Coronavirus prep
Replies
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I skim headlines and read occasional articles, just to keep somewhat informed. The more I read, the more I believe people have lost their ever lovin’ minds!
https://www.fox5dc.com/news/stop-getting-tested-for-covid-19-ohio-lawmaker-tells-public
One very sad article was about a gentleman who woke up after 99 days only to find his wife of 50+ years had died from COVID during that time. How heartbreaking
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janejellyroll wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
I know anecdotes are flying fast and furious, but I've read several accounts online of people who had to wait 7+ days for positive test results. Obviously, all of these stories may not be truthful or based in an accurate understanding of the situation, but I don't know if we can be sure that everyone with positive results is getting them within 48 hours.
My mom just got hired on at their local hospital part time, work from home. Why? They had a meeting and higher ups decided that medical records should be in charge of calling people with their test results. They have never had any part in that aspect of the medical field - they keep track of files, sure, but not direct contact with patients like that. They are already working with a skeleton crew after one or two people left so they are stretched thin enough as it is. It’s a unique situation that society just isn’t set up to deal with... so many things going on in the background that the average person never sees.
ETA: I realize I left out a significant detail - she was hired specifically for communicating COVID test results. Nothing else. There is too high of a demand and not enough manpower to get it all done in a timely manner.9 -
cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
The lab result came in 48 hours, so I would hope to have known in 48.5 hours. I would have then come into contact with a lot fewer people over the following14 days. That is the benefit of testing even asymptomatic people regularly.
However, with as long as it took to actually get result and the way I was treated while waiting, I also probably won't get tested again unless I'm near death. It's unfortunate, but the logistical failure has led me to that conclusion rather than the merits of testing itself. If testing was done and results were communicated in a timely manner, I still believe it is beneficial to test everyone regularly. Hopefully they get their processes fixed soon.5 -
I would expect each community would have a public health department as well as one for environmental health, the trouble is "governments" often like to keep too tight a hand on providing their new protocols, forgetting to utilise the networks already in place for other tracking and tracing needs and build on those.
May I just add, when someone has been tested because they have been in a community which has a high number of positive test results, all those tested should be considered positive until proven
to be negative, hopefully permanently but at least for the time being.4 -
T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
The lab result came in 48 hours, so I would hope to have known in 48.5 hours. I would have then come into contact with a lot fewer people over the following14 days. That is the benefit of testing even asymptomatic people regularly.
However, with as long as it took to actually get result and the way I was treated while waiting, I also probably won't get tested again unless I'm near death. It's unfortunate, but the logistical failure has led me to that conclusion rather than the merits of testing itself. If testing was done and results were communicated in a timely manner, I still believe it is beneficial to test everyone regularly. Hopefully they get their processes fixed soon.
But my point is that even if you got your results in (say 1-48.5 hours...it's not the timing...) AND you tested negative, you could still pick it up in 48.75 hours. No one is going to be getting tested every 48 hours. There aren't enough medical/lab personnel to process that many tests. The only solution to your continued plea would be self-administered 100% accurate tests that could be used at home and would give immediate results - like the at-home pregnancy test. I think that is a relatively good idea, but even if that were to be developed - how would you keep people home who tested positive? How would anyone track that? It would have to be a mail-back test so they could track you - but this virus isn't virulent enough for that kind of meticulous tracking.
I mean, you're wanting safety and I get that but life isn't safe - maybe you've noticed?
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T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I use the Alexa "Flash Briefing" feature each morning to get some updates each morning as I argue with the alarm clock about getting up. One if the apps I have in the line-up is NPR. They mentioned in the news briefing that there are delays in test results that cause problems. Specifically, they cited Tennessee as an example and said people are waiting 12 days or more for results.
Now, I went to get tested at a site awhile back when they started to become available to everyone. I had no symptoms and no known contact. But as many are asymptomatic (I could have been) and many are spreading without symptoms (I could get it that way) and I still go to stores for essentials and that all makes it entirely possible to get it, I figured I may as well get tested. It took 16 days for results, which were negative.
In the meantime, I had a dr. appt. the next week just for routine diabetes maintenance. They had told me, of course, to reschedule if I had symptoms, which I didn't. When I went, they asked if I had been tested and I said yes, but was waiting for results. When I said yes, they refused to see me and immediately started acting like I was infected. Even to the extent that the paperwork they had already given me to fill out (I hadn't started yet), they gave me to take home saying "Well, now we are going to have to throw it out anyway. Mind you, if I had not opted for a test, I would continue on with life. And they told me I should "self-quarantine" for 2 weeks if I was tested. Didn't ask why I got a test, which would change everything. As someone who didn't have symptoms or known contact, the only difference is whether or not I opted for a test. Everyone else without symptoms or known contact is out spreading it around. Obviously if the results had come back positive, I would then stop spreading it immediately. Someone who is positive in the same situation without a test would continue to spread it, and that is the difference. Since that happened, I have been unwilling to even share that I got a test because I realized how much I am treated like an outcast because of it. It was tough to share here even, and definitely not going to share with people IRL still.
While you may recall that my opinion is testing should be done regularly in order to catch more of the asymptomatic cases and stop spreading it (NPR mentioned this too this morning), this won't work when it takes 16 days for a result. What really annoys me is that the delay is not even testing, at least not for me. It took almost exactly 48 hours from the test collection to results from the lab. Then it took 14 days longer to share those results with me. That should be an easy fix.
Yep, this has been a problem before. State legislators have asked the health department to stop requiring quarantine while waiting for results, since it makes no sense and causes asymptomatic people who really should get tested (example: people who participated in the protests) to avoid it, since they know they will be locked down for two weeks. I don’t remember the details but it’s actually a law of some sort about the quarantine, it’s not something your doctor had any choice about.
What has been happening a lot is that someone waits for hours in a car to get to the testing station and then they say, “Oh, by the way. Hope you’ve grocery shopped recently because as soon as we stick this thing up your nose you aren’t allowed to go anywhere or see anyone for two weeks,” and then they suddenly decide to just leave and not get tested.4 -
Madwife2009 wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »Is anyone else afraid about the possibility of schools reopening??
All my kids are way over that age but my dh works at a private high school and they usually have about 150-200 dorm students each year, from everywhere. I know it's still about 6 weeks away from now but Honestly, I don't foresee a better environment anytime soon. I just think of all the little kids and worried parents who will have to deal with this.
I know the world is aching to get back to 'normal' but at the price of subjecting the children?
I was thinking about this the other day, and I think what's needed is something radical: much reduced class sizes, especially for younger kids who can't be expected to understand the need to wear masks and to maintain their distance. Which means we need more classroom spaces and more teachers. Space could be rented from facilities that can't open yet anyway -- like movie theaters. performing arts centers, indoor sporting venues. Teachers -- or at least adult supervision -- could be drawn from the ranks of the 10% of Americans who are unemployed, maybe with some online/video support from actual older or immuno-compromised teachers.
