There are a lot of articles that it’s the anti vaxxers who are behind a lot of the protests to open up, but most people don’t know that.
I’m not going to post the articles but just google if you are interested.
Texan here … how has the weather helped Texas? Our cases haven’t dropped or even leveled off. And this isn’t some second wave; we are still in the worst of the first wave.
Also, friend’s dad died Friday in a local nursing home that is being ravaged by corona. I think our state leaders are being so irresponsible.
For the first time in two months, we “cooked out” with our neighbors on each side of us, something we used to do on the regular. Everyone used their own grill at their own homes, but then we’d gather under the big tree in our yard in a triangle, many feet apart. It was so nice to talk to someone besides my dh and to interact with good friends we’ve awkwardly been avoiding for so long. We talked about doing it next week, too.
I haven’t been on here in days so don’t know what the deal is with another new corona thread. Let me know if I’m doing something wrong.
@CCadmin_Jon – just a shout out to say THANK YOU! I’m really enjoying this thread, and I am so glad we are able to have this discussion. Thank you so much for trying this experiment, and I hope it continues to go well.
I think SAH is easier for some than others.
To be quite honest, my life and my husband’s life hasn’t changed all that much.
Our day to day life is pretty boring. We have a nice house with a yard. We can get out and can be busy with yard work. Also we go to our normal trails to exercise. We play golf and can socially distance with our golf partners.
I don’t mind not going to parties and we’ve been able to do restaurant takeout, we’ve probably done takeout more than we would have gone to restaurants.
My husband is working out of the house but his work schedule is not much different than his work when he was in an office.
We live in an area not overrun with people in the parks. Grocery shopping is a pain, so I don’t go as often, which is what I should do. We aren’t big travelers, so not missing that either.
I don’t feel sorry for myself. But I do feel sorry for all of the extroverts out there, and those whom social distancing is hard on their mental health.
Also, and more importantly, I feel for those without yards or outdoor space. Who either have to work in low paying jobs or those who are not working right now.
I know how privileged I am, and am aware that many Americans are not.
Some states, and countries, with warmer weather have experienced far milder outbreaks than would have been predicted statistically, and experts are studying the possible role of climate in virus transmission.
Of course any death is sad anywhere. And nursing homes are centers of fatality everywhere given their highly fragile population. Reasonable people can disagree about the best response to 1000 deaths in a state of 30 million.
It’s pretty warm in Mississippi this time of year.
“Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves was set to announce that he would allow more businesses to reopen—and join other state governors who have rolled back stay-at-home orders—but after a jump in cases and deaths in his state Friday, he announced a delay.”
I earn less than $20k/year working in the office of a wealthy LAC. My co-workers and I are still waiting to find out which of us will have jobs in the fall. Faculty and the administration get more in tuition benefits for one kid than some of us earn in an entire year. That won’t be reduced. Parents want tuition rebates from this semester and tuition discounts if classes aren’t fully on campus next semester. And everyone wants extra money from financial aid.
Where’s all that money supposed to come from? The money to balance the budget has to come from somewhere. It doesn’t surprise me that budgets are being balanced on the backs of the poor, but it’s depressing and mentally exhausting.
In Illinois, 44% of the total deaths have been in nursing homes. But, it’s hard to get a grasp on whether the remaining deaths are decreasing or not, because they aren’t breaking out the details on a daily basis. Our infected numbers are increasing, due to greater testing availability.
In Chicago’s northern suburbs yesterday it was a very nice day, sunny, in the high 70’s. Several beaches were crowded with no social distancing or masks observed. In one suburban downtown area there were long lines of people waiting to get in to a few places, including starbucks. Mostly adults in line, standing right next to each other, few masks.
Shelter in place goes thru the end of May, there have been small protests in downtown Chicago the last few days, agitating for things to open up. Golf courses, state parks, garden centers were allowed to open up on May 1.
I understand the death rate is important but that isn’t taking into consideration that this virus has a big growth factor. If we look back to late February or early March, the case numbers then were not a good indicator of what was to come without taking exponential growth into consideration. If the death rate is staying the same, then once things open it will rise and probably get out of control.
The case numbers are still not a good indicator of number of infections, and therefore growth rate. Most areas are still undertesting…far below levels we need to be at to safely re-open things.
It’s pretty simple, imo.
1000 new cases in one day and how many other people were infected by those 1000 new cases? These 1000 cases don’t happen in a vacuum. These people have been spreading the virus to others before they know they have the virus. Rinse and repeat.
If a simple tissue can hold in just about all the stuff that comes out when a person sneezes (which they do according to the video I posted the link to a while back), I’m pretty sure that most homemade masks are holding in most of the stuff from coughs, etc. so, even a not well designed homemade mask is probably very helpful in not spreading the virus. And if we all or nearly all (who can without breathing trouble) wear them, we will help prevent huge spikes like we just had. I think we focus too much on protecting ourselves and not on working collectively to protect one another (which protects ourselves).
In my case, I want one that is also going to directly protect me because I’m immune deficient. From what I have experienced and what I understand, there can be masks that are more effective and easier to breath through than some less effective ones because people are using all types of materials. There are things that can filter well that are not necessarily going to make breathing harder than some other things. I’m thinking of vacuum cleaner bags. Those are difficult to breath through, more so than some other things that seem easier to breath through.
