Coronavirus may never go away, World Health Organization warns https://t.co/Jofa7T8PIS
— BBC News (World) (@BBCWorld) May 13, 2020
Emergency physician & former Baltimore health commissioner Leana Wen, in the Washington Post — “We’re retreating to a new strategy on covid-19. Let’s call it what it is”:
… At the beginning of the outbreak, the United States had a chance to contain the novel virus by identifying each person bringing the infection into the country and stopping it before it spread in the community. We failed, with a lack of testing largely to blame. Instead of individual-level containment, which would have had minimal effect on the economy, we had to employ societal-level lockdowns to slow the explosive spread of the virus and buy us time until we developed the capacity to rein it in. The idea was that restrictions would be lifted once we reduced the number of infections far enough and built up the public health infrastructure needed to find new positive cases, trace contacts and quarantine those exposed.
Unfortunately, due to a late start, inconsistent state actions and a lack of federal direction, most states have yet to see a consistent decline in cases, much less reduced them to low enough levels for this to work. No state has achieved sufficient testing and contact tracing. Reopening under these circumstances means we are giving up on containing covid-19.
What’s next, then? The administration has yet to use these words, but it appears that we’re adopting a strategy that I recognize from other aspects of public health: harm reduction.
Harm reduction was initially developed as a public health approach to reduce the negative consequences of drug use. It recognizes that while stopping drug use is the desired outcome, many people won’t be able to do that. For those individuals, needle-exchange programs can reduce their risk of acquiring HIV and hepatitis and transmitting these infections to others. Such programs do not promote or condone drug use, as some critics contend. Rather, they face the reality that if a behavior with harmful consequences is going to happen regardless, steps should be taken to reduce the risk for both individuals and others around them. Think, too, of safe-sex campaigns, or motorcycle helmet laws.
And this seems to me where we are with covid-19: We’re no longer trying to eliminate the virus. Instead, we are accepting that Americans will have to live with it.
If that’s the case, then our efforts should pivot from justifying why reopening is a good idea to figuring out how best to reduce the harm it is certain to cause. If employees have to go to work, let’s at least come up with evidence-based practices that help them do so more safely. Should workplaces all get regular deep cleaning, close off any communal areas and meet new standards for ventilation? Can employees be mandated to wear masks, work six feet apart and keep a contact diary?
We know that covid-19 is most likely to be transmitted when a lot of people are in an enclosed area for a prolonged period. I would not have advised that hair salons and gyms open for business, but since they have in some states, we should aim to stop the highest-risk practices — prolonged treatments and crowded indoor fitness classes, for example. If people are going to get together in large groups despite the danger, we should at least advise that they do so outdoors, for shorter periods of time, and avoid practices with a higher likelihood of disease transmission, like sharing utensils and group contact sports…
I wish the United States had taken a different path. We could have contained the virus earlier, and we still had a chance to do it until we reopened against the guidance of public health experts — including the Trump administration’s own top doctors. But now that we are where we are, we should at least be honest and call our new strategy what it is. It’s our best hope left for saving lives.
schrodingers_cat
This premature opening going to end badly and we will have worst of all the worlds, increased numbers sick and dying and the economy won’t recover either.
Baud
Yeah, well. Her emails and all that. What can you do?
White & Gold Purgatorian
@schrodingers_cat: Yeah. I am not an economist, but increased numbers of sick and dying seems unlikely to stimulate economic growth.
Lately I’ve been trying to get my head wrapped around the changes we need to make if this disease stays with us a year or two — or forever. Depressing to see an expert suggest that is likely scenario. It’s a brave new world. Damn Trump and all his supporters.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Baud: Yes, she was over prepared. We can’t have that.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
For all the accolades DeWine has gotten for handling this pandemic and “following the science and data” he sure folded like a cheap suit when it came to whether masks in public were going to be mandatory or not. Oh, but there will be channels to report workers who don’t wear masks. Yes, I’m sure they’ll be the problem. I’m so fucking pissed about all of this.
How does Acton or DeWine expect dine-in restaurants to not be death traps? Or gyms for that matter? Didn’t Acton look at the study from China showing how the virus can be spread in restaurants? They can say all they want how they’re not caving to pressure, but they are. This reopening isn’t going to work.
topclimber
Harm reduction sounds less bleak when paired with the notion that developing a vaccine in the next 18 months at least gives us hope of a way out.
I also believe way more people than the partisan split suggests will continue social distancing regardless of state policies on reopening. Let’s particularly be watchful about whether reports of COVID-19 harming children bear up. Many a white woman MAGA fan is fine with beating up the libtards and brown folk, but put their darling grandchildren in peril and duck!
Matt McIrvin
I don’t entirely get why we’ve collectively decided that smashing the curve into the ground is now impossible. The US looks like a collection of regional outbreaks similar to the ones in European countries. Several of them were hit about as badly as the worst-off American metro areas, and they’re managing to get the infection rate down.
Is it just that people are looking at the aggregate chart for the whole country? Sure, New York is going to have to worry about infected people coming in from Ohio, but Ohio being dumb doesn’t mean that the situation in New York isn’t improving.
Baud
@Matt McIrvin:
I think people are concerned about the whack-a-mole problem.
More urbany areas seem more responsible than more ruraly areas, and that’s most of the population.
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Gyms opened again here on Monday. The owner of the little place where my mom and I work out called to let us know she was open. Said she “can’t imagine anyone being able to work out in a mask” although it would be ok if we wanted to wear them. Also said she had a thermometer and the state is encouraging her to screen employees and clients for fever as they come in but she feels like that is kind of invading their privacy so probably won’t. We sure aren’t going back yet and, realistically, we will probably never feel safe going back. It is a very small, poorly ventilated space and a circuit type arrangement so everyone touches every machine within a fairly short time. As for dining in a restaurant, yeah, no. Maybe never.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
I’m old enough to remember when DeWine was supposedly one of the good Republican governors for locking down so early
@Baud:
It’s definitely the whack-a-mole problem
Roger Moore
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
Yeah, and widespread fear of disease and death that encourages people to stay home for non-essential business also seems unlikely to help matters. The underlying problem is the Trump organization is unwilling to accept the existence of an underlying reality outside people’s beliefs. They seem to genuinely believe that convincing everyone it’s OK will actually fix the problem, rather than just make people overconfident and cause a massive spike in cases.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
Yeah… I don’t blame you for not wanting to go back
Sab
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I am going to stop patronizing places that do not mandate customer masks, and I am goimg to write and tell them why. I have been living in the same house for twenty years and I mostly shop at small local outfits. I have known a lot of these merchants for years.
I am tired of having to creep around the unmasked white bozo customer blocking the front door at some of these places. But when I stop shopping there I want the owner to know why. Otherwise they only hear from whining MAGAts.
Baud
I think the biggest failure unique to Trump is the failure of logistics in manufacturing and distributing PPE and other necessary material with the advance notice that they had that the disease was coming. That was something they could have done that would not have compromised their “principles.” Just about any other person would have done that much.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
How about the ritual daily staff meeting that every company management does across the company? Small room, stale, air, and people yapping endlessly. Ironically it’s the master class who are really at high risk here.
NotMax
@White & Gold Purgatorian
Sweatin’ to the Covies.
Not a good idea.
;)
Mike R
Have watched the gyms here in nebraska remain open and do a fairly brisk business. Makes me wonder, recently we have been told by someone we used to associate with that we all need to get out and get infected to get the herd immunity operational or we will have covid 19 with us forever. I used to watch horror movies and thought people couldn’t possibly be that stupid. Boy was that wrong headed thinking.
