Author Topic: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response  (Read 108032 times)

cliffhanger

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #200 on: March 30, 2021, 06:35:57 AM »
More seriously, have y'all considered that cases may transcend government policy?

States that have forcibly shut everything down, states that haven't had mask mandates, states that have had schools open the whole time. All have suffered from covid in their own way at some point.

Just look through this thread. How it started with chastising the FL response when they weren't doing well case-wise during the summer. But when disaster didn't strike, tons of excuses were thrown around: the weather, individuals are still wearing masks, businesses shut themselves down, etc. It's clearly not as simple as all that. How about having a little grace, because the only thing that is clear is that we have no idea who will be suffering from this tomorrow.

OtherJen

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #201 on: March 30, 2021, 07:01:12 AM »
More seriously, have y'all considered that cases may transcend government policy?

States that have forcibly shut everything down, states that haven't had mask mandates, states that have had schools open the whole time. All have suffered from covid in their own way at some point.

Just look through this thread. How it started with chastising the FL response when they weren't doing well case-wise during the summer. But when disaster didn't strike, tons of excuses were thrown around: the weather, individuals are still wearing masks, businesses shut themselves down, etc. It's clearly not as simple as all that. How about having a little grace, because the only thing that is clear is that we have no idea who will be suffering from this tomorrow.

Gee, why didn't any of us think of that at any point in the last 12 months? [/sarcasm]

Over the past year, Michigan has gotten its infection rate under control only when strict limits were imposed or during summer, when people were outside (and not in schools) and all of the festivals and concerts were cancelled. Under strict limits, the outbreaks seem to be worst in areas where the residents tend to make fun of and/or threaten "liberal sheeple" and protest even basic measures like mask wearing in privately owned businesses. We won't see further restrictions, unfortunately, because I suspect that Governor Whitmer is rightly afraid of assassination, given the kidnapping attempt against her. I doubt it helps that the co-chair of the state-level opposing party organized 19 buses to attend the January 6 rally that turned into the Capitol siege.

I also disagree completely that "we have no idea who will be suffering from this tomorrow." Both science and common sense suggest otherwise. Schools and and related sports travel opened back up in February, followed by a spike in cases among teenagers. Restaurant and bar capacity restrictions were eased in time for St. Patrick's day, and airlines were offering cheap flights from Detroit Metro to Fort Lauderdale for spring break. We're now seeing a spike among people in their 20s. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/covid-cases-spiking-again-michigan-gov-whitmer-making-no-move-n1262408

I don't follow other states' situations closely because I have no intention of visiting other states until 1. I am fully vaccinated (not currently eligible) and 2. the pandemic situation is better under control. I live here. I work here. I pay taxes here and use the local medical facilities. Professional epidemiologists (i.e., not those from the Youtube School of Hard Knocks) have said repeatedly that the state measures have worked when enforced. Good enough for me.

cliffhanger

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #202 on: March 30, 2021, 08:27:00 AM »
Gee, why didn't any of us think of that at any point in the last 12 months? [/sarcasm]

It's not believable when the reaction here to FL doing poorly is this:
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This question is just for Floridians:

Hate to be so direct, but what the hell is wrong with your state?
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Florida is the state with the second highest % of the population being senior citizens, what could possibly go wrong?

Right? I mean, my God, at least you'd think the Republicans should be trying to preserve their voting base.
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The great state of Florida just reported another record day today. 3800 new cases.
Ours stupid governor won't take action. At least some of the local mayors are taking actions.

Then this thread is ignored until months later when FL is the in bottom 50% of cases and deaths per 100k. And here's the reaction:
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I would take the official numbers from the Florida Dept of Health with tons of pink himalayan salt.
Shenanigans in Tallahassee.
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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.
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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.

We see government inaction and think this is a disaster. But it's so much more complicated. We don't have any idea who will be suffering tomorrow. Otherwise we'd be able to point to states that have gone against the "science" and eased "common sense" restrictions a long time ago (FL) and be able to pinpoint what went wrong. Instead we're searching for excuses as to why disaster didn't strike.

bacchi

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #203 on: March 30, 2021, 09:34:12 AM »
We see government inaction and think this is a disaster. But it's so much more complicated. We don't have any idea who will be suffering tomorrow. Otherwise we'd be able to point to states that have gone against the "science" and eased "common sense" restrictions a long time ago (FL) and be able to pinpoint what went wrong. Instead we're searching for excuses as to why disaster didn't strike.

We can point to South Dakota and make educated guesses about what went wrong. They didn't use masks or shut down. We can also use Vermont, which did require masks and did shut down early.

People were suggesting explanations because Florida isn't so clear cut. That's because it is complicated. No one suggested otherwise.


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A fun tool I found: https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm.

By population, Florida is doing better than Texas and California. We can also see that Florida had significant excess mortality starting in July into September and then had another spike in early January into February. I'm sure people can come up with "excuses" about why those spikes happened at those points in time.

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #204 on: March 30, 2021, 09:46:26 AM »
Well, yeah. We DID make educated guesses - hence the title of this thread.

I/we were wrong, at least so far. Retroactive explanations are great, but when you throw your hat in the ring and make a prediction, you've gotta own it when you don't get it right.

The story is complicated, of course. But it's still fair to say that Florida's Covid19 response (or lack thereof, really) did not lead to the disaster anyone was envisioning when the thread started.

-W

bacchi

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #205 on: March 30, 2021, 10:09:16 AM »
The story is complicated, of course. But it's still fair to say that Florida's Covid19 response (or lack thereof, really) did not lead to the disaster anyone was envisioning when the thread started.

While true, the following statement doesn't follow: "We don't have any idea who will be suffering tomorrow."

That's an absurd statement. Of course we have some idea. If I stick around my house avoiding everyone and wipe down my grocery deliveries, my chance of getting Covid is pretty damn low. Similarly, if I wear a mask and avoid large beach parties, my chances are lower than someone who parties all summer and goes to a packed Supreme Court nomination conference.


Tyler durden

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #206 on: March 30, 2021, 12:48:10 PM »
More seriously, have y'all considered that cases may transcend government policy?

States that have forcibly shut everything down, states that haven't had mask mandates, states that have had schools open the whole time. All have suffered from covid in their own way at some point.

Just look through this thread. How it started with chastising the FL response when they weren't doing well case-wise during the summer. But when disaster didn't strike, tons of excuses were thrown around: the weather, individuals are still wearing masks, businesses shut themselves down, etc. It's clearly not as simple as all that. How about having a little grace, because the only thing that is clear is that we have no idea who will be suffering from this tomorrow.

Cliffhanger seriously? you know very well why SOME people have certain views. its politics pure and simple.

Florida with Republican Governor = BAD
California or any other blue state = GOOD

blue states lockdowns = good
red state opens = bad

Politics is a horrible way to look at it.

Funny no one mentioned TX yet. They opened up fully what 20 days ago and the absolute armageddon that was predicted didnt happen and isnt happening now. So who exactly is thinking like a Neanderthal ?

jehovasfitness23

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #207 on: March 30, 2021, 12:55:03 PM »
More seriously, have y'all considered that cases may transcend government policy?

States that have forcibly shut everything down, states that haven't had mask mandates, states that have had schools open the whole time. All have suffered from covid in their own way at some point.

Just look through this thread. How it started with chastising the FL response when they weren't doing well case-wise during the summer. But when disaster didn't strike, tons of excuses were thrown around: the weather, individuals are still wearing masks, businesses shut themselves down, etc. It's clearly not as simple as all that. How about having a little grace, because the only thing that is clear is that we have no idea who will be suffering from this tomorrow.

Cliffhanger seriously? you know very well why SOME people have certain views. its politics pure and simple.

Florida with Republican Governor = BAD
California or any other blue state = GOOD

blue states lockdowns = good
red state opens = bad

Politics is a horrible way to look at it.

Funny no one mentioned TX yet. They opened up fully what 20 days ago and the absolute armageddon that was predicted didnt happen and isnt happening now. So who exactly is thinking like a Neanderthal ?

