Coronavirus

[TimB]

Mask wearing in the Pittsburgh area still seems to be well over half at most non-food establishments. I still do in most cases, but have no issue with people who don’t. With that being said, here’s something I do have an issue with. The wife and I went to a business last night where we had to wait in line. The line was not very long, but the (maskless, but as I said above, irrelevant now that masks aren’t required anymore) couple behind us insisted on standing no more than 18” behind me. My opinion is that there’s no logical reason from now on to ever stand that close to someone while waiting in line in a place that isn’t packed, pandemic or not, and it’s courteous to maintain that distance because there’s no reason not to (and there are plenty of other respiratory and other types of illnesses that are airborne). But maybe I’m missing something? Maybe someone on here can enlighten me and give me an actual logical reason anyone needs to ever stand that close to someone while waiting in line when there’s plenty of room to be spaced farther away? I’m honestly asking.

Edit: I understand people’s desire for things to go “back to normal.” But is it honestly at all logical to feel like things aren’t “back to normal” if you’re not up someone’s ass every time you wait in line somewhere? There are some aspects of the “old normal” that should never come back, in my opinion. This is one of them. Another is five days a week, butt in seat, at office jobs that can be done just as productively at home, but that’s another topic for another day.

[A-L-E-K]

yeah, hate when people get in my space, always tell them to **** off

[nwohweather]

32 minutes ago, TimB84 said:

Edit: I understand people’s desire for things to go “back to normal.” But is it honestly at all logical to feel like things aren’t “back to normal” if you’re not up someone’s ass every time you wait in line somewhere? There are some aspects of the “old normal” that should never come back, in my opinion. This is one of them. Another is five days a week, butt in seat, at office jobs that can be done just as productively at home, but that’s another topic for another day.

Would you say an online degree is equivalent to an in campus education? It's became very obvious within my company that those teams who have not adopted at least a hybrid model have fallen considerably behind in projects and productivity. We forget how effective being in the same building really is, even if it's only 3 days a week. 

[TimB]

2 minutes ago, nwohweather said:

Would you say an online degree is equivalent to an in campus education? It's became very obvious within my company that those teams who have not adopted at least a hybrid model have fallen considerably behind in projects and productivity. We forget how effective being in the same building really is, even if it's only 3 days a week. 

Hence the reason I said 5 days a week. I think 2-3 would be just fine for most office jobs.

[TimB]

9 minutes ago, A-L-E-K said:

yeah, hate when people get in my space, always tell them to **** off

Or cough, or turn to my wife and say “good thing my covid symptoms are starting to go away and I can actually go places again.”

[hawkeye_wx]

Last week Walmart and Menards were 90% mask.  Today they are around 50%.

[schoeppeya]

18 minutes ago, hawkeye_wx said:

Last week Walmart and Menards were 90% mask.  Today they are around 50%.

Very similar here. Huge drop over the weekend. 

[Hoosier]

The first man in the world outside of clinical trial to receive the Pfizer vaccine has died.  You may remember hearing about him since he happened to have the name of William Shakespeare.

Covid-19: First man to get jab William Shakespeare dies of unrelated illness

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-coventry-warwickshire-57234741.amp

[Hoosier]

I realize you can't really avoid your young kids at home, but this story is a cautionary tale that generally speaking, it's probably not the greatest idea to deliberately expose yourself over and over to someone with covid even after you're fully vaccinated.  A healthy 43 year old runner does not fit the profile of someone you would expect the vaccine to fail in, so it could be that repeated exposure in the house was just too much for her vaccine-induced immunity to contain.  She still has shortness of breath about 2 months after getting sick.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/cdc-will-not-investigate-mild-infections-in-vaccinated-americans/ar-AAKmGW8

[Snownado]

1 hour ago, hawkeye_wx said:

Last week Walmart and Menards were 90% mask.  Today they are around 50%.

Wow. Lots of people must have got their 2nd shot over the last week.

[dan11295]

https://www.economist.com/briefing/2021/05/15/there-have-been-7m-13m-excess-deaths-worldwide-during-the-pandemic

https://covid19.healthdata.org/global

Both the Economist and IHME have estimated the total excess mortality worldwide due to the pandemic, both coming up with a number of 7.5m+ to date.

[BuffaloWeather]

 

[etudiant]

On 5/24/2021 at 9:40 PM, Hoosier said:

Can you elaborate?

My bad, the CDC only tightened the testing rules for people who were vaccinated, but got Covid anyways. They did not change anything for routine testing afaik.

The new rules limit the number of PCR cycles that can be used to 28, well under the broader norm of 35-40. Apparently the results become more dubious as the cycle number rises, at least according to Dr Fauci, who said any result from 35 or more cycles is 'meaningless'.

