Grapplers: Are you still training?

[Gerry Seymour]

This is going out to all wrestlers and grapplers of all styles ...since grappling has the most physical contact of any MA.

Our governor here in AZ just shut down all gyms, studios, health clubs, etc. again for at least another month and the police have started giving out citations, up to $2,500 per infraction to show that they are serious. I'm thinking this latest closure will be probably extended for "the duration" ... i.e. until infection rates drop to near zero, or until there is a vaccine or other really effective treatment for Covid-19. The way it looks now, that would probably be next spring or summer at the earliest.

So ...are any grappling gyms open anywhere? Is anybody still training with a partner at all? Or is everybody just working solo, conditioning , etc.?

And if the gyms are shut for a year, will they reopen at all?

I haven’t trained or taught any grappling since February. At the current infection rate in NC, I don’t expect to get back to it this year.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

^^^ I thought that was the whole point. Try to achieve a slow, controlled burn rather than a raging inferno of infection so that the hospitals and associated healthcare personnel and resources are never overwhelmed. It's that or try to lie low and wait it out until a vaccine or at least a highly effective anti-viral treatment becomes available.

Either way, the current state will drag on until 1. we have a vaccine and/or highly effective antiviral treatments, or 2. most people (perhaps 80%) have gotten the virus and the population at large develops a "herd immunity".

The trouble with "Covid Parties" approach, encouraging infection and pushing option 2, is that endangers all those at high risk: the elderly, the immunocompromised, those with diabetes, asthma, or other underlying health issues. These people need to be protected and supported while they "shelter in place" for the duration (i.e. until we have a vaccine and/or effective treatment).

...That means continuing to work at slowing contagion and "flattening the curve". Or... wearing masks in public, washing hands a lot, and limiting close contact with others as much as possible. And that affects us, as martial artists a lot.

Unfortunately, there is some evidence that infection - at least in some cases - provides very temporary immunity. I’m hoping that turns out to be a minor sub-population effect.

 

[lklawson]

My guess is that it will be years before we get a really clear picture of how this is playing out.

We never will. The data has been too far tainted. The current data is more-or-less worthless. If someone were to go back and individually review every documented case, we might get somewhat more reliable data. But we all know that won't happen in our lifetimes.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

 

[dvcochran]

yeah Georgia is doing bad, but the Georgia Health Department numbers can't be trusted. They got caught 2 or 3 times trying to manipulate the data so that it looks less damaging. I saw a chart to day that makes it look like the new cases are going down, but their are news article stating that Georgia may roll back some of its plans for reopening. I'm not sure about Kentucky, but with Georgia people should look at the Case count from multiple sources to see which data is wildly different through comparison. I'm not sure how things are now but 2 weeks ago when I went to the groceries a lot of people weren't wearing masks.

All of this is still surreal at times. More so the general responses from people than the virus. Things like COVID parties are beyond me. But I shouldn't be too surprised I guess with people eating Tide Pods and extreme amounts of cinnamon.

I just checked the CDC site. I was not aware Georgia was that high in total cases. It is curious how several states, including Georgia do not list confirmed cases. Does make you wonder.
Kentucky is very low at just over 20k. TN is about 1/2 what GA is. FL, which supposedly has had a 'huge' spike is under 80k. Go figure.

 

[dvcochran]

Unfortunately, there is some evidence that infection - at least in some cases - provides very temporary immunity. I’m hoping that turns out to be a minor sub-population effect.

Our son, after waiting 18 days to get word, got a positive test result. He was never 'sick' or felt bad but was thought to be exposed. The doctor's office told him he would test positive the rest of his life. I am still trying to figure that one out.

 

[dvcochran]

And we've done that. The point, as you note, is NOT to prevent infections. The point is to drag out the infections over time so that hospitals aren't overwhelmed. The same number of people are going to get infected. ...just stretched out over time instead of clustered all together. All these PSA's about "Say Home. Stay SAFE!" are horsedip. The PSA should actually be, "Stay Home. Get Infected Later."

The thing is, stats seem to support the suggestion that infections peeked (the top of the curve) in mid-to-late April. Honestly, at this point, the only reason to "self quarantine" if you're healthy is in the hopes that you can delay your exposure until a vaccine is developed or until everyone else has gotten sick and developed herd immunity. So "Stay Home" is all about, "My plan is for EVERYONE ELSE to get sick before me." Which is fine except that it seems like everyone else is being encouraged to make the same plan. It's like the entire world is going "I don't wanna try it first, you try it first... No you. No you. No you."

