Couch 232: Not Sully!

I ordered some Kusmi Tea from Amazon for work (they buy too strong of coffee for me) and Amazon said it wasn't going to be delivered until 10/21/21 but I got it today! Yeah!

Huh, I thought I wasn’t eligible for a COVID booster (too young, no underlying medical conditions) but I just learned from the CDC page that educational staff are eligible.

I still had antibodies a month ago when I did my school’s antibody survey, but they didn’t test for level. And it’s been 8+ months since my second shot.

I dunno. Getting vaccinated was a no-brainer, but I’m much less enthused about a booster shot for some reason.

Re booster - whats the trend in your area? We are going up up up. I got my shots late, so i will probably wait a while. My cousins wife got hers, an she was pretty sick for a coupla days. Pfizer. Altho i thought her first shots were moderna like me.

The state is going up and a local school is going online. Kids in the apt bldg still going around naked-faced, i dont like it!

My county is at kind of a plateau—ca. 10% positivity rate going on for 2+ months now.

ETA: okay, I made an appointment for next Friday after work, so I can sleep it off the next day if need be.

My state has been hanging around the general area of 2,000 new cases a day for the past month (on the graph I look at). Granted our population is over 7 million, but still it makes me wonder if these numbers continue, at some point every single man woman and child is going to have to test positive including the fully vaxxed population. In my admittedly non-mathematical brain the numbers can't stay this high unless every.single.person eventually gets infected. Somebody help me with the math?

eta I just looked at current data for my county, out of 4,257 tests today, 7.7% were positive. And 63% of the people in my county are vaccinated.

If 2000 people on average tested positive every day in a population of 7 million, there were no false positive tests, reinfection was not possible, there was no vaccine, and everyone who contracted it got tested (so no one would be untested if they got it), and the overall population remains the same (no births, no deaths), it would still take around 9 1/2 years for everyone to get infected.

So it would end, but it would take a decade.

Yeah we had 4100 new cases today. Same yesterday. Who and where are these people and what are they doing? Going to football games? Sharing snacks with strangers?

Yowsa. Thank you so much! That puts some perspective on the numbers.

I'm wondering something similar here!

I know...
It looks exactly the same as the old one, so I think he recognized it as the thing that keeps him warm. He looks pretty spiffy rockin' the buffalo plaid, like a grandpa in his best flannel shirt on a Sunday.

Kit- I didn't get a picture before I left for the weekend. I'll try to get a good one when I get back home.

Info and Grumpy Old Man Cat should put on a fashion show.

I could emcee in my sparkly dress and my new shoes. Have to put them to use somehow.

I don’t know...you might get confused with Info.

The cleavage (or lack thereof) would certainly give it away.

Trying to navigate a friendship with someone who was also friends with your abusive ex, when they didn't really see the relationship as abusive but just a "you and him" kind of thing, is really, really hard. It makes me wonder if I wasn't just as much of a problem as the ex was. And if so, who am I to call the ex abusive. Was I just as abusive as he was?

I have had the same thoughts. I am ashamed of the violence I have inside me.

Is it worth discussing in therapy? Whatever behavior you are questioning in yourself, doesn't negate your ex's behavior. He absolutely was abusive, and he should be taking the blame for his behavior.

ETA: Do you have to be friends with this person? They didn't see the abuse, because the ex treated you well in front of others? Or they just thought that was the dynamic in your relationship?

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I had a 3rd Moderna about 3 weeks ago. No problems with it at all.

Regarding booster shots, take this with a big grain of salt of course, but a few things to consider.

First, we could theoretically get into a situation where we give booster shots to everyone every few months, without ever knowing whether that's necessary. That doesn't sound like a good thing. It might be necessary, we are not sure yet as far as I know.

Second, while risk for infection increases after about 6-7 months (with Pfizer and Moderna at least), risk for hospitalization does not increase in most people - with the exception of immunocompromised people mostly as far as I know. Meaning you get sick, but are still very unlikely to have to go to the hospital.

And third, antibodies from natural infection seem to be "better", since the vaccines only target one protein, the spike, whereas your natural antibodies will be able to target all the proteins the virus has, about 28 I think. Giving you better protection against future variants. There's also reason to believe that the antibodies will last longer. There have been propositions to only give people two shots, then let natural infection happen, which would mean not a big risk for hospitalization while afterwards having an immune system better trained for real life.

Since the virus is endemic and everyone will be exposed to it at some point, it might be preferable to give them natural immunity over booster shots all the time, especially since those shots will have to be updated over time as well, similar to the flu vaccine. If you look at the development of the small pox vaccine, first some vaccine doses and then regular exposure to a virus can be safe and gives you great immunity.

LT insaw this and thought of you

That is wild! I never find anything interesting on the internet! I have to be led by the hand.

The question has also occurred to me. And the answer I finally arrived at was, yes, I had issues nd made mistakes, but I only very rarely acted towards him without love and consideration. I wasn’t the one who name-called, or insulted, or spat in the other’s face, or constantly criticized the other, or roused them at night to scream at them, or physically threatened the other, or wasn’t there for the other in crisis, or tell the other that things inborn to them (disability for me) were things that were just in their imagination.

I made some contribution to the toxic relationship dynamic (and it’s good to recognize that part of yourself so you can improve as a person), but that’s very different from being abusive.

And I’m with SM: is this friendship worth it? It sounds like it might just be a way of keeping old wounds open and to keep following old patterns.

ETA: CNS, those are pretty much the reasons I am not enthused about a booster shot. It’d be different if I were older or had health conditions.

That's funny--thanks for sharing!

If this friend is making you doubt yourself and the reality of your ex being abusive, then agreed with some other comments that they might not be the best friend for you, at least at this point in your life. Your ex was objectively abusive--I mean, he went to prison for one of the things he did.

When I got the monoclonal antibodies they told me I can't get a booster for 90 days

I got covid from my boss. I was fully vaxxed in April