Have your Covid Precautions changed since March?

[Andrew Joiner]

I got super strict in March. Now as I learn more we're a little more relaxed.

Only washing produce now. I was sterilizing all things that came in the house.
No longer sterilizing door knobs and countertops daily.

Still strict on:
Wearing a mask around extended family outdoors in case a grandkid wants to jump in my lap. I made neck loops for my masks so I can drop them or mask-up quickly. If extended family comes in the house for more than a few minutes I mask-up or go in a separate room.
Unfortunately as the weather changes I'll be doing this a lot.

I've been wearing KN95 masks. They are just as comfortable the less protective masks. I want to prevent inhaling AND spreading virus.

How's everyone here doing with this stuff lately?

[Mike Henderson]

I do about the same safe things. But I'm not as worried as I was in the beginning.

I think I read that the N95 mask has a valve that allows the air from an exhale to exit without any filtering. As long as you don't have Covid that's not a problem.

I think I saw that you can't use an N95 mask on an airplane because of the valve.

Mike

[roger wiegand]

Pretty much the same, relying on hand washing alone now, don't wear gloves out much. 100% on masks.

Since one of the key roles of masks is to stop infected but asymptomatic people from transmitting the virus, the valves that let unfiltered air out are a very bad idea. Please don't inadvertently infect your family, friends and neighbors. I suspect that if everyone were 100% mask and hand washing compliant and avoided indoor gatherings we could be rid of this thing in 8-10 weeks and get our economy back on the road. Sadly, folks haven't, and apparently won't, do it.

[Lisa Starr]

Still wearing a mask any time I go into a store or other enclosed space except our son's home. He's as careful, or more careful than us, so we have minimal concern there. Still not going anywhere to eat and only order take out from 2 local places that I'm comfortable with the staff's precautions.

[Jim Becker]

Pretty much similar precautions...don't go out without a reason and most of the time Professor Dr SWMBO stays home for less exposure. She teaches via video. The masks she made are excellent and leverage disposable filters...I alternate two with weekly washing. We do take-out on Friday nights but do not eat at restaurants, even outside. I do the food shopping. Most other purchases get delivered. (I don't like food delivery because I like to personally select fresh veggies, fruits, meats, etc., and do a chunk of my meal planning while in the store based on "what's good" that week) We do have a "pod" with our younger daughter's boyfriend's family...they are every bit as cautious as we are. She stays there part of the week and he stays here occasionally. She does work in retail, but is cautious. Our older daughter, while not living with us now, works as a florist, but is careful. She's here twice a week for meals and to clean. (her second job to account for my paying part of her rent) She doesn't socialize so risk is reduced.

[Ken Fitzgerald]

I am using the same precautions. We have our own masks in both vehicles. We go to restaurants every week or two. Wear the masks except while eating in restaurants but we do wear the masks into the restaurants, out of restaurants and while ordering meals. We wear masks when shopping. We always social distance. Since this broke out, we have had two couples over for dinner (one couple at a time) but we are all the same age group, each of the couples has at least one member who has a preexisting condition that increases that persons risks and we are all extremely careful. I was happy this week to see more people wearing masks when I was grocery shopping and while in HD. We do have hand sanitizers in both cars and use it when entering the car after shopping or other business.

[Alan Rutherford]

We haven't been in anyone else's house for 6 months and no one else has been in ours. We expect it to be another 6 months. That means we're not visiting family or anyone else unless it's outdoors and that's pretty limited. Any family events, happy or sad, are going to have to wait. Our age makes us very high-risk.

We wear masks in public and we don't go anywhere we can avoid. I have not been able to find masks that seal adequately around my beard and have made my own (2 layers of t-shirt, one layer of special filter material). We carry hand sanitizer in the car and use it frequently.

I have installed a window AC in one bedroom so we can isolate that room if we think one of us has been exposed or has the virus.

We sterilize (bleach spray) groceries that seem more likely to collect particles from the air, such as milk, packages of meat and other things damp and exposed but rely on time to kill off any virus on most packages.

It feels like "every man (or woman) for him/her self" in the war against this virus. There is good information about risks and precautions out there but you have to find and apply it for yourself.

[Kev Williams]

I wear always wear a mask when going indoors, and when grocery shopping, I've noted how much stuff I touch, so when shopping I always wear gloves too. I have a 'man purse' that contains my keys, phone, wallet, and sanitizer, goes everywhere I go. After pretty much every aisle I'll hand sanitize. Keeps me from getting or spreading.

EVERYTHING that comes into this house gets disinfected. Loose customer parts, paperwork, cash, etc. gets sprayed with Lysol-type spray. Most groceries, boxes, bagged items or other 'covered' stuff, I dampen a towel then liberally spray it with Clorex disinfectant, and wipe it all down. I have a 2' square piece of copper sheet to set various loose items and fresh food on. Fresh veggies also get washed.

