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Coronavirus: How dangerous a threat?

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Dirt nails it..everyone is about freedom and personal responsibility until they are sick, desperate for help..then they don't have strong convictions about anything but staying alive. Read a few conversations with emergency workers..some from neighboring states to Idaho..the workers have a certain resentment towards the patients because they feel like they are not working towards a mutually beneficial outcome and that the attitudes from citizens and government officials should be respected..at the border..if you come from a state that says masks are a joke,your access to health care especially in a state w strict measures in place should be considered..it's not.
Health care workers treat and save idiots in spite of themselves..
Nobody is listening..the experts are saying..we may have beds but we don't have staff..the first week of 2121 is going to be crazy..a advanced airline and hotel reservations..we see that warnings to limit travel and large gatherings is going to be ignored to an equal or greater degree than Thanksgiving..
It's coming
 
It's hard to look at the daily numbers and see any reason for optimism at all, but I will try. While cases are still going up, they're not going up as fast as they were before. We seem to be approaching, probably not a peak, but at least a plateau. Then again, the Christmas travel holiday is still to come...

"Chickens have come home to roost." Dodge City is becoming famous for something other than gunfights:

"I had one customer come in the other day, not wearing a mask, and I told him he had to. He just stared at me. I stared at him. And then he said, 'I don't eat in commie establishments' and left. It wears me out. I'm just exhausted all of the time."

"If we do this, then what's next?” Nuci said. “Not allowing people to travel? Forcing people to wash their hands as soon as they enter a restaurant?"


Breaking: FDA has authorized emergency use of the Pfizer vaccine.
 
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I don’t think we have even begun to understand the long lasting damage that has been done.


Lockdowns and Declining Youth Mental Health
Other studies linking declining mental health with lockdown policies have emerged for adolescents and young adults in recent months, but children were not typically represented. For example, the CDC reported in August that 1 in 4 individuals ages 18-24 contemplated suicide during the spring lockdowns, and a recent Harvard study found startling rates of depression in young adults. Adolescent mental health has been hit particularly hard by the lockdowns and related social distancing policies. For example, a 16-year-old boy from Brunswick, Maine took his life last week after leaving a note saying that he felt locked in his house during the pandemic and separated from friends due to remote learning.

The mental health impacts of loneliness can last for up to 9 years.

The new University of Cambridge paper is the first longitudinal study to trace the mental health effects of lockdowns and social isolation on younger children, finding that their mental health is similarly deteriorating during the pandemic response.

An article this week in the New York Times acknowledged the loneliness that children feel this year, but echoed a sense of inevitability. Describing the experience of a two-year-old who, upon encountering others, says “Uh-Oh. People,” the Times explains that “she’s part of a generation living in a particular new type of bubble — one without other children. They are the Toddlers of Covid-19. Gone for her and many peers are the play dates, music classes, birthday parties, the serendipity of the sandbox or the side-by-side flyby on adjacent swing sets.”

https://fee.org/articles/cambridge-...s-deteriorated-substantially-during-lockdown/
 
My guess is that the film company brings in far more money for the economy than a restaurant does.

I guess we can replace ‘the economy’ with ‘Newsom’ in the sentence above. Not that there was ever any doubt.

LAST MONTH, California Gov. Gavin Newsom was caught violating his own warnings against multiple households dining together indoors. The Democratic governor was spotted at the French Laundry, an exclusive restaurant north of San Francisco, where he was celebrating the birthday of longtime friend Jason Kinney.

The dinner controversy was more than just an opulent display of political double standards — it also highlighted the backroom efforts to maintain special treatment during the pandemic. Kinney, a veteran political operative, is a lobbyist for a number of interests seeking to shape the rules governing life under the pandemic, including what kind of economic activities are deemed essential in order to stay in business.

The inside track may have paid off. One of Kinney’s clients, Netflix, has been allowed to continue to operate during the latest round of forced closures that began last week as intensive care hospital capacity has dwindled across the state.

The entertainment industry has been given extensive leeway to operate during the pandemic, even as California now faces a stay-at-home order. The state has deemed the television and movie production industry as “critical infrastructure” and has allowed Hollywood studios to continue filming projects, including in Los Angeles, which is facing the most strict lockdown order.

