file:///C:/Users/gadam/AppData/Local/Temp/press-release-cdc-admits-overreporting-covid-deaths-1.pdf
Per the CDC.
The report specifically noted, among other stunning findings , that:
“Had the CDC used its industry standard, Medical Examiners’ and Coroners’ Handbook on Death Registration and Fetal Death Reporting Revision 2003, as it has for all other causes of death for the last 17 years, the COVID-19 fatality count would be approximately 90.2% lower than it currently is.”
So who is mis (or mal) informed?
A reminder of the need to stay on topic, which is reflecting on your personal experience during the pandemic as it relates to paddling.
Quoting from the site’s FAQ:
"…remember to criticize ideas, not people . Please avoid:
"* Name-calling
“* Ad hominem attacks”
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I would say that you still are. That article (which I couldn’t open, but I’m guessing is largely based on the Gateway Pundit article), has been widely debunked.
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This is a bit off topic (sorry Rookie), but PBS just ran a Nova on bats and the corona viruses. They are an excellent host for many viruses, but don’t get sick. They also live much longer than any other small mammal. They can fly 100 mph on the horizonal (not diving), and are the fastest fliers on the level. It seems their genetic code on the section that relates to the immune system changed at the same time they evolved to fly. It has to due with suppressing inflammation caused by excessive muscle use in flight. This has the potential to be applied to inflammatory diseases in humans. The longest lived bat species can live 40 years. It turns out that the telomeres on the end of their chromosomes don’t shorten as they age, like all other mammals do. So you can’t tell a young one from and old one. This has the potential to change how we might age if fully understood. Much of this science is very recent information. Fantastic program tonight.
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In a rather odd way, I think we’re the victims of our own good fortune.
I’m often reminded of stories my grandfather, dead forty years now, told us when I was a child. He was a physician, a researcher, who got his start serving in the army medical corps. He worked on the yellow fever epidemic during the Panama canal construction and in France during WW1 fighting the 1918 flu pandemic. He did so in tents in winter. Without ventilators, without antibiotics, losing staff to the disease, losing patients, largely unable to affect the course of the disease. For a time he worked for a coal mining company dealing with black lung. He saw a lot of death, a lot of ugliness. Stuff that few of us, thankfully, are on familiar terms with.
He practically worshiped Robert Koch and Jonas Salk.
We are the beneficiaries of a lot of very hard work by a lot of brilliant, though imperfect, scientists and physicians. We are perhaps the first generation in human history to not live major portions of our lives under the shadow of pandemic disease - cholera, scarlet fever, yellow fever, polio, small pox, TB - the list is a long one. Malaria is even less threatening than it once was.
And we’ve come to take it for granted. Its delusional to think that what has affected every human throughout history, until out generation, can’t and won’t ever happen again. (Heck, probably every animal species, living or extinct, for that matter…) We’ve lost perspective and some of us rebel, like rebellious petulant (though not stupid) children, at the acceptance of such thoughts. We’ve lost the habit of productively carrying on in the face of disease and death, as every other generation that has ever lived has been forced to do. And we seem to think that living in high population densities doesn’t have the potential to set us up for rapid spread of disease.
We don’t have to. We have a vaccine, developed with unheard of rapidity and exceptional , though not complete, effectiveness. Its available to the rich and the poor, rural and urban, educated and uneducated. Masks seem to help and the potential for harm is minimal. If to err is human, why not err on the side of caution? Social distancing is unpleasant and counterintuitive for most of us. In times of trial we want to come together, and its exactly the wrong thing to do in a pandemic. Of necessity our grandparents were probably better at social isolation, but we can do it for a while if we have to. So let’s. Let’s get this thing over with.
Sure, we need to get out and paddle. Shuttle with vaccinated folks, mask up when inside with strangers, and when in unavoidable crowds. There will be some risk from time to time. Accept it as a fact. We’ve taken other more unnecessary risks. Trust that the evidence suggests that beak through cases are rarely serious.
There’s no call to get nasty with each other. It just won’t help and we’ve all got enough troubles to keep us entertained for the time being. I suppose if I become magnetic from the vaccine, I’ll have to get a GPS and give up my compass, but I’ll live to use it.
