Would be great, ''not finding secondary Transmission onward" seems to be easily explained due to the timetable and quarantining, that statement saying this is any sort of proof seems weird ...

If it were just people currently with symptoms, it would not so easily spread especially at gatherings where people with symptoms would steer clear (it's not cold/flu season, so most peoples First thought will be covid) and where the majority of transmissions can't happen by direct contact anyway (just not plausible without some sort of aerosol component to go from 1 person to dozens in a few hours). Plus, since truly asymptomatic is not that common (20-25 % ) you will run into trouble differentiating if a person transmitted it before or with symptoms. I mean, how would you know ?

In any case, the so far most comprehensive study on this in Germany found virtually no difference in transmission rates on households with/without asymptomatic, found comparable antibody levels and another found comparable viral loads and viral load at their highest before symptoms.

To me this seems to be 'strategic' like with masks: Get governments away from broad testing and rather concentrate on more reliable contact tracing (i agree that this indeed makes the most sense, because if someone develops symptoms you know where to look in his 'radius' and get the most bang for your buck. The exception obviously is medical personnel or care homes and hospitals).

But hey, i'll be happy to be wrong here ;)

I completely get that - but that's "your" (meaning the person who protests) value system. If you think that safely protesting is a big enough reason for others to allow you to break the covid guidelines - I think people should respect that. But, if someone else feels that their liberty and mental health means they can go to a local bar and social distance while having dinner (or a beer with a small crew) while following guidelines, I also think that should be respected. Now, if someone wants to setup a 10K concert or have a 200-person block part to drink, I think we can all agree those are different situations (higher risk and lower importance). But, I don't think it's fair for one group to say their act of protesting (higher risk, but higher importance) is significantly more important than someone else's going to a restaurant in a small group (lower importance, but certainly lower risk as well).

Well some people were protesting because their businesses were shut down arbitrarily while others remained open because they sold cleaning supplies in the back of their store and/or they couldn't attend loved ones funerals and openly mocked I might add by the woke "OMG Grandma's dying! You selfish bastards!" But you are right it is the cause you support versus eating out with a 7 year old.

Mayor DeBlasio on attending loved ones funeral:
"My message to the Jewish community, and all communities, is this simple: the time for warnings has passed. I have instructed the NYPD to proceed immediately to summons or even arrest those who gather in large groups," de Blasio said in a tweet Tuesday night. "This is about stopping this disease and saving lives. Period."

Mayor DeBlasio (not trying to be ironic I don't think after threatening funeral goers with police action) on BLM protests:
Look, I’m not a lawyer, but I feel very strongly, Reuvain, on the common-sense point here, which is, we are seeing a national historic moment of pain and anguish, and a deep cry for help, an d a deep cry for change. It is not your everyday situation. When we were dealing with this virus in the beginning, we said very consistently across all communities, we want to avoid gatherings. I still want to avoid gatherings. I want the people to understand that, one, protesters are making their voices heard. They’re saying something very important. I’m hearing it loud and clear, change is going to happen, we have to show people that change. But, notwithstanding that this is a very particular moment, I still want to see people more and more choose to make their voices heard in other ways and not take the risk of gathering. And until we are out of the woods – and this indicator today that, you know, is going in the wrong direction as a reminder of this –until we’re out of the woods on this virus, we’re still better off with people not coming out and gathering in this way. But, you know, I am happy to have any discussion with anyone about why this is different than what we are dealing with day to day, and why it has to be understood and respected: people’s sheer anger and fear and pain has to be expressed so we can get past it and make change and move forward in peace.

Like Arles again here, I say 'yes, absolutely' ... but then as I mentioned before in the policing thread, that priviledge needs to be extended to others. In an ostensibly free society we don't get to say 'look this cause is vital to me' and then also say 'whatever things are vital to you, go piss up a rope'. Either people get to make those determinations for themselves, or they don't. It's not about whether the causes are equivalent; it's about who decides something is important enough.

To me, there are three situations:

1. This virus is extremely dangerous and hospitals are being overrun. We need to "flatten the curve" and take some drastic measures.
2. This virus is still dangerous, so we need to social distance when possible. As we re-open, we may see a zig-zag in cases and hospital use, but we should be able to manage.
3. We have a vaccine or the worst has clearly passed and we are OK for business as usual.

We were at 1 back in March and April, but in May we transitioned to 2 (and have been there since). Unless we want to go back to #1 (only specific essential businesses open), we have to be OK with some grey are on #2. We may completely break every guideline for an important protest. Some people may want to go to a bar/restaurant and some people may want to go to a casino with safety measures in place. If you are going to say that the cause of protests is enough to override these guidelines, then you have to atleast be tolerant of others who follow the required guidelines (but don't do enough your opinion).

