the southern states and rural areas are indeed spijing later than i thought they would but it did finally happen.

it was inevitable.

who is dan patrick again?

Lt. Governor of Texas... not the guy on Sportscenter :D

Yeah I saw Dan Patrick trending and figured he got outed for sexual harassment from his ESPN days or something.

Based on the thread I figured he went on an anti-mask tirade. Which seemed random.

Daughters room mate went to a boys house. The boys room mate then tested positive. Mt daughter has a sore throat and stuffy nose. She goes to a clinic tomorrow to get tested. But wont find out results for 3 to 7 business days.

I thought they cut down the results waiting period.

And she is at her college and I havent been in contact with her for about 3 weeks.

I really hope she is OK.

Re: testing. I heard that with the uptick, some jurisdictions are reserving the quick results tests for healthcare workers and similar folks.

Please keep us posted.

Daughter going back to school is what worries me. How can you be a college student and not interact with friends and other students? It's much simpler to be quarantined with 3 other family members. Roommates/teammates and other students is a whole other matter.

The other thing is all of her classes are going to be online. What's the use? She's got softball so she has to be there, plus she is supposed to be doing in-class observations (education major), but she has no idea if local schools will be in-person or if they'll allow student teachers.

I have a buddy with a kid at UNC and he's about ready to pull him from school because he can't justify $50-60K/year for basically an online degree. Four of 6 classes are going to be online.

I am currently listening to a parents town hall for my son's college. They are going to keep the kids in a six person "pod" where they can be mask free but everywhere else will be masked.

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I'm one of the alumni interviewers for my alma mater (Emory), and reading between the lines, they are very worried that kids will be deferring, etc. We are getting lots of encouragement to keep reaching out and encouraging the admitted students to enroll/attend/etc.

So you if you date outside of your pod . . . ?

They will have to be creative.

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While you are at it, can you ask them to stop calling me to donate (Emory Law alum) ;)

The guy who was all for killing grandma to open up the economy a couple of months ago. Of course not his family, but yours.

Dan Patrick says opening economy is more important than saving lives | The Texas Tribune


SI

I love that line "There are more important things than living."

Because you know all that cool stuff you get to do when you are dead.

Michigan shut down the indoor bars again around Lansing and West Michigan.

Best analogy i read, explaining why College is just a tough one re: reopening: They are like giant, cruise ships on land (with all the extra Problems that brings).

The Summer of Magical Thinking – The Tattooed Professor


And a better way to think about this isn't on how good the measures at any 1 place are but how the level of community Transmission is and how you 'budget' your reopening:

Coronavirus: Close the bars. Reopen the schools. - Vox

There are a few reasons why I think schools are going to reopen regardless of what is happening. One, online education is a joke. Kids don't learn and they pretty much all end up with high grades regardless of what they learn or effort they give. Two, if parents are trying to go back to work, they need a place to put their kids. People are already complaining about the possibility of staggered days for this reason. Three, for colleges, online learning is also a joke, plus they have the further issue of cost. There is no reason to pay tens of thousands of dollars for a University of Phoenix education.

They're going to try to make it work somehow because they have to.

They can try all they want, I just don't see any way we can have schools open en masse, not have a vaccine, and expect that to work. It's going to create a lot of community spread and they'll be forced to shut them down again at some point. I don't see any way around that.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/1278656673754820608?s=20

University of Alabama students playing "Who can catch the virus first"

Myrtle Beach and N.Myrtle now have mask regulations.

I thought you were being sarcastic until I clicked the link.

I don't want to adult anymore.

Herman Cain, former Presidential candidate, hospitalized with COVID.

Just nine days after being with the President in Tulsa. With no masks, of course.

I dunno - teenagers are going to teenage, right? And there will be scary "local news"-esque stories about how it's all the rage with kids when like 99% of them would think it's stupid and never do something.

SI

I’m a high school principal. 1500 students. I think we are going to reopen in some way shape or form. I don’t think we will be open long. If 5-10 students come back infected. Attend classes. Eat lunch. Just by happenstance it’ll spread petty quickly. We will do all we can to follow guidelines, etc. But 1500 kids in relatively close proximity to 15-30 others for 6 hours a day probably won’t go well.


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I swear - anyone who thinks school is going to do any better than fits and spurts just doesn't know children or something

SI

My daughter's HS is over 2000. I can't imagine they won't have to go to on-line at some point. Just one positive test screws things up. How many people would one student come in contact with during a typical day? Has to be in the hundreds.

Oh to be a fly on the wall during the discussions between the Governor and Lieutenant Governor of Texas when the decision was made on the mask order.

In 4 months are most people (Trump included?) going to be wearing masks and a bunch of them will be pretending they've been doing it all along like there was never this culture war thing about masks for a couple of months? I mean, fine - let's just get masks on everyone as that's the important part. But are we just going to pretend the last 2 months of arguing about masks didn't happen?

SI

no shame whatsoever I'm sure. Just as Peter Tork said in 60s...the establishment will coopt things said by people, adopt them as their own and then put down the originators

I'm supposed to student teach in the fall, we'll see how that goes with the current state of things.

I believe some of the high schools in Gwinnett are 3k+ students (Parkview, Brookwood). I think Lakeside down the street from me (Dekalb) is over 2k.

According to worldometers, although US cases are increasing, deaths are still well under 1K. This may be due to deaths not catching up to recent spikes (e.g. not 2-3 weeks yet).