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I would highly recommend zinc oxide sunscreen. I’ve found it does not wash off easily and does not sting my eyes like regular sunscreen does. You can even get it as a spray can, I use the stuff from Trader Joes. A brimmed hat with a chin bungee is also great for protecting the above eyes area.
Using politifact for a source pretty much calls any argument you have into question. So you are telling me the kid here who died on a MC who was listed as a covid death didnt die? Or coughed himself off the MC? You are also stating that that isnt happining everywhere else that hospitals get paid for having a covid death? Yeah, OK. The guy who is fomenting this is also the guy who during the AIDS outbreak was saying EVERYONE is going to get it and we will all die. Fauchi has been waiting for a pandemic all of his life, and it looks like he may have had a hand in this one. Time will tell.
I got vaxxed because of co morbidity. This thing is bad, but it doesnt affect kids w/o serious co morbidity, the recovery rate is pretty darn good in EVERY OTHER age category. You want to bubble wrap yourself behind a tee shirt mask that does about nothing yet cause psychological problems for kids., and hid behind plexiglass that is PROVEN to make the hider more susceptible to covid than being in moving air, then you do you.
Covid is a virus with animal reservoirs. Guess how many virus’s we have eliminated that have animal reservoirs? If you guessed exactly zero, you would be correct. Whitetail deer carry covid. Here is reality. I will get covid, you will get covid, we all will get covid. It is here to stay, Learn to live with it. Any amount of masking or social distancing is pretty much BS. Yes get a vax, make the effort to have as little affect as possible WHEN you get it. My lawyer has stayed at home this whole time, 2 shots moderna, guess who got covid? Her, her husband and all of her kids.
New study, reported by that right wing bastion, The Atlantic. The numbers are fudged. COVID Hospitalization Numbers Can Be Misleading - The Atlantic
Does me wearing a mask while walking down the street hurt ANYBODY in ANYWAY??? NO!!! So why on earth do you care at all?
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We just love getting all judgey
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Sorry folks, I should have left out the parts in my original post about masks, etc., which turned out to be a distraction from the point of the post - “reflecting on your personal experience during the pandemic as it relates to paddling”. (Thanks Rookie)
Maybe we can reset. How would you respond if the original post read:
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OK. Limited effect on my paddling locally, other things like eldercare issues have had a greater impact. But it did impact the weekly after-work paddles in which I periodically manage to participate.
The local paddle group eventually restarted the after-work paddles with fairly easy workarounds. I have to say the word masks in order to answer this. Masks for situations when the group was clustered closely around each other at the put-in, in the earliest days until our local positivity rate dropped. Last year when the group restarted, the traditional after-paddle gathering at local pubs was discontinued in favor of sitting in folding chairs outside at a decent distance apart after the paddle. To chat and munch.
The group has not returned to go inside yet, the season is closing so it’ll be two seasons outside for the post-paddle meeting.
No impact on my paddling in Maine. I typically am solo anyway. The worst impact on that was the weather this last, one of those years with an unusually high number of days during my stay with difficult weather.
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Due to our very high risk household, I no longer paddle with other people, and have no plans to do so anytime soon. I was supposed to paddle some easy whitewater in late Spring that required a bit of travel and a shuttle, but then the Delta variant reared its ugly head and I cancelled. The biggest impact, though, has been the huge increase in the number of recreational paddlers on local creeks and access spots since the start of the pandemic. Most of the groups I run into are oblivious to other waterway traffic and spread out across narrow channels, blocking all other boats - including large yachts. I’ve had to sometimes be aggressive about asking for a little space to pass. I now mostly paddle my very local creek during work hours to avoid the crowds - with my boss’s blessing, since he values my sanity. On weekends I go out on bigger rivers where crowds are not a problem. I’m very much looking forward to cold weather, when the number of paddlers I encounter will decline exponentially.
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eckilson, I thought your original post was well done, but any talk of the pandemic creates space for political theater of the absurd, I apologize for joining it.
The first few months of the original lock-down didn’t allow many places to find water to float a boat in.
The parks finally opened, and the crowds stayed small, paddling was actually easier to do than normal.
I do carry a few more things with me, a mask and hand sanitizer. It is best to be prepared in all circumstances these days.
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Didn’t change paddling one whit. Didn’t really change home life. We see people rarely except for the weekly errands. No water or access was shut down here.
