161–170 of 568 posts
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Consider how popular dreck like Breitbart is now, compared to high quality journalism like WaPo or the LA Times.
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Well for example there's lots of non-essential business that can operate while enforcing social distancing. Closing bars and restaurants makes sense. But closing stores were you walk in and walk out does not make sense. Banning fishing doesn't make sense. Very broad strokes have been used to lock stuff down.
And at least in Michigan, they're not taking the time to open up low risk businesses now - instead they're filling in even more of the gaps that allowed life to continue. No golf courses, even without any staff contact. No landscaping. No landscaping supplies . No motorboats or jet skis. No travel between two residences you own. But at least you can still buy lottery tickets!
Additionally, my mom has been complaining about the landscapers where she lives and is angry that they're still allowed, because they flagrantly violate social distancing and get near her when she's trying to go on walks around her neighborhood.
Things are getting so bad in Detroit that bodies are piling up in unrefrigerated rooms in hospitals. Now's not really the time to be questioning if they're being too strict with the social distancing; at this point they really just do need everyone staying home, period, and not coming into contact with anyone. Motorboats and jet skis sure as hell aren't essential, and might tempt people into congregating with people they shouldn't be congregating with (boating is typically a social endeavor for example).
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> there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken This is probably true, but other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread. Our options aren't binary. It's not as if the only choice is "Nuke everything" or "Surrender". The US is not a very densely populated country, and density seems to have the biggest impact on the spread of this thing. We probably could d…
> other countries haven't locked down hard and aren't seeing a big spread Let’s be precise. Some other countries haven’t locked down hard and aren’t seeing a big spread yet . You mentioned Sweden. Here was Time a few days ago: > A head doctor at a major hospital in Sweden says the current approach will “probably end in a historical massacre.” He says healthcare workers at his hospital who have tested positive for the…
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And Sweden is higher in the per capita death rate and on track to go up much higher in that ranking.
Yes. Contrast Sweden and the US to Australia and South Korea. Australia and South Korea are doing much better. The Australian and South Korean response has been competent.
In South Korea they all gravitated to masks very early, and they developed enough testing capacity early on to allow contact tracing to remain viable (so far).
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> As I see it, there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken. California has been spared because it's not in the Covid Belt. That's a term I've come up with to describe the ideal climate that SARS-CoV-2 thrives in. All hard hit regions exist in the Covid climate belt. Not all the least hit areas (eg South Korea) exist outside of the Covid Belt. You can also limit its spread with ot…
It seems to all fit together but I would not be too hasty in proclaiming the actual heat to be the affecting factor. Colder place will naturally be more densely populated for example.
That's plainly wrong. The world has huge numbers of hot, very dense cities that have not been hit hard. The Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico, India all have obvious of examples.
Mexico City should be in extremely bad shape right now.
Check out the temps in Mexico City: https://weather-and-climate.com/uploads/average-temperature-...
Here are the top 10 most densely populated US metro zones (per the 2010 US census; population per sq mile):
Los Angeles, SF + Oakland, San Jose, NYC + NJ + CT (isolated, NYC is the most dense), Las Vegas, Miami, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, New Orleans
Also, Riverside CA is #12, Phoenix AZ is #16. Both have been largely spared.
Now look at the per capita Covid deaths in LA, the Bay Area, Las Vegas, San Diego, Salt Lake City, Sacramento, Phoenix, Riverside. Then compare it to the Covid Belt areas.
If New Orleans hadn't made the mistake of holding Mardi Gras, they would look like other urban areas in Louisiana and the south broadly and would have dramatically fewer cases (eg Mississippi has 1/10th the deaths of Louisiana with 2/3 the population; Florida has over 4x the population of Louisiana, with half the deaths).
The Virginia Beach + Norfolk area is #22 on population density. It has so few deaths it barely registers. A couple million people live in that area, there have been only a handful of deaths. Average highs are 61 degrees F in November, around 50 from Dec > Feb, then 58 in March. ~12-15 degrees warmer than NYC throughout Winter. It never sinks into the Covid Belt ideal temperature zone, comparable to Milan, Wuhan, NYC, etc.
Check out most of the major cities in Florida. They're doing extremely well. The Jacksonville area has a dozen deaths in a metro of 1.5 million. Tampa and Orlando have done similarly well.
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It's been very hard for me to understand this line of thinking. As I see it, there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken. Do you think California would not have many more cases if the measures were relaxed? Or do you think that the cases would not be all that bad? Or do you think that they would only affect people that you aren't personally concerned about? I'm asking honestly fo…
> As I see it, there are so few cases in California because of the measures that have been taken. California has been spared because it's not in the Covid Belt. That's a term I've come up with to describe the ideal climate that SARS-CoV-2 thrives in. All hard hit regions exist in the Covid climate belt. Not all the least hit areas (eg South Korea) exist outside of the Covid Belt. You can also limit its spread with ot…
Because one trend I see a lot on HN is people making wild guesses about things waaaaaaay outside their area of expertise ...
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It seems to all fit together but I would not be too hasty in proclaiming the actual heat to be the affecting factor. Colder place will naturally be more densely populated for example.
> Colder place will naturally be more densely populated for example. That's plainly wrong. The world has huge numbers of hot, very dense cities that have not been hit hard. The Philippines, Indonesia, Mexico, India all have obvious of examples. Mexico City should be in extremely bad shape right now. Check out the temps in Mexico City: https://weather-and-climate.com/uploads/average-temperature-... Here are the top 10…
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Why does your paper have to be so one sided though? I live in LA and won't subscribe because your paper has always followed an agenda.