Hoping for the best and it would be (relatively) great if we see fatality % less than the first wave.

Wife's PS school starts in mid-Aug and so does daughter's college. By that time we'll know if the second wave is better-same-worse than the first. I think it'll be better as healthcare professionals will be better prepared and there is at least one treatment that helps some.

I am also somewhat relieved to know the first wave did not cause significant shortages of food supply (or at least not for long) and only for n95 masks, sanitizers and (initially) paper products.

There is no doubt it will be less (not that one can tell, since nobody knows live the actual infections nor all actual deaths), no reason that wouldn't be the case with months of experience to treat it and prevent the Introduction and spread in Retirement homes but also hospitals with lots of improvements in protocolls, setup and PPE coverage.

However, what becomes more and more clear is that the Virus Mutation oft cited is not a "spreads more = less deadly = case closed" thing. Because most importantly: That switch did not happen recently, which it quite often sounds like when you read about it especially on Social Media, it happened in February and early March. (and those samples used in the study will largely be from hospitals due to accesibility. So those sampled on say March 1st will likely have caught it a while earlier and are. Reversely, the lag from those samples to death would not be that big.)
Italy and France for example exclusively had the new 'Version' before even March 1st. In the US, New York had this as the dominant form whereas the West Coast had the old version for a good while as the dominant form or even until the end of the study period in May.
Others like Spain or England did have both running alongside for a bit, but also had it switch very early.
And the version currently devastating latin america is also the new one. (Adjusting Excess deaths to US population numbers, Peru would be at 400k dead and Mexico at about 300k, although the latter is a guess based on only Mexico City Data and how it compares to the national total on official covid19 deaths).

It might well explain why the early West Coast outbreaks or early asian outbreaks outside China were comparatively easy to control or why englands seemed OKish for a bit before the outbreak took off like mad in a matter of 2,3 days (Spain on the other hand does not seem to be explained by that).
Of course all these are limited samples and there might be significant differences within a country. But still, does shed some light here.

Study

The virus itself really seems to have done one thing: Get better at spreading. The lower death count might be down to 'us' getting better at dealing with it in a variety of ways. Which is great, but it staying that way would then be entirely dependent on 'us' continuing to do so.

It might also explain why the first initially imported cases (no matter if in January, December or even earlier) did not create an outbreak but somewhat petered out and/or stayed at a level not setting off alarm bells. Of course, the original version was presumably enough to devastate Wuhan, so what the hell do i know ...

Oh, the irony.

Sonora health officials seek tougher border restrictions with Arizona over COVID-19 spread

"I would build a great wall, and nobody builds walls better than me, believe me, and I’ll build them very inexpensively. I will build a great great wall on our southern border and I’ll have Mexico pay for that wall."

4D chess, everyone!

SI

I took the boys to the 2nd day that Kings Island was open today. They still have plans to open to for single day tickets on the 12th, but I could totally see it getting shut down again without a whole lot of work. It was in the 90's today, little shade, and the mask didn't make it easier. It was hot and irritating. The rides were alright though.

As for how do you operate a theme park with Covid....they did as good as they could. Spacing in the lines, sanitizer stands, every employee with masks, wiped down all the rides about every 30 minutes or so. There was only one part that was kind of a joke inside the air conditioned food house. The spaced out the seating, cutting it in half, and even with less people let in the park, there wasn't enough seating. As soon as a table got up, someone was right there to sit down. They only had two people to wipe down tables which was a joke. It was just not enough space, not enough people to clean tables. They should have had at least 10 people for the size of the room there.

I didn't ride it, but the boys said Orion (7th giga-coaster in the world) was the bomb.

Ah King's Island - setting of one of the more memorable Brady Bunch episodes

YouTube

(I know the most useless things).

So many childhood memories. My dad use to take me there years ago. I use to love the dark indoor roller coaster, and the beast. I would love to go back there when the world returns to normal some day. It was like early 90s when I went.

Used to love going there for P and G day.

Don't worry, he's kept more promises than he made! Over 100%!

I'm going Tuesday. My kids are ready for Orion, I bet they drag me on it! Then we head to Disney on Wednesday for 12 days. Staying on property, in DVC. I figure if anyone can keep a park clean, it's Disney. I don't know.....

I wish I could have ridden it, but I'm a big guy. I just can't get that second click on the seat. The boys said it's the best ride in the park now. Which makes me happy, Banshee is my favorite, and it's pretty easy to get on now.

They would have to pay ME twice what a ticket costs to spend a day at an amusement park in the summer while wearing a mask. Especially like today when it's in the 90s.

I've been a big fan of Dr. Gottlieb and here he states the truth. This will be the greatest failure of political leadership in the country's history.

It being an election year was always going to hurt any efforts, too.

Harvard University’s freshman class will be invited to live on campus this fall, while most other undergraduates will be required to learn remotely from home, the Ivy League school announced Monday.

University officials decided to allow only 40% of undergraduates on campus in an effort to reduce density and prevent the spread of COVID-19. All freshmen will be invited, along with some other students who face challenges learning from afar.

All classes will be taught online, however, regardless of where students live. Students living on campus would live in dorm rooms but continue taking their classes remotely, the university said.

All course instruction (undergraduate and graduate) for the 2020-21 academic year will be delivered online

I still don't see the NFL getting the entire season cancelled, too much TV money on the table.

They're probably like "What's the use in having a season? Nobody(Here) is going to watch now that we've included the 'black national anthem' before Week 1 games."