Breaking: United States reports a single-day record of 77,640 new coronavirus cases Thursday, per NBC News. The previous high was 75,723 on July 29.
— Michael Del Moro (@MikeDelMoro) October 23, 2020
Over July, states and communities responded to the then peak in case counts with new mask orders, with stay at home and movement minimization requests.
North Carolina just pushed back the date of the Phase 4 re-opening another few weeks yesterday.
North and South Dakota are hot spots that makes Queens in April look on in horror.
Nebraska has 431 new cases per million residents per day. All of the state with the exception of Lincoln County have no policy restrictions in place.
We’re on the growth curve. The weather is getting colder and people are staying inside more. And our political system has decided that Big Ten football is important and little else should be done.
Gin & Tonic
Seems like you might be missing a verb in that first sentence.
trnc
Republicans in disarray!
https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/522185-gop-power-shift-emerges-with-trump-mcconnell
germy
RobertDSC-Mac Mini
And that is why I no longer follow or support the University of Michigan. Nor will I ever return.
WereBear
Early this year, when I heard Trump had dismantled the pandemic team much earlier, news which I had missed; I knew it would come to this.
I didn’t know it would be this blatantly Psycho Killer/Ruthless Capitalist, but I knew it would be a blizzard of Porta-Potty byproducts…
Rusty
An interesting call last night with some friends that are doctors. Already they are starting to adjust scheduling follow up appointments because the expectation is there will be more restrictions in the next month. Some areas are starting to encourage home birth given expectations that hospitals will be overwhelmed. Emergency plans where medical staff are redeployed ended up not being used in the spring, but now may be necessary this fall. The rumour for our local school is that it will go full remote at Thanksgiving and won’t consider any in person classes until after the new year. Thanksgiving is expected to be a super-spreader event, along with Christmas. We are really going in the wrong direction.
Raven
Go Illini!
NotMax
“We’ve turned the corner.”
To go the wrong way on a one way street.
rikyrah
@germy:
no lie told
dmsilev
The Dakotas are terrifying. Over 1 new case/1000 people per day. Apparently the only reason that the hospitalization numbers have flattened out is that they’ve just plain run out of beds and are now trying to either turn patients away or send the worst of them to facilities in other states.
And yet, no mask mandates. Or anything, really. Because freedom.
Percysowner
Yeah and on Nov 8, my son-in-law is scheduled to stop WFH. We’re in Ohio, and cases are going up, so I’m concerned.
The Thin Black Duke
The only way out of this is through Trump. If enough people didn’t know it before, they know now.
dr. bloor
Not just the Power Five football conference states. Baker and Raimondo in New England appeared to have learned nothing about geometric growth the first time around, and are determined to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.
Baud
@dmsilev:
Imagine how good we’d be doing if we never had hospital beds in the first place.
dmsilev
@Baud: Definitely a money-saver.
bluefoot
I’ve said it before – if bombs were dropping that would kill 1 in 1000 people and make many others suffer long-term health consequences, we wouldn’t be expecting everything to be normal and we would be taking measures to protect public health seriously. It’s failure of imagination because people are dying at home or in the hospital without action movie drama. Or maybe not, as long as the elderly and minorities are disproportionately affected, football and muh freedum is more important.
I said this in the COVID thread: It really, truly blows my mind that public health has become so politicized. Wearing masks when out in public should be a no-brainer, completely uncontroversial. Getting PPE to people in essential roles – at minimum – by using the government’s powers to do so, also a no-brainer. Working with the WHO, allowing the CDC (an actual (formerly) world-class American institution!) to do its work, should be so obvious as to be banal.
@dr bloor: I am amazed and appalled at Baker. MA dodged a bullet in Mar/April, or at least it was smallish calibre. And now it seems like he’s determined to just lit it rip.
Betty Cracker
Just found out one of my husband’s coworkers has the ‘rona which means the mister may have been exposed and me too. His job is outdoors and naturally socially distant, so I guess the odds are good, but what an endless nightmare this is.
chopper
@Betty Cracker:
oy. you have testing available?
Kilgore Trout
This is all so discouraging because it didn’t have to be this way. Had a friend at work saying there was a big wave to unseat our governor Jay Inslee this election (not a lot of polling in the race but the challenger has not been above 40% in any of them). I reminded my friend that back in February Washington State was ground zero for the virus, but now we are 42nd or 43rd of states in per capita infections – and that’s the direct result of a competent, efficient response by the state government working with local health officials.
