COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[hogan873]

We've been wearing masks for nearly a year.  For those of us vaccinated, why wouldn't we continue wearing masks for a while longer until we get the majority of the population vaccinated?  Wearing a mask to go to the store, go out to dinner, go to a baseball game is not difficult.  The only way we get out of this is to keep doing what we have been doing as the vaccines are rolled out.  As someone else pointed out, vaccinated people not wearing masks will only lead to non-vaccinated people not wearing masks.

We're so damn close, and there are so many people (and governments) doing everything in their power to fuck things up.

[Balta1701]

12 hours ago, Texsox said:

I’m wondering if every location should be treated the same? I think I might tolerate a different standard for essential businesses like grocery stores and pharmacies compared to a baseball stadium. It feels like they should be treated differently.

Well they are. I doubt you will find many grocery stores with 11,000 people in them at once. 

[bmags]

I honestly don't think the baseball stadiums for fans are going to end up found as much of a risk at all. The people I worry about in them were the employees, and good chance they have been vaccinated to this point. 

Go to the park, go to the zoo, go to the beach, go to a baseball game. You'll be fine but may end up on a picture shaming people for being outside.

Go to a 50 person indoor wedding and you are at a much higher risk of being part of a super spreading event, but the good news is much lower chance of public shaming.

[Texsox]

8 hours ago, The Beast said:

Recognizing that you have already said you were referring to Chicago’s capacity, what do you think about the Texas Rangers stadium’s capacity and their lack of masks?

How could we feasibly treat things differently? As BrianAnderson said, people who are vaccinated not wearing masks will lead to people not vaccinated or those who refuse to comply to not wear masks. I am for compromise but I just can’t see people being truthful enough to comply. I wish this wasn’t a red versus blue issue but it seems to be.

How could we feasibly treat them differently?  I recall  closing non essential business and allowing grocery stores and gas stations to remain open. 

[Texsox]

50 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

Well they are. I doubt you will find many grocery stores with 11,000 people in them at once. 

 

People need food, they don't need to go to a baseball game. Seems like that should be a factor. 

[Balta1701]

30 minutes ago, bmags said:

I honestly don't think the baseball stadiums for fans are going to end up found as much of a risk at all. The people I worry about in them were the employees, and good chance they have been vaccinated to this point. 

Go to the park, go to the zoo, go to the beach, go to a baseball game. You'll be fine but may end up on a picture shaming people for being outside.

Go to a 50 person indoor wedding and you are at a much higher risk of being part of a super spreading event, but the good news is much lower chance of public shaming.

This sounds like a discussion we have had before. Perhaps 11 months ago.

The published rule of thumb I saw last fall was that you are something like 20 times less likely to transmit the virus outside. Now, we know if you put 400 people in a club and 1 person has it, 400 wind up with it. 

So, pack in several hundred people outdoors into a section at a sold out Rangers game, with a lot of them in their seats for 2.5 hours and removing their masks to eat, and sometimes spending time in concession lines, could you get 20 new cases from any contagious person in that ballpark? Worst case scenario, sure. Shouting loudly or cheering makes this notably worse.

Now, have 25% vaccinated like in Texas, and you still could readily get 15 cases, and that’s enough to transmit it down a chain and still kill someone.

Spread everyone out with 1/4 or 1/3 capacity, suddenly there’s 5 feet from the next family - maybe a case or two from the whole ballpark. As a public health issue - not a major transmission site any more.

Or alternatively, have a vaccine passport so that 80% of the people in the ballpark are vaccinated, same story - maybe a case or two, and they don’t get transmitted.

[Middle Buffalo]

1 hour ago, hogan873 said:

We've been wearing masks for nearly a year.  For those of us vaccinated, why wouldn't we continue wearing masks for a while longer until we get the majority of the population vaccinated?  Wearing a mask to go to the store, go out to dinner, go to a baseball game is not difficult.  The only way we get out of this is to keep doing what we have been doing as the vaccines are rolled out.  As someone else pointed out, vaccinated people not wearing masks will only lead to non-vaccinated people not wearing masks.

