COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (8 Viewers)

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Yes, and also being outside more readily dilutes the virus particles after each breath, especially if it is windy. Indoors, we are all breathing contained air, so the chances of breathing in virus from someone elses exhale or sneeze is higher. And in cooler temps with windows closed, that makes it even easier to catch it.

Obviously it is still possible to catch it if outdoors, but I think the chances are lower.
I'm not trying to argue, so I hope my tone is coming across correctly but that just makes things slanted more in your favor and maybe only SLIGHTLY so; but not safe. You understand? That's like saying sharks attack mainly at dusk and nightfall, so I figure going swimming in the daytime will make it safe.

While it may make it safER, it doesn't make it safe. This will sound gross but if you were ever able to smell someone's fart from more than 6 feet away in an outdoor area, you know that particles travel. Or heck, even someone's cologne/perfume/food/body scent. That's only stuff you CAN smell. Imagine how much you're inhaling of what you can't smell.
 
What is your solution - stay holed up forever? If I lived in a heavily populated area I would probably stayed holed up. In the rural areas the virus is not that bad. If people are afraid to go to work or go out and about stay home. The county I live in only has 222 positive cases and 5 deaths.

I did not say that. What I said is that people are refusing to wear their masks and refusing to social distance and acting like everything is normal now and that is going to put us right back into the same position we were in late-March. Any opening needs to be slow, deliberate, and based on science. People need to be overly careful. But, that is never going to happen because people are selfish and will pick and choose what they want to do based on how inconvenient it is to them.

It's great that your area is doing good. My area, a large urban area, is also doing great as well. But, if you or I think that means that we will be fine if we just go back to normal, we are being naive. If we go back to normal, sooner or later (more likely much sooner) it will get to our areas again (probably worse than the first time).

I'm guessing your area hasn't locked down the borders and stopped other people from entering and my area hasn't done that either. The difference this time is that we will be starting with tens of thousands or more cases to start instead of just a few like the first time. That means it will spread much faster. Also, I don't know how many people live in the area that you have chosen to define as "your area" so I'm not sure if 222 cases and 5 deaths is a small number or not. It really depends how you have decided to self-identify your area and how many people are in that area.

But, let me ask you, how many people do you think need to die before we hole up again? What percentage of the people in your area need to die for you to think your area should stay at home again?

As far as the claim that "If people are afraid to go to work or go out and about stay home", as I have already said, some people will have to return to work when their employer opens up so that's not an option for most people. So it's not practical on that level and because people need to buy food, medicine, and other necessities that require them to go out.

And it doesn't make any sense in the context of society. It's like saying "if you are afraid of getting murdered by a drug dealer, you should just stay home." We have many laws made to stop people from doing dumb and/or willful things that harm others. Why is this any different?

And, as far as my "solution", it's somewhere between acting like everything is normal and doing whatever feels good to us, and staying in lock down. But it would involve massive testing, everyone wearing a mask, everyone social distancing with limits on the numbers of people allowed in buildings, and people who can work from home working from home. But, I haven't really spent much time developing a precise plan since it's not my job and I don't really have the qualifications to do so. But, what I do know is that the consensus of those who do know what they are doing and who do that kind of things for a living, is that going back to life as normal right now is a really bad idea.
 
@sammymvpknight take a look.

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This goes to their Taskforce report. Probably worth a good read.


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I read the document...and it is close to 100% reasonable and just about exactly what I would do if I was creating a plan for reopening. There was a small spike a few days ago (nothing bad....just a blip) in Duval but since then the trends have continued to be good. At this point, unless the stats are missing something, I cannot see a reason to not continue to re-open as outlined. The one data point that I'd like to see that I cannot find is ICU/ventilator utilization. How close to capacity are we? Is there a bottleneck regarding either staffing or supplies? But if that checks out...I'd say that this has been a huge success locally...well, about as much success as you can claim in a tragedy like this.
 
Protest to open the gyms in Florida - by showing that you can actually workout outside of the gym. 😂



BLAHAHA. This is too funny. Who needs a gym when you have fresh air and UV rays?

What's even funnier is that Florida will likely be entering phase 2 any day now...and the gyms will open to 75% capacity...and these idiots will think it was because of their efforts.
 
I did not say that. What I said is that people are refusing to wear their masks and refusing to social distance and acting like everything is normal now and that is going to put us right back into the same position we were in late-March. Any opening needs to be slow, deliberate, and based on science. People need to be overly careful. But, that is never going to happen because people are selfish and will pick and choose what they want to do based on how inconvenient it is to them.

