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News Coronavirus Pandemic Information and Support Group

Some friends are doing some indoor dining tonight and while we were invited, we had to tell them we weren't ready for it yet. Still feel it's way too risky.

In relation to this though, the Ontario federal government announced that starting next Friday, it would make it mandatory for restauraunts to ask for details such as name, phone number or email address when dining indoors in order to be able to do some contact tracing. Apparently B.C has already started doing this.

https://globalnews.ca/news/7246079/coronavirus-restaurants-contact-tracing/
 
I will never tell people to do things that make them take risks they are not comfortable taking but this article stood out to me in particular, with this quote really highlighting my feelings with what I have read around the epidemiology:
the only way we can reduce the risk to the vulnerable people in the population is, for those of us who are able to acquire herd immunity, to do that. Even if there is a little bit of a risk. I’m 55 years old, there’s some slight risk out there. But I would be willing to take that, just as I do with the flu. There’s a risk I might die of flu, but I’m willing to take that risk, because I know that if I don’t then flu will appear as it did before, it will enter the population of immunologically naive individuals, and then there will be a high risk of infection which will have a disproportionate effect on the vulnerable sector of the population. . . . Flu is clearly a very dangerous virus, but the reason we don’t see more deaths from flu every year is because, through herd immunity, the levels of infection are kept to as low a level as we can get.
Click to expand...
Oxford epidemiologist Sunetra Gupta. Full interview here.
 
8GMGmBL.jpg
 
Kai "the spy" said:
I approve of the sentiment, but that drawing makes no sense.
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It is an old trope used back in the day, most often used in the pics of authors on the back of book jackets or magazine articles, that a "wise man " smokes a pipe vs. the more common man that smokes cigarettes and thus is more thoughtful and full of "insight" to share.

In this case the wise man has added a mask while dispensing his advice. He will of course pull it down when he takes a puff.
 
The people pushing herd immunity as solution strike me as Zap Brannagan.

The virus has a pre-set kill limit. So we're going to throw wave after wave of our own men at the virus until the pre-set kill limit is reached!

We do need to strike a balance where we can sustain it for a year if needed and not send 1/3 of the country into abject poverty and destroy people's mental health. But 'Herd immunity as goal' strikes me as unrealistic and likely to have a death toll over half a million even if we keep the infections mostly to young healthy people.
 
Yesterday a seven-year-old boy in Georgia (the US state, not the country) with no underlying health issues lost his life to the virus. :(

Kor
 
A Georgia High Schooler who posted pics of a hallway packed with non-masked students had her suspension reversed.

Would've been worth a suspension though, to show just how stupid an idea it all is and how trusting children to be any smarter than their parents just won't work.

CPS has pushed in-school classes back to November. I assume they'll be going ahead with whatever virtual classes they had planned. They think sending out thousands of hand sanitizer dispensers and putting hundreds of signs in each school will make the difference.
 
Ryan George is a national treasure. In times such as these, with the news seemingly getting worse every day, we could all use a little (gallows?) humour.... right?

If 2020 Gave Us Zombies Instead of a Pandemic

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Avro Arrow said:
Ryan George is a national treasure. In times such as these, with the news seemingly getting worse every day, we could all use a little (gallows?) humour.... right?

If 2020 Gave Us Zombies Instead of a Pandemic

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:eek:

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Click to expand...
 
Here in Watkins Glen, NY, it's one of the smallest counties in the state. There have been about 20 cases reported so far, no deaths. That has motivated much opening up. However, there is heavy economic reliance on tourism. So, there is a lot of coming and going of people from all over. Not a ton of testing....not that tests are proving to be all that reliable. Nascar cancelled the big race we have here every year. The Vintage Grand Prix was also cancelled. But the state park, lake, wineries, etc, still bring in a lot of tourists. There is also plenty of pass-through from other counties where the cases are higher in number.

The plan for the school system here is to open a few days after Labor Day, as usual, but at about 50% capacity. Two days in physical classrooms and three days telecommuting from home. A rotational basis, using 'cohorts'.

My wife and I don't have any children, but if we did we would not want them physically in school at all. Too much risk. The news about teenagers having Covid parties, in a deliberate attempt to spread the virus, doesn't exactly instill confidence in the safety of schools.
 
no, i won't translate - it says sewer plants can be used to check on corona. if you want the details fish it.

Corona-Überwachung über das Abwasser

11.03 Uhr

Forscher aus Aachen und Frankfurt haben eine Methode zur Überwachung von Corona-Infektionen über das Abwasser entwickelt. Erstmals für Deutschland sei gezeigt worden, dass sich Genmaterial von Sars-CoV-2 mit modernen molekularen Methoden in Kläranlagen nachweisen lasse, teilte die RWTH Aachen mit. Die gemessene Virenfracht einer Anlage erlaube dabei Rückschlüsse auf die Anzahl der mit Covid-19 infizierten Menschen im Einzugsgebiet. "Die Sensitivität ist ausreichend, um als Frühwarnsystem anzuzeigen, ob der Maßnahmenwert von 50 Inzidenzen pro 100.000 Einwohnern überschritten wird", teilte die Hochschule mit.

Die Idee hinter dem Ansatz: Infizierte scheiden zumindest Fragmente des Coronavirus über ihre Fäkalien aus. Abwasser könnte daher Aufschluss über die Zahl der Corona-Fälle in der Bevölkerung geben. Daher wird seit Beginn der Pandemie an entsprechenden Verfahren geforscht. Die Wissenschaftler aus Aachen und Frankfurt am Main wollen ihr Wissen nun für eine "baldige Anwendung" bereitstellen und sich mit den Behörden abstimmen. Eine Bestimmung der Dunkelziffer an Infizierten, die nicht über Labortests erfasst werden, erlaube ihre Methode bislang gleichwohl noch nicht. Sie halten weitere Verbesserungen aber für möglich. Auch andere Forscher arbeiten an einem Corona-Frühwarnsystem, das auf Kläranlagen eingesetzt werden könnte.
der spiegel: rolling coverage on corona
 
Just read an interview with the head of the German engine drivers' union DLG on the problems the train attendants face these days (Link, German language).

Problems are with people not wearing masks, some having Doctor's notes (which often are fake, as you can download those from the internet, but it's hard for the attendant to tell on the spot), and some simply refusing to wear masks.
There's supposed to be added security personell to handle these, and enforce the new minimum fine of € 50,-, but there aren't enough of them, and most of the time the attendants are left alone with the problem.
Also, a lot of those people refusing to wear masks have them and put them on when they see an attendant just to take them off again once the "coast is clear", and the attendants have to deal with those and with the justified complaints of those passengers who don't want to sit around with a passenger who doesn't wear a mask.

Another problem is that the German railway company Die Bahn has not put the wearing of a mask into the list of conditions upon purchase of a ticket. Without that, the attendants don't even have legal standing to enforce the fines or kick passengers without a mask from the train at the next station. The union has been demanding this for months, but Die Bahn has so far refused to do it for whatever reason. Of course, the management is quite comfortably working from home during all this.
 
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