And no surprise his approval ratings are in the flusher https://www.businessinsider.com/georgia-gov-brian-kemp-sees-dismal-approval-rating-post-reopening-2020-5
@“Cardinal Fang” While I understand the reluctance to rely on recommendations from the CDC at this time, I think data is different and CDC data is viewed as reliable by most professionals. Hopkins summarized the CDC data and showed the 80+ CFR in the US is 14.8.
Other data I have seen for CFRs in the 80+population are 13.0% (South Korea), 14,8%(China), 15.6% (Spain), and 20.2% (Italy)
Italy’s numbers are higher for two reasons. First, their health system got overrun, which increased overall mortality. Second, Italy went for a period of time and only tested those that got hospitalized. This minimized there case numbers and inflated their CFR.
The experience of Queens, does not invalidate the number seen in the U.S. as a whole. The experience of the Navajo nation is horrific, while in the Hopi nation(whose reservation is surrounded entirely by the Navajo reservation, the numbers are minimal. The question that needs to be answered is why these differences exist, and what can be learned in developing medical therapies.
I’d rather not get hung up on the numbers at this point. My larger message was that there is more we don’t know than what we do know. It is close to impossible to evaluate a curve while you are on it AND you are taking active measures (or reducing measures) to change the curve.
I’m curious to see what happens in VA, since masks are now mandatory in public, indoor spaces. I’m a mask wearer, even when I go for a walk because I live in a densely populated area with narrow sidewalks. The governor’s mandate doesn’t include outdoor spaces, altho we’re supposed to SD.
I wish my apt building would mandate it in public spaces, especially the elevator. Some residents wear one, but not more than 25-50%. I’ve let the elevator go if it’s occupied by someone not wearing a mask. When I politely asked a young man to wait for the next elevator when he wasn’t wearing a mask, he got on anyway. DH and I got out. As more people go out with restaurants, salons, and stores open, there’ll be more residents using the elevators.
Found hand sanitizer at the registers at TJs this week. Picked up a purse size and a 12 oz. one. We don’t use much hand sanitizer, except when we’ve been in a grocery store, which we do every 2 weeks, so the purse size I already had was adequate for now.
In my town everyone is wearing a mask, even when walking in our little village center, where there are more people walking around.
When I walk in my neighborhood, where there are just homes, and you rarely run into more than two or three people out for a walk, no one wears their masks, because there is no reason to. I still bring a mask with me, just in case a crowd of people should sudden,y appear and I can’t distance myself. This has never happened in the 11 weeks we’ve been on pause.
I wear my mask in the car when I do pick up curbside because I might have to open my window and say something to the person loading what I’ve picked up. I like to make sure they have taken tip out of trunk of car.
I only hope that the non mask wearers going anywhere and everywhere are mostly in places where the whole community is acting that way. And it seems that way to me from what I am seeing on the news, reporting in papers and hearing on places like CC.
They can infect themselves and the rest of their communities for all I care anymore. The virus is still out there and it’s still spreading. It has not gone away. But, we do know what does suppress the spread.
Not necessarily. The differential for gender could be hormones (or a bunch of other things). The differential for races could be health status/living conditions. The upper class, like most on cc, can hunker down in large homes where they can easily separate the sick. In contrast, the poor can have multi-generations living under a single small roof.
Or, it could be mask wearing differentials which reduce exposure to viral loads.
The NE Journal of Medicine compared cloth masks worn by doctors for an entire shift. While the results were poor, it does not speak to the benefit when worn for short periods of time when social distancing is not possible. There is plenty of evidence that accumulated viral load impacts the probability of being infected and every reason to believe that wearing a mask will lower this viral load. In a medical setting over an extended period of time, it doesn’t lower it enough, but for other settings, the results may be different.
Just in case anyone thought those of us on cc were unusual with few changing our minds… and even the proportion of who feels what with the virus, the economy, and the little bit of politics that makes it in - seems like we’re perfectly typical for the US:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/coronavirus-polls/
Very few are changing their minds since the end of March or beginning of April.
Now I’m wondering if anything will change minds to a large extent. Thinking about it I could see having it go away/die off gradually working on mindsets or seeing multiple hospitals getting overrun and more people dying in several places doing it, but really, only those two extremes.
I wish they would start showing stats on how many people are returning to normal, cutting back some, or doing little. I also wonder how much this varies based upon local caseloads. I suspect quite a bit with the latter.
If someone sees any polls of those types, I’d like to see them. I would think economists would be eager to try to get the info.
If wearing a mask protects not you but the other guy, it makes perfect sense why he would say that.