It's great that your area is doing good. My area, a large urban area, is also doing great as well. But, if you or I think that means that we will be fine if we just go back to normal, we are being naive. If we go back to normal, sooner or later (more likely much sooner) it will get to our areas again (probably worse than the first time).

I'm guessing your area hasn't locked down the borders and stopped other people from entering and my area hasn't done that either. The difference this time is that we will be starting with tens of thousands or more cases to start instead of just a few like the first time. That means it will spread much faster. Also, I don't know how many people live in the area that you have chosen to define as "your area" so I'm not sure if 222 cases and 5 deaths is a small number or not. It really depends how you have decided to self-identify your area and how many people are in that area.

But, let me ask you, how many people do you think need to die before we hole up again? What percentage of the people in your area need to die for you to think your area should stay at home again?

As far as the claim that "If people are afraid to go to work or go out and about stay home", as I have already said, some people will have to return to work when their employer opens up so that's not an option for most people. So it's not practical on that level and because people need to buy food, medicine, and other necessities that require them to go out.

And it doesn't make any sense in the context of society. It's like saying "if you are afraid of getting murdered by a drug dealer, you should just stay home." We have many laws made to stop people from doing dumb and/or willful things that harm others. Why is this any different?

And, as far as my "solution", it's somewhere between acting like everything is normal and doing whatever feels good to us, and staying in lock down. But it would involve massive testing, everyone wearing a mask, everyone social distancing with limits on the numbers of people allowed in buildings, and people who can work from home working from home. But, I haven't really spent much time developing a precise plan since it's not my job and I don't really have the qualifications to do so. But, what I do know is that the consensus of those who do know what they are doing and who do that kind of things for a living, is that going back to life as normal right now is a really bad idea.

I'm pretty sure that the idiots are accounted for. A good plan would not be based on a best case scenario. A good plan would be to assume that 25-33% of the population are complete idiots and will do the exact opposite of what is asked of them. For instance...the beaches opened here in Florida...we're still doing fine. Restaurants are starting to open...we are still doing fine. Fewer people are wearing their masks...we are still doing just fine. The reason is because there is enough people who are going to continue to do the right thing, and each phase of re-opening is very deliberate (most place in the country) and the strategy won't allow the idiots to win.
 
Just as a reminder...in Battlestar Galactica, the top 14 died on Caprica, resulting in the Secretary of Education becoming President. The result wasn't so bad.
But in our reality we have Betsy DeVoss.

 
I'm pretty sure that the idiots are accounted for. A good plan would not be based on a best case scenario. A good plan would be to assume that 25-33% of the population are complete idiots and will do the exact opposite of what is asked of them. For instance...the beaches opened here in Florida...we're still doing fine. Restaurants are starting to open...we are still doing fine. Fewer people are wearing their masks...we are still doing just fine. The reason is because there is enough people who are going to continue to do the right thing, and each phase of re-opening is very deliberate (most place in the country) and the strategy won't allow the idiots to win.

I hope you are right that the idiots are accounted for and that it will continue that way. But I fear that within a week or two many more than 25 to 33% will be ignoring all the sensible rules. And I'm not sure that in most places that is being taken into account at all. I mean, anecdotally, where I buy groceries only maybe 70% were wearing masks at the height of this and maybe only 25% actually cared about staying 6 feet apart. Some places seem to just be throwing all the doors open immediately. Florida, despite the initial reluctance appears to be actually doing this sensibly at this point. Not sure that will be true elsewhere.

I mean if the stuff posted all over the internet is wide spread, and maybe it isn't, people are already just acting like it's normal. Even the airlines appear to be packing planes full with the only protection being masks.
 

There was a terrible case in my elementary school either in 87 or 88.

The 70 people getting sick at the Wisconsin rally is concerning. My hope has always been that you're fairly safe outdoors, even around other people. That notion would open up quite a few family activities during all of this. But alas..

The real question is how many people get deathly ill and of those people, are there underlying conditions and traits that allow us to predict who is most vulnerable. I believe we have more to learn but we mostly have that information available. Those people should not attend large gatherings like this.

The first problem with this is that people who don't want to put themselves at risk for medical or any other reasons won't be able to stay in because once their job opens most don't have a choice but to go back and put themselves at risk.

Second, people are already going out and many, if not most, are not being in any way responsible. you yourself are even deciding when you want to wear a mask and when you don't.

Third, the problem with a virus is that in order to stop it, it has to be a blanket decision. Doing it piece meal only means that you are constantly running around putting out fires in different areas as the virus moves from one place that is locked down, to the places that are not locked down. Unless the areas that are not locked down close the borders of their parish/county to all outsiders, the virus will spread there as well. Letting people make the decision for themselves is the same as doing nothing.

