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The herd immunity theory...


Katy
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3 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

Do you have any idea of how long the average time is between exposure and being contacted there is?  How are contacts being reached?  Do people answer their phone there?

Oh--I see you posted some information about this while I was asking these questions--so you can ignore them for now and I will look at your inf.

 

Testing turn around is around 24-48 hours sometimes as fast as six.  I don’t know how long the delay to contact time is but they include a “mystery cases” number any day where they have cases that haven’t been linked to known clusters.  I think the “if you’ve been at this location” updates have been important.  Having said that it won’t help where you are having massive outbreaks without restrictions or lockdowns.  Where it helps is preventing those giant outbreaks from occurring in towns and areas where things are still under control without needing to massively restrict people from doing their usual day to day things.  

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7 minutes ago, Ausmumof3 said:

Testing turn around is around 24-48 hours sometimes as fast as six.  I don’t know how long the delay to contact time is but they include a “mystery cases” number any day where they have cases that haven’t been linked to known clusters.  I think the “if you’ve been at this location” updates have been important.  Having said that it won’t help where you are having massive outbreaks without restrictions or lockdowns.  Where it helps is preventing those giant outbreaks from occurring in towns and areas where things are still under control without needing to massively restrict people from doing their usual day to day things.  

I think NYC test time is fast, too, which is pretty key. It's pretty pointless to find contacts after a long time. 

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2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

I'm very interested in what happens now. There are unambiguous and more serious clusters in some neighborhoods (largely Orthodox neighborhoods, I think.) They've locked those down, in fact. The question is now whether they can control this. 

I wish I could say that many of the NYC Orthodox Jewish communities are really locked down. But sorry, word on the street is that it's not really locked down.

2 hours ago, Matryoshka said:

Here I'm guessing the Orthodox Jewish communities are mostly in Brookline, which I haven't heard of as a problem.  Mostly North Shore is problematic, which is diverse in other ways.

There are Orthodox Jewish communities in Brookline, Brighton (where I am), and smaller ones in Malden and Sharon.  Brookline's, Sharon's, and Malden's Orthodox Jews are more modern and educated. Brighton has a mix of more ultra Orthodox and moderately modern. We just had a small outbreak in the local Jewish schools and a case from a soon coming home for the holidays from a yeshiva (school of religious studies) in Staten Island. Sadly people traveled to and from NYC and other Jewish areas over the holidays we just concluded even though tell was discouraged.  My husband is on the reopening committee for the girl's high school and all the schools banded together to require testing before the school year resumes (all teaching so far has been in person education). He assumes that there will be more cases due to travel and community spread. 

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, this seems to be a specifically NY thing. I would also guess the Orthodox neighborhoods in Boston are in Brookline. But here, it's definitely a lot of Orthodox neighborhoods at the moment. Maybe the holidays did it. 

 

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2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, this is obviously trickier in NYC than in other parts of NY. I think the contact tracing has frankly worked better in other parts of NY. 

 

NYC is doing contact tracing by county rather than via the City Health Department ? 

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8 hours ago, Bootsie said:

I am genuinely interested in learning if there are some places that have good, effective contact tracing (or anything else) that is really reducing cases that could be adopted other places. 

NZ does. Our August outbreak had 185 cases spread throughout a city of 2 million.  It was knocked down to zero in SIX weeks. Zero active cases even though it had been found in 3 workplaces, 3 schools, 2 city wide bus trips, 2 churches, a funeral, a wedding, a retirement village, multiple restaurants, and multiple tourist venues in 2 additional cities. This was done through contact tracing, high volume testing, genomic testing, communication with religious leaders (one sub-cluster was in an evangelical church whose members were covid deniers), and a 2 week lockdown of the city. 

Ashley Bloomfield, our Director General of Health, said last week that his team is getting contacted by countries throughout the world seeking guidance on how to improve contact tracing. 

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4 hours ago, lewelma said:

NZ does. Our August outbreak had 185 cases spread throughout a city of 2 million.  It was knocked down to zero in SIX weeks. Zero active cases even though it had been found in 3 workplaces, 3 schools, 2 city wide bus trips, 2 churches, a funeral, a wedding, a retirement village, multiple restaurants, and multiple tourist venues in 2 additional cities. This was done through contact tracing, high volume testing, genomic testing, communication with religious leaders (one sub-cluster was in an evangelical church whose members were covid deniers), and a 2 week lockdown of the city. 

