I had to have a conversation today with my son. I am 60, a life long smoker.

[dutch508]

LizBeth (1,975 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213439561

I had to have a conversation today with my son. I am 60, a life long smoker.

State is opening up.

I work in customer service. An hotel that has 50-100 people checking in and an 8 hour shift five days a week. People from Washington and Calif, China and Asia, and Europe that stays with us because we are center in tourist attraction. We have a two by two Plexiglas on a 7 foot counter that we hope the customers use to contain germs. No ventilation, no windows. I was talking to a fellow liberal about them telling me I had to go back to work and her comment was, ... It would have to be safe for them to insist you come back to work.

My Governors has opened the state, phase one. But they did stipulation that people in vulnerable position should be protected.

I was talking to a person I have been friend with for decades telling her of the possibility of going back to work in this environment. She is a liberal, on our side yet she said to me, ... The work environment has to be safe to the employee if they are asking you to come back, assuming. That is naive in my opinion that people believe that conditions are in place to protect the workers.

How do you all feel about it? I live alone and even if I just get a 14 days, to a month of pain and illness, I am by myself. I have no one to help me, and I have no desire to experience what I am seeing people experience getting this virus. I have a dog I am concerned about if hospital, a month of illness that comes and goes with fever and if I will end up dead in the morning. Not to mention hospital bills that will break me.

Let me hear what you have to say, or what you feel please. My son says to say no.

 

You smoke. Your choice.
You are alone. Your choice.
You refuse to go back to work? Your choice.

catrose (2,945 posts)

1. I feel that your son is smart.

"The work environment has to be safe to the employee if they are asking you to come back." I haven't seen any "let's open up" governor who was concerned about the people, or any employer wanting the company to get back to work who was concerned about the employees.

 

Star Member MLAA (5,317 posts)

2. If there is any possible way to stay home financially I would.

Will they allow you to also wear a mask and gloves?

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

4. That is something I would have to insist on I think. The young one working skeleton crew now do not wear masks. I would think that they prefer the we do not. But, they really like me, work with me and think I am a good employee, valued. But, the mask really is protecting the customer from me, not necessarily protecting me from the 50-100 customers.

 

Star Member BigmanPigman (34,997 posts)

32. Get goggles too!

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/doctor-crowded-united-flight-says-passengers-were-scared-shocked-n1204446

The very, very careful doctor who appears on the news got Covid and he wore gloves and a mask and wiped everything down too. He thinks he got it through his eyes on a crowded plane and wishes he wore goggles.

I ordered some on line last night for $10, including shipping. I would get some too if I were you. You couldn't make me go into a classroom (I was a 1st grade teacher and was constantly sick) right now if you held a gun to my head. Be safe for YOU and **** your employer who cares about $$$, not peoples' health. Think about your poor dog...it would be depressed for the rest of its life (you know how dogs are).

 

Star Member BigmanPigman (34,997 posts)

44. Tell them you have to wear the goggle due to your glasses.

The goggles fit over them. I doubt they are up-to-date on the latest medical discoveries so lie to them to protect yourself. I am sure that if you tell them you touch your glasses automatically to adjust them and your eye doctor told you that is how you can get Covid in your eyes. The goggles, like gloves and masks, protect not only you but others as well. Any employer not allowing goggles for that reason shows his true colors and gives you a reason to stay far away from there.

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

46. Goggles, mask, eight hours a day, five days a week. Nah. To do all that to get just over minimum wage just does not seem like the risk is worth it.

Star Member BigmanPigman (34,997 posts)

52. I live alone and have a little 17 year old dog.

I would never do that to her...possibly make her an orphan. She gets sad if I am gone an hour. It would kill her too if I died or was gone a month.

That is why I responded as I did, I am a dog person. Also, as a former teacher I have permanent health issues due to many years in an unhealthy environment at work and can't work anymore and am on disability due to it. Believe me, it isn't worth it. My school district did nothing until I brought my union in and they got the moldy building destroyed (the school district gave me a can of Lysol). My environment had tons of germs and I was sick 90% of the school year after the moldy room hurt my lungs and immune system. Do NOT become like me at first. Stay home for your health and your dog's sake too if you don't have a union (which it sounds like you don't).

