COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (4 Viewers)

[Eeyore]

I bought this about a year ago. Of course it's "currently unavailable." I think that's either due to a run on uv lights or because it's advertised as a low ozone model but it really isn't.

I've been using it in a shower that doesn't have good airflow.

Amazon product ASIN B07DMXT7VB

 

[St. Geezy]

Can you expand on this part I underlined? Because I assumed it implied one thing but I am not actually sure so better to just ask.

I wholeheartedly agree that now is the time for that planning and laying the groundwork, and to be fair, a lot of that has been going on, albeit not very well at the most important level, even if the guidelines the fed offered are in fact pretty damn good. Since they are getting undercut by lack of enforcement, follow through, or contradictory actions.

But to me, if you are weighing economic concerns heavily, which you seem to be doing, nothing is going to be stronger for long-term economic health that maximally flattening the curve and not proceeding until a sufficient testing and tracing system can be implemented. What really concerns me is half asking this and then being stuck in this cycle of constantly ebbing and flowing economic activity becuase the structural elelements needed fail to get implemented adequately and we slog along far longer than the countries that arent being so reckless opening things back up.

What I am implying there is that places are opening too soon, given the circumstances, and are doing so in not careful enough ways, and the messaging behind it is being conveyed by leadership in a manner that does not stress or put enough emphasis on the fact that this is still a major threat and should be treated as such. Georgia opened up businesses this week, Florida opened up beaches this week - that is far too early, not enough emphasis was placed on the risks associated with it, not enough thought was put into policies or structure into what that should look like for businesses and citizens, and that has resulted in scenes like this:

 

[travelingsaintsfan]

Here in South Alabama I saw more traffic today than I have in weeks. I had to head to CVS (Foley) to get my prescriptions. On Hwy 59 & 98 there were a lot of boats heading out. The public beaches are still closed, but the waterways around Perdido Bay are not. I don't know where everyone else was going to.

 

[N.O.Bronco]

Here in South Alabama I saw more traffic today than I have in weeks. I had to head to CVS to get my prescriptions. On Hwy 59 & 98 there was a lot of boats heading out. The public beaches are still closed, but the waterways around Perdido Bay are not. I don't know where everyone was going to.

Quarantine fatigue is real and it impresses all the more the importance of getting a testing and tracing system in place.

Its not a panacea, but it would be nice to be able to trace the path backwards in a couple weeks when some of these rulebreakers inevitably show up sick and we want to identify who they may have come into contact with and need to be monitored/quarantined more diligently.

 

[Goatman Saint]

Great point. Forgot about that.

Oh heck it was like Black Friday around here easter weekend. Last 3-4 days we have set record new cases a day.

 

[travelingsaintsfan]

Quarantine fatigue is real and it impresses all the more the importance of getting a testing and tracing system in place.

Its not a panacea, but it would be nice to be able to trace the path backwards in a couple weeks when some of these rulebreakers inevitably show up sick and we want to identify who they may have come into contact with and need to be monitored/quarantined more diligently.

I would expect that the fact that Baldwin County has had only 142 positive tests and 3 deaths has something to do with people wanting to get out. But neighboring Mobile county has had 863 positive test and 40 deaths. The concern I have is the residents of the worse counties head to the better ones to get out and about.

 

[Dan in Lafayette]

 

[nolaswede]

NOLA still on track to have zero new cases by May 1. Just 11 new cases yesterday.

Yes, wasn’t sure if it is the ”weekend ”reporting or not, but 11 cases in Orleans parish and 22 in Jefferson is a step in the right direction.

Think Orleans has averaged around 40/day in the last couple of days.

 

[St. Widge]

Yes, wasn’t sure if it is the ”weekend ”reporting or not, but 11 cases in Orleans parish and 22 in Jefferson is a step in the right direction.

Think Orleans has averaged around 40/day in the last couple of days.

Yeah, I'm not sure what is going on with the testing in Orleans. It looks like the shut down the drive-thru out at Lakefront Arena and moved it to a walk-up by Xavier. And, of course, testing at hospitals. I just wonder if the number of cases is now lower because people don't want to go to hospitals to be tested or stand outside waiting in line?

Maybe it just that there actually are fewer cases, but I wonder how much how much may just be that fewer tests are being give? I guess we would know if we knew how many tests were being given.

 

[saintmdterps]

Got the results back for our tests. My wife got a positive, but when they ran it a 2nd time as required for a positive, it was negative/inconclusive which means there was not enough mucus. Her PCP is treating the results as a positive and Abby is on quarantine for 14 days. She feels like crap and the isolation from the rest of us does not help. All we can do is be supportive.

I'm negative for the antibodies, and am still asymptomatic. The kids are fine.

I hope you all and your families are well. Peace to all, and thank you for your support.