"Flattening the curve" still means you get sick. But there's been a concentrated global misunderstanding where people seem to think that if they just follow the healthy self quarantining and "social distancing," then they're going to not get sick.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

Fully agree. Do you not think a good portion of this is politically charged?

 

[dvcochran]

other really effective treatment for Covid-19

Effective would be taking the information stream out of the mainstream medias hands and putting it under the medical community where is should have been all along.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Our son, after waiting 18 days to get word, got a positive test result. He was never 'sick' or felt bad but was thought to be exposed. The doctor's office told him he would test positive the rest of his life. I am still trying to figure that one out.

They are wrong.

 

[Danny T]

Our son, after waiting 18 days to get word, got a positive test result. He was never 'sick' or felt bad but was thought to be exposed. The doctor's office told him he would test positive the rest of his life. I am still trying to figure that one out.

Effective would be taking the information stream out of the mainstream medias hands and putting it under the medical community where is should have been all along.

They are wrong.

Well here you go. One in the medical community provided information about covid and another in the medical community disagrees.

Here in lies the problems. The medical community, the CDC, the WHO, the science communities don't agree with the data, the science, nor what to do about it. How can those charged with making decisions as to the best course of action for rest of us know what to do!?

 

[JowGaWolf]

I just checked the CDC site. I was not aware Georgia was that high in total cases. It is curious how several states, including Georgia do not list confirmed cases. Does make you wonder.
Kentucky is very low at just over 20k. TN is about 1/2 what GA is. FL, which supposedly has had a 'huge' spike is under 80k. Go figure.

The Governor has been trying to misrepresent data since the first day it started to get bad for us in May. This is an actual chart that was placed on the state health website Looks good right? Downward Trend. Georgia kicks butt.

Visually it looks good right until you look at the dates below. They show April 29th before April 27th. Stuff like that can be seen throughout the chart. They did similar charts 2 separate weeks (that I know of) that set up the data to look like things were getting better. Georgia has never been improving. I get angry every time I look at this. So when you hear me sound overly cautious about COVID-19 part of it is because of stuff like this.

This is the data from John Hopkins. This is what Georgia really has been doing.

This is what Georgia COVID Deaths really look like

I trust the 2 smaller charts because those charts match the most recent headlines:
"Gov. Kemp issues new executive orders as COVID-19 spike continues in Georgia"
"Gov. Kemp extends restrictions on gatherings & businesses; bans city, county mask mandates"

But he's still stuck on stupid because he's trying to make a ban where Cities can't issue mandatory mask ordinances.

 

[Monkey Turned Wolf]

Well here you go. One in the medical community provided information about covid and another in the medical community disagrees.

Here in lies the problems. The medical community, the CDC, the WHO, the science communities don't agree with the data, the science, nor what to do about it. How can those charged with making decisions as to the best course of action for rest of us know what to do!?

That doctor was just misinformed. It's pretty well established that you won't test positive for COVID the rest of your life if you have it once. By looking at the many many people who test positive, and then test negative a few weeks later. That parts not really being debated by the medical community as a whole.

They might be debating about the antibodies, if you will have those forever. i really don't know.

 

[JowGaWolf]

Here in lies the problems. The medical community, the CDC, the WHO, the science communities don't agree with the data, the science, nor what to do about it. How can those charged with making decisions as to the best course of action for rest of us know what to do!?

Easy. You err on the side of Caution.

The one thing that all medical professions and Scientist have agreed on, is that this is a New Virus that they know very little about and that they are still learning. That has been their statement since day one.

I have a bottle with a Virus in it.
I don't know if the virus is dead and harmless or if it's active.
I ask you to inhale it.
What would you choose? Err on the side of Caution or open the bottle and inhale it, hoping that it will be harmless?

 

[JowGaWolf]

That doctor was just misinformed. It's pretty well established that you won't test positive for COVID the rest of your life if you have it once. By looking at the many many people who test positive, and then test negative a few weeks later. That parts not really being debated by the medical community as a whole.

They might be debating about the antibodies, if you will have those forever. i really don't know.

