Coronavirus

In this episode, Sam and Tayla download the Coronavirus pandemic, its politicization, the strategies deployed to contain it, and the things we learned that they hope people keep. 

Transcript

Tayla (00:10):

Welcome to the Babe. What do you know about podcast?

Sam (00:13):

We're your hosts husband and wife duo, Sam and

Tayla (00:17):

Tayla

Sam (00:17):

Air their grievances publicly for your entertainment.

Tayla (00:22):

So remind me what time your flight is

Sam (00:24):

Tomorrow? Around noon.

Tayla (00:26):

Noon. That's not too bad. No. You'll be around in the morning. No. Why don't you update the friends on where you're leaving us to go to?

Sam (00:36):

I'm going to Portugal. I'm going to go see the largest waves in the world in Nair. It's on the west coast of Portugal. And then after that I'm going to go look at the south coast of Portugal and maybe play some golf. And then there's also, I'm going to see Lisbon. And apparently my mom went there as a 17 year old with her parents and it was like she said, it was like one of her favorite places she's ever been to. And they've got a picture that that's got a painting that was painted in Portugal that my grandfather purchased. And I guess my mom's had it ever since.

Tayla (01:19):

That's cool. Yeah, I've seen it in their house, but I didn't realize that's where it was

Sam (01:23):

From. I know. I totally had forgotten all about that. And then I was telling him like, Hey, I'm going to go to Portugal. And then the whole thing came about.

Tayla (01:29):

Yeah. Well happy birthday. Thank you. And Merry Christmas. Sam's solo trip to Portugal. I know. And yeah, you had a birthday this week too. That's pretty big deal.

Sam (01:40):

Huge deal. This is going to be my last year of my thirties, so I gotta live, I'm gotta live it

Tayla (01:44):

Up. 39.

Sam (01:50):

Yeah, it just all falls apart from here.

Tayla (01:53):

That's what they say. But hopefully not, cuz I'm not even in my thirties yet. <laugh> keep it together babe. Keep

Sam (02:04):

It together.

Tayla (02:06):

So beyond that it's been a while guys. It's been what, A month and a half? Probably

Sam (02:15):

Busy holidays.

Tayla (02:16):

Yeah, my goodness. We took a bit of time off ended the first season, kind of a tester season, which was super fun. Super valuable still. But we thought we'd take a bit of time not only to survive the illness and the holidays and family <laugh>, but also just experiment a little and talk a little bit more how we want things to be like. So fun things coming this season. Teaser [inaudible]

Sam (02:43):

Massive, huge things.

Tayla (02:48):

Yes. I need to know what they are. Oh, just kidding. No, no. We have really fun stuff coming, so stick with us. It's going to, just going to keep going. Are there any other housekeeping items before we pop into today's

Sam (03:06):

Podcast? You told me, I know there's not really housekeeping, but it got me excited. 500 downloads of the podcast.

Tayla (03:13):

Yeah. Sick. Yeah, it is sick in a good way. Anyone who doesn't know dope, <laugh> dope in a good way. No. Yeah, so it's getting there and we're just having fun with it. So a lot of really good feedback too. That's my favorite thing actually, is not just recording the episodes and stuff, but it's the interactions we get in polls and the thoughts people get interactions, all of that. I

Sam (03:42):

Love it. Also texts I, I've gotten a few texts that have been awesome and amazing and we, we've discussed it and there's ways that we're going to be able to improve and have a more fun this next season.

Tayla (03:54):

Yes. And I'm just going to do this now because we always do it at the end, but if you guys are listeners and you haven't yet subscribed or rated us or written a review, that kind of stuff helps podcasters out so much. So please do us a favor and go ahead and do that if you haven't already. And for those who have you are the real ones

Sam (04:14):

The best.

Tayla (04:16):

All right. Onto Coronavirus, dun dun dun. That's what our topic is today. So get ready for, I thought that this topic warranted a little more background and a little more context just so that everyone's on the same page and we are remembering the timeline of things. I think it's good to put ourselves back into the brain of the people who went through it as it was happening. So buckle in. I'm ready. Interrupt anytime if you need.

Sam (04:46):

I won't. So

Tayla (04:47):

Covid 19 or Coronavirus was identified in Wuhan China in December, 2019. Covid 19 is caused by the virus severe acute respiratory syndrome, coronavirus two. So SARS COV two, a new virus in humans causing respiratory illness which can be spread from person to person. So most people infected with the virus will experience mild to moderate respiratory illness and recover without requiring special treatment. However, some will become seriously ill and require drastic medical attention. And I think that's just cuz kind of as an aside, what was so intense and scary about the virus, especially as it was coming out, was it was just unpredictable. Who would get wrecked by the virus and who would just have no, almost like it was nothing. So let's see. Anyone can get sick with covid 19 and become seriously ill or die at any age. Pregnant women are especially prone to more severe effects.

