From VTGuitarman's previous thread:
The current situation facing all of us is unprecedented. While TKP is generally not a place to discuss "breaking news" or emotionally charged topics, obviously the coronavirus pandemic affects us all. We recognize that TKP is a place many of us turn to for social interaction in these trying times, and discussing the coronavirus can be cathartic for many of us. We hope that we can continue to come together as Hokies to weather this storm.
That said, the explosion of comments in recent discussions has veered from useful to pointless and argumentative. Going forward, only Joe and the moderator team will post new "general discussion" threads on this topic. Others will be deleted. Moderators will lock threads as needed if discussion becomes destructive.
We invite you to use this space to discuss important information related to the coronavirus pandemic, like important advisories, closings, cancelations, and impacts on daily life. We are lucky that our community has many subject matter experts in health, science, public safety, public affairs, and local government, among others. Please continue to share your knowledge!
As always, the Community Guidelines will be enforced by the moderators as best we can. At this point, repeat offenders who continue pointless bickering and whose posts continually incite arguments will be banned, at least temporarily. Doing so is in the interest of keeping TKP a strong and positive community.
Comments
Some of you are getting too drawn into turning a discussion about the news into a personal argument.
Still.
Eight threads in.
I like even numbers anyway. I got a good feeling about #8.
i don't
It's the offseason with most stuff that would keep us interested in the offseason (spring practice and game and recruiting) cancelled because of this. This thread appears to be the outlet with views as polarizing as our coach. I don't have any hopes the arguing will ease, but I'll try to not throw any wood on the fire and limit to news I get.
Cue the that escalated quickly.gif
I do tend to sometimes let my smart-ass instincts get the better of me. I've had my ass beaten a few times because of it.
To Alum07, and also to everybody who had to witness double decker WahooPlaid... I apologize.
I really do need to take a break from this.
As the sole remaining every day employee of a 7 acre amusement park, my day to day is lonely as hell right now. This has gotten the best of everyone. I'm ready for it to be over. The quiet is just too quiet for me.
Sorry folks...we're closed.
Moose out front shoulda told ya....
This is the funniest thing I've read all day. Kudos!
"If it's almost a sport, we've got it here" - at this point, these COVID-19 threads seem to almost be a sport
Certainly is for the moderators.
High-five to gobble gobble for cleaning up the last thread as I haven't been around much today.
Why do these threads keep getting started? We as a site are completely incapable of keeping it non-emotional and non-political. The signal to noise ratio of these threads are basically nil at this point.
better to have one thread that we know to keep an eye on (now featuring More Mods!) than to have the inevitable 63 comment ugly flare-up in the middle of the French's Bad Opinions™ thread or some other rando thread where it might not be noticed unless we're in the comments tab.
I appreciate you and the other mods' efforts to not only police the comments, but also the willingness to keep the threads going. I have learned quite a bit through the constructive comments, I've been entertained by the not so constructive, and I see value in having a place to share info and even vent a little, in a respectful way. This situation is unprecedented, and we all have unique pain points with regard to this entire shit show. Some of us have been impacted by the virus itself more than others, while those of us who may seem detached from it due to geography tend to care more about the economic impact of the response. And in some cases it isn't about actual impacts at all, just what we fear the most or feel has the most potential for the worst impact. Neither viewpoint is wrong, as long as the dialog is empathetic towards other perspectives.
Due to the stay at home order, I feel that the online communities we belong to have become more important than ever. I think the difference is the anonymity and the ability to hide behind the keyboard. If all of us were at a bar (man, I can't wait for that to return), a heated discussion would be more acceptable, and easier to move past, than this platform. I think most people understand that, and for those that don't, well that's why we have the mods.
Looking forward to better times, Giftorys, post game break downs by French (because God knows all his other opinions are just so wrong), and Wild Turkey at a tailgate.
I agree with all of this, and just want to add
I agree about the value and importance of these threads despite the bickering. Though I will say I brace myself anytime I see 10+ new comments on these threads.
You got that right. Very relieved to step away for 3-4 hours and come back to only one new comment
Describes our society's situation these days very concisely.
It has been at least 6 weeks since I have been as excited for a sporting event like I am the NFL Draft tonight.
Amen, Reverend
I found myself feeling the opposite today, strangely enough. I feel so disconnected. We don't have cable, so I'm not getting the daily barrage of draft talk, ...coupled with everything being weird because of this pandemic.. It just doesn't feel real. I can't really describe it.
I honestly forgot the draft was even today until this afternoon, and even then, I wasn't even tempted to try and watch. I'll just read the breakdowns in a bit.
Thoughts on the latest anecdotes regarding the excessive blood clotting observed in covid patients? I didn't read this until today and not sure what to make of it.
I think there is definitely something to it. Not sure how technical you want this to be... (currently a heme/onc fellow)
At first I wasn't sure if this was microthrombi related to critical illness or something more unique to the virus. Recent data I've read plus the anecdotal reports of patients improving and then having sudden death due to "heart failure" (and I think I read mostly right sided) makes me think this is likely catastrophic clotting events leading to RV failure and not a weird cardiomyopathy. Put that together with weird skin findings, possibly more renal dysfunction, and crazy high D-dimers I think patients are tipping toward coagulapathic.
Clinically not sure what to do with it. Most centers are being more aggressive with anticoagulation. Some are anticoagulating all ICU patients and doing prophylactic dosing on everyone else. Some have strict D-dimer cut offs (lab test that is associated with blood clots). We are tracking D-dimers and if it shows a significant increase and the patient has additional risk factors for clots we are putting them on anti-coagulation.
That all being said, who knows whether this is something we should be thinking about extending to outpatient or less symptomatic patients. I haven't seen where anyone is anti-coagulating COVID+ patients that are outpatients. I think the assumption is respiratory failure and clotting risk would go together, but I don't think that necessarily has to be the case.
Happy to meet someone else in Hem/Onc. I personally am not, but my wife is, so I live it on the day-to-day as a spouse. Where is your fellowship? Med school? Curious to know if we've traveled a similar path.
VT undergrad --> then enemy territory for the rest of my medical training (UVA med school, medicine residency and now fellowship). The joke I always make is the only thing UVA that I own is my white coat (actually true!)
Good deal! We met as VT undergrads and then VCOM med school (for my better half)
Thanks for sharing this. I'll admit that a lot of that is over my head. Is it a safe assumption to say that people who may have had it and were asymptomatic or maybe had mild symptoms two months ago need not be concerned with sudden respiratory or CV failure? Seems that the clot risk is closely aligned with patients who have presented with severe respiratory issues. Is that accurate? Or am I gonna drop dead of a stroke if I had this virus in February didn't know?
I'd be interested in Jmock's thoughts, but have heard (I think it was an article written by a cardiologist) there is at least the thought that there may be a large surge in heart conditions in the future from the people that didn't have noticeable symptoms, but are getting what is now not noticeable heart issues.
Great...
Yeah, the gift that keeps on giving.
Interesting article with more data that I am sure will be analyzed in the future.
https://abcnews.go.com/Health/epicenter-epicenter-early-heart-attacks-missed-coronavirus-warning/story?id=70354223&cid=clicksource_4380645_4_three_posts_card_hed
What? Sorry I don't speak spanish (Ron Burgandy Voice).
Here's an interesting (and frightening) story from WaPo on this phenomenon.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2020/04/24/strokes-coronavirus-you...
Seems to me that we need to get more people tested, right fuckin now. Even if you have no or had no symptoms, knowing you had it and can prophylactically start low dose blood thinners, might save your life.
Man fuck this shit. Worse news every day it seems.
I don't understand how something that significant would only just now be discovered.
Edit: meant to be response to WildTurkey
Now, many of you are likely apprehensive about getting a Formula 409 or a Lysol shot, but let me assure you it will kill the coron... you... it'll kill you.
EDIT: My fault guys. It was sarcasm. Sneaky SOB. He got me.
We ran out of Lysol today. We've been passively trying to acquire more for about 2 months, and actively trying for 5 weeks. RIP us, I guess. But we have toilet paper, so at least our asses are clean!
Reading this I can't help but think of moms stressing clean underwear in case you get hurt and some EMT or DR sees your skid marks. Sure, you may die, but mom will be proud that you died with a clean ass and the medical staff and coroner aren't laughing about you.
Yeah we're still laughing about that "wisdom" this morning. Heaven help us all.
Like he ever read Mark Twain. :rollseyes:
Read? Surely you jest.
When we first started hearing about this disease, I developed a morbid fascination in keeping up with the number of confirmed cases and causes of death. We've basically hit 50,000 deaths and 870,000 cases, which is a 5.7% mortality rate.
That's almost the total number of US deaths in the Vietnam war and almost the total number of US casualties in World War 2.
Comparing it to the 1918 Flu pandemic, which had an estimated 29.5 million cases, with 500,000-850,000 dead, which at the high end was a 2.3% mortality rate.
Edit: I understand the numbers aren't the most accurate right now, this is just what has been reported and comparing it to the benchmark pandemic. The numbers will change. We'll either see a trend downwards like late 1919 or a sharp sudden peak like the end of 1918.
You need to adjust your numbers for the lack of testing. Your Spanish flu numbers are estimated, but I'm guessing your confirmed case covid numbers are not inflated for untested/unconfirmed cases.
Apples to oranges til you have similar data sets
3 different studies have shown that far more people have been infected than reported random studies in NYC showed that 21% of those tested had antibodies... that would suggest the death rate is more around 0.5% [ https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2020/04/23/us/ap-us-virus-outbreak-new-... ]
This is the third study with similar results (afaik none have been through peer review yet) however they all suggest we're basing decisions off of information we have and that information is not valid.
Further yet we've reported significantly less pneumonia deaths this year than historical averages which is seeming ironic. [CDC]
The problem is not just the denominator, though. There may also have been people who died from COVID-19 that were not diagnosed with it (or wrongly diagnosed with something else). We may not know the true death rate for quite some time.
Correct but there are many people that were attributed as COVID deaths that were never tested.
Right, and we're now seeing reporting of deaths in terms of "confirmed" and "probable" categories. As with everything related to this pandemic, it will probably take years of study to determine the truth and understand the economic and societal impacts.
Yup, and that doesn't fit the "need to talk about it on Twitter now" mentality. Basically no one can really make an informed judgement about it yet, and won't be for a long time.
I looked up pneumonia and it appears it's spread similarly to Coronavirus, so social distancing may also be decreasing cases of pneumonia.
And it's hard to extrapolate what's happening in NYC to the rest of the US population - there aren't many other cities that are so densely populated.
Pneumonia deaths were cut nearly in half and it started its freefall before social distancing guidelines and state shutdowns.
NY State as a whole tested at 13.9% with antibodies so yeah NYC was high but its a similar story state wide. Similar studies in northern CA and Los Angeles.
The pneumonia death chart I saw (comparison to previous years) had started trending lower, but the massive drop off was going from weeks 8-10. That would put it end of February to mid-March. Even though we weren't social distancing, people were aware of coronavirus and may have taken pneumonia cases to the doctor earlier than they may otherwise have for fear of what it could have been, meaning they would have gotten treated earlier. It would be interesting if they figure out the cause of that drop, but doubt they will.
Not sure what to make of that antibodies percentage. As was mentioned, I'd be VERY interested to see if those people with antibodies have any evidence of the clotting Jmock was talking about.
do you think there was genetic testing in 1918? those numbers are estimated, but getting better testing today would not yield a more apple's to apple's comparison. Further, our ICU and ventilator capabilities is way above today. If this coronavirus was in 1918, we'd likely see less infections (due to not detecting the asymptomatic) and a much higher death rate (due to lack of ventilator technology).
no, but taking reported numbers now that have not been in any way adjusted and saying its a direct comparison is sketchy especially given the limited testing going on and how long the virus has been in the country so that many people may have had it, recovered and will never be tested.
I agree that it's hard to truly compare a pandemic of 1918 to a pandemic of 2020, but why would more genetic testing for the novel coronavirus provide a better comparison with Spanish flu, which only relied on symptoms as diagnosis?
that's not what I said. What I said was that the numbers coming out now are not estimates. They are presenting the confirmed cases by limited testing as the only cases. Further testing would reduce the error of those numbers and allow us to estimate values closer to actual infection numbers. The current method produces a ridiculously high mortality rate.
Which would be higher if we use the methods utilized in 1918, i.e., symptomatic determination of infection of those that go to the doctor (which were systemically ascertained/estimated and analyzed much later).
The problem is your top line number is off. The "official" number of confirmed cases in New York state is 263,460, with 20,982 deaths. That's a terrifying 8% mortality rate.
