Coronavirus prep

ReenieHJ wrote: »

T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »

MikePfirrman wrote: »

T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »

MikePfirrman wrote: »

SModa61 wrote: »

Chiming in and some of my experiences are different from those mentioned above. Since March, I have lived in 3 states; began the shutdown in florida, and then spent from May - Oct in Mass and Maine. As for not enough essential businesses being shut down, in Florida and Mass, things were shut down tight IMO. The only category I found stupid were the "essential" liquor stores. But people have pointed out to me that alcoholics can die if forced to detox rapidly. I would not know as I have about 1 drink a month. In both Florida and Mass, there are businesses closed forever because they were not considered "essential". All those people are now unemployed. My sons company was literally cut in half - 1500 to 750 employees, and good luck getting a new job. My son has a friend who is literally phone-crying on his shoulder. She was in the process of divorcing her husband when she was laid off. She has no income, no savings, and now cannot leave her husband, and sees no end in sight and is trapped. As for compliance, the worst compliance I encountered was in the state with the most strict rules at the time, Maine. Residents were terrible. Compliance slowly improved later in the summer, but was a real joke preceding July 4th. They would blame any transmission on "out of state visitors" yet locals were not wear masks nor social distancing.

As for our president ignoring cities, the Boston Major makes all kinds of rules and mandates and if he does not, our governor steps in. We just got new rules going into effect tomorrow night. It is all a tricky balance. There is finger pointing everywhere - lower government levels pointing up, and federal level pointing down.

I will say that I honestly would not want to have the responsibility of dealing with the balance between shutting down to prevent viral spread, and the economic damage and destroyed lives that a shut down causes. I get to sit here and express my opinions with no repercussions for anyone.

Maybe it's me getting more philosophical as I age or the Psych major in me, but as a consultant for businesses (from Fortune 100s to startups) for 25 years, I've seen the most successful businesses nearly always have common themes. A top down strategy that is communicated effectively from the top down to the lowest person in the organization, conformity/consistency of messaging and honesty/ethics. No matter what company I deal with, the ones that are the most successful and have the happiest employees seem to follow this pattern.

If you apply and contrast that to how our government has operated in this pandemic, it's pretty clear they failed miserably. And no matter who wins this election, the damage is already done and we are irreparably harmed.

I mentioned around 2 months ago that I thought we'd see a very dirty form of herd immunity before we saw vaccines. Not that I wanted to see that, but you could see the writing on the wall with people fighting mask mandates and common sense. I still think that's what we'll see. And I'm not sure, at this stage, uniformity of message will help. And that's sad.

You simply have to be as vigilant as you can be, even if that means sacrificing seeing family these upcoming Holidays and stay in the 30% to 50% that will stay safe until we have some form of herd immunity, vaccines, antibodies or treatments for everyone.

I disagree and don't expect that we will ever have herd immunity. It seems like the antibodies are lasting for only a few months and there have been a few cases of the same person getting infected twice. This also makes me wonder about the efficacy of a vaccine once it comes out. Assume everyone gets it (they won't) around the same time... you have a 3 month window where everyone has antibodies and nobody can spread it around. Theoretically, the virus could die out within that 3 month window. But that assumption is not realistic, so I'm not sure how that is supposed to work out.

But understand, what you're saying is that we'll all of a sudden all listen to reason, wear masks, comply with getting a universal vaccine and that the vaccine will work. Or perhaps you aren't. Either way, it's going to get really, really ugly before it's all said and done. And the election is done and it hasn't magically disappeared. I forget who said that

Some dirty form of Herd Immunity, at this stage, is the optimistic view. The pessimists view is this thing is seasonal, like the flu or the common cold, mutates to be more contagious, and is the most efficient killer of people with compromised immune systems we've ever seen.

I prefer the first scenario. Where people with sense protect themselves as well as possible and those that don't (along with, unfortunately, many who do), get it and then finally understand how dangerous this is. Refrigerated trucks as back up morgues are very compelling to change minds. It is coming to that very quickly right now. I don't mean to sound bleak, but we are going to see that very soon all over the states that don't believe in masks.

