A combination of out of state visitors coming to WV for the holidays to raft/hike/atv, idiot students going to bars and gyms, morons heading to Myrtle Beach, SC and bringing back the plague, and people just generally easing up on cautionary behavior has set the stage for WV to blow up with the virus.
Y’all are about to witness what happens when one of the least healthy states in the country where half the population or more is elderly and/or has pre-existing conditions AND there are inadequate hospitals and medical facilities to handle normal health issues dives headfirst into the plague. As I write this, the park down the street from me is packed with people having picnics and throwing frisbee and playing baseball.
I’m so fucking disgusted.
Cervantes
Right now WV is diagnosing 75-80 cases per day — definitely on the upslope, but it’s going to take a couple of weeks at least before it becomes obvious that things are getting bad. People will undoubtedly continue to ignore it for a while yet. Good luck to you.
Joe Falco
And the line starts to shoot up after Memorial Day. Morons saw the start of the summer season and was not about to let COVID stop them from exercising their American right to pool parties and vacations.
Mart
Being outside seems to greatly reduce transmission. Bars are a disaster. Heard 4 STL Blues hockey players plus a coach have the bug. Report said believe contracted at a Chesterfield (suburban STL) bar. How the fuck is a league going to re-start with their players going to bars?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
And meanwhile the GOP enjoy fruits of their victory over reason…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/republican-convention-created-money-woes-151131829.html
Is this why Trump is so glum, even the dumbest of rich GOP donors is starting to have second thoughts? Now that is a nightmare scenario that would strike at the things Trump values the most.
WaterGirl
Do all the shopping you need to do now, Cole, so you won’t have to go out at all for a good while once it ramps up.
It is disgusting seeing grown-ass people behaving like children with no apparent comprehension of, or respect for the concept of doing (or not doing) something now so things will be better later.
it’s un-fucking-believable. Even otherwise smart people saying “I probably shouldn’t have done this, but I did. Once again, I am regretting having been raised Catholic, which stuck with me enough that that I am unable to say what I want to, which shares at least two letters with John G. Cole’s initials.
Major Major Major Major
What’s the screenshot from?
patrick Il
But are all of your statues O.K.?
Kent
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
The ultra-rich GOP boosters who normally fund this sort of thing do so in order to get luxury sky boxes in the Convention and in order to attend all the gala parties with the big wigs where they can make business deals. After all, what’s a $5 million donation to the GOP convention if you can score a $50 million contract or tax break?
Now that Jacksonville in August is looking like an Ebola hot zone they are all having second thoughts. Why drop millions into an event you aren’t even going to attend and that might not even happen in any recognizable form?
dmsilev
@Major Major Major Major: it’s from https://rt.live which is a site that tries to tease out the actual spreading rate based on the case numbers and other data. Basically anything above one is bad, because that means growth.
Villago Delenda Est
What REALLY pisses me off is that this is so gawd-damned predictable. Idiots, opening up for the short term insures a terrible long term.
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@WaterGirl:
Agree – and it’s disgusting that so many people, probably including many of these same grown-ass children, did do or not do something in the short term so that things would be better in the long term, and our fucking moronic local and federal governments utterly squandered their efforts. I can sympathize more than a little with people who made those sacrifices and now things aren’t better. And there’s no reason to believe another round of shutdowns will have any effect the next time, either, because of sabotage by the aforementioned fucking moronic authorities. People are still idiots and I’m still disgusted, but I understand the frustration.
Major Major Major Major
@dmsilev: Thanks. (I know what the numbers mean, just curious about the source :)
p.a.
WV Medicaid expansion Y or N?
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Kent: Not to mention what additional surprise last minuet large donations that Trump’s people might suddenly require. Trump does have a reputation for that. I wouldn’t be surprised to find out one day the real reason Trump yank the convention to Jacksonville was for a fresh round of donations.
The Marks wising up to the grift is giving Trump a sad face.
LuciaMia
What kills me is that they just dont get the two week incubation period. “Everythings pretty good now, why go out of our way to prevent something that might not happen?” Governors actually saying theyll wait till things get worse till they mandate things like masks. Well, by then, its too late. Horse is out of the barn, as they say.
Kent
The fucking unbelievable and depressing thing about all of this is that if everyone in the country had just reasonably self-quarantined for 14 days this virus would have been wiped out.
Leto
@LuciaMia: Instead of being proactive, they’re reactive. And they’re not even effective at being reactive in the response of predictable outcomes.
Rich Webb
Last winter as this was just ramping up I did some casual browsing on the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-19. I was puzzled and surprised that the second wave was so much worse than the first. Apparently we’re determined to repeat that pattern.
West of the Cascades
@Kent: It would be darkly amusing if Governor Cooper in NC announces easing of restrictions the day before the GOP is scheduled to meet in Jacksonville. But given NC’s curve, that’s not likely to happen.
Cermet
But isn’t that the very purpose that Wales … I mean West Virgina (both these regions exist in their respective dominate country to be exploited for mineral wealth; ignoring the people on said region) is within this old US of Amerika? Of course, as goes West Virgina, so does Appalachia region. But then, they do their best to ensure they remain this way.
Calouste
@Rich Webb: This is still the first wave. American stupidity just has made it a lot longer and higher that it needed to be.
Kent
More cars being used as weapons to kill protesters. This time in Seattle. Apparently the driver of the white Jag was a younger black man so not the usual profile of some white supremacist INCEL type
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/2-people-hit-by-car-on-i-5-in-downtown-seattle-during-protest/
Ruckus
@Villago Delenda Est:
Real predictability is based upon actual knowledge and the ability to see past one’s own proclivities.
People whose entire concept of life is YEAH, PARTY, drink, eat, fuck, for tomorrow is too far away to care about do not have the ability to do any of that.
Kent
I trust Charlotte to be in better shape by August than Jacksonville, just on governance alone.
Cermet
@Calouste: Why settle for just a wave when one can have a tsunami?
JoyceH
I’m pretty damn depressed too. When Virginia went into shutdown, I scheduled some stuff for July, figuring that SURELY we’d be past it by then. Virginia at least isn’t skyrocketing, but our downward trend has turned into a plateau. Next week, I need to go up to northern Virginia, to finally sort out my sister’s house. The county she lived in is experiencing a spike, thanks to a bunch of high school seniors deciding to celebrate graduation in Myrtle Beach. I already have face masks, and I’ve ordered face shields, disposable gloves, hand sanitizer and disinfectant spray. I’m going to suit up like a paranoid every time I have anything to do with anybody else. And once I get the house cleared and on the market, I plan to come home and quarantine for the rest of the YEAR. Because people are STUPID.
wvng
Just had a tent revival in Moorefield, WV. 5 days, crowded, no masks. My county. I am very alarmed. Justice may impose a mask order on Monday and I dearly hope he does.
wvng
@p.a.: WV has the Medicaid expansion from the beginning. Has been hugely important in my state, but had to be sold without mentioning Obama.
wvng
@Leto: Governor Justice made WV one of the most proactive states. He started closing things before there was a single case. But the pressure in this red state to open up, from our citizens and Trump, is severe. Despite that he is considering a statewide mask order starting Monday, and take the political hit. Because our country is stupid.
dcb
I was finally planning to head down to WV to visit family, sigh. I may still go. I’ve been self-isolating for 4 months so I’m not bringing more virus.
LuciaMia
Im starting to wonder what its going to be like come Christmas.
Kent
Same thing is happening here in OR (well I live right across the border in WA). The numbers had looked pretty good for over a month and are not spiking here as well. Sigh. Same usual shit as everywhere else. Combination of food processor outbreaks affecting mainly Hispanic immigrants, and people being stupid and partying.
JoyceH
@Rich Webb: “Last winter as this was just ramping up I did some casual browsing on the “Spanish Flu” of 1918-19. I was puzzled and surprised that the second wave was so much worse than the first. Apparently we’re determined to repeat that pattern.”
I just finished reading The Great Influenza, which is sort of the definitive history of the Spanish Flu pandemic. The first wave was actually just kind of a blip, barely noticeable among the regular flu. The second wave was the big horrific one. And then there were tertiary wavelets that continued throughout the 20s.
