Coronavirus

Up here in the Hinterlands, COVID cases and deaths are very low compared to those in the Excited States. Nevertheless, we remain vigilant, and mask-wearing in indoor public spaces will become mandatory in most regions of Ontario on July 13. I've been wearing mine in the grocery store and elsewhere for some time, and now need to adjust to this at work, where i am mostly in a non-public office office connected to a public retail space. Been practicing for two weeks and it is becoming second nature to grab the mask before heading out into the store.

I've also noticed a massive uptick in voluntary mask wearing by the public over the last two weeks. Lots of folks still complaining about it though.

Yeah... I think there will be a reality check very soon. We have been having a bit of a lull and living on a bunch of hope.  It's kind of like skiing Iliad. You have the steep stuff at the top, then it levels off for a bit, and then it gets steep at the bottom again.  But, maybe I just have skiing on the brain.

Johns Hopkins, US CV Deaths:

7/8 was 829
7/7 was 1174

Can't seem to find hospitalizations, which is probably a better number, with less lag.

Deaths vs. cases (can’t remember if I posted this before):

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/07/why-covid-death-rate-down/613945/

That is an excellent article. There are several factors in play, and it does a good job of explaining it.

First I've seen about hospitalizations too. Data is about 1 week old:

Now that's a useful chart anyone with a head on their shoulders can read. Pretty big gap we got going on right now.  The health care system has figured a few things out, yeah lots of young kids, but that is significant.  Its hopeful, little scary to.

Harvey wrote

That is an excellent article. There are several factors in play, and it does a good job of explaining it.

First I've seen about hospitalizations too. Data is about 1 week old:

Most state Dashboards have some info about hospitalizations.  What's harder to find are the numbers for Recovered.  Meaning based on those people who actually got tested so they are included in the Case count.  Contact Tracing for confirmed cases means that those people get followup phone calls on a regular basis until they are well past being infectious.

Still a large percentage of people who don't ever know they have or had COVID-19 because their symptoms were mild and didn't last long.  However, those are probably the people who can cause community spread to grow unchecked if they don't follow public health recommendations for using a face mask and keeping a decent physical distance from other people.

The Gov. of NC explained at his press conference today that while it's a concern that usage is around 80%, what was learned in April was how to increase bed numbers for a potential surge.  Didn't turn out to be need them then.  Harder to say what will happen in the next 4-6 weeks.

These days putting "CC dashboard" in as a Search is enough to pull up a state's COVID-19 statistics website.

NY State
https://forward.ny.gov/covid-19-regional-metrics-dashboard

NC
https://covid19.ncdhhs.gov/dashboard/hospitalizations

AZ
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epidemiology-disease-control/infectious-disease-epidemiology/covid-19/dashboards/index.php

TX
https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/0d8bdf9be927459d9cb11b9eaef6101f

Harvey wrote

Johns Hopkins, US CV Deaths:

7/9 - 982
7/8 - 829
7/7 - 1174

CV deaths through 7/8

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/covid-19.htm#understanding-the-numbers

https://www.newyorkupstate.com/coronavirus/2020/07/upstate-ny-county-blames-partying-for-coronavirus-surge-among-young-adults.html

My first instinct is that everybody should try harder to follow the new rules even though they’re obviously imperfect and more or less being made up as we go. On the other hand, I’m not one of those holding my breath for a vaccine and I do believe that our best hope to move beyond this is natural herd immunity. The rule breakers might help bring that about sooner and reduce the total long term death toll, even though it’s easy to blame them for short term back-sliding. I really don’t know.

People are having a very hard time staying apart. Politics and my personal opinions aside, I’ve been surprised by how strong the herd instinct is among most people. When I think about it though, if 25 year old me was going through this I might be out there drinking my face off too. Having kids and an all-consuming job  makes me content to be anti-social for extended periods of time. Even when I was working from home, it took up just as many hours of my day as it normally would. Maybe if I’d been furloughed and spent all that time by myself, staring at a wall, I’d view it differently.

Brownski wrote

  When I think about it though, if 25 year old me was going through this I might be out there drinking my face off too.  

I would've been there right with you.

campgottagopee wrote

Brownski wrote

  When I think about it though, if 25 year old me was going through this I might be out there drinking my face off too.  

I would've been there right with you.

*”The Aristocrats” voice*

Conservatism!

Love the fact that the guys who seem constantly annoyed at “kids these days” and their “expensive beer” & “folk music” habits are admitting that they would be doing the same things if they were younger.

When I was younger I never had the money for expensive beer. Now that I do I still don't like it. Other than that you are correct.

campgottagopee wrote

When I was younger I never had the money for expensive beer. Now that I do I still don't like it. Other than that you are correct.

sorry for the thread hijack... a real mans beer..not that ipa crap..

RT ON!

Yes, real men are lactose intolerant & drink beer still coasting on that blue ribbon from 1892.

I have said the same thing to few friends that we would still be getting together and drinking together if we were in our twenties.
Herd immunity is way off in the future if even possible with this virus. The U.S. has 1% of the population with confirmed cases. 70% of the population would need to be infected and it is not known how long someone remains immune after infection.

MC2 5678F589 wrote

Love the fact that the guys who seem constantly annoyed at “kids these days” and their “expensive beer” & “folk music” habits are admitting that they would be doing the same things if they were younger.