I was out of town and off grid over the long weekend, and I just returned to this. The COVID map that I like best just pushed New York from the “On Track to Contain” to the “Controlled Disease Growth” bucket, like a common Texas. This is due to an uptick in cases reported prior to the holiday. On the worst day of the last week, 918 (1.3%) of the 66K people tested were positive. By US standards, we’re still doing OK, but by the standards of the rest of the world, we’re not.
For example, the state of Victoria, Australia just announced that they’re re-entering stage 3 lockdown in Melbourne, which means no trips except for groceries, exercise, medical care and education. Melbourne’s lockdown will extend for 6 weeks. The day it was announced, Victoria had 191 positive cases for 6.4 million population. Victoria is about 1/3 the size of New York state, so we’d have 573 cases if we had the same result as Victoria. We had close to double that number last week, and we’re still “on track”, though Cuomo wisely delayed opening of indoor seating in bars and restaurants in the NYC region indefinitely.
In a week or so, I’m sure we’ll see another surge in cases due to the 4th of July weekend. The question is whether contact tracing will work. Last week, Rockland County had to issue subpoenas with $2,000 daily fines to get some COVID-exposed partygoers to cooperate with contact tracing. This week, I’m assuming contact tracers on Long Island will have their hands full with a maskless party where Don Jr and his girlfriend Kimberly Guilfoyle attended. She later tested positive. There were over 100 people at that party.
At some point, the positive rate driven by reckless behavior will overwhelm our tracking system. Then we’ll have a decision to make. It will be very ugly.
The Moar You Know
If the hospitals collapse, then the 20% of people who get this shit and need to be hospitalized for it aren’t going to get a few days of extra oxygen and go home, most of them are going to die.
What’s 20% of the US population? Christ, it’s more people than voted for Trump
This is not going well.
Gin & Tonic
Wasn’t just Fredo and his girlfriend at a maskless party on Long Island.
PeakVT
It’s all one “freedom-loving” country so internal travel restrictions are basically non-existent. Even if one state government works hard to get the local rate down, the efforts can be blown up by visitors from less pro-active states. This is especially true for small states.
daveNYC
I think even that map is optimistic about a number of states. Texas, California, Georgia, and Washington State are having serious issues at the moment.
rikyrah
@Gin & Tonic:
Can I tell you that my cynicism has grown to the point where I don’t believe that she has it. Watch and see how she describes her ‘ battle’ with it.
My tinfoil hat is tingling.
Catsmeat
I bartend in Rochester and I’ve been watching things verrrry closely. Lots of folks out with no masks, lots of packed spaces, and, surprise! Our positive test rate here is starting to trickle back up. Not looking forward to being shut down again but I feel like it’s just a matter of time.
germy
Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has tested positive.
frosty
NY/NJ still green on covidexitstrategy.org. But that’s it. Even CT has slipped backwards.
Auntie Anne
@PeakVT: That’s exactly what is happening in Delaware. Out-of-staters are visiting the beaches and not complying with masks or social distancing. It’s truly discouraging.
Paul W.
Ugh, but this kind of framing of the news (as honest and true as it might be) leads even me – a mask loving, social distancing NYCer – to a more fatalistic response of “so what’s the point!?”.
If we can’t maintain some level of optimism and simply prescribe a modification or halt to the openings then it feels insurmountable to maintain the intense lockdown of March-EOM May in perpetuity. I sincerely worry about my mental and physical health, not to mention the job I have at a company which is hanging on by a thread right now after bankruptcy or exit of a number of clients.
Other countries are proving, and I had thought NYC was also showing, that a slow and phased reopening which bends towards reasonable metrics can work. If it can’t, and we are show NO PATH about how to make it until January 20th when Trump is gone then I see people becoming EVEN WORSE at following the rules. I legit fear for the lives of my family in Texas because my parents will not listen to the science.
Suzanne
@Paul W.:
Agree. I have always thought that we needed to be really clear from the beginning about how long people were going to have to lock down in order to get people to comply. Our shitty leadership was not clear about this, and they didn’t base the decision on anything having to do with evidence or best practices, and so now everything we gave up was for nothing.
WereBear
We are learning as we go. What else can we do?
Those who are not learning… well, we all know who they are.
lee
I’ve read a couple of articles that the contact tracing is getting overwhelmed. They cannot notify people quick enough to make a difference.
On another note: I spiked a fever yesterday. I went from normal to 100 degrees in less than 30 minutes. I’ve got a low grade fever today (less than 1 degree over my normal) and have some GI excitement but no other symptoms. I contacted 2 different places and apparently I don’t qualify for a Covid19 test.
Cervantes
Don’t blame me, I live in Connecticut.
