Yeah, Covid has allowed people to stop thinking.

Last week I was getting my haircut and the lady cutting my hair mentioned that her nieces and nephews were in from Texas. I asked her if she was gonna go see them and she said "7 more days... it's just too crazy in Texas." I was like....umm lady, those lifted restrictions happened AFTER your nieces and nephews came here, relax.

And when Texas death numbers don't go up, will anyone say something then?

Of course not.

When you play Russian Roulette and don't lose (which is 83% of the time), nobody says you made the right decision :).

Texas already played this game and lost. Hopefully it goes better for them this time around:

The foolishness here is that wearing masks and reasonable "distancing" can make possible the reopening of businesses and social venues. Places like Texas put them in the same category and simultaneously close or reopen the economy while mandating or removing the mandate of masks when really they should continue the mask mandates a while longer so that they can successfully reopen the economy. Once the economy is open and IF there is no resurgence of disease, then they can ease off on the mask and distancing requirements. The two things should be sequential, not simultaneous.

When it comes to masks and businesses in the current environment, I would NOT patronize a business in which there are unmasked people indoors. I would turn around and walk out. And I suggest anyone who cares about their own health do the same. Let the businessmen know that whatever business they may gain from the crowd that refuses to wear a mask, they may lose from those of us who don't want to be put at risk from those people.

Texas should have either picked the '100% capacity' or 'no masks' but not both. That was pretty dumb and short sighted. I hate masks but the governor rescinding the mandate now was a bit premature. At least wait until late April/ early May when the general population has actually had a chance to become vaccinated.

Why would any of these people be wearing masks outside?

It still amazes me, the number of people both on here and in real life here locally, who think that the worst global pandemic since the Spanish Flu can be defeated by sheer cussed stubbornness, whining, and wishful thinking of the variety that inclines one to believe if you ignore a problem it will either go away, or not affect you personally.

I really do wonder how some of these people would have handled WWII rationing, or how they'd manage in a real ebola outbreak or some such.

I agree with this

My first response was very similar when I heard about the Governor dropping the mask mandate. I asked, “Why the hell is he doing this now?”

But then I read that most people and business are still wearing/requiring masks anyhow, allowing us to see an example of how this may work without Government mandating it.

Texas’ surge happened at the same time last year as California’s big summer time surge.

The need to hate on Texas around here, (and the root of that hate ain’t Covid, it never was), is a bottomless pit of wonder

Lockdowns made sense last March. By May we understood enough about the virus and to whom it was very dangerous or deadly, and those people should have since been voluntarily curtailing their activities out of prudence.

It’s as simple as that. The reason life has been so miserable in the UK has been that elderly and vulnerable people will do whatever thing they are allowed to do as restrictions are relaxed. The government says pubs can open at limited capacity, old people go to pubs. And not even just that - they have been breaking the rules and having friends and multiple generations of family gather at home, in contravention of the rules.

All we ever needed to do last fall was to isolate the elderly. I have zero sympathy for stories in the BBC about whole families getting Covid and 3 of them dying because they had 20 people over for Christmas lunch and small kids around grandma. They get a Darwin Award.

Exactly right. You’re in your 70s and this is what you should do.

Criticizing a stupid policy decision by the Texan government is not hating Texas, comrade.

We are probably going off on a big tangent here, but the majority of historic buildings across the NHS estate aren’t used for frontline services. My local hospital as an example dates to the 15th century, but the oldest buildings on the site which are (Grade II listed) >170 years old (originally to treat smallpox victims), are now used for administration, finance, IT and other ancillary functions. Critical healthcare activities are undertaken in modern buildings with large floorplates and appropriate modern interiors. There is still ample room for improvement to deliver ever better healthcare outcomes.

If this was an issue about remoteness having a detrimental impact on healthcare outcomes, how would that explain the performance of Canada or Australia? The US is also not alone in having segments of the population who may not understand healthcare services or hold distrustful views of healthcare practitioners. Nor are issues such as obesity unique to the US. The US does well in certain areas; the survival rates for cancers like breast and colon are higher than in the UK, but the opposite is true when it comes to cervical and childhood leukaemia. Looking at the data, if you were to factor in the change in healthcare outcomes, I wouldn’t be surprised if the UK surpasses the US in many other areas of survival and positive healthcare outcomes in the years ahead.

