Anybody else getting a sneaking feeling that the season isn't going to work out?

[DanoT]

Has anyone else noticed that the two skiers look to have the same stance as speed skaters? I'm pretty sure it's an optical illusion

That "speed skater" stance at Sun Peaks (formerly named Tod Mtn) is known by locals as a "Tod Tuck".

 

[crgildart]

Stay away from those minks and mink farmers, mink farmer associates...

Guy is 100% wrong. SARS-CoV-2 absolutely can pass from minks to humans.

We've had a case or two of pets getting COVID when the household has it. The main theory for why pets con't spread ot to people is that they are lower to the ground. The get hit with our droplets but not vice versa so much.

 

[Andy Mink]

Hey, now, let's not blame ALL the Minks!

 

[RobSN]

Hey, now, let's not blame ALL the Minks!

Safest thing is to cull them all, I'm afraid ...

 

[Dwight]

This is how my local hill is trying to make it happen for them.

 

[Sibhusky]

I get that. But I still deserve to feel safe when venturing OUT of my house, into my community, into my grocery store, and on my local ski hill. Having vacationers with cavalier attitudes about COVID coming into town is pretty maddening. We have enough of those living here as it is.

Actually, here we saw visitors being more likely to mask. Of course, we're far outnumbered by visitors in the summer, so they are certainly the ones that brought it to begin with, plus our own residents going away and bringing it back. Now that the visitors are mostly gone it's apparent who isn't masking - it's the home team.

In general when you think about it, tourists aren't interacting with locals aside from retail and restaurant, etc. They didn't bring it to your schools and churches, the locals did. Locals gave it to their spouses and kids and their next door neighbor. Tourists may have brought it, but your neighbors spread it around.

We now have a positivity rate of 36%. You know when it started? When we sent the kids to school. Not during the summer. Apparently the schools are doing handstands trying to keep kids safe, then the kids yank off the masks as soon as school is over and go to each others houses after school.

 

[Tex]

@Tex I think you are missing the point that we, those who do live in the mountains and our homes are in the mountains are the ones who will pay for your risk taking. Sorry but please don't come to my town if you are taking risks..

LOL. Why are you assuming I'm taking risk? Where did you get that from? I have posted (maybe deleted), where I say you should wear a mask, socially distance, wash your hands... What else can I do? If you are worried about going skiing an catching covid, then don't go skiing.

 

[crgildart]

LOL. Why are you assuming I'm taking risk? Where did you get that from? I have posted (maybe deleted), where I say you should wear a mask, socially distance, wash your hands... What else can I do? If you are worried about going skiing an catching covid, then don't go skiing.

Avoid non-essential travel or interactions with others when cases are surging and hospital capacity is dangerously thin. When it's code red, just stay home. That's what else you can do.

 

[Tex]

Avoid non-essential travel or interactions with others when cases are surging and hospital capacity is dangerously thin. When it's code red, just stay home. That's what else you can do.

In these "code red" areas, wouldn't the ski resorts be closed? I'm only going to ski where it is legal.

 

[crgildart]

In these "code red" areas, wouldn't the ski resorts be closed? I'm only going to ski where it is legal.

It's the travel restrictions that might present legal problems. Locals only or mandatory 2 week quarantine is likely where things are headed.. And, for the record, not everything ill advised and potentially dangerous is "illegal".. Sometimes it's just best to do the prudent things out of courtesy and care for our social contract without forcing the government to have to intervene.

 

[Tex]

Locals only or mandatory 2 week quarantine is likely where things are headed.

I won’t be dropping my stimulus dollars in those places.

 

[James]

We've had a case or two of pets getting COVID when the household has it. The main theory for why pets con't spread ot to people is that they are lower to the ground. The get hit with our droplets but not vice versa so much.

Bringing the pets skiing?
Dogs don’t seem to shed virus. Cats do and will pass it to other cats. They could pass it to humans potentially, but it seems rare. People are more likely to infect cats.

Small study-
————————-
...We report that cats are highly susceptible to infection, with a prolonged period of oral and nasal viral shedding that is not accompanied by clinical signs, and are capable of direct contact transmission to other cats. These studies confirm that cats are susceptible to productive SARS-CoV-2 infection, but are unlikely to develop clinical disease. Further, we document that cats developed a robust neutralizing antibody response that prevented reinfection following a second viral challenge.

