Inside take on the Chinese govenment coverup by a researcher who fled to the US.
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I know, I know. Either you’re deathly afraid of it, or you think it’s a hoax. So all us “deniers” need to wise up before we’re proven wrong too.
You’re dumb if you think you cant get sick, and you’re equally dumb if you think someone getting sick is proof they should’ve taken it more seriously. Acceptable risk does not mean no risk, and most of us comprehend that yes, sometimes that risk is going to be actualized.
Is anyone else getting invited to birthday parties or other get-togethers?
My neighbor invited us to his son’s birthday party for 7/18/20. Yes, it’ll be outside in his backyard (with a rented water slide for the kiddies). Would you go?
My brother a few weeks ago had a pre-Memorial day get together. It was a small gathering (but still more than 10 people). 2 families did not show. I was pressured into going by at least 2 relatives (outside of my family).
And a few weeks ago, my daughter’s classmate had a birthday party. They spent a lot of money on food and rented a water slide. It seemed like not that many people showed up. We showed up (reluctantly) wearing masks. Everyone stared at us like we were weird. We immediately took them off but for the most part, socially distanced ourselves from others. Our kids did not.
We have been lucky thus far.
I have no problem with expanding your boundaries beyond your own home. There’s no reason you have to only hang out with your immediate family. Kids need to socialize beyond siblings.
I’m torn on gathering with people you dont know or arent in regular contact with.
I admit we’ve been doing more now, than we would be doing if grandma was staying with us. Including some small birthday parties, gymnastics class, even resident summer camp. It’s a matter of individual circumstances, and balancing the potential risk and reward. Pressuring people to go beyond their comfort level is the only wrong answer.
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Exactly. And I have taken the liberty of bolding your operative and most important word there.
It’s a crap shoot with this virus. Most people are gonna be fine. A few will become ill, or make others ill, and most of them will come out OK.
A few people will draw the short straw, which means either chronic medical issues or even a most uncomfortable death.
Thing is, bad outcomes are individual event driven. It’s like flipping a coin. The fact you get a heads, or tails, on the first flip tells you nothing about succeeding flips. The fact you make it through one “event” without contracting a COVID-19 infection tells you nothing about how your next questionable event will turn out for you. It does not help that it can take two weeks just to learn how you did on that first outing!
Those wishing to contract the virus and be done with it, but lacking any really sure fire way of accomplishing that, do not despair. Just increase the number of low probability situations you enter into . . . maybe go food shopping every day, or whatever. Eventually you will draw that short straw and . . . bingo! . . . mission accomplished. 
It doesnt take 2 weeks to become sick, the 2-week timeframe is to ensure any infection has passed should you be asymptomatic. So there’s a decent chance you’ll never know how you did at that first outing!
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I’ve played bridge with a group of gals for 15+ yrs. The last time we played was March, just before we were really thinking about the virus. So we have been “stay at home’s” since then.
So in our schedule, the first week of August would be my turn to have the party. Now I don’t know if I’m really ready to “get together”. Like you said my comfort level is saying NO.
Big decision… Even when I start calling the gals, I may find out several aren’t ready. That could be my opening, for canceling. 
Bridge is a game that has been hit hard by the virus, since in person card games typically involve older people playing and touching the same cards in close contact for several hours. These days you might consider playing online, which is free on sites like this one, and perhaps supplementing the online game with a video call (zoom, FaceTime, etc) for the social aspect.
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It can take as long as I said. This is stolen from WebMD:
On average, symptoms showed up in the newly infected person about 5 days after contact. Rarely, symptoms appeared as soon as 2 days after exposure. Most people with symptoms had them by day 12. And most of the other ill people were sick by day 14. In rare cases, symptoms can show up after 14 days. Researchers think this happens with about 1 out of every 100 people.
I wrote that it can take as long as two weeks. I stand by that statement. This aspect is one of the well known most insidious features of COVID-19. It can easily happen that you think you are in the clear following possible exposure . . . . and then it turns out that you are not.
