'We open, people die; we close, people die.'
https://www.stripes.com/news/middle-east/we-open-people-die-we-close-people-die-covid-surge-leaves-lebanon-no-good-options-1.661305
Without joining the "Laser Beams From Space' crowd, I'm starting to wonder whether general lockdowns have been very effective. Deep blue California & New York haven't had much better luck than open-for-business Florida.
We've definitely have had our share of non-compliance and problems in California.
>Deep blue
This is also the land of Devin Nunes. California is blue the same way Texas is red, meaning there is a sizable percentage of the population that disagrees with the prevailing government. The big question is: How do you manage people when near 50% of the population doesn't want to comply?
>> doesn't want to comply
I think a lot of the non-compliance is rooted in sloppy logic and misinformation ... which spread even faster than the virus. People sincerely believe that they know better than the authorities.
I'm not one to say there's never a time to be a rebel, but fer cryin' out loud, the thing you're rebelling about should actually be true!
>Deep blue
California had more Trump voters in 2020 than Texas did. Texas had more Biden voters than New York.
https://xkcd.com/2399/
> Devin Nunes
He's actually almost moderate compared to my representative, Tom McClintock or our local supervisor who in public comments has declared Fauci "an enemy of the people," and daily frequents one of the restaurants/bars in town that stays open in violation of state and county orders and where nobody wears a mask.
That said, I think across the spectrum, there is quite a bit of Covid fatigue and, to the main point, about general lockdowns, I think it's just to ask of a lot of people. For some it's easy because of our financial situations, the nature of our work, the nature of our marriage/family life, the nature of our personalities. But for single extroverts or people in unhappy families who have to leave the house in order to work to pay the bills, the lockdown is brutal.
And we have local landmark businesses that have folded and more on the verge of it. If this (by which I mean not just Covid, but in our case fires and windstorms and blizzards) goes on for another year, the community will be hollowed out.
Why California, Florida Have Similar Number of COVID-19 Cases
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-do-california-and-florida-have-similar-covid-19-case-rates-the-answer-is-complicated
>Deep blue California & New York haven't had much better luck than open-for-business Florida.
Florida's Pandemic Response May Have Been Vindicated
https://www.newser.com/story/303709/floridas-covid-response-wins-grudging-praise.html
QuoteOne that is now being widely praised is his decision on March 14 of last year to bar visitors from long-term care facilities. In contrast to New York, he also stopped hospitals from transferring COVID patients back to care homes.
Well now... Cuomo's actions here will go down as one of the stupidest moves of the whole pandemic. It takes a lot to make Trump look good, but Cuomo has been trying really hard for the past year.
But it's clear that there's a lot we "knew" a year ago that, as it turns out, we didn't *know* (masks don't protect the wearer...). I'm not sure we'll ever have good answers to all the questions, but I bet we could have avoided many deaths and much economic dislocation if we just had had a clue at the outset.
>masks don't protect the wearer
That one was particularly frustrating for me. In the early stages they were discouraging mask wearing. I remember my dad saying "...proved masks don't work". It seems that there was plenty of early evidence from China that pointed to masks being part of the solution.
> masks
We are still paying for that intentional fib. Yeah, I understand they had good intentions trying to keep masks of any kind available for doctors and nurses working ICU's, but that lie has fed the anti-maskers and the death cult ever since. They should never have lied, they just should have explained the need to the public.
When the health authorities reversed themselves, the most heroic action came from women (and some men) dusting off their sewing machines, sewing masks from patterns posted online, and giving them to frontline workers and the vulnerable. They didn't wait for orders, they marched to the sound of the guns.
BTW, remember when Kurchner was using Federal authority to hijack private and state purchases of PPE allegedly, for redistribution? Did any of that get redistributed, or is it moldering in some FEMA warehouse somewhere?
>Without joining the "Laser Beams From Space' crowd, I'm starting to wonder whether general lockdowns have been very effective.
A year into the pandemic, Florida is booming and Republican Gov. DeSantis is taking credit
https://www.cnn.com/2021/03/17/politics/ron-desantis-covid-florida/index.html
I don't think looking at it as a binary is the way to think about it. In other words, I do not think there is a Yes/No answer to the question: "Are lockdowns effective?"
