Coronavirus

[ciao_yall]

Our college still officially plans to be 100% online in the Fall, despite poor student outcomes and our region having one of the highest vaccination rates in the country.

I think the administration likes working in a groupthink mode without faculty or students around to question their bad decisions. Some retired-in-place faculty and staff enjoy not having to leave the house just a bit too much.

Yes, there are some students who don't live conveniently nearby who are able to attend classes, still, our enrollment is way down so not sure the occasional anecdote offsets the broader trend.

[Mobius]

That's awful. No reason to not be in person.

[Stockmann]

Check out this cool customized risk calculation tool: https://www.microcovid.org/

There have been zero super spreader events tied to events in exclusively outdoor spaces.

I'm not sure, does that nomination party at a White House garden count?

No, it doesn't-- they also had spent time indoors beforehand (many unmasked) and that's where most/all the spread is believed to have occurred.

Fair enough. Note that I'm not questioning that outdoors transmission is less likely, just that it's unlikely the risk is negligible, at least in hotspots - so people not wearing facemasks in hotspots increases everyone else's risk, including outdoors.
Taiwan, which has had a grand total of a dozen Covid deaths, is now requiring facemasks outdoors amid a "spike" in cases (a spike relative to the island's numbers).

[Caracal]

Check out this cool customized risk calculation tool: https://www.microcovid.org/

There have been zero super spreader events tied to events in exclusively outdoor spaces.

I'm not sure, does that nomination party at a White House garden count?

No, it doesn't-- they also had spent time indoors beforehand (many unmasked) and that's where most/all the spread is believed to have occurred.

Fair enough. Note that I'm not questioning that outdoors transmission is less likely, just that it's unlikely the risk is negligible, at least in hotspots - so people not wearing facemasks in hotspots increases everyone else's risk, including outdoors.

The best estimates I've seen are that its probably well, well under 1 percent of overall transmission. Even within that subset, the risk of casual contact is very low compared to long conversations a foot away, or jogging with someone for an hour.

I don't have a problem with mask mandates outside, as long as they are enforced in sensible ways. The bigger problem is when fears about outdoor transmission lead to counterproductive things like closing beaches or parks.

[Puget]

Really interesting piece of data journalism here applying market segmentation to the reasons people haven't been vaccinated. This is clearly a much better approach than just labeling everyone as "anti-vax", as that only describes 14% of the US population, vs. 21% who fall into three other unvaccinated groups that are potentially much more amenable to vaccination with the right messaging and removal of barriers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/18/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The best estimates I've seen are that its probably well, well under 1 percent of overall transmission. Even within that subset, the risk of casual contact is very low compared to long conversations a foot away, or jogging with someone for an hour.

In fact, the actual documented number may approach zero-- turns out a lot of cases logged as "outdoor" were miss classified (e.g., all construction sites were classified as "outdoors" but the actual construction site cases were all in already enclosed high-rises).

[Stockmann]

Really interesting piece of data journalism here applying market segmentation to the reasons people haven't been vaccinated. This is clearly a much better approach than just labeling everyone as "anti-vax", as that only describes 14% of the US population, vs. 21% who fall into three other unvaccinated groups that are potentially much more amenable to vaccination with the right messaging and removal of barriers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/18/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Are they really amenable, though? There are states already basically paying people to get vaccinated, and it's always been free, so "cost" to me reeks of excuse. Esp. when comparing with anecdotes in developing countries of old people literally walking for hours to get immunized, or waiting in line for hours. Also, same goes for "wariness" - vaccines like Moderna, J&J, Pfizer (and, for that matter, Sputnik V and AZ) have undergone a lot of scrutiny and literally millions of doses have been administered in places with freedom of the press, etc. At this point, risks on the same scale as those of Covid itself for people for whom they're not counterindicated are simply not plausible. Esp. when there are multiple vaccines available - I get not wanting J&J if you're a healthy, O+ blood type teenage girl, but there are in fact alternatives.

[Caracal]

Really interesting piece of data journalism here applying market segmentation to the reasons people haven't been vaccinated. This is clearly a much better approach than just labeling everyone as "anti-vax", as that only describes 14% of the US population, vs. 21% who fall into three other unvaccinated groups that are potentially much more amenable to vaccination with the right messaging and removal of barriers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/18/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

The best estimates I've seen are that its probably well, well under 1 percent of overall transmission. Even within that subset, the risk of casual contact is very low compared to long conversations a foot away, or jogging with someone for an hour.

In fact, the actual documented number may approach zero-- turns out a lot of cases logged as "outdoor" were miss classified (e.g., all construction sites were classified as "outdoors" but the actual construction site cases were all in already enclosed high-rises).