Customers mask up or stay outside, no one has a problem. (except stubborn family members ;) )

All the recent spikes in cases and deaths have convinced us to keep up the barriers. We refuse to catch this crap if at all possible...

[Nathan Johnson]

There are N95s without valves.

I'm less cautious now about surface contamination, but otherwise not eating out, not hanging out inside with others, taking groceries and other necessities to my mom so she doesn't have to go out.
I will vote by mail this year.

[Mel Fulks]

I'm in Virginia and our gov. Has got it too. And at times he's even worn long robes and complete head covering.
Real contagious stuff !

[Paul F Franklin]

Still doing pretty much the same things as earlier: Always wear mask when out, except when walking the pooch; it's easy to avoid people on the trails we use. I wear disposable gloves when shopping, and do the clean hand dirty hand thing when transferring stuff into the car/truck. We still wipe down all the groceries. Haven't been in a restaurant since February but we get takeout once or twice a month. We did go to an event at a winery where we sat outdoors at widely spaced tables. My wife is mostly teaching her university students remotely but has taught a few in person classes (it's just unavoidable in the nursing/midwifery curriculums). And she continues to have to make site visits to various medical practices and hospitals to observe her students in action. She is required to take her temperature daily and log it online, and must wear both a face mask and a face shield when teaching or doing site visits. Students are required to wear masks and the classrooms have been rearranged to maintain separation between students.

[Scott Winners]

I am teaching my patients all the same stuff with no changes since March. To get on my service they all have pre-existing conditions.
1. Don't go out unless you have to.
2. Wear a cloth mask when you do go.
3. Stay six feet away from people who are also wearing masks.
4. Stay as far away as possible from people who are not masked or are wearing their masks incorrectly. Just turn around and go the other way.
5. Wash your hands.

This summer my wife would occasionally walk with a friend at like the botanical garden and they would sometimes take their masks off while walking six feet apart but still side by side on the same trail. At the time our local infection rate was 5, 6 or 7 per 100,000 residents. We have been seeing a climbing case load since Mid July. I should be getting another weekly summary by email from the AK Dept of Health and Human Services this weekend, I think case numbers are still climbing locally, the last public data (last week's summary) the infection rate was 15.9 cases per 100,000 for Fairbanks.

We crossed the magic statistical point (10 cases per 100k) in I think late July statewide, so Alaska is statisically an area of widespread disease transmission. I don't know if there is a statistical definition for rampant disease transmission, what the next statistical point is or what it is named, but we seem to be well on our way.

We used to go to the grocery store 2-3 times per week. Our current target is two times each month, we usually end up going three times.

In my mind, any group of people is a social gathering and an opportunity for disease transmission. Church, grocery shopping, backyard picnic, all opportunities for infection to spread. I readily agree indoor choir practice is probably more dangerous than golfing while social distancing.

I never did disinfect my incoming mail for this thing - but I have decades of meticulous practice at hand hygiene.

We do have a household decontamination area, the downstairs bathroom. When we get home we put all the clothes we were wearing in a laundry basket there and then take a shower before proceeding upstairs to what we think of as our safe zone.

My opinion is we have another year of this to go, and that assumes a safe reliable vaccine being available in September 2021.

EDIT: I did also buy my own prescription safety glasses this summer. The hospital I work for requires safety glasses and N95 mask for all patient interaction in my department, and in some circumstances we do the full body PPE like in the ET movie. But I wear bifocals, and the two pair of glasses thing was causing phyical pain. So with my employer's permission I got prescription safety glasses out of pocket so I am only wearing one pair of glasses at a time.

[Bill Carey]

When this all started we bought a second freezer so we can shop once every 4 or 5 weeks. The last 2 or 3 weeks we miss fresh fruit. Mask all the time if going in somewhere. No one has been in the house except the furnace repair guy - and the LOML followed him around with the Lysol spray. (he's been doing our heating for years so he was cool with it), and my son, who quarantined for 3 weeks so he could come down here. The other kids have come down but we stayed outside. Everything that comes in the house gets sanitized. No exceptions. No restaurants - neither dine in nor carry out. The only time we have been in someone else's house was to use the can at my daughters place. We zoom a lot, and have regularly schedule dinner dates with our kids and grand kids. Dinner conversation has always been a big deal for us, and this is working pretty well. All things considered. And lots of Purell hand sanitizer.

With our Gov opening the state (Indiana) we figure on changing nothing we're doing. Our little town has had 1 case that was asymptomatic, so it's around everywhere.

And since I'm a grumpy old fart I have started, politely, challenging folks without masks, or who have their nose sticking out. When we were shopping a couple of months ago, we order some lunch meat and the gal that was cutting it finished up and then lowered her mask and sniffed it!! And she was upset that I said she could keep it. Unreal.

