Breaking News: Masks Work

"ttyymmnn" (ttyymmnn) 07/27/2020 at 16:47 • Filed to: Please wear your masks

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Texas was one of the first states to reopen, and it did so without a mandate for wearing masks. Unsurprisingly, infections, hospitalizations, and deaths skyrocketed. Perhaps realizing that he had blown it, big time, Governor Greg Abbott went against the prevailing Republican party line (something for which I give him great credit, even though I didn’t vote for him) and instituted a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! on July 2. And it seems to be paying off.

I’m no statistician, but it would seem that the decline in deaths will lag behind a drop in confirmed cases (and there’s no way to know the actual number of people who have or have had the virus). And there are some very bad hotspots right now, particularly Houston and the Rio Grande Valley. Fortunately for me, it looks like Austin is doing pretty well (all things considered), and is !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . That one big spike could be a testing dump, an anomaly, who knows? Still, perhaps there is better compliance in this !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! , tech savvy city. This is the map for Travis County.

And also, not surprisingly, the University of North Texas recently published a !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! that found.....wait for it.....masks help slow the spread of the virus!

Nevertheless, these graphs show that the number of infections per 1000 people continues to rise. And Austin (Travis County) has a higher number per/1000 than the state. Again, I’m no statistician, but it seems to me that these are the numbers that really mean something.

Anyway, I keep looking for hopeful news, and I’ll take whatever I can find.

Wear your masks, people. Thanks.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 16:58

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Looks like TX’s positivity rate is dropping, but it’s still relatively high. Hopefully it keeps heading down (to 5% or less).

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states/texas

FL’s at 19%, AZ 23%...

ttyymmnn > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/27/2020 at 16:59

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I’d really like to send my kids to school some time this year.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:06

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gubment here doesnt seem to think so

well..they say they havent been proven to work....but also made them mandatory on public transport

holy mixed messages batman

anyhoo...its a good thing i never really listened to the gubment before...coz they suck at this leadership thing

ttyymmnn > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 07/27/2020 at 17:07

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Are people wearing them in spite of a lack of government guidance?

ttyymmnn > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 07/27/2020 at 17:08

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Your numbers also seem ridiculously low compared to the US.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/netherlands/

gmporschenut also a fan of hondas > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:09

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Star for dazed and confused art

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:10

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I think they’re clearly better than nothing, but can definitely give people a false sense of security, too . Distancing is best, and don’t lighten up on washing hands, etc.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:12

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negatory....i see a mask here and there..but thats about it...only on public transport

(where people now wear masks but also stopped paying coz they have to get on at the back now and nobodies checking)

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:15

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oh yeah...i think we had like...almost 1000 new cases...in a week..

its hardly worth mentioning...course...we also only have about 1100 icu beds for the whole country....shit goes south fast here

(we has a lean efficient health care system...read..we cut all we could..and its fine...if theres no pandemic)

ttyymmnn > farscythe - makin da cawfee! 07/27/2020 at 17:17

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Neat. We have 1,000 deaths in a day . We’ve passed 140k total.

farscythe - makin da cawfee! > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:19

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yeah..i know....its gotten pretty out of hand on your side of the pond

they better hurry up with that vaccine

TheRealBicycleBuck > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:22

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We’re opting for online school. It’s not the best option, but the school has already had problems over the summer. 

Ash78, voting early and often > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 17:23

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All it takes is an extra ~10% of the population who don’t believe this is an overblown media reaction to prevent Trump from getting re-elected. That can put a huge dent in the numbers.

I’m dead serious, I’ve heard this overtly from my MIL and, to a lesser degree, from my parents (who call it the Wuhan Flu). All of these people are educated, upper-middle class folks, not your stereotypical disaffected blue collar reactionaries .

What a world we live in where this has become politicized. The last I checked, the Libertarian tenets of Conservatism effectively state “You’re free to do what you want, as long as you’re not hurting others.”

You are hurting others.

Ash78, voting early and often > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/27/2020 at 17:27

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The positive rates should drop almost by definition, since more healthy people will get tested instead of just the sick ones. That’s sample bias at work.

