Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Yep. You can cite hospitalization stats, but the death count has been above 700 / day and is slowly rising again (on the order of half that of cancer). I suspect that just like the above mentioned Florida, Arizona, and Texas reopenings, it will take a while to see the transmission from kids to teachers to teachers' parents etc. and for the death count to rise. Presumably it won't be as bad as the first wave when we had no idea what we were doing but I think it's very premature to say "Look, schools are open and nobody's getting hospitalized."

And right on cue:
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/09/29/916634414/when...u6qip6Bl4I

"The CDC report confirmed what many public health experts have long warned: Infections in young adults lead to infections in older people who are much more likely to be hospitalized and die from COVID-19 than people in their 20s and 30s.

In Southern states over the summer, rising infections among young adults preceded increases in COVID-19 — by four to 15 days — among people over the age of 60."

So the risk is still mostly to the oldest age groups.

Gonch told you that a million miles ago. :)

And isolating low-risk from high-risk people is not a thing.

Which Andy has been saying the whole time.

No, it isn't. But it could have been.

I still think we could reduce contact points enough that with some not-too-hard-to-maintain testing, we could effectively isolate their exposure and, in turn, the risk, while allowing those with little-to-no risk to...blah blah blah. Wonk Wonk Wonk. *muffled trumpet moises*

Oh God, I difted off on myself.

We all know where we stand. Not sure why any of us would bring it back up at this point. I've been finding it more useful to discuss what I'm seeing. We are where we are, like it or not.

There were several approaches we could have tried. We went with the most half-hearted, appeal-to-everyone-and-accomplish-nothing path possible.

Hyphens, for the win!

Honestly, I'm not looking to have the same discussion we had a million times in this thread. I just...I dunno. Old people die from Coronavirus. We get it.

As of September 23rd, there have been 188,470 deaths from COVID according to the CDC. That's a number you can't ignore.

148,737 of them come from the 65 and up group. You can't ignore that number either.

Stay 6 feet away from Grandma and wear a mask.

But no, it couldn't have been, because greater infection rates among the young get more people at all levels sick and dead.

We'd all be better off if people just wore their ****ing masks and stopped looking for fictional loopholes as reasons not to.

Well, then the conversation turns to "acceptable death counts" and...

****, we've had this conversation and quit sucking me back in.

Exactly, wear a mask for now and understand the real world risk - or lack thereof, as the case may be for 85% of the population.

Well, at least for me, this time-loop iteration of the conversation was brought about by this statement from Gary.

Gary Dowdell said:

If asymptomatic spread was a problem, either to other students, teachers, or to the students families then we would naturally see a rise in hospitalizations.

Yeah, I know.

It's so hard to just let it lie there. I get it.

Disney to lay off 28,000 at US theme parks.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/business/story/2020-09-2...heme-parks

Lord Gonchar said:

I still think we could reduce contact points enough that with some not-too-hard-to-maintain testing, we could effectively isolate their exposure and, in turn, the risk, while allowing those with little-to-no risk to...blah blah blah. Wonk Wonk Wonk. *muffled trumpet moises*

All I want for Christmas (and Thanksgiving) is a family-sized, rapid COVID-19 test kit. Otherwise Grandma and Grandpa have to stay home and eat take out.

So the president is infected. I wonder if that encourages anyone to stick to the mitigation protocols who previously felt it was a hoax. I suppose it depends on whether or not he gets sick, or worse.

I take no pleasure in learning he is sick but I also think we all know this was inevitable. Look around the world at the leaders who have downplayed this.

As I've said elsewhere I'm just frustrated and exhausted as a leader who has to keep trying to push back against the ignorance and outright intentional distractions.

I think it's 50/50 that he even has it. To me this is straight out of the Wag The Dog playbook.

I know a lot of people feel that way, but this is too big with too many people involved to pull off. Trump lies a lot, but he's a lousy liar that always gets caught.

It's interesting that this is what it takes to make the markets nervous. But if you've been paying attention, an overweight guy over 70 is not someone who needs to get this disease. The range in outcomes over the next week range from literally nothing happens to the swearing in of Mike Pence.

I hate going to these rabbit holes like this but is this the fuel he uses to postpone the election?

It doesn't matter what he thinks. That date is the law.

Jeff said:

So the president is infected. I wonder if that encourages anyone to stick to the mitigation protocols who previously felt it was a hoax. I suppose it depends on whether or not he gets sick, or worse.

I doubt it changes much. It hasn't even changed much in his inner circle. He continued with business as usual after finding out he was exposed and his daughter, who flew with him on Wednesday and posted mask-less photos standing next to him on social media, went to work like normal today. Sure, she tested negative, but that doesn't mean anything as far as the quarantine recommendations go. There were reports that he was planning to address the nation today. I don't know how they could pull that off with him being symptomatic and still protect those around him.

I'm pretty sure that whatever objectively happens, a wide spectrum of narratives will arise (a) disputing what actually happened and (b) spinning it to reaffirm whatever already held positions. I am not saying there's equivalence between them, obviously many of them will be empirically false, but I predict this is what will happen.

I'm already seeing, "See, he should have been more careful. This is real." and also, "See, even a 70 y.o. overweight guy can power his way through. This is not real."

eightdotthree said:

I hate going to these rabbit holes like this but is this the fuel he uses to postpone the election?

I'll be shocked if the idea doesn't emerge once he's back on Twitter.