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OT: Coronavirus Resources - and other things to not worry about

WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
My brother recently had to quarantine because he was advised that one of his fellow teachers had tested positive. But he wasn't permitted to know which teacher so he had no idea whether or not he had even come in contact with said teacher. He had to quarantine over xmas while my octogenarian parents had to spend the day alone because he didn't want to put them at risk. In the end, he tested negative.
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okay? not really sure of your point here tbh.
 
Preston said:
This makes sense to me and while I do think ventilation is important, I haven't seen any data about things like HEPA filters actually working to limit the spread.

TLDR: I'm not sure what would make schools safer, especially in the winter months. They aren't trying, which is the main issue, but even if they did try, everything that folks suggest isn't necessarily proven to work.
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It may be as simple as testing everything that moves and isolating cases. Things they have decided to abandon.
 
trujaysfan said:
Testing, limit class sizes (as suggest before the school years started but never happened), proper masks for educators, acknowledging covid is airborne and possibly hiring enough teachers so that sick days can get covered.
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These are things that should have been implemented in prior waves, for sure. This omicron situation is a different beast. I won't pretend to assume that these things would make schools go smoothly, but it would probably help.
 
Preston said:
These are things that should have been implemented in prior waves, for sure. This omicron situation is a different beast. I won't pretend to assume that these things would make schools go smoothly, but it would probably help.
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It's the same statement I made before: "they tried nothing and it didn't work"

*Flanders voice "stupid beatnicks"*
 
Preston said:
This makes sense to me and while I do think ventilation is important, I haven't seen any data about things like HEPA filters actually working to limit the spread.

TLDR: I'm not sure what would make schools safer, especially in the winter months. They aren't trying, which is the main issue, but even if they did try, everything that folks suggest isn't necessarily proven to work.
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The issue of schools and other public buildings with poor heating/AC and ventilation, not to mention a half hundred other potential health risks from mold spores to asbestos, was a thing long before Covid and the reason nothing gets done is that governments won't spend the money. The company I work for does service at a few of the nearby armed forces bases, all of which are pushing 70 years old or more. Damn near every building on those bases is riddled with asbestos. You can't drill a hole into a wall without doing asbestos abatement measures. And all of the buildings are leaking and falling apart. DND's yearly budget for ongoing maintenance and repairs at these bases is usually tapped out by April or May, when all work has to be stopped until the budget is renewed. It probably costs the taxpayers as much to keep these sick buildings standing as it would to bulldoze and rebuild them from scratch. But these bases aren't a priority. They aren't vote-getters. And anything that doesn't translate into votes is ignored.
 
Wayward DP said:
an excellent playbook for Dougie to copy!
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And I believe every classroom in NY has 2 HEPA filters. Omicron is just... tough. For once I won't pretend to know what the right thing to do is. I don't have kids in school and I'm not a teacher so I prolly shouldn't even opine on this even if I had an opinion.

I do wish we had a way better vax rate for 5-11s in Ontario. It's shockingly horrible.
 
hockeylover said:
okay? not really sure of your point here tbh.
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My point is that had he known who the teacher in question was, he could have determined whether or not he had come into contact with that teacher. Had he not, he could have carried on as normal. It was just another week wasted and a Christmas day ruined for nothing.
 
Preston said:
And I believe every classroom in NY has 2 HEPA filters. Omicron is just... tough. For once I won't pretend to know what the right thing to do is. I don't have kids in school and I'm not a teacher so I prolly shouldn't even opine on this even if I had an opinion.

I do wish we had a way better vax rate for 5-11s in Ontario. It's shockingly horrible.
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You have no kids. But do you own a pet? Because if you do you are worse than Hitler, according to the Pope.
 
WeHaveMoreCupsThanYou said:
Because open malls make money while open schools cost money. Every decision a conservative government anywhere in the world makes is determined by money. Profit and loss. Share value. Money is the only thing that is ever allowed to matter under any conservative government. If schools were revenue generators they'd be kept open even if every child in them had to die.
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Shutting everything down doesnt work if you keep global travel going

I dont know WTF the answer is anymore

Lockdowns havent worked , folks are frustrated and governments are useless

At some point accept that we have to live with this shit

Get vaxed and use common sense

But picking on small business and keeping everything else going is ridiculous
 
there weren't enough hospital beds for the hospitalizations coming. saying "we have to just live with it" doesn't really change that reality.
 
GEEMAN said:
Shutting everything down doesnt work if you keep global travel going

I dont know WTF the answer is anymore

Lockdowns havent worked , folks are frustrated and governments are useless

At some point accept that we have to live with this shit

Get vaxed and use common sense

But picking on small business and keeping everything else going is ridiculous
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Well lockdowns do work, especially if you do them right. The only thing that works on slowing the spread is minimizing your contacts. Doesn't take a genius to figure that one out. Even better effectiveness than vaccines. But... they're impractical as shit and should always be a last resort.

As for accepting that we have to live with this shit. Absolutely, but we need to do it in a way that's sustainable. The current situation is simply not sustainable. It's a mess. And pretending it isn't and simply giving up doesn't help anything.

Realistically, we have a poorly matched vaccine right now for the first time in the entire pandemic. Will this become the norm? Will we keep having these escape variants every year? Maybe. But maybe not. This could be a brief 4-6 month blip that is not the norm moving forward.. But when these things happen maybe it's wise to hold the fort and do what we have to do until the Omicron shots come out in the summer. Once we get those in arms, we should be back to where we were in the summer/fall when we blunted Delta and lived a nearly completely normal life.
 
IMO the solution is fixing our health care system. They should have invested in health care as soon as the pandemic hit. You can't build a hospital in 2 years, but you can add capacity and recruit immigrant doctors and nurses. Thats the only solution. This isn't going anywhere, and lockdowns are not tenable long term.

We lacked capacity to begin with, never mind also handling a once in 100 years pandemic. Even when this ends, there is no excuse not to be prepared for the next one.

That and vaccines. Treatments if they ever exist.
 
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