Gin & Tonic
One of the “new normal” things that has a real effect is that driving distances are limited by rest area availability. Highway rest stops, if they are open, have toilet facilities that are closed. That’s a problem. My grandkids live about (at best) a 6.5 hour drive away. If I really plan well, it’s possible to make that without stopping to relieve myself, but it could be touch-and-go. Even if we were all confident in our non-infectedness and I wanted to drive from my house to my daughter’s house to see the munchkins, if there were traffic along the way and it took 8 hours instead, I’m doing something unsanitary on the way.
jl
@Mike R: I actually think careful opening of gyms and rec centers a better idea than eat-in restaurants, bars, etc. All the research I’ve seen is that gyms and rec center hazards are more easily controlled, and on average less than eateries and drinkeries.
Also, good way to have organized activities and can coordinate public action in good directions. The govt just saying OK to go out, want people to get out to exercise to maintain physical and mental health, and then everyone going out, and running into a crowded situation, then govt crowd shaming everyone there, is not good. (Edit: I think some irresponsible things seen on news is due to irresponsible people, but not all of it)
California had a plan like that for gyms and recs, but it disappeared, and now most of news reports and big chunk of pressers devoted to higher hazard businesses that for one reason or another are at the front of the line now.
I don’t understand it.
Jeffro
The main failure, continuing through today and beyond, was the maladministration’s refusal to ramp up on testing at the outset. Didn’t want to “spook the markets” (ie, didn’t want to jeopardize trumpov’s one chance at re-election, keeping the sugar-high economy roaring)
Well…look how that turned out.
Per the discussion above, the whack-a-mole problem isn’t just about urban vs rural areas, it’s really about the lack of a unified national strategy (and unified nation). This didn’t have to be a red vs blue or urban vs rural issue, until trumpov’s re-election concerns drove our (lack of) policy and (lack of) response, and so now all the MAGAts gotta fall in line, and not wear masks, etc etc etc.
Biden, to his credit, is already campaigning on the need for widespread testing, which despite the both-sides media’s best attempts is something that’s wildly popular and generally understood as necessary for a true recovery. It sure looks like the country is going to limp – or worse – through the next six months plus two after that before we see serious testing efforts underway.
Roger Moore
@Matt McIrvin:
I think the big reason people are pessimistic is that very few places have managed to really smash the curve. Many more places have only been able to stabilize things, and others haven’t even managed that. With the President and his boot lickers screaming to re-open, it’s very hard for anyone to say we will just have to keep it up for a few more months.
That said, I’m not completely pessimistic about some degree of reopening. I suspect we can sustain a little more opening without things getting out of control, provided we counterbalance any additional risk by being even stricter about controlling transmission in the places that are open. Strict mask rules and distancing requirements can probably make it safe enough to open up non-essential retailers and professional services (e.g. lawyers, accountants) where they can reasonably be implemented. I don’t think we should be opening bars, dine-in restaurants, or mass entertainment events for a good long time, though.
waratah
@Baud: Except, the rural areas are now being hit with the meat processors and prisons that are not in the nearest urban area , that urban area is the major shopping hub for a wide area that includes other states . People live in the major urban area and commute to work in these business.
Jeffro
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
@NotMax:
@Mike R:
@jl:
Gyms…full of people breathing hard in an enclosed area, all day long. Hard pass.
Ohio Mom
I had a checkup with one of my medical specialists today.
The office called me yesterday and asked me a few questions — let me see how many I remember: Do I have a fever or a cough, am I short of breath, have I traveled recently, can I smell and taste? There might have been a few more.
When I arrived today, I was stopped in the lobby to have my temperature taken and was given a green sticker to wear. I already had a mask on, I’m pretty sure they would have given me one if I hadn’t.
Up in the office, I had my temperature taken again; the doctor wore a mask and a face shield (was she wearing gloves, I forgot to notice). I got poked and prodded, and hugged at the end of my visit because my lovely doctor is moving away.
All that seemed very doable to me. Is it enough, who knows?
WaterGirl
@White & Gold Purgatorian: I’m sorry. I would not step one foot in that gym. Not even once. Not unless things change drastically for the better.
Mike R
@jl: Probably a better idea than eat in restaurants. Having been a gym rat in my younger days the amount of air flow and just the laziness of staff and clients still would make me a wee bit anxious.
Fair Economist
Of course COVID-19 is with us indefinitely. All major respiratory pandemics end up becoming endemic. The only way to get rid of it is to eradicate it world-wide, like with SARS, and that’s not possible now. A vaccine will not suffice to eliminate it either, any more than the flu; the point is to make infections much less frequent and less severe. It’s with us until the next flu pandemic which *might* replace it. 1957 H2N2 eliminated H1N1 and was in turn eliminated by 1968 H3N2 – but neither the 1977 nor 2009 H1N1 pandemics eliminated H3N2, although we are close in the US.
@schrodingers_cat:
Of course, just like Sweden.
WaterGirl
@Sab:
That’s what I do, too. Almost exclusively. I know everyone and they know me. I guess I should say “did”. I don’t know what’s gonna happen now, but I will not shop anywhere that won’t do their part to keep customers and employees safe.
It’s all so discouraging.
edit: I have not been to any of the local shops (except one, for curbside pickup) since the Gov closed things down at the end of March, but I imagine they are opening up again. I took a pass on grooming for Henry until June 18. I hope it’s safe by then.
gene108
Leana Wen is optimistic
Too many Republican controlled states or states, with split control (like WI or PA), are under too much pressure from the White House and MAGA-idiots to return to the pre-pandemic normal that nothing much to minimize harm will be done.
We will be headed for a lot of needless deaths, and that’s where we are, where we will be heading, and what we will endure until we get a vaccine or the virus runs its course.
jl
What I fear is that unless disease is knocked down to low prevalence, and very strong and constant and ubiquitous public health education programs, hazard mitigation won’t do much.
I pay most attention to experts with actual practical experience in outbreak control, which society has been doing every damn day for 100 years with diseases just as dangerous. And next, modellers who take the trouble to talk with public health people with practical experience, in order to produce models that say something useful about the real world, rather than mathematical fantasy exercises.
And from what I see, the outbreak control people with practical experience with TB, mumps, whooping cough, meningitis, are most optimistic that if done right, we can get it done right dammit, just like five or six, and growing, number of other countries. But they seem to be the least listened to.
And the budgets they talk about are on order of 300 to 500 billion, while we lose trillions not listening to them. I find it bizarre, inexplicable, and tragic. And selfishly, I am glad that I live on left coast, in middle of a five state coordination pact, that has half a chance to get it done right.
JPL
In another episode of this is why I hate these people..
CBS: A company whose largest shareholder is Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale received nearly $800,000 from the federal coronavirus relief fund for small businesses, according to a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission
CBS News
Brachiator
@topclimber:
No one can guarantee that a vaccine will be available within the next 18 months. And it will take time to globally apply any vaccine. Just keeping it for the US will not work.
Also, we need to watch what happens in other nations, and be prepared to adjust. In the UK, commuters have flat out ignored social distance rules and the need to wear masks, and jammed onto buses and trains.
Problem is, these people don’t understand that you have to take care of everyone, because the virus doesn’t much care about race or gender.
Fair Economist
@Roger Moore:
I’d be a lot more sanguine about opening if things had ever *been* in control here in OC. As Mary G mentioned, we had an all-time high in new cases today. I’m not sure about the actual cause – cases were declining a bit, and then started climbing again around when Trump started demanded we just reopen and let people die. That would make me suspect ignorant Trumpsters being irresponsible, but the worst OC outbreaks are in cities with more poor and Hispanic people, like Santa Ana and Anaheim. But whatever is driving things, it’s not in control here.
MisterForkbeard
@schrodingers_cat:
I think it’ll recover a bit, relative to where we are now. It will still be gigantically awful compared to January or February, but some businesses and restaurants will get to operate again where they couldn’t before – and people will still go, no matter how unsafe it is. Look at the bars in Wisconsin.
