Covid, Politics, and Health - What is your viewpoint?

[Kenny]

New York got hit hardest early in the pandemic. A lot of the hard lessons on how to maximize the survival likelihood of COVID-19 patients were learned in New York. That's why the death rate there was so high.

Yes they did and we also have learned that Cuomo had something to do with the higher rate.

The difference between NY and the Texas was .0009. However the difference between Texas, Florida and California is only a differential of .0003 and .0002 respectively.

Shouldn't the difference be larger between open and closed states?

 

[Kenny]

Outside of the initial lockdown, most stores remained open and especially for delivery. Restaurants were open for take out, delivery and sometimes for outdoor dining. Many many people worked from home. Business losses have not be universal. The future is hardly lost.

But with 500,000 dead, uncounted number temporarily or permanently disabled by COVID, hospitals overwhelmed or close to overwhelmed, temporary disruptions were necessary as is government action to extend unemployment, offer support for businesses and so forth.

The COVID induced recession will end with hundreds of thousands of lives saved by the measures taken. The cost to me is absolutely worth the lives saved.

Yes... 500,000 dead... not a small number. My point is that the difference between California and Texas and California is .0003 and .0002 respectively. Deaths will occur whether or not you have close downs... it doesn't seem like much of a difference to me although each life is important.

But at what cost?

"The problem isn’t limited to that community. Cook County, Illinois, and Fresno, California, are among those reporting similar spikes, with suicides up 13 percent in Cook County so far compared with the same period last year. In Fresno, suicides were 70 percent higher in June than in the same month last year."

Pandemic’s effect on already rising suicide rates heightens worry - Roll Call

Have we robbed Peter to pay Paul? And this is just suicides. Lost homes, lost income, lost business.... It would appear to me that the cost is just moving from one area (potential covid deaths) to another (suicides) and multiplied, depression alcoholism and future of people (not even touching the price in our educational system)

 

[Kenny]

Since infections spread by close proximity of people with people, compare deaths with population density. That is the correct measure.

That is why I picked the 4 most populated states - trying to keep apples compared to apples.

 

[9-10ths_Penguin]

Yes they did and we also have learned that Cuomo had something to do with the higher rate.

The difference between NY and the Texas was .0009. However the difference between Texas, Florida and California is only a differential of .0003 and .0002 respectively.

Shouldn't the difference be larger between open and closed states?

No. Did you understand what I said?

 

[sun rise]

Yes... 500,000 dead... not a small number. My point is that the difference between California and Texas and California is .0003 and .0002 respectively. Deaths will occur whether or not you have close downs... it doesn't seem like much of a difference to me although each life is important.

But at what cost?

"The problem isn’t limited to that community. Cook County, Illinois, and Fresno, California, are among those reporting similar spikes, with suicides up 13 percent in Cook County so far compared with the same period last year. In Fresno, suicides were 70 percent higher in June than in the same month last year."

Pandemic’s effect on already rising suicide rates heightens worry - Roll Call

Have we robbed Peter to pay Paul? And this is just suicides. Lost homes, lost income, lost business.... It would appear to me that the cost is just moving from one area (potential covid deaths) to another (suicides) and multiplied, depression alcoholism and future of people (not even touching the price in our educational system)

America’s two largest states are fighting covid-19 differently reported Texas has had 127 deaths per 100,000 compared with 104 per 100,000 in California.

That's 23/100,000 difference or 230 per million. Taking 30 million as a very rough population average, that's on the order of 7000 more people dead in Texas compared to California and that's on top of the California COVID viariant.

And that continues with TX having many more cases in the past day.

I'm not going to argue that CA did everything right. Far from it. Part of the problem is that we're learning more about COVID and what seemed like important measures turned out not to be.

When I look at the infection and death statistics for all states, the picture to me is extremely muddled. Testing discrepancies, reporting problems and other factors lead me to not accept even the numbers I cited as "gospel truth".

 

[Shadow Wolf]

But that would be consistent in every state and maybe more-so in open states. Statistically, however, closed states would still have less people violating the mandates.

That's just it. Even closed people still gather. They still dine in. They still went out to bars to drink for the day before Thanksgiving and New Year's Eve. We had our initial lock down, and stuff was different then, and we were an example for the nation, and then things started going back to normal, and except for the masks and schools things are almost back to normal despite the rules saying otherwise.
And that's before we get to poor, blue collar multi-generation families. This is a bad situation for a pandemic. That too is driving up the numbers, because they don't get to work from home, they often work around others, and then they come home to a house with many people.
And then of course we've also had sheriffs publicly state they will not enforce any of it, and some businesses that have tried going with policies of not allowing employees or customers to wear masks, and even restaurants building illegal access pipes for gas. And while we have MASH-like hospital tents going up, low-chance-of-survival patients being left for dead, and pollution restrictions lifted so crematories can keep up, there are at least two gyms where I live that are open, despite that being illegal.