I'd give it 6 weeks before declaring mission accomplished. That said, numbers can go down for a variety of reasons, that does not mean that efforts to reduce risk wouldn't have lowered the numbers more. This isn't complicated.

Tyler durden

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #208 on: March 30, 2021, 01:12:49 PM »
Jehovas - i think it is complicated though.

What I mean is there is a balance right? risk will never be zero, yet kids need to be in school and business need to open. Locking everyone in their house they way the CCP did would mitigate risk even more but, again balance.

There is real damage being done to kids falling behind and not learning, as well as business's going belly up all over the country. It's a hard job for any politician to know when is the perfect exact right time to reopen. FL is being laughed at on this thread yet they have proven more competent than places like CA.

I mean if there were any semblance of balance and not total group think on this board there would be a side by side thread "Oh, New York!!! COVID 19 Response". but there aint. why not?

bacchi

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #209 on: March 30, 2021, 01:33:15 PM »
Jehovas - i think it is complicated though.

What I mean is there is a balance right? risk will never be zero, yet kids need to be in school and business need to open. Locking everyone in their house they way the CCP did would mitigate risk even more but, again balance.

Of course there's a balance and a lot of people felt that some governors were tilted too far towards profits over people.

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FL is being laughed at on this thread yet they have proven more competent than places like CA.

The difference between the top 3 populous states is minimal. Florida is doing .006% better than California, adjusting for underreporting and compared to the expected mortality.

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm

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I mean if there were any semblance of balance and not total group think on this board there would be a side by side thread "Oh, New York!!! COVID 19 Response". but there aint. why not?

Because no one felt to start one. Feel free to do so.

GuitarStv

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #210 on: March 30, 2021, 02:24:14 PM »
Here's a scenario for you.  There's a crazy guy with a gun, pointing it at your child.  You scream "Shoot the little fucker, I want him to die" to the gunman.  The gunman pulls the trigger and the gun misfires, disabling the gunman without hurting anyone else.  Are you a reckless idiot?  Well, if we only look at end result - gunman disabled, kid safe . . . I guess you can claim to be a hero.  But when making that call there's no way you could have known it would work out.  It was a risk you were taking with the lives of others, and you got lucky.

Early on in the pandemic were the actions of those like DeSantis in line with the recommendations of the health care professionals he was supposed to be consulting?  Did they make sense based upon the data available at the time?  Or was there some other reason they were made?

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #211 on: March 30, 2021, 02:37:43 PM »
I guess you can say FL (and now TX, so far) "got lucky" but that's sort of a tacit admission that mitigation efforts elsewhere weren't very effective - if everything is just random, and we're doing specific and definite economic/social harm by shutting things down, why not just throw caution to the wind? Note that I'm not arguing for doing that, but "they got lucky" is a lame way to excuse yourself/myself from being wrong.

And, daily TX numbers for everyone:
3/29: 4088/99 - cases still slowly rising, deaths still falling

Hospitalizations are at a series low of 3951, but that series only starts in September 2020. 

-W

jehovasfitness23

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #212 on: March 30, 2021, 02:56:32 PM »
Here's a scenario for you.  There's a crazy guy with a gun, pointing it at your child.  You scream "Shoot the little fucker, I want him to die" to the gunman.  The gunman pulls the trigger and the gun misfires, disabling the gunman without hurting anyone else.  Are you a reckless idiot?  Well, if we only look at end result - gunman disabled, kid safe . . . I guess you can claim to be a hero.  But when making that call there's no way you could have known it would work out.  It was a risk you were taking with the lives of others, and you got lucky.

Early on in the pandemic were the actions of those like DeSantis in line with the recommendations of the health care professionals he was supposed to be consulting?  Did they make sense based upon the data available at the time?  Or was there some other reason they were made?

You continue to be the voice of reason in a sea of virus particles.

ericrugiero

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #213 on: March 30, 2021, 03:04:21 PM »
Here's a scenario for you.  There's a crazy guy with a gun, pointing it at your child.  You scream "Shoot the little fucker, I want him to die" to the gunman.  The gunman pulls the trigger and the gun misfires, disabling the gunman without hurting anyone else.  Are you a reckless idiot?  Well, if we only look at end result - gunman disabled, kid safe . . . I guess you can claim to be a hero.  But when making that call there's no way you could have known it would work out.  It was a risk you were taking with the lives of others, and you got lucky.

Early on in the pandemic were the actions of those like DeSantis in line with the recommendations of the health care professionals he was supposed to be consulting?  Did they make sense based upon the data available at the time?  Or was there some other reason they were made?

There have been healthcare professionals making all kinds of different recommendation throughout this pandemic.  I have no idea how many DeSantis was listening to and neither do you.  That's been one of the difficult parts of this whole situation.  There is so much conflicting information out there (from medical professionals) that you don't know what to believe.  That's especially true when many of the predictions made have been so wrong. 

jehovasfitness23

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #214 on: March 30, 2021, 03:21:36 PM »
Here's a scenario for you.  There's a crazy guy with a gun, pointing it at your child.  You scream "Shoot the little fucker, I want him to die" to the gunman.  The gunman pulls the trigger and the gun misfires, disabling the gunman without hurting anyone else.  Are you a reckless idiot?  Well, if we only look at end result - gunman disabled, kid safe . . . I guess you can claim to be a hero.  But when making that call there's no way you could have known it would work out.  It was a risk you were taking with the lives of others, and you got lucky.

Early on in the pandemic were the actions of those like DeSantis in line with the recommendations of the health care professionals he was supposed to be consulting?  Did they make sense based upon the data available at the time?  Or was there some other reason they were made?

There have been healthcare professionals making all kinds of different recommendation throughout this pandemic.  I have no idea how many DeSantis was listening to and neither do you.  That's been one of the difficult parts of this whole situation.  There is so much conflicting information out there (from medical professionals) that you don't know what to believe.  That's especially true when many of the predictions made have been so wrong.

It may vary a little, but the core principles of masking and social distancing have not changed.

If you asked most epidemiologists and virologists, the vast majority wouldn't be in any indoor setting that wouldn't allow for a mask, such as bars or dine-in restaurants.  Granted, the latter is more economic policy for business reasons, but the masking and social distancing are the key things to do,

GuitarStv

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #215 on: March 30, 2021, 03:37:41 PM »
Here's a scenario for you.  There's a crazy guy with a gun, pointing it at your child.  You scream "Shoot the little fucker, I want him to die" to the gunman.  The gunman pulls the trigger and the gun misfires, disabling the gunman without hurting anyone else.  Are you a reckless idiot?  Well, if we only look at end result - gunman disabled, kid safe . . . I guess you can claim to be a hero.  But when making that call there's no way you could have known it would work out.  It was a risk you were taking with the lives of others, and you got lucky.

Early on in the pandemic were the actions of those like DeSantis in line with the recommendations of the health care professionals he was supposed to be consulting?  Did they make sense based upon the data available at the time?  Or was there some other reason they were made?

There have been healthcare professionals making all kinds of different recommendation throughout this pandemic.  I have no idea how many DeSantis was listening to and neither do you.  That's been one of the difficult parts of this whole situation.  There is so much conflicting information out there (from medical professionals) that you don't know what to believe.  That's especially true when many of the predictions made have been so wrong.

It may vary a little, but the core principles of masking and social distancing have not changed.

If you asked most epidemiologists and virologists, the vast majority wouldn't be in any indoor setting that wouldn't allow for a mask, such as bars or dine-in restaurants.  Granted, the latter is more economic policy for business reasons, but the masking and social distancing are the key things to do,

The only time there was any debate about mask policy was early on during the pandemic when Fauci and the CDC lied to everyone that masks were unnecessary because they were afraid of shortages in hospitals.  And even then there wasn't any real debate - it was done to try to prevent hospitals from running out, and reversed as soon as enough supply was obtained.

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #216 on: March 30, 2021, 05:41:14 PM »
I read, but don't recall where, a CDC study that showed masks to be at least a little bit effective. Not super effective, but it's not like it's hard to wear a mask, so why not do it?

