DawgTalkers.net Forums DawgTalk Everything Else... Groundhog Day: COVID-19

With all of these states easing restrictions now, we are going to find out how well it is or isn't working.

Yes, that's them, and actually, it is working. They estimate that Stockholm will have herd immunity by mid-May, if I'm recalling correctly.

Yes, their death rate is higher, but they admit that they didn't explicitly make it a priority to protect their elderly and nursing home residents.



With that modification, they are actually a pretty solid model to emulate.
We'll find out soon enough if we can pull it off here. If people just stay disciplined with their masks, hand washing, and distancing, that should be the only measures we need.

It's a solid model to kill off a large percentage of the elderly?

I can't endorse that.

A lot of people who come off of covid end up with lung damage of some sort, too. They may survive but their quality of life is going to end up quite poor.

I had read an article earlier that said that they don't yet have widespread testing for the virus, and/or antibodies, in Sweden, so they really don't know if it's working or not. All they know is that their death rate is some 10-11% higher than other countries using stay at home.

so this is bad news for people in NW PA ... we never get sunlight

We have the worlds best ciphering mind working on that

Meanwhile in Ohio...

My wife and I missed seeing our grandkids at Christmas because we both had severe cases of influenza A. It hit me so hard that I was hospitalized twice and had to be sent home on oxygen and steroids to recover. Recovery was slow, I wasn't feeling like myself and able to go off the oxygen until mid February. By the time I felt good enough to have company or to travel to see family, we had about a 10 day window until covid-19 became a thing and distancing became our new norm. We missed seeing the grandkids during that window, so we have been piling up Christmas and birthday presents.

Fast forward to yesterday, Saturday May 2nd. We decided to take a small road trip and go see our kids and grandkids that live just a little over an hour away, as well as stops to see my mother and brother. We loaded the overdue gifts and called ahead to plan driveway visits so we could maintain our social distancing but finally get to see them even if only for abbreviated visits.

The day went well and we were feeling good about the visits. It was great to see all of them and we were able to do so while maintaining social distancing because I am high risk, and everyone understood so we had no issues. On the way home my wife asked me to go the back way that takes us through the country and several small towns including Circleville Ohio.

During our final visit, we missed seeing my son-in-law because he and some friends were taking part in a motorcycle ride for Vets or something that we didn't fully grasp at the time my daughter relayed the info to us. And as we headed out for home we kept seeing groups of bikers everywhere. They were in numbers at every gas station, in parking lots, and gravel pull off areas along the road as well as in many many large groups traveling the road. We passed hundreds and hundreds before we started questioning what was going on beyond it being a nice day to ride.

We couldn't get over how many bikes were out and all these groups gathered in lots and along the road, few if any wearing mask or social distancing and I began to wonder if it was some kind of protest, trump having the backing of bikers and all... About the time I expressed that thought my wife cut me off and reminded me that my son-in-law was on some kind of vet ride and maybe all this was part of it. So we just took in the scenes as we passed, mostly in disbelief after weeks in 'stay home' mode and knowing death tolls are still rising while we are being pushed to reopen the economy.

As we got close to the edge of Circleville, traffic slowed to almost a stand still and after passing what I surmised to be at least a thousand bikers at this point, it seemed that their numbers and density were just growing more and more. We wondered if this was causing the slow down in traffic when I remembered that on Friday night I had seen some FB posts with videos of circleville group holding a citywide cruise, like a cruise-in but actually just people driving around town on a certain path of streets like a parade of cars. Vintage and modern cars and trucks came out in great support to help raise food donations for local pantries, a good cause. We wondered if this was a whole weekend thing and the cause of the slow traffic.

