There's really no excuse for people avoiding all guidelines as shown in the picture I posted. You are allowed to go out, and get some fresh air/exercise, but when social distancing can't be maintained you are supposed to wear a mask. You're also supposed to stay some distance away from others. None of that is happening in that pic, and that's just a small example. This is only going to get worse in the upcoming months as the weather gets warmer.
A second wave is all but guaranteed at this point, which will of course delay any opening of the economy. It'll also force the city to enforce stricter guidelines and penalties. I could see a situation where the National guard are brought in during Summer months, which is going to really suck, but if it's necessary to keep our hospitals from being overrun again, then so be it.
If people acted smart now, they might be able to have a better time during the Summer but alas there's too many selfish idiots out there, and they'll only have themselves to blame when we're worse off in July/August.
Exactly! If you really must go out due to cabin fever, then social distance and wear a mask. Even in NYC, I’m always puzzled why people think Sheep Meadow is the only lawn at Central Park to picnic. There are A LOT of lawns throughout that huge park that people can picnic and spread out!
There's also 2 bike lanes though, it's just that there's a pandemic so you'd think the old folks in particular would make more of an effort to not be in a position to breathe around or touch other people.
Didn't you read that article I posted yesterday about getting it outside from other runners or cyclists (which would include walkers of course)?
Well I just used the infectious rate most agreed on for Coronavirus, being around 2.2 (+- 0.3).
It may seem like it now, but it's going to be herd immunity or the virus will be with us forever. Remember, herd immunity can also be achieved with a vaccine. And it's anyone's guess whether a vaccine will occur first (assuming it occurs) before most of the population gets infected.
I added a little more to my post with regards to vaccines. I think you'd get closer to it with that than the outright having people get infected, but in the US at least, there's still too much vaccine hesitancy, and our infrastructure also leads to people falling through the cracks. Places in Europe, like Sweden, where they are very compliant with their government, could absolutely achieve herd immunity through vaccination.
Opinion: What the Proponents of ‘Natural’ Herd Immunity Don’t Say
The coronavirus moved so rapidly across the globe partly because no one had prior immunity to it. Failure to check its spread will result in a catastrophic loss of lives. Yet some politicians, epidemiologists and commentators are advising that the most practical course of action is to manage infections while allowing so-called herd immunity to build.
The concept of herd immunity is typically described in the context of a vaccine. When enough people are vaccinated, a pathogen cannot spread easily through the population. If you are infected with measles but everyone you interact with has been vaccinated, transmission will be stopped in its tracks.
Vaccination levels must stay above a threshold that depends upon the transmissibility of the pathogen. We don’t yet know exactly how transmissible the coronavirus is, but say each person infects an average of three others. That would mean nearly two-thirds of the population would need to be immune to confer herd immunity.
In the absence of a vaccine, developing immunity to a disease like Covid-19 requires actually being infected with the coronavirus. For this to work, prior infection has to confer immunity against future infection. While hopeful, scientists are not yet certain that this is the case, nor do they know how long this immunity might last. The virus was discovered only a few months ago.
But even assuming that immunity is long-lasting, a very large number of people must be infected to reach the herd immunity threshold required. Given that current estimates suggest roughly 0.5 percent to 1 percent of all infections are fatal, that means a lot of deaths.
Perhaps most important to understand, the virus doesn’t magically disappear when the herd immunity threshold is reached. That’s not when things stop — it’s only when they start to slow down.
Once enough immunity has been built in the population, each person will infect fewer than one other person, so a new epidemic cannot start afresh. But an epidemic that is already underway will continue to spread. If 100,000 people are infectious at the peak and they each infect 0.9 people, that’s still 90,000 new infections, and more after that. A runaway train doesn’t stop the instant the track begins to slope uphill, and a rapidly spreading virus doesn’t stop right when herd immunity is attained.
If the pandemic went uncontrolled in the United States, it could continue for months after herd immunity was reached, infecting many more millions in the process.
By the time the epidemic ended, a very large proportion of the population would have been infected — far above our expected herd immunity threshold of around two-thirds. These additional infections are what epidemiologists refer to as “overshoot.”
Some countries are attempting strategies intended to “safely” build up population immunity to the coronavirus without a vaccine. Sweden, for instance, is asking older people and those with underlying health issues to self-quarantine but is keeping many schools, restaurants and bars open. Many commentators have suggested that this would also be a good policy for poorer countries like India. But given the fatality rate, there is no way to do this without huge numbers of casualties — and indeed, Sweden has already seen far more deaths than its neighbors.
As we see it, now is far too early to throw up our hands and proceed as if a vast majority of the world’s population will inevitably become infected before a vaccine becomes available.
Moreover, we should not be overconfident about our ability to conduct a “controlled burn” with a pandemic that exploded across the globe in a matter of weeks despite extraordinary efforts to contain it.
Since the early days of the pandemic, we have been using social distancing to flatten its curve. This decreases strain on the health care system. It buys the scientific community time to develop treatments and vaccines, as well as build up capacity for testing and tracing. While this is an extraordinarily difficult virus to manage, countries such as New Zealand and Taiwan have had early success, challenging the narrative that control is impossible. We must learn from their successes.
There would be nothing quick or painless about reaching herd immunity without a vaccine.
Carl T. Bergstrom is a professor of biology at the University of Washington. Natalie Dean is an assistant professor of biostatistics at the University of Florida.
Squirrel probably got used to having the parks all to himself, and now with the weather getting warmer all these dum humanz are creeping up on his territory.
Squirrel probably got used to having the parks all to himself, and now with the weather getting warmer all these dumb humanz are creeping up on his territory.
I once heard something clawing at my window one sunny summer day and I opened the blinds to see a squirrel with one eye missing sitting on my air conditioner clawing at the window. It was quite freaky.
The governor said New Mexico is “well on our way” to getting closer to reopening. During Thursday’s conference, she said they have a goal to implement Phase 1 by mid-May. However, Gov. Lujan Grisham warned that Phase 1 can only be implemented if New Mexicans continue to follow social distancing rules now. If that happens the governor said Phase 1 would possibly include the following:
All retailers could operate according to retail COVID-19 safe practices at 20% fire code occupancy.
Dine-in service at restaurants and bars could be permitted up to 50% occupancy – without barstool or standing service.
Gyms and salons, hotels and houses of worship could operate in a limited fashion according to COVID-safe practices.
All countries
Argentina
Austria
Belgium
Brazil
Bulgaria
Chile
China
Colombia
Cyprus
Czech Republic
Estonia
Denmark
Finland
Greece
Hong Kong
Hungary
Iceland
Indonesia
Ireland
Israel
India
Latvia
Lithuania
Malaysia
New Zealand
Norway
Philippines
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Russia
Singapore
South Africa
South Korea
Sweden
Switzerland
Taiwan
Thailand
Turkey
Ukraine
United Arab Emirates
Was going to do it just as Corona hit but things shut down fast.
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