limited fan attendance at athletic events - Printable Version
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RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - martyup - 01-10-2022
(01-10-2022, 06:48 AM)Phogge Wrote: Where the hell is Marty with a plea to shut this thread down?
I'm taking down user names.
![[Image: ?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia...f=1&nofb=1]](https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.giphy.com%2Fmedia%2FgJ3ho4vLHJ5rW%2Fgiphy.gif&f=1&nofb=1)
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - teejers1 - 01-10-2022
(01-10-2022, 03:09 PM)crackpot Wrote:(01-10-2022, 10:44 AM)Farm93 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 06:48 AM)Phogge Wrote: Where the hell is Marty with a plea to shut this thread down?IMHO - Get all the athletes and coaches boosted and get all in the AD to properly use N95, KN95 and/or KF94 masks. Then create the best possible AD bubble you can create. The best bubble will not have fans in the stands or in the AD facilities, so I don't expect to be watching any indoor Stanford sports until August 2022. If it is earlier than that great, but I am OK with the idea that the AD's bubble may not include me.
Watching the Our Stories on the WBB championship season, it was nice to see the team taking it seriously. I was horrified to watch Episode 3 of Sweet Life of WBB with Belibi and Jones. Little to no serious mask-wearing in freakin' TENNESSEE...
What are you horrified about? I was in Nashville for the Vandy game. Happy to report that Covid does not even exist there . . .
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - Farm93 - 01-11-2022
(01-10-2022, 11:35 PM)teejers1 Wrote:When I watch the Sweet Life I begin to realize how and why college and pro teams keep getting players stuck in COVID protocols.(01-10-2022, 03:09 PM)crackpot Wrote:(01-10-2022, 10:44 AM)Farm93 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 06:48 AM)Phogge Wrote: Where the hell is Marty with a plea to shut this thread down?IMHO - Get all the athletes and coaches boosted and get all in the AD to properly use N95, KN95 and/or KF94 masks. Then create the best possible AD bubble you can create. The best bubble will not have fans in the stands or in the AD facilities, so I don't expect to be watching any indoor Stanford sports until August 2022. If it is earlier than that great, but I am OK with the idea that the AD's bubble may not include me.
Watching the Our Stories on the WBB championship season, it was nice to see the team taking it seriously. I was horrified to watch Episode 3 of Sweet Life of WBB with Belibi and Jones. Little to no serious mask-wearing in freakin' TENNESSEE...
What are you horrified about? I was in Nashville for the Vandy game. Happy to report that Covid does not even exist there . . .
Wearing a mask while travelling is not fun. College athletes travel a lot, so I can only imagine how compliance likely fades over time on sports teams as they spend day after day in hotels, planes and buses. The Sweet Life continues to confirm my fears about team travel. :(
I pretty much imagined late December and January COVID realities for the Pac-12 after watching the first few episodes of the Sweet Life, so I worry where this could go from here for Stanford Athletics.
Sadly, I can see at least two undesirable COVID paths for Stanford teams in February and March.
#1 - Stanford's best teams have to do long transcontinental travel to compete in early rounds of post-season tournaments, and then discover before the championship weekend contests that they are unable to field a team because too many players are stuck in protocols after the first weekend of travel.
#2 - Omicron spreads with hospitalization rates continuing to get new COVID records each day and more SF Bay Area counties expand on Sonoma county's recently announced policy. A return to tighter Bay Area policies would essentially destroy any chance for Stanford teams to be able to train, practice and compete.
Hopefully that won't happen, but I would not bet against omicron given the USA's vaccination rate and rather pathetic compliance with logical mitigation efforts.
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - Phogge - 01-11-2022
Nashville at 51% fully vaccinated. Santa Clara County at 82.69%. I wouldn't go play any games in Lassen County. 27.34%.
