Americans Avoiding Corona....

[aDave]

Mar 13, 2020 19:31:18 GMT -5 reynedrop said:

I have mixed feelings about schools closing, especially elementary. Personally, I think as long as the kids don't have high-risk individuals at home and the teachers aren't high-risk either, it's a PERFECT place for kids to be. Corona will go around, the kids will recover easily, they'll build up immunity, then we have a good head start on some herd immunity. Also, if a nurse or other healthcare worker has to be home now with kids, that's one less "human resource" available to help with critical cases.

Unfortunately, there are at least two fallacies in your hypothetical.

First, just because someone gets the virus doesn't automatically mean they are immune form getting it again. I'v heard numerous sources indicate that the virus can be repeated in those who have had it before. www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-japan-korea-coronavirus-reinfection-test-positive . So much for herd immunity.  I will admit that some of the repeat cases may be due to errors in testing, but there's seemingly no clear answer just yet.

Secondly, you're assuming that kids who go to school and contract the virus won't have an impact on those other than high risk folks at home. I disagree.

Let's just say you have an open school and one kid has the virus. He passes it to other kids. All of those kids pass it along to their parents at home who continue to do stuff as they have day-to-day. Not being symptomatic, they go to work, shop around town, and do whatever it is that they do on any given day.

Before any of the adults become symptomatic, they've already (potentially) spread the virus exponentially.

IMHO, your scenario only works if parents have chosen to lock down and don't go anywhere while their kids are attending school. Let's not even begin to count staff who may not be symptomatic and go about their day-to-day lives after they leave campus.

[greig]

If you notice the lie that "the risk is low" has now changed to be "the risk of severe complications is low". Lockdowns in many areas are being set up. In the US, military and their families are not allowed more than 50 miles from base. That is probably to reduce the risk of transporting infection, but could also be a "don't panic" way of setting things up so they all remain available for call-up. Interesting times.

[reynedrop]

Mar 14, 2020 20:02:26 GMT -5 aDave said:

Mar 13, 2020 19:31:18 GMT -5 reynedrop said:

I have mixed feelings about schools closing, especially elementary. Personally, I think as long as the kids don't have high-risk individuals at home and the teachers aren't high-risk either, it's a PERFECT place for kids to be. Corona will go around, the kids will recover easily, they'll build up immunity, then we have a good head start on some herd immunity. Also, if a nurse or other healthcare worker has to be home now with kids, that's one less "human resource" available to help with critical cases.

Unfortunately, there are at least two fallacies in your hypothetical.

First, just because someone gets the virus doesn't automatically mean they are immune form getting it again. I'v heard numerous sources indicate that the virus can be repeated in those who have had it before. www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2020-03-13/china-japan-korea-coronavirus-reinfection-test-positive . So much for herd immunity.

Secondly, you're assuming that kids who go to school and contract the virus won't have an impact on those other that high risk folks at home. I disagree.

Let's just say you have an open school and one kid has the virus. He passes it to other kids. All of those kids pass it along to their parents at home who continue to do stuff as they have day-to-day. Not being symptomatic, they go to work, shop around town, and do whatever it is that they do on any given day.

Before any of the adults become symptomatic, they've already (potentially) spread the virus exponentially.

IMHO, your scenario only works if parents have chosen to lock down and don't go anywhere while their kids are attending school. Let's not even begin to count staff who may not be symptomatic and go about their day-to-day lives after they leave campus.

Have read the article, addressed it on FB and don’t currently have the energy to fully go into immunology and my distrust of China in general.

This isn’t a virus like chicken pox where you get it once and you’re immune forever. We know this already. But that’s not entirely what herd immunity is about. Part of why this virus is so scary is because we don’t have any antibodies against the proteins yet in our SOCIETY because it’s so different from the other Coronas we’ve seen. This WILL mutate, we know that already. But if we can get some antibodies now, when it mutates, we will have a better go when we get infected again. It’s kind of like the flu shot. There isn’t one antibody per each virus; there are multiple antibodies to PROTEINS the virus makes. As it mutates, some proteins change, but if we have antibodies to some of the proteins, we can fight off the virus a little better. Eventually we would hope we have enough antibodies in the public in general so those who are immunocompromised aren’t exposed to as many virus particles and thus they are less likely to get sick.

As far as China goes: reinfection is a possibility, but so is inaccurate diagnostic initially and discharging from hospital before they are truly well. Also immunocompromised is possible where they don’t have enough antibodies in general, but this is gonna be rare.

I do agree that adults can spread from children- but kids will 100% be spreading this anyway. You bring them to the grocery store with you, and they have the chance to infect MANY more people. And unfortunately we know that parents aren’t going to leave young children home alone while they do the things they need to do. They’ll go to daycare, or parents will stop going to work (again, that’s a problem because nurses who are parents to young children are usually young, healthy nurses who will be critical in community care). Ultimately, I don’t think closing elementary schools in communities without a high burden is going to solve anything or “flatten the curve” as the new phrase is. Kids are still going to be part of the community as long as parents are, and we can’t close down the bigger places where disease will spread.

