Anyone's Gym Voluntarily Closed?

Fair enough.  The previous post was from 6am this morning, Mountain Time, and didn’t reflect the current situation.

Auden Alsop wrote:

It's also a combo of extreme stress and overwork, plus a lack of sleep and likely proper nutrition. 

umm, it’s much more likely to be that health care workers are exposed at a very high rate to the virus trying to treat victims. 

have you seen how far they have to push those q tips up people’s noses? how about the other test where they have people cough up phlegm into a dish?

the fatality rate of people on the first line of defense in wuhan was about 35%. that included the doctor that first discovered the disease and took all the precautions he could while trying to treat people and raise awareness. 

J T wrote:

Lack of response?  It’s been decades since we’ve seen a response of this magnitude to anything else.  Have you been to the grocery stores in the last couple days?  In Denver:  Climbing gyms closing, school districts are shutting down, universities shutting down, government building closing their doors for 30 days as a start, grocery store shelves half empty and the lines!  My trash wasn’t picked up yesterday.  Anyone notice anything weird at the gas stations?

A week ago what you said might be true.  As of Friday night, everything has changed.

Lack of a coordinated response by health and administration, not lack of public panic buying, and the shutdowns you are mentioning. Response as in preparedness and execution of a plan for something like this. The CDC has been running on a skeleton crew and dwindling. This is a direct result of budget cuts starting around 2016, and not only affected research, but the ability to mount a coordinated response. Countries are offering the US COVID-19 test, because there is no capacity or resources. That should not be the case. The test is a simple qRT-PCR assay, that is very easy to design. We had it up in running in research labs literally overnight as soon as the sequence information came out of China in December. Every state lab should be able to order the primers and probes and start running the preliminary tests while waiting for the official FDA-certified test (which would be the same test, just including positive and negative controls and cutoff values to call the positives, and consistent reagents).

There has been a response, but not an appropriate one. The US had the luxury of seeing what happened in China, then watching it unfold in Europe, and the response is and was behind the curve. TBH, this caught me off guard, but the lack of THE ABILIY to respond appropriately to something has been know. The directors of the NIH, CDC, etc spend their time lobbying for capacity for preparing for something like this, now they have the unenviable task of calming the public and explaining the situation. I don't know how they are able to hold back 'I told you so.'

EDIT: And it has not been decades since we have seen a response like this. For the Ebola outbreak, there were thousands of epi teams from dozens of countries converging and performing contact tracing and diagnostics on literally tens of thousands of infected, contacts, and suspected contacts. This lasted from early 2014 through 2016. Maybe I mistook you for the sarcastic panic response, I'm realizing that now.

James Woods wrote: Old people die from this should be a key part you take away from this. But hey, everybody knows more than the experts so instead of taking a step back and thinking that gym climbing can wait for a while, go ahead and stubbornly don't practice social distancing.
Old lady H. Sorry to be harsh in my previous comment but maybe staying away from the gym right now will cause you to be giving more money to the gym in the long term. You know, as an old person who listened to the experts and didn't die.
❤️ James

No offense taken, at all. I don't disagree with the public health aspect response, or recommendations, at all, it's the public's panic response that's astounding. And, this old person has no underlying health issues, partly good fortune, but also my own doing. "Average" in America is pretty appalling.

For the third time, this old person worked with the truly elderly. I get protecting vulnerable populations, and did so regularly.

People here, though, are in Armageddon mode, buying like there will be no water or electricity. For months. Yes, I consider that nuts.

And yet, people are still traveling. Also nuts, but the other direction. The only case here, so far, is someone just back from a conference in New York. If I chose to go to Bozeman, for example, to ice climb, from Boise, I'd be traveling through Seattle, sitting there half the day. At the airport. With people from all over the world. To my thinking, travel from places that have this, to places that don't yet have it, is more damaging than me venturing to the store for groceries every couple weeks. I no longer work, so I'm actually not out much at all, compared to most.

My gym comment is that I will make sure to support my gym financially. I'm already a member, this would be cash above and beyond to help keep their staff paid. Someone on some thread suggested buying gift cards online, from your local restaurants. That's a good idea. Hoarding stuff is not.

Joe, maybe the public health community has had this scaled response before, but the public reaction is not anything I have ever seen before. Not Y2K, not even 9/11 when air traffic was stopped.

I think a good part of the panic, is that there isn't much info on how long this will go on. Two weeks? Two months? Half a year? Is it a one time thing, or will it surface repeatedly? And, a lot of misunderstanding in general.

Health systems can and do collapse, including first world countries. Moscow comes to mind, from awhile back. My husband's parents both were scientists at NIH, in Bethesda. We had many talks about this, over the years! Including the lack of funding.

