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Post by Zeke on Sept 2, 2021 13:28:10 GMT -5
Who's country is open for international travelers? My plan was to go to Japan again this fall but I highly doubt they'll be open for us. I'm fully vaxxed and need an escape. Europe for the first time maybe?! Not Poland, sorry my dude.
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Post by bainzy on Sept 5, 2021 12:57:38 GMT -5
Who's country is open for international travelers? My plan was to go to Japan again this fall but I highly doubt they'll be open for us. I'm fully vaxxed and need an escape. Europe for the first time maybe?! Not Poland, sorry my dude. I just had some friends from England who managed to go to Poland! Did they recently close things down again?
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Post by Zeke on Sept 6, 2021 12:59:28 GMT -5
Not Poland, sorry my dude. I just had some friends from England who managed to go to Poland! Did they recently close things down again? Oh shit, apparently I was wrong! Seems like things are changing up then: Link"The United States and Canadian nationals and legal residents who are fully vaccinated are permitted to lawfully enter Poland without quarantine."
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Post by bainzy on Sept 6, 2021 20:36:42 GMT -5
I just had some friends from England who managed to go to Poland! Did they recently close things down again? Oh shit, apparently I was wrong! Seems like things are changing up then: Link"The United States and Canadian nationals and legal residents who are fully vaccinated are permitted to lawfully enter Poland without quarantine." An option!!!
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Post by stringypoo on Sept 8, 2021 0:17:13 GMT -5
Okay, so I've got a question for those of you who are Stateside. I haven't been back home in the US since 2019 due to the virus situation and my work being over here in China. Apparently you can buy a COVID test that you can do at home at the store? Is it true? And is it actually accurate? I asked people I work with over here about that and they were like, "You can buy that at the store??? Is that a legit item or just a ruse to profit off of insecure people?" I want to know if it's a thing, because over here in China I know nothing of it.
The reason I ask is because my mom who got both her two shots got sick recently and although she's a hypochondriac and usually is exaggerated, she took the aforementioned self test that she bought from the store and it said that she indeed has COVID. And then she went to a long line at Walgreens the next day and they also tested and confirmed she had gotten it.
She felt really disappointed because she had taken the two shots and also she wears a mask and considered her lifestyle as preventative. The thing she considered is that she recently started dating (which is admittedly weird for me considering a lot of history and her status as divorced and single for at least 30 years now) and she now wonders if her boyfriend may have given it to her and that he is just more asymptomatic.
Probably the most troubling thing about the experience for me was that she expressed to me this morning great frustration with the fact that she got vaccinated and still contracted the virus. Furthermore, she was even more frustrated with how she and others who were getting tested were treated. She felt like she and others were being treated as if they were such scum or something. While it might have been a personal overreaction, I did hear her recounting of interactions with workers there and found it a bit unprofessional and unfair in nature.
I feel like these kinds of experiences may lead to less trust and obedience towards preventative measures. Socially and biologically, the virus and its effect on society is so fucking heavy. It is crushing society from so many angles, it's nuts.
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Post by v9733xa on Sept 8, 2021 17:21:11 GMT -5
Okay, so I've got a question for those of you who are Stateside. I haven't been back home in the US since 2019 due to the virus situation and my work being over here in China. Apparently you can buy a COVID test that you can do at home at the store? Is it true? And is it actually accurate? I asked people I work with over here about that and they were like, "You can buy that at the store??? Is that a legit item or just a ruse to profit off of insecure people?" I want to know if it's a thing, because over here in China I know nothing of it. The reason I ask is because my mom who got both her two shots got sick recently and although she's a hypochondriac and usually is exaggerated, she took the aforementioned self test that she bought from the store and it said that she indeed has COVID. And then she went to a long line at Walgreens the next day and they also tested and confirmed she had gotten it. She felt really disappointed because she had taken the two shots and also she wears a mask and considered her lifestyle as preventative. The thing she considered is that she recently started dating (which is admittedly weird for me considering a lot of history and her status as divorced and single for at least 30 years now) and she now wonders if her boyfriend may have given it to her and that he is just more asymptomatic. Probably the most troubling thing about the experience for me was that she expressed to me this morning great frustration with the fact that she got vaccinated and still contracted the virus. Furthermore, she was even more frustrated with how she and others who were getting tested were treated. She felt like she and others were being treated as if they were such scum or something. While it might have been a personal overreaction, I did hear her recounting of interactions with workers there and found it a bit unprofessional and unfair in nature. I feel like these kinds of experiences may lead to less trust and obedience towards preventative measures. Socially and biologically, the virus and its effect on society is so fucking heavy. It is crushing society from so many