Alternative Travel Plans???

[Joebucks]

There really is no better time for domestic travel. Few things are as crowded as before. Prices are reasonable. The experience is quite fine. International travel is too risky atm.

 

I was in Florida last month. From the news, you would have thought I entered a zombie apocalypse. It was quite enjoyable.

[Hlitner]

5 minutes ago, Joebucks said:

There really is no better time for domestic travel. Few things are as crowded as before. Prices are reasonable. The experience is quite fine. International travel is too risky atm.

 

I was in Florida last month. From the news, you would have thought I entered a zombie apocalypse. It was quite enjoyable.

We posted a similar experience in South Carolina.  I really blame the media who seems to have an agenda to sensationalize everything.  Yes, there are various hot spots but when one analyzes the real data the situation is interesting.  Take away the nursing homes and personal care facilities and the COVID cases are nearly cut in half.  And then when you look at the median age it seems that an awful lot of younger folks (under 50) are simply ignoring the basic advice of social distancing and masks and paying a price.  We wonder what the real risk is for those that use common sense, try to social distance, wear masks when social distancing is not working, and simply enjoy themselves.   There are plenty of near empty beaches, indoor dining in restaurants that follow the rules, swimming in the sea where one can easily social distance, etc.  For golfers it is relatively easy to play golf and social distance.  Hikers have no problems finding empty trails.  Bottom line is that one can travel (domestically) and do it intelligently.

 

Hank

[ldubs]

13 hours ago, luxecruisers said:

 

Nice! What lakes are on your go-to list? 

 

The three I go to most, say almost on a weekly basis, are Camanche, Pardee and Berryessa.  We typically go during the week when there are no crowds.  We talk about how great it would be to tow the boat behind a motorhome. Right now they are selling like hotcakes around here.  Maybe when CV is winding down we will look into that.   

[ldubs]

10 hours ago, c-boy said:

we'll be spending more time at the Bodega Bay abode. 

  

 

Beautiful view!  Our middle son is in Santa Rosa.  They do frequent day trips to Bodega Bay to just get away from things.   There is a pretty good ice cream place there too.  Haha.   I used to go surf fishing just north of Bodega Bay at Salmon Creek.   

[pris993]

Booked cruise for Jan 2022; waiting to book a flight to Israel in 2021; meanwhile, we are content to drive back and forth to San Francisco Bay, 10  miles RT and walk along the bay a substitute for being at sea,, LOL.  

 

The money we have saved not traveling this year, we have just put into final expense planning, for our last trip on earth.  So when our times comes  it will easy.

 

Looking forward to 2021/2022 when we can get back to regular travels.  

[antmaril]

My friend and I are taking two short road trips to Northern Michigan (four hours from home) In August and September.  We are currently booked on the Enchanted for January, 2021, but we won’t be doing that even if it is possible.  Maybe January, 2022.  We shall see.  

Edited July 31, 2020 by antmaril

[Northumberland]

We have a cruise planned from San Pedro to Hawaii starting January 5th.

We had planned a road trip from where we live in Canada to San Pedro.

However, as the border is currently closed between Canada and the USA and the pandemic is still not under control in either country, we don't know whether or not our planned trip will even happen.

We also had planned a road trip in September to the east coast of Canada that we cancelled due to the pandemic situation in our 2 most populated provinces that were on our road trip.

So, we now participate in day trips around our own province to places we've never been or haven't visited in a long time.

It doesn't take the place of a nice road trip, but it is a good distraction.

[XBGuy]

17 hours ago, Hlitner said:

. . . .  Yes, there are various hot spots but when one analyzes the real data the situation is interesting.  Take away the nursing homes and personal care facilities and the COVID cases are nearly cut in half. . . .

 

 

WOW!  I did not know that.  Can you point me to data that support that conclusion?

[Hlitner]

53 minutes ago, XBGuy said:

 

WOW!  I did not know that.  Can you point me to data that support that conclusion?

It is impossible to get accurate statistics but this NY Post story did its best:

https://nypost.com/2020/06/27/almost-half-of-us-covid-19-deaths-are-linked-to-nursing-homes/

 

Some think the real numbers are even worse because so-called Personal Care facilities/Assisted Living Facilities are not even tracked by most authorities.  The ugly truth about COVID is if the government authorities had concentrated their efforts on protecting Long Term Care Facilities the death rate may have been cut in half.  But in some States like New York, the government policy was to force nursing homes to take back patients who had COVID.    Here in Pennsylvania our State Department of Health has acknowledged nearly half our COVID deaths were in nursing homes   What is interesting (to me) is that our Secretary of Health quickly pulled her own mother out of a nursing home (back in Feb) and moved her to a hotel!  So she got her own mother away from those facilities but that did not help all the others in approximately 600 nursing homes within our own State.

