California and San Diego are still officially under stay at home order, but things are re-opening.

Our mayor is requesting that San Diego be allowed to manage its transition back and not have to follow the governor's orders.

The churches are still under orders to stay home but they are planning on packing them no matter what the public health officials say.

Meanwhile I work for a hospital system and they think the cases are going to grow dramatically into July, and that the deaths in California might DOUBLE in August.

Prediction: By August things will be open AND the total amount of deaths will triple. Might now we have 2,977 deaths in California.

I am not enjoying other people's actions.

Work has not called us back in but people are talking like we'll be in the office soon (like in the next 45 days) but I am not going to go into the office even if it means they let me go.

--
My experience as of today:

When I go out I've noticed that traffic has increased quite a bit, and the parking lots at supermarkets and shopping centers in markedly increased.

People are wearing masks I'd say 85% of the time.

yesterday, i got too close to someone and they gave me the gas face. I forgot, lol

but yeah...
I’m currently in NYS, some places are expected to open Friday. I run to the store every now and then but, I have no plans to be out there shopping, eating and visiting people. I hate that I have to travel next week...

I think the easiest thing to say is that due to lack of testing states are highlighting lagging indicators and that's such a wrong headed way to address a virus that can basically hide like "the fallen" that I'm not surprised that it's happening but I struggle to deal with it.

As a result everyday we hear about new cases, deaths, hospital rate ... and we make decisions based off that.

The problem starts with the testing. Texas has only tested less than 1 percent of the population. We don't know enough about the tests to know who's being tested, for what, or where. But we know that the numbers are so low that it's only good for a means of "what is wrong with you personally"

Texas also doesn't have a contact tracing mechanism so when you look at a positive test, there's no system in place to address the spread or reach of that case, only treatment for the individual.

And again, the test count is low low low. Cosmically low.

Meanwhile the death rate (by COVID) isn't sky rocketing, case count appears low because of low tests and now you have a case for "reopening" which they are and did. People feel safe because they're not seeing mass deaths. But that goes back to testing. If we have no visibility into how many people are dying relative to the normal rate, and now everyone that dies is tested for COVID, then we really don't know how bad things are.

So now we're in the fun phase. The phase of false security, jingoistic flyovers, picnics, fuck mask wearing, haircuts, water parks (yup), bars and restaurants and churches and Memorial Day weekend on the horizon and July 4th following that. The schools are still closed but school is still in session somehow. Meat buying has been throttled but people aren't getting the hint that that's an indicator that shit is bad and going to get worse. So here we are.

our cases started exploding right when this whole open back up talk started. no idea how close we are to peaking. we get 30 cases a day, then 60, then 20 then 80.

the mayor requested to be exempt from further opening but no idea if the texas governor will get with that. our emergency order was extended until june 10th.

been seeing too many locals saying we need to save the economy!! :(

my job has stayed open with some people working from home sometimes. this is the last scheduled week of working from home, not sure if it will be extended.

i stopped going into stores, only doing pick up. i dont think my city ever really stayed home. people got too confident since we were under 100 cases going into april but now were close to 1500.

doesnt help that the mayor was spotted having a gathering wearing no mask or social distancing.

edit: i dont know if other cities are posting this detailed of information. i was trying to find decent resolution images of charts that the news have been using but couldnt find any.

http://epstrong.org/results.php

the map showing the cases by zip code is kinda 😳

im in one of the average areas. the areas with the most cases make sense knowing the type of people that live there lol. rich and wanna be rich folks that think theyre too good to follow directions.

pan handle and good old el paso. i doubt they will hold off past a week.

Unless we’ve fully accepted that people are just gonna get sick and die

once those start maxing out they MIGHT think about shutting down.

They'll demand antibody tests first and then and only then will they be willing to entertain the idea

But seeing as how fucked up the tests are and unreliable ... it's going to continue to be a shit show

"Despite 20,000+ COVID19 deaths, we find only ~5% of France infected. The lockdown, eased on Monday, reduced transmission by 80%, however R still close to 1 (~0.7) with 3-6k daily infections, leaving little room for post-lockdown increases @ScienceMagazine
https://bit.ly/2zzLKJX"

https://twitter.com/hsalje/status/1260606369805320195

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-sweden-strategy/swedish-antibody-study-shows-long-road-to-immunity-as-covid-19-toll-mounts-idUSKBN22W2YC

STOCKHOLM (Reuters) - A Swedish study found that just 7.3 percent of Stockholmers developed COVID-19 antibodies by late April, which could fuel concern that a decision not to lock down Sweden against the pandemic may bring little herd immunity in the near future.

The strategy was championed by Chief Epidemiologist Anders Tegnell, whose recommendation for voluntary measures against the virus, rather than a mandatory lockdown like those imposed by many other countries, has divided opinion at home and abroad.

Sweden’s strategy of keeping most schools, restaurants, bars and businesses open even as much of Europe hunkered down behind closed doors exposed it to criticism with death rates running far higher than in Nordic neighbours, even if much lower than in countries such as Britain, Italy and France that shut down.

The number of COVID-19 patients in intensive care in Sweden has fallen by a third from the peak in late April and health authorities say the outbreak is slowing. However, Sweden has recorded the highest number of COVID-19 deaths per capita in Europe over the last seven days.

The antibody study sought to look into the potential for herd immunity, a situation where enough people in a population have developed immunity to an infection to be able to effectively stop that disease from spreading.

The findings were roughly in line with models predicting a third of the Swedish capital’s population would have had the virus by now and where at least limited herd immunity could have set in, the Swedish Health Agency said on Wednesday.

“It is a little bit lower (than expected) but not remarkably lower, maybe one or a couple of percent,” Tegnell told a Stockholm news conference. “It squares pretty well with the models we have.”

However, the herd immunity concept is untested for the novel coronavirus and the extent and duration of immunity among recovered patients is equally uncertain as well.

The study drew on some 1,100 tests from across the country although only figures for Stockholm were released.

While Health Agency officials have stressed herd immunity is not a goal in itself, it has also said the strategy is only to slow the virus enough for health services to cope, not suppress it altogether.

They have said that countries employing wholesale lockdowns to prevent any exposure to the coronavirus could face renewed outbreaks as restrictions were eased and be more susceptible to any second wave of the disease.

The World Health Organization has warned against pinning hopes on herd immunity. It said last week global studies had found antibodies in only 1-10 percent of the population, results in line with recent findings in Spain and France.
“HERD IMMUNITY IS A LONG WAY OFF, IF EVER”

Bjorn Olsen, Professor of Infectious Medicine at Uppsala University, is among dozen academics who have criticised Sweden’s pandemic response and labelled herd immunity a “dangerous and unrealistic” approach to dealing with COVID-19.

“I think herd immunity is a long way off, if we ever reach it,” he told Reuters after the release of the antibody findings.

Sweden’s approach, shaped by a conviction the coronavirus can be slowed but not fully suppressed, is reflected not just in an aversion to quarantines and closures but in a decision to carry out relatively little testing and contact tracing.

Tests are largely restricted to hospitalised cases and health care workers. Weekly test numbers still run at less than a third of the government’s goal of 100,000, a far lower per capita rate than Sweden’s Nordic peers and below that of most West European countries.

Meanwhile the death toll has continued to rise, compounded by a failure to protect the old and infirm in a country famed for its welfare state.

Helen Gluckman, 55, wept bitterly as she related how her 83-year-old father died of a COVID-19 infection contracted in a nursing home after untested patients were admitted there. “We don’t know what will happen when other countries open up, but right now one can’t help but think Sweden has really failed. There are more than 3,000 dead now. That is a horrible number.”

With cases having crossed the 30,000 mark, Sweden’s death toll in the pandemic has reached 3,831, more than three times the combined total of Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, all nations with similar welfare systems and demographics.

While others locked down to buy time, critics like Olsen say Sweden has done “too little, too late”. They say its laissez-faire approach, also playing down risks posed by asymptomatic spreading of COVID-19, has been catastrophic for the elderly.

The government remains adamant that Sweden’s high per capita death toll did not result from the lack of a national lockdown.

Defending the strategy, Health and Social Affairs Minister Lena Hellengren said most Swedes had voluntarily minimised their social interactions and movements outside the home. “The Swedes have really changed their behaviour,” she told Reuters.

I can’t imagine them shutting things down again....not with this guy in office. I hope they have a plan for voting.

... that basically manage their entire existence around the fear of getting sued. Which is to say: three colleges and an extremely wealthy private high school. The kind of funny thing about it is that if you asked me a year ago what my least favorite thing, structurally, about where I work I would have complained:

a)huge institutions have no ability to act nimbly
b)so many of my decisions and actions are conditioned by liability concerns

Now, what that effectively means is that plans have to be made looking 3-4 months in the future because nobody wants to drastically change the mode of instruction mid-semester like we did this spring and even though my bosses don't give the slightest shit about my well-being, getting kids (young adults really) sick would mean getting sued into oblivion.

So, except that I have very little job security as an adjunct and could find my classes (and therefore, my money) dry up quickly if the enrollment is less than their already-low expectations, it's ironically a pretty good work situation.

The takeaway is that I can expect to be doing my job from home at least into August.

shit's crazy. I've gone out for food and things. won't pretend that I completely stayed home.

but since re-opening, folks have been everywhere. the grocery stores, targets, etc have been jammed. parks and outdoor places have been busier too.

still not being taken seriously in parts. I've seen videos of fights at the mall. gathering for shoes at another mall. bbqing like normal. hell, even with my aunts/cousins, having parties for bdays and cinco de mayo.

not to celebrate my mom but his mother in law. that has never happened. like why? i mean yay her but it was kinda weird lol. i do wanna go see him but its just not worth it.

weve been pushing back our trip to houston that was gonna happen late march. we have it set for 3 weeks from now. im not comfortable with that. ill probably go but blah.

i think my other brother has been going out. he was in (i think) myrtle beach on mothers day.

i kinda hope we have all been exposed to it and had mild/no symptoms. that doesnt really guarantee much but whatever.

I’m in Austell and I’m feeling like a dummy being one of the few still wearing a mask. I can’t go back to work til June or July and I’m keeping myself out of Cumberland for lunch probably for the rest of the year.

My gym sent an email that they are opening next week with outdoor workouts. As much as I want to get out there, I can't do it in good conscience right now

I don’t have to go back until the echo year ends.

I’ve gone to the grocery store, Costco and to pick up food... and the liquor store.

Grocery stores are weird. Only about half the people wear mask. Some of the younger workers don’t wear them.

Costco is now enforcing mask to enter and handing them out. They had no beef or chicken which was odd. Sign of things to come. Other grocery stores still have chicken and beef. They did have cooked rotisserie chickens tho.

Most places are still doing curbside pickup. Liquor store lets one person in at a time. Don’t even think about going on weekends.

Some people have gone back to work at my job and we are small but when I showed up thinking I had to return my boss told me we need to enforce SD so I have to move my desk if I returned. I peaced out and won’t be back until June.

———

South Carolina is fully open but no indoor seating at most places. We are right on the border with SC so it’s a bit nervous because people are going across the border to feel normal.

well. we can’t use the gym or the business center. We have to call first to pick up any packages.

I’ll probably continue to have my groceries delivered...

work from home, go to the grocery store/Walmart/Costco (masked up), if I order food, it's delivery or curbside pickup. Picked up some Outback, Sunday and the joint was back open for dine-in...parking lot was PACKED. Not gone be able to do it.

Ran a couple errands Saturday and people were in line to go inside Starbucks, as if the drive thru wasn't open and moving quickly.

Needed to pick up contacts and there was a mom & son inside - no masks. Saw a couple in the next car, no masks, lady went into the nail salon.

Grocery store, asked the meat manager a question he walked RIGHT up to me. Like sir...you can hear me from a few more steps over lol. Lot of folks with no masks.

Walking on a popular trail here. Lots of people biking and walking/running with no masks. And it SUCKS to run with a mask but come the fuck on.

If I didn't like my fresh produce I'd be straight on the stores.

columbia and rainbow area. most times I don't see people.

I can't run in a mask, so I make sure that I don't hit those trails, etc. figured everyone would be there. same with beltline.

just hoping you dont get run over. Because you were tired of waiting for the light to change.

What is different now than it was a month or two ago? Nothing, except we flattened the curve by social distancing. So, we'll stop doing the only thing that was keeping things from spinning out of control. Genius.

and am a bit concerned that people are letting their guard down.

I have kept my office open, but we're small so only one person in at a time. Lots of Lysol spray before/after each visit.
I see my folks almost every day but wear a mask. Other than that, minimal in-person contact outside of shopping.

Generally people are following masking/distancing rules when I see them out (actually better now than a few weeks ago), but I suspect there's a lot of less visible lowering of the guard and that concerns me.

Came home from a walk one night and it sure as hell sounded like the neighbors had company for dinner on their back porch. Other neighbors had 5 cars in the driveway for Mother's Day, grandkids playing basketball with grandpa in the driveway, no masks in sight, you know family dinner was around the big table. Lots of groups of multiple teenagers out walking (never any masks) or in stores together. People out for walks/runs in pretty busy downtowns where there's no way they can keep 6' distances, with no masks... it's one thing if you're out in a neighborhood but in a place that still has pretty heavy foot traffic, that's not cool.

