MN-Investor
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Post by MN-Investor on May 1, 2020 10:09:55 GMT -5
Iowa may claim that they're less susceptible to virus outbreaks because of their rural nature. Well, I live in Minnesota and have relatives in rural northern Iowa. How many Minnesotans are traveling to rural Iowa and bringing the virus with them? Probably not a lot. How many Iowans are traveling to La Crosse, Rochester, or the Twin Cities either for medical purposes or to shop? That's how the virus moves from urban Wisconsin and urban Minnesota to rural Iowa.
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billisonboard
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Post by billisonboard on May 1, 2020 10:15:21 GMT -5
ETA: Maybe the solution is controlled/strategic Covid-19 parties to get to herd immunity very quickly (or at least quicker than another 18 months) for those that aren't at risk. Chicken pox parties used to be a thing when I was little. I'm sorry but we don't know who's at risk... we don't understand enough yet. We don't know long term implications. Hell we don't even know if there is long term immunity in recovery. I think we do know who is at risk. It is "everyone". From that group, we know who is at greater risk for it hitting harder. And from that group, we know who is at greater risk to die. And we know that there are random times that those not in those groups will get sicker and die. We know that there is the potential some will face health difficulties long term. And if there is no long term immunity, we can hope that there is short term which will get us to a vaccine. And if there can be no vaccine, we go back to small isolated tribes spread out sparsely around the planet. So, Hey, We Got This!
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NomoreDramaQ1015
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Post by NomoreDramaQ1015 on May 1, 2020 10:16:40 GMT -5
Well I am NOT a part of rural Iowa and I don't appreciate being told that I need to be open because the rest of the state seems to think it's rural pioneer spirit is going to somehow save it from getting sick. Ya'll come to the cities because you live in one horse towns. Why should we have to risk ourselves because you can't handle not getting your hair cut for a few more weeks? Having to be brought here because your county does not have adequate medical care is one thing. Bringing your germs with you because your county isn't open but mine is so you want to shop/bowl/get a tattoo is another. The only way her hairbrained idea works is if National Guard are at every county border intersection and they refuse to let anyone from closed areas leave. Which she would never do and given the situation I can see that only ending in the unfortunate death of someone because people refuse to give up their "God given right" to go infect the rest of the state.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2020 10:18:34 GMT -5
ETA: Maybe the solution is controlled/strategic Covid-19 parties to get to herd immunity very quickly (or at least quicker than another 18 months) for those that aren't at risk. Chicken pox parties used to be a thing when I was little. I'm sorry but we don't know who's at risk... we don't understand enough yet. We don't know long term implications. Hell we don't even know if there is long term immunity in recovery. Yep, and yet our Public Health officer for my county went on FB yesterday and said you get immunity after having it, can't get it again, and only people with pre-existing conditions die from it. She's just plain wrong and the misinformation is why people don't take this seriously enough. But, hey, there's a big protest rally here tomorrow demanding businesses open. I don't really know why because diving through town there are very few businesses that are actually still closed. Most have opened up anyway. At this point, let them do whatever they want. It's going to cause major outbreaks and overload healthcare, but Americans don't seem to care about that. So, we'll see what happens on the backside of that. Chances of people agreeing to lockdown again - probably very slim.
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TheOtherMe
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Post by TheOtherMe on May 1, 2020 10:33:48 GMT -5
Our hair brained governor of Iowa doesn't have a clue about what she is doing.
My sister told me that as of today, she is free and I'm not. So she is heading to see her grandson, who lives in another county that is open. They do have to pass through Black Hawk County. I asked her if she realized that and she said she isn't stopping there. I sort of hope something happens and she is forced to stop there.
She also is going to try to convince DN1 and his wife to let her hold her grandson because she will never see him again. She said they agreed to let her see him through the door or window. I am 100% certain they will not let her hold the baby, nor should they. They have isolated themselves for a month now. The last thing they need before their big move is to worry about the baby being sick because Grandma needs to hold him.
