With increased testing, the "general" impacts from new cases haven't been much different than typical flu. But shelter orders remain in place for most seniors and pre-existing conditions, even if the headlines imply there's a greater degree of reopening. So we don't know the impact on the so-called vulnerable population if they're newly exposed. Indeed the curve was flattened, but there may be structure at the tail end.

Come Wednesday, it may be legal again for me to go to a Barnes & Noble or to get a haircut in the state of Georgia. But because I'm in an "essential" category, I've been going to work selectively all along. The youngsters are starting to fill the parking lots again, so the masks go up more often. Traffic is near normal in the cities.

south australia has been open for business for a few days. we had one case in the last month. but gatherings of more than 10 are still a nono. all small toy/comic/record fares i used to attend are cancelled for the rest of the year and those are the kind of fairs where social distancing would be impossible to break because there are not enough people.
i've just read all of your messages and i'm not apathetic. my sister just finished her 4th yr of surgeons school in london 3 weeks ago and last week got told she is a new kind of temp doc in the field now,in a covid ward.
so i really wanted to talk about how you guys are talking about getting back to normal.
but not one of you have mentioned the infection rates.
please google a graph of world infection rates.
i'm not blind and i am watching how things can re-open safely when the conditions are right.
but america
you might keep lowering the infection rate!
just keep being good responsible human beings for your fellow mans sake, (and your Nan's).
don't do anything stupid now. and i'm just talking to anyone reading this who is in england or america or italy or spain and is at the end of their rope trying to choose between soup or soup for dinner like i have the last 3 months straight. i have seen isolation and i have seen it end.
and i agree that people (media) misrepresent the fact the more people will die from the flu than covid this year. more people in aus and USA will die from infections contracted while in hospital this year.
but please don't confuse that equation with the fact that these deaths are additional. 300'000 people are dead who otherwise wouldn't have been.
and the one's dead usually weren't the one's taking the risks. it's narcissistic taking public safety risks when you're young and you know you have an 80% chance it will be less severe symptomatically than a cold for you, but if you pass it onto an old or sick person it might kill them.
and please remember that your sheltering orders are to protect those most at risk in your community. this is not about you. please don't be selfish about this.
i know your government screwed the pooch on this and it's not your fault.
i used to be a punk rocker and now i do a bit of social work so i have punks trying to tell me not to give a .... and come protest. yes here in adelaide we came out in the 1000's for George.
(the last aboriginal to die in custody here was a fellow artist of mine who was killed in very similar circumstances.on camera in the remand centre. held face down for 6 minutes and 23 seconds minutes in a choke hold. til he died as one of the nicest men i had ever met. but he was ruled an accidental death by the coroner because the prison staff didn't know he had a heart condition, and anyone laying facedown for 6 minutes with his condition would have died anyway!!!))so i REALLY REALLY wanted to.i cried all day watching the protests 4 blocks from my home. but i need to stay unexposed so i can go and help people that could die if i had gone to the protest.
although i have to point out that satellite and terrestrial tv here are both saying Aus is about to see a 2nd spike because of those naughty protesters.
when infact it is because they have started letting a plane full of chinese students land at my local airport every friday morning because international students are our number one economy.
so please don't get your science news from the media. i was born american so watch the US news everyday (both sides and the middle(cnn<--colbert-->fox)).
i see the bull they are telling you and i see the bull they are doing to you.
the world is changing right now, and it's up to everyone to do their part for this change in feeling to coalesce into a change of action. (rioters need to riot. protesters need to protest. frontline workers need to not contract covid off you on the bus.)

and allender, i forgot you did mention the curve flattened, that's what started me rant while me beer went warm
but please google the curve compared to every other country in the world. you've flattened out at about 1000 cases A DAY more than anyone else in the world.
that needs to go down now

You have some points, certainly. But remember that the uptick in cases is directly related to increased testing rates, which are now far higher in USA than in AUS. The reported rate per number of tests spiked up to this level before any restrictions were lifted. Yes, AUS is special in that the infection rate was nearly 100x lower than in Europe and USA in the beginning. So if you have a second spike, it's likely to be far lower in cases per capita than (say) Brazil.

