Just made my appointment for my first shot through our health plan, Kaiser. Most of the TWiT staff is there so I know they’ll all be getting their shots soon.
It’s exactly one year to the day since California shut down. It’s also St Patrick’s day.
I got my first shot at Kaiser Roseville 3 weeks ago and I get the second tomorrow!!
Oh no! I’m sorry to hear that. It’s a frustrating time, France has done the same.
I’m in Colorado and the vaccination rate finally seems to be picking up steam. Our governor boasted that we were in the top range of vac rates…which wasn’t true. However, I’ve noticed in the last few weeks that appointments are being made and availability seems increased.
I get dose 2 of Moderna tomorrow and am thrilled that I have that out of the way. Even after my two week wait for full immunity (95%) I will still mask and distance. I may do that every flu season from here on out as it’s been wonderful to have no cold or flu this past year…especially because 2 of my grandkids live part time with us. They catch and share every bug around. Not this past year! 
I want to hug people again! I want to have breakfast with my old coworkers! In a restaurant…inside! Spring is around the corner and I want to go to flea markets and art exhibits. Being retired, I was supposed to be traveling and going out whenever I wanted! I feel like this was just a lost year of my life that I’ll never get back. I long for normalcy again! I also want to stop whining about it! 
My wife is now re-scheduled for next Wednesday.
Had my second dose on Tuesday - sore arm, as with the first dose and a headache Tuesday night but otherwise good to go
about to get my first dose this Thursday …wish me well
It’s been very little problem for me through 2 doses 
I’ve had both my shots and will be considered “safe” on April 1st! My best friend finished her shots long ago (hospital worker) and we’re thinking of brunch IN A RESTAURANT! I haven’t stepped foot inside a restaurant for a year now nor have I gotten together with old friends face to face. It’s still a little scary! 
Yes, we have held contact to our children and that has been it. I haven’t met anyone outside of them or people at work, which is kept to a minimum.
I have had the luxury of my daughter and her two kids living with us. We have also had brief face to face contacts with my son and his daughter but, no one else.
I retired a few years ago and my coworkers and I used to get together monthly for brunch…which obviously ended last year. We still keep in touch by text but it’s not the same. I’m beside myself in wanting to return to this piece of normalcy!
I just wrote a post at the most recent TTG upload and realised that it was more suited for here - that I kind of felt the stress again. A thread that no-one wants to warm up, but it remains current. Or rather, it regains that quality in these days. So here we go - moved my thoughts from the TTG thread as a thought response to what Leo discussed on air with Johnny:
As per Covid, the statistics are really getting worse and worse over here. Germany is reaching new records and is catching up quickly to the UK which has been cooking on high heat for the past months with little signs of cooling down. Austria is begging everyone to hold their beer while opening up for the Winter season on the slopes with over 1k cases per 100k people - or over 1% of the population. A wonderful thought - in another time. But given the trend, we will be there in only three to five days. It’s ever so slightly difficult not to be a bit on edge about this. Sure, many are vaccinated, but the effect is wearing off. I am not going to say it’s a nightmare, but … I may have misplaced optimism for a moment.
Just consider for a moment that we have a vaccine that at least helps the situation since January. Now consider that all the lines right of the middle are after having the vaccine available. We’ve more or less reached everyone who was socially apt enough and in a medical position to get vaccinated by summer. That’s more or less the extent of the effect that we can reach with modern medicine, modern society, and - by type - an ancient illness.
What feels particularly damning is that we are all used to a certain news cycle and by that standard, Corona was last year. This year, it should be over. It’s just not new and scary anymore. So now, we are getting accustomed to higher figures and a worse situation, but with little to no “bullets left in the chamber” since additional lock-downs are feared to cause truly problematic economic (as in systemic, not just inconvenient) effects. People are setting up their little huts for Christmas markets here in busy downtown areas to prepare for holiday business as if it was 2019.
It seems like a roller coaster and we are heading for the wall. Everyone’s wondering if that’s a truly solid one or another one that you get through with bruises.
This is all so reminiscent of the central premise of “Counterpart”. Well, not the parallel world. Rather: we are the parallel world.
Keep safe, everyone - hope your areas are not seeing comparable developments!
PS: There are also some good looking news. As vaccinations have reached more people, the case fatality rate has gone down. At least until now.
Hi Carbonga 
Thankfully deaths seem much lower than previous spikes in cases, currently. I presume due to people already having Covid and having more natural resistance to getting very ill, vaccinations and improved treatment regimes in hospitals for seriously ill people.
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/details/deaths
https://coronavirus.data.gov.uk/
Thankfully, so far my family, friends and work colleagues who have caught Covid have had minor symptoms.
The majority of people now in the area I live in the UK are not taking any precautions from what I can see. I went to the cinema recently and you would never know that Covid was still around as the place was packed with no masks being worn or distancing taking place. I was recently in Northern Ireland and people seemed to be taking precautions with distancing and mask wearing. The airports on the other hand had very few people taking precautions apart from where mandated.
At work we have a dedicated Covid test room setup and twice a week my job becomes testing all the employees who wish to have a test as it is voluntary. The tests are then sent to the lab. If anyone tests positive then the Company is still paying for two weeks of full pay whilst they isolate. In my environment people have lost interest/fatigued with Covid and it does not seem a big deal any more. When someone asks where someone is for example the response is he/she has Covid and is isolating. The conversation then just moves on to something else. This would probably change if someone became seriously ill or died.
We still have to wear masks at work. But that is about it now. Most social distancing and one way systems are gone. Thermal checks have also been discontinued. We do have large mobile air filtration units in the canteens and offices now though.
My wife has been unwell though since receiving the vaccine. Extreme fatigue, pins and needles over her body and numbness in her limbs this has been going on for months now and the doctors are just shrugging they shoulders and saying it’s just one of those things. That is about as much interest as they can muster. It is difficult for her as she is/was a very active person.
The health system seems under pressure still as two recent emergency situations I have been around the ambulance estimate was 6hrs! and 11hrs! The 11hrs was my elderly neighbour who fell over and broke his hip…
Hopefully the antivirals will offer more support for people once they are released.
I think we are moving in the right direction albeit slowly. But still much faster than Spinrite’s development speed heheheh No pressure Steve 
I am sorry to read that - joining your hope she gets better, soon!
That’s… impressive.
I suppose you are right. It’s also little use to lose hope in the process now. Still, it’s interesting to see how Covid stubbornly escapes the time frames we usually allot to issues. It’s also one of those things that illustrate how some issues still seem just out of our control enough to get a handle on or successfully ignore after a certain time. Humbling.
I agree it’s both baffling and stressful. We’re all looking for someone to blame, and I think it’s no one’s fault. Sometimes nature ignores the news cycle and our feeble attempts to best it and just does its own thing. It’s kinda scary.
Words can say how much the stress of this virus and this bad internet is killing me.
Next month might be the first time we see our family in the US for 2 years, so yes, we’re nervously watching the cases rise again and seeing the US add various countries back on their red list 
So we were closing in on 500 cases per 100’000 for a few days now. Never came over 490. Looked like the summit for a while. Then the news started reporting that local municipalities are increasingly under-reporting cases since they are simply too many of them. This thing spreads faster than admin can report it.
It feels like that scene in Chernobyl when they find out that the dosimeter only goes up to 3.6 Roentgen - “not good, not terrible”. I think we have found the range of our covid-dosimeter.
I really should stop reading the news for a bit.
Yes, and that is with some areas at over 2,000 and others, like our local city still at under 180 (it was under 100 this time last week).