The Dolphins Make Me Cry.com - Forums

So, I went to see my Dad at the memory place.

He was completely detached, as usual.  He asked why I was wearing a mask and there wasn't really much to talk about.  Communicating was hard, because he's just so checked out.  The assistant there insinuated that a lot of families aren't supportive of their strict safety guidelines and give them a hard time about the lack of visitation, but considering how many people have died, I can't fault them.  I'm glad I went -- I don't think the visit even really matters, but we just need to constantly let him know that we haven't left them alone.  Even if he doesn't specifically remember that we visited on a specific day, it's important for him to know that we do come there regularly.

---

COVID is creeping into my life.  There are 2 more cases in my extended group this week.  ...nobody I'm in contact with directly, but both people are not "going out" types.  They got it at work, presumably.  I'm concerned about Thanksgiving being a big spreader.  We're not doing a big gathering, which has created an environment where some other families are also backing out of the big gathering.  We may have smaller, satellite gatherings...we'll see.

Is he in a nursing home Dave?

It's not a nursing home, per se -- for the purposes of this conversation, yes. -- it's a memory care facility.

It's mostly (but not all) old people that are locked in because they have memory issues -- can't remember enough to live alone.  They aren't specifically in poor health, but when dealing with old people, some certainly are.


Of the two people that have COVID that I know, one was just admitted to the hospital today -- low oxygen levels.  He's young, too.

One other thing: This is just anecdotal, but my daughter's school texts us when there are confirmed COVID cases on campus.  We didn't have any for a long while, then one would trickle in every couple of weeks.  Now, within the last couple of weeks, there have been several per week.

So, this seems to be closing in around this area again.

After 7 months of relative bliss with no community cases and relatively no restrictions, it's all changed here in Adelaide in the space of just 3 days...

Similar to what happened in Melbourne, three people working in a Medi hotel (a hotel used to quarantine repatriated Australians for 14 days) have been infected, followed by a wider part of their large family and associates in the community. There have been 22 infections in 3 days (all which have been traced back to the hotel), but the handbrake has been pulled on full, and in the last 24 hours we have gone from partial lockdown to full lockdown across all of South Australia for the next 6 days.

Apparently this is an extremely infectious strain of the virus which originated from a guest who came from the UK, it's contagious within 24 hours of exposure and none of the infected people have displayed any of the classic symptoms while contagious - it was just pure luck that a related party who checked into hospital for something else was tested and the alarm bells went off.

They are hopeful that the full 6 day full lockdown will allow the authorities to contact trace and contain any potential carriers before it gets out further - if that's successful, restrictions may slightly ease the following 8 days. Just hoping we are very lucky here like New Zealand who went all in like this a few months ago to successfully contain it.  

Oh, and for you who are not familiar with Australia which is a pretty decent sized country...

Adelaide is a population of around 1.5 million. The state of South Australia is the fourth largest in Australia by area, very close to the entire size of Egypt, around 1.5 times the size of Texas, and 5x times the size of the UK.

We have cancelled our plans to drive to St. Louis and have thanksgiving with my son. Things are just a little too tense right now to even have a small gathering for Thanksgiving. I'm planning a Zoom meeting instead.

Good for you.  We are doing the same.  Our Thanksgiving will be a total of 6 people who all see each other regularly.

Things are going to be bad around Christmas...really bad.

Meanwhile in the USA which had more deaths yesterday than Australia and New Zealand have had combined during the entire pandemic, the leading advisor to the president has called for a revolt against the governor of Michigan for doing a partial shutdown.

That's really hard to believe seeing as how those two countries combined account for about 30 million people while the US of A only has about 315 million people. Yes ... that was a very silly comparison. Obviously some people hold freedom at a much higher standard than others.

We are doing the same thing for Thanksgiving as we have been in recent years. We've cut way back so that it's typically my family, my daughter's boyfriends, and my in-laws. Probably around 10 people. We used to do much larger family gatherings and multiple stops but I like the scaled back version better. Other parts of our family will meet over the holidays and we will see them then.

Too bad this view doesn't generally hold true outside of self interest. So this sentiment ends up being just pure selfishness. It's boo bad.

To be clear: while NZ+Aus has about 1/11th of the population of the US, during the month of November there have been 12 days (so far) in which the US has had more COVID deaths in a single day than NZ+Aus has had during this entire year combined.

So yes, the comparison is more than just "silly"; it's laughable.  Hilariously pathetic, even.  These countries have nowhere near our resources or wealth, and yet we are so monumentally stupid that we insist on dying just to prove some sort of arcane point about "freedom."  Speaking of which:

Just to be clear: even if we stipulate that abortion is murder, you're not in favor of freedom when that particular choice causes a person to die.

