Live in the Heart of Fulton Market: A 2-Bedroom Loft at 1152 W. Fulton Market

This corner 2-bedroom loft at 1152 W. Fulton Market in Fulton Market came on the market in January 2022.

Built in 2003, 1152 W. Fulton Market is a 15 unit boutique elevator building.

It has garage parking.

This unit has loft features including structural elements, exposed brick and exposed ductwork.

The loft has wide plank hardwood floors, custom Italian cabinets, and a mirrored bar with a beverage refrigerator.

The kitchen is open to the living/dining room and has wood cabinets, high end appliances including a Miele refrigerator, custom cutlery drawers and a new Faber stainless cooktop hood.

The listing says both bathrooms were recently rehabbed with Kohler soaking tub/showers and Groehe faucets.

The loft has French doors that lead to two private balconies, which overlook the Fulton Market scene.

It has central air, washer/dryer in the unit and 2 parking spaces are included.

There are few condo buildings that are located directly IN Fulton Market even though they may claim they’re in Fulton Market.

This building is near the shops and restaurant of Fulton Market and the West Loop’s Randolph Street.

Listed at $859,900, that’s double the 2010 sales price.

Fulton Market is considered the hottest neighborhood in the country. There are now 40+ story apartment buildings going in, in addition to all the commercial projects and restaurants.

Will Fulton Market properties go to yet another new level in this decade?

James Mooney and Jeff Osborne at Compass have the listing. See the pictures and floor plan here.

Unit #4B: 2 bedrooms, 2 baths, no square footage listed, loft

  • Sold in January 2003 for $435,000
  • Sold in June 2010 for $430,000
  • Sold in April 2017 for $770,000
  • Currently listed for $859,900 (includes 2 parking spaces)
  • Assessments of $550 a month (includes scavenger, snow removal)
  • Taxes of $12,894
  • Central Air
  • Washer/dryer in the unit
  • Bedroom #1: 15×18
  • Bedroom #2: 16×16
  • Living/dining room: 23×21
  • Kitchen: 11×16
  • Balcony: 13×5
  • Balcony: not sure size

249 Responses to “Live in the Heart of Fulton Market: A 2-Bedroom Loft at 1152 W. Fulton Market”

  1. “ Fulton Market is considered the hottest neighborhood in the country.” – Per Sabrina and Joe Z

    Price seems pretty aggressive Vs what’s sold in the building recently. Extra parking and updates aren’t $350k

    Took the FP out and the column is in an awkward location

    The ‘10 buyers bought smart

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  2. Way too unfinished for this price point — both the unit and the neighborhood.

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  3. “Way too unfinished … neighborhood.”

    If you mean “will be surrounded by construction for the foreseeable future”, sure, but otherwise, hard disagree.

    “Took the FP out”

    What’s the decision matrix there? sure, take it out, but *why(!!!)* open up the drywall and leave the chimney exposed?? AND not fix the floor????

    Baths are (imo, maybe you liked the old?) a massive upgrade over prior–I would gladly pay the increment, were the choice offered.

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  4. “Baths are (imo, maybe you liked the old?) a massive upgrade over prior–I would gladly pay the increment, were the choice offered.”

    Agree that they’re an upgrade over – https://www.zillow.com/homedetails/1150-W-Fulton-Market-UNIT-3D-Chicago-IL-60607/65545036_zpid/

    Assuming the 2nd parking spot isnt a tandem give the SP $50k premium, do you think the upgrades warrant a $300k premium?

    Also compare it to 2A (Which IMO was a deal)

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  5. “compare it to 2A”

    Well, when you have a $100k pergola, it’s hard to beat. Definitely a better value than the underutilized “Loft Mansion” upstairs: https://www.redfin.com/IL/Chicago/1152-W-Fulton-Market-60607/unit-5C/home/12697728 which would be truly fab with about $200k invested all over it (largely outside).

    “do you think the upgrades warrant a $300k premium”

    B unit layout kills the D unit layout, too. But no, not 60% better overall.

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  6. btw, the history of 5C is crazy:

    Jun-05 = $1.225m
    Jan-12 = $850k
    Nov-16 = $2.75m
    Now asking $2.59m

    Yes, the ’12 deed was out of f/c

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  7. “Fulton Market is considered the hottest neighborhood in the country. There are now 40+ story apartment buildings going in, in addition to all the commercial projects and restaurants.

    Will Fulton Market properties go to yet another new level in this decade?”

    Doubtful. It benefits from being the “new trendy” neighborhood with limited housing options. Ten years from now it will not be “new” anymore and the amount of apartments and condos going in increasing supply will tamp down the trendiness as well.

    Also, hopefully the headline risks to Chicago, specifically neighborhoods like Fulton Market start to tamper down or those high priced condos will end up sitting and need to be repriced. Not a good article for the city and surrounding high priced neighborhoods from Crains today:

    “An out-of-town company scraps its plan for a local office after a shootout near the Fulton Market tech hub, as scary street violence chills recruiting in the fast-growing sector.”

    “I get asked (by potential hires): ‘I don’t have to live in Chicago, do I?’ It wasn’t a question before. It is now.”

    “Rupp’s concerns, which are shared by others in the industry, confirm that violence has joined money and talent as the biggest challenges facing Chicago tech companies. Fear of crime is making it harder to recruit and retain workers, threatening Chicago’s hopes of becoming a hub for high tech and the well-paying jobs that come with it.”

    “The day after the Sept. 29 shooting, an out-of-town tech company walked away from plans to lease an office in Fulton Market, says a broker involved in the project. “Their biggest concern was the violence, and then it played out right in front of them,” says the broker, who spoke on condition of anonymity and declined to name the company.”

    “Fulton Market, the city’s hottest new business destination, still bustles with new development. But after two years of COVID-19 dislocation, executives reconsidering their post-pandemic office requirements realize that no neighborhood is immune to rising violence across the city.”

    “(The violence) is a bad look that impacts hiring,” says Jett McCandless, CEO of Project 44, a fast-growing logistics-software maker that employs 1,100 globally and 280 at its River North headquarters. McCandless, who owns a condo in Fulton Market, says several candidates for senior-level jobs have balked at moving to the city because of crime, accepting offers only when the company agreed to let them work remotely.”

    ” When Chicago was pursuing Amazon’s second headquarters five years ago, the city’s pitch team presented charts and heat maps showing that carjackings, shootings and homicides happened mostly in areas where its employees were unlikely to live or work.”

    “Chicago can’t offer such assurances anymore. Steven Galanis, CEO of Cameo, an e-commerce company that has been operating remotely throughout the coronavirus pandemic, recently brought about 70 workers back to an office in the Merchandise Mart for a few weeks.

    “The first night we were there, a couple employees witnessed someone getting mugged under the El on Wells Street,” he says.”

    “Galanis, who moved to Miami during the pandemic, says more than a dozen Chicago employees also have moved out of town. “It may have started with CEOs and investors leaving, but now it’s rank-and-file employees, which you didn’t see (in 2020). It’s gotten worse, especially in the last six months.”

    “The five-year-old company employs roughly 400, about 350 of whom were hired in the past 18 months. Headcount in Chicago increased by 20 or 30. “We hired a lot of people in Chicago, but we had a lot of people who left,” he says. “Some great people are leaving, and it seems harder to attract people to Chicago than ever before.”

    https://www.chicagobusiness.com/technology/chicagos-violent-crime-poses-challenge-its-technology-sector

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  8. Are people really paying a huge premium to live in a construction zone so they can walk to (mostly) overrated bars and restaurants?

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  9. “Are people really paying a huge premium to live in a construction zone so they can walk to (mostly) overrated bars and restaurants?”

    Don’t forget about walking to work.

    And yes, yes they are. It’s the hottest neighborhood in the country. You are going to have to pay up to live there.

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  10. “I get asked (by potential hires): ‘I don’t have to live in Chicago, do I?’ It wasn’t a question before. It is now.”

    I blame this on the Mayor and her PR department not being able to counter the negative headlines on this. Notice, it’s people who don’t already live here who think it’s a hellscape.

    They are people like you WP, JohnnyU, HD and all the bears on the site who don’t live here.

    Crime and violence are issues. But they are issues for literally every American city right now. But Chicago has not countered the negative headlines like others. It will hurt us if not turned around.

    This summer will be crucial to getting back to “normal” with tourism. Conventions are booked at 2019 levels for the year. We are at a turning point right now during this pandemic. Also, many workers will be going back to work downtown this spring. That will help downtown recover as well.

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  11. “It’s the hottest neighborhood in the country.”

    Did you mean to type “county”?

    Anyways, I like this condo.

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  12. Fulton Market is definitely hot, but can it get much hotter? Can’t see the reason to pay this much for three rooms in a non-descript building at what’s possibly the peak of the market.

    I do like how sunny this unit is. Nice windows.

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  13. “Notice, it’s people who don’t already live here who think it’s a hellscape. They are people like you WP, JohnnyU, HD and all the bears on the site who don’t live here.”

    I can’t remember what CC post it was on, but Sabrina, don’t you recall just a few months ago, when you were describing the city as a dangerous hellscape? I’m someone who no longer lives there, but visited twice in 2021 (for 5 days and 10 days), and felt fine being there. I look forward to spending at least that much time there this year, probably more.

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  14. “Crime and violence are issues. But they are issues for literally every American city right now. But Chicago has not countered the negative headlines like others. It will hurt us if not turned around.”

    But it was fine when it was limited to poor minority communities

    ” When Chicago was pursuing Amazon’s second headquarters five years ago, the city’s pitch team presented charts and heat maps showing that carjackings, shootings and homicides happened mostly in areas where its employees were unlikely to live or work.”

    Right?

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  15. “it’s people who don’t already live here who think it’s a hellscape.”

    I’d say not going out after 8 at night and not carrying a phone if you do is pretty close to “hellscape”

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  16. “I can’t remember what CC post it was on, but Sabrina, don’t you recall just a few months ago, when you were describing the city as a dangerous hellscape? I’m someone who no longer lives there, but visited twice in 2021 (for 5 days and 10 days), and felt fine being there. I look forward to spending at least that much time there this year, probably more.”

    You’re talking to the wrong person if you want consistency

    You need to be locked in at home by 8PM LOL

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  17. “This summer will be crucial to getting back to “normal” with tourism. Conventions are booked at 2019 levels for the year. We are at a turning point right now during this pandemic. Also, many workers will be going back to work downtown this spring. That will help downtown recover as well.”

    Why would you suddenly be advocating this? When the US is objectively doing worse w/ Omicron?

    Do you want to see people die?

    https://twitter.com/tomgara/status/1488674267193561088/photo/1

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  18. Regarding unit 3D that JohnnyU linked to…Someone got a decent deal. Wonder why they couldn’t sell that place. It’s been on and off the market since 2018 and even then, it sold for well under list in March 2021. Seems odd. The featured unit looks to be a big bigger.

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  19. Was expecting to hate this (I’m firmly of the belief that “lofts” should be conversions of older buildings, NOT new construction), but it’s actually pretty great.

    Reno is nice. I probably would have kept the fireplace and just replaced the mantel, which was too traditional for the space.

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  20. ““lofts” should be conversions of older buildings”

    Not 100% sure, but believe that this was a conversion, not new build.

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  21. “I blame this on the Mayor and her PR department not being able to counter the negative headlines on this.”

    How do you spin highest murders since 94 and carjackings highest on record and tripling in three years?

    Further, outside of her “PR department” what specifically should the mayor do? I’m not a big fan of her as she doesn’t really do anything but pick public fights with other elected officials but I would start with Chief Judge Evans and CCSA Foxx if we want to start a list of who to blame for this. Lightfoot certainly is up there but she isn’t top three in my book. She definitely hired the wrong the person to run the police department. His strategy’s and changes have been largely ineffective and have made things worse.

    I would blame her PR department for the awful tourism strategy they just launched. Their slogan to renew tourism in Chicago is and i quote “Chicago not in Chicago”.

    “Notice, it’s people who don’t already live here who think it’s a hellscape.”

    Read the article as it sounds like its both…. sure people that don’t live hear already probably have this concern higher or weigh it more than people already here but it is effecting both “more than a dozen Chicago employees also have moved out of town. “It may have started with CEOs and investors leaving, but now it’s rank-and-file employees, which you didn’t see (in 2020). It’s gotten worse, especially in the last six months.”

    “They are people like you WP, JohnnyU, HD and all the bears on the site who don’t live here.”

    I’ve lived in the city for three years now and am currently under contract in the city but ok….

    “Crime and violence are issues. But they are issues for literally every American city right now”

    This Democratic talking point is so ridiculous and is tailored to the white UMC and wealthy donors in the Gold Coast and Lincoln Park who can somehow figure out a way to rationalize the violence here as acceptable. People who live in Chicago are concerned about violence in Chicago they don’t care about violence rates on the east or west coast…. People in the Bucktown neighborhood of Chicago don’t go the doubling of violence and carjackings is ok here because in Atlanta’s bucktown neighborhood they have also doubled….

    “This summer will be crucial to getting back to “normal” with tourism.”

    People are already making summer vacations or will be finalizing them by March/April. Unless you have family/friends or a specific purpose to visit why would people book to be here with the amount of restrictions that are still in place?

    ” Also, many workers will be going back to work downtown this spring. That will help downtown recover as well.”

    Did downtown recover last spring/summer when workers were “going back to work downtown” as restrictions were removed and all adults were eligible for vaccines? What’s the catalyst that’s making this year more likely? Permanent hybrid and WFH plans have spread to more companies with the omicron wave as Company’s realize vaccines do not prevent transmission and accept covid is endemic. They have to be flexible given the amount of uncertainty government and media causes with every new variant.

    “Conventions are booked at 2019 levels for the year.”

    Cite please.

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  22. For the record, I’ve never made the claim that Johnny Eeewwww attributes to me.

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  23. “more than a dozen Chicago employees also have moved out of town.”

    That’s super squishy, and could include Oak Park or Wilmette.

    But yeah, it reads as both locals leaving and potential-incoming saying ‘no thanks’.

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  24. I live in Streeterville and can happily report that my neighborhood was packed with tourists and others enjoying the streetscape and restaurants last summer. I hope the same is true in the summer ahead, preferably with no more Covid restrictions. Time to take off the masks!

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  25. “ For the record, I’ve never made the claim that Johnny Eeewwww attributes to me.”

    Sorry Joe, thought you and the Mrs were simpatico on the market

    As an expert on Chicago RE, what are Chicago’s HAWTEST ™ markets?

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  26. This neighborhood is the hottest in the county, in a relative sense, because the indoor vaccine mandates are intentionally destroying the service and dining industry everywhere else.

    Zip Code 60607 has one of highest vaccination rates in the city. The service and dining industries are likely doing relatively better than any other block within a 20 minute drive of the county line.

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  27. As for tourism, the forever masks and indoor vaccine mandates appeal only to a niche subset of tourists. Most normies are repulsed and disgusted by covid theater. I read somewhere the other day that half of Chicago hotels were in some form of special servicing. The convention and tourism has cr8r’d and everywhere else is reaping the benefits.

