Covid Update, Fall 2022

[sorcyress]

It's been a long while, so let's have a state of the covid-protections, Fall 2022!

I have to go to work, because capitalism, and completely shifting careers to something that can be done fully remote when I don't have a skillset designed for that is Not Fucking Happening when we're in a traumatic pandemic that kills resilience. So, five times a week, I spent 4-5 hours indoors with unmasked and unvaccinated people. There's two ways I could respond to this increased level of risk:

a) say "fuck it, my life is risky now" and do other high risk things
b) say "fuck, my life is risky now" and avoid high risk things.

For the sake of my damn community, and in honor of the work ACT UP has done (and the trauma that sits in my heart from knowing I do not have elders¹), I am going to minimize as much as I can the risk I bring to other people. My goal since March 2020 has been "do not give anyone covid", so far I have been successful, knock wood and throw salt that I continue to succeed.

• I am wearing an N95 mask (or equivalent) at all times indoors --work, errands, bellringing, dance-- and many times outdoors (any big events, like Honk, much-but-not-all of the time at YDW, frequently when biking).



• Related to the above, I am not eating indoors with other people. I eat my lunch at work alone in my classroom, I eat outdoors with the bellringers, I've been to restaurants and eaten at their outdoor dining...twice? twice in the last few months (both times at off-peak hours with no other patrons nearby).
  
  
• (Yes, this means I ate all my meals at YDW outdoors, because there was not an isolated place to eat indoors. The weather was gorgeous, it worked out pretty well!)



• I am avoiding all mask-optional indoor activities unless they are small enough that I personally will know every person there and be able to easily contact them in the case of an exposure or positive test. Examples of things I have done: had 1-2 people at a time visit our house to hang with me or Ezri or Rey, gone to a small (3-5 people) birthday party and eaten cake, gone to a few demo team rehearsals where some people weren't wearing masks, gotten rides home from dance from unmasked friends.



• I am participating in some mask-mandatory indoor activities. Bellringing 2-3 times a week, Scottish Dancing once a week. If a concert/theatre show/Live Entertainment showed up on my radar and was mask&vaxx required, sure, I might do that as well but I don't think I can find any examples.



• I am taking at least two rapid tests a week. I am very _very_ sad that the school has discontinued its pooled PCR testing, because it was _extremely_ useful to know I hadn't caught it. Also, seriously, if you are in the Boston area and have not been receiving your eight free monthly tests from insurance, please talk to me about how to do that, and then if you don't want/need all of them, give me your spares.



• I am up to four lines on my vaxx card --the original two in March21, a booster in November21, and the new bivalent booster a few weeks ago (get yours! I would be happy to help you find out about it!). I also got a flu shot!



• I am traveling via T and bus (always masked!!!) but that might start shifting back to as-much-biking-as-possible as the winter case counts (and flus and colds!) start spreading

Not sure what else should be on this list. Yes, I do frequently feel crazy when I look at the CDC or Mass.gov data and see how high case/hospitalization counts are and then look around my workplace or on the T and see how few people are wearing masks (my therapist gets to hear allllllll about it!).

Yes, I would be happy to stop wearing a mask --my threshold for "when is it safe to stop masking at work" is "four consecutive weeks with zero cases in the high school". So far we have had...one week. Since May of 2021 when we reopened. And it was the week we decided masks were optional now, and the following weeks went straight back up. I have a graph and everything, it makes me want to throw things.

Woo, pandemics suck.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: "But Kat, you don't even know anyone who's had AIDS" yes and that's the _point_, because everyone who was battling this pandemic, who I would've met and known and loved, is dead.

Comments

[sovay]

Woo, pandemics suck.

They really, really, really do.

[keshwyn]

This is me high-fiving you, indoors, while we're both masked - or outdoors, with a thermos of tea between us while we're perched on a rock in the Middlesex Fells looking out at gorgeous autumn foliage.

Good luck on keeping the effing virus at bay.

[canyonwalker]

Regarding the first question, the answer is (b). Just because you do one high risk thing, teaching in a school where almost nobody else wears a mask, does not mean you should give up caution in everything. Risk is not a binary, all-or-nothing proposition. Wearing your mask when among indoor public groups, even if nobody else wears one, remains an important risk-reduction step.

[joshuazelinsky]

"Not sure what else should be on this list. "

Open windows in classrooms or other environments. More ventilation is always good. (I know you already know this, so I'm adding this here mostly so if other people are reading this for ideas they get reminded too.)

[lauradi7dw]

We are considering going to a small live indoor concert tomorrow. Vaccination and masks required, windows not openable. Safer than grocery shopping, probably, and I do that. The idea still makes me feel uneasy, but so does indoor tai chi (same parameters) and I started doing that a couple of weeks ago when the outdoor classes ended.
Scheduled to get the bivalent shot next week, have already had the flu shot. Arthur had both in same arm at the same time, with no ill effects.

[choco_frosh]

If you felt like walking me through how to get eight free monthly tests, that would be awesome

[ezricatte]

Do you still need help with this? i am happy to help also