We're so damn close, and there are so many people (and governments) doing everything in their power to fuck things up.

It’s a huge sacrifice to wear a mask. Haven’t you heard?

[Balta1701]

40 minutes ago, Texsox said:

 

People need food, they don't need to go to a baseball game. Seems like that should be a factor. 

But they don’t need to go through a store or pharmacy unmasked.

[bmags]

1 minute ago, Balta1701 said:

This sounds like a discussion we have had before. Perhaps 11 months ago.

The published rule of thumb I saw last fall was that you are something like 20 times less likely to transmit the virus outside. Now, we know if you put 400 people in a club and 1 person has it, 400 wind up with it. 

So, pack in several hundred people outdoors into a section at a sold out Rangers game, with a lot of them in their seats for 2.5 hours and removing their masks to eat, and sometimes spending time in concession lines, could you get 20 cases from that? Worst case scenario, sure.

Now, have 25% vaccinated like in Texas, and you still could readily get 15 cases, and that’s enough to transmit it down a chain and still kill someone.

Spread everyone out with 1/4 or 1/3 capacity, suddenly there’s 5 feet from the next family - maybe a case or two from the whole ballpark. As a public health issue - not a major transmission site any more.

Or alternatively, have a vaccine passport so that 80% of the people in the ballpark are vaccinated, same story - maybe a case or two, and they don’t get transmitted.

Let's say there are 400 people per million in texas with covid currently. But that is perfectly distributed within the stadium of 38,000. That's 15 people in the stadium. Now let's say in their section, they have 4 people next to them, and 3 in front within 5 feet. That's 105 people at risk. Now let's assume all 105 people would normally get covid, but since it's outside, they are only 5% likely to contract. That's 5.25 people, and that's assuming 0 vaccinated people, zero mask mitigation, but we can see there was still quite a bit of masks at the game.

But we can also see there is quite a bit of masks, and we know about Dallas County, 36% have some protection with first shot.

These numbers are just as back of the napkin, and yes, ideally you wait a month. But the amount of handwringing beaches and outdoor events like these get compared to what is driving much of the spread is completely out of whack. Illinois could continue to spike, and we'll have a discussion on the baseball stadiums, when 95% of it will likely be families driving to visit families in michigan and vice versa, attending restaurants, and going to work for 8 hours a day.

Yes, it's better for texas to cut capacity at least in half. 

[The Beast]

42 minutes ago, Balta1701 said:

This sounds like a discussion we have had before. Perhaps 11 months ago.

The published rule of thumb I saw last fall was that you are something like 20 times less likely to transmit the virus outside. Now, we know if you put 400 people in a club and 1 person has it, 400 wind up with it. 

So, pack in several hundred people outdoors into a section at a sold out Rangers game, with a lot of them in their seats for 2.5 hours and removing their masks to eat, and sometimes spending time in concession lines, could you get 20 new cases from any contagious person in that ballpark? Worst case scenario, sure. Shouting loudly or cheering makes this notably worse.

Now, have 25% vaccinated like in Texas, and you still could readily get 15 cases, and that’s enough to transmit it down a chain and still kill someone.

Spread everyone out with 1/4 or 1/3 capacity, suddenly there’s 5 feet from the next family - maybe a case or two from the whole ballpark. As a public health issue - not a major transmission site any more.

Or alternatively, have a vaccine passport so that 80% of the people in the ballpark are vaccinated, same story - maybe a case or two, and they don’t get transmitted.

Do we know if masks were required in the ballpark in Texas? I guess the issue I have is how difficult contact tracing would be after baseball games and how tough it would be to measure the impact of cases, especially if fans are from out of town. 

1 hour ago, hogan873 said:

We've been wearing masks for nearly a year.  For those of us vaccinated, why wouldn't we continue wearing masks for a while longer until we get the majority of the population vaccinated?  Wearing a mask to go to the store, go out to dinner, go to a baseball game is not difficult.  The only way we get out of this is to keep doing what we have been doing as the vaccines are rolled out.  As someone else pointed out, vaccinated people not wearing masks will only lead to non-vaccinated people not wearing masks.

