D&D and the rising pandemic

[Umbran]

Asides are fine and all, but unless you're drinking Covid-19 Pale Ale, maybe you should take this beer stuff over to the appropriate thread:

Virtual Happy Hour (Brews & Spirits, Pics & Reviews)

I traditionally do a Friday Happy Hour with a friend in person. Since the "lockdown" its been twice a week on-line, we'll see how it goes once things open up. Anyway, I'm thinking pictures of brews and brief reviews (and maybe the snacks once its back to being out some place). I'll only be...

www.enworld.org

 

[Zardnaar]

Coppers not willing to use the required force to break up protests.

Stuff

www.newshub.co.nz

Two weeks on. Not sure they would no how last large scale protests were 1981.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

It's been a rough week. Thursday morning, a good friend of mine had to go into the hospital. He had been battling cancer for two years.

This morning I spoke with him on the phone. He was going for a last procedure before being released into hospice care with his family.

I learned just now that he didn't make it through the procedure.

Over the past two years that he had been battling, he repeatedly had treatments and surgeries postponed, pushed back, and cancelled because of COVID. Sometimes it was because of policies due to the pandemic in general, and sometimes it was because of the rush of cases ... almost always unvaccinated ... that would overwhelm the system.

Did all of those delays make the difference? I don't know. It certainly didn't help.

I see the people protesting and full of anger that they might have to get vaccinated, and I have to wonder- in all of their righteous indignation, do they care even a little for the damage they do? Somehow, I doubt it.

 

[Zardnaar]

3 cops treated in hospital and feces thrown at them.


Cops are kinda stuck between a Rock and a hard place. There options are really do nothing or go in with water cannons, tear gas and batons which of course will end up on social media with people screaming police brutality and women and children and PoC are present.

There's to many to break up peacefully and a lack of polical cover.

Additionally the cops are independent of parliament and the occupation into it's third week is at parliament. They're more or less sitting on their hands so the police more or less have to decide to wade in or not independently and then they'll get the blame when people inevitably get hurt.

It's also not clear what the laws are as they haven't done anything similar since the Bill of Rights act was introduced and increasing amounts of health and safety laws.

So the cops don't want to do anything and can't really blame them. It's all on them if anything goes wrong (which it will let's face it).

People basically sick of them and some feces was also dumped in the harbor contaminating local beaches getting them closed.

Protesters are being anti social ass hats but not using enough violence where the cops can wade in and no one cares.

 

[Guest 7034872]

This is just insane.

 

[Umbran]

It's been a rough week. Thursday morning, a good friend of mine had to go into the hospital. He had been battling cancer for two years.

This morning I spoke with him on the phone. He was going for a last procedure before being released into hospice care with his family.

I learned just now that he didn't make it through the procedure.

Oh, geeze. I'm so sorry for your loss.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

It's been a rough week. Thursday morning, a good friend of mine had to go into the hospital. He had been battling cancer for two years.

This morning I spoke with him on the phone. He was going for a last procedure before being released into hospice care with his family.

I learned just now that he didn't make it through the procedure.

I'm sorry for your loss. I can relate. I lost one of my best friends to cancer in late 2020. I wasn't able to visit him in the hospital because of restrictions at the time, either. We thought he was going to beat it, too. I miss him terribly.

 

[Imaculata]

Did all of those delays make the difference? I don't know. It certainly didn't help.

I'm sorry for your loss. I wondered the same thing when I lost my farther early last year. The huge amount of covid patients meant that he couldn't be immediately rushed to the hospital in his own city, but had to be brought to another. I wonder if this delay made a difference, and if the outcome could have been different.

 

[Snarf Zagyg]

I appreciate all the people here. Thank you.

I'm a little broken up about this right now because he left behind a spouse and daughter who is finishing her last year of middle school. And he was one of those guys that everyone loved- I mean, I can be a jerk sometimes, but he truly had no enemies. There is not a single person I know that doesn't have some story of his incredible kindness. The last in-person conversation I had with him was him reminding me that someone else deserved something, and that I needed to make it happen. He was always thinking of other people, right to the last.

And at the same time, I see these other stories in the news. How hard is it to just behave like an adult on an airplane flight? To get vaccinated? To wear a mask when it's required? I get that sometimes things don't make sense- it can be weird to sit in a restaurant and eat and talk maskless, and then put it on to go and use the bathroom. But I'm not going to throw a tantrum and yell at the staff because they remind me to follow the rules. I don't understand when behaving like an adult, and showing kindness to others, fell out of fashion.

Anyway, I'm going to channel this into something productive; I can't change what's going on everywhere else, but I can work with others to have a scholarship established in his memory and get a college fund established for his daughter. The best way to combat powerlessness is to do something positive & productive.

I just really want to get back to fireballs and unicorns and dragons.

 

[payn]

A week ago I went to my cousins place in rural MN for a boot hockey weekend. He works in a hospital and is very close to the pandemic issues as you would expect. During the holidays he asked some of his family if they would do a rapid test before getting together on Thanksgiving and x-mas. They told him to not only go pound sand, but wont talk to him at all now.

He asked for rapid tests for the boot hockey weekend which everyone but his brothers complied. His brothers wouldn't even come because he "ruined" the weekend with his "fake" covid stuff. There was no vaccine mandate, he just wanted to make sure he was not hosting a super spreader event. During the weekend we were talking and he said at this point he would rather spend time with my family than his own. That made me very sad.