For a while we were looking at Manaus and saying, "that's how you get to herd immunity," and then cases surged again there and, with no lockdown, their death toll was astronomical. Meanwhile, Italy, with strict lockdowns, has done only a bit better than the UK and worse than the US, despite having weather more conducive to outdoor life in March than much of the US and all of the UK and obesity rates significantly below the OECD average.
Even more to the point, Italy had much stricter lockdowns than Sweden and a much higher death rate (roughly 1700 per million vs 1300 per million). I conclude from those two facts that lockdowns CAUSE Covid deaths. Clearly.
But if we look at the situation in Italy with people dying untreated in hospitals hallways and bodies stacking up like cordwood, we can say that deaths definitely cause lockdowns. I have no doubt that if the situation in Sweden ever got as dire as it was in Italy at the peak, they would have locked down. As far as I know, however, Sweden just never seemed to run out of hospital capacity. Why? I don't think we know, but I will say for certain that it is not because they stayed open. There are other factors.
Back in the US, talking to friends and families who work in hospitals in hotspots, there were points in the pandemic when the medical system was being overwhelmed, nurses and physicians were at the ends of their tethers, they had beds in tents in the parking lot and we were on the brink of true catastrophe at levels approaching Italy, but only in certain places. I think the lockdowns that helped alleviate those situations, which they seem, in fact, to have done, were necessary. In retrospect, they were probably too generalized, but did they work? I *think* they did and in a year or two, papers from epidemiologist and economists will probably tell us.
The question is, how much of those lockdown periods and places met those conditions? Early on we looked at lockdowns as a way to stop the pandemic. If we had wanted to do that, we would have needed lockdowns like the ones in Wuhan, which seem to have been quite effective and also what we consider gross violations of basic liberties that would not have been tolerated in most OECD nations.
But lockdowns to keep the medical system from collapsing are another thing. I think they have worked and that last, more targeted Regional Stay at Home Order in California seems to have taken the pressure off hospitals. I know one friend of mine said they had to watch a guy with a heart attack die in her hospital because they did not have a bed. She said that it would have been an easy save if not for Covid.
Then there is the calculation of how much a life is worth. The US government says a life is worth $10,000,000.
https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2020/07/17/870483369/your-life-is-worth-10-million-according-to-the-government
Abbreviated version of the above
https://www.npr.org/2020/04/23/843310123/how-government-agencies-determine-the-dollar-value-of-human-life
That's the number they use for enforcing health and safety rules. In other words, if a safety measure (tethers while working on scaffolding) costs $9,000,000 per life saved, the government says that rule should stand and if it costs $11,000,000 per life saved, it should go. It doesn't account for age. That's the theory, though things like car seat requirements and rear view cameras prove it's not evenly applied.
So when epidemiologist crunch all the numbers on the impacts of lockdowns and economists crunch all the numbers on economic loss, we'll know what was and wasn't "worth it."
But the answer will be complex, not simple. Looking at it as simple relationship (deaths :: lockdowns) and a binary (worked/didn't work) is great for polemics and terrible for understanding.
As is typical of all US politics these days, it is more important to score a win for your team than to figure out what good policy would look like. Were some lockdowns a foolish waste of human energy? I bet they were. Were some lockdowns essential to prevent catastrophic collapse? I bet they were. In a system where scoring for your team is less important than coming up with good policy, we would be focused on figuring out which were which rather than getting reelected or weathering a recall movement.
pushing it...
Florida Will Sue CDC If Cruises Can't Resume
https://www.traveloffpath.com/florida-will-sue-cdc-if-cruises-cant-resume/
Quote from: rcjordan on February 25, 2021, 08:03:14 PM
Why California, Florida Have Similar Number of COVID-19 Cases
https://www.healthline.com/health-news/why-do-california-and-florida-have-similar-covid-19-case-rates-the-answer-is-complicated
California's coronavirus case rate now the lowest in the continental U.S. (https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-04-21/california-coronavirus-case-rate-among-nations-lowest)
QuoteThe state's latest seven-day rate of new cases — 40.3 per 100,000 people — is dramatically lower than the nationwide rate of 135.3 and edged only by Hawaii, 39.1, over the same time period, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
---
Providers statewide have administered 27 million vaccine doses to date, and 44% of Californians have already gotten at least one shot, CDC figures show.