We're so damn close, and there are so many people (and governments) doing everything in their power to fuck things up.

I’ll never understand why people can’t just wear masks for the sake of defeating the pandemic. It’s not like people are being tracked by the government either. It’s not a sign of the devil or anything out there. Even if people are vaccinated they should just wear the mask, especially because I know people who won’t comply and aren’t vaccinated won’t be honest and wear it. I just hope the private sector stands firm and continues to require masks for services, it just makes sense.

Edited April 7, 2021 by The Beast

[hogan873]

19 minutes ago, Middle Buffalo said:

It’s a huge sacrifice to wear a mask. Haven’t you heard?

Oh, I've heard, I have certainly heard.

[Balta1701]

1 minute ago, The Beast said:

Do we know if masks were required in the ballpark in Texas?

 

Yes, but without any real enforcement.

[StrangeSox]

 

[he gone.]

8 hours ago, hogan873 said:

We've been wearing masks for nearly a year.  For those of us vaccinated, why wouldn't we continue wearing masks for a while longer until we get the majority of the population vaccinated?  Wearing a mask to go to the store, go out to dinner, go to a baseball game is not difficult.  The only way we get out of this is to keep doing what we have been doing as the vaccines are rolled out.  As someone else pointed out, vaccinated people not wearing masks will only lead to non-vaccinated people not wearing masks.

We're so damn close, and there are so many people (and governments) doing everything in their power to fuck things up.

It's such a delicate question... so many social consequences and "freedom" thoughts.

Argument for keep wearing masks: its easy. its simple. its generally effective. it helps keep others safe. it's probably another 60 days. (kind of)

Argument against: it's likely mostly a lie that those who are vaccinated need to wear a mask (back to my first point about how they lied at the outset). the more you lie to the people, especially on such a complex subject, the less trust there is in the government which is already low to begin with. Hell, some of this pushback is already correlated with their first lie NOT to wear a mask at the outset last year. The second point, and this one is  probably the point that hits closest home for my opinion ... where does it stop? Fauci says maybe 2022 now ... vaccine passports to go to a Yankees game. how close are we to something like that in IL? at what point do you draw the line with total compliance in government? To me it feels like the goalposts continue to move. it was control the spread, keep hospital numbers down, keep beds open, limit deaths... well, we've accomplished that. how do you turn on/off the switch to normal? Texas did it and gets roasted, yet look at their numbers. at a certain point the band-aid needs to be ripped off and we're getting very close. If you don't do it soon you're just living this weird sci-fi type of existence. i feel like i'm in chapter 3 of a 15 chapter book and it's starting to get weird. 

 

For me, and maybe this is too pie in the sky simplicity ... but I'd be honest with the public if i ran a state. i'd say we're going to get shots in arms and starting May 15 it will be the choice of businesses and people if they'd like to continue wearing masks and how they operate their day to day life. It gives a hard stop, but also gives 30+ days to get shots in arms and raise vaccine numbers and herd immunity. It gives businesses a month to come up wtih their own plans. 

The crazy thing is how bumbled this whole operation was from the beginning. 

The success rate on one shot 80%

It's something like 90-95% or something if you wait two weeks for the second shot. 

If you wait like 2-3 months between shot one and two, then it jumps to like 99% (these numbers are going to be a bit off, just for simple math)

Instead of giving out these shots in two's with a few week waiting period it would've been mathematically smarter to give out DOUBLE the amount of shots to individuals increasing the herd immunity rate. Instead of having 56 million people with a vaccine, we'd have 112mm with a vaccine.  I mean it was that simple to completely slow and kill the curve. but i wouldn't expect common sense when it comes to government. How ONE state couldn't come up with that plan amazes me.  

[Balta1701]

29 minutes ago, BrianAnderson said:

It's such a delicate question... so many social consequences and "freedom" thoughts.

