BlsdMama Posted July 23, 2020 Author Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 28 minutes ago, Pen said: Yes. Both of the above — I agree. And I want to add that people seem to act like this pandemic is separate from their lives. I hear things along the lines that people were living their lives and then this happened and their lives stopped and now they are ready to get back to their lives. However, this pandemic situation is a part of our lives, not something separate. It may even turn out to be a very significant part of our lives much like the World Wars were a significant part of people’s lives who were affected by them. This is SO important. Actually it reminds me of my favorite quote of all time.“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.” C.S. Lewis We have this notion in our heads of, "We'll get on with our 'life' when X happens." Could be graduating from school, or buying a house, or when the weather turns nice, or.... We tend to live our lives in a pause mode and maybe moreso now than ever. But have you said, pre-Covid, when life gets back to normal or when I'm less busy, or when.... I'll do this thing I really want to intentionally do? It is one thing to plan. It is another to pause. As a society, we tend to constantly meet the urgent and fail to be intentional and willing to live our actual lives. Obviously this is a little unique, but the grander idea exists. I liked the quote pre-ALS diagnosis but I don't think I grasped the significance of it but it comes down to this: I'm not dying of ALS. I'm living with ALS. So the question becomes how are you intentionally living during Covid or are you on pause? Because pause has no value. Now, you can be living with quarantine and Covid at home, and that is surely different and preferable to being on pause, if that makes sense. Edited July 23, 2020 by BlsdMama 9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 8 minutes ago, square_25 said: Oh goodness. How traumatic. When they were able to leave, my father dragged his brother from the woman's arms onto the train. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ali in OR Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Thank you ladies for keeping perspective. Just what I needed to hear this morning. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CT Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 re thinking of COVID as an irritating interruption of our "real" life vs... 2 minutes ago, BlsdMama said: ..... The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.”C.S. Lewis .... ... considering the possibility * that COVID is a plague that God has sent us. And if so, to teach us what. ( * whether we perceive the possibility as "literal" or "metaphoric" -- I have a full range in my household; and we've had some pretty interesting conversations, and even arrived at a few roughly comparable inferences, coming at the question from quite different perspectives.) 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 hours ago, square_25 said: The whole point was to close for a bit, get numbers down, then reopen with good testing and contact tracing. That was the point, but what went wrong in some places? If you look at Texas, for example, did we not close down long enough? Did we not get numbers down enough? Did we not have good testing? Did we not have good contact tracing? t 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 hours ago, square_25 said: Beautifully put, thank you. I feel exactly like you do. I wish I felt like this was a common problem for our society to battle at large, instead of feeling like a trapped animal in a hole, one who's only going to come out when this has burned out. Nothing I've learned about this virus is making me want to put my family through it. Nothing at all. I know so many people who still have symptoms months later. We aren't handling this at the societal level, so then I have to handle it myself, which means being lonely. I'll take the trade, I guess, but it makes me sad. I feel the same. Instead of the coummunity or country or the world being united fighting a common enemy, we have made it a personal lifestyle decision or something. It's the public health version of anarchy in some ways. Can't even commiserate with the neighbors like with other crises. 2 hours ago, BlsdMama said: Good girl! My door would have been locked and I probably would have screamed unkind things asking if they were batsh*t crazy for attempting to expose a newborn and a newly delivered woman. Now, I will say we HOSTED a FAMILY only get together last weekend. Everyone is aware I'm not staying home all the time but I am being more cautious than most folks and I believe I'll get this inevitably so I accept that. My aunt hugged me. Of course, she didn't mention to ME, but did to my DH on her way out (she didn't stay long) that she's been sick and wonders if it is Covid. Are you kidding me???? Like you're actively SICK and you came to a group function? Why? Why for ANY disease? If I'm sick I don't go to Christmas, Easter, or even the store? No one wants WHATEVER you're carrying. SMH, yes, there are just THOSE people and if we realize that those people exist, then short of military keeping people closed, it will spread and continue to spread inevitably. Oh my sweet heavens....I have no words. None. So wrong on so many levels. I pray she didn't bring anything but stupidity. 1 hour ago, Pam in CT said: (I keep thinking about other extended intervals where whole nations lived under sustained strain, and what THOSE stressors must have felt like to folks enduring them. The Depression, the WWs, influenza and plague. This particular plague fell upon us right at Passover, which provided something of a frame for me to see our own turning upon both each other and our leadership, our lapses into false idols, and above all... forty years. Just how long is forty years. We were "done" with the virus before we got to forty days. The virus, OTOH, she is not done with us.) Yes, exactly. We have lost any sense of attention span or long term thinking it seems. 1 hour ago, Pen said: Yes. Both of the above — I agree. And I want to add that people seem to act like this pandemic is separate from their lives. I hear things along the lines that people were living their lives and then this happened and their lives stopped and now they are ready to get back to their lives. However, this pandemic situation is a part of our lives, not something separate. It may even turn out to be a very significant part of our lives much like the World Wars were a significant part of people’s lives who were affected by them. And if we'd accept that, I think as a people we could be incredibly creative and come up with great ideas to make life during Covid better. But instead there is just an unwillingness to deal with it, and instead hope it goes away. Necessity is the mother of invention, but we have to acknowledge the need first. 1 hour ago, Matryoshka said: Not just doubtful. And if we could just pull together and do the things that would reduce transmission and stop sticking our heads in the sand, this really would become more of a blip. We know what to do, if we all just did it we could get to, at least, a new normal. Super frustrating. 43 minutes ago, BlsdMama said: This is SO important. Actually it reminds me of my favorite quote of all time.“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.” C.S. Lewis We have this notion in our heads of, "We'll get on with our 'life' when X happens." Could be graduating from school, or buying a house, or when the weather turns nice, or.... We tend to live our lives in a pause mode and maybe moreso now than ever. But have you said, pre-Covid, when life gets back to normal or when I'm less busy, or when.... I'll do this thing I really want to intentionally do? It is one thing to plan. It is another to pause. As a society, we tend to constantly meet the urgent and fail to be intentional and willing to live our actual lives. Obviously this is a little unique, but the grander idea exists. I liked the quote pre-ALS diagnosis but I don't think I grasped the significance of it but it comes down to this: I'm not dying of ALS. I'm living with ALS. So the question becomes how are you intentionally living during Covid or are you on pause? Because pause has no value. Now, you can be living with quarantine and Covid at home, and that is surely different and preferable to being on pause, if that makes sense. A favorite of mine as well. Trying very hard to move out of pause mode and into new normal mode...the depression/anxiety just makes it hard to think and plan. But yes, that's the goal. Reframe, be creative, make life as good as it can be. 5 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
