The Virus - Are You Affected?

[blastula]

Newsom is wrong about closing beaches, because people can practice safe distancing in outdoor spaces like that, but it doesn't make him a dictator.

They could, but they didn't. Hundreds of thousands flocking to the So Cal beaches, not practicing any safety protocols at all; last weekend was an open season killing spree for COVID transmission. Short of policing the beaches constantly and arresting the thousands of people who weren't following the rules (doing nothing to preserve a perception of having civil liberties) what is the state supposed to do exactly? Just let this keep happening every weekend til everyone is dead? I may not like seeing the parks close, but I understand exactly why it was necessary. Speaking as a Californian.

Can you give examples of you what you saw that you think is a problem?

 

[ZiprHead]

Newsom is wrong about closing beaches, because people can practice safe distancing in outdoor spaces like that, but it doesn't make him a dictator.

They could, but they didn't. Hundreds of thousands flocking to the So Cal beaches, not practicing any safety protocols at all; last weekend was an open season killing spree for COVID transmission. Short of policing the beaches constantly and arresting the thousands of people who weren't following the rules (doing nothing to preserve a perception of having civil liberties) what is the state supposed to do exactly? Just let this keep happening every weekend til everyone is dead? I may not like seeing the parks close, but I understand exactly why it was necessary. Speaking as a Californian.

Can you give examples of you what you saw that you think is a problem?

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Just let this keep happening every weekend til everyone is dead?

LOL, hyperbole much ? Stay home if you are that worried.

Clearly not everyone will die. But just staying home is not an answer.

I think specifically about the fall. If this thing is not under control with widespread rapid testing and contact tracing and if the schools open anyway, my kids will have to go to school or I'd risk the department of children and families coming to take them away for not sending them to school.

But my wife has a preexisting condition and will be 59 years old. So, do we risk her life and send the kids to school or do we risk being charged with failure to provide an education and have the state take them away?

One way to MAGA is to kill off the weak.

 

[blastula]

No, it means California is doing a good job. Lockdowns are supposed to delay and flatten the peak.

As I have said numerous times, the lockdown has done its job.

It's doing it's job, it's not finished yet.

When is this lockdown supposed to end anyway ? When immortality has been achieved or something, because the goalposts keep moving.

What goalposts do you mean? You sound like you are looking for a specific date when it depends on some when set conditions are met, as it should be rather than an arbitrary date.

The emphasis now should be on protecting the people that are actually at risk, i.e. the hundreds of people that are in care homes that have been in lockdown and are being decimated. Not families enjoying a day at the beach.

Part of protecting them and others is lowering transmission among the whole population.

Newsom is wrong about closing beaches, because people can practice safe distancing in outdoor spaces like that, but it doesn't make him a dictator.

Newsom is an idiot altogether. His attitude is we have disobeyed his decree and he is going to punish us. He's a dictator alright.

No, he's doing fine. Most people in California and the nation, Dems and Repubs, support the lockdowns. It would be more dictatorial to go against the public on it like you want to.

And even if lockdown orders ended today, it's not like businesses are going back to normal levels. People are going to being staying home still. We'd still end up with a bad economy but with many more people dying.

 

[blastula]

Can you give examples of you what you saw that you think is a problem?

View attachment 27448

Family or household units can be together safely, and that picture doesn't show how far apart groups are.

 

[Emily Lake]

The lockdown was introduced not to save everyone from catching the virus, it was to stop the health services from being overwhelmed. That has been achieved. The people most severely impact by this virus are the very elderly in care homes and nursing homes, people with underlying health problems etc, NOT families and young, fit people at the beach.

Yes, you're right on this point. The lockdown is intended to reduce the risk to the health care system, and slow the spread to a point where it is manageable. You're also correct that the people most severely impacted are the elderly and those with underlying conditions, although it also has significant affects on younger and healthier populations as well.

The challenge is that this isn't entirely a condition one gets from active choice. And that's what makes the balance point between the two extremes of full lockdown and open everything up so difficult to find. Young health people might be less severely affected... but that doesn't stop them from carrying and transmitting the virus to older and sicker people. And since a sizable portion of infected people are asymptomatic or have very mild symptoms, that makes it even harder to manage the spread.

In principle, I agree that beaches shouldn't need to be closed. Nor should national parks, and most outdoor spaces. But that principle is dependent upon people actively participating in social distancing while using those areas - maintaining physical separation from other people, wearing masks, and doing their part to prevent the spread of the virus. Unfortunately, there are a lot of people who don't follow those guidelines in open public spaces, and that's where it gets extra tricky. If CA cant' figure out a good way to enforce social distancing at the beach, then closing it is the best they can manage in order to prevent the health risk to other people.

