South Korea did have a near perfect compliance in wearing masks outside of your home. I think that’s what helped them keep it fairly under control for such a populous country. Just to be clear - it was near perfect and not 100%
Saw this headline on NPR today: "South Korea's Health Minister Describes Seoul As A 'COVID-19 War Zone'"
Seoul, a city of 10+ million, had 214 new cases today. The health minister's rhetoric only serves to show how well South Korea dealt with the first wave.
Europe had hard lockdowns. Not China-hard, but pretty hard. Cases surged again. You mentioned Asia. I saw this headline today: "South Korea's Health Minister Describes Seoul As A 'COVID-19 War Zone'" By US standards, their case count is still incredibly low. The point is they haven't actually been able to contain it, either; they're just acting sooner and more aggressively for the second wave. Apparently New Zealand…
>> Europe had hard lockdowns. Not China-hard, but pretty hard. Cases surged again. Well yeah, after the first wave people threw all caution to the wind and decided to go back to their old habits. So of course cases are surging again. This isn’t rocket science. Not sure why everyone is pretending there’s some sort of huge mystery. We know how the virus spreads.
This virus has put on bare display just how selfish, unintelligent, and tribalistic we are as a species. Like you say, there is no mystery at this point. We have to face the cold, depressing truth about who we are.
Nine months into this it would be nice if we had good data on the risk factors of transmission. I know it’s a tricky virus to trace but shouldn’t we have better info on which activities demographics, etc are the most risky by now?
We do know the risk factors. It's a respiratory disease that spreads when people who are breathing are near each other. We don't need a random control trial to tell us that practicing with your brass band can spread it. The solution is to stay very far from everyone until the disease is wiped out. Only very intelligent libertarian contrary Americans think we don't have the information we need.
The virus is now endemic in the worldwide human population, plus some animal reservoirs. Even with widespread vaccination it will never be wiped out.
Reading this I was expecting the same knee-jerk, panic response that has become the "acceptable" public health response to the problem the pandemic places before us. While I detect a hint of futility in this statement, I am nonetheless deeply heartened to know some public health officials are themselves questioning some of the simplistic premises that have been driving policy to this point at all levels of government…
Indeed. A very rare instance where a government official questions his own wisdom. Wish more california officials were like him.
Not only mandates are completely ineffective (compared to the other much better alternatives) some of the folks like me feel compelled to call BS on many of the "dictats" and make it an ideological issue. At that stage, states credibility reduces even further.
This will provide an interesting experiment since San Mateo County and Santa Clara County are adjacent, demographically similar, and are pursuing different courses of action. But analysis will be complicated by the porous border. There will presumably be even more people coming into SMC from SCC to patronize businesses that are more open than those in SCC.
> demographically similar
Not really. Santa Clara county has San Jose, a city of 1M. San Mateo's largest city is Daly City (100k). San Mateo county also has a more rural and isolated coast. San Mateo county is also a lot whiter.
Saw this headline on NPR today: "South Korea's Health Minister Describes Seoul As A 'COVID-19 War Zone'"
Seoul, a city of 10+ million, had 214 new cases today. The health minister's rhetoric only serves to show how well South Korea dealt with the first wave.
True, but they haven't been able to control it entirely; cases are definitely rising. Either their measures were effectively enough for summer, but not winter, or people are getting lax in their behavior because of lockdown fatigue.
Places like UK did a hard lockdown for 6 weeks and kept schools open. It completely worked. Yes, kids can transmit the virus, but it appears that as long as the ADULTS limit their interaction with other adults, kids have only a limited way of encountering infections.
Didn't UK have either the worst or second-worst outcome among all European nations?
Yeah please don't use us as an example - the UK has handled this terribly.
> I am aware of no data that some of the business activities [...] are the major drivers of transmission This suggests he is aware of data indicating that some of the business activities being restricted drive transmission, just not all of them. (I'm guessing maybe, say, indoor dining?) So should those known to do this be restricted or not? Did restricting them previously help or not? Should we ignore them?
It seems to be fairly well established at this point that poor ventilation is an issue; spending time around others who may be carrying the virus is an issue; wearing a mask, whether inside or outside, significantly reduces the chance of spreading the virus if you're a carrier. So your guess seems pretty on point. Indoor dining/drinking means being around others without masks in areas where air is circulated rather t…
> as long as you're not putting diners in circulation-restricting tents
The problem is that this is EXACTLY what they are doing.
One mexican restaurant near me has a nice parking lot that they converted to outdoor dining. Yes!
And then put a tent up with heaters under it because it got "cold". ARRRRGH!!!!!!
It seems to be fairly well established at this point that poor ventilation is an issue; spending time around others who may be carrying the virus is an issue; wearing a mask, whether inside or outside, significantly reduces the chance of spreading the virus if you're a carrier. So your guess seems pretty on point. Indoor dining/drinking means being around others without masks in areas where air is circulated rather t…
> as long as you're not putting diners in circulation-restricting tents The problem is that this is EXACTLY what they are doing. One mexican restaurant near me has a nice parking lot that they converted to outdoor dining. Yes! And then put a tent up with heaters under it because it got "cold". ARRRRGH!!!!!!
Oh, sure, I've seen it too, which is why I had to add that caveat. "Yes, outdoor dining is much safer!" "..uh, maybe not like that."
Wow. Lest anyone think that Dr. Morrow is some kind of anti-lockdown activist - back in the spring, San Mateo county had one of the most restrictive and prescriptive lockdowns of anywhere in the US (residents were ordered to limit outdoor recreation to within 5 miles of their home). It takes a lot of guts to just look objectively at the data and do what you think is right, regardless of what pressure you’re getting f…
I live in San Mateo county, and am interested in knowing what to do to stay safe. This is the first I've heard about limiting outdoor recreation to within 5 miles of my home. I haven't been notified about any of the details of any of the lockdowns. In the Spring, I encountered a group of people who had just been released from jail during one of my monthly shopping trips. Despite having just been in government custody…