Rod and Karen respond to listener feedback.
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2517: Love Is Corny
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It was interesting that you used a 1918 Flu reference (though it is called the Spanish Flu, evidence suggests may have started in Kansas). The reason I found this interesting is because a couple of years before that pandemic, there was an epidemic in Manchuria, the Manchurian Plague… During said epidemic there was a disagreement on the public use of masks. Dr. Wu Lien-teh, a Malayan Chinese doctor who invented the precursor to modern masks, advocated that not only doctors, but also the general public wear masks. A French doctor, Gérald Mesny, disagreed with the use of masks. In fact, he could be considered the first anti-masker.
Anyway, while the epidemic never became a pandemic, and there was solid evidence that masks prevented spread, it wasn’t until the 1918 flu pandemic that sufficient evidence for a scientific consensus on the public use of masks to prevent the spread of respiratory contagions.
Dr. Wu Lien-teh went on to be nominated for a Nobel for his work with masks and international responses for disease outbreaks (he was the first Malayan to be nominated and probably should have gotten the prize over Spemann who won the prize for research on embryonic development done by his student), while the first anti-masker, Mesny got infected with the Manchurian plague after treating a patient sans mask… He was literally dying to prove that Dr. Lien-teh’s suggested measures were ineffective.
Just thought that information might be interesting for you and your audience.
So, speaking of mustard, a good friend of mine (originally from NY) and I went to the movies recently. When I got us popcorn and drinks, he asked the guys behind the register, where is the mustard? This man put regular-ass mustard and hot butter all over his popcorn and proceeded to tell me this was a NY thing. I’m like….whut? I have never heard of that condiment going on popcorn…..smdh.
Hi Rod and Karen,
I am back for part 2 of my comment. I thought I was gone but I had one more thing to add to my first comment. Miss Contagion was helpful in that she did alert us that she tested positive. She did apologize, although it would have meant more if she modified her behavior in the first beginning.
The thing that gets me about this situation is that she could have galavanted at Disney World maskless, flown back maskless, but she could have worn a mask to work after traveling. She is vaxxed and boosted and I think she thought she was bullet-proof despite all of the info out there saying you can still get and transmit these variants. She doesn’t know who people live with who may be unable to isolate, get vaxxed, or have issues with immunity.
It would be so considerate if people who galavanted also thought about others and wore a mask around them after participating in risky behavior during a Covid surge. I am not sure she truly cares or is sorry as she did bop her behind right back to school once she felt better. She and my husband work with a woman who is a cancer survivor and takes meds that suppress her immunity. I am not sure whether she even cares though. She told my husband that she just figured out she was wearing a substandard mask so she just ditched the mask altogether despite her immunocompromised status. She even told him, “I guess I should be wearing a mask like yours.” He just looked at her. It is truly wild out here.
At the beginning of the pandemic, I watched a doc about the Black Plague and people’s behavior. People are acting just as reckless today as they did back then. Some folks back then were as careful as they knew how to be given the limitations of science. Many others just partied and got more brazen. I think it is worse behavior now because we have the science and knowledge to be able to protect each other to a greater extent. Many people are choosing not to and lots of people who want to protect others and themselves can’t.
The school also sent out an email saying they would not bring back a mask mandate because there was no buy-in. That is super-frustrating to hear especially in a small, low-vax population like that, but at the same time, I get it. The school was very lax on mask enforcement when there was a mask mandate and did nothing to encourage taking masking seriously so, of course, the population is unlikely to buy in or follow unenforced rules at this point.
Ok, I am out for real now. Thank you for reading this long-ass Part 2. Thank you for helping me process this madness. Have a great and safe rest of your weekend.
xoxo,
Ang
Welcome back, Rod and Karen! I am so happy you all had a blast in NYC! Thank you for making as many shows as y’all did during Rod’s Game Theory time. I am not sure I could have done it. Thank you for sharing your talents, humor, and thoughts with us, and for loving on us so much!
Well, the Rona finally hit my household. My husband got it from his cesspool of a job. He is a teacher. While our town has about a 90% vax rate, so we don’t have many cases in our schools, his school has a 70% vax rate for staff and even lower for students these are high school and middle school-aged kids). Masks are not required. Repeatedly the nurse’s office sends kids who came to school sick with symptoms back to his classroom maskless if they test negative for covid. At this point, the school should know that you can test negative and still be positive.
The school is a beautiful, new, several-story building with walls literally made of windows. But guess what, teachers can open nary a one. The admin wanted to make sure the climate control was “stable” so they purposely built a school where you can’t open windows. This is a school with a STEM specialty. The irony would be funny if it weren’t making people so sick.
During his Covid bought, my husband had a fever of 104 for about 10 minutes one night. Other than that he has had only cold symptoms-never a sore throat; didn’t lose taste or smell. Thank God he was vaxxed and boosted. I just had my second booster and he was about to schedule his before Rona started playing in his respiratory system.
