U.S. Testing is ramping up at a pretty decent clip, actually. I don't know if it will be enough, but we're not doing as badly as we were.

I'm all for this, definitely should be an analysis and lessons learn post-mortem.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/asia/...hnk/index.html

Well, let's remember that Russia is literally pushing covid experts out of windows. At this point Russia's involvement in anything only lessens my confidence in that thing.

There's certainly legitimate questions to be answered and investigating to be done, and it seems fairly obvious and unsurprising that China failed at parts of their response that depended on being transparent and honest, at the cost of significant number of lives in other countries....but a good number of those 100 leaders are surely getting in line solely so they blame any and all of their own poor decisions entirely on China.

dickhead is trying to shut it all down tho

I'm still seeing a lot of places talking about mandatory temperature checks as part of how they will reopen safely.

Am I missing something, or is that kind of pointless since the whole thing that makes the novel coronavirus such a problem is asymptomatic spread?

I understand the human nature to want to "do something." And taking someone's temperature feels like a very good and medical thing to do (Have you ever been to a doctor's appointment where they didn't?). So I am sure that part of it is well meaning people trying to do whatever they can.

But I worry that the effect will be akin to security theater. Lots of inconvenience meant to produce the appearance of safety that actually gives people a false sense of security.

How I see it is it'll help as not everyone is asymptomatic and it'll help with continued awareness awareness.

FWIW, here's a CNN graphic that shows past 14 days trend per state. GA is looking good for now.

Tracking Covid-19 cases in the US

I think the temperature checks serve two purposes. 1) I don't usually know when I have a mild fever, 2) it will prevent people who just don't care that they are sick from coming in.

Yeah, I would think a combination of approaches would most greatly reduce the odds of transmission. Masks, distance, dividers, temperature checks, disinfecting, etc. None of them stop transmission completely, but each additional measure reduces the odds more.

I'm going to be cautious about this because from what I can see, Florida is trending up, South Carolina is trending up, North Carolina is trending up, and Alabama is flat. Though Tennessee is trending down as well.

So I wonder why GA is different - maybe we are benefiting (so to speak) from having a really early cluster in the Albany region in the SW of the state or something else is going on.

Texas is trending up as well.

Things are very slowly starting to move toward reopening here. The Seattle Elite League just released their plan to restart play on the 22nd of June for 18U baseball. All of this applies to phase 3 of the reopening. For phase 4 most of this will be lifted. This is assuming we're able to go from phase 2 on the 1st of June to Phase 3 on the 22nd.

*No more than 5 players+coaches in the dugout at any time. Any player's+coaches over that number must find an area outside the dugout to wait and stay 6 feet apart.

*Players/coaches must sanitize their hands when going onto the field the first time for warmups and any time they're coming off the field (between every inning).

*No multi-field venues will be used until phase 4

*Social distancing will be enforced in the stands

*The homeplate umpire must wear a mask since social distancing can't be maintained between ump/catcher/batters.

*Coaches are responsible for sanitizing the dugouts after the game is complete.


Several other stipulations as well, but that's the general outline of how baseball will likely look for high school aged kids this summer.

It will be an adjustment for youth sports parents to only be allowed to violently threaten volunteer officials from 6 feet away.

They ran a baseball tourney around here a couple weekends ago. Ump was 6 feet behind the pitchers mound and the catcher was 6 feet behind home plate.

I didnt think it was really baseball at that point. I guess they did not allow stealing, but Im not sure.

hahahaha

well played

:D

:funkychickendance:

Beautiful

SI

I literally laughed out loud at that.

The nice thing about watching 18U baseball is there's usually only 10 or parents in the stands between the two teams. Social distancing should be pretty easy.

There's absolutely nothing that I miss about the days of 8-12u baseball though. I can't imagine what it's going to be like trying to get those ages up and running. The parents in that age range are awful enough as it is.

Are the GA numbers before or after the change to the tracking numbers? I read an article yesterday that they were reporting the data out of order so that the rates appeared to be falling when, in fact, they were not.

Here's the article.

