It's not really a personal choice issue, it's a risk versus well, anything you want to do issue. Literally leaving the house results in potential exposure, mask or no. Overall, most of us who hang out here are 20-40, and our survival rate is comparable with some pretty out there statistics.

Anybody who has to go out because of work or groceries or whatever can't just choose to avoid any potential disease-spreaders, for one thing.

Kind of disingenuous to frame this as just a personal choice issue.

This whole "I can't handle people not me having the choice to not put on masks" thing's a bit much.

Hey, Florida is one of the most infected states, and we won't even shut down. We may use masks, but restaurants, clubs, you name it, those are still wide open. Also, what's limiting the amount of people in a facility again?

Oklahoma is right there, apparently. Dang bible belt. Nice people, but not the smartest cookies I've seen.

Don't worry! COME TO TEXAS WHERE OUR IDIOT GOVENOR DECALRED THE STATE 100% OPEN AND ENDED THE MASK MANDATE!!!

Beyond just the not even being able to walk into most stores

No kidding, but right now: unless it's physically on the shelf in front of you: there's no clear idea when it'll be available. And that goes for just about everything.

I've heard new appliances are hard to get, for some reason

And the new one we settled on is backlogged up to two months. Even better.

I mean, it's not all bad. Disney's releasing Speed remastered on 4K

And now the fridge has died. So far 2021 has been WONDERFUL.

I'm upset I can't "Like" a shout...

The US election? *rimshot*

WHICH 2016 clown panic?

Didn't that come right after the 2016 clown panic? No way to make clowns not disturbing at the time, surely.

The clown guise is supposed to lure kids in, it's no good if it looks sus in one glance.

The new one tries too hard to be unsettling from the start. Curry's look is just a plain old clown, until he very much is not.

And Curry has a far more disturbing look at times than the newbie.

And the original was a showcase of Tim Curry's delightfulness as an actor. 'Nuff said.

first one was a decent horror flick but the second was a mess plotwise and even the scares were worse

Never understood the hype for the IT movies, too many floppy zombie chases, They're not in the least unsettling.

It's better than the last one!

The new Wizards of the Coast logo looks stupid

It's really rather shocking watching the Investor Day presentation and seeing how much Hasbro actually owns now.

If everyone had COMMON SENSE, then things would maybe go a little better-

If everyone would just have the exact same opinions as me then we wouldn't have this problem

It just depends on what it is. It is preferable to take it to P&R though. But sometimes current news as it's happening is less restrictive.

Huh, good point (x3)

Yeah. 1. People treat it like Twitter. 2. There's no "take it to P&R" since there's no P&R for the Shoutbox. 3. There's similarly no way to avoid either subjects or people in the Shoutbox since there's no division and it doesn't respect the ignore function, so people end up engaging when they normally wouldn't.

Is there something about the Shoutbox that just means we get politics taking over the thing at least once a week?

At least your government is willing to talk about the collapsing medicare system. In quebec, their ignoring it in favour of talking about language again! Oh, and unconstitutionally denying access to eduction.

At least here in my home province of Ontario we have a conservative gov't who doesn't want to cuz $$$$, but the argument is that they'll end up paying in medical care anyways for those sick people so why not?

We have paid sick leave here in Canada too, but it's not very much and not everyone has it. So we're trying to get the gov't to extend it, and give it to everyone.

The only reason people still go to work despite being sick is because they feel emotionally obliged to serve their employer.

Some people abuse the system by somehow getting sick with a different plague every five weeks.

Those six weeks are out of the employer's pocket by legal mandate. If you're still sick after those six weeks, the health insurance company takes over the payment.

That's the good thing in Germany - we have legally mandated paid sick days. Six weeks (!) for a single cause (consecutive or recurring, as long as it's the same cause; reinfections long after the fact don't count), Everytime the employee gets sick with a new cause, another six weeks start.

That's how my family got sick, my brothers a teacher, he has a class for expelled students, they gave full attendance these past few lockdowns out of sheer boredom, they can turn in sick and break isolation and he nor the other staff, who also got sick, couldn't do anything about it.

Yeah, pretty sure the only reason people don't stay home when they're sick is that the vast majority of society lives paycheque to paycheque, and they can't afford even one missed day of work.

That's unfortunate... I know masks can be annoying, but I think not being able to breath comfortably for a while is better than actually having the virus and not being able to breath at all. bUt Oh, pEoPLe dOn'T bELiVe ThE dAmN vIrUs Is rEaL

Hahahaha! Oh, you're serious. Yeah, no one is going to do that. Far too many are in positions where they simply cannot afford the time off, and most of the rest are the kind who won't wear the mask in a global pandemic, never mind when they alone have the sniffles.

I just hope a take-away from this will be for people to stay home when they're sick, and if they have to go out, wear a mask so as not to spread their illness.

I think it's mostly the masking that's kept the flu season down so much, and that's unlikely to be kept up for that long. I'm sure there'll be some people who keep wearing masks for years after this, but I suspect a larger number are anticipating people able to toss them once vaccinations are complete.

Same in canada. Doctors report it to be basically non-existant. I kinda hope they keep some stuff up after everyone is vaccinated. Like hand sanitizer at store entrances, and actually cleaning the shopping carts.

On the plus side cold and flu cases are down 80% this winter thanks to lockdowns, or at least that's the case in the UK.

This is quite possibly the most miserable i have ever felt.

i'll be nice and not bypass the cupcake monkey, but COVID can *bleep* itself in the *bleeping* *bleeper* with a *bleeping* cactus.

He only appeared the once in the US comics and got one follow up in the UK comic. He never suffered badass decay like Omega Supreme and the combiners.