There's plenty of room for discussion, and part of that involves whether some of the restrictions have been feel-good but without proven benefit, and how actions by public officials (promoting unsanitary public transportation for months in areas of high population density) increased the curve instead of flattening it.

On a general note, one could argue whether the "both sides and the middle" you refer to represents a reasonable spectrum of covering facts versus "it's somebody else's fault." I agree wholeheartedly with "I see the bull they are telling you." I am a bit pessimistic about "everyone doing their part" when we seem to be lacking in leadership willing to go beyond the blame-game.

I did not physically go to protest because I've reached age 65 and subject to strict shelter-in-place virus rules that would make it illegal for that alone. Locally we had excellent protests (IMHO). You aren't going to solve issues of bias and unadmitted racism in a few weeks if you haven't given it much attention by "leadership" and societies have polarized.

And since you mentioned AUS aboriginals, I have to point out that the indigenous aka Native American USA people have been very hard-hit by the virus. And it gets almost no media coverage.
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And just an aside, "for your Nan's sake" hits home because my own Nan's death was partly caused by her exposure to Scarlet Fever when she was a child. Recommended measures to avoid it were very similar to what we see for coronavirus and it hit people with existing conditions hardest. There still is no "vaccine" but Herd Immunity eventually kicked in after they started injecting children with live virus from horses' blood. The case rates for Scarlet Fever today in Australia are almost the same as coronavirus rates; luckily the antibiotics we developed over the last century are pretty effective. I sure as heck hope that we (1) find effective treatments or (2) reach a point where almost all positives have mild symptoms. Otherwise, we aren't talking about a few years, we're talking about a very, very long time with some level of impact.

i'm sorry for sparking memories of your nan. i guess that it is a really important factor, that everyone has been affected by viral death. making this whole thing a lot easier to polarise and make people fear. along with the aboirgone's in australia who are seeing an 8 times higher death toll from this illness agreeing with what you say of indigenous americans.

i should have probably said that my parents would both be in the very top tier of immunology and have been for 50 plus years. my ma's old underlings are the one's doing the british covid vaccine work. in this day and age where medicine has massive economical incentive we will see a vaccine in 18 months.100%.but that's 18 months. not 3.
please don't believe nonsense that disagrees with science and tell you to just go outside and socialize.
i was at the pub today :O .... so may sound totally hypocritical. but i had to to wait outside for a 1.5 metre space to become available for me to sit in.
which i do not see you guys in america trying to do in any way shape or fashion.
and i don't mean that you don't. sorry if it read that way.
i just men that the news reports we see are of you doing things that australians would find medically reprehensible even when we have 1% of your infection rate.
and death rates are death rates, they need to disregard testing rates COMPLETELY.
scientists say the 2 biggest factors to stop covid were test and trace and then masks.
and they base that on places like korea who did the work to make those provisions before 100 people a day ever died.
opening up america and the uk need to be done very carefully coz some people dont give a damn,
and some people have huge economic interest in convincing you its safe while 1000 a day die.
and i am not an upstart youngster activist,i am in my mid 30's and very inactive.
as a social worker i take almost exactly similar covid measures to you Allender

oop it's been an hour.
time to drink hand sanitizer just incase.
just remember 120 proof or above

I wouldn't believe everything you see in the US Media regardless of source.

The reality is far more nuanced.

i beg you. please don't take that attitude.
you have to find the real news and you do that by checking sources,
i know it takes more time than reading your facebook timeline,
but it is vaguely reassuring that humanity is not completely gone to pot.
the truth is out there!

quote:

Originally posted by handicapabletrader:
i beg you. please don't take that attitude.
you have to find the real news and you do that by checking sources,
i know it takes more time than reading your facebook timeline,
but it is vaguely reassuring that humanity is not completely gone to pot.
the truth is out there!

