I just don't get it...

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AKBill

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AKBill
So I just made a 2 day trip to Seattle. The only reason I flew down (commercial airline) was for the doctor to check out my right eye. An accident caused me to loose sight in the eye.

I was amazed at the number of parents traveling with children. Guessing they were returning home from visiting grandma for Thanksgiving. Kids of all ages.

With the current dilemma of C19 why would you subject your toddler/child to the chance of getting the virus? I just think it's irresponsible. What is going thru these parents heads?

Personally I would have told grandma lets give it another 6 months. Maybe we can safely travel then.
 
My understanding is that children have a negligible mortality rate from covid. I traveled for the holiday with my wife and daughter. Grandma cared more about seeing her granddaughter than the possibility of getting covid. As an adult, I figured that The actual traveling represented a greater risk than COVID. A risk that I often accept. It is a risk that I accepted for me and my daughter. My wife also felt it was an acceptable risk. You may have different perception of risk. I am an adult and make risk assessments on a variety of issues every day. I wholeheartedly resist those that would take my adult prerogative away from me.

I am astonished at the number of people willing to get into a commercial airplane with all of those strangers. Not me. Nope.

Disease and death is an integral part of life. My beliefs allow me to accept that reality without fear.
 
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Both my son and his wife have tested positive for COVID-19, and my son was sick with it for a week or so. Neither of their two kids (baby and toddler) have shown the slightest effect. Make of that what you will, I guess.
 
So I just made a 2 day trip to Seattle. The only reason I flew down (commercial airline) was for the doctor to check out my right eye. An accident caused me to loose sight in the eye.

I was amazed at the number of parents traveling with children. Guessing they were returning home from visiting grandma for Thanksgiving. Kids of all ages.

With the current dilemma of C19 why would you subject your toddler/child to the chance of getting the virus? I just think it's irresponsible. What is going thru these parents heads?

Personally I would have told grandma lets give it another 6 months. Maybe we can safely travel then.
At least around here, socially it feels like pandemic is over. The restaurants (outdoor dining - but there's no way there's actually 6 feet between tables) are packed with long waits. Streets are packed, and the 6 foot distancing is slowly shrinking to 2-3 feet in most grocery store check out lines. There's good mask discipline, but otherwise you wouldn't really know there's a pandemic, at least walking around here

The stats tells us you're more likely to get it now than when it started, but for a variety of reasons people seem to be largely "over it" by now. Without getting into politics, there's a reason people, even in my state, at least where I live, are "over it" - our governor, and government, has lost a lot of credibility
 
Good news is there is actual evidence suggesting the risk of catching the 'rona on an airliner is negligible if everyone masks up.
 
I want to know, who has already had the virus, gotten over it.
 
We traveled as a family last week.... and on an airliner even... *GASP*

I'm a numbers guy. I looked at the numbers and made the decision that for my family the reward outweighed the risk.
Isn't that what we face in every day life? decisions, decisions? life.
 
I am astonished at the number of people willing to get into a commercial airplane with all of those strangers. Not me. Nope.
Yet airline crew members (flight attendants and pilots) have been infected with COVID at a rate lower than the rate for the general population. If there were significant spread occurring from airline travel, and travel-related activities, wouldn't you expect that rate to be higher than average?
 
Nobody has to guess, or give their opinion, the facts are there and updated daily. I work for a company that is considered critical, so we have to stay up on the numbers. Don't get you news from CNN or Fox, of course they spin the facts to meet their agenda.

Find your local and state dashboards. Here is the Travis County (Austin, TX) dashboard I have to review daily.

What the stats show for our area are very similar to other areas I've looked at. What should scare people is, your odds of getting it it at age 50 and up are slim... but your odds of dying if you do are very high. We're showing 483 deaths in Travis county. 456 of those are people 50 & over. (Qty 59 50-59), (Qty 108 60-69), (Qty 123 70-79), (Qty 166 80 & Up)

Ages 1-9 Cases 3% ---> Death 0%
Ages 10-19 Cases 10%---> Death 0%
Ages 20-29 Cases 28% ---> Death 1%
Ages 30-39 Cases 21% ---> Death 2%
Ages 40-49 Cases 15% ---> Death 3%
Ages 50-59 Cases 11% ---> Death 12%
Ages 60-69 Cases 6% ---> Death 22%
Ages 70-79 Cases 3% ---> Death 25%
Ages 80 & Above Cases 2% ---> Death 34%
 
Yet airline crew members (flight attendants and pilots) have been infected with COVID at a rate lower than the rate for the general population. If there were significant spread occurring from airline travel, and travel-related activities, wouldn't you expect that rate to be higher than average?
I was saying that before the pandemic. :D ‘The nope not me’ part which did not copy.
 