Right. And the point isn't that outdoor transmission can't happen. Of course it can, rare events happen all the time. The problem is that the guidance didn't stress how rare it actually was and the extent to which outdoor activities were dramatically safer than indoor ones. There was this fear that if you emphasized that point too much and said that small outdoor activities carried very limited risk, everyone would take that as license to do dangerous things. That was a huge screw up.

[Puget]

Really interesting piece of data journalism here applying market segmentation to the reasons people haven't been vaccinated. This is clearly a much better approach than just labeling everyone as "anti-vax", as that only describes 14% of the US population, vs. 21% who fall into three other unvaccinated groups that are potentially much more amenable to vaccination with the right messaging and removal of barriers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/18/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Are they really amenable, though? There are states already basically paying people to get vaccinated, and it's always been free, so "cost" to me reeks of excuse. Esp. when comparing with anecdotes in developing countries of old people literally walking for hours to get immunized, or waiting in line for hours. Also, same goes for "wariness" - vaccines like Moderna, J&J, Pfizer (and, for that matter, Sputnik V and AZ) have undergone a lot of scrutiny and literally millions of doses have been administered in places with freedom of the press, etc. At this point, risks on the same scale as those of Covid itself for people for whom they're not counterindicated are simply not plausible. Esp. when there are multiple vaccines available - I get not wanting J&J if you're a healthy, O+ blood type teenage girl, but there are in fact alternatives.

It doesn't matter what you think they should know or be willing to do, it matters what they actual know and are willing to do-- if you want them vaccinated you need to meet people where they are, not judge them.  People in the "cost" don't know it is free (many are uninsured, and even if they have heard something about it being free may assume that means "free if you have insurance" like so many other "free" things like flu shots) and/or are unable to take time off or have a predictable enough work schedule. It isn't just taking time off for the actual appointment, but for side effects-- I was completely out flat on my couch for a day after my second dose, and can't imagine what it would have been like to have to somehow do a full day of (often manual) labor while feeling like that. Have a little empathy for folks that don't share the privileges that most of us here do.

[Caracal]

Really interesting piece of data journalism here applying market segmentation to the reasons people haven't been vaccinated. This is clearly a much better approach than just labeling everyone as "anti-vax", as that only describes 14% of the US population, vs. 21% who fall into three other unvaccinated groups that are potentially much more amenable to vaccination with the right messaging and removal of barriers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/18/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Are they really amenable, though? There are states already basically paying people to get vaccinated, and it's always been free, so "cost" to me reeks of excuse. Esp. when comparing with anecdotes in developing countries of old people literally walking for hours to get immunized, or waiting in line for hours. Also, same goes for "wariness" - vaccines like Moderna, J&J, Pfizer (and, for that matter, Sputnik V and AZ) have undergone a lot of scrutiny and literally millions of doses have been administered in places with freedom of the press, etc. At this point, risks on the same scale as those of Covid itself for people for whom they're not counterindicated are simply not plausible. Esp. when there are multiple vaccines available - I get not wanting J&J if you're a healthy, O+ blood type teenage girl, but there are in fact alternatives.

It doesn't matter what you think they should know or be willing to do, it matters what they actual know and are willing to do-- if you want them vaccinated you need to meet people where they are, not judge them.  People in the "cost" don't know it is free (many are uninsured, and even if they have heard something about it being free may assume that means "free if you have insurance" like so many other "free" things like flu shots) and/or are unable to take time off or have a predictable enough work schedule. It isn't just taking time off for the actual appointment, but for side effects-- I was completely out flat on my couch for a day after my second dose, and can't imagine what it would have been like to have to somehow do a full day of (often manual) labor while feeling like that. Have a little empathy for folks that don't share the privileges that most of us here do.

I also suspect that if you have a job that has meant that, by necessity, your work has had to go on much as before, that probably changes the way you think about this significantly, I assume by becoming pretty fatalistic about the chance that you might get COVID. The closest I can come to understanding this is the way we thought about our decision to send our young kid back to daycare. They've done ok with precautions, but we basically had to take the attitude that, while transmission risk in children seems to be lower than adults, our kid might well get COVID and transmit it to us.

The difference is that we had the ability to limit our risk dramatically in all kinds of other aspects of our lives. I imagine if you had to take on risks you couldn't fully control in almost all aspects of your life, while this pandemic was going on, you'd really have to just accept that your chance of getting COVID was fairly high, take precautions, and move on with your life.

Obviously, from a strictly logical risk assessment perspective, someone like that should be desperate to get the vaccine, but I can see how the psychology necessary to make it through the last year while very exposed to getting sick would result in in people not taking that attitude, especially if their schedule means getting vaccinated would be inconvenient and difficult.

