Coronavirus pandemic

[kphoger]

Depending on how loosely you define the word "know", my wife and I now know someone who has tested positive.  It is the relative of a customer of my wife's MLM business.  We've met him once, maybe twice.  I'm kind of surprised it's taken this long for us to personally know someone who's tested positive.

It's now quite likely that some pretty good husband-and-wife friends of ours have COVID-19.  The wife's mom works in health care and was unknowingly exposed to someone with it at work.  Before she found that out, though, our friends spent time over at their house.  Now our friends have several telltale symptoms–including cough, loss of smell, lethargy, fever.  Their symptoms are mild:  the wife, a teacher, even said there have been days in the past she's gone to work feeling worse than they do now.  They got tested for COVID-19 yesterday and are awaiting the results.

In between that time spent with family and finding all of this out, our friends were at church.

Before worship services were first shut down back in March, their daughter always used to run up to my wife when we walked in the door and give her a huge hug.  They have a special bond because my wife was her childcare provider when she was little.  Last Sunday, she said to my wife, "I told my parents I didn't want to come back to church because I can't give you a hug anymore".  My wife told her, "We're both wearing masks, so let's both go wash our hands and then we can hug".  And that's what they did.

The husband plays electric guitar in the church band, so I was up in the front with him on Sunday (I'm the drummer) but not really near him.  And everyone in the band had masks on the whole time we played music.

Because of all this, it was just announced that worship is canceled for this Sunday.

I've been saying for a while now that singing in church is probably the riskiest behavior we do during the week.  At a grocery store, we only briefly pass by people and most of our time is spent away from others.  But, singing in church, we're surrounded by people for a prolonged time–people who because they're singing are naturally expelling more breath than usual, people whose Monday—Saturday social interactions we don't really know much about.  Sure, the rows are now spread six feet apart, but still.

[Max Rockatansky]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

My wife knows two people who are either currently in Florida or will be going to Florida soon, and they're just planning to home-quarantine for two weeks when they get back to Kansas.

Um I'd stay away from Florida with a 10 foot pole at the moment.

I think a 6-foot pole is recommended.

Some have been pushing for a 12-15 foot "pole"  so to speak.  Last week there was a lot of news stories about COVID being airborne and something about how a lot of professionals were staying the WHO was ignoring the evidence.  That 12-15 recommendation was cited in those stories frequently.

1 mile is probably even safer.  what would 12-15' mean in terms of common situations? Is it feasible and manageable?

That's what supposedly was being suggested was the 12-15 foot distance.  To that end I can't fathom that being realistic in any facet and definitely would be ignored.  If it was 39.5 foot then we would be onto something, but I would need a big pole. 

[US71]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

My wife knows two people who are either currently in Florida or will be going to Florida soon, and they're just planning to home-quarantine for two weeks when they get back to Kansas.

Um I'd stay away from Florida with a 10 foot pole at the moment.

I think a 6-foot pole is recommended.

Some have been pushing for a 12-15 foot "pole"  so to speak.  Last week there was a lot of news stories about COVID being airborne and something about how a lot of professionals were staying the WHO was ignoring the evidence.  That 12-15 recommendation was cited in those stories frequently.

1 mile is probably even safer.  what would 12-15' mean in terms of common situations? Is it feasible and manageable?

That's what supposedly was being suggested was the 12-15 foot distance.  To that end I can't fathom that being realistic in any facet and definitely would be ignored.  If it was 39.5 foot then we would be onto something, but I would need a big pole. 

I keep as much distance as I can at the store, but it's not always easy. I also wear a mask when I go out.

[formulanone]

People are about 50/50 on keeping six feet apart, mostly because humans are selfish and/or poor judges of distances. People are getting a bit impatient in stores compared to a few months ago...basically, they're reverting back to previous habits. I didn't notice a run on paprika, so why reach 3 inches from my face? Wait the extra 10 seconds and try to excuse yourself if you went the wrong way down the already-occupied aisle.

Didn't really have much of a problem in suburban Seattle/Redmond, but I think the distancing and the overall quarantine situation has been going on longer. Airports haven't been that bad, either...I'm not expecting perfection there as there's always some confusion there.

I've had exactly one person (some 20-year-old twerp) actually quibble about my mask. I quietly flicked him off, and the conversation ended right there while waiting in a line for take-out. So these masks are effective at stopping bullshit.

[hbelkins]

I wondered why people would go to Florida in the middle of the summer, but I'm not much of a beach person myself.

It's when school is out. I've only been to Florida twice. Once on a high school band trip, and once on a family vacation. My dad was a teacher, so summer was the only time when we could take family trips.

It was on that trip that I discovered that my dad had a bit of roadgeek in him. On our way home, after we finished at St. Augustine, Dad decided to drive up into Georgia to the southern terminus of US 25, and then take that route most of the way home. It's one of the closest US routes to my hometown, and it went right through the college campus my dad attended (Berea College). We took 25 all the way to the point where it intersected I-26, but opted for I-40 and I-81 to Morristown instead of staying on 25 through Asheville and Marshall to Newport. I got my clinch of 25 (and the E and W splits) years later, but Dad seemed to want to drive as much of 25 as he could until he decided to take the faster way home once we got closer.