However, New York just completed a round of random antibody testing (my company was a site), and the estimated number of cases in NY based on that testing is around 2.7 million. That means 1 in 7 people in NY are projected to have had/have the virus, and the number in New York City is running at 1 in 5. That reduces the mortality rate to .8%.
I'm sure its somewhere in between, but understanding the number of people that have the virus, as opposed to the confirmed cases, which are only tested when showing severe symptoms, is going to be critical to understanding the true mortality rate. Not a reason to downplay things - the mortality rate could have been a lot worse in NY if severe social distancing measures had not been enacted.
Y'all downvote this, but I'm about to speak that dam truth! Coronavirus sucks!
When do we start naming these things like Fast & the Furious movies?
Also, which long running franchise has more infections, James Bond on this thread series about diseases?
Rona Rus
Corona 8
Virus 9
Mad Max: Rona Road
757 - I assume you've seen that they're going to be reopening Dare county?
Link
Not necessarily reopening. phased reopening to NRPO's starting May 4, no timeline for visitors yet for Dare. It's been a little contentious between us and Currituck Co., since they are seemingly not communicating with Dare Co officials hardly at all. Currituck opened to NRPO's yesterday and open to visitors on the 15th, I think. Then they told their owners that they will not be restricted to Corolla, that they will have access to all of the OBX (which they did not discuss with Dare officials, and I do not think is right)
If the NRPO's bring their own food and supplies (i.e. toilet paper), AND observe Dare County's stay at home order (instead of treating it like a vacation) that lasts through at the earliest May 22, it could be okay. I'm still skeptical. I have a gut feeling that before the month of June is over, we'll be restricting access again.
Yeah, that article was very light on details. Just thought of you when I saw it and wasn't sure you'd heard. Hopefully it works out well.
we now interrupt this thread to inject some much needed levity:
Doc sure wasn't injecting her with silicone...amirite?
Sorry.
made it 3 days in the office this week. somehow friday was one of those days.
i love you all. all of you, every single of you 1, this will all be over before we know it, and we'll get to watch football again, instead of reruns.
german bundesliga soccer is opening back up, albeit to empty stadiums, but dammit, if that ain't the start of something special
Bundesliga return isn't a done deal yet. Government still has to sign off, and official word should come next week. DFL came up with a pretty solid plan to play out remaining games to salvage the TV revenue, but lots of clubs will still be hurting from the loss of ticket revenue. Lots of local fans and all the supporters groups are pissed about it, but frankly it's better than nothing. And if it's the only league playing, that will be huge for increased exposure, especially here in the US where Premier League is far ahead in terms of popularity. Also gives German clubs a leg up before transfer market opens. I'm all about it because I love the Bundesliga. Plus as a Koln supporter, I'd rather not have one of their better seasons in recent memory be cut short. Supposed to be in the relegation hunt, but may end up qualifying for Europa league if they return to the form they were in before the league shutdown.
Whoever is bored here is a five part series that is awesome to watch created by ONE person all in CGI with great detail and very minimal dialogue (maybe a few lines in Part 5).
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
Part 4
Part 5
Thats a good way to spend 20 minutes. Compelling. Confusing, but compelling
"Following a series of incidents cataloged as the 'Argosa Uprisings' in 482.M39, the Retributors Chapter of the Adeptus Astartes is tasked with assisting in the hunt for fleeing renegades and their leaders, and bringing down the Emperor's justice for their crimes." A good summary for the videos.
The Retributors are a homebrew successor chapter of the Imperial Fists Space Marines (or Adeptus Astartes in High Gothic). Space Marines are bio-engineered humans given 19 extra organs (examples being an extra lung, extra heart, geneseeds from the father Primarchs (for the Retributors the Primarch Rogal Dorn), and black carapace on the chest to be able to fit the Ceramic Power Armor). Their speciality is operations in which they will be operating operationally like the operational operators that they are, that is, they're all about improvisational tactics. Unlike most marines, they are capable of developing battleplans on the fly and working in small fireteams rather than larger squads and companies. In fact, they prefer to work in small independent teams and hit critical/valuable targets to help friendly forces, especially their Impulsor squads, who basically spearhead this strategy. And they all do this with an absolute minimum of dialogue.
The videos show actual tactics that some Black Library writers forget to write about between the Astartes and HERETICS *cough* fuck you Matt Ward and C.S. Goto *cough*, even better with low dialogue showing how the Astartes have actual comms in their helmets.
Does anyone know about current and continuing travel restrictions from Europe to the US? I'm having a hard time finding current and definitive information. We have relatives from Oslo planning a visit this July, and we're trying to figure out if that's going to happen or not.
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/travelers/map-and-travel-notic...
My understanding is that any country in the red is not allowed entry at the moment. Until the color changes to Orange there will be no new entry permits and even then there may be some restrictions.
So I just saw tonight that Post Malone held a Nirvana cover concert in his basement for CV-19 relief last night and raised a ton of money. Saw the story and video and was skeptical, but holy shit was I shocked. I was a bit scarred from Wes Scantlin of Pile of Shit/Puddle of Mudd's terrible Nirvana cover. But man I was freaking blown away by Malone. And Travis Barker on drums! If you're a Nirvana or Post fan you will love this! Krist Novoselic was apparently blown away too watching it. And much Bud Light was consumed.
The choice of outfit was great. Reminds me of this video of Kurt performing in a women's top and a cheap crown looking thing.
Wow that was way better than it had any right to be
Couldn't agree more. The guy is a rock star.
Yeah this was surprisingly good.
Most of the world's response was based on misinformation coming out of China. When the data your given is garbage, your response will be too.
UK government removes China from its official coronavirus death toll comparison amid global outrage at Beijing's cover-up and disbelief that the country has only had 4,636 deaths
The daily mail is a tabloid.
Didn't you watch MIB? The hot sheets are the best source for the truth.
Daily mail isn't the only one reporting this, it's just the one I linked.
Article from The Sunday Times- largest selling British newspaper
I don't get it. People were dying at alarming rates in China too. Who cares if their reported statistics are off by a few thousand or ten thousand? We knew it was coming and did not do an adequate job of dampening its arrival.
And as to being mad at China for "misinforming" the response of European countries or the US. China knew there would be an economic impact. Yet it would appear they weighed their options, and decided to lock it down tight and ride it out. They actually enforced the stay at home order by literally destroying roads. Had our response had been any thing like China's, I'm sure we'd be in a better place now, both health wise and economically. But everyone knows we can't do that. China has a unique position by having mostly happy citizens that are proud to do what the government tells them.
Probably sounds like I'm a china shill, but I think they did what no other country can do when dealing with the virus (because their citizens widely don't really care about personal rights). But us whining about how their numbers are off doesn't change a thing. Their constant bombardment of disinformation campaigns and propaganda is infuriating, but these articles you link to are just as bad. Let's blame everyone else except for ourselves...
To be fair, South Korea shares a lot of the cultural similarities (like other places in the East) of valuing the community over the individual and also had tremendous success in handling the outbreak in their country as a result.
To piggyback off your point, I think the misinformation that this is "just the flu" that is STILL being spread throughout the US is far more harmful than whether or not China's numbers are true or false.
Where do you think that misinformation came from? They were using the statistics that China, the originator, were giving publicly. I can't help but sympathize with every other country on Earth that took them for their word, when in fact it was much worse. We are up to 3M infected and over 200k dead (known) worldwide. If China were open or so great at controlling this as the previous poster declares, they wouldn't have silenced doctors (some of whom have since died from it), controlled the narrative with false information, and allowed international travel.
But, I guess that is all to be expected in a dictatorship that doesn't allow freedom of speech or press.
I'm not exonerating China, just pointing out that bickering over specifically their death numbers doesn't do us any good at this point.
China is not open. But the fact that some countries are dealing with the virus better than others is telling to me. We are not dealing with it well and I do not think that is China's fault.
How do we know that if we had formed a lock down similar to China's that we'd "be in a better place now"; if they are not reporting accurate numbers? Just asking...
common sense is how
I just believe that it's very difficult to determine or even hypothesize an outcome unless you can enter actual data.
That sounds like common sense to me.
You need data to tell you that the less people interact with one another, the less a virus will spread?
You get an upvote for Princess Bride.
What I'm saying is with China possibly (repeat... possibly) under reporting numbers by a factor of 50, we can't be sure that welding people in their homes instead of practical social distancing along with protecting vulnerable demos is worth the cost and consequences.
Princess Bride?
Dang it.
the comparison isn't between "what we have" vs "what china reported", it's "what we have with the current measures" vs "what we would have had with a china-style lockdown"
We have 8 threads with people (including you) effectively asking "yeah, flatten the curve with social distancing but at what ultimate cost?" and now the question is turning into "yeah but there's not even data about that so how do you even know lockdowns work"
???????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????????
No sir. I don't believe we can know if we had locked down like China if our numbers would be any different. Italy locked down almost totally. Their numbers were not great.
Italy was late to lock down. They had mass spread at sporting events and held off on shutting down as long as they could. Also, before their lockdown was being enforced they had the same reports of people not taking it seriously and congregating in groups. Their numbers being so awful lines up with other countries who were slow to react. Just because a country went on total lockdown doesn't mean it was proactive. The lockdown was an attempt to keep it from getting notably worse.
Honestly it's unbelievably easy to understand how lockdown would have made a difference.
I am sitting in a restaurant having lunch right now with a bunch of other people. Business is back. Streets are busy. Economy is expected to have significant gains in for rest of the year.
all due to an extreme lock down over the past 3 months. Not just in Wuhan but over the entire country.
any new cases that come up are immediately contact traced via phones GPS, a medical response team is sent overnight and whoever needs to be in quarantine for testing and treatment is there within 48 hours if not 24 hours.
the difference to the US is staggering, blatantly obvious and significantly going to impact the livelihood of its citizens in a positive way.
at this point the differing results are crystal clear.
I respectfully disagree. China is just ahead in the virus life cycle. The US will be (should be) having lunch with a bunch of people in May. The one model that the gov is relying on shows 0 deaths by 6/6/20. (Of course, models can be wrong.)
Is this the same model that had the US at 60k deaths, which we'll be hitting today or tomorrow?
I hope his comment ages really well, personally. But, as they say, "hope in one hand..."
No worries on disagreement
Two things though. 1) Most of China was there last mid-last month which was about 2 months overall. People still had a general unease then to go out as they are now but it has remained constant since then. 2) People having lunch in May because some States expediting opening up economies may not be as equatable given that the virus will not be under control. Given the lack of transparency on this side for reporting there's no way to tell how many cases are truly out there but by and large China at the moment is "safe".
I'm going to make an assumption that you don't have a food/chicken processing plant close by, and don't see the number of cases occurring within those walls.
IMO you are woefully misunderstanding the impact China's reporting issues had on this.
you're looking at it from a hindsight point of view and equating the lack of preparedness an organization as the key thing causing problems. And that lack not being China's doing. However that's the issue now, presently. And yes, it has been a shitshow.
But that in no way means that there shouldn't be blame on China. The issue primarily being that from day 1 this was mishandled locally, to citywide, to provincial level and then nationally. reporting within China early days was fucked. Local and Provinicial government leaders hiding and misreporting the severity to above. Meanwhile local people got smart via social media, especially when doctors started speaking up and got the hell out of dodge. that misreporting led to the acceleration of this virus globally. people fled to all corners of the earth. And finally when Central Government did take over they under reported the severity and deaths so badly that it allowed many global leaders to politically leverage against lock down measures, social distancing and in the case of USA and some others not even bother to begin stock piling medical goods. Had China been transparent with it's reporting and had accurately explained how bad the situation truly was the push back on aforementioned political leveraging would have happened a lot earlier. Demand for news reporting from experts would have started happening sooner. and people in general could have been able to prepare better without the wild shortages of things there were and still are.
It may not be the appropriate time to get into the fault that lies with China. But I can tell you the sentiment from the countries I deal with is that the blame is coming and many, many countries are royally pissed off. Now with the insistent "US coverup" propaganda coming from China its increasingly rubbing most Western Counties the wrong way even more.
Another thread about the virus?
feel free to not click 💁♂️
Here is an update on the situation at VT from President Sands:
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/04/president-message-april27.html?ut...
There is some information about the financial outlook and projected losses that we will be facing. The final decision on what we're doing about the fall semester will come in early June. That will probably be your signal for whether or not there will be football; if we cannot have in-person classes, there won't be a football season, at least not during the fall. The economic ramifications to the entirety of SWVA would be massive without a football season, but the university is prioritizing health and safety above all.
I work at another ACC university and I can tell you a lot of changes to policy have been put into affect with the respect to spending of university funds. I think the range of the estimate is strictly based on whether or not fall semester occurs.
