Those of us who care about our country must accept the possibility that too many Americans are too selfish or stupid for us to ever control Covid-19. That means we’re headed to the “uncontrolled” scenario experts warned of. 2.5 million dead. Prepare yourself mentally for that outcome. - @SethAbramson
Happened during the Spanish flu & it’s gonna happen again.
Huge mitigating factor in the Spanish flu.
WW1
Huge mitigating factor in this thing, too many people. And a good many are on the edge right now. Forget toilet paper. No money to eat or live indoors is already an issue.
Ya know, if you dismiss people as selfish and stupid, you lose any hope of getting them to see your side of things.
Not quite sure who’d be included in that selfish and stupid part. Am I stupid for being at work with 100 other people? Or is it the guy on the street corner, the one without the mask, that can’t afford a can of tuna, let alone a $20 custom designer mask? For the price of that one mask, the (maybe more stupid) person buying it can buy a few dozen disposable ones (or a half dozen washable ones) and start handing them out. Stupid might be another word for “priorities.”
Yes we have the highest number of new cases since the start of the pandemic. We also have the highest availability of testing too. It stands to reason, more testing = more positives. That Florida and Texas are seeing increases, now they are being called stupid. What did we call NYC and Boston when the Mayors were telling people it was fine to go out? The people down south were told it was fine to go out. So they did. Were all 4 states stupid? Or just the southern states?
Save up your pennies:
Or get in line for your Antibody tattoo.
Yeah, until I see more research on that, I’m skeptical as well. A virus is very, very tiny, so I suppose it could float on its own in the air for awhile before it breaks down, but without them being concentrated on tiny droplets of moisture, I suspect they’d dilute awfully fast to concentrations unlikely to cause infections. And as you implied, a PCR test will pick up RNA fragments from the virus and register a positive even when the fragments aren’t viable viruses, but then again, I’m making lots of assumptions on this.
Even so, I’ll continue to avoid closed-in spaces with insufficient ventilation, like elevators or small office spaces. Working from home, solo bike rides, motorcycle rides, walks around the neighborhood, camping in remote places and hiking in the mountains are all safe, so despite the lack of face-to-face social interactions and eating at restaurants, which I’m really missing, I’m in this for the long haul until a vaccine is available. That, of course, brings up the anti-vaxers, which is another mind-boggling bit of lunacy.
It wasn’t my quote, but hey. And maybe if the Feds didn’t make the states try and outbid themselves for PPE, the guy who can’t afford a can of tuna would have been supplied with what he needed to keep himself safe.
I have seen relief orgs handing out fabric masks. The states and feds are outbidding each other on medical PPE. Different grade of product, not the fabric or disposables. We can’t even get the low-end N95 masks we had been using for paint overspray/dust mitigation before all this. All going to medical, as they should. I just avoid closed places where they are doing level 5 wallboard finishing (That’s usually the conditions I have to do VIFs, wallboard just up and pretty dusty.) OSHA’s been fairly quiet, though they are very concerned with overheating, but they always are this time of year. There’s been talk of air exchange rate on overexertion too and how some fabric masks are not good, but no real guidelines.
Even before the pandemic, I had a box of the tighter-fitting Home Depot variety of N95-like filter masks to use for sanding and spraying paints and chemicals. They seem to do a much better job of keeping stuff out than just a cloth mask over one’s face, so I’ve been using them.
If these viruses do just randomly hang into the air for many minutes floating here and there, it might even be good to wear googles. I just might take to wearing my full-faced motorcycle helmet everywhere I go. I’m becoming paranoid.
I am sooooo getting one of these! (minus the LEDs, those are lame. We have EL wire at work. So much better!)
Most places say “face mask required,” but they don’t stipulate what kind of face mask.
Don’t get me started on the mask requirement lol … We all know it sucks to wear them… but a ventilator is 100 x worse 
My niece (the essential worker) has been dealing with crowds for months with little to no thanks. Most have been pretty good about things … but there is always that one per day at least that had to be a complete jackass to her. Covid is directly her fault and policies to protect others are bullshit etc. She hates disabled people for making them enter in the enter door and should know it’s impossible to breath through a pieces of thin paper like material. One woman told her son that this lady ( my niece) was trying to steal her money when her card didn’t go through and she had to call a manager to refund her. Yeah, I know there are plenty of jerks who believe the world revolves around them personally, but for some reason this pandemic has brought out the very worst in some. It’s pretty sad. Now that I got that off my chest … LOL 
(I know it had nothing to do with what Steve just said … but I get aggravated and wanted to bop that woman on the head)
… anyhoo…
… a bit of a funny related to Steve post. Said niece reported to me that a guy came in wearing a scary Pig mask… she had a momentary panic and wondered if a Purge was about to ensue
It doesn’t excuse anything, but lots of people are immensely frustrated with this whole thing and holding in lots of anxiety and feelings of isolation. It’s a bit like a pressure cooker — everything’s going mostly OK for the moment. Then the top blows due some trivial thing, and all that pent-up frustration explodes all over the room.
Then again, some people really are just jerks.
Any crisis brings out the worst in some people, and the best in others. It’s the ultimate ‘there are 2 kinds of people’ scenario. Some people are part of the problem, others are part of the solution. The bravery of health workers to knowingly put themselves in danger every day is just awesome.
This is not the ultimate 2 kinds of people scenario. Nothing ever is. There’s a very broad spectrum of people in how bad they behave. Some people are just jerks and would complain even if it was all sunny days and kittens.
But a hot mask on a 90+ degree day in a hot warehouse doing heavy lifting is gonna wear on tempers right fast. Ask me how I know this? Yeah… I work with a bunch of other guys in the same boat and it doesn’t take much. It’s gotten to be a thing to say, “Count to 10…” or to see someone just walk off to do a lap around the building or something. Better than fist fights.
As far as being paranoid, if you haven’t gotten it by now via air droplets, just keep doing what you’re doing. I’ve always sort of had a fatalistic approach to life (no not a death wish.) I never worried about all the TB, Leprosy, flesh eating bacteria, ebola, EEE or other SARS et al out there. This is just one more thing. If someone told me there might be piranhas in the lake where I fish, I might think twice about jumping in after my expensive polarized sunglasses (that’s happened, the glasses, not the piranhas,) but blue-green algae only in the still water coves? Not caring so much.
Hey, I just got this notice:
- This topic is clearly important to you – you’ve posted more than 20% of the replies here.*
- It could be even better if you gave other people space to share their points of view, too. Can you invite them over?*
Is that a polite “Shut up?”
Cuz that just pushed the danger button after the morning I’ve had.
Ha! I remember getting that notice once too. There’s nothing quite like being told to shut up by a computer algorithm. I once had Siri speak up — totally out of the blue — and chew me out about something in the middle of a work meeting.
Siri…Unplugged that before it even became semi-sentient.
I don’t know your context on that interruption, could have been a reminder setting or something, but the phone should not speak at all, unless spoken to.
That’s odd. There is one thread where my contribution amounted to over 40%, I got away scot-free though.
I think maybe I spoke something that had a sequence of sounds that it interpreted as “Hey, Siri.” I can’t remember exactly what Siri said, but it was something along the lines of me having a need to speak more clearly or me being unnecessarily rude or something like that. It got a good laugh from everyone, though. I’ve since disabled Siri. I don’t need a piece of AI listening to and analyzing everything I say.
… and I thought Skynet was pure science fiction.
That’s the first time I’ve ever seen that 
We have all sorts of little “helpful” presets and until they show up we have no clue. But, please don’t take it as anything other than AI trying to be helpful You know your POV is always welcome … no matter what the % is