Status of church

[Calm]

2 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

Yes, yes, yes.  I didn't go that far in my post because I sure hope and pray that I don't have to deal with that situation for any of the people that I listed in my response.

It has always been the uppermost thought for me when it comes to vaccinations of myself or my kids as well as my driving.  The car is a lethal weapon in my view. It needs to be respected.  I hear of others who have my disorder having microsleeps in the middle of their commute because their job requires them to drive and it makes me ill. I am so thankful I have another option for driving or for Covid. 

[Emily]

16 minutes ago, InCognitus said:

You may also want to consider how other family members might view your actions if you are the one responsible for infecting family and friends that may be at high risk.  It's all up to you.  

Being the "other half" of Incognitus, and not nearly as diplomatic, I will tell you that the reactions of family members will NOT be positive. They will be angry and they will be disgusted, and they will wonder how anyone could possibly be that selfish. Not being vaccinated was bad enough. She also doesn't wear a mask, and doesn't social distance -- the bare minimum a person should be doing if they won't get a vaccine.

My in-laws visited my daughter and her children a couple of days after they were exposed to my sister-in-law. The family was forced to spend a week in quarantine waiting until they could be tested. They were negative, by sheer good luck. The virus was probably not active enough to spread to the grandchildren. My daughter and her husband are vaccinated. 

However, the wedding reception that my in-laws attended after exposure was filled with people who may not be so lucky. Ditto for the airline passengers on the flights they were on going to and from the wedding. We will never know just how many people were affected because my sister-in-law decided, for whatever reason, not to get vaccinated. 

 

[Stargazer]

6 hours ago, Ragerunner said:

We live in an area where Covid Delta is really spreading rapidly. Some of the hospitals are now seeing more Covid patients than ever before. My family and I are fully vaccinated but about 60% of our ward is not. 
We now have no safety measures in place at church or the temple, beyond masking for those doing the sacrament and a general statement that those that are unvaccinated should wear masks and social distance (the honor system). We only have about 10 members wearing a mask. It’s clear the honor system doesn’t mean much at church or the temple.

We are starting to see more outbreaks from church and church activities. Yet there is no effort to slow the spread, sickness and growing hospital rates.

What are others experiences?

 

I'm usually in the UK (in the US temporarily at the moment) and fully vaccinated. So is my wife, her daughter and her husband. The daughter and husband have five kids and one of them brought Covid home from school with him. Now both mom and dad have contracted it, and two of the kids. I gather that the vaccination helps fight off the virus, though, and they seem to be doing well.

I think we're going to just have to deal with it. 

[Stargazer]

1 hour ago, Fether said:

Do I want to go get a vaccine that is going to make me sicker than the actual disease ever made me or anyone I know? No… not really… but I will eventually.

Why do you think that's going to make you sicker than the actual disease?

I know quite a number of people who've been vaccinated (besides myself) and their vaccinations hardly slowed them down. My wife got a minor ache in her arm for a few days (she's a nurse who works in a hospital, so she definitely needed it), and on the second shot she just felt a little out of sorts for a couple of days. As for me, I felt nothing after the 1st shot, and again nothing after the 2nd. Or at least nothing negative I could be certain had to do with the vaccination. Maybe I'm bulletproof. <shrug>

[Calm]

I would love to know how many who refuse or aren’t interested in getting the vaccination are willing to get cosmetic surgery or tattoos. 

[The Nehor]

I admit to some frustration. We should be at the tail end of this absent some nasty scenario hitting with a mutation that the vaccines do not work on. We don’t have that but cases are surging and we may see lockdowns hit again as ERs in some areas are filling up again. Superspreader event after superspreader event and it looks like this new variant is particularly prone to causing these events. We may have schools in some areas close for another semester. As awesome as I look in a mask I am ready not to have to have them available whenever I leave the house.

It is all so avoidable.

[Calm]

14 minutes ago, The Nehor said:

t is all so avoidable.

What I don’t get is why many of those who say they are worried about the economic impact of lockdowns are not doing everything they can to avoid them, even if they think the effect isn’t that big.  

Got to wonder what the cost of the avoidable cases is going to amount to.

I should probably avoid saying more. Let’s see if I can control myself. 

Edited July 25, 2021 by Calm

[Hamba Tuhan]

2 hours ago, The Nehor said:

It is all so avoidable.

I belong to a private Facebook group started by some of my Latter-day Saint friends in America. We didn't do much with it at first, but with temples closed, it morphed into something of a private 'prayer roll' where we fast and pray for each other. It's been really powerful.

