NorthSideSox72
-
Posts
43,519 -
Joined
-
Last visited
-
Days Won
1
Content Type
Profiles
Forums
Calendar
Posts posted by NorthSideSox72
-
-
10 hours ago, bmags said:
Illinois has another best day.
2.5% pos rate, less than 500 new cases.
Also a three day stretch of less than 30 deaths.
For so long IL was on this horrendously slow decline while other states seemed to solve it. It’s very weird being now one of the few states still seeing falling rates.
I'm a little confused on the Phase 4 determinant around positivity rate. Seems like there is conflicting information. Does it need to be five percentage points down from when we entered Phase 3, which was May 27th? Or does it need to be five percentage points down over the last 14 days (so from June 11th to 25th I guess)? I have this fear that, after Illinois doing so well to go from like 20% range all the way down to the 3-5% range, that we did SO well that it may not even be realistic to push it down any further. Then on June 25th, if the rate has stayed basically the same or maybe gone slightly up even, despite the fact that that is a really good spot to be in (along with the other measures), we won't be able to go to Phase 4.
-
The Venn diagram of people who vociferously celebrate the sacrifices that our military and public safety personnel have made and still make (which is perfectly fine with me), and the people who refuse to make the comparatively minuscule sacrifice of wearing a mask inside public spaces or follow some simple social distancing guidelines (which is moronic, selfish and dangerous), is a fucking concentric circle. Which is it you nincompoops? Should Americans make sacrifices for our national good, or not?
Shit just pisses me off right now because by most accounts, if we could just get 90% of Americans to wear masks and maintain social distance in certain (not even all!) public spaces, along with some protections for vulnerable populations (long term care, some pre-existing conditions), we could probably have like 99% of all businesses back to business now AND have a lot fewer deaths. Alas, apparently for those "patriots", being asked to wear a mask in some public spaces for a few months is an affront to their warped and fact-free interpretations of their Constitutional rights. So instead we are stuck in this uneven, patchwork state of affairs in 50 different modes of operation, playing virus whack-a-mole, with a moribund economy that will take far too long to recover AND a lot more death than is necessary.
For that quarter or so of the population (just wild-ass guessing the ratio here) this applies to - the ones willing to shoot themselves in the foot (slow the economic recovery they so desire) and then fire another shot into the air above a crowd (refusing to wear a mask) 'cause it's their freedoms - fuck you and the horse you rode in on.
-
2
-
-
1 hour ago, DisneyTaxDad said:
https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/0d8bdf9be927459d9cb11b9eaef6101f
May be difficult to call that a surge. More hospitalizations on May 5, over a month into the height of the lockdown in Texas.
You are cherry-picking a single day number. Look at the chart. Also, the early May high in general was expected as peak-ish, then it started declining. Now second wave is caused most likely by behavioral changes. That is the problem.
-
Illinois was the first to hit the CDC reopening guidelines. Our people have kicked some ass on this thing - the citizens AND the leadership. Not often I get to say nice things about IL state government, so this is a good opportunity. Pritzker was not terribly popular upon election, but his ratings are quite good now. I can make a list of imperfections in his response to COVID, but overall he's clearly done good work. As have most governors, really.
-
1 hour ago, bmags said:
excellent.
26k tests were run yesterday with only 1500 new cases, a positive rate of 5.8%
IL also has released guidelines for camps and day cares now, the detailed ones. So for those of us with kids awaiting camps or other child care, it's with the providers at this point to see what they can do.
Our summer camp (YMCA) had already cancelled until June 29th. Hoping maybe they can open then. But the older kid has an overnight camp in mid-July, downstate. Overnights are Phase 4. So we wait.
-
12 minutes ago, bmags said:
4 straight days of below 10% positivity rate in IL, and while today is expected to be a lower reporting day, just 6.7% positive rate and just 1178 new cases.
Phase 3 pretty much nailed already. And with room to spare, so the new additions to Phase 3 were a good idea.
