 18, 2022, 03:08:59 PM
Sorry for long post, but I'm trying to convey the weird, uncertain "texture of life" that lingers on under the COVID regime(s). Even apart from our concern over the world generally, these things just hit different when you have kids to raise and family out of state.

Don't be sorry, that was a really excellent post. I'm sorry you went through those things at such a vulnerable time.

Baylee

I see Jayne is still bored to death.

ChairmanJoeAintMyPrez

Quote from: GaudeMariaVirgo on January 18, 2022, 03:08:59 PM
COVID was used as a pretext for the mail-in ballots that altered (possibly falsified) an entire Presidential election.

Some part of me wonders whether the current restrictions aren't one layer of a coverup.

If they had let us go back to normal after January 20th, 2021, it might have been too obvious.
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diaduit

Actually I would ask KK to apologise for his lack of charity to those of us who are suffering with the 'boring' covid.

Baylee

Quote from: diaduit on January 18, 2022, 03:34:26 PM
Actually I would ask KK to apologise for his lack of charity to those of us who are suffering with the 'boring' covid.

If he wasn't the forum administrator, I'd think he was trolling us.

diaduit

Guade Maria, I think the worst consequence of Covid for me is the loss of most of my family and friends who are jabbed and would spit on me rather than be friends with me and mine and this is a common top complaint among us here as our country is 95% jabbed.

Imagine going to a regular mass midweek and on weekends and knowing all the familiar faces and where they sit and all the kids that play with your kids and the same families who picnic together and listening to the same beautiful choir singing.  Seeing the same priests all the time and imagine the comfort of this as you go day by day trying to be Catholic.
  Boom suddenly they all decide to hate you because you didn't take the jab and 95% of those attending masses from now on decide to not sit beside you, include you in any parish activities, pull their kids from your kids and then talk about you behind your back.  Well that is our 'boring life'.  This is what it is like for us in a mid sized country town in a small country.

james03

They were not your friends.  Just NPC Sheeple.  Imagine getting 2 jabs and a boost and then showing by your actions you know they don't work.  Sad.
"But he that doth not believe, is already judged: because he believeth not in the name of the only begotten Son of God (Jn 3:18)."

"All sorrow leads to the foot of the Cross.  Weep for your sins."

"Although He should kill me, I will trust in Him"

GaudeMariaVirgo

#131
Diaduit,

That rings true to my experience also. The majority of our friend group dissolved immediately in the wake of COVID, not even necessarily due to vaccines but because of contagion concerns. Most of the moms in our mom group refused to interact with others due to "social distancing" -- other moms who would still meet up socially would often only do so one-on-one, maintaining six feet of distance and wearing masks. There were 3 (later 4) of us that didn't insist on this, which meant that our 3, later 4, families basically spent time with only each other. The venue where we had our mom meetups refused to host people anymore, and this was in the winter, so it was usually just our little remaining group meeting outside at a mostly-abandoned playground in our neighborhood (most were boarded up, but we found one that wasn't). In the summer, this got better and there were more things to do outside. Our social life never recovered to where it was -- many of the families we knew are still "distancing" for the foreseeable future -- and our families are also polarized now following the vaccine mandates. Nothing is quite the same.

Jayne

#132
Quote from: queen.saints on January 18, 2022, 02:50:13 PM

We have an obligation to be polite and kind to people who are grieving.

My parents died a few years ago.  When did the obligation to be polite and kind to me wear off?

Actually, we have an obligation to be polite and kind to everyone.   Diaduit has been remarkably nasty to me over recent months, making any number of absurd and baseless charges against me and then blaming these imagined sins on my Jewish ancestry.  On an occasion when I defended her from a troll who was attacking her, she claimed that it was "theatre" and I was in collusion with the troll.  You did not see fit to intervene on any of these occasions, so I do not have much respect for opinions on polite and kind behaviour and when people are "going over a line".
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

Jayne

#133
Quote from: diaduit on January 18, 2022, 03:34:26 PM
Actually I would ask KK to apologise for his lack of charity to those of us who are suffering with the 'boring' covid.

What happened to the "If you don't like the forum, just leave" that was your response to me pointing out things I did not like?

KK did not do anything wrong.  There is nothing that he should apologize for.
Jesus, meek and humble of heart, make my heart like unto Thine.

GaudeMariaVirgo

#134
Another thing that's not getting touched on here is the cost of living increases across the board, largely as a direct result of COVID policy. Everything is insanely expensive now -- food, housing, used cars, building materials, you name it. At the coffee shop I worked at in Chicago, we were constantly getting complaints from customers about how this sandwich was $2 more than it was six months ago, and every time the owner would just apologize: "it's our wholesalers, they raised costs, there's nothing we can do." Several local businesses went under from the increased cost of supplies alone. These cost increases were used to justify the Forever Stimulus that was being proposed by several politicians under Trump. Many families, including us for a short while, became dependent on those stimulus checks and child tax credits while we adjusted our finances to the New Normal. The remote work frenzy drove massive shifts in housing demand, which led to a crazy, overpriced market -- we bought our house for 50% more than it would have been worth a year and a half ago. Lots of people are getting priced out of homeownership in the areas where they work, because their salaries aren't keeping pace. We were budgeting to buy a second used car, which we can now no longer afford because of a price spike in used cars. Everyone we know is freaking out about inflation. We're incredibly fortunate that we were able to afford a home, that we have a good used car we bought a while ago, and that my husband was/is relatively established in his job and secured low-risk employment.

For most of the country, the COVID situation is bizarre, scary and Kafka-esque due to the changing laws and ever-shifting bureaucracy. For those who have families, and for young people who are trying to afford their first home or get started in a career, it is downright terrifying.