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Which horse film is your favorite? This poll is closed. |
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| Black Beauty |
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2 | 1.06% |
| A Talking Pony!?! |
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4 | 2.13% |
| Mr. Hands 2x Apple Flavor |
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117 | 62.23% |
| War Horse |
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11 | 5.85% |
| Mr. Hands |
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54 | 28.72% |
| Total: | 188 votes | ||
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Coldrice posted:Big update to Covid Simulator tonight based on the feedback I got here! You are loving amazing.
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Sep 22, 2021 04:06
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Blitter posted:Back in 2020, Public Health Ontario had looked at a number of studies and concluded that "95% of individuals show symptoms by 11.2 to 11.7 days after exposure. However, the evidence for the incubation period at the tail end of the distribution (97.5th percentile or higher) is limited with a high degree of uncertainty." This evidence is not very compelling. They're meta-analyses drawing on very old studies that do not account for Delta, which has a faster incubation period[1]. The second study in particular is ancient, using studies from January 2020 that all acknowledge extreme limitations. I'm not contesting the quality of those studies, but rather the relevance for justifying the introduction of 21-day quarantine policies in HK in Sept 2022. HK has had quarantines in various forms since very early in the pandemic and has never completely locked down. As I recall, there were originally travel bans from certain high risk places, and I believe there still are, though they have changed over time. For others, there was a 14-day home or hotel quarantine using an honor system. There was no testing on arrival at that time. Later it became a 14-day home-or-hotel quarantine with tracking bracelets, including testing before boarding, on arrival, and two tests during quarantine. Then it became hotel-only in designated hotels for 21 days with 6 tests and very strictly controlled rules. For example, hallways are monitored on CCTV, and if you are seen stepping into the hallway, you will be taken to a quarantine camp[2], fined up to $25k, and potentially imprisoned. There is some variation by country of origin. New Zealand, Taiwan, and Macau are only a 7-day quarantine. Australia and many European countries are 14 days. I believe the latest update allows for travelers from mainland China to skip quarantine altogether. Most origins are effectively 21 days, though, because very few travel hubs with direct flights to HK are not classified as high risk. The rule is that if you are in transit for more than 2 hours, you count as having visited that country and thus have to spend 21 days in quarantine. The paperwork requirements have steadily escalated, too. Now then, all that is fine and dandy. For the vast majority of the world, more quarantine would have been great and probably still would help. And I think HK largely did an excellent job keeping Covid at bay while waiting on vaccines and putting in place other systems and infrastructure. However, in the case of HK, with the exception of the first wave for which there was no warning, none of the waves have been the result of insufficient quarantine durations. Rather, they have all been due to quarantine exceptions, privilege, and unlawful behavior. In no particular order, waves have been set off by airline pilots who had quarantine exemptions; seafarers with quarantine exemptions who were doing what seafarers are known for doing; prostituted women who were living in unlicensed hostels on overstayed visas; wealthy women holding private parties with male escorts brought in on speedboats; and bands performing in the nightlife district (which despite all the restrictions was still operating business as usual at the time). There are probably others, too, but those account for the major waves, if I'm not mistaken. Some of the loopholes have been closed, but not all of them. Airline and international logistics workers still have reduced quarantine requirements, understandably. Less understandably, finance executives can still bypass quarantine requirements completely, and clubs can still operate if they are 'private'. Domestic workers from the Philippines and Indonesia are allowed in (but have to quarantine in even worse facilities), because privileged HKers cannot survive without their servants, but no others from those countries. Quarantine periods had been eased somewhat but were recently hiked back up, ostensibly due to a single case of a traveler from the US going through 7 days of quarantine and then testing positive. However, it was later determined that she caught Covid in the quarantine facility. If the ostensible reason and intervention logic are sincere, then the response is possibly backwards. However, I am dubious that the reason and intervention logic are sincere. My theory is that neither the reason not the intervention logic are what the government has stated. HK has not had a real[3] local case in months, and the quarantine system had been working perfectly. Even the 'long incubation' case was rapidly identified by the system and did not spread. And as noted, if the reason were sincere, the correct response would have been better quarantine facilities to prevent transmission during quarantine, not longer quarantines in the same risky facilities. Rather, it's all driven by the complex politics between HK and PRC. HK is not going to 'open up' before PRC, and my bet is that PRC is not going to open up until the Beijing Olympics finish (earliest) or until Xi begins his third term. Maybe even longer, given that Covid measures might be helping China push through some politically difficult reforms (including with HK). 