    Normies (aka non-covidians) making summer vacation plans better do so soon. Resorts and vacation destinations are filling up quickly. All at the expense of big cities and especially Chicago. Even in my own experience, my yearly trip to a popular summer resort is booked was almost booked full in January for July. Elsewhere, Florida is booked solid from spring break through the summer. Prepare to pay top dollar. Ski towns this winter were busier than ever before and hard a difficult time keeping up with demand. More locally, northern WI tourism was probably the busiest it has ever been.

    https://pbswisconsin.org/news-item/a-tourism-boom-has-wisconsins-northern-destinations-scrambling-to-keep-up/

    Who would have thought that two full years of forever masks, indoor vaccine mandates, looting, crime – real or perceived, closed theaters and retail, and other covid restrictions, would cr8r the desires of out of towners to spend money here?

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  28. “cr8r”

    Is this like 88?

    Otherwise, WTF?

    Or, actually, in any case, WTAF??

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  29. “Ski towns this winter were busier than ever before and hard a difficult time keeping up with demand.”

    Ski towns / resorts are certainly busier than ever, absolutely. Areas in and around ski towns nationwide had already seen intense development since the beginning of this real estate cycle; the population of the Front Range in CO has continued to grow rapidly; lots of people moved at least part time to mountain communities to WFH during the pandemic; and a prolonged bull market simply has a lot of would-be ski tourists feeling richer than ever and thus more inclined to go. As for the towns /resorts having a hard time keeping up, that’s largely due to a workforce shortage, which is due to a mix of (1) fewer young people needing to work many of those seasonal jobs, because nowadays they can simply buy an affordable season pass (either just at their resort or an Ikon or Epic), and instead work a more desirable job or quit and start new jobs frequently (season passes today are much like air travel today; I probably paid $600 for a one-way ticket to CO in 89 to be a ski bum, and the passes at the time were around that much, so I took crappy jobs that came with a free pass; today a kid could buy a one-way for $200 and a pass for not much more, so why work at a resort); (2) because of mountain-adjacent metro population growth, Airbnb/Vrbo, Covid and the stock market, there’s an extreme shortage of housing that ski town / resort workers can afford; and (3) for the past two years there have been constant Covid outbreaks among lift ops, instructors, waiters, cooks, etc., partly due to them all living in cramped quarters and partying together every night, and partly due to all of the maskless morons (or “Normies”) visiting from around the country and spreading the virus around town after flailing dangerously all day on the mountain.

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  30. Jeez anon(tfo), pull your head out of your butt. cr8r = crater. Cratering. ‘ate’ using the letter 8. The tourism and service industry is cratering. Like saying HODL instead of hold.

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  31. “Airbnb/Vrbo” is a cancer that had destroyed the housing of the community.

    Most masks don’t do anything at all to slow or stop the spread of the virus. The science is clear. If you and the rest of the covidians refuse to accept reality, that’s your problem. The rest of the country aka the normies have moved on past the science deniers. You can’t convince someone with irrational beliefs, so we just ignore you.

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  32. “You can’t convince someone with irrational beliefs, so we just ignore you.”

    lol. I stopped engaging in Covid-related debates a while ago. It’s pointless. But the trope about masks doing nothing to reduce spread is so particularly absurd. Do you reckon that docs and nurses wear them in surgery because they serve no purpose? Or, consider, say, a country like S. Korea, with a population of about 51.8 million, where mask-wearing during cold/flu season has long been the norm, and during Covid, obviously, it has been universal, and they’ve had about 907k cases and 6,800 deaths, whereas in the Free State of Florida, with a population of about 21.5 million, and almost universal resistance to mask wearing, has had about 5.6 million cases and 65k deaths.

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  33. annony, you’re generally a smart person, and your comments are always insightful, but if you can’t see the fatal issues with arguments by now, then you never will. Neither of us will change our minds, so let’s just agree to disagree.

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  34. “cr8r = crater.”

    What are you, 12? My kids are embarrassed by shit like that.

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  35. “Most masks don’t do anything at all to slow or stop the spread of the virus.”

    We’re back to COVID denialism again, huh?

    Most people are wearing the better masks now. If you haven’t ordered yours yet, HD, you are way behind the curve. All I wear now are N95s or KN95s. I actually feel pretty good about traveling on public transportation now while wearing those as they are SO good at protection.

    The legit manufacturers like Bonafide Masks are WAY behind on fulfilling orders so get your order in now. I had to wait about 4 weeks for delivery recently thanks to Omicron.

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  36. “Resorts and vacation destinations are filling up quickly. All at the expense of big cities and especially Chicago.”

    This is wrong, actually. I thought like you HD that I might get a “deal” in some of the big cities this summer.

    LMFAO.

    Hotel rooms just as expensive in NY and Boston as Miami Beach. There were NO deals.

    Basically, Americans want to travel again this spring/summer and are willing to pay whatever it takes. Cities and resorts equally as popular. Anyone else see what the airfares are like? Absurd. But can’t blame the airlines. They’ve been saying the last two weeks that there is strong demand for spring break and for summer travel. Lots of hotels are sold out for the summer already, even in in Florida where it is normally the “off” season because of the heat, crappy weather and hurricanes.

    Key West had a record December. I chalk this up to people not wanting to go to Mexico, even though its open, due to the testing requirement to get back home and the big Omicron outbreak in Cancun/Playa del Carmen. Many aren’t willing to risk being quarantined so they’re choosing Florida, or Hawaii, instead.

    Chicago’s positivity rate is back below 5%. Cases are dropping quickly. Hospitalizations are falling again. It’s too soon to take off some of the restrictions, but they will probably come off by mid-February. The Chicago Auto Show is back in mid-February and that should give a big boost to the hospitality industry.

    McCormick Place is booked at pre-2020 levels for this year. Will all those conventions actually happen? No one knows. But we do know that now that this wave is subsiding in Chicago, we probably won’t get another one for a few months. If history is any indication, the next outbreak will be in Florida and the South sometime in July.

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  37. ” Ski towns this winter were busier than ever before and hard a difficult time keeping up with demand.”

    This is true, I’ve never seen Mt. Rose so packed literally every weekend. Its like Christmas time busy every weekend. They were having a hard time with staffing I know and just recently reopened the kitchen in the lodge which is nice. The germ theater at the bar is pretty hilarious though, don’t feel like explaining it but every time I go there after a day I just laugh and then enjoy my beer.

    “Do you reckon that docs and nurses wear them in surgery because they serve no purpose?”

    to be fair, they wear them during surgery so they don’t get stuff in the open body they are working on, sweat, spit, etc which contains bacteria/disease… they don’t do anything to stop airborne viruses

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  38. “This neighborhood is the hottest in the county, in a relative sense, because the indoor vaccine mandates are intentionally destroying the service and dining industry everywhere else.”

    We’re all vaccinated HD. The vaccinated don’t care about indoor vaccine mandates. It’s no different than showing your ID to get into a bar. You flash your phone and walk in.

    But what I have noticed, because I actually live in Chicago and most of you commenting on this blog do not, is that people are intentionally staying home during this outbreak because it just spreads too easily. Imagine that? Some humans making rational decisions to not expose themselves to danger.

    There’s really no need to go eat inside at that Thai place when you can order in. And people can skip weekend brunch with friends for a few weeks in January to avoid getting sick.

    If you have children under 5, they cannot get vaccinated. Most parents want to protect their children from getting sick so that’s another reason for most people to stay home. And we know from OpenTable data that people have been staying home in Chicago and NY.

    Starbucks comments this week after their earnings report also confirms that people are staying home and not lingering in the stores during this outbreak. They said it goes in waves and diners will return once the wave is over. Meanwhile, they are ordering to go and doing the drive thrus.

    This wave will cause a temporary slowdown in the US economy but it will bounce back over the next few weeks as this wave subsides and people venture out again.

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  39. “I hope the same is true in the summer ahead, preferably with no more Covid restrictions. Time to take off the masks!”

    Mask mandate will come off again when the virus is no longer circulating in big numbers in the community. We’re already getting closer to that Dan #2. Fingers crossed.

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  40. “People are already making summer vacations or will be finalizing them by March/April. Unless you have family/friends or a specific purpose to visit why would people book to be here with the amount of restrictions that are still in place?”

    Because our restrictions will be lifted, probably in about a week?

    We will have all the usual street festivals, music festivals, food events we normally have WP. Why wouldn’t someone come visit?

    I think we’ll see a big international contingent this year who have been prevented from visiting the last few years.

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  41. “but Sabrina, don’t you recall just a few months ago, when you were describing the city as a dangerous hellscape?”

    Yes. It was about this very shooting described in this article. It was an outrage and shouldn’t be happening in a civilized society. And we continue to see acts like this. This week a grandmother was killed walking out of her bank because two idiots decide to get into a gun battle in the middle of the street with NO regard to anyone else.

    You cannot live in a society like this.

    All of it is an outrage.

    I still do not take my phone with me when I go out on errands or out in the neighborhoods to take pictures for this blog. I take limited cash and no other valuables. The muggings continue to happen.

    I’m not surprised they saw a mugging go on near the Mart last fall when they returned to the office. There is just no foot traffic there until more people return to work. It’s dark and desolate. You are a target there. That subway stop went from seeing thousands of people pass through the turnstile to almost nothing. I haven’t rode the subway in 18 months for this reason. Doesn’t matter which line it is. There simply aren’t enough people on it to feel safe.

    Buses are fine, however. They are almost back to pre-covid levels on some lines.

    People will cure a lot of the crime. There’s just less of it with crowds. Many employees will be going back to work as this wave recedes. People are tired of working from home. They want to be back among their co-workers, even on a part-time basis. Humans are social. They want to be out with others.

    I think the loop recovers further this summer. The water taxis will hopefully bring back their full schedules. The Willis Tower food hall will open. Hopefully the food hall in the renovated Union Station will soon do the same.

    It was a good sign when Time Out Market reopened last year.

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  42. winter time gun crime is usually significantly less than normal… just wait till it starts getting warm again!

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  43. “It’s the hottest neighborhood in the country.”

    Nope. In the actual COUNTRY.

    More money is pouring in from developers than anywhere else. They are building multiple 30+ story apartment buildings with others being proposed nearly every week. More commercial and retail space.

    Businesses still want to be there and people want to live there.

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  44. The Ace Hotel was recently sold to Onni, a Canadian firm.

    From Crain’s:

    Onni Vice President of Development Brian Brodeur said his firm was drawn to the idea of owning a property and launching a new hotel brand in “one of the hottest neighborhoods in the city, if not the hottest in the country right now,” and that Onni is undeterred by the COVID malaise facing the local hotel market. Preliminary December data from hospitality data and analytics company STR showed revenue per available room at downtown Chicago hotels averaged about $78—towering over the same period in 2020, but just 77% of the average posted in December 2019.

    https://www.chicagobusiness.com/commercial-real-estate/chicago-fulton-market-ace-hotel-be-renamed-emily-hotel

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  45. “winter time gun crime is usually significantly less than normal… just wait till it starts getting warm again!”

    Gun crime isn’t down right now sonies. But you don’t live here so you have no clue.

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  46. “The Ace Hotel was recently sold to Onni, a Canadian firm.”

    All that matters is what the price per key is.

    W/O that you’re doing as you are wont to do

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  47. “Preliminary December data from hospitality data and analytics company STR showed revenue per available room at downtown Chicago hotels averaged about $78—towering over the same period in 2020, but just 77% of the average posted in December 2019.”

    Yeah revenues at 77% of 19, those that were levered are in a world of shit

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  48. Sabrina, how do you know restrictions will be lifted? Are you tight with Dr. Allison Arwady? The consensus is that restrictions are here to stay. There’s no defined metrics to remove the indoor vaccine mandates. It’s all at the secret whims of the public health dept. Sure, half of dining establishments in the City/County will likely go bankrupt (even Rick Bayless was begging for a bailout) but that’s a small price to pay to keep residents safe.

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  49. “All that matters is what the price per key is.”

    $400k, which ain’t great, but is well north of other recent Chicago sales (including Thompson (300k) and Monaco (~190k))

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  50. “The consensus is that restrictions are here to stay. ”

    Cite, please.

    Or are you talking about the consensus on the Long Grove PTA?

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  51. “$400k, which ain’t great, but is well north of other recent Chicago sales (including Thompson (300k) and Monaco (~190k))”

    Ace is a fair bit smaller than Thompson, no?

    Looks like bookings at $142/night. Ouch

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  52. “restrictions are here to stay”

    nothing points to that.

    https://blockclubchicago.org/2022/02/01/chicago-doing-very-very-good-against-omicron-mask-vaccine-card-mandates-could-be-gone-quite-soon-top-doc-says/

    “But Arwady said it’s still too soon to lift the mask mandate or the requirement to show proof of vaccination at bars, restaurants and other venues.

    But it could be gone “relatively soon,” or even “quite soon,” Arwady said at a news conference.”

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  53. Oh, shit, marco! I had no idea you were “tight with” Arwady.

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  54. Name one city, other than Denver, that has removed the indoor vaccination requirement. Do you really believe that Chicago will be the first city to remove it’s mandate shortly? Do you believe in the Easter Bunny and Santa Claus too?? Boston’s mayor just reaffirmed her mandates despite massive cries to remove it. There’s a petition to remove it in LA and the Mayor says that he “helds his breath” when he was photographed not wearing a mask indoors at a football game. True story, look it up.

    When cases drop, they’ll say that the indoor mandate was so successful, they don’t see any reason to rescind it.

    https://chicago.suntimes.com/coronavirus/2022/2/1/22913203/illinois-coronavirus-vaccine-masks-mandate-chicago-pritzker-omicron-surge-vaccine

    This is the same crap these authoritarians have been spewing for almost two years now. Secret metrics, no firm dates for anything, no guidance on what to expect, a complete disregard for science, and making all decisions on politics. Shame you for believing these liars over and over again.

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  55. “But it could be gone “relatively soon,” or even “quite soon,” Arwady said at a news conference.”

    I have a bridge to sell you over Kostner ave if you believe the sweet, sweet nothings Allison whispers in your ears…relatively soon, honey, or even quite soon baby, I promise….just a little bit longer…But I can’t tell you when, or how I make my decision…Just someday we’ll be together forever…

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  56. “Name one city, other than Denver, that has removed the indoor vaccination requirement.”

    I think Denver just (today?) dropped it’s mask mandate, but I didn’t know it ever even had an indoor vax mandate (lots of big employers obviously do), though I’ve only been down to Denver a few times over the past couple years and so haven’t paid much attention. I’m glad Boulder has had an indoor mask mandate and hope it continues, at least just for retail (and servers?). I can elect to attend or not attend concerts and sports events and plays or whatever, so by all means, as long as cases continue to trend lower, end the mask mandates for those sorts of things, but I’d love it if stores (especially grocery) required it forever. A strange thing we experienced on our Chicago visits in 2021 (staying in a highrise), was to be out in the world, then when you get “home,” you had to mask up to go through the lobby and use the elevator. I don’t have a problem with that at all, but (living in a SFH and WFH for so long) I was constantly forgetting to do so.

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  57. So, no citation to a consensus.

    Got it!

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  58. “Most masks don’t do anything at all to slow or stop the spread of the virus.”

    Where do you get this stuff? The research is clear. Sure, cloth masks are pretty useless, surgical masks help a bit, but N95s are pretty good. Of course, all the Bozos running around with their noses sticking out might as well not be masked. Must have failed high school biology.

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  59. “they don’t do anything to stop airborne viruses”

    It’s not like the virus leaves your body on its own. They are usually riding on moisture particles from respiration and those are larger.

