How are you all dealing with coronavirus and the restrictions many of us have to live

Last year, our municipality had to get to around 60 active cases per 100,000 to get out of quarantine. Although, there were areas with worse case numbers that were never quarantined at all.

They had this annoying doctor on TV pushing the government propaganda about how great the Sinovac vaccine is, while of course refusing to discuss effectivity. He was showing some map in English that said we will have herd immunity in 134 days with 80% of the population vaccinated. Sorry, but I am not buying it. The vaccine that almost everyone here is getting is barely more than 50% effective. Even with 80% vaccinated that's not going to get us to herd immunity. Secondly, with all the vaccine supply issues, I don't think we will have enough vaccines. The only amount that I have read we should be getting is 5 million total of Sinovac for the mid-term, including what has arrived. Our population is 19 million. To get to 80% vaccinated, we'd need 15.2 million people vaccinated. Two vaccines per person means 30.4 million vaccines in the next 134 days. Brazil is using the same vaccine and just had to halt vaccinations in Rio de Janeiro due to not receiving promised vaccine deliveries. I wonder how much they pay him to go on TV and form part of the propaganda machine. I tried to find the website he was showing, and I can't even find it. The same guy is a big proponent of eternal lockdowns too.

Oh FFS, the crazies are at it again in my home country.

The curfew has been thrown out for now by court order. Government appealed against the order. Crazies stopped the proceedings. Now we wait to see what happens. Although I don't know what I'm waiting for, I don't even live there, I can go outside any time I want But when I have to work in the morning, I don't go out after 9 PM anyway. Even on weekends, there's nothing to do.

This one clip kept getting repeated on the radio news, some guy commenting about the curfew ending: "I think it's good for the young people especially, so they can go out again at night and meet others." HEEEEELLLOOOOOOOOO we're still in a bloody pandemic, you are supposed to keep contacts to a minimum and definitely not meet up in groups

I read about the curfew Break, it looks like it's reinstated?

Related to this I read about a study into 'tighter or looser cultures and covid outcomes. Basically tighter cultures generally have had more success with tackling the pandemic to date:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/l...301-6/fulltext

It makes sense to me. What doesn't make sense is that 1 year on there is a failure to recognise mistakes and almost like a desire to repeat them.

I share your frustration Break. We never had a curfew in the UK but other restrictions instead.

Every time I look in the mirror, it shocks me. I look dead inside. There's no joy.

I try so hard to keep thinking positive, to do things I enjoy, to find little joys. But it can only do so much. I need some excitement. And this is coming from a boring introvert who prefers spending weekends at home on the couch.

P.s. I'm just ranting, this is definitely not saying we should open everything up again. I'm frustrated with all the rules but I understand the point of them. Even more frustrated with people who have parties and act selfishly so this mess goes on for even longer

Break, I’m sorry you are feeling so low.
And it’s completely understandable that you get tired of seeing irresponsible people having all kind of parties.
I don’t know how in Germany the authorities are facing to these clandestine meetings.

Here, there are everyday news about how clandestine parties are being had in rented flats and it seems police have their hands tied. I don’t know why because it was told, about paying fines, at the beginning of the pandemia.

Here they have detained people for having parties and there have been fines. They recently busted some singer for having a party at her apartment. I had never heard of her but supposedly she is kind of famous. There's talk about instead of a fine, she could do some sort of public campaign saying she made a mistake and that people shouldn't have parties. I kind of think she should be hit with the highest possible fine and any other sanctions the law allows. That might wake more people up than her talking about it in TV spots.

I am at a pretty low point here too. Cases in my municipality keep going up and up. I really worry about another quarantine here. I'm not sure why it is suddenly so bad. There is speculation that it is in part because our soccer team ascended to the 1-B league and people went to the main square to celebrate.

