Riobard

No words, not one word, perhaps 1,000 words; yes, yes, a thousand times yes.

3 years ago the baths bartender was stunning but aloof. I would have thrown money at him if given some encouragement. But I would wonder how he could cover all stations. There was an undie shop at the front but I don’t recall if it was separately staffed.

I always carry a reasonably decent decoy phone and decoy $bill/card-fold that are both essentially dispensable and in my outside lightweight full-length pants pockets where I hope a thief would consider the logical place for a pedestrian to store belongings but not, to date, any encounters such as requests or demands to have them removed from my person. I assume, possibly falsely, that a robber would not stick around long enough to inspect the contraband. The felon would quickly see some cash tucked into the cheap wallet thingy. The hope is that would be an acceptable tradeoff for my personal security and life to remain intact. My undergarment is a bathing suit or lightweight shorts with pockets where I fold up and distribute some higher denomination cash and functional credit cards. Usually at least one large enough pocket in the undergarment to conceal my true phone. Essentially I would need to be frisked to reveal these genuine valuables.

Apolo … been there dump that; not appalling, but … ———— Juan Bin Bin … Bin there dump that. Don’t wanna go to there again.

Grave worm chow alert: Meatloaf special this week! Messenger ribonucleic acid-free! FullSizeRender.mov

Chatter = “Ele não embalou seu equipamento de autoasfixia junto com seu nitrato de amila e tudo o que temos a oferecer é um pouco de plástico.”

I am neither a phone lover nor at all umbilically tied to mine beyond the basics of postmodern convenience. Or necessity, eg Über in Brazil. But if you haven’t been to, say, 555 on a Friday night prior to the late evening stage circus you haven’t experienced the equivalence of essentially watching paint dry when you could be catching up on written word news, other reading, etc. If you haven’t laid eyes on your new obsession, IMHO these environments are among the least interesting and stimulating settings I have encountered. Of course, there can be exceptions where at times things get more dynamic, even outside the tricking component. But phones are the new books at those times a Plan B comes in handy while biding time. And I am someone that can happily sit on a nice park bench in a regular square for long periods of time without being glued to my device.

To navigate via ride platform(s) between Guaruja and points west, and vice versa, Über to short ferry and complete the transaction, cross as foot passenger and order a new ride, correct? To avoid the very long circuitous route points north and so as not to unrealistically impose on a driver to navigate the crossing? I tried to use Über estimator without success. Maybe somebody knows. The only reference on our board was a traveller with a private vehicle utilizing the crossing which I understand to be no more than a few hundred metres.

That’s not a stretch. And it is a stretch.

Thanks, it’s a bit misleading due to surveillance methodologies in Brazil. 95 Sunday likely a data dump of several prior days where reported incidence was in 0 range; essentially off-duty sitch. 16-17 Monday (as in this table) perhaps reflective of trend of day of rest affecting reporting. 35 Tues perhaps another retroactive catch-up from weekend. Remainder of week could tell the story better. The astronomical percentage increases in the table are also reflective of previous testing hiatus situation many regions. The true 14-day change should eventually be better representative of reality in a few weeks if testing and reporting stabilizes. But the temporal curve trajectories tell that part of the story as well. Hospital admissions a good indicator as population testing accuracy, as you know, has thrown up its hands.

So now São Paulo city and state COVID hospitalizations have quickly jumped up to 25% the pandemic peak, when the situation seemed dire. This current trend does not appear to abate, and this is a context of very high levels of full vaccination, unlike said peak of Spring 2021. Less disease severity coupled with higher case incidence, albeit proportionally less CoV morbidity, does not portend less strain on the health care sector or improved net absolute population consequences unless the Omicron variant quickly burns itself out.

@Novarunner, do you know the app Subtitles Viewer? You can sync written subtitles to just about any movie or TV program. You won’t get the auditory Portuguese language but you may find it useful to see the text play out in concert with English soundtrack.

Unless I’m mistaken it’s the actual epidemiological surveillance tracking that underpins the assumptions about seriousness you yourself are making, so that piece is surely progressive, ongoing by necessity, and far from superfluous. I don’t think N of 1 anecdotal tells the story. Glad you got through, though, as would be now thankfully expected. Naturally the hope for better days is shared, although the limbic brain activated on alert with recent bloodbath memories is surely functionally adaptive.

Now apparently startling upswing in new case growth to 100/100K on Saturday. Not sure if it’s a retroactive data dump following holiday reporting lapse. I think not. Likely an absolute .1% per capita single day tally and most probably an extensive undercount. Upcoming week should help reveal trend. Progressively increasing hospitalizations. 40% probability of at least one active CoV case in a random group of 10; 99% probability of at least one active case in a group of 44.