Argument for keep wearing masks: its easy. its simple. its generally effective. it helps keep others safe. it's probably another 60 days. (kind of)

Argument against: it's likely mostly a lie that those who are vaccinated need to wear a mask (back to my first point about how they lied at the outset). the more you lie to the people, especially on such a complex subject, the less trust there is in the government which is already low to begin with. Hell, some of this pushback is already correlated with their first lie NOT to wear a mask at the outset last year. The second point, and this one is  probably the point that hits closest home for my opinion ... where does it stop? Fauci says maybe 2022 now ... vaccine passports to go to a Yankees game. how close are we to something like that in IL? at what point do you draw the line with total compliance in government? To me it feels like the goalposts continue to move. it was control the spread, keep hospital numbers down, keep beds open, limit deaths... well, we've accomplished that. how do you turn on/off the switch to normal? Texas did it and gets roasted, yet look at their numbers. at a certain point the band-aid needs to be ripped off and we're getting very close. If you don't do it soon you're just living this weird sci-fi type of existence. i feel like i'm in chapter 3 of a 15 chapter book and it's starting to get weird. 

 

For me, and maybe this is too pie in the sky simplicity ... but I'd be honest with the public if i ran a state. i'd say we're going to get shots in arms and starting May 15 it will be the choice of businesses and people if they'd like to continue wearing masks and how they operate their day to day life. It gives a hard stop, but also gives 30+ days to get shots in arms and raise vaccine numbers and herd immunity. It gives businesses a month to come up wtih their own plans. 

The crazy thing is how bumbled this whole operation was from the beginning. 

The success rate on one shot 80%

It's something like 90-95% or something if you wait two weeks for the second shot. 

If you wait like 2-3 months between shot one and two, then it jumps to like 99% (these numbers are going to be a bit off, just for simple math)

Instead of giving out these shots in two's with a few week waiting period it would've been mathematically smarter to give out DOUBLE the amount of shots to individuals increasing the herd immunity rate. Instead of having 56 million people with a vaccine, we'd have 112mm with a vaccine.  I mean it was that simple to completely slow and kill the curve. but i wouldn't expect common sense when it comes to government. How ONE state couldn't come up with that plan amazes me.  

Well first of all, "Stop the spread, keep hospital numbers down, keep deaths down" - we completely failed at all of that by any standard. 800 people are still dying of this thing per day. The numbers we are seeing right now - 20,000 deaths a month - seemed nightmarish a year ago.

Second, the problem right now is we don't know the answer to your questions. What we know right now is that there are variants currently out there that the vaccines are far less effective against and that transmit more easily. The 90-95% success rate is against the original "Wild type". Those numbers seem to drop to 60-70% against the South African variant, which is why the J&J Shot was shown to be less effective - because it was tested in part there. Those numbers mean that the virus will still be able to transmit itself fairly effectively unless an overwhelming number of people (80% or more) get the shots. So, what fraction of people will refuse the shot? I don't know. Will there be any other manufacturing errors, like the one that just fouled 15 million doses of J&J? I don't know. If I set a May 15 deadline, and that enables more rapid spread of one of these variants, that is a problem.

But, the bigger problem is that this is biology. The first vaccinated people have only been out in the world for a couple months not. Prior to that, if the virus mutated into a variant that was more able to affect vaccinated individuals, that variant would not have been selected for. Instead, the first round of selections was for things that were easier to transmit - those are the ones going around right now. The biggest threat out there remains that we will unwittingly produce and spread a variant that shows substantial immunity to the current vaccines, because all of a sudden we could be back to square 1, or at least close to it. So, if you say you are ending mask mandates on May 15, and a new variant has popped up in the US and is spreading in June - there's a problem. If you give 1/2 doses, and that creates a lot of people with partial immunity to the virus, you create a scenario where evolution of the virus is more likely. 

Dr. Fauci has specifically said this - he gives next year for a worst case scenario on mask mandates, because he doesn't know what the virus is going to do. Hopefully we can beat that timing, but it is not required, and doing things like "Single vaccine doses" and "vaccinated people not wearing masks" could absolutely set us back.