Also, to synthesize both of your concerns: if people get constantly reinfected there is no way to control infection and thus we would be in this lock down state for a long ass time. This would put stress on all industries, our economy would start to collapse (maybe across the world), and if we kept going in that direction, children aren’t being educated and this would lead to more social collapse.

Also: we want people to get infected. We are WAY past containment where people can avoid infection as a whole. It IS coming to your area, it’s probably already there, and it will be there whether you poke your head out your door today or in 30 days. You WILL be exposed, and your town WILL see a majority of its citizens infected. It is inevitable. What we want is for infection to occur at a slower rate than we are currently seeing. We need some people to get infected now so the curve is “flattened,” not just shifted over to the left.

AFAIK, this virus will never leave. It’s too infectious and not deadly enough to die out. It is going to be part of our viral flora as a species. So it’s not a matter of surviving a “pandemic” once, it’s a matter of everybody having enough antibodies to enough of the virus’s proteins to make it much more tolerable.

[aDave]

Mar 14, 2020 20:25:59 GMT -5 reynedrop said:

I do agree that adults can spread from children- but kids will 100% be spreading this anyway. You bring them to the grocery store with you, and they have the chance to infect MANY more people. And unfortunately we know that parents aren’t going to leave young children home alone while they do the things they need to do. They’ll go to daycare, or parents will stop going to work (again, that’s a problem because nurses who are parents to young children are usually young, healthy nurses who will be critical in community care). Ultimately, I don’t think closing elementary schools in communities without a high burden is going to solve anything or “flatten the curve” as the new phrase is. Kids are still going to be part of the community as long as parents are, and we can’t close down the bigger places where disease will spread.

Out of your entire reply, I find this most comical. What I see you saying is that kids are going to spread it anyway, so just let them spread it and don't protect from it. Keep the schools open, as it's going to happen no matter what precautions are taken.  That may be true, but the attitude, IMHO, is pretty flippant.

Here is where we majorly disagree in how the exposure from kids should be handled. I'm good with closing schools to keep those most likely to not exhibit symptoms passing the virus along to adults who will go along in their daily lives and spread the virus from there.  You seem to just let things go as they may.

[parfive]

Immunity today may not be worth a hill of beans mañana.
Just not as many varieties as the regular flu . . . yet.



Chinese scientists identify two strains of the coronavirus, indicating it’s already mutated at least once

www.cnbc.com/2020/03/04/coronavirus-chinese-scientists-identify-two-types-covid-19.html

academic.oup.com/nsr/advance-article/doi/10.1093/nsr/nwaa036/5775463?searchresult=1

[Benathema]

Yea, just because kids aren't showing symptoms doesn't mean we should pile them all up together in one place. Kids are notoriously bad at self hygiene - putting crap in their mouth, picking their nose etc... This thing is pretty damn contagious, so we'd be looking at a high rate of infection in the schools. We're fortunate that kids aren't getting knocked down by this - there's already a lot going on as it is.

Schools rely on winter break and spring break to help "reset the clock" during cold and flu season. I'm damn certain the governors that had to make the call did not do so lightly, knowing full well the burden it would place on families. The last thing we need is for this virus to mutate and start taking out children... We just don't play dice when it comes to our kids.

[reynedrop]

Mar 14, 2020 20:52:46 GMT -5 aDave said:

Mar 14, 2020 20:25:59 GMT -5 reynedrop said:

I do agree that adults can spread from children- but kids will 100% be spreading this anyway. You bring them to the grocery store with you, and they have the chance to infect MANY more people. And unfortunately we know that parents aren’t going to leave young children home alone while they do the things they need to do. They’ll go to daycare, or parents will stop going to work (again, that’s a problem because nurses who are parents to young children are usually young, healthy nurses who will be critical in community care). Ultimately, I don’t think closing elementary schools in communities without a high burden is going to solve anything or “flatten the curve” as the new phrase is. Kids are still going to be part of the community as long as parents are, and we can’t close down the bigger places where disease will spread.

Out of your entire reply, I find this most comical. What I see you saying is that kids are going to spread it anyway, so just let them spread it and don't protect from it. Keep the schools open, as it's going to happen no matter what precautions are taken.  That may be true, but the attitude, IMHO, is pretty flippant.

Here is where we majorly disagree in how the exposure from kids should be handled. I'm good with closing schools to keep those most likely to not exhibit symptoms passing the virus along to adults who will go along in their daily lives and spread the virus from there.  You seem to just let things go as they may.