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  60. “Because our restrictions will be lifted, probably in about a week?”

    Maybe the vaccine mandate will be lifted by the city before the end of the month but that doesn’t mean the mask mandate will. The city can’t lift the mandate until the State lifts its mandate. It’s very bizarre that Arwady keeps saying they will be lifted very soon when Pritzker or Izeke haven’t mentioned this at all and haven’t even laid out metrics as to when it could be lifted.

    Pritzker will not cross the teachers unions so it’s difficult to see how Pritzker could lift a statewide mask mandate but still justify keeping one in schools at the same time. Once the teachers unions advise Pritzker that its ok then he will do it. I don’t see that happening in the near term given the stunt CTU pulled last month. It would look quite bizarre.

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  61. “The research is clear. Sure, cloth masks are pretty useless, surgical masks help a bit, but N95s are pretty good.”

    If only we could put the theory and research to a real world test. Hmmm lets see oh I know we will issue a Statewide mask mandate in August 4 months after all adults were eligible for vaccination. We will keep that mask mandate in place for everyone at all times everywhere (except outside or indoors at a restaurant since Covid can’t get you if you are eating or drinking).

    Would you look at how well that mask mandate worked for the past two months highest case counts in all counties of the state since the pandemic began. Gee wiz the research is clear! It worked so well!

    How’s the research and academic theory working out? Maybe they should study why the mandates haven’t worked?

    Did any mitigation that the credentialed class work or do anything that they said it would do? Johns Hopkins released their study showing that Covid Lockdowns only reduced mortality by 0.2% in the US and Europe. BUT BUT BUT the experts said two weeks to stop or slow the spread. What happened?

    “An analysis of each of these three groups support the conclusion that lockdowns have had little to no effect on COVID-19 mortality. More specifically, stringency index studies find that lockdowns in Europe and the United States only reduced COVID-19 mortality by 0.2% on average. SIPOs were also ineffective, only reducing COVID-19 mortality by 2.9% on average. Specific NPI studies also find no broad-based evidence of noticeable effects on COVID-19 mortality. While this meta-analysis concludes that lockdowns have had little to no public health effects,
    they have imposed enormous economic and social costs where they have been adopted. In consequence, lockdown policies are ill-founded and should be rejected as a pandemic policy instrument.”

    https://sites.krieger.jhu.edu/iae/files/2022/01/A-Literature-Review-and-Meta-Analysis-of-the-Effects-of-Lockdowns-on-COVID-19-Mortality.pdf

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  62. WP,

    We’re playing whack a mole again. Do you want to discuss masks or lockdowns?

    “Would you look at how well that mask mandate worked for the past two months highest case counts in all counties of the state since the pandemic began. Gee wiz the research is clear! It worked so well!”

    Seriously? Is that how you are drawing your conclusion? So you believe that 100% of the population wore masks 100% of the time? A lot of this is transmitted at home or in private settings. My unvaccinated cousin that died of Covid went to lunch with a bunch of women. My daughter caught it babysitting for a family on the one day they all decided they didn’t need to wear masks.

    Would you like me to dig up the studies or would you just dismiss them?

    As for the study about lockdowns…the goal of lockdowns was to flatten the curve so as to not overwhelm the hospitals. The study didn’t look at that.

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  63. “My daughter caught it babysitting for a family on the one day they all decided they didn’t need to wear masks.”

    Your daughter would have absolutely caught covid babysitting unless she was wearing a properly fitted P100 respirator the entire time. One N95 isn’t going to be enough in a closed indoor environment like that.

    As for masking in general, unless you’re proposing that we all wear N95 masks everywhere, all the time, including outdoors, where wild animals are proven vectors of transmission (deer, cats, woodland creatures), I don’t think it’s a practical solution to force the entire population to wear worthless mask. We are the only state in the central and mountain time zone that has an indoor mask mandate. Are all the other red and blue state governments wrong? All of them?

    Like WP said, we wear masks because the teachers unions, full of fearful Karens, demand it. Most of the world isn’t masking children in schools. But that doesn’t matter. They’re all wrong, JB pritzker is right. Our billionaire betters know best, right?

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  64. “but I’d love it if stores (especially grocery) required [masking] forever.”

    This is bordering on crazy town, and while I’m sure you are nice, friendly person (and if you didn’t know my political persuasion, I’m sure we would get along if my child and your child were classmates or something) but this is a bridge too far. Even the Taliban doesn’t require men and women to wear masks, only women. And don’t forget, women wear bukras for public health too, so that they don’t drive men into desirous rage, and spread disease and commit crimes.

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  65. Alison, when will the mandate be lifted? Oh, not next week? Quite soon? When’s that? Oh, Relatively soon?

    Alison, when, when will it be lifted? How soon Alison?

    “Sure baby, mañana. It was always mañana. For the next few weeks that was all I heard––mañana a lovely word and one that probably means heaven.”

    ? Jack Kerouac, On the Road

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  66. “Alison, when, when will it be lifted? How soon Alison?”

    We only went back below 5% 2 days ago. Over 2,000 people a day are still dying nationally and some states still have outbreaks.

    After the success we’ve had at bending the curve, do you really think she is going to immediately lift restrictions?

    You would be DUMB to do so.

    But they will be lifted by the end of the month. San Francisco has already lifted some of its restrictions, but it peaked before Chicago did.

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  67. “Why is it so hard to understand for the covid deniers that you should wear a mask when there is an outbreak?”

    It’s so logical.

    We know how it’s spread. We know masks stop it. If there’s an outbreak, you wear a mask.

    When the virus isn’t circulating, no need to wear the mask.

    By the way, Chicago lifted all mandates, including the mask, last year. And they will again.

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  68. “The city can’t lift the mandate until the State lifts its mandate.”

    County controls whether or not you have to be vaxxed to eat indoors, not the state.

    Positivity rate is much higher in the rest of the state. Pritzker won’t lift the mask mandate in the state until it goes back under 5%.

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  69. “The research is clear. Sure, cloth masks are pretty useless, surgical masks help a bit, but N95s are pretty good.”

    100% Gary.

    You can go 8 hours without risk of infection if you are wearing an N95 and the other person is too. Even if the other person isn’t masked at all, you have an hour’s worth of protection.

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  70. “I have a bridge to sell you over Kostner ave if you believe the sweet, sweet nothings Allison whispers in your ears”

    For those of you who actually live IN Chicago, the mask mandate was lifted last summer. It’s only when the cases rose and Omicron, which is much more transmissible, came about late last year, did they bring back the mask mandate indoors.

    Other rules, like restrictions on how many could be in elevators, never came back.

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  71. San Francisco has already dropped some of the mandates.

    https://abc7news.com/sf-face-mask-mandate-rules-omicron-variant/11524644/

    On Feb. 1, San Francisco will become the first Bay Area city to end indoor mask requirements for office workers, gym members and other stable cohorts of people, but everyone needs to be fully vaccinated and boosted when eligible.

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  72. “Sabrina, how do you know restrictions will be lifted? Are you tight with Dr. Allison Arwady? The consensus is that restrictions are here to stay.”

    The consensus of the scared shitless suburbanites who “haven’t crossed the line into the city” since the pandemic began?

    That consensus?

    It will be lifted because:

    1. The conventions bring in millions of dollars, starting with the ever popular Chicago Auto Show in less than 2 weeks.

    2. The restrictions, including the mask mandates, were lifted last summer.

    3. San Francisco has already started lifting its restrictions. They are ahead of us.

    What do you care HD? You don’t live or work in Chicago. And you admitted you aren’t visiting and don’t plan on doing so.

    Yet more stupid covid, conspiracy denialism.

    Last week, the country saw 4,000 people die in one day. The pandemic is still ongoing. But the Omicron is burning out quickly in Chicago.

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  73. “I don’t think it’s a practical solution to force the entire population to wear worthless mask.”

    We’re playing whack a mole again. Are we discussing the effectiveness of masks or the practicality of mask mandates? If I showed you the research that masks were effective would you accept it?

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  74. The Delta Variant crushed Florida. Lower vaccination rate and no masks. Omicron hasn’t been great either.

    It’s by far the worst of the big states.

    https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/02/03/dont-treat-omicron-lightly-in-florida-it-packs-a-punch-analysis/

    From April, when vaccines became available to all adults, to near the peak of the delta outbreak in late September, Florida posted by far the most COVID deaths among the six largest states. Florida, for instance, had three times as many COVID deaths as California, despite having about half the number of residents. The picture got worse when accounting for population, a Times Editorial Board analysis found. Over those six months, Florida’s death rate for every 100,000 residents was more than three times higher than in New York and more than five times higher than in California. In fact, only Texas had a rate that was at least half of Florida’s.

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  75. “ It will be lifted because:
    1. The conventions bring in millions of dollars, starting with the ever popular Chicago Auto Show in less than 2 weeks.”

    That’s about as scientific a reason as one could hope for…

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  76. “Even the Taliban doesn’t require men and women to wear masks, only women”

    A lot of people are pretty gross. Much of the year, a lot of people have the cold or flu, and continue on with their lives, including grocery shopping and air travel. If they wore decent paper masks, it would undeniably lower the rate of transmission of the cold and flu. Personally I’ve enjoyed getting those things less frequently. It would also be good for economic productivity.

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  77. “It’s only when the cases rose and Omicron, which is much more transmissible, came about late last year, did they bring back the mask mandate indoors.”

    Whaaaaaat??? Had NOTHING to do with Omicron, tho Omicron stepped in the way of any hopes for a “normal holiday season”.

    Mask mandate came back in August, which was way before Omicron.

    I know that citation to actual facts is rather disfavored here, but:

    August 26, 2021–“The new indoor mask mandate, similar to mandates already handed down in Cook County and Chicago, will begin Monday and require facial coverings in indoor settings, regardless of COVID vaccination status.”

    https://www.nbcchicago.com/news/coronavirus/illinois-mask-mandate-gov-pritzker-announces-indoor-mask-requirement-for-state/2599072/

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  78. “We’re playing whack a mole again. Do you want to discuss masks or lockdowns?”

    It’s not whack a mole. We can discuss both since both have clearly failed.

    “A lot of this is transmitted at home or in private settings.”

    Agreed. So a mask mandate is security theater like the TSA. It shows the public we are doing something without actually doing anything.

    “My unvaccinated cousin that died of Covid went to lunch with a bunch of women.”

    I’m truly sorry to hear that and wish your cousin would have gotten vaccinated.

    “My daughter caught it babysitting for a family on the one day they all decided they didn’t need to wear masks.”

    I hope your daughter was ok after catching it. Again though if society is unwilling or unable to wear it at all times when surrounded by any person or people in all settings what’s the point of the mandate?

    “Would you like me to dig up the studies or would you just dismiss them?”

    Dig up the studies on why cases were at record highs a month ago even though there’s a statewide mask mandate in place for the previous six. I’m not dismissing academic studies looking at controlled environments. I’m dismissing the studies based on the real world examples that we have lived through for two years. The academics can’t build controls for the real world as we have seen.

    “As for the study about lockdowns…the goal of lockdowns was to flatten the curve so as to not overwhelm the hospitals. The study didn’t look at that.”

    Actually it did. If the lockdowns were effective it would have prevented more death than 2% meaning less people would have needed to go to the hospital…. The impetus for the lockdowns if you read the abstract was that it would prevent 98% of deaths per the Imperial College of London which would have meant significantly less hospitalizations because of lockdowns….

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  79. “We know how it’s spread. We know masks stop it. If there’s an outbreak, you wear a mask.”

    Why were we at the highest case counts since the beginning of this just a month ago when there’s been a mask mandate in place since August? Your logic did not work in practice.

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  80. “The Delta Variant crushed Florida. Lower vaccination rate and no masks. Omicron hasn’t been great either.”

    Again, it’s because of lower vaccination rates not because people didn’t wear masks…. Also, being the oldest or second oldest state (arizona might be first?) might have something to do with that as well…

    “From April, when vaccines became available to all adults, to near the peak of the delta outbreak in late September, Florida”

    So the point of a mask mandate is……

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  81. “So a mask mandate is security theater like the TSA. It shows the public we are doing something without actually doing anything.”

    No, it’s not. Even though much of this is transmitted at home it has to get into the home in the first place. And when I said it’s transmitted in private settings I meant private gatherings of people where they aren’t wearing masks. But that’s why it continues to spread even with the mask mandate, not to mention the many, many people who don’t wear good masks for don’t wear their masks properly.

    “Again though if society is unwilling or unable to wear it at all times when surrounded by any person or people in all settings what’s the point of the mandate?”

    Because 50% of something is better than nothing.

    “Dig up the studies on why cases were at record highs a month ago even though there’s a statewide mask mandate in place for the previous six.”

    Isn’t it obvious? People don’t wear masks at home and they don’t wear good masks and they don’t wear masks properly and there isn’t 100% compliance. That doesn’t mean a mask mandate is useless.

    “The impetus for the lockdowns if you read the abstract was that it would prevent 98% of deaths per the Imperial College of London which would have meant significantly less hospitalizations because of lockdowns….”

    The study looked at mortality. It did not look at the timing of infections. I don’t believe that the politicians here expected a 98% reduction in deaths when they imposed the lockdowns. I think they were just trying to spread out the infections to handle it better. That’s the definition of flattening the curve. And we’re kinda done with lockdowns anyway. Only the Chinese do it and it seems to be working pretty well for them, though with Omicron it might be a losing battle.

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  82. “Because 50% of something is better than nothing.”

    Logic Fail

    Without understanding the tradeoffs/costs, this is meaningless

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  83. “Again, it’s because of lower vaccination rates not because people didn’t wear masks…”

    Wrong. Vaccinated people are getting it in Florida because of no mask mandate and spreading it to family/friends/others in the nursing home or retirement community.

    Both TX and Florida have much higher death rates than any of the other 5 largest states (NY, IL, CA). Florida is more than double and Texas almost is double Illinois.

    Both did not have mask mandates. The other three large states did.

    3,000 more COVID deaths in Florida in just the last 2 weeks. How tragic. It didn’t have to be like this.

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  84. Both TX and Florida have much higher death rates than any of the other 5 largest states (NY, IL, CA). Florida is more than double and Texas almost is double Illinois.

    Typical Sabrina Bullshit

    https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/

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  85. “Without understanding the tradeoffs/costs, this is meaningless”

    You asked what the point of the mandate was if we didn’t have 100% coverage. That question has nothing to do with the costs and tradeoffs of a mask mandate. But if you insist…the cost of a mask mandate appears to be basically zero except for the fact that a lot of energy is wasted arguing with people who don’t get it and refuse to comply. That behavior imposes a cost with no benefit.

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  86. “Both TX and Florida have much higher death rates than any of the other 5 largest states (NY, IL, CA). Florida is more than double and Texas almost is double Illinois.

    Both did not have mask mandates. The other three large states did.”

    Yet you conveniently cited statistics starting from when vaccinations were available for all adults in the country not from when NY or IL or CA instituted a mask mandate. If you actually looked at only mask mandates you would look at the death rate from when they were instituted to when vaccines were available in each state.

    Lets see the full vaccination rate for each state:

    – Texas: 59%
    – Florida: 65.2%
    – Illinois 66.5%
    – California: 69.2%
    – New York: 74.3%

    Covid Death Rate per 100K people per state:

    – Texas: 276
    – Florida: 304
    – Illinois: 265
    – California: 204
    – New York: 335

    Hmmm that’s interesting…. If masks were so impactful as you state why is New York so much worse than Texas and Florida? Why is Illinois pretty much even with Texas?