Even with the change to put the numbers in chronological order it appears cases are even, maybe slightly trending down. But deaths are definitely tracking even. Though today's cases looks to be slightly higher that the number of cases last Monday.

And now China supports the investigation but wants WHO to drive it and wait until the crises is over. I think they know its inevitable there will be one.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/healt...ntl/index.html

Watching CNBC and they talked about Delta flights being down 90% same time last year. And then they added 250K traveled on Sunday.

That's 250K people more brave/foolish than I am. I'm all for slowly re-opening but I wouldn't get on a plane right now. If I had to absolutely get somewhere, I'd ask the company about driving.

There is no chance I'm going into any confined space with a bunch of people sharing the same air. Airplanes and public transportation would be #1 on my list of places to avoid.

My brother in law had covid, he traveled quite a bit for his job and thinks an airplane is probably where he got it. I wonder how many of those on planes are "recovered" covid survivors? Insignificant number or a big chunk of them?

Care to share how was your BIL diagnosis, treatment, experiences with Drs & hospitals etc.?

Businessman living in Dallas traveled all the time all over the country including in March. Was never diagnosed actually in the office. He is in his late 40s had a fever he couldnt shake for about 2 weeks and lost his sense of taste and smell. His doctor told him no need to come in because he definitely had all the signs the virus but to go to the hospital if things got worse couldnt breathe etc. He was living on his own because his family is up in Colorado during the school year so he quarenteened for another two weeks after. Dont think he has gotten an antibody test but they say the smell thing is pretty telltale sign.

He will either tell you it was the worst thing he has ever had or a piece of cake depending in which crowd he is talking to. :)

My wife travels a ton for work under ordinary circumstances. She was travelling right up until the shutdowns. We are amazed she didn't have it.

Did she get antibodies test Lathum? Maybe she did.

This may explain why numbers in Florida were suspiciously low.
As Florida re-opens, COVID-19 data chief gets sidelined and researchers cry foul

Yeah. We both got them. Much to our disappointment they were negative.

It's interesting to see modern pop-culture and American-style celebrity try to persist through the lens of the lockdown. Like, taking commencement, hope & advice from random celebrities has always been questionable, but it's especially absurd to see some of that try to persist via tablet camera, with all of the glamour and processing stripped away.

We've been doing a moderate amount of takeout food, but I am wondering if that will continue once NC reopens places for dine-in.

Currently, I have some confidence that the people making the food are being socially distanced. But as we've seen across the country, once places re-open, a subset of customers seem to take it as almost a point of pride to not wear masks, breath on the cashiers, etc.

It seems somewhat inevitable that restaurant workers will start to get contagious as restaurants re-open.

Not sure I want to be going there to get food or not.

Counter argument--take out is easy and tasty.

This is good news for some sort of re-opening. Does seem like wearing a mask, washing hands, and keeping a distance can make things much more livable.

Coronavirus: Wearing surgical masks can reduce COVID-19 spread by 75%, study claims | World News | Sky News

We've been struggling with this decision, too, after Texas reopened last week.

Counter, counter-point: takeout isn't nearly as easy as it used to be when you have to repackage everything, be extra careful getting it out of containers, etc.

SI

Now to get people to wear masks!

Has anyone really look at the risk of a pizza or takeout with all this? I know it's certainly possible, but it seems like you would almost need to hit the lottery to get it from take out. Between the heat of the food, the provided utensils in wrappers and long odds of getting it from an inanimate object (esp when most places are taking some precautions) - it just seems like you have a better chance of getting it on a socially distanced walk in the park than a brown bag from takeout.

I haven't seen any conclusive studies about it. Kindof depends on what you're getting - like salad, etc - something cold - would have a much higher risk. But as soon as something is in the oven, it's safe.

To me, where it could get "un-safe" is when it is taken out of oven (presumably breathed on by workers, hopefully with masks). The delivery containers are certainly a risk, considering how long this stupid virus likes to live on surfaces. So if, say, pizza boxes are just sitting around and being breathed on all day by infected people (not literally someone just breathing on boxes - that'd just be weird - but like in the same enclosed area with minimal ventilation, which most kitchens are to some degree), that's a legit vector. Same with whatever smaller containers go in the bigger containers or whatever bags the bigger containers go into.

