@Michelle I know! I mean, I’m sure they will be okay and they are also next to a big hotel so I’m sure the workers there will look after them, but they are urban ducks. They aren’t used to fending for themselves on the mean streets of Adelaide!
Well, it’s been a roller coaster this week - our Premier called a press conference today to say the 6 day hard lockdown was ending early because they found out one of the people lied about how he got infected. I wouldn’t want to be that guy right now - he’s got the whole State government and police force looking for a way to charge him with something.
California curfew official. 10pm - 5am. I’m not sure it will help but I’m glad to try. The confirmed cases in this state jumped 50% the first week of November alone.
The US is an embarrassment right now. If you treated each state as a separate country 10 of the top 15 in new COVID infections per day per capita would be US states - and the top 4 are all US states.
Even worse, 3 of the top 4 are the dakotas and Iowa - rural states where it should be incredibly easy to socially distance.
Well, it’s been a roller coaster this week - our Premier called a press conference today to say the 6 day hard lockdown was ending early because they found out one of the people lied about how he got infected. I wouldn’t want to be that guy right now - he’s got the whole State government and police force looking for a way to charge him with something.
@tom_g I feel bad for the guy, to be honest. I am 99% certain his employers would have told him to lie because they were doing something dodgy like paying him under the table. And the way people are frothing at the mouth about it, poor guy would be shitting himself at being outed to the public.
I got my results back today. Negative! Other employees have tested negative so far as well. Fingers crossed that we don't have any other employees test positive!
So after our hard lockdown got cancelled, they showed on the news last night that cafes, shopping centres and beaches were packed. No one social distancing, hardly anyone wearing masks. Walked into my office this morning, business as usual. No one wearing masks, no one social distancing. I commented as such to someone and she said, “We wore masks on Friday.”
OH WELL THAT’S SOLVED COVID THEN.
I’m fucking furious. My employer doesn’t want people working at home unless the government literally mandates it, so I’m stuck here in an office of 200 + fuckwits who have learned absolutely nothing.
Glad your test was negative @Michelle and oh boy, sorry @Dee - I would be furious too. I can't get over the stories my sister tells me about the carelessness of the people who work in her HOSPITAL! It's the same kind of shit, and they are literally overrun with COVID patients!
Some of you may have already seen this, but if not, I thought it was pretty good. It's a documentary about Flat Earthers in the Part 1, but Part 2 goes in QAnon and also into how some of the COVID denial is related to them. Part 2 starts about 37 minutes in. Also, is it just me, or does the host look like A.Ron's long lost Canadian brother?
yikes! do you know the total cases in your county? SC county has had like 4000, but only like 850 are active from what i heard. 28 deaths, so def not as bad as other counties in CA <knock on wood >
@Dee I'm sorry that is so frustrating. I'm nightshift so I'm driving through center city Philly at dinnertime to get to the hospital, so I get to drive by blocks upon blocks of people having dinner, drinks etc. All the restaurants are packed. And Philly's numbers are surging. It's surreal, like I'm going to work in some alternate universe. We're very lucky where I work because our unit is very specialized neurosurgery so they've tried to keep us as COVID free as possible. The COVID patients we do have are there for a neuro concern. But I've almost never seen it so busy with strokes, brain bleeds, aneurysm ruptures etc. I think people are so stressed out that their blood pressures are getting high, people are strained economically and not able to afford their meds, if they are seeking medical help at all due to covid restrictions and fears. Its been so busy and we're just getting into the fall surge, I don't know how we handle our current patient load and the inevitable COVID overflow. Not looking forward to the next few months
yikes! do you know the total cases in your county? SC county has had like 4000, but only like 850 are active from what i heard. 28 deaths, so def not as bad as other counties in CA <knock on wood >
@Jenny I feel like this is causing an explosion of other medical issues as a side effect - I was reading the other day the medical community is concerned that a lot of people were delaying check ups like Pap smears and so on and they’re worried about how much cancer is not being picked up early. The Covid figures don’t tell the real story of how much other serious illness and even death is resulting from the upheaval. :-(
Totally agree. Another aspect of this is the debate over elective procedures during this time. Purely from a staffing position, I see the argument for halting elective procedures, allow healthcare workers stable nurse:patient ratios so they can provide quality care for pandemic patients. From a financial perspective, elective procedures are extremely important to keeping the whole hospital system up and running. For that reason I think they will keep going with electives, which may be the best choice in a bad situation (as someone who works bedside just saying this makes me cringe). Plus our "electives" are brain tumors or aneurysms so it may well be worth risking a short hospital stay in a pandemic to have peace of mind (pardon the pun) and the hospital stays afloat. Sigh, its a lot
The best way to measure the true impact of COVID is not to look at COVID deaths but to look at excess deaths - which I think peg the number as like 100k more in the US than the actual COVID numbers (I could be wrong haven't looked in awhile and it was surprisingly hard to find back when I did, but excess deaths is the best measure).
