Covid-19 #16: Not Waving, Loop-de-Looping

[Fragile Bird]

What the hell is going on in Spain? 5,760 cases reported today?

And has the UK stopped testing?

[williamjm]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

What the hell is going on in Spain? 5,760 cases reported today?

The Spanish numbers are always a bit confusing because they apparently include antibody tests together with new infections. That said, there does seem to have been a significant rise in some parts of Spain in recent weeks.

And has the UK stopped testing?

While it is difficult to keep track of what is happening here, not as far as I'm aware. Why do you ask?

[Fragile Bird]

Just now, williamjm said:

While it is difficult to keep track of what is happening here, not as far as I'm aware. Why do you ask?

It looked like testing numbers had stalled, but perhaps I was misreading the numbers, now that I look again.

[DaveSumm]

With the UK numbers, it’s getting harder and harder to find a meaningful stat that really gives a true picture of how things are. During the main rise/fall the positive percentage of tests was useful, but now the testing is more targeted it doesn’t tell us as much (it hovers around 0.5% with the occasional anomalous 0.7%). I can’t believe we’re still getting headlines based on pure number of positives, like earlier this week when we had the ‘highest daily increase since April’ but we just tested loads so it was meaningless. 

I’ve stopped paying too much attention to daily figures and go off of the ONS’s weekly estimate of infected people (showing a slight increase the past week or two).

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Fragile Bird said:

It looked like testing numbers had stalled, but perhaps I was misreading the numbers, now that I look again.

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2020/aug/03/why-has-major-incident-been-declared-greater-manchester-coronavirus

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jul/31/what-new-lockdown-rules-northern-england-coronavirus-measures

 

[RhaenysBee]

Phew, 33 new cases today. This means that the family reunion from the news, at which allegedly 36 people got infected over the weekend took seemingly 4 days to trickle through the system and make it into daily statistics. We are still the sixth worst testers in Europe according to worldometer. But that keeps the total case count positive, raises public morale and boosts the economy I guess? So there’s that. 
The reason why I’m not freaking out is that the areas where case counts seem to be rising are counties neighboring the Ukraine, Austria and Croatia, while here in the middle we seem to be doing all right. (Because we don’t seem to be testing enough.) But hey whose mind doesn’t love some cognitive dissonance? 

[The Anti-Targ]

On 8/2/2020 at 1:08 PM, Tywin et al. said:

Just drove to get some take out. The social distancing was pretty poor, and only the waiters had masks on. But then again how can you wear one and eat in public?

You can't. The only option for eat / drink-in places is social distancing, which is not easy to manage. Which really means if there is significant community spread then there shouldn't be any eat / drink-in places open.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

10 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

You can't. The only option for eat / drink-in places is social distancing, which is not easy to manage. Which really means if there is significant community spread then there shouldn't be any eat / drink-in places open.

And with little kids running around, bumping into one another, touching everything, not really understanding why everything has to change at school?
 

[The Anti-Targ]

13 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

And with little kids running around, bumping into one another, touching everything, not really understanding why everything has to change at school?
 

The only justification for schools is that too much time with school closures is bad for kids' education, esp where educational inequality will be exacerbated with the rich kids being able to do all the online education they want / their parents / nannies can force them into, and poor kids won't be doing any. Anyone trying to advance an economic argument for opening schools (so parents can get back to work for example) while community spread is in full swing is an arsehole.

And school hasn't been out for long enough for there to be a material effect on education just yet. It is probably only a few months away though. There needs to be a longitudinal study done on the effect of this schooling gap on the long term educational outcomes for this generation of school-goers, and what year group was most affected. I can imagine high school year 11/12 maybe even 10 (we go up to year 13, but it's all about the same age, we just start school at age 5) being pretty much unaffected, since they all have a strong educational base.

