Not unexpected but difficult none the less, going in to work 5 times a week instead of just once is exhausting. While I do not feel tired during the day, I am too tired on the train home to do anything other than shut my eyes. Of course, the long walks during the day add to this fatigue, walked 7 KM a couple of Fridays ago. The end result is that I am behind in my postings.
This sounds like a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging occurrences.
The one person with the mask down, as if pulling it up offered any protection at all. This is one of the many unintended consequences of decreeing that a piece of cloth will prevent viral transmission. You view others without a mask as reckless and riddled with virus. Also, they have this very misguided notion of how they got Covid. Their narrative is "Well I came in contact with an unmasked person on the subway." It does not mean anything. Contact tracing means nothing either unless you live a cloistered life with very little human interaction.
Someone was sharing a study this week that claims that 70% of all viral transmission comes from children. They used "smart thermometer" app testing as a metric for inferring infections and transmission. There is so much to unpack here. The first one being that a high temperature among children even means illness, and also, that it specifically means Covid illness. It's like no one can get an infection now at all other than from Covid.
The absences are another unintended consequence. Before 2020, we were encouraged to work when sick. A cold, a flu even were considered not that bad. We had cold/flu treatments to mask and alleviate symptoms. Sudafed, DayQuil, or the store brands, and you could power through the illness while still getting your 40 hours a week.
Post Covid though, now we are uber sensitive about this stuff. People get a scratchy throat or a runny nose and they are encouraged to call into work and defer going in that day.
As bad as the pulling up of the mask thing is when a previously normal person does it, in this case it was at a med school and a wild eyed woman in a lab coat the one doing it. I work in one of those Halloween Hospitals of Horror.
Just reviewed the difference between fever and high body temperature with my med students as it will be on their quiz next week. Even most MDs do not differentiate between the two. A student of mine did a speech on heat stress, another topic I learned much about form my time in the navy though I already knew a lot from the scouts. I kept asking her to find more specific information on the different levels of heat stress and treatment and she could not find anything in the med school library. She eventually found it online in English.
Japan has long been borderline hypochondria paradise with a body temperature taking fetish. I have long heard from students of their kids missing out on long looked forward to events because they had a “fever”, when is was in fact just a temporary high body temperature. I used to teach a little, who is now a nurse!, and her grandparents. I would teach the grandparents first and then her after she got home, which we scheduled the grandparent’s lesson to finish in time for her’s to start. One day she was already home when I arrived for her grandparent’s lesson. She had been sent home because she had a “fever”. 30 minutes in her grandparents’ air conditioned condo and she right as rain, heat exhaustion. Throughout my kids time in nursery school, day care/preschool and kindergarten, we to take their temperatures before taking them to school and the staff recorded their temps at regular intervals in the notebook that each kids has. I do not know if it normal to do so in elementary school but until recently we had to do the same for our 4th grader. Not sure at what year they would knock this silliness off because the panic had everyone doing this. I was to keep a log of my body temp too. I did not. It is distressing to see that this has spread to other countries.
We really should be praising covid. It single handed lay wiped out all other health concerns mankind had ever had. That is my sarcastic way of agreeing with your assessment that a high temp does not mean an illness but even if an illness, it does not mean covid. It truly is as if all that was known prior to 2020 has been erased form form most people’s minds.
Man, I have gone to work sick, hung over, exhausted, but, I just soldiered through. But to see all those shops closed, well that's a real killer. Makes you wonder about the lives destroyed.
I don't know what work from home is like, never did it, but it definitely weakens all of us.
Same here, except I sailored through it. One has a mental illness, which after years of isolation from lockdowns lite we had here, who is not mentally ill to one degree or another? I suspect the other case is similar. I wonder though if seeing an unmasked teacher (Me) for the first time in their studies at nursing school might have set them off. Hope not.
Working from home has been horrible. Perhaps it would not if single but I suspect that would just change the type of hell. It is not good, weakens us in a myriad of ways. I gained a lot of weight and have problems remembering things, suffer brain fogginess, actually all the normally reported “long covid “ symptoms.