I’m more interested in hospitalizations and deaths — they’re not predictive, but they’re more reliable. All the stats do seem to be improving for FL, TX, and AZ in the past few days....finally.

ttyymmnn > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/27/2020 at 17:29

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Round Rock ISD is doing the first three weeks all virtual, then you have the choice if “in-person” or online after that. We thought that in-person might be a more traditional school arrangement, but it turns out that it just means that the kids will be divided up into rooms where they will stay in the same room all day and do the online work at school rather than at home. Of course, that provides a place for parents to send their kids if the parents have to stay home and work and can’t deal with their kids,  or if the parents have to be out of the house to work. But with there being no difference between the actual material, our kids will stay home. We’re hoping, though, that there will still be extras, maybe after school, so they can take part in band at some point. I think what will really be driving the return to school and extras is football.

ttyymmnn > Ash78, voting early and often 07/27/2020 at 17:30

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https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/26/us/coronavirus-family-houston-masks.html

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > Ash78, voting early and often 07/27/2020 at 17:30

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Which makes the places where it’s very high even more concerning.

Glad things are turning in the right direction in those places. Had a conversation with someone here at work - even hospitalizations aren’t a great metric, because more minor cases that would’ve been sent home early now are being accepted and treated. Really need to know covid patients in ICU (vs capacity).

ranwhenparked > Ash78, voting early and often 07/27/2020 at 17:42

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Hospitalizations and deaths are really the only proven, verifiable statistics right know. We know with certainty who’s being admitted to hospital, and we know who’s dying.

We don’t know who has the virus, we just know who has the virus out of the pool of people who have been tested (and, even then, not really - you could get tested, get a negative result back, and have contracted the virus while waiting for that result). Half are asymptomatic, and most of the other half get symptoms that could be mistaken for something else, I know there’s been a push to get more asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic people tested, but I have to think there’s still going to be a lot of them that won’t bother to do it. The antibody studies done in CA, NY, and my state suggest that the number who have or had the virus could be as many as 10-15x higher than the official number. But, it’s a total crapshoot, we know it’s spread far and wide throughout the population, we just can’t tell how far and wide, and might never be able to with certainty.

But, we can count bodies and we can count occupied beds, so those numbers are absolutely real and verifiable. The other stuff is good to know, but the accuracy has been questionable from the start, given the sample bias of a still relatively small testing pool.

fintail > Ash78, voting early and often 07/27/2020 at 18:08

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FOX News will probably end up being responsible for the deaths of thousands.

I have otherwise literate and with-it people in my family tree who are sometimes beyond hope simply via their TV viewing habits.   A certain demographic in particular, the often whiny locusts that they sometimes can be, seem most susceptible to the con.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 18:15

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Melbourne, Australia is 4 days into this mask experiment. One cannot leave ones home without a facial covering or it’s a $200 fine. Compliance appears to be almost universal...

Mind you, the highest daily reported cases are currently maxing at around 600 in Victoria...not in the tens of thousands.

ttyymmnn > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 07/27/2020 at 18:40

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Good luck. Hopefully you won’t have so many self righteous dipshits who think that they are better than everybody else. I don’t think the rule is being enforced here at all, rather they are leaving it up to individual businesses to enforce their own mandate. I will say that the grocery store, warehouse store, Home Depot, liquor store, all the places I go regularly, have 99.5% compliance. 

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 19:27

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They’ ve had the odd one with one self-righteous fucknuckle making a spectacular splash by being refused entry to a Bunnings Warehouse due to the lack of mask and filming the rejection for her Facebook feed...it has gone nuts because of the idiot argument she tried to use which tied her own brain in a knot, let alone anyone elses...and she still posted it!

PatBateman > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 19:27

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So I work from home and am pretty much a god damned hermit (with the occasional run to HEB), with one exception: every day, at 5 am, I’m at the gym for 1-1.5 hours working out and lifting weights. I wear a mask at ALL TIMES, full finger workout gloves, hand sanitize my hands/gloves/forearms constantly, social distance, and wipe down machines before and after use. It’s a YUGE gym, so there might be 70-100 other people in there with me.