I went to the doctor in Lexington today. Traffic was about normal on the Mountain Parkway and I-64, but decidedly lighter on the Lexington routes I was on (Man O'War, Alumni Drive, Nicholasville Road.) When I went into the doctor's office, they asked a bunch of questions and I will readily admit to lying about a couple of them. I'm 58 years old. Of course I get muscle aches and pains, and I get an occasional headache. If I have drainage in my throat, sometimes I'll cough. Some poor guy who got queried after me admitted to coughing, but then had to clarify it by saying he's a smoker, he drives a truck and doesn't cough when he's in northern climes but as soon as he gets back into Kentucky where the humidity is higher, he starts coughing. I was thinking, "Dude, just say 'no' and be done with it. Temp scan was 96.7.

Coming out, traffic was pretty much normal, but it was lunch hour. Went to Culver's to eat, but the dining room was closed and the drive-through was terribly backed up, so I left. Thought about Raising Cane's, but their dining room was also closed and the drive-through was even worse than Culver's. So I ended up eating inside at Freddy's.

Paid $1.959 for gas at Murphy Oil; saw the same price at Thornton's and Speedway at I-75 Exit 110 while gas was $2.059 at the Man O'War exit (Shell, Meijer) just south.

[wxfree]

Texas is still going downhill.  We now have around 10,000 new cases per day, and 100 deaths per day.  The Beaumont area, with a population of 1.3 million was down to 1 ICU bed available.  They're up to 9.  I don't know if people got better, or died, or got shipped out (or if they assembled more beds).  The Houston area, with 6.7 million, has 98 ICU beds.  The DFW area, population 8 million, has been doing better, in part because of the vast capacity, but is now down to 259 ICU beds (it dropped pretty quickly from above 400, as hospitalizations rose from 1,100 to 1,900).  The Brownsville area, population 1.4 million, is down to 22 ICU beds and they're now requesting a field hospital be set up by the feds.  The state has already shipped in support personnel.  The Hidalgo County health authority is complaining about people not taking it seriously.  The ICU availability is reported by "trauma service area," so we don't know where exactly the available capacity is.

https://www.houstonchronicle.com/news/houston-texas/article/As-Texas-reports-10K-COVID-patients-officials-15400477.php

https://www.expressnews.com/news/local/article/Tsunami-of-COVID-cases-crushing-Hidalgo-15398472.php

[Duke87]

There are quite a few things to think about in terms of throughput because, especially in the US with its patchwork healthcare system, it is very easy to create disincentives to get tested.

There's also the issue that Americans' stubborn desire to minimize disruption to their own personal lives creates its own disincentive. Someone feeling a little sick but not too bad may not want to go get tested so that they aren't forced to quarantine at home if they test positive. Someone who has recently traveled to a hot state but feels fine may not want to go get tested in order to stay under the radar and avoid getting in trouble for not quarantining like they're supposed to.

It should be noted that in China, when they started setting up temperature checkpoints, they would force people to drop what they're doing and immediately go get tested if they had a fever. And anyone getting tested would be detained at the testing site until their results came back, you'd have to test negative before you'd be released and permitted to resume going about your business.

Now, this isn't China, and authorities in the US do not have the authority to do that. But the fact remains that your testing regime is inherently limited in effectiveness for as long as going and getting tested is entirely voluntary.

I do think that because of this we could stand to have less mandatory quarantining and more mandatory testing. Forget about making people isolate at home because they traveled, but you know what? Make it so no one gets on an airplane without a negative test. Procure rapid testing kits and have the TSA administer them to everyone. Would be the most useful thing the TSA has ever done.

[webny99]

I can't imagine going to Florida, especially at this time of year.

I wondered why people would go to Florida in the middle of the summer, but I'm not much of a beach person myself.

I would not call myself a beach person either but I've never been to Florida and certainly wouldn't go there in the summer. This summer has been bad enough here, 1200 miles north. IMO Florida and South Carolina beaches are for winter; North Carolina and Virginia beaches could go either way, and from Maryland north the beaches are for summer.

Pretty much everyone I know did some sort of traveling over the July 4th long weekend. I did, mostly in the Delmarva Peninsula and to/from home. There were many out-of-state license plates both on the road and at the ocean. It was the first time I'd been out of state since January, and the first time I clinched any new counties in almost a year.

Besides which, I don't have any confidence that Missouri will even be letting Kansas into their state without self-quarantining ...

I wonder what kind of legal procedures would be involved in one state moving into another.

[webny99]

... he drives a truck and doesn't cough when he's in northern climes but as soon as he gets back into Kentucky where the humidity is higher, he starts coughing.

I thought humidity was mostly affected by east/west, not north/south. It's plenty humid here in the summer, I wouldn't have thought humidity could possibly increase by much more as you head south.

Coming out, traffic was pretty much normal, but it was lunch hour.

Yeah, I tried to start a thread about that once, but it kinda flopped...
In any case, I do think mid-day traffic being similar to pre-pandemic is one thing that's more or less consistent everywhere in the country, while AM and PM rush hours are more variable: nowhere near normal in this area, but others have mentioned "similar" or "slightly less" traffic.

