Covid-19 discussion

Aussies, from personal experience – seconding going to your local small groceries during lockdowns/anything that looks like there will be panic buying. Our little health food store next door hasn’t had pretty much any shortages this whole time, while Safeway and Trader Joe’s (two much larger chains) have experienced shortages again and again.

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Doesn’t even 1/2 doses provide some protection ? More people with X immunity vs less with < Y immunity. They must think the numbers for all of us work out better that way even though it’s more risky individually. With the behavioral challenges to risk reduction in the US I theoretically agree it seems like a good strategy but I’m not exactly up to speed on how well the vaccine works this way

Edit: I think the US is so far past the point of collective public health action from citizens we cannot let perfect be the enemy of good

Edit again: even though many people take no personal responsibility for spread, really it’s the government that hasn’t shown a single ounce of leadership and who has failed the most

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They should all report Covid symptoms Monday. Every single one.

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Is there anything known about if the second dose of vaccine is taken AFTER the earliest recommended date (days, weeks, months) if those delays in any way reduce the effectiveness of the second dose? I understand that the maximum immunity (for an individual receiving the vaccine) won’t be achieved until the second dose has resulted in an immune reaction, but is there such thing as receiving that second dose “too late” to be effective?

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I’m sure there is a point where it isn’t effective, if the body didn’t get the immune response required, it would be basically like starting over.

What that point is, I’m not sure.

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Y’all just keep blowing my mind. people who refuse to wear masks on board here are getting banned from the airlines for life.

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There were just no canned beans available at most of our stores, and none dried for about 2 months here. It sucked for us, people that use beans every day.

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I ended up buying 10 lbs of red lentils from the Evil Empire for this reason.

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Still working through 20 lbs of pinto beans.

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For us it was trying to find flour, and especially bread flour.

All those hobby bakers were messing us up- we’ve been baking all the bread in our house for over 10 years. (Our costco stopped carrying 50 pound bags of bread flour a few years ago. We had high hopes the pandemic would make them stock it again, but so far we can only get AP flour in 50 pound bags.)

The bags of rice and dried beans in our house are so big though that my toddler thinks they are chairs. He often opens the pantry and sits down on the rice…

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This has been the only time I’ve amusingly seen gluten free flour fully stocked and everything else gone at Target. I will echo that small stores have been so much better. My local small grocer of Middle Eastern and South Asian brands primarily has always been fully stocked with rice flours, chickpea flour, as well as plenty of varieties of wheat flours but things have different names often so it’s taken a few trips and googling to fully understand what’s available.

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I went to shops, pubs, restaurants and dropped my mum at a concert yesterday and didn’t see anyone in masks, its kinda a totally different world here (at least in Western Australia)

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:thinking::scream_cat:

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People here have become very complacent, no social distancing, no masks, most of the time I dont even see people using the hand sanitiser and stuff

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Talked briefly to one of my former classmates who is a Covid test nurse in LA. Fuck man :cry: that’s all I got.

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Yes, it is super scary here and I can’t imagine being a healthcare worker.

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According to AP: “Biden’s plan is not about cutting two-dose vaccines in half, a strategy that top government scientists recommend against. Instead, it would accelerate shipment of first doses and use the levers of government power to provide required second doses in a timely manner.”

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West Australia hasn’t had any community transmission for 9 months so in a very different situation to most of the rest of the world.

International travellers go into managed quarantine (with some exemptions), and Australian state borders are opened and closed as clusters pop up in various states, with lots of opening and closing over the last few weeks!

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Last year, we got by thanks to small grocers, our most local tiny stores and zero-waste stores who introduced deliver-to-boot. I am currently putting in an order to restock our pantry so that we have time to adjust if/when we go into lockdown or food restrictions again and can rely on just local stores again.

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I think CDC states there is not currently a maximum timeframe for the second vaccine. It does say something like if you miss the second vaccine at 3 or 4 weeks to not start the series over but just do the second vaccine when you can. I was curious and looked it up after learning a coworker got the first vaccine then tested positive for Covid the following day (not sure how that all worked out the way it did) so she can’t get the second vaccine at the 3 week mark.

Also - I just noticed today the CDC wording for breastfeeding and lactating people is specifically the words people and person :love_you_gesture:t2:

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