But generally: Yeah, we’re boned. This was mismanaged before it even began, when Trump booted out the pandemic prep teams and threw away the pandemic playbook.
Chetan Murthy
@Matt McIrvin:
Snarky: “We’ve tried nothing, and we’re all out of ideas!”
Calm: Idunno, I look at the graphs on divoc-91, and New York has come down from its worst, but since then it’s a plateau. California has been on a plateau. I don’t see anyplace in America (yet) actually squashing the bug like Italy or (haha, we wish) CN/SK/TW/HK.
Less Calm: I heard the NYT Science reporter McNeil explain that in Wuhan 80% of transmission was within-household. So they instituted immediate away-from-home quarantines for those testing positive, and strict procedures to ensure that people didn’t just wander around while waiting for their test results (45min for prelim CAT scan; 4hr for test, all spent in a “fever hospital” waiting for the result). We’re doing NOTHING like that. And from what I understand, this sort of segregated quarantine is essential.
Even less calm: We all read about how “relaxed lockdown” in Italy is far, far more constrained than any “lockdown” in any American city. Gee, wonder why we’re not getting a handle on this epidemic.
Sigh. I think we’re giving up b/c we think we’ve tried everything, when in fact, we haven’t tried hardly anything at all. A true tribute to our resourcefulness and science-based society. A-yup.
JoyceH
@Ohio Mom: My dentist appointment the other day was similar. In addition, the procedure was for you to drive to the office and phone them from your car, announcing your arrival. Then you WAITED in the car until they called you back and said they were ready for you. When I came in, I noticed that about 80% of the waiting room chairs were gone (and no one was sitting in the waiting room) and the surplus chairs were all stuffed into what used to be the kids’ play room. ONLY the patient is now allowed in, you wear a mask until time for the dentist to work on you, you use their sanitizer and they take temp. And you leave via the back door. It made me feel rather secure, actually.
Sure Lurkalot
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Well, at least your governor didn’t invite Elon Musk to relocate his California plant to your state after Musk decided to reopen in contravention to the local authority’s guidelines. And this after playing hardball with the JBS meat packing plant and the coffee shop owner…he courts a business owner who has publicly downplayed the health risks of the virus and who also has a history of shoddy workplace practices outside of a pandemic. And my governor is a Democrat….
MisterForkbeard
@Roger Moore: I think you and I are on the same page about this. Some non-essential services can open back up with restrictions without increasing the infection rate much, but other things like gyms and dine-in restaurants are basically no-go for a long time :(
White & Gold Purgatorian
@Roger Moore: Well, they have successfully convinced the 40% or so who get their info from Fox and talk radio, but the problem is that the rest of us are just flat not going along on this one. As my mom said, you’re going to be dead for a long time. And with the stakes being life and death, literally, they can reopen everything, but we are not walking through the doors of any business not essential for us. No gym, no salon, no restaurants. I make carefully planned, infrequent trips to the grocery store, gloved and masked and as soon as the store opens. This is our new reality and it is well nigh impenetrable to Republican spin.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Roger Moore: We have mandatory masking here in Glendale, it’s not enforced, it’s a farce.
jl
@Chetan Murthy: ” California has been on a plateau. ”
Most of California is falling rapidly. The issue is some counties in Southern California. Los Angeles narrowly escaped a meltdown like those seen in the big metro waves around the country, and they may be in a very slow very gradual reopening that looks more like lockdown until mid-summer. I heard one person say August, which is horrible to imagine.
Then rises in Orange County and San Diego (that is where Trumpster yahoo faction might be wrecking things), and I think Riverside. And some substantial increases in southern San Joaquin Valley.
California is big and situation very different in different regions.
Ohio Mom
Goku: Are graduation congratulations in order yet, or am I jumping the gun?
I agree with all you said about DeWine. He couldn’t not revert back to form, he is a Republican through and through. I guess we should be thankful he did anything right.
I am also pissed that he is slashing the state’s budget rather than use the rainy day fund (he says he’s saving it for later). As you know, Ohio Son has autism, and his services and supports are funded through the state. I’m afraid to see what will be left after the budget cuts.
Finally, although eating out is a big Ohio Family pastime, I have trouble imagining being comfortable inside one any time soon.
gene108
@Chetan Murthy:
We are giving up because the President, and the billionaire backers of the Republican Party, feel staying the course regarding lockdowns will hurt Trump’s re-election chances.
We are here, because of election year calculations, and nothing more.
MattF
@Matt McIrvin: I think that what you call ‘regional outbreaks’ is mostly a typical 2-D random distribution. I don’t think you can stop hot spots from forming— that’s just what ‘random’ looks like. You have a given rate, and then M. Poisson’s statistical distribution does its thing.
Chetan Murthy
@jl: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-was-California-s-first-coronavirus-15266190.php
You’re right, that it’s SoCal that’s going up. And it’s pretty awful. Also right that NorCal (esp. Bay Area) is really doing well. But y’know, (a) people can and do travel between regions, so good news in one region isn’t guaranteed to stay that way; (b) slice and dice fine enough, and yeah, we can find good news.
My point is, that even drilling down to state level, we see no good stories. At best, we see plateaus. Sure, drill further down, and there’s better news. But that’s not being replicated, is it? And again, even here in NorCal, there isn’t mandatory segregated quarantine, there isn’t any sort of systematic effort to test and isolate people. It’s all weak tea.
And so we’re all left with “social distancing”. And that’s it. No wonder people are giving up. I’m not saying it’s useless. Rather, I’m saying that ALL the important mechanisms for fighting this thing, are being left by the wayside in our country. And so no wonder people feel like giving up.
topclimber
@Brachiator: You are right. No one can guarantee a vaccine in 18 months any more than we can totally rule out that the disease will just disappear a la Dr. Trump.
We have to deal in probabilities. I believe it is highly probable a global vaccine will be available in 18 months. I also believe that if the Kawasaki connection proves widespread, the Corona disease will no longer be just a threat to Bill O’Reilley’s old folks on their last legs but to children. That will change the public response big time–probably.
aliasofwestgate
I’m a michigan native now in Wisconsin and watching both states is making me headdesk. The idiots packing bars here in WI and the continually threatening astroturfed protests in MI making numbers even worse than they already are there. I have family in MI, so i’m really pissed off at people making things worse. Even while i plan on hunkering down longer myself. I’m an asthmatic and my endometriosis also is no help with my immune system. My roomie works at Amazon, so we’re both fairly paranoid at this point. Masking to go outside, and so far i’ve seen everyone at the local Walmart masked worker wise. The customer base is about 40% masked there? Better in teh smaller local stores. I won’t be going to a salon to get my insane curly hair cut until i know they’re instituting some safety measures and then some. Never been a gym rat, and about all i want right now is a Library card. So yeah. Waiting. I can do freelance work from home, for the most part with ease.
gene108
@White & Gold Purgatorian:
I’ve gotten pizza a couple of times from a local place, as takeout
If people start dining in, I won’t even do that, because the risk of infection went back up.
jl
@gene108: Some economic research coming out showing that the country would have been slammed half as hard as it has been without the lockdowns. Big decreases in business activity that look similar in early, middle, late and never-ever lockdown states.
History and research indicates that left to their own devices, in a dangerous epidemic, people tend to react very quickly, often over-react to most recent news they are exposed to. Sometimes it is helpful to disease control, like a very large number of people in the US locking themselves down before any government orders came out, whether they did so consciously or not.
Sometimes it is very dangerous, when people get overoptimistic. Will be interesting to find out how many of those people who are now the ones threatening private business owners for requiring masks and going to stupid demonstrations for the Freedom Reoponeninining, were among those, perhaps unconsciously, running for cover in early March.
Brachiator
@Roger Moore:
Trump failed to lead, and he is doubling down on his incompetence and failure by blatantly appealing to idiots who thinks that things can simply open up just like before.
