Laces out, Dan!

I attended the SFGE show. They required masks and I felt very safe.

Our family has been vigilant throughout, but we feel safe at our local arcades with masking and hand sanitizing. I'm hyped for Pincinnati this year! I will say the one thing that I'm still not 100% comfortable with is flipper button sharing; so many hands that have been so many places. I'm wondering, for the operators here, is there a standard protocol for keeping things clean?

I was at the Louisville show March 2019 which was right before shit hit the fan. They had sanitizing stations EVERYWHERE, and kept them loaded which was impressive. I can only imagine Pincinnati will have similar amenities. Also noticed the folks who were really concerned wore latex gloves.

A good cleaning regimen is definitely a good idea - a quick swipe with rubbing alcohol or another cleaning agent would help keep a LOT of things from spreading. However it’s probably good to remember that COVID doesn’t spread from touching things - it’s airborne.

Just attended a 100+ event at District 82 in Green Bay area. I would estimate masking was around 15-20%ish(?) and there were players from every part of the US as well as Canada and even England.

Full transparency, I elected to not mask up for it. It was an absolute blast, though I do remain curious as to exposure for all of us attendees as well as during a round it is pretty hard to distance, and even between rounds everyone sitting next to each other on couches masked or not. I hope if any of us get sick, we go get tested and let each other know.

yawn

In the covid thread!!

Carefull, the Mods don't like this topic free floating out there with their control and approval...

Check out the Official Corona 19 thread!!

I’ve been to several pinball events. No symptoms. I go in and out of hospitals every day for work. No symptoms. Your mileage may vary.

You said you’re vax’d so what’s the worry?

Good point. The vax prevents you from getting covid
Sorry, I mean, the vax only prevents you from going to the hospital if you get covid
Sorry, I mean that the vax only prevents you from dying from covid...maybe! lol

Because no vaccine known to man has 100% efficacy. Even if you avoid life-threatening issues, COVID can still have long term impacts that are frankly annoying as hell. 10 months after the fact, and 7 months after the vaccine, I still can't smell all that well, and things will probably never taste the same again. Particularly bad for me is anything "spicy", and considering I was the guy that would happily cut up and eat a raw habanero before COVID.....now even crap like mild salsa is borderline questionable for me. I'll save you the trouble of describing some of my other less pleasant long term after-effects.

Time to just live your life...

Time will tell. Went to 2 shows over the last 10 days. Both required vaccines or negative test and both required masks without exception. Feel fine so far. I have the sniffles but it is also fall in northern California and allergy season for me

This and the similar TPF thread show the real lasting effects of Covid - PTSD.

Covid will be endemic so you are going to have to deal with it for the rest of your life. If you have been vaxed and are still worried about it then you are in for a miserable time.

Frax - sorry about your taste buds, but you knew the vax wasn't going to fix your symptoms after the fact, right?

I'm waiting for kids 5-13 to get vaccinated but then it's game on for us (with masks of course)

Did I expect it to? No. I got it to best protect my younger kid, who STILL can't get a f'ing vax months into the school year, and there's been at least 5 "oh, your kid was probably exposed" letters from his school, including his homeroom teacher, that they had to send an email out to the ENTIRE GRADE because she handles multiple classes. Bringing home *any* level of COVID, serious or not, is not something I want to happen, but definitely would like to have that not happen until he can get his vaccine. It's one thing for me to lose my crap at 40, but he's got the best part of his life ahead of him...I hope.... he already has multiple issues around food texture, and food allergies. His diet is already fairly restricted, so I'd like to not jack with his enjoyment of the few things he can or WILL eat.

Did it semi-miraculously fix or drastically improve "long haul" symptoms for a bunch of people, including my wife? Yeah, it did. I just didn't win the lottery, no surprises there. I'm not bitter about it, it's just how things are now. I'm mostly adjusted to the taste/smell thing, and thankfully, my fatigue did mostly go away a while after the shot. That was really the worst part, just being completely dead tired useless all the time for months.

There is much evidence that the vaccine reduces symptoms in some long haul Covid sufferers. But just like the vaccine it's not 100%

I have not let COVID hold back my life aside from the first month of paranoia when the virus hit and everything was closed. I hit up Crabtown USA for pinball the day they let restaurants open back up in Maryland. My kids are in school (but forced to mask up by the school). I did everything short of licking the flipper buttons at Allentown and York. I'm not sick and have not gotten sick. I go to work everyday, shop, and carry on life as always. However, I am young and healthy with no risk factors.

Were I older, had health concerns, or close family with issues I would button down the hatches. If you want to, you are more than welcome to with no ill will from me. I am under the impression that most of us are going to get COVID sooner or later. I am not going to live my life in mortal fear of it.

The Family is avoiding congested areas with high percentages of vaxxed people. Thats just the honest truth.

Me, well I'm out living my best life and enjoying the things it has to offer. Made it to a new arcade last night, Lynn's in Monterey, CA, where I enjoyed playing some games I hadn't played before.

(Just don't say stuff like that in the Covid thread. They want you to be as miserable as they are in there).

I respect your personal decision. Not sure why anyone would have an ‘issue’ with your decision… but there it is.

Attended pinbrew got the t-shirt and have lived to tilt out another day

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smallpox

The last naturally occurring case was diagnosed in October 1977, and the World Health Organization (WHO) certified the global eradication of the disease in 1980.

But that doesn't mean that the smallpox vaccine was 100% effective. It just means enough people were vaccinated, and it was effective enough that the virus no longer had anywhere else to spread to.

Did you read the article?

"Historically, the vaccine has been effective in preventing smallpox infection in 95 percent of those vaccinated."

That's phenomenally successful for a vaccine.

Why create this thread or poll? If you are worried about it, you prolly won’t be going to any shows in the first place.

I’ll be at Expo and I’m vaxxed.

I’m a ‘frontline’ worker since this thang began, and sill am. If I get it I get it.

It's unreal to me that people can't even understand this basic logic, or don't even try. Oh well.

Personally, I won’t go to a show if masking is mandatory.

I don't love it, but that's the requirement in Chicago (the entire city), so the show has no choice. And I'd like to go to Expo.

Not the end of the world.

I pity the people being tasked with enforcing this. I'm sure there will be a lot of idiots stirring up trouble and being belligerent, especially as it gets later and people get drunker. Try not to be "that guy," people.

Yep I caught cold from that event, going through boxes of Kleenex

I got sick a few days before the Allentown show, so I didn't go.

Had I gotten sick a couple days later, I may well have been at the show unknowingly spreading my germs around. Would I have gotten anybody sick? Who the hell knows.

As far as I know, not a single person here has fessed up to either going to a show while sick with COVID, or going to a show and catching COVID. So, you aren't gonna have much data to work with. You really just have to consider it and make a decision, there's no easy answers here.

I went to my first tourney since COVID about 4 weeks ago. It was awesome and they had a good and strictly enforced COVID strategy. Nevertheless, it felt weird being in an enclosed space with so many people.

You sure it is only a cold? Granted, its Tuesday… so my exposure would have been 2 days ago now and I think something would have reared its ugly head by now.

So you’re skipping the show this year?