Closed again

[Sam Chavez]

Without starting all over at the beginning, It sounds incredible to propose cinemas are less susceptible to covid transmission than other indoor public venues. Perhaps butter oil has unattributed properties?

Patrons do have a little more social distance space than at basketball games, so there's that, but it's not zero risk.

Mostly I'm just pointing out that you sound like you're ranting.

[Bobby Henderson]

Bobby, nobody said it was impossible...there just hasn't been any verified cases. And definitely no super-spreader events traced to one...ANY ONE! Also note, it is not proper science to "prove a negative."

It's also not proper science to ignore key variables affecting movie theaters. First of all, commercial cinemas were among the very first mass-attendance businesses to be completely shut down in this pandemic. That made movie theaters a non-variable for months. Then they started re-opening slowly to dismal attendance figures due to lack of quality product. Anything halfway decent was being pushed immediately to home TV sets. By the time movie theaters sort of got back to normal community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 had been so widespread that any contact tracing specifically to movie theaters was impossible.

As for documented cases, the US government (as well as just about everyone else) has jack squat for reliable data on the locations where people were infected. The claim that no documented SARS-CoV-2 cases and no super spreader events have been traced to a movie theater really has no value. The claim would only be substantial and reliable if all the positive SARS-CoV-2 cases and their infection origins were accurately tracked. That has not been happening at all.

The CDC and others tried tracking cases a little in the beginning, made all sorts of errors, got overwhelmed and then gave up. One of the consequences of widespread community transmission is an infinite number of variables come in to play. Tracking something like a super spreader incident becomes impossible in that scenario. I had COVID-19 in December 2020. I have no idea where I got infected. And it wasn't like I was visiting a lot of different places either. When I got tested no one asked me where I had been. Several of my co-workers have tested positive recently. Same thing: no one asked about their comings and goings the previous days prior to getting infected. So, yeah, no one is tracing any Omicron cases to movie theaters because no one is making any effort to try tracking sources of infection.

The truth is no one honestly really knows how many people have contracted SARS-CoV-2 inside a commercial cinema.

[Lyle Romer]

It's also not proper science to ignore key variables affecting movie theaters. First of all, commercial cinemas were among the very first mass-attendance businesses to be completely shut down in this pandemic. That made movie theaters a non-variable for months. Then they started re-opening slowly to dismal attendance figures due to lack of quality product. Anything halfway decent was being pushed immediately to home TV sets. By the time movie theaters sort of got back to normal community transmission of SARS-CoV-2 had been so widespread that any contact tracing specifically to movie theaters was impossible.

As for documented cases, the US government (as well as just about everyone else) has jack squat for reliable data on the locations where people were infected. The claim that no documented SARS-CoV-2 cases and no super spreader events have been traced to a movie theater really has no value. The claim would only be substantial and reliable if all the positive SARS-CoV-2 cases and their infection origins were accurately tracked. That has not been happening at all.

The CDC and others tried tracking cases a little in the beginning, made all sorts of errors, got overwhelmed and then gave up. One of the consequences of widespread community transmission is an infinite number of variables come in to play. Tracking something like a super spreader incident becomes impossible in that scenario. I had COVID-19 in December 2020. I have no idea where I got infected. And it wasn't like I was visiting a lot of different places either. When I got tested no one asked me where I had been. Several of my co-workers have tested positive recently. Same thing: no one asked about their comings and goings the previous days prior to getting infected. So, yeah, no one is tracing any Omicron cases to movie theaters because no one is making any effort to try tracking sources of infection.

The truth is no one honestly really knows how many people have contracted SARS-CoV-2 inside a commercial cinema.

Just wondering since you had mentioned it in another thread, has your sense of smell (I think that was what you lost) recovered yet?

Agree that there is no way to possibly know where anybody got infected unless they never leave their home (in which case they had to be infected there) or were in a nursing home or hospital when they got infected.

The time period over which you could have been exposed makes it impossible to know. Maybe if they got people to detail everywhere they had been and when for the ten days prior to testing positive and then did some massive database analysis there would be a possibility of figuring out some points of spread, but likely not all.

