Covid-19 discussion and humor thread [Was: CDC says don't touch your face to avoid Covid19...Vets to the rescue!

[The Dean]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.html?smid=tw-share

 

Nothing to see here. No lesson to learn Just move along.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, TBBills said:

Their are people that actually think kids cannot pass covid onto their parents and some are even in these forums.

 

That would be nice, but there is an increasing body of evidence saying that they are mistaken
 

 

I think we have a much different picture of this disease than we did back in March.  We now know that it spreads silently like an underground "root system" fire in young people, with few or no symptoms, until it reaches the fuel of a susceptible person, and burst into flames.  If that susceptible person is in a congragate living facility or a household with an elder, hospitalizations and deaths rack up super-fast.

[Buddo]

It's becoming apparent that kids might not suffer much with covid 19, but they sure as heck can spread it effectively. Particularly amongst adults, apparently. See a couple of posts by Hap in the info thread.

 

This sad reality is what teachers will be facing. I wonder how many teachers have to catch it in a school, for the school to be forced into a lockdown. Tbh, if I was a teacher and was expected to teach a class of kids, atm I'd want a hazmat suit to do it in. ;(

 

How many kids might have their lives ruined by the loss of a close relative (mother, father, grandparents) because they have been to school and brought the virus back with them, through no fault of their own.

 

Something that really ought to be done, is to come up with a set of rules that all schools need to follow, throughout the country. That way everyone knows where they stand, and they can also discover where the particular flaws are in those rules, and improve them as they go. There's obviously a slim to no chance of that occurring, and Slim just left town. ;(

[Bad Things]

7 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

 

Masks are a personal choice according to Paulding county, and social distancing will only be observed if possible. 70% of parents chose in school learning for their kids. 30% chose online, but the ones who chose online still have to go to school in person in the mean time, while online learning is set up. Link: 

https://

 

For someone on the outside looking in, I cannot stress how infuriating it is to see news like this.

It is like your leaders are deliberately working against each other and the public to send out crossed signals and misinformation. 

Unbelievable. 

[Hapless Bills Fan]

3 hours ago, Buddo said:

It's becoming apparent that kids might not suffer much with covid 19, but they sure as heck can spread it effectively. Particularly amongst adults, apparently. See a couple of posts by Hap in the info thread.

 

This sad reality is what teachers will be facing. I wonder how many teachers have to catch it in a school, for the school to be forced into a lockdown. Tbh, if I was a teacher and was expected to teach a class of kids, atm I'd want a hazmat suit to do it in. ;(

 

How many kids might have their lives ruined by the loss of a close relative (mother, father, grandparents) because they have been to school and brought the virus back with them, through no fault of their own.

 

Something that really ought to be done, is to come up with a set of rules that all schools need to follow, throughout the country. That way everyone knows where they stand, and they can also discover where the particular flaws are in those rules, and improve them as they go. There's obviously a slim to no chance of that occurring, and Slim just left town. ;(

 

Well....my understanding is that the CDC did come up with a set of rules for all schools to follow.  Then it was decided they were "too difficult" and would keep schools from opening, so they were watered down and revised and said to be recommendations, that should not prevent schools from opening if they can't or don't choose to follow them.

 

For what it's worth, it's the CDC guidelines for reopening that states like NY, CT, NJ, MA, CT, RI have been following, and that have worked (so far - though that "pee free zone" is getting harder and harder to maintain in the swimming pool of our country).  But again, they were said to be recommendations and a lot of states, including California, decided they didn't really need to follow them.  How'd that work out?

[Hapless Bills Fan]

We had dinner tonight (pizza, on a screen porch, sitting 10 feet apart except when masked) with a neighbor who manages a group of employees of high concern that none of them work infected.  They have an infection control committee that reviews each case and decides whether and how long each person must quarantine after travel, exposure, or exposure of a family menber.

 

She was telling us about the several workers she has in quarantine and unable to work because their kids became infected with covid-19 at daycare (positive test, symptoms).   The parents also have symptoms but so far have tested negative.  Another parent has a kid who came home from daycare with symptoms, negative test, parent has symptoms and positive test.  This is more than one worker, more than one daycare.

 

While we were there, she got an emergency text that another worker's child was just notified that another child (at a third daycare) has tested positive, so they need to fill a shift tomorrow and send an emergency notice to the safety committee to review and decide.

 

So much for young children not getting infected and transmitting the virus.

