Covid Clusters/Second Wave
What do you guys think? Is a second lockdown/extreme reductions of travel on its way??
Where I live cases have been doubling each week when school dashboards are updated. The big testing push from the federal government could help squash this a bit but have not heard any strategic plans from many of the states to capitalize on the easy 15 min test availability.
This could be bias from where I'm living at the moment, but America has seemingly just given up on COVID. We have collectively decided that it doesn't matter if hundreds of thousands of people die. I don't see any "iT's A hOaX" nonsense anymore, but I also don't see any urge to shut things down.
I highly doubt there will be another lockdown, especially with how politicized the last half-lockdown was. Hopefully enough people wear masks and don't act like morons in large indoor gatherings until there is a vaccine, but I've all but given up on hoping for Americans to collectively do the right thing.
I think the genie is out of the bottle at this point. All that can be done is wear masks and limit gatherings. NFL stadiums actually have people attending games, lol.
Limit gatherings? They have been encouraged depending on the political reason for the gathering.
What's wrong with going to a football game? The stadiums are like 25% capacity and its outside.
Tbh, people with the highest risk of getting COVID at this point are dumbasses who don't understand what freedom means and refuse to wear masks and social distance (Like that's so difficult?).
Let natural selection play out.
The problem is those people get it, walk into Starbucks (or wherever) and cough all over everything and everyone, thereby endangering everyone else.
I couldn't care less if I get COVID. I'm young and healthy and affluent enough to have access to good healthcare. I have essentially no risk. But as my SO points out all the time, I wouldn't be able to live with myself if I got sick, didn't know, and gave my parents/grandparents/pregnant friends/at risk anyone the disease. It's virulent enough that that is a real risk. So yeah, I agree, let all the ant-maskers get COVID and die - the country and the world will be a better place without people who are both that stupid and that selfish. But that almost requires a bunch of other people to get it who are doing their best to think of the common good.
Somehow, you forgot to mention those huge political gatherings to vandalize monuments and build yet another glorious utopia.
There’s always THAT guy
All these months later and you're still a terrible poster. Glad to see some things never change.
Are you in New York? If so, they will only implement those restrictions in those certain areas/zip codes, not the entire city. Cuomo said this yesterday or on Monday.
So if you are in NY, I hope you live in Manhattan where the positivity rate is less than 0.5%. You won't have to worry about things getting shut down again. If you live in certain areas of BK or Queens, good luck.
Disagree, as someone who lives in Manhattan. If they shut down zip codes in Brooklyn, they will surely do it to Manhattan when the positivity rate undoubtedly increases as we get into flu season. I doubt many people will follow any new restrictions, though. The biggest thing that will suck is if the city orders restaurants to shut down again.
I disagree with the principle of re-shutting down areas in the first place. No one, including officials, is making the comparison to the first shut downs vs. now which they should be. In February / March, we had no idea what this was. No idea how to treat it. No idea how bad it could get. No idea if the hospitals could withstand it. That was the purpose of the shut down, to slow the virus down long enough to start to figure these things out. This was the right thing to do. It is almost a year later, we know significantly more about this virus than we did. We know how to treat it, we have hospitals prepared for it, PPE has been distributed, and most importantly we know the true lethality rate and who is at risk.
On the back of everything we've learned and how prepared we are, I see no reason to shut anything down again once cases start popping back up. Even at the March / April height in NYC, the hospital ship was never used and the field hospitals in central park were never used.
A vaccine will definitely help, but realistically will not be here for maybe another 4-6 months at the earliest. In the meantime, I wish the media would stop scaring the shit out of everyone with the virus. Frankly, I have zero idea when we even switched to measuring this thing via "positivity rate" or when maintaining a < 1.0% positivity rate became a barometer for anything. NY State started opening restaurants up when the positivity rate in Westchester, Long Island, etc. was higher than that! I vividly remember the benchmark, back in March / April, being hospital capacity and absolute number of those admitted to the hospital and deaths. Not sure why anything should be different now, other than to keep things locked down for whatever wild reason they are justifying that with.
Given the nature of this virus - as defined by rate of infectivity and wide range of mild to severe / life-threatening symptoms - I don't think it will ever truly go away and most likely is just a new virus the world needs to live with. It seems like the motto now is "lock everything down until the virus is completely gone". I doubt this is achievable, even with a vaccine.
Unfortunately, I think we need to accept that there are certain at-risk populations out there as with anything.
Very well said
I also live in Manhattan, just really trying to avoid another shutdown like the rest of us. Wishful thinking on my end, but no doubt they would shut down the city if they shut down BK and Queens.
