Will this end up being the pandemic that cried wolf?

[jiminyC_fan]

Well, after reading this thread I'm under the impression that:
1. people in other areas of the country don't have clue what it's like being in a hot spot with raising cases/deaths each day.
2. some people genuinely don't care about their part in stopping/curbing/slowing the spread. After all, if you're not "high risk" then why should you have any personal responsibility since it *shouldn't* affect you personally.

Just throwing out some facts from what I live in day to day...

I live in NE PA, 2 hours outside of NYC, in a hot spot and epicenter in my state. PA is currently #4 in cases, under NY, NJ, and MA. We have more cases than California, TX, and Florida. Transportation vans/cabs/rentals still drive daily to NYC for people to work or bring them here to work, which in turn brought the virus here. It's proven, not an opinion. Our local government has tried to stop them, and thankfully some have willingly complied, but others do not. No one coming back from NYC has self quarantined for 14 days, as per our state government's guidelines. I guess their attitude is "not my problem", right? They're not immunocompromised, elderly, high risk so why worry?

We don't have enough tests. Our cases in my county alone are estimated in the thousands with only approx. 1,800 tested positive. Our local hospital has changed the criteria for testing to 1. people with symptoms that are elderly, 2. people with symptoms that are considered high risk. No one can get a test if you're a " normal" person without a medical issue, even if you have symptoms. Also, with all the NY and NJ people here and testing positive, their numbers do not get recorded here... they get recorded as a positive in the state they reside in. Even if they are here right now. The numbers are massively skewed.

Because people can't get tests, they are actively spreading it because there is no legal mandate to keep them home in self isolation for 14 days. If you're suspected as having the virus, can't get a test because you don't fit the new criteria, you can freely go back to work whenever you feel like it because you are technically not positive. But again... if you're not elderly or high risk why should you worry? Right? People who are suspected positive don't have to alert those they've been in contact with, including those people needing to self isolate for 14 days.

There are MANY, MANY businesses that have deemed themselves "essential" and "life sustaining", when in fact they aren't and have continued to operate, and in turn have been hot beds for spread. There is no governing agency to oversee these businesses, their label of "essential" or "life sustaining" or a governing agency to even review what they do/produce as an essential or life sustaining necessity. As a result, these businesses have stayed open, (a craft distribution center? a clothing distributor?) and they are now dealing with a 40% - 70% reduction in their staff due to either contracting the virus, or leaving the business because of their fear of contracting it. Yet they still operate, with nothing done between shifts when someone tests positive, no cleaning or not adequate cleaning before the next shift comes in. Again, no governing agency, no mandates for a pandemic, no protocol.

Do I know people personally who have tested positive? Yes. Many at this point. Is it only those at high risk or elderly affected? No. One of my dd's friends is 23, no health issues and on oxygen right now from the virus. One co-worker of another of my children was late 30's, healthy, and died from it. No prior health issues. The 23 year old with it right now.... he had a very cavalier attitude about it since he wasn't elderly or high risk, so he attended a party two weeks ago with about 100 people. Now he's infected and has since spread it. He finally got a test when he couldn't breathe and was admitted to the hospital.

I am not interested in debates on what people's opinions are about this. I'm simply stating facts of what life is like in a hot zone. My husband is now in self quarantine for 14 days because a fellow co-worker was sick, unable to get a test as she didn't fit the criteria, and subsequently infected another co-worker who was able to get a test who had also been near my husband. But because the first co-worker never got a positive test (due to lack of testing and new testing criteria of only testing those with symptoms over 65 or high risk) he was exposed because the first co-worker didn't take it upon herself to be responsible to do the right thing and alert her co-workers of her suspected covid. After all.... no test... no positive result.... no need to self quarantine or alert people. Someone else's problem, right?

I am high risk; I have autoimmune disease and now my family is at risk because of other people deciding to not self isolate or even inform others of their suspected illness. So all this talk about people being able to chose for themselves to isolate or not is bs to me. You have the right, obviously, but what about those of us who didn't leave the house for over a month.... who followed the rules... who thought of others?
We are an example of how those at high risk can get exposed, even if I never left my house.

