COVID-19 2nd wave - Texas only - Stats and such

[atomheartbevo 89409]

4 minutes ago, CooterBrown said:

This explains why professional wrestling was so popular among some of my friends years ago.

NTTIAWWT.

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

Again, www.envomask.com

 

i just ordered my 3rd since 3/2020

[hookemATL 11604]

3 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Again, www.envomask.com

 

i just ordered my 3rd since 3/2020

These are what we bought for the school year for my eldest. They fit better than any previous option we have been through during Covid. Highly recommend. 

[Bevo 13525]

1 hour ago, conVINCEd said:

Very thankful I almost died of something other than covid 2 weeks ago.

I remember you had extremely high blood pressure. What did the cardiologist tell you? Have you taken a stress test? Angiogram?

[conVINCEd 21468]

Just now, Bevo said:

I remember you had extremely high blood pressure. What did the cardiologist tell you? Have you taken a stress test? Angiogram?

We’re still working on it.  BP has held pretty steady with the medication.

[Bevo 13525]

8 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

We’re still working on it.  BP has held pretty steady with the medication.

Like below 140/90?

[conVINCEd 21468]

1 minute ago, Bevo said:

Like below 140/90?

Yes

[J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. 1084]

2 hours ago, DDD Dad said:

Fortunately DDD mom got her ovarian cyst removed on Friday. Was worried they’d call it off. As it happened she did have to stay overnight but they didn’t admit her to the hospital. Just kept her at the surgical center.

So, about this DDD mom...

[wood 11121]

2 hours ago, JesusSweatDuck said:

So they tested positive today or were waiting for results and decided to go anyways?

They apparently got sick over the weekend and got tested, so the teachers & staff got the word today.

[Okie State 3788]

Fort Bend here.  66% of my children came home with fevers and fatigue this afternoon  All 3 are mask wearers, although seem to be in the minority. We kept them out last year and heavily weighed it this year.   Really feeling pretty fucking low right now.  

Ours were out most of last year and our 2nd grader starts in person Wednesday. Not feeling great about it, but don't really have any other options. Last year my wife was WFH, but they just called her back in. Just hoping for the best at this point.

[workswithseed 2035]

6 hours ago, CooterBrown said:

Had a dream, uh nightmare, last night that they’d identified the Zulu Variant.

You're not British, right?

[Nice Guy Eddie 13410]

Chronicle story about at-home COVID tests flying off the shelves. Do these tests suggest or recommend that the results are reported to the govt health orgs? I haven't seen the tests but I assume they are basically like home pregnancy tests where only you know the results.

I wonder if these could lead to a under-reporting of positive COVID tests.

 

[dcbc 14404]

4 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Chronicle story about at-home COVID tests flying off the shelves. Do these tests suggest or recommend that the results are reported to the govt health orgs? I haven't seen the tests but I assume they are basically like home pregnancy tests where only you know the results.

I wonder if these could lead to a under-reporting of positive COVID tests.

 

Almost certainly.  But quite a few larger organization type employers require an "official" test to excuse the absence.

[Telegraph_it 3354]

6 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Chronicle story about at-home COVID tests flying off the shelves. Do these tests suggest or recommend that the results are reported to the govt health orgs? I haven't seen the tests but I assume they are basically like home pregnancy tests where only you know the results.

I wonder if these could lead to a under-reporting of positive COVID tests.

 

I did not report my test result. Maybe work did but I doubt it. 

[JesusSweatDuck 17780]

7 minutes ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Chronicle story about at-home COVID tests flying off the shelves. Do these tests suggest or recommend that the results are reported to the govt health orgs? I haven't seen the tests but I assume they are basically like home pregnancy tests where only you know the results.

I wonder if these could lead to a under-reporting of positive COVID tests.

