COVID-19/Coronavirus thread

[Texsox]

12 hours ago, Balta1701 said:

 this video probably isn’t legal, so watch it while you can. This is Texas’s success story.

I don’t know the veracity of that report but we got several dozen large morgue units earlier this week.

That 400 truck quote exaggerated by a factor of 100x. They sent four trucks. Still chilling. 

[bmags]

1 minute ago, Texsox said:

Are you certain they don't change classrooms? Here in Texas they do. Not as often as middle school, but a few times a day. Plus specials like music, art, and PE. 

They will not now, and having a single room in elementary school is very easy compared to others where there is no home room.

PE is out, art/music travels in many districts already.

[Balta1701]

3 hours ago, bmags said:

It’s 4th and 5th. And considering elementary doesn’t change classrooms it makes case that elementary school is most able to go in person for some days at least. That is what oak park is doing, split b/w HS (all online) and elementary (2-1-2)

Isn't that a bad thing? If you have people changing classrooms and wearing masks and the people are below 10 then that makes it less likely they'll pass along a dose that can get someone infected in the time they're with them, but if they're in the same room for 8 hours...

[caulfield12]

 

Fauci early in the pandemic had asked the public not to go out and buy the N95 masks because they were needed by health professionals. He has now strongly advocated for people to wear some type of face coverage, and last week urged governors and mayors to "be as forceful as possible" to get people to wear face coverings.

During the Sunday interview, Trump ultimately admitted that he himself had made some mistakes in the coronavirus response but said he would "be right eventually."

When host Chris Wallace asked if Trump's errors discredited him, the President said he didn't think so, claiming he has "been right probably more than anybody else."
 

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/19/politics/trump-fauci-alarmist-coronavirus/index.html

 

and Trump stuck to what he had said back in February — that the virus is “going to disappear.” On Fox, he said, “I'll be right eventually.” The United States tops the global death toll list with over 140,000 and confirmed infections, with 3.7 million.

Edited July 19, 2020 by caulfield12

[bmags]

1 hour ago, Balta1701 said:

Isn't that a bad thing? If you have people changing classrooms and wearing masks and the people are below 10 then that makes it less likely they'll pass along a dose that can get someone infected in the time they're with them, but if they're in the same room for 8 hours...

Obviously no, it is not a bad thing.

[caulfield12]

“But, sir, testing is up 37 percent,” Wallace said.

“Well, that's good,” Trump responded.

Wallace: “I understand. Cases are up 194 percent. It isn't just that testing has gone up, it's that the virus has spread. The positivity rate has increased.”

At that juncture, Trump resorted to claiming that the coronavirus isn’t actually all that bad: “Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test. Many of them — don't forget, I guess it's like 99.7 percent, people are going to get better and in many cases they’re going to get better very quickly.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said last week, “I do think this fall and winter of 2020, 2021, are probably going to be one of the most difficult times that we’ve experienced in American public health.”

“I don't know and I don't think he knows. I don't think anybody knows with this. This is a very tricky deal,” Trump said.

To support his dismissal of scientific expertise on the pandemic, he cited misleading speculation, early in the pandemic, that it might disappear in the summer.

“Everybody thought this summer it would go away and it would come back in the fall,” said Trump. “Well, when the summer came, they used to say the heat — the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? And then it might come back in the fall. So they got that one wrong.”

The first prominent person to make that claim was Trump himself, back in February, when he said, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-interview-fox-sunday-chris-wallace-coronavirus-biden-151605902.html

[Dick Allen]

16 hours ago, caulfield12 said:

“But, sir, testing is up 37 percent,” Wallace said.

“Well, that's good,” Trump responded.

Wallace: “I understand. Cases are up 194 percent. It isn't just that testing has gone up, it's that the virus has spread. The positivity rate has increased.”

At that juncture, Trump resorted to claiming that the coronavirus isn’t actually all that bad: “Many of those cases are young people that would heal in a day. They have the sniffles and we put it down as a test. Many of them — don't forget, I guess it's like 99.7 percent, people are going to get better and in many cases they’re going to get better very quickly.”

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Robert Redfield said last week, “I do think this fall and winter of 2020, 2021, are probably going to be one of the most difficult times that we’ve experienced in American public health.”

“I don't know and I don't think he knows. I don't think anybody knows with this. This is a very tricky deal,” Trump said.

To support his dismissal of scientific expertise on the pandemic, he cited misleading speculation, early in the pandemic, that it might disappear in the summer.