You have a right to do what you want, but don't kid yourself in thinking it's not a problem for the entire US. I know not all areas are in the situation like mine, and I'm glad. I am all for re-starting the economy. I'm just saying that we all need to be careful, RESPONSIBLE, and aware of how our decisions can impact others. Even if we "have the right to self isolate". It's surprising how I could be exposed when I had been self isolating and so, so careful.

I chose to self isolate for protection, which I was "free to do so"
My husband's employer deemed themselves "essential" and "life sustaining" and has stayed open
We don't have the luxury of just quitting his job and going without pay or insurance, or taking an extended leave
We don't have testing available here, even if you're symptomatic unless you fit certain criteria
No positive test, no reason to quarantine, nothing legal to mandate protection for others

See the issue? It's not as simple as "Anyone that wants to self isolate is free to do so." But that's not your, or anyone else's problem. I guess it's ours alone and we have to deal with it.

If you're not in a hot zone you don't understand. I hope other areas don't get to this point. We have a mandatory 8pm curfew, mandated to wear masks every day outside the house, no access to testing unless you fit certain criteria. It's not as simple as "I don't know why I have to stay home if I'm not sick or at risk".

The title of the thread is "will this end up being the pandemic that cried wolf?" For some... yes. For us it will be the pandemic that we didn't have enough support, resources or time to fight. I am thankful that recent studies and opinions have the death toll much lower than anticipated. I'm thankful that other areas of the country are not as bad as we are and are ready to get moving again. But that doesn't discount where we currently are, and the possibility that the virus can still spread like it has here, especially if people are not careful, personally responsible or cavalier. Our new reality is that we have to deal with this virus the best we can. But we still have to think of others and our country as a whole in the decisions we make.

Mckennarose, I am so sorry that you even have to experience the horror that you are right now. It's hard to fathom what day to day life is like for you. I wish you the very best for you and your loved ones.

I pray that some on this thread will come to realize how dangerous the virus really is before it's too late for themselves or their families. It saddens me to think how people are stuck with the idea that it only affects the elderly, the overweight and the ill. That attitude will put their children at risk. Kids look up to us as parents to take care of them and to put them in harms way is mind boggling.

 

[Jrb1979]

If you're in a location without a lot of cases, then yes it could work. But for us, there's no way to safely do hair and maintain a distance of 6 feet, and wear appropriate PPE, which is not available. The amount of cleaning between customers, the complete change of PPE, sanitizing the instruments used all take time and money.

If I can give you advice coming from a hot zone... tell him to take whatever precautions he can for himself. Our state just mandated a HUGE list for businesses to take precautions, including providing masks for employees, mandatory hand washing each hour, rules for grocery stores, etc. But even before that, employers could not refuse an employee wearing his/her own mask and gloves if they brought them in themselves.

Exactly where everyone here is... there's no choice. The poster you replied to is painfully unaware of the realities that we have to live in. (or chooses not to care) Do what you can to stay safe.

I do agree with this. The media focuses on the worst stories. But it doesn't discount the reality of what some of us are experiencing. My hope is always in the positive outcomes of the virus, which we don't see enough of.

Yes, and no. Our stores, for example, have 6 foot markers taped off, one way grocery lanes, our state mandated grocery stores to provide not only masks and gloves for grocery employees, but also every other cash register can only be open for one hour increments. Then the employees are mandated to wash their hands and go to a new register while the previously used ones are sanitized. And they are required to provide a barrier between the cashiers and customers. Customers must wait behind each other at the 6 foot taped off markers. No one is permitted in the stores or other businesses without a mask. Our curfew is 8pm so our stores will stop accepting customers by 7:30 pm. Our Walmart is blocked off from everything but grocery and pharmacy... no access to anything else. So, in a sense, the grocery stores are "safer" than some other businesses.

I agree. And I'm going to be watching the FL beach communities. I fully expect a rise in cases just due the the Easter holiday.

We are already seeing a rise here in Ontario from the Easter weekend. Its going to be awhile til phase 3 happens. I foresee a lot of spikes in cases after every phase.

 

[monkeydawn]

So tell me how that works for my 11 year old son who's highly asthmatic. The schools won't let my other three stay home, nor will work allow my husband unless they're mandated to. So is your suggestion that I really self-isolate an 11 year old? For how long? Almost everybody has *somebody* in their family that falls within the risk group. So suggesting that ALL of those people continue to self isolate still leaves no work force!

