Cases rising or dropping by you?

[Jrb1979]

Agreed. Interesting article on cbc today. I remember my friend and I (both scientists), discussing back in August that the R0 value had climbed above one. We knew this was coming. Action has been too slow and I fear what the coming months will bring. Too many people don’t care as you say.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid-19-restrictions-1.5758025

The scary thing from that article is hospitalizations rose 250% the last 3 weeks. What concerns me the most is in other threads in this board and in other places many think we should be dropping restrictions and opening the border.

 

[quandrea]

The scary thing from that article is hospitalizations rose 250% the last 3 weeks. What concerns me the most is in other threads in this board and in other places many think we should be dropping restrictions and opening the border.

Completely agree with you. I’ve been struggling reading all the comments in various media. Tough times ahead and no one seems to want to refocus public health practices—all of which are tried and true. They aren’t fun or fancy, but they work. Wash hands, keep distance, stay home, limit contacts, wear a mask.

 

[Jrb1979]

Completely agree with you. I’ve been struggling reading all the comments in various media. Tough times ahead and no one seems to want to refocus public health practices—all of which are tried and true. They aren’t fun or fancy, but they work. Wash hands, keep distance, stay home, limit contacts, wear a mask.

I do understand that everyone is tired of this but we can learn to live with Covid.

 

[Colleen27]

It is semantics. Cases are increasing at a quicker rate each week. Over the past two weeks they have increased 65%. That to me says they are starting to spike over what they were in the summer.

Well yeah. Of course it is semantics, since we're talking about word choice and accurate vs. alarmist language.

 

[RamblingMad]

I do understand that everyone is tired of this but we can learn to live with Covid.

Right now, most of the spread is happening between kids and those south of 40 years old. Most of the people dying are much older. The horror will occur when the kids and young adults decide to share with their parents and grandparents over the holidays. We can only hope that families take precautions. Otherwise, we'll experience a second wave of deaths.

Living with it will mean not killing off ones parents over the holidays.

 

[Farro]

Completely agree with you. I’ve been struggling reading all the comments in various media. Tough times ahead and no one seems to want to refocus public health practices—all of which are tried and true. They aren’t fun or fancy, but they work. Wash hands, keep distance, stay home, limit contacts, wear a mask.

I do understand that everyone is tired of this but we can learn to live with Covid.

Masks, social distancing, of course.

But staying home... if the government is going to try and mandate that everyone stay home again and only essential businesses stay open, then the government needs to monetarily support their people through it. Otherwise it just can't happen again.

 

[quandrea]

Masks, social distancing, of course.

But staying home... if the government is going to try and mandate that everyone stay home again and only essential businesses stay open, then the government needs to monetarily support their people through it. Otherwise it just can't happen again.

I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is avoid needless outings, keep your contacts low. The majority of spread, at least here in Canada is due to people socialising in small groups. Those are not essential outings. Work is of course essential, and fortunately doesn’t seem to be a driver of spread. We don’t need a complete shutdown, as the pp said—we can learn to live with Covid, but we have to practice public health measures. People are extremely lax and sloppy right now and we are seeing the consequences of it.

 

[Jrb1979]

Masks, social distancing, of course.

But staying home... if the government is going to try and mandate that everyone stay home again and only essential businesses stay open, then the government needs to monetarily support their people through it. Otherwise it just can't happen again.

Our government has been trying to avoid closing things again. They have closed gyms, casinos and theatres for 28 days. As well as restaurants are back to patios only. That is in the Toronto and Ottawa areas due to rising cases. The federal government is going to cover 65% of business expenses for any affected by Covid.

 

[NFLDERS]

https://nationalpost.com/health/new...-herd-immunity-critics-say-it-would-be-deadly

 

[Pyotr]

CNN tried to explain how PCR testing works. This is what they came up with...

“Think of it this way: A PCR test is looking for the blueprint of the virus -- its “genome” -- and not the virus itself. In fact, the test is just looking for fragments of that blueprint. It’s like a recipe for chocolate cake; finding the recipe in someone’s kitchen doesn’t mean you’ll find a cake.”

https://www.cnn.com/world/live-news...11-20-intl/h_7ec2c3bb5ca5302206c6cf4598af5772
Why can’t science find a better way to test people?

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

We are now in a yellow zone.

 

[anniemae]

I’m not saying that. What I’m saying is avoid needless outings, keep your contacts low. The majority of spread, at least here in Canada is due to people socialising in small groups. Those are not essential outings. Work is of course essential, and fortunately doesn’t seem to be a driver of spread. We don’t need a complete shutdown, as the pp said—we can learn to live with Covid, but we have to practice public health measures. People are extremely lax and sloppy right now and we are seeing the consequences of it.

This. It seems many folks are "all or nothing." They are just DONE with covid. But as Fauci has said, covid is not done with us. It is possible to live with covid, but we must be diligent. Wear masks, wash, social distance, avoid crowds as best you can. But people don't want to give up anything. They continue to gather in groups with no masks i.e. family gatherings/cookouts, they wear the mask in the store but only over their mouth etc. People are being careless and letting their guard down.

 

[Pyotr]

Nevada’s COVID-19 response director recently was diagnosed with the virus. So let the speculation begin. Was he lax with his own rules? Do the precautions simple not work?



https://thenevadaindependent.com/ar...tor-after-testing-positive-this-virus-is-real

 

[pigletgirl]

This. It seems many folks are "all or nothing." They are just DONE with covid. But as Fauci has said, covid is not done with us. It is possible to live with covid, but we must be diligent. Wear masks, wash, social distance, avoid crowds as best you can. But people don't want to give up anything. They continue to gather in groups with no masks i.e. family gatherings/cookouts, they wear the mask in the store but only over their mouth etc. People are being careless and letting their guard down.

