After being SO careful...

[AprilBaby]

Finally! Three of us test negative! That’s the good news. We still have to quarantine another week because it’s 50% accurate. So far no symptoms. Illinois has gone up to 13% positivity rate in our area. 65,000 tests were run in my county in the last 24 hrs. Stay in and stay safe.

 

[OdetteOdile]

Great news April Baby!!! Stay safe!!

 

[ItsMainelyYou]

@AprilBaby Yasss, I am so glad to hear this!

 

[Big Fat Facets]

phew, so relieved!!! that's great news!!! good to know you and 3 other family members tested negative! HAPPY for you.

the statistics are grim. apparently, 1 in 33 americans are infected. it is going to be a long dark winter ... may you remain safe, strong and healthy.

 

[Calliecake]

GREAT NEWS @AprilBaby !!! Please keep being careful. Numbers are really rising.

 

[LLJsmom]

Such great new @AprilBaby . So happy and glad for you. Stay vigilant and safe. Keep an eye out for any symptoms anyway. Wishing your family the best.

 

[dk168]

Great news!

DK

 

[missy]

Finally! Three of us test negative! That’s the good news. We still have to quarantine another week because it’s 50% accurate. So far no symptoms. Illinois has gone up to 13% positivity rate in our area. 65,000 tests were run in my county in the last 24 hrs. Stay in and stay safe.

So happy for all of you! Stay safe and well @AprilBaby.


As for the positivity rate, it is climbing here as well, at an alarming rate. There are areas of NJ where the positivity rate is over 35%!!! It feels as if I am watching a slow train crash. People are too stubborn (and entitled to their "freedom") to know what is best for them and they are bringing others down with them. Horrifying and I hope and pray we can stop the downward spiral...

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

So happy for all of you! Stay safe and well @AprilBaby.


As for the positivity rate, it is climbing here as well, at an alarming rate. There are areas of NJ where the positivity rate is over 35%!!! It feels as if I am watching a slow train crash. People are too stubborn (and entitled to their "freedom") to know what is best for them and they are bringing others down with them. Horrifying and I hope and pray we can stop the downward spiral...

Oh dear that's readful
I did read the President elect is telling peeps to wear a mask and that the outgoing VP has got the covid3 committee back to work

I myself see a significantly spike on the horizon following the election celebrations
Stay safe missy and family
Stay safe American

 

[Daisys and Diamonds]

Finally! Three of us test negative! That’s the good news. We still have to quarantine another week because it’s 50% accurate. So far no symptoms. Illinois has gone up to 13% positivity rate in our area. 65,000 tests were run in my county in the last 24 hrs. Stay in and stay safe.

This is good news
Continuing to pray that you and your family have ongoing good health

 

[AprilBaby]

I’m wondering if the current spike is related to the excellent weather for Halloween?

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

I’m wondering if the current spike is related to the excellent weather for Halloween?

We suspect that our lockdown started right on the Friday before Halloween because they wanted to be sure to avoid this... Halloween is nowhere near as big as in the US, but has gained some traction in Europe.
While I still think a fully socially distanced outdoor Halloween is doable in all safety (no contact treat table) , most people just don't respect the necessary distance enough....

 

[diamondringlover]

@AprilBaby great news!

 

[123ducklings]

What a relief for you @AprilBaby! Great news! And a good reminder to all of us to keep taking precautions seriously as cases spike (in the US at least).

 

[diamondseeker2006]

So happy for the negative tests and hope those with COVID recover soon! I hope your pregnant DIL has a mild case and quick recovery, especially! I don't think the increase has to do with Halloween since most of the spread isn't coming from children. Just like you said, it is spreading in workplaces and in situations where people have extended time in closer proximity. People are staying inside more now that the weather is getting colder. We can be extremely careful, but most will be exposed at some point unless we never leave our homes and have no contact with other humans. The good news is that most cases we are hearing of now are less severe than at the beginning, and the death rate is much, much lower. It's worth the risk to me to be able to see and babysit my grandchildren, too. Take care!

 

[AdaBeta27]

I’m wondering if the current spike is related to the excellent weather for Halloween?

Not being political, just stating an observation: POTUS's brushing off his covid experience and subsequent complete lack of emphasis on the importance of wearing masks were perceived by lots of anti-maskers as permission to shuck their masks. That's so foolish. As someone from the chemical industry, I wear either a KN95 or a 3-layer mask against covid, depending on location and how close I expect to be to the general public. In my occupation, when respiratory hazards are present, we use respiratory protection. It's mandatory. It's the only smart thing to do. There are no excuses, no arguments, no smarting-off about "my freedom." Going mask-less, to me, is like saying "Sure, we know the room is full of asbestos. But take off your respirators and run free." It makes no sense. WHY are people not interested in protecting themselves??

