COVID-19 thread

[Ares Land]

Moses and Pharaoh have a few objections.

[Vijay]

Wait, so she hasn't heard of anyone dying of disease? Like...no relatives? How did anyone in her family die?

God, Americans are so baffling.

[alice]

Just been second-jabbed.

[Raphael]

Just been second-jabbed.

Congratulations and good luck!

[Vardelm]

Wait, so she hasn't heard of anyone dying of disease? Like...no relatives? How did anyone in her family die?

God, Americans are so baffling.

May I point out that there are plenty of Americans who find her idiocy just as baffling as you?

[doctor shark]

As of today, here in the Netherlands, anyone who's above the age of 18 can make an appointment for an mRNA vaccine. However, starting from 23 June, anyone who wants to can instead book for the one-dose Janssen vaccine. As tempting as it is to just get it over with, I think I'll stick with the mRNA vaccine, especially with travel in mind (since both Pfizer and Moderna look to be acceptable in more countries so far compared to Janssen).

[Vijay]

Wait, so she hasn't heard of anyone dying of disease? Like...no relatives? How did anyone in her family die?

God, Americans are so baffling.

May I point out that there are plenty of Americans who find her idiocy just as baffling as you?

Sure, and I'm American myself.

I still think we're baffling. EDIT: Well, a lot of us, anyway.

[Raphael]

I put myself on the waiting list for a vaccine yesterday. Let's see how long the wait will take.

[Raphael]

I've got an appointment for my first jab in a few weeks.

[Vilike]

Got the second jab as of today, but was told a serological test should be done in six months to see if there are still enough antibodies. These are the new instructions by the French government. Well, at least by then we'll be swimming in vaccine doses if a third jab is needed.

[Ares Land]

Funny that; they told me nothing when I got the jab last week. (I already had COVID, so I only get one dose.)

Vaccine doses were a real problem a few months ago but the situation has much, much improved now; I got an appointment very quickly.

[Travis B.]

Got the second jab as of today, but was told a serological test should be done in six months to see if there are still enough antibodies. These are the new instructions by the French government. Well, at least by then we'll be swimming in vaccine doses if a third jab is needed.

I have never heard of anyone being told such a thing myself.

[Ares Land]

Oh, the government's kind of panicking right now so it's not really surprising.
(There's some worry about the new variants, mostly. There are grounds for concern but it's all a bit overblown.)

[doctor shark]

The Dutch government lifted almost all Covid-related rules about three weeks ago, with the only restrictions remaining in place being:
(a) People should work from home at least half-time;
(b) Face masks are only required on public transport and when 1.5-meter distance can't be kept;
(c) Capacity restrictions are now really the 1.5-meter rule, with some exceptions; and
(d) Access to certain parties and pubs requires either a vaccination certificate or a proof of a very recent negative test result.

Well, some parties began accepting people immediately after they got a dose of the (one-shot) Janssen vaccine. And let's just say people were taking full advantage of that... so now the case numbers have skyrocketed here, and the government is now re-imposing some restrictions and apologizing profusely for their errors. That said, hospitalizations are fairly constant, so it's not a huge issue right now, but... yeah. It's like, seriously, who's surprised by these developments?

(On a different note, I wonder when we're finally getting a government here.)


In any event, I got my first dose two weeks ago, but now I wait three more weeks to get dose #2 of Pfizer-BioNTech. I figure that, since I don't have any travel plans anytime soon, there's really no need to go for the Janssen... plus the mRNA vaccines tend to be at least somewhat suitable against certain variants.

[Ares Land]

Here they made vaccination mandatory de facto. There's much crying and gnashing of teeth.
Leaving the conspiracy nuts aside, mostly people are complaining that it's too early and that they can't get vaccinated in time for summer vacation. Well, tough fucking luck. Vaccines have been really easy to get for weeks now. Were these people living under a rock or something?

[Moose-tache]

I'm bracing for the impact that will inevitably occur when people finally realize this isn't the last Covid vaccine they'll ever need to get. This time next year we'll be inundated with think pieces about how the annual Covid vaccine is a government mind-control initiative.

[Raphael]

I hate being contrarian, and I especially hate saying anything that might sound like making excuses for antivaxxers, but on some level, an instinctive fear of vaccines is perfectly understandable.

I mean, think about it: what vaccine distributors are doing is basically sticking pointy objects into us and injecting us with strange concoctions of theirs. The instincts bred into us in many thousands of years of history when the world was full of people who either clearly meant us harm or might have meant us harm are basically screaming at us that allowing anyone to do that is a Very Bad Idea.

So it's not that surprising, even though very unfortunate, that a lot of people listen to those instincts.

[linguistcat]

My parents are still waiting to get vaccinated do to religious reasons; neither of them are ok with any of the current vaccines because they were tested on fetal stem cells. There's one coming out for the flu season that wasn't tested that way, and incorporates the flu vaccine so at least there's that. Luckily, cases are pretty low where I live and mom (the only one of us who normally works outside the house without a vaccine) has been working from home as much as possible. But that was more from concerns about saving on gas money than for her health.

[Ahzoh]

I hate being contrarian, and I especially hate saying anything that might sound like making excuses for antivaxxers, but on some level, an instinctive fear of vaccines is perfectly understandable.

I mean, think about it: what vaccine distributors are doing is basically sticking pointy objects into us and injecting us with strange concoctions of theirs. The instincts bred into us in many thousands of years of history when the world was full of people who either clearly meant us harm or might have meant us harm are basically screaming at us that allowing anyone to do that is a Very Bad Idea.

So it's not that surprising, even though very unfortunate, that a lot of people listen to those instincts.

This might make sense if it weren't for the fact that when needle vaccines first came out people were rushing to get those than suffer the horrible diseases they were made for. There wasn't really a "fear of the unknown" towards the vaccines.

Anti-Vax as a movement comes from decades of horrible diseases being so uncommon that people don't fear them anymore.

[rotting bones]

This might make sense if it weren't for the fact that when needle vaccines first came out people were rushing to get those than suffer the horrible diseases they were made for. There wasn't really a "fear of the unknown" towards the vaccines.

I don't think that's true. Many people didn't want to take vaccines at all.