Covid update where I live. You?

alaskanassasin

We went out to dinner last night in southern Ohio no masks anywhere, restaurant slammed.  

  I am also curious about Canada, someone I know passed through the border last night and was accosted by the border agent who said Canadians are not even allowed to travel. 

 Anyway what’s it looking like in your neck of the woods.

dmourati

I wouldn't know because I haven't poked my head out just yet. I got my second shot just about two weeks ago so I'm now fully vaccinated. I have a 5yo at home who is obviously not vaccinated.

ColtsFan

Relaxed rules here. Mask are optional at most places. We still haven’t eaten indoors at restaurants. Outside seating or carry out 

kl8ton

Our Governor is letting things open up . . . maybe because she got caught sitting with 12 people at a restaurant, violating a rule the rest of us were supposed to be following.  Restaurants are getting fined for violating such rules.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/24/governor-gretchen-whitmer-defends-michigan-restaurant-rules-after-violating-order/7415357002/

Now we can walk into any business maskless unless the business still requires one.  Example - Eye Doctor still requires mask and will temp scan of forehead.  Restaurants are still at 50% capacity limits I believe.  Employees are all pretty much wearing masks.  My kids that are in school can now be mask free outside.  Still masked on bus, and indoors.  Starting June 1, outdoor venues can open to full capacity - no masks.  

cookingdude555

Outside of masks at a few holdout places, life is largely normal here in Utah.

GregW

We have no mask requirements anymore. Strange thing is a lot of fast food places still won't allow inside dining. I think they have decided their business is good enough like it is and are enjoying the cost savings of no employees having to run the order counter. An added bonus is there is no expense from cleaning tables and bathrooms. I avoid the places that won't reopen the inside for dining.

keener75

Province of Ontario is still in a "stay at home" order or Lockdown which is scheduled to end June 2nd. Masks are still mandatory everywhere. After public outcry our dipshit premiere finally let golf courses open last weekend deeming it a safe outdoor activity and can still socially distance. Last I heard 65% of Ontarians have had their first vaccination and I get the sense that we are a week or two away from some sense normalicy. I hope so anyway.
In other news, Montreal Canadians (different Province) are allowing 2500 fans to be in person when the Leafs knock them out of the playoffs tonight. I've read Manitoba is in a bad way right now. They are flying ICU patients to Ontario because they have run out beds. I get a feeling that the worst is behind us though. There is light at the end of the tunnel.

dbCooper

In Nebraska there is no longer a pandemic emergency, because the governor proclaimed it so...

LINCOLN — After 15 months of Nebraskans social distancing, wearing masks and avoiding crowds, Gov. Pete Ricketts on Monday proclaimed an end to the COVID-19 pandemic emergency.

“Today is an exciting day,” Ricketts told reporters gathered at the State Capitol. “Now is the time to return to normalcy.”

https://omaha.com/news/state-and-regional/govt-and-politics/ricketts-proclaims-end-to-emergency-covid-steps-says-its-time-to-return-to-normal/article_8f069292-bcaa-11eb-bb1b-e7f11ca18255.html

Botch

GregW said:

Strange thing is a lot of fast food places still won't allow inside dining. I think they have decided their business is good enough like it is and are enjoying the cost savings of no employees having to run the order counter. An added bonus is there is no expense from cleaning tables and bathrooms. I avoid the places that won't reopen the inside for dining.

Possibly.  I've noticed that every single restaurant I've visited in the last 3 weeks have had a very desperate sign on their doors, "Help Wanted, Immediate Hire" or similar.  They may not have the manning to fully open at the present time.  

JohnInCarolina

Things are relaxing around here for sure.  Mask use has dropped considerably over the past couple of weeks.

There was a study done recently showing that, while the overall numbers are way down in the US as a whole, if you just look at the population that is not vaccinated, covid is churning along plenty strong.  

