It’s bad enough that the rest of the world doesn’t want Americans…we may soon find our own towns and cities shutdown once again.
I was fairly optimistic at the beginning of the week about our chances of avoiding further shutdown and returning to travel. Gyms finally re-opened in Southern California and more social distancing orders were lifted. Confirmed COVID-19 cases were rising slightly, but this was to be expected with so much of the state and country re-opening.
My usually-crowded YMCA was virtually empty…it was so great to do a full-body workout using machines and to wake-up incredibly sore.
But now we are at the end of the week and new cases of the virus are surging again. I do note that COVID-19 related deaths continue to decline.
Texas just shut down bars today, COVID seems to be spiraling out-of-control in Arizona and Florida, and overall cases are rising steeply. As Europe digs in on its ban against U.S. citizens, that may be the least of our travel worries in the days ahead. Indeed, we may find ourselves ordered to lockdown again.
Only this time I’m not sure it is going to work. I had my annual physical yesterday and the nurse who took my vitals and hooked me up to the EKG was very clear:
“I’m so f***ing over this. No more. I’m not shutting down again. If they order another shutdown, I’m just going to ignore it. F*** this.”
She wasn’t wearing a MAGA hat or a Trump supporter. She didn’t believe COVID-19 was a hoax. She just didn’t care. And aren’t we seeing more and more of that as restaurants, bars, beaches, and other public venues fill up once again?
Another Travel Shutdown?
Last week I wondered about which flight reviews I’d be able to do with so much of the world closed to U.S. citizens. As we end this week, I wonder if I’ll have to shutdown my business again and return to house arrest.
I’m not going to rehash the case I have already made: we should not be in this position. We are where we are due to a colossal failure of leadership and discernment, both on the part of our elected representatives and on the individual level. But here we are. Brace yourself for the next round of shutdowns. The question is will be people listen this time around?
> Read More: Want To Travel? Demand Accountability First…
CONCLUSION
I hate to end the week on a sour note, but I’ll try to put a positive spin on it: it appears that thing are going to get worse before they get better. We’ve spent the better part of the week speculating about travel to Europe and Asia, but now face the possibility of spending summer tending to our own gardens and other household projects.
Just seems to me if people would wear a mask, social distance and wash plenty, all this agony could be avoided. It has worked in plenty of other places.
Unfortunately, once it turned political, there wasn’t much hope of that happening.
Nobody wears a mask in Denmark and Norway. COVID-19 is over in those two countries for all intents and purposes.
The mask hysteria is virtue signaling; very few of the Mask Karens in the US even wear them so they protect others to any kind of degree. But you don’t care, do you. No, what you want is something to b*tch at other people and the President about.
It’s not going to happen.
Absolutely correct. Bravo
Mask work. You choose not to believe it because it conflicts with your ideology. You and your ilk obviously are oblivious to the harm a lacks of masks does to others.
If you get the virus, you should be honest and tell them. Maybe they will put you at the end of the line for treatment which is where you would belong.
I’ll provide another perspective. I’m a dual US-Brazilian citizen, living in Brazil. Both countries are taking a similar approach, and both are rightly being shunned by other nations. Somehow, “keep others safe” has become a matter of politics, ignoring advice has become a matter of pride, and we are now paying the consequences. My city is starting a new lockdown Tuesday, announced today on the news, because people won’t follow the ‘gradual’ opening up plans. The new lockdown will be stricter than our first one. People are vowing to not obey, but we would’ve already been past this if they’d just listened the first time. We’d be opening the economy, possibly traveling, etc. if people had just worn masks and stayed home for 2 weeks. If we’d all just stay home, it would end sooner, rather than dragging on because we wont’ listen.
I guess all our troops and assets protecting Europe for the last century will be coming home too. Nice! We could certainly use those funds either domestically or protecting the US against more relevant threats. I’m sure China will have no problem defending the EU, since the EU clearly has no desire to protect themselves.
As for domestic travel restrictions, they are for the most part clearly unconstitutional, but courts work slowly.
It’s pretty clear now that you can control your own exposure risk. Stay away from people, especially indoors. Wear a mask, wash your hands. If you are elderly or at risk then stay home. If you take risks and get the virus the it’s on you, but we all have the ability to minimize our own risk.
