Lostin76

Did you also feel this way about Trumps maskless rallies? This is getting back to politics now though.

Good question, I was reading an article earlier and it had this quote about those who were previously infected: This is true even among people who have been infected with Covid-19 before: Those who have previously had the virus are more than twice as likely to become reinfected by the Delta variant if they are unvaccinated.

The vaccine cuts down the risk of hospitalization and death dramatically. That’s it. That’s the argument. And I agree that “normal life” is pretty far away in a lot of areas, b/c too many people refuse to take precautions - vaccination, distancing, masks. Things are pretty normal here and have been for awhile - b/c most people in Brooklyn understand that we are all in this together. This is not difficult. But people try to make it so.

Lollapalooza was STUPID. As bad as Sturgis. I recall a lot of people I know pointing out the stupidity of Lollapalooza.

Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply that you were anti-vax. And I share your concern in your first paragraph for sure. I’m also afraid that we are heading to that type of world. The video today of an angry mob in TN yelling at a doctor who testified at a school board meeting in favor of masks was chilling. I’m glad you guys are slow on runs (I lived on Mass Ave across from the firehouse in Indy when I was there). I wish that was our experience when this started. We just don’t want to get back to anything approaching that here locally, which I don’t actually think will happen. But, there are a LOT of people in a small sapce and lots of visitors from other states. I do have one employee out of 50 that has chosen not to be vaccinated. They still have a job, but we do request them to get tested every two weeks. For what it’s worth, I’ve been very respectful of her decision, while also trying to tow the line with policy.

Yes, NYC is requiring proof of vaccine to dine indoors, see plays, etc. I applaud it. You can dine outdoors or not go to see plays if you don’t want to get the vaccine. If you lived here with 24/7 sirens wailing and over 800 people a day dying in the city from COVID, you might understand the NYC policy a little bit better. It’s not willy nilly. I do understand your point of view, but I just don’t agree with it when it comes to COVID. This disease is no joke and it requires everyone to take it seriously if we want to get past it. There are lots of things my government does or spends money on that I don’t approve of. What can I do? I can choose not to pay taxes and contribute to that, but there will most likely be consequences. I also didn’t want to get an anthrax vaccine in boot camp, but I did. Lots of things I don’t like to have to do.

😂 100% agree! I was working a shift at a grocery store as a bagger when a friend ran in to tell my about Cliff. Huge bummer and really tragic way to go.

Also the article in the NYT this weekend that showed how many kindergarten aged kids did not enroll. Really tragic all around for kids and youth.

You are exactly right, I saw that further down in the article too. Those are mostly elderly with other complications most likely.

No specific meds, just studying the incidence, severity, and length of long haul COVID. It’s ironic for sure and I just can’t understand (well, I can, but I can’t say it) why people have chosen to politicize this issue when vaccinations weren’t such a freedom thing back in the day. I don’t recall getting to say no in bootcamp when I got a dozen vaccines. And I had to bring my little vaccination card to enroll in school as a kid. We could have been largely done with this by now, but beyond the vaccines many people can’t seem to stand having a piece of cloth on their face when they walk into a store. I see kids on the playground running around and playing with masks on all day, but some grownups can’t seem to swing it. Incredibly frustrating that so many politicians are choosing to extend the pandemic. I recall you mentioning that about your grandfather and that is tough when you know someone who had a sever reaction. That definitely makes it a more fraught decision when you know someone who had a bad reaction. My second Pfizer dose really hit me hard, but it only lasted 24 hours. The government really doesn’t have “control over your medical decisions,” but businesses and local governments should be able to protect their citizens with policy. This is a serious disease and people are free to not get vaccinated or choose not to wear masks, but there may be consequences that accompany that decision.

Breakthrough Infections, Hospitalizations, and Deaths - some numbers In IN vaccinated people made up 0.7% of Coved hospitalizations, BUT 4.7% of deaths. That first number is amazing, but the second not so much. A table further down shows that you are 57 times more likely to be hospitalized for COVID if you are unvaccinated in Indiana. Breakthrough infections are definitely happening, especially where the virus is allowed to rage unchecked. But I would take the vaccine over not. One thing we are seeing locally is a lot of younger, healthier people coming in to our system with severe Covid symptomes.. And over 99% of these are unvaccinated. It’s been incredibly rare for us to have a vaccinated case needing hospitalization. We also are leading a massive new NIH study on long haul COVID. We found in our own internal numbers that recovery for many people is proving to be elusive. To me that’s the big selling point of protecting yourself and others around you. Sure, you might get it, feel crappy, but recover. However, lots of people are having severe chronic health issues six months or a year later. Really wish that we didn’t need this thread anymore. It’s kind of bullshit that we still have to talk about this.

Heading to Vermont (Burlington) this weekend, so jazzed about picking up some great beers that don’t make it down to the city.

Nice! I will have to live vicariously through you harvest these bad boys.

Yeah, I guess we don’t tend to care about the tourist dollars in Brooklyn as much as Manhattan. They need it much more than we do. Neighborhoods are bouncing back here locally quite well. Even the rents are creeping back up as more people return to the city.

This for sure. Are they foolproof? Nope. Do they help? Absolutely. Thankfully, NYC has finally decided that vaccination is the way out of this and had now required proven vaccination for indoor dining and events. You want to take advantage of everything NYC has to offer? Fine, then prove you are vaccinated. No more honor code bullshit. So far, the people crying on Twitter about it are people that don’t actually live here and didn’t go through what we did in the early days. Don’t care what those people think and don’t need them in my city. It may be different in less populated areas where such a policy is not needed, but there are too many tourists and people coming here that don’t care about anyone but themselves.

