Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

wahoo skipper said:

There is a middle ground but I'm not sure we've found it yet.

I think the exact problem is that we tried/are trying to find a middle ground and we're getting the worst of both worlds instead of the best. (For those playing along at home, our national daily case count has, once again, risen from a low of 35k/day in early Sept. back above 50k/day).

I don't think we've tried hard at the middle ground. Instead of moving through the phases cautiously we are throwing caution into the wind. It is no secret that I'm no fan of the President but the initial Reopening Plan that his administration put out was pretty sound. IN short, watch for markers, open into Phase I and then wait to see what happens, watch the markers, open into Phase II and see what happens, etc.

During all of that time...aggressively contact trace. This step; this step right here, is still a failure. My community saw single digit positives for the past few weeks. Three days last week we actually had 0 reported positives. And then...boom...31 cases on one day. Through social media I've heard rumors those cases may have been due to two private schools that may have had outbreaks. When I contacted our local Department of Health official she wasn't aware of the sudden spike...nor of the possible clusters at these schools. If contact tracing is happening I'm seeing no evidence of it.

Has anyone even heard of someone who was hired to be a contact tracer? I haven't.

So, I think the middle ground is there but, once again, a lack of any national leadership has failed to put us in that middle ground or keep us there. It is still a free for all and we saw it as recently as last night in my state with people attending a campaign rally...many of those people not wearing any masks.

Maybe we need to define middle ground here. The ship has certainly sailed where we could hit the virus very hard early on and then squash the minimal outbreaks that surface periodically (see: New Zealand, many Asian countries), which I think would have been the correct solution and not what I would call a middle ground. Instead we kind of said, "We'll do some things to mitigate, but not all" and many people said, "We'll do nothing" and that's how we got where we are. I would say that was a very poor middle ground approach.

Now that the cat is out of the bag, I suppose there is probably some middle ground approach where we don't go back into shelter-in-place (I don't think we could anyway) but we also don't just let everyone go hog wild ala Florida. As always, the keys to success in that middle ground are testing and contact tracing, treatments, and preventative measures like masks and distancing. As you said, we're not doing a very good job at that either (see: Florida).

tl;dr - We tried to find a middle ground too early instead of just hitting the thing hard and now that a well thought out and intentional middle ground approach is appropriate, we still can't seem to do that.

Just wanted to share again. Kid in France text updates that came across just minutes ago:

I'm amazed that the French/other language assistants aren't all dead yet.

The language assistant group chat is like, "Even with curfew, France is so much better than California. Everyone would judge you in California for going to big events or out partying. No one makes you feel guilty here."

One person shared a pic of herself and a random man sharing champagne by the Eiffel Tower with no masks.

A teacher with a mask, pulled down his mask to bisous (the kissing greeting) to a different teacher who just had no mask.

I swear if I end up in a "no one can leave their house for two entire weeks" level lockdown because of these people, I'm going to lose it.

So yeah. Anecdotal, but also just the venting of a kid to her dad with no real agenda.

But since she wears a seatbelt her cautious opinion on Covid has no value.

I thought this was intersting as along the way in this thread a few of us specifically mentioned flying as something we weren't necessarily comfortable with.

Risk of COVID-19 exposure on planes 'virtually nonexistent' when masked, study shows

That's fascinating, and flies in the face of the whole six-foot-social-distancing-while-masked theory.

But is that study peer-reviewed?

American and Southwest are reviewing now but expecation is they will agree with the study.

I'm flying tomorrow. I had some anxiety about it but all of my reading about it has said that when everyone is masked AND the planes are venting and filtering the air supply AND the flight is short.. chances are low that i'll contract it. On top of that Southwest is still underselling their flights to leave the middle seats empty.

Story today on the Today show about a military study that concluded that when everyone on a plane is wearing a mask there is a 99% effectiveness in eliminating the risk of spreading the virus. I like your odds.

The way the air moves, it does make sense. You just have to survive pushing through all of those idiots who board in zone 6 and stand in front of the gate back in the terminal.

The Southwest numbered boarding system lends itself pretty well to social distancing.

Lord Gonchar said:

I thought this was intersting as along the way in this thread a few of us specifically mentioned flying as something we weren't necessarily comfortable with.

Risk of COVID-19 exposure on planes 'virtually nonexistent' when masked, study shows

There have been a number of studies suggesting the airflow in a plane was extremely helpful in reducing risk. There have been documented (likely) transmission events, but no where near what e.g. a bar or restaurant can do (where the ventilation is worse *and* people aren't wearing masks because they are eating/drinking.)

It's increasingly looking like ventilation is right up there in terms of things to think about for risk management. I know all of our buildings (U-M Engineering) have had their HVAC systems set to ensure a minimum outside air exchange rate during occupied hours (nominally 6A-10P, but 24/7 in some). That will end up increasing our heating costs this winter, but even back in August that seemed to fit with what we knew about transmission.

There are a lot of schools without any ventilation system (at least in terms of air circulation/fresh air). Radiators with little air movement in the buildings. No air conditioning because its not necessary with summer vacations/breaks. May not bode well for the next several months when windows will be closed.

That was pretty much all of the dorms I lived in at Ashland University. I don't think it has changed.

Oh we're going to consider ventilation as THE serious factor here now. How do I do that Gonch-back 50 pages ago I said... thing?

Blast the radiators, roll down the window.

Just flew today, 2 flights. Everyone masked and unbelievably courteous.

Even in the airports (CAK / CLT / AUS) I felt pretty comfortable. Just stay away from the lines as best you can. But walking seemed reasonable and I certainly was never around the same person for more than a few seconds. And when sitting everyone spaced apart.

I think the uncrowdedness of the airports make it possible. If they were at normal capacity it would be hard to handle with the seating part.

So we are finding places like planes and amusement parks where masked are mandated aren't a high risk activity or a significant source of outbreaks. All this despite these places being the literal definition of crowded.

It's almost seems mask are effective like the experts say, unlike the facebook memes which people take as facts that say mask are bad for you. If only there was a leader who would encourage a simple thing like mask wearing to save some lives.

Ohio struggling right now with Covid.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/national-tracker-rates-ohio-w...rus-spread

4 record highs in the last week.

GoBucks89 said:

Ohio struggling right now with Covid.

https://abc6onyourside.com/news/local/national-tracker-rates-ohio-w...rus-spread

4 record highs in the last week.

Went for a drive yesterday here in CLE through the Metroparks... Seen a few stops off the side of the road with corn mazes, pumpkins and whatever else, loaded to the brim with families. To the point police were controlling parking at a few spots as there was no parking left. It was a beautiful fall day, and if things were 'normal' I'd completely understand, but I was surprised to see so many people not wearing masks as we drove by, it looked like a complete mess to be honest. I'd say less than 50% of the people in these huge groups of people had masks on.

Mask wearing and all that stuff is good at any grocery store or wherever else we have gone to. But I guess when people are outside, all bets are off! Regardless of how densely populated it may be.