 

 

[LabattBlue]

19 hours ago, BillsFan4 said:

 

Masks are a personal choice according to Paulding county, and social distancing will only be observed if possible. 70% of parents chose in school learning for their kids. 30% chose online, but the ones who chose online still have to go to school in person in the mean time, while online learning is set up. Link: 

https://www.11alive.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/paulding-at-home-learning-wait-list/85-00d037bd-eaa0-4fbe-9c06-dd21b40d335a

 

and here’s Missouri’s Governor:

 

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/07/20/missouri-gov-mike-parson-says-kids-get-over-covid-19/5474557002/
'They’re going to get over it': Missouri Gov. insists kids must go back to school even though 'they will' get COVID-19

 

I sure hope he’s right.

 

I know there’s no easy answers to this situation. But I feel like some of these school districts are basically using these kids as a giant medical/science experiment. 

 

This is a quote from the superintendent of that school district. WTF...

 

Paulding County Superintendent Brian Ottot, in an email sent Tuesday, said pictures were accurate, but said the district is following state guidelines and that students need longer than a few minutes in the hall to catch the virus from others.

Ottot wrote that class changes are “a challenge" and that "it is an area where we are continuing to work on in this new environment to find practicable ways to further limit students from congregating,” He added that “There is no question that the photo does not look good.”

 

 

 

Edited August 5, 2020 by LabattBlue

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, LabattBlue said:

Paulding County Superintendent Brian Ottot, in an email sent Tuesday, said pictures were accurate, but said the district is following state guidelines and that students need longer than a few minutes in the hall to catch the virus from others.

I wish he would share his apparent knowledge of the precise time needed for transmission of the virus because I’d love to see that study.

 

I believe him that they’re following state regulations which means that state regulations are a joke

[teef]

3 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

I wish he would share his apparent knowledge of the precise time needed for transmission of the virus because I’d love to see that study.

 

I believe him that they’re following state regulations which means that state regulations are a joke

they were talking about something similar today on NFL radio.  it has to do with whether there was 15 minutes or less of exposure.  the way i understood it, was that if some tackled a rb, and the rb had a positive test, the person who tackled the rb may not have to quarantine because there was such a short span of contact.  if a player was sitting next to that same rb in a meeting for more than 15 minutes, they would be forced to quarantine.  

 

i'm not sure if this is policy and how they're handling it in the nfl, but the exposure time of 15 minutes kept coming up.  maybe that's what the quote is referring to?

[DCOrange]

16 hours ago, TBBills said:

Their are people that actually think kids cannot pass covid onto their parents and some are even in these forums.

And also in the White House. He said today that kids are "totally immune" and then corrected himself and said they're "virtually immune" from the virus.

[Hapless Bills Fan]

1 hour ago, teef said:

they were talking about something similar today on NFL radio.  it has to do with whether there was 15 minutes or less of exposure.  the way i understood it, was that if some tackled a rb, and the rb had a positive test, the person who tackled the rb may not have to quarantine because there was such a short span of contact.  if a player was sitting next to that same rb in a meeting for more than 15 minutes, they would be forced to quarantine.  

 

i'm not sure if this is policy and how they're handling it in the nfl, but the exposure time of 15 minutes kept coming up.  maybe that's what the quote is referring to?

 

The official CDC definition of a "close contact" is:

For COVID-19, a close contact is defined as any individual who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to positive specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated. 

 

And one has to start somewhere.  But I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that transmission can't occur in shorter periods of time from further away, and several lines of evidence say it can - particularly indoors where air circulation may be poor.  There's a contact tracing study from China which asserts an apartment dweller became infected by using the same elevator as an upstairs asymptomatic and negative-tested neighbor resulting in 72 infections (I would arch my eyebrows at that, but the index patient was returning from US to China and the investigation included genomic sequencing of her virus and the virus of all the people she was said to infect and showed a unique variant).  Restaurant where people more than 2 meters apart were infected, probably by aerosol transmission.  Then there's the infection cluster in an Israeli high school, right after parents objected that it was inhumane to make the students wear masks and have the windows open during a heat wave (153 students and 26 staff).  All case studies, but so many cases are "unknown" as the source, especially in the US.