So I just made a 2 day trip to Seattle. The only reason I flew down (commercial airline) was for the doctor to check out my right eye. An accident caused me to loose sight in the eye.

I was amazed at the number of parents traveling with children. Guessing they were returning home from visiting grandma for Thanksgiving. Kids of all ages.

With the current dilemma of C19 why would you subject your toddler/child to the chance of getting the virus? I just think it's irresponsible. What is going thru these parents heads?

Personally I would have told grandma lets give it another 6 months. Maybe we can safely travel then.
As others have said, airliners are pretty safe, and kids are pretty safe. Very safe.

And Grandma may be dead in six months, with or without COVID. I'll never again voluntarily put off the opportunity to visit an elderly relative. I've made and broken that promise too many times, and regretted it every one.
 
Get the locks ready... this thread will need it.

As of this second, the US mortality rate is 1.98%. The global mortality rate is 2.32%.

The world isn't coming to an end any time soon. But we'll do our very best to act like it is.
Look up the stats for polio, compare to COVID. Striking resemblance. But still, do you want to get it, knowing that it has killed young healthy adults?
 
Because of the pandemic and the mask policies on the airlines with which my children would have a hard time, we did our annual trip to Florida...

wait for it...

in a Bonanza!

OMG-Funny-Baby-Face-Picture.jpg


:lol::lol::lol:
 
A lot of us from the outset of this looked at the statistics for COVID-19, shrugged and figured it was just one more danger in the world that might hypothetically get us but probably wouldn't. A lot of are still operating under that mindset.

We try to avoid exposure for the most part which isn't hard since we live in a pretty sparsely populated rural area and tend to avoid crowds anyway. However, if there's something we really want to go do we'll probably go do it. As far as kids go we have an (almost) 2yo and while we don't take him with us shopping most of the time, I kind of assume if one person in the household gets it we'll all get it anyway which seems to be what's happening with everyone we know who has had it.

Anyway we flew GA for thanksgiving and it was still a < 10 affair as one household was still under quarantine. As I understand it, the party who most wanted to go forward with a meetup was the oldest and therefore in theory most vulnerable. I've seen that a lot too, older people just not being as concerned even though you'd think they're the people who should be. One 80-something I know basically said he probably didn't have many years left anyway and he'd rather just take the risk rather than miss out on this one.

I guess the bottom line here is not everyone has the same amount of risk tolerance.
 
As I understand it, the party who most wanted to go forward with a meetup was the oldest and therefore in theory most vulnerable. I've seen that a lot too, older people just not being as concerned even though you'd think they're the people who should be. One 80-something I know basically said he probably didn't have many years left anyway and he'd rather just take the risk rather than miss out on this one.

I guess the bottom line here is not everyone has the same amount of risk tolerance.
My kids have three living grandparents; fortunately all local. From the beginning, they have all refused to be kept away from their grandkids, even though we've been attempting to reasonably reduce, but not eliminate our risk of exposure.

My mother is almost 80. Her brothers live back east and she tries to see them 1-2 times every year. She planned a trip this year, looked for the least full flights on the smallest airliners, planned for minimal exposure, even bought a full bunny suit to wear on the plane.... Her brothers told her if she came, they wouldn't see her. :( Different people have different risk tolerances, sure. Please just base yours on reality. All of it.
 
I wouldn't judge them for exposing their kids to covid. The evidence shows that the risk to children is nil, and some research had found that young kids (elementary school age) don't even reproduce enough virus to be contagious.

Now, judging them for traveling to see family might be a bit more reasonable, but without knowing the specifics, I tend to trust adults to make their own decisions.

The average age of a covid fatality is ABOVE the average life expectancy.... that fact alone tells you where the risk is.
 
Look up the stats for polio, compare to COVID. Striking resemblance. But still, do you want to get it, knowing that it has killed young healthy adults?
Nobody wants any disease, but you can’t just put life on hold because you’re afraid you might get sick. Take all necessary precautions, by all means, but don’t stop living life or engaging in the activities you enjoy.
 
A few responses to a handful of the above comments:

Re commercial air travel, I think it’s been pretty well shown that spread on the plane itself is very low. However, getting to the plane is a different story...

...My wife flew to Denver a few weeks ago, with empty middle seats. She left from a small regional airport and changed planes in Minneapolis. Once she got to Denver, the packed-like-cattle shuttle between terminals was unavoidable and had her concerned...

...Two days after getting home (5 days after that flight) she got a mild “cold”. No fever, just a little cough and some mild sore throat. Three days after that I got the same thing - no fever, some nasal congestion, zero cough. It wasn’t even a “bad” cold. Because neither of us got fever, which is reportedly present in about 90% of Covid-19 cases, I figured the odds of both of us not having fever made it highly unlikely it was Covid-19. Both of us recovered from our mild symptoms within about a week. Both of us are in our mid-60’s, very healthy and active, and not overweight (well...SHE isn’t; I need to lose about 13lb for that to be “honest”).