Can we shift perspective for a moment? What's your view on smoking not being allowed in restaurants or airplanes?

 

[Emily Lake]

Karen would like to speak to the coronavirus's manager. It really needs to tell us how long this is going to go on.

I am so sick of this particular meme. Not trying to rip on you about it specifically, just airing my frustration. I feel bad for all the people in the world named Karen who are now synonymous with "uptight snotty white bitch".

 

[Angry Floof]

Karen would like to speak to the coronavirus's manager. It really needs to tell us how long this is going to go on.

I am so sick of this particular meme. Not trying to rip on you about it specifically, just airing my frustration. I feel bad for all the people in the world named Karen who are now synonymous with "uptight snotty white bitch".

More like ignorant white privilege. But a lot of Karens don't actually mind. They understand it and they use their Karen powers for good instead of evil, and they laugh at the Karens who get butthurt about it. Some Karens even compare their butthurt to slavery!

 

[Copernicus]

Dr. Fauci, for example, is quite clear about that, and even Donald Trump has disagreed publicly with the Georgia governor that he can reopen the state.

I don't reagard experts as being infallible, Fauci has been wrong before and I almost spit my coffee out at the part in bold. Yeah, Trump is an expert in this stuff.

Nobody is saying that medical experts are infallible, only that they all agree on what Fauci has been saying. Trump has been disagreeing with Fauci on reopening state economies early, so it is highly unusual for him to agree with Fauci on this.

The real puzzle in all of this is why Donald Trump will use the Defense Production Act to force meat processing plants to stay open, but he adamantly refuses to use it to force manufacturers to produce enough test kits to conduct adequate covid testing. Epidemiologists are unanimous in their opinion that the US needs to increase its testing in order to beat back the virus and reopen the economy. Right now, Trump is sitting on his hands when it comes to testing, claiming that it is the responsibility of individual states. Then he has federal agents swoop in to confiscate tests and PPE that the states order. Now some state governments are keeping such deliveries secret and guarding them with state security forces. (See, for example, Maryland hiding coronavirus test kits from South Korea so they won’t be seized by federal government). Medical officials estimate that we need roughly three times the level of testing that we have now.

So why won't Trump push to increase testing? Many people profess not to know, but it is a pretty good guess what the reason is. It goes back to the time Donald Trump tried to block a cruise ship from disembarking passengers on the grounds that it would increase the number of reported infections in the US. He didn't like the optics of it. He knows that the number of tests conducted drive up numbers of COVID cases in the news, and that hurts his ratings. So he may not want widespread testing for that reason--to try to make it look like COVID is less of a problem in the US. But it hasn't worked, because cases are still rising everywhere even with our limited testing ability. They are particularly bad in nursing homes and prisons, which are places from which the infection will continue to spread into the general population. This disease is going to be with us a lot longer because of the foot-dragging and obstructionism of Donald Trump.

 

[ruby sparks]

I agree.

And what could be the case is that efforts to keep ‘numbers’ down (as in: ‘numbers that go on lists’) in the short term, for political reasons, is a risky strategy if actual numbers in fact keep rising in the long term.

One thing that could happen is that Coronavirus could be a much bigger problem for the USA in the mid to long term than in other countries. This has been speculated. In a worst case scenario, the USA could become a pariah state in international terms, with long term restrictions being imposed on travel in and out of it, after they might be eased for other countries. Unless a vaccine can make a difference.

 

[Emily Lake]

Okay, educate me. Why would "do more testing" beat back the virus? It seems like more testing would just give us a better idea of how many people have or had the virus, but wouldn't do anything about controlling it. What am I missing?

 

[bilby]

Okay, educate me. Why would "do more testing" beat back the virus? It seems like more testing would just give us a better idea of how many people have or had the virus, but wouldn't do anything about controlling it. What am I missing?

Quarantine. Targeted and strict quarantine, not the generalised and weak lockdowns currently in use.

Without testing to determine who needs to be in strict quarantine and who doesn't, general lockdown is the only option - and general lockdowns can't be too strict, because people still need to eat.

 

[Angry Floof]

Okay, educate me. Why would "do more testing" beat back the virus? It seems like more testing would just give us a better idea of how many people have or had the virus, but wouldn't do anything about controlling it. What am I missing?

Quarantine. Targeted and strict quarantine, not the generalised and weak lockdowns currently in use.

