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It's been a while, I was laid off for 10 weeks due to COVID and that really turned time into a meaningless void! All the time in the world to pursue everything I wanted to do and do everything that needed to be done and break some bad habits. When work started up again, I just continued with my studies and adjusting my lifestyle to where everything would fit again.
Time is still meaningless, I have lost all concept of what it means and the many fardels it brings to this mortal coil, but at least I'm getting lots done?
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"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

"It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
- ibid.

I've been working from home since mid-March due to Corona, and I agree. Time is not the same as it used to be, it's ... weirder. I often find myself having to check whether today is Tuesday or Wednesday, something I never had to do before unless I was three weeks into a four-week vacation.
 
"Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so."
- Douglas Adams, Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy

"It must be Thursday. I never could get the hang of Thursdays."
- ibid.

I've been working from home since mid-March due to Corona, and I agree. Time is not the same as it used to be, it's ... weirder. I often find myself having to check whether today is Tuesday or Wednesday, something I never had to do before unless I was three weeks into a four-week vacation.

I have not worked from home, I am classified as an "essential worker". (And not by some cheeky management personnel trying to stay open.) But it's an overnight job, so I routinely have the feeling of "hang on, was it Tuesday or Wednesday..." This feeling got far worse when I was pulling six day workweeks. Even if it's classified as part-time (anywhere from four to six hours per shift) it's hectic, grueling, and just draining. And for as much as I hear about how our efforts are appreciated, it never feels that way... The whole of the last six months have been a "wonderful" experience, and with the kids home... it's left my creative processes in a mess. I aim to be creative... and I am...

Just never on the project I intended to when I got started that day. Which is why a friend tapped me on the shoulder, gave me a game I never played before, and told me to fire up my Twitch stream so he could watch me fail hilariously play it.

I may not be getting BattleTech things done, but dammit I'm going to stay sane rather than worry about all the stuff I can't get done. It's either that or hunting dragons.

latest


... what? Kuritans got nothin' on Rathy-boy.
 
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I have not worked from home, I am classified as an "essential worker". (And not by some cheeky management personnel trying to stay open.) But it's an overnight job, so I routinely have the feeling of "hang on, was it Tuesday or Wednesday..." This feeling got far worse when I was pulling six day workweeks.


Yep, those types of jobs mess with your clock.

Happy to see everyone is still safe and healthy, this year has been a challenge, for sure. Holding my breath until the winds change, current climate has sucked most of the joy out of life.

hatchy sig.png
 
I have not worked from home, I am classified as an "essential worker". (And not by some cheeky management personnel trying to stay open.) But it's an overnight job, so I routinely have the feeling of "hang on, was it Tuesday or Wednesday..."
Been there. Is there actually.
 
Between COVID, taking care of an elderly and infirm relative, moving to be close enough to take care of that relative, and a kid who’s about to turn 1, this year has been a massive grind.

I can’t wait for it to be safe to see friends in person again.
 
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I can’t wait for it to be safe to see friends in person again.

I consider it's still safe, so long as I know those friends have been taking reasonable precautions - and I do as well.

This ain't my first plague epidemic, and I worked retail enough during flu seasons to have internalized a lot of protocols to keep myself (and my home) moderately safe. I can't 100% keep it safe without quitting my job and becoming a hermit out in the Appalachians (something more attractive as the years wind on) but I can do all I reasonably can.

I'm not going crazy, but the occasional "game night" still can happen as long as everyone abides by a few ground rules and doesn't come over if they're feeling off.
 
I consider it's still safe, so long as I know those friends have been taking reasonable precautions - and I do as well.

This ain't my first plague epidemic, and I worked retail enough during flu seasons to have internalized a lot of protocols to keep myself (and my home) moderately safe. I can't 100% keep it safe without quitting my job and becoming a hermit out in the Appalachians (something more attractive as the years wind on) but I can do all I reasonably can.

