Having moved to South Carolina recently, I can report that it's not affecting life in Greenville in the slightest. Nobody seems to be taking it seriously. Restaurants and bars are full. Some events have been canceled, and others, like the ice skating rink downtown, have limited capacity, but for the most part it's like nothing is happening. About half of the people are wearing masks and the other half stare at them like they have a tit growing out of their head. Meanwhile, the news keeps talking about thousands of new cases around the state, including a recent weekend that clocked 8,000 new cases in SC alone -- and nobody can figure out why the cases keep going up. It's a total mystery. When the newspaper had an article about it, which basically stated that cases are skyrocketing and the state Department of Health and Environmental Concerns was flummoxed as to why, most of the comments the article received were sarcastic grenades agreeing that it sure was a puzzler, that one!

I'm not familiar with Greenville. Is it a Trumpy area or is it full of social media inclined young people (Millennials and Zoomers)? These are the only two groups that I generally see not taking it seriously.

Both.

That is unfortunate. The downtown area with the bridge and the river dam look pretty cool though!

this is so disheartening to hear. we are going to have this dam rona bug around forever. ugh. thx for reporting though. :shrug:

One of the local hospital systems has been reduced to begging people to take it seriously:

In percentages and cases, the Upstate is leading a surge in coronavirus in South Carolina: 'This is not a joke. There is no agenda,' said the COVID-19 incident commander for Prisma Health-Upstate. 'We acutely need the public hear what we're saying right now.'

I've been to Greenville, and was very impressed with the little downtown and the natural beauty of the area, but this type of shit is why I would never choose to move to a red state.

On the other hand, all you have to do to paralyze the entire metro and get a day off of work is get on the phone and breathe heavily about snow. It's a trade-off.

It snows in the South?

Yes, it does.

For what it's worth it snows more in Asheville, an hour north and a couple thousand feet higher in elevation, but Greenville does get a little bit every year.

In my city (Eastern European) most of the restaurants and other entertainment businesses are limited in capacity and masks are mandatory in most of them. Overall the response to the epidemic was pretty good which is a surprise considering where I live.

NO POLITICS/CULTURE WAR BULLSHIT.

take that crap to the CE toilet.

https://sanfrancisco.cbslocal.com/20...rotest-dining/

Another report said the leaders of this protest were an anti-vax group from Southern CA.

Another NYT article lamenting the terrible state of commercial real estate in Midtown Manhattan. Concerns that the new spike will create even problems for landlords and tenants. Is conversion to housing for some buildings a path forward? https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/11/n...al-estate.html

I'm a little leery of allowing industry to push through permanent policy changes during an emergency. This sounds a little too drastic since we don't really know what the market will look like in 6-12 months.

https://content.govdelivery.com/acco...letins/2b164d0

The irony is overwhelming.

Our ICU capacity here in SoCal has dropped to 0%. :(

https://abc7.com/icu-capacity-southe...eaths/8850811/

If it makes you feel better, Stockholm's ICUs are 100% overcapacity (that is, 2 patients who ought to be in an ICU bed for every existing bed) per this morning's WSJ.

I'll repeat what I posted in the other thread:

Let's look at the two vaccines the US has now agreed to authorize for emergency use. Both are about "95% effective". That means, about one in 20 people who gets them will still get COVID if exposed.

Most scientists are now saying they believe the vaccine-induced immunity is actually better (more effective) than natural immunity you would get from having the illness (because it's more specific to the virus's most important vulnerability, the spike protein).

That means likely more than 1 in 20 people who have had COVID will, if re-exposed, "get it again". But looking at it from a the half-full viewpoint, 19 people (or maybe slightly fewer) who've had it won't get it again even if they are exposed.

Doesn't natural immunity only last a few months or so?