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San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

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Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#181

Post by bluescrn »

remote_phone wrote: post #106
heleninboodler wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree wholeheartedly with all three of your points. I disagree strongly with one of his positions (I don't think we should be opening schools while the rest of us are locked down), but I too find it very, very encouraging to have a public official obviously using his brain and being honest about the fact that nobody really knows the right answer. And especially in the context about the use of power, the acknowledge…

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.

The 2nd UK lockdown wasn’t all that effective. Schools open = all the pain for significantly reduced gain.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#182

Post by p4coder »

remote_phone wrote: post #150
fludlight wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Kid1->Kid2->Parents-of-kid2 transmission sounds like it would lead to a lot of orphans. Did it? What's the lag on the statistics on that subject? Outcomes are also not binary (life or death). There is also the possibility of a gamut of lifelong health problems from, e.g. scarred lungs, for both kids and parents.

Most parents of school kids are younger than the 60. That age group has less than 0.2% death rate.

My daughter's school has 2000 kids. 4000 parents. In Santa Clara county the death rate for 40-60 is .5% [1] That would mean 20 parents dead if everyone gets it. Many of the households in immigrant families are multi generational. That will have a multiplying effect.

[1] 12.7% deaths and 29.1% cases https://www.sccgov.org/sites/covid19/Pages/dashboard-demogra...

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#183

Post by baskire »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #162
jeffbee wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly what information do you lack? If you are hungry eat at home. Work at home if possible. Exercise at home. "Live" is too vague to address.

You are substituting instructions for information. I lack information. For example: Has anyone in San Mateo caught covid eating at a restaurant? How many? Has anyone in San Mateo caught covid grocery shopping? How Many? Has anyone in San Mateo Caught covid exercising outside? How many? Has anyone in San Mateo Caught covid at school? How many?

They just don’t have the data.

Look I got covid while wearing a mask. Infection was either at a grocery store. Or while walking at a park. Or while at a dog park. Or who knows.

How do you log that in your stats?

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#184

Post by nostromo »

remote_phone wrote: post #110
frakkingcylons wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Like is missing a year of 4th grade going to be a problem for anyone? Yes definitely. I've been tutoring students in 5-7th grade for about two years, most of them benefit from tutoring because they have knowledge gaps missing from previous school years (for whatever reason). Before March this year, all the tutoring was in-person and it was relatively easy to keep them engaged and they made good progress. Now that I…

He said generations worth of damage. Come on. It might hurt a kid for her SAT if it was this or next year but to think she would have long term damage from a couple of shitty years of school, that’s preposterous. Kids are made of sterner stuff than this.

Yes, most kids can catch up after a missed year of content.

Many won’t. There’s a lot of data about how students fall behind in a compounding way: they start to feel dumb compared to their peers; start to think school isn’t for them, or that they just aren’t smart enough to ‘get math’ — fast forward a few years and they’ve dropped out completely.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#185

Post by WalterGR »

orangecat wrote: post #104
sp332 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's supposed to be supported isolation. Gotta make sure people can make rent and eat and otherwise stay alive, or they're not going to stay home.

Gotta make sure people can make rent and eat and otherwise stay alive, or they're not going to stay home. Even ignoring financial considerations, expecting people to have no in-person contact with anyone outside their homes for 9+ months is utterly unrealistic.

Literally no one is expecting that, let alone suggesting it.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#186

Post by baskire »

dehrmann wrote: post #127
sidibe wrote: post #61

I understand the sentiment, but I think it's pretty clear in retrospect hard lockdowns were the correct way to address this. This half-assed "wear a mask and social distance if you want" stance just made the economy sputter for a whole a year. I've seen this in France twice, where they've oscillated between doing nothing and doing a lot, a couple brief lockdowns can reverse things quickly even after things have gotte…

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…

Bay Area has some busy shipping ports and a lot of commerce flowing throw it.

It’s not within the regions power to shut down the state and interstate highways.

Spread was going to come from the rest of the country no matter what they did.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#187

Post by ketzo »

KorematsuFred wrote: post #154
sbuttgereit wrote: post #32

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.

Okay, I’ll bite — what would be better (from a public health perspective) than government mandates for masks, social distancing, and reduced/restricted indoor gathering?

And, to be clear, what makes you say they are ineffective? Because literally everything I’ve seen everywhere says that those three things are basically the only things that have been effective.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#188

Post by tshaddox »

wwweston wrote: post #130
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> And there are some other restrictions which just seem more like theatre, such as curfews. Do we think coronavirus is nocturnal? The way I've heard some people explain it is that human behavior changes nocturnaly. After 10pm what are most people doing out? Nightlife and drinking overlap pretty heavily, social drinking and social distancing are kindof contradictory, and alcohol isn't known for increasing people's cap…

Or, even simpler: less time in the day for interactions means less interaction.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#189

Post by kiwidrew »

dehrmann wrote: post #127
sidibe wrote: post #61

I understand the sentiment, but I think it's pretty clear in retrospect hard lockdowns were the correct way to address this. This half-assed "wear a mask and social distance if you want" stance just made the economy sputter for a whole a year. I've seen this in France twice, where they've oscillated between doing nothing and doing a lot, a couple brief lockdowns can reverse things quickly even after things have gotte…

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…

> Apparently New Zealand still has single digit cases most days.

NZ hasn't had any new cases in the general population for quite some time. The cases that NZ has been reporting are all recent arrivals undergoing the mandatory 14-day quarantine in an isolation facility.

Both Australia and New Zealand have shown (multiple times) that it is entirely possible to completely eradicate this virus using nothing more sophisticated than masks, social distancing, testing, and (targeted) strict lockdowns.

Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders

#190

Post by ketzo »

bsder wrote: post #158
chipotle_coyote wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!!!!!!

As long as it’s an actual tent, with open sides, it’s a pretty huge improvement. I don’t have the link, but I read that basically anything outdoors with open sides might as well be totally outdoors, since the heat created in the tent will naturally cause the air to be exchanged constantly (plus, obviously, the breeze).
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