winterwx21

Rain has started here. Coming down moderately. Looking like we'll pick up a solid third of an inch today. Needed rain for the garden.

Feeling refreshing out there now. Radar looks pretty good for some much needed rain during the early to mid afternoon. Should get at least a quarter inch.

Yeah, I'm so used to seeing everyone wearing a helmet while riding because of where I live. Thanks for letting me know.

The good news is the spectacular weather is coming back midweek. Dewpoints are going to fall to the bone dry 40s for wednesday and thursday. A repeat of last week with wednesday and thursday being top 10 days of the year type of weather.

Both of those are decisions that create only a very small chance of something bad happening. Most people take risks in life. I do think riding without a helmet is much worse than not taking the vaccine though. Pretty much everyone rides with a helmet. It's just a basic safety thing that almost everyone does. If you get into a motorcycle accident you have a much higher chance of being severely injured than being severely injured from Covid if you catch it. So I do think what Roethlisberger did is worse. However Roethlisberger is a guy that puts his heart and soul into helping that team win. One of the toughest sports players ever. Not the type of guy I would be angry with as a fan for a mistake like that. And again I don't consider Beasley's decision a liability to the team because we're at a point now that it's very unlikely it will cause a significant problem for the team now that Covid is well under control. And it's not as if he's the only one. Most teams have several players that have chosen to not get vaccinated.

I'll vote number 3. I would never be angry towards anyone for not taking the vaccine, but it's the right thing to do to not allow guys to play with Covid. I would just say it's an unfortunate situation with the pandemic going on. But again I really think something like that happening is very unlikely. Vaccination rates are high enough and Covid rates are low enough that team outbreaks are unlikely now. We see that the outbreaks have stopped in baseball, despite teams having some unvaccinated players.

Apparently there are teams that are doing worse than the Bills with their vaccination rates. A report from the Washington Post this week listed the Colts, Jaguars, Cardinals and Chargers as the teams with the lowest vaccination rates. I really don't think it's that big of a deal. Notice in baseball we're not seeing any more bad Covid outbreaks, even though most teams have several players that are not vaccinated. Overall vaccination rates are high enough and Covid rates are low enough now that it seems unlikely that we're going to see any more significant outbreaks on sports teams. I think it's important that decisions are respected. It can be a more difficult decision for athletes because athletes do the hard work (diet and exercise) to put their bodies in position that they're much less vulnerable to getting severely ill from the virus compared to the general population. That gives some athletes the feeling that they'd rather rely on being healthy naturally than put something unnatural into their body that they don't really need. I find it understandable, but many people that are not athletes would have a hard time understanding that feeling. I also hope the NFL loosens some of the restrictions when we get closer to the regular season. If the unvaccinated players are being tested every day and Covid rates continue to be very low, there's no reason for ridiculous restrictions like not allowing them to eat with others or not allowing them to leave the hotel. Hopefully common sense will prevail. It's time to get back to at least a semi normal.

What happened to the Cod Nexrad radar? It hasn't been updating since June 11th. I switched to Cod Nexrad after the NWS changed to that terrible new radar on weather.gov that takes forever to load and is very difficult to use. Cod Nexrad was an excellent replacement for me, but now that it isn't working I can't find any other radar I like. Anyone have a good one? Hopefully Cod Nexrad will be back working soon, but if not I'd like to find another good radar.

The article you posted admits that ED is usually a symptom of an underlying problem. So people that have an underlying condition like high blood pressure or heart disease, of course are going to be at higher risk of developing ED from Covid. But this would not be much of a concern for people that have great artery health due to being on a serious exercise program. Get your arteries in great shape through exercise, and you don't have to worry too much about Covid causing erectile dysfunction. Jonger has stated that he's a fitness nut, so why would you even post this to him? I know you're a doctor. As a doctor you do realize that Covid poses much lower risk to athletes that are in great shape from exercise, correct? Sometimes I wonder the way you post.

We had some really nice t-storms here in NJ this afternoon. Yeah prolonged dry weather is the worst .... hopefully there will be some storms for your area soon.