I have been reading about our country's supposed "success story" with the vaccines in the English speaking media. They never seem to mention that we are using the least effective vaccine. It's all, "Chile was able to procure a range of vaccines from the different labs." What BS. It's probably the government propaganda machine in action internationally. One article said we were using Astra Zeneca. It's been approved here, but not one dose has arrived apart from some used in a clinical trial. They talk up Pfizer-Biontec, even though we initially only got 100,000 doses and we recently got 160,000. So, that's 130,000 people that will get Pfizer. It's nothing. It makes me want to write a nasty e-mail to the people that write this propaganda.

Oh, and this is quite interesting. My husband's work has been kind of bugging staff about getting vaccinated. Clearly, they want people back in the office. Anyways his boss got some letter from her doctor that says she can't get vaccinated because she has a pollen allergy. I have never heard that an allergy like that will cause a problem with the vaccine. She's notoriously lazy, so my husband and I both think she's going to use that to be able to keep telecommuting, so she can continue to work half-assed.

Hahahaha! Lazybones found in the pandemic the perfect excuse. I had to deal with papers this week and it was an odyssey.

@AzulOscuro - you don't know the half of it. She always has an excuse about why she can't work. First it was her granddaughter needed to use her computer for online school, then her phone broke, then she got a computer virus and on and on and on. I hear my husband listening to her WhatsApp messages and these days I just laugh waiting to hear the excuse du jour!

Pollen allergy??? She got a doctor to write that?

What kind of vaccine contains pollen? I'm not an immunology expert but that definitely sounds wrong.

PS @rechu at least she is providing you with some entertainment. But seriously people like her will seriously undermine efforts to get us out of this pandemic.

Yeah, we were wondering about what kind of "doctor" she saw. Here they have busted doctors that were taking money to sign off on paid medical leave to people who weren't actually sick. So, I guess it's not so surprising she could find someone that would give her a letter saying she can't have the vaccine even though the reasoning makes no sense.


The only thing I have heard about allergies was that some people that have a history of medication allergies had reactions to the Pfizer vaccine. That's it. Nothing about Sinovac, which uses old technology. I doubt she is going to get one of those scarce Pfizer vaccines anyways. Supposedly the latest small shipment is reserved for teachers. That is a bit weird in itself. Last week the Health Minister was saying teachers need to go back in March because school kids have a low level of transmission. Now, they're reserving the most effective vaccine for them? They had already started using the Sinovac for teachers here earlier this week. One teacher friend got hers on Tuesday.

Here, in Spain, we are still far from having teachers vaccinated. We are going to a very low rate providing with vaccines to the population. Now, they are doing it with elderly people. But the rate is very low and we are waiting to receive more vaccines that are promised to the European Community.
It seems there’s a Spanish vaccine that it’s expected to be effective against South-African variety but it’s still to be approved.
It’s all still very unsure.

@AzulOscuro Yes, the latest data from the NY Times for Spain says only 6.0 people per 100 have been vaccinated. Here it's 12.7. The numbers here are comparatively good, but it remains to be seen how effective the vaccine being used here is. So far the infection numbers aren't budging, but it's kind of soon to draw conclusions.

Yes, dear, it’s very soon to run into conclusions.
We are all in the same boat and this pandemic is being a challenge for all. Chile is getting the ones they are able to get. This is how every country is doing, trying to get the higher number of vaccines they can but now we are on the big pharmaceutical’s hands. Well, this is Capitalisms. And I’m not into Socialism. But, I hate raw Capitalism too.

I do have to give credit that they seem to have rolled out the vaccines that they do have pretty well. It's not like in the US where people are having to deal with websites to make an appointment that crash all the time. Here each municipal health department decided where to set up vaccination centers. That information is published mainly online but people without internet can call the health department. Since my municipality is spread out over a large area, they designated nine sites in the main population centers. They are using places like rural health clinics, the events center, churches. They're doing home visits for people who are bed ridden too. There is a schedule for each day of who gets vaccinated and people can show up at any of the designated centers when it is their turn. They started with people 90 and over and health workers on the first day, then I think it was people 88-89 plus more health workers, etc. Teachers started getting vaccinated this week.