Miss Contagion, the teacher who probably gave this to him, tested positive on a Friday and flounced her ass right back up in that school about four days later. While my husband has felt fine for days and only has a stuffy nose with a slight fever for two days, his test results are still raging positive. He is opting to stay home since he can. I am guessing Miss Contagion’s test would have been positive too but she did not test and went back when she felt better–maskless. This ho had just come back from gallivanting maskless at Disneyworld the week before. Odds are she caught the Rona down there, but the school is running rampant with it so she could have just as easily caught it at school.
The school admin is encouraging teachers to come back when they feel better, not necessarily when they stop testing positive. They are playing fast and loose with CDC guidelines in hopes of keeping teacher attendance up, and are taking that five-day allowance quite literally. There were 27 staff members out in one day last week. My husband said that about 1/5 of teachers in the US suffer from long Covid. He feels that teachers are expected to fall on their swords and like it. After watching what he and his colleagues have been through these past few years, I would agree. This society dumped on teachers in the Before Times and it has only gotten worse.
My husband is going to continue to isolate himself from us (thank goodness we have a house where we can open all of the windows and keep him isolated until he is symptom-free and covid-free). He always wears a 3M Aura fit-tested n95 to work and when he goes out in public. He guesses that the once or twice he had to take it down really quickly to blow his nose or when he went to a rarely used teacher’s lounge to gobble up his lunch and water quickly is when he might have caught it. He actually held his breath when he took the mask down to quickly eat. The teachers have no ventilated place to eat lunch safely and neither do the students.
Then again, there is so much Covid in the air at his school, that it might have transmitted through his eyes. When he goes back, he will continue to wear the 3M but with a surgical mask over it. My ob-gyn does this and it might be helpful. He will also eat outside whenever he happens to get a lunch break.
Luckily the rest of us in the house are negative. We wear n95 masks in the common areas of the house and stay mostly in our rooms and will do so until he tests negative. Windows are wide open (even when it was 35 degrees and my heat was on).
Rona is really running through the community. I had to make several trips to Walgreens to get cold meds. One day the Mucinex was in stock, two days later it was wiped out.
My husband tried to get anti-virals, but he had to go into an urgent care to get a rapid test so that he would qualify for the anti-viral. His regular doctor’s office wasn’t seeing Covid patients. The urgent care wouldn’t take his positive home test. He had to go in and expose other people. The PA who saw him said he should follow the old CDC guideline of 10 days quarantine. She gave him a sheet of paper with the Triage Center where he was supposed to get his antiviral treatment. She specifically said not to call the number of the center on the sheet because the number didn’t work and that they would call him. That was Friday, I am writing this on Sunday and no one has called despite him calling the urgent care to say they haven’t called.
Meanwhile, a family friend in another state was able to get Paxlovid prescribed right away. I don’t know if it is our doctor’s medical group or how CT has things set up but this is pretty stupid, to put it politely. We have ample insurance but that does not seem to matter. Luckily my husband is fine. It looks like (fingers crossed) that he won’t get long Covid.
Regarding Covid data, our state is no longer reporting daily Covid cases. There is also no real consistent way for people to report their home test results. Then there are folks who can’t or refuse to test. All I can do is assume the positivity rate is much higher than they say it is. Be careful out there. Stay away from crowds if you can. I cannot wait for the school year to end so we can reduce our exposure and risk by about 95%. Kids have lungs. Kids get Covid. Kids spread Covid.
Thanks for reading this long-ass email. I wanted to describe what people are experiencing on the ground since the news seems to have slowed their reporting down immensely and many people are acting like it’s 2019. I would suggest that people mask up as snugly as possible and wear eye protection in crowds when inside-especially on planes. Amazon has some cute ones that seem to work pretty well.
Love you guys, Thanks for this fabulous show and aggressive commercials. I forgot how calm they are down South. Oh and thank you for introducing me to that Ludicrus song. I don’t know how I missed it. That song is a whole bop and a mood-not that I will go around slapping folks-even the one who can but refuse to test for Rona and jig their positive asses back to workplaces and the general public maskless.
xoxo,
Angela
Love is corny AF but I still like it. Love is when your kid is terrible at the recital but you smile and clap, and your heart is just overwhelmed. Love is when you know your partner’s quirks and they annoy you, but some days you look over and go “but I’m happy to have your snort laughing self anyway.” Love is corny and makes you kind of stupid, but I love it anyway. lol.
I was never into men who are the player type, cheaters, liars.
I absolutely couldn’t deal with it. Im sensitive like that! I get excitement from other things like the pharma insanity and the for that reason I have my own money. Stability in my home life is extremely important for me. Working hard, coming home to the same person is what I’m into.
That’s something I love.