I don't disagree. With these protests this week, I have had equal parts pride and support with equal part horror at the virus' eventual spread.


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It's a bad situation. Everyone has a right to protest for what they feel is right. We still have COVID-19 to deal with. Some tried to follow the guidelines as best they could. However, at the end of the day, we're going to see spikes in cases over the next month.

The spikes started before the latest protests started, and we probably won't see the spike from the protests until later this week. Hopefully, the data that was trending towards this not being as bad of a disease as initially thought is proven true. Otherwise, we're going to have some major problems really quickly.

There are a whole lot of states moving in the wrong direction and, as a country, we've just decided to stop caring.

So true. I find it amazing how many people are saying things like " the virus has magically gone away"

No it hasn't, we have just stopped caring and decided there is an acceptable amount of deaths in order to pretend our lives are normal again.

This is a pretty sweet little study. It adds credence to the point that China had a much bigger issue on their hands last fall than they admitted. I also think it's funny that people are shocked by this. That a state controlled everything would hide bad things from people. It's simply to shocking to understand.

https://abcnews.go.com/International...ry?id=71123270

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coron...n-b1de3348e88b

This article paints a bleak picture for Sweden.

It’s been a rough week here in Arizona. I can’t see the government sliding back into shelter in place, but we probably should. Thankfully, my day job is still letting me work from home and we can try to wait some of this out.

Yeah, I can't see us going back, but we'll almost certainly need to. The whole country has gotten bored with the virus, but it's still a problem.

When this all started, I remember some folks saying that we could go into extended lockdown, with its pluses and minuses. Or we could keep everything open with its pluses and minuses. But the worst case would be to sort of float between shutting down and staying open, getting the worst of both worlds.

Sigh.

I wonder if all the recent protests have effectively thrown the lockdown culture out the window.

They're a part, certainly. I just hope places don't need to go through NYC levels of death before they see the danger.

Health care professionals should have not indicated that the protests were worth it. That wasn't their call to make.

They should have said (as they had been saying all along) that mass gatherings greatly increase the risk of transmission.

By letting their politics get in the way of science, they really muddied the message, perhaps irrevocably.

Arizona casinos were the first to reopen nationally en masse IIRC, about 3 1/2 weeks ago and there were reports of lines around the buildings. I'm sure that is just a coincidence though. Good thing Vegas just reopened and it's being reported to be a shit show.

Yeah, I think the two biggest culprits are casinos and having what seemed like half the city marching in protest last week. We had restaurants and bars open a few weeks before and didn't really see an increase over the 3-4 weeks after they opened. It's really just been these last 3 weeks (when casinos and protests started picking up).

If the protests die down a bit, I think it will help. One of my (brave) friends went to the casino near us last weekend and he said it was setup pretty well. They only sit every other spot at the tables with glass between each (kind of like a bank teller he said) and they shut down half the slots to give a buffer between each. Still, with all the smoking, pressing buttons/screens and drinking - I can't imagine it is super healthy ;)

I follow a lot of Vegas stuff pretty closely. From what I have seen the casinos are doing their part. Dealers in masks, 3 people per blackjack table, every other machine turned off.

It is the patrons that are the problem. No masks, no social distancing, super crowded hallways, etc...I think a lot of people probably start out trying to do those things, but get a few drinks in them and it's out the window.

Then there is the other things you mentioned. Smoking, handling money, chips, etc...

With Michigan opening up, I've seen a major shift in mask-wearing. A LOT less people doing it than were even a week ago.

Yep and if a second round of lockdowns is needed there is no chance they will get anyone on board at this point. I was at Schnucks today and noticed at least half of the people didn't have masks (it was probably 95%+ a few weeks ago)

It's really depressing. It started out a deadly virus that we needed to band together to fight. I thought for about a month the country was somewhat united at least in the fact that this was needed to avoid hospitals overcroding etc. Somehow (well not shocking but still) Trump made it political and so the "right" had to fight the lockdown, masks, etc. Then these protests started and very few voices on the "left" said anything to tone it down. (sorry but wearing masks while marching in groups of thousands isn't following protocols at all) Maybe the summer and humidity etc will slow it down a little otherwise a couple of weeks is going to be a huge disaster.

Would be interested in how other countries like Italy, the UK, and Spain's populaces are treating it. (I think it's kind of unfair to compare to Eastern Asia where this type of illness has happened before)

Pretty similarly @panerd where they have the choice, but masks and distancing is compulsory and punishable at many places in most countries.
Main difference is the numbers were lowered further (and that is not just cases, but also infected as a whole) so the odds are simply better of opening up and disregarding in rules does not matter in any one case.