 

[Dago]

I appreciate your response, I really do but I will NEVER take an approach where the economy, no matter how terrible is worth more than the lives of people. It is ENTIRELY too dismissive. To say...

...is reprehensible to me. It's easy to say and only so when you think it won't be YOU or YOUR loved ones in that small percentage. It's like the people who say, the world is overpopulated and needs a culling, but NEVER think they should be in that group that is culled. If you were to ask me, would you take a 10 depression but your family survives or you lose your mother, father, brother, son, daughter, cousins and the economy is great, I WOULD TAKE MY FAMILY AND FRIENDS LIVING EVERY TIME. We can recover from the economic hardship. I can't recover from the death of my loved ones ESPECIALLY if it could have been prevented.

I am not attacking you, I wanna be clear on my tone. I guess this is just a philosophical issue. I will always choose lives over money. I know that may sound overly simplistic but I can't in good conscience take the other route, it's a dangerous and slippery slope.

Thats only if you assume that being in a depression wont result in a loss of life

Being in a massive depression will result in a large loss of life between crime, suicide, and a degeneration of the health care system. I am not prepared to compare which is worse, but it is naive to think that there wont be a huge loss of life resulting from a depression

 

[St. Geezy]

Can you expand on this part I underlined? Because I assumed it implied one thing but I am not actually sure so better to just ask.

I wholeheartedly agree that now is the time for that planning and laying the groundwork, and to be fair, a lot of that has been going on, albeit not very well at the most important level, even if the guidelines the fed offered are in fact pretty damn good. Since they are getting undercut by lack of enforcement, follow through, or contradictory actions.

But to me, if you are weighing economic concerns heavily, which you seem to be doing, nothing is going to be stronger for long-term economic health that maximally flattening the curve and not proceeding until a sufficient testing and tracing system can be implemented. What really concerns me is half asking this and then being stuck in this cycle of constantly ebbing and flowing economic activity becuase the structural elelements needed fail to get implemented adequately and we slog along far longer than the countries that arent being so reckless opening things back up.

What I am implying there is that places are opening too soon, given the circumstances, and are doing so in not careful enough ways, and the messaging behind it is being conveyed by leadership in a manner that does not stress or put enough emphasis on the fact that this is still a major threat and should be treated as such. Georgia opened up businesses this week, Florida opened up beaches this week - that is far too early, not enough emphasis was placed on the risks associated with it, not enough thought was put into policies or structure into what that should look like for businesses and citizens, and that has resulted in scenes like this:

To follow-up on my last post....

Coach Payton just said what I am thinking so eloquently and in terms I think we can all understand:

"The last couple of weeks, I feel like we have a 10-point lead in the third quarter, and some of us are talking about taking our starters out of the game. That's literally the biggest mistake you can make."

 

[Eeyore]

Illinois doesn't seem to be slowing down.

2118 new cases

80 new deaths

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I read this last night and wanted to take my time before responding to collect my thoughts. I prefer to keep my life private, but for some background, I work in a business sector that is very reliant on things re-opening sooner rather than later, like many business sectors, and I work in a position where thinking of ways to safely re-open our business and society on a mass scale is one of the top things on my plate right now personally, so a lot of this comes from that mode of thought I have been in for the past few weeks already...

I subscribe to most of the same line of thinking you have as far as the severity of the situation. Throughout this entire thread actually, I have maintained more of a "this is a big deal," almost "fear-mongering" tone admittedly, in terms of the virus crisis itself and how quickly it can and did blow up, as well as literally predicting that New York would become the epicenter of this crisis based on my knowledge of the city after being there probably 6 or 7 times over the past year and a half or so, well before it got to the levels it has. I am/was firmly on the left when it comes to this whole thing. However over the past couple of weeks or so, I am beginning to find myself more down the middle and slightly to the right, and though I don't agree with him on virtually anything, I do agree with the concept Donald conveys in that "The cure cannot be worse than the problem."

We have a real problem on our hands here. This virus is clearly a killer, and is wiping out tens of thousands of people around the globe daily, and thousands in our country daily. But with that said, there is the other end of the spectrum. The country cannot afford a full, year long shutdown/quarantine, under any circumstance. It sounds easy, especially for those, like me, who are fortunate enough to be able to do their jobs from home just as if not more effectively as they do from an office and make the same amount of money doing it, but there are so many people out there who are gaining no income whatsoever, and the bills and needs are not stopping. It is not realistic to think that our nation can afford to live like this for over a year, nor is it realistic to think that our federal government can realistically afford to supplement everyone's income for an entire 12+ months until a vaccine is figured out, approved, and distributed, not just within our own country, but around the globe. It just flat-out can't happen, and if it goes on for more than another 30 days or so, society will begin to turn upside down - crime, riots, poverty, depression, suicide. It has already started to manifest itself in the form of peaceful protests, but that is going to increase in severity and tact more and more as each week passes.

