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CDC says U.S. gatherings of over 50 people should be put off
- threatofrain 7y agoOh now they say it? What a lack of leadership.
- jackschultz 7y agoPut off for 8 weeks. Let's make the assumption that people follow the rule and things seem to go well and we get to May 10th. What will they say for the next max size gathering? 250? Small ramp ups? Or do you think they'll continue to say stay below 50 and the 8 week time limit is all that can looked ahead to? We really need well run prediction markets on this. Getting more accurate forecasts on this is incredibly valuable.
- jpster 7y agoI would love, love, love to learn more about whether and how China is rebooting and how that is going. Haven’t seen much reporting on it. Aside from Apple’s plans to reopen their stores there.
- caseysoftware 7y agoIt looks like they're using slave labor.. oh sorry, forced labor while their families are held back in re-education camps: https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306909-report-china-sells-minorities-into-forced-labor-to-benefit-apple-foxconn-others https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/306909-report-china-sell...
- alisonatwork 7y agoOutside of Hubei, most people are back to work in some form or another now. Throughout February white collar workers worked from home. Since March we've been allowed back to the office, although there are draconian restrictions (must not sit at same table, must wear mask, must report temperature etc). Schools are still closed so many parents continue to work from home. Blue collars have been going back to work for several weeks, although I imagine they are facing similar or even harsher restrictions than white collars. I think pink collars have suffered the most of everybody. Many restaurants have reopened, but in my neighborhood it's only this week that some barbershops reopened, and there are still no bars open, no movie theaters, no events venues etc. My guess would be the country is about 60-70% back to work now, but those who are back are definitely not operating at maximum efficiency due to the ongoing travel restrictions, testing restrictions and closed up schools. I would urge people in the west look at other countries in East Asia that handled this without a massive lockdown. China is not really a great example to follow.
- buboard 7y agoyou d think that public service announcements would not be put behind a paywall
- pengaru 7y agoThe CDC web site is not behind a paywall.
- buboard 7y agoPublic service announcements are meant to be broadcast by the media
- pengaru 7y agoPSAs are meant to be broadcast to all audiences. On a subscription service, the audience is the subscribers. There's no requirement that I'm aware of for subscription services to offer non-subscribers any content of any sort, including PSAs.
- sitkack 7y agoMeetings over 1 should be avoided. Wash hands. Cover coughs. Maintain a minimum of 6ft distance .
- forkexec 7y agoMurder people who refuse to cover their coughs at all.
- ceejayoz 7y agoQuite frankly, a few of those are going to happen. People shoot each other over parking spot disputes in normal times.
- rm_-rf_slash 7y agoSurprised there haven’t been any parking lot murders over toilet paper yet.
- forkexec 7y agoThere's only 2^8 days until Black Friday, where people can get back to murdering each other for cheap TVs.
- forkexec 7y agoPoe's law entered the chat I'm not worried about a hypothetical, I'm worried more about the lack of a sense of humor. I just hope stress kills more humorless people who take everything way too literally.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoI'm hoping in all seriousness that it will become a firing offense for cashiers to lick their fingers or wipe their faces before bagging your stuff or giving you change, etc. I've wished this for a long time because I have a compromised immune system. But I'm desperately hoping that a silver lining of the cornoavirus pandemic will be that the world becomes a less crappy experience for me personally because, good god, people are gross on a regular basis and act like I'm crazy and a bitch if I ask them "Please don't do that. I get sick real easily." I can't condone murder for coughing, though I have my days when I would very much like to. But I absolutely will sign the petition to pass the law making it a firing offense for cashiers to share their diseases so freely.
- senordevnyc 7y agoThey need to just bite the bullet and lock everything down. We are way, way behind the curve here and cases and deaths are going to skyrocket no matter what we do at this point. But if we lock down now, we might be able to see the numbers plateau in a few weeks.
- finaliteration 7y agoHonest question because I’ve seen a few comments stating this without totally clarifying: What does “lock everything down” mean? Are you suggesting people be locked up in their homes for weeks or a month? Or just shutting down non-essential businesses and buildings? Domestic travel restrictions? I legitimately am asking not to be snarky or confrontational, I’m just trying to get some clarity on what people mean when they say this.