SI

OK, so I envision a scenario where I have covid and am boxing your takeout. Let's say I don't have a mask, box your food and then call for delivery that takes less than 20 min. Even in that situation, I can't imagine the odds of you getting the virus from the packaging being higher than 1%. From what I understand, the virus would have to get on a container within 25 min of you touching the container. You would then need to touch that container in the exact spot where the virus was and then touch your face/eyes all without ever washing your hands.

I guess it's not a massive hassle to repackage take-out, but I don't really see the need to. if you just wash your hands before eating you've pretty much eliminated that 1% chance. Plus, I have yet to see anyone packaging food for takeout not wear a mask. If that happens, your 1% chance goes away even if you didn't wash your hands.

Generally its very low to get the virus from surfaces of any kind. Basically you'd have to touch a surface where someone sneezed on (or something) and then immediately put it into your mouth. Sure the virus can live on surfaces, but it's difficult to get enough of the virus (and remember viral load matters a lot here) transferred from infected person to surface to non-infected person for the non-infected person to get infected.

I went to Home Depot to go to the garden section that's not roofed. The entrance to that area was exit only and the entrance to the main store was a little jammed while the parking lot was packed. I came home instead of going in.

Keep in mind that where I live the death count suggests around 40k people in my county have been infected.

Right. That's exactly what I've seen as well. Generally getting takeout or delivery is safe. If you want to be extra cautious, you could wipe down the boxes with Clorox or repackage. We do a quick Clorox wipe and wash well.

FYI: What I mean by "repackage" is just that we put our food onto plates instead of eating out of the carryout containers (because then if there is a risk of surface contamination, it's something that happens each time you might inadvertently touch the "plate"). Considering everyone wants to put like 50 individual containers in each carryout order, it's a bit of a pain in the butt. That's all I was getting at.

SI

This is bothering me greatly as more information comes to light. I wouldn't be surprised if other states are also presenting data in a very controlled, not necessarily the entire truth, kind of way

So I agree 100% with everything you have said and the risk of contamination from the above scenarios is very low, especially with new data coming out that surface transfer is even less than we thought. However, for someone like me that's admittedly a germaphobe the piece of mind out weighs the hassle. I don't claim it's rational but it makes me feel better so yeah I repackage as well.

Over here the official figure is 35,500 Covid deaths, but the excess deaths since it started the last time I checked (which was some time ago now) was there was well over 50,000 deaths above the 5-year average

Given that before CV19 the average death level was below the 5 year average, the real figure from the virus is likely to be at least 50% higher than what is being reported

I thought this video was pretty good at laying things out.

What's Next with COVID-19: New Normal or Second Wave? < Research, Clinical & Data Driven Responses to COVID-19

Sweden's herd immunity approach seems to be failing.

I would agree that Sweden's approach would not be the best one in my opinion but doesn't it seem like evaluating a method like that would have to wait until next year? I mean if all the other countries have 2nd/3rd waves and they don't it would be a massive success right?

They had the world's highest death per capita of any country over the past week. It may be too early to call it a failure overall, but they are trending in the wrong direction and they don't have measures in place to correct that trend. Hospitals not accepting any covid patients from nursing homes so they can better manage patient loads isn't going to help either.

A new report claims Sweden has 20% with antibodies. That's terrible given the deaths and basically the same damage to the economy as their neighbors that locked down.

I have a very hard time believing that 20% is 'current', do you happen to have the link to the article for context ? There was a study with this result recently but that was retracted due to massive mistakes in the math.