ETA: another part of my imaginary radical scenario was going back to mini "one-room schoolhouses" -- not as individual buildings, but classrooms that might have kids of different ages, maybe mixing three families of kids (to limit the number of potential interfamily disease transmissions, if that makes sense). Obviously with the smaller average sizes of family these might not work as well as it would have decades ago (I think the average family size on the block I grew up on was about 3.5). You might have to go four families depending on how large the hypothetical reduced class sizes would be -- I was picturing between five and 10 kids.
I don't see how we can go back to normal-sized classes of 20+ kids, circulating around schools to music rooms and art rooms with different instructors (or changing rooms and teachers for every class with older kids). There would be exploding hot spots everywhere.
Speaking as someone who went to a 3-room K-8 in my earliest grades, I think that multigrade model is a pretty excellent model for social and education reasons, too. We had 3 grades to a room, so (sort of) you got some combination of a year of preview, a year of view, and a year of review for certain grades. At recess (because the 3 rooms were the whole school), there were all-grades games, not strict age segregation. I'm sure it was extra challenging for the teachers, though.
I dunno, my paternal grandmother managed to teach in that situation when she was a 17-year-old bride, and so did a lot of young women. It may have been challenging but they did it. And some of the students from her one-room-12-grade schoolhouse went to top schools on scholarships. My dad attended a school like that and went to MIT.
When I was 7, I went to a village school that had two classrooms and two teachers. One was the infants class (ages 5-7 back then) and the other was juniors (ages 8-11). Showing my age here now as we no longer refer to infants and juniors and I can't be bothered to work out what years they would be. No reception year, either. Children wenrt to school when they were five years old and not before. There were 30 children in the whole school, so the teachers had fewer pupils, which may have reduced the challenge a little. Unlike today's teachers who are expected to teach 30 pupils per class. Now, that's a challenge. Plus, the children learned more as they learned from the stuff that they were taught but they also learned from each other.
I've always argued against the segregation of children by age as I don't believe that it allows children to mix and understand those younger and older than themselves. I dislike the school idea as a whole as it is such an artificial environment. Children spend their entire education up to the age of 18 in separated year groups, with others of their own age. They then either continue their education or enter employment where they are expected to integrate with people of all ages and they don't necessarily have the skills to be able to do that. School is probably the only environment whereby children are placed in age bands and generally stay in those age bands throughout their under-18 education.
Sorry, going off topic rather. But interesting stuff.
I did find that really interesting about my kids. My kids are homeschooled and 17. 15, 11, and 9. We have a couple families with other crazy age ranges that we playdate with (or did pre-Corona). What I noticed about my kids is, that no matter the age of kids on the playground, they make friends and play well with everyone there. They socialize well with kids younger, older, and even teens and adults. So when they are in multi-age situations, they can and do jump right in. My oldest worked with elementary age kids at church in a Wed-night program. She volunteered at the library shelving materials, and the adult librarians love her to death. She volunteered with the Teen community program at the library and was even set to shadow a marketer and the young adult librarian in developing and implementing a Mental Health week at the library before the lockdown. She's taken 2 dual enrollment classes at the local university. She helps administrate social media with the youth pastor for the Church. She's 17, but carries herself like she's a late 20s career woman. My next oldest is a gamer-dude, but he still does great in multi-age environments. He works at the same children's program at church; the kids and adult teachers alike love him.
I agree. Nowhere else in your life other than public school are you locked into age-bands. From my observations, homeschoolers, especially those who are thrown into multi-age situations frequently, are more emotionally and socially mature earlier on in their adulthood. We have one public school family that my kids are friends with, but they are busy during the school year so it's only during breaks we meet. And the PS kids just forget how to socialize with the other-age siblings. Of course, my kids end up getting them to loosen up and engage in a mob of hilarity before the playdate is over.
Maybe it's just my influence (my friends are all over the place in age) and maybe it's just the kind of homeschool families we've encountered? But the former-homeschooled young adults I've met (who also experienced much multi-age contact) are much more mature, unflappable, and super-adaptable in social and work situations than many other of their same-age peers. Of course, my homeschooled sister-in-law is 19, and she is the embodiment of Lil'Nas's song "Old Town Road." "Can't nobody tell me nuthin." She is a hot mess. So this definitely isn't an absolute homeschooler thing. She was NOT around multi-age groups like my kids as both her parents worked full-time and her older siblings were all grown.
I also add that I never taught my youngest son how to read, write or do K-1st grade math. He learned from watching the older kids and asking a zillion questions and from educational shows. He's the easiest kid to school. All my kids have learned a lot from observing the learning of their older siblings. Much easier than the first kid.
So to circle this topic back around to the Coronavirus, I wonder if the public schooled multi-kid families have actually gotten at least SOME positive out of all this mess? Have they actually (if they haven't killed each other) learned and adapted a bit and garnered skills that will help them. Because out in the world, you are all jumbled together. You all have annoying or quirky or old-fashioned or more tech-savvy or younger/older co-workers you MUST learn to get along with and to work productively with. Possible silver lining?6 -
ExistingFish wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »GaleHawkins wrote: »We read how home schooled kids typically do better with the college experience thing.
Where do you read this? I'm curious, as I was homeschooled (didn't go to school until I started college) and I'm unaware of any good data on outcomes related to college. Does "do better with the college experience" refer to grades, social adjustment, success in extracurricular activities, or something else?
I was homeschooled. I had an excellent college experience. I wish real life were more like college. I think it generally means grades, I went full academic scholarship undergrad and full (grades based) scholarship to grad school.
Excellent study skills, the ability to self-regulate homework - NOT burnt out on the "classroom experience". Those skills don't necessarily carry past school.
Right. I homeschool mine. And you can call it lazy teaching, but I let my kids twist in the wind a lot. No spoon-feeding, which I couldn't do if I wanted to since I had 4 kids all at different levels. But they are given assignments and videos they must complete. They come to me with questions if they can't research their way into the answers themselves. We constantly have impromptu research-fests or conversations when topics arise. They are responsible for keeping their own schedule during the day. They can do whichever subject whenever as long as they get it done well and get their chores done. I have a 15-year-old who does his math at 11pm, and he does a great job. They have to keep up with deadlines, pace their work-load for projects. They do have some classroom experience from Sunday School and classes at the homeschool co-op. I tell them not to ask me for the test before they have thoroughly studied, and their grades show that they understand that. Due to much experience in multi-age environments they are well adjusted socially, and have many extracurriculars. We'll see how that pans out in college for my oldest who is 17 and will be a freshman in the fall at the local state university. She basically has a full ride in scholarships. But she did fantastic in her dual enrollment classes so I'm not worried.
