Nobody has “no limit,” but one hopes that educated and compassionate folks will see that there is no good alternative but to keep on keeping on. I think I wish you’d be more specific about your apprehensions. But I’m also afraid to know.
I think it’s the possibility of indefiniteness that troubles me the most. Shutting off travel between countries temporarily is one thing. Shutting it off with absolutely no end date is quite another. Same with the capacity of government to support the people that a pandemic inherently inhibits from supporting themselves, and the prospect of what large corporations currently prevented from operating will try to pull if it looks like the government wants them to stay shut down “forever.” Same on the individual level; I think it’s a key factor in what people will tolerate and for how long. I guess I’d describe it as being similar to the reason why some say it’s better to impose a deadline, then extend if necessary, than to shrug and say “whenever there’s a vaccine.” Also because such indefiniteness can easily be abused in my mind, especially by someone like our current president; see Hungary.
But that’s one reason I said that I don’t think the situation will stay exactly like this for TOO long. Every day things happen and we learn more, and the indefiniteness gets a little less… indefinite.
YES, the uncertainty is the worst part. And the fact that we can’t say with any assurance the “everything is going to be okay” with respect to a time frame that’s relevant to this generation. How long til everything’s okay? A year, ten, twenty, more?I
It’s like playing pool on the deck of a ship in rough seas. There are so many things in motion and no sentient locus of control. So much can go wrong. And we’re only six months in. What will it be in 16 months, or 60?
I just thought you might have missed it, ThelmaLou.
And I like this take on things:
I further think that some folks (not here) are a little too blasé about restrictions lasting “however long it takes,” and anyone who objects is just being selfish and should be ignored, the reason being what I said above. Though at this point, I’d prefer that to its polar opposite, which is what’s happening in America now.
Bingo. B.I.N.G.O.
Think about it. Medical, scientist experts have no reason to lie. They have nothing to gain. Trump and his cohorts have a lot to gain by denying and lying. I will listen to the selfless person every time.
Oh, they’re here as well. I was asking whether people would really put up with this forever and I got accused of “volunteering them to die”.
This is what I imagined flatten the curve to be. Either burn through in 2 months with overwhelmed medical facilities and dead bodies in the hallways or stay at the edge for 5-10 months with a lower total fatality rate.
Except its not supposed to go up so fast that you overwhelm the system in a second wave. We really didn’t flatten the curve in many states, btw. I visualize the curve as actually going back down, just taking longer to do it. Many states’ curves did not go very low. Some didn’t even have a curve to begin with. I see all kinds of shapes that don’t look like flat curves.
Getting to where 90% of ICU beds are filled and patients are just rotating in with no decrease in numbers is NOT what we wanted to do with “flattening the curve”.
I saw that it was a video, and (confession) I rarely click into videos. I didn’t realize the link below the video was the link to the study. My bad (and laziness). I passed this on to my hairdresser and she had already read about it. 
I’m going next week and contemplating getting the G.I.Jane haircut…
But this is the kind of story (anecdotal, for sure, but still informative) that says, “MASKS WORK-- IF BOTH PEOPLE WEAR THEM.” To me that is common sense and falls under the heading of Can’t Hurt Might Help. Not everything has to have an article in a professional journal to be credible.
The crazy thing is that Trump and his cohorts have even more to gain by taking this thing seriously, promoting masks, get professionals in to help out the states, and so on, and so forth. They’re just too stupid or stuck inside their news bubble to see it. If they pushed hard for mask wearing, this thing could be under control by election day.
And, this doesn’t have to last years – other countries got this under control. Look at every other wealthy country! And, we don’t need to stay at the edge of overwhelming the hospitals – look what other wealthy countries have done. Look at Italy, which was overwhelmed and managed to get it under control.
We could already be past this thing if the rest of this country took this as seriously as NY and NJ are taking it.
RitterSport, good try at being reasonable. Don’t need no stinkin’ logic here.
In other bad news:
Due to the surge in coronavirus-related deaths and the postponement of many funerals due to social distancing guidelines, hospitals are running out of capacity in their morgues, according to Mario Martinez, assistant director of Metro Health, the local health department. In Bexar County, two refrigerated trailers are already operational, and three more will be set up by the end of the week, Martinez said.
“This is a morbid topic and it’s not one we enjoy talking about but it really does underscore the severity of COVID-19 in our community,” Martinez said.
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The brother of a girlfriend of mine died of COVID on July 5. I just found out about it. He was 84 and contracted it from his daughter, whom he lived with. Her boss insisted that all staff come in for a meeting-- I don’t know where she works or anything about meeting protocols. She got COVID and was posting on FB about the horrible symptoms-- aches, difficulty breathing, fever, etc. (This is second hand, as I’m not on FB). Don’t have details about what precautions they followed at home. Just that dad got it, suffered with it for a couple of weeks, resisted hospitalization, until finally he was taken to hospital and died. AFAIK daughter is still recovering.
Under new Trump data-massaging rules, I worry that his death will be put down to “unknown reasons”
Agree completely. At least there are two of us. Wait, three. My 3 year old granddaughter gets it.
You know, I really wish we could go whole hog on masks all the time in public, no bars or indoor live music, and readily available rapid testing with support for those that need to quarrentine. I kinda think if we could just make THOSE three changes, we might not need the rest, once things calmed down.
Is “Schadenfraude” that thing where somebody gets caught posting a crowdfunding appeal for a COVID 19 victim who doesn’t really have it, and then you laugh when they get prosecuted?
Not heard of that. There was a yahoo who thought it would be funny to tell the airplane staff, halfway to Jamaica, that they had Covid (when it was just starting to make the news). And were surprised when the plane turned round.
Epidemiology isn’t anywhere near that easy. You really do not understand the astounding complexity of this, by a factor of a thousand.
Controlled experiments, huh? Well, you cannot risk a person’s life by exposing them to COVID-19 just to see how it spreads. That is incredibly unethical; the only volunteers you’d get are maniacs, and you can’t do it without someone’s permission. If you could find lots of maniacs you could set up experiments, but what are you controlling for? Can you test it in every possible situation? How does it spread in different termperatures? Different humidities? Outside versus inside, and if outside, what if there’s a breeze? Pollen in the air? Near the ocean? Inside, how large is the room? Is it air conditioned, heated, in the kitchen, in a bedroom? Is it in a home? How many people live there? How old are the subjects? What race? Sex? Existing health conditions?
It normally takes months just to DESIGN these tests, much less carry them out.
White House officials told California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) he would need to personally appeal to President Trump and thank him if he wanted aid in obtaining coronavirus test swabs, according to The New York Times.
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Do you think he’ll be allowed to do it sitting down or will he have to get on his knees? I’m guessing the latter.