Wife has gone walking with a neighbor a few times with no mask and it makes me nervous. I joined them twice but masked up; had a beer with them after one walk and we kept our distance but I came home and was like 'I was uncomfortable with that.'

My main concern isn't even for me/us but for my folks & other older and compromised people I know. My wife's aunt died of the virus two weekends back, was in a nursing home & had been doing okay but got sick and died in like 5 days. Don't want that to happen to anyone else.

Right outside of LA.. trails are open so that has been dope hitting those again (not sneaking into them anymore)

Non essential stuff is available for purchase now so (like NJ.. where I was) Walmart has now become the club and that's probably the only place that is doing a little too much. People wit masks but barely social distancing..

Beaches in this county are open so can hit them too.... Cali has been really beneficial in this time because there is no traffic in LA and access to lots and lots of outdoor space with little to no people.

Getting used to every cashier basically looking like a bodega and adding a bandana to every outfit makes it easy to not forget a mask when you leave.. that has been interesting.

Walmart has now become the club and that's
>probably the only place that is doing a little too much.
>People wit masks but barely social distancing..
^^^ HAHAHAHAH thass a FACT


>Beaches in this county are open so can hit them too.... Cali
>has been really beneficial in this time because there is no
>traffic in LA and access to lots and lots of outdoor space
>with little to no people.
^^^ parts of long beach were roped off at the beach; you could walk north/south but not east/west but these 'folk' been out here since day one


>Getting used to every cashier basically looking like a bodega
>and adding a bandana to every outfit makes it easy to not
>forget a mask when you leave.. that has been interesting.
^^^ dude. hella people runnin around lookin like fashionable Crips/Bloods. shxt is hilarious unless you actually hit a blocc. LOL

A lot of the restaurants that were closed are at least doing take-out again. Retail stores will start doing "pick-up" late this week/early next week. When I went grocery shopping on Sunday (my one day of the week where I really "get out") there weren't any lines at the grocery stores. I'm seeing paper products, bread, and flour on the shelves again in most places.

Still working from home. I have zero idea when they're going to be asking us to come back in. I imagine that me team will be among the last, because we really don't do anything that requires us to be in the office. Until then, I'll keep on being just as productive from home as I am from the workplace.

too many people can't seem to reconcile "it's not as bad here, therefore we need to open up" vs. the reason it's not as bad here.

we're apparently slow rolling our openings and will remain on some form of lockdown through July

so either the mayor is gonna start to cave as people get antsy and the narrative remains that we're over reacting, or we see what happens in other places an enough people realize our diligence (especially in a city of 4 million people) is a good thing.

But it's becoming clear too many people won't realize that until it hits them and theirs personally.

Which I imagine is going to be tough, but until there's widley available and accessible testing and tracing, it's kind of a necessity until cases really start to go down.

On the "stupid people who can't reconcile" front, someone on my TL just posted two of those "infromative" memes about how contact tracing is bad and masks are "just a way to control you" within a few minutes of each other. She's gone.

that we're not fully re-opening.

but there does seem to be a bit of disconnect between Garcetti and Ferer (our Fauci) in messaging


>On the "stupid people who can't reconcile" front, someone on
>my TL just posted two of those "infromative" memes about how
>contact tracing is bad and masks are "just a way to control
>you" within a few minutes of each other. She's gone.

yeah those people are the worst.

cases and deaths.

for rehab from multiple falls. they have 0 cases right now and she's been tested twice but it's still terrifying.

an extended family member just died of covid in a nursing home in NY

i have the privilege of having health professionals as work leadership and they keep us pretty well updated on what is happening in California by region and overall.

I truly hope your family recovers and stays safe. LA is unfortunately not yet seeing evidence of real control. despite the evidence, there is a large political push that Dr. Ferrer and the Mayor are facing to re-open LA. The Bay area is doing a little bit better as a region but we still have lots of progress to make before things are safe.

we have 33k cases and 1600 deaths in a population of 4mil

hospitals are not overwhelmed yet, etc..

not saying it's good by any means but not seeing #prayforLA yet.

>we have 33k cases and 1600 deaths in a population of 4mil
>

The numbers they read off daily are for LA County, which includes Long Beach, Pasadena, Palmdale and fucking Lancaster. LA County covers an enormous area.

Considering the county is the highest populated county in the US, and has a higher population than most states (and many countries), we have avoided the worst of it so far. The population + density of LA County makes the slow, rolling opening essential. We have to be more careful than other places, bottom line. Things will start to slowly open here in the next three months (they already have), with a possibility of normalcy by early August. This has been the timeline given by experts for a while now. Clickbait headlines aside, nothing has changed for LA.

The numbers here have stabilized. And the higher case count can be attributed to a lot more testing (which is good) and backlog of reporting positive cases from different labs (which is annoying).

A few relatively positive notes on LA County:

Number of new hospitalizations down.
Number of positive cases in relation to amount of people tested down.
Rt is below 1 (if the R is below 1, each person is getting less than 1 person sick. the
number was at like 6 early on)

https://twitter.com/lapublichealth (there's a few people that have been really good at objectively analyzing the data in the daily update threads)

...and by that, I mean once my job decides i cant work from home anymore i guess

last week.

Its all like "continue wearing masks and practice social-distancing" but we want that bread.

I will probably be back in the office next week.

I was low-key excited to be able to make a barbershop appointment though lol

All good for me personally since I can do most of my job anywhere with strong WIFI. Half of my team is itching to get back to the office though. It's hard for them to access their equipment remotely and the complaints are never ending. On one hand I feel their pain but on the other hand they should really be thankful to have steady jobs and benefits still imo.

She was leaving next week on a Memorial Day weekend pre-quarantine ticket to see family but changed it to tomorrow so that there was a less of a chance that more people would be on the flight than during a "holiday" time period.

She has anxiety around how many people will be on the flight, obviously if there aren't many on the plane she will be able to relax but of course she won't know that until she gets to the gate.

Luckily it is only a 3 hour flight and not a longer one but I am hopeful that she has a smooth trip all things considered.

https://twitter.com/CDPHE/status/1260282164039389190

The result of a 2.5-hour choir practice with 61 people, including one symptomatic individual with COVID-19:
Small blue diamond
32 confirmed cases (three hospitalized & two died)
Small blue diamond
20 probable cases
Small blue diamond
8 unaffected

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6919e6.htm?s_cid=mm6919e6_e&deliveryName=USCDC_921-DM28169

It is wild you post that because I was telling her whenever she comes back she has to let me know so I can make arrangements to possibly leave for 2 weeks while she quarantines since she will be on a plane coming back too.

And she seemed lowkey offended that I said that and it seemed like she thought I might be overreacting but as someone high risk I was just trying to think what was best for me.

Looks like I was right on target with being concerned.

Choir practice in an enclosed space (probably with standard airconditioning and/or little ventilation), with the median age being 69 and no social distancing measures.

vs.

Being in a plane with social distancing rules (unless I'm missing something), younger people and (I'm assuming) no singing and very little talking. Modern planes supposedly have pretty good air filtration systems as well.

I'm not saying there's no risk, and I definitely agree that the housemate is being unnecessarily careless in taking this non-essential trip, but presenting pretty much the worst case scenario when it's not even Lightroom herself taking the trip seems overblown.

Air + lungs + enclosed space + viral load, accumulated and recirculated over x amount of hours is worse by magnitudes

Age isn't even relevant.
Risk of death isn't even relevant
Infection rate, transmission rate, spread of contact once off the plane are.

May not be as risky as they intuitively seem.

Here: Nassim Nicholas Taleb (@nntaleb) Tweeted:
Friends, do we have data about the rate of infection for flight personnel?
How safe is it to ride on a plane with gloves, N95 masks, etc? https://twitter.com/nntaleb/status/1262444217672118279?s=20

Let’s just be logical.
If this can happen on a bus over four hours
https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/health/health-problems/how-coronavirus-spreads-twice-as-far-on-trains-buses-public-transport/news-story/938b067e72449cd536c1b2d2d0f53070

What can happen on a plane, with more people, in closer proximity, with more contact queuing at TSA, hour wait at terminal, then at gate waiting in line, then in the walk ramp down, spread out over time spent boarding, taxiing, taking off, flying, landing, taxiing, then deplaning add in the restrooms after flight, plus baggage claim waiting ...

so filtration don't really mean shit...
50 people on a plane & EVERYBODY gonna be breathing that air at somepoint before it's filtered...
Somebody sneezes??? oh it's a wrap...


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

understanding. It's the most selfish, self centered train of thought that needs to die a quick death.
Their whole thought process is
1. I likely won't get it
2. If I do I'll likely survive

Fuck them.

I'm not saying that it's without risks (I definitely wouldn't do it, contrary to what Meat assumed), but it's a far cry from the choir practice example, or any of the other "super spreader" events.

If you want some neat info and reconstructions of several Corona outbreaks, this blog (by an Associate Professor of Biology) is a nice read: https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

They specifically mention air travel (with restrictions) as being relatively safe (compared to indoor gatherings) in a reaction to a question of a reader. (edit: can't link to the comment directly, scroll down on the 2nd page of comments to see it)

(this isn't the only source I use btw, just recent one that seems very thourough)

Information about air filtration on airplanes: https://www.tripsavvy.com/air-quality-during-your-flight-54164

As you know Covid-19 is a Corona virus (sorry to state the obvious), which is a rather common category of viruses. There's little reason to believe it will behave differently from its direct relatives (wrt filters), and those get filtered out quite efficiently. Otherwise modern air travel would be nigh impossible, because it would mean everybody getting sick (colds, flu, etc.) pretty much every flight.

Again, I'm not writing this to make light of people's worries, but if Lightworks is in a vulnerable demographic and really that worried about exposure through her roommate, I don't think she should get hung up on that one plane trip. There are plenty of other opportunities to get infected in daily life, so she probably should agree on strict distancing and hygiene in the house, or find another place to stay for the time being. Her call. I just don't like fear mongering, intentional or not. That doesn't make me some kind of denialist, but I guess that nuance is lost on some folks here, lol.

You’re right in daily life you can get infected but I work from home and I go out very rarely (to get my Instacart grocery delivery, sometimes to the store in my building for last minute stuff)...

I don’t necessarily trust just having social distancing in a small apartment even if we stay 6 feet away from each other for 14 days, we share a common space that I’m sure won’t be wiped down every time one of us opens the refrigerator or turns on the faucet to wash a dish.

I don’t really care about her going TO see family, I mean I care about her as a person but my biggest concern is when she comes back from that flight, and what the folks on her flight might have that she brings home to me.

Day 1 of her back is maybe in theory fine.

But day 2 through 14? Anything could happen and I’m not interested in being the guinea pig in that situation.

I'm not in a high risk group, but during the early days of the outbreak (I'm in the EU btw) I got pretty stressed because I share a kitchen/common area with eight other people, and they felt like in-house distancing (in addition to outside distancing) was too much of a burden.

It looks like our government stepped on the brakes just in time to avoid a shit storm like Italy, the UK or the USA, and our region wasn't hit too badly, so I became more relaxed about our in-house situation eventually, but I imagine being at higher risk and having a bunch of baboons at the helm makes it way harder to stay calm about it.

If you haven't already, read the blog I linked. It's not going to dispel your fears, but it might help you find personal ways to minimize possible exposure. Government guidelines are just that, guidelines, but with a little effort you can draw up a personal protocol adjusted to your specific situation. I imagine it might help to feel in control a little more.

In any case, good luck with everything, I hope it turns out okay for you.

I frequently hear it... The argument is always very one sided and studies (including the one you linked) fail to discuss the events that lead up to the actual filtration. Air has to travel. In order for air to travel it has to be disturbed and a current generated. The path of travel in a large aircraft is not insignificant.

I for one wouldn't dare fly ANYWHERE for ANY reason right now...but that's a luxury some folks don't have of course...but still....i'd be looking waaaay sideways at any employer asking me to fly right now....

>I'm not saying that it's without risks (I definitely wouldn't
>do it, contrary to what Meat assumed), but it's a far cry from
>the choir practice example, or any of the other "super
>spreader" events.

Understood.

>If you want some neat info and reconstructions of several
>Corona outbreaks, this blog (by an Associate Professor of
>Biology) is a nice read:
>https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

Yes, read that last week. It's been making the rounds...it was shared on our neighborhood listserv. It's a great read for sure...

>They specifically mention air travel (with restrictions) as
>being relatively safe (compared to indoor gatherings) in a
>reaction to a question of a reader. (edit: can't link to the
>comment directly, scroll down on the 2nd page of comments to
>see it)

Yeah, and she really fumbled the answer IMO...not nearly thorough enough...here was her response: "Hi Jane (air-travel),

There have been recorded incidents of infections occurring on planes, but for the volume of air traffic, the incidence is low. They have great air filtration on board most modern planes.

Those immediately around you on the plane and fomite transfer from surfaces are your major concern. We travelled internationally recently, and just had wipes with us to clean our immediate contact surfaces and limited/were super cautious using the bathroom. "

>(this isn't the only source I use btw, just recent one that
>seems very thourough)
>
>Information about air filtration on airplanes:
>https://www.tripsavvy.com/air-quality-during-your-flight-54164

Tripsavvy makes money by people traveling...it's in their best interest to aleviate people's fears of traveling... I appreciate the link...but I wouldn't put much stock in that answer being gospel.

