Covid-19: Coronavirus July 2020

MaeZe

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How timely (because they are discussing bad information from official medical sources). I just listened to a podcast on NPR's 'The Daily' which is from the NYT.

NYT Podcast, 07/09/20: A Missed Warning about Silent Corona Virus Infections. (Sorry, no transcript yet but this is so worth everyone's 32 minutes.)

At the end of January, long before the world understood that seemingly healthy people could spread the coronavirus, a doctor in Germany tried to sound the alarm. Today, we look at why that warning was unwelcome.
Remember that ophthalmologist who tried to sound the warning in China but he was arrested?

How different are we from that? We don't arrest people but that doesn't mean we don't shut them up. This is a story about a German man who had a visitor from Wuhan at the end of Jan. That visitor did not feel ill until he was on the way home. When the man in Germany felt ill a few days later and went to the doctor, he was diagnosed as the first case of COVID 19 in Germany.

The doctor wrote a professional letter about the asymptomatic spread. Instead, the BMJ NEJM editors (corrected) argued against the asymptomatic spread and instead claimed the man from Wuhan actually did have symptoms. Thus they quashed the medical opinion of the doctor who made the diagnosis and replaced it with their own that the visitor had symptoms.

On today’s episode:

Matt Apuzzo, an investigative reporter for The New York Times based in Brussels.

Dr. Camilla Rothe, an infectious disease specialist at Munich University Hospital.

They discuss the political reasons asymptomatic spread was denied at first. And that denial came from officials like the CDC in the US and the WHO. This has been a real eye-opener for me just how much political influence is playing on the public information these organizations are putting out. I rationalized that made sense when the WHO refused to upgrade the threat to an official pandemic. Now I see there was more to it than a simple formula for upgrading the threat.

Now these officials don't want to publicly admit there is some airborne spread. If they did that they would have to admit health care workers were not adequately protected even when they do have PPE. They would have to provide at least N95s for health care workers even though an N95 doesn't provide perfect protection either. But it is better than a surgical mask.


Guardian; Back in mid-April: Coronavirus is killing far more US health workers than official data suggests
The number of healthcare workers who have tested positive for the coronavirus is probably far higher than the reported tally of 9,200, and US officials say they have no comprehensive way to count those who lose their lives trying to save others.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released the infection tally on Tuesday and said 27 health worker deaths have been recorded, based on a small number of test-result reports.

Officials stressed that the count was drawn from just 16% of the nation’s Covid-19 cases, so the true numbers of healthcare infections and deaths are certainly far higher.
27 is bull ****. There are hundreds of health care worker deaths in the US alone. You can bet that 27 is the result of the CDC tamping down on the criteria needed to say a health care worker died of COVID 19 they got on the job.


Next the not airborne lie. And are we sure about this "kids aren't spreading it, open the schools" assertion?
 
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Roxxsmom

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Guardian; Back in mid-April: Coronavirus is killing far more US health workers than official data suggests27 is bull ****. There are hundreds of health care worker deaths in the US alone. You can bet that 27 is the result of the CDC tamping down on the criteria needed to say a health care worker died of COVID 19 they got on the job.

It is ridiculous to have the official number so low. As if healthcare workers normally get sick and die in droves the way they were in April and May.


Next the not airborne lie. And are we sure about this "kids aren't spreading it, open the schools" assertion?

We aren't sure they can't, and if people listened to what most of the experts are really saying, they admit the data are mixed, and there is much we really don't know at this point.

I realize that clinicians err on the side of caution when it comes to adopting new guidelines and making recommendations, but when we are in a deadly pandemic, I would assume that "erring on the side of caution" would be assuming that kids can indeed spread the virus unless we have overwhelming evidence that they don't.

We know the POTUS wants schools to reopen, because his people are pretty sure his best chance of winning the election lies with establishing the appearance of normalcy before November. Kids being back in physical classrooms would contribute to that. If they could just sweep the illness and deaths under the rug and ignore them while people get back to work and play, then people might forget what an idiot Trump has been and vote for him!