Anyway, these are skills that are helpful to college students and set them up for great soft skills in future work environments. You have to be independent, know how to learn on the fly, and be a self-starter. Of course, this all depends on the homeschool teacher behind the homeschool student. I know homeschoolers who bombed out in college. My homeschooled sister-in-law was adopted after the other siblings were grown and she didn't even take the ACT/SAT and has basically just crashed and burned. She couldn't take dual enrollment classes in high school b/c she couldn't pass the entrance test. Mistakes were made by my mother-in-law, is all I can say.5 -
I agree there is a lot that is illogical about procedures and expectations around testing. Especially when tests take longer than 2 weeks to yield results. It makes for a lot of unnecessary quarantining (which has costs), or worse, unnecessary exposure to others. At least MD's can get 1-hr results here (TX). It would be a nightmare if that weren't possible.
One of my kids had an exposure (family dinner with stepfamily). 5 days after the dinner, a stepbrother at the dinner woke with symptoms. Step-mom is a MD and had a week booked full of patient appts, so she needed to know within the hour if she was positive. Since there is emergency testing available for MDs here, she got their results in an hour. Kid was positive, mom was negative. Mom kept seeing patients. Whereas the mom had been in regular contact with her son, my daughter had no contact in the intervening 5 days. Step-mom was ambivalent about whether my daughter needed testing. Nonetheless, my daughter got a test the next day (and for a second negative, she got a second test 2 days after that). Since my daughter doesn't qualify for the emergency results, she is still waiting for results 16 days later. She had contact with her sister during the 5 days after the dinner but before anyone suspected stepbrother had Covid. 2nd daughter did not have a test; she decided to quarantine pending 1st daughter's test results. Both under quarantine, they cancelled their 7/4 plans to see friends (outdoors, but who knows how distant that really is). They were both pissed about that. I guess a silver lining is all the 2nd daughter's friends at the 7/4 gathering have now tested positive, so she dodged that bullet. 2+ weeks and still waiting...10 -
cmriverside wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
The lab result came in 48 hours, so I would hope to have known in 48.5 hours. I would have then come into contact with a lot fewer people over the following14 days. That is the benefit of testing even asymptomatic people regularly.
However, with as long as it took to actually get result and the way I was treated while waiting, I also probably won't get tested again unless I'm near death. It's unfortunate, but the logistical failure has led me to that conclusion rather than the merits of testing itself. If testing was done and results were communicated in a timely manner, I still believe it is beneficial to test everyone regularly. Hopefully they get their processes fixed soon.
But my point is that even if you got your results in (say 1-48.5 hours...it's not the timing...) AND you tested negative, you could still pick it up in 48.75 hours. No one is going to be getting tested every 48 hours. There aren't enough medical/lab personnel to process that many tests. The only solution to your continued plea would be self-administered 100% accurate tests that could be used at home and would give immediate results - like the at-home pregnancy test. I think that is a relatively good idea, but even if that were to be developed - how would you keep people home who tested positive? How would anyone track that? It would have to be a mail-back test so they could track you - but this virus isn't virulent enough for that kind of meticulous tracking.
I mean, you're wanting safety and I get that but life isn't safe - maybe you've noticed?
Home testing is a good idea. Keeping people home now is honor system, so no changes. If I test every 2 weeks and get it a week after testing, I expose people for 1 week+test time (let's say 2 days... so 9 days). That is better than exposing people for 2-4+ weeks, depending on how long I remain infectious.4 -
rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I use the Alexa "Flash Briefing" feature each morning to get some updates each morning as I argue with the alarm clock about getting up. One if the apps I have in the line-up is NPR. They mentioned in the news briefing that there are delays in test results that cause problems. Specifically, they cited Tennessee as an example and said people are waiting 12 days or more for results.
Now, I went to get tested at a site awhile back when they started to become available to everyone. I had no symptoms and no known contact. But as many are asymptomatic (I could have been) and many are spreading without symptoms (I could get it that way) and I still go to stores for essentials and that all makes it entirely possible to get it, I figured I may as well get tested. It took 16 days for results, which were negative.
In the meantime, I had a dr. appt. the next week just for routine diabetes maintenance. They had told me, of course, to reschedule if I had symptoms, which I didn't. When I went, they asked if I had been tested and I said yes, but was waiting for results. When I said yes, they refused to see me and immediately started acting like I was infected. Even to the extent that the paperwork they had already given me to fill out (I hadn't started yet), they gave me to take home saying "Well, now we are going to have to throw it out anyway. Mind you, if I had not opted for a test, I would continue on with life. And they told me I should "self-quarantine" for 2 weeks if I was tested. Didn't ask why I got a test, which would change everything. As someone who didn't have symptoms or known contact, the only difference is whether or not I opted for a test. Everyone else without symptoms or known contact is out spreading it around. Obviously if the results had come back positive, I would then stop spreading it immediately. Someone who is positive in the same situation without a test would continue to spread it, and that is the difference. Since that happened, I have been unwilling to even share that I got a test because I realized how much I am treated like an outcast because of it. It was tough to share here even, and definitely not going to share with people IRL still.
While you may recall that my opinion is testing should be done regularly in order to catch more of the asymptomatic cases and stop spreading it (NPR mentioned this too this morning), this won't work when it takes 16 days for a result. What really annoys me is that the delay is not even testing, at least not for me. It took almost exactly 48 hours from the test collection to results from the lab. Then it took 14 days longer to share those results with me. That should be an easy fix.
Yep, this has been a problem before. State legislators have asked the health department to stop requiring quarantine while waiting for results, since it makes no sense and causes asymptomatic people who really should get tested (example: people who participated in the protests) to avoid it, since they know they will be locked down for two weeks. I don’t remember the details but it’s actually a law of some sort about the quarantine, it’s not something your doctor had any choice about.
What has been happening a lot is that someone waits for hours in a car to get to the testing station and then they say, “Oh, by the way. Hope you’ve grocery shopped recently because as soon as we stick this thing up your nose you aren’t allowed to go anywhere or see anyone for two weeks,” and then they suddenly decide to just leave and not get tested.
Interesting because nobody told me that. There was something about a recommendation that we self-quarantine in the paperwork, but I figured that makes sense for people who have actually known to have been exposed. But they also told me 3 days for the results, 7 days in another place (different documents, both from the organization doing the testing).1 -
corinasue1143 wrote: »About Trump, Tulsa, and corona.
On June 19th, Tulsa county had reported 2070 corona cases since the pandemic started. Tulsa town spills out into other counties, but we report by county, and Tulsa town is mainly in Tulsa county. 721 of those cases were reported within the last 2 weeks, so an average of 51.5 people per day. 125 of those were reported on June 19th, 136 more were reported on June 20.
6 people who came to Tulsa early to set up for the Trump rally tested positive for corona.
How many Trump people took the virus home with them, and how many Tulsa people caught it from Trump people.
Pictures show many people without masks and very little social distancing.
Why shut down so many businesses to keep people from coming into direct contact with each other, then get together a group
Of several thousand people in one building, sitting next to each other?
Social distancing or not? If so, why? If not, why shut down business? Please help me understand.
On July 9, Tulsa county had reported 4693 Corona cases, 2623 new cases in 20 days, so an average of 131.15 a day
For those 20 days. This was a significantly larger increase than Oklahoma County had in the same time.