A friend of mine has a younger brother (mid 40's) who refused to get vaccinated, just out of sheer stubbornness.   Well sure enough he got covid, and he's got a pretty awful case of it. He's in the ICU now, and the doctors have told the family to pray.  

This thing remains plenty lethal folks.  If you haven't gotten vaccinated yet, consider doing so.  If not for everyone else's benefit, for your own.  

Botch

Something I wanted to mention to our British friends during this discussion last night at the Speakeasy; some of the States have set up cash lotteries for folks who get their shot(s), I believe Ohio had five $1M cash payouts plus several full-ride scholarships for the younger folks.
It perplexes me that people will refuse a shot to prevent a 2% chance of dying of COVID, but with a 0.00067% chance* of winning a million dollars, they line up for their Fauci Ouchi.   
 
 
 
*yes, I pulled this figure out of my butt.    

chzplz

Canadian here. We don’t have domestic vaccine production so we had a late start on vaccinations. About 50% of us have our first vaccine, very few have had our second.  They’re doing 10-12 weeks between first and second to get more people protected with their first dose. 

Rules are by jurisdiction, so some are more open than others. I’m in Ontario (biggest province) and we currently have no eat-in dining at restaurants (no patios either). Take out only. 

Grocery is restricted to necessary items only (ie - big chunks of Costco are blocked off). 

Retail is online/curbside pickup only. 

We are under a very loosely enforced stay at home order, supposed to only leave your home to go to work, medical reasons, exercise, and to buy food.

The US border is closed for car traffic. You need to be a Canadian returning home, or a trucker, or a few classes of essential workers. 

If you fly home from another country you have a mandatory quarantine in a designated hotel where you can’t leave your room.

So, the US had a big head start on vaccinations, and we have taken a much more cautious approach throughout. This is our third round of lockdown, which is a pain in the ass but it works. Our death rate per million people is ~675, while the US’s is nearly triple at ~1,800.  But lots of small businesses are in big trouble.  

TEXASBGE2018

SWMBO and I are fully vaccinated. My county is basically back to normal. No mask requirements and I think we have maybe 30 current cases in a county of over 100,000 people. People still are wearing masks but I'd say it's only about 30%. Mostly seems to be older people with the occasional under 40 wearing one.

buzd504

New Orleans is mostly still masking.  The suburbs much less so.

We just spent 2 weeks driving through Florida (to Key West and back), and watched mask usage drop pretty much every day, until the last week there were hardly any.  We got used to not wearing them again (we are both fully vaxxed).

I wear them to be polite here in NOLA, but they are going away quickly.

Legume

I think we broke the seal culturally for mask usage with this. I think we’ll see it continue voluntarily in places and in flu season.

I still see people wearing masks and following local and business guidance for the most part.

caliking

We have thought very carefully about masking. Especially in the past 1-2 weeks. 

We don't wear masks in outdoor spaces, now. Caliquuen tends to wear a mask more often than I do, recently. We pow-wow every 1-2 days re: what the family mask policy will be. We are somewhat comfortable not wearing masks in outdoor, uncrowded spaces. We have not been dining indoors, in any restaurants, yet. We have only recently allowed certain kids to play indoors with caliprince. 

I've been following the CIDRAP/Osterholm podcasts regularly. To date, it seems that breakthrough hospitalizations/serious infections are at about 9K+ (per the CDC) for ~ 290million doses of vaccine administered. Which leads me to believe that vaccinated folks are relatively ok. Unvaccinated folks (per choice) are on their own. People who can/could not be vaccinated due to other issues are a different matter.  

The new variant(s) from the UK seem to be 8% more transmissible. Newer variant(s) from India seem to be 12% more transmissible, than initial strains of COVID. Currently, 5%,  or less, patients are sequenced to figure out which strains they are infected with. So, we don't really know which strain(s) we're dealing with re: new infections. 

The UK strain is supposedly more transmissiible among kids. But, hospitalization of pediatric patients has not increased significanlty. If the adult population is sufficiently vaccinated/post-infected, things may turn out ok.