We figure on doing everything we can to stay safe and healthy, and then if one of us gets it, them's the breaks. I'm celebrating my 36th year anniversary in AA and I have learned the hard way to not worry about what I can't control. All I can do is the right things, and everything else goes in the Bucket.

[Mel Fulks]

Kev, I hope you stay well, but I can't help but wonder if you have been conditioned by "clean up on aisle 5". "et al".

[Dave Mills]

Two changes for us:
- We're getting take out food now, where before we had stopped all restaurant food. About once a week I go pick up take out and leave a big tip. Feels good trying to support the local restaurants (at least the ones we like :)
- We have two hardwood stores in our area, one has decided masks are a waste of time, the other strictly wears them. So I have switched most of my buying to the one with masks.

[Bruce Wrenn]

Have eaten out ( dine in) twice since March. Eaten take out in the parking lot several times. ALWAYS wear a mask in stores. Have one friend whose house we go into, plus one customer's house. One couple we avoid like the plague, as they are social buttery flies. Three AT&T tech have been in our house, all wearing masks. Clean hands on way out of stores, so as to not contaminate surfaces in car. By nature, I'm a hugger, but it's hard not to hug any of our friends, most of which are widows. One of our widows is not exactly the hugging type, but one day said "Please hug me, i need to feel another humans touch," so I did (both wearing masks.) Physical isolation can be just as hard as mental isolation.

[Andrew Joiner]

We figure on doing everything we can to stay safe and healthy, and then if one of us gets it, them's the breaks. I'm celebrating my 36th year anniversary in AA and I have learned the hard way to not worry about what I can't control. All I can do is the right things, and everything else goes in the F-it Bucket.
Good for you Bill! 45 years clean and sober for me. I'm practicing " one day at a time" and " this too shall pass" a lot lately. I didn't want to try Zoom AA meetings but when everything closed up here I got into Zoom. Zoom works good for me and the coffee is better:). My wife got a 32 year chip at our Zoom birthday meeting last night. It was better than in-person because our kids from Singapore got to attend for the first time!

Thanks everyone for sharing your experiences! I'm taking covid more serious than most of my family.
It's comforting to know I'm not not alone.

[Steve Demuth]

I'm going out to the store a little more easily now than in the Spring, since there are now local mask ordinances, and the couple of places I buy from have gotten their act together. But overall, I still have only been off the farm a dozen times since March 8th. My wife, who is a Buddhist priest has moved heaven and earth to create safe opportunities for her small "congregation." She gets out more. We both mask whenever we're in public, distance, and sanitize. Cases are rising rapidly locally, so we may lock down again for a bit. It doesn't cost me much, since we're mostly self-sufficient except for the need to get some food every other week or so, and my wife's religious observance.

I am expecting things to get pretty intense once we are closed in for winter. So is the hospital/clinic (about 4000 doctors that see roughly 1 million patients / year). They've been laying plans for increased pressure on the medical staff and facilities.

[John K Jordan]

I think I read that the N95 mask has a valve that allows the air from an exhale to exit without any filtering. As long as you don't have Covid that's not a problem.

I think I saw that you can't use an N95 mask on an airplane because of the valve.


Most of the N95 masks I have do not have exhalation valves but some do, right in the middle of the mask. In general, the simple multi-layer N95 masks don't have exhalation ports but the respirators with replaceable filters do, whether the filter is N95 or something else. N95 masks I've bought labeled as respirators do have the ports, whether N95 or other filter. You can put a piece of tape on the inside to disable any exhaust port. I recently gave a Honeywell North N95 respirator with an exhaust port to a friend to travel by airline and she covered the port inside and the airline said that was fine.

All of the industrial respirators I have do have exhaust ports, actually one-way exhaust valves so by inhaling you can't pull in particles through the port.

None of my KN95 masks have exhaust ports. I understand KN95 is the Chinese specification but not all KN95 masks are made in China.

I wear a mask every time I am around people who don't live in my house. Inside or outside, whether on the farm, at the hardware or feed store, or even pumping gas at the gas station. In this part of the country more people are wearing masks now than in March and April - it's rare to see someone in a store without one.

JKJ

[Bill Dufour]

I no longer exhale in stores as I walk past others. I did that at first even with a mask.
Makes me respect the oldsters who went through sacrifices for world war 2 with no idea how long things would be bad until life could return to normal.
Bill

[Andrew Joiner]

Fauci and several experts were interviewed July 3rd:
https://www.adn.com/nation-world/2020/07/03/how-fauci-5-other-health-specialists-deal-with-covid-19-risks-in-their-everyday-lives/

Reading how they run their homes helped me. None of them sterilize packaging and surfaces but some were doing it when Covid first hit us.