But governors and other state-level government officials are under a lot of pressure to reopen too, and not just from idiots who insist it is tyranny to be required to wear masks in public spaces or from businesses that want to go back to being profitable. Most people I know with kids desperately want the schools to be open in the fall, even those who are worried about the virus and know it is dangerous. There is a huge price people are paying, especially women, when they work from home and their kid interrupts their video conference or whatever. And of course people who can't work from home have an even harder time. People are also worried about their kids falling behind in school and not learning what they need to learn too.

Even very liberal people desperately want it to be true that schools can reopen safely. I get this. As a college instructor, I can say that preparing for online teaching in the fall is taking endless hours of my time this summer, and I still worry I'm not doing enough. And it's still not the same as in person. Not for the subjects I teach. I didn't become an instructor so I could work entirely in front of a computer all day and avoid all human contact.

I wish there were a way to safely open up in the fall, especially for lab classes. But the stark truth is there really isn't. Theoretically we possibly could, but in practice I doubt it. We lack the funding, the personnel, the PPE, and the facilities to do this. And human behavior is too chaotic and inconsistent, and mask orders are (evidently) impossible for even police to actually enforce, let alone employees and teachers. At least for a community college, it's more cost effective to operate remotely. We're getting tons of students enrolling, and it saves the district money (and with a 15-20% across-the-board funding cut slated for fall, saving money is what our administrators are all about at the moment) operating everything online.

One worry we have is they will try to keep us online permanently. Our district office has been pressuring the science departments to offer more online classes for years.

Universities and 4-year colleges are in a different pickle. They get a lot of money from foreign students (who have been told they must attend classes in person to stay in the country) and from out-of-state students (for the state universities and colleges). Many lower-division students will figure that they might as well take online classes at their local community college if their 4-year university is online anyway. Some upper division students might even choose to take the year off rather than forego the various opportunities they would be missing (and pay for) by not being on campus in person.

So 4-year schools are under a lot of financial pressure to bring students and faculty back to campus come fall. I don't see how they can do this safely. Even with one student per room, is it remotely possible to have a dorm of students sharing common areas, dining areas, study lounges, bathrooms etc. while always wearing masks and/or maintaining social distance? And faculty and staff will be in contact with these students and tasked with mask and social distance enforcement in classrooms. Are the facilities at most universities even adequate to spread everyone out enough and provide enough ventilation?

This little McSweeny's piece, "A Message from Your University's Vide President of Magical Thinking," about the universities that are going to try a sort of hybrid mode this fall is amusing, but also sad. Because it's an example of satire that is hard to tell from the reality, as is so often the case these days.
 

MaeZe

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Some Trump flunky (I can't keep track of who these people are) gave great advice today: "If we want schools to open, give them an incentive, make them immune to liability."

:Jaw:


These people have serious brain issues, they can't reason. Of course this fits with Trump having people sign hold harmless clauses at his rallies.


Go out there people and get infected; do it for the economy; people are worried about their stock portfolios.
 
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Introversion

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I’ll consider it safe for kids to return to school when, at a minimum:
* Trump stops being tested every day
* Barron goes to public school
* Paul Manafort is returned to prison
* The White House resumes mask-free public tours
 

Friendly Frog

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Finally masks are going to become mandatory in shops and malls in Belgium. I was really put off by not seeing any mask in stores and supermarkets last week, not even the employees themselves. I was the only one masked up, and considering that works mostly to protect others and not myself, I was kind of disappointed. Come on guys, we may be down to about 85 cases a week but it's plateauing and it's not like the epidemic is already done and dusted.

Universities and 4-year colleges are in a different pickle. They get a lot of money from foreign students (who have been told they must attend classes in person to stay in the country) and from out-of-state students (for the state universities and colleges).
I'm giving this decision so much side-eye. How is that not a decision aimed to kill off foreign students (or scare them away with the high chance of debilitating desease or death)? *dark muttering* Why does it always come down on education or death for those guys? Regardless of whether it is about virusses or guns.

