Coronavirus

[BuffaloWeather]

Down to 52k

[RCNYILWX]

I could see some workers in sectors that deal with or work with a lot of people (restaurants, groceries, retail, factories to name a few) wearing masks during cold season. Also it would be a common sense way to protect coworkers from getting a cold if you're well enough to work (no fever) but not 100%. I can also see masks being used regularly for air travel and other mass transit, especially during cold and flu season. There's no way there will be a mandate, but usage will be much more normalized. Also, people that are not well enough to go to work but well enough to work from home will have that option instead of simply taking a sick day.

It's possible that the days of essentially letting the flu spread rampantly in the fall and winter will be a thing of the past, as it will be benefit the economy with much less productivity loss and not stress the health system at times, which does happen in spots during the worst flu seasons, such as 2017-18.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk

[Stebo]

2 hours ago, IWXwx said:

You may see me wearing a mask during flu season even if not mandated.  I care about the health of those around me, family, friends, co-workers, co-shoppers, etc. I don't want to make others sick if I am unknowingly spewing the flu virus (not to mention that it may give me some protection.)

You like me and most everyone else have concern for others which is why it is a good idea.

[StormfanaticInd]

Unfortunately we are still racing towards 600k deaths. Now at 520k on worldometers. Deaths are improving though. Just not fast enough to avoid 600k

[BuffaloWeather]

10 hours ago, Stebo said:

You like me and most everyone else have concern for others which is why it is a good idea.

Is not the exposure to various bacteria and viruses throughout history helped our immune systems to improve and combat future illnesses? 

[WestMichigan]

10 hours ago, Stebo said:

You like me and most everyone else have concern for others which is why it is a good idea.

Not trying to pick a fight, but why didn't you do this before Covid?  This goes for anyone saying it is such a great idea.  Masks have been around for a long time but suddenly they have become essential?

[nwohweather]

11 hours ago, RCNYILWX said:

I could see some workers in sectors that deal with or work with a lot of people (restaurants, groceries, retail, factories to name a few) wearing masks during cold season. Also it would be a common sense way to protect coworkers from getting a cold if you're well enough to work (no fever) but not 100%. I can also see masks being used regularly for air travel and other mass transit, especially during cold and flu season. There's no way there will be a mandate, but usage will be much more normalized. Also, people that are not well enough to go to work but well enough to work from home will have that option instead of simply taking a sick day.

It's possible that the days of essentially letting the flu spread rampantly in the fall and winter will be a thing of the past, as it will be benefit the economy with much less productivity loss and not stress the health system at times, which does happen in spots during the worst flu seasons, such as 2017-18.

Sent from my SM-G965U using Tapatalk
 

Interesting to see this as my Grandmother who was a museum curator for decades had a comment on this with the exact opposite thoughts. When the pandemic faded 100 years ago almost overnight people quit wearing masks. When the Civil War ended many photos were destroyed as people simply wanted to forget what happened and get back to normal (this is what made her job quite difficult in finding these documents/slides). 

The general public has an amazing ability to forget tragedy, and I'd expect this will be the same. Even now we cheer the fact that new hospitalizations is only at 52,000 a day, still a stunning number. Even with masks, I'd say it was not until July that it became completely prevalent throughout the United States. I remember going to the grocery store in May last year and receiving comments for wearing one in line with maybe only 30% of customers actually wearing one. 

I'm interested to see what happens with all this going forward. From a societal perspective I'd say this is easily the most turbulent time since 2001-2002

[Malacka11]

57 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Is not the exposure to various bacteria and viruses throughout history helped our immune systems to improve and combat future illnesses? 

In reality, masks only protect against a very small number of all of the pathogens that a human consumes. That small number includes a lot of the bad ones though. Wearing masks will certainly help prevent person-to-person spread, but I highly doubt it would have any meaningful impact on the evolution of the immune system. 

Edit: More food for thought: Humans aren't the only ones evolving. The more we get exposed to diseases, the more those diseases evolve to infect us more efficiently. Note that efficiency doesn't equal lethality, but still. 

[dta1984]

11 hours ago, Stebo said:

You like me and most everyone else have concern for others which is why it is a good idea.

Exactly how it should be, your personal choice to wear or not wear.  

[StormfanaticInd]

I will never understand how we made wearing a mask during a pandemic that killed 500k+ political. 

[schoeppeya]

7 minutes ago, StormfanaticInd said:

I will never understand how we made wearing a mask during a pandemic that killed 500k+ political. 

There is going to be some pretty interesting social studies over the next few years to figure out wtf happened over the last year.