fairfarmhand Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 hour ago, square_25 said: Actually, if you were evacuated, you were no longer in the same place as most of your friends. And your family had probably just been torn apart. And you may very well have wound up moving back to a different city. And if you were Jewish in much of Europe in World War II, well... I won't go there. You're thinking of this from a very American point of view. I think I’ll have my 15 yo and 12 yo read Anne Frank’s Diary. Probably will help them know they’re not alone in struggles. We’ll get through this. It stinks but humanity has a way of muddling through hard times. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 2 minutes ago, square_25 said: I'd say probably all of the above? I know that Texas rapidly increased the amount of testing in May. I have a relative who works in public health in the state and was assigned to COVID tracing--she had a totally of 3 contacts in about two months--all who were family members of an index case. She has been bored crazy; so the problem hasn't been shortage of contact tracers (I don't know if there is something wrong in the contact tracing system.) In early June we had steady cases and empty hospitals. It is hard to bring numbers down significantly when you didn't have a sharp peak to bring down. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CT Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 re timing / pacing of opening up 2 minutes ago, Bootsie said: That was the point, but what went wrong in some places? If you look at Texas, for example, did we not close down long enough? Did we not get numbers down enough? Did we not have good testing? Did we not have good contact tracing? t When did Texas start to ease restrictions? And how quickly / tied to case numbers were the restrictions eased? I've only been really looking at TX-specific numbers for a few weeks. But it looks like that whole curve is shifted in time from ours. But where we had our spike in late March-early April, slammed on the SIP measures, and have only opened up verrrrrry slowly and still-not-fully based on local cases (my own town had an outbreak of 5 cases last week, sigh, so we're back to pause mode)... it appears (?) that TX' spike started after SIP was lifted. We definitely did not have adequate testing at our worst. Test availability is much better now -- anyone can get a test with a doctor's referral, and doctors are no longer rationing and will refer pretty much anyone who has a regular physician (a constraint) who asks. But it's still not as good as in MA where my mother lives, where there are places which will do testing for people who self-referunder a state-organized Stop the Spread program aimed at folks who want (for example) to visit a relative but want to be sure they won't inadvertently transmit. Even there, the Stop the Spread tests are not generally covered by insurance, so there's a deterrent constraint there as well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 I don't know about Texas, but in Florida I can say that when we opened up bars and gyms and movie theaters and went to full capacity retail, not only was there more mixing of people, but psychologically people took us opening as meaning it was safe and the virus was gone. They stopped masking, they started hanging out in big groups again, they stopped distancing. Add in that we were having more than 100 cases from just a single bar, and then those people going spreading it more before getting tested, and only having 20 county health care workers, not all of whom do contact tracing, and there was no way to trace it. The free testing sites had 4-6 hour waits in your car, engine running, requiring a full tank of gas. The urgent care places require an appointment which were running a week or more out. If you WANTED to spread this thing, letting drunk people crown into clubs with loud music where they have to shout in each other's faces to be heard, people exercise while breathing heavily in an indoor space with no masks and the only regulation being "provide hand sanitizer if they want it", and then having about a dozen people to contact trace a population of 1.3 million all while the governor is telling everyone things are fine, the virus is done, we won, let's get tourism going again...well that would be the way to do it. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 hour ago, BlsdMama said: This is SO important. Actually it reminds me of my favorite quote of all time.“The great thing, if one can, is to stop regarding all the unpleasant things as interruptions of one's 'own,' or 'real' life. The truth is of course that what one calls the interruptions are precisely one's real life -- the life God is sending one day by day.” C.S. Lewis We have this notion in our heads of, "We'll get on with our 'life' when X happens." Could be graduating from school, or buying a house, or when the weather turns nice, or.... We tend to live our lives in a pause mode and maybe moreso now than ever. But have you said, pre-Covid, when life gets back to normal or when I'm less busy, or when.... I'll do this thing I really want to intentionally do? It is one thing to plan. It is another to pause. As a society, we tend to constantly meet the urgent and fail to be intentional and willing to live our actual lives. Obviously this is a little unique, but the grander idea exists. I liked the quote pre-ALS diagnosis but I don't think I grasped the significance of it but it comes down to this: I'm not dying of ALS. I'm living with ALS. So the question becomes how are you intentionally living during Covid or are you on pause? Because pause has no value. Now, you can be living with quarantine and Covid at home, and that is surely different and preferable to being on pause, if that makes sense. That is a great quote. I have to admit to having a tendency to 'hit the pause button' when a crisis hit. Go into tun mode (waterbear reference!) and just hunker till it's over. But, yeah, this is going to go on way too long for that. I've been feeling pretty okay with the ability to get outdoors to exercise and to have outdoor porch/patio visits with some people, which has become an 'intentionally living with Covid' thing. And gardening, which I hadn't done in years. I'm a bit worried about what's going to happen if school reopening spike things and then it gets too cold to get outside so much... guess we'll have to cross that bridge when we come to it. I just wish we would hit the pause on reopening middle and high schools... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 18 minutes ago, fairfarmhand said: I think I’ll have my 15 yo and 12 yo read Anne Frank’s Diary. Probably will help them know they’re not alone in struggles. We’ll get through this. It stinks but humanity has a way of muddling through hard times. I'll suggest Red Scarf Girl and The Endless Steppe as other good fiction for kids/YA about going through turbulent, disruptive times and coming out the other side (well, Anne Frank didn't, but the other ones did - I think they're both based on the author's childhood experiences). 6 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 14 minutes ago, square_25 said: On the other hand, I expect the Northeast and Europe to have trouble once the summer ends and we head indoors. Which is why I'm basically gearing up for fall to suck. Yep. 