Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

Lord Gonchar said:
DeWine says Ohio can drop masks if we can maintain 50 cases per 100k for two weeks.

I thought this was really aggressive at first but I misunderstood. Ohio hasn't met this metric since the pandemic began.

bigboy said:
Texas is pretty much on the honors system.

Same in PA. I don't think they can actually question why you qualify.

eightdotthree said:
I thought this was really aggressive at first but I misunderstood. Ohio hasn't met this metric since the pandemic began.

The article I linked to said we were probably last there just before the July wave hit.

Maybe? Just barely?

I don't get the rush to drop mask mandates. It's still the easiest thing we can do that's reasonably effective without impacting the economy. I get loosening restrictions on what's allowed to be open and capacity limits, but masks? Wouldn't it be prudent to see if we can sustain the encouraging trends before losing the masks?

I would just like to be able to have a beer without a "meal" again. PA's weirdest restriction...

eightdotthree said:

Maybe? Just barely?

Yeah, it looks like the 3rd week of June was the last time Ohio was there.

We'd have to stay at about 417 daily cases or less for two straight weeks. (or under 5844 new cases in a two week period)

At this rate, my non-expert prediction is that we'll have the masks off in June (assuming everyone keeps doing what they need to in the meantime). There will be a small weird overlap at the end where precautions are removed and people are still being vaccinated, but it will mostly be those hesitating or resisting.

It's a bit more aggressive than I was talking (initially putting the timeframe at end of year and then later putting it at late fall), as it seems to eliminate the "buffer" period I suggested, but assuming vaccines are readily available when we hit that number, I'm generally ok with it. I'll likely continue with a mask until I am vaccinated if I haven't been by that point already.

Then again, we may not hit it until well after we're handing out vaccines like Halloween treats, in which case, it just works itself out.

The point is, Ohio has a goal that isn't just "**** This Crap!" and I still believe we're going to be pleased at how quickly this burns out.

I heard on the radio the other day that some state, I think New Jersey, is listing smoking as a comorbidity.
So a year ago I did the hopeful thing in regard to covid and quit smoking. Now those that weren’t so hopeful are going ahead of non-smokers.
Hm...

Prioritizing smokers for vaccines is CDC guidance. Not sure how many states are doing that though.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/02/03/cdc-prioritiz...276176001/

Also not sure how easy it is to prove. Do they take your word for it or do you need a doctor's note and the doctor needs to somehow establish you are a smoker? Is there a requisite number of packs you needed to smoke over a given period of time that is the threshold for getting a vaccine?

Bakeman31092 said:

I don't get the rush to drop mask mandates. It's still the easiest thing we can do that's reasonably effective without impacting the economy. I get loosening restrictions on what's allowed to be open and capacity limits, but masks? Wouldn't it be prudent to see if we can sustain the encouraging trends before losing the masks?

In the case of Texas, it's complete political pandering. The governor was a darling of the far right and he irritated that demographic with business capacity restrictions and they flat out turned on him when he issued a mask mandate in June. I had no doubt he was going to lift the mask order on Tuesday, but I was surprised he went all in on ending the capacity restrictions. He's up for reelection next year and has a good chance of having a semi-serious primary opponent that emerges from the deep conservative side. He's coasted to victory in both of his general elections, but he's likely to face Beto O'Rourke this time around. He came within 3 points of beating Ted Cruz in 2018 in what could have been the first Democratic victory in a statewide race in 2 decades. Top that with the fact that Beto has stayed as visible as any politician not in office as I've ever seen and Biden 2020 outperforming Hillary 2016 by more than 3 points and there's legitimate worry among Republicans that their honeymoon is waning. Abbott needs the far right to prevent that and that's the method behind his madness.

Lord Gonchar said:
Then again, we may not hit it until well after we're handing out vaccines like Halloween treats, in which case, it just works itself out

Exactly....

I still think the goal posts are going to move again. Ohio in this case will continue to have more than the 50 per 100k over two weeks but because the vaccines prevent serious illness or death and the personal care homes are safer that restrictions will be lifted.

GoBucks89 said:
Prioritizing smokers for vaccines is CDC guidance. Not sure how many states are doing that though.