Thanks to Trump (with an assist from Fauci), masks got turned into a political football, of course, where people on both sides of the aisle lost their minds about something that should have been boring and easy and also not super effective but better than nothing. Given the angst produced by the masks, I'd rather have spent the political capital on getting people not to have halloween parties or push each other out of the way looking for the best bag of cold cuts at the store, but c'est la vie.

-W

RetiredAt63

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #217 on: March 30, 2021, 06:19:08 PM »
Given all the stories I hear here and elsewhere about people not being tested when they are sick, not seeing a doctor, etc., the only American numbers I have even a bit of faith in are hospitalizations and deaths.  And not all that much in them.

I don't totally trust Canadian numbers either from some provinces, but I think they are closer in accuracy.

sailinlight

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #218 on: March 30, 2021, 06:48:55 PM »
I read, but don't recall where, a CDC study that showed masks to be at least a little bit effective. Not super effective, but it's not like it's hard to wear a mask, so why not do it?

Well here's a study from 2015 showing it's not a good idea to wear a cloth mask that many people seem to do these days.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150422121724.htm

Tyler durden

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #219 on: March 30, 2021, 07:48:08 PM »
Here's a scenario for you.  There's a crazy guy with a gun, pointing it at your child.  You scream "Shoot the little fucker, I want him to die" to the gunman.  The gunman pulls the trigger and the gun misfires, disabling the gunman without hurting anyone else.  Are you a reckless idiot?  Well, if we only look at end result - gunman disabled, kid safe . . . I guess you can claim to be a hero.  But when making that call there's no way you could have known it would work out.  It was a risk you were taking with the lives of others, and you got lucky.

Early on in the pandemic were the actions of those like DeSantis in line with the recommendations of the health care professionals he was supposed to be consulting?  Did they make sense based upon the data available at the time?  Or was there some other reason they were made?

I get the analogy but dont think its a great fit.

Everyday business and schools are not open their is ongoing damage. People lose business they spent their lives building, kids fall behind in school or worse get suicidal and act on it. Governors like Desantis made a judgement call. A difficult judgement call. At this state, I give the man more credit for sticking to his convictions and the science than backing down in the face of national mockery and criticism. Mockery and criticism that should be reserved for people like Cuomo in NY. ( see news items on nursing home deaths and hiding covid data )

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #220 on: March 30, 2021, 08:06:03 PM »
I read, but don't recall where, a CDC study that showed masks to be at least a little bit effective. Not super effective, but it's not like it's hard to wear a mask, so why not do it?

Well here's a study from 2015 showing it's not a good idea to wear a cloth mask that many people seem to do these days.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150422121724.htm

If you go read the study you'll note that they did not compare to wearing nothing: "Objective The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of cloth masks to medical masks in hospital healthcare workers (HCWs). The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between medical masks and cloth masks."

The study was intended to show (and did) that using random cloth masks is inferior to medical masks. Not to show that cloth masks are worse than nothing, which was not studied.

-W

cliffhanger

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #221 on: March 31, 2021, 06:04:11 AM »
I read, but don't recall where, a CDC study that showed masks to be at least a little bit effective. Not super effective, but it's not like it's hard to wear a mask, so why not do it?

Well here's a study from 2015 showing it's not a good idea to wear a cloth mask that many people seem to do these days.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/04/150422121724.htm

If you go read the study you'll note that they did not compare to wearing nothing: "Objective The aim of this study was to compare the efficacy of cloth masks to medical masks in hospital healthcare workers (HCWs). The null hypothesis is that there is no difference between medical masks and cloth masks."

The study was intended to show (and did) that using random cloth masks is inferior to medical masks. Not to show that cloth masks are worse than nothing, which was not studied.

-W

This kind of ties in to my big problem with Fauci's 'noble lie.'
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There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

He later claimed his statement was meant to dissuade folks from stockpiling medical masks. But what did we all do a month later, and still today? We're all still wearing non-medical cloth 'face coverings' for the most part. The CDC was showing us how to make our own at home. No need to shore up supply for the medical community. We're also doing exactly what he said about unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and touching their face.

The 'noble lie' ruined his credible as a scientist and made him a politician in my view. I haven't had any luck finding data concerning the efficacy of masks to reduce asymptomatic spread. Be happy to read through anything you can find.

The simplest explanation to me is that he said exactly what he thought at first. And the lie was claiming his statement was a lie.

GuitarStv

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #222 on: March 31, 2021, 07:13:53 AM »
This kind of ties in to my big problem with Fauci's 'noble lie.'
Quote
There’s no reason to be walking around with a mask. When you’re in the middle of an outbreak, wearing a mask might make people feel a little bit better and it might even block a droplet, but it’s not providing the perfect protection that people think that it is. And, often, there are unintended consequences — people keep fiddling with the mask and they keep touching their face.

He later claimed his statement was meant to dissuade folks from stockpiling medical masks. But what did we all do a month later, and still today? We're all still wearing non-medical cloth 'face coverings' for the most part. The CDC was showing us how to make our own at home. No need to shore up supply for the medical community. We're also doing exactly what he said about unintended consequences, people keep fiddling with the mask and touching their face.

The 'noble lie' ruined his credible as a scientist and made him a politician in my view. I haven't had any luck finding data concerning the efficacy of masks to reduce asymptomatic spread. Be happy to read through anything you can find.

The simplest explanation to me is that he said exactly what he thought at first. And the lie was claiming his statement was a lie.

I agree with you.  Fauci's lie about masks was probably his biggest misstep in the whole pandemic, and certainly helped to push Mr. Trump's lies about mask wearing.  He did a great disservice to the whole country with it.

That said there are plenty of studies concerning cloth masks.  They're not as good as medical grade masks, but do help:

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Cloth face mask is less efficacious as compared to surgical mask and N95 masks; they must be preserved for the frontline health-care providers and high risk people. Therefore, cloth face mask maybe used by people in high-risk situations like closed, crowded public spaces where there is high risk of close physical proximity with other people. However, wearing face mask may give a false sense of security to the wearer, which may contribute to low hand hygiene compliance, poor respiratory etiquettes, breaching norms of social distancing, and risk of repeated touching of nose and face to adjust the face mask.[32] Therefore, people must be educated that cloth face mask should be used as complimentary measure of infection prevention along with meticulous hand washing, social distancing, respiratory etiquettes and avoid touching nose, face, or mask without hand washing.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7497125/


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To our knowledge, this is the first review to descriptively synthesize and evaluate the best available evidence on the efficacy of cloth masks, providing relevant and useful information that can guide public health guidelines during the current COVID-19 pandemic. To date, there are little data to make definite recommendations as only one RCT [14] and a few observational studies [10,20,21] have been conducted on this topic. When assessing the overall clinical efficacy of cloth masks compared to surgical masks, two factors must be considered: inward and outward protection. The general consensus of the included studies is that cloth masks confer some degree of inward and outward protection, but are less effective than surgical masks and N95 respirators [10,14,20,21].

The clinical efficacy of a face mask is determined by the filtration efficacy of the material, fit of the mask, and compliance to wearing the mask [21]. Filtration efficacy of a material is the ability to function in both inward and outward protective gear. In general, household fabrics such as cotton T-shirts and towels [16,20] have some filtration efficacy and were shown to have some protection against virus-containing particles. However, the percentage of penetration in cloth masks was higher than surgical masks or N95 respirators. One study, however, suggested that a reusable cloth mask can have the same filtration efficacy as a surgical mask (98.8%) [18].

Surgical and cloth masks provide less outward protection partly due to the weaker seal around these masks. When pressurized droplets or aerosolized particles are released from the user (e.g., during a cough or sneeze), these particles have a higher likelihood of escaping from the sides than the front of the mask due to the mask’s fit. Cloth masks are inferior to surgical masks or N95 respirators when assessing the fit of the mask [20]. There is greater opportunity for air leakage around the sides of a cloth mask than the other two mask types, which decreases its ability to contain particles released by the user. However, Dato et al. showed a reasonable fit of their homemade mask in a letter to the editor of Emerging Infectious Disease. They presented a protocol for homemade 100% cotton masks that yielded a fit factor up to 67 (N95 respirators must have a fit factor of at least 100). Their homemade mask provided significant protection in an aerosol challenge. The recommended use of these masks was in situations where N95 respirators were unavailable [27].