Many studios are still filming shows across Los Angeles, including HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and Netflix’s “The Kominsky Method,” along with at least 40 feature films that began filming in November. Sony Pictures told investors that it began to ramp up its production schedule back in July.

This stands in sharp contrast to the strict rules applied to the average California resident or small business. Californians in many counties now face fines or imprisonment for venturing outside for any “nonessential” travel, congregating in small groups, or operating an outdoor restaurant, even one that follows federal guidelines on social distancing and hygiene.

Kinney is just one of many entertainment industry lobbyists who has sought to influence the governor’s office over essential work and coronavirus response rules. Sony Pictures, Walt Disney and Co., Paramount Pictures, Warner Brothers Entertainment, and the Motion Picture Association, the trade group for major Hollywood studios, deployed lobbyists to influence California state officials during the pandemic, disclosures show.

Warner Brothers, for instance, spent $22,500 earlier this year on lobbyists contacting the governor’s office for “COVID/OUTREACH, TV/FILM PRODUCTION,” according to a disclosure. The Motion Picture Association spent $45,000 on lobbyists to shape the “COVID-19 Reopening of film/tv sector.” Paramount Pictures has spent at least $85,000 this year on the “essential business” rules developed by state agencies in California.

Netflix nearly tripled spending on lobbying in California as the pandemic hit the state. The streaming giant, according to filings, spent an average of about $24,437 a quarter on efforts to influence state policymakers in 2019. This year, during the pandemic, Netflix’s lobbying fees jumped to an average of $70,725 a quarter. The jump in spending includes increased fees to Axiom Advisors, the firm founded by Kinney.

The movie studios, Kinney, and the governor’s office did not respond to a request for comment. The Motion Picture Association referred The Intercept to a previous statement from the group noting that the industry has worked with union and guild partners “for reaching consensus on health and safety guidelines for motion picture, television and streaming productions in response to COVID-19.”

The anger over the exemption has continued to boil over. Earlier this month, a central coronavirus testing site at the Union Station building faced a temporary closure to accommodate the filming of a remake of “She’s all That” featuring TikTok star Addison Rae. Some 500 appointments were canceled. The negative news cycle resulted in an intervention from the mayor’s office to keep the testing site open.

Around the same time, an LA restaurant owner, Angela Marsden, posted a viral video highlighting the disparity. The video features Marsden displaying her own socially distanced outdoor dining, which has been shut down by the state, merely steps across a parking lot from similarly situated tents and chairs associated with the NBC Universal production set for the series “Good Girls,” which has been allowed to proceed as essential work.

“If [Newsom] can dine indoors with 22 of his closest friends,” Andrew Gruel, a chef who operates LA restaurants Slapfish and Big Parm, told reporters this week, “I can have my guests dine outdoors, in the beautiful air, absorbing the vitamin D, and enjoying a meal.”

Gruel, in comments to The Intercept, said the studio industry “exemptions underscore the fact our officials policy revolves around supporting their campaign donors at the expense of small business. It’s not about science or data.”


The industry may also lean on its significant political ties to elected officials. The “Big Six” production studios have donated heavily to California elected officials and campaigns.

Netflix and its employees gave $135,950; Walt Disney and Co. and its employees gave $183,999; Paramount and its employees gave $119,308; Sony and its employees gave $27,961; Comcast-NBCUniversal and its employees gave $251,588; and Warner Bros. and its employees gave $77,050.

The campaign donations were spent as the firms also deployed lobbyists to shape the pandemic rules governing the industry. Mercury Public Affairs, a bipartisan lobbying firm that features former Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez and former LA Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa as partners, is currently registered to lobby LA officials on filming issues on behalf of both Comcast-NBCUniversal and the Motion Picture Association. Tracy Arnold, Newsom’s chief deputy cabinet secretary, previously served as partner at Mercury Public Affairs.