    Also, please cite the statistics that show the amount of people in the hospital for or with covid that don’t wear masks compared to the ones that do. Oh wait they only break it out by unvaccinated vs. vaccinated I wonder why….

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  87. “mask mandate appears to be basically zero except for the fact that a lot of energy is wasted arguing with people who don’t get it and refuse to comply”

    Just ignore the two standard deviation decline in motor skills for children during the pandemic or the fact that case counts were at record highs just a month ago even though we have had this mandate in place for six months unless you are eating and drinking indoors surrounded by other people because covid can’t get you when you are hungry or thirsty.

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  88. “Typical Sabrina Bullshit”

    Maybe, maybe not. She did elide the timeframe mentioned above on the repeated assertion:

    “From April [2021]…”

    So numbers based on all-time aggregate are inapposite.

    I GTHOOI, but didn’t find death numbers by month. Not that I’m interested in totaling up 10 months of numbers for 6 or 7 states anyway.

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  89. Maybe, maybe not. She did elide the timeframe mentioned above on the repeated assertion:

    “From April [2021]…”

    So numbers based on all-time aggregate are inapposite.

    I GTHOOI, but didn’t find death numbers by month. Not that I’m interested in totaling up 10 months of numbers for 6 or 7 states anyway.”

    This is Cribchatter, charitable interpretations are not allowed

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  90. Masks are a belief system. Not a medical device.

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  91. “This is Cribchatter, charitable interpretations are not allowed”

    As I say–you might be right.

    A link to a source for the assertion would have been helpful, of course…

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  92. “Masks are … Not a medical device.”

    Some are FDA-covered, so under federal regulation, they are. See, eg:

    https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-emergency-use-authorizations-medical-devices/personal-protective-equipment-euas

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  93. love how I get downvoted like crazy for speaking a well known fact

    Branch Covidians are quite the strange cult…

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  94. Study released today regarding mask use in CA: https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/71/wr/mm7106e1.htm?s_cid=mm7106e1_w

    Through December 1, so doesn’t really account for Omicron.

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  95. Please, no CDC junk telephone surveys masquerading science. The CDC has zero credibility. Remember Rochelle Wolensky saying “can’t catch covid, can’t spread covid”. I do. Why would I believe the CDC now?

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/cdc-data-suggests-vaccinated-don-t-carry-can-t-spread-virus/ar-BB1f8ofp

    After warning for months that vaccinated people should still be cautious in order to not infect others, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggests they may not be at much risk of transmitting the coronavirus. “Vaccinated people do not carry the virus – they don’t get sick,” Dr. Rochelle Walensky, director of the CDC, told MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Tuesday. That’s “not just in the clinical trials, but it’s also in real world data.”

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  96. “Just ignore the two standard deviation decline in motor skills for children during the pandemic”

    You’re trying to get me to play whack a mole with you again. We weren’t discussing children. Why are you bringing that up? So I’m going to not respond to all the logic flaws in this statement.

    ” or the fact that case counts were at record highs just a month ago even though we have had this mandate in place for six months ”

    We already discussed this. Let me simplify this for you. It’s a multivariate problem and mask mandates are just one of about 20 variables.

    “The CDC has zero credibility. Remember Rochelle Wolensky saying “can’t catch covid, can’t spread covid”. I do. Why would I believe the CDC now?”

    Because the CDC didn’t do that study. It’s a bunch of scientists from UC Berkeley. Why are you so quick to dismiss any facts that challenge your beliefs?

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  97. “We weren’t discussing children. Why are you bringing that up?”

    because you stated “…the cost of a mask mandate appears to be basically zero” which is incorrect.

    Further, the social contract was once we get vaccines no more mandates including masks. Almost one year later…..

    To put it bluntly if I knew when I got vaccinated the reality of how we would be living nearly a year later I wouldn’t have gotten vaccinated.

    As a millennial I wasn’t in a high mortality age bracket and didn’t have the key underlying conditions. I did it for “society”. The credentialed class decided to move the goalposts again. No change except new mandates and requirements. There is no societal goal at this point. The credentials have no idea what to do and make it up as we go along.

    The amount of selfishness for continuing restrictions for literally no reason is mind boggling.

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  98. “To put it bluntly if I knew when I got vaccinated the reality of how we would be living nearly a year later I wouldn’t have gotten vaccinated.”

    You prefer death to a mask? To have our medical establishment have to take care of you while you suffocate because you didn’t want to wear a mask?

    Absurd.

    The unvaccinated were 97x more likely to die from COVID than those who were boosted.

    By the way, the vaccines, and the booster, will be old again by the fall. I guess you won’t get another shot WP? I’m assuming that the people who refuse to get the flu vaccine will also be the ones who refuse to get future COVID vaccines/boosters. And even milder forms of COVID will still kill thousands every year when those deaths could be prevented.

    Denmark just lifted restrictions. It’s 82% vaccinated. Texas can’t even get to 60% even though their ICUs were just full and they got close to record hospitalizations.

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  99. “Why are you so quick to dismiss any facts that challenge your beliefs?”

    Because his beliefs are his beliefs and no facts will persuade him to get the shot or wear a mask ever again. Lol.

    900,000 dead and still climbing. So tragic. It didn’t have to be like this but we’re just repeating 1918, right? You can literally take the quotes from covid deniers on this website and match them with the same quotes from 1918 about not wearing masks again etc. etc.

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  100. I gave you all the cite in my response but none of you clicked on it. Tampa Bay newspaper asking why they have had so much death compared to all the other big states.

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  101. Hard to really grasp how bad it is in Florida. The Delta outbreak was horrible. Worst in the country. But Omicron is also terrible, but it doesn’t seem so bad because Delta was terrible.

    Florida had 89.3 deaths per 100,000 residents from Apr 1, when the vaccine started rolling out to everyone, through Sep 27, when the delta variant outbreak was peaking.

    Texas was 47.7
    Pennsylvania 31.4
    Illinois 30.5
    New York 25.5
    California 16.2

    Another unsettling fact: Florida’s current COVID death rate is higher than the peak that 32 other states experienced during delta, the Times found. In other words, our omicron wave is already worse than their delta peak, at least when it comes to deaths per day accounting for population. For instance, COVID was killing more than nine Floridians a day for every 1 million residents this week. During the delta wave, North Carolina, Colorado and Ohio’s rates never reached eight deaths a day per 1 million residents. Pennsylvania, Virginia and Maine never reached six. California didn’t reach four. Nor did Illinois or New Jersey. Again, our omicron is already worse than their delta. That can hardly be described as “mild.”

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  102. Everyone celebrates Florida because they are “free” and don’t have to wear masks. They can eat inside in restaurants at will and not have a care in the world.

    Yet they are dying in much greater numbers than any other state. It’s really a tragedy. Lots of families without parents and grandparents in the last 2 years.

    https://www.tampabay.com/opinion/2022/02/03/dont-treat-omicron-lightly-in-florida-it-packs-a-punch-analysis/

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  103. “because you stated “…the cost of a mask mandate appears to be basically zero” which is incorrect.”

    We weren’t talking about mask mandates for children. We were talking about the mask mandates for public places where adults go. And the cost there is zero.

    “Further, the social contract was once we get vaccines no more mandates including masks. Almost one year later…..”

    I can’t help what you believed. I never believed that. I knew we were in uncharted territory and all bets are off. There are no guarantees in life. Random shit happens.

    “To put it bluntly if I knew when I got vaccinated the reality of how we would be living nearly a year later I wouldn’t have gotten vaccinated.”

    The vaccine was never about (shouldn’t have been about) lifestyle promises. It was about reduced hospitalizations and deaths and we got that. If people don’t want that fine but then they shouldn’t be allowed to fill up hospitals and prevent others from getting necessary medical care.

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  104. “900,000 dead and still climbing. ”

    Gosh I sure wish Joe Biden would stop the dying of covid like he promised.

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  105. “Both TX and Florida have much higher death rates than any of the other 5 largest states (NY, IL, CA). Florida is more than double and Texas almost is double Illinois.”

    “Texas was 47.7
    Pennsylvania 31.4
    Illinois 30.5
    New York 25.5
    California 16.2”

    Thats not almost double

    Not sure what data set you’re using but it doesnt match the CDC’s (And you flipped CA & NY)

    “Yet they are dying in much greater numbers than any other state. It’s really a tragedy. Lots of families without parents and grandparents in the last 2 years.”

    Lets look at Nov 28 to Feb 4

    Il – 46.6
    Fl – 18.6

    ILlInOIs iS 2.5X (Or using Sabrina Math 5X) mORe DeaDLy THaN fLOrIDa

    Commutatively (per 100k) IL is worse than TX

    You are a terrible liar

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  106. I provided the link to the data several times JohnnyU.

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  107. “Gosh I sure wish Joe Biden would stop the dying of covid like he promised.”

    Gosh sonies, if people in states like Texas and Nevada would only get vaccinated THEY WOULDN’T BE DYING.

    He tried the mandates, but those were thrown out and he’s not going to try again.

    The tragedy is that most of the recent deaths could have been prevented. JUST GET THE SHOTS.

    It’s so stupid it’s beyond belief. Our poor medical professionals don’t deserve this. They are quitting in droves. Who can blame them? The idiots just keep coming into the ER and are still spouting their stupid conspiracy theories even while suffocating.

    So sad.

    It didn’t have to be like this.

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  108. “It was about reduced hospitalizations and deaths and we got that.”

    Yep. This.

    The vaccines protect our hospitals. If Texas were more than 60% vaccinated (they are not), their ICUs wouldn’t have just been filled and medical procedures wouldn’t be postponed.

    But does anyone think that 40% is going to get vaccinated now? Hell, if Delta and Omicron and 4,000+ people a day dying nationally don’t persuade you to get it, nothing will.

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  109. “I gave you all the cite in my response but none of you clicked on it.”

    Paywall. I’m not subscribing to the Tampa newspaper.

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  110. “We weren’t talking about mask mandates for children. We were talking about the mask mandates for public places where adults go. And the cost there is zero.”

    The cost is business losing money and people losing jobs. People don’t travel to places with excessive restrictions.

    “Chicago is facing a triple threat when it comes to filling hotel rooms right now: winter weather, stricter COVID mitigations and crime in the city, according to the Illinois Hotel and Lodging Association.

    “Of all our major competitor cities, Chicago ranked dead last in hotel occupancy”

    “For the last two weeks, Jacobson said Chicago has been last in hotel occupancy when compared to all those cities. He said the situation in Chicago is so dire, some hotels are experiencing single-digit occupancy rates right now.”

    “In 2020-2021, hotels in our state lost $5.4 billion in room revenue and 24,000 jobs, according to the American Hotel and Lodging Association.”

    https://abc7chicago.com/hotel-chicago-hotels-near-me-room/11535630/

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  111. “Gosh sonies, if people in states like Texas and Nevada would only get vaccinated THEY WOULDN’T BE DYING.”

    I thought you said it was because they didn’t wear masks? Which one is it now Sabrina….

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  112. “It was about reduced hospitalizations and deaths and we got that.”

    Correct. Thus the point of mask and vaccine mandates are?

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  113. “It’s only when the cases rose and Omicron, which is much more transmissible, came about late last year, did they bring back the mask mandate indoors.”

    Anyone who actually lives in Chicago (or even in Illinois) would know that this statement was wrong.

    As the signs at many businesses in the city still say, August 20, 2021, was the date of reimplementation of the indoor mask mandate. Here’s the City order:

    https://chicityclerk.s3.amazonaws.com/s3fs-public/Health%20Order%202021-1%20-%20Final%20signed.pdf

    Making up BS about the mask mandate coming back only bc of Omicron (first reported to WHO on 24 November 2021) is detrimental to a reality based discussion.

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  114. “The cost is business losing money and people losing jobs. People don’t travel to places with excessive restrictions.”

    So people are going to stay home because they have to wear a mask in the grocery store or upon entering a restaurant? I seriously doubt that. The vaccine mandate I get but not a mask mandate. And frankly, I don’t go to grocery stores where people don’t wear their masks properly so for people like me it has the opposite effect. I cancelled my trip to Florida in January precisely because it’s the wild west there. Triple vaxxed relatives of ours went there and caught it and were pretty sick.

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  115. “It was about reduced hospitalizations and deaths and we got that.”

    “Correct. Thus the point of mask and vaccine mandates are?”

    Come on. Because we don’t have enough people vaccinated and even if you are vaccinated you can still get sick from it and pass it along to others. As it was we overwhelmed hospital systems. It would have been much, much worse if we didn’t have the vaccinations that we did.

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  116. “It would have been much, much worse if we didn’t have the vaccinations that we did.”

    Just look at the states with lower vaccination rates like Texas. It’s been terrible at the hospitals there.

    Or look at rural California. Only about a 50% vaccination rate in some of those counties. Hospitals overwhelmed right now. It doesn’t take that many patients to overwhelm smaller, rural hospitals.

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  117. “I cancelled my trip to Florida in January precisely because it’s the wild west there. Triple vaxxed relatives of ours went there and caught it and were pretty sick.”

    FT just did an article about Miami over the weekend. What I noticed was that several people interviewed were worried about getting COVID because there were absolutely no precautions taking place there.

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  118. “As the signs at many businesses in the city still say, August 20, 2021, was the date of reimplementation of the indoor mask mandate. Here’s the City order:”

    As someone who lives in the city, and had to wear a mask indoors, we did NOT have to wear a mask indoors for several months last year.

    So this complaining that Chicago never got rid of the mask mandate is BULLSHIT.

    Oh, and I’m sorry, I’m confusing Delta with Omicron as they both blended together.

    They brought it back Aug 20. Cry me a river. Hell yeah they did as Delta was killing hundreds a day in Florida.

    I’m so tired of all of you complaining when the government is actually trying to save your life. But you can just move to Florida and roll the dice. It’s wide open. Freedom. Choice.

    We didn’t have the mask mandate in Chicago during the summer. Nothing for tourists to whine about if they came to the city.

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  119. “Paywall. I’m not subscribing to the Tampa newspaper.”

    Nope. Not a subscriber and I was able to click on it several times.

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  120. “We didn’t have the mask mandate in Chicago during the summer. Nothing for tourists to whine about if they came to the city.”

    You mean the tourists that didn’t come?

    The best summer month, July 2021, had a hotel occupancy rate of 57.5%, about the same as February 2020….

    https://chicago.suntimes.com/city-hall/2021/9/1/22652670/chicago-tourism-hospitality-industries-hotel-occupancy-rates-coronavirus-shutdown

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  121. “The best summer month, July 2021, had a hotel occupancy rate of 57.5%, about the same as February 2020….”

    First, all of the hotels weren’t even fully opened as of last summer.

    Second, only some of the events returned.

    Third, few conventions returned.

    Fourth, most international travel was still impacted. Chicago gets millions of foreign tourists a year.

    Chicago did fine. It was no different than other major big cities.

    Keep on with your boring doom and gloom HD. You are WAY behind what is going on in the city. By the way, people starting to return back to their downtown offices again. Many of my friends are expecting to go back in starting at the beginning of March. Mask restrictions will be lifted by then.