The GLARING fact is that most Millennial-aged patrons don’t wear masks at all. There’s the occasional older Gen Xer that refuses to wear one, but almost all the 20 and 30-somethings aren’t wearing anything over their ugly ass, sweaty, panting mugs. Despite popular belief, most of these Millennials aren’t white right-wingers that have seen too many YouTube videos regarding ‘Rona conspiracies. All colors, genders, and nationalities share in this moronic practice. This is the reason why, in my county, the positive COVID rates among this age bracket are skyrocketing.

So here I am, in the Houston ‘burbs, surrounded by dumbass Millennials who think they’re invincible and immune to the current pandemic. The only thing I can do is stay away from them the best I can and point this out to every yahoo that wants to blame political ideologies for the problem.

Also, get the hell off my lawn.

PS: I track all the data daily and watch for trends. I’m not just hypothesizing about Millennials; the raw data supports this.

ETA: I’m not saying tymn is talking about  politics.

66P1800inpieces > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 19:32

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Just walking down the street I need to watch out for maskless runners approaching from behind. If my dog on a 6ft leash can bite you, you are too close. Shit, there is a whole street and zero traffic , jog to the other side.

ttyymmnn > 66P1800inpieces 07/27/2020 at 21:31

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Our family takes walks in the evenings, and we always carry a mask. We’ll put them on when we pass somebody, and walk in the street to give a wide berth. Still, there are LOTS of people out and about these days, and most don’t wear masks on the trails and sidewalks. 

ttyymmnn > PatBateman 07/27/2020 at 21:34

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I tried very hard to stay away from politics. My only mention was of how Abbott went against the current political trend, and for that I give him high marks.

We took our evening walk after supper, and there was a big group of millennials at the park playing volleyball and whooping it up, and there was another group playing ultimate frisbee. No masks at all. They just don’t care.

Sigh....

ttyymmnn > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 07/27/2020 at 21:34

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“ fucknuckle”

*writes that one down for future use”

PatBateman > ttyymmnn 07/27/2020 at 22:35

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Yes, after I made the comment, I wanted to clarify I wasn’t saying you were applying politics to the situation.

I’m all for cops writing tickets now. Sorry, but this is just stupid. A coworker’s 20-something son decided he was immune and took a weekend to party with friends down at the bars. He got COVID. Since he was staying with his dad, he brought it home and his stepmom and sister caught it.

So fun. 

Sovande > PatBateman 07/28/2020 at 05:12

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Spending an hour and a half a day in gym with 75 other people, some of whom aren't wearing masks, seems like asking for it.

PatBateman > Sovande 07/28/2020 at 09:59

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Not really.  When I say it’s a huge gym, it really is a huge gym.  Spread out over the gym floor, it’s sparsely populated.  

Sovande > PatBateman 07/28/2020 at 10:01

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I'm sure it's fine, but I just won't take the risk. It's not worth it. 

PatBateman > Sovande 07/28/2020 at 10:07

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Understandable. The only reason why I’m going is that the health benefits greatly outweigh the risk. My family has a consistent history of strokes occurring in our mid to late fifties. While I’m still a decade and a half away from that, I need to stay as fit as possible if I want to see retirement.

Real life is fun.

Sovande > PatBateman 07/28/2020 at 10:47

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I hear you. I realized about a year and half ago that at 6'4" and 270 pounds I was too heavy. I’m at 210 now, but it’s hard as hell to keep off because I can’t do much real exercise after I had knee surgery that failed. I can walk, but only for a couple miles at a time. I can ride a bike, but afterwards, I can’t walk. 

Stay healthy!

PatBateman > Sovande 07/28/2020 at 12:24

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I’m right there with you. 3.5 years ago, I was 260, 6'. I had already had a blown L4-L5 disc that required surgery, and the doctor had been trying to get me on cholesterol medicine for years. I lost about 85 lbs in 16 months, maintained, then got extremely active. Running, 5k and 8k races, lifting weights... I can’t go back to where I was at the beginning of 2017.

I’m at 210 right now, but most of what I’ve gained over the past year is muscle. Trimming down to below 10% BF now. Many people will say that it’s vanity forcing me to do this, but I don’t want to have to retire due to multiple strokes at 55 like my grandfather did (and die in my early 60's).