While out and about today, I noticed that a number of restaurants were adding drive-thru windows and creating the appropriate additional lanes. And the NPR program Planet Money had a great episode today about a Chinese restaurant owner using lessons learned by his friends and family in China, who had to make changes to deal with earlier pandemics.
You can listen to the episode here: The restaurant from the future.
But it is going to be tough, and many businesses will find it hard if not impossible to continue.
I have not kept up with the last few Los Angeles County briefings, or with Governor Newsom. But I thought that bars were still closed.
And it has been interesting to hear some business owners say that they are not yet ready to go back to dine-in service even if given an OK to do so. And it was interesting to learn that restaurants in China are required to take the temperature of diners and to get some personal details if later tracking must be done by authorities.
debbie
@Baud:
Nah. Like Jared said, it’s not the federal government’s job. //
zzyzx
@Chetan Murthy:
“I don’t see anyplace in America (yet) actually squashing the bug like Italy or (haha, we wish) CN/SK/TW/HK.”
Oregon never has had many cases. King County in WA (where Seattle is) has gone from 250 cases a day to 60 (although today is higher). The northeast is following the pattern of Italy and Spain of a steep peak and then a slow step wise decline.
The northeast was a few weeks behind Italy, so let’s see where it looks there in a few weeks before deciding that it’s not working.
Chetan Murthy
@topclimber:
A number of experts (e.g. Laurie Garrett) have said this is highly optimistic. Like, unrealistically optimistic. That 2-3yr is more likely. I remember one Oxford researcher saying “much sooner than that”; turned out, she worked for an outfit that was developing a vaccine; gosh, can’t imagine she’d be talking her book. Not even saying she’s doing it on purpose — just that, you can’t exactly rely on people who have to have a positive attitude, to give you realistic advice. They -have- to have a positive attitude to get out of bed in the morning after all.
I’ll note we never got a SARS or MERS vaccine, and the candidate SARS vaccine had nasty side-effects in mice test subjects. Sure, we’re throwing everything at it now. But “neccessity is not necessarily the mother of invention” and to think so is pure techno-utopianism.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@jl: LA County is on lockdown until August, you heard correctly.
Realist
The USA is not a First World country, and we cannot live in one so long as we are stuck with the Red States.
jl
@Brachiator: From what i have read in news, the pace of the CA reopening will vary widely in different parts of the state. Newsom says he is strictly requiring counties prove they have adequate outbreak control before he gives them go-ahead, though that aspect of it is hard to observe.
The LA times covid-19 page has a good summary of regional and local rules and guidelines.
Splitting Image
In hindsight, it’s not really surprising that some people are pushing for harm reduction rather than eradication.
We have the ability to eradicate polio and measles, rather than settling for “harm reduction”, but enough people are resisting eradication that harm reduction as as far as we’re able to go. There is a lot of overlap between groups refusing to help contain novel coronavirus and groups refusing to help eradicate measles. No matter how long it takes to develop a reliable vaccine, the usual suspects aren’t going to comply.
What the U.S. probably needs is a constitutional amendment allowing people to carry a maximum of one lethal weapon at a time. If they won’t get vaccinated for a fatal disease, they have to give up their guns. Fair is fair.
jl
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Oh dear, but from stats I’ve seen, probably necessary to get prevalence down to levels that are acceptable for effective outbreak control.
LA had a very close call.
Mikeindublin
As soon as word got out this disproportionately affected minorities, Steven Miller got a boner and shortly thereafter, the Free YourstateHere tweets started.
Modern day genocide.
debbie
I have an appointment for a haircut next weekend. I keep going back and forth about it. It’s a very small place; there are only 4 chairs; my hair is too damn long.
Brachiator
@topclimber:
I have not heard or seen anything that supports your assertion.
And I would think that public policy has to be based on our current understanding of the pandemic, balancing the reasonable need to try to re-open the economy.
Otherwise, we will see what happens.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@JoyceH: This is good to hear. I have a dentist appointment on Monday and I was nervous. They sent me the reminder email today and told me to watch for another email with instruction but it hasn’t arrived yet.
debbie
@Ohio Mom:
Yeah, in the end, he’s a GOPer, but I still have a feeling he’ll shut things down if they start heading south.
Redshift
@Baud:
You forgot about the “principle” that business owners always know what’s best, and the gubmint telling them what to do is always unacceptable, even when they’re screaming for it.
I wish I was joking.
Chetan Murthy
@jl:
https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Checklist-for-Bay-Area-to-reopen-Charts-track-15260354.php
Not one Bay Area county is even -close- to being ready. They still don’t have adequate testing/tracing, nor PPE, and hell, I’ll bet they have way to little in the way of segregated quarantine. And this is in what is probably the safest place in the country. We’re still failing. It’s maddening.
jl
@Splitting Image: Society controls many diseases that spread as rapidly as covid-19, produce horrific outcomes like covid-19, and for which there is either no vaccine, no effecive vaccine, or herd immunity will always be iffy for various reasons.
That is why I pay most attention to experts with practical outbreak control experience, since they know how to do it more than anyone else.
We do what needs to be done to avoid large scale population health threats and huge disruptions in our lives for several other diseases. But for ‘reasons’ we can’t figure out a plan to do that for covid-19 too.
IMHO, from peer-reviewed papers I’ve seen, basic outlines of how to control covid-19 been there since late January, There is still a lot unknown, but there was also a lot known, by late January. The several countries that found a way to implement effective controls that would work for their own unique situations did not all just by chance happened on how to do it randomly. They had the basic outlines by late January and started planning their work and working their plan.
Baud
@Redshift:
I’m not even talking about using the Defense Production Act. Just paying for the stuff and distributing it.
Chetan Murthy
@Chetan Murthy: And also, the health director of Santa Clara county (Cody? She was the one who led the charge for shutdown) has gone on record as saying “nope, we’re not reopening, nagahapen”.
I’m not saying she’s wrong. I even think she’s doing her best. But that’s not really enough, and the reason it’s not enough, is that in our rich, rich country, we can’t get the obvious things done. Obvious things, in the public health playbook for a century or two, and we can’t do them.
jl
@Chetan Murthy: I didn’t say SF Bay Area was one of them. I check that chart often and it is disappointing.
Some counties in rural CA and Central Valley did a very good job in outbreak control (because they acted very quickly) and strict on lockdown. I admit I am taking Newsom’s word on that from his comments at pressers. They are moving ahead a bit more quickly.
Redshift
I sincerely believe that a big part of the reason Trump never used the DPA effectively is that he was bringing in CEOs to say everything was going to be great and fawn over him, and they told him he didn’t need to, the Big Guy just needed to ask. Expert recommendations didn’t have a chance against the opinions of people whose approval he craves.
And I believe CEOs would believe such things, because despite our country’s elite worship of CEOs, none of them know a goddamn thing about the economy on a larger scale than their own business.
gene108
@Baud:
That’s more work than Donnie Dollhands, Jared, Ivanka, and the rest of this country’s brain trust want to do.
If you are overseeing nationwide emergency procurements, you will need to read briefing reports, have meetings with the people responsible for procurement regularly, etc.
Keeping track of distribution is even more work.
Redshift
@Baud: Ah, fair point, then. They still would have been hampered by gross incompetence, but not by principle.
Bill Arnold
@schrodingers_cat:
We will, and so will a bunch of other failed states.
Some countries will keep it under control while their economy mostly continues to function, and will vaccinate their population when a vaccine is ready. (Also worth holding out for treatments and improved/better tuned non-pharmaceutical interventions.)
