[Stylo]

Originally Posted by whatsgoingon4

I do think we have to make sure hospitalizations and deaths continue to stay low - remember how last summer cases went up, but it took quite a while for the latter two metrics to increase? Hopefully it doesn't happen again. Myself, I lean toward the vaccine probably giving strong protection for many years, same with actual infection.

The surge in summer wasn’t in CT though. It’s clear there’s a big climate seasonality factor in play. Probably a bigger factor than any human behavior.

Summer surge was in very hot states where more people were indoors in dryer, air conditioned spaces. Then we spiked in November as winter approached.

[michael917]

Just curious to hear from you guys about the more recent Covid data in CT. You guys tend to be a lot more optimistic than most people online, but with positivity rate refusing to fall below 3.5% and hospitalizations on the rise for several weeks, I wonder what your outlook is right now.

I'm trying to remain optimistic, but it's hard when people keep saying "everything will look great in another month," and then 4 weeks later things are still bad and they just say it again...

[htfdcolt]

Originally Posted by michael917

Just curious to hear from you guys about the more recent Covid data in CT. You guys tend to be a lot more optimistic than most people online, but with positivity rate refusing to fall below 3.5% and hospitalizations on the rise for several weeks, I wonder what your outlook is right now.

I'm trying to remain optimistic, but it's hard when people keep saying "everything will look great in another month," and then 4 weeks later things are still bad and they just say it again...

I believe it was a mistake to fully open indoor dining without capacity limits, in both CT and MA, in March. You'll never prove causality but restaurants have been a proven source of transmission per numerous studies. In MA many of the clusters have been traced back to restaurants but indoor household gatherings still lead the way.

[Speegleagle]

Deaths have remained low. 25 % of the state is fully vaccinated.

Feb 23rd we had over 20 deaths in one day. Now we are averaging 7 ,with some days none at all.

I am only concerned with the number deaths . As long as they stay low, and continue that trend we are heading in the right direction.

[7 Wishes]

Originally Posted by Speegleagle

Deaths have remained low. 25 % of the state is fully vaccinated.

Feb 23rd we had over 20 deaths in one day. Now we are averaging 7 ,with some days none at all.

I am only concerned with the number deaths . As long as they stay low, and continue that trend we are heading in the right direction.

I follow it every day and didn't notice a day with no deaths, I noticed at least 1 day with only 1 death. But I'll agree deaths are low.

But hospitalizations are important too and they dropped then became steady. If they drop too then I'd be less concerned. A lot of what we did initially was to not overwhelm hospitals.

[gmdealerguy]

Originally Posted by michael917

Just curious to hear from you guys about the more recent Covid data in CT. You guys tend to be a lot more optimistic than most people online, but with positivity rate refusing to fall below 3.5% and hospitalizations on the rise for several weeks, I wonder what your outlook is right now.

I'm trying to remain optimistic, but it's hard when people keep saying "everything will look great in another month," and then 4 weeks later things are still bad and they just say it again...

I have been very vocal about my personal opinions regarding this. But, I too keep saying we opened too soon.....I will keep saying that I felt May would have been better or at least until we get more people vaccinated. I have said over and over, again my own opinions, that I think things will get a lot better towards the end of summer. I do think we are still going to be vaccinating people at least through the end of Fall or perhaps beyond. I am hopeful that 2022 is going to be closer to "normal" than the end of 2021. I base my opinions on trends and looking ahead.

This new strain is everywhere now and we all can see that while many people are following guidelines, many are not. Without going into detail, my wife is a contact tracer and I can tell you 100% that there is a lot of people being very careless. By that I mean going to large social gatherings maskless, not isolating when positive, going out to socialize while contagious because they "feel fine and have no symptoms". You can't even imagine how many people do this. Before any comments, I don't know or ask about names, personal info or locations as that would violate HIPPA....