This route through old downtown Circleville which normally would take about ten minutes to traverse, became a forty five minute bumper to bumper ordeal! We must have passed another thousand bikes with a large spattering of vintage cars, old and new hotrods, and plenty of spectators. Every lot and parking space on the stretch was full of bikes, cars, and people in large groups. Ten foot wide sidewalks were mostly full of people standing outside of open bars and restaurants serving takeout. Some shops had sidewalk sales set up and under normal circumstances this would have just looked like everybody having a good time. It was reminiscent of a Sturgis Rally/Spring Break scene, or as close to that as you could muster in small town Ohio.

The root of our disbelief and shock was that nobody, and I mean nobody, seemed to be social distancing or even taking the slightest precautions for preventing the spread of COVID-19. There were NO MASK in sight other than our own. I had to stop at a medium sized convenience station to get gas and grab a couple of cold drinks. Out of the 50 or so standing in the lot or in the store, I was the only person wearing a mask. This was before we got to Circleville. There, I wouldn't have even stopped because there were just too many people.

After getting home and looking on FB, I found out that the bikers had all come out for a "Final Ride" with a veteran that is dying in late stage cancer. Over 10,000 bikers took part in this tribute and yes it was a touchingly great cause just like the cruise for food was... BUT I am more than a little concerned that people will die for their participation and expect a large uptick in new COVID cases over the next few weeks now. If this is what 'reopening' looks like the weekend before it starts, I dread what I think is going to happen in Ohio.

I'm not sure if I witnessed the lack of common sense enmasse, the great but stupid balls of defiance, or people who genuinely did not feel there is a threat from COVID due to partisan leadership and misinformation... But to me, it was scary, very scary. And I hope nobody loses their lives over it.

Meanwhile, I think I'll be back in stay home mode for the foreseeable future to see how this thing plays out. My wife's company back peddled on Thursday extending her work from home status until the 18th. We are well stocked and can easily stay secluded with minimal exposure until then. Good luck to everybody that has to go back into this 'economy' at this point. I think you are going to need it from what I saw yesterday.

Us bikers where everywhere yesterday and I saw a lot of what you did. Many bikers at the gas stations were not social distancing

I needed to go and get some lawn care products and wanted to stop at an Amish market on the way home just south of Boardman.
Went to an Ace Hardware that was pretty busy for a Saturday at noon, got my stuff and was standing in line in my favorite Browns mask my wife made me.
I was looking around and I would guess that everyone over 45-50 had a mask on except one overweight fellow using a cane. Only a couple young ladies under the age of 45 had a mask on-none of the guys did.

And then the lady in checkout in front of me asks one of the 3 workers behind an 8 foot checkout why they are not wearing masks-the one kid goes to explain to her that they are a pain to wear and keep sliding down, you can't wear one all day so they asked their boss if they can go without and he said sure-don't need to wear one-so none of the 6-7 I saw working were wearing a mask, gloves, nothing

Seems like the protest groups for re-opening are listing names of businesses that require customers to wear masks to boycott. Good I wouldn't want the stupid asses to shop where I shop.
And then there is this:



City's proclamation requiring face masks in stores and restaurants is amended after threats of violence
Hollie Silverman
By Leah Asmelash and Hollie Silverman, CNN

Updated 8:25 AM ET, Sun May 3, 2020
CDC recommends everyone voluntarily wear a mask in public



(CNN)An emergency proclamation issued Thursday in Stillwater, Oklahoma, requiring the use of face masks in stores and restaurants was amended Friday after threats of violence.

"In the short time beginning on May 1, 2020, that face coverings have been required for entry into stores/restaurants, store employees have been threatened with physical violence and showered with verbal abuse," Stillwater City Manager Norman McNickle said in a statement.
"In addition, there has been one threat of violence using a firearm. This has occurred in three short hours and in the face of clear medical evidence that face coverings helps contain the spread of Covid-19."
Due to the threats of violence the city has decided to amend their emergency order but still want people to wear face masks whenever possible, the statement said.