We had refrigerated trucks as backup morgues staged here in TN back in April. Too many people don't care. We need a better plan, which needs to include forcing people to take proper actions like wearing masks.

Also, too many people never think it'll happen to them. It's bad enough to think it'll never happen to them but don't they think it just might happen to friends/family? Eventually, I believe it's going to touch every single one of us, in reality. Whether it's an uncle who lives next state over, our child in college, our parent in a nursing home, our best friend who's right down the street. We will all be touched. And for that, people still refuse to take heed and practice recommended precautions?
SMH

kshama2001 wrote: »

SModa61 wrote: »

Chiming in and some of my experiences are different from those mentioned above. Since March, I have lived in 3 states; began the shutdown in florida, and then spent from May - Oct in Mass and Maine. As for not enough essential businesses being shut down, in Florida and Mass, things were shut down tight IMO. The only category I found stupid were the "essential" liquor stores. But people have pointed out to me that alcoholics can die if forced to detox rapidly. I would not know as I have about 1 drink a month. In both Florida and Mass, there are businesses closed forever because they were not considered "essential". All those people are now unemployed. My sons company was literally cut in half - 1500 to 750 employees, and good luck getting a new job. My son has a friend who is literally phone-crying on his shoulder. She was in the process of divorcing her husband when she was laid off. She has no income, no savings, and now cannot leave her husband, and sees no end in sight and is trapped. As for compliance, the worst compliance I encountered was in the state with the most strict rules at the time, Maine. Residents were terrible. Compliance slowly improved later in the summer, but was a real joke preceding July 4th. They would blame any transmission on "out of state visitors" yet locals were not wear masks nor social distancing.

As for our president ignoring cities, the Boston Major makes all kinds of rules and mandates and if he does not, our governor steps in. We just got new rules going into effect tomorrow night. It is all a tricky balance. There is finger pointing everywhere - lower government levels pointing up, and federal level pointing down.

I will say that I honestly would not want to have the responsibility of dealing with the balance between shutting down to prevent viral spread, and the economic damage and destroyed lives that a shut down causes. I get to sit here and express my opinions with no repercussions for anyone.

None of the new restrictions in MA affect me, as I'm in for the night well before 10 PM, and have been acting as if the only business open were still supermarkets, Home Depot, and garden centers.

I wish the gathering restrictions had been in place this summer when four houses one street over were having very loud outdoor parties Every Freaking Weekend.

s

SModa61 wrote: »

T1DCarnivoreRunner wrote: »

ReenieHJ wrote: »

My dd said she's been exposed at work and they all took tests; she's negative(praying it stays that way) but she said they were able to self-administer their Covid tests. Is that a thing; guess I didn't know? And I wonder how accurate it is vs. a pro doing it? She's going to take another test soon just for extra reassurance.
Plus wondering how well the mouth swabs work vs. the brain scraping. If mouth swabs are just as good, why aren't those typical administered instead?

Yes, some places let people swab themselves. By BIL did that at a CVS and tested negative while several others in his house and his mom's house (where he visits often) were positive. I question whether he self-swabbed deeply enough. But he has also has a couple tests where others did the swab and he has come back negative those times also.

He lives with a lot of people who are exposed often (a nurse and retail employees) and he is exposed often at work (meat packing plant, many factories have a constant stream of infections). How he hasn't been infected is surprising, as 3 others in his own household were positive plus risks at other places. He thinks he has a natural immunity. I think he has been lucky.

A scenario I have always considered for those "lucky" ones is, could he have had it asymptomatically back when testing was nil, and now he is no catching it due to current immunity. I know plenty of people who have wondered if they might have had COVID in those early months when tests were only allowed if you fit all the parameters (we know a new york young man that was never sicker in his life, but was denied a test because he was too "young". This was back in March during the NY peak). One of these people has asked for an antibody test, because his wife had it and she tested positive, and he had had similar almost asymptomatic systems the week before her. He was denied. I think the antibody testing is a very important component that is not being focused on as much as I would like. It may be that many more people have had this disease than we realize, and I think that accurate data is important in understanding COVID.