I was just talking about mixed risk households earlier. And you are correct when one member of the hh is high risk and others are not and forced to work and come in contact with others there is no good, practical solution. I came to the same conclusion. If enough people at my husbands power plant refused to come into work because they have someone in their household that is high risk, we would be without power. This, of course, extends to other essential industries.

I dont want things shut down forever but because the initial shutdown was so haphazard and piecemeal we really should be holding on to tighter restrictions for at least 2-3 more weeks everywhere so that we can give our healthcare workers and researchers time to get out of triage mode and come out on the other side to where we can really be looking at practical solutions. Or we need to find someway to seriously contain populations so those that are in more restricted areas dont travel to less restricted areas just because they can. That's a recipe for disaster.

 

[Colleen27]

If I can give you advice coming from a hot zone... tell him to take whatever precautions he can for himself. Our state just mandated a HUGE list for businesses to take precautions, including providing masks for employees, mandatory hand washing each hour, rules for grocery stores, etc. But even before that, employers could not refuse an employee wearing his/her own mask and gloves if they brought them in themselves.

He's wearing a mask my daughter made, but cloth masks are really better for protecting others than oneself and not many of the guys are wearing them. He's being careful about handwashing and leaving his shoes on the porch overnight rather than even in the entryway where the rest of us take ours off. But I'm hoping this won't continue long - when the governor next extends her order, sometime in the next 10 days, and there isn't an exception for automakers (which there most likely won't be - management at DH's plant are putting the odds of actually restarting production at about 25% and aren't even going to start calling production workers back until the governor announces the next evolution of the state response), there will be no reason for them to be working either.

It's really hard. We're trying to figure out how to achieve social distancing when we open our main offices. The way most offices are setup are not conducive to social distancing. It's not like you're planning for a pandemic when you setup your office space initially.

I can't even imagine how warehouses and factories are thinking about social distancing.

And to keep it from spreading you really want N95 masks, which you can't easily obtain.

Reopening is a mess. And it's hard.

Yeah, it really is. In all fairness, DS's company probably can't do much to socially distance - it isn't easy to rework employee positions on a production line. And since hospitals here are still having a hard time getting masks, providing them for employees probably isn't possible either. But that's all the more reason they shouldn't be open yet. There's no shortage of cars right now. They could wait a bit longer.

I'm all for starting to reopen lower-risk activities like curbside retail pickup at a bigger range of stores and letting lawn crews do their thing, but factories seem to me like they should be one of the last things to reopen if the products they make aren't urgently needed because they are so incompatible in so many ways with taking precautions to avoid virus spread.

 

[backformore]

 

[monkeydawn]

View attachment 489622

Unfortunately depending on where Karen lives she might not even find out in 14 days that she is sick. In some places she will only receive a test if she has a fever and another symptom or contact with a known positive. Still. This means Karen will continue to infect others until her viral load lowers sufficiently so that she is no longer contagious. And the odds that Karen will have no symptoms are seemingly much better than she will have any symptoms (assuming Karen isnt in an at risk population).

Yes, the quoted above view is actually the optimistic view.

 

[Colleen27]

Unfortunately depending on where Karen lives she might not even find out in 14 days that she is sick. In some places she will only receive a test if she has a fever and another symptom or contact with a known positive. Still. This means Karen will continue to infect others until her viral load lowers sufficiently so that she is no longer contagious. And the odds that Karen will have no symptoms are seemingly much better than she will have any symptoms (assuming Karen isnt in an at risk population).

Yes, the quoted above view is actually the optimistic view.

But if we're going to quibble with details of a meme, the R0 of COVID19 is well below ten and applies per case, not per day, so all the math is wrong. Right now, the estimates still vary a fair bit but most are clustered between 2 and 4. So call it an R0 of 3 as a rough median. That's not per day; that is the number of additional infections expected to be created by a single case. So Karen infects three people, and those three people each infect three more for a second generation of nine, and those nine each infect three more for a third generation of 27. Still cause for concern, of course, but no where near the thousands that the meme projects.

That's not an optimistic view at all.