Calendario de vacunacion masiva contra COVID-19 - Ministerio de Salud - Gobierno de Chile


My husband went to the church up the road for his. He said it was very efficient and professional. He had been vaccinated within 15 minutes of arrival. What took the most time was determining that his government agency was on the eligible list. A co-worker of his went to a site at a mall in Santiago and also reported a good experience.

Here, I think they are doing what they can according with the vaccines we are receiving.

Yes I think you are right re the previous medication reactions. My mother tends to react adversely to meds (not seriously just mildly) and she did feel unwell after the Pfizer, just a few days. As far as I know it's only those who have a history of anaphylaxis shouldn't have the Pfizer.

We are getting the doses spaced out 3 months here which I was concerned about (Pfizer didn't authorise it) but it's part of the reason we have so many vaccinated in the UK, because we haven't been giving many 2nd doses (except the prime minister's father strangely). The booster shots will be beginning soon though and I suspect that will slow the programme down. Two sprints and a marathon was how I recently heard it described. Two sprints are the elderly vulnerable and then the younger vulnerable. The marathon will be the rest of us.

One of my young diabetic colleagues got her letter recently to arrange hers, it's great but it's also slightly scary she's worked in a supermarket all the way through yet now they are saying she's vulnerable. I'm just glad she's okay. We have had covid amongst the staff but thankfully not her.

I share concerns about the SA variant and I hope that the new vaccines coming through will address it. That's good news azuloscuro that there is a promising vaccine waiting to be cleared for use in Spain. Let's hope so!

I'm glad your co-worker was able to get the vaccine. Diabetes is a definite risk factor for severe Covid. Here people with pre-existing conditions were supposed to be getting vaccines now, but they were postponed until March to vaccinate the teachers. The teachers' union said they wouldn't go back to in-person teaching when the school year starts up again in March unless they had priority for vaccines. It has caused some controversy.

I am kind of wondering about the second doses here. My husband's is scheduled for March 8th. I had read that so far we've gotten a bit more than 5 million doses and they have vaccinated. 2.8 million. I guess the government is counting on more arriving. With the various supply problems going on in the world, I hope we actually get the promised shipments.

Yesterday we used our one weekend permit to go to the supermarket and run a few more errands. Driving out of town back to the house the military had set up a major checkpoint for people driving into town. Some idiots had stopped a bit before the checkpoint to frantically request a permit on their phones. There were about 10 military guys, all armed. That's the most serious I've seen enforcement here in all these months. At the most it's one or two police officers at a few points in town.

Oh that sounds frightening - armed checkpoints.

That is interesting about the teachers, there is nothing like that here. Teachers who fall into vulnerable groups will be vaccinated as part of that but so far no priority for key workers other than health and social care because of the vulnerable people they care for.

There was a big story which hit the news here - a well known radio presenter was offered her vaccine (aged 55) before that of her younger sister who has learning difficulties and diabetes and lives in a care home. The presenter was angry that she was put ahead of her sister - it seems because she is recorded as a carer for her.

It really made me think. Until now I had been thinking "I am a key worker, I am out at work, I think we should get priority for the vaccine. " But no way if there are vulnerable people who could get very sick and die who are still waiting.

Since then her sister got Covid and has ended up in hospital (care homes are high risk living) which shows how important it is for people like her to be immunised.

I don't like the risk I've had to live with at work (today a customer coughed over me!!) But people like me who aren't high risk shouldn't get vaccines before those who are.

I can wait.

@Discombobulated - Yeah, we've had cases like that too. A well-known TV presenter with no pre-existing conditions was vaccinated when they were only supposed to be vaccinating health workers and people over 80. She's 63. There have been mayors that gave priority to friends and family who should be farther down the list as well. In the end about 35,000 people have jumped the line, I guess you could say, out of a total of 2.8 million.

