Ask Lemmy

Yes and no.

My parents are thankfully at the age at which they just don't give much of a shit. They think that there was a lot of shady political shenanigans surrounding the whole thing (and I'd say they're objectively correct about that), but they cynically expect that and mostly ignore it. They talked to their doctors and came to understand that covid is real, and dangerous, and that the vaccines do have some risks, but the benefits outweigh the risks, and that was enough for them to take it seriously and take proper precautions.

My brothers on the other hand...

I'm the oldest of three, and they're both... well... angry, spiteful, delusional, Fox News and talk radio consuming, gun-toting, Trump-voting, road-raging reactionaries. So they both lined right up and marched in lockstep with the expected dogma, to my complete lack of surprise.

So yes - our relations have been strained over it, but really it's not quite accurate to say that it's because of that, since that's just one of the many, many MANY things on which we disagree.

Not family, probably because my father passed away just before the pandemic. But it has changed friendships forever. I was surprised by the lack of empathy from people. Like the mild inconvenience of wearing a mask was worse than people dying…

I got my shots in secret due to needing them, didn't tell my family (they went full Q) until a recent health crisis had me hopeful admitting to it would get a member to get their shots (they're hilariously high risk).

It did not work, but they shut up about all of the BS and basically exclude me from it now. So I will say it's a win; they also shifted goal posts so I'm no longer going to die, be sterile, or autistic from getting shots.

My family became very Anti-Vax during that time. My wife and I had just had a newborn about a year in to the pandemic and demanded everyone get their vaccines before they got to be around the baby.

My parents didn't get any and didn't see the baby for a while.

Then when we did start seeing them, they had completely lost their minds. Blatantly racist, blatantly homophobic. Even when it wasn't things political, it felt like they had forgotten how to properly talk to people in an appropriate way. My mother made comments about my DAD having relations with my wife and that the baby wasn't mine.

I know they watch Fox, I know my mother watches a bunch of far right-wing YouTubers. All of it has led to them barely being functioning adults.

Kind of. Father has turned into a religious right Trump supporting nutjob. COVID is bs, vaccine 'changed your DNA', etc. He's 80 now, and the sad part is he used to be a science teacher.

And then he got leukemia. Because of his BS rhetoric, my mother and brother who live with him couldn't visit him in the hospital because they all refused to get the vaccine. My brother almost lost his job over it.

Anyways get this: my dad got COVID while he was in the middle of chemo with zero white blood cell count, and recovered in like 3 days! And .. is in remission from leukemia and has stopped chemo.

So I mean he's really damned lucky, but this all just reinforces his view that COVID was nothing and he made the right choice. Meanwhile he spams my inbox with alt right bullshit all day. The fact I live in a different country and only see him once a year keeps things cordial I think.

I'm still friendly with my in-laws, but I will never respect or trust them in quite the same way.

They're very liberal and proud to "believe the science!", always making fun of conservative anti-vaxxers.

And yet, during a major COVID wave, they went bar hopping without telling us (we were all going to a family member's wedding, so my partner and I were trying to be VERY cautious and avoid bringing any germs to this wedding). Then they coughed all night without bothering to test. And once they tested positive, they started googling different countries' COVID policies looking for any guidance that would "let" them go to the wedding. With the bride's 90-year-old grandpa in attendance.

On the plane ride back, I emphasized the importance of wearing N-95s in case we were still contagious ... but as soon as I got up to pee, I realized they were both napping UNMASKED.

But somehow they're not the problem. If only those stupid Trumpies would wear masks, then we wouldn't have a pandemic.

We had an awkward semi-falling out over this at the time. And yet, the next time we visited his family, people were coughing all over the place AGAIN, and no one had tested AGAIN. (This was over the holidays, so I would have been "stuck" there and unable to see my own family if anyone actually had COVID, which thankfully they didn't this time.)

At this point, I've just come to understand and accept it. His parents were always the fun ones - they have people over all the time, they'll cook for you, they can hold their liquor, they'll light up a joint while blasting Grateful Dead. They're also politically vocal and super woke for their age.

But don't expect them to be honest if it might interrupt their fun. Don't rely on them. Because really, they only care about other people when it's either fashionable or convenient.

Covid revealed just how stupid some people you know really are.

For us, the topics just changed. After Covid, they started to talk Pro-Putin bullshit, probably Q-Anon related. It's honestly shocking to see people who I once thought of as intelligent turn brainwashed. We rarely talk anymore, and if we do, it's very superficial.

I frequently have to nodd and smile along to people trying to tell me an illness that hospitalised and almost killed my brother didn't exist or was overreacted to . It's easier than trying to change minds at this point.