'Covid safety theatre' is a thing here like security theater in the US. Everyone wears flimsy masks on the street despite no local cases for months. But you can go to public swimming pools that are jammed, and old men are hawking loogies and blowing snot rockets on the street. Every shop or restaurant you go into, someone lazily points a uncalibrated thermometer gun at you, and half the time it reads 80°C or some absurd temperature. Yet restaurants are packed with people unmasked and eating. It looks safe, but these are not the behaviors that saved lives when outbreaks occurred. When outbreaks occurred, people stayed home, bought takeaway, maintained real social distance, etc. Meanwhile, the real weaknesses in HK's covid response continue unaddressed. Testing (aside from at the border) is weak, and vaccination is horrendously weak. Testing is understandably hard to keep up when cases are nonexistent, but it's further undermined by sending any positive cases to quarantine camps, not to mention the fact that tabloids pounce on every case, publicly out the person, and shame them. Weak vaccination campaigns are due to a number of factors, but government responses have not helped. Only Sinovac and BioNTech are available here. Initially people were highly skeptical of both, because they were Chinese in origin (the initial BioNTech version here was manufactured in China). Media from both 'sides' (mainland and anti-mainland) have spread disinformation that has undermined demand for any vaccines. There are few incentives to drive vaccination. No local cases, so no risk to protect against. No individual benefits such as easier travel. No policies commitments, such as reducing restrictions at a certain vaccination rate, so no larger benefits for getting it. Fairly complicated booking systems until recently. Tracking apps that people are skeptical, etc., etc. In some cases, the government is even discouraging actions that encourage vaccination. Cathay Pacific (flagship airline that is on its last leg) fired staff who were unwilling to vaccinate, and the government issued a vague public warning. [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-021-01986-w#ref-CR1 (study is linked in the article) [2] There have been quarantine camps since early on, and they are pretty miserable and remind me of (well run) refugee camps. They are used liberally. If a single case is detected in a building, the entire building is sent to a camp. Keep in mind that housing blocks in HK are gigantic and can house many hundreds of residents. However, there was a case where a luxury building had a case, and the residents refused to leave for quarantine until the authorities quietly departed. [3] One case was classified as local despite obviously being imported. A local couple had traveled overseas for two weeks, returned, and tested positive. Authorities classified it as local, saying that they had it before they left, had a long incubation period, tested negative multiple times, and slipped back in.
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Sep 22, 2021 04:52
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The study's estimate of the 95th percentile for the incubation period of Delta is ~12 days, not that far off from pre-Delta SARS-CoV-2. If they're concerned about quarantine infections, then I could see 21 days being sensible. That probably around the 95th percentile of a quarantine infection, which are likely relatively rare themselves. It would also have the added benefit of making travel less attractive without having to explicitly control it. The rest of it sounds not great, though I would personally take national zero-COVID control over local vaccination if it could be worked into regional/global vaccination strategy. Stickman fucked around with this message at 05:24 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 05:22
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Stickman posted:If they're concerned about quarantine infections, then I could see 21 days being sensible. ??? A person’s chance of being infected by bad, leaky quarantine is as great in the last week as it is in the first week. Sure, you’ll catch those first week cases in the third week, but that is entirely negated by the third week exposure. Platystemon fucked around with this message at 06:53 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 05:53
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Stickman posted:The study's estimate of the 95th percentile for the incubation period of Delta is ~12 days, not that far off from pre-Delta SARS-CoV-2. If they're concerned about quarantine infections, then I could see 21 days being sensible. That probably around the 95th percentile of a quarantine infection, which are likely relatively rare themselves. It would also have the added benefit of making travel less attractive without having to explicitly control it. Can you clarify that last point about taking zero Covid over local vaccination? What is the end game for a zero covid strategy that does not include local vaccination? I don't see these as mutually exclusive in the least. My expectation in 2020 was that strict controls with zero Covid targets would be eased as vaccination thresholds were met, as treatments improved, and as systems and infrastructure were strengthened to be more resilient and responsive to Covid. Easing controls would not mean stopping testing or shutting down systems that allow for adaptation to new outbreaks caused by mutations, etc. I still don't see 21 days as sensible unless the goal is to discourage travel, period. As mentioned, shorter quarantine durations were not the cause of previous outbreaks in HK, and the case that was the rationale for increasing to 21 days was later determined to have been transmitted during quarantine, within the quarantine facility. There has never been a breakdown in testing due to too many inbound travelers. Quarantines of 7-14 days with extensive testing were extremely effective at catching all imported cases. If the goal is to discourage travel volume, which again does not appear to have been a driver of risk, there are more effective approaches. The 21-day approach is not even discouraging travel that much. Quarantine facilities are booked out for months. On a separate note, is the incubation period just the amount of time it takes from infection until it can be detected by PCR?