In some cases, it was probably the most logical course. Some remote towns in Patagonia got more vaccines than they needed for priority groups so they started giving them to other groups as well. One town called Laguna Blanca has vaccinated everyone. It was probably more logical to do that than try to find other places to take them. My municipality is at about 10% vaccinated.

The mayor came out to say that it was one specific situation that led to the jump in cases we had and it sounds like it's being dealt with. Probably a clandestine party or similar. I really hope that is the case and our active cases start to go down again. They already fell by 10 between Friday and Saturday.

It is unnerving seeing the military on the streets like that. We saw them around after the uprising that started in October 2019 too.


A customer coughed on you?!? Seriously, what is wrong with people.

I was just reading that Uruguay is the one country on the continent that has not receive any vaccines so far. I am sort of surprised since in other ways they have handled the pandemic better than most other countries in South America. I wonder why. Maybe they got complacent about getting them because their numbers weren't so bad. Although, according to the article, they are doing worse than us as far as active cases per capita right now. They are supposed to receive the first delivery in March.

all this talk about lifting covid lockdown is bringing me ****ing down

at least in lockdown I didn't feel like such a worthless peace of crap. but soon as it's safe, everyone will return to their lives and the daily grind, but not me.... covid was just an excuse I could use for my ****ed up life

and then you get all the people saying to me : but it's a good thing, it's got lots of benifits. sure it has, if you have something to go back too.

rant over. I'm just fed up with it

Phew, our municipality is back down to below 100 active cases per 100,000 today. I hope that really means that it was a specific situation that led to a high level of contagions and those are starting to work the way out of the numbers. This weekend lockdown is making me stir crazy. Maybe this means we will move into the next phase soon.

We've been given our 'roadmap' out of lockdown which is dependent upon cases continuing to fall. It has 4 stages of reopening and an assertion we will have no social restrictions at all by 21st of June.

Everyone I've spoken to today seems apprehensive. I think we'll believe it when we see it. All we can do is watch and wait - personally I admit I am happy I'll be able to get a haircut in April when hairdressers should be reopening.

As an aside I was reading about the importance of ventilation in preventing transmission. Not systems which recirculate air but bring fresh air flow through buildings. It seems east Asian countries who did better with the pandemic have got more knowledge of the importance of this.

In the UK we had a lot of messaging about surface contamination/handwashing/wiping down surfaces but most transmission is airborne not surface. Really we need to look at this. At the very least opening windows is massively important.

Everybody we know that 65 or older in Rochester has gotten the vaccine, but mum 93 and on every list I can find but no luck. The vaccine is just not coming to the small towns around here. They give the small towns one box and first come first serve so those with connections hear about it first and swoop in.

@BreakForTheLight - I thought you might find this article interesting, albeit sad - ‘My thoughts became poisonous’: the toll of lockdown when you live alone | Life and style | The Guardian

@Discombobulated - I understand the believe it when I see it attitude. Here they have jerked us around so much, it's hard to believe anything anymore. The whole, quarantine will only last for 4 weeks, then reversing course and approving long quarantines was quite the gaffe. My favorite was when my municipality was in phase 4 (relatively open) nice and happy with only about 20 active cases and they preemptively sent the whole region back to phase 2, so they could let tourists in for the eclipse. Cases started shooting up soon after. I am pretty sure it was partly because of all the restrictions on non-essential purchases on weekends, since it was right before Christmas so people crowded malls and shopping centers during the week. Allowing tourists in, some of who clearly wanted to flaunt the quarantine rules (there were various posts on travel forums and social media asking how to do this) sure did not help. I kind of wondered where things would be if they hadn't taken those two steps.


At one point, I thought the government was doing a decent job, all things considered, but lately it's been blunder after blunder. I know most of the Health Ministry upper echelons are doctors, not PR or communications people, but they probably need to get some help in that area as far as messaging. It hurts their credibility and I think many people start thinking, " why bother following the rules?"