Yes, I think you're exactly right. We have basically been told our budgets are flat or reduced and the money we can count on spending are funds that come from extramural grants.
You wonder where the billions of dollars from the NCAA tournament and College Football Playoff that is there to pay the players (duh) went to? They are slaves and there is plenty of money to pay them apparently. Where is that cash?
You know this is academic right?
LOL. Kudos.
https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2020/04/president-cares-act.html?fbclid=I...
They put so many restrictions on this and other federal dollars it's likely many people won't get help. For example because I took an online class prior to the school closing and going all
Online I'm not eligible for example.
for example
I gave one example others include if you file taxes jointly or as a dependent of someone who isn't a US citizen.
You started and ended the same sentence with "for example". It's like an exclamation point in spanish or something.
Yea we established 7.5 years ago I'm not so great with typing words.
Ok, I laughed.
Must be a version of the Dad joke I'll call Fireman joke.
Apparently my stalker doesn't know that non citizens legal residents in the US pay federal income tax.
and it's also likely that all of it will be disbursed anyhow
Of course it will the question is how many people can "we" as a nation help with this money total.
Follow-ups get inherently political. Let's cut that off. A program exists, and that's good to know about and everyone is welcome to look into it. If it doesn't benefit you, TKP isn't the forum for that particular complaint.
I'm not worried about my personal 50 dollar loss here (cost of unlimited internet add on). But there are plenty of students at Tech and elsewhere that will most be impacted by this. People see "19 million for impacted students" and think well that will cover everyone and make this easy for them. I would like to think we can discuss that without getting political.
Are their charities or resources to help these students that fall through the gaps? Is tech doing anything to help them? Etc
Blue Angels and Thunder Birds having a flyover tour in support of those on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic. Link below shows the times and flight paths for NY, NJ, and PA areas. Assuming there are others as well if people want to check their local area. Looks like they will go almost over our house in southern NJ! Hats off to everyone involved: Navy, Air Force, and Healthcare Practitioners.
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/04/blue-angels-thunderbirds-flight-p...
Edit: Sorry, should have included that this is to happen on Tuesday afternoon, April 28. Around noon in NYC and around 2 in Philadelphia.
iF wE fLy Da BaNg BaNg PlAnE iT wIlL sCaRe Da SiCkNeSs AwAy!
Healthcare workers: "Can we get some more PPE so we can keep saving lives without it being a massive risk to our own health?"
Government: "LOL. Nope. We decided to spend that money on jet fuel for a flyover you won't be able to watch. TYFYS."
I will likely be able to hear from my apartment in Central NJ. Very tempting to see if I can see them across the bay, but i'm sure a ton of people will try the same thing.
Well, this wasn't predictable at all
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8265701/America-strong-Thunderb...
Will those frontline workers be able to see this or will they be working?
Bingo. Most the hospitals I've been in don't have a ton of windows in the areas where the magic happens.
But will they be able to feel it?
Assuming the flight path is over the cities, then not likely. CNAF is super strict about FAA flathatting rules, and waivers are usually for tight areas right around airfields during shows. Otherwise, flying too low or too fast over populous areas leads to too many phone calls whining about noise.
So just some thoughts because everyone seems to be ridiculing this and I don't want to reply in-line to all of them -- it doesn't have to be an either/or, here.
I know personally several nurses and "front line health care workers" who are exhausted and weary right now, and understandably so, and the "thank yous" and thoughtful gestures just get so amplified emotionally because of that. A card, flowers, cheering between shifts, etc. A flyover doesn't DO much, but it means much, and the nurses deserve it way more than, say, Virginia Tech vs Delaware in 2017.
I'm definitely in the minority on this based on the sentiment, but feeling like everyone is pulling in the same direction and the morale can be just as important in times of crisis as the concrete actions that everyone on twitter is demanding.
There are plenty of ways we can say "thank you" without spending a ton of money that could be spent on PPE for those workers. I kinda get what you're trying to say, but your argument is ridiculous.
Military money. These pilots are still flying, regardless. This time they are going to fly over populated areas.
It doesn't matter. You talk about symbolism in your other comment. I guess the symbolism of doing this, no matter what the money is allocated to, when we're telling motherfuckers to reuse PPE doesn't mean anything because flyovers are awesome!!!
Not actually true. Deployable squadrons are flying noticeably fewer hours in an effort to keep aircrew and maintainers away from each other in order to curb the spread of the virus. Only a handful of flights a week. The Blues and Thunderbirds are the least essential units in either service, and are normally the first to see hours reduced or be outright grounded. There is ZERO reason for the pilots or the 200+ maintainers to be at work right now, much less traveling across the country.
Bruh, you dropped this...
Except that they have to fly a certain number of hours or lose their flight status.
Like a doc needing continuing education credits to maintain their license.
Fly or die. Especially now it is important for defense readiness that the requisite training occurs.
Maybe it would have been better if it was touted as a training mission that needs to be flown, and it will occur over certain cities instead of the normal routes.
I think I'll trust the Naval Intelligence Officer on this one.
pfff...your funeral, dude.
/s
Except that waivers are granted all the time, and there are blanket policies in place to cover the current situation. And again, THESE ARE NOT OPERATIONAL UNITS. They contribute ZERO to defense readiness. They do not train to tactics and the aircraft cannot carry weapons. They are strictly for airshows.
But please, tell me more about Naval Aviation. I'm happy to continue clearing things up for everyone.
So, what you're saying is that these units have dedicated pilots who never rotate out and therefore never go to combat again? Because according to what I read, from a guy who was in the Blue Angels, said that it was a short term (2 year) assignment and that they rotate back into normal units. Therefore they need to retain combat readiness. You know you can put a pilot in a plane with weapons, right? It's not as if each pilot "owns" a particular plane.
And, according to the Blue Angels web site, the aircraft can be returned to combat readiness within 72 hours.
No, what I'm saying is that training and readiness is tracked at the unit level, and hours are distributed by squadron. And when hours get restricted for whatever reason, the Blues are the first on the chopping block. Because their proficiency matters less WHILE THEY ARE THERE. We're not talking about pilot's careers, we're talking about units RIGHT NOW. And during a pilot's career tactical proficiency necessarily drops off in certain tours. It's expected and accounted for. Blue Angels are not expected to maintain their tactical skills at the same level as a guy who stayed operational. There is a training syllabus for after the Blue Angels pilots return to deployable squadrons to get them back up to speed. And I don't care what the web site says, that does not reflect reality.
In case it wasn't clear, I am currently in the Navy. I've spent 6 years in and around aviation. I'm not just making this up on the fly. I know what I'm talking about here, so maybe stop trying to "school" me with what your neighbor's friend's drinking buddy said one time.
Removed because I was an ass.
maybe a good stopping point here
Agree with Fernley. Let's pump the brakes
My apologies. I was going to just let it go until the part about the drinking buddy. Feel free to smack me about if I get unruly.
Why would you go back and edit it and escalate the tone after two comments saying that it's best to leave it at that?
I edited it (or was in the process of, may not have hit submit yet) before I saw yours and Fernley's comments. I have a bad habit of editing almost immediately after I post something. Sorry.
all good dude. have some legs
That's fair. Thanks for removing it.
i'm not making an argument, i'm stating another point of view. "morale" is a real thing that actually matters. It's not the only thing that matters, but it matters.
Yes, it is. But there are about a million better, and useful ways to boost morale for this shit.
Yessir. Like maybe getting kids back in school, and letting 55 and unders go back to work, and eat lunch INSIDE Chik Fil A.
Even though you hate me, I still got yo' back.
55 and under is not a guarantee of safety. What websites are still spreading this inaccurate seven week old info?
My sister-in-law worked with a guy who died from it. He was somewhere between 28-32 and apparently healthy, seemingly in good shape and had a 2 year old daughter. Yeah, the whole older than 55 is old news.
Nothing is a guarantee of safety. However, the VAST majority of COVID deaths are 65 and older or those with compromised immune systems. Show me the data indicating otherwise.
I prob shouldn't but will anyway...
How many people under 55 have interactions with people over 65 on the reg, during "normal" times? A lot. So while you keep the 65 and older crowd out of normal circulation, you are just bringing it directly to them.
No hate. But you seem to be a little too comfortable with playing fast & loose with other people's lives and you also seem to think my GIF upthread was from The Princess Bride. Get your head right.
Of those two things, I'm having difficulty deciding which is more important.
The struggle is real.
I sincerely apologize for not spotting "Men in Tights".
I haven't been comfortable with anything since this started. You, like many others, mistake my grave concern for lives being ruined by lockdown for playing fast and loose. There is enough scientific opinion out there to support cautiously opening back up to at least investigate it.
We disagree, that's it. Your accusation that I am not concerned about people's lives is uncalled for, and just plain rude. We've quarantined grandparents, and taken all the precautions. I just choose common sense over herd mentality.
Meanwhile, Germany is finding that they opened things up too soon.
And they have been among those to have had the BEST response.
You're assuming they had to buy new fuel they otherwise wouldn't have. Having a LOT of family members who were military pilots, they fly training missions fairly frequently (could you imagine sending a pilot into combat if they didn't train?). So if they just used that mission as a fly-by instead, there was no extra cost incurred, but you get the morale boost gobble gobble referred to.
Edit: there are LOTS of other things that the government spends money on that are lots more wasteful than masks and gloves for our medical professionals and first responders. Congress spending 25 million to enhance telework for themselves when they work less than a third of the year is a good example.
Well, since fuel doesn't expire and cannot be reused, yes, fuel used now has a cost that didn't necessarily need to be incurred. The Blue Angels are a demonstration team, not a combat-deployable unit. They cannot even carry weapons on their jets. The only "mission" they have is airshows. It'd be slightly different if we were talking about a ready unit from the northeast doing these flybys. Less cost, more utility, less risk of exposure to virus for aircrew and maintainers. Plus using the Blues for a flyby is the equivalent of driving an Indycar to work. Looks cool, but it's kind of a waste of its capabilities.
Fuel is also 50% of what it cost in Dec 2019....
Its a rallying point and has alot of symbolism in it. The dead cant see the Flag at half Mast but it is a way to pay mass respects. I love it, and not to mention that in the monotony of quarantine, a fly by from a squadron of F/A-18's sounds pretty awesome.
I think it's a kick in the nuts and a punch to the tits for those in the thick of this shit to tell them we don't have money for the shit they need to do their job. But, oh hey, we'll spend tens of thousands an hour on a fucking flyover.
Excellent points both sides here.
OT: my town turned the lights on the football field for 20 minutes at 20:20 to honor seniors told on the message board 1/8 mile away to stay home to stop the spread. My point, it was a good thought but the fields are only visible to about a dozen homes so unless people disobeyed the stay at home, they didnt see it.
It is. Girlfriend is a surgery intern. Currently doing a rotation at a trauma department in Norfolk. Had to procure her own N-95, and has had to reuse the same one for a few weeks. All to go to the hospital and treat people that frankly don't deserve it because they were out being jackasses and got hurt.
If you really want to improve morale for healthcare workers, be an adult, follow the fucking CDC guidelines and listen to actual health experts, and don't do things that will make it so they have to treat you.
Yall are right little rays of sunshine in a dark time, aren't yall? I am very sorry this is going so badly for you.
Sorry if we aren't falling for everyone saying "look at the sunshine" while getting punched in the dick.
who is saying this?
That's what these flyovers are. You want to boost morale with a flyover, that's fine. Do it with a helo dropping some PPE!
Yeah, I get it. It's a cool thing for people to see and it's SOMETHING.
I'm just in a somewhat unique position where I understand the nuts and bolts of how military aviation works AND I get daily updates on how shitty things are at hospitals. So it's frustrating to me that we're offered a diversion from a problem instead of a step towards a solution to it. And it's a diversion that necessarily increases the risk of exposure to the disease for around 400 people and their families.
good news! there's already a 100,000,000+ people doing this. we're all staying isolated and arguing on the internet about planes /s
If y'all can't see how this is a frivolous punch in dick to people in the thick of this shit, I got nothing for you. I've been cursing, but I haven't cursed AT anyone yet. Imma go ahead and walk away now because that's where I'm headed.
Yes, I know. I'm ranting a bit. Wasn't really directed at anyone on here, there's just a lot of idiots out running around making things worse for the rest of us.
Cheers
https://baltimore.cbslocal.com/2020/04/11/slap-in-the-face-firefighters-...
This is going to be the new normal for cities, counties, townships and states around the country.
Thank you GGC. People are just frustrated and aggravated.