Lessons From Slovakia—Where Leaders Wear Masks – The country’s politicians led by example, helping it flatten its curve. (Yasmeen Serhan, May 13, 2020)
Realist
We are all ignoring the elephants in the room:
(1)Blue States can no longer coexist with Red States
(2) The election will not save us. It will be canceled, stolen, or Trump will ignore the results (backed up by a 5-4 John Roberts ruling)
(3) China is now the world’s only Superpower, not the USA. China has beaten the virus and the world sees it.
Realist
@Bill Arnold: yes China has had the world’s best response of any large country not USA.
Chetan Murthy
@jl:
The SF Chron link above has a graph that shows pretty clearly that those rural counties basically had very few cases. And yes, I read about counties in far northern CA that are reopening and were angry they ever had to shutdown. With single-digit case-counts. Thing is, they’re so sparsely-populated, their outcomes don’t mean anything. As I wrote earlier, slice-and-dice fine enough and sure, yui’ll find great news somewhere. It doesn’t change that aside from the Bay Area (I guess I’ll give it that) I don’t see much real improvement. And given that nowhere are we actually executing on the public health playbook the way we’re meant to …. well, I’m not surprised.
germy
“Here’s to China: the cause of, and solution to, all of life’s problems.”
jl
@Chetan Murthy: “The SF Chron link above has a graph that shows pretty clearly that those rural counties basically had very few cases. ”
I’m not sure what your point is. I hope you are not implying that they just lucked out. There is no such thing as ‘very few cases’ with a disease like covid-19 unless you have some effective controls. Newsom has complimented several of them at his pressers, said that the few cases were because they had a good plan and worked it. CA map of cases certainly shows some counties in big transportation corridors that have consistently had lower rate of infection when other around them had higher.
eemom
@Realist:
Eat a bag of rancid dicks.
topclimber
@Chetan Murthy: Hey I am open to correction as long as :a number of experts” is not on par with “some people say.” Unless there is no vaccine and no post-virus immunity, harm mitigation will eventually pay off.
Redshift
@gene108: It really is mind-boggling how much of a perfect storm Trump’s personality defects (pathologies, disorders, whatever) are in this situation. If he was just a lazy ignoramus who wanted to play king and let other people do the work, even that would be better. But he only wants yes-men over anyone qualified, can’t stand to have anyone else get credit or attention, and has to always be right. So not only is he incapable of doing the job, he’s actively driven out anyone who can.
zhena gogolia
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I loved the poppies! I mentioned your “poppy photos” on a thread below and people thought I said “poopy photos” or “puppy photos.”
eemom
Imma propose to Cole that the banning rules be amended to include “Who the fuck needs trolls at a time like this?”
zhena gogolia
@eemom:
Yeah, there’s been an uptick in the last few days.
zhena gogolia
@Redshift:
Very apt characterization.
germy
@zhena gogolia: But doesn’t it get boring when everyone agrees with everyone?
NotMax
@Brachiator
Can’t see the fabled stiff upper lip through a mask, don’tcha know.
//
Kilgore Trout
@zzyzx: Oregon has indeed been very fortunate.
I work in Seattle for a Portland based software company. In the Seattle office we’ve been working remotely for 2 months now, and the earliest they will even start to bring a limited number of people back into the office is mid-June. But meeting rooms would be off limits, so what’s even the point? I’m going to drag my feet as long as absolutely possible before returning to the office, which hopefully will be around the 5th of never. I’m more productive working from home anyway as I’m working through what would otherwise be my 75 minutes or so of daily commuting time.
Will I go to gyms? Nope. Dine in restaurants? Nope. The first grocery store in town that starts requiring masks will get all of my business. It’s going to be the new normal for awhile, we can either accept it and move forward or we can be miserable about it.
Fair Economist
@Chetan Murthy: New York cases are declining much like Italy’s have been: a slow, roughly linear decline. 2,390 yesterday from 3,491 a week before that, so numbers are still dropping.
WaterGirl
@debbie: I’d suggest waiting a month and letting other people be the guinea pigs.
I’m not doing anything until I see the one-month-after results of the opening of that particular activity.
LeftCoastYankee
The big unanswered question is whether herd immunity is even feasible. This could be a one-time thing like the measles, but it could be like the flu or colds, and mutates into multiple strains that just are passed around again and again.
If this isn’t a one-off infection, without containment strategies, there is no “back to normal”. Some places understand this (usually with Democratic leaders following public health and medical experts), and recognize that containment strategies are f*king expensive, and can’t be just regional.
But there is already a growing sentiment to normalize the “fuck it” approach. Our American culture is designed for us worker-bees to be more afraid of poverty than potential suffering and death. Given the suffering we allow to visit the poor and unfortunate, this isn’t irrational as a short term calculus.
I think the politicians who dig in to get the proper funding for a containment strategy are doing the right thing (given the current situation), and will be subject to even more vitriol. We’re talking county commissioners, etc. Not governors, et al. who have signed up for big time politics.
cain
@topclimber:
I wouldn’t be sure. Many grandparents lost the right to see their grandchildren when they purposely voted for candidates that would put their special needs grandchildren in harms way. I’ve read so many individual stories of this on reddit. Fox News is literally splitting families apart and these people still don’t get it.
topclimber
@Brachiator: Perhaps these guys are shills for vaccine scammers, or not.
Let me be clear that I don’t think we speed up the end of lockdowns in hopes a vaccine will be available soon. I am talking about keeping up morale because there is a good chance harm mitigation will get us through to a vaccine in the foreseeable future. Let’s lose the bleak unless it is undeniable.
NotMax
@Realist
You may have wandered into the wrong room. Hogwash is down the hall.
WaterGirl
@Realist:
WaterGirl
@eemom: He’s been banging that drum for days. Luckily, people are mostly ignoring it.
cain
We are really just a banana republic now. We have no will to do anything. The only thing we now care about is low taxes and nuclear weapons of which we will lose our expertise because the noobs don’t like education or science.
The only reason we suck at this COVID thing is that lowering taxes on the rich – a common reaction to any problem they have – since that can’t be done they have to give up. Not just give up but also:
So yeah.. yay, us!
WaterGirl
@zhena gogolia: Maybe it’s like the Rorschach test?
Chetan Murthy
@jl: Look: all I’m saying is, aside from the Bay Area, all the big population centers are still in bad shape, and the Bay Area isn’t so great either. To pretend that somehow this is great? That’s delusional. And yeah, those sparsely-population places (the only other big population center in NorCal is Sacto, right? I just looked at the graph and it’s sure not heading down (just google “Sacramento covid cases”; ditto Fresno; ditto Stockton). I mean, what’re we talkin’ about? Some one-horse town with a truckstop?
WaterGirl
@germy: You don’t think there’s a difference between having a different point of view and deliberately trying to derail or control the conversation?
NotMax
OT. Notice seen on Netflix:
“Some audio languages may be delayed. We’re prioritizng the safety of our voice actors.”
topclimber
@cain: I would be sure.
Some number of white grandparents might be happy to risk their grandchidren’s health to MAGA. They would be swamped by defectors.
Not to mention reactions by parents, both on behalf of their children and in readiness to keep gramps and grandma in line.
Bill Arnold
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yes, the high-risk age cohorts just happen to be highly correlated with the wealth and power cohort.
(Immune system function is inversely correlated with bodily age, approximately. (Don’t be deficient in vitamin C, D, Zinc, and consider 200mg per day of vitamin E))
WaterGirl
@NotMax: Interesting.
Chetan Murthy
@eemom: Heh, I read his comment, and thought “dude, either STFU or pick up an AR-15 and head for the White House; either way, your ranting changes nothing and just annoys people, so again, STFU”.
eemom
@WaterGirl:
At the risk of reprising the earlier OO/Raven/Baud metaloop, I thought that was tongue in cheek….
jl
@Chetan Murthy: I did not use the word ‘great’ in my comment, Neither ‘fine’. Not my problem if your in some snit and stuffing words in my mouth.
zhena gogolia
@germy:
Hmm, is this snark?
