Formerly DT: COVID-19 - Featuring Lots of Politics, now CR because political talk not going away

[Guest Lobo]

8 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

N95 I hope, not a cloth one.

Nah, I don't go with that union shit tough guy.  I ignite that shit, I put mustard on it...I eat the fucking shit.  They call me Gunner Neck.  

[workswithseed 2035]

2 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Nah, I don't go with that union shit tough guy.  I ignite that shit, I put mustard on it...I eat the fucking shit.  They call me Gunner Neck.  

I bet you weld naked, and no eye protection either. Too manly for me.

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

7 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Nah, I don't go with that union shit tough guy.  I ignite that shit, I put mustard on it...I eat the fucking shit.  They call me Gunner Neck.  

Hopefully they didn't give you any of those shit breathers.

[Guest Lobo]

4 minutes ago, workswithseed said:

I bet you weld naked, and no eye protection either. Too manly for me.

I forget you're too young to remember the Jerky Boys or closed toe shoes at a riot.  It's okay.  We were all once dumb and young.  

I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Chicago.  You'd see painters, welders, airport workers, roofers, demolition crews, et. al.  They'd wear masks at the job site, they'd pull 'em down to have lunch at the hot dog joints we'd get to go to as a treat during the summer.  Everyone of those guys was a fucking badass in every sense of the word.  There was no shame in protecting yourself, nothing but honor in not bringing that crap in your lungs back to your family.  I think about those guys and I feel bad at how bad they got grifted by the guy they thought had their back.  A generation of solid guys who always looked out for the man next to them, completely taken for a ride by the biggest piece of human shit to walk American soil.  But here we are.  Gotta get back to my welding project.  Then a paint job, I'm using a roller job on my car.  Comes out real nice sizzle chest.  

[Cheeseweasel 26437]

42 minutes ago, Lobo said:

You'd see painters,

Gonna paint the town red? Waddaya say Mike.

[Guest Lobo]

Nah, forget about it. What's say we paint each other up... What'dya say Bill?  

 

Edited October 20, 2020 by Lobo

[Pato del Muerto 52338]

3 minutes ago, Cheeseweasel said:

Gonna paint the town red? Waddaya say Mike.

And paint his wife white, uhh 

[atomheartbevo 89407]

3 hours ago, Borachio said:

 Plus, I have yet to grow a 3rd arm so things seem to be on the up and up with this trial. 

So they got the dosage of Thalidomide correct?

Well, we've got that going for us, I guess.

[Jhawk 1075]

On 10/18/2020 at 12:43 PM, Eastwood said:

Death rate is the wrong metric to go by and it drives me crazy that it continues to be used at the litmus test by certain groups for how the pandemic should be handled. There are people on this site who have given personal anecdotes as to how their COVID experience went and a lot of these stories involve multiple visits to health care providers, testing by health care providers, multiple days or weeks of illness and lack of productivity, and lingering effects. We're talking medical bills, loss of PTO, loss of wages due to lack of PTO, stressing an already thin health care system, etc. Death may be the ultimate toll that COVID may have on someone, but just because people aren't dying in droves like they were in April doesn't mean that a major wave of COVID won't be extremely disruptive to our lives and prolong the amount of time that we, as a society, have to deal with this horrible situation.

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?  Amazon and Walmart being the only thing open is the solution?  Shutter anyone who the powers that be determine is "unessential" is the solution?  Look at domestic abuse, suicide, and drug/alcohol abuse rates.  Mental health is bad too among the "healthy".  Because the oldest demographic in the country is at risk we all have to suffer.

Quarantine is for the sick, not the healthy.

[BrazilHorn 6576]

1 minute ago, Jhawk said:

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?  Amazon and Walmart being the only thing open is the solution?  Shutter anyone who the powers that be determine is "unessential" is the solution?  Look at domestic abuse, suicide, and drug/alcohol abuse rates.  Mental health is bad too among the "healthy".  Because the oldest demographic in the country is at risk we all have to suffer.

Quarantine is for the sick, not the healthy.

If death rate was truly being used the country should be wide open. ~82% of all deaths are from 60 year old plus. (Shit ~22% of all deaths were in nursing homes/assisted care)
Mortality rates for those <60 are in line with flu (I am not a covid denier nor saying covid is the flu). 