My grandma was 100% sold on covid being some kind of left wing hoax. She died from covid.

...and now I'm the one being insensitive for acknowledging that she died an idiot, and likely took several others down with her. It's like we're supposed to just pretend her death was anything other than suicide by political zealotry.

It was never about covid. These people are born to be contrarians about whatever other people are doing. I don't know exactly what makes them want to live that way, but that's just their preferred way of existing. Be it covid, Russia, LGBT, and whatever other """opinions""" they've been spoon fed on their Facebook feed. They always change. Every other week/month/year it's something else they get butthurt about. Funnily enough, it's almost always the same type of person: no education, frustrated with life, dead-end job, in debt, and so on. I personally believe that angertainment is a coping mechanism for them. I've told family members before to stick to normal topics like a normal social human being when talking to me, because I do not care about their frustrations with whatever X is doing.

My parents have always been pretty conservative but it didn't make too much difference until I came out as trans and then covid happened. I try not to stand up to them too much because I don't want to be kicked out.

One of my wife's friends lost her baby to COVID because her mom wouldn't stay masked, and lied about having COVID when she visited shortly after the baby was born. The abject selfishness boggles my mind.

Mom went full fundamentalist evangelical biblical literalist q-anon in recent years, even tried getting my sister to divorce her husband because he voted for the wrong candidate (no guesses for who was the "right" candidate). My sister, not being stupid, did not divorce her husband. As for myself, being in the military, I try to make counterarguments against my mom, which just ends with her accusing me of being brainwashed (which I probably am, but that's another story).

Probably would have if I didn't completely cut my parents off decades ago because of their David Duke supporting religious ways. They didn't support me being gay anyways, so I had no reason to have them be a part of my life.

And my grandmother, the only one I still keep in contact with and visit, is fully pro-science (even if such things don't involve her life much at her age) and she got all of the vaccinations and boosters during the pandemic. She stayed perfectly healthy and never caught it as far as we know, unless she was asymptomatic, and it's been quite an achievement at her mid-80's age.

As for my friends, I've only ever surrounded myself with pro-science and supportive people. Why would I associate with anyone not like that? Certainly not going to associate with conservatives that hate that I, as an LGBT person, exist in the first place.

There are people in my family who work in healthcare (psychiatric nurse, nothing to do with virology) and law enforcement who said the numbers were inflated because people called in sick despite not being sick, and that covid was just a flu. It's kind of interesting how belief in this conspiracy theory turned into other conspiracy theories afterwards. I don't really associate with them for that reason because conversations inevitably turn towards this kind of stuff and I just don't have the energy to deal with this crap.

Ribbit

My Dad died in 2005, he was in his 60s. He was very intelligent and during my childhood he was open minded. Toward the end of his life he changed. He started listening to Rush Limbaugh and regurgitating those talking points. I always wonder how far he would have gone had he lived. Would he have supported Trump? Would he have been anti vax?

Maybe they were brainwashed, maybe the covid did what science says it does, and killed a portion of their brain.

Even low oxygen levels from inflamed lungs will fuck up your mental health.

Let's be honest. This all started with Harambe

Yes. All our relationships changed and I don't know if they'll ever recover. I'm disabled and from the start it's been a struggle. I remember in early 2020 a family member sharing a post on fb that said only the vulnerable were dying to covid and reminding them that's me and the ensuing kerfuffle. Several family members got it, were hospitalized, and refuse to get vaxxed later on.

What's caused the most upset to me and my partner though is my in-laws' reactions. My FIL has copd and MIL has cancer and received a transplant last year. They live near my SIL and her family. They've all had covid multiple times, 3x last we heard. FIL was hospitalized, MIL was in hospital for a year after her transplant due to one complication or illness after another. Her health is very delicate and no one seems to care about protecting her (or themselves). None of them mask not even around her. We've tried talking about it a few times, cancer patients have been masking and being cautious about illnesses long before covid and we have such a better understanding of mitigation tools after these last few years. But they just do not care, nothing to be concerned about. My partner is so worried about her but at this point is ready to hear the worst should it come. It's just baffling to me.

COVID was just the cherry on top for dropping my aunt. My cousin, who was previously her favorite and who's wedding she fully supported, was suddenly a "gay pervert". I am still baffled by how quickly and thoroughly she became a bigoted nutjob.

Everyone I know is vaccinated 2 or 3 times. They also all observed the recommended official guidelines, wearing masks when that was required.

This was common in Denmark, except in some minority circles, and although vaccine deniers existed, they were a tiny minority.