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I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

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Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#121

Post by ardy42 »

notyourday wrote: post #114
mindslight wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just as there was "no evidence" that wearing a respirator reduces infection risk... The way I see it, everything coming into the house gets disinfected. This way, home can remain home, without eg needing to constantly over-worry about touching my face. I agree it's likely overboard, which is why I threw it out as an example of ridiculous things we are doing. But the advice on TV is, at best, meant to probabilisticall…

There's still no evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to the wearer. There is evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to those around the infectious wearer of the mask. It is, incidentally, the exact reasons surgeons wear masks -- not to protect themselves from a patient but to protect a patient from themselves.

> There's still no evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to the wearer. There is evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to those around the infectious wearer of the mask. It is, incidentally, the exact reasons surgeons wear masks.

I think I agree with you, but the conversation about the personal protective value of masks has become so confused that it's very difficult to discuss. You've got people counting N95 respirators as "masks," it's almost always unclear what statistic a commentator is focusing on, and then there's anger (justified or unjustified) about the evolution of the CDC recommendations for the general public.

Could you clarify your position a bit?

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#122

Post by smileysteve »

jonfw wrote: post #90
albntomat0 wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure they would be anywhere near full occupancy even without government restriction. I can imagine a significant portion of the population self-limiting to essential activities only, regardless of the level of government restrictions.

if that was true- why bother with regulation in the first place?

Because a significant portion does not imply that majority of the population will exercise prudence.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#123

Post by kube-system »

panpanna wrote: post #111
prawn wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The broader topic of the pandemic brings out inane discussion in other countries and on other sites too.

But the discussions are extremely polarized in the US right now. No other country is even close.

Do you have any data supporting this? I'd like to think I could be an accurate judge of this myself, but given that my consumption of media is extremely biased by my location and languages of literacy, I don't think my anecdotal data is worth anything.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#124

Post by klmadfejno »

davidw wrote: post #99
klmadfejno wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think I see many people arguing appeals to the party line. I'm probably posting more about it because I'm frustrated that, while I despise the current white house admin, I do think the lockdowns as implemented are likely to do more harm than good, especially as time goes on. I hate getting lumped in with the president, or having it be assumed that the president's line of rhetoric is representative of my think…

No one wants or thinks the lockdowns are a long-term solution. They were put in place to : 1) Stop the health care system from being slammed. 2) Buy time for testing/tracing/isolation, and get enough PPE for health care workers. The fact that we are squandering that time is a travesty that has a cost measured in lives, and billions of dollars as the economy worsens.

Anecdotally, many, many people think lockdowns are a long term solution that will lead to global eradication.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#125

Post by davidw »

lenkite wrote: post #117
Nbox9 wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I don't understand how people can think complete eradication is even possible. Eradication, to the point that contract tracing is a viable containment method, has been achieved by other countries. It is completely possible.

Apart from Taiwan, who locked down travel from China in Dec-Jan even _before_ the WHO declaimed that "no human to human transmission is possible", can you please let me know which country has successfully eradicated Coronavirus ?

I think 'eradication' was a bad term and shouldn't be the focus in the US, because that's very, very difficult.

Isn't New Zealand almost entirely free of it at this point?

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#126

Post by alexbanks »

elliekelly wrote: post #2

> And bigger picture, I wanted to know if these are places that I would feel safe taking my family to. I think this is the most important metric as far as “re-opening the economy” goes but it seems to be largely ignored by politicians.

Yeah. Sure you can reopen restaurants if you want, but I certainly will not go.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#127

Post by kyuudou »

JamesBarney wrote: post #97
SpicyLemonZest wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would mean it's safe for Dallas to open up, since the state is doing test/trace/isolate and the city requires masks in enclosed spaces.

I don't know if its similar in Dallas but in Houston when I drive by gas stations, bars, and restaurants most people aren't wearing masks.

That's because they instinctively know it's bullshit

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#128

Post by ardy42 »

notyourday wrote: post #98

I have to say I feel really sad how out of touch with life outside most of HN posters are. It must be nice to wax about theoretical problems and theoretical solutions when one thinks he is secure about where his or her check is coming from. Let me tell you about what is happening in New York. On Saturday I saw a line three blocks long. Not tiny blocks. New York sized long blocks. That was a line filled with mostly bl…

> Its call system does not support queuing! People redial hundreds of times a day through the maze of prompts just to be disconnected because there are too many people calling.

If that's the case, can you script out the needed phone tree selections to make it less frustrating? This still works on android:

https://www.androidpolice.com/2010/05/10/how-to-add-hard-wai...

People used to do this when calling cards were more frequently used. You could setup a speed dial with all the pauses to dial the calling card, wait, enter the account number, wait, and dial your contact number. I think it'd probably work to repeatedly navigate a phone tree menu.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#129

Post by notyourday »

ardy42 wrote: post #128
notyourday wrote: post #98

I have to say I feel really sad how out of touch with life outside most of HN posters are. It must be nice to wax about theoretical problems and theoretical solutions when one thinks he is secure about where his or her check is coming from. Let me tell you about what is happening in New York. On Saturday I saw a line three blocks long. Not tiny blocks. New York sized long blocks. That was a line filled with mostly bl…

> Its call system does not support queuing! People redial hundreds of times a day through the maze of prompts just to be disconnected because there are too many people calling. If that's the case, can you script out the needed phone tree selections to make it less frustrating? This still works on android: https://www.androidpolice.com/2010/05/10/how-to-add-hard-wai... People used to do this when calling cards were mo…

Unfortunately, it is not that easy because one can get dropped into different IVR trees for no rhyme or reason where the same sequence of key presses sends one into at least one of the two different paths. One path at least theoretically leads to an agent while another path leads to a hangup. If she does not get approved this week I will have to resort to scripting Asterisk.

Re: I hired a team of shoppers to find out how businesses were opening in Dallas

#130

Post by notyourday »

ardy42 wrote: post #121
notyourday wrote: post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's still no evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to the wearer. There is evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to those around the infectious wearer of the mask. It is, incidentally, the exact reasons surgeons wear masks -- not to protect themselves from a patient but to protect a patient from themselves.

> There's still no evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to the wearer. There is evidence that wearing masks reduces infection risk to those around the infectious wearer of the mask. It is, incidentally, the exact reasons surgeons wear masks. I think I agree with you, but the conversation about the personal protective value of masks has become so confused that it's very difficult to discuss. You've got p…

I'm in NYC. Anecdotally from going out at least half of the people do not wear them correctly. Mostly the nose is not covered. This is not the case just outside, it is also the case for mask wearers inside the stores.

In my view public wearing masks is social signaling. I find it disappointing that CDC decided to change its message on masks under pressure from "do something!" crowd.

What contributed to the crazy spread of COVID in NYC initially and what continued to contribute the spread after the stay at home order was NYC mass transit, especially the subway. The number of people using the subway now dropped but the trains are still fairly packed early in the mornings and late in the evenings as MTA has been cutting the frequency of trains.

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