I agree no data… yet we know how CV exploded in ski areas, where people are presumably much more covered up… in Colorado CV first broke out in Aspen/Vail, brought here by infected, asymptomatic Australians. In Europe it broke out in Italian ski resorts. I assume that much of the spread occurred in hotels/restaurants/stores… but hotels aside, those are starting to open up in California as well, right? So all those beach goers can still spread the virus on their way to/from the beach.
I don’t disagree with you, Tatin, I’m just thinking out loud here. I think we’re all in a tough spot, and if I were in CA right now, I’d be dying to go to the beach too. And I’m not a 7 year old kiddo who’s going stir crazy at home or her/his frazzled mother…
Maryland person here.
1,730 cases reported in the last 24 hours, according to state website.
It was less than 900 the 24 hours before that.
I have only been out of my neighborhood a handful of times in the last month plus. My husband is the same.
@emilybee You are right. It isn’t only about you. It’s about all the people who have NO jobs or money due to the lock down and want to get back to their employment. It’s about the thousands and thousands in each state trying to get unemployment because they can’t cut hair, do nails or even practice law or medicine! It’s about people wanting to feed their families.
Everything is different. Most of us- not all- will practice social distancing and increased hand washing. Life will not be the same. We did what we could in the last 6 weeks or so and now things need to open up in as safe a manner as possible. Those people who feel too vulnerable need to stay home.
But people are going to stores, or not, regardless of whether they go to the beach or not. I just don’t see outdoor places as being the problem. It is indoor places overrwhelmingly. Or people in crowds too close to each other. Normal beach behavior, at least where I have seen, is neither of those things.
Does anyone know of any clusters of cases where the only contact was outdoors and physically distanced? That would exclude parties, funerals, weddings where people are close talking and hugging.
Social distancing and sanitation make it safer for those who can’t stay home.
My company has about 30,000 customer facing employees all over the country. They are working hard to serve their communities and the great majority of them like their jobs and are glad to have them. There have been around positive cases out of those 30,000 employees. Lots of safety measures are being taken. Life actually can go on.
Well, ski resorts. Major outbreaks in the US and Europe. But considering how bundled up you are skiing, the contacts that spread the disease were – I assume – in hotels/restaurants/shops.
If restaurants/shops near the beach are closed – and if there is a way to control the sheer number of people allowed at the beach – I’d assume it’d be relatively safe… But that’s a lot of “assuming…” and continued closings… Sigh…
Sure, you are bundled up on the slopes, but you are not bundled up at the bar, in the hotel rooms, in the cars and airplanes on the way there. My kids have gone 4 to a room to those things, and if college parents can’t figure out how young people act on vacation we should be embarrassed.
You can keep the beach crowds down by keeping the bars closed, or keeping them outdoor only with strict limits on how many can be on the patios. But more places (beaches, parks, hiking trails) for people to get outside rather than just a few where everyone will go would be a great start.
I live in Ventura County. Our daily COVID19 stats revealed an incredibly high # of new cases yesterday. 18 new positive cases posted and this is a little over a week after the beaches were open. On Tuesday, 1 new case, on Wednesday 6 new cases, and yesterday 18. This is the highest amount of new cases I’ve read.
It just wasn’t locals at the beach, it was people from the LA and Riverside Counties driving well over an hour (with good traffic) to get here. So, yes, in essence I agree, that there isn’t specific data that says our spike in cases was due to the open beaches and parks, but I do believe the spike in cases in our county is a little more than coincidental.
For the people who keep quoting low death rates due to the virus, I would like to say, and this is only my opinion, that if it’s you or a loved one, the death rate is 100%. It boggles my mind that people are so cavalier about quoting stats when 60,000 people have die. Where is the sense of humanity in all this? Sorry, it’s just how I feel.
When they go to the beach and then the market, and then because they drove might need to stop at the gas station, etc, etc., etc., that is more vectors for transmission of the virus.
But people are selfish and only thinking about themselves, apparently. Sad.
We’ve never been “united” as a country if that means all in agreement on anything. You can get rowdy arguments going about the metric system, daylight savings time or the Oxford comma just in my family. Expecting people to be united on this life-or-death issue with inadequate data is a prescription for disappointment.
We’ll never have enough test data to stop the spread. The spread will continue until the vaccine is widely deployed. The epidemiologists and the economists and the social workers will all have loud and varied opinions, and in the end it is up to the elected political leaders to make the tough decisions, which perhaps no one will like but we’ll need to accept. And it should be that way, I’m actually pretty happy to expect all of that.
Has anyone done some basic comparative analyses of teachers and grocery store workers versus the general populations in the relevant geographic areas?
In NYC, the rate of death for teachers has been less than 1/4th the rate of death of the NYC population generally. And since teachers are by definition adults, and tend to skew higher in age than the population generally, it is pretty obvious that the schools posed no incremental risk to the teachers while they were open.
Similarly, people point to anecdotes about grocery store workers dying. However, I have not seen any comparative data on that. My guess is that grocery store workers are not catching the disease at rates greater than the general population in the relevant geographic locations.
Teachers in NYC and grocery store workers caught and catch the disease the way practically everyone in their area gets it: close and extended contact with infected family members and coworkers/friends in confined, indoor spaces. For NYC teachers, no doubt many more caught the disease riding to work on buses and subway cars than ever caught it at school.
Wearing masks in grocery stores (where encounters with individual infected persons are likely to be fleeting), closing the schools, people cowering in their homes waiting for the insta-cart delivery – these were and continue to be mostly a waste of energy. Protect the vulnerable – especially in nursing homes apparently – and let’s get the real data out there as much as possible as to the likely low virulence of this disease (probably less than 0.2% fatality rate, and hospitalization/serious consequences rate less than 1.0%). This is not the Black Death.
I assume all spikes in cases reported are due to more testing, not more infection. We are just learning what is out there. Spikes in hospitalizations would be more concerning.
I have complete respect for the death rates. Which, again, is why I have not been in a store for months. But i have spent my entire life going to the beach to walk, swim, or just sit and read, and I have never been in a situation where I would need to be closer than six feet from someone I didn’t know, and easily able to choose farther than that if I want.
@OneMoreToGo2021 Haven’t the MEs in a number of Florida counties been prohibited from releasing cause of death information? How can one look at and feel confident in data this way?