Conversely, we found that dogs do not shed virus following infection but do seroconvert and mount an antiviral neutralizing antibody response. There is currently no evidence that cats or dogs play a significant role in human infection; however, reverse zoonosis is possible if infected owners expose their domestic pets to the virus during acute infection...
——————————————

Experimental infection of domestic dogs and cats with SARS-CoV-2: Pathogenesis, transmission, and response to reexposure in cats

SARS-CoV-2 is an emerging pathogen that has already had catastrophic consequences on the health and well-being of people worldwide. As a zoonotic virus, the implications for animal populations are largely unknown. This manuscript describes a pilot study in which domestic cats and dogs were...

www.pnas.org

 

[Jwrags]

I AM worried about staff at ski areas, especially those living in Staff Housing where there are common kitchen and bathroom areas. Hopefully ski area managers already have a Quarantine Housing Plan in place that can limit outbreaks and virus spreading.

My son is in Steamboat for the winter and in employee housing. It is a 2 bedroom, 1 bath apartment for 4 people. He had to have a negative covid test before he moved in but obviously that is only the beginning. I will ask him if they ski corp (Alterra) has a quarantine plan.

 

[Jwrags]

@scott43 I’m not so sure about the DNA of the medical staff being wired to help absolutely everyone. As @Dave Marshak pointed out, EMTALA has a lot to do with it.

I will tell you that nearly 100% of the time EMTALA has nothing to do with it. Maybe for the hospital but not for the docs. I couldn't care less what your insurance coverage is or what your station in society is. I have taken care of some of the biggest dirtballs you have ever met and rich people. I have had my life threatened by drunken a-holes. I will give them the same effort and quality of care.

I am not on the front lines of Covid care but have many friends who are. The below was posted in a medical forum and was written by the wife(also a doc) of an ICU doc who deals with Covid daily. If you can read it and feel nothing then you are not alive. I have seen a lot of shit in my career and this brought a tear to my eye. Decide for yourselves what is the right thing to do for you and your family.


Dear everyone,
My husband is an ICU doctor. This makes me an ICU wife and our family an ICU family.
I just want you to know we see you. In our house, you aren't a statistic or a curve. You aren't a mortality rate, a positive test, an occupied bed or any other number on television. We don't put you into buckets of recoveries or deaths. You aren't a political issue for us.
In our house, you enter the hearts of our whole family when you enter the ICU. We couldn't have predicted who you would be ahead of time, but once you are here you are ours.
When you can't be saved, and daddy cries, our boys learn what it means to be a hero who keeps going back day after day, trudging through his own heavy mud of suffering and fear, committed to his task. When it becomes unlikely he can save your life, he will stay, a constant guide on a gruesome but now predictable journey. He will try to calm fear, limit suffering, comfort family.
And we will cry for you. Because to an ICU family, you aren't a number. We will never know your name or your story like my husband does, but you are one of ours.
Even outside the ICU, we are an ICU family. We drive by restaurant parking lots or see football coaches on TV, and he will tell us, "I've seen one like that die." Over and over he says it. You never leave his mind, and you are right in the middle of our family.
So when we beg, plead with you to please do anything you can, we are asking because we don't want you to know what we know. We know you know the numbers. We know you've heard stories. But with all our hearts, we don't want you to have to tell this sort of story of your own.
We know the sacrifices are not trivial. We know the sacrifices bring pain. We know the missed opportunities in every arena will change the trajectory of entire lives and families.
We also know the science isn't perfect. I can't present you with perfect numbers about what does and doesn't work and in what setting.
All I can do, as a wife and step mother and neighbor and family member and friend, is ask that if someone with some knowledge seems to be suggesting something might help, consider making the sacrifice and just do it. Err on the side of doing it. I don't want you to become one of ours.

 

[Popeye Cahn]

Seems to be pretty much going to shit in real time.

 

[BC.]

I get that. But I still deserve to feel safe when venturing OUT of my house, into my community, into my grocery store, and on my local ski hill. Having vacationers with cavalier attitudes about COVID coming into town is pretty maddening. We have enough of those living here as it is.

