outbreak! (ebola, sars, coronavirus, etc)

ok, hot

iirc, masks mandated for indoor sex only, outdoor sex masks are only recommended.

Are restaurants and bars open?

only for masked indoor sex with your man date

i get the feeling some people in this thread think the false positive test rate is large. it's not!

I agree it's terrible to have to put a "price on the human life" but I definitely sympathize with man alive's point here, this stretching out from one year of remote learning and lockdown to 2 or 3 or possibly more has its own consequences which I don't think should be dismissed. having to do remote learning kindergarten with a 3 year old in the house while also working a full-time job was really difficult! They want to go to school. I want them to go to school. I have come to terms with the fact that even if vaxxed we will probably wind up getting it at some point. And as much as I hate to think about it, everything poses some form of risk. At their ages (6 & 4) isn't pneumonia a bigger threat?

The thing is I'm a lot less of a jerk about this stuff IRL than I am on the internet. I wear a mask whenever I go into a store even if not required, we mostly keep any social stuff outdoors, no indoor dining etc. I generally limit my IRL complaints to stuff that really impacts my kids (e.g. can they please have more than 10 minutes from the moment they have to get their lunches out to the moment they have to be put away, they're coming home hungry). But I kind of feel the need to push back a little just to have some understanding of how safe we are trying to or expect to make things (or possibly even can) / what the metrics could/would be for easing up, etc. I live in NY which is at least "pretty good," at dealing with the pandemic right now, not Florida level, and maybe if every state was even "pretty good" we'd be on our way out of this. At the same time I wonder if NY is just going to get hit by the same thing Florida has now in the Winter. IDK. I might be wrong about everything. It's pretty hard to know.

I will wear a mask whenever I need to and whenever I am asked to. (#batman) But there are definitely people out there taking things to extremes of caution I am uncomfortable with. For example, on a Facebook group for parents of high school students here, someone posted that their kid had a headache so they kept him home, and another parent self-righteously amplified, good, headaches are a symptom of covid. Well, headaches are also a symptom of every fucking thing!

it’s actually not that hard at all, you are wrong and you enjoy the mild humiliation of ppl w more sense telling you over and over that you are wrong

xp

i get the feeling some people in this thread think the false positive test rate is large. it's not!

― 𝔠𝔞𝔢𝔨 (caek), Monday, September 13, 2021 1:11 PM bookmarkflaglink

isn't it like .2% or something ridiculously small?

it's false negatives that are much higher

lol xp

yeah, PCR FPR is a lot less than 1%

LF FPR is like 2% or something.

i guess the problem is when you have 30 kids without covid taking a LF test with a FPR of 2%. the probability that at least one of them gets a false positive is 1 - (1-0.02)^30 = 55%.

if the rule is "if just one kid tests positive the entire class must isolate" then yeah that's de facto "schools are closed now" and i can see the concern.

but would that be the rule if the US actually started testing people routinely? it's not how it's done in the UK, which i generally assume is more aggressive about this.

mbison otm.

So my son's district is starting salvia based testing next week, I honestly haven't yet had a chance to dig in too deeply wrt how that compares to FPR with other methods.

It's what we used at my university until July, after which we switched to the nasal PCRs.

very jealous that I wasn't given salvia when I was in school, would've made it so much more entertaining

lol

We saw a big printed sign in front of a testing facility the other day announcing that they were now doing salvia testing. Kinda wanted to pop in and give them a hand.

Yeah my work still uses the saliva testing (sadly not salvia), but I haven't had to have it done since I've been back.

just reading the word "salvia" sends a chill down my spine

Can't stress how wild the ivermectin Facebook groups have become. So many people insisting to each other to never go to an ER, in part because they might not get ivermectin, but sometimes because they fear nurses are killing them on purpose "for the insurance money."

— Ben Collins (@oneunderscore__) September 13, 2021

I would get a job as a nurse in an ER if I could kill an anti-vaxxer for insurance money

Well, yeah.

My husband would be so rich.

They want you to get vaccinated for the Met. if I get vaccinated it won’t for the Met. It’ll be once I feel I’ve done enough research. I’m working on that now. In the meantime my loves, be safe. Wear the mask with 2 strings that grips your head & face. Not that loose one 🙏♥️

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2021

"research"

Back in the lab again.

My cousin in Trinidad won’t get the vaccine cuz his friend got it & became impotent. His testicles became swollen. His friend was weeks away from getting married, now the girl called off the wedding. So just pray on it & make sure you’re comfortable with ur decision, not bullied

— Nicki Minaj (@NICKIMINAJ) September 13, 2021

the girl sounds nice, too bad he couldn't marry her because of his testicles

"Oh, my, god, Nicki, look at his balls. They are so big. He looks like one of those rap girl's boyfriends. I mean, his balls, they're just so big. Ugh, I can't believe they're both just so round. They're like out there, I mean, ugh, gross."

— Drew Magary (@drewmagary) September 13, 2021

nicki hun wtf are you doing

-10k cases in the UK today compared to last week when a surge due to schools reopening was meant to be happening.

Think it's time to say that bar stuff like international travel or a new variant like Delta the pandemic will be over in the UK by Xmas.

Why not just say it's over now, lots of people have and it's a fun + popular opinion

Ok

merry xmas (pandemic is over, if you want it)

not taking sides; i don't know the UK pandemic situation right now. just wanted to make sure the obligatory music pun was there

xyzzzz I'm not sure there's been time for transmission + positive tests + quarantining to have happened? They've only been back to school for like 5-7 days.

Sim-ply
Go-orging
On all the ivectermin

xpost

Fair enough thought it was 10+ days xxp

Like I know people whose kids didn't go back until this past Wednesday.

That said, testing of every secondary school child (whose parents consented - I haven't seen stats on this) before actually entering a classroom has probably made a difference!

the number of daily deaths in the UK is still in triple figures.

and they've just been on the telly setting forward their autumn / winter preparations.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-58560031

I didn't think I was necessarily taking sides either except I guess I am taking the 'the predictive power of human beings with respect to anything concerning the COVID-19 pandemic has proven to be magnificently shitty' side

If the case numbers keep going down, so will hospitalisations and deaths too xp

In terms of government announcements that's just to look like being on the safe side. Hospitalisations and deaths are at like 1/5 of the early year peak. There won't be another lockdown unless there is a new variant that changes this.

We must be just about out of Greek letters at this point so I assume the variants are about done.

So Hebrew letters then, like Cantor dust etc?

We must be just about out of Greek letters at this point so I assume the variants are about done.

― Marty J. Bilge (Old Lunch), Tuesday, 14 September 2021 bookmarkflaglink

Good to see you are thinking about this.

what I was saying back during Alpha in the US, that there are some people who are never going to 'trust' that things are much safer now because of just how traumatic this pandemic has been....I feel like that's like 10 times as true now.

people are already accusing some of the leading stats guys of being 'liars' when they post analysis showing a drop in cases, I've had friends chastise me for downplaying the pandemic (wtf).

however I have learned I am capable of enduring way more than I ever thought of mentally speaking. I would have assumed I'd have ODed on my SSRIs by now if you told me back in 2019 what was coming