Biggest challenge outside of this fucking thing being turned into a political football is that there is no consistent definition by city/state etc of what a “win” looks like. 
 

Is it number of deaths? Cases? Hospital admission  Etc

[Horn Under a Bad Sign 20342]

6 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?

Nobody said that. That is a strawman. 

Having said that, if the United States completely shut down its economy and all people stayed at home for 10 days, a gigantic dent would be made it its progress. If all people stayed at home for 10 days and managed to stay 6-8 feet from other people, the virus would die until such time as it was imported again. 

The point being that two weeks of pure "hell,"  ---- well thought and and well prepared for ----- is preferable to months and months of ongoing misery. The Swedes are going to find this out the hard way. 

[Hate 20103]

If death rate was truly being used the country should be wide open. ~82% of all deaths are from 60 year old plus. (Shit ~22% of all deaths were in nursing homes/assisted care)
Mortality rates for those Biggest challenge outside of this fucking thing being turned into a political football is that there is no consistent definition by city/state etc of what a “win” looks like. 
 
Is it number of deaths? Cases? Hospital admission  Etc

Too late. You mentioned flu and Covid in the same sentence. You are a denier. May god have mercy on your soul.

[Brisketexan 104556]

11 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?  Amazon and Walmart being the only thing open is the solution?  Shutter anyone who the powers that be determine is "unessential" is the solution?  Look at domestic abuse, suicide, and drug/alcohol abuse rates.  Mental health is bad too among the "healthy".  Because the oldest demographic in the country is at risk we all have to suffer.

Quarantine is for the sick, not the healthy.

It is.

And this disease has demonstrated that we don't always know who is sick and may spread the disease (asymptomatic infection and transmission).  So....yeah, that's perhaps the biggest challenge of handling this particular virus.  So, at the very least, everyone wearing MASKS is key -- because they reduce the risk of transmission from the wearer to another person.  They aren't perfect, they aren't guaranteed, but they REDUCE the risk.  So, yeah....if you're healthy or feel fine, you can go out....but still wear your mask if you're around other people, because you may have the virus and not know it.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Brisketexan

[Foosters 17727]

14 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?  Amazon and Walmart being the only thing open is the solution?  Shutter anyone who the powers that be determine is "unessential" is the solution?  Look at domestic abuse, suicide, and drug/alcohol abuse rates.  Mental health is bad too among the "healthy".  Because the oldest demographic in the country is at risk we all have to suffer.

Quarantine is for the sick, not the healthy.

Wear. Masks.

Also, if hypothetically tomorrow everything "opened up" there would still be a massive percentage of the population that will remain at home and won't begin walking into stores and restaurants. There's no magic bullet despite your insistence to the contrary.

Edited October 20, 2020 by Foosters

[Guest Lobo]

5 minutes ago, Foosters said:

Wear. Masks.

 

Well, wait until you hear the big news!  Reporter Leslie Stahl was seen not wearing a mask in the White House this week!  You believe this shit?  The place with the best mitigation practices in the entire planet, and this person was seen briefly not wearing a mask!!!  This is insanity!  This goes straight to the top of the Fourth Estate Conspiracy Complex!  This is madness!  Leslie wore no mask!  I demand answers! 

[Eastwood 4394]

9 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?  Amazon and Walmart being the only thing open is the solution?  Shutter anyone who the powers that be determine is "unessential" is the solution?  Look at domestic abuse, suicide, and drug/alcohol abuse rates.  Mental health is bad too among the "healthy".  Because the oldest demographic in the country is at risk we all have to suffer.

Quarantine is for the sick, not the healthy.

The oldest demographic isn't the only one at risk, though. Obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and on and on. Over 1/3 of the entire nation is at an elevated level of risk for COVID complications. So over 1/3 have to shelter in place while those who are healthy get to walk around unabated and continue to give the virus hosts, prolonging the situation and further increasing the odds that the at-risk population become infected despite their precautions? Stay-at-home and mask orders aren't quarantine. They are mitigation tactics that serve several purposes, the most important being the decrease in infection rate to a manageable level that won't cause a massive spike that hospitals are overwhelmed by.