I wear KN95 masks without valves.
The N95 is approved for medical use in the USA. They're fairly rigid and must be properly fitted to ones face size. They harder to buy, more costly and less comfortable than KN95 masks for me.
The KN95 has the same filtering ability, costs about $2. You can buy them online. They are approved for medical use all over the world but not in the USA. Similar to surgical masts in comfort but tests show the KN95 to beat surgical masks in protecting the wearer.

[Stan Calow]

I suspect that if everyone were 100% mask and hand washing compliant and avoided indoor gatherings we could be rid of this thing in 8-10 weeks and get our economy back on the road. Sadly, folks haven't, and apparently won't, do it.

This is pretty much what Dr Redfield of CDC said when he testified to Congress a couple of weeks ago.

I've changed barbers (after 20+ years), grocery stores, and plan ahead for trips to hardware store or other shops to reduce the number of visits and go in less busy hours. We've been to the movies once (only two people in the theater), and to several of our favorite restaurants. Less worried about contact with objects. I think most businesses have been pretty good about taking pre-cautions. The restaurants have usually seemed as busy as before (some obviously skirting the occupancy restrictions), but we dont go to bars or any place we suspect has a high level of non-compliance.

So yes, we've loosened up, but are smarter about it, and more conscientious about not spreading anything to others. People blame the mayors and county health departments for shutting things down, but I think most people are choosing not to go out w/o having to be told. Our governor and his wife both have it after being the most unwilling to suggest any restrictions. So there is at least some justice.

[Mark Bolton]

I dont see how everyone masking and washing hands would make it "go away". It would most definitely cut transmission but it would still be there waiting for when the de-masking starts. The virus doesnt just give up because it cant get through the masks and gets washed down the drain via hand washing.

We are remaining pretty much as vigilant as we were in the spring and perhaps even more so given the fact that a massive percentage of the population is just "over it" and they are doing whatever they want because they are sick of being cut back. Its really sad how impatient and selfish society has become. Not that I have any real sacrifice to recount in my 53 years on the planet but I have always greatly respected the times of the depression, war, and so on. I about blew a gasket a few weeks back when a young local guy I know pretty well who his making a foray into the political world (its in his family trajectory) unleashed a FB post to his fellow youngsters (early 30's and 20's) saying "this is going to be our generations World War II"... The top of my head almost blew off. People sitting around on $1500 cell phones, $250/mo TV packages, ordering gourmet takeout 5 nights a week (and complaining about it) and they have ZERO clue what years of real sacrifice is whether it was troops abroad or state side doing without, rationing, swapping over plant production completely to support the war, on and on.

As miserable as this thing has been for my business its honestly been a joke. Some substantial disruptions mainly in supply, some inconvenience, we miss going out for a sandwich and a drink. But its been a joke.

Sadly right now, with so many people just being over it, we are personally staying the course or hunkering down a little harder because I feel with the holidays coming and the callous behavior I see daily, if its going to re-pop its going to. Im in a state that has had a motto for years and years whether its economy or anything... we are the last one in, and the last one out. And its proving to be the case with this. We had pretty much nothing for a long time and it rolled in late, and we are just getting counties out of the states "red" column. But this late in the game I am also hearing about the very first positive cases in very close, young, friends, since the start. Everyone letting their guard down may bite a lot of people in the butt. I dont wish it to bite anyone at all but I wish it would bite the careless fools and leave those who have been responsible alone. Ive said it since the start that we have been super vigilant and it wouldnt surprise me in the least if some dingaling who thinks its all a sham takes one of us down.

We've had two close direct exposures where we self quarantined but so far so good.

[Alan Rutherford]

I forgot to mention earlier than in addition to the mask (homemade to insure it seals around my beard) I usually wear gloves and a face shield in the grocery store. Face shields periodically get some publicity and there's a recent study about eyeglass wearers having lower infection rates, which I think is relevant. I forgot the gloves the last time I bought groceries and was reminded that a big advantage to wearing them is that it's much easier opening those flimsy produce bags. Licking your fingers to slide the layers of plastic apart was never a good idea anyway.

And I needed a haircut back in February when I decided that wasn't a good idea. Now I REALLY need a haircut. My wife likes it this way anyway.

[Steve Demuth]

I dont see how everyone masking and washing hands would make it "go away". It would most definitely cut transmission but it would still be there waiting for when the de-masking starts. The virus doesn't just give up because it cant get through the masks and gets washed down the drain via hand washing.


