October-November Coronavirus News

[Ponyfan]

We haven’t had a new coronavirus thread for a while.  The current situation where I live is 17,478 cases, 176 deaths.

 My city has reached 7 consecutive days of covid hospitalizations over 15% of total hospital capacity. Tomorrow rollback shutdown announcements are expected.  Restaurants and most likely other businesses will go back to 50%  occupancy and bars will close again.

The biggest university in town has announced they will only have online classes after Thanksgiving break until the end of the semester and spring break will only be one day to try to prevent students from going home for it.

Ponyfan

[Shaymin568]

New York City resident reporting in. Restaurants are at 25% capacity but it's purely optional and up to businesses whether or not to do indoor dining. Certain areas have had spikes in cases and areas have been deemed red or orange zones with tighter restrictions. Colleges have been online only since the beginning of September.

[Taffeta]

UK is doing things by country and by region.
In England, much of the North is under tier 3 which means bars etc closing and some stringent limits on hanging out together.
Where I am is currently the lowest tier where it's just social distancing, wear masks, 10pm curfew for bars which I don't care about. But because we're high risk, honestly, the way we are continuing right now is more strict than even in Tier 3.

Scotland has its own tier system introduced. Wales are doing a 17 day circuitbreak where everything nonessential is shut down. a Welsh Tesco store got in trouble today for deciding sanitary products were not essential. Can only imagine that decision was made by a man...

We're between Tier 2 Birmingham and Circuit Break Wales, so who knows where things are going to go from here. Our cases are up but our hospitals are coping at present and still running normal services.

Frankly I think if we'd all done a 2 week circuit break a month ago we'd all be better off. Unfortunately it seems like there are a bunch of people in this country who can't cope with not going to a pub for 2 weeks and they like to whine about it a whole lot.

Zero tolerance for people complaining about any level of lockdown over here if they haven't had to endure actual hardship or difficulty such as losing their business/income/housing/a relative or having to shield.

Most of the people whining the loudest seem to be people who went on holiday in the summer, like to go to restaurants and who don't think it's important to get a test or self isolate if they are waiting for a test result.

It would be nice if the media would stop flashing the hardship of the people who can't go out on a weekend and started reminding people what the real cost and reason for this is. Like we don't already have enough conspiracy nuts. Some of whom have died from COVID already.

...So on the good news, the reports are that Oxford's vaccine is producing immune responses in all age groups. There are rumours health workers may be vaccinated before Christmas if the third stage of trials reports positively. We'll see.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

We're almost at 200,000 cases in the state of PA. It barely feels like there's even a pandemic anymore, no one seems to be taking distancing seriously. Our case increase is similar to what it was in April. Some local schools have hybrid classes going on, it's been a few weeks and it seems like there hasn't been much incident with them.
I got my flu shot about two weeks ago, I'm sure a lot of people are going to skip it this year because flu doesn't tend to be at the forefront of our minds. I am curious how the holidays and eventual temperature drops will go.

[banditpony]

Ohio hit 200,000 today. We are trending up with cases + hospitalizations. My local county gives out very detailed data, so I'm grateful for that.

I'm just worried that people will not dial back their halloween plans and if that will have a negative impact on my area since we aren't doing that great lately...  There are big consequences if hospitals get overloaded. We'll see, I guess. Maybe I worry too much.

I hope everyone in a current hot spot is staying as safe as possible.

[Barnacle_lady]

Up here in The Netherlands were are in partial lockdown.
Which means in short that restaurants & cafes are closed (take out only), after 8 every shop has to be closed but only supermarkets are allowed to stay open. And they are not allowed to sell alcohol after 8. Wear facial masks in shops.
And stay at home as much as possible.
Later this week it will be more  clear if it helped or if we are going in real lockdown which is the next step.

Even though all the rules there are still people who feel it's not for them. So a lot of illegal parties going on and busy streets and parks.

[BlackCurtains]

Florida remains a mess, surprise. 782,013 cases, 48,281 hospitalizations and 16,449 deaths. On October 5th alone, nearly 60 people died.

Infection rate is staying the same but for a while the death toll was going down steadily. The Governor opened the state to Phase 3 and deaths started climbing again. Phase 3 is basically act as if everything is back to pre-covid unless you don't want to, as a business. Kids are back in school and the counties are fighting the parents on a mask mandate. Parents claim their precious can't breathe in a mask all day and the county says too bad, so it's this whole thing.