(05:50):

A wide range of symptoms for covid 19 have been reported, which include fevers or chills, coughs, muscle body aches, anorexia so not winning to eat, sore throat, nasal congestion or runny nose, headache, diarrhea, nausea, short shortness of breath or difficulty breathing and loss of smell or taste. That's kind of a popular one. Or unpopular, I guess rather coronaviruses are named for their appearance. I actually didn't know this. So corona means crown and the virus's outer layers are covered with the spike proteins that surround them like a crown. So globally now in the third year of the pandemic, covid 19 deaths have exceeded 6 million with almost 2 million of those deaths having been reported in the US specifically. So according to most evidence-based research, vaccines work best to prevent contracting the disease and to substantially lessen the effects and potential for serious illness. Over 180 healthcare work workers have died from covid 19.

(06:48):

And in the third year of the pandemic pandemic fatigue pushes many to put aside preventative measures that we kind of held over the last couple years. So I'm going to push us through a brief timeline. Just again, put our brains back through how it happened. I just picked some of the most important things that are listed on the C'S timeline. So December 12th, 2019, a cluster of patients in China's Huey province in the city of Wuhan begin to experience the symptoms of an atypical pneumonia like illness that does not respond well to standard treatments. January 20th, 2020 C D C reports, the first laboratory confirmed case of the 2019 novel coronavirus in the US from samples taken on January 18th in Washington state. So March 6th, 2020, the Grand Princess cruise ship is stranded off of the California coast after officials learned that a California man had traveled on the ship last month and contracted Covid 19 and died.

(07:51):

So the California Air National Guard drops off a limited supply of testing kits by helicopter, and more than 3,500 people are aboard the ship and only 46 are able to be tested and 21 test positive mostly crew members of those 46. So I remember that happening. You just hear about these poor people stuck on a ship all together. Can you imagine the worst? The worst. Okay. March 11th, 2020, after more than 118,000 cases in 114 countries and 4,291 deaths, the World Health Organization. World Health Organization declares COVID 19 a pandemic. The who? Yeah. See what you did there. March 13th, 2020, the Trump administration declares a nationwide emergency and issues an additional travel ban on non-US citizens traveling from 26 European countries due to Covid 19, March 15th, 2020 states begin to implement shutdowns in order to prevent the spread of Covid 19. The New York City public school system, the largest in the US with over a million students, shuts down while Ohio calls for restaurants and bars to close as well. June 24th, 2023 weeks after Black Lives Matter protests break out across the country in the wake of the deaths of George Floyd and Breonna Tayla. Data from 300 of the largest US cities found, interestingly, no evidence of a Covid 19 spike in the weeks following the beginning of the protests and determined that social distancing behaviors went up as people tried to avoid the protests. So that's interesting. September 28th, 2020, the reported death toll from Covid 19 route is more than a million worldwide in just 10 months. So that's a lot of dead people in just 10 months.

(09:38):

November 16th, 2020 19 vaccine is found to be 95.4% effective in its clinical trial. December 23rd, 2020, the Trump administration announces the purchase of a hundred million additional doses of the Pfizer 19 vaccine. March 8th, 2021. CDC recommends people who are fully vaccinated against co covid 19 can safely gather with other vaccinated people indoors without masks and without social distancing. And I remember when that kind of mm-hmm. Toe into normal life kind of started. So I guess we'll get into that in a sec. Just, yeah. Three more dates. Yeah. October 6th, 2021, the who publishes a clinical case definition of post covid 19 condition or long covid. The symptoms of long covid include but are not limited to fatigue, shortness of breath and or cognitive dysfunction that persists for at least two months and impacts everyday life three months from the onset of an initial covid 19 infection. So they're seeing really long-term effects that are affecting a lot of people.

(10:42):

October 29th, 2021, the CDC releases data in mm w r showing that unvaccinated individuals who had been recently infected with covid 19 were about five times, or sorry, were about five times more likely to be reinfected with the virus than fully vaccinated individuals with no prior infections. And then last statistic is April 22nd, 2022 for the second year in a row. 19 was the third leading cause of death in the US after heart disease and cancer. So that's kind of a little rundown of some technical things, but before we get into commentary on any of that I wanna push you to remember our experience, I guess what was going on for us, how everything went down for us. Yeah.

Sam (11:32):

So I know we're still in that decompression state. I forget about it, if you just go about your date and you're like, oh yeah, right. We spent two years as a whole entire world mm-hmm. Dealing with this in our own different ways in our countries and then obviously in our different states. And then obviously not different family circles, but oh my gosh, now I'm thinking back to it. What a crazy experience. I remember when it was first news and noteworthy in, I think it was January-ish. Yeah. And

Tayla (12:09):

Yeah, you were keeping your eyes on it pretty early.

Sam (12:10):

Pretty early. And then I remember I was talking with my friend Cond about it a lot and one of our big commentaries about this, we were, even if this is what the media's hyping it up to be, like this could be the end of the world kind of stuff. How they always Oh, for sure they did. They have done this so many times. One of our takeaways was they've done this so often that even if this is the timem, no one, no one's going to believe them.

Tayla (12:36):

They're going to take it

Sam (12:36):

Seriously. Yeah. The boy who crowded wolf is the problem. So are we going to take the precautions? Absolutely not. Yep. That's how I felt back then. Not that I wouldn't take precaution, but just in general. Yes. As a population you're like, yeah, what a joke. There's too much hype. But then I remember we had Ella and we did our own quarantining just because we have a new baby and I don't to get sick. And then I just remember how everything just fell off a cliff after that. And then we all had game plans for, all right, so this is your inner circle. These are the only people that you're seeing. And then you find out from them, Hey, you guys aren't seeing anyone else besides these all in the same 20 people or whatever it was. Because we're all trying to make sure that no one is seeing anyone outside of that. And as soon as anyone shows any symptoms, it's like you're out of the crap. You're out the group.