I always considered UT/PC/LCC/BCC/Ogden as potential places to live/retire to someday......I guess the grass is not always greener....UT sounds like a horrible place to live and ski.......My lake community here in NEPA has many tourists too.....but sure doesn’t sound like the living hell that is the Ogden/Snowbasin area.

 

[Nobody]

Sorry if this may have been mentioned earlier... but are any places in Europe putting in reservation systems/skier limits/lift capacity limits?

This just came out today

Bozza delle Regioni: tetto massimo di skipass giornalieri, funivie al 50% e seggiovie al 100%

Lunedì verrà presentata alla Conferenza delle Regioni la bozza del documento per la “Proposta di linee guida per l'utilizzo degli impianti di risalita nelle...

www.neveitalia.it

It is in Italian language only but it's a sum up of the draft of the famous (infamous? fabled?) "inter-regional protocol" that was being worked on by all Alpine/Mountain italian regions (let's not forget the Appennini...), the jist of it is : gondolas filled up only at 50%, chairlift as long as are open air can be filled 100%, masks on even underneath a buff when queueing. Maximum visitors number kneecapped in accordance to the resort capailities (number of lifts and runs....)

 

[AmyPJ]

I always considered UT/PC/LCC/BCC/Ogden as potential places to live/retire to someday......I guess the grass is not always greener....UT sounds like a horrible place to live and ski.......My lake community here in NEPA has many tourists too.....but sure doesn’t sound like the living hell that is the Ogden/Snowbasin area.

Well, if you run with the herd here, I think it's much more palatable. COVID has brought out the best and worst in people, and what I consider the best is the minority here, or at least they are afraid to speak up in favor of masks and protecting each other. I've also had some really unfortunate things happen personally in just the past few weeks (well, to my daughter) that have made me realize that maybe this isn't the place for us. Snowbasin has turned into a zoo. Even weekdays.

 

[Nobody]

This just came out today

Bozza delle Regioni: tetto massimo di skipass giornalieri, funivie al 50% e seggiovie al 100%

Lunedì verrà presentata alla Conferenza delle Regioni la bozza del documento per la “Proposta di linee guida per l'utilizzo degli impianti di risalita nelle...

www.neveitalia.it

It is in Italian language only but it's a sum up of the draft of the famous (infamous? fabled?) "inter-regional protocol" that was being worked on by all Alpine/Mountain italian regions (let's not forget the Appennini...), the jist of it is : gondolas filled up only at 50%, chairlift as long as are open air can be filled 100%, masks on even underneath a buff when queueing. Maximum visitors number kneecapped in accordance to the resort capailities (number of lifts and runs....)

In my hast to update I forgot the main part...ONLY for Orange/Yellow regions/areas. Red regions...fuggedaboudtravelandski (i.e. me, living in a COVID RED classified region)

 

[CraigBro]

I would like to introduce some ideas to the way we are thinking about the pandemic.

1. That our non-medical interventions are effective, but that they can only bend the curve so much in the face of a respiratory virus whose trajectory thru our communities is largely driven by seasonality. This does not mean that we should just stop doing them, but it does mean that the increase in the pandemic is not a gross moral failing in our community, county, state or nation. That narrative is frankly unscientific. It is not supported by the data on the *magnitude* of the impact of face mask and distancing compliance on spread. Anecdotes and stories about ignorant folk make for great shocking stories, but are not data.

2. Humans are social creatures living in tightly intertwined and complex economies. The need for socialization, interaction, activity, and community is not just a 'nice to have' but it critical to our individual and collective health from the most basic issues of acquiring money and food and shelter, to the less tangible, but still essential emotional and social support. We are whole beings embedded in networks, and our health is not just about COVID (which is not even the biggest risk most of us face).

3. Recognizing the above two points, are a key component in the "harm reduction" approach to dealing with other epidemics, such drug addiction and AIDS. In this case, the added dimension of the respiratory infection makes the risk assesment much more complicated, but the approach is still applicable.

4. The resilience of our social systems is being tested here, and we won't learn our lessons if we revert to moralizing and blaming it all on non-compliance.

TLDR; Don't lose faith in humanity or your neighbors because a infectious respiratory illness is moving thru our communities, it is not a retributive act of god, or a sign of collective ignorance or intransigence. We can improve our social systems if we learn from this.