 

There's a lot of under reporting of cases, even more than previously.  That's what makes the high case numbers even more terrifying

[South Austin 52129]

I'm certain there will be a lot of parents who won't get their kids tested for fear of resulting in a class-wide quarantine.  If the kid is experiencing cold or flu-like symptoms, then it'll be hard to hide that at school and the parents will have to test.  But if a child is otherwise feeling fine and a parent learns they may have been in contact with a kid who tested positive during a weekend soccer game or something like that, I can see a parent doing nothing.

[Nice Guy Eddie 13410]

7 minutes ago, South Austin said:

I'm certain there will be a lot of parents who won't get their kids tested for fear of resulting in a class-wide quarantine.  If the kid is experiencing cold or flu-like symptoms, then it'll be hard to hide that at school and the parents will have to test.  But if a child is otherwise feeling fine and a parent learns they may have been in contact with a kid who tested positive during a weekend soccer game or something like that, I can see a parent doing nothing.

Yeah. And forgot about class-wide quarantine. Can you imagine this with sports teams? Your kid is barely on the varsity team but you find out that he was around someone that has tested positive. He's ok but complaining of a headache. The average dad in Texas would not allow his son to be tested in that scenario, and tells the kid to not complain of feeling sick to the coach/trainer.

The dad would rather his son quietly infect teammates than be the one that leads to a forfeit due to the entire squad being quarantined. 

I don't want your life

[dcbc 14404]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Yeah. And forgot about class-wide quarantine. Can you imagine this with sports teams? Your kid is barely on the varsity team but you find out that he was around someone that has tested positive. He's ok but complaining of a headache. The average dad in Texas would not allow his son to be tested in that scenario, and tells the kid to not complain of feeling sick to the coach/trainer.

The dad would rather his son quietly infect teammates than be the one that leads to a forfeit due to the entire squad being quarantined. 

I don't want your life

The CDC guidance gets muddier when you're vaccinated.  A friend of mine at work messaged me last night that his wife had symptoms and tested positive on a home test.  Confirmed this morning on a rapid test.  Another work friend and I were in his office for about an hour yesterday.  All four of us have been vaccinated.  He has no symptoms and even so, wouldn't probably have a productive test for another 3--5 days.  So, according to the CDC, my other work friend and I have no direct exposure and can come to work.  I'm staying in my office and have informed my superiors of my tangential exposure, of course.  Even if he tests positive, the guidance is that my other work friend and I mask up in public spaces and test within 3--5 days of exposure.  But no quarantine required. 

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

Horse paste

[Johnny Sack 8397]

14 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

It's definitely getting some to reconsider, but they are in the hospital for COVID, so it's a little late.

Almost everyone I know is vaxxed.  Except a sister.  One friend is in the hospital with Covid.  He's unvaxxed but otherwise a smart dude.  VP at a big commercial real estate outfit.  You would think he would know better.

I am hoping enough unvaxxed see people like that and get with the program.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

I'm certain there will be a lot of parents who won't get their kids tested for fear of resulting in a class-wide quarantine.  If the kid is experiencing cold or flu-like symptoms, then it'll be hard to hide that at school and the parents will have to test.  But if a child is otherwise feeling fine and a parent learns they may have been in contact with a kid who tested positive during a weekend soccer game or something like that, I can see a parent doing nothing.

My kids' school is giving kids the arm bands that ping off of each other.  If a kid tests positive, anyone who was within 6 feet for more than 15 minutes per the arm band tech will have to quarantine.  This is better than last year when they would send the whole class home.  As infectious as Delta is, I am expecting a shit show.  Hopefully, since it is so infectious, it will burn out quickly.  

[Captainant 27442]

2 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

VP at a big commercial real estate outfit.  You would think he would know better.

lol, real estate folks are highly correlated with conspiracy theory nutjobs. Not surprising at the least - more than half the real estate agents I know personally aren't vaxxed

[DDD Dad 14250]

Just now, Captainant said:

lol, real estate folks are highly correlated with conspiracy theory nutjobs. Not surprising at the least - more than half the real estate agents I know personally aren't vaxxed

Not so much commercial real estate.  Residential real estate for sure.