Point is while we all want this crap to end, we can't lose what we gained. That would be terrible. There's an odd sense of victory in the air that the virus is over, not with everyone, but some, I see it in my own condo complex. The virus is spreading as fast as people are getting vaccinated so when we do we round the bend and pull ahead? We will eventually get there but it is going to take so much more cooperation from not only here but the whole country.....and that I don't have too much confidence in. Some may not like everything say on here but I think I have been pretty spot on since I started this post.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by gmdealerguy

This new strain is everywhere now and we all can see that while many people are following guidelines, many are not. Without going into detail, my wife is a contact tracer and I can tell you 100% that there is a lot of people being very careless. By that I mean going to large social gatherings maskless, not isolating when positive, going out to socialize while contagious because they "feel fine and have no symptoms". You can't even imagine how many people do this. Before any comments, I don't know or ask about names, personal info or locations as that would violate HIPPA....:

The only issue I have here is people going out while still contagious. That is maddening and completely careless. I will say, I tested positive for 7 weeks but was cleared by the local health department to go out of my house 10 days after my first symptom, regardless of how I continued to test, so I did. I was past the contagious period, though.

[Stylo]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

The only issue I have here is people going out while still contagious. That is maddening and completely careless. I will say, I tested positive for 7 weeks but was cleared by the local health department to go out of my house 10 days after my first symptom, regardless of how I continued to test, so I did. I was past the contagious period, though.

I recently traveled, and some teenager was coughing his head up on the rental car shuttle. His loosely fitted cloth mask was really helping the rest of the shuttle, which was fairly full and had several elderly people on it. I moved to the other side. His mom told him to take a cough drop and they walked right into the airport.

I was livid.

Those are cases where masks give the false sense of security.

[gmdealerguy]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

The only issue I have here is people going out while still contagious. That is maddening and completely careless. I will say, I tested positive for 7 weeks but was cleared by the local health department to go out of my house 10 days after my first symptom, regardless of how I continued to test, so I did. I was past the contagious period, though.

Because you are smart. You did what was needed. But as mentioned, this is happening so much. I think this virus can send people the wrong message at times.......the ones going out while infected because they feel fine don't seem to understand that they may infect someone who won't feel fine or possibly die. And this is just our state we are talking about. This why I keep saying it is going to a long time before this is ever really "won".


My wife is great and very patient with the people while on the phone. I don't know if I would be able to hold my tongue.

[ryanthegoldengod]

Originally Posted by gmdealerguy

I have been very vocal about my personal opinions regarding this. But, I too keep saying we opened too soon.....I will keep saying that I felt May would have been better or at least until we get more people vaccinated. I have said over and over, again my own opinions, that I think things will get a lot better towards the end of summer. I do think we are still going to be vaccinating people at least through the end of Fall or perhaps beyond. I am hopeful that 2022 is going to be closer to "normal" than the end of 2021. I base my opinions on trends and looking ahead.

This new strain is everywhere now and we all can see that while many people are following guidelines, many are not. Without going into detail, my wife is a contact tracer and I can tell you 100% that there is a lot of people being very careless. By that I mean going to large social gatherings maskless, not isolating when positive, going out to socialize while contagious because they "feel fine and have no symptoms". You can't even imagine how many people do this. Before any comments, I don't know or ask about names, personal info or locations as that would violate HIPPA....

Point is while we all want this crap to end, we can't lose what we gained. That would be terrible. There's an odd sense of victory in the air that the virus is over, not with everyone, but some, I see it in my own condo complex. The virus is spreading as fast as people are getting vaccinated so when we do we round the bend and pull ahead? We will eventually get there but it is going to take so much more cooperation from not only here but the whole country.....and that I don't have too much confidence in. Some may not like everything say on here but I think I have been pretty spot on since I started this post.

The only part I disagree about is the vaccinating part. It's going to slow to a trickle pretty soon at the breakneck pace we're going. In fact I think by next month it will be a piece of cake to get an appointment. The struggle will become convincing the vaccine hesitant. Forget the anti-vaxxers--they can't be reasoned with.

But yes I hope I'm wrong, but I'm not sure we are going to meet Fauci's target of 10,000 cases per day anytime soon. Yes we have the huge benefit of the vaccines, but everyone is forgetting about the obstacles that still exist: the fact that the vaccines are not 100% effective and their effectiveness may very well drop due to the variants (that may have already happened as Pfizer and Moderna were 95 percent effective in the clinical trials but in more recent real world testing it was down to 90), the fact that a segment of the population will never get vaccinated, and the fact that social distancing will be fully abandoned by even many who have been careful up until now once they are fully vaccinated. As one article put it, if you were unvaccinated and in close contact with only one person but now that you're vaccinated with 90% percent efficacy and you're around 10 people---you're right back to square one.

I'm not sure what inning we are in with the pandemic but I'm almost sure it's not the bottom of the 9th with Mariano Rivera on the mound as everyone seems to think.