ET
Is it just me or should we have no states in green yet? I say it not because they aren’t doing better because they are, but because in the space of a day-week they would be downgraded because of the false sense of security the “on track” designation can give to people who live there but also the people who visit.
Cervantes
@ET: No, we haven’t developed a false sense of security. I’m in Windham County which never had a high prevalence, but people still take it seriously, wear masks, keep their distance. I think effective leadership from the governor, plus seeing the catastrophe in the western part of the state, has made people want to make sure it doesn’t come here. Our numbers are still looking very good.
RedDirtGirl
@lee: Where are you that it is not possible to get a test? In NYC I had to wait for an hour and a half, but didn’t need anyone’s “approval” to get both the nasal swab, and the antibody test.
zhena gogolia
@Cervantes:
I’m in CT too. I do not get a wingnut vibe around the masks here, even though there are plenty of Republicans.
Searcher
@frosty: I like the visualization of reserving green for only the at-the-moment good cases.
My county in NY had a pretty good run of decreasing cases, from a peak of ~5500 known active cases / 1M population, to around 660 / 1M over the course of about 2 months, but it’s now rebounded over the last week to 900 / 1M. While we started Phase 3 last week, I’m guessing this was actually Phase 2 reopening that was too ambitious. They haven’t talked about rolling back Phase 3 yet, so I’m curious if we’ll get a Phase 1.5 or if we’re still in wait-and-see.
lee
@RedDirtGirl: Collin County (suburb of Dallas). I’m not sure if it is because they are overwhelmed or just trying to weed out the Karens,
Another Scott
@lee: If you’re able, you should probably assume that you have it and isolate from others. Do you have a pulse-oximeter? If not, try to get one and watch your oxygen saturation.
https://health.clevelandclinic.org/should-you-get-a-pulse-oximeter-to-measure-blood-oxygen-levels/
Remember, the mayor of Atlanta announced yesterday that she tested positive with no symptoms.
Hang in there. Best of luck!
Cheers,
Scott.
Enhanced Voting Techniques
The twatwaffle virus denier president of Brazil tested positive today. I think the real problem is the elite convinced themselves it’s a little people problem so until enough of the elite get sick or die nothing is going to happen.
Kattails
“…Then we’ll have a decision to make. It will be very ugly.” How about, those who test positive and refuse to be contact-traced can get a MAGA tattoo on their forehead in red. Or, not to be extreme, just an “M”.
OR a tiny sub-q. tracer like they do for our pets, but it’s tied to an alarm that anyone can buy, a little beeper, so someone walks in the room and your beeper goes off you scan them to see how compliant they’re being with masks and distancing. //
I’m in NH and we are doing OK sort of, fairly good mask compliance. But my tiny unemployment won’t last forever, although they’re talking about extending it, and the larger government one will run out at the end of this month. I’m using that to get the firewood I need and pay down the old credit debt. In the meantime, seeing McConnell’s wife, (worth $30 million between them), Secretary of Transportation, get her fingers into the pie while Moscow Mitch complains that our 1200 bucks and maybe 3 months of unemployment is going to make us all lazy just… I am getting tired of fighting off the feeling of wanting to just beat the shit out of some people.
@WereBear: The problem is, THEY don’t know who they are, or don’t care.
J R in WV
Last week I went to a Chase bank here locally, in South Charleston, a small town next door to Charleston, the site of a very large Union Carbide plant back before Carbide killed itself by murdering 30,000 citizens in Bhopal India. Our insurance checks for tree fall damage were made out to the both of us and Chase, because we have a small amount of mortgage remaining with them. Ultra low interest rate back during the Dot Com crash of 2000. I’ve not paid it off early, it’s our only loan, I understand it makes it easier to get a new loan if you have one you pay on regularly, who knows?
Anyway, I was the only person in the building wearing a mask. It took forever as their automated software kept assuming a check was “stale” even tho a cursory inspection of dates shows they weren’t… then that the amount and the check ## were wrong… the weren’t.
While I was waiting, and waiting, and so on, I heard an elderly (remember, I’m nearly 70, but still…) customer (no mask!) talking with the manager (no mask!) about how dangerous the Corona-19 plague really is. Old customer tells manager (they obviously know each other, small town) about his friend who is lead nurse for a big ICU… said they have a patient, 18 Y O, corona, ate their heart valve, without a heart transplant, no chance for a normal life.
Remember, neither of these presumably intelligent guys are wearing a mask, talking about how dangerous the Corona virus is. Am I crazy? Or are they? Maybe I should have said something… but I just wanted them to endorse my checks…
We have done well in WV, but now that beach time is here, lots of people are going to Myrtle, which was part of the local calling area for cell phones, back when that was a thing.
BruceFromOhio
Decide to do .. what? Seems like the decision has already been made: let more people die.