Ashley Bloomfield, our Director General of Health, said last week that his team is getting contacted by countries throughout the world seeking guidance on how to improve contact tracing. 

South Korea and Japan also seem to be contact tracing successfully. Again, high volumes of fast testing seem to make a huge difference.

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4 hours ago, lewelma said:

NZ does. Our August outbreak had 185 cases spread throughout a city of 2 million.  It was knocked down to zero in SIX weeks.

That's why I keep hearing...

"The good news is we are only 6 weeks from eradicating Covid. The bad news is we hav always been 6 weeks from eradicating Covid."

OUr contact tracing here sucks. 

Even when done "properly" it just takes too long. So, for instance - in on case I am personally aware of the details on, person goes home sick from school on wednesday. Gets test results on friday (which is unusual...usually would take longer). Calls school. School contacts health department. Health department calls patient on monday. On Tuesday close contacts receive phone call alerting them to quarantine But by then, it's been nearly a week....they could have already been exposing others. And that's BEST scenario. 

Edited by ktgrok
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8 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Even when done "properly" it just takes too long. So, for instance - in on case I am personally aware of the details on, person goes home sick from school on wednesday. Gets test results on friday (which is unusual...usually would take longer). Calls school. School contacts health department. Health department calls patient on monday. On Tuesday close contacts receive phone call alerting them to quarantine But by then, it's been nearly a week....they could have already been exposing others. And that's BEST scenario. 

So it sounds like there are a few hold ups... tests take too long, then there isn’t a standard notification strategy for the health department, then health department takes too long. So a lot of it is time and lack of organization.

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9 hours ago, Bootsie said:

The apple orchard case appears to have been workers who had recently entered the US and were all quarantined together.  It is very easy to contact trace among a quarantined group and contain the outbreak to that group.  

In smaller communities, where people tend to know each other, tend to know the other people on sports teams, or at schools, I think it is much easier.  In areas where people live in one municipality and work in another municipality and maybe go to a store in a third municipality, it is more difficult.  When you live in one county and your children go to school in another county, the contact tracing becomes more complicated.  

Very true about the apple orchard - given that the orchard owner shut down both of their orchards quickly while tracing went on and there have been no cases (that we know of) outside of that small group, I still think it is one of the reasons that life is mostly back to normal in my state. We've had a number of small outbreaks that have been contained. 

Also true about the small communities- although it's very common for people to live in one county and work in another. Most of the people I work with had to figure childcare out at the beginning of the year as our district is almost 100% in person and most other districts started as hybrid. 

Vermont is small, yes. But Rhode Island isn't much bigger, and they are not doing well with cases. Looking at the Covid Act Now website, NY and VT are the only two states with 100% needed contact tracers hired (I do not know what they consider enough). We are also two of the states that have been near the top for keeping the virus under control over the past few months. Correlation, I know, but the smaller pieces of data start to tell a picture.

Also, it can't hurt! Why wouldn't we want to ensure as much contact tracing can be done as possible? 

 

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13 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

So it sounds like there are a few hold ups... tests take too long, then there isn’t a standard notification strategy for the health department, then health department takes too long. So a lot of it is time and lack of organization.

Yes. And honestly, a lack of man power. 

My sister is in the school administration system so the principal of the school with the positive case called her on Saturday, and let her know, after she'd gotten ahold of the teacher and realized my niece was a close contact. That was a professional courtesy, not something that would normally happen. 

Also, the teachers have to take their regular sick time if they go home sick and don't get a positive covid test. So although they want to do the right thing, they can't afford, literally, to go home every time they have potential symptoms. My sister sent home a teacher that was just tired and had a headache, promising she'd figure out a way to make the pay up to her if the test was negative. Well, it was positive. How many other teachers are just not telling anyone they have a headache and are tired, because they can't afford to lose the pay if it turns out not to be covid? (if it is covid they still get paid)

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5 minutes ago, ktgrok said:

Yes. And honestly, a lack of man power. 

My sister is in the school administration system so the principal of the school with the positive case called her on Saturday, and let her know, after she'd gotten ahold of the teacher and realized my niece was a close contact. That was a professional courtesy, not something that would normally happen. 