The good news, hard to see at the time but noticeable in retrospect, was that the influenza strain attenuated or softened over time. The places hit first were hit the worst, and the places that got hit later had a higher survival rate. It’s not that fewer people got the virus, but that more people survived it.
The folks in the administration who are bragging that the death rate hasn’t risen are stupid. Diagnosis first, deaths increase 2 to 4 weeks later. So we ARE going to see a spike in the death rate, probably a horrible spike, probably in August.
But I thiiiink that, bad as the deaths are going to be, the rate is probably not going to be as horrific as it was in the Northeast in the spring. Some reasons – first, doctors have gotten better at treating it. Going on a ventilator used to have a 20% survival rate, now it’s 65%. Hospitals are coming up with better treatments, proning and a cocktail of generic drugs that are providing effective – steroids and anti-coagulants and vitamins. The recent cases are trending younger. And, though there is no empirical evidence, doctors are whispering amongst themselves that the virus does seem to be attenuating.
None of which means I’m not going to be insanely cautious until this thing is over. I’m old, I’m overweight, I’ve got what Dr. Brix calls ‘comorbidities’. But it gives me some hope that a FEW things are going right, that the Trumpers haven’t managed to eff up.
cain
We’ve been behaving ourselves here in Hillsboro. But yeah, it sucks and our Gov is all out of fucks to give and has been threatening on twitter that inspectors are going to be visiting businesses.
rikyrah
@Kent:
I am wondering how many GOP lawmakers are going to show up for that Political Petri Dish in Jacksonville ??
laura
It just feels like the virus is looming waiting for the least lapse in vigilance, the slightest misstep all because we live among those who cannot or will not take the simplest and least inconveniencing step to protect themselves and others. I’m in actual dread that somehow hadn’t felt this omnipresent in the last three months. What did compliance buy us, and what’s the real cost of having squandered it? I understand that there is one person who wants it known that he is not to blame.
catclub
@dmsilev: Thanks. I had the same question.
DAVID ANDERSON
@p.a.: yes, January 1, 2014
West Virginia broadloads CSR which is problematic
Hungry Joe
Part of the problem is that “only” about 135,000 Americans have died so far. Horrific, sure, but that’s 1 in 2,500, which means that most people either don’t know anyone who has died, or know maybe one or two people, probably elderly. So it’s easy for people to allow themselves to be convinced that it’s a hoax, or it’s not a big deal. Just look around! Everyone is fine! Also, you quarantine for a while, you wear a mask, you do the social-distancing thing … and where’s the reward? “It’s tiresome, and boring, and I get nothing out of it. The hell with it.” So that’s why we’re screwed: lack of imagination.
Ohio Mom
I think a lot of places are on the same trajectory as West Virginia, certainly my end of Ohio is.
We had the beginning of a solid downturn, then we threw it away.
I’m seeing some efforts to get back on track — the cities of Cincinnati and Dayton are both now requiring masks — but the hot spots in my county are suburban jurisdictions, not city neighborhoods.
We’re not going to get any further leadership from the state, it’s going to be a patchwork of local jurisdictions.
JoyceH
I’m going to jump on my hobby horse here, and present my proposal for the best solution. Some company needs to design, manufacture and market a new kind of mask. A mask that is washable and reusable, comfortable to wear and easy to use, and that protects the WEARER. I hate the fact that when I go out into the world, my life depends on the consideration of other people. And I think that those very same people who aren’t wearing masks now might start if their own self-interest came into play.
Such a mask wouldn’t need some new scientific breakthrough, just the recognition of the need and the willingness to respond. (We put a man on the moon before we put wheels on our luggage!) They make masks that protect the wearer, the N95. Problem with that is that it’s intended for medical use, so it’s single use, disposable, and you need to be TRAINED in using it. Make one that’s washable, reusable, and idiot proof. Is someone working on this? I sure hope so.
catclub
That value of R= 1.23 for WV is high, but looks at Vermont: still higher than 1.0, but the difference is that the level there is much lower. So it is R combined with prevalence that determines – …. landsliiiiiiide!
CaseyL
I told my Mom, “We’re just too dumb to live.”
She said, “Not all of us.”
I said, “No – but enough of us.”
Also? Anyone who refuses to wear a mask because “It’s too much trouble,” and who refused to stay in lockdown for 2-3 weeks because “It’s too hard,” had better never never ever tell POC and women subjected to lifetimes of sexist and racist micro- and macro-aggression to “just get over it.”
Redshift
@Rich Webb: As I understand it, the Spanish Flu, like most strains, didn’t spread as well in warm humid weather, which is why it died out in the summer and came back stronger in the fall. That doesn’t seem to be the case with covid, so it’s just ongoing rather than coming in waves.
The Moar You Know
We have a mighty
interestinghorrific situation in CA.Our state government stepped up to the plate. Really couldn’t ask for more.
The few cities and counties that didn’t comply have a total population that is…small. About 5% of the state population. We had a handle on this.
The citizenry complied for about two months. And then at the end of May, basically this happened:
Everyone said “fuck it”. The Arizonans came in, and they weren’t having any part of our “masking bullshit”, the local morons had enough of scruffy hair and no bars to get laid at, the business owner mafia was screaming that they were doomed (which is actually true, and I hate to sound heartless, but they were doomed anyway the day this shit hit our nation) and within three days we went from lockdown safe and responsible mode to “let’s rock” – and I mean that literally, I was getting calls to see if I’d do indoor gigs. Well, I’d taken a few drives around to get the lay of the land. I saw restaurants (supposed to be at 25% capacity) at about 110% capacity, not a mask in sight and thousands of people down at the beach strip cramming into any place open. I posted here about that back in early June. Said CA was going to blow up like a bomb. And it has.
I’m here to type this because I didn’t take any of those gigs.
We then had last night. Bill in Glendale posted about his nonstop night of explosives, I had basically the same thing. Lotta locals got some high quality artillery, real window and door-rattling stuff, and were shooting them off down below my house in the canyon that is full of brush, in July. I don’t know how it didn’t burn. There was also some legit gunfire, which is a first.
My dog is a fucking basket case. He wouldn’t eat earlier. Finally got food in him about 10 (this is a critter that thinks that no breakfast by 6am is a war crime) and finally got him to come outside on a leash (now he won’t go into his own backyard off it!) to do his business. He then hustled right back inside. He’s already had fear issues, but not with regard to the 4th. He used to find it mildly interesting. This is the worst I’ve ever seen him. He’s just lying on the floor curled up. I would shoot every one of those fireworks blasting assholes if I knew who they were. We didn’t need this and he was the last creature on earth who deserved that.
I’ve also posted about my wife’s upcoming work situation, so I won’t get repetitive with that. The schools will reopen (not for long, my bet is they’ll all be closed before October 15) and we’re going to take the financial hit and say goodbye to our house, because she’s not going back in the classroom.
Not a one of these things had to happen. NOT ONE. To say I’m in a rage understates the reality so bad it feels like a lie to type it. And the worst part is, as culpable as Trump and the GOP are, my local situation has very little to do with them and everything to do with my fellow citizenry here, Dem majority city in a Dem majority county in a Dem majority state, who decided that someone dying just so long as they could get a drink at a bar and leer at a waitress was an acceptable tradeoff.
Not just our politics failed in 2020. It’s the sum total of our citizenry. Virtually everyone is failing to deal with this. No responsibility whatsoever.
America is a failed state, and it’s because its citizenry are moral failures themselves.
Brachiator
Wow. Looked at some demographic info.
This does not look good.
Ohio Mom
rilyrah:
How many Republicans will show up for the Petri dish in Jacksonville?
Not enough.
I see that my Republican Senator, the “reasonable” Rob Portman (he is a male version of Susan Collins) has said that while he supports Trump, he’ll be foregoing the convention. That was a disappointment to me. Yes, that is my mean, vengeful side showing. I’d be happy to see him sick with Covid.