Quote
Cloth masks are shown to have limited inward protection in healthcare settings where viral exposure is high but may be beneficial for outward protection in low-risk settings and use by the general public where no other alternatives to medical masks are available. During unprecedented times, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, when some organizations like the CDC are suggesting the general population to use cloth masks in public settings, further studies on cloth masks are imperative. The current data are not enough to guide clinical decision-making. Given that cloth masks are used when the supply of surgical masks is low, it is important to assess the true efficacy of cloth masks compared to not wearing any masks.


Quote
Multiple studies show the filtration effects of cloth masks relative to surgical masks. Particle sizes for speech are on the order of 1 µm (20) while typical definitions of droplet size are 5 µm-10 µm (5). Generally available household materials had between a 49% and 86% filtration rate for 0.02 µm exhaled particles whereas surgical masks filtered 89% of those particles (21). In a laboratory setting, household materials had 3% to 60% filtration rate for particles in the relevant size range, finding them comparable to some surgical masks (22). In another laboratory setup, a tea cloth mask was found to filter 60% of particles between 0.02 µm to 1 µm, where surgical masks filtered 75% (23). Dato et al (2006) (24), note that "quality commercial masks are not always accessible." They designed and tested a mask made from heavyweight T-shirts, finding that it "offered substantial protection from the challenge aerosol and showed good fit with minimal
leakage".Although cloth and surgical masks are primarily targeted towards droplet particles, some evidence suggests they may have a partial effect in reducing viral aerosol shedding (25).

Quote
. Based on our detailed discussion above, cloth masks have not been shown to increase the risk of infection in people using them compared to not wearing any mask. While the focus of this article has been
on preventing the spread of COVID-19 disease through public mask wearing, many low-middle income countries face concurrent epidemics of diseases like tuberculosis. Tuberculosis kills 1.5 million people globally per year, and in 2018, 10 million people fell ill (85). Face covering has been shown to also reduce the transmission of tuberculosis (86) and offer additional benefits to public mask wearing. Similarly, influenza transmissibility in the community was found to have declined by 44% in Hong Kong after the implementation of changes in population behaviors, including social distancing and increased mask wearing, enforced in most stores, during the COVID-19 outbreak (82).

Quote
Models suggest that public mask wearing is most effective at stopping spread of the virus when compliance is high. This is the same situation as we see with vaccines - the more people are vaccinated, the higher the benefit to the whole population including those who cannot be vaccinated like infants or immuno-compromised people. A common policy response to this conundrum is to ensure compliance by using laws and regulations, such as widespread state laws in the US which require vaccinations to attend school. Research shows that the strength of the mandate to vaccinate greatly influences compliance rates for vaccines and that policies that set a higher bar for vaccine exemptions result in higher vaccination rates. (96)
The same approach is now being used in many jurisdictions to increase mask wearing compliance, by mandating mask use in a variety of settings (such as public transportation or grocery stores or even at all times outside the home). Early results suggest that these laws are effective at increasing compliance and slowing or stopping the spread of COVID-19 (91). We recommend that mask use requirements are implemented by governments, or when governments do not, by organizations that provide public-facing services, such as transit service providers or stores, as "no mask, no service" rules. Such mandates must be accompanied by measures to ensure access to masks, possibly including distribution and rationing mechanisms so that they do not become discriminatory but remain focused on the public health benefit. Given the value of the source control principle, especially for presymptomatic people, it is not good enough for only employees to wear masks, customers must wear masks as well.

https://files.fast.ai/papers/masks_lit_review.pdf

Quote
The effectiveness of cloth masks to protect wearers from airborne particles, when studied previously, has been shown to be a function of both materials and fit. Anticipating the need to produce face coverings
from readily-available materials, several studies used standard methods for materials testing to compare
the filtration efficiency of materials such as cotton t-shirts, sweatshirts, handkerchiefs, and towels with the
filtration efficiency of facepiece respirators (N95 masks) and surgical masks (Cooper et al. 1983a; OSHA
1998; van der Sande et al. 2008; Rengasamy et al. 2010; ASTM 2017b; a; 2019a; b). While none of these
materials produced filtration efficiency close to respirators such as N95s, cotton cloth facemasks were
found to provide about half the protection of standard surgical masks against airborne particles (van der
Sande et al. 2008), while an elastic layer (e.g., nylon stocking) placed over the mask material was found
to improve filtration efficiency of loose-fitting masks by minimizing air flow around the cloth layers
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf

Then there are the studies showing that mask wearing is the most economic way to tackle the pandemic:
Quote
Our SEIR and ABM models suggests a substantial impact of timely universal masking. Without masking, but even with continued social distancing in place once the lockdown is lifted, the infection rate will increase and almost half of the population will become affected. This scenario would potentially lead to over a million deaths in a population the size of the UK. Social distancing and masking at both 50% and 80-90% of the population but no lockdown beyond the end of May result in substantial reduction of infection, with 80-90% masking eventually eliminating the disease.

Moreover, for a significant chance of mitigating infection growth rates, universal masking must be adopted
earlyby day 50 from the onset of COVID-19 outbreaks. Without masking, lifting lockdown after nine weeks
while keeping social distancing measures will risk a major second wave of the epidemic in 4-5 months’ time. However, if four out of five citizens start wearing cloth masks in public before the lockdown is lifted, the number of new COVID-19 cases could decline enough to exit lockdown and still avoid a second wave of the epidemic. If only every second person starts wearing a mask, infection rates would also decline substantially, but likely not by enough to prevent the second wave.

Combined with the correlational empirical evidence, our results highlight the need for mass masking as an alternative to a continued lockdown scenario. For this strategy to be most effective, the vast majority of the population needs to adopt mask wearing immediately. When a well-timed “mouth-and-nose lockdown” accompanies the current “full body lockdown”, both the human and economic costs of the COVID-19 pandemic can be significantly lowered.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2004.13553.pdf

Then there are studies like this one that show the huge amount of particles that are aerosolized when a person who is unmasked speaks:  https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMc2007800.  Obviously, cloth masks trap a majority of these particles limiting transmission vectors of covid 19.


There are of course, multiple anecdotal reports - like these hairdressers who saw 140 people while masked and infected with covid  . . .  and didn't transmit the disease:  https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/06/17/masks-salons-missouri/ or this man who hopped on a plane with a covid infection . . . but because he was wearing a mask the 25 people around him tested negative for the disease https://www.cmaj.ca/content/192/15/E410.






If DeSantis really gave a shit about the economy he would be rabidly pro-masking.  Mask laws allow for safer and quicker re-opening with less risk for everyone else.  DeSantis anti-mask stance throughout the pandemic has been very strange, and contrary to all evidence we have.  Now, I'm not sure if Fauci lying to the public in the hopes that it would lead to better health outcomes is any better than DeSantis risking lives to for purely political reasons . . . but both should certainly draw ire from reasonable people.

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #223 on: March 31, 2021, 07:32:56 AM »
The masks are a distraction regardless. It's the opening (or not closing) of businesses/schools that really matters for both economic and social/health reasons.

Like I said before, the mask debate is stupid. It's just not important enough to worry about.

-W

GuitarStv

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #224 on: March 31, 2021, 07:56:13 AM »
Like I said before, the mask debate is stupid. It's just not important enough to worry about.

I agree that mask debate is stupid - if you look at the evidence there is no debate at all.  However, that same evidence says that mask wearing is more effective than lockdowns . . . so it's odd that you don't consider this important enough to worry about.  I'd figure you wanted to re-open things more quickly.  The data indicates that wearing masks will do that.

By the River

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #225 on: March 31, 2021, 08:16:53 AM »
A minor source of irritation to me concerning masks and Dr. Fauci.  The opening game of the baseball season last year and Dr. Fauci was selected to throw out the first pitch for the Washington Baseball Team.  He goes out to the pitcher's mound where he is 60 feet 6 inches from anyone and throws the pitch while wearing a mask.  Ok, no problem.   Later in the game, the cameras show him in the stands sitting next to two other people with his mask around his chin.  I assume one was his wife so that's understandable but who was the other middle age man sitting next to him.  Had he been quarantining with the doctor?   