The Dakotas look like a nightmare.
We’ve been fortunate over the past couple of months that we could do some of the normal things that people are so desperate to get back to, and have been visiting a local brewpub that has well distanced outdoor dining once a week or so. We’ve decided this week that we will no longer be able to do that. While the cases are not rising rapidly in our county, they *are* rising. People still don’t get it.
Matt McIrvin
@bluefoot: MA got hit very hard in March/April, almost as badly as New York. And our death rates have been higher relative to the case rate than most places, probably because we have an older population and it got into the nursing homes in a huge way–that’s been a problem ever since.
Baker did an OK job in the spring once he actually started shutting things down. But now, it seems like there’s this inertia to the reopening plans and everyone’s loath to disturb them even though infections are up again. I think it’s insane that he went ahead with allowing restaurants and bars to open for reduced-capacity indoor seating while the wave was still building.
One thing we do have here is massive testing on a scale that was unseen earlier in the year. My city has been battling a major outbreak over the past few weeks and we seem to be getting the rate down, in part because the city instituted free drive-through screening and the mayor just told everyone in the city to go in for it. So they’ve been able to identify cases. Unfortunately, I think the testing is over now unless he extended it again.
Ksmiami
This is the only story that matters between now and Election Day. Trump has robbed all of us by not handling the pandemic
ant
It think it’s “the heat goes on”………
As in, “fire cannot hurt a man! Not the government man!”
That songs lyrics are so brilliant.
Betty Cracker
@chopper: My husband’s employer is working something out for everyone at that site right now.
frosty
@Betty Cracker: Two weeks ago we were in the same situation when my son was at a bonfire with friends and one of them tested positive 2 days later. Like yours, outside, distanced, probably safe. We masked up at home, he got tested and was negative, so we’re back to COVID-normal now.
Aleta
Purdue Pharma pleads guilty to federal charges
cutting it as close as possible on the Barr window but now they’re sure
Ramiah Ariya
The idea that Trump killed all these people by not listening to the scientists is a straightforward message, politically, but I don’t think it convinces a lot of people. I myself think the way Obama would have handled this different is not because he would have “listened to the scientists”; but because once a policy is decided by his own government, he would not be contradicting or violating it every step.
THAT is the problem with Trump, that he is constantly contradicting his own government. If he does not like their guidance, then he should fire them. Instead he acts as if he is still outside the govt.
Remember that the one time Trump shut up to a question was when he was asked by a reporter why he kept hiring people who he later fired and called fools. He had no answer to that – that is the key.
I am convinced that in the social media world with echo chambers, this is the way in politics in every country – to highlight contradictions, rather than touting moral certainties.
Aleta
@dmsilev: It’s like the script for a unrealistic horror movie. Audience sitting there: “Why don’t they get more beds?” “Take the mask with you!!” ” Don’t go in! it’s a bar!! don’t go in there!”
Gravenstone
This seems like an appropriate thread here.
Several Trump campaign stops appear to have lead to increased covid cases in those communities.
Who could have predicted?
Ohio Mom
Betty Cracker:
Oh dear. Crossing fingers and toes you and DH have avoided getting infected.
Depending on how long it takes for Mr. Cracker’s employer to get testing organized, you might be well into the two-week-and-all-clear time period.
How many days of that interminable 14 days do you have left? Please keep us posted.
Roger Moore
Look, ND and SD are obviously in a very bad place right now, but this is hyperbole. Yes, ND and SD positive test numbers look bad compared to Queens in April, but that’s because there wasn’t enough testing infrastructure in April to tell us how bad things got. The thing that’s scariest about the Dakotas right now is comparing the government action there to the government action in NYC in April. During the crisis in NYC, both the mayor and governor were doing everything in their power to get the outbreak under control and provide enough medical care for their citizens, and screaming daily on TV to try to get the federal government to do even more. In the Dakotas right now, the governors are basically shrugging and saying it’s up to their citizens to deal with it. It’s a gross abdication of responsibility that really ought to result in them being recalled, if not put on trial.
