Coronavirus

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
A person I work remotely with at a partner company in California lost her partner to Covid, and caught it herself, now left with lung scarring and trouble breathing likely for life. She's in her 30s/40s, and it's the first and only person that I know who contracted it so far.
What's fucked up is that she was working (from home) throughout most of it, and it's been a horrifying experience talking to her throughout this time and now listening to her suffer and gasp for air when trying to talk.

They extended my work from home until Sprint 2021 for now, which is awesome, but people started leaving homes to enjoy the perfect summer weather and we have another spike here as well, with 1-2 deaths per day in British Columbia, after being at 0 for a couple of weeks. People are blaming Americans crossing the border though, typically for work, but some apparently ignoring the quarantine requirements and just traveling to the parks and such. So now there are people harassing drivers with American plates, yelling at them to go home, even if it turns out that those people often actually live here. But still, we are at low single digit daily numbers out of 5 million people, so we are doing relatively well.

Looking at the numbers, I can't imagine what it must feel like in the US now.
Did you guys see the explosion in Beirut? It wrecked a large portion of the city, with around 150 deaths so far. Then I realized how crazy it is to think that Covid killed 8 times as many people in the US that same day. Or that it's been like a 9/11 every other day for a few months now. Holy shit!

I see very few people without masks on a daily basis. I know it's not as black and white where either you wear a mask or your don't (wearing it properly and all the time is key), but as much as I've seen idiots try to make wearing a mask a political thing, I don't actually see them in person at the grocery store, the malls, at a clinic, etc. So they do exist but they have to be in a certain area of the country or of a state. i imagine it's the uneducated southern states and the rural population. I imagine that, but the videos I see on the internet are taking place in California, namely in LA County. Or New York. Or Pennsylvania. lol Florida. Texas. Dumbasses live everywhere but the most popular instances of freakouts over masks have all been from the more populous states.

My friend is an intern at a hospital in North Dakota. He said it had been rather tame there in regards to COVID and they only saw a few patients here and there. The hospital still followed protocol and they were good. Until he got real sick last week and was sent home. The week prior to that, the incidents started increasing sharply and while my friend was at home resting, it really blew up. He got his results back and he was negative but there can always be a false positive.

Sucks about your coworker. I don't know anyone affected quite like that, where it takes a partner, then affects them, and likely affects their career as well as the rest of their life. But I do know that the long term effects of infection aren't known 100% as yet. But there is a 27 year old MLB player who may have permanent heart disease because of damage to his heart muscle. Likely a result of COVID, which he tested positive for a few months back and "recovered" from. He has withdrawn from participating in this season and it's possible his career is over, too. If true, his life is likely permanently changed as well. Lots of viral and bacterial infections can permanently affect the heart and lungs, so it's not unprecedented. But there's this lag period of treating/curing/preventing this virus that we're in right now where we don't have the vaccine for it nor do we know how quickly one must receive a vaccine after infection in order to prevent long-term damage. In addition to heart and lung damage, one other concern is fertility, especially in males because the receptors that COVID can bind to are also found in our nuts. It can colonize and lay dormant in your scrote and either damage them or reactivate at a later date.

Ain't that a bitch?
 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
My Nan caught it. She is 99. Had a cough for a day and was fine. However she's in a nursing home and it spread through everybody and a few died
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
Are European universities still planning to have classes on campus or will it be e-learning?

The big debate right now is whether schools should open up, or not. Some schools have, although they're mostly elementary, middle, and high schools, but within another week is when some unis start opening up and with that debate comes whether college sports will be played or not.

The big conferences in the West and Midwest have already postponed or cancelled their seasons, but many schools.conferences in the South plan to have classes as well as athletic events. Too much money to lose, I guess. Some schools are still having classes but have put athletics on hold. I'm not sure if any schools have committed to being completely online-only.

Of course, Europe and the rest of the world basically has done a much better job of flattening the curve, so maybe things are different outside the US. I haven't heard much about the Second Wave recently although that was expected to hit around Fall or even Winter, so we're a few months away from that.
 

masta247

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Of course, Europe and the rest of the world basically has done a much better job of flattening the curve, so maybe things are different outside the US. I haven't heard much about the Second Wave recently although that was expected to hit around Fall or even Winter, so we're a few months away from that.
The US hasn't combated the first wave, it looks like you guys are at the "peak" pretty much all the time, with a minor downward fluctuation in April/May. Looking at the numbers now they are as bad as on any other bad month. This is not what happened in other countries, which managed to contain the spread, and are having a second wave popping up now or expected to start soon as some people went back to work. Because the US never contained the spread, I don't think foreign models apply, as our second wave is nowhere comparable to even the best day in the US.