Pertinent to 10023’s previous comments which started this entire tangent, it is the US, not the UK which has the issue around the level of unmet care (whether that is a doctor appointment, medication, treatment, etc…); 32% for all adults (which rises to 43% for low-income adults), compared to 7% (and 8%) respectively in the UK.

The MHRA’s swift approval process was due to a rolling review of data as it was published. In the UK there is no financial incentive to prescribe drugs, hence the reduced level of over-medication and problems created such as the opioid epidemic.

I think most business people WANT government mandates. It’s so much easier to tell the unmasked, “I understand your point of view but it’s the law,” than to tell them it’s your decision for your business. And to repeat for the 2000th time, wearing masks isn’t just about your own health but about your possibly harming the health of others. I wouldn’t care whether other people made a decision to take a risk affecting only themselves. To a large degree I’m a libertarian. But that just isn’t what mask mandates are about. They are about telling people they have no right to put others at risk. It only takes one curmudgeon to put everybody in a small shop or in a check-out line at risk, even when everyone else is making it work without the government.

The Canadian population is huddled next to the US border (and in some more northern cities like Calgary) like people huddled around a bonfire for warmth. Yes, there are some living in remote areas, but the dispersal through their vast country is less a fact than in the US. The same is generally true in Australia. For every remote “sheep station”, most people are in metros along the coast. This is not so true in the US. The issue isn’t individuals living remotely as you find in all 3 countries, its whole towns and even small cities with limited medical care compared to what’s available in metros.

Since I posted the bit to which you replied, I’ve become aware of an issue even I didn’t realize: “Pharmacy deserts”. These are counties where there isn’t even a pharmacy. It is becoming an issue because of attempts to distribute the COVID vaccine to underserved areas via pharmacies. But quite a few areas in the rural south and plains don’t even have those it turns out, so it’s necessary to reach people there with mobile vans providing vaccines.

The problem with US healthcare statistics is access, almost completely. Access is limited by cost, by the sophistication to know when professional care is needed, by the distances and inconveniences involved in reaching it and other factors. But what’s available to those who can access it, and are knowledgeable enough to realize when they should, is the best in the world. You mention leukemia. If my child had leukemia there’s no question in my mind that I could find any superior treatment to what’s available at a US academic cancer center. But if I weren’t medically trained and lived in some southern, western or midwestern small town, would I take my child to such a place? Quite possibly not. It could be very difficult for me to do so and nobody might advise me to with the necessary emphasis.

Medical deserts (based on a scoring system 1-25 in which the higher the score--darker green on map--the greater the need for additional primary care services)
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tage_Areas.jpg
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped...tage_Areas.jpg

Pharmacy deserts (red counties have no pharmacy)
https://uniim1.shutterfly.com/ng/ser...915128/enhance
https://rupri.public-health.uiowa.ed...cy%20Brief.pdf

I agree, ending mask mandates should wait.

But as someone who is sub 40 years old, my chances of getting covid and dying from it is like 55 times lower than someone over 75. So we don't have the same concerns.

Also I am getting vaccinated in two days, so I really don't care.

100% agree.

This is him acting politically, not smartly.

Yes, I wonder how people in 2021 would deal with an actual war when they freaking run to the other side of a sidewalk when another masked person walks within 10 feet of them. Using that as an example wasn't a good one.

Pasadena, California is one of among 4 cities in all of California that has its own health department (the others being Long Beach, Vernon, and Berkeley). Otherwise, health departments are a county thing.

From Pasadena Now:

No COVID-19 Deaths Reported in Pasadena for 5th Day

No infections reported with skilled nursing facilities for 2 weeks

BY BRIAN DAY
Published on Tuesday, March 16, 2021 | 4:37 pm

Pasadena continues seeing progress against the COVID-19 pandemic Tuesday as no new deaths were reported for the fifth day in a row.

Four new infections raised the city’s total number of infections to 11,036, officials said. The local death toll stood at 327.

In another positive milestone, no new infections of skilled nursing facility residents had been reported at such facilities in two weeks, city spokeswoman Lisa Derderian said.

Over the prior week, Pasadena saw an average of 5.4 new COVID-19 infections each day, according to city records.

The number of COVID-19 patients continued to decline at Huntington Hospital, which listed 28 patients being treated on Tuesday, including five who were in intensive care units.