The number of cases in sister's county doubled yesterday from 4 to 8 and the number of deaths in my county doubled from 3 to 6.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 13:27:07 GMT -5
I know it can move from one place to another, but the key is flattening the curve, not total prevention. If one area has excess medical resources, keeping it locked down because another area has more cases is going to keep all of us on lockdown for 2 years. When we talk about re-opening carefully and thoughtfully, it makes sense to open up areas that have fewer cases and excess treatment capacity. That does make sense. I wonder where those areas might be. We are an area with fewer cases but minimal medical/treatment capacity so don't qualify. Maricopa county has below average rates and we have like 75 hospitals. Some hospitals have had zero Covid patients. Others have had no more than 2 or 3 at one time. Compared to the massive size of many hospitals - they have so much excess capacity. However in the northeast part of the state, they have the third highest number of cases per capita and deaths per capita. They are also short on hospitals. But they are 300 miles away. Just because we are all one state - should we react in a uniform way? We certainly aren't having a similar experience - statistically. It is a complicated question, and there are no wasy answers.
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movingforward
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Post by movingforward on May 1, 2020 13:39:15 GMT -5
That does make sense. I wonder where those areas might be. We are an area with fewer cases but minimal medical/treatment capacity so don't qualify. Maricopa county has below average rates and we have like 75 hospitals. Some hospitals have had zero Covid patients. Others have had no more than 2 or 3 at one time. Compared to the massive size of many hospitals - they have so much excess capacity. However in the northeast part of the state, they have the third highest number of cases per capita and deaths per capita. They are also short on hospitals. But they are 300 miles away. Just because we are all one state - should we react in a uniform way? We certainly aren't having a similar experience - statistically. It is a complicated question, and there are no wasy answers. Tons of hospitals where I am located too. They were sending staff home because there was nothing for them to do. I understand their thought process of not allowing elective surgeries because they were afraid they might need to pull hospital staff from other departments to help with the COVID outbreak. I think opening up elective surgery at this point is the right thing to do. I know someone who has been in complete agony for at least a month because her surgery has been put off. If the hospitals are not overrun there is absolutely no reason people should have to sit around in pain.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 13:41:42 GMT -5
I know it can move from one place to another, but the key is flattening the curve, not total prevention. If one area has excess medical resources, keeping it locked down because another area has more cases is going to keep all of us on lockdown for 2 years. When we talk about re-opening carefully and thoughtfully, it makes sense to open up areas that have fewer cases and excess treatment capacity. You also have to consider how quickly things can change. There's one area in my state, now, in particular that is dealing with Covid outbreaks in meat processing facilities. The county that has the meat processing facility went from having 25% of the number of cases my county had to twice the number of cases my county has in less than week.
I would think there's a point where open and closing things up on the turn of a dime causes more harm then good.
Because of the outbreak, our state numbers are continuing to climb. We're going to hit the number of deaths were were supposed to have in August by mid-May...maybe even earlier.
With dozens of empty hospitals, my area could handle a bump of hospitalizations, and we can shut back down. I'm not advocating for Phoenix to fling the doors wide open and mandate handshakes and kissing. But I don't think having everyone locked in is the right answer either. It is too bad that our government programs can't be flexible to accommodate letting some people get aid / UI even if their industry is technically able to open. That way business owners and individuals could make the best decision for them, without punitive financial impact.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 13:53:49 GMT -5
I know it can move from one place to another, but the key is flattening the curve, not total prevention. If one area has excess medical resources, keeping it locked down because another area has more cases is going to keep all of us on lockdown for 2 years. When we talk about re-opening carefully and thoughtfully, it makes sense to open up areas that have fewer cases and excess treatment capacity. Agree, but it needs to be done in a logical fashion, based on science. When NYC was going crazy, I didn't see other areas of the country welcoming refugees fleeing the contagion. Having people leave areas with widespread community spread to areas of low risk does not keep infections down for long. Did anyone turn away people? Was travel halted between states? This is a new story - probably because I am very far from NY. It does make sense that if you flee a highly infected area you should quarantine for a couple of weeks. If that is considered "unwelcoming" I'm not sure what to say about that. We are locked down, so I would expect anyone coming in from anywhere should expect to also lockdown.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 13:58:57 GMT -5