Also, if anybody wants to get angry at an established figure in science (the guy that did the SantaClara study) doubling down in highly dubious Fashion, someone did that for you:

Twitter


Pandemic blog 23: why one published research finding is misleading – Quomodocumque


Several more major gaffes, like putting the population of Oise in France 8-times higher than reality (what shock the IFR is low ...) and not considering the issues of the studies he chooses (essentially by a variation of "googling" and picking what Supports his view) or that the oft-cited 0.1 for Influenza is a Case Fatality rate (and no, the IFR won't be as much lower as it is with Covid19, with Influenza both cases and deaths are severely undercounted, but it also is not the same).

I know i come across as overly skeptical or even alarmist Sometimes ... I don't want Covid19 to be a big problem nor do i fail to see how big the Problems are caused from the response.
But you have got to be honest and 'true' in science, that is the most basic thing.

I actually have no Problem being told that the 'cure' is devastating in it's effect, but please don't purposefully mislead people on the 'disease' to make that point. You just can't say that 2 illnesses are equally harmfull by excluding the death count among the most vulnerable group in only one of them !!

I just saw it referenced this morning.

edit: I saw @7% tonight.

So, June 1st plans were comfirmed last Tuesday. June 1st.
But you know what, people really can't wait for another 10 more days, got all excited on their first day off (today) and get a "let's go to the beach because it's 25 C outside" vibe. :banghead:

Thankfully, when you're stuck in a traffic jam (how stupid can people be, they should have realized a lot of facilities like parking lots and public toilets are still closed), you can't infect anybody but the others with you inside the car, right?

Here is a writeup: Just 7.3% of Stockholm had Covid-19 antibodies by end of April, study shows | World news | The Guardian

I must admit this does seem low, but if anything the sample (blood donors 20-64 years old) would skew toward more active people and exclude those sheltered by design or choice.
I think if anything this shows that the biggest drivers for infections are not random short contacts or even stuff like Restaurants or Cafés but really mainly events, clubs/similar and workplaces. All of which were shut down or reduced in Sweden as well (lots of production slowed and more people working from home than anywhere else in Europe).

Would be good to get a study on kids, seeing schools etc stayed open this would be a great oportunity to get insight here and see how the numbers match up.

Reminded me I saw this article yesterday which suggested the same

‘Superspreader’ events may be responsible for 80 per cent or more of all coronavirus cases

Michigan continues to gradually take partial steps; the northern parts of the state have restaurants etc. at 50% capacity and statewide auto dealerships/retail outlets can start appointment-only resumption next Tuesday. I think Whitmer is doing a fairly reasonably job of trying to thread the needle on this, I don't really know if it's too fast, too slow, or just right but it's clearly got thought behind it.

I like the approach of acknowledging that different parts of the state might have different needs. Detroit is not the same as Northern Michigan.

Well it seems this week was pretty bad for Georgia. Looks like yesterday had 78 deaths reported, which is the 2md highest daily death total? And cases are up this week as well.

Shit

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

been about what, 2 weeks since they reopened?

Closer to a month when the original reopening was. But things kind of slow rolled opened. A lot of places probably didn't open until 2-3 weeks ago.

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

Not too mention that they are using tests that do not measure the active virus to inflate their test counts...

Not a home run but a good step in the right direction. Official results are in for remdesivir.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/22/healt...udy/index.html

It honestly feels like if we just avoided those superspreader events and wore some masks while out, we could return to a somewhat normal way of life.

I live in an area with probably 3-dozen bars within a mile. They're all relatively tiny on their own, probably none with a capacity of more than 150 people, but on the weekends it seems like it might be close to a small-stadium-full-of-people that are shuffling in and out of the same small spaces.

https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/23/us/ar...rus/index.html

you mean events like partying on florida beaches or attending superchurches or going for a drink in a crowded bar or attending a protest with guns?
Yeah it sure feels like you're right. Go figure

Images from Ocean City MD are all over my twitter feed, I assume many places if it's not this one, it's something comparable. I suspect there's a lot of intriguing psychology at work here.