 

[mckennarose]

Mckennarose, I am so sorry that you even have to experience the horror that you are right now. It's hard to fathom what day to day life is like for you. I wish you the very best for you and your loved ones.

I pray that some on this thread will come to realize how dangerous the virus really is before it's too late for themselves or their families. It saddens me to think how people are stuck with the idea that it only affects the elderly, the overweight and the ill. That attitude will put their children at risk. Kids look up to us as parents to take care of them and to put them in harms way is mind boggling.

Thank you, I really appreciate that. We just take it one day at a time.

I was just talking about mixed risk households earlier. And you are correct when one member of the hh is high risk and others are not and forced to work and come in contact with others there is no good, practical solution. I came to the same conclusion. If enough people at my husbands power plant refused to come into work because they have someone in their household that is high risk, we would be without power. This, of course, extends to other essential industries.

I agree. However, if everyone, including the businesses themselves, looked at each person and place as a potential for exposure, each person would do their part in protecting themselves and in turn would protect others. People can still work, but the problem is no one has "pandemic protocol" so they are really stumbling around in the dark trying to figure out the best thing to do. And it's constantly evolving as new information comes out. My personal feeling is that we are going to be in this for quite a while and we need to be responsible for our own actions in protection.

I dont want things shut down forever but because the initial shutdown was so haphazard and piecemeal we really should be holding on to tighter restrictions for at least 2-3 more weeks everywhere so that we can give our healthcare workers and researchers time to get out of triage mode and come out on the other side to where we can really be looking at practical solutions.

There's only so much a local government can do. Our state representative, mayor and county manager have been pleading with our governor for over a month to help. There are no tighter restrictions without infringing on a person's rights. Pleading with people to do the right, responsible thing has not worked. Add to that the businesses that should have shut down for the initial two weeks, but found loopholes and threatened legal action to stay open, we could've had a head start.

Or we need to find someway to seriously contain populations so those that are in more restricted areas dont travel to less restricted areas just because they can. That's a recipe for disaster.

I wish they could, but they can't block the interstates to NY or NJ, they can't pull over the vans, taxis and cars with NY and NJ plates. Our local news interviewed people who worked in NYC daily when they got off the transportation bus one night and the reporter asked them if they were going to self quarantine for 14 days, as the governor suggested for everyone coming from NYC and they said "no". They were going to continue to work every day unless they felt sick. The bus company voluntarily stopped NYC service, and when the reporter asked them how it would impact them, they simply said they would drive into the city. People don't have a personal responsibility to do their part.

Unfortunately depending on where Karen lives she might not even find out in 14 days that she is sick. In some places she will only receive a test if she has a fever and another symptom or contact with a known positive. Still. This means Karen will continue to infect others until her viral load lowers sufficiently so that she is no longer contagious

In the case Karen lives in my city:
She won't be able to get a test at all unless she is over 65 with symptoms, or high risk with symptoms. Others who get sick have to just treat whatever it is at home until/unless it reaches a point they need medical help. And with no test, there's no positive, no state mandated quarantine, no state mandated need to inform others they were around, no reason they can't return to work or go out before the 14 days are up.

 

[LSUmiss]

My friend who is a healthy, works out every day, eats whole foods, got COVID & got pneumonia in both lungs. This virus does NOT discriminate.

That’s not really true. Anyone can get that virus, but the severity seems to depend on the health of the individual except for some outliers.

 

[CarolAnn856]

Nothing is simple at this point. I can’t imagine that whenever it ends there won’t be households that prefer to continue and I understand that it will be difficult for households with a high risk member. Attitudes change with geography and some states that have had very little impact have a different attitude about ending then other states with higher impact. I guess at this point the best strategy is to minimize social unrest. At some point there will be more social unrest if the quarantine doesn’t end and that likely to start in the lesser impacted states. I consider the biggest losers with quarantine are children.

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Are you suggesting that we give in to the protesters just to keep things calm?

 

[godisney14]

https://www.baltimoresun.com/corona...0200420-atxs3grvbjdgphzzt4tfhuhnbm-story.html
MD just received 1/2 million tests, equal to 12.5% of total tests conducted in the entire US up to now.
Good for Maryland. Now, here’s a governor, and his wife, actually getting work done.
But, with states being told they’re on their own and they can now call their own shots, they now get criticized for how they go about doing so.