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Sep 22, 2021 06:05
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Platystemon posted:??? I'm assuming rotating cohorts were people with roughly the same intake period are quarantined on the same level/zone/whatever and if you get a secondary case then you can keep everyone else for some extra days. If everyone is just thrown in together willy-nilly then yeah, it wouldn't apply. Smeef posted:Can you clarify that last point about taking zero Covid over local vaccination? What is the end game for a zero covid strategy that does not include local vaccination? I don't see these as mutually exclusive in the least. Sure, I just mean that there is no global or even regional vaccination strategies, but given limited supplies the most sensible collective approach would be to first use those resources to alleviate disease burden in regions that cannot feasibly maintain zero-COVID controls, ie the opposite of how vaccination nationalism actually played out. Of course, a globally directed response could also feasibly build zero-COVID economic bubbles, which would make individual nation's zero-COVID strategies much easier to maintain until sufficient vaccine supplies were available. It's a pipe dream because there's no political will for international cooperation on that level and capital-driven countries like the US have fostered a culture deathly afraid of collective action on that level. Smeef posted:My expectation in 2020 was that strict controls with zero Covid targets would be eased as vaccination thresholds were met, as treatments improved, and as systems and infrastructure were strengthened to be more resilient and responsive to Covid. Easing controls would not mean stopping testing or shutting down systems that allow for adaptation to new outbreaks caused by mutations, etc. In the paper "incubation period" is the time from infection to symptom onset while "latent period" is the time from infection to becoming infectious, which they measured by time to detectable PCR. That seems ~8 days for the 95% (as opposed to 12 for incubation period), but if you're trying to minimize the risk of lockdowns you'd want something higher than the 95th percentile! If they're doing daily testing in quarantine, it does seem like that should be sufficient to catch index cases that might produce the secondary infections, though, so I guess that might throw out that argument for the longer quarantine. They could just extend the quarantine for potentially exposed people around the index case.
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Sep 22, 2021 06:48
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Stickman posted:I'm assuming rotating cohorts were people with roughly the same intake period are quarantined on the same level/zone/whatever and if you get a secondary case then you can keep everyone else for some extra days. If everyone is just thrown in together willy-nilly then yeah, it wouldn't apply. I can't confirm, but it seems to be willy-nilly. The quarantine facilities are designated hotels booked by individuals through their normal booking systems. I can't imagine that those booking systems have the sophistication to optimize rooms based on arrival, origin, quarantine period, etc. The quarantine camps are likely more structured. Stickman posted:Sure, I just mean that there is no global or even regional vaccination strategies, but given limited supplies the most sensible collective approach would be to first use those resources to alleviate disease burden in regions that cannot feasibly maintain zero-COVID controls, ie the opposite of how vaccination nationalism actually played out. Of course, a globally directed response could also feasibly build zero-COVID economic bubbles, which would make individual nation's zero-COVID strategies much easier to maintain until sufficient vaccine supplies were available. It's a pipe dream because there's no political will for international cooperation on that level and capital-driven countries like the US have fostered a culture deathly afraid of collective action on that level. Stickman posted:In the paper "incubation period" is the time from infection to symptom onset while "latent period" is the time from infection to becoming infectious, which they measured by time to detectable PCR. That seems ~8 days for the 95% (as opposed to 12 for incubation period), but if you're trying to minimize the risk of lockdowns you'd want something higher than the 95th percentile! That's what I thought but wasn't entirely sure. For HK entry and quarantine, you have to have a PCR within 72 hours of boarding the flight (as well as third-party certification of the results). You then do another PCR on arrival. You then do a spit test every 2 days while in quarantine. You keep a booklet to log any symptoms and your temperature twice a day. A thermometer is provided. Then you have another PCR 1-2 days before leaving quarantine. Then you have another PCR test 5 days after leaving the quarantine. Technically you're supposed to home quarantine for the week after leaving the facility, but they no longer require a tracking bracelet. To me, the above process should be robust enough whether 14 or 21 days in a 15m^2 hotel room. If authorities are worried about the risk of something slipping through that process, then they should be far, far more focused on the other weaknesses in the larger system.
