Florida’s hospitalizations jumped 1.9% just yesterday. It was the biggest single day increase In a month.
And, btw, hospitalizations are a lagging indicator - just like deaths are.
‘Florida Covid-19 Cases Rise Most Ever; Hospitalizations Jump’
Once I found out that some people actually truly believe the world is flat - not just joking, but truly believe there’s a conspiracy out there to that level - I figured society has significant problems figuring out fact from fiction. Known stuff. Not just theories.
With the flatness of the earth at the edge of the bell curve (meaning it’s out there, but not a general belief for most people), the center is not as center as it seemed to be before. It makes sense that more people are between the two (center and edge when it comes to facts/trust/conspiracies).
Living near people who have their autopilot set on “distrust anyone with a title” and “believe any little weird thing on the internet” is scary if they are out there in significant numbers.
I believe in Live and Let Live. The problem is coming with the “Let Live” part for many people. Some don’t believe in it and have no interest in changing. (Of course this is true for many other topics too. eg Drunk driving, texting and driving, racism, etc.)
I really do not understand the snark of @katliamom or @emilybee. I have seen NO ONE on this site claim they are not wearing masks due to some need to be “free” and I wish you would stop pretending they were. I have seen well-intentioned questions regarding the efficacy and type of facial covering, as well as the different types of restrictions on use indoors/outdoors/with or without social distancing. I’ve also seen some serious comments expressed regarding the difficulty of wearing masks for long periods of time by those who have done so (which apparently few on the site have experienced) and the desirability of effective alternatives. But some posters seem to take delight in disease and pretend that it is some sort of divine and deserved punishment for their willful ignoring of public health measures. Not helpful. This thread was supposed to be for helpful assistance to others, but I am not seeing a lot of that right now.
Vent continued. Could we please stop with the end of the world rants? Several well educated, wealthy countries are well above the US in per capita deaths. There is a world wide depression. Yes, many people have died, and the youngest among us will be the hardest hit in terms of lost education, job opportunities, and unprecedented levels of public debt that needs to be serviced. But this is neither WW2 nor the Great Depression, and few are starving in the streets yet, so let us moderate our perspective on what is happening.
Rant over.
MODERATOR’S NOTE: Do you now understand why I previously requested that the discussion move on from masks? I’m not going to delete any posts, but please be civil.
It would be nice if Florida would report current hospitalizations, so we could evaluate this for ourselves. Miami-Dade does, though, and hospitalizations are going up at what looks like an exponential rate. Amusingly, the report plots a linear trend on data that does not look linear to me.
Miami-Dade covid hospitalization is up 35% this week. Hillsborough covid hospitalization is up 25% this week. So, there are a lot of young, asymptomatic patients, but also people being hospitalized.
External effects are what make the “let live” part hard for societies to manage. Ancient societies had rules against theft and murder because partaking in those activities created harmful external effects on other people.
A virus that can cause serious sickness, death, or long term damage but may be contagious from an infected person who has no idea that s/he is infected and is not easily determined whether s/he is infected is a very difficult thing for society to manage in this context. I.e. you may produce negative externalities against other people without intending to or even knowing that you are doing so.
I agree with the bits of your post that I snipped, but in what I quote above I think that you underestimate the ability of humans to whistle merrily as they pass very large graveyards.
Excellent site. Thank you for posting. I can see me spending some time there.
I haven’t seen it on this site, but I definitely see it on TV, in news stories I read, from what H shows me on FB, and assume it’s the case for many choosing not to wear a mask in public places that I see.
IMO, it’s definitely a major player (along with social distancing) as to why our country is not doing as well currently as other countries hit hard by the virus. Reading on here about mask compliance in Area A vs Area B seems to go along with our individual area results too.
On CC most (all?) of us are aligned with higher education in one form or another since we should have been drawn here due to the “college” aspect. It doesn’t surprise me that the vast majority here would wear one when required if others are doing the same. Knowing humans are human it also wouldn’t surprise me if some choose to follow their peers and not wear one if others aren’t.