Tayla (13:27):

Yeah. I remember actually. So we had Ella February, 2020, a month before everything shut down. And I remember us meeting our pediatrician in the hospital, which everything was still normal back then, fortunately for us. And he just kind of said, it was kind of vague, but he was like, the flu is really bad this year. And then with the viruses going around, unfortunately sick people just cannot, they're not welcome to be around you or daughter at this point cuz we just don't know what's going on. And I remember being like, oh. And that's why we were like, well guys can't really meet her. And then a month, she was like a month, oh we had a family gathering for her. I think it was March 6th.

Sam (14:14):

So a month later

Tayla (14:15):

A month later. And I remember I went back to work from my maternity leave March 8th and the next day they were like, don't come back, stay home. Literally everything shut down days after we'd had that gathering and after I went back to work, which I felt was like, oh wow, great timing. I don't have to leave a six week old baby at home. I can be home and work with her epic. But yeah, we, and we were very strict about it because especially back then, we didn't know what the implications could be.

Sam (14:49):

Well the complications, especially for a baby baby. Yeah. Is there going to be long term lung problems and all sorts of other, we had no clue.

Tayla (14:56):

So we were pretty strict about it. And I actually remember probably about 10 to 12 months into shutdowns and quarantining and stuff. I remember watching a show and there was a scene where they're up, someone was sitting at a bar in a dairy, an ice cream place and someone just sat right next to them and started talking in their face. And I was like, oh that's so unusual. That's such bizarre behavior for someone to just walk up to someone, their breath's all on them, they don't know who this is. And I was like, wow. And I remember catching myself being like, wow, actually what I'm seeing is normal. What I'm experiencing that anxiety just band and normal interaction is not normal. But that's kind of how we were picturing a concert or a sports game or something was wild.

Sam (15:49):

Everything was shut down. Now that I'm thinking about it, it's just how quickly we returned to normal. Once we as a society were like, okay, I think we're done with being shut down and separated and we're back to normal.

Tayla (16:08):

It didn't happen except it did and we're getting sick all the time, but we're just dealing with it at

Sam (16:13):

This point. But yeah, there's so many things that you thought would've stuck through which, hey, if you're sick don't come to work. Hey, if you're just wear a moss or the mosque not, well the moss thing has not stuck around at all. Nope. At

Tayla (16:24):

All. Which that's such, to be honest, I can get being sick and wearing it just out and about <affirmative>. But if you are even a little throaty or so, what is the harm in just wearing it? Yeah. But it's just funny. Yeah. I would've thought that would stay. I will say that when I do see people wearing mosques, it's not as unusual as it would've been back then before Covid. If someone was just wearing a mosque out and about, I'd be like, what a weirdo. What are they doing? Yeah.

Sam (16:51):

Remember the early days when they weren't no mosques? Actually that reminds me of that first that doctor's visit that the pediatrician said, Hey, all this other stuff. We were like, oh hey, could we have some masks? Because we were trying to get masks at that point. There were no masks for the first few months. Yeah. It's impossible to get masks.

Tayla (17:07):

I remember that. And everyone was having to sew them.

Sam (17:10):

Yeah. Or you're like your user rag or your shirts and you're required to where it's into the go into the supermarket or whatever. And I, I'd wrap something around my face cause it didn't have a mask on me and

Tayla (17:23):

It's wild. And then, I mean the toilet paper, fortunately we had prior, we, there's just the two of us at the time using the toilet paper. We had a huge Costco thing we had just purchased. So we were fine through that. But I remember so many people being, I literally just need to buy a normal amount of toilet paper and there's nothing.

Sam (17:43):

Yeah. Oh man. Alright. So none of this is controversial just yet. These are all just our shared experiences, bunkers. We all got sick. I think every single one of us at least got something. And then,

Tayla (17:58):

Well we actually only got sick a year later. Yeah,

Sam (18:03):

We did. We avoided it for a long time. And then I'm pretty sure we got the omicron when

Tayla (18:10):

We got fortunately

Sam (18:12):

And yeah, well unfortunately we know people that passed away.

Tayla (18:19):

We do.

Sam (18:21):

I think almost everyone does.

Tayla (18:25):

Whether they believe they actually died from covid or not. That's another thing. That's the

Sam (18:29):

Controversy part.

Tayla (18:30):

So we'll get into that

Sam (18:31):

I'm sure. Yeah. So

Tayla (18:34):

One thing I know that we did want to talk about, and maybe this is the best cuz this really did shape so much about the fallout that happened was the politicization of Covid 19. That happened so quickly and I would draw that to Donald Trump, but what are your thoughts?

Sam (18:54):

I would say was

Tayla (18:58):

A

Sam (18:59):

Catalyst. The first shot was fired by Donald Trump. He seemed to avoid it. He really didn't want it to be real and downplayed it a lot.

Tayla (19:11):

It was during election season.

Sam (19:14):

And then when he eventually got it, it was a whole thing. I don't know if you remember Yeah.