On her own Facebook page, one of the women has been very vocal against vaccines, masks, public health mandates of any kind, etc., all for 'political' reasons. I have a name that I coined for this particular vortex. I'll avoid using that here, but I suspect most people know what I'm talking about. From afar, it's one of the most obvious outcomes that the rest of the world can see resulting from the determination of some Americans to politicise a public health emergency.

Anyway, she posted to us last week asking for prayers for her family. Both of her brothers and one sister-in-law have Covid. Her father had it too, but he passed on Thursday. One brother has been in ICU for three weeks and had to be ventilated this weekend. The family have been told that the damage to his lungs is so great that, even if he somehow pulls through this, he'll be permanently disabled.

The father was actually vaccinated, but no one else had been, and now my friend is terrified that she'll get infected too.

So much pain and now fear that could almost certainly have been avoided ...

Regarding the OP, we are doing fine in my jurisdiction at this point. No community transmission of Covid-19 in over a year. But our neighbouring jurisdictions are locked down as the Delta variant begins running rampant. Hospitals are still OK but filling, especially ICUs. Now the deaths are starting to rack up as well, still mostly in the older population but as young as 30s. One of the deaths last week was a woman in her 50s, infected by one or both of her children, who chose to isolate at home following diagnosis. They're fine. She's gone.

No worship services of any kind are occurring in neighbouring jurisdictions. Our ward straddles the border, and at this point, members who live on the other side are allowed to travel to church services here. We think that will remain the case, but who knows? If Delta starts spreading that close to us, we'll probably have to stop church services as well.

We're still limited to only half our pews. We actually have the option of going back to using all the pews, but the condition for that is no singing. The decision to continue congregational singing was pretty much unanimous. Our priests wear masks and gloves. Our deacons do not, but the bread is still served with tongs. We're now allowed to use one tray for the water. Still no communal hymn books. Our chapels, like all other indoor venues, require each person over the age of 16 to check in electronically upon entry.

We are in the process of planning our stake conference, and we of course can't accommodate the entire stake in our buildings. We'll be streaming to members who have good internet access and reserving the chapel for those who don't, speakers, those offering prayers, those singing, and then whoever else gets tickets before they're gone.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Calm]

1 minute ago, Hamba Tuhan said:

So much pain and now fear that could almost certainly have been avoided ...

Has she expressed any sentiment that maybe she was wrong?

[Hamba Tuhan]

43 minutes ago, Calm said:

Has she expressed any sentiment that maybe she was wrong?

No. Maybe that will take time? Maybe she won't say it, but the content and tenor of her posts will change? Maybe she doesn't see it?

My brain simply cannot compute. I feel like I've had mental vertigo for the past 18 months, and these kinds of things just add to the dizziness.

What I've discovered, however, is that I can fast and pray with both faith and sincerity for people who I think are dead wrong. That's an important lesson.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

13 hours ago, Ragerunner said:

My family and I are fully vaccinated but about 60% of our ward is not.

It's going to take a long while for many people (like me) to stop associating 'American' with 'people who actually had vaccines when we didn't but refused to use them'.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Hamba Tuhan]

9 hours ago, Calm said:

Side effects usually last 2 or 3 days from what I am hearing.

I've had my first AstraZeneca jab. It was dreadful. I got it Sunday morning before church. After church, I drove 240km to speak at a fireside, taking one of my former Young Men with me as a companion. Halfway home, I started freezing. I turned the heating in the car up till it was blasting, but still I shivered. (My poor companion! He just patiently roasted.)

I took my temperature when I got home: 39.6C. By this point, I ached from head to toe, with every muscle in my body sore to touch. I tried to sleep but was so delusional all night that I couldn't tell if I was awake or asleep, dreaming or mad. Twenty-four hours after it started, my fever broke, and all the achiness went away too.

I thought I was fine, so I went to work the next morning. Around midday, I think, the headache came on. Debilitating. It came and went for two weeks, decreasing in frequency as time went on. My nose also bled for two weeks but not like a normal nosebleed. Instead, I was constantly blowing out huge clots of blood. Not fun. And my injection site is actually still mildly sore.

But if this is how my body reacted to just the Covid-19 spike protein, imagine how it might react to that same protein on the outside of millions of rapidly multiplying viable viruses that are simultaneously attacking my lungs. No thanks. I'm with Pres Nelson on this one: these vaccines are a 'literal godsend'.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Hamba Tuhan

[Fether]

9 hours ago, Rain said:

As a type 1 diabetic with kidney issues who took a lot of covid precautions I am lost as to why someone would refuse to get solar because of covid.  Is most of the work actually done inside the house?

Immediatly after signing, we send someone to their house to do a home inspections one of the steps is to go into the attic and check the integrity of the roof

[Fether]

8 hours ago, Stargazer said:

Why do you think that's going to make you sicker than the actual disease?

