outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

A couple of other good posts on a related topic:

The Media Needs To Stop Asking Bosses About Labor

Workplace Journalism Is Broken

xpost to caek's link, yep #1, #2 and #5 here

#4 is wild!

yeah I was thankful that one wasn't one I'd ever had to deal with

so thankful to have a permanent virtual job. my co-workers aren't all the smartest re: vaccines 'n stuff

in the US, the decline of cases nationally has seemingly stopped and started to tick up, which seems to correspond with rising cases in the midwest and northeast, whereas the South continues to decline since they were hit first.

am guessing we'll see the reduction resume again once these hot pockets peak and plateau.

I'm going with Bob Wachter here:

My new mantra is that we're reaching a steady state, with forces for improvement (more vaxxed folks, inc. kids & boosters, ?meds) offset by forces for worsening (lots of unvaxxed, winter, people/regions less careful, waning immunity). Plateau in US case curve supports this idea. pic.twitter.com/p2QWGLKSf0

— Bob Wachter (@Bob_Wachter) November 2, 2021

It's really not clear that COVID is going to "end" any more than it already has.

very good article there caek, thanks

I'm inclined to agree with Wachter's take. However, if correct, Illinois (and a few other states) has some thinking to do about what, if anything, will trigger the removal of the indoor mask mandate.

To be perfectly clear, I'm not against the mandate or masks in general, just pointing out that a state hanging its hat on case numbers to decline even further before lifting mandates might need to reconsider different metrics at some point.

there definitely need to be roadmaps for 'no mask' or 'reinstitute mask', problem is the willfully ignorant and people who are playing dumb will always pretend they thought that de-masking was forever and don't ever want to re-mask.

but....only so much you can do. i haven't stopped wearing mine.

Agreed, it's a hard road and I don't envy people trying to make these decisions in the least. It just isn't hard to sense a growing frustration over the lack of clarity, I think (setting aside the willfully ignorant for the moment) people are hoping for some glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel.

I haven't stopped wearing mine either and no immediate plans to do so, but I have to admit that I'd like to be able to imagine a future where I don't have to wear one for 8-10 hours a day straight at work.

going to say it:

i don't think mask mandates make a ton of sense in public health terms or are very sustainable politically once kids are eligible for vaccination AND basically everything is open at capacity.

neither of those things are true yet, but they're coming.

you can argue that everything should not be open at capacity, but once you take that step, masking is kind of beside the point in public health terms.

(might ask a mod to delete this post, depending on how the winter goes.)

Whether or not there's a mandate, I expect to continue masking in public for the foreseeable future, because idiots.

xxxxpost yep thanks caek and unperson, those anne-helen peterson and ed zitron posts really resonated with me. also zitron's post about meta is very funny

i'm interviewing for a job in the canary wharf tomorrow - my first job after two years of stay-at-home pandemic parenting

if i get the job, they want me to come to the office 1/2 days a week, which - to me, a person who's lived at home for two years - seems idiotic. i'm not sure what to do if i get the job but don't agree with the office hours. really have no desire to commute to canary wharf with a train of maskless city wankers even once a wek

also, i'm supposed to manage two people - i couldn't, right now, do that in good conscience if i had to enforce them to be in the office for two days a week.

but you can sit next to the driver on the DLR, which is cool

what driver?

the attendant wizard guy who wanders around the train. don't they usually sit in a seat at the front with some buttons when it's busy?

xp: DLR!

http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2dWsKeTvmgw/Uko7RGMgPmI/AAAAAAAAAaM/U79lWhL8xYw/s1600/Screenshot+2013-09-30+at+8.29.15+PM.png

PSA that the set of underlying medical conditions that make you eligible for/advised to get a 6+ month booster in the US was expanded since i last looked. it now includes anyone with a bmi over 25 (which is over 70% of the population of the US), and mood disorders (the other 30% am i right!!!!).

local guidance may vary but in general local health departments are deferring to this page afaict: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/need-extra-precautions/people-with-medical-conditions.html

From what I've heard, pharmacies really don't seem to GAF anymore, just say you work in a "risky environment" and it's good enough for them.

oh yeah you can totally lie and no one cares. but if you're waiting because you think you're not eligible then you might be is my point.

not really sure what the point of restricting them is tbh. i guess they're still not willing to concede the point that boosters are necessary for everyone, so they set criteria, and those criteria, strictly speaking, include a mere 85% of US adults, not 100%.

