(Image removed from quote.)Lots of options. Just over 6 feet myself so my 6 ft bed could work with tail gate up.
I feel we keep it simple for us in terms of planning and gear. We are not trying to preemptively mitigate every possible scenario. A big part of what comes into play at the time of a crisis is your personality. How we deal with stresses and difficulties. If you are one to be frustrated in everyday life stuff or become annoyed at the smallest things then it'll be a challenge in that respect. Some people shut down. We saw people who walked to the Superdome looking like zombies. The sheer shock of it all was emotionally overwhelming. I cant even begin to imagine how I'd feel. People are struggling to stay home now. The stresses of our current situation is pushing some to their limits. The mental health aspect seems to surprise some.
That seems to be a result of individual perception of the danger of going out, relative to the danger of staying in - which varies by region and population density as much as individual factors. One thing that seems to get lost is the problem of being a carrier - and that the less strict we are, the longer this will drag on. I'm starting to notice complacency in my area - public places are becoming more congested day by day although official restrictions haven't been lifted.When a region sees a reduction in the number of new cases, some restrictions will be lifted. The carriers of the virus are the ones in control over that.
I get that. Our city is not sure what it wants to do. They opened the parks but are still telling people to social distance and yet one neighborhood is now telling folks they have to wear masks . We had a spike in deaths and positive cases so the Gov. is trying to tell everyone to stay the course. The projected positive cases and deaths didn't materialize ( thankfully ) so yes people are thinking this was all for naught. I went to the ATM and the streets near me were busier than I've ever seen. Many if not all were wearing masks but they were out. I've not seen this many people out walking ever. It been great to see all the dogs getting walked.
Thanks to everyone staying at home.In a pandemic situation like this, you know you did it right when it seems like a overreaction in hindsight.If it seems like you didn't do enough in hindsight.... I fear that we're about to go through this all over again with more deaths due to the early reopenings.
I am really sorry to hear you have friend who are positive and lost friends .
Less than 2% of the US population has been tested. We have no idea where the virus could be brewing.
The survey they just did in NY state suggest 13% of the state population has the ‘marker for Covid 19’ and 21% in NYC. That’s really scary
The reason it's scary is because - with the extensive number of deaths and illnesses requiring hospitalization that NYC has had - only 21% of the living are producing an antibody.
I think that there are only a few good reasons to bug out.1. The area you live in is going to quickly become uninhabitable.We're talking nuclear power plant meltdown, hurricanes, long term droughts, war.Luckily, these things don't happen very often.But there are some general rules:1. Have a bug out plan and a rally point before the crisis hits.2. Don't relocated to areas where it's hard to survive due to the weather and climate. If you're in the U.S.A., bug out to the south. North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Texas, Louisianna, Mississippi, Maryland, Southern California, parts of New Mexico and Arizona. And Hawaii is the exception as always.3. Travel light weight. The idea is to bugout to somewhere safe, not start a new pioneering colony.To travel fast you must travel light.4. Forget cars, SUVs, and trucks.Bicycles will be the best compromised mode of transportation eventually.5. Have a loaded handgun and a knife on your person at all times. 24/7!6. Be friendly.Until you have reason to not be friendly.7. Have comfortable footwear that you can walk many many miles in.
My understanding is that it was originally expected to spread to 80% of the population.... counting the people in hospitals, and the lives lost, it is closer to that, but probably not up the the 80% expected, Therefore we're not done. With Herd Immunity - which is what we need - a vast majority of the surviving herd needs to be immune, and 21% isn't nearly enough. (We know, for example, for a population to be free of Measles, 95% need to be immune). Fortunately, COVID is slightly less contagious than Measles, therefore a slightly smaller percentage is required - probably close to 80%.All is not lost though, my friends. Social distancing is a double-edged sword - It takes longer to develop herd immunity, but the percentage of survivors of the disease becomes higher. That's what flattening the curve is about - a flatter longer curve. It is easier albeit longer to traverse all the way around the range of foothills below Everest, than it is to summit and descend Everest herself. And you and I both know that most mountaineers perish on the descent. Think about it.
Sorry to hear about your lost of friends, and am thank you for your effort to stay vigilant and practice social distancing/wear mask to keep up the fight.1) There are two ways to attain herd immunity, either thru proper and effective vaccination or maybe potentially thru infection. The problem of anti-body post infection is that there are fair number of re-occurring/re-infection cases worldwide, and as Fauci stated in one of the interviews, we know not enough about the virus that we are not even sure whether you get enough anti-body after infection to prevent re-infection. And the amount of anti-body varies on age and seriousness of infection, also how long will it stay effective is still an unknown. Natural herd immunity is an old method when vaccination is not possible and there is no hope in sight. But to attain that natural herd immunity(a 60-80% of entire population immune), we are talking about literally close to 200 million infections and at that level of infection, the hospitals nation wide will be long overwhelmed and the death rate will be even high than what we see today. Combining with real possibility of re-infection, the result will certainly be devastating and literally millions of lives will be lost in between. That's probably why UK has abandoned that strategy early on.2) Vaccination is not something that can be 'rushed'. It scares me to no end when I hear politician trying to 'rush' the vaccination process. Without a proper FDA trial or due diligence, which takes time, there is no certainty whether a vaccine is effective or not, let alone it is safe to use. The worst is to induce false hope, and then to realize it is ineffective or may cause serious side effect.3) Personally, I would think the level of testing conducted in US is not nearly enough, when compared to certain region where they got huge spike but controlled it effectively(like South Korea, thru mask wearing/social distancing/contact tracing/testing). The problem is we don't know what we don't know. Many experts claim an effective number in US is about 5 million per day, but current level is way below that, despite politician may claim it can be attained very soon or even surpass it. I am not a statistician or virologist to know how the significant is threshold of 5 million, but I do know many regions that got it under control all have similar methods, and ample testing is one of them. Fighting the pandemic without enough testing is like fighting an enemy blindfolded, we don't even know what we are doing right now has a enough positive impact or not.
3) Personally, I would think the level of testing conducted in US is not nearly enough, when compared to certain region where they got huge spike but controlled it effectively(like South Korea, thru mask wearing/social distancing/contact tracing/testing). The problem is we don't know what we don't know. Many experts claim an effective number in US is about 5 million per day, but current level is way below that, despite politician may claim it can be attained very soon or even surpass it. I am not a statistician or virologist to know how the significant is threshold of 5 million, but I do know many regions that got it under control all have similar methods, and ample testing is one of them. Fighting the pandemic without enough testing is like fighting an enemy blindfolded, we don't even know what we are doing right now has a enough positive impact or not.
For what it's worth, the usa is currently doing twice as much testing per million people compared to south korea.Far right column underneath "countries" The difference I was able to find is that south korea did the containment strategy right and effectively used their tests.Everyone that was traced as coming into contact with a person that tested positive was notified and underwent 14 day quarantine, and they only tested suspected cases.
We know that the nasal swab misses 30% of positive cases - it reports positives as negative..
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