Btw, gotta say that Spain started cooking the books as soon as i was done defending them here...:( Magically no one dies anymore (despite regional authorities saying differently) and cases dropped 75% overnight despite allegedly counting PCR + Antibody tests. They are heavily dependent on Tourism from abroad, so make of that what you will ...


It does take time though, so i would't discout those. Same Rules of Propability apply that lead to early but few cases in January and then a few more in February took till March to really become a major problem.
You need enough infected meeting enough other people in suitable (well, you know what i mean) surroundings and then enough of those do the same. Critical mass, essentially (the term originated in Epidemiology)

There are likely way more Infected that don't infect anybody else than we thought early on (Some studies go as far as 10% of Infected being responsible for 90% of transmissions when everything was still open). Only once you reach a certain number of infected and a certain number of 'events'/groups you get in trouble epidemiologically speaking.
Heck, the odds of catching it from household members is much lower than was thought.

I really don't think protests are a major issue, if anything it would be the gatherings before or after, because you really would not have people infecting dozens of others since Aerosol Transmission is not much of a factor outside at all (the virus just gets dispersed really well as soon as it leaves the mouth) so you are back in the "close + facing each other frequently while shedding Virus + X minutes" territory.
Them happening every day is a factor though (here in Europe it's been more of a weekend thing)

What they would logically facilitate is geografic spread with people coming from all over town. Which you would not have as much in restaurants, unless the filtration is terrible. Bars on the other hand, at least operating normally ...

And remember many participants are younger and unlikely to get really sick and many of those mildly sick will still not get a Test. As long as they are responsible after attending them (like not going to a bunch of private parties or visiting older people, or even being a nurse in a home) it would take a few cycles to lead to a noticeable rise of cases. It would be a whole different thing if they then had pre-covid numbers of contacts immidiately after.

I think it's reasonable to assume some protestors may have gotten it and passed it on to their parents. But, again, I don't really fault BLM. This was a unique opportunity to reach an almost captive crowd and really get some legs on the ideas of reform. Does that mean the thousands attending these rallies may have temporarily expanded Covid? Probably, but I think that may be worth it in the long run.

My point earlier was the combination of events (people more open to restaurants/bars, casinos opening and the protests) have caused Arizona to be driving in the red a bit. I think it would have been responsible to put a 2-week recommended shelter in place out this week. It doesn't have to have the teeth that the ones in April did, but just "recommend" that people distance for a week or two. Logistically, shutting everything down again right after opening would be a nightmare - so I get that it probably isn't a real option. But you can roll back your confidence level and remind people the cases are going up.

I think part of his point is that the spread from the protests are going to take some time. They aren't going to immediately spike anything in a week. It'll likely be next week or the week after before we see spikes from the protest.

I do think outside transmission may be a more likely that whomario stated simply because it seemed that a lot of people were very close together in some protests.

This is so weird to me. All the new studies show that just wearing a mask reduces risk a ton in casual settings. So much so that the country could go back to near normal if everyone did it.

Yep - I don't get the "anti-mask" movement at all. Just get the cheap hospital masks that half the places hand out for free. I've been using ones like that for a month.

Speaking of the efficacy of masks...

Study suggests that routine face mask use by 50% or more of the population reduced COVID19 spread to an R of less than 1.0. Other studies have generated similar estimates. More widespread masking with higher quality masks could help mitigate a second wave. https://t.co/tIqQJfXNV8

— Scott Gottlieb, MD (@ScottGottliebMD) June 10, 2020

It’s almost as if someone in a position of power has given millions of his followers the idea that masks are emasculating and a sign of weakness.

All that is just overthinking IMO. Restrictions are loosening which affects people psychologically. It's hotter which makes wearing a mask more uncomfortable. People are not purely logical beings, which is sometimes good and sometimes bad, but a lot of the people not wearing them anymore aren't people with a political axe to grind.

They've just stopped caring enough to make it a priority.

I am often a skeptic on "Its Trump's fault" but anecdotally the mask refusal seeks to be exactly that. Him and Pence could have both gone miles by wearing them in the PR appearances. It is for sure a macho thing.

I agree that wearing one to Six Flags are something would suck in the heat but that's not why they arent wearing them to the grocery store.

It's not just Trump and Pence, it's also the conservative media. A lot of people got the message that masks are for "them."

I disagree 100 million percent.

I agree 80%. I do think there is the 20% making a political statement.

People are starting to see things opening up, weather is muggy (in Atlanta), I'm sure people are just sick of the restrictions/constraints past 3 months, and the curve has flattened with lack of that "urgency" unlike 1-2 months before.

