How long can we wait while flattening the curve?

[Zamboni]

The county I live in which is just 30 miles x 30 miles (48 km x 48 km) has had more cases and more deaths than all of australia.

It's too bad your country is being cautious and forcing mask mandates and not allowing people to work in the office.  We are absolutely swimming in freedom in the USA.  I can go get infected anywhere I want, and can go infect other people anywhere I want, it's great.

Lol, I saw someone write it as "freedumb" on twitter the other day, and that was spot on. U S A! U S A!

Regarding school:
I think both of my children are learning more academically this year in 100% remote learning than they have learned most other years going to school buildings. My daughter, in particular, is doing way way way better as it seemed to me before but it is obvious to me now that there were aspect of school that were traumatizing to her and distracted from her learning. She's happier, calmer, and more confident in her academic work than I have ever seen. My son misses his friends and misses being BMOC . . . but his academic work is going really well. I am EXTREMELY IMPRESSED with what the teachers have managed to do online with very short notice and pretty much no training other than "figure it out." Teachers are amazing people!

I actually like that we are all at home and I get to see my kids a lot more.

Regarding Freedumb:
The reason we are all home is really distressing, and things here have spiraled completely out of control here now because:
1. The rules about masks and social distancing have not been followed by many people, and
2. The rules we do have for what remains open, etc. are much too lax to make a difference given how poorly people are doing with rule #1.

Regarding the elderly:
On a personal note, my Mom is really starting to struggle with memory issues. We've been trying to ease her into the idea of at least having a daily "check-in" visit, or perhaps moving to a retirement community, but COVID just ripped through the care facility closest to her house killing a bunch of people, so we can pretty much forget about that idea now for the rest of her life if she has any say about it. She's totally freaked out and now very isolated. :-( My brother's favorite restaurant also closed permanently because the older lady who owned it died of COVID. Six of the staff at the pub my ex- frequents all have it now . . . no idea how they are even staying open at this point with so few staff who aren't sick. I am happy to see a couple of states just now announcing new strict shut down orders that start next week, and I hope more follow suit. It's going to be an ugly winter at the hospitals.

[mizzourah2006]

For the people who say online learning hasn't been that bad and/or has been better for their child's education I'm curious how old your children are and if both parents have been working full time through the pandemic. I could totally see late HS or middle school with a parent able to dedicate the equivalent of teachers attention excelling through this, just having trouble seeing a 1st through ~6th grader excelling while parents are still putting in 40-60 hours even if they are working from home.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Bloop you are neither a parent nor a teacher... how can you talk with any sense of expertise about the poor students going from 99 to 90th percentile???

How about the students who have gone the other way from 90 to 99?

The articles I have read have talked about students in general suffering from a lack of in-person teaching. No doubt there are outliers both ways. But unless your position is that the lack of in-person teaching has been a net neutral or net positive, then it is irrelevant whether there are students who buck the example.

However, if you are right and, for example, more students have gone from 90% to 99% than vice versa. then that would be great - and it would be a prescription for more "at-home learning". Let it be said that I am agnostic as to whether at-home learning or in-person learning is better for the majority of students. Whichever is better, let that predominate. But my understanding is that the pandemic arrangements have had a net negative effect on achievement.

Perhaps there's the real lesson for all of us to take away. Consistent with the message from some of the other educators and parents above earlier, the changes this year have unearthed some talents that have otherwise been suppressed all these years under traditional schooling methods.

That may well be true, but it's not sufficient to say that "because condition B unearths talents that condition A  buries (and vice versa), everything's okay". Because of course you want to maximise whichever out of condition B or condition A unearths talent more than it does the reverse.

[marty998]

Bloop you are neither a parent nor a teacher... how can you talk with any sense of expertise about the poor students going from 99 to 90th percentile???

How about the students who have gone the other way from 90 to 99?

The articles I have read have talked about students in general suffering from a lack of in-person teaching. No doubt there are outliers both ways. But unless your position is that the lack of in-person teaching has been a net neutral or net positive, then it is irrelevant whether there are students who buck the example.

However, if you are right and, for example, more students have gone from 90% to 99% than vice versa. then that would be great - and it would be a prescription for more "at-home learning". Let it be said that I am agnostic as to whether at-home learning or in-person learning is better for the majority of students. Whichever is better, let that predominate. But my understanding is that the pandemic arrangements have had a net negative effect on achievement.

Perhaps there's the real lesson for all of us to take away. Consistent with the message from some of the other educators and parents above earlier, the changes this year have unearthed some talents that have otherwise been suppressed all these years under traditional schooling methods.

That may well be true, but it's not sufficient to say that "because condition B unearths talents that condition A  buries (and vice versa), everything's okay". Because of course you want to maximise whichever out of condition B or condition A unearths talent more than it does the reverse.

Well, given I am neither parent nor teacher, nor haven’t really been anywhere near a school for almost two decades I’m not really going to comment.

Honestly though, I was a 1%’er at school but I would have thrived with online learning had it been available. I can only imagine what I would have achieved without being bullied for 6 hours a day for 13 years.

If I had kids I wouldn’t really give a stuff about other kids. I’d want what is best for my kid/s. And if that meant sending one to a physical school, and sending another to an ‘online’ school, I’d want the choice, given now it’s been tested and there’s quite a bit of evidence on how it functions.

