COVID-19 (f/k/a "the Coronavirus")

[Warriors4ever]

I think at seven days you can be fairly confident, most ( but admittedly not all) infections show up by then.
I have friends whose nephew is a pastor. They had him come for Thanksgiving and sometime in the next few days he tested positive (I am not certain if he became symptomatic or tested due to exposure). I talked to them late last week and so far they were fine, they were isolating. But the parish had to suspend services.

[GooooMarquette]

Interesting NYT opinion piece on using more graphic warnings about the effects of Covid. Scare people instead of appealing to their sense of 'doing the right thing.'

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/07/opinion/covid-public-health-messaging.html?action=click&module=Opinion&pgtype=Homepage

I still remember exactly where I was sitting decades ago, during the short film shown in class: For a few painful minutes, we watched a woman talking mechanically, raspily through a hole in her throat, pausing occasionally to gasp for air.

The public service message: This is what can happen if you smoke.

I had nightmares about that ad, which today would most likely be tagged with a trigger warning or deemed unsuitable for children. But it was supremely effective: I never started smoking and doubt that few if any of my horrified classmates did either.

When the government required television and radio stations to give $75 million in free airtime for antismoking ads between 1967 and 1970 — many of them terrifyingly graphic — smoking rates plummeted. Since then, numerous smoking “scare” campaigns have proved successful. Some even featured celebrities, like Yul Brynner’s posthumous offering with a warning after he died from lung cancer: “Now that I’m gone, don’t smoke, whatever you do, just don’t smoke.”

As the United States faces out-of-control spikes from Covid-19, with people refusing to take recommended, often even mandated, precautions, our public health announcements from governments, medical groups and health care companies feel lame compared to the urgency of the moment. A mix of clever catchphrases, scientific information and calls to civic duty, they are virtuous and profoundly dull.

The Centers for Diseases Control urges people to wear masks in videos that feature scientists and doctors talking about wanting to send kids safely to school or protecting freedom.

Quest Diagnostics made a video featuring people washing their hands, talking on the phone, playing checkers. The message: “Come together by spending time apart.”

------------------

Maybe an ad showing a previously healthy, active 30-year old hooked up to machines and desperately struggling for breath? And ads showing 'recovered' people who used to run marathons, but now struggle to walk around the block?

[The Hippie Satan of Hyperbole]

Maybe in light of yesterday, we could mention that the equivalent number of people are dying daily from Covid that died from the attack on Pearl Harbor.

[tower912]

Goooo, nobody watches commercials

[mu_hilltopper]

I still remember exactly where I was sitting decades ago, during the short film shown in class: For a few painful minutes, we watched a woman talking mechanically, raspily through a hole in her throat, pausing occasionally to gasp for air.

So .. I vividly remember that short film, maybe when I was in 2nd grade or so.  My mom smoked.

I took a bunch of her matchbooks and wrote "GO AHEAD, SMOKE.  GET A HOLE IN YOUR THROAT" so she'd see them when she lit up.

A few years later, her sister got laryngeal cancer and .. wait for it .. had a laryngectomy and spoke with one of those "humming" devices. 

I was quite the prophetic child.   

[GooooMarquette]

Goooo, nobody watches commercials

Familiar with any of these?

Lily from AT&T
Flo and Jamie
The Gecko
The Bunny

Nobody wants to watch them, but a well-made commercial can grab your attention even when you try to look away. And I have a feeling a young, healthy person gasping for air in the midst of a pandemic would grab a lot of attention.

[tower912]

Should have used teal.   The Geico aunts commercial is really striking home some places right now.

[Jockey]

Familiar with any of these?

Lily from AT&T
Flo and Jamie
The Gecko
The Bunny

Nobody wants to watch them, but a well-made commercial can grab your attention even when you try to look away. And I have a feeling a young, healthy person gasping for air in the midst of a pandemic would grab a lot of attention.

Even some not well-made ones courtesy of Mr Gruber.

[GooooMarquette]

Should have used teal.   The Geico aunts commercial is really striking home some places right now.

Missed the implied teal. Guess this wasn't a good week to quit sniffing glue.

[shoothoops]

Jenna Ellis:

https://www.axios.com/jenna-ellis-trump-lawyer-covid-2bab2624-0b25-4f47-a532-079fd2c392da.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter

[MU82]

Jenna Ellis:

https://www.axios.com/jenna-ellis-trump-lawyer-covid-2bab2624-0b25-4f47-a532-079fd2c392da.html?utm_campaign=organic&utm_medium=socialshare&utm_source=twitter

But at least she and the rest of the "elite legal team" are doing a bang-up job as attorneys.