Tayla (19:19):

Say tell us or anyone who wasn't

Sam (19:22):

Away. Well all of a sudden he's sick, he's in the hospital, he's in the whatever special treatment that he has for, I think it was a week or whatever, I can't remember the exact timeframe, but I remember they did a whole thing with him coming back from the helicopter and I mean he looked so sick,

Tayla (19:41):

He looked like he even beat

Sam (19:42):

Up. He, he was just trying not to cough or trying. So he was obviously trying to put on a good face and stuff. And that was a whole thing. But really what it was was he didn't wanna wear a mosque and then the Democrats were all about the mosque and they, everyone was wearing those black mosques and

Tayla (20:01):

They were responding.

Sam (20:02):

It was a whole thing. And then I think things went really wrong. So I mean that's dumb enough. The whole fact that we are politicizing wearing a mask or the fact that hey, this is actually something that we should be thinking about and cautious about and have some appropriate reactions about it. It, here's where for me it gets worse is because the complete shutdown to everything I think was an overstep and a misstep where it was initially we were saying, Hey, the reason was we need to make sure that the hospitals are not immediately overwhelmed because they're not, all these other cascading problems were going to happen. So I think everyone was on board with that. Yeah, that makes sense. Let's shut down for two weeks and let's going to get it. Everyone's get sick and flatten the curve was the idea. And that just then extended and extended and extended and extended as more and more people got sick and the numbers kept climbing. And

Tayla (21:03):

So your issue was not with shutting down in the first place as this was all coming up, it was

Sam (21:08):

Long-term, complete shutdown of the economy has turned into a whole lot of other problems where I feel like a better solution have been to and cheaper in the long run, which may not have seemed upfront, would've been to identify those that were vulnerable, the vulnerable population and allow them to withdraw from the population. Do you know what I mean? So you're not shut down the economy, but allowing them that smaller, much smaller group to say, hey, we don't feel comfortable coming into work and there would be money set aside to help accommodate that versus just how overwhelmingly more it has cost us to have shut down the economy. Cuz what ended up happening was we printed more money in the history of the world in just a few short months and it is now causing massive economical problems that are probably going to ripple for the next few decades. So that's where I see major, major missteps.

Tayla (22:14):

That's interesting. So I am probably still forming an opinion, but I think a response to that would be okay for sure. If you're more vulnerable then that's great. The problem was that we didn't have a vaccine yet. That was a big deal is that there isn't a way, the ways that we're treating it when it's bad are not that effective. We haven't found, at the time we hadn't found a way to treat it and then we didn't have preventative measures in the form of vac of a vaccine. So a response to that would be, yeah, I think if you're vulnerable that's great. But the problem with this disease is that it's not just vulnerable populations that get severely sick. And so it's so hard to still feel like that's the right move is just everyone else just go for it. When actually a lot of regular and not at unquote people are getting sick and dying.

(23:10):

I mean, your friend got just wrecked in bed for two weeks and healthy 30 in his thirties. It's just hard to know. And I think because we're not healthcare workers too, it's hard to just actually humanize the ramifications of an overload in the hospital. But I see where you're coming from as well. So I guess that's what I meant by I'm, I'm still forming my opinion, but that would be my response or my question is would that really have protected as many people would that have prevented the overload in the hospital? That seems like it would still be inevitable.

Sam (23:52):

Yeah, I'm not sure but I remember having this opinion back when we were shut down, when we were first shut down, that I felt like it was maybe it was week three or week four when they just kept extending it. I was like, Hey, this now is, I see what they're going for. But I really do think that rather than shutting down the in, because you have to understand, we just shut down essentially the largest economy in the world and it dramatically changed everything. It, it's destroyed so many different supply chains. It's destroyed so much normalcy in the asset markets and what is real money with versus fake money. And we're only starting to see the full lot of that now with how everything's coming back and it's going to continue to be bad for the next few years.

Tayla (24:52):

Yeah, I mean it makes sense that something so drastic would have such a long-term ramifications. So yeah, I mean the hard thing is there to me there, especially as things were unfolding as this was happening, there wasn't a very clear, this is the obvious thing that we should obviously do.

Sam (25:14):

No, that that's,

Tayla (25:15):

And that was the problem.

Sam (25:16):

Very, very true. I think Sweden at the same time was doing the opposite, which was that hey, let's let everyone get sick and create herd immunity, I think was the idea. And I'm not exactly sure how that ended up playing out, but everything seems to be normal at this point.

Tayla (25:32):

Yeah. They are a lot smaller of a country and their cities are not nearly as massive. So the hospital overload, I think there are a lot of countries who could afford to maybe do something like that. I don't know about the US specifically.

Sam (25:45):

What I do know though is once we saw the results from the omicron variant and then how that started to take over in terms of what most people were getting and we start to see how less deadly that was for me, that felt like the end of the pandemic for me. I remember distinctly feeling like, oh, it's the danger. Yeah, it's over. It's basically now just instead of this question mark of how much worse of this than the flu is it statistically now it's like, oh this is within reason of how deadly the flu is. I Right. For me, that became basically the start of the end for me.