 

These stories get buried because the media has their own agendas and then is not a good fit.

 

Hank

 

[ldubs]

2 hours ago, XBGuy said:

 

WOW!  I did not know that.  Can you point me to data that support that conclusion?

 

In my county Long Term Care places account for 68% of deaths.  That includes patients as well as workers.   Because most cases are in the upper age groups, I would not be surprised to hear a large percentage is from LTHC facilities.   

 

 

[K32682]

We're renting a lakeside cottage at a very good price from from an American who isn't allowed into the country. 

[XBGuy]

5 hours ago, Hlitner said:

It is impossible to get accurate statistics but this NY Post story did its best:

https://nypost.com/2020/06/27/almost-half-of-us-covid-19-deaths-are-linked-to-nursing-homes/

 

Some think the real numbers are even worse because so-called Personal Care facilities/Assisted Living Facilities are not even tracked by most authorities.  The ugly truth about COVID is if the government authorities had concentrated their efforts on protecting Long Term Care Facilities the death rate may have been cut in half.  But in some States like New York, the government policy was to force nursing homes to take back patients who had COVID.    Here in Pennsylvania our State Department of Health has acknowledged nearly half our COVID deaths were in nursing homes   What is interesting (to me) is that our Secretary of Health quickly pulled her own mother out of a nursing home (back in Feb) and moved her to a hotel!  So she got her own mother away from those facilities but that did not help all the others in approximately 600 nursing homes within our own State.

 

These stories get buried because the media has their own agendas and then is not a good fit.

 

Hank

 

 

 

OK, I see the confusion, here.  In post #27, above, you said. "Take away the nursing homes and personal care facilities and the COVID cases are nearly cut in half."

 

The article you linked stated and in your latest post you said  "nearly half our COVID deaths were in nursing homes."

 

That is different. Cases do not equal deaths.

 

It is understandable that the percentage of COVID deaths in nursing homes is dramatically higher than that of the general population.  People in nursing homes are, generally, in poor health and have diminished capacity to combat infection.  In fact, the telling statistic from the article was, "The data also show the death rate is a staggering 17 percent among infected nursing-home patients, compared with 5 percent nationwide."  To me that 17 percent statistic sounds surprisingly low,  This may sound dark or heartless, but I am impressed that 83 percent of COVID patients in nursing homes survive the infection.

[whogo]

My biggest outing during the pandemic was a one bladder drive to visit Snake Alley in Burlington, Iowa, no other stops on the drive.

 

Although cases and deaths are higher than ever in my state, precautions are regularly ignored. Only about half of my fellow citizens wear masks at the supermarket, they ignore the big one way signs in the aisles, and they bring their husbands to block the aisle as an unneeded source of contagion and can't you see that I can't get past you?

 

 

[lenquixote66]

My biggest outing was a one mile passenger seat to a dentists office.

[Hlitner]

1 hour ago, XBGuy said:

 

 

OK, I see the confusion, here.  In post #27, above, you said. "Take away the nursing homes and personal care facilities and the COVID cases are nearly cut in half."

 

The article you linked stated and in your latest post you said  "nearly half our COVID deaths were in nursing homes."

 

That is different. Cases do not equal deaths.

 

It is understandable that the percentage of COVID deaths in nursing homes is dramatically higher than that of the general population.  People in nursing homes are, generally, in poor health and have diminished capacity to combat infection.  In fact, the telling statistic from the article was, "The data also show the death rate is a staggering 17 percent among infected nursing-home patients, compared with 5 percent nationwide."  To me that 17 percent statistic sounds surprisingly low,  This may sound dark or heartless, but I am impressed that 83 percent of COVID patients in nursing homes survive the infection.

You are correct and I should have specifically homed in on the death rate.  One huge problem with COVID is that nobody knows the real rate of infections (even the CDC has said it could be 10 times higher then reported) but we do have a pretty good handle on the number of deaths.  I do say the "number" since to determine a death "rate" one would need a reliable denominator which does not exist and may never be known.