A look at the Ocean City, Maryland boardwalk this afternoon. The sunny weather brought out the people. Masks are encouraged but not required. @wjz #memorialdayweekend2020 pic.twitter.com/rK3gCfoZNB

— Mike Hellgren (@HellgrenWJZ) May 23, 2020

In MD, we are still pretty heavily ravaged by the virus and its effects (still 300 a week dead, state of 6 million) but primarily in our crowded urban/suburban areas. About 10 days ago, our GOP Governor, getting -very- high marks for being fairly aggressive on shut-down and overall handling of this situation, decided to authorize the first stage of re-opening. He deferred to each county on whether it was ready to go based on its caseload, though, and the six or seven with the most cases (and around 80% of the state population) decided they were not ready.

Regardless, when the Governor makes a big announcement that "Maryland is re-opening" that sends a clearer message than the potpourri of local standards - in my county there's a whole online checklist of things that have been relaxed (some) and not yet (most). Notable in this is the Governor retracting some of the easy to remember requirements... stay-at-home became safer-at-home, and wear-a-mask for lots of venues became please-wear-a-mask.

The takeaway? Several things, but probably most visibly our residents from high-virus areas seemingly just packed up and headed to the beach, where they are (by the coverage, it seems) just jamming the boardwalk and public areas with virtually no spacing and no masks. It's not completely business as usual, but it's definitely a bigger spreading threat than what they've got going on where they live, and where they will return by Tuesday.

Anyway... my thinking here is:

-the crowd there doesn't look like a MAGA crowd, it seems like a normal crowded beach day... so this doesn't feel like a demonstration or rebellion of just one political type

-the message "we're going to open up" is just easier to digest than "check for local details and pleased don't overdo it"

-there's further evidence of the latter, where I'm seeing big crowds on the nearby paved trail, which for weeks had been a reliable place to get out for a walk/ride... nearly all the masks have disappeared overnight, non-distanced groups seemingly re-formed right after the Gov's announcement, and it basically feels borderline unsafe to us (as still-concerned weirdos)

OMG we are so screwed

Yeah, on the back end of this switch seems to be an implied chain of custody where the message just gets semi-deliberately lost. "Re open, but with appropriate safety, spacing, and coverage standards" and then the government washes its hands, the business puts up its sign telling the patrons to follow the rules and washes its hands, and then the customers pile in, ignore everything, and presumably don't even wash their hands. Pols get good polls, biz gets its money, customers get their transmissions, Darwin gets his way.

We really are fucked as a nation

No covid concerns at the lake of the ozarks�� #loto pic.twitter.com/Yrb4UNM64u

— Scott Pasmore (@scottpasmoretv) May 24, 2020

fixed that for ya.

I was at Home Depot this morning. Not a lot of people but was disappointed to see 2 adults without masks and a mother (with mask) but kid sitting in the cart without a mask.

All for opening up but com'on, how hard is it to practice social distancing and wearing a damn mask for a little while longer.

Guess I shouldn't complain, no neighborhood pool parties that's been reported so far.

Let's toss in jewish funerals, block parties in NY or birthday party in CA.

But yeah, how freaking hard is it to do this gradually.

A hairstylist in Springfield, MO saw 84 clients from May 12 to May 20. Now is sick with Covid. And a co-worker of the stylist, who saw 54 clients, has tested positive. Both saw their clients when symptomatic.

I actually counted on Saturday, cause I knew what my general impression of the mask ratio was from the past week but I wanted to see how a legit count of what I saw would match up.

I had to make three stops: gas & smokes, then two in-store orders for takeaway food. My counting rule was "people in cars don't count, only those I see having a personal interaction of some sort"

At the end of the sequence I saw 2 masks on 19 people, one of those people was clearly over 65. That was almost eerily spot on to the "less than 10% of those under 60" comment I'd made on Facebook a day or two before.

Now, as much as I love being right like that, I will add a footnote. Moments after I mentally closed the book on counting (got in my car to leave the last restaurant) I did a family of 3 (mom & two teen daughters) heading toward the door, all masked, which would have kicked it up to 5/22 total. (or 4/21 under 60)

It's not a situation where people have suddenly stopped wearing them here, those numbers are very consistent with what I've seen throughout the entire scenario.