[Johnny Sack 8397]

4 minutes ago, Captainant said:

lol, real estate folks are highly correlated with conspiracy theory nutjobs. Not surprising at the least - more than half the real estate agents I know personally aren't vaxxed

He is an exec with a massive commercial real estate firm, not some suburban mom who does real estate on the side. Highly educated with prestigious undergrad and grad degrees.  Makes a lot of money.  Member at River Oaks CC.  When you talk to him it's clear he is an extremely bright person.

I expected better.  I cannot debate anti-vaxxers though.  Just cannot hide my contempt for their stupidity.  Again, science has given us all the keys to the Covid jail cell.  And as a whole not enough people are using them.

Edited August 17, 2021 by Johnny Sack

[Skipper 6103]

1 hour ago, South Austin said:

I'm certain there will be a lot of parents who won't get their kids tested for fear of resulting in a class-wide quarantine.  If the kid is experiencing cold or flu-like symptoms, then it'll be hard to hide that at school and the parents will have to test.  But if a child is otherwise feeling fine and a parent learns they may have been in contact with a kid who tested positive during a weekend soccer game or something like that, I can see a parent doing nothing.

This is what I was thinking about.  The only time our pre-K quarantined last year was when a dad tested positive then they tested kids and the kids tested positive as well.  I'm fairly certain the dad didn't get tested until he started feeling like shit on like day 2 or 3 of symptoms.   To the extent most parents are vaccinated and only get mild symptoms (so they don't get tested, but can still spread it to kids) if the kids also have mild symptoms, they probably never get tested either.  It seems like in a lot of school age settings you may not have someone get tested until it's spread around until some kid has fever that lasts a couple of days, etc. prompting a parent to test them. 

[Damor 1232]

1 hour ago, Nice Guy Eddie said:

Yeah. And forgot about class-wide quarantine. Can you imagine this with sports teams? Your kid is barely on the varsity team but you find out that he was around someone that has tested positive. He's ok but complaining of a headache. The average dad in Texas would not allow his son to be tested in that scenario, and tells the kid to not complain of feeling sick to the coach/trainer.

The dad would rather his son quietly infect teammates than be the one that leads to a forfeit due to the entire squad being quarantined. 

I don't want your life

^^^

That's my scenario right now with 16yo and 13yo boys.  They are both vaccinated but I am certain a large number of their teammates are not.  The 16yo doesn't want to wear a mask at school, and the 13yo is ambivalent (he's around more kids who are under 12).  If mine develop symptoms, they will be tested and held out (we already had to do that for the 16yo when he spiked a 103 temp right before two-a-days, tested negative).

I've warned them both that while I consider it being a bad teammate to be unvaccinated, if mine don't mask up and take every precaution, they're still at risk for getting thrown under the bus when shit inevitably happens, because people suck, and nobody's going to blame the unvaccinated starting senior.

It does help that vaccinated exposures won't require quarantine, but:
1)  That guideline predates Delta
2)  Nobody is going to demand proof of vaccination.

Let the shitshow commence.

[CooterBrown 17904]

Chronicle story about at-home COVID tests flying off the shelves. Do these tests suggest or recommend that the results are reported to the govt health orgs? I haven't seen the tests but I assume they are basically like home pregnancy tests where only you know the results.
I wonder if these could lead to a under-reporting of positive COVID tests.
 

I gave my kid one of these tests after we got back from Disneyland for piece of mind. Researching the accuracy I found that they identify COVID 60% of the time so it misses a huge amount of positive cases. On the flip side, studies have shown that if it does flag you as a positive, it’s 98% accurate.

[pearlandhorn 3269]

18 hours ago, J.R. Juniors Junior Jr. said:

This thing's going to kill 100,000+ in Texas and over a million nationally before it's over, isn't it?

It's never going to be "over".

[mdleast 8259]

1 minute ago, pearlandhorn said:

It's never going to be "over".