Tayla (26:23):

And for me, again, the access to the vaccinations made a huge difference for me because it wasn't just a preventative measure, but again the severity, the clear statistics on just, people just weren't really dying if they got covid and they had the vaccines, not really they had been

Sam (26:46):

Before. Yes. So I remember. Yeah. I mean man, it's

Tayla (26:50):

People were still getting sick but they

Sam (26:51):

Weren't dying getting as severe sick if they had the vaccine. And then also if they had the booster. The

Tayla (26:57):

Booster. And in fact that's actually this last round that you and both of our babies I'm pretty sure had covid and I think I'm the only one who was able to get boosted

Sam (27:10):

Potentially,

Tayla (27:10):

But I haven't been boosted in over a year. So that's kind of another thing where it's funny to me where I'm like, oh that's so important to do and I already even still haven't done it, but I should.

Sam (27:21):

Yeah. Right. I mean, yeah, if you believe in the vaccine. Okay, let's talk about that. Should

Tayla (27:29):

We talk about that? Let's

Sam (27:29):

Talk about that. Because that to me is one of the weirdest things to come out of this is, I don't know if everyone remembers what it was like to be 10 years ago, but people that didn't believe in vaccines were typically far left. Grungy is grungy, is that the right word?

Tayla (27:45):

No grungy. Like granola.

Sam (27:47):

Granola, yeah.

Tayla (27:48):

I dunno what I'm trying to say.

Sam (27:49):

Hippie hip hippies, hippies, hippies, hippies didn't believe in vaccines. That's who it was. It was the vaccines cause autism like that sort of crowd, natural medicine.

Tayla (27:59):

And it was leftists typically.

Sam (28:01):

And then because of the politicization of covid, all of a sudden it's like switched a hard political stance is also now anti-vaccine. A full circle. And it's weird to me.

Tayla (28:15):

It's so funny to me when I see that happen where I'm like, this literally was the opposite side not long ago. Yeah.

Sam (28:23):

Cuz I remember having debates on the internet and forums and watching videos about vaccines way before Covid and it was just basically a du everyone here's the statistics of all these vaccines and what they basically fought against. Here's the statistics of all these diseases. Look how now they're basically eradicated or just such a small

Tayla (28:47):

Jeff. Just go look at how many people died from that disease before vaccines were introduced and how many people die from them since just

Sam (28:53):

That alone. And then look at how many people, what is the percentage of people suffering from side effects, which occur?

Tayla (28:59):

They do, they do and they are serious.

Sam (29:02):

But statistically is obviously dramatically changed our world. So that when they came with the Covid vaccine, all of a sudden it was not the same groups that we're fighting for and against a vaccine, which was very bizarre to me.

Tayla (29:20):

It's very a lot of whiplash with that.

Sam (29:24):

So I obviously feel like the dangers of this vaccine was basically it felt like it could have been rushed and that there wasn't enough time to know the efficacy. Is that what I'm looking for? And then also the dangers, the side effects, just how big a population that is. But as more data came out, we went and got it.

Tayla (29:45):

Well I was going to say a lot of people kind of had that impression but the way that I understand that it works is that a lot of people were picturing the Covid vaccine. They were having to build this whole computer from scratch because of this whole new disease. But that's not it at all. The vaccination is the same computer, we're just putting in a different code and finding that code was the key. And so it's not that brand new and it's not that weird that it was that quickly done, especially with the time and resources that were put into it. But yeah, I mean it's understandable why people would feel that

Sam (30:30):

Way. That was my only pushback on it. And yeah, obviously it seemed to have an effect on how many people were dying. Not that it changed how many people were getting sick.

Tayla (30:43):

True, true.

Sam (30:44):

That that's the statistics I think. What was that? It was on a site every day that was tracking the infection rate, the death toll. I remember just watching the numbers.

Tayla (30:59):

But yeah, I think, well maybe that's something we should talk about too is I would say it's a disinformation pandemic that came out at the same time from every angle. Any way that you could perpetuate disinformation. People were just getting sucked into it very quickly. Instead of verifying the information that they watched this video or they saw this statistic, instead of verifying it and then sharing it, they would just be like, yeah, that sits well and that's aligned with what I think is going on. And they would just share it and share it and share it. And a lot of disinformation came out as a result, again from every angle. Yeah, I don't think that one political sway did that more than another.

Sam (31:46):

Yeah. One of the unintended effects maybe for me was I ended up getting social media burnout during covid and now my social media, I don't post any, I don't think I've posted anything in forever and I really don't pay attention to friends and family and social media. Don't. I'll check the news as much as I'm really doing. Maybe look at some memes. But that's about, I got social, true social media burnouts. I don't use it to interact with people at all.

Tayla (32:16):

Yeah, that's interesting. Cuz I think that's probably when I became more connected to social media. It was my way to connect with and I'm more extroverted. So maybe that's why it's, we were all quarantined and so just getting that empathy or seeing other people's experiences was nice to be like, oh okay, I'm not alone in this.

Sam (32:37):

I just got burnt out with seeing how wrong everyone

Tayla (32:40):

Was. Yeah, I mean that is true. And I just learned, what I will say that I appreciate is I just learned to be much pickier with what I followed and what I allowed to take my emotional energy. But was, I mean it was so bad that literally these social media companies are having to be like I guess we have to throw up all these things to catch the disinformation. Not that people believe that then that's a whole nother conspiracy.