I'm not going crazy, but the occasional "game night" still can happen as long as everyone abides by a few ground rules and doesn't come over if they're feeling off.
When you’re helping take care of someone who has a very high risk of mortality (or permanent organ damage) if they were to catch COVID, the risk equation changes drastically in favor of minimizing possible exposure.

If I were in different circumstances, I‘d probably be willing to take the occasional calculated risk. :)
 
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When you’re helping take care of someone who has a very high risk of mortality (or permanent organ damage) if they were to catch COVID, the risk equation changes drastically in favor of minimizing possible exposure.

If I were in different circumstances, I‘d probably be willing to take the occasional calculated risk. :)
Same here. My stepfather is 70+ and still recovering from a nasty pneumonia from last year. Visiting my parents usually involves putting me and my wife into quarantine for a week before.
 
This ain't my first plague epidemic
Nit pick: COVID-19 is more accurately described as a pandemic, even though it is an epidemic too.

And while it may not be your first pandemic, it is without question the deadliest you've ever had the risk of catching. Here's some global death tolls from some of the larger epidemics/pandemics in the last 60 years:
  • Asian flu 1957-58: 1 million dead.
  • Hong Kong flu 1968-70: 1 million dead.
  • SARS 2002-04: 774 dead.
  • Swine flu 2009-10: 284,000 dead.
  • SARS 2012-ongoing: 935 dead
  • MERS 2015: 935 dead.
  • Ebola 2014-16: 11,000 dead.
  • COVID-19 2019-ongoing: 1 million dead so far.
The only pandemic worse than COVID-19 since the 1918 flu (50 million dead) is HIV/AIDS (at over 32 million dead), and to get that you need to actively have sex with an infected person (or, rather more sadly, be born to a mother with HIV). With COVID-19, you just need to be near an infected person if you're unlucky/sensitive.

Why is MERS and SARS on there with their sub-1,000 worldwide death tolls? Well, because:
  • MERS is an acronym for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and was caused by a coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
  • SARS is an acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and is caused by a coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1).
  • COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 strain of the coronavirus.
So you see, COVID-19 is unlike our previous encounters with the coronavirus; those weren't that bad at all, globally speaking. This one is.

And to those who want to compare to the seasonal flu: 2017-18 was an exceptionally bad year for the seasonal flu, it killed about 61,000 people in the United States that season. COVID-19 has so far killed over 207,000 in the US alone. In half a year. That's over three times worse than the worst seasonal flu season in a long time.

For the record, we had a family friend go from a healthy, happy 80-year old to dead in two weeks due to COVID-19. I couldn't imagine living with the guilt had I been the one transmitting the disease to her. Or to my 80+ parents for that matter (who I haven't seen since February when we normally see each other every 1-2 months; we only live 300 kms apart).

All I'm saying is: Don't take risks. For your own sake, for your loved ones' sake, for strangers you meet on the subway's grandparent's sake, be careful. Keep social distance, wear a mask, and wash your hands frequently.
 
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When you’re helping take care of someone who has a very high risk of mortality (or permanent organ damage) if they were to catch COVID, the risk equation changes drastically in favor of minimizing possible exposure.

If I were in different circumstances, I‘d probably be willing to take the occasional calculated risk. :)

Oh don't get me wrong here, if I lived with my parents still? This wouldn't be a question. But given my job, I've got the risk of COVID-19 and other "fun stuff" daily. Like I said, the "safest" choice would be to stop work and stay home until it passes.

... which isn't an option, since - you know - bills need to still get paid. And I don't get paid if I don't work. So it's "suck it up, go to work, and just scrub clean every day once you get home" for me. Whatever the reality of this thing is, whatever the mortality rate is, and whether it will kill me whether I get it? Doesn't matter. Gotta work, gotta get paid, and that's the end of that.
 
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Oh don't get me wrong here, if I lived with my parents still? This wouldn't be a question. But given my job, I've got the risk of COVID-19 and other "fun stuff" daily. Like I said, the "safest" choice would be to stop work and stay home until it passes.

