The truth about wearing a mask -finally

It comes down to risk management. We practice it in my line of work every day. Take a look at what needs to be done, look at the possible outcomes based on experience and available information.... and decide if the risk is worth it.
In my opinion, we need to focus our preventative measures on the most vulnerable. For the rest of us, stop living in fear. For me, in the infinitesimal chance that I contract the virus, actually get sick, and potentially end up in the hospital, I have a 98.6% chance of survival. I am willing to accept that risk. But I am being told that I don't know enough to decide for myself. Instead I need these obtrusive restrictions on my liberty to protect me from somehting that is just not a threat to me. If I was in a more vulnerable population, I would take the necessary steps to protect myself. So while I am not "OK" with 2000 deaths a day, I feel I am in a place to do what I need to do to protect myself to the degree I feel it is necessary. Why is that so difficult to understand? What am I missing? Also no one has given me an endstate to all this. ....for you where does it end??? What is your standard for returning to normalcy and letting people live? Or are you OK with the lockdowns, masking social distancing, and deprivation of liberty? Over a disease that will probably not kill you.
I think you're missing that 2%, 1%, even .5% of the population are big numbers greater than one million souls. Why is that so difficult to understand? There is a risk that those numbers of people may die from the virus without mitigation and as you say, it needs to be managed.

40% of the number already infected is a big number. That it is the number who may have incurred long-term health problems as a result of having the virus. Let's hope that's overstated but it represents a risk that also needs to be managed.

It's excellent that you understand the risks and take the necessary steps to avoid infection if needed. Good for you. Nobody needs to worry about you. But, leaders need to concern themselves with the big picture and there are clearly lots of folks who won't or can't protect themselves; we've been at this long enough to know that for sure. Part of protecting the vulnerable population is trying to tamp down on the number of less vulnerable who get infected. So, mitigation to try to reduce infections in both the vulnerable and less-vulnerable (who tend to pass it to the vulnerable) are deemed necessary to reduce the risk. Literally every government unit world-wide has found it necessary to impose mitigation measures. Even Sweden is now going into lockdown. If there were examples to show a different path that works, I would be all for it.

I suspect the end-state will start to present itself by mid-winter. Easter ought to be much better in 2021 than 2020 and the by the 4th of July I think we will be back to near- if not total normality. The big "if" in this is whether there is widespread acceptance of vaccinations. I see this as a risk since some of the same people who are mask-deniers are starting to grumble about not getting the vaccine.

I am fine with whatever mitigations are imposed to help prevent deaths, at least so far. But, I come from a military background and am used to taking lawful orders. If that makes me a sheep, baa.
 
gentlemen , i hate masks and intrusion in our basic rights like free of will , free of movement etc as much as you do . i hate this situation as much as you do . i,m far from left or a biden lockdown lover . i would not count me to a high risk group .

but i have some sense for reality !

- the current death rate applies to the fact you can be treated , you can get oxygen , hospital care , in worst case a ventilator . if hospitals collapse and nobody will help you the death rate will not remain as it is now .

- no , the entire world does not introduce the lockdowns because they have fun crashing their own economies but because we have no better idea to slow the spread for reasons written above

- some lockdowns are ugly political , eg germany : they squeeze the last out of our private life to keep the economy and the schools open . we are not allowed to privately meet more than 1 another houshold but 12 millions children meet every day in school without any social distancing ... the real ugly about this : its not mercy with the children , its cold blood economic since at least one part of the parents in case schools close has to stay home to take care of them and is no productive anymore . in other words : i have to work and that is all . if i catch the disease at work - its my duty for germany . in my private life i have to stay home because every infection is one to much - also my duty .
boating , marinas , clubs - everything is closed. everything for recreational life what brings no taxes to the country .

really ... i,m with you but open your eyes that until we have won with the virus its not conspirancy or fake news - its reality .
 
"I think you're missing that 2%, 1%, even .5% of the population are big numbers greater than one million souls. Why is that so difficult to understand? There is a risk that those numbers of people may die from the virus without mitigation and as you say, it needs to be managed."

It is not 1% of the population...it is one percent of the positive tests. Stop aggregating the mortality rate to the entire population. But I guess you are fine with the masks, lock downs etc..... I am not.
 
gentlemen , i hate masks and intrusion in our basic rights like free of will , free of movement etc as much as you do . i hate this situation as much as you do . i,m far from left or a biden lockdown lover . i would not count me to a high risk group .

but i have some sense for reality !

- the current death rate applies to the fact you can be treated , you can get oxygen , hospital care , in worst case a ventilator . if hospitals collapse and nobody will help you the death rate will not remain as it is now .

- no , the entire world does not introduce the lockdowns because they have fun crashing their own economies but because we have no better idea to slow the spread for reasons written above

- some lockdowns are ugly political , eg germany : they squeeze the last out of our private life to keep the economy and the schools open . we are not allowed to privately meet more than 1 another houshold but 12 millions children meet every day in school without any social distancing ... the real ugly about this : its not mercy with the children , its cold blood economic since at least one part of the parents in case schools close has to stay home to take care of them and is no productive anymore . in other words : i have to work and that is all . if i catch the disease at work - its my duty for germany . in my private life i have to stay home because every infection is one to much - also my duty .
boating , marinas , clubs - everything is closed. everything for recreational life what brings no taxes to the country .

really ... i,m with you but open your eyes that until we have won with the virus its not conspirancy or fake news - its reality .

You do realize that hospitals can increase their capacity by reducing their elective procedures. IL for example, has about 6111 hospitalized covid patients. 18,600 non-covid patients and 8000 open beds. So we have 25% of open beds available and our covid hospitalizations could double before we run out of beds. No reason to panic.
 