Absolutely. SARS-CoV-2 is with us (the world) for the long haul. Even countries that get their infection rate to 0 - almost certainly impossible in the United States until we have widespread vaccination - have had challenges keeping the virus out of their country, or out of regions that are cleared of the virus. What solid application of masking, distancing and hygiene could do is keep it at low-impact levels until a vaccine is available and widely enough applied in the population to make imported outbreaks easily containable. I suspect it will have dynamics similar to polio - another virus which is generally a rather benign infection and easily transmitted, but can sometimes be devastating. The difference is of course that the SARS-CoV-2 virus is most devastating in older people, whereas symptomatic polio is largely a disease of children.

(I'm assuming a workable vaccine will be found. The odds seem good, but it's not yet a sure thing).

[Stan Calow]

I dont see how everyone masking and washing hands would make it "go away". It would most definitely cut transmission but it would still be there waiting for when the de-masking starts. The virus doesnt just give up because it cant get through the masks and gets washed down the drain via hand washing. . . .


The virus doesn't survive for very long outside a human host. Everyone who gets sick, got it from another person. The fewer human hosts, the fewer exposures and illnesses. Some people may continue to get sick, like the measles, but the widespread outbreaks would go away.

[Peter Mich]

We continue to adhere to all of the recommended safety precautions. We’re being ever more vigilant now because the 7-day average rate of confirmed cases here in Wisconsin is skyrocketing through the roof. We’re fortunate that we are in a rural part of the state so hunkering down and remaining isolated is not a challenge.

[Frank Pratt]

I have worn a mask in public indoor spaces since the beginning & continue to do so.

I don't wear gloves though, because what's the point? I can get the same level of protection with a good squirt of sanitizer. I might go through a dozen (or dozens) of pairs of gloves in a day to get the same benefit that a bit of hand sanitizer or soap & water gives.

[Mark Bolton]

The virus doesn't survive for very long outside a human host. Everyone who gets sick, got it from another person. The fewer human hosts, the fewer exposures and illnesses. Some people may continue to get sick, like the measles, but the widespread outbreaks would go away.

That was my point. As Steve stated better above... the masks just slow the spread in the hopes of some future solution.. either it peters out, a vaccine, or herd immunity. Again, my point was that masks just buy us time and reduce deaths and exposure, it doesnt make anything "go away".

[Doug Garson]

I dont see how everyone masking and washing hands would make it "go away". It would most definitely cut transmission but it would still be there waiting for when the de-masking starts. The virus doesnt just give up because it cant get through the masks and gets washed down the drain via hand washing..
Agree with the rest of your post but I'm with the experts on this, as others have said, the virus can only survive a few hours outside a human host. If it doesn't spread from that host it either kills the host and then dies or the host kills it. Either way, just a matter of time before it dies out. Where do you think it would be waiting for 3 to 4 weeks if everyone took masks seriously?

[Doug Garson]

I have worn a mask in public indoor spaces since the beginning & continue to do so.

I don't wear gloves though, because what's the point? I can get the same level of protection with a good squirt of sanitizer. I might go through a dozen (or dozens) of pairs of gloves in a day to get the same benefit that a bit of hand sanitizer or soap & water gives.

I agree, if it was transmitted thru the skin or open cuts in the skin then gloves would make sense to me. If you touch a contaminated surface and then your face doesn't matter if you have gloves on or not. Same goes for touching a contaminated surface and then contaminating another surface, don't see why gloves would make a difference. Only way gloves help is maybe reminding you not to touch your face.

[Stan Calow]

That was my point. As Steve stated better above... the masks just slow the spread in the hopes of some future solution.. either it peters out, a vaccine, or herd immunity. Again, my point was that masks just buy us time and reduce deaths and exposure, it doesnt make anything "go away".

You're right. I think what Dr Redfield testified was that we would have had the pandemic under control, not that the virus would go away.

[Doug Garson]

In the hosts barging up and down the streets belching diesel smoke and flying flags, as well as the 1600 and some-odd individuals the CDC has tracked that lied about their behavior and exposure then boarded planes exposing some 11000 other passengers, flight crew, airport staff, baggage handlers, and so on. Along with the numerous individuals who are checking-in to doctors appointments (masks on) and lying to check-in that they have been out traveling or had exposure simply because they dont want to reschedule. Homeless and the poor who simply cant meet the guidelines, and the list goes on. None of that even takes into consideration the asymptomatics. The flu doesnt just "go away" in the summer and then re-appear.

My SO has has had an eye doctor appointment, as well as a dentist appointment, and has a coworker whose wife is a dermatologist, all of which have been very outspoken about people blatantly misinforming their offices with regards to exposure and then while they are in-the-chair, they let it slip forgetting they lied, that they have traveled, or have had exposure. Which results in them being escorted out of the office, the entire office shut down, responsible patients being rescheduled.

SO's mother did the EXACT thing coming back from a 2 week trip to NC and having a routine doctors appointment 2 days after return and flat out lied.
OK my bad, thought we were talking about reasonable honest people who care about their communities. For the people you describe more drastic measures may be necessary.

