SirBillybob

There will always be a way to drive in. I marked a little red x on the bridge (Hy 40) that is closed. Alternate highway configurations to other bridges to the island will just take longer due to congestion and/or more circuitous routes. It is premature to determine the future of the closed bridge (that will likely soon open a lane each way). Suffice to say it is making commuters livid. Parenthetically, VIA Rail crosses on the bridge (Hy 20) just a bit south and parallel to 40. South of that again is Hy 30 that eases around to the south shore and is another route typically taken from the west when the 40 bridge is out; its tolls are waived for now due to the disruption.

I was getting antibody-tested periodically, then this scolding. Often many sides to a question. Still, though, I’d be inclined to sero-sort a hire, even offer to pay the fee for IgG-inclusive assay because it is uninsured where I live. https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/617981/

And that thing was a M4M org... https://g.co/kgs/ZUjC9Y

I am not too familiar with OF, just joined a few times to briefly gawk at posts. There is a private webcam component that former strippers would utilize to replace trekking to work at the strip clubs?

Yes, there are flights to and from USA and elsewhere. It’s one of the main ways to import more contagious immunity-defiant coronavirus variants. Canadians can use them. If you are bored and have nothing better to do, check out Montreal’s airport (Pierre Elliot Trudeau Int’l) or Toronto’s airport (Lester B Pearson Int’l) to see arrivals/departures. Obviously a lot less volume than pre-pandemic.

Yes, first time. A few of the local strippers, deprived of club-based income, have been branching out into porn or escorting, onlyfans, etc. The two categories are beginning to cross-pollinate. One of MD’s latest Men projects includes two other strippers, one of whom also advertises. These streams of income may become progressively ‘normalized’ as sometimes there is less stigma with numbers involved and with shared accounts of the cash to be made ... “you can get in on this, too”. It also enables the necessary financial support to maintain a fitness lifestyle, keeping in shape in the event club stripping reactivates.

I’d have suggested an ‘entire place’ model. It seems that is the plan. I didn’t catch any posts in this thread about the ‘guest reviews’. One poor review posted on the Airbnb site really deflates the ranking. Yet ratings tend to be biased upwards already, not reflective of a typical bell curve such as Intelligence Quotient. 3 should be solid average but searchers snub places rated at average 3. A room in a shared dwelling would be more vulnerable to a low rating because the user, provider or client, not wanting to be a regular guest or otherwise unhappy with the third-party transactional experience would be likely to give a low rating even if the physical space were ideal, and the host would not want to provide a defensive response to the review. Lastly, though, a room is less subject to local and building bylaws regarding short-term rentals of ‘entire place’. I think that the pandemic and concerns of contagion, etc, swung the co-owner vote in my building to alter the declaration so that Airbnb and similar platforms are now prohibited.

I think that if Bar Stock had anticipated the duration of lockdown and the loss of livestream revenue they might have initiated an Onlyfans site for the establishment. As far as Instagram goes, most of the dancers have personal accounts, some private some not.

He’s on a Sun holiday south, out of the country at the moment, but I expect that he will likely be back and reactivate his ad. Oh, if I only lived in NYC or could travel.

I thought they might be in hotel room quarantine and trying to get an even tan. Bel Ami might have at least sprung for a balcony meeting standards of distancing from other terraces.

I agree. Travel if you must, but be aware of all the rapidly moving parts and what is occurring locally. Probably plan close to departure. But, by all means, postpone if you can tolerate the deprivation. Background case incidence is everything in terms of infection risk, notwithstanding inoculation. Right now being vaccinated in Michigan and New Jersey is not much better than pre-vaccination risk in California, Mississippi, Kansas, Arkansas, Oklahoma, and a few other areas ... outside of case severity. If one’s local exposure risk equivalizes to actual destination risk metrics, and behavioural risk is held constant when visiting elsewhere, travel may be more legit.

Medellín’s health care system is collapsing and out of ICU beds. It is among the municipalities in Colombia that are progressively adopting the cedula rotation for essential service use, that is, identity card number dictates days of the week permitted for shopping ... hotels and restaurants so far are exempt. I have no idea whether tourists can just waltz in to grocery stores, pharmacies, etc without a hassle. It’s one thing to wait in line due to reduced capacity, another to rely on the randomness of your social security number. Why anybody not a crisis-theme journalist would want to currently visit Brazil or Colombia for tourism prior to widespread community CoV immunity is beyond me when, for example, a place such as Dominican Republic is much less affected and is very focused and bent on integrating the tourism economy into its pandemic containment strategy, with local adherence motivation also somewhat more heavily tied to gainful employment renewal. Chacun son goût.

