Wear Your Mask - COVID-19 Thread II

[Star Ranger4]

Smaller birds for a smaller Thanksgiving, says local farmer

??? Does that mean we are a bunch of Covid Chickens instead of... err... Turkeys?

[Dartz]

Had an allergic reaction or something to a facemask. I've no idea what caused it but my entire face came out in something like sunburn for the week. Skin flaking off like ash, and sort of like a chernobyl victim red.

[LynnInDenver]

...maybe it's just irritation from wearing the masks so often? My nose has been getting progressively more raw by the end of each week with the facemask, and I think the ear loops are starting to leave grooves.

[classicdrogn]

Hm. Well,m I definitely have something, with the telltale signs of a fever even if getting out from under the blankets the worst of the general blah and mental fog abated in a minute or so leaving only the muscle/joint/head aches behind, and my temp actually read low by the time I got the thermometer out. I'm supposedly the lowest-risk member of the household and haven't left for weeks at this point, compared to 2-3 local trips a week for everyone else. Go figure.

[hazard]

Probably picked up a bug from one of the other members of the household Drogn. One they weren't bothered by.

[classicdrogn]

Well, clearly, though it does at least appear to have been something much shorter-lived than COVID-19. Fever broke late Saturday, all the attendant aches and whatnot faded by midday yesterday, today I'm back to normal. Still going to keep quarantining and watch for returning symptoms just in case, because not doing so would be intensely assholish under the current circumstances.

[Inquisitive Raven]

Have we been paying attention to the wrong variables when fighting the pandemic? Article in The Atlantic argues that the main driver of the pandemic has been superspreader events, where most places have been using a model of disease spread that fits the flu better. That means, among other things, that the testing and contact tracing regime most places are operating under is the wrong one.

Details are in the article, but a couple of points mentioned are that rapid testing is more important than accurate testing, and contact tracing should start by tracing backwards to figure out where the patient is most likely to have been infected and then trace forward from that event. Note here that the rapid tests are prone to false negatives, but PCR which is much slower has a problem with false positives in recovering patients.

[robkelk]

Heh.

Despite this Girls und Panzer fanart being on Safebooru, it isn't safe for work if your work is prudish. (BBC would probably be able to get away with showing it after the watershed, but I'd question its appropriateness on All The Tropes.) Thus, link in spoiler tag so you have to select twice:

Spoiler

Not-exactly-SFW image

For this thread, note the girls in the background - this is definitely fan art from 2020.

If they can wear masks, so can you.

[robkelk]

Ottawa bylaw requiting wearing masks in public spaces and on mass transit extended to early 2021.

[robkelk]

A bit of good news, for a change.

Earlier in the pandemic, luxury-item businesses started closing their brick-and-mortar stores, some permanently.

This entrepreneur who has a history of successfully reviving failing chains is opening up brick-and-mortar stores selling a luxury item, in many of the same storefronts that the company previously selling the same luxury item closed. And the market for that particular item has been shrinking over the last few years, too.

[Dartz]

We've had someone kill their child before jumping off a bridge.

We've had a family in Cork self-annihilate with only the mammy left to raise the alarm.

Then we've another mother and two children found dead in a house.

And that's just in the week since Lockdown II began. Fucking hell. This shit doesn't happen here - not three times in a week.



More than that. People in general are just more and more angry with each other. The whole "We're in this together" thing is just collapsing.

[LynnInDenver]

One of our local newscasters has a commentary segment... and he talks about it being unfair that those of us following the rules are punished anyway because there's too many people who WON'T follow the rules about gatherings and causing the lockdowns to loom once again.

https://www.9news.com/video/news/local/n...edb93002a6

Note that we've been keeping WELL under the current limits of less than 10, only bringing over one household. The only real thing we're doing OUTSIDE of that is, when that single person comes over, it's inside our house (the Governor recommends OUTSIDE for what we're doing), but since we're keeping it to one or two every two to four weeks, it's slightly less risky. We're not doing theaters, or restaurants (except delivery or occasionally takeout), and only a couple of nonessential retail excursions a month at most.

It's still hard, but we're managing to keep from falling into the "fuck it, let's get massively social and damn the torpedoes" fatigue blast.

[LynnInDenver]

More than that. People in general are just more and more angry with each other. The whole "We're in this together" thing is just collapsing.

I can understand it... there's people we're at least upset with because those people can't and won't even attempt to abide by the restrictions. I'm expecting we'll start getting more angry with that segment of the populace as this drags on, because their actions are helping it to drag on at the restrictions that we have at best, we're going to have more restrictions more than likely by the end of the year. I want to see my effin' family, and we can't do that this holiday season because of the way it's spiraling out of control again.

On the converse, they're most likely upset with us because we should have gone out and deliberately gotten ourselves sick so that we could brute force our way to herd immunity and then they wouldn't be expected to sacrifice their precious freedoms.

Given that they still don't know what the long term effects of even a mild episode of COVID-19 is, that's a highly dangerous option to even consider, which is why we're sheltering the way we are. And yes, I'm expecting a bloodbath among the places we've frequented in the past because this thing has no effin' mercy.

[Norgarth]

Plus there's been some studies out of Europe that look like 'herd immunity' won't work, because resistance/immunity to COVid-19 doesn't last. (meaning you can catch it again)

[hazard]

AFAIK herd immunity does work.