OtherJen

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #226 on: March 31, 2021, 08:28:28 AM »
Oh, goody. [/sarcasm]

Florida's COVID-19 Variant Cases Continue to Rise as State Has Most in US: CDC

Quote
Florida's COVID-19 variant cases continue to rise as the state leads the nation in the number of cases caused by variants, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control.

CDC figures released Sunday showed 2,274 cases of the U.K. variant B.1.1.7 in Florida, along with 42 cases of the Brazil variant P.1 and 14 cases of the South Africa variant B.1.351.

The next closest state to Florida, Michigan, has 1,242 variant cases reported, according to the CDC.

CDC officials say the variants seem to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, which may lead to more cases of COVID-19.

Officials said although early data suggests that the vaccines may work against some variants, they could be less effective against others.

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #227 on: March 31, 2021, 08:58:05 AM »
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

This is for influenza, not Covid, though.

-W

jinga nation

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #228 on: March 31, 2021, 09:41:52 AM »
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/5/19-0994_article

This is for influenza, not Covid, though.

-W

Yeah, but the response from the Guvnor has been to treat COVID-19 as a strong flu. If he'd done the bare minimum of making a statewide mask policy like NC and other states, we'd be better off. Instead he pandered and pondered and puttered, leaving it to individual counties and cities, and then moaning about it. He didn't start out badly, but he bent over easily for Trump and the GOP.
And the state's numbers are still suspect. Fudgery is the MO in Tallahassee.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2021, 09:46:08 AM by jinga nation »

LifeHappens

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #229 on: March 31, 2021, 09:55:52 AM »
Oh, goody. [/sarcasm]

Florida's COVID-19 Variant Cases Continue to Rise as State Has Most in US: CDC

Quote
Florida's COVID-19 variant cases continue to rise as the state leads the nation in the number of cases caused by variants, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control.

CDC figures released Sunday showed 2,274 cases of the U.K. variant B.1.1.7 in Florida, along with 42 cases of the Brazil variant P.1 and 14 cases of the South Africa variant B.1.351.

The next closest state to Florida, Michigan, has 1,242 variant cases reported, according to the CDC.

CDC officials say the variants seem to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, which may lead to more cases of COVID-19.

Officials said although early data suggests that the vaccines may work against some variants, they could be less effective against others.
It seems like half the state of Michigan has been to Florida in the past month, so good luck to you.

OtherJen

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #230 on: March 31, 2021, 10:46:45 AM »
Oh, goody. [/sarcasm]

Florida's COVID-19 Variant Cases Continue to Rise as State Has Most in US: CDC

Quote
Florida's COVID-19 variant cases continue to rise as the state leads the nation in the number of cases caused by variants, according to the latest report from the Centers for Disease Control.

CDC figures released Sunday showed 2,274 cases of the U.K. variant B.1.1.7 in Florida, along with 42 cases of the Brazil variant P.1 and 14 cases of the South Africa variant B.1.351.

The next closest state to Florida, Michigan, has 1,242 variant cases reported, according to the CDC.

CDC officials say the variants seem to spread more easily and quickly than other variants, which may lead to more cases of COVID-19.

Officials said although early data suggests that the vaccines may work against some variants, they could be less effective against others.
It seems like half the state of Michigan has been to Florida in the past month, so good luck to you.

Pretty much. I know people who are there on vacation now, and the snowbirds are returning.

jinga nation

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #231 on: March 31, 2021, 11:34:24 AM »
just to add, a lot of us Floridians went for Spring Break to NC for some nice cool weather and respite from the crowds. Saw mask policies adhered to in western NC, Cawthorn-country. Saw plenty of hikers wearing masks. Even the one shopper in an Ingles supermarket without a mask was gently offered one by the staff and there wasn't an increase in dB levels. NC seemed so...... chill.

By the River

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #232 on: March 31, 2021, 02:52:18 PM »
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?

This sounds like good news.  On March 8, Michigan opened vaccines to people 50 and over.  On March 30, people 50 and over are having fewer cases.  Looks like the vaccines work in the real world.  On April 5, all above 16 will be eligible.  I will assume that cases in that group will start declining within 3 weeks as well. 

I don't wish covid on anyone but in Michigan those under 50 have had 60% of the cases but only 3% of deaths. 

jehovasfitness23

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #233 on: March 31, 2021, 03:52:45 PM »
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?

This sounds like good news.  On March 8, Michigan opened vaccines to people 50 and over.  On March 30, people 50 and over are having fewer cases.  Looks like the vaccines work in the real world.  On April 5, all above 16 will be eligible.  I will assume that cases in that group will start declining within 3 weeks as well. 

I don't wish covid on anyone but in Michigan those under 50 have had 60% of the cases but only 3% of deaths.

Yep which makes it even more crazy to let loose with just another 6-8 weeks to go to really pump up those vax numbers.

All this push for schools to reopen in April, LOL, for what, 2 months of school? Just shoot for the Fall at this point.

OtherJen

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #234 on: March 31, 2021, 03:58:27 PM »
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?

This sounds like good news.  On March 8, Michigan opened vaccines to people 50 and over.  On March 30, people 50 and over are having fewer cases.  Looks like the vaccines work in the real world.  On April 5, all above 16 will be eligible.  I will assume that cases in that group will start declining within 3 weeks as well. 

I don't wish covid on anyone but in Michigan those under 50 have had 60% of the cases but only 3% of deaths.

Yeah, things are going super-duper great here. [/sarcasm] And we haven't even gotten to the effects from Passover (in progress), Holy Week/Easter (in progress), and Ramadan (begins April 12) here in Metro Detroit, which we avoided last spring thanks to strict shutdown policies.

CDC: Michigan has worst COVID-19 infection rate of any state in the country (WXYZ Detroit)

Quote
Michigan had the worst COVID-19 infection rate for any state in the country over the last 7 days, according to information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

According to the data on their COVID tracker, Michigan had 361.5 cases of COVID-19 per every 100,000 people. That puts Michigan at the highest in the country, grouped only with New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut.

COVID hospitalizations on the rise statewide, with a big uptick in the Thumb (Michigan Radio)

Quote
Michigan's COVID-19 hospitalizations are rising, and they're rising fast.

As of Monday and Tuesday, there are 2,144 people hospitalized, marking a 53% increase from 1,404 hospitalizations last week.

Back in November, there was a 45% jump in hospitalizations in one week: November 2 to November 9. On November 15, Governor Gretchen Whitmer enacted the "Pause to Save Lives." She's expressed that she has no current plans to enact similar restrictions to this recent spike.

- - -

And patients are getting sicker, he says. 15-20% of people who test positive for COVID-19 in the thumb region require hospitalization, a number that he says is alarming.

"So with the first wave we saw definitely older folks, in their 70s, 80s, who were coming in moderately to severely ill, required oxygenation, some intubation," Hamed said. "However, with this current wave, we’re seeing a lot younger folks: 30s to 60s, coming in with very atypical conditions."

The increased frequency of acute neurologic and cardiac complications with these patient is especially concerning: "Strokes, kidney failure, heart attacks, along with the pneuomonia and respiratory issues," he listed.

But yes, hopefully those of us who are still ineligible won't be waitlisted for too long after next Monday.
« Last Edit: March 31, 2021, 04:06:47 PM by OtherJen »

Chris22

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #235 on: March 31, 2021, 04:07:43 PM »
A minor source of irritation to me concerning masks and Dr. Fauci.  The opening game of the baseball season last year and Dr. Fauci was selected to throw out the first pitch for the Washington Baseball Team.  He goes out to the pitcher's mound where he is 60 feet 6 inches from anyone and throws the pitch while wearing a mask.  Ok, no problem.   Later in the game, the cameras show him in the stands sitting next to two other people with his mask around his chin.  I assume one was his wife so that's understandable but who was the other middle age man sitting next to him.  Had he been quarantining with the doctor?

The mask thing has become theater of the absurd.