😒 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 16 minutes ago, Pam in CT said: But it's still not as good as in MA where my mother lives, where there are places which will do testing for people who self-referunder a state-organized Stop the Spread program aimed at folks who want (for example) to visit a relative but want to be sure they won't inadvertently transmit. Even there, the Stop the Spread tests are not generally covered by insurance, so there's a deterrent constraint there as well. In Boston, they're doing free tests at pop-up locations all over the city - no symptoms or referrals necessary, and free. They'll pop up in one neighborhood, stay for two weeks, then go to a new location. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 4 minutes ago, Bagels McGruffikin said: I still say they’d have probably opened schools first, except it just happened to be summer in the US school schedule. I don’t actually think it’s because bars matter more to almost anyone, even the bar owners, so much as “indoor and outdoor summer activities in the northern hemisphere”. Oh sure. But we probably shouldn't have opened them period, not then, if we didn't want what happened to happen. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Laura Corin Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 30 minutes ago, Ktgrok said: Trying very hard to move out of pause mode and into new normal mode...the depression/anxiety just makes it hard to think and plan. But yes, that's the goal. Reframe, be creative, make life as good as it can be. I'm assuming that the regulations that Scotland has in place will stay for the winter, at least: masking, social distancing, etc. And I'm trying to see the pleasure in it. I've always enjoyed the little courtesies involved in driving through narrow medieval streets here. Now I see the same courtesies and smiles as people slalom past each other on foot, or try to understand a muffled comment. Almost everyone is trying around here, and the endeavour feels worthwhile. I've taken to complimenting people on fun face coverings. The wait staff outside the fish and chip shop who were regulating customer numbers had cute fishes on their masks today. So I told them so. 10 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 37 minutes ago, square_25 said: I mean, that seems weird -- there were more cases than THAT. Also, the question is not volume of testing, it's who you are testing. If you're trying to test, trace and quarantine, it's one thing. If you're still letting people self-select... well, my current operating assumption is that our testing is basically an inefficient method of random sampling from people with cold symptoms, and in fact, if you make that assumption, you can explain a heck of a lot of our data. You can't bring them down, you can just work on how to keep them low. And yes, it's easier to keep numbers down if you've already infected a third of your population. So I'm not comparing here -- Texas had a harder job than, say, NY. But I do think if we look at what South Korea or New Zealand or even parts of Europe are doing, you can see that there's simply more organization about it. On the other hand, I expect the Northeast and Europe to have trouble once the summer ends and we head indoors. Which is why I'm basically gearing up for fall to suck. Our contact tracers held numbers down for sometime but people refused to cooperate. How can they contact 100-200 people for a single case? This is what you end up with when people go to multiple bars or when people sing in a large church. In my experience people in America won't cooperate at all. We also have had travelers test when coming to Alaska then go to multiple social gatherings before their tests came back positive. We have contact tracers talk to people who refuse to be tested because they are afraid of the government. I've seen businesses with banners on websites declaring this is all a hoax. The health department can do ok but dang at somepoint people have to cooperate and that isn't what I'm seeing. Are these other countries dealing with this mentality because I'm thinking it makes it way harder? Edited July 23, 2020 by frogger Added question 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
brehon Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 40 minutes ago, Bootsie said: I know that Texas rapidly increased the amount of testing in May. I have a relative who works in public health in the state and was assigned to COVID tracing--she had a totally of 3 contacts in about two months--all who were family members of an index case. She has been bored crazy; so the problem hasn't been shortage of contact tracers (I don't know if there is something wrong in the contact tracing system.) In early June we had steady cases and empty hospitals. It is hard to bring numbers down significantly when you didn't have a sharp peak to bring down. I don’t know where your cousin works, but the above isn’t the case in my neck of Texas. Both the county I live in and the county I work for have had enormous difficulties hiring enough half-way decent contract tracers to work with the positive cases and trace contacts, test the various nursing homes/residential institutions in a regular schedule as per state mandate, and issue necessary warnings about clusters in these same institutions. Also, being able to be tested depends greatly on where one lives in Texas. Even first responders had a hard time being tested after exposures in the line of duty until June, at least in my area. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 35 minutes ago, square_25 said: 35 minutes ago, Pam in CT said: re timing / pacing of opening up When did Texas start to ease restrictions? And how quickly / tied to case numbers were the restrictions eased? I've only been really looking at TX-specific numbers for a few weeks. But it looks like that whole curve is shifted in time from ours. But where we had our spike in late March-early April, slammed on the SIP measures, and have only opened up verrrrrry slowly and still-not-fully based on local cases (my own town had an outbreak of 5 cases last week, sigh, so we're back to pause mode)... it appears (?) that TX' spike started after SIP was lifted. We definitely did not have adequate testing at our worst. Test availability is much better now -- anyone can get a test with a doctor's referral, and doctors are no longer rationing and will refer pretty much anyone who has a regular physician (a constraint) who asks. But it's still not as good as in MA where my mother lives, where there are places which will do testing for people who self-referunder a state-organized Stop the Spread program aimed at folks who want (for example) to visit a relative but want to be sure they won't inadvertently transmit. Even there, the Stop the Spread tests are not generally covered by insurance, so there's a deterrent constraint there as well. Texas is a big state and the degree of lockdown and how quickly things were lifted have varied across the state. Texas has had a spike after some stay-at-home measures have been lifted. Who knows if Texas would have had a spike earlier if there had not been if schools and businesses had not been closed in March. Did the shut-down just delay a spike? No bars in Texas are open; restaurants that are open are at 50% capacity. At least three restaurants in my general area have permanently closed; no fast food restaurant near me has its dining room open--only drive throughs. The grocery store where I shop is empty (relative to pre-Covid times) and everyone is wearing a mask when I have gone in. I ventured out to Lowe's garden center yesterday; even everyone in the outdoor garden center area was wearing a mask. I live within walking distance of a 10,000+ student university, in the midst of housing for students; I have not seen/heard a party--it has been unusually quiet. I am not sure how to measure how shut-down things are, but we are definitely not "back to normal." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 17 minutes ago, brehon said: I don’t know where your cousin works, but the above isn’t the case in my neck of Texas. Both the county I live in and the county I work for have had enormous difficulties hiring enough half-way decent contract tracers to work with the positive cases and trace contacts, test the various nursing homes/residential institutions in a regular schedule as per state mandate, and issue necessary warnings about clusters in these same institutions. Also, being able to be tested depends greatly on where one lives in Texas. Even first responders had a hard time being tested after exposures in the line of duty until June, at least in my area. My relative is a state, not county employee. Some of the trouble, apparently, is a lack of coordination between the CDC, states, and local health departments. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 hours ago, BlsdMama said: Good girl! My door would have been locked and I probably would have screamed unkind things asking if they were batsh*t crazy for attempting to expose a newborn and a newly delivered woman. Now, I will say we HOSTED a FAMILY only get together last weekend. Everyone is aware I'm not staying home all the time but I am being more cautious than most folks and I believe I'll get this inevitably so I accept that. My aunt hugged me. Of course, she didn't mention to ME, but did to my DH on her way out (she didn't stay long) that she's been sick and wonders if it is Covid. Are you kidding me???? Like you're actively SICK and you came to a group function? Why? Why for ANY disease? If I'm sick I don't go to Christmas, Easter, or even the store? No one wants WHATEVER you're carrying. SMH, yes, there are just THOSE people and if we realize that those people exist, then short of military keeping people closed, it will spread and continue to spread inevitably. Honestly, this is why I am okay with making it known that I am “one of those paranoid people” who isn’t going to restaurants, isn’t socializing, isn’t traveling, wears a mask in practically any situation outside my house (and sometimes inside my house if an outsider is here!), and just had my hair cut for the first time since January. I know some people probably roll their eyes about me and think I’m a wacko, but I prefer that because those people will stay the hell away from me. 7 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, Bootsie said: My relative is a state, not county employee. Some of the trouble, apparently, is a lack of coordination between the CDC, states, and local health departments. My husband is a state employee that about that same time (May) was almost co-opted into contact tracer. They ended up taking a slightly different role in coronavirus testing instead. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 25 minutes ago, frogger said: Our contact tracers held numbers down for sometime but people refused to cooperate. How can they contact 100-200 people for a single case? This is what you end up with when people go to multiple bars or when people sing in a large church. In my experience people in America won't cooperate at all. We also have had travelers test when coming to Alaska then go to multiple social gatherings before their tests came back positive. We have contact tracers talk to people who refuse to be tested because they are afraid of the government. I've seen businesses with banners on websites declaring this is all a hoax. The health department can do ok but dang at somepoint people have to cooperate and that isn't what I'm seeing. Are these other countries dealing with this mentality because I'm thinking it makes it way harder? The CDC guidelines are that someone is a "contact" if they have been within six feet for at least 15 minutes of a person within 2 days before someone tests positive or has symptoms. I can't imagine being within six feet for fifteen minutes of more than four people at the same time. So, if I were near four people for fifteen minutes and then four more people the next fifteen minutes, and so on, I would generate 16 contacts within one hour. In 10 hours, I would generate 160 contacts. I am having trouble getting my mind around how people are generating 200 contacts within a 24-hour time period. The CDC guidelines may not be stringent enough for who might be exposed, but if contact tracers are following those guidelines, it seems that a single case with 100-200 contacts would be an outlier--not the typical case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, square_25 said: My hair is going to get long. That’s all there is to it. You should have seen all the hair on the floor...it could have made a wig! It was the longest it has been in more than a decade, well past my bOoKs in the front, and my previously-known-as “bangs” come to my chin now. Which is nice! Always wanted to grow out my bangs... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, square_25 said: Yes, I’m sure that’s a big problem, but it ought to be possible to coordinate at the state level. I know NY is trying to, with of course the usual issues of larger entities trying to clumsily organize smaller ones. But it’s better than no organization at all. In NY, they are organizing by region, I think. To give an example, I flew internationally into Atlanta and then to Texas in early June. (This was because I happened to be in Europe when things hit and delayed my travel back to the US until things calmed down a bit). CDC employees dressed in gear that looked like they were from a Star Wars movie met the plane and watched us walk off. We had to fill out a contact information sheet. We were handed a card that had a QR code that when scanned took you to the CDC site. I received a recorded phone message from a state source several days later that told me that if I felt sick to monitor my health and seek medical attention if I felt really sick. I asked my relative who was doing contact tracing what would happened if I did get sick, got tested, and was positive; there did not seem to be a process of how the local info would get back to the CDC then to other local health departments of the other people sitting around me on the plane but who resided in other states. 1 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 45 minutes ago, Bootsie said: The CDC guidelines are that someone is a "contact" if they have been within six feet for at least 15 minutes of a person within 2 days before someone tests positive or has symptoms. I can't imagine being within six feet for fifteen minutes of more than four people at the same time. So, if I were near four people for fifteen minutes and then four more people the next fifteen minutes, and so on, I would generate 16 contacts within one hour. In 10 hours, I would generate 160 contacts. I am having trouble getting my mind around how people are generating 200 contacts within a 24-hour time period. The CDC guidelines may not be stringent enough for who might be exposed, but if contact tracers are following those guidelines, it seems that a single case with 100-200 contacts would be an outlier--not the typical case. They don't know who they are around or who sat next to them for one thing. Who sat at the bar next to you? Did you get his name (including last name) or does the bar owner have to contact every person in the bar so it could have been anyone that was a customer between 8-10 or whatever. Not to mention many bars found it socially intrusive to keep contact logs so some didn't and they may be able to use CC reciepts but those who payed cash are gone. Not to mention with AC and heating the idea that it only spreads to a person within 6 feet of you is wrong. If a friend group met at a bar, stayed in one bar preferably at one table, laughed and joked and had a good time and signed in and out there could be a possibility of finding people without contacting everyone but that takes cooperation. That isn't how it works. People mingle. Typically people at parties chat with one group then mosey over to another group. It is the nature of parties. When a person walks into a church with 300 people do they make sure they actually pay attention or even know the name of the people on their left/right/front/back. Singing is likely to push the virus farther from you anyway. If people are in the foyer chatting with a couple people for 10-15 minutes (I used to do so all the time. Now I go outside and wave and chat with people in the parking lot) , do they remember who was facing the other way and chatting with a different