When thinking about the second and third order effects of this stupidity in the US, I keep thinking about all the PTSD and burnout we're likely to see in the healthcare workforce. It's not reasonable to expect the constant stress and burden we're placing on these people. Not only are they dealing with all of this sickness and suffering at work, the pains of having to be constantly vigilant to not get infected themselves or infect others at work, but then they have to isolate from their own families, cut themselves off from the very source of stress relief and comfort humans need to survive emotionally.
And its all because people don't want to accept simple things like wearing masks and social distancing. People don't want to admit that their leaders in this culture war lie to them constantly.
I've lost so much faith in humanity in this crisis, at least in American citizens. I've never been a Pollyanna, America has clearly always had its flaws in the way we've treated each other and the world at large, but COVID has made it clearer how far we are from the picture we like to paint of ourselves. Larger segments of the US population are the arrogant, ignorant, selfish brutish caricatures than I wanted to believe.
I'd like to believe we can change minds and educate people, but at least in the middle of all of this, I have no idea how we can reach people who quite literally define "truth" as "that which I already believe" or "that which Trump says right now." What rational middle ground can you make with that?
None of that is to diminish the signs of the same COVID stupidity overseas, as Dee has pointed out it exists to some degree everywhere, but it certainly seems to be a far worse problem in the USA than anywhere else.
@mharmless I think what it’s made me realise is that America is really a whole bunch of little countries who all want to do things their own way, and there’s no real cohesion or coming together in a crisis.
@mharmless I think what it’s made me realise is that America is really a whole bunch of little countries who all want to do things their own way, and there’s no real cohesion or coming together in a crisis.
This wasn't always the case, at least when we were threatened with an external existential threat. The US came together (more or less - more if you were a white man, less if you were anything else) during WW2 and the cold war, and I fully expected it to come together in the face of COVID, but we didn't. Is this the point of no return? Maybe.
And it's not even that the states are little countries. It's one team versus another. A person in rural Georgia has views more aligned with a person in rural Michigan than in Atlanta. And someone in Atlanta is closer to someone in Seattle than someone an hour outside the city, on balance. The US is VERY much people who live in diverse places versus those who don't.
I don't think we've had more than 2-3 cases in one day, maybe 5 once, and not sure we've reached 60 active cases at once. And most of those were in one particular long term care facility.
That is until yesterday, when we had 37 new cases.
I don't think we've had more than 2-3 cases in one day, maybe 5 once, and not sure we've reached 60 active cases at once. And most of those were in one particular long term care facility.
That is until yesterday, when we had 37 new cases.
It’s just so easy for it to get out of control. That’s what happened here, for months we just had 3 or 4 a week that were coming in from international flights and being picked up in mandatory quarantine, then all of a sudden 20-something cases in one family/friend group out in the ‘burbs.
@mharmless I think what it’s made me realise is that America is really a whole bunch of little countries who all want to do things their own way, and there’s no real cohesion or coming together in a crisis.
This wasn't always the case, at least when we were threatened with an external existential threat. The US came together (more or less - more if you were a white man, less if you were anything else) during WW2 and the cold war, and I fully expected it to come together in the face of COVID, but we didn't. Is this the point of no return? Maybe.
And it's not even that the states are little countries. It's one team versus another. A person in rural Georgia has views more aligned with a person in rural Michigan than in Atlanta. And someone in Atlanta is closer to someone in Seattle than someone an hour outside the city, on balance. The US is VERY much people who live in diverse places versus those who don't.
I don't think this is a fair characterization. There are more people on one side that live in the cities than the other side. There are more people on the other side that live in rural areas, sure. But really there are people of all persuasions that live everywhere.
For instance, in Los Angeles county, Trump got almost 27% of the vote to Biden's 71%. In my rural Georgia county, Trump got 64% of the vote to Biden's 35%. In Chicago, Trump 16% Biden 83%.
Most of our elections, BY DESIGN, come down to a handful of states that are so equally balanced that it could honestly be predicted by a coinflip which side wins.
A lot of the Republican stranglehold is the result of gerrymandering. A lot of it is propaganda. Some of it is an ignorant yet reliable voter block.
If I went to the grocery store right now and there were 10 people in front of me in line, it is very likely that between 3 and 4 of those people voted for Biden. In "deep red" Paulding County Georgia.