This was during the time of protests and further relaxing of shutdowns, but some of it undoubtably due to Trumps
Campaign rally.
Again, why are businesses, churches, organizations in lockdown while politicians, any politicians, any affiliation, are not?
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New statement from the American Academy of Pediatrics:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/10/world/coronavirus-updates.html
...After President Trump demanded Tuesday that schools reopen in the fall, the president of the National Education Association, the nation’s largest teachers’ union, said: “Our No. 1 priority is that we keep our students safe.”
In a joint statement, the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Education Association and The School Superintendents Association, said Friday that schools in places with a high community spread of the virus should not be pushed to reopen, especially if local public health officials have advised otherwise.
“A one-size-fits-all approach is not appropriate for return to school decisions,” the statement said.
The associations called on the federal government to provide adequate resources to all schools, saying that withholding funding would further endanger students and teachers and hurt schools financially. Though the best option for children is always to learn in the classroom, the statement said, if public health experts do not deem it safe, online learning should be implemented.3 -
T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I use the Alexa "Flash Briefing" feature each morning to get some updates each morning as I argue with the alarm clock about getting up. One if the apps I have in the line-up is NPR. They mentioned in the news briefing that there are delays in test results that cause problems. Specifically, they cited Tennessee as an example and said people are waiting 12 days or more for results.
Now, I went to get tested at a site awhile back when they started to become available to everyone. I had no symptoms and no known contact. But as many are asymptomatic (I could have been) and many are spreading without symptoms (I could get it that way) and I still go to stores for essentials and that all makes it entirely possible to get it, I figured I may as well get tested. It took 16 days for results, which were negative.
In the meantime, I had a dr. appt. the next week just for routine diabetes maintenance. They had told me, of course, to reschedule if I had symptoms, which I didn't. When I went, they asked if I had been tested and I said yes, but was waiting for results. When I said yes, they refused to see me and immediately started acting like I was infected. Even to the extent that the paperwork they had already given me to fill out (I hadn't started yet), they gave me to take home saying "Well, now we are going to have to throw it out anyway. Mind you, if I had not opted for a test, I would continue on with life. And they told me I should "self-quarantine" for 2 weeks if I was tested. Didn't ask why I got a test, which would change everything. As someone who didn't have symptoms or known contact, the only difference is whether or not I opted for a test. Everyone else without symptoms or known contact is out spreading it around. Obviously if the results had come back positive, I would then stop spreading it immediately. Someone who is positive in the same situation without a test would continue to spread it, and that is the difference. Since that happened, I have been unwilling to even share that I got a test because I realized how much I am treated like an outcast because of it. It was tough to share here even, and definitely not going to share with people IRL still.
While you may recall that my opinion is testing should be done regularly in order to catch more of the asymptomatic cases and stop spreading it (NPR mentioned this too this morning), this won't work when it takes 16 days for a result. What really annoys me is that the delay is not even testing, at least not for me. It took almost exactly 48 hours from the test collection to results from the lab. Then it took 14 days longer to share those results with me. That should be an easy fix.
Yep, this has been a problem before. State legislators have asked the health department to stop requiring quarantine while waiting for results, since it makes no sense and causes asymptomatic people who really should get tested (example: people who participated in the protests) to avoid it, since they know they will be locked down for two weeks. I don’t remember the details but it’s actually a law of some sort about the quarantine, it’s not something your doctor had any choice about.
What has been happening a lot is that someone waits for hours in a car to get to the testing station and then they say, “Oh, by the way. Hope you’ve grocery shopped recently because as soon as we stick this thing up your nose you aren’t allowed to go anywhere or see anyone for two weeks,” and then they suddenly decide to just leave and not get tested.
Interesting because nobody told me that. There was something about a recommendation that we self-quarantine in the paperwork, but I figured that makes sense for people who have actually known to have been exposed. But they also told me 3 days for the results, 7 days in another place (different documents, both from the organization doing the testing).
Why did you even get tested if you had no symptoms?
And this just proves my point. Why do random, non-symptomatic testing at all? Let's assume that genpop is up to about 20% now. I don't know that for a fact, but in my County we've tested a number that is representative of 25% of the total county population. About 6% of those have tested positive, so figure another (minimum) 10% had it and didn't go in for testing because it wasn't a serious case for them and for the first three months tests were only available through a doctor's recommendation after assessing symptoms. Another 5-10% didn't even know they had it...
I mean - testing randomly seems pretty futile with this virus. Too many unknowns.2 -
cmriverside wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I use the Alexa "Flash Briefing" feature each morning to get some updates each morning as I argue with the alarm clock about getting up. One if the apps I have in the line-up is NPR. They mentioned in the news briefing that there are delays in test results that cause problems. Specifically, they cited Tennessee as an example and said people are waiting 12 days or more for results.
Now, I went to get tested at a site awhile back when they started to become available to everyone. I had no symptoms and no known contact. But as many are asymptomatic (I could have been) and many are spreading without symptoms (I could get it that way) and I still go to stores for essentials and that all makes it entirely possible to get it, I figured I may as well get tested. It took 16 days for results, which were negative.
In the meantime, I had a dr. appt. the next week just for routine diabetes maintenance. They had told me, of course, to reschedule if I had symptoms, which I didn't. When I went, they asked if I had been tested and I said yes, but was waiting for results. When I said yes, they refused to see me and immediately started acting like I was infected. Even to the extent that the paperwork they had already given me to fill out (I hadn't started yet), they gave me to take home saying "Well, now we are going to have to throw it out anyway. Mind you, if I had not opted for a test, I would continue on with life. And they told me I should "self-quarantine" for 2 weeks if I was tested. Didn't ask why I got a test, which would change everything. As someone who didn't have symptoms or known contact, the only difference is whether or not I opted for a test. Everyone else without symptoms or known contact is out spreading it around. Obviously if the results had come back positive, I would then stop spreading it immediately. Someone who is positive in the same situation without a test would continue to spread it, and that is the difference. Since that happened, I have been unwilling to even share that I got a test because I realized how much I am treated like an outcast because of it. It was tough to share here even, and definitely not going to share with people IRL still.
While you may recall that my opinion is testing should be done regularly in order to catch more of the asymptomatic cases and stop spreading it (NPR mentioned this too this morning), this won't work when it takes 16 days for a result. What really annoys me is that the delay is not even testing, at least not for me. It took almost exactly 48 hours from the test collection to results from the lab. Then it took 14 days longer to share those results with me. That should be an easy fix.
Yep, this has been a problem before. State legislators have asked the health department to stop requiring quarantine while waiting for results, since it makes no sense and causes asymptomatic people who really should get tested (example: people who participated in the protests) to avoid it, since they know they will be locked down for two weeks. I don’t remember the details but it’s actually a law of some sort about the quarantine, it’s not something your doctor had any choice about.