 

[pahoben]

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Are you suggesting that we give in to the protesters just to keep things calm?

Really no sense in continuing this and going over the same things time after time. Enjoy your quarantine and hope it turns out well for you.

 

[PrincessBelle39]

The US currently has nearly 1/4 of the world Covid-19 deaths, despite having only approximately 4% of the world population. I cannot comprehend how a country that stands out as a world leader is not doing more to stop this.

 

[dvcgirl67]

I’m not sure I understand what you mean. Are you suggesting that we give in to the protesters just to keep things calm?

There's a reason that Sweden keeps coming up over and over in the handful of posters here who are ready to throw caution to the wind. Big government, huge safety net-high taxing Sweden....is all of the sudden the darling in all conservative circles, from the internet, to radio to television.

Some people believe only what they want to believe. And that works, for awhile.

It worked for my in-laws, until the middle of March. They are ages 88 and 85. We love them very much, and vice versa. But we don't get our news from the same places they do. We don't vote the same way that they do. We don't talk about any of that, and this is how we've all managed to stay close and get along. They weren't changing our minds, and vice versa, and we all knew it. And that modus operandi worked just fine for all of us until right around the third week of February.

That's about the time my husband began first urging, then begging his father, the far more active of the two, to stop going to stores, etc. He explained what was happening and how we were already operating in our household. That we'd already stocked up and that they were both in a very high risk category, just by being in their late 80s. There were no fights, or anything like that. But my father in law ended those conversations abruptly in a "yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it" kind of way.

Then...right around March 13th or 14th....everything changed in their tone. My mother in law was suddenly terrified and begging her husband to not go out. He was not completely buying it, but sounded scared. Then we realized that their news feed had done a 180...and all of the sudden, the virus was real. And about a week after that, two acquaintances, husband and wife, in their 55+ community were hospitalized. Two days later, his best friend was hospitalized. Now, those two acquaintances are dead. And his best friend is on a ventilator. My father in law was bowling his best friend 10 days before he went to the hospital. So....you know, that kind of changes your perspective on these kinds of things.

I haven't heard the code word "Sweden" just yet. I probably will eventually, and I'll bite through my tongue to keep the peace, as I drop off groceries because it's impossible to get a delivery for them from their own grocery store.

 

[Cogswel_Cogs]

I am actually for reopening ASAP like now where possible but Bowling Alleys and Nail saloons seem like nutty choices to me. Auto makers, clothing stores seem like a more realistic thing to open.
I am very excited they are opening back up the golf courses in NYC, many regulations but I am very happy.
And I do feel like countries that were over cautious are still going to be stuck in a bubble. New York and areas of California may have got lucky where large part of population now have and returning to some kind of workforce may be possible. However like I said prior it was a thin line that kept New York from completely being overrun where there would not have been enough responders to handle the situation. I think they are going to be shocked hen stats come out how many people have virus here. A big question is how imune are you if you had and it did not effect you.

 

[BuckeyeBama]

The US currently has nearly 1/4 of the world Covid-19 deaths, despite having only approximately 4% of the world population. I cannot comprehend how a country that stands out as a world leader is not doing more to stop this.

The US only leads the world in 2 things - military spending and consumerism. We let the rest slip away.

 

[Dan Murphy]

Bowling Alleys and Nail saloons seem like nutty choices

Maybe the governor is doing a canary in the coal mine thing.

I also find it strange that he was the same one who was amazed on April 2nd, several weeks after most of the country was already shut down, stated that he just then learned that the virus could be passed by asymptomatic people and then closed his state. Additionally, the mayors of major cities were not consulted at all. They found out after the fact that things were opening up with no recourse, applies to the whole state, period.

 

[pahoben]

There's a reason that Sweden keeps coming up over and over in the handful of posters here who are ready to throw caution to the wind. Big government, huge safety net-high taxing Sweden....is all of the sudden the darling in all conservative circles, from the internet, to radio to television.

Some people believe only what they want to believe. And that works, for awhile.

It worked for my in-laws, until the middle of March. They are ages 88 and 85. We love them very much, and vice versa. But we don't get our news from the same places they do. We don't vote the same way that they do. We don't talk about any of that, and this is how we've all managed to stay close and get along. They weren't changing our minds, and vice versa, and we all knew it. And that modus operandi worked just fine for all of us until right around the third week of February.