angles, it's nuts. Okay. So, the Delta variant is incredibly infectious. It's not necessarily more dangerous or deadly, but just by getting more people infected it's liable to put more people in the hospital. However, 90% of those being seen at a hospital, 95% of those in hospital ICUs, and 98% of those who have died of COVID this year are UNvaccinated. Vaccinated people are still getting COVID, as one's transmissibility is not zero -- it's probably about 60% effective, to this variant at least -- but the vast VAST majority are doing okay if they get it. Yeah, it's still a little bit of luck, and fully immunized people do continue to get "breakthrough" cases. It happens. It's not some personal fault. It will happen, and probably continue to happen especially as immunity wanes. That's why the talk of another booster shot is real, and many people will probably want to do that within 6-8 months after their second shot. But getting COVID and being vaccinated at this point means you are extraordinarily likely to be just fine, or only have very mild symptoms. I think most of us who are out in public or work around people -- i.e. me, in a doctor's office -- can expect to get it sometime, if we haven't yet, by the Winter. About the at-home tests: they're available, but stupidly expensive. They are given away for free in the U.K. (or will be soon), and cost about 5 bucks in Continental Europe. In America, it's insane that they are something like 30 dollars each, if you can even find one, but I think most pharmacies have them or can order one. (A quick search online shows they're sold out all over the place.) It would fundamentally change the pandemic if we could get these any time we wanted. They're pretty accurate. WAY better than the first "rapid" ones that came out a little more than a year ago; those were trash and they really tarnished many people's expectations of testing. They've improved a lot, but they are not as good as the PCR (polymerase chain reaction) tests that take like a day to see results. So, sure, you CAN buy them, if you can get them, and they work decently well.
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Post by v9733xa on Sept 9, 2021 18:04:04 GMT -5
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Post by essien on Dec 16, 2021 19:23:19 GMT -5
Feels like omicron has put us back to square one in the UK. Really worrying how fast this variant spreads. I don't think the public are going to accept more lockdowns. This winter is going to be an absolute shit show.
Getting my booster on Monday, hopefully that's me and my family protected from it.
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Post by v9733xa on Dec 16, 2021 23:07:31 GMT -5
Good work! My booster hurt a bit but not nearly as much as the second dose. It will give you safety and peace of mind.
This variant is definitely more contagious, and crucially it's more quickly infectious with a short incubation period, but with vaccines you are NOT more likely to be very sick or be hospitalized. We just have to continue to protect the most vulnerable, but the rest of us are going to make it through as long as you do your part. Get your vaccines, everyone, and you will be okay.
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Post by stringypoo on Feb 20, 2022 7:45:09 GMT -5
Well, I'm entering my 2nd week of online teaching here in Kunshan, China, as a result of the 4 Covid cases that were identified during the previous weekend in Suzhou, the neighboring large city. That's right, a neighboring city with more than 10 million people in it, the 10th largest city in China, has only 4 cases and as a result almost the whole province has shut down schools. I'm not actually criticizing it, although my phrasing must generate that feeling. It's more that it's just a very extreme measure put into place. It is due to traveling families during the Chinese New Year holiday. It is a yearly tradition for nearly all families in China to travel back to their hometowns during the 3-4 week Chinese New Year break. Chinese people are quite traditional in the sense that they don't tend to break such traditions as younger generations arrive.
I think what is interesting is that Chinese people are generally very good about avoiding situations that would put themselves at risk, but when it comes to this particular holiday, they just cannot resist the urge to travel. Perhaps it's also an unfair thing for someone like me, a person who doesn't travel nor do I care to go visit families all over the place, to make such observations.
Anyway, whether the way China does things with regards to the virus are sustainable are frequently debated among the foreigners around me. I believe among our TDM community it would be a debate as well. While some may praise the country for how it has handled the situation these two years, one must also admit that the continuous feeling that we cannot do much here anymore is a bit limiting in a rather extreme way. But I'm still not out of the area of appreciation just yet. I am glad that they take new cases seriously.
I am, however, really struggling as an ORCHESTRA TEACHER to find meaningful ways to engage my classes while we're doing online class. My class is and always has been about playing the instruments. So I'm frustrated that I just heard we may have 2, 3, or even 4 more weeks of online learning... :/
I just stood outside my community for about an hour, as they organized Covid testing in our community. I felt bad for those medical workers, but they really are the heroes of the story. It is really cold out there, with biting winds. And they were there for 8 hours straight, with no breaks, just doing their job. I didn't catch a single one of them complaining. All the while, people standing in the line around me were complaining nonstop about how slow it was and how cold it was. The medical workers here are just incredible. And that's not to take away from other cultures, but I can only speak on behalf of what I see here, and they're just awesome. Hoping to get back into the classroom sooner than that awful projection.........