One size has never fitted all.

[Montecarlo]

Question for those who follow this closely (I do not).  What does the evidence say about how transmission works and what effective countermeasures are?  For instance, I heard last week that ventilation, distancing seem to be big factors, masks medium factors, and sanitizing surfaces low factors in preventing transmission, but that was just one podcast and I don’t trust the source super well.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Masks work well indoors but don't have much effectiveness outdoors. The rationale for their use in non-crowded outdoor situations is unclear.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-renew-calls-for-constant-mask-rules-to-be-eased-in-victoria-20201114-p56emi.html

A lot of Australian experts are saying we should relax rules regarding outdoor use of masks now as we have had no new cases in my state for over two weeks. Currently they are still required any time you leave the house, whether alone or not.

[the_fixer]

Question for those who follow this closely (I do not).  What does the evidence say about how transmission works and what effective countermeasures are?  For instance, I heard last week that ventilation, distancing seem to be big factors, masks medium factors, and sanitizing surfaces low factors in preventing transmission, but that was just one podcast and I don’t trust the source super well.

CDC is a good place to start.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

prevention
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

masks
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html

Daily life stuff
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/going-out.html
- Grocery shopping for example
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/essential-goods-services.html#grocery

Apple news also has an area dedicated to articles on coronavirus that seem decent to me

https://apple.news/AlE8WPVLTTtOpFfkU4Oe1fg


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[charis]

For the people who say online learning hasn't been that bad and/or has been better for their child's education I'm curious how old your children are and if both parents have been working full time through the pandemic. I could totally see late HS or middle school with a parent able to dedicate the equivalent of teachers attention excelling through this, just having trouble seeing a 1st through ~6th grader excelling while parents are still putting in 40-60 hours even if they are working from home.

We have a 5th grader and 2nd grader.  Both parents work full time, one WFH and one reports to an office.  The 5th grader is doing better because of a learning disability that makes it hard to focus in the classroom and the target of bullying that is partially related to this processing issue.  The 2nd grader is definitely struggling a lot more, but has become more independent and computer literate during this time.

[Zette]

Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?

How about until next June, when hopefully a substantial number of people have been vaccinated?

[dandarc]

Re: How long can we wait while flattening the curve?

How about until next June, when hopefully a substantial number of people have been vaccinated?

The correct answer. Seems for many it was "maybe till the end of March 2020, but probably not even that long".

[Montecarlo]

Question for those who follow this closely (I do not).  What does the evidence say about how transmission works and what effective countermeasures are?  For instance, I heard last week that ventilation, distancing seem to be big factors, masks medium factors, and sanitizing surfaces low factors in preventing transmission, but that was just one podcast and I don’t trust the source super well.

CDC is a good place to start.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

prevention
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

masks
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html

Daily life stuff
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/going-out.html
- Grocery shopping for example
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/essential-goods-services.html#grocery

Apple news also has an area dedicated to articles on coronavirus that seem decent to me

https://apple.news/AlE8WPVLTTtOpFfkU4Oe1fg


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One of the reasons I ask because it’s interesting how widespread it is right now in the US, with the exception of really hard hit states early in the pandemic (NY and surrounding states).  I’m curious why that is.  What is different about NY?  Better mitigation measures?  Contact tracing?  More immunity due to earlier cases?

I’m just curious what evidence we’ve obtained over the months.  I heard that almost all splicer spreader cases the infectee was indoors, in a crowded environment, with poor ventilation.  That suggests to me that the lockdown/reopen yo-yo would have been more effective if restaurants/conference rooms/ball rooms were only allowed to reopen after engineering HVAC upgrades and reducing capacity.  But that is speculation and I’m curious what other evidence is out there

[fuzzy math]

At my school district's meeting in Oct they divulged that F grades are up 600%. So I'm thrilled that rich families in western Australia are doing well, but its not matching experiences in other places.

The board quickly blamed all of it on record keeping and a misunderstanding of how the online platforms work for families, but then it was discovered that it was actually representative of how horrible the lack of learning / support is for a huge number of kids locally. To hide the situation here they've made it so grades will not be based off the semester finals if a student does poorly, they will keep their prior grade. F's will have an extra semester to be mediated, and not reported to ruin their GPA. The board has said they expect to only be teaching about 2/3 of a normal year's material.
They brought back students with F's to school for study hall *in the cafeteria, NOT with their actual teacher* and got some grades up. Now kids are sent back home again 3 weeks later due to numbers increasing locally. It galls me that we can bring kids to the cafeteria, with *some* teacher (but not their teacher!!!) monitoring them, still without in person assistance because the mere presence of a child with their teacher is banned.

My district is the only virtual one in a sea of smaller districts that remained open. Now everything's going to shit so the more rural districts will probably close and local kids won't be the only "behind" district. Cue my relief. The superintendent said " we have to ask ourselves 'what's behind? everyone's behind!' " and a bunch of other bullshit stuff. For my autistic high schooler, these 2 (academic) years could be the difference between a life of success or struggle. We simply do not have 2 more years to wait for things to settle out for him.

[the_fixer]

Question for those who follow this closely (I do not).  What does the evidence say about how transmission works and what effective countermeasures are?  For instance, I heard last week that ventilation, distancing seem to be big factors, masks medium factors, and sanitizing surfaces low factors in preventing transmission, but that was just one podcast and I don’t trust the source super well.

