Coronavirus in Massachusetts (Boston, Franklin: industrial, manufacturers, live)

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by mdovell

The vaccine is getting complicated
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mo...ion-2020-08-27

Your drug store clinic is Not going to be able to give this. Same with a city or town hall. This might mean you must go to a hospital for it which is fine for Boston and urban areas. But rural... Forget about it. This might mean busses would have to be chartered from Berkshire and Franklin County in mass and many other states to do similar actions.

Rural areas are screwed. No herd immunity and a lack of access to vaccines.

People aren't allowed to drive to hospitals for a vaccine, as they routinely do now for other care???

[bohemka]

Originally Posted by massnative71

People aren't allowed to drive to hospitals for a vaccine, as they routinely do now for other care???

I think he meant that people will be far less likely to do that if an inconvenient hurdle is in the way.

[massnative71]

Originally Posted by bohemka

I think he meant that people will be far less likely to do that if an inconvenient hurdle is in the way.

Doubt it. People in those areas are used to traveling for all kinds of routine care anyway these days. I doubt it will stop them from something so critical.

[porterhouse]

BU has a 0.15% positive rate on over 25k tests preformed on students, faculty and staff. Many students have been on campus for weeks.

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times. "In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found."...”Most of these people are not likely to be contagious.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/h...s-testing.html

[charolastra00]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

421 new cases per today's daily report. No one can feel good about this. I just wonder how it's still spreading, because all the indoor spaces I frequent, people are wearing masks.

I don't feel great about it, but I do feel good about the hospitalizations. We're at the lowest we've been since the numbers started being tracked at just over 300 people in the hospital.


I want to know more about the spread. We hear a lot about how it's younger people - and that bares out in the higher numbers while hospitalizations continue to drop (albeit very slowly). I think we can put some blame on increased testing for the higher numbers, but not all.



Do we know if the state dashboard includes all the local colleges? I've heard rumblings that the Broad Institute (which covers a few local schools) and BU aren't included because they're not PCR tests. That would help make more sense of the numbers.


It would be good to know if the increase was from employers and schools requiring frequent testing and therefore catching asymptomatic people. That would be a *good* reason for the higher numbers - those are people who may have otherwise spread it if they hadn't known.



We know that even now testing is missing a huge number of people. I would feel better if I knew that the HUGE increase of testing was catching more asymptomatic people and to what degree so we'd know if we were really having an uptick in infections.

[rach5]

Originally Posted by mdovell

The vaccine is getting complicated
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/mo...ion-2020-08-27

Your drug store clinic is Not going to be able to give this. Same with a city or town hall. This might mean you must go to a hospital for it which is fine for Boston and urban areas. But rural... Forget about it. This might mean busses would have to be chartered from Berkshire and Franklin County in mass and many other states to do similar actions.

Rural areas are screwed. No herd immunity and a lack of access to vaccines.

Thanks for that link. Wow. The lines for these vaccines at the few outlets available will be superspreader events. Very disappointing that they wouldn't have thought about distribution before committing on candidate vaccine methods. You are worried about rural areas in the US. Just think of much of the world...

[redplum33]

Originally Posted by porterhouse

Here’s an interesting article from the New York Times. "In three sets of testing data that include cycle thresholds, compiled by officials in Massachusetts, New York and Nevada, up to 90 percent of people testing positive carried barely any virus, a review by The Times found."...”Most of these people are not likely to be contagious.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/h...s-testing.html

Interesting link, porterhouse. Thanks.

charolastra, you should read it.

[porterhouse]

Really eye opening article. Another quote I wouldn’t believe if not for the source:

“In Massachusetts, from 85 to 90 percent of people who tested positive in July with a cycle threshold of 40 would have been deemed negative if the threshold were 30 cycles, Dr. Mina said. “I would say that none of those people should be contact-traced, not one,” he said.”

Michael Mina is an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, so a credible and qualified expert. He is a huge advocate of self serve rapid tests like the Abbott test approved this week.

[Urban Peasant]

Originally Posted by Williepaws

Over 1000 new cases a week. Not good. Is this why Baker activated the Nat Guard again on friday? No reason was given by his office.

I just found out on Fox News that the Nat Guard was being called up for potential protests. It might not necessarily have to do with the pandemic.

[LeavingMA]

Originally Posted by htfdcolt

421 new cases per today's daily report. No one can feel good about this. I just wonder how it's still spreading, because all the indoor spaces I frequent, people are wearing masks.

1. Masks don't work (don't worry cause pro mask people will blame every case on a non mask wearer)
2. Who cares about cases if they barely show any symptoms and aren't hospitalized.
3. Numbers can easily be manipulated, and they have been this entire time. If you test more you get more, and per the last major article I read from the NY times, positivity rate depends on how they set the testing. Just another mess with this. The below article, many now censored articles said the same back in March and April. Basically you could easily manipulate case count for fear or whatever reasons.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/29/h...s-testing.html