Coronavirus

[Cygnia]

[death tribble]

Spain, Argentina and France have over 1 million cases with Colombia about to join them.

Italy which was one of the worst affected originally only has just over half a million cases.

[Tom Cowan]

The Trump Administration Shut a Vaccine Safety Office Last Year. What's the Plan Now?

at least it did not happen after the start of the coronavirus

 

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/23/health/covid-vaccine-safety.html

 

[archer]

Travellers using Photoshopped Covid test certificates to board flights as travel agents ‘sell negative results for £150’

 

https://www.thesun.co.uk/travel/13012583/travellers-photoshop-covid-test/

 

This is more of a "things are tough everywhere" post rather than a "look, the US isn't the only place that's screwed up" post.

[ScottishFox]

12 hours ago, Old Man said:

The theater industry has been on the ropes for years, pinched between the extortionist terms of the film distributors and their own business costs.  AIUI their only significant source of profit is the concession stand, where the the extortionist film distribution costs are passed down to the rest of us.

 

I don't know about this.  I work in the industry and our company has had 5 out of its 6 best years in the last 6 years.  Like, lots of money rolling in from all of the MARVEL hits.

Your overall points are accurate.  We do make the majority of our profit from concession sales.  But concession sales have remained solid for years and years.  Making money hasn't been a problem for us.  Though, despite not being the biggest of the USA chains we also have a higher profit margin per theater because we avoid high cost real estate like the plague.

 

Here's our revenue generation up through 2019.  Obviously 2020 is a dumpster fire.

 

 

4 hours ago, death tribble said:

Spain, Argentina and France have over 1 million cases with Colombia about to join them.

Italy which was one of the worst affected originally only has just over half a million cases.

 

Reporting and testing are so spotty from country to country.  India has millions of cases, but we're supposed to believe China still has less than 100k?

 

I think the reason the USA is topping the list is because we're a large country AND we're doing a lot of testing.  Though it does seem globally we're spiking upwards hard for winter.  

 

Currently the R0 in America is above 1.0 for 47 states.  Several which are in the East Coast and the highest of which is New Jersey suggesting NY might be getting a second round of abuse soon.

[Hugh Neilson]

On 10/23/2020 at 3:09 PM, ScottishFox said:

If hospitals haven't ramped up to handle the increase by now then they're not going to.bo

 

Let's get real here.  How do hospitals "just ramp up"?  Just add a wing on, complete with medical equipment, fully staffed with brand-new, fully trained medical personnel?

 

Who will be paying for those new facilities?  When they can rely on a steady stream of patients, those costs get amortized over decades.  Aren't we planing/hoping any ICU crush will be short-lived and we will have a vaccine in a year or two?  What do you do with all those extra beds after the pandemic?

 

What has been done is to re-purpose existing resources - no elective surgeries, for example.  Push off preventative health care to deal with acute, urgent problems.  That will come back to bite us later, but we're focused on keeping people alive now.

 

Economic damage?  Long-term health consequences have been mentioned a few times.  Losing a chunk of the workforce temporarily, and some becoming permanently unable to work is also going to create significant economic issues.  What happens to one of your theatres when an employee brings in the virus, and half your staff can't come come to work for 2 - 4 weeks because they are sick?  I will suggest training up some new ticket-takers, popcorn scoopers and drink pourers takes a lot less time than replacing MDs and nurses, but replacing a large group of unskilled labour isn't all that easy either.

 

And when they are not working, those unskilled labourers have no money to go out to see a movie and eat popcorn.

[unclevlad]

Read the stories about China.

 

If an outbreak of any size gets reported, they LOCK DOWN the area.  As in, TIGHTLY.  As in, if it was tried here there would be rioting.

 

And again...fine, just compare to Western Europe.  We have FAR worse results overall.  You keep pushing the "oh the reporting is so spotty" as an excuse for the bad US numbers, but that's lame.  Sorted by cases per X people, so low is BAD.  Yes, Spain and France are basically similar, but most of Europe is doing considerably better.  And this was worse.  We never flattened the curve.  Data from WorldOMeters as of 4 pm Mountain.  And...yeah, with about 3 to 3.5 hours to go before the final counts for the day...71,000.  On a Saturday.  Usually quieter.  VERY likely to set a new record.