>As you know Covid-19 is a Corona virus (sorry to state the
>obvious), which is a rather common category of viruses.
>There's little reason to believe it will behave differently
>from its direct relatives (wrt filters), and those get
>filtered out quite efficiently. Otherwise modern air travel
>would be nigh impossible, because it would mean everybody
>getting sick (colds, flu, etc.) pretty much every flight.

There's actually a LOT of reason to believe it behaves differently...because it does. I won't rehash all of that though...but there are a ton of articles explaining what makes it so unique vs other virus.

>Again, I'm not writing this to make light of people's worries,
>but if Lightworks is in a vulnerable demographic and really
>that worried about exposure through her roommate, I don't
>think she should get hung up on that one plane trip. There are
>plenty of other opportunities to get infected in daily life,
>so she probably should agree on strict distancing and hygiene
>in the house, or find another place to stay for the time
>being. Her call. I just don't like fear mongering, intentional
>or not. That doesn't make me some kind of denialist, but I
>guess that nuance is lost on some folks here, lol.

Just understand how things can come off..
There's a LOT of validity in MEAT's assessment of the "privilege" that's on display lately, ESPECIALLY surrounding the wearing of masks.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

>Yeah, and she really fumbled the answer IMO...not nearly
>thorough enough...

Yeah, it's about as thorough as you can expect from a comment to a comment, which is unfortunate.

>>Information about air filtration on airplanes:
>>https://www.tripsavvy.com/air-quality-during-your-flight-54164
>
>Tripsavvy makes money by people traveling...it's in their best
>interest to aleviate people's fears of traveling... I
>appreciate the link...but I wouldn't put much stock in that
>answer being gospel.

I considered that, but it's some pretty non-controversial information. Tons of other sources on HEPA filters are easy to find. No need for gospel :)

>There's actually a LOT of reason to believe it behaves
>differently...because it does. I won't rehash all of that
>though...but there are a ton of articles explaining what makes
>it so unique vs other virus.

I know it behaves quite differently from its cousins once inside the body (otherwise we wouldn't be having this conversation), but I'm not aware of it behaving differently from other viruses when it comes to the particulate/aerosol side of things, which is why I emphasized I only meant it in regards to filtering. It dies to soap, UV exposure, from drying out, etc. like other corona viruses, so it stands to reason HEPA filters will also catch it. If you have specific info contrary to that assessment, I'd love to see it (honestly, not trying to internet-debate you here).

>Just understand how things can come off..
>There's a LOT of validity in MEAT's assessment of the
>"privilege" that's on display lately, ESPECIALLY surrounding
>the wearing of masks.

I agree about the privilege part in general, but calling someone a "fucking idiot" for politely questioning a line of reasoning is a bit much, no?

>>Yeah, and she really fumbled the answer IMO...not nearly
>>thorough enough...
>
>Yeah, it's about as thorough as you can expect from a comment
>to a comment, which is unfortunate.
>
>>>Information about air filtration on airplanes:
>>>https://www.tripsavvy.com/air-quality-during-your-flight-54164
>>
>>Tripsavvy makes money by people traveling...it's in their
>best
>>interest to aleviate people's fears of traveling... I
>>appreciate the link...but I wouldn't put much stock in that
>>answer being gospel.
>
>I considered that, but it's some pretty non-controversial
>information. Tons of other sources on HEPA filters are easy to
>find. No need for gospel :)

The filtration isn't the issue...filtration works....but you can't ignore the path that contaminated air takes before it's actually filtered and "cleaned". Unless folks on a plane are breathing directly into a filtration tube...then you gonna be breathing unfiltered/contaminated air. Full stop.

>>There's actually a LOT of reason to believe it behaves
>>differently...because it does. I won't rehash all of that
>>though...but there are a ton of articles explaining what
>makes
>>it so unique vs other virus.

>I know it behaves quite differently from its cousins once
>inside the body (otherwise we wouldn't be having this
>conversation), but I'm not aware of it behaving differently
>from other viruses when it comes to the particulate/aerosol
>side of things, which is why I emphasized I only meant it in
>regards to filtering. It dies to soap, UV exposure, from
>drying out, etc. like other corona viruses, so it stands to
>reason HEPA filters will also catch it. If you have specific
>info contrary to that assessment, I'd love to see it
>(honestly, not trying to internet-debate you here).

It's more contagious. Takes less exposure to have an impact... . Again...the issue is BEFORE you have a chance to clean it. Not talking about how it behaves once you get it....

>>Just understand how things can come off..
>>There's a LOT of validity in MEAT's assessment of the
>>"privilege" that's on display lately, ESPECIALLY surrounding
>>the wearing of masks.

>I agree about the privilege part in general, but calling
>someone a "fucking idiot" for politely questioning a line of
>reasoning is a bit much, no?

I won't speak ill of MEAT...
Never question a man's reasoning though....

>The filtration isn't the issue...filtration works....but you
>can't ignore the path that contaminated air takes before it's
>actually filtered and "cleaned". Unless folks on a plane are
>breathing directly into a filtration tube...then you gonna be
>breathing unfiltered/contaminated air. Full stop.

I understand that. Again, I'm not arguing that air travel is currently totally safe (or safe, period), just that it poses much less of a risk than non-distanced choir practice in a badly ventilated/unfiltered space, or other events/places linked to large outbreaks.
We're constantly rolling the dice here, even when covered in full PPE. You can't avoid that. What you can do is trying to determine what kind of dice you're rolling, which requires information rather than alarmist comparisons that aren't based in evidence (referring to MEAT's initial reaction to Lightroom's concerns here, not anything you wrote).

>It's more contagious. Takes less exposure to have an impact...

I thought this was due to our immune systems being ill equipped to deal with this novel virus, not because it sticks around for longer outside the body or is harder to kill/filter out. Can you link a source?

>I understand that. Again, I'm not arguing that air travel is
>currently totally safe (or safe, period), just that it poses
>much less of a risk than non-distanced choir practice in a
>badly ventilated/unfiltered space, or other events/places
>linked to large outbreaks.


But it's fucking riskier. This is just nonsense.
Complete fucking high brow gibberish
People breathing in an air sealed space for multiple hours is the worst thing that they could possibly do
It's why flights globally have been reduced to almost nothing

UGHHGGJLKDSGHLJKH

Can you imagine what a single asymptomatic flight attendant could do to a cabin?

other coronaviruses.

i was flying back and forth to china during SARS. they had the remote thermometers checking people's temperature when arriving from planes and trains, pulling people out of line.

w/ covid-19, you can't tell 'who looks sick' as a preventative measure, so anyone could potentially be spreading it and aggressive screening for symptomatic persons may only be limiting the potential spread by one to thirds.


peace & blessings,

x.

www.twitter.com/poetx

=========================================
I'm an advocate for working smarter, not harder. If you just
focus on working hard you end up making someone else rich and
not having much to show for it. (c) mad

I was just in a conversation with friends about the risks of air travel and we were debating just how dangerous it is. There's a tendency on both sides of the coin to sensationalize this pandemic. On one hand - you've got the MAGAs refusing to wear masks because they think it's an impingement on their liberty. On the other end, you've got people who are fear shaming people for daring to walk 10 steps outside without a mask on. Neither are helpful.

-->

Real talk. I have no idea why people think visiting family isn’t a risk. Especially if they live in another region.

I know people are bored or want to get out and see people but when I see friends chilling with family or going out of state to visit fam and friends.. smh.

and I really want my kids to see their cousins but I can’t take that risk. Hell, they get sick every time we see them because 4 kids in elementary school are always mad dirty.

I was telling her I personally would only fly in an emergency.

I get it, everyone isn't me, but yeah.

All of this is so wild to me because this is way less of an issue if like only 5 people end up on the flight.

But the possible risk if it being full? Or even half full with a few asymptomatic people on there? Or it being dead going there but full coming back?

Way too risky for me.

not saying I endorse this, but this op ed ran in the WaPo a couple days ago:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/18/airplanes-dont-make-you-sick-really/

"Airplanes don’t make you sick. Really.

May 18, 2020 at 9:00 AM EDT

Joseph Allen is assistant professor of exposure assessment science at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and co-author of the book “Healthy Buildings.”

You don’t get sick on airplanes any more than anywhere else. Really, you don’t.

If you think this is preposterous or even dangerous to suggest during a pandemic, consider this fact: The ventilation system requirements for airplanes meet the levels recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for use with covid-19 patients in airborne infection isolation rooms.

Before we go any further, let’s make one thing clear: Airplanes are certainly vectors of disease, efficiently transporting infectious people around countries and the globe. This is obviously critical in terms of outbreak control for covid-19. But the fact that airplanes help spread disease across geographies does not mean that you are necessarily at risk during flight. There are fairly simple things you can do, if you do need to travel, to reduce the odds of getting sick.

Billions of people travel by plane every year, yet there have only been a handful of documented disease outbreaks attributable to airplanes in the past 40 years. If planes made you sick, we would expect to see millions of people sick every year attributable to flights. We haven’t seen it because it’s just not happening.

Consider one study that examined a passenger with tuberculosis on an airplane. It found that the median risk of infection to the other 169 passengers on the airplane was between 1 in 10,000 to 1 in a million. Wearing a mask, as some airlines now require, reduced the incidence of infection another 10-fold.

Sign up for our Coronavirus Updates newsletter to track the outbreak. All stories linked in the newsletter are free to access.

There’s a reason the risks are low. The required aircraft systems do a really good job of controlling airborne bacteria and viruses.

To get technical, airplanes deliver 10 to 12 air changes per hour. In a hospital isolation room, the minimum target is six air changes per hour for existing facilities and 12 air changes per hour for new. Airplanes also use the same air filter — a HEPA filter — recommended by the CDC for isolation rooms with recirculated air. Such filters capture 99.97 percent of airborne particles.

What’s more, airplanes are essentially designed to isolate airflow. Even if someone coughs on your flight without a mask, it is likely those virus particles will travel one or two rows, as evidence from the few outbreaks attributed to the airplane cabin shows.

Still, you might say, this only accounts for airborne transmission of covid-19. To guard against transmission via large droplets and contaminated surfaces, we do need to take some additional steps. Wearing a mask on planes should be mandated, and wiping down tables and arm rests with a disinfectant provides an additional layer of defense.

By this point, you may be thinking, “But I know I get sick when I travel. This article goes against everything I have experienced firsthand.” The reality is that you are more at risk of getting sick when traveling, but it’s not the airplane that’s making you sick.

Every time you fly, you may also take a cab, bus or subway; stand in long lines in the airport; eat unhealthy foods; sit for extended durations; spend time in spaces with hundreds or thousands of other travelers; stay at a hotel or friend’s home; arrive in a different climate and change time zones, disrupting your sleep. All of these factors are known to affect your immune system.

To be clear, I’m not suggesting we go about air travel as we did before covid-19. I’m just putting the risks of time spent on an airplane in context. It is prudent to take additional precautions during a pandemic. In 2013, I was one of the lead authors of a report for the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies on infectious disease mitigation in airports and airplanes. Let me distill some of the recommendations from that report to those that are most applicable now and add a few new ones based on what we now know about covid-19.

For starters, airports should mandate mask wearing; increase ventilation rates; make bathrooms touchless; consider deploying upper-room germicidal UV fixtures in areas with high-occupant density; institute temperature screening; deploy hand-sanitizer stations; and, once passengers arrive at their gates, require that they stay in their designated area except for bathroom usage.

Airlines should ensure gate-based ventilation is operating during boarding and disembarkation; carefully choreograph the loading of airplanes; mandate mask use; and provide meals and bottled water during boarding and discontinue in-flight meal and drink service.

The Opinions section is looking for stories of how the coronavirus has affected people of all walks of life. Write to us.

Individuals have an important role to play, too. First, stay home and do not travel if sick. Comply with rules for mask wearing; wash hands before and after each step at the airport; keep the personal overhead ventilation on and pointed down; and maintain physical distancing to the extent possible.

If the necessary precautions are taken, and people do their part and behave according to rules, there is a path back to air travel. But we should all consider this a privilege — one that can be revoked quickly if conditions change or if crowds do not act appropriately.
"

This right here:

"Even if someone coughs on your flight without a mask, it is likely those virus particles will travel one or two rows"...

is the problem...

Wonderful if there are only 20 people on the plane and everyone is spread out. Yes in that scenario you are perhaps less likely to get sick (that is assuming after someone has coughed they didn't immediately go to the bathroom and touch a bunch of seats for balance on the way there...)

But even the push some airlines have had to block the middle seat isn't gonna help this scenario.

And like MEAT said, particles gotta get to the air filter before they can in fact filter but they for sure can hitch a ride on someone else that is close first.

My County (broward) is opening up on Mon the 18th. The Governor started opening up the stays about 2 weeks ago, but 3 counting did not.

As soon as the beaches in other counties open people from these 3 counties flocked to the other counties. They probably spread that shit even more.

I'm extremely lucky, I have been working from home. I plan to continue working from home and self isolating. I don't trust people enough.

I had a trip to Miami in July. I held out as long as I could, but the reality is Florida is being handled horribly. This is entirely on the right wing. Good luck.