You asked about Ohio Dad several days ago — I can twitter that he is back home and quarantining in the master bed/bath. He always dons a mask when he comes out, and I’m sleeping in the guest room, counting the days until we can say All-Clear in our little ranch house. That’s not to say we haven’t stretched the rules a bit but overall we are very compliant.
Kent
I’ve never been to a convention. But as I understand it, much of the point for the big wig donor types is to attend all the exclusive invitation-only gala parties that are held in the surrounding hotel ballrooms and such. That’s where the real deals get made. All the flag waving and silly costumes on the convention floor is just political theater for the rubes.
If they are all going to be locked in their hotel rooms and such then what is the actual point?
Another Scott
Relatedly, an open letter from Laura Jane Cohen, a member of the Board of Education of Fairfax County, VA.:
Cheers,
Scott.
LuciaMia
I see the Republican convention now has a new logo, with no mention of any city.
CaseyL
@The Moar You Know: Yes, and yes, and yes again. I am so sorry you, your wife, and your dog are going through this.
It’s incredibly depressing to see people just not give a damn.
Unfortunately, a great many Americans in general and white ones in particular haven’t given much of a damn for a long, long time.
Brachiator
@Kent:
This could be funny. Picture a ballroom full of screens with Zoom sessions running. As you imply, Trump might be happy with the rubes coming out in big numbers for floor events while the people with big bucks hang back.
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
So…his wimpy azz has already flaked out????
LuciaMia
@Another Scott: Man, right between the eyes.
Marcopolo
Let’s face it folks, it is just going to be bad until there is a vaccine produced in quantities great enough to inoculate a couple hundred million people in the US. If someone, anyone, else were president (or we had a Senate majority that believed in science & holding the president to account) it might be possible to try to cram this genie back in the bottle but you go into a pandemic with the President you have not the one you want or need.
I take care of an 87-year-old. We are resigned to the fact that we will just be locked down until the new year at a minimum. I wear masks the 2-4 times/week I make trips for groceries/drugs, we have our protocol for decontaminating everything that comes into the house–including mail–and with hard work & a little luck we’ll stay Covid free until then. I hope everyone here at BJ that can follow that path is doing so. Yeah, it sucks big time, I miss hanging out with friends, miss seeing films in theaters, etc… but it is what it is.
My heart goes out to all the folks in the US who cannot live like this and take precautions. The folks who aren’t financially secure enough to be able to quarantine, who have family members who throw caution to the wind, or still think this is just like “regular” flu, or whatever. Let’s face it, a lot more folks are going to die. They will still overwhelmingly be folks on the lower end of the economic spectrum, they will still overwhelmingly be POC. And then there are the healthcare workers who are just going to be mercilessly pummeled by the virus & Covidiots for the next 6 months–close to a 1000 have already died from dealing with Covid-19. There is a reason I’ve been borderline depressed since March.
Anyways, the lemonade from all this lemon is that as a result of all this Covid fuckupedness we have a golden opportunity to clear the decks of a lot of the elected officials/political party who have been the prime factor in causing this catastrophe. Let’s all do our utmost best to leverage current events into a blue tidal wave. Make sure you are registered. Make sure you already know your plan for voting in November now. Make sure everyone you know is registered and cajole them into doing the same with everyone they know. Make sure they all know what their plans are for voting. If you have some spare change kick it into a campaign at any level: local, state, national. Hook up with a campaign/candidate you like at whatever level. Write postcards for them, make phone calls (even if you hate making phone calls do it just this once) for them, talk them up with your friends, family, and co-workers. If you have a social media presence (from FB to twitter to instagram, etc…) advocate for candidates, causes that you care about. I know few campaigns in the StL metro area are doing no knock door campaign lit drops. If you can do that do it. Whatever it takes, do it.
Hope everyone is having a good & safe July 4th weekend. My favorite take from last night, when the booms around the neighborhood continued till 2 am was: “it appears all the folks who haven’t been able to bet on local sporting events have plowed their money into buy fireworks.” Take care all.
rikyrah
@Ohio Mom:
I am glad to know that he is home.
We are supposed to go back to work full throttle tomorrow. Everyone back in the office.
Had a co-worker email me this afternoon about that she has symptoms, and is going to take the test tomorrow ????
I am scared about the workplace. It has been ok with 30% of the people…but with everyone ???????
MisterForkbeard
@Cervantes: I’m in California, and in my county we have 1/3 the population of West Virginia we’re also at 40-60 cases per day (with a huge spike of 90 on 7/4).
I’d say we’re probably about as fucked as WV. Though we actually have restrictions and so on in place. :(
debbie
Franklin County in Ohio just passed the 10,000-mark on cases last night. The local Fox station tried to say it was the fault of protesters, but they have been proven wrong. Most of the new cases are people who didn’t participate in any of the protests. Last night, three popular bars in the Short North shut down because employees in each had been found to be positive. These were the first to open way back when, and they were also the first to insist they couldn’t enforce distancing, masking, etc.
Patricia Kayden
scav
@LuciaMia: “Anywhere that’ll ignore hygiene at rock-bottom prices” is a bit too long to fit on a bumpersticker.
jonas
He’s acting increasingly like he 1. doesn’t care about winning and 2. even if he does care, has no interest in changing course or coming up with some way to dig himself out of the hole he’s in. I guess he just figures someone will just keep bailing him out of his problems like they always have, whether it was his dad, Deutsche Bank, or Russian oligarchs. And speaking of sugar daddies, how is Sheldon Adelson these days? Trump’s strong leadership on the pandemic has done wonders for his casino businesses, I’m sure. Maybe he’ll fix everything.
J R in WV
@p.a.:
WV has had Medicaid for a very long time, we were once a very Blue state with powerful unions. So no, not the Medicaid expansion, we have had Medicaid since it was first invented.
The Moar You Know
@Kent: Let me clear it up for you as I know someone in the “industry”; the point is high-dollar call girls/rent boys.
GOP conventions are particularly notorious in this regard.
As someone said about the sportsball training camps that have all become COVID disasters – imagine how many people one groupie could infect in a week.
Kent
Trump might be happy with it. But the big floor events with the rubes are paid for by the big wigs who come for the skyboxes and gala events. Why drop a $5 million donation for the convention if you aren’t going to be able to schmooze with the GOP royalty at private events? It is exactly like the inauguration. They are paying for access and if there is no access then why pay?
Marcopolo
@JoyceH: I agree with what you’ve written but the issue vis a vis mortality will be strongly affected by how crushed hospitals get. Even as we are getting better at understanding & treating Covid-19; even as the average age of people contracting it falls into the 30s where it isn’t as fatal, with the numbers we are seeing everywhere hospitals will be overwhelmed cause even 30-year-olds wind up in the ICU on vents. So a lot of folks then won’t be able to get admitted to get the “new & improved care,” and a lot of other folks who sustain life-threatening non-covid related health care incidents will also be shut out of treatment and a certain percentage of them will die as a result. And then there are the folks who get it, it doesn’t kill them, but they either have experienced some acute issue (like organ damage) or long term recovery issues (like effects lingering for weeks and months) from Covid-19. It honestly looks like everyone who contracts Covid-19 will have that as a pre-existing condition around their necks for the rest of their lives.
Eljai
@MisterForkbeard: My California county was put on the watch list on Friday and our numbers did not improve so they are putting a halt on indoor dining for three weeks. I thought it was insane that they were going ahead with indoor dining in the first place.
Kent
Fun fact. West Virginia voted for Carter in the 1980 election. Oregon, Washington, California, and Vermont went for Reagan.
Kent
That’s what I’ve heard too. And I don’t get it. Do these folks not know how to find hookers in their own home towns? Or better yet just catch a cheap flight to Vegas?
JoyceH
@Marcopolo: That’s true, once the hospitals are overwhelmed all bets are off. Not to mention the spike in deaths from other causes because people who don’t have COVID don’t want to go to the hospital for fear that they’d get it.
wvng
@J R in WV: we took the Medicaid expansion, which was a component of the ACA. Manchin was governor then. It resulted in a massive expansion of health coverage but had to be sold as if Obama had nothing to do with it. (An ACA Navigator told me that.)
Patricia Kayden
Stay safe, all you Florida commenters.