CDC is a good place to start.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-nCoV/index.html

prevention
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/prevention.html

masks
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/about-face-coverings.html

Daily life stuff
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/going-out.html
- Grocery shopping for example
https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/essential-goods-services.html#grocery

Apple news also has an area dedicated to articles on coronavirus that seem decent to me

https://apple.news/AlE8WPVLTTtOpFfkU4Oe1fg


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

One of the reasons I ask because it’s interesting how widespread it is right now in the US, with the exception of really hard hit states early in the pandemic (NY and surrounding states).  I’m curious why that is.  What is different about NY?  Better mitigation measures?  Contact tracing?  More immunity due to earlier cases?

I’m just curious what evidence we’ve obtained over the months.  I heard that almost all splicer spreader cases the infectee was indoors, in a crowded environment, with poor ventilation.  That suggests to me that the lockdown/reopen yo-yo would have been more effective if restaurants/conference rooms/ball rooms were only allowed to reopen after engineering HVAC upgrades and reducing capacity.  But that is speculation and I’m curious what other evidence is out there

Sorry, I can not help you with that just trying to share some links.

Not an expert just a guy trying to make my way through this mess.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[OtherJen]

At my school district's meeting in Oct they divulged that F grades are up 600%. So I'm thrilled that rich families in western Australia are doing well, but its not matching experiences in other places.

The board quickly blamed all of it on record keeping and a misunderstanding of how the online platforms work for families, but then it was discovered that it was actually representative of how horrible the lack of learning / support is for a huge number of kids locally. To hide the situation here they've made it so grades will not be based off the semester finals if a student does poorly, they will keep their prior grade. F's will have an extra semester to be mediated, and not reported to ruin their GPA. The board has said they expect to only be teaching about 2/3 of a normal year's material.
They brought back students with F's to school for study hall *in the cafeteria, NOT with their actual teacher* and got some grades up. Now kids are sent back home again 3 weeks later due to numbers increasing locally. It galls me that we can bring kids to the cafeteria, with *some* teacher (but not their teacher!!!) monitoring them, still without in person assistance because the mere presence of a child with their teacher is banned.

My district is the only virtual one in a sea of smaller districts that remained open. Now everything's going to shit so the more rural districts will probably close and local kids won't be the only "behind" district. Cue my relief. The superintendent said " we have to ask ourselves 'what's behind? everyone's behind!' " and a bunch of other bullshit stuff. For my autistic high schooler, these 2 (academic) years could be the difference between a life of success or struggle. We simply do not have 2 more years to wait for things to settle out for him.

Here in Michigan, schools are closing because too many staff members are either sick or have been directly exposed, and they can’t get enough substitutes to cover a minimum level of staffing. In fact, the high school where my SIL works will be closed next week, for the second time in a month, because of staffing issues. In my area, entire districts are closing. The district where I live remains open, but they’re literally advertising for substitute teachers on signboards outside of the schools (I’ve never seen that before, and I’ve lived here for almost 2 decades).

There’s really no good answer right now.

[fuzzy math]

At my school district's meeting in Oct they divulged that F grades are up 600%. So I'm thrilled that rich families in western Australia are doing well, but its not matching experiences in other places.

The board quickly blamed all of it on record keeping and a misunderstanding of how the online platforms work for families, but then it was discovered that it was actually representative of how horrible the lack of learning / support is for a huge number of kids locally. To hide the situation here they've made it so grades will not be based off the semester finals if a student does poorly, they will keep their prior grade. F's will have an extra semester to be mediated, and not reported to ruin their GPA. The board has said they expect to only be teaching about 2/3 of a normal year's material.
They brought back students with F's to school for study hall *in the cafeteria, NOT with their actual teacher* and got some grades up. Now kids are sent back home again 3 weeks later due to numbers increasing locally. It galls me that we can bring kids to the cafeteria, with *some* teacher (but not their teacher!!!) monitoring them, still without in person assistance because the mere presence of a child with their teacher is banned.

My district is the only virtual one in a sea of smaller districts that remained open. Now everything's going to shit so the more rural districts will probably close and local kids won't be the only "behind" district. Cue my relief. The superintendent said " we have to ask ourselves 'what's behind? everyone's behind!' " and a bunch of other bullshit stuff. For my autistic high schooler, these 2 (academic) years could be the difference between a life of success or struggle. We simply do not have 2 more years to wait for things to settle out for him.

Here in Michigan, schools are closing because too many staff members are either sick or have been directly exposed, and they can’t get enough substitutes to cover a minimum level of staffing. In fact, the high school where my SIL works will be closed next week, for the second time in a month, because of staffing issues. In my area, entire districts are closing. The district where I live remains open, but they’re literally advertising for substitute teachers on signboards outside of the schools (I’ve never seen that before, and I’ve lived here for almost 2 decades).

There’s really no good answer right now.

It’s the same thing here. Other districts have deemed their teachers essential workers, which means they don’t have to quarantine if listed as a close contact. It’s the same policy we use at my work. The governor here made that proclamation state wide and my district promptly said “we’re not going to follow that”. The local politics here vs the state govt are obviously dissimilar.