More than a quarter of the state's population is fully vaccinated — meaning they've received both required doses of the Pfizer-BioNTech or Moderna vaccines, or got the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine before its administration was paused while federal health officials study a possible link to extremely rare blood clots.
I could tell you that currently demand is outpacing local vaccine supply.
Quote from: littleman on April 22, 2021, 01:25:25 AM
I could tell you that currently demand is outpacing local vaccine supply.
Opposite here. Local paper said that about half of appointments at local vaccine clinics are going unclaimed. We just got our second today and the provider said that they have really struggled to find people to vaccinate. Yesterday they had 11 spare doses and went to the nearby grocery store and put up a sandwich board and barely found 11 people to vaccinate.
Part of it is that because of the nature of jobs here, so many people qualified early and part of it is that we're a rural county and that means, dare I say it, lots of Republicans and latest polls show that only 22% of unvaccinated Republicans want a vaccine. In the last two elections, our county voted 58% to 64% Republican. In your county, I know it was under 20%. Somewhere around 15% to 18%. Also, a much smaller percentage of people work in covered jobs (emergency services, food service, etc).
Liberals Are Losing Credibility on COVID at a Rapid Pace
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36888029/delta-covid-variant-vaccine-effectiveness-mask-guidelines/
>Opposite here
I just got back from an extended weekend trip to Tahoe with the family (highlight was getting a visit from a momma black bear and her cubs at the beach) and it was like a different world. Here I'm the Peninsula 80% of the people are still wearing masks outside. In the Tahoe region 95% are maskless in doors and the vaccination rate is sitting at something like half.
>Liberal credibility
Looking at the stats for infection rates of what is happening in the redder zones the article is clearly deflecting from policies that aren't working.
As much as the "don't tread on me" types would hate it I think the only way to make America thrive while we have an ongoing pandemic is to have a vaccine passport system. Want to go into a store? Either mask up or show proof of being fully vaccinated.
> only way
Mandatory vaccine requirement for all (.edu & pro) sports attendance/participation. (Along with some sort of realtime verification system.)
>article
I thought the article was crap, but I sadly agree with the gist of the headline.
>I sadly agree with the gist of the headline.
Okay, why? And who is credible at this point?
>>agree with the gist of the headline
The problem with over the top fear mongering is that when the absolute worst, most dire predictions fail to be proven true, it undermines the value of the strong, evidential but nevertheless dire predictions that do prove true.
It's a problem in the climate movement as well. People who don't seem to know very much take the outlier predictions of what is going to happen in 50 years and say that is what will happen in ten years (thank you AOC) and then the denialists get to throw out all predictions. When I first heard about that, I thought AOC must have been misquoted, but no. Her statement did so much damage.
>>different world
And yet Tahoe/Truckee is practically the Bay Area, at least to hear Truckee residents talk about it... Not quite though. Closer to us than to you in terms of voting, but about halfway between in terms of vaccination.
Nevada County (i.e. town of Truckee)
Trump vote: 41%
Vaccination rate (June 13): 43.5%
El Dorado County (i.e. town of South Lake Tahoe)
Trump vote: 53%
full vaccination rate (June 13): 41.2%
Mariposa County (i.e. chez moi)
Trump vote: 57.9%
full vaccination rate (June 13): 27.1% and most vaccination clinics canceled due to lack of interest
San Francisco County (i.e. chez toi)
Trump vote: 12.7%
full vaccination rate (June 13): 62.1% and, based on what you say, limited by supply
vaccines: https://www.mercurynews.com/2021/06/13/coronavirus-here-are-california-county-vaccination-percentages-as-of-june-11/
voting: https://www.politico.com/2020-election/results/california/
Sorry for the sidetrack...
>highlight was getting a visit from a momma black bear and her cubs at the beach
https://news.yahoo.com/video-shows-black-bears-joining-195700703.html
Here's a photo from my daughter's cell phone taken from about 150 ft. away. The weather was unusually hot and I take it they were just wanting to cool down a bit.
>>sidetrack
Ha, yeah... we get them swimming in our sewer pond when it gets hot. Much less photogenic.
Quote from: littleman on June 30, 2021, 09:57:13 PM
>I sadly agree with the gist of the headline.
Okay, why? And who is credible at this point?