- mtmail 7y agoYou'd only be allowed outside to go to work or to the supermarket or pharmacy. All other shops closed. So factories and office buildings mostly stay open, just more reduced (home office as much as possible). Every country has different limits currently. China indeed locked doors (with tape) to check if people stayed it, food delivery only through windows.
- xyzzy_plugh 7y agoYes, you're fairly accurate. It means cafes, non-essential retail stores, restaurants, etc. should shut down. People should only venture outside for groceries, medicine, or if their work demands it. Work that is non-essential should be put on hold. No non-essential travel, no going out for dinner, no casual shopping for goods, no hanging out or drinking with friends or family. Stay at home as often as you can, reasonably. You don't need a curfew, yet!
- ceejayoz 7y agoSpain has drones yelling at people to go home if they're spotted hanging out even in parks and whatnot. People should stay home unless they're getting groceries/medicine or going to work in a hospital or other piece of critical infrastructure.
- lazyant 7y agoIt's 5 in Australia
- emkemp 7y agoModerators: Here is the direct (non-paywalled) announcement from CDC: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-events/mass-gatherings-ready-for-covid-19.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/community/large-ev...
- grej 7y agoThis should be at the top
- adrr 7y agoOnly thing we can do now is stop people from leaving their house for the next 4 weeks. We don't even have any testing capacity, nation should be shutting down till we have the means to constrain the virus.
- jpster 7y agoI want those in leadership positions to stop saying “should” and start saying “must”.
- bdcravens 7y agoI suspect they are worried about backlash related to freedom of assembly or freedom of religion.
- hurricanetc 7y agoGrocery stores? Pharmacies?
- ajross 7y agoShould be minimized, but obviously can't be eliminated. There are some services that can't be locked down, but that's OK as long as the community transmission risk as a whole is suppressed enough. Herd immunity isn't only about antibodies, the same mathematics works no matter how you reduce transmission rate.
- nvahalik 7y agoSome stores here are limiting hours to something reasonable: it gives them time to re-stock and to clean. This seems not only reasonable but completely sane. Close down for 8 hours a day minimally so that they can clean stores.
- mrfusion 7y agoAlthough it also makes the times they are open more crowded.
- fuzzfactor 7y agoI can assure you the fear in the faces of the Walmart workers Thursday evening, as they had presided over emptier shelves every hour than any had ever seen, was fear of rationing more so than fear of contracting disease. That was the last day before they limited hours.
- nvahalik 7y agoPerhaps. Around here this isn't something unusual when a hurricane or crazy weather event is in the forecast. Call it naive optimism, but hopefully in the next few days people will calm down and things might sort-of go back to normal.
- Taek 7y agoAt first I was happy to see this. But now I am not happy to see this, because it's making me realize that this is the only action that's going to be put in place over the next few days. Too little, too late. This type of regulation made sense 2 weeks ago, combined with a halting of all international travel and an advisory against interstate travel. The virus got out of control though. We don't know how many are infected, but we know our ground zero is 10-100x worse than the ground zero of nations that managed to get things under control. People need to brace for impact. The US medical system is going to be overwhelmed by people in critical condition. The government has been too slow to respond.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- slipheen 7y agoYes, it's late. But it's still better to do than not.
- nvahalik 7y ago> People need to brace for impact. The US medical system is going to be overwhelmed by people in critical condition. I'd just like to point out that when you say the "US medical system" you're talking about a large area. It's not like a country like Italy which is smaller than the state of California but 30% more people. The US is far more spread apart and while that doesn't mean it will be better here, it does mean that you can't think about the US just like a single country. Same with China, too.
- freehunter 7y agoYou’re still only talking about 700,000 beds for a disease that will likely cause 1,000,000 deaths and put huge numbers in the ICU and even more in hospital care. A bed in Maine does no good if the patient is in LA and the doctor is in North Dakota.