 

[KokomoWX]

It's done!  My school (work) had in person school all year and we finished today as planned. We had not just school but sports, music (band/choir), plays, and lots of other activities.  With 1850 students, we had 111 test positive for Covid and 31 staff.  None were severe cases there were no outbreaks, just a few cases each week.  

[WestMichigan]

Michigan checking in with "only" 549 cases today.  A huge improvement over past weeks/months.

[Hoosier]

5 minutes ago, KokomoWX said:

It's done!  My school (work) had in person school all year and we finished today as planned. We had not just school but sports, music (band/choir), plays, and lots of other activities.  With 1850 students, we had 111 test positive for Covid and 31 staff.  None were severe cases there were no outbreaks, just a few cases each week.  

That's pretty good for like 8 months of being in school.  Some questions...

Were all the kids in-person 5 days a week?

Were kids required to wear masks during the extracurricular activities?

Was there routine testing of everyone, or just get tested if you felt sick or had been exposed to someone with covid?

[Hoosier]

4 minutes ago, WestMichigan said:

Michigan checking in with "only" 549 cases today.  A huge improvement over past weeks/months.

That is less than today's number in IN, and our Spring surge was nothing like yours.

The benchmark number I have in my head is 200... can we get the daily average in Indiana under that number.  I think it wouldn't be until well into July or maybe August if it does happen.

[KokomoWX]

1 minute ago, Hoosier said:

That's pretty good for like 8 months of being in school.  Some questions...

Were all the kids in-person 5 days a week?

Were kids required to wear masks during the extracurricular activities?

Was there routine testing of everyone, or just get tested if you felt sick or had been exposed to someone with covid?

Yep, we did five days a week in-person.  We did start the year with about 15% opting for eLearning from home which was about half by mid September.  They continued coming back and we were down to less than 5% after Christmas break.  Kids were required to wear masks at extracurricular activities including while on the bench/sideline for sports but not when playing.  Band and choir demasked during performances and kids did for plays while on stage.  

We only tested when it was suspected someone was sick.  We did have a lot of quarantines early on when we took extra precautions.  We did receive a small supply of rapid tests from the state a few months ago.  I don't have any data how much they were used.  

[BuffaloWeather]

My wife has 101 fever with 2nd shot of Pfizer. She got yesterday at 430. I didn't have any reaction to 2nd, 1st one hit me a little harder with headaches/chills. I talked to doctor on my trip out west and said if you got hit harder with 1st you probably have had covid previously and not known it. 

[Hoosier]

A well-known poster in the SNE subforum passed away from covid.  Young guy only in his 30s and his mom is really sick with it too.  

[WaryWarren]

Eulogies forthcoming from Jonger and dta42069.

[mattb65]

Sub 10k 7 day average case count by July 1st is still on track.  We are at just one 20k cases and continue to cut cases in half approximately every 3 weeks or faster. I'm thinking we go below 10k cases around June 18th.

[BuffaloWeather]

Don't be this guy

[Hoosier]

8 minutes ago, mattb65 said:

Sub 10k 7 day average case count by July 1st is still on track.  We are at just one 20k cases and continue to cut cases in half approximately every 3 weeks or faster. I'm thinking we go below 10k cases around June 18th.

Do you think we can get the average under 5k at some point this summer or is that too optimistic with a chunk of people not getting vaccinated and so much of a return to pre-pandemic behaviors/travel/mobility?  

[Hoosier]

1 minute ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Don't be this guy

This "I have an immune system" argument seems like a common one from people against the covid vaccine.  It's like yeah, obviously you do have an immune system, but what if it's not as great as you think it is?

[mattb65]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

This "I have an immune system" argument seems like a common one from people against the covid vaccine.  It's like yeah, obviously you do have an immune system, but what if it's not as great as you think it is?

It's a little ironic,  the vaccines work precisely because medical science has developed an understanding of the biology of the immune system and has found ways to utilize the immune system to protect against pathogens without having a person chance getting the full effects of the illnesses caused by the pathogens. 

These my immune system is great should think about how things were just 200 years ago when small pox, polio, measles and other deadly viruses were running rampant. 

 

[mattb65]

1 hour ago, Hoosier said:

Do you think we can get the average under 5k at some point this summer or is that too optimistic with a chunk of people not getting vaccinated and so much of a return to pre-pandemic behaviors/travel/mobility?  

I'm pretty optimistic that we'll get below 5,000. It's obviously not going to be eradicated and I'm not sure how low we'll get, if I had to guess I think it will probably nadir somewhere around a 7 day average of 1,500-2,000 cases per day this summer and then rise a bit in late summer/early fall. 

