outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

Short of a family member falling seriously ill there's no way I'm going anywhere near an aeroplane any time soon. (and no guarantee that the Australian government would let me out even if I did have a reason) However a plane is definitely a context where I would wear a face shield.

morbidly fascinated on the ASU-professor hoax upthread

we live in hell

what’s the latest on advil + covid

I haven’t seen anything that has convinced me I should think any differently about them

does . . . that mean they’re okay to take or not?

(thanks)

it’s probably fine but tylenol/acetominophen/paracetemol works, is better on your stomach and doesn’t have any question marks around it, is how i look at it

That’s the advil + covid cavil covered

uk tv has adverts saying that the nhs has said it's fine to continue to use ibuprofen (advil) and paracetamol.

and then you look closer and the advert is a nurofen advert, a british enhanced ibuprofen brand...

(ibuprofen has *slightly* different uses to paracetamol - it's better for muscle aches, swelling as it's an Non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID))

ime paracetemol worked brilliantly. however you do have to be strategic with the timing. it works very well until it doesn’t, and then you really want a re-up. the most important one really is the one right before bed. there were a few nights where it was bad enough that i actually took one again in the middle of the night, counting that as my “morning” one.

i spent way too long reading about that sciencing_bi thing and then fell down the worm Twitter, er, wormhole

what the hell is wrong with people?!?!

we live in hell

― k3vin k., Monday, August 3, 2020 12:13 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

it’s probably fine but tylenol/acetominophen/paracetemol works, is better on your stomach and doesn’t have any question marks around it, is how i look at it

does . . . that mean they’re okay to take or not?

(thanks)

― mookieproof, Monday, August 3, 2020 1:24 AM (nine hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

ha, this was me weaseling out of giving medical advice. COVID has not changed how I look at NSAIDs, was what I was trying to say

That Sciencing Bi thing is further evidence that the world we live in is absolute shit.

very bold to create a fake LGBTQ female Native American anthro professor and assume your creation will get lost in the giant sea of that demographic

ed yong has been the best writer about this, and this excerpt seems basically otm.

smug rich home-office liberals scolding people about masks and going to the beach is like focusing on other people's seatbelts while everyone's driving 100mph, if we're all driving 100mph because of government failures. (this metaphor needs work.)

https://t.co/7QMIhKaYyJ pic.twitter.com/UxpIrQhqqf

— Wesley (@WesleyLowery) August 3, 2020

to continue the metaphor, and that's why we need to ban cars

went to the beach 3x last week, has to be one of the safest outdoor activities imo

have that article queued up, looking forward to reading it

yup. beaches have fairly constant ocean breezes and the replacement air coming off the ocean will be infection-free. but some of the hyper-crowded beaches I've seen in photos seem a lot less than ideally safe to me.

yeah risk certainly goes up with more crowding. the beaches around us in boston are pretty well-distanced, hasn't been a problem to sit 100 feet from the nearest person. going in the evening helps too

We have some non-crowded beaches locally that we've been swimming at. Social distancing hasn't been an issue at all. But over the weekend we were chased out of our regular spots by jellyfish, so we decided to try a larger local beach on the Chesapeake. We got there and it was packed to the gills with people. We rolled up there masked anyway, but we did a quick turnaround and left.

It was just like, oh shit I haven't been in a teeming mass of unmasked people in a LONG time.

i think i posted on another thread that there have been no confirmed transmissions at beaches worldwide (which is not true of parks btw). it appears to be very low risk.

it's given me the kick up the arse to do more beach trips - I've probably been more since lockdown started than last summer, excluding actual holiday. miles easier than parks etc imo.

just got tested in nyc; was told that under normal circumstances results can take up to two weeks, but if 'a rush is put on it' it might only take three days

so that's where we are, five months in, in a place that is actually trending decently

(unless you play baseball)

tbf it probably doesn't matter -- i can't really isolate any more than i've already been doing

Beaches and parks and bikepaths have been open here the whole time, and we didn't have a spike in cases until they reopened bars, then they closed the bars, I know science is hard but is this particular part of it actually that hard???

*then they closed the bars and the spike went away

It's been incredibly disappointing how many of the articles on failures in social/physical distancing have been illustrated with photos of sparsely populated beaches. Even if socializing, transmission risks at a beach is probably a small fraction of that at in a crowded bar/restaurant interiors.