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - 82lsju - 01-11-2022
(01-10-2022, 11:35 PM)teejers1 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 03:09 PM)crackpot Wrote:(01-10-2022, 10:44 AM)Farm93 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 06:48 AM)Phogge Wrote: Where the hell is Marty with a plea to shut this thread down?IMHO - Get all the athletes and coaches boosted and get all in the AD to properly use N95, KN95 and/or KF94 masks. Then create the best possible AD bubble you can create. The best bubble will not have fans in the stands or in the AD facilities, so I don't expect to be watching any indoor Stanford sports until August 2022. If it is earlier than that great, but I am OK with the idea that the AD's bubble may not include me.
Watching the Our Stories on the WBB championship season, it was nice to see the team taking it seriously. I was horrified to watch Episode 3 of Sweet Life of WBB with Belibi and Jones. Little to no serious mask-wearing in freakin' TENNESSEE...
What are you horrified about? I was in Nashville for the Vandy game. Happy to report that Covid does not even exist there . . .
it appears to now as Vanderbilt announced on 30 Dec 2021 that it is delaying the start of spring semester by a week
Quote:Undergraduate students are now expected to return to campus a week later and stay a week longer for final examinations.
https://vanderbilthustler.com/44951/featured/breaking-spring-2022-semester-start-date-postponed-testing-protocols-updated/
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - teejers1 - 01-11-2022
(01-11-2022, 03:56 PM)82lsju Wrote:(01-10-2022, 11:35 PM)teejers1 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 03:09 PM)crackpot Wrote:(01-10-2022, 10:44 AM)Farm93 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 06:48 AM)Phogge Wrote: Where the hell is Marty with a plea to shut this thread down?IMHO - Get all the athletes and coaches boosted and get all in the AD to properly use N95, KN95 and/or KF94 masks. Then create the best possible AD bubble you can create. The best bubble will not have fans in the stands or in the AD facilities, so I don't expect to be watching any indoor Stanford sports until August 2022. If it is earlier than that great, but I am OK with the idea that the AD's bubble may not include me.
Watching the Our Stories on the WBB championship season, it was nice to see the team taking it seriously. I was horrified to watch Episode 3 of Sweet Life of WBB with Belibi and Jones. Little to no serious mask-wearing in freakin' TENNESSEE...
What are you horrified about? I was in Nashville for the Vandy game. Happy to report that Covid does not even exist there . . .
it appears to now as Vanderbilt announced on 30 Dec 2021 that it is delaying the start of spring semester by a week
Quote:Undergraduate students are now expected to return to campus a week later and stay a week longer for final examinations.
https://vanderbilthustler.com/44951/featured/breaking-spring-2022-semester-start-date-postponed-testing-protocols-updated/
I trust you (and others) knew I was being sarcastic - more of a comment on the shock of how little mask-wearing and social distancing going on, including indoors. But back on topic, has Vandy also ruled out fans in stands for hoops and other indoor sports?
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - 82lsju - 01-11-2022
(01-11-2022, 07:22 PM)teejers1 Wrote:(01-11-2022, 03:56 PM)82lsju Wrote:(01-10-2022, 11:35 PM)teejers1 Wrote:(01-10-2022, 03:09 PM)crackpot Wrote:(01-10-2022, 10:44 AM)Farm93 Wrote: IMHO - Get all the athletes and coaches boosted and get all in the AD to properly use N95, KN95 and/or KF94 masks. Then create the best possible AD bubble you can create. The best bubble will not have fans in the stands or in the AD facilities, so I don't expect to be watching any indoor Stanford sports until August 2022. If it is earlier than that great, but I am OK with the idea that the AD's bubble may not include me.
Watching the Our Stories on the WBB championship season, it was nice to see the team taking it seriously. I was horrified to watch Episode 3 of Sweet Life of WBB with Belibi and Jones. Little to no serious mask-wearing in freakin' TENNESSEE...
What are you horrified about? I was in Nashville for the Vandy game. Happy to report that Covid does not even exist there . . .
it appears to now as Vanderbilt announced on 30 Dec 2021 that it is delaying the start of spring semester by a week
Quote:Undergraduate students are now expected to return to campus a week later and stay a week longer for final examinations.
https://vanderbilthustler.com/44951/featured/breaking-spring-2022-semester-start-date-postponed-testing-protocols-updated/
I trust you (and others) knew I was being sarcastic - more of a comment on the shock of how little mask-wearing and social distancing going on, including indoors. But back on topic, has Vandy also ruled out fans in stands for hoops and other indoor sports?
at least for my small brain sarcasm is not always obvious in written form....but I'm an engineer (at least I used to be one).....