I leave my home fairly often for groceries, going to the park, Home Depot, etc. But I keep out of bars, restaurants, and basically anywhere that I don't need to be and I wear a mask if I'm going to be near people and I always wear a mask indoors. This isn't an all or nothing deal, here. People aren't being asked to lock themselves in their home. They're just being asked to stop unnecessarily exposing themselves to possible infection by having parties, participating in indoor recreational activities, and working from home if at all possible. The fact that some people can't come to grips with that is insane to me. We could have been close to being over this, by now, but now we are closer to a vaccine than a community-led effort to eliminate the virus.

[Guest Lobo]

40% of this nation is obese.  15% of this nation is over 65.  15% of this nation has diabetes and/or autoimmune disorders.  Slap those three groups over each other in the Venndiagram of Death...this "just shelter the most vulnerable and the rest of us can open the country back up..."  YOU ARE THE FUCKIN VULNERABLE.  How is it that the anti-mark/this is a hoax crowd fancies themselves 25 year old cross-fit athletes?  You're not.  Statistically speaking your wife is fat and you're old.  

Many posters on here have claimed that the reason the U.S. accounts for nearly 1/4 of the world's Covid-19 deaths is because of our comorbidities.  If that's the case, why aren't we being honest about our comorbidity issues?  mainly among one particular electoral segment?  Middle-aged fat people ain't exactly swinging for Jo Jorgensen this cycle.  /noLPCR

Edited October 20, 2020 by Lobo

[atomheartbevo 89407]

33 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

Is it number of deaths? Cases? Hospital admission  Etc

As we've discussed before, case #s are a tough nut to crack, simply because many people who have it, never have to get tested, either because their employment doesn't require it, or they show no symptoms. I think hospital admissions are a clearer sign of trends, but like I brought up in the Texas thread, what if larger metro areas are having to take in cases from outlying counties who either don't have the hospital capacity (or capabilities), and/or who played stupid games and won stupid prizes when it started spreading?  

I have a cousin who now has two in-laws who are in the hospital, in Tulsa, which is 70 or 80 miles from where they live/caught it.  Their local hospitals pushed them to Tulsa for whatever reason - I don't know if it was capacity or capabilities, but given what I know of that area, both would probably be issues, and I know that at least one of them was turned away from a regional hospital.  Are they counted as Tulsa County cases?  Given how much information is stripped out of the data due to HIPAA, it probably varies state-to-state.

Speaking of admissions, however anybody views the numbers, no matter your stance, this should be disconcerting:

Quote

Fourteen states reported their peak Covid-19 hospitalizations in the last week: Alaska, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Montana, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia and Wisconsin

It's hard to asses the reasons though.  Right now, quite a few of those states are in what we in Austin would definitely consider winter - big chunks of North Dakota are not going to be above freezing today.  It's 89 here in Austin as I post this, but in western North Dakota, it's 31.   But Arkansas and Oklahoma - we can't blame it on the winter, but we know they are a helluva lot more open than say here in Austin.

[workswithseed 2035]

2 hours ago, Lobo said:

I forget you're too young to remember the Jerky Boys or closed toe shoes at a riot.  It's okay.  We were all once dumb and young.  

I grew up in a working class neighborhood in Chicago.  You'd see painters, welders, airport workers, roofers, demolition crews, et. al.  They'd wear masks at the job site, they'd pull 'em down to have lunch at the hot dog joints we'd get to go to as a treat during the summer.  Everyone of those guys was a fucking badass in every sense of the word.  There was no shame in protecting yourself, nothing but honor in not bringing that crap in your lungs back to your family.  I think about those guys and I feel bad at how bad they got grifted by the guy they thought had their back.  A generation of solid guys who always looked out for the man next to them, completely taken for a ride by the biggest piece of human shit to walk American soil.  But here we are.  Gotta get back to my welding project.  Then a paint job, I'm using a roller job on my car.  Comes out real nice sizzle chest.  

You're not wrong. When I saw the Jerky Boys I thought "Who?" 

[Guest Lobo]

It's cool man, I don't get half your references either.  

Little known fact---Frank Rizzo is now undersecretary of Labor in the U.S. Government.  Sadly, Ali Kamal was waterboarded to death by Stephen Miller.  

