As the husband and ‘Sherpa’ for an Ironman that live at 11,200 feet. My experience is that coming down to say sea level helps a tiny bit. Coming up will screw you over quite a bit though. Like Hospital time.
Living and training at altitude doesn’t seem to matter much IMHO.
That’s because of the slower training pace(not effort) forced by altitude. The muscles and nervous system are accustomed to the slower rhythm and lose efficiency at a faster pace. Hence the “train low, live high”.
I can give up a lot. What I want back is my shiatsu massage. Now, if you are with the librul deep state media and are looking for great ways to spread the virus, you might want to take a look at a 90 min high-pressure massage. But hear me out.
I am someone who grew up chasing bugs in the weeds of Nebraska. I have always believed that this lent me a solid immune system. I very rarely get sick beyond the sniffles from whatever bug is going around, and as of this writing I have a 100% success rate surviving the deadly ones. I am an essential worker and am out in public as it is, though with precautions. We think I already had it, though testing wasn’t possible. I was quarantined, now I’m back.
I was pretty much born to survive something like this, as much as anybody can be. I expect to make a big profit from it in fact. If my massuese doesn’t have it and if I don’t have it, what’s the harm? If I was wrong and I catch it, I will live. It really comes down to my practicioner’s risk profile. It is good therapy for what ails me. Giving up fancy restaurants for pork and beans is fine.
So how’s the air conditioning work there?
We had our highest new death total yesterday. Maybe close to 8,000 total dead tomorrow. There is some good news. Hospitalizations are trending down. But the bottom
line is NJ won’t be opening up just yet. We will have the luxury of seeing what doesn’t work in states that haven’t been hit as hard.
In the words of Vampire Weekend,
I don’t wanna live like this,
but I don’t wanna die
A thought that makes far more sense in the age of covid-19 than it did last year when the song came out.
I don’t normally go many places to begin with. As an unabashed introvert I’ve actually kind of been singularly delighted with staying at home all the time. Have been particularly enjoying the silent interactions from a distance aspect of this thing.
Really the only thing I want to do that I can’t is grocery shop normally. Not that I haven’t been going to the store when needed, and while the store has been well stocked with most things, the bare aisles of pasta, paper products, and cleaning products is disheartening. Having to order cases of tissues from amazon (my wife has a lot of allergies so we go through a lot of tissues, and no, she won’t use a handkerchief) is both expensive and extremely inconvenient.
The only reason people are talking about reopening is a fear (legitimate one, IMO) that the country’s economy will collapse unless there is at least some economic activity. But speaking from a public health angle, I don’t yet see the justification for optimism. It’s true that the growth rate is down from 10-15% to about 3-4% now, which is good. But that is purely a function of social distancing and widespread, unprecedented extreme precautions. That is why Dr Fauci and others are very worried, almost certain, that COVID-19 will come back with a vengeance in late summer or early fall.
Who here wants to be the one fighting for an ICU bed when doctors are not only dealing with COVID-19 but also new strains of influenza?
Not me. But correct me if I am wrong, but this flatten-the-curve plan is in fact a plan to infect everybody until we reach herd immunity, no? The idea is simply to not let it happen all at once, no?
I am not saying to go seeking the virus. It is a disaster that I predict will cause 400k deaths in this country if people don’t do crazy stuff. But most of us basically should plan on and expect to catch it at some point. No?
That’s not so much a “plan” as it is what will happen if we don’t find a vaccine. If a vaccine eludes us, then yes, flattening the curve is the best we can hope for, but “Best” still involves hundreds of thousands, maybe millions of deaths. Not to mention tens or hundreds of millions of people sick, and probably suffering long-term health effects from the disease.
The actual plan should be “avoid infection for as long as you can, in hopes that we’ll find a vaccine first”. We’ll still get infections, and have deaths, because at the end of the day we do need a certain minimum amount of human interaction just to keep everyone fed. But we should be doing what we can to keep those interactions as close to that minimum as we can, for as long as we can, because that gives us more time to find the vaccine, while lowering the number of deaths and infections in the meantime.
Will this hurt? Yes. Will it be worth it? I think so, but I suppose we could debate that. But just giving up after only a month seems less than optimal to me.