So, the gym it is!!

Sovande > PatBateman 07/28/2020 at 13:02

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I do some pushups and some situps, and I walk as far as I can which was 3.5 miles on Saturday, but only 1 mile yesterday. I want to get to 204 because that would put me in the “ o ptimal” weight range on the BMI chart. Hopefully once my new insurance gets started at my new job I can get my knee fixed again . I was laid off before my final appointment and lost my insurance which has been whole other kettle of fish.

PatBateman > Sovande 07/28/2020 at 13:39

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This is going to sound cliche, but have you tried Keto?  I do a VERY HEALTHY version, as in very little butter/saturated fats, lean meats, green veggies, etc.  Normal Keto is how I lost the 85 lbs.

Sovande > PatBateman 07/28/2020 at 13:48

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Nah, I’m like 6 pounds from my goal and in no specific rush. I just want to get to that weight to say I did. The only thing I did to lose the weight was eat less and exercise more. And not a lot more, either. I was at a job site at the time I decided to get skinny and it was easy to walk 7-9 miles a day, once that ended I’ve just been walking as much as I can and eating healthier (and less). 

hillrat > PatBateman 07/29/2020 at 07:34

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I went to the gym ONCE after they reopened here and decided it wasn’t a good idea given what we know.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media 07/29/2020 at 17:58

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Maybe o n Stralia, but not in Murica. Y’all also gave up your guns, didn’t you?

(That’s me trying to sound like a MAGA.)

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 07/29/2020 at 18:00

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The problem is, they make you look like a wimp. Like backing up to the cell door.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 07/29/2020 at 18:00

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I think I read a higher number than that today.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/29/2020 at 18:01

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Whether by Zoom or sitting in a desk, school is what you make of it. And I assume you’ll be helping yours make the most out of it.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > ttyymmnn 07/29/2020 at 18:03

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The Fed is out with it’s periodic astrological prediction which reads to my paraphrase like, “If we fix Rona, the economy won’t suck it so hard.”

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > PatBateman 07/29/2020 at 18:03

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I would not personally want to even walk past a gym.

What are you wearing for a mask?

PatBateman > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/29/2020 at 18:07

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I wear a surgical mask as well as a fishing gaiter mask (because I have a beard and the surgical mask doesn’t do a great job with that).

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > PatBateman 07/29/2020 at 18:08

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Your line about Ttyymmn and the politics made me smile. Even if he did, so what? Because masks are politics, which distresses me.

Cops writing tickets? When it’s politically acceptable for Sheriffs to refuse to enforce any order they find politically distasteful? I am not disagreeing with your position, I’m only laughing in ironic dismay at the hopelessness of the prospect.

And Mr. 20-something should be bare-assed paddled with a frat paddle whether or not his family members survive COVID.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > PatBateman 07/29/2020 at 18:11

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I make masks from scratch that are 100% cotton, two-layered, and I insert a layer of Level-3 surgical mask in between. They’re generously sized so cover a beard quite well. Also, the way I do the wire across the bridge of the nose, they seal ver y well. Can I send you one? Email me: oliphant.chuckerbutty@gmail.com

PatBateman > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/29/2020 at 18:33

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I try to disconnect wearing masks from politics, because it’s 100% silly. We all know PLENTY of people that do, but holy HELL I can’t stand it (from either side of the spectrum). The talk about “I have the right to not wear a mask be an inconsiderate asshole”, the “tRumpettes are the ones spreading it” bullcrap ... I can’t stand it, because it’s so blindly biased and cognizantly ignorant of reality. And yes, the local Sheriff won’t enforce anything because he’s a R running for Congress, but the county judge (executive over the county) is a D, and he’s not doing anything either.

AND I USED TO BE INVOLVED WITH POLITICS!