I think we both want the same thing, just see the risk of school vs no school differently. You see no school as kids staying home. I see no school as kids going out into multiple public locations more often, because the alternative (parents staying home) is unlikely with the people I know. All the people on my FB who have kids with cancelled schools are NOT staying home/isolating but doing things like going to the grocery store, taking kids to public parks, etc. When we look at activities performed, how often touched items pass hands, and sheer volume of people, grocery stores especially just seem much more risky to me than schools do- but we can both agree, I think, that people still need food. Yes, they would spend much less time at a grocery store, but they are in direct contact with many more people. One child infected + one adult possibly infected are much more infections that just one adult possibly infected. 

If adults put kids in daycares instead of school, then *the risk of spreading infection is almost the same.* Remember, we are speaking about elementary schools here, NOT middle or high.  Kids in elementary schools tend to have the same interactions in school as they do in daycares- and again, this is based on where I live and the people I know- but daycares for elementary school children are not dramatically smaller than class sizes. So all that's happening here is parents are paying more money than they have budgeted- which, for a month, is probably not going to dramatically affect the majority, but for what is a very minimal change in infection potential, I just personally do not see the societal value.

Note, though: the societal value in MY community may very well be different than the societal value in another community. What happens in Tiny Ass Montana is NOT the same as Seattle. My opinions about closing schools are related to MY community- not yours. I do not know your community.

My apparent "flippant" attitude might be because I see NO way to contain the virus at this point. Thus, I believe extreme containment protocols aren't going to have an overall positive effect. I am hearing from you that you think I just want everybody to go business as usual. in no way am I saying "let things go as they may," but rather that instead of attempting something futile (containment), we look at the fact that this virus is going to be here for a long time and attempt to find a way to live a new "normal." Living in "panic mode" is not sustainable in the long run. Those I know are overwhelming falling into a dichotomy of "this is the worst thing ever and we all need to shut everything down and isolate everybody and everything for a month or longer" OR "this isn't even that deadly, so I'll just go about my old daily life." Neither response is good right now. Panic mode will NOT make this virus disappear, and there is no way that we can just return to our old daily life afterwards, because the virus will still be there, ready to be transmitted to our most vulnerable populations. And, duh, doing everything "normally" now spreads virus as we spread it when we are asymptomatic.

My point about wanting infections is that we cannot have 0 infections and expect it to stay that way. The more days we have 0 infections does NOT mean the less likely we are to have this spread throughout our township/city/county/state/etc. The most IDEAL situation, actually, is to have enough infections that we are operating lower than, but close to, our healthcare system capacity. Reducing the infection rate below our healthcare system capacity doesn't save any more lives. If we have it lower *because* of the panic mode, we either have to stay in that panic mode to maintain that capacity, which means we will be in "panic mode" much longer than our society can support, or we risk a huge spike above capacity when we "return to normal." My experience with my community is that they do not "slowly return to normal" in a way that would reduce that risk. The people you live around may be different.

These are just my thoughts. We all have different ones. I think we also all want the same things: fewest deaths and least strain on society. We live in different communities, and I can almost guarantee we won't agree on this subject no matter what the other says. Neither one of us a policy maker, and none of this will come into politics/elections/whatever. Debating, getting upset, or making judgements on the other (regarding attitude or personally) is pointless anyway. So I'm just gonna leave this here and get back to the rocks

[fernwood]

Some of the day cares by me are closing as well. Parents are scrambling to find child care.

[MsAli]

Anyone remember this?


www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/cdcresponse.htm

I attended my Ex-husbands Aunts funeral when she died from it, so I remember it clearly.

What I dont recall is the level of panic then or the closures, basically just shutting everything down and that was one nasty virus that lasted into 2010.

[MsAli]

BTW there is an outbreak of listeria.

Hope y'all have toilet paper.

Or just dont eat the eggs


www.cdc.gov/listeria/outbreaks/eggs-12-19/index.html



WASH YOUR HANDS!

[fernwood]

Vaguely remember h1n1. There were no shut downs and hoarding of supplies where I lived.

[fernwood]

I am not in a state of panic.

Last night at work, we had a St. Patrick's Day party with a live band.
It was very busy, since most of the other musical performances in the area had been cancelled.
I am guessing we had over 250 customers.

We enhanced sanitary precautions. Tried to remove all glassware and wipe bar/table areas and stools immediately after customers left. Frequent sanitizing of door handles.
My co-worker and I were running like a finely tuned machine. One person serving customers. One person removing glasses and wiping things down. We were both washing/sanitizing/using bleach water on hands frequently.

I only noticed a few customers with colds or seasonal allergies. Not to say that there could have been some there who had Corona, but no symptoms.

Granted, the close contact we had with customers could have infected us. My co-worker has a compromised immune system. I am still recovering from the February flu and now have seasonal allergies.