[Steve Guttag]

There are more countries than the USA and some indeed did contact tracing...still no evidence that cinemas were spreaders.

Sam, you may consider my position to be ranting but I absolutely consider the fear of going to cinemas by sections of the population to be based on fear spreading and baseless claims. If cinemas where the same (or worse as the CDC and WHO claim), one would think it would be easy to prove so. That one study, based on the reporter a few posts up claimed a 57% likelihood of catching C19 at a cinema, if patrons were unmasked. 57%! Seriously, if you have some evidence, provide it. If you want to shut down an industry, you should be required to provide proof of the danger.

[Mike Blakesley]

Patrons do have a little more social distance space than at basketball games, so there's that, but it's not zero risk.

Most of the time, theaters are not crowded, even in non-pandemic times. Anyone who wants to avoid a crowded situation can easily do so. Basketball games have people crammed into bleachers, regularly jumping up and down and/or screaming/yelling/hollering at the action, compared to people sitting in well-spaced separate seats all facing the same directly and not talking in a theater.

[Bobby Henderson]

Just wondering since you had mentioned it in another thread, has your sense of smell (I think that was what you lost) recovered yet?

It has recovered, mostly. Some fragrances or odors still smell a bit off. The sense may never get back to 100%. I'm kind of wondering if the infection has impaired my sense of smell in the manner people suffer hearing damage from exposure to very loud noises. It doesn't take much to ruin one's ability to hear sounds in high frequency ranges like 20kHz.

I know other people whose loss of taste and smell senses has been more profound over the long term. At first glance losing the ability to smell doesn't seem all that bad. It might even seem oddly funny. The experience really sucks. I was eating blazing hot foods just to get some kind of sensation. Not being able to smell made me paranoid about house cleaning. I was hauling out the garbage and cleaning the bathroom more often since my sense of smell was no longer a reliable warning. That's not to say I'd wait til the trash can was stinking up the house before emptying it. But if you throw the wrong item in a trash bin, even when the bag is mostly empty, the odor can build thru the house quickly. Styrofoam packages for chicken breasts can be real bad if they're not rinsed off well before discarding. Walk in the front door after work and get blasted with stank! I worried about making the same mistake while not being able to smell anything. It would be pretty embarrassing for one's house to smell awful and not know it.

The time period over which you could have been exposed makes it impossible to know. Maybe if they got people to detail everywhere they had been and when for the ten days prior to testing positive and then did some massive database analysis there would be a possibility of figuring out some points of spread, but likely not all.

The biggest fallacy of all in hoping for accurate contact tracing is getting those who were infected to accurately remember the time line of all the places they visited the previous few days. Very few people superior autobiographical memory. Everyone else has varying degrees of fuzzy.

There are more countries than the USA and some indeed did contact tracing...still no evidence that cinemas were spreaders.

The only time contact tracing could have been valid was in the earliest stages of the pandemic. And even then the details were getting goofed. We had Keystone Cops style mistakes happening in the US. Then there was outright disinformation and obfuscation going on over in China, which is par for the course in any authoritarian regime.

Once SARS-CoV-2 spread hit community-wide levels of transmission (which didn't take very long) all bets were off for any hopes of accurate contact tracing.

In the same manner, I don't know where that "study" developed that "57%" claim about contracting COVID-19 in a cinema. Nobody really knows a specific percentage number on risk level. Certainly not anything that can be scientifically proven. And the risk is going to vary from one person to the next. Even two different people who are fully vaccinated and boosted aren't going to be equal in their lack of risk, not even if they're genetically identical twins. No two twins can make the same exact lifestyle choices and have the same exact outcomes. Two of my co-workers are identical twins. One has been battling MS for years. The other twin doesn't have MS.

Most of the time, theaters are not crowded, even in non-pandemic times. Anyone who wants to avoid a crowded situation can easily do so. Basketball games have people crammed into bleachers, regularly jumping up and down and/or screaming/yelling/hollering at the action, compared to people sitting in well-spaced separate seats all facing the same directly and not talking in a theater.

