That shouldn't be the choice, though. We can reduce transmission and then largely resume our lives with enhanced testing and extensive contact tracing. We don't have to think about draconian restrictions for months on end.

The problem is that we took the time to prepare and did nothing. Then when we were in the shit we still didn't prepare to reopen, and no that we're reopening, we're largely just ignoring what still remains to be done. Now it is a question of how many will die, but it didn't and doesn't have to be that.

I would guess the issue is that the virus is much more widespread than it was in February. Look at the county level map and almost every county has seen infection.

Yeah, people generally don't understand nuance or hypotheticals on the internets. This place is much better than most, and I wouldn't dream of engaging in discussions around this topic on Facebook or Twitter. I also do wonder once Amazon starts testing people if employees who test positive for antibodies will be allowed to work without a mask, and part of me would love to make a shirt with the positive test result and wear it :lol:
Depends what I'm doing. I wear one when I'm in a store or potentially around older people and would if I were using public transportation, but even though we're required to wear one at work it's borderline impossible to communicate effectively so most people end up pulling it down when trying to talk with someone which kinda mitigates the purpose, and if they tried making it mandatory even when exercising like I saw some towns near Boston are doing I'd laugh my ass off.
I don't know if it's the majority, but a significant portion of the fatalities seems to come from nursing home clusters, so doing all that we can to prevent outbreaks in those would probably help keep the death toll down.

There's literally been just over 1,000 deaths from people under the age of 45, 51 total from people under 25. Provisional Death Counts for Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): A focus on protecting the elderly should be happening even more than it is, but this simply isn't dangerous enough for younger people to justify destroying the economy and eliminating schooling and socializing for a year+

Serious question though; what practically can we do on that? Even assuming we are talking about the truly elderly and not just those over 45, I haven't heard any suggestions that appear to me to be viable. From my vantage point, it seems the only way to protect them is to keep it from spreading through the general population - and I still think keeping the medical system afloat is the #1 issue.

fwiw, that's exactly how Instacart has worked for us here. (no clue if that's the same everywhere or what)

Eliminating visitors to nursing homes, testing providers frequently (or limiting it to people who have tested positive for antibodies) both seem doable if unpopular.

I think the combination of high r0 and lethality, even with young, otherwise, healthy people is a death toll that is not acceptable. Do I have answers for that? No. The death rate for a 30 year old with no pre existing conditions is still significantly higher than the flu from what we can tell so far. Not to mention there's an area in between life and survival. Many patients have had organ/lung damage or other conditions upon recovering. Hopefully Trump wasn't spouting bs when he said Vaccine by the end of the year during last nights interview.

Sure, but I don't think that really addresses the issue. There's about 1.5 million people in nursing homes in the United States. There are 35 million people age 65 or older. Protecting nursing homes better would really help, but it's a drop in the bucket if we're saying let the virus run amuck and keep old people from getting it. What do we do for the other nearly 96% - or however many if you want to use different age/underlying issue breakdowns?

Wait? What?

COVID-19 pandemic in the United States - Wikipedia

The largest Spring Break week in the USA was from March 16-20. On March 20, there were 17K cases of COVID in the USA*.

We pretty much shut the country down the next week so the rate of spread was slowed drastically for the last month. Yet we're at well over 1M cases now. The bulk of those cases were seeded that week and the next couple of weeks. That's the whole 14 day incubation period with the disease.

So, yes, we saw a giant explosion in numbers, going from 10K to over 1M while everyone was at home. How do you think this looks in a month after 1M people have been spreading it versus 10K?

*Personally, I think there were probably 10x as many at that time but I think we're still in a 5-10x multiplier for cases from reported so we'll go with what was reported for this exercise

SI

We had 60k people die in a country largely locked down the past 2 months where the spread was far more localized.

Arizona is opening Salons on Friday and restaurants on Monday. I guess it is starting...

I put next to zero credence in case numbers. I just don't think they tell us anything valuable, and a lot of smarter people than me (like fivethirtyeight) are on that as well.


Right, but part of the country is staying locked down. The parts that aren't, largely aren't opening back up fully either. And people's behavior isn't going back to 'normal' immediately. If we were talking about going from lockdown to behaving like we would have in May of 2019 I could see it, but that isn't the situation.

