Anyone from MD thinking of driving to PA because we’re “opening up,” beware that it’s only the northwestern quarter of PA opening - the very rural area that never got very infected because they don’t have the main thoroughfares going through them. Lots of mountains though.
You might want to plan for a longer drive than anticipated. 
We were talking about the age distribution of covid-19 deaths. Here’s the New York City data (from Steve Kornacki on Twitter, but if you really insist I could probably find a cite for you):
0-17 0.04%
18-44 4%
45-64 22%
65-74 25%
75+ 49%
This is notably younger than what we’ve seen in other areas. It is similar to what has been reported for Santa Clara County. The median age is in the mid-70s.
I’m in my sixties, and have friends in their 70s. I do not think of a 75 year old as someone with one foot in the grave, and notice that half of the victims were younger than 75. (If you’re going to say they had co-morbidities, I’m not here for that. They had co-morbidities. So? Are they less worthy of mourning because of that? What is even the point of bringing up the fact that a man who was 50, and died, was fat? We don’t expect fat 50-year-olds to be dropping dead.)
Note particularly that almost a quarter of the deaths were people in prime working age, 45-64. That’s a lot of dead people in an age group where we don’t expect a lot of dead people.
To clarify…
According to the msdh website, the 22 deaths on Wednesday “includes 9 deaths from prior weeks identified through death certificate investigation”. So, really only 13 deaths on Wednesday. Can’t find the Tuesday data, but I’d guess some portion of those are also prior deaths.
https://msdh.ms.gov/msdhsite/_static/14,0,420.html#Mississippi
Rhode Island (pop. about 1/3 of MS) had 325 new cases and 18 deaths yesterday. In total through yesterday, 10,530 positive cases, 388 deaths, 82,318 tested (almost 13% positive).
Rhode Island’s stay-at-home order will be lifted this Saturday. Non-critical business will be allowed to open, no dine-in for restaurants, gatherings limited to 5 or fewer, elective procedures resume Monday. Haven’t heard much criticism of RI.
https://www.wpri.com/health/coronavirus/may-7-ri-coronavirus-update/
According to the host, no one has reported they or anyone in their families (even those who did not attend) has gotten sick and it’s been over 8 weeks now.
The one person who did get sick was my cousin’s step son. His case was traced to the Westport, Ct outbreak that came from a person visiting from South Africa. He didn’t get sick until the very end of March. He was a direct contact of someone who attended the party.
My sister also knows someone infected in that outbreak. They (the people they had contact with) were both direct contacts of people who attended the party and came down with the virus. My sister had to be tested because she had contact with the person she knew who had contact with one of the party goers. My sister’s test came back negative.
This cluster was reported in the NYT.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/23/us/coronavirus-westport-connecticut-party-zero.html
Our state has only had single digit new cases for 2 weeks, total of 17 deaths. Re-opening child care today and malls and retail on 5/14. 14 day Quarantine still in place for all arriving passengers. Restaurants only open for takeout. Public areas mostly open for walking, jogging, running, biking, surfing, swimming. No picnicking or social gathering.
We are in “safer at home” phase. People are to wear masks in public except when exercising and most are. Pretty much everyone is wearing masks at markets and pharmacies, as well as everywhere else.
What? If someone found out they’d been exposed to an infected person, why on earth would they refuse testing? Particularly if it was made easy? I’m certain that most people would agree readily to be tested. What’s the downside, other than inconvenience? If I were infected, I would definitely want to know so I could avoid spreading the disease to my husband.
@emilybee, more incorrect assumptions. I would be happy to be tested if I had symptoms, but I am not willing to make the effort to go to a doctor’s office or drive thru for a test if I have no symptoms. Why would I? Apparently you havent, either. We could both be positive and never know it, like most asymptomatic people. People will not test if they do not feel sick absent an incentive to do so.
Cardinal Fang, you should get tested then. Quite likely that you, and all of us, have been within 30 ft of some infected person in the last month.
Given people can be asymptomatic, not reporting getting sick is meaningless.
Y’all are gonna fuss at me, but if I had no symptoms and no knowledge of exposure to someone who was positive, I would be much more willing to be tested if I could spit in a tube as opposed to having a swab jammed up my nose!
Has there been more informaiton since the article, buecase the article doesn’t attribute the outbreak to the person visiting from South Africa. Only that he returned to South Africa and felt sick on the way home. He could have picked it up at the party himself.
P.S. I have total disdain for the way this article was written. “Soirée” “Gilded Age of money” - ugh. It was a 40th birthday party - burgers or canapés make no difference to the spread of Covid-19!
You hear it over & over… screening everywhere BUT the United States. American exceptionalism, woo-hoo!
So everyone who attended the bat mitzvah and everyone they came into contact with after are all asymptomatic? Not one came down with Covid 19? I suppose it’s possible but how likely seems very slim to me, because we do know how many people got sick from the bat mitzvah in New Rochelle, and where it spread from there and we know the same about the party in Westport.
A saliva test is in the works. You spit in a cup. Apparently the test is just as good as the nasopharyngeal test.
@msjhop I really like what you wrote “It depends upon whether they let evidence form their beliefs, or beliefs form their evidence.”.
So very true.
That’s good news! Is it a rapid test?
I do agree that we have to make sure we’re not creating a public health crisis while dealing with another… with the curve flattened in many areas, I hope doctors and patients start demanding at least some change in covid policies.
I cannot get tested yet where I am. Maybe you haven’t heard but testing is still limited because we still do not have enough tests.
Once I can get tested, I will definitely get tested.
You said no one will be willing to get tested if they have no symptoms and you won’t get tested because you have no symptoms, so how is my assumption about you incorrect?
To be clear about NYS shutting down there was considerable time spend with Governor Cuomo and the mayor arguing about shutting down or not. The governor did not want to close down schools because he stated that if he didn’t have childcare he didn’t have healthcare workers.
My public school did not close until March 18th. For point of reference Ohio governor DeWine announced school closure on March 13th. By this time NYC was in full outbreak mode. Ohio had few cases. People fled NYC for FLA, ADK, Cape Cod, ME, CT, and the Capital District obviously spreading the virus. So yes, NY was late to the game with this. There was concern for keeping NYC social services operational and power struggles between the governor and the mayor.
The funny thing is now Governor Cuomo will not open regions of NYS with low Covid19 numbers because he doesn’t want people traveling to an open region. Guess it’s only ok to travel when the Pandemic is in epidemic mode.
The wind blows a lot in NYS.
The governor, who didn’t want to close schools due to childcare, has also now teamed up with Gates to move toward more distance learning. He has yet to evaluate how the current distance learning is gong and apparently child-care is no longer an issue.
The wind continues to blow in NYS
A town or state probably can’t prevent you from using your own cabin or house, but can prevent you from driving there. No one has any guaranteed right to use a road at any time. Here, that’s what mountain towns are doing. They closed access to the town, so if you can get there you can go there, but almost impossible to get to if the road is closed.
The governments of New Mexico and Ariz have closed some of the roads to/from reservations. They set up a road block and only allow residents in and out, limit it to 2 in a car (because the businesses in the next cities) because the stores don’t want the kids and older people in them.
My niece lives near the Canadian border (and is married to a Canadian) and she used to spend a weekend a month in Canada. Now they don’t travel. I think they could, but it just isn’t worth it to spend 10 hours in a line at the border.