And considering Texas' reputation, calling someone else's reports spotty is Pot, Meet Kettle.

How in heck can this be considered anything but a total failure?  Oh, and if you want to compare death rates...US 1442.  Belgium is 1089, Spain is 1346...but then UK is 1520, Italy 1624, Sweden 1706, France 1886, and those are the WORST in Europe;  after that the rates drop considerably (next worst is 1 per 2300).

 

Country, Other	Total Cases	New Cases	Total Deaths	New Deaths	Population	1 Case every X ppl	1 Death every X ppl
World	42875924	411760	1153599	4886
Diamond Princess	712		13
MS Zaandam	9		2
Andorra	4038		69		77304	19	1120
Qatar	130965	254	229		2807805	21	12261
Bahrain	79975	401	312	1	1719346	21	5511
Aruba	4401		36		106908	24	2970
French Guiana	10351		69		301040	29	4363
Israel	309413	573	2372	43	9197590	30	3878
Vatican City	27				802	30
Panama	127866		2622		4335767	34	1654
Kuwait	120927	695	744	4	4290125	35	5766
Peru	883116		34033		33114228	37	973
USA	8818403	71120	230002	718	331611010	38	1442
Chile	500542	1631	13892	48	19167444	38	1380
Montenegro	16629	193	263	8	628091	38	2388
Armenia	75523	2213	1157	12	2964988	39	2563
Brazil	5380635	24985	156903	375	213032208	40	1358
Belgium	287700	17568	10658	70	11605464	40	1089
San Marino	819		42		33953	41	808
Spain	1110372		34752		46760495	42	1346
Argentina	1069368		28338		45325182	42	1599
Czechia	246022	7699	2047	76	10715241	44	5235
Oman	111837		1147		5146213	46	4487
Luxembourg	13713	862	144	3	629124	46	4369
Maldives	11421	30	37		543480	48	14689
French Polynesia	5797		20		281417	49	14071
Costa Rica	103088	1262	1282	17	5108634	50	3985
Colombia	998942		29802		51051776	51	1713
Gibraltar	660	19			33688	51
Guadeloupe	7329		115		400146	55	3480
Sint Maarten	776		22		43027	55	1956
Turks and Caicos	699		6		38879	56	6480
Moldova	71089	833	1669	15	4030993	57	2415
France	1086497	45422	34645	137	65318998	60	1885
Netherlands	281052	8651	7019	55	17146812	61	2443
Bahamas	6268		130		394416	63	3034
Mayotte	4276		44		274825	64	6246
Cabo Verde	8198		94		557867	68	5935
Saint Martin	538		8		38869	72	4859
Iceland	4394	86	11		341937	78	31085
North Macedonia	26394	403	897	14	2083347	79	2323
UK	854010	23012	44745	174	67997872	80	1520
UAE	123764	1491	475		9927540	80	20900
Bosnia and Herzegovina	39758	1265	1075	10	3274324	82	3046
Malta	5373	115	50	1	441913	82	8838
South Africa	714246	1834	18944	53	59540914	83	3143
Bolivia	140612	167	8608	24	11722399	83	1362
Switzerland	103653		2081	12	8674421	84	4168
Dominican Republic	124018	634	2220	6	10881814	88	4902
Portugal	116109	3669	2297	21	10187285	88	4435
Ireland	56108	847	1882	4	4954950	88	2633
Iraq	449153	3204	10568	55	40498846	90	3832
Sweden	110594		5933		10118993	91	1706

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Let's get real here.  How do hospitals "just ramp up"?  Just add a wing on, complete with medical equipment, fully staffed with brand-new, fully trained medical personnel?

 

I'm sure a lot more "ramping up" could have been accomplished with federal funding and leadership.  Too late now.

 

Meanwhile, the IHME now estimates that 500,000 Americans will be dead by the end of February if restrictions are eased.  The status quo only gets us to a mere 385,000 dead by then.