Well, they just looped by around our house. Reminded me of someone's description of the Tour de France cyclists zipping by them when they went to see that race. Could not get a good shot to post. Several families outside watching, all on their own individual front yards.
where in SNJ? there aren't too many of us on TKP but we're a particularly rowdy bunch -- I went to Rowan
Haddon Township. My daughter had some Girl Scout things at Rowan around the space science area. Are they known for that? Don't know a lot about Rowan.
I've been out almost 10 years (big yikes) and haven't been back since but it was definitely right for me where i was at in life as an 18 year old. The university has grown so much and I'm not familiar with any sort of space science stuff aside from the planetarium -- however, I will say that having a planetarium on campus free for students and putting on laser light shows to pink floyd etc in it was pretty awesome.
Extra background - as I mentioned, I have LOTS of family who were military pilots. So HightyTighty - you May put those people at SLIGHTLY higher risk, but putting 5 pilots in a squadron briefing room for their flight plan isn't a lot of guys and they can keep fairly distant. There's only 1 guy in each cockpit. The planes can be pretty far apart and the mechanics don't have to be all over each other working on the planes. So extra risk, but lower than getting a whole squadron of guys together.
Second - I work in government finance/budget. I understand how a lot of things work. The military doesn't buy fuel like we do, like we've made several trips to the store and back and forth to work a few times to work, so time to fill the tank. Realize the military buys fuel probably several millions of gallons at once. The fuel was getting purchased one way or another, and may have been bought a long time ago. We may actually buy it on a contract for a certain amount several times a year, meaning we may have to use up a certain amount (that's more conjecture on my part). The other thing is that it's actually illegal for the government to give stuff away. Like we can't just give our computers to schools or charities. So, similarly, the government couldn't just buy the masks and other PPE and give it to hospitals. Spending money for something other than its intended purpose is usually also illegal in the government. What would have to happen is Congress would have to take the money back from the military (in the case of the fly-bys) and give it to another organization to buy the masks. The federal emergency may give the president the ability to spend money on something else, like Trump was trying to do with military funding for the border wall, but the military can't just do that on their own.
And yes, the pilots may be flying less, but (and here's the biggest point) they are all required to fly a certain amount per year to maintain their current status (sort of like continuing professional education for certifications). So even though the Blue Angels and Thunderbirds may be the least mission essential, the pilots still have to fly a certain number of hours per year. They train like other pilots, because if needed, they are deployed to combat like other pilots. They train, you just don't usually hear about it unless they do a show. So if they are doing required flight hours, why not honor the medical professionals and first responders?
APFOW - hopefully my last paragraph here may make you feel like the fly-bys aren't a punch in the dick.
Being correct about the budget and the flight hour requirements doesn't change the optics of it all. That's my whole point. The optics of conducting these flyovers at a time when health workers are being told to reuse PPE are absolutely a kick in the dick. It doesn't matter that the money comes from different line items on different budgets. It doesn't matter that the pilots needed their flight time anyway. It's still our government saying, "Don't pay any attention to the fucked up shit happening over there. Have you seen these badass fighter jets?"
Son of a career Navy pilot here (and have had two of my children serve, one in the Army and one in the Navy)...
You obviously misunderstand the primary mission of the Blue Angels and other military precision flying teams. Perhaps thinking of it in a slightly different way would help. For decades, when Bob Hope and many other celebrity entertainers were flying all over the world with the USO to provide entertainment to troops, often on the front lines, were you complaining about wasteful spending and thinking that the money used for such purposes should have gone into making more bullets?
C'mon, just like those in the military, the U.S. public (particularly those on the front lines of this pandemic) needs and deserves a diversion every once in a while.
I think the fly-by's are awesome, and show that we as a nation appreciate what all of those are doing.
Thank you for the lecture on the importance of the USO and the primary mission of the Blue Angels, the Army Golden Knights, etc. I had no idea.
Sincerely,
AssPocketFullOWhiskey
US Army Veteran
P.S. This isn't the same thing. The optics are still shit.
I totally see the optics you're pointing out, and it's hard to argue that people may view it that way. I'd only say that, assuming they had to get their flying hours in, they could have not done the fly bys at all and done non-publicized training flights (so nothing special for that community) or, they could have still done the fly bys but put out an announcement saying "The only reason our medical community is getting this recognition is because we already had to get our training flight hours in. But we really do appreciate you. Really."
Pretty much all of my family who were doctors are retired now, so can't get their thoughts, but wonder how many current medical professionals appreciate it vs. have the punch in the dick mindset.
No one has posted that Mark Warner makes the grossest tuna melt on the planet yet?
This is some next level ish right here
A doctor that has been on Laura Ingram's show often to discuss COVID totally blasted a study out of UVA.
Basically said that they should be ashamed of it and embarrassed.
The study was criticizing hydroxychloroquine use. The Dr was saying that the study didn't include basic data points but they were making assertations off of it.
Just thought it was funny that in this UVA still sucks.
Don't take medical advice from talking heads on cable opinion shows (that goes for both sides of the ideological divide).
There is no medical benefit to hydroxychloroquine use in COVID-19 cases, in fact, death rates are higher among those who took it. Multiple, independent studies across the world have confirmed this. The original study suggesting it as a treatment was highly questionable, non-randomized, and published effectively without peer review from a lab of a known data manipulator.
What even scarier is that video from two California doctors who own and run urgent cares. That has been shared across social media tens of millions of times.
What's way scarier is that people listen to what Hollywood celebrities think. I'm waiting for the day when an effective, or at least mostly effective, vaccine is developed. How long will it be before actors and actresses start raving about how dangerous the vaccine is?
What video is this? And is it scary because it's misleading and/or wrong, or is it scary because it's relevant information that's not being reported?
It's these two doctor urgent care owners giving a press conference where they claim based on their data Covid 19 is not even as bad as the flu etc.
https://calmatters.org/health/2020/04/debunking-bakersfield-doctors-covid-spread-conclusions/?fbclid=IwAR20nRVKRexT106q8t_ox6aVbNmbkslpJygLhmnhtaoUBklJFKYlqeC1Css
There's a link to an article about them. And what they did was share anecdotal accounts, their personal ones, not a full field of data across a broad range that represents a bigger population. Sorta like someone in Alabama saying Wawa doesn't exist because they don't have one nearby.
Was trying to not link them in any way to keep that video from getting more traction. It's dangerous.
It doesn't have the video. It's an article saying that what they are saying is dangerous.
I've come to a spot where I understand different people have different thoughts. At this point, if they choose to hitch their wagon to a couple of doctors that have seen a handful of patients, and that's what they are quoted and basing their opinion on...at least I know where they are coming from. And that they cannot think for themselves. Or have a deep thought. I'd rather know that then have doubt. Those that "believe" versus "understand" are the ones that are scared and just spouting off anything that will back their belief during situations like this.
If anyone wants more details:
These doctors sampled people for Covid-19 in their urgent care clinics. Found 6% were positive. Then they extrapolate and say it means that 12% of Californians probably have contracted it. How they effectively doubled the percentage, I don't know. They then take the California confirmed CV19 deaths, extrapolate their percentages to the population size of CA, do some numbers and say that the death rates are really low (0.03%) - similar to the flu.
The biggest flaw of their "study" is that they sampled people IN URGENT CARE CENTERS, a large fraction of who are likely coming in because of experiencing Covid 19 symptoms. These are not random people being tested. I heard it explained this way - this is the equivalent of measuring the height of NBA players and then using that stat as the average height for Americans.
Their numbers also don't even remotely pass the smell test. As an exercise, let's use the CV19 death toll in NYC. There have been (at the very minimum) 12,500 who have died in NYC from this virus. This is just in the city, not the state. With 12,500 as the lower bound on deaths, and 0.03% being the projected death rate from this "study", we should be able to figure out how many people have been infected in NYC. It comes out to 41.5 million. That's 5X the amount of people that live in NYC. That's over double the amount of people that live in the whole state.
Something is deeply wrong with their study and their numbers, and (maybe unironically) they somehow end up with a death rate near that of the seasonal flu. Here's a quote from an interview with one of them "We've crippled the economy. There's a lot of domestic issues going on. Is social isolation warranted for the healthy?" I really really hope people don't latch on to this example of conducting messed up science to 1) develop faulty plans for reopening, and 2) to disparage proper science and scientists.
* I edited it because I originally said 8X the time of NYC, it is 5x. Dadgum math.
I think your .03% is off too. There are approx 40k deaths per year attributed to flu. At a .03% rate, that would equate to 130 million people getting the flu in the US per year.
You're right. Their fatality rate estimate for CV19 is 0.03%, while the flu is something like 0.06%. Maybe someone else has a better estimate. Either way they are saying the flu is more likely than Covid19 to kill someone if they catch it.
Another way of going about the math, just to show that it's crazy, is to just assume that everyone in NYC caught the virus. Obviously that's not the case, but let's just say it is. 12500 deaths / 8 million people in NYC gives a death rate of 0.15%, 5X their estimate. The true denominator is obviously much smaller, meaning that the true percentage is much bigger.
Sadly, one could reasonably argue you should not take [INSERT ANYTHING AT ALL] advice from talking heads on cable opinion shows (that goes for both sides of the ideological divide).
Years ago watched Tim Russert discussing how you should cover a story. When preparing for it, take a piece of paper, draw a line down the middle, and list out the supporting arguments of each side opposite each other. Report on both of them saying the pros and cons and let people decide. How many people - on either side - can you seriously imagine doing that on any debated issue today?
Apparently the mainstream press is experiencing a paper shortage right now. They are only allocating a half a sheet per story.
the rest is being used as TP substitute
Maybe there's only one real side worth reporting. Don't blame the mainstream press for being smarter than a whole lot of those choosing to malign them. I mean, why report the lies?
Can't tell if this post is serious?
There really are plenty of issues where there is only one side and going out and finding people who disagree to "give equal time" is nothing more than pandering.
Wow...who gets to make the decision that only one side is right and another side is wrong and not worth reporting? Careful.
This whole sub-thread: careful.
I admit I may have started it, but my caution is universal. Beware whose opinion you take as fact, especially in matters of health and science. What you choose to believe can impact your health, your life, and those of people around you. Not everyone has pure intentions, and ANY ideology is prone to distortion. As much as I like to poke fun at UVA, the study that was questioned doesn't deserve ridicule.
I'm sorry. Thought I was being innocuous with this as well as the fly over and did not think either would be much of an issue. I need to stick to dog sledding, annoying telemarketers, and dad jokes.
As mentioned earlier, we are all a bit wound up and frustrated. Let's keep it positive.
You're fine. I'm just sensing the topics shift into areas that are going to get dicey really quickly.
Yes, but I'm afraid I unintentionally nudged it that way.
This is the problem - a lot of reporting in the media (and not just the fringes) is blurring the line between opinion and fact and also leaving out information that doesn't support their view. I have zero trust of anything any media outlet reports right now because of this and that is a big problem if large portions of the population feel the same way.
This is important in my opinion. Too often things are labeled as news/facts when in many cases the body of the "Article" is largely opinion/commentary. I saw an "article" in the "news" section of the local TV station's website that was written on another site then "reprinted/reposted" on the station's site. The difference was that on the original site, the story was clearly labeled "commentary" but on the station's site (which arguably is where most who read it would stop reading and never see the 'original' article) the 'article' was in the "news" section and in no way referenced as an opinion/commentary.
The subject matter is not the relevant issue; the issue is whether the information is being presented as purely fact-based reporting (leaving it to the reader to weigh the evidence and make their own judgments) or whether it is the writer's opinions labeled as 'facts' with the reader left in the dark to that. It is sadly true that most (though not all) consumers of "news" choose to only look for stories conforming to their already-formed opinions on subjects. And the in-depth reporting that in years past was far more common has been replaced by the rush to get the scoop and many of today's online stories (regardless of the story being slanted in either direction) are so short ( I have seen 'articles' that amount to five sentences on subjects) that they cannot possibly help to truly inform readers of anything more than a surface view of important issues. Maybe this is inevitable due to the shorter attention spans that seem prevalent today but it certainly doesn't make for an informed citizenry-nor often good policy.
(I hope this isn't seen as favoring one side of a debate or the other on any issue as that was not my intent. Merely a plea to do our homework and seek multiple verifications and sources of a story before taking it as gospel truth)
All news is fact. Just like everything I read on the Internet.
Well that's what Abraham Lincoln said on his website.
For example there isn't another side to gravity, shape of earth, drinking bleach, earth revolves around the sun.
Psst, read the title of the thread...
Yes and? Frosty wanted a "both sides" argument there isn't "both sides" to this issue. There is science like drinking bleach can kill you and the other side which I'm not sure what they are trying to say. Only one side deserves press.
bUt GraVity iS jUsT a tHeoRy....
and I'll leave it at that...