 

[rational experiences]

Ask why science is such a liar. Because it is. The reasons to all questions and answers.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

View attachment 48132


Covid Deaths

View attachment 48133

Infections

View attachment 48134


I find it interesting that we have two approaches to Covid...

Lock down, closing of businesses, mandatory masks, (A democratic party viewpoint if I am not mistaken)

vs

Minimum lock downs, keeping businesses open, personal decision on masks, (A republican party viewpoint if I am not mistaken)

One would think that lock downs, closing of businesses and mandatory masks would produce better results yet the figures are apparently saying something different:

You would think that California and New York deaths would be less than that of Texas and Florida for all the precautions and yet California and New York (NY has the least in population) both have the greatest in deaths.

Infections amounts apparently run concurrent with population regardless of protections or no protections,.

What is your view as to why the precautions of NY and California have no advantage over minimum protections?

U.S. COVID-19 deaths by state | Statista
U.S. COVID-19 cases by state | Statista
US States - Ranked by Population 2021

Isn't the population density in NY and CA quite higher then in states like Texas?
Another factor is also concerning medical facilities. How much beds are available per capita?

A hospital that is "overrun" by patients, will have yield more deaths as they are confronted with decisions on who to help and who not.

So in summary, there are so many factors contributing to this and I feel your OP is ignoring the vast majority of them and trying to oversimplify it.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It certainly has that hue...

I remember a quote by Benjamin Franklin:

Benjamin Franklin once said: "Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

I wonder if this is applicable?

Franklin was talking about safety concerning potential actions of people.
Like for example agreeing to mass surveillance programs (raping liberty of privacy) in the hopes of catching a terrorist or two.

He wasn't talking about pandemics.
Also, with covid, it doesn't concern "temporary" safety. Because we (the world) are going to get through this. There is light at the end of the tunnel. And when we collectively have conquered this disease, everything will normalize again.

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

There is no reason this particular pandemic should exceed the time frame of past pandemics when our tech and medical capabilities are much more advanced now than in the past.

I kind of disagree.

What we can do faster today, thanks to our tech, is coming up with vaccines and meds.
But that doesn't mean we get to resolve to situation faster then we did in the past. In fact in the past, "we" didn't conquer disease. It went away on its own after running amok and killing millions.

We are a lot more informed today and have the knowledge on what has to be done to keep a virus from spreading. Remember that the spanish flu was "conquered" through herd immunity. Not thanks to a vaccine, but simply because it was "allowed" to run amok. With millions of deaths as a result.

If we would have done nothing about covid, we might actually have been close to herd immunity today. But death rates would have been a LOT worse also.

So what we do today, with all the lockdowns etc, is simply "slow it down" so that our hospitals aren't overrun.

This saves lives, but it also means herd immunity isn't achieved. Meaning that once measures are softened, infections go up again and the whole thing starts over. And we are stuck in that cycle until herd immunity is achieved through vaccination.

There is no guarantee at all that this process is going to go "faster" then a natural progression of the disease without lockdowns. In fact, I'ld expect it to take longer instead.

 

[Kenny]

America’s two largest states are fighting covid-19 differently reported Texas has had 127 deaths per 100,000 compared with 104 per 100,000 in California.

That's 23/100,000 difference or 230 per million. Taking 30 million as a very rough population average, that's on the order of 7000 more people dead in Texas compared to California and that's on top of the California COVID viariant.

And that continues with TX having many more cases in the past day.

View attachment 48166

I'm not going to argue that CA did everything right. Far from it. Part of the problem is that we're learning more about COVID and what seemed like important measures turned out not to be.

When I look at the infection and death statistics for all states, the picture to me is extremely muddled. Testing discrepancies, reporting problems and other factors lead me to not accept even the numbers I cited as "gospel truth".

I would agree that reporting problems and other factors makes it hard to accept numbers. I took the top ten "bad case" states and found that it ran the whole gamete of closed, open and in between states. Seems there is no rhyme or reason. No consistency.

#80

it would make one think that there must be a different factor and not the lockdown measures imposed.

 

[sayak83]

That is why I picked the 4 most populated states - trying to keep apples compared to apples.

That is not enough. You need land area. No. of ppl per square. miles. That is what population density means.

 

[Kenny]

Isn't the population density in NY and CA quite higher then in states like Texas?
Another factor is also concerning medical facilities. How much beds are available per capita?

A hospital that is "overrun" by patients, will have yield more deaths as they are confronted with decisions on who to help and who not.

So in summary, there are so many factors contributing to this and I feel your OP is ignoring the vast majority of them and trying to oversimplify it.

New York is actually the fourth most populace State with Texas and Florida ahead of them. California is the most populace state.