[Old Man]

Found the actual IHME paper for anyone else wanting to do some doomscrolling.

[ScottishFox]

8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

 

Let's get real here.  How do hospitals "just ramp up"?  Just add a wing on, complete with medical equipment, fully staffed with brand-new, fully trained medical personnel?

 

Who will be paying for those new facilities?  When they can rely on a steady stream of patients, those costs get amortized over decades.  Aren't we planing/hoping any ICU crush will be short-lived and we will have a vaccine in a year or two?  What do you do with all those extra beds after the pandemic?

 

What has been done is to re-purpose existing resources - no elective surgeries, for example.  Push off preventative health care to deal with acute, urgent problems.  That will come back to bite us later, but we're focused on keeping people alive now.

 

Economic damage?  Long-term health consequences have been mentioned a few times.  Losing a chunk of the workforce temporarily, and some becoming permanently unable to work is also going to create significant economic issues.  What happens to one of your theatres when an employee brings in the virus, and half your staff can't come come to work for 2 - 4 weeks because they are sick?  I will suggest training up some new ticket-takers, popcorn scoopers and drink pourers takes a lot less time than replacing MDs and nurses, but replacing a large group of unskilled labour isn't all that easy either.

 

And when they are not working, those unskilled labourers have no money to go out to see a movie and eat popcorn.

 

I agree with most of what you're saying, but we're talking about an illness that is killing less than 1 person per 1,000 and causing 100 people per 1,000 to lose their jobs.  A number that I expect to go up the longer the shut downs are in place.

 

You're completely correct.  We can't just spin up new doctors and nurses in a few weeks or even a few months.  Nurses take a couple years and doctors take close to 10.

 

I feel like we're going to cause more damage with our completely ineffective solution - shutdowns - while the disease continues to spread rampantly around the country.  Currently 47 of 50 states have an R0 rate over 1.0.

 

We have completely failed to contain this disease.  We're not going to suddenly contain it.  Hell, we can't get 1/3rd of the people to wear their masks correctly.  It's a done deal.

 

9 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

What happens to one of your theatres when an employee brings in the virus, and half your staff can't come come to work for 2 - 4 weeks because they are sick?

 

Given that the average age of theater employees is about 20 this is wildly unrealistic.  They are either not going to know they are sick or they're going to shake it off in 2-3 days.  Kids in this age range shake this illness off so easily it's ridiculous.

 

Mortality rate in the that age group is 0.2%.  Out of all coronavirus deaths only 2 per 1,000 are 24 or younger.  At the point in time the USA had 207,000 Coronavirus deaths only 462 per 24 years old or younger.

It's unbelievably rare in that age group.  Think about that for a minute.  We're talking about 0.2% (24 and younger) of all American who have died of Coronavirus (225,000 roughly) which is 0.07% of the population.

0.2% of 0.07% is a whopping 450 deaths in a country with 330,000,000 people.  That's 5x lower than we lose to car accidents for just 13-19.  Are we going to forbid everyone under 25 from driving?  Forever?

Just for a frame of reference we lose about 645k per year to diseases related to being fat asses (like me).

 

And really this is my big issue with the shutdowns.  Why are we shutting down the age bands that have incredibly low death rates?  Quarantine the old and sick.  About 80% of the victims are 65+ and 94% of those have a major illness/comorbidity.  Why are we quarantining and unemploying millions of healthy, young people?

 

Our current solution will not work if this disease rampages on for multiple years or, as seems likely, indefinitely.

[Lord Liaden]

Let's see if we can get past this obsession with death statistics, and the notions that young people can just shake off this disease, and that quarantining only the sick and elderly is easy.

 

What Young, Healthy People Have to Fear From COVID-19

 

I can't shake Covid-19: Warnings from young survivors still suffering

[Hugh Neilson]

13 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

I'm sure a lot more "ramping up" could have been accomplished with federal funding and leadership.  Too late now.