What I'm seeing is that the more they find out about the virus the more they start to agree on certain things.
1. Highly contagious. - All Agree
2. Can be deadly. - All agree
3. May cause long term damage - All agree
4. Affects the respiratory system - All agree
5. Laying no stomach helps to improve the chances that you won't need a ventilator - All agree
6. Virus transmits through the air - All agree
7. Wearing a mask reduces the risk - All agree.
8. 6 feet distance reduces the risk - All agree.
9. The more people in a group, the higher the opportunity for you to be exposed to the virus - All agree
10. The virus has already mutated, but they don't know if the mutation cause it to be deadly or if the mutation is active - All agree.

The more they learn the more they can run things through the scientific method, research, studies, and data analysis. The more they learn about the virus the more things that they will come to agreement on. Right now we are seeing the process that they always go through. Usually when there's a virus outbreak it's about a virus that they already know about. The same types of disagreements and debates existed before they understood Ebola. We just weren't exposed to that learning process.

 

[Dirty Dog]

Well here you go. One in the medical community provided information about covid and another in the medical community disagrees.

Their office was grossly uninformed. The tests for COVID-19 test for the virus. If you are positive, you have an active infection. When you're no longer infected, you will test negative. When you get reinfected, you will test positive again. This remains true even in the extremely unlikely case of an antibody test.

 

[drop bear]

We followed the guidelines of the medical experts and because of that I will be sparring tomorrow.

I really don't understand the conversation at this point. It is as if people are trying to make some sort of rationalisation. To do what you want rather than what you should.

Or that the scientific community hasn't been pretty clear.

I mean it seems pretty simple. We trusted the experts and followed their advice and we are out of lockdown. After about a hundred deaths.

You guys seem to have done your own research discovered that the experts are wrong, went and did your own thing and have thousands of death's.

And will still wind up having to do the basic things we did at the beginning anyway. Just harder because you let it go longer.

 

[Steve]

STOP It! You are talking with sense. STOP THAT!!

And as the curve is flatten the length of curve is increased

not necessarily. For that to be true, it presumes that the same number of people will (given time) become infected. Not a given if folks aren't stupid about it.

Re flattening the curve, as I understand but, the goal is to avoid overwhelming the hospitals.

 

[Steve]

And we've done that. The point, as you note, is NOT to prevent infections. The point is to drag out the infections over time so that hospitals aren't overwhelmed. The same number of people are going to get infected. ...just stretched out over time instead of clustered all together. All these PSA's about "Say Home. Stay SAFE!" are horsedip. The PSA should actually be, "Stay Home. Get Infected Later."

The thing is, stats seem to support the suggestion that infections peeked (the top of the curve) in mid-to-late April. Honestly, at this point, the only reason to "self quarantine" if you're healthy is in the hopes that you can delay your exposure until a vaccine is developed or until everyone else has gotten sick and developed herd immunity. So "Stay Home" is all about, "My plan is for EVERYONE ELSE to get sick before me." Which is fine except that it seems like everyone else is being encouraged to make the same plan. It's like the entire world is going "I don't wanna try it first, you try it first... No you. No you. No you."

"Flattening the curve" still means you get sick. But there's been a concentrated global misunderstanding where people seem to think that if they just follow the healthy self quarantining and "social distancing," then they're going to not get sick.

Peace favor your sword,
Kirk

I don't think it's a given that the same number of people will be infected. That's questionable logic.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Our son, after waiting 18 days to get word, got a positive test result. He was never 'sick' or felt bad but was thought to be exposed. The doctor's office told him he would test positive the rest of his life. I am still trying to figure that one out.

That’s likely an antibody test, which actually tests for the immune response to the virus. So a positive test there doesn’t indicate an active infection, but that there once was one.

 

[Gerry Seymour]

Effective would be taking the information stream out of the mainstream medias hands and putting it under the medical community where is should have been all along.

Those are not different things. The media tries to digest the information and disseminate it. Some topics they do better than others on. I also read directly from study abstracts, and occasionally full reports, to get closer to the experts’ own words.

 

[JowGaWolf]

went and did your own thing and have thousands of death's.

And will still wind up having to do the basic things we did at the beginning anyway. Just harder because you let it go longer.

Pretty much 100% accurate. Wait for the spin and the reasoning of why they did things like that.