Bad News Thread

Michigan is nearing its winter (or as dad4 would likely says...it's thanksgiving) peak. Canada not looking so great either.


 
So with that article, how do you all feel about staying in hotels?
And I don't mean hanging at the bar, milling about in the lobby, etc. Just checking in and heading straight to your room- always wearing a mask.
Personally I have no qualms about staying in a hotel. While I didn't make a habit out of it during Covid, I did stay in hotels a couple times and enjoyed the lobby with a mask on and the bar and pool with a mask off. I also had no qualms about flying during Covid and did so a few times. Always mask on at airports and planes except for eating and drinking. I'm glad airlines are starting to recover, but I'm going to miss those Covid flights with the middle seat open.

Ultimately, it's up to you as to the level of risk your willing to accept (I like Grace's "checklist"). I perceived the risk to be very low and that's either been proven, or maybe I just got lucky. I suspect it's some combination of both, with luck only playing a small role. Like I've said before and as a doctor was quoted as saying "be smart". I've taken the "don't hide, be smart" and maintain a balanced approach and it has worked well for my family. My 17 yo daughter just got her first vaccination yesterday (because she volunteers for Meals on Wheels) and my wife and I are scheduled for Saturday. Time to move on.
 
Was that the only person who could have passed you the infection?

No, but the most likely. I had already pulled back my own personal behavior (remember back in February I was saying we were already having unnoticed COVID outbreaks in the US), had stockpiled on toilet paper and supplies at the end of January and was telling people the entire country would likely be shut down in a couple weeks. I was also extremely busy with preparations for the shutdown and resulting economic chaos at work and with my kid's school so I was basically in my office 12 hours a day. Parents had been isolated, at least one kid had caught it from me (not vice versa), my assistant never ill (but perhaps could have been asymptomatic).
 
Personally I have no qualms about staying in a hotel. While I didn't make a habit out of it during Covid, I did stay in hotels a couple times and enjoyed the lobby with a mask on and the bar and pool with a mask off. I also had no qualms about flying during Covid and did so a few times. Always mask on at airports and planes except for eating and drinking. I'm glad airlines are starting to recover, but I'm going to miss those Covid flights with the middle seat open.

Ultimately, it's up to you as to the level of risk your willing to accept (I like Grace's "checklist"). I perceived the risk to be very low and that's either been proven, or maybe I just got lucky. I suspect it's some combination of both, with luck only playing a small role. Like I've said before and as a doctor was quoted as saying "be smart". I've taken the "don't hide, be smart" and maintain a balanced approach and it has worked well for my family. My 17 yo daughter just got her first vaccination yesterday (because she volunteers for Meals on Wheels) and my wife and I are scheduled for Saturday. Time to move on.

For 4. you can also substitute have I had it via a confirmed test in the last 6 months?
 
Based on the NZ Study, it tells me nothing can be done about the transmission, masks or not. Good luck trying to control a virus that is aerosolized. You're only protection is vaccination.

Vaccination is whole other subject. Nobody has any idea what the long term affects are yet. While I received mine, I will hold off on my daughters until we know more.
Why would vaccination be your only protection? We are equipped with an immune system that has obviously and overwhelmingly dealt with Corona and a host of other respiratory diseases over the centuries. I am, and yet am not, surprised at how little our amazing Immune system is talked about here. Many of you have painted such a fragile picture of mankind despite the hockey stick of human flourishing over the last couple of centuries. You would rather talk about seasons, P-values, mask, distancing, dining out, etc.. All of these issues have consumed your narrative while your Immune System fights for your life. I am glad that there are no cowards in our immune systems. As a species we would have been gone with the Dinosaurs . MARsSPEED this is a general statement and not only directed at you but to the willful cowards among us. Good grief! Eat Well, Exercise, Sleep Well and do whatever it is you love to do. Sing the praises of how wonderfully you are put together. If any virus is meant to wipe out the human race then so be it. This is the Way.
 
Based on the NZ Study, it tells me nothing can be done about the transmission, masks or not. Good luck trying to control a virus that is aerosolized. You're only protection is vaccination.

Vaccination is whole other subject. Nobody has any idea what the long term affects are yet. While I received mine, I will hold off on my daughters until we know more.
I think you are confusing two ways to measure transmission control.

Q1- can we eliminate all transmission?

