COVID-19

[mikey]

"Your papers, please"

[PFiDC]

Wonder if the vaccine will be required for immigration. IMO it should be. Just not sure how it will be proved.

Or we could, ya know, provide one for them...

[PFiDC]

I think the only "mandatory" stipulations should be healthcare workers and children/staff in public schools.

[tifosi77]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/hea ... 516649001/

"There is an end to this," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But it will require effort on the part of the public to continue wearing masks, maintaining distance from others, avoiding crowds – and being willing to get a vaccine.
"If you have a very, very highly effective vaccine and we convince most of the people in the country to take the vaccine, we could get back to a degree of normality maybe by the end of 2021," Fauci said.

honestly this is more discouraging than encouraging

back to a "degree" of normality MAYBE by the end of 2021

This has been my operating assumption of a best-case scenario for 10 months.

[offsides]

Wonder if the vaccine will be required for immigration. IMO it should be. Just not sure how it will be proved.

Or we could, ya know, provide one for them...

Yep, that would work. As long as it is mandatory for entry. Also might take a couple years to get enough vaccines available to use at the borders.

[PFiDC]

Wonder if the vaccine will be required for immigration. IMO it should be. Just not sure how it will be proved.

Or we could, ya know, provide one for them...

Yep, that would work. As long as it is mandatory for entry. Also might take a couple years to get enough vaccines available to use at the borders.

Absolutely. This isn't an overnight fix. It's gonna take time.

[NAN]

Absolutely. This isn't an overnight fix. It's gonna take time.

I think this is true for the overall pandemic. I think people need to realize that this is going to take time. It's not "hey the first batch of vaccines have gone out in X month and then it's "hey the pandemic is over!". It's going to take months, if not years to get this back to normal "normal".

[CBear3]

MA bringing the surge/temporary hospital spaces back.

So far we are keeping things open, but have a curfew for closing of non-essential businesses.

Ugh, my daughter's friend is up there for brain surgery. Hope things stay open until they complete the process.

[offsides]

Absolutely. This isn't an overnight fix. It's gonna take time.

I think this is true for the overall pandemic. I think people need to realize that this is going to take time. It's not "hey the first batch of vaccines have gone out in X month and then it's "hey the pandemic is over!". It's going to take months, if not years to get this back to normal "normal".

Wonder if it will ever get back to the old normal like shaking hands and hugging? I'm so used to social distancing. It might be my new normal.

[PFiDC]

Hand shaking can **** right off. I suggest bowing as well as mandating chopstick usage.

[nocera]

Can we please never go back to blowing out birthday candles?

[shoeshine boy]

honestly this is more discouraging than encouraging

back to a "degree" of normality MAYBE by the end of 2021

He also said a couple months ago that a vaccine wouldn’t be ready until spring or early next year. Now we are probably going to have one ready and distributing in December.

if the Phizer trial is giving even better results than expected then I can totally understand why he's updated the timeline.
I can also see him updating the timeline because Trump has been a dick to him for months now.

[grunthy]

Can we please never go back to blowing out birthday candles?

I agree. We can just just do this instead.

[nocera]

Allegheny Co. is at a 15.7% positive rate today after three days of being around 14%. Today was also the worst day of the pandemic with 366 new cases, 44 hospitalizations, and 5 deaths. It's going to be a rough winter.

[grunthy]

Allegheny Co. is at a 15.7% positive rate today after three days of being around 14%. Today was also the worst day of the pandemic with 366 new cases, 44 hospitalizations, and 5 deaths. It's going to be a rough winter.

With the antibody cocktails coming out, I don’t believe it will be as bad as they predict.

[grunthy]

Per CDC there have been a total of around 685k hospitalizations due to covid so far. These antibody treatments are showing a 70% or more decline in hospitalizations. They know who the high risk people are that need to get these drugs.

[nocera]

Hopefully that's the case. Hospital capacity is filling up fast around these parts.

[PFiDC]

How fast can they produce this antibody treatment?

[RonnieFranchise]

Just got a call from the school, two staff and one student positive. All schools closed w synchronous virtual learning rest of the week.

[grunthy]

How fast can they produce this antibody treatment?

A million by EOY and then substantially more at the start of the new year. That is just Eli Lilly. That doesn't include Regeneron's or GSK's antibody treatments.

[PFiDC]

That's not a lot of treatments for the winter...

[grunthy]

That's not a lot of treatments for the winter...

It took 9 months to have 685k hospitalizations. So if you can target the right people you will substantially reduce hospitalizations.

[PFiDC]

That's a pretty big if. What kind of temps do those treatments need? Are all of those million to be used in the USA? Hopefully there are hot spots and it's not all over the place so we can focus those treatments in certain areas.

I'm rooting for it to make things better but it just seems a little early to say "well we have a good treatment so the winter will be fine"

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/hea ... 516649001/

"There is an end to this," said Dr. Anthony Fauci, head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. But it will require effort on the part of the public to continue wearing masks, maintaining distance from others, avoiding crowds – and being willing to get a vaccine.
"If you have a very, very highly effective vaccine and we convince most of the people in the country to take the vaccine, we could get back to a degree of normality maybe by the end of 2021," Fauci said.

honestly this is more discouraging than encouraging

back to a "degree" of normality MAYBE by the end of 2021

This has been my operating assumption of a best-case scenario for 10 months.

yeah, I get it. From a completely personal perspective though, this **** sucks

I live alone and was struggling emotionally prior to COVID anyway (dating in in the modern era sucks). Now with COVID, if I were to follow the recommended procedures, the only times really I would leave my house are to shop (my work has been WFH since March). I wouldn't consider that "spending time with other human beings" because the human contact element is so minimal and so, if I followed recommended procedures, I would spend nearly 0% of my last 9 months around other human beings.

Now I fully admit, I "cheat". I do things like play pickup basketball, hockey and go to a yoga/pilates studio for exercise; I will hang out with friends or visit family occasionally. And it's not like I do these things lightly...like I said, I have struggled emotionally prior. Even with these very minor human interactions, I've had my "most serious" struggle with suicide in my life. I put "most serious" in quotes because it wasn't anything more than ideation and fantasy; though it was enough for my sister (the only person I told about them) to call everyone in my family to tell them what I'm going through (at the end of the day, I'm more terrified of death than I am loneliness)

this is why I'm pretty sensitive to the mental well-being discussions around a lot of the COVID stuff. I know it's very selfish of me, but I genuinely don't know where I would be if I didn't "cheat". And the cheating only amounts to about 1.5-2 hours on average a day I'd reckon. So 95% of the time I'm spending time by myself. For nearly two years.

**** man. it just sucks. I know it's easy for me to get discouraged because of this **** but I have no idea where I'd be if I didn't cheat; if the only physical interaction I had with other people for the last 9 months is through plexiglass at Publix

at the very least, I have been seeing a therapist for years and still continue to see her so that definitely helps



sorry, I know this is a ramble. **** COVID

[Gaucho]

Hang in there, MIMH. 2021 will definitely be better.