![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
A Few Remarks About the Transition
Jun. 4th, 2021 09:37 amMy Regular Readers have already braced themselves. Linkage may follow; I’m not sure.
First up is a Boston Globe article:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/03/metro/disease-trackers-are-hopeful-return-normal-covid-restrictions-fade-things-can-change-dime/
I’ve been comparing this transitional period as feeling like the end of a horror movie: the survivors don’t quite believe they made it, and often one or more of them is insisting — and not being believed — that the horror is Not Really Over. Usually, the credits roll over a hand reaching up from the grave, or the rough equivalent thereof.
(I love that when I type thereof at the end of a sentence now, I go, erop! I’m starting to get it now!)
This article contains a fair amount of what I think of Transition Nonsense. It’s really, really obvious that if you are fully vaccinated with either mRNA or J&J and you are not personally immunocompromised due to cancer, uncontrolled HIV, etc., you won’t be getting so sick from covid you need to be hospitalized (much less die) and you won’t be transmitting it, either. The odds are overwhelmingly good you won’t get sick from covid at all. If ever there was a time to relax, and enjoy your life, this is it. The fact that a variant of covid or a new pandemic (flu, coronavirus or Other) could come along at any moment is no reason not to enjoy life now. In fact it is the _entire_ reason to enjoy life now. There are no promises regarding tomorrow. But while the article has many quotes to that effect, each of those quotes also mentions unnecessary precautions. To be clear, I am _fine_ with people doing Nonsense Stuff because it makes them feel better (altho honestly, after you’ve gone back to make sure the stove is turned off once, you shouldn’t be doing it a second time). I am _super clear_ that people are working through trauma. But you don’t work through trauma by pretending that your compensation for trauma is itself healthy. IT IS NOT. Y’all need to work to stop that. I am still crossing the street because people are putting on masks to pass me on the sidewalk for like a second or two, when odds are very good (no kids) (living in the town and state we are walking in) that everyone involved is fully vaccinated. WE CAN STOP WITH THE THEATRE.
This is the worst, tho. “Despite the encouraging trends, infectious disease experts say now is not the time to be less vigilant.”
But who needs to be vigilant and how? We have experts to monitor and count and genomically sequence and so forth. Writing an article aimed at the general public with an unspecified “now is not the time to be less vigilant” is _bonkers_ and it’s dangerous bonkers. Vigilance is not a state that can be maintained indefinitely. Depending on what you mean by vigilant — in psychological experiments, vigilance is the sort of thing you can sustain for a time measured in _minutes_, not months, but even in a security context, it is a thing you can sustain for _hours_, not months — and depending on _who_ the article is referring to, the fully vaccinated _absolutely should_ stop being vigilant. The guidelines now are deprecating regular covid testing for the fully vaccinated (if you are symptomatic, yes, you should still get tested and isolate until you have results. Don’t give that cold/flu/covid to anyone else!)
If you are going to be vigilant in the future, when you might actually need to, we all need to take a much needed break from vigilance now.
But, you know, still wear your seatbelt when in a car, don’t drink and drive, stop smoking, eat your vegetables and get 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise daily. If you want to be vigilant, that’s where you should point your vigilance.
Next up: the jobs report.
Last month’s jobs report was hilariously different than what the general financial community was expecting. Well, not hilarious for anyone other than me; I’m the evil heckler with popcorn laughing until I cry at everyone making the same mistake at the same time. I don’t make the same mistakes as other people, because I’m too autistic to be that in step with people, so when I see it happen, it strikes me as absolutely gobsmackingly funny.
This month’s jobs report was still quite different from what the general financial community was expecting, altho there is a little convergence. But you know, if the financial community was doing any kind of decent job of responding to feedback (a little clue here: they aren’t — they are bonkers right now, freaking out about inflation and sure the Fed is going to turn hawkish Some Time Real Soon Now), they _should_ have overshot on the other side. But nope. Still converging.
The analysis is pretty easy: still don’t have vaccinated kiddos, thus still have a lot of kids at home, thus still have less participation from women. Also, even for people who _are_ vaccinated, if you have a lot of Now Is Not the Time To Be Less Vigilant going on, it’s going to take a while to re-acclimate enough to go back to work in a customer facing role. Less included in much of the analysis is how many people who used to work customer facing roles are now working in roles that support WFH / SFH (delivery drivers, pickers in DCs and grocery stores, etc.). They are not going to switch unless they are laid off, because their new job is less obnoxious and pays better.
It’s all slowly getting there, tho, and I always complain about how everything happens slowly compared to how I think it ought to work, so at least that part of reality is Unchanging.
