keroscenefire

Yeah it's hard. I had a regular contact me recently who travels down from Montana. He said he has also been on hiatus and mostly self-isolating in his fairly rural home since March so he likely is pretty safe. So I was tempted. I ultimately said that Denver is still a bit too hot right now and I'd like to wait til in calms down a bit more. I think it's possible that he didn't get enough clients because he ultimately decided to wait until Memorial day before coming down. If he contacts me again then...it may happen. Really have to see how the local situation is here before I make any decisions.

Honestly, maybe never. Some are saying COVID could become a seasonal illness. And some are saying that even with a vaccine, the antibodies from it could only last a year or so. This very well could become like the flu, something you might not get every year but definitely always around. But I am also hopeful that a strong vaccine program and herd immunity could nearly eliminate it or better treatments mean many fewer will be at risk of dying from this. Viruses are unpredictable..sometimes they fade away on their own, sometimes they rage on for centuries.

Probably not lifelong...based on other coronaviruses, immunity will probably last a year, maybe two. Even some of the top scientists working on the vaccine believe it may need to be a yearly or biennial vaccine to keep the immunity going.

There actually has been some recent analysis that suggests hospitals should use ventilators less for COVID-19 patients even those with hypoxia (low-oxygen in tissues and blood). For some reason, many COVID-19 patients are able to handle some hypoxia much more than patients with other forms of pneumonia. Intubating patients causes inflammation, poor reactions to sedatives and can even cause damage and death in some cases. They are finding that simply providing oxygen through nose-prongs and supporting breathing through body positioning and other techniques might be the better course of treatment for many patients. Keep the ventilators to only the ones with dangerously low oxygen levels and those obviously struggling to breath.

There actually has been some recent analysis that suggests hospitals should use ventilators less for COVID-19 patients even those with hypoxia (low-oxygen in tissues and blood). For some reason, many COVID-19 patients are able to handle some hypoxia much more than patients with other forms of pneumonia. Intubating patients causes inflammation, poor reactions to sedatives and can even cause damage and death in some cases. They are finding that simply providing oxygen through nose-prongs and supporting breathing through body positioning and other techniques might be the better course of treatment for many patients. Keep the ventilators to only the ones with dangerously low oxygen levels and those obviously struggling to breath.

I think the restaurant case is interesting too because on average these diners at the tables with infections were eating with each other for an hour or longer. A lot of the places where we see outbreaks: Nursing homes, churches, cruise ships, jails, meatpacking plants, etc., have both close contact and long periods of time with contact. Short, passing contact with an infected individual is likely a lower-risk for infection than a longer time especially in areas with poor ventilation or when the ventilation brings the virus to you.

We have to realize there is no such thing as no risk when it comes to sex. Anyone who at the height of the HIV epidemic who said, "I'm not going to have sex again until there is no risk that I will contract this disease," would still be celibate today. Even if we have a stable partner, you are still trusting him to be monogamous to you, which is no guarantee. In the case of COVID, it's even more true. So all we can do it try to assess the risk the best we can and decide when we feel comfortable with putting ourselves out there again. In my opinion, the risk is fairly low if there is A)solid testing b) low COVID-transmission for the last 2 weeks in your community C) you meet with someone who is fairly low risk and trusted (no random hook ups, hasn't travelled recently, and hasn't been in any larger groups). Obviously it'll be best when there is a vaccine, but we don't know when that will be. Even if there is, some scientists have been saying it could be more like flu vaccines where it only offers immunity for a year or so and you will have to get revaccinated or risk reinfection. This is going to be with us for a while....hopefully our celibacy won't have to be.

Like maybe if you lived in a place like New Zealand or South Korea where the number of new cases has been very low (single or low double digits) for at least a couple of weeks. Those places have a very very small rate of local transmission currently and if your FB was someone who had been working from home and otherwise is low-risk (no recent travel), it might be okay. These countries also have high rates of testing so I think they have a good idea of what is happening in their country. But I don't think that is anywhere in the US or Europe currently and probably won't be for a long time. Keep your dick in your pants and out of the mouths of anyone for the time being.

Thanks...I was thinking it was something around that. This is why I don't teach math..haha. Hopefully things stay well with you.

Sorry to hear about your paycuts gentlemen. Hopefully it won't last long. We just got word that we will have to do unpaid furlough days next year...one a month. Not sure exactly what that means in percent less pay, but I think it's a couple percentages off. Annoyingly, they are mostly just taking formerly paid holidays and turning them into unpaid furlough days so I don't really get many more days off work. But I understand why they need to do this and am grateful that I still have a job as well.

I work for a school district and while I believe I should have a job for at least the next school year, after that I am not so sure. The district is already projecting a $30-60 million dollar deficit for the next school year and while they said they can use their "rainy-day fund" and do things like hiring freezes, they may only be able to staunch the bleeding for a while. I don't want to be too political, but this is why it's really important that the federal government help state and local governments during this time. Local governments usually don't have job losses immediately after an economic crisis, but develop them a year or two later once tax revenues plummet. The exact same thing happened in 2010 as millions of people lost their state and local jobs causing the recession to go on for even longer. Hopefully we don't make the same mistake again.

I think the WHO is cautioning that we don't know enough about COVID-19 to say whether reinfection is possible. They also are a bit skeptical of the antibody tests that are currently out because many have pretty high error rates. But actually I think a lot of scientists are saying reinfection is probably unlikely at least for most who have recovered and for a certain amount of time. This Vox explainer I thought did a good job of laying it out. I think as we start to understand more about COVID-19, we will have better antibody tests and a better understanding about how they protect against the virus. I feel like we're kinda in the early ages of when HIV first broke out, but maybe in a better position because COVID-19 effects everyone, not just those at the margins of society that can easily be ignored like gay men and drug users.

