Coronavirus in Massachusetts (home, buy, schools)

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by OutdoorLover

I suspect that Delta may be coming for New England now. Hospitalizations are still low in New England, but case counts are climbing.

It has already been here. I suspect the rise in cases is due to the vaccines wearing off. Get your booster.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by msRB311

We just got an email that someone in our daughter's kindergarten class has covid.

Also says:

Because we are able to maintain at least 3 feet of distance while in the classroom and be masked, no close contacts have been identified from this positive case.

Per the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education, “An individual who is exposed to a COVID-19 positive individual in the classroom while both individuals were masked, so long as the individuals were spaced at least 3 feet apart, is exempt from testing and quarantine response protocols.”

That must be a fun kindergarten class that manages to be masked and maintain 3 foot distance at all times What a joke of a notice. Hope your kid escapes.

I am afraid that we are going to follow Western Europe's situation. It's getting really really bad in some areas, with hospitals overwhelmed and regular surgeries cancelled.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by rach5

That must be a fun kindergarten class that manages to be masked and maintain 3 foot distance at all times What a joke of a notice. Hope your kid escapes.

I am afraid that we are going to follow Western Europe's situation. It's getting really really bad in some areas, with hospitals overwhelmed and regular surgeries cancelled.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...vid-cases.html

Maybe I’m looking at a different chart, but cases seemed to have leveled off from a small spike that peaked in early October. I can’t rule out there won’t be another spike or that a solar flare will kill everyone but Tom Hanks and his dog, but I don’t see anything quantitative right now to suggest that is likely, much less inevitable.

I’m still waiting for the catastrophic increase associated with schools full of suddenly dangerous unvaccinated kids.

[OutdoorLover]

Originally Posted by redplum33

It has already been here. I suspect the rise in cases is due to the vaccines wearing off. Get your booster.

Got my booster, and no, I wasn't saying these were the first Delta cases - I was saying that now, Delta is really going to make an impact and whack us.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/...vid-cases.html

Maybe I’m looking at a different chart, but cases seemed to have leveled off from a small spike that peaked in early October. I can’t rule out there won’t be another spike or that a solar flare will kill everyone but Tom Hanks and his dog, but I don’t see anything quantitative right now to suggest that is likely, much less inevitable.

I’m still waiting for the catastrophic increase associated with schools full of suddenly dangerous unvaccinated kids.

Positivity is spiking (over 4%?!?), cases are increasing https://twitter.com/BioTurboNick/sta...80019482677253
Here is the data for Rhode Island. https://ri-department-of-health-covi...ub.arcgis.com/
I can't help but think that this trend, combined with all the travel and family gatherings in 2 weeks time, will lead us into a European type of disaster. Not enough booster uptake, and the kid shot came too late for Thanksgiving protection. That said, I was (pleasantly) surprised that the late summer bump was not worse than it was. But keep in mind that we never came down from it, so that we are trending up from pretty high levels. And people who've so far been cautious because their kids were unvaxxed will drop all remaining precautions, and call for an end of mask mandates etc. (as they already have in the Northeast - think Emily Oster at Brown Joseph Allen at Harvard etc.).
At any rate, Netherlands, Austria, Germany,... - all at worst ever case loads. Hospitals in major trouble (and they have much more bed capacity than the US!). I am concerned about how bad it is getting there and what this means for the US. Perhaps the Northeast has enough people with shots that we'll survive this winter wave relatively unscathed - but we'll see.
Personally, for my boosted self, I think it's unlikely I'll die or even be hospitalized. I'd like to avoid steroids, however (and I have never seen how common that prescription is for non-hospitalized covid patients - I suspect it's pretty common); and I'd also really want to avoid long-covid issues, including things like arrythmia, blood pressure or cognitive issues etc that appear to be not uncommon and that will affect quality and i many cases quantity of life in the *long-term*. We hear far too little about this.

[porterhouse]

Originally Posted by jayrandom

I’m still waiting for the catastrophic increase associated with schools full of suddenly dangerous unvaccinated kids.

Excellent point. Don’t worry. There is always a new reason the sky is falling.

[BostonCollege]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

Excellent point. Don’t worry. There is always a new reason the sky is falling.

Agree as well. I don't know how many times sky will fall before we move on...inflation, poverty, mental health and kids falling behind is as bad as covid

[redplum33]

Covid fatigue is real, but you guys don't have a viable solution.

Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. It just makes it worse.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by rach5

Positivity is spiking (over 4%?!?), cases are increasing https://twitter.com/BioTurboNick/sta...80019482677253
Here is the data for Rhode Island. https://ri-department-of-health-covi...ub.arcgis.com/
I can't help but think that this trend, combined with all the travel and family gatherings in 2 weeks time, will lead us into a European type of disaster. Not enough booster uptake, and the kid shot came too late for Thanksgiving protection. That said, I was (pleasantly) surprised that the late summer bump was not worse than it was. But keep in mind that we never came down from it, so that we are trending up from pretty high levels. And people who've so far been cautious because their kids were unvaxxed will drop all remaining precautions, and call for an end of mask mandates etc. (as they already have in the Northeast - think Emily Oster at Brown Joseph Allen at Harvard etc.).
At any rate, Netherlands, Austria, Germany,... - all at worst ever case loads. Hospitals in major trouble (and they have much more bed capacity than the US!). I am concerned about how bad it is getting there and what this means for the US. Perhaps the Northeast has enough people with shots that we'll survive this winter wave relatively unscathed - but we'll see.
Personally, for my boosted self, I think it's unlikely I'll die or even be hospitalized. I'd like to avoid steroids, however (and I have never seen how common that prescription is for non-hospitalized covid patients - I suspect it's pretty common); and I'd also really want to avoid long-covid issues, including things like arrythmia, blood pressure or cognitive issues etc that appear to be not uncommon and that will affect quality and i many cases quantity of life in the *long-term*. We hear far too little about this.

A spike in cases has been claimed, a slow increase in positive tests coupled with a slow decrease in cases is what there actually is. The MWRA data are similar to the case data, a noisy but generally stable trend over the past four weeks, down from October.

If you look at the exact same graphs from June to September you would see an actual steady increase in case rates and hospitalizations, schools would be starting soon, and kids under twelve wouldn’t be getting vaccinations in the foreseeable future. Jump to now, with flat cases, schools having been open for a few months, and the 5-12 crowd getting vaccinated. I would be much more inclined to believe that there would be an event that “overwhelmed hospitals” based on those data. And yet that isn’t what happened. Why, then, do you think that this much less compelling trend means disaster when the late summer trends didn’t bring disaster? A slight increase in positivity isn’t enough to explain that.

As for the upsurge in Europe, it seems they are lagging us and not the other way around. We had our surge in the late summer. Maybe we’ll have another. Maybe there will be a new variant that kills everyone.

[jayrandom]

Originally Posted by redplum33

Covid fatigue is real, but you guys don't have a viable solution.

Ignoring a problem doesn't make it go away. It just makes it worse.

Predicting doom every time the noise goes up helps even less.

Beyond that, it’s pretty clear we need vaccination and honest conversations about risk tolerance. Right now, the two loudest voices in the National COVID debate are the “COVID isn’t real” camp and the “not a single death is acceptable” crowd.