Yeah, I thought that was kinda pointless. I mean, if pushed, I'll just explain that I'm full time around students (which isn't a lie!). Focused on getting my son his first jab first tbh though.

i got a booster about ten days ago and the pharmacist didn't ask me a single question about my eligibility

went in for a doctors appointment and was kinda surprised that she took me getting a booster as a given, said she’d do it mid-December

I’m 35, just barely underweight, no comorbidities that apply (that I can tell), no job much less a high risk one, but it wasn’t even a discussion. feel weird about it, given that half the world hasn’t gotten a first shot and I’m at such (relatively) low risk, but I don’t suppose there’s any way I can send my dose overseas, and I do trust her, so guess I’m getting another Dolly jab in six weeks 🤷🏻‍♀️

The claim that there were 14x times patients in hospital with covid a year ago in the UK is incorrect. There we 14,546 hospitalised covid patients a year ago (8 Nov 2020), and around 9000 today (i.e. ~0.6x).https://t.co/qlzP7Hcxwn https://t.co/8F79GOHza8 pic.twitter.com/f6qOxtIbgD

— Prof Francois Balloux (@BallouxFrancois) November 8, 2021

Clarifies in the article that she was apparently referring to August 2021 (22,877) vs August 2020 (1,629)

August isn't relevant to winter. Not great reporting.

but you can sit next to the driver on the DLR, which is cool

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Wednesday, 3 November 2021 17:13 (five days ago) bookmarkflaglink

I regret to correct you that this hasn't in fact been possible since the start of the pandemic, the front and back of every train is fenced off

All the trains sport giant poppies though at least

Plus wasn't August 2020 just after about 3 months of lockdown so you'd expect cases to be fairly low then xps

Also no vaccine and iirc ppl were a bit more cautious (depending on age). Not much open sport or clubs.

the original tweet has now been deleted

Younger kid now vaxxed. I think we are about to see an even bigger social disjunction than we did with adults. It seems like in my social group every single person is climbing over themselves to get their 5-11s vaccinated. But what proportion of kids in that age group are actually going to get vaccinated in the next few months? Maybe a third?

I'm volunteering at a vax clinic for 5-11 today, I'll report back any observations.

Got my own booster yesterday, a mix-n-match Pfizer shot to bolster my two previous Modernas. More or less the same side effects as before but somewhat more mild. Just some aches and pains and tossing and turning at night, but more or less back to normal this morning.

I mentioned above that our school system was distributing vaccinations. However, both times I tried to sign my youngest up, all appointments had been filled by the time I got to the registration website. I eventually found a Target pharmacy that had an opening about 2 weeks from now.

Each of our 8 elementary schools gets its own pop up clinic. I heard that the entirety of Chicago public schools got a mere *4* clinic locations.

My son's first appointment is set for next Monday. Was hoping to go through the district's thing (early rumors were that it was going to be at each school, but in the end only 1 for the whole district) here, but ours also filled up very quickly (which is an encouraging sign, overall).

It's astounding how many of the kids in my regular social group have been vaccinated already or are scheduled to get one this week. But it probably will be every single kid in our particular demographics getting shots within two weeks and then nobody else.

Mine got his on Sunday after someone discovered a ton of openings at the local Wal-Mart pharmacy, so a bunch of people have gone there now possibly for the first time. The venn diagram of 'regular walmart shoppers' and 'want kids vaxxed ASAP' does not seem overlap at all here.

Oh yeah, if I had to bet, 25% of the kids in my town got their first shot already, and I would not be shocked if you told me it was higher. My kids both got it already. They were ecstatic about it, presumably because they see it as the path back to normal life.

i am disappointed to learn that you all hate our freedoms so much

daily US vax numbers have gone up significantly, probably due to arrival of kid shots plus boosters, but I do like that Bloomberg is at least trying to keep track of booster numbers now, even though they're probably unlikely to be accurate as some people have done it off the books or got theirs by telling a tale to the pharmacist months ago. right now estimates 7.5% of population has gotten boosters, which is higher than I expected.

It's another big difference between my social world and the US -- the proportion of people I know who've gotten boosters (mostly middle-aged people) feels like more than half.

But what proportion of kids in that age group are actually going to get vaccinated in the next few months? Maybe a third?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 9:27 AM (four hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it's going to be a requirement to attend schools in person in many states, so 1/3 seems low.

Why is it going to be a requirement to attend schools when it's not a requirement for kids over 12 now?

1) California has announced that it will be
2) many vaccines are already required to attend schools
3) it is likely that this one will be required once it is approved for all school-age children, because of the ongoing global pandemic

xxxpost i assume we'll have a good portion of fully-vaxxed people whose opinion is "why do I have to do this AGAIN? that doesn't make sense" reaction, which I can't entirely blame them for because we had scientists and doctors arguing with each other on whether we should do them or not.

and I think that's what moved the needle more than the ethical debate (which was a valid one, but is the debate that really never resolved nicely amongst the experts). I think there was also debate of whether the waning immunity was due to legit waning or whether it was due to Delta and its evasive properties.

Why is it going to be a requirement to attend schools when it's not a requirement for kids over 12 now?

― Guayaquil (eephus!), Tuesday, November 9, 2021 1:32 PM (six minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

it will be. https://www.gov.ca.gov/2021/10/01/california-becomes-first-state-in-nation-to-announce-covid-19-vaccine-requirements-for-schools/

i posted that link last time you were saying no kids were going to get vaccinated.

CA is requiring vaccination for all kids who are eligible from the start of the following school year they become eligible. for all kids over five that will be next summer.

local school districts are free to implement more aggressive timelines, which many are. e.g. LAUSD is requiring all 12+ to be vaccinated by jan 10.