Friday, May 15, 2020

Dani Does a Walkabout

As things loosen up just a tad, Sue and I got a bagel and coffee at the drive through, and took it to the park. It seemed a bit bold, but many have been ordering out for quite awhile already. We ate in the car before walking through the park. Sorry: not a funny selfie today.



==============

We also had a surprise little porch visit with Danica yesterday. She was out on a long walk and dropped in to see us. She had walked 18k on the previous day in 3 different outings and did more than 10k in a little over 2 hours yesterday.

Good for her, but I wish she wouldn't do it in flip flops.

Back in the day when we were babysitting, and I did the afternoon shift and Sue did the morning shift, she would walk home on a direct path, but Danica did the roundabout.

==============

Some COVID stuff to follow: some good, some not so good.

I read a relatively short blog post here which cites a which cites another longer post here. Ostensibly, the original post was about How to Reopen a Business Safely. What is of interest to me were two things that are not specifically about the topic of the title.

The first is not terribly optimistic. The author doesn't seem to hold high hopes that a vaccine will be coming anytime soon. In fact, we don't know if one will come at all or how well it will work if and when it does arrive.
Some have been thinking that we can’t fully reopen the economy until we have a vaccine. But how soon might that happen? We don’t know. We might never. We still don’t have one for hepatitis C or HIV. But even if we do develop one (and many are currently in the works), proving it both to be safe and effective will take time.
...
 
We still don’t have a vaccine or know when or even if we will have one. We also don’t know if infection produces immunity, for how long that immunity might last, or if infection predisposes to a more severe course from re-infection. 
We all pretty well knew about the vaccine issue, but I was very surprised about what he had to say about the likelihood of infection based on different amounts of exposure. This is more positive.
Thus, it seems even when people ignore current social distancing guidelines, the risk of transmission is, in fact, low, and—given the much higher rate among household contacts—largely determined by amount of contact time a person has with an infected patient ... all the studies suggest that when you have close contact with an infected person, the risk of becoming infected is, in fact, relatively low. 
...
Research suggests that if you do have the kind of sustained close contact with asymptomatic cases that occurs in households (a reasonable surrogate for a workplace), the risk of catching COVID-19 is only 0.33 percent (compared to a risk of 3.3 percent for sustained close contact with mildly symptomatic cases, a risk of 6.2 percent for sustained close contact with severely symptomatic cases, and a risk of 13.6 percent for sustained close contact with someone who’s coughing and expectorating, meaning bringing up phlegm.
What I take from this, perhaps incorrectly, is that if  both we and others exercise restraint and take precautions, that we should be able to minimize risk. This is better than what I had thought and leaves me with some optimism going forward.





14 comments:

Barbara Rogers said...

I'm still washing my hands every time I touch things that other's might have sneezed or coughed upon....pretty much everything except inside my house or car. Loved seeing your smiling breakfast selfie!

DJan said...

I like your breakfast picture, and now I'm getting hungry, just looking at that delicious bagel. :-)

Vicki Lane said...

I think I read that same report and bits of it were hopeful.

David M. Gascoigne, said...

Things are slowly opening up and I suspect you were happy with your coffee and bagel. Drive-throughs are no doubt doing a better than normal business. I noticed the sheer number of vehicles at Starbucks yesterday and I can't begin to imagine what the air quality must be like in the immediate vicinity with all those engines running. We make a pot of coffee at home, fill a thermos, and take along a couple of muffins. Works for us - and it's a lot less costly too.

Jenn Jilks said...

I think it's a pretty good take on the situation.
I feel badly for those adversely affected. I'm feeling more comfortable about it all. We can cope with it.

Flips flops, you say! sigh.

Margaret said...

I love bagels and coffee! I bet it felt wonderful to have an outing. I am sometimes hopeful but other times paranoid that the virus is so contagious and that it's not going away any time soon. I think that minimizing risk is all we can do.

gigi-hawaii said...

You both look good in the car. Always smiling as usual. Nice that Danica dropped by to say hello. As for the virus, David and I are still asymptomatic.

MARY G said...

In defence of Dani ... I worked as a lifeguard and wore thongs at least 8 hours a day while doing so, with a lot of walking on concrete decks, usually with damp feet. My feet survived just fine. YOung feet can stand anything. And far better thongs than, ugh, heels.

Marie Smith said...

Wish I felt hopeful about anything with respect to Covid. I hope your source is correct though.

Rita said...

I like your "normal" selfies, too. Very much so. :)

I've been reading also that it is prolonged close quarters environment that causes the most infections. So it isn't as dangerous to go grocery shopping as we thought with the precautions. Outside is pretty safe. Makes a person feel a little less stressed to hear things like that. :)

dellgirl said...

Boy, Danica is some serious walker. Good for her!That's a great breakfast photo, it's making me hungry too. Have a wonderful weekend, Stay Safe!

Azka Kamil said...

awesome article guys
have a nice day :)

Goldendaze-Ginnie said...

Thanks for the good info AC. I can't trust a thing that Trump says and find it so embarrassing when he repeatedly claims that "his America" is the BEST, etc., etc. ad nauseum. I envy Canada's common sense approach.

Kay said...

I’ve heard recently that a vaccine MIGHT be ready by the end of the year. Maybe. I don’t want to be the first to get it though. It’s being rushed through which makes me nervous. I’m so glad to hear that transmission rates might be pretty low. There’s so much information out there that I don’t know what to believe.