admin's blog

Safety Basics on a Budget: Private Bathrooms

As I'm traveling Costa Rica, many hotels are relatively safe even when they don't try: the reception is open air, the walk to my room is open air, restaurants have breezes, and I have windows so don't have to care about ventilation.

Covid Travel Advice

Aldea Food Court, Samara

I've spent quite a while at the Aldea food court in Samara — amazing healthy food here, plus a bar. There's no actual covid safety precautions being taken pretty much anywhere in Samara, but this is all outdoors, the staff in small structures and one food truck, and the tables are spaced pretty well.

Hotels: From Safety Theater to Focusing on What Matters

Today, you can find information on hotel search sites that looks like this:

Covid Safety Done Wrong in Samara

There is, as far as I can tell, exactly one hotel that is making demands of travelers, insisting they wear masks. In Samara, lots of places have signs for mask wearing, and everyone ignores the signs. Often this includes staff. To be a little pushy about our opinion: we find it unethical to impose greater risks on staff than they impose on you; if locals wear masks then not just safety but respect means honoring local decisions. We found one hotel that demands guests wear masks on the property. Frustratingly, it just advertises mask-wearing the same as everyone else.

Death, Boosters, and Morality Exhaustion

Compassion for the Immune Compromised

Yesterday one of my friends said her favorite uncle died from Covid — both too early, and a horrible way to go. He was boosted but booster shots work with your immune system, and there are lots of us who could spend a good few more years with grandkids but are vulnerable. Meanwhile I'm feeling pretty relaxed, healthy enough (and to be honest, previously exposed enough from having housemates even when I try to be cautious) not to worry.

Community response

Traveling while vaccinated during omicron: summary

Expect omicron to hit hard and fast; much faster than delta which was much faster than early in the pandemic.

If you are vaccinated and boosted, omicron will be hard to avoid but hopefully not terrible for you as an individual: the vaccines should, with a bit of luck, mean this is more like a flu than something you go to the hospital for. With a bit more luck, you won't get long-haul. I am still considering traveling.

Traveling in the US: Hospital Bed Map

I'm vaccinated, boosted, and healthy enough to be willing to take some smaller risks of exposure. Especially with omicron breaking through even among the vaccinated, this pandemic is not ending soon: it is likely that most of us wlll be exposed: we'll be relying on our vaccines and immune systems and not just relying on social distancing. So I might grab my mask and start getting back to life. But traveling while hospital systems crash is still a really bad idea.

United States

Hospital Capacity

Full Nerd: Go past the memes and listen to the real experts

There are some amazing panels on YouTube, with real experts, sometimes disagreeing. I find these amazingly more valuable to listen to than the social-media derived health information or tv-news, and generally more expert than even the New York Times.

Follow the UCSF discussions, maybe start with Roundtable Discussion on New CDC Guidelines, the Current State of the Pandemic, and More

Vaccines for the World

Vaccines are desperately needed the world over. They are not incredibly expensive to produce. The word is desperate. But trade deals, patents, production bottlenecks and lack of funding are limiting their production and distribution.

Subscribe to admin's blog