The proclamation issued Thursday required, among other things, businesses to require patrons to cover their faces to combat the spread of coronavirus.
But on Friday, Mayor Will Joyce softened the rule to encourage, not require, face coverings, after several reports emerged of employees being verbally abused and being threatened with physical violence while trying to enforce the order -- all in just three hours of the rule going into effect.
"Many of those with objections cite the mistaken belief the requirement is unconstitutional, and under their theory, one cannot be forced to wear a mask. No law or court supports this view," said City Manager Norman McNickle in a statement. "It is further distressing that these people, while exercising their believed rights, put others at risk."

McNickle went on to explain the importance of face coverings in preventing the spread of coronavirus. The masks have been recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Oklahoma State Department of Health.
"It is unfortunate and distressing that those who refuse and threaten violence are so self-absorbed as to not follow what is a simple show of respect and kindness to others," he said.
Still, the city is changing the rule, as officials "cannot, in clear conscience, put our local business community in harm's way, nor can the police be everywhere," McNickle said.
Since April 3, the CDC has recommended that Americans should wear "cloth coverings" in public places.

The updated guidance was in light of new evidence that many people were spreading the virus asymptomatically -- meaning that even people not exhibiting symptoms were spreading it by coughing, sneezing or even simply talking in close proximity.
"The idea about the face mask is to prevent the virus from coming out of somebody's mouth and nose, mostly out of their mouth," said Dr. Joseph Vinetz, a professor in the infectious disease section at Yale School of Medicine, to CNN in April. "They prevent somebody, when they talk or sometimes when they sneeze or cough, from expelling virus and leading to infection in other people."
Masks, however, are not a substitute for social distancing, which is still required to slow the spread of the virus.

jc


IM SO FREAKING BORED OMG

x1000

Just in time for flu season. I get a shot every year and told the wife she best do the same this year for once.

It feels like more people are out and about than before the virus. Try to go anywhere and there is more traffic. Especially on the weekend.

I'm not seeing that around here. Streets are empty of vehicles for the most part. All day.

Yeah I live near Emerald Isle, NC and there is little to no sign of stay at home. Yesterday the traffic going over the intracoastal was about as normal a day as I've seen. This, despite a lighted highway sign telling people to stay home was lit before crossing the bridge. It was hilarious. I went to the store, did my shopping and went back home. And there was still a steady stream of traffic.

They have a comparable population to Ohio, and have been testing essentially the same amount as Ohio. They have slightly higher cases, but a lot more deaths. The majority of their extra deaths is because they failed to protect their elderly and they say they would do that part differently if they could.

No, it's a solid model all-around, except it needs to be modified to protect the elderly and the at-risk.

There's only one way to exit this: we have to go through it. They've shown conclusively that we not only CAN, but SHOULD go through it.
Yes, a small percentage of the small percentage that gets hospitalized end up with permanent damage. That's not even enough to keep a drug from getting FDA approval, it absolutely shouldn't be considered enough to keep the world shut down. Make no mistake... this thing IS bad, but it ain't THAT bad.

We took the correct and safe route and shut down. It is better to do too much than to little. Now, it's time to block out the media and their sensationalism and recognize that we overshot and we can pull back a bit, now.

Hell, Sweden *should* have its hospitals swamped and overwhelmed.... but they don't. Since that is the ONLY reason we shut down like we did, it is time to correct that.

Dr. Fauchi, Dr Acton, and numerous other medical professionals disagree with your assessment.

WHO doesn't.

And besides that, I cannot fathom anyone taking an honest look at what Sweden is doing and their results and finding fault or illogical reasoning. So, if Fauci disagrees, I question his logic and reasoning.

The data doesn't lie. Their path is a good one.

