Coronavirus Sars-CoV-2/Covid-19 Megathread

[crazy canuck]

Remember how I told you guys the excessive lockdown stuff was going to backfire? I don't want to say I told you so, but....

Ahead of a lockdown protest scheduled in Georgia, the governor has announced that gyms, bowling alleys, salons, massage parlors, and some other stuff can open by Friday, and by Monday we are reopening restaurants.

How is the idiocy of the Governor of Georgia attributable to excessive lockdown measures? Seems the culprit here is his own stupidity.

Malthus, want to reexamine your point of view here? It seems quite a few people are finding themselves unable to stay put these days.

As a point of reference, guidelines have changed significantly since April 20. Now, most of the country is wearing masks to limit the spread of the virus, and recognize the value in social distancing. When this went into affect, no one wore masks and no one social distanced.

Except in Georgia, where your governor is forbidding mayors from requiring both of those things. Go figure.

It has been a while since I read much in this thread, but I see AF still has no idea how fucked up
the US is. Governor does a dumb ass thing and he interprets that as being right that what little that state did was too much for too long.

[alfred russel]

Remember how I told you guys the excessive lockdown stuff was going to backfire? I don't want to say I told you so, but....

Ahead of a lockdown protest scheduled in Georgia, the governor has announced that gyms, bowling alleys, salons, massage parlors, and some other stuff can open by Friday, and by Monday we are reopening restaurants.

How is the idiocy of the Governor of Georgia attributable to excessive lockdown measures? Seems the culprit here is his own stupidity.

Malthus, want to reexamine your point of view here? It seems quite a few people are finding themselves unable to stay put these days.

As a point of reference, guidelines have changed significantly since April 20. Now, most of the country is wearing masks to limit the spread of the virus, and recognize the value in social distancing. When this went into affect, no one wore masks and no one social distanced.

Except in Georgia, where your governor is forbidding mayors from requiring both of those things. Go figure.

Bullshit. Social distancing has been recommended from early days, and the CDC switched on the mask recommendation on April 3.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/03/826219824/president-trump-says-cdc-now-recommends-americans-wear-cloth-masks-in-public

[Malthus]

I'm not sure I understand the controversy.

Seems plain as day to me that those jurisdictions who shut down quickly and comprehensively did better than those that did not. They are in a position where they can start to reopen without a whole lot of illnesses and deaths, while those that gambled on such measures being bad for the economy lost big - got illnesses and deaths plus economic damage to boot.

[alfred russel]

Also, the mayor ended up with covid 19 and stated ""This is scary. We've done all the things that we thought we should do, and for us to still test positive, I think, really speaks to how easily this virus is spread and obviously none of us are immune from it".

She is full of shit.



Here she is in the black lives matter protests. She was all about those. Notice the social distancing. However, back in the day, before the governor stepped in, she issued a stay at home order. In my county I was threatened with up to a year in jail if I left home for an unauthorized reason.

With that sort of compliance, it shouldn't be a surprise that more black people have died from covid 19 in this state than white people.

[alfred russel]

I'm not sure I understand the controversy.

Seems plain as day to me that those jurisdictions who shut down quickly and comprehensively did better than those that did not. They are in a position where they can start to reopen without a whole lot of illnesses and deaths, while those that gambled on such measures being bad for the economy lost big - got illnesses and deaths plus economic damage to boot.

Your understanding is wrong in the US context. In the US overall, there have been 439.8 deaths per million residents.

States like Georgia (299.1), Florida (236.3), and Texas (144.2) are all doing better than that average.

[Sheilbh]

There's evidence from a number of marches - in particular Washington state and Minneapolis - that show lower than average infection rates among participants.

Similarly every single one of the events that people in the UK (including me) have confidently predicted would cause a spike (VE Day street parties, BLM protests, people on beaches etc) haven't actually caused a spike.

Which makes sense - we know where this disease spreads: prolonged contact in enclosed spaces. There were some indications of that when we started but it was just indications, we know a lot more now.

I've said before but I think a lot of what you're saying really just points to the US having a relatively low level of social trust, especially compared with the high social trust countries like the Nordics, and is a very polarised country but also the only country where I've seen this stuff become partisan.

[HisMajestyBOB]

Remember how I told you guys the excessive lockdown stuff was going to backfire? I don't want to say I told you so, but....

Ahead of a lockdown protest scheduled in Georgia, the governor has announced that gyms, bowling alleys, salons, massage parlors, and some other stuff can open by Friday, and by Monday we are reopening restaurants.

How is the idiocy of the Governor of Georgia attributable to excessive lockdown measures? Seems the culprit here is his own stupidity.

Malthus, want to reexamine your point of view here? It seems quite a few people are finding themselves unable to stay put these days.

As a point of reference, guidelines have changed significantly since April 20. Now, most of the country is wearing masks to limit the spread of the virus, and recognize the value in social distancing. When this went into affect, no one wore masks and no one social distanced.

Except in Georgia, where your governor is forbidding mayors from requiring both of those things. Go figure.