 

 

Within limits, sure.  It's easy to say "the government will pay for it", but that does not make it free.  How much more taxes are you willing to pay (not impose on other segments of the population - pay yourself - "who should pay taxes?" is a completely separate question from "what should taxes pay for")?  Or, what other programs (being realistic) are you willing to cut?  More funding for COVID, so less for other medical conditions?  More old people get hospitalized, so reduce social security benefits (or tax them more heavily) to compensate?  A special medical tax?

 

Just like the death rate is not the only COVID risk we should be concerned with (thanks, LL, for those two fantastic and very sobering links), we need to think beyond the immediate when we suggest ramped up spending.

 

Of course, there are also benefits - if we train up more medical personnel and build more facilities, they can be used for other purposes after the COVID crisis has passed.  Not everything we would need is limited to COVID care.  But a lot of what we would need, and would have ongoing value, requires years to implement.  Maybe some of it should be started now so we are more ready for COVID-2X!

5 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

 

I agree with most of what you're saying, but we're talking about an illness that is killing less than 1 person per 1,000 and causing 100 people per 1,000 to lose their jobs.  A number that I expect to go up the longer the shut downs are in place.

 

The articles LL cited show the long-term damage.  That 20 something whose health is compromised will not be able to work either.  He or she will impose costs on the medical system, and the social system, for decades.  The lower his risk of death, the higher those long-term costs.  As well, as one article noted, we do not know that "that which does not kill me makes me stronger", and many experts are concerned with the possibility that "that which does not kill me today will be back to kill me later".

 

5 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

 

I feel like we're going to cause more damage with our completely ineffective solution - shutdowns - while the disease continues to spread rampantly around the country.  Currently 47 of 50 states have an R0 rate over 1.0.

 

We have completely failed to contain this disease.  We're not going to suddenly contain it.  Hell, we can't get 1/3rd of the people to wear their masks correctly.  It's a done deal.

 

So what, wall off the US and give up?  Let the countries that have taken this seriously survive, and others can wither and die?  I suggest that having RO rates over 1.0 in 47 out of 50 states is an indicator that more, not less, has to be done.

 

5 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

Given that the average age of theater employees is about 20 this is wildly unrealistic.  They are either not going to know they are sick or they're going to shake it off in 2-3 days.  Kids in this age range shake this illness off so easily it's ridiculous.

 

And really this is my big issue with the shutdowns.  Why are we shutting down the age bands that have incredibly low death rates?  Quarantine the old and sick.  About 80% of the victims are 65+ and 94% of those have a major illness/comorbidity.  Why are we quarantining and unemploying millions of healthy, young people?

 

 

Our current solution will not work if this disease rampages on for multiple years or, as seems likely, indefinitely.

 

Leaving aside the fact that mortality rate is not the only consideration - that has been debunked repeatedly, with LL's links providing a great recent example, that 20something working in the theater will, for the theater to make money, serve how many people a day popcorn that he scooped up. chatted with the consumer and took their payment?  Those people will, I expect, range across all age categories, at least if we accept your theory that all we need to do in order to restore the theater's economic prosperity is reopen and people will flock to sit in areas of poor ventilation for a couple of hours at a time.

 

Those people you quarantine are also out of work while quarantined.  People don't respect social distancing or masking protocols.  What makes you think they will respect quarantine, rather than follow the example of senior elected officials?  Will we enforce quarantine (police; millitary?).  If so, who will pay the enforcers? 

 

How about the theater gets to reopen, but must fund insurance for all workers or patrons who contract COVID in a manner which can be traced back to the theater, covering their medical costs, loss of income and including long-term health damage and loss of long-term income earning potential?  If the theater has to pay the freight for all risks its opening creates, how do the economics look now?

 

I agree there are no easy right answers.  However, that includes the easy answer of "screw it and just reopen everything".

 

 

 

 

 

Oh yeah, I came here to post this, which looks exactly like recent office staff meetings.  Bonus points if you can provide an example of something your office did on a videoconference than could not have been done on a phone conference call.

 

[unclevlad]

Stats from last night for El Paso, from local news:

 

Quote

There are 10,911 active cases in El Paso.

There are 715 patients hospitalized, 199 patients remain in the intensive care unit, 85 are on ventilators.