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[Gin1984]

Masks work well indoors but don't have much effectiveness outdoors. The rationale for their use in non-crowded outdoor situations is unclear.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-renew-calls-for-constant-mask-rules-to-be-eased-in-victoria-20201114-p56emi.html

A lot of Australian experts are saying we should relax rules regarding outdoor use of masks now as we have had no new cases in my state for over two weeks. Currently they are still required any time you leave the house, whether alone or not.

That article says someone else says masks are not needed outdoors with no actual evidence.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Masks work well indoors but don't have much effectiveness outdoors. The rationale for their use in non-crowded outdoor situations is unclear.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-renew-calls-for-constant-mask-rules-to-be-eased-in-victoria-20201114-p56emi.html

A lot of Australian experts are saying we should relax rules regarding outdoor use of masks now as we have had no new cases in my state for over two weeks. Currently they are still required any time you leave the house, whether alone or not.

That article says someone else says masks are not needed outdoors with no actual evidence.

The article quotes several experts in the field. Is that "no actual evidence"?

[Gin1984]

Masks work well indoors but don't have much effectiveness outdoors. The rationale for their use in non-crowded outdoor situations is unclear.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/victoria/experts-renew-calls-for-constant-mask-rules-to-be-eased-in-victoria-20201114-p56emi.html

A lot of Australian experts are saying we should relax rules regarding outdoor use of masks now as we have had no new cases in my state for over two weeks. Currently they are still required any time you leave the house, whether alone or not.

That article says someone else says masks are not needed outdoors with no actual evidence.

The article quotes several experts in the field. Is that "no actual evidence"?

Again, quotes like "On Saturday Melbourne University associate professor of public health Nathan Grills said masks were very effective but the rules should be relaxed as soon as possible." are opinions not evidence.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Putting aside the self-evident lack of need for a mask when working outside on a job site alone or bushwalking alone (masks still required to be worn if you are outside - at the very least, a modification should be made so that you only have to carry a mask, and wear it only when another person comes within range), there are many further views, and also scientific evidence discussed, in this Guardian Australia article about the efficacy of mask wearing in outdoor situations generally:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/15/face-value-are-masks-still-needed-to-combat-coronavirus-in-nsw-and-victoria

[habanero]

Our CDC (in Norway to make that clear) is quite lukewarm to face masks but the politicians decided otherwise. So now the rules are masks in public transport, taxis and indoors where a distance of 2 meters cannot be kept, random close encounters (like passing another person does not count). I'd say about 70-80% wear masks in grocery stores now, even though you don't have to per the rules - they limit number of people allowed in at the same time so there is plenty of space. Quite a few also wear face masks outdoors now, a practice I find very odd tbh and there is no recommendation or requirement to do so nor was there even a discussion about it afaik.

[GuitarStv]

Our CDC is quite lukewarm to face masks but the politicians decided otherwise. So now the rules are masks in public transport, taxis and indoors where a distance of 2 meters cannot be kept, random close encounters (like passing another person does not count). I'd say about 70-80% wear masks in grocery stores now, even though you don't have to per the rules - they limit number of people allowed in at the same time so there is plenty of space. Quite a few also wear face masks outdoors now, a practice I find very odd tbh and there is no recommendation or requirement to do so nor was there even a discussion about it afaik.

What the heck are you talking about?  The CDC is very clear on their directives regarding wearing masks.  They have a whole web page indicating how important it is in preventing spread and transmission of covid.

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/diy-cloth-face-coverings.html

[habanero]

What the heck are you talking about?  The CDC is very clear on their directives regarding wearing masks.  They have a whole web page indicating how important it is in preventing spread and transmission of covid.

Our CDC here (Norway), not the US one. Masks is a new thing here in the general public, the first wave in march/april was dealth with without hardly a single person wearing masks in public. They did wear in health facilities, elderly care and such, but in shops etc almost noone.

It's not the effect of a face maks per se, but they worry more about the false sense of security it can provide so people are more lax with other measures we know work, such as keeping distance. Based on my anecdotal observations in shops etc I think they have a valid point.

[GuitarStv]

What the heck are you talking about?  The CDC is very clear on their directives regarding wearing masks.  They have a whole web page indicating how important it is in preventing spread and transmission of covid.

Our CDC here (Norway), not the US one. Masks is a new thing here in the general public, the first wave in march/april was dealth with without hardly a single person wearing masks in public. They did wear in health facilities, elderly care and such, but in shops etc almost noone.

It's not the effect of a face maks per se, but they worry more about the false sense of security it can provide so people are more lax with other measures we know work, such as keeping distance. Based on my anecdotal observations in shops etc I think they have a valid point.

So the concern is not that masks don't work.  . . it's that people are too stupid to understand how they work?

[habanero]

So the concern is not that masks don't work.  . . it's that people are too stupid to understand how they work?

That's one way to put it, yes. They have to take into account what people actually do and behave as that is what matters, not how people should behave.

For me the whole obsession with masks on this forum and other places has been a bit weird given what happened over here in March/April and during the summer months. Covid almost completely went away with social distancin etc, there was no community spread or breakouts until after the summer holidays. And all this was achieved with almost noone wearing a face mask. Bars and restaurants reopened in late may and if you landed in Oslo, the capital, you wold be hard pressed to see any signs there was a pandemic going on apart from the hand sanitizers everywhere. Seeing someone with a face mask was a real oddity. We had this thing at work about who could spot the first non-asian person with a face mask in the public and it took several days until someone reported a spotting.