I used to look at Statista’s metrics and they are fine. But now for specific countries I like Reuters COVID-19 tracker in many ways because so many variables are displayed on one page at a glance and you can get a sense of vaccination’s effects on case incidence without leaving the page to scroll elsewhere. I also like Divoc-91 for world or specifically for USA states because you can order up the variables for the graphs in many configurations; it has added vaccination uptake to the mix, for USA anyway ... currently New Mexico the most, Alabama the least. With J&J given now, one has to consider more now the distinction between doses administered and ‘full vaccination’. And I tend to look for reproduction predictions at Epiforecasts. The thing is, there are countless sites sourcing much the same information. Anyhow, circling back to Switzerland, as the topic is Zürich, I was quoting full vaccination so that it is half the metric used for doses administered. There is inconsistency among nations, even sub-regions in holding back the 2nd dose, where applicable, as well as how countries and metrics sites define inoculation. The gap will progressively close. Some delineate the 2nd dose representation as between 100% and 200% for 2-dose products.

Looks like that acceleration will benefit the Swiss as well, with at least a single dose per capita by August. How much longer a spa-type business can survive on whatever limited government aid is available is another question. I don’t think the payroll is huge, assuming the furloughed staff may be receiving unemployment benefits, but the lease costs must be high. Unlike some other businesses with social media, Paragonya has signaled its temp closure but not added a reassuring ‘will see you soon’ message. Some small businesses will not have been too interested in undertaking loans that may have been required to make up the difference from what is offered through the largesse of whatever possible grants have been funded. On a positive note for commercial sex workers in Switzerland, at least applicable for women if not so relevant for Paragonya escorts (as I do not think they or the venue are licensed as required) ... payment for services is now legally protected and not left simply as an issue between provider and client. The client that refuses payment can be charged and convicted of fraud.

Whether you look at the vaccination trajectory over the past 3 months or past week, Switzerland is a year away from 80% COVID immunity. Currently there is a 10% chance at any time at Zürich’s Paragonya (temporarily closed, of course) that there would be at least one contagious carrier among merely 15 occupants. That is not to say that as vaccination uptake progresses and is inversely related to new case incidence, Paragonya won’t open sooner.

In terms of practical disruptions, watch for spontaneous flash quarantines. For example, Bogotá just announced a very strict stay-at-home edict for 3 days this coming weekend. So if you had arrived for a 10-day visit recently you’d have been subject to it yet not likely have been aware of it prior to departure. Seems somewhat a compensation for Easter laxity. Often the best way to stay up to speed is to follow city hall accounts for municipalities on Instagram ... for Medellín it is ‘alcadiademed’. At this point, the reproduction number is lower compared to the capital district but things can change quickly. Surges often follow relaxation of measures. As far as SARS-CoV-2 infection exposure risk, I have an algorithm that adjusts for your mRNA-1273 vaccination efficacy, state (ie, Antioquia) rolling case incidence, and cumulative regional immunity estimate. If you tell me approximately how many individuals you plan to interact with closely (ie, a good chance of exposure based on, for example, intimacy that you would have likely avoided pre-vaccination) I CAN ESTIMATE the probability at least one of the individuals within the arbitrary quantity of persons is contagious and could transmit to you a breakthrough infection in spite of your vaccination status. Similarly/alternatively if you identify your exact exposure risk tolerance (0-100% range) for breakthrough infection during the trip I can estimate the upper limit of number of people with whom you can interact to maintain that level of risk. The P1 Amazonas variant may proliferate more by the time of your trip and there are distinctive emerging variants in Colombia alone that share elements of the more predominant and worrisome mutations referenced in the news. The implications are greater contagion and more likelihood of re-infection in spite of natural immunity to original wild-type, as well as antibody escape potential for those inoculated. Thus far, it is possible if not probable that mRNA-1273 would protect from serious illness viz the variants but might scupper any needed negative viral test requirements to get back home. My personal take, having held together for 13 months and counting, is that waiting patiently for high levels of vaccination both where I live and my travel destination(s) is the better course of action. That said, the near future may offer a window for travel to certain regions that begins to slide closed if the spectre of immunity-escape variants worsens and vaccination protective coverage does not keep pace. A tough call to make.

It is incontrovertible that vaccination reduces the probability of transmission to another person. That is good news. The study design could not realistically stratify the source of infection. The reduction was about 30% and was theoretically doubled to 60% in favour of the 2:1 ratio of cases pre-vaccination among household members of healthcare workers against households without healthcare workers. The results are encouraging but leave a margin to infer less than 100% secondary protection. Such a supposition is no more a breach of rigour than the study’s extrapolation of breadth of estimated risk reduction adjusted for extant findings not integrated into the methodology. It also coheres with the admonishment to exercise caution regarding a pronunciation of finality in transmission impossibility. Presence of evidence is presence of evidence. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. The important thing is to try to acquire an impression of personal risk and behave accordingly with self-determination ... you know, that important prong of bioethics that values autonomy over ‘me doctor, you lesser life form posturing’? I want nothing more than that those that assert transmission post-vaxx impossibility have an opinion consistent with what unfolds, to the extent we can ever know with certainty. I am open to whatever direction. But no prediction will directly determine the outcome unless your head lives in a magical world. “We just don’t know” is better aligned with the ‘do no harm’ value.