J R in WV
@J R in WV:
I stand corrected by David… [eta, lots of people…] whatever else I am, I am not a health care maven. I would have sworn we had Medicaid here in WV well before 2014… or am I misunderstanding some fundamental thing?
Plus, time doesn’t mean as much to me as to most people. I know my birthday, wife’s birthday, brother’s b’day, that’s all folks. So when things happened, I dunno…
MisterForkbeard
@Eljai: Yeah. Honestly, my county is doing pretty well in contrast to the rest of the state and we STILL shouldn’t have dine-in or bars. Honestly, they just need to stay closed – both of these are huge infection vectors and can’t survive a constant shut-downs.
joel hanes
@LuciaMia:
I’m starting to wonder what its going to be like come Christmas.
I can confidently predict that I, for one, will not be going home to see Mom. Or shopping in stores. Or going to a church service. Or going to parties.
I think we have some chance of an effective and affordable and widely-available vaccine some time early in 2021. Two months after I get vaccinated, I’ll be ready to be around people again.
The Moar You Know
@Marcopolo: I work in a small company of about 80 people and we’ve already had two people get this shit. Both, thankfully, not in my state.
One seems to have recovered with no issues. He was quite sick at home but no complications.
One, if she lives, is going to be crippled for life. Perfectly healthy young lady in her early 30s, COVID-caused stroke.
If I get this shit and it goes to the point of hospitalization I’d rather just die. The picture of what is happening to COVID survivors is incomplete but it’s enough to get the outline, and that’s enough.
NotMax
Turned out to be the mildest 4th I can recall here, noise-wise, at least up through about 9:30, which is when I sank into extended postprandial nappage.
J R in WV
At my age, nearly 70, I’m not quite to the Do Not Resuscitate place yet. Wife seems to be there, her health is more fragile than mine. A hard place to be!
wvng
@J R in WV: yes, we had Medicaid before the expansion. Every state did. The expansion dramatically expanded the eligible population.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JoyceH:
Where have you seen this? I know some quack doctors in Italy have said this
joel hanes
@The Moar You Know:
its citizenry are moral failures
Some fraction of its citizenry, said fraction currently enabled and valorized by political and media structures
There are other fractions.
raven
“It honestly looks like everyone who contracts Covid-19 will have that as a pre-existing condition around their necks for the rest of their lives.”
I don’t think that is true at all.
JMG
This is just swell. Trump’s having another one of his goddamn plague rallies this Saturday in Portsmouth, N.H. While that’s about 150 miles from where I am now, that’s too close.
trollhattan
@NotMax:
We had people blowing shit up through the night, mostly “illegal” from the sound of it. Must have woken up half a dozen times.
First dog we’ve had who seems unbothered by fireworks, thank bog. The others were wrecks on the 4th and new years eve.
wvng
@raven: the Pentagon just announced they will not be accepting any recruits who have had covid.
Martin
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
Yeah, he’s getting advice he doesn’t like, but the whole plan was to magically think away the virus and get things into an upswing for nov. That obviously didn’t work, and his control of the narrative that everything will be fine is losing even among Republicans, and it’s looking very likely that if we do get this knocked down this summer, he certainly won’t have a ‘I fixed it’ narrative to run with, even one with all of the grading on a curve that Republicans tend to do.
JoyceH
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It was in an email to Talking Points Memo. Again, no proof, but it wasn’t just doctors in Italy. And as a historical point, attenuating is what the Spanish Flu did, so it’s not unheard of.
Martin
@wvng: They’re trying really hard to find recruits. They’ve been trying to get my daughter for the last 3 months and she’s like ‘I weigh 100 lbs and have asthma and clinical anxiety – I can run a mile once and if I hear a firecracker I cry. I am seriously of no use to you.’ And they are still trying to recruit her.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@The Moar You Know:
I think that’s what so many people don’t get. You might not die, but you might wish you would have if you get the worst of the complications from this virus.
I wish life could go back to way it was, but I’d rather not catch this virus if I can, even if it’s a “mild” case
prostratedragon
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Te-hee.
Martin
@LuciaMia: It’ll be bad. Maybe better or worse than now, but not like Europe. You can only get so far through a completely haphazard strategy.
People will voluntarily take steps to contain this if it appears to be bad – that’s just self preservation, but once it starts to look okay, you can only make gains through centralized, proactive processes and Trump will never institute those, ever.
catclub
But the recruiters are thinking: “oh, everybody says that to us. They just THINK they don’t want to sign up.”
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): The majority of people seem to experience nothing more than mild sickness that goes away as typical. My BIL works in a hospital and contracted it from a patient, got a positive test and then quarantined. He had a day of GI upset and that was it. He’s since finished his quarantine and retest and has seemingly no problems after that, and he was not in perfect health beforehand. I have another colleague who contracted it and is similarly doing fine now.
I’m not saying that there are not bad outcomes and that it isn’t scary and that we shouldn’t be much more careful than we are being. But I think a lot of people here are looking at the exceptional outcomes and forgetting that those are, well, the exceptions.
catclub
trump is unable to tell the US “It will be bad for a while IN ORDER for it to get better.” He can only spout real estate promoter happy talk.
Just think if he had said: you lock down for 4 whole months, we totally kill the virus and then we can open schools in the fall. But that requires unhappy people ( who cannot go golfing) today.
It is like the cost of the Iraq war. If we had said we would offer $100B if the Iraqis booted out Saddam, it would be a bargain. Instead we spend $2Trillion to get a worse result.
wvng
@Martin: https://www.militarytimes.com/news/your-military/2020/05/06/coronavirus-survivors-banned-from-joining-the-military/#.Xv-oeVqJohQ.facebook
WaterGirl
@The Moar You Know: Yes to everything you said, especially this.
Fuck.
Ella in New Mexico
A bit off topic but actually, since this is about stupid people doing stupid things…this video was posted by my gay niece with the caption “People ask me why’d you take so long to come out? People in Gettysburg aren’t that hateful. It’s a progressive town…WELLL”
Apparently, wearing a BLM t-shirt on the same battlefield where the UNION decisively told the Confederate Slave Owner’s Militia fuck off you lose you traitors is a reason to be surrounded, harassed, and threatened by a bunch of thug white trailer trash. With the obligatory “Ya Fucking Faggot” and “Go to some other country if you think blacks and Native Americans shouldn’t be murdered” added for emphasis.
This area of the country always has been a bit conservative, although more like the Eisenhower Republicans vs. the Shitstorm Party they are today. Most people in town will condemn these people’s words, but they’ll also reserve criticism for the young man who decided to “bring it on himself” and “provoke people” by being there and stating his positions issues of importance to him just like these wankers were doing. . My niece was born and raised in Gettysburg and from about 4 years old she’d say “I’m not a girl, I’m a boy”, and looked like one. While she had loving parents and great friends and family,her childhood was no picnic, mostly because there’s an element of fear of the different that lives there fueling the hate like this. People were mean and cruel to her on a regular basis, people who should have known better.
My husband’s brother and wife, and his elderly parents voted for Trump, but the agony of it for the rest of us in the family is that they don’t really embody a single value he represents: they’re not racist, being gay/trans is just fine, they’re pro-women’s reproductive rights, they’re moderate Lutherans who don’t espouse hateful evangelical rhetoric. They’re just loyal Republicans, and quite frankly, I’m not even sure who they support now because we had to stop talking to the brother at all and his parents about politics for years now.
I just wish I knew how we’re gonna put these people back in the Genie’s bottle when we finally do vote him out in the fall. They’re just so comfortable now, walking around harassing people, dressing up in fatigues and the Confederate Flag, cursing at people they think are threatening their way of life.
How do we shrink this element of our population down to a size where we can drown it in a bathtub…
Marcopolo
@raven:
Well, folks who are a lot more knowledgeable about healthcare than I am are taking the idea of having Covid-19 as a pre-existing condition quite seriously:
mrmoshpotato
Yup! This pandemic has definitely shown that a bunch of people become selfish fucking children when mildly inconvenienced.
I have no such qualms.