... which isn't an option, since - you know - bills need to still get paid. And I don't get paid if I don't work. So it's "suck it up, go to work, and just scrub clean every day once you get home" for me. Whatever the reality of this thing is, whatever the mortality rate is, and whether it will kill me whether I get it? Doesn't matter. Gotta work, gotta get paid, and that's the end of that.
I'm so lucky that I can work from home. I'm on medication that suppresses my immune system so if I get COVID-19, I'll be in a bad (read: ICU and ventilator) state more likely than not. I'm also lucky that I have a boss that allows me to keep working from home full-time while my colleagues have been ordered back to the office (part time; half of them work at the office mon+wed, the other half tue+thu, rest of the time is work from home).

Stay safe, stay healthy, and don't take any risks. This [censored] is deadly, and there's definitely nicer ways to go than drowning in your own lung fluids with total immune system collapse.
 
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Nit pick: COVID-19 is more accurately described as a pandemic, even though it is an epidemic too.

And while it may not be your first pandemic, it is without question the deadliest you've ever had the risk of catching. Here's some global death tolls from some of the larger epidemics/pandemics in the last 60 years:
  • Asian flu 1957-58: 1 million dead.
  • Hong Kong flu 1968-70: 1 million dead.
  • SARS 2002-04: 774 dead.
  • Swine flu 2009-10: 284,000 dead.
  • SARS 2012-ongoing: 935 dead
  • MERS 2015: 935 dead.
  • Ebola 2014-16: 11,000 dead.
  • COVID-19 2019-ongoing: 1 million dead so far.
The only pandemic worse than COVID-19 since the 1918 flu (50 million dead) is HIV/AIDS (at over 32 million dead), and to get that you need to actively have sex with an infected person (or, rather more sadly, be born to a mother with HIV). With COVID-19, you just need to be near an infected person if you're unlucky/sensitive.

Why is MERS and SARS on there with their sub-1,000 worldwide death tolls? Well, because:
  • MERS is an acronym for Middle East Respiratory Syndrome and was caused by a coronavirus (MERS-CoV).
  • SARS is an acronym for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome and is caused by a coronavirus (SARS-CoV or SARS-CoV-1).
  • COVID-19 is caused by the SARS-CoV-2 strain of the coronavirus.
So you see, COVID-19 is unlike our previous encounters with the coronavirus; those weren't that bad at all, globally speaking. This one is.

And to those who want to compare to the seasonal flu: 2017-18 was an exceptionally bad year for the seasonal flu, it killed about 61,000 people in the United States that season. COVID-19 has so far killed over 207,000 in the US alone. In half a year. That's over three times worse than the worst seasonal flu season in a long time.

For the record, we had a family friend go from a healthy, happy 80-year old to dead in two weeks due to COVID-19. I couldn't imagine living with the guilt had I been the one transmitting the disease to her. Or to my 80+ parents for that matter (who I haven't seen since February when we normally see each other every 1-2 months; we only live 300 kms apart).

All I'm saying is: Don't take risks. For your own sake, for your loved ones' sake, for strangers you meet on the subway's grandparent's sake, be careful. Keep social distance, wear a mask, and wash your hands frequently.

Nit pick: Ebola is far deadlier to the individual catching it. COVID is nasty, but is mostly deadly in the aggregate (it spreads way better than Ebola). In a nightmare scenario where I have to pick which virus I’m infected with, I’ll take COVID over Ebola every time.

(I still don’t want either.)
 
Nit pick: Ebola is far deadlier to the individual catching it. COVID is nasty, but is mostly deadly in the aggregate (it spreads way better than Ebola). In a nightmare scenario where I have to pick which virus I’m infected with, I’ll take COVID over Ebola every time.

(I still don’t want either.)
MERS is also much deadlier than COVID, around a 35% fatality rate.

