Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

That concentration tells you how bad it is in those states though, as the national average is up 19% in two weeks, and hospitalizations started trending back up at +3%. Deaths are up 20% in Florida, though they were pretty low. WTF is going on in Michigan? With the crazy volume of vaccination going on now, hopefully this reverses quickly.

Don’t know how much I agree with this article but https://www.dmagazine.com/healthcare-business/2021/03/when-texas-en...-increase/

(D Magazine stands for Dallas and is a fairly mainstream source in the DFW area.)

This is anecdotal based on my experience here in Florida. Just because the state ended the mask mandate, it didn't mean that individuals and businesses have complied. We've been all around the Orlando area as far as 1.5 hours away, visited a few breweries, restaurants, Walmart, Target, etc. Every single place we've visited has required a mask when inside and interacting with the staff and for the most part people comply.

I noticed a few people at Publix moving around without a mask, and no one said anything. Considering the amount of teens that work there, that's definitely not cool. I'm assuming the retirees are all vaccinated by now.

Jeff said:

WTF is going on in Michigan?

Anecdotally, I would say restaurants, family/friend gatherings, and in-person schooling, since those have been the major noticeable changes in behavior. Here in Macomb County, one of the hardest hit counties, mask and distancing compliance continues to be very high in places I go (grocery stores, etc.), but restaurants have been exceeding capacity restrictions since February, when dine-in was allowed to resume at 25%. Several local eateries in recent weeks have experienced intermittent closures due to too many infected staff.

We get multiple emails every week informing us of another new case at our daughter's school (our daughter has been remote, but the school keeps everyone in the loop), and multiple schools in our district have recently shuttered in person schooling "temporarily" due to widespread outbreaks.

And our Governor is in a tough situation, since while reintroducing restrictions for at least a few more weeks would be the prudent thing to do, doing so might lead to another attempt on her life. So there's that.

I read that same article and was shocked that Texas was not on the list. From the TX trip I took mid March I was surprised that most everyone at the SF and SW parks were wearing masks, but at Kemah and Galveston Pier, not nearly as much. Spacing was pretty much non-existent though.

I never did write TR's, but the crowds were insane.

I'm trying to figure out what is going on in Michigan myself.

According to the New York Times Today (Apr 7) Michigan has:
-8 of the top 10 cities with the highest daily case rates (population adjusted) over the past two weeks, with the top 6 all being cities in Michigan.
-9 of the top 10 cities where the cases are increasing the fastest (population adjusted)

According to the Mayo Clinic the 7 day running average for positive COVID tests as of Apr 7 in Michigan is over 25%.
When looking at the CDC as of Apr 2, Michigan is the only state with positive COVID test rates over 10%.
The "target" rate for "normal" is under 5%.

0g said:

I'm trying to figure out what is going on in Michigan myself.

Ted Nugent dry humped Kid Rock while Insane Clown Posse cheered and doused them in Faygo?

Update from the kid in Miami.

The U sent out info concerning the 21/22 school year. It reads in part:

"At this time, there are no plans to offer remote learning for the fall; all students should plan to take classes on campus and in person."

So Miami plans on being back to normal. I believe his move-in date is mid-August.

I'm not sure if this is surprising or completely obvious.

List of colleges requiring vaccines for the fall is growing day by day.

Lord Gonchar said:I'm not sure if this is surprising or completely obvious.

I think it depends on which side of the slider you fall under.

This whole time, I thought we were talking about burgers from White Castle.

^^^

It should be obvious. Today and tomorrow anyone on our campus who has not yet been vaccinated has an opportunity to get the J/J shot, and the messaging is not-so-subtle..."here's your chance to get it, so don't complain when we make these mandatory in August".

At the most, I can see there still being some measures in place like masks/distancing, etc...but the bottom line for many, many colleges is this: they simply can't afford one more semester of remote learning. Remote learning = no room and board $$, and that's not sustainable.

The big boys (Ohio State, BGSU, Miami, etc...) in our region can probably take the hit, but many small private colleges simply cannot. My own institution would be able to go about one more year before being put on life support, but there are some near us that are already on life support. Behind the curtain of academia in Ohio, the pandemic could not have come at a worse time. Not that any time would be "good", but this is literally the worst. Long story short, there is an enrollment cliff in Ohio (meaning, less high-school graduates) that is coming in about 4-5 years; it's like staring out a tsunami wave knowing it's going to hit and you're doing your best to prepare your home...and then Covid-19 hits.

Yeah, we've been saying the fall semester should look mostly normal for him (especially being in Florida because....well, Florida), but I don't think I expected that to be the officially released stance already.

Maybe that's behind my mixed reaction? I expected (and welcome) it, but I didn't think we'd be saying it out loud already.

Just in the last week or so at work we've been openly talking about how it's all but assumed in person events and programs will be returning by August/September. Even a month ago that conversation was a "well someday in the future when things are whatever normal is maybe we can kinda sorta think about having some kind of conversation about it". The conversations have quickly turned into "let's plan for virtual and modified events through summer and then have a plan for ramping things back up and beginning to expand services we haven't offered since mid March 2020."

I'm only not surprised by the early official stances because a lot of students are still making final decisions about where to finally go in the fall, and students (and their parents) want the real-deal. In a way, the "vaccine-promise" makes everyone feel safer. If it's the rule, my kid is safe(r). If it's the rule, I as the kid am safe(r).

Who would you pick? Campus A that is still wishy-washy about even more online learning, or Campus B who is saying "normal and you gotta get the shot to be here".

”Vax or gtfo”

I know a lot of people whose kid determined which colleges to apply to for fall 2021 based on how they handled Covid in fall 2020. And families where looking for different things. Some wanted schools that had as many in person classes as possible. Others were looking for schools that went all online. Or who were testing kids 5 times a day (even if not all classes were in person). Some families kept case counts per school and if it was deemed too high for the given family, that school was dropped from the application list.

I expect there will be different views on vaccines as well.

All consistent with the reality that how people have been living their daily lives over the past year+ has been very different and their views of the pandemic shaped accordingly.

I found this interesting because I would have thought that suicides would have gone up, but it appears they went down 6% this last year.

https://apnews.com/article/pandemics-suicide-prevention-coronavirus...c040b2ae81

My vaccine experience with Pfizer - 1st shot sore arm 1st day, 2nd day little body aches, 3rd day headache - then my arm had a golf ball sized bruise at the shot site. 2nd shot 1st day sore arm and little body aches, 2nd day headache, 4th day arm soreness returned but no bruised arm this time - when I asked about the bruised arm during the 2nd shot they thought it might have been caused by needles that may not be as sharp as their regular needles (like they thought the government issued needles are less quality then the regular needles they use) or that I twitched during the 1st shot (I suspect this was more likely).

The University I work for plans on having more in person classes this Fall because of the lower numbers in California, but still will have online only classes options - which is causing advisors/students to ask how they can use our scheduling/planning software to have it pick only online courses (which it is not setup for at the moment) because some students still do not want to return in person yet for Fall.