If I made any error, it is that I failed to account for the 1% of instances where it takes even longer than two weeks for symptoms to appear. But as a rule of thumb, if you think you’ve been exposed and you wait two weeks and have no symptoms, you’re very likely OK.
ETA
Incidentally, regarding those quick-appearing symptoms WebMD mentions. My impression is that if you get into that situation, rapid appearance of symptoms, you have an enhanced chance for death.
When COVID-19 hits you quick and very hard, it’s probably curtains. I guess a small number of people simply have an especially enhanced susceptibility.
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Kick in the head for me today. Bought my fresh Vidalia onions online a while back and they have been really great. Just made spaghetti sauce with them yesterday. Delicious! But stupid.
Instead of doing that I should have been ordering more Vidalias! Had seen counsel to get your final orders in before the middle of July. We are almost there so today I sought to order:
The virus got me. Every reputable online seller is sold out and posting “come back next year” banners. Have to figure the virus has millions of people at home and ordering online . . . this and everything else I guess. As a result the onions sold out early.
I know stored Vidalias almost surely remain available in grocery stores. And they are good. But you have to go into the store . . . . . . . . . . .
ETA
While making that sauce yesterday I used, for the very first time, Redpack tomatoes. You can obtain them online from Target.com. In the past I’ve always used my store’s store brand, but obviously with the pandemic that is in the past. Anyway, the Redpack whole tomatoes from Target were actually BETTER than my store brand. They are really nice; high quality. I shall be buying more.
Party gathering without precautions leads to lots of cases. Interesting graphic for how it spread.
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It’s certainly possible, but isnt it also possible some of those people caught it from “[going] about their daily lives”? I mean, the article outright says some subsequently took beach trips with other families - which often headlines the news as an example of risky activity.
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Maybe, but with 10M people in NC and less than 100k confirmed cases, you’re looking af a pretty low prevalence - 1-5% maybe depending on how many unconfirmed cases are out there. That would make it more likely that you got the virus from a known source of infection than a random contact.
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State death reporting is very lagged, so many cases (or probably cases) being reported now are often from weeks or months ago. Trust the headline figures at your peril and wait for the CDC data that includes the full information on timing, etc. of course that can only be seen actuately a fair bit in the past.
https://mobile.twitter.com/kylamb8/status/1281778023935737858
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Local Walmarts are back to only opening one door to the store. Because when trying to keep people spread out, why not force every single person to walk the same 4-ft wide paths in and out.
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Are they limited on capacity? Do they have an employee at the entrance checking that people are masked and doing a count of the # going in and out? Is it a one way stream setup?
I think any / all of those reasons might be why they’d limit the # of doors open at a time.
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No and no.
No parties yet and my family isn’t doing stuff either. The 4th was cancelled. Our kids haven’t had any b-day party invites yet. iF we did get party invites we’d decline. People will feel and give pressure to attend events but we need to get over that.
On the other hand, Glitch is right:
We are letting our kids have some interaction with limited other kids. They’ve had some play dates. They went to the arcade yesterday for the first time which was their first ‘fun’ activity like that indoors in 3 months. Luckily it was empty at the arcade so no concerns, but I feared it wold be packed with people who had been stuck at home for months. The kids are bouncing off the wans and its reelly wearing on them mentally. REALLY doesn’t help that our weather has been poor lately with rain.
My wife is an extrovert so she has gone out some too but its been limited and she has anxiety about it.
Her mother, the kids grandma has been coming over as well fairly regular. She is my / our biggest concern as she’s elderly enough to be in a high risk category due to age. We were going to do a summer day camp for our younger son but cancelled cause grandma was worried. The camp was only 10 kids plus staff with masks required etc, but still its a steady exposure to >10 households.
Luckily Oregon is still relatively low case counts, though its steadily rising. Only about 1 in 1000 people in our ZIP code have caught it. But with the daily counts going up they fear we’re in store for exponential growth statewide. 
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