Coronavirus

Agreed.

Unfortunately, I think Christopher is right, that not containing the virus has made this into a larger depression level event even if we do quickly bring it under control.

The state of Virginia became the first state in the U.S. to adopt workplace safety standards for this pandemic.

www.virginiamercury.com/2020/07/15/a-vic...kplace-safety-rules/

* mandatory social distancing, or face coverings when social distancing isn't possible
* mandatory face coverings for any workers dealing face-to-face with customers
* sanitize common areas on a daily basis
* easy access to hand washing and hand sanitizer
* notify all employees within 24 hours when a co-worker tests positive
* employees known or suspected to be infected must stay home for at least 10 days and until symptoms subside
* potential fines for employers range from $13,000 to $130,000

Elsewhere I have read that Virginia will require infected workers to get 2 consecutive negative tests before returning to work, but that seems like a tough hurdle to clear. Notifying all employees about an infected worker sounds like both a good idea and a serious HIPAA violation.

Gary Sax wrote: Agreed.

Unfortunately, I think Christopher is right, that not containing the virus has made this into a larger depression level event even if we do quickly bring it under control.

Well, yep. It's been a cluster-f*ck. But what does that have to do with tomorrow morning? Effective change happens in the future, not the past. Time to change where we're going, not where we've been.

I'll be honest, Americans need to be hit on the head hard in order to learn and to change. Telling the entire country that no kid is going to school or day care in September adds a little more weight to the blow, and might be what the country needs. The President and his cronies can call for schools to open, but again, The Virus Decides. The virus is the de facto president of the United States at the moment.

"The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream." -- Wallace Stevens

Sagrilarus wrote: The virus is the de facto president of the United States at the moment.

It's got to be better than 45

Our R gov is issuing a proclamation today mandating at least 50% of K-12 instruction take place in person this fall, nullifying any city's decision (like mine's) to go virtual in the fall. It sounds like virtual is a possibility in some sense but has to be cleared by the state. She's been a water-carrier for Trump and a downplayer if not an outright denier, so this is partly to toe the line, partly to continue the status quo and pretend everything's OK, and partly to thumb the nose at libruls. Monstrous. Not that there are easy answers, but the state isn't doing anything other than coming in late and being an ass.

jpat wrote: mandating

I don't think that word means what they think it means.

Let's ask the virus what it thinks should happen, maybe around August 20th. Most parents will agree with its opinion.

All of this is kabuki theater, politicians pretending they have control, trying to look the part.

ubarose wrote: I saw this. It's for Maryland. I don't know if the numbers are accurate or not.

Read this and things get real fast. Even if your kid doesn't get sick, they are going to have to deal the trauma of death.

By the way I looked this chart up and apparently it's not sourced from Maryland government. However its estimate for enrollment for Anne Arundel County schools is pulled from a projection published in 2019.

Best current estimate of Covid morbidity for children under 15 is around 0.15% and backing that number out indicates the chart presumes the schools would have a 100% impact on infection rate, which is absurd. With a 20% increase to infection rate from school exposure (a hypothetical middling selection from me, no science involved) you would see 25 dead students. Still a pretty stark number, more or less a dead child per infection percentile. And it does not consider the neurological and coronary impact that many survivors are reporting.

So our local school district is online till october, our community college is online, and at the other two universities in my state all instructors can choose their mode of instruction. The university's department that studies population health released a long report about how we should not be conducting in person instruction.

Me? I'm going in on August 13th to teach simultaneously in person and online without 6 ft social distancing in classrooms and no plan to test students who aren't showing symptoms.

GOING TO BE A GOOD NOT SCARY AT ALL TIME.

Sagrilarus wrote: Best current estimate of Covid morbidity for children under 15 is around 0.15% and backing that number out indicates the chart presumes the schools would have a 100% impact on infection rate, which is absurd. With a 20% increase to infection rate from school exposure (a hypothetical middling selection from me, no science involved) you would see 25 dead students. Still a pretty stark number, more or less a dead child per infection percentile. And it does not consider the neurological and coronary impact that many survivors are reporting.

Your math is off a bit. Under 15 mortality is 0.015% of ALL people who were diagnosed with COVID. But it appears that 80% of people infected are asymptomatic and don't get tested (though this is changing as employers make more people get tested), so really that death rate is 0.015% of 20% = 0.003%. So for the 757,000 students, assuming they all catch it (which is wildly implausible), a potential death toll would be 22 students. That would DOUBLE the number of ALL 5-15 year olds who have died to date from COVID across the entire country, so it is very unlikely to be that severe. And just to put it further in perspective, 2000 children have died from all causes in that time frame, so less than 1% from COVID. Not to mention all the conflicting studies about whether or not kids can pass the virus on at all. I suspect teens are more adult-like in their risk (and are better able to wear masks and self-distance) while younger kids are far less of a risk to adults.

So open schools I say, just screen kids in the AM/at lunch (to catch the kids loaded with tylenol) and relocate the older and at risk teachers for distance learning or other duties or offer them an early retirement package.

I've got some third hand information that it seems like fewer people are getting regular colds with all the mask wearing these days.

(My mom said my dad's doctor reports that fewer people are getting colds).

Kinda neat if true, and makes you wonder if mask wearing will be the new normal every winter.

Jexik wrote: I've got some third hand information that it seems like fewer people are getting regular colds with all the mask wearing these days.

(My mom said my dad's doctor reports that fewer people are getting colds).

Kinda neat if true, and makes you wonder if mask wearing will be the new normal every winter.

I can think of ~18 moron states with Republican-dominated governments where mask wearing will never be the "new normal" as long as they are in charge.

There is a lot of speculation about the number of asymptomatic cases, but the only way to really test it is to select a geographical area and test EVERYBODY in that area for COVID-19. So far, this has only been done once, in the Italian town of Vo. It was the first place where someone died of COVID-19 in Italy, and the entire town was immediately put in quarantine for 14 days. They tested all 3,200 residents twice, once at the start of the quaranine, and once at the end. A total of 89 tested positive for COVID-19, 73 the first time and 26 the second time, with ten people who tested positive both times. Both rounds of testing found that 42.5% of those who tested positive were aymptomatic.

So for now, 42.% is the only valid number worth using when estimating asymptomatic cases. If anybody gives you any other number, they have an agenda to promote and you shouldn't trust them because they are ignoring the only valid data available.

Iceland also conducted surveillance tests and had results:
www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2006100

They reported about 50% of positive tests were associated with asymptomatic patients, so this all bears out for the "EU" strain of the virus. That's what makes this so hard to contain--people don't FEEL sick, even though they ARE sick and are just shvantzing around giving it to people that get VERY SICK and DIE.

There was an article on super-spreaders in the Washington Post Jeb. I'd be interested to hear if you read it and what you thought. Short story is this -- a few people are particularly contagious, while most infected people much less-so. There weren't hard numbers in the article so you know how that goes. And I haven't seen any other reporting on it.

Our school district just declared online learning only through the new year. My boys are also going to the local community college, which already has declared exclusively online.