Its not hard to untangle in the Northeast. There were protests in NY, NJ, CT, MA, MD. If numbers pop (soon) then the protests have an effect. We should look carefully at cities where the largest, most frequent protests were for that information. Boston is a start.
[quote=“BunsenBurner, post:2852, topic:2096313”]
I don’t think being unhappy with the messages Fauci put out early in the year mean that we are blaming all scientists. I think of him more as a publicity guy - not sure how long it’s been since he’s been in a lab. 
He’s walking a fine line. He didn’t want to scare the public too much and he didn’t want to get fired. I’d like to think if I’d been in his shoes I’d have been more forceful about the danger we were in, but I don’t know whether I would have been.
I also think many people on this thread have a very unrealistic idea about what science (especially biology) is like. It’s messy. The answers aren’t always clear. A frightening number of experiments can’t be reproduced and we don’t know why. Cell lines mutate, they get contaminated, you have a careless student who forgets what the protocol is supposed to be, or doesn’t understand why certain things are important. The model works perfectly in mice but not in people. It works perfectly for this group, but not that one, but you don’t know what it is that made the results different.
I think we’ve learned a tremendous amount in the last six months, but we’ve barely scratched the surface.
In case it was missed, let me make this crystal clear. In Maryland I am currently required to wear a mask inside of a retail businesses. I do that. I am currently required to wear a mask at my work ONLY when I have to work within 6 feet of someone. I avoid doing that for the most part. I am not required to wear a mask while outside.
I have no intention of wearing a mask where I am not required to wear one. I have no problem wearing a mask when I am required but that is the only time I am wearing one.
I have been working this whole time except for 6 days at the very beginning. I currently work in a building on a military installation and per our policy, even indoors, masks are not required unless working within 6 feet of someone. These rules were implemented following the CDC recommendations. They were also signed off on by our local military hospital personnel.
I have been out in public. I have been going places and interacting. If I am good enough to be on the “front lines” providing so that others can stay home if they choose then I am good enough to not feel obligated to do more than required. Apparently as a society we have deemed certain people “expendable” enough to keep the country going. We aren’t going to shut everything down completely for a month to stop this. So technically society doesn’t care enough about me “apparently”, risking my life every day, so why on earth is it my responsibility to wear a mask while outside, driving in a car alone or any other time I am not required?
And no, I’m not concerned about people staying in so I can be safer. If it’s really that risky for me then shut EVERYTHING down for a month and get it over with.
I admit I don’t recall anything Dr. Fauci said regarding CV19 in the January or February. What I do distinctly remember is the woman from the CDC (iirc) who made the first public, very alarming warning about CV19 in the US. I believe her first name was Nancy. It was not Dr. Birx.
After she made that announcement she disappeared off the face of the earth and has never been heard from since. I wonder why?
I saw my first face shields today, on Elderly ladies, one in a wheel chair. I hope they are effective. I wish we knew.
Thx for posting that. That is the doctor I was thinking of.
Funny, how she was cast aside immediately, never to be heard from again. /sarcasm
For all the talk about what scientists did or did not say, and why people are or are not wearing masks, and whether certain governmental health regulations are or are not warranted, it occurs to me that we’re kind of dancing around a really big issue:
→Do we trust experts, and which experts do we trust?
It’s pretty well documented that there’s been a worldwide (or at least in the industrialized world, it’s harder to measure elsewhere) erosion of trust in expertise over the past couple decades, in the United States building on top of what had already been a skepticism of expertise.
So we’re now in a situation where expertise is vital for survival—but we don’t have a really firm social reality for what counts as expertise.
This means that you’re going to have really, really disparate reactions to any pronouncements from anyone, whether they hold “traditional” expertise (e.g., advanced degrees in a relevant field, a position of responsibility in government) or not.
And in a way, the past 20 or 30 pages of discussion in this thread has been a micro-level reflection of that, you know?
Until the pandemic when people started staying home there was very little foot traffic here and most nightly walks we’d only see one or two cars. Now the neighborhood is abuzz, but that just means in addition to the few cars we see a few families, too. Our neighborhood has wide streets (we could park on both sides and still squeeze two way traffic through if needed), the side walks are set back from the street with a 6-8’ strip of grass and the houses also have deep front lawns. There is no common area like a lobby or elevator separating us from our nightly walk, just our front door and porch to cross.
Our neighbors are considerate and maneuvering our families around one another as we pass is usually done with at least a street’s width of distance. I certainly don’t think any less of my neighbors for walking their dog, taking a stroll, riding their bike, etc. outside without a mask. People stay away from other groups at the parks, too and even though the parking lots are full there is plenty of room to distance.
I’m sure if I lived somewhere else that it was impossible to see around the corner, step into the street or a yard safely to distance and was constantly dodging through an unmasked crowd I would be wearing a mask for my outdoor walks and feel differently.
Topline: June’s coronavirus spike in the U.S. is continuing to worsen, with worrying new single-day records in new cases in the nation’s three most populated states: Florida, California and Texas.
Among the key facts: Nationally, around 34,700 new cases were reported on Tuesday, according to Johns Hopkins University, the third-highest single-day total since the beginning of the pandemic, and the highest since a record high of 36,400 were reported April 24.
Hospitalizations are also on the rise in all three states, though Texas is the most worrying—the number of coronavirus patients in hospitals there has risen to new records for 12 straight days.
California also set a new record for hospitalizations Tuesday, according to data tracked by The Washington Post, as did Arizona, Arkansas, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee.
They are very popular in Europe…surprised there have been no studies from there.