[RTC]

On 4/1/2021 at 12:27 PM, Dick Allen said:

It's possible, but not probable. She has had at least 2 antibody tests before her vaccine, and has several covid tests, since the pandemic started. One theory is she could have another coronavirus in her, and it's attacking that. So far, every test she has taken have come up normal. Still awaiting several more results. 

How is she doing?  Hopefully arrow is pointing up. 

[Heads22]

Got shot number two today. Arm definitely more sore than after the first one, kind of feel like I have the sniffles tonight.

[caulfield12]

Two more weeks to go before the mysterious second Chinese vaccine shot...

[Balta1701]

13 hours ago, bmags said:

Let's say there are 400 people per million in texas with covid currently. But that is perfectly distributed within the stadium of 38,000. That's 15 people in the stadium. Now let's say in their section, they have 4 people next to them, and 3 in front within 5 feet. That's 105 people at risk. Now let's assume all 105 people would normally get covid, but since it's outside, they are only 5% likely to contract. That's 5.25 people, and that's assuming 0 vaccinated people, zero mask mitigation, but we can see there was still quite a bit of masks at the game.

But we can also see there is quite a bit of masks, and we know about Dallas County, 36% have some protection with first shot.

These numbers are just as back of the napkin, and yes, ideally you wait a month. But the amount of handwringing beaches and outdoor events like these get compared to what is driving much of the spread is completely out of whack. Illinois could continue to spike, and we'll have a discussion on the baseball stadiums, when 95% of it will likely be families driving to visit families in michigan and vice versa, attending restaurants, and going to work for 8 hours a day.

Yes, it's better for texas to cut capacity at least in half. 

Didn't have time to do all this earlier today. First of all, the spacing between seats in a ballpark is on average 20 inches. That means there are 6 people just in a single row within 5 feet. If I assumed that the rows are slightly wider than the seat spacing, there would be 26 people within a 6 foot radius. While the people behind may not be exposed, people in front will be getting regular exchange of air, and it could well go farther than that distance limit. Over 15 minutes - not likely to infect anyone. Over 3+ hours? Much better chance. When that roof gets closed later this season? Even less airflow in and out.

But there's one other detail. Globe Life Field hosts 100 suites, each of which is partially to totally enclosed and holds 20 to 80 people. There are luxury suites, party suites. Again, 3+ hours in each spot, and you can probably guess how much they will enforce masking in that setting. Effectively, it's like having 100 different indoor restaurants open at a single time in one spot. Their website would like you to know that they disinfect surfaces in them nightly. 

Texas isn't spiking right now...because B.1.1.7 was introduced on the East Coast, and is expanding as though it's a new outbreak from there. 

[Tony]

I’m a fully-vaxxed boy. Feels good

[caulfield12]

1 hour ago, Tony said:

I’m a fully-vaxxed boy. Feels good

First reading I thought it said "waxed," then again, I thought a poster was calling you out personally in the post-game and not Tony LaRussa...

[Dick Allen]

11 hours ago, RTC said:

How is she doing?  Hopefully arrow is pointing up. 

Thanks for asking. She is pretty much the same. I took her to a pulmonologist yesterday. She had 8 tests and has to go to the hospital today for 2 more. I think she has had over 20 vials of blood taken the last couple of weeks, and every test comes back normal, except for her elevated white blood cell count. The issue is, if it is the vaccine, (and while in the beginning they were saying it could be, but not really buying it, now I think they are thinking it's really possible), they have no treatment. 

Another issue is she was diagnosed with asthma a little over a year ago. Last fall she had a really bad cough. Her primary thought it was related to the asthma, but they did give her a CT scan in November. She called several times for the results, and never got an answer. We figured no news is good news. When all this started, her primary looked at her records and eventually saw the CT scan,  which she missed earlier, and now they think she may have fungal pneumonia which she would be walking around with for about 5 months since the CT scan. Of course, there doesn't seem to be one test that can give the answer. It's very bizarre. She has top of the line insurance, and gets this type of care. The pulmonologist basically told her that her neurologist blew her off yesterday. I could only imagine what people with shitty or no insurance must get.  