Don't get me wrong, I think the second wave is going to be bad. But I don't think we see the worst till the fall. Quadrupling the current death count, 3k a day, etc. during the summer when the virus will be weaker - the heat/humidity are already enough to have a significant effect in the south - it just doesn't make sense to me, and I still don't know what assumptions are baked-in here. Maybe someone has a better source on those than I'm aware of.

Ha to places not opening up. Rural Missouri is wide open. They are showing a Hair Salon on TV right now where they are cutting hair with no masks or gloves. Business as usual.

Remember, these rural areas were shut down before they could really get hit. Now they are open as usual. I could see where those rural areas start to get hit.

Back to the individual is more important than the whole.

Ok, but Ohio is still mostly closed, Michigan is through at least the middle of the month and possibly longer, AFAIK California is going slow, New York is shutdown through mid-May and probably the end of it … it's a mixed bag right now but there seems to be a sense in this thread that everyone's just opening the spigot full bore and that's just not what's happening at all.

Hey, in Texas, we had our single largest death count literally the day before they opened everything back up 25% (which wasn't being enforced in the least). Why should we be worried? Florida's doing similar things. So, among that mixed bag are some very bad decisions.

SI

You still have the option of not going to establishments that you don’t think are safe.

We're all gonna die.

Like this took me 45 seconds and it seems to match the description of the "cubic model" quite well. pic.twitter.com/s91O6CTkw1

— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) May 5, 2020

Absolutely. But someone who goes to that salon has the virus, and we know this is a highly contagious virus, takes it home to their kid who goes outside to the local park and touches the equipment and gives it to a kid who gives it to mom, who then has to take care of her mom who has copd, who contracts it and dies 2 days later. But, hey, I got my hair styled.

Do you though? I could stay home all day every day, but if I live in an apartment building with someone who spends the weekend at a packed beach I have effectively spent the weekend at a packed beach.

This is some high school level shit.

I ask this completely seriously: what sort of apartment building are you in where there's that much contact? Your description sounds more like, I dunno, a barracks rather than what I think of as "apartment building"

I live in a multi-story building with two security entrances, a single elevator, a shared laundry room, and a shared mail box/room, all of which is super common in my area of Portland (or any other large inner-city) FWIW.

As far as I know COVID is still thought to stay 'aeresolized' in the air for up to three hours, which is effectively like sharing a household with hundreds of folks, in those conditions.

Fair enough. The elevator part I got (but minimized since, well, how often are most people leaving at this point).

The laundry didn't cross my mind, while the mail I visualized more of the open area style seen commonly on something like Law & Order (that's the best visual example I can think of off-hand).

Apartment living in ATL - the market I know best after all - is more common to the suburbs and tends to be more "complex" than "building" oriented, so it's a very different layout with maybe as little as a package room as shared space at this point.

Even in the 10-20 years where I spent a decent amount of time in Atlanta proper I can only think of one person I ever knew in a building with the configuration you describe so it simply wasn't a layout that was going to spring to mind for me.

Per my question, if you have had COVID-19 and recovered, why should you have to wear a mask?

Asking if it is hard is not the point. It’s not hard to be nice to people and people don’t do it. It’s not hard to help, the less fortunate but people don’t do it.

Additionally, we are in theory moving to a less dangerous time, that is part of the reason why we are opening up slowly. If that is the case, why are masks mandated now vs. when we were in lockdown?

The building I'm in is probably 75 years old too, for better or worse (some of the design/build is super cool, but fixtures, plumbing & wiring can be wonky as hell). More modern buildings probably have less shared/confined spaces.

We're not moving into a less dangerous time. Even the most widespread predictions say that only 10-15% of people have contracted this, it's probably actually less. We were in lockdown to "flatten the curve" not completely prevent the spread. We are still trying to keep the spread low, data suggests that masks can get the R0 below 1.

Also, as for why YOU should have to wear a mask... there really isn't any mechanism for people to prove that they have immunity at this point. Some businesses are choosing to turn away people without masks (apparently Menard's on Springboro Pike was doing that this weekend). As a private business, that is something they have the right to do.

From what I am seeing, if everyone just wore masks, we could get R0 < 1 and pretty much get rid of this thing without closings, major economic disruption, etc.

But people won't even do that. Better 10,000 small businesses fail, I suppose.

