Coronavirus (Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange: how much, schools, organic)

[goodheathen]

4-6 months, Dr. Birx from the Trump years says.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/birx-says...201218758.html
Southern USA, why, because it hasn't hit there as much yet as in the Northeast or because vaccination rates were poor to begin with? I hope she doesn't mean the whole southern border (including SoCal).

Also, natural immunity from an Omicron infection is like I said very weak, and it's worse than the protection from vaccines.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/covids-om...093733782.html

[beachGecko]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

4-6 months, Dr. Birx from the Trump years says.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/birx-says...201218758.html
Southern USA, why, because it hasn't hit there as much yet as in the Northeast or because vaccination rates were poor to begin with? I hope she doesn't mean the whole southern border (including SoCal).

Also, natural immunity from an Omicron infection is like I said very weak, and it's worse than the protection from vaccines.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/covids-om...093733782.html

These in vitro studies are worthless, they just measure Ab titers from the vaccines. It takes many leaps to arrive at immunity from these test tube studies. Real world data shows the opposite.

[ThinkingOutsideTheBox]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

Dogs could be used for pre-screening large groups (not packed too closely together), and probably only some household members would need to be tested (which is a big deal given how many fliers are family units). If some are positive, test the rest or the group might prefer to cancel. That can be worked out with trial programs ahead of deployment for all international flights.

Test-to-fly would be much more effective than other pre-flight testing, vaccine requirements, and masking. It would simply things tremendously for airlines. Some travel insurance policies cover COVID-related issues. Not sure if insurance addresses false positives, but ultimately testing positive is a speed bump for the scheme and much better to catch the positives before the travel.

We're all gonna be exposed (but not necessarily test positive) to Covid at one point unless you lockdown forever. Covid sniffing dogs, test to fly, vaccine passports, or a requiring masks to be pulled up "between sips and bites" is NOT the answer to Covid. Just leave each individual to assess their own risk and act accordingly. If you wanna wear an N95 or even a hazmat suit to fly, go right ahead but don't impose mandates on other people.

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by ThinkingOutsideTheBox

We're all gonna be exposed (but not necessarily test positive) to Covid at one point unless you lockdown forever. Covid sniffing dogs, test to fly, vaccine passports, or a requiring masks to be pulled up "between sips and bites" is NOT the answer to Covid. Just leave each individual to assess their own risk and act accordingly. If you wanna wear an N95 or even a hazmat suit to fly, go right ahead but don't impose mandates on other people.

When this actually became a thing I knew we were entering insanity land.


requiring masks to be pulled up "between sips and bites"


It looks even more ridiculous now than then.

[goodheathen]

Originally Posted by ThinkingOutsideTheBox

We're all gonna be exposed (but not necessarily test positive) to Covid at one point unless you lockdown forever. Covid sniffing dogs, test to fly, vaccine passports, or a requiring masks to be pulled up "between sips and bites" is NOT the answer to Covid. Just leave each individual to assess their own risk and act accordingly. If you wanna wear an N95 or even a hazmat suit to fly, go right ahead but don't impose mandates on other people.

A society of selfish people (on brazen display in this thread) will never collectively make good decisions and this situation will hardly improve via human behavior.

The smart thing is rapid test-to-fly. It alone is likely to significantly reduce transmission of the virus. I suggest starting with a trial involving Lufthansa.

By the way, airlines wouldn't be potential plaintiffs for false positives. A lab would contract to test people and process the results, and for all I know, labs have insurance in case their tests are wrong.

[beachGecko]

Originally Posted by goodheathen

A society of selfish people (on brazen display in this thread) will never collectively make good decisions and this situation will hardly improve via human behavior.

The smart thing is rapid test-to-fly. It alone is likely to significantly reduce transmission of the virus. I suggest starting with a trial involving Lufthansa.

By the way, airlines wouldn't be potential plaintiffs for false positives. A lab would contract to test people and process the results, and for all I know, labs have insurance in case their tests are wrong.

Not gonna discuss the Test-to-Fly just add the COVID sniffing dogs intrigue me. Many preliminary studies show they’re quite accurate, never picking out a PCR-negative and picking out PCR-positive 80-100% of the time.

When I first heard about them using COVID sniffing dogs at a Miami Heat game, I thought it was one large joke!

One thing they need to determine is if these dogs are sniffing COVID or if you’re just sick. Studies were all done with samples of healthy people and COVID-positive people. When someone is sick they release certain cytokines and other organic compounds they don’t when healthy and you don’t need dogs for that. I can smell when someone is sick or not.

