Miami-Dade County mayor is concerned about spike in Covid-19 cases among younger people
From CNN’s Deanna Hackney
Miami-Dade County Mayor Carlos Gimenez said he is concerned about the rising percentage of coronavirus cases in the region.
"We were running around 8%, and now we’re running, last two weeks, over 14%, so that’s what’s causing me a little bit of concern,” he told CNN on Saturday. “It’s the younger people that are getting infected, which then may give it to their parents or their grandparents, which again is the age group that we’re really concerned about.”
Gimenez said they are seeing a spike in the 18-to-34 and 35-to-44 age groups.
Miami-Dade beaches are closing on the July 4 weekend as a pro-active measure to prevent “a spike on top of a spike” in positive coronavirus cases, the mayor said.
“Here in Miami-Dade we expected huge crowds to be at the beach, it would have been very hard for us to control our social distancing and having people abide by the rules,” Gimenez said.
Statewide numbers: Florida health officials reported at least 9,585 new coronavirus cases on Saturday, according to the Florida Department of Health. This is the highest single-day increase the state has seen since the start of the pandemic.
If you want to claim that the protests induced a increase in infected people, you really need to explain why we haven’t seen an increase in infected people in Minnesota and New York, two places with early and large protests, and we have seen big percent increases in infected people in Alabama, Arizona, North and South Carolina and Utah, which were not the sites of large protests.
I just don’t see the data supporting the assertion. As to whether seeing the protests induced others to let up on social distancing, I’ve seen data (someone posted the paper upthread) that just the opposite occurred: seeing the protests made non-protestors more likely to stay inside.
We keep hearing about superspreading events at bars, churches and family gatherings. Despite the many protests, we keep not hearing about superspreading events at protests. (There was one I did hear about, somewhere in the south. Can’t remember now. But it wasn’t protestors, as I recall, but organizers.)
Until a vaccine is found, Mitch McConnell calls masks “really important”
From CNN’s Adrienne Winston and Sam Fossum
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell stressed that people should continue to social distance and wear masks in public until there is a vaccine for Covid-19.
“Until we find a vaccine, these are really important,” McConnell said Friday while holding up a blue mask, according to CNN affiliate WKYT. “This is not as complicated as a ventilator, and this is a way to indicate that you want to protect others.”
Some context: The comments from McConnell, as well as other leading congressional Republicans, are in contrast to President Trump’s refusal to wear a mask in public and his urge to move on from the pandemic even as cases surge.
McConnell made the comments while visiting a hospital in Morehead, Kentucky, to talk about the money provided to rural healthcare systems from the CARES Act, the massive coronavirus stimulus package that was enacted two months ago.
“I see various events on television in which people are clearly not wearing masks, not taking it seriously and not doing others a favor,” McConnell also said, according to the Louisville Courier-Journal. “We need to get past that in order to protect not only ourselves but our friends and colleagues and others until we get to a vaccine.”
Global health professor worries US schools could be shut down until May or June of next year
Dr. Ashish Jha, the director of the Harvard Global Health Institute, said he thinks schools in the US won’t operate normally until May or June of 2021.
“I think people have pretty unrealistic expectations of how the fall and winter are going to go,” he told CNN on Saturday.
“I’m hearing a lot of parents say, ‘let’s scrap the fall and we’ll maybe start in the spring,’” Jha added. “January and February aren’t going to be better. They’re going to be the deep winter months and March will be pretty tough. I don’t expect a widespread vaccine will be available, and widespread and readily available, by January or February.”
Jha said he is concerned that if schools do open in the fall and send students back into classrooms, they will not be able to stay open.
This is a possible scenario for communities that have a high number of cases, he said, adding that he is worried schools across the country will be shut down for most of the fall, winter and spring.
“The single biggest determinant of whether a kid will be able to go to school or not is not the plan of the school, not how much deep cleaning they’re doing, temperature checks. It is about how much virus there is in the community,” Jha said.
“If we don’t get our act together and get the virus under control we’re going to have a whole year of online education for all of our children. It is going to have a lot of effects on kids and parents,” he added.