Let me tell you, I was in a fraternity in college, and I would have lit my fraternity brother up for constantly talking smack trying to incite the guy into a fight, but then not getting out of the truck.  At that point, it’s “shut up or put up”, and all he had to do was drive away if he had no intention of fighting the guy.  So yes, a paddling (or at the very least a call out) would’ve been appropriate.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > PatBateman 07/29/2020 at 21:00

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Everything you’ve talked about in this reply disgusts me. I am not having a good afternoon.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/29/2020 at 21:49

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We have some challenges with our son. He does a lot better when he’s at school in a more structured environment. Scheduling and focus are two of his major challenges. I’m not sure if he realizes it, but his mom is going to be all over him this fall to make sure he gets his work done. She’s preparing to go full teacher mode.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/29/2020 at 23:30

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This is all very stressful. I did a master’s degree a few years back. I could’ve really just coasted through the entire thing, but I’m paying good money and spending real time, so why not use the opportunity to learn something or pursue things that interest me? I realized looking back and looking forward that education is pretty much whatever you make of it; you get out commensurate with what you put in. That would be a difficult concept for a young one to appreciate, but that’s what I figured out. And for my part as a teacher, going all Zoom, I’m going to have it there, hopefully, enough for the kids to use and learn something. If they don’t want to make anything out of it, it’s their loss. I am just not going to get worked up about it. Then again, most of my students do not have you and Mrs. Buck as parents, supporting and encouraging them. So I’m just not always sure how to feel about any of this.,

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/30/2020 at 00:10

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I have stories about being an academic that line up with what you’re saying. I had one student who was certain that he was going to be a pro football player, so that’s where he put his focus. He wasted his education. Failed my class three times. Ran out of eligibility and I never heard from him again.

As a member of the academic appeals committee, I dealt with students who were failing to show adequate progress toward a degree. I felt that kids who were failing college needed to step away for a year and reevaluate their situation. In my mind, the goal should have been to keep the kids from going deeper into debt when they weren’t prepared to take on college.

I was in the minority.

The other committee members explained to me that most of the kids who made it to our committee had terrible home lives and this was their only chance to see what life could be like away from home. Suspending them would force them to return home and they would never return. As you can guess, my votes were always overruled.

I laud you for your efforts to teach kids, especially online. I have long held the belief that there is a significant benefit to teaching in a classroom and most kids will not perform well in an online-only setting. Without my wife at home to help shepherd my son through his online coursework this fall, I’m afraid he would fail. His biggest problems are scheduling and distractions . As long as my wife can help with those problems, he should do fine. There’s no way I could expect him to tackle an online-only education alone. He needs the structured environment.

I worry about the kids in school today. This is going to be one hell of an experiment.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRealBicycleBuck 07/30/2020 at 00:28

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The students who get the most out of school will continue to get the most out of school, is my theory. A great chunk of the kids that I encounter in middle school, perhaps 2/3 of them, all they get is socialization. they get a relationship with me and other adults, but academically, they get zero. But then so it was with me when I was in school myself. I was just an academic dud. It wasn’t until later in life when I was in the military and I saw that amir college degree could let people have something shiny on their hat that I would have to salute that I realized I wanted to have an education. And then I went to Junior college and signed up for elementary algebra and went all the way to a math degree. I’m a secondary mathematics teacher with a single subject mathematics teaching credential  who never passed algebra in high school.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/30/2020 at 01:24

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That’s a great story! I had an uncle who was a few moths younger than me. All our lives, I performed well and he, well, he was a screwup. The biggest difference between us was discipline. My grandmother was 40 when he was born, so she and grandpa were old and tired and not willing to discipline him the way his siblings were disciplined.

After he graduated, he tried community college and failed. He ended up with a pregnant girlfriend with a job at a convenience store. That’s when he realized that he needed a better path. So, he joined the Navy.

He was top in his class and went on to a couple of specialty schools. He never got that education, but he did well. He later told me that the Navy gave him the discipline he needed to be successful. There are a lot of people out there who would do well with a stint in the military.

SilentButNotReallyDeadly...killed by G/O Media > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/30/2020 at 06:23

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Make A Gnu Angry?

Yeah, that gun thing is completely wrong too.

PatBateman > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo 07/30/2020 at 10:24

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Brother,I was right there with you yesterday. In a crap mood, I almost felt like I was on the verge of fighting an imaginary foe getting in my face. Don’t know why...

Here’s to a better day today!!