Your rambling brings up a good point. It would be good to know the death rate of those outside of nursing homes and if those who pass away in nursing homes were only expected to live a mere 6 months on average. When my grandmother went into a nursing home she lived over 3 years. Plus, are we only talking nursing homes where people are at the end of their lives or AL homes where folks expect a bit more.
I don’t know the answers. Those are just my questions.
Not answering your question, but I just want to add I’m glad we have the medical advances we have vs 1918. I can only imagine what the death rate would be if we didn’t.
As we advance our knowledge, I expect the death rate will continue to decrease, at least, in first world countries that have the medical advances. This also assumes the virus doesn’t have a deadly mutation.
Some people have to stay home longer than others. Today a friend posted about the mask rule in public places. A response was that this person’s son couldn’t wear a mask, kind of a ‘what can I do?’ I give my friend props for answering that there are some people who are not safe in public places and they shouldn’t be out in stores and restaurants yet, with or without a mask. Some people just need to stay home because it is too risky for them to be out.
I have friends who can’t go out yet even though they have quarantine fatigue too. Life isn’t fair. Even if things open, they can’t go out
My brother lives in a resort town and said it is packed with people just wandering around because there is nothing open and nothing to do. People who would normally be swimming or taking trail rides or riding the lifts to the top of the mountain to hike or ride their bikes down are just wandering, and they are crowded into the few restaurants the are open (mostly for patio seating).
We posted at the same time. I know they don’t have it yet, but it would be really interesting to see the breakdown of both pools like you mention and compare it to those of similar ages who weren’t in nursing homes and were active or not.
Our dentist is reopening on June 1. DH needs work done badly, but since he’s over 60 they can’t see him until July. I know it’s the right thing but again, it is hard.
As I posted before, I have enough covid related goods for 6 months+, until…D1 said she was short of sanitizing wipes 2 days ago and she asked me if I had any. I did until I gave my mom 2 canisters last weekend. Of course I had rise up to the challenge. I started my search on the internet and my local Walgreens.
This morning I called my 24 hour Walgreen store at 7am. They told me they had a delivery of store brand wipes (not ideal). I decided to get down there right away and was only allowed to buy one.
On my way back from the store I took out some money from a bank so I had some cash to tip delivery people. Of course I was only able to get $20 bills. When I tried to get some change in $5s at a bodego, the cashier was so sassy she said, “Lady, I can only give you what I have. I am not a bank you know.” Meanwhile they were getting deliveries ready to go out (hope they didn’t get tipped).
When I got home I checked on Amazon Fresh for the wipes - I got 4 canisters after 3 days of “out of stock.” I felt like I scored 4 Springsteen tickets.
A day in the life of a NYer.
I haven’t seen hand sanitizer or wipes since mid March. I’m beginning to believe it doesn’t exist. And toilet paper is still a rare sighting. Last time, I went bright and early to several different stores to score 2 - 6 packs and felt like I won the lottery.
D1 rented a house at Hudson Valley for the month of July just to get out of NYC for a while. They managed to get a rental car for $1000/month. She asked me if I wanted to spend a long weekend with them. 
Dentistry and SARS-CoV-2
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u20nIE2rqxA
(also available on other podcast platforms etc) but while some of it addresses from the POV of the dentist, anyone in a rush to go to the dentist for their preventive clean will find this interesting (!).
Maybe add in some extra brushing and flossing if you are in no rush for exposure. I suspect few of us have dentist that just have one pt at a time, and some will have multiple pts in a single room. My kids’ dentist used to have like 6 in a row IIRC. Even back then I purposefully failed to think about standard cross infection. My current practice has individual rooms, no doors though and is a historicish hodge podge of an old house.
Thanks a lot, @MaineLonghorn. I just had an ugly flashback to my junior year pchem labs
An example of fast delivery from Amazon. The cat brought a chipmunk into the house at 7:45 Tuesday night. (The cat is confined to a catio outside so the chipmunk must have ventured into the catio.) In the excitement of us yelling “What did you bring in?” and the cat yelling to her sister to come see, she let go of the chipmunk and it ran under a bookcase. I got on Amazon and ordered a compassionate chipmunk trap at 8 pm. It was delivered before noon the next day and the chipmunk was trapped and released by 3 pm.