Video regarding contact tracing from someone that went through the training. It’s about 20 minutes long. It will certainly give people things to think about no.matter which way they think.
The stats on returning to normal will show up in consumer spending indexes in a couple of months.
I would be interested to know how many people will comply with the VA mask requirement. We had to go to VA last weekend to retrieve D’s belongings. We observed a fairly low level of mask usage, less than we observe in our area of Florida.
There are two sources of information on the Hopkins page you cite. One is from the CDC, from March 14. If I want to know the case fatality rate for the US for people over 80, I’m not going to look at information published to the web in the middle of March, when the US had about 10 deaths.
The other data on the page you cite is taken from Worldometers, again from March 14… I’m not sure why they are to be taken as authoritative as far as case fatality rate and infection rate, but since you apparently find them trustworthy, I checked out what they now say. They say that the death rate for confirmed cases (i.e. the case fatality rate) for over 80 s is 21.9%, and the death rate for all cases (i.e. the infection fatality rate) is 14.8%. They don’t tell us where their data comes from.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-age-sex-demographics/
The point, though, is if I wish to know the case fatality rate for a jurisdiction, I don’t have to rely on anyone else. I can calculate it with my own fair hands, at least for those jurisdictions that publish deaths by age and test results by age. I have not found any jurisdiction that has a case fatality rate for over-80s that is close to 13%.
State of California, 24.6%
State of Texas, 30.4%
You can do it too. Just Google “ Covid Dashboard.” Then, if they give cases and fatalities by age (some annoyingly don’t but many do) just divide the case over 80 by the deaths over 80. Do let me know if you find anywhere in the US where there are more than 100 deaths and where the case fatality rate for over 80s is anywhere near 13%. I have not found one.
If I put on a homemade cloth mask, and then I cough a few times, the mask will feel wet, because of the snot and goo I cough up. This experiment is easy to do; try it yourself.
For sure, some of the stuff that comes out of my mouth when I cough is not caught by my mask. Some of the stuff is not caught, but some is. There it is, right in front of me when I cough.
So, for me to believe my mask wouldn’t protect you at all if I were infected, I’ have to believe that the germy snot and goo it catches wouldn’t make any difference if it reached you. I think it would make a difference. I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise by good evidence, but so far places that mask a lot seem to be preventing infections better than places that don’t.
I’ll stick with a mask, and wait for better evidence.
The expert from U of Minn (on MSNBC all the time) said the masks do not prevent the spread because they are sealed along the cheeks. He does not say not to wear them but they aren’t the magic protection some want them to be.
Is all this cleaning and mask wearing helping? Of course. These are the things we’ve been told to do to avoid spreading colds and flu for years. I’m thrilled with the no handshaking or hugging as I’ve never like those customs. I haven’t had a cold this season. If I could get rid of the allergies…
@taverngirl N95 masks are banned in some places. They protect you, but because of the valve, your breath goes out, so they don’t protect others. They really are appropriate only for health care workers who need the filter when caring for infectious patients.
I’m sticking with a mask in public places because it might help and can’t hurt.
<<<“People out in these states at water parks and beaches and boardwalks without masks on, gathering 200 people in a pool — to nurses, that’s like, ‘What do these people not understand?’ ” says Pellegrino, walking in a park Thursday in Worcester, Mass., before her 3-to-midnight shift at St. Vincent. “This is about protecting community, protecting society. People are just discarding what is still a major health-care crisis. A pandemic means we need to be safeguarding one another. We’re going to be needing to protect ourselves for months — if not years — to come.”>>>
while I appreciate your sharing your personal anecdotes, @cardinalfang, I was actually requesting scientific data, the kind we rely upon in making public health decisions. I do not doubt that your cloth mask catches secretions and that is a generally good thing (for other illnesses) but the question is, is it preventing COVID from transmission, or not? Since it is COVID transmission we are concerned about (and not influenza, etc, apparently), I expect studies on the efficacy of cloth masks pertinent to COVID.
My brother and his husband live in a high-rise apartment in Miami. A few weeks ago a maskless guy got in the elevator, and when my brother asked him to please put on a mask or wait for the next car, the guy ignored him. So my brother and his husband tried to get off the elevator and take the next car - but this maskless guy got in my brother’s face and told him off for wearing a mask.
Seriously?
My brother said it was the last straw. They’d been looking for a house to buy, and the attitude in their building (this wasn’t the first “incident”) was the icing on the cake. They just closed on a new house!
I just watched the video on contact tracing. If anyone watches it, be sure to read the comments. Contact tracing has enabled some societies do reduce the virus dramatically but it will never work in the US.