“Everybody thought this summer it would go away and it would come back in the fall,” said Trump. “Well, when the summer came, they used to say the heat — the heat was good for it and it really knocks it out, remember? And then it might come back in the fall. So they got that one wrong.”

The first prominent person to make that claim was Trump himself, back in February, when he said, “Looks like by April, you know, in theory, when it gets a little warmer, it miraculously goes away.”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-interview-fox-sunday-chris-wallace-coronavirus-biden-151605902.html

He also is sticking with it will just go away. Eventually I will be right. It's like someone hitting on 19 at a blackjack table. You do it enough, eventually you may be "right" no matter how wrong you have been.

[caulfield12]

17 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

He also is sticking with it will just go away. Eventually I will be right. It's like someone hitting on 19 at a blackjack table. You do it enough, eventually you may be "right" no matter how wrong you have been.

Or the broken clock is precisely correct two times per day analogy.

 

Wonder how many others will join Dwight Howard in the “not believing in either masks or vaccinations crowd“?

Kyrie Irving?   Carl Everett?

https://www.yahoo.com/sports/los-angeles-lakers-dwight-howard-coronavirus-covid19-pandemic-mask-nba-bubble-disney-world-antivax-vaccinations-225303804.html

Edited July 20, 2020 by caulfield12

[Dick Allen]

Wear a mask. What the hell do you have to lose?

[Brian]

46 minutes ago, Dick Allen said:

Wear a mask. What the hell do you have to lose?

MY RIGHTS AND MY FREEDOMS AND I'M IN AMERICA AND IT'S MY FACE AND MY BODY!!

[StrangeSox]

18 hours ago, bmags said:

Obviously no, it is not a bad thing.

You'd have to figure out where the risk inflection point is on the chart for "spending 7 hours with 15 kids vs. spending 1 hour with 5 sets of 15 kids," but it's probably much less risky to be with that small group rather than cross-contaminating all day. The difference between being with an infected person for 1 hour vs 7 is probably pretty small, and if you're seeing multiple classes you're increasing your odds of coming in contact with an infected person.

 

 

The FDA gave EUA for test pooling up to 4 people. The Harvard doc on a recent episode of TWiV argued strongly in favor of test pooling. The idea is you can increase the throughput of the testing greatly by running 4 samples at once. In places with a low enough positivity rate, like Illinois, a big majority of the batches will come back negative, and now you've just reduced the testing time for those 4 people by 75%. If the batch tests positive, then you re-run the individual samples to narrow it down. It can be very efficient at screening down to the trouble spots. Not sure how well it'd work when you're in an area with 30% positivity rate like some states though.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-first-emergency-authorization-sample-pooling-diagnostic

[bmags]

6 minutes ago, StrangeSox said:

You'd have to figure out where the risk inflection point is on the chart for "spending 7 hours with 15 kids vs. spending 1 hour with 5 sets of 15 kids," but it's probably much less risky to be with that small group rather than cross-contaminating all day. The difference between being with an infected person for 1 hour vs 7 is probably pretty small, and if you're seeing multiple classes you're increasing your odds of coming in contact with an infected person.

 

 

The FDA gave EUA for test pooling up to 4 people. The Harvard doc on a recent episode of TWiV argued strongly in favor of test pooling. The idea is you can increase the throughput of the testing greatly by running 4 samples at once. In places with a low enough positivity rate, like Illinois, a big majority of the batches will come back negative, and now you've just reduced the testing time for those 4 people by 75%. If the batch tests positive, then you re-run the individual samples to narrow it down. It can be very efficient at screening down to the trouble spots. Not sure how well it'd work when you're in an area with 30% positivity rate like some states though.

https://www.fda.gov/news-events/press-announcements/coronavirus-covid-19-update-fda-issues-first-emergency-authorization-sample-pooling-diagnostic

Also you’d want to know the effects of opening a window (subways showed opening windows on cars was beneficial) and what freaking should have happened in April which is the fed govt helping scale production of medical grade air filtering to be installed in schools. Both could easily counteract with this purportedly smaller amount of viral exertion.

[bmags]

Oxford/AstroZeneca reporter promising results again today. Them and Moderna continuing to lead, I’d probably put my money on Oxford who has a better track record.

[bmags]

 

[caulfield12]

https://www.forbes.com/sites/michaeltnietzel/2020/07/01/june-brought-more-layoffs-and-growing-faculty-pushback/#3aba1d61fcae

University teachers/professors are being laid off across the country...and K-12 won't be far behind.

There was another more recent article which quoted huge losses/consolidation at the University of Akron, smaller/private liberal arts school and larger/research-based public universities.  Cuts across the University of Michigan system, Northern Arizona, etc.