I'll also note that there seems to be a very significant amount of location-by-location to it. My kid noted that it was roughly 50/50 when he ended up spending some time at a major Atlanta shopping mall last week (Lenox, for those who know the area), though he didn't have a take on the age variable. Still, that mall doesn't do the older traffic it might have years ago so I'd say the percentage wouldn't change much if you eliminated 60+.

Interesting difference. I'm in northern Atlanta suburbia and the majority of people are wearing masks when I've gone out grocery shopping, Home Depot, restaurant pickups and mall/haircut. Maybe its just the Athens college-town environment?

On Friday, we drove to a "less popular" beach (Surfside) that's about an hour south of Houston instead of going towards Galveston because we knew it would be a train wreck. However, even the two small beaches there were pretty packed. We lucked into finding a small, empty park restroom and then we headed up the coast. There's a state highway between Surfside or Galveston that's a nice hour long drive and we drove about 15 minutes before we found a nice spot on the beach. Our car had at least 50 feet either direction from the next one on the beach and that was as close as anyone got to us so we got to enjoy about 45 minutes of beach time before heading back.

Thoughts:
* Restrooms are a huge travel logistics problem. It's a tight, enclosed space and very few people in Texas wear masks so it would be a great place to build up a huge viral load and spread the virus.
* I figured Galveston would be packed but to see 50+ cars at both of the small Surfside beaches at 11am on Friday, before the holiday even started, probably does not bode well for the rest of this weekend.
* Texans can be counted on to always take the path of least resistance so it was fairly easy to find a safe beach to get to just by driving an extra 10 or 15 minutes.
* It was really relaxing to go somewhere and go through the motions of a little road trip, even if it just consisted of driving for a while, eating nuts and beef jerky, arguing with the 4 year old over what music to listen to (not "wheels on the bus" - like he wanted to listen to Sammy Hagar and we were listening to Tom Petty and being a little snot about it just gets "The Waiting" played for him), and the other little rituals that feel "normal". And that's even if all we got was about 45 minutes on a beach.
* However, one of the things I observed very early on in the pandemic and still holds true: it takes so much more energy to pretend things are normal.

SI

Nothing like taking your boat out on a lake so you can pull up to a pool and go swimming there!

Unless you are talking stadium stuff (close proximity long Term + shouting, singing etc) i think most things outdoor OR short term indoor is pretty safe and not a big problem in the larger picture.

Indoor gatherings however ... Over 100 infected originating from a single church service in Germany (directly or then them infecting others ), 11 from a Restaurant although that was ignoring safety protocols for a private event.

Still,certain things just are very high risk and going to be worse the more people are infected because the odds for those to go to high risk places just increase.

You would hope all these petrie dishes will generate some solid knowledge just how this spreads. I suspect who whomario is right

YODO

Stole this from twitter but Tarcone, Mizzourah, and other locals will appreciate.

Watching the rest of America discover the non Jason Bateman reality of the Lake of the Ozarks has been an experience.

While the rest of the country is shocked we just wonder what else did anyone expect was really going to happen there this weekend?

PARTY COVE

And to riff og Jon, I looked today at Wal-mart when grocery shopping. By the way, Wal-mart REQUIRES you to wear a mask, unless you are spending money.
Anyway, It looked like to me it was mostly obese and old people not wearing masks. Some families. But not many.

So studies show the elderly and obese are most likely to get this and die. Yet they(obese, not fat shaming) continue to make poor life choices.

Yeah, maybe this is darwinism at its best.

Party Cov-id

This is why I wish this forum had likes.

(CNN article quoting a visitor from that weird pool thingy

I mean, you can't really fault anyone here, they were enjoying themselves and ain't that enough ?

Nothing is more repulsive to my particular anxieties than the various boat/water/lake parties....and that's before even considering the covid. Just a thousand slack-jawed randos aggressively drinking at each other, as a distant, too-weak speaker bounces shitty EDM off of the water, with absolutely no place to hide.

Just seems like the worst of all worlds.

Not doing a ton to keep economic activity in town alive.
But also likely to spark a second wave.