[JWags85]

Maybe an ad showing a previously healthy, active 30-year old hooked up to machines and desperately struggling for breath? And ads showing 'recovered' people who used to run marathons, but now struggle to walk around the block?

This is not meant to be a “this virus affects only old people” statement, cause it’s not, but I don’t see this sort of commercial being effective and seen as anything more than eye rolling dramatic to many. The hospitalization rate for “young healthy” 20/30 somethings is so incredibly low, it won’t resonate. We’ve talked at length about how the danger and caution for youthful people is community spread and being a carrier to those who are at risk or elderly. That’s the only prayer of trying to get young people to be selfless If they need selling. Otherwise it’s the same as people having no pause in taking a medication in which a very small percentage have extreme side effects.

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

This is not meant to be a “this virus affects only old people” statement, cause it’s not, but I don’t see this sort of commercial being effective and seen as anything more than eye rolling dramatic to many. The hospitalization rate for “young healthy” 20/30 somethings is so incredibly low, it won’t resonate. We’ve talked at length about how the danger and caution for youthful people is community spread and being a carrier to those who are at risk or elderly. That’s the only prayer of trying to get young people to be selfless If they need selling. Otherwise it’s the same as people having no pause in taking a medication in which a very small percentage have extreme side effects.

I agree. The only thing I can see to work is to appeal to the family aspect. Sadly I (and probably many others) have started to have people in my circle impacted. It’s unfortunately going to hit home for a lot of people in the coming months. 

[GooooMarquette]

This is not meant to be a “this virus affects only old people” statement, cause it’s not, but I don’t see this sort of commercial being effective and seen as anything more than eye rolling dramatic to many. The hospitalization rate for “young healthy” 20/30 somethings is so incredibly low, it won’t resonate. We’ve talked at length about how the danger and caution for youthful people is community spread and being a carrier to those who are at risk or elderly. That’s the only prayer of trying to get young people to be selfless If they need selling. Otherwise it’s the same as people having no pause in taking a medication in which a very small percentage have extreme side effects.

Maybe. But with the virus running roughshod over the country, much of the spread coming from informal gatherings, and hospitals filling up, could it do any harm? And do you have a better suggestion for getting people to follow the rules? (Other than a better bailout package, which the GOP isn’t going to allow)

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Trump Cheers ‘Terrific’ Rise in COVID Cases During Off-The-Rails Vaccine Summit

"...But after a few minutes of touting the success of Operation Warp Speed, his address morphed into an unspooling of grievances over the election outcome as well as an unfounded assertion that the rising number COVID-19 cases across the country was, in fact, a “terrific” development.

“I hear we’re close to 15 percent. I’m hearing that, and that’s terrific,” Trump said of the percentage of Americans who have contracted COVID-19.

He appeared to be referencing the increased likelihood that a rising infection rate would bring the country closer to so-called herd immunity, which would effectively stop the virus from spreading because there would be no potential carriers to which it could go.

In fact, infectious disease experts say an infection rate would have to be above 70 percent for herd immunity to take hold—a number that, if it were to be reached, would result in hundreds of thousands more Americans dying."

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-cheers-terrific-rise-covid-202506544.html

Best President of some of your lifetimes, am I right?

[JWags85]

Maybe. But with the virus running roughshod over the country, much of the spread coming from informal gatherings, and hospitals filling up, could it do any harm? And do you have a better suggestion for getting people to follow the rules? (Other than a better bailout package, which the GOP isn’t going to allow)

The harm could be a waste of messaging that makes people take it even less seriously. Emphasizing an incredibly small percentage to “scare straight” a demographic would seem more likely to have an opposite effect than the intended. The vast majority of the young people that are not social distancing or attentive such gatherings are just selfish and immature, not “masks infringe on my freedoms” or similarly ignorant. That same young group knows the risk percentages of their age and just doesn’t care otherwise. Of the myriad reasons that they should be contributing in and taking part in combating the pandemic and/or thinking of others, direct personal risk is honestly probably the lowest for a fit/healthy young person, regardless of the token exceptions here or there.

I’m not one for overly draconian restrictions, but if you truly want to stop the informal gatherings, then you need to outright ban bars and vigorously enforce group gathering restrictions. Much like the discussions of Singapore in the mask thread, maybe there is less altruistic community care in the US, but the biggest differentiation in procedure for all the “successful” countries was strict and enforced rules, not soft pedaled requests. 

