Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response

[better late]

My new favorite tracker website.  Wow, Florida is doing bad.  https://covidactnow.org/us/fl?s=856166

Thanks for sharing that tracker - very informative.

So very thankful my in-laws left Florida before the numbers started to rise again. What a mess.

[OtherJen]

Oh, Florida. Florida Sheriff Orders Deputies And Staff Not To Wear Face Masks (source: NPR)

[LifeHappens]

Oh, Florida. Florida Sheriff Orders Deputies And Staff Not To Wear Face Masks (source: NPR)

I can't wait for the lawsuits.

[Blue82]

Oh, Florida. Florida Sheriff Orders Deputies And Staff Not To Wear Face Masks (source: NPR)

I can't wait for the lawsuits.

That was exactly what I told my boss.  Someone is going to sue them silly. 

[GuitarStv]

Oh, Florida. Florida Sheriff Orders Deputies And Staff Not To Wear Face Masks (source: NPR)

I can't wait for the lawsuits.

That was exactly what I told my boss.  Someone is going to sue them silly. 

They're publicly refusing to enforce or obey the law.  Enforcing the law is their job.

I'm not aware of many other professions where you can just refuse to do your job and stay employed.

[Roots&Wings]

I'm not aware of many other professions where you can just refuse to do your job and stay employed.

Seems he took advice from President Trump before making this announcement:

Woods, who participated in a phone conference with President Trump and other sheriffs on Tuesday, ended his missive by making it clear that he would brook no dissent.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2020/08/12/masks-florida-ban-billy-woods/

[By the River]

Wow, did you seriously compared Cuomo to DeSantis ??
NY was blindsided. Nobody was expecting it. Most people in America didn't think the virus was coming over here.
Cuomo took actions. Mainly mandating masks as early as April. NY new cases are now in the 1,xxx each day.
Meanwhile our Governor laughed at NY, even banning people from NY from coming in.
When Florida started to get hit hard a month ago, our Governor has done jack shit. Absolutely jack shit. He blames it on more testing. Still won't do jack shit. They need to kick this guy out of office seriously.

Sorry about resurrecting an old thread but I was looking for something about the vaccine testing when I found this.  Several different comments here about how bad Florida was doing and how good New York was doing.  With links to a couple of websites.  So I clicked on those websites today and wow has this flipped now. 

New York leading the US with 38.4 cases per 100K and Florida at 25.3 https://covidactnow.org/?s=1633574
And Florida having fewer cases per million every day (except 1) since December 4th https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/cases-per-million-by-state

and the one who appears ready to be kicked out of office is Cuomo but not because of covid related actions.

[jinga nation]

I would take the official numbers from the Florida Dept of Health with tons of pink himalayan salt.
Shenanigans in Tallahassee.

[waltworks]

It's really quite sobering to look at these state vs. state comparisons and see... no recognizable pattern. I'm sure something can be teased out of the data, but if we're honest, most of our interventions seem to have not had much effect. Places with similar populations and weather (ie, Florida, California) and VASTLY different policies have broadly similar outcomes.

Infection and death rates show no clear pattern from red let-er-rip states like the Dakotas vs. blue lock-it-down states. Some places did horribly (MS, AZ) and others did great (UT, VT, MN, WA, OR) despite bordering places that did horribly. Some places with big cities did fine, others did awful.

There's really not a heroic story of anybody getting it right you can tell here, IMO. If I had to draw a lesson from this, I'd say that having the ability to test a lot, and the willingness to do COMPLETE lockdowns would be the best weapons for a future pandemic.

-W

[bacchi]

It's really quite sobering to look at these state vs. state comparisons and see... no recognizable pattern. I'm sure something can be teased out of the data, but if we're honest, most of our interventions seem to have not had much effect. Places with similar populations and weather (ie, Florida, California) and VASTLY different policies have broadly similar outcomes.

Infection and death rates show no clear pattern from red let-er-rip states like the Dakotas vs. blue lock-it-down states. Some places did horribly (MS, AZ) and others did great (UT, VT, MN, WA, OR) despite bordering places that did horribly. Some places with big cities did fine, others did awful.