So at least it's a data point for that mask wearing is not necessary to get infections down to almost zero and keeping them there for a long time.

The Norwegian CDC has however stated since the early stages that in a environment with mass spreading in the public, mask wearing might be an item in the toolbox, but not the main one and not the most important one , that still is keeping distance and good hand hygiene. 

[the_fixer]

So the concern is not that masks don't work.  . . it's that people are too stupid to understand how they work?

That's one way to put it, yes. They have to take into account what people actually do and behave as that is what matters, not how people should behave.

For me the whole obsession with masks on this forum and other places has been a bit weird given what happened over here in March/April and during the summer months. Covid almost completely went away with social distancin etc, there was no community spread or breakouts until after the summer holidays. And all this was achieved with almost noone wearing a face mask. Bars and restaurants reopened in late may and if you landed in Oslo, the capital, you wold be hard pressed to see any signs there was a pandemic going on apart from the hand sanitizers everywhere. Seeing someone with a face mask was a real oddity. We had this thing at work about who could spot the first non-asian person with a face mask in the public and it took several days until someone reported a spotting.

So at least it's a data point for that mask wearing is not necessary to get infections down to almost zero and keeping them there for a long time.

The Norwegian CDC has however stated since the early stages that in a environment with mass spreading in the public, mask wearing might be an item in the toolbox, but not the main one and not the most important one , that still is keeping distance and good hand hygiene.

I would guess a large percentage of people from this site are US based and you would have to compare the responses and the realistic measures that can be taken in each place to understand the differences.

In the US the response has been very different than where you live, we are a huge country made up of many different states and territories with each taking a different strategy and no coordination country wide on measures.

Additionally people would not stand for closing borders between states, limiting interstate travel and there has been a big push to keep everything open as much as possible.

Basically the way our country is setup would not tolerate / allow for the style of lockdowns other countries have seen and the health experts are looking at masks as a way to help mitigate the inability to use other methods that would not be allowed here.

——

Edit to add you would probably have to factor in that mask wearing VS not wearing a mask has been turned into a political issue here in the US and as such you are going to hear more talk about it.


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[Montecarlo]

@habanero i’m pretty sure it’s been found that hand washing/sanitizing is very limited effectiveness in preventing COVID spread (but a good public health measure generically!).  Our CDC says that hands/hard surfaces isn’t thought to be a main way COVID spreads.

[Montecarlo]

I still don’t understand the US response of shutting down international travel while letting COVID spread unchecked within the borders... maybe we’re trying to take one for the team?

[Abe]

Masks have been shown in multiple studies to reduce droplet transmission. There are whole states in the US that are nearly as densely populated than Norway’s most densely populated cities (correction: Oslo is more densely populated than the most dense US state, but not NYC with a population about 15x). There are other areas that are much less populated. These areas also suffer from lack of adequate medical care. Masks are several hundred times cheaper than a hospital admission, so any cost benefit analysis will show that they are on average beneficial in densely populated areas. However, there are probably some areas where the risk of covid was so low that it didn’t matter earlier. However, due to inter-state travel, that is no longer the case and transmission rates are very high even in rural areas. Rather than shutting down these peoples’ entire lifeline, masks seek to be an adequate compromise if people used them. It’s very simple and not an obsession.

Now that the epidemic is firing on all cylinders in the US, simplistic plans will not work. However, ignoring it will also not work. So there has to be some planning on some level specific to a region’s density and risk factors. Unfortunately that’s not always the case.

[Shane]

Putting aside the self-evident lack of need for a mask when working outside on a job site alone or bushwalking alone (masks still required to be worn if you are outside - at the very least, a modification should be made so that you only have to carry a mask, and wear it only when another person comes within range), there are many further views, and also scientific evidence discussed, in this Guardian Australia article about the efficacy of mask wearing in outdoor situations generally:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/15/face-value-are-masks-still-needed-to-combat-coronavirus-in-nsw-and-victoria

Bloop, in Australia are police actually physically enforcing mask mandates on people "bushwalking alone" or "working outside on a jobsite"?

A few months back, our governor issued a mask mandate stating, "Pennsylvania's mask mandate specifically requires people wear a face covering when outdoors and unable to consistently maintain a distance of 6 feet from people who are not members of the same household. It also applies to indoor locations where members of the public are generally permitted."

My family and I have been mostly doing as you suggest, carrying masks around with us in our pockets. Just before we arrive at the farmers market or some business we are planning on entering, we put our masks on. afaik, that's totally fine here. If I'm walking outside with my wife and we see a group of strangers coming towards us on the sidewalk, we just cross the street and keep going. Seems to me like we're following the spirit of our state's mask mandate, while maybe not necessarily always adhering strictly to the letter of the law, e.g., we may sometimes pass other maskless people on the sidewalk in places where it's not easy to cross the street when we're only 4' or 5' apart, instead of 6', but here there aren't cops lurking around waiting to cite people for technical infractions like that.

[former player]

I still don’t understand the US response of shutting down international travel while letting COVID spread unchecked within the borders... maybe we’re trying to take one for the team?

Perhaps Trump is trying to hide that many other countries have shut out travellers from the USA?  Including Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, I believe.

[habanero]

Im not an any-masker if anyone should have that impression, I do as told by our powers that be so I follow all regulations and guidelines, at least to the best of my ability, which is pretty easy since I now mostly WFH and go grocery shopping once a week and that's it pretty much, the rest of my life is in non-crowded outdoor areas.