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - BostonCard - 01-11-2022
(01-10-2022, 02:00 PM)teejers1 Wrote: Last point: I have to take this moment to re-raise the issue of overreporting of Covid deaths with BC, who was adamant that all prior reporting was accurate (and frankly, did not understand why I was asking if the deaths were "because of" Covid or died "with Covid").
That mischaracterizes what I said. Of course not every single case could be perfectly adjudicated, but if a patient dies from a heart attack, the death certificate will list heart attack as the cause of death, even if the patient happened to have COVID at the time, unless there is reason to believe that the COVID caused the heart attack. It is impossible to adjudicate every case perfectly, and there is going to be some variability and biases among physicians, but I think the it will all more or less balance out and broadly you can trust the numbers of deaths that have been attributed to COVID.
An easy way to reassure yourself that the numbers are broadly accurate is to look at "excess deaths". If you count up all the deaths, regardless of cause, since the pandemic began, and compare it to how many deaths you might have expected based on what has been reported historical (plus trends) it turns out that the difference corresponds pretty closely to the number of deaths that have been reported from COVID. Moreover, the spikes in the number of excess deaths correspond pretty closely to the times that COVID deaths have spiked.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
The Economist does a nice job visualizing that (and other country's) data:
https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/coronavirus-excess-deaths-tracker
They show the United States with a bit over 1 million deaths more than what one would have expected historically, which compares with about 800,000 deaths reported to have been due to COVID. When you allow for the fact that early in the pandemic some people went undiagnosed (old people found dead in their apartments in New York) who might have been coded as a heart attack, plus secondary deaths due to the pandemic (for example, heart attacks that couldn't be treated adequately because a hospital was full, cancer that was detected too late due to loss of screening, suicides due to isolation from the pandemic and lockdowns, increase in drug overdoses, etc.), 1 million looks to be about right.
BC
Likelihood of MBB in Seattle - Robbie - 01-11-2022
I'm trying to guess on the likelihood of the MBB game in Seattle on Jan 15. I don't have tickets yet, but I'd like to go. But no point in buying tickets if the game will be postponed. Do any of you prognosticators have any guesses about how the authorities will treat this game? (King County, like Santa Clara County, has a somewhat rigid Public Health department.)
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - M T - 01-12-2022
Sorry admins, but this post is COVID related. It does have specific info (news?) for the Stanford campus and the Bay Area which I think is relevant to Stanford sports.
Some indications may show that some areas may have hit the peak in Omicron infections and are on the way down, but still much higher than the previous peaks:
Boston wastewater is showing a clear decline in COVID detection (not down to pre-Omicron levels).
Likewise, Santa Clara County wastewater is showing a flattening or a decline. The Palo Alto treatment site shows a clear decline
.
HOWEVER, it looks like virtually all of the country is still on the way up (including Sacramento & Monterey) according to wastewater measurements.
Also climbing: Houston ; Wisconsin ; Ottawa ; Colorado ; Ohio ;
Mixed bag: a variety of sites around the SF part of Northern California (as measured by a Stanford project, SCAN) including one site that is at Stanford (Codiga). ;
Codiga (Stanford) is in a clear decline (peaked Jan 2)
This is NOT the time to relax. Prudence would be to wait a few weeks before going out into crowds to make sure things are really getting down to the levels that we used to know as crazy high levels of infection.
However, if you're down over having to miss a few games, I'd have to say that we might just get to have post-season tournaments for the winter sports. There will continue to be infections in those of us who have not been hit by Omicron if we let our guard down.
As I looked around at wastewater numbers, I saw a few sites that had no real increase in virus signature in their wastewater even up to early January. So I expect there will be pockets that will burn later than the areas already starting to come down.
Other interesting COVID wastewater sites
UCSD COVID dashboard shows exposure locations and shows a campus map with wastewater indications for most buildings.