There's really not a heroic story of anybody getting it right you can tell here, IMO. If I had to draw a lesson from this, I'd say that having the ability to test a lot, and the willingness to do COMPLETE lockdowns would be the best weapons for a future pandemic.

-W

It's easier to compare countries, which have border controls and more uniform lockdown restrictions. Mask requirements can also differ by municipal area; you might see a lot more masks in Gainesville compared to the 7th best swamp city, Tampa.

[Michael in ABQ]

It's really quite sobering to look at these state vs. state comparisons and see... no recognizable pattern. I'm sure something can be teased out of the data, but if we're honest, most of our interventions seem to have not had much effect. Places with similar populations and weather (ie, Florida, California) and VASTLY different policies have broadly similar outcomes.

Infection and death rates show no clear pattern from red let-er-rip states like the Dakotas vs. blue lock-it-down states. Some places did horribly (MS, AZ) and others did great (UT, VT, MN, WA, OR) despite bordering places that did horribly. Some places with big cities did fine, others did awful.

There's really not a heroic story of anybody getting it right you can tell here, IMO. If I had to draw a lesson from this, I'd say that having the ability to test a lot, and the willingness to do COMPLETE lockdowns would be the best weapons for a future pandemic.

-W

It would be interesting to see an animated county-by-county map over the last year. I think it would clearly show the disease spreading throughout the country from the large coastal cities, to the sunbelt, to the rural interior, and then back across the country.

[waltworks]

It's easier to compare countries, which have border controls and more uniform lockdown restrictions. Mask requirements can also differ by municipal area; you might see a lot more masks in Gainesville compared to the 7th best swamp city, Tampa.

There's not a standard for how countries report data, really, though, and a lot of them don't collect accurate data (ie poorer countries) or alternately just make stuff up (Russia, China, etc). Comparing US states at least uses a uniform CDC set of data, and I think state health departments are generally all on the same page.

-W

[GuitarStv]

It's easier to compare countries, which have border controls and more uniform lockdown restrictions. Mask requirements can also differ by municipal area; you might see a lot more masks in Gainesville compared to the 7th best swamp city, Tampa.

There's not a standard for how countries report data, really, though, and a lot of them don't collect accurate data (ie poorer countries) or alternately just make stuff up (Russia, China, etc). Comparing US states at least uses a uniform CDC set of data, and I think state health departments are generally all on the same page.

-W

Several news articles have revealed significant under-reporting of covid deaths by coroners in states where the people who hire the coroners don't believe that covid is much to be worried about.  In Florida, DeSantis fired a scientist who refused to tamper with covid numbers to support his re-opening plan.

There doesn't seem to be much of a true standard for reporting data in the US . . . and I suspect it will be a few years until we know the truth - if we ever really do.

[waltworks]

If you just don't believe that republican states are changing numbers en masse, there's a pizza joint I hear has a basement full of kidnapped babies...

In all seriousness, let's not start with conspiracy theories. There's not an obvious pattern in this data and hiding covid deaths on a large scale is not possible in the US. We do have a free press.

-W

[By the River]

Whoever wishes to investigate medicine properly should proceed thus: in the first place to consider the seasons of the year …
    Hippocrates
    (circa 400 b.c.)

In 1981, Dr. Hope-Simpson noted seasonality of flu above and below the 30 latitude.  The linked article actually has a great graph of flu cases and covid appears to spread similarly.  Based on that graph, March should have similar numbers to February and then the country should have a significant drop in April.  Even without any changes, northern states will have few cases in the summer while Florida will have a spike unless the vaccine actually stops it.   So it appears that Cuomo got his emmy and positive press and DeSantis got hammered in the press all due to a natural seasonality documented in 1981 and maybe in 400 b.c. 
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2870528/

[jrhampt]

If you just don't believe that republican states are changing numbers en masse, there's a pizza joint I hear has a basement full of kidnapped babies...

In all seriousness, let's not start with conspiracy theories. There's not an obvious pattern in this data and hiding covid deaths on a large scale is not possible in the US. We do have a free press.