https://theintercept.com/2020/12/11/hollywood-covid-filming-california-lockdown/
 
I listened to a doctor in an extensive interview that repeated many of the points that are brought out in the article Chris posted. I have read a variety of pieces published world wide about children,school,social exchanges,and the minimal impacts the virus has had on the health of children.
So I think that the majority of the blame for the American school impossibility should be blamed on the top down message and methods of failure. The U.S.is a failure,the math reveals it in every way.
The doctor that I listened to made a not so subtle point,the insistent messages about the individual, their rights,their risks and lack of responsibility was wrong from the onset of the pandemic.
The messaging always should have been about cooperation,working together, shared responsibilities for each other,
So even if you don't have a yard sign,bumper sticker or hat,T-shirt stated some version of the government and it's virus, don't tread on me, you are selfish and keeping our kids from school and their friends and teachers.
Many years ago,maybe pre acne, our school had a food drive for people affected by a disaster in Texas. It was strange to dedicate time and thought,some efforts to help somebody I didn't know,would never meet, didn't see the big deal about some pallets of canned food. Maybe as a boy I couldn't see it, but as a man I am happy I realize what thinking and doing something for somebody else looks like,feels like..
Even in the final weeks, preposterous politics and selfish stupidly put to paper saying American lives will be saved first by the kings decree..icing on a big cake of self importance.disgraceful..
We need to work together period,there never was any other way. The vaccine is revealing more and more about the ugliness,the horrible things people feel about others,their lack of compassion and empathy for anybody.

Our kids deserve better. Not sure where half my country worships but I hope that they open the books and try to find the spirit of the message, and it sure the f-ck ain't..it's all about me!! Look how important I am!
 
I didn't read the NatGeo link Jag posted above because it wants me to sign up to read, so maybe it points this out: At least in the school districts around me the reason they are online learning is because too many adults in the school system are sick. Before tofurkey day I read that ~1,500 adults were out ( positive and/or contact) of the Boise School District. Even if kids aren't being hit as hard as adults, who is going to teach, clean, answer the phone, cook the food, drive the bus... if there aren't enough adults?
 
Ah, sorry, it didn't ask me for any registration... Copy-pasted, sorry for the poor lay-out.



Exclusive: Kids catch and spread coronavirus half as much as adults, Iceland study confirms
Big decisions around COVID-19 and children have been heavy on politics and short on science. New large-scale studies are changing that.
8 Minute Read

In the midst of the worst surge of COVID-19 cases in the United States, many state and local officials are again wrestling with the hot-button issue of whether to shut schools down. Now, emerging research confirms that schools aren’t the primary drivers of outbreaks, but cases will seep in and contribute to the disease’s spread whenever a country loses control of containing the pandemic.

National Geographic was given exclusive access to the results from an Icelandic study that provides definitive evidence of how much children contribute to coronavirus spread. Researchers with the nation’s Directorate of Health and deCODE genetics, a human-genomics company in Reykjavik, monitored every adult and child in the country who was quarantined after potentially being exposed this spring, using contact tracing and genetic sequencing to trace links between various outbreak clusters. This 40,000-person study found that children under 15 were about half as likely as adults to be infected, and only half as likely as adults to transmit the virus to others. Almost all the coronavirus transmissions to children came from adults.

“They can and do get infected and transmit to others, but they do both less frequently than adults,” says Kári Stefánsson, the chief executive of deCODE.

This analysis is one in a recent flurry of large-scale studies that support the conclusion that infected adults pose a greater danger to children than kids do to adults. These studies could help inform officials who are struggling to decide when, or if, to close schools, knowing that such shutdowns are harming children. In addition to vital academic lessons, schools provide many critical services to communities, so last week, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommended that schools should be both “the last settings to close” and “the first to reopen.”

But even if children are generally less susceptible, when infection surges in a community, the risks in schools can dramatically increase. With the U.S. failing to contain the virus on a national level, American K-12 schools have reported more than 313,000 COVID-19 cases as of December 10.

The kids are alright, unless …
Whether an infectious disease spreads in schools depends on two factors: how often children get infected with the coronavirus, and how easily they transmit the disease to others. If kids were to be both very susceptible and highly infectious, schools would likely drive new outbreaks of COVID-19, as they do with influenza. But if children are poor catchers and slight spreaders, schools should simply mirror what’s happening in the wider community.
Before this fall, though, coronavirus data involving children were scarce, mostly because U.S. schools had closed so early in the pandemic. In addition, the research that emerged over the summer often had limitations.
The best way to understand how transmission might occur between children and adults would be to constantly monitor healthy families with school-age children to see if they get infected. By testing frequently, scientists would catch infections as they occur, making it clear who got sick first.