For instance here in BC we dropped to low single digits of new cases per day, we went into the second re-opening step and cases have been back to ~80 a day - this is the expected second wave we are in. That said, entire Canada has been in single digits for daily deaths, over the last couple of weeks we had merely 0.1-0.5% as many daily deaths per capita as the US.

My university is closed with the campus not expected to reopen until a yet unspecified time in 2021. I assume this will be reevaluated based on the situation then. They are talking about opening up primary schools though. This is largely to ease the burden on parents who had to stay home to take care of the kids. The idea is getting so much local public outrage that it might not happen though.
In Europe, this might depend on the country. In Poland schools are all closed and classes are all done online "until further notice". The government is looking into the possibility of opening some primary schools in some capacity in September, but it's tbc.
 
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dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
The US hasn't combated the first wave, it looks like you guys are at the "peak" pretty much all the time, with a minor downward fluctuation in April/May. Looking at the numbers now they are as bad as on any other bad month. This is not what happened in other countries, which managed to contain the spread, and are having a second wave popping up now or expected to start soon as some people went back to work. Because the US never contained the spread, I don't think foreign models apply, as our second wave is nowhere comparable to even the best day in the US.

For instance here in BC we dropped to low single digits of new cases per day, we went into the second re-opening step and cases have been back to ~80 a day - this is the expected second wave we are in. That said, entire Canada has been in single digits for daily deaths, over the last couple of weeks we had merely 0.1-0.5% as many daily deaths per capita as the US.

My university is closed with the campus not expected to reopen until a yet unspecified time in 2021. I assume this will be reevaluated based on the situation then. They are talking about opening up primary schools though. This is largely to ease the burden on parents who had to stay home to take care of the kids. The idea is getting so much local public outrage that it might not happen though.
In Europe, this might depend on the country. In Poland schools are all closed and classes are all done online "until further notice". The government is looking into the possibility of opening some primary schools in some capacity in September, but it's tbc.

Because it became a political issue, this was expected from the US. No one I know flinched when the rest of the world banned travel from US citizens. I don't think many people even know about this ban, which is also telling of how seriously they're taking it.

Now Uncle Trump is attacking the USPS and the possibility of the mail-in ballots, so that's a new distraction for us. So much for the hopes of voting the bum out in November. Although Fauci has said that voting in person should be fine, so long as precautions are taken. But we're Americans. Precautions are for the gays and Europeans and Commies.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
This is an excellent article from one of my colleagues and neighbors, that I think covers a lot of things we've talked about here and in the other thread:

https://www.rollingstone.com/politi...id-19-end-of-american-era-wade-davis-1038206/
COVID plus the rise in science-denial by a certain demographic of Americans has definitely gotten me thinking that this is the end of the US as we've known it for the past 100 years, or so. Whatever al Qaeda wanted to happen, happened (the infamous "let them fall from within"). Whatever foreign trolls from whichever country wanted to happen by interfering with elections, happened. And everything in between those two events, 15 years apart. It all worked.

I was naive and thought that the only direction for any country in the 21st century was "up." There may be valleys and peaks, but I thought we were done with the collapsing or empires and civilizations that we saw 100+ years ago and dating back to the beginning of humanity. I thought the US and EU countries were all trending upwards and no way any of them would crumble. And the developing countries could only go up, as well, and never fall back in to their dark ages. But it looks like the US might be on the verge of finally going down the shitter. It's not even a political thing; Bernie, Hillary, Biden, etc. weren't going to fix it either. But if Biden wins, the bar is going to be so low from the previous administration that he could promise you the world and the people would praise him for the tiny turd he rolls down the steps instead.

Whoever and whatever we get in November, we deserve it. Good or bad, we deserve it. No matter how smart a society is, it will always be under threat from The Stupids. I say let the The Stupids run the country/world for a bit. I think that's how they kill themselves off and, like a forest fire, we start over fresh from the ashes.