For those of us with families, the confusion around schools, camps and day cares continues. His statement last week about "all" child care opening for Phase 3 (with restrictions) was NOT talking about day camps. But, yesterday they did send THAT guidance out for day camps, which is different than day care or child care. Now the day camps all scramble to see what is possible. But, NO overnight camps in Phase 3. That's Phase 4. Earilest any region could hit Phase 4 is June 25th. By the time that happens, and then camps ramp up, I am not sure any overnight camps will operate in Illinois. They will have lost half their summers or more, even best case. Schools can open in Phase 4, but the restrictions are such that our local school district is struggling to determine what they can or can't do in August, and having to come up with four different plans ready to go.
-
5 minutes ago, caulfield12 said:
The devastation, in other words, has been disproportionately felt in blue America, which helps explain why people on opposing sides of a partisan divide that has intensified in the past two decades are thinking about the virus differently. It is not just that Democrats and Republicans disagree on how to reopen businesses, schools and the country as a whole. Beyond perception, beyond ideology, there are starkly different realities for red and blue America right now.
Democrats are far more likely to live in counties where the virus has ravaged the community, while Republicans are more likely to live in counties that have been relatively unscathed by the illness, though they are paying an economic price. Counties won by President Donald Trump in 2016 have reported just 27% of the virus infections and 21% of the deaths — even though 45% of Americans live in these communities, a New York Times analysis has found.
The very real difference in death rates has helped fuel deep disagreement over the dangers of the pandemic and how the country should proceed. Right-wing media, which moved swiftly from downplaying the severity of the crisis to calling it a Democratic plot to bring down the president, has exacerbated the rift. And even as the nation’s top medical experts note the danger of easing restrictions, communities across the country are doing so, creating a patchwork of regulations, often along ideological lines.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/coronavirus-deadliest-where-democrats-live-121518089.html
This article has the feel of being a few weeks behind. While it is all true, the trend recently is that the virus is going much more rural and small town now. Large cities and suburbs are seeing declines in case loads, while rural and small town areas are seeing small increases. The increases aren't even of course, but show up as highly intense blossoms in specific areas. In other words, while the virus hit "blue" areas first and hardest, it is now making it's way towards "red".
-
Greg
Is
Still
Playing
All
Of
You.
STOP RESPONDING TO HIS NONSENSE!
-
2
-
-
Predications:
MLB clubs would rather not see their systems have teams go under at inopportune moments, and mess with the ability to get 2021 going as normal. But, MLB clubs are hurting for cash as it is, and many won't have the money and/or desire to dump millions into funding minor league teams just so they stay afloat for the next year.
So, Prediction:
MLB teams won't be much help. Some MiLB teams will reach points where they are leveraged out and/or don't have enough operating cash to continue. No one wants to buy a business in that condition, especially given all the questions about the unknown direction of MiLB and the likely slow recovery when there is one. So, MLB teams will monitor their affiliates AND those of other clubs closely. As some of them go into bankruptcy, and then receivership when they can't raise short term cash for the same business reasons, MLB teams will swoop in and buy those affiliates for pennies on the dollar. A club that might be worth $30M will sell for a few million. The MLB teams treat them as part of their portfolio, gain some equity over a few years, buying an asset with costs already stripped down. Any slim operating profit they get from the owned affiliates is icing on the cake, and can be used towards overall system investments. They get to rebuild the teams' business structures as they see fit, to fit within their plan of how they want the systems to run. Plus, the negative conditions lower the value of nearly all teams, so the MLB clubs with the ability to do so, begin buying other clubs that didn't die off. Within 3 years, the percentage of full season clubs owned by MLB teams will go from miniscule to fairly large.
-
1
-
-
15 hours ago, Balta1701 said:
If you can't have people masked, then yeah, indoor tennis would be very likely to transmit, regardless of the distance. If 100 people in a fitness studio can get it from 1 person, then it's going to get from one partner to the other during an hour of high effort exercise.
I'm not sure that's true, because gravity (this virus needs droplets to travel upon), but honestly I can't sit here and say I know what the danger is overall. Substantially less than smaller spaces and closer together like a typical gym class space I am sure, and not 100% safe I am also sure. Where in between I don't know.