I can tell you now, it seems as though more and more are done with C19. Our governor never really implemented strict protocols and maybe about half the population did as we were told. People gathered, they will gather for the holidays all while my own husband cannot come and see me in the hospital because of restrictions. I find it frustrating at times but I know if I were to be home, I'd be stir crazy. Every weekend here, thousands upon thousands head north for all kinds of activities.

 

[Colleen27]

This. It seems many folks are "all or nothing." They are just DONE with covid. But as Fauci has said, covid is not done with us. It is possible to live with covid, but we must be diligent. Wear masks, wash, social distance, avoid crowds as best you can. But people don't want to give up anything. They continue to gather in groups with no masks i.e. family gatherings/cookouts, they wear the mask in the store but only over their mouth etc. People are being careless and letting their guard down.

People aren't designed to live in isolation for indefinite periods of time. Our entire evolutionary success is based on the strength of our social bonds, and many of our current social ills can be directly attributed to the weakening of those bonds. It is not at all surprising that asking whole populations to avoid all social contact, even with their closest loved ones, wouldn't be a successful long-term strategy, particularly an open-ended long-term strategy.

ETA: I would also attribute some of the blow-back now to the deliberately rosy picture that was being painted early on. "Two weeks to flatten the curve", 12-18 months to vaccination, etc. The early messaging was full of unrealistic, impossibly optimistic projections for the end of the pandemic, and now that we know those things are impossible and this is likely to be our lives for another year or two (on top of the 9 months already behind us), we're seeing the consequences of the misinformation coming home to roost.

 

[JimMIA]

Florida had another of our crazy speed-bumps this weekend.

A lab I've never heard of (Helix Labs) made a huge erroneous report. It looks like they got behind on reporting test results, and then when they realized it, they reported every test they'd ever done! They reported 400,000 test results all at once, but only a fraction of those were previously unreported. The state DOH had to dig through the reports and weed out those that were already in the system.

Needless to say, for Saturday, we had a big jump in cases because of all the late reports being counted for the first time. Friday's numbers were also distorted the opposite direction because of under-reporting.

We're back to normal now, and our positivity rate is about 4%. (4.28% for today). Still too many cases, still a long way to go -- but we're not seeing huge surges from the gradual reopening we're doing.

As expected, our median age is still trending slightly younger. Back in our peak period our median age statewide was 49 years. We're now at 38 years today, so that's a dramatically younger patient population -- and that's based on hundreds of thousands of additional tests, not a small sample.

 

[Jrb1979]

People aren't designed to live in isolation for indefinite periods of time. Our entire evolutionary success is based on the strength of our social bonds, and many of our current social ills can be directly attributed to the weakening of those bonds. It is not at all surprising that asking whole populations to avoid all social contact, even with their closest loved ones, wouldn't be a successful long-term strategy, particularly an open-ended long-term strategy.

I agree with that. IMO what has to happen long term for us to live with Covid is get people to understand if you are not feeling well to stay home. From everything I have read the majority of cases are from family gatherings. Its most likely from some one going with probably the sniffles and thinking it's ok. At this point that can't be happening.

 

[DisneyJamieCA]

People aren't designed to live in isolation for indefinite periods of time. Our entire evolutionary success is based on the strength of our social bonds, and many of our current social ills can be directly attributed to the weakening of those bonds. It is not at all surprising that asking whole populations to avoid all social contact, even with their closest loved ones, wouldn't be a successful long-term strategy, particularly an open-ended long-term strategy.

I totally agree.
—————
And I’m going to disagree with the sentiment from an earlier poster that people are all or nothing. Sure there are people on either extreme, but most of us want a middle ground. And some have gotten it. And some of us haven’t. While I think wearing a mask and social distancing should be a given and not a debate, it helps if things actually opened up. And in my part of CA, they still really aren’t. Yes, we have a lot of outdoor options, but when you add the wildfires and smoke, we can’t even go outside, so those are a no go. And for anybody questioning it, we are still having spare the air days and have had maybe 10 safe air days (and by that I mean not hazardous) in the last 60.

That’s my long winded way of saying that for many of us, we were good for the original 2 weeks, then 2 months, even 5-6 months. As we approach 8 months, the social isolation part of this is passing into unhealthy territory. And yes, for me, mental health is just as important to physical health. So while I’m not over it and I still limit what we do (my kids still don’t hang out with groups of friends, we don’t do any gatherings, we wear masks and/or keep distance from anybody outside our bubble), we are starting to loosen our personal guidelines. We will not be cavalier with our decisions, and I know there are plenty who disagree with me, but the restrictions in my state, especially in my county are too severe. They are not going to get compliance 8 months in because we’ve been doing this too long without really earning anything back - and the one time we did, it all got taken away when the guidelines were changed under this new tier system. (In California for reference).

 

[LoveSpringsteen]

Cases are rising in Ohio as are the number of hospitalizations. Last week, the Governor said 96% of our population is living in an orange or red zone. Many cases are linked to weddings, funerals and social gatherings. Our school district just went to 100% online learning over the weekend due to increasing cases.

 

[piglet1979]

Cases are rising in Ohio as are the number of hospitalizations. Last week, the Governor said 96% of our population is living in an orange or red zone. Many cases are linked to weddings, funerals and social gatherings. Our school district just went to 100% online learning over the weekend due to increasing cases.

You must not be too far from me. I think I know what school district you are talking about. Where I am at we just went to hybrid last week (we were previously full remote) and had our first case in the HS on Friday. I think by the end of the week we will be over 2000. I hope not though.