Without testing to determine who needs to be in strict quarantine and who doesn't, general lockdown is the only option - and general lockdowns can't be too strict, because people still need to eat.

Yep, and because you can be infected for up to 14 days without symptoms, if you test positive on day 3 and isolate yourself, that's 11 days you won't be putting anyone at risk.

 

[TSwizzle]

Thousands of protesters show up at Huntington Beach. Apparently no arrests or citations were made. It’s pretty clear that Newsom, the petty little man that he is has singled out Orange County for punishment for whatever perverse reason roams in that pea sized brain of his. Because with OC having one of the lowest Covid19 cases, it sure ain’t the data the prick keeps banging on about.

 

[crazyfingers]

Thousands of protesters show up at Huntington Beach. Apparently no arrests or citations were made. It’s pretty clear that Newsom, the petty little man that he is has singled out Orange County for punishment for whatever perverse reason roams in that pea sized brain of his. Because with OC having one of the lowest Covid19 cases, it sure ain’t the data the prick keeps banging on about.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/30/...l?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

In an ABC News/Ipsos poll last week, 98 percent of Democrats and 82 percent of Republicans supported social-distancing rules. According to a Yahoo News/YouGov survey, nearly 90 percent of Americans think a second wave of the virus would be at least somewhat likely if we ended the lockdowns today.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/more-a...ctions-too-soon-wsj-nbc-poll-says-11587301203

More Americans Fear Lifting Coronavirus Restrictions Too Soon, WSJ/NBC Poll Says
Nearly 60% of respondents worry that lifting stay-at-home orders quickly will fuel the pandemic.

Only 10% worry about the economic impact of opening too late

https://www.vox.com/coronavirus-cov...virus-us-polls-lockdown-social-distancing-end

The Pew Research Center asked the question directly in a nearly 5,000-person survey conducted from April 7 to 12: Are you more worried about your state government lifting its restrictions on public activities too quickly or not quickly enough? By a 2-to-1 margin, Americans said that they were more worried about rapidly ramping down social distancing.

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Okay, educate me. Why would "do more testing" beat back the virus? It seems like more testing would just give us a better idea of how many people have or had the virus, but wouldn't do anything about controlling it. What am I missing?

Testing means you are more likely to isolate the infected.

(Now, if they go wandering around despite being infected it won't help.)

 

[crazyfingers]

ZOOM

Everyone, especially the schools, wants to do stuff on Zoom these days but my wife is adamant that Zoom, the free version, is not safe. For sure there have been a lot of problems and I guess some are fixed and some are not. But way back the beginning of April the school wanted Zoom meeting for our kids and we kept responding we will not let Zoom in our house.

Everyone wants Zoom when there are lots of alternatives out there.

It's going to become a bigger and bigger problem unless they fix all these issues and until my wife is convinced it's safe.

Zoom stories
https://www.boston.com/news/crime/2020/05/01/medway-school-orientation-zoombombed
https://www.cnet.com/news/zoom-secu...le-to-foreign-surveillance-intel-report-says/
https://www.cnet.com/news/using-zoo...-here-are-the-privacy-risks-to-watch-out-for/
https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/04/08...m-privacy-and-security-issues-under-scrutiny/
https://www.cnet.com/news/zoom-every-security-issue-uncovered-in-the-video-chat-app/
https://www.nytimes.com/article/zoom-privacy-lessons.html
https://www.coindesk.com/zoom-has-privacy-issues-here-are-some-alternatives
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/zoom-privacy-security-alternatives-170602965.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2020/04/zoom-privacy-concerns-ftc-investigation
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/02/us/fbi-warning-zoombombing-trnd/index.html
https://www.tomsguide.com/news/zoom-security-privacy-woes
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/29/...ticle&region=Footer&contentCollection=Opinion

 

[lpetrich]

What does she think will happen with Zoom?

 

[J842P]

Safe from what? Just use a password on your Zoom meetings.

 

[Don2 (Don1 Revised)]

Okay, educate me. Why would "do more testing" beat back the virus? It seems like more testing would just give us a better idea of how many people have or had the virus, but wouldn't do anything about controlling it. What am I missing?

Generally speaking, testing gives more information. More information can be used to reduce the virus outbreak. Two examples: (1) specific individuals with it can quarantine or testing could proactively be applied to essential workers sending them home when sick preemptively or (2) determining some percent have it in some region can cause to tighten restrictions or loosen them in those regions thus optimizing the response through policy tweaks.