[Duke87]

I wondered why people would go to Florida in the middle of the summer, but I'm not much of a beach person myself.

It's when school is out. I've only been to Florida twice. Once on a high school band trip, and once on a family vacation. My dad was a teacher, so summer was the only time when we could take family trips.

I don't get it either but it is a big thing.

Growing up we went to Florida on vacation a bunch of times, but we did so the week our schools had their winter break in February. The entire point was to go somewhere warm when it was cold at home.
We would often have a separate summer vacation, but these trips were mostly to places no more than a few hours' drive away.


This year in particular, a lot of people in the northeast wanted to go and get away somewhere once travel restrictions began lifting, and because people are basic and unoriginal a lot of them chose Florida as their destination. At the same time, a lot of these people made a point of going to bars and/or large house parties while they were in Florida, since these things are still not allowed in the northeast. Nevermind that there is a good reason why these things are still not allowed up here.

[SEWIGuy]

The panhandle of Florida is a bigtime summer vacation spot.  I've been there a few times in the late Spring / early summer, and while it most certainly is hot, isn't like going to Orlando or something like that. 

[kalvado]

An interesting risk estimation:

[Roadgeekteen]

An interesting risk estimation:

Looks like school is less risky than indoor dining.

[ozarkman417]

An interesting risk estimation:
redacted

Looks like school is less risky than indoor dining.

Which makes me wonder how the lunch period will play out. The social aspect of it will likely be lost.

[Scott5114]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

If my workplace gets too obnoxious (and boy, they are sure working on slowly but steadily inching up there), I am considering a county-clinching trip to Texas. None of the counties I would be visiting have a meaningful number of cases, but my workplace's policies do not discriminate between "drove through unincorporated Ochiltree County without stopping" and "licked every toilet in Houston", so either way, I'd get some "involuntary" unpaid time off work.

[Ben114]

An interesting risk estimation:
redacted

Looks like school is less risky than indoor dining.

Which makes me wonder how the lunch period will play out. The social aspect of it will likely be lost.

Massachusetts is requiring students to eat in the classroom when schools open back up.

[Roadgeekteen]

An interesting risk estimation:
redacted

Looks like school is less risky than indoor dining.

Which makes me wonder how the lunch period will play out. The social aspect of it will likely be lost.

Massachusetts is requiring students to eat in the classroom when schools open back up.

Given the crowds at the cafeteria, I'm not the least bit surprised.

[SSOWorld]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

Anywhere's a risk - some are just higher risks than others.  Florida is the highest - that state's government is oblivious to the reality

That being said - pondering a trip -- but it won't go south of Virginia or west of Illinois.  The route taken depends on how NJ/NY treat the midwest (outside Iowa) - and I won't be surprised if IL and WI make their "list".

[SSOWorld]

An interesting risk estimation:
<image clipped to shrink the post>

From one state's point of view.

[hbelkins]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

If my workplace gets too obnoxious (and boy, they are sure working on slowly but steadily inching up there), I am considering a county-clinching trip to Texas. None of the counties I would be visiting have a meaningful number of cases, but my workplace's policies do not discriminate between "drove through unincorporated Ochiltree County without stopping" and "licked every toilet in Houston", so either way, I'd get some "involuntary" unpaid time off work.

Again, I ask ... how would they know if you went to Texas on your own time?

[Roadgeekteen]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

Anywhere's a risk - some are just higher risks than others.  Florida is the highest - that state's government is oblivious to the reality

That being said - pondering a trip -- but it won't go south of Virginia or west of Illinois.  The route taken depends on how NJ/NY treat the midwest (outside Iowa) - and I won't be surprised if IL and WI make their "list".

I thought that Illinois's cases were flat?

[hotdogPi]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

Anywhere's a risk - some are just higher risks than others.  Florida is the highest - that state's government is oblivious to the reality

That being said - pondering a trip -- but it won't go south of Virginia or west of Illinois.  The route taken depends on how NJ/NY treat the midwest (outside Iowa) - and I won't be surprised if IL and WI make their "list".

I thought that Illinois's cases were flat?

Illinois is increasing slowly. The only states that are truly flat are in the northeast.

[bandit957]

Has anyone here continued with travel plans, knowing that you'd be required to home-quarantine based on the itinerary?

Anywhere's a risk - some are just higher risks than others.  Florida is the highest - that state's government is oblivious to the reality

That being said - pondering a trip -- but it won't go south of Virginia or west of Illinois.  The route taken depends on how NJ/NY treat the midwest (outside Iowa) - and I won't be surprised if IL and WI make their "list".

I thought that Illinois's cases were flat?

Illinois is increasing slowly. The only states that are truly flat are in the northeast.

The testing volume has been huge the past few days.

[RobbieL2415]

Any state that isn't CT, RI, VT, NH, ME or MT is either way by the same or losing the battle.

[hotdogPi]

Any state that isn't CT, RI, VT, NH, ME or MT is either way by the same or losing the battle.

Even assuming MT was a typo, New York and New Jersey are doing as well as New England.