First up is a Boston Globe article:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/06/03/metro/disease-trackers-are-hopeful-return-normal-covid-restrictions-fade-things-can-change-dime/
I’ve been comparing this transitional period as feeling like the end of a horror movie: the survivors don’t quite believe they made it, and often one or more of them is insisting — and not being believed — that the horror is Not Really Over. Usually, the credits roll over a hand reaching up from the grave, or the rough equivalent thereof.
(I love that when I type thereof at the end of a sentence now, I go, erop! I’m starting to get it now!)
This article contains a fair amount of what I think of Transition Nonsense. It’s really, really obvious that if you are fully vaccinated with either mRNA or J&J and you are not personally immunocompromised due to cancer, uncontrolled HIV, etc., you won’t be getting so sick from covid you need to be hospitalized (much less die) and you won’t be transmitting it, either. The odds are overwhelmingly good you won’t get sick from covid at all. If ever there was a time to relax, and enjoy your life, this is it. The fact that a variant of covid or a new pandemic (flu, coronavirus or Other) could come along at any moment is no reason not to enjoy life now. In fact it is the _entire_ reason to enjoy life now. There are no promises regarding tomorrow. But while the article has many quotes to that effect, each of those quotes also mentions unnecessary precautions. To be clear, I am _fine_ with people doing Nonsense Stuff because it makes them feel better (altho honestly, after you’ve gone back to make sure the stove is turned off once, you shouldn’t be doing it a second time). I am _super clear_ that people are working through trauma. But you don’t work through trauma by pretending that your compensation for trauma is itself healthy. IT IS NOT. Y’all need to work to stop that. I am still crossing the street because people are putting on masks to pass me on the sidewalk for like a second or two, when odds are very good (no kids) (living in the town and state we are walking in) that everyone involved is fully vaccinated. WE CAN STOP WITH THE THEATRE.
This is the worst, tho. “Despite the encouraging trends, infectious disease experts say now is not the time to be less vigilant.”
But who needs to be vigilant and how? We have experts to monitor and count and genomically sequence and so forth. Writing an article aimed at the general public with an unspecified “now is not the time to be less vigilant” is _bonkers_ and it’s dangerous bonkers. Vigilance is not a state that can be maintained indefinitely. Depending on what you mean by vigilant — in psychological experiments, vigilance is the sort of thing you can sustain for a time measured in _minutes_, not months, but even in a security context, it is a thing you can sustain for _hours_, not months — and depending on _who_ the article is referring to, the fully vaccinated _absolutely should_ stop being vigilant. The guidelines now are deprecating regular covid testing for the fully vaccinated (if you are symptomatic, yes, you should still get tested and isolate until you have results. Don’t give that cold/flu/covid to anyone else!)
If you are going to be vigilant in the future, when you might actually need to, we all need to take a much needed break from vigilance now.
But, you know, still wear your seatbelt when in a car, don’t drink and drive, stop smoking, eat your vegetables and get 20-30 minutes of moderate exercise daily. If you want to be vigilant, that’s where you should point your vigilance.
Next up: the jobs report.
Last month’s jobs report was hilariously different than what the general financial community was expecting. Well, not hilarious for anyone other than me; I’m the evil heckler with popcorn laughing until I cry at everyone making the same mistake at the same time. I don’t make the same mistakes as other people, because I’m too autistic to be that in step with people, so when I see it happen, it strikes me as absolutely gobsmackingly funny.
This month’s jobs report was still quite different from what the general financial community was expecting, altho there is a little convergence. But you know, if the financial community was doing any kind of decent job of responding to feedback (a little clue here: they aren’t — they are bonkers right now, freaking out about inflation and sure the Fed is going to turn hawkish Some Time Real Soon Now), they _should_ have overshot on the other side. But nope. Still converging.
The analysis is pretty easy: still don’t have vaccinated kiddos, thus still have a lot of kids at home, thus still have less participation from women. Also, even for people who _are_ vaccinated, if you have a lot of Now Is Not the Time To Be Less Vigilant going on, it’s going to take a while to re-acclimate enough to go back to work in a customer facing role. Less included in much of the analysis is how many people who used to work customer facing roles are now working in roles that support WFH / SFH (delivery drivers, pickers in DCs and grocery stores, etc.). They are not going to switch unless they are laid off, because their new job is less obnoxious and pays better.
It’s all slowly getting there, tho, and I always complain about how everything happens slowly compared to how I think it ought to work, so at least that part of reality is Unchanging.