  You got the school destroyed and now are on disability?   

Star Member captain queeg (2,558 posts)

3. Are you getting unemployment? If you don't go back what's the states position?

Would you lose your unemployment if you don’t report for work? Do you have health insurance thru your company? I don’t really have an answer, you’ll have to weigh all that. If you were to lose your health insurance you could still end up getting sick thru some other contact. I think the rethugs are going to use that as a hammer but sounds like you are on the west coast where the states are a bit more liberal.

 

Nature Man (602 posts)

8. Do whatever you have to do to stay on unemployment

you might not necessarily have to lie, but don't hold it against yourself if you did.

Also, you don't have to tell them everything, just saying.

Ride it out, keep your head up.

 

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

9. My son told me tell my bosses, 60, smoke, and don't exercise. I sputtered a bit but then said, check

ego. Because this is who I am and I am at risk. Now, I am a good employee they value and they are hurting, too. they want me when they start going too. But say it the way it is and don;t sugar coat it.

You think this is ok? I mean, I have never been a wuss. I do not get sick, but I do not want to experience this.

fat, smoker, lives alone, works a minimum wage job...

 

Star Member PoindexterOglethorpe (13,387 posts)

14. How about finally giving up smoking?

For one thing, smoking comprises your lungs, which is A Very Bad Thing for the Corona virus.

Plus, it should not be breaking news to you that smoking is bad for you in many ways.

So stop smoking.

 

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

15. Gosh if it was so simple. Thanks. Ya. I am on it. Every day I consider. More than a decade

on and off, working on that. My date is Saturday this time. But hey... Thanks.

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

16. You know, talking to my son and him saying, 60 and smoker. I told him no, I do not get to use smoker

Fat or smoker is a no go. It is ... Let die. You smoke. Bad you. And my son was, no way. They are liberals. They get addictions. I told him no, not with smoking and fat.

He didn't believe me, but here you are.

 

Star Member PoindexterOglethorpe (13,387 posts)

20. Part of what makes me crazy about smoking is that

the Surgeon General's report on smoking came out in 1964. A **** of a long time ago. I have zero sympathy for anyone who took up smoking since then.

Not to mention, as long ago as the 1940's, some two decades before the aforementioned Surgeon General's report, people called cigarettes "coffin nails". Hmmm.

And since things like Covid-19 are especially bad for those with compromised lung function, meaning smokers, can you even remotely begin to think about stopping smoking?

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

22. I get you have zero sympathy. So, you have made it clear. You help no one.

I have already told you for over a decade I have been working on quitting. 20 days here 30 days there. You made it clear, no sympathy. What are you accomplishing here?

Star Member PoindexterOglethorpe (13,387 posts)

40. And what are you accomplishing by continuing to smoke?

Did you take up smoking before 1964? Were you blissfully unaware of the genuine dangers of smoking? Did you think it was some innocuous habit that hardly mattered other than to those who indulged?

What the **** were you thinking???

It's not as though the genuine dangers of smoking were only realized last year. They've been out there for more than a half a century. So please do not ask me to sympathize with you. You took it up knowing full well that it was a truly stupid and dangerous thing.

So quit already. Stop buying the coffin nails. Recognize that you are indulging in a death invoking habit.

LizBeth (1,975 posts)

45. Seriously? Do you get off on this?

Post removed

 

Star Member barbtries (23,064 posts)

17. I don't think it's safe.

NC is rolling out phase 1 and I think it's too soon, and I know it's too soon for me. fortunately I am semi-retired and the one contract job that I have requires no travel, yet. By July I may need to travel to Indiana for work and will have to make a decision at that time whether I want to take the chance. But I'm 64 and have already started collecting early SS.

Can you make it financially if you don't return to work? Phase 1 in my state says people should still stay home, also they are pushing the "3 W's" - wear a mask, wait behind (at least 6 feet), and wash your hands. I think their advice is falling on a lot of deaf ears. Will your employer provide you with PPE and enforce social distancing? Have they put in processes to disinfect the rooms and all common areas regularly?