I’m going to keep searching and searching. So far the best I found, I think, is the one by the surgeon that is made from soup cups or these plastic round things from the hardware store. I ordered materials and will make those for myself. Might look stupid and not be fashionable but if it works, that’s good for me. I’ll see if I can spiff it up with some fabric on the sides.
He tried to make one that has a good seal, is comfortable, people can breath well with it on, and that it filters. He also wanted one that had supplies people could find easily. He is claiming it filters 95% of particles .3 microns or larger.
@“Youdon’tsay” I’m very sorry about your friend’s father. That’s horrible.
Glad you were able to do something that was fun and normal feeling, or semi-normal.
The beaches are still officially closed here in southern Palm Beach County, with police cars spaced intermittently as a deterrent along the coastal route (A1A).
Nevertheless, for the first time in recent weeks, I saw at least two groups of people on the beach yesterday, one of which looked like they were swimming or at least playing in the surf. Police were apparently not going to do anything more than enforce parking restrictions. That’s good news for residents here, and we intend to walk to the beach tomorrow as the weather is just gorgeous right now.
My S21 has mostly not been seeing friends in the last few weeks (except for one fellow classmate with whom he is running a very small business), but he reports that his Instagram is starting to fill up with pictures of fellow classmates and friends at low key pool parties in the last week. Life is starting to return to normal, which in my view is entirely appropriate at this point in the crisis down here.
My county has a plethora of nursing homes, so our death count is very high. Most of the nursing homes closed 2-3 weeks before our governor issued a stay at home order. So it’s presumed that staff members brought the Coronavirus into the facilities.
What leads to the staff members becoming infected? Are they not following safety measures in their personal lives? Some people want our county to open while keeping nursing homes closed. But since they’ve been closed, and still became a hotbed for the virus, how does that solve the problem?
With the huge increase in testing and more broad availability it seems to make sense the numbers of positive cases will grow in some places versus the baseline.
The numbers that really drive the calculus are serious disease. New Hospitalizations. ICU numbers. New vent numbers. Deaths are a lagging indicator.
If we have a increase in cases with testing and no increase to the corresponding hospitalization ratio - that’s actually very positive.
I know people who are not sick today but were a few weeks ago. They had the ability to be tested and were interested to know. They are positive and it appears have been for two weeks. It’s not like anything that happened this week is 100 percent related to the counts. I think two weeks from now is a better gauge.
@deb922 I have been thinking similarly. I think of those people who were in little apartments in Wuhan or NYC and in places where they can’t go out at all and how hard that must have been and must still be. We are very fortunate that we can walk right out of our house and take a walk. It’s beautiful in the surrounding area and we see lots of gorgeous nature. We rarely see any other people. We have a big enough house that everyone can be in their own part of it if we want to be alone. We didn’t get sick (or maybe we did before the stay home order, which we do suspect). But we didn’t end up in the hospital. We have food. We are very lucky.
DH and DS are introverts. I’m a bit introverted but more 50/50 and the past few days I have had a harder time. I’m better yesterday and today but it is starting to get to even me. I can understand those who really are having a hard time with staying home. Mental health is a real thing (I know you know) and I think some are going out more because of the need to feel connected to others directly. I have friends who are not as strict with stay home (more than one going to the store in their family so they go together, going to the store more often, two separate households getting together since they all were strictly distancing for 5 weeks, etc). Our son lives with us but I can imagine if he didn’t and was in the area and we had all socially distanced for all this time, I’d want to see him and hug him in person. I asked my husband about that scenario and he said, “no! Everyone needs to stay home!” He would not have our son come over in that type of situation. I would want to at least. I think that type of gathering is a lot less of a risk than other possible ones. Still, my friend who lives near us who is seeing her grandkids now isn’t having us over, even though she knows we are being super careful. We were talking about taking a walk together and being on opposite sides of wide streets so we could talk in person but we didn’t do it. I think it worried her too much. Her DH has serious health issues and she plans to continue socially distancing until the vaccine. They are both in their 70s.
Anyway, I can understand the feelings of people who are breaking the stay home orders/guidelines but I wish all would stay home so we could have this under control as best as possible and hopefully avoid a big 2nd wave.
Deaths happening in spite of weeks of stay home are a concern to me. I think that we just have to think about how easily this spreads and that its growth factor is high so having it not under control even after 6 or however many weeks in a given area and having that area open without sufficient testing and contact tracing and etc in place seems to be a recipe for having a huge spike coming. I do hope very much that warmer weather will scale things way back and help us.
A simple tissue may not stop a virus the size of covid-19. Further, a video is not science.
Here is the one RCT (randomized controlled trial) on mask use that included an arm for non-medical cloth masks.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4420971/
Here is more information, with many links to other (non-RCT) studies.
Edited to add: as I said somewhere above, I do understand and support why the CDC recommended wearing of non-medical cloth masks. Everyone has to decide for themselves, possibly in conjunction with their physician if there are co-morbidities, whether the level of protection makes it ok to leave one’s home.
The weather connection to virus spread seems like it would only really affect transmission that would occur outdoors, if even that. It doesn’t make any sense for affecting the workplace, shopping centers, etc. where people are inside and potentially in closer proximty.