 

Here's a piece from the UK Center for Evidence Based Medicine which gives some background on the science behind the 2m rule and why it may be a poor guide for covid-19:

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-is-the-evidence-to-support-the-2-metre-social-distancing-rule-to-reduce-covid-19-transmission/

 

There's also a continuum - people are more likely to get infected in the home because they spend more time there breathing the same air and touching the same surfaces, even if their actual contact time <6m is relatively limited (families that don't share meals or play board games or watch movies together, kids spend most time in own room).  Multiple short contacts and use of the same surfaces and air add up, in those circumstances.  Korean contact tracing study (during school closures and other mitigation measures) showed that people were 3x more likely to be infected at home than outside the home.  Again, remember this is during school and other closures and people asked to stay home as much as possible but the point is, transient close contacts did not produce much infection.
 

Being in the same school or on the same football team may be a more home-like than transient, though.  The person who tackled the RB may have participated in tackling them 8x, be blocked by the RB an additional 5x going close F2F for 10-15 seconds each time, maybe got in their face for some trash talk after the play several times.  So yeah, it's a short exposure, but it's far closer contact than just sitting in a meeting room.  It likely depends upon exposure to droplets and aerosols the infected person puts out and face discipline (not touching face with hands that may be contaminated).

We just don't know.  It's a giant experiment, as far as I can tell.

 

1 hour ago, DCOrange said:

And also in the White House. He said today that kids are "totally immune" and then corrected himself and said they're "virtually immune" from the virus.

 

I wish that people were not virtually immune from learnings, and open to learning from reliable sources other than their favorite programs.

He may mean that kids seldom develop serious covid-19 illness, which is true ....but that's not the usual meaning of the word "immune" - when most of us and when medical people say "immune" they mean "uninfected, and not able to infect others".  Which the preponderance of evidence contradicts at this point for kids.

[teef]

20 minutes ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

The official CDC definition of a "close contact" is:

For COVID-19, a close contact is defined as any individual who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to positive specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated. 

 

And one has to start somewhere.  But I'm not aware of any convincing evidence that transmission can't occur in shorter periods of time from further away, and several lines of evidence say it can - particularly indoors where air circulation may be poor.  There's a contact tracing study from China which asserts an apartment dweller became infected by using the same elevator as an upstairs asymptomatic and negative-tested neighbor resulting in 72 infections (I would arch my eyebrows at that, but the index patient was returning from US to China and the investigation included genomic sequencing of her virus and the virus of all the people she was said to infect and showed a unique variant).  Restaurant where people more than 2 meters apart were infected, probably by aerosol transmission.  Then there's the infection cluster in an Israeli high school, right after parents objected that it was inhumane to make the students wear masks and have the windows open during a heat wave (153 students and 26 staff).  All case studies, but so many cases are "unknown" as the source, especially in the US.

 

Here's a piece from the UK Center for Evidence Based Medicine which gives some background on the science behind the 2m rule and why it may be a poor guide for covid-19:

https://www.cebm.net/covid-19/what-is-the-evidence-to-support-the-2-metre-social-distancing-rule-to-reduce-covid-19-transmission/

 

There's also a continuum - people are more likely to get infected in the home because they spend more time there breathing the same air and touching the same surfaces, even if their actual contact time <6m is relatively limited (families that don't share meals or play board games or watch movies together, kids spend most time in own room).  Multiple short contacts and use of the same surfaces and air add up, in those circumstances.  Korean contact tracing study (during school closures and other mitigation measures) showed that people were 3x more likely to be infected at home than outside the home.  Again, remember this is during school and other closures and people asked to stay home as much as possible but the point is, transient close contacts did not produce much infection.
 

Being in the same school or on the same football team may be a more home-like than transient, though.  The person who tackled the RB may have participated in tackling them 8x, be blocked by the RB an additional 5x going close F2F for 10-15 seconds each time, maybe got in their face for some trash talk after the play several times.  So yeah, it's a short exposure, but it's far closer contact than just sitting in a meeting room.  It likely depends upon exposure to droplets and aerosols the infected person puts out and face discipline (not touching face with hands that may be contaminated).

We just don't know.  It's a giant experiment, as far as I can tell.

great info.  it was the first time i've heard a specific time of exposure be used as a guideline.  i wasn't sure if it was through the cdc or an nfl guideline, (which i suppose would be through the cdc anyway).  

[BillsFan4]

I’ve been curious about that 15+ minute thing myself. I feel like there’s definitely been examples of people who got covid without 15+ minutes of exposure, but I think the numbers are much lower than for longer exposures. So I’m thinking maybe it comes down to the probabilities?
 