Maricopa county has below average rates and we have like 75 hospitals. Some hospitals have had zero Covid patients. Others have had no more than 2 or 3 at one time. Compared to the massive size of many hospitals - they have so much excess capacity. However in the northeast part of the state, they have the third highest number of cases per capita and deaths per capita. They are also short on hospitals. But they are 300 miles away. Just because we are all one state - should we react in a uniform way? We certainly aren't having a similar experience - statistically. It is a complicated question, and there are no wasy answers. Tons of hospitals where I am located too. They were sending staff home because there was nothing for them to do. I understand their thought process of not allowing elective surgeries because they were afraid they might need to pull hospital staff from other departments to help with the COVID outbreak. I think opening up elective surgery at this point is the right thing to do. I know someone who has been in complete agony for at least a month because her surgery has been put off. If the hospitals are not overrun there is absolutely no reason people should have to sit around in pain. AZ is now allowing elective medical procedures. Hospitals are being thoughtful about what they are scheduling.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 14:00:12 GMT -5
Agree, but it needs to be done in a logical fashion, based on science. When NYC was going crazy, I didn't see other areas of the country welcoming refugees fleeing the contagion. Having people leave areas with widespread community spread to areas of low risk does not keep infections down for long. Did anyone turn away people? Was travel halted between states? This is a new story - probably because I am very far from NY. It does make sense that if you flee a highly infected area you should quarantine for a couple of weeks. If that is considered "unwelcoming" I'm not sure what to say about that. We are locked down, so I would expect anyone coming in from anywhere should expect to also lockdown. No officially, but Florida told anyone flying from the NY area to quarantine 2 weeks. On this board we had people complaining about residents commuting to high risk areas for their jobs. If you ease up on restrictions too soon, how do you keep the virus from spreading from places that have had a lot of infections. Not asking you specifically, but it is the question that should be at the top of the list for every politician who is opening their economy. We need to find a way to keep the number of infections at a tolerable level while opening up. I do not know the answer, and there will be criticism if it goes poorly, but we need to at least follow some expert opinion. This will be the focus of many academic careers in the future, and the study of what happens with what we do will be analyzed in many business and statistics classes
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 14:06:58 GMT -5
It will spread. There is no stopping that.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 14:11:26 GMT -5
It will spread. There is no stopping that. Yes, but there is a difference in repeating the scenario in NYC in multiple areas, and having it be like a typical influenza outbreak. People infected with this spread it to between 2-3 others, influenza is 1. We can probably have a reasonably functioning economy, and will be in bad shape if it is 2-3. That is what we need to be aiming for until an oral treatment or a vaccine is available
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giramomma
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Post by giramomma on May 1, 2020 14:20:24 GMT -5
ETA: Maybe the solution is controlled/strategic Covid-19 parties to get to herd immunity very quickly (or at least quicker than another 18 months) for those that aren't at risk. Chicken pox parties used to be a thing when I was little. I'm sorry but we don't know who's at risk... we don't understand enough yet. We don't know long term implications. Hell we don't even know if there is long term immunity in recovery. I agree that we don't know enough. It's not my preferred choice. But, I also don't think we're getting accurate information on long term implications, etc...in a timely fashion. Depending on the administration and what I'm seeing at my state level. We may never get accurate information.
But, I'm also seeing signs that we are moving ahead, trying to move back to normal as quickly as possible no matter what.
Having gates to pass through to slowly open things up is nice in principle. I think the signs are there that this will NOT be our reality. I think we'll have no choice to but to flip the switch. We, meaning society. Sure there are the privileged few (ourselves included) that can hunker down and hole up with little adverse effects.
Society can't.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 14:24:34 GMT -5
I'm sorry but we don't know who's at risk... we don't understand enough yet. We don't know long term implications. Hell we don't even know if there is long term immunity in recovery. I agree that we don't know enough. It's not my preferred choice. But, I also don't think we're getting accurate information on long term implications, etc...in a timely fashion. Depending on the administration and what I'm seeing at my state level. We may never get accurate information.
But, I'm also seeing signs that we are moving ahead, trying to move back to normal as quickly as possible no matter what.