[Mark Bolton]

OK my bad, thought we were talking about reasonable honest people who care about their communities.

Tell me where to move to... lol

[Robert Engel]

Normally, precautions are related to risk and/or consequences, and founded in reality. A dose of common sense doesn't hurt.

As I neared a couple on our local bike trail yesterday, they pulled their masks up while riding their bikes. They had a much higher chance of an accident than catching a virus.

I've had this same behavior happen walking through a parking lot.

The other night we went out to eat, as there was nobody around the check in desk we didn't have our masks on. But, we were told to wear our masks, immediately escorted 12 feet to our table, and ............ took our masks off.

Simply to illustrate the disinformation, fear, nonsensical behavior that stems from it.

The schools in my state are open for over a month. And, predictably, there is no spike because we know children are insignificant sources of infection and have a higher chance of dying struck by lightning then dying of COVID.

[Mark Bolton]

Normally, precautions are related to risk and/or consequences, and founded in reality. A dose of common sense doesn't hurt.

As I neared a couple on our local bike trail yesterday, they pulled their masks up while riding their bikes. They had a much higher chance of an accident than catching a virus.

I've had this same behavior happen walking through a parking lot.

The other night we went out to eat, as there was nobody around the check in desk we didn't have our masks on. But, we were told to wear our masks, immediately escorted 12 feet to our table, and ............ took our masks off.

Simply to illustrate the disinformation, fear, nonsensical behavior that stems from it.

The schools in my state are open for over a month. And, predictably, there is no spike because we know children are insignificant sources of infection and have a higher chance of dying struck by lightning then dying of COVID.


I wish the logic and moral compass of your server and the cyclists on your trail were the norm because if it were we'd have likely been done with this months and months ago. The simple fact is you have the people who simply refuse to comply because they are not going to be infringed upon, those who refuse to comply because they believe there are aliens underground at Area51 and will buck anything the gubmint and the media says, those who refuse to comply because they are too proud or too embarrassed to wear a mask, those who refuse to comply because they think this only impacts a few, on and on and on.

SO thinks she needs to wear a mask at all times. Perhaps no riding in the car alone, but I wouldnt be surprised if that happened. 6' distance, outside, Im fine with no mask. I break that rule out of common courtesy for others who may not feel the same. Just the same as I do when walking my dog on a long lead... he gets reeled in tight when approaching others... I have no idea if they are afraid of dogs, dont like dogs, dont want dog stink on their hands or clothes.. Its the same reason I wear a mask at the convenience store when there is not a sole in sight,.. its not for me, its for the poor sole who is behind the register needing a paycheck and dealing with the compliant and the noncompliant.

Sadly, those who will likely usher us into the next 4 years by their direct and consistent actions fall squarely in the selfish/bad camp.

[Clifford McGuire]

What has changed with us?

We've stopped wiping food packaging down before it enters the house.

We are OK with eating at restaurants outdoors, and do quite a bit outdoors. We've tried golf, hike, etc. Otherwise, we're doing the precautions that are recommended/required.

Winter is coming, so we'll probably cut out the outdoors stuff soon.

[Doug Garson]

Tell me where to move to... lol
North except the border is closed.

[Bill Dufour]

I wonder why some Universities have not reopened and only allow on campus students. They would stay in the dorms and not leave campus until thanksgiving. Who cares if they spread the infection to each other. They are young enough that not too many would die and they would not spread it off campus. Probably fewer deaths total because this plan would eliminate drunk driving death by 100%.
BILL D

[Mark Bolton]

North except the border is closed.

I use to spend some time outside Montreal in Lac's De Sieze Iles (sp) and thought about it for a long time but I cant take the cold anymore (born and raised in New England).... But you all seem a pretty happy lot. May be a time to stock up on mittens and wool socks or look to the coasts.. :-)

[Mark Bolton]

I wonder why some Universities have not reopened and only allow on campus students. They would stay in the dorms and not leave campus until thanksgiving. Who cares if they spread the infection to each other. They are young enough that not too many would die and they would not spread it off campus. Probably fewer deaths total because this plan would eliminate drunk driving death by 100%.
BILL D

Its because of dollars and cents. The Universities were facing bankruptcy if students didnt come back for in-person. No one is going to pay piracy rates for on-line higher education. So the Universities need the in-person students to feed their income rolls. The problem is you then have a pretty high percentage of the most reckless and selfish individuals who have a warped sense of logic that an overwhelming percentage of their college "experience" is suppose to be spend wasting their parents savings for college on parties and social endeavors as compared to bleeding every last drop of knowledge they can out of the institution. Add in sports programs and college becomes a total screw off session mitered down in fraternity and sorority foolishness that achieves zero learning and nothing but non-mask BS.