I am a subcontractor,which is to say,I whore myself out to the highest bidder.
Right now the highest bidder is in dire straits.They go under,I might also.My work has been sporadic,but it is starting to pick up,and the reason is quite ironic,porn.
As you know,the internet pipes are not finite,only so much traffic can flow.With everyone at home the demand is exceeding the capability.
The smart companies are moving video on demand away from the core,that's where I come in.Installing servers in more remote locations frees up alot of bandwidth,allowing essential services to operate more efficiently.And in a strange twist of fate,most of the components of these servers come from China,which was in lockdown,delaying deployment.
My industry has been in a weird catch-22,everyone knows how to fix the problem,but only the largest companies have the muscle to get the equip.needed to do so.
With the generous Gov't handouts,70% of the installers are sitting at home on their asses getting fat.
My family has always believed in sacrifice and volunteering,these times are no different.Someone has to do it and I will be that person.

My wife met the author of this book this past week. He's mid 60's, ran the Russian biological weapons program before he defected to the USA, .....

He gave her a copy of this book. Put 3 chapters to rest today. 3 more tomorrow, etc.

After 3 chapters today.....hooked.

Anyone read it?

https://www.amazon.com/Biohazard-Chillin...zard&sr=8-2

The two scenes that prompted Gov. DeWine's comments on the protesters....

I can't even.

We truly are living in an Idiocracy.

That's a nice way of putting it. The police should crack down on 'these' people.

j/c...

They discontinued the stay at home order. I went for a drive a bit ago and the traffic here on local roads was just nuts.

https://www.msn.com/en-in/news/opinion/s...ext/ar-BB13yY8A

She Predicted the Coronavirus. What Does She Foresee Next?
Frank Bruni 1 day ago

I told Laurie Garrett that she might as well change her name to Cassandra. Everyone is calling her that anyway.

Also watch: COVID-19 ground reports from across India (Video by News18)



She and I were Zooming — that’s a verb now, right? — and she pulled out a 2017 book, “Warnings: Finding Cassandras to Stop Catastrophes.” It notes that Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, was prescient not only about the impact of H.I.V. but also about the emergence and global spread of more contagious pathogens.

“I’m a double Cassandra,” Garrett said.




Cassandra, of course, was the prophetess of Greek mythology who was doomed to issue unheeded warnings. What Garrett has been warning most direly about — in her 1994 best seller, “The Coming Plague,” and in subsequent books and speeches, including TED Talks — is a pandemic like the current one.

She saw it coming. So a big part of what I wanted to ask her about was what she sees coming next. Steady yourself. Her crystal ball is dark.

Despite the stock market’s swoon for it, remdesivir probably isn’t our ticket out, she told me. “It’s not curative,” she said, pointing out that the strongest claims so far are that it merely shortens the recovery of Covid-19 patients. “We need either a cure or a vaccine.”

But she can’t envision that vaccine anytime in the next year, while Covid-19 will remain a crisis much longer than that.

“I’ve been telling everybody that my event horizon is about 36 months, and that’s my best-case scenario,” she said.

In pics: Coronavirus crisis around the world

Slide 1 of 50: A police officer tries to control the crowds outside a wine store during an extended nationwide lockdown to slow down the spread of the coronavirus disease (COVID-19), in New Delhi, India, May 4, 2020. REUTERS/Adnan Abidi
Next Slide
Full Screen
1/50 SLIDES © Adnan Abidi/Reuters
A police officer tries to control the crowds outside a wine store after liquor shops were allowed to open during an extended nationwide lockdown, in New Delhi, India, on May 4.
“I’m quite certain that this is going to go in waves,” she added. “It won’t be a tsunami that comes across America all at once and then retreats all at once. It will be micro-waves that shoot up in Des Moines and then in New Orleans and then in Houston and so on, and it’s going to affect how people think about all kinds of things.”


They’ll re-evaluate the importance of travel. They’ll reassess their use of mass transit. They’ll revisit the need for face-to-face business meetings. They’ll reappraise having their kids go to college out of state.

So, I asked, is “back to normal,” a phrase that so many people cling to, a fantasy?

“This is history right in front of us,” Garrett said. “Did we go ‘back to normal’ after 9/11? No. We created a whole new normal. We securitized the United States. We turned into an antiterror state. And it affected everything. We couldn’t go into a building without showing ID and walking through a metal detector, and couldn’t get on airplanes the same way ever again. That’s what’s going to happen with this.”