I posted this in the anchored COVID post but thought it should go here as well for visibility

Rebekah Jones, the architect and manager of Fla. COVID-19 dashboard was fired on May 5th and control and publication of the dashboard was removed from her office. This was the exact dashboard that was lauded by the Trump administration.

Requests for previously available data by other scientists are now being rejected by the Florida Department of Health until 2021. Also, the Florida DOH has been excluding racial ethnic data from data tables despite it being reported by medical examiners.


https://www.floridatoday.com/story/news/2020/05/18/censorship-covid-19-data-researcher-removed-florida-moves-re-open-state/5212398002/

Coronavirus: As Florida re-opens, COVID-19 data chief gets sidelined and researchers cry foul

Late last Friday, the architect and manager of Florida's COVID-19 dashboard — praised by White House officials for its accessibility — announced that she had been removed from her post, causing outcry from independent researchers now worried about government censorship.

The dashboard has been a one-stop shop for researchers, the media and the public to access and download tables of COVID-19 cases, testing and death data to analyze freely. It had been widely hailed as a shining example of transparency and accessibility.

But over the last few weeks it had "crashed" and gone offline; data has gone missing without explanation and access to the underlying data sheets has become increasingly difficult.

The site was created by a team of Florida Department of Health data scientists and public health officers headed by Rebekah Jones. She announced last week her removal as of May 5 in a heartfelt farewell note emailed to researchers and other members of the public who had signed up to receive updates on the data portal.

Citing "reasons beyond my division’s control," Jones said her office is no longer managing the dashboard, is no longer involved in publication, fixing errors or answering questions "in any shape or form."

She warned that she does not know what the new team's intentions are for data access, including "what data they are now restricting."


"I understand, appreciate, and even share your concern about all the dramatic changes that have occurred and those that are yet to come," she wrote.

"As a word of caution, I would not expect the new team to continue the same level of accessibility and transparency that I made central to the process during the first two months. After all, my commitment to both is largely (arguably entirely) the reason I am no longer managing it."

Jones signed off, "It was great working with you guys. Good luck, and stay safe."

Jones did not respond to emailed requests to comment and the Department of Health did not reply to inquiries from FLORIDA TODAY regarding Jones' removal and access to data.

But researchers who have relied on unobstructed access to underlying raw data said they interpret Jones' removal as a clear indication of government censorship of science.

"We would not accept this lack of transparency for any other natural disaster, so why are we willing to accept it here?" said Jennifer Larsen, a researcher at the University of Central Florida's LabX.

Jones' removal and changes to the dashboard access is especially unusual given that the dashboard was lauded in April on CBS' Face the Nation by Dr. Deborah Birx, a top official of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force.

"If you go to the Florida Public Health website on COVID, they’ve been able to show their communities’ cases and tests district by district, county by county, ZIP code by ZIP code," Birx said. "That’s the kind of knowledge and power we need to put into the hands of American people so that they can see where the virus is, where the cases are, and make decisions."

Jones was also profiled by Esri, the software company that provides the product used to build the interactive visualization.

"Jones packaged data for academic and private researchers who are also creating models to help predict and explore impacts," the company wrote.

“If you look at our data services, there’s a lot of publicly available data, because it’s critical information,” Jones said at the time. “The efforts in the academic community to do serious data modeling are crucial right now.”

Data access has not worsened further, yet, but researchers are sounding the alarm in response to Jones' email.

Restricting the data, UCF's Larsen said, is the equivalent of cutting off hurricane forecasts as a storm approached.

"It's all of us being denied access to what we need to know to be safe," she continued, adding "it's just absurd that this is being treated differently than any other threat to Floridians."

Professor Ben D. Sawyer, who is the director of LabX at UCF — a team of researchers, data scientists and engineers working to understand patterns in Florida's COVID-19 data that have practical applications — fears the data will become less available.

"The ability of scientists to help is directly related to how much access we're given to data," he said, warning that with less raw data, scientists will be able to produce less accurate, less useful work.

There's also "the worry that the scientists within government who can access the full data are being actively censored," he said."That's a real worry."

When Sawyer and Larsen tried requesting the previously available underlying data, DOH officials said that because the data are "provisional" no such requests would be considered until May 2021.

Yet the state regularly publishes provisional data, including for infectious diseases such as influenza.

"Transparent, unfettered access to valid and granular data is central to effective disease control and prevention," wrote Jay Wolfson, a Senior Associate Dean at the University of South Florida's Morsani College of Medicine.

While Wolfson does not advocate for data to be released in an uncontrolled manner, he said limitations on raw data or "provisional data" should simply be qualified. "Good science does this routinely."

For Wolfson there are at least two explanations behind restricting data. One is if the data are "too flawed" to be useful. The other "is that the data reveal information that could be disturbing or contrary to stated narratives."

"Either case poses dilemmas for the very way the public’s business is being conducted. And while economic measures are vitally important to the health of the state, the health of the people of the state ultimately determines the state’ economic success," Wolfson wrote.

Asal M. Johnson, an assistant Professor of Public Health at Stetson University, has also been frustrated with decreasing data access.


"If we can not download data, further analysis becomes increasingly difficult as you can not easily calculate incidence and prevalence rates. This type of independent research by universities is critical as it can help tax payers and residents to make informed decisions regarding their actions," she wrote in an email.

Johnson also was dismayed that racial and ethnic data has been consistently excluded from Florida's line listing of cases. Such data was reported by medical examiners, but that data table has also been censored by the Department of Health.

Citizens have a right to the data, Johnson said, and making it less accessible "further complicates the control of COVID-19."

As to why the DOH is restricting access to data at this time, Johnson could only speculate: "To undermine evidence-based decision making to prioritize (the) economy."

"However, they are pretending that public health is what has damaged (the) economy. They are getting it wrong; the economy is damaged because we ignored evidence to protect public health," she wrote, adding "They think they can save their own political interest by restricting information."

"If the governor and his team are not pleased with speculations like this, then they have no choice but being transparent. We, as Florida residents, have right to have access to clear and easy to analyze information."

Sawyer at UCF tends to agree.

"The worry is that Florida is open. And if that goes poorly, they don't want data available that shows it is in the process of going poorly. I don't know that that's true, but that is my worry."

For Larsen, if the politics of Governor Ron DeSantis' reopening Florida are at play, it's a no-win situation.

"The virus doesn't really give a damn if you hide its numbers."

>Work has not called us back in but people are talking like
>we'll be in the office soon (like in the next 45 days) but I
>am not going to go into the office even if it means they let
>me go.
>

their countries.

South Korea might have to go back on lockdown if their curve continues to increase.

Here is our chance, again, to learn from other countries.....we messed up the first time by not being proactive when the outbreak started in China.

Not all but most... at least that I see (Mt. Airy / Germantown)

Cases are real here. Honestly, When and I drive through the more affluent neighborhoods (rich, white), that is when I generally don't see folks masked up.

Some privileged ass shit right there.


werd.

They opened up what, 2 weeks ago.

Are cases declining because people still are distancing regardless of the relaxation of restrictions? Is it warmer temperature related? Almost everybody got it already? Funky testing stats? Something else?

https://www.axios.com/coronavirus-cases-map-high-risk-states-8ceeaa05-cc07-4e8b-b9f4-df3a3315f143.html

in any capacity, whether it be election results, baseball stats, covid deaths, real estate loan applications...

I've read a few accounts of them possibly suppressing Covid numbers, but it's hard to get past the anecdotal and get real data on how much data isn't being counted, so who knows. hopefully that shit is getting better, but I'm not ready to jump out on a limb and trust it.

What has changed?

Letting more people touch the same things and breathe the seems air seems like it's going to increase numbers.

agenda
K.A. = Kill Americans


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

....to "stimulate" the economy. Expect to see deaths soaring this summer. It's going to be so bad

Kemp's crew listing the days out of order in hopes of making it look like there was a downward trend.

Florida just reported 777 new cases right before the state begins "Full phase one, which is another increase.

And Texas reported 1,800 new cases on Saturday, its biggest one day jump. It's been two weeks since they "reopened."

In the more affluent areas people are not wearing social distancing or wearing PPE.

It's mandatory to have a face-covering in a store, but aside from that...man, folks were walking down the street barefoot, unmasked carrying surf boards and all kinds of shxt.

No one wears masks and violate social distancing.

The healthcare system is ill-equipped to deal with this. How are all these people going to get tested. Meanwhile I rock a face shield, sometimes goggles and the 95.

My experiences are white people trying to kill me by refusing to take this seriously.

Forgot to mention I leave my window open, drink four glasses of oj and wear latex gloves every time I leave the house.

I don’t go out much but when I do I see so many black folks in particular not wearing masks and it just kills me knowing that everyone by now knows that black folks are the most impacted and that as someone who does wear a mask I still need the other person to cooperate and wear it so we both are safe.

Killing me that finding some cloth in your house to put over your mouth and nose is the easiest thing in the world and niggas still just won’t do it.

neighborhood....
I kinda don't see the point...
and I also have given up on wearing a mask while running.
I MIGHT wear it when I start biking to work again next week....MIGHT...

But based on everything I've read (and it's a LOT)...there are limited scenarios where wearing a mask outdoors is effective and/or necessary.

edit to add:
^^^and in those situations I wear a mask when outdoors.....
Primarily that's been limited to when exiting my car to go into a business.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-05-16/so-you-really-want-to-see-your-friends-heres-how-to-assess-the-risk

Your willpower is fraying. Mine is too.

For two months we’ve been good. We’ve Zoomed. We’ve FaceTimed. We’ve waved at neighbors from across the street and behind the fence.

But enough is enough. We want to see friends and family in real life.

Now many of us are allowing cracks to form in our protective coronavirus fortresses, crossing our fingers while doing our best to mitigate the risk.

We let our kids ride their bikes together, as long as they wear their masks. We invite friends into our yards for drinks, being careful to set the chairs six feet apart.

We experiment with picnics and social distancing walks. We make pacts: I won’t see anybody and you won’t see anybody and that way we can see each other. Right? Maybe? No?

Los Angeles County health officials are still advising people to resist the urge to visit friends and family, even from a distance of six feet.

“We are recommending that you continue to do your distancing in the same ways that we’ve recommended before, using technology,” Barbara Ferrer, the county’s director of public health, said Friday. “We are not recommending at this point in time that people should be in social units together.”

Elsewhere, however, public health experts acknowledge that even rule followers are likely to experience quarantine fatigue and are looking for ways to cheat as safely as possible.

Dr. Mary Bassett, a former health commissioner for New York City and professor at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health, said she expects people will soon begin to expand their “cone of safety” beyond households, whether or not public health officials think it’s a good idea.

“Regardless of what we tell them, people will try to rank their risk,” Bassett said. “Whether outdoor activities are safer than indoor activities, does it make sense to expand the circle of people I see — these are the things people are going to want guidance on.”

The hard truth remains that just as abstinence is the only surefire way to avoid a sexually transmitted disease, the best way to protect ourselves from the coronavirus is by remaining physically isolated from one another. But for many of us, and for a variety of reasons, that may be an impossible standard to maintain.

So, if you must see friends, how can you tell if an activity is high-risk or low-risk?

A general rule of thumb is that outdoors tends to be better than indoors, small groups are better than large groups and a shorter period of time is better than a longer one, said Julie Swann, head of the Fitts Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at North Carolina State University in Raleigh.

The relative risk of seeing others also depends on how prevalent COVID-19 is in your community and how much potential exposure the friend or family member you plan to see has had to the virus, said Chunhuei Chi, director of the Center for Global Health at Oregon State University.

“The idea of safe or not safe is not black and white,” he said. “It’s a degree that is influenced by multiple factors.”

Wearing a mask will reduce your risk of becoming infected with the virus if you don’t have it, and of spreading it to others if you do have it but don’t realize it.

But enough with the broad strokes. The L.A. Times asked Dr. Marybeth Sexton, an infectious diseases expert at Emory University School of Medicine, to help assess the risk of seven social activities that people are already engaging in.

Two families gathering for a barbecue in the backyard, with families staying six feet apart
Verdict: Tough if kids are involved.

Context: Cooking burgers on the grill is OK, Sexton said. Scientists think the majority of coronavirus transmissions are through respiratory droplets that spread when people are in close proximity to one another. Some contact spread is also likely if someone coughs and sneezes on a surface like a railing or doorknob, and then someone else touches it. But if the food was prepared by someone practicing good hand hygiene and then is well cooked, it’s probably OK. Just make sure people were not touching the same utensils or plates.

The concern here is that while the adults can execute the plan safely, it’s hard to explain social distancing to kids, especially if they haven’t seen one another in a long time. And if the kids are playing together, they are bringing anything they are exposed to back to their families.

Socially distanced walk, with (let’s admit it) some drift

Verdict: Relatively low risk.

Context: It’s hard to always know you are six feet apart, and Sexton said there’s nothing magical about six feet anyway. Some virus-laden droplets expelled in a cough or sneeze travel three feet, while others might make it as far as nine.

The good thing about a walk is that you’re outside, and that’s generally safer than being inside because there is better airflow to carry droplets away from you. And as long as you are trying to maintain six feet of separation as much as possible, the only thing that would make you even safer is wearing a mask. (That goes for both of you.)

Moms night out in a backyard (no kids, no spouses), bring-your-own everything, stay six feet apart
Verdict: Tricky.