Playing singles tennis, baseline to baseline is 78 feet. Even if you both rush the net to get to the midline, that's like 40 feet of gap and only on those occasions. In a room that is not only big enough for multiple tennis courts wide, but also has ceilings that have to be 30' or more. I would have to think that is nearly as safe as being outside. I am more worried about the ball, as DA pointed out, as it travels and is handled by each player.
-
2 hours ago, Balta1701 said:
Yeah, the spaces are big, but at the same time I think about people in a big room where they're doing cardio or dance or whatever else was sampled in that study. Those aren't small rooms, maybe not the size of a tennis court...but one person came into the room and literally everyone in the room was infected. That means in 30-60 minutes, even in a big room, they're getting an enormous dose of the stuff spread around. Yeah, a bigger tennis court and both people wearing masks maybe you drop the chance from 100% to something lower, but that's one I wouldn't do. There's no athletic activity indoors I can think of that is safe unless everyone in the building has done a 14 day quarantine.
This is one of the cases where I feel like people are using the 6 foot distance as a crutch, to justify things that really aren't all that safe in the details.
2 hours ago, Dick Allen said:Would people be wearing gloves while playing tennis? Every player touches the ball, the virus could be on the ground where it could get on the ball. You are sweating,s oo probably touching your face.
There won't be masks for tennis, that just won't work. Masks to get to the open court, then they would come off. Gloves are a good point, because of the ball, yeah. That can work and I probably will do that. And yes, no touching faces!
-
Job Thread
in SLaM
23 hours ago, Iwritecode said:Not in Illinois.
Not in any state other than Montana (seriously).
There are reasons you can't fire someone, particularly due to status in a protected class (can't fire on race, religion, disability, that sort of thing). But as long as it's not one of those things, companies can fire you whenever they want, pretty much. Just like you can quit pretty much whenever you want.
And even on disability and religion, there are limits on the hiring side. Companies can require active duty for certain stretches of time, ability to handle certain manual labor, etc., as long as it is directly necessary for the job and cannot be modified with reasonable accommodations.
-
3 hours ago, turnin' two said:
But then there is this too...
Which certainly seems to be good news. Maybe if people continue being cautious and smart, some things can start to open up a bit. Especially with some warmer weather coming.
After Georgia fixed some of their data due to the "mistake" from a few days ago, making the cases more like flat than going down, it has also come out that Georgia is one of the handful of states that are pulling a trick where the denominator (number of tests) includes COVID tests AND antibody tests, while the numerator includes ONLY the positive results from the COVID tests. Thus making it seem better than it is. Texas and Pennsylvania are also doing this. Virginia and Vermont were doing it, but found the issue and fixed it.
ETA: If you look at the curve for Georgia, looking at the time it took to bend their curve after the lockdown, and add that time to when Georgia did their broad opening up... I'd say we will know a lot more about Georgia's fate in about 2 weeks. Right around the end of this month.
-
13 hours ago, StrangeSox said:
Hope these changes are based on medical expertise and not economic or political pressure
Oh I am 100% sure it is both. Illinois, so far, has shown that we can keep the curve bent down far enough to give us some nice headroom underneath the capacity lines of the health care system. Which is the whole idea. So I am sure that JB was likely looking for ways to ease more things for a restless public, and asked his experts what the least harmful ways to do that might be. Or something like that.
10 hours ago, Balta1701 said:From what we know now, I'd be particularly worried about the Indoor Tennis. Just-published paper, 50 minute dance session twice a week, basically everyone in the session wound up infected.
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/8/20-0633_article
I was thinking that about indoor tennis too. I've seen a few articles recently about how high-intensity exercise makes someone a particularly profound spreader. But it then occurred to me, this is why we see tennis on the list (along with the already-existing outdoor activities with spacing), but not most other gym or indoor facility sports. Think about the inside of a tennis club. These are huge, cavernous spaces, with players very far apart. Compared to most other indoor sports it is much lower risk, I would think.