We don't let people decide if they should speed, run red lights, steal, assault, kill, etc. Why would we let people individually decide if they are going to spread a deadly disease?

Finally, part of the point was to stop hospitals from getting overwhelmed, and we are at that point right now in some places. But, if people continue to be irresponsible and open the way they have been, then we will be back at that risk point very quickly again. Except this time, it will be nearly impossible to get people to stay at home again and if they do it will be even worse for the economy than if we had stayed in lock down longer. And, a bunch more people are going to die.

1. I think we should aggressively support those who are diagnosed with conditions that put them at higher risk. If you are otherwise healthy and still do not want to work go to work, no one will be forced to do so. Someone else may take your job. It's a crumby problem to have but forcing everyone else to stay home indefinitely is not a just solution to it.

2. You are correct. I witness it every day. So unless we want a police state rounding up people to take them to jail (only to be released because jails aren't exactly good for the spread of the virus either), then we need to work with what we've got.

3. You're not going to 'stop' this virus. It's here and we need to make our peace with that. If we knew there were a vaccine coming in two months, this would be a different conversation. But there's no promise of one coming at all, much less one being produced soon. The lock down was only supposed to flatten the curve so as to enable our medical infrastructure to get in front of it and not be overwhelmed. That has largely happened in the hardest hit areas, particularly in New Orleans where nurses are getting laid off. If we don't open up soon, the hospitals will run out of the resources we need to respond effectively in the first place.

4. People are going to die. We can make reasonable accommodations to support and protect those most vulnerable without ruining lives and livelihoods for generations to come.

I'd like to share an article I read in the Atlantic yesterday. I think it does a good job of expressing concerns I've had with our current approach. By shifting our goals from facilitating the medical response to keeping everyone safe, I feel we've painted ourselves into a logical corner from which we cannot escape. It's quite possible that the 'new normal' isn't sheltering in place but learning to live with new risks that are no one's fault.

 
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Here's a decent summary article on exposure...we've obviously seen/read a lot about this already, but she nicely pulls a bunch of info together in one article...IMO

 
There was a terrible case in my elementary school either in 87 or 88.



The real question is how many people get deathly ill and of those people, are there underlying conditions and traits that allow us to predict who is most vulnerable. I believe we have more to learn but we mostly have that information available. Those people should not attend large gatherings like this.



1. I think we should aggressively support those who are diagnosed with conditions that put them at higher risk. If you are otherwise healthy and still do not want to work go to work, no one will be forced to do so. Someone else may take your job. It's a crumby problem to have but forcing everyone else to stay home indefinitely is not a just solution to it.

2. You are correct. I witness it every day. So unless we want a police state rounding up people to take them to jail (only to be released because jails aren't exactly good for the spread of the virus either), then we need to work with what we've got.

3. You're not going to 'stop' this virus. It's here and we need to make our peace with that. If we knew there were a vaccine coming in two months, this would be a different conversation. But there's no promise of one coming at all, much less one being produced soon. The lock down was only supposed to flatten the curve so as to enable our medical infrastructure to get in front of it and not be overwhelmed. That has largely happened in the hardest hit areas, particularly in New Orleans where nurses are getting laid off. If we don't open up soon, the hospitals will run out of the resources we need to respond effectively in the first place.

4. People are going to die. We can make reasonable accommodations to support and protect those most vulnerable without ruining lives and livelihoods for generations to come.

I'd like to share an article I read in the Atlantic yesterday. I think it does a good job of expressing concerns I've had with our current approach. By shifting our goals from facilitating the medical response to keeping everyone safe, I feel we've painted ourselves into a logical corner from which we cannot escape. It's quite possible that the 'new normal' isn't sheltering in place but learning to live with new risks that is no one's fault.


As I have said before, I don't disagree that we don't need to stay in the level of lock down that we are in now. You are right that the virus can't be stopped without a vaccine. At the same point, I think given the number of people that are acting like everything is normal even before the Stay at Home Order is lifted does not bode well for the future. It seems to me that the likely result is that we will end up with a healthcare system at risk again in less than a month. Of course, I hope I'm wrong.

Also, I get that at some point we need to live with increased risk. But at the same point, some people are going to have to get used to the fact that some things need to be done to decease that risk to an acceptable level and that certain activities like Festivals, concerts, packed restaurants, large sporting events with fans, etc. are just too risky to go forward with at this point. I mean yes, we need to do what we can to make sure as many people as possible can make a living, but in the same way that we have to balance the number of deaths that are acceptable to allow people to make a living, we also have to balance how people choose to make a living with the number of deaths it will cause.
 
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