Exactly like you said… the risk is on each person…. if you’re scared of the cooties, then stay the hell home amd it doesnt affect you what everybody else does.
The rest of the world is banning us because of attitudes like this.
You may be ok with the risk but EU and Asia are not.
Ironically, youre one of the few Trumpettes who believes in wearing a mask. Dear Leader and the rest of his minions believe that mask wearing is an infringement on the freedom. Cognitive dissonance at the level you display is a clear indicator that you know Dear Leader is wrong, but your conditioning doesnt allow you to break free.
As you are a trained lawyer it would be nice to hear you comment on the human rights violations worldwide due to extended house imprisonment. This is a horrible social engineering experiment.
What’s interesting is if you use Science or Data instead of politics or virtue signaling…
According to the CDC Covid-19 death rate (IFR)
Age Brackets:
0-50: .05%
50-64: .3%
65+ 1.3%
The flu is .13%
So, for anyone under 50 years old, Covid-19 is LESS deadly than the flu.
It’s for the older people that it’s MORE deadly. Age 65 and up.
So, cases going up, again, is not a bad things, since most of it is young people who don’t notice, and the survival rate is 99.95%
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When we apply data or science to this stuff, it paints a very different picture than the media does with their endless ‘CASES SURGE OMFG IT’S THE WORST OF THE WORSE’ headlines.
I think most people with a brain and the desire to have a job, don’t believe these idiots anymore.
More lockdowns will, I think, be met with much greater resistance now that the facts are out.
And yet it is scientists (epidemiologists) who overwhelmingly recommend wearing masks, sheltering in place, ceasing non-essential travel, etc.
Howard, whatever the facts may be, if hospital beds fill up, as they seem to be doing, there will be more shutdowns.
Right, and if hospital beds fill up we see people die who could’ve survived with proper treatment, which is several times the number of people who would die regardless of whether or not they got treatment.
I’ve been taking the reopening liberties as they come, mask on. But if hospitals in my local area are for sure on track fill up I will def be staying home to more effectively minimize deaths
Death rates are down in many states. Here’s some clues as to why that may be.
Indiana: 1,832 COVID-19 deaths; 2,149 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 384)
Illinois: 4,856 COVID-19 deaths; 3,986 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 782)
Tennessee: 336 COVID-19 deaths; 1,704 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 611)
Ohio: 1,969 COVID-19 deaths; 2,327 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 820)
Virginia: 1,208 COVID-19 deaths; 1,394 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 451)
West Virginia: 72 COVID-19 deaths; 438 pneumonia deaths (five-year average: 117)
source: CDC
It seems you took the average flu IFR from https://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/burden/2017-2018.htm
And compared it to Covid divided by age bracket. That’s not an accurate comparison. Let’s divide it by age bracket instead for the flu of 2017-2018:
5-17: 0.007%
18-49: 0.02%
50-64: 0.05%
65+ 0.86%
So for everyone, Covid-19 is more deadly than the flu of 2017-2018 – which was the deadliest flu in the past couple of years.
Today I finally threw in the towel and am canceling all of the flights that I have booked for the rest of the year. What a disastrous year this has been for those of us who love travel. Yes, at least I am healthy, alive, and still have my job, but it is nevertheless very disappointing considering all the time and energy I have spent booking numerous trips to various countries that I was so looking forward to traveling to. Absolutely not asking for any sympathy whatsoever, I’m just another data point. I am bummed out not only for all the trips I have canceled this year, but the way things are going, who knows when I will be able to travel overseas again? I’m keeping my fingers crossed that maybe by next summer I can fly overseas again.
Nothing is going to shut down again. Maybe everyone will die, but we sure won’t shut down.
Have you seen the news today? Even in conservative TX?
With respect, did you see all the details of what was announced today? It consists of: bars and river tubing closed and restaurants to 50% capacity instead of 75 statewide, and elective surgeries cancelled in hospitals (but not ambulatory surgical centers) in FOUR out of 254 counties. (As an aside, if you’ve ever been river tubing, you’ll fully understand how the debauchery at these things easily makes them super spreader events. Honestly it surprised me these were allowed in the first place.)
