Covid-19 miscellany

[ZiprHead]

*sigh*. Seems California is now last in terms of vaccine usage across all states.

Hey ho Newsom has to go !

Not according to this site.

And in raw numbers of doses given, no state comes even close to the numbers of California.

 

[Jarhyn]

*sigh*. Seems California is now last in terms of vaccine usage across all states.

Hey ho Newsom has to go !

Not according to this site.

And in raw numbers of doses given, no state comes even close to the numbers of California.

I would point out that if California had their per capita ratio of doses, then none of the flyover states would be getting any measurable amount. There's orders of magnitude more people in california than, say, Montana.

We are talking a zero sum game for now.

 

[crazyfingers]

Masks?

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

 

[ZiprHead]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

 

[thebeave]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

Uh oh. What are we going to call it? It would be racist to reference its S. African origins, of course.

 

[ZiprHead]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

Uh oh. What are we going to call it? It would be racist to reference its S. African origins, of course.

Do you think viruses care about racism?

 

[crazyfingers]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

I ordered some of them too after i posted. We have very limited possible exposures but want better when i do rarely get within 50 feet of a non-household member. My boys haven't been off the property since the first week of september.

 

[marc]

My wife uses the KN95 and a cloth mask... (and eye protection and a face shield) Sounds like she was ahead of the curve. Main problem with them is the blister she is getting on her nose from the metal strip.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Merck pulls their vaccine candidate as it isn't effective enough.

Pharmaceutical company Merck announced Monday it is discontinuing development of its Covid-19 vaccine candidates after early studies showed immune responses were inferior to natural infection and other Covid-19 vaccines.

Merck said its vaccine candidates appeared to be safe, but the company did not provide results from early trials. It said in a news release it plans to submit results from Phase 1 trials of its vaccine candidates, known as V590 and V591, for publication in a peer-reviewed journal.

Merck will continue developing their treatment drugs, but it appears, they won't have a vaccine. The US and globe desperately need additional vaccines, or a much wider production of the vaccines we have.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

Do you have a source, specifically calling for KN95 for the new UK strain?

 

[Elixir]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

Do you have a source, specifically calling for KN95 for the new UK strain?

KN95 are not tested in the US. They are tested in China ( the COO) and are equal to the US N95 masks.
Rescue Essentials has them at $1.49 ea. For small quantities. When it was my Company we sold boxes of N95 masks for $0.77 ea. But a quick survey shows that 1.49 for KN95 masks is a fair deal today.

 

[Elixir]

*sigh*. Seems California is now last in terms of vaccine usage across all states.

Hey ho Newsom has to go !

Not according to this site.

And in raw numbers of doses given, no state comes even close to the numbers of California.

He’s a Demonkrat!
So RW extremists are apoplectic. Wouldn’t matter WHAT the stats are.

 

[crazyfingers]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/25/lockdowns-job-losses/

Good article showing statistics that demonstrate that state ordered lock-downs are not the main reason the job losses. It's the pandemic. People started not going out before the lock-downs and lock-downs only slightly more caused people to stay home. People stayed home even after lockdowns were lifted.

For all those who complain about state lock-downs, the message is "It's the Pandemic, Stupid!"

 

[Elixir]

"It's the Pandemic, Stupid!"

Yeah, but “Hey ho” right wing nutbars don’t need to know.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

I've been using N95s for nearly half a year now, although I do reuse.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Do you have a source, specifically calling for KN95 for the new UK strain?

KN95 are not tested in the US. They are tested in China ( the COO) and are equal to the US N95 masks.
Rescue Essentials has them at $1.49 ea. For small quantities. When it was my Company we sold boxes of N95 masks for $0.77 ea. But a quick survey shows that 1.49 for KN95 masks is a fair deal today.

N95 / KN95 are the best general mask... but the question I asked was regarding a cite that the CDC was saying a N95/KN95 should be used for the new variant.

I needed to use masks before they were available in April for work, so I went online, found instructions, and sewed my own two cloth ply masks and have been using them. Granted, they don't quite protect me as they are meant to protect people from me, though they fit so much tighter and better than those off the ear masks. But I'm not exactly wanting to buy masks that are of questionable quality and truth be told, other people need 95's more than me.

