Just not in English.
English is the language of slave masters.
You mean Arabic.
3 Likes
In other places it’s possible that there was a lack of supplies and infrastructure, but not in Ontario. Here in Ottawa there were two testing centers at first and both turned away nearly everyone who showed up for a test. You had to either be hospitalized or a healthcare worker with COVID symptoms to get tested, otherwise you needed a referral. When the pandemic was at its peak, only a few hundred tests were carried out per day across the province. Now it’s 20,000-30,000.
The government has totally changed their tune in that time as well, back then they said to simply self-isolate if you had symptoms and that for most people the virus was very mild. Now it’s like the end of the world if you get infected. Nobody was concerned with asymptomatic cases until more recently, and if more tests had been done sooner you an be sure the number of case would have been a hell of a lot higher.
The problem is that there wasn’t really any middle ground in the beginning, it was either shut down everything and stay home or act like nothing happened.
I hear a plastic bag is an affordable alternative, much more effective too. Just make sure you tie it real tight around your neck, you don’t want any air getting in or out.
1 Like
I’m a bit confused by this thread. I get the debate about shutdowns and such but is there any debate about the efficacy of wearing a mask to minimize spread and prevent infection? Because that’s retar… I mean, that’s the r-word.
I know there are some anti-maskers who complain that they find it hard to breathe with a mask on. OK, let’s assume they are telling the truth. Since we know that the molecules that make up the air we breathe are much, much smaller than a virus (let alone a virus in a droplet), if it’s hard for those molecules that make up the air we breathe to get through a mask, then how the hell does a virus contained in a droplet get through?
1 Like
Maybe so. I’m not at all familiar with Canada’s situation besides what you’ve posted in this thread, so I won’t argue. I was, though, thinking about shortages on the manufacturer side (before the test center ever sees them) like everyone was saying to save the masks for the hospital workers. I know the spool up in manufacturing has been dramatic but not instant.
If by ‘they’ you mean Japan and S. Korea, that is not true. According to the latest data, Japan has only tested 8370 per 1 million/ pop. S. Korea has tested 32,275 per 1 million/ pop. and the USA has tested 204,221 per 1 million/ pop.
Hence we have a larger amount of tests conducted per population, but what we don’t know is how many of these are retests of the same people.
But you are right in the sense that it’s not totally useless. We can still tabulate number of positives against number of tests conducted and we can tabulate deaths as percentage of positive tests. That can give us some information but it still cannot tell us what to do about it.
In the end that’s my question, what should we have done that we did not do? And what should we do now?
Should we not build in a margin of error? We do know there have been problems with reporting, we just don’t know how much. I will concede that I do not think that it counts for the majority, but how much error do we build in? 3%? 6%?
I don’t know.
My contention is that at the time of the initial outbreak: Feb-May ish (as in, not the last couple months) they tested more than we did. From what I can see that’s still true. I was not clear about articulating that.
It is true we ramped up testing, but we lagged seriously for months.
That is a very good question. I’ve written about that a bunch of times earlier in this thread, so I don’t feel the need to really rehash it in detail.
Yes. All statistics have a margin of error when properly maintained.
3% <<<<<<< 3500%.
New Zealand outbreak up to 17 now. So far all one cluster but source still a mystery.
Cuomo in court today regarding class action lawsuit keeping gyms closed in NYS. Hopefully his ass is handed to him.
At one point the provincial government decide to make testing more readily available and set a goal of testing at least 16,000 people per day. It took a while before they got enough people willing to take the test and like I said it’s now up to 20-30k. A large part of that is because healthcare workers are now required to be tested regularly, but everyone is now eligible for testing whether or not they have symptoms or have been in contact with anyone confirmed to be infected.
1 Like
I can’t argue with that, but we are testing for a new disease. It stands to reason there wasn’t a hell of a lot of lag time between the outbreak and the means to test to ramp up test production. And we are a comparatively large, spread out population which makes it more difficult.
I will look for your earlier posts. If by chance you could point me to an approximate location, I would appreciate it.
Surgical masks are supposedly up to 80% effective at preventing infection with the flu, cloth masks would be significantly less effective. I say plastic bags are the only hope for the future of mankind.
You can also catch COVID through your eyes, which is why healthcare workers in some places are wearing face shields. But yeah, the argument you describe there makes no sense. Masks are just uncomfortable and annoying, I work in a hot kitchen and if I’m in front of the stove with a mask on it will quickly be soaked in sweat and rendered ineffective.
Here in WA, my hole-in-the-wall gym reopened 2 weeks ago. You have to schedule a 1 hour time slot, and only a miximum of 5 slots available each hour, and only 3 visits per week per client. Masks are required to be worn when near anyone else, but otherwise not required.
Honestly, its been pretty safe i feel like. I do my warmup stuff, and any other things i can think of outside in the parking lot, and then come inside to bang out my working sets in about 30 minutes. I rarely have to wear a mask because there is never more than 2 other people in the gym during my early AM or late PM timeslots. I, along with everyone else is super OCD about wiping everything we touch and use down, and everyone uses hand sanitizer between exercises. Its awkward, but its good that its awkward.
However, in a less progressive area where folks dont believe in masks or covid, and where severe crowd restrictions arent enforced i can see gyms being super unsafe. For example, i dont see a possible way to safely operate a BJJ/MMA/grappling gym.
That said, starting 2 weeks out from my wedding i will go back to in-home workouts as its not worth chancing getting sick and either canceling the wedding, or infecting one of our older parents.
1 Like
I’d rather wear a mask and be open then not wear one and have a lock down.
The efficacy of masks is a different question all together and it’s filled with nuance, which most people cannot seem to deal with. Combined with hand washing and careful behavior the mask can be a net positive. Masks alone, touching them all the time, moving them around, taking them on and off, which seems to be the behavior of most, is ineffective.
But hey, you look responsible!
I am just grateful I live in a red state. We are 90% open. I can go to the gym, soak in a steam bath until I wrinkle and work on making gains. That has saved me mentally. I’d probably be swinging from a tree branch by the neck without some release…
He has provided literally no rationale for his continued closure except “Science and data.” “We know…” literally lawyer speak for “we are full of shit and don’t actually have proof to substantiate our claim.”
My gym is 12,500 sq ft. We don’t have any more than 50 people in there at peak hours. Owner has installed multiple cleaning stations, spaced equipment out, and put up plexiglass at the front desk.
It’s beyond insane at this point.
Since gyms don’t generate enough tax revenue for the state, he doesn’t see any reason to let them open anytime soon. It’s a “dangerous activity.”
I am super happy for you that you can go to the gym! It was life changing for me to go back. Fortunately, my gym is a hole in the wall. Most people play racquetball, I have the weight room to myself, a lot of the time. I don’t wear the mask because I would inhale it, or it would disintegrate from sweat. But I am often by myself I stay far away from people when they are there, and I wipe everything down, handles, bars, pegs, etc. when I am done.
Congrats on the wedding!
1 Like
For sure, and that is what should have been done in the beginning instead of shutting everything down.
I just know I have become incredibly depressed since he closed them in March and there is no timeline as to when they can reopen. Ugh.