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Sep 22, 2021 07:14
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Gonna spot the pet tax on this page:
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Sep 22, 2021 07:31
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At our last school board meeting, some people were asking to implement test and stay. My understanding is that would mean if you child is exposed to someone, instead of quarantine, they take a rapid test in the morning, and they can keep coming to school as long as you test negative. Some schools have already implemented this. It sounds good on paper, but are the rapid test that accurate?
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Sep 22, 2021 11:17
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gninjagnome posted:At our last school board meeting, some people were asking to implement test and stay. My understanding is that would mean if you child is exposed to someone, instead of quarantine, they take a rapid test in the morning, and they can keep coming to school as long as you test negative. Some schools have already implemented this. It sounds good on paper, but are the rapid test that accurate? typically a single rapid test has middling performance ime but multiple tests (e.g., one every day for a while) sends the accuracy way up.
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Sep 22, 2021 12:11
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gninjagnome posted:At our last school board meeting, some people were asking to implement test and stay. My understanding is that would mean if you child is exposed to someone, instead of quarantine, they take a rapid test in the morning, and they can keep coming to school as long as you test negative. Some schools have already implemented this. It sounds good on paper, but are the rapid test that accurate? When properly performed a rapid test is pretty accurate but only for symptomatic individuals. Also that "properly performed" is doing a lot of the legwork there since they show much lower sensitivity (that is they give false negatives) when used by the general population. To be anything more than pandemic theater the testing needs to be PCR with quick turnaround, like getting results by noon from a morning test, and masking needs to be ubiquitous. Otherwise there's way too much room for error and best case you're only catching cases after they've been shedding virus for at least a day or two. Unfortunately "test and stay" is yet another case of starting with a desired action (kids stay in class when exposed) and working backwards to build up enough cover to do it. Shifty Pony fucked around with this message at 14:09 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 13:56
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Coldrice posted:
You are awesome! gninjagnome posted:At our last school board meeting, some people were asking to implement test and stay. My understanding is that would mean if you child is exposed to someone, instead of quarantine, they take a rapid test in the morning, and they can keep coming to school as long as you test negative. Some schools have already implemented this. It sounds good on paper, but are the rapid test that accurate? It doesn’t matter if the accuracy increases over multiple tests if one asymptotic person tests negative and starts fire-hosing covid everywhere. Especially true for a school filled with unvaccinated kids. The school board is deploying typical liberal logic that wants to justify the mishandling of an airborne virus using rules like they are hall monitors on the virus. This is like using plexiglass in restaurants or saying folks should be masked except when eating and congregating all together indoors in a cafeteria. The only truly safe way to handle schools is to do everything possible to ensure kids do distance learning or learn in incredibly small areas (think vaccinated local leaders teaching kids in groups of 5 with context tracing. Outdoors preferably or in separate homes). Speaking of liberal logic: https://twitter.com/Quinnae_Moon/status/1440444302518149121?s=20 It’s incredibly frustrating to see the fingers wagging and people trying to spread the word about vaccinations because it lacks the decorum liberals desperately crave. Who is this article for and what benefit does it provide? vvvv statistics mean very little when you or your family are personally impacted. It is an airborne disease that has an R0 > 5. Those in power should treat it as such. virtualboyCOLOR fucked around with this message at 15:07 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 14:39
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Shifty Pony posted:To be anything more than pandemic theater the testing needs to be PCR with quick turnaround, like getting results by noon from a morning test, and masking needs to be ubiquitous. Otherwise there's way too much room for error and best case you're only catching cases after they've been shedding virus for at least a day or two. I dunno, I think using antigen rapid tests as an asymptomatic screening measure makes sense. Even with a relatively high false negative rate you're still reducing spread significantly if you can catch 50%+ of cases before they enter a school setting. I wish my school board was doing it. And routine PCR tests are expensive and impractical for screening where there's no contact that would indicate the need for a test (speaking from personal experience, giving kindergarteners a full "brain stab" PCR test SUUUUCCCKKKS) Symptomatic cases and tests when there's a case in the kid's class should be PCR for sure though.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:01
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enki42 posted:I dunno, I think using antigen rapid tests as an asymptomatic screening measure makes sense. Even with a relatively high false negative rate you're still reducing spread significantly if you can catch 50%+ of cases before they enter a school setting. I wish my school board was doing it. And routine PCR tests are expensive and impractical for screening where there's no contact that would indicate the need for a test (speaking from personal experience, giving kindergarteners a full "brain stab" PCR test SUUUUCCCKKKS) Saliva based PCR tests are a thing now, and with the high false negative rate of antigen tests plus the often small window (1-2 day) of asymptomatic positivity in children, that approach will practically guarantee spread of disease. It doesn't matter tho, since the goal is only mildly convincing theatre.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:09
