NoiseInsideMyHead

You'll be relieved to know that people aren't dismissing COVID interventions because they disproportionately impact young people.

New rumor out of Hollywood is that "Outbreak" was to be based on a respiratory virus that mimics the flu and only kills a small number of people. The producers changed it to a hemorrhagic fever only after Dustin Hoffman informed them that he wasn't willing to overact that much. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HaK75RHhEEw

Ice? Mr.? Dr. __ and the Women? What the hell are you even talking about?

Do I look like Jack Klugman to you? According to the ND Department of Health, I'd say old age.

Somebody ought to adjust those numbers for changes in testing availability and methodology over time. Targeted strategies vs cattle call. The "positives" alone are meaningless. Test more, find more. "Cases" is crap data. Give me "sick." Also, until we get 50-state comity on reporting deaths "with" vs. "from", meh. Oh, has anyone reminded you recently that we have never...EVER...conducted surveillance testing like this at anything close to these levels? The numbers are of novel interest only, a curiosity. Virtually ZERO scientific value. People need to stop lapping up the media slobber and open their own eyes. If you look outside your window, you will see that the world, she keeps a-spinnin'.

One of the dumber measures, for sure. That, and napkins. Can't let folks access their own napkins. Yet at some restaurants, it's still business as usual.

Worst. Law and Order episode. Ever. https://www.grandforksherald.com/news/government-and-politics/6768195-Grand-Forks-police-taking-education-first-approach-to-statewide-mask-mandate Makes the cringeworthy, occasionally amusing small town 'police blotters' look positively riveting by comparison. If your first instinct upon seeing an unmasked individual is to call the police, you may need to re-examine your priorities.

I urge everyone to get out in the next 48 hours and eat somewhere - ANYWHERE - in EAST Grand Forks. Those businesses need it.

Please elaborate. Or feel free to provide your own cogent analysis.

Covid Kai, we gonna die.

#science Now we've got that out of the way, can we get down to the business of scaling back mandates to a somewhat more reasonable scope?

I stated that for a non-infected person to wear a mask is pure folly. The first word out of your mouth in response was "But". And you then proceeded to rebuke my assertion of folly with a meaningless, subjective, social/moral comparative value assessment ("small price to pay") that would seem to justify people engaging in said folly for entirely non-scientific reasons. So if you're not denying the science, you're diminishing it, or deflecting it. De-something-ing it.

You are a science denier. And a mask may be a small price for YOU to pay, but how dare you assign that value to others.

But that means you have to HAVE the virus to render a mask effective. So requiring a non-infected person to wear a mask is pure folly. #science

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/18/health/coronavirus-masks-denmark.html #science

We need "I survived..." t-shirts.

(Patiently waits for global humanitarian relief.) On the positive side, because of our strong UAS ecosystem, North Dakotans are uniquely well suited to receive drops of food, medicine, and other survival supplies by drone.

All this talk about canvassing is really in tents.

I don't get the "pause" mentality. Ostensibly, the ONLY reason you do ongoing, surveillance testing is to have real-time information at a very micro level. If there is one positive test, then you can remove that person (who can then re-test and confirm, a la Nick Saban), but the surveillance testing continues so the team activities should continue. You would "pause" only if you had so many positives that the ability of the team to prepare, travel and compete was compromised. What am I missing? Why bother testing with precision if your response is entirely lacking in precision?

Well, most of us do have two feet.

Ever hear the expression "shooting yourself in the foot"? These are girls youth hockey tournaments that were to be hosted in Grand Forks during Burgum's miniature reign of terror. Hotel revenue. Restaurant revenue. Poof! Grand Forks gets a black eye in the regional hockey community. God, I hope the GF hockey association can find a way...some way...to end this nonsense.

COVID was bungled from the beginning. The government should have flat out lied. Told us that the disease caused uncontrollable rectal bleeding and that our dicks would fall off before we died from the excruciating pain. I'm guessing they wouldn't have then had the need for all the constant browbeating, guilt, and shaming. What I've learned is that "public health" infrastructure is pretty much worthless. Kind of like airbags on a jetliner. Okay, maybe seatbelts. Because those are real and you can at least touch and see what it is that your dollars are paying for, still knowing that they won't do much. I mean, will they help in a sudden stop while taxiing? Sure, but that's like the tainted lettuce/E coli outbreak of air travel. The airplane analogy may be an apt one. Pandemics and public health emergencies should feel like a harrowing, nose-first crash. Sustained G-forces. Rapid decompression. Panic. Dread. Legitimate fear for life and safety. No need to tell us twice, or even once. Passengers wailing in their seats and kneeling in the aisle. When the pilot sounds the alarm, drops the oxygen masks, and instructs the passengers to assume the crash position, there better be a damn better reason than an air traffic hold en route. Notwithstanding all of the drama, COVID just feels like a delayed arrival. Sure, some on the plane will be inconvenienced. They might miss connections, job interviews, weddings. Tragic stuff, for sure. But for the most part, we'll all just adapt to a shorter layover, and maybe even a more lively than usual dash through the terminal. 99.9+% survival rate, questionable test reliability, mostly asymptomatic carriers, flulike symptoms...who's even going to consider dispatching airport fire and rescue for this. Yet, the "pilots" in control are continually trying to keep up the ruse, yelling and screaming instructions into the cabin. Confused, frightened cabin crew trying to make sense of it all. Meanwhile, all we have to do is look out our windows and we can see clear skies and level flight along the distant horizon. If, however, this is it, and we are all crashing to our doom, might as well resume the f**king cabin service. (And let the kids play hockey.) The flight from hell. The system that cried "Wolf!" Because apparently they had nothing better to do?

When the numbers don’t appreciably change in a month, how many kids’ lives are we going to ruin then? And in whose name? Teachers? The 80+ set? The whiny doctors and nurses who, need I remind you, literally CHOSE a career working with and around sick people? As in, that’s EXACTLY what they voluntarily went to school and dedicated their lives to? A North Dakota winter with no outlet for its youth and adolescents to burn off energy is something I’m not sure I want to experience. What will have to happen? Stress? Confusion and anger? Plummeting grades? Social disengagement? Disciplinary and behavioral issues? Mental illness? Reams have been written on the positives and benefits of youth athletics, extracurricular activities, clubs, etc. I guess that science just doesn’t matter anymore. Kinda like statistics. Regardless of whether you believe that our children are basically impervious to COVID, I assure you that they are disproportionately suffering at the hands of the supposed grownups. And that may be the biggest tragedy of all. The rah rah, feel-good, ‘do it for others’ act has worn thin. A long cold winter looms with only deepening despair on the horizon. We will reap what we sow.

Killing youth sports seems especially heinous. Unforgivable. And how hypocritical that UND (a state institution) can still play hockey. What does that say to people, and to the kids? State government cares, until - inexplicably - it doesn't?

Start of season suspended until at least December 14.