Iceland and deCODE put this into practice by conducting comprehensive testing and tracing, screening more than half the country’s population: Anyone who was potentially exposed was quarantined, sealing them off from the community, but often exposing their families. By looking at the difference between adults and children in these quarantines, deCODE found that children play a minor role in transmission.
Iceland never closed its elementary schools, although it did close its high schools at the peak of its first surge. Data from its wave in September support the idea that younger children are less likely to get sick or to infect others. Stefánsson is in the process of publishing these results in a peer-reviewed journal, but he says the meticulous dataset is conclusive for Icelandic transmission—“and we have turned out to be a reasonable animal model for the human population.”

Stefánsson cautions that if everything but schools and childcare centers are closed, children would then become one of the primary sources of transmission. He explains that while the individual risk might be low among youths, schools will still have outbreaks.
That means the question becomes not a scientific one, but rather what level of risk society is prepared to accept to keep children in school: “What are you willing to live with?” he asks.

Don’t treat all ages the same
In addition to the Iceland study, other research has shown that pre-pubescent kids have a significantly lower likelihood of getting sick. So, school officials need to make a distinction between younger children and adolescents.
One recent large-scale study on how to stop viral spread cements this conclusion. When the COVID-19 epidemic was just weeks old, thousands of people in China traveled to celebrate the Lunar New Year. In Hunan—a province adjacent to where the coronavirus was first discovered—the government set up travel screenings and contact tracing. Using data from these checkpoints, researchers analyzed 1,178 infected people and their 15,648 close contacts.

Their results, published in Science in late November, show that children under the age of 12 were less likely to contract the disease after an exposure than adults, says study co-author Kaiyuan Sun, a research fellow at the Fogarty International Center of the U.S. National Institutes of Health. The study also found that the risk of transmission within households, especially during lockdown, was much higher than between more casual contacts, like those made in school. When positive cases were isolated and their contacts quarantined, transmission chains were broken. This suggests that smart interventions could help halt wider outbreaks, including in schools.

Many other studies agree that age matters. One recent preprint tracked 4,524 people from 2,267 houses in Geneva, Switzerland, from April through June. The researchers found that children from 5 to 9 were up to 22.7 percent less likely to be infected, and that their risk increased with age.

The takeaway is that a critical shift appears somewhere between the ages of 10 and 12. Around the time of puberty, the risk of teenagers both getting and transmitting the virus increases. The COVID Monitor, a group tracking information from more than 7,000 U.S. school districts, found that high school case rates are nearly three times that of elementary schools.

It’s still unclear why that might be the case. One theory is that children are more frequently exposed to coronaviruses, conferring some protection. Another is that children have fewer ACE2 receptors, a target of the coronavirus, in their upper airways. Still another theory is that their smaller lungs aren’t as good at projecting droplets or generating aerosols.
Despite this distinction, children and teenagers often get lumped together in disease reporting, which Alasdair Munro, a clinical research fellow in pediatric infectious diseases at University Hospital Southampton in Britain, says, “is extremely problematic.”

But transmission is not based only on biology. Behavior plays a role, too. In November, a study in India on half a million people found “patterns of enhanced transmission risk” in children under 14, including many instances in which children were infected by other children.

“If a school opens, children make contact much more frequently than adults,” Sun says. His analysis also confirmed the CDC’s estimation that presymptomatic transmission accounts for about 50 percent of infections—meaning it’s not always possible to isolate people before they can get others sick. This is why schools will always pose some level of risk.

When do schools need to close?
Because countries have taken different approaches to schools, the world has inadvertently designed a natural experiment on their exact role in COVID-19 transmission.

In the U.K., a new paper published in The Lancet found that partial school reopenings this summer were associated with a low risk of cases; out of more than 57,000 schools and nurseries, the study found just 113 cases associated with 55 outbreaks. These cases were correlated strongly with local infection rates, showing how important it is to reduce community transmission to keep schools safe. “Transmission will occur in schools, just as it will anywhere that people mix,” Munro says. “But children aren’t the drivers of disease.” Instead, it’s increasingly clear that in many countries, it’s people in their 20s and 30s who spark outbreaks that then spill over into both older people and children.