I haven't been out much at all. Delivery services are still contactless and the people wear masks. The only store I've been in was Wal-Mart and they no longer require a mask, they took up the 6ft and one way shopping stickers. Most people were still wearing masks (I mean, it should be habit by this point, no?) but there were a few that didn't have them. I don't go anywhere without mine, and won't be for a loooong time. Florida is still a hot spot. Travel is NOT restricted anymore. The theme parks are open, most running a Halloween special. So it's like, a cat telling the mouse the trap is totally a carnival ride. And the trap is the cats mouth.

[Pokeyonekenobie]

Governor Herbert just sent out a mass text to everyone in Utah saying that hospitalizations and case growth due to Covid isn't sustainable and at 9:30 he'll be issuing a new state of emergency, a statewide mask mandate, restrictions on social gatherings and expanded testing.

I thought there was already a mask mandate and gatherings were limited to 10 or fewer people.  I guess we'll see what he adds in another 15 minutes or so.

Post Merge: November 08, 2020, 10:24:37 PM

Okay, so we now have 4 "new" mandates.
1) Masks are required (which they already were) in public places and businesses have to have signs up about it (which they already do) or they can be fined.  Because apparently we haven't noticed this whole Covid thing for the last 8 months or so. 

2) No casual social gatherings with anyone outside our immediate households for 2 weeks.  So if I have a formal event it's okay? Break out the black ties and ball gowns...

3) 2-week postponing of all sports and after school activities with the exception of high school playoff and championship games and intercollegiate sports.  (Football good, spelling bee bad...)

4) Expansion of testing operations.  Weekly testing for university students and will expand to include high school students who participate in extracurricular activities, people in the workforce under 35 and high school teachers.  So since I'm not under 35 I don't have to be tested every week but my younger co-workers do.  Seems legit.

If you read the actual executive order, I can host an event if I have the mask mandate/6-foot distancing rules posted even though we're not supposed to have social gatherings.  I cannot see my brother if he is not in my immediate household but I can go to a football game and be surrounded by a bunch of people I don't know.  Because that makes sense.

Is it sad that the mandate actually says that it's not required to wear a mask while eating, sleeping, or swimming?

The video message
https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=533&v=agZElZxXHag&feature=emb_logo

The actual mandate
https://coronavirus-download.utah.gov/Governor/EO-2020-73-temporary-statewide-covid-19-restrictions.pdf

I just find the whole "now we're freaking out" thing stupid.  This is stuff that has been happening for months now and if people haven't been doing it already, they aren't going to start now.  They've declared states of emergency before now.  They've had mask mandates before now.  They've said no social gatherings before now.  They've said that we should test people before now. 

I'll keep doing what I'm supposed to but I don't have any delusions about the people around me doing what they should. If everyone was already doing these things, they wouldn't have to declare a state of emergency and tell everyone this again.

[Shaymin568]

New York reporting in! Well Governor Cuomo announced that all restaurants and bars will have to close at 10pm EST and only do takeout after that starting tomorrow. On a closer to home note, idiot customers at my job have been trying to be sneaky and take their masks off when employees are not looking, but we're not stupid and tell them to put the mask back on. And it's followed by some variant of "BUt I NeED tO BrEAthe!!" 

[Taffeta]

Our local council is getting really specific about its information.

Today they released intel ward by ward about numbers.

And our ward, apparently, is the ward with the fewest cases at present.

Some tiny light in a dark tunnel maybe?

Week 1 in lockdown. Genuinely hoping it brings the numbers down.

Flicked across CNN today and saw them do a completely inaccurate report on COVID in the UK. Starting with the fact they recorded that the UK has a national lockdown, which it doesn't. England has a national lockdown. Scotland has tier restrictions. Northern Ireland has an entirely separate lockdown which began earlier than England's did. And Wales just came out of a 2 week firebreak with restrictions in place.

I'd let them off but the person reporting was actually IN the UK.

Plus our case numbers are doubling every 24 days, which is down from every 2 weeks as was reported a few weeks ago. The number of projected cases in the UK day by day is not rising exponentially although they're fairly sure the national figures are missing a good bunch (I get this data NOT from government sources but from scientific data from research institutions doing studies on the pandemic).

The down side to this is that it is very regional. The North West's numbers seem to be coming down. The Midlands' numbers are not just yet. But the problem is the media are so wedded to the idea of the north/south divide that I am certain they won't give the same attention to the region.

Mass testing is being rolled out across cities, starting in Liverpool in the last week and soon moving to other areas as well. Not our borough yet but some of the hotspots in the region are going to get it.

