Unofficial Academy Awards Discussion Board

Schools are starting to slide back to virtual, at least temporarily. We haven't yet, although I think we will, for a few days at least. We're a rural district, not completely 1:1 on devices, and even if we were 1:1, we still have lots of students without internet access at home, so long-term virtual isn't a viable solution for us. But my school alone had 14 faculty/staff out late last week, and we are a small school--30 teachers, and about that many non-teacher employees, so that is a huge percentage of us out.

I do know that whatever the number of cases are being reported right now, double it, and you're probably in the ballpark of the actual number of cases. I know five people who had it this time last week, and not one of them tested positive. Most tests (at least the ones given at doctor's offices and walk-in clinics, no clue about at-home tests) seem not to have fully caught up with Omricon and are giving lots of false negatives. (And now, as an AP Statistics teacher, I feel a lesson about Type I and Type II Errors and Power of a Test coming on.) RSV is hitting hard right now too. I know several people who have had that and Covid, and they all said that for them RSV was way worse than Covid.

Best of luck if anyone here is/will be on the path of Hurricane Ida.

Great news, Irvin!

Update: I tested negative. It's been 10 days and I still have no symptoms. So I'm almost out of the woods. My parents also tested negative and additionally, they received their first jabs of the vaccine today. My brother and his family are all practically fully recovered (my nephew and niece are talking to me about WandaVision again at a safe distance, of course. )

Seems like everything is moving in the right direction. Stay well.

Thanks for all the well-wishes.

A bit of an update on me: Well, it's been a week. Since then, my brother's entire family have all gotten it (his wife, his 9 year old son, 4 year old daughter). So I had to move out of my room because even though, I only go out of my room to eat and use the bathroom when I'm on quarantine, I'm on the same floor as they are so me going in and out of that room would be a bit risky (me and my brother's family are all on the second floor of the house). I moved into the converted adjacent guest house that's separated from the main house (it was my great-aunt's house and she has since passed away and we recently did renovation work to spruce it up, it's a nicer place but the Wi-fi can't reach it). So they have the second floor of the main house. My over-70 parents are in their first floor bedroom. I'm sleeping in the guest house. Our house is not SUPER big (and we are not super rich, it's a decent-sized compound we inherited from my grandmother) but thankfully, big enough that we can safely socially distance.

We haven't been tested yet. But it's been one full week and neither me nor my high-risk over-70 parents are exhibiting any symptoms. My brother's family's symptoms have all been mild (fever is about as bad it got, apparently) and they all seem to be currently okay and recovering nicely.

anonymous1980 wrote
A bit of news: I have been exposed. My brother, whom I live with, has tested positive. It’s been a day and I currently have no symptoms. I plan to quarantine for two weeks. Hopefully I don’t get sick.

Thoughts and prayers to you.

I'm not sure I shared this but right now, I live with my sister. She has a job that entails a lot of errand running. She sees her boyfriend, goes around town, and always wears a mask. I work from home and have been strictly quarantining, except for one afternoon where I saw my ex-girlfriend where we both wore a mask except for a few short moments. We kept this up for months. We have no idea how it happened but she got terribly sick. I tried to stay away from her as much as possible but I feared the worst. We wore masks around each other. Stayed apart. But we share a bathroom so in my mind, it was over. I was going to get COVID. She got tested. It came back negative. We were all relieved. I helped a family member by watching their dog over New Years at their house. My ex came over for a walk. And then shortly after, my sister informed me that she got tested again and it came back positive. Her first test was that rapid test bullshit. But she had contracted the virus and was transmissible during a period of time where we weren't wearing masks around each other, hugged each other, sat next to each other on the couch and watched Dolemite is My Name. And then I put my ex in danger. It was a very panicky week or two... and then my test results somehow came back negative. My ex's came back negative. Her boyfriend's came back negative. No idea how it happened.

What I want to communicate to you is that you must take this seriously but it isn't impossible. Don't lose hope. You can beat this.

Hope you have a two-week food supply. I know you'd have a two-week movie supply.

Take good care of yourself.

Ditto.

Good luck! I hope that your exposure doesn't lead to you actually getting the virus.

A bit of news: I have been exposed. My brother, whom I live with, has tested positive. It’s been a day and I currently have no symptoms. I plan to quarantine for two weeks. Hopefully I don’t get sick.

I wonder if "Stay Safe Everyone!" becomes the message board thread that gets the most activity over the course of the coming years if not decade.

As a resident of Los Angeles, I've been spared the polar vortex and power outages. I'm sure there will be fires and earthquakes to suffer as the year(s) go on, as well as an erratic process of opening and closing our state that succeeded in frustrating everybody. A burgeoning gubernatorial recall effort seems to be starting up although it looks like New York might beat us to the punch.

On the bright side, I turned forty a month go today and I've taken up hiking in my attempts to repair years of damage done to my body. I've gone on 19 hikes in the last 15 days.

Here in North Alabama we were spared the massive power outages that hit Texas (I lost power for about eight hours on Monday), but the roads have been impassable for most of the week due to the ice storm that came through Sunday evening/Monday morning (and temperatures never got high enough Tuesday or Wednesday to melt the ice) and then we got about four inches of snow Wednesday night. Our President's Day Holiday turned into a President's Week. I've been able to get a little bit ahead on my Stats class, so it's been a welcome break.

I've been spared the polar vortex. Where I'm at in Florida, it got up to 86°F today.