Having gates to pass through to slowly open things up is nice in principle. I think the signs are there that this will NOT be our reality. I think we'll have no choice to but to flip the switch. We, meaning society. Sure there are the privileged few (ourselves included) that can hunker down and hole up with little adverse effects.
Society can't.
Society may have no choice. The virus doesn't care what we want.
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 14:25:51 GMT -5
Did anyone turn away people? Was travel halted between states? This is a new story - probably because I am very far from NY. It does make sense that if you flee a highly infected area you should quarantine for a couple of weeks. If that is considered "unwelcoming" I'm not sure what to say about that. We are locked down, so I would expect anyone coming in from anywhere should expect to also lockdown. No officially, but Florida told anyone flying from the NY area to quarantine 2 weeks. On this board we had people complaining about residents commuting to high risk areas for their jobs. If you ease up on restrictions too soon, how do you keep the virus from spreading from places that have had a lot of infections. Not asking you specifically, but it is the question that should be at the top of the list for every politician who is opening their economy. We need to find a way to keep the number of infections at a tolerable level while opening up. I do not know the answer, and there will be criticism if it goes poorly, but we need to at least follow some expert opinion. This will be the focus of many academic careers in the future, and the study of what happens with what we do will be analyzed in many business and statistics classes Florida and NY have a weird incestuous love-hate abusive sibling relationship.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 14:26:35 GMT -5
No officially, but Florida told anyone flying from the NY area to quarantine 2 weeks. On this board we had people complaining about residents commuting to high risk areas for their jobs. If you ease up on restrictions too soon, how do you keep the virus from spreading from places that have had a lot of infections. Not asking you specifically, but it is the question that should be at the top of the list for every politician who is opening their economy. We need to find a way to keep the number of infections at a tolerable level while opening up. I do not know the answer, and there will be criticism if it goes poorly, but we need to at least follow some expert opinion. This will be the focus of many academic careers in the future, and the study of what happens with what we do will be analyzed in many business and statistics classes Florida and NY have a weird incestuous love-hate abusive sibling relationship. Ny funeral home
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 14:37:09 GMT -5
It will spread. There is no stopping that. Yes, but there is a difference in repeating the scenario in NYC in multiple areas, and having it be like a typical influenza outbreak. People infected with this spread it to between 2-3 others, influenza is 1. We can probably have a reasonably functioning economy, and will be in bad shape if it is 2-3. That is what we need to be aiming for until an oral treatment or a vaccine is available You know more about this than me. Is your only suggestion is to keep the entire country on lockdown until a vaccine is administered to 50% of the public? And if that takes 2 years and our economy contracts by 40% with 30% unemployment - it is okay, because at least they are alive? You have a lot of concerns, and they are valid. But there is no perfect answer here.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 14:56:21 GMT -5
Yes, but there is a difference in repeating the scenario in NYC in multiple areas, and having it be like a typical influenza outbreak. People infected with this spread it to between 2-3 others, influenza is 1. We can probably have a reasonably functioning economy, and will be in bad shape if it is 2-3. That is what we need to be aiming for until an oral treatment or a vaccine is available You know more about this than me. Is your only suggestion is to keep the entire country on lockdown until a vaccine is administered to 50% of the public? And if that takes 2 years and our economy contracts by 40% with 30% unemployment - it is okay, because at least they are alive? You have a lot of concerns, and they are valid. But there is no perfect answer here. No, we cannot continue like this. Just putting off usual medical care comes at a cost, and that compounds as we continue with a lockdown. We need to open up in a sequential way, and do it thoughtfully and have some guidance by science and consensus opinion. As we pass milestones and infections remain tolerable, we decrease restrictions. An article I saw in my newsfeed, said that opening and then closing has a severe an economic effect as a lockdown. Open with some restrictions was the best option. Now it was a simulation, but it makes sense. We need to find the point where infections are not growing exponentially while we lift restrictions. I am not in favor of staying at this level of restriction indefinitely, but stressing the medical system to the breaking point will have negative effects on everyone. Smarter minds than me need to be at work at this. Too bad that is not what is happening in Washington.