Can't seem to find that particular, but the general point remains.

The knock on will be the increase in private tutoring/online/one-on-one instruction, with MANY K-12 teachers retiring early and/or not being replaced as class sizes increased with more and more accommodated by online instruction, which doesn't have limits like a unionized high school class typically would (let's say, 33-35 students per room without a special/emergency provision granted to increase those numbers.)

 

Obviously, Balta has already written about this extensively.  And, there's that other side of this with teachers/families losing critical health care coverage for their families as well.

[bmags]

A concern, the valuations of these companies have ezploded, but vaccines aren’t a huge money maker. And there will be losers. 

 

[caulfield12]

Between Oxford/AstroZeneca, Sanofi (French company), Johnson & Johnson, Gilead, Moderna, the 3 major Chinese efforts, the Gates Foundation...Abbott, Pfizer, Glaxo, etc., who's the best positioned right now?

Not for investment purposes, because that's completely an overinflated/over-speculated bubble right now, but more from who's likeliest to succeed and for it to "stick"???

[Texsox]

I'm puzzled by students making the choice to not attend college this semester. The job market is horrible, especially for "general purpose" applicants. So what will you be doing? Sitting around the house? The economy is in a stall. This isn't NASCAR, you can pass on a yellow flag*

 

*That's damn fine writing for a sports message board. 

[bmags]

6 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I'm puzzled by students making the choice to not attend college this semester. The job market is horrible, especially for "general purpose" applicants. So what will you be doing? Sitting around the house? The economy is in a stall. This isn't NASCAR, you can pass on a yellow flag*

 

*That's damn fine writing for a sports message board. 

Well, if they think 2nd semester is more likely to be in person, they may skip paying full tuition for a semester for a diminished experience and just graduate in 4.5 years.

Perhaps they could watch other peoples kids and make money.

Maybe that could even be facilitated through a fed program like americorps.

[Jose Abreu]

8 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I'm puzzled by students making the choice to not attend college this semester. The job market is horrible, especially for "general purpose" applicants. So what will you be doing? Sitting around the house? The economy is in a stall. This isn't NASCAR, you can pass on a yellow flag*

 

*That's damn fine writing for a sports message board. 

While I am "going back" (online) for the year, some of my friends are not because they don't think it's worthwhile to pay tens of thousands of dollars for online education. To them, sitting around and making little to no money is a better option to paying money to (in their view) not really get what you're paying for.

 

Personally, I'm going into my senior year so I just want to get it over with. But if I were a rising freshman or sophomore, I would definitely look into trying to find some sort of job/extended internship and taking a year off from school. 

[Texsox]

For most students there are electives and some gen ed classes that they could take. If you don't want to spend that money at Gynormous U then register at the community college and earn the credits. 

[bmags]

2 minutes ago, Texsox said:

For most students there are electives and some gen ed classes that they could take. If you don't want to spend that money at Gynormous U then register at the community college and earn the credits. 

Maybe they are. These kids are thrown into a horrible situation, I think they deserve more understanding than mockery.

[Kyyle23]

18 minutes ago, Texsox said:

I'm puzzled by students making the choice to not attend college this semester. The job market is horrible, especially for "general purpose" applicants. So what will you be doing? Sitting around the house? The economy is in a stall. This isn't NASCAR, you can pass on a yellow flag*

 

*That's damn fine writing for a sports message board. 

My daughter hates online learning and is considering taking next semester off because of it.  She is a straight A student too, and is planning on attending UofI after getting her associates at ECC

 

 It's that simple, some people just have a hard time with it.

[Texsox]

Just now, bmags said:

Maybe they are. These kids are thrown into a horrible situation, I think they deserve more understanding than mockery.

I hope my post didn't come off as mockery. I basically teach a class about getting into college, staying in college, paying for college, etc, It is a horrible situation. M point is don't put your life on hold for six months, do something to move it forward. If you are a history major, knocking off that algebra class on line isn't a bad idea. Engineering major? Get that history class checked off. 

[Soxbadger]

Just now, Texsox said:

I hope my post didn't come off as mockery. I basically teach a class about getting into college, staying in college, paying for college, etc, It is a horrible situation. M point is don't put your life on hold for six months, do something to move it forward. If you are a history major, knocking off that algebra class on line isn't a bad idea. Engineering major? Get that history class checked off. 

Back in my day we spent thousands of dollars a semester to skip class because we stayed out too late drinking and prioritized Madden franchises.

That would have been my biggest gripe, that Id have missed out on a year of fun because there would be no football games, no Halloween parties, etc.