friend group? I do think it's doable IF people cooperate but even those who don't think it's a hoax don't think about these things honestly. Edited July 23, 2020 by frogger 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Granny_Weatherwax Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 53 minutes ago, Quill said: Honestly, this is why I am okay with making it known that I am “one of those paranoid people” who isn’t going to restaurants, isn’t socializing, isn’t traveling, wears a mask in practically any situation outside my house (and sometimes inside my house if an outsider is here!), and just had my hair cut for the first time since January. I know some people probably roll their eyes about me and think I’m a wacko, but I prefer that because those people will stay the hell away from me. I haven't had my hair cut since January either. At this point, I"m thinking my gray is long enough I should just get a pixie cut and let the gray take over (ala KINSA; who was an inspiration btw). I am in desperate need of a pedicure but am so freaking anxious about going into a salon, I'll continue to do my own feet. Edited July 23, 2020 by The Accidental Coach 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, frogger said: They don't know who they are around or who sat next to them for one thing. Who sat at the bar next to you? Did you get his name (including last name) or does the bar owner have to contact every person in the bar so it could have been anyone that was a customer between 8-10 or whatever. Not to mention many bars found it socially intrusive to keep contact logs so some didn't and they may be able to use CC reciepts but those who payed cash are gone. Not to mention with AC and heating the idea that it only spreads to a person within 6 feet of you is wrong. If a friend group met at a bar, stayed in one bar, laughed and joked and had a good time and signed in and out there could be a possibility of finding people without contact 100 but that takes cooperation. When a person walks into a church with 300 people do they make sure they actually pay attention or even know the name of the people on their left/right/front/back. Singing is likely to push the virus farther from you anyway. If people are in the foyer chatting with a couple people for 10-15 minutes (I used to do so all the time. Now I go outside and wave and chat with people in the parking lot) , do they remember who was facing the other way and chatting with a different friend group? I do think it's doable IF people cooperate but even those who don't think it's a hoax don't think about these things honestly. I know I would never remember where I had been, so I've been writing notes in my planner as to my activities each day -- but while I might write "HEB" and the approximate time, I have not been writing down the name of the cashier (or even the # of the lane I went through)... And now I wonder if I should I haven't been writing down interactions where I wave at people around the neighborhood, even if they are at the foot of my driveway and I'm farther up, at my car. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CT Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 re hair 55 minutes ago, Quill said: Honestly, this is why I am okay with making it known that I am “one of those paranoid people” who isn’t going to restaurants, isn’t socializing, isn’t traveling, wears a mask in practically any situation outside my house (and sometimes inside my house if an outsider is here!), and just had my hair cut for the first time since January. I know some people probably roll their eyes about me and think I’m a wacko, but I prefer that because those people will stay the hell away from me. 4 minutes ago, The Accidental Coach said: I haven't had my hair cut since January either. At this point, I"m thinking my gray is long enough I should just get a pixie cut and let the gray take over. I am in desperate need of a pedicure but am so freaking anxious about going into a salon, I'll continue to do my own feet. 56 minutes ago, square_25 said: My hair is going to get long. That’s all there is to it. Fortunately, my 17 yo is one of those sublimely confident types who is of the view that she can figure out how to do ANYTHING by watching a solid youtube. And, turns out, there is a youtube on every subject under the sun. Which, well, the *first* patio salon event yielded let us say mixed results... but she's subsequently gotten the hang of it. She does color too. 45 minutes ago, Quill said: You should have seen all the hair on the floor...it could have made a wig! It was the longest it has been in more than a decade, well past my bOoKs in the front, and my previously-known-as “bangs” come to my chin now. Which is nice! Always wanted to grow out my bangs... That's the spirit, dear... 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, frogger said: credit They don't know who they are around or who sat next to them for one thing. Who sat at the bar next to you? Did you get his name (including last name) or does the bar owner have to contact every person in the bar so it could have been anyone that was a customer between 8-10 or whatever. Not to mention many bars found it socially intrusive to keep contact logs so some didn't and they may be able to use CC reciepts but those who payed cash are gone. Not to mention with AC and heating the idea that it only spreads to a person within 6 feet of you is wrong. If a friend group met at a bar, stayed in one bar preferably at one table, laughed and joked and had a good time and signed in and out there could be a possibility of finding people without contacting everyone but that takes cooperation. That isn't how it works. People mingle. Typically people at parties chat with one group then mosey over to another group. It is the nature of parties. When a person walks into a church with 300 people do they make sure they actually pay attention or even know the name of the people on their left/right/front/back. Singing is likely to push the virus farther from you anyway. If people are in the foyer chatting with a couple people for 10-15 minutes (I used to do so all the time. Now I go outside and wave and chat with people in the parking lot) , do they remember who was facing the other way and chatting with a different friend group? I do think it's doable IF people cooperate but even those who don't think it's a hoax don't think about these things honestly. I realize that there can be these problems with contact tracing. There seems to be a big difference in what the CDC says a contact tracer should do and what people think contact tracing should look like. If I am chatting with a group at a party for less than 15 minutes, the CDC says they are not contacts. Hiring more contact tracers does not help determine who I was within 20 feet for 10 minutes in air conditioning when those are not considered contacts. Anyone I know who has been contact tracing has not been tasked with sleuthing about who a case was around; they have been tasked with contacting people the person reports being within 6 feet for 15 minutes within a 48 hour period. Is the spread because we aren't contacting those people? Is the spread because we don't know who meets that definition to contact them? Do we not know because of lack of cooperation? Or, is the spread because the contact definition is too limited? 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 6 minutes ago, vonfirmath said: I know I would never remember where I had been, so I've been writing notes in my planner as to my activities each day -- but while I might write "HEB" and the approximate time, I have not been writing down the name of the cashier (or even the # of the lane I went through)... And now I wonder if I should I haven't been writing down interactions where I wave at people around the neighborhood, even if they are at the foot of my driveway and I'm farther up, at my car. Are you within six feet of the cashier for more than 15 minutes? If not, they are not considered a contact by CDC guidelines. 