Yeah this is an easily fixable problem. We have so many parking lots, could easily do solar overhangs and stick some EV chargers on them.

I usually cut double the length for mattress stitch and it's almost always too much yarn

Up-to-date COVID vaccination or day-of rapid testing was required at registration.

Just want to point out because I have seen multiple events do this and then wind up being superspreaders that this is absolutely not a sufficient COVID measure and is based on a ~summer 2021 understanding of the virus. I'm glad there was an attempt, to me that means people really do care but just don't have the right information.

The vaccines we have do not prevent transmission or long covid and rapid test sensitivity is pretty low, especially if only one test is taken. The bare minimum mitigation is universal (kn95 or better) masks and ventilation/air filtration.

I'm sure I sound like a broken record in this sub but it's because I love this sport and I want as many people as possible to be able to participate in it as long as possible.

I live in ABQ and have been here for a bit over 5 years, but I'm originally from the northeast and I agree with you. People love the weather here but I absolutely cannot stand it, the constant sunshine and high UV intensity makes me feel like I'm being baked and the cool nights etc don't really make up for it to me. It's by far my least favorite part of the area.

Northern NM is still dry as heck but even Santa Fe is usually about 10F cooler than ABQ.

This was my first thought too. I would be really skeptical.

I'm glad it's not just me, I've lived in the same house since 2020 and I'd never seen them before this year.

At least the moths were kind of funny

Mainstream media outlets are covering long COVID, so to say that she only trusts media outlets is a mistake, IMO. She is selectively hearing news she wants to hear to support what she wants to do (i.e. go ‘back to normal.’)

Yeah I have multiple family members who say that if COVID/long COVID were issues then it'd be in the news and then when I send them super mainstream articles lin like NYT or Time or whatever about it they either ghost or decide to start personally attacking me. It's absolutely about doing what they want anyway.

Loved the multiple camera angles and having the blocker names up on the stream too instead of just jammers. Lots of really good derby. Overall great watching experience.

Really upsetting (though unsurprising) to keeping hearing announcers say "post pandemic" "since COVID" etc though.

I'm so sorry. It's so frustrating. Last year I wound up spending a few days really, really sick (that I am very confident was not covid, many metrix tests later) when I hadn't been indoors or close to people in over a month and I was similarly upset. It's not fair.

I think something that's important to remember is the that you're not going to remember how many times you avoided a potential illness, just the one time you didn't. So it might feel like your efforts are wasted or whatever but they're not-you might have avoided getting sick over a dozen times and just not know.

I use the arms of my office chair as a swift all the time, they're the perfect distance apart for most hanks

I think this is key. I also think it's important to accept that we may not see the results of the things we put in motion, but we still need to do them. Figuratively and literally planting trees so our children and grand children may sit in their shade.

Not even went through, are going through as the pandemic is not over. The people pretending it's over are likely feeling the weight of their cognitive dissonance, and the rest of us are being traumatized by begging people to care and them laughing in our faces.

The pandemic is ongoing, ignoring the mass death and debility around you in order to justify going around unmasked is bound to weigh on you.

SAME I miss it so much, tournaments on there were the best time

A lot of the data I have seen tests the impact on the electrostatic filter with distilled water, which kinda misses the point because sweat, rain, and tapwater are...not distilled water, they all have salts/contaminants that may mess with the electrostatic charge beyond just being wet. Some n95s have a mechanical filter and an electrostatic filter (aura is one) so there's also that, water is not going to impact a mechanical filter.

I feel like I've seen some data of boiling masks in tap water and then letting them dry and showing their filter did not degrade, but I can't seem to find the data right now and also idk if there's a difference between "currently wet" and "was wet and then dried".

I usually replace a mask if its soaked through, and if I'm not sure if one has been soaked I let it dry and then it becomes a taking out the trash/very low risk scenario mask till I throw it away. I'm not sure this is correct or anything just how I've been handling it.

We aren't in a measles pandemic and probably won't be, though I 100% agree the larger outbreaks occurring are pretty concerning and yet another reason why infection control matters.

That's another reason why I push universal masks and clean air though-then risk of giving anyone any airborne pathogen is much lower, whether covid or measles or bird flu or some mystery virus we don't even know about yet.

Accepting covid's continued presence in our life would be, at bare minimum, everyone wearing high quality masks. What roller derby is currently doing is not acceptance, it is denial.

Nevermind that the antigen tests most people have access to are not sufficient to say someone is not contagious. They're not sensitive enough for that.

This is why many skaters who keep up with covid and know it isn't over and can't/don't want to risk it have retired, myself included. It really sucks, I still haven't really accepted that I will likely never play roller derby again (despite knowing I have quite a few more years in me, I am only 30 and was really just hitting my stride in 2020) because other people don't care who they pass a highly disabling virus to. When WFTDA abandoned the RTP with pretty much nothing in its place, I figured this sort of behavior was inevitable and I hate to see I was right. It kind of seems like every tournament is a super spreader, based on my social media feed at least.

What sucks is that requiring kn95 or better masks and running a few air cleaners is inexpensive and would mitigate A LOT of the risk but it'd interfere with the "back to normal" cosplay so it won't be done. I worry a lot about what repeat infections are going to do to the sport long term, the harm is cumulative and it's not sustainable.

People have generally ended friendships with me before I could with them because I am a pathetic sap that always believes if I can just find the right thing to say, they'll come around. But yes many, many of my friendships have ended because of their lack of covid caution and those that haven't I really don't feel connected to anymore.

I think Americans, usually white liberal ones, uphold this sort of thinking too tbh. Lots of people here talk about various European countries like they're utopias when like, there's some stuff various countries handle better than us but more often the same problems just manifested in a different way.

For donations from companies the easiest thing to do is find a local non-profit that will partner with you-it doesn't actually require anything from them, sometimes they want a few masks.

For cheap purchases government auctions are usually the cheapest but can be very very hit or miss because sometimes they get bid up to hell and sometimes they don't.

I also personally guilt tripped my parents into donating a box of auras to us a while ago if you wanna go the emotional manipulation to your family route.

Yeah I think that's something people often forget too-when we look at life expectancy at birth that's lower than your life expectancy given you've already made it to 60 or 70 or whatever.

Way back in 2020 I remember seeing a study that estimated that people who died of covid lost an average of 10 years. Obviously we can't like verify that since...they're dead...but that feels like a reasonable ballpark to me.

Agreed. My old office did this and everyone was very happy with it-management liked that it paid for itself pretty fast with power bills, employees liked that their cars weren't a million degrees at 5pm, etc.

I think people always thought of folks as disposable once they weren't useful to capital tbh, which is often around their mid 60s.

But I agree. My great uncle is 97 and his 60 year old son died of covid last year and nobody seemed to think that was weird or bad? Like, he could of had 30 more years!