[atomheartbevo 89407]

57 minutes ago, Jhawk said:

So stay at home and don't ever leave is the solution?  Amazon and Walmart being the only thing open is the solution?  Shutter anyone who the powers that be determine is "unessential" is the solution?  Look at domestic abuse, suicide, and drug/alcohol abuse rates.  Mental health is bad too among the "healthy".  Because the oldest demographic in the country is at risk we all have to suffer.

Except that nobody was ever truly locked down in their homes here in Texas, like those Chinese getting their doors welded shut in Wuhan or whatever.   We were never prevented from going to Walmart, HEB, God forbid Randall's, etc.  We were never prevented from getting on our bikes or in our cars, we were never prevented from taking walks or jogging or whatever.  We never lost power, we never lost running water, internet, etc. (and for those who couldn't pay the bills, many companies/public entities made sure they stayed connected).  And a whole shitload of people still went to work in person.

Now many businesses were closed down - that's absolutely true - the government should have taken care of those businesses that were impacted, and there was aid early on, but as for why Congress or the Feds dropped the ball on that after the first round of stimulus/bailouts, you can ask in the CR thread.  

And things got a little tight, because people panicked - runs on toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bleach wipes, etc.

But we, as individuals were never confined to our homes.   We had a manifesto posted on FB back in April,  from an older relative about how we were being "locked down", when the reality is that he was just pissed that he couldn't go to his favorite barber shop or play cards with his buddies at the VFW or whatever.  He was never prevented from going fishing, wandering around Walmart (it's a thing where he lives, it's the biggest store), he just had to wear a mask and wait in line to enter Walmart.  He could always hop on FaceTime or Facebook's video chat or whatever and chat with his grandkids and great-grandkids (which he had been doing for years, because they all lived an hour or two away from him).  He still took his morning and evening walks, because he posted the link from his phone on FB every fucking day.

This is a man who, at the drop of a hat, will remind anybody within earshot that he had to use an outhouse as a kid, and because they didn't have running water until he was almost 10, he had to haul water from a well to the back porch to take his weekly bath, or had to haul it every day for his mom to do dishes and cook.

If I had been a true asshole, I would have introduced him to online poker, and then we'd never hear a peep about being "locked down", but then his kids would probably just inherit a mountain of debt instead of his farm and his rental house.

It's nothing against you personally, but we were never, as individuals, actually locked down in Texas like those folks in China.   I was never stopped by a cop and asked why I was out and about, when I was jogging or biking or at a store or picking up a to-go order.

[BrazilHorn 6576]

21 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

As we've discussed before, case #s are a tough nut to crack, simply because many people who have it, never have to get tested, either because their employment doesn't require it, or they show no symptoms. I think hospital admissions are a clearer sign of trends, but like I brought up in the Texas thread, what if larger metro areas are having to take in cases from outlying counties who either don't have the hospital capacity (or capabilities), and/or who played stupid games and won stupid prizes when it started spreading?  

I have a cousin who now has two in-laws who are in the hospital, in Tulsa, which is 70 or 80 miles from where they live/caught it.  Their local hospitals pushed them to Tulsa for whatever reason - I don't know if it was capacity or capabilities, but given what I know of that area, both would probably be issues, and I know that at least one of them was turned away from a regional hospital.  Are they counted as Tulsa County cases?  Given how much information is stripped out of the data due to HIPAA, it probably varies state-to-state.

Speaking of admissions, however anybody views the numbers, no matter your stance, this should be disconcerting:

It's hard to asses the reasons though.  Right now, quite a few of those states are in what we in Austin would definitely consider winter - big chunks of North Dakota are not going to be above freezing today.  It's 89 here in Austin as I post this, but in western North Dakota, it's 31.   But Arkansas and Oklahoma - we can't blame it on the winter, but we know they are a helluva lot more open than say here in Austin.

I agree hospital admits are to me one of the best metrics to measure. I want to look at them in terms of whole numbers vs % increases as some of these states are small populations and a large % increase isn't a huge whole numbers increase necessarily. It will be interesting to see what happens for some of these states that are getting into the winter months. Hopefully the recent run ups will cause state leadership in these states to enforce mask mandates/gathering size etc. Interesting times.