I don’t have all the answers, but speaking as someone in the healthy 30s demographic, “this could be you” scenarios featuring something that is a 1 in 2000ish chance, provided you actually get the virus, just won’t move the needle in my mind, and I’m thoughtful and conscientious with a 90 year old Grandmother and another Grandmother in her mid 80s on oxygen, much less others in the target range.

[GooooMarquette]

I don’t have all the answers, but speaking as someone in the healthy 30s demographic, “this could be you” scenarios featuring something that is a 1 in 2000ish chance, provided you actually get the virus, just won’t move the needle in my mind, and I’m thoughtful and conscientious with a 90 year old Grandmother and another Grandmother in her mid 80s on oxygen, much less others in the target range.

The underlined is the reason I question whether you have the answer any more than I do. The purpose of a PSA at this point would be to target those who aren't being thoughtful and conscientious about Covid, whether they're in the healthy 30s demographic, or an older 'it's my life, dammit' demographic.

Anyhow, it was just an idea to move a needle that desperately needs to be moved.

[Hards Alumni]

This is not meant to be a “this virus affects only old people” statement, cause it’s not, but I don’t see this sort of commercial being effective and seen as anything more than eye rolling dramatic to many. The hospitalization rate for “young healthy” 20/30 somethings is so incredibly low, it won’t resonate. We’ve talked at length about how the danger and caution for youthful people is community spread and being a carrier to those who are at risk or elderly. That’s the only prayer of trying to get young people to be selfless If they need selling. Otherwise it’s the same as people having no pause in taking a medication in which a very small percentage have extreme side effects.

Show a family at Christmas in 2019.  Then Thanksgiving in 2020.  Then Christmas 2020 with a few less family members... fading away from the table.

Simple, quiet, effective.

[GooooMarquette]

Over 3,000 deaths reported today. 

[forgetful]

Over 3,000 deaths reported today. 

I thought we'd plateau at 3,000, looks like I'm going to be wrong. We now have more people dying daily from COVID then died in 9/11.

Essentially the entire city of Tomahawk, WI died today.

[Jockey]

I thought we'd plateau at 3,000, looks like I'm going to be wrong. We now have more people dying daily from COVID then died in 9/11.

Essentially the entire city of Tomahawk, WI died today.

It’s coming sooner than expected. I had said 3,000 - 4,000 by mid January.

[GooooMarquette]

It’s coming sooner than expected. I had said 3,000 - 4,000 by mid January.

And we are just beginning to see new cases spike from Thanksgiving. A couple more weeks and we will see the hospitalization curve accelerate further, followed by deaths.

[shoothoops]

"Social inequities explain racial gaps in pandemic, studies fund."

"Race is a social construct, not biological."

11,547, NYU Langone patients.

49,701 patients in Michigan.

5 million V.A. patients in 1200 facilities.

New Orleans 3,481 patient study.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1336898483329114113?s=19

[Galway Eagle]

"Social inequities explain racial gaps in pandemic, studies fund."

"Race is a social construct, not biological."

11,547, NYU Langone patients.

49,701 patients in Michigan.

5 million V.A. patients in 1200 facilities.

New Orleans 3,481 patient study.

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1336898483329114113?s=19

It is a social construct. Hispanic includes Spain, but that's Europe, which makes them white. People ancestrally from Egypt would be African American but have more in common with those from the Middle East meanwhile those same people who are from ancestrally from South Africa are also checking African American. We call people from Sicily white, but do you think they have more genetic material from African Tunisia or from Northern Europe?

The list goes on. Race is a social construct and we made it worse by the 1/8th rule regarding if you were considered white or black. Till recently there wasn't even a common belief that someone was "mixed race" if you had a black parent and white parent you were still black (ie: people's reaction to Obama).

[forgetful]

It is a social construct. Hispanic includes Spain, but that's Europe, which makes them white. People ancestrally from Egypt would be African American but have more in common with those from the Middle East meanwhile those same people who are from ancestrally from South Africa are also checking African American. We call people from Sicily white, but do you think they have more genetic material from African Tunisia or from Northern Europe?

The list goes on. Race is a social construct and we made it worse by the 1/8th rule regarding if you were considered white or black. Till recently there wasn't even a common belief that someone was "mixed race" if you had a black parent and white parent you were still black (ie: people's reaction to Obama).

Agree with your overall points, but...

Spain is not considered Hispanic. Egyptian/Tunisian/North African is not considered African American.

At least from a diversity perspective it is not.