Data from Germany echoes these conclusions. Scientists recently tested thousands of children in Bavaria for antibodies, and found that six times as many children as expected had them—suggesting many children’s cases are being missed. But few of these cases have caused wider outbreaks. The country has also collected data from its 53,000 schools and daycares; even this fall, as community cases surged, an average of 32 schools a week have had more than two positive cases. Susanne Kuger, the director of the Center of Social Monitoring with the German Youth Institute, says that often “it’s adults transmitting disease, even in childcare settings,” as parents drop kids off, or staff mingle in a break room.

Germany has also taken many additional measures to support parents, like increasing the number of sick leave days so that parents can stay home longer if children get sick. These steps are critical, Kuger says, because “parents transmit fear and worries onto their child. The more stressed parents are, the more stressed the child is.”

Uneven consequences
After months of remote learning, it's abundantly clear to both teachers and parents that closing schools does its own harm. There have been many reports of increased mental health concerns, domestic violence, and possibly even years of life lost due to decreased learning. That’s why Fiona Russell, director of the Child and Adolescent Health Ph.D. Program at the University of Melbourne in Australia, says, “Schools should absolutely be the first priority to open, and the last to close. They need to be prioritized.”
That doesn’t necessarily mean instantly re-opening schools without first taking other measures to control community spread. The state of Victoria, for example, took a very conservative approach to lockdowns. Home to 6.5 million people, the state didn’t reopen until there were fewer than 10 total COVID-19 infections. Russell says schools were closed not because they’re inherently dangerous, but to prevent the movement of people.

Brett Sutton, Victoria’s Chief Health Officer also said that in retrospect, the state would not have closed schools. Partly thanks to his advice, Ireland left its schools open during the most recent lockdown while closing gyms, churches, restaurants, and non-essential businesses. Nevertheless, community infections have declined by 80 percent in six weeks.
“Our priority to keep the virus out of schools,” Russell says, “is to keep it out of the community.”
In the U.S., President-elect Joe Biden has said that re-opening schools will be a priority in his first hundred days in office, but communicating clearly about the science—and being real about the unequal risks of the virus based on race and income—will be important to building trust with parents as schools attempt to re-open.
Kaliris Salas-Ramirez, a neuroscientist at the CUNY School, is a single mom who has decided to keep her nine-year-old home from his school in New York City’s District 4. “There are so many other things that already put my Black son at risk,” she explains, citing the existential dangers of institutionalized racism. “Black and brown families don’t have the luxury of choosing to put our children's lives at risk.”
Government missteps and mixed messaging over the pandemic have already widened racial disparities in education. A recent survey in Massachusetts found that Black, Latino, and lower-income families are far more likely to have a child in remote learning this fall, a trend seen across the country. These choices are intentional and reflect a logical consideration of the disproportionate risk: The majority of children who’ve been infected and killed by the coronavirus fall into these racial and ethnic groups. Meanwhile, private schools are more likely to be open for in-person classes.
“I don’t want to put myself, my kids, or their teachers in harms’ way,” says Naomi Pena, a woman of color and a member of the Community Education Council for District 1 in New York City. She’s watched multiple friends die from COVID-19. So Pena chose to keep her teenagers home, although one of her children has learning disabilities. Like Pena, around 60 percent of families in District 1 have decided to have their children learn remotely.

As scientists finally begin to reach consensus on how safe schools are, school boards will need to not only make evidence-based plans, but better communicate what steps they are taking to keep kids and communities safe.
 
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They sure do. CDC ‘best estimate‘ C-19 fatality rate.

  • 0.003% for people aged 0–19 years.
  • 0.02% for people aged 20–49 years.
  • 0.5% for people aged 50–69 years.
  • 5.4% for people aged 70+ years.
So what did we do?