I've been to plenty of local sports events where crowds have varied between being very packed down to fairly pitiful. The same can even be said for church services. Lately attendance levels have dipped dramatically. None of these places, be it cinemas, restaurants, churches, stadiums, etc have consistent attendance levels, especially not now.

Edit: one important point I forgot to mention earlier. Even if audience members or spectators in a cinema, high school gym or church sanctuary are fairly low the people in attendance often tend to clump together in groups. In the case of cinemas audience members gravitate to key spots in the auditorium. Some choose the sweet spot near the center to get a better surround sound balance while others may prefer to sit in the highest rows near the back of the auditorium. This is easy to see on seating charts in theaters that have online advanced sales of reserved seating. In the early days of the pandemic and when theaters first re-opened many cinemas were blocking out seats to prevent people from sitting in groups. Here in Lawton they weren't letting more than 2 people sit next to each other. Today many cinemas are not limiting any seat sales at all. Audience member can gravitate to whatever spots in the auditorium they prefer.

[Mike Blakesley]

None of these places, be it cinemas, restaurants, churches, stadiums, etc have consistent attendance levels, especially not now.

I never said they did. I said a person could avoid a large-crowd situation easily in a cinema. For example, you can go to a late show on a Tuesday -- likely it will be sparsely attended. Even if you do show up and find the place crowded, with a cinema there is always another show coming up and you can come back another time if you're all that worried. And in most places, when the show is over, you can exit via someplace other than the main lobby if you want to.

Although if you're THAT worried you probably shouldn't venture out of the house at all, since people are touching and breathing on everything everywhere you go, especially in a city. At least around a small town it's easy to avoid close contact with anybody.

[Mark Lane]

We are located on Main Street along with other businesses.
At one time those other businesses where allowed to open but we were to close because we where dangerous.

The small community hardware store was allowed to open to sell all their products but Home Depot couldn’t sell much of what they stocked including paint.
The bar was allowed to open so people could get wings, a beer and watch reruns of sporting events on the bar TVs but I was told it was to dangerous for me to have customers eat popcorn, drink soda while watching an old movie.

We are 50 inches away from a church. The church would pack the place and it was okay. They rented the theater to hold services and could show movies, that was considered safe, but if I did it myself, it was dangerous.
How is it possible that the church can rent the theater to hold services and be safe, but my showing a movie in the same building is unsafe?
I asked for the science many many times, but that science was never presented.

[Frank Cox]

I think a lot of it just comes down to community responsibility.

If it's irresponsible to pack people into a church then it's equally irresponsible to pack people into a theatre or a nightclub.

Regulations can set minimum standards but it's up to responsible adults to decide if minimum compliance is sufficient.

For a while there were regulations that required minimum distancing between tables and "no mixing" in bars in Saskatchewan. A bar in Saskatoon installed what they called "redneck dance cubes":

dance-cub.jpg

They said that this would meet the standard for distancing but when the inspectors found up to four people "dancing" in each of those cubes so they were told to stop that.

There were (at that time) no regulations that specifically said that bars were not allowed to have "redneck dance cubes" so was that reasonable? In my opinion it was an irresponsible attempt to get around the regulations but, again, the regulations apparently didn't specifically disallow it.

If you see an old lady fall on the sidewalk, do you need a regulation to tell you that you should ask if she's ok and maybe help her get back on her feet? Or is it just being a good neighbour a sufficient reason to offer assistance?

[Steve Guttag]

There's a difference Frank. Seeing someone fall and checking on their status/calling for help, if need be is indeed just being a decent person. I reject the premise that reacting to C19 in a vaccinated world (where the site requires vaccination proof to enter) as if we're in an unvaccinated world is somehow being "responsible." Furthermore, I reject the notion that dying from C19 should be treated differently than dying from a multitude of other common risks people have assumed is low-enough as well (transportation to/from the venue, flu...etc.).

Don't get me wrong, you run your business as you see fit and I would think none-the-worse. But, I reject the reverse, that a business that would stay open, at this time, as being labeled irresponsible.