    No one is going back 5 days a week. But companies are really feeling the impact from work from home now. Lots of culture lost. No new employee assimilation. Many employees missing work colleagues. Zoom/Skype aren’t the same.

    Downtown Chicago is going to be very alive by this summer. I hope the Willis Tower food hall opens soon. Should be a great addition. Also saw that Beatrix is opening another new location on Wacker. Smashburger has opened in the Willis Tower too, I believe.

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  122. I love how all the housing/Chicago bears consistently ignore Gary’s monthly updates because they don’t fit in with their narrative of the city being doomed.

    Lol.

    But I’m sure they will appear in February or March when the yoy comps show a decline from last year’s red hot numbers. And they’ll be saying, “see, Chicago is crashing.”

    Where’s Bob the Bear? Must be a sad few years for him to see that record low inventory.

    Where are all the foreclosures Bob? You promised me that thousands would be listed. That all of those people would lose their homes and there would be a fire sale on all those houses and condos.

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  123. Also, you know it’s sad when the bears are talking about events that took place 8 months ago.

    The pandemic is ongoing. Everyone is doing the best they can to adjust. The airlines don’t believe normal demand will return until 2024. Hotels are similar. Business travel may never return to what it was.

    It’s a new world.

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  124. “So people are going to stay home because they have to wear a mask in the grocery store or upon entering a restaurant? I seriously doubt that. The vaccine mandate I get but not a mask mandate. And frankly, I don’t go to grocery stores where people don’t wear their masks properly so for people like me it has the opposite effect. I cancelled my trip to Florida in January precisely because it’s the wild west there. Triple vaxxed relatives of ours went there and caught it and were pretty sick.”

    I’ve not seen any data to support a claim that mask requirements have impacted businesses. And the distress expressed by millions of Americans over wearing masks has shown (among other aspects of the American right’s response) that we will be toast if there’s ever a full scale third world war. Anyways, with states like NJ now enthusiastically (and stupidly) dropping their mask mandates, unless and until another big wave hits, I would imagine masks will be optional in Chicago within a week or so.

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  125. “So people are going to stay home because they have to wear a mask in the grocery store or upon entering a restaurant? I seriously doubt that”

    Even California is getting rid of their indoor mask mandate next week. Delaware, New Jersey, Connecticut, and Pennsylvania announced there’s already and are removing school mask mandates. I think New Yorks is going to be extended one more time through mid-march and that will be it.

    Kind of ridiculous that Illinois has the longest indoor mask mandate in the country….. New York didn’t re-implement theirs until December.

    Are you saying only Illinois “follows the science” or that Illinois is the only one that doesn’t follow science?

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  126. “They brought it back Aug 20. Cry me a river. Hell yeah they did as Delta was killing hundreds a day in Florida.”

    Illinois was the only State east of the Mississippi that had a statewide mask mandate from August through early November.

    It also appears we will be back to being the only state in the entire country to have a statewide mask mandate within the next month…..

    But yeah keep talking Florida, Texas, and Nevada….

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  127. “But I’m sure they will appear in February or March when the yoy comps show a decline from last year’s red hot numbers. And they’ll be saying, “see, Chicago is crashing.”

    No one said Chicago is crashing…. the amount of dishonesty you spew is mind-numbing. Hard to have an intelligent conversation with an absolutist.

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  128. “Also, you know it’s sad when the bears are talking about events that took place 8 months ago.

    The pandemic is ongoing. Everyone is doing the best they can to adjust. The airlines don’t believe normal demand will return until 2024. Hotels are similar. Business travel may never return to what it was.”

    O’Hare has the highest gate taxes and fees in the country at the same time they are doing mass redevelopment and issuing billions of bonds. Not good for competitiveness if these keep getting raised. Also an added cost for conventions.

    Hotel taxes in Chicago are the second highest in the country. Not good for state, county, and local budgets if it’s going to take years to recover if ever…

    If business travel doesn’t return how are conventions returning with a full slate? Also, not good for state, local and county budgets.

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  129. “If business travel doesn’t return how are conventions returning with a full slate? Also, not good for state, local and county budgets.”

    That’s not the business travel they talk about WP. “Business travel” is John in the San Francisco’s Salesforce office flying to Chicago for 4 days to talk to Jane, who works in Chicago about that new account for Cameo.

    THAT’S the kind of business travel that may not return. Fewer people trying to China or Vietnam to meet with their manufacturers there. Less travel to London.

    McCormick Place has a full slate of conventions for this year. People can’t WAIT to go to them again. I think conventions will probably see their best attendance ever this year.

    Everyone wants to get out. Travel expected to soar. Many resorts sold out for the year already, even through December.

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  130. “I would imagine masks will be optional in Chicago within a week or so.”

    I don’t think that will occur based on Pritzkers comments at the downstate judge who issued a temporary restraining order on Friday regarding school mask mandates.

    Further, given CTU fought for masks in schools it would be difficult for Pritzker to remove a mandate that adults and kids don’t have to wear masks indoors at commercial establishments while continuing to mandate masks for those same kids in schools when they have all been eligible for vaccination for months now.

    Maybe mid or late March it will be lifted but could certainly see it being after Easter given the nuttiness of the restrictions and Pritzker requiring everyone to “respect his authority” during an election year.

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  131. “Illinois was the only State east of the Mississippi that had a statewide mask mandate from August through early November.”

    Yay!

    And this wasn’t what was being discussed WP. You have a horrible way of suddenly turning the discussion to something else that fits your narrative. I’m done talking with you anti-vaxxers and covid deniers. It’s bad enough that you’re all still bearish on Chicago when it’s clearly not the reality, but that I will engage with as it pertains to housing.

    Everything else, you can go be delusional on your own time. And if you don’t like it, move to Florida. I hear it’s nice down there and the weather is perfect. And there is no COVID to be found.

    Freedom! Choice!

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  132. “Even California is getting rid of their indoor mask mandate next week.”

    Reminder: only for the vaccinated.

    Every state has their own outbreak. Not all states are the same. But I suspect JB will be under a lot of pressure to lift it now that other states are putting dates on the calendar. Same with NY’s governor who also hasn’t announced anything.

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  133. “McCormick Place has a full slate of conventions for this year. People can’t WAIT to go to them again. I think conventions will probably see their best attendance ever this year.”

    Cite please. I don’t doubt that they have plenty of conventions lined up for the year. Not sure if its at the same level as pre-covid but assume its at least close. I do doubt however that attendance will resemble pre-covid times however.

    Not convention related but event related for the City it’s surprising what Lightfoot is doing for the Taste this year. I don’t think it will be positive for attendance and city coffers.

    I am interested to see how many people come here for St. Patty’s Day weekend and how hotels do. Although not convention related it could be a precursor to how tourism will fare this year.

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  134. Ah, back to deleting stuff. Fun!

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  135. ” I’m done talking with you anti-vaxxers and covid deniers.”

    How can I be vaccinated but also an anti-vaxxer at that same time? When did I deny covid? Get some better talking points. Thanks.

    “Reminder: only for the vaccinated.”

    reminder the vaccinated still have to wear masks in Illinois unlike California….

    “Every state has their own outbreak. Not all states are the same.”

    I thought the virus didn’t recognize borders?

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  136. Yep. I will not take your verbal abuse anon(tfo). Go abuse someone in your life, not me.

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  137. It’s always surprising that the abusers are surprised that their abuse would be deleted.

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  138. “it’s surprising what Lightfoot is doing for the Taste this year.”

    It’s not surprising at all, to me.

    It’s not been much of a money maker for the city for a long time, and the knock-on economic effects are all (imo) rather more questionable than others:

    “Specifically, the city said it earned $320,205 in profit this year, up from a loss of $169,000 for the flood-shortened event in 2014, and higher than the $272,000 profit it reported in 2013, according to the Chicago Tribune.

    But all of that is small potatoes compared to the $1.3 million loss Taste of Chicago recorded in 2012, which followed up a $1 million loss in 2011 and prompted Mayor Rahm Emanuel to order several major changes, including a shift from a 10-day format to a five-day window.”

    https://www.bizjournals.com/chicago/news/2015/10/05/taste-of-chicago-financials-city-reveals-profit.html

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  139. “I thought the virus didn’t recognize borders?”

    If, after 2 years, you STILL don’t know how the virus works WP, then I am done trying to educate you. I am done trying to educate any of you covid deniers.

    We know that the waves hit different parts of the globe at different times. What is happening in Arizona is NOT the same as what is happening in Illinois, where the Omicron wave actually hit EARLIER.

    So, no, not every state is going to have the same restrictions on at the same time. Neither every country. See Denmark which was hit first in the Omicron wave and has already lifted restrictions. But the United States wasn’t hit until weeks later.

    But I can’t even believe I have to explain to someone how COVID works.

    Come on!

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  140. Sabrina,

    I don’t think there’s been any actual abuse, maybe a little trolling, but no abuse, just hard nosed and snarky discussion. COVID comes up everywhere for everyone these days because we Chicago, Cook County and Illinois in general are still under some of the tightest covid restrictions in the entire country and people have very strong opinions about it. It doesn’t help that Illinois is about to face a peasant revolt over masking children in schools because the forced masking is being lifted almost everywhere in the country, except here. Those board meetings this week have thousands of peasants and parents SCREAMING (from what I’ve seen) at the arrogant progressive board members who refuse to even acknowledge the grievances of their serfs, and they are becoming very angry.

    And all of this, all of it, related to housing, tourism, the economy, which all circles back again to housing. Which seems to be super hot as the Fear of Missing Out buyers are exposing themselves as the last round of greater fools before the inevitable crash. I’ll try to avoid COVID topics as much as I infrequently comment here but it’s tough when I see so many otherwise smart people spreading misinformation.

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  141. I am interested to see how many people come here for St. Patty’s Day weekend

    Why would people come to Chicago for the feast of St Patricia? And why are you anticipating what will happen in August?

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  142. Strange that the thumps up/down thing isn’t working on this site anymore

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  143. “It’s not been much of a money maker for the city for a long time, and the knock-on economic effects are all (imo) rather more questionable than others:”

    Per the link you provided the City says the Taste provides $106MM in business activity to the Chicago economy. Based on a 10% sales tax rate of which the city and county receive 4% the fests do bring in a couple million dollars to the city/county even though the fest itself may at best be break-even.

    So yeah looks like peanuts overall especially compared to Lolla or other events. Most people can google what the new hot restaurant is instead of paying a premium for a couple bites.

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  144. “Strange that the thumps up/down thing isn’t working on this site anymore”

    I don’t pay any attention to that feature. I just looked to see if the plug-in was active and it is. Not sure why it’s not working.

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  145. The abusers never see that they’re abusing.

    You and JohnnyU, with a side sample of WP, are ALL verbal abusers. I won’t take it anymore. I’ll just delete your comments.

    This isn’t a website that is devoted to attacking me.

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  146. “Are you saying only Illinois “follows the science” or that Illinois is the only one that doesn’t follow science?”

    Is that question addressed to me? I wasn’t saying anything about that topic other than I like the mandate at this time.

    However, if you want an opinion I’m pretty sure that most states are making these decisions based on a combination of common sense and weighing the politics. Pritzker apparently has decided that he can get away for a while longer with a mandate, which helps us get the case count down faster. Looking at the IL graph I’d say it’s going to take another 6 weeks to get down to where we were in late October and that was not a great level of cases. States that lift the mandate too soon are just going to slow down the decline.

    Personally I’m looking for the case count to decline further before I get a haircut and even further before I’m comfortable eating in a restaurant. It doesn’t take a lockdown for me to keep my wallet closed.

    And if I was a teacher I’d absolutely want the students masked since, among the lower income schools, the vaccination rate is like 20%.

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  147. “And if I was a teacher I’d absolutely want the students masked since, among the lower income schools, the vaccination rate is like 20%”

    Of course lets blame the poor! Also, is there some reason a teacher couldn’t have gotten vaccinated and boosted? Didn’t CTU demand (I mean threaten a strike) that its members (teachers & support staff) be moved up in line last year to get vaccinated earlier than other Chicagoans? Didn’t Pritzker just sign a bill saying teachers and support staff receive unlimited paid days off if they test positive and are vaccinated?

    Oh and 91% of teachers and support staff at CPS are vaccinated. NOT GOOD ENOUGH I SAY…… My life is in danger if those diseased poor students don’t all wear their masks…..

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  148. “You and JohnnyU, with a side sample of WP, are ALL verbal abusers. I won’t take it anymore. I’ll just delete your comments.”

    Side sample? Like mashed potatoes/mac & cheese side-sample or the dreaded Brussel sprouts/refined mystery bean side-sample? I must know!

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  149. “You and JohnnyU, with a side sample of WP, are ALL verbal abusers. I won’t take it anymore. I’ll just delete your comments. ”

    I’ve never verbally abused you, not once. it’s not a matter of not seeing it. This is an unfair accusation against me, anon(tfo), Johnny U and WP and anyone else.

    But i’ll take the hint. See ya later.

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  150. “Of course lets blame the poor!”

    Where did I blame them? Just stating a fact.

    ” Also, is there some reason a teacher couldn’t have gotten vaccinated and boosted?”

    Even if a teacher is triple vaxxed they don’t want to get sick. I’ve known many triple vaxxed people who got it and it was no picnic. And 100 days after your booster your immunity starts to wane. It’s only a matter of time before they start recommending a 4th shot.

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  151. “Per the link you provided the City says the Taste provides $106MM in business activity to the Chicago economy.”

    As I said, I think that’s a bogus number, using the same sort of accounting that is used to support public funding for private stadia.

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  152. “I’ve known many triple vaxxed people who got it and it was no picnic.”

    Did they go to the hospital? This was the whole point of the vaccine. It was not to stop spread or people from getting it…….

    “And 100 days after your booster your immunity starts to wane.”

    You realize waning immunity doesn’t mean increased hospitalization risk or increased severity if you get covid…..

    “It’s only a matter of time before they start recommending a 4th shot.”

    If a person wants to get 100 shots they can get 100 shots. If that’s what someone wants to do go for it not sure why that type of thought should effect everyone else. I’m not sure how this relates to students wearing masks in school either.

    here’s the head of the DCCC today who is a New York City Rep mind you…. The goal, he said, is “to make sure that people understand that they will be in a position to prepare for themselves [and] for their families; that we trust parents to know best for their children and their schools; and that because of the wide availability of vaccines and better therapeutics — and with the right support for our front-line health care workers, who have performed heroically — that we can all expect a definite plan for the resumption of our normal lives.”

    Based on the ongoing fearmongering from certain liberal constituencies one would think this is DeSantis talking not the head of the DCCC. The official party platform is what the right has been saying for at least a year now.

    Look at that bipartisanship lets all hold hands and sing together.

    https://thehill.com/homenews/house/593318-dem-campaign-chief-vows-return-to-normalcy

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  153. “If a person wants to get 100 shots they can get 100 shots.”

    Every year, most doctors, nurses, dentists and others in the health care community get flu shots.

    Millions of other Americans get the flu shot every year as well.

    They are working on a joint COVID/flu shot so we won’t have to get two in the fall.

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  154. “But i’ll take the hint. See ya later.”

    Bye Homedelete. You haven’t bothered to comment on the actual housing on this site for years now. You come on to push some false narrative that Chicago is doomed and housing is going to crash and whatever other nonsense.

