Hoosier

Any life lost is tragic, but as far as deaths of despair brought on by the pandemic, I am guessing that number is nowhere near 280,000 right now. I think the "is the cure worse than the disease" debate gets more interesting if you factor everything else in... financial hardships, kids struggling to adapt, etc, although I would argue that if we took the let it rip approach and were sitting on 500,000 deaths right now, that would have its own effects.

It's a tough situation for sure. But how about knocking the bars/restaurants back to 50% or 75% and see if that helps? I find it interesting that Holcomb is announcing this now because our hospital numbers have actually been stabilizing or even going down. Either the hospital workers have had enough and let their feelings be known, or they are scared about an incoming surge after Thanksgiving.

Pretty much. We have a color coded system with red being the most serious, but even the red counties have very little in terms of restrictions -- it's limits on gathering sizes at sporting events/extracurricular activities and stuff like that. Bars/restaurants can technically operate at 100% capacity. I'm sure there are masking requirements in there when you're not eating/drinking, but obviously you can't do that the whole time.

Hey, at least the bars and restaurants can remain open at 100%. Even the so-called red counties aren't required to change anything in that regard (only optional to limit the hours of operation... it says nothing about occupancy at a given time)

Iowa has had some nasty death numbers lately for a state of that size. I wonder if there is a backlog.

Possible severe allergic reactions to the Pfizer vaccine in the UK: https://news.yahoo.com/uk-investigates-possible-allergic-reactions-105421617.html Apparently people with a history of severe allergic reactions weren't included in the trials. I wonder how many people were vaccinated yesterday.

Nobody wants to make a thread for this bad boy?

00z NAM shows the hurdle lakeside in IL/WI. It is cold enough aloft to snow but that marine influence is a problem.

Totally remember that one.

If someone is wearing a mask that long without properly washing it, well, I don't know what to say.

Not that seeing it on December 9 or 10 instead of December 8 matters that much.

With any luck, may stay under 3000 today? I don't know, could be close with CA/TX yet to fully report as well as a handful of small states.

It's a thread the needle setup in general, but even more for the city (talking about the heart of the city, not well inland/northwest like ORD) because of the residual lake warmth. Not that it can't happen there, but it's trickier. If you are talking 850 mb temps of like -2C or even -4C, that probably wouldn't be good enough to get significant accumulations downtown as long as the flow is onshore. And forget about it if it's warmer than that.

Indeed. Looks like worldometers is not going with 25k as the "new" daily number.

At least it's only 16 days from now.

I would call 25,000 in Ohio very high. I sure hope some of that is backlog.

Biden is asking people to wear a mask during the first 100 days of his presidency (warning: no mention of fringe theories about the EC voting against him). I think it's great to frequently encourage this from the top. I am a bit skeptical on how many minds it can change as people seem to be pretty dug in, but even a small increase in mask wearing wouldn't hurt. I can only guess the rationale for saying 100 days -- which goes to May 1 -- is that you want to give people who haven't been masking a finite endpoint and that you are hoping that the situation is under control, but I'm not sure about putting that time limit on it. Not that he's actually saying that here's no way it wouldn't be extended, but it gives the impression that that's the end. We will be getting some benefit of seasonality by then, as well as more and more people being vaccinated, but we really don't know how many people will have been vaccinated by then. If it's less than hoped, then it's not out of the question that we could actually be coming down from a higher baseline than we saw in spring 2020. I can't see stores already lifting the mask requirement by May 1, but maybe I'm wrong.

It didn't vanish on the 12z Euro, so at least there's that.

Would be better timed after the 20th. Less chance to melt by Christmas.

Some late additions to worldometers pushed yesterday's total to 200k. As expected, today is setting up to be bad. Already closing in on 1000 deaths with almost 40 states yet to report.

Not a fan of mandatory vaccines in general (more on that below), but especially this particular one at this time. I think the better way is very robust public education to try to get people to take them. Yes, I understand that people won't get vaccinated if it's not mandatory, and I admit my views may be a little idealistic/pie in the sky. There is something a little off putting about the concept of being forced to have a needle stuck in the arm and possibly having side effects like chills, fever, fatigue, etc. even though it's more of a temporary nuisance than anything. There is nothing else quite like that in life. You are required to have car insurance in most places, but they don't stick it in your body (well, some may argue they stick you in a certain part of the body )

Maybe because it's new/under EUA? Flu vaccines have been around a long time.

Tuesday reported deaths have been a bit more than 2x Monday reported deaths in recent weeks. If that holds, then tomorrow would be 3000+

Gonna end up with what, 190,000 plus cases today? That is a huge number since Mondays are one of the lower days.

I think so. Or at least close.