[Bobby Henderson]

COVID-19 is still more than just an ordinary disease or daily risk we take for granted, such as driving a vehicle on the highways. Over the past 24 months COVID-19 has averaged out as the 3rd most common cause of death after heart disease and cancer. It is still by far killing more people in the US (and most other parts of the world) than any other type of contagious disease.

Other highly publicized causes of death kill only a mere fraction of people compared to how many people are dying of COVID-19. Murder has seen a record-setting surge in the US over the past couple years, but the total number is still in the low 20,000's. COVID-19 is currently killing nearly 2000 Americans per day. If we had 2000 homicides happening per day I think the government would declare martial law. Over 45,000 Americans are committing suicide each year and that number is rising. 38,000 Americans died in car accidents in 2020. That number is up modestly from record low numbers in terms of vehicle miles traveled earlier in the 2010's. Vehicles are far safer now than in the past. Many safety improvements have been mandated into highway designs. Very often people get in fatal car accidents by making very bad or stupid choices.

Heart disease and cancer each kill over half a million Americans every year. But people aren't shocked or surprised by those deaths the way they are with something sudden like a fatal car accident or homicide. Very often deaths from heart disease and cancer are the culmination of many years worth of lifestyle choices.

The funny thing is COVID-19 deaths are now starting to fall into that not so shocking category. That's because the SARS-CoV-2 virus now poses a far more manageable risk -if one takes the proper steps to manage that risk. Now when someone dies of COVID-19 the first question out of most mouths is, "was he vaccinated?" I think it's pretty messed up to give Darwin Awards to ordinary people who didn't bother getting vaccinated and then died of COVID-19. However, when a public figure, such as a talk radio host or Internet "influencer" that broadcasted loads of anti-vax misinformation gets taken out by COVID it's hard not to feel like those people were asking for the Schadenfreude being directed at them after their deaths.

[Steve Guttag]

The realities are Bobby, if one is vaccinated, their risk due to C19 is indeed down at or below that of driving and the flu. The overwhelming majority of of those dying are the unvaccinated. There have been attempts to compel vaccination to avoid the needless "homicides." That hasn't worked. Where do you get 2K deaths a day? It doesn't add up. That would be 730,000 deaths/year. Even in 2020 with zero vaccines we were below that. Omicron moves fast and seems to be moving away from the coasts and is moving inland. So, i guess you are rounding up for the current spike.

As for the Darwin award thing. We have a funded vaccine provision that most every country wishes they had (every American can obtain a taxpayer funded vaccine that will significantly protect them from C19). Even if one is skeptical, what is undeniable, even for the poorly influenced is that those that are anti-C19 Vaxxers have to be able to see that their like minded people are either having a worse time with C19, including death. And that doesn't cause them to change their mind? While I don't want to jump on anyone's grave, I also have a significantly lower regard for someone that chose to ignore the obvious and hope other like-minded learn from it. And, if one believes in the science that the vaccinated not only lowers the risk of catching the virus but also transmitting it, then the ignorant are also increasing the risk, significantly, to their fellow Americans, vaccinated or not.

How many deaths/year are vaccinated people experiencing? The CDC and WHO should be publishing this data and comparing it to other daily risks.

[Bobby Henderson]

Where do you get 2K deaths a day? It doesn't add up.

On January 24 there were 2181 COVID-19 deaths reported. The current 7 day average is 2369 deaths per day. This current death rate has been covered on many news broadcasts lately. The stats are reported by the CDC, Johns Hopkins COVID-19 web site, NY Times, etc. BTW, I never said the US has been averaging 2000 deaths per day thru the entire pandemic. I said that 2000+ deaths per day is the current rate.

As of the morning of Jan 25 868,514 COVID-19 deaths have occurred in the US over the past 24 months. For averaging purposes, that's over 1100 deaths per day, which is still pretty damned bad.