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
There is a much more basic question about real life, not statistics.
The question:
Would the health outcomes in the US be different(better) had half the population followed the rules?
And the second part, seeing how half the population followed President Trump in not following the guidelines set out by his agencies, would it have been advantageous for the President to follow the rules, given the current situation?
singling out outcomes w children is part of the problem. The population needed to be addressed as a single thing..because after all, children don't act as their own school nurse or custodian.. Kids don't respond to fire alarms or school shootings, they don't act as their own school principal..all those jobs are done by adults w an easily anticipated mix of age,race,sex, existing health problems..
So adults need to be healthy for kids to go to school.
Adults need to be healthy so children can go out to eat with their families.
Adults need to be healthy so they can go to work,so that they can bring children to see their grandparents..
It always was a complete picture
We need overall health in every population segment in every community.

if only any of it was true
The promised testing.
The vaccines days away..
magic Malaria meds
Anything true would have helped..
looking like regular Americans will eat a schit sandwich for Christmas while the investment class will enjoy some goose liver smear and caviar..$1200 bucks for 10 months. Heart felt thanks Mr. President..33% of adults looking at rent payment problems,eviction or foreclosure..
In 2020..we don't say let them eat cake..the new mantra..golf and tweet your way out of the pandemic!! Bravo
 
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Would the health outcomes in the US be different(better) had half the population followed the rules?

Which rules and which health outcomes? Constitutional or unconstitutional? Covid or suicides? Long term mental heath or alcohol/drug abuse? Be specific.

singling out outcomes w children is part of the problem.

It sure is. Lying to kids, lying to educators, educators lying to you, Teachers Unions lying to everyone is very problemactic. You’ll see this start to play out a few years from now. By then I’m confident you’ll find someone else to blame.
 
60% or more coverage will be voluntary

That's what the latest poll I've seen says. And I do anticipate a snowball effect. As more and more people get vaccinated, and (if) we don't hear horror stores of bad side effects, some of those sitting on the fence will join the majority. Another factor likely to help, in a negative, stick rather than carrot, way: there's no evidence yet that vaccination prevents people from getting infected, and thus potentially spreading the virus. I'd be surprised if vaccination doesn't at the least reduce viral load, and we will probably get a better idea of this situation eventually, but right now, we have to assume default that vaccination mostly just converts individuals to a very young, super-healthy unvaccinated person: no worries about getting sick, but still a threat to those at risk. Until we know differently, no matter how many people are vaccinated, those who aren't are still at risk.

Following up on my post yesterday, which traced several hundred thousand cases to a biotech conference in Boston at the end of February: A similar type of approach is yielding evidence suggesting a link between surging cases in college towns when students return to campus, and increasing deaths among older, at risk people in the nearby communities:

As coronavirus deaths soar across the country, deaths in communities that are home to colleges have risen faster than the rest of the nation, a New York Times analysis of 203 counties where students compose at least 10 percent of the population has found...since the end of August, deaths from the coronavirus have doubled in counties with a large college population, compared with a 58 percent increase in the rest of the nation. Few of the victims were college students, but rather older people and others living and working in the community...in September and October, when deaths were well below earlier peaks and fairly steady, they were already rising in many college communities. That trend highlighted a central fear of health officials — that young adults with limited symptoms may unwittingly transmit the virus, increasing the possibility it would ultimately spread to someone more vulnerable.

Using genetic sequencing to track Covid-19 cases around the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, Paraic Kenny, a cancer geneticist at the Kabara Cancer Research Institute of the Gundersen Medical Foundation, has found links between infections at the university and cases and deaths in the surrounding region.

Dr. Kenny, who wrote about his findings in a study that has yet to be peer-reviewed, said he has identified at least 18 deaths in long-term care facilities and in the La Crosse community that occurred after a virus outbreak at the college in September and had the same genetic fingerprint as two strains that drove the college student outbreak.

This is just hard evidence for what researchers have been insisting upon for months. As cases in a community rise, even if the great majority are among relatively young people who have mild or not symptoms, the virus inexorably works its way to more vulnerable people in the population. And this is particularly a problem in college communities:

Students make up more than 18 percent of the population in Ingham County, home to Michigan State. Classes were suddenly moved online for most undergraduates in August, but tens of thousands of students returned to the area, many renting off-campus housing...The county went from having about 300 new infections in August to about 1,800 in September. On Sept. 14, health officials said a majority of the newest cases involved students at Michigan State and ordered people in many fraternities and sororities to quarantine. Virus deaths have more than tripled in the county since the end of August, to 141 from 41.

Some of this surge no doubt results from the colder weather, driving more people indoors. But the earlier rise in deaths can't be attributed to this factor:

In another college town, the University of Nebraska at Kearney has been holding both online and in-person classes this fall. Students make up about 12 percent of the population of Buffalo County, where infections began to surge in mid-August before fall classes started. The county of about 50,000 residents, which had about 330 cases from the start of the pandemic until August, saw cases more than triple by the end of September. Buffalo County, which recorded one virus death before August, now has seen 45 people die.

