<i>"Despite having obvious signs of illness, the Maplecrest employee went to work that day, and the next."</i><p><i>"The York County Jail employee showed up for an eight-hour shift despite having COVID-19 symptoms. It was the first of five consecutive days of work for the employee..."</i><p>I see the main problem not as the wedding, because an infection can frankly happen anywhere, but as a failure to accommodate people who feel they can't miss work even though they are ill (need the money, fear repercussions, policy that limits sick days, etc.). I don't believe the individuals intentionally exposed others, but felt they had no other choice.
There are “high-risk” people in care homes who want to visit their relatives for the holidays. To call these people selfish is way off the mark. Human beings are more than a simple statistic to optimize for political benefit. Perhaps it’s the politicians and others who are being selfish by imposing their will and desires.<p>Viewpoints on liberty and consent aside, there doesn’t seem to be much of a strategy or timeline yet and it’s time we do a cost/benefit analysis that considers all costs and complications beyond covid.
Isn't the long-term care facility link a little implausible? 4 days seems like a bit short for the child to be infected, incubate to the point of being contagious, pass it to the parent, then incubate again to the parent being symptomatic.<p>Regardless, the wedding and reception behavior was entirely irresponsible. But the link between it and the long-term care cases seems tenuous, at best.
What are HNers planning to do for the holidays? We’re seriously considering not seeing anyone, not even parents, even though my SO has had COVID already (she works at a hospital and contracted it from COVID patients).<p>Stories like this are the main reason. Even if no one at the party gets very ill, the chance of further spreading it to others seriously scares me.
Reading the article, it sounds like maybe if the people experiencing symptoms had stayed home from work, most especially the care facility and jail workers, the spread and deaths would have been drastically reduced
It’s interesting that the reporter here is shaming a wedding reception and not the long-term care facility where the deaths actually occurred.<p>And not shaming for people for going to work with obvious Covid-19 symptoms, both to a <i>prison</i> and a <i>long-term care facility</i>.<p>It’s clear the editors needed a story about family gatherings and not yet another story about old folks homes being high risk.
According to the article, the result was 177 infections and 7 deaths. That's almost %4 death rate, way over the official US death rate.<p>Any idea why would that be?
Why do people go to work when they're sick? I don't understand for the life of me, how someone thinks it's ok? If you don't feel well, your company (or money) is not worth your life or the lives of others. Stay home ffs.
Seeing the fallout from Sturgis, I think the holiday seasons back-to-back are going to make things far worse. It doesn't help that we will already be in the middle of flu/common-cold season.
"Coming from both the left and right, and around the world, we have devoted our careers to protecting people. Current lockdown policies are producing devastating effects on short and long-term public health. The results (to name a few) include lower childhood vaccination rates, worsening cardiovascular disease outcomes, fewer cancer screenings and deteriorating mental health – leading to greater excess mortality in years to come, with the working class and younger members of society carrying the heaviest burden. Keeping students out of school is a grave injustice.<p>Keeping these measures in place until a vaccine is available will cause irreparable damage, with the underprivileged disproportionately harmed."<p><a href="http://gbdeclaration.org/" rel="nofollow">http://gbdeclaration.org/</a>
It's a little hugged to death at the moment, but <a href="https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/" rel="nofollow">https://covid19risk.biosci.gatech.edu/</a> is a useful tool to show relatives who are thinking about social gatherings for the holidays.
Have we learned nothing from the AIDS crisis?<p>It's clear to most people, in that instance, that an ugly side of human thinking emerges around viral outbreaks and it presents itself in how we consider other human beings.<p>People so readily stigmatize and it's <i>very</i> clearly on display in this thread.<p>No human being without ill-intent can be blamed for a virus. Tragedy befalls humanity from time to time, this is certain; instead of pointing fingers, we should be <i>more</i> empathetic, not less.
We operate in the wedding niche and we have seen a drastic decline in not only the number of weddings but also the size of weddings. The impact has been significant.
In this thread someone asks "What are HNers planning to do for the holidays?"<p>This is a <i>fabulous</i> question for online social media: when you go out it can seem like everyone is flouting the rules, no one is being careful, and you're the only one. This is largely because <i>you don't see the people who are being careful because they are staying in</i> so there's a massive bias towards careless, selfish jerks when you go out.<p>If you want to promote Covid safety, ask this question about holiday plans on Facebook, Twitter, whatsapp, or whatever social network you use. Or a more general question: "How are you/your family staying safe from Covid?"<p>This question brings everyone who is staying safe out of the shadows and into view, and all the sudden rather than feeling like you're "the only one" being careful, you realize you're in very good company. It's great to show other people as well. So if you want to "do something," start discussions on social media about what people are doing to stay safe!