We were considering the grocery pickup thing before all of this. We will continue even when everything is over.
For restaurants will continue pickup until the numbers show it’s okay, not the government.
I worked from home about half the time before. It sounds like it will be a long time before the office goes back to normal. Maybe the work from home is permanent, unless there is a need to go in.
Before everything was shut down I needed a haircut. But, the wait was too long and I thought I would come back. Then they closed. So, I needed a haircut already and I have thick hair. And I’m going to let it grow on principle. I had long hair when I was a teenager, why not now?
There are a few businesses I would like very much to support. One of my favorite restaurants is just a couple blocks away and they own the building which is a big deal now They are not cheap and maybe they can survive at 50% capacity. There is an ice cream bar attached with outdoor tables in nice weather. The other one is my barber. My wife gave my beard a trim and I don’t have enough on my head to worry about, but I would sure like to let the barber do it right. Poor woman had cancer a couple years back, claims to be cured (she has a display in her shop that has a boxing glove and the legend “I fought cancer and I won”) and now she faces this. I was going to go to her the week of March 9 and then to Barbados in the 14 and both were canceled.
Right now my supermarktet will pack up my online order and bring ti right to my car, so I can go on like that a long time. As for theaters and the like, I can live without them for a long time. All my concert series have been canceled and I just hope they can start up in the fall. But I am not holding my breath. They are largely subscription and there is no way they can operate at 50% capacity and even that leaves people much closer than 6 feet.
Flattening the curve is to allow the health system to manage the cases that come so that the system doesn’t become overwhelmed. This will give the public health system time to develop a more robust response. This effort aims to find ways to do business while minimizing the spread, and it also allows drug companies to come up with a vaccine or some intermediate anti-viral treatments.
What none of this can do, unfortunately, is encourage people to use the health system before they start coming down with serious life-threatening symptoms. Nor can it encourage people to seek out testing. We might assume anyone would want to be tested but not necessarily - not when people are worried that tests might cost them money they don’t have and if they’re young enough to bullshit themselves into believing COVID won’t hospitalize them. This is something that will plague the US in particular.
The end result, I fear, is that policymakers are just going to end up shrugging and telling people to deal with it – and they’ll die doing their jobs. Or they’ll bring the virus home and kill their family members. Or both.
Is this damn-the-torpedos attitude because you think you won’t get that sick or because you’ve decided if you’re going to die, you might as well go out with nice hair?
We will continue curbside grocery pickups, store entry avoidance, and making our own meals for the foreseeable future i.e. until vaccinated. We are kempt enough; we don’t need others to groom us. We miss browsing for bargains but we would rather survive.
They merely don’t care if they infect anyone, don’t care if others live or die. Sad.
It’s not a covid epidemic, it’s a STUPIDITY epidemic!
My wife and I have no current plans to dine at restaurants. They are reopening on a limited basis May 11. 1/3 capacity, wear masks, no food bars. Employee screening etc.
It doesn’t sound very inviting at all. We can’t see any need to take the health risk. We’ll continue getting food delivery for the rest of the summer.
Barbers and Beauty Salons are reopening. Appointments only. You wait in your car until it’s your turn. Masks,gloves etc. This seems very risky to us. The barber or beautician is in direct contact with people throughout the day. We have no plans to visit these businesses.
A lot depends on the numbers. Let’s see how phase 1 of reopening goes. I hope it doesn’t create a 2nd wave of Coronavirus. We’re going to be very cautious until new cases of the virus drops.
I do fear for the future of many small businesses. A lot of restaurants aren’t going to survive unless they fully embrace food pickup and delivery.
Interesting. I think my 59yo Wife is done with IronMans. I’m the ‘Sherpa’ in that I get to carry all the gear around and generally take care of logistics at races for my Wife.
I’m not involved in the training (thank god). Many have always said that since we live at altitude, and my Wife trained at altitude, that she has an advantage. That may not be the case though.
She would have an advantage if racing at altitude against a sea-level type.
I will visit my orthopedic surgeon, dentist and oral surgeon. Not planning on doing anything else that hasn’t been open all along. Would like to go on vacation this summer but if it’s not feasible, oh well. Bang out some much needed surgeries and let this year wash away.