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Right, I just meant PCR testing should be used for "Test and stay" which is dealing with kids who had contact with a confirmed positive.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:13
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Blitter posted:Saliva based PCR tests are a thing now, and with the high false negative rate of antigen tests plus the often small window (1-2 day) of asymptomatic positivity in children, that approach will practically guarantee spread of disease. I'd imagine the bigger issue isn't the sample collection method, it's the processing time and lab infrastructure required to process regular PCR tests for every kid in the country with a same day turnaround time vs a rapid antigen test any layman can do at home themselves for their kid before school. PCRs for symptoms or possible exposure are one thing, but as a regular multiple times a week asymptomatic screening measure? Mr Luxury Yacht fucked around with this message at 15:20 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 15:15
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Blitter posted:Saliva based PCR tests are a thing now, and with the high false negative rate of antigen tests plus the often small window (1-2 day) of asymptomatic positivity in children, that approach will practically guarantee spread of disease. I'm not sure why, but we don't seem to have these in Ontario. I guess I can only speak for my PHU, but I still get full on brain stabby tests whenever I've done a PCR test. Ultimately I think the UK thing would be ideal for kids (sign up with the government, get free rapid antigen tests for your family for 2x a week testing every week). Sure in an ideal world it would all be PCR, but by the time you take into account administration and processing, it's probably an order of magnitude difference in terms of cost to implement. Not to mention that the school boards couldn't do this on their own - asymptomatic screening isn't a valid reason to get a PCR test from public health right now in most places. enki42 fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Sep 22, 2021 |
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Sep 22, 2021 15:19
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enki42 posted:I'm not sure why, but we don't seem to have these in Ontario. I guess I can only speak for my PHU, but I still get full on brain stabby tests whenever I've done a PCR test. IIRC they're approved here but pretty much never used in testing clinics because the NP swabs still have a slightly higher sensitivity.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:22
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:The school board is deploying typical liberal logic that wants to justify the mishandling of an airborne virus using rules like they are hall monitors on the virus. This is like using plexiglass in restaurants or saying folks should be masked except when eating and congregating all together indoors in a cafeteria. The only truly safe way to handle schools is to do everything possible to ensure kids do distance learning or learn in incredibly small areas (think vaccinated local leaders teaching kids in groups of 5 with context tracing. Outdoors preferably or in separate homes). Just for clarification, current policy is 10 day at home quarantine or after negative PCR test at least 5 days post exposure. It's a group of parents asking to implement test and stay, but school board was push back against it. It felt like a too good to be true kinda of thing to me, but I had no background on how good the rapid tests were.
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Sep 22, 2021 15:37
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gninjagnome posted:Just for clarification, current policy is 10 day at home quarantine or after negative PCR test at least 5 days post exposure. It's a group of parents asking to implement test and stay, but school board was push back against it. It felt like a too good to be true kinda of thing to me, but I had no background on how good the rapid tests were. Thanks for the clarification. Hopefully the school board doesn’t cave or else cases will explode just like in other parts of the country: https://www.themorningsun.com/2021/09/20/msn-l-mpps-outbreak-9-20-21 “The state COVID-19 dashboard confirmed an outbreak of COVID-19 at Mt. Pleasant Middle School on Monday. Eight students and members of the school’s staff were reported as part of the outbreak, according to the Michigan Department of Health and Human Services website tracking school-related outbreaks. That number is likely to increase, however. Late last week, the district reported that another 11 students had tested positive for the disease, bringing the total number of cases associated with the school to 47 since Sept. 2. A cumulative total of 50 confirmed cases have involved students and staff since the start of the school year.”
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Sep 22, 2021 15:47
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gninjagnome posted:At our last school board meeting, some people were asking to implement test and stay. My understanding is that would mean if you child is exposed to someone, instead of quarantine, they take a rapid test in the morning, and they can keep coming to school as long as you test negative. Some schools have already implemented this. It sounds good on paper, but are the rapid test that accurate? For asymptomatic people, the rapid tests are pretty inaccurate. The numbers I'm seeing are something like a 40-50% chance of a false negative on someone with asymptomatic COVID-19, though over several tests in a row it drops to about a 20% chance of getting false negatives every time. "Test and stay" decently reduces the chance of infection spreading, but it won't reduce it nearly as much as an effective quarantine would. It works from the assumption that some extra percentage points of infection spread risk are worth it to avoid the inconveniences of quarantine. We don't know exactly how many percentage points of risk are different, because it hasn't been well-studied, but this bit about the first usage of test-and-stay should tell you exactly where the priorities are. https://www.nbcboston.com/news/coronavirus/mass-rapid-covid-19-test-protocol-will-let-close-contacts-stay-in-school/2464069/ quote:... You can see exactly where the priorities lie here: it kept kids in classrooms, and it kept them in athletic events, but not a word about the infection rate or spread rate!