JFC!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@JoyceH:
Coronaviruses don’t mutate at the same rate as flu viruses do. It’s possible, but I won’t hold my breath
greenergood
UK Report: In England, bars (pubs) and hairdressers opened up Saturday at 6 AM. Streets full, queues down the streets, distancing completely impossible. Lots of pubs and hairdressers were sensible and didn’t open at all, but lots did. Scotland is still very closed up – supermarkets, and some smaller food shops, pharmacies, banks – less than 5 a day fatalities – some days NONE. Scotland’s COVIS rate WAY lower than England, because we’ve stuck to the program, but now England is saying that there’s really no border between England and Scotland, so if people from England want to drive into Scotland, they shouldn’t be quarantined – even though English health/legal/education systems are completely different from Scotland’s. Villages like mine and many others north of me in the Highlands are BEGGING English tourists not to come to Scotland until COVID-19 is diminished – our health service, esp in small villages, couldn’t handle the input – but people are arriving in camper vans, RVs and motorcycles. Public toilets are still shut for COVID reasons – so people are shitting on the beach, in the woods, in people’s gardens. It’s just gross, and scarey how much they just don’t give a F***. I try to imagine what they would say if I went to their town, or garden, and shat there. The lack of respect is just breathtaking.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Suzanne:
Granted, but I’d rather not take my chances
MomSense
@rikyrah:
I’m sorry, rikyrah. Please take care of yourself as best you can. I find that I am exhausted at the end of the day from the stress of trying to constantly mitigate exposure. Be kind to yourself if you come home from work and don’t have the energy to do anything. Forget about chores. ???? ?
Martin
@raven: Oh, that will definitely be true. ‘Pre-existing condition’ is simply a variable that insurers are able to use to get the risk pool that they want. Ideally for them, everyone would be pre-existing condition so they could pick and choose precisely who to insure. That doesn’t mean that Covid individuals won’t be able to get health care – surely if enough people catch it they’ll have to insure them – but it does mean that they have the appropriate box checked to deny them if the math is better to deny them, or to charge them higher premiums if that is what works.
Assuming the ACA gets tossed (which I don’t think it will).
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: I’m disappointed that I didn’t get to see it written out! :-) Though this probably would still get me in dutch with the nuns for egging you on.
bbleh
@JoyceH: I’m pretty sure N95 (and R95) masks are not exclusively for medical use; they’re also for industrial use. The designation simply indicates the degree of filtration, and theirs is high (filters out a higher percentage and smaller particles) which is why they protect the wearer and not just those around them.
Also, they can be used many many times — I’ve worn the same few for errands for months, and while they get a little raggedy in places, they still filter effectively (if less than when they’re fresh out of the box). They can also be cleaned, although one must be careful how, since many cleaning agents will reduce their filtration efficiency.
And they don’t really require much training to use. Just make sure they fit snugly all the way around. That, and the filtration level, are mainly what differentiate them from the “surgical” masks one sees most commonly, and from other looser-fitting cloth masks.
So if you can get one, wear one, and go ahead and re-use it repeatedly.
But as to comfort, part of the discomfort of N95s is they’re stuffy and they give you “mask face,” precisely because they filter well and fit snugly. That is, you can’t really get good protection and complete comfort. The one implies a certain lack of the other.
JoyceH
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Oh, I’m not holding my breath about ANYthing. Especially not under our current lunatic government.
And one thing I’m not counting on that a lot of people seem to be counting on is that there will be a vaccine late this year or early next year. I just don’t think we can make that assumption; there may NEVER be an effective vaccine. That’s why PPE for non-medical personnel is an urgent matter. I’m going to start adding a face shield as well as mask when I go out in a high COVID area later this month. I’m glad to see more people wearing the face shield because that’s something that offers the wearer some protection, probably better than masks.
But I am glad to hear about some of these new treatments, because they seem to be cutting down the length of hospital stays. One of the bad things about this virus is that if you wind up having to be hospitalized, the usual hospitalization is quite a few weeks – that can max out a hospital pretty darn quick if people keep come in and nobody is going out.
Suzanne
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Agreed, and I’m minimizing my risk, too. But I’m detecting a lot of panic here and I don’t think that’s helpful or rational. The vast majority of people who contract it will be okay.
Minimize outings, wear masks, wash hands.
WaterGirl
@Martin: I have a question for you. I skipped my hair appointment in April because they were closed, and in May and June by choice.
Trying to figure out if should be keeping my hair appointment on July 21 or if I should cancel again. Do you have an opinion on whether that’s safe or not?
Redleg
Same crap as here in northern Kentucky. In my cul-de-sac there has been at least one large party of 20+ people every weekend for the last month or so. When I go out, most people aren’t wearing masks. They’re more concerned about the libtards taking away their beloved guns than about public health. Freedumb!!!
Marcopolo
@WaterGirl: I live in MO & we had a case where two hair stylists in SW MO tested positive. Contact tracers IDed 140 customers between the two of them over the period when they were infectious before they knew they were positive. None of those 140 contracted Covid-19. The kicker: everyone in the salon was required to wear a mask. So I’d find out what precautions they are following at the salon you use. If everyone is masked & there is sanitizer & folks disinfect frequently and practice social distancing between stations you will probably be okay. If not, don’t go.
Brachiator
@Kent:
Back-room deals will be replaced by back-Zoom deals. Movers and shakers will always find ways to move and shake.
debbie
@Suzanne:
A lot of people here are older and have preexisting conditions. If you’re young and in good health, hopefully, the effects will be minimal; otherwise, most likely, there will be issues.
WaterGirl
@Marcopolo: Yeah, I had read that article, didn’t realize you are in MO.
– they do wear masks
– they only have someone at every other station
– the stylists no longer do the whole “I have two clients at one time, i can cut her hair while you are under the dryer”
– and there is no longer one person who washes your hair and another person who cuts it
But it’s a cut & a color, so that usually takes about 90 minutes. :-(
Otherwise, I would wash my hair at home, drive with wet hair for the 5 minutes it takes to get there, let her cut it and run out!
Ken
Do what you can to bring that to Trump’s attention – I guess the best way would be calling-in to Fox and Friends or Hannity.
“Hi, I’m a great supporter of President Trump (MAGA 2020) and I just wanted to say how disappointed I am that my senator, Rob Portman, is skipping the convention. I’m not going to call him a traitor to the Republican party but I just don’t think he’s as loyal to the President as he should be.”
You know, go beyond rooting for injuries and start working to bring them about.
thalarctosMaritimus
@CaseyL: IKR?
If these plague rat snowflakes ever faced real hardship, the screeing would be epic.
Imagine how they’d have coped with meat and gas rationing during the world wars. If they’d been around then, we’d be speaking German now.
C Stars
@Suzanne: I get that we shouldn’t panic, but this is actually what frightens me the most. That 40% of folks have such mild symptoms that they don’t even realize they have it. That I might be one of those 40% of folks and unknowingly spread it to someone who might die.
debbie
@WaterGirl:
I washed my hair ahead of time. It was dry when I got there. She mostly cut it dry, but sprayed with water now and then.
Ohio Mom
WaterGirl, you can go to covidactnow.org and see how your county is doing. Looking at my state, there are very quiet areas and very noisy ones. I went for a haircut without worry when my county was in a lull. I wouldn’t go right now though, especially since my hair cutter lives in one of the hottest areas in the county (and commutes to my quieter side) (I know the local hot spots from my county board of health’s site).
rikyrah, I would guess that all you can really do, beyond the usual mask, distancing and handwashing, is to concentrate on keeping your immune system strong: get enough rest, eat well, stay hydrated, try to get some mild exercise in. We are all pulling for you.
Suzanne
@debbie: Agreed. I have been asking my #1 client (very large health system) about what they are seeing, and right now, they said that they are definitely seeing a spike in the number of cases, but no spike (so far) in hospitalizations and deaths. That is likely because this spike is among younger people, who are by no means free of risk, but certainly have lower rates of bad outcomes.
Honestly, I think the overall thing that we are going to have to deal with is that this is going to be a long and thankless slog. I don’t think that this is ever going to be quote-unquote spectacular, it’s going to be low-grade shitty for a long time. Americans have short attention spans.