But COVID mutates rapidly enough that, much like the flu, there are multiple strains active at the same time, and all of which can infect you separately.

[robkelk]

More than that. People in general are just more and more angry with each other. The whole "We're in this together" thing is just collapsing.

I hate to have to say it, but it has to be said.

We were never in it together. Neighbourhoods and towns with more resources have been doing better than neighbourhoods and towns with fewer resources since before the pandemic started. The correlation isn't quite "rich vs poor", since there are some remote regions that buck that particular divide, but for most people that's the way it breaks down.

In both senses of the phrase "it breaks down".

AFAIK herd immunity does work.

But COVID mutates rapidly enough that, much like the flu, there are multiple strains active at the same time, and all of which can infect you separately.

Which is why we need a broad-spectrum vaccine, not a set of specific vaccines for specific strains the way we have for the flu.

But there's more money in specific-variant vaccines - they can sell more than one to each person - so that's what we're probably getting unless a government steps in and legislates development of a broad-spectrum vaccine. (And even then, that sort of vaccine would only go to the places where it's legally mandated.)


Yes, I am overly cynical today - why do you ask?

[Inquisitive Raven]

You do know that flu vaccines are multivalent, right? That means that multiple strains are stuffed into one vaccine. It may be be possible to create a broad spectrum Covid vaccine, but I wouldn't be surprised if they had to go for a similar approach to the flu. That also means that we'll probably be getting annual covid vaccines.

Anyway, still here, but thanks to the latest black man killed by cops, I've got other things than the pandemic to worry about.

[hazard]

A full spectrum vaccination program is, theoretically, possible.

It means predicting every variant that will spread, formulating a vaccine and spreading it to every single body that can be infected. Not person. body. Because homo sapiens sapiens isn't the only species susceptible to the disease.

[robkelk]

Halloween has been cancelled.

In Wakefield, a suburb of Ottawa-Gatineau.

Día de Muertos has also been cancelled in Gatineau.

And for next week, Remembrance Day has been scaled back substantially. The commemoration of the 75th anniversary of D-Day has been cancelled, and people will not be allowed to gather at the National War Memorial this year.

"Don't come down to the monument," said Danny Martin, the legion's director of ceremonies. "Stay home, watch it on television."

[LynnInDenver]

We've gone up to 755 currently hospitalized, 8.5% "7 day rolling average" positivity. They started to move the restrictions up tiers in the problematic counties (Jefferson County, where I live, gave up their variance to go into standard Tier 2), but I'm wondering given the way the numbers always lag if it's too little, too late, and we'll be forced to lock down again.

To give an idea, new cases have exploded (like in the 2000s currently, it's been massively creeping in the past two months, although part of that may well be testing catching mild cases now), well exceeding what we saw in March. Positivity is still lower (high of 22%), but again, likely part of that is improved testing.

[LynnInDenver]

Update: the county I live has stepped up to Orange/Tier 3, which is one step away from lockdown, as has Broomfield, the county my brother lives in. And Denver County (also in Tier 3) has been warned that lockdown is coming for them if the numbers don't start stabilizing. They're still getting events that are in flagrant violation (no masks, no distancing), and they're preparing to start revoking business licenses again, if only because a second lockdown WILL involve an economic bloodbath among companies that have been trying their damndest to make it through this.

[robkelk]

You're a mean one, mister COVID...

Will COVID-19 kill Christmas?

[Matrix Dragon]

You're a mean one, mister COVID...

Will COVID-19 kill Christmas?

Probably. In the end, it's no different from all the other religious holidays that everyone's been fine with cancelling.

[classicdrogn]

Well, yes and no. I mean, technically yes, but in terms of how it actually impacts people's lives, it's a once-a-year social and economic capital-E Event, perhaps the biggest in terms of retail and travel sales. Tanking those is going to have some pretty profound knock-on effects as business don't get that end of the year surge to push the yearly revenues that last bit up, something that will hit doubly hard when it's already been a bad year for that, and a lot of people won't be getting overtime or temp hours to do the same thing for them personally. Then too, for a lot of people it's the one time a year they might visit certain friends and family, so morale and psychological consequences are apt to be higher than Random Saint's Day X mass and dinner being called off. And, of course, there's added stress from dealing with disappointed kids as well.

There's probably going to be a new rash of bankruptcies and business closings as owners who were holding out in hopes of COVID dying out or a vaccine being deployed in time for a rebound as everyone hit the shops for the first time in months see it wash away like sand under a beachfront home in hurricane season.

[LynnInDenver]

...yeah, and we're operating under the assumption here in my household that Christmas is, at best, virtual this year for us. If nothing else, we're into the serious wave where they're restricting everything further and further... and yet, there's the ring of truth from businesses forced to scale back again regarding that people are just holding private gatherings instead and those AREN'T social distancing, unlike some of the bars and restaurants that they can at least make an effort to get people to do so.

Regarding the "season that puts retail in the black"... I've always had a bit of discomfort with the fact that many retail businesses were running that way, where the last two months of the year would provide them with the profitability and all the rest of the year they'd effectively be in the red. I'm suspecting that this is going to show that's actually much more unsustainable, if only because they literally can't accommodate the same level of walk-in traffic that enabled that in years prior.