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Sep 22, 2021 16:17
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I'm about to travel and needed to have a COVID test done for the first time. What a joke. Anyone could easily fake negative results. They literally give you a swab, ask you to swirl it in your nostrils a few times, and then put into a tube. No one checking how far to insert, or if you're even making contact with your inner nose as opposed to just sticking it into nothing. Edit; I forgot that they didn't check ID. I could have been anyone. Our precautions are built on an honor system which is laughable at best.
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Sep 22, 2021 16:43
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virtualboyCOLOR posted:You are awesome! I do not understand the the Decorum Center's refusal to acknowledge the right's capacity to willingly support policies of self harm, whether that harm be allowing infrastructure to go unmaintained, their own schools to go underfunded, their rural hospitals to close, their own healthcare to continue rising in price while plummeting and quality, and I guess in this case whether or not they want to face enduring respiratory injury or death at the hand of SARS.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:25
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Potato Salad posted:I do not understand the the Decorum Center's refusal to acknowledge the right's capacity to willingly support policies of self harm, whether that harm be allowing infrastructure to go unmaintained, their own schools to go underfunded, their rural hospitals to close, their own healthcare to continue rising in price while plummeting and quality, and I guess in this case whether or not they want to face enduring respiratory injury or death at the hand of SARS. I think the problem is that no one knows how to get through to them. Approaching with kindness and a warm heart, for lack of a better term, is met with resistance and derision. Humiliating them makes them victims and pushes them further into the conspiracy theory. Just coldly telling people the truth is met with fingers in the ears. What more can people do?
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Sep 22, 2021 17:37
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Potato Salad posted:I do not understand the the Decorum Center's refusal to acknowledge the right's capacity to willingly support policies of self harm, whether that harm be allowing infrastructure to go unmaintained, their own schools to go underfunded, their rural hospitals to close, their own healthcare to continue rising in price while plummeting and quality, and I guess in this case whether or not they want to face enduring respiratory injury or death at the hand of SARS. Really all stems from freedom of religion to make choices that cause harm. All that has to happen is to break down the wall between the state and religion. (it has.)
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Sep 22, 2021 17:43
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Mooseontheloose posted:I think the problem is that no one knows how to get through to them. Approaching with kindness and a warm heart, for lack of a better term, is met with resistance and derision. Humiliating them makes them victims and pushes them further into the conspiracy theory. Just coldly telling people the truth is met with fingers in the ears. What more can people do? Yeah at some point you have to admit that their desire and ability to harm themselves exceeds yours to stop them. At that point your choices are basically despair, gallows humor, or convincing yourself they're doing it for a good reason you just aren't aware of. This forum tends to choose 2 while the punditry chooses 3.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:43
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Test and stay as the entire strategy is "ehhhhh, probably bad" from the point of COVID spread, but depending on the area of the US it is safe enough to do in-person schooling considering the other variables that are at play concerning kids and school. It may even be that in the OPs area, test and stay is relatively safe if they've got a highly vaxxed population and a low case count at this point. In my area, we've had great vaccine uptake in the population. The local population is quick to follow and stick with NPIs when announced. Businesses are in compliance. The city has free asymptomatic COVID testing for the entire city population (including those who work in the city but live outside it), which is not the nasal/brain swabs but a spit in a tube test. Schools here went with a combination of the test and stay and test and quarantine which depends on student vaccination status and usage of NPIs. The overlap point is when the student is unvaccinated but masked, and once the school district's contact tracers have reached out to everyone (and they do so quickly, as I've heard) as long as they are asymptomatic and with a negative COVID test within 24 hours of being informed of an exposure, they can come back to school. Here's a graph of my area's recent COVID cases:  School's opened at that red arrow - in fact, that spike in numbers was probably the catching of a number of positive students as everyone was required to get tested. Every student is now strongly recommended (employees/volunteers required, some schools it's essentially students are required) to get tested once a week, many extracurriculars require testing prior to the extracurricular so they may even be tested twice a week. Every classroom is required to have MERV 13 HVAC air