A modern day Oskar Schindler, this guy.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Just wanted you to know I appreciate your thread and post. I hear you! Your post above has been part of the reason I have felt depressed this past year. I have found it difficult to full-on train for a big race after many years of training and racing. The pandemic really changed things for me. I am extremely disappointed in our society for the blatant apathy towards so much death as a result of virus. Over a half million deaths in the USA alone like you pointed out. I wish I could have done more to help. I have followed all guidelines (masking, social distancing, only necessary trips from home). I am fully vaccinated now. But could I have done more to help? I was selfish too, sitting on my bike trainer doing intervals all winter.

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Death is easy....peaceful. Life is harder.

I get it. This is the secondary argument that has been cropping up on this forum recently. Still, we need to look at triathlon & running events holistically. Are the events, in total, associated with material transmission. After dozens of events, we are not seeing reports that they are. So, it is merely hypothesis without evidence so far. (I have a theory of why we are not seeing many reports, that per Trent's post, if we really get some objective post-mortem, I bet my theory proves true.)

Covid cases in SD were nearly non existent before august. By fall they had the highest positivity rate in the country. The contract tracing sturgis may not have found anything but the overall numbers aren’t good either.

i have to imagine mine will be closer to the following. so dad let me get this straight, we shut down the half of the economy, destroyed countless business, help foster countless cases of depression that inevitably led to many suicides, threw gasoline on a fire of an already way too screen dependent generation of children, demanded that healthy non at risk people stay home, created some of the worst unemployment, and ultimately caused massive inflation, all because if you were obese, diabetic, or had trouble breathing you might die from this disease? dad, why didnt those people just stay home if they didnt feel safe.

oh man you dont even want to know what i imagine our conversation will be like when i tell him about the vaccine and how people still didnt want to open the economy back up!

oscar.....classic

everybody got a turn of “doing it wrong”, irrespective of their policies. It’s why an honest post-mortem will be exceedingly fascinating.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Death by suicide actually dropped by 6% in 2020 as compared to 2019. Lowest number in the last five years. Even more so percentage wise as we have a larger population than five years ago.

Tragic and horrible still but we need to stop the baseless argument that people were offing themselves in record numbers last year.

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Favorite Gear: Dimond | Cadex | Desoto Sport | Hoka One One

And once you are done talking, he can head back to his job where he will pay a sky high tax rate because we have borrow an order of magnitude more money in 'stimulus' than COVID cost and left it for his generation to pay for.

Riverdaledad,
Believe it or not, some people can fit more than one thing into their day. They can actually manage to be an essential employee, homeschool their kids, and still head for a bike ride. I feel very confident that locking my kids in the house and not letting them socialize or be active was not the 'moral' thing to do.

Great point about Sturgis, and the big hoopla that was made about the mass gathering. Everyone focuses on the <100 cases that came out of the ~500k attendees from AUG 8-11. Rough estimate/back of napkin infection rate is 0.0002. Anyone know what the likelihood is to get Herpes, Aids, or other STDs.

Also, I don't think COVID is the worst thing that happened at Sturgis, or other large events where copious libations are consumed.

https://www.keloland.com/...m%20555%20in%202019.

I still find it a very hard stretch comparing at most 10,000 individuals (2000 attendees, 4 groupies with them) coming to an area for a race, as opposed to the much closer, prolonged contact at an event such as Sturgis.

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IG: NCGregory8778

I take the virus seriously here in Norcal but have been training (not racing) throughout.

I do think we're soon approaching the vaccination point where everyone (who wants to) is vaccinated and then we can reopen to full capacity soon afterwards. It's so close now that I'm 100% ok with just waiting the 1-2 more months it's anticipated to take, and do it right, rather than rush out prematurely.

I'm from CA so I obviously don't side with the red team on most issues, but I do think that there is real value in at least looking hard at results coming from states that have opened early and teasing out the real risks and spreading rates even if they populations and locales are different. I do suspect that CA and blue states, despite their best intentions, are likely going to lockdown outdoor racing longer than I think it should be, for example, well after the 'everyone who wants to is vaccinated' date. (I'm still ok with locking down close indoor activitiies for awhile until we're sure the superspreader events are no longer happening.)

Crossing my fingers that the big vaccine push will accelerate reopenings.

explain?

States with aggressive policing of mask policies don’t seem to fare any better (or worse) than those with a much more laissez faire attitude.

Even in Texas, there are areas of the state that are aggressively anti-mask and unlikely to social distance and others that are aggressively pro-mask and pro social distancing. Despite the differences in behavior, the infection rates don’t seem to show a significant difference.

I’m not anti mask. I’m not someone who believes they are a total waste. But there are ample anecdotes that suggest they aren’t as effective as we’ve been led to believe.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

This isn't true.

Jurisdictions that have 'elimination' strategies including closed borders, lockdowns, mandated quarantines, and robust contact tracing (i.e New Zealand, Australia. China, Atlantic Canada) have had a lot of success reducing outbreaks compared to jurisdictions using 'suppression' strategies ( most of the US and rest of Canada ). Where I live we have had 7 outbreaks which were beaten back down to 0 cases within a few weeks, using graded use of lockdown as well other elimination type srategies.

edited to fix typos

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Exactly what Trent said. There appears to be a low correlation between states with aggressive restrictions and their Covid outcomes. Needs more study, but it is looking like states that enacted tougher mandates ended up the same as those who did not. (The restrictions did appear to have short-term impacts, but they did not sustain differences over the longer term.)