Context: Keeping it outside, keeping kids from playing together and keeping people from going in and out of the kitchen or sharing food and drinks are all good. But as we ease back into socializing, Sexton said, smaller is safer.

If there were 10 moms at the gathering, and you assume that each mom went to a similar party earlier that weekend, then attending this party is like being exposed to 100 other people.

That’s where a gathering like this can rapidly spread the virus, especially if one of the guests was particularly contagious, she said.

Drinks around a fire pit, chairs six feet apart
Verdict: Fairly low risk.

Context: If people really observe distancing in that kind of situation, then it’s fairly safe as long as you limit it to a small number of people.

Two families quarantining together
Verdict: Mixed.

Context: There are some really nice things about this idea, Sexton said, but it’s hard to guarantee that someone in the group isn’t going to be exposed. If they are, they are bringing that exposure to a larger group of people than they would if they were with only their own family.

Kids riding bikes together while wearing masks
Verdict: Intermediate risk.

Context: What this situation has going for it is that the kids are outside, and their bikes prevent them from getting too close to one another. Plus, you’ve got the protection of masks, so that’s great.

But you have to be careful, because if any of these kids have been playing with other kids, their risk of exposure is magnified, and they carry that risk back to their families, Sexton said.

To make this safer, make sure none of the kids has had a ton of exposure to other kids and that they really understand that the masks need to stay on. They should also wash their hands immediately when they come home.

Letting someone use your bathroom
Verdict: Safer than you might think, if you take some basic precautions.

Context: Sexton said there are a couple of ways to make this scenario safer. If someone goes into the house to use the restroom, let them go in alone. When they’re done, it’s critically important that they wash their hands really well. Then you’ll want to clean the restroom afterward. Almost all household cleaners have indications that they kill coronavirus.

As long as you clean surfaces and wash hands, you should be safe.

fortunately...
That's a mild issue i'm having with these guidelines as well....
They tend to make an assumption about peoples behaviors and leaving out scenarios that many people still would like additional insight on. I've definitely SEEN all of those scenarios play out in my neighborhood though....just this weekend my neighbors had a late afternoon yard gathering.. we chose to remain inside for the rest of the day simply because they were yapping and yucking it up out there....

Here's the most recent article I read that does a good job summarizing things with regards to exercising outside though:
____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
_____________________________________________________________________
LINK:
https://www.wired.com/story/are-running-or-cycling-actually-risks-for-spreading-covid-19/

Swipe:
LAST WEEK, A Belgian-Dutch research team self-published a report advising runners and cyclists that they should take extra care while passing others on the road, warning them that respiratory droplets that could potentially contain the novel coronavirus might spread further than the 6 feet buffer recommended by public health officials. Their paper quickly initiated an online debate over both its conclusions and the value of circulating unpublished papers, given the superheated coronavirus research environment and the need to give the public clear information about how to stay healthy.

Normally, an unpublished paper from a research group would not get much attention. This one gained traction after one of the researchers, Bert Blocken, a professor of civil engineering at Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands and also at KU Leuven in Belgium, gave an interview to a Belgian paper and also tweeted about their results. The study has not yet been peer-reviewed or accepted for publication by a scientific journal, the normal route for researchers.

Later, his group posted an initial three-page summary on Blocken’s university lab webpage, and on Thursday night posted his entire 12-page study on the same site. In the meantime, a Medium user named Jurgen Thoelen amplified the attention the team was getting by posting an overview of their conclusions and urging runners and cyclists to maintain their distance. The post gained social media attention and more news outlets began to cover the story, even as the paper itself drew criticism for its lack of data.

Blocken said he decided to convey his findings first on social media and in interviews because he thought it was important public health information. One of the other researchers on the study, a graduate student at Eindhoven, lost his grandfather to Covid-19 as they were conducting the experiments, Blocken said. In their first self-published report, the team called their work a “modest contribution by engineers/aerodynamicists to help a bit in the worldwide fight against Covid‐19.”

By now, the story and accompanying graphic has spread widely and swiftly (OK, yes, virally), both among publications trumpeting Blocken’s results and those critiquing them. The Daily Mail, for example, ran with the headline “Horrifying simulation reveals the dangers of jogging during the coronavirus pandemic.” But others like Vice News ran much more critical articles, inviting experts to weigh in on whether outdoor exercise can spread the disease, with a Harvard epidemiology professor telling Vice that Blocken’s “modest contribution” argument for circulating his research “made my blood boil.”

On a local level, the story has made many people worry about cycling or running—for instance, it has sparked a huge debate on my town’s listserv, with our mayor now asking cyclists to wear cloth masks to protect pedestrians on sidewalks. That kind of policy prescription doesn’t follow the science of Blocken’s paper.

a simulation of two men running with contours showing air speed
Contours of air speed in the vertical centerplane when running at 4.5 meter distance at a speed of 4 meters pr second.

Blocken says that things got a bit out of hand, and that he wasn’t expecting the outbreak of media coverage. “The intention was to encourage people to be more aware that they should be a bit safer in terms of distance,” he added. “I’m not saying you shouldn’t go out and run and cycle. I’m trying to give the opposite message, which is to stay beyond 1.5 meters .”

So what did his study actually say? Blocken’s research focuses on air flow around professional cyclists, a sport that attracts a huge fan base and commercial sponsorship in Europe. He’s previously published studies about dispersal of urban pollutants in downtown environments, as well as thermodynamic flow around wind turbines. For this study, he and his team were able to access the wind tunnel at Eindhoven University to take measurements of the air flow around runners and cyclists at three speeds: a normal walking pace, a fast run, and a moderate cycling speed. They also factored in the effects of evaporation of respiratory droplets, although they did not compute what would happen with crosswinds, headwinds, or tailwinds.

Then they combined the data with existing studies about how respiratory droplets spread during exercise. It’s important to note that their study does not attempt to estimate the risk of infection from exposures during exercise; it just describes the aerodynamics of respiratory particles.

His team concluded that cyclists and runners have to stay much farther than 6 feet from a runner or rider in front of them to avoid inhaling droplets or having them land on their bodies. He calculated safe distances for each sport: That 65 feet is needed when riding a bike at 18 miles per hour, 33 feet while running at a 6:44 minutes-per-mile pace, or 16 feet while walking at a normal pace. “By that time, the droplets will have moved down to the ground and you won’t get them in your face,” says Blocken. What about riding or jogging side by side? “It’s no problem unless you turn your head and cough in their direction,” Blocken added.

The wind tunnel tests concluded that the zone of potential danger falls in a narrow slipstream behind runners and cyclists, instead of forming a wide V-shaped cone. In theory, Blocken says, this means that runners or cyclists can limit their exposure even more by staggering their position to avoid that slipstream.

The root of the debate over Blocken’s study isn’t whether his team correctly gauged where the droplets might fall; it’s that it’s led to such intense speculation over how likely these particles are to make anyone sick.

a diagram of simulations running Droplet spreading when running at a speed of 14.4 km/h when (a,b) running behind each other; (c) side-by-side; (d) in staggered arrangement.COURTESY OF BERT BLOCKEN
Right now, we know that the coronavirus is passed from person to person when someone coughs or sneezes, or when the virus lands on a surface and is touched by a person who then touches their face. The amount of time the viruses can survive outside the body depends on the surface, according to the National Institutes of Health. It’s also not clear what amount or density of viral particles it takes to infect someone, although that’s a question that scientists really want to answer. They know that the density of particles, or viral load, plays a big role; crowded indoor spaces carry a bigger viral load than open outdoor spaces. Virologists also note that the time of exposure is important—a brief hello to a neighbor on the sidewalk poses less of a risk than sitting next to your friend at an outdoor café for a few beers.

But so far there are no published studies of the spread of the novel coronavirus from one person to another in outdoor settings. One recent study of 318 outbreaks of three or more Covid-19 patients found all but one transmission occurred indoors—but as with many studies being conducted right now, that report was published as a pre-print in MedRxiv by a team of researchers at Hong Kong University and Southeast University in Nanjing, China, which means it has not yet been peer-reviewed.

Linsey Marr, an expert in airborne transmission of viral diseases and a professor of civil engineering at Virginia Tech, says the issue of whether people can become infected from cyclists or runners is still undecided. “We need to keep in mind, though, that we don't yet know what size particles released by an infected person actually contain virus and whether that virus is ‘alive,’ or can still infect others,” Marr wrote in an email to WIRED.

She agreed with Blocken’s advice to walkers and runners to allow for greater spacing if traveling right in front of or right behind another person. However, she notes that the study assumed no wind. “Basically, if you're directly upwind or downwind of others,” Marr wrote “allow for more space.”

Marr wrote that she wasn’t upset that the researchers decided to publicize their work through the media instead of through the traditional route of submitting the study to a peer-reviewed journal. “Given the situation we're in, I think it's fair that the researchers shared the results because they could be immediately useful,” she wrote.

A half dozen other virologists contacted by WIRED declined to comment on Bracken’s study, saying they were busy reviewing papers or conducting their own research, or had responded to reporters’ requests last week. But as many researchers in this field had previously told WIRED’s Roxanne Khamsi, there’s still a vigorous debate among researchers over how likely the virus is to spread through air. Some argue that if it’s spread through larger blobs or “droplets” that are coughed, sneezed or exhaled, it will fall quickly to the ground; others argue that if it is spread through finer “aerosols” it can linger aloft for much longer, creating a higher infection risk. And some say there’s no clear division between the two categories, anyway.

In the meantime, experts say it’s still a good idea to exercise, and that it makes sense to distance as much as you can, whether that means avoiding crowded spaces or using technology as a way to exercise in the (remote) company of friends. Anne Hyman, a commercial laboratory scientist and president of a Washington, DC-area cycling club, is concerned about the potential risks of spreading Covid-19 while riding. “People are taking to wider areas to walk and congregate, and it’s creating a dense situation on multiuse paths,” said Hyman, president of the 2,000-member Potomac Pedalers Touring Club. Instead, she rides her stationary bike with friends using the Zwift virtual competition software that allows users to race against each other. The triathlete hasn’t ridden on the roads near her suburban Maryland home since the state was put on a lockdown March 30.

Experts are also reminding the homebound that 30 to 60 minutes of daily exercise—even when done alone or inside—boosts the immune system. “We do know that the number one objective is to reduce exposure,” says David Nieman, an exercise immunologist and director of the human performance lab at Appalachian State University. “But I believe it’s possible while we still get our physical activity.”

Nieman, a marathon runner, has reviewed Blocken’s study and agrees with the concept of keeping a bigger buffer zone between fellow runners or riders. “You can say I’m going to go with one or two buddies who I know well and claim they are not sick and just trust that it’s OK, but it’s not foolproof,” Nieman says. “People you know and trust may have been exposed. Instead, try exercising outside by yourself. The risk is extremely low, and all the benefits are there.”



"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

https://www.erinbromage.com/post/the-risks-know-them-avoid-them

It seems many people are breathing some relief, and I’m not sure why. An epidemic curve has a relatively predictable upslope and once the peak is reached, the back slope can also be predicted. We have robust data from the outbreaks in China and Italy, that shows the backside of the mortality curve declines slowly, with deaths persisting for months. Assuming we have just crested in deaths at 70k, it is possible that we lose another 70,000 people over the next 6 weeks as we come off that peak. That's what's going to happen with a lockdown.



As states reopen, and we give the virus more fuel, all bets are off. I understand the reasons for reopening the economy, but I've said before, if you don't solve the biology, the economy won't recover.



There are very few states that have demonstrated a sustained decline in numbers of new infections. Indeed, as of May 3rd the majority are still increasing and reopening. As a simple example of the USA trend, when you take out the data from New York and just look at the rest of the USA, daily case numbers are increasing. Bottom line: the only reason the total USA new case numbers look flat right now is because the New York City epidemic was so large and now it is being contained.


So throughout most of the country we are going to add fuel to the viral fire by reopening. It's going to happen if I like it or not, so my goal here is to try to guide you away from situations of high risk.

Where are people getting sick?

We know most people get infected in their own home. A household member contracts the virus in the community and brings it into the house where sustained contact between household members leads to infection.



But where are people contracting the infection in the community? I regularly hear people worrying about grocery stores, bike rides, inconsiderate runners who are not wearing masks.... are these places of concern? Well, not really. Let me explain.



In order to get infected you need to get exposed to an infectious dose of the virus; based on infectious dose studies with other coronaviruses, it appears that only small doses may be needed for infection to take hold. Some experts estimate that as few as 1000 SARS-CoV2 infectious viral particles are all that will be needed (ref 1, ref 2). Please note, this still needs to be determined experimentally, but we can use that number to demonstrate how infection can occur. Infection could occur, through 1000 infectious viral particles you receive in one breath or from one eye-rub, or 100 viral particles inhaled with each breath over 10 breaths, or 10 viral particles with 100 breaths. Each of these situations can lead to an infection.

How much Virus is released into the environment?



A Bathroom: Bathrooms have a lot of high touch surfaces, door handles, faucets, stall doors. So fomite transfer risk in this environment can be high. We still do not know whether a person releases infectious material in feces or just fragmented virus, but we do know that toilet flushing does aerosolize many droplets. Treat public bathrooms with extra caution (surface and air), until we know more about the risk.