As for Oslo the population density you see on wikipedia or elsewhere is quite misleading as over 2/3 of the city's official area is forest with zero people living there. Central Oslo has > 10.000 persons / square kilometer so fairly dense, but far less dense than say Manhattan with >30.000 / km2) so there should be plenty room for Covid-19 to spread in Oslo as well and it sure did in march before we shut down. Oslo would be the 20th biggest city in the US by official population numbers, and it is also part of a greater urban area like any capital. And Oslo also has the usual risk factors such as an active public transport system and a quite large immigrant population - where most cases have been as pretty much everywhere in Europe.

And society, also in Oslo, has been kept mostly open for months with people going to bars and restaurant. Gyms and cinemas have been open with reduced capacity and more hygiene measures so while cities are (much) smaller and  less dense that the major US urban centers, on the other hand people have been leading pretty normal lives including going out and meeting folks - all without wearing masks. Schools have been open since late late april apart from the summer holidays. The strategy worked perfectly fine until now when cases has been rising rapidly, but some new measures (among those more mask-wearing) has been put in place and it seems to start falling again now or at least flattening out, but bit too early to tell.

We have an approach bit like the Australian one (as I understand it at least), but quite a bit less restrictive. Some local transmission and new cases with unknow origin has been accepted and you have been free to travel wherever you want. As long as the serious case load (i.e. hospitalizations) has been very low and infections don't climb too much the situation has been considered under control and there has been no interest in or will to try and get local transmissions to zero and keeping them there as I understand the Aussie goal is, but they have been very low until quite recently.  Now they aren't that low anymore and we shall see what winter brings. Now the law of the land is max 10 (some places 5) in private households and in the larger city nightlife etc is effectively mostly shut down as they are not allowed to serve alcohol. So it remains to be seen if this, in addition to more mask-wearing does the trick one more time. It worked like a charm and beyond anyone's expectations in march/april, but then schools also closed for almost 2 months.

I think the US problem in containing the virus is much deeper than people refusing to wear masks in public areas. Many European countries with lots of mask-wearing aren't doing great either for that matter. So it's not a magic bullet. But yes, I agree it's a cheap and simple way to help containment if used correctly as long as it doesn't make people easier on general distancing.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Putting aside the self-evident lack of need for a mask when working outside on a job site alone or bushwalking alone (masks still required to be worn if you are outside - at the very least, a modification should be made so that you only have to carry a mask, and wear it only when another person comes within range), there are many further views, and also scientific evidence discussed, in this Guardian Australia article about the efficacy of mask wearing in outdoor situations generally:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2020/nov/15/face-value-are-masks-still-needed-to-combat-coronavirus-in-nsw-and-victoria

Bloop, in Australia are police actually physically enforcing mask mandates on people "bushwalking alone" or "working outside on a jobsite"?

A few months back, our governor issued a mask mandate stating, "Pennsylvania's mask mandate specifically requires people wear a face covering when outdoors and unable to consistently maintain a distance of 6 feet from people who are not members of the same household. It also applies to indoor locations where members of the public are generally permitted."

My family and I have been mostly doing as you suggest, carrying masks around with us in our pockets. Just before we arrive at the farmers market or some business we are planning on entering, we put our masks on. afaik, that's totally fine here. If I'm walking outside with my wife and we see a group of strangers coming towards us on the sidewalk, we just cross the street and keep going. Seems to me like we're following the spirit of our state's mask mandate, while maybe not necessarily always adhering strictly to the letter of the law, e.g., we may sometimes pass other maskless people on the sidewalk in places where it's not easy to cross the street when we're only 4' or 5' apart, instead of 6', but here there aren't cops lurking around waiting to cite people for technical infractions like that.

I don't think police ever fined people for small breaches, actually, like not wearing a mask while on a bushwalking path or at the beach - though that remains illegal. However, police were fining people for not wearing masks in public streets. Arguably this was appropriate when we had hundreds of cases per day. It's no longer appropriate now and I don't think police are doing it any more, but the law still stands, so we're still required to wear masks everywhere though I suppose in the absence of enforcement you're not physically compelled to do it any more.

[Channel-Z]

Recent story in my area on the educational slide:

https://fox4kc.com/news/the-covid-slide-as-virtual-learning-continues-local-parents-worry-kids-will-fall-behind/

[deborah]

The “Australian” response is state based, not federal as the previous posters have postulated. Borders between states and territories have been closed to various extents - between fully closed to fully open.

Until recently, most of our covid19 cases were from outside. International airline arrivals have mandatory quarantine. They arrive in approximately one location per state. The Victorian quarantine of covid19 escaped, and Victoria imposed the restrictions that have been mentioned here by bloop and others. No other state has imposed mandatory masking. As I understand it, just about everyone is supposed to be masked whenever they leave their home (since I plan to visit there soon, I’m following the restrictions). As well, international arrivals were stopped in Victoria, until they stopped the spread. They’ve now gone 15 days without any new cases.

On the other hand, where I live has no masks, and has had no cases of community transmission for probably more than 200 days - an international traveler arrived with it 34 days ago, and another arrived 168 days ago. Where I live has limitations - social distancing, you’re only allowed to stay half an hour at the library...