Don't take what attitude?

to have the belief that lies can come from any american source.

you will not find any lies in Nature magazine

i agree with your sentiment that it should be our usual setting to distrust media now.
that's why it's important to take heed when you find good sources of truth like mad dog maddess this week.
that's someone who was in the room with the president of the USA for a long while and can say things that are backed up by white house records.

Nature magazine is a technical journal so it can be a tough read but then you are getting the details if you want them and Barnes & Noble does carry it.

I've said it before. We need to listen to the epidemiologists, the people who study how diseases spread. Otherwise, beware of "TV doctors."

And then there's this weird thing about testing. You get people saying the numbers are rising because there's more testing. Yeah, that's how you identify the infected early rather than wait until they're in the hospital. If you cut back on the testing, you still have sick people out there. You just know about fewer of them. They don't get infected from the testing.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by handicapabletrader:
to have the belief that lies can come from any american source.

you will not find any lies in Nature magazine

i agree with your sentiment that it should be our usual setting to distrust media now.
that's why it's important to take heed when you find good sources of truth like mad dog maddess this week.
that's someone who was in the room with the president of the USA for a long while and can say things that are backed up by white house records.

quote:

Originally posted by handicapabletrader:
to have the belief that lies can come from any american source.

Well, they can. In the heat of "breaking news" even the best reporting can cite information they believe to be reliable, but turns out to be untrue. Sometimes you have to wait a bit for the facts to surface.

quote:

you will not find any lies in Nature magazine

Of course that's not an "American" source. Perhaps not consciously. But even peer review can be imperfect. Just recently Nature apologized for its coverage of Covid-19.

quote:

i agree with your sentiment that it should be our usual setting to distrust media now.
that's why it's important to take heed when you find good sources of truth like mad dog maddess this week.
that's someone who was in the room with the president of the USA for a long while and can say things that are backed up by white house records.

I believe you're thinking of somebody else, not Maddis.
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Can we get back to discussing "Coronavirus and Shows"? Yes, international responses and media coverage are relevant.

I can see a split in reopening of some types of shows. I can envision that the Philly Show could operate under social distancing rules that are evolving, but I still worry about the latency of the virus on indoor surfaces. Perhaps the room can be emptied and given a dose of UV-C light after vendors have set up.

Packed houses like the Exhibit Halls at SDCC, NYCC, etc. are probably gone for quite a while. I expect support for online shopping with provisions to pick up or redeem merchandise. Panels may evolve to a model where attendence of the most popular ones is partially in the room while satellite locations in hotels get simulcasts (and people will often prefer to opt for replays). Expect an expansion of outdoor activities.

Big cons have been popular partly because of the experience of people packing themselves together in a common cause. Comic Con doesn't make its costs back from badge sales, they rely on exhibitor rent and their own merchandise. So a "new normal" may couple technology with limited population density.

Smaller cons may successfully move to more spacious venues, which might be cheaper than before when the venues lose reservations for larger events.

I'm working right now with a major professional conference that is struggling to "go virtual" next month. The whole revenue model is turned on its ear and one of the challenges is to attract people to participate. Other traditional mass gatherings are coming up with new ideas. But one thing we're doing that might translate to panels at shows is having slides from presentations overlaid with prerecorded videos of the speaker making the presentation, with viewers online for direcxt Q&A. No informal discussions at the coffee breaks, but there are chat functions. The technology is already supported by PowerPoint. It's not the same as rubbing elbows with your favorite celebrities or artists (like when Stan Lee almost knocked me down when hurrying from one appearance to another), but it can scratch the itches of many congoers who can get by without the parties.

