Private games are going to explode. Everyone buckle up

Private games are perverted, and don't belong into this thread

Seems like poker isn't on too many short lists to open right away.

Good post. The scope of this test is extremely limited and the headline is sensationalized as you mentioned; cherry-picking "both surgical and cotton masks seem to be ineffective in preventing the dissemination of SARS–CoV-2" while leaving out the "from the coughs of patients with COVID-19 to the environment and external mask surface" part is very misleading. In addition to the other testing scenarios you mentioned, it's important to note the following part from the actual paper:

"this experiment did not include N95 masks and does not reflect the actual transmission of infection from patients with COVID-19 wearing different types of masks. We do not know whether masks shorten the travel distance of droplets during coughing. Further study is needed to recommend whether face masks decrease transmission of virus from asymptomatic individuals or those with suspected COVID-19 who are not coughing."

akashenk, unsurprisingly, completely butchered the interpretation of the research that was done

Curious if you have a science/medical/statistical background, Wilbury?

Seems like there will be some issues with hearing what people are saying if you got the masks on + big plastic shield in front of everybody.

I’m not going to get into another tit for tat with you over language. It seems to be very important to you seeing as you took a single word out of a lengthy post and decided to expound on it.

That being said, I wouldn’t get too bent out of shape about being accused of trolling.

In an earlier post I said I thought cloth masks were effective in preventing symptomatic (ie coughing) people from spreading the virus. I went on to suggest I did not believe they were effective in preventing asymtomatic spread.

Then I found and posted an article with the study which deals with virus transmission through cloth masks.

Now, you are free to believe what you will about the study. But I’m not sure where you think I butchered the interpretation of it. I feel like its results would lead me to question my own assumptions about the efficacy of cloth masks to prevent symptomatic spread.

If you have access to some other research which contradicts the study I found, and supports my original suggestion that cloth masks are effective in preventing symptomatic spread, that might be useful and put me more at ease.

Or if you have access to research which either debunks the notion of high-level asymptomatic spread of covid-19, or provides an explanation for it which can be mitigated by the nominal social distancing measures being put forth in re-opening, then I’m all ears. That would be some vital information.

grats.

A graph to put the recent drop in US deaths into perspective:

You can find doctors who think that vaccines are unsafe. Do you wonder who to believe about those? I give greater weight to academics than I do to someone like Dr. Oz.

The minority opinion tends to be augmented by the media because they like to present a "both sides" take on things, even when one side is factually wrong. To a certain degree, you've been unfairly left to think for yourself.

I tend to think that there is consensus among medical experts on what generally needs to be done to safely reopen. There also seems to be some agreement among economists that we need to consider the economic risk of opening too early. I don't have any hard data to support this, but that's the sense I get.

What types of economic risk would come from opening too early?

There may even be minor issues with seeing the board through the glass for people with low vision.

Making a post by quoting somebody and manipulating their quote for some editorial purpose is one of the few message board behaviors I find reprehensible. It shows a lack of intellectual honesty and maturity and is, quite simply, weak tea. I should hope the mods will delete you post and censure you appropriately considering how tight a ship they are running.

There is an argument to be made that illness damages productivity and therefore economic prosperity. I don't have the exact figures in front of me, but I believe I read somewhere that the hundreds of thousands of missed work days and tens of thousands of deaths caused by regular seasonal flu cost something on the order of $100 billion in the US alone. So, the theory goes, if you open too soon, more people will get sick and this will lead to more lost productivity. Its a logical argument, but I think it loses punch for two reasons... 1) It seems to be a drop in the bucket compared to the economic damage being done through lockdown and 2) I don't think it has been proven beyond a reasonable doubt that a policy of wholesale lockdowns has been a significant benefit compared to alternatives. I continue to return to the recent revelation that the majority of new cases coming out of NY have been from people staying at home.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/lisette.../#3b986a981655

Sry. I dont make the news, just report it.

I think your level of ethical behavior would fit right in with modern journalistic standards.

Ha ha. You're surely joking.

Speaking not as a mod but as just a regular member, I think the thread would benefit from fewer posts from a certain high-volume "mixed"-quality poster who seems to reply to every post. This is a message board behavior that I could do without.

Sorry, I do not think the depicted activity will catch on among recreational players .....

Does anyone think that poker game would be "entertainment"?

A more likely trend will be poker will continue to grow online, but live poker will need something more entertaining to be sustainable .... or a vaccine ?

Good look around the game set ups, no requirement that guests wear masks, but what kind of traffic flows through the floor ?

Most likely the "no required masks" decision will facilitate food and beverage operations.

The most obvious concern is the potential for a second wave that overwhelms hospital capacity and requires locking things back down again for a longer period than would have happened with a slower reopening.

Reopening too fast won't have the effect that some people hope it will if workers and consumers are still scared, so the rush to try to get back to normal will not lead to things going back to normal. Some are relying on a paper holding that places that were more aggressive with non-pharmaceutical interventions recovered economically from the 1918 flu pandemic more quickly as evidence that there might be some value in taking it slower.

One economist calculated that the cost of locking down the economy for a year was less than the cost of letting COVID-19 run wild unmitigated. That argument relies on assigning a monetary value to each human life lost.

Arguably, what we think is the best course depends mainly on how much we value human life. People who want to reopen faster are effectively saying that human life is worth less than people who want to reopen slower say it is worth.

Wisconsin is open thanks to a right wing crackpot Supreme Court in that state. Have you seen the videos of the bars? Morons just about on top of each other. Seems like the degens just can't wait to have the same thing at the poker table. My point is that poker rooms that reopen can't not survive with just that player base. So. . .IMO poker rooms will eventually be much smaller. To cut costs further we will probably see a reemergence of PokerPro electronic tables. We shall see.

Not at all a joke. PTLou is commiting a serious offense, as far as posting on message boards is concerned. I haven't perused the 2+2 rulebook recently, but I have to assume impersonating another user is a no-no. And that's exactly what he is doing. I would be very surprised if it isn't explicitly forbidden. Otherwise anyone could just make up any quote they want and attribute it to another user without repercussion.

And while the administration of this message board is not perfect, I think the mods have a pretty hard task and generally do a good job of it.

Lastly, you are entitled to your opinion about the quality of my contribution. I could not care less, since you are, as always, free to block me should you be so inclined.

This. This. This. This.

Dude seriously give it a rest. Your schtick is old.

Figures of illness damaging productivity are completely irrelevant here though as they are comparing productivity figures with a full workforce.

Right now it's about comparing productivity figures with zero workforce, a company moving from a status of zero income.