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Artemis Windsong
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Post by Artemis Windsong on May 1, 2020 15:15:31 GMT -5
I believe medical science will come up with a vaccine and better treatments will evolve as time goes on and more is known. In the meantime, the populous needs to follow directives to protect themselves and others. There continue to be deniers of how serious this virus is. As well as people who know nothing about it.
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Lizard Queen
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Post by Lizard Queen on May 1, 2020 15:22:45 GMT -5
I feel like if you want to storm the capital fine, but then you have to live in a tent city like Occupy Wallstreet for at least two weeks. Why should you have the right to infect other people? I get there are a lot of people hurting right now and I feel for them. I also understand that this whole thing is not to prevent people from catching it but to slow it down enough that we can hopefully help the very sick in an efficient manner. THIS is not going to help either situation. Now you're going to possibly take yourself AND your hair stylist out with you. How did that save her business? I guess it depends on the situation. In my state, there are large counties that have had less than 50 cases and no deaths, and my state has a very high number of people getting tested. Why should areas that have barely been touched see their business destroyed and their economies wrecked just because New York got hit hard? On the other hand, considering how bad Michigan is doing, I can't for the life of me understand why those protesters were getting out of their cars and mingling. Stay in your damn car. Though I have to say, not allowing people to buy home improvement supplies was a mistake. Letting a bunch of unemployed guys who are used to working with their hands do stuff around the house is an excellent way to keep them out of trouble. I'm in Michigan, and am also dumbfounded by these protesters. I also feel like I should address the seemingly odd things that were temporarily Banned (for only 2 weeks--these are once again allowed). During the big clamp-down, when our state was getting hit disproportionately with cases and deaths, people were still mostly ignoring any social-distancing. They flocked to Home Depot, for instance, filling the parking lot while in normal times it would barely be 30% full during the busier weekend hours. The ban on the paint section was due to people gathering closely around the paint counter, shoulder-to-shoulder. Some other temporary shopping bans were due to shopping as entertainment browsing, instead of grabbing the stuff you need and getting out. There was also a 2 week ban on going to vacation homes, which came as a result of officials in these more remote areas being concerned with folks bringing their virus with them, and then overwhelming the extremely limited hospital facilities in those areas. The ban on motor boats came as a result of people flocking to docking facilities, also grouping up and not observing social distancing at all. The DNR actually requested the ban. So, there were actually pretty good reasons for these bans, yet people were still screaming about buying seeds when there was still snow falling and planting season doesn't even start for another 2 weeks or more from today (ban was already lifted). I do absolutely understand people freaking out over businesses shutting, and losing income. But the protests over boats and seeds was absolutely nuts (mostly just a political ploy).
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thyme4change
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 15:24:02 GMT -5
You know more about this than me. Is your only suggestion is to keep the entire country on lockdown until a vaccine is administered to 50% of the public? And if that takes 2 years and our economy contracts by 40% with 30% unemployment - it is okay, because at least they are alive? You have a lot of concerns, and they are valid. But there is no perfect answer here. No, we cannot continue like this. Just putting off usual medical care comes at a cost, and that compounds as we continue with a lockdown. We need to open up in a sequential way, and do it thoughtfully and have some guidance by science and consensus opinion. As we pass milestones and infections remain tolerable, we decrease restrictions. An article I saw in my newsfeed, said that opening and then closing has a severe an economic effect as a lockdown. Open with some restrictions was the best option. Now it was a simulation, but it makes sense. We need to find the point where infections are not growing exponentially while we lift restrictions. I am not in favor of staying at this level of restriction indefinitely, but stressing the medical system to the breaking point will have negative effects on everyone. Smarter minds than me need to be at work at this. Too bad that is not what is happening in Washington. I don't think anyone here is advocating for willy-nilly opening. Certainly I am not.