 

You can't take these as rate indicators, either.  Progressing from "positive test" to "hospitalized" generally doesn't happen that fast...and the last 2 days alone account for almost 1/4 of those active cases.  If we postulate that generally there's about a week between positive test and hospitalization, we start by knocking off 6000 cases that were identified *this week*.  OK, we can add in perhaps 1000 cases that recovered, so wouldn't be in the active count.  So that 715 is from a pool size of more like 6000 mature cases.  So we're looking at something like 12% of cases result in hospitalization.  

 

If that rate is extended to the entire El Paso outbreak, we're talking something like 4000-5000 people hospitalized so far, maybe 1200-1600 that've required a trip to the ICU.  Probably quite a few of those ultimately died, so we can't add the stats together, but we're still taking a major increase in Serious (or worse) Cases, rather than simply looking at the death tolls.  Mind, the death toll is bad enough;  discounting that 230,000 people have died because it's "only* about 1/10 of 1% is callous and thoughtless.

 

Do we have to find some happy medium between protection and operation?  Of course we do.  EVERYONE here agrees with that.  The problem is that's not possible due to the scoffers, sceptics, and associated flavors of civil/religious rights to do whatever the heck they want.  It's due to an absolute absence of a coherent policy to address the issue;  rather the opposite.  Attempts to address issues at lower levels have been actively squelched.  Attempts to inform have been suppressed or diluted.  Europe managed a much stronger re-opening than we ever did, because most countries implemented real policies.

 

But as has also been pointed out:  "open for business" does NOT mean "business as usual."  I'll grant I'm not the best choice for restaurants and bars;  I haven't hit either very much for several years.  (My diabetes is well controlled, but that's not an excuse to ignore that it was WILDLY out of whack.)  Still, as we said, I'm not going to run the risk of exposure.  Some will, to be sure...but a major chunk of people won't, or won't do it as often.  THEN you can tack on that many people are likely economizing on things like this, in case they *do* face a furlough or layoff.  Business will NOT be normal.  Yes, the tighter the restrictions, the more extensive the economic consequences, but Sweden did a very credible job of showing that the damage will still be major.

[Old Man]

Have to post a correction to my earlier post.  The IHME paper does not predict 500,000 deaths if restrictions are eased.  500,000 is the projection with the current restrictions in place.  Easing restrictions results in a projection of over one million U.S. fatalities by the end of February.

 

 

Quote

 

Table 1 Cumulative deaths from 22 September 2020 through 28 February 2021, maximum estimated daily deaths per million, date of maximum daily deaths and estimated R_effective on 28 February 2021 for three boundary scenarios

From: Modeling COVID-19 scenarios for the United States

	Mandate-easing scenario				Reference scenario				Universal mask-use scenario
Location	Cumulative deaths through 28 February 2021	Maximum estimated daily deaths per million	Date of maximum daily deaths	Estimated Reffective on 28 February 2021	Cumulative deaths through 28 February 2021	Maximum estimated daily deaths per million	Date of maximum daily deaths	Estimated Reffective on 28 February 2021	Cumulative deaths through 28 February 2021	Maximum estimated daily deaths per million	Date of maximum daily deaths	Estimated Reffective on 28 February 2021
United States	1,053,206 (759,693–1,452,397)	36.8 (22.2–58.2)	2/1/21	NA	511,373 (469,578–578,347)	9 (7.7–10.8)	1/3/21	NA	381,798 (336,479–421,953)	5.7 (4.1–7.2)	2/8/21	NA

 

[death tribble]

Russia now has 1.5 million cases

[Pattern Ghost]

8 hours ago, Hugh Neilson said:

Bonus points if you can provide an example of something your office did on a videoconference than could not have been done on a phone conference call.

 

We use Teams at work. Most people don't have their video feed on. One thing that's superior to an old fashioned conference call is screen sharing of visual information, which we do all the time. We also conduct live training this way.  I recently completed two FEMA classes via Zoom, for example.