PA is. If you're overweight and smoke you can get the vaccine. If you're in decent shape and don't smoke go f yourself. Or you can lie about it.

Ohio is doing a lot better than Florida. And when I compare Orange County, FL, to King Count, WA, well, we were definitely better off living near Puget Sound.

Re: exceptions, Florida requires sign-off from a doctor, and the doctors are just going off of the CDC list. BMI 30 or higher qualifies, which I imagine is an enormous portion of the population (see what I did there?). BMI is kind of a stupid metric, because even when I was in good shape and looked and felt great, and weighed 20 pounds less, I was still at 30. It doesn't really account for bone density or muscle mass.

My doctor is pretty well connected, and the way she sees things, in our area we could be at general availability in April. There's a lot of reason for enthusiasm in that sense, but I'm concerned about the people who just won't get the vaccine. Yeah, I get it, too bad for them, but the vaccine trials for children aren't complete yet and there's still a cost to the healthcare system at large that affects hospital bed availability and the larger insurance pools.

As available number of vaccine doses increases and the number of willing unvaccinated arms decreases, I would expect to see states expanding eligibility. Likely significantly as we move forward. Won't be true in all states at the same time. But I would expect they will all get there eventually.

I think it's going to happen pretty quickly too. Like disembarking from a cruise ship. It seems to take forever until you realize you're late getting off and have to rush.

Ohio went to 60+ as of March 4th. I turned 60 in January. I got on the computer at 6:00 AM Thursday and was able to make an appointment for vaccines for myself and my wife within about 20 minutes. Was actually a bit surprised by that. Of course, the appointment is next week, but I'll take it.

DeWine also announced today that Ohio will open up 16 mass vaccination clinics and have 4 mobile clinics. Anyone who is eligible under the current state guidance for vaccination can schedule an appointment for a vaccine through the online registration system, via phone or in prson. More than 1,250 local vaccine providers are in the state. And increased vaccine supply is expected by end of March.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out.
As of yesterday, Ohio has *one* county that has achieved <50/100k: Holmes County. Last weekend I took a road trip that put me in that county, and what I noticed was that mask compliance in Millersburg was the absolute worst I had seen anywhere in Ohio in months. To the extent that a restaurant we ate at had a sign on the door indicating that we would see unmasked people inside and were not entitled to complain about it. I thought it even more interesting that in Sugarcreek (in Tuscarawas County), the same establishment had a sign emphasizing the mask requirement. All of this surprised me until I looked at the statistics and realized that while it was still "orange" on the heat map, Holmes County had the lowest rate of COVID-19 in the entire State, and obviously the locals knew it. Accordingly, Holmes County went "yellow" this week. If DeWine were going county-by-county to remove COVID restrictions, Holmes County would be 'fully open' today.

On Wednesday, I visited my dentist for a routine cleaning (although I presently need to have a repair done...) and one of the things I thought was interesting there was the level of mask discipline I saw among the employees in this medical office (other than in the treatment room)-- noses out, masks down, that kind of thing, in all the non-medical areas. But it makes sense: every employee in that office has been vaccinated.

Regardless of what the Governor decrees, the restrictions are going to atrophy and die as the epidemic withers. I talk about how most people aren't very good at risk management (did somebody just get a Bingo?) but that doesn't mean they're entirely stupid about it, and their tolerance for governmental mandated bullfuvg is wearing unusually thin. The good news is that this will be happening in compliance with people's risk tolerance, which is the moderating influence that will keep everyone from going full-Neanderthal too rapidly.

--Dave Althoff, Jr.

But if they weren't "stupid about it," the pandemic wouldn't have been nearly as bad as it was. American mitigation was an abject failure.

Fully vaccinated people can gather without masks, CDC says

I suspect that's going to influence a lot of rules in public venues as larger percentages of people get vaccinated.

This almost feels like the CDC was so concerned about issuing more restrictive guidance that they went too far in the other direction and threw caution to the wind. I would have preferred guidance more along the line of being OK to gather in groups, but still wear masks even without the distancing.

I guess I am concerned that people will see this guidance and say "YAY, no more masks!"

I do still plan to wear a mask even after my shots are complete, at least until Ohio hits the 50 cases/100K goal when the orders go away.