I do agree that the community reaction to Covid-19 somewhat depends on how heavily it has hit.
After all, when it was raging in China, most Americans ignored it. Then it hit two places on either coast, leaving “flyover country” largely spared – for a while.
But as people from the SFBA start traveling this summer, those areas near the Sierras with “lax” approaches to Covid-19 will likely pay the price as well. That’s what we’ve learned, as this virus has spread from China to Europe, to the U.S. and beyond.
A second wave is also likely to hit – though I’ve heard it’s debatable if it will be worse or even as bad as the first – and we may have to go through all of this again.
So why not learn our lessons now: masks, social distancing, stay-at-least-close-to-home. And, as @dietz199 wisely suggests, learn how to protect ourselves and how to take care of the basics in our life without too much reliance on outside services.
If there’s a second wave, and how bad it is, depends on what we do. If we just went back to pre-covid normal, it would be a disaster. I don’t think that’s what we’ll do. It could be a big disaster anyway, if whatever measures we take allow too much spread.
Thank you @scorekeeper1 that is a great way to make lemonade out of lemons! Unfortunately we don’t own a distillery; we work with an existing one, who makes our botanical vodka to our recipe for us.
My vodka is still in stores, but we are not doing any promotional activities and will decide whether to move forward with the launch of our new brand when some of this dust settles – whenever that is!
While my coworker can and does do a lot for parents, there are so many in my area who have NO ONE. Not to mention I have and have had many coworkers who were illiterate let alone have technology or able to figure anything like this out. And then all of the people who come to our office for the housing dept services. If you’ve grown up surrounded by educated and well off people, it can be shocking to see the mental capabilities of a large segment of the population. These people have no one. And their living conditions are truly scary. No plumbing. Sewage/feces building up feet high in their basements. I see the inspection pics come off our printer. Horrifying. These people will not be able to order online groceries and nobody will be there to do it for them.
Well @emilybee , you certainly think you have all the answers wrapped up nice with a bow! Amazing you have an answer for everything and everyone.
Back here on earth - my H was just reading out snippets from a disturbing article about how in someone countries - Brazil and Mexico were two - those dying of Covid 19 are not just the elderly. A much larger percentage of younger people are dying than in our country. Not good news.
In the previous thread, on April 30, I wrote longingly of the idea that San Francisco would open the Great Highway to people and close it to cars. The Great Highway runs right along the beach, on the west side of San Francisco.
They did it! It’s now the Great Walkway, and it’s especially popular with parents with strollers.
Opinions are speculative unless backed up by research. Have there been any studies done on the outward efficiency of non-surgical, non-N95 masks using patients with active SARS-CoV-2 infections?
There are answers for most everything. Sometimes one has to think out of the box, sometimes it’s simply common sense. When I hear excuses being made for why something “can’t be done”, my first inkling is figure out a way to overcome the obstacle whatever the problem is. There is, more often than not, a fairly simple solution.
I also don’t care if people don’t want to listen. It’s no skin off my nose.
The way I feel about masks is, there’s some evidence that masks work to stop some disease transmission. They, obviously, stop some droplets (you can do the experiment by sticking a cloth over your mouth, coughing a few times and noticing the cloth is wet). The Asian countries that masked up did better in the covid pandemic than European countries that didn’t. Flushing, a part of New York City that masked up quickly, fared much better in the pandemic than its neighbor, Corona. And there’s that hamster experiment.
None of these pieces of evidence is ironclad. But I judge that masks are considerably more likely to work than not. For an intervention that is so simple and cheap, and has such a huge potential benefit, that’s good enough for me, until we get better evidence. We don’t need ironclad evidence to do what we think probably works. Masks are kind of annoying and inconvenient, but so what, if they more likely than not work?
I will champion the working poor all the time. I am cognizant that there are many in this country who are struggling economically with this pandemic.
I also know and see many who have decided that this is over and they don’t need to stay home anymore. Or need to wear masks. Plenty of bored downstate Michiganders have come to northern Michigan this weekend to eat in our restaurants and shop in our stores. To park their RV’s in vacant lots and pitch their tents on seasonal roads.
My own mil who has no need to go out, she has a neighbor and her son who call and ask often to go to the store and get her what she needs. She decided to renew her driver’s license in a driving rainstorm and when she found out they were closed, she drove to her friends house to visit.
My own mother, went out this week to play cards with her friends.
I get that we have people who have to get out and I get that we need to get back to work. But we need to do it smarter. And wear masks. And not go out unnecessarily.
The hair stylist in Missouri that worked while symptomatic exposed 91 people. before testing positive for COVID. Both the stylist and all clients wore masks. It will be very interesting to see if any clients become infected, and if yes, how many. What kind of masks were the clients wearing, and so on, could be very very informative.
I think the fact that Taiwan went very big into testing, contact tracing, quarantine, and masks and were able to keep schools open, etc (with barriers between students and lots of other innovations), shows the effectiveness of masks. As for studies, I am not certain.
It’s not clear masks meet the more likely than not criteria. To the extent people have exaggerated beliefs in the efficacy of non-surgical masks, it can lead to risk compensation both at the individual level and from a public policy standpoint.
If clients did become infected, that would be interesting information. If nobody became infected, that could mean that masks work, yay, or just that, for some reason, this person wasn’t very infectious.
What would have been more interesting is if some of the clients weren’t wearing masks. Or if the stylist had left off the mask one morning. Then we’d get better data.
ASU mathematical model on what happens if different percentages of people wear masks. Shows masks help a lot if enough wear them, even if the masks are not that effective.
Dh and I made a 2.5 hour drive today to the lake where we used to own a home. It was a pretty day, and seeing our old house and neighborhood and lake community brought back so many wonderful memories. We didn’t interact with anyone else until we went to a restaurant that had patio seating. As it was late in the afternoon, there was only us and another couple about 25 feet away from us on the patio. The waiter was not masked but kept a good distance except for when he set the plates down. I feel this was a very very low level exposure. Most of our day was spent in the car driving around the community. It was good to get out of the house. Amazing, but we were able to make this 5 hour round trip without having to visit a restroom.
This county has had 10 positive cases since March, 2 deaths, and 7 recoveries, which I guess means one person is either in the hospital or recovering at home. But today the lake looked very busy, and many of the people out and about are second home owners or weekend visitors. So they could be bringing the virus in. I saw not one person wearing a mask anywhere. The little grocery store had a fair amount of cars in front of it, and no one coming or going was masked. I saw houses with MANY cars and trucks parked in front, so I assume little to no social distancing at all. Plenty of boats on the lake, but that seems to be a very low risk activity. People are getting their vitamin D stores replenished.
Being out in this rural area, I can see why the COVID upheaval seems so remote.