FlyingToaster
@RobertDSC-Mac Mini:
I’m an Indiana alumna, and I received an e-mail from the music school (where I spent a lot of time, being a member of the Marching Hundred(s)), informing me that the moved-n-rebuilt Carillon would be playing for every IU score against Penn State. Which will mean it won’t be played at all…
@dr. bloor:
My daughter’s (private) middle school is hybrid; live, podded mornings, remote afternoons. I am trying to figure out if it’s safe to send her in next week, since Watertown is on it’s second week of yellow and we’re surrounded by a sea of yellow (Newton, Cambridge) and red (Boston, Waltham). I’m assuming we’ll have to go fully remote 2nd trimester, after Thanksgiving.
Aleta
Is it possible that the big players in the anti-federal gov’t, anti-tax movement look at the pandemic as another opportunity to end centralized services . By overwhelming them, forcing more people to not rely on health care or even hospitals and nursing homes, ending Medicaid and Medicare by ‘bankrupting’ them.
Nicole
@Betty Cracker: I’m so sorry. You’re right; odds are good that your husband’s coworker didn’t transmit anything outdoors, but it’s got to be nerve-wracking.
I now have recurring anxiety dreams where I’m out in public and realize I’m not wearing a mask. I suspect these dreams will continue long after the pandemic is over.
trnc
He mostly has been already, to the extent he can. The only reason Fauci is still there is because DT can’t fire him directly. But you do make an excellent point about him not following the guidelines. I was waiting for Biden to say, “We’re presidents, not kings,” but I feel like he pretty much made that point talking about the red state vs blue state dichotomy for DT.
Crashman06
@FlyingToaster: The Watertown public schools are going 2-half day hybrid on Tuesday. I’m of two minds: remote is barely working for us so even some limited face-to-face time might mean my kid is actually learning something. At the same time, cases are rising. My little one just went back to daycare after a positive test shut down the center for a little while; thankfully everyone tested negative but it was an unpleasant wake-up call.
Jerzy Russian
@dmsilev: Freedom? That is a Yang holy word.
Van Buren
I am a teacher WFH. I have 29 100% remote students. The teacher who has the 5th grade students who come to school 2.5 days a week (all 5 of them) is now out with COVID.
My 23 year old son could stay pretty safe work wise, but isolation is really starting to get to him and he visits friends in the evenings. He swears they wear masks and stay 6 ft. apart but my wife is very nervous.
David ?Booooooo!? Koch
So. Much. Winning.
danielx
@FlyingToaster:
Most beautiful campus* in the country in my admittedly biased view, especially at this time of year.
*Barring Ballentine Hall, which should be strapped to a booster rocket and fired into outer space.
Barbara
@Ksmiami: He isn’t even trying. It’s obscene.
Aleta
@trnc: I wished he would make the simpler point that Kushner and Pence made it impossible for even Drs and nurses and staff at hospitals and nursing homes to get the simplest protective gear, and nurses were wearing garbage bags as they tried to save lives. That when health care workers die and others stay home sick, even more Americans die. That while Republicans were calling covid a war, Kushner was helping companies profiteer on health care supplies. That even now, Trump and Hannity and friends are promoting unproven drugs for companies they own stock in.
FlyingToaster
@Crashman06: Hybrid has been working slightly better than remote; the face time with 4 teachers (the other 3 are afternoons) has helped WarriorTeen’s focus. The younger grades run, podded, all day; everyone is remote on Fridays.
Mornings this term are 2 core (Social Studies, Spanish), 2 specialties (Drama, Art). Next term are 1 core (Math), 2 Specialties (Music, Digital Storytelling), and final term are 2 core (ELA, Science). Afternoons are the other courses, either remote in pods, or remote from home (since we’re in Watertown, I fetch her home at 12:30).
I supported the WPS decision to wait; there have been too many outbreaks, likely from service workers bringing them home and infecting their families, who then infect the extended family who comes to their cookout [across the street, GRRRR]. But the special needs kids have been in-class for the past month, and Baker is a fucking tool for questioning WPS’s decision to delay.
Logan Brown
Waiting for NC to go back to Phase 2 once the election is over. I think the High Schools definitely need to go back to virtual as do the middle schools.
FlyingToaster
@danielx: Ballantine Hall is the bad example that highlights the beauty of everything else. Though Chemistry and Rawles are nothing to write home about…
The campus has changed a lot in the (checking) 33 years since I escaped with my Master’s. The woods north of Read Quad is now the School of Ed, and there’s a new dorm in the field across from Willkie (where I lived as an undergraduate). CS has moved outta Lindley up to North Woodlawn, and the deparment of Bands has a building on 17th (leaving the Whittenberger basement).