-W

It's not a conspiracy theory - the data on excess deaths in those states supports this.  There have been a number of articles about this, including:

https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/25/undercounting-covid-19-deaths-greatest-in-pro-trump-areas-analysis-shows/

[dougules]

I don't know home much empirical research there's been on the subject, but there are noticeable patterns with COVID related to climate that look a lot like well-known patterns with the flu. South America had a tough time during their winter.  Europe and North America are having a tough time during northern winter, too.  The most southerly parts of the US had a big spike in the summer, exactly when people down here hole themselves up in the air conditioning to avoid the heat. I suspect it's not really fair to compare Florida's winter numbers to New York's winter numbers given the big difference in climate. 

Places with similar populations and weather (ie, Florida, California) and VASTLY different policies have broadly similar outcomes.

Florida and California absolutely don't have similar weather - humidity.  Also, both California and New York have had the luck of getting their own home-grown variants that may be distorting the comparison. 

[waltworks]

It's not a conspiracy theory - the data on excess deaths in those states supports this.  There have been a number of articles about this, including:

https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/25/undercounting-covid-19-deaths-greatest-in-pro-trump-areas-analysis-shows/

Those are some very interesting findings indeed. It will be interesting to see how things shake out, according to the study counties that are super Trumpy (aka rural) are much more likely to under-report deaths. So states like the Dakotas might not be doing as well as we think.

Florida probably doesn't fit into that real well, though, since it's not super Trumpy and not rural at all.

-W

[bacchi]

I don't know home much empirical research there's been on the subject, but there are noticeable patterns with COVID related to climate that look a lot like well-known patterns with the flu. South America had a tough time during their winter.  Europe and North America are having a tough time during northern winter, too.  The most southerly parts of the US had a big spike in the summer, exactly when people down here hole themselves up in the air conditioning to avoid the heat. I suspect it's not really fair to compare Florida's winter numbers to New York's winter numbers given the big difference in climate. 

Places with similar populations and weather (ie, Florida, California) and VASTLY different policies have broadly similar outcomes.

Florida and California absolutely don't have similar weather - humidity.  Also, both California and New York have had the luck of getting their own home-grown variants that may be distorting the comparison.

We know that the flu virus spreads faster in colder weather and stops spreading around 86F. This is why flu season happens in the winter months.

Does that occur with covid19?

The seasonality may be more of a connection with how and when people congregate rather than the weather's affect on the virus.

[Luke Warm]

It's not a conspiracy theory - the data on excess deaths in those states supports this.  There have been a number of articles about this, including:

https://www.statnews.com/2021/01/25/undercounting-covid-19-deaths-greatest-in-pro-trump-areas-analysis-shows/

Those are some very interesting findings indeed. It will be interesting to see how things shake out, according to the study counties that are super Trumpy (aka rural) are much more likely to under-report deaths. So states like the Dakotas might not be doing as well as we think.

Florida probably doesn't fit into that real well, though, since it's not super Trumpy and not rural at all.

-W

north florida is super trumpy and super rural. we re-elected matt gaetz.

[Just Joe]

Those are some very interesting findings indeed. It will be interesting to see how things shake out, according to the study counties that are super Trumpy (aka rural) are much more likely to under-report deaths. So states like the Dakotas might not be doing as well as we think.

There was a social media rumor flying around in my Trumpian part of the country that asserted that COVID deaths were being over-counted - and thus COVID was not nearly as dangerous as the media wants us to believe. Wonder how all that connects.

DW and I listen to the experts not rumor FWIW. Some Trump supporting relatives listen to the rumors rather than the experts.

[ericrugiero]

Wow, did you seriously compared Cuomo to DeSantis ??
NY was blindsided. Nobody was expecting it. Most people in America didn't think the virus was coming over here.
Cuomo took actions. Mainly mandating masks as early as April. NY new cases are now in the 1,xxx each day.
Meanwhile our Governor laughed at NY, even banning people from NY from coming in.
When Florida started to get hit hard a month ago, our Governor has done jack shit. Absolutely jack shit. He blames it on more testing. Still won't do jack shit. They need to kick this guy out of office seriously.

Sorry about resurrecting an old thread but I was looking for something about the vaccine testing when I found this.  Several different comments here about how bad Florida was doing and how good New York was doing.  With links to a couple of websites.  So I clicked on those websites today and wow has this flipped now. 