[atomheartbevo 89407]

2 minutes ago, BrazilHorn said:

I agree hospital admits are to me one of the best metrics to measure. I want to look at them in terms of whole numbers vs % increases as some of these states are small populations and a large % increase isn't a huge whole numbers increase necessarily. It will be interesting to see what happens for some of these states that are getting into the winter months. Hopefully the recent run ups will cause state leadership in these states to enforce mask mandates/gathering size etc. Interesting times.

Yeah - some of those states, like Missouri, Alaska, and North Dakota for instance, have a smaller population than the Austin area, and a huge chunk of their populations are probably within just 5-6 main communities/cities.  But when you see places like Kentucky, Oklahoma, Missouri, Arkansas, you have a fairly large population.

It's not quite bodies in trees, but if we see their hospital capacity start to suffer to the point where they are turning other facilities into temporary covid hospitals.....

[dcar00 14030]

2 hours ago, Eastwood said:

The oldest demographic isn't the only one at risk, though. Obesity, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and on and on. Over 1/3 of the entire nation is at an elevated level of risk for COVID complications. So over 1/3 have to shelter in place while those who are healthy get to walk around unabated and continue to give the virus hosts, prolonging the situation and further increasing the odds that the at-risk population become infected despite their precautions? Stay-at-home and mask orders aren't quarantine. They are mitigation tactics that serve several purposes, the most important being the decrease in infection rate to a manageable level that won't cause a massive spike that hospitals are overwhelmed by.

I leave my home fairly often for groceries, going to the park, Home Depot, etc. But I keep out of bars, restaurants, and basically anywhere that I don't need to be and I wear a mask if I'm going to be near people and I always wear a mask indoors. This isn't an all or nothing deal, here. People aren't being asked to lock themselves in their home. They're just being asked to stop unnecessarily exposing themselves to possible infection by having parties, participating in indoor recreational activities, and working from home if at all possible. The fact that some people can't come to grips with that is insane to me. We could have been close to being over this, by now, but now we are closer to a vaccine than a community-led effort to eliminate the virus.

its not the masks.  they don't hurt but they help little.  France, Italy, Germany, etc have all had mask mandates for months.  they are all seeing spikes again.  the key is maniacal contact tracing and not moving around is the only thing that keeps it under control.   the Koreans even had a spike but they squashed it because they are the world leaders in contact tracing, in part due to their experience with SARS.

Most of the rest of the world isn't really into contact tracing(and adherence to protocols once traced) like it needs to be done to really squash it.  covid coaster is like aggy coaster.

[CHIEF 5071]

3 hours ago, Horn Under a Bad Sign said:

Nobody said that. That is a strawman. 

Having said that, if the United States completely shut down its economy and all people stayed at home for 10 days, a gigantic dent would be made it its progress. If all people stayed at home for 10 days and managed to stay 6-8 feet from other people, the virus would die until such time as it was imported again. 

The point being that two weeks of pure "hell,"  ---- well thought and and well prepared for ----- is preferable to months and months of ongoing misery. The Swedes are going to find this out the hard way. 

Essential workers would have to stay at home as well. Police, firemen, garbage collectors, doctors, nurses, newscasters, politicians...EVERYBODY. Hospitals would have to release everyone and send them home, nursing homes emptied, your house would just have to burn if it caught on fire, if you get sick or injured, you will have to make do. I would even suggest one person per room at home, for ten days. Anyone seen off their property will be shot on sight, invoke marshal law.

At this point, I am at "sign me up". It would be pure hell, and convincing the hoax crowd would be next to impossible, but tell them after 10 days shit goes back to normal. Rip the band-aid off and let the chips fall where they may. There is enough porn, gaming, and youtube videos to get people through.

CHIEF

[BradInATX 9208]

 

 

 

its not the masks.  they don't hurt but they help little. 

 

Man, stop this shit. There's almost infinite research out there showing that masks work. We're starting to get enough contact tracing data to draw conclusions and over and over it says you get covid at bars, restaurants, and indoor family/friend gatherings.

 

Just stop with the ignorance and the anti-science. As soon as you said "masks help little" about 3/4 of posters stopped reading. Don't put yourself in the tinfoil hat loony bin with people who think that Andy Dalton is better than Dak and that LeBron is better than Jordan.