 
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That's what the latest poll I've seen says. And I do anticipate a snowball effect. As more and more people get vaccinated, and (if) we don't hear horror stores of bad side effects, some of those sitting on the fence will join the majority. Another factor likely to help, in a negative, stick rather than carrot, way: there's no evidence yet that vaccination prevents people from getting infected, and thus potentially spreading the virus. I'd be surprised if vaccination doesn't at the least reduce viral load, and we will probably get a better idea of this situation eventually, but right now, we have to assume default that vaccination mostly just converts individuals to a very young, super-healthy unvaccinated person: no worries about getting sick, but still a threat to those at risk. Until we know differently, no matter how many people are vaccinated, those who aren't are still at risk.

Following up on my post yesterday, which traced several hundred thousand cases to a biotech conference in Boston at the end of February: A similar type of approach is yielding evidence suggesting a link between surging cases in college towns when students return to campus, and increasing deaths among older, at risk people in the nearby communities:





This is just hard evidence for what researchers have been insisting upon for months. As cases in a community rise, even if the great majority are among relatively young people who have mild or not symptoms, the virus inexorably works its way to more vulnerable people in the population. And this is particularly a problem in college communities:



Some of this surge no doubt results from the colder weather, driving more people indoors. But the earlier rise in deaths can't be attributed to this factor:





I think if there are more than one vaccine approved AND if people have a choice to which one they get, it may help as well.

I'm good with assuming that at the very least the vaccine will keep you from getting sick enough to require hospitalization. At that point it will also hopefully allow for more therapeutics to be developed for those with mild to moderate symptoms. If we can get to that point, then we should be able to get back to something resembling normal.
 
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Which rules and which health outcomes? Constitutional or unconstitutional? Covid or suicides? Long term mental heath or alcohol/drug abuse? Be specific.



It sure is. Lying to kids, lying to educators, educators lying to you, Teachers Unions lying to everyone is very problemactic. You’ll see this start to play out a few years from now. By then I’m confident you’ll find someone else to blame.
Chris I understand I really do, what I am asking of you appears too tall an order..sure deceiving kids and teachers..you look to go down the who hates puppies list..why not add old people, blacks,Mexicans,poor,fat, people who can't read, people who won't read..the virus like the official government lies are done shotgun style..just aim in a general direction and let er' fly.
The answer to do lies hurt kids..responding yes..but they also hurt illegal immigrants..and poor people who can't work from home..disproportionately so..so do I share your concern for kids? For unionized or scab teachers? Sure I do. But there is much,much more..much more death and destruction to the issue..Kids and teachers need our help,but fat people need it more, Native Americans much more,Brown and Blacks..they need 50-100% more of your concern by the numbers..so yes not going to the water park,or getting a haircut, whenever you want sucks,I get it..not being able to guzzle yummy beer..I feel it too.
There was,there is not any constitutional issue with helping prevent disease to people living in the US..there won't be after January 20th at @2pm..the country will still be in desperate need of a cooperative effort.
it's like Trump tried to say the other day at his Covid press conference, but it was not written out,not that it would have mattered..10-15% of the population has been exposed..we need 80% for herd anything, so Trump saying that 280,000 deaths is a positive thing,that we are gettin ur done is dumb,we are not..at 280,000 at 15% exposure and a year minimum for vaccines the math doesn't work out..
it is what it is that is not a unit of measure,wingin' it is not science..
There are sub groups within the US that still are not getting the emergency medical attention they need,they deserve..that is a fact.
I will wait for you to tell me why..and please blend in somebody in Orange county not having access to 24\7 sushi or latte as a infringement..a constitutional crisis..
at least now the questions are answered, what if he..takes charge of national health care policy, education and defense? What if he negotiates us into trade wars globally?
And so many more,you can check off,how would he act in a pandemic, how would he treat Greenland?
The only thing that we don't have an answer to is about nuclear weapons..environment,economy..everything else is answered..even how he would act in the court system, that box is checked off to the Supreme Court level..
The U.S. Pandemic response is a failure.
And I will post it for you..before you even get into it..

 
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