Just speculation, but I have to think the "severity" of the virus was at exactly the right level to cause an enormous division in how seriously it should be taken. Very, very serious virus for a portion of the population while a large number of symptomless cases also existed.

Add in that we have lived in a binary political environment (see @Stebo still talking about how he will wear a mask next winter because he's not one of those cruel, heartless people that will choose not to) and we have a recipe a lot of conflict. 

I find anti maskers equally as obnoxious as the people who scream at others for not wearing one anytime they are outside, but that's just part of the world we live in I guess. Have to think and hope it will get better. 

[nwohweather]

I will never understand how we made wearing a mask during a pandemic that killed 500k+ political. 

Deborah Birx’s interview on Face the Nation was very illuminating. She said she knew this would be hell because from her experience in Africa, “Pandemics are always political”. Highly recommend watching this on YouTube.

[dta1984]

21 minutes ago, schoeppeya said:

There is going to be some pretty interesting social studies over the next few years to figure out wtf happened over the last year.

Just speculation, but I have to think the "severity" of the virus was at exactly the right level to cause an enormous division in how seriously it should be taken. Very, very serious virus for a portion of the population while a large number of symptomless cases also existed.

Add in that we have lived in a binary political environment (see @Stebo still talking about how he will wear a mask next winter because he's not one of those cruel, heartless people that will choose not to) and we have a recipe a lot of conflict. 

I find anti maskers equally as obnoxious as the people who scream at others for not wearing one anytime they are outside, but that's just part of the world we live in I guess. Have to think and hope it will get better. 

The constant mixed messages really helped fuel the divide (Faucci masks/no masks, Faucci heard immunity threshold shifting, HCQ,  Birx Thanksgiving, Pelosi hair salon, California governors dinner party etc).

[Hoosier]

In some ways I think we were destined to have some divide on masks, etc, but it was made worse than it had to be.  If you go back to the Spanish Flu, Woodrow Wilson basically never even publicly acknowledged that pandemic and yet there were anti-maskers then.  Even more remarkable since so many of the deaths were in younger people, so it could not be brushed aside as an "old people thing."

[dan11295]

3 minutes ago, Hoosier said:

In some ways I think we were destined to have some divide on masks, etc, but it was made worse than it had to be.  If you go back to the Spanish Flu, Woodrow Wilson basically never even publicly acknowledged that pandemic and yet there were anti-maskers then.  Even more remarkable since so many of the deaths were in younger people, so it could not be brushed aside as an "old people thing."

Part of the reason Wilson never acknowledged it was likely to avoid impact on morale as we were involved in WWI at the time. Also a lot of reporting on it in the U.S. was suppressed. It is generally referred to as the "Spanish" flu was because the country was neutral during the war so the press wasn't under as much restrictions. 

[Hoosier]

3 minutes ago, dan11295 said:

Part of the reason Wilson never acknowledged it was likely to avoid impact on morale as we were involved in WWI at the time. Also a lot of reporting on it in the U.S. was suppressed. It is generally referred to as the "Spanish" flu was because the country was neutral during the war so the press wasn't under as much restrictions. 

Yes I know

[StormfanaticInd]

Considering the way we behaved in America its a miracle this wasn't much worse. We may not avoid millions dying next time

[StormfanaticInd]

Indiana continues to improve 

[Hoosier]

21 minutes ago, StormfanaticInd said:

Indiana continues to improve 

Quite a 1 day drop in hospitalizations.  I have noticed that there are these random 1 day drops by 100+ before slower drops in the ensuing days so will be interesting to see if that happens again.

As I mentioned, there are signs of the case numbers plateauing in the past several days but will need some more time to see if that is a short term blip or a trend.  Even if cases are plateauing, the old rules about cases--->hospitalizations may start to not work as well at some point as the more vulnerable are vaccinated in larger numbers with each passing day.

[BuffaloWeather]

2 minutes ago, Angrysummons said:

The 1957 flu outbreak was political as well with "dixiecrats" complaining northern Republican Eisenhower didn't care about them and wanted them to get sick. Eisenhower was a bit aloof and the Democrats went on to dramatic sweeps in the 58 midterms(with a good helping of racism supported by JFK) spurring their second big power grab of the New Deal era.

Pandemics have ramifications.

100%. I'd be shocked in Cuomo won New York next year. 