It's like having those very few polling and voting stations in areas where there are more POC-presences in the population.

It should not need saying but governments shouldn't be weilding epidemics as retributions on their own people.
 

Roxxsmom

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Finally masks are going to become mandatory in shops and malls in Belgium. I was really put off by not seeing any mask in stores and supermarkets last week, not even the employees themselves. I was the only one masked up, and considering that works mostly to protect others and not myself, I was kind of disappointed. Come on guys, we may be down to about 85 cases a week but it's plateauing and it's not like the epidemic is already done and dusted.


I'm giving this decision so much side-eye. How is that not a decision aimed to kill off foreign students (or scare them away with the high chance of debilitating desease or death)? *dark muttering* Why does it always come down on education or death for those guys? Regardless of whether it is about virusses or guns.

It's like having those very few polling and voting stations in areas where there are more POC-presences in the population.

It should not need saying but governments shouldn't be weilding epidemics as retributions on their own people.

It's utterly reprehensible, like everything else this administration decrees for education and for foreign nationals who wish to come here. It's a double swipe at the people who wish to come here from other countries to study and at the universities who have (thanks to all the cuts over the years) been forced to rely more and more on foreign students' tuition for revenue. It's a horrible bit of nastiness that is pressuring universities to open up, even though it's unlikely they can do so safely. And foreign students are the sacrificial lambs.

If there is someone I possibly loathe even more than Trump it's Betsy DeVois.

Some Trump flunky (I can't keep track of who these people are) gave great advice today: "If we want schools to open, give them an incentive, make them immune to liability."

:Jaw:


These people have serious brain issues, they can't reason. Of course this fits with Trump having people sign hold harmless clauses at his rallies.


Go out there people and get infected; do it for the economy; people are worried about their stock portfolios.

I've been waiting for this. They've already done the same thing for the meat processing plants they re-opened. From my own experience teaching at a community college, it's clear to me that college and school administrators are deathly afraid of lawsuits. I'm not saying that this is the only reason some administrators still favor staying closed, but fear of being sued by students, parents of children (for K-12) and by faculty and staff too, is bound to be a factor.

I am wondering what will happen with the teacher's and classified staff unions if schools reopen when it clearly isn't safe and the faculty and staff are told they can't even hold their employers liable if they(the employees) get sick. It won't be pretty if strikes happen, though, given how badly most Americans want schools to re-open. Everyone loves to hate educators and their unions.
 
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mccardey

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Finally masks are going to become mandatory in shops and malls in Belgium..
Not in Australia, yet. The point our people make is that wearing masks (for an extremely contagious vascular illness) is more likely to make people feel safe about going out - when the only safe thing to do is STAY HOME.

STAY HOME, people!

And wash your hands.

If it was as simple as wearing masks, everyone who wears masks would be safe. WHich would mean if you caught the disease it would be your own fault for not wearing a mask.

Masks are lovely as virtue-signals, but yanno - STAY HOME, PEOPLE!

And wash your hands.

This is my TedTalk. Thank you.
 
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mccardey

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Things we learned today: man, Melburnians really don't like it when you call it the Melbourne virus.

That is very fair. And I think he apologised but yanno not till after he'd said it, so....
 

Albedo

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I mean as a comment it was brainless, but a lot of people are taking it REALLY personally. And wishing the virus against Sydney, lol.

But this is all a good sign. If this country stops prioritising the eternal idiotic rivalry between its two largest, crappiest, completely indistinguishable cities, the rona will have won.
 
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be frank

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The vibe down here is hovering somewhere between fury and depressed exhaustion. The vast majority of us who've been conscientious for months are struggling to get our heads around this new lockdown, and we're not going to take idiotic comments like that lightly. Do not fuck with Melbourne right now--we're cranky.
 