Thank goodness they didn’t build more fugly towers like Ballantine…
TS (the original)
@Ksmiami:
He has done mass damage in the US – but also in the rest of the world. In times of pandemic nations have looked to the WHO for guidance & trump has basically said they are wrong & refused to provide any funding.
Countries also used to look to the CDC and the FDA for advice on disease control & drug approval. We have trump attacking the CDC and changing their guidance & also demanding that drugs and vaccines be approved regardless as to what testing the FDA requires.
Perhaps long term it is a good thing for countries to not look to the US for guidance on these issues – but the midst of a pandemic was not a good time to realise you need to find another source for basic pandemic advice
TS (the original)
@Betty Cracker:
Hoping for the best results – outside is good – so the odds are in your favor.
mrmoshpotato
@Raven:
Who are you, and what have you done with our resident Dawgs fan?
danielx
@FlyingToaster:
Left out Briscoe, where I lived for one semester before fleeing to off campus housing. Briscoe being where you ended up if you didn’t get your shit together in time to live somewhere else. On the other hand, Briscoe was also where a bunch of folks from da Region lived – they didn’t know but one way to play music (LOUD) and one way to party (HARD). Culture shock, but not in a bad way, exactly…
Omnes Omnibus
@mrmoshpotato: He is both. He is a complicated man and no one understands him but his woman.
raven
@mrmoshpotato: I was born an Illini and will always be one. One note, the fucking ACC started weeks ago so whining about Big Ten football is a bit silly.
raven
@Omnes Omnibus: She’s a Hokie!
gene108
@TS (the original):
Bullshit.
The USA has a level of scientific expertise unparalleled in the world.
Just because Republicans are fools regarding respecting science does not mean we should scrap our expertise.
Trunp’s fuckery with the CDC is not something that is permanent, and is something Biden can remedy quickly.
gene108
What gets with this surge in cases is the feeling of helplessness. It doesn’t matter what I do, because some idiot decided they need their nose sticking out of their mask exhaling coronavirus particles.
Really sucks
Kelly
@Betty Cracker: Oh gosh, the uncertainty of exposure to the virus really raised our stress level when we had to evacuate from the fires in September. Best wishes.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
@bluefoot: The whole country had a collective freak out on 9/11 over 2,000 dead. Here the Grim Reaper is coming down their street in the worst possible way and a huge chunk of the population don’t give a shit.
Crashman06
@FlyingToaster: I supported the decision to wait too. But remote for 2nd grade is just…not effective. Like I said, 2 half days a week in person will make me feel better that at least something is sinking in. But it’s a close thing, and I’m certain they’ll have to go back to remote at some point.
Sure Lurkalot
@Nicole: I’ve had literally dozens of dreams where I’m somewhere…either with no mask or in a crowded situation…at first seemingly normal but then turns panicky…”where’s my mask, I can’t be close to these people.” I too wonder how long I will have these dreams if and when this global nightmare ends.
Kelly
Idaho hospitals are making plans to transport patients to Oregon and Washington.
https://www.oregonlive.com/coronavirus/2020/10/idaho-hospitals-near-capacity-may-send-new-coronavirus-patients-to-portland-seattle.html
trnc
@Aleta: Truth. Also, that the FBI was stopping and confiscating shipments to some hospitals.
zhena gogolia
@Nicole:
I’m having those dreams too.
Sure Lurkalot
@Betty Cracker: Fingers crossed. We had a scare when my spouse’s reliable golf buddy didn’t show and later on his wife called saying he felt dizzy and had a bad headache. DH had played golf with him 5 days earlier and had a beer on the patio. Friend got tested and the results luckily came back earlier than expected and negative. But he did have West Nile.
Mathguy
Regarding Nebraska: Lincoln County is in the middle of nowhere and doesn’t have any restrictions. Omaha and Lincoln both have mandatory indoor mask orders. The rest of the state? Meh.
Soprano2
I feel lucky, living in a dot of responsibility in a sea of “MAGA, what us worry about a virus?” idiocy. Our mask mandate has been extended into January, and three local smaller towns (population between 5,000 – 15,000) have finally followed suit. Branson extended theirs “indefinitely”, I think partly so they won’t have to vote on it again and listen to stupid people yelling about “freedom”. My workplace (city government, no less) had those UV lights installed in our ducts last week. Still, hospitalizations are going the wrong way now; many of the people are coming from the outlying areas where there are no restrictions at all. I hope that will start changing now that those three towns have passed mask mandates. I’ve heard other towns are considering it too.