There is no such thing as gravity, the earth just sucks.
Man I've heard variations of that as a joke for West Virginia, Illinois, and making fun of the goaltender for an opposing hockey team.
Many of them old Greek dudes and such from a thousand plus years ago beg to differ on that earth shape thing...
Just take things where there's near unanimous scientific consent (vaccines, climate change, etc.). That side is correct. Giving an opposing view equal time on those types of issues is BS.
I disagree, anytime there is consensus is especially when different points of view should be given credence.
It is how additional understanding is pushed and faults exposed and additional theories evolve.
Geocentric universe becomes heliocentric universe.
2nd MIB quote this week. Says a lot about these uncertain times.
Fixed that from science's p.o.v. Just because one disagrees with science shouldn't give one a platform to refute it without actual scientific data to support it. I realize this thought is super elitist, but its impossible to refute science unless it's better science.
Edit to rephrase.
I was talking about more topics than just science.
yea. and I definitely agree everyone deserves a seat at the table for policy decisions. I do think there was a time (prior to a pandemic) when many were pushing science results as mere opinions. Its insanely frustrating to hear people refute science with their unsubstantiated opinion.
I think this pandemic, for better or worse, hit people hard leading to a new understanding and appreciation of science, much like my graduate research project in my 3rd year of grad school:
And thus, I changed gears, found a better project and the results lead me to a successful graduate experience. Hopefully, we as a society can figure out the same.
This is so true.
When I was finishing my Ph.D., our newest crop of grad students asked for advice during a group lunch. All the senior students shared some tidbits of varying detail, and this is why I said: "Get used to being wrong. Nature doesn't care about your ego. What matters is getting it right in the end."
Scientists are used to being told they're wrong. Unfortunately, that doesn't make for compelling media. Our debates stretch over years, decades, or centuries. The information age and the immediately availability of information has made this complicated. Now everyone thinks they're a genius if they use Google and find some information* that confirms their desires or interests. Vaccines don't cause autism. There is no evidence they do, despite the fact that various celebrities and crackpots share useless anecdotes and reference a retracted paper (that was totally forged and cost the senior author his medical license). Many such examples exist.
We, as scientists, need to do a better job with public outreach and communication so the general public understands the realities of what we're working on and how it affects their lives.
*may or may not be bullshit
Scientists, as a group, are atrocious at public outreach and communication. Having made the transition long ago, I volunteer with scientists looking to transition out of bench science and into other fields. A variety of reasons why they try and many fail. One is that you can get so tied up in your area of focus that you either lose site of the purpose of doing the research or cannot express it. I would often tell people, you need to be able to explain what your research is, why you are doing it, and what it means to any reasonably bright person who knows nothing about your area of work. No jargon. Many cannot, and you just know they will flounder in any interviews they get. Again, this is assuming the interview is for a position other than scientific research.
Communication skills are just not taught. But, in fairness, poor communication skills is an issue not just with scientists. just think they/we are exceptionally bad at it as a group. And the press makes it even worse, which further confuses the general population.
Say, do you teach undergrads? Remember telling my students:
Take anything you read, see, or hear in the mainstream press about science with a grain of salt.
Take anything you read, see, or hear in the mainstream press about cancer with a pound of salt.
If you read, see, or hear anything in the mainstream press about something causing cancer, just assume that it's false.
I thought at the time, this is ~25 years ago, it was just outrageous sensationalist reporting around oncology and toxicology as (1) those were my areas and (2) talking about cancer sells. I then asked a couple of friends about press coverage of their fields (civil/environmental engineering and physics) thinking it was probably better there. They both said no, it is really bad there too.
Nearly every news report I have ever read/watched that I had direct knowledge of was significantly inaccurate. Not on purpose (all the time). Just not enough time to fully grasp a situation and accurately report it.
I have undergrad researchers, but will be teaching undergrads in a classroom setting next spring.
I go even further. I teach all of my students that everything they read is false unless sufficient, reliable data are presented to justify the authors' claims. I recall a news article my freshman year at VT that read "Scientists Cure Cancer" so I naturally clicked it. Turns out, the study found a compound that led to 98% remission of a specific subtype of cancer in a particular type of mouse. Yeah, talk about a misleading headline (which was never going to be true anyway, but I had to read the article for my own curiosity).
That kind of stuff is what breeds distrust of science. The popular press latches onto something they don't understand, inflate the findings, then everyone is disappointed when it's not true. Or people feel like the scientific community is holding out on them. Leads to a lot of nasty conspiracy theories. Trust me, if we had cures for all these diseases, they'd be out there...
My favorites mostly come from from toxicology. Remember EMF radiation causing cancer? Crazed banner headlines about people living by power lines more likely to get 1 type of cancer. Something like 15 or 20 more studies (don't remember the number) say no link. 1 study then shows a link between power lines and a different type of cancer. The looked at many kinds and all others were negative (including the 1 that the earlier study suggested a link to). Crazed banner headlines: EMF radiation linked to second form of cancer! No mention of 15 or 20 negative studies and no link from the one in the original study.
Then there was one report that some compound (think I remember it but don't want to say) caused cancer and people wanted it banned. Turned out that the people running the study fed animals greater than their body weight of the compound and saw increased tumor development. And the press sucked it up because X causes cancer.
Have several others, but need to stop and just log off. Otherwise I'll just feel like beating my head against a wall. Have a good night.
The compound you're referring to is likely saccharin. It's an artificial sweetener (sweet'n low) that has an infamous history of being a carcinogen, despite the fact studies in rodents showed that an insane amount of the compound was required to develop cancer (and further studies showed that rodents have a unique susceptibility that isn't equivalent in humans).
Oh that's another one. Was actually thinking the anti-fungal captan, but was not 100% sure that was it. But yes, we could probably find virtually identical studies and related hysteria on dozens of compounds if we looked. I remember when Bruce Ames (who is an awesome speaker) noted that 50% of all compounds tested are positive on the Ames test. He was the biggest critics of how people were misusing his test trying to claim things caused cancer when it should only be a quick, first pass screen to narrow things down for real investigation.
There is no such thing as a toxic substance. Only toxic doses. People inject botulism toxin in their face at low doses and people drown in too much water.
The latest crazy theory is that the new 5G cellular towers started the coronavirus pandemic. There are actually wakos in Europe and England that have firebombed towers for this reason.
Oh that theory has been around for a few months. Gonna take it you don't have middle/high school aged kids. And it's scary what reactions are taken. Of course they also made Trainspotting.
This entire thread is bringing Thomas Kuhn to mind. His explanation of how science works is worth checking out for anyone that hasn't before. Popper is contrasting yet of similar vain. I always make it clear to my undergrads that the life cycle of science is rather predictable and most of what they read in journals will eventually be upended or forgotten for something "better".
Great reference. I had to take a philosophy class my freshman year and the entire semester was dedicated to his book The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. It was a great class when we actually had class... professor failed to show up to his own 3:30 class at least once a week.
day drinking will get after ya
Drinking.....good one.
Ok, as you read this, note that I am trying to work a little nuance in. This should not be an all or nothing situation.
THIS IS NOT DIRECTED AT OR NEAR ANY INDIVIDUAL, it just fits in this part of the conversation.
With 1 coviat.
We are not a scientocracy nor technocracy.
This is just for the sake of argument, no one should think I am laying out strawmen here. This is simply an example of both extremes. One is completely science based. the other is not.
We have to balance needs.
We can stay inside until we have a 100% proven effective vaccine and or treatment.
Upside - very little deaths from any communicable disease. Downside - Mass starvation, deaths from treatable diseases that go untreated. Pain and suffering from other untreated ailments such as dental and musculoskeletal problems, poor mental health. Substandard education. Civil unrest.
The other side of the 8-ball
We can all run around right now and ignore any threat.
Upside - possible recovering economy. Supply chain health for at least the time being. Possible herd immunity reached faster. Less pain and suffering from other ailments Downside - More deaths from COVID-19 immediately. Long term impacts unknown.
Some feel something in the middle is best. dismissing either side as anti-science or that are simpletons that jut want a haircut or tyrants is unproductive. We must realize that there are those that will portray those with different opinion as unthinking, evil, greedy selfish, subhuman or simpletons.
This is bad. The first thing we must do is recognize that most people simply have different situations, concerns, points of view, experience and ways in which our world works.
This is unfinished and requires serious editing but, if you've made it this far, you get the gist.
I just want to make a point that "something in the middle" will be science based as well. Contact tracing, social distancing, temperature checks, masks, etc. are all based on coroanavirus epidemiology. Future innovations to help mitigate spread and restore economy will have to come from science and other fields such as economics, politics, etc.
Science should inform policy. Full stop.
Of course it should.
But remember that everything has a cost. And by that I do not mean money. Money is not a cost, it's just a means of trade and measure.
I mean peoples lives will be more painful than necessary and shorter then necessary if forced quarantine is continued. There are long term effects, costs, not being factored in and dissent is being squashed without regard to these additional costs.
I do not mean to say that after consideration the informed decision may not be to tighten things even further but that the discussion to relax quarantine is being suppressed.
That is not healthy.
Also, science invites dissent and controversy.
It invites review, repeatability and to tear apart assumptions, method and conclusions.
Claiming concensus is anathema to "science".
I wasn't disagreeing with you.
Science should inform policy, but policy should be made based on more than just the science.
I agree with this and your above post and I'll add this.
Scientific observations and facts do not carry with them any embedded moral values. When people say, "we must listen to the science" I understand their intent but I am not sure they understand that scientific data has no agency. The observations are filtered through individuals moral systems and as Egbert alluded weighed along side a multitude of factors.
IMO the carte blanche use of the word science has become lazy. When people outside the scientific community hear something called science they (wrongly) associate that claim with concrete familiar scientific facts regarding basic biology, chemistry and physics. There is a lack of specificity within the language that doesn't acknowledge the spectrum of where something exists between observed repeatable scientific fact with consensus to current hypothesis of the day. Working in the investment world for a decade now I understand the limitations of complex modeling. I have taken issue with labeling the output from incomplete models which lack adequate data and a number of ever changing variables and assumptions as "science". This doesn't mean I think the individuals developing the models aren't brilliant. I think they are using the best scientific methods and statistical tools available while working tirelessly to generate a useful output. However, there is a lack of acknowledgement that these types of scientific exercises are extremely limited from some within the scientific community and a lot of people who aren't in the scientific community but are vocal supporters of any and all things "science" because "science" is trendy in pop culture now. Now reasoned skepticism (which is a foundation of science) is often labeled denial.
The problem with this is its all based around critical thinking. Whereas a subset of the population sees science changing and adapting with new information and the critique review process as "science wrong, me right".
I think there is less of this than portrayed. Keeping in mind that it is generally believed that persons with IQ less than 85 cannot function enough to perform relatively simple tasks strung together to be considered competent in performing these tasks with skill and regularity. In other words, cannot act regularly enough to maintain even the most basic job.
I think there's more that some people are untrained in topics and in communication, are unable to put their understanding into a logical argument and thus are labeled as ignorant of all things.
Let me make an example. When I first moved to Japan I could not speak Japanese. I learned first, to understand what people were saying but could not form my own Japanese speach. People thought I did not understand any of the language because I could not articulate on my own.
The problem comes when what is reported is only what fits the narrative someone is trying to push and they conclude there is only one side worth reporting. Can be outright lies or simply choosing which side to report and which to ignore or on or how you phrase it.
Yes, some things are basically one sided. Don't need to seriously debate if the Earth is flat or if a particular city has been captured in a war zone by one side or the other (assuming the fighting is over, of course). Russart was not talking about those types of things. Was thinking more of policy issues or beliefs where there is plenty to disagree about. Would love to see people who can provide less biased reporting. At the moment, I cannot think of anyone who does.
At one point, I tried to get around this by seeing both sides. Read Wall Street Journal and New York Times, for example. But things just got so polarized (not to mention the lack of time to do this) that I gave up.
Would love to do this if I was an technical writing or journalism teacher. Pick 2 hot button issues. Split the class in half. One half must support side A's position on issue #1 and side B's position on issue #2. The other half gets the reverse assignment. You are graded on how well you can support that side on that issue. Will force people to see and evaluate both sides. Or they can just get an F on the one that does not fit their preconceived thoughts if they have them.
To add to this, hydroxychloroquine is a medication for lupus patients. So taking a medication that has shown no effectiveness against COVID-19 is actively taking away medication from people who need it.
This pandemic is having far reaching secondary effects in the healthcare industry. Cancer patients aren't receiving ventilators and some have to delay treatment indefinitely because hospitals don't have the capacity to help them right now. Flattening the curve doesn't just save COVID-19 patients' lives, but other sick people, too.