You deserve a lot of praise due to your patience. All of the other Covid threads in the other subforums on this site ended up getting shut down because the moderators couldn't stand the arguments that people were having. Major kudos to you for allowing this thread to continue so long.

Nice storm going on here. The rain is as heavy as yesterday, but today there's a lot more lightning. Some very close strikes here. Also some wind gusts around 30mph. Interesting that the the severe threat was supposed to be higher yesterday, but it's turning out that today's storms are stronger.

Picked up three quarters of an inch of rain here yesterday. Radar looks good .... another round of heavy downpours getting close. Good to get a lot of moisture into the soil before the heat wave.

Physical fitness level is one of the biggest factors... https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20210419/more-exercise-lowers-risk-of-severe-covid-19-study The studies overwhelmingly show how important exercise is in reducing severe Covid risk. Makes perfect sense too. We know that the reason why most people that get severely ill and die from Covid is their heart, lungs and arteries can't take it. So if you get your heart lungs and arteries extra strong through exercise, there's a much better chance that they'll be able to stand Covid. Simple common sense. I think even a lot of the elderly deaths could have been prevented had people exercised their entire lives. That keeps the immune system, heart, lungs and arteries in better shape even at a much older age. Having said all this, I've decided that I'm going to get vaccinated. I'm going to go for the 1 dose J&J vaccine sometime in the next couple weeks. I'm not worried at all about severe Covid for myself since I've reduced my risk so much by being an athlete, but I think it's a good idea. Would nice to not have to worry about getting sick (even if it's just mild illness like when I had Covid last spring), and of course it's good to reduce the risk of passing it on to others. I also live in a very liberal area where they are big on vaccine requiremements. They're now reserving 90% of tickets for vaccinated people at Mets games, and I doubt they're going to allow people to go to big indoor events like concerts without being vaccinated. So I'm going to go ahead and do it.

We don't know if it was the case with James, but overall it's very sad how many people died during this pandemic because they were Trump supporters. All the people that refused to wear masks when the virus was at its peak because of Trump's attitude about masks. Really a shame.

Do you know why your buddy James didn't get the vaccine? I know he was overweight and had big health problems. Very sad what happened to him. Obviously it's critical for higher risk people to get the vaccine. Of course a 31 year old that's in great shape wouldn't be at risk of dying, but for those younger people that are at higher risk it's extremely important to get the vaccine.

I post the rt.com link where they talk about the study. If you do a google search you see lots of articles on this recent large study.

This recent study found that severe Covid risk starts increasing with a BMI just above of 23, which is in the normal range but on the higher end of it. Each point higher than 23 resulted in a 10% increase in ICU admission... https://www.rt.com/news/522682-obesity-coronavirus-young-study/

The big study done in California where they looked at almost 50,000 people found that physical inactivity was an even bigger risk factor than obesity. People that exercised had very low hospitalization and death rates while people that did not exercise had very high hospitalization and death rates. The study found that only old age and organ transplant were bigger risk factors than physical inactivity. No question old age is the biggest risk factor, but a lot of old people are at high risk because they've developed underlying conditions as a result of a lifetime of not being physically active. There are some old people that have done well with the virus because they exercised their entire lives and are still in great shape. I have a 90 year old neighbor that had only mild symptoms when she got Covid, because she's still in great shape due to exercise. Physical activity is incredibly important when it comes to Covid risk. The studies are overwhelming on that. You're right though, vaccines are the most important thing right now. Many lives would have been saved during the pandemic had health authorities gotten the message out that getting into shape greatly reduces Covid risk, but now we have vaccines that are close to 100% at preventing severe illness. So it's very important for most people to get the vaccine. The exceptions are people that are naturally immune due to previous infection, and the small percentage of people that put themselves at very low risk due to being in great shape through exercise. It is definitely still important to get the message out (as Dr. Sallis says in the quotes that I provided) on how severe illness can be prevented through exercise, because there are going to be some people that don't get the vaccine for various reasons (whether valid or not). Getting into shape can save the lives of many of these people.