COVID’s fatality rate ramps up pretty quickly and unpleasantly based on age and comorbidities (hypertension is an 8x multiplier on fatality rate, as a commonly occurring example). It also causes permanent organ damage in many survivors, the long term consequences of which are not fully understood.

So, yeah, better COVID than Ebola, but I’ll keep trying to avoid both. :)
 
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Nit pick: Ebola is far deadlier to the individual catching it. COVID is nasty, but is mostly deadly in the aggregate (it spreads way better than Ebola).
My statement wasn't "COVID-19 is the deadliest virus ever", it was that it is "without question the deadliest you've ever had the risk of catching". As you say, it's highly contagious and while we currently think its overall mortality rate is around 2-3% (as compared to Ebola, which has a somewhere between 20-90% mortality EDIT: Although COVID-19 mortality rate can be as high as 30% for victims in older age groups), it just infects so many, many more people than Ebola ever could. Remember, 3% of the world's population is 240 million people (or 5 times as many as were killed in the 1918 flu). 3% of the US population is 10 million people.

Ebola had 11,000 deaths worldwide in two years (all on the African subcontinent); COVID-19 has so far killed 993,542 worldwide in less than a year, 208,000 in the US.

COVID-19 is not contained, it is world-wide, and there's no cure, only prophylactic and palliative measures.
Common and effective prophylactic measures include social distancing, wearing a mask, and washing your hands. So please, do those.
In a nightmare scenario where I have to pick which virus I’m infected with, I’ll take COVID over Ebola every time.

(I still don’t want either.)
"I'd rather go quietly in my sleep like my grandfather, than screaming in terror like the passengers on his bus".

Yeah, I'd take just about any kind of death besides one caused by virus or bacteria.
 
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for me this is a nightmare.
was laid off in march due to covid and my weekend biz dies shortly thereafter.
but am unable to go back to work as i am a high-risk for catching it. (hypertension, severe asthma & diabetes)
so if i got it...chances are im done or in for an extremely bad time.(the idea of ventilators freaks me out)
so here i am....6 plus months in down to living off whats left of savings and the pittance i get from unemployment hoping a working vaccine happens before i run out of money.
 
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but am unable to go back to work as i am a high-risk for catching it. (hypertension, severe asthma & diabetes)
That is the trifecta of big risk factors for COVID. :(
6 plus months in down to living off whats left of savings and the pittance i get from unemployment hoping a working vaccine happens before i run out of money.
I feel for you.

My wife and I have discussed COVID at length and one thing we keep coming back to is that it is forcing everyone to make decisions where every option is bad. ”Which is the least worst option?” is a lousy question to have to keep answering.
 
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”Which is the least worst option?” is a lousy question to have to keep answering.

... to switch to a lighter note, this is the conundrum of Periphery residents :) (and some parts of the Inner Sphere, depending on time)

"Which option is likely NOT to explode in our face immediately?"
 
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Not to be the wet blanket but this "what viruses are worse and why" seems more like a topic that if we want to explore in depth there are appropriate threads in the OT subforum. Unless we want to discuss the personal impact of the virus and stuff. I totally get the need to release some steam on that.

For my part since March things have been nuts. My little insignificant view into the crunch inspires me to seriously empathise with people who are instead in a medical field that really got slammed.
... to switch to a lighter note, this is the conundrum of Periphery residents :) (and some parts of the Inner Sphere, depending on time)

"Which option is likely NOT to explode in our face immediately?"
Thank you for bringing the topic back to the game! :p
 
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for me this is a nightmare.
was laid off in march due to covid and my weekend biz dies shortly thereafter.
but am unable to go back to work as i am a high-risk for catching it. (hypertension, severe asthma & diabetes)
so if i got it...chances are im done or in for an extremely bad time.(the idea of ventilators freaks me out)
so here i am....6 plus months in down to living off whats left of savings and the pittance i get from unemployment hoping a working vaccine happens before i run out of money.
That's harsh. I feel for you.
 
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