I’m not sure yet if lower levels of education are more aligned with rejecting mask wearing. I know it is among those I know IRL. It’s not everyone though. Most in my county haven’t been to college, but in our store mask wearing was around 90-95% last week when I went.
I think places need to make it mandatory (for inside or where social distancing isn’t possible outside). Depending upon folk’s good will toward others or being able to reason things out simply doesn’t work enough. Head Honchos in gov’t and elsewhere certainly aren’t always helpful either.
I’m hopeful our states continue to do well (and that counties I’m in start doing better within my state). It definitely shows the difference between current hot spots and not. Far more useful than cumulative data.
Perhaps, except I think if they are not shut down and the pandemic is in full swing, parents are not going to send their kids to school. Parents were pulling their kids out before school districts closed and school districts were closing before their states mandated it in the beginning. Plus, Teachers are not going to want to be in the classroom, either.
Just like people stopped going out of their homes to shop, eat, for entertainment, etc. before SAH.
Many businesses - like my kid’s company, mandated WFH in the 2nd week of March before his state issued any SAH orders.
It may not be an official shutdown, but for all intents and purposes it will be.
@ucbalumnus – I agree.
Now what? I don’t have symptoms and I can’t sit home forever.
We don’t even know the death rate if someone gets it. Or who is most likely to get it (got a short list of hardest hit).
As a potentially asymptomatic person I’ve no idea how or if it’s affected me without undergoing extensive tests (uh, no). Do I spend the rest of my life wearing a mask? Or just until the media dies down?
Maybe until a safe and effective vaccine is developed? Probably won’t take the rest of your expected lifespan. And the media won’t die down as long as hundreds of thousands continue to become seriously ill or die.
The reality is that there is a unfortunately a difference between what many of them would like to say and what they are allowed to say (or at least if they want to keep their jobs). I can just imagine what a juggling act it must be between warning the public and not upsetting the political powers that be.
I’m afraid without better data we will make bad decisions.
Can we attribute the increases in California to the thousands of young people protesting for hours. Or is it sidewalk cafes and dining. Is it bar rooms opening or haircuts.
We will lock down the wrong businesses without the information and due to potential political correctness concerns.
No one will look poorly at the protestors at all. They aren’t going to named anyway. They have a right to do so and I’ll protect them as much as any group. I just would like to know before public policy is made and supported.
Also, if there were an economist/epidemiologist, behavioral health expert with vaccine insight, I would believe her.
we do believe experts for the vast majority. There are simply important competing public interests - societal considerations that don’t always align.
As dr Fauci has stated. He doesn’t understand or think about the matters outside of contagion. The others have no medical insight.
In fact. Even within the smaller subset of nations within the European community there was certainly not uniformity of approach.
Also the usa as a pariah nation?
I’m ok with that. See how it all plays out. If we aren’t leaving our homes I guess we are pariah people already ourselves.
Also, did we refer to China Brazil or Europe as pariah nations when they were asked to limit travel or do we just like to attack our home nation.
Probably not bars. Los Angeles County, where a lot of the cases are, hasn’t opened bars.
Protests? Could be. It would be interesting to see if cases have moved more toward places where protestors live.
The county next to mine in NoVA is giving parents the choice of either (a) 4-day online learning or(b) a combo of minimum of 2 days in school & independent learning. Parents have until July 11th to decide which option they choose for their kids.
It’ll be interesting to see what parents choose to do.
True. On the other hand, most of them had their biggest day of new cases in March, April or May, and are trending down now.
We had our biggest day of new cases today.
For those without a subscription this article details the bungling of contact tracing. It’s the story of two sick patients on flights into LAX. Despite CDC protocols, and the ease of knowing exactly who the sick people were sitting near on their flights, public health officials never even asked for the plane’s manifest or contacted passengers sitting near the infected passengers.
It’s incompetence like this by ‘experts’ that destroys the public trust in them.