Bullshit. Social distancing has been recommended from early days, and the CDC switched on the mask recommendation on April 3.

https://www.npr.org/sections/coronavirus-live-updates/2020/04/03/826219824/president-trump-says-cdc-now-recommends-americans-wear-cloth-masks-in-public

You should tell your governor, who is in fact suing jurisdictions to block mask mandates:
https://time.com/5868613/georgia-governor-brian-kemp-face-mask-atlanta-keisha-lance-bottoms/

[HisMajestyBOB]

I'm not sure I understand the controversy.

Seems plain as day to me that those jurisdictions who shut down quickly and comprehensively did better than those that did not. They are in a position where they can start to reopen without a whole lot of illnesses and deaths, while those that gambled on such measures being bad for the economy lost big - got illnesses and deaths plus economic damage to boot.

Your understanding is wrong in the US context. In the US overall, there have been 439.8 deaths per million residents.

States like Georgia (299.1), Florida (236.3), and Texas (144.2) are all doing better than that average.

[The Minsky Moment]

Your understanding is wrong in the US context. In the US overall, there have been 439.8 deaths per million residents.

States like Georgia (299.1), Florida (236.3), and Texas (144.2) are all doing better than that average.

This still playing the mean/median game, with the skewed distribution from the high NY/NJ numbers resulting in almost every other state doing better than average.

It is this kind of thinking and rationalization that helped cause what we are seeing in Georgia and Florida now.

[The Minsky Moment]

On July 20, the entire United States reported 390 COVID deaths.  90 of those were in Florida.  That is not doing well and the fact that thousands of people died in New York in April doesn't make it better.

[alfred russel]

Your understanding is wrong in the US context. In the US overall, there have been 439.8 deaths per million residents.

States like Georgia (299.1), Florida (236.3), and Texas (144.2) are all doing better than that average.

This still playing the mean/median game, with the skewed distribution from the high NY/NJ numbers resulting in almost every other state doing better than average.

It is this kind of thinking and rationalization that helped cause what we are seeing in Georgia and Florida now.

Bullshit.

Pull NY and NJ out of the national numbers and the death totals are 316.7. The three states I mentioned are still less.

[alfred russel]

There's evidence from a number of marches - in particular Washington state and Minneapolis - that show lower than average infection rates among participants.

Similarly every single one of the events that people in the UK (including me) have confidently predicted would cause a spike (VE Day street parties, BLM protests, people on beaches etc) haven't actually caused a spike.

Which makes sense - we know where this disease spreads: prolonged contact in enclosed spaces. There were some indications of that when we started but it was just indications, we know a lot more now.

I've said before but I think a lot of what you're saying really just points to the US having a relatively low level of social trust, especially compared with the high social trust countries like the Nordics, and is a very polarised country but also the only country where I've seen this stuff become partisan.

I see no reason to really think BLM protests would cause a spike because they are outdoors and despite the large numbers for a protest they are really a limited number of people and for a limited duration (1 million people in the streets in the US is still 0.3% of the population).

What is really grating, however, is that the mayor clearly broke social distancing guidelines and now is claiming she has no idea how she got coronavirus and was following the rules. If I get coronavirus I at least hope I have the integrity to admit that I took risks and disregarded guidelines.

At a more fundamental level, however, she is a public leader that people look to, and she seems rather dismissive of the social distancing guidelines. Which if I understand correctly is part of why the CDC claims it was hesitant to issue a mask recommendation: that non medical grade masks would make people feel too safe and disregard other guidelines.

[The Minsky Moment]

Bullshit.

Pull NY and NJ out of the national numbers and the death totals are 316.7. The three states I mentioned are still less.

You also have a few large midwestern states and other smaller eastern states that had big death numbers.  From April.

Right now Florida is 25 out of 50 in terms of state death rates and rising fast, Georgia is in the top half. 

But even that is an apples to oranges comparison - comparing death spikes from four months ago to current conditions.

The past is the past but policy can still impact the present.  And in the present, Florida is a COVID horror show.

[alfred russel]

You also have a few large midwestern states and other smaller eastern states that had big death numbers.  From April.

Right now Florida is 25 out of 50 in terms of state death rates and rising fast, Georgia is in the top half. 

But even that is an apples to oranges comparison - comparing death spikes from four months ago to current conditions.

The past is the past but policy can still impact the present.  And in the present, Florida is a COVID horror show.

If we are evaluating public policy responses, it only makes sense to look at cumulative numbers. Otherwise someone might get the impression that NY has had a better response than Florida. Also--antibody testing in NYC indicates that enough of the population has been infected to materially retard the spread of the disease at this point.

If you think Florida is a horror show based on 90 deaths yesterday, I think you should remember what a real horror show looks like. If New York never has another Covid death, and Florida continues with 90 / day, Florida will match the New York death total on May 23, 2021. Of course as Florida has a higher population, it will still trail in the per capita death count.

[Eddie Teach]

Florida's policy of not making major subway systems is really paying dividends.