Also, the teachers have to take their regular sick time if they go home sick and don't get a positive covid test. So although they want to do the right thing, they can't afford, literally, to go home every time they have potential symptoms. My sister sent home a teacher that was just tired and had a headache, promising she'd figure out a way to make the pay up to her if the test was negative. Well, it was positive. How many other teachers are just not telling anyone they have a headache and are tired, because they can't afford to lose the pay if it turns out not to be covid? (if it is covid they still get paid)

Yeah, if people have incentive to hide it, that makes things hard. And that’s aside from the fact that hiding it now seems like a political stance...

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Is there any difference in actual practice between "naturally occurring herd immunity" and "spend no government tax funds"?

On testing, on contact tracing, on deployment of food and ordinary daily living tasks and other services to "vulnerable" people who are supposed to "separate" from differently-aged family members, on resources to public schools that enable smaller class sizes and more classrooms and teachers, on supporting the financial outlays to support healthcare costs to the millions of "less vulnerable" folks who are meant to sally forth and get "mild" cases?

 

Because I am really, really struggling to see any logic at all here, other than, "naturally occurring herd immunity" is "free."

("Free" to government, not to hospitals going bankrupt or businesses facing sudden collapse of their workforces / customer base or, particularly, to hundreds of millions of thinly-insured high-deductible families facing thousands of dollars in medical costs for "mild" cases and/or ongoing complications.)

And "protect the vulnerable" is nothing more than a feel-good platitude unless there are RESOURCES to do so. Nothing more than a thin veil pulled over the ugliness of what is absolutely not being planned for, funded for, or done.

 

 

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24 minutes ago, Pam in CT said:

Is there any difference in actual practice between "naturally occurring herd immunity" and "spend no government tax funds"?

Well, there COULD be. I think it’d actually be more expensive and less effective than simply contact tracing to keep cases down... just think about how many people would need groceries delivered and housing. But one can imagine this being an actual approach.

But you’re right. That’s not what they mean.

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   19 hours ago,  Pen said: 

 

My issue is that we are past that stage.

Your answers now are probably what I was trying to tell you and others in Spring.

We did not do what I would have liked as soon or as much as we would have liked, but in most places we did avert crisis of complete hospital overwhelm. 

Now I think we are at a different stage.

 

complete hospital overwhelm isn't something that you avert once and then there is no more chance of that.  Hospital overwhelm is going to happen wherever they "let it rip"unless people themselves step in and do what our (hopefully current) top leaders are refusing to do. 

Anyone who wants to go for herd immunity should go out and actively try to get the virus.  And they don't get to say that I am wishing harm on them because if they think that herd immunity is good enough for "others" to go out and contract this virus then it is good enough for "them" to get it too. 

I personally don't want to get this virus.  And I personally don't want anyone to get it.  But I'm not advocating herd immunity without a vaccine first. 

 

————-

 

@Jean in Newcastle the above comments referencing what I wrote were what I was replying to. 

If I misunderstood your reply to

me as being about something else, please explain.

 

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15 hours ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Forgive me if I am dense but I have no idea what your post has to do with what I had posted. My post wasn’t referring to anything you had said.

 

Then why why on earth quote me!?!?

 

I copied and pasted where you quoted me and presumably replied to my quote above.

 

I have a working assumption that if I am quoted it means the reply is intended to be about what was quoted. 

 

Even if it related to one sentence and you had cut my quote to the one sentence it still would have been taking what I had written out of context.

you could probably have written all you wanted to write without making it seem like a reply to what I wrote at all

 

I think I should start ignoring quotes and tags.   😉

 

 

 

Quote

I understand that we are 7 months into this (though different areas of the country are in different positions as far as spread, infection rate, hospitalization etc). 
 

Absolutely no elective procedures are blocked in my area. In fact I have friends who have been receiving all sorts of medical care for non COVID related problems for the past 7 months...

There are all sorts of solutions to childcare and schooling in my neighborhood.  There are creative solutions to visits with the elderly available.  The state is doing its best but can’t change the nature of the virus.   (Your area of course may be different.). 

 @jean in Newcastle 

 

I guess I am dense and do not understand what you were quoting me about

and as a clarification the doctors in my extended family are not in my current geographic area  - nor in yours so far as I know. 

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4 hours ago, ktgrok said:

That's why I keep hearing...

"The good news is we are only 6 weeks from eradicating Covid. The bad news is we hav always been 6 weeks from eradicating Covid."