Sam (33:07):

Oh man. Another thing that Covid did me wrong was DoorDash. We probably wasted oh

Tayla (33:15):

My

Sam (33:15):

90% off. Gosh, any sort of money that we would've saved on DoorDash just gone, gone, gone, gone.

Tayla (33:22):

Well I was going to say we had just had a baby too. So just we're exhausted, we're working from home. We don't want to go out and grocery shop a hundred percent. And I still have an unhealthy relationship with DoorDash. Want something, just get it.

Sam (33:37):

Just get it. But no, a lot of good things happened from it. I think there was a lot of technology push for better systems and processes for working from home. True. Which obviously is not necessary if you have good office culture and you have the right employees nearby. But I think there's just a lot of ability to and a lot more trust in certain circumstances to be able to grow a workforce remotely, which for me is really awesome cuz I love working from home and being able to travel and work from wherever you want.

Tayla (34:14):

Yeah, I will say that's something along with just that being a lot more normal and accommodating is just people's flexibility with each other when it came to their home environment and how that affects their work. I think people were a lot more empathetic when you hear it's someone sitting in a meeting and you hear the kids screaming in the background or the dog that's barking or everyone became, I get it. Mm-hmm. Because I've actually had to do that instead of just being really short tempered and frustrated with people. I still feel like that culture has remained of just being really understanding and flexible and seeing people a little more holistically than just at

Sam (34:57):

Work. Literally I had a meeting on Thursday with some gentleman that's works for a billion dollar company and he has a pretty, I'd say management or mid-tier position there and he did our call from home and his background was a white wall and I could see the reflection or the sun coming through <laugh>, the freaking blondes. It just looks mean in reality. It looks completely unprofessional. But we are just so used to it now that it's just like, hey, this is this guy. He's at home at home and he's doing the meeting, this is where

Tayla (35:39):

He

Sam (35:39):

Can work, this is where he is doing it. And you no longer actually look at it like that anymore. But when you stop and think about what you're looking at, he's just looking at some dude that I don't know if I'm looking at, is he in an office? Is he just set up the computer on his kitchen counter and you see the background. So my

Tayla (35:57):

Favorite is the virtual backgrounds. I like what is behind you that you are hiding

Sam (36:01):

Exactly. Oh you know what, yeah. I did another one on that same morning with another billion dollar company and that we had two reps on there and they're definitely working from home and they had the virtual backgrounds and that's just what you're used to.

Tayla (36:17):

So that's something I've actually really liked is that just a little more flexibility, a little more understanding. I think a lot of people started to empathize with mental health issues in a way that they hadn't before. I think a lot of people, and this is an unfortunate and unfortunate thing, had to really face their relationships and family dynamics and figure out how to make it work a bit better or not. A lot of divorce happened during the pandemic. We need people around each other all the time. But I think that there's a healthy element to that to be like, okay, if we're around each other all the time, how do we make it work? How do we be better partners? How do we be better everything?

Sam (37:00):

We had a few months where it was just completely at home and I really enjoyed it in terms of there wasn't a split in terms of focus. So I was like, okay, I have this office, I have this space. And the baby was very young so she was super easy. She would nap for an hour and maybe more. And so you'd be able to really focus for those moments and take care of the baby, go back to work, split it around your turn, I'll cook whatever. And that was great. I think where things got hectic was when it became half and half when you start going like, oh I have to go to the office now and I have to do this now. And then the other person's like, oh, I'm still stuck at home and I'm still doing. So it's been hard to navigate and obviously we are getting back to normalcy now and I'm feeling like we're in a getting good rhythm with normalcy. But yeah, I think the in between for me was probably the hardest part of it all where it's how to find good rhythm and good focus.

Tayla (37:57):

Yeah, I I'll say those extra months that we had just our little unit with our brand new daughter were very precious to me and I loved it as well. But people talk about this all the time in relation to the pandemic as well, is that the complete burnout of women and mothers specifically and working mothers. Because childcare was just, and especially when kids were having to do school from home, how are you supposed to do your full-time job? And our kids weren't even in school. Fortunately again, as I said that our daughter was really young, but how is someone actually supposed to have a full-time job? And then also halfway homeschool your kids do, how many kids do you have? You even have enough. What if you have five kids that are all in school? Do you have enough devices? Do you have enough wifi space? How do you do it? And just so many women just lost their minds because it truly how that, that's not a sustainable for anyone. I just don't like to even think about it.

Sam (39:05):

My heart goes out to those families that had kids that need to be in school and they had to do, I think, was it almost a year and a half, two years of just school from home? What a weird high school or elementary experience.

Tayla (39:19):

And truly you're having to help those kids process their feelings about being isolated and alone and bored when you're yourself trying to also get through those same things. You miss things and it'll be interesting to kind of see maybe long-term effects on development even in sports or social settings or just really interesting, but such a hard time. What a slog. And just hats off to any caretakers out there of kids, whether that was your own kids or if you were a professional childcare, what a hard time to be doing that. And huge props just, and healthcare workers too. I just can't imagine having to,

Sam (40:09):

I feel like, I know this is going to sound funny, I just had this feeling that it feels like we all collectively should go do group therapy and decompress and <laugh>, let out whatever it was that happened during Covid because it feels like there's a big giant shared experience of trauma that everyone's gone through for the last two years. I guess that's probably similar to, and obviously not to the same level of when people experience it, but

Tayla (40:35):

After the

Sam (40:36):

World wars, after the World Wars, I'm sure there was a collective trauma that all those men went through in a certain way and then all the children and wives at home went through differently then. So I feel like it's in a same similar sense, just that it's a shared trauma. Not that one's dramatically worse,

Tayla (40:57):

But this is an interesting one cuz it's so global too. Literally every country was struggling with knowing how to deal with it.