 

[Matata]

here are no excuses, no arguments, no smarting-off about "my freedom." Going mask-less, to me, is like saying "Sure, we know the room is full of asbestos. But take off your respirators and run free." It makes no sense. WHY are people not interested in protecting themselves??

My state is experiencing a huge spike due to friends and family who think being together with their loved ones is more important than keeping their loved ones healthy and alive. These same people are anti-maskers, anti-social distancers and due to their freely chosen actions, they have overwhelmed hospitals and are contributing to the tremendous emotional and physical stress of our health care workers who, imo, are heroic beyond belief. It is foolish. It is selfish. It is abusive. They deserve no compassion when they become ill. They deserve no compassion when they make ill or kill their loved ones.

 

[diamondseeker2006]

To give a counterpoint, there are elderly people dying from isolation and loneliness! Yes, we are careful around my 91 year old mother-in-law, but she would not survive in solitary confinement for months or years. What kind of life would that be???!!! Obviously if she didn't want to see family, that would be her choice, but she is 91 and could die anytime, so she surely doesn't want to live her last weeks, months, or years alone! I choose to see my children and grandchildren and some others. I am careful but I will not live in constant fear. That's not healthy, either. We also happen to live in an area that has a low level of positive cases. I think each person and family has to make these decisions based on their situation and needs. And I find it extremely offensive to be accused of abuse or deserving of illness because I don't isolate to the degree that someone else thinks I should.

 

[Matata]

@diamondseeker2006 We have an outbreak at a senior facility here -- 64 elderly at-risk people, with one dead so far, and 8 staff have covid because someone wanted to have a birthday party for their loved one 10 days ago. There's no way you can wrangle that to make it ok. The pandemic is a lose-lose situation for many people. It would be tragic for your 91 yr old MIL to die alone. Just as tragic as all those who have died of covid alone in a hospital surrounded by strangers. Being careful and sacrificing for the good of others is not being fearful, it's exercising an abundance of caution.

I could be offended at your inference that people who choose to isolate to the degree that you choose not to are fearful rather than prudent. But I don't take offense because to do so would be petty when 234,000 (and counting) people are dead due to the crappy way this country is handling the pandemic. I did not state that people deserve an illness, I said they don't deserve compassion if their freely chosen actions lead to their illness/death or the illness/death of their loved ones. Free to choose, free to bear the consequences.

 

[SallyBrown]

Great news, @AprilBaby!

 

[OoohShiny]

To give a counterpoint, there are elderly people dying from isolation and loneliness! Yes, we are careful around my 91 year old mother-in-law, but she would not survive in solitary confinement for months or years. What kind of life would that be???!!! Obviously if she didn't want to see family, that would be her choice, but she is 91 and could die anytime, so she surely doesn't want to live her last weeks, months, or years alone! I choose to see my children and grandchildren and some others. I am careful but I will not live in constant fear. That's not healthy, either. We also happen to live in an area that has a low level of positive cases. I think each person and family has to make these decisions based on their situation and needs. And I find it extremely offensive to be accused of abuse or deserving of illness because I don't isolate to the degree that someone else thinks I should.

Life is not 'living' if it's just 'existing' so I totally understand this viewpoint. I am sure that many of the older generation would prefer to risk having a shorter but more fulfilling remainder of their life, however long it may be!

An 'abundance of caution' can of course bring benefits, but those benefits need to be weighed against the disbenefits.

I did not state that people deserve an illness, I said they don't deserve compassion if their freely chosen actions lead to their illness/death or the illness/death of their loved ones. Free to choose, free to bear the consequences.

Is it the case that your position is similar for those that die of smoking- or alcohol-related illnesses, diet-related illnesses, inactivity-related illnesses, single-vehicle car accidents, sporting accidents, 'adventure' activity accidents, accidents that occur while travelling for leisure abroad, or for those who commit suicide?

 

[Austina]

So relieved for you @AprilBaby

 

[MaisOuiMadame]

Life is not 'living' if it's just 'existing' so I totally understand this viewpoint. I am sure that many of the older generation would prefer to risk having a shorter but more fulfilling remainder of their life, however long it may be!

An 'abundance of caution' can of course bring benefits, but those benefits need to be weighed against the disbenefits.


Is it the case that your position is similar for those that die of smoking- or alcohol-related illnesses, diet-related illnesses, inactivity-related illnesses, single-vehicle car accidents, sporting accidents, 'adventure' activity accidents, accidents that occur while travelling for leisure abroad, or for those who commit suicide?