People <64yo, who choose not be vaccinated, or mask, will likely fare better than those >65yo. I'm not worried about those folks, because enough evidence has been made public that they are entitled to make their own asinine decisions. Some of them will die, some will get really ill, many will survive. 'Murica, after all.

I'm tired of typing.

 

lousubcap

Here in the Louisville area it is pretty loose across the spectrum.
A few personal observations from recent travels: New Orleans mid April-it was pretty maskless across the board even in businesses with mask mandates posted.  
Bradenton Beach, Fl (on the gulf coast south of Tampa ) three weeks ago-maskless was the norm although in the local grocery store (Publix) masking ran up into the 90% or so of shoppers.  
All flights to/from both locales were  around 3-4 seats short of completely full.  Airlines are quite focused on enforcing the mask mandate. 
Dined at restaurants indoors in both areas.  No worries as SWMBO and I have been fully vaxx'd since Feb.  (About the only benefit of being old  .  

lkapigian

Fully vaccinated here and mask wearing, that being said, our county pretty much looked the other way at bars and resturaunts , some never closed others were open outside...now all open for indoor dining bars open though our " tier" does not allow...our county population 500k, large farm worker community ...positivity test rate 1.8% , 9 people hospitalized for " covid" as of today ....june 15 the mask mandate will be lifted though I like many will erar in certain situations 

paqman

Here in Quebec, the curfew has been lifted yesterday and we are now allowed to have outdoor get together with 8 people (max 3 different addresses).  My mom, brother and niece/nephews drove down from Montréal and we had a pizza party for lunch and ordered some chinese for diner.  It was nice to see them after almost a year.

PigBeanUs

Over 70% fully vaxxed in all of New England.

caliking

PigBeanUs said:

Over 70% fully vaxxed in all of New England.

I call bullish-t. 

Photo Egg

caliking said:

We have thought very carefully about masking. Especially in the past 1-2 weeks. 

We don't wear masks in outdoor spaces, now. Caliquuen tends to wear a mask more often than I do, recently. We pow-wow every 1-2 days re: what the family mask policy will be. We are somewhat comfortable not wearing masks in outdoor, uncrowded spaces. We have not been dining indoors, in any restaurants, yet. We have only recently allowed certain kids to play indoors with caliprince. 

I've been following the CIDRAP/Osterholm podcasts regularly. To date, it seems that breakthrough hospitalizations/serious infections are at about 9K+ (per the CDC) for ~ 290million doses of vaccine administered. Which leads me to believe that vaccinated folks are relatively ok. Unvaccinated folks (per choice) are on their own. People who can/could not be vaccinated due to other issues are a different matter.  

The new variant(s) from the UK seem to be 8% more transmissible. Newer variant(s) from India seem to be 12% more transmissible, than initial strains of COVID. Currently, 5%,  or less, patients are sequenced to figure out which strains they are infected with. So, we don't really know which strain(s) we're dealing with re: new infections. 

The UK strain is supposedly more transmissiible among kids. But, hospitalization of pediatric patients has not increased significanlty. If the adult population is sufficiently vaccinated/post-infected, things may turn out ok.

People <64yo, who choose not be vaccinated, or mask, will likely fare better than those >65yo. I'm not worried about those folks, because enough evidence has been made public that they are entitled to make their own asinine decisions. Some of them will die, some will get really ill, many will survive. 'Murica, after all.

I'm tired of typing.

 

Nice post, good information.
Seems like my knowledge of known friends,  who tested positive, really dropped for several months. But about two months ago they started popping up again. And all of them said they passed on being vaccinated for one reason or another.

Eoin

kl8ton said:

Our Governor is letting things open up . . . maybe because she got caught sitting with 12 people at a restaurant, violating a rule the rest of us were supposed to be following.  Restaurants are getting fined for violating such rules.