Everyone present had a great time. Lots of dancing, laughter, foot stomping, hand clapping, beer flowing.
Many customers told us it was just what the community needed. When almost all events are being cancelled, we brought a sense of normalcy.

[knave]

Our church services just got canceled for the week.

[fernwood]

Natural Supports?
That has become a key word around here lately.

If school/day care is closed, then working parents should rely on friends/family members to take care of their children. This would include the Natural Support assisting school age children with attending the online classes that school districts are offering. In some cases this would require multiple care givers and a lot. One (or more) to take children to a library so they can access a computer and attend classes. Yes, there are many around here with no internet access and no home computer.
Some schools issue tablets/lap tops to students. One care giver needed to stay at home with any children not in school.
Families are encouraged not to take children to public places (other than library as needed to attend classes).

If someone is elderly and ill, they need someone to get/prepare food for them if they are not receiving Meals on Wheels. All Senior food sites are closed.

If anyone is ill with potential Conona symptoms, they are being encouraged to stay home if they are not in an at risk group or have major symptoms.
All visits to ER with Corona type symptoms must be pre-approved so staff can prepare. Needed transportation should be done by friends/family members.
Any needed supplies such as food, medicine, etc., should be purchased online or by family members.

Family members and friends are encouraged to check on elderly and those who are ill. Ensure they are doing OK and find out if they need anything. Needs include everything mentioned above. Provided what is needed.

Local hospitals are allowing visitors for end of life only. No others allowed. Maternity wards are allowing a support person to be present during births.

Most area care facilities are on lock down and allowing no visitors or scheduled activities.

There have been no tested or confirmed cases of Corona in my County or the surrounding ones.

[1dave]

Mar 13, 2020 19:30:05 GMT -5 aDave said:

Mar 13, 2020 19:28:29 GMT -5 hummingbirdstones said:

98° is a 90's pop band.  Nick Lachey was in one of those boy bands back when.  Never actually listened to them, so I couldn't tell you much more about them.  They were one of 3 bands headlining the festival.

OT, but how do you produce the degree symbol?

I usually cheat and use the (top of the page) Superscript A^s button and the letter o. ^o

[knave]

Easiest from mobile
Long press the “0”

32°F = 0°C

212°F = 100°C

-40°F = -40°C

[aDave]

Mar 15, 2020 8:54:31 GMT -5 1dave said:

Mar 13, 2020 19:30:05 GMT -5 aDave said:

OT, but how do you produce the degree symbol?

I usually cheat and use the (top of the page) Superscript A^s button and the letter o. ^o

Thanks 1dave.  I hadn't even thought to use that.  I don't pay too much attention to the font formatting buttons in the "reply" box.    I've already tested, and it works great.  Thanks.

[rockpickerforever]

I have gone so far as to open a word document, then insert symbol. Insert degree symbol, then copy and paste into a post. Ha ha, more than one way to skin a cat!

Use this in place of the almost impossible to come by hand sanitizer:

I have a few bottles of old hand sanitizer (2011), from back when we used to do reptile shows.  It is 65% alcohol, and I understand stronger than 60% is recommended, so using it now.  It doesn't have an expiration date, I don't think?

Keeping your fingers out of your eyes a very good point, even if you are not using Tabasco sanitizer, lol.

[fernwood]

Some people are resorting to online ordering and pick up of items.
The local Big Box stores systems are not equipped to handle the rapid rate of orders, which results in lack of inventory to fill all of the orders.

An order is placed and charged. The person goes to pick up the order. An associate tells the person that their order could not be filled due to lack of inventory.

The money is eventually returned to the person, but there is a delay.

Yesterday, a major Wisconsin health care provider/hospital, Marshfield Clinic, put a call out for anyone who could provide child care for their employees to call them.
They are setting up a service to match employees with providers.

Local hoarders are surfacing. Now, it is not only TP, but baby supplies. Here are some items I saw listed: Baby formula for "only" $10.00/scoop. FYI, a scoop of formula makes one bottle. They ensured that care was being used to transfer the formula from the can to baby food or canning jars. A discount for large orders of over $200.00. Prices varied, depending on the formula. Packages of baby wipes for $7.50 to $20.00 each. These normally cost about $3.00 each. Small (24 count) packages of diapers for $50.00.
I and others are doing what we can to purchase items for families in need of baby supplies when we see them. Rest assured, we are not hoarding. Nor are we charging anything extra for our time/gas to deliver the items.

I met up with a couple at the local, small grocery store yesterday. They had driven 30 miles from another small town to purchase TP. Unfortunately, all of the TP at that store had been purchased earlier in the day. They were told that the local gas station still had some. I saw them again while I was at the gas station. They were happy to purchase one package of 4, small rolls.

In times like this compassion for others goes a long way.

[1dave]

I used corn cobs back in the day. There is where many catalogs met their demise.