Omnes Omnibus
@jl: Great, then everything is fine?
trollhattan
My kid has been to the dentist (toothache, no cleaning) and doctor (physical and a booster shot) this week, so needed services can again be had now that safety protocols are agreed upon. I suspect dentists are a really tough one, because cleaning, drilling, etc. aerosolizes a lot of matter. IIUC they have double masks and a face shield and the patient is masked except when being examined.
Baby steps.
Martin
I called this back in March. With no federal coordinating action, and no proactive measures, that only left us with accepting it burning through the population, trying to keep the potential 5% fatality rate down to 1%.
WaterGirl
@eemom: You’re probably right. I should probably check my antenna, be right back.
WaterGirl
@Martin: Sometimes being right isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.
edit: I still hope you are wrong.
Mallard Filmore
@debbie: I have seen a shopping woman yesterday that decided to go bald. If I get a haircut it will be a very fast “shave it all off” style.
NotMax
@Jeffro
Also, just thinking about the locker rooms and showers is enough to give me the heebie-jeebies.
cain
@Roger Moore:
It’s okay, this is about not panicking the market. If they don’t see any numbers or anything like that they won’t get panicked.
Realist
@germy: Blaming China, who has handled this better than any other large nation, is a Trumpian tactic. What did China do to “cause” this?
cain
@Sab: Oh.. there will definitely be new yelp reviews that we will be putting in in regards to their social distancing and safety. At least us smart people can figure out where to go.
I for one will believe that our food carts industry is going to go up.
Omnes Omnibus
@Realist: Dumb and culturally illiterate. So cool. I bet you are fun at parties.
Fair Economist
@LeftCoastYankee:
In terms of re-infection being possible, it’s true we don’t know for *sure* but every respiratory virus I can think of can re-infect after a while, probably a couple of years in most cases. OTOH the re-infections are probably less severe; possibly quite a lot. It’s possible the common cold coronavirus hCoV-OC43 caused 1889-90 pandemic, which was probably the second most lethal respiratory pandemic of modern times. Now hCoV-SARS2 looks to be quite a bit more lethal than the 1889-90 pandemic virus, so maybe it will be worse as an endemic (and maybe 1889-90 wasn’t hCoV-OC43).
The frightening thing is we won’t know for years how tolerable hCoV-OC43 will be as the endemic we know it will be.
Roger Moore
@cain:
If they’re worried about numbers spooking the market, the Trump SEC is going to have to ban release of profit/loss statements.
Villago Delenda Est
Mitigate away Fuckface von Clownstick, who is, despite his mewling denials, responsible for this mess.
NotMax
@Roger Moore
“It’s not a loss, it’s a profit correction.”
//
kindness
The elites would like the herd to develop it’s immunity but the elite doesn’t want to be around for that. Kinda like how Trump served in Vietnam. Same thing. That should be talked about in the media some, don’t you think?
Poe Larity
@Fair Economist: Perhaps this is where the extrovert gene meets Darwin.
Jackie
I see the sea lion has returned. Don’t feed.
NotMax
@kindness
When the herd is being directed by a Judas goat the outlook is not propitious.
WaterGirl
@cain: What is a food carts industry?
Peale
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Yeah. Clearly she spent the past two months thinking about how to make things safe.
WaterGirl
@Fair Economist: I had read that some viruses are worse if you get them a second time, and I don’t believe that they know yet which way that would go with COVID.
Peale
@kindness: Yep. They think that if 70% of the country develops antibodies herd immunity will be natural. Its just that they want 100% of the lower 70% of society to get it while the upper 30% is free and clear.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: Thinking cain means food trucks. Where people can order remotely, pay by credit card, and pick up (hot) food in an outdoor setting.
I want to see food trucks with cold brews and wine, too!
Dan B
@White & Gold Purgatorian: You should not go back even with a mask. They are good at protecting people from spreading the virus to others (70%) but poor at protecting the wearer (30%) as I recall. If you have a professional mask designed for working with toxic chemicals you’re good but even then CV-19 has been shown to infect the surface of the eyes and transfer to the nose, lungs, and brain from there. Outside with a mask and glasses and you are probably fine.
WaterGirl
@Jackie:
Did someone say sea lion?
Omnes Omnibus
@Elizabelle: That’s another thing! I was promised taco trucks if HRC won. Fucking Trump.
Omnes Omnibus
@WaterGirl: Damn, that sea lion cupcake is almost worth trying out the pie filter.
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: Ah, thank you! That makes sense.
Kay
MomSense
I’ve started going into work one day a week and it does freak me out a bit. Even though we are speed out, there are a lot of surfaces that we all touch. You have to trust that everyone else is being careful – and I’m pretty sure some of the men in the office are not consistent hand washers.
Came home today to find my mom has dislodged the drain pipe for the washing machine. I asked her why she ran the washing machine with it sticking out and she said she didn’t know the drain pipe even existed. WTF. Water leaked everywhere. I’ve got fans going but I’m honestly ready to just walk out the door and never come back.
WaterGirl
@Omnes Omnibus: I know. Avalune is quite talented!
Did you see the picture she made for lamh yesterday? I loved that. Maybe not as cute as pupcake or sea lion cake, but still wonderful.
Elizabelle
@Omnes Omnibus: We had a taco truck in our neighborhood tonight. The fish taco was divine (little segments of fresh orange in there); the Asian beef taco was about 4 times as big.
I am liking these food trucks. Got to keep their restaurants afloat.
HumboldtBlue
@Kay:
Hah! I literally just got done watching that clip and came here to post.
Unbelievable.
Dorothy A. Winsor
@MomSense: There are days like that! I’m so sorry.
Spray your worksite down. Set a warning to do it every hour or so.
The thing I’m most tired of is being scared.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Kay: the scared little kid as he follows his mom as she follows the reporter so she can yell at him…
Elizabelle
@Kay: Jebus. What asshats. “King Cuomo.” While they’re calling themselves patriots. Another word they have ruined.
Someone spray these jackholes down with tea.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@zhena gogolia: Thanks, the puppy photos were last week.
WaterGirl
@MomSense: I’m sorry, I can see how you would be at the end of your rope. Have you figured out how your mom is damaging all these appliances? Or what triggers it?
WaterGirl
@Elizabelle: So some local restaurants have transitioned to food trucks?
Jackie
@Omnes Omnibus: I agree! So cute! I’ve never used any of the ? or ?, but he/she is tempting!
Sab
@Jackie: Our favorite one trick pinniped.
The trick being secession.
Poe Larity
Clearly putting their top minds on the problem.
TS (the original)
@Brachiator:
In Australia the advice is you don’t need to wear a mask – unless you are ill/think you are ill. We are starting to open up – which I am not doing – so it will be interesting to see what happens. They are also restarting some football – which is even crazier – but money talks.
FelonyGovt
@Gin & Tonic: Yes. Not to get into too much information, but for me 2 hours is the maximum amount of time I can hold out on a road trip. With rest stops closed and restaurants being open for curbside only, that seriously limits me
HumboldtBlue
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
And that’s Suffolk County, Amy Siskind adds a graph further down the thread. No. 4 in the top counties with confirmed Covid-19 cases, more than 37K.
WaterGirl
@Jackie: CatCake is definitely a girl. PupCake is definitely a boy. DuckCake is Penelope, so she’s a girl. I’m inclined to see SeaLionCake as male, or possibly non-binary.
Matt McIrvin
@Roger Moore:
It will fix Trump’s problem, which is that if he is no longer President he might go to prison.
Peale
The depressing thing is that even the thoughtful strategies to get to harm reduction aren’t going to be implemented and followed. The best at this point that we can hope for is that those types who follow federalist society manly men virtues of refusing to social distance and wearing a mask will be the ones afflicted first. The rest of us need to just watch out for ourselves and pray that we can continue to keep our bubbles small.