I see continued interest in physical con attendance even if it's a hybrid experience. If too many people attend, you have to figure out where they are all going to eat, so I expect we will evolve to where every big con or small cons in small communities have a remote-attendance component.
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And I add that attending a popular panel in Hall H at Comic Con is already a remote-attendance experience. Few people are within easy eyesight of the panelists, and almost everybody just watches the big screen. If I watched on my PC, tablet, or phone, I could zoom in on my favorite panelists.

There is a small sports card show that is trying to open up here again in a couple of weeks.

The guy running the show is practically begging people to wear masks and socially distance. Seems like there is some authority that won't allow the show to continue if guidelines aren't followed.

Can't imaging a large show right now, which is sad.

allender, I'm sure the technology exists to go virtual because online classes and audio/video conferencing has been around quite awhile, but some gatherings are less about the information and more about the gathering. I don't know what profession you are talking about, but before you go all in, make sure that the attraction is already there in the material.

I have been to enough professional conferences to know that you generally get one or two ideas out of them if its a good conference and for the rest of it, either you already know it or it doesn't apply to your specific shop/business. Conferences are more about the personal networking, being out of the office, sometimes traveling to a different place expense free and getting paid for all of it. Take those parts away and most professional conferences are unnecessary in the minds of the attendees.

Hobby wise, live streaming panels could work as well as when we watch the youtube videos from Cons, if the panelists are together. I don't like the talking heads that are being shown on talk shows and news programs. I would rather hear audio only then get a headache watching multiple yapping squares.

The hobby is stuck because you can't replace the live show with anything you can watch from afar. "Limited population density" sounds like one of the many new catch phrases people are thinking up. From a practical standpoint, this stuff is not going to work, but it sounds intelligent as a theory.

Finally, I do try to update the situation in NYC now and then, just to give members an idea of what is going on where I am. It's not just that the Media is spinning stories to match their political views, that's normal. They are under reporting things, totally ignoring other things and refusing to ask questions that have inconvenient answers. The only balanced information you are getting is from the people living in those places, and I am going to agree with webjon here, "the reality is far more nuanced".

So we are all just speaking for ourselves and our own realities. The infections rates are spiking in certain areas, but that was expected with re-openings and increased testing, plus protest gatherings. Hopefully it will settle somewhere that we can live with until we get a better treatment or vaccine. Nursing home deaths continue to be a huge problem in NYS and other areas. That is a topic that needs more investigation than what it has gotten so far. Sorry to ramble, everything has been turned on its ear.

And allender, I forgot to mention that one of the biggest reasons for attendees to go to certain professional conferences is the continued education points you earn to maintain various licenses and pad the resumes. I always need points for something. Again I don't know what profession is involved here so that may not apply, but if it does it's a big plus to get people in. All of the vendors and some speakers making presentations show up to sell things, so it might be harder to get some of them without a live audience. Figured I'd mention it in case it means anything.

The other thing about traveling for conferences and meetings is the in-person interaction. People are on their best behavior for the video conference, but when you're actually there, you see them in their natural habitat. You see who works hard and who works well in groups, and of course, they're looking at you. I wonder how that impacts a company over time - the personal connections that have lead to company partnerships don't happen anymore. Humans are social animals. I think there was a commercial or a TV show about that some years ago. The company thought it was saving money not flying reps out but lost an important client because of the sterility of a phone call. We are still face-to-face in a video conference but it's not the same because there is still a feeling of distance. How many business deals started with a handshake and were also sealed by one?

I've been an independent contractor for years now. Maybe all that is no longer a thing.

Jess

quote:

Originally posted by Raven:
And allender, I forgot to mention that one of the biggest reasons for attendees to go to certain professional conferences is the continued education points you earn to maintain various licenses and pad the resumes. I always need points for something. Again I don't know what profession is involved here so that may not apply, but if it does it's a big plus to get people in. All of the vendors and some speakers making presentations show up to sell things, so it might be harder to get some of them without a live audience. Figured I'd mention it in case it means anything.