Now that I'm vaccinated I should really make a bunch of doctor's appointments. Nothing particularly alarming-at least not that I know of-just stuff I should get checked. Why have I not done this yet? I dunno, some combination of laziness and anxiety. Will I do it? Yes. If someone from my doctor's office just showed up at my door and said "hey, want us to just take some blood right now and then we can make your physical?" I'd do it right then.

[Stockmann]

Really interesting piece of data journalism here applying market segmentation to the reasons people haven't been vaccinated. This is clearly a much better approach than just labeling everyone as "anti-vax", as that only describes 14% of the US population, vs. 21% who fall into three other unvaccinated groups that are potentially much more amenable to vaccination with the right messaging and removal of barriers: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/05/18/opinion/covid-19-vaccine-hesitancy.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

Are they really amenable, though? There are states already basically paying people to get vaccinated, and it's always been free, so "cost" to me reeks of excuse. Esp. when comparing with anecdotes in developing countries of old people literally walking for hours to get immunized, or waiting in line for hours. Also, same goes for "wariness" - vaccines like Moderna, J&J, Pfizer (and, for that matter, Sputnik V and AZ) have undergone a lot of scrutiny and literally millions of doses have been administered in places with freedom of the press, etc. At this point, risks on the same scale as those of Covid itself for people for whom they're not counterindicated are simply not plausible. Esp. when there are multiple vaccines available - I get not wanting J&J if you're a healthy, O+ blood type teenage girl, but there are in fact alternatives.

It doesn't matter what you think they should know or be willing to do, it matters what they actual know and are willing to do-- if you want them vaccinated you need to meet people where they are, not judge them.  People in the "cost" don't know it is free (many are uninsured, and even if they have heard something about it being free may assume that means "free if you have insurance" like so many other "free" things like flu shots) and/or are unable to take time off or have a predictable enough work schedule. It isn't just taking time off for the actual appointment, but for side effects-- I was completely out flat on my couch for a day after my second dose, and can't imagine what it would have been like to have to somehow do a full day of (often manual) labor while feeling like that. Have a little empathy for folks that don't share the privileges that most of us here do.

I'm in a shitty location so neither my wife nor I are vaccinated because it's not been available to us. So yeah, I'm rather short on empathy for people to whom it's available, who are even being bribed to take it, claim not to be outright refusing it, but haven't got it yet because reasons. I most certainly am not feeling privileged compared to people to whom it's been available for a while now. For perspective, I used to live near a hospital and could her the ambulance sirens getting more and more and more frequent as things got worse and worse - and then they nearly stopped, not because things had gotten better but because there were no more beds. Obviously some have it worse (the millions of Covid dead in the world, for starters), but I'm not feeling very privileged compared to people who can just walk into a CVS and get vaccinated with excellent vaccines. And yes, I know working class people here, who do manual labor, to whom it's been available and who have in fact gotten vaccinated - I'd bet good money that at significantly greater inconvenience than their American counterparts face and at any rate they're not being given money, free beer, pot, etc to do it.
I do tend to assume that when something can be done for free or people are even being bribed to do it and don't do it then they do not in fact want to do it. I'm not against people being given the day off, paying them, etc, but I'm very sceptical that a large majority of those who aren't already vaccinated but aren't openly anti-vaxxers would then get immunized.

[Langue_doc]

Turns out that Idaho's Lt governor banned mask mandates when the governor was out of town. The governor promptly repealed the ban. Here is the article: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/28/us/idaho-mandate.html

[spork]

How information about race-based health disparities affects policy preferences: Evidence from a survey experiment about the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States

[spork]

A former college roommate is now officially part of the 5% of the population who get Covid-19 after vaccination. But his symptoms were limited to those of a minor head cold, so there's a good chance that the vaccine did what it's supposed to do.

My employer is requiring vaccination for all employees and students prior to the start of the fall semester. I was vaccinated in March 2021, probably had a mild case of Covid-19 in April 2020, and now know I have antibodies because of a research study that I'm participating in. But I doubt the fall semester will be a return to business as usual, so I'm continuing with my hospitalization prevention strategy of running, despite the summer heat.

[Langue_doc]

NYC appears to be open for business as usual. The vaccination rates, however, are abysmal as only 50.6% of the population is fully vaccinated; 55.6% have received at least one dose. Large swaths of the city have vaccination rates of 30-45%.

https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data-vaccines.page

Politicians, stop gloating about the city being fully open:
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/04/29/new-york-city-mayor-bill-de-blasio-says-the-city-will-re-open-100percent-on-july-1.html

Get your fxxxxxg heads out of your bleeping azzes! Our neighboring states have far higher vaccination rates.

[mythbuster]

My grad student's husband just tested COVID positive and can't smell anything. I've told her to stay home from the lab until he at least  stops having respiratory symptoms. I'm not sure if she's been vaccinated or not. We will just keep having Zoom lab meeting for the near future just in case.