I thought we might be away from it in our rural area but just received an email that a member of the Bard College community tested positive for the virus. Its here.
South Australia is doing OK we have not had one new case in the past two weeks .In fact all Australia is no too bad we have had less than 100 deaths so far and 21 of those came off a cruise ship the Ruby Princess also 1000 cases are attributed to the ship aswell.
Stay safe all.
Brian
It has finally arrived in town at a long-term care facility. I just hope that stringent measures are taken to prevent wiping out a number of residents & workers. I just ordered a couple masks, but they are coming by regular mail. I should have had them ship express mail instead!
We just had a zoom with some old friends and I was a bit surprised to hear their rather cavalier remarks about the present covid regime. One chap said "we're having several of our neighbours round to our garden to have a drink and maintain the 2m distance". But I know his garden is tiny - can't see how he could welcome more than two people and maintain the 2m distance! Another chap said he was going to visit his girlfriend a few miles away - "as we're both clear, what's the problem?" This seems to me to be the attitude "these restrictions don't apply to me - I know better". "It's about common sense", they said - not slavish obedience to dictats from the politicians.
My wife and I are worried by this - we're inclined to observe the protocols from the government. But we've been asked to visit some other friends to sit in their very big garden - should we go?
In our town during the early days of the stay at home period, someone set up a neighborhood block party quite close to the police station! The police went to the location several times to get them to disperse.
In our area, there are more cars and more pedestrians on the streets than ever before.
Our R number is slightly above 1 when we need to get it to 0.2.
The R number is the the number of one person passing on the virus to others ie R1 means one person who has the virus is passing it on to one person, R3 is one person passing it on to 3 people.
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"StayAlert.......Control The Virus.......Save Lives."
In todays paper they say that most of the infected were not the commuters who travel on the congested subway..but retirees like the wife and myself. Strange illness.
"... But we've been asked to visit some other friends to sit in their very big garden - should we go? ..."
You don't mention sitting masked or unmasked in their garden.
I am deeply skeptical of the likelihood of catching the virus when passing by other people in an outdoor setting; relatively moving air is a lot different than relatively still air, so the people you live with (or sit across from in restaurants or offices) (or stand across from in meat packing plants) are a much greater threat than someone you pass in the street or at the park or on the beach.
For that reason, my thought has been that they should open the beaches, but close the concession stands.
OTOH, New York Governor Cuomo has reported a cluster outbreak at a greenhouse-based veggie farm upstate - which I would have thought of as a farm and, therefor, out-of-doors - but we have no further information on whether/not the greenhouses were hot houses and, therefor, at best lightly ventilated, let alone whether/not those employees take lunch in a central dining facility, live with their extended families in a tight knit neighborhood, etc.
When I went to Grown-Up School, we were taught how to apply critical thinking, personal preferences, lived experience, etc, but the starting position / default option was "Just do what you're told".
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
"In todays paper they say that most of the infected were not the commuters who travel on the congested subway..but retirees like the wife and myself. Strange illness."
Maybe not so strange? What is the average age of commuters? Working age?
What is the average age of stay-at-home retirees? 70 or more?
The older we get, the more likely we are to be staying isolated at homeāand have pre-existing conditions that make us more vulnerable to the virus. Cuomo's data says 66% of Covid-19 hospital admissions are from home, but doesn't explain how the virus got into the homes. Multiple possibilities there. Too little information to make valid assessments at this point.
Tom
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"I no longer collect, but will never abandon the hobby"
"... [Governor] Cuomo's data says 66% of Covid-19 hospital admissions are from home, but doesn't explain how the virus got into the homes ..."
Thank you for taking note of that.
A correspondent reports:
"... Mind-blowing statistics as of just yesterday, finds that sequestering at home causes greater Covid 19 illnesses and death than being out and about ..."
The family-friendly portion of my reply was:
"Q/ And how did the Coronavirus get *IN* to those homes to begin with ?
A/ It was carried in by people who were "being out and about".
The hospitals asked people where they had come from, not where they had been, or where their family members had been."
Always makes me shudder to see simple facts get put thru the make-my-side-win grinder.
Cheers,
/s/ ikeyPikey
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"I collect stamps today precisely the way I collected stamps when I was ten years old."
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