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I Miss My Bar

imissmybar.com

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Re: I Miss My Bar

#321

Post by robocat »

ravenstine wrote: post #230
robocat wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> while COVID mostly (not entirely, but mostly) advances the Grim Reaper for the old and sick who likely only had a few years anyway. The average years lost is 10 years of life in the US and 16 world wide[1] - and I think you need to reconsider how callous your comment comes across (to me at least, and I would guess others too). [edited: added detail] I also feel your comment entirely disregards the point made by the…

That's not how anyone should assess risk. You can't take an average and assume that it applies to everyone. The elderly hare far more likely of losing 10 years off their lives than young people who are very unlikely to lose 40+ years off their lives. For instance, the chance that I will die from COVID at my age and health are, for all intents and purposes, 0% , according to the CDC. It would be ridiculous for me to t…

The point I made is that an average of 10+ years lost is strikingly different from the canonical “nearly dead elderly don’t matter” argument that I see far too many people use (and which my comment replied to). Obviously averages are very poor indicators when a distribution is wonky, and it is preferably to deep dive into the data.

Note I am all for people doing whatever they want with their own lives - if you want to go to a Covid party I would love to support that. I love taking certain risks myself.

However, when the choices of one age group can kill my mum, dad or friends, I would hope we agree to serious restrictions to help prevent that. With engineering balance to the compromises, given that prevention techniques cause significant human costs.

I am from New Zealand, so I can resoundingly support everyone acting together in concert to protect everyone else (as most kiwis did, with a good outcome for us).

Re: I Miss My Bar

#322

Post by Uberphallus »

toby wrote: post #233
CydeWeys wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Living in a flat as a single person in the big exciting city? Literally everything you do has been illegal or restricted in some form for almost a year now. And unsafe , too. I'm not not going to restaurants because I'm not allowed to (they're actually opening back up a little bit here now), but because under the present circumstances it's not safe to do so.

Open-air dining with six feet of separation is almost certainly safe. There's literally no evidence to the contrary despite multiple court orders to produce any.

Unfortunately when restaurants around here could open, they didn't have the required distancing between tables because that'd mean they'd make half the money. Your country culture may vary.

Re: I Miss My Bar

#324

Post by birktj »

Mediterraneo10 wrote: post #199
CaptainZapp wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'm pretty sure nothing's going to change in the next 5 years. Given the speed in which effective vaccines were developed I think this is a rather bleak outlook. Sure, a lot is still unknown with the new virus variants and as has been expected vaccination drives had their teething problems. But in a few month time (almost) everybody who wants their jabs can get it (in rich countries, that is). I for one, see myself…

It is worth reading what the epidemologists advising Western governments actually think. Many of them are arguing for social distancing and border closures to continue until the entire world is vaccinated, regardless of how many people are vaccinated within your own country. That is expected to take probably until 2026, so the OP's worries about five years are founded. Some outliers among those advisors are even argu…

Are you sure this is the case? From the Norwegian news it seems very much like the epidemiologists that are advising the government in many cases are advising lesser restrictions than what is actually implemented.

Re: I Miss My Bar

#325

Post by RhodoGSA »

skocznymroczny wrote: post #260

Until people rise up against the restrictions, the restrictions will continue and will be more restrictive over time. There's always a third, fourth, fifth wave, there's always a new strain immune to current vaccines. Just hold on for two weeks so we can defeat the virus!

I don't really understand why this can get downvoted... Seems like pure HN censorship to me. I fully agree. We need to do something, whether that be writing your senators, protesting in the streets or making your voice heard for what you believe in. If you have an opinion that is different from others and your opinion is valid. It should never be discounted even if others believe it is wrong. Discourse is the key to rational thinking.

Re: I Miss My Bar

#326

Post by Wintamute »

criddell wrote: post #289
Wintamute wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand that aspect. Vaccinations, social distancing, mask wearing, mass testing, self isolating with symptoms or while vulnerable - these are all tools designed to get society running again, while minimising risk. The OP said they felt unsafe about going into restaurants which were open in their region. My opinion is that is incumbent on all of us to get back to normality as swiftly as possible within the guide…

> within the guidelines set out by our local governments Your local government may not care about you. I'd look to respected civilian experts or at least government agencies staffed by respected experts. I'm basing this on Texas' Lt. Governor Dan Patrick being willing to tolerate a lot of death for the sake of the economy: https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/21/texas-dan-patrick-ec...

I understand that aspect too.

I mention local guidelines since I wouldn't want anyone to get in trouble with the state.

The economy is not an abstract thing, it represents living people and their lives. People who feel its important to prioritise the economy and a return to relative normality generally don't think that way because they're callous about Covid deaths, they're simply more concerned about the death, ill health and strife that result from a long term economic downturn. We can discuss the degree to which those views represent reality without impugning people's characters.