Recent anecdotal (not physical) contact with anti-mask people is making me feel the U.S. is truly fucked:

The idea of being an anti-masker and also being extremely invested in your local food co-op is funny to me pic.twitter.com/gEkHwgyoHf

— CHANTS (@ChantsWI) August 3, 2020

From a bandmate:

Some fucking fat redneck loser in Walworth Country with "Obama Lies" stickers on his pickup truck tried to run us into oncoming traffic tonight, because he saw that we were from Madison. "Where's your masks??" he yelled

— Jung Millenial (@whothecanuck) August 3, 2020

Fauci going back and forth on schools reopening is annoying and unhelpful and the amount of conflicting or weird information coming out of the CDC is pissing me off

https://www.cnn.com/2020/08/03/health/us-coronavirus-monday/index.html

"The default position with K-12 schools should be to reopen them, said Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
There are two big reasons schools should go back to in-person learning, Fauci said Monday. Students need the psychological and nutritional benefits of being in school, and parents may have to "dramatically modify their work schedule."
"The primary consideration should always be the safety, the health of the welfare of the children, as well as the teachers and the secondary effects for spreading (to) the parents and other family members," he said.

and yet:

"If Americans want schools to safely reopen and the economy to improve, they must get more serious about personal responsibility, health experts say.
"You have to do more than just wear masks and keep social distancing. You have to minimize your contact with as many people as possible," ACCESS Health's Haseltine said.
"It's not that complicated. But it is hard to do psychologically. It's hard to do sociologically. And it's extremely hard to do for young people."
"And if you do have to work," he said, "you have to assure that the workplace is safe and you can work safely at a distance."

you have to assure that the workplace is safe and you can work safely at a distance.

schools are workplaces. there's no way I can conceive of maintaining safe distancing in classrooms, unless students are divided into several shifts so the number in a classroom at any one time is very limited. this doesn't solve the problem of:

parents may have to "dramatically modify their work schedule."

Especially for parents with multiple children in school, who might each be taught on a different shift. the whole set of guidelines given do not combine into a coherent whole.

yeah this was stupid across the board. sure classrooms and school in theory could be safe. Are they going to be? no. has fauci ever observed a child in a classroom? does he know what school funding is like? does he understand what class sizes are? apparently not.

see, I think it's all perfectly consistent with the message that many levels of government are pushing: schools are safe. the buildings are fine. busses are cool, as long as the windows are open. the systems are in place. failures and outbreaks that stem from schools being opened prematurely are actually the fault of the children and adulst who didn't execute the well-designed public policy plans safely.

my partner and i talk about this basically everyday because we're both reasonably concerned about her going back to work in a charter school and my latest default position is that, as her boss has made it clear it's unlikely she'll be called in for the first month, it seems highly likely this is going to go wrong before september in multiple places across the country and she'll almost certainly end up doing remote teaching in any case. so now we just need to make sure she holds on to the "let's give it a month" line with her boss.

Mandatory masking appears to be having a positive effect locally, which I’m sure means it will be allowed to lapse in six weeks and we can start all over again.

*grits teeth* texas

Wow.

Read this obituary for David Nagy. They (rightfully) went there. pic.twitter.com/WU2x9qL3oc

— 💙 Koko 🥁 💙 (@Kokomothegreat) August 3, 2020

I wish there were more of these.

uk has had below the average number of deaths for this time of year for a while now, they were saying on the news. i'm guessing this is because a lot of the people that would be dying around now are already dead.

BREAKING: NYC’s health commissioner resigned after clashing with Mayor de Blasio over his handling of the coronavirus outbreak.https://t.co/nHuxFzJfoX

— Cliff Levy (@cliffordlevy) August 4, 2020

Finally got a big study on nicotine replacement therapy/past smoking and Covid19.

smoking’s bad for you

Huge if true

I'm used to bristling at "They hate America!" but honestly I'm gettin there

This is the first day of school in Paulding County, Georgia. pic.twitter.com/fzdidaAABM

— 🇯🇲Black🇭🇹Aziz🇳🇬aNANsi🇹🇹 (@Freeyourmindkid) August 4, 2020

beside the point, but why are kids starting school on august 4?