In other words, while protesters, police, and observers may have been more exposed, the paper claims that other people in the area where the protest was stayed home more and were less exposed.
L A County does post data per community but I could not find anything on rates of cases per day per community. IOW I could not find if cases were rising more in one community over another to see if the areas most affected by the protests had an increased rate of positive cases.
But I did hear on the radio (so no citation) that there has been a greater than normal increase in cases among police officers. Again, it was not broken down on whether those officers were on duty during the protests and riots or whether they were on duty in the jails etc.
The same individuals did a study and authored a paper about the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s lifting of Wisconsin’s safer-at-home order. https://cheps.sdsu.edu/docs/Did-Wisconsin-Supreme-Court-Restart-an-Epidemic-CHEPS-Working-Paper-5-28-20.pdf They’ve also studied other pandemic-related occurrences.
I admit I haven’t been reading all of this thread.
I am concerned that many states are opening up, but today was one of the top days of COVID cases across the country.
I’m having a bad Covid day.
Dh got the draft plan for how they are going to reopen his elementary school and … oooof. It feels pretty safe for teachers, but each kid would be in school with direct teaching for four hours one day a week. Those poor parents.
I also am pissed that some on this thread act like those of us in states with huge upticks are just Chicken Littles. Our ICUs are getting full. Every day is a new record in terms of cases and hospitalizations. The governor says open up the economy, but you should stay home. You should wear a mask, but we won’t make it mandatory or support local entities that want to mandate wearing. If the governor were a doctor, he’d be sued for malpractice.
Today, a video was posted of a crazy woman at a Party City claiming that her immune system works well but also that she has a health condition that keeps her from wearing a mask. This was performative. In theory, she wanted one helium balloon for her kid. I’m so over these people, including the people who I went to HS with who were questioning the former classmate who is a nurse who posted about her situation. Why believe the professionals and data when you can have an OPINION?
Lastly, I have a direct flight next week to another state for an important-to-me family event. When I booked it, things were stable and even trending down. I was so hopeful that I would get to go. Now, I’m questioning the wisdom of it. It’s definitely a want, not a need, but I haven’t been to my grocery store in four f’in months and been so careful, and I am BEYOND pissed that the irresponsibility of others is making this a difficult decision.
Tomorrow is another day …
Could be the protests, but on the other hand it could be quarantine fatigue. If it were the protests, we’d expect to see the positive cases get a lot younger than they were in the last week of May (because protestors skew young). I don’t think we’ve seen that.
Different topic. Fireworks next week. Are people’s communities having them still? I assumed they’d be cancelled everywhere but I just heard our city will have them.
I want to head smack, but H pointed out that you could social distance pretty easily outside. And while that’s true, the main watching spots are always pretty packed with people. And while you could still theoretically social distance between parties, it just feels like it’s sending bad signals like we have this beat. And we had just left Walmart where our mask compliance seems to have slipped back to 30%. Ugh.
We have great memories watching them with the kids. But a few years back they switched locations and it’s not as easy to view them. (The City discovered the property belonged to the railroad not them, so they had to vacate. Oops.) We have gone a couple of times since, but I hope we will sit this one out. H usually is the one pressing to go out of nostalgia.
MA tested about 17,000 of the protesters at special test sites set up for them. They reported the infection rate was low 2-3%. Of course different cities can have different rates and can likely vary based on mask compliance
That does not sound low to me. It sounds high, in fact. It seems unlikely that if you took a bunch of similar folks that didn’t go to the protests, they’d test that high.
@“Cardinal Fang” At the height of the pandemic in April, some of the northeast states were reporting infection rates of 30-40% so a 2% is pretty low. And I think the point that MA was making was that the rate for the protesters is not far off the state average right now.
However, if the percentage infected may vary for other reasons, such as whether the people tested got tested because they were obviously sick, versus just concerned that they may have COVID-19 but show no symptoms. So the samples may not be directly comparable in that way.
The information about lack of spread from the protests would lead one to say - lets go ahead with the 4th of July parades.
However, the one in my town is cancelled.
Albany, NY has a huge 4th of July celebration. It goes on all day/night with music, food, etc., on the plaza across from the Capitol (there is a huge reflecting pool all down the middle.) It is jammed with thousands of people. We haven’t gone since my kid was a tyke, because it’s always hotter then heck and to get a good spot must go early.,There is also too much drinking all day and all night. There are lots of spots where you can park and just watch the fireworks. It got cancelled weeks ago, thankfully.
I heard in NYC each borough will have their own fireworks but they are not telling people where they will go off from so people won’t know where to congregate to watch them.
Most fireworks in my area have been cancelled. I did hear about one small town still having theirs. I’m sure they’ll be more backyard displays this year.
Official fireworks have been cancelled in many places, but illegal fireworks are rampant throughout the United States. https://www.cbsnews.com/video/cities-cracking-down-on-illegal-fireworks/
It’s sort of like herding cats isn’t it?
If you read my local community Facebook page, you would see there are apparently fireworks going on every single night for about the last two weeks based on the daily complaints from residents being woken up. Thankfully, I’m a few miles away from that part of town. So we don’t near them. Of course, that’s not what you meant though! However, our city did cancel the official 4th of July fireworks. Wise move as there is no way to socially distance. They shoot them off at the mouth of the river which is right at the bottom of town/our tourist district. Crowds are too big with limited space along the waterfront. However, a former pro football player has his own display directly across the cove from our house so we usually just sit out on the pier and watch his illegal display.
Precisely what we are seeing in my state and county that I was talking about. The age shift towards under 30 group and more hospital visits for CLI in 0-19 age group (too bad they all are lumped together; I bet it was mostly teens). I did not see too much quarantine fatigue before the end of May. I still did not see too much difference in park use and folks being out and about until last Monday (which I gather was the “yay - school’s out day”).
Our protests are a little different than what the rest of the country experienced. While we had peaceful marches (thank you for wearing your masks, marchers!), we also have the Chop. Little personal hygiene, no masks, people in tents. People coming in an out to enjoy this wild block party. Mostly 25 and under. I expect this to become a Covid Central in addition to an eyesore, a crime magnet, and a public nuisance.
Also, I don’t see an uptick in cases in NYC, Boston, or Washington DC - places where there were a lot of protests. I didn’t check Minnesota.
I the Covid college thread, someone said that students being holistically tested as they arrive in are seeing about 1.5% positive, typically asymptomatic. This was University of SC. So this is slightly higher at 2-3%…