We get this image in our heads that everyone who lives in the country votes red and everyone who lives in the city votes blue, but reality is much less cut and dry. My little town is far less diverse than Atlanta, and that probably plays some part of it, but it's definitely not the entire story. I don't think it's even that big of a part, honestly.
I don't think we've had more than 2-3 cases in one day, maybe 5 once, and not sure we've reached 60 active cases at once. And most of those were in one particular long term care facility.
That is until yesterday, when we had 37 new cases.
It’s just so easy for it to get out of control. That’s what happened here, for months we just had 3 or 4 a week that were coming in from international flights and being picked up in mandatory quarantine, then all of a sudden 20-something cases in one family/friend group out in the ‘burbs.
Yuo, I believe it started with international students arriving in September.
I don't think this is a fair characterization. There are more people on one side that live in the cities than the other side. There are more people on the other side that live in rural areas, sure. But really there are people of all persuasions that live everywhere.
For instance, in Los Angeles county, Trump got almost 27% of the vote to Biden's 71%. In my rural Georgia county, Trump got 64% of the vote to Biden's 35%. In Chicago, Trump 16% Biden 83%.
Most of our elections, BY DESIGN, come down to a handful of states that are so equally balanced that it could honestly be predicted by a coinflip which side wins.
A lot of the Republican stranglehold is the result of gerrymandering. A lot of it is propaganda. Some of it is an ignorant yet reliable voter block.
If I went to the grocery store right now and there were 10 people in front of me in line, it is very likely that between 3 and 4 of those people voted for Biden. In "deep red" Paulding County Georgia.
We get this image in our heads that everyone who lives in the country votes red and everyone who lives in the city votes blue, but reality is much less cut and dry. My little town is far less diverse than Atlanta, and that probably plays some part of it, but it's definitely not the entire story. I don't think it's even that big of a part, honestly.
Well sure, that's true everywhere that people aren't a monolith, I just meant in terms of the government they would choose for themselves, it's rural v city in the US.
Good lord... My governor’s actions make no sense whatsoever. We KNOW that mask mandates save lives. Not only will he not do them, but he’s completely hamstrung local governments from doing it themselves. These preventable deaths are his fault. They don’t call him Rona DeathSentence for nothing.
“DeSantis’ decision came less than a week after a bipartisan group of mayors held a meeting at which they pleaded for the governor to allow mask mandates to be enforced.”
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Even worse, 3 of the top 4 are the dakotas and Iowa - rural states where it should be incredibly easy to socially distance.
I say feed him to the dingoes.
https://lostcoastoutpost.com/covid-report/2020/nov/20/
Other employees have tested negative so far as well. Fingers crossed that we don't have any other employees test positive!
OH WELL THAT’S SOLVED COVID THEN.
We're very lucky where I work because our unit is very specialized neurosurgery so they've tried to keep us as COVID free as possible. The COVID patients we do have are there for a neuro concern. But I've almost never seen it so busy with strokes, brain bleeds, aneurysm ruptures etc. I think people are so stressed out that their blood pressures are getting high, people are strained economically and not able to afford their meds, if they are seeking medical help at all due to covid restrictions and fears. Its been so busy and we're just getting into the fall surge, I don't know how we handle our current patient load and the inevitable COVID overflow. Not looking forward to the next few months
See my response above. It might be only double digits as compared to a larger metro area, but for a smaller county it's much much worse.
And it's not even that the states are little countries. It's one team versus another. A person in rural Georgia has views more aligned with a person in rural Michigan than in Atlanta. And someone in Atlanta is closer to someone in Seattle than someone an hour outside the city, on balance. The US is VERY much people who live in diverse places versus those who don't.
That is until yesterday, when we had 37 new cases.
For instance, in Los Angeles county, Trump got almost 27% of the vote to Biden's 71%.
In my rural Georgia county, Trump got 64% of the vote to Biden's 35%.
In Chicago, Trump 16% Biden 83%.
Most of our elections, BY DESIGN, come down to a handful of states that are so equally balanced that it could honestly be predicted by a coinflip which side wins.
A lot of the Republican stranglehold is the result of gerrymandering. A lot of it is propaganda. Some of it is an ignorant yet reliable voter block.
If I went to the grocery store right now and there were 10 people in front of me in line, it is very likely that between 3 and 4 of those people voted for Biden. In "deep red" Paulding County Georgia.
We get this image in our heads that everyone who lives in the country votes red and everyone who lives in the city votes blue, but reality is much less cut and dry. My little town is far less diverse than Atlanta, and that probably plays some part of it, but it's definitely not the entire story. I don't think it's even that big of a part, honestly.