Not as long as there are enough dumb fuck "muh freedumz" morons out there

[Huckleberry 32694]

18 hours ago, Telegraph_it said:

Magnolia ISD: 8/11. Conroe ISD: 8/11. Tomball ISD: 8/17. Klein ISD: 8/18. *** GULP *** HISD: 8/23. 

 

18 hours ago, Chuckie Finster said:

Fort Bend ISD: 8/11.  Katy ISD: 8/18.  Shit's about to get real.

Third largest school district in the state is also 8/23 (CFISD)

43 minutes ago, Johnny Sack said:

He is an exec with a massive commercial real estate firm, not some suburban mom who does real estate on the side. Highly educated with prestigious undergrad and grad degrees.  Makes a lot of money.  Member at River Oaks CC.  When you talk to him it's clear he is an extremely bright person.

I expected better.  I cannot debate anti-vaxxers though.  Just cannot hide my contempt for their stupidity.  Again, science has given us all the keys to the Covid jail cell.  And as a whole not enough people are using them.

 

[Newdoc 3429]

57 minutes ago, Skipper said:

It seems like in a lot of school age settings you may not have someone get tested until it's spread around until some kid has fever that lasts a couple of days, etc. prompting a parent to test them. 

Exactly. Saw a ten year old with mild URI symptoms yesterday evening. Positive Covid. Where was he all day? At school with optional masking. ALL DAY.  Mom didn't suspect Covid due to very mild symptoms and no fever at start of the day. She could have disappeared into the wall when I told her. You could see the "Oh Shit" look on her face. Kid seemed happy to extend his summer vacay even staying in his room.

[Skipper 6103]

21 minutes ago, Newdoc said:

Exactly. Saw a ten year old with mild URI symptoms yesterday evening. Positive Covid. Where was he all day? At school with optional masking. ALL DAY.  Mom didn't suspect Covid due to very mild symptoms and no fever at start of the day. She could have disappeared into the wall when I told her. You could see the "Oh Shit" look on her face. Kid seemed happy to extend his summer vacay even staying in his room.

It seems like mass production of rapid tests given out free to parents with instructions to use if kid has any of x, y, z symptoms would probably have been more effective than masking in any event.  I really don't see how this doesn't just burn through the schools, even if masked.

[fluff 87]

Well, I guess if it does burn through the schools, is that for the better? 

[JesusSweatDuck 17780]

19 minutes ago, fluff said:

Well, I guess if it does burn through the schools, is that for the better? 

Not with the current state of hospitals.  Little Timmy's unvaxxed parents will end up in the hospital after he brings it home from school.  There will be and like already are deaths being caused just due to the lack of beds and staffing issues causing poor care and poor outcomes.

[Huckleberry 32694]

22 minutes ago, fluff said:

Well, I guess if it does burn through the schools, is that for the better? 

If you think it's better for more people to die because schools have adults working there and it turns out pretty much all the students also live with adults, and then they'll all carry it to other places and infect a lot more people which will continue the hospital bed and staffing shortages which will in turn cause extra not just COVID deaths then yes, it's better. 

Edited August 17, 2021 by Huckleberry

[Post Oak 20183]

My kids school has one of those thermometer stands set up when you walk in.  It takes your temp and you cant come in if you have a fever.  Last year it was not optional.  If you walked in you had to be masked and be scanned.  This year it was turned off, turned around and pushed into the corner. 

First day of school is today. Id be shocked if there aren't issues by Friday. 

[fluff 87]

Understood, so what is going to prevent it from burning through the schools?

[South Austin 52129]

23 minutes ago, fluff said:

Well, I guess if it does burn through the schools, is that for the better? 

It would if our vaccination rate was higher.  Then I think we'd largely see COVID cases in kids who aren't eligible for the vaccine and mild or asymptomatic cases for adults and 12+ kids who have been vaccinated, mixed in with a few vaccinated folks requiring hospitalization because of compromised immune systems or conditions.  So while the virus burns through schools, I think the primary consequence in a higher-vaccinated population would be the pain in the ass of staggered class-wide quarantines, and not taxing the shit out of our health care system. 