My dad lost his store when I was in high school. It was devastating. Each closed store means a devastated family at best. Simply horrible and completely unnecessary. But when we look at who most of these closed down businesses are, it fits in with what many are saying is underway, the great reset. World wide it has been independent businesses that have been forced to close while big stores have largely been able to remain open. Same here. A restaurant we liked very much and wanted to go back to did not survive the madness. A chain restaurant quickly moved in to the vacated location.
You're right. Seeing those closed shops, with the attendant ruined lives is so much worse than it appears at first thought. All for nothing but a medical scam and a worldwide reset. Historians, if they are able to be fair, will render this a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
Yes, many sirens here as well. Most people unmasked though. That said, my late-30s/early-40s physiotherapist and 50-something chiropractor still wear masks. The former lived in NYC about four years ago before returning to Canada, and knew a healthy doctor his age who purportedly died of C19 in NYC. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his former colleague/friend probably a) didn't have C19 (those PCR tests were run so many cycles they were very inaccurate) and b) was likely killed by the use of a ventilator.
Thanks for the link and warning. Saved. The reasoning of the previous NYC resident baffles me. Knowing someone who died of C19, if that is what they died of, does not change the effectiveness of a mask. Nor of anything for that matter. Madness.
Sorry, once again I didn't get notified of your reply -- clearly, I need to get into the habit of checking back.
My physiotherapist is also fully-vaxxed, yet obviously (only subconsciously maybe?) doesn't trust that the C19 shots are effective or he wouldn't be so diligent about masking up. Fear can be irrational, and most people are susceptible to propaganda, no matter how smart or education they are.
I just saw my chiropracter , and I am happy to report that he's stopped wearing a mask! I was surprised and delighted, and made a mental note to tell you.
Same here, I do not always receive emails alerting me to responses. Glad he finally dropped his mask, but I’d bet he puts it back on at the mere whisper of the “need” for one.
On the subway in Tokyo at this moment, besides myself I only two others in masked in this crowed car. This is the least amount of unmasked I have seen on a train in weeks. Seeing children wear them too. Confirmed with 4th grader last night, only he and one other student in his class are unmasked at school and almost his teachers are still wearing them. They are still not allowed to talk during lunch and must still wear them outside.
Great news! I asked my physio today why he was still wearing a mask, and his answer was surpringly pragmatic: In the early days, he truly was terrified of C19 but he no longer is since getting a mild case. He now just wears a mask to avoid getting any sort of cold, never mind C19, because he loses money for every day he's off sick. Fair enough.
Except wearing a mask he is more likely to get a cold or other respiratory illness. On top of that, they do not stop viruses. That is the likely excuse my kids’ teachers are still wearing them.
Think of your physio’s mental disconnect. He wore a mask yet still got covid but continues wearing a mask because he thinks it will protect him from other viruses.
I agree that it's not rational, but at least he now understands that C19 is nothing to be afraid of. He's got two young daughters, so I pray for their sakes this means they won't get (any more?) C19 jabs. In their age bracket, only half received one jab and hardly anyone is fully-vaxxed in this province.
(My brother and his wife are crazy outliers in this regard. They stopped wearing masks many months ago, but still keep themselves and the babies up to date with C19 boosters, which is way worse in my opinion.)
Yes, I bet you're right about my chiropractor. But at least he's maskfree at the moment, unlike my physiotherapist. Whenever I see anyone in a mask, I remind myself that this person has been deeply, and perhaps permanently, damaged by these last few years. That way, I feel sympathy rather than contempt. (Unless I know for a fact that the individual wanted to strip away the rights of the unvaxxed. No sympathy for those fascists.)
I worry about the children, especially those who have been vaxxed. Those poor souls are probably going to live short, sickly lives.
I felt the urge to inhale deeply several times throughout this stack, unobstructed by one of those germ collectors I still see way too often around here. I'm still trying to decide what was worse, the negative physical consequences of unnecessary/excessive masking, or the culture of fear they contributed to, resulting in all those shops and livelihoods being destroyed (among other things).