Our local blood bank just started doing Covid antibody testing, hoping to identify potential donors of antibody serum. When we donated, about 5 weeks after our symptoms started, both of us tested positive, meaning we had recovered from a Covid-19 infection.

One thing that stood out for me but not my wife was the loss of smell. It was COMPLETE and lasted for weeks. Even now, about 6 weeks past the start, I’d say it’s still only at 50% at best. That was definitely a red flag but to be honest, with no fever or cough I chose to believe that was a “normal” part of a cold that I hadn’t really paid attention to in the past. We did isolate during the illness and nobody around us got the illness - thank goodness.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere I’m a Family Physician so it was easy for me to “scientifically” talk myself into saying it wasn’t Covid. It also means I should have known better.

This is a serious illness and we were very lucky. Don’t forget: 83.3% of the time people playing Russian Roulette walk away with zero change to their lives.

Not sure of the current stats (and I realize this is “global”) but this graph really caught my eye. Although most people who get it are young, most who die are older:

D0C936FF-31FE-4912-A740-6CC7F5EB78B6.jpeg
 
A few responses to a handful of the above comments:

Re commercial air travel, I think it’s been pretty well shown that spread on the plane itself is very low. However, getting to the plane is a different story...

...My wife flew to Denver a few weeks ago, with empty middle seats. She left from a small regional airport and changed planes in Minneapolis. Once she got to Denver, the packed-like-cattle shuttle between terminals was unavoidable and had her concerned...

...Two days after getting home (5 days after that flight) she got a mild “cold”. No fever, just a little cough and some mild sore throat. Three days after that I got the same thing - no fever, some nasal congestion, zero cough. It wasn’t even a “bad” cold. Because neither of us got fever, which is reportedly present in about 90% of Covid-19 cases, I figured the odds of both of us not having fever made it highly unlikely it was Covid-19. Both of us recovered from our mild symptoms within about a week. Both of us are in our mid-60’s, very healthy and active, and not overweight (well...SHE isn’t; I need to lose about 13lb for that to be “honest”).

Our local blood bank just started doing Covid antibody testing, hoping to identify potential donors of antibody serum. When we donated, about 5 weeks after our symptoms started, both of us tested positive, meaning we had recovered from a Covid-19 infection.

One thing that stood out for me but not my wife was the loss of smell. It was COMPLETE and lasted for weeks. Even now, about 6 weeks past the start, I’d say it’s still only at 50% at best. That was definitely a red flag but to be honest, with no fever or cough I chose to believe that was a “normal” part of a cold that I hadn’t really paid attention to in the past. We did isolate during the illness and nobody around us got the illness - thank goodness.

As I’ve mentioned elsewhere I’m a Family Physician so it was easy for me to “scientifically” talk myself into saying it wasn’t Covid. It also means I should have known better.

This is a serious illness and we were very lucky. Don’t forget: 83.3% of the time people playing Russian Roulette walk away with zero change to their lives.

Not sure of the current stats (and I realize this is “global”) but this graph really caught my eye. Although most people who get it are young, most who die are older:

View attachment 92169
I'd like to see that adjusted for population.
 
One 80-something I know basically said he probably didn't have many years left anyway and he'd rather just take the risk rather than miss out on this one.

I guess the bottom line here is not everyone has the same amount of risk tolerance.
I've heard the same from a local 80+ pilot. He's willing to take the risk saying loneliness is worse than death. However, I can't imagine being the one that gave COVID to him.

There are stories of weddings where people caught and died from COVID. Everyone there took the risk, but I'd hate to know I'm the one that spread it to them...
 
As a point of comparison for COVID-19 risks.

If you are under the age of 65 AND catch COVID-19, your chances of dying from it are about equal to that of driving a car to/from work 17 miles each work day for a year.

Above 65, the risk starts to rise significantly.
 
As a point of comparison for COVID-19 risks.

If you are under the age of 65 AND catch COVID-19, your chances of dying from it are about equal to that of driving a car to/from work 17 miles each work day for a year.

Above 65, the risk starts to rise significantly.


Good thing I just retired.

;)
 
I have been carefully watching this COVID outbreak from the start.
Many opinions from all sides and most are partially correct.
The issue is not how deadly it is but how rapidly it spreads.
And that brings us to the real problem which is ....
Our medical facilities and staff are already overwhelmed
Imagine how bad it would be without the lockdown.
We would be screaming at the government to do something.
 
Here's the latest CDC Covid death numbers by age and sex. They are updated once a week(?), so the numbers may not be the same you see on the news. There are some notes at the end of the page that explain how the numbers are updated -

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#AgeAndSex

for the age group 0-24 = 515

for school/college age group (5-24) = 470
 
I'd hate to know I'm the one that spread it to them...

