Coronavirus

[Aesculus gilmus]

Maybe the UIL can finally suspend its rule about not televising high school football games on Fridays.

With YouTube and other streaming services (well, it would have to be through NFHS Network at this point), all games can easily be livestreamed. Otherwise, no one is going to be able to see the games live other than the few close relatives who have obtained "disease-free" passes for entry.

[Tejastrue]

I hope everyone and their families are doing well. Stay strong folks!

[slingshot]

All I can say the 'resident Downlow primary care doctor' (part time since Wylie moved up to 5A... ) is this:

PLEASE TAKE THIS SERIOUSLY FOLKS!!! The disease is real, it can be deadly, we don't have enough tests to check for it, we don't have any proven medications to treat it and we don't have a vaccine to prevent it. To those who say that it's not any worse than the flu? WRONG. It is 3x as contagious as the flu, 5-20x the mortality rate as the flu and we have no partial ('herd') immunity to it.
Follow the guidelines. It is a virus (which means it is an obligate intracellular parasite), it can't reproduce or spread on it's own--it has to have us a host. By staying away from each other and practicing good hygiene we can smother the virus and stop it's spread.

[jason]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Njjy...Po4AgNWlEthIws

This is a good watch. Makes you think what information officials want us to know and what they don't.
This thing has been around since before Christmas and eventually we have to decide to open things back up. At some point, people are going to have to take some personal responsibility to protect themselves because we can't keep sacrificing the economy for such a small percentage of vulnerable persons.

[slingshot]

Be careful who you listen to. The guy is a PhD--not a physician. He is right (partially) about people dying from an overwhelming immune response to the virus. What he conveniently left out is that this happens because it is a NOVEL virus--one that our immune systems have not seen before and do not know how to respond to, so in some cases it just 'fires everything'. This can lead to an overwhelming inflammatory response and eventually ARDS. If that happens you have about a 50% chance of death.
I too am worried about the economic damage being done by the shutdown and social distancing. Navigating this is like walking a high wire--open things up and 10's of millions get the disease and hundreds of thousands (or more) die, clamp things down and you put the country into an economic depression (not recession) the likes of which has not been seen in this country since the 1930's.
A common sense approach that takes into account local conditions and emphasizes wide spread testing and contact tracing of positive cases to isolate them and their contacts while opening up the economy in phases is the only reasonable way forward. Unfortunately this will not be popular or politically palatable so I have serious doubts it will be implemented...

[Matthew328]

I think the chances of this happening are a lot greater now that it was say a month ago when this first ramped up.....in my non-expert opinion we need to keep this current state of staying home until the end of May, which will continue to mitigate the cases to a more manageable level if the models are close to accurate...once we slowly open up have concise and planned response to localized outbreaks which include robust and rapid testing, contact tracing and quarantine of those who have been exposed to cases.

[Saggy Aggie]

Never would’ve imagined something like this in my lifetime. It’s still surreal when I sit here and think about everything that’s going on

[Scoop27]

I agree Saggy-Sometimes it's hard to comprehend that this is really happening. My anxiety level has been sky high over the past three weeks. I don't things will ever be the same.

[waterboy]

Us older folk worry about it a whole lot more than other folk. There's so many people getting laid off, having to live off less money than they are used to having, not to mention losing their health care benefits. I'm praying that this pandemic has at least begun to peak, and that they find the right medicines to treat those afflicted, and for a vaccine for the rest of us. Sad and worrisome times indeed.

[Necked]

If nothing else I hope this will help end our reliance on foreign countries for so much of what we depend on. But I foresee that we will soon forget about it after this blows over & cheap labor wins the day...

[jason]

At some point things will have to open and it will come down to some self accountability. You don't want to go out, or go to work, fine, stay home. But your decision to not work shouldn't effect my decision to work. It's like anything else - you have to weigh the risk vs the reward and eventually, protecting the minority at the expense of the majority isn't going to fly anymore.

[Scoop27]

I think it would be a tough job for me (Writing sports for a newspaper) now. I would be scrambling to find stories to publish in two papers a week. But I have the initiative to come up with something. If the writers at the Victoria Advocate, Sealy News, Brazosport Facts and Corpus Christi Caller Times to name a few, I can do it.
I had good relationships with coaches for interviews and to story ideas.

[waterboy]

At some point things will have to open and it will come down to some self accountability. You don't want to go out, or go to work, fine, stay home. But your decision to not work shouldn't effect my decision to work. It's like anything else - you have to weigh the risk vs the reward and eventually, protecting the minority at the expense of the majority isn't going to fly anymore.

I agree. The thing is though, most of the people not working didn't have that choice. As Ben Franklin said, "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

[Saggy Aggie]

Now Saudi is in an oil price war with Russia. Gonna be a rough year. Buckle up

Oil market really starting to feel the effects. June futures for west Texas crude in the single digits.... ouch...

[slingshot]

Oil market really starting to feel the effects. June futures for west Texas crude in the single digits.... ouch...

Supply/Demand...