Best, Helen

Planet Granite, in San Francisco, is tracking the number of people in their facility, in accordance with the City’s mandated closures of no more than 100 people together at one time.

Old lady H wrote:

No offense taken, at all. I don't disagree with the public health aspect response, or recommendations, at all, it's the public's panic response that's astounding. 

...

People here, though, are in Armageddon mode, buying like there will be no water or electricity. For months. Yes, I consider that nuts.

Is it really that hard to understand?
* people have been told to prepare for "an extended stay at home" - weeks, possibly more
* millions of kids are suddenly out of school unexpectedly, straining supplies at home
* fewer trips to the store = greater social distancing and reduced contact
* crisis hoarding mentality

Marc801 C wrote: Is it really that hard to understand?
* people have been told to prepare for "an extended stay at home" - weeks, possibly more
* millions of kids are suddenly out of school unexpectedly, straining supplies at home
* fewer trips to the store = greater social distancing and reduced contact
* crisis hoarding mentality

Universities are going to go online after spring break, not sure what will happen to dorms, but public schools are open here, for now. Many are closing Monday, to clean, train, and strategize, so we'll see. What happens to the hefty percent of kids who get most of their meals at school, after that? 

Crisis hoarding, for sure. That might mean people the most at risk, and on limited incomes, may not be able to get what they need, just so people can have a stockpile under the bed....that they will likely donate to the food pantry eventually. Overwhelming the food chain isn't helping the public at large, and, too often, burns those at the bottom. All I ask for is a little common sense. 

And those with the means to do so? Are on MP pondering where in the country to go play, while they are off work or can work remotely. Hmmmm. 

I get people emptying the Lysol shelves, but salt???

All of this said with good humor, and meant that way. Remember, I worked for the City of Boise almost twenty years, at the main library, and doing outreach to exactly the high risk population all of us are concerned about. These are my people, and I admit I get sorta uppity at how badly the disenfranchised are treated. I'm guessing the service I did, will be suspended, dunno. Care facilities will have really hard decisions to make, and I'm very much thinking of how bleak it must be for people I cared about.

Best, Helen

Old lady H wrote:

Universities are going to go online after spring break, not sure what will happen to dorms, but public schools are open here, for now. 

AS but one example, Harvard is closing it's dorms for the semester immediately after spring break. At least 17 states have closed all public schools.

Many are closing Monday, to clean, train, and strategize, so we'll see. What happens to the hefty percent of kids who get most of their meals at school, after that? 

Good question. Part of the reason people have been stocking up on food.

Crisis hoarding, for sure. That might mean people the most at risk, and on limited incomes, may not be able to get what they need, just so people can have a stockpile under the bed....that they will likely donate to the food pantry eventually. Overwhelming the food chain isn't helping the public at large, and, too often, burns those at the bottom. All I ask for is a little common sense.

Here's a good article explaining people's reactions:
https://scimoms.com/coronavirus-risk/

Marc801 C wrote: AS but one example, Harvard is closing it's dorms for the semester immediately after spring break. At least 17 states have closed all public schools.

Good question. Part of the reason people have been stocking up on food.

Here's a good article explaining people's reactions:
https://scimoms.com/coronavirus-risk/

People on low/limited incomes can't stock up. It becomes a "choice" of doing without. Those school meals are it, for more kids than people realize. The elderly may be even more precarious, financially. 

Fun to chat with you, sir!

Best, Helen

Old lady H wrote:

People on low/limited incomes can't stock up. It becomes a "choice" of doing without. Those school meals are it, for more kids than people realize. The elderly may be even more precarious, financially. 

Fun to chat with you, sir!

Best, Helen

There's a federal waiver now with this new bill that allows kids getting free or reduced price meals to get additional assistance under SNAP, which means their families can and are going to buy more from the grocery store. Other states, like Oregon, are opening the schools for to-go meals for students. 

Both Movement and Earthtreks said today they are cancelling classes but remaining open. #profitBeforePeople

Update: Earthtreks now says they are closed starting tomorrow.  Just hours after they said they would remain open. Good for you all for recognizing the seriousness of the public health crisis of a generation.

James W wrote: How about all the people who are afraid stay home and let the rest of us make our own decision before spreading more paranoia. Thanks.

Yes, as long as you are not inconvenienced

The Circuit Gyms in Oregon are now only allowing annual members in. 

Planet Granite is closing all of their gyms for a least 2 weeks...

Movement is now closed.

Most all the ski resorts in CO are now closed, too.

GVC Grand Junction CO is closed for eight days. 

Planet Granite just closed all their gyms 

BRC is closed.

petzl logic wrote:

the fatality rate of people on the first line of defense in wuhan was about 35%. that included the doctor that first discovered the disease and took all the precautions he could while trying to treat people and raise awareness. 

genuinely curious, you have a source for that number?!