This isn’t a “shutdown”. It’s a political exercise to make it appear as though “tough measures are being taken” without actually changing much of anything. I can pretty much guarantee that any county that tries shelter in place again will he met with compliance somewhere between 0 and 25%, though.
You’re going to have to elaborate on river tubing.
River tubing – a Texas thing that happens every summer, mostly on the Comal and San Marcos Rivers (between Austin and San Antonio). As the name implies, you sit in a raft or inner tube and float down the river. You’ll get groups from 4 to 20 floating together, largely college students and 20-somethings. Let’s just say that due to excessive alcohol consumption by all involved, social distancing…doesn’t happen. Think Spring Break in a much more confined space.
Supposedly contract tracing has traced several of the outbreaks back to tubing operations. Big surprise…
Cmon, you really dont know about river tubing? Vang Vieng-laos. Sounds familiar?
It’s really simple. Listen to the subject matter experts and do what they tell you to do.
When my plumber tells me to do or not do something within his area of expertise I listen.
The same principle needs to apply to epidemiologists. They are the subject matter experts. We are not. Really very simple.
Lol, what??
It’s replies like this that make me wonder if the internet is a net negative for human discourse and General intelligence.
—
I’m a subject matter expert in business.
(I own 2 and have bought and sold others)
Give me all your money, it’s what I’m telling you to do. I’m an expert. Thanks.
Except in the instant case, following their advice, even if it is wrong, would cause minimal adverse consequences. So, really, there is no compelling not to wear a mask, wash your hands or trying to maintain social distance.
The recommendation until April 3 was not to wear masks, lying about their efficacy. The recommendation was to shelter-in-place for months and to cripple the economy until anti-racism became public health threat number one. The recommendation was to send viral bombs into nursing homes. How is it that public health officials are to be trusted?
Uptil April 3rd, Dear Leader had passed on instructions to not wear masks purely because the USA, leader in guns, didnt have enough face masks to go around.
Then again, cult members like yourself choose to ignore facts.
That’s just another version of Pascal’s Wager.
There are lots of things that experts say are good for us – but we usually don’t do them.
This is a really naive way to live your life. First, subject matter exerts don’t all agree, and whichever you choose to listen to aren’t always right, not related to covid, not in economics, not in climate science, not in astrophysics, nothing. So saying “listen to the subject matter experts” means outsourcing thinking. There’s a lot of that going on these days, and the result is usually tribalism and the breakdown of civil society. No thanks. Btw, that’s called argument by authority, it’s a logical fallacy for a reason.
If the epidemiologists were telling us all to jump off a cliff, I would agree, but in this case, they are asking us to wear a mask, wash hands frequently and try to maintain social distancing if at all possible. Even if they are dead wrong with this advice, the adverse consequences of following it are minor, so the logical option is to heed their advice.
Wear mask/wash hands/social distance is pretty non-controversial. But what about if they are advising a continued total lockdown (and many of them are) ? Not so inconsequential. There are unintended consequences to this as well, aside from the economic impact. Higher suicide rates, domestic violence, drug/alcohol abuse, and of course as we’ve seen lately, social unrest. So yeah, they basically did advise us to jump off a cliff.
The so called leaders of this country you clearly worship don’t endorse wearing masks nor social distancing (Pence couldn’t even say the words today). Still supporting them?
Lord help me for asking this question, but . . .
When it comes to doing my part to help slow or stop the spread of COVID-19 in my community, if I don’t follow the advice of epidemiologists, then whose advice should I follow?
We are all epidemiologists now
And it was just announced as being official. Americans barred from entering the EU.
Great, troops are coming home!
Assuming WR2 stands for, “White Right Squared.”
I imagine Reagan is rolling in his grave. Conservatives applauding the possibility of dismantling NATO. You are not even Republicans anymore. Just fascist nationalists with a penchant for creating discord and hatred.
It’s ok, you don’t scare any of us. November you can go back to your caves and contemplate your brief moment in history.
Your nurse was dropping F-bombs?! That’s rather unprofessional.
Welcome to So. Cal…!