OUr contact tracing here sucks. 

Even when done "properly" it just takes too long. So, for instance - in on case I am personally aware of the details on, person goes home sick from school on wednesday. Gets test results on friday (which is unusual...usually would take longer). Calls school. School contacts health department. Health department calls patient on monday. On Tuesday close contacts receive phone call alerting them to quarantine But by then, it's been nearly a week....they could have already been exposing others. And that's BEST scenario. 

What you describe here is about the quickest I see contact tracing occurring. 

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On 10/14/2020 at 6:57 PM, Katy said:

Now that the White House is apparently acknowledging their strategy is herd immunity, how long do you think it will take POTUS to get infected again?

I'm thinking he's probably safe through the election, given that immunity does seem to last  55-90ish days.  OTOH, more than one person has been released from the hospital and then readmitted directly into the ICU.

Please try to keep this academic in nature, rather than political.

No one knows how long immunity lasts nor does anyone know how many people are naturally immune. I do know my son was sick in mid/early March, and then was seriously exposed (4 hrs in a very small car with windows up with a Covid positive person) and never got it. We were told it is likely he already had it. This would have meant 5.5 months earlier. 

I think the longer we string this out, the more likely it is to mutate in to a more deadly version (which, I have read articles saying it already has). 

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4 hours ago, AmandaVT said:

Very true about the apple orchard - given that the orchard owner shut down both of their orchards quickly while tracing went on and there have been no cases (that we know of) outside of that small group, I still think it is one of the reasons that life is mostly back to normal in my state. We've had a number of small outbreaks that have been contained. 

Also true about the small communities- although it's very common for people to live in one county and work in another. Most of the people I work with had to figure childcare out at the beginning of the year as our district is almost 100% in person and most other districts started as hybrid. 

Vermont is small, yes. But Rhode Island isn't much bigger, and they are not doing well with cases. Looking at the Covid Act Now website, NY and VT are the only two states with 100% needed contact tracers hired (I do not know what they consider enough). We are also two of the states that have been near the top for keeping the virus under control over the past few months. Correlation, I know, but the smaller pieces of data start to tell a picture.

Also, it can't hurt! Why wouldn't we want to ensure as much contact tracing can be done as possible? 

 

I am not familiar with Rhode Island, but could it be that they have a higher percentage of the population that crosses state boundaries on a regular basis?  I know in Texas, for example, contact tracing is much easier and more likely to occur in more rural areas.  In areas near state lines, where people may work in Louisiana but reside in Texas, for example, contact tracing becomes more complicated.  Or in areas like the DFW metroplex where someone lives in one county, works in another county, and their children go to school in a third county there are multiple health authorities involved.  

Everything does has have a cost.  If health authorities in an area are finding that contact tracing is not leading to much benefit--that it is akin to using a thimble to bail water out of a boat, those resources may be better spent elsewhere.  In my county hiring the 270 needed contact tracers was going to come at a cost of over $20,000,000.  That is for one county.  Then given the turnaround time and the fact that even when a contact is found, it was more often than not someone in the household of the original patient,  

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On 10/14/2020 at 9:57 PM, Not_a_Number said:

Oh, come on. What he says affects behavior and affects the policies in Republican states. Let's get real here. 

 

That's correct, last I checked. 

Not really. I am in a red state, yet, the governor, who claims to be republican, he mandated anyone in independent living or assisted living must remain locked away, not even allowed to go in to vote. They cannot leave, and I am talking people who still drive and have their own entrances. They have been locked away without due process and without being charged with a crime. I thought our constitution protected people from this, but I guess the older generation are not real people. 

All Trump ever did was leave it up to the states to make their own mandates. The more liberal a state, the more rights people lost and the more fear mongering and virus-blaming. My sister is just certain she got Covid from the one time she saw someone without a mask in public, even though she only came down with symptoms a month later. She lives in Minneapolis. My friends and family in the north always ask what someone did wrong when they find out they have Covid. Even the liberal media went on a witch hunt of how Trump brought it on himself when he came down with it. Just a bunch of finger pointing. 