filtration as well as two in room air purifiers. All students when indoors or out are required to wear masks. But it's been nearly a month now and the graph clearly shows a steady decline of cases (ignore last 3-5 days, those can get back filled). Were we already at our peak, or is there far more asymptomatic transmission among kids that regular testing of kids identified asymptomatic spreaders before they spread further? Did school opening - and thus getting loads more people tested - help us drop our numbers? Has kid exposure simply been the same as community spread so if the community is vaccinated, any spread mostly fizzles out? There are ways of doing in-person schooling safely. School districts that take the time and effort to put in the sufficient NPIs are going to likely have a very vaxxed local population. Those districts who don't likely also don't have a vaccinated local population, but that means they'll probably also not listen to external forces trying to influence how they handle things. And we do have to figure out how to get back to in-person schooling ASAP and arguably, right now, because of the negative consequences to kids from other factors other than negative consequences due to COVID. You could follow the breathless media and Twitter takes 6 months from now going, "10x more kid deaths from COVID under Biden's regime! Stepping from failure to failure!" (which ignores the theory that kid cases have followed adult cases, which means we only have capability to go 3-5x more before we get 100% exposure ignoring vaccinated %) and fail to look at the absolute numbers - as of today, there have been ~540 deaths in the 0-18 age bracket from COVID https://data.cdc.gov/NCHS/Provisional-COVID-19-Deaths-Focus-on-Ages-0-18-Yea/nr4s-juj3. 10x would be ~5400... out of nearly 80 million. Once you look at those numbers, you then must compare to the other possible outcomes in order to path the path of least bad through this situation. What are the long term effects of learning loss? https://www.bostonglobe.com/2021/09/21/metro/mcas-scores-plummet-during-pandemic/ It's likely this is further exacerbated by demographics https://www.pnas.org/content/118/17/e2022376118, in minorities and the poor, so how will that impact those communities and the individuals attempting to navigate our current economic system in the future? What are the long term effects from kids getting radicalized on social media and Internet forums? And no, they're not passing around Das Kapital as much as they are making, "free Kekistan" jokes and MRA bullshit. What are the long term effects of increased childhood obesity? https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7646045/ Making the decision point of school opening right now purely based on COVID is 100% incorrect. This is why discussions of public health is loaded with nuance and variability, because there are many pain points to critically evaluate.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:45
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BlueBlazer posted:Really all stems from freedom of religion to make choices that cause harm. All that has to happen is to break down the wall between the state and religion. (it has.) Can you expand on this, because the way I'm reading it sounds like way too extreme a take (i.e. we should have a state religion that prevents people from making bad choices)
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Sep 22, 2021 17:51
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Hey uh, I am pretty sure I know the answer, but those things people wear around their necks for "air filtration" are just stupid hokum right? The packaging literally sounds like snake oil. "Just clip this to your clothing or wear around your neck and you'll have a 4 ft shield around your person that will stop deadly viruses!" Like WTF.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:53
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Professor Beetus posted:Hey uh, I am pretty sure I know the answer, but those things people wear around their necks for "air filtration" are just stupid hokum right? The packaging literally sounds like snake oil. "Just clip this to your clothing or wear around your neck and you'll have a 4 ft shield around your person that will stop deadly viruses!" Something inexplicably effective and incredibly convenient is fake? Unreal.
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Sep 22, 2021 17:57
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Professor Beetus posted:Hey uh, I am pretty sure I know the answer, but those things people wear around their necks for "air filtration" are just stupid hokum right? The packaging literally sounds like snake oil. "Just clip this to your clothing or wear around your neck and you'll have a 4 ft shield around your person that will stop deadly viruses!" Unless it's a Daft Punk-style Corsi cube helmet, then yes Even if they were designed with filters it would only filter a tiny amount of air compared to what you're exposed to. More likely they don't have even that and they're just re-marketed cooling necklaces
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Sep 22, 2021 17:58
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Morrow posted:Something inexplicably effective and incredibly convenient is fake? Unreal. Epic High Five posted:Unless it's a Daft Punk-style Corsi cube helmet, then yes Thanks, my partner's employer was offering her one since they are essentially requiring her to attend a superspreader event with a high percentage of unvaxxed people and I was wondering how insulted/livid I should be about it. Pretty loving livid, I think!