What has been happening a lot is that someone waits for hours in a car to get to the testing station and then they say, “Oh, by the way. Hope you’ve grocery shopped recently because as soon as we stick this thing up your nose you aren’t allowed to go anywhere or see anyone for two weeks,” and then they suddenly decide to just leave and not get tested.
Interesting because nobody told me that. There was something about a recommendation that we self-quarantine in the paperwork, but I figured that makes sense for people who have actually known to have been exposed. But they also told me 3 days for the results, 7 days in another place (different documents, both from the organization doing the testing).
Why did you even get tested if you had no symptoms?
And this just proves my point. Why do random, non-symptomatic testing at all? Let's assume that genpop is up to about 20% now. I don't know that for a fact, but in my County we've tested a number that is representative of 25% of the total county population. About 6% of those have tested positive, so figure another (minimum) 10% had it and didn't go in for testing because it wasn't a serious case for them and for the first three months tests were only available through a doctor's recommendation after assessing symptoms. Another 5-10% didn't even know they had it...
I mean - testing randomly seems pretty futile with this virus. Too many unknowns.
I see it totally differently. Since almost half of infected people don't have symptoms, testing everyone often allows for those people to stop spreading it. This is also why precautions everyone should take when interacting with others should be to assume everyone has it, including ourselves. That means wearing a mask, washing hands, limiting interactions to essential functions only, etc. However, if testing can be done across the board, then asymptomatic infected people can take that additional precaution of absolute quarantine vs. just being very cautious.10 -
moonangel12 wrote: »janejellyroll wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
I know anecdotes are flying fast and furious, but I've read several accounts online of people who had to wait 7+ days for positive test results. Obviously, all of these stories may not be truthful or based in an accurate understanding of the situation, but I don't know if we can be sure that everyone with positive results is getting them within 48 hours.
My mom just got hired on at their local hospital part time, work from home. Why? They had a meeting and higher ups decided that medical records should be in charge of calling people with their test results. They have never had any part in that aspect of the medical field - they keep track of files, sure, but not direct contact with patients like that. They are already working with a skeleton crew after one or two people left so they are stretched thin enough as it is. It’s a unique situation that society just isn’t set up to deal with... so many things going on in the background that the average person never sees.
ETA: I realize I left out a significant detail - she was hired specifically for communicating COVID test results. Nothing else. There is too high of a demand and not enough manpower to get it all done in a timely manner.
Here there is a provincial database where your test results are entered, linked to our unique health insurance identification number. I had to answer a bunch of identity-related security questions to log in.
Of course you already know that you're logging in to get a negative result because positives are reported immediately to the local health unit, who will contact you by phone.
Initially there was a huge lag in getting results as they had to be sent to Toronto for processing. We've had the capability to process them locally for about two months now and currently there is no lag, we get same or next day results. When my test was done I had to wait about three days because they had done a big blitz that temporarily exceeded the lab's daily capacity.
16 days' wait is ridiculous.3 -
cmriverside wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »I use the Alexa "Flash Briefing" feature each morning to get some updates each morning as I argue with the alarm clock about getting up. One if the apps I have in the line-up is NPR. They mentioned in the news briefing that there are delays in test results that cause problems. Specifically, they cited Tennessee as an example and said people are waiting 12 days or more for results.
Now, I went to get tested at a site awhile back when they started to become available to everyone. I had no symptoms and no known contact. But as many are asymptomatic (I could have been) and many are spreading without symptoms (I could get it that way) and I still go to stores for essentials and that all makes it entirely possible to get it, I figured I may as well get tested. It took 16 days for results, which were negative.
In the meantime, I had a dr. appt. the next week just for routine diabetes maintenance. They had told me, of course, to reschedule if I had symptoms, which I didn't. When I went, they asked if I had been tested and I said yes, but was waiting for results. When I said yes, they refused to see me and immediately started acting like I was infected. Even to the extent that the paperwork they had already given me to fill out (I hadn't started yet), they gave me to take home saying "Well, now we are going to have to throw it out anyway. Mind you, if I had not opted for a test, I would continue on with life. And they told me I should "self-quarantine" for 2 weeks if I was tested. Didn't ask why I got a test, which would change everything. As someone who didn't have symptoms or known contact, the only difference is whether or not I opted for a test. Everyone else without symptoms or known contact is out spreading it around. Obviously if the results had come back positive, I would then stop spreading it immediately. Someone who is positive in the same situation without a test would continue to spread it, and that is the difference. Since that happened, I have been unwilling to even share that I got a test because I realized how much I am treated like an outcast because of it. It was tough to share here even, and definitely not going to share with people IRL still.
While you may recall that my opinion is testing should be done regularly in order to catch more of the asymptomatic cases and stop spreading it (NPR mentioned this too this morning), this won't work when it takes 16 days for a result. What really annoys me is that the delay is not even testing, at least not for me. It took almost exactly 48 hours from the test collection to results from the lab. Then it took 14 days longer to share those results with me. That should be an easy fix.
Yep, this has been a problem before. State legislators have asked the health department to stop requiring quarantine while waiting for results, since it makes no sense and causes asymptomatic people who really should get tested (example: people who participated in the protests) to avoid it, since they know they will be locked down for two weeks. I don’t remember the details but it’s actually a law of some sort about the quarantine, it’s not something your doctor had any choice about.
What has been happening a lot is that someone waits for hours in a car to get to the testing station and then they say, “Oh, by the way. Hope you’ve grocery shopped recently because as soon as we stick this thing up your nose you aren’t allowed to go anywhere or see anyone for two weeks,” and then they suddenly decide to just leave and not get tested.
Interesting because nobody told me that. There was something about a recommendation that we self-quarantine in the paperwork, but I figured that makes sense for people who have actually known to have been exposed. But they also told me 3 days for the results, 7 days in another place (different documents, both from the organization doing the testing).
Why did you even get tested if you had no symptoms?
And this just proves my point. Why do random, non-symptomatic testing at all? Let's assume that genpop is up to about 20% now. I don't know that for a fact, but in my County we've tested a number that is representative of 25% of the total county population. About 6% of those have tested positive, so figure another (minimum) 10% had it and didn't go in for testing because it wasn't a serious case for them and for the first three months tests were only available through a doctor's recommendation after assessing symptoms. Another 5-10% didn't even know they had it...
I mean - testing randomly seems pretty futile with this virus. Too many unknowns.
Testing is data. Countries that have control over this thing are using a national system of compulsory testing combined with contact tracing to stop hotspots before they start. It's literally how countries that are getting back to a more regular life are doing it.
I agree that it's mostly a waste of time here. But it's because we have not invested in testing materials, haven't made arrangements for personnel to read them, haven't even begun to plan a structured contact tracing procedure and technology, and have no standardized protocols. It's random, regional, and underfunded.
