I had flu-like symptoms for 2-3 weeks in late Jan / early Feb, and you're right, it is not fun at all.

I've been thinking about getting the antibody test. Kind of hoping I've already had it. On the one hand would be nice to know that I "might" have some immunity going forward, but on the other very scary to think covid has been active in my community that long. The first official case in my state isn't until a month later.

on the bright side if you did have it, it would mean you could get out and enjoy your summer. :)

Can't you still spread it though, or no?

Immunity means that the immune system won the battle and killed the virus, and develop tools to kill it so you won't get sick again. So, not impossible, but very unlikely. Maybe this virus can hide itself like HIV and burst out regularly to test the waters? Very unlikely but as I said, not absolutely completely and utterly impossible.

I don't think many people are still in the "same as flu" camp, which is a bit of a straw man. For example this CDC guidance is estimating 5-8x worse fatality rate than the average flu (0.05% IFR).

You can have a realistic opinion of the disease and reasonably object to lockdowns. I'm not sure if your issue is with opinions against the lockdown, this author, or some other random group not mentioned here. I do think overall everything about the disease has come in on the low side of expert estimates back from March (this article suggests otherwise). Which is both a testimate to science and damning of our society's tools for handling a disease in this range of severity.

More than 50% of Americans get the flu shot every year, we kind of have some immunity, and, yet, 20K to 60K people die every year, when only 10% get it (due to the flu shots or the immunity). Remove the immunity and flu shot preventing some infection, and even if it's as bad as the flu and doesn't have any permanent damage, which it seems to have, we're still talking hundreds of thousands of dead bodies.

In the United States a lot of people I know are eager to get back to work because they don’t want to get evicted or fall behind on car payments and fall into the Spiraling USA Debt Trap that ruins so many lives. I don’t blame them in the least.

I was laid off in March and have still not received any unemployment insurance myself. If that is still the case this time next month I will be freaking out all the same.

Yes. Though what’s disappointing to me here in the US, is that rather than understand these problems are consequences of our system and choices we’ve made, so many people are getting angry that they have to wear a mask. I wish that anger were at least directed somewhere useful that would help remediate the situation instead of so misplaced as to be directed at doing something that’ll actively make it worse.

I by no means complaining about a people that have to go back to work. It just sucks that people have to make a choice between potentially risking their's or their family's lives for a paycheck.

I just don't think people should be understating or under estimating this thing.

So the problem is the catastrophic dismantling of the welfare state over the past several decades.

Ironically, most Americans complaining about getting the economy up and running again also vote against having a basic safety net. I’d say you’re getting what you asked for. Should have at least voted for Medicare For All.

why are you not receiving unemployment benefits?

I have had 4 phone calls so far and I was approved on the first one but haven’t received any benefits. It takes between 1-2 weeks between each call for them to call me back. The last person I spoke with said my case is completely normal (?) and sure enough there are some people on reddit who have had a similar experience. There has been no explanation and no accountability short of these calls when they assure me everything is working out fine, and I assure them the opposite.