-
Newly added to IL Phase 3:
--Restaurant OUTDOOR seating with distancing and other rules
--Tennis not only outdoors, but now also INDOORS, again with certain precautions in place
--ALL state parks will open, camping and related outdoor activities including boating, OK for groups up to 10 (was only some parks before)
--Golfing moves up to foursomes
All good news, but the real test will be how well businesses and (probably more so) individuals follow the new rules. That will be the crux. The more selfish people who bizarrely think masks and distancing are somehow trampling their rights (they aren't), the more people will die, and then we go backwards again.
Really just one adjustment left that I really want them to make for Phase 3: they need to answer for child care. You just can't reasonably open nearly all businesses but leave child care to "limited", not to mention no one knows what "limited" means yet. Supposedly we will get guidance on that this week from JB et al, which paired with the CDC Details released a couple days ago (finally), should give camps and day cares the info they need to make their plans.
-
Iowa's tactic is to, apparently, do the opposite of what everyone else is doing - they are SLOWING their testing. Since their testing number peaked at around 4500 on the 11th, the testing numbers have been sliding down pretty much daily to now around 2700 per day. Apparently going with the Trump school of "can't have positive cases if you don't test".
5/13 is when they opened up most businesses across all 99 counties, even high-touch businesses, and removed most types of distancing requirements. Let's see where they stand in case count and positivity rate around the end of this month.
-
1 minute ago, StrangeSox said:
Virginia and Colorado are also including antibody tests as well I believe, though I'm not so sure about only counting positive COVID tests.
Either way, lots of states are juking the stats for total testing, positive test rates, and death rates. We're going to take the "magical thinking" option of pretending the problem isn't even real and suppressing any information to the contrary.
Virginia WAS doing that, but then separated them out after people noticed. So their numbers are now doing that correctly.
-
Just now, southsider2k5 said:
And eventually they will just stop counting. This is all a part of the master plan.
Florida fired their website portal tech lead, after (reportedly) they asked her to change some things.
-
So, it's starting to come to light that both Georgia and Texas are including both COVID tests AND antibody tests in their totals (the denominator), but only counting positive test results from the COVID tests as the numerator. So, their positive test rates look lower than they really are. Texas, meanwhile, is seeing spikes even WITH the mathematical "help".
-
1 minute ago, michelangelosmonkey said:
What are you smoking? I have NEVER said this wasn't a big deal. This is a very big deal. Viruses are bad. I didn't CALCULATE the numbers for ten million. How about a million? It's about 100,000 in the US. They have 4 times the population, are a month ahead of us on the curve and have a population with damaged lungs. I don't believe their numbers but I'm pretty sure if the real number was half a million some dissident would have sent that information.
Dissidents have done that. There have been any number of reports leaking out the sides about the bodies being processed and cremated, for example.
-
1 minute ago, Yearnin' for Yermin said:
Not true. I've seen multiple people here argue that Trump believes China's numbers.
I haven't, but feel free to show me. Balta is saying he believes their numbers NOW are pretty low, because of the police state actions they took. And that might be true. But I haven't seen him say that the numbers from Wuhan in the original or early stages were accurate. I haven't seen anyone say that, in fact, other than Chinese state media.
-
Just now, michelangelosmonkey said:
But half a million people left Wuhan province the weeks before the shut down. The epicenter of this and they spread to every region of the country...every city and village in China. If you do any modeling of a super infectious virus with moderate death rates China should be swimming in corpses.
Literally everyone, including people in China, who have been paying attention, are aware that China's death numbers are a vast undercount. Why they keep pretending otherwise is beyond me since the cat is well out of the bag.
-
59 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:
Sorry...yes I was thinking of 1918...100 million people and 675,000 dead, 1957: 172 million people 116,000 dead, 1968 200 million people 100,000 dead. Today 330 million 85,000 dead.
So balancing for today's population
1918: 2.2 million
1957: 222,000
1968: 165,000
Today: 85,000
And just for fun, bubonic plague Italy
14th Century: 200,000,000
How do you figure it is 6 times more deadly or 3? Not semantics...math. Either way its a deadly virus. Viruses can be bad.
China's actions were those of a totalitarian state that was purposely hiding things. I've looked at the time lines we took and the deaths and trying to be fair minded thinking how do you decide where the prudent decision is. I think the president took, and was deeply criticized for, some big decisions. He missed on some too. If you want to live in your tent and blame all unknown on him...whatever.