- Pacers31Colts18 7y ago
- pmoriarty 7y agoThe effectiveness of this warning on people who would not already limit their gatherings is questionable. Many people are just in denial or deluded about how serious this pandemic is, and are unlikely to significantly change their behavior until and unless people start dropping dead all around them. The most effective thing the CDC can do is just to dramatically increase the amount of testing by hundreds or thousands of times over what it's doing now, then publish the results. If people know how many others are infected all around them it might give more of them pause. The government also needs to do whatever it takes to increase ICU capacity at hospitals, and give them more resources and support of every kind. We are very likely on the brink of a collapse of the ability of our health care system to take care of the most vulnerable, with a death toll that will dwarf in American casualties any war the US has been in and the direst of economic consequences if the pandemic is not slowed to a manageable level.
- TravHatesMe 7y ago> We are very likely on the brink of a collapse of the ability of our health care system to take care of the most vulnerable, with a death toll that will dwarf in American casualties any war the US has been in and the direst of economic consequences if the pandemic is not slowed to a manageable level. This seems over the top. I thought the death rates are insignificant for those younger than 60, and those who succumb to it already have pre-existing health/respiratory issues. Doesn't influenza cause thousands of deaths per year? I am mostly playing devil's advocate, I am genuinely curious to hear why you have so much fear.
- grecy 7y agoEven the best-case estimates right now have US deaths at 2 million. i.e. 70% of people infected (230mil), 1% of those people die (2.3mil). 1% death rate is extremely low, it will more likely be 3 or 4 or 5. It's very possible 10 million people in the US are going to die (5% of infected).
- solidasparagus 7y agoThis is blatantly untrue. Worst case scenario is currently believed to be 1.7 million deaths. https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/487652-fauci-offers-updates-on-coronavirus-mitigation-as-administration https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/487652-fauci-...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- hirundo 7y ago> The advisory doesn’t apply to the day-to-day operation of organizations such as schools, institutes of higher learning, or businesses... Why not? A theater playing Emma on a schedule isn't somehow safer than a movie theater hosting a one-time corporate event, for the same number of people. Or a normal day at a large restaurant versus the same restaurant reserved for a private party. Why advise that the later be put off but not the former? > Events of any size should only be continued if they can be carried out with adherence to guidelines for protecting vulnerable populations, hand hygiene, and social distancing Say such a business tried to continue to hold events while adhering to the guidelines. It seems that "protecting vulnerable populations" would mean not admitting people with comorbidities, such as the elderly, obese, diabetic, smokers, etc. I'd think that equal access laws such as the ADA would prevent such an attempt.
- ck2 7y agoSo 49 people in a small room is okay? Like a classroom? WTF Same CDC that refused the working tests from WHO, then made their own tests incorrectly, then produced so few tests that we have no idea who is infecting hundreds of others for days, weeks. The post-analysis of this is going to be jaw-dropping. Like worse than "determined to fly airplanes into buildings" report that was ignored before 9/11
- friedman23 7y agoThe purpose of these restrictions are to keep spread of the virus within communities and to avoid inter community infection. This helps significantly flatten the curve.
- fuzzfactor 7y agoCDC says: >Remember, a COVID-19 outbreak could last for a long time. It's already becoming more memorable for its poorly-controlled spread of damage, forseeable over an increasing period of time to come. Q. Have a COVID-19 outbreak? A. No, thanks, we already have one.
- joejohnson 7y agoThe Democratic National Committee needs to postpone the primaries scheduled for this Tuesday.
- perennate 7y agoI don't think a political party has that authority. It is up to state and possibly federal government (for most of it at least, not the caucuses).
- joejohnson 7y agoThe political parties can almost do whatever they want. The DNC fought for this in court after 2016. They can legally cancel all of the remaining contests and crown Jamie Dimon as the nominee if they so choose because they are a private organization, albeit one which has burrowed itself into the state and federal government.
- mrfusion 7y agoI’d tend to agree but it could set a very dangerous precedent. I think that’s one of the few things that’s worth not postponing.
- halfmatthalfcat 7y agoWell, society has never faced an epidemic during an election year, so unprecedented times might call for unprecedented measures.