Q2- can we lower transmission to the point that the case count declines towards zero?

These are NOT the same question.

Q1 is equivalent to " can we get Rt=0".

Q2 is equivalent to " can we get Rt<1 ?".

Not the same thing at all. Q1 is impossible. Q2 has been done many times in many different places.
 
I think you are confusing two ways to measure transmission control.

Q1- can we eliminate all transmission?

Q2- can we lower transmission to the point that the case count declines towards zero?

These are NOT the same question.

Q1 is equivalent to " can we get Rt=0".

Q2 is equivalent to " can we get Rt<1 ?".

Not the same thing at all. Q1 is impossible. Q2 has been done many times in many different places.

This is the heart of why you are looking at this wrong from purely a math point of view. In the real world there is actually a Q1a and Q1b. Q1a is Australia and OZ where we can get all transmissions down effectively to a handful and can prevent any flare up by stamping it down. Q1b is we can reduce it, but can't keep it there given the measure we are undertaken...the best we can hope for is South Korea at 500 cases per day, but otherwise we are dependent on the weather, or density, and mobility (which is going to go up and down because no government policy is going to be able to keep the 20 year old unmarried go from hooking up from a year plus)....we might be able to drive it down but it's eventually going to go back up again.
 
This is the heart of why you are looking at this wrong from purely a math point of view. In the real world there is actually a Q1a and Q1b. Q1a is Australia and OZ where we can get all transmissions down effectively to a handful and can prevent any flare up by stamping it down. Q1b is we can reduce it, but can't keep it there given the measure we are undertaken...the best we can hope for is South Korea at 500 cases per day, but otherwise we are dependent on the weather, or density, and mobility (which is going to go up and down because no government policy is going to be able to keep the 20 year old unmarried go from hooking up from a year plus)....we might be able to drive it down but it's eventually going to go back up again.
My point was that "we missed this one case of transmission" is not a useful angle on things.

Mars was essentially arguing that, if your transmission control has any leaks, then it is useless. That is not a valid argument.

NZ and OZ are both examples of leaky, but useful, transmission control systems.

Nice of you to show some concern for the 20 year olds. As long as they shack up for at least a 2-3 weeks at a time, you're probably fine from a covid perspective.

Of course, if the relationships turn over faster than that, then you have a different public health problem.
 
My point was that "we missed this one case of transmission" is not a useful angle on things.

Mars was essentially arguing that, if your transmission control has any leaks, then it is useless. That is not a valid argument.

NZ and OZ are both examples of leaky, but useful, transmission control systems.

Nice of you to show some concern for the 20 year olds. As long as they shack up for at least a 2-3 weeks at a time, you're probably fine from a covid perspective.

Of course, if the relationships turn over faster than that, then you have a different public health problem.

OZ and NZ have the control system that you were advocating at the beginning of this....remember all the hoopla about test and trace? But it required driving cases to as close to zero as possible, stamping out any new fires when they flare up, and most importantly closing the borders.

For anything else short of that, you can drive down cases (in large part from people freaking out on their own, though govt policies can push up the freakout) but they are inevitably going to go back up again because (as I said from the beginning) people can't do this a year+. It's just not realisitic.
 
OZ and NZ have the control system that you were advocating at the beginning of this....remember all the hoopla about test and trace? But it required driving cases to as close to zero as possible, stamping out any new fires when they flare up, and most importantly closing the borders.

For anything else short of that, you can drive down cases (in large part from people freaking out on their own, though govt policies can push up the freakout) but they are inevitably going to go back up again because (as I said from the beginning) people can't do this a year+. It's just not realisitic.
You can model an open border system. The key variable is the number of crossings per day. (And daily per capita infection rate overseas.)

Total cases from illegal border crossings are not big enough to mess up your basic calculations.

The bigger problems are legal crossings and domestic air travel. Those are big enough to change your numbers.
 
You can model an open border system. The key variable is the number of crossings per day. (And daily per capita infection rate overseas.)

Total cases from illegal border crossings are not big enough to mess up your basic calculations.