Dan B
@Mike R: There are some podcasts out there that are advocating young people get exposed so “we” get herd immunity. One by a young surgeon seems reasonable and measured… until the class issues, implementation issues, and inequality issues are examined: Who pays for healthcare for people who cannot afford it? How do we provide good care for the small percentage of young people in underserved rural areas? Do we assume financial responsibility for children who lose a parent? What happens if too many people who willingly expose themselves get sick and overwhelm their local hospital system? What do we do for people who suffer long term or permanent organ/kidney damage? (30% of those hospitalized in NY) How do you ensure that these young people don’t accidentally infect the elderly or vulnerable? Do people get quarantined? For how long? Who decides?
And the questions go on and on. It’s standard rich white libertarian blindered thinking. They believe that everyone should be able to take care of themselves because they’ve never had that issue personally.
Sloane Ranger
I think it’s possible to create a new normal but I question how quickly many people will be prepared to accept it.
For the last 60 or so years we in the 1st world have been living in a paradise our ancestors only dreamed of. During the late 19th century and early 20th were were able to defeat cholera, typhoid etc., and later diseases such as TB and Polio, even later still Measles, Mumps etc. joined the group.
The upshot is that nobody under the age of 65 or so has any knowledge or understanding of how people lived with potentially fatal, incurable contagious diseases and the adjustments in day to day activities they made almost unconsciously.
As a lot of people only seem to learn from experience, it will take the disease touching them or someone they care about before enough of them understand and that will take years. In the interim a lot of people will die or suffer long term problems unnecessarily.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Ohio Mom:
They are! Thank you!
Sorry about all of that. I hope your son still receives the services he needs
Sab
@WaterGirl: I knew we had sea lion chow. I didn’t know there was a cupcake!
@WaterGirl: I hate criticizing Avalune’s artistry, because those are adorable, but don’t sea lions have tiny external ears? That is the only way I can tell them apart from seals.
Elizabelle
The Monsters are on
Main StreetLong Guy-land.Their middle finger salute. While wearing a Trump tee shirt. Their signs: Fake News Kills. Hang Fauci. Hang Bill Gates.
Joseph Goebbels is smiling, somewhere.
And the woman at the very end — masked, and thank you ma’am — saying it is impossible to have no deaths.
That is not the point of this. No one is suggesting that. The simple-minded reduce concepts past simplicity to stupidity.
Kay
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
The guy at 1:02 is, I think, legit dangerous. Enraged.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Matt McIrvin:
But that’s the thing; this won’t help Trump if there’s a second massive wave. The economy probably isn’t going to be what it was in January and February, either by November. You can’t will away reality
BruceFromOhio
@eemom: hear, hear, and thank you.
Elizabelle
@WaterGirl: I think some of the restaurants had them before. Although — tonight’s was not marked. That was a first. Maybe it was newly acquired or a rental for expansion.
There’s a website for streetfood, that tells you where the trucks will be each day/night.
Sab
@MomSense: Wow, just wow. What isn’t broken in your house? I will never complain again about cats breaking things by knocking them off counters.
My dad before the nursing home was pretty bad about things in his tiny domestic sphere. He almost blew up the house by overfilling the furnace that ran the hot water radiators. But he had no idea that the household appliances even existed.
WaterGirl
@Sab: I confess that I am not well versed in sea lion anatomy. But here’s a photo of a California Sea Lion.
edit: I do think there are cute, tiny little ears there.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I just heard an ad for this, that had fallen off my radar. However hard Kellyanne tries to explain to him, however much Ivanka… tries to sooth him, I don’t think he’ll be letting go of “Obama-Gate” anytime soon.
and as a liberal elitist, the second part made me laugh (and I had a slacker’s B- in most math and science classes)
frosty
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): If congratulations are in order, then congratulations from me on your graduation!
Elizabelle
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Way to go, Goku! And you are needed. (It was a healthcare or nursing degree??)
Congrats.
Sab
@Sloane Ranger: Boy you nailed the date.
My husband and my sister are 69. They both vividly remember polio outbreaks and the 1958 flu epidemic.
My sister remembers when we all had measles. I had it, but I don’t remember it.
I remember mumps, and I hate orange juice and strawberries to this day because that is what my mother fed me as a treat before she knew what exactly I had ( sore throat with mumps, so acidic treats hurt a lot.)
Fair Economist
@WaterGirl: The classic example of a virus being worse is dengue, and you don’t actually get the same virus; it’s four related viruses and getting it makes you more susceptible to the others. Very unlikely to be an issue for hCoV-SARS2 for a while, because the different mutants won’t be different enough
Of course it’s *possible* hCoV-SARS2 will be really odd somehow, but at the same time it’s very likely it will be broadly like all other human respiratory viruses.
Bill Arnold
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
We have mandatory masking inside public buildings in NY State since April 17, and the compliance as observed by me (Orange, Dutchess, Westchester, Putnam counties) is 100 percent; I have not observed an exception. Well, one, but they were chased out.
The new infections rate in my county has definitely flattened in the 4 weeks of mandatory masking, and is now consistent with most transmission being within households (where people don’t wear masks, mostly). These are counties with tested/reported infected rates of 2-4 percent (many recovered).
NY State tracker for anyone interested. The tested-infected bar charts (per day) are interesting. I see a signal that might be masks + 14 days for a lot of the counties.
https://covid19tracker.health.ny.gov/views/NYS-COVID19-Tracker/NYSDOHCOVID-19Tracker-DailyTracker?%3Aembed=yes&%3Atoolbar=no
Some of those counties doing well are Republican, e.g. Nassau
(Could also be partly an immunity effect if a large percentage of the population has had the disease without much in the way of symptoms.)
Elizabelle
With all this talk of seals and sea lions, must put in a plug for the Marine Mammal Care Center in San Pedro, CA (Port of Los Angeles; not far from Long Beach). Magical place. Close to the Korean-American Friendship Bell, which Bill in Glendale has photographed, numerous times.
You can visit daily until 5 pm or so, and watch them feed the animals in care. And you can donate to them too. They do wonderful work.
You will smile just to look at MMCCLA’s site. The dear little faces. Many with ears. Some with fish.
Uncle Cosmo
@FelonyGovt: @Gin & Tonic: None of this is immediately helpful, but down the line I can envision a bunch of possibilities, e.g.:
Human ingenuity will find solutions. Just not right away.
Sab
@WaterGirl: I love that picture. Thank you.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@frosty:
Thanks!
@Elizabelle:
Thanks and it was!
Aleta
@MomSense: My partner is like that. Sludge on the basement floor? Didn’t notice. Bathroom faucet left open and flowing through the sink’s disconnected drain pipe, pooling on the floor for hours? Didn’t notice.
Uncle Cosmo
Next time someone hassles you for wearing a mask, I would suggest you rather meekly reply, Gee, I guess you’re right, pull the mask down – and cough very hard in their direction:
And shout after them as they’re running away,
(Or heck, just pull down the mask & then pretend you’re about to sneeze. Bet 90% of the imbeciles would run off screaming!)
eemom
Now I want a sea lion.
Sab
@Elizabelle: Thanks.
japa21
@WaterGirl:
She made a lamh cake?
James E Powell
@Realist:
You left out
(4) The Yankees are going to win every World Series for the next ten years.
Dan B
@jl: There’s a good piece in HuffPost, I believe, about great success, so far, in Kerala, the far south of India. They are Communist in the technical non-dictatorial sense. They did so many things right from setting up response teams in many areas in January to quarantining every case and arrivals from high infection areas.
The health minister is a woman, of course… I’m not kidding. The most likely sign of successful outcomes is “women in charge”. (There are some good guys. But us guys have not had a good track record.)