Maybe in political engagement, too, Garrett said.

If America enters the next wave of coronavirus infections “with the wealthy having gotten somehow wealthier off this pandemic by hedging, by shorting, by doing all the nasty things that they do, and we come out of our rabbit holes and realize, ‘Oh, my God, it’s not just that everyone I love is unemployed or underemployed and can’t make their maintenance or their mortgage payments or their rent payments, but now all of a sudden those jerks that were flying around in private helicopters are now flying on private personal jets and they own an island that they go to and they don’t care whether or not our streets are safe,’ then I think we could have massive political disruption.”

“Just as we come out of our holes and see what 25 percent unemployment looks like,” she said, “we may also see what collective rage looks like.”

Garrett has been on my radar since the early 1990s, when she worked for Newsday and did some of the best reporting anywhere on AIDS. Her Pulitzer, in 1996, was for coverage of Ebola in Zaire. She has been a fellow at Harvard’s School of Public Health, was a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and consulted on the 2011 movie “Contagion.”

Her expertise, in other words, has long been in demand. But not like now.

Each morning when she opens her email, “there’s the Argentina request, Hong Kong request, Taiwan request, South Africa request, Morocco, Turkey,” she told me. “Not to mention all of the American requests.” It made me feel bad about taking more than an hour of her time on Monday. But not so bad that I didn’t cadge another 30 minutes on Thursday.

She said she wasn’t surprised that a coronavirus wrought this devastation, that China minimized what was going on or that the response in many places was sloppy and sluggish. She’s Cassandra, after all.

But there is one part of the story she couldn’t have predicted: that the paragon of sloppiness and sluggishness would be the United States.

“I never imagined that,” she said. “Ever.”

The highlights — or, rather, lowlights — include President Trump’s initial acceptance of the assurances by President Xi Jinping of China that all would be well, his scandalous complacency from late January through early March, his cheerleading for unproven treatments, his musings about cockamamie ones, his abdication of muscular federal guidance for the states and his failure, even now, to sketch out a detailed long-range strategy for containing the coronavirus.

Having long followed Garrett’s work, I can attest that it’s not driven by partisanship. She praised George W. Bush for fighting H.I.V. in Africa.

But she called Trump “the most incompetent, foolhardy buffoon imaginable.”

And she’s shocked that America isn’t in a position to lead the global response to this crisis, in part because science and scientists have been so degraded under Trump.

Referring to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta and its analogues abroad, she told me: “I’ve heard from every C.D.C. in the world — the European C.D.C., the African C.D.C., China C.D.C. — and they say, ‘Normally our first call is to Atlanta, but we ain’t hearing back.’ There’s nothing going on down there. They’ve gutted that place. They’ve gagged that place. I can’t get calls returned anymore. Nobody down there is feeling like it’s safe to talk. Have you even seen anything important and vital coming out of the C.D.C.?”

The problem, Garrett added, is bigger than Trump and older than his presidency. America has never been sufficiently invested in public health. The riches and renown go mostly to physicians who find new and better ways to treat heart disease, cancer and the like. The big political conversation is about individuals’ access to health care.

But what about the work to keep our air and water safe for everyone, to design policies and systems for quickly detecting outbreaks, containing them and protecting entire populations? Where are the rewards for the architects of that?

Garrett recounted her time at Harvard. “The medical school is all marble, with these grand columns,” she said. “The school of public health is this funky building, the ugliest possible architecture, with the ceilings falling in.”

“That’s America?” I asked.

“That’s America,” she said.

And what America needs most right now, she said, isn’t this drumbeat of testing, testing, testing, because there will never be enough superfast, super-reliable tests to determine on the spot who can safely enter a crowded workplace or venue, which is the scenario that some people seem to have in mind. America needs good information, from many rigorously designed studies, about the prevalence and deadliness of coronavirus infections in given subsets of people, so that governors and mayors can develop rules for social distancing and reopening that are sensible, sustainable and tailored to the situation at hand.