My understanding is that at first, in many places, including Australia, mask wearing was discouraged for several reasons - masks were in very short supply and they were needed by front line health workers, and there was little evidence from other infections that masks would provide much protection. We now have a better mask supply, many studies have shown to supply better protection from covid19 than was originally postulated, and other protection mechanisms (including washing surfaces) provide less. This has meant that masks have become a more important implement in our anti-covid19 arsenal.

[OtherJen]

Governor Whitmer's office in Michigan has announced a press conference for 6 PM tonight. I'm not sure what she can do, since the GOP legislature has neutered her ability to implement a state of emergency or executive orders. That might be for the best for her personally, as there's already been one attempt on her life this year and several armed rallies at the state capitol.

At this point it seems limited to "wear your masks and wash your hands," since everything is open again and school districts are left to their own devices. Many of the red parts of the state have maxed out their ICU capacity, and the residents still whine about the mask mandate or crowd limits set by the dept. of health because they are giant toddlers.

[mathlete]

We had a lot of people talk about how we were approaching herd immunity in the US a few months ago. At this point we will be lucky to get out of 2020 at 300K deaths. We’re once again stressing the nation’s healthcare capacity.

What is the current take from the herd immunity crowd right now?

[deborah]

There was an interesting article in the Economist about herd immunity. They were talking about the resurgence of covid19 in northern Italy. There was a map of the initial wave and how it’s hitting them now. Some areas where they estimate that 24% of the population initially got it aren’t faring as badly as other areas now.

[habanero]

There was an interesting article in the Economist about herd immunity. They were talking about the resurgence of covid19 in northern Italy. There was a map of the initial wave and how it’s hitting them now. Some areas where they estimate that 24% of the population initially got it aren’t faring as badly as other areas now.

Stockholm in Sweden is having its second wave now and does not look to have much help from its previous round so far. The antibody testing done earlier this year indicated that maybe 10% of the population was infected, but various modellers estimated the numbers as high as 30% based on their assumptions. These mathematicians have become awfully quiet for some reason. There is one place in Austria, Ischgl, a small ski town which was one of the early epicenters from which tourists took the virus across Europe. They tested almost everyone in the village for antibodies (quite easy as only abut 1700 people live there) and they intended to use that village as a case to see how it progressed, how long they had antibodies etc, but I haven't really heard anything about it since, but I don't really follow Austrian news. They found that 42% of the residents had been infected. That would be an interesting case to see what happends, but not heard anything and it's a very small place as well.

[RetiredAt63]

I still don’t understand the US response of shutting down international travel while letting COVID spread unchecked within the borders... maybe we’re trying to take one for the team?

Perhaps Trump is trying to hide that many other countries have shut out travellers from the USA?  Including Canada, the EU, the UK, Australia and New Zealand, I believe.

Canada and the US still have essential travel across the border.  We have 14 day quarantine for people arriving to stay.
 Canada also has a travel advisory posted for just about everywhere.  I think Australia and New Zealand are doing the same as Canada, only essential travel, and quarantine.

[Plina]

The swedish equivalent of CDC is apparently investigating 150 cases were people have been infected a second time. One of our national newspapers had a doctor telling of how he got it the second time. So, if you had it once you can’t live normally after that as there is a risk for a repeat performance albeit probably more mild. He had infected his wife this second time.

There has also been articles of it being airborne as they have found it in the ventilationssystem of one of the hospitals far away from were the covid patients.

[fuzzy math]

We had a lot of people talk about how we were approaching herd immunity in the US a few months ago. At this point we will be lucky to get out of 2020 at 300K deaths. We’re once again stressing the nation’s healthcare capacity.

What is the current take from the herd immunity crowd right now?

My take remains that we still have only the faintest idea how many infections we've had, which in turn changes the IFR / CFR significantly. I've read varying theories on T cell and other immunities lowering the threshold from 70% to 20%. If we are close to herd immunity, great. If we're not, this winter is going to suck. My local hospitals are all full. Its a bad situation. I'm not a psychic, so I don't know, nor does anyone else. Being unable to actually change the future, or other people's actions I just hope we are close.

https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-archive-united-nations-54a3a5869c9ae4ee623497691e796083

[OtherJen]

Here's the numbers from Nov. 14 (source: NY Times). If we keep going at this rate we'll have another 56K deaths by the end of 2020. This is a 9/11 death toll every 2.5 days.

[A440]

The Mayo Clinic estimates we need 70% of people to be immune to have herd immunity.   That's a guesstimate, and the hard part is that we don't know how long people will be immune. 

[Michael in ABQ]

There was an interesting article in the Economist about herd immunity. They were talking about the resurgence of covid19 in northern Italy. There was a map of the initial wave and how it’s hitting them now. Some areas where they estimate that 24% of the population initially got it aren’t faring as badly as other areas now.

Is that in terms of cases or deaths? If it's the latter how much of that is due to the fact that many of the vulnerable elderly folks with comorbidities have already died?

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Interesting that here in South Australia, a state which previously had a long streak of no cases, yesterday there were 3 cases and today that cluster has spread to 17 cases. It's being reported that 15 of those 17 were linked to "one large family unit". The case originated from a quarantine hotel worker who tested positive.

I think there's a danger in having a quarantine hotel worker go home to a family unit of 15. That seems to me to be inherently risky.