 

[MNLonghornFUKM 8799]

Essential workers would have to stay at home as well. Police, firemen, garbage collectors, doctors, nurses, newscasters, politicians...EVERYBODY. Hospitals would have to release everyone and send them home, nursing homes emptied, your house would just have to burn if it caught on fire, if you get sick or injured, you will have to make do. I would even suggest one person per room at home, for ten days. Anyone seen off their property will be shot on sight, invoke marshal law.
At this point, I am at "sign me up". It would be pure hell, and convincing the hoax crowd would be next to impossible, but tell them after 10 days shit goes back to normal. Rip the band-aid off and let the chips fall where they may. There is enough porn, gaming, and youtube videos to get people through.
CHIEF

Who’s shooting the people if everyone is home?


Suppose just have neighbors stake out with high caliber rifles pointed at each other, and open fire if they see an intruder?

[BradInATX 9208]

Who’s shooting the people if everyone is home?

ANTIFA imo

[Incredulity 11559]

Everyone stay home...well, except the snipers. Of course also the Mayor...she’s got important stuff to do.  She can’t be expected to drive herself so driver is exempt and well security is a must.  She will cut it back though to a detail of 5 and that’s it.

 

Wait...who’s making lunch?

Edited October 21, 2020 by Incredulity
Me no spell good

[Armybrat 40725]

3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Except that nobody was ever truly locked down in their homes here in Texas, like those Chinese getting their doors welded shut in Wuhan or whatever.   We were never prevented from going to Walmart, HEB, God forbid Randall's, etc.  We were never prevented from getting on our bikes or in our cars, we were never prevented from taking walks or jogging or whatever.  We never lost power, we never lost running water, internet, etc. (and for those who couldn't pay the bills, many companies/public entities made sure they stayed connected).  And a whole shitload of people still went to work in person.

Now many businesses were closed down - that's absolutely true - the government should have taken care of those businesses that were impacted, and there was aid early on, but as for why Congress or the Feds dropped the ball on that after the first round of stimulus/bailouts, you can ask in the CR thread.  

And things got a little tight, because people panicked - runs on toilet paper, hand sanitizer, bleach wipes, etc.

But we, as individuals were never confined to our homes.   We had a manifesto posted on FB back in April,  from an older relative about how we were being "locked down", when the reality is that he was just pissed that he couldn't go to his favorite barber shop or play cards with his buddies at the VFW or whatever.  He was never prevented from going fishing, wandering around Walmart (it's a thing where he lives, it's the biggest store), he just had to wear a mask and wait in line to enter Walmart.  He could always hop on FaceTime or Facebook's video chat or whatever and chat with his grandkids and great-grandkids (which he had been doing for years, because they all lived an hour or two away from him).  He still took his morning and evening walks, because he posted the link from his phone on FB every fucking day.

This is a man who, at the drop of a hat, will remind anybody within earshot that he had to use an outhouse as a kid, and because they didn't have running water until he was almost 10, he had to haul water from a well to the back porch to take his weekly bath, or had to haul it every day for his mom to do dishes and cook.

If I had been a true asshole, I would have introduced him to online poker, and then we'd never hear a peep about being "locked down", but then his kids would probably just inherit a mountain of debt instead of his farm and his rental house.

It's nothing against you personally, but we were never, as individuals, actually locked down in Texas like those folks in China.   I was never stopped by a cop and asked why I was out and about, when I was jogging or biking or at a store or picking up a to-go order.

Heh, the only thing that really changed for us was not going into big box stores, into restaurants, no Happy Hour meets with our oldfart friends, and family dinners. No big deal.
Plus not being able to accompany Mrs. Brat into the hospital when she had surgery and vice/versa - that did bother both of us.

Otherwise we rolled around town at will with easy traffic, went by the kid’s homes (brief visits, distancing somewhat while masking up), walking around the neighborhood & park. Drove around in the country, went into the deserted CVS, enjoyed curbside grocery pickup at HEB (when it is open), curbside pickup from our favorite restaurants (frozen margaritas to go ftw),  had more sex, and saved more cash.

And I got this cool ass mask..