People WILL die, every single year, in the USA, no matter what is done, at all. It will be from a virus, heart issues, accidents, etc. But, the mere fact that the average life span in the US is 79 years (and dropping), then every single year, 1 in 79 people will die. The reason the average life span is dropping is because of poor eating and exercise habits. Being locked away for months on end, not interacting with anyone, is causing the general health of our population to go down. I fully expect to see the consequences of the lock down to last years. Since the population of the US is about 330 million, this means, in order to maintain that average life span, we will need to see almost 4.2 million people die this year of any number of causes.

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3 minutes ago, Janeway said:

Not really. I am in a red state, yet, the governor, who claims to be republican, he mandated anyone in independent living or assisted living must remain locked away, not even allowed to go in to vote. They cannot leave, and I am talking people who still drive and have their own entrances. They have been locked away without due process and without being charged with a crime. I thought our constitution protected people from this, but I guess the older generation are not real people. 

Sigh. You know why he did it as well as I do. That's part of "protecting the vulnerable." As it turns out, it's pretty hard with a raging pandemic. 

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4 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Sigh. You know why he did it as well as I do. That's part of "protecting the vulnerable." As it turns out, it's pretty hard with a raging pandemic. 

So..you think it is okay to take away the freedom and rights of older people with no due process? Let's remember that the reason Hitler had the Jewish people registered and labeled was for their own good, to protect them too.

Edited by Janeway
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9 minutes ago, Janeway said:

Even the liberal media went on a witch hunt of how Trump brought it on himself when he came down with it. Just a bunch of finger pointing. 

If you socialize in large groups indoors without masks, you'll catch the virus eventually. That's not finger pointing, that's just logic. 

 

10 minutes ago, Janeway said:

The more liberal a state, the more rights people lost and the more fear mongering and virus-blaming.

Can't say I feel like I lost any rights. It's kind of nice having the positivity here under a percent, though. Made me feel safer going to the doctor/dentist. 

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9 minutes ago, Janeway said:

Not really. I am in a red state, yet, the governor, who claims to be republican, he mandated anyone in independent living or assisted living must remain locked away, not even allowed to go in to vote. They cannot leave, and I am talking people who still drive and have their own entrances. They have been locked away without due process and without being charged with a crime. I thought our constitution protected people from this, but I guess the older generation are not real people. 

 

I think we are in the same state.  I am not aware of any mandate that seniors living in independent living are not allowed to leave.  My mother lives in an independent living and has a car, and she has left to pick up groceries, prescriptions, and other items; I have not heard anything regarding her not being allowed to leave to vote.  There have been at times limits regarding visitors to the complex.  

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7 minutes ago, Janeway said:

So..you think it is okay to take away the freedom and rights of older people with no due process? Let's remember that the reason Hitler had the Jewish people registered and labeled was for their own good, to protect them too.

Whooooooa. Link? Cite? 

Edited by Not_a_Number
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1 hour ago, Janeway said:

But, the mere fact that the average life span in the US is 79 years (and dropping), then every single year, 1 in 79 people will die. 

I have no idea where you got the bizarre idea that if life expectancy is 79 years, then 1 in 79 people die every year — did you just make that up or did you read it somewhere? If you read it somewhere, then stop reading that website or put that person on ignore, because that's nuts.

1/79th of the US population would be more than 4 million people. According to the CDC, in 2018 (the last year they provide final figures for) 2,839,205 Americans died. 

And if your argument is basically "what's another 250,000 to 1,000,000 deaths anyway," then we'll have to agree to disagree. 

Edited by Corraleno
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Just now, Corraleno said:

I have no idea where you got the bizarre idea that if life expectancy is 79 years, then 1 in 79 people die every year — did you just make that up or did you read it somewhere? If you read it somewhere, then stop reading that website or put that person on ignore, because that's nuts.

1/79th of the US population would be more than 4 million people. According to the CDC, in 2018 (the last year they provide final figures for) 2,839,205 Americans died. 

Yeah, that's not right, because the people dying are mostly born when there were fewer Americans, right? 

It's not a bad estimate as an order of magnitude thing, though. 

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1 hour ago, Janeway said:

 

I think the longer we string this out, the more likely it is to mutate in to a more deadly version (which, I have read articles saying it already has). 

I thought in general viruses usually mutate to become LESS deadly so that they could spread more easily before incapacitating or killing their host.  Is there something about this one that is different, or did I learn that wrong? 

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1 minute ago, SanDiegoMom said:

I thought in general viruses usually mutate to become LESS deadly so that they could spread more easily before incapacitating or killing their host.  Is there something about this one that is different, or did I learn that wrong? 