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Sep 22, 2021 18:02
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HelloSailorSign posted:Making the decision point of school opening right now purely based on COVID is 100% incorrect. This is why discussions of public health is loaded with nuance and variability, because there are many pain points to critically evaluate. The other thing is it's not as though the only two options are opening schools with no restrictions whatsoever and virtual only. There are restrictions that can be applied at school. I've been pleasantly surprised by Ontario's numbers so far, although I'm waiting for the other shoe to drop a bit. We saw no real detectable impact from schools opening, and while I don't think the impact of schools opening is completely represented in the data yet (it seems reasonable to me that a lot of the impact will be in the form of secondary infections from kids infecting parents while they're asymptomatic), certainly some of the data is in now that we've been 2 weeks since school started in most places. Overall we've been at more or less a plateau since late August, and with vaccine passports in effect today that should hopefully translate to reduced case counts. We were significantly above the comparable cases for last year, but as of today we're below them. Restrictions can always be better, but we have daily screening (questionnaire, not rapid tests, although we give our kids tests 2x a week), fairly strict cohorting of students (Ontario's regulations are pretty wishy-washy, but most boards go stricter), mask mandates, and a fairly reasonable policy if cases are found in a student's cohort.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:02
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Professor Beetus posted:Thanks, my partner's employer was offering her one since they are essentially requiring her to attend a superspreader event with a high percentage of unvaxxed people and I was wondering how insulted/livid I should be about it. Pretty loving livid, I think! Are they requiring her to not wear a mask? Feels like it would fall under some regulation for refusing unsafe work.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:03
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Professor Beetus posted:Thanks, my partner's employer was offering her one since they are essentially requiring her to attend a superspreader event with a high percentage of unvaxxed people and I was wondering how insulted/livid I should be about it. Pretty loving livid, I think! Yeah I wouldn't blame you, if you could post one of them in question it could be dug into a bit more but it's all about moving air and anything that moved enough air would be really heavy and loud
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Sep 22, 2021 18:04
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Professor Beetus posted:Thanks, my partner's employer was offering her one since they are essentially requiring her to attend a superspreader event with a high percentage of unvaxxed people and I was wondering how insulted/livid I should be about it. Pretty loving livid, I think! I think it depends on what it looks like. 
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Sep 22, 2021 18:05
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enki42 posted:Are they requiring her to not wear a mask? Feels like it would fall under some regulation for refusing unsafe work. No, she will have a properly fitted N95 at all times and won't be attending any of the food events, and also won't be required to maintain close contact with anyone. We are hoping that will be enough (and we've both been fully vaxxed since May), but we're going to try and split up and quarantine as much as we can within reason for at least two weeks after the event. poo poo sucks but I am relatively confident we'll be fine. I am a little worried about what will happen to her job if the event turns out to be covid hotspot central though. Kaal posted:I think it depends on what it looks like. Modern problems etc
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Sep 22, 2021 18:14
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Professor Beetus posted:No, she will have a properly fitted N95 at all times and won't be attending any of the food events, and also won't be required to maintain close contact with anyone. We are hoping that will be enough (and we've both been fully vaxxed since May), but we're going to try and split up and quarantine as much as we can within reason for at least two weeks after the event. Those precautions are likely more than sufficient. For what it's worth, there's still a lot of free testing out there. It might be worth it to her to get tested after a few days just for both of your peace of minds. Isolating from your partner for weeks is going to be pretty emotionally draining, so it could be a good idea even if you are committed to doing that.
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Sep 22, 2021 18:26
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Mooseontheloose posted:I think the problem is that no one knows how to get through to them. Approaching with kindness and a warm heart, for lack of a better term, is met with resistance and derision. Humiliating them makes them victims and pushes them further into the conspiracy theory. Just coldly telling people the truth is met with fingers in the ears. What more can people do? Honestly you can't do much but make it extremely uncomfortable for them to remain dummies. Bullying them with things like r/hermancainaward or refusal if business does convince a few, but until their own little bubble pops they tend to be resilient to objective reality
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Sep 22, 2021 18:39
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Kaal posted:Those precautions are likely more than sufficient. For what it's worth, there's still a lot of free testing out there. It might be worth it to her to get tested after a few days just for both of your peace of minds. Isolating from your partner for weeks is going to be pretty emotionally draining, so it could be a good idea even if you are committed to doing that. Oh yeah, she's getting testing provided for as well. She's a little more nervous because she got the J&J vaccine but right now I think all the precautions we are planning on will likely be sufficient. But it's not a certainty and we are pretty grossed out by their decision to ram the event through and advertise "hey this is going into place before the governor's big vaxx mandate so come on down and get your superspreader event while you can!"
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Sep 22, 2021 18:42
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