I’m so bored that I decided to make kimchi, using cabbage, garlic, and scallions from my shutdown-inspired CSA share; soy sauce, ginger, and salt from my fridge and pantry; and hot red pepper flakes (or the nearest equivalent) from the nearby Asian grocery, where I was one of about three customers. Everyone at the store was masked. Some of the shelves were partially empty. I’m wondering if the supply chains from China or other countries have been interrupted.
@privatebanker — I am not looking for perfection. But if you compare our infection curves with those of the EU, we don’t have a lot to be proud of.
We did flatten the curve. And as soon as it flattened, many said, “Mission accomplished!” As though reaching a plateau was enough to allow us to get back to business as usual. Yes you’re d#@! right I fault federal leadership. At a time of crisis, you need a national leadership putting out clear, consistent messages and leading by example. I could not care less whether that leadership is Democratic, Republican, or Martian. And as I have said before, I cannot imagine any other leader of either party in our country’s history abdicating responsibility the way this administration has. Waiting until we were already in crisis to prepare even though we had 2 months of warning. Publicly claiming that this virus is no big deal, and that it’s in the rear view mirror, when that was blatantly false. Undermining what public health experts are advising. Refusing to wear masks to set the example. Refusing to speak out and mobilize the nation. Our outcome to date is among the worst in the world, and yes, there is a reason, and no, it’s not because we value freedom more than others.
Increasingly, it feels like we are living in a third world country.
The thing that got me was the girl who wasn’t at the bar or the party but caught the coronavirus at at a bonfire. A bonfire! Outside which people feel is lower risk
I am really appalled by the level of discourse on masks…I live in NJ. You must wear one in stores, public transportation, recommended when you are just “out” amongst people. I’m basically only “out” to go food shopping or to go to the beach, fire out drinks with friends, I wear the mask shopping and anywhere with a crowd where I don’t have space. I don’t wear in my friends back yard or on the beach (where I go off hours/no crowds.) DH & I have gone out to dinner twice in 10 days. You are supposed to wear mask to enter, but not necessary at your table where you are eating and drinking. I follow the rules. I don’t like masks-I’m not convinced they make a real difference-but If there’s even a shadow of a doubt that my wearing the mask will help someone in public-I will! And I can’t imagine why people (not so much here) feel like they should be debating or berating someone for masking up? Can’t hurt might help…I work for a European company and it just highlights how crazy things are here-that masks have been made into a divisive issue.
And making zero effort to unite the country in a time of a major crisis, instead continuing to fan the flames, hence politicizing an international health and economic crisis, a pandemic.
Washington state to pause moving to phase 4 as Covid-19 cases rise, governor says
From CNN’s Artemis Moshtaghian
Washington state Gov. Jay Inslee announced that he’s pausing the state’s planned move into phase four of reopening due to rising cases across the state and concerns about the continued spread of Covid-19, according to a statement released on Saturday.
“Phase four would mean a return to normal activity and we can’t do that now due to the continued rise in cases across the state,” Inslee said in the statement. “We all want to get back to doing all the things we love in Washington during the summer, and fully open our economy, but we aren’t there yet. This is an evolving situation and we will continue to make decisions based on the data.”
“Texas Republicans move forward with plans for an indoor convention in Houston, the state’s biggest coronavirus hot spot“
“Gov. Greg Abbott is allowing limits on outdoor crowds — but not indoor gatherings. His party’s convention — with an expected attendance of 6,000 — so far will not require attendees to wear face masks.”
And yet, according to NPR in Washington State, it’s parties not protests that are causing covid spikes.
(article)
As the U.S. begins to open back up, coronavirus clusters — where multiple people contract COVID-19 at the same event or location — are popping up all over the country. And despite drawing massive crowds, protests against police violence and racial injustice in Washington state weren’t among those clusters.
“We did have a rally in Bellingham, which is our county seat, and there was also a protest, and we have not been able to connect a single case to that rally or to the protest, and what we’re finding is in large part that’s due to the use of masks,” Erika Lautenbach, the director of the Whatcom County Health Department in Washington State, tells NPR’s All Things Considered. “Almost everyone at the rally was wearing a mask, and it’s really a testament to how effective masks are in preventing the spread of this disease.”