 

Edited October 21, 2020 by Armybrat

[dcar00 14030]

55 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

 

 

 

 

 

Man, stop this shit. There's almost infinite research out there showing that masks work. We're starting to get enough contact tracing data to draw conclusions and over and over it says you get covid at bars, restaurants, and indoor family/friend gatherings.

 

Just stop with the ignorance and the anti-science. As soon as you said "masks help little" about 3/4 of posters stopped reading. Don't put yourself in the tinfoil hat loony bin with people who think that Andy Dalton is better than Dak and that LeBron is better than Jordan.

 

and protests and memorial day bbq's.  masks help but its overblown.  France, Italy, UK, prove it.  they have been wearing masks for months.   they start letting people move around even with masks and what do you know, huge spike.

what works is contact tracing and quarantining/not moving around.  which we are not good at, at all.

[BradInATX 9208]

and protests and memorial day bbq's.  masks help but its overblown.  France, Italy, UK, prove it.  they have been wearing masks for months.   they start letting people move around even with masks and what do you know, huge spike.
what works is contact tracing and quarantining/not moving around.  which we are not good at, at all.

Where do people take their masks off?

[dcar00 14030]

17 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Where do people take their masks off?

baseball games, protests, football sidelines...except in Europe where they are the smartest people on the planet and would never go anywhere without a mask.

and Andy Dalton sucks

Edited October 21, 2020 by dcar00

[atomheartbevo 89407]

47 minutes ago, BradInATX said:

Where do people take their masks off?

Losses to OU?

[InkaUtexas 25496]

12 minutes ago, atomheartbevo said:

Losses to OU?

Only allowed if you are flipping them off. 

[Guest Lobo]

1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

baseball games, protests, football sidelines...except in Europe where they are the smartest people on the planet and would never go anywhere without a mask.

and Andy Dalton sucks

Have you ever brought up your European heritage in conversation before?  

[atomheartbevo 89407]

1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

.except in Europe where they are the smartest people on the planet and would never go anywhere without a mask.

Yeah, but the Irish and the Dutch are included, so...

[BradInATX 9208]

1 hour ago, dcar00 said:

baseball games, protests, football sidelines...except in Europe where they are the smartest people on the planet and would never go anywhere without a mask.

and Andy Dalton sucks

 

Bars, restaurants, and gatherings of family/friends inside of homes. Same as it has always been since day 1. If you've been following the contact tracing (which I, like you, believe in), you'd know that.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicagos-top-doctor-urges-residents-do-not-invite-anyone-over-to-your-home/2355934/

So yeah, you're sort of on the right track saying Europeans are like Americans. We're all getting bored and antsy and want to see our friends and family and we're getting some cracks in our game. People are getting together and having barbecues or eating escargot or whatever. You're right there in that everyone everywhere is bound by human nature.

But then you have go to partisan and do the whole stupid "masks don't work" thing because you seem to be incapable or unwilling to get into the nuance of it. You see "all world wear mask, all world still get infected, mask no work". It's caveman logic. I've seen you on other parts of the board, you're better than that.

[BradInATX 9208]

On the bright side there's this:

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/10/20/925441975/studies-point-to-big-drop-in-covid-19-death-rates

We had a lot of discussions on why the death rates are down and a lot of us speculated that it was because younger people were getting it. Some folks did a study on it and found that death rates are going down significantly, completely independent of age/comorbidities. So the decreasing death rate isn't just a function of younger people catching it. It's actually less deadly.

Here's the preprint: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.08.11.20172775v1. Not super-detailed but their methods look sound.

The study stops short of knowing exactly why (we probably won't know that for five years). Could be one or several of of, as they say, "increasing clinical experience, decreasing hospital volume, growing use of new pharmacologic treatments (such as corticosteroids, remdesivir and anti-cytokine treatments), non-pharmacologic treatments (such as proning), earlier intervention, community awareness, and lower viral load exposure from increasing mask wearing and social distancing"

But hey, it's good news.

Edited October 21, 2020 by BradInATX

[Pato del Muerto 52338]

That plus he uses mask mandate and mask usage interchangeably. Even if they started out with a higher compliance rate than us, human nature is such that it would fade over the months from fatigue as well as believing it was under control. 

[ChickenSandwich 9798]

Only China can completely quarantine. Even if they have to board up your house with you in it. 