Missouri shows variants detected each week in wastewater around the state.
Worldwide links to wastewater dashboards.
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - cardcrimson - 01-12-2022
(01-12-2022, 04:27 AM)M T Wrote: Sorry admins, but this post is COVID related. It does have specific info (news?) for the Stanford campus and the Bay Area which I think is relevant to Stanford sports.
Some indications may show that some areas may have hit the peak in Omicron infections and are on the way down, but still much higher than the previous peaks:
Boston wastewater is showing a clear decline in COVID detection (not down to pre-Omicron levels).
Likewise, Santa Clara County wastewater is showing a flattening or a decline. The Palo Alto treatment site shows a clear decline
.
HOWEVER, it looks like virtually all of the country is still on the way up (including Sacramento & Monterey) according to wastewater measurements.
Also climbing: Houston ; Wisconsin ; Ottawa ; Colorado ; Ohio ;
Mixed bag: a variety of sites around the SF part of Northern California (as measured by a Stanford project, SCAN) including one site that is at Stanford (Codiga). ;
Codiga (Stanford) is in a clear decline (peaked Jan 2)
This is NOT the time to relax. Prudence would be to wait a few weeks before going out into crowds to make sure things are really getting down to the levels that we used to know as crazy high levels of infection.
However, if you're down over having to miss a few games, I'd have to say that we might just get to have post-season tournaments for the winter sports. There will continue to be infections in those of us who have not been hit by Omicron if we let our guard down.
As I looked around at wastewater numbers, I saw a few sites that had no real increase in virus signature in their wastewater even up to early January. So I expect there will be pockets that will burn later than the areas already starting to come down.
Other interesting COVID wastewater sites
UCSD COVID dashboard shows exposure locations and shows a campus map with wastewater indications for most buildings.
Missouri shows variants detected each week in wastewater around the state.
Worldwide links to wastewater dashboards.
Well this thread has certainly gone into the toilet. . . .
Interesting info. Thanks. CCC infections are still rising. Those with boosters hitting the same infection rate as those not vaxxed during the August peak, around 80 per 100k.
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - teejers1 - 01-12-2022
(01-12-2022, 04:27 AM)M T Wrote: Sorry admins, but this post is COVID related. It does have specific info (news?) for the Stanford campus and the Bay Area which I think is relevant to Stanford sports.
Some indications may show that some areas may have hit the peak in Omicron infections and are on the way down, but still much higher than the previous peaks:
Boston wastewater is showing a clear decline in COVID detection (not down to pre-Omicron levels).
Likewise, Santa Clara County wastewater is showing a flattening or a decline. The Palo Alto treatment site shows a clear decline
.
HOWEVER, it looks like virtually all of the country is still on the way up (including Sacramento & Monterey) according to wastewater measurements.
Also climbing: Houston ; Wisconsin ; Ottawa ; Colorado ; Ohio ;
Mixed bag: a variety of sites around the SF part of Northern California (as measured by a Stanford project, SCAN) including one site that is at Stanford (Codiga). ;
Codiga (Stanford) is in a clear decline (peaked Jan 2)
This is NOT the time to relax. Prudence would be to wait a few weeks before going out into crowds to make sure things are really getting down to the levels that we used to know as crazy high levels of infection.
However, if you're down over having to miss a few games, I'd have to say that we might just get to have post-season tournaments for the winter sports. There will continue to be infections in those of us who have not been hit by Omicron if we let our guard down.
As I looked around at wastewater numbers, I saw a few sites that had no real increase in virus signature in their wastewater even up to early January. So I expect there will be pockets that will burn later than the areas already starting to come down.
Other interesting COVID wastewater sites
UCSD COVID dashboard shows exposure locations and shows a campus map with wastewater indications for most buildings.
Missouri shows variants detected each week in wastewater around the state.
Worldwide links to wastewater dashboards.
You have consistently been one of the most pro-lockdown posters on this site ever since Covid broke. That's fine.
But please don't try and sell sky is falling posts, only to come back later with "it looks like we just might have post-season tourneys after all" (or words to that effect). That stuff was only in jeopardy in your mind - and those sharing your natural conservatism on this front.
