> I spent 1.5 years in ex-Iron-Curtain countries during the Covid era, and people there acted less concerned about crowded indoor spaces and sneezing — and more

> I spent 1.5 years in ex-Iron-Curtain countries during the Covid era, and people there acted less concerned about crowded indoor spaces and sneezing — and more concerned about surfaces. And everyone seemed to fear that getting physically cold would lead to colds I went for the first time to Ukraine in the fall and got a fairly heavy case of COVID. My girlfriend is 29 and she was vaccinated with two Moderna shots 2 months prior and also got a heavy case of covid. We took a two-hour bus into another city. The bus was hermetically sealed because the driver bent the aluminum windows railings such that windows don't open to prevent drafts, so that people don't get colds. This was November and nobody was wearing a mask in the bus. By the end of the journey the windows were covered with condensate from 40 people breathing. When we got out of the bus we felt dizzy from lack of oxygen. I think both of us got extremely high doses of the virus and the vaccines were never really tested with those doses: this is why despite the age and recent Moderna vaccinations we both got fairly serious cases.