Corona virus

[jazzbodog]

Got my vaccine yesterday! Feelin' fine 16hrs after the shot.

Excellent!

[CanDB]

When I take the dog for a walk in sometimes colder weather....as I leave the condo (where it's mandatory to wear a mask), I sometimes just keep the mask on. It's actually serves to keep my face a bit warmer.

[CanDB]

I do not check out the newspaper Obituaries very often, but today I did, and it was clear that there were many more who passed away recently than normally. Same with last week per my wife. And though I did not see "covid related" in the words, there is little doubt that the increased number of deaths is attributed to the pandemic.

[Hadez]

Not sure what tracing looks like in other areas.

In So CA grocery store workers have threated to strike as big companies were not forthcoming with positive Covid work exposures. Fast food chains have had strikes over lack of information about positive Covid work exposures.

I have first hand knowledge of big companies wanting to control all the information of work related covid exposures....citing individual privacy laws. In my experience essentially the company will notify people who they think were in contact with a person who tested positive for 15 mins or more in a 24 hour period of time...and tell everyone else that works there nothing can be said because of privacy laws. The company will not even confirm someone tested positive in a building or not. Sometime in the future we will see something like "CityX had 15 positive Covid cases" but not sure which building how many positive tests. Did our building have none...some...all 15? When was the positive Covid person in the building?

Just this week I saw one large company finally notifying their employees as a whole about possible work exposures citing "recent changes at OSHA". It did take 17 days for the company to announce to the building that there was an positive covid person in the building.

It is crazy we got all the way to mid Dec with big companies thinking they could cite individual privacy laws before changes at OSHA "empowered" them to notify essential workers of possible risk.

Luckily I have seen many examples of small businesses being forthcoming with positive Covid exposures...maybe even sometimes giving too much information in attempts to help people understand the possible risks they have have encountered coming to their business.

It took until the third week of November for the local governments to start pushing out the contact tracing mobile app around here.

The county is having to offer people gift cards to participate in the tracing interviews because most positive test cases never call back.

What blows my mind is SoCal seems to be competing with SF Bay area, Washington State and New York to be the most serious cracking down areas in the country in terms of taking this pandemic seriously. If these issues are occurring here than I wonder how bad is it getting in other areas that are not taking this as serious.

I think the USA is doing poorly on this issue and there is more than one reason behind the failure.

[CanDB]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed on Saturday that a new variant of the coronavirus that is more than 70 per cent more transmissible than existing strains is driving a rapid rise in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 in the U.K. Canada and several European nations are halting flights from The U.K. as a result.....probably more to come. There is some good news so far, to date there is no evidence that the mutations have any impact on symptom severity, antibody response, or vaccine efficacy.

[Peerless]

Prime Minister Boris Johnson revealed on Saturday that a new variant of the coronavirus that is more than 70 per cent more transmissible than existing strains is driving a rapid rise in the number of people testing positive for COVID-19 in the U.K. Canada and several European nations are halting flights from The U.K. as a result.....probably more to come. There is some good news so far, to date there is no evidence that the mutations have any impact on symptom severity, antibody response, or vaccine efficacy.

New variants of a virus - especially this virus - popping up is the exact reason why herd immunity should never ever be mentioned or tried. Too many chances for mutations and look what happened...

[Sophia23]

The news about the more contagious variation just seems to reinforce that this is not coming to an end anytime soon. Really bothers me that politicians are getting the vaccine before healthcare workers and educators. Bothers me even more when the politician was a denier of the pandemic and there they are, getting the vaccine. I never expected the pandemic to be over this year, but wish it felt more like there was an end in sight.

[CanDB]

The news about the more contagious variation just seems to reinforce that this is not coming to an end anytime soon. Really bothers me that politicians are getting the vaccine before healthcare workers and educators. Bothers me even more when the politician was a denier of the pandemic and there they are, getting the vaccine. I never expected the pandemic to be over this year, but wish it felt more like there was an end in sight.

I concur about the "denier".

We are at a strange crossroad in the pandemic....many locations with the worst situation since the initial spread of the virus, AND vaccines being introduced. And though I am excited about the vaccines, I worry about how many folks are going to get very sick, or worse, before the vaccines reach us all. Lets be smart for a little longer folks.