Good to see some high profile Republicans urging people to wear masks. Some people are starting to realize masks are effective and will be key to making reopening effective. It will only matter so much as long as Trump is too manly to wear a mask in public, but every little thing helps.

Everyone here wears masks in stores. In fact it seems like some people are making fashion statements out of it. Seen some creative stuff from sports teams to flags. I like rocking the bandana like an old train robber.

Maybe weather plays a role in this too. We had a cold March and April so it wasn't a big deal to throw on a gaiter. Will be interesting to see if people wear them on a hot and humid 90 degree day.

Was out for the first time in a couple weeks to Kroger. It was shocking to see just how fast people reverted to old habits. Maybe 20% (like Jon mentioned) wearing masks, probably less. Demographic didn't matter. I was at Fresh Thyme last week and most customers there were still wearing them. Some people weren't even trying. Many who were, were wearing them wrong. I watched an employee finish a shift and take his mask off right then and there.

One of the things that we talk about in my profession is deviation from the norm. Maintaining standards for procedures and operations is critical for safety and efficiency. Very small, subtle changes on a daily basis, a short cut here, a short cut there, and over time that maybe becomes the norm. It can be very insidious, because it's hard to maintain by the book standards if there is a culture where such things are accepted. This is relevant here because we're seeing something like masks and distancing as something that is very different from our normal standards, and very easy to see how it can slide away from the hard things that we're trying to do. And in this case, there's nobody there to enforce those standards.

It's over really. Expectations will only continue to slide from here.

I'm with RainMaker on my observations. Today was in the 80s and humid, 90% roughly of people still wearing masks. Local Meijer has a table set up at both entrances offering them to people as they come in as additional encouragement. It's not enforced, but most people don't just walk on by and refuse them. It's interesting because this is an area you'd expect to go away from that sooner than most (rural, conservative, etc.) Sounds like it's varying widely based on location. Even the people buying 200 pounds of charcoal briquets are still wearing.

Suburban NKY just don't give a shit anymore.

Saw someone in a light up mask which I think was meant to be a Mortal Kombat character.

Distance and masking are good here, but I think that's to be expected when the county has had over 10k cases, and as you go south things get dramatically worse. There aren't too many people here that don't know someone that was seriously ill or died. It's a shame that so much of the rest of the country can't learn the risks from the NYC area.

Ugh. Our latest church small group meeting (still via Zoom) was last night. My friend the pulmonologist has taken a position of some hospital-level leadership regarding COVID-19. He said that cases have *tripled* in our local COVID19 hospital, and out of frustration and tiredness, he REALLY vented tonight. Understand that he is from Alabama and has always identified as politically conservative. Our group is not politically homogeneous and politics doesn't really come up, but he went OFF on Trump's church order. (I mean, really...1.5 to 4 hours in a confined space with singing? It's one of the worst possible places to be...) But more than that, I've never seen him as harsh in his frustration with and criticism of the masses. He's usually quite measured, but he used the words "stupid" and "foolish" a half dozen times or more. I think the comment that saddened me the most is that he said something like "I had to order more ventilators this week, and when I look at TV or the internet, it seems like I'm wasting my time, because nobody out there cares."

Meanwhile, this happened in the next county over, just 20 miles from his hospital, this weekend, after the local sheriff refused to enforce the governor's limit for outdoor gatherings. My friend may get to meet some of these folks under not-so-good circumstances...

https://t.co/8yVdGbQMxy Thousands of people packed into Ace Speedway in North Carolina Saturday ... and it's a vision of coronavirus.

— TMZ Sports (@TMZ_Sports) May 24, 2020

If there is anything more representative of our country's stupidity when it comes to this, it's thousands of rednecks risking spread to watch cars drive in a circle.

Article says 4000 people in attendance. These morons love to throw around the low mortality rate.

I wonder what the reaction would be if the track announcer came on the PA and said "thanks for coming, 40-80 of you could be dead in a few weeks, at least a couple of you assuredly will be, and about 1,000-1,500 of you will be pretty sick. Oh, and many of you will go on to infect loved ones, now rise for the national anthem."