What is your anxiety level about catching COVID?

[dismalist]

This question came from a comment in a post which I have copied. The context is Fall teaching. People differ in their risk aversion and it probably makes for a difference in anxiety levels or fear. Let's see how we distribute.

I have an answer for myself and will vote once some others have.

Cheers?

[clean]

The month is not even over.   IN the start of the month the hospitalizations were less than 25 with less than 8 in the ICU.  Today, only weeks later, there are over 125 in the hospital with 33 in the ICU!  We went from daily rates in the teens to today's count of 240!  I went to the grocery store (on a Monday afternoon, hoping for a slow time) and the mask wearers were clearly outnumbered by the others.

Now the news is saying that even vaccinated can be carriers! 

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

My level of apprehension has been increasing every day. Numbers are going up here. The positivity rate in our state has jumped quickly and was over 10% today. I'm not quite at 'freak-out' level yet.

[Sun_Worshiper]

Minimal. While my age, health/fitness, and vaccine status make me very low risk for serious illness, I'd still hate to get it and pass it on to others.

[secundem_artem]

Moderate.

Things in my county are not that bad - yet.  I'm re-starting mask wearing when out and considering starting a pool in my college for when we will be back online this fall.  The data is incomplete but last I heard only about 30% of our students have been immunized & we are supposed to be 100% F2F this fall.  Much bad juju coming I fear.

[namazu]

Greatly increased after hearing from a grad-school friend who, along with at least 10/14 other fully vaccinated people, now has COVID after an in-home gathering. [!] The index case was also fully vaccinated. [!]  Friend is symptomatic and feeling miserable, but is not in the hospital.  Friend is a working epidemiologist who has been monitoring the pandemic, and I trust the details. They are in a state with much better vaccination rates than mine.

[dr_codex]

I think a lot of people are underestimating what's coming in the Fall.

I'm not so much anxious about catching COVID, as I am watching lots of people around me get sick, and some die.

I'm old enough to remember how hard it was to convince people to wear seatbelts, to wear condoms, and to stop driving drunk. Wearing masks and observing basic hygiene might take a while to catch on.

[evil_physics_witchcraft]

I think a lot of people are underestimating what's coming in the Fall.

I'm not so much anxious about catching COVID, as I am watching lots of people around me get sick, and some die.

This. ^

[mamselle]

Enough so that I'm continuing to teach online, cancelled my weekly tours again this summer (very regretfullly, but I'm sure it was the right thing to do) and haven't even thought about returning to in-home teaching in the fall, whether or not I, or they, or anyone else is vaccinated.

I just posted about a friend and her husband, both vaccinated, who have tested positive, with other complications due to her CA diagnosis.

I walk every day early, from 6-7 AM, fully masked and gloved, and I only go to the drugstore (where I also do some essential grocery shopping) every other week--also at 7 AM.

I think until the variants are better understood, everyone needs to stay masked and gloved and careful.

I suspect a second booster will be required soon.

M.

[spork]

Zero. My wife and I probably had it in April 2020 (I had a sore throat, my wife temporarily lost her sense of taste, but neither of us got tested), we've been vaccinated, and I know from a research study I'm participating in that I've produced antibodies. Plus I've been running 15-20 miles per week to maintain good cardiovascular function, with yoga on off days, for the last year. I don't have diabetes, dementia, or other major comorbidities.

[apl68]

I'm not very anxious.  I've been vaccinated, and most of the people with whom I have the closest regular interactions have been as well.  I'm not a teacher, and don't have to worry about spending hours a day in crowded classrooms.  If I were, I still doubt I'd be too worried about myself.  I'm in good health, and death doesn't worry me, except in so far as I'd feel awfully bad if I fooled around and pre-deceased my elderly parents.

I'm very concerned about the state as a whole.  Throughout the first year we were about average among states in terms of infections and deaths.  But now we're one of the worst hot spots in the nation.  One of the reasons why I've been so disinclined to agree with those who try to portray COVID as all about politics is because our state's politics and political leadership have NOT been so extreme.  Our governor had actually done quite an intelligent job of managing things, all things considered.  But people from all walks of life don't want to mask up, and don't want to get vaccinated, and with those principal tools for fighting the pandemic off the table for so many there's not really much way of controlling the spread.  There's been some kind of breakdown in our society here.

Most of the most vulnerable people here ARE vaccinated now, and others are finally accepting the need to vaccinate.  So I don't think we're going to see a return to the worst level of deaths that we saw at the pandemic's height.  But we're losing over 10 people a day to it now.  Most of those deaths are completely needless.  Our county has now lost 37 people out of a population of only about 20,000.  It just didn't have to be this bad.

[little bongo]

Got vaccinated in April--following the guidelines and the science as well as I can. My life is currently... let's say, "blessed," with enough challenges, issues, and concerns that COVID doesn't make my top 20 as far as anxiety goes--it might just sneak into the top 100 on a slow day.

[Morden]

My anxiety level shot way up as my SO has just been diagnosed with serious lung disease. We're both fully vaccinated and careful, but ...

[Parasaurolophus]

The extra stuff in the poll rules out all the options for me. I'm not very worried at this point--though I do want to avoid giving it to the hatchling--but I'm still doing everything because it seems to me that now is not the time to slack off, and because it's better if fewer people catch the variants so that there's less transmission and less risk to the hatchling and others.

[kiana]

Minimal on a personal level -- had an extended case of COVID last year, fully vaccinated, live alone, no health conditions.

Concerned on a school/societal level.