The New Normal

[Campgottagopee]

We saw my son from Manhattan and my Grandson from Burlington for 5 hrs in the last 9 months ,socially distanced , masked and at Whiteface . We haven't seen my daughter from Massachusetts or her family since Christmas . Yes it is tough but we all understand the need to be responsible and we all either JITSI meet or use other cyber connections weekly

My parents always have a huge dinner on T-Day with both my sisters, their kids, aunts, uncles, etc. This year I'll be the only one there with them. I'm only a couples miles from them and see them regularly so nothing much different for us. Everyone else, as painful as it is, has decided to not get together this year. My parents are sill in good health but they ain't no spring chickens anymore, no sense in taking the risk.

This shit still sucks.

 

[Warp daddy]

My parents always have a huge dinner on T-Day with both my sisters, their kids, aunts, uncles, etc. This year I'll be the only one there with them. I'm only a couples miles from them and see them regularly so nothing much different for us. Everyone else, as painful as it is, has decided to not get together this year. My parents are sill in good health but they ain't no spring chickens anymore, no sense in taking the risk.

This shit still sucks.

Couldn't agree more Camp,it's a hardship for all of us,BUT the wise and right thing to do . Wishing u and your parents continued good health. I know just how much they mean to you,you have freely shared that here many time .....a Good Son ??

 

[MarzNC]

MarzNC, I agree with your premise. Poor practice at home leads to Rona at school. But I also believe that schools have the potential to be super-spreading locations. The idea of doing interscholastic sports at this time is crazy, yes schools here are doing them.

From what I've read about schools in other countries, K-8 schools aren't really that likely to become super-spreaders. Even when a few cases are detected, it has rarely become an outbreak. The classroom or school shuts down for a couple weeks, but there isn't a spike in the local community that is traced to the school. Outbreaks at workplaces like meat packing plants or long-term care facilities are much more likely to be the start or part of a noticeable increase in community spread.

However, high schools can be a different story.

The ACC has been playing college football. A few games were cancelled or postponed when one team had at least one positive COVID test, but enough have gone on that it can be called a full season I think. In NC, the football stadiums are allowed 7% capacity with fans spread all over the seating. It's mostly so families and friends of the players can attend. Not sure any tickets are being sold.

For the schools in NY that have active sports programs, is it all fall sports or did they cancel some and keep others?

 

[Warp daddy]

Couldn't agree more Camp,it's a hardship for all of us,BUT the wise and right thing to do . Wishing u and your parents continued good health. I know just how much they mean to you,you have freely shared that here many time .....a Good Son ??

We typically host the entire family including my bachelor BIL for a week in the summer , another week at Christmas and 3 days at Thanksgiving . Forunately we have big enough home and really look forward to the warmth and lunacy that occurs ........NOT Having any of that this year is a real downer , but we will all soldier on and stay connected and pray for a favorable outcome this coming year .

THIS is a common pain shared by so many and my heartfelt sympathy goes out to everyone , but we WILL endure and eventually " manage " this at least transformining it into an Endemic not a Pandemic .

 

[Peter Minde]

@ MarzNC, our kid is in high school, one of the covid cases was from a fall sport. Football, lacrosse, soccer, the school didn't say.

@ Warp and Camp, we aren't preparing Thanksgiving for a crowd this year, and likely won't prepare Christmas either. It sucks, but I think it's prudent.

 

[Harvey]

We've got three schools, elementary, middle and high school. Each school is doing half the kids each day in person, so kid goes to school MWF and the next week TT. The other days are remote.

About once every two weeks a kid tests positive. The close that school (only) for 3 days, clean the school, contract trace everyone, and reopen.

I think they should use the schools as the "medium" for testing. Test every kid once a week, any kid who is positive, would probably lead to an infected family.

 

[Harvey]

Boston is testing waste water for covid:

 

[MarzNC]

Boston is testing waste water for covid:

Has been done for some university dorms.

At one point evidence of SARS-CoV-2 fragments were found in the sewage of the town that is a base for staff and people who ski at Perisher (owned by Vail Resorts) and Thredbo in Australia. The discussion by on the Aussie ski forum made it clear that detecting something didn't necessarily mean there were active cases in the area. Caused a brief stir because of the news headlines. Ultimately no one ever tested positive in that town, or at either ski resort.

In northern Italy (don't remember the city), daily samples of waste water was checked for SARS-CoV-2 going back to early December. Provided evidence that COVID-19 was in that region by late December, even though the first confirmed cases based on PCR testing wasn't found until quite a few weeks later. Exponential uncontrolled and undetected growth for 8-10 weeks is why the number of deaths in Italy in that period was scary.

 

[MarzNC]

A comment in another thread prompted me to look at the NY Dashboard. There is a webpage for Percent Positive by Region. Couldn't fit the full table in one screen shot, but here's the data for Central New York. While the number of cases is increasing, PP is under 2% in general. However, have to be concerned about the fact that Reff is over 1.0 and has been for a while. Presumably the level of community spread varies widely across NYS, so places are okay while others could be headed for trouble again.

As a state, NJ trends are not good at all.

New Jersey Rt

Up-to-date values for Rt — the number to watch to measure COVID spread.

rt.live

COVID-19

forward.ny.gov

 

[MarzNC]

Don't want to clutter up the Coronavirus & Skiing thread, so putting graphs here in the OT thread. Per usual the comparison comes from CovidActNow using Trends. Colorado was the base state. First graph shows the trends based on normalized data while the second are actual numbers. The trends in the last few weeks are clearly not good.

Population in millions (rounded)
Colorado: 5.8
Utah: 3.2
New Mexico: 2.0
Montana: 1.0
Wyoming: 0.6