Instead we have our kids going back to school when our hospitals are flooded with dipshits who still refuse to get the vaccine.

[BrickHorn 18186]

So the Austin Public Health’s dashboard plot of daily cases is a little frightening. Could be a quirk in the data, but the latest daily case count shot straight up. 

[South Austin 52129]

2 minutes ago, Post Oak said:

My kids school has one of those thermometer stands set up when you walk in.  It takes your temp and you cant come in if you have a fever.  Last year it was not optional.  If you walked in you had to be masked and be scanned.  This year it was turned off, turned around and pushed into the corner.

My son's elementary school, which currently (but unfortunately not for long) is subject to the AISD/Travis County mask mandate, did not appear to be taking temperatures when allowing parents and kids enter the building for meet-the-teacher day yesterday. 

So when the mask mandate goes away, will a school have the authority to take a child's temperature at the doorway, and if the reading is high, deny entry until a negative COVID test?

[MonkeyDoughnut 10139]

16 hours ago, fattyflattie said:

Fort Bend here.  66% of my children came home with fevers and fatigue this afternoon  All 3 are mask wearers, although seem to be in the minority. We kept them out last year and heavily weighed it this year.   Really feeling pretty fucking low right now.  

Sorry to hear and Fort Bend is one of the highest vaccinated places too, we're over 80% with at least one dose already.

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

Harris County to start paying people $100 to get the first vaccine shot

 

 

 

[Born to Run 6565]

Both my kids were in full-time in-person school last year from October 2020 through the end in May 2021.  They each came home a couple of times for contact-tracing purposes.
But one big difference is that last year, their schools were set up so you could move pretty seamlessly from in-person to online-only, because there was at least a small group that NEVER went in-person.  This year it's not going to be so straightforward, and I feel like the online learning will be even less productive than before.

Aisd currently does not have an option for online learning besides what is on Blend -links, lessons etc. no class time.

I get that TEA is driving that bus but you won't think having classes recorded would be a good idea even in normal times so kids are less likely to punished academically for staying home when ill.

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

98% of covid cases in Harris County Hospitals are unvaxxed

[Johnny Sack 8397]

2 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

98% of covid cases in Harris County Hospitals are unvaxxed

That needs to be preached from the mountains

[GreenspointTexas 9559]

 

[Telegraph_it 3354]

15 minutes ago, GreenspointTexas said:

Harris County to start paying people $100 to get the first vaccine shot

 

 

 

shit. I should have held out and waited. 

[BrickHorn 18186]

15 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

So the Austin Public Health’s dashboard plot of daily cases is a little frightening. Could be a quirk in the data, but the latest daily case count shot straight up. 

To add to this, the new cases number for Aug 16 (955) is the third highest ever, just behind the peak days of Jan 13-14 (1461 and 1108, respectively).

[bschoolprof 6232]

31 minutes ago, BrickHorn said:

So the Austin Public Health’s dashboard plot of daily cases is a little frightening. Could be a quirk in the data, but the latest daily case count shot straight up. 

This is more @BrazilHorn territory, but I'm pretty sure there is a Tuesday trueup in Austin case #s.  Still a shitshow though.  

[CooterBrown 17904]

30 minutes ago, South Austin said:

My son's elementary school, which currently (but unfortunately not for long) is subject to the AISD/Travis County mask mandate, did not appear to be taking temperatures when allowing parents and kids enter the building for meet-the-teacher day yesterday. 

So when the mask mandate goes away, will a school have the authority to take a child's temperature at the doorway, and if the reading is high, deny entry until a negative COVID test?

Our elementary did not take temps at meet the teacher yesterday or today at the first day of class. A friend that teaches there said the thermometers were so shitty that out in the heat they'd give crazy forehead readings like 115 degrees so they were pretty useless.  The "green screen" was given up on also because of course everybody has a green screen so they can go to school.