And this is lifelong impact for a whole generation. There is no coming back from experience like it.

The other question to ask is following - i believe it is clear now that vaccine will not solve this so called "crisis". So for those who feel that hiding and isolating and lockdowns are the only option - this is supposed to be permanent?

I don't believe this is life altering for the majority of kids. Eventually, sooner than later, the basic human nature of social interaction will force us out of hiding, isolating and lockdowns if the virus remains at similar levels of total population risk. We are already at the point of virus fatigue so the we're all gonna die fear reaction the media depends on for selling soap is much less effective today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague

 

I don't believe this is life altering for the majority of kids. Eventually, sooner than later, the basic human nature of social interaction will force us out of hiding, isolating and lockdowns if the virus remains at similar levels of total population risk. We are already at the point of virus fatigue so the we're all gonna die fear reaction the media depends on for selling soap is much less effective today.
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Plague

That painting made me think of "The Seventh Seal"

 

We are already at the point of virus fatigue so the we're all gonna die fear reaction the media depends on for selling soap is much less effective today.

Down here my fellow compatriots have been mocking death since time immemorial....

​

 

That painting made me think of "The Seventh Seal"

From that to this:

 

https://spectrum.ieee.org/artificia...odeling-the-spread-of-covid19-is-so-damn-hard

Researchers say they’ve learned a lot of lessons modeling this pandemic, lessons that will carry over to the next.

The first set of lessons is all about data. Garbage in, garbage out, they say. Jarad Niemi, an associate professor of statistics at Iowa State University who helps run the forecast hub used by the CDC, says it’s not clear what we should be predicting. Infections, deaths, and hospitalization numbers each have problems, which affect their usefulness not only as inputs for the model but also as outputs. It’s hard to know the true number of infections when not everyone is tested. Deaths are easier to count, but they lag weeks behind infections. Hospitalization numbers have immense practical importance for planning, but not all hospitals release those figures. How useful is it to predict those numbers if you never have the true numbers for comparison?

 

What lockdown?

 

Italy's very interesting case:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54356335

The most likely explanation is a combination of factors: efficient test and tracing, a longer lockdown - Italy was the world's first country to shut down nationwide and among the slowest to reopen - and the fact that the trauma of the early weeks of the pandemic frightened Italians into widespread compliance with rules.

 

Italy's very interesting case:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54356335

Sadly the low hanging fruit of elderly and frail for the virus to infect and kill have already been taken during the first stage in Italy. The rules mask and distancing are working with the population being exposed to low viral levels that don't generate classic COVID-19 symptoms but gives the population higher levels of immunity as time passes. This process is suppressing the virus spread just as effectually as a vaccine where the COVID-19 at risk population is missing (mainly young populations), gone (high death rates in elderly populations) or in effective isolation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-strategy.html

Vilified Early Over Lax Virus Strategy, Sweden Seems to Have Scourge Controlled
After having weathered high death rates when it resisted a lockdown in the spring, Sweden now has one of Europe’s lowest rates of daily new cases. Whether that is an aberration remains to be seen.
...
In essence, some experts say, they are quietly adopting the Swedish approach.

“Today, all of the European countries are more or less following the Swedish model, combined with the testing, tracing and quarantine procedures the Germans have introduced, but none will admit it,” said Antoine Flahault, director of the Institute of Global Health, in Geneva. “Instead, they made a caricature out of the Swedish strategy. Almost everyone has called it inhumane and a failure.”

 

Sadly the low hanging fruit of elderly and frail for the virus to infect and kill have already been taken during the first stage in Italy. The rules mask and distancing are working with the population being exposed to low viral levels that don't generate classic COVID-19 symptoms but gives the population higher levels of immunity as time passes. This process is suppressing the virus spread just as effectually as a vaccine where the COVID-19 at risk population is missing (mainly young populations), gone (high death rates in elderly populations) or in effective isolation.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/world/europe/sweden-coronavirus-strategy.html

Only time will tell which was the best strategy to confront this plague... The words you mentioned a few posts ago about authorities acting according to the information available at the moment are still resonating in my mind.

 

Only time will tell which was the best strategy to confront this plague... The words you mentioned a few posts ago about authorities acting according to the information available at the moment are still resonating in my mind.

I don't think there is a best strategy, period but it's obvious there are some poor ones for the long term. If you're an island like New Zealand you use your strength of isolation in a national good strategy, if you're China or NK you use centralized brute force to contain and isolate the virus. For a country as large, diverse and stratified as the USA you really need 50 good strategies.

 

For a country as large, diverse and stratified as the USA you really need 50 good strategies.

True ... but I'm sure all of those strategies would have to have a common foundation. Which is something I have yet to see. Down here we're having similar problems. States have been left to fend for themselves and the federation is barely intervening. The only good thing to have come from the central authorities is their insistence on mask wearing and social distancing. The problem is that many people don't take things seriously, and on top of that, most of us are tired and weary after so many months of lockdown and strict measures.