Agree with your entire statement though. Not sure what the justification can be for another city wide lockdown even though people are still scared shitless from March. You're right that this will probably be a virus we'll have to live with, but god damnit, the constant news articles I see on the daily are absolutely insane.
Well, the reason is that elected officials don't want to have the deaths of their constituents weighing on them, either politically (running for future office) or morally (I would think).
And the positivity rate thing is in part because we know more about the virus. That's a proxy for how quickly the situation can get worse. I'm sure I don't need to explain exponential or logarithmic growth to you. If we're keeping the positive testing rate low and consistent, it implies we're not seeing the exact kind of rapid-growth that defines a pandemic. If all of a sudden positive testing goes to 10%, it not only implies a growth in infection in the past few days/weeks, but implies an even greater growth in the near future.
I agree that a return to a full lockdown is unnecessary, especially when you consider who is mainly responsible for the recent spike in NYC (mostly the Hasidic community). It's frankly kind of incredible that schools opening hasn't caused more issues, actually. But I don't think we're heading for another full lockdown.
Not in New York but with Brooklyn having areas of huge antibody positivity during the Spring it concerns me when they’re starting to show signs of an impending big outbreak.
The first wave never ended.
It did in NYC. And in other states where people aren't selfish assholes conditioned to believe that science, fact, and expert opinion are the sure signs of a government conspiracy.
Sure hope not
We just need a vaccine and we need people to take it.
It will help sure, but doubt it will be the end. Immunity lasts only for 3-4 months so won’t be easy.
Source?
Wound be the end immediately but better vaccines will be released in the near future after. It is a big step in the beginning of the end, if that makes sense.
Just move to one of the New England states. Things are going pretty well up north.
Things were going great in a lot of Europe and now its going south.
Well... at least in New England people actually seem to listen to basic science, use common sense, and are respectful of others. Things aren't really politicized.
Also the state governments are smart enough and genuinely care about the people.
Strict lockdowns do absolutely nothing aside from delay the inevitable as being shown in Europe right now.
Just depends how much you value human life.
I’ve been disgusted but not entirely surprised by how selfish a lot if people are during this time. A lot of humanity is just garbage.
Has nothing to do with how much you value human life.... lockdowns were supposed to be a short term solution that prevented the hospitals from being over run. Remember, “flatten the curve.”
We have learned more about how to treat the virus and specifically who is statistically most at risk for fatality. This is really important because we are doing irreparable damage to the economy. Damage that will degrade human life for many low and middle class people going forward.
I take covid seriously, I think it’s important for us to control the controllables. But we cannot do another lockdown. We need to re open the economy through a tranche based system focused on reintroducing those who are statistically least likely for fatality first. If we do this and everyone is responsible by wearing mask, socially distancing when possible, and putting a strong emphasis on protecting those most vulnerable. If we can do this we can get back to a somewhat normal world long before a vaccine ever hits the market.
As much as everyone wants to talk about how poorly DeSantis has done... his deaths per million are markedly lower than states who’s governors are hailed as heroes.
One of my companies runs a decent size manufacturing op in the US and nobody here really wants to wear a mask. We've even had some employees who got COVID including one whose husband had to spend 5 - 6 nights in a hospital but nobody seems overly concerned. They were initially, but it doesn't seem to be an issue for them now.
Personally, I think masking up makes sense as it's 0 effort, cheap, and all upside with 0 downside and it's a good way to prevent hospitals from running into capacity issues. I do it for people like one of my employees whose son has severe cystic fibrosis...basic courtesy. I don't see why people are getting very riled up and emotional about it in the US.
See my comment above and might provide some insight..... not a perfect explanation but I think it definitely helps explain a bit.
No more lockdowns! Mental health issues and suicides are at their highest levels ever and that's still with things somewhat open. Probably the worst thing about these restrictions is that a large percentage of the poorest kids that live in inner cities aren't logging into virtual classes, ensuring that the gap between haves and have-nots will be widening.
I get that there are well-off and well-meaning people on this thread that see "true" lockdowns as the only way to go but its easier to say that when you can work virtually and still collect a paycheck.
What’s funny is I have been saying this since like may /June... that the effects of this are not solely the virus. I cannot tell you how much monkey shit was thrown at me back then. And probably will be continue to be thrown now.
Agreed. This forum is starting is starting to drive me nuts. It comes from a place of absolute privilege to berate other people for being opposed to lockdowns while collecting a paycheck that's more than most people will see in their entire lives.
The thing that really gets at me the most is that I've taken the pandemic seriously this entire time (wore a mask, avoided large gatherings, social distanced from others, etc.) and there are still people like this (https://twitter.com/thomaschattwill/status/1270132542360948736) who will shame people for doing things like going to an open beach but are more than happy to attend these large protests.
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