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oped
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Post by oped on May 1, 2020 15:28:01 GMT -5
There were perfectly reasonable plans for reopening being floated almost from the beginning... but administratively there has been no real push on a federal level to do anything necessary to get us there. April was as wasted as February.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on May 1, 2020 15:35:30 GMT -5
I am in a part of a state that hasn't been hit hard. There are calls that we should open up things, I guess so that people from areas that have been hit hard and are still shut down can come visit. Yeah, it does depend on the geography. The 'not hit hard' parts of my state are a couple hundred miles away from the metro area that has most of the infections, so you're not going to get a lot of people traveling that distance for a haircut. If the 'not hit hard' areas were closer to a hotspot, then opening up would be very dangerous, especially since these areas are poor and underserved. One county that had a particularly high infection rate (Lots of rich vacationers) banned people from outside the county from entering their state parks. It's too bad, because that's where all the good swimming areas are, but you can't argue with their logic. I'm not setting foot in that place until there is a vaccine, but not everyone has common sense.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on May 1, 2020 15:39:08 GMT -5
I guess it depends on the situation. In my state, there are large counties that have had less than 50 cases and no deaths, and my state has a very high number of people getting tested. Why should areas that have barely been touched see their business destroyed and their economies wrecked just because New York got hit hard? On the other hand, considering how bad Michigan is doing, I can't for the life of me understand why those protesters were getting out of their cars and mingling. Stay in your damn car. Though I have to say, not allowing people to buy home improvement supplies was a mistake. Letting a bunch of unemployed guys who are used to working with their hands do stuff around the house is an excellent way to keep them out of trouble. I'm in Michigan, and am also dumbfounded by these protesters. I also feel like I should address the seemingly odd things that were temporarily Banned (for only 2 weeks--these are once again allowed). During the big clamp-down, when our state was getting hit disproportionately with cases and deaths, people were still mostly ignoring any social-distancing. They flocked to Home Depot, for instance, filling the parking lot while in normal times it would barely be 30% full during the busier weekend hours. The ban on the paint section was due to people gathering closely around the paint counter, shoulder-to-shoulder. Some other temporary shopping bans were due to shopping as entertainment browsing, instead of grabbing the stuff you need and getting out. There was also a 2 week ban on going to vacation homes, which came as a result of officials in these more remote areas being concerned with folks bringing their virus with them, and then overwhelming the extremely limited hospital facilities in those areas. The ban on motor boats came as a result of people flocking to docking facilities, also grouping up and not observing social distancing at all. The DNR actually requested the ban. So, there were actually pretty good reasons for these bans, yet people were still screaming about buying seeds when there was still snow falling and planting season doesn't even start for another 2 weeks or more from today (ban was already lifted). I do absolutely understand people freaking out over businesses shutting, and losing income. But the protests over boats and seeds was absolutely nuts (mostly just a political ploy). That makes a lot more sense. I was wondering what the governor had against home improvement.
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formerroomate99
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Post by formerroomate99 on May 1, 2020 15:40:54 GMT -5
You know more about this than me. Is your only suggestion is to keep the entire country on lockdown until a vaccine is administered to 50% of the public? And if that takes 2 years and our economy contracts by 40% with 30% unemployment - it is okay, because at least they are alive? You have a lot of concerns, and they are valid. But there is no perfect answer here. No, we cannot continue like this. Just putting off usual medical care comes at a cost, and that compounds as we continue with a lockdown. We need to open up in a sequential way, and do it thoughtfully and have some guidance by science and consensus opinion. As we pass milestones and infections remain tolerable, we decrease restrictions. An article I saw in my newsfeed, said that opening and then closing has a severe an economic effect as a lockdown. Open with some restrictions was the best option. Now it was a simulation, but it makes sense. We need to find the point where infections are not growing exponentially while we lift restrictions. I am not in favor of staying at this level of restriction indefinitely, but stressing the medical system to the breaking point will have negative effects on everyone. Smarter minds than me need to be at work at this. Too bad that is not what is happening in Washington. My father put off getting a black mole on his heel biopsied for 6 weeks because he had some big presentation. He died at 40.