[TrickstaPriest]

15 hours ago, ScottishFox said:

Mortality rate in the that age group is 0.2%.  Out of all coronavirus deaths only 2 per 1,000 are 24 or younger.  At the point in time the USA had 207,000 Coronavirus deaths only 462 per 24 years old or younger.

It's unbelievably rare in that age group.  Think about that for a minute.  We're talking about 0.2% (24 and younger) of all American who have died of Coronavirus (225,000 roughly) which is 0.07% of the population.

 

 

Okay I have been super busy and I must have missed this.  This isn't how you calculate the mortality rate of an age group.

 

To calculate the rate, you'd be dividing deaths by time.

 

To calculate the lethality of the virus, you'd be dividing deaths by known infections, both for that specific age group.

 

I know I'm being pedantic, as that isn't your point.  I just don't want the numbers to be misrepresented.  You may be more (or less) likely to die in that age group from covid.  What you are arguing is how many actually die.

 

I don't disagree that there has to be some structural re-opening, but the primary leadership of the government (the entire administrative branch) has been disinterested in organizing this in any kind of structural way.

 

This is going to result in the fact that travel is going to be shut down from the US.  People will not be allowed to leave.  This is because any sane country will ban travel from the US once we blind reopen.  The amount of dead will skyrocket, and life expectancy will plummet mostly from a high elderly fatality rate.  Anyone with risk factors will have a decently high chance of death or serious complications for decades, because quite honestly covid spreads insanely well.  In a place with obesity and diabetes like the US, we'll feel that worse than other countries, and our medical facilities will only be open for the first couple months.  After that you could consider them unavailable for several months - essentially hospitals will largely close.

 

Obviously we want something in between, but our entire administration branch isn't offering that.  They have no interest in doing anything serious to keep it piecemeal.

 

So a blind reopen will probably be maybe half as hurtful to the US as the Spanish Flu was, entirely self inflicted because we refuse to organize as a government or as a society.

 

We'll certainly need the income because if anyone in your immediate family has to go to the hospital for covid (10% chance?) you'll likely be financially burdened for the rest of your natural life.

[unclevlad]

More on the El Paso outbreak.  They're up to about 780 hospitalizations;  the more compelling point is that it was 450 just a week ago.  THAT is how fast things can fall apart, and that is what you'll get with a reckless reopening.  This is why the emphasis by the experts was on containment, back in April, because El Paso is being forced to take several steps to handle the FLOOD of cases.  The EP Children's Hospital is preparing to take non-Covid-19 adult patients.  The convention center is being converted to a temporary hospital.  There are plans to airlift cases to other cities.  It's THAT bad.

 

And the moves to reopen that have already been attempted?  We've already broken 60,000 new cases today...on a Sunday, which is usually much lower than any other day.  Last Sunday, 51,000;  the week before, 42,000;  three Sundays ago, 34,000.  So we're frighteningly close to doubling.

[assault]

Some international perspective.

[Old Man]

1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

To calculate the lethality of the virus, you'd be dividing deaths by known infections, both for that specific age group.

 

And you have to account for the fact that deaths may not have occurred yet.  In other words you have to divide deaths by infections from 2-3 weeks ago, or else divide deaths by (deaths+recoveries).

 

1 hour ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

This is going to result in the fact that travel is going to be shut down from the US.  People will not be allowed to leave. 

 

This has already happened.  For giggles I looked into airfares a week ago.  Flights to Canada aren't too bad.  It would cost me $10000 per ticket (that is not a typo) to get to Australia, because I'd have to go through Dubai, and even then I don't know if they'd let me in when I got there.  It would cost me a boat to get to New Zealand because there are no flights at all.

 

 

39 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

And the moves to reopen that have already been attempted?  We've already broken 60,000 new cases today...on a Sunday, which is usually much lower than any other day.  Last Sunday, 51,000;  the week before, 42,000;  three Sundays ago, 34,000.  So we're frighteningly close to doubling.

 

I strongly suspect that the US case count is going to explode by the end of the week.  We've already seen the graph skyrocket in the EU and the US lags them by about 10 days.  And there is no reason at all to expect the cases to level off.  In fact, we can expect them to get worse as the weather deteriorates and holidays happen.  And any new restrictions will take 10-14 days to have any effect on transmission, so it's going to keep taking off.