Re: I Miss My Bar

#327

Post by robocat »

rcpt wrote: post #286
ravenstine wrote: post #230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how anyone should assess risk. You can't take an average and assume that it applies to everyone. The elderly hare far more likely of losing 10 years off their lives than young people who are very unlikely to lose 40+ years off their lives. For instance, the chance that I will die from COVID at my age and health are, for all intents and purposes, 0% , according to the CDC. It would be ridiculous for me to t…

The metric you're looking for is QALY "quality adjusted life year". It's studied a lot in health economics but generally disregarded wrt covid because we don't have 2060's actuarial tables yet. Yes there is evidence that 10-30% of covid infections have not resolved at 6 months https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.01.16.21249950v... which is roughly what SARS 1 looks like (and those people are still sick). But…

“A study published in the Journal of Public Health finds that for each person in the U.S. who died after contracting COVID-19, an average of nearly 10 years of life had been lost.” - https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/09/200923124557.h...

> But we still can't definitely say that 35 year olds who catch covid will lose 10 years off the end of their life so it's disregarded in our decision making.

That isn’t relevant to the 10 year statistic although it is an interesting point - you are saying the final result for years of life lost due to Covid could be a higher number than 10 years (after we get to finally tally the numbers in the decades to come as people die). Depends on how you paint your statistics I guess. [para edited to add clarity]

Re: I Miss My Bar

#328

Post by jorl17 »

ryantgtg wrote: post #283
jorl17 wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lockdown has allowed me to properly realize how much I really do not care about going out. I may enjoy social outings, and for a while I used to have weekly scheduled social outings having much fun in them. In spite of that, I've always been "homey", and I've always been very affected by going out multiple times -- especially weekends. It just drains me and physically exhausts me. Weekends should be sacred. I absolut…

I feel a fair amount of guilt about this. I live with my spouse and toddler, and not having a commute and spending lots of time with my daughter everyday has been great. Also, it’s now easy for me to fit in exercise every day, so I’m in the best shape I’ve been in in a while. When relatives ask how I’m doing, I immediately say, “Great!” But then I realize - oops, I should probably give a less selfish response, and ac…

You have no idea how much I feel the same too. I sometimes journal my thoughts, and I have a bit of my journal here to share with you which reflects exactly what you mentioned about "feeling bad about feeling good":

---

For most people, (...) 2020 was a mostly terrible year. A dark spot in the book of life, filled with misery, missing loved ones, habit changes and an overall feeling of “this is too bad, too fast”. For some, it’s like we’re still in 2019, ending in a shitty way. For others, it’s like a pit of awfulness that’s been going on forever and doesn’t seem to end.

I can’t say I relate, though. I’m sorry if you’re reading this and you’re one of those people, but I just can’t relate.

(...)

2020 sucked for these people. Some lost their job. Some lost their routines — and to some people routine _really is important_.

But 2020 didn’t suck for me. Or, rather, it didn’t suck as much. Sure, 2020 still sucked in many ways, but they’re not really that related to the pandemic we’re living. Maybe they are indirectly (...), but I cannot personally say that I felt really negatively affected by the pandemic. Some things still hit me, but many didn’t.

It feels like I’m committing some kind of heresy by saying this, but it’s true. I _feel bad_ that 2020 didn’t _make me feel bad_. But, really, it didn’t.

(...)

This was 2020. COVID didn’t really mess with me directly. I already worked remotely most of the time. Here’s how COVID has impacted my life, in the most blunt honesty I can have: - It enabled me to be much more easily socially accepted when I wanted to do remote meetings. - It enabled me to multitask: I can do many tasks at home (dishes, clothes, etc) while having remote meetings without my camera on. - It made it so that instead of going every weekend to visit (...) family, we started doing it much more sporadically (...). - It reduced the amount of traffic on the street, noise around the house, etc.

(...)

Personally, COVID didn’t do much for my life. You could very fairly make the point that, in terms of my _direct personal life_, it bettered it. I didn’t really stop doing things I liked. Sure, we can’t really go out or go to concerts, but I don’t need that. I have never needed that. Similarly, I stopped hanging out with my friends, and while I’d like to do that, I’m at a stage of my life where I don’t need it. It’s not a part of my personality. I don’t need to go out. I don’t want to go out most of the time. (...) I don’t _need_ to go out. I can stay for months inside my home just fine.

---

Re: I Miss My Bar

#329

Post by baud147258 »

skynet-9000 wrote: post #299
baud147258 wrote: post #165

I miss the bars a little (I wasn't too much for going out), but the current 6 pm curfew is rather annoying, how I can't do anything after work. Of course I adjusted my habits, going shopping or running during lunch breaks or the week end, but still

A 6pm curfew? In heavily urban parts of the U.S. and perhaps other parts of the world, people don't even get home from work by then, and the virus doesn't pay too much attention to what time it is either.

here in France, a lot of people who went to work aren't back home at 6 pm, but I think they aren't really the people targeted by the measure, but rather those who go see friends to have a drink in the evening

Re: I Miss My Bar

#330

Post by notatoad »

mStreamTeam wrote: post #281
majewsky wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We did flatten the curve. You just don't get to see the alternate reality where we didn't.

I'm not questioning the flattening the curve part. I'm saying the 2 weeks part was gaslighting. What they should have said is "one year or greater to flatten the curve." That would have been honest

Maybe health officials were more misleading where you are, but from everything i saw the "2 weeks" messaging wasn't intended to say that everything would be solved in two weeks of lockdown, it was that after two weeks we would begin to see if a lockdown was effective or not. and it never was effective because our lockdowns are more of a polite suggestion to please not lick strangers than an actual lockdown.
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