Coronavirus prep

T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »

gradchica27 wrote: »

AnnPT77 wrote: »

paperpudding wrote: »

Thank you to everyone who answered my questions about mask wearing in restaraunts and in general and about rationale for re opening in various areas of US.

It seems to me that you (US as a whole) are opening up far more quickly in comparison to case load than we are here.
South Australia are relaxing restrictions much more gradually
although admittedly they werent as tight in the first place as many other places, including other states of Australia - not due to any political difference between premiers (the equivalent of your state governors, I think) but due to our case load being much less.

Somebody mentioned your federal directive for relaxing restrictions being 14 days of reducing cases - yet restrictions being relaxed despite no states reaching that yet.
Time will tell if that proves safe or not (sadly I suspect not)

In comparison we have had reducing cases for quite a few weeks and that from much lower case levels in first place (state total of active cases now only 5) and no new cases for 13 days - yet restrictions relaxed slightly only yesterday.
I get somebody's point about testing levels - but our low case numbers are certainly not a result of low testing - the opposite- testing has been at increased numbers and anyone with so much as a tiny sniffle can be tested

I don't want to oversell this (i.e., not trying to say "we're smarter than you think", because I don't think that ), but I think the situation may be somewhat nuanced, even in places that are trying to do the right thing.

States - some of 'em - are pretty big, and quite diverse. Some of those "opening up" are not - IMU - necessarily doing all the same things statewide. Some things are regionalized in one way or another, either by the state, or by allowing mayors (or other smaller-granularity officials) some power to regulate what happens. In some cases, there are criteria-based, conditional orders (like businesses in category X may reopen if they put in place measures A, B, C . . . ).

Things are pretty much statewide orders here still in Michigan, but part of the source of fractiousness here is that we have a huge outbreak in Detroit (though not exclusively there), and there are other parts of the state literally many hours' drive away that have no confirmed cases at all. (Yes, testing has a role in this, but the incidence rates let alone raw numbers are very different. In some places, contact tracing and firm quarantine can probably still work.)

If you look at the state as a whole, there are 43,950 cases and 4,135 deaths. Wayne county (Detroit metro area) has 17,391 cases and 1,945 deaths. Oakland county (also Detroit metro area) has 7,522 cases and 772 deaths. That's over half the known incidence , in two counties. Some of the other counties in that region, and some others within a couple hours away also have a few hundred or more cases, and proportional deaths.

There are 83 counties in the state. Four have zero confirmed cases. Around 20 have single digits of cases, and most of those have zero deaths. They're mainly up in the upper peninsula, Northwest part of the state, mostly rural or quite small towns, remote, and 8-9 hours drive from Detroit (which is in the Southeast corner, more or less). I'm sure some of this had to do with testing, but some of these counties are truly that remote and that thinly populated.

I'm not saying fractiousness from distant counties is necessarily justified, I'm not saying they should just go on about their business as if nothing is happening, but I don't think it's irrational to think that at some point, the rules for Keewenaw County or Iron County might rationally be different from the rules in Wayne or Oakland counties. So, reports that states are opening up or relaxing restrictions . . . may look different on the ground than it sounds, as the situation evolves.

I am seeing this in my area as well. I’m in a Southern medium size metro area (suburb), and my county is either #1 in the state or #2 (we’re up and down with one of the counties around one of the states other big cities) for Covid cases. But my whole state has fewer than the small (geographically) county I grew up in in NE NJ.

2 hrs away in a neighboring state, we have relatives chafing at any restrictions bc their very rural area has few cases and is in a very different situation to our urban/suburban area. They have about as many in their whole (“big”) town as in one of our high schools.

And we are in a far different situation than my relatives where I grew up in NE NJ. I can go walking and see few people and easily move 10-20’ away from them, and yesterday at Target I was in the same aisle as another person maybe once. Meanwhile a relative in NJ spent 2 full hours waiting in line IN THE STORE to pay for groceries during senior hours, bc there are just so so many more people and not enough stores to keep them as spread out as we can be here. So my town is opening slowly, but other areas of the state are already more open, and my relatives’ neighboring state is pretty much open already, but NJ is clearly not.

As someone who lives in your state, on the same side of the state, and in a rural area that is very different culturally than your area; I believe things are very different here. There seems to be a whole lot of hoarding, but yet very little concern about actually getting sick. Maybe 5% of people I see in stores are wearing face coverings and nobody is social distancing (I admit I struggle with it too). But we also have fewer cases (so far) than your area.

Why I struggle with social distancing is because it just seems impossible to go to stores or anywhere else without having to get within 6 feet. For example, was at Dollar General last weekend. I noticed 2 women in the aisle where I needed to go and they were just chatting. I wandered around back and forth in nearby aisles for several minutes and they didn't leave. So finally, rather than be stuck there all day or have to leave and come back later, I finally just went by them and grabbed what I needed. I was wearing a mask, neither of them were.

ReenieHJ wrote: »

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

pinuplove wrote: »

kimny72 wrote: »

rheddmobile wrote: »

Re: neighborhood parties to celebrate the lifting of restrictions. I feel like people’s brains have broken. Not one number suggests the situation now is less dangerous than when lockdown started. Every single number suggests there is far more community transmission and the risk of getting covid locally is higher by a factor of ten. On Saturday Tennessee had its highest day of new cases, almost 1200. But since the powers that be are easing restrictions, people look at that and think, “Yay, it’s over, it’s safe now!”

Guys. It’s not safe. It’s just lawmakers are starting to panic about riots if people aren’t allowed to earn enough money to feed themselves and pay rent. So they are trying to allow everyone to do those things while trying to mitigate the risks as much as possible. That doesn’t work unless everyone tries to mitigate the risk.