I honestly think that if we had had leadership with courage, who said, BACK IN MARCH, “we’re going to do a full-blown shutdown for three weeks and stomp this shit”, it would have been more successful. But we have a sentient corpse flower in the Oval Office, so instead we get this.
debbie
@Suzanne:
No argument with anything you said. I’m not particularly worried about myself since I’ve been pretty good on precautions, but I do get depressed from time to time because I know there won’t be a return to “normal” in my lifetime.
Still loving Pittsburgh?
Martin
@WaterGirl: I think it depends on local conditions. I think things in your neck of the woods is okay. I’d talk to the stylist and ask what measures they’re taking and see if you feel comfortable with it. I’d probably avoid any long procedures if possible. A cut is pretty quick but a color takes a while.
I’m having someone come to my house and cut my hair on my patio. Might want to see if there’s an option like that available to you.
patrick II
@Ella in New Mexico:
The AR-15 and physical threats bothered me more than the fatigues and flags. They are getting used to carrying those things around now like there is Viet Cong behind every tree. They are old bullies and assholes itching for a fight so they can be tough guys like they imagine themselves to have been in their youth.
There is a cultural inertia now to carrying weapons of war that is going to be very hard to extinguish.
japa21
@WaterGirl: Wouldn’t worry about it. Illinois is also requiring extensive sanitation of the station between customers.
raven
@Marcopolo: Is that the same as EVERYONE????? And “could”.
Patricia Kayden
Hoodie
@JoyceH: Funny, I had a dream the other night about something like your “PPE for dummies.” Most people don’t need N95 coverage because they’re not likely to be exposed to the viral loads that healthcare workers and first responders might see, and a lot of people struggle with using and breathing through N95 masks anyway. Maybe something like a low end PAPR (a ventilated hood or helmet with a transparent face shield) that has a small blower powered by a rechargeable battery and a decent filter that the blower sucks air through. The blower/filter allows you to breathe more normally and keeps the face shield from fogging up. Wear this rig when you’re going somewhere where social distancing is problematic and people are not consistent about wearing masks. Plastic and washable, or have a UV box (like a CPAP cleaner) you can stuff it into at home to decontaminate. I imagine something like that could be made for well south of 100 bucks.
Brachiator
@Marcopolo:
The hair salon story was very interesting; it was from June and I wonder what health officials learned from it.
The links options from the hair salon story included this recent story.
An asymptomatic coronavirus carrier infected an apartment neighbor without sharing the same space. A study blames the building’s elevator buttons.
Coronavirus particles can live on surfaces like plastic and stainless steel, which are common in elevators, for up to seven days
The primary concern when it comes to coronavirus and elevators is that nearly all lifts are small, enclosed indoor spaces. Those are the ideal conditions for the coronavirus’ spread, since it’s expelled in droplets when an infected person coughs, sneezes, or speaks.
Elevators also tend to lack strong airflow, which mean people who have COVID-19 (no matter whether they’re presymptomatic, asymptomatic, or feeling ill) could leave some virus behind.
trollhattan
@Suzanne:
Trends in CA are up for positive tests, both by population and percentage. Hospital visits for flu-like symptoms are down, thankfully, and we have a 35% ICU bed buffer.
Arizona remains a shitshow: 55/100k or 26% positive tests vs. 21/100k, 6.8% in CA and 21% ICU buffer.
The next week+ will show whether folks stayed home over the 4th. Woe unto us if they did not.
prostratedragon
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
“Minuetto,” L. Boccherini
jonas
Not risk free, to be sure, but a lot better than cramming into a bar or large, indoor house party. Today at the supermarket, where virtually everyone (thankfully) was wearing a mask, there’s this one morbidly obese guy shopping on a hover-round in some jingoistic XXXXL t-shirt (“America — Love it or Leave It” or something like that) and his mask proudly pulled down around one of his three chins. I guess he figured since everyone else was masked, he might as well let his freak flag fly or something, but I was thinking this was the last guy who should be taking risks like that. But ‘Murica!1! and all that.
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
They wanted me in the office a month or more back to bring some materials down to the loading dock from floor 16. I asked what the Safe Plan of Action was for the confined entry space represented by the elevators. “We have wipes.” What about airborne protection, is there PPE? “No.” (I was waiting for masks at the time.)
I passed. Elevators represent a very real exposure pathway and midrise and highrise buildings are going to have to address it.
Suzanne
@debbie: Yes, I am really enjoying it here, even though there is obviously a lot of limitation on what we can do. Things like museums and the zoo and Fallingwater are very high on my list. So far, we are sticking to parks and hiking trails, at safe distance. We did go out to one restaurant and ate on the patio, and it freaked me out, and we had gone shopping for food in the Strip District, but both activities freaked us out so we aren’t doing them again until things are calmer. No salons yet (having to learn how to do my own waxing is kind of hilarious). But I am going to the grocery store and the craft store while masked and socially distant. I went to a client meeting in person last week, wearing a mask and spacing at at the conference table.
My in-laws want to come visit in the fall. They are thinking about renting a RV so they don’t have to stay in a hotel or get any road food, since that is what they are most worried about.
Mr. Suzanne got a serology test and it was negative for COVID antibodies.
Ohio Mom
When I got my haircut, per state rules, my hairdresser sprayed disinfectant on the seat and wiped it dry. Which made me roll my eyes, I don’t think I was at risk via the seat of my pants.
I was glad for the mask rule being followed, even as that means Ohio Son will have to depend on me for beard trims for the foreseeable future, and it turns out that isn’t a special talent of mine.
Suzanne
@trollhattan: Arizona is a fucking shitshow. My former clients are in a world of hurt there. My new clients in western/central PA and northeast OH are experiencing no such surge, even though cases are going up.
Arizona being a shitshow is absolutely zero surprise to me.
debbie
@Suzanne:
Ha. I tried that once and never screwed up the courage to pull.
WaterGirl
@debbie: Doesn’t help when you are getting it highlighted, as well. :-(
WaterGirl
@Ohio Mom: Yeah, that says we are above 1. 1.07 to be exact.
Marcopolo
@raven: You make it sound like insurance companies will consider these subtleties. Based on the historical record I am pretty sure they won’t.
Suzanne
@debbie: Bourbon helps.
James E Powell
@JoyceH:
No disrespect to you or to any whispering doctors, but I think I’m going wait on some empirical evidence.
Brachiator
@jonas:
As I write this, the park down the street from me is packed with people having picnics and throwing frisbee and playing baseball.
Picnics in California and elsewhere have been linked to community spread, especially when you don’t have social distancing and mingle family and friends who previously were in lockdown separately.
The Frisbee tossers and football throwers may be okay, but they are passing around an object in common, the ball or Frisbee, that might carry she’d virus.
If the park is packed with people not observing social distance guidelines, there could be problems.
Miss Bianca
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: Just finished that article. Notice it doesn’t quote any Republicans blaming *Trump* for arbitrarily uprooting the convention.
WaterGirl
@Martin: My stylist actually bought the salon a couple of years ago, and she is very smart and very practical, so I trust her. I have been cutting my own hair, but it really needs to be highlighted, so the amount of time that takes is my concern. I will go sit in my car for the 20-30 minutes that it takes to process. Then I think I’ll skip the cut in 6 weeks and go back in 3 months for the cut/highlight.
We are definitely going in the wrong direction in my county and in Illinois overall. So it’s definitely going to get worse before it gets better.
WaterGirl
@japa21: That’s encouraging! Though if I think about it, I’m more worried about droplets in the air, coming from the person who is standing right over me washing the color chemicals out of my hair.
Suzanne
@WaterGirl: Have you ever dyed your own hair? I do my own because I’m cheap. I did my own highlights a few times, and it was difficult, but I got better. Now I do all-over color and that’s easy.
Mr. Suzanne and I have been, uhhhhh, assisting one another with various grooming tasks, and it has been an adventure. LMAO.