As is becoming more and more clear, Omicron is extremely contagious and pretty darn mild. I might even be persuaded that having this virus rush through communities to "get it over with" might be a more efficient approach to getting to where we're going to end up anyway. (Which was different from more lethal original Covid and Delta).
A doctor on TOS (who I think also posts here), linked this article with the following commentary: "Omicron is much more mild than people think."
Here is the article:
https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/COVID-San-Francisco-staff-shortage-UCSF-16758335.php
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - dabigv13 - 01-12-2022
What about MT's post suggests the "sky is falling"?
It's a useful post with factual information. Rather hopeful factual information in fact.
If we go by history, we know you have been pushing against pandemic restrictions from the very beginning, when we had no vaccine and with a virus that was probably more dangerous, though less infectious. Whereas MT from the beginning has posted facts and useful information, your posts usually lacked pertinent facts and instead were mostly whining and baseless conjecture.
Omicron is more mild. Thanks to vaccines and forced acquired immunity, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I hope it will be here soon. But we have the highest test positivity of the whole pandemic now, and hospitalizations and ICU utilization is rising quickly, even if stays are shorter and there are less deaths (though will hopefully peak soon, if wastewater data is a reliable indicator). Still even with less deaths, in some places elective cases are being cancelled and wait times for beds are very long, like during earlier surges.
I do think and have posted here before that Omicron will be the transition point to endemicity, but we're not quite there yet.
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - teejers1 - 01-12-2022
(01-12-2022, 05:11 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: What about MT's post suggests the "sky is falling"?
It's a useful post with factual information. Rather hopeful factual information in fact.
If we go by history, we know you have been pushing against pandemic restrictions from the very beginning, when we had no vaccine and with a virus that was probably more dangerous, though less infectious. Whereas MT from the beginning has posted facts and useful information, your posts usually lacked pertinent facts and instead were mostly whining and baseless conjecture.
Omicron is more mild. Thanks to vaccines and forced acquired immunity, there is a light at the end of the tunnel and I hope it will be here soon. But we have the highest test positivity of the whole pandemic now, and hospitalizations and ICU utilization is rising quickly, even if stays are shorter and there are less deaths (though will hopefully peak soon, if wastewater data is a reliable indicator). Still even with less deaths, in some places elective cases are being cancelled and wait times for beds are very long, like during earlier surges.
I do think and have posted here before that Omicron will be the transition point to endemicity, but we're not quite there yet.
From Day 1 I have been a proponent of basing policy off hospitalization figures. I used facts, as they were available. There were numerous significant gaps in the facts posted by SCC website, obfuscating the ability of folks to comment on the wisdom of certain policies. The most notorious omission being the correlation of comorbidities/age with deaths/hospitalizations. Those were (and are) rather important figures to integrate when coming up with sound policies. [I believe the head of CDC recently stated that 70+% of those dying from Covid had 4 or more comorbidities! That's a pretty significant fact that you couldn't find anywhere in SCC numbers. You also have leaders of UCSF hospitals saying the reporting of Covid hospitalization numbers need to be cleaned up because so much of that are people being admitted for Issue A but then testing positive for Covid, though asymptomatic (and would never be hospitalized for that)]. And regardless, we're now learning that many of the "facts" (i.e., numbers reported on hospitalizations and deaths) may not have been as infallible as many here trumpeted during the first year+ of the pandemic.
Look, I was (and remain) all for being smart - get your shots, wear masks and distance indoors. But I also was (and remain) opposed to the surrender mentality that reigned, particularly in school settings, particularly in our county.
Sorry that I did not reel off article after article replete with numbers/stats/etc. painting the grimmest picture possible and that my posts were whining and baseless. I'm an eye test guy in most things, and my eyes and instincts were telling me that there was (and remains) overreaction to virus response, though I also believe the overreaction has been lessened as the pandemic progressed and as administration changed. (BTW, the eye test comment brings this post back to Stanford sports!).
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - terry - 01-12-2022
(01-12-2022, 05:56 PM)teejers1 Wrote: I believe the head of CDC recently stated that 70+% of those dying from Covid had 4 or more comorbidities!