Would transmission have been the same if the wedding happened in a 100% outdoor setting?<p>(the article explicitly mentions this was at least in part in an indoor setting)<p>We have enough evidence to teach people that the very least they can do is paying attention to air flow. Somehow we aren't.
Is anyone in the U.S. using thermal cameras to spot individuals with a fever? I live in a smaller city, not really close to a big metropolitan area, but I haven't seen a thermal camera in use yet. I see they are available on Amazon, so it doesn't seem like it is an issue of availability. Are these being used by businesses in other areas of the U.S.? Seems like it would be a no-brainer to use these to non-invasivly screen patrons.
First off let me make it clear (1) I've mostly stayed entirely isolate since March. (2) I plan to stay isolated. So don't shoot the messenger please.<p>Anyway, I live in Tokyo. Tokyo Metro area has basically all of California (SF, SD, etc..) squeezed into an area the size of Los Angeles. 34 million people.<p>Tokyo has been mostly unlocked since June. Theaters and other venues are open (every other seat), clubs are open (WTFBBQ!), restaurants are open and many are full, everyone has masks off while eating and drinking though outside it's 99% masked.<p>Number shot up in the last 2 days, we'll see where it goes, but though September and October they stayed flat. About 100 to 200 a day (vs California, same population, 10k day or 100x)<p>Here are some videos from 3 different weekends in October Tokyo Metro Area<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0UP9v5zOh8" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d0UP9v5zOh8</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQQl6z45QxY" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQQl6z45QxY</a><p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WRmg1NX8g" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13WRmg1NX8g</a><p>No idea why the number are 100x less than California similar population. Especially given Tokyo is far more densely populated than California and trains are still packed during rush hour. Schools are open though they swap half the students each day. Lots of people have ideas, none of them proven.<p>* Japanese don't wear shoes indoors so don't track it into their houses :P<p>* Japanese are better at wearing masks? (ok, but walking by restaurants full of unmasked people doesn't seem to fit)<p>* Japan isn't testing as much. I think that's not true enough to get a 100x difference but even if it was hospitalizations and deaths would be up? They are not AFAIK<p>* Japan has a different version of the virus? Ok, so when the real one arrives were screwed.<p>* Japanese are healthier? (like obesity is 3.6% here vs 30% in USA)<p>* Japanese are not vitamin D deficient?<p>They have put lots of measures in though I assume that similar elsewhere. Every cashier is surrounded by various forms of transparent partitions. Fast food joints sometimes have partitions between every 2 seats. That said a cafe I used to hang out at as one large 20 person table and 8 or so bar seats near a window. I've walked by since it's near the grocery store I go to and it's full, people eating with masks off, no partitions.<p>I have plenty of pictures of full restaurants as I walk by.<p>Anyway, would certainly love to know why the numbers are so low relative to the USA and Europe. Maybe it's just luck? Seems unlikely
It also demonstrates why the "personal choice" stuff is BS here. I see a lot of folks going "why are you worried if you're following the rules yourself?", and yet...<p>> None of the victims who lost their lives had attended the party.
Case count != actual risk of death or permanent injury. You have to be in a high risk group.<p>I wish we'd evaluate actual risk rather than perceived.
I am getting more and more frustrated with the FDA. The vaccine has been around since February. The severity pandemic can be boiled down to a function of drug testing. If we had a pandemic drug testing protocol we could have had a vaccine months ago. The FDA is just sitting on their hands right now waiting for people in the stage 3 trials to get sick to see if the vaccines are effective. If we would have used challenge trials where people are deliberately infected we would know this answer months sooner and save possibly 100,000's of lives.
Elderly people die of flu symptoms all the time. It is normal but we are being lied to and told it is not.<p>My own father passed of pneumonia and although sad it also was normal.
I wonder if we could implement some sort of cap and trade system to make everyone happy?<p>Everyone could be rationed a certain number of gatherings per month and then each person would be free to choose how to use them. They could use one to see family during the holidays, they could go to a protest, go to a wedding, celebrate in the street, go to a movie, etc.<p>We could even track them as discrete tokens, or "social credits" using blockchain technology. This would allow contact tracing software to be able to determine the "cost" of an event based on how many people were exposed and then withdraw the appropriate number of credits from the participants.<p>In a system like this, people who don't go anywhere or see anyone would be able to redeem their excess social credits for things XBoxes or VR headsets.
By sheer coincidence I’ve been reading World War Z and it’s amazing how in the real world we’re making the same mistakes that countries in the book made against the zombies. Of course the situation is entirely different, but it’s interesting.<p>Why doesn’t the government actually just enforce rules? So many lockdowns, mandates and laws but so little enforcement, or the penalty is not commensurate with the risk. What’s the point?