The only paddling related change was the inability to find shuttle services in the North Maine Woods ; this may have been business rather than pandemic related.
Did change the family who lives elsewhere. That will never return to “normal”
All of a sudden the " hiking " community exploded with too many on the trails. Paddling was way more relaxing than joining a trail stampede.
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@eckilson I understand your objective in that everyone has been thru a tough year and a half in all aspects of life and our hobbies like paddling are often an outlet or a form of release or just a way to again fell “normal” in a world turned upside down.
We all reacted differently based on where we found our truths surrounding how we conducted our lives during this time. It is really hard to have that discussion without searching out what our truths are. You would think such a thing would be cut and dry and we would all see what we were going thru from a common vantage point, but that is clearly not the case. In my case after the first month of lockdown to flatten the curve and the rest we were not even seeing family and I have two sisters I’m 65 one 75 and one 80. Their plans were to stay locked in their homes and not to go out unless it was 100% important like to get the delivered food off their door step. I told them to do what they felt was correct but for me I planned to go down swinging and leading my life was more important to me than just living. I planned on enjoying what I could safely wear a mask when I had to and stay away from people when I could. I think now that most people realize this is going to be with us forever and it is just another thing we deal with in our risk reward style of life. More are doing just that.
I’m glad I was outside and working on my canoe and taking it to the water and enjoying losing as little of that 19 months as possible. We both had covid and recovered and got our shots without issue. We feel luck for being able to live in a great place with a simple but fulfilling life and for me pushing on is my plan. Life is short.
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Same here, having melanoma cut out of my chest 16 years ago was a shot across my bow; I wear a face mask when boating on the coast of NH/ME with my son because sun screen craps up my Nikon.
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The pandemic barely affected my social gathering or group paddling life, because I basically don’t do either, except on rare occasions. At home, my husband and I had no real change in our lives. We continued to hike on our property and the private road we have rights to use. In town, of course we wore masks, maintained distance from other people, and washed or sanitized hands more frequently than normal.
The big impact on paddling was a greatly shortened season, in an area with an already-short season (thanks to AIS inspection and other administrative limits). The water was liquid and the air was warm in March last year. No dice. Of the two reservoirs I paddle at regularly, one only opened on May 15, and other was even later—might have been late June!
I did paddle the shorty WW kayak at a small reservoir starting in April, but I was pretty much done with paddling SINKS at that point and itching to get on my new surf ski, which had arrived at the end of 2019.
Worse than the opening delays was the COVID tourist hordes. Both hiking trails and boating waters were jammed by people from states we normally don’t see more than one or two of, if at all. Many of these cars bore plates from the worst infected states, too. Thanks, spreadnecks! AND that has lingered into 2021. Let’s not forget campgrounds and any land that someone thinks they can “camp” on free of charge.
Social distancing might have been recommended, but social mobbing by unknown visitors ruined what should have been a very quiet year.
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I moved to a new state during the pandemic and started a new job. My new location is practically surrounded by water so after moving I really wanted to get (back) into paddling. (I had owned a kayak in the past, but the last place I lived before moving was urban – no car, no parking, no storage … so no kayak … I did rent them though.)
The move was great, but it was tough to sever all my social connections at a time when it was impossible to establish new ones. I just took some kayak skills classes this summer. Besides brushing up on kayak skills, it was a big deal just to have the opportunity to interact with people in a non-work setting, something I pretty much haven’t been able to do since pre-pandemic. (I live alone. But I have been working in person … Fortunately, or the total isolation would have killed me.)
I haven’t personally noticed more people becoming interested in outdoor activities (but it must be true with all the shortages in outdoor gear!) In fact it seems to be the opposite with a lot of people. Many I know have developed a preference for a very limited life, like maybe they’ve become too comfortable with staying indoors with their electronic devices, never seeing anyone outside their household, and never trying anything new. I think this tendency is going to last longer than the pandemic.
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That’s a great idea - not sure why we never thought of that - duh! Personally I’m not big on after paddle beverages, but that sounds nice.
My local club either - we have been virtual for two years now. Most people find it more convienient, so I don’t know if we will ever go back to in person meetings.
I haven’t noticed it so much on the water, but the hiking trails are backed, so are the parking lots - still. We started paddling early to avoid the crowds.