naaah, you dont even have to kneejerk a canada on that point. some of the posters here are confabulators and internet warriors. remember its the internet, not reality. out in the real world, even with the nice weather now you still find most people handling the virus sensibly. :tup:

That is also selfish. You can't counter what you consider to be selfish with selfishness...stick with the jobs. However they are eligible for unemployment, while old people infected with covid are eligible for death.

If you don't like it move to a rural area where there will be less restrictions because there are less people. I'm getting my haircut today or tomorrow while there's no biking allowed in Chitown...so...

You are actually describing what you are doing to everybody who doesen't want to open right away.


That's in no way selfish at all.....selfish would be going out and violating health orders by local officials.

I actually want to publically apologize to Glowrock. He sent me a *very* respectful and cordial message on here.

I guess it is a reminder that we might disagree on the edges, or even on very large parts of the stay-home vs open up groups, but 99% of people don't want anyone to die and 99% of people don't want people to go into ruin because of the economic fallout.

You're right. I never want to dismiss old people. They have too much to offer and I'm disgusted by the way they have been shelved away out of public sight since this started. I shouldn't have been so cavalier in my statement.

My point, I suppose, is that we *know* who we need to protect, so we don't need a sledgehammer to attack this, we could do innovative things that don't include closing down everything on Earth.

Regarding Chicago, the mayor can do whatever she wants. I suppose most residents support most of how she has handled everything. I am not some "red stater" who moves somewhere and then complains complains complains and then thinks they can change the government(or vice versa some blue stater going to Alabama). However, I am reasonable. I know Chicago won't open up like Jonesboro Arkansas. It won't because of its politics but also because Chicago has been one of the hardest hit cities, so it makes sense. I am not asking for bars to be open or hair salons, I am just asking to be able to walk and bike on the lake front. I am not even asking to be able to picnic or whatever, just move.

^ I'm sure if it were possible to easily enforce people just biking on the lakefront that would be fine, but its' easier to just fence it off. If I start going into lab soon, it will be annoying not to be able to bike to lab using the lakeshore path (yes, there's a protected bike lane on King and that's the more direct path from my apartment to UChicago, no it doesn't feel nearly as safe...). But if you've ever seen the lakefront path on a nice summer day, you'll understand why it's fenced off!

Isn't Chicago/ Illinois seeing a huge surge in cases? That said, the mayor probably could be a bit more flexible, opening up the bike paths along the lake is not the same as allowing beach parties or allowing people to hang out and congregate. If she can avoid unneeded conflict and opposition then why create it?

^^Not really. Illinois seems to be starting to slide of of the plateau (fingers crossed). The state will open more quickly than Chicago, which is appropriate. Illinois starts opening up a little more Friday and I would wager that Chicago will by June 15.

My office is opening June 8. Coming into the office in the first phase will be entirely voluntary and no more than 1/3 of the work force will be allowed.

The big issue to me is the f*cking masks. WEAR THEM! Is is the humane thing to do. If you are in public, assume you and everyone you see has the virus. Wear a mask, social distance, wash your hands. It really isn't that hard.

Not at all. Illinois is testing 20,000 to 30,000 a day now and about 10% are positive which is down quite a bit percentage wise. Deaths are declining too. ICU and hospital beds are freeing up to the lowest utilization in months. 70% of ventilators are not being used.

not really.

what has happened in illinois has been a HUGE surge in testing over the past 3 weeks or so, so the authorities are simply now finding a much higher percentage of the cases that are out there than they were in april when testing was but a small fraction of what illinois is doing now.


EDIT: vlajos beat me to it.

Thanks for clarification guys. Yes, I've noticed IL's death rate has fallen off.

No problem. I should add that Chicago built a temporary hospital at McCormick place with something like 2000 beds. It was basically never used.

It's just much easier to fence off the access points to the lake (due to lake shore drive, there aren't that many) than to do the necessary enforcement. Maybe it could be open on weekdays but not weekends without too much trouble, I don't know...

Either way, as things start opening up, the lake as a commute path becomes more important. UChicago looks to be potentially moving to stage 2 in mid-June.

For me the most interesting thing about this entire saga is the origin story. I don't for one iota believe this thing came from a dingy seafood market. There are too many players, too many coincidences across both ponds. I'm only being mildly conspiracy-y right now. I never believed this to be a bioweapon but the prospect of a critical fck up seems far more likely. Being of generally sound mind, if my two choices were a dirty Kroger deli or the fffn COSTCO of bat viruses?? Well if it looks like a duck. At this point no one has any tangible proof of anything but boy it sure does make a juicy story. If I were to really go out on a limb, I'd say the administration might also have so dirt on our fine doctor or at least put some pressure on him. For ten weeks hes been quite the doom sayer but last week on cnn hes suddenly an economist and is urging states to reopen. This whole thing has felt like GOT and the blanking virus is the throne. Stay tuned boppers!!

I'm finishing up my last semester of graduate school this fall and I hope we're back on campus by then. Not a fan of the online thing. Got all my other degrees back when online classes were still a novelty not the main event.

ha. yeah. last i heard kind of splits the difference. that low level wuhan lab workers were selling used lab animals to the wet market for side money.

who knows? but it is confirmed its not anything military grade and also that the government came into the labs and tried to delete and cover up the work.

it wouldnt be the first time chinese bio labs done goofed. :shrug:

Even more salacious that soldiers from ft detrick were sick while competing in the military games innn, wuhan. My feeling is the Chinese were mostly transparent after the genie got loose. Before that, who knows. They probably didn't know what they were dealing with and didn't want to sound the alarm bell pre maturely. I forgot about the used lab animals theory. That's bonkers. I heard an ice cream truck today too. Were getting there!

That’s basically what happened here, because you had Chicken Little (Neil Ferguson and his friends) running around saying this would be cataclysmic.

In Italy the health system seems to have not been able to manage the caseload, but that’s turning out to have been a bit of an aberration.

^^ That is an oversimplification. When the McCormick Place hospital was set up, the number of confirmed cases was more than doubling every three days.
If that rate continued the disease would have totally overwhelmed the hospitals. Fortunately, Illinois and Chicago shut down, the doubling rate slowed, and the hospitals were spared what happened in New York. And that "better" outcome came to pass because the government actively sought to slow down the spread through quarantines, shelter-at-home, whatever you want to call it.

But what if what the city and state did was not enough? What if the spread and hospitalizations rates continued to increase? Isn't it better to be prepared? That isn't being Chicken Little. It is being prudent.

Same situation here in Houston, the city/ county built a hospital near the football stadium that was rarely used at all and after the fact, people were complaining about mismanaged funds when they would be the same ones calling for the mayor and county judge's heads had it not been built and our medical infrastructure been over run with Covid-19 patients.

As some things opened up about a week ago, Austin had the Largest one day increase on Monday. The plan is to open up more services (pools etc) soon. This is not smart. TEXAS! :cowboy: