See my post 70 above.
I think I am in a minority here with my opinion of Covid. For instance, I find it disconcerting to realize that most people seem to have a logical disconnect when they point to studies proving so many false positives or asympomatic positives and use them to say that the virus is therefore not as bad as the flu. If you say there are x% fewer actual cases, then it necessarily implies that the death rate is x% higher than the one you report which is based on the “bogus” denominator. We can’t have both. And we don’t know the denominator of people with flu who didn’t know it anyway. So I remain convinced that the actual death rate is much higher than we are currently allowing or wishing it to be.
But the answer to protecting elderly folks is not relying on a security erasing nightmare of an app that has more holes in it than the masks most people wear - there is no guarantee that the Typhoid Mary you were next to at your local grocery store has the required update, or scanning turned on, or a phone at all - but on common sense.
I went shopping Saturday, there were a lot of people there. I am not going out again for the next week, perhaps we can visit then, Grandma... or, The weather isn’t good enough to see you outdoors today, wish I could hug you, but we’ll try again next time...
Problem is, many if not most of the older folks I know are tired of it. It is they who are demanding that we live while we live, and not cower away into oblivion. Depending on the person and circumstance, I have begun to mostly honor their wishes in the matter.
Realizing that there is a bit of the same argument against my security position that I make against the Covid threat detection, I maintain there is enough difference that the compromise in personal and national security is not worth the possible benefit of a Covid alert. That’s just the bait to make it palatable.
You should read the following by James D. Agresti from the Heartland Institute. It probably will not but might change your perspective.
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2020/12/10/essential-facts-about-covid-19/
Last Spring it was indicated by several studies based on antibody tests that the actual number of people who had already been infected and currently were was most likely at least ten times the current number that had tested positive. This was poo-pooed by the press and authorities because the death rate would then have been less than the flu. This year when tests are not just available to everyone but authorities are forcing well people to be tested when they want to travel and for numerous other reasons the increasing number of positives is not just accepted... it is cited as evidence of a “2nd wave”.
It is obvious to those of us who spent our careers transporting and caring for people with respiratory ailments that the reason that the current perception of the public is mostly based on hype that was meant to get rid of President Trump. If flu deaths start being tabulated the way Covid deaths are... we will all be wearing masks and putting up with nonsense for the rest of our lives.
You and many others here are a victim of media hype that has been foisted on you for political purposes. It is obvious to me because I spent my career assisting sick people and so did my wife who was a career nurse and department head in multilevel care facilities. This is the most outrageous nonsense that we have ever witnessed.