- 0x8BADF00D 7y agoMight as well call off the election then. These are unprecedented times after all.
- AznHisoka 7y agoIf the election was held in April, yes absolutely you should. Unless you have virtual election options available.
- etxm 7y agoDoes that mean you shouldn’t gather on, oh say an airplane?
- grej 7y agoThis is a legitimate question IMO. You’re in much tighter quarters for far longer while flying most domestic routes.
- etxm 7y agoOur family went on self quarantine a week ago because one of us is immunocompromised, but we have travel plans for a wedding in 6 weeks.
- selimthegrim 7y agoTrain is probably no better although they could add more cars to seat people farther apart
- pdonis 7y agoI canceled an airplane trip I had planned for later this week precisely for this reason. I don't know that all flying should be stopped--I'm sure there are people whose reason for having to fly is urgent enough to outweigh the risk, and they should be able to make that decision for themselves. But I'm not one of them, so I'm not taking the risk.
- blendo 7y agoI’ve read the onboard HEPA filters are actually pretty effective at filtering out a typical 0.1 micron viruses. Right now, I’d probably hold out for a plane less than 1/3rd full. First class would probably be fine, too.
- zaroth 7y agoMA just announced a ban on all gatherings over 25 people. Restaurants are all now take-out only. Health clubs closed. All shows and schools canceled. Etc.. Currently this is through April 7th. I hope the government is also planning to pay people’s rent, mortgage, electric, water, groceries, credit card interest, etc. A friend of mine runs a small local restaurant. Not sure how he will pay rent. All of his servers are now temporarily unemployed and have no way to buy food or pay rent. Another friend of mine is a personal trainer. Not sure how he will buy groceries next week. The vast majority of the people most directly impacted by all this are essentially at zero risk of dying from COVID. And on April 7th it’s not like COVID will cease to exist... “Locking everything down” is an incredibly damaging and nonsensical action for the vast majority of the population.
- brown9-2 7y agodeath is also pretty damaging
- zaroth 7y agoWho under 35 is dying from COVID. Like 10 cases the whole world over. So you tell me which is more damaging?
- blondin 7y agoi understand what you are trying to say. but people aren't concerned with young folks being at risk. they are concerned that they will spread it. that's why schools are closed. they wanna "plateau the curve" or whatever they call it. curious, can't personal training happen online? via i dunno, skype or slack? if not, well, someone needs to make it happen.
- en-us 7y agoThe people in at-risk groups are people too. You're acting like their lost lives don't matter.
- edmundsauto 7y agoPeople under 35 who take extra risks to protect their economic interests are being negligent. This behavior will harm vulnerable populations, and also impact health system availability, hurting everyone. We need to figure out something, fast, for these workers. The economics are terrifying and require resolve to accept that we will economically damage ourselves to protect others in our communities.
- yters 7y agoThis will become the new normal. A two week quarantine won't fix anything, and the virus will spread all over again once the quarantine is lifted and a bunch of not immune carries venture out in public again. Then we will go into another lockdown and the cycle will repeat.
- halfmatthalfcat 7y agoThey won’t lift the lockdown until we’ve hit certain markers, I’m sure. This is why de Blasio took so long (or rather was forced by Cuomo and other state’s moves) to close schools. Once you close the schools, they aren’t opening for the rest of the year and potentially into the next school year.
- koheripbal 7y agoBingo. School is over for the rest of the year for everyone - globally.
- DoreenMichele 7y agoThere may be many reasons to be reluctant to close schools. Some kids get a lot of their food from school and go hungry when school is closed. A lot of parents are dependent on school as de facto daycare and can't afford to pay for childcare when school isn't in session.
- kpozin 7y agoThis is a problem that the city already faces during every school vacation and for 2.5 months every summer. Surely there must already be some functioning solutions. (For example, many NYC schools serve breakfast and lunch to children under 18 throughout the summer. I'm not sure how the lack of childcare is handled during the summers.)
- dwighttk 7y agowhy would you need / how would you get childcare when we're all quarantined at home?
- kerng 7y agoApparently Austria just banned any gatherings of 5+ people. Are we in the US behind?