Infection = Exposure to virus x Time. (as hapless has mentioned)
 

You need to receive an infectious dose of the virus (I’ve read that it could be as little as 1000 virus particles for covid, which may sound like a lot but a single cough/sneeze from a covid infected person cans release as many as 200 MILLION virus particles). The more time you spend with someone infected, the greater the chances you receive that infectious dose. The chances of receiving that infectious dose with a quick contact are low (unless they cough/sneeze in your face or something).

I also wonder if the 15+ minute exposure time has to do in part with setting an attainable goal for contact tracing? I think it would be almost impossible to trace every contact someone had, especially with case counts as high as they are in some places. How would you even contact random people they may have come into contact with anyway? You’d have to have some type of contact tracing/tracking programs on phones (which I think Apple may have been working on? I remember reading something about that in an update for my iPad but I don’t know if it was ever implemented).

 

Found this on the CDC site:

 

Quote

Data to inform the definition of close contact are limited. Factors to consider when defining close contact include proximity, the duration of exposure (e.g., longer exposure time likely increases exposure risk), and whether the exposure was to a person with symptoms (e.g., coughing likely increases exposure risk). 

 

Quote

Data are insufficient to precisely define the duration of time that constitutes a prolonged exposure. Recommendations vary on the length of time of exposure, but 15 minutes of close exposure can be used as an operational definition. Brief interactions are less likely to result in transmission; however, symptoms and the type of interaction (e.g., did the infected person cough directly into the face of the exposed individual) remain important.

 

[TBBills]

TBH I just want to get it and get it over with. I see a few people that had it and came back they are relieved they got it done with. I don't know if they will catch it again but they say it's just a weight of their shoulder 

[K-9]

20 hours ago, Hapless Bills Fan said:

 

Well, that's sort of Federal policy, isn't it?  Didn't Trump say he would withhold federal funding from school districts that don't open in person?

Didn't DeVos say the same?

 

So the governors who follow suit, I would assume they're just falling in line.

 

I'm not down with the "cheap shot" on personal appearance myself. 

Yeah, that was cheap and I apologize for the remark. My frustration with the leadership in this country got the better of me. 

[HeHateMe]

This Country has failed every step of the way with this virus but we're going to ACE schools re-opening... ?

 

Lambs to the slaughter..

[K-9]

1 hour ago, HeHateMe said:

This Country has failed every step of the way with this virus but we're going to ACE schools re-opening... ?

 

Lambs to the slaughter..

You’d think Israel’s experience would inform us, but no. It’s only a matter of time before Georgia, Missouri, and others see the same kind of result. 
 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/04/world/middleeast/coronavirus-israel-schools-reopen.html

[teef]

i'm still 100% for schools opening back up, but with any reopening, it has to be done in a controlled, reasonable matter.  it should also be region specific as well.

[HappyDays]

On 8/3/2020 at 10:03 AM, teef said:

anyone struggling to figure out schooling?  it's shocking how many different models there are per district, and per grade.  some are part time for all levels, (2 days in, 3 days at home).  some are 5 days full time for elementary.  my nephew's district is 5 half days for elementary.  some are trying to go complete remote learning.  it's incredible to how all over the place this is.

 

My son has autism so it is impossible for us to send him back to school. He would not be able to wear a mask for a whole school day. I'm thankfully in a good situation since my wife does not need to work and can stay at home, but I can't even imagine what other parents with special needs children are going to do. The school sends us packets on what we should be doing but I know he is not getting the education he needs right now so in that respect it's very frustrating.

[teef]

1 minute ago, HappyDays said:

 

My son has autism so it is impossible for us to send him back to school. He would not be able to wear a mask for a whole school day. I'm thankfully in a good situation since my wife does not need to work and can stay at home, but I can't even imagine what other parents with special needs children are going to do. The school sends us packets on what we should be doing but I know he is not getting the education he needs right now so in that respect it's very frustrating.

oh happy that sucks.  would he have to wear the mask?  and you're right...the kids who need services are the ones who are going to suffer.  we're still not even sure how the kids opting out are going to be handled.  in some suburbs, it's my understanding that if you choose not to go to school, you get a curriculum to follow, but not necessarily any online guidance.  just the parents and the guideline.  that just doesn't sound like it works.  are there any other institutions he can go to.  i know our daughter's day care is starting a kindergarten class, and i don't think they require the kids to wear the masks.  the same day care now is telling us to send the masks so the kids can get used to wearing them in school...but i'm not sure at what age they're going to require masks.  some privates won't require it for the elementary grades.