My sense is that this is correct. Of course, mutations are rather random, so you could have bad luck, if it became deadly AND more infectious at the same time... 

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1 hour ago, Janeway said:

Not really. I am in a red state, yet, the governor, who claims to be republican, he mandated anyone in independent living or assisted living must remain locked away, not even allowed to go in to vote. They cannot leave, and I am talking people who still drive and have their own entrances. They have been locked away without due process and without being charged with a crime. I thought our constitution protected people from this, but I guess the older generation are not real people. 

 

1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

I think we are in the same state.  I am not aware of any mandate that seniors living in independent living are not allowed to leave.  My mother lives in an independent living and has a car, and she has left to pick up groceries, prescriptions, and other items; I have not heard anything regarding her not being allowed to leave to vote.  There have been at times limits regarding visitors to the complex.

You are correct, @Bootsie. I’m in the same state and what @Janewayhas said is completely incorrect. 

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8 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, that's not right, because the people dying are mostly born when there were fewer Americans, right? 

It's not a bad estimate as an order of magnitude thing, though. 

According to the CDC stats, it's more like 1 in 115, not 1 in 79.  Although it may not matter if her point is still basically "well 1 in 115 people die every year anyway, so what's the big deal if covid adds another million or so?"

 

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1 hour ago, Bootsie said:

I think we are in the same state.  I am not aware of any mandate that seniors living in independent living are not allowed to leave.  My mother lives in an independent living and has a car, and she has left to pick up groceries, prescriptions, and other items; I have not heard anything regarding her not being allowed to leave to vote.  There have been at times limits regarding visitors to the complex.  

I am unsure if her place is following the "mandates" if you are in the same state. Here, the governor put in a mandate and put the independent living and assisted living under the same umbrella as nursing homes.

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6 hours ago, ktgrok said:

person goes home sick from school on wednesday. Gets test results on friday (which is unusual...usually would take longer). Calls school. School contacts health department. Health department calls patient on monday. On Tuesday close contacts receive phone call alerting them to quarantine 

Our test results are now a 24 hour turn around. Here, all positive covid test results are sent to the Ministry of Health contact tracers directly. So they have the info same day. Negative tests are sent to the people themselves.

 

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21 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Yeah, that's not right, because the people dying are mostly born when there were fewer Americans, right? 

This is kind of off topic, but it reminds me that while I am only 55, there are well over twice as many humans alive on the planet today than when I was born.  It's doubled since I was 9yo.   It's about 3.4x as many as there were when a 79yo was born.

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15 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Do you have any idea of how long the average time is between exposure and being contacted there is?  How are contacts being reached?  Do people answer their phone there?

 

Here, it is about 6 hours after getting a positive test that the contact tracers will contact you.  If they cannot get you on the phone, they will go to your door. 

If you are a close contact of a positive test, you will be contacted within 48 hours of the contact tracers getting the positive result info.  Ashley Bloomfield talks about we have reached the 'gold standard' of 48 hours to contact trace and put all close contacts into self isolation. 

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37 minutes ago, Janeway said:

I am unsure if her place is following the "mandates" if you are in the same state. Here, the governor put in a mandate and put the independent living and assisted living under the same umbrella as nursing homes.

If I am correct and you are talking about Texas, could you please provide a link to this information.  I am not aware of any such mandate from the governor, and I know a number who are in independent and assisted living facilities in various cities across the state that this would impact.  These people are getting out and about as they please.

If these people were indeed prevent from leaving their own cottage and drive someplace in their own automobile I would be greatly concerned about their rights being violated.  But, I have been unable to find anything to support the notion that they are not allowed to do so, 

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2 hours ago, Janeway said:

Not really. I am in a red state, yet, the governor, who claims to be republican, he mandated anyone in independent living or assisted living must remain locked away, not even allowed to go in to vote. They cannot leave, and I am talking people who still drive and have their own entrances. They have been locked away without due process and without being charged with a crime. I thought our constitution protected people from this, but I guess the older generation are not real people. 

All Trump ever did was leave it up to the states to make their own mandates. The more liberal a state, the more rights people lost and the more fear mongering and virus-blaming. My sister is just certain she got Covid from the one time she saw someone without a mask in public, even though she only came down with symptoms a month later. She lives in Minneapolis. My friends and family in the north always ask what someone did wrong when they find out they have Covid. Even the liberal media went on a witch hunt of how Trump brought it on himself when he came down with it. Just a bunch of finger pointing. 