You keep stating this over and over again.


Yet you never address the argument that those people do
-not overrun the healthcare system
- do not infect others with a disease that other person MIGHT DIE from.

Please don't say it's only the old.
It's not true.
My 76&78 y/O neighbor and their autistic daughter with many immune problems just lived through a mild case.

I am so relieved.

Out friend's cousin, however, 49 y/O man without any (!) risk factors just passed away.

It really sucks if you're in that percentage that doesn't make it.
If you chose to take a risk, ok.

With COVID you chose to risk others,
And that's not the same.
And that's not OK.

 

[missy]

It really sucks if you're in that percentage that doesn't make it.
If you chose to take a risk, ok.

With COVID you chose to risk others,
And that's not the same.
And that's not OK.

So true.

My colleague who was 39 and in good health just died from Covid 19.
No pre-existing conditions. One just doesn't know which category one will fall in and statistics are meaningless if you or your loved ones are the ones outside that curve.

By wearing a mask you are protecting others better than if you are not wearing a mask. Period. It's not perfect but if we all practice the triad of mask wearing, social distancing and disinfecting/washing one's hands and not touching one's face we all stand a better chance of staying healthy.

For it to work best we all need to do this though. We are a critical component in keeping others safe. It isn't every man/woman/child for oneself. We are truly in this together and together we can keep each other healthy.

 

[chemgirl]

To give a counterpoint, there are elderly people dying from isolation and loneliness! Yes, we are careful around my 91 year old mother-in-law, but she would not survive in solitary confinement for months or years. What kind of life would that be???!!! Obviously if she didn't want to see family, that would be her choice, but she is 91 and could die anytime, so she surely doesn't want to live her last weeks, months, or years alone! I choose to see my children and grandchildren and some others. I am careful but I will not live in constant fear. That's not healthy, either. We also happen to live in an area that has a low level of positive cases. I think each person and family has to make these decisions based on their situation and needs. And I find it extremely offensive to be accused of abuse or deserving of illness because I don't isolate to the degree that someone else thinks I should.

Here we are being told not to see anyone outside of our households, but exceptions exist for people who live alone. I’m seeing my mother and also helping my sister with her high risk son. The caveat here is that none of us go anywhere. We’re all living like we’re in lockdown so that we can safely see each other. We stopped eating out (even patios), no shopping (we even order groceries), no book club, no exercise groups. We don’t even do socially distanced visits with anyone else.

Trying to say that it’s not a case of letting the elderly die alone. We can be safe if we’re willing to make sacrifices.

We can’t even contact trace anymore because every positive case comes with 50+ potential contacts. In reality it should be 4-5 people plus a trip to the grocery store while wearing a mask. It’s like we as a society are trying to see as many people as possible right now.

 

[MissyBeaucoup]

Every generation lives through its challenges and sacrifices. This is ours. Yes, we are giving up a lot. Like a diet, it’s easier with rules—about masks, about places you won’t go at all right now, about ”cheating” on the risks as little as possible. Still, we are resilient and we can do this until the vaccine is given widely.

Be strong and stay well, y’all!

 

[Arcadian]

@AprilBaby I'm glad to hear that you have a bunch of negatives! Lets hope it stays that way in the foreseeable future.

For those who have not yet lost anyone to this pandemic, consider yourself lucky. I lost 6 members of my extended family. They were parents, teachers, grandparents, sons, daughters. The oldest was 80, the youngest was 2 twins who were 28. And the sad part is this; while we all have to die (no one lives forever, true) these were preventable deaths.

The biggest lie of all was that this did not affect the young, and data is showing at least in the US it absolutely does.

 

[OoohShiny]

You keep stating this over and over again.


Yet you never address the argument that those people do
-not overrun the healthcare system
- do not infect others with a disease that other person MIGHT DIE from.

Please don't say it's only the old.
It's not true.
My 76&78 y/O neighbor and their autistic daughter with many immune problems just lived through a mild case.

I am so relieved.

Out friend's cousin, however, 49 y/O man without any (!) risk factors just passed away.

It really sucks if you're in that percentage that doesn't make it.
If you chose to take a risk, ok.

With COVID you chose to risk others,
And that's not the same.
And that's not OK.

ONS has some interesting figures that are worth looking at with regards to deaths in the lower age ranges in the UK.

Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional - Office for National Statistics

Provisional counts of the number of deaths registered in England and Wales, by age, sex and region, in the latest weeks for which data are available. Includes the most up-to-date figures available for deaths involving coronavirus (COVID-19).

www.ons.gov.uk

For Week 44 (ending 30th October 2020):

https://www.ons.gov.uk/file?uri=/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales/2020/publishedweek442020.xlsx


Total Deaths: 10,887
Covid Deaths: 1,379

(Covid Deaths = where it was mentioned on the Death Certificate)


Deaths within age groups:

	All Causes	Covid
<1	31	0
1-4	6	0
5-9	2	0
10-14	5	0
15-19	15	0
20-24	23	0
25-29	39	1
30-34	48	1
35-39	96	4
40-44	102	6
45-49	160	9
50-54	271	21
55-59	411	31
60-64	513	46
65-69	709	99
70-74	1136	138
75-79	1404	224
80-84	1758	259
85-89	1936	281
90+	2222	259

Population aged 0-65 in England and Wales numbers 49million people:

Population estimates for the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland - Office for National Statistics

National and subnational mid-year population estimates for the UK and its constituent countries by administrative area, age and sex.

www.ons.gov.uk

The evidence suggests Covid deaths are a fraction of the deaths being recorded generally. Anyone under the age of 65 would seem to be extremely unlucky, and those passing away with no known underlying comorbidities would seem to be extremely rare, when only 119 people died with Covid in a week out of a population of 49,000,000 in that age group, and out of 1,722 dying from all causes in that age group.

That does not take away from the loss felt by those who have passed away at a younger age (or any age), of course, but if the risk of passing away from week to week of Covid at the moment is 119/49,000,000 for the under 65s (and ignoring the fact that figure is basically devoid of deaths under 35 therefore presents effectively zero risk for that subset), that's 0.000243%.

It would therefore seem that no-one in the UK who is in that age group and healthy (or even fairly unhealthy, I would argue, given the figures include all the unhealthy people as well) should be worried about that level of risk.


@Arcadian - I'm sorry to hear about your family's losses - statistically speaking your family must be on the very edge of the 'outliers', but I'm sure that is not really of much comfort. I am wondering to what extent Genetics is influencing the losses we are seeing - perhaps that avenue will be explored in time.



WRT healthcare capacity in the UK, the presentation the PM used to announce lockdown included a graphic with lots of red on it that suggested hospital capacity was at risk of being overrun in (IIRC) 29 hospitals.



If he had used a wider graphic showing all the Trusts, we would have seen that vast swathes of the country have zero Covid admissions (again, IIRC) - so arguably NHS capacity as a whole is nowhere near being overrun by Covid.



(from:
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/ar...ientist-says-4-000-deaths-graph-NOT-used.html )



A study also appears to be showing that even at the peak of the pandemic earlier in the year, when infections and hospital admissions were far higher than they are today, only a few Trusts experienced capacity issues over 'safe-occupancy' thresholds, and even fewer were nearing/at 100% capacity.

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.24.20139048v2.full.pdf

Methods: Bed availability and occupancy data was extracted from daily reports submitted by all English secondary care providers, between 27-Mar and 5-June. Two thresholds for ‘safe occupancy’ were utilized (85% as per Royal College of Emergency Medicine and 92% as per NHS Improvement).

Findings: At peak availability, there were 2711 additional beds compatible with mechanical ventilation across England, reflecting a 53% increase in capacity, and occupancy never exceeded 62%. A consequence of the repurposing of beds meant that at the trough, there were 8·7% (8,50 fewer general and acute (G&A) beds across England, but occupancy never exceeded 72%. The closest to (surge) capacity that any trust in England reached was 99·8% for general and acute beds. For beds compatible with mechanical ventilation there were 326 trust-days (3·7%) spent above 85% of surge capacity, and 154 trust-days (1·8%) spent above 92%. 23 trusts spent a cumulative 81 days at 100% saturation of their surge ventilator bed capacity (median number of days per trust = 1 [range: 1 to 17]). However, only 3 STPs (aggregates of geographically co-located trusts) reached 100% saturation of their mechanical ventilation beds.

Interpretation: Throughout the first wave of the pandemic, an adequate supply of all bed-types existed at a national level. Due to an unequal distribution of bed utilization, many trusts spent a significant period operating above ‘safe-occupancy’ thresholds, despite substantial capacity in geographically co-located trusts; a key operational issue to address in preparing for a potential second wave.

It also appears that the 'Nightingale' facilities were pretty much left unused after the massive expenditure on them, even during that (much higher than present) peak - so with that capacity, it appears we were (and still are) more than adequately prepared in terms of bed availability across the country:

 

[House Cat]

meanwhile, we’re drowning in death in the US. Hospitals are turning away patients. Freezer trucks are being ordered in plural.

 

[Begonia]

Good news @AprilBaby! Keep us updated about the pregnant gal!!!