Sam (41:06):

Do you remember when we went to the Caymans? That was our first trip.

Tayla (41:10):

No, Hawaii.

Sam (41:11):

Hawaii was our first trip. Yeah. Okay. So we went to the Caymans and they had just barely opened and everyone there was so happy that we were there.

Tayla (41:23):

The tourist industry was reopening

Sam (41:26):

That one restaurant. The servers were so happy and so excited and just telling us how they've just been

Tayla (41:32):

Outta work

Sam (41:33):

Trying to get by, do anything for the last couple years and the fact that we are there, they were just so happy. I remember that. So I'm sure every country has its own different unique difficulties. Yeah, that really stood out to me just how isolated they were because they're just such a

Tayla (41:51):

Small tiny island. Oh my gosh. Yeah. And that's the interesting thing is I do think smaller countries or just the nature of weathering through the pandemic would look so different if you're living paycheck to paycheck or whether you're a salaried and your job is even something you could do from home just so hard. So we talked a little bit about, well you talked a little bit about how you didn't feel like shutting everything down completely, at least for the amount of time that it was the correct strategy. So what are some alternatives that you think maybe should have happened beyond just maybe if you're a vulnerable stay

Sam (42:34):

Home? So I think we wouldn't have had to print so much money to try bail out the entire economy if we hadn't shut down the whole economy. So the response to shut down the whole economy was like, hey, no one has money now. No one can spend pay for bills and spend money on things that they need to. So we're going to print a bunch of money, we're going to send out checks, we're going to create debt, basically loans that you don't have to pay back. We're talking hundreds of billions of dollars of this stuff if we had just spent that money maybe a bit more wisely. And that's what I'm just saying in terms of focusing on isolating or allowing the more vulnerable groups or the volunteer groups to say I'm old, I don't need to participate in this but I am unable to go back to work. And that there is some sort of mechanism to take care of that smaller group than instead of the entire economy. That that's just in the simplest of terms what I was thinking would be a better strategy.

Tayla (43:42):

And I do think it's so scary, I think in the United States to get very sick because of the healthcare system and insurance and money. It's very stressful. Well to be hospitalized

Sam (43:56):

It out, don't mind disclosing. Why don't you tell everyone how much we spent on healthcare in 2022 and it was a normal year.

Tayla (44:03):

How much was it? What was the total, cuz I only

Sam (44:06):

Know out of pocket. So this is not including insurance and the other side out of pocket was $15,000. Yeah, $15,000 And that's pretty normal.

Tayla (44:13):

That's normal. Yeah.

Sam (44:16):

That's crazy. So literally this year we're budgeting somewhere around that much. It could be hopefully it's less because we don't have

Tayla (44:26):

Not having a baby, we don't plan that baby. Yeah. Stay in the NICU for two days. I mean literally three grand of that was cuz our baby was in the NICU for not quite two days. So I can't even imagine.

Sam (44:37):

So we've budgeted 10 K just for a normal year

Tayla (44:41):

And hopefully it's enough <laugh>, hopefully nothing major. Hopefully enough. And we are insured. Yeah. So

Sam (44:48):

We were double insured at some point

Tayla (44:50):

We were with Ella. Yeah, fortunately. And so the other thing is you were saying about using the resources wisely is I, not only is it scary to get that sick with a disease that we don't know that much about, that you have to be hospitalized but then to consider the strain on you if you recover or on your family, even if you don't. I think resources, financial resources and otherwise could have been put towards or should be prioritized towards helping people through situations that they have no control over being sick you cannot control.

Sam (45:25):

But now it's happened. I have it on good authority. So all that PPP money that was supposed to cover the employees, that money basically just, it was free money for the rich that the people where most of that money went to is just to the rich. So

Tayla (45:51):

Well certainly and that's so frustrating.

Sam (45:54):

Yeah. Again, that's what I'm saying. And now we as the middle class, everything that we buy and pay for has gone up dramatically and it's going to continue to go up for the next foreseeable future. We are paying for that, not the rich people.

Tayla (46:12):

Yeah, it's frustrating.

Sam (46:14):

So again, it's the repercussions and the ripple effect of all that money printing is still yet to be seen.

Tayla (46:21):

Yeah, it's scary. It's scary stuff. So I am grateful that travel and a lot of things are back to normal. I don't think they're going to be back to what they were ever. I think people are a little more aware, I guess, of what's going on around them illness wise and maybe being a little bit better about keeping kids away. But yeah, I would say my number one hope is that the sense of community, virtual community that we grew during the throes of covid, I really thought that was special. And I hope that we find a way to maintain that. Not us versus them because that it became that. But at the beginning of Covid when we were all just barely shut down and just all a little bit scared, all a little bit concerned for people we love and ourselves it was a little bit special that we're all on each other's team. There wasn't really as much of an us versus them. And so I would hope that we could find a way to keep that.