This sounds like a mixed bag of encouraging and discouraging occurrences.
The one person with the mask down, as if pulling it up offered any protection at all. This is one of the many unintended consequences of decreeing that a piece of cloth will prevent viral transmission. You view others without a mask as reckless and riddled with virus. Also, they have this very misguided notion of how they got Covid. Their narrative is "Well I came in contact with an unmasked person on the subway." It does not mean anything. Contact tracing means nothing either unless you live a cloistered life with very little human interaction.
Someone was sharing a study this week that claims that 70% of all viral transmission comes from children. They used "smart thermometer" app testing as a metric for inferring infections and transmission. There is so much to unpack here. The first one being that a high temperature among children even means illness, and also, that it specifically means Covid illness. It's like no one can get an infection now at all other than from Covid.
The absences are another unintended consequence. Before 2020, we were encouraged to work when sick. A cold, a flu even were considered not that bad. We had cold/flu treatments to mask and alleviate symptoms. Sudafed, DayQuil, or the store brands, and you could power through the illness while still getting your 40 hours a week.
Post Covid though, now we are uber sensitive about this stuff. People get a scratchy throat or a runny nose and they are encouraged to call into work and defer going in that day.
As bad as the pulling up of the mask thing is when a previously normal person does it, in this case it was at a med school and a wild eyed woman in a lab coat the one doing it. I work in one of those Halloween Hospitals of Horror.
Just reviewed the difference between fever and high body temperature with my med students as it will be on their quiz next week. Even most MDs do not differentiate between the two. A student of mine did a speech on heat stress, another topic I learned much about form my time in the navy though I already knew a lot from the scouts. I kept asking her to find more specific information on the different levels of heat stress and treatment and she could not find anything in the med school library. She eventually found it online in English.
Japan has long been borderline hypochondria paradise with a body temperature taking fetish. I have long heard from students of their kids missing out on long looked forward to events because they had a “fever”, when is was in fact just a temporary high body temperature. I used to teach a little, who is now a nurse!, and her grandparents. I would teach the grandparents first and then her after she got home, which we scheduled the grandparent’s lesson to finish in time for her’s to start. One day she was already home when I arrived for her grandparent’s lesson. She had been sent home because she had a “fever”. 30 minutes in her grandparents’ air conditioned condo and she right as rain, heat exhaustion. Throughout my kids time in nursery school, day care/preschool and kindergarten, we to take their temperatures before taking them to school and the staff recorded their temps at regular intervals in the notebook that each kids has. I do not know if it normal to do so in elementary school but until recently we had to do the same for our 4th grader. Not sure at what year they would knock this silliness off because the panic had everyone doing this. I was to keep a log of my body temp too. I did not. It is distressing to see that this has spread to other countries.
We really should be praising covid. It single handed lay wiped out all other health concerns mankind had ever had. That is my sarcastic way of agreeing with your assessment that a high temp does not mean an illness but even if an illness, it does not mean covid. It truly is as if all that was known prior to 2020 has been erased form form most people’s minds.
Man, I have gone to work sick, hung over, exhausted, but, I just soldiered through. But to see all those shops closed, well that's a real killer. Makes you wonder about the lives destroyed.
I don't know what work from home is like, never did it, but it definitely weakens all of us.
Same here, except I sailored through it. One has a mental illness, which after years of isolation from lockdowns lite we had here, who is not mentally ill to one degree or another? I suspect the other case is similar. I wonder though if seeing an unmasked teacher (Me) for the first time in their studies at nursing school might have set them off. Hope not.
Working from home has been horrible. Perhaps it would not if single but I suspect that would just change the type of hell. It is not good, weakens us in a myriad of ways. I gained a lot of weight and have problems remembering things, suffer brain fogginess, actually all the normally reported “long covid “ symptoms.
My dad lost his store when I was in high school. It was devastating. Each closed store means a devastated family at best. Simply horrible and completely unnecessary. But when we look at who most of these closed down businesses are, it fits in with what many are saying is underway, the great reset. World wide it has been independent businesses that have been forced to close while big stores have largely been able to remain open. Same here. A restaurant we liked very much and wanted to go back to did not survive the madness. A chain restaurant quickly moved in to the vacated location.