America needs a federal government that assertively promotes and helps to coordinate that, not one in which experts like Tony Fauci and Deborah Birx tiptoe around a president’s tender ego.

“I can sit here with you for three hours listing — boom, boom, boom — what good leadership would look like and how many more lives would be saved if we followed that path, and it’s just incredibly upsetting.” Garrett said. “I feel like I’m just coming out of maybe three weeks of being in a funk because of the profound disappointment that there’s not a whisper of it.”

Instead of that whisper she hears wailing: the sirens of ambulances carrying coronavirus patients to hospitals near her apartment in Brooklyn Heights, where she has been home alone, in lockdown, since early March. “If I don’t get hugged soon, I’m going to go bananas,” she told me. “I’m desperate to be hugged.”

Me, too. Especially after her omens.

An influential coronavirus model often cited by the White House said in a press release that it plans to revise its projections to nearly 135,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States, an increase that one of its researchers tied to relaxed social distancing and increased mobility.

The model, from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, previously predicted 72,433 deaths as of Monday morning. A press release from IHME said the full set of new projections will be released later this afternoon.

Ali Mokdad, a professor of Health Metrics Sciences at IHME, referenced the updated projections on CNN earlier today, but said he couldn’t provide the specific number.

“We are seeing, of course, a rise in projected deaths for several reasons,” he told CNN’s John King on Inside Politics. “One of them is increased mobility before the relaxation, premature relaxation of social distancing, we’re adding more presumptive deaths as well, and we’re seeing a lot of outbreaks in the Midwest, for example.”
He said multiple variables impact infections – like heat, testing capacity and population density – but “the most important one is mobility.”

Right now, he said, “we’re seeing an increase in mobility that’s leading to an increase in mortality unfortunately in the United States.”

The IHME director, Dr. Christopher Murray, will be holding a press briefing at 4 p.m. ET today with additional details.

I have been reading articles and watching videos similar to these for the past couple of weeks and I can't tell you how incensed I am w/these idiot protestors. Why the hell you need a gun to protest? Why do you need to put others at risk. I am all for free-speech and protesting, but make your case and move on. The idiots in Hunington Beach are gross. The guys in cameo, face masks to hide their identity, and carrying weapons while protesting in a neighborhood w/kids running around are even more disgusting.

Stop, you selfish, glory-hunting, morons!

It's a cold day in hell when you, me, and OCD all agree on something.

Hope things are well with you in SC.

We're doing well. People around here have begun to shun the regulations. Folks gathering everywhere. Masks are on the downswing. Lot's of folks taking unnecessary risks. I was out today to go to Lowes because my wife wants me to construct several decorative trellis frames for clematis plants around our deck as a Mother's Day present. I decided to go all out and make frames that you would see in Japanese gardens and place the trellis pieces inside each frame w/their own individual pots. Anyway..............you wouldn't believe how many people were out. I wanted to go Saturday and then Sunday, but I decided to wait until Monday to avoid crowds. Unfortunately, all three checkout lines in the garden section were about 12 deep. Crazy!

What's it like in Alaska? Are people smarter up there?

This picture gets updated every day by the major newspaper of the state.



Where I live, things are okay. People are wearing masks, there's less traffic on the roads, and everyone is doing their part at grocery stores.

Teaching isn't too fun right now. I'm glad I have my job, yet I miss being in the classroom with the students. The technology challenges make it hard to try and maintain any sort of in-class meeting. We're all trying our best to keep the students working.

Tough deal for teachers and students. I have had similar issues w/the students I tutor, but it's my business and I don't have to deal w/the stress of the school district and general public.

Hang in there, bro. I don't envy you in this particular circumstance. Just do the best you can do for your kids and screw everyone else.