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To change gears here, anyone rocking any cool/unique masks? My favorite is this breathable stretchy doo-rag material mask I’ve been using. It’s not really a mask per se. can be a headband, bandana, full face etc. just wear around my neck and pull it up as needed. Been my go-to for a month now.
My wife made me a Philadelphia Eagles mask. Lots of Steelers fans around here, so it is definitely unique. Haven't been punched out yet...
 
For me it is my boss, he says I talk too much, not quite sure why he thinks that, LOL. I do talk less with a mask on so I don't get it all moist and stuff. Don't want that Eagles green to fade!
 
That is what I do since its at least that on a daily basis inside our vehicles and usually 4-5 days between trips to the grocery store for supplies. So far (N=1) it seems to be working just fine. Not dead yet...... We have more UV than most people so extra bonus.

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I let my mask bake at 140F with UV radiation in the front dash of my car, it's not ideal but is the best I can do.
 
Me too. I just bake on the dashboard. But if I talk too much (I don't know why people think I do that) and get enough spittle on the cloth I just wash it, maybe once every two days or so. Being in work I have extra masks that my wife bought and rotate them when moist, which isn't very often since I don't talk too much.
 
Rocking my mask. On a sad note, with the cases spiking here in ND and elsewhere, we have decided to cancel our big “Maker’s Market” festival in August. This is our biggest event of the year. I don’t think the folks who refuse to take this seriously understand the impact they are causing on small businesses. 85C53AB3-650A-408A-BC5D-9DBDF6549210.jpeg
 
Virginia is on the rise now. We'd been averaging between 400-600 new cases per day. The last 3 have been over 900 on average. Testing is up quite significantly as well though and the % of positives is flat or declining. I'm very curious to know how many of these positives are actually symptomatic. I've worried moving to phase 3 on 1 July was premature.
 
Virginia is on the rise now. We'd been averaging between 400-600 new cases per day. The last 3 have been over 900 on average. Testing is up quite significantly as well though and the % of positives is flat or declining. I'm very curious to know how many of these positives are actually symptomatic. I've worried moving to phase 3 on 1 July was premature.

Positive cases are not a great statistic. Cases in hospital beds seems better to me.
 
Many states, including mine, are living by the Percent Positive rate. Our state has been reporting this as quite low, between 1-2%. But they are likely fudging the numbers. They calculate based on total original positive cases, but it seems the total number of tests value they divide by includes all repeat tests. There are many in health care and other fields that are getting tested over and over again regularly. They also do fewer tests in the high population areas and more tests in the areas that are less impacted to get more negative tests for the bottom line. Our local positivity rate is really around 10% or so but they don't report that.
 
Many states, including mine, are living by the Percent Positive rate. Our state has been reporting this as quite low, between 1-2%. But they are likely fudging the numbers. They calculate based on total original positive cases, but it seems the total number of tests value they divide by includes all repeat tests. There are many in health care and other fields that are getting tested over and over again regularly. They also do fewer tests in the high population areas and more tests in the areas that are less impacted to get more negative tests for the bottom line. Our local positivity rate is really around 10% or so but they don't report that.

I've been watching that as well. Locally, we're continuing downward, but the rest of the state is on the rise. Statewide, we're reporting just under 7%, with my county just under 6%. Those numbers are remaining somewhat steady, with only a very minor increase in the last two weeks. We ended June with a 7 day average of 12k tests daily. We are currently over 15k per day. Unfortunately, as Paul noted, hospitalizations are on the rise.
 
Many states, including mine, are living by the Percent Positive rate. Our state has been reporting this as quite low, between 1-2%. But they are likely fudging the numbers. They calculate based on total original positive cases, but it seems the total number of tests value they divide by includes all repeat tests. There are many in health care and other fields that are getting tested over and over again regularly. They also do fewer tests in the high population areas and more tests in the areas that are less impacted to get more negative tests for the bottom line. Our local positivity rate is really around 10% or so but they don't report that.

I dunno, Greg. The Johns Hopkins dataset has you creeping up to the 5-6% positivity rate now:

NorthDakota positives.jpeg
 
I look at it this way .... the more people that get the virus, the closer we get to herd immunity. All the precautions taken from day one were only intended to slow the spread, not stop it. We have succeeded in slowing the spread to the point where health are facilities are not being overwhelmed. And that's all the masks, social distancing, etc. were intended to achieve.
 
Current data suggests that herd immunity, without a vaccine, may be a myth because anti-body effectiveness may be gone at 3/4 months, especially in people with less severe or no symptoms. Slowing the spread also saved lives because it gave the science and medical communities more time to understand the implications of the disease and come up with treatments. That also includes ramping up production of things like remdesivir. PPE is still in short supply in places and getting worse. There is NO WAY we should be caught with our pants down a second time on this, but, there ya go.
 
Only a few months of antibody life does not bode well for a vaccine effectiveness over the long haul. A vaccine is designed for you to create the antibodies to protect yourself. Will everyone in the world need a vaccine every few months? How could we produce that much for everyone to get?

Biologics that they are trying to create are the antibodies needed to protect for ones that do not create antibodies from the vaccine. (Just like the flu vaccines are not 100% effective). Biologics are expensive and tricky production so it is unlikely that biologics can be produced for the entire world prophylacticly . Scary stuff if those studies about short timespan for antibodies hold true.

I know that there are a few drugs currently on the market that could potentially help that are being tested to help reduce the symptoms. That may be our best bet if antibodies are short term.
 
My guess is that drugs that activate T-cell responses will be an important part of the solution.
 
Yeah. There are warnings that the first solutions will be way better than nothing but far from perfect. I'll be happy with something good enough to let me hug my grand daughters again.
 
I had to go looking for a study on this topic

https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.13.092619v2.full.pdf
"Here we report on 149 COVID-19 convalescent individuals. Plasmas collected an average of 39 days after the onset of symptoms had variable half-maximal neutralizing titers ranging from undetectable in 33% to below 1:1000 in 79% while only 1% showed titers >1:5000. (". thus the lack of long term immunity). but.......

"Nevertheless, rare but recurring RBD-specific antibodies with potent antiviral activity were found in all individuals tested, suggesting that a vaccine designed to elicit such antibodies could be broadly effective"
 
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