San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders • Hacker News Board

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

#191

Post by WalterGR » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:17 AM UTC

shostack wrote: post #94

avalys wrote: post #17

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…

Not only did it have one of the most aggressive and immediate responses to the issue, but for a long time we were relatively sheltered as the virus raged across the nation because these measures were highly effective, and people to a large degree listened. He has been a straight shooter from the get go, including a while back when he said the State's orders didn't make sense because they were all or nothing for openi…

”I may have a different view of the power and authority I have, as a function of my position, than some of my colleagues."

Maybe some of his colleagues believe that sheriffs report through the Attorney General, as per the California constitution.

If they are elected, I want them out.

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

#192

Post by ketzo » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:19 AM UTC

babesh wrote: post #164

ivankirigin wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And age, race, types of jobs, family structure, trust in authority, education, and probably more. San Carlos is white, rich, and old. East Palo Alto it not.

It is dense, multi family housing and having to work at jobs that expose you to other people. It isn’t directly race or age.

Well, yeah, those are the factors for which race and age (and wealth) serve a pretty direct proxy in the U.S.

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

#193

Post by WalterGR » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:20 AM UTC

mike_d wrote: post #137

teej wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but the other Bay Area counties have chosen to shut down way in advance of that.

My county has about ~30 ICU beds left, yet hasn't triggered the magic state threshold. They are one mass causality incident (plane crash, roof collapsing, etc) from people going without care. Even if things are OK in San Mateo, they don't have to deal with the cases of people who go there because there are less restrictions. That is the whole point of counties working together.

The thresholds are by geographic area, not counties.

California’s page about this is an easy read: https://covid19.ca.gov/stay-home-except-for-essential-needs/

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

#194

Post by tshaddox » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:22 AM UTC

txsoftwaredev wrote: post #161

jeffbee wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's exactly right. The harm to the economy is not caused by the countermeasures, it is caused by the disease. If you don't beat the disease, you wreck the economy.

"Roughly 30,000 restaurants have already closed for good across the country, with more than 110,000 expected to shutter in the next month, according to estimates by the National Restaurant Association. ". How did a virus cause businesses to close permanently? This doesn't happen during flu season or even with the h1n1 pandemic.

The virus caused businesses to close permanently by causing would-be customers to stay at home due to fears about the virus. And, of course, other details, like businesses having extremely high rents and operating with very low margin opportunities which contributed to an already high baseline expectation of failure long before COVID.

Yes, undoubtedly government lockdowns cause some additional compliance from businesses and customers, but from what I saw in SF during the early days of the virus, a huge portion of the economical damage to local businesses was done due to the actions of individuals and businesses before the government even got involved with lockdowns.

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

#195

Post by jacobolus » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:25 AM UTC

babesh wrote: post #180

jacobolus wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> California only thinks in terms of lockdowns What are you thinking of? Personally I think we could do much better at hiring contact tracers, getting test sites into vulnerable neighborhoods, doing general community outreach, making sure public-facing workers have sufficient PPE, figuring out how to get infected people places to isolate away from their households, protecting incarcerated people, etc. But historicall…

My opinion is that people are tired of the orders and that they will not change people’s behaviors.

So we should give up and let the hospitals collapse and an extra few tens of thousands of California residents die?

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

#196

Post by baskire » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:26 AM UTC

russellbeattie wrote: post #138

My fellow humans are idiots. I'm an idiot. This isn't the right way to be a leader. Nuance is not for the masses. They need to be told the right thing to do, especially in a crisis. And then you assume literally everyone will bend the rules as they see fit, because they will. All this long screed does is mess with people's heads and cause more problems than it solves. The virus doesn't care where the county line is.…

Even if the lockdowns do nothing to stop the spread?

San Mateo county isn’t an average joe middle America bumble-nowhere county. It’s populace is highly educated with the nuance something all can comprehend.

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

#197

Post by WalterGR » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:31 AM UTC

aazaa wrote: post #91

The article makes some good points about the contradictions in state policy, for example: > That the State considers pro sports a critical infrastructure (essential) activity undermines this whole rubric in my mind. Pro sports is very nice to have and is probably a pleasant distraction. It is not essential. ... This is bad for several reasons: - sporting events involve close contact between participants - sporting ev…

Sports in California during shutdowns are not allowed to have audiences, so the following are incorrect in context.

- sporting events draw crowds

- sporting events require infrastructure to service them (restrooms, food, parking, etc)

- the blatant contradiction encourages those who have been told to shut down to disobey the order

I think there’s a lot of misinformation and disinformation out there, which is the leading cause of people disobeying the order(s).

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

#198

Post by jacobolus » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:42 AM UTC

adinosaur123 wrote: post #82

avalys wrote: post #17

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 also believe these greater restrictions will result in more job loss, more hunger, more despair and desperation (...) and more death from causes other than COVID. And I wonder, are these premature deaths any less worrisome than COVID deaths?” There's been a total of 164 registered COVID-19 related deaths in San Francisco county, the vast majority of which had other comorbidities, assuming trend[1]. On the other…

San Francisco has so far had by far the best Covid health outcomes of any major US city. If the US on the whole were doing as well as SF, there would be at least 200,000 fewer deaths than there have been.

I really hope SF can keep it that way. The recent trend is pretty scary, but if we all hunker down for the next month or two, we can still turn it around.

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

#199

Post by s1artibartfast » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:44 AM UTC

baskire wrote: post #183

s1artibartfast wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

You log it as "unknown community transmission". While you obviously can't trace everyone, California has 10,000 contact tracing staff [1] and has spent most of the pandemic with less than 5,000 confirmed cases per day [2]. These individuals are working every day to collect data, so I am sure it exists.

If you get a positive test, contact tracers may ask you where you went and who you interacted with. They then call those people and ask them to get a covid test. IF the contact tests positive, then rinse and repeat. [3]

If I live alone and only leave my house to grocery shop, it is pretty clear where I got covid. Similarly, if Bob had covid, I had dinner with Bob, and now I have covid, it is pretty safe to assume I got at dinner.

Anecdotally, I had a friend who tested positive and the contact tracer told them that they had likely contracted while it shopping at a big 5 several days earlier.

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/contact-tracing/state-survey-res...

https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/states.html

https://covid19.ca.gov/contact-tracing/

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

#200

Post by sdoering » Tue, Dec 08, 2020, 8:53 AM UTC

heleninboodler wrote: post #64

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…

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…

Yesterday there were some interesting stats shown for Germany. Before the 2nd soft lockdown in November the age bracket of 20 - 35 was the 2nd highest in terms of infections per 100k (within the last 7 days). Only topped by the age bracket 80+.

During our second lockdown the increase in cases did slow down a bit, but only a bit. One could argue, that the soft lockdown didn't really work that well, as it didn't turn the ship around.

The interesting part of the statistics was, that the age bracket of 20 - 35 was the only one with reduced infection numbers during the 2nd (soft) lockdown. So all positive effects from this age group were totally negated by every other age bracket - be it school children (massively increased numbers due to open schools), of kinder garden kids (same with open). Or also older people seemingly (no idea of the reasons) contracting Sars-CoV-2 at an increased rate during the soft lockdown.

I have no idea for why these other age brackets have increased numbers. Could be that these are also the age brackets were you find the most critics, but that is just a totally unproven hypothesis of mine.

Could be that behavior changed in regards to the first lockdown and people do not keep their social distancing as much as they did (that is just anecdotal evidence from encountering people not keeping their distance while grocery shopping).