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I'm with you there on the exhaustion. The burn is slow. Knew four or five weeks ago when the crowding started again, when I started getting so antsy at strangers coming close I don't think I'll ever be able to go into a restaurant or a theatre again, this wasn't over. When I was getting swabbed and losing a week of income because people feel the need to lie about their symptoms, I knew it wasn't over. People crowd the shops here like they've forgotten twenty people just died alone in the local nursing home. (And some of the smug hypocrites on the hellsite were making 'joke' comments about sealing off NSW then. This is everyone's problem, and everyone who perpetuates interstate rivalries during a pandemic is a dickhead. That goes for blowing up some daft offhand comment from a journalist as well, IMO.) Like Mccardey said (and I may be paraphrasing somewhat), stay the fuck inside everyone.
 

MaeZe

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Not in Australia, yet. The point our people make is that wearing masks (for an extremely contagious vascular illness) is more likely to make people feel safe about going out - when the only safe thing to do is STAY HOME.

STAY HOME, people!

And wash your hands.

If it was as simple as wearing masks, everyone who wears masks would be safe. WHich would mean if you caught the disease it would be your own fault for not wearing a mask.

Masks are lovely as virtue-signals, but yanno - STAY HOME, PEOPLE!

And wash your hands.

This is my TedTalk. Thank you.

Ah hem.... The mask is to protect other people from you. If everyone wore masks, we could end the spread of the virus because it prevents the asymptomatic infected person from passing the virus on. Just sayin'.


Not everyone can stay home. My dogs needed to go to the vet for emergency dental work. I still have to go in to work because health care workers get needlesticks. I bought a lot of food and I don't go to the store often, but I did not buy enough for three months. It's not a perfect world.
 
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Roxxsmom

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The whole mask thing seems to be a wash here in the US. The sensible mantra is that you should stay home when you can and wear masks when you must go out. And masks really do appear to reduce the spread of the virus in almost every setting. Some people can't stay home, because their jobs are vital and require them to be at work in person, and of course people have to buy food.

BUT, people can be idiots. Still, in the US, the idiots not only go places that aren't needed and have gatherings and parties, they don't wear masks when they do so. It doesn't help that mixed messages from leaders are the order of the day. They re-open bars and restaurants, but when people flock to them, they blame a later resurgence of cases on people being foolish.

Plus, the police won't enforce the mask orders here, and merchants say they can't safely enforce the orders themselves, or even block unmasked people from entering their stores, because that puts themselves or their employees in danger. The people who refuse to wear masks while grocery shopping are often pretty unpleasant people who will scream in some hapless employee's face, maybe even spit or get violent. And again, the police won't enforce the mask orders. They say it's because they don't know how to do it, but I suspect that the reality is that many of them are entirely sympathetic to the right-wing types who claim masks are an unconstitutional infringement of their freedom to exhale viral particles wherever they like.

So mask orders don't seem to have made much difference here. There were as many unmasked (or uselessly masked with masks hanging off or noses uncovered) people in the grocery store when I shopped yesterday as there were prior to the governor's order.

Maybe Australia has a point. You can't legislate common sense or courtesy.

I've only half jokingly suggested (on FB) that since there are currently a lot of out-of-work bouncers, with bars closed again in many states, that stores should hire them to stop unmasked folks from coming into stores. If it's legal for a burly, muscled guy to block entry of inappropriately dressed nightclub patrons (or to forcefully eject customers who become drunk and disorderly), surely they can stop unmasked shoppers from entering our local Raley's and gently but firmly eject that guy who was gleefully shouting his end of a conversation into his phone while his mask dangled from one ear (or that annoying lady whose mask was also pushed down so she could unscrew the caps from shampoo bottles and sniff each of them).

Predictably, my suggestion drew some ire.
 

Lyv

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Not in Australia, yet. The point our people make is that wearing masks (for an extremely contagious vascular illness) is more likely to make people feel safe about going out - when the only safe thing to do is STAY HOME.

