As if you needed it:
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Two points for you, @Shmebulock
First, why are you up inappropriately late?
Second, I read that Scotland has had much stricter COVID rules than England, yet its COVID outcomes are no better and, actually, worse.
More broadly, crazy Governor DeSantis has ensured Florida has had no COVID rules. Yet Iām not aware that the stateās outcomes are worse than anywhere else in the world.
So: yay for vaccines. But masks and lockdowns? Am I wrong about those?
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I think this at least daily. Iām putting my money on the roaches to take over. As long as they stay off social media.
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Fact: Roaches can survive nuclear explosions
(Source: the internet)
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Some positive news. Israel as a whole has been pretty on top of things.
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There are a lot of factors at play, but the south (including Florida) has had some of the loosest Covid rules and the west coast some of the tightest. It seems to have had an impact.
Deaths per 10M.
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Of course roaches can survive anything. Wall-E documented that quite well.
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I ran the numbers a couple of months ago, and if you take out March to May of 2020 (when we didnāt know what the hell we were doing), the southern states have the worst per Capita death rate by a decent margin.
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Yeah, Florida has almost caught NY in deaths per 10M. And NY got totally blindsided at the start.
Florida 28916
NY 29494
ETA:
53% of New Yorkās Covid fatalities occurred Mar-May 2020. Only 4% of Floridaās did.
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I live in a very masky West Coast urban area. Without commenting on what other regions have done and whether itās worked or not, I will say Iāve been happy with being in a masky area. Our hospitals have literally not been overrun yet at any point (surge last winter it was tight but like no one needed transferring out of our area at all, we were taking patients from elsewhere). And my kidsā schools have been open very successfully full-time (my daughterās school last year had zero cases all year; my sonās school which is now also my daughterās school has occasional cases but I go months without hearing of one).
These are not necessarily the be-all end-all and I think in lots of ways it is appropriate to have regional differences in handling because I think what people value (as a majority) can vary a lot. So Iām not saying what Florida did was wrong for Florida, for example. Iād defer to Floridians on whether theyāve been happy with the balance there.
But I do absolutely think masks and lockdowns make a difference in terms of outcomes in illness and quality of life. Of course whether those are the outcomes you value and want are a different question. I think for example business owners in our area are split on what approach they value. I think some people would certainly prefer to deal with more illness (either personally or collectively) than wear masks so much. Etc.
But do masks and lockdowns make a difference? I think that is clearly yes. Itās just is that a difference you want, in the big picture. (FWIW I never want to go back to lockdowns unless itās like spring 2020 what the hell is going on again. I feel like life is pretty close to normal where I live but with a lot of masks, and there is a lot of choice in what you choose to do or not do personally . My family does less than in 2019 but way more than in 2020. Yet if we wanted to live like 2019 we totally could, just with masks. Many people are. There are basically no limits except masks anymore. Well and vaccine requirements for certain venues.)
ETA: We will never know how much worse or better things could have been, either. For example I live in a very dense area, so itās not like you can compare mask efficacy to like a rural area of Montana where people might go without ā thereās fewer people to catch it from and youāre not as close to so many every day, very generally speaking. Florida has a much older population, so their death rate would probably be higher for that reason anyway but who knows exactly how much higher if the protective measures had been exactly the same as here. Itās very hard to compare apples to apples from region to region and say definitively what is the best approach, IMO, even if our goals were consistent. Probably goes even more so country to country.
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I like the people on this thread. Theyāre very sensible and non-crazy.
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Are up wicked late or stupid early?
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Everything you said here basically applies to where I live, in the DC area. Weāve had a few more positives at school.
This is why I keep reading the Disney forum even though I wonāt be going to WDW or UOR for awhile. Iāve found this thread (in all 3 of its incarnations) to be far more rational than most things I read on the news, and I read about 5 news sources a day. I donāt do a lot of social media, but Iāve found Facebook to be awful during the pandemic. I still want to keep up with my friends, but opinions expressed there tend towards the extremes of both sides with little rationale for things.
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Iām still working through Osterholmās podcast from Thur, but he mentioned several different concerning Omicron spreading events.
This was one of them. 60th birthday party in Scotland. All double or triple vaxxed. Everyone took lateral flow tests before the party. One of the guests tested positive the next day, and since then 16 of the 18 guests have turned up positive. Some have been identified as Omicron and the rest are still being sequenced.
Thatās super troubling since they were all vaccinated and took the additional precaution of testing before gathering. It doesnāt bode well for holiday gatherings at all. (Iām more concerned about Europe than the US for the next couple of weeks, I think. Iām really hoping we can get through the holidays in the US before Omicron is spreading in large quantities.)
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OMG. We keep making the same mistakes over and over. (This is Cornell.)
after competing in-person exams
Campus vaccinations:
Seriously. Someone just toss the keys the WDW to the roaches already. Weāre done for.
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We had our work virtual cheese and wine last night 
Just because the rules are there doesnāt mean people follow them!
I heard several people on the radio last week talking in reference to āpartygateā and saying that it was all just a storm in a teacup because everyone was doing the same 
I think they probably work if everyone was on board with it. Another scary thing I heard on the radio was Nicola Sturgeon saying that she was ātrusting the common sense of the publicā. That might be one of the most terrifying things Iāve ever heard her say!
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Wicked late. There is no bedtime discipline in my household. Itās shameful.
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The lockdowns came at a time when no one knew how to treat this disease. I was talking to someone about it yesterday and although I understand why it will never happen again, I hate to think of how many people would have died if we were all together, unmasked at that time. Especially since we had really no idea how to treat it.
Masks? Without masks in my schools many, many students will be missing weeks of school,repeatedly. Hey, did anyone notice kids can get Delta? Or is the plan that so many of them will get it if we go without masks and they will just miss the next couple of years of school? The main problem with that plan is that is is pretty hard to do all the testing (since many families seem to know of the ādonāt get them tested if they are sick so they can go to school) when we have in-school cases, and all the contact testing. No masks extends that circle.
Finally, I will say it. Why are masks a political issue? Is it true in every country? I question our bias in the US āwe are Americans, we donāt wear masksā.
Sorry, I am haunted by my dear friends and the conversation regarding aides last night. Viruses really donāt care who they attack.
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