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who else is in a all-the-adult-girl-cousins-and-wives chat trying to figure out how we can coordinate testing and isolation protocols for the holidays so we can see grandma and what's the vibe? what's the consensus thus far? any brilliant ideas?
has anyone written on this yet? i repeat my request for smart writing that can offer me guidance wrt holiday safety. don't just reply to this "don't risk it" i am asking for essays or articles on the topic only
i am talking about an absolutely ruthless safety protocol here. i'm talking mandatory 2 week lockdowns, temperature checks at the door, MINIMUM, probably actual testing, hazmat suits, nosy questionnaires. my grandma is nearly 100
i am talking about setting up a bulk grocery buy or a meal train or something for cousins who need support during the 2 weeks, i'm thinking hermetically sealed cubes, everyone brings their own food from home and eats outside miles apart, talks on walkietalkies
if we don't figure this shit out ourselves and soon it'll be left up to auntie di and whatever she read on facebook and our sensible mothers will have to be the authoritarians and "ruin christmas" 2 days beforehand and that will make them cry
saying "no holidays this year" is of course an option but that's a decision that has to be made *now* and not november 19. and it has to be made by people paying attention to things
what about a viral threshold. less than 100 cases in the state the saturday before and we can meet in the barn, over 100 and it's all Zoom. i don't know i'm just spitballing here since nobody has offered any other ideas
someone's going to have to call grandma's nurse and see if she's even allowed out for the holidays or if they're on lockdown or if she can realistically quarantine 2 weeks before and after, hopefully they're all doing that at all times anyway?
someone's going to have to come up with a polite way to tell cousins who work retail that they literally are not invited!
what i'm saying is, unless we set up some sort of formal family guidance, it'll just be "responsible cousins don't go at all, irresponsible ones DO go, nobody is there to scream at them for breathing on grandma, and she spends the rest of her days in an iron lung"
this might be a "me" problem idk how many other people have 37 cousins none of whom have to fly to get home
see this is what i specifically asked people NOT to respond with. if you do this i will block you
see this is what we like to see. creative problem solving and planning in advance. nice work https://twitter.com/dylanroody/status/1308468272426373120
of course we all have to factor in this fictitious vaccine rollout coming up! who would get it? how? when does it begin to offer protection, if at all? a lot of factors and we CANNOT let the aunties be in charge. they can make gravy but they can't figure out if the CDC is lying
believe me, i'd LOVE to just say "oops it's not safe! we will try again at easter" but guess who's going to go along with that? all the people i'm related to who wear masks and wash their hands. guess who isn't?
that just means my mom gets so depressed she goes to bed for a week and i see pictures on facebook that indicate uncle jim brought his whole motorcycle club and they all played that party game with passing the credit card
one thing we have going for us is my aunt and uncle's house has an old pig barn and we could rent a space heater. we could set grandma up at a table in there alone and everybody else stays outside in a big tent. it has its own separate restroom that could be quarantined 2 weeks
we could rent a giant tent to set up outside the pig barn, the kind they have at weddings, BUT SOMEONE NEEDS TO RESERVE IT NOW PROBABLY, since we can't be the only people thinking about this?
we could do it entirely over zoom except my family is almost entirely the very very elderly and a handful of younger folks with intellectual and cognitive disabilities. not a big "tech" group. could i rent 15 ipads and set them all up myself? also half of them don't have internet
if i could convince everyone we are only doing ONE holiday, thanksgiving OR christmas, would there be any merit to holding off until christmas? or a day halfway between, when stores have been less crowded the previous two weeks?
in a better country we'd have a government bureau in charge of Cheer and they'd have mailed us all pamphlets a month ago with an offer to do tech support for remote holidays and a coupon for a free pie delivery
in a better country there'd be a mass initiative to have articles like Safely Planning a Remote Celebration: 15 Fun Fall Ideas in Sunset Magazine and Southern Living and Martha Stewart and everywhere so the actual holiday planners (aunts) could get a head start and come to grips
another thing we all have to remember is grandmas cannot fucking hear which necessitates a lot of screaming and a lot of aerosols
if i wanted to rent or even buy a form of technology that would allow my grandma to at least wave to us all from inside her house. her vision is fine. but i can't stress enough how absolutely effortless it would have to be to use. she doesn't use a TELEVISION.
it would have to be so simple that it had no remote control and no buttons. like literally just a screen and nothing else. it cannot have any form of controls on the device because she will somehow touch it and turn it off and then she will actually cry
these people are deeply evil
we can't forget to factor in the risk of a medical taxi for anyone who uses one to leave their group home too
hey y'all did you notice that this sucks
it's great we drove nearly an entire generation absolutely out of their minds with social isolation and propaganda and jingoism and then put them in charge of all our familial connections too. seems like it bodes well for our future health collectively
people worry so much about the nuclear family but i guess it's fine if everyone's only way of contacting each other is through aunt maureen's rolodex and she's increasingly becoming convinced she's a being made of pure light and 5G causes lesbianism
i like how basically nobody has suggested testing because our country essentially made that not an option in any real world scenario with a bewildering variety of logistical problems loopholes and fees
i would pay an ABSURD amount of money for a nurse to come out and give everybody those rapid results tests athletes get. like i am talking a really large amount of money here
my aunt is a really stupendous cook. anybody from University of Oregon want in on this https://twitter.com/toasterposey/status/1308510043390709760
of course one very simply solution would be for the state of oregon to ramp up testing and offer it to people with no symptoms. my family isn't going to lie and fake symptoms but other people will so it essentially serves no purpose to arbitrarily deny people tests
well would you look at that. just like many major dangers and inconveniences in our society, there's a way to simply buy your way out of it, which is what i will absolutely be doing https://www.pixel.labcorp.com/at-home-test-kits/covid-19-test
i cannot believe i can buy myself the privilege of seeing my own family at christmas for $119 lmao. this society is absolutely beyond salvation
but wait. if we assume a 5 day incubation period for viral buildup before testing and a three business day turnaround for results you're still quarantining for a week and two days. you could save the money and stay home five more days for the same result essentially
given the choice between the two i'd rather just stay home like i've been doing since march. this is essentially useless to anyone with a job that won't give them NINE days off isn't it?
and look at the timeline for christmas! it's ACTUALLY two weeks if you want to get home early! you have to stay at home the exact same amount of time you'd have to stay at home
goddammit this is absurd. i can't win. i need the rapid result "am i contagious right this second" test the morning of or it tells me nothing of value
nope it's 2 weeks at home for everybody or nothing, same as it ever was
well at least my aunt is planning ahead about some aspects lol
