The thing that struck me most from the story is his reference to Nelson Mandela: You think being in lockdown is bad? Mandela endured 27 years of worse. Suck it up, princess.
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The thing that struck me most from the story is his reference to Nelson Mandela: You think being in lockdown is bad? Mandela endured 27 years of worse. Suck it up, princess.
I've been focused on the engineering controls since this all began. My current project is making permanent barriers to replace the temporary ones we hurriedly made back in March. Part of this is psychological, the installation of permanent barriers to achieve 6 feet between workers on the production lines sends the message that the measures aren't going away when everything opens in the state. My greatest fear is everyone will let their foot off the gas, throw away their masks, and forget all the important lessons of the past few months. This county of 200K has had 175 confirmed cases and 21 confirmed deaths. All of the deaths have been >65 years old, with the majority over 75, most from one care facility.
In other news, the local Labcorp has the anti-body tests for $10. I'm going next week to get mine. We had an awful flu-like illness sweep this town back in early January that resulted in some deaths of elderly folks from pneumonia. I was sick for two weeks with a dry cough that made my chest hurt, fever, and some diarrhea. I'd never had that combo before, and it makes me wonder.
I talked with a doctor friend in NYC this morning who told me he is seeing dramatically fewer Covid patients. But he is seeing others who he advises to go to the ER and they won't because they are afraid they will contract the virus if they do. There will be adverse consequences of this fear of hospitals.
This is turning into a nice little Petri dish. Let's see what testing negative actually means. For example, does testing negative mean that you are in no way contagious. The President seems to view frequent testing as akin to a preventative. But what happens when a person in a busy environment tests negative for 13 days, and then on the 14th day tests positive. What happened immunologically during those 13 days? When did that person actually "have it" and when did they become infectious?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/polit...691_story.html
Unlimited exercise from Wednesday! Up to now I have been sticking rigidly to our government advice to exercise once a day. As a dog owner this has meant on most days a dog walk, because it seemed selfish to go out on the bike and leave the dogs frustrated and confined to home. I now have the possibility of a dog walk and a bike ride and a run all on the same day. I hope this lasts (by which I mean that I hope it is not too much too soon).
Boris Johnson speech: PM unveils 'conditional plan' to reopen society - BBC News
Seems like a good info article, especially regarding outdoor transmission of the virus.
The Risks - Know Them - Avoid Them
Thanks for that, brilliant article.
First, I think it's worth mentioning that this thread is the best (breadth, depth, fact-based) aggregator of Covid-19 info on the web. So thanks, everyone.
Second, something I couldn't help noticing which may or may not have anything to do with the pandemic: We've had so much sunshine this spring in my neck of the woods. It's like the south of Italy, just not as warm. Is the stay at home regime having an effect on weather (rather than climate) at all? All this good weather is a bit surreal.
TRC Offers First Air Test for the Virus that Causes COVID-19 - TRC
"A program of onsite ATP [biological residue] sampling, combined with air sampling and surface swab sampling with rapid turnaround RT-PCR [reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction] analysis, can provide businesses and organizations with an additional layer of assurance that cleaning and disinfection protocols are effective."
We rule, most of the time.
As to your second question, I saw a story somewhere (Boston Globe I think) earlier this week saying that all sorts of research data collection - including environmental data - has dropped precipitously because of the global shutdowns. So we may not ever have good instantaneous data about the effects of humanity staying near home.
My anecdotal data point, btw, would be that it's colder than usual for mid-spring. Plus a good bit of rain. So...
I still think of this as a test run for when shit really hits the fan. I hope we are all learning something.
We are still having significantly stronger frontal systems coming through. People who have lived here a long time keep looking at the sky to the west and shaking their heads. Snow last week also.
None of it is unheard of. Just that the frequency and intensity is up. That's the word on the street here at least, and the local people tend to be weather skeptics. They believe what they see.
However, I am breathing better this spring. But I also am not breathing in exhaust & tire rubber particulate like I would be in the city.
Similar here wrt weather. We walk the dog alot and we comment on the sky more frequently these days. At night we ACTUALLY see stars and have lovely breezes. This might be laughable for you country folks but us city people more often have cloudy skys and no stars. Yep, the air is lovely. If it were not for the plague we could get used to this.
I'm glad you posted this, there is some good back of the napkin analysis included with some of his other blog posts. Keeping in mind that he's only able to see part of the picture, and himself claims no epidemiology expertise, just looking at the curve for my home state (CA), I'm anticipating that key elements of my current lifestyle status will remain pretty much constant for at least another four months as a very optimistic estimate before I feel "safe" to participate e.g., no air travel, no professional US-based conferences, no organized cycling events or group rides, no restaurants and takeout limited to what can be transferred to a safe container and re-heated, no face to face visits with friends/family etc.
http://https://www.erinbromage.com/p...mmer-look-like
It sucks but having some data showing the beginning of a flattening in some states at least helps with managing expectations. The US as a whole is still on an upcurve (when taking NY out of the data which has had a robust Covid response when compared with most states) so it's not yet predictable, those states where the curve is starting to flatten are not likely to follow a neat bell curve because the country on the whole is not on the same page at all. This information informs my my 4-6 month game plan that includes ramped up solo riding and trail runs (I'm a new arrival to East Bay and the hills in my backyard are becoming my playground) following through on a professional self-learning plan, more books and less news/forums/netflix, some scary DIY home improvement projects and pro-bono and volunteer work (got a small non-profit that could use some collaborative performance measures, strategy evaluation or organizational strengthening for the new realities? I'm your guy).
Taking a knee for all the honest intelligent conversations here. I thank you. Don't stop.