Other countries wear masks everywhere and have been superior to us in handling the pandemic. This isn't a "people" issue, it's an American one.

Eh, that's simply not true everywhere. A lot of countries have made mask-wearing mandatory; others have not. As of a week ago at least, it wasn't mandatory in over half of the world, there were still those like the UK & Singapore encouraging people not to wear them to save supplies fore medical personnel, etc.

I totally agree that there's a big element of American culture at play and culture is different everywhere which is reflected in the wide variety of ways that people comply or don't comply. I'm just saying that, and this is as far as I'll go in this thread, a great deal of it isn't political. There's a lot more people not wearing masks than there are Trump supporters. It's more about a culture of independence and wanting the crisis to be past whether it is or not than any of that.

PGA restarts its Tour today in Texas with the Colonial Open. Going to be very weird with next to no fans, one commentator in the booth, two in a studio in Florida, two on the course. Every player, caddie, and PGA Tour offical had to be tested and cleared before they were allowed on the course. Going to be a weird schedule too with US Open now one week before the Ryder Cup and the Masters in Nov.

welp

They forced out Dr Amy ACton from Ohio as Director of Public Health. SHe resigned
However she will remain chief medical advisor to Dewine

How was she forced?

Missouri lifting all restrictions on June 16

Not sure how or why she would have been forced out. Cases here are nearly flatlining according the charts I was looking at a while ago.

Yeah, I think she may have just really not liked the workload and pressure, probably not what she signed up for to begin with. Good luck to her

Do the numbers support that, or is it just the state giving up?

Ravens' John Harbaugh says NFL's current virus guidelines are 'impossible'

That seems to be the NFL's approach according to Harbaugh.

Open up. Give the teams literally impossible guidelines to do it "safely." And then, when shit goes bad, point out that the teams didn't follow your guidelines.

Yeah, all these sports in the US appear to be struggling with guidelines - looks like MLS will be the first to begin so we can see how that goes (in their Orlando bubble). Then you have baseball who can't event get to the point where they disagree on Covid-19 specifics.

For the country as a whole, it just looks like we are taking the stance of "well, we did our shelter in place and ate our vegetables - so now it's time for dessert!". No way anyone goes back unless it gets really bad. Finally, as someone who has been hesitant to blame a lot of this on Trump (there are many bigger local issues involved), you can put a lot of the mask struggles completely on him. If he came out tomorrow with a mask, you be seeing a lot more of them this weekend. He just refuses to almost deal with this second phase. In his mind (and a lot of his followers), they placated the libs with two months of shelter in place, so now it's time to go back livin!

you mean like the bill ohio lesiglature made to strip her of power...or maybe the lawsuit against her...or maybe the protsters that gathered outside her damn house harassing her for a month or maybe even the gunwielding folks storming city hall...take your pick...

I'm surprised that she lasted that long.

Her replacement is a white male without a medical degree so this should be greeeeeeeeat

I think the numbers have always supported it. Outside of St. Louis, Kansas City, and to a smaller scale Jeff City/Columbia the state is really rural and spread out. There were a few "hotspots" of nursing homes and processing plants but no real outbreaks. The governor's order left St. Louis County free to do it's own thing which is sort of what has been happening all along. The only thing that sucks is it pressures St. Louis to do the same thing which is in a different situation. (approx 600 of the state's 800 deaths are in the St. Louis metro area while only making up about half the population)

Honestly this is really what should have been done in a lot of states. Southern rural Illinois is as far from Chicago as I am and for some reason have the same "one size fit's all" approach. Not really praising the governor as I feel he may have done this even if Missouri was a death trap but I think in hindsight this is going to clearly going to turn out to be a mostly urban/nursing home disease and not red state/blue state etc...

OMG a white male?!?

More than 100 people showed up to this Orange County Board of Supervisors meeting to speak out against face mask regulations pic.twitter.com/qoxaOgESWg

— NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 11, 2020

I've been having trouble deciphering what the raw data is telling us (me). I'm trying to be informed, but I also think these articles about increasing number of tests don't necessarily mean anything if testing is ramped up and the increase is simply adding a bunch of asymptomatic/light symptom people to the pile. Presumably, people like them have existed for the past 3 months, and now that we're capturing them because we're testing more, what does it tell us? Seems like the opposite position of Trump's "if we don't test we have no positives" ridiculousness.

I watch several Covid chart sites like Covid RT but I see way too much fluctuation in what the outcomes are on a day-to-day basis. The Rt wildly swings from some states showing obvious spreading to back below 1.0 in a matter of a couple of days. I don't know what meaningful information that is supposed to convey in terms of trends or actions. It feels like GIGO at this point.

What matters most? Hospitalizations? Infection rate?