This isn't about "freedom" in any meaningful sense of the word.  It's about proving that the libs can't tell you what to do, which is not the same thing.  Conservatives were perfectly OK with giving up all sorts of "freedom" after 3,000 people died in 9/11; we'll be over a hundred times that number of COVID deaths by the end of this, and you all are talking about if you die, you die.

My freedom to go out and hang with my friends won't kill you if you are taking necessary precautions. It all about "personal" responsibility. And that "selfishness you claim is why you're free to claim it. The simple fact alpha males put freedom higher than self preservation is why we won our freedom. In fact ... many of those men lost all of their riches in order to fight the cause so selfishness is a poor word to use for a person who sees freedom as the most important right any of us could have.

As far as abortion ... that isn't a freedom. That's a consequence of a poor decision made from the freedom a woman has. I say woman because we all know the man has no freaking say in whether he pays child support or if she kills his kid. 

That's not how infectious diseases work.

When you exercise your freedom to catch COVID, you still visit the grocery stores and spread your infection, exposing thousands of other people who don't get a say.  And if you wind up needing medical care, you needlessly expose medical workers, who didn't sign up to treat people that are choosing to get infected.

If all of the freedom worshipers were segregating themselves from sane society, this would be less of a problem.  But no: you all insist that you must be allowed to visit public hair salons and bars and golf courses to spread your infections, as you refuse to wear your masks.  So just like your freedom to swing your arm ends at my face, your freedom to get infected ends at visiting the public spaces the rest of society uses.

Yeah, the people who refuse to wear masks and/or stay home are the real heroes in this crisis.
They should put up a monument with the names of everyone who died from COVID and call it the Donald J. Trump Freedom Memorial.

Convenient how only the things you agree with are important "freedoms" to be preserved, even if they involve the death of unwilling others.

As someone who values "freedom" so highly, that's a particularly bad take.

Why someone has arrived at wanting or needing an abortion is inconsequential. It could have been incest, it could have been rape, it could have been because she decided to have unprotected sex with a football team. The reason for it is irrelevant.

The core question in Roe v Wade is whether the government has the right to tell you what to do with your own body. It either does, or does not. And if it does, it better have a compelling interest in doing so.
That's what choice has to do with freedom.

Does the government get to mandate that you must donate a kidney? Do they get to detain you, take you to a hospital and remove a kidney against your will so that someone else can live?  Roe v Wade prevents that and says that you CF, have a right to privacy in your own body. That in essence the government cannot make or prohibit you from making decisions that affect your body. This right isn't absolute, which is why states can ban abortions after a certain time.

From the decision:

Which is why mask mandates are reasonable and appropriate. The health of everyone else becomes significantly involved with your selfish freedom. And why abortion is legal, because it's none of your damn business, since abortion isn't contagious.

That is blatantly false.  Wearing a mask does little to protect the wearer, it does plenty to protect others.  

Also if not wearing a mask is about freedom, shouldn’t that hold true for not wearing pants?  Go out into public without pants and you will be arrested.  The same principals who claim enforcement of a mask policy would be unmanageable have no qualms about suspending a girl for wearing a skirt that is a half inch too short.

Let’s take the personal responsible items one by one.

1. Wear a mask.  This is does minimal to protect the wearer, it does plenty to help others.

2. Get tested if you have symptoms or are exposed to others.  This does nothing to prevent you from getting the virus, but can be instrumental in protecting others.   

3. Self-isolate if you have symptoms or are exposed to others.  This does absolutely nothing to protect yourself, but protects others.

4. Take your temperature and self-isolate if you have a fever.  Does nothing to prevent you from getting the virus, but protects others.

5.  Wash your hands.  Helps both equally.  Reduces the likelihood you will get the virus if healthy and reduces the likelihood of spreading it if infected. 

6.Stay 6 feet from others when possible.  Equal for both. 

Responsible behavior is more about protecting others than yourself so the taking necessary precautions is won’t save you.  You are dependent on others taking the necessary precautions too. 

Not wearing a mask is NOT the equivalent  of riding a motorcycle/bicycle without a helmet or riding in a car without a seatbelt.  In those situations majority of harm for lack of responsible behavior is borne by the person acting irresponsible.

Nor is it even like driving drunk or driving at night without headlights.  In those situation the irresponsible person is endangering themself  roughly equally with society at large. 

Not isolating with symptoms or refusing to wear a mask is the equivalent of driving on the sidewalk or throwing rocks at cars on the freeway from an overpass.  There is virtually nothing that the others can do to protect themselves from someone else’s irresponsible behavior but self-centered individual’s reckless behavior causes him little or no personal risk (in comparison to the risk and harm caused to others)

I haven't said anything about wearing a mask but nice speech. I said hang out with friends. It would seem like you got that point seeing as how you quoted it.