It is true. You really cannot compare between nations, for many reasons, to understand the relationships between restrictions and outcomes. The cohorts must be similar across so many other variables (culturally, economically, mobility, governmentally, etc.) before you can single out the one variable you want to analyze.

I'm specifically addressing regions of the US. And despite extremely aggressive policies, aggressive travel restrictions and logistical benefits (it's an island and isn't congested), even New Zealand wasn't spared from new outbreaks.

I trust absolutely zero regarding China's data.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Not ironic.

Authority: am British.

 
you are confounding variables. the mask question is about the extent to which it reduces transmission meaningfully in some class of setting.

so far as i am aware, the data says yes.

You're using 'irony' incorrectly. It shouldn't bother me, but it does. It would be ironic if Intermountain released a statement cutting ties with any companies that are opening before the end of the pandemic, and then the sponsored race wound up being a super-spreader event. The situation you're describing is more 'hypocritical' or 'selfish.'

OK, now that I've gotten that off my chest, I completely agree with your sentiment. The decision by Intermountain is disrespectful.

No it isn't true. No US state has implemented an elimination strategy. And trent is comparing between states of the US not nations anyway. I just gave examples of success in places that have elimination strategies.

Places with elimination strategies have had outbreaks related to travel, but have been able to contain each outbreak and reduce cases to 0.

Edited to add- if you want to compare regions within the same country- look at Canada. In the 4 provinces of Atlantic Canada which all have elimination strategies there have been outbreaks related to travel, but each so far been reduced to 0 cases. The rest of Canada which uses supression strategies has seen increasing cases and an inability to stay ahead of the pandemic, like the US.

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How about having proof of vaccination to participate?

I don't think I am. There's no question wearing a mask reduces the projection caused by an exhale. Two masks reduces it further so. And pouring concrete around your head even more so than that.

The question is whether the policy and behavior actually results in benefits that justify the effort. Anecdotally, I can drive up 287 and in a few hundred miles arrive in counties here in Texas where nobody wears a mask. Not in a store. Not in a restaurant. And not at sporting events. In fact, they've been in school, playing sports, filling gymnasiums shoulder-to-shoulder, and living life in a fairly normal fashion for several months.

Meanwhile, here in the DFW area the culture of masks and social distancing is 180 degrees different. Even now that the mandate has been lifted, virtually every store and workplace and restaurant is behaving as if they are still on high alert. Everyone wears a mask. Everyone distances. I went to a local store yesterday to shop for an office chair and had to get my temperature taken, had to sanitize my hands (despite the CDC recently revealing surface-to-surface transmission doesn't happen), had to fill out a questionnaire regarding my current health, and had to sign a waiver. And I did all that even though I'm vaccinated and was wearing a mask.

And despite drastic behavioral differences between DFW and elsewhere, everyone seems to fare about the same. If there is a difference, it's extremely difficult to discern.

So that prompts the question - does wearing a mask and going to restaurants and living life normally really put one at an unmanageable risk level? I think there's enough evidence to justify my skepticism.

At every step, I've been assured certain mass death was right around the corner:

• When restaurants and stores were opened to limited capacity last Spring, I was told our politicians were stupid, selfish, evil, and sending people to their deaths. That was incorrect.
• When schools were opening here last fall, I was told we were "sentencing our teachers to death". That was incorrect. Some recommended teachers protest en masse because of the risk they face.
• When schools and colleges started playing sports and allowing fans, I was told it was incredibly dangerous and going to result in mass deaths. That was incorrect.
• When Texas eliminated the mask mandate and opened businesses, I was told it was like fumbling the ball at the 1-yard-line and it was stupid, irresponsible, and going to result in mass deaths. That was incorrect.

That is not to say there is no danger. That is not to say that some measure of caution isn't justified. But I'm done listening to the Chicken Littles and I don't believe there is much evidence to justify their level of panic. And that's why most of them don't cite any evidence anymore, they just emote and virtue signal (like the OP has done throughout this thread). The push for continued lockdown and restriction has become fetish.

I believe people can make their own choices and balance cost and benefit however suits them. And to hell with those who can't help themselves but try to bully and cancel and shame those who make different choices.

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

Trent said "lockdown policies seem to generally have little regional impact." He later clarified that he was speaking to differences between states in the US. This is looking like it is true within the US.

You are adding stuff to Trent's original statement in the term "elimination strategies" and by comparing other countries (that are generally not statistically valid comparisons). Your revision is different from his statement.

thats because there have been no lockdown policies in any US states.

No closed borders, no mandated quarantines, no other elimination strategies.

So the comparison is between states which are using different levels of attempted suppression which we know does not work. So a better statement would be little or no regional impact of differing levels of suppression.

In Canada- lockdown/elimination has absolutely been shown to have a profound impact on a regional level, and even within regions on a community by community level if you want to look at the province where I live.

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Pretty sure that's precisely what I said:

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Trent Nix
Owned and operated Tri Shop
F.I.S.T. Advanced Certified Fitter | Retul Master Certified Fitter (back when those were things)

This has always been something that has irked me, when people around me (in the USA) use the term "lockdown" as if they are in one, or have been in one. I agree with this comment one million percent.