[Captainant 27442]

Just now, ChickenSandwich said:

Only China can completely quarantine. Even if they have to board up your house with you in it. 

Won't stop a bunch of bumpkins from acting like they're under lock and key though. LIBERATE MICHIGAN, amirite?

[NoRagrets 1125]

The article I read about Europe is that they started easing the mask requirements, even in high schools and colleges. Shockingly, this backfired.

[utee94 15745]

7 hours ago, NoRagrets said:

The article I read about Europe is that they started easing the mask requirements, even in high schools and colleges. Shockingly, this backfired.

Yes, earlier on this thread I mentioned my friend who is now an expat living in the Czech Republic.  Midsummer, he was posting to social media, pictures of himself and his partner all over their town of Brno, dining and drinking and going to live music events both indoors and out.  They were maskless as were all other people in his pictures of public spaces thoughout the town.  When asked about it on social media by some of his incredulous American friends, he commented that they'd beaten the virus in the Czech Republic and things were completely back to normal.

I recently checked the Czech Republic's numbers on worldometers, and they're now suffering through a second wave spike that is much larger than the first wave was.  In absolute numbers, it's still quite small, even normalized for population.  But compared to their first wave, they're getting hammered.

But the really unusual thing is that, unlike their European neighbors, their death totals are also spiking significantly.  I don't know if it's an issue of their healthcare system not being as good, or perhaps it made its way into a highly vulnerable population like a retirement home, that didn't happen the first time around?  Regardless, they're definitely suffering worse than they did the first time.  

 

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

Its still amazing to me that N95s are available to everyone now, and people are still opting for masks that only block 20-40% of particles

 

Why anyone wouldnt wear an N95 at this point is kinda silly

[Bozo_Casanova 26277]

2 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Its still amazing to me that N95s are available to everyone now, and people are still opting for masks that only block 20-40% of particles

 

Why anyone wouldnt wear an N95 at this point is kinda silly

Easier to breath in as well, but never underestimate the effect of cost for substitutional goods (or perceived to be, anyway). 

[dcar00 14030]

11 hours ago, BradInATX said:

 

Bars, restaurants, and gatherings of family/friends inside of homes. Same as it has always been since day 1. If you've been following the contact tracing (which I, like you, believe in), you'd know that.

https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/local/chicagos-top-doctor-urges-residents-do-not-invite-anyone-over-to-your-home/2355934/

So yeah, you're sort of on the right track saying Europeans are like Americans. We're all getting bored and antsy and want to see our friends and family and we're getting some cracks in our game. People are getting together and having barbecues or eating escargot or whatever. You're right there in that everyone everywhere is bound by human nature.

But then you have go to partisan and do the whole stupid "masks don't work" thing because you seem to be incapable or unwilling to get into the nuance of it. You see "all world wear mask, all world still get infected, mask no work". It's caveman logic. I've seen you on other parts of the board, you're better than that.

again with the reading comprehension.  I said masks help but its not as much as people "OMG the masks OMG the masks".  the France, italy, Germany and others never removed mask mandates.  mask usage is completely anecdotal.  no one knows.  what isn't anecdotal is countries that have been very specific about mandating masks are seeing spikes anyway.

when I am required to wear a mask I actually wear an R95.  while dumbasses around me wear gaiters and other shitty "masks."

[Neonmoon 38127]

 

[utee94 15745]

The people in the Asian countries that are more accustomed to viral spreading and "have handled COVID" aren't wearing N95s, for the most part. 

Edited October 21, 2020 by utee94

[Brisketexan 104556]

1 hour ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Its still amazing to me that N95s are available to everyone now, and people are still opting for masks that only block 20-40% of particles

 

Why anyone wouldnt wear an N95 at this point is kinda silly

N95s are hard to find, but KN95s are widely available.  We have a box of spares, and that's mostly what we wear.  My wife wears nicer-looking cloth masks when she's performing a wedding, but they have filter layers built in as well.  Bottom line, we mostly wear KN95s when we're out where there are other people, save and except when my wife is standing at the front of an (uncrowded -- they are all small) wedding, which are mostly outdoors.  And even then, it's a better-than-usual mask.

I don't understand people who just wear a bandana or whatnot.  A KN95 costs maybe $2 now.