Our safety guy, who used to argue with me that “masks don’t work that well because the virus is microscopic” and “the Great Clips thing didn’t prove anything” is now a true believer, because his brother-in-law is near death from COVID. I think unfortunately we’ll see more and more of that happening, people finally getting onboard after having a personal experience like that. How sad, that they can’t learn from other people’s experiences.
Ksmiami
@Barbara: exactly and it’s obscene that 43 percent of Americans have been so brainwashed against the common good that they still support this abject failure, this monster. I’m really really down about America’s future in an era where we will need collective action to solve problems not fiefdoms of stupidity
trnc
@gene108:
I didn’t read the comment as suggesting that we should scrap our expertise, but rather that others can’t just assume what the US puts out. DT ran a standard misinformation campaign – mix in crap with real information to the point that it’s hard to know what to trust. I’m sure most countries will find the info to be much more reliable if Biden wins, but in the meantime I think TS has a valid point.
Baud
@bluefoot:
@Enhanced Voting Techniques:
While I’m not defending the poor reaction to the virus, people everywhere will act more vehemently to being attacked than being hurt by impersonal forces.
Consider the BLM movement, which isn’t not about the total number of black lives that have been taken by police.
I doubt there’s any society that just looks at the numbers.
Nicole
@Sure Lurkalot:
@zhena gogolia:
It’s equally sad and comforting to know I’m not alone in the maskless anxiety dreams.
trnc
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: That’s the way it is with everything. Half a million annual deaths from tobacco? Republican response: “Yawn.”
FlyingToaster
@danielx: North Campus was pretty, but the only folks I knew from Briscoe were athletes (Uwe Blab was in my Calculus class) and a kid I babysat when he was in 1st grade (and went Greek as soon as humanly possible). I tutored BizSchool students from McNutt, Foster, Wright and Teter (stats are hard if you’re not a quant). I was in an improv group housed at Collins.
But the Dorms were generally beautiful. Center campus (minus Ballantine, Chemistry, and Rawles) is chock full of beautiful architecture.
Gingko’s stink, however.
mrmoshpotato
@Omnes Omnibus: LOL
Another Scott
GovExec (via TheAtlantic):
We can’t let up on the virus, either. We have to keep fighting the monsters and vote them out!!
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
As crappy as Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is, one thing he finally did right is sign an executive order for a mask mandate in early July. It makes it so much easier for businesses, schools, etc. because they can just point the finger at the Governor when someone questions why masks are required instead of having to take the blame themselves. It also avoids having a patchwork of mask mandates – this business but not that one or this county but not that one – and that in turn makes it easier for people to understand and follow the mandate.
Gin & Tonic
Elections for local and regional offices in Ukraine take place this Sunday. 44% of the candidates are women.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
I wonder what the number for Dem candidates is this year.
Brachiator
The Revolutionary War motto was “Give me liberty or give me death!” Right wing dopes have turned it into “Give me liberty and give me death.”
It is pathetic watching these fools ignore the simplest things that could keep them safe.
Another Scott
I’m still keeping an eye on Mississippi. (My stepmom moved back there to be near family after living in NC for decades.) Very early on, cases were popping up in every county, and I knew it was going to be bad. CovidExitStrategy.org shows daily positivity rate taking off again now.
Looking at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ and sorting by deaths per million one sees MS is #7 after the NE states (and LA, presumably because of Mardi Gras) that were hammered early on:
1088 deaths/M
It’s horrible.
This is going to continue to get worse until people in responsibility, and the rest of us, are forced to take it seriously.
“If 80% of people wore masks 80% of the time, we would lick this.” – Larry Brilliant.
Grr…
Cheers,
Scott.
Gin & Tonic
@Baud: Here you go.
ProfDamatu
@danielx: I would have to agree, on both counts! I did my doctoral work at IU, in anthropology, so I was lucky enough to be based in the Student Building. It was so nice to be right near Dunn Meadow and woods.
Baud
@Gin & Tonic:
Thanks! Still some work to do, but I assume that’s the best it’s ever been.