New York leading the US with 38.4 cases per 100K and Florida at 25.3 https://covidactnow.org/?s=1633574
And Florida having fewer cases per million every day (except 1) since December 4th https://covidtracking.com/data/charts/cases-per-million-by-state

and the one who appears ready to be kicked out of office is Cuomo but not because of covid related actions.

Deaths per 100K population might be a little more accurate than number of cases because some states tested more than others.  Not sure if that's true or not.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/1109011/coronavirus-covid19-death-rates-us-by-state/
States that I know personally didn't do as much to limit the spread (Florida, Tennessee, South Carolina, etc) seem to be middle of the road. 

[Roots&Wings]

Florida probably doesn't fit into that real well, though, since it's not super Trumpy and not rural at all.

FL state gov't is quite Trumpy - DeSantis is a key one. Everywhere outside the big FL cities is Trumpy and rural. Driving around, there are still plenty of Trump banners and flags flying.

[Michael in ABQ]

Florida probably doesn't fit into that real well, though, since it's not super Trumpy and not rural at all.

FL state gov't is quite Trumpy - DeSantis is a key one. Everywhere outside the big [INSERT STATE HERE] cities is Trumpy and rural. Driving around, there are still plenty of Trump banners and flags flying.

You realize you can replace FL with virtually every state in that sentence, right? Rural areas across the countries are heavily skewed Republican and urban areas are heavily skewed Democrat.

[JoJo]

There was a social media rumor flying around in my Trumpian part of the country that asserted that COVID deaths were being over-counted - and thus COVID was not nearly as dangerous as the media wants us to believe. Wonder how all that connects.

DW and I listen to the experts not rumor FWIW. Some Trump supporting relatives listen to the rumors rather than the experts.

The two most common ones I've seen are "deaths in 2020 are on par and/or lower than 2019" and "why aren't there any flu deaths this year?  maybe they are attributing all flu to covid".  I can dispel both of these.

As for the compare 2019 to 2020, part of the problem is death claims are delayed so you can't compare a point in time in 2020 to 2019 because 2019 will be all deaths and 2020 will only be those that have been reported thus far.

But the fact is, there are over 500K excess deaths in 2020 when compared to 2017-2019 that had very steady number of all causes deaths:
2017: 2,813,503
2018: 2,839,205
2019: 2,854,838
2020: 3,358,549

So 2020 is 503,711 higher than 2019, which is a 17.6% increase.  As of today, 377,650 of the excess deaths are attributable to COVID


As for the flu stats...   In prior years, flu PLUS pnemonia accounted for an average of 55,000 deaths.  Even if we take COVID out, there are way more flu + pnemonia cases in 2020 than the prior years.  I still have yet to see real stats on other causes of deaths vs other years such as suicide or drug overdose. 

[ericrugiero]

@JoJo Would you please share where those numbers came from?  Thanks 

[JoJo]

@JoJo Would you please share where those numbers came from?  Thanks

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm   (note, the 2020 numbers continue to change as there are still a few claims from 2020 deaths trickling in)

prior years, various CDC pages via google search

[dougules]

I don't know home much empirical research there's been on the subject, but there are noticeable patterns with COVID related to climate that look a lot like well-known patterns with the flu. South America had a tough time during their winter.  Europe and North America are having a tough time during northern winter, too.  The most southerly parts of the US had a big spike in the summer, exactly when people down here hole themselves up in the air conditioning to avoid the heat. I suspect it's not really fair to compare Florida's winter numbers to New York's winter numbers given the big difference in climate. 

Places with similar populations and weather (ie, Florida, California) and VASTLY different policies have broadly similar outcomes.

Florida and California absolutely don't have similar weather - humidity.  Also, both California and New York have had the luck of getting their own home-grown variants that may be distorting the comparison.

We know that the flu virus spreads faster in colder weather and stops spreading around 86F. This is why flu season happens in the winter months.

Does that occur with covid19?

The seasonality may be more of a connection with how and when people congregate rather than the weather's affect on the virus.