The lung transplant is an interesting question. How many of us have living will directives that would contain that degree of specificity? If I were to be precipitously struck with the same scenario as GuyF it would likely not occur to my substitute decision-maker(s) to investigate lung replacement, though I have specified in my advance directives some general references to coma duration endpoint and judgement of futility, etc. Are ICU’s covering off, initiating, transplantation option considerations in consultation with surrogate decision-makers? I suspect not, given the volume of acutely ill COVID patients, and the appointed person would likely have to assertively come at it with the notion that everything short of cryogenics is on the table.

A recent Scottish study of a large cohort of healthcare workers has found that vaccination reduces transmission to household members, but that secondary prevention cannot be considered totalistic. Naturally, household members may be infected elsewhere, but there are data that quantify the relative risk of infection among household members of healthcare workers compared to households without healthcare workers. When adjusting the analysis for this confounder, that is, doubling the hazards ratio reduction by the approximately same magnitude two-fold degree to which household members of health workers exceed the comparator infection rates, the overall rate of infection among household members suggested a residual degree of infection cases that would not easily be exclusively attributable to contracting CoV from somebody other than the co-habiting healthcare worker. Of course another point not lost here is the occurrence of breakthrough infection among fully vaccinated healthcare workers. We need our healthcare workers and cannot quarantine them in bubbles with household members for weeks at a time in large enough numbers for inferential statistics sample power to truly tease out transmission vector directionality and exclusivity. This holds true for all strata. The vaccinated person has to be exposed to infection in order to transmit it, preventing the bubble. While that is happening, their close contacts are similarly exposed to the caprice of other sources of infection unless also solo-quarantined. The authors stressed the optimistic aspects of the results. More research is needed to advance knowledge about transmission potential by the vaccinated. Ironically, with inoculation uptake eventually as complete as possible, the answer becomes progressively more elusive, and that is a good thing. I believe that the erring on side of caution is a driver for investigating complementary mucosal (ie, nasal) vaccines to add to the armamentarium of systemic inoculation. At the very least, I won’t be canoodling without all parties IM-vaccinated, in a context of rolling case incidence that further diminishes exposure probability adjusted for contagion period and ascertainment bias corrected for estimated true prevalence.

A model shoot magazine recently stated Philippe Soulier was Paris-borne, but anything goes regarding this kind of info. It seems that he likely had some connection to Spain as well. Stock Bar Philippe is Québecois. Tall, pretty, blue eyes but not ruddy/blonde. He really did a number on himself. He was back at Stock a bit about 15 months ago but ‘roided out, barely recognizable compared to his earlier perfect (my opinion) self. Lately he hinted on his new sparse social media at being sick (metabolically?). He is advertising commercial sex work on a typical site but looks a mess.

It may be one, possibility two depending on the categories satisfied, of three categorical options: inoculation immunity, natural immunity thru recovery post-exposure, negative CoV viral test. The leadership is not keen on the vaccination passport idea per se, but will likely follow suit with the other six G7 nations particularly for travel documentation.

Not trying to micromanage but a busy Social Worker with now an appointed decision-maker may not have time to keep @Cooper in the loop and neither the SW nor the appointee know all of our MO context. I would hope that the appointee, perhaps considered the liaison for other interested 3rd parties like Cooper, can be put in touch with each other. Otherwise, we might not be privy to the eventual outcome.

I know Montrealers 60+ bypassing the net and phone lines, walking in to inoculation centres and a staff person books their vaccination for early April. Spa Scandinave greenlit my membership reactivation, allowing the communal features starting next weekend. It’s beginning to feel a bit like a 4-leaf clover day.

Similar dynamics occur, ie families with equal but divided players, where no single person or aggregate had been officially assigned executive decision-making status. It just further underscores the fallout of not having made arrangements. Even with clear directives things can go kerflooey. I have related professional experience with the theme in palliative contexts. My siblings and I decided, in conjunction with consulting my mother, that sole discretion would not be mine in her eventual last days (age mid90s) ... that I would be a resource my siblings could draw on, but one of her children without the trumping potential of “credentials” would be formally and legally identified the go-to for health providers. This worked out really well and helped to symbolically and practically distribute the roles as an offspring unit in a balanced way. My thoughts ended up being sought. Interestingly, I also felt content and useful taking on the more housekeeping tasks following an elderly parental death (by this I mean lingerie drawer and Tupperware hoarding level) that usually get dumped on female family members.

AFAIK, Nevada may have two tiers of substitute decision-making, POA for medical care that can be assigned to anyone by the patient (or a court/ board/committee in the absence of an existing POA?) and “surrogate consent” for end-of-life decisions that is restricted to a relative (in logical succession order in the absence of a pre-appointed relative) and in consultation with attending. Obviously, “surrogate consent” can be assigned to anyone by the patient prior to the event thru the advanced directives route. I am not sure who is allowed to step up and request the decision role. It’s rather ambiguous. If there is a distinction the Social Worker would be able to clarify.