I wonder when the case counts will stop being tracked on a regular basis.

[StormfanaticInd]

 

[winterwx21]

10 hours ago, Hoosier said:

This "I have an immune system" argument seems like a common one from people against the covid vaccine.  It's like yeah, obviously you do have an immune system, but what if it's not as great as you think it is?

The one thing you notice when you see pictures of young people that die of Covid is they're usually overweight. I know you pointed it out on monday when you posted the story of another young person that died of the virus, and it's the same thing with this young police officer. Young people need to realize (and the numbers show this dramatically) that when it comes to this terrible virus, the protective benefit of being young is really lost if you're out of shape. I don't understand how people that are so overweight can be confident that the virus won't threaten their life. Even if you're young, it's critical to either get the vaccine or get into shape. Obviously getting the vaccine gives the best protection since these vaccines work so great, but getting into shape at least gives a good level of protection from severe illness and death. These stories are very sad. Young people that didn't have to die.

[BuffaloWeather]

52 minutes ago, winterwx21 said:

The one thing you notice when you see pictures of young people that die of Covid is they're usually overweight. I know you pointed it out on monday when you posted the story of another young person that died of the virus, and it's the same thing with this young police officer. Young people need to realize (and the numbers show this dramatically) that when it comes to this terrible virus, the protective benefit of being young is really lost if you're out of shape. I don't understand how people that are so overweight can be confident that the virus won't threaten their life. Even if you're young, it's critical to either get the vaccine or get into shape. Obviously getting the vaccine gives the best protection since these vaccines work so great, but getting into shape at least gives a good level of protection from severe illness and death. These stories are very sad. Young people that didn't have to die.

This dude is in better shape than 99.9% of people. He didn't die, but who would like to go what he had to go through?

Exclusive: Minnesota Wild's Marco Rossi on COVID-19 complications, 'I'm just happy that I'm still alive'

There continues to be one absolutely terrifying comment that still reverberates around his head. As the Minnesota Wild’s 2020 first-round pick attempted to negotiate with experts that he should at least be allowed to exercise and skate a little bit rather than be completely shut down for two months, it was explained bluntly to the teenage hockey star just how serious his medical diagnosis was.

“The doctors told me if I played one more game in the World Junior Championship, this could have ended completely different,” Rossi said Tuesday, his voice still quavering from the memory of how close he may have been to a tragic ending. “I’m thankful to God that he supported me. … I’m just happy that I’m still alive.”

Knowing Rossi was devastated by the realization that he was that close to potentially having his heart stop on the ice, Wild general manager Bill Guerin sent Rossi home to Austria to be with his parents.

Rossi was petrified. Anytime he was alone, he worried his heart was going to stop. After returning home to Austria, Rossi lived with his parents and each night begged his mother, Claudia, and father, Michael, to sleep in his room.

After being drafted by the Wild in October, Rossi signed his three-year, entry-level contract a few weeks later. The Wild assigned him to the ZSC Lions in Zurich, Switzerland, to allow him to play hockey and ramp up for a potential Wild training camp in the winter. He played one game, registered an assist but was then diagnosed with COVID-19. He experienced mild symptoms, including lower back pain. By the time he was cleared and ready to return, three other players tested positive and the team was put into quarantine.

Still, during his comeback attempt with the Lions, Rossi said he was absolutely exhausted. He figured it was because he was so used to pushing his body to great lengths and his body must have been shellshocked from not being allowed to do anything during his 10-day COVID-19 quarantine.

“My exhaustion (from Switzerland) always kept going. It didn’t stop. Like, it was never, ‘Now I’m back to 100 percent,’” Rossi said. “At the tournament, that was the highest point where I said, ‘OK, I can’t do it anymore. I’m so tired.’”

Dr. Bill Morice, the president of Mayo Clinic Laboratories and chair of Lab Medicine and Pathology at the Rochester, Minn.-based hospital, explained there are four ways to diagnose myocarditis: Blood work can show an elevation of some of the enzymes specific to the heart muscle that can leak into the blood if there’s inflammation; EKG abnormalities; imaging, like an MRI; and a heart biopsy, which is the most definitive but not commonly done.

After follow-ups to the initial bloodwork, Rossi and the Wild got definitive news that he indeed had myocarditis.

Neither the Rossis nor Payer are blaming the ZSC Lions or Team Austria for clearing Rossi to return after his bout with COVID-19.

“I don’t want to blame anyone,” Rossi said. “The COVID is so new to everyone, and nobody really knows what is the best reaction to do. … I’m just happy that I’m still alive.”