An internet search seems to suggest yes, but I'm not an epidemiologist.  I noticed that there's a clear pattern, and I'm curious to get any input from people who know more.  One way or the other, if there's a decent chance weather affects the spread whether directly or indirectly, then it's not really valid to compare outcomes in places with very different climates.

[Roots&Wings]

Florida probably doesn't fit into that real well, though, since it's not super Trumpy and not rural at all.

FL state gov't is quite Trumpy - DeSantis is a key one. Everywhere outside the big [INSERT STATE HERE] cities is Trumpy and rural. Driving around, there are still plenty of Trump banners and flags flying.

You realize you can replace FL with virtually every state in that sentence, right? Rural areas across the countries are heavily skewed Republican and urban areas are heavily skewed Democrat.

Oh yeah! With the possible exceptions of VT and HI. But this thread is specific to FL ;)

[waltworks]

Rural VT is super conservative. Anyone remember the "Take Back Vermont" folks? Those signs were all over every old crappy barn in the state for a while.

Rural HI (which does exist) is not as liberal as you would think either if you just looked at the state as a whole.

-W

[waltworks]

Slight hijack, but I'm keeping an eye on TX. Governor Abbot lifted pretty much all restrictions on March 10th (we'll be doing the same here in UT on April 11th) and it's now been 2 weeks, so long enough to start to see some changes in case numbers/etc.

Cases:
March 10th 4990
March 23rd 3504

Notably this is just a continuation of an existing trend.

Deaths
March 10th  190 (7 day average)
March 23rd  125

Again, existing trend has continued.

It's early yet, but so far, no disaster.

-W

[JGS1980]

Slight hijack, but I'm keeping an eye on TX. Governor Abbot lifted pretty much all restrictions on March 10th (we'll be doing the same here in UT on April 11th) and it's now been 2 weeks, so long enough to start to see some changes in case numbers/etc.

Cases:
March 10th 4990
March 23rd 3504

Notably this is just a continuation of an existing trend.

Deaths
March 10th  190 (7 day average)
March 23rd  125

Again, existing trend has continued.

It's early yet, but so far, no disaster.

-W

Keep up the updates, W

[waltworks]

My personal take is that the mask mandate wasn't changing behavior much anyway. The opening of businesses is a bigger deal and I would be surprised if there's no damage inflicted by that, but we'll see. 2 weeks isn't a long time. If we haven't seen any spikes in a month then I guess the guv was right.

It may be that there are enough immune people from exposure/vaccination that it just won't end up mattering.

Fl, for what it's worth, seems to have plateaued. If the spring break stories I see are any indication, they're also in the process of doing a real-world Covid test...

-W

[waltworks]

3401/123 today. The decline continues.

-W

[waltworks]

I missed a day. But for those who are bored/curious:
3/26: 3682/113 - more cases, fewer deaths
3/27: 3829/109 - cases up 10% from the March 23rd low, remains to be seen if this is just a blip, though. Deaths continue to decline.

-W

[OtherJen]

Hope your local numbers stay low, waltworks.

Ours are beginning to look a lot like the ones posted a year ago.

[waltworks]

Oh, I don't live in TX. There is essentially no Covid issue where I live at this point and life is basically normal.

I just think it's an interesting mask-mandate/"reopening" test case. I personally think another month of restrictions on businesses wouldn't have been a bad thing, but thus far there's not much evidence 2.5 weeks in that it's been harmful.

-W

[soccerluvof4]

Oh, I don't live in TX. There is essentially no Covid issue where I live at this point and life is basically normal.

I just think it's an interesting mask-mandate/"reopening" test case. I personally think another month of restrictions on businesses wouldn't have been a bad thing, but thus far there's not much evidence 2.5 weeks in that it's been harmful.

-W

I agree. Were starting to say a rise again in WI with everything opening up more and more nowhere to the old levels and death rate really dropping but I feel one more month could of made a huge difference with the rate there getting shots in the arms. So we do go out and though have had one shot will call around to see who has servers still wearing masks and we will go there before anywhere else.

[waltworks]

5/28: 3867/107

-W

[waltworks]

5/28: 4005/108

Also notable, today TX went below it's October hospitalization low point.