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  155. The verbal abuse happens every single day against me on this site. I just won’t deal with it anymore. I’ll delete any comments that are abusive.

    You all know who is doing it. Look in the mirror.

    Not sure why so many are so angry and want to root against one of the world’s greatest cities.

    The cities are 2/3rds of America’s GDP. We WANT them to all come roaring back from this pandemic, stronger than ever. Chicago included. Anyone who doesn’t is just rooting against America. Plain and simple.

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  156. Snivel much?

    You really can’t handle being called out on blatant BS

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  157. Again, we all know who the verbal abusers are on this site.

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  158. “You realize waning immunity doesn’t mean increased hospitalization risk or increased severity if you get covid…..”

    Yes it does. Eventually. That’s the whole reason we need the booster 6 months after the second shot.

    “If a person wants to get 100 shots they can get 100 shots. If that’s what someone wants to do go for it not sure why that type of thought should effect everyone else. I’m not sure how this relates to students wearing masks in school either.

    Because if a teacher is 6 months after their last vaccine and only 20% of their students are vaccinated then they are not going to like the risks they face. If their students are wearing masks it cuts the risk for them. Otherwise the teachers might just leave the profession…and they are.

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  159. “Because if a teacher is 6 months after their last vaccine and only 20% of their students are vaccinated then they are not going to like the risks they face. If their students are wearing masks it cuts the risk for them. Otherwise the teachers might just leave the profession…and they are.”

    So a teacher in this scenario they cant wear a mask?

    Other than those in a high risk pool, teachers are leaving because the administration/union suck. Zero leadership and making teachers face the brunt of parental rage – Both pro & anti mask

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  160. Masks at school really is a tricky one, probably the single most thorny of all Covid-related precautions at this point. Which means that anyone taking a stridently certain position on the issue can’t be taken too seriously.

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  161. “So a teacher in this scenario they cant wear a mask?

    Other than those in a high risk pool, teachers are leaving because the administration/union suck.”

    Yes a teacher can wear a mask but it would need to be a properly fitted N95 to be effective and even then it’s not perfect. A mask on the infected is more effective than a mask on the vulnerable.

    Just read the articles about why teachers (everywhere, not just Chicago) are leaving the profession. The health risk is definitely part of the equation. The Chicago teachers are not just pretending to be worried about it.

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  162. This is a start. Archdiocese of Chicago is removing mask mandate for Lake and Suburban Cook county. Hopefully Chicago will be soon. It will be optional going forward.

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  163. ” teachers are leaving because the administration/union suck”

    Don’t forget the school boards, parents (and sometimes kids) and the general public. It’s a pretty shitty gig for lots of people.

    Plus, their college friends who went into nursing have been making bank while on travel duty–with the ability to walk away from bad situations.

    Plus, they can all go be realtors. It’s the hawt thing, I hear.

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  164. “Don’t forget the school boards, parents (and sometimes kids) and the general public. It’s a pretty shitty gig for lots of people.”

    Yep

    Add to it that many 1st and 2nd year teachers lack the student teaching experience as well.

    So no experience, lack of internal support, not understanding what the Union’s real goals are, terrible parents (both sides), kids coming in behind where they should be and yeah its pretty demotivating

    Potential sickness is about #76 on the grevience list…

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  165. “Potential sickness is about #76 on the grevience list…”

    Here is what the NEA has to say on the subject: https://www.nea.org/advocating-for-change/new-from-nea/safety-concerns-over-covid-19-driving-some-educators-out

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  166. “Here is what the NEA has to say on the subject:”

    Here’s Randi Weingeirden of the AFT yesterday: “No one wants masks in schools,” she added some moments later. “Not teachers, not students.”

    “Weingarten added that she was waiting for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to issue new guidance. She wrote to the agency and to Education Secretary Miguel Cardona in November, asking them to “start a transparent process and work with educators and parents on the metrics and standards for easing indoor mask requirements without sacrificing safety.”

    Weingarten’s letter has received no response from the Biden administration.”

    NO RESPONSE! Dude is sleeping through his presidency just like he did campaigning….

    https://news.yahoo.com/teachers-union-leader-signals-willingness-for-masks-to-come-off-no-one-wants-masks-in-schools-163650507.html

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  167. “Here is what the NEA has to say on the subject:”

    LMAO

    Great job posting a union article and one who’s cohabitating child is in a significant risk pool and 2 others that are likely too scared to ever leave their bubble (I’m sure their fine with all the poors doing what ever they need to so they can order grubhub)

    This is not a accurate representation of teachers, its union PR. Sad you cant tell the difference

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  168. It’s only a matter of time before they start recommending a 4th shot.

    Already recommended for the immunocompromised.
    Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/vaccines/recommendations/immuno.html

    The 4th shot here is actually the booster. Immunucompromised individuals received a 3rd full shot instead of the booster.

    Source: me, I am immunocompromised because of medication I take.

    The official party platform is what the right has been saying for at least a year now.

    Things have changed significantly in the last year. I would expect advise, guidelines and opinions to change because of this.

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  169. “Here is what the NEA has to say on the subject:”

    Had to say in August 2020, before there was a vaccine.

    That was 7.5 years ago, right?

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  170. ” The health risk is definitely part of the equation. The Chicago teachers are not just pretending to be worried about it.”

    90%+ vaccination rate for teachers in Chicago….. but lets ignore that.

    From the NY Times this week:

    “The benefits of universal masking in schools remain unclear. Studies — in Florida and in England, for example — tend to find little effect on caseloads. One study that did find an effect has been largely debunked.”

    “Other experts believe that the universal mask mandates are almost worthless. Among the reasons: Medical masks are designed for adults, not children, Michael Osterholm, a University of Minnesota epidemiologist, notes. Even masks designed for children slip off their faces. Children take off their masks to eat. Add in Omicron’s intense contagiousness, and the benefits of the current mandates may be tiny.”

    “A universal mandate “doesn’t work,” Osterholm told me. Mandates focused on older children and high-quality masks can help when caseloads are rising rapidly, he added.”

    “It’s also relevant that teachers and students who want to continue wearing masks can do so. One-way masking, with medical masks, provides protection, experts note.”

    “For reasons like this, Europe’s infectious disease agency does not recommend masking for children under 12, and many countries avoid masking preschoolers. The U.S. stands out for its aggressive use of masks on young children”

    “The evidence suggests that the benefits of mandated school masking are modest and that the costs are meaningful for some children, particularly after two years of pandemic life. This combination suggests that the removal of statewide mandates will probably do more good than harm, given that Covid cases are now plummeting.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/08/briefing/mask-mandates-covid-new-jersey.html

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  171. ““Here is what the NEA has to say on the subject:”

    Had to say in August 2020, before there was a vaccine.”

    Jebus, its even worse…

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  172. There are more current surveys that say the same thing. https://www.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-news-connecticut-teachers-safety-20210910-lqb6bexg35dyneo366h2qktxlu-story.html

    That was before Omicron. Unfortunately, run of the mill masks are less effective against Omicron. The best solution is for the kids to be vaccinated – not just for the teacher’s benefit but for the benefit of the kids and their families.

    My only point is that teachers don’t feel safe and if they don’t feel safe they are going to quit. You can argue all you want about how they should feel safe but you’re probably better off arguing that point with them.

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  173. So another union puff piece?

    You’re not even trying anymore

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  174. So what exactly are you suggesting? That they made up the responses? And why did they choose to make an issue of this particular topic?

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  175. “Side sample? Like mashed potatoes/mac & cheese side-sample or the dreaded Brussel sprouts/refined mystery bean side-sample? I must know!”

    After today, I’m sure it’s gazpacho.

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  176. “ So what exactly are you suggesting? That they made up the responses?”

    Have you even known a union to be satisfied with the status quo? Do you think this is a representative sample of its members?

    “And why did they choose to make an issue of this particular topic”

    Bargaining chip

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  177. “Bargaining chip”

    It’s not just that tho, there is a portion of the teacher population that truly (as Gary said) doesn’t feel safe and if they don’t feel safe they are going to quit.

    Yes, the CTU (and maybe other locals) is using this as a bargaining chip, but that’s what unions do–it should be expected.

    What bothers me about CTU’s approach on this is that they claimed it was all about everyone’s safety, but couldn’t be bothered to hold a vote over winter break, and had everyone come in for 2 days first. So, it’s about critical safety issues, but solving that cannot interfere with vacations.

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  178. “It’s not just that tho, there is a portion of the teacher population that truly (as Gary said) doesn’t feel safe and if they don’t feel safe they are going to quit.”

    I’m sure there are but its what maybe 1% and of that how many are in high risk pools? Confusing the most vocal and somewhat sympathetic as representative is a mistake. IME (Family members) a much greater % are looking to get out due to the items I previously outlined.

    “Yes, the CTU (and maybe other locals) is using this as a bargaining chip, but that’s what unions do–it should be expected.”

    Not disagreeing, but to conflate it with the majority is wrong.

    “What bothers me about CTU’s approach on this is that they claimed it was all about everyone’s safety, but couldn’t be bothered to hold a vote over winter break, and had everyone come in for 2 days first. So, it’s about critical safety issues, but solving that cannot interfere with vacations.”

    This is what unions do

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  179. “So, it’s about critical safety issues, but solving that cannot interfere with vacations”

    I agree with most of your statement just not this last part. It wasn’t about not wanting to interfere with vacations it was about disruption, attention, and political power in waiting two days in.

    If this vote happened the week prior it would not have gotten as much attention because parents and the city at large (not just the teachers) were either also on vacation or pre-occupied with holiday stuff. News consumption is also down around the holidays too.

    By going to classes for two days they were also able to gather evidence around positive tests for students and teachers in an attempt to make their bargaining position stronger and present evidence to the city and parents that their position was “right” which “should” increase support.

    They would have likely won the battle if instead of shutting down the entire district they shut down only schools that had a percentage of positive tests for students or teachers or both.

    Their other major problem was they were now infighting with their own party in elected office. Their was no “boogeyman” that everyone could rally around as the problem i.e. a republican governor or president especially after the previous couple of years where they got

    (i) “the best contract in history” from Lori for their members in 2019, (ii) Got more collective bargaining power and a elected school board from JB, and (iii) hundreds of billions of dollars from Congress for local schools and a President and administration saying they stood with teachers and unions.

    They have literally gotten almost everything on their wish list in the past three years and were still complaining. Still saying not good enough for us while not appreciating (or caring) how their actions impacted hundreds of thousands of parents and supporters.

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  180. “maybe 1% and of that how many are in high risk pools?”

    It’s not just the individual teacher being high risk, it’s everyone in their families, too.

    And I suspect it is more than 1% who don’t feel safe (with or without good reason)–and all the other stuff (ie, lack of support from school admin, district admin, board, local/state gov’t, parents, etc) sets the tone for feeling like a pawn in the situation–and pawns inherently don’t feel safe. Plus, kids are disgusting germ spreaders in the best of times.

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  181. “They would have likely won the battle if instead of shutting down the entire district they shut down only schools that had a percentage of positive tests for students or teachers or both.”

    Who is “they” here? CPS (not CTU) shut down the entire district.

    You think that CTU won this one?

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  182. “Who is “they” here? CPS (not CTU) shut down the entire district.

    You think that CTU won this one?”

    If CTU’s bargaining position was going remote on a school-by-school basis based on case-count for teachers/students. Yes, they would have had much more support and I’m not sure if they would have been able to declare “victory” but they definitely wouldn’t have lost.

    CTU wanted the entire district to go remote which was ridiculous and yes CPS said that’s a strike and did not allow remote learning.

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  183. I think it was a little more nuanced than that, but definitely CTU took a (typical!) ham-fisted approach, and Lori, uncharacteristically, allowed CTU to just stand there on their own dick.

    I suspect it was Pedro’s influence.

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  184. “It’s not just the individual teacher being high risk, it’s everyone in their families, too.”

    I mentioned family before. Again, this isn’t a large number taken to a realistic end.

    “And I suspect it is more than 1% who don’t feel safe (with or without good reason)–and all the other stuff (ie, lack of support from school admin, district admin, board, local/state gov’t, parents, etc) sets the tone for feeling like a pawn in the situation–and pawns inherently don’t feel safe. Plus, kids are disgusting germ spreaders in the best of times.”

    Yeah I’m sure there are plenty of Sabrina’s who dont understand cost/benefit and risk. Agreed that the teachers have been put in an uncomfortable position as I’ve stated before

    I’m sure there are plenty of CTU members that are using it as an excuse like the one that went to PR & the one caught with a gun going thru ORD

    Kids have always been germ spreaders.

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  185. “Plus, kids are disgusting germ spreaders in the best of times.”

    I’ll say. As for the current times, I’m curious what it’s been like on the ground in Chicago or its burbs lately. In my little bubble, it seems like Covid has hit most households over the past few weeks (hit ours in Oct). With the quarantine period basically cut in half, it’s been wild to see a kid from a household be out of school briefly (sometimes just a couple days if it falls over a weekend), then be back in, with their siblings continuing to attend (if negative and vaccinated), etc. School was closed on Monday for teacher development, and it was a challenge to find a Covid-free playmate (or a kid from a Covid-free household) for our younger kid that day. And under these current circumstances, with the national daily death toll often at roughly 9/11 levels, the neoliberal (hey, I guess I’m one) push is in full stride to end mask wearing and press on to “normalcy”. I’m amazed that any teacher eligible for retirement has not done so already.

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  186. ” I’m amazed that any teacher eligible for retirement has not done so already.”

    Agreed.

    Luckily many/most are not the grossly overweight slugs/young socialists that get most of the TV time. They solider on in spite of everything

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  187. “As for the current times, I’m curious what it’s been like on the ground in Chicago or its burbs lately.”

    Cases continue to decline in Chicago and the suburbs. We’re not low enough to get rid of masks, however.

    The holiday outbreak, where seemingly everyone was getting COVID, is mostly over in Chicago. However, I know a couple of people at an essential workplace who got it in the last week and are out of work quarantining. Triple vaxxed so it’s mild. This is actually the second time these people have gotten covid now.

    It’s still out there, but not circulating quite as strongly as a few weeks ago. I’m not as afraid to eat indoors at a restaurant anymore. And the restaurants aren’t closing like they did a few weeks ago because staff is out sick.

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  188. “Yes it does. Eventually. That’s the whole reason we need the booster 6 months after the second shot.”

    Again, wrong! Read the NY Times…..

    “Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time

    A flurry of new studies suggest that several parts of the immune system can mount a sustained, potent response to any coronavirus variant.”

    “This matches what scientists have found for the SARS coronavirus, which killed nearly 800 people in a 2003 epidemic in Asia. In people exposed to that virus, T cells have lasted more than 17 years”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/health/covid-vaccine-antibodies-t-cells.html

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  189. “Do you reckon that docs and nurses wear them in surgery because they serve no purpose?”

    Lets look at the data….. over 4K people per week already hospitalized for non-covid reasons caught covid during their stay at the hospital….. for each week during the month of January it was more than 3K per week.

    Per the CDC, we peaked at just over 20,000 covid hospitalizations per week in January. Meaning, 20% of covid patients contracted covid in the hospital…..

    Keep wearing those masks though….

    “More hospital patients contracted Covid-19 last month than at any point of the pandemic, a POLITICO analysis of federal health data shows.”

    https://www.politico.com/news/2022/02/19/covid-hospitals-data-00010283

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  190. “Because the CDC didn’t do that study. It’s a bunch of scientists from UC Berkeley. Why are you so quick to dismiss any facts that challenge your beliefs?”

