Wear Your Mask - COVID-19 Thread II

[hazard]

Christmas and New Year celebrations. That they're not testing non-symptomatic contacts is an indication of failure, as testing capacity is implied to be exceeded and thus test and tracing is no longer an effective tool.

It seems the lockdown in the Netherlands had effect, data's entered in the public report on Tuesdays, but there's a flat rate of corona infections from mid December onwards.

Which, I'll note, is still substantially greater than the rate during the first lockdown. The graphs show quite effectively just how mismanaged the virus was during the summer.

Hopefully, by next Tuesday there's an indication of decreasing numbers, but I'm not so certain of that. While Christmas and New Year were locked down in the Netherlands, the Saint Nicholas celebrations were not and that's a far bigger deal than Christmas is here.

[robkelk]

What the fuck happened?

Quoting myself:

People have not been taking the pandemic seriously since the first vaccine acceptance was announced.

[robkelk]

Lockdown is now affecting me.

Ontario goes into a state of emergency as of 12:01am Thursday, lasting 28 days. Stay at home, except to go grocery shopping, go to a medical appointment, or go to essential work that cannot be done from home.

So much for getting an oil change and tire rotation next week... but I won't need that done, either.

[LynnInDenver]

Looks like we've bottomed out here, and it's going to likely go back up... and it bottomed out just below the APRIL record of hospitalizations. And just as we moved back to things like really limited indoor dining being allowed because the numbers had been in steady decline. (Not that we've been inside a restaurant except for takeout since sometime in March.)

Brace yourselves, the Holiday Spike has officially arrived, and it didn't go into the punch this time.

[Bob Schroeck]

Peg and I have just registered at the NJ state government website to get the COVID vaccine. We may qualify for the current stage of distribution; if not, we're likely in the next stage.

[Inquisitive Raven]

I've gone and registered with the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. I figure I'm probably no sooner than the third stage. I haven't been an EMS responder since 2006, and the only other relevant risk factors are weight and diabetes.

[hazard]

I'm surprised you need to register.

Here you are registered on the basis that you exist in the database and will be called up. It'll probably be voluntary but highly encouraged to follow that call.

[Labster]

Last numbers I heard were California: 1 in 16 are infected; Los Angeles: 1 in 10 is infected. Still too damn many sirens from ambulances passing by.

A friend of mine already got the vaccine today — she's in a halfway house, so I guess the prisons department got it early here. I'm okay with this! Stopping people who have the highest risk of spread, living very close together, is a great idea. And reducing the rate of infection might actually be better than the 95% protection of the vaccine, when it comes down to it, because I have so little exposure.

[Star Ranger4]

I thought that was what all these restrictions were SUPPOSED to be about. 'Flattening' the curve, keeping the rate of infections down till it burned out.

Of course, I *ALSO* believe Newsome is using this to turn us all into a bunch of humorless funless drones who only work, and worship.

[robkelk]

With new stay-at-home order, Ontario admits previous COVID-19 lockdown was too weak

Looking at the numbers and the statements associated with them, I've added a COVID-19 section to the All The Tropes page Blatant Lies/Politics - there's no way the premier didn't know what was happening while he told people the opposite.

[Labster]

Despite COVID-19 lockdowns, American roads are getting much deadlier - The first 9 months of 2020 saw a 4.6% increase in road fatalities over 2019.

It turns out that bad habits are a ratchet: people speed on empty roads, then keep speeding once the lockdown ends.  Then repeat the lockdown again.

[hazard]

Not helped by the fact that American roads are often by design unsafe.

[Bob Schroeck]

That sounds familiar. I think a similar article and conclusion appeared in one of these threads several months ago.

[Star Ranger4]

Yeah. can't drive right now (legally) so I have to sit and listen to my driver about how the Lockdown has caused everyone to 'loose their driving chops' because of safer at home.

[Labster]

Los Angeles lifts air-quality limits for cremations as Covid doubles death rate

[LynnInDenver]

So no online information, but pretty sure we've had another direct casualty in terms of restaurants we liked to order from... there was a burger place in one of the major intersection shopping centers around us called Champa St Burger Works... that is no longer listed on the site for that shopping center, and my attempt to call them earlier today netted me a disconnected warning tone and my phone hanging back up. We went with one of the chain options because we were both craving burgers, but still, damnit.

The first such casualty for us was a place called Racine's, which was planning on closing anyway, just the pandemic made that about nine months earlier than they'd intended it so we didn't even get a chance to take a goodbye meal.

[robkelk]

Who's with them on this one?



(Source)

[Bob Schroeck]

So no online information, but pretty sure we've had another direct casualty in terms of restaurants we liked to order from... there was a burger place in one of the major intersection shopping centers around us called Champa St Burger Works... that is no longer listed on the site for that shopping center, and my attempt to call them earlier today netted me a disconnected warning tone and my phone hanging back up.

Yeah... just out of curiosity I Googled them and it came back with a bright red "Permanently closed" on the top-of-page summary that I get when I use Seamonkey; Chrome doesn't show it but there's a "Is Champa St Burger Works closed?" question with a positive answer.  Their website has yet to catch up, though.

Geeze, I hate it when a favorite place goes out of business, especially one I've patronized for a long time.

[LynnInDenver]

Given the way that the pandemic has made the restaurant business all the harder... I'm not surprised, but still, lots of irritation all the same.

We're not expecting to be able to patronize any place for dine-in service until well into the latter half of the year at this point... assuming we can get past the whole "dangerous to be out without a mask" thing that's built up in our heads.

[classicdrogn]

Kind of makes that Mandalorian "never take off your mask" thing feel almost reasonable, doesn't it? I always add disposable gloves as well, myself.

[Bob Schroeck]

Peg and I just got texts (and emails) alerting us that we'd come up in the rotation and we could schedule our vaccinations. We responded immediately and we're on the schedule for our first doses, an hour apart on Sunday, straddling noontime.

[RMH999]

Up for shot #2 on Thursday. Had a really sore arm and a weird taste in my mouth for a day, then was fine.

[robkelk]

Vaccinations for the general public have finally started here. It's the light at the end of the tunnel.

Does correlation imply causation? In this case, I think so, and the light at the end of the tunnel is the headlight of an oncoming train. We're going from "orange" to "red" tomorrow - one stage short of a complete lockdown - and a couple of the suburbs already have what's essentially "red plus".

[robkelk]

Something for folks south of the border (i.e., in the USA) to consider:

There's a lot of Canadians who have been surprised to learn that our COVID-19 relief payments are taxable benefits.

[classicdrogn]

I'm not sure about the most recent, but the first two are specifically not in the US - I forget the exact legal category they're in, but it's something like "refundable tax credit," meaning even if you owed no tax in the relevant year, if it hadn't been issued as checks or direct deposits before it would be a tax return payment from the IRS. While eligibility for the new one is slightly less wide-open according to what I do know about it, I highly doubt that will have been changed.