My kid did a 15 hour drive from GA to CT mid May. She stopped only at places where there were trucks. She said, the restrooms were spotless and the women’s rooms were usually empty. She carried her own sanitizing wipes and hand sanitizer with her. She said…bathroom stops were not an issue at all.
I do think traffic has increased in the last month.
She carried all of her own food and ate either in her car or at an outdoor picnic table.
The trip was uneventful. She had scoped out hotels as well, and would have had no difficulty stopping at one (she is a health care worker who was on her way to a new “job”).
As noted, the highway rest stops are being cleaned often as they are used by the trucking industry which is very essential.
I don’t usually comment pages forward so that folks are reading my answer a day later, but this is important. A few years ago my husband was in intensive care, on a vent, for about a week. Intensive care nurses are far far different from regular med/surge nurses.
But what has been mostly absent from this conversation is the number of respiratory therapists available. Respiratory therapy is complex, and while my husband was on a vent the therapists were there as often or more often as the nurses. Those machines need a high number of humans round the clock. Highly trained, experienced humans.
He probably wouldn’t have made it without the respiratory team in the icu.
This is very VERY true. If we are looking at a situation in which many people more than normal are on vents, we are in deep trouble. There aren’t enough respiratory therapists skilled in ventilator support available to handle a catastrophic pandemic out of control. ICU nurses depend on respiratory therapists to help manage ventilator care on the best of days. A situation like what is potentially developing will NOT be manageable.
Drove across the country last weekend, literally saw someone cleaning in every rest stop we visited, and even at the tiny gas station desperation stop. Decided rest stops > gas stations this year.
I’d prefer to look on the brighter side, as far as NYC infected rates. Whether or not antibodies undetectable by the tests used confer some immunity might still be up in the air but who really knows at this point?
edited to add: looked at it and saw it was done latter part of April.
When this was announced during one of Cuomo’s daily briefing, my concern was that the population was self-selecting. I know the article said that sampling was random, but I thought that it included a fair # of grocery workers who had more hours of exposure + time on mass transit if in the boroughs, and that in some locations, those being sampled had to go to a back room/office, or something. Wish I could remember the details, but I recall thinking that I probably wouldn’t have bothered to submit to testing if I had been out grocery shopping.
Since I was the only one in my house entering stores in April, a test of this sort would not have captured my family members’ data as they never left home.
I am not arguing that the % is higher or lower–just that the testing wasn’t fully representative. It would be interesting to see results two months later.
"These tests were conducted over a two-day period at grocery stores and other big box stores. “The sample was by definition people who were outside the home,” Cuomo said. “So we have to analyze that, what does that do to the numbers.” These weren’t people who were home, isolated or quarantined, Cuomo said. "What does that mean, I don’t know. “People who tend to stay home likely have lower rates of infection, he added.”
Two month stale study, of uncertain accuracy and uncertain conclusion, taken from testing the mobile who may very well be part of a larger household instead of a single occupant one.
I’ll continue looking on the brighter side and hope NYC’s immunity is close to there. Will continue to be infections/deaths, but not anywhere on the scale seen earlier.
Weekly updated coronavirus mobility reports available from Google here. See how you state compares regarding cell phone usage at places like home, work, restaurants, grocery stores, retail, recreation, transit. I was interested in seeing how people are moving in different areas of the country with regards to covid. Maybe this is helpful. It’s certainly interesting.
And since it was two months ago I think.your brighter side look is appropriate. There surely has been more progress made towards immunity since then. I agree wholeheartedly with your last sentence.
I hope it’s still ok to quote things you agree with.
I think this right here is what I personally have been living with/thinking throughout this, well after my first few weeks of major concern.
There are many steps we each can choose to take. Life does go on though, it needs to. The virus is with us and we have to deal with it and still live our lives in the fashion we are comfortable with.
Cuomo reported on a subsequent serology study during his May 20 briefing. He had set up testing in churches located in the poorer areas that had a higher incidence of the virus. The result was a 27% positive rate.
Early on I saw one doctor mention this on a news show. This was back when there was all the concern about vents – where were they, how was NY going to get more, etc. And the MD said the vents weren’t the issue – it was where would all the respiratory therapists going to come from? There aren’t that many. I never saw that mentioned anywhere else on the news (not that I watched every news show).