Bed capacity may be a factor. The only state that had that problem was New York if I am not mistaken.

 

[Kenny]

That is not enough. You need land area. No. of ppl per square. miles. That is what population density means.

It is true that New York State has 9 out of 10 most densely populated cities in the US.

New York had one of the most stringent lock downs and mask requirements. Yet it was #1 in death rates.

So, if it is density, can one then say regardless of masks and crowd control, it has no effect of death rates?

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

New York is actually the fourth most populace State with Texas and Florida ahead of them.

You are talking about population size.

I'm talking about population density.

New York is way ahead of Texas in population density. It's ahead of Florida to. California is also way ahead of Texas in density.

Meaning that people live much closer together, making it far easier for a virus to spread. Even with all the lockdowns and shutdowns and what have you.

A single infected person that takes the elevator in a skyscraper can infect the entire building through leaving virus particles on the elevator buttons. They don't even need to meet face to face.

 

[Kenny]

You are talking about population size.

I'm talking about population density.


View attachment 48170

New York is way ahead of Texas in population density. It's ahead of Florida to. California is also way ahead of Texas in density.

Meaning that people live much closer together, making it far easier for a virus to spread. Even with all the lockdowns and shutdowns and what have you.

A single infected person that takes the elevator in a skyscraper can infect the entire building through leaving virus particles on the elevator buttons. They don't even need to meet face to face.

Yes... I acknowledged that which brought up a question:


#94

 

[TagliatelliMonster]

It is true that New York State has 9 out of 10 most densely populated cities in the US.

New York had one of the most stringent lock downs and mask requirements. Yet it was #1 in death rates.

So, if it is density, can one then say regardless of masks and crowd control, it has no effect of death rates?

Or it would have been even worse without masks and crowd control. Which it most certainly would have been.

I think you don't really fully comprehend what exponential growth means.

I'm sure you've heard for the reproductive factor - although I don't know if there's a proper english term for it.

Basicly, it's a unit that reflects how infectious a disease is in population dynamics.
It reflects how many people are infected by a single infected person.
If that number is smaller then 1, the epidemic loses ground.
If that number is bigger then 1, it knows exponential growth.

Imagine an unconstrainted society where every infected person infects 4 others per day and start with only 1 infection.
You'll have 4 on day 2.
16 on day 3.
64 on day 4
256 on day 5
1024 on day 6
4096 on day 7
16.384 on day 8
65.536 on day 9
262.144 on day 10.


That's a quarter million people in just 10 days.
Now imagine that on day 4, a lockdown goes into effect. This by itself already drastically diminishes the amount of social contacts and let's say it halves the reproduction number to just 2.
Let's say that next to the lockdown, additional measures are in effect like for example crowd control by saying max 1 person allowed in a room for every 10 m², keeping social distance and wearing masks. That might further reduce the number to say, 1.2

Now let's re-run the simulation with that new number.

Now there are only (64*1.2 = ) 76.8 cases on day 5, instead of 256.
92,16 on day 6
110,59 on day 7
132,71 on day 8
159,25 on day 9
191,1 on day 10


See how that works?
With measures and crowd control, you end up with 191 cases on day 10.
Without them, you end up with a quarter million instead.


This is off course purely theoretical and the real world is more complex off course.... This model for example doesn't keep into account that by day 8 "the neighbourhood" will be infected and people from that hood will likely no longer infect 4 others unless they leave the hood...

But you get the idea.

And that idea is: slowing down exponential growth, has very real effects over time.

 

[sayak83]

It is true that New York State has 9 out of 10 most densely populated cities in the US.

New York had one of the most stringent lock downs and mask requirements. Yet it was #1 in death rates.

So, if it is density, can one then say regardless of masks and crowd control, it has no effect of death rates?

We can look at the figures of deaths to density and comment only then.

 

[sun rise]

it would make one think that there must be a different factor and not the lockdown measures imposed.

I noted the CA variant What we know about the California coronavirus variant

There's no way to do real science about lockdown measures given the variants.

What I do think CA has been doing wrong is not following the science when it comes to reopening lower grade schools. Friends of mine work in a private school that implemented an extensive set of items. Staying Healthy in case anyone is interested.

But I'm much much more concerned about the number of criminals who will murder others instead of putting on a damn mask. And we have criminal politicians who have made political correctness the criteria for not wanting to wear masks. They think they can cancel COVID because of rank selfishness. That's the real cancel culture.

 

[Suave]

Yes... I noticed how California was less than Texas and Florida... with Texas being .0003% more than California and Florida at .0002% more than California.

Do you think that with closing of businesses and mandatory masks the difference should have been more?

Considering California has such a highly transmitable C.O.V.I.D. variant, this state has done a fine job mitigating the spread of C.O.V.I.D. below the levels of Florida or Texas.