Oklahomo
I can tell the Republicans here in Oklahoma must be spooked because a new billboard has popped up in Roland OK that says “SAVE AMERICA” and under that “VOTE REPUBLICAN.” But, I also noticed a billboard just off downtown Fort Smith AR that has this message: “MAKE AMERICA SMART AGAIN” “DUMP TRUMP”
Brachiator
@Baud:
People react pretty strongly to brush fires, tornadoes and hurricanes. But there is something about this coronavirus. It is highly infectious, but the number of serious cases and fatalities are far lower.
It is a terrible threat, but seems to some people not to be a big deal. And this gap between infectiousness and serious illness, urged on by Trump and other bad actors, has led people to deny reality and to create some quasi religious, quasi “patriotic” myth of liberty and personal responsibility which can somehow defeat the virus.
About the only thing missing is some wacky Second Amendment assertion that we can shoot the virus dead.
trollhattan
In one week California has gone from 3,300 to 6,400 new cases (vs. a high of 15k last summer). Not good.
Frank Wilhoit
@Mathguy: He must have meant Lancaster County.
Freemark
Hospitalizations have doubled in PA in just the last three weeks. Went to a restaurant for breakfast because my dad wanted to go and he was giving me a lift after I dropped my car off for service. He recommended the place we went because he said they followed guidlines. Nope. Masks were worn below the nose or on the chin and patrons were routinely wanderinfpg around without masks. I may never go into a sit down restaurant ever again.
Punchy
Did you know Amnesty International and others are anti-Semitic? I didn’t either, but apparently the US State Department is about to label them as such
Just speechless.
A Ghost to Most
@danielx:
Seems improbable. Have you seen the U of Colorado, at the base of the Flatirons?
/Just a local, not an alumni
dmsilev
@trollhattan: That’s a glitch of sorts. LA County dropped a big pile of delayed-reporting cases all at once yesterday; our normal case load has been ~900-1000 per day recently, but yesterday was 3600 because of that.
KithKanan
@A Ghost to Most @danielx: I would submit UCSC (University of California, Santa Cruz) for consideration. I grew up there, though I went/live elsewhere.
Hoodie
@Brachiator: Generally agree, but it’s not because fatalities are lower (they’re actually greater), but because they’re more random. If you stay in an area where there’s a raging forest fire, pretty much 100% certainty of death. With coronavirus, it’s more like Russian Roulette – are you going to be the one who gets the bullet in the chamber. Because of this, it makes more than a few people think that this is simply some individual calculation of risk. It’s very similar to the innumeracy of people who think driving is safer than flying. You see that in some of the idiotic commentary about “masks don’t protect you” (they do, especially if the other guy is wearing one) and, of course, Trump’s stupid anecdote about a waiter fiddling with his mask.
FlyingToaster
@A Ghost to Most: The movie Breaking Away was set in Bloomington. There are lotsa photos/videos of campus online.
I love the campus of UC Santa Cruz, but IUB is still more beautiful.
scav
The fact that US as a place has universities and scientific expertise doesn’t at all mean the US as a government follows them. The world — certainly the EU — already doesn’t follow our food standards and even the Brexityest of the Brexiters aren’t wild about signing on to them. There are different sets of environmental standards. Distinguishing what the US govt says and what the scientific consensus is (wherever located) seems to be common sense.
Brachiator
@trollhattan:
Reading what is happening here in California is very sobering. And all around the world, countries that previously did well in fighting the virus are facing renewed challenges.
From a recent BBC News story:
I don’t know if we are missing something, whether some new approach could be developed.
And winter is coming. This will only increase the misery.
trollhattan
@A Ghost to Most:
We got TONS of college literature from hundreds of schools over the span of three HS years, and my “go there because it’s gorgeous” winner is Cornell. Never been, so maybe just the product of skilled photographers but my God, it’s spectacular.
Boulder’s very nice, I have managed to make it there. My top Pac 12 campus is Washington, but I’m prejudiced plus there’s no matching the stadium site, perched above the Montlake Cut. Cal is also beautiful and leafy in the Berkeley hills. Plus, they get their own fault.
Kathleen
@Percysowner: Hamilton County is tipping toward purple status. DeWine said that could mean more restrictions but he hasn’t decided yet. I felt all along there would be a big spike around election and after.