People WILL die, every single year, in the USA, no matter what is done, at all. It will be from a virus, heart issues, accidents, etc. But, the mere fact that the average life span in the US is 79 years (and dropping), then every single year, 1 in 79 people will die. The reason the average life span is dropping is because of poor eating and exercise habits. Being locked away for months on end, not interacting with anyone, is causing the general health of our population to go down. I fully expect to see the consequences of the lock down to last years. Since the population of the US is about 330 million, this means, in order to maintain that average life span, we will need to see almost 4.2 million people die this year of any number of causes.

This entire post is factually untrue on so many levels I can't address them all.  I will start with the things I bolded.

No one in a nursing home is denied the right to vote.  It is common for people who cannot go vote to request an absentee ballot, and if they are capable of voting they likely will.  You have a right to vote, you don't have a right to go infect other people in a pandemic.

They aren't "locked away without due process."  This is patently false.  It is CERTAINLY constitutional  to quarantine people who are not infected during a pandemic.  This has been well established in the courts despite your completely incorrect understanding of rights.  Google it. Just because you don't remember a pandemic of this magnitude in your lifetime doesn't mean they didn't used to be common. Vaccines and antibiotics may have reduced pandemics, but the right of the people to be protected from disease spreading jerks who don't care who they murder still exists.

Trump didn't decide to let the states make their own mandates.  He doesn't have the right to make mandates, that's the way a republic works.  He decided to ignore and hide credible information that this virus is deadly to people of all ages and that it's AIRBORNE for 8 months. He decided to deny, lie, and ignore in favor of toxic positivity so he could pretend everything is great and get re-elected.  His bad leadership is directly responsible for the deaths of more than 200,000 Americans, and it may be more like a million before he's out of office. 

When Trump ignored all safety guidelines he did bring it on himself.  This has nothing to do with media, liberal or otherwise, it's just the science of how viruses spread.

I don't know how to educate an adult who doesn't understand that a lifespan of 79 doesn't mean 1 in 79 people will die every year, but let me try to explain it like I would a 4th grader...  <snip, never mind.  I accidentally posted too early and realized how long this was before I was halfway through. >  Please go to Khan Academy and educate yourself on how statistics work before you use them to argue a singe thing again.  This is the worst argument I've ever heard from an adult without brain damage in my entire life.  You don't understand how it works, and that's fine, we all have to learn some time, but you're doing yourself no good by arguing something you don't understand AT ALL.

Edited by Katy
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2 hours ago, Janeway said:

The more liberal a state, the more rights people lost and the more fear mongering and virus-blaming. 

I don’t think this is necessarily true. I’m in a very blue state where Ds control the House, Senate, and Governorship and only one of our federal reps is an R, yet many things including construction and manufacturing have always been allowed to be open and our mask mandate came relatively late. But we were relatively fortunate to have some early cases (so people didn’t think this was only happening elsewhere) and also could see what was happening in neighboring WA with the nursing home outbreaks. By relying on facts, public health and a wide variety of other experts, and lessons learned from other states, all while taking into account the unique economic and demographic features of our state, I think our leaders have generally done a good job of providing a balanced approach to the crisis.

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1 hour ago, SanDiegoMom said:

I thought in general viruses usually mutate to become LESS deadly so that they could spread more easily before incapacitating or killing their host.  Is there something about this one that is different, or did I learn that wrong? 

You're correct.  Generally viruses do become more mild. 

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1 hour ago, lewelma said:

Here, it is about 6 hours after getting a positive test that the contact tracers will contact you.  If they cannot get you on the phone, they will go to your door. 

If you are a close contact of a positive test, you will be contacted within 48 hours of the contact tracers getting the positive result info.  Ashley Bloomfield talks about we have reached the 'gold standard' of 48 hours to contact trace and put all close contacts into self isolation. 

It sounds as if you have a more centralized system for contact tracing, where in the US each state has its own coordination (or lack of) between different cities, public health districts, and counties.   

I am not aware of any place in the US where the contact tracers will go to your door; that would perhaps really help with people not answering their phones (but I am not sure how many Americans just don't answer their door, either).  

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