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pulmonarymd
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 15:47:49 GMT -5
No, we cannot continue like this. Just putting off usual medical care comes at a cost, and that compounds as we continue with a lockdown. We need to open up in a sequential way, and do it thoughtfully and have some guidance by science and consensus opinion. As we pass milestones and infections remain tolerable, we decrease restrictions. An article I saw in my newsfeed, said that opening and then closing has a severe an economic effect as a lockdown. Open with some restrictions was the best option. Now it was a simulation, but it makes sense. We need to find the point where infections are not growing exponentially while we lift restrictions. I am not in favor of staying at this level of restriction indefinitely, but stressing the medical system to the breaking point will have negative effects on everyone. Smarter minds than me need to be at work at this. Too bad that is not what is happening in Washington. I don't think anyone here is advocating for willy-nilly opening. Certainly I am not. Here we seem to have mostly rational folks. Unfortunately, we have an idiot for a president, and a number of governors who follow his lead in order to not displease him. We needed better national guidance. Imagine if Ny, NJ, and CT did not coordinate their response. There are areas where going across borders is more of an issue than coordinating for an entire state. Also, people are idiots. Doesn't really matter in most cases, but if only a few people do something stupid, in this situation, it can have serious consequences, so having rational leadership would have been helpful. But this every man for himself approach the states have had to adopt is problematic. With a more national and rational approach, we could see some areas open while other remain closed, even in the same state, and monitor it better. One reason our numbers are not trustworthy is due to the need to bow to politics. No place for that in a pandemic. Sorry for my pessimism, but I have seen the havoc even a moderate outbreak can have on the medical system.
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thyme4change
Community Leader
Joined: Dec 26, 2010 13:54:08 GMT -5
Posts: 40,327
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Post by thyme4change on May 1, 2020 16:19:00 GMT -5
I don't think anyone here is advocating for willy-nilly opening. Certainly I am not. Here we seem to have mostly rational folks. Unfortunately, we have an idiot for a president, and a number of governors who follow his lead in order to not displease him. We needed better national guidance. Imagine if Ny, NJ, and CT did not coordinate their response. There are areas where going across borders is more of an issue than coordinating for an entire state. Also, people are idiots. Doesn't really matter in most cases, but if only a few people do something stupid, in this situation, it can have serious consequences, so having rational leadership would have been helpful. But this every man for himself approach the states have had to adopt is problematic. With a more national and rational approach, we could see some areas open while other remain closed, even in the same state, and monitor it better. One reason our numbers are not trustworthy is due to the need to bow to politics. No place for that in a pandemic. Sorry for my pessimism, but I have seen the havoc even a moderate outbreak can have on the medical system. I'm pretty impressed that our republican governor extended the SAH. He seems to be afraid of Trump, with good reason. But as we get more purple, he has to weigh consequences of his decisions. Not shocked we are on Trump's list of states to visit. That list appears to be the same as the 'at-risk for the next election' list.
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movingforward
Junior Associate
Joined: Sept 15, 2011 12:48:31 GMT -5
Posts: 8,358
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Post by movingforward on May 1, 2020 20:06:45 GMT -5
I'm having a hard time wrapping my head around these people that just do not care...
I've always said we can't live in lockdown forever but I consider myself cautious and aware of others. I wear a face mask, diligently wash my hands, and social distance for both myself and the sake of others (in case I happen to be a carrier with no symptoms).
I was in the office today (alone) and our accountant's wife dropped in to get something for him (apparently he gave her his key). She stops in the doorway of my office to make idle chit chat and I ask her if she is missing her grandkids. She says she is still seeing them quite often. In the course of the conversation I find out that she doesn't wear a face mask, is upset that her church is still holding virtual services and "doesn't have any fears about getting the virus because she has nothing wrong with her and also God knows what he is doing." I'm thinking please stay the hell away from me.
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pulmonarymd
Junior Associate
Joined: Feb 12, 2020 17:40:54 GMT -5
Posts: 7,333
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Post by pulmonarymd on May 1, 2020 20:56:13 GMT -5
I believe medical science will come up with a vaccine and better treatments will evolve as time goes on and more is known. In the meantime, the populous needs to follow directives to protect themselves and others. There continue to be deniers of how serious this virus is. As well as people who know nothing about it.
You are way too optimistic. What part of a virus is at least a year away is difficult to understand. There is no easy and fast way out of this. Science takes time. Unless there is a treatment on the shelf that is a miracle drug, there is a lot of hard work to do to get us out of this. Wishful thinking is not helpful. We need true leadership, unfortunately, that is lacking. If trump was capable, he would be explaining this.
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