It is worth reading many of Dr Morrow's previous statements on the pandemic. This statement reflects the learnings across 10 months of fighting this virus. We really do need to some moving, congregating, and gathering in groups indoors. So on some level forcefully shutting everything down should achieve that, but we are humans and will make mistakes. So should we shut our way down into compliance or focus more on the specifics of what science says reduces transmissions? Dr Morrow makes a clear case for the latter. The only trick is how you convince everyone to comply.
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
#32Reading 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. Really there at least three attributes that I see in this statement that I don't typically see in utterings of our bureaucrats:
1) I actually get the sense of outright honesty from this statement. Not some overly messsaged, PR driven/reviewed statement by some spokes-hole. I actually think this statement is really what this guy believes... a public statement that even expresses some vulnerability. Despite the subject, very refreshing and I'd be more likely to listen seriously to what he has to say in future.
2) Struggling with right and good uses of power and seeing not using one's power as itself a public good. Good heavens... this guy should run for President! I expect I'd disagree with much of his politics, but I'd vote for him just for having such thoughts and expect the nation would be better off no matter his other leanings.
3) Questioning the mandates, their effectiveness, and whether they might be causing more harm than good. And not doing so from some artificial posturing to show "the right politics", but honest, genuine questioning.
Whether you agree or not... I wish more of our public officials were this thoughtful on critical issues such as face us in this pandemic.
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#33Earlier quoted context omitted.
Aren't the latest California directives attempting to adapt to this at least at the county level by tying restrictions to hospital capacity in each county? https://www.gov.ca.gov/2020/12/03/california-health-official...
Yes, but the other Bay Area counties have chosen to shut down way in advance of that.
Other Bay Area counties are seeing numbers skyrocket over the past 6 weeks, and want to act decisively now while they have the best chance to prevent a catastrophic outcome.
In SF case counts have been doubling about every 2 weeks; we started from a low baseline (relative to most of the rest of the USA) but another few doublings and we’ll be in huge trouble.
The state-level mandates are timed to be reactive instead of proactive; if we assume the restrictions are successful at curbing spread, we should enact them ASAP, before our hospitals are on track to be completely overwhelmed. (For that matter we should have taken strong steps before Thanksgiving weekend.)
It is extremely unfortunate that this is hammering small businesses; if the US had responsible federal leadership (if the Senate & White House hadn’t just sat on their hands for 7 months) we could do something about this (fingers crossed for January), but counties and even states have limited ability to provide large-scale relief of the type required.
But waiting to impose the same restrictions until the state mandates kick in, if inaction results in cases continuing to rise along their current trajectory, will lead to even larger economic devastation than decisive action a few weeks sooner.
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#34It takes leadership of government, focus, sacrifice, and understanding of the citizens to fight this virus. I'm based in Australia, Victoria (population of 6m+, exceeding the 800k mentioned in the Bay Area [EDIT: San Mateo county]) and we have now had over 30 days of zero cases of coronavirus, after having a peak of 680+ per day [1]. We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus, and are slowly easing restrict…
> We went into a tough lockdown, stamped out the virus
Unfortunately no one here in the USA in a position of power recognizes that this should be the goal. Instead the lockdowns last only long enough for the ICU capacity to free up, then reopening the economy becomes the major goal.
We need to stamp this virus out entirely, like you and your neighbors in NZ and TW have done.
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#35The article says in San Mateo county there are an estimated 8000-15000 contagious people. That’s several times higher than how many positive test results have been logged in the past 14 days. https://thecovidcomplex.com/state/california/san-mateo/summa... Disclosure: this is my website based on data from the New York Times.
It’s important to distinguish between true case burden and diagnosed case burden.
Testing is prone to variance due to behavior, test availability, development of symptoms, contact tracing effectiveness, etc... I suspect their modeling efforts use a more principled measure than positive tests.
Without even seeing the data I would infer among all tests a high positivity rate (certainly double digit).
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#36The article says in San Mateo county there are an estimated 8000-15000 contagious people. That’s several times higher than how many positive test results have been logged in the past 14 days. https://thecovidcomplex.com/state/california/san-mateo/summa... Disclosure: this is my website based on data from the New York Times.
I think it is a clear implications we still don't have enough testing even though CA as a whole is doing relatively well on testing. It seems like once your positive % goes above 5-10% it really means you're missing many cases.
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#37As this goes on, I'm starting to believe that the only way the US (in it's current state of cohesion) is to make decisions that are less effective than the "optimal" total lockdown, but are able to get a larger percent of the population acting in better ways. The human brain can't function at max threat level over time, and more and more people are chafing at the correct (but impractical and toothless) policies.
I feel like those type of good value decisions are hampered by the lack of federal response. A cohesive "wear your mask", massive PPE manufacturing mobilization, and benefits would have really driven home the seriousness of the situation and provided people the tools to weather the storm. Bars are open because owners don't have many other options to support themselves. If the government provided support, that would surely reduce the overall amount of places where masks and social distancing aren't enforced, which in turn would allow for better enforcement of existing policies. All this results in a negative feedback cycle where the reduced cases improve contact tracing, reduce waits for tests, etc.
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#38It is worth reading many of Dr Morrow's previous statements on the pandemic. This statement reflects the learnings across 10 months of fighting this virus. We really do need to some moving, congregating, and gathering in groups indoors. So on some level forcefully shutting everything down should achieve that, but we are humans and will make mistakes. So should we shut our way down into compliance or focus more on the…
> The only trick is how you convince everyone to comply.
Translate that to: how do we crush the poor, destroy livelihoods and deprive children of education?
Compliance, knave!
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#39I understand that Dr Morrow is a health professional and not a writing professional. For this reason, I would recommend that San Mateo county hire a public relations / social media expert to do some editing on this and future posts. It lacks the structure and coherent message that a public notice needs. I read it from start to finish and I’m not sure exactly what purpose it served beyond Dr. Morrow justifying his dec…
You seem to have missed the entire point of the article, as it is not announcing any new policies.
Re: San Mateo County Health Officer Statement on Bay Area Stay-at-Home Orders
#40The article says in San Mateo county there are an estimated 8000-15000 contagious people. That’s several times higher than how many positive test results have been logged in the past 14 days. https://thecovidcomplex.com/state/california/san-mateo/summa... Disclosure: this is my website based on data from the New York Times.
It’s important to distinguish between true case burden and diagnosed case burden. Testing is prone to variance due to behavior, test availability, development of symptoms, contact tracing effectiveness, etc... I suspect their modeling efforts use a more principled measure than positive tests. Without even seeing the data I would infer among all tests a high positivity rate (certainly double digit).
You'd be incorrect in that inference. According to state data, the positivity rate in San Mateo County is 2.6% currently.