While some people are against masks in any form ... the vast majority of us wear them when required. It's kind of like seat belts if you're old enough to remember. People bitched about wearing them but now you're the odd person out if you don't. The problem is shutting down business and telling people you cannot visit family, friends, church etc or that you must wear a mask except for when putting food into your mouth. Chewing requires you to wear a mask. These are the kind of things that cross the line of tyranny and has nothing to do with safety.

In somewhat good news I saw a report yesterday that they isolated the auto immune "thingy" (I can't remember the tech term) in the body that makes people vulnerable to covid. They said approx 1 in 1200 people have it.  It's still in the works but they will be able to test to see who is and isn't the most vulnerable. That in itself would be great news.

I agree with you, everyone's situation is different and THEY need to take the necessary precautions for their situation.  I don't have a problem wearing a mask in stores or trying to socially distance myself in public.  And I think people should be tested and quarantine themselves if they are symptomatic.  However, this one size fits all approach to close down large sections of the economy and deeply infringe upon everyones rights is wrong IMO.  Sometimes the "cure" is worse than the disease because it creates all sorts of other life problems which have long term negative effects.

Sweeden tried this approach, when norway, denmark and finland locked down, sweeden stayed open cause the "cure shouldn't be worse than the disease" .. and what happened?
sweeden had just as much economic disruption than its neighbors and had a bunch more infections and deaths than its neighbors.

You cannot have an economy without controlling covid.
It .. does .. not .. work.

People won't engage, and businesses will fail, and people will get sick, and then even more won't engage in the economy. The way to get through this was for the government to guarantee everybody's income for as long as the pandemic lasts. Something governments around the world did. What we're going to end up with is a rent crisis and a mortgage crisis. Both of which will do massive harm to our economy. Harm that could have been prevented with UBI.

Comparing a country like Sweden, about the size of a single U.S. State, to the entire United States, is just not a fair comparison.  You seem to like to do this with issues like health insurance, etc.  And I never said there should be a free for all with nothing done to limit the spread of Covid.  Furthermore, I didn't state it but the problems I am thinking about are domestic violence, severe depression, homelessness, and many other societal issues that can last years, if not decades, which create other health issues that lead to lower life expectancies. 

But lets take Sweden as an example of the point I was trying to make.  Sweden's population is approx. 10.3 million people, of which 2.4 million of those people live in the Metropolitan area of Stockholm; which can be similar to many U.S. states that have one or two metropolitan size cities within their borders.  My point is that the entire Commonwealth of Pennsylvania shouldn't be quarantined because there is an outbreak in Philadelphia or Pittsburgh, when the vast majority of the Commonwealth has the virus in check.

It's difficult to draw an accurate comparison with a country the size of the US, for two reasons:

1) the countries nearest-in-size to the US have all been much more aggressive than us in their measures to try to contain the virus
2) the US has, by far, the worst COVID numbers of any comparably-sized country

Essentially, the only real comparison that the US can be involved in is for other large nations to point at and say, "See?  The US tried downplaying the virus to protect the economy, and they have more COVID deaths than any other nation on the planet... AND their economy is still ruined anyway.  It doesn't work."

In short, the reason why using Sweden as a cautionary tale is suboptimal is because we are the REAL cautionary tale. WE are the country that leaders in India, Japan, Pakistan, or Indonesia point at and say, "We have to institute harsh restrictions or COVID will get as bad as it is in the US.  Do you want to wind up like them, with thousands of deaths every day for weeks on end?"

We're a global horror story; an example for parents across the planet to point to as a warning to their children.

i very specifically didn't compare sweeden to the US .. i compared it to denmark, finland and norway, countries that in all fairness are almost identical to sweeden in economy, climate, population density, social structure, government type and wealth distribution.

Vaccines will be ready soon.  Does that mean we can go back to normal?

TBH, it might be hard for me to adjust to getting back to normal lol.

Well, touch wood, after that brief technical fuck-up things have rebounded back here very positively...

The six day full lockdown ended up being a three days (after it was revealed one of the infected people had lied to the contact tracers leading them to believe this strain of the virus was far more infectious than what they initially thought). After that it turned out there was another unrelated party who did get a second hand infection, but the time bought by the three day shutdown basically allowed the infection to be completely traced and quarantined - it was a brief burst of just under 40 closely connected people in a few days, but basically squashed in the space of less than two weeks. In the last 9 days there have been no more positive cases in South Australia and we are down to just 2 active ones, and in the meantime the previous major worry in this country Victoria has been Covid-19 fee for nearly a month.

So in Australia we are back to being on the verge of eliminating Covid-19 from the country. The only real threat is from the return of expatriates and something going wrong in the medi hotel system again - hopefully the lack of infections along the summer months here the next few months buys enough time for a successful vaccine to be widespread before this winter. We are very, very lucky, but we keep our fingers are crossed, and especially also for you you guys the other side of the world!