Which is why I chose to mask up and to distance myself when able. I have not caught the virus by the way so I am hoping I have not helped spread it.

I haven't traveled by plane, but I have made several trips by car, stayed in hotels and shook hands with folks I just met.
 
Here's the latest CDC Covid death numbers by age and sex. They are updated once a week(?), so the numbers may not be the same you see on the news. There are some notes at the end of the page that explain how the numbers are updated -

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid_weekly/index.htm#AgeAndSex

for the age group 0-24 = 515

for school/college age group (5-24) = 470

This data reflects what we've been talking about. Low risk for the young. High risk as you get older.

0-44 = 6990 deaths
44 & Up = 233,223 deaths (85 & Up = 74,722) (75-84 = 64,575) (65-74 = 51,677)
 
A lot of us from the outset of this looked at the statistics for COVID-19, shrugged and figured it was just one more danger in the world that might hypothetically get us but probably wouldn't. A lot of are still operating under that mindset.

We try to avoid exposure for the most part which isn't hard since we live in a pretty sparsely populated rural area and tend to avoid crowds anyway. However, if there's something we really want to go do we'll probably go do it. As far as kids go we have an (almost) 2yo and while we don't take him with us shopping most of the time, I kind of assume if one person in the household gets it we'll all get it anyway which seems to be what's happening with everyone we know who has had it.

Anyway we flew GA for thanksgiving and it was still a < 10 affair as one household was still under quarantine. As I understand it, the party who most wanted to go forward with a meetup was the oldest and therefore in theory most vulnerable. I've seen that a lot too, older people just not being as concerned even though you'd think they're the people who should be. One 80-something I know basically said he probably didn't have many years left anyway and he'd rather just take the risk rather than miss out on this one.

I guess the bottom line here is not everyone has the same amount of risk tolerance.
.

I only quoted your post because you mentioned you live in a sparsely populated area.

North Dakota is one of the most sparsely populated states (762,000 people total) yet is having the most severe outbreak in the world

104,000 cases per million
1252 deaths per million.

And nobody knows for sure why that is . They are typically very sensible , careful , and stable people

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

I only quoted your post because you mentioned you live in a sparsely populated area.

North Dakota is one of the most sparsely populated states (762,000 people total) yet is having the most severe outbreak in the world

104,000 cases per million
1252 deaths per million.

And nobody knows for sure why that is . They are typically very sensible , careful , and stable people

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

I'd hazard a guess that it's got something to do with the climate. Or at least is a contributing factor. Stuff like this is always nasty in the winter months and ND has a lot of those.
 
This data reflects what we've been talking about. Low risk for the young. High risk as you get older.

0-44 = 6990 deaths
44 & Up = 233,223 deaths (85 & Up = 74,722) (75-84 = 64,575) (65-74 = 51,677)
Yeah, I added this so we could have the current numbers.

It doesn't show, though, the Covid cases vs deaths. For example - how many in the 0-44 get Covid? We know that 6990 died from it. What about the 1-4, 5-14, 15-24 age groups? Not many died from it, but how many really had it? Do kids NOT get it very often so they don't die from it at higher rates? Or do kids get it at the same rate older adults get it but are better at handling it?

That is something either I haven't seen or I have forgotten that I have seen it.
 
Eh, I suppose it depends on whether you expect the government to fix your problems or not.
HAAA .... never have and never will look to government to solve my problems

But if I am seriously ill I do look to the medical system for help. As it is, our clinics and hospitals are at max capacity

2 months ago I broke a finger and (over the phone) my doctor told me how to make a homemade splint (it worked)
 
overwhelmed? really?

where?
Health workers at a 14-bed hospital in North Dakota are struggling to keep friends' family members alive, as rates of new Covid-19 infections soar in the US heartland's tight-knit communities.

Small towns like Grafton - with a population of around 4,000 - are especially vulnerable to a surge in critically ill patients, as local hospitals have limited space and staff.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/world-us-canada-55024447

Authorities in Belgium and the US state of North Dakota are allowing healthcare workers with covid-19 back to work, claiming that staff shortages necessitated the move.
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4455

North Dakota is facing an extreme shortage of hospital beds, as COVID hospitalizations converge with strains on health care staffing and high noncoronavirus admissions. There are just 11 available intensive care beds and 181 regular inpatient beds in the whole state,
https://www.grandforksherald.com/ne...ry-1000-North-Dakotans-has-died-from-COVID-19
 
Isn't that what we face in every day life? decisions, decisions? life.
Indeed. My issue is when others try to make those decisions for me because they think they know what’s best for me. Ummm no.

everyone here is free to make their own risk assessments and ack accordingly.
 
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