[Hadez]

The news about the more contagious variation just seems to reinforce that this is not coming to an end anytime soon. Really bothers me that politicians are getting the vaccine before healthcare workers and educators. Bothers me even more when the politician was a denier of the pandemic and there they are, getting the vaccine. I never expected the pandemic to be over this year, but wish it felt more like there was an end in sight.

People with power get things first in the USA....that is just how the country is built. Even though some people fight to even this out there is a pretty strong fight by those in power to keep it that way.

We are actually not getting told about most people in power who are getting vaccinated before essential workers. They are just telling about certain ones so that when the vaccine is available to everyone in April/May/June....hopefully most everyone will take it.

[Hadez]

I concur about the "denier".

We are at a strange crossroad in the pandemic....many locations with the worst situation since the initial spread of the virus, AND vaccines being introduced. And though I am excited about the vaccines, I worry about how many folks are going to get very sick, or worse, before the vaccines reach us all. Lets be smart for a little longer folks.

They are building hospital tents in SoCAL because beds have run out.

Was wondering why they have not brought back to Navy Hospital Ship take some of the non-Covid related patients like in spring....maybe they afraid one of the nut jobs is going to try to run a train into it again.

[Sophia23]

People with power get things first in the USA....that is just how the country is built. Even though some people fight to even this out there is a pretty strong fight by those in power to keep it that way.

We are actually not getting told about most people in power who are getting vaccinated before essential workers. They are just telling about certain ones so that when the vaccine is available to everyone in April/May/June....hopefully most everyone will take it.

Yeah, I get the point to it, just don't agree with it... I'm one of those that wants to see how it goes before rushing to get vaccinated when it is does become more readily available. I imagine corporations would require it, but if you ask those questions now they don't have the answers.

[jazzbodog]

I do not check out the newspaper Obituaries very often, but today I did, and it was clear that there were many more who passed away recently than normally. Same with last week per my wife. And though I did not see "covid related" in the words, there is little doubt that the increased number of deaths is attributed to the pandemic.

Reported this morning, over 3 million deaths in 2020 (for everything, car wrecks, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, covid, etc), a new all time high for deaths in a single year in the USA.

We are now seeing the results of Thanksgiving gatherings now....the Christmas gatherings might very well be worse around the second week in January.

Too bad so many Americans refuse to live and learn. Sad.

[jazzbodog]

Yeah, I get the point to it, just don't agree with it... I'm one of those that wants to see how it goes before rushing to get vaccinated when it is does become more readily available. I imagine corporations would require it, but if you ask those questions now they don't have the answers.

I am one of the somewhat older Americans and like you, is willing to wait to receive the vaccine, for a few reasons.

Patience and behaving safely are my priorities right now.

[Hadez]

Reported this morning, over 3 million deaths in 2020 (for everything, car wrecks, cancer, diabetes, heart disease, covid, etc), a new all time high for deaths in a single year in the USA.

We are now seeing the results of Thanksgiving gatherings now....the Christmas gatherings might very well be worse around the second week in January.

Too bad so many Americans refuse to live and learn. Sad.

There is a lot of failing to learn going on this year imo. As bad as Covid has been in 2020 imo it is a slap to the face by "Darwin" letting the human race know just how unprepared it is for a major event. There have been pandemics in human history that have wiped out 50% of the human population in a region. There have been smaller scale pandemics that wiped out 90% of certain people. 2020 has been a wake up call...as far as we think we have come....a lot of things need to be better.

The final yearly death toll in the USA will be telling.

2015 - 2,712,630
2016 - 2,744,248
2017 - 2,813,503
2018 - 2,839,205
2019 - 2,855,000 (not final count apparently)
2020 - 3 mil + (estimate)

[Hadez]

I am one of the somewhat older Americans and like you, is willing to wait to receive the vaccine, for a few reasons.

Patience and behaving safely are my priorities right now.

I agree.

If one is under 60 and does not have certain pre-existing conditions...and acts well informed and safely than one can wait for the vaccine imo.

Would rather health care workers, first responders, law enforcement and grocery store workers get it before me. Think that is strategically import as those people get exposed a lot. 40% of the people dying are the elderly....I can wait after them too.

I also do not mind being safe as possible and learning more about the vaccine.