Corona Virus Panic

[3rdGen4R]

Certainly not looking to get in an argument here....

The speed of the vaccine development and distribution has been amazing. No question there. In my very humble opinion the problem was how it was handled from the beginning. Specifically being wraponized by politicians on both sides for political gain. (I would say one side more than the other but that's my bias showing and if we had a different party in power it probably would have gone the other way) I still think we would be in a much better place if the restrictions put in place were more targeted. For example I have little to no risk of any issues from the virus. That being the case I still could certainly be a carrier and get someone more vulnerable sick so taking precautions to prevent that was clearly the right thing to do.

I'm speaking more in terms of the long term economic ramifications of the last 12 months. The young healthy people with no complicating health factors should have been masked up and working while we protected those who were vulnerable. If you take a look at what has happened to the money supply over the last year we have set ourselves up for some serious trouble down the line.

A few more examples of what I'm talking about....

My brother and a good number of his friends are in their early 20s and have been unemployed since March. Mostly by choice. Many of them are now raging about the importance of UBI and legitimately do not think they should be required to work ever again. It drives me crazy when I hear this.

I, on the other hand, have been very lucky and never had a lapse in employment or pay over the last year. Do I really need to be receiving stimulus checks? Probably not, but someone with complicating health factors who is at serious risk if they contracted covid should.

Maybe "focused on a solution" was not the best choice of words? Just another reminder that short bits of text on the internet is one of the worst ways to properly express an opinion.

No worries, and I apologize if that came off harsh.

There is a lot to this conversation, and to be honest, I'm not sure how we have it anymore because I find some people to be insincere when they have these conversations.

I tend to believe this, and I don't think this is a controversial statement. We live in the greatest time ever, this is probably the best time you could ever be alive if you measure it on what life looked like 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 years ago, life isn't that bad. I'm not sure there is a period of time I would rather be alive. We still have progress to make as a nation, and humanity is still very frail, but I still believe this is the best time to be alive in human history.

 

[KC Masterpiece]

No worries, and I apologize if that came off harsh.

There is a lot to this conversation, and to be honest, I'm not sure how we have it anymore because I find some people to be insincere when they have these conversations.

I tend to believe this, and I don't think this is a controversial statement. We live in the greatest time ever, this is probably the best time you could ever be alive if you measure it on what life looked like 50, 100, 200, 500, 1000 years ago, life isn't that bad. I'm not sure there is a period of time I would rather be alive. We still have progress to make as a nation, and humanity is still very frail, but I still believe this is the best time to be alive in human history.

Absolutely agree on that. 100%

 

[DouglasVB]

Update on my grandma: it appears that she dodged the COVID bullet after being stuck in the hospital ER for so long waiting to be admitted. She's been home for a couple weeks now and is doing better every day. No symptoms of COVID.

And better yet, it sounds like she'll get her first COVID vaccine shot on Thursday.

In less good news, we just postponed our wedding again from this April to next year in April. We already postponed it from last year in April to last year in October and then again to this year in April. It's important to us to have all of our guests feel comfortable attending so we made the choice to postpone with the expectation that things will be much better in April 2022.

 

[3rdGen4R]

Update on my grandma: it appears that she dodged the COVID bullet after being stuck in the hospital ER for so long waiting to be admitted. She's been home for a couple weeks now and is doing better every day. No symptoms of COVID.

And better yet, it sounds like she'll get her first COVID vaccine shot on Thursday.

In less good news, we just postponed our wedding again from this April to next year in April. We already postponed it from last year in April to last year in October and then again to this year in April. It's important to us to have all of our guests feel comfortable attending so we made the choice to postpone with the expectation that things will be much better in April 2022.

Man, that stinks about your wedding. I understand completely what you guys are going through with planning a event in 2021. I have a old box of letters from a great grandfather to my great grand mother. This conversation reminds me of those letters and how I look back at them and think about the time period they lived in.