I think if someone feels like they did something high risk or spent time with someone whose habits they're not sure about, getting tested right away has value. It's better than spending the next 4 weeks passing it around if you happen to be an asymptomatic carrier. Or someone who has regular contact with someone high risk might want to occasionally get tested just on the off chance they might catch an infection before they pass it on to the at risk person. It certainly wouldn't be any guarantee, as you say you could catch it right after you get tested, but its playing the percentages and sometimes multiple layers of low percentage benefits is the best you can do.16 -
cmriverside wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
The lab result came in 48 hours, so I would hope to have known in 48.5 hours. I would have then come into contact with a lot fewer people over the following14 days. That is the benefit of testing even asymptomatic people regularly.
However, with as long as it took to actually get result and the way I was treated while waiting, I also probably won't get tested again unless I'm near death. It's unfortunate, but the logistical failure has led me to that conclusion rather than the merits of testing itself. If testing was done and results were communicated in a timely manner, I still believe it is beneficial to test everyone regularly. Hopefully they get their processes fixed soon.
But my point is that even if you got your results in (say 1-48.5 hours...it's not the timing...) AND you tested negative, you could still pick it up in 48.75 hours. No one is going to be getting tested every 48 hours. There aren't enough medical/lab personnel to process that many tests. The only solution to your continued plea would be self-administered 100% accurate tests that could be used at home and would give immediate results - like the at-home pregnancy test. I think that is a relatively good idea, but even if that were to be developed - how would you keep people home who tested positive? How would anyone track that? It would have to be a mail-back test so they could track you - but this virus isn't virulent enough for that kind of meticulous tracking.
I mean, you're wanting safety and I get that but life isn't safe - maybe you've noticed?
If we put aside issues of cost, I'm picturing each at-home test being an IoT device that would automatically link to the nearest open Wi-Fi network and report your results automatically. And if you want to toss civil liberties out the door, there could be a mandate that you be tested, and they would have your DNA on file to be sure that the person who was being tested was you, and if you failed to submit a test at the required intervals, they would send a "medical team" out to bring you and be tested in quarantine. For your own good, of course. To be sure they could find you, they could put subdermal cellular transmitters in everybody.
Some of that I pretty much lifted from Sylvia Engdahl's Stewards of the Flame, if you're looking for some medical dystopian fiction to read during the pandemic. I also recommend Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders, which is fiction but is based on an actual village in England that voluntarily self-quarantined when the plague struck in the 1770s, so as not to spread it to surrounding towns. I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but if anyone has read it, do you feel as I do that the epilogue could be expanded into a fascinating novel of its own?
Edited to bold the specific portion of the quoted text I was commenting on.2 -
baconslave wrote: »Madwife2009 wrote: »rheddmobile wrote: »lynn_glenmont wrote: »Is anyone else afraid about the possibility of schools reopening??
All my kids are way over that age but my dh works at a private high school and they usually have about 150-200 dorm students each year, from everywhere. I know it's still about 6 weeks away from now but Honestly, I don't foresee a better environment anytime soon. I just think of all the little kids and worried parents who will have to deal with this. I know the world is aching to get back to 'normal' but at the price of subjecting the children?
I was thinking about this the other day, and I think what's needed is something radical: much reduced class sizes, especially for younger kids who can't be expected to understand the need to wear masks and to maintain their distance. Which means we need more classroom spaces and more teachers. Space could be rented from facilities that can't open yet anyway -- like movie theaters. performing arts centers, indoor sporting venues. Teachers -- or at least adult supervision -- could be drawn from the ranks of the 10% of Americans who are unemployed, maybe with some online/video support from actual older or immuno-compromised teachers.
ETA: another part of my imaginary radical scenario was going back to mini "one-room schoolhouses" -- not as individual buildings, but classrooms that might have kids of different ages, maybe mixing three families of kids (to limit the number of potential interfamily disease transmissions, if that makes sense). Obviously with the smaller average sizes of family these might not work as well as it would have decades ago (I think the average family size on the block I grew up on was about 3.5). You might have to go four families depending on how large the hypothetical reduced class sizes would be -- I was picturing between five and 10 kids.
I don't see how we can go back to normal-sized classes of 20+ kids, circulating around schools to music rooms and art rooms with different instructors (or changing rooms and teachers for every class with older kids). There would be exploding hot spots everywhere.
Speaking as someone who went to a 3-room K-8 in my earliest grades, I think that multigrade model is a pretty excellent model for social and education reasons, too. We had 3 grades to a room, so (sort of) you got some combination of a year of preview, a year of view, and a year of review for certain grades. At recess (because the 3 rooms were the whole school), there were all-grades games, not strict age segregation. I'm sure it was extra challenging for the teachers, though.
I dunno, my paternal grandmother managed to teach in that situation when she was a 17-year-old bride, and so did a lot of young women. It may have been challenging but they did it. And some of the students from her one-room-12-grade schoolhouse went to top schools on scholarships. My dad attended a school like that and went to MIT.
When I was 7, I went to a village school that had two classrooms and two teachers. One was the infants class (ages 5-7 back then) and the other was juniors (ages 8-11). Showing my age here now as we no longer refer to infants and juniors and I can't be bothered to work out what years they would be. No reception year, either. Children wenrt to school when they were five years old and not before. There were 30 children in the whole school, so the teachers had fewer pupils, which may have reduced the challenge a little. Unlike today's teachers who are expected to teach 30 pupils per class. Now, that's a challenge. Plus, the children learned more as they learned from the stuff that they were taught but they also learned from each other.
I've always argued against the segregation of children by age as I don't believe that it allows children to mix and understand those younger and older than themselves. I dislike the school idea as a whole as it is such an artificial environment. Children spend their entire education up to the age of 18 in separated year groups, with others of their own age. They then either continue their education or enter employment where they are expected to integrate with people of all ages and they don't necessarily have the skills to be able to do that. School is probably the only environment whereby children are placed in age bands and generally stay in those age bands throughout their under-18 education.
Sorry, going off topic rather. But interesting stuff.
I did find that really interesting about my kids. My kids are homeschooled and 17. 15, 11, and 9. We have a couple families with other crazy age ranges that we playdate with (or did pre-Corona). What I noticed about my kids is, that no matter the age of kids on the playground, they make friends and play well with everyone there. They socialize well with kids younger, older, and even teens and adults. So when they are in multi-age situations, they can and do jump right in. My oldest worked with elementary age kids at church in a Wed-night program. She volunteered at the library shelving materials, and the adult librarians love her to death. She volunteered with the Teen community program at the library and was even set to shadow a marketer and the young adult librarian in developing and implementing a Mental Health week at the library before the lockdown. She's taken 2 dual enrollment classes at the local university. She helps administrate social media with the youth pastor for the Church. She's 17, but carries herself like she's a late 20s career woman. My next oldest is a gamer-dude, but he still does great in multi-age environments. He works at the same children's program at church; the kids and adult teachers alike love him.