So with all that said, I do think we absolutely must open, or else we will face a crisis similar to that of the 1930's Great Depression, that could span over a decade, and have lasting ramifications on families and individuals that go far beyond the negative impact of the death of a small percentage of society, which is significant in itself mind you, and I want to make that very clear. The solution, for me, is not to just blindly open and let everyone run wild, but instead, have a measured opening, even more measured than the one laid out to us, and a measured opening that does not let people think things are okay in any way whatsoever - which I think is happening right now to a degree, unfortunately. So what does that mean and how does that look?

- To start, the government and business sectors need to not only be looking at essential vs. non-essential business, or essential vs. non-essential employees, but they also need to be evaluating "essential to report to a building everyday employees versus non-essential to report to a building everyday employees." If you own a business or are a part of a job sector that has learned over the past month that it can still function just fine with its employees at home, continue to do so. If you are a business that relies on employees being in the building but can survive with only some in the building and some at home, do so.

- If you are a business, such as a barbershop or nail salon or convenience store, create policies that prohibit more than a certain number of people within your establishment at a time, and create policies that require staff members and clients to use hand-sanitizer frequently, wear masks, and establish required Lysol and disinfecting practices throughout the day.

- If you are a restaurant, have takeout continue to be your primary mode of operation, and allow a very minimal amount of people within your establishment for serving, and change how you deploy your servers and wait staff so that they're only handling one or two tables at a time, and encourage customers to tip better. If you are a restaurant that has primarily ALWAYS been an 80% takeout place but you keep a few tables for customer convenience if they want to hang out, get rid of your tables; no need for the added risk.

- If you are a supermarket, once people are more free to roam and more are needed to come into your store, only allow a certain number of patrons into your establishment at a time, increase hand-sanitizer stations throughout the floor, and re-deploy personnel to assist with enforcement of social distancing measures between the aisles, etc.

- If you are a city government, and in charge of a leisure building or place that is non-revenue generating but also promotes people congregating, such as a park or a gym, continue to keep it closed.

- If you are a sports league that does not generate revenue of any sort - namely children's sports leagues, park leagues, middle school teams, adult intramural leagues, junior varsity teams, etc. - sacrifice it for a year. The kids will be just fine, and you will be just fine, and this takes another unnecessary risk off of the table.

- If you are a school system, figure out how to decrease your class sizes by coming up with a plan for a part-time school year or partial school year, where maybe students go in for a half-day on rotation or half the kids go to school one week, then the other half goes the following week. Or maybe half the kids spend the day in the classroom while the others are doing some other indoor or outdoor educational activity, then you flip-mid day. Sharper minds can figure that all out for their own school districts, but that is the line of thinking to begin taking.

- If you are a business that needs to put people in harms way health-wise, identify staff members that are in the high risk population and come up with a plan to minimize their need to be in the workplace or create a new work function to accommodate them, or, flat-out help subsidize them.

- Encourage families with kids to re-evaluate their ability to become a single-income household so that one of the parents is at home with their kids in quarantine.

....and I can go on and on so I'll end there with the bullet points.

The bottom line is, what we are doing right now has made an impact, but the obsession with the "curve-flattening" has led to some taking that term as the end-goal, and many will begin trying to live how we used to live because of that. Business leaders, local government leaders, and obviously even the freaking President of the Unites States are falling into that trap, and it will lead to this whole thing flaring up again, and quickly. As we have seen many times right now in literally thousands of countries, cities, states, and provinces...if you have a few cases still out there, it is inevitable for it to flare up and explode. But once again, at the same time, we also cannot afford as a global economy to shut down society to the point we have been for the past month or so until a vaccine comes out, because it'll create unrecoverable chaos and other lasting ramifications.

The story would be much different if this was a pandemic killing 50% of the population, but it isn't and is "only" killing a very minute percentage of the population; albeit in totality that is a massive and unacceptable number, however it is not a number that should result in many of our businesses never recovering and many of our citizens that would be just fine if they got it going into an unrecoverable poverty.

We must open, but we must open in a smart manner.

My apologies to the TL; DR crowd, as well as to those that have lost a loved one and are viewing this from a much different and more emotional perspective.

well written/well stated
but i have 2 initial concerns
- if we follow this approach (trying to get back to normalish asap) we really have not adapted to anything (like, if the second wave hits in the Fall, we're potentially just as unprepared then)
- the economy (and education and healthcare and other socio/cultural structures) is DEEPLY flawed for manymanymany people

there is no reason to not take the time to address the inequities to make it better for more people

 

[AARPSaint]

Illinois doesn't seem to be slowing down.

2118 new cases

80 new deaths

Yes, Illinois has surpassed Pennsylvania, which is getting ready to open up very gradually with construction returning on May 1. Some regions of PA have very few cases, but the Phila. area where I am is bad. It's not hard to imagine that construction jobs will have to redo projects that couldn't be buttoned up when they were closed down.