"I think you're missing that 2%, 1%, even .5% of the population are big numbers greater than one million souls. Why is that so difficult to understand? There is a risk that those numbers of people may die from the virus without mitigation and as you say, it needs to be managed."

It is not 1% of the population...it is one percent of the positive tests. Stop aggregating the mortality rate to the entire population. But I guess you are fine with the masks, lock downs etc..... I am not.
I guess it was too difficult to understand but I'll try again. With a novel virus, meaning nobody is immune, anyone exposed may get it. So, the mortality rate would then apply to the whole population. It represents an outer boundary of the possible outcomes, an important parameter to establish when evaluating risk.
There is the added factor that Aerobat is trying to convey. If lots of people get infected at once and a large portion of those need to go to the hospital, there's a risk of overload. In the last couple of days I have seen testimony from individuals who have been correct before that this might happen in the U.S. during December. Let's hope they are wrong.
I don't like the mitigation measures and don't know anyone who does but I do try to understand the reasoning. If any officials were getting their jollies early on by invoking power I think they are way past that now.
You're welcome to your opinion about mitigation but I think it's disingenuous to claim they are unfounded.
 
Tough subject guys...to this point I see things as going pretty much just like The Team said last spring. How many people will still die in the USA I don't know. I am certain that if we didn't get another positive after today, that it's likely we'll still see approximately 160K more deaths.

I say that because to date 3.4% of cases that have had an outcome(recovered or dead) have died. Of the cases to date there are over 4.7 million yet to have an outcome, approx 3.4% of them will die. That puts us at about 420,000 deaths without accumulating any new cases. But we will see new cases, probably record breaking numbers of them making things even worse.

Thanks to some out of the box thinking we'll be providing vaccine to millions shortly, developed and distributed in a time frame thought not possible as far as these kinds of things go. I suppose we could say at Warp Speed.

20-40 million vaccinations a month(6-12% of population) will be awesome but it'll take many more months before we reach that level where things are 'as good as it'll get'.

For the immediate future I think we're in for some bad weather, the water's going to be rougher than hell. I don't like it but I'm going to put on my life jacket, keep the bow toward the waves, and ride this thing out. Ol Woody ain't ready to go bow up and slip away down into the dark water.:D
 
Tough subject guys...to this point I see things as going pretty much just like The Team said last spring. How many people will still die in the USA I don't know. I am certain that if we didn't get another positive after today, that it's likely we'll still see approximately 160K more deaths.

I say that because to date 3.4% of cases that have had an outcome(recovered or dead) have died. Of the cases to date there are over 4.7 million yet to have an outcome, approx 3.4% of them will die. That puts us at about 420,000 deaths without accumulating any new cases. But we will see new cases, probably record breaking numbers of them making things even worse.

Thanks to some out of the box thinking we'll be providing vaccine to millions shortly, developed and distributed in a time frame thought not possible as far as these kinds of things go. I suppose we could say at Warp Speed.

20-40 million vaccinations a month(6-12% of population) will be awesome but it'll take many more months before we reach that level where things are 'as good as it'll get'.

For the immediate future I think we're in for some bad weather, the water's going to be rougher than hell. I don't like it but I'm going to put on my life jacket, keep the bow toward the waves, and ride this thing out. Ol Woody ain't ready to go bow up and slip away down into the dark water.:D
I don't think the "recovery" numbers are anywhere near accurate. Most cases aren't monitored by anybody but maybe a family doc. Don't think they are reporting recoveries.
 
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Right, like I said probably not accurate. How do they know when someone recovered? Who's reporting it? I am guessing they are just estimating recoveries.
The source for the information is credited in the far right column, they are not guessing.

Here's a link to Harris County the worse county in Texas, got there by following the credited source. It contains lots of Covid-19 information that you might be surprised at.

https://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Resources/2019-Novel-Coronavirus/COVID-19-Data-Dashboards
 
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The source for the information is credited in the far right column, they are not guessing.

Here's a link to Harris County the worse county in Texas, got there by following the credited source. It contains lots of Covid-19 information that you might be surprised at.

https://publichealth.harriscountytx.gov/Resources/2019-Novel-Coronavirus/COVID-19-Data-Dashboards
Yeah, you may want to dig a little further. One county of one state hardly means anything. For example, I found no recovery data for Florida. In IL (IL Dept. of Public Health site), defines recovered case as persons with a positive test who haven't died in 42 days. And then provides no numbers.
 
Yeah, you may want to dig a little further. One county of one state hardly means anything. For example, I found no recovery data for Florida. In IL (IL Dept. of Public Health site), defines recovered case as persons with a positive test who haven't died in 42 days. And then provides no numbers.

Here is all the information for Florida you couldn't find.
https://floridahealthcovid19.gov/

Each state has their own website on Covid-19 not that difficult to find.



Screenshot_20201121-224156_Chrome.jpg
 
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You do realize that hospitals can increase their capacity by reducing their elective procedures. IL for example, has about 6111 hospitalized covid patients. 18,600 non-covid patients and 8000 open beds. So we have 25% of open beds available and our covid hospitalizations could double before we run out of beds. No reason to panic.

Maybe no reason to panic, but no reason to dismiss this virus either.

https://www.chicagotribune.com/coro...124-wwy7kcruvbdexk7whezhgdy5p4-htmlstory.html

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upload_2020-11-24_11-37-12.png
 
Good info. Reporting and anecdotal evidence indicates the soft area may be staffing as there are a finite number of qualified staff nationwide, particularly for the most complicated cases such as ventilator operators. So, there may be slack in number of beds but not enough staff to man them. We know New York had to import staff to cope in the spring and are already seeing the military start to deploy to hot zones. I would hope there is national tracking and coordination but have not seen any evidence of it.
 

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