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2021/05/24/governor-gretchen-whitmer-defends-michigan-restaurant-rules-after-violating-order/7415357002/

Now we can walk into any business maskless unless the business still requires one.  Example - Eye Doctor still requires mask and will temp scan of forehead.  Restaurants are still at 50% capacity limits I believe.  Employees are all pretty much wearing masks.  My kids that are in school can now be mask free outside.  Still masked on bus, and indoors.  Starting June 1, outdoor venues can open to full capacity - no masks.  

I thought that the former guy made rank hypocrisy a positive trait in politicians?

womaus

Massachusetts, a couple of days ago was walking out of a Home Depot to my car. Young family approached me, husband/wife/kid in carriage. I had a mask on, they didn't.
She started up a conversation with me. Asked if I was vax'd. I replied affirmatively. They asked "so how's it going?". I said just fine.

Turns out they were bible thumping anti-vaxxers. Turned into an interesting conversation.

Eejits.

 

ryantt

Things in northeast Ohio have started getting back to normal.  Most of the restaurants I’ve passed this last week have been looking much busier. As far as mask go, it seems like about a 1/3 of the people I see are still using them. I’m positive there are not that many people that have been vaccinated....we couldn’t event get 1/2 the employees at the hospital to take it.  

We were supposed to cook at an event last week, but just didn’t feel comfortable so we withdrew about a month ahead of time.  I didn’t like the idea that bc of my our jobs, especially my wife’s that we may have an exposure, and cause an issue for someone.    

Now a question to those of you with kids 12 and up...are you going to have them vaccinated?  My wife and I are torn, as I haven’t found much data on the effects in younger children.    

ColbyLang

Louisiana has dropped the mandate for most places. Optional as always, unless business mandates it. Still required in federal and state buildings. Dropping it for schools, but up to the school on how to proceed. I feel like number vaccinated is low, but unsure of the actual percentages. My kids are only 6 & 4, not vaccinating them

Langner91

Here in Iowa, it feels like America again.  

PigBeanUs

caliking said:

PigBeanUs said:

Over 70% fully vaxxed in all of New England.

I call bullish-t. 

“ Ten US states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Hawaii have reached the 70 percent vaccinated threshold, according to Biden administration officials.”

source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/28/light-at-end-of-tunnel-biden-sees-victory-over-coronavirus

May just be 70% first-shot. 

Admin was aiming for 70% vaccination by July 4. 

JohnInCarolina

ryantt said:

Now a question to those of you with kids 12 and up...are you going to have them vaccinated?  My wife and I are torn, as I haven’t found much data on the effects in younger children.    

Yes.  Our oldest (14) has already had her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.  When it becomes available for younger children in the fall, we will have our second child get it.  

Acn

JohnInCarolina said:

ryantt said:

Now a question to those of you with kids 12 and up...are you going to have them vaccinated?  My wife and I are torn, as I haven’t found much data on the effects in younger children.    

Yes.  Our oldest (14) has already had her first dose of the Pfizer vaccine.  When it becomes available for younger children in the fall, we will have our second child get it.  

I’m a yes too; 13 yr old gets her second shot next weekend.  

Her school has sent out notes about vaccination opportunities in the county, and specify that the vaccine is not ‘required yet’ which suggests when it has full approval (rather than EUA) it will be required. Note - she’s at a private school, not sure what the county schools have been communicating.

caliking

PigBeanUs said:

caliking said:

PigBeanUs said:

Over 70% fully vaxxed in all of New England.

I call bullish-t. 

“ Ten US states of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, New Mexico and Hawaii have reached the 70 percent vaccinated threshold, according to Biden administration officials.”

source:
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/28/light-at-end-of-tunnel-biden-sees-victory-over-coronavirus

May just be 70% first-shot. 

Admin was aiming for 70% vaccination by July 4. 

That's an overestimation. Either Al Jazeera, or "Biden administration officials",  are being Trumpy. 

https://www.mayoclinic.org/coronavirus-covid-19/vaccine-tracker