 

[J1000]

@KC Masterpiece, geez don't even get me started on UBI. I know exactly what you are talking about with that attitude. To me; it's completely horrible. It's against everything that the generations that came before taught us, against all religion, against all common sense. People need to work and they should feel bad when they don't work.

Personally, I am most upset about the kids going through this. I've noticed in my own nephews that when I wear a mask around them, they don't know how to talk to me and immediately when I put it on the smile goes away and their eyes start to wander to other things and they don't feel comfortable talking to me. Not to mention going to school. Kids need to go to school. This is madness. Kids don't spread the disease and they don't get bad complications from it, either.

If anyone has gone through the airport you know this is all BS. It's "maintain distance" this, "cover your mouth and nose" that....and then we all get onto a plane elbow to elbow and they start handing out drinks. Give me a break. If it's so dangerous, don't serve soda!!!!

 

[Hulk]

In less good news, we just postponed our wedding again from this April to next year in April. We already postponed it from last year in April to last year in October and then again to this year in April. It's important to us to have all of our guests feel comfortable attending so we made the choice to postpone with the expectation that things will be much better in April 2022.

I'd probably go get married with a couple of friends, and then schedule the party for next April.

 

[DouglasVB]

I'd probably go get married with a couple of friends, and then schedule the party for next April.

Yeah I suggested that approach but it got vetoed by 👸🏻.

 

[3rdGen4R]

Yeah I suggested that approach but it got vetoed by 👸🏻.

A lot of woman have dreams about this stuff... best not get in the way.

 

[Inukshuk]

Kids don't spread the disease and they don't get bad complications from it, either.
Give me a break. If it's so dangerous, don't serve soda!!!!

The science does not support your statement about kids.
Soda is poison and they/we should all stop consuming it.

 

[DaveInDenver]

The science does not support your statement about kids.

Are you referring to the contagious part? If you're speaking to his complication assertion the numbers do seem to indicate that school aged kids by a wide margin are the least likely to become seriously ill.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/201...s-discovery/hospitalization-death-by-age.html



https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html

Soda is poison and they/we should all stop consuming it.

Cutting out soda, McDonald's, chips and alcohol and increasing fresh air and exercise would do more for people's health than just about anything.

 

[Firetacoma]

There are so many unknowns still about how COVID affects kids and the high incidents of MIS-C, especially among kids in Colorado is rather alarming.

 

[J1000]

The science does not support your statement about kids.
Soda is poison and they/we should all stop consuming it.

There sure is science that supports it. In fact, children under 15 catch and spread covid at "half the rate of adults" according to a scientific study of 40,000 people in Iceland.

Exclusive: We finally know how much kids spread coronavirus. Here’s how it can help schools.

Big decisions around COVID-19 and children have been heavy on politics and short on science. New large-scale studies are changing that.

www.nationalgeographic.com

What about the science of touching your facemask, mouth, nose, and food in between sips or bites on a closed aircraft with recirculating air and tons of common contact surfaces?

 

[DaveInDenver]

There are so many unknowns still about how COVID affects kids and the high incidents of MIS-C, especially among kids in Colorado is rather alarming.

According to the CDC's own numbers there's been 1,659 cases of MIS-C and 26 deaths attributed to it from May 2020 until Jan 8, 2021. That covers a range of ages from less than a year to 20 years old with most falling between 1 and 14 with an average age of 8. Those numbers are included therefore in the 100,007 hospitalizations and overall numbers nationally. So it occurred in 1.2% of the 17 and younger hospitalizations.

https://www.cdc.gov/mis-c/cases/index.html

Colorado had 20 cases from May to December and 2 deaths it appears in the spring of 2020, presumably before it was recognized at all. In January apparently 9 more cases but I could find no data on any deaths. I didn't search exhaustively but presumably the 29 confirmed cases to date is still valid as the CDC lists Colorado in the 11-to-30 case range on their map tracker.

https://www.denverpost.com/2021/01/14/colorado-misc-covid-children-inflammatory-syndrome-mysterious/

It's a rare complication within a relatively small subset of overall cases.