The bigger problems are legal crossings and domestic air travel. Those are big enough to change your numbers.
Agree air and legal crossings a bigger problem. But this shows a lack of understanding of the q1a situation: the key approach in the China/oz/nz is to smother any seed before it becomes a problem. If you have a border that’s open (don’t care if it’s ground or air or legal or illegal) you can’t do the q1a approach. Too many new seeds since it only takes 1 to get away from you. The proof of that gone wrong is Hawaii which almost was able to do q1a but a few quaratine breaches and a few exemptions (for airline personnel) gone wrong and they got the worst of both worlds. To implement q1a, would have needed stronger border and air restrictions than even trump allowed
 
Agree air and legal crossings a bigger problem. But this shows a lack of understanding of the q1a situation: the key approach in the China/oz/nz is to smother any seed before it becomes a problem. If you have a border that’s open (don’t care if it’s ground or air or legal or illegal) you can’t do the q1a approach. Too many new seeds since it only takes 1 to get away from you. The proof of that gone wrong is Hawaii which almost was able to do q1a but a few quaratine breaches and a few exemptions (for airline personnel) gone wrong and they got the worst of both worlds. To implement q1a, would have needed stronger border and air restrictions than even trump allowed
All of that sounds good.

Now make it numeric. How many daily new cases is the US, and how many are from border crossings?

Until border crossings are a sizable fraction of total cases, the seeds argument is bogus.

Travel should be limited, but until domestic cases are lower, there is nothing special about border crossings. It's bad idea for 1M of us to get on a plane each day. It doesn't really matter whether we fly to Detroit or Cabo. We should not be flying.
 
All of that sounds good.

Now make it numeric. How many daily new cases is the US, and how many are from border crossings?

Until border crossings are a sizable fraction of total cases, the seeds argument is bogus.

Travel should be limited, but until domestic cases are lower, there is nothing special about border crossings. It's bad idea for 1M of us to get on a plane each day. It doesn't really matter whether we fly to Detroit or Cabo. We should not be flying.
What you argue is not feasible. You may as well sit and figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a needle.

What the lock downers don't realize is that in the real world we are not going to shut everything down, close the border, pretend masks work, etc.

We have a vaccine. Use it. We will get variations every year. What we are not going to do is social distance for years, wear masks for years, etc.

Like any other disease, etc., we are just going to learn how to deal with having it among us.
 
What you argue is not feasible. You may as well sit and figure out how many angels can dance on the head of a needle.

What the lock downers don't realize is that in the real world we are not going to shut everything down, close the border, pretend masks work, etc.

We have a vaccine. Use it. We will get variations every year. What we are not going to do is social distance for years, wear masks for years, etc.

Like any other disease, etc., we are just going to learn how to deal with having it among us.
So, rules will fail when too many people refuse to obey them?

True.

Put it another way. We had a half million deaths because some people refused to follow basic health advice.

It means the same thing. The rule failed when too many people decided they didn't have to follow it.

Those same people are still making excuses about why they shouldn't have to follow the public health advice.
 
All of that sounds good.

Now make it numeric. How many daily new cases is the US, and how many are from border crossings?

Until border crossings are a sizable fraction of total cases, the seeds argument is bogus.

Travel should be limited, but until domestic cases are lower, there is nothing special about border crossings. It's bad idea for 1M of us to get on a plane each day. It doesn't really matter whether we fly to Detroit or Cabo. We should not be flying.

Again, you aren't understanding. You are still in Q1b which hasn't worked anywhere...you reduce it, it goes up against because 20 year old Dangie Bro can't go a year without getting some. OZ/NZ/China aim for zero seeds. Zero. And if 1 seed does get by to clamp down into a 1/2/3 line of defense (the 3rd being regional lockdowns) til you get it back down to as close to zero again as possible. It's a very different approach than anything being a "sizable fraction of total cases" which is Q1b, not Q1a. The other components of Q1a is hard lockdown until cases get to zero and test and trace so you have the mechanism to find the seeds. I agree, it's hard to see the US ever having gotten down there once the NY outbreak took place, and especially not once the protests (whether lockdown or BLM) started.
 
So, rules will fail when too many people refuse to obey them?

True.

Put it another way. We had a half million deaths because some people refused to follow basic health advice.

It means the same thing. The rule failed when too many people decided they didn't have to follow it.

Those same people are still making excuses about why they shouldn't have to follow the public health advice.

Another fallacy. Short of Q1a, with Q1b a portion of that 1/2 million was always going to be baked in. We are only arguing about the remainder (the benefit) v. the cost it would take down to lower that remainder. But without Q1a, it's not 0, which makes your statement just rhetoric.
 
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