Coronavirus COVID-19 - Global Health Pandemic #77

[nhmemorymaker]

It's possibly in this link. Lots of info online. It looks like a real mixed bag.

Ohio's 8 Largest School Districts Begin Making Changes

Or this one for colleges.

Colleges Adapt Plans To Resume Classes Amid COVID-19 Pandemic

Constantly changing...

The first article is really about public school, and the second is a month old, so shows more pre-opening stuff than current...

but I am asking Sundog because he has the on-the-ground expertise that is more interesting to me. And my undergrad alma mater is Ohio State University, and know all the colleges in the state, intimately!! So my questions are really more personal than article-driven.

Go Buckeyes!

 

[tresir2012]

The first article is really about public school, and the second is a month old, so shows more pre-opening stuff than current...

but I am asking Sundog because he has the on-the-ground expertise that is more interesting to me. And my undergrad alma mater is Ohio State University, and know all the colleges in the state, intimately!! So my questions are really more personal than article-driven.

Go Buckeyes!

I think they opened early so they could close early by Thanksgiving. So the guidance had to be out there early I guess.

ETA the first link also included some KSU info.

 

[Spider92]

Why would a single case of reinfection mean that vaccines would not produce enough long lasting immunity?

A single case doesn't mean much. But keep in mind, this entire pandemic was once a single case. I think we need to see how this reinfection issue plays out over the next several months to determine if it becomes more prevalent. Many cases of reinfection might indicate that antibodies do not stay long in the body. I believe that many vaccines work by producing antibodies so they could face the same challenge. There's already talk of second booster shots. It would be frustrating if a vaccine lasted only 90 days as an example.

 

[musicaljoke]

The pastor was called by the police chief?
From your article :

“Sad day in America,” Bell wrote, “when my father is called by the chief of police with embarrassment and remorse and told that he will be arrested if he has church in our building on Sunday.”

Cherith’s older sister Elisabeth, who lives in Lebanon, also tweeted about the police call.

“America, Maine… it’s time to wake up and stand together. They’ve taken so much from you already, will you bow your heads and submit to the tyranny while they strip you of your rights to worship God?

“Please pray for my dad as he navigates through this. He has already said he will stand for truth, always. I’ll be standing with him.”

What a shame that this minister didn't use the opportunity to teach that we can worship God from outside the church. He could inspire his congregation to get out and minister to the needs of the community, and be peace, hope and joy in this difficult time.

 

[Tillicum]

I always enjoy reading about the way people are adapting to the pandemic. We humans have great imaginations.

Welcome to Kayak Church: Pennsylvania worshippers take to the water

 

[musicaljoke]

I think you hit the nail on the head. Covid created an on-line shopping bonanza of acceptance. And Covid created a new revered acceptance of working-from-home.

"Need" creates more change than anything. There is no real going back. But it really does beg that question of what is going to happen to all this real-estate.

Seems to me that we are sortof going back to living in villages, rather than commuting to and depending on big cities.

It would be a good thing, wouldn't it? If the downtown real estate is vacated, then it will demand really good planning from the city leaders to develop new purposes. This kind of thing may seem scary, but our former way of doing things was filled with problems too - traffic congestion, pollution, lack of green spaces, crime, noise, and waste of resources, etc.

 

[tresir2012]

Kentucky Derby 2020: Race preview, how to watch, favorites & odds

The coronavirus pandemic pushed the Derby back to September

By Ryan Gaydos | Fox News

Video
The Kentucky Derby adapts to the coronavirus pandemic with a virtual race

Tonya Abeln, vice president of corporate communications for Churchill Downs, and master distiller Chris Morris speak with Janice Dean abut the virtual event.

The Kentucky Derby will run Saturday after having been delayed for months due to the coronavirus pandemic.


Tiz the Law is the favorite to win the 146th running of the Derby. He drew the No. 17 post at the event and will look to become the first horse to ever win from the post.

“Well, I like it being on the outside,” said Barclay Tagg, Tiz the Law’s trainer. “I didn’t particularly want to be out that far, but it’s what we have. He seems to handle everything that gets thrown at him, so we have to leave it up to him.”

KENTUCKY DERBY FAVORITE'S TRAINER WORRIED ABOUT 'RIOTERS': 'YOU’RE NOT ALLOWED TO SHOOT THEM, AND THEY’RE ALLOWED TO SHOOT YOU'


Tiz the Law was the winner of the Belmont Stakes, which fell a bit under the radar this year because of the pandemic. According to Horse Betting, Tiz the Law is 3-5 favorite to win the race.

One of the stranger things to happen at the Derby will be the absence of fans. The Derby had originally planned a limited attendance at Churchill Downs but reneged on the idea days before the gates dropped.

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear won’t be at the winners’ circle, either. He said Tuesday he will watch the race from home like everyone else. He said he will have a taped message as part of the trophy presentation.