Do you think you're going to wait to start up again until you get sick and develop antibodies? Or is that part of the decision maybe?

Denver has a few hour glasses as well. Though interestingly two guys who had them previously took them off. In some ways I am kinda surprised, while cases have "plateaued" here, they haven't really gone down and have only started to build our testing capacity. Denver and its suburbs just expanded shelter-at-home orders until May 8th, which I think is a great idea (they were originally going to expire at the end of the month).

I came down with a pretty bad illness in March that even my primary care physician suspected was COVID. Unfortunately they weren't testing then unless you basically were in the hospital with critical symptoms. They just started doing antibody testing at one site in Denver for $100 a pop. Unfortunately, they already booked up the appointments for the next two weeks before I could get one. I definitely would like to see if I was exposed and possibly have some level of immunity to the illness.

And of course with hiring (or having sex at all really) there is also no such thing as "no risk." I once got gonorrhea from an escort, who called me a week after our session to let me know about his own positive test (He's one of the guys I would hire again). In some ways, a COVID test isn't very different from an HIV test. Someone could still test as "negative" or possibly even having antibodies, but there is no guarantee that they haven't caught something more recently. But yeah I agree that we need to follow the science and hopefully with more testing, we'll have more of an understanding so we can make more informed choices.

I hear you on the trustworthy provider. When I hire again, it will definitely be with a trusted regular (probably one of two guys), who I know genuinely would not want anything to bad to happen to me and vice versa. Of course, you could still unintentially infect someone, but with these guys I know they would be honest if they had gotten antibody tests, etc. Some new guy (or a guy who is kind of sketchy) who knows.

I know most of us are currently taking a hiatus from hiring in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. Just curious about when you will consider hiring again? For me, I am not sure I would wait for the vaccine as that could be a year or more away. But I might meet up again once it looks like there is a very low transmission rate happening in my community and there is a lot more testing happening so we know it's real. Still feel like that is a while away too. When would you consider contacting your regulars again?

I'm definitely starting took more and more like early 60s Beatles. I can probably wait another month or so..we'll see. Might do the clippers thing too, though if I do, it'll be a straight buzz cut.

A lot of them came back this week. Denver is back up to its usual 3 pages of ads, though the last page is a bit shorter than usual. Several people who paused or deleted their ads, put them back on and we have a few travelers coming through optimistically in May. Denver usually has about a third of its ads as traveling escorts, so the drop off was definitely due in part from less traveling guys. What is it looking like in your cities? Staying the same? More ads?

I've actually seen "Covid" specials on a few different ads. Don't think the discount is worth the risk, IMO.

It's interesting how the death rates have played out. I think it's partially about the healthcare of the country (number of hospitals, ICU beds, ventilators, etc. per capita) and partially about the health and lifestyle of the people. Italy for example has a pretty old population (45 years old on average), and a lot of families of different generations live together so maybe a younger asymptomatic son is giving it to his older parent or even grandparent who has a lot harder time with the disease. Italy and Spain also have lower numbers of ICU beds per capita than many other countries that have lower mortality rates like Germany, Japan and South Korea. I also think in the long run we'll find that COVID-19 is not as deadly just because there is so little testing going on in many countries. In the US, you basically have to be directly exposed to someone with COVID or you have to be admitted to a hospital with severe symptoms. There are likely thousands of people who have had symptoms but couldn't get a test because there are so few available. Maybe even tens of thousands more who don't have symptoms at all but would still test positive for the virus. I think I read that in China they aren't counting people who are asymptomatic even when they do test positive for COVID. There is a bit of skewing in these statistics I think towards the more severe cases getting tested and then because they are already severely ill, they are more likely to die as well.

I've done a couple of "social distancing walks" with friends. There are some nice large parks in my neighborhood with pretty wide grassy meadows where we can spread out six-feet and still talk while wearing our masks. It works mostly except we probably have to talk louder than we normally do because of the distance and masks. There is probably some risk, but it is very nice to get out for some exercise and see a friend in person. I think it's nice to be able to have some limited and fairly low-risk social interaction. I think your dinner is fairly similar. Just be careful with cleaning plates and utensils as we know coronavirus can stay on hard surfaces for a couple days. Maybe just use latex gloves and clean them off very well with soap and water. Probably not a bad idea to lysol spray the chair and table around there after too.

We have to remember that COVID-19 and the Spanish Flu and these types of mass pandemics are still fairly rare events. And in the long-term cities still have many health advantages. Being closer to doctors and hospitals is one. Not having to drive is another (about 38,000 deaths per year from car accidents). If you look at car accident deaths per capita, denser states like New York, Massachusetts and the District of Columbia have much lower rates that rural/suburban states like Florida, Wyoming and Mississippi. In some ways even dealing with a pandemic is easier in a city than rural area. You can much more easily lock down a city and well-staffed public health infrastructure gives cities a much clearer idea of what's going on with a disease in a community and can better spread out treatment and vaccination programs. We only have to look back to 2015 to Mike Pence's Indiana to see how quickly an HIV outbreak in a rural county can grow without proper monitoring.

Yeah it doesn't make sense to pay for an ad if you're not going to get many clients. I kinda expect a huge increase in ads as the health situation improves and the economy remains depressed. A lot of guys who lose their jobs might consider escorting to make ends meet.