@Lennon, I appreciate your words. Yesterday after the announcement that the state parks were opening, I googled to see which were near me. Somehow it had never occurred to me that Essex County has 0 state parks. Not one.
We have a few incredibly crowded county parks. Which almost a million of us are supposed to share, along with small town parks. I guess this does make me grumpy. I’m tired of being told to stay in my petri dish by people (not you!) who have whole oceans of room to move.
@jym626 Because I am following the numbers here in GA, what I have seen is that the uptick in my zipcode , for example, is due to two AL facilities. There is also an outbreak in the northeast part of the state due to a poultry plant . What I cannot tell at this point is if opening up a few hair salons, etc and very few restaurants opening up has contributed to positive cases. (moreso than going to Walmart). The spread of this seems to be in crowded indoor places. With SD in place at the businesses that have opened, I honestly dont see that as a problem.
Also I have seen so much increased testing here. Everyone I know that is even non symptomatic has been able to get a test. I was able to get an antibody test.
Look at the polling on who wants to open up now. It is NOT the people who have lost their jobs and who have few assets. It is not the people who have customer-facing low-paid jobs, either jobs that are essential that they continue to do now or jobs that are not deemed essential.
The people who want to open up, in general, haven’t lost their jobs and have income and assets.
@Lennon in reading your posts, I am pretty sure we live somewhat near to each other. Our favorite Saturday activity is to hike in the gorgeous, wooded county park up your way (followed up by a stop for beer and fried clams on the deck at one of the nearby restaurants, LOL). As much as I am itching to get out there, we’re going to stay in our more immediate area (for all of the reasons you mentioned) this weekend. No good county park option right by me, but the (hopefully somewhat empty) beach beckons…I am crossing my fingers and hoping that people do as instructed and we don’t get park access taken away from us again.
I’m reading that the antibody tests are not all accurate. There are a bunch on the market and most have not been evaluated by the FDA for accuracy. They are seeing false positives in some of these tests (they pick up antibodies to other less virulent coronaviruses).
Having a false positive antibody test could result in relaxing of protective behavior and actual infection.
I’m disappointed to read about these inaccurate results.
Two stories from my new normal:
DD has been taking solo bike rides, but today, for the first time in seven weeks, she asked for permission to bike with a friend. They agreed to stay six feet apart and both of them wear masks. DH and I reiternated the need to stick to that plan, but were otherwise comfortable letting her do this.
The pizza place must be raking in the money. Last week there was a two hour lead time, so we ended up ordering elsewhere. Here it is, 1:00 in the afternoon and I just set up my pizza delivery for this evening already.
I lived in Hoboken for five years-there were some little local parks but nothing like
I have here. And I get that if you are in an apartment, with kids (and even if you are living alone) people need to get out to the parks for their sanity. I’ve been much more down since the parks closed. I hope that this whole situation creates some future thinking on the part of local town and municipal planners.
I’ve had some great conversations with friends about how this experience is going to change us, change our towns, our work, etc…I suppose it could just go back to the way things were but I doubt it.
I am disappointed too, that the country’s response isn’t more efficient.
It’s going to be messy and imperfect.
Despite the PPP help, I just don’t see how the businesses I was laid off from will survive.
I predict the owners will try to save one of their restaurants and will declare bankruptcy on the other two businesses.
I had a phone interview last week. $16 an hour. Is that what it’s going to come to? I’ll be a 57 yo & unemployed and forced to accept a job that pays so little I’ll need a second job just to keep a roof over our heads.
I am so fearful of the economic downturn.
There are always winners & losers, right?
Where is that crystal ball?!?!
Because hopefully by then we can get the country up to where we need to be in terms of testing and tracing. Then maybe by next January there could be a vaccine. Time also gives us a chance to test more treatments which help lessen the effects when infected
But, we are nowhere close to where we need to be.
Sorry, but I’m not on board with hundreds of thousand more dying.
The projection is now supposedly 75k dead by August. I think we will hit that by mid May or late May. By August we will be likely be close to 200k dead, if not more - especially since people seem to want to flirt around like normal.
