Hoosier

Now there are questions about the Abbott rapid result test. Potentially far too high false negative rate.

I have never been as happy to have a pair of adjustable weights for home use... they are those block things that can adjust to over 100 lbs each. Easy to dedicate yourself to working out when so many places are closed lol. I heard some people have been jacking up the prices of those things.

Saw a study came out that found lower transmission rate in hotter weather. I think it's obvious at this point that we will be dealing with this in a significant way throughout the summer, even if transmission is lower than we've seen so far. The extent of a summer dropoff won't be nearly like it is with the flu.

Ugly death count in IL. I think it might be their highest daily number yet but someone from there would probably know better.

Looks like there could be some junk lingering through late morning if not into the afternoon around here. But there is a nice reservoir of relatively steep mid level lapse rates advecting in during the afternoon/evening so I am less concerned about the lingering junk than I otherwise would be. Overall setup appears to have potential to evolve into a respectable damaging wind event with time.

Well this will be interesting. If you want to dine-in at a restaurant in Washington state, you will have to provide your contact info so they can reach you for contact tracing in the event that someone ends up getting sick. I have a feeling we are not going to see that policy in many red states. Just a hunch. https://www.seattletimes.com/life/food-drink/to-reopen-washington-state-restaurants-will-have-to-keep-log-of-customers-to-aid-in-contact-tracing/?fbclid=IwAR0XczlZRtJkXhb5l_EtwY1JDZMZHQzRxtZeamndkfAdEtFQyuVBeoNEToU

That's pretty good. I don't think IN has run more than about 6k-7k in a day (most days lower) and we have half your population.

Cook county always puts up big numbers of course, but it looks like the Rockford area shot up a lot percentage wise.

Saw a graph showing dine-in attendance at restaurants in some southern states that have reopened. The numbers are way down, even accounting for the capacity limits that are in place. Going to be important to thrive on takeout and outdoor seating, which obviously not all will be able to do.

Speaking of that, I may never go to the barber again lol. Have cut my own hair a couple times since this started and did a pretty good job if I must say so myself. Barber does cut it quicker but I think I would get more time efficient with continued practice.

Anecdote time but my aunt told me she witnessed an elderly woman with a cane being heckled for wearing a mask inside of a store. I mean really? That is the type of person who should be more concerned about this virus. Why is a mask triggering people?

So Lake county IN begins phased reopening tomorrow... joining most of the rest of IN which began last Monday. Still another week until restaurants can open for dine-in at reduced capacity here, but most of IN can start dine-in at reduced capacity tomorrow. City of Gary has a stay at home order until May 15, but let's be honest, it is not really enforced. There is not much to stop a Gary resident from traveling to a neighboring town to do something that they can't do in Gary. I have read a few stories from around Indiana about people being pulled over for a DUI or whatever and then having the stay at home violation tacked on, but that is more of an incidental thing as it's not the original reason for being stopped. Hope things turn out well. Based on what I have read in other states that have begun reopening, there are some businesses that are choosing not to reopen even though they can. Wonder if I will see the same thing around here.

Definition of pandemic is an infectious disease that spreads across multiple continents or the world. Based on that, I'm not sure how this doesn't meet the definition. It started in China and spread across much of the world. You could maybe argue that the seasonal flu is "pandemic", but generally it's not considered to be as it tends to appear simultaneously across regions and not originate in one place and spread out.

I have been monitoring my county's dashboard of cases and there are now only a couple towns without any deaths... and they are the least populated/rural ones (one has a couple thousand residents and the other only has a couple hundred residents). Even those towns have a few cases though. Not surprisingly, about 98% of cases are in the more populated northern half of the county as much of the southern 1/2 is rural.

Roy from Siegfried and Roy died.

Plan to reopen Chicago https://abc7chicago.com/coronavirus-chicago-reopening-plan-restore-illinois-protecting/6162864/

Yeah that is fairly surprising, at least to me. Especially with mask wearing in the South outpacing the Midwest. Not really sure why that would be. Maybe people there perceive a higher sense of risk since obesity and diabetes are generally more prevalent? I think some states in the South also started reopening some things earlier. Places in the South have been getting a lot of media attention for various reasons (New Orleans, Florida, Georgia) but there are areas in the Midwest that have been too (like Detroit and Chicago). Interesting.

Anecdotally I was noticing more traffic around here few weeks ago and then cell phone tracking data came out that backed it up (not just here but in much of the nation). People are being more mobile now. There is definitely stay at home fatigue.

Why am I seeing that the South Carolina stay at home order ended on Monday, 2 days ago?

Some of the early stuff that came out was actually suggesting that higher vitamin D could be a problem because of what it does with the ACE2 receptor. Vitamin D has so many health benefits though that imo you are better off getting a good amount than not.

Man these numbers just suck. Seems like it's going to take forever to consistently get under 1000 deaths/day in the US. Will we ever get there with things beginning to reopen?

Also noticed that ICU bed usage crept up. Not by much but obviously have to watch those numbers extremely closely, even on a county by county level.

On another note, Indiana put up one of its highest case numbers today, with a positive percent test rate still hovering around 18%. 2 days after starting to reopen so none of that would be accounted for yet.

Highly doubt 50,000 out of 180,000. You would expect NYC area to pretty much have the highest rate given the population density, mass transit, etc. and even their antibody percentage is only twenty something percent I think.

Maybe a bit more geographical (northern states doing "better" than farther south) but can see some political factors as well. Here's a map of governors