Look, I have no problem masking up to go into the grocery store or whatever. It’s fine. I don’t know how effective it really is, but as others have pointed out the cost is low so whatever.

But.

You get into all of these absurd scenarios. Go to a restaurant? Better wear a mask to your table, and then take it off and sit there for an hour chewing and drinking and talking, and then put it back on for the 30s walk out at the end. Pickup time at school, 50 parents milling about outside in an area roughly the size of a football field for 5-10 min before hand waiting for their kids, all masked up. Person to person transmission outside where people are spaced out is minimal. Or my favorite, the NCAA tournament, where college kids who have all tested negative for Covid go play basketball all together, bumping and pushing and sweating all over each other, to go back and sit on the “bench” (chairs spaced all out) and wear a mask. Come on man.

JGS1980

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #236 on: March 31, 2021, 05:51:00 PM »
Hello again, OP here. Sorry in advance, this will be a bit dense as I've been thinking for a while about all the more recent responses.  I doubt this will change any of your minds.

Basically, I feel like there's a bit of whitewashing going on here.

When I started this thread on June 16th, 2020, Florida Gov Desantis was "reopening his state" despite very scary Covid case trends at the time. Go back to page 1 JackofLife post to see this:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/oh-florida!!!-covid19-response/?action=dlattach;attach=65096;image

At the time, Florida had only about 3000 total deaths [of 122000 US deaths = 2.45%], had only 14 deaths per 100K (one of the top states in the US), and basically really hadn't been hit all that hard yet by the virus. They still chose to half-ass their response.

SINCE THAT TIME, Florida has had an additional 30000 deaths and jumped to 27th [1557 deaths per 100K and 33450 of 565000 US deaths = 5.92%] in the country DESPITE KNOWING WHAT WAS COMING FOR THEM.  How many preventable deaths occurred due to simple negligence?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

-------------------------------------------------

I've been following the trends fairly intensely over the last year (see my weekly coronavirus update thread). What I've seen is that the earliest hit "point of entry" states (NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA, WA, LA, PA) just got obliterated early on before they even knew what was happening. However, most of them managed to slowdown the spread through (then, draconian) measures.  Washington is an amazing example in that they were able to nearly completely stem the tide despite being one of the first states to get hit (remember that nursing home in Wash?). States like Oregon, Maine, Virginia were able to see what was coming and took rather stringent steps to get ahead of the disease, those 3 are all in the bottom 15 of the US now for total deaths. Hell, you weren't even allowed to enter the state of Maine last summer without Covid testing despite it's very close proximity and economic dependence to hard hit Massachusetts.

On the other hand, there were other states (FL, TX, MS, IN, AL, AK, SD, ND) who basically said, "fuck it, we can't stop this monster, so lets not even try al that hard and argue about mask freedom instead". Of course, this led to them moving up the charts over the next 9 months relative to those other states while also directly undermining the entire country's success by creating even greater reservoirs of infection. If you think this doesn't matter -> if Florida had Washington's death numbers, perhaps another 15000 people might still be alive today.

Extrapolate that to 30 more states and you'll see why GERMANY has half the death rate to Covid as the USA, thereby saving them 75000 lives. Could we have prevented 300000 deaths?

JGS1980

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #237 on: March 31, 2021, 05:55:50 PM »
And Florida is the vacation destination of choice, so it's going to be the place where irresponsible people from half the country go to exchange the virus and take it back home. 

As I was rereading early pages of this thread, I was amazed by the prescience of @dougules for these the comment above. Right now Florida again is the destination of choice.

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #238 on: March 31, 2021, 06:03:18 PM »
For those following the TX part of the thread:
3/31: 3883/102  Pretty much stable

Hospitalizations hasn't been updated in a couple days (at least at Covidactnow) so I can't update that.

So far no noticeable consequences from Abbot's decision, though cases have been slowly rising for a few days now.

-W

jinga nation

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #239 on: March 31, 2021, 07:21:56 PM »
And Florida is the vacation destination of choice, so it's going to be the place where irresponsible people from half the country go to exchange the virus and take it back home. 

As I was rereading early pages of this thread, I was amazed by the prescience of @dougules for these the comment above. Right now Florida again is the destination of choice.

People come to Florida to retire (and eventually, die). Young or old, death does not discriminate.

cliffhanger

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #240 on: April 01, 2021, 08:51:07 AM »
Hello again, OP here. Sorry in advance, this will be a bit dense as I've been thinking for a while about all the more recent responses.  I doubt this will change any of your minds.

Basically, I feel like there's a bit of whitewashing going on here.

When I started this thread on June 16th, 2020, Florida Gov Desantis was "reopening his state" despite very scary Covid case trends at the time. Go back to page 1 JackofLife post to see this:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/oh-florida!!!-covid19-response/?action=dlattach;attach=65096;image

At the time, Florida had only about 3000 total deaths [of 122000 US deaths = 2.45%], had only 14 deaths per 100K (one of the top states in the US), and basically really hadn't been hit all that hard yet by the virus. They still chose to half-ass their response.

SINCE THAT TIME, Florida has had an additional 30000 deaths and jumped to 27th [1557 deaths per 100K and 33450 of 565000 US deaths = 5.92%] in the country DESPITE KNOWING WHAT WAS COMING FOR THEM.  How many preventable deaths occurred due to simple negligence?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

-------------------------------------------------

I've been following the trends fairly intensely over the last year (see my weekly coronavirus update thread). What I've seen is that the earliest hit "point of entry" states (NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA, WA, LA, PA) just got obliterated early on before they even knew what was happening. However, most of them managed to slowdown the spread through (then, draconian) measures.  Washington is an amazing example in that they were able to nearly completely stem the tide despite being one of the first states to get hit (remember that nursing home in Wash?). States like Oregon, Maine, Virginia were able to see what was coming and took rather stringent steps to get ahead of the disease, those 3 are all in the bottom 15 of the US now for total deaths. Hell, you weren't even allowed to enter the state of Maine last summer without Covid testing despite it's very close proximity and economic dependence to hard hit Massachusetts.

On the other hand, there were other states (FL, TX, MS, IN, AL, AK, SD, ND) who basically said, "fuck it, we can't stop this monster, so lets not even try al that hard and argue about mask freedom instead". Of course, this led to them moving up the charts over the next 9 months relative to those other states while also directly undermining the entire country's success by creating even greater reservoirs of infection. If you think this doesn't matter -> if Florida had Washington's death numbers, perhaps another 15000 people might still be alive today.

Extrapolate that to 30 more states and you'll see why GERMANY has half the death rate to Covid as the USA, thereby saving them 75000 lives. Could we have prevented 300000 deaths?

Quote
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
-Mark Twain

At this point, we're all just cherry picking to fit our already solidified political opinion. Find or make a plot of lockdown intensity vs deaths per capita and I predict you'll find... no discernible pattern.

JGS1980

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #241 on: April 01, 2021, 09:02:24 AM »
Hello again, OP here. Sorry in advance, this will be a bit dense as I've been thinking for a while about all the more recent responses.  I doubt this will change any of your minds.

Basically, I feel like there's a bit of whitewashing going on here.

When I started this thread on June 16th, 2020, Florida Gov Desantis was "reopening his state" despite very scary Covid case trends at the time. Go back to page 1 JackofLife post to see this:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/oh-florida!!!-covid19-response/?action=dlattach;attach=65096;image

At the time, Florida had only about 3000 total deaths [of 122000 US deaths = 2.45%], had only 14 deaths per 100K (one of the top states in the US), and basically really hadn't been hit all that hard yet by the virus. They still chose to half-ass their response.