Opening was too soon. Add to that the conflicting theories, statements, studies, analysis, projections, forecasts by all manner of medical experts and non-medical non-experts talking and writing about Covid 19. People became exasperated, confused, distrusting. What one gets is a breakdown. That breakdown is showing consequences. The virus is very real. We could easily see not only the reversing of the easing in America, but in Europe and Asia as well. This is not a weather event, but a pandemic of a virulent virus.
Another shutdown would be pointless. Despite all the scaremongering, the U.S. has 128K deaths attributed to Coronavirus. That’s not entirely accurate as some of these people would have died from pneumonia, the flu, diabetic keto acidosis, or ailments. We would need to compare deaths in 2020 to deaths for the last 5 years. In 2017, 3 million people died in the United States. Coronavirus is serious but it has been exaggerated. 99% of the people who get it have no or mild symptoms.
Let people evaluate their own risk factors and make decisions for themselves. If they want to wear masks, wear gloves, and completely social distance they can. If they are in a high risk group, they can self isolate. The U.S. is 378 deaths per million population. Brazil is 290 deaths per million. Belgium is 835, The U.K and Spain are over 600, Italy is 515, Sweden is 510, and France is 425. All those countries (except Sweden) had strict lockdowns. Let’s not exaggerate the severity in the U.S. just yet.
If anyone is the blame for the surge, it’s the protesters. But that’s another story and even then, the spike hasn’t been that bad.
You consistently like to cite numbers that are historical. It’s not about where you WERE. It’s about where you are NOW. The EU worked hard to get to 16 per 100K. We did not. Lazy people do twice.
Our leaders are committed to only one thing: genocide in the name of dollars. While disruptive to me, and my business, I applaud the EU for favoring human lives first.
@Jackson Henderson, here is the problem with your theory. You assume people’s employers take the same view. You assume people don’t need to get groceries, drugs, and other essentials. So someone could wear a mask and either use gloves or sanitizer, but they go to a store where a moron is not wearing a mask and social distancing in line and they could still get it. You assume they are retired, but many elderly work and even those with office jobs are being called back and you assume that folks will social distance (you know they won’t wait for the next elevator if its at social distance capacity and they are running late) in the office and wear masks.
So if everyone did what they were supposed to like in East Asia, yeah we could reopen and not have a unmanageable spike. But really, should bars, white water rafting and restaurants at 75% capacity have even ever been allowed in the first place?
Matthew, I read the earlier blog entry you linked to under “we should not be in this position,” and I agree with just about everything you said. However, I think we are testing more and we are doing more contact tracing. However, let’s be clear. We are not South Korea or China. We are not going to use surveillance cameras with facial recognition, apps, credit card data, etc.. to contact trace. It is simply not going to happen, because we do value our privacy a lot in the USA. So, then here’s the thing, in order to have testing and tracing work without using invasive methods of tracking and mandatory testing, you need to lock down until the infection rate falls to a very low rate. That way, you do not overwhelm the limited amount of contact tracers ability to contact those infected and start tracing with information they provided. The problem with the approach of states which opened up too early is they did not lock down long enough. The second point is (and I miss the gym too, so I’m not biased) certain places should simply not be allowed to reopen until we get a vaccine because of large groups congregating together:
1) amusement parks including especially water parks
2) rafting and tubing excursion companies
3) concerts and live theater
Other things should be allowed to open but limited to well below capacity:
1) gyms (but not unstaffed ones)
2) indoor dining
A third series of places should be allowed to reopen, but only if people actually social distance (if they dont’ shut them down):
1) fields/courts in parks where people pay team sports
2) beaches in urban areas
3) urban parks
We should never have to completely shut down again. It’s stupid if we do, because we didn’t reimpose restrictions short of a complete shut down. Rather if we see spikes in infections just roll back to a lower phase of reopening and if that doesn’t work go back to phase 1. In my state, phase 1 is outdoor dining only, no indoor gyms, non essential retail at 50% capacity, and outdoor parks but not fields/courts. If folks, can behave like they aren’t selfish ***** they get more freedom. If not, they lose access to the things they like, trust me over time they’ll learn to wear masks and social distance.
Your nurse was seriously unprofessional.
