Coronavirus

Ah, the old "it's ok to use it between ourselves" defense.

As a southern boy myself I agree but as a progressive liberal I disagree.

jason10mm wrote: Ah, the old "it's ok to use it between ourselves" defense.

As a southern boy myself I agree but as a progressive liberal I disagree.

So you self-identify as a progressive liberal redneck?

Sagrilarus wrote:
So you self-identify as a progressive liberal redneck?

Are they all mutually exclusive?

And just received word from the USDC that civil and criminal trials are suspended until January 1, 2021.

This has me concerned for my hours. My workload is drying up quickly and I don't like to be idle. The state cases I deal with are drying up, too.

And people around the CBD can't take a hint to wear a fucking mask, as usual.

Obey the rules, people. Otherwise, the mayor's going to make new rules, and they'll suck in comparison.

I don't do the doomscrolling thing, but HR has become a significant part of my job and COVID-19 has turned HR into a minefield. So I keep up with COVID-19 coverage even when I don't feel like it. Although I have been sleeping better than normal in recent months, I randomly had severe insomnia last night, waking up with these two burning questions in my mind:

1. How much will the the health insurance premiums jump for 2021?

2. Given that 30% of Americans won't willingly take a hypothetical COVID-19 vaccine even if it is free, can and will our company force our workers to take the vaccine?

Since I couldn't sleep, I went looking for answers. Short version is probably a record-high double-digit % increase in health insurance premiums, and yes, employers can require employees to get vaccinated. I couldn't easily get back to sleep, though, because I will be the point man at our company dealing with both of those issues.

Yes, a lot of these true mavericks responding that they won't get the vaccine are going to get the vaccine when their employer tells them they have to.

Assuming the worst, i.e. Trump gets re-elected... how much will you actually trust a Trump administration vaccine? He has perverted every government office we have.

hotseatgames wrote: Assuming the worst, i.e. Trump gets re-elected... how much will you actually trust a Trump administration vaccine? He has perverted every government office we have.

It's really simple. If he allows the Blue states to have it then its not a safe vaccine. The President of the United States considers more than half the population to he his "enemies".

This is pretty simple. If your company already MANDATES the flu vaccine, then likely the enforcement measures are in place to add COVID on to that. If your company DOES NOT REQUIRE the flu vaccine (and I think only 40% of people take it anyway, yet no cries and riots in the streets [ www.cdc.gov/flu/fluvaxview/coverage-1718estimates.htm ]) then I doubt you will have much legal standing to force employees to take it.

Given the apparent "only wave" infection pattern COVID is currently demonstrating (i.e. it comes once then fades out on its own, early lockdown just delays this wave) it may not be critical to use a vaccine unless you live in an area that successfully pushed the "only wave" back. I'm not sure such a place exists.

Europe looks to be heading back into a second wave of positives but no death bump, probably because all the susceptible people were already exposed and the virus has become less lethal and treatment is better.

We have already mandated masks at work. There was some passive resistance (certain people kept "forgetting" to put a mask on) at first, but everybody is on board now. Our most conservative employee even turned pro-mask after her husband tested positive from COVID-19. Our company will probably offer employees a choice: bring proof of vaccination or keep wearing a mask until the pandemic is over.

That policy would probably fail, IMHO. For starters, there won't be a strong guarantee that the vaccine will prevent infection, only reduce effects (maybe) or duration of symptoms. Might not work at all if the vaccine is based on an older form of the virus (I've seen some debate on how fast COVID-19 mutates into COVID-20 or whatever) or if immunity is highly transitory. So 100% mask wearing would still be prudent in most workplaces.

What if an employee can show that they tested positive for COVID antibodies? Or had a positive COVID test in the past? Are they exempt from the mask rule? I'm not sure a workplace can even enforce just some people wearing a mask (does that fall under the dress policy?) without the state or local government making the rule, that probably varies state to state.

States with strong worker protections probably have more authoritarian governments that are enforcing mask wearing and back it up with punitive action but the venn diagram is not completely overlapping I don't think.

There are rapid tests (I think Trump uses it for all these non-mask photo ops) that could allow for on the spot testing ( www.abbott.com/corpnewsroom/product-and-...le-as-5-minutes.html ) so that could be a big game changer for government jobs, health care interactions, and anything highly social (sports players, manufacturing line workers, schools?) though I doubt it will trickle down to bookstores and coffee shops.

Personally I think a general behavioral attitude (hand washing, appropriate mask wearing) along with early self-quarantine for symptoms and rapid testing sweeps will do a better job of reducing the infection rate than whipping out some vaccine without proper testing and then calling it a day and going back to normal. It would be nice of all these billions of dollars being dumped into coronavirus research accelerates some advancements and might spell the end of viral respiratory infections in general, not just COVID.

Good points. I'm a big fan of the fast spot test idea, but the reliability is so low that the current iteration would be more disruptive than helpful. A slower test combined with serious contact tracing would also be a good potential strategy. But neither one of these will be a game changer without coordination at the federal level. Right now, we are still acting like 50 small countries with weak borders.

The antibody tests are not reliable enough to help at all, and there are studies showing that the antibodies tend to last just a few months after infection. The common cold is also a coronavirus, and you can certainly catch a cold more than once per year.

I would have guessed that authoritarian governments would have been more efficient at controlling this contagion, but Russia's numbers aren't good even though they are probably downplaying their numbers. China eventually did a great job of managing their outbreak, at least as far as we know.

Went for a ~30 minute walk through the park in my small city (120k) in Illinois this morning. I wore a mask, but I saw zero other masks. I did walk by at least 5 people within 6 feet of me. Short of jumping into the street or running into the woods, it was unavoidable. Seems like if they're not mandated in that situation, people just aren't doing it.

I think that mainstream American culture makes us particularly ill-equipped to deal with a pandemic. Our country was started by very independent people: colonists, pioneers, heretics, and rebels. Less than a century after the beginning of the United States, we fought a very bloody war with a new generation of rebels. We mythologize the Wild West, celebrating the lawless gunplay and the extermination of the indigenous people. The American Dream has attracted waves of immigrants who gave up everything in hopes of making more money. Our movies celebrate the maverick who breaks all the rules to do whatever he thinks is right. We value easy availability of guns over the lives of our children. In short, we are a nation of toxic, selfish sociopaths who can't follow simple rules that will help us stay alive during a pandemic. That's why our per capita death rate from this disease is one of the worst in the world.

Jexik wrote: Went for a ~30 minute walk through the park in my small city (120k) in Illinois this morning. I wore a mask, but I saw zero other masks. I did walk by at least 5 people within 6 feet of me. Short of jumping into the street or running into the woods, it was unavoidable. Seems like if they're not mandated in that situation, people just aren't doing it.

Hey, fellow Illinoisian! I've stopped taking walks in my nearby park for this exact same reason. Now I walk on the streets through my neighborhood, where there's far less pedestrian traffic.

If you're jogging or biking, I can understand not wearing a mask. It's just too hard to breathe when you're exercising. But a walk?