More at above link.

Coronavirus: Is the rate of growth in Africa slowing down?

The World Health Organization (WHO) has said the Covid-19 outbreak in Africa may have passed its peak, but warns governments not to be complacent as countries relax their restrictions.
The number of new daily confirmed cases overall has been dropping, although some countries are still seeing a rise in cases.
At what rate is coronavirus spreading?
Over the past four weeks, there has been an average 14% fall in the number of weekly new cases being reported.
"We have had what seems to have been a peak and now have the daily number of cases being reported overall at the regional level going down," says WHO's Africa region head Matshidiso Moeti.
That may be because the rate of increase has slowed in the more populous countries like South Africa, Egypt and Nigeria.
But there've been increases in cases in other countries, according to the Africa Centres for Disease Control (CDC).

...

The global humanitarian relief body, the International Rescue Committee, says it believes the true scale of the pandemic may be hidden because of a lack of testing and issues with data.

More at above link.

I find this site easier to use than Worldometers. This is the list of countries in order of deaths per million. Just click on other graphs to get the cases and other stats.

COVID-19 deaths per capita by country | Statista

deaths)¹ Population (in millions) Deaths per million
Peru 29,068 0 31.99 908.68
Belgium 9,899 1 11.42 866.66
Spain 29,234 40 46.72 625.68
United Kingdom² 41,528 14 66.49 624.58
Chile 11,422 78 18.73 609.85
Brazil 124,614 834 209.47 594.9
Italy 35,507 10 60.43 587.56
Sweden 5,832 12 10.18 572.71
USA² 186,318 1,044 327.17 569.49

 

[CSIDreamer]

It would be a good thing, wouldn't it? If the downtown real estate is vacated, then it will demand really good planning from the city leaders to develop new purposes. This kind of thing may seem scary, but our former way of doing things was filled with problems too - traffic congestion, pollution, lack of green spaces, crime, noise, and waste of resources, etc.

It might be. On the downside, cities are losing so much money due to the pandemic. Rock meet hard place.

 

[tresir2012]

A single case doesn't mean much. But keep in mind, this entire pandemic was once a single case. I think we need to see how this reinfection issue plays out over the next several months to determine if it becomes more prevalent. Many cases of reinfection might indicate that antibodies do not stay long in the body. I believe that many vaccines work by producing antibodies so they could face the same challenge. There's already talk of second booster shots. It would be frustrating if a vaccine lasted only 90 days as an example.

I posted upthread about a problem with positive tests sometimes being due to dead virus rather than a new infection so it does seem to hang around in the body for a while. Even with a negative test the body's immune system may still remember that it has encountered the virus before. I think this has been mentioned that some elderly recovered patients could have had an immune system that remembered the 1918 pandemic and could fight it.

MOO

ETA I think the AZ (Oxford) vaccine consists of two shots one month apart IIRC.

 

[Sillybilly]

ADMIN NOTE:

This post lands at random.

Websleuths is based in the US but has members from all over the world.

Any member who posts snark about another country will be permanently removed from this discussion.

 

[Sundog]

I think Ohio has been credited with very good planning in general, and what you express about the universities really does sound so well planned. Even your contact tracing sounds way ahead of other places.

I assume that the overall planning is coming directly out of Columbus, but where are you specifically that you can have the dedicated "half-way house dorm?"

The Governor in Columbus has been holding regular teleconferences with the presidents of all the colleges and universities in the state since mid-summer to discuss the reopening of higher ed. Also, the 13 presidents of the public colleges and universities have been holding regular videoconferences since early summer to share best practices, ideas, and their own institutional plans, as they developed. They aren't all necessarily doing the same thing, I think that Miami University of Ohio has gone to more remote courses, not sure, but they were planning to do so, due to community spread in their area. We all have pretty good relationships with our county health departments and are working in partnership to try to also protect our communities as the students returned. Mayors of small towns involved as well. The faculty in public health trained volunteer nursing and public health students, including some social work students, to do the contact tracing. This started in March, and they have continued and I think our university alone has about 200 students, mostly senior or graduate/professional students, doing the contact tracing under the leadership of faculty in public health.

With regard to the residence hall dedicated to COVID infected or exposed students, that isn't hard to do at a large university. There is usually one residence hall every year or every other year that is taken off line due to planned renovations, so if you just hold off on the renovations for one year, you can put it back online temporarily during COVID. Institutions that don't have space on campus are working with local hotels and apartment building owners who have vacant space to house students who need to be quarantined. Others who don't have this option have to send them home. Our students who live off campus have to arrange for their own quarantine or isolation, but if they have a serious hardship regarding their ability to do so, we try to help them find alternatives.