-W

[jehovasfitness23]

Cases rising across the country, hospitalizations will lag 4-6 weeks. Who could have predicted this

CDC director "worried about impending doom"   LOL can't make this stuff up

[Michael in ABQ]

Cases rising across the country, hospitalizations will lag 4-6 weeks. Who could have predicted this

CDC director "worried about impending doom"   LOL can't make this stuff up

Did Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts change something? Because those are the states with the most new cases right now. There's a large area of higher cases around NYC and in eastern Michigan. Florida is 12th on the list of new cases per capita.

[waltworks]

Cases rising across the country, hospitalizations will lag 4-6 weeks. Who could have predicted this

CDC director "worried about impending doom"   LOL can't make this stuff up

In the case of TX, there was actually a significant spike in cases in mid/late February before Abbot opened everything up/ended the mask mandate. It's been ~4 weeks since that (case levels roughly double the current level) and there has been, thus far, no spike in hospitalizations.

I can go back and edit posts to add hospitalization data if anyone is interested.

Vaccines have been given widely enough among the vulnerable population that the relationship between cases and hospitalizations/deaths will be quite a bit weaker going forward. That's really the only logical outcome at this point.

That's not to say that tons of new cases is a good thing, of course. More cases will still mean more deaths and hospitalizations, just not nearly as many as if nobody was vaccinated.

-W

[jehovasfitness23]

Cases rising across the country, hospitalizations will lag 4-6 weeks. Who could have predicted this

CDC director "worried about impending doom"   LOL can't make this stuff up

Did Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts change something? Because those are the states with the most new cases right now. There's a large area of higher cases around NYC and in eastern Michigan. Florida is 12th on the list of new cases per capita.

either way, it makes little sense to be lifting mask mandates in states while cases are once again rising. It's like FFS just keep masks and social distancing in place for another 3 months, by then tons more will be vaccinated and lives saved

[GuitarStv]

That's not to say that tons of new cases is a good thing, of course. More cases will still mean more deaths and hospitalizations, just not nearly as many as if nobody was vaccinated.

Also more long term sufferers of covid.  A number that we're not currently tracking, but could easily end up costing us more than the deaths have.

[waltworks]

It is indeed possible that there will be lots of long term sufferers, and that's another reason not to just go totally nuts.

We did see lots of predictions of disaster about the TX decision and FL's actions last year (including from me, though maybe "disaster" isn't the best description of my opinion), though, and the claims at that time focused on cases and deaths.

To be perfectly clear, it's still to early to say if lifting the mandate and reopening businesses in TX (or keeping them open in FL) was a good idea. But thus far I, and everyone else who thought FL/TX should wait has been wrong if we're basing that judgement on cases/hospitalizations/deaths. If you are coming from a more risk averse perspective and concerned about lower probability/lower harm outcomes then it will be years before we can really judge those decisions.

-W

[jrhampt]

Cases rising across the country, hospitalizations will lag 4-6 weeks. Who could have predicted this

CDC director "worried about impending doom"   LOL can't make this stuff up

Did Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts change something? Because those are the states with the most new cases right now. There's a large area of higher cases around NYC and in eastern Michigan. Florida is 12th on the list of new cases per capita.

Idk about the others, but CT is basically totally reopen as of March 19th.  We still have a mask mandate though.  I suspect it’s mostly that we’re where a larger concentration of the more contagious UK variant is proliferating right now.

[OtherJen]

Cases rising across the country, hospitalizations will lag 4-6 weeks. Who could have predicted this

CDC director "worried about impending doom"   LOL can't make this stuff up

Did Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts change something? Because those are the states with the most new cases right now. There's a large area of higher cases around NYC and in eastern Michigan. Florida is 12th on the list of new cases per capita.

Here in Michigan, we opened up all of the schools, restaurants, and bars. That's it. Hospitalizations are increasing most among people younger than 50 years (i.e., those not eligible for vaccination yet).

Gee, who could have predicted this?

[OtherJen]

Also, didn't New York reopen restaurants on Valentine's Day weekend?

[cliffhanger]

Also, didn't New York reopen restaurants on Valentine's Day weekend?

Seems like Cuomo loosens restrictions every time there's a new sexual assault allegation against him. At this rate NY will be more open than FL very soon.