[beachGecko]

Originally Posted by beachGecko

I have many stories I’ll tell them as I remember them and later I saw a lot of sad things. Like when I crossed the border from Serbia into Croatia by car in a cold December day and a few guys were standing outside and wanted to hitch hike. Apparently their driver was not allowed into Croatia because he didn’t have a PCR test but they were, which didn’t do them much good as they had 3 hours to Zagreb by car.

As to vax cards since I’m morally against forced vaccinations, I will offer this suggestion. Faking an American vax card is easy but consequences are big for being caught…. In the US.

When faking pay attention to Lot #s as those can be looked up. Patient number cannot unless you authorize them.

If you fake your vax card you can always “wash” it into a real one by going to France (as an example) and going to an official pharmacy and asking for a EU/French vaccine pass. Then you just use that in the USA, consequences are almost 0 if caught.

Just to expend on this story. There were something like a dozen people left standing in the freezing winter day because the driver was blocked. Apparently the company claimed they would send another driver but it was hours without results. I only had space for 2 of them. 1 was an old man who was clearly sick and to be left out in the cold was a sign of just how far society had fallen.

I went to Serbia to do a marathon in Kosovo . This was November 2020, and the Pristina marathon was the only marathon going on.

My friend from Kosovo, she’s a famous mountain climber and a bit of a local celebrity. Afterwards, we met with a politician from the Kosovo parliament. I asked her if she felt the restrictions were necessary or just a complete overreaction. She smiled and said Kosovo was getting EU money to implement COVID restrictions. She also admitted to having COVID and just had a headache. She drove off in her 100,000+ Euro Benz despite average salary in Kosovo like 300 euros a month.

Meanwhile, my friend the mountain climber, who like me believed the entire COVID thing was a pile of crap went and did a short shoot on the importance of masks during the pandemic. They handed her a mask and she repeated a few lines, she then later handed them back the masks, COVID theater.

Back in Serbia, apparently they were having a serious wave and restaurants were ordered to close by 4pm. How this helps is beyond me. I was invited to dinner at this fancy Belgrade restaurant by a friend in the Serbian government. Sometime during the dinner I realized it was 8pm and I remembered there was a curfew. So I asked her how this was possible? She smiled and pointed to a large table full of people laughing and talking. Apparently they were top dogs in Serbia’s leading party, and loved this restaurant, so it was allowed to completely float the curfew.

[DabOnEm]

I see yall had some fun on this nice weekend. What an interesting last few pages.

You got someone pretending to be too cool while weirdly asking/trying to figure out where everyone lives. Then you got someone who probably has the hookup on fake IDs/passports if you need it. Then someone else thinks city data is way beneath them but best believe they WILL get the last word in before going fishing for the day or whatever. Then of course the usual covidians with their fear mongering posts and random links to articles they probably dont read fully.

All we're missing now is for someone to come through and let us know how many billionaires in CA did not get covid.

[CA4Now]

"After months of declining numbers, California has recorded a nearly 30% increase in coronavirus cases over the last week along with smaller rises in hospitalizations...

The increase coincides with a loosening of COVID-19 restrictions such as mask mandates and vaccine verification rules as well as the rise of new subvariants of the highly transmissible Omicron strain. The question now is how much higher cases will go and whether new government intervention will be needed.

“We’re expecting a small surge that may mirror something that we saw in Delta last summer, in early July, but it’s happening now, in May,” Dr. Curtis Chan, deputy health officer for San Mateo County, said in an interview.

Chan expects a rise in both hospitalizations and deaths but doesn’t believe a new surge would be as bad as last winter’s Omicron wave."

https://www.latimes.com/california/s...-begin-to-rise

[saibot]

I spent the entire day yesterday at Disney with my daughter and niece. We are not really Disney people and haven't been for many years, but the combination of three free tickets from a Disney employee + niece visiting from another country enticed us to go.

Had a great time, but was the park ever packed. I thought their new reservation system was supposed to keep crowds down, but it was pretty darn full. The best part--no masks required, no social distancing ever mentioned, completely normal except for masks on some employees, and 1-2% of visitors still dutifully wearing theirs. After our last major outing (flight to Washington state in January during which we heard the "wear masks at all times including between bites and sips" mantra practically the entire time), it was so refreshing.

And yes, there was no shortage of older people in the park. Really great to see all ages out and about and mingling and enjoying their lives, at last.

Every once in a while I still look at the Orange County Covid dashboard to see the numbers. Of course the doomsayers in the news are still talking about a "30% surge in cases" and making dire predictions, but it's relieving to see that so many people are not putting their lives on hold because the number of people testing positive last week "surged" from 0.03% of the population to 0.039%.