There was an article about restaurants reopening on Friday. They are supposed to take temperatures and ask questions about symptoms before allowing customers in, and the staff are supposed to wear masks. I wrote a post at the time saying this would not happen, and lo and behold, the reporters say it isn’t happening. One restaurant in Atoka did make an attempt to check temperatures until a customer pointed out the thermometer they were using was intended for finding studs in walls and not accurate on people. The others just shrugged and said, yeah, that would make our customers uncomfortable, not doing it. Waiters are not even wearing masks. There is not and was never planned to be enforcement - the governor has said he intends people to “take the Tennessee pledge” to do the right thing. But the thing is, when asking people to do something novel and weird, you have to require them to do it. That way everyone does it and no one feels weird. And they can point at the law and say, “Yeah, sorry, I think it’s stupid too but we can’t be open if we don’t do it.” Tell everyone it’s optional and no one will do it!

I read that the Ohio governor mandated masks worn in all stores, and after a couple of days of store employees being treated poorly for trying to enforce it the governor took it back. People are seriously yelling about their civil rights being violated by mask requirements of all things smh. What's sad is many of these people won't get sick themselves, they'll pass it on to more vulnerable people and probably never even know they did.

Something similar happened in Stillwater, OK (home of Oklahoma State University).

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/oklahoma-city-ends-face-mask-rule-shoppers-after-store-employees-n1198736

And a store security guard was shot and killed in Michigan for trying to enforce a face-mask requirement.

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/wireStory/police-probe-killing-store-security-guard-virus-mask-70492980

Oh wow. People have gone crazy. My nephew lives in Dallas Texas and said there was a party at the beach, around 20 young people, no masks or anything safe, an officer came and said I'm going to have to cite you if you don't all leave. He got thrown into the lake. I tell ya, I wouldn't want to be in any kind of enforcement or healthcare career right now.

On the upside, I went with my sister to the VA ER yesterday and they were so very good about everything. Lots of pre- questions before you can even enter the parking lot. Then more as you enter the building and they direct you to very isolated places, get you right into an individual room, etc., etc. They also said there were currently no Covid cases within the hospital and amazingly every single medical person(and there were LOTS)we came into contact with was very kind, and helpful, and completely efficient. I expected to see overly-frazzled, irritated, short-on-staff type of environment. They have clearly done all they can to keep people distanced and isolated. But thankfully we live in a less populated state whose biggest city population doesn't top 100K so it's a whole different look than NY or CA, etc.

lynn_glenmont wrote: »

paperpudding wrote: »

Genuine questions.

How do people eat/drink in a restaruant if they have to wear masks??

Mask wearing hasnt been a big thing in Australia - people can choose to wear them if they want of course and a few do - but most people are not and we are not being encouraged, let alone mandated, to do so.

Question 2 - are the easing of restrictions in US being done as a result of numbers dropping enough to be considered safe to do so? - or are they just being eased because authorities think they have been there for long enough./ people wont adhere anyway/ , the economy needs them to reduce??

yes i know US is a big place and different locations might be doing things differently - but answer for your specific location or area as a whole.

Restrictions are being gradually eased here in South Australia - and that is in response to massive drop in COVID numbers
Our restrictions weren't as tight in first place as many other places - but in comparison to what still seems high numbers in US, we are only now re opening outdoor playgrounds, - gyms/restaraunts are still closed (open for takeaway only) and gatherings are still restricted to 10 people.

This with a state of 5 remaining active cases in whole state (all in home or hospital quarantine, of course) and zero new cases for nearly 2 weeks.
.
State borders are still closed except for essential travellers/returnees who have to self isolate for 14 days.
In superrvised hotel accomodation, in case of overseas returnees.

I think it is very safe for us to move forward, although we are still doing it very gradually.

My state has no timeline yet for reopening, because we don't have an established downward trend yet. So we can't even say if things continue on this trajectory, we could reopen in two weeks. Oddly, we're also one of the few states that hasn't definitively called off school for the rest of the year, even though in the best case scenario (start the downward trend tomorrow), we'd have a max of three weeks and a half weeks of in-school learning.

As someone else said, customers wouldn't wear masks in reopened dine-in restaurants, just employees. Generally (obviously rules vary from place to place) restaurants would be required to reduce seating to maintain at least six feet between tables, plexiglass barriers are going up between tables, reusable menus are being replaced with paper menus or apps for customers to order on their phones, condiments will be single-serve, possibly tableware will be disposable ... *ETA: also have seen restrictions on the number of people in a party (varying in different jurisdictions from four to 10) and prohibitions on dining out with people who aren't from the same household.

I've read and seen interviews with a number of restauranteurs in different cities saying they're going to continue to rely largely or entirely on carryout and delivery. Some of the more innovative ones in my area are offering groceries (fresh produce, dairy, eggs, baking ingredients, every meat and poultry), nonedible household staples (TP!), meal kits, etc., as well as their regular menus (or reduced menus, either to focus on dishes that suffer least from delays in serving or to reduce kitchen staff -- I'm thinking part of that may be that in a normal dine-in restaurant kitchen, people are working cheek-by-jowl at a variety of stations, and the only way to maintain social distance in the kitchen is to eliminate certain stations, and hence eliminate any dishes that require that cooking technique).

janejellyroll wrote: »

Theoldguy1 wrote: »

Of course in IL liquor and recreational marijuana retailers have been deemed essential and open through all of this.

I think liquor has been deemed essential in every state with closures. I know it was the case here in MN as well.