I agree. Nowhere else in your life other than public school are you locked into age-bands. From my observations, homeschoolers, especially those who are thrown into multi-age situations frequently, are more emotionally and socially mature earlier on in their adulthood. We have one public school family that my kids are friends with, but they are busy during the school year so it's only during breaks we meet. And the PS kids just forget how to socialize with the other-age siblings. Of course, my kids end up getting them to loosen up and engage in a mob of hilarity before the playdate is over.
Maybe it's just my influence (my friends are all over the place in age) and maybe it's just the kind of homeschool families we've encountered? But the former-homeschooled young adults I've met (who also experienced much multi-age contact) are much more mature, unflappable, and super-adaptable in social and work situations than many other of their same-age peers. Of course, my homeschooled sister-in-law is 19, and she is the embodiment of Lil'Nas's song "Old Town Road." "Can't nobody tell me nuthin." She is a hot mess. So this definitely isn't an absolute homeschooler thing. She was NOT around multi-age groups like my kids as both her parents worked full-time and her older siblings were all grown.
I also add that I never taught my youngest son how to read, write or do K-1st grade math. He learned from watching the older kids and asking a zillion questions and from educational shows. He's the easiest kid to school. All my kids have learned a lot from observing the learning of their older siblings. Much easier than the first kid.
So to circle this topic back around to the Coronavirus, I wonder if the public schooled multi-kid families have actually gotten at least SOME positive out of all this mess? Have they actually (if they haven't killed each other) learned and adapted a bit and garnered skills that will help them. Because out in the world, you are all jumbled together. You all have annoying or quirky or old-fashioned or more tech-savvy or younger/older co-workers you MUST learn to get along with and to work productively with. Possible silver lining?
I think this is going to vary radically from one family to another, as you have noted with your sister-in-law. For one thing, not every family has multiple kids, and of those that do, a large percentage won't have kids that are that far apart in age. I was not home-schooled, but I came from a large family where there kids were spread out over twice as many years as your kids. I was the youngest, and my oldest siblings were adults by the time I have any memories of them. So I was used to spending a lot of time around older folks, and then quickly got used to spending a lot of time around younger folks as my older siblings started having kids. I was one of those kids whose friends' parents really liked, because I could have a conversation with them. A lot of my friends when I was was a kid were the oldest child in a two- or three-child family, and I always got along well with their younger siblings -- not just better than their own siblings, but better than other mutual friends.
But also to circle around to coronavirus, I have gotten the impression from Facebook posts that some of the kids in (non-home-schooled) multi-child family families that I know look to be doing more things together during lockdown and social distancing than they did back in the Before Times, when they spent more time with same-age friends, especially in group activities (e.g., sports, scouting, religious fellowship/education groups) organized by adults into age-segregated groups. I agree that that's a positive thing, both because of the need to get along with different ages that you mention and the benefits of having strong, positive relationships with any siblings that you have -- they are the only people who are hopefully going to be with you pretty much your whole life, from childhood to old age.3 -
cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
Positive results at my hospital can take up to 6 days, tho we usually have them in 4...sometimes 3. Almost never within 48hours3 -
that's interesting - turn around here is only day, day and half at most.
If you get it done in the morning it is back by next day.
You are asked to self isolate until your results come back - something anyone can do for 1 or 2 days.
Regional South Australia.
3 -
lynn_glenmont wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »cmriverside wrote: »T1D - I know you think there is an easy fix for everything, but there really isn't.
Your experience with the testing is just one of many reasons I won't get tested unless I'm being admitted to hospital or I am reallllllllly sick.
What good does it do to test healthy appearing people who will go right back out that afternoon and have a possibility of getting infected just 20 minutes after they take a test? Healthy, asymptomatic people who have no reason to think they've been exposed getting tested seems like a huge waste of resources right now.
If you had tested Positive they would have told you in that 48 hour period - or sooner.
The lab result came in 48 hours, so I would hope to have known in 48.5 hours. I would have then come into contact with a lot fewer people over the following14 days. That is the benefit of testing even asymptomatic people regularly.
However, with as long as it took to actually get result and the way I was treated while waiting, I also probably won't get tested again unless I'm near death. It's unfortunate, but the logistical failure has led me to that conclusion rather than the merits of testing itself. If testing was done and results were communicated in a timely manner, I still believe it is beneficial to test everyone regularly. Hopefully they get their processes fixed soon.
But my point is that even if you got your results in (say 1-48.5 hours...it's not the timing...) AND you tested negative, you could still pick it up in 48.75 hours. No one is going to be getting tested every 48 hours. There aren't enough medical/lab personnel to process that many tests. The only solution to your continued plea would be self-administered 100% accurate tests that could be used at home and would give immediate results - like the at-home pregnancy test. I think that is a relatively good idea, but even if that were to be developed - how would you keep people home who tested positive? How would anyone track that? It would have to be a mail-back test so they could track you - but this virus isn't virulent enough for that kind of meticulous tracking.
I mean, you're wanting safety and I get that but life isn't safe - maybe you've noticed?
If we put aside issues of cost, I'm picturing each at-home test being an IoT device that would automatically link to the nearest open Wi-Fi network and report your results automatically. And if you want to toss civil liberties out the door, there could be a mandate that you be tested, and they would have your DNA on file to be sure that the person who was being tested was you, and if you failed to submit a test at the required intervals, they would send a "medical team" out to bring you and be tested in quarantine. For your own good, of course. To be sure they could find you, they could put subdermal cellular transmitters in everybody.
Some of that I pretty much lifted from Sylvia Engdahl's Stewards of the Flame, if you're looking for some medical dystopian fiction to read during the pandemic. I also recommend Geraldine Brooks's Year of Wonders, which is fiction but is based on an actual village in England that voluntarily self-quarantined when the plague struck in the 1770s, so as not to spread it to surrounding towns. I don't want to spoil it for anybody, but if anyone has read it, do you feel as I do that the epilogue could be expanded into a fascinating novel of its own?
Edited to bold the specific portion of the quoted text I was commenting on.
Along the same lines, a book I may have mentioned early in the thread is Doomsday Book, by Connie Willis. It's part of a series of time-travel novels set at Oxford in the future (mid 21st C). The time-travel plot is someone who makes the first trip back to the middle ages, and ends up in a slightly different time than planned (you can guess what's going on there, probably, but I won't spoil it). What I had forgotten, until I reread during the beginning of our stay at home order, was that in the world of the book there was a pandemic (flu, but still) in the past (around now, in fact) which killed a bunch of people -- and disproportionately in the US, because people resisted quarantine and such. As a result of the past experience, the world has all these procedures for dealing strictly with a virus outbreak.
Re the Geraldine Brooks book, I felt like the epilogue came out of nowhere, but I did think at the time that she probably planned to write another book about that.1 -
.
Re the Geraldine Brooks book, I felt like the epilogue came out of nowhere, but I did think at the time that she probably planned to write another book about that.
I have read Geraldine Brook's The Year of Wonders
Like her other books that I have read: March and Caleb's crossing, loosely based on real events/people.I recommend all of them.
Year of Wonders was really good But IMO let down by the unlikely and unrealistic ending.