That's about the time my husband began first urging, then begging his father, the far more active of the two, to stop going to stores, etc. He explained what was happening and how we were already operating in our household. That we'd already stocked up and that they were both in a very high risk category, just by being in their late 80s. There were no fights, or anything like that. But my father in law ended those conversations abruptly in a "yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it" kind of way.

Then...right around March 13th or 14th....everything changed in their tone. My mother in law was suddenly terrified and begging her husband to not go out. He was not completely buying it, but sounded scared. Then we realized that their news feed had done a 180...and all of the sudden, the virus was real. And about a week after that, two acquaintances, husband and wife, in their 55+ community were hospitalized. Two days later, his best friend was hospitalized. Now, those two acquaintances are dead. And his best friend is on a ventilator. My father in law was bowling his best friend 10 days before he went to the hospital. So....you know, that kind of changes your perspective on these kinds of things.

I haven't heard the code word "Sweden" just yet. I probably will eventually, and I'll bite through my tongue to keep the peace, as I drop off groceries because it's impossible to get a delivery for them from their own grocery store.

So you are saying then that the US was rightfully shut down and the economy trashed because your FIL wouldn’t self isolate because he doesn’t watch CNN?

 

[DeniseJH]

There's a reason that Sweden keeps coming up over and over in the handful of posters here who are ready to throw caution to the wind. Big government, huge safety net-high taxing Sweden....is all of the sudden the darling in all conservative circles, from the internet, to radio to television.

Some people believe only what they want to believe. And that works, for awhile.

It worked for my in-laws, until the middle of March. They are ages 88 and 85. We love them very much, and vice versa. But we don't get our news from the same places they do. We don't vote the same way that they do. We don't talk about any of that, and this is how we've all managed to stay close and get along. They weren't changing our minds, and vice versa, and we all knew it. And that modus operandi worked just fine for all of us until right around the third week of February.

That's about the time my husband began first urging, then begging his father, the far more active of the two, to stop going to stores, etc. He explained what was happening and how we were already operating in our household. That we'd already stocked up and that they were both in a very high risk category, just by being in their late 80s. There were no fights, or anything like that. But my father in law ended those conversations abruptly in a "yeah, yeah, I don't want to hear it" kind of way.

Then...right around March 13th or 14th....everything changed in their tone. My mother in law was suddenly terrified and begging her husband to not go out. He was not completely buying it, but sounded scared. Then we realized that their news feed had done a 180...and all of the sudden, the virus was real. And about a week after that, two acquaintances, husband and wife, in their 55+ community were hospitalized. Two days later, his best friend was hospitalized. Now, those two acquaintances are dead. And his best friend is on a ventilator. My father in law was bowling his best friend 10 days before he went to the hospital. So....you know, that kind of changes your perspective on these kinds of things.

I haven't heard the code word "Sweden" just yet. I probably will eventually, and I'll bite through my tongue to keep the peace, as I drop off groceries because it's impossible to get a delivery for them from their own grocery store.

I'm sorry. Yes, it's sad how many people aren't going to realize how bad this can be until it kills one or more of their family members.

 

[dvcgirl67]

So you are saying then that the US was rightfully shut down and the economy trashed because your FIL wouldn’t self isolate because he doesn’t watch CNN?

I'm saying that it was a bit jarring to us to be dealing with two elderly people, who only consume conservative news, and hear them all of the sudden pull a complete 180....purely because the people who deliver the news that they consume....told them that the virus was no longer a hoax. All of the sudden, to them the virus was real.

Their news feed wasn't telling them to self-isolate early on in this thing. Their son and daughter-in-law told them to do that, but they didn't believe us until their news told them the virus was real. It became very real for them when two acquaintances of theirs and my father-in-laws best friend friend ended up in the hospital. Even more real when 2 out of the 3 of them died.

First it was a hoax. Then it was the "Wuhan Virus". Now it's "We need to follow in Sweden's footsteps!!". I wish they'd make up their mind over there.

Like I said, I haven't heard "Sweden" yet, but I probably will eventually because, they don't watch CNN.