I second the not taking people's words on the news as absolute truth. So doctors are saying different things and it's confusing. I think the media has either gotten lazy (at best) or (at worst) intentionally look for countering stories just so they have something to report.
In this case, doctors, even doctors people consider "experts" by the media, have differing opinions about how serious and dangerous this is and what we need to do to keep ourselves safe. But just because they're doctors does NOT make them the most qualified to talk about this. How many of them are epidemiologists? Those are the people you want to listen to. Think about it this way - how many dermatologists would you trust to perform brain surgery on you? If the answer is a number greater than zero, feel free to listen to any old doctor for their opinion on coronavirus. If the answer is zero - listen to people who actually have backgrounds in this specific thing. And then realize that, as far as I can tell, almost universally doctors who study this type of thing predict a LOT of people will wind up dying if we don't take it very seriously.
What has probably pissed me off the most about this whole day and age is that reason has been thrown completely out the window. In an industry that used to pride itself on digging into a story, finding the bullshit, and exposing it for the world in a way that is easily consumed, our biggest media providers now operate in encouraging more of the bullshit to drive contrived controversy. Its seriously appalling that during this time we have leading pandemic experts being openly challenged on their expertise by guys like Dr Phil and Dr Oz, who don't have a medical degree and should not in any way be advocating treatments for this virus. And that doesn't even begin to touch on the anti-vax movement that was started by a thoroughly rebuked "study" that was popularized by the crazy ramblings of Jenny McCarthy.
What I am hopeful of going forward is that we have enough people in the press that get so fed up with the constant bullshit that they start just openly calling people out on it. Expose the bullshit and stop letting these people get away with it as often as they do, because we can't make informed decisions as a society when the misinformation and disinformation gets equal airtime and respect as the facts.
Oz does have an MD from UPenn and was a cardiothoracic surgeon, but yea, agreed.
I actually got to thinking about this the other day and realized that it probably all comes down to when Facebook went mainstream -- when all of the media outlets started making Facebook pages. Then they all became concerned with just being everyone's friend. Now so many of the stories haven't gotten so homogenized, and no one wants to be the one to step out of line with the standard narrative.
I feel like the reason that the President's press conferences have gotten such a burden to watch is because many members of the media are more interested in hammering a point and getting him to stumble in his words. What they should realize is that they can usually get a stupid sounding quote out of the man if they just let him talk, he doesn't need to be led there.
This is essentially what I meant many comments ago. The problem is that if you stand up in the press corps and tell the President he's lying, you're outta there. Wouldn't take long for nobody to be left in the press corps but his vanity press, and that serves the nation ill.
Well i believe the guy is an epidemiologist. He's not one of the talking heads per se.
Death rates are higher in those that use it b/c they've been giving it to people as sort of a last effort. And from what I understand it's the hydroxcloroquine and zinc combo that was working. And if it had zero effect why are doctors using it. I mean it may not work for everyone but it's saving some people. That's a fact.
Only real reason I brought it up was b/c of the UVA connection....tough crowd in here
Is it though? Have you removed the confounding variables to make this determination?
Well there are a lot of doctors and other countries touting it's success.
If you had COVID and the doctors asked if you wanted to ty Hydroxychloroquine would you deny it and say "I don't think it works".
You can't deny that there are people who said once they were put on hydroxychloroquine they started getting better. I'm not sure what all the denial of it working is about. Again, not saying it's a cure all but it's helping some people so they push against it is strange.
Again, other countries have started saying they are using it with success.
Here is a very good summary of the studies done thus far: Link.
Looking forward to Coronavirus Discussion Thread IX - The Threadening
So not sure if worth starting a new thread over, but Radford just announced plans to reopen the University on August 3rd, with in-person classes to follow on August 24th.
Radford University announces plans to reopen in August
Radford University: still the #1 place to catch diseases in the NRV
That was way too easy.
just like most of th---- nevermind
What their tests? Is that what you were going for?
Also adding to this: the President of VCU has publicly laid out it is their goal to have students on campus this fall, and the Presidents of Longwood and Hampden Sydney co-wrote an Op-Ed in the Times-Dispatch about the importance of having students on campus this fall.
IDK what, if any, of this means for Tech and fall football, but it all of a sudden seems like some institutions in Virginia are laying the groundwork to bring kids back this fall.
Barstool artcle below... very NSFW video of the video with a stripper, or NSFH... whatever, you get the point...
Chicago Has Become Party Central During Covid Lockdown. Stripper Party, Jewish Wedding (Separate) Go Viral
Good Morning Fellow Hokies! What are we mad about today?
If anything this virus and related fallout has shown me just how divided we are and how we are lacking in our compassion and understanding for one another in this country. We blame it on politics, and that may be an obvious optic, but I fear there's a lot more to it than that. We're more concerned with everyone else's opinions and actions than those of our own or of those close to us that we have direct influence over. I would not say that this makes me mad, but it is truly disheartening and makes me worry that the zenith of what we as a nation are capable of has long passed. Everyone take care of those around you and focus on what we can control. It's crazy times and I think we could all use some sunshine and good news. Go Hokies.
Exactly. I ask you, and everyone on here- what does the Corona Virus have to do with the Vietnam War? Nothing. Yet that is the "death benchmark" trumpeted in the media. Why? To make it divisive/political. More people die of obesity each year than in Vietnam, but I've never seen that on Twitter or the front page of the LA times. It's blaming Trump without coming out and saying Trump is killing people directly. It's making a political comparison, where there is none. It's sick.
The food processing plant workers would like a word...
This is a strange bubble, that is sure. It certainly invites study and modification of processes.
Might be a good place to test the use of Far UV light source?
The problem is the proximity of each worker to each other, which is pretty much needed given the process...
There are ways to protect people who can't social distance. I am living it every day and feel more comfortable at work than I do going to the grocery store.
Yes, there are. And the owners/operators need to provide that for their safety. Hasn't been done yet, and now a good portion of the work force is positive.
Based on unemployment numbers, I believe that there would be people available to supplement the workforce as temps. But you are correct that the owners/operators need to put the necessary protocols in place to protect the workers.
Shoulder to shoulder on a production line...nope. Just because people are unemployed doesn't mean they will do that work for $12 an hour in those conditions. Nobody would fill in working there.
I mean people are working there now?? And if someone doesn't have a job $12 an hour is better than $0. The whole food and essentials thing comes into play.
A bit of background. I grew up around the HQ of the largest chicken producer. And there are several other companies processing chicken in the area.
Yes, people are working there now. And cases are rising. To national "hot spot" levels. Well, not just level, but actually being deem a national hot spot.
And no, I can promise you, after 46+ years of being around the plants, nobody will go to work there voluntarily. and now, given the conditions and the rate of infection, you couldn't pay people $25 an hour to work there and "cross a line."
The new tag of critical is the sticking point. Food needs to be produced. But when 20% of the workforce is confirmed positive, another 30% is assumed positive, and 20% is scared for their lives and refuse to go to work, it's difficult to keep production levels up to standard with 30% of the workforce. Well, should say 50-60% because those that have symptoms are still going to work sick because they have to. Either because of the need for money, job in the future, or show-up-or-you're-fired work place protocol.
And if you think they can actually successfully social distance and keep the level up, even with unskilled people, just picture the I Love Lucy skit on the production line. While they aren't paid like it, there is a certain something to working on the line.
That is a sad commentary on how that industry (or at least that plant) is run.
The tag needs to be there because, without it, companies would not think outside the box to get their operations back up and running. And food is a critical need.
Again, its all about "want to". You keep the sick people out, provide appropriate PPE to minimize transmission risk and you run the best you can with workers in training.
The mentallity needs to changes from "I can't" or "It's too hard" to "This is critically important, I need to find a way."
I think you are making a very broad assumption and you won't know until you ask. And maybe you have to pay people more than $12 an hour. Grocery store workers got a bump in pay, these workers could too.
This is all about "want to." If you want to start your plant up bad enough you can find a way to safely do it.
Oh, I agree...it's the issue with the top brass. They don't care. And it shows.
Put it this way, the crab picking houses on the shore get foreign workers to come in on a special Visa, just to pick crab meat. Now, if you grew up around the Chesapeake Bay, you KNOW how to pick a crab. But other people living nearby that are unemployed REFUSE to work in a crab house. (There's a political...well...they won't do it. Just leave it at that.) A few years ago, there was a huge reduction in foreign visas. And several crab picking houses closed. They refused to innovate, or pay differently, or do something else, or find other people.....it was the "we've always done it this way, so it HAS to be done this way." Apply the same exact thought to the chicken processing.
There is a reason ICE raids meat processing plants so often. They don't pay wages Americans are willing to do that work for.
and at least one company was in hot water for literal actual human smuggling to get foreign workers. we're way out of bounds here, though. so let's rein it in before we start having an immigration debate.
The Feds finally got one of the owners to be sentenced to serious federal time for knowingly hiring people with no work visas and treating them like trash. He got a pardon.
0.003 of the US population has had a confirmed case. Good portion is exaggerated
Workers in the processing plants. Look at the instances...
Smithfield in the Dakotas.
The chicken plant in Iowa
The chicken plant in DE with 262 workers out of 800 in a plant.
I'm going to say that's a good portion.
I didn't know you were referencing that industry. In that case, yes
I had not seen that this was a studied item. Congrats on the people that acted that fast.
You have a link to that so I can help socialize this conclusion?
That coupled with uneducated immigrant workers that don't hold the same hygiene and don't fully understand the need to sanitize themselves before they eat, touch their face, etc.
That's a pretty disgusting and unfair generalization there sir.
Yes, it's sincere. My office neighbor used to be the HSE manager at a JBS (huge beef company) slaughter plant. He said the people were very nice but many of them did not speak English and understand hygiene, for example many of them did not understand the toilets had plumbing and would discard used toilet paper in the corner of the stalls. Many of them would go straight from the killing floor to go eat food without properly sanitizing their hands. It's not meant to be mean, it just is what is.
Not everything is politically correct. This is a harsh reality in the meat processing industry.
Doesn't excuse anyone for not trying to be a good person, but that is reality.
(Not a targeted comment, just a general statement.)
General bacterial/viral infection has been a prevailing problem in processing plants for ages. Leonard Inc. used to do a lot of systems integration for the industry. The environment is perfect for a petri dish, and fomites abound. Back in my younger day I, along with 6 other co-workers fell terribly ill at a Smithfield plant. We were running cable and hanging conduit all over the place. Handwashing was not practical at the top of a 50 foot A-Frame, yanking 3 conductor shielded through a pipe chase.
I get that a lot of you disrespect my virus opining, but trust me... cook your meat thoroughly.
Nope. Actually agree with a lot of your points but my beef will be rare and cold in the middle. Every time. I am a 'grill master' (take that with whatever grain of salt you like - Im sure a lot of you could 'smoke me') and cook burgers/steaks many times a week. And every time, the leftover raw hamburger is delicious and goes right down the ol' gullet. And if my expensive prime filet aint chilly in the mid section, I done fuk'd up at my craft. Fattier meats need more cooked to render, but burger and filets - sometime I think Id rather not even cook them. And not once has it been an issue. Im talking thousands of times.
And put my mask on and ventured to Costco today. Bought myself several pounds of burger and two seven pound prime tenderloins that I will enjoy rare as a MoFo. And beer. And Liquor. And $10 pizzas. But thats all a no brainer at costco.
I'm ride/die with you on steaks, but dude, you gotta cook those burgers. At least pink on the inside.
Honestly though, under-cooked chicken/pork is probably far worse than beef.
Yeah, trichinosis sounds unpleasant, and that's from the pork, not how it's handled when butchered. So yeah, definitely make sure pork is cooked well or cured depending on what you're doing.
From somebody whose father was an animal specialist for both Cooperative Extension and taught at a University. Cook pork and chicken fully, and burger to at least pink on the inside unless you processed that burger yourself.
I'm right there with you on steaks, but raw burger meat?
Really?
I'll put it in other words...their living conditions, sometimes even provided by the employer, as less than desirable, with up to 15 people living in a 2 bedroom shack that's 600 sf total. Social distancing is not an option for them. At no fault of their own.
Yeah, I'd forgotten about that.
I intentionally had not brought up this point earlier given the way it would be viewed. In my county, we have a significant number of cases given the population density of this rural area. We have seen a considerable number of poultry plant employees in those cases. Many of those employees also tend to live in households with extended families and so multiple family members tend to be infected. Also, there was some information relayed that some cultures did not follow the social distancing guidelines at first and kept having their large family gatherings. To the extent that the local govt/healthcare folks had to make spanish language psa's and push those to try to curb the issue. So which came first, chicken or egg, pardon the pun. Was the first positive household member infected at work and brought it home or did another family member bring it into the household and it spread to the other members? Either way, it has spiked our local numbers plus the one nursing home that Living4Fall mentioned and a correctional unit with 25 cases.