Danielx
@A Ghost to Most: @KithKanan:
Hey, I said I was biased ?
trollhattan
@Brachiator:
IIUC in addition to the very understandable human response of heading indoors as weather gets colder and wetter, the conditions increase the virus’ viability suspended in the air column because droplets don’t dissipate as quickly. Very concerning because even if people don’t alter their successful summertime routines we will be at greater risk. More time spent indoors is inevitable either way.
Hoodie
@trollhattan: A lot of that has to do with the time of year. Cornell was gorgeous the summer I spent there, but the winters are brutal according to a friend who taught there and couldn’t wait to move to SW VA after retiring. UNC Chapel Hill is gorgeous in the late fall, as are most of the state university campuses in the south, but a lot of them are hellish in the summer.
ArchTeryx
@trollhattan: I’ve been to Cornell. It’s on a very high hillside and the whole campus slopes down. The views are often spectacular and the local town of Ithica is interesting and diverse. It’s great.
Wolf
@Aleta:
Everybody has always wondered whether actual people would behave like this. We now know the answer is yes! However, I would like to think us minorities would be the ones screaming, “No, don’t,” but being forced to accompany them anyway.
Kathleen
@Betty Cracker: I hope all turns out well for you and your husband. Be safe!
A Ghost to Most
@trollhattan: Agree, Cornell is beautiful.
When we take visitors up 36 towards Boulder, and crest the hill overlooking the valley, the usual response is an audible gasp.
Brachiator
@Aleta:
This is funny in a ghoulish sort of way.
In some future Halloween type movie, the monster will wear an orange Trump mask.
NYCMT
@ArchTeryx: Ah, Cornell. Went there for undergrad and stayed for four extra years. Yes, it’s all beautiful. Yes, one makes wonderful memories everywhere but especially in the gorges (which are all fenced off from above now because of liability). Spring, Summer, Fall. But.
The winters are brutal. BRUTAL. (says the guy who came down with double-barreled upper lobe pneumonia the last winter in Ithaca.)
ArchTeryx
@NYCMT: Yeah, that’s the part I missed out on since I was just visiting. I just bet the winters are brutal. That campus would be a living nightmare to climb – or descend – during serious winter weather, and it’s also pretty isolated save for Ithaca. Nevermind what it would be like to drive there. I’m not sorry I missed that part!
Roger Moore
@trollhattan:
Where are you getting your numbers? Covidtracking.com shows California’s numbers as essentially flat. They don’t show a single day with even 5000 cases since early September, much less 6400.
StringOnAStick
@Hoodie: The Russian roulette aspect of this disease is why I retired from dental hygiene in March; I just donated all my scrubs.
Next Thursday we start the two day drive to our new home. In order to reduce possible exposure events I’m making/cooking everything we will eat for the entire two days. One hotel stay and friends stayed there last week and said it met their standards for Covid safety and they are as picky as we are. Weird time to be moving.
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Johns Hopkins, the non-smoothed data on the state graph.
NYCMT
@ArchTeryx: Driving wasn’t so bad? I do remember one bad storm that stymied my Daytona on Schuyler Place once. But I grew up in the Catskills where I learned to drive big rear-wheel drive Detroit iron in deep snow (you don’t, unless you do it in first gear, and don’t stomp the brakes). Parking was bad, but that’s Ithaca.
What was relentless and awful was the darkness and the slush and the inevitable clock-shift that carried eager early risers into the sloughs of only-mid-afternoon classes, so that between October and April one’s communion with the sun was fleeting and theoretical.
KSinMA
@StringOnAStick: Good luck with your move!
trnc
And Texas jumped over California this week as state with the most cases.
Sister Machine Gun of Quiet Harmony
I feel bad for the people in these communities who do take every precaution, because their risks are increased by being surrounded by covidiots. However, at the end of the day, the covidiots are the majority in these communities. They’ve been given all the information they need to make better choices, and they aren’t. The consequences are awful, but that is what they have chosen.
Sloegin
North Idaho just ended their mask mandate, meanwhile, Idaho is shipping patients to WA and OR because their ICUs are full.
zeecube
It gets so f’ing depressing. Idiots in Louisiana Legislature think this is the perfect time to lift all Rona restrictions in the state.
Bob Hertz
David states that Nebraska has 431 new cases per million residents.
If 20% of the cases are serious, that is 80 cases per million persons.
That is a tiny number. Why fret over this? Nebraska probably no more than or 3 million residents.
Granted, I do not tend to think exponentially. I just look at the current number and say, so what?