The head of the CDC actually said that in one specific study, 70+% of vaccinated people who died of Covid had 4 or more co-morbidities. She was describing a particular study of 1.2 million vaccinated people. Of those people, 36 died of Covid (0.0033%).
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - teejers1 - 01-12-2022
(01-12-2022, 08:34 PM)terry Wrote:(01-12-2022, 05:56 PM)teejers1 Wrote: I believe the head of CDC recently stated that 70+% of those dying from Covid had 4 or more comorbidities!
The head of the CDC actually said that in one specific study, 70+% of vaccinated people who died of Covid had 4 or more co-morbidities. She was describing a particular study of 1.2 million vaccinated people. Of those people, 36 died of Covid (0.0033%).
Thanks for clarifying - again important information that should help inform decisions, especially in largely vaccinated communities (like the one Stanford is in).
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - BostonCard - 01-12-2022
Hi guys,
I think vigorous debate about COVID policy is fine, especially as it pertains to college athletics and STanford specifically. However, please try not to impugn other people's motives or make accusations of having an agenda. People who favor more restrictions are not fascists trying to lock everyone down forever, while those who advocate for fewer restrictions are not, in fact, trying to kill grandma. The pandemic (and the response to it) has been borne differently by different people, and we should not assume that everyone shares our risk tolerance or aversion. Please show some grace and understanding towards those you disagree with, and try to see things from their perspective.
I think one of the reasons that views about the current situation diverge is that there is a bit of a disconnect between personal risk and the larger public health situation. I will use myself as an example. As someone who has been vaccinated and received a booster, and who is still in my 40's (albeit with a couple of risk factors), my personal COVID risk is fairly low. It's not zero, but it is probably comparable to that during a bad seasonal flu year (with a poorly matched vaccine). From a personal perspective, I don't want more restrictions, and I would be fine if restrictions were eased.
On the other hand, hospital admissions with COVID are at record levels: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html. Even if you subtract some fraction of those because they are hospitalized for something else but happen to have COVID, that is not a new thing, so you would have had to discount hospitalizations in previous waves. Further HHS maintains a dashboard of overall hospital utilization, regardless of admitting diagnosis https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization, where you can see that among the 371 hospitals reporting, 80% of beds are occupied. Typical pre-pandemic hospital utlilization is around 65% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/185904/hospital-occupancy-rate-in-the-us-since-2001/). Right now (technically 2 weeks ago), the average 7-day utilization rate at Stanford hospital was 100%, which means that if you had an elective procedure there, you were likely SOL.
So, even though my own personal risk is low, the denominator right now of people who have COVID, is so high, that even a fairly "mild" variant is sending a lot of people to the hospital. Even a quarter as bad is problematic if 8x as many people get Omicron.
Now, all that being said, I don't think Stanford's restrictions are going to make a meaningful difference, and the lockdown ship sailed a long time ago. This variant eats half-measures for breakfast, and the only way that we can arrest it is probably a China-like lockdown, something that even the most ardent lockdown supporters aren't pushing for. I think the best strategy right now is to batten down the hatches and ride the storm, doing our utmost to protect the most vulnerable, and taking whatever individual precautions fit within your risk profile. The worst will be past us in a couple weeks, if not sooner, judging by what happened in South Africa.
BC
Add…
This is a good piece about hospitalizations:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/for-covid-with-covid-hospitals-are-mess-either-way/621229/
Quote:The entire for-COVID-or-with-COVID debate hinges on a false binary. “The health-care system is in crisis and on the verge of collapse,” Spencer said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s with or for. It’s a pure deluge of numbers.”
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - Jamesy - 01-13-2022
(01-12-2022, 11:19 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Hi guys,
I think vigorous debate about COVID policy is fine, especially as it pertains to college athletics and STanford specifically. However, please try not to impugn other people's motives or make accusations of having an agenda. People who favor more restrictions are not fascists trying to lock everyone down forever, while those who advocate for fewer restrictions are not, in fact, trying to kill grandma. The pandemic (and the response to it) has been borne differently by different people, and we should not assume that everyone shares our risk tolerance or aversion. Please show some grace and understanding towards those you disagree with, and try to see things from their perspective.