It isn't a perfect situation. We have a lot of commuter students who go back and forth to their communities, besides the residential students. It could change if the community becomes a hot spot, or the campus becomes a hot spot. That is why the surveillance testing is so important. If it starts to show a spike we can go remote for two weeks if we have to, if it is closer to the end of the semester then we can send everyone home earlier than planned. Our international students can stay through the winter break, as often they have nowhere to go. We had to provide them with housing through the summer, as many of them couldn't go home to their home countries, and for some of them, if they could go home they didn't, as they wouldn't be able to return. The U.S. embassies abroad are still not open for most of our international students to process visa applications. So many students won't risk travelling back to their home countries even for the month-long winter break. For students who are stuck overseas (international students), they are facing a lot of challenges with their synchronous online courses due to the time difference, etc.

Anyway, our goal is to get through the semester while keeping everyone as safe as possible given the situation.

 

[Satchie]

And what is going to happen to all the brick and mortar real estate????--high percentage of office space in NYC empty and all these box stores..... So hard to imagine what "down the road" is going to actually look like.

I really believe that things are constantly changing, pandemic or not. For example, from the 60's thru the 80's, all cities had vast areas of abandoned industrial and warehouse districts, close to old unsafe polluted waterfronts and rail yards. Hardly anyone even ventured into those areas until the real estate boom that started in the 90s, when there was money to reclaim and renovate, and people could live in cleaned up, safer, inner cities.

But things will change again, because economies change. Maybe we won't want to be so dependent on goods from China, for eg, and it's easier to buy a wider variety of specialty goods online.

 

[MrX]

How sad it is to go into a tavern, that used to be full of people, laughing, talking, drinking, playing pool...and it is like a large, empty warehouse. A few employees, wandering around, with masks, armed with Clorox wipes.

Must be different there. Places here are doing a big business.

 

[mickey2942]

Must be different there. Places here are doing a big business.

Minneapolis? I am in Las Vegas this weekend. Everything that makes Vegas "fun" is pretty much gone. I used to go to shows, and after the show, go out clubbing, drinking, dancing, meet new people, go have breakfast.

That whole scene is gone, for now. Maybe it will be back.

 

[tresir2012]

Anti-lockdown protest as coronavirus cases rise

More demonstrations. This time in Scotland.

Scotland's national clinical director, Prof Jason Leitch described the protesters as "deeply irresponsible".

Image captionHundreds of protesters joined the rally outside the Scottish Parliament
He said: "I honestly do not understand it.

"I think it is irresponsible - do they think we're making it up? 194 countries are making up a viral pandemic.

"I would love to have not lived through the last six months, both in my job and what we have had to do to our country and many others.

"I think it is deeply irresponsible."

'Scientific evidence'
Hundreds of protesters marched to the parliament building in Edinburgh with flags and placards for the Scotland Against Lockdown protest, organised by the Saving Scotland Facebook group.

A post advertising the event said it was "time to stand up together, and listen to real scientific evidence in regards to the health of the Scottish people."

The group said lockdown was causing "more harm than the virus" and that Scots should say "no to mandatory vaccines and masks. No to secondary lockdowns."

 

[Sundog]

China's CNBG, Sinovac find more countries to test coronavirus vaccines

China is also in phase 3 trials in a number of countries, and has been vaccinating essential workers, according to this MSM article.

Also notes that China will begin to vaccinate employees at their overseas' embassies.

Two more vaccines to watch.

 

[Trino]

Do we Americans have a death wish?
Millions of Americans, tired of being pinned down by the pandemic, are expected to hit the road this Labor Day weekend despite a coronavirus crisis that continues to generate more than 30,000 new cases per day and shows little sign of slowing down.

And the destination of choice, according to the travel site TripIt, is a state where the coronavirus crisis continues unabated — Florida.

Labor Day weekend travelers are heading to coronavirus hot spots

 

[SoCalDavidS]

Do we Americans have a death wish?
Millions of Americans, tired of being pinned down by the pandemic, are expected to hit the road this Labor Day weekend despite a coronavirus crisis that continues to generate more than 30,000 new cases per day and shows little sign of slowing down. And the destination of choice, according to the travel site TripIt, is a state where the coronavirus crisis continues unabated — Florida.

The Coronavirus Groundhog saw it's shadow while vacationing in Florida folks.

Six More Weeks Of Quarantining.

 

[tresir2012]

The Coronavirus Groundhog saw it's shadow while vacationing in Florida folks.

Six More Weeks Of Quarantining.

Have you got a link for that?

o

 

[MrX]

Q&A with Arizona's top health official on business benchmarks, enforcement

I found this pretty interesting. Sounds like if some nut calls to complain about a place, they aren't wasting time on it, but if 32 different people call about the same violation, they'll send out the troops. This way they can shut down raves, while not going overboard, like NY, and raiding a corner joint with five geezers on bar stools.