Thanks. I agree. We are all really careful on a daily basis. I’m at school masking and testing every 3 days.
My mother is a clean freak who up until a month ago was washing our grocery packaging with soap and Clorox wipes. She gets everything delivered.
Parents always wear masks and avoid any higher risk activities and social gatherings.
Younger sibling has antibodies since May (was never sick) We then all got tested and he was the only person with the antibodies. probably caught something early on before the first lockdown.
For those who really want to see someone, there is the idea of total non-contact for 14 days. That’s what our plan is. Six people plus baby with different households, but a pact to not go inside anywhere for 14 days. Two of the group who had contact at the 14 day edge are getting Covid tests midway just to make sure.
I think this is really safe. It feels weird though, given the present zeitgeist.
For those planning on getting tested over the next week or so you may need to get an appointment. I am already reading about testing centers closing early and reaching capacity (not sure if this is just due to the numbers right now or it is the pre-holiday rush already.)
My kids and their SOs and my mother are going to an Airbnb for a week around xmas. The kids are going to quarantine themselves 14 days before and get tested 3 days before we meet up. Quarantine means no going to grocery stores or meeting up with anyone. D2 will go out to walk her dog, but that’s it. We live in NYC so we can get everything delivered, including alcohol. Yes, they could get infected by packages delivered, but it is an acceptable risk to us. We are also lucky that we are all able to work remotely.
Saw my mom yesterday, for only the third time since she broke her leg two months ago. Covid rules… hospital will only allow two dedicated visitors (I’m out of town, two siblings are on the list), the rehab center allows none at all.
The isolation is killing her more surely than the surgical complications.
If you’ve a chance to visit with someone who’s made a rational decision as to how they want to spend their remaining time here, I suggest you take it.
Flying out to see our daughters in Chicago for TG. We all have already had COVID, so no issues for us, mild symptoms, guess we have good genes or something else.
H and I are not on the same page about seeing family over the holidays or at any other time. He’s getting fed up with my concerns about the risk. If he would only be putting himself at risk and not me as well, I’d tell him to go ahead and do as he pleases. We still have a second home that won’t be going on the market for at least a year, and I am tempted to go there for a while so he can do as he likes for a while and then quarantine for two weeks before I return.
I think they’re still trying to figure out what causes some to draw good straws and others to draw bad ones. They don’t know if it’s genetic or prior exposure to other viruses. I’ve seen both proposed. If they could figure it out with an easy test, it’d be awesome, but for now med school lad tells me even doctors and nurses are surprised with some of the outcomes (good and bad) of their patients.
It’d be nice if everyone could just be asymptomatic or very mild. Instead some, like my son in his 20’s, end up as long haulers and others draw even worse straws. (sigh)
@patsmom: Thank you for that youtube link!! I just sent it to my son and DIL, with whom we will not be spending Thanksgiving, as a way to make myself feel slightly better. (Post # 365)
For the older folks (like my healthy 84 year old Dad), I sincerely believe that people have to be able to make their own decisions. In the beginning, it was very hard to convince him to stay in. He’s very social and walks about 3 miles to town every day and talks to his friends along the way. He sees one friend regularly. Without that friend, I think his mental health would suffer. A lot.
We live in a state that been hard hit. He told me that he doesn’t want to spend a year or two in fear. He has me check which towns are in the red and he avoids those. He no longer shops for groceries and he rarely goes to restaurants.
He’s coming to Thanksgiving. We’ve already done shopping and will only pick up veggies at the farm stand ( early morning in a small town). All of the adults coming work from home, no one is flying and the younger set are all tested regularly and will be home for a week minimum before seeing him. The alternative, having him sit home alone with a microwave dinner isn’t possible.
One of the things that Covid has forced me to realize is the amount of risk and fear that people can handle or not. We are all so different. ( BTW< this is coming from someone who back in January bought supplies and washed my groceries for months, stayed home for months and then realized that it wasn’t going to matter much).
Unless the entire nation shut down, it was not going away. Not as long as there were grocery stores and home depots open. In my current thinking , Covid is going to run its course. The vaccine might help if it gets out soon enough and works well enough. But, lots of folks are still going to get it. Staying at home isn’t a guarantee either. Unless you plan to isolate. And most people will need a doctor or dentist at some point.
Daughter got home from PA Wednesday night. Finally got a test appointment Saturday afternoon. She just got the results, three days later, and it was negative.
@Happytimes2001 – it sounds like you have a reasonable, safe plan. Your father should be well protected by those procedures. We may well have vaccinations in the next four or six months, and I would hate to lose anyone we don’t have to in that space of time.
I mean, yes it is running through the population, but it can do that fast, or slow, and slower means less losses before we get the vaccination.
I think your level of precaution sounds very reasonable, but I hope others don’t think, well it’s going to happen anyway, so might as well do what we want. (again, I understand that’s not what you’re saying.)
If he walks outside in uncrowded areas and sees his friends outside but at a reasonable distance (and with neither directly downwind of the other for a significant amount of time), that seems like a low risk activity that is not really worth worrying about (unlike activities that involve going into crowded enclosed spaces like eating in an indoor restaurant).
PA will be putting into effect a bunch of conditions as of Friday. One is a negative test to enter the state (or 14 days of quarantine). This includes residents re-entering. I don’t know that it will affect our travels (or lack thereof) at all, esp since we voluntarily isolate at our farm after interactions, but it will be interesting to see if it changes anything. I’m not quite sure how they plan to enforce it TBH.
We already have a mask requirement for our grocery store and they don’t even pretend to enforce it.
Like elsewhere, numbers and hospitalizations in our state are increasing. I’m glad they’re trying to do something.
I’m glad that my kids have already canceled for thanksgiving, both live in PA. I wonder if my dil’s parents will come to their house now. Her father has dementia and you never know when things will get worse.