100's of cases in this particular demographic is what I'm told. And the language barrier is a major issue that our City Council is working diligently to overcome. I love our diverse community, but it certainly poses some challenges that take some effort to overcome.
Yes. I am not in any trying way blaming the workers. They just don't know and I guess aren't really helped out enough by their employers.
See y'all in part IX!
We are absolutely not going down this route.
Went for the lighthearted internet meme rhetorical question and it back fired. My apologies.
You are just wholly incapable of keeping politics out of this aren't you?
Holy shit, how did I go 37 years in life without realizing that obesity is a communicable disease??
I've been wondering if we really need to see news stories about every single wedding going on during the plague.
I mean, weddings with face masks, limited guest lists, video conferencing, etc, aren't unique anymore. If I wanted to read about them, I'd go to the lifestyle section.
That for awhile I didn't know the abbreviation for DWGs meant Drawings for work (a lot of acronyms and abbreviations used).
Teleworking making me dumb, I hate teleworking. Rather be in the lab with all of the electrical equipment (electronics engineer), which I was able to do a couple times.
not an autocad user, huh?
No he's not. Must use that other program...
All hail Microstation haha
anvil?
I was thinking DGN format...like the artichokes use.
Neither, I'm mostly in a lab running tests on aircraft parts on pretty big stations trying to find one or more failure(s) while testing and pinpoint where they are in the part to have them fixed.
Sometimes make updates and/or changes to the code used for testing each part, either being able to work on newer stations or improving diagnostic tests to better locate the probable cause of failures.
Can't fully explain exactly, but a quick summary above.
For teleworking I'm just making a list of new cable harnesses being made in excel to better organize multiple parts list/drawings.
To hell with Autocad...
Back in my day in Blacksburg we used Unigraphics NX. And we LIKED IT.
To be fair that product is bomb
We "learned" on CadKey during my time at VT. *shivers*
Ah, the good ole days.
I remember being given the alternative of Cadkey or Autocad (1 class only) for EF. My response was what the heck is CadKey? I had never heard of it. Thankfully, I got into the Autocad class.
Unigraphics NX was really good...for making you appreciate programs like SolidWorks...
Well as of today we now have implemented a company wide policy of if you can work from home for the forseeable future and limit trips into work unless necessary. PPE required and testing each day upon arrival for us fortunate few who are here every day. All the people working from home will be helped into getting a more permanent and capable computer station setup to help make it easier to do. Meetings for the rest of the calendar year will remain over a digital interface as well to prevent any in person meetings as well. Cant say its a shock but sounds like most places are moving in this direction now. Cant say I dont mind fewer people around at work but it can make working with an engineer off site a bit tricky when you need to go over something that wont work.
And this is why I am at work every day instead of at home. Trying to walk a technician through troubleshooting a problem using facetime and texting was a waste of everyone's time. I spent 4 hours one morning doing it and drove in after lunch to solve the issue in 10 minutes with my hands on the machine. And don't get me started on the native Chinese speaking programmer on that job. Smart enough guy, but communication over the phone simply does not happen with him.
So much to unpack in this story: Virginia is tied for second lowest rate of testing.
First, this is the headline they use to lure you in:
However, the first 9 paragraphs are about the hard luck case of a small business owner. I feel bad for them, but based on what I clicked through for, I don't care. It's 15 paragraphs before the headline even gets answered.
Getting past my commentary of shitty journalism these days, here's the point of the story:
Okay, Governor, you set a goal, so start doing something to reach that goal. And that includes setting some actual dates. People need deadlines as motivation.
While the government can't necessary control how many people actually get tested in a given day, they should be making sure that there are 10,000 available test kits across the state every day.
All the while Virginia had its single worst day of new reported cases earlier this week, and that's with our paltry testing numbers. There's no telling how bad it actually is right now.
meanwhile the governor of Maryland is calling all his wife's cousins in Korea and working out private deals to get shit-tons of test kits into his state.
https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/21/8399196...
side note: It looks like Hogan is working some sick air turntables.
Leg for the turntables.
FEMA will "redistribute" them once they hit our shores
That's DE. I'm not sure they want to poke Hogan...
But I did laugh.
I don't know what's going on in the rest of the Commonwealth, but here in Harrisonburg this is what I know:
1. Testing is not an issue. The DRs I know are performing as many tests as they want, both in family care facilities and at Sentara Medical (at lest that is what I'm being told). The test you receive from your local healthcare provider takes about 24 hours for results while the one at Sentara Medical takes only an hour.
2. The Drs I know who have done some fairly significant testing indicate to me that it is here, it is widespread, and it's likely been here for quite some time. The vast majority of people who have tested positive, both young and old, health and non are recovering. The inflated number of deaths here in our area are a result of the outbreak at an elderly care facility (more than 100 people, both patients and workers tested positive).
3. I don't know what all of this means exactly. But my Dr friends here are telling me that it's likely far more widespread than anyone can imagine (meaning it's pretty infectious) and that it's likely much less deadly than most people are suggesting (again this is clinical from our small city here in Virginia). Now that isn't to downplay how severe it can be (I know personally how deadly the disease is), but this small sample gave me a bit of hope that it might be possible to see things begin to open up again soon; albeit with some restrictions and guidelines I would hope.
4. As to the Governor's plan to do widespread testing. There are a couple of organizations here in the Harrisonburg area who are setting up tents in neighborhoods around the city for the purpose of testing households (at least one person from each house) to see where this thing might be/have been. I'm hopeful this will be beneficial as well.
All I know is in Montgomery County, if you had all of the symptoms but couldn't say that you had either been out of the country or been in contact with a confirmed case they refused to test people.
All state and county parks in NJ have been closed since Apr 7, with most municipalities following suit to prevent overcrowding in those spaces. Gov. Murphy announced today that State and County parks will reopen at dawn on Saturday 5/2 with 50% parking capacity and a strong recommendation to wear masks. Municipal parks will reopen at the discretion of those towns
good news feels good
Sweet. So looking forward to hiking again.
And golf courses can open back up as well.
Much better way to control how close people get.
This goes at my bludgeon statement. If the goal is to help people separate, blanket closing is a poor choice.
Only opening certain amount of parking and stating a capacity of the park and rules to follow is a MUCH better choice in control of this aim.
The counter to that is how does a business operate at 20-30% capacity? It still costs the same to turn the lights on, and pay the rent, and pay the workers, and for the product on the shelf, and the insurance...for 20-30% of the income. That's the tough spot. (And I say 20-30 because even if doors were wide open at a limited capacity, not everyone would rush back in.) Thinks could have been approached differently from the jump to protect the owners and businesses from failure, so they wouldn't HAVE to open up at a fraction of normal just to try to limp along. That isn't sustainable. And if there's a rebound in cases from this, that's several nails in several coffins.
It really depends on the business. Restaurants for instance could supplement their take out business with limited sit down customers.
At least it allows the people to figure it out rather than blanket tell them they cannot.
We own my wife's dental practice and so have brainstormed ways to keep safe and get open. We crowdsourced ideas from our staff. We have patients that absolutely need dental care.
For the brewery we have started doing different things to maintain close to volume at retail but distribution is down. Other breweries see the opposite. But costs are down because we have slowed production and so variable costs are down as well as some things we do to attract people to the tasting room such as pay bands, etc. revenue is down more than 30% but, we can sustain this.
Allowing people to work on their individual situation is much better then telling them no, they are not allowed to try things. It's like allowing crowd sourcing for small business solutions.
I feel for you and everyone similar. This is killing the genuine desire to succeed. If they'd have halted mortgages and rent for a period of time, that would have given a ton better sense of security to everyone. Now it's going to be a scramble to hold on the longest.
But that is problematic as well.
If my tenant doesn't pay the lease, that makes it tougher for me to pay my mortgage and pay for necessary repairs to the building and grounds. Which I still have to do and which is the situation for me.
Now, I was able to reduce the lease amount temporarily but promise less service but it's a compromise we can both live with.
That's much better than any regulatory bludgeon that could have been worked out and improves the relationship with the tenant.
Blanket halt, for everyone. Then only work with the banks, who have the money anyway. Instead, they went bottom to top, instead of top to bottom. If they halt them for every single mortgage/rent/lease, everyone knows their home and place of business is going to be safe. The Feds could work with the banks, which is a smaller number than sending out individual checks, and have it sorted that way.
And then you deal with the political fallout of another bank bailout and the lack of loans going out to small business again after all this is complete.
Can you imagine the spittle flying around as big businesses such as Amazon, Walmart, Lowes, BP get a "corporate bailout" because they don't have to pay their mortgages and rents and then Bank of America gets billions so they can pay their people to deal with the increased paper workload and regulatory reporting and legal work involved in all that?
Much easier to allow soft openings and allow business people to figure it out as well as be much less expensive to the tax paying public.
Mortgages and loans are easily stopped, with the payments then backloaded onto the loans so payments wouldn't be missed. Rent, however, stumps me a little. What if you own the property outright and rent it as your primary source of income? Food Lion or Dominion ain't takin' no stinkin' IOUs.
It's complicated seems to be the word these days, but damn, it's complicated.
And what is the impacts of a backloaded loan? Do we have a balloon payment at the end?
If we extend the life of the loan for the requisite number of months/years, tagged onto the end, then it legally requires a new agreement. Increased legal costs for a new loan document, what is the impact of requiring a new loan document for every single loan and mortgage in the country?
Just the modification of every single monthly loan statement in the country is a staggering task when it all has to happen immediately.
The side effects and secondary, tertiary, quad implications are overwhelming.
Yeah, I can see your point. My brain says that you just "do it", but your questions indicate that my thinking was too simplistic. Oh well, I didn't expect anyone to take me seriously anyway, it just seemed to make sense.
Bingo. Things are never as simple as they seem.
There is a problem with this mentality - that we have to do things "business as usual". This is not a "business as usual" situation. The situation requires extraordinary measures, some of which may have down the road costs.
And you know what will really be overwhelming - the amount of properties that end up in foreclosure and the amount of people forced out of their homes - if some solutions aren't found.
Again, there is way too much "we can't" or "it's too hard" when the ramifications of not doing something would be far worse.
But I'm not advocating for business as usual.
I'm advocating that the government set guidelines other than a complete shutdown in order to allow the large mass of people to use their collective knowledge to attempt to alleviate at least parts of the problem.
You remember the SETI program, it asked people to allow their computers be allowed to run a portion of the computations required in searching the stars for energy anomalies? That's what I'm advocating. Set new guidelines and let us figure it out.
You sir, understand some of dem economics. I am right there with you.
You're absolutely right, if banks don't get money, they can't loan and money dries up. Gov't can only borrow so much (and they've borrowed billions thus far) to keep them liquid. There isn't an endless amount of liquidity. In the end, someone is left holding the bill.
Sorry if this was already posted here, but serious good news out of South Korea about those that were thought to be "reinfected". Seems that the tests were false positives picking up traces of the dead virus.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-south-korea-pa...
Here's an interesting theory that's popping up in certain medical circles...
That is too funny. Although I might take my chances with that versus the substandard air dryers that end up leaving you wiping your hands on your pants. I am sure that there are folks that skip washing their hands due to the impatience of having to use those crappy dryers. The high powered ones work pretty good though.
Thank you for the laugh. So I'm immune to everything and should be allowed back in my office!
When I see one of those machines, I remember the Easter plays at church and how the downstairs daycare got upset when someone used that machine in their bathroom to clean the fake blood off of Jesus after the play.
More potential good news. Oxford and AstraZeneca are partnering to manufacture and distribute the Oxford vaccine candidate which is set to enter phase 2/3 trials as early as May.
There's a lot of positive buzz around this vaccine since it's been in development for several years for MERS and only had to be tweaked to combat COVID-19. It's also been proving effective in preventing Rhesus monkeys from contracting the virus. It's still very early, but my fingers are certainly crossed.
https://www.ovg.ox.ac.uk/news/landmark-partnership-announced-for-develop...
I also believe they've been working on a vaccine for the previous coronavirus.
This is a tweaked version of the MERS vaccine (also a coronavirus). That's why they're so much further along than everyone else.
I know Tech is set to make a decision in the coming weeks. I cant help but fear certain conferences will prioritize profit over health in the fall.