I know quite a number of people who've been vaccinated (besides myself) and their vaccinations hardly slowed them down. My wife got a minor ache in her arm for a few days (she's a nurse who works in a hospital, so she definitely needed it), and on the second shot she just felt a little out of sorts for a couple of days. As for me, I felt nothing after the 1st shot, and again nothing after the 2nd. Or at least nothing negative I could be certain had to do with the vaccination. Maybe I'm bulletproof. <shrug>

 I had Covid and didn’t know it. My entire office actually had Covid and only one person had adverse affects. Probably half my office got the vaccine and all of them missed almost a week of work.

I genuinely have more fear of the vaccine than I do for Covid

Edited July 25, 2021 by Fether

[Fether]

9 hours ago, InCognitus said:

So it depends on which path you want to take, and what risks you want to take with those around you.   You may also want to consider how other family members might view your actions if you are the one responsible for infecting family and friends that may be at high risk.  It's all up to you.  

I’m in a city that has rejected the seriousness of Covid. Almost all of my family members have had Covid at some point since we spend so much time together. For many, they want Covid because you get a lot more money donating plasma after they recover. A co-worker of mine got chewed out by an old lady at a gas station for wearing a mask. She said “take the GD thing off your face!”.

There is this sense of annoyance about it all. As I said earlier, we never enacted any measures to “slow the spread” restaurants closed for like a week and then opened back up. No one enforced the “mask mandate”. There was never any stay at home initiative. Life has literally gone unchanged and our Covid stats are not concerning at all. Everyone keeps saying that we will one day get hit… but most of us feel we have already been hit and we have all been lied to.

Edited July 25, 2021 by Fether

[Fether]

And just to clarify, I am not spitting political opinion or trying to convince everyone the virus is fake. 
 

I am just sharing my experience and the experience of my community.

[Calm]

58 minutes ago, Fether said:

And just to clarify, I am not spitting political opinion or trying to convince everyone the virus is fake. 
 

I am just sharing my experience and the experience of my community.

Do you mind giving a sense of the size and density of your community?  

[Fether]

24 minutes ago, Calm said:

Do you mind giving a sense of the size and density of your community?  

The area is split into 3 differing areas of density. 2 cities, and farm land.

Edit: just looked it up. My city is about 1000 per sq mile (which may including a lot of farm land). The other city is about 2000

Edited July 25, 2021 by Fether

[Ragerunner]

I continue to go back to President Nelson’s statement on the vaccine.

“We are thankful for the countless doctors, scientists, researchers, manufacturers, government leaders, and others who have performed the grueling work required to make this vaccine available. We have prayed often for this literal godsend.”

[Ragerunner]

After all the fasting and worldwide praying that has taken place. I find it interesting that so many members and local leaders have openly rebelled against the vaccine. Even after the Prophet went as far as to say this was the answer to our prayers and a Godsend.

I guess conspiracies, miss information, anti vaccinations and politics take priority for many.

I personally believe that our unwillingness to heed the prophet’s council will result in a very prolonged pain and suffering in our society at the hands of this virus.

[Calm]

Will our Latter-day Saint life span gap be shortened in comparison to others?  (Average Lifespan in US dropped a year last year).  I wonder what percentage of our faith community is resisting vaccination compared to others. We tend to be younger on average, which aids us, but conservatives…which I don’t have a clue about. There is a strong alternative health segment and those tend to be against vaccination.  Otoh, lots will follow prophet’s counsel. 

[Rain]

3 hours ago, Fether said:

Immediatly after signing, we send someone to their house to do a home inspections one of the steps is to go into the attic and check the integrity of the roof

So they don't go from room to room?  Just up in the attic? 

Because if that's the case it wouldn't even phase me either.

I don't want people to be hurting with the economy.  I don't want people losing jobs.  If you are describing what I'm envisioning it just makes sense in a covid world to not overly worry about putting up the solar. 

Now in my husband's last job there were over 100 people in the same room all day long every day that would be different.  

 

[Bernard Gui]

Americans, Conservatives, and Mormons are not the only people opposing restrictions and vaccines. In some places it’s even getting violent.  https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.voanews.com/covid-19-pandemic/thousands-around-globe-protest-covid-19-shots-lockdowns%3famp

Edited July 25, 2021 by Bernard Gui

[Bernard Gui]

It’s the delta variant wreaking havoc now, but we’re just getting started. There are plenty of letters left in the Greek alphabet. 

[Bernard Gui]

There has also been strong resistance to COVID vaccination among BIPOC groups despite the fact that they have experienced greater negative effects from the pandemic. https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMp2103104