STAY HOME, people!

And wash your hands.

If it was as simple as wearing masks, everyone who wears masks would be safe. WHich would mean if you caught the disease it would be your own fault for not wearing a mask.

Masks are lovely as virtue-signals, but yanno - STAY HOME, PEOPLE!

And wash your hands.
If I showed this to my friend who lives in Australia, she would get so mad. She's one of those awful virtue-signalers. Wears it every time she goes out. And that's another thing! She won't stay home. She smugly puts on her mask and goes out. To her job as an EMT where she flaunts all that virtue in the faces of the sick and injured. The nerve!

Not everyone can stay home. My hospice nurse was here yesterday. Masked. And we were pretty creative about how we did the appointment. Yes, some people do go out when they don't have to. A lot. Too many. For stupid things. But not everyone who wants to stay home can. I'm not just talking about essential workers either. A mutual friend had to go to the store for our friend who is on a vent (she has been for years, at home, and she's quite mobile in her power chair when there's not a raging pandemic) because there are shortages of supplies she needs to stay alive and if you can find them, it's often "in-store purchase only." Some of us are married to essential workers. My husband selfishly goes to work and virtue-signals there so we can keep our health insurance (kind of important in general, but also...pandemic!) and food in the fridge.

There's increasing evidence coronavirus can stay airborne for hours, even outside. It's in droplets. So you want less of those in the air. Makes sense, right? Masks over nostrils and mouths means fewer droplets in the air. I've posted articles about all of that, so it's documented in this thread (or it could be in June's). I know I posted at least one article supporting the claim that if everyone wore masks outside, cases would drop by 80%. Healthcare professionals are begging us to stay inside but if we can't to practice distancing and virtu...er, wear a mask. I feel like anyone who's read any of the threads here would know all that. It's not opinion. It's science. This is important enough that I will do the work if that's what it takes. If you need support for anything I've said, tell me. I would be happy, honestly happy, to share with you as much information as it would take for you to stop saying things that endanger my friend the EMT, whom I love, and everyone else.
 

frimble3

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I think the bouncer idea is brilliant. It would cut down trouble just by virtue of large, muscular, frowning men being visible. I have noticed that it seems most of the clerk-abusers seem to focus on young people, small people, and POC. Those likeliest to back down under abuse.
I'm betting that stores with a lot of bitter, purse-mouthed, angry-looking older people on front-line staff have less problems.

My beloved sister, for instance, works in a grocery store, and has reported no problems, people are nice as pie and she hasn't had to remind anyone of the rules. (She was complaining, actually: she's just been waiting to dump on someone.)
 

Roxxsmom

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I think the bouncer idea is brilliant. It would cut down trouble just by virtue of large, muscular, frowning men being visible. I have noticed that it seems most of the clerk-abusers seem to focus on young people, small people, and POC. Those likeliest to back down under abuse.
I'm betting that stores with a lot of bitter, purse-mouthed, angry-looking older people on front-line staff have less problems.

My beloved sister, for instance, works in a grocery store, and has reported no problems, people are nice as pie and she hasn't had to remind anyone of the rules. (She was complaining, actually: she's just been waiting to dump on someone.)

Possibly, though it may be a function of locale too. We're sort of a mixed neighborhood here, with a range of politics (though our district has been re-electing a Democratic congress member in recent elections). Still, there are plenty of working-class white people, and at least some have drunk the right-wing media Kool Aid. I am guessing some of the big, beefy White guys who are mask free are in that camp. Still, I see beefy White guys wearing them too.

Plus, there are a few self-absorbed, oblivious types like the sniffing lady or the phone guy. And I can't help but notice a fair number of Black people (who aren't likely Trump supporters) aren't wearing masks, or wear them with their noses sticking out. I wonder if the concern over being treated as a criminal stops some younger Black men from donning masks entirely, but I don't know why so many are wearing with their noses poking out. I'd say almost half the Black shoppers at our local stores wear their masks this way. A few younger White people do too. In their case, I suspect it might be a sense of invulnerability--they're following the rules, but not very well, because they don't feel particularly at risk and it's more comfortable to wear a mask with one's nose exposed.