 

True ... but I'm sure all of those strategies would have to have a common foundation. Which is something I have yet to see. Down here we're having similar problems. States have been left to fend for themselves and the federation is barely intervening. The only good thing to have come from the central authorities is their insistence on mask wearing and social distancing. The problem is that many people don't take things seriously, and on top of that, most of us are tired and weary after so many months of lockdown and strict measures.

No simple, one size solutions are possible. Every action has a reaction.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/heal...stralia-india-and-philippines-are-coronavirus

Researchers have linked lockdowns – which have in many cases been accompanied by sharp declines in GDP – to numerous societal ills, while stay-at-home orders and the redirection of medical resources toward Covid-19 have been associated with deaths from other maladies.

In the US state of Colorado, researchers at Denver Health found the imposition of a stay-at-home order in March was followed by a 2.2-fold rise in heart attacks at home, with those deaths exceeding the total number of fatalities from Covid-19 in the two weeks following the order.
...
In European capitals such as Paris and Madrid, authorities have settled on localised measures such as mask mandates, limits on large public gatherings and reduced capacity in bars and other venues amid record numbers of new cases. Despite
France
reporting more than 10,000 new cases on Saturday, President Emmanuel Macron has resisted the reintroduction of a national lockdown after his country’s GDP plummeted nearly 14 per cent in the second quarter, having earlier stressed the need to “learn to live with the virus”.
Europe’s more relaxed response to its second wave also comes as the virus is causing far fewer deaths and hospitalisations than before – a trend that experts have suggested could be due to greater numbers of young people being infected, improved hospital care and widespread mask wearing.

Johan Giesecke, an epidemiologist who advises the World Health Organisation and the Swedish government, said it would take time before the success of different countries’ strategies could be properly judged.
“Don’t compare country strategies until at least one more year has passed,” he said. “Maybe five.”

 

No simple, one size solutions are possible. Every action has a reaction.
https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/heal...stralia-india-and-philippines-are-coronavirus

I believe that true fallout will be not deaths due to coronavirus (i think they will be similar across the board regardless of steps taken over time - area under the curve does not change if you "flatten" it) but due to the damage of measures taken to contain it. It will be difficult to make a comparison as countries differ in their demographics, economic status and so on.

While i have been minimally affected, i just noticed yesterday that shrinking daytime has got me down more than normal, i had a thought that losing an hour this fall will not go so easy. Not having been able to go for a proper vacation this year has not done me well.

 

Since all this began has anyone in the US died of anything else than COVID? That is short of course short of run over by a subway train or bus? How many people in a 9 month period die normally? When they claim 200,000 dead attributed to COVID I have to wonder how many would have died anyway. All I see is COVID plastered everywhere and every death certificate hot stamped COVID.

Ron

 

Since all this began has anyone in the US died of anything else than COVID? That is short of course short of run over by a subway train or bus? How many people in a 9 month period die normally? When they claim 200,000 dead attributed to COVID I have to wonder how many would have died anyway. All I see is COVID plastered everywhere and every death certificate hot stamped COVID.

Ron

Those excess deaths for this year IMO are correctly attributed to COVID because IMO COVID-19 pushed them, over the edge, this year.. I don't know about elsewhere but in Oregon the vast majority are old (most 80+) with existing health conditions. It's reaping people very likely to die in the next few years for any cause so I expect a decrease in excess deaths attributed to COVID as the pandemic continues with increasing cases without a vaccine as a much younger populations continues to get infected (with a very low death risk) while the numbers of death risk infected decreases from attrition or maintained isolation.

https://www.jems.com/2020/08/13/extra-deaths-in-the-us/

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/29/nyregion/nyc-coronavirus-schools-reopen.html

New York City on Tuesday reached a major milestone in its recovery from the pandemic, welcoming roughly 300,000 elementary school students back to classrooms after the reopening of the system had been repeatedly delayed.

https://www.krcu.org/post/kids-new-york-city-go-back-school-person-classes#stream/0

"With everything going on, we were back-and-forth on our decision a lot," said parent Mark Lopez, who dropped off his daughter for her first day at P.S. 84 in Williamsburg. "But when we saw all the precautions in place, it made us feel a little safer."

 

They gave the granddaughter (HS Junior) a choice in Gahanna, Ohio. They can do alternate weeks of two days in class and three days virtual (at home on computer) then the opposite. She is pretty religious about getting the work done and seems to actually prefer the work from home.

Ron

 

*no politics here*

But things just got far more dramatic... for the US and the rest of the world.

 

Here in our weekly mullet wrapper, they think it is a newspaper but we all know better, they claim that after 2 weeks with all the kids back there have been 0 cases of CV19 in the schools.

 

Barely enough time to be transmitted and incubated, so that report doesn't come to any valid conclusions.