Big numbers of new cases in California, Texas and Florida, and hospitalizations rising. Huge numbers in Arizona, which is shaping up to be a disaster.
What do we do now? Do we just say, oh, no biggie, we’ll let the hospitals be overwhelmed? If not, what do we do?
Northern California (the SF Bay are and Sacramento) shut down more and sooner than Southern California. Our numbers are a lot lower, but rising. But still, what do we do now?
@ucbalumnus, I hoped that you were wrong that we’d get the worst of both worlds as far as shutdowns; I feared you were right, but hoped you were wrong. You were right. Here we are. Now what?
Again, you fail to realize that social distancing is not as easy to implement for everyone and every organization as it is for you. Can a kindergarten class be effectively taught by video conferencing? If not, can it be effectively taught in a classroom maintaining social distancing (particularly protecting the teacher and staff)? Does the school have surplus teachers and classrooms to shrink class sizes to maintain social distancing (probably not)? If kindergarten shuts down completely or is ineffective, then next year will either have a double cohort in kindergarten, or a first grade cohort that is a year behind – another difficult problem that the school may not be able to solve.
Many people like you and probably most posters here can easily implement social distancing and mask wearing in order to be conservative with risks even when risk levels are unknown. The same goes for many workplaces which, out of an abundance of caution in the face of unknown risk levels, told everyone who can work remotely to do so (even before government health orders). But not all people and organizations are in situations where social distancing is easy to implement while being effective at their jobs (that may be “essential”). For them, a clearer definition of the risk levels will help them make more informed decisions about risk-benefit tradeoffs in the choices that they must make.
We handle it locally. Test/trace/roll back openings - but locally. California and Texas are huge! Some areas are in good shape, leave them alone. We could be at this for years… local outbreaks need to be handled locally. Maybe the feds will wake up and implement a proper testing strategy and put some money and muscle behind tech solutions. You want to go to my restaurant? Show me the app!
Thank you for posting this! I really appreciate up to date info instead of just cumulative data. I wish more states listed hospitalizations though.
In case you haven’t noticed, It’s too late for that. We have created a mess worse than it was back in March. To have a remote chance of getting back on track, we know what has to be done and we just have to do it. There is no choice now. There is “no assessing the risks” on an individual or societal basis. We blew any chance of that when states reopened to soon and didn’t have the virus under control enough to do it.
Schools are likely not going to be able to reopen in the fall anyway, because of the pigheadedness of so many of the “adults in the room”. Most of the states are likely going to have to go back into lock down soon, too, because we have too many selfish people.
Shutting down a few bars and restaurants for a few days isnt going to work. Telling people it’s recommended to wear a mask isn’t going to work either. Nor are one week pauses in reopenings.
We made a hash of things and are getting exactly what we deserve now.
The problem is that the “shutdowns” in the US only got R0 down to about 1 – i.e. we fought the virus to a draw, so we have to play overtime. But most people do not want to play overtime. There are probably the following future scenarios:
A. Shutdown again, but in a much stricter fashion with much higher compliance to hold R0 substantially lower than 1 for a long enough time to vanquish the virus. Unlikely to succeed (or even be implemented) due to lack of political will and lack of compliance.
B. Oscillating cycles of opening up (R0 significantly higher than 1) and “shutting down” (R0 about 1). Will result in failure to contain the virus and failure to restore the economy, although rather likely as short term actions due to recent news.
C. Open up, but with strict social distancing and mask wearing requirements based on risk level of each situation (outdoor vs. enclosed, crowd density, length of exposure). Unlikely to succeed in limiting the virus because many people generally have poor judgement about risk, and will resist any enforcement.
D. Open up completely and let the virus run its course, accepting people dying and getting long term damage and disability, in order to restore the economy. Unlikely to restore the economy because many people will curtail their economic activity out of fear of getting the virus.
Really, it seems that the only way out involves medical advancements, but none are guaranteed, and (if they do occur) they may take a while to occur.
- An effective, widely available vaccine.
- A readily available treatment that greatly reduces the risk of death or long term damage or disability.
- Better definition of risk of death or long term damage or disability, so that personal, organizational, and governmental choices can be made in a more informed way to protect those at significant risk while reducing the impact otherwise.
Wow - AWESOME SITE. Bye Bye Worldometer for me.
Did some digging - NYC (New York County), Boston (Suffolk County), and Washington DC show no increases in cases in the last few weeks. Lots of protests in these places. When would we expect to see a ‘protest effect’. I believe they started around May 27th or so and continue now…
In Florida (from recent reports I’ve read) the increase in cases is mostly asymptomatic cases. So the increase in reported cases is from more people being tested. The majority are younger people. People show up to the ER for various reasons, tested for covid and then sent home ASAP and told to stay there. There has been some question on which unit to send these people to if they require hospitalization. Do they go to a covid unit or the unit which takes care of their particular problem?
So many conflicting reports over the months. I personally think any mask of any type is helpful to a degree and always have. The “don’t wear a mask” was (I believe) a move to keep a hysterical public from hoarding–which came true. A physical barrier is always helpful. But I don’t go overboard. It’s easy to social distance where I live and so far have avoided any crowding of any type. (I’m also lonely and needing of hugs…)
And America in the pickle that it’s in: a pariah nation full of diseased people but hey, they’re “free” !! Schools closed/online, states mandating quarantines from certain visitors, borders closed, US citizens barred from large swaths of the world, stores/restaurants/businesses seeing a 70% drop in business – but yeay! we’re “Free!!!” Free to sit home and yell I’m free but not do much else.