But to compare, there were at least 31 suicides for kids 10 to 17 just between March and August of 2020 in Colorado. This surely in part must be attributed to prevention of normal socializing and all the fear and anxiety surrounding the world now. A kid in 2020 Colorado was therefore at least 15 times more likely to die by suicide than MIS-C.

https://www.greeleytribune.com/2020/09/26/colorado-mental-health-resources-coronavirus-pandemic/

https://www.americashealthrankings.org/explore/annual/measure/Suicide/state/CO

Isn't that alarming about kids, too? What is the goal and what is the desired outcome? If we're trying to save the children then we should be doing the opposite. Keeping them mentally healthy and encouraged about the future is going to save more lives. Is MIS-C something to be concerned with? Seems so. But every single year we know 22-in-100,000 kids in Colorado commit suicide and no one suggests we shut down schools to stem it. I'm not sure the total population of kids but I bet there's 500,000 people under 18 in the state. That's ~100 suicides every year even when there's no doom and gloom being drilled into their heads constantly.

 

[J1000]

Drug overdoses were also up almost 300% from 2019 in Denver according to my DPD friend. Domestic violence, abuse, drug abuse, etc...all up to record numbers. Worth it?

Here's kids going to school during the Blitz:

 

[DouglasVB]

Got my first COVID vaccine yesterday via work. I got the Moderna shot. Follow-up in one month to get the second shot.

So far zero side effects. Not even a sore arm. It was probably the least painful shot I've had in at least a decade. I thought the Army corpsman who was giving the shot wouldn't be very good at it but he was done before I even realized he had started.

It looks like Heather will be eligible for her first shot in a month.

I'm working on getting an appointment for my dad in a different county. It's been a challenge but I think I'll be able to get him an appointment next week. With my mom's cancer situation, her doctors said to not get the vaccine until she's further along in the treatment process.

 

[Rzeppa]

It's hard to believe it has been almost a year since I started this thread. A couple things I reflect on:
When lockdowns started in the middle of March 2020, who would have thought that restrictions would still be in place a year later? I thought at the time that it would be 2, maybe 3 weeks tops and we'd "flatten the curve" and things would be back to normal by April 2020. Another thing to reflect on is how deadly it has been. When I started this thread I noted that the seasonal flu (2019-2020 season) had killed 18,000 Americans. Here we are in February 2021 and at 492,809 deaths in the US according to Johns Hopkins data today.

As has been noted upthread, the development of the vaccines has been absolutely remarkable. And absolutely necessary to have any hope of someday getting back to normal. I miss my Rising Sun friends in person with no masks! I miss concerts, exhibits, trade shows, movies, museums, travel, restaurants (I know restaurants are open partial capacity but frankly I don't feel safe yet).

My 92 year old father in law finally got his second shot this past Tuesday, so that's a relief, or will be after about 2 more weeks have elapsed. I probably won't be eligible until phase 3, hopefully April maybe?

The scene at about 0:29 in the clip below is what the end of this thing is going to feel like:

 

[3rdGen4R]

My 92 year old father in law finally got his second shot this past Tuesday, so that's a relief, or will be after about 2 more weeks have elapsed. I probably won't be eligible until phase 3, hopefully April maybe?

We need more of this, because it means its one less person to die of this hopefully.

 

[Inukshuk]

The scene at about 0:29 in the clip below is what the end of this thing is going to feel like:

The heck with that, 2:22!

 

[DouglasVB]

Oh! And my grandma got her first dose last week on Tuesday! Her primary care doc called her up and told her to come down because he had her shot waiting.

 

[3rdGen4R]

her first dose last week on Tuesday! Her primary care doc called her up and told her to come down because he had her shot waiting.

This kind of news makes me smile. My wife grandmother just got her second. She already had the virus and was a lucky one.