You're right. Seeing those closed shops, with the attendant ruined lives is so much worse than it appears at first thought. All for nothing but a medical scam and a worldwide reset. Historians, if they are able to be fair, will render this a disaster of unprecedented proportions.
I doubt they will be allowed unless we stop this.
Yes, many sirens here as well. Most people unmasked though. That said, my late-30s/early-40s physiotherapist and 50-something chiropractor still wear masks. The former lived in NYC about four years ago before returning to Canada, and knew a healthy doctor his age who purportedly died of C19 in NYC. I didn't have the heart to tell him that his former colleague/friend probably a) didn't have C19 (those PCR tests were run so many cycles they were very inaccurate) and b) was likely killed by the use of a ventilator.
https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2023/06/07/covid-death-coverup.aspx
(Save the article PDF if you don't have time to read this right away as he only leaves posts up for 24 hours.)
Thanks for the link and warning. Saved. The reasoning of the previous NYC resident baffles me. Knowing someone who died of C19, if that is what they died of, does not change the effectiveness of a mask. Nor of anything for that matter. Madness.
Sorry, once again I didn't get notified of your reply -- clearly, I need to get into the habit of checking back.
My physiotherapist is also fully-vaxxed, yet obviously (only subconsciously maybe?) doesn't trust that the C19 shots are effective or he wouldn't be so diligent about masking up. Fear can be irrational, and most people are susceptible to propaganda, no matter how smart or education they are.
I just saw my chiropracter , and I am happy to report that he's stopped wearing a mask! I was surprised and delighted, and made a mental note to tell you.
Same here, I do not always receive emails alerting me to responses. Glad he finally dropped his mask, but I’d bet he puts it back on at the mere whisper of the “need” for one.
On the subway in Tokyo at this moment, besides myself I only two others in masked in this crowed car. This is the least amount of unmasked I have seen on a train in weeks. Seeing children wear them too. Confirmed with 4th grader last night, only he and one other student in his class are unmasked at school and almost his teachers are still wearing them. They are still not allowed to talk during lunch and must still wear them outside.
Great news! I asked my physio today why he was still wearing a mask, and his answer was surpringly pragmatic: In the early days, he truly was terrified of C19 but he no longer is since getting a mild case. He now just wears a mask to avoid getting any sort of cold, never mind C19, because he loses money for every day he's off sick. Fair enough.
Except wearing a mask he is more likely to get a cold or other respiratory illness. On top of that, they do not stop viruses. That is the likely excuse my kids’ teachers are still wearing them.
Think of your physio’s mental disconnect. He wore a mask yet still got covid but continues wearing a mask because he thinks it will protect him from other viruses.
I agree that it's not rational, but at least he now understands that C19 is nothing to be afraid of. He's got two young daughters, so I pray for their sakes this means they won't get (any more?) C19 jabs. In their age bracket, only half received one jab and hardly anyone is fully-vaxxed in this province.
(My brother and his wife are crazy outliers in this regard. They stopped wearing masks many months ago, but still keep themselves and the babies up to date with C19 boosters, which is way worse in my opinion.)
Yes, I bet you're right about my chiropractor. But at least he's maskfree at the moment, unlike my physiotherapist. Whenever I see anyone in a mask, I remind myself that this person has been deeply, and perhaps permanently, damaged by these last few years. That way, I feel sympathy rather than contempt. (Unless I know for a fact that the individual wanted to strip away the rights of the unvaxxed. No sympathy for those fascists.)
I worry about the children, especially those who have been vaxxed. Those poor souls are probably going to live short, sickly lives.
I felt the urge to inhale deeply several times throughout this stack, unobstructed by one of those germ collectors I still see way too often around here. I'm still trying to decide what was worse, the negative physical consequences of unnecessary/excessive masking, or the culture of fear they contributed to, resulting in all those shops and livelihoods being destroyed (among other things).