bbiggs said:

Andrew Cuomo has earned a lot of my respect with the way he’s handled this thing. 

Imagine if we had Cuomo and Calif. Governor Gavin Newson as POTUS and VP (or visa versa), or leaders of that caliber in charge how much better things would be going now!

bbiggs said:

hedonist said:

It may be hit-or-miss, but for people with compromised immunity (like me, and others here I'm sure), I'd rather err on the safety side and just get it for health reasons.  Same goes for other vaccs like Shingles, Tetanus, etc.

My husband gets none of them.

(FYI, I could be wrong, but not just the elderly die of the flu or its ensuing complications.)

For sure.  I don't fault anyone for getting the annual flu shot.  It may not be 100%, but it is better than nothing.  I wish I had gotten a shingles vaccine.  I had the shingles and it was brutal.  I was super young, by average shingles age standards, so never would have thought of it. 

Ledbetterman10 said:

The Juggler said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

Andrew Cuomo on Trump

https://twitter.com/TrumpsTaxes/status/1251197855857025035?s=20

That's the greatest take down of Trump I've ever seen.

Tremendous 

Spiritual_Chaos said:

mcgruff10 said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

jeffbr said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

bbiggs said:

IL schools closed for the remainder of the 2020 school year.

Marginal difference when the spread already is in society. If not something clusters like hell in a specific school.

- Johan Giesecke/Anders Tegnell

Countries are starting to open up their schools. Sweden model reigns supreme ones again.

Not so sure about that. Deaths per million in Sweden is currently 131.99. Deaths per capita in U.S. is currently 100.56. I'm not sure what is supreme about a higher death rate. Souce: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million?year=2020-04-17

BTW, lots of interesting graphs and visualizations here: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data

Having schools closed or open doesn't have to factor into the difference. 

It made a big difference with the Spanish flu.   

Do school closings help limit the spread of influenza? It’s a tough question to answer definitively, but at best they appear to have a moderate effect in reducing transmission, if—and this is important—the rate of illness from influenza in children is high compared with adults. One unusual feature of COVID-19 is that children seem to be largely spared from illness. This means that school closings would do less to reduce its spread than the precedents of 1918 might suggest.

Another feature of school closings must be taken into account, and it goes beyond the fact that many parents would need to stay at home to take care of their children. As the weather warms up, children will do what they always do. They will climb trees or chase basketballs into busy streets, and a few unlucky ones will end up in emergency rooms with serious injuries—or worse. Like medications, public-health interventions have unwanted side effects. While it is relatively easy to decide to close down a school system, it takes wisdom to understand the ramifications of a choice that will take millions of children out of relatively safe environments and put them into others, where the risks are unknown. Pity the public servant who has to make that call.

Once states close their schools, or theaters, or public gatherings, they will be forced to grapple with another problem. Public closings cannot last forever. They must, sooner or later, be lifted. And that’s when the story gets more complicated. “Interventions may be capable of significantly reducing the rate of disease transmission so long as they remain in effect,” a team of researchers wrote in 2007. But while the mortality rates declined during closures, once they were relaxed, the influenza virus found fertile new territory.

In fact, cities that reduced their rates of transmission with aggressive public-health measures experienced a large bounce and a second wave of infection. Public closings do not necessarily keep infections out of our communities. They may only delay their arrival. But that delay may itself be crucial. When people who are sick arrive within a short period, they can overwhelm hospitals and clinics—and quickly use up essential supplies. When that same number of sick people is spread out over a longer period of time, health-care providers are more likely to be able to cope with the demand.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/complicated-truth-about-public-closings/607972/

So, I do not know how emperor Trump does it -- but in Sweden the PHA are doing two things 

1) Making sure our healthcare system doesn't collaps -- the virus isn't going away, it's here to stay -- so what do we need to do to keep the curve flat and the health care system work? Today -- it is stressed but it is not collapsing. So why should we delay it?

2) Take a holistic approach to public health. What happens if schools are closed? What happens to the health care system when nurses and staff can't work anymore because they have to stay home with young children? What about kids coming from troubled homes where school is a safe place from abuse etc? !! HOLISTIC APPROACH TO PUBLIC HEALTH !! The time spent in school when young, has a huge part in shaping a young persons life and Sweden is cautious about disrupting this.