A Cough: A single cough releases about 3,000 droplets and droplets travels at 50 miles per hour. Most droplets are large, and fall quickly (gravity), but many do stay in the air and can travel across a room in a few seconds.


A Sneeze: A single sneeze releases about 30,000 droplets, with droplets traveling at up to 200 miles per hour. Most droplets are small and travel great distances (easily across a room).


If a person is infected, the droplets in a single cough or sneeze may contain as many as 200,000,000 (two hundred million) virus particles which can all be dispersed into the environment around them.



A breath: A single breath releases 50 - 5000 droplets. Most of these droplets are low velocity and fall to the ground quickly. There are even fewer droplets released through nose-breathing. Importantly, due to the lack of exhalation force with a breath, viral particles from the lower respiratory areas are not expelled.



Unlike sneezing and coughing which release huge amounts of viral material, the respiratory droplets released from breathing only contain low levels of virus. We don't have a number for SARS-CoV2 yet, but we can use influenza as a guide. Studies have shown that a person infected with influenza can releases up to 33 infectious viral particles per minute. But I'm going to use 20 to keep the math simple.

Remember the formula: Successful Infection = Exposure to Virus x Time



If a person coughs or sneezes, those 200,000,000 viral particles go everywhere. Some virus hangs in the air, some falls into surfaces, most falls to the ground. So if you are face-to-face with a person, having a conversation, and that person sneezes or coughs straight at you, it's pretty easy to see how it is possible to inhale 1,000 virus particles and become infected.



But even if that cough or sneeze was not directed at you, some infected droplets--the smallest of small--can hang in the air for a few minutes, filling every corner of a modest sized room with infectious viral particles. All you have to do is enter that room within a few minutes of the cough/sneeze and take a few breaths and you have potentially received enough virus to establish an infection.


But with general breathing, 20 viral particles minute into the environment, even if every virus ended up in your lungs (which is very unlikely), you would need 1000 viral particles divided by 20 per minute = 50 minutes.



Speaking increases the release of respiratory droplets about 10 fold; ~200 virus particles per minute. Again, assuming every virus is inhaled, it would take ~5 minutes of speaking face-to-face to receive the required dose.

The exposure to virus x time formula is the basis of contact tracing. Anyone you spend greater than 10 minutes with in a face-to-face situation is potentially infected. Anyone who shares a space with you (say an office) for an extended period is potentially infected.

This is also why it is critical for people who are symptomatic to stay home. Your sneezes and your coughs expel so much virus that you can infect a whole room of people.

What is the role of asymptomatic people in spreading the virus?

Symptomatic people are not the only way the virus is shed. We know that at least 44% of all infections--and the majority of community-acquired transmissions--occur from people without any symptoms (asymptomatic or pre-symptomatic people). You can be shedding the virus into the environment for up to 5 days before symptoms begin.


Infectious people come in all ages, and they all shed different amounts of virus. The figure below shows that no matter your age (x-axis), you can have a little bit of virus or a lot of virus (y-axis). (ref)



The amount of virus released from an infected person changes over the course of infection and it is also different from person-to-person. Viral load generally builds up to the point where the person becomes symptomatic. So just prior to symptoms showing, you are releasing the most virus into the environment. Interestingly, the data shows that just 20% of infected people are responsible for 99% of viral load that could potentially be released into the environment (ref)


So now let’s get to the crux of it. Where are the personal dangers from reopening?



When you think of outbreak clusters, what are the big ones that come to mind? Most people would say cruise ships. But you would be wrong. Ship outbreaks, while concerning, don’t land in the top 50 outbreaks to date.



Ignoring the terrible outbreaks in nursing homes, we find that the biggest outbreaks are in prisons, religious ceremonies, and workplaces, such as meat packing facilities and call centers. Any environment that is enclosed, with poor air circulation and high density of people, spells trouble.



Some of the biggest super-spreading events are:

Meat packing: In meat processing plants, densely packed workers must communicate to one another amidst the deafening drum of industrial machinery and a cold-room virus-preserving environment. There are now outbreaks in 115 facilities across 23 states, 5000+ workers infected, with 20 dead. (ref)

Weddings, funerals, birthdays: 10% of early spreading events

Business networking: Face-to-face business networking like the Biogen Conference in Boston in late February.


As we move back to work, or go to a restaurant, let’s look at what can happen in those environments.



Restaurants: Some really great shoe-leather epidemiology demonstrated clearly the effect of a single asymptomatic carrier in a restaurant environment (see below). The infected person (A1) sat at a table and had dinner with 9 friends. Dinner took about 1 to 1.5 hours. During this meal, the asymptomatic carrier released low-levels of virus into the air from their breathing. Airflow (from the restaurant's various airflow vents) was from right to left. Approximately 50% of the people at the infected person's table became sick over the next 7 days. 75% of the people on the adjacent downwind table became infected. And even 2 of the 7 people on the upwind table were infected (believed to happen by turbulent airflow). No one at tables E or F became infected, they were out of the main airflow from the air conditioner on the right to the exhaust fan on the left of the room. (Ref)

Workplaces: Another great example is the outbreak in a call center (see below). A single infected employee came to work on the 11th floor of a building. That floor had 216 employees. Over the period of a week, 94 of those people became infected (43.5%: the blue chairs). 92 of those 94 people became sick (only 2 remained asymptomatic). Notice how one side of the office is primarily infected, while there are very few people infected on the other side. While exact number of people infected by respiratory droplets / respiratory exposure versus fomite transmission (door handles, shared water coolers, elevator buttons etc.) is unknown. It serves to highlight that being in an enclosed space, sharing the same air for a prolonged period increases your chances of exposure and infection. Another 3 people on other floors of the building were infected, but the authors were not able to trace the infection to the primary cluster on the 11th floor. Interestingly, even though there were considerable interaction between workers on different floors of the building in elevators and the lobby, the outbreak was mostly limited to a single floor (ref). This highlights the importance of exposure and time in the spreading of SARS-CoV2.

Choir: The community choir in Washington State. Even though people were aware of the virus and took steps to minimize transfer; e.g. they avoided the usual handshakes and hugs hello, people also brought their own music to avoid sharing, and socially distanced themselves during practice. They even went to the lengths to tell choir members prior to practice that anyone experiencing symptoms should stay home. A single asymptomatic carrier infected most of the people in attendance. The choir sang for 2 1/2 hours, inside an enclosed rehearsal hall which was roughly the size of a volleyball court.


Singing, to a greater degree than talking, aerosolizes respiratory droplets extraordinarily well. Deep-breathing while singing facilitated those respiratory droplets getting deep into the lungs. Two and half hours of exposure ensured that people were exposed to enough virus over a long enough period of time for infection to take place. Over a period of 4 days, 45 of the 60 choir members developed symptoms, 2 died. The youngest infected was 31, but they averaged 67 years old. (corrected link)


Indoor sports: While this may be uniquely Canadian, a super spreading event occurred during a curling event in Canada. A curling event with 72 attendees became another hotspot for transmission. Curling brings contestants and teammates in close contact in a cool indoor environment, with heavy breathing for an extended period. This tournament resulted in 24 of the 72 people becoming infected. (ref)



Birthday parties / funerals: Just to see how simple infection-chains can be, this is a real story from Chicago. The name is fake. Bob was infected but didn't know. Bob shared a takeout meal, served from common serving dishes, with 2 family members. The dinner lasted 3 hours. The next day, Bob attended a funeral, hugging family members and others in attendance to express condolences. Within 4 days, both family members who shared the meal are sick. A third family member, who hugged Bob at the funeral became sick. But Bob wasn't done. Bob attended a birthday party with 9 other people. They hugged and shared food at the 3 hour party. Seven of those people became ill. Over the next few days Bob became sick, he was hospitalized, ventilated, and died.



But Bob's legacy lived on. Three of the people Bob infected at the birthday went to church, where they sang, passed the tithing dish etc. Members of that church became sick. In all, Bob was directly responsible for infecting 16 people between the ages of 5 and 86. Three of those 16 died.



The spread of the virus within the household and back out into the community through funerals, birthdays, and church gatherings is believed to be responsible for the broader transmission of COVID-19 in Chicago. (ref)

Sobering right?


Commonality of outbreaks



The reason to highlight these different outbreaks is to show you the commonality of outbreaks of COVID-19. All these infection events were indoors, with people closely-spaced, with lots of talking, singing, or yelling. The main sources for infection are home, workplace, public transport, social gatherings, and restaurants. This accounts for 90% of all transmission events. In contrast, outbreaks spread from shopping appear to be responsible for a small percentage of traced infections. (Ref)



Importantly, of the countries performing contact tracing properly, only a single outbreak has been reported from an outdoor environment (less than 0.3% of traced infections). (ref)


So back to the original thought of my post.

Indoor spaces, with limited air exchange or recycled air and lots of people, are concerning from a transmission standpoint. We know that 60 people in a volleyball court-sized room (choir) results in massive infections. Same situation with the restaurant and the call center. Social distancing guidelines don't hold in indoor spaces where you spend a lot of time, as people on the opposite side of the room were infected.


The principle is viral exposure over an extended period of time. In all these cases, people were exposed to the virus in the air for a prolonged period (hours). Even if they were 50 feet away (choir or call center), even a low dose of the virus in the air reaching them, over a sustained period, was enough to cause infection and in some cases, death.



Social distancing rules are really to protect you with brief exposures or outdoor exposures. In these situations there is not enough time to achieve the infectious viral load when you are standing 6 feet apart or where wind and the infinite outdoor space for viral dilution reduces viral load. The effects of sunlight, heat, and humidity on viral survival, all serve to minimize the risk to everyone when outside.


When assessing the risk of infection (via respiration) at the grocery store or mall, you need to consider the volume of the air space (very large), the number of people (restricted), how long people are spending in the store (workers - all day; customers - an hour). Taken together, for a person shopping: the low density, high air volume of the store, along with the restricted time you spend in the store, means that the opportunity to receive an infectious dose is low. But, for the store worker, the extended time they spend in the store provides a greater opportunity to receive the infectious dose and therefore the job becomes more risky.


Basically, as the work closures are loosened, and we start to venture out more, possibly even resuming in-office activities, you need to look at your environment and make judgments. How many people are here, how much airflow is there around me, and how long will I be in this environment. If you are in an open floorplan office, you really need to critically assess the risk (volume, people, and airflow). If you are in a job that requires face-to-face talking or even worse, yelling, you need to assess the risk.

If you are sitting in a well ventilated space, with few people, the risk is low.



If I am outside, and I walk past someone, remember it is “dose and time” needed for infection. You would have to be in their airstream for 5+ minutes for a chance of infection. While joggers may be releasing more virus due to deep breathing, remember the exposure time is also less due to their speed. Please do maintain physical distance, but the risk of infection in these scenarios are low. Here is a great article in Vox that discusses the low risk of running and cycling in detail.

While I have focused on respiratory exposure here, please don't forget surfaces. Those infected respiratory droplets land somewhere. Wash your hands often and stop touching your face!

As we are allowed to move around our communities more freely and be in contact with more people in more places more regularly, the risks to ourselves and our family are significant. Even if you are gung-ho for reopening and resuming business as usual, do your part and wear a mask to reduce what you release into the environment. It will help everyone, including your own business.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

They simply brush this whole piece of the puzzle out of the way. There's literally NO foolproof way that I can see effectively getting a child under say...8 or 9 years old to wear a face mask. I think even 8 or 9 is pushing it...but i'm just basing it on our 7-year olds' known habits and behavior. Hell naw our 3-year old would be able to safely wear a mask....

So for us that only leaves a few options. (They don't have neighborhood friends so that's not really a concern of ours regarding playing with other kids. If they're outside, we're right there with them.)
So the options are:

Option A: Never take the kids outside
Option B: Put ill fitting masks on them and hope that they; wear them properly, don't fidget with them, pull them on and off, touch their faces repeatedly to adjust them, drop them on the ground and put them back on, or any of the endless ways that a child can and will negate all benifits of wearing a mask.
Option C: Take them outside sans masks & stay away from all other humans while out there. This is relatively easy to achieve...cross the street as necessary and stay in wide open spaces in the neighborhood.

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

for anybody that's interested:
(Note that they're still being very wishy washy about the whole thing...which is highly annoying)

Full Article:
https://www.runnersworld.com/news/a31439358/running-during-coronavirus/

Excerpt:
Should I wear a mask out on solo runs?
CDC guidelines have recently been updated to recommend “wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) to help reduce the spread of the virus from spreading between people interacting in close proximity.” (Guidelines are rapidly evolving.) Before those updates, some state governments, like those in California and Pennsylvania, began suggesting that everyone wear cloth face coverings when they go out in public for essential activities in order to help prevent those that are asymptomatic from spreading the disease.

“Really, what these announcements should mean to athletes, and to everyone, is that the situation we are in is very serious. And that we all need to consider the consequences of our individual actions on the community around us,” Ferrari says.

For example, the Pennsylvania guidelines state that masks “should not be worn damp or when wet from spit or mucus,” and in a press conference on April 3, Rachel Levine, M.D., Pennsylvania’s secretary of health, suggested that cloth face coverings may not be necessary when out for solo exercise if you will be in a place you won’t encounter anyone else. There is no advantage to wearing a face covering if you are not going to be near people at all, explains Ferrari.