If you do return to work, it should not be the same place you left. There's a virus out there and it is extremely contagious. Please keep us posted and I hope no matter what you stay well.

Jarqui (7,051 posts)

33. They're not ready

There are a number of things that should have been done before and they're not doing them yet.

For example:
They still do not have enough testing
They do not have the infrastructure and staffing to do contact tracing.
They have not decently educated the public on avoidance ...
... in part because they still don't know as much as they need to medically
A bunch of the MAGA public is rabid and ignorant
They have nothing definitive yet on treating the illness to reduce death and reduce organ damage
They still do not have adequate PPE for medical staff or the public
They will have more medical supply shortages when the floodgates open up as they likely will due to the above

In your case, your son would like to see you hang around but with all that is outstanding above, with your condition, it's very risky to try going back to work. The longer you can buy yourself some time, the better your odds.

I don't know how quickly they'll get a vaccine. There are a lot of them in the works. But I feel with plasma, blood clotting treatment, immune system boosters, virus growth retardant approaches, etc they're likely to come up with some combination that makes a significant difference in the next 3 months or so.

Since you have experience in the service industry, you have some skills for contact tracing. They're going to need a lot of them. Why not get in the ground floor on that or maybe another job that isn't as risky (though obviously much harder to find in this situation).

Brainstorm with others for ideas on how you could get by. Please think it through.

 

[thundley4]

I saw that someone asked about unemployment but didn't get an answer. That is probably a huge part of this whole post.

Minimum wage worker laid off and drawing a huge amount of unemployment, (remember the extra $600?).

Plus, she also says she is a good and valued employee, but also that a younger skeleton crew, (essential workers, anyone?) has been working the whole time. 

[USA4ME]

LizBeth

I have never been a wuss.

A liberal that's not a wuss? Yea. Right.

Jarqui

Brainstorm with others for ideas on how you could get by.

Brainstorm?!? Liberals?!? You idiots can't even work up a good brain drizzle.

--------

The lack of self-awareness is palpable with these nimrods. It never occurs to them that the same attitude that would deride someone who smokes is the same as those who would try and keep a free people from assembling. These people know the risk, they've weighed it, and they made a choice based upon that. If you don't want to smoke, then don't smoke. If you don't want to venture out of your house, then stay inside. Simple as that, except to those who want an authoritarian police state.

.

[SVPete]

1. There is no such thing as "safe". At! All! And this woman has been doing something very risky her entire life!

2. As to her place of work, the counter forces something like a 4-foot or greater separation, and the 2-foot tall barrier and no ventilation essentially isolate her from customers' exhalations. And she wears a mask and gloves ... her actual risk would probably be little different from a year ago.

If, at age 60, she is alone, it sounds like smoking might not be the only less than wise choice in her life (unless she's a widow).

[Texacon]

Funny how none of them want to discuss what’s going on in GA and FL. Wonder why that is?

KC

[DLR Pyro]

posted this elsewhere on here but it seems fitting here as well..

[SVPete]

Funny how none of them want to discuss what’s going on in GA and FL. Wonder why that is?

KC

IKR? Especially since GA and FL obstinately refused to have the massive outbreak DU-folk prophesied.

[FiddyBeowulf]

LizBeth (1,975 posts)
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100213439561

I had to have a conversation today with my son. I am 60, a life long smoker.

There have been studies that have shown smokers were less likely to get the Covid and to recover faster if they did. Counter-intuitive I know but that is what the study said.
https://www.qeios.com/read/WPP19W.4

This cross sectional study shows that the daily smokers rate is significantly lower in symptomatic COVID-19 patients than in the French general population, for both outpatients and inpatients. The SIRs of daily smokers in COVID-19 outpatients and inpatients were 0.23 [0.11 - 0.45] and 0.23 [0.14 - 0.39], respectively, which means a decrease of 77% as compared to the French population, accounting for age and sex distribution. This result suggests that daily smokers have a lower probability of developing symptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection as compared to the general population.