We'd need to know two things. One, did the person have COVID-19? That would need to be proven through testing, not just symptoms. Two, can a person be reinfected by the same or a different strain of COVID-19? If a person is still able to transmit the virus after an initial infection, masks would have to be mandatory for all.

What you're basically asking for is some sort of immunity passport, which I know has been discussed. Many medical experts have dismissed the idea, though, so it may not have a lot of value.

Bad News people

Spoilered for size

That is certainly not the only option. The control freaks can largely free the economy whenever they're ready.

Perhaps there can be a way of communicating to others if you have antibodies - like maybe a mask that says I have antibodies for COVID 19? ;)

You can open the stores, but people won't come.

Without a plan to keep people safe, people are just going to stay home.

Masks are a zero-cost way to increase safety while loosening restrictions. It should be an easy no-brainer while we debate and figure out the more difficult trade offs.

Paywall.

What's the gist of it?

Actually, people will definitely go to stores and once there completely forget what they've been told to do for social distancing precautions.

Apologies. It is basically discussing the national battle over face masks and how it has escalated to violence. It also about some of the reasons why people are not wearing masks from inclusion of personal liberties, convenience, discomfort, and skepticism of how well they will work.

Wife just got antibody test result. Negative. Damn.

you guys HAVE those??

Not peer-reviewed yet, but this is potentially quite bad on the mutation front: A mutant coronavirus has emerged, even more contagious than the original, study says

How do you do this though? If the vulnerable have to be taken care of, who will take care of them?

If you let the virus run rampant in the country, the only way to prevent the staff from getting the virus and bringing into these homes would be to prevent them from interacting with the outside world, including their own households. Even if they self-isolate when not at work, but their kid is off to school, then contamination is happening. You couldn't pay me enough to keep me away from my family.

Not sure it is a zero cost way. I just bought one for about $15 and probably would need more then 1 since I should run it through the washing machine every time I wear it. The overall effectiveness of what most people wear I don't think is very high. Every little thing helps, but I don't think if we all wore masks 2 months ago, this wouldn't have happened.

I feel the same way about people in stores / restaurants wearing gloves. if they don't change them after we interact, they still spread it to the next person. It is more about perception than results.

Non N-95 masks don't protect you. You wear a mask to protect other people from you. But when many moralize selfishness and only caring about yours and your own, no wonder people are unwilling to do actions for the good of all.

SI

lol

Listen, it's really simple. Doctors and nurses in surgery wear masks. I work in the pharma field, and I wear a mask when in the production area.

It's always been about protecting the patient or product from contamination of the mask wearer. How f*cking hard is it to understand?

People who are refusing to wear masks are putting other people at risk, and they don't want to do that because LIBERTY.

There are numerous shows that have shown how far a sneeze or cough goes in distance. Hell my 4 year old has open sneezed and I've felt it from the other side of the room. It's not a difficult concept.

Wearing a mask doesn't protect you from idiots not wearing them, it only minimizes risk (depending on the mask) of passing contamination.

Anyone who refuses to wear one is ignorant or defiant. Since some places are standing down due to these upstanding citizens (like the guy in Texas who pushed a park officer in a pond when he asked them to disperse), I can only see further cases, some of which will be fatal.

It's a shame, but I won't feel sorry for those who defiantly went against these requirements and got themselves or people they cared about (if that's possible) sick or killed.

It truly is a messed up time we are living in.

A virologist from Columbia is pushing back on this with a long tweet thread.

Well the one thing that may be an issue with the mutant coronavirus (which seems to have started in Italy), is that those that had the original Wuhan based virus would not have immunity to the Europe based virus - meaning masks should be worn by them as well.

yeah, our doctor called in a script. I am waiting for my results but I highly doubt I would be positive and her negative.

They do protect you a little. Better than nothing. But you're right that it helps you from spreading to others. Basically the goal is that anything that lowers R0 is good.

Yeah was down in Tarcone's neck of the woods yesterday (mine too Tarcone before you take it as a shot, I'm from Eureka :) ) at a hardware store with my mask on and the lady not wearing a mask working there made some snarky comment about how she was getting her fingers all over my card how I she hoped I would be ok. Well lady you are the one that is pushing 70+ and I'm basically wearing it for you for than me. It's almost like a badge of honor in rural Missouri(ah) to not wear masks, gloves, etc.