Coronavirus

By no coincidence, that last map is just about an inversion of the map of the states colorcoded by severity at CovidActNow.org

covidactnow.org/?s=1219300

We in the U.S. are getting news from a firehose at the moment, but England announced a four week lockdown.

The U.S. is not in a position to follow suit.

Apparently if you attend a concert of a Tribute Band, you won't have a chance to getting COVID.
*Sarcasm Mode Off*
With every touring band cancelling concerts for AT LEAST this year, there has been a surge of "A tribute to..." bands playing shows in St. Louis. With infuriating taglines like "A glimmer of normalcy..." "Ignore it like the plague." would be a better choice.

www.thepageant.com/calendars/

My ex wife used to refuse to wear a seat belt. They're still out there.

ubarose wrote: Was telling a British friend that CT now has 40 states on its restricted travel list (people have to quarantine for 14 days if they come in from any of those states), and how our governor has formed an alliance with NY, and is currently in negotiations with MA. This then required trying to explain that the US has no national policy, regulations, or leadership regarding COVID. How everything is being handle at the state level, and each state is figuring it out itself and each one is doing different things. And it all just about blew her mind.

So yeah, It’s pretty much like 50 different countries here, and I can barely keep up with what is going on with CT and our bordering states MA, RI, NY, and NJ (because NJ is part of the NY/CT alliance).

And I keep imagining it like all the Governors of the states are playing some mash up of Struggle of Empires and Pandemic.

Similar is happening over here in the UK. The regions/countries of Scotland,Wales and Northern Ireland have their own 'devolved' govts so they choose to set their own rules which are all different to each other and England - so, as many of you know the UK isn't that big, this creates lots of confusion as people are continuously crossing non-existent borders for work and family life every day. And then in England we have had recently tiered localised restrictions that affect just one city or region or part of a city or part of a region, with the purpose of trying to keep the economy of most of the country functioning in some state.
This has now stopped as the virus has proved itself much smarter than a good proportion of our population and is going rampant - end result is that all of England is now going into another lockdown for a month (with the exception that schools and universities are staying open, interesting in that our second wave was kickstarted by them). They had no choice really, medico official advice was that the hospitals would be full by the end of the year and the death rate possibly 2000-3000 a day (it is currently around 300 and peaked around 1300 in Spring).

This is our life folks for the next 1-2 years and the sooner everyone realises this the sooner we can get into some sort of a co-ordinated life and hopefully have fewer of these outbreaks.

Despite 2,948 new cases (out of 5.6 million people), Minnesota still doesn't have a statewide mask mandate. The most densely populated county does have one, but I live in an adjacent country without a mask mandate. Despite that, mask compliance is pretty good now. The last few times I went to the grocery store, 100% masks. I went to the mall last weekend for the first time since February, and everyone wore masks, though one idiotic couple had their masks on their chins like they were cosplaying LeBron. When I voted this morning, everybody had masks on. One guy who looked like Joe Rogan was wearing it on his neck at first, but eventually he put it on properly.

ubarose wrote: My theory as to why COVID policy has been far less politicized here in New England is that the first areas hit were the wealthy Republican districts and it hit them hard. So there has been far more bi-partisan support for policies and regulations attempting to keep COVID in check.

Yeah, getting hit on the head with a hammer changes your perspective on things pretty quickly.

New England Republicans also don't have the sword of Damocles hanging over their head. They can be moderate conservatives and not get voted out of office in their party primaries. So they have the option to be rational in their response to a disease. They can be good managers instead of having to be good Republicans.

As for mask mandates (Shellhead) -- a woman I read from South Dakota indicated that they had one out of every 535 people in the state test positive on one single day last week. At some point SoDak is going to be in the same position as New York City and Washington, the moment when you own the fact that you're getting your ass kicked. That's when behavior changes. Good to hear it happening in Minnesota, let's hope your neighbors follow suit.

Shellhead wrote: Despite 2,948 new cases (out of 5.6 million people), Minnesota still doesn't have a statewide mask mandate.

That was Sunday's number. 3,843 new cases just yesterday. Yikes.

Here in Ontario, Canada we've been getting record-breaking new cases. The government's latest response was to colour-code the different phases of the response and take a "cautious, careful" approach to responding. Because that's what you do when faced with danger, right? You be cautious and careful. But of course there is constant slippage in the talk about what we are being cautious about. One breath identifies the virus as the threat, and the next breath suggests that the real threat would be any lockdown that would negatively affect small businesses, a big part of the base of the ruling party. The result: a big shrug of the shoulders that lets bars and restaurants and gyms open in recent hotspots.

My wife is stocking for another lockdown. Maryland has been pretty steady, but the numbers are setting records pretty frequently right now.

For the first time since the pandemic hit, Saskatoon's (Canada) cases are pretty concerning in terms of the reproduction rate. The mortality rate has been quite low in the province (currently about 25 times lower than the neighbouring North Dakota) but I expect that to increase correspondingly. My Gloomhaven group has been meeting in person for a few months but we've decided to shut it down until this surge subsides.

My brother and sister-in-law got it 3 weeks ago, but they're okay now. Like a bad case of the flu for them, which is good. He's an NP, so he should be able to keep an eye out for any long-term symptoms

Normally we have my brothers over for Thanksgiving, but I think it'll be just our immediate family this time. The infected ones should be non-contagious by then, but the other one and his wife can still get it. Neither one of them work from home; one is a teacher in a room full of kids, and the other sells cars. My brother is convinced he caught it in February, but he's an idiot.