Coronavirus Outbreak: Part 2

I hope some of that snow settles in the mountains that feed the Colorado River! We are in severe drought mode in the southwest.

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The problem with screening large numbers of asymptomatic people in an environment with low disease prevalence is that almost all the positive results will be false positives. Itā€™s just the way the numbers work. They didnā€™t give the specificity and sensitivity values anywhere that I could see, but really it would have to be practically perfect to be useful for mass screening.

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We use the BinaxNow in school but the state doctors have said they just donā€™t know how reliable they are these days as a ā€œstand alone testā€. The doctors have said the early data said they were not reliable but they are greatly improved and new studies need to be completed?

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They say itā€™s going to be easy to plow the NE and E entrances to Yellowstone this year, from low snowpack. The Northern Rockies have done ok this year, the Southern Rockies not so much. And late snowfall doesnā€™t help runoff as much. Itā€™s the early snowpack that really does. Iā€™m not sure why that is. Snow was terrible earlier this year.

The snow in that picture goes to the Missouri River, unfortunately for the Colorado.

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Well we all know they donā€™t need it. :smirk::joy:

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Well, you know what they say out here-

ā€œWhiskey is for drinking, water is for fighting over.ā€

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This branch of mathematics must be closely related to Ride Height Requirement Math.:wink:

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My brother is having a church blessing and wedding reception in June - exactly a year after he actually got married.

I will be dancing.

Without a mask.

Contrast to my nieceā€™s January wedding. A good number of people didnā€™t come because of Covid so it was smaller than it would have otherwise been - but we sat at a table of just my immediate family and wore masks except when we were eating and for a few pictures. We danced a very little, but mostly avoided the dance floor. And yes. Someone was diagnosed with Covid shortly following the wedding, and yes it did spread at the wedding. But not to us! (And oddly, no one seated at the table with this guest got sick, but the table next to theirs. :flushed:)

@Pod we are still seeing 700ish cases a day across the whole metro area - which is something like 7 million people. City of Houston is only reporting around 100 cases a day out of 2.3 million in the city limits. Definitely still quite a bit of spread here, but much reduced within the city even compared to our lowest points before the fall surge. Iā€™m definitely reaching the point when, at church generally, where we are the ONLY people wearing masks. Iā€™m fully vaccinated and wondering what on earth Iā€™m hoping to benefit/prove by keeping masks on my whole family.

The longer this thing goes on, clearly the more likely I am to say ā€œforget it.ā€

Also @PrincipalTinker the large vaccination sites here in Houston did not/do not ask about insurance at all. I did have to show proof of identity at the hospital where we received our vaccines when we checked in, but I was never even asked about insurance. I thought the ID check was simply to prove I was the person who signed up for that appointment that I was claiming Now that you can walk in for a shot all over town, I feel like they will just throw one in your arm if you show up here without looking for much information on you at all.

@amvanhoose_701479 DS will be a little more than half a year shy of 12, too. My oldest DD would qualify and I have zero doubt that sheā€™s all for taking any vaccine offered to her. Sheā€™ll be in high school this fall and Iā€™d like to see her vaccinated before she rolls into that mess. I also saw the 56% statistic YLE provided. Iā€™m wondering where Houston is on that curve. I think we may have a higher percentage vaccinated within the city limitsā€¦

And also this to bring me back from my ā€œLet it Go!ā€ attitudeā€¦ more than 50% of covid cases in kids end up with long Covid? Thatā€™s not a great number, but the study is super small. And that most states provide various qualifiers to what constitutes a ā€œchild.ā€ makes it hard to know. It probably means worry about getting my older kids vaccinated and worry less about the 8 year olds for now.

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Statewide, weā€™re not far off from your case counts there. In fact, it was a Texan that DH was talking to on the airplane (we connected through Dallas), when he said that it seems like people have decided the pandemic is over. The Texan said he had spent the week in Billings and people were like, ā€œWeā€™ve got our vaccines, and thatā€™s it for us, no more masks, back to normal.ā€ So for all the criticism Texas takes for having less regulations, apparently we are even less stringent here.

We were gone for a week and even during that time, the change in attitude was noticeable. For example, my favorite bakery, run by hip young progressives, went from strict mask policy to ā€œwhateverā€.

So it seems that the ā€œendā€ of the pandemic will be more of a collective societal decision than anything done by the government according to data, such as low cases or hospitalizations. Although the government might have to catch up.

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Yep. Iā€™m guessing if I showed up with the DS11s at NRG once ages 12-15 are approved and said they were 12ā€¦

But I wonā€™t.

I think.

If there is still significant spread in the fall and our school district drops masking, I will probably have to think on it. Because really, what material difference does it make if they are 11 years 9 months vs 12 years? :no_mouth:

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Yes. Even my friend with the high risk daughter who hardly left the house for a year plans to send them back to school in the fall. She even took them to a playground! I was surprised to find that sheā€™s shifted so much with getting vaccinated. Itā€™s coming around to the realization that we only have so much control and there is only so much of our lives that can be sacrificed without a whole lot of evidence that the return justifies it.

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Yes. Exactly.

Iā€™m pretty high risk and getting on that plane without my n95 was a bit tough, too. I can empathize a little with your friend.

But at some point, one has to have faith (in more than one thing, helps!), and let it go. Iā€™m not going to hide out forever.

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My lips are sealed. :zipper_mouth_face:

But also my 11 year old is about the same size as my 8 year old, sooo it feels harder to justify.

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There are children with that age difference who really are the same age if you count back to when they were blastocysts. :wink:

Of course, some kids are born months early. Mine missed starting school ā€œon timeā€ because of that. So it is a little bit arbitrary. I think you have plenty of wiggle room.

Another thing to consider is that they just havenā€™t finished testing it on younger children, right? (Youā€™d be more up on that than I am). Theyā€™re not advising withholding it because of something inherently risky or worrisome in younger kids. If that were the case, you probably wouldnā€™t want to fudge the age issue.

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Great. You just made it worse. :crazy_face: They were born at 32.5 weeks.

But, yeah, thatā€™s sort of my logic too. They will likely turn 12 before itā€™s approved for ages 5-11, so itā€™s strictly a matter of them finding an issue in the 12-15 age group after it gets its EUA and before 11/24 when they turn 12.

ETA ā€¦and then I also think about that I considered putting them in the 5-11 trial since itā€™s being done in Houston, but us being so cautious, I figured their data wouldnā€™t be that helpful since their risk of exposure is very low with everyone else in the house being vaccinated. So any risk from getting them vaccinated is really no different than if I put them in the trial. Shrug. Over thinking things, obv. #Liner

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Thanks! I think we will reach out to our contacts. The local site is hospital run so they often partner with us. We expect some of our translators will help with the process. With the kids we could create school IDs if that helped. We need to make sure these families feel safe going to the site or they will never get vaccinated.

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:face_with_monocle:
This sounds vaguely familiar.

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Well letā€™s see if this helps get people vaccinated. I donā€™t think that plan will last, but weā€™ll see. But yay to getting back to normal!

Just wear tall shoes :stuck_out_tongue_winking_eye:

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I think that kind of rule would have been great if it had been in place from the start. Then it would seem more like a goal grounded in science, and less like a petty threat. Right now it kind of sounds like ā€œEat your peas or no TV for you.ā€

Itā€™s very, very difficult to make people undergo treatments they donā€™t want, even just a shot. I hope it works, but I agree, it definitely might not.

Still, PA is doing much better than my state. We were great out of the chute, but if we hit 50%, Iā€™ll be surprised.