Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Amherst, Greenfield: museums, tourist, busiest)

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

The difference between Italy/China then and Florida/Texas/Arizona now is that the way to keep the transmission rate below 1.0 is now very well understood. What is happening now in the United States is totally inexcusable.

Fully agree with this. I would also wager that part of the problem is--half of our population would not understand the concept of "transmission rate < 1.0" even if explained to them. Add on top of that misplaced notions of personal liberty, and somehow politicizing a disease, and it's no wonder.

[sawyer2]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

Fully agree with this. I would also wager that part of the problem is--half of our population would not understand the concept of "transmission rate < 1.0" even if explained to them. Add on top of that misplaced notions of personal liberty, and somehow politicizing a disease, and it's no wonder.

Yup

https://mobile.twitter.com/Delacroix...41081019199488

[porterhouse]

MA numbers and trends continue to look very good across the board. Hospitalized cases down to 769, 143 of which are in the ICU.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

The problem is that it took several months for the “experts” to finally accept the data that the disease is spread by asymptomatic and Pre-symptomatic people. That is not the behavior of similar diseases. If that had been well understood in mid-January, the expert recommendations would have been unanimous to pull the plug on any border crossing and mandate a 14-day quarantine. By mid-March when that was understood and accepted, it was far too late. You can second guess the national response from mid-March onwards but nobody had an accurate profile of transmission before then.

China locked down Wuhan in late January, stopping all traffic in and out of the area (as well as other places). That should have been a huge red flag to the world. Also, in January there was a large and widely publicized cluster in Munich where they did extensive track and trace that was initially thought to be caused by an asymptomatic person (it was later clarified that the person was mildly symptomatic while in Germany). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...alting-new-bug
Hong Kong medical staff went on strike late January/early Feb to enforce more strict closure of the border to China. Politics and the economy are the only reasons the world did not shut down earlier - not science. As the WHO has said repeatedly, when it comes to covid, if you react once you are certain that a decision is the right one, the decision is far too late (but yeah, I know, WHO also did not want to restrict international travel).

[Shrewsburried]

Originally Posted by rach5

China locked down Wuhan in late January, stopping all traffic in and out of the area (as well as other places). That should have been a huge red flag to the world. Also, in January there was a large and widely publicized cluster in Munich where they did extensive track and trace that was initially thought to be caused by an asymptomatic person (it was later clarified that the person was mildly symptomatic while in Germany). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...alting-new-bug
Hong Kong medical staff went on strike late January/early Feb to enforce more strict closure of the border to China. Politics and the economy are the only reasons the world did not shut down earlier - not science. As the WHO has said repeatedly, when it comes to covid, if you react once you are certain that a decision is the right one, the decision is far too late (but yeah, I know, WHO also did not want to restrict international travel).

I can confirm this as my employer, a contract manufacturer with sites in China, shut down air travel well before Boston was still “business as usual”. US response was, in hindsight, quite pitiful.

[redplum33]

Over 42k new cases today nationwide. 4 days in a row a new record was set.

Colleges reopening in Boston in 2 months...

[Bridge781]

Originally Posted by redplum33

Over 42k new cases today nationwide. 4 days in a row a new record was set.

Colleges reopening in Boston in 2 months...

Yikes. I’m guessing no students attend college in Boston from any of those states tho right ? Lol.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by rach5

China locked down Wuhan in late January, stopping all traffic in and out of the area (as well as other places). That should have been a huge red flag to the world. Also, in January there was a large and widely publicized cluster in Munich where they did extensive track and trace that was initially thought to be caused by an asymptomatic person (it was later clarified that the person was mildly symptomatic while in Germany). https://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...alting-new-bug
Hong Kong medical staff went on strike late January/early Feb to enforce more strict closure of the border to China. Politics and the economy are the only reasons the world did not shut down earlier - not science. As the WHO has said repeatedly, when it comes to covid, if you react once you are certain that a decision is the right one, the decision is far too late (but yeah, I know, WHO also did not want to restrict international travel).

Dr Carmilla Rothe identified presymptomatic transmission in Munich on January 27 and was shouted down by the Robert Koch Institute, among others. That was in the New York Times yesterday. It meant traditional public health screening with questions about symptoms and a temperature check would be ineffective. The Times article went on to describe a mid-February instance where clear data was ignored by the bureaucracy that couldn’t accept that COVID-19 wasn’t behaving as expected. It took almost two months for the reality of presympomatic and asymptomatic transmission to be generally accepted.

Of course, none of this has anything to do with the disastrous mishandling in the United States. The rejection of masks and distancing by the right wing is mind boggling.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by FarmCoastLocal

Keep fighting the good fight. Here's an analogy from my former lifeguard days:

When we went through training for active drowners (the folks thrashing about to stay above the water) we were taught to approach in a way that both assisted the swimmer and kept the lifegaurd out of harms way.

You see when someone is in this sort of condition (fearful for their lives) they will grab you and try to use you as a flotation device even if it means holding you under while they panic.

This is sort of what we're seeing with the pandemic where a vocal group of individuals want to shut everything down and restrict other people for the sake of self preservation (which ofcourse they might deny to try to keep a moral high ground).

It's not about isolating the most vulnerable. It's about a primal survivalist desire that causes them to think, like the drowning man or woman, that what they are doing is absolutely necessary.

When dealing with such people disarming them with listening and empathy is perhaps the best route forward. It's easy to get caught up into it, but emotions are temporary. I can tell you're reasonable, and I kindly offer that advice for future posts, so you can be even more effective in your communication.

In my lifeguard days, we shut the beach when there was a big storm and nobody drowned. There were always a few pissed off wannabe body surfers mouthing off. We didn’t want to kill a lifeguard trying to rescue them.

[mdovell]

Originally Posted by redplum33

Over 42k new cases today nationwide. 4 days in a row a new record was set.

Colleges reopening in Boston in 2 months...

I don't think so. As the reality sinks in most institutions know they can't block classes from being online. International students probably aren't coming back. It's a hard argument that the EU can block US citizens but the US should allow those from the EU in. Then add in India, China etc. Without international students that means that the student body is much less. Domestic? maybe if close but even if it's California they can still take it online.