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California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

nytimes.com

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Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#141

Post by standardUser »

perl4ever wrote: post #73
kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The rest of New York has been in phase three with indoor dining for a few weeks now.

That doesn't tell you whether people actually are , the way they may be in some other places. Is actual behavior at all the same in, say, NY vs FL? I'm fatalistic about avoiding the virus in the long run, and I go out whenever I have something to do, but my food has all come from the grocery store or mail order since March. I'm still asking myself "do I need to do this" every time I consider going somewhere.

I can tell you that in Manhattan, what I see are throngs of people with and without masks, enjoying parks and food and drink all day every day, often in crowded patios. Not to mention the hundreds of protests that have occurred.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#142

Post by javagram »

cameldrv wrote: post #132
nostromo wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, there's a blip at the end of the chart. But the headline is clearly that deaths have fallen ~70% even as total (reported) cases has continued to grow exponentially.

3 weeks ago there was a blip at the end of the cases chart just like this one. You don't need to be a super genius to understand that the growth rate in deaths is roughly going to lag the growth rate in cases by about the amount of time it takes someone to die, which is about 3 weeks. 3 weeks from today we will have about 2200 deaths per day, based on the 7 day moving average.

3 weeks from today we’ll likely be at around 1000 deaths per day, not 2200. https://covid19-projections.com/us

The case fatality rate for the virus is going down due to increased testing (identifying more cases) and better treatment (Remdesivir, dexamethasone, and better medical knowledge in general).

So it won’t be as bad as a naive extrapolation might make things look. Still bad though.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#143

Post by abstractbarista »

hatenberg wrote: post #135
standardUser wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Though it has not been conclusively proven, literally all signs point to meanginful immunity and virtually no signs point to the opposite. Dozens of vaccines are being developed on this assumption, and there have been zero confirmed instances of reinfection of a fully recovered individual.

This comment has not aged well at all with several study preprints released in the last 12h indicating rapid loss of immunity and secondary infections

The immune system remembers. Some people's better than others. It'll all be OK.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#144

Post by lsllc »

pettazz wrote: post #6
standardUser wrote: post #3

California shut down very hard and fast. When they reopened, nearly 100% of the population was still susceptible to the virus, so it spread like wildfire. Especially since the reopening was not exactly slow. Compare this to the Northeast and much of Western Europe where the virus spread too quickly until lockdowns reduced the spread. Now, keeping the transmission rate low in those areas has become comparatively easy,…

The reason for case counts staying relatively low in those places has a lot less to do with "herd immunity" and a lot more to do with still being careful. Even though a huge number of people were infected, it was still a very small amount of the population overall, not anywhere near enough to affect the transmission rate with no restrictions. https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/07/herd-immunity-questioned-aft... In MA we're…

Rt measures the "acceleration" of the infection. When you're down to a fairly flat ~150 cases per day then by definition Rt is going to be around 1. Also note that the reported daily case totals include backdated tests and when sorted by date, you'll see a steady decline and MA is pretty much flat now (see page 2 & 4 of [0]).

A state that was reporting 10 cases a day consistently would have an Rt of 1.0, if they reported 11, then the Rt would be 1.1. Similarly, VT which has an Rt of 1.07 despite only reporting 5 new cases yesterday as they are bouncing around in the single digits to low teens -- seems like it's basically noise now affecting the Rt there at this point.

It is going to be quite difficult to get it to zero in MA without closing the state borders. Logan Airport had 203,328 passengers through it in May 2020 [1], that's an average of 6777/day, at a 2% positivity rate that could be 135 cases a day right there (not including tens of thousands of people driving into the state, although our neighbors are in similar situations to MA rate-wise).

It's worth noting that MA has recently opened up testing to anyone who wants it so we're likely picking up more asymptomatic cases now. At this point contact-tracing is going to be key although they've had to lay off [2] many of the tracers due to lack of work for them.

The state continues to do well, we've had restaurants open (indoor and outdoor dining) for several weeks now, gyms have been open for a week (except Boston opened gyms yesterday) and 4th July was 10 days ago. The state tested 17K protestors [3] in June and only found a 2.5% positive rate (which was the same as the state-wide rate at the time).

We'll see, but I'm hopeful and will continue to do my part; distancing & masks in public.

[0] https://www.mass.gov/doc/covid-19-dashboard-july-13-2020/dow...

[1] http://www.massport.com/media/4100/0520-avstats-airport-traf...

[2] https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2020/06/29/covid-contact...

[3] https://www.masslive.com/coronavirus/2020/06/after-black-liv...