“And that’s what we should be striving for, keeping big distances,” Ferrari says. “Face coverings do two possible things—they contain spread from the ill and prevent inhalation in the healthy. The degree to which they achieve these things is debated, but one thing is not: they are only really effective if used properly. And most people are not trained to use masks properly. Even taking a mask on and off incorrectly can be risky and increase your hand-to-mouth exposure.”

Wearing a Buff gaiter or other moisture-wicking face covering while running as well as maintaining at least a six-foot distance from others may help cut down on droplets being spread to others due to heavy breathing if you’re in an area where you may encounter others, Nieman says.

“The purpose of the mask is not to protect you, but to protect other people from you,” Labus says. “If that is the goal, going out solo and avoiding other people altogether is the best thing you can do.”

This means avoiding crowded areas, even if you get to your regular route and there are other people there, you should find a different place to go for the safety of everyone.

“This virus is highly contagious and transmissible, and it appears we cannot be too careful,” Nieman says.

However, wearing a cloth face covering is not a substitute for hand washing, physical distancing, or remaining at home when ill. The WHO has more resources on how to properly use masks. Check your local government recommendations for guidance. (You can find a directory of state health departments here.)



"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

but if we go inside a store?

Mask and gloves.

why (not these particular articles...but they sum it up decently enough):

https://health.clevelandclinic.org/why-you-shouldnt-wear-gloves-to-the-grocery-store/

https://www.health.com/condition/infectious-diseases/coronavirus/should-you-wear-gloves-to-the-grocery-store




"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

I’m not using them daily at different spots.

Maybe once or twice a week depending on how much these little gremlins eat and drink.

when I tough something. You aren't cleaning your gloves that frequently.

Only time I have worn gloves is at the gas station and i throw them away immediately after use.


**********
"Everyone has a plan until you punch them in the face. Then they don't have a plan anymore." (c) Mike Tyson

"what's a leader if he isn't reluctant"

I use gloves once or maybe twice a week and it’s usually for a half hour at most.

Strictly at stores.

I haven’t needed to pump gas since this started because I don’t have anywhere to go after filing up when it was $1.70

I can walk in the middle of the street and usually do for additional distance from the few people I could potentially come within 15-20 feet of

I do wear a mask if I ever take the elevator in the building (which is only when I have too many groceries to carry up the stairs) as the stairs get next to no use from anyone.

If I am going to the store I always wear a mask and more often than not gloves

I don't touch any surfaces outside the house raw dog (door handles, elevator buttons, anything) but wash my hands when I get home like I do.

DC/MD area. Still have to travel downtown to work. I'm in my own area of the office and there's only the receptionist, so distance if fine. If more than 3 people are in, I'm putting on a mask in office. If I have to go outside for anything, mask isn't even a question. Not much road traffic, as most fed workers are teleworking and DC still has their stay at home order in place. But those gentrifiers that are out? No masks at all. Parks are pretty packed with people sunbathing, mini picknicing, jogging, kids on scooters... nary a mask in site.

As soon as the golf course opened in our area it was packed. I'll see plenty of carts on the greens, groups packed in together..

Most people in the neighborhood are wearing masks when they are walking, but it's a 70/30 split. I don't even like getting the mail. Any package we get is sprayed down with Spray 9 disinfectant and sits in the garage until it dries before it comes in.

I was legit terrified to go to Walmart for some emergency supply we needed. I will not be doing that again.

I read that it was back on under a new group that was heavy Pro-Trump so I was like...SHIIIT!! And then Rona came through so I was like...cool....then...Rona came through and I'm like SHIIIIIIIIIIT!! but at least we ain't gotta hear all them motorcycles...

>DC/MD area. Still have to travel downtown to work. I'm in my
>own area of the office and there's only the receptionist, so
>distance if fine. If more than 3 people are in, I'm putting on
>a mask in office. If I have to go outside for anything, mask
>isn't even a question. Not much road traffic, as most fed
>workers are teleworking and DC still has their stay at home
>order in place. But those gentrifiers that are out? No masks
>at all. Parks are pretty packed with people sunbathing, mini
>picknicing, jogging, kids on scooters... nary a mask in site.

We drove up to Georgia Ave on Sat. via Rock Creek Pkwy just to get the kids to take a nap in the car....it was crazy seeing all the folks out on the trail without masks...now THAT'S where i'd DEF. be wearing a mask if I was out exercising....

>Most people in the neighborhood are wearing masks when they
>are walking, but it's a 70/30 split. I don't even like getting
>the mail. Any package we get is sprayed down with Spray 9
>disinfectant and sits in the garage until it dries before it
>comes in.

PSshht...mail stays in our box for at least 3 days...mailman gave me a salty look the other day.... I ain't risking my health for not fckin junk mail though...FOH...

>I was legit terrified to go to Walmart for some emergency
>supply we needed. I will not be doing that again.

Same...went inside Giant for the first time in weeks...I was shook...

"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

All I can do is roll my windows up and shake my head.

Traffic is the only thing I'm good with. I can get from Dupont Circle to Upper Marlboro in 45 minutes in the afternoon.

I hate being that guy, but if I do have to go to the grocery store, I'll go out to Crofton or down to Dunkirk these days.

The Safeway on Alabama Avenue is a handful, but really its like everywhere else- 80/20, which means the rules ain't shit when 20% of the people are either oblivious, smoking good, or just bad at distancing.

The difference in density is helpful- you can get around outside without too much foot traffic. But still- 80/20, I see otherwise really savvy, focused people who can't help but drift...

I have fibromyalgia so Im super cautious since my immune system is not 100%. I work from home, and for the past two months wifey has done almost all the shopping. So this past weekend for the first time I decide to go with her to help since we were searching for a bike. Literally every store we went in (three walmarts, 1 target, & a home depot. 2 were in the "hood" the others in the "burbs") once people got into the store 90% of them pulled their masks off and wore them down around their neck. I saw a few people in various asiles openly coughing without a mask and without covering their face. WTF. Not to say they had covid but still its just the principle. And I saw people walking right past them without their masks not even worried. Im not sure if people dont believe, dont think they will catch it, or just dont care any more and want to get back to normal but as someone who has lost one family member and two friends to covid this is scary.

Or maybe Im just crazy/paranoid.

So they assume that they've gotten it or that the risk has passed them.
In France where they've had 20,000 deaths ... only 5% (statistically modeled) of the population has been been exposed

"I was real sick for like 2 days back in early March."
smh...

People really be thinking that they're special....


"Get ready....for your blessing....."
"Bury me by my Grand-Grand and when you can come follow me"

The CDC and multiple states (including Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Maine) have been combining the results of the viral test to determine if someone has COVID-19 and the antibody test that determines if they ever HAD COVID-19. States have used this flawed data to base their progress toward reopening.

The CDC has been changing the description of what data it is including and not making clear that they've been combining both tests. By combining the antibody test it effectively drives down the positive rate.


https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/05/cdc-and-states-are-misreporting-covid-19-test-data-pennsylvania-georgia-texas/611935/

‘How Could the CDC Make That Mistake?’
The government’s disease-fighting agency is conflating viral and antibody tests, compromising a few crucial metrics that governors depend on to reopen their economies. Pennsylvania, Georgia, Texas, and other states are doing the same.

ALEXIS C. MADRIGALR

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is conflating the results of two different types of coronavirus tests, distorting several important metrics and providing the country with an inaccurate picture of the state of the pandemic.

We’ve learned that the CDC is making, at best, a debilitating mistake: combining test results that diagnose current coronavirus infections with test results that measure whether someone has ever had the virus. The upshot is that the government’s disease-fighting agency is overstating the country’s ability to test people who are sick with COVID-19.

The agency confirmed to The Atlantic on Wednesday that it is mixing the results of viral and antibody tests, even though the two tests reveal different information and are used for different reasons.

This is not merely a technical error. States have set quantitative guidelines for reopening their economies based on these flawed data points.

Several states—including Pennsylvania, the site of one of the country’s largest outbreaks, as well as Texas, Georgia, and Vermont—are blending the data in the same way. Virginia likewise mixed viral and antibody test results until last week, but it reversed course and the governor apologized for the practice after it was covered by the Richmond Times-Dispatch and The Atlantic. Maine similarly separated its data on Wednesday; Vermont authorities claimed they didn’t even know they were doing this.

The widespread use of the practice means that it remains difficult to know exactly how much the country’s ability to test people who are actively sick with COVID-19 has improved.

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” Ashish Jha, the K. T. Li Professor of Global Health at Harvard and the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, told us when we described what the CDC was doing. “How could the CDC make that mistake? This is a mess.”

Viral tests, taken by nose swab or saliva sample, look for direct evidence of a coronavirus infection. They are considered the gold standard for diagnosing someone with COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus: State governments consider a positive viral test to be the only way to confirm a case of COVID-19. Antibody tests, by contrast, use blood samples to look for biological signals that a person has been exposed to the virus in the past.

A negative test result means something different for each test. If somebody tests negative on a viral test, a doctor can be relatively confident that they are not sick right now; if somebody tests negative on an antibody test, they have probably never been infected with or exposed to the coronavirus. (Or they may have been given a false result—antibody tests are notoriously less accurate on an individual level than viral tests.) The problem is that the CDC is clumping negative results from both tests together in its public reporting.

Mixing the two tests makes it much harder to understand the meaning of positive tests, and it clouds important information about the U.S. response to the pandemic, Jha said. “The viral testing is to understand how many people are getting infected, while antibody testing is like looking in the rearview mirror. The two tests are totally different signals,” he told us. By combining the two types of results, the CDC has made them both “uninterpretable,” he said.

The public-radio station WLRN, in Miami, first reported that the CDC was mixing viral and antibody test results. Pennsylvania’s and Maine’s decisions to mix the two tests have not been previously reported.

Kristen Nordlund, a spokesperson for the CDC, told us that the inclusion of antibody data in Florida is one reason the CDC has reported hundreds of thousands more tests in Florida than the state government has. The agency hopes to separate the viral and antibody test results in the next few weeks, she said in an email.

But until the agency does so, its results will be suspect and difficult to interpret, says William Hanage, an epidemiology professor at Harvard. In addition to misleading the public about the state of affairs, the intermingling “makes the lives of actual epidemiologists tremendously more difficult.”

“Combining a test that is designed to detect current infection with a test that detects infection at some point in the past is just really confusing and muddies the water,” Hanage told us.

The CDC stopped publishing anything resembling a complete database of daily test results on February 29. When it resumed publishing test data last week, a page of its website explaining its new COVID Data Tracker said that only viral tests were included in its figures. “These data represent only viral tests. Antibody tests are not currently captured in these data,” the page said as recently as May 18.

Yesterday, that language was changed. All reference to disaggregating the two different types of tests disappeared. “These data are compiled from a number of sources,” the new version read. The text strongly implied that both types of tests were included in the count, but did not explicitly say so.

The CDC’s data have also become more favorable over the past several days. On Monday, a page on the agency’s website reported that 10.2 million viral tests had been conducted nationwide since the pandemic began, with 15 percent of them—or about 1.5 million—coming back positive. But yesterday, after the CDC changed its terms, it said on the same page that 10.8 million tests of any type had been conducted nationwide. Yet its positive rate had dropped by a percent. On the same day it expanded its terms, the CDC added 630,205 new tests, but it added only 52,429 positive results.

This is what concerns Jha. Because antibody tests are meant to be used on the general population, not just symptomatic people, they will, in most cases, have a lower percent-positive rate than viral tests. So blending viral and antibody tests “will drive down your positive rate in a very dramatic way,” he said.

The absence of clear national guidelines has led to widespread confusion about how testing data should be reported. Pennsylvania reports negative viral and antibody tests in the same metric, a state spokesperson confirmed to us on Wednesday. The state has one of the country’s worst outbreaks, with more than 67,000 positive cases. But it has also slowly improved its testing performance, testing about 8,000 people in a day. Yet right now it is impossible to know how to interpret any of its accumulated results.

Texas, where the rate of new COVID-19 infections has stubbornly refused to fall, is one of the most worrying states (along with Georgia). The Texas Observer first reported last week that the state was lumping its viral and antibody results together. On Tuesday, Governor Greg Abbott denied that the state was blending the results, but the Dallas Observer reports that it is still doing so.


While the number of tests per day has increased in Texas, climbing to more than 20,000, the combined results mean that the testing data are essentially uninterpretable. It is impossible to know the true percentage of positive viral tests in Texas. It is impossible to know how many of the 718,000 negative results were not meant to diagnose a sick person. The state did not return a request for comment, nor has it produced data describing its antibody or viral results separately. (Some states, following guidelines from the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists, report antibody-test positives as “probable” COVID-19 cases without including them in their confirmed totals.)


Georgia is in a similar situation. It has also seen its COVID-19 infections plateau amid a surge in testing. Like Texas, it reported more than 20,000 new results on Wednesday, the majority of them negative. But because, according to The Macon Telegraph, it is also blending its viral and antibody results together, its true percent-positive rate is impossible to know. (The governor’s office did not return a request for comment.)

These results damage the public’s ability to understand what is happening in any one state. On a national scale, they call the strength of America’s response to the coronavirus into question. The number of tests conducted nationwide each day has more than doubled in the past month, rising from about 147,000 a month ago to more than 413,000 on Wednesday, according to the COVID Tracking Project at The Atlantic, which compiles data reported by state and territorial governments. In the past week, the daily number of tests has grown by about 900,000.