Universities in our area are cracking down hard just to keep in-person classes an option. I highly doubt it will ever be an outcome but one may hope this issues a bi(ch slap that your in school to learn.. not to learn how to funnel beers and do keg stands, but learn.... but it wont happen.

[mike stenson]

I wonder why some Universities have not reopened and only allow on campus students. They would stay in the dorms and not leave campus until thanksgiving. Who cares if they spread the infection to each other. They are young enough that not too many would die and they would not spread it off campus. Probably fewer deaths total because this plan would eliminate drunk driving death by 100%.
BILL D

I live in a university town. They spread everything they get outside of the campus. They don't/won't stay in the dorms, they don't/won't stay on campus. We're already seeing an increase in cases.

They won't even actually perform the current "requirements" of the university in regards to any of this. What makes you think they won't leave the campus to go drink and party? They will, and do. It's a pipe-dream to believe otherwise.

[Steve Demuth]

Agree with the rest of your post but I'm with the experts on this, as others have said, the virus can only survive a few hours outside a human host. If it doesn't spread from that host it either kills the host and then dies or the host kills it. Either way, just a matter of time before it dies out. Where do you think it would be waiting for 3 to 4 weeks if everyone took masks seriously?

An interesting data point here: New Zealand continues to detect cases in their general population months after having presumably eliminated the virus. Not many, but not zero. That means that despite their (very good) best efforts, the virus continues to leak through their border quarantine (either that, or it has undetected human or animal reservoirs, but this seems highly unlikely given the lack of clustering of new infections).

But the equation for eliminating the virus from a population, once it's widely present, isn't as simple just make sure everybody wears a mask and washes their hands for a few weeks, for a couple of reasons. First, the precautions we use don't magically make the replication (R-nought) of the virus zero. They are not perfect. So the viral population will decay exponentially from from where we are, to, eventually zero. If the infection generation interval is 5 days (a common estimate), and we have 100,000 current active cases (very low estimate), and we can get R down to .2 (pretty low), we'll still have some active cases in the US after 35 days. Secondly, we don't actually know how long infected people can continue to shed virus, in the tail of the distribution. It could be quite long for people with unique immune system challenges.

None of this makes the idea a bad one - they just mean you want to measure effectiveness with aggressive testing, and continue testing beyond your "extinction" horizon so that you detect new outbreaks as they happen - because they will happen, either because the virus gets imported, or because one of these odd reservoirs (animals, unique humans) re-ignite it. Again, New Zealand is testing 5000 people/day in order to maintain their status quo.

Beyond that, we really need that safe and effective vaccine, and good population compliance with mass vaccination. That's how we kicked polio and measles out of the US, and that's what will kick SARS-CoV-2 out, and keep it (mostly) out.

[Mel Fulks]

The really expensive colleges were among the first to close. Looks like they no longer dismiss "home correspondence "
schools.

[Mark Bolton]

Then biggest colleges have disgusting cash reserves, endowment funds, and Alumi donors, all who's aim is to uphold academia at all costs for mere posterity.

Stop lying to yourself

[Mel Fulks]

Mark, you nailed that one. I was a kid when I saw Harvard had billions. It was in an almanac, had to ask my parents to define the word.

[Alan Rutherford]

... we know children are insignificant sources of infection and have a higher chance of dying struck by lightning then dying of COVID.

From an editorial in JAMA (the Journal of the American Medical Association) July 29, 2020 titled "COVID-19 and School Closures":

Talking about the effect of the widespread school closures earlier in the year: "...school closure was associated with a -62% ... relative change in COVID-19 incidence per week ...[or]..423.9 cases per 100,000....school closure may have been associated with 1.37 million fewer cases of COVID-19 over a 26-day period and 40,600 fewer deaths over a 16-day period during the Spring of 2020." They acknowledge the difficulty in making accurate estimates, but even if you cut the reductions in half, those are significant numbers.

There is another study showing that transmission rates for children are about the same as for adults but children are much less likely to show symptoms. The big risk is not to the children. It's to the adults in their lives. Those adults get just as sick when they are infected by a child as if they had been infected by an adult.

If there really was no spike in your state from opening schools then you were fortunate. It's simply not true that "we know children are insignificant sources of infection".

[Andrew Seemann]

I live in a university town. They spread everything they get outside of the campus. They don't/won't stay in the dorms, they don't/won't stay on campus. We're already seeing an increase in cases.

They won't even actually perform the current "requirements" of the university in regards to any of this. What makes you think they won't leave the campus to go drink and party? They will, and do. It's a pipe-dream to believe otherwise.

Were any of us that bright at that age? I wasn't and I wasn't nearly as bad as others I knew.