I think one of the reasons that views about the current situation diverge is that there is a bit of a disconnect between personal risk and the larger public health situation. I will use myself as an example. As someone who has been vaccinated and received a booster, and who is still in my 40's (albeit with a couple of risk factors), my personal COVID risk is fairly low. It's not zero, but it is probably comparable to that during a bad seasonal flu year (with a poorly matched vaccine). From a personal perspective, I don't want more restrictions, and I would be fine if restrictions were eased.
On the other hand, hospital admissions with COVID are at record levels: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html. Even if you subtract some fraction of those because they are hospitalized for something else but happen to have COVID, that is not a new thing, so you would have had to discount hospitalizations in previous waves. Further HHS maintains a dashboard of overall hospital utilization, regardless of admitting diagnosis https://protect-public.hhs.gov/pages/hospital-utilization, where you can see that among the 371 hospitals reporting, 80% of beds are occupied. Typical pre-pandemic hospital utlilization is around 65% (https://www.statista.com/statistics/185904/hospital-occupancy-rate-in-the-us-since-2001/). Right now (technically 2 weeks ago), the average 7-day utilization rate at Stanford hospital was 100%, which means that if you had an elective procedure there, you were likely SOL.
So, even though my own personal risk is low, the denominator right now of people who have COVID, is so high, that even a fairly "mild" variant is sending a lot of people to the hospital. Even a quarter as bad is problematic if 8x as many people get Omicron.
Now, all that being said, I don't think Stanford's restrictions are going to make a meaningful difference, and the lockdown ship sailed a long time ago. This variant eats half-measures for breakfast, and the only way that we can arrest it is probably a China-like lockdown, something that even the most ardent lockdown supporters aren't pushing for. I think the best strategy right now is to batten down the hatches and ride the storm, doing our utmost to protect the most vulnerable, and taking whatever individual precautions fit within your risk profile. The worst will be past us in a couple weeks, if not sooner, judging by what happened in South Africa.
BC
Add…
This is a good piece about hospitalizations:
https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2022/01/for-covid-with-covid-hospitals-are-mess-either-way/621229/
Quote:The entire for-COVID-or-with-COVID debate hinges on a false binary. “The health-care system is in crisis and on the verge of collapse,” Spencer said. “It doesn’t matter whether it’s with or for. It’s a pure deluge of numbers.”
Along these lines, Stanford Hospital has canceled all elective inpatient surgeries for the rest of the month. The state has said COVID+ HCWs do not need to isolate if they're asymptomatic because the system is so overwhelmed.
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - Goose - 01-13-2022
(01-12-2022, 11:19 PM)BostonCard Wrote: Right now (technically 2 weeks ago), the average 7-day utilization rate at Stanford hospital was 100%, which means that if you had an elective procedure there, you were likely SOL.I had been aware of Stanford being quite full for a while due to reports from a friend who is intermittently a cancer patient there. As I understand it they are still using the "old" hospital that they were forced to re-open because of COVID. I am also told there are beds in the corridors in some areas. Anybody know why Stanford seems to be so much more overloaded than surrounding hospitals (which aren't empty but still are significantly less full)?
BC
RE: limited fan attendance at athletic events - winflop - 01-13-2022
(01-12-2022, 05:11 PM)dabigv13 Wrote: I do think and have posted here before that Omicron will be the transition point to endemicity, but we're not quite there yet.
I'm not sure the data exists one way or the other to draw effective conclusions, because
1. hospitalization (and death) data does not delineate between the vaccinated & unvaccinated. If you have a source for this delineation, please by all means share it!
2. whether the person is hospitalized FOR Covid or hospitalized WITH Covid (i.e., hospitalized for a diff reason but tested positive on the way in the door). Anecdotally I've heard that anywhere from 25% to 50% of "Covid hospitalizations" are for WITH Covid (i.e., indicental).
I think there's very little real data out there that is trustworthy, and first and foremost I blame our CDC for that.