At the same time, the portion of tests coming back positive has plummeted, from a seven-day average of 10 percent at the month’s start to 6 percent on Wednesday.

“The numbers have outstripped what I was expecting,” Jha said. “My sense is people are really surprised that we’ve moved as much as we have in such a short time period. I think we all expected a move and we all expected improvement, but the pace and size of that improvement has been a big surprise.”

The intermingling of viral and antibody tests suggests that some of those gains might be illusory. If even a third of the country’s gain in testing has come by expanding antibody tests, not viral tests, then its ability to detect an outbreak is much smaller than it seems. There is no way to ascertain how much of the recent increase in testing is from antibody tests until the most populous states in the country—among them Texas, Georgia, and Pennsylvania—show their residents everything in the data.

Beginning to reopen at all less than a week from a federal holiday when everyone and they mama is gonna be out and about isn't smart to me.

I like the idea of the phases, they seem well though out, but timing sucks:

https://dcist.com/story/20/05/21/bowser-says-d-c-could-start-reopening-may-29-heres-what-that-would-look-like/

“The cynic in me says that they want to dip their toes in the water to see about continuing Memorial Day and Fourth of July celebrations and starting now was the only way.”

Me on May 11th “ I think they’re going to cancel everything after July 4th. My position this whole time has been no politician had the gumption to stand up against jingoistic summer celebrations. They’ll do Memorial Day and Independence Day. Then hedge as Labor Day approaches because fuck labor right?“

Why isn't ATL looking like NYC was?

https://www.savannahnow.com/news/20200525/georgia-covid-19-cases-rise-by-498-since-sunday-to-43440-with-1848-deaths

Georgia’s confirmed-case count for COVID-19 rose by 498 since Sunday, May 24, to a total of 43,400 by 7 p.m. on Monday, while the statewide death toll rose by 21 to reach 1,848, according to figures posted by the Georgia Department of Public Health.

Sunday’s total statewide confirmed-case count was 42,902, and Georgia’s COVID-19 death toll was 1,827.

Chatham County’s total COVID-19 case count increased by three since Sunday to 448, with 104 of those diagnosed currently hospitalized. Chatham’s death toll remains at 21.

Chatham’s death rate is now 4.7%.

Bryan County’s confirmed-case count remained at 70. The Bryan death toll remains at five.

(mroe at article)

>Why isn't ATL looking like NYC was?
1)NYC is much more dense. I doubt Georgia would reach that saturation.

2)Georgia seems to be suppressing cases using FUCKERY.
https://www.ajc.com/news/state--regional-govt--politics/just-cuckoo-state-latest-data-mishap-causes-critics-cry-foul/182PpUvUX9XEF8vO11NVGO/

Maybe that's enough to make the difference. The state may be "open" in one sense or another, but still people are not going to restaurants in large numbers, many people (especially in urban areas) are wearing masks, large-scale in-person gatherings are still rare (from what I understand).

And/or, maybe they just haven't happened to have their inevitable super-spreader events yet. These are still small-number statistics, so there will be a lot of volatility.

None of this changes the fact that Kemp was reckless in loosening restrictions. If I'm late for work I could drive in at 100 mph. And on any given day there probably wouldn't be a wreck. But that doesn't mean it isn't reckless. Obviously the public can't handle that minimal level of nuance, though, so I do worry about people getting the wrong impression.


NYC was an extreme case, and hopefully the most extreme case we'll see. The virus was in an exponential growth phase there at a time when restaurants and bars were packed and almost nobody was wearing masks. There were even plausible, serious arguments that we shouldn't wear masks because they cause us to touch our faces more.

I imagine the worry for the future isn't big cities, but isolated outbreaks in rural areas where there might be a single ventilator for the whole county. And now that Trump has primed the people in these areas to FORGET the lessons from NYC, that scenario might be very likely. But considering the lower population density, this will take longer to develop.

I imagine the subways and apartment living are the biggest reasons for NYC’s spike.

If it has more people to get it will, if it doesn't, it won't

very similar characteristics, and even a big international airport.

I don't think we have all the answers, but there may be a lot of luck involved. if you get a few super spreaders in the wrong places....

but the lag in developing symptoms means you can't really know until after.

www.engadgethd.com - the other stuff i'm looking at

gave folks an inch recently lightening up restrictions and people took a hundred miles.

what will the June COVID-19 numbers look like?

Still depends on things like humidity, sunshine, the type of activity, etc.

But we've had a couple of very sunny holidays/weekends over here, with lots of people gathering in parks and beaches, without masks and only loosely following distancing guidelines.

No related outbreaks, numbers still dropping. Outdoors is pretty damn safe*, especially with a little sunshine and a breeze.

Primary schools have been opening all over Europe as well, with nothing more than isolated cases (as far as I can tell).

Obviously this all happened after months of social distancing and lockdown measures halted the spread and reduced R well below 1, so depending on how those things have been going where you are, it could be riskier.

*) https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/coronavirus-transmission-chinese-study-shows-covid-more-likely-spread-indoors/

There were reports of another, bigger study that found like one transmission in 7000+ cases, can't find it though and I have to run.

You still have to be 6 feet away, you still have to wear a mask, and a lot of these folks I saw in videos circulated on social media this weekend showed hella people close together and maskless.

So the idea of "eh as long as you are outside that's better than inside you should be fine" just ain't true...

I qualified my statement of "pretty damn safe" enough, I think.

Was in a bit of a rush and just looked for a publication discussing the study, and it didn't look like this particular article sensationalized anything. I'll pay more attention in the future.

Here's the study itself:

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.04.20053058v1

Just be clear: I'm not trying to say there's no risk outside, just that I doubt outdoor gatherings that don't involve people rubbing up against each other (like in front of a stage or queuing for drinks at a festival) pose much of an outbreak risk.

the national review is one of the most staunch conservative/right-wing publications there is. They employ the likes of Trump pardon recipient and noted racist piece of shit Dinesh D'souza (who wrote for Dartmouth's equally heinous Dartmouth Review during his time there).

They are a trash publication and to that end I'd question any study they would be willing to publish

https://newrepublic.com/article/122095/national-reviews-racism-denial-then-and-now

The study has been referenced by a few other (dependable) newspapers over here, so I wouldn't let this particular source throw you off.

I'd edit the post if I could.

...but I don't believe that shit.

https://wjla.com/news/coronavirus/dc-reports-no-new-coronavirus-deaths-for-the-first-time-in-at-least-7-weeks?fbclid=IwAR3I3qn7pyzsvKQPl3YRpijQHeCO7b8aW-jLye90a-gPdx_3_JYm37O4UgM

It's just reporters misunderstanding probability (intentionally or unintentionally) to write a story.

It looks like DC is averaging something like 10 deaths per day, with fluctuations of roughly 5. That means there will be days with zero deaths, and there will be days with 15 or 20 deaths.

They could cherrypick a day with zero deaths and give people the false impression that the threat is decreasing, or they could cherrypick a day with 20 deaths and give people the false impression that rates are doubling. And both stories would get clicks. I wouldn't be surprised if a single reporter had written both stories in the last week.

very few people there, only one entrance open. shields at the registers. they give you a coupon when you do a return, i did walk around a bit but i didnt wanna try anything on. i was about to get some shoes but they didnt have my size.

also had to go get some tools which took me to a grocery store when i found out the ace was closed lol. i had not been inside a grocery store in over a month. they had stickers showing which way you had to walk. ended up having to go to home depot, this looked about as full as i remember them usually being.

ive seen lines to get into other stores when i drive by but none of these had lines to get in.

hopefully i wont to have to go inside any store for another long while.

place was pretty busy. Prolly 60% of the people had on mask

Wild seeing some older people and kids without mask.

got it there when this all started then when i got home i noticed it was cracked before i opened it. i tried returning it a few weeks later and they said they were doing returns until ___

looks like theyre now accepting returns but i dont have the receipt, used the red card so i THINK they would take it. might just open it up to take the filter and chuck the rest.

mostly because i opened a new filter last night. its the same type that the pitcher i want to return came with. the filter was on clearance which made me wonder why. turns out it filters extremely slowly. the one i was using before was the regular brita one and it filtered kinda fast. this one is drip drip. took me an hour to fill it up 4 times last night (first 3 are supposed to be dumped).

from what i can tell i will be okay with returning it with not receipt, might not get the full amount if the pitcher went on sale at some point. oh well.

no issue, full refund

I work in an office for an Architect that works on mostly schools. We just started returning to our office this week. Been working from home since mid-march. I'm returning June 1.

Bosses are leaving it up to use when to get back.

I'm gonna finally visit my parents and son this weekend who I haven't seen since a couple weeks before the order, so I can visit them before I'm starting to integrate with other people in our office. Who knows where they've been.

We have protocols in place to distance, clean, masks etc.

Small office but I’m concerned because my boss been out and about trying to feel normal. Also have a coworker who comes in once a week from South Carolina.

She’s older and it trips me out that she is just out chilling with friends and having pool parties and shit like her husband isn’t sickly to begin with.

Thankfully the wife is home til August or when ever school finally open.

Best thing about Charlotte is the RNC is supposed to happen here but the Gov and city officials are like “Trump wants 50K for the convention? That ain’t happening here”

I think they may move it to Florida.

The college I work for sent out an email last Monday that stated we will have face to face classes for the fall semester. They launched a discussion forum to allow students, faculty, and staff to respond.

Most of us preferred remote working for staff/faculty and hybrid courses.

has anyone had to deal with this here? what are companies supposed to do if they do find out someone has it? im guessing theyre not supposed to disclose who but they should let us know right?

coworker asked me if i had heard of any cases at work, i was like nope. he then told me theres like 6 people (im guessing suspected). i mean it would make sense that we wont be exempt from being hit, gotta stay careful but yeah.

got covid 19 handbook at work emailed today too. we gotta acknowledge we read it. it has some outdated info saying the city is requiring a self quarantine for anyone traveling outside the city. that was lifted like a month ago. from what i can tell we are technically still restricted to only essential travel by the city. im not really sure though. im already booked to visit family in houston next week. kinda feel i have to let the boss know. would be reasonable to work from home for 2 weeks after but i expect him to say i cant go even though he approved the vacation days. gonna think it over some.

I had to go to the office yesterday to grab some hardware from a few cubes and there were about a dozen people working in the office.

Not a single one was wearing a mask. NONE.

So if work sends an email in 2 weeks or a month or 2 months requiring us to go back in I'm going to refuse.

legally disclose someone's medical condition.

I work for a somewhat large company and a few have been infected and at least 2 have died from covid related illnesses but that's all known from hush texts and messages nothing has ever been officially acknowledged.

had a conference call today and they confirmed that someone tested positive for covid. they were asymptomatic (which for some reason they said that meant they couldnt spread it 🤦🏽‍♂️) and they sent home people that had exposure to them. had every one of them tested and 2 so far have tested negative. the confirmed case was retested recently and is now negative.


they also said the health department (i think) contacted them after the positive result to review our procedures and they didnt recommend any changes.

>has anyone had to deal with this here? what are companies
>supposed to do if they do find out someone has it? im guessing
>theyre not supposed to disclose who but they should let us
>know right?

And bear in mind that number seems low...but each of those times results in WAVES of people being impacted by even a SUSPECTED case vs. confirmed case...

It's complicated....
It's messy....
Ultimately there are pros and cons...

>got covid 19 handbook at work emailed today too. we gotta
>acknowledge we read it. it has some outdated info saying the
>city is requiring a self quarantine for anyone traveling
>outside the city. that was lifted like a month ago. from what
>i can tell we are technically still restricted to only
>essential travel by the city. im not really sure though. im
>already booked to visit family in houston next week. kinda
>feel i have to let the boss know. would be reasonable to work
>from home for 2 weeks after but i expect him to say i cant go
>even though he approved the vacation days. gonna think it over
>some.

so one of my brothers went to houston since saturday. today my sister let us know my nephew tested positive. me and my other brother cancelled the trip, we were going to fly out tomorrow. sister thinks my nephews dad is probably where he caught it from but who knows. im worried for my nephew and my mom that lives with them. dr says hes doing well and doesnt expect him to get bad. i knew it was dumb to plan a trip so soon, im just hoping they all will be okay. not sure what my other brother will do, they are supposed to stay there until sunday. probably need to quarantine longer though.

pretty bummed out, worried, kinda angry.

Unveiling a head stone in late June.

I’m not going. I really don’t think some of our elders understand how viruses work.

It’s wild because my aunt works for the airline so she is scared every day. My cousin is retired but she is always reminding me to wear a mask and watch for the second wave.. yet they both are like “are we gonna see the family in June?”

Fuck no. I’m not bringing my kids 7 hours thru multiple states to chill around chain smokers in Western PA.

I doubt we see any family this summer. Maybe.. maybe the kids will see their cousins at the beach if things improve but I doubt it. More than likely it’s just us til next year.

I figure at that point, we might start getting called back into our offices for work. STill not sure how we're really going to deal with that though... hopefully we'll know even more about the disease by then.

In the meantime, we're still social distancing from everybody. We may relax the social distancing from local extended family if they can maintain their distance from everyone else.