1 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vonfirmath Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 5 minutes ago, Bootsie said: I realize that there can be these problems with contact tracing. There seems to be a big difference in what the CDC says a contact tracer should do and what people think contact tracing should look like. If I am chatting with a group at a party for less than 15 minutes, the CDC says they are not contacts. Hiring more contact tracers does not help determine who I was within 20 feet for 10 minutes in air conditioning when those are not considered contacts. Anyone I know who has been contact tracing has not been tasked with sleuthing about who a case was around; they have been tasked with contacting people the person reports being within 6 feet for 15 minutes within a 48 hour period. Is the spread because we aren't contacting those people? Is the spread because we don't know who meets that definition to contact them? Do we not know because of lack of cooperation? Or, is the spread because the contact definition is too limited? If they only go back 48 hours, I wonder how the contact tracers work when the person was tested on July 9 and didn't get the (positive) results back until July 21. As far as I know they had been quarantining at home in between -- but the people they worked with the 48 hours before they were tested on July 9 have been continuing to work, etc. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CT Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 re contact tracing: a TOOL to mitigate transmission, vs virus transmission itself 2 minutes ago, Bootsie said: I realize that there can be these problems with contact tracing. There seems to be a big difference in what the CDC says a contact tracer should do and what people think contact tracing should look like. If I am chatting with a group at a party for less than 15 minutes, the CDC says they are not contacts. Hiring more contact tracers does not help determine who I was within 20 feet for 10 minutes in air conditioning when those are not considered contacts. Anyone I know who has been contact tracing has not been tasked with sleuthing about who a case was around; they have been tasked with contacting people the person reports being within 6 feet for 15 minutes within a 48 hour period. Is the spread because we aren't contacting those people? Is the spread because we don't know who meets that definition to contact them? Do we not know because of lack of cooperation? Or, is the spread because the contact definition is too limited? I don't think I'm following your question. The virus spreads regardless of what a person's name is, or whether or not the virus-shedding infected person knows the names of people in sufficiently close range to be exposed, or whether or not the virus-shedding infected person intends to be cooperative. Transmission itself is indifferent to whatever definitions or procedures the CDC or any other health authority has in place, or the intent of any particular person out and about. Contact tracing is just a tool, ex post, to try to track down people who've potentially been exposed, so they don't go out and expose others. As a tool, it works ex post (in that tracing tries to track down folks who've already been exposed) and also forward-looking (in that the idea is that folks who know they've been exposed can change behavior so as to not-infect others). As several pp have already said: voluntary as-remembered contact tracing is only as good as 1) the cooperation of people who've been exposed; 2) the accuracy of the recall of people of who've been exposed (i.e., you may well not KNOW the identities of folks in the row ahead of you in church, or at the table next to you in a restaurant... and some of those casual close-proximity contacts may not ever be traceable); and thereafter 3) the cooperation of people who've been contacted, and told they've been exposed, to not-go-out-into-the-world and potentially expose others until they've been tested and gotten results. Failures at any one of those steps will limit the ability of the tool to mitigate spread (which is why South Korea instituted mandatory smartphone apps to measure actual proximity of all cellphone users, and why a number of countries instituted mandatory quarantines of folks who'd been exposed until testing came back... measures that no region in the US even considered.) It's a tool; and we don't have many in the toolkit. But the effectiveness of the tool is only as good as the cooperation/accuracy of BOTH the originally exposed person whose contacts are collected, AND the responses of those contacts once they're tracked down. The virus itself obviously couldn't care less about who has what name or what the CDC definitions are, right? 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 12 minutes ago, Bootsie said: I realize that there can be these problems with contact tracing. There seems to be a big difference in what the CDC says a contact tracer should do and what people think contact tracing should look like. If I am chatting with a group at a party for less than 15 minutes, the CDC says they are not contacts. Hiring more contact tracers does not help determine who I was within 20 feet for 10 minutes in air conditioning when those are not considered contacts. Anyone I know who has been contact tracing has not been tasked with sleuthing about who a case was around; they have been tasked with contacting people the person reports being within 6 feet for 15 minutes within a 48 hour period. Is the spread because we aren't contacting those people? Is the spread because we don't know who meets that definition to contact them? Do we not know because of lack of cooperation? Or, is the spread because the contact definition is too limited? I'm just going off what my state was doing. The CDC has proved itself incompetent anyway so I ignore them. What you describe is what contact tracers SHOULD have to do in a society of adults but not really what might be effective in a society who can't take any responsability. We had more contact positives then community spread positives for the months previous and our numbers stayed steady. Until the notice was put out that contact tracers were overwhelmed and not long after we spiked. Once that notice was put out they did make a list of bars public letting people know they would have been exposed which means they simply couldn't contact the people within 6 feet of their positive case. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
wendyroo Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 hour ago, square_25 said: My hair is going to get long. That’s all there is to it. 23 minutes ago, Pam in CT said: Fortunately, my 17 yo is one of those sublimely confident types who is of the view that she can figure out how to do ANYTHING by watching a solid youtube. And, turns out, there is a youtube on every subject under the sun. Which, well, the *first* patio salon event yielded let us say mixed results... but she's subsequently gotten the hang of it. She does color too. I cut my husband's and kids' hair, and then I had my 11 year old son cut the back of my hair. My husband was too chicken saying he would mess it up. I just wanted it shorter with cleaned up ends!! Was he worried he would cut it "wrong" and accidentally make it longer?!?! I just used clips to get the sides out of his way, and told my son to generally aim for a straightish line across the back. Once he told me it was good to go, I let the sides down and trimmed them myself to match the back...or, at least, the part of the back I could see. I've just avoided any mirror situation that would let me see the back - in this case ignorance is clearly bliss. 