[chances14]

7 minutes ago, BuffaloWeather said:

100%. I'd be shocked in Cuomo won New York next year. 

it will be very interesting to see the governor races shake out in the next cycle. Personally, I am disgusted at how much some of these governors have circumvented state legislatures during this pandemic

[NEILwxbo]

Finally feeling better. Goes without saying, but can’t imagine how awful the virus is for people with any sort of condition or anything that makes them more susceptible. Let’s hope the vaccines keep coming and we’re towards the end of this nightmarish journey 

[Stebo]

6 hours ago, StormfanaticInd said:

I will never understand how we made wearing a mask during a pandemic that killed 500k+ political. 

Easy, look at the people in this thread, and then realize there are millions like it out in the world.

[Stebo]

6 hours ago, schoeppeya said:

There is going to be some pretty interesting social studies over the next few years to figure out wtf happened over the last year.

Just speculation, but I have to think the "severity" of the virus was at exactly the right level to cause an enormous division in how seriously it should be taken. Very, very serious virus for a portion of the population while a large number of symptomless cases also existed.

Add in that we have lived in a binary political environment (see @Stebo still talking about how he will wear a mask next winter because he's not one of those cruel, heartless people that will choose not to) and we have a recipe a lot of conflict. 

I find anti maskers equally as obnoxious as the people who scream at others for not wearing one anytime they are outside, but that's just part of the world we live in I guess. Have to think and hope it will get better. 

I actually never said I would or wouldn't but that I understand why people would want to, and how it has positively impacted the flu this year.

[Stebo]

2 hours ago, chances14 said:

it will be very interesting to see the governor races shake out in the next cycle. Personally, I am disgusted at how much some of these governors have circumvented state legislatures during this pandemic

You mean like the Republicans in this state that still don't believe it is real, yeah I am glad Whitmer circumvented their stupidity. Saved hundreds-thousands of lives in this state.

[Stebo]

2 hours ago, NEILwxbo said:

Finally feeling better. Goes without saying, but can’t imagine how awful the virus is for people with any sort of condition or anything that makes them more susceptible. Let’s hope the vaccines keep coming and we’re towards the end of this nightmarish journey 

Glad to hear you are getting better, you among others here should be a cautionary tale of what could have happened to everyone. But instead you have some of the posts above and on the last page acting like this is nothing. I mean you are only 20 and had a strong case.

[BuffaloWeather]

Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson antibodies lasted for 11 months, they've been getting tested at UCLA monthly as one of the first famous people to get a confirmed Covid 19 case

https://www.prevention.com/health/a34864421/tom-hanks-rita-wilson-covid-19-antibodies/

[winterwx21]

22 hours ago, Jonger said:

I'll continue keeping myself in shape and just live my life with minimal risk.

Yeah, keeping in shape is critical and many people don't realize how important it is to reduce the chance of getting severe covid-19. There was a recent study that looked at a large group of  people that did an exercise stress test. They later looked at the people that tested positive for Covid and compared the ones that got sick enough to be hospitalized and the ones that did not get sick enough to be hospitalized. The people that showed better fitness during the stress test were hospitalized at much lower rates. Each level of improved fitness reduced risk. Fitness level has a lot to do with how sick a person will get. So getting into shape is very important for people that are not vaccinated, along with the mask wearing and social distancing of course. Of course you can still get pretty sick if you become infected, but at least it's a load off the mind knowing you're at extremely low risk of getting sick enough to be hospitalized. Very good reason to keep in shape. Here is the study for anyone interested...

 

https://www.henryford.com/news/2021/01/fitness-and-covid

[Stebo]

13 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

Yeah, keeping in shape is critical and many people don't realize how important it is to reduce the chance of getting severe covid-19. There was a recent study that looked at a large group of  people that did an exercise stress test. They later looked at the people that tested positive for Covid and compared the ones that got sick enough to be hospitalized and the ones that did not get sick enough to be hospitalized. The people that showed better fitness during the stress test were hospitalized at much lower rates. Each level of improved fitness reduced risk. Fitness level has a lot to do with how sick a person will get. So getting into shape is very important for people that are not vaccinated, along with the mask wearing and social distancing of course. Of course you can still get pretty sick if you become infected, but at least it's a load off the mind knowing you're at extremely low risk of getting sick enough to be hospitalized. Very good reason to keep in shape. Here is the study for anyone interested...

 

https://www.henryford.com/news/2021/01/fitness-and-covid

All that does is limit the potential of hospitalization, doesn't mean that you can't get it. I don't want a bunch of Chads running around thinking they are super human when they are instead super spreaders.

[Hoosier]

Article about the extremely low flu levels.  The last part caught my attention.  The low flu levels may actually complicate flu vaccine development for next flu season since there is not a lot of info to go on about which strains are dominating.

https://apnews.com/article/flu-has-disappeared-us-pandemic-2145d999319b53d8a32a829a324f398d