WaterGirl
@Fair Economist:
Thanks for the details.
“…it’s *possible* hCoV-SARS2 will be really odd somehow”
So far, it seems to be odd in nearly every way, and more so every day. But I get what you’re saying.
WaterGirl
@Sab: Such a cute face? Like he’s smiling and mugging for the camera.
WaterGirl
@japa21: hahaha
Ohio Mom
Uncle Cosmos, FelonyGovt, Gin&Tonic: Are there no trees on your routes?
Dan B
@WaterGirl: Funny thing is I sorta agree with Sir Doom and Elephants. It feels like a world, and possibly a national, realignmnet is likely. But those happen frequently. The Soviet Union fell. China emerged as a command and control manufacturing and now tech power. There are so many moving parts that one of the only certainties is that globalization will be on pause for a while if not for decades.
All else is idle but possibly valuable speculation or ASTEROID! I hope some entertaining futurists are working on it but we are in such a state of chaos that it may be like forecasting the weather on April 24th, 2030. Better to try for a closer date.
Dan B
@Mallard Filmore: And what is this “shopping woman” of which you speak?
Asking for friends.
The Coneheads
Dan B
@Poe Larity: Go introverts!
Sincerely yours;
Bill Arnold
@Realist:
You appear to be asserting the actual existence of hypothetical elephants. 1 and 2 at least are in play with possible positive outcomes (not including civil war), and you could be doing something useful with your skillz about them rather than calling for a US civil war. 3 can’t be helped, though the international reputation of the US was already in taters after a couple of years of POTUS DJT. However, the US is still a dominant superpower, the US can survive seriously higher death tolls and an economic collapse (if it collectively suppresses agitation like yours intended to cause/widen fissures and cause breakup) , and China is still a totalitarian panopticon(aspirationallly at least) state that isn’t a desirable model for much of the world. Many other smaller and much freer countries have done quite well fighting SARS-CoV-2, as can be seen quite clearly at Some are winning – some are not – which countries do best in beating covid-19?. (Which for some reason hasn’t been updated since 1 May.)
So perhaps offer constructive/positive suggestions, not destructive ones like US civil war, or alternatively, dive forever into a black hole.
Sister Inspired Revolver of Freedom
@Gin & Tonic: Here are some possible solutions to that problem. If you don’t want to deal with Amazon many camping stores may have the solution you’re looking for.
https://www.amazon.ca/s?k=portable+toilets&ref=nb_sb_noss
Villago Delenda Est
@eemom: There’s a cave filled with them (and boy do they stink!) on the Oregon coast, just north of Florence.
Dan B
@FelonyGovt: So our future promises sanitizer, masks, and Depends?
Sounds like we are all reliving infancy! I wanna stroller, Waaa!
Villago Delenda Est
@Bill Arnold: Last suggestion is the most appealing to me.
Dan B
@Sloane Ranger: Even AIDS is fading into memory although it is still spreading. Babygays have a vague understanding. My cohort is reminded of the unrelenting ache of loss, the hateful rhetoric and prejudice, the immovable inaction, and the moment when hope finally arrived but not for everyone. It was like the last casualty of war. Minutes later it would have meant living a full life.
It’s difficult to witness the resistance to doing the hard things and the right things, yet again.
frosty
@eemom: I pied him and got the sea lion cake! Yay!!!
Dan B
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Congratulations graduate!
cain
@WaterGirl: here in sunny Portland (it’s not sunny) we have a lot of food carts. I just went to one for burgers – they were delicious – but they have a 6 ft distancing, no touching, and they have a loud speaker so they don’t have to open the window to talk.
It’s basically the safest thing out there. And of course these trucks are everywhere in Portland, we are known for it.
Bill Arnold
@Realist:
China has cultural dietary traditions (used as class markers, basically) that seriously increase the probability of zoonoses. E.g. the original SARS-CoV (2003) is generally believed to be an example. The exotic meat animals trade (mammals at least) should have been locked down after 2003. (Much of it is farmed animals, but the numbers make it worse.)
So there’s that. (But there are other possibilities for SARS-CoV-2, including a few that you would not believe.)
Dan B
@eemom: My parter grew up on boats on Puget Sound. You don’t want a seal or sea lion. Maybe in the water where they are playful but fish go in one end and doom comes out the other!
Bill Arnold
@Dan B:
Citation, please..
Dan B
@Bill Arnold: I’ll try to locate a citation. It shocked me. One other symptom is Pinkeye so there’s some connection to the particilar layer of the eye that the virus attaches to.
Dan B
@Bill Arnold: I’m on my phone so I can’t copy and paste but the title of two articles are: Potential for COVID-19 transmission from himan eye. this discusses a publication in bioRxiv from May 2020 pre-peer review
COVID-19 found to be spread through eyes and is 100 times more infectious. again from bioRxiv. It seems to latch onto ACE-2 and TMPRSS2.
There is more out there but I’m not finding the original article that discussed the route from eyes to lungs and brain but eyes to nasal passages and lungs is easy to connect. I don’t remember any details of a route along the optic nerve.
Bill Arnold
@Dan B:
Or heart damage. Or ischemic strokes, perhaps with only subtle loss of function. Etc.
A vaccine would be without these side effects.
Bill Arnold
@Dan B:
The only thing I recall is a single-doctor case study from China(?) where transmission via the eyes was suspected but not proven. Plus another study that indicated that the eyes had a lot of ACE2 expression. But nothing definitive. (Same goes for indirect transmission via the hands, for that matter. It could be that all the hand washing is mostly security theater, though it would block rotoviruses etc so WHO is right to promote as a general measure, or it could be that nobody has bothered to publish a study.)
Bill Arnold
@Uncle Cosmo:
I’ve been thinking about a little spray bottle (e.g. a perfume bottle) full of homeopathic SARS-CoV-2 (aka distilled water). Just a misting in their general direction. Haven’t had the nerve, and frankly, in NYS in my area mask compliance indoors is 100 percent, with no hassling. (There’s no effort involved; people put their masks on in like 2-3 seconds by now, not even needing to fiddle.)
Bill Arnold
@Villago Delenda Est:
I’m working on long-winded politeness. :-)
Bill Arnold
@Dan B:
OK that paper. Nothing definitive, but suggests that wearing eye protection when wearing a mask might be a good idea. And not touching eyes (or picking nose), and maybe consider a quick eyewash if knowingly possibly contaminated.
Ruckus
@Ohio Mom:
I have an appointment at the VA tomorrow. They called to make sure that it was more than an annual check up that I really feel the need to go in. Then there was I have to wear a mask to get in and pass through the screening to be allowed in. About 3 weeks ago I had to go in and they screened temp while I was still in the car, before they’d let me in the parking structure. I wonder what they will do if they ask if my sense of smell and taste is OK, seeing as my sense of smell has been completely gone for a number of years……
Ruckus
@WaterGirl:
Email answered.
Thank You!
Ruckus
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
Gotta say, LA county lockdown doesn’t look all that locked down here in the Covina area. Yes traffic is down, but it is noticeably more than it was 3 weeks ago. Stores that I shop in will not let you in without a mask, per county rule. I have seen a couple of people with the mask down below their noses, which is of course absolutely useful. For what I have no idea. And more industrial companies are working.
Brachiator
@topclimber:
It is a very good summary of efforts at a vaccine. And very hopeful. But you really cannot translate their efforts into the judgement that it is “highly probable” that a vaccine will be found within 18 months.
We have survived plague and pestilence before, and we will likely do so again. But even without a vaccine we have the ability to get on fairly well, if people don’t descend into stupidity.
J R in WV
@Realist:
OK Comrade, where is address for Go Fund Me to support tank production in East Coast elite factories? What about tactical war gaming club, when it meets? //s
Oops, who let you out of pie safe?!?!!!!!!