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Post by essien on Mar 12, 2022 17:31:42 GMT -5
Covid finally got me this week. I started with some cold symptoms on Wednesday which became worse on Thursday. Took three lateral flow tests which were all negative. Took another test on Friday morning which immediately came back positive. Felt like shit so took the day off work. I seem to have pretty mild symptoms now - just feeling groggy with a runny nose, sore throat and a cough. I'm boosted so hoping this is the worst of it.
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Post by v9733xa on Mar 12, 2022 19:13:22 GMT -5
Covid finally got me this week. I started with some cold symptoms on Wednesday which became worse on Thursday. Took three lateral flow tests which were all negative. Took another test on Friday morning which immediately came back positive. Felt like shit so took the day off work. I seem to have pretty mild symptoms now - just feeling groggy with a runny nose, sore throat and a cough. I'm boosted so hoping this is the worst of it. Hope you continue to improve! Glad to hear you're handling it well enough. I managed to avoid it so far but working at a doctor's office it feels inescapable. Hopefully the variants get milder -- as is historically the case -- even if they may be more virulent. Like any bad cold, get plenty of rest and fluids!
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Post by stringypoo on Mar 18, 2022 1:45:58 GMT -5
Wow, I missed your post essien! How are you doing now? China is seeing more cases popping up than usual, in very life-restricting ways due to the policies in motion here for when cases occur. I work in a city called Kunshan just outside of Shanghai and Suzhou. The city has around 800,000 people in it, and most notably we had our first case here in more than a year and a half or so just this week. It did not come alone, and now there are a few cases here. It is believed that these virus cases are only here because of an exchange Shanghai had with Hong Kong in which Shanghai offered to treat Covid patients in Hong Kong who were not able to get into the overflowed hospital in Shenzhen they flock to. There were circumstances that occurred during this effort in Shanghai that caused asymptomatic cases to leak into the areas and some people who live in Kunshan and work in Shanghai may have carried it with them. So it's pretty weird living here right now because we went from no cases hardly ever to suddenly the building next to mine has a case in it...lol! Because of the system used here, I have a digital health code that not only shows my PCR test history but it also has a 14 day tracker quality, which will have a star on it if you have been somewhere considered risky. Since I was in Shanghai last weekend to be home with family, I am unable to enter stores and buy things that I need. In addition, I'm not going home these weekends now because the situation in Shanghai is much worse and going back and forth resets my penalties for travel. So...I stay home alone these weekends in the town in which I work. China sees it spike again now. :/
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Post by essien on Mar 18, 2022 7:04:28 GMT -5
Wow, I missed your post essien ! How are you doing now? China is seeing more cases popping up than usual, in very life-restricting ways due to the policies in motion here for when cases occur. I work in a city called Kunshan just outside of Shanghai and Suzhou. The city has around 800,000 people in it, and most notably we had our first case here in more than a year and a half or so just this week. It did not come alone, and now there are a few cases here. It is believed that these virus cases are only here because of an exchange Shanghai had with Hong Kong in which Shanghai offered to treat Covid patients in Hong Kong who were not able to get into the overflowed hospital in Shenzhen they flock to. There were circumstances that occurred during this effort in Shanghai that caused asymptomatic cases to leak into the areas and some people who live in Kunshan and work in Shanghai may have carried it with them. So it's pretty weird living here right now because we went from no cases hardly ever to suddenly the building next to mine has a case in it...lol! Because of the system used here, I have a digital health code that not only shows my PCR test history but it also has a 14 day tracker quality, which will have a star on it if you have been somewhere considered risky. Since I was in Shanghai last weekend to be home with family, I am unable to enter stores and buy things that I need. In addition, I'm not going home these weekends now because the situation in Shanghai is much worse and going back and forth resets my penalties for travel. So...I stay home alone these weekends in the town in which I work. China sees it spike again now. :/ Really interesting to hear how other countries are managing the pandemic differently. In the UK we've moved to a 'Living with Covid' strategy, which essentially means there are no restrictions at all. So I could legally have travelled on a packed train during rush hour knowing I had covid and was infectious. Mad, right? We're starting to see a surge in cases now but since it's omicron and the majority of people are boosted, the theory is we can just get on with our lives without too many people dying. Waiting to see how that turns out. Our media has already moved on to 24/7 Ukraine war coverage, so it's not getting discussed anymore and it feels like the government isn't being held to account on it. I'm still feeling the effects of the virus. I have the coldy symptoms and I've been struggling with my energy levels. It's lingering longer than a normal cold. I haven't been able to focus for long periods at work so I've been doing shorter days, and they told me to take today off so I have a long weekend to recover. I'm not infectious anymore so I'm going to try and do a few things this weekend and see how I go, but otherwise I'll be resting up.
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