 

[ZiprHead]

Having done some new reading on masks lately and with the UK mutation around, we've upped our masks. We've mainly been using surgical masks alone. Today we got a batch of cloth masks to double up. Surgical mask below and cloth mask in front to keep it tighter.

I've also read good things about S Korean made KF95 masks so we ordered 50 only for the highest risks for us which is an every other week visit inside the grocery or when I need to visit mom's assisted living, cloth mask on top if I can still breath. They won't arrive for a couple weeks yet.

We are not looking for N95's as I understand that front line health workers still need all they can get.

In Massachusetts we are supposed to have a mask on whenever we are in public, inside or out, except in the car. We follow the rules.

The CDC is recommending everyone use KN95s due to the new strain.

Apparently there is another new strain from S. Africa now.

Do you have a source, specifically calling for KN95 for the new UK strain?

Nope, afraid I don't. It was something I heard on a news report but don't remember where. Sorry.

 

[ZiprHead]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/25/lockdowns-job-losses/

Good article showing statistics that demonstrate that state ordered lock-downs are not the main reason the job losses. It's the pandemic. People started not going out before the lock-downs and lock-downs only slightly more caused people to stay home. People stayed home even after lockdowns were lifted.

For all those who complain about state lock-downs, the message is "It's the Pandemic, Stupid!"

In other words, if Bonespurs had handled the pandemic properly in the first place, the economy would not have collapsed so severely. So he truly owns the economic downfall.

 

[crazyfingers]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2021/01/25/lockdowns-job-losses/

Good article showing statistics that demonstrate that state ordered lock-downs are not the main reason the job losses. It's the pandemic. People started not going out before the lock-downs and lock-downs only slightly more caused people to stay home. People stayed home even after lockdowns were lifted.

For all those who complain about state lock-downs, the message is "It's the Pandemic, Stupid!"

In other words, if Bonespurs had handled the pandemic properly in the first place, the economy would not have collapsed so severely. So he truly owns the economic downfall.

Yup. Real business leaders have been saying so for quite a while. You never saw the CEO'S of the fortune 500 scream end the lock down. It was end the pandemic.

The data shows it to be correct. The pandemic needs to end for the economy to recover.

 

[crazyfingers]

From the link.

Employment and activity declined before shutdowns hit

If stay-at-home orders poisoned an otherwise healthy economy, business should have crumpled the moment they kicked in. But cellphone activity data analyzed by Gupta, Simon and Wing show a different trend: People started to stay home well before states imposed shutdowns.

In the chaotic early days of the pandemic, most people didn’t wait for official stay-at-home orders, Simon said. In every state, they stopped going to work around the weekend of March 14, as uncertainty soared, stock markets collapsed and the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus outbreak to be a pandemic.

Research shows the virus itself caused an enormous drop in activity and shutdowns caused a small additional decline

Indiana University economists Sumedha Gupta, Kosali Simon and Coady Wing reviewed more than 60 pandemic and social-distancing studies for a review article forthcoming in the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity. With the input of those economists and other experts, we’ve reviewed the basic data and some of the strongest research. Four facts emerged from the spring shutdowns.

Business collapsed so quickly in mid-March that it’s tough to disentangle correlation and causation. But several high-profile teams of economists, armed with that high-frequency data and sophisticated statistical methods, arrived at similar conclusions.

In one such study, economists Chad Syverson and Austan Goolsbee of the University of Chicago Booth School of Business used anonymized cellphone tracking data to compare traffic at businesses in shutdown areas with similar businesses in the same metro area (really, commuting zone) that weren’t shut down.

Business fell by more than half (53 percent) regardless of whether a place shut down, as people everywhere were trying not to leave their homes. In shutdown areas, activity fell another 7 percent, meaning shutdowns caused less than an eighth of the drop in business.

There are lots of very interesting charts in the story showing that the huge drop in business activity started before the lockdown. It also shows that states with and without lockdowns show very similar drops in business activity.