    The CDC doesn’t actually perform many studies. They provide grants to universities to do a CDC backed study.

    The CDC is a political organization as much as a scientific one. Fauci is a politician who wears a lab coat.

    They really need to clean house at the CDC, HHS, and NIH. The was caught and has now admitted this past week hiding troves of data on boosters and covid in general. These people at the top have destroyed their own institutions for what they thought would be political gain…

    From the NY Times…

    “The C.D.C. Isn’t Publishing Large Portions of the Covid Data It Collects

    The agency has withheld critical data on boosters, hospitalizations and, until recently, wastewater analyses.”

    “When the C.D.C. published the first significant data on the effectiveness of boosters in adults younger than 65 two weeks ago, it left out the numbers for a huge portion of that population: 18- to 49-year-olds, the group least likely to benefit from extra shots, because the first two doses already left them well-protected.”

    “Two full years into the pandemic, the agency leading the country’s response to the public health emergency has published only a tiny fraction of the data it has collected, several people familiar with the data said.”

    “Without the booster data for 18- to 49-year-olds, the outside experts whom federal health agencies look to for advice had to rely on numbers from Israel to make their recommendations on the shots.”

    “Kristen Nordlund, a spokeswoman for the C.D.C., said the agency has been slow to release the different streams of data “because basically, at the end of the day, it’s not yet ready for prime time.” She said the agency’s “priority when gathering any data is to ensure that it’s accurate and actionable.”

    Another reason is fear that the information might be misinterpreted, Ms. Nordlund said.”

    “The performance of vaccines and boosters, particularly in younger adults, is among the most glaring omissions in data the C.D.C. has made public.”

    “The agency presented that information as risk comparisons with unvaccinated adults, rather than provide timely snapshots of hospitalized patients stratified by age, sex, race and vaccination status.”

    “But the C.D.C. has been routinely collecting information since the Covid vaccines were first rolled out last year, according to a federal official familiar with the effort. The agency has been reluctant to make those figures public, the official said, because they might be misinterpreted as the vaccines being ineffective.”

    “Some outside public health experts were stunned to hear that information exists.

    “We have been begging for that sort of granularity of data for two years,” said Jessica Malaty Rivera, an epidemiologist and part of the team that ran Covid Tracking Project, an independent effort that compiled data on the pandemic till March 2021.

    A detailed analysis, she said, “builds public trust, and it paints a much clearer picture of what’s actually going on.”

    https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/20/health/covid-cdc-data.html

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  191. “Keep wearing those masks though….”

    It’s amazing that thousands of people were apparently swarming the hospitals, but didn’t have COVID, at the exact time that the hospitals were filled with COVID.

    What a coincidence.

    Why have all those thousands of people, which literally filled the hospitals to capacity, even when the hospitals halted elective procedures, stopped suddenly needing to be hospitalized?

    Nothing you say makes sense WP. It’s all nonsense.

    I will delete any comment denying COVID or that a million people haven’t died from it in the United States. Families have been destroyed by this virus and all of you act like it’s a sham or “fake news.

    Masks save lives. They actually WORK.

    Shame on you WP.

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  192. “Lets look at the data….. over 4K people per week already hospitalized for non-covid reasons caught covid during their stay at the hospital….. for each week during the month of January it was more than 3K per week.”

    You left out the part of the article that said “Despite the January spike, the chance of catching Covid-19 at a hospital is relatively low, federal and state health officials said.

    For example, in North Carolina, 1.6 percent of patients got infected with Covid-19 at a hospital in December of last year, according to a state health department spokesperson. That percentage rose to 2.2 percent in January.”

    And the statistic that really matters isn’t available – for those hospitals that had no masks what percent of their patients got infected.

    In other words your source, and your analysis of the data, does nothing to answer the question. Furthermore, and the article alludes to this, you really need n95 masks. Those surgical masks are kinda worthless for Omicron.

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  193. “The CDC is a political organization as much as a scientific one. Fauci is a politician who wears a lab coat.

    They really need to clean house at the CDC, HHS, and NIH. The was caught and has now admitted this past week hiding troves of data on boosters and covid in general. These people at the top have destroyed their own institutions for what they thought would be political gain…

    From the NY Times…”

    So because the CDC withholds some data for reasons explained in the article you’ve concluded that 1) the CDC is doing it for political reasons that are unexplained and 2) they have zero credibility. That’s an incredible extrapolation.

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  194. “Got a Covid Booster? You Probably Won’t Need Another for a Long Time”

    I’m talking about the need for the booster. The article is talking mostly about the need for a second booster. Consider that “Unvaccinated adults were 23 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 during the omicron wave than adults who were vaccinated and boosted,” and “Hospitalizations were 5.3 times higher among the unvaccinated than vaccinated but not boosted.”? In other words without the booster you are about 4.3 X more likely to get hospitalized.

    https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/592289-cdc-study-hospitalizations-23-times-higher-for-unvaccinated-than-boosted

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  195. “So because the CDC withholds some data for reasons explained in the article you’ve concluded that 1) the CDC is doing it for political reasons that are unexplained and 2) they have zero credibility. That’s an incredible extrapolation.”

    What grade would you give the CDC?

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  196. “It’s amazing that thousands of people were apparently swarming the hospitals, but didn’t have COVID, at the exact time that the hospitals were filled with COVID.”

    The tribune had articles in December saying hospitals were treating 25% more non-covid patients than they were pre-covid because people were told to avoid the hospital due to covid and are now coming in sicker since they weren’t getting cancer screenings and regular checkups…. link below.

    In addition, these numbers in the politico article of the amount of hospital patients catching covid while in the hospital comes from the CDC and the CDC data…..

    “Statewide, the average number of non-COVID patients in hospitals during the first two weeks of this month was nearly 25% higher than the same period two years ago, according to a Tribune analysis of state data.”

    http://www.chicagotribune.com/coronavirus/ct-illinois-hospital-capacity-covid-surge-20211217-hnkjacf5vbbepbo3xyl7x24ymu-story.html

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  197. “And the statistic that really matters isn’t available – for those hospitals that had no masks what percent of their patients got infected.”

    What hospital doesn’t have masks? This makes no sense.

    “Those surgical masks are kinda worthless for Omicron.”

    Which is what nurses and Dr.’s in hospital wear and the liberal talking point was and always has been “that’s why dr.’s and nurses wear masks when they operate on you….”

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  198. “So because the CDC withholds some data for reasons explained in the article you’ve concluded that 1) the CDC is doing it for political reasons that are unexplained and 2) they have zero credibility. That’s an incredible extrapolation.”

    The bureaucrats don’t trust the people they are governing and thus we had to rely on Israel and private companies for the same information since our government wouldn’t release it.

    And it wasn’t “some” data. It was most data and very key data that would have better informed our responses to the pandemic.

    The CDC continues with the same masking guidelines even though every state is dropping their masking guidelines. Is every state health department in the country wrong and “anti-science” or again, the CDC has no credibility? They literally let the teachers unions write the federal masking guidelines for schools and used now debunked studies as their justification for it.

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  199. “The article is talking mostly about the need for a second booster. Consider that “Unvaccinated adults were 23 times more likely to be hospitalized with COVID-19 during the omicron wave than adults who were vaccinated and boosted,” and “Hospitalizations were 5.3 times higher among the unvaccinated than vaccinated but not boosted.”? In other words without the booster you are about 4.3 X more likely to get hospitalized.”

    Look at the previous article linked on how the CDC isn’t releasing booster data for 18 – 49 year olds. The Times (among plenty of other outlets) are questioning if people under 50 ever needed a booster to begin with as the data shows that the two dose regiment still produced strong reactions from memory b cells a year after in this age group.

    You can cite 4.3x and 23x “more likely” but remember covid risk isn’t uniform. It depends on your age and health status. NY Times article below from back in October saying an “unvaccinated child is at less risk of serious Covid illness than a vaccinated 70 year old”. So what does 4.3x and 23x actually mean when for certain age groups the risk of serious covid is like 0.0000000000001% to begin with.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/12/briefing/covid-age-risk-infection-vaccine.html

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  200. “Which is what nurses and Dr.’s in hospital wear and the liberal talking point was and always has been “that’s why dr.’s and nurses wear masks when they operate on you….””

    My doctors have only worn N-95s for the past year or more. Once they started producing enough of them, they have only worn those.

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  201. “What hospital doesn’t have masks? This makes no sense.”

    My proposition makes total sense but my point is that there is no way to evaluate the effectiveness of masks in hospital settings precisely because there is nothing to compare mask policies against.

    ““Those surgical masks are kinda worthless for Omicron.”

    Which is what nurses and Dr.’s in hospital wear and the liberal talking point was and always has been “that’s why dr.’s and nurses wear masks when they operate on you….”

    The point of that statement is to support the notion of masking in general and it was valid pre-Omicron. Omicron was a game changer.

    “The bureaucrats don’t trust the people they are governing and thus we had to rely on Israel and private companies for the same information since our government wouldn’t release it.”

    What does this have to do with whether or not you believe the data from a study that was not conducted by the CDC but was posted on the CDC Web site? It’s irrelevant to the original discussion.

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  202. ” So what does 4.3x and 23x actually mean when for certain age groups the risk of serious covid is like 0.0000000000001% to begin with.”

    It means that for at least some people – definitely older people but maybe much younger people too – your immunity wanes over time and you need the booster.

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  203. “What grade would you give the CDC?”

    First of all I would like to point out that regardless of what grade I would give them I would pay attention to studies performed by a group of academic researchers, which was the original topic.

    I would give them a B. Their greatest failings were 1) not explaining why they were telling people to wear cloth masks and not explaining the limitations of those masks and 2) not establishing published metrics on which to base decisions on mask mandates and behavior restrictions.

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  204. “The CDC continues with the same masking guidelines even though every state is dropping their masking guidelines. Is every state health department in the country wrong and “anti-science” or again, the CDC has no credibility?”

    I think the CDC has it right. Most medical experts are saying that it might be too early to remove mask mandates. The very fact that states are setting dates, as opposed to metrics, as the basis for removing the mandates is troubling to me. It’s partly the CDC’s fault because I haven’t heard them setting targets either. In theory there should be a curve that shows what level of community transmission you should hit as a function of vaccination rate in the community.

    It’s clear the states are reacting to public pressure and the need to get reelected. We’ll get another wave in another 2 – 4 months probably.

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  205. “I would give them a B. Their greatest failings were 1) not explaining why they were telling people to wear cloth masks and not explaining the limitations of those masks and 2) not establishing published metrics on which to base decisions on mask mandates and behavior restrictions.”

    Ok that explains a lot

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  206. “It’s partly the CDC’s fault because I haven’t heard them setting targets either.”

    They actually did. This has been on their website since at least last summer (date is July 2021). Low transmission is defined as <10 cases per 100,000 people or a test positivity rate of <0.01%. They define high transmission as anything above 0.1% i.e. 100 cases per 100K people.

    Their metrics are so ridiculous is why you have never heard about them. They would be laughed at by the general population if this was widely reported.

    We haven't met any of these metrics since Covid started…..

    https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7030e2.htm#T1_down

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  207. “It’s clear the states are reacting to public pressure and the need to get reelected. We’ll get another wave in another 2 – 4 months probably.”

    Shouldn’t the CDC also react to public pressure given its a public agency and publicly funded?

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  208. “Shouldn’t the CDC also react to public pressure given its a public agency and publicly funded?”

    Um…no?

    This is why it was located in Atlanta. To remove it from the DC political machine.

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  209. Also, we know from the last 2 years that the next wave will start in the South, either Florida or Texas or both, in July.

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  210. “This is why it was located in Atlanta. To remove it from the DC political machine.”

    LOL! Walensky refused to relocate from Boston for the role and takes the Acela down to DC as needed. She rarely goes to Atlanta.

    https://www.politico.com/newsletters/west-wing-playbook/2022/01/12/walenskys-growing-pains-495704

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  211. “Shouldn’t the CDC also react to public pressure given its a public agency and publicly funded?”

    Police departments barely react to public pressure. Why would (or should) what is intended to be a science orgnaization?

    Should the CDC declare that vaccines cause autism, because of public pressure?

    Should the CDC get involved in abortion politics, because of public pressure?

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  212. ” Low transmission is defined as <10 cases per 100,000 people or a test positivity rate of <0.01%. They define high transmission as anything above 0.1% i.e. 100 cases per 100K people."

    If you think about it 0.1% would expose the average person to quite a bit of risk. What assumptions do you want to make? If someone is exposed to 50 people per day then that gives them roughly a 5% chance of being exposed every single day. Over the course of 30 days they would have a 78% chance of being exposed.

    Don't forget that when this thing started there was an immeasurably miniscule case rate – 1 person. Yet it infected the entire planet.

    At the end of the day these thresholds can't help but be arbitrary. It comes down to someone's judgment.

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  213. “If you think about it 0.1% would expose the average person to quite a bit of risk. What assumptions do you want to make? If someone is exposed to 50 people per day then that gives them roughly a 5% chance of being exposed every single day. Over the course of 30 days they would have a 78% chance of being exposed.”

    Do you think the odds of heads are higher after flipping a coin 10X and getting all tails?

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  214. “Do you think the odds of heads are higher after flipping a coin 10X and getting all tails?”

    Of course not. Why are you asking such a dumb question?

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  215. BTW, as a point of reference the NYT shows Cook County having an average case rate of 13 per 100K right now so 10 is not that hard to hit. I don’t know over what period of time that is averaged though.

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  216. “NYT shows Cook County having an average case rate of 13 per 100K right now”

    WaPo sez 12.5.

    “a test positivity rate of <0.01%"

    The test positivity number is pretty clearly based on an assumption about a number of daily tests that's only achieved in a few place. UIUC probably had enough daily testing for that to be reasonable, maybe Denmark maybe, but it was never going to work with our f'ed up medical system.

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  217. “BTW, as a point of reference the NYT shows Cook County having an average case rate of 13 per 100K right now so 10 is not that hard to hit. I don’t know over what period of time that is averaged though.”

    I just looked at the NYT and CDC, and my county (Boulder) looks about twice as bad as Cook from a case/100k standpoint. We were the last holdout in the state with a mask mandate, which was lifted this past Friday evening. Had dinner indoors Sunday night at the neighborhood brewery (a very liberal/crunchy place) – zero masks on hosts/servers, and probably 5% of guests wore one to get to and from tables. Had breakfast Monday morning outside (same shopping center, at an even crunchier place), and our server was wearing one, but when I went inside to use the restroom, none of the hosts/other servers were. Went to Target last night, and I’d say a bit less than half of the customers were masked, but most of the employees were. At our kids’ (middle and elem) schools, the kids said most classmates were masked yesterday (but not at recess or gym, which abnormally was indoors yesterday because the temp dropped to zero), as were all teachers, though our middle schooler said her principal was not (probably the first time she’s seen his face). Lots of messaging at the schools and elsewhere around town about “respecting people’s choices” (presumably to preempt complaints about those without masks). Will be interesting to see what our numbers look like in a couple weeks. Things definitely have shifted to a “Covid is basically over” vibe (ski towns and red areas have been that way for a while). These are anecdotes from a small (mostly) liberal zone. With major zones like CA saying it’s time to pivot to living with it, it will be interesting to see how/when a major zone like Chicago proceeds.