2 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bootsie Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 25 minutes ago, Pam in CT said: Tre contact tracing: a TOOL to mitigate transmission, vs virus transmission itself I don't think I'm following your question. The virus spreads regardless of what a person's name is, or whether or not the virus-shedding infected person knows the names of people in sufficiently close range to be exposed, or whether or not the virus-shedding infected person intends to be cooperative. Transmission itself is indifferent to whatever definitions or procedures the CDC or any other health authority has in place, or the intent of any particular person out and about. Contact tracing is just a tool, ex post, to try to track down people who've potentially been exposed, so they don't go out and expose others. As a tool, it works ex post (in that tracing tries to track down folks who've already been exposed) and also forward-looking (in that the idea is that folks who know they've been exposed can change behavior so as to not-infect others). As several pp have already said: voluntary as-remembered contact tracing is only as good as 1) the cooperation of people who've been exposed; 2) the accuracy of the recall of people of who've been exposed (i.e., you may well not KNOW the identities of folks in the row ahead of you in church, or at the table next to you in a restaurant... and some of those casual close-proximity contacts may not ever be traceable); and thereafter 3) the cooperation of people who've been contacted, and told they've been exposed, to not-go-out-into-the-world and potentially expose others until they've been tested and gotten results. Failures at any one of those steps will limit the ability of the tool to mitigate spread (which is why South Korea instituted mandatory smartphone apps to measure actual proximity of all cellphone users, and why a number of countries instituted mandatory quarantines of folks who'd been exposed until testing came back... measures that no region in the US even considered.) It's a tool; and we don't have many in the toolkit. But the effectiveness of the tool is only as good as the cooperation/accuracy of BOTH the originally exposed person whose contacts are collected, AND the responses of those contacts once they're tracked down. The virus itself obviously couldn't care less about who has what name or what the CDC definitions are, right? The virus doesn't care about the name or the CDC definitions, but we have to have a procedure to do contact tracing. If contact tracing is not working it can be because of a problem with the procedure, the implementation of the procedure, and/or lack of cooperation of individuals. If contact tracing is failing, which of these is contributing to the failure? Whether I know the name of the people at another table in a restaurant or in the next row ahead in church does not really matter if they are more than six feet away if only contact within six feet are going to be notified by a contact tracer. I can be very cooperative and accurate that Bob was sitting 10 feet away from me in a restaurant, but if the definition is set that Bob is not considered a contact so he is not notified, it doesn't matter how cooperative Bob would be if he were notified. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Another failure in Florida was that in the beginning they would only test you if you had a known contact with a positive person and symptoms. That meant very few people were tested, so the numbers looked artificially low, which made people very lax about social distancing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 31 minutes ago, Ktgrok said: Another failure in Florida was that in the beginning they would only test you if you had a known contact with a positive person and symptoms. That meant very few people were tested, so the numbers looked artificially low, which made people very lax about social distancing. Which I think, was actually the goal... 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 31 minutes ago, Bootsie said: The virus doesn't care about the name or the CDC definitions, but we have to have a procedure to do contact tracing. If contact tracing is not working it can be because of a problem with the procedure, the implementation of the procedure, and/or lack of cooperation of individuals. If contact tracing is failing, which of these is contributing to the failure? Whether I know the name of the people at another table in a restaurant or in the next row ahead in church does not really matter if they are more than six feet away if only contact within six feet are going to be notified by a contact tracer. I can be very cooperative and accurate that Bob was sitting 10 feet away from me in a restaurant, but if the definition is set that Bob is not considered a contact so he is not notified, it doesn't matter how cooperative Bob would be if he were notified. I would say if you came in wore a mask to your table and stayed at your table, that would work. That isn't typically how parties and bars work. People sit and chat with myriads of people for 10 minutes or maybe an hour. So if they were able to tell you every little cluster of people they stood around chatting with within 6 feet that would catch the heavy so to speak but it turns into a lot real fast. Same with church. Most people stand clustered together in the foyer. I go outside and catch people as they exit. We might chat but it is easy to keep track of and others are farther away. My list would look dramatically different than others or should. The problem is the people squashed in the foyer aren't keeping track of the 20 people around them. I guess, what I'm trying to say, is if people attempted to social distance even somewhat, it would make a big difference. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pam in CT Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 re 6' apart 40 minutes ago, Bootsie said: The virus doesn't care about the name or the CDC definitions, but we have to have a procedure to do contact tracing. If contact tracing is not working it can be because of a problem with the procedure, the implementation of the procedure, and/or lack of cooperation of individuals. If contact tracing is failing, which of these is contributing to the failure? Whether I know the name of the people at another table in a restaurant or in the next row ahead in church does not really matter if they are more than six feet away if only contact within six feet are going to be notified by a contact tracer. I can be very cooperative and accurate that Bob was sitting 10 feet away from me in a restaurant, but if the definition is set that Bob is not considered a contact so he is not notified, it doesn't matter how cooperative Bob would be if he were notified. Ah, gotcha. 6' apart is pretty far -- here, people within TWO rows of typically-spaced pews or movie theater rows could be within that (18" seat, 12-15" legroom = 33" total per row); one row ahead certainly would be. And restaurant tables are *definitely* closer in typical setups here than 6'. I was thinking through examples in my own pre-COVID life where I regularly came within 6' of sustained contact with people without necessarily knowing their identities. There were plenty, then. (We still haven't opened gatherings > 10 people or inside restaurant dining; nor would I do either even if they were opened for the foreseeable future, so it's a fairly moot point now. I think now I'd be able to name everyone I've been within 6 feet of. But in the Beforetimes, I would not.) 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 1 hour ago, vonfirmath said: If they only go back 48 hours, I wonder how the contact tracers work when the person was tested on July 9 and didn't get the (positive) results back until July 21. As far as I know they had been quarantining at home in between -- but the people they worked with the 48 hours before they were tested on July 9 have been continuing to work, etc. This is why my son's work had only 2 employees working when they discovered an employee was testing. They do all sales outside so no customers come in but at least other employees were not potentially exposed. Stinks they had to take a week off but it does show that people working together can be much faster and take more precautions than can be forced from the top down. At least if another employee caught it from him they wouldn't have kept coming to work spreading it to more employees. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