For the clusters that have popped up, Lautenbach says the state has been using contact tracing to learn more about how they’re contributing to the spread of the virus. For instance, it found that 14 cases were associated with a party of 100 to 150 people in early June. Subsequently, 15 more cases were associated with the original 14.
“So that one event spread to 29 people and 31 related employers,” Lautenbach says. “Our challenge is to continue to trace as it moves through families, as it moves through workplaces and as it moves through social events as well.”
But protests just aren’t spreading the disease in the same way, Lautenbach says.
“We’re finding that the social events and gatherings, these parties where people aren’t wearing masks, are our primary source of infection,” Lautenbach says. “And then the secondary source of infection is workplace settings. There were 31 related employers just associated with that one party because of the number of people that brought that to their workplace. So for us, for a community our size, that’s a pretty massive spread.”
And much of that spread, Lautenbach says, is affecting young people.
“We have seen almost a near flip in the cases that we’re experiencing,” Lautenbach says. “So in April of this year, we were really struggling with long-term-care outbreaks. And so about 3 out of 4 people were over the age of 30 and really pretty heavily skewed to 60-plus. And by contrast, in June, we’re seeing that now 2 out of 3 people that have contracted this disease are under 29.”
That trend is mirrored in Florida, where the median age for COVID-19 patients dropped from 65 years old in March to 37 in late June. Dr. Cheryl Holder, an associate professor at Herbert Wertheim College of Medicine at Florida International University, says that’s partly because young people are getting exposed more.
“It’s really basically who gets exposed,” Holder tells Morning Edition. “If you look who is staying in and following the guidelines, [it’s] older people who are at risk. The older folks got [the message]; the young people, not so much.”
That’s Lautenbach’s worry too.
“The concern is that because these younger people are having more mild symptoms, they are going to work sick, they are visiting with their parents and grandparents sick and they’re continuing to go to social events where they expose more and more people,” Lautenbach says. “So when we think about that web of spread, that web just grows and grows and grows.”
The thing that got me was the girl who wasn’t at the bar or the party but caught the coronavirus at at a bonfire. A bonfire! Outside which people feel is lower risk
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Yes but…what’s a young person doing at bonfires? Not having a glass of wine and some great conversation. The problem was probably less the bonfire & more the making out. Sorry if that’s vulgar but…when you’re 20 bonfires are romantic! I suspect the infected were really not social distancing.
Being outside seems to be a lower risk activity, but it’s not zero risk. Especially if you are outside, not social distancing and not wearing a mask. That is why it’s recommended you wear a mask outside when you cannot socially distance.
I feel like after months of this there are so many people who still don’t know/understand the basics on how to stay as safe as possible and keep others safe who one may come into contact with.
Well not in CT. Contact tracers in this state are volunteers, some actually recruiting from schools training health care professionals. Yes, there are costs related to contact tracing…but in CT, it won’t be paying the tracers.
Re: the comments above from Mitch McConnell about masks and social distancing…he needs to talk to some of his colleagues in D.C…many pictures of them in close quarters…and lots with no masks.
I agree the federal government should have been addressing PPE but so should have the states. Anyone watching the news in January should have been alerted to the very real possibility that the virus would come to the US. I bought masks and hand sanitizer January 20th. Both state and federal governments are at fault. Governors should be able to make decisions without hand holding from the CDC. People shouldn’t need the President or their Governor or Mayor to wear a mask before they are willing to do the same. We should have halted all air travel in January but that would have been met with hysteria and calls of xenophobia…the EU freaked out at the travel ban in March even though now 3 months later they’re about to institute one against the US…as they say hindsight is 20/20 and things look different when the shoe is in the other foot.
Also I’m not sure why Europe is getting a free pass on Covid stats:
As of June 23, 2020, there were 2,505,262 confirmed cases of coronavirus (COVID-19) across the whole of Europe since the first confirmed cases in France on January 25. Russia has been the worst affected country in Europe with 592,280 confirmed cases, followed by the United Kingdom with 305,289 cases. Spain and Italy have over 246 thousand and 238 thousand cases respectively.
Across the whole of Europe, the coronavirus has so far been responsible for 173,454 confirmed deaths as of May 24
And no one seems to talk about the state of the European economy. They are paying for their lockdowns, literally.