Trying to get kids back on campus and play some football is not a matter of prioritizing profit. It's a matter of figurative life and death for many, many athletic departments. Hopefully it can be done in a reasonable, practical, and safe manner,
I never understood why articles like this are even necessary or why the "Breaking News" banner is used. It's April, of course universities are planning and preparing to reopen in the fall; it doesn't mean things won't change if we're still dealing with this over the summer. What kind of an institution wouldn't be planning for a scenario where things open back up in 3+ months (as well as planning for contingency scenarios)?
Michigan State has indicated that as of now, they are planning only on-line learning. U of M is planning on campus learning. I don't know if either has determined that they have to have the campus open to participate in football, though.
What I have heard from VT admin is that if there are no in-person classes, there cannot be athletic events. Whether that's an actual NCAA rule or not, I don't know. But it makes sense to me that if it's too dangerous to be in a classroom, it's probably too dangerous to assemble crowds for football games, and how can you require athletes to come to campus, train, etc. when no other students are doing so?
Sooooo, what if they allowed players to be paid, say, similar to the new rule. How would that affect them playing with no students on campus?
Absolutely. If kids are not going to be in the class room, there is no way athletics could be held. That would be like THE mother of mixed messages. And we have seen some doozie mixed messaging over the last six weeks or so.
MSU updated their position - they are planning for campus to be open, but are also coming up with contingency plans like most schools. Link here
Someone from the Big10 probably told them they couldn't play football if campus wasn't open.
We're playing football this year. College may do something a little different, but it'll be there. As far as the NFL, they just witnessed 60 million people tune in for a draft on Skype. They are NOT going to just chalk it up. No way.
Roanoke Times Article about VT reopening this fall
A few highlights:
- Sands
- Sands
- Babcock
God Bless America, I needed this today.
After my basement flooded yesterday, then the plumbers, in order to unblock the floor drain, allowed sewage to back up into said flooded basement, and finally getting Serv Pro in to do the clean up, I needed something positive to look forward to.
And I'm still fuckin around with damn Autocad, which can ligma right now.
Cheers to you guys, the weekend, and to 2020 college football!
Not my favorite news site but this is a damn good read
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/profit-incompetence-n95-masks-veterans-af...
Even if the details of this were all made up this is exactly the shit going on and times this by 100,000+ other people all doing the same. cloak and dagger inexperienced bullshit that resulted in nothing but scams and endangering medical staff / people who need(ed) supplies. I've said it many times, but it's been an absolute shitshow from the beginning.
Nearly all of it could have been avoided had the Pandemic Response Team been employed and people actually trained to organize a centralized response followed the measures the Plan called for. Fucking ridiculous.
Blame whoever you feel like you should. There's plenty to go around.
this is also a great read for those interested in numbers and methodology behind the "just a bad flu" debate:
https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/observations/comparing-covid-19-dea...
if this is accurate then reporting methodologies for the flu should probably be adjusted going forward.
Little Blurb about Amusement Parks:
IAAPA has released a 36 page reopening guideline for the global Attraction Industry. This was done in partnership with the CDC, WHO, and pretty much every major Entertainment Company including Disney, Universal, Cedar Fair, Six Flags, etc.
If parks follow these guidelines, they more or less will be absolved of responsibility for people contracting this virus as much of the liability will be transferred to the guest just by them purchasing a ticket and entering the gates. The large scale operations like Disney and Universal Parks are going to be the ones that struggle the most due to their abundance of constant motion loading stations and the additional sanitation procedures, not to mention having to cap their attendance to only 50% or less for the foreseeable future.
Got a link? I am hypersensitive to this as a person credited with 4 passes to Disney and Universal for September at the moment...already pushed from March to May to September.l
As far as I know you would have to be an IAAPA member in order to view or download it but it will probably surface on the general web eventually. It's fairly boring; sanitation and operational suggestions but overall it will be up to the individual parks and the guidelines laid out by the individual localities.
I can't believe we've gotten to the point where we're having to think about passing a law to absolve businesses of responsibility for a guest/patron catching a cold.
ITS NOT A COLD
Without downplaying anything, isn't a coronavirus indeed a cold virus?
The common cold is a coronavirus.
COVID-19 is not a cold.
Indeed. Coronaviruses cause respiratory infections. There are four main coronaviruses that are seasonal, and cause colds (upper respiratory infections).
SARS-CoV-2 (the specific virus that causes COVID-19) is a lower respiratory infection. It has mutated in a way that allows it to move to, and infect, the lungs. This is a very different situation from a common cold.
Common colds come from a variety of viruses, including coronavirus. rhinovirus, adenovirus, RSV, etc. I think Rhinovirus is most prevalent.
Yup. Coronaviruses only make up about 20% of common colds and there are 4 different strains.
First and Foremost... I love me some me.
Second, I apologize for encouraging any misunderstanding (deliberate or not) with my statement. I KNOW IT'S NOT A COLD.
Just using a little hyperbole to express some concern and perplexity over the tangled legal web that's likely to be spun once we start opening up, if business owners are not given a bit of a safe haven by assigning some inherent risk to the possibility of virus spread in public places during these "uncertain times".
You're putting the hyperbolic em-FAY-sis on the wrong thing.
I was trying to subtly imply that if you can sue a McDonald's for catching COVID, why can't I sue them for catching a cold? #slipperyslope
If there's ever a topic to make doubly sure that what you mean to say is most accurately conveyed by what you type, this is it.
Forgive us for not recognizing your intent with the hyperbole when you've taken a fairly skeptical stance on the measures taken to mitigate spread.
Agreed.
The purpose of this thread (and all prior) is to share useful information about a global pandemic that is killing people at a rate not seen within most of our lifetimes. There is little room for hyperbole and trolling (subtle or overt) - e.g. posts that are going to cause a strong reaction. This isn't the place for it.
Debate and discussion is good. Dismissiveness is not good. Leonard would be well advised to watch what he posts. I'll leave it at that.
No prob, mod.
I'll try to spell it out better.
Can we please not?
Feeling it all a little extra today. Coworker's mother went from "feeling a little off" on a Monday to the hospital on a ventilator on the following Thursday to gone the following Saturday. She was 78 and in otherwise good health. My coworker was out all last week trying to get arrangements taken care of. Saw him in this morning, expressed my condolences, and he just started to cry. I couldn't even give the man a hug or pat him on the shoulder.
it sucks. you'd think people would know to avoid a place like an amusement park with a bunch of people roaming around and a lot of touch points -- but how many frivolous lawsuits have we already seen in our lifetime and would it really surprise you if someone tried to sue and hold the theme park responsible? having said all that, it's not just "a cold".
Unfortunately, many people are going to keep downplaying this thing until it hits someone close enough to them that they see it with their own eyes.
I 1000% agree. I have a "friend" on facebook that I actually used to be fairly good buddies with. He and almost all of his friends that reply to his posts think that this isn't as bad as the flu (they keep using REALLY bad interpretations and comparisons of data), and I can almost guarantee that once restrictions are lifted, they will all go out and take zero precautions because they don't think it's bad. And I know it's not just him and his friends.
Yup. It's all a hoax.
...until it's not.
Yeah, I should have mentioned the "poll" he took. He said he had 4,257 friends on facebook. According to the math, at least 14 of them should be sick. He asked people to respond if they were sick. I posted that his poll seemed kind of like the "email me back if you don't get this" thing. If people had gotten sick, they might be hospitalized or dead and he'd never know. But apparently he trusts that his logic is sound. Meanwhile I'm doing the hard face palm.
"Wait, before you intubate me, doc. I gotta take this facebook poll real quick."
You raise an excellent point.
If you're worried about people going out and taking zero precautions, you still have the right to stay home after restrictions are lifted.
Not sure that's the best advice for maintaining employment if your employer opens up and you don't feel safe.
But you do not have the right to get others sick, and potentially kill them.
This one is hard to prove if people get it but are asymptomatic. The guy I know posted that if he's wrong, we can come dance on his grave. I pointed out that he could be asymptomatic and give it to someone else who then dies and it wouldn't be his grave. And I said that's how pandemics work. He doesn't seem to respond to me much.
I've got a few of those types in my friends, they always seem to clam up and move on to the next issue when presented with facts.
Weren't we washing our hands and not coughing on each other 10 weeks ago? I was.
Huzzah!!! Leonard saved the pandemic y'all!!!
We just need to wash our hands and not cough on each other.
Brillant!!!
this doesn't contribute to the thread either
pls start helping yourself
But those people can be out spreading it rampantly. And yes, I can stay home, until I can't because I have to get groceries or pick up a prescription.
I was getting groceries a couple weeks ago and this young, 20 something guy did a big huffing cough (no attempt to cover or muffle it). If it were easy to avoid, a million people wouldn't have it already.
I should clarify; no laws would be written, but what many people do not know is that every time you buy a ticket and enter the gates of a place like an Amusement Park, you are basically entering a contractual agreement saying you will adhere to quite a few things. The most general of these being that you agree to follow all park and manufactureer guidelines designed to keep yourself and others safe. In most states it is also against the law not to adhere to these guidelines. This is everything from holding on tight instead of sticking your hands in the air (which nobody does but absolves the park from when your hands fly up and either smack yourself or someone else in the face), to not hopping a fence to retrieve your cell phone that you dropped because it wasn't secured properly (which you will go to jail for).
The parks will add into that ticket agreement that by coming onto the property the guest agrees that they are aware of the dangers of this virus and they understand that the park cannot guarantee they will not contract it by visiting.
I bet Florida passes a law too. Have to keep the mouse happy.
If laws are passed they will likely be very broad and protect more than just parks.
As for the mouse, he is already not very happy right now. He's gonna be even less so if their stock tanks any lower that Apple comes and scoops them right up. These are only rumors.
I think this is a wonderful opportunity for Disney... Especially if they have to operate at 50% capacity for awhile. They can play jazz in the lab.
Example - You already get a virtual queue with the Fast Pass. Why not create a more virtual queue experience in general?
Disney would be able to manipulate congestion and encourage social distancing. Also, people would spend more money on Mickey Ears and Twirly-Gurlies if they're not literally standing in line all day, but instead waiting to be called up when their table is ready.
I'm going to assume you're being sarcastic, and try to further explain that I think Disney can use this crisis to create a new improved park experience in general. I don't think fast pass for everyone is going to cure a virus.
And I'm sure they appreciate you solving their problems for them.
Wow. Cue Coronavirus Thread IX any moment now...
fun fact, i'm alone in lab today and i am indeed listening to jazz
#smartmusicmakesyousmarter
Virtual queues are quite wonderful and you will be seeing quite a few more of those, but they also cause other issues. The main being that if nobody is waiting in lines for these rides then everyone is out on the Midway and that just doesn't work either. I have been at parks during power outages before and that many people shoulder to shoulder impeding the major flow of traffic is a big hazard itself, even when nobody was worried about a contagion.
Coronavirus NSW: Dossier lays out case against China bat virus program
My company has seen our sales drop to nothing as everyone tightened their purse strings due to all the uncertainty. They laid off 8 people and announced 20% pay reductions for everyone else. My boss is refusing to make people work without pay so instead people are taking a week unpaid out of every 5. This was supposed to be my week, but I was told I'm too essential and that they received a government payroll loan so everyone is going back up to full pay anyway. I was really looking forward to a week off so my motivation is zilch...
1st word problems...
Really though, I completely understand. I cancelled a week of vacation in early April and I've been flat out busting my ass since I started teleworking. I'm mentally exhausted. I do try to keep some prospective so that I don't get discouraged. I'm not a part of the 30 million filing for unemployment. I just hope my agency can keep up the pace and come through on the other side intact, so I won't have to join those people in 9 months.
.
Lady cuts hole in mask to make it easier to breath....
The sarcasm of the cashier in the video is priceless.
This whole crisis has done wonders for my faith in humanity. I'm gonna have to disagree with ole Tommy Lee. A person may be smart, but a lot of individual persons are straight up idiots.
West Virginia begins phase 1 of reopening today. They stay home order has been lifted. It is now a safer at home order. Small businesses with less than 10 employees are now allowed to operate. Hair salons, beauty salons, and restaurants with outdoor dining are also allowed to open. If the cumulative test results stay below 3% positive, they will move onto phase two next week.
I really hope the positives do stay low, but it's difficult for me to see that happening, and I'm not sure a one week time-frame is long enough to establish that the relaxed measures find the right balance
that said, having such a low positive result rate is very encouraging as it is
If they have the same lack of testing that VA has, it will stay below 3%.
Next week? The average time to first symptoms is 1 week. Then add that people aren't going to get tested until a couple days later when symptoms start getting. Then add that it can take several days to get test results. You won't see an increase in cases for at LEAST 2 weeks. Can these people not think critically at all?
West Virginia? Think Critically? /s