Is that with or without federal help? Because the federal government COULD help, you know. The way governments all over the world are. There are even pretty successful federal stimulus package precedents in this country. I’m assuming someone, somewhere has heard of them and maybe is considering them?
Ditto about the had sanitizer and wipes!! A friend showed off her canister on Facebook. I offered her $50. (No deal.)
That is truly amazing. Given our recent Amazon experience, if we had a chipmunk in our house and needed to wait on Amazon to bring a trap, by the time the trap got here the Chipmunk would be dead and halfway to becoming a mummy under some random cabinet or we would have all made friends by then.
Again, I’m wondering if Amazon is prioritizing shipping to areas with more C19 infections with the idea that it helps vulnerable people stay home. Similar to what I think may be happening with wipes and hand sanitizer (people in NY can find it, we haven’t seen it since March). If that’s what’s happening, it’s reasonable and OK but we should all understand that what we are personally seeing may not be representative of what is happening in other areas.
@Creekland writes:
And then @milee30 and @bp0001 say what I knew someone would say: The over-80s who die are less healthy than over-80s in general.
There’s an unstated premise here. The death rate Creekland is talking about is the infection fatality rate, the rate of death among everyone in the group who is infected, even if they are asymptomatic. So, are over-80s who are infected less healthy than the average over-80s? Does being healthier protect someone against being infected?
If good health doesn’t protect someone against being infected, if the over-80s who are infected are just as healthy as the uninfected over-80s, then @milee30’s and @bp0001’s objection is irrelevant. If over 10% of 85-year-olds who get infected with covid are dying, and only 8% of the otherwise similar 85-year-olds who don’t get infected will died within a year, then, obviously, we can’t say the covid victims would have died within a year.
On the other hand, if being healthy protects someone from being infected, as @milee30 and @bp0001 have to be assuming for their argument to make sense, then we should expect 60 year olds to be much more resistant to being infected than 80 year olds. We’re not seeing that.
So, @milee30 and @bp0001, what is your evidence that being healthier protects someone over 80 from being infected with covid?
I have no evidence and am not making a statement. Simply pointing out that I’d like more data on who’s dying. Even without C19, there’s a big gap in life expectation for an 80 year old entering a nursing home (die in 3 months vs live 3 more years) and between the “active” 80s. It will be interesting to see if C19 is picking off the weakest and sickest of these groups, and if it is what is the actual difference in what they were expected to live vs when C19 killed them. That will help us make better decisions about where to direct resources, how/if we can better protect people and what the consequences are.
I don’t get it… Why didnt the cat get the chipmunk in the house? That’s what cats love to do…right?
For $50, I’d sell you one of my extra bottles and throw in free shipping. ?
Too late 
Covid got us already. We’re now coasting on soap, water and immunity!
There have been about @ 1,600 deaths in Maryland in people over 70. There have been @ 1,200 nursing home deaths. I would say the majority of the elderly dying are from nursing homes. I’m just playing the statistics here.
Those that are in nursing homes that get Corvid-19 have a 20% chance of dying from it. Raw statistics, not my speculation.
20% is not a guarantee. That means 80% of those in nursing homes, our most vulnerable, will survive. It’s not a definite death sentence by any stretch even for the most vulnerable.
I’m going to go out on a limb and assume that the 20% are more than likely in the group mentioned earlier that more than likely have 6 months or less to live. Obviously this isn’t proven, just a speculation, best guess.
Yes, older people are more susceptible. Yes, compromised people are more susceptible. In each and every age group this is not exactly a death sentence. Many do survive even in the most vulnerable group. In lower age groups the survival rate is well above 99%.
I think many fear the worst and perhaps overestimate their likelihood of death if they contract this virus. The statistics are there. This isn’t a death sentence for the overwhelming vast majority of people.
It’s not going away. We can delay the inevitable which is what we did by flattening the curve. I still think in the end, minus a quicky appearing effective vaccine, about the same number of people will die from this.
I think it is good we are learning more. I think that will help us. To think we can avoid anymore deaths is far fetched. I don’t like it but people die everyday and many more will die from this.