Unlike RC, I don't think it's a terrible article, so much as a missed opportunity. But I agree with the gist, mostly for the reason stated above. More on that in a second.
First question: credible about what? Again, I think of the climate situation. People are constantly using the cudgel phrase "the science" when they are really talking about policy, which is a question of values hopefully informed by science, not science per se. I think that's true with Covid.
Example: "The science says we need to stop driving gas-powered cars."
Example: "The science says we all need to wear masks."
Actually, science doesn't say those things. First of all, "science" doesn't say anything. Scientific studies and scientists do, and there will be some rage of estimates. So "science" can say, "Estimates by experts say that wearing masks will save between X and Y lives." Science can only go that far. When you start to say what people *must * do, you're getting into value judgements, which takes you beyond science.
So when someone says that Covid is the same as the flu, that is a statement that can be evaluated by science. Who is credible? Infectious disease experts.
When someone says "this is what we know about risk to vaccinated teens at summer camp," that can be based on science and the credible authority would, again, be an infectious disease expert or a public health expert.
When someone says that you should not send your kid to camp, that is a statement that cannot be evaluated by science, because it's a choice that depends on your values and your risk tolerance. Who is credible on that topic? Nobody, really. You, the parent, are.
Unlike RC, I don't think the article is terrible, but I think it could be better.
What people are bad it is comparing risk. So what are my chances of getting killed or very ill from Covid if I am a fully vaccinated teen? Low. Very low.
What are my chances of getting killed or seriously hurt if I'm a teen driver who drives a lot? Low, very low. Higher than we would like. Higher than someone between 30 and 50. But most teen drivers do not die.
In fact, let's put a rough number on it. We've had 600K deaths. We know that the vaccine prevents serious illness in 99% of the cases. So if all those people had been vaccinated, we would have had roughly 6,000 deaths since March 2020. Of course, the actual number is far, far lower, because it would have spread less quickly, far fewer people would have been exposed, etc, etc. But we're curious about the risk to a person exposed to Covid. A tiny portion of them were teens, so for a fully vaccinated teen the risk is even lower.
Meanwhile, there were 36,000 deaths from auto accidents in 2019. If you take a similar period (say 15 months), you'd be looking at about 45,000 auto deaths. Now in this case, the risk to a teen is vastly, vastly higher than the general risk, especially if that teen is a male.
So to me, the risk of a fully vaccinated teenager (low risk to start with, plus vaccine protection) person being exposed to Covid is much less than the risk of, say, letting your teenage son (much higher risk than usual) drive the car across the country (high mileage at high speed increasing the risk again) to go rock climbing (as my mother did when I was 18).
But in our current debate, a parent who lets a teenager drive a car is not considered an insane risk taker and irresponsible parent. But, in certain circles, one who lets her fully vaccinated kid go to summer camp, *is* considered an insane risk taker and irresponsible parent.
So to me, the article would have been useful if it had put some numbers on it. If it had actually tried to address what are the relative risks of things we consider safe, and things we don't.
Are the kids swimming at summer camp? What else are they doing? Is Covid even the highest risk activity of a kid at summer camp?
1981 article: in the previous five years, just in NY state, 16 kids died and 63 got seriously injured at summer camp. I couldn't find more recent stats
https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/23/style/summer-camp-safety-taking-no-chances.html
I've seen a lot of moralizing about people's behavior and I feel like a lot of the moralizing is not supported by evidence. My general observation is that when you play Cassandra, but you're wrong over and over, it undercuts credibility.
And this just in - compare Fauci's messaging with the messaging by some columnist on Slate:
In answer to a kid asking about school and masking and all that....
Fauci: "But the one thing that's interesting is that you, as a vaccinated person, should feel absolutely safe, that you're going to be okay. That's the thing. Whether or not what's surrounding you is going to dictate you wearing a mask, you should feel that you are going to be safe from getting infected."
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a36888029/delta-covid-variant-vaccine-effectiveness-mask-guidelines/
Fauci might be overshooting the mark (nobody was "absolutely safe" before Covid, let alone after), but it is a big difference from some of the alarmism. The NYT daily newsletter has been... sounding the alarm bell on alarmism for several months now.
PS...
>>there will be some rage of estimates
Freudian slip no doubt!