I know politicians wrong their hands over kids wagging a couple of days of school to go on a climate change march. But really any individuals with a social conscience strong enough to get into social action is not going to suffer educationally if they miss some days of school. It will be the educational under-achievers who will be hardest hit. Cynically one might say they are all pretty much destined for low-skill / low-wage lives anyway, but scraping through school might be the difference between living on minimum wage / unemployment benefits your whole life and managing to work your way into something a bit more comfortable. Though a lot of those modest successes in life come down to personality and character rather than what grades you got in school.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

47 minutes ago, The Anti-Targ said:

rich kids being able to do all the online education they want / their parents / nannies can force them into

This is funny. Rich kids do of course have more advantages. But forcing the little shits? Good luck. Most of the parents are just as checked out and the "nannies" don't give a shit at all. 

The problem, the real root problem, is that most people aren't meant to be parents. Dressing that up doesn't hide it. The rich kids were not all that different from the poor kids when they needed help. Their parents thought it was their teachers job to raise them, so "what do you mean my kid isn't acing his math tests?!?!?!?!?!?"

"Well, have you ever helped him with his homework?"

"No, that's what you're for!!!!!!"

I get why teachers look at most parents and think they're the worst. I did the job part time for a year and almost all of them disgusted me to the core.

[DireWolfSpirit]

So the mega motorcycle rally in Sturgis is on.

Let's jam 250,000 party animals in to a little town of less than 10,000 and no masks required.

This should be a splendid success all the way around

[Fragile Bird]

3 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

So the mega motorcycle rally in Sturgis is on.

Let's jam 250,000 party animals in to a little town of less than 10,000 and no masks required.

This should be a splendid success all the way around

I saw that on the news. This is, after all, Trump’s favorite crowd, right? Part of the group that will rise up if he loses in a crooked election?

It will be interesting to see how many actually show up. I saw on the news that many people in the state, and the town as well, aren’t crazy about the event going on.

And then they’ll go back home to dozens of different states! Just like the spring break beach crowd did...

[Ormond]

Not major news, but I was impressed to run across this report about "The Button Project" at Vanderbilt Pediatric Hospital in Nashville, where nurses are wearing buttons with photos of their own smiling faces to help reassure kids who might be afraid of masks.

 

I wonder if this could catch on with the general public, not just pediatric nurses, and if it could get a few more people to be willing to wear masks. 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

Not major news, but I was impressed to run across this report about "The Button Project" at Vanderbilt Pediatric Hospital in Nashville, where nurses are wearing buttons with photos of their own smiling faces to help reassure kids who might be afraid of masks.

 

I wonder if this could catch on with the general public, not just pediatric nurses, and if it could get a few more people to be willing to wear masks. 

They actually have face masks where you print your smiling face onto the mask.

The effect, quite frankly, would probably be nightmarish for some children.

[Wilbur]

9 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

So the mega motorcycle rally in Sturgis is on.

Let's jam 250,000 party animals in to a little town of less than 10,000 and no masks required.

This should be a splendid success all the way around

I looking forward to picking up a nice late-model Street Glide at an estate sale sometime this coming Autumn.

[DireWolfSpirit]

11 minutes ago, Wilbur said:

I looking forward to picking up a nice late-model Street Glide at an estate sale sometime this coming Autumn.

Have it thourougly disinfected to wipe away the stupid that previously had it.

[Zorral]

Governor declares state safe to re-open schools in all districts this month with in-person instruction.

Few teachers feel good about this, at any level of education.

[Mystical]

Isn't it interesting that the 'Corona Cares Act' (H.R.748) in America was introduced all the way back in the beginning of 2019? Weird considering that it didn't start until the end of 2019.

[Fragile Bird]

6 hours ago, Mystical said:

Isn't it interesting that the 'Corona Cares Act' (H.R.748) in America was introduced all the way back in the beginning of 2019? Weird considering that it didn't start until the end of 2019.

WTF are you raving about?

[Fragile Bird]

I just watched a piece about Sturgis and the tens of thousands (up to 250,000) rolling in for the annual motorcycle bash. Nobody was wearing a mask (except one old guy they found at the very end, walking with his maskless wife).

I hope all these bastards go home and spread more Covid-19 wherever they live. It seems that 95% of them are Trump supporters, may they all get so sick they can't crawl out of bed to vote.