Some older guys seem to like bandanas, which of course are less effective. I think they cover beards more comfortably?

Then there are the respirator type masks with the exhale valves. Those offer no protection to others and are designed only to protect the wearer from incoming particles. Of course, the cloth ones only offer minimal protection to the wearer too, so there's not a lot of point to them, except to look like you are complying. This design makes sense in a isolation ward (with masks designed to protect the wearer better), where a clinician is working with sick patients, or in a chemical environment, but they are not appropriate for normal public use during Covid-19, and I wish they'd stop advertising them everywhere on the web.

It may also depend on the clientele of a store too. In our local TJs, they have a sign asking people to wear masks, and they limit how many can come into the store at once. Everyone seems to wear one, and I've noticed no age or race differences there, except for two young people who were shopping together (not supposed to be doing that right now) and wearing their masks at half mast.
 
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mccardey

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Once again, I will explain that my Mask Talk is an attempt to bring into the discussion the fact that on a global writers board, there are other countries than the US adopting other strategies than the US and doing fairly much better than the US all things considered. So, while I'm not advocating that the US stop wearing masks, I am once again trying to point out that in this country down here, it is not the case that not wearing a mask makes you a bad person. Or means that you don't understand the purpose of the mask (to protect others) or the risks of the illness itself. In this country down here (not the US - I'm not in the US, so I'm only speaking about this country down here) AT THE MOMENT staying home WHEN YOU CAN and leaving the masks FOR HEALTH WORKERS AND THE FRAGILE AGED AND THOSE WITH HEALTH ISSUES is not an indication that you are a brainless, inconsiderate, ignorant Trump supporter.

Once again, I am only trying to say, when hit with blanket statements about what it means not to wear a mask, that that is not a universal interpretation.

We will be in masks, when we need to be. At the moment, we're asked not to use up resources that others will/may need more.

We are not in the US - we're in another country entirely.

This has been my Other Ted Talk.


And Melbourne - and wider Victoria - my heart is breaking for what you're going through. Literally no-one I've spoken to in the last few days hasn't said how horrible it all is, and how brave and wonderful you're being and how much we wish we could help.
 

Lyv

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I care about my EMT friend. She's in Brisbane. Just had a baby. I think promoting ideas that are dangerous to her and her husband, also a first responder, and their new baby, is worse than rude. I offered to give you links, articles, whatever. And your rep points to me have been...interesting. I don't often respond to you anymore, but this is about something a bit pretty damn important and what you're saying is problematic and dangerous. Everything else from you, I have no problem ignoring. But I was an RN, and I know the harm done when people believe comments like yours. I wanted to try to get through to you and I was as careful as I could be with my words, given the circumstances. I just want us all to be ok, including you.
 

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Not in Australia, yet. The point our people make is that wearing masks (for an extremely contagious vascular illness) is more likely to make people feel safe about going out - when the only safe thing to do is STAY HOME.

STAY HOME, people!

And wash your hands.

If it was as simple as wearing masks, everyone who wears masks would be safe. WHich would mean if you caught the disease it would be your own fault for not wearing a mask.

Masks are lovely as virtue-signals, but yanno - STAY HOME, PEOPLE!

And wash your hands.

This is my TedTalk. Thank you.

I think that so far, in Canada (another faraway land that gets swamped by the US), we've been lucky in that our political leaders are deferring to medical experts and that both sides have been trying to stick to the basics: stay home, wash hands, wear mask.

Oh, they may talk about recent advances, or the latest stats, but the same message is the basis of the whole thing: stay home, wash hands, wear mask. In that order, pretty much. If you can't do the first one, definitely do both of the others.