Sam (47:28):

Yeah, I mean that portion of it, 100%. I agree. But there was also another portion that really made me not comfortable with people. The fact that you know, watch those zombie apocalypse movies and that's how I first imagined this going down. The government collapses. There's no sanitation, there's no water, there's no electricity, there's no one manning the stations. It's just so utilities go down, oh no, chaos starts you Marshall Laws detect, declared these scenarios start running through head like okay we need wood, we're going to have to

Tayla (48:06):

Chop downs of trees and

Sam (48:08):

Chop downs of trees and I'm going to bar barricade up the doors and windows and we're going to hunker down. We have a year's worth of food here. I'm going to get some solar. I don't know anyways. But what it made me realize is that most people are going to hide their zombie bites and they're also going to stab you in the back. That's what it made me realize in terms of the majority of the population is scary in my opinion. No offense to the listeners, but it really made me weary of just how quick people,

Tayla (48:45):

Just the lack of transparency about stuff. That is very weird. Yeah, I think, yeah. And then we had an earthquake actually my, in our area right after that. And we were just like, we are ill prepared for all of this. And so we've changed a lot of things to be a little bit better prepared for D-day.

Sam (49:06):

The first thing I did was put together that medicine totes a little plastic box of all the essential medicines. That's where it stays. And to this day it's still in that cupboard.

Tayla (49:18):

We have three or four actually come to our house if anything happens. But yeah, so essentially it's been a wild ride. It'll be really interesting to see, as you said, not only the long-term financial ramifications and economic ramifications, but I guess social cognitive ramifications for kids that were born in it or grew up in that kind of era. It'll just be really interesting to see. And then obviously physically our bodies, what are the long-term effects of a disease like this?

Sam (49:52):

Yeah,

Tayla (49:53):

It's fascinating.

Sam (49:54):

Yeah, I do Nice is I feel less anxiety now if I hear a cough. I remember you're on a plane and everyone's got their mosques on in a plane and

Tayla (50:03):

Then your eyes

Sam (50:04):

Just, you cough or someone else coughs and you're just like, oh thank you, thank you. Now we're all going to die. But now that feeling isn't there and you're not thinking that. Someone sitting next to you is thinking that. Cuz half the time I was like, oh I hope they, they know that this is just a

Tayla (50:19):

Cough. I'm just clearing my throat.

Sam (50:20):

Yeah, I've had this cough for nine months. So not covid. But now there's less anxiety and stress around dumb things like that.

Tayla (50:29):

Yeah, I would say the moral of the story is just try control the controllables for stuff like this. So that's like what is in your home? How do you interact? Who's in your circles? Control the controllables and then just try to be <laugh> as objective as possible with facts and stuff that arise after that. That's really hard to do, especially these days. It is hard to know what is unbiased information, does that even really exist? But just do your best to try and find facts and base your decisions off of those facts. And I think something that I needed to be better about is just assuming that everyone is doing the best with what they know. And even if I felt like what they knew was stupid or different, just that assumption of that intentional, that background is like, well the conclusion may be dumb but they care about this and I don't know. Yeah.

Sam (51:25):

You know what I mean? No, that's true. Yeah. Just a reminder to look for alternate sources to the fact check yourself. It's always useful if you someone that only focuses on left wing media and they're being told this, take a look at what's in the moderate camp or on the right camp and just fact check it against that. And at the end of the day, try trust science for as much as you can cuz that's how science works that a lot of people trying to verify claims

Tayla (52:01):

Based on evidence.

Sam (52:02):

That's what science is. So if someone's giving you alternate conclusions to what the current science is saying, not saying that it's wrong, but maybe just try verify it against current studies and sound science.

Tayla (52:17):

Yeah, I think that's a general good practice is if only not most people are finding it, there might be a reason why that is the case. Mm-hmm.

Sam (52:28):

Funny enough, on this trip to Portugal, I am packing a mosque.

Tayla (52:32):

Well yeah, I think you should. That's the responsible thing to do. If you end up getting sick, I'd hope you would wear it so that you don't pass it along to anyone

Sam (52:39):

Else. Yeah, sure.

Tayla (52:42):

But I hope you have such a good time not dying on. How high do the waves

Sam (52:49):

Get? They say a hundred feet, but I think the tallest wave in there was measured like 85 feet.

Tayla (52:56):

That is insane.

Sam (52:58):

It's insane.

Tayla (52:59):

What is 85 feet? What can I compare that to?

Sam (53:03):

So a basketball rim is 10 feet. So just do like eight and a half of those.

Tayla (53:10):

Well you're not allowed to do that.

Sam (53:12):

Won't going to there to go watch. I'm going to take a photo.

Tayla (53:15):

Yeah, send pics. Maybe we'll post some of Sam's Sam's trip. Yay. For anyone who's interested, since he's not posted anything for a while, we'll make him, we'll make post.

Sam (53:25):

There we go.

Tayla (53:26):

Break. Break the famine, break the fast, whatever.

Sam (53:39):

Thank you for listening to

Tayla (53:41):

Babe. What do you know about,

Sam (53:43):

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