In MN lockdown went too far since the Governor listened to flawed data and used a nuclear bomb to kill a squirrel. No, I am not saying Covid is not true and it is not bad. What I am saying is that MN is not NY or CA and he used those type of lockdowns here. NYC has a population 40k people per sq mile while the largest county in MN has 3k. We have counties here with less than 2 people per sq mile. We do not use mass transit transportation (we don’t have subway and buses are rare). Thus, shutting the entire state down was a disaster for the economy and now that we have real data showing that 90% of the deaths happened in nursing homed with average age of 85 years old and the majority of the remaining 10% were people with pre-existing medical conditions the population will give the middle finger to the Governor if he tries to shut down the state again. BTW, ND which is a neighboring state did not lockdown and had less deaths per 100k people than here. Thus, I agree in very populated states with big cities the lockdown makes sense but it is definitely not a one size fits all approach.
The one good thing about Trump’s handling of the pandemic is that he hasn’t aggrandized the power of the federal government. Almost every crisis is used as an excuse to grow the leviathan. See Christopher DeMuth for more on this. Most lockdowns were unnecessarily strict and lengthy and didn’t do anything to protect the most vulnerable. Hardening nursing homes and advising the general public to take social distancing measures while wearing masks in close, stationary quarters would have sufficed. Now because of the mendacious measures taken early on in the pandemic and then in response to the protests/riots, faith in public health officials has disappeared.
Bars and clubs should have been the last places to reopen unless they were open-air with plenty of space for customers to spread out, as in a beer garden. Drunk people close-talking and yelling in enclosed spaces is a recipe for super-spreading. I just hope that most of the people who get the virus that way aren’t mixing with older adults. Schools should have been reopened long ago. Children are at almost no risk of dying from the virus and may not spread it so easily. If they do, their parents and teachers are not likely to be in the most vulnerable age group.
I’m sad to say I agree with you. A month ago, I thought that we were going to be able to control things to the point where we could go back to doing 90% of what we did until a vaccine was widely deployed. Now, I’m increasingly certain the United States of America (along with a select few other countries like the UK) are going to be able to do nothing of the sort for a couple of years at least because this isn’t just something that we can work around. Yes, the mortality rate is similar to a bad flu but the hospitalization rate is an order of magnitude higher making it a far more serious disease. We will have to get used to this cycle of phases of reopening followed by periodic lockdowns to ease hospital capacity over and over and over again because our people are too selfish, too stupid and too indisciplined to do anything else. We are incapable of doing what the Germanic countries and most of Asia have done because we’re just not good enough as a country.
I live in Houston TX and we largely escaped the virus in April and May. We had one of the lowest infection rates in the country per capita and we locked down early to keep it that way. Nobody in my circle knew a single positive case in the area and it was largely something we’d watch on TV happen other places. The early phases of the reopening went well too with only a limited increase in activity and no real uptick in cases. Everything changed Memorial Day weekend. It’s not that the rules were bad – they would have worked fine in places like Germany or Japan where people follow them but theres a large section of this country that are either too stupid or too selfish to even consider following them. Most bars were rammed with people paying no attention at all to any guidelines and the bars that tried to do the right thing and enforce the rules were either forced to change by entitled patrons or ditched for places that didn’t give af. Beaches were crowded with families bored of their month at home and parks looked more like outdoor concert areas. On top of all that you had the protests that public health officials lost credibility on in trying to defend even if the cause was reasonable. Until this week fewer than 10% of the people I saw outside bothered to wear a mask and theres still a loud cohort of people that actively resist wearing them and create a scene when challenged. Texas hired more contact tracers than targeted last month but they’re finding that fewer than 40% of cases cooperate and share their contacts making it impossible control the spread at current testing rates. We just closed bars down again but plenty of people are already talking about partying it up at the beach this weekend instead. I have no doubt we’ll get this second spike under control in Texas but there will be a 3rd and a 4th and a 5th spike that will keep going on because stupidity is apparently a far more contagious illness than covid-19.
When Biden becomes president we can look forward to permanent lockdowns — for life. Get in the boxcar. It’s for your safety.
One of the dumber posts I’ve seen yet on this blog
Really? you are conflating a general public health issue with sending box cars of Jews to the slaughter?
You’re a sick delusional person.
In that the State of California, is having talks with Imperial County – which borders Arizona to go in to a “Stay at Home” order … Matthew is prescient.
In August My family and I are driving from California to Montana. Period.