If a candidate were to truly hold social media/tech companies accountable, I'd die voting for them. I don't care if it's Trump's left nut that promises to come down hard on these companies, I'd wear a red hat on my left nut in unity and support. The shitty political propaganda has existed for a long time, as old as politics is. Social media is the reason this garbage spread further and wider than ever before. If someone was to drop a bomb on those companies and hold them accountable at the same time, boy, that'd be something. Whether it's political stuff or the anti-vaxxer/anti-mask stuff. Fake News™ certainly is/was a problem, like Trump claims. It's just that it seems to have benefited him more than hurt him.
 

Pittsey

Knock, Knock...
Staff member
The US is too busy pushing Qanon conspiracy theories than caring about coronavirus. I mean which one is more believable!
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
Any news on the Second Wave that is supposed to hit this Fall? Technically, we are a week or two away from Summer ending and the US never really left the First Wave to begin with.
 

_carmi

me, myself & us
Any news on the Second Wave that is supposed to hit this Fall? Technically, we are a week or two away from Summer ending and the US never really left the First Wave to begin with.
Second wave is believed to be on its way here in Quebec, Canada soon if the # of cases keeps increasing. We were trending at 100-150 cases per day a few weeks ago, now we are at 300-400 cases per day. Mostly coming for from the 18-40yo. Deaths and hospitalizations still remain low for now.

Fingers crossed we don't have stop put the economy on hold like last March... That was rough. However, there is an increasing part of the population that do not think Covid19 is real and we still have some anti-masks protests... Many are no longer taking it seriously and that's unfortunate cause we'll all end up paying for that.
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
Yeah, Boris has confirmed we are seeing a second wave here.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-54212654
Yeah, I think a day after I was wondering about it, the news articles started rolling in about all of Europe bracing for round 2.

I don't know what the reactions are going to be this time around in terms of deniers finally deciding to put a mask on and take the other precautions, but I'm hoping this one is milder than the first even though the exact opposite was predicted about the second wave back in March.
 

Jokerman

Well-Known Member
What we've needed to know from the beginning of this was how many positive cases have had no symptoms at all. These tests are driving the numbers up, and without knowing how many are symptom-free, it's making this seem worse than it is.

From NY Times, 8/29:
"Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time."

I've heard this could be as high as 90%. So a second wave of what, positive cases with mostly no illness or contagion?

"The UK has recorded another 4,322 confirmed Covid-19 cases." So about 430 people are sick? We don't know.
 

_carmi

me, myself & us
What we've needed to know from the beginning of this was how many positive cases have had no symptoms at all. These tests are driving the numbers up, and without knowing how many are symptom-free, it's making this seem worse than it is.

From NY Times, 8/29:
"Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time."

I've heard this could be as high as 90%. So a second wave of what, positive cases with mostly no illness or contagion?

"The UK has recorded another 4,322 confirmed Covid-19 cases." So about 430 people are sick? We don't know.
That. There needs to be a proper evaluation of the # of cases versus hospitalizations and death rates. Solely basing it on cases is erroneous. However, I think they are still using that measure as many are not taking it seriously and might be healthy but pose a risk to individuals around them with existing health issues.

There is still much that is unknown in regards to those who’ve had symptoms and have long lasting side effects weeks/months later. It seems that those who are symptoms free or with very mild symptoms suffer no effects at all.
 

_carmi

me, myself & us
All this 2nd waver stuff is Bullshit, there is more cases because here is more tests.
I'd love to agree and that could be the case in the UK, however I can say that in Canada, all of the provinces, especially Ontario & Quebec, have seen an increase in case. The # of daily tests have been relatively the same in Quebec and cases have gone up on a daily basis, we were at 450-500 cases a couple of days ago, we are now at 700ish cases per day with no signs of slowing down.

Restrictions are being applied again. We have 4 colored alert states (green, yellow, orange, red). Greater Montreal is now orange. I'm not looking forward to going to red which I'm sure it will. I do not look forward to isolating for another couple of months. I was working during the first wave and that kept me outside of the house and busy, but being on maternity leave and stuck at home will ruin me during this second wave. I don't know how people did it to stay home 24/7.
 
We have a 10pm curfew, pubs shut at 10 etc.

Some local lockdowns in a lot of ares as well, plus the rule of 6 which means only 6 people can be together which is stupid when i have been with 30+ people at work all day
 

dilla

Trumpfan17 aka Coonie aka Dilla aka Tennis Dog
I'm confused: is COVID a hoax, or not? Trump said it was but he now he says he has it? Which is it?

Snip snap snip snap snip snap.
 

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