No question it's difficult for some people for a number of reasons, and that's why I would never judge all people for failing to lose weight. Some people have health problems that prevent them from being able to exercise. Others have very difficult jobs where they work tremendously long hours, and that makes it very difficult to exercise. There are healthy food issues, as you said. So some people certainly have valid reasons, but of course there are many people that do not have valid reasons and could lose the weight if they wanted to. It's a shame that so many of these people have died because they didn't understand that they were at greater severe Covid risk due to being out of shape. A huge problem has been the lack of messaging from health authorities during this pandemic. Recently I posted the study done in California where they looked at nearly 50,000 people that got Covid, and found that the people that were physically inactive had much higher rates of hospitalization and death than people that were consistently physically active. Dr. Robert Sallis, a family and sports medicine physician, was the lead author of the study. He is one of many doctors that have been VERY upset with the health authorities for not getting the message out during the pandemic. Here are a few quotes from Dr. Sallis... "The bottom line from our data is that physical inactivity is the biggest modifiable risk factor of severe Covid," Sallis says. "Unfortunately, most of the messaging has been around just hide in the house, wear a mask, distance and wait for a vaccine," Sallis says. "And that's been a huge mistake. We speak very little, which is typical in health care today, about personal responsibility, and people need to take control of their health and the best way to do it is by being active." "A message that physical activity could protect you from ending up in the hospital, in my view, could have saved lives over the past year, but I would also say it's not too late to get started." So many other doctors are making similar quotes. It's just really a shame that a pandemic of this horrific level didn't have to happen. The state of health is very sad, and a big problem is many doctors themselves are in denial about this problem and refuse to get the message out.

A lot of people are not getting vaccinated because they're naturally immune due to previous Covid infection. Is there reason to be resentful of these people? It makes no sense to me taking a shot that you don't need. There have been studies that have come out lately that have shown that natural protection from previous infection is long lasting. In fact there was a study that came out in the last week where they looked at the bone marrow samples of recovered patients, and it found that they still had protection 11 months later. This is great news for people that already had Covid. I do not like that health authorities are trying to push people that are already immune naturally to still get the vaccine. Makes little sense to take a shot that you don't need. And as far as the healthy lifestyle, to me it doesn't seem like a struggle. 5 days a week of doing about 1 hour of intense exercise. That's what it took for me to lose 30 pounds. There are 168 hours in a week, so 5 hours set aside for exercise in a week doesn't seem like that much to ask to me. It's not as if you have to exercise for hours every day to lose a significant amount of weight.

You're definitely right about this. Covid is much much worse than the flu for young people that are overweight and have underlying health conditions.

It's just a shame seeing these stories of young people dying because they didn't realize that they were at higher Covid risk due to their health, so I feel it's important to hammer the point that it's critical for young people to get into shape if they don't want to be vaccinated. BuffaloWeather always responds with these posts about rare cases where athletes get more sick, like he doesn't understand that a very significant risk reduction through exercise is a very important thing for people that won't take the vaccine. These rare severe cases are going to happen, but you'd much rather have a very tiny risk than a much more significant risk. So I'm not sure why he keeps responding to my posts this way.

Here in NJ they lifted the mask mandate yesterday. I went to Shoprite today, and they are still requiring customers to wear masks. I didn't see 1 customer without a mask today. I heard Stop & Shop is doing the same thing. Stores in this area are being extra cautious, and I think that's fine. Nothing wrong with being cautious for a little longer. We are down to just a few hundred cases being reported per day in NJ, a huge drop from the 4 to 5 thousand that were being reported per day a couple months ago. I would think when we get into the middle of summer and cases are down to just a handful per day, the stores with stop requiring masks. I did go to the bakery today as well, and they removed the mask requirement. For now it's gonna a mix in this state with some businesses requiring them and some not.

So you wouldn't root for weather like this all the time, correct? I've seen you say that you would love cold/snowy weather all the time. That would not work with baseball. I've questioned you on it before and never gotten a response. I'm sure you do not mean it when you say you would like weather like that all year round, because that would mean no baseball. I know you are a big baseball fan. I love winter and snowy weather, but I would never want it in spring/summer because it would ruin so many outdoor things that happen in those seasons. Can't imagine no growing season and no baseball season.