3) Has there been any huge outbreaks in schools or that can be traced back to schools/children? Swedish officials say -- no. No signs of this.

4) If something changes, at a specific school or in general other restrictions could apply. But the important thing is to flatten the curve to make health care cope -- and so far it does. 

If saving lifes from covid19 and any other considerations and problems are a npn-factor -- then I take it New Jersey and the rest of the US will be completely locked down until a vaccine is out on the market? Schools will never open?

Spiritual_Chaos said:

brianlux said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

mickeyrat said:

So again, you are saying that you should be on total lockdown untill a vaccin is out?

I don't think that's what he's saying.  First off, there never has been a total lock down.

Not in Sweden either. Well, then.

Either way, how to not be as locked down and keep as many people safe is the great dilemma we're faced with.  That's hitting home big time.  My business is shut down as is my wife's and her business account is nearly drained already.   It's unnerving as all get out. 

Spiritual_Chaos said:

jeffbr said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

mcgruff10 said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

jeffbr said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

bbiggs said:

IL schools closed for the remainder of the 2020 school year.

Marginal difference when the spread already is in society. If not something clusters like hell in a specific school.

- Johan Giesecke/Anders Tegnell

Countries are starting to open up their schools. Sweden model reigns supreme ones again.

Not so sure about that. Deaths per million in Sweden is currently 131.99. Deaths per capita in U.S. is currently 100.56. I'm not sure what is supreme about a higher death rate. Souce: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/total-covid-deaths-per-million?year=2020-04-17

BTW, lots of interesting graphs and visualizations here: https://ourworldindata.org/coronavirus-data

Having schools closed or open doesn't have to factor into the difference. 

It made a big difference with the Spanish flu.   

Do school closings help limit the spread of influenza? It’s a tough question to answer definitively, but at best they appear to have a moderate effect in reducing transmission, if—and this is important—the rate of illness from influenza in children is high compared with adults. One unusual feature of COVID-19 is that children seem to be largely spared from illness. This means that school closings would do less to reduce its spread than the precedents of 1918 might suggest.

Another feature of school closings must be taken into account, and it goes beyond the fact that many parents would need to stay at home to take care of their children. As the weather warms up, children will do what they always do. They will climb trees or chase basketballs into busy streets, and a few unlucky ones will end up in emergency rooms with serious injuries—or worse. Like medications, public-health interventions have unwanted side effects. While it is relatively easy to decide to close down a school system, it takes wisdom to understand the ramifications of a choice that will take millions of children out of relatively safe environments and put them into others, where the risks are unknown. Pity the public servant who has to make that call.

Once states close their schools, or theaters, or public gatherings, they will be forced to grapple with another problem. Public closings cannot last forever. They must, sooner or later, be lifted. And that’s when the story gets more complicated. “Interventions may be capable of significantly reducing the rate of disease transmission so long as they remain in effect,” a team of researchers wrote in 2007. But while the mortality rates declined during closures, once they were relaxed, the influenza virus found fertile new territory.

In fact, cities that reduced their rates of transmission with aggressive public-health measures experienced a large bounce and a second wave of infection. Public closings do not necessarily keep infections out of our communities. They may only delay their arrival. But that delay may itself be crucial. When people who are sick arrive within a short period, they can overwhelm hospitals and clinics—and quickly use up essential supplies. When that same number of sick people is spread out over a longer period of time, health-care providers are more likely to be able to cope with the demand.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/complicated-truth-about-public-closings/607972/

So, I do not know how emperor Trump does it -- but in Sweden the PHA are doing two things 

1) Making sure our healthcare system doesn't collaps -- the virus isn't going away, it's here to stay -- so what do we need to do to keep the curve flat and the health care system work? Today -- it is stressed but it is not collapsing. So why should we delay it?

2) Take a holistic approach to public health. What happens if schools are closed? What happens to the health care system when nurses and staff can't work anymore because they have to stay home with young children? What about kids coming from troubled homes where school is a safe place from abuse etc? !! HOLISTIC APPROACH TO PUBLIC HEALTH !! The time spent in school when young, has a huge part in shaping a young persons life and Sweden is cautious about disrupting this.

