Surprisingly in Florida suicides were down for 2020 despite the high unemployment.

despite predictions that lockdowns and WFH would cause divorce rates to skyrocket, the available data we have says that they actually plummeted.

at the same, marriage rates have also plummeted as A LOT of couples have postponed their wedding plans.


Divorces and Marriages Tumbled in U.S. During Covid, Study Shows

I'm sure that's also related to lockdowns, as couples are either unwilling or unable to access lawyers and courts at the moment. Basically any activity that requires one to go out and actively do something or interact with people has plummeted.

I wouldn't be surprised if there's a bit a of a divorce bump later in the year from pent up demand though.

Domestic violence is also way up.

i like being alone for the most part. video games, music, walks, movies ect. im real into nature and technology. its hard to become a incel in these days, except people in their 20's can be real lonely or depressed. your probably more likely to go insane working too much then being lonely you whole life though.

They wouldn’t ever have happened during the pandemic, but rather afterwards.

There continues to be a midnight curfew (largely but not always enforced) because obviously you can’t catch Covid until 12:01am. Otherwise Miami seems to be largely normal when you need it to be. Masks in shops, gyms and Ubers but restaurants and bars are functioning much as normal.

Actually I think they’re all just meeting up with Tinder matches and saving lots of money by going straight to Netflix & chill.

meet in the middle --

i took this in bay ridge brooklyn friday -- sigh:


https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/sf...2DwN-7zw=w2400

Sigh, we need that kind of effort for Chicago’s Uptown and Congress Theatres....

Guessing this refers to the one that Trump signed? Because the one coming next probably won't be bipartisan.

Very low case counts, positivity rates, and hospitalization numbers in New Orleans have allowed for relaxed restrictions. Indoor bar service capped at 25% capacity and indoor gatherings of up to 75 people and outdoor gatherings of up to 150 people are now allowed.

I know that some people here just aren't going to accept this, but mark my words:

As vaccinations ramp up, we are going to see a DRAMATIC decline in hospitalizations and deaths. Now, if you want to count cases, go ahead and count cases. But at some point you will be scratching your heads thinking, "why am I still keeping track of case numbers when very few people are being hospitalized and deaths are way down?"

That will be the impact of the vaccine. :tup: I applaud America's scientific community and the drug companies that worked so quickly to create these life-saving vaccines. And already a "booster" for variants is being worked on (frankly not necessary at this point, but that's another discussion)

I'd thank the world's scientific community. The US has had the largest role I believe, but others have played big roles.

The vaccines are having a great effect, but we still need to guard against the rise of new variants. That's much easier if we can keep infections down, including younger people who can infect others.

We’re not going to “guard” against anything longer term.

Pretty soon everyone over 50 will be vaccinated, and the risk is serious illness for anyone younger than that is so vanishingly small that the danger is passed. There is zero chance that anyone will be wearing a mask in 6 months, maybe even 3 months time. Even people who are actually sick at the time should probably just stay home instead of going out with a mask on, though I suspect some will adopt the East Asian practice.

Unless we dramatically speed up vaccinations, we'll probably still be wearing masks in 3 months. We're trying to avoid a variant spreading widely that the current vaccines are not effective against. It doesn't matter that most people of a certain age group are vaccinated if the virus is still rapidly spreading and mutating. The major risk right now is a setback due to that situation.

Existing vaccines are effective against the UK variant and that is the one becoming dominant.

I wouldn’t worry about it, but of course one can’t underestimate the lengths that governments will go to to maintain a sense of panic. In the UK this is mainly about diverting public attention from the sorry state of the healthcare system. In the US it was mostly about getting rid of Trump, but now he’s gone so things can return to normal by summer.

There are other variants of concern.

But they are not the ones that scientists believe will become dominant. And if that is the case, they will not spread widely enough to justify this continued bullshit.

We don't know that. That is why we all need to do everything humanly possible to stop this from spreading more and giving it opportunity to mutate. If it means wearing a mask for 3 months to be done with this for good, wear the fucking mask.