* simple [spell correction]

There are dozens of legit areas and endless choices. I have done 5 neighbourhoods and happy with all. How long visit? What activity focus? Proximity to spa brothel ‘sauna’ venues important, ie, to avoid really long distant ride platforms? Preferred mode of transport? I do Über but often Metro subway as it’s good quality and I ride free as senior. The thing I try to avoid is virtual biometric registration check-protocol if the host is not on the spot to facilitate this … face and fingerprint scans etc. The tech can be dysfunctional and you might be talking through an intercom to a static-y voice in rapid Portuguese. The last time this happened I was on the phone with the host’s subhost’s sub-sub-host to trouble-shoot and it took an hour following an exhausting trip just to get from the street entrance to the elevator, to the unit keypad that itself was the easy-peasy part. Many places indicate this mode of check-in after you have committed and paid. Not always simole; never again. Some hosts are just fucking morons and don’t advise you ahead of time what all the steps will be. They consider it part of the adventure; I don’t.

And a lead at the Gloria Metro entrance as you head to Clube 117. They were one of the international sites for a CoV vaccination trial in which I participated:

Flu is increasingly wreaking havoc. Here’s a lead for Sampa vaccination if you are there and have yet to be inoculated, in spite of its apparent current reduced efficacy, though it might not yet be open to adults under age 60 (as of 28 Dec); possibly now added. And flu is likely more particulate/droplet than aerosol, so more caution and hygiene handling surfaces, masks, etc. There may be public injection sites at the Rio beaches. One July in Leme near the Fisherman’s Walk there a nurse approached asking if I wanted vaccination on the spot. There may be a current off-season campaign. https://agenciabrasil.ebc.com.br/saude/noticia/2022-01/sp-faz-vacinacao-contra-covid-19-e-influenza-em-todos-os-postos?amp

I was at Clube 117 in Rio and the drag MC was doing the standard stand-up component. I always find it earsplitting in volume and ended up walking through to an exit to access a quieter area. Not surprisingly, it turns out that one of the garotos de programa was walking ahead of me. A tirade of lascivious comments came from the stage. I imagine it happens at most performances but never fails to get a laugh. And I wasn’t following the stud! I really wasn’t!

Correction: São Paulo city about 11-12,000,000 so about 1/4 state pop 46,000,000

Now updated to 317 (city) and 615 (state) admissions in one day, respectively. I should note that the SP city tally is subsumed within the state tally; when teased out it simply reflects proportionality. I believe that the greater metropolitan population is close to one-half the state population. About 10,000 cases presenting with respiratory symptoms presumed COVID at São Paulo city hospitals over the first 3 days of the year. Omicron progressively predominant. Rapid antigen testing appointments getting hard to come by due to surging demand leading to supply deficits at pharmacies, etc. I am not sure about molecular test eg RT-PCR accessibility in locations previously referenced here on the board.

Oh, here we go. São Paulo city and state hospitalizations now increasing. Not surprisingly, urban metropolis proportionally higher. If trend of less severity holds up then hospital admissions are a reasonable ‘canary in coal mine’ surrogate marker for Omicron background incidence even if community diagnosis has largely slipped. I assume the bed count is differentiated from influenza cases. In any case, Omicron seems definitely growing in new CoV case incidence. This suggests it might be wise to periodically rapid antigen test approaching a date at which one leaves Brazil, so as to help avoid being caught off guard by a test-positive closer to boarding. If Omicron follows the typical vastly exponential increase pattern seen elsewhere, whether quantified or not in Brazil, one might expect renewed venue restrictions for the sake of preserving health care delivery capacity.

It’s a challenge to get a read on this. São Paulo, ordinarily doing solid pandemic surveillance for the state throughout the pandemic, abruptly stopped reporting cases 3 weeks ago.

The absence of much evidence of Omicron VOC and the low levels of CoV incidence overall is almost eery considering Brazil was reporting Omicron small numbers of test-positives around the same time that Canada and USA were detecting early small numbers that eventually surged and quickly eclipsed the Delta variant. Calm before the storm? ”Flurona” ‘twindemic’, simultaneous SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza infection, appears to be currently grabbing the headlines more than coronavirus alone. From what I can gather there is an outbreak of A-H3N2 (Darwin strain lineage) in Rio and São Paulo. It is a vaccine escape variant for which Brazil’s winter inoculation campaign months ago and the North’s recent/current Fluzone rollout offers little protection though may mitigate illness severity. The Darwin strain construct is being integrated for Australia’s 2022 inoculation season months away, presumably also across Southern Hemisphere. The Flurona phenomenon is actually quite rare due to the reduced prevalence of coronavirus, but the anomaly of a summer flu outbreak in Brazil was not unexpected. Implications? Visitors snogging the locals may pick up flu. I think that with symptoms one would just rapid antigen test for SARS-CoV-2 to rule out coronavirus and rule in influenza. There is obviously symptom overlap. Hospitals and Clinics can swab and differentiate but I don’t know if pharmacies have flu stand-alone detection kits. —- After posting this I realized I erroneously thought I was simply adding to one poster’s trip report and his mention of Omicron. Now I realize it may seem off-topic for the thread but there is no copy-paste option for a new topic and I am not typing it out all over again.