And some hospitals in the UK are having to cancel elective procedures because of COVID cases. But our health trust is not one of those as yet.

[Beth3346]

Well the US had 150,000 new cases today. we just hit the record of 100,000 new cases a few days ago. so that doesn't make me feel good about our prospects for the holiday season. i'm not even sure if the old covid task force is still a thing. our vp who is the head of the task force is vacationing in Florida. I don't think we'll get more stimulus before the end of the year. So no increased unemployment benefits or help for states and cities who missed a lot of tax revenue. Happy Holidays everyone

President elect Biden has already named his task force so hopefully we'll get a more coherent response after Jan 20. Too late for the holidays though.

We're still essentially acting like there is a quarantine. same as back in April. I'm getting less optimistic about seeing my parents for thanksgiving in 2 weeks. I doubt Texas will shut down again no matter what. We'll probably have a repeat of the summer with local lockdowns and lots of confusion.

We're still under a mask mandate but restaurants can open at 75% i think. Bars in Austin are still closed but in my county they can open.

I am hopeful about an upcoming vaccine but it will be a while before its rolled out.

[tailrustedtealeaf]

Sounds like people are panic buying again, but it's hard to tell since we have Thanksgiving buying as well. We're doing the thing we did at the start of the pandemic where high-demand items would have some boxes set aside for employees, since we can't buy things until after our shift usually. This time its with cleaning supplies, which makes me think Panic Buying...
Our governor is talking with NY and NJ's gov to see what they may do. I don't really want a lockdown and I think most of whats spreading is through small gatherings, but I'm not sure what else can be done...

[Taffeta]

Am resigning myself that we won't have a family Christmas this year. I guess being all safe is more important so we're aiming for that first and foremost.

Some idiots keep printing off nonsense about Magna Carta and posting it in their windows claiming it means they can break the law and stay open. They can't. As a history graduate I want to go shake them, hard. Only 4 clauses of Magna Carta are still in law today. The one they're citing isn't one of them, as they would know if they actually did any history, rather than printing something off from some random person they met on social media. Also that I'm pretty sure it would only have applied to them if they happened to be one of a handful of (now long dead) mediaeval barons. And since these posters are mostly appearing in salons and coffee shops, I think that's unlikely >.>

Another guy got fined for opening his gym repeatedly. He stated, that he didn't see any reason why he should close except that there was legislation.

...Erm. Legislation isn't good enough? Fine then.

Numbers in my local area are not so great right now. I don't know if they were like this at the peak in spring - I suspect they were, as we had no local community testing - but it's somehow more intimidating now ONS can give us really local information. Though the govt is confused about how many people per 100k that means, because they randomly changed the population figure and I don't know which one is right. I know my ward has a population of around 3-4000 people. I have no idea about the neighbouring one, though, or why we are being given stats with that ward and not separately ><.

[Beth3346]

Am resigning myself that we won't have a family Christmas this year. I guess being all safe is more important so we're aiming for that first and foremost.

Us too. We were planning for my parents to visit for Thanksgiving and Christmas but with case numbers going through the roof it's just not worth the risk. I haven't seen them in almost a year and it looks like it will be at least a year before they can visit safely. As much as I want them to visit I would prefer that all of us survive this pandemic. We'll probably end up doing holidays in March or April.

Taffeta, that incident at the gym sounds very similar to an incident they had here in Texas with a salon owner. She ended up running for a seat on the Texas senate. She's in a runoff so she may win. I feel like some people do this to get infamous by railing against government orders.

[Bright_Glow]

These are the actual coronavirus data from Hungary:
CORONAVIRUS: 174,618 infected. In compulsory home quarantine: 42,370. Recovered: 42,915 Deceased: 3,800.

The daily infection rate is around 3,000
The daily death rate is around 100-120

The mayors have no infection and quarantine data since the first wave ended in May. They only got infection and quarantine info during the first wave.
We only know from the local press's website and Facebook page that a teacher has died in covid-19 last week, but no official local death info.

We have night curfew from 8 pm-5 am since the 11 November. We'll see on Wednesday if there will be a full lockdown here like the one  Austria rolled out last Tuesday.

I have two negative PCR test results and no positive PCR test results 

I work as a social worker in a nursery where mentally and psychically handicapped/disabled people lives. (sorry I don't know how to describe it better in English )
The home became a serious coronavirus hotspot in early October. luckily no one got into hospital or passed away while most of our residents have chronic diseases.