A lot of things would go away if people just did what they were supposed to do. Drunk driving deaths, STDs, drug addition, road rage, cutting in line, athlete's foot, the common cold, type 2 diabetes, you name it, nearly all are preventable, yet all are problems and none show any sign of going away completely. Even with decades of public health campaigns, even simple to prevent things like STDs are still prevalent.

I see both sides. I have highly at risk older relatives, but I also see the mental health damage it is doing to my kids. Kids aren't able to handle the social separation from their peers like us older folks. It does real damage to them; the physical and hormonal stress of isolation is much higher in adolescence and early adulthood than it is after. Remember, this is the time of life when most of us met our spouses, got our first jobs, met our lifelong friends. It isn't surprising that they are unwilling to give these things up.

[Thomas McCurnin]

Nope. Never washed groceries, although I always washed fruit before eating it, virus or not. Never wore gloves.

Since March, always washed hands, stayed six feet away from everyone, and I wear a mask. Sometimes I have been known to remove the mask to speak clearly to someone.

[Bruce Volden]

No changes here. Life like it has always been.
Have to wear a mask where I have to, VA, some other medical services.
I quit watching the news a couple months back due to burn out. Media claiming the sky was falling etc.

[Brian Elfert]

I think I read that the N95 mask has a valve that allows the air from an exhale to exit without any filtering. As long as you don't have Covid that's not a problem.


Only some N95 masks have that exhalation valve. Medical N95 masks don't typically have that valve.

[Brian Elfert]

I just got back from a 4,000 mile trip with four friends in my motorhome. We took basically no COVID precautions while in the motorhome. The few times we went into stores we wore masks and washed hands afterwards. We were at an event with 50 other people on a desert playa. The dirt is so alkaline and enough wind that nobody really worried about COVID.

I am still working from home 75% of the time which might be the new normal. I wear a mask in public. I wash most of my packaged groceries when I get home. I don't (and never did) sterilize door knobs and the like at home since I live by myself.

[Tom M King]

I've been working by myself since the middle of February. My helper lives with his Brother, who works at a Prison. I didn't like the odds then. They both got it sometime early Summer, and the Brother ended up in the hospital for a while. I gave him paid leave to start with, but quit that when his unemployment came in, and then he had the $600 a week added. His Brother got him a job with him, so I think it worked out okay for them.

I've always avoided crowds anyway, and my Wife is such a good cook that we rarely ate out anyway, since it would be a downgrade.

The big difference for us is that my 104 year old Mother had to move in with us. She was in Assisted Living, had a stroke, went into hospital after testing negative, went to Nursing home, got better, COVID found her assisted living place just before the nursing home released her, so she's here now.

All my Scientist friends started working from home in January. Some are staying here at the lake in a house I built some decades ago. We have our own bubble going. A couple of weeks ago, when I needed to rejoin a tractor that I had to put a clutch in (when I go get parts, they put them in the back of my truck. I don't go in to mix with all the non mask wearing), I had two Nobel Prize in Physics winners to help me put it back together. They were good help.

edited to add: I've ended up losing weight, unintentionally. I never bothered to know what my weight was, but my jeans size has gone from 34, to 33, and this week putting on long pants for first time in a long time, 32. Before, I would eat lunch out, and eat what I wanted. Since this, I've been eating what Pam fixes three meals a day. She's into health, and fitness, so for a while now, I've been eating Trim, Healthy Mama recipes.

[Alex Zeller]

Not much has changed for the wife and I. We don't take a lot of precautions other than masks when in a store, I now cut my own hair, and only once have I eaten in a restaurant. But I also live in a state with very low numbers. I expect that will change now that leaves are turning colors and those from other states come up. But the colors are changing real fast this year so maybe we'll be spared.

As for masks and stopping the virus. That's BS. Most viruses need to mutate before they can jump between humans and animals. This is not the case with COVID. Even the CDC warns about this. So the virus is not going away. Humans most likely passed it on to their pets who then passed it on to other animals. Since most people appear to be asymptomatic or with mild symptoms it would be impossible to tell how many animals have it without actually testing them. As far as I know little to know studies have been done.

Even slowing down the rate of transmission is debatable. We are humans and as such we base our judgement on what we feel to be true and the level of risk we face. Look at things like the deadliest roads in America. People still drive them knowing the likelihood of dying is a lot higher. Yet they drive it everyday without incident and assume that will always be the case. The 20 somethings immediately went into panic mode but then realized after seeing the charts that the risk of death to them is a tiny fraction of what the media has been pushing. That's why they have changed drastically in how serious they take this. My take is they would have gone back to life as normal if us older people weren't forcing change on them.

[Andrew Joiner]

One thing I've not changed. In March Dr Fauci and Dr Gupta said "act like you have the virus to help you take proper measures". This helps prevent spreading or getting covid.
This is still SO true as we learn more about testing. Even people who are tested often can get and spread covid.