[caulfield12]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/covid-19-coronavirus-oxford-vaccine-astrazeneca-sarah-gilbert-vaccitech-adrian-hill-new-york-ipo-085002383.html
 

Two Oxford doctors behind AstroZeneca vaccine about to be worth $27.5 million apiece.

Better hope that the blood clotting issue for women under 30/pregnancy complications gets cleared up.

[he gone.]

10 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

Didn't have time to do all this earlier today. First of all, the spacing between seats in a ballpark is on average 20 inches. That means there are 6 people just in a single row within 5 feet. If I assumed that the rows are slightly wider than the seat spacing, there would be 26 people within a 6 foot radius. While the people behind may not be exposed, people in front will be getting regular exchange of air, and it could well go farther than that distance limit. Over 15 minutes - not likely to infect anyone. Over 3+ hours? Much better chance. When that roof gets closed later this season? Even less airflow in and out.

But there's one other detail. Globe Life Field hosts 100 suites, each of which is partially to totally enclosed and holds 20 to 80 people. There are luxury suites, party suites. Again, 3+ hours in each spot, and you can probably guess how much they will enforce masking in that setting. Effectively, it's like having 100 different indoor restaurants open at a single time in one spot. Their website would like you to know that they disinfect surfaces in them nightly. 

Texas isn't spiking right now...because B.1.1.7 was introduced on the East Coast, and is expanding as though it's a new outbreak from there. 

The problem is the glossing over of some instances and focusing on others. Not talking about you specifically. Just overall. I flew on a plane last month and it was packed. Every single seat taken. So much so American was offering $200 to change your flight. That has been going on for how long now? But that is largely ignored by media. Texas has been open for 3 weeks and that part is ignored. Then we latch on (not you, society, media, people who want their narrative to win, etc.) (also i get im probably on the other side of this in the equal and opposite way so i am just as guilty) to events like Opening Day at Texas and say that will be the spreader event. it's almost like people are cheering for this to continue. We've got to the point that the most vulnerable are protected. The rest of society has the choice to resume life or not resume life to a pretty good chance of certainty. 

There will be variants. This is not going away. And maybe I'm a bad person ... but like everything in the world, there are consequences for actions. At this point it's just life IMO. you're going to lose some people, but we've reached the tipping point on the scales where i think we move forward. 

It's not a surprise that the US was hit harder... we are a fat nation. Europe was hit harder... not as fat, but still fat ... 

https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/04/health/obesity-covid-death-rate-intl/index.html -- TEN TIMES HIGHER! TEN TIMES! If we spent even 5% of the money we spent on Covid pushing an obesity narrative we'd be way better off. 68% of American's are overweight! 7 out of 10!!! How many ads and commercials have you seen where they say a mask cuts transmission and improves your chance of living by 98% or whatever the number is .... now i know being fit doesn't stop transmission, but what if they pushed it saying 90% stronger chance you survive? I dunno, i'm a weirdo. I think we're missing the boat here ... we're so focused on this issue that we miss like the top 20 other issues that make our society continuously sick. Thanks for coming to my TED talk haha. I get too worked up about this subject lol - i think it's better to go back to getting worked up about the sox only hah. I'm not anti-safety, and respect all of your opinions and keeping it safe too, just worried about how this all ends (unpayable debts pushed on future generations, inflation, still a sick society, permanent job loss, etc. etc.)

The report found that every country where less than 40% of the population was overweight had a low Covid-19 death rate of no more than 10 people per 100,000.

Vietnam had one of the world's lowest Covid-19 death rates, with 0.04 deaths occurring per 100,000 people. The country's overweight population comes in at 18.3%. Other countries on the low death rate list with similar patterns include Japan, Thailand and South Korea.

But in countries where more than 50% of the population was overweight, the Covid-19 death rate was much higher -- more than 100 per 100,000.

 

 

[Tony]

10 hours ago, Tony said:

I’m a fully-vaxxed boy. Feels good

Feels not so today haha. Just sore and achy. Hopefully it’s just today