Yes, math. Go see my original posts. You forgot the whole time thing.
47 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:I was JOKING to my class. But yes...the president should have done something...like declare it a public health crisis and put in travel restrictions from China a few days later...which is what he did in spite the criticisms of racism that he received (and both Pelosi and Cuomo encouraging their citizens to go to Chinese New Year celebrations over the warning of the Federal government. But...you know...all Trumps fault. What would have you done?
42 minutes ago, michelangelosmonkey said:And three days later he shut down travel from Europe. You pull little quotes out of the 10 million words the president has spoken in the last four months and twist them into a narrative that makes him look like he wasn't doing anything. The total deaths on February 26th from Corona virus in the US were zero. ZERO!!! Should we have shut the country down then? Hello all Americans...I know no one has this and no one has died from this and the cure will cost trillions of dollars but we are going to shut this place down February 26th. Honestly its stupid hindsight argument.
For the record, he didn't "shut down" anything. His China "ban" stopped less than half the travel between them. His Europe "ban" included only parts of Europe, leaving out the UK and other countries that were heavily infected. They were visual moves, not ones that actually accomplished anything. And he did essentially nothing stateside until March, and even then never took anything resembling real actions.
People are going after you because you are defending the indefensible. No one is saying the virus is Trump's fault, no one is saying China is without blame, and no one is saying that the entire situation is on Trump's lap. None are true. They are saying that his lack of leadership and any kind of meaningful action, during a period when most other countries in a similar position were taking far more decisive action. Trump's response was, and has been, an abject failure.
Worth noting too: I've voted in seven Presidential elections so far, and voted for only three democrats (three GOP, 1 3rd party). I also tend more Republican for state offices here in Illinois. So this is not coming from some dyed in the wool Democrat.
-
1
-
-
5 hours ago, michelangelosmonkey said:
US population in 1957 was 1/3 of what it is today....and we were MUCH less mobile. A person in Springfield, Ill in 1957 was unlikely to go to NYC much less Milan or Wuhan. We were also much more rural. I think the 1957 virus is going to be very similar to that one...maybe a bit worse. But we won't know for a while and certainty is a casualty of chaos.
That mobility is another reason why fast action was needed. It was not taken. Trump did next to nothing until March, while the rest of the first world acted. Also, in 1960 (I can't find '57 specifically), the US had a population of 187M, which means it has not tripled since then, it has doubled. If you want to say COVID has so far been only 3 times as deadly, instead of 6 times, OK. Either way it's a huge failure. Semantics.
If you want to blame China for things, I agree 100%. They have blood on their hands. China was bad, so was Trump, though for different reasons (I don't think Trump was trying for deceiving the world, so much as he is just a continuous victim of his own magical thinking). Why are you trying to defend one and not the other, other than the very partisanship you seem to be blaming?
Also...
4 hours ago, southsider2k5 said:And all of these happened WITHOUT a shutdown. Keep that in mind.
That. The states stepped up when TrumpCo failed, and it has helped immensely. And even WITH those measures, COVID has been killing people at multiple times the rate of similar previous events. It is far more transmissible, and causing far more death. These really are not disputable facts.
COVID-19/Coronavirus thread
in SLaM
Posted
I think JB knows that if regions are low and staying low, and keeping all the capacity measures high and are able to do contact tracing pretty effectively, he cannot reasonably keep them back in Phase 3 just because they go from 1.5% to 2% positivity or even 5% to 6% in a 14-day period. The result would be the opposite of what the state needs and he knows that. Many who have been very supportive will start throwing in the towel, it would ignore the huge gains made up to this point and start to make him look like he's so dogmatic to the plan written in March that he isn't capable of leading. And then infections will go up anyway. In the end I think bmags is right that he will defer to local control upon Phase 4, or at least be much more flexible about it than the way the positivity rate provision is written.
Bolded is spot-on, for me. No one wants kids to go if it looks like a death trap, but if we are more or less where we stand today, the kids need to be back in school full-time. The negative impacts of starting them remotely in August will be huge, much worse than the missed time in April and May. That has to be part of the picture.