WaterGirl
@trollhattan:
Sadly, I think we’ll know what the answer to that question will be.
jonas
@Ohio Mom: On Saturday Steve Inskeep was interviewing a bar owner in Texas who was pissed off that Abbot had ordered bars in her county closed. “But we disinfected everything — the bathrooms the tables, the chairs — multiple times a day,” she was saying. “We spaced all the tables six feet apart.” She didn’t know what more she could have done and still that terrible Abbot guy was telling them they had to close. I was shouting at the radio “Goddamit! It’s not the surfaces in your damn bar! It’s everyone cramming into a small indoor space and talking and singing and breathing the same air in close proximity!!”
We still don’t get this.
I really feel sorry for small restaurant owners whose livelihood relies on what is, unfortunately, the most high-risk activity for spreading Covid. States and Congress should step up to help them, particularly as most are small, family businesses. But that’s not how red states, or McConnell’s Senate, roll.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
One hopeful sign about community spread. Some folks in Carson, CA used to have a big street party to celebrate the Fourth. Lots of Latino Americans with extended family members living at home. People interviewed said they were going to cut things way back, with people staying mainly on their own properties. Fewer or no invitations to people who don’t already live in the neighborhood. Quieter, but safer.
Hope the word got around to other people.
cain
@debbie:
I tried to cut my own hair. It went like this:
“OK! I’m going to just shave my sides and my back and cut a bit off the top – nothing crazy”
Bzzz bzzz bzzz.. click. “Fuck.”
Bzzzz bzzzz zbzzzzz bbzzzzzzz
“oh fuck.. goddam it!”
Bzzzz bzzzz bzzzz..
I now wear hats.
James E Powell
@WaterGirl:
I was wondering the same thing because I’m looking pretty shaggy. It mostly doesn’t matter because I don’t go out often and when I do, I wear a cap.
I walked by a barber shop – not my regular place – yesterday and looked in. About 25 people, only about three or four with masks. None of the barbers had masks on. Kinda curious what they’re thinking.
WaterGirl
@Suzanne: I do highlights, not overall color. I can only imagine what a nightmare it would be to try to highlight my own hair. I have really fine hair, so if I screwed something up, I’m worried that my hair would all break off.
frosty
@Suzanne: Re: RVs when visiting. We’ve taken our trailer when visiting our son in Pittsburgh. Unfortunately, there aren’t a lot of close camping options. We’ve stayed at Raccoon Creek State Park which was OK, but a bit far west. Our last stay was at Mountain Top RV Park (private) to the northeast. It was nicer than most private ones.
Ohiopyle is one of our favorite state parks in your area. There are two or three in the Laurel Hills, too.
James E Powell
I’m surprised and maybe a little disappointed that there is no country song or alt country song entitled “Going South in West Virginia” – at least I couldn’t find one in my five minutes of googling.
Somebody contact the Drive By Truckers or maybe the Bottle Rockets and suggest the title.
WaterGirl
@James E Powell: Ugh. If that was the case, I would walk out.
joel hanes
@J R in WV:
I’m 67, and I’ve filed a do-not-intubate form with my doctor.
Brachiator
@jonas:
If they are following all the health authority guidance, what else are they supposed to do?
If they are following social distance rules, and maybe reducing maximum occupancy, they should be okay, relatively speaking.
Additional consideration might be looking at the back area where staff congregate and prepare food, etc. And check ventilation.
Some places in Europe are reducing social distance from 2 meters to 1 meter in restaurants. This will be an interesting experiment.
joel hanes
@debbie:
“hopefully” is doing a lot of work there.
joel hanes
@debbie:
there won’t be a return to “normal” in my lifetime
I think this is unduly pessimistic.
I’m thinking there’s at least a 50/50 chance of a mass vaccination program sometime during 2021, and a second one with a better vaccine with a year or two after that. We have never before had the depth of understanding for any other new pathogen than we have developed for SARS-CoV-2 in just six months.
Brachiator
@James E Powell:
Before Governor Newsom closed some things down again, I broke down and went for a haircut at my local barber. The place is small, two chairs, and both barbers wore masks and gloves.
The owner of a local coffee shop moans and gripes about “communist” government authorities and their stupid rules. But he has been scrupulous about adhering to regulations. When dine in service had been restored, all the customers who came in wore masks.
I don’t go to many places, but I will not shop at any store where the staff are not observing the rules. I don’t even bother with looking at the customers.
mrmoshpotato
@WaterGirl:
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST!
Just for you. ?
joel hanes
@Suzanne:
that is what they are most worried about
I have been watching for it since the beginning, and I have seen no reports of food-borne infection.
joel hanes
@jonas:
It’s not the surfaces in your damn bar!
This is a tough message for food handlers to internalize, because SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t behave anything like salmonella, listeria, E coli, or the other pathogens for which they’ve all been trained.
Like Suzanne’s parents, their internal model of infection pathways is dominated by visions of contaminated touch surfaces and food.
Brachiator
@joel hanes:
These are not really good odds. However, I think we might agree that the odds of finding a vaccine greatly improve if we have a president who is pursuing a rational national strategy and working with the international community to help develop a vaccine.
Among his other acts of stupidity, Trump makes a big deal about trying to simply buy whatever looks promising for exclusive use here, or to whoever he seems worthy, highest bidder. He is a hindrance to the development of an effective vaccine.
joel hanes
@Brachiator:
Agree in every particular.
debbie
@joel hanes:
Hope you’re right.
The Pale Scot
What I don’t get is risking a prolonged shitty death for something that isn’t IMHO, a spectacular bit of fun. I had my poppers and blow shenanigans, surfed the A-train uptown, drove a brakeless car to NYC and back to buy weed and whippets. If something went awry, the end would have been pretty quick. To risk a life that might not be your own for draft bud and a shot of Jueger is such small potatoes, I don’t get it.
WaterGirl
@mrmoshpotato: thank you!
Suzanne
@joel hanes: They are more concerned about procuring food. I should note that they are super-crunchy organic people who will only drink water that they buy at Whole Paycheck that comes in glass bottles. When they came to visit us in Phoenix, they went to Whole Foods multiple times daily. They have been doing grocery delivery since this started, since my FIL is in a higher risk group. So they are worried about getting food while traveling without entering a store, and also about being able to get the kind of food they will eat while driving here. So the RV lets them bring more food with them. (I am not saying that driving is riskier than going into a supermarket. LOL.)
Suzanne
@Brachiator:
So this is a topic that needs more discussion. Due to my job, I work with lots of mechanical engineers. The vast majority of places are designed to code minimums for air changes per hour and air returns. The vast, VAST majority of spaces are not supplied with 100% outdoor air. And most building HVAC systems cannot just easily increase the percentage of outside air. Even if they could, it’s incredibly costly and energy-intensive. I have a feeling that the mechanical codes are going to change due to this event, but we are going to have to have a public conversation about increase in energy use. It will involve a lot of cost—financial and environmental—that we will need to bear.
J R in WV
@Suzanne:
OK, this is the best description of The Donald I have seen yet~!!!~ You win the innertubes today, totes!!! Is Betty Cracker your sister???
Barry
@WaterGirl: “Do all the shopping you need to do now, Cole, so you won’t have to go out at all for a good while once it ramps up.”
I second this, and John, stock up for your parents. They’ll probably need to isolate for two months.
J R in WV
@Barry:
We could eat for 2 months, and feed the dogs and cats for at least a month, too. It might get pretty boring after a few weeks, once the greens and fresh veges are gone. And I would need to stock up on booze, wine and beer, we usually only have 2 or 3 weeks worth of that.
So far, I’m OK wearing my 3M industrial respirator in to Kroger’s and the farmer’s market. I’ll need to hit the bank soon, we have some big checks that might go stale if we don’t get them converted into money soon.
The Gov, Big Jim, is believed to be calling for 100% mask wearing in public tomorrow, state-wide. He should have done it two weeks ago, dunno why he didn’t. He’s pretty much a fool, doesn’t pay taxes or bills at his coal companies until people take him to court, for example.
Barry
@Marcopolo: “It honestly looks like everyone who contracts Covid-19 will have that as a pre-existing condition around their necks for the rest of their lives.”
And if the ACA is stuck down, they’ll be uncoverable for anything which might be related to Covid-19, which is a long and growing list of illnesses.
