bch2014

Not sure why you’re attacking me when I posted earlier that many of the restrictions are nonsensical? I’ve also done my part in supporting the restaurant and travel industry. I eat out multiple times per week, have travelled to Utah and South Carolina already in 2021, and violated the quarantine rule in VT several times in order to ski! And before you say that I’m not feeling any economic hardship. It’s true that I’ve kept my job, have a reasonably high income, etc... But my company’s most profitable segment, our gum and mints business, is down 30% since Covid began due to the fact that people don’t like chewing gum while wearing masks. As a result, bonuses were reduced, we’ve laid people off, etc... Have I proved my Covid bona fides to you yet? (Not that I need to-but I’m not going to sit around while you attack me on here)

Yup. https://www.google.com/amp/s/boston.eater.com/platform/amp/2021/2/25/22301611/capacity-caps-removed-massachusetts-restaurants-march-1-2021

Correct, I’m 25 and single But agree that school issue is a big one, it just doesn’t personally affect me much (besides the fact that our GDP is probably constrained by 10-20 bps/yr on a 20 time horizon due to learning loss).

I mostly agree with you on the “open up” question-But some restrictions are just illogical at this point. For example, here in NY (and MA used to have this restriction), you must order food if you’re at a bar/restaurant. So, you can’t grab cocktails at a different place before going to dinner. Another example would be the subway shutdowns from 2AM-4AM for “deep cleaning” when we know the disease doesn’t spread efficiently on surfaces. Bringing it back to New England, why does Gov. Baker allow indoor restaurants to open at 100% but outdoor sporting events and concerts aren’t yet allowed to be open at anything close to full capacity? In my view, you either go really hard on restrictions (I.e. New Zealand) or no restrictions at all. This in between shit just makes everyone crazy, whether it’s the “Covid-Zero” types or the Clay Travis disciples.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wcvb.com/amp/article/new-hampshires-mask-mandate-to-end-friday-governor-says/36136123 Hopefully a sign of things to come here in the northeast!

Ground looks white on your cam?

Stratton cam has gone offline.

Can you point to an example of a vaccine trial where subjects are held in a hospital for 6-14 days (i.e. when these clots occurred) after dosing for observation? (There may be examples-I honestly don't know) Otherwise sounds like a straw man...

“Finding everything wrong”? All of the SA variant cases in the study you posted the article about came within 14 days of the second dose. Also, vaccines were never going to be 100% effective. But even a less effective vaccine can reduce the transmission rate to the point of the virus fading into the background.

https://www.google.com/amp/s/finance.yahoo.com/amphtml/news/car-rental-shortages-183958570.html

Skiing at Stowe last weekend it seemed that the trails off the triple had plenty of snow.. Have you ever closed with just the triple open?

Cuomo has been very focused on hospitalization rates (and if he has a new accuser that day) in deciding whether or not to lift restrictions here in NY.

This may be a contrarian take-but I actually think we'll see incidence of CTE stay flat or decline in the future, even among those who play for a long time. I worked as a student manager for our football team in college (2014-2017) which was division one and there was lots and lots of attention paid to concussions and head injuries. I can think of five guys off the top of my head who had their careers ended because the doctor told them "you don't want to get another concussion or you'll have serious long-term consequences." 15 or 20 years ago, I'm not sure most medical professionals were saying that, or maybe they were, but teams were less inclined to have those doctors on staff. At Rice, which is comparatively under resourced to many programs in division one, we even had a neurologist in addition to the regular team doctor (who handled the "musculoskeletal" side of things).

The US isn’t even in the top ten for confectionary consumption (lbs) per capita. The consumption medals go to Germany, Ireland, and Switzerland, all three of which have far lower obesity rates than the US.

Sure-obviously we want people to buy our products. But I can honestly say that we focus more on household penetration (i.e. we want as many people as possible to buy the product a moderate amount) than per capita consumption (i.e. we want a static amount of people to buy our product more and more). Focus on per capita consumption is more of a thing in shrinking categories (i.e. tobacco and bread).

Yup-A place like the Bronx is both dense and crowded. A good example of a place that is not particularly dense, but crowded, and suffered heavily from covid would be the Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

I'd argue that's not true... Especially the bigger quantities piece (but to your point about less healthy-the recent acquisitions by companies like PEP, MDLZ, etc would suggest they are making an effort to have a healthier portfolio). I've worked for the US's largest snack manufacturer and now work for a large confectionary company, and contrary to popular belief, these companies aren't opposed to smaller package sizes as you can increase your net revenue/lb. If I can charge the same price for less product, I'm expanding my margins. Bet you didn't notice in 2019 that your bag of Family Size Doritos stayed $4.29 but the bags had a fraction of an ounce less product .

Contrary to popular belief, there's very little correlation between Covid case rates and population density. Now, there's a lot of correlation between crowding and Covid case rates, but that is distinct from density. For example, Manhattan below 96th St actually have Covid case rates below the national average. Despite being dense, most people do not live in multi-generational households nor do they share a bedroom with someone. https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/albany/story/2020/04/11/new-york-citys-most-crowded-neighborhoods-are-often-hardest-hit-by-coronavirus-1274875 This is an article from April 2020, but it illustrates that it's not the densest neighborhoods that have had the worst experiences with Covid, but instead the most crowded. For example, I live in the 10005 zip code, which is the 11th densest zip code in NYC. 11368 (Corona-One of the areas referenced in that article) is approximately 60% less dense, and comes in as the 80th most dense zip code in NYC. Finally, to illustrate that this not a NY specific phenomenon, compare the case rates in Pacific Heights in SF to the case rates in Hunters Point in SF. Pacific Heights is far more dense, but Hunters Point has had far more Covid cases.https://data.sfgov.org/stories/s/Map-of-Cumulative-Cases/adm5-wq8i#cumulative-cases-map

I sympathize with you Phin that the “lockdowns” have been too hard on small business, many politicians love the power, and teachers unions suck. I’m with you on all of those. I don’t understand where you’re coming from re: the cynicism on the vaccines and why they are being deployed. It’s very, very clear that there have been significant excess deaths compared to the baseline over the last year. Similar excess deaths did not occur with SARS. Hence, less of a necessity for a vaccine. Also, earlier you cited a 99.8% survival rate for Covid. That’s not true. There have been 570k deaths in the US from Covid. If the survival rate was 99.8%, that would imply ~86% of the US population has been infected. The real proportion is closer to 30-35%.

Is the maskless side of the family ;)?

I don’t disagree with you. At this point though-pretty much anyone can get the vaccine if they want to/try hard enough. That will become true across all states (officially) over the next couple weeks...

Not saying it's right (it's also silly in VT where there are a total of like 5 "BIPOC" people in the entire state), but there isn't clear precedent to say whether or not it is legal. This paper has a nice discussion on the issue: https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3765168 tldr: A strict racial test probably wouldn't be allowed but a "social vulnerability" index (that takes into account race as one of its inputs) is fine.

That’s a bit of a deceiving photo as that’s their beginner area.

Alzheimer’s?

I’m aware of that-I guess what I’m saying is given that all J&J doses given thus far have been from the Netherlands, it’s not as if someone has been injected with a faulty vaccine. As long as issues are caught before the product is “consumed,” I don’t see an issue. I work for a large CPG company and before we bring a new copacker aboard, there are always test runs and errors that are made during those tests-Nobody would accuse of food poisoning though-because the products are never released to retailers! Agree with PF that the incentives to not producing a faulty product are far greater than pushing it out faster. Heck, these vaccines aren’t even all that profitable for these drug companies.