@Enhanced Voting Techniques: This. As long as its the non-whites and the poors dying, BFD and learn to live with it. Let a DeVos or a few Mercers or Adelsons expire in the ICU and whoa, daddy, see how they run.
lee
@Another Scott: I actually have a cheap pulse-oximeter. I tested it out while healthy and it had 97 for me and 98 for my wife.
Checked last night and I was 93 on one hand and 95 on the other.
This morning back up to 96 on both. I feel significantly better this morning and I’m getting better as the day goes on.
Searcher
Goddammit.
BruceFromOhio
@Catsmeat: NY or MN? I was in Rochester, NY, over the holiday, and was impressed at the masking. The two brief forays I made into public places, every single person I saw was masked. I was impressed and relieved.
Then I returned to OH, and was dismayed and appalled all over again. We’re fucking doomed by the covidiots. Back to the bunker!
Suzanne
Bolsonaro is positive. I’m shocked to hear this news.
glc
I prefer rt.live for a picture of the situation – both as a snapshot and over time.
I see the appeal of the map – a bit more direct, but considerably less informative.
Kirk Spencer
I’m back to pessimism, too. As I understand it, once we overflow the hospitals the deaths go from under 1 % to 4-5%. Here in Houston the forecast for that point is sometime in the next two weeks.
And since won’t work to keep a minimum infected till a vaccine is developed it looks like a race between something high enough to cause herd immunity ( we hope) and a vaccine.
I’m beginning to wonder if we’ll be looking back wistfully at “only” a million dead.
Catsmeat
@BruceFromOhio: NY. What I’ve heard from colleagues is that people they serve are getting more defensive and angry about being asked to keep masks on while not seated or while not eating and drinking. And full credit to people in the business who are taking their time and energy to try and keep people with the program! But it’s tiring for them.
Also, a special shout out to places I’ve seen here that aren’t enforcing masks, distancing, or capacity requirements at all. It’s super helpful!
Catsmeat
@BruceFromOhio: and just to note, in general I see a lot of masks in public places, and I know of some bars and restaurants that have take a lot of steps to ensure the safest possible environment. But the places I see that aren’t taking it seriously enough or at all worry me for what’s next.
Bill Arnold
@Catsmeat:
People are just exercising their constitutional right to randomly kill people.
I think it’s implied by the Second Amendment. If your mouth shoots bullets, and you’re forced to wear a bullet proof mask to keep the bullets in, well, that’s unconstitutional!. (/s if not clear)
I’m frankly surprised that there hasn’t yet been a well-publicized Stand-Your-Ground shooting of an unmasked-and-not-distancing person yet.
LongHairedWeirdo
Just to help ruin everyone else’s day, did everyone follow the link (I *think* it was here) regarding Simpson’s Paradox?
It explained how, with the deaths from the first huge wave petering out, it can look like the overall death rate is shrinking, even while (in places where infections are increasing) death rates can be increasing. The paradox is, it looks like things are improving, because several of the statistics are improving (like a lower deaths/day), but if you actually look at the data where it matters – by location/proximity/etc. – you could see that things are getting worse.
In short, once New York was controlled, it will look like things are getting better, until Florida, Texas, Arizona, etc., become the new New York, either individually or collectively.
How would you know? Well – the link I followed suggested death rates were going up in places where infections were. I don’t know, because I haven’t reviewed the raw data (and, to be brutally honest, I don’t know what to do with the *raw* data, though I could follow the analysis if someone explained it).
I’ve seen speculation that deaths are going down because more younger people are getting it; or, because we’ve learned more about treating it; etc. Any of those might be true, but it’s also likely that things aren’t actually getting better.
If that’s the case, July is going to look really bad, pretty soon. As always, I’d like to be wrong.
But by god, seeing Fox News *POUNCE* on a study that said hydroxychlorquine might help (the study was extremely weak) reminds me that the GOP is still more interested in saving the news cycle, than in saving people’s lives.
GrueBleen
I don’t know that mentioning Victoria – really Melbourne – in Australia will have any effect, mistermix. Nobody ever pays any attention to Australia. Third best anti-corona effort after Taiwan and NZ, but nobody pays them any attention either.
Still, nice of somebody to notice.
Another Scott
@LongHairedWeirdo: It was here – https://balloon-juice.com/2020/07/03/repub-stupidity-open-thread-putting-the-ass-in-texass/#comment-7764343 – #108 if the page scrolls.
Note the caveats later in the thread (and in the original Twitter thread).
Infections taking off like a rocket cannot be good, even if daily deaths are “only” 665 a day (yesterday, according to Worldometer.info) compared to 2500+ a day a few weeks ago. Deaths will follow. :-(
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
LongHairedWeirdo
@Another Scott: Yes. There’s something horrifying, yet hilarious, about the name Simpson’s Paradox in this situation, with Homer J Trump in the White House.