Many communities and states offer free home energy audits. They often partner with companies that offer additional services for insulation or HVAC or solar installation, etc. but you have zero obligation to do any of that. We had two guys come and inspect the house for insulation and leaks. They did a blower test as well to see how much air the house is leaking (you need some leakage to circulate fresh air, but too much and you lose money with additional heating/cooling). They were at the house for about three hours. We got good marks for basement and foundation insulation, but they found some weak spots. The attic room had no insulation on the knee walls, and two closets up there had uninsulated panels with access to an uninsulated crawl space. One downstairs window was leaking air. One section of the attic had some insulation missing. They insulated the closet panels with materials on hand, and we insulated the knee walls and patch of ceiling ourselves and fixed the window. Total cost was <$100 in materials for a noticeable improvement in comfort and reduced heating in those rooms. Some of these audits might also include infrared inspection to identify areas of concern. It is definitely worth a search for home energy audits in your area!
Yes, I had that audit done after we bought the house. That’s how I was able to get 0% financing on my heat pumps/AC.
After nearly 3 years of managing not to catch COVID, we’ve both got it out here in Florida on a trip 
What a nasty virus, been very rough for a few days but up and about today. Hopefully we can do some of the things we had planned next week, and can still travel back home on time 
Sorry to hear that. Hope it runs a relatively mild course.
I keep waiting that we will get it. I work mostly in home office, but going back to 3 days a week in the office, from 10 per month, but my wife works in day care and at the previous place, the whole place went down with it twice and 2 weeks after starting her new job, most of the kids and staff were off work Corona, but she never caught it and neither have I. (Touches wood)
Thanks. All good I think, unless the symptoms get worse again. Was supposed to be helping daughter with a house move.
There’s a tropical storm forecast for midweek too. Been an interesting trip!
TWiT 900 cheered me up though 
Damn!! Sorry to hear that - get well quickly
We’re back home in the UK now, all good 
So, from what I experienced, there’s just as much disease out there as always. Take your gov advice that the pandemic is over, we are ‘living with COVID’ etc. with a pinch of salt.
Oh, I know Covid isn’t over. It never will be. But we have to learn to live with it, or we’ll never leave our houses again. Yes, it means catching it on occasion. At least if you are vaccinated, when you do get hit with it, it isn’t that bad.
Nope, not over. I’m also hearing from colleagues in other parts of the US where their daycare and school is being overwhelmed by a combination of RSV, Covid, and flu-- a “tridemic”.
It’s still out there (which I know is a statement of the obvious). After three years of mask and glove wearing, I relaxed a bit now the spring weather is here - and now my neighbour and I both have it. Like @Jamze it’s been a rough few days so far, like a really savage flu. I notice from another post that @big_D got it a month or so ago. I’d say stay careful if you can.
There is an elderly couple that I’ve always said hi to when I saw them puttering around their yard when out on my daily/evening walk. They bought the house from friends, so I’ve known them casually for the entire 5 years or so they lived there. They went to a family reunion in November 2022, and both got covid (for the first time.) She had a hard time, but recovered, but he suffered a great deal and died early in the new year. In real life I mostly keep to myself, so don’t know a lot of people, so this is the first person who I’ve actually known who has died from covid. He may have been 85, but he certainly seemed perfectly healthy up until that point.
An online friend in the US who has been very rigorous about vaccinations and masking just got over his first infection in the past week. Maybe we’ve all let our guards down a bit… but it almost feels like there is something new going on that is pushing it harder than ever.
Very similar to @PHolder, an older (80 years old) former co-worker and his wife came down with COVID-19 and he passed away about 2 weeks ago. They were both very careful up until recently and had just started to get out and about. He did have some comorbidities but still a tough situation. My spouse and I are wearing masks in large groups where we do not know everyone. It is a bad flu for some but is still dangerous for others.
Yes. We have our daughter, her husband and 2 grandkids staying with us at the moment - they are renovating a house and it is delayed and they had to move out of their flat in December. The move keeps being pushed, they wanted to move in in February, now it is in 2 weeks, but I don’t think that is realistic, it is going to be May, before the ground floor is habitable, I think.
Anyway, they took the kids to the children’s theatre and brought back COVID with them 
It took out the whole family - and my wife works in a Kindergarten and managed to avoid it until now!
At this point in the game, I have accepted that Covid is out there, just like the flu. All I can do is make sure I’m protected. I’m at the point where I’m not going to alter my life due to something out there. If I get it, so be it. Of all of the things out there causing me stress, this isn’t one of them.
It’s interesting that you should wonder about “something new” being a possibility. I mentioned my encounter with it to a friend who is a rural local government councillor a county over from me, who has a big network of contacts, and he was of the same opinion. Nothing terrible, just more people going down with it recently.
Another thing that makes me think that is that I follow a lot of non-TWiT podcasts, and in the last couple of weeks I’ve noticed a number of guests dropping out, or hosts being swapped out, because of acquiring Covid. Don’t know how much could be an uptick in infectiousness, versus people having dropped their guard now Spring is starting.
When stats and graphs used to be regularly published it was easy to keep an eye on moments like that, and be reassured by seeing the upturn die down after a while. Now that info has gone (at least in the UK where I live), it’s difficult to know whether I’m seeing a real trend, or something that’s distorted by coming from a very narrow data source.
It does sound like the over-80s need to be careful about who they mix with, and keep up the protective measures.
Looking at England Summary | Coronavirus (COVID-19) in the UK (data.gov.uk) it looks like data is still being uploaded. I was surprised, I thought they had stopped ages ago.
I do wonder how representative that data is though. Most of the data about infections that didn’t go on to require healthcare intervention came from free NHS lateral flow tests. They stopped being available for people not at high risk a year ago.
Private (i.e. non-NHS, purchased) tests can’t be reported through the government system; although the instructions given with them say to contact your doctor if a positive result is obtained, I wonder how many do, because the government / NHS guidance since then has been “isolate for 5 days, take paracetamol (Tylenol), don’t enter the healthcare system unless suffering severe symptoms”. My suspicion is that as the supply of NHS tests run out (I have 2 left), the percentage of positive results not being included in the government stats might be increasing.
What does seem clear is that the number of positive reports is tiny. If I drill down to my local area in a densely populated London district, the most recent weekly result is 4 new positive results, and that was double the previous week. I’m wondering if most of the results are coming from a pool of the most vulnerable who are either still receiving the NHS tests and reporting them, or who get sick enough to require intervention by healthcare professionals who record the infection.
It does make me question whether the reporting base is so small and so selective now that the data isn’t particularly helpful for establishing whether there are any trends up or down in the general population.
Not that this is in itself stressful: it just seems a shame if a big, well organised stats-gathering system is being run down and we all end up a bit less informed.
We’re taking our health (and possibly our lives) in our hands going on another cruise. Lisa and I both got Covid on the last cruise in July.
Only 1 in 100 is masking on board. Even fewer on land.
So far so good, but the new .XBB is spreading and we’re about to enter Italy. That’s where my sister just got it. We do have Paxlovid with us.
Crossing our fingers.
I’m very sorry to hear that
Jeff Jarvis’s dad died of Covid - but at the age of 97. Still.
I’m happy to report that I tested the day we got back and somehow, despite massive crowds and little masking, we’re both healthy.
I did wear a mask all the way home though - 25 hours masked up!