 

I was thinking about the IHME projections, and sadly, the more I think about them, the more they make sense.  There are 126 days until 2/28/2021.  If case counts froze at 80,000 per day starting today, that'd be ten million cases by 2/28/2021, which at a 3% lowball CFR means adding 300,000 dead to the current total of 230,510.  (Though I suppose some of them won't die until mid-March.)  Is the case rate going to hold at 80,000/day?  No.  Are Americans going to start wearing masks?  No.  Are state governments going to lock things down again?  Some of them maybe.  Are there any reasons to doubt these projections that I'm missing?

 

[Matt the Bruins]

On 10/24/2020 at 4:00 AM, Old Man said:

I mean, lockdowns are almost irrelevant in this case.  All theater restrictions could be lifted tomorrow and they could immediately release Wonder Woman 1984, Black Widow, Captain Marvel 2, and No Time to Die, for free, and I still wouldn't go.  Would you?  Sit in an enclosed room for two hours with a couple dozen unmasked strangers shoveling popcorn into their faces?  That's a hard pass for me.  I'm sure you could get some people to go, but not enough to get theaters out of the red.

I did this afternoon actually. But it was to a showing of an indie sci-fi mystery I knew would be poorly attended even under normal circumstances (Synchronic), on a rainy Sunday afternoon, in a theater with luxury recliner seats and partitions between rows. I had an entire row and the entire left side of the theater to myself, with one couple in the center of the row in front of me and one in the center of the last row several back behind me. I regard my risk in that situation as pretty minimal.

 

For Wonder Woman 1984, if it's actually released this December, it's going to be at Memphis' drive-in theater (which is THRIVING, by the way!) or bust.

[unclevlad]

1 hour ago, assault said:

Some international perspective.

 

Excellent read.  Highly recommended.

 

I don't want to cherry-pick a lot from this, but there's one point that is huge to me.

 

Quote

Clear communication with the public was a crucial element of Vietnam’s response. The government used a range of creative ways to spread messages about symptoms, prevention and testing sites, including via state media outlets, social media, text messages and, famously, a viral song about the importance of handwashing.

 

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, Old Man said:

This has already happened.  For giggles I looked into airfares a week ago.  Flights to Canada aren't too bad.  It would cost me $10000 per ticket (that is not a typo) to get to Australia, because I'd have to go through Dubai, and even then I don't know if they'd let me in when I got there.  It would cost me a boat to get to New Zealand because there are no flights at all.

 

 

Even domestic can be wildly variable.  For grins, I used Travelocity to price El Paso to Las Vegas...normally very busy.  Leave Tuesday Nov. 10, return the 12th...$260.  BUT there's all of 6 one-stop flights...and no non-stop.  I think 1 went through Phoenix;  anything else becomes rather long.  The lack of flights is highly suggestive.  Leave Thursday the 12th, come back the 17th...you used to get a discount for that for staying over the weekend, but not now.  15 flights on Thursday...which strongly suggests weekend junkets are still somewhat on the agenda...but $450 was the cheapest ticket.

Of course, I'd seriously have to risk a required quarantine because El Paso's infection rate is *obscenely* high right now.

[Old Man]

Which reminds me, you can fly to Hawaii with no quarantine now if you can show a negative test within 72 hours of getting on the plane, or something. And then you’ll be on a plane with people who got no test and intend to quarantine. I feel like this wasn’t thought all the way through. 
 

Hawaii also went to Tier 2 reopening last week, allowing groups of up to 5 in restaurants with distancing, or something. Theaters there are open at, I think, 50% capacity, and I have no idea what’s playing. 

[archer]

The general ban by the EU against people from the US which started in the summer appears to still be in place as of October 21st with no signs of being lifted soon.

 

Britain and Ireland have their own separate restrictions. You can still travel to there if you jump through the mandated quarantine hoops.

 

https://www.afar.com/magazine/when-will-we-be-able-to-travel-to-europe