3) Has there been any huge outbreaks in schools or that can be traced back to schools/children? Swedish officials say -- no. No signs of this.

4) If something changes, at a specific school or in general other restrictions could apply. But the important thing is to flatten the curve to make health care cope -- and so far it does. 

If saving lifes from covid19 and any other considerations and problems are a npn-factor -- then I take it New Jersey and the rest of the US will be completely locked down until a vaccine is out on the market? Schools will never open?

From BBC: Why children are not immune to Covid-19

Can children, with mild or no illness, transmit the Coronavirus to others?

Yes, they can.

“This is the big issue,” says Roberts. “Many think that children are at low risk and we don’t need to worry about them, and yes, that is true for children who don’t have chronic medical conditions like immunodeficiencies. What people are forgetting is that children are probably one of the main routes by which this infection is going to spread throughout the community.”

The coronavirus is transmitted from an infected person to a non-infected person through direct contact with the respiratory droplets of an infected person (generated through coughing and sneezing), and touching surfaces contaminated with the virus. This means that children infected with the coronavirus, with very mild or no illness, can transmit the infection to others, especially family members and elderly relatives.

“Children with very mild disease are probably going to be one of the major contributors to spreading the virus across the population,” says Roberts. “This is why schools closing are crucial to reducing the rate at which the pandemic spreads across the UK.”

Who is Roberts?

And, how long do you think schools should be closed then? Untill a vaccin comes out? What about other parts of society. In society the diease spreads. So total lockdown? And for how long?

That's the million dollar question. What I do know is that we are still learning about the virus and it's transmission. We are still collecting data about kids and their role in this. Kids in general aren't widely tested, certainly not in this country, because testing has been so focused on acutely symptomatic adults. So before I made that kind of decision I'd want actual data. Secondly, I know that when my kids were school aged I'd get sick every goddamned fall. My kids grew up, moved out, and no more fall cold and flu for me. Kids are little disease vectors. I would certainly have school districts work on more remote/distance learning at this point. Some districts around me already have it diaied in, and have for some time. Others are just now figuring it out. Still others are scrambling for resources to make sure kids have the equipment and connectivity needed for distance learning. So school doesn't have to end, and education doesn't have to stop just because those little germ magnets aren't all in one place at the same time. But without sufficient data, I wouldn't invite 30 of them to a small classroom to expose at-risk staff and teachers, to share it among one another, and to return home to parents and grandparents to spread it around. 

bbiggs said:

Spiritual_Chaos said:

mcgruff10 said:

“It s just like the flu”

How much would "the flu" kill if we didn't protect the elder with vaccins?

I don’t have hard data on exact percentages, but there is a significant percentage of Americans that do not get an annual flu shot (vaccine). I know a LOT of people that don’t get it. This isnt like the anti-vaxxers either. The flu shot just isn’t one of those vaccines that everyone gets.  

I had a routine check-in video conference with my doctor this morning. When the nurse did her pre-visit call, she asked me if I had my flu shot, which I think is a routine question. I laughed and said, "Nope, I never get a flu shot, but I'm pretty sure I will be getting this next one."  She said I'll see you in September . . . I don't think she realizes I meant the corona vaccine when it comes out.

I never got a flu shot before because I'm just not someone who gets sick with colds and flu the way some people are sickly all the time. Apparently, I have a strong immune system -- part eating well, part hygiene, but I think it's because I've been exposed to so many germs from the children at my school they could use me for research on antibodies. I didn't escape the ringworm this year, though. Unfortunately I got the ringworm. I got in trouble for bleaching down my classroom after the ringworm 

I can say that I am very, very worried about picking up CoVid from a child at school when we reopen. I expect a re-opening in September if the rest of the economy re-opens. We can't leave young children at home while their parents have to work. The parents in my school district by and large are construction or service workers, already struggling to pay very high rents packed in multi-family homes before they lost their jobs. I can't even fathom the suffering. My heart breaks for them. So -- even with an 80 year old mom in my home whom I'm trying to protect, I'm willing to go back in and hope for the best just so my community can get back on its feet and go to work. I'm pretty sure the school district will be responsible about it. It will be interesting to see how they decide to do it.

Note -- I'm not arguing that we kill grandma. I'm just being realistic.