As for the Darwin award thing. We have a funded vaccine provision that most every country wishes they had (every American can obtain a taxpayer funded vaccine that will significantly protect them from C19). Even if one is skeptical, what is undeniable, even for the poorly influenced is that those that are anti-C19 Vaxxers have to be able to see that their like minded people are either having a worse time with C19, including death. And that doesn't cause them to change their mind? While I don't want to jump on anyone's grave, I also have a significantly lower regard for someone that chose to ignore the obvious and hope other like-minded learn from it.

I agree with this somewhat. Here in the US we have effective SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and boosters that are freely and easily available. In many less rich places around the world the vaccines are far more difficult to acquire. Anyone in those countries desperate to get vaccinated may look at us and think we're a nation of douchebags. It's hard not to think of a deliberately unvaccinated American on his death bed from COVID-19 as a stupid fool.

Far more of my anger and disgust with this situation is reserved for various media figures for framing the anti-vax world-view of so many unvaccinated Americans. The talking heads who broadcast anti-vax misinformation are WHORES. They're broadcasting anger-pornography to attract viewers and make lots and lots of advertising money. Whores. And, really, I think calling them "whores" is perhaps an insult to actual prostitutes (or rather sex workers). I just can't think of a more fitting name to call those media personalities. The fact is those talking heads have lots of blood on their hands. They're one of the biggest reasons why this pandemic is still going strong in the US, wave after wave, rather than something that should have been in the rear-view mirror by now.

The world was already facing a serious uphill battle on trying to contain future SARS-CoV-2 variants. Logistically it is extremely difficult to vaccinate enough of the world's population to reach herd immunity even if everyone wants to be vaccinated. Thanks to the vaccines becoming a political football and grist for media personalities to churn into views and ad money we're needlessly worse off.

How many deaths/year are vaccinated people experiencing? The CDC and WHO should be publishing this data and comparing it to other daily risks.

The CDC (and others) are tracking numbers of COVID-19 deaths between vaccinated and unvaccinated people, as well as tracking deaths in various age groups and even tracking case/death instances between specific vaccines. There are online reports like this: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7104e2.htm
There is a lot of data to scroll through. But the gist of it can be seen at the graph near the bottom of the page. Around 90%-95% of COVID-19 deaths are occurring among the unvaccinated. Of the vaccinated people who are dying of COVID-19 I can't tell if they're tracking other co-morbidity risk factors in those deaths, such as advanced old age, obesity, heart disease, etc.

[Frank Cox]

I went to the post office this afternoon and on the way back I noticed a sign on the door of the insurance office next to the theatre: "No walk-ins allowed due to cases of Covid among our staff. Please phone this number for service."

[Bobby Henderson]

One of my friends had to take his wife to the ER yesterday for a problem that was not COVID-related. It turned out the sodium levels in her blood reached dangerously low levels. Doctors only saw her briefly. She needed to be admitted but they had no choice but to send her home because there was no space and too many other people in significantly worse shape.

The two hospitals here in Lawton have new record breaking levels of COVID-19 patients. ZERO hospital beds are available and lots of overflow of people in beds are lining the hallways. The ICU is beyond capacity; 100% of patients in the ICU have COVID-19. A small minority of these patients have received at least one vaccine dose. Hospital staff is even trying to treat people out in the damned lobby. Neither hospital is staffed or equipped to handle this kind of shit. They haven't cited a breakdown of these COVID hospitalizations, whether they're all Omicron cases or if some of this onslaught is left overs from Delta. The staggering number of people getting infected with Omicron has to be fueling a lot of these hospitalizations. The state's health department has been reporting very large numbers of confirmed cases every day. But for each case they're reporting there is bound to be multiple other cases not being reported, like people finding out they're COVID-positive via a home test. Even if a tiny percentage of people who get Omicron have serious issues the ratio and proportion of those cases is still swamping our hospitals. Topping it off, this morning on our local news there are reports of a possible new COVID variant being identified right here in Oklahoma. With the low rate of vaccination in our state I wouldn't be surprised if Okies helped birth a successor to Omicron.

Other medical situations, such heart attacks, strokes, trauma from accidents, drug overdoses, etc do not stop happening during a pandemic. Every one of those situations is now less survivable here in my town, thanks largely to the anti-vax block-heads totally clogging our hospitals again.