Pandemic Ponderings... (Page 3/11)
maryjane OCT 27, 10:25 PM

quote
Originally posted by williegoat:

I chose bartenders as an example because they are not working (for the most part) and are not exposed to the public, as opposed to grocery workers who are exposed to a broad cross section of the general public in large numbers. Based on that I would expect grocery workers to have an above average infection rate. I know that health care workers a highly susceptible for obvious reasons. I was just wondering about exposure and transmission through various demographic groups, probably because I was just at the grocery store.

I know there is data that breaks it down by age, geographical location, etc, but I can't seem to find any data that breaks it down in such a way that might sate my curiosity.



The 3 grocery stores I usually frequent, has a very high % of mask wearers. I would estimate over 95% easily. 2 of the 3 stores are mostly self scan checkouts now, with very few cashiers at the checkouts. The ones that are still human operated have the plexiglas barriers up, as do all the pharmacies and even the convenient stores. I know there has been some discuassion whether the barriers are very effective or not, but I haven't really followed it closely.

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 10-27-2020).]

maryjane OCT 27, 10:33 PM
As of August, According to the US Dept of Commerce there are 2.7 million grocery workers and at least 130 grocery workers have died from COVID-19 with more than 8,200 testing positive for the virus since March.

United Food and Commercial Workers union said:

"In grocery stores across the country, there have been at least 82 worker deaths and 11,507 workers infected or exposed. April experienced the highest single-month total for grocery worker deaths with 46 supermarket employees killed by COVID-19. May saw the grocery industry’s biggest overall spike in COVID-19 cases with 5,901 new grocery workers infected or exposed.

http://www.ufcw.org/press-releases/covidupdate

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 10-27-2020).]

williegoat OCT 27, 10:36 PM
Everyone in the grocery store wears a mask but I have been in packed restaurants were the staff are the only ones wearing masks. The infection rate among grocery store staff could be an indication of the effectiveness of masks, which seems to be a highly contentious subject.
williegoat OCT 27, 10:39 PM

quote
Originally posted by maryjane:

As of August, According to the US Dept of Commerce there are 2.7 million grocery workers and at least 130 grocery workers have died from COVID-19 with more than 8,200 testing positive for the virus since March.


So that would be a .3% infection rate?
maryjane OCT 27, 10:55 PM
or 4.8 per 100,000 or 48 per 1 million if I did the math right.

In comparison to:
williegoat OCT 27, 11:08 PM
So it would seem that grocery workers are infected at a rate far below that of the general population. I will guess that the median age of grocery workers is somewhat below that of the general population, so that would account for some of the disparity, but not enough. If the safety protocol is the major contributing factor, that should shed some light on our predicament. Almost everyone goes to the grocery store.

Just pondering....

Oh, and thank you for your help!

[This message has been edited by williegoat (edited 10-27-2020).]

maryjane OCT 27, 11:45 PM
As i said IF, my math is right.
And if the numbers I worked with are reasonably accurate.

The grocery cashiers and floor employees in my area tend to be:
1.Female
2. About middle age 40-50 (just judging from their appearance)

The stockers are evidently doing their work after the stores close. I haven't seen but a very few stockers since around late March or early May.

[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 10-27-2020).]

Patrick OCT 27, 11:56 PM

quote
Originally posted by randye:

NEVER allow a Leftist to reframe your question for you.



NEVER allow a Zealot to question your frame of reference.



quote
Originally posted by williegoat:

So it would seem that grocery workers are infected at a rate far below that of the general population.



Depends on how much time they've spent at the bar!

[This message has been edited by Patrick (edited 10-28-2020).]

cliffw OCT 28, 02:27 PM

quote
Originally posted by cliffw:
Contact tracing is scant to non existent. My wife had Covid. No tracing. I think contact tracing is kind of useless. At most I think it lets others who you have been around motivate themselves to get tested.




quote
Originally posted by Patrick:
Maybe where you are it is... which might help explain why the US is among top three countries in the world with the highest number of COVID-19 infections.



Explain it in what way, ? Think about it beyond you scare provider news information.

I will say it again. My wife had Covid. I never got it and I never wore a mask around her. The same with another in our family unit.

So tell me, how does contract testing save lives ?

Wait a minute, as almost usual, you didn't answer my original question.


quote
Originally posted by cliffw:
Where do you get this information ?




quote
Originally posted by Patrick:
Contact tracing clearly shows that COVID-19 infections among people frequenting bars and nightclubs are much higher than among patrons of grocery stores and even restaurants.



I think you are making it up !
rinselberg OCT 28, 03:18 PM

quote
Originally posted by cliffw:
<SNIP>
I will say it again. My wife had Covid. I never got it and I never wore a mask around her. The same with another in our family unit.
<SNIP>


So... if that's how cliffw is thinking about this, is it reasonable to think that cliffw has concluded, on the basis of his personal experience, that Covid-19 is not a contagious condition or disease?

Just the other day, when former President Obama was speaking on behalf of the Biden Harris campaign, he cited the example of South Korea, and compared South Korea to the United States:

quote
South Korea had its first case of COVID at the same time, the same week as the United States. Do you know that their per capita death rate is just 1.3% of what ours is? Think about that statistic. I’ve given this statistic a couple of times and people haven’t really focused on it. The number of people in Korea who have died of COVID per capita is less than 1.5% [of] what our death rate is.


South Korea = testing and contact tracing. South Korea = what Dr Fauci and so many other credentialed medical and public health professionals are preaching.

But I really wanted to step in here for another reason. To offer yet another of my innumerable "reads." This new article from NBC News = a Pandemic Pondering, so it fits right in.

"Scientists debate how much to lower the bar on Covid-19 vaccine potential"

quote
Ongoing clinical trials are primarily designed to show whether Covid-19 vaccine candidates prevent any symptoms of the disease — which could be as minor as a sore throat or a cough. But the trials, which will study 30,000 to 60,000 volunteers, will be too brief and too small to prove that the vaccines will prevent what people fear most — being hospitalized or dying — by the time the first vaccine makers file for emergency use authorization, which is expected to occur later this year, Haseltine said.


That's the somewhat paradoxical aspect of the discussion. The most serious consequences, on a case by case basis, are very uncommon, compared to the total number of cases. But the total number of cases is already large and potentially even much larger, compared to the 330 million or so people of the United States. (That's why Covid is such a "monster.") In other words, "You're going to need a BIGGER vaccine trial."

One argument that some credentialed experts are advancing is an extrapolation from previous vaccine work (measles vaccines, in particular) that if a Covid-19 vaccine candidate is shown to prevent minor or asymptomatic cases, it likely will prove to be effective in preventing the more serious cases, hospitalizations and deaths from Covid. That would be the anticipated conclusion, in retrospect, from reviews of the vaccine's performance based on data that will only be available after millions of people have received the vaccine.

The report is from Liz Szabo and JoNel Aleccia and emanates from Kaiser Health News. I have it here in NBC News online, dated October 28, 2020. Today.
https://www.nbcnews.com/hea...e-potential-n1244956

[This message has been edited by rinselberg (edited 10-28-2020).]