 

Hank

P.S.  A family member was near certain he had COVID back in early March.  A couple of weeks ago he finally managed to get an antibody blood test and it came out negative.  So, does that mean he never had the virus or could it be a false negative.  We shall never be sure.  According to the Mayo Clinic both false negatives and false positives can occur.  Makes you wonder why these tests even matter.

[d9704011]

4 minutes ago, Hlitner said:

do say the "number" since to determine a death "rate" one would need a reliable denominator which does not exist and may never be known.

I think about the best we’ll ever be able to do on this ‘rate’ is to use deaths/number of confirmed cases.  We’ll never know how many people actually contracted CV-19.

[SRQbeachgirl]

We spent a few days in Gatlinburg, TN in June. We drove there, stayed in a hotel, but pretty much kept to ourselves.

 

We'll likely do another road trip to...somewhere...around Thanksgiving and then fly to Texas to visit family in December. 

 

None of this replaces cruising, though, and my grumpiness increases the longer I'm landlocked.

[getting older slowly]

Alternative Travel Plans???   None

 

Nothing planned... only cancelled stuff... have not been further than 15km from home since February... At the moment there is talk of full lockdown......

 

So no point in thinking about going anyway...

no light anyway.( not even trains in tunnels )

 

Did have some ideas but know not likely.....

 

But we did.... get a bigger picture on things    ( a new TV..... lol )   a window to another world.....

did another bottle of gin for G&T's so that is covered

 

Cheers Don

Edited August 1, 2020 by getting older slowly

[clo]

1 hour ago, SRQbeachgirl said:

then fly to Texas to visit family in December. 

So you're willing to fly? Wow.

[luxecruisers]

On 7/30/2020 at 9:50 AM, cruisemom42 said:

I'm not planning any alternative getaways -- staying put and waiting for travel outside the US to open up again.

 

Could be the smartest move of all. What's on your bucket list outside of the US?

[luxecruisers]

On 7/30/2020 at 10:56 AM, Wayfairers said:

We’ve considered taking a domestic trip and if we did we would stay in VRBOs rather than hotels to reduce risk of being around so many people.  We’ve decided not to do that so far because we are happIly enjoying our FL house and would rather be here than anywhere we can drive to in one day.  We do have plans to go to our TN house later this year and have been there for a couple weeks stay since Covid began.  We’ve also done day trips to see family.  We aren’t eating in restaurants but have done take out once a week for the last 3 weeks, which is one reason why we would stay in a VRBO if we traveled....so we can cook.  We are lucky that we have friends in our neighborhood that meet outdoors several times a week to talk and have a few drinks and we are less than 10 minutes from the beach where we have no problems social distancing  since we are in a small town.  If we get bored with both houses we will take a VRBO trip.

 

Sounds like the perfect staycation with the outdoor drink meetings and all. 🙂

[luxecruisers]

On 7/30/2020 at 11:25 AM, SelectSys said:

Thinking about a driving trip after US Labor Day to Oregon to visit one of the kids.  Maybe a trip to Florida to visit friends if things calm down a bit.  

 

Road trips are the best! 

[luxecruisers]

On 7/30/2020 at 11:42 AM, Warm Breezes said:

We rented a motor home and drove out to ND to visit DS and sight see at Theodore Roosevelt National Park.  Came home and booked a cruise in October 2021 to replace our Carnival Mardi Gras cruise that just got cancelled for December and another one for February 2022 on NCL Encore to use our Cruise Next certificates that expire in October 2022.  No other vacations are currently planned.  We were lucky enough to sneak a trip to Las Vegas in at the end of February right before everything shut down.

 

Were there tons of people at the National Park? 

[luxecruisers]

On 7/30/2020 at 4:08 PM, Joebucks said:

There really is no better time for domestic travel. Few things are as crowded as before. Prices are reasonable. The experience is quite fine. International travel is too risky atm.

 

I was in Florida last month. From the news, you would have thought I entered a zombie apocalypse. It was quite enjoyable.

 

What parts of Florida did you visit? 

[luxecruisers]

On 7/30/2020 at 7:41 PM, ldubs said:

 

The three I go to most, say almost on a weekly basis, are Camanche, Pardee and Berryessa.  We typically go during the week when there are no crowds.  We talk about how great it would be to tow the boat behind a motorhome. Right now they are selling like hotcakes around here.  Maybe when CV is winding down we will look into that.   

 

All 3 look lovely. Lucky you!