We have family members who aren’t working jobs right now. For them, we are hoping they actually have jobs to return to…and that those working in service things (like waiters) have patrons who will come to their places of employment (which will close otherwise).
We know folks who have no income right now because they aren’t working. My hairdresser and her construction business owner husband…both are patiently waiting to resume their jobs.
I have no issue with the gradual and well monitored re-opening of businesses and recreation areas.
I do have issues with folks who didn’t feel the need to adhere to SIP requests or mandates (depending on where they live). I don’t think it was too much to ask that folks take a break from NOT essential activities for a while. It bothers me that some folks just decided not to do so, because they didn’t feel the need to do so.
I guess some people have a different risk barometer than others. It’s just the way it is.
@“Cardinal Fang” Judging from social and other media, it seems that the people who want to open most are small business owners. Many were not able to get PPP. They are losing everything they’ve worked for all their lives. They wonder why their businesses aren’t essential. Why they aren’t essential workers. They wonder why they don’t count. A hairdresser recently posted about all the sanitizing they learn in order to get their licenses and about how they could take one customer in the salon at a time. They don’t want to get sick either, so they would take strict precautions.
Many people who have lost their jobs are making more on UI and the bonus than they were making working. The kids of some of my friends, for example.
I’ll piggyback onto this to say that I find it limiting to treat this situation as an either-or between public health and the economy. Just step out of the idea that people should only have resources based on what their either do or own, and look at the fact that there’s enough available if we just have the courage to redistribute it.
Interesting, thank you for this CF, I’m not a bit surprised.
Makes me wonder who’s being selfish.
The people who work in those plants go home to their families in the community. They go to the supermarkets and they have family members who work in nursing homes.
Now, they can go to the hair salon, the barber, the tattoo parlor, and go bowling for good measure. Plus, the beaches in Georgia, Mississippi and Florida. Hurrah!
For anyone wondering what numbers are, this is a nice article:
"From April 9 to 15, at least 13,613 people died from COVID-19, compared with 9,801 the week before.
For comparison, 12,451 people died on average per week from heart diseases and 11,521 people died per week from cancer in 2018. Fewer than 800 people died from car crashes in any week that year.
Even bad flu seasons, like the 2017-18 season, in which an estimated 61,000 Americans were killed — including 7,119 by the flu or pneumonia in a single week — didn’t claim lives as quickly as COVID-19 did last week."
Interpret as you wish. (Folks will do that anyway! 
)
I can not imagine anyone thinking there will be a vaccine in January 2021. Maybe January 2024, if we are very lucky. You may be right the deaths will go way up, doctors here think it will sweep through nursing homes,and there really isn’t much they can do about that for those on life’s edge. And all the distancing in the world really will not stop it much.
@katliamom I’m genuinely curious and not being antagonistic. Do you feel it will only be safe to start reopening when there is a vaccine approved and enough doses for every American citizen? Is there a time limit to how long you think is too long before that happens? If there is no vaccine a year from now, do you still support stay at home orders? If a vaccine is developed, what if it’s only somewhat effective, as the flu vaccine is? What if only 50% of the population decides to get the vaccine?
Interesting that doctors in different areas feel differently. Those I know feel treatments aren’t far off. None I know (absolutely none) want to see everything opened up, but they do feel some supposedly non-essential medical things need to be happening - like chemo, etc, and that those should probably have never stopped.
I suspect those who know doctors who want to open up are in the non-hot spot areas.
We started having significant numbers of cases two months ago. In two months, we’ve learned a huge amount about this new virus that we didn’t know. Eight months from now, the situation will be completely different.
*Trained and deployed contact tracers. Possibly many will have opted in to privacy-protecting contact monitoring.
The situation January 1 will be completely different from the situation now.
Do you have a link for the polling?
Well, the outrage and reports in my area are from small businesses and unemployed contractors who have lost jobs, businesses and income and want to be able to work again- with precautions. So what if that hairdresser stops at the grocery store? He or she will (should) wear a mask and practice social distancing. It should have no impact on you.