He has a choice?
Up here (Cambridge MA) students on campus are being tested multiple times a week. Mandatory.
Private schools, especially with big endowments, are generally doing a much better job. Many big public schools are, near as I can tell, are floundering. University of Alabama couldn’t close their main college bar strip.
Just a minor nitpick: The CDC stats are about 4 weeks behind. They list total deaths at 164,000, which was approximately the number on Aug 7.
We have our first covid death of someone who was at the Sturgis rally.
Cases in SD jumped in August around a week after the rally started they keep going up exponentially.
And, note that the counties around Rapid City (i.e., the area where the rally was held) are all dark orange or red.
Exactly
I would have to guess that the typical Sturgis participant has accepted a certain risk of death associated with their hobby of motorcycling riding. I think Sturgis usually has about a dozen deaths and 50+ serious injuries. So to them, I would assume they would be willing to accept the risk of catching the virus to go to the rally. Of course, that’s ignoring the fact that they might infect people back home, but I would guess that dying from the virus is just one more risk they accept from going to the rally. If they really cared about being safe, they likely wouldn’t be riding a motorcycle.
I will not be among the first in line.
Yes. Let the red hats go first. 
Well, the timing certainly seems…um…beyond coincidental.
How’d we go from predicting a vaccine available in early 2021 at the soonest to November 1st so fast?
Red hats think it’s a hoax. Why take a vaccine for a hoax?
It doesn’t matter whether or not people get the vaccine. The important thing is that people think the crisis is over and forget the mistakes of a certain former reality TV show star.
Nov. 3 is Election Day. A vaccine in 2021 won’t help Trump. By the time it becomes apparent that it doesn’t work/is worse than the disease, it’s too late. Either Trump is re-elected or the GOP can blame Biden.
…just another update from New Zealand.
On Monday Auckland dropped down to what they’ve called “Level 2.5.” So its essentially Level 2 with heightened restrictions on group gatherings. Face-masks have also been made mandatory on all public transport.
Today there have been only 2 new cases: 1 imported and 1 linked to the existing cluster. There was a “mini-cluster”: a church allegedly holding prayer meetings in defiance of the Level 3 lockdown. So the mini-cluster caused a “mini-spike” in the numbers.
So the source of the outbreak remains an intriguing mystery. They’ve tested everyone who works at the borders with zero positives. They have pretty much ruled out it coming in from the Cool Store. There is a very good chance we may never find out the original source.
So the resurgence strategy appears to have worked. “Go hard, go early.” People remained in their bubble to allow the contact tracers to do their work. 24 days after the start of the outbreak we are very nearly back to where we were before the outbreak, schools and businesses back up and running with some social-distancing mandates. The testing regime, the contact tracing regime, everything scaled up effectively. The labs had to work overnight. Everyone I see is using the Covid App now. Just so proud of everyone for pulling together to keep us all safe.
Daily reports link all cases (that are not imported) to the existing cluster. So it seems that we don’t have “in the wild” transmission.
Contact tracing is working, and it looks like we will have this beat again.
I seem to recall that the target was 150k tests in a one week period.
During that same time I think the number of positives were around 100
For all the missteps that we are hearing about (and there are plenty) it seems that the strategy in place is working, and it is for the best.
When I look towards other places and see positive test rates beyond 10% it totally amazes - especially with what we know about this virus
26,177,603 total cases
867,347 dead
18,442,307 recovered
In the US:
6,290,737 total cases
189,964 dead
3,547,032 recovered
Yesterday’s numbers for comparison:
The US will have more than 190,000 dead from Covid-19 tomorrow.
The Guardian paints a pretty grim picture of the economic landscape there in New Zealand as a result of all this:
Seems like the feeling from the people there is that the country can’t endure a whole league season of matches against the virus? Might have to retire at 2-0?
New Zealand suffers generally from having a small non-agricultural export sector, which works at first world labour costs and is millions of miles from anywhere else. Those make it vulnerable, as those stats on how the other economic crises hit it show well.
However, if it wants to borrow money on the global market to underpin more welfare and recovery support, now its very cheap to do so. Also its arguable that it may have a relative saving in the long-term social impact costs that will hit most other countries over the next few decades - implications of disrupted education and workforce supply for skilled trades, lower long-term health care costs for those who never recover 100%, social dislocation and mistrust in government, loss of family and social cohesion by deaths of the older generation.
…LOL.
Absolutely-fucking-hilarious.
In case you had forgotten: the world is in the middle of a global pandemic. Everything about it is grim. The economic landscape worldwide looks really fucking grim.
New Zealand has an effective social welfare safety net. Which is not a bad thing. All around the world social welfare claims (or the equivalent) are spiking because in case you have forgotten: global pandemic. Some people were always going to lose their jobs. This should come as no surprise to anyone. But the feeling from the people here is near overwhelming support of doing what it takes to keep Covid-19 at bay. “Ensuring a league season of matches against the virus” is better than allowing Covid-19 to devastate communities.