SINCE THAT TIME, Florida has had an additional 30000 deaths and jumped to 27th [1557 deaths per 100K and 33450 of 565000 US deaths = 5.92%] in the country DESPITE KNOWING WHAT WAS COMING FOR THEM.  How many preventable deaths occurred due to simple negligence?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

-------------------------------------------------

I've been following the trends fairly intensely over the last year (see my weekly coronavirus update thread). What I've seen is that the earliest hit "point of entry" states (NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA, WA, LA, PA) just got obliterated early on before they even knew what was happening. However, most of them managed to slowdown the spread through (then, draconian) measures.  Washington is an amazing example in that they were able to nearly completely stem the tide despite being one of the first states to get hit (remember that nursing home in Wash?). States like Oregon, Maine, Virginia were able to see what was coming and took rather stringent steps to get ahead of the disease, those 3 are all in the bottom 15 of the US now for total deaths. Hell, you weren't even allowed to enter the state of Maine last summer without Covid testing despite it's very close proximity and economic dependence to hard hit Massachusetts.

On the other hand, there were other states (FL, TX, MS, IN, AL, AK, SD, ND) who basically said, "fuck it, we can't stop this monster, so lets not even try al that hard and argue about mask freedom instead". Of course, this led to them moving up the charts over the next 9 months relative to those other states while also directly undermining the entire country's success by creating even greater reservoirs of infection. If you think this doesn't matter -> if Florida had Washington's death numbers, perhaps another 15000 people might still be alive today.

Extrapolate that to 30 more states and you'll see why GERMANY has half the death rate to Covid as the USA, thereby saving them 75000 lives. Could we have prevented 300000 deaths?

Quote
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
-Mark Twain

At this point, we're all just cherry picking to fit our already solidified political opinion. Find or make a plot of lockdown intensity vs deaths per capita and I predict you'll find... no discernible pattern.

As I stated above, I very much doubted my narrative would convince you. I'd love for you to refute any of the above, but I'm not so sure that would lead to my own mind being changed, so... godspeed!

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
-Mark Twain

cliffhanger

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #242 on: April 01, 2021, 10:38:20 AM »
Hello again, OP here. Sorry in advance, this will be a bit dense as I've been thinking for a while about all the more recent responses.  I doubt this will change any of your minds.

Basically, I feel like there's a bit of whitewashing going on here.

When I started this thread on June 16th, 2020, Florida Gov Desantis was "reopening his state" despite very scary Covid case trends at the time. Go back to page 1 JackofLife post to see this:

https://forum.mrmoneymustache.com/off-topic/oh-florida!!!-covid19-response/?action=dlattach;attach=65096;image

At the time, Florida had only about 3000 total deaths [of 122000 US deaths = 2.45%], had only 14 deaths per 100K (one of the top states in the US), and basically really hadn't been hit all that hard yet by the virus. They still chose to half-ass their response.

SINCE THAT TIME, Florida has had an additional 30000 deaths and jumped to 27th [1557 deaths per 100K and 33450 of 565000 US deaths = 5.92%] in the country DESPITE KNOWING WHAT WAS COMING FOR THEM.  How many preventable deaths occurred due to simple negligence?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

-------------------------------------------------

I've been following the trends fairly intensely over the last year (see my weekly coronavirus update thread). What I've seen is that the earliest hit "point of entry" states (NY, NJ, CT, RI, MA, WA, LA, PA) just got obliterated early on before they even knew what was happening. However, most of them managed to slowdown the spread through (then, draconian) measures.  Washington is an amazing example in that they were able to nearly completely stem the tide despite being one of the first states to get hit (remember that nursing home in Wash?). States like Oregon, Maine, Virginia were able to see what was coming and took rather stringent steps to get ahead of the disease, those 3 are all in the bottom 15 of the US now for total deaths. Hell, you weren't even allowed to enter the state of Maine last summer without Covid testing despite it's very close proximity and economic dependence to hard hit Massachusetts.

On the other hand, there were other states (FL, TX, MS, IN, AL, AK, SD, ND) who basically said, "fuck it, we can't stop this monster, so lets not even try al that hard and argue about mask freedom instead". Of course, this led to them moving up the charts over the next 9 months relative to those other states while also directly undermining the entire country's success by creating even greater reservoirs of infection. If you think this doesn't matter -> if Florida had Washington's death numbers, perhaps another 15000 people might still be alive today.

Extrapolate that to 30 more states and you'll see why GERMANY has half the death rate to Covid as the USA, thereby saving them 75000 lives. Could we have prevented 300000 deaths?

Quote
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
-Mark Twain

At this point, we're all just cherry picking to fit our already solidified political opinion. Find or make a plot of lockdown intensity vs deaths per capita and I predict you'll find... no discernible pattern.

As I stated above, I very much doubted my narrative would convince you. I'd love for you to refute any of the above, but I'm not so sure that would lead to my own mind being changed, so... godspeed!

"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect."
-Mark Twain

I'm sure since you've been following the trends intensely, I'm sure the following questions should be very easy to respond to. Areas that I believe to be inconsistent with your reasoning.

- You say Indiana was a 'fuck it, we can't stop this monster' state. Do you consider Illinois as a 'fuck it, we can't stop this monster' state as well? If not, why do they have similar trends?

- You insinuate the response of Oregon, Maine, and Virginia are the reason they are in the bottom 15 states for total death (per 100k, sic.). Did Utah and Idaho have similar responses that led their success? (Also you included AK in your 'fuck it' list even though they have one of the lowest deaths per capita)

- California should absolutely be considered a 'point of entry' state considering the amount of traffic from Asia and that covid was probably spreading unmitigated since Jan. Why was Cali not hit as hard as the other early states?

- I'd argue GA could be considered a 'point of entry' state due to one of the busiest international airports and one of the first super-spreaders in the US. Remember the funeral that led to one of the largest infection rates in the world? But GA early on was spared the tragic fate that a state like PA endured. Are you prepared to argue that Georgia's response is what spared it?

To be blunt, I don't think you care about 'trends' at all. I think you cherry picked arguments from an incredibly complicated issue to fit what you already believed. The U.S. has incredibly diverse geography, climate, health outcomes, and cultures, all of which may contribute to spread. I think it's incredibly divisive to claim the deaths in the states whose politics you like happened because they were 'blindsided,' but those 'fuck it' states you dislike could have prevented 300k deaths if they weren't so 'negligent.'

JGS1980

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #243 on: April 01, 2021, 01:01:54 PM »
I'm sure since you've been following the trends intensely, I'm sure the following questions should be very easy to respond to. Areas that I believe to be inconsistent with your reasoning.

- You say Indiana was a 'fuck it, we can't stop this monster' state. Do you consider Illinois as a 'fuck it, we can't stop this monster' state as well? If not, why do they have similar trends?

- You insinuate the response of Oregon, Maine, and Virginia are the reason they are in the bottom 15 states for total death (per 100k, sic.). Did Utah and Idaho have similar responses that led their success? (Also you included AK in your 'fuck it' list even though they have one of the lowest deaths per capita)

- California should absolutely be considered a 'point of entry' state considering the amount of traffic from Asia and that covid was probably spreading unmitigated since Jan. Why was Cali not hit as hard as the other early states?

- I'd argue GA could be considered a 'point of entry' state due to one of the busiest international airports and one of the first super-spreaders in the US. Remember the funeral that led to one of the largest infection rates in the world? But GA early on was spared the tragic fate that a state like PA endured. Are you prepared to argue that Georgia's response is what spared it?

To be blunt, I don't think you care about 'trends' at all. I think you cherry picked arguments from an incredibly complicated issue to fit what you already believed. The U.S. has incredibly diverse geography, climate, health outcomes, and cultures, all of which may contribute to spread. I think it's incredibly divisive to claim the deaths in the states whose politics you like happened because they were 'blindsided,' but those 'fuck it' states you dislike could have prevented 300k deaths if they weren't so 'negligent.'

Sure, why not? I'll try my best to answer your questions to the best of my ability. 