I think it’s the same for US citizens regardless of the country. That was our fear - forced to have to stay and fork out extra dollars for lodging for 10-14 days! It was a bit of a pain to get the test in a foreign country and almost made me think, “Well, maybe we shouldn’t have did this trip.” When we booked it, the Delta variant wasn’t really a thing. It looked like we were about to beat COVID.

Good question. I’m not thrilled with them, but realize it may have been a bit overwhelming to them. There are a lot of plants. I’m definitely doing a drip irrigation on a timer next year. Will be really nice not to have to worry about our plants when we want to go out of town.

I do have one on our terrace. There seems to be dozens of popular irrigation systems, do you have experience with any you would recommend? I’ve always just done it by hand (with a hose of course) each morning.

In order for us to board our flight back to JFK from Milan on Monday at 11am, we had to have a negative COVID test. We were able to fly to Italy by showing our vaccination status, but we still had to have a negative test in Italy no more than three days before our boarding time of 11am on Monday. AND we had to upload the negative test result four hours before our 11am flight. Which is fun in a country ntly that shuts down for three hours every afternoon and takes their weekends very seriously. But the idiotic three day rule meant we had to wait until Friday to get a test. So, Friday morning as we were leaving our place In Tuscany we found a lab that was offering COVID tests w/o appointments or referrals - that was NOT easy. My wife and I know two dozen words in Italian between us. We stood in line at the lab and then finally when it was out turn, we got our forms and stumbled through filling them out. They knew we were idiot tourists, so they made us stand aside while actual Italians with appointments were taken care of. Then they made us fill out more forms. We got the test (160 euros) and they sent us on our way pointing to a website on the form to check for results. We checked the website all day and nothing. Then we used Google translate to figure out that test results were guaranteed by noon on Monday - an hour after our flight boards. My wife was in full on panic mode. We were heading to Lake Como for our last days and figured out that we could get rapid tests at the Milan airport over the weekend. But by that point, she had a bad sore throat and headache, totally convinced that she had COVID and would be required to stay in Italy for another 10-14 days. I told her we would wait until Saturday morning for our results and if they didn’t come through we would drive to the Milan airport for rapid tests. By that point, even I was sweating it. Luckily we got a text shortly after midnight with our negative test results! We were careful in Italy, which was easy b/c they take COVID very seriously. Absolutely no entry anywhere indoors w/o masks, but all of our dining was outdoors anyway. Did have a couple interesting conversations with people about the US response to COVID and vaccinations. They seemed gobsmacked by our response to COVID.

We had some friends from Philly staying at our place while we were in Italy and they were supposed to water our plants. I made a video for them showing how much water the tomatoes needed and directions for the other plants. It also seemed like NYC had a lot of rain while we were gone, so I felt pretty good about our plants. Buut we came back to brown and dying tomato plants and probably 30% of our flowers and herbs were toast. I spent the morning ripping out four completely fried tomato plants and pulled about seven containers of dead flowers and herbs. I have no idea how often they watered, but would be shocked if it was more than once. I need to set up a an irrigation system for our terrace for the future. You live an learn. At least our two cats were still alive!

We are in Italy for three weeks and it’s weird to see how different things are here. Started out in Bergamo, which was hit really hard early on in the pandemic. Everyone wore masks indoors and most of the dining was outdoors. Our AirBnB host had only just received her first shot and was desperate for the second. In the Italian Alps, everyone walking down the street in all of the tourist towns were masked. There were very few people dining indoors and all of the shops were VERY strict about masks. Now we are on the Tuscan Coast and they have a guy out front of the grocery store making sure everu=yone is masked and they take your temperature upon entry. They don’t have the vaccination stock that we have in the US, and I talked to a guy at the beach who was just dumbfounded at the the number of people in the US refusing the vaccine. He said, “The USA is the richest country, but also sometimes the most ignorant.” Not much of an argument there.

Thank you, each day she reveals herself to be that much more of a winner. We feel like we hit the jackpot! It is losing a member of your family. Really tough. Sorry! It’s Edith, we call her Edie for short. We like old-fashioned names for our pets. I’m really glad the breeder did the right thing in both cases. There will always be a loving family wanting a dog like that!

Yeah, it’s most likely calcium deficiency (instead of watering issues) and I’ve noticed it’s only on one of the three plants, which is kind of weird. I think I’ll try some lime dust on it to see if I can save some of the late bloomers.

Yeah, i don’t have anything against most breeders, but was happy to “retire” this five year old girl to the cushy Brooklyn life!

I haven’t been posting much on here or anywhere lately after our dachshund Chloe passed. It was the toughest loss I’ve had in a pretty long life with plenty of bumps and hardships. My wife and I were both just devastated as she’s been our baby for 14 years - got her when she was 8 weeks old. We waited a month to start looking for another dog and we finally found another long-haired dachshund from a rescue organization in Brewster, NY. She was a breeder surrender from Texas, who wasn’t producing enough puppies. She’s five years old and just a sweetheart. Super cuddly and loving and really eager to please. She seems to be great with other dogs and kids, and that’s a plus as our building has plenty of both. Here’s one of the first pics of her at a brewery with my wife.