The second wave here in Victoria was also sparked by 5 infected quarantine workers - they were literally responsible for the entire second wave.

Perhaps there should be extra restrictions on large families, i.e.:
- High risk workers (nurses, quarantine hotel workers) who have large families are required to either quarantine themselves in hotel - with extra pay - or are required to wear masks even indoors at home
- and/or High risk workers are tested a few times a week regardless of whether they are symptomatic (Victoria is now doing this asymptomatic testing, whereas it wasn't before)
- and/or household workers of such high risk workers are required to not associate indoors with other households unless the high risk worker has had a recent negative test

etc

It seems large families all living under the same roof are one of the prime ways of forming super spreading events but not a lot has been done to try to prevent these events happening in the first place. By contrast, we shut down sole trader businesses and closed hiking trails etc etc and I feel like those measures impact more people and have a less objective ability to diminish the actual risk of an outbreak.

[Bloop Bloop Reloaded]

Here's a really interesting article I read about why the case fatality rate in most countries' second wave has been lower than in the first wave.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/is-the-coronavirus-getting-less-deadly-or-is-treatment-getting-better-20201110-p56de7.html

The three main suggestions / possibilities are:

1. The harvest effect - the first wave catches more of the vulnerable population, leading to higher death rates

2. Evolution of the virus - the more transmissible G strain now predominates, but it's not clear whether this strain might be milder

3. Better treatment

The fourth hypothesis might be that it takes longer during the second wave for patients to die, and therefore the spike in deaths might not have happened yet. But then the longer duration, if that is the case (and I haven't looked it up), might be explained by any of the 3 preceding factors.

[alsoknownasDean]

Here's a really interesting article I read about why the case fatality rate in most countries' second wave has been lower than in the first wave.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/is-the-coronavirus-getting-less-deadly-or-is-treatment-getting-better-20201110-p56de7.html

The three main suggestions / possibilities are:

1. The harvest effect - the first wave catches more of the vulnerable population, leading to higher death rates

2. Evolution of the virus - the more transmissible G strain now predominates, but it's not clear whether this strain might be milder

3. Better treatment

The fourth hypothesis might be that it takes longer during the second wave for patients to die, and therefore the spike in deaths might not have happened yet. But then the longer duration, if that is the case (and I haven't looked it up), might be explained by any of the 3 preceding factors.

Perhaps there's much improved testing infrastructure by the time the second wave rolls around, and there were more cases in the first wave than were officially recorded?

Hopefully the outbreak in Adelaide can be quickly contained.

[Shane]

Here's a really interesting article I read about why the case fatality rate in most countries' second wave has been lower than in the first wave.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/is-the-coronavirus-getting-less-deadly-or-is-treatment-getting-better-20201110-p56de7.html

The three main suggestions / possibilities are:

1. The harvest effect - the first wave catches more of the vulnerable population, leading to higher death rates

2. Evolution of the virus - the more transmissible G strain now predominates, but it's not clear whether this strain might be milder

3. Better treatment

The fourth hypothesis might be that it takes longer during the second wave for patients to die, and therefore the spike in deaths might not have happened yet. But then the longer duration, if that is the case (and I haven't looked it up), might be explained by any of the 3 preceding factors.

How about:

4. All of the above

[habanero]

I'm a bit confused by the "better treatment" side of things - our ICUs were never overrun or at capacity as, by international standards, the number of cases were low. Right out of the gate in march/april, if you were admitted to an ICU here (or in Sweden for that matter which had a lot more cases) your survival rate on average was around 80% and it hasn't really moved since. Odds are of course much better for younger patients with no underlying cause, but even the ICU doctors themselves were surprised by - all things considered - how well it had gone.

Just a few weeks ago the head of the largest ICU in the country and his collegues on other ICu wards were asked if there had actually been any major improvement in treatments and they all said no-ish. They had made some very minor adjustments to the treatment procedures, but the former has been pretty clear all the time that it's pretty standard, well established ICU treatment and nothing revolutionary in that department.

Me not being a doctor I obv have no clue what they do or don't, but I am surprised by range in the replies form ours "nothing new, really" to "much better treatment now than earlier". I do of course get the point of a massively strained system will perform worse than one operating safely within its capacity, but the rest I find it bit harder to wrap my head around. Another reason for the high survival rate is partly due to how various systems work - here, if you are in a elderly care facility you are very unlikely to be sent to an ICU under any circumstance. Of the Covid-19 patients in ICU here, just under 7% of those admitted are aged 80 or older. In Sweden it's around 5% of the ICU case load. Haven't really seen the corresponding numbers from anywhere else.

[Montecarlo]

Here's a really interesting article I read about why the case fatality rate in most countries' second wave has been lower than in the first wave.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/is-the-coronavirus-getting-less-deadly-or-is-treatment-getting-better-20201110-p56de7.html

The three main suggestions / possibilities are:

1. The harvest effect - the first wave catches more of the vulnerable population, leading to higher death rates

2. Evolution of the virus - the more transmissible G strain now predominates, but it's not clear whether this strain might be milder

3. Better treatment

The fourth hypothesis might be that it takes longer during the second wave for patients to die, and therefore the spike in deaths might not have happened yet. But then the longer duration, if that is the case (and I haven't looked it up), might be explained by any of the 3 preceding factors.

Better testing has to be added in here.  We almost certainly are catching many more mild cases.