1. Illinois (AKA Chicago) was hit VERY hard early April and May in 2020. All in all to be 16th in overall deaths per capita isn't too shabby in consideration of how early they were compromised by Covid.  Illinois was "Top 10" in Covid deaths early on in the process, and they've slowly come down to 16th since that time. Thus, relative improvement.  Take a look at "daily new deaths" curve on this website.  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/illinois/

Indiana was not hit all that hard early in April and May, was "bottom half" in regards to Covid deaths early on, but still managed to get to 12th place per current deaths per capita numbers.  https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/indiana/  Basically, their mitigation efforts were either insufficient or poorly executed. Compare that to Ohio, which is middle of the pack, but has done a better job overall at their mitigation efforts after being hit a little later than the 1st wave.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/

2. Yes -> Oregon, Maine, and Virginia are doing fairly well in deaths/capita from Covid (no insinuation here -> just data). Utah has also done remarkably well from a deaths point of view and should be commended. Multiple studies show that not smoking and staying active helps to keep from dying from this disease. I would note that Utah is in the top 5 for cases/capita, they just aren't dying, which is wonderful. Idaho seems to be doing fine as well. Overall, hard to get to places seem to have done better throughout this whole pandemic. See: Alaska/Hawaii/Wyoming/Vermont. I've been to Idaho, it is, in fact, hard to get there.

Arkansas was on that list because they are #15 on deaths/capita list despite barely being touched in the first wave.
Their "daily deaths" chart is interesting because it's just a slow, steady increase from May 2020 until January 2021.
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/arkansas/

3. Why didn't California get hit early? I think they actually did get hit early and had a great early response. 3 of the largest 4 communities of Chinese-Americans are in California.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._cities_with_significant_Chinese-American_populations

If you look at the above list, at least 9 of the top 10 by my eye got absolutely destroyed in the first wave. #1, NYC of course. [see also; Bergamo region of Italy]

It's remarkable that California is only 30th of 50 US states for deaths/capita.  Compare California's "Daily New Deaths" curve to Arkansas, for example. Cali had 3 distinct waves, the first 2 were tamped down successfully.

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/california/

I do remember reading a lot of good press about San Francisco's efforts to mitigate the spread very early on, especially as it has a huge Chinese population. Even today, Greater San Fran area only has 5926 deaths despite a population of nearly 8 million people. https://www.sfchronicle.com/projects/coronavirus-map/ Considering how dense SF is, that's quite an achievement.

4. I also think Georgia did a good job early on despite getting hit hard. Philadelphia region and NE PA (NJ and NYC commuters) were hit early as well. That's why they are both in the top 20 for deaths/capita.

Hope this helps with understanding the crazy year we have had. I do not think it's divisive to look at data and provide an interpretation. I much prefer to do this than to bury my head in the sand and say, "I guess it was all inevitable". The real data hounds will take a look at this stuff and give a comprehensive country by country and state by state comparison one day, but the crisis has to end 1st.


waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #244 on: April 01, 2021, 02:48:05 PM »
Good thing we can track in real time what's happening when TX decided to become a "fuck it" state!

4/1: 3931/96 Cases pretty much flat, deaths still falling but slowly.

As a reminder, when Abbot opened everything up on March 10th, the numbers were 4909/190, but both were already trending down.

Still no hospitalizations update since 3/27 for some reason.

-W


GuitarStv

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #245 on: April 02, 2021, 02:08:21 AM »
Good thing we can track in real time what's happening when TX decided to become a "fuck it" state!

4/1: 3931/96 Cases pretty much flat, deaths still falling but slowly.

As a reminder, when Abbot opened everything up on March 10th, the numbers were 4909/190, but both were already trending down.

Still no hospitalizations update since 3/27 for some reason.

-W


Falling deaths are a good thing, hopefully an indicator that the vaccine is doing it's work on the most likely to die from this disease.

After the shenanigans going on with Florida's covid death reporting though, I was curious about whether or not there was anything odd or any juking of the data going on with Texas' numbers.  So I checked the county by county testing data from https://dshs.texas.gov/coronavirus/AdditionalData.aspx which is kinda cool BTW - they list stuff daily up to march 31st.

When you calculate the average daily testing done across the state over the past couple months:
Dec   123042
Jan   141344
Feb   108831
Mar    84806

There certainly seems to be a lot less covid testing going on since re-opening.  Which is a little weird.  You would expect that if case numbers are flat testing would be flat too.  If case numbers are flat and testing is dropping though, that means that the percentage of people testing positive is higher than before.  Which likely indicates that there's more spread going on than we are measuring.  Larger than should be expected amounts of transmission is a little unsettling given the uncertain long term implications of a large portion of the population becoming infected.  As before, time will tell if there's a price to be paid by the people of Texas for this risk that their governor is taking.

jehovasfitness23

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #246 on: April 02, 2021, 05:58:22 AM »
Good thing we can track in real time what's happening when TX decided to become a "fuck it" state!

4/1: 3931/96 Cases pretty much flat, deaths still falling but slowly.

As a reminder, when Abbot opened everything up on March 10th, the numbers were 4909/190, but both were already trending down.

Still no hospitalizations update since 3/27 for some reason.

-W


Falling deaths are a good thing, hopefully an indicator that the vaccine is doing it's work on the most likely to die from this disease.

After the shenanigans going on with Florida's covid death reporting though, I was curious about whether or not there was anything odd or any juking of the data going on with Texas' numbers.  So I checked the county by county testing data from https://dshs.texas.gov/coronavirus/AdditionalData.aspx which is kinda cool BTW - they list stuff daily up to march 31st.

When you calculate the average daily testing done across the state over the past couple months:
Dec   123042
Jan   141344
Feb   108831
Mar    84806

There certainly seems to be a lot less covid testing going on since re-opening.  Which is a little weird.  You would expect that if case numbers are flat testing would be flat too.  If case numbers are flat and testing is dropping though, that means that the percentage of people testing positive is higher than before.  Which likely indicates that there's more spread going on than we are measuring.  Larger than should be expected amounts of transmission is a little unsettling given the uncertain long term implications of a large portion of the population becoming infected.  As before, time will tell if there's a price to be paid by the people of Texas for this risk that their governor is taking.

I know in my area they've shut down testing sites in favor of turning some of those into vaccine sites. Hospitalizations and deaths would be a better measure to track now.

That said, I still think it's a bad argument about opening TX up and no mask mandate with declining cases being linked. More likely is that vaccines are now helping a ton to bring cases/deaths down now, but that does not mean loosening restrictions still isn't having a negative impact, not sure why this is so hard for people to understand. Not you Guitr...

For example, let's say with mask mandate and other restrictions along with vaccines there would be 1,000 deaths.

No mask mandate and less restrictions along with vaccines = 1,500 deaths.

We'll never know if the former would happen because the latter track happened, yet 1,500 deaths could still be a decline from 6 months ago.


waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #247 on: April 02, 2021, 07:23:31 AM »
Oh, no question. I think it's the vaccines, not that the mitigation measures had no effect at all.

For what it's worth, hospitalizations and test positive % have continued down as well, so you can't just blame reduced testing.

As with the FL question, many people said Abbot was jumping the gun. So far that has not been the case. We can come up with all kinds of hypotheticals about how things would be even better, but the prediction being tested (made by me and others) was that TX would see an INCREASE in cases/problems.

-W

jehovasfitness23

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #248 on: April 02, 2021, 10:33:43 AM »
Oh, no question. I think it's the vaccines, not that the mitigation measures had no effect at all.

For what it's worth, hospitalizations and test positive % have continued down as well, so you can't just blame reduced testing.

As with the FL question, many people said Abbot was jumping the gun. So far that has not been the case. We can come up with all kinds of hypotheticals about how things would be even better, but the prediction being tested (made by me and others) was that TX would see an INCREASE in cases/problems.

That's my point though. Maybe there was an increase perse but vaccines still bringing total #s down... basically increase over what would have happened in mask mandate kept in place.

The vaccine variable confounds how you need to look at results.
-W

waltworks

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Re: Oh, Florida!!! Covid19 Response
« Reply #249 on: April 02, 2021, 12:16:48 PM »
Well, still, it's a win for Abbot/DeSantis when they can say "See? Everyone who predicted disaster was wrong!"

So half the problem is people/media predicting too much disaster and generally being too pessimistic, which means any sort of not-disaster means the "it's just the flu" people can claim victory. If I see one more NYT chart showing how long it'll take to vaccinate 70% of people "at current rates" I'm going to throw my hat on the floor and stomp on it... it's like they *want* people to be depressed and scared.

-W

 

Wow, a phone plan for fifteen bucks!