frogger Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Just now, kdsuomi said: On the church front, our church (when it was allowed to be open) was apparently told that if one person had tested positive, the church would be closed for at least two weeks. I don't know if they misunderstood or not, but that was mentioned more than one time. Restaurants typically had tables closer than six feet apart before everything happened, but when they were allowed to have dining inside again the tables were not allowed to be closer than six feet. Theoretically, no one in the restaurant not at your table would then be included in the contact tracing. This is why bars are known to better at spreading than restaurants. People typically come in (supposedly masked) and sit down at their table until they leave. I haven't seen many bar scenes work out like that. People are probably tired of so many frogger responses but what else do you do when sitting in the Covid testing line? 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 4 minutes ago, frogger said: This is why bars are known to better at spreading than restaurants. People typically come in (supposedly masked) and sit down at their table until they leave. I haven't seen many bar scenes work out like that. People are probably tired of so many frogger responses but what else do you do when sitting in the Covid testing line? Darn. Best wishes to you/whomever. 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 14 minutes ago, kdsuomi said: In restaurant dining is not open, so the only contacts could be the employees or people eating outside. However, all tables must be at least six feet apart, so no one not at your table would qualify. Again, to qualify as a "contact" you have to have more than 15 minutes of contact within 6 feet. Since you're more than 6 feet from the other patrons, they wouldn't count. What I've noticed at least here is that the tables may be 6' apart, but the chair/people around them from one table to the next aren't. And people don't wear masks when eating. Outdoors is way better, but it's another reason I'm still doing takeout only... 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Our explosion coincided with bars and gyms opening, and patio dining going to 100 percent capacity (people were crammed in, no distancing) and dining went to 50% capacity, but was NOT enforced at all. Plenty of places were full. No masks anywhere, no mask mandates anywhere. Retail went back to 100 percent capacity, no masking. In theory any of those could have been the driver, but the little contact tracing we did manage showed bars and restaurants were the issue. Multiple employees and customers testing positive at several within a few miles of my home, I'm sure similar elsewhere. Over a hundred from one bar across town, etc. And with testing and results taking so long, lots of time for it to spread before people are contacted and told to isolate. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
EmilyGF Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 Just now, Ktgrok said: Our explosion coincided with bars and gyms opening, and patio dining going to 100 percent capacity (people were crammed in, no distancing) and dining went to 50% capacity, but was NOT enforced at all. Plenty of places were full. No masks anywhere, no mask mandates anywhere. Retail went back to 100 percent capacity, no masking. In theory any of those could have been the driver, but the little contact tracing we did manage showed bars and restaurants were the issue. Multiple employees and customers testing positive at several within a few miles of my home, I'm sure similar elsewhere. Over a hundred from one bar across town, etc. And with testing and results taking so long, lots of time for it to spread before people are contacted and told to isolate. I think there is a two-fold effect. Yes, part was from the bars and gyms being open, but a big part was from people letting down their guard because the bars and gyms were open and hanging out with friends. Our mayor refuses to open beaches and I think the reasoning must be something like, "As long as the beach is shut, people know this is a big deal." 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wheres Toto Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 hours ago, Quill said: You should have seen all the hair on the floor...it could have made a wig! It was the longest it has been in more than a decade, well past my bOoKs in the front, and my previously-known-as “bangs” come to my chin now. Which is nice! Always wanted to grow out my bangs... I've been cutting my own hair for a couple years now and I cut dd's as well. I decided to grow out my bangs during all this but they are now just long enough to be annoying. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matryoshka Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 (edited) 10 minutes ago, kdsuomi said: The few times I went to restaurants when they were open, the chairs were still 6 feet apart. It was more than every other table being closed in order to comply with the requirement. That would certainly make me feel better. Still seems cramped here. Maybe some tables are closed and I can't see from afar. Haven't actually ventured that close... It certainly would make a better visual if they physically removed tables to comply with spacing, especially if they want to lure the more hesitant back... Edited July 23, 2020 by Matryoshka Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ausmumof3 Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 3 hours ago, frogger said: They don't know who they are around or who sat next to them for one thing. Who sat at the bar next to you? Did you get his name (including last name) or does the bar owner have to contact every person in the bar so it could have been anyone that was a customer between 8-10 or whatever. Not to mention many bars found it socially intrusive to keep contact logs so some didn't and they may be able to use CC reciepts but those who payed cash are gone. Not to mention with AC and heating the idea that it only spreads to a person within 6 feet of you is wrong. If a friend group met at a bar, stayed in one bar preferably at one table, laughed and joked and had a good time and signed in and out there could be a possibility of finding people without contacting everyone but that takes cooperation. That isn't how it works. People mingle. Typically people at parties chat with one group then mosey over to another group. It is the nature of parties. When a person walks into a church with 300 people do they make sure they actually pay attention or even know the name of the people on their left/right/front/back. Singing is likely to push the virus farther from you anyway. If people are in the foyer chatting with a couple people for 10-15 minutes (I used to do so all the time. Now I go outside and wave and chat with people in the parking lot) , do they remember who was facing the other way and chatting with a different friend group? I do think it's doable IF people cooperate but even those who don't think it's a hoax don't think about these things honestly. Here every venue had to keep a register of names and phone numbers. Even going to the library up till last week we have to register to go in. I know there’s some level of privacy concern with that so it may not go in the US. But ultimately it’s been helpful for contact tracers in Melbourne although some venues weren’t compliant. It’s a legal thing of opening up that has to be done so they will probably face fines. We also have to have one for church etc. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted July 23, 2020 Share Posted July 23, 2020 52 minutes ago, EmilyGF said: I think there is a two-fold effect. Yes, part was from the bars and gyms being open, but a big part was from people letting down their guard because the bars and gyms were open and hanging out with friends. Our mayor refuses to open beaches and I think the reasoning must be something like, "As long as the beach is shut, people know this is a big deal." I do think that was a large part of it. I mean, how do you get people to stop having barbecues and birthday parties and bridal showers when Disney is open? You can't. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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