I wouldn't be surprised if Canada Post put out a stamp "Stay home. Send a letter."
 

mccardey

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I think that so far, in Canada (another faraway land that gets swamped by the US), we've been lucky in that our political leaders are deferring to medical experts and that both sides have been trying to stick to the basics: stay home, wash hands, wear mask.

Yeah - we have mask shortages down here because of the recentish bushfires and (reportedly) because China bought back a lot of the stock we had before they announced the virus. Which means we really, really, really need to not waste the PPE - it has to be kept for health workers and for the already ill and the fragile, and the elderly.

We're almost through renewing the stockpile (I watch this very carefully because reasons) and the moment it's safe, I expect us all to be put into masks. But not till there's enough to go round where it's needed most.
 
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We all know that the absolutely best way of interrupting transmission of this (and other) viruses is to stay the fuck at home. This is how they smashed the shit out of it in New Zealand. It's how we stamped on person-to-person transmissions in most states in Australia, including Queensland.

Until there are enough masks for everyone to wear safely, those for whom they are essential must have priority. The rest of us -- as we keep saying -- should remain at home with our hand sanitiser and slightly soggy elbows, and treat everyone, including ourselves, as infectious.
 

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!
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Once again, I will explain that my Mask Talk is an attempt to bring into the discussion the fact that on a global writers board, there are other countries than the US adopting other strategies than the US and doing fairly much better than the US all things considered. So, while I'm not advocating that the US stop wearing masks, I am once again trying to point out that in this country down here, it is not the case that not wearing a mask makes you a bad person. Or means that you don't understand the purpose of the mask (to protect others) or the risks of the illness itself. In this country down here (not the US - I'm not in the US, so I'm only speaking about this country down here) AT THE MOMENT staying home WHEN YOU CAN and leaving the masks FOR HEALTH WORKERS AND THE FRAGILE AGED AND THOSE WITH HEALTH ISSUES is not an indication that you are a brainless, inconsiderate, ignorant Trump supporter.

*blink* *blink* "She's a witch that hates America, burn 'er!"

--Typical American whut doesn't treat with nuance

;) in case that wasn't obvious
 

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God damnit to hell people.

KNOCK IT THE FUCK OFF.

Some basic facts:

1. Not all countries are the U.S.

2. Make a fucking distinction between a medical N95 mask and a surgical mask, which are still in very limited supply in the U.S. and many other countries, AND the cloth masks that ordinary non-medical U.S citizens are being asked, and in some places legally required to wear in public.

This is the Australian Department of Health medical statement. You will notice, if you can FUCKING READ that it is referring to medical masks. It's concerned about the general shortage of medical equipment and would like to have surgical masks/N95 masks etc available for medical personnel.

You will also notice if you are numerically literate and can fucking READ that COVID-19 is not nearly as high a level of infection in Australia, particularly away from the coasts, as it is in the U.S. where the state of Florida currently has the highest rate of infection IN THE WORLD.

You will doubtless also remember that at one point the emphasis in the U.S. WAS ON NOT USING MASKS THAT MEDICAL PERSONNEL NEEDED.

3. In the U.S. the CDC is recommending that if at all possible people wear cloth face coverings (aka MASKS) in public. There are many sources for them now, mostly home made, and they are referring to simple cloth face coverings. These are not medical grade.

4. I have been living with an elderly parent in a literal lockdown and have not left the parking lot since March. I have to wear a CLOTH FACE COVERING aka MASK any time I leave said elderly parent's apartment. My father in law died from COVID-19. His wife and children had not seen him for weeks when he died. I see ambulances leave with dying people who do not return weekly, sometimes daily, because next to me the youngest person here is 78, and the elderly are vulnerable.

5. You guys damn well know better than to squabble and go back and forth etc.

6. I'm keeping the server running, and ACE & H up, by myself. Stop fucking around. I'm done tolerating crap.

Shape up and fly right or I will save myself several hours of labor by shutting things down.

IS THAT FUCKING CLEAR?

Because if it isn't, you know where the door is.
 
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