#literarytangent.
2 -
About masks:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-53367432
It is so sad. People just doing their job, protecting others from getting the disease, doing the right thing and getting beaten to death for it. Happens more and more these days.7 -
I'm a teacher--many years as a history teacher, and now 10 years as a special ed teacher. I'm so glad someone already posted the update from the American Academy of Pediatricians and the NEA. The data from Europe and elsewhere is conclusive--reopening schools should only be attempted where community spread is already under control, and even that won't be perfect. Data from summer camps in the USA shows what happens when kids get together in communities where spread is not under control; it's not at all encouraging.
Having said that, I should say I'm not feeling particularly vulnerable and I would be willing to go back to a classroom. My concern is that the kids and families who most need school support are often the same ones most at risk--students from families without sufficient economic resources and whose adults have had little access to health care. I work with teens identified as having emotional-behavioral disabilities, in an off campus environment. I know how much worry these kids and their families bear on a daily, hourly basis. This pandemic is a nightmare for them on top of the everyday challenges they face. I want to support my kids.
School districts should be deciding for themselves whether or not they can risk reopening, based on their specific situation and needs. Not every community needs to stay closed to in-person learning.
What we REALLY need, as a nation, is a federally-directed program to provide the resources for "getting back to normal," and more specifically, federal take-over of factories to produce N95 masks and PPE generally, as well as increased production of essential cleaning products. I cannot believe this didn't happen day 1, b/c we knew of limits in the supply chains for medical professionals. The reality now is that everyone needs N95 type masks--it is the only way we can protect ourselves and others. This is a war and that's what happens in wars, but we don't need bombs and airplanes this time. We are well beyond developing the systems for contact tracing, etc., that are working well in other places. We need an entirely different approach.
As for schools reopening, I'd love to see some creative thinking. One idea would be sending teachers to their students and having them organized in the one-room schoolhouse model already mentioned. Most teachers would struggle at first with multiple age groups, but most teachers know how to work through those types of struggles. And we might have to make different arrangements for students needing higher level (11th and 12th grade curricula), b/c your average adult may find it hard to teach that content. Students at that level, however--who are actually ready for that curricula, are generally more able to learn more independently. Age bands of students are ridiculous for about 40-60% of kids, in my experience; we settle on Ds for passing but that means these students cannot move to the next level independently. Giving students the time they need to master curriculum at proficiency (like, able to demonstrate an 80% or above understanding) would help most students overcome the challenges our current system breeds, including dependent learners.
I truly believe that an 8-12 week shutdown (while factors convert and begin production), with a reopening based on N95 availability to everyone--and mask mandates--would allow us to get back on track almost immediately. The totally awful, sad part is that we are not going to do this--and if it had been done right away, we would be back to normal already.
Yes, I'm living in a fantasy world. But the only thing that truly separates my fantasy from reality is will--the will to make it happen. And if people refused to wear masks then, at least those of us who do would be safe from their selfishness. God have mercy on those who wouldn't, though.
16 -
For fellow runners, there has been much discussion for a long time about the Chicago Marathon. This is the only big marathon (World Major) that is still planned this fall (Oct.) aside from MCM (not a world major, but big race which has changed rules and such so many have gone virtual, including myself). Most of us who are registered have an idea that this will not happen and are awaiting the announcement. A leading theory is that the race organization is waiting for the city to make the decision not to grant permits because then their insurance will cover some of the loss since it isn't the race organization's decision that led to cancellation. I know the Mayor said earlier this week that she had been in contact with the race organizers. I thought we might get the official announcement by now. Why can't they just do it so we can officially cancel our travel bookings and start planning accordingly?!
ETA: Details about MCM (Marine Corps Marathon).0 -
I can't imagine it will happen.
Looks like you can just go ahead and cancel: https://www.chicagomarathon.com/apply/entry-cancellation/0 -
Another issue that comes up is what to do about non-Covid patients that still need medical care. Long story ahead, but the tl;dr is that my grandma is going to a nursing home and there are no visitors allowed, so thinking of sending a tablet for video chat.
Longer story with some details that may be gross or triggering for some - details involving elderly and mobility:Longer story is that after my grandpa died a few months ago, my uncle had stayed with her for awhile and worked remotely. But he couldn't stay with her forever. He lives almost 1,800 miles away and had not been home for months already. He tried to get something setup before he left (early June) - either a nurse to come in and take care of her or an 'adult day care' that she could go to. She definitely couldn't take care of herself and has mobility issues, among other things. But when a nurse came to assess her, she just refused. She wasn't even willing to get a one of those necklaces with a button for emergencies. My other uncle lives across town, but can't legally drive (epilepsy) and couldn't exactly make it over there all the time. He does drive, but it's obviously risky both medically and legally (if he were caught). If he can't get a family member to give him a ride, he will drive on his own before getting a cab (no, I don't agree with his decision to do that, but I understand).
So anyway, the uncle that was staying with her went back home at the beginning of June. A couple weeks ago, he was trying to reach her on the phone and couldn't. So he called the uncle nearby and he went over. He found nothing wrong with the phone and was in and out pretty quickly (she was in the bathroom the whole time he was there). That was on a Sat. The next Tues., he went back because the other uncle still couldn't get her on the phone. Again, he found that the phones still worked. And again, she was in the bathroom. But he realized that she wasn't in the bathroom again... she was in the bathroom still. Apparently, she had not been able to get up from the toilet. This means she was on the toilet without food, water, or medicine (maybe she was able to reach the sink and get some water if she had a cup or even if she could use her hand to deliver water, I'm not sure) for at least 3 days and maybe even longer. She was dangerously dehydrated of course and in bad shape. Went to the hospital in an ambulance, left some skin on the toilet seat. It was a tough situation, and I'm surprised she survived at all considering how long she was there without life essentials.
It took awhile, but she is going to be released from the hospital and transferred to a nursing home on Monday. Part of why it took so long is because she can't just be released and sent back home after what happened. It took awhile to find a home that would accept her. Many care homes are not taking in new residents at this time.
I've got an old tablet (no mobile service plan) that I would be willing to setup with a Skype or Zoom account and mail to her if they have WiFi. I've messaged the home to inquire about that. That way, she can video chat with people. I'm hoping I can get everything setup first so that it just needs to be turned on, connected to WiFi and then it will automatically login to the video chat service so that a person can just "call" her on that device and all she has to do is answer. Very simple and doesn't require much more help from staff besides maybe connecting the WiFi and helping her figure out how to plug it in to charge periodically.18 -
I’m so sorry about your Grandma. I read the whole thing because I know of someone in the nursing home going thru all the covid problems. She is a very social person, and virtually locking her in a room alone certainly hasn’t helped her. I tried to
Get the family to set up a tablet connection with her before Covid, but they weren’t interested. I certainly hope you can do it and that it helps.6 -
T1DCarnivoreRunner-
I am sorry about your grandma too- and I hope and pray that she continues to make progress.2
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