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  218. “it will be interesting to see how/when a major zone like Chicago proceeds.”

    March 1! For better or worse.

    And it might have included CPS but for the post-lockout agreement with CTU.

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  219. “Of course not. Why are you asking such a dumb question?”

    Thinking that its dependent is dumb

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  220. “Thinking that its dependent is dumb”

    ??

    If you have 50 opportunities at 0.1% each of a “positive outcome”, there is an aggregate ~4.88% chance of a positive outcome.

    That ~4.88% chance of a positive outcome, 30 times, is an aggregate ~77.7% chance of a positive outcome.

    Just like with flipping coin–the next flip is always 50% chance of a positive outcome, but 50 flips gives a ~100% chance of a positive outcome.

    Now, want to challenge the premise of the .1% chance, and say it’s 10x or 100x too high? Fair! Using the same 50x/day and then 30x/month, and add 12x/yr:

    A 0.01% chance = ~0.5%/day; ~14%/month; ~83.5%/yr
    A 0.001% chance = ~0.05%/day; ~1.5%/month; ~16.5%/yr

    I don’t quickly find transmission numbers for brief contacts, but close contacts with asymptomatic carriers have been orders of magnitude *higher*. So it’s more a question of how many ‘close contacts’ per day, I think. 50 may well be too high.

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  221. “Thinking that its dependent is dumb”

    But my math is the same as anon’s and doesn’t make that assumption. Still perplexed as to why you would ask that question.

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  222. Thinking that the first 1000 people you’re going to come into contact with have been pre-selected so that 10 are positive is not realistic. Negates that the majority of people you have contact with is a small group

    Using Gary’s example, everyone should be positive in less than a month

    Its not random & its not dependent

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  223. Let’s say it’s a 1% chance of a ‘positive outcome’, but you only have 2 contacts per day. In a month, that’s a ~45.3% chance of a positive; in a year, a ~99.93% chance.

    btw, the extension to a year of Gary’s 99.9% chance of not positive, with 50 chances a day, is, over a year, ~100% chance of positive. About 5 chances in 330,000,000 of NOT positive.

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  224. “Thinking that the first 1000 people you’re going to come into contact with have been pre-selected so that 10 are positive is not realistic. Negates that the majority of people you have contact with is a small group”

    I never said anything about a group being pre-selected. The only assumption is that the distribution of the disease is random, which is not a bad assumption. Of course it’s not totally random because certain groups of people and the people they associate with will have lower or higher risks because of their jobs or their behaviors. I think that’s why there was some statistic that something like 65% of the new cases were hitting the previously infected?!?!?!? But then some clusters of people are facing higher than a .1% risk and others a lower risk.

    And you don’t just interact with a small circle of friends. You interact with people at work and people who provide you service and people in stores and people at events.

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  225. “Thinking that the first 1000 people you’re going to come into contact with have been pre-selected so that 10 are positive is not realistic. ”

    That’s misunderstanding the model entirely.

    It’s premised on a combined likelihood of (i) a contact being an infected person, and (ii) transmission from the infected person.

    Quibble with the 50 contacts. Quibble with the 0.1% chance. Both more than fair game.

    Say that you start with the 12.5/100k tested positives in Cook, and just doubling it (as many positives are not PCR diagnosed), and (somewhat wrongly) assume random chance of encounter, there’s a 0.025% chance of meeting an infected person. Guesstimate a 5% chance of transmission from contact–so .00125% chance of positive–and say you have 10 chances per day. Yes, that yields a very, very unlikely daily risk, a very unlikely monthly risk, and then a ~4.4% annual risk.

    But you change the assumptions to the CDC’s 100/100,000 “high transmission”, put yourself on the el to give 100 chances per day, and retain the 5% transmission, it’s 0.5%/day; 14%/mo; 83.5%/yr–all of which would increase the base chance of encounter with a carrier, and make that all that much worse.

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  226. “I never said anything about a group being pre-selected. The only assumption is that the distribution of the disease is random, which is not a bad assumption. Of course it’s not totally random because certain groups of people and the people they associate with will have lower or higher risks because of their jobs or their behaviors.”

    Its a bad assumption for exactly this reason. If it was random, there would be no state to state differences. This assumes you think the sample sizes are large enough, and if they aren’t what would be a large enough SS?

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  227. “Should the CDC get involved in abortion politics, because of public pressure?”

    Just did in December…… My posts keep getting censored in replying to this comment.

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  228. “It’s premised on a combined likelihood of (i) a contact being an infected person, and (ii) transmission from the infected person.”

    This is not stable over time

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  229. “Police departments barely react to public pressure. Why would (or should) what is intended to be a science orgnaization?”

    That’s largely due to collective bargaining laws as police are unionized. This is also a State issue not just due to unionization laws but due to the 10th amendment.

    The Illinois State Legislature reacted to public pressure of police six months after George Floyd with comprehensive criminal justice reform which also adds more requirements and checks on police officers and their departments.

    So again not really true.

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  230. “Should the CDC declare that vaccines cause autism, because of public pressure?”

    They sent out grant money to study the issue and reported those findings with hypothesis and recommendations no?

    The CDC literally has a page on its website talking about autism and vaccines due to public pressure so again YES they do…. Per the website…

    “Some people have had concerns that ASD might be linked to the vaccines children receive, but studies have shown that there is no link between receiving vaccines and developing ASD. The National Academy of Medicine, formerly known as Institute of Medicine, reviewed the safety of 8 vaccines to children and adults. The review found that with rare exceptions, these vaccines are very safe.

    A CDC study published in 2013 added to the research showing that vaccines do not cause ASD. The study focused on the number of antigens given during the first two years of life. Antigens are substances in vaccines that cause the body’s immune system to produce disease-fighting antibodies. The results showed that the total amount of antigen from vaccines received was the same between children with ASD and those that did not have ASD.”

    https://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/concerns/autism.html

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  231. “At the end of the day these thresholds can’t help but be arbitrary. It comes down to someone’s judgment.”

    According to the CDC woman should not have more than one 12 ounce alcoholic drink per day and men shouldn’t have more than two.

    Alcohol kills ~100K Americans per year and is the 3rd leading cause of preventable death in the country. In addition, ~14.5 million Americans have been diagnosed with Alcohol Use Disorder.

    Why aren’t their executive orders at the State/local level decreeing it illegal for any bar to serve an individual more than what the CDC recommends? Why has the President not signed executive orders on this national emergency?

    Why is Binny’s allowed to sell an individual more than what the CDC says is “safe”? Why doesn’t Binny’s scan your Drivers License in their system that reports to County/State/Federal health authorities the frequency that someone purchases alcohol as well so someone doesn’t go from liquor store to liquor store during the day?

    Sounds like a crisis to me.

    https://www.cdc.gov/alcohol/fact-sheets/moderate-drinking.htm

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  232. “At the end of the day these thresholds can’t help but be arbitrary. It comes down to someone’s judgment.”

    Why are grocery stores and Ben & Jerry’s not following CDC guidelines when it comes to raw cookie dough? Their website says “Don’t taste or eat raw (unbaked) dough or batter”.

    Yet raw cookie dough is sold at grocery stores and is packaged into ice cream for consumption.

    We need executive orders from the State and Federal authorities now as this is against CDC guidelines.

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  233. “At the end of the day these thresholds can’t help but be arbitrary. It comes down to someone’s judgment.”

    The CDC says beef and pork should be cooked to 160 degrees yet restaurants cook burgers under 160 degrees.

    They are violating CDC guidance. This is unsafe. More executive orders please.

    https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/keep-food-safe.html

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  234. “Why aren’t their executive orders at the State/local level decreeing it illegal for any bar to serve an individual more than what the CDC recommends? Why has the President not signed executive orders on this national emergency?”

    Because an individual’s decisions about alcohol only kills them – unless they drive drunk and there are laws about that. If getting drunk killed other people randomly all the time there would be executive orders about alcohol.

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  235. “Its a bad assumption for exactly this reason. If it was random, there would be no state to state differences. ”

    The math was illustrative. All it assumes is that an individual like me is running around in a population that has x% of the people infected at any time and each person I encounter, on average, has an x% probability of being infected. If you want to do more advanced math on it I guess you can assume that each person I encounter has an xn probability of being infected where n is the sequence number of the person encountered. But, seriously, do you think the answer would be that much different? Some Xs would be higher than the average and some would be lower. Why don’t you run some simulations?

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  236. “Because an individual’s decisions about alcohol only kills them – unless they drive drunk and there are laws about that. If getting drunk killed other people randomly all the time there would be executive orders about alcohol.”

    Ummm domestic and child abuse, bar fights, drunk driving, sexual assaults, etc. Drinking leads to a lot of trauma, violence, injury, and death. It does not only effect the drinker especially when ~100K people per year die from that. Think of those peoples families and their children. Oh how bad it effects the CHILDREN.

    Do you not care about the nurses and the hospital staff? It doesn’t have to be this way. Its so avoidable. It’s so sad.

    All this death and despair because some crazy people want their FREEDOM. It’s just so selfish to do that to society and not obediently follow the CDC guidance. I can’t believe Gary is anti-science and anti-truth on this issue.

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  237. And to poke Sabrina the Amazon Bear; Amazon just opened its first Whole Foods with cashier-less technology (the Amazon-Go tech)…..

    The article also says Amazon sells this tech to other grocery stores as well. The amount of data they are collecting and will be able to monetize is wow.

    https://www.axios.com/cashierless-whole-foods-amazon-ca68885f-17ef-48ae-83a4-a33599ba3dde.html

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  238. “ The math was illustrative. All it assumes is that an individual like me is running around in a population that has x% of the people infected at any time and each person I encounter, on average, has an x% probability of being infected. If you want to do more advanced math on it I guess you can assume that each person I encounter has an xn probability of being infected where n is the sequence number of the person encountered. But, seriously, do you think the answer would be that much different? Some Xs would be higher than the average and some would be lower. Why don’t you run some simulations?”

    Is

    R=1
    R>1
    R<1

    And how does that effect risk over time?

    Don’t need to run any simulations, the math is bad.

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  239. “They sent out grant money to study the issue and reported those findings with hypothesis and recommendations no?”

    You were equating politicians changing policies to CDC changing recommendations:

    ““It’s clear the states are reacting to public pressure and the need to get reelected. We’ll get another wave in another 2 – 4 months probably.”

    “Shouldn’t the CDC also react to public pressure given its a public agency and publicly funded?”

    That was–essentially–calling on the CDC to simply change their conclusions/recommendations based on catering to the squeaky wheel, rather than based on science.

    There was ZERO implication of “conduct more studies”. NONE.

    Which is why I called it out, and compared to taking the anti-scientific position that vaxx=autism, bc of public pressure. Which is consistent with what you wrote in what I quoted.

    Now you seem to be walking that back. But I’m sure you’ll argue that you aren’t–which seems a helluva lot like someone else here.

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  240. “Amazon just opened its first Whole Foods with cashier-less technology (the Amazon-Go tech)…..”

    The Fresh store being built at Belmont/Clark will also have it:

    https://southportcorridorchicago.com/2021/11/24/amazon-fresh-grocery-store-coming-to-lakeview/

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  241. “Ummm domestic and child abuse, bar fights, drunk driving, sexual assaults, etc. Drinking leads to a lot of trauma, violence, injury, and death. It does not only effect the drinker especially when ~100K people per year die from that. Think of those peoples families and their children. Oh how bad it effects the CHILDREN.”

    First of all a really small percentage of the alcohol consumed results in harming others. Second, the product is heavily taxed. Third, when alcohol leads to the harm of others the perp is often prosecuted. I would be all for heavily taxing people who run around without masks and prosecuting those that infect others.

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  242. “Ummm domestic and child abuse, bar fights, drunk driving, sexual assaults, etc. Drinking leads to a lot of trauma, violence, injury, and death. It does not only effect the drinker especially when ~100K people per year die from that. Think of those peoples families and their children. Oh how bad it effects the CHILDREN.”

    First of all a really small percentage of the alcohol consumed results in harming others. Second, the product is heavily taxed. Third, when alcohol leads to the harm of others the perp is often prosecuted. I would be all for heavily taxing people who run around without masks and prosecuting those that infect others.

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  243. “Is

    R=1
    R>1
    R<1

    And how does that effect risk over time?

    Don’t need to run any simulations, the math is bad."

    R is way greater than 1. Like 7+ for Omicron. Although I assume it goes down over time based on many factors. But what does that tell you? And what is wrong with my math? What is the correct math? Please lay it out for us.

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  244. “You were equating politicians changing policies to CDC changing recommendations:”

    Don’t politicians need data to change policy? Wouldn’t the CDC be a good place to start to gain credibility in pitching a policy change? The President appoints the CDC Director….

    “That was–essentially–calling on the CDC to simply change their conclusions/recommendations based on catering to the squeaky wheel, rather than based on science.”

    No. The studies on autism/vaccine showed zero correlation therefore there was no justification. The studies the CDC and Walensky pushed in justifying the mask mandates in school were based on debunked studies. I can re-link the article again if you want. Why was the CDC pushing this because this is where the President’s party and key constituents (Teachers Unions) wanted. If it was a Republican President the CDC Director would be pushing studies of how its effecting mental health, development, and learning for children. That CDC Director would be on every Sunday show saying Europe and the WHO does not recommend masking children under 10 and how the US would be an outlier not following the science.

    The science is not uniform around masking as it is around autism/vaccines.

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  245. “I would be all for heavily taxing people who run around without masks and prosecuting those that infect others”

    So you are anti-vax then? Ok. Isn’t it an “individual decision” as you say at this point? It’s not May or November 2020 anymore.

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  246. “Don’t politicians need data to change policy?”

    ‘Karen is angry’ or ‘my major donors are concerned’ = data for most politicians.

    ‘Tucker is calling me a RINO’ = data for most Republicans

    ‘[Union constituency X] is calling me anti-labor’ = data for most Dems.

    So, yes, but no, not really–not the same sort of data needed for science-based recommendations.

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  247. “So you are anti-vax then? Ok. Isn’t it an “individual decision” as you say at this point? It’s not May or November 2020 anymore.”

    Huh? We aren’t even discussing vaccines.

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  248. “Huh? We aren’t even discussing vaccines.”

    You keep pushing masks masks masks when we have vaccines and boosters which actually keep you from going to the hospital and dying. It’s an individual choice at this point like drinking too much. It’s a weird position to take that you want to tax and prosecute people for not wearing masks. It’s not 2020. Try and keep up.

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  249. “You keep pushing masks masks masks when we have vaccines and boosters which actually keep you from going to the hospital and dying. It’s an individual choice at this point like drinking too much. It’s a weird position to take that you want to tax and prosecute people for not wearing masks. It’s not 2020. Try and keep up.”

    1) Just because I believe in masks doesn’t mean that I’m anti-vax. That’s a total non-sequitur.
    2) Even with vaccines masks play an important role because you can still get infected while being vaccinated AND it’s not good if the unvaccinated get Covid either because of the burden on the hospitals
    3) You are the one that tried to create an equivalency with alcohol. I’m willing to go with that suggestion and treat the unmasked the same way we treat alcohol drinkers.
    4) I’m only going to make an issue of mask wearing while the mandate is in place. I believe in following the rules for the greater good.

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