Barry
@Kent: “Do these folks not know how to find hookers in their own home towns? Or better yet just catch a cheap flight to Vegas?”
Old advice for Army officers: ‘Keep your indiscretions 100 miles from the flagpole’.
James E Powell
@J R in WV:
If he wants West Virginians to take him seriously he needs to be calling for a hundred fucking percent mask wearing in public.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@Rich Webb: the consensus is it was conditions of WWI that made Spanish Flue worse; muster gas causes mutations and because of the demands of the war, those soldiers with milder strains of the Spanish Flue remained isolated in the trenches while those soldiers who were to ill to function were sent to the rear were they spread it everyone else. Sort of sounds like what happened in Italy when the hospitals became the main source of infection.
SWMBO
@debbie: https://youtu.be/PoJEetU0O64
ColoradoGuy
The big mental adjustment (for me) was the realization that all of 2020 is going to be a writeoff. No travel. No visits to friends. No restaurants. No live music. The Colorado response has been fairly decent, and Governor Polis finally shut down bars across the state, but we’re sheltering-in-place until the Kaiser system (12 million members) comes up with a vaccine or an at-home cure that at least keeps us out of the hospital. Their membership is bigger than some countries, and it’s in their direct financial interest to vaccinate as many people as possible.
I’m a high-risk group, so we’re having groceries delivered at home, along with the “wash cold things in the sink with soap and water” and “keep shelf-stable items in the garage for two days” protocol. The cars get driven once a week. It’s occurred to me that millions of other 65+ people are following a similar safety protocol, in the absence of a national program to do anything at all, and we’re playing our part in keeping the overall Rt number down. The self-isolation of our high-risk cohort is probably the reason that the younger party-hearty folks are the demographic appearing in hospitals now.
The slowly declining death rate is a small ray of light … maybe it’s improved medical procedures, maybe people are taking Vitamin D3 and NAC, maybe mask-wearing is resulting in smaller viral loads, or an unknown factor that we don’t know about yet.
The MedCram Youtube videos have been a good alternative to TV news … fact and science-based, and focussed on what the professionals are doing. That’s where I saw serious biochem-based discussion, along with journal citations, of Vitamin D3 and NAC, and the treatment protocols used in hospitals in Los Angeles.
Ohio Mom
ColoradoGuy: I’ve been calling it a lost year.
glc
@Major Major Major Major: If you’e checked out https://rt.live/ then you’ll also have noticed that the story of WV is very typical
Even NY went back into the red a little while ago and NJ just joined them, after bringing things down a great deal – but not where they were at the beginning of the first wave, so we’re basically starting the same thing over again from a higher initial infection rate.
These numbers – particularly the latest ones at any given moment – have substantial error bars but the overall picture is clear.
We’re down to 11 states on the green side now. I think the sensible thing to do now is check back in March 2021 and see if there is any improvement or material change.
JoyceH
@Ohio Mom: “ColoradoGuy: I’ve been calling it a lost year.”
Me too. Now, I’m an introvert and it’s pretty easy for me to stay at home for two weeks at a time and then go to the grocery store and come right back home. But I had different plans for 2020. My twin sister died in December, and I had resolved to deal with it by traveling more and doing more locally outside the home, make more local friends, that sort of thing. All those resolutions have shrunk down to ‘stay home as much as possible and stay alive’.
Ohio Mom
Joyce H: Me too, I have a list of things I was planning to do that are now on hold indefinitely.
The irony is, a lot of them would take place in my home — families I want to have over for dinner, some projects I’d have to hire someone else to do. But I’m not welcoming anyone into my safe space.
Bill Arnold
@Suzanne:
Is he sure? Is there any kidney damage? Any heart damage? Any brain damage, even very subtle? Any lung capacity damage? It’s a vascular virus (approximately), after it gets into the body typically (or maybe almost always) via the respiratory system.
Small clots, that do damage or not, depending on luck.
Pathophysiology of SARS-CoV-2: targeting of endothelial cells renders a complex disease with thrombotic microangiopathy and aberrant immune response. The Mount Sinai COVID-19 autopsy experience (May 22 2020, preprint, might check for a newer version)
Sellius
I know this is a pretty stale thread, but I can share a little experience related to operating in the workplace with COVID:
I work as an engineer in a very very large automotive parts manufacturing plant. We’re in an Ohio hot-spot (Montgomery County, Dayton) and we have about 700 employees in the plant.
We’ve had at least 5 employees (total) confirmed as positive for COVID, but we have not had a single case of spread in the work place…..so far. We had only two weeks of downtime right at the beginning of the spread, but we’re considered a critical industry and so we’ve been running almost continuously.
We are all required to wear masks at all times, and to wear them properly. BUT, we cannot maintain proper distancing at all times. The shop floor is very loud, and we can no longer use lip reading to help communication. So we stand close together and yell at each other all day, every day.
The production operators are either spaced apart OR in most cases we’ve hung a Plexiglas divider between their work stations to give them some kind of barrier. I don’t know how effective these are, but it is really all we can do unless we stop building cars.
It looks like the 100% mask use is very effective based on what I’ve seen. It *seems* like wearing a mask makes a really big difference and is really effective. I know I don’t have real data to back that up, but it seems encouraging.
Soprano2
@WaterGirl: When I got my highlight in late May everyone wore a mask at all times. The person shampooing you should wear one. I live in Springfield, so I read a lot about the hairdresser case. It was very encouraging about the efficacy of masks. The upshot is that our health director is going to try to convince City Council to pass a mask ordinance. I’m sure the MAGAS here will show up to scream “Freedum!”. I’m hopeful they won’t prevail.
Bill Arnold
@Brachiator:
Well, as you say, the elevator was shared space (different times), and the air in the elevator may have been shared. So not definitive (could have been airborne, or some other undocumented contact), though thanks for the ref. That makes 2 papers that posit a single transmission of SARS-CoV-2 each, another for a church with video surviallance and a shared seat separated by a few hours. And a lot of case studies demonstrating widespread airborne transmission, including this one, where most transmission was apparently airborne.
Large SARS-CoV-2 Outbreak Caused by Asymptomatic Traveler, China (June 30, 2020)
Ohio Mom
Sellius: This is one of those situations where I wonder if those clear visor-face shields would be enough protection. Then people could read each other’s lips. There must be research comparing them.
Anyway, good on everyone for keeping their masks on. I would bet that level of compliance is unusual.
wvng
@J R in WV: Yes, Justice should have called for mask wearing two weeks ago. But remember that he started shutting things down before we had a single confirmed case. He deserves credit for that. And he will get a lot of grief for calling for masks, if in fact he does that tomorrow.
Bill Arnold
@Sellius:
This is a very good story. Is there any way that it can be shared within your industry, , or has there already been sharing of best practices?
wvblueguy
@James E Powell: I live in the very southern part of the state of WV on the VA border. SW VA and Southern WV are definitely proving that the majority of our local population are in the words of a very prominent local DR “dumb fucks.” Between Myrtle Beach and the refusal to follow Gov. Northam’s executive order making mask wearing mandatory in VA where most of us in this area shop there is little doubt that the numbers will go up even more. I’m a very high risk citizen who will follow my rules. Quarantine, big time social distancing and mask wearing. I don’t believe that a mask order by Big Jim will have much of an effect at all on the non-believers in this neighborhood.
Sellius
@Bill Arnold:
My understanding is that the Ohio state department of health used us as an example of best practices for other companies that were reconfiguring to be able to reopen.
We spent a lot of money, but I think our management recognized that if we get a reputation as a dangerous place, then we’ll lose employees, and that’s a killer in this labor market.
joel hanes
@Sellius:
The shop floor is very loud, and we can no longer use lip reading to help communication. So we stand close together and yell at each other all day, every day.
Military armored vehicle crews have this exact problem, and it’s a solved one. Headset mic/earphones. I’ll bet there’s an out-of-the-box high-noise-environment solution available.
Googling:
https://www.coderedheadsets.com/category-s/5823.htm
debbie
@SWMBO:
OMG, I felt that!