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#145

Post by lozenge »

jhowell wrote: post #74
CerealFounder wrote: post #28

I dont understand for the life of me why the state cant get tough on masks and distancing with the rule of law. All they do is put out suggestions and guildelines. Until they flex the guidlines with some muscle it's just theatre

Can you really imagine the police confronting and/or arresting someone for not wearing a mask only to take them to jail to contract the virus?

This is the US Police we're talking about here?

https://theintercept.com/2020/04/03/nypd-social-distancing-a...

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#146

Post by cameldrv »

javagram wrote: post #142
cameldrv wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

3 weeks ago there was a blip at the end of the cases chart just like this one. You don't need to be a super genius to understand that the growth rate in deaths is roughly going to lag the growth rate in cases by about the amount of time it takes someone to die, which is about 3 weeks. 3 weeks from today we will have about 2200 deaths per day, based on the 7 day moving average.

3 weeks from today we’ll likely be at around 1000 deaths per day, not 2200. https://covid19-projections.com/us The case fatality rate for the virus is going down due to increased testing (identifying more cases) and better treatment (Remdesivir, dexamethasone, and better medical knowledge in general). So it won’t be as bad as a naive extrapolation might make things look. Still bad though.

C19pro is the best model out there, but it only uses deaths as its input. That's good because cases are a noisier measurement, but it's bad because of the lag effect I just described. It will take time to correct if there is a large transient in R.

All else being equal, if the case count triples, the death count is going to triple. Now in this case there are two things that aren't equal. #1 is that the cases are more biased towards younger people, and #2 is that positivity has increased. I expect that these two factors will roughly cancel each other out and the death count will be about 2200. Would you care to place a wager on the over/under at 1600?

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#147

Post by [deleted] »

blisseyGo wrote: post #98
anarazel wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They don't debunk anything. The last study you quote says "this highlights the importance of safety practices including face masks and ocular contact precautions in preventing the spread of COVID-19 disease.". Another is a meta-study of very few low quality studies. The osha guidelines are essentially just explaining that respirators are important in some settings, which nobody serious doubts. Another just determines…

How is it half related? The first study I cited states: > There is limited evidence for their effectiveness in preventing influenza virus transmission either when worn by the infected person for source control or when worn by uninfected persons to reduce exposure. I cited multiple studies. No idea where your "bunch of half related studies" is coming from. Your comment comes off as condescending.

[deleted]

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#148

Post by banads »

perrylaj wrote: post #96
banads wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why doesn't the state also mandate exercise, diet, and sleep?

This is such a silly response. Did you have the same compelling argument when mandatory seatbelt laws went into effect?

What's silly, precisely? Seat belts are cool, so no, you're wrong.

Homemade masks (as opposed to N95) and handkerchiefs are only marginally effective against reducing transmission. Having a strong immune system is a scientifically proven way to reduce your health risk significantly.

What is silly is all the people who are content to do the absolute bare minimum, easiest possible thing to attempt to protect people's health: merely putting a piece of cloth on their face; while at the same time neglecting to put in the work to improve their overall health, and thus their risk to others of spreading the virus.

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#149

Post by dwaltrip »

Bahamut wrote: post #37
Xavdidtheshadow wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> deaths (the more important number) One of the more interesting things I've been reading is that we shouldn't think about this as a total binary. There are reports that survivors exhibit have long-term effects, such as neurological issues [1] and lung damage. So yes, it's good that fewer people are dying! But that doesn't mean everything is simply great now. [1]: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200622-the-long-…

My guess is that the deaths probably would maintain roughly the same rate for the true number of infected, which is a number we do not know because of asymptomatic cases. That numbers of people testing positive is going up doesn’t mean that the overall rate is going up given we do not know the true infected rate, but number of deaths provides a reasonable proxy for that.

The percentage of tests with a positive result has increased, which indicates an increase in the true number of cases.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states

Re: California imposing sweeping rollback of reopening plans amid case surges

#150

Post by jhowell »

AlexandrB wrote: post #109
jhowell wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can you really imagine the police confronting and/or arresting someone for not wearing a mask only to take them to jail to contract the virus?

They're called fines. This is a total strawman.

What happens when people don't pay the fines? I am under the impression that a warrant for arrest would be issued by a Judge. At which point, I imagine you'd go to jail when apprehended.

While in jail, my understanding is that there is an increased likelihood of contracting COVID due to lack of social distancing and ability to more easily follow recommend guidelines to prevent infection.

Still seeing scarecrows?

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