wtfluff wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 10:54 pm
alas wrote: ↑Fri May 01, 2020 5:33 pm
wtfluff wrote: ↑Thu Apr 30, 2020 11:13 pm
Well... Yeah... That... And... I want to take a peek at the data.
My DH showed me a chart of reported cases per state showing the numbers over the last several weeks. The CDC has its guidelines for number of weeks reporting fewer numbers and how much it is supposed to be down before reopening. No state is even close. I could just look at the graphs and see that no state really has the kind of reduction needed to open up restrictions. Most states were up and down, like Idaho (my legal residence) dropped to zero, but then jumped right back up to its next to highest number the next week. Maybe one or two states have a statistically significant drop, but most were just bouncing around as high as ever, with no clear pattern of reducing numbers. Because the numbers bounce around, that will reduce the statistical significance of any drops there are. There is no pattern of reducing numbers.
But today, Utah allowed restaurants to reopen with some restrictions and driving through back to southern Utah, (our winter home) some have dining rooms open and others are still drive through only and some like Chuckarama are still closed. Almost no one is wearing face masks.
A little birdie may have squealed on Nibbler and let me know the vicinity in which he resides: Their numbers are definitely still going up, but they are not "opening" anything back up. YET.
As far as Utah is concerned, if you look at the daily positive cases graph, it's pretty flat. Less numbers on weekends, as less folks get tested on the weekends, with spikes during the week.
The actual percentage of positive cases verses the number of tests has been trending down for some time.
Is it time to "re-open?" I don't know. (No-one does, truthfully.) Time will tell. I'm still hiding in the basement. Haven't had time to complete the Princess mask yet, I guess the Elvis mask will have to do in the mean-time. Dumb-Guy-Tip: If you HAVE TO go to a home improvement store DO NOT GO on the weekend if you want to avoid crowds. (Dumb-Guy-Tipping for a friend...
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As long as we are willing to accept that it never will be “safe” to go back to how things were, and are willing to make appropriate changes, it is as good of a time to open as any. But how things were spread the flu and colds with no thought that they could be fatal to some people, and now we have something that is 30 times worse than the flu, which will never really be gone from our society any more than the 1918 flu is gone. It is H1N1 and has come around again to kill people a couple of times already.
But there needs to be some permanent changes, just as we have permanent changes now that we know what causes Black Plague. We no longer treat rats as a harmless nuisance. Nope. We recognize rats as a serious health hazard and work as communities to exterminate the little buggers. Just so we need to recognize how this disease spreads and take measures to stop it from spreading.
The more I read about the problems with a vaccine, the more convinced I am that is not the answer. There isn’t going to be “herd immunity” because people are catching it a second time and actually getting sick a second time. And the more the doctors see, the more we are realizing this doesn’t just kill the old, but is causing strokes and other complications in younger folk.
So, shaking hands needs to be a thing of the past. Have we recognized this as a problem? Nope, just yesterday, at a service station/convenience store, I saw two guys who obviously were not “shelter together buddies” greet each other with a handshake and how they hadn’t seen each other in weeks.
Being inside in crowded conditions needs to end. This is going to be hard and has to be permanent, not just for a few more weeks, then back to making as much money as possible. I don’t know how movies, sports franchises, churches and so many other things we do as a society need to handle this. But we simple have to stop cramming as many people as possible into limited spaces in order to maximize profit. Take airplanes for just one example. It will be hard to make airplanes and not crowd as many people into as small of space as possible and add to that the problem of more cost, fuel, pollution, of taking fewer people per flight. Maybe we need to look seriously at our society’s habit of air travel, and actually do something. And professional basketball? Imagine the pathetic cheering with people spread six feet apart, this is just not going to happen. Private boxes like the very rich do now is one possibility, but it will up the cost of tickets which are already outrageous. Church? Smaller wards/congregations will help, but part of the appeal of the mega church is the huge crowd. There was a mega church near us in San Antonio, and I talked to some people who attended and the draw WAS the crowd all worshipping and such together. They liked the “energy” of the crowd. And the preachers like the huge crowd for the same reason basketball owners do. $$$$$. Convincing the companies simply won’t work, because they NEVER do anything that lowers their profit unless forced. And Republicans pass government regulations saying that airplanes need at least 6 ft between people, wahhhhh,ha,ha,ha,ha. We will be lucky to get better ventilation in 99.9% of the situations in which we crowd together.
If we as a society were even recognizing that some of these changes need to be permanent, then I would say we are ready to reopen. But rather than looking at how we can safely open things back up, too many people think life will go quickly back to normal. Denial is alive and well.
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