City data reflected that 39,716 Pasadens, representing 33.7% of the city population over the minimum approved vaccination age of 16, had received at least one dose of two-dose vaccine regimens.

Another 22,598 city residents, or 19.2% of the local population over 16 years old, had been fully vaccinated against the virus.

At the county level, the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health reported 318 new infections and 52 deaths on Tuesday.

Since the start of the pandemic, the county had recorded 1,210,905 cases of COVID-19 and 22,519 fatalities, in all.

The county’s daily positivity rate was recorded at 1.8%.

Officials reported 865 COVID-19 patients being treated at L.A. County hospitals, with 28% of them being housed in ICUs.

The progress was encouraging, L.A. County Director of Public Health Barbara Ferrer said.

“Los Angeles County continues to make significant progress slowing transmission. Should our case numbers continue to decline, our recovery journey could land us in the less restrictive orange tier in April,” she said.

“This is only possible if we all do our part to keep each other safe,” Ferrer added. “I believe that as more people are vaccinated and as we continue to follow public health safety measures, we can continue re-openings without threatening each other’s health.”

The California Department of Public Health reported 1,260 infections and 42 deaths on Monday, which brought the state’s totals to 3,530,055 cases of COVID-19 and 55,372 associated fatalities.

The statewide weekly average positivity rate continued to decline, reaching 1.9%, according to CDPH data.

As of Tuesday, L.A. County accounted for 34% of California’s COVID-19 infections and 41% of the state’s deaths.

Link: https://www.pasadenanow.com/main/no-...a-for-5th-day/

Remember how local governments needed help so badly it was included in the $1.9 trillion relief law?

https://www.sfchronicle.com/local-po...n-16033397.php

San Francisco is both a city and a county of course, but it has its own health department.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-approach.html

Interesting.

^It's been pretty obvious for a while that this was occurring. I figured that the media was just letting DeSantis build up this misleading narrative so that they could tear it all down during a slow news cycle.

The study would be more accurate and comparable if they compared Miami-Dade and Broward counties to CA’s most populous counties (LA and SD counties). Or better yet, compare South Florida’s cases to Southern California’s since those are the most populated areas for both states and were the hardest hit by COVID-19, respectively.

The charts I posted above compare them to San Francisco which is the second densest city in the US and MUCH denser than LA County (18600/sq mile vs 2500/sq mile). LA has more people but has much more area and since the rates of COVID are usually measured in per 100,000, total population matters less than population density.

Florida did get it right. Marginal differences in Covid infection rates and deaths, far better quality of life and economic performance.

You've previously made it clear that in excess of 30 deaths per 100,000/month vs 4/100,000/month mean nothing to you. We get that.

Still isn’t a good comparison, don’t you think? That study is comparing two counties to one city/county and a metro area. If population density matters, just compare SF ( most densely populated major city/county in CA) to Miami ( most densely populated major city in FL, but I don’t know if Miami-Dade is the most densely populated county. Maybe it is.)

I don’t want to give DeSantis too much credit but if that data is accurate by any means, it shows that the stricter lockdowns are only marginally helpful depending on the place. The fact that FL did not become a complete disaster with cases should be studied even more.

Brazilian moving average reached 2,000 today for the first time. Things are completely out of control right here and ICUs are completely taken all over the country.

Even though cases may have been higher in SoCal due to minority communities working in service jobs being more affected by the virus ( many of the COVID patients I helped with were Hispanic or black and they were exposed originally from work), how much is that different from South Florida, which also has similar demographics?

Weather might play a role ( higher humidity). The amount of reported cases may be mostly bullshit on FL’s end.

Here is an article from last month, from Healthline:

Why Do California and Florida Have Similar COVID-19 Case Rates? The Answer Is Complicated

-Despite different restrictions during the pandemic, California and Florida have similar per capita rates of COVID-19 cases.

-Experts say safety rules are only part of the equation when it comes to COVID-19 case spread. There’s also housing density, income levels, and health systems.

-Experts note that North Dakota and South Dakota are among the least restrictive states but are among the highest in per capita cases.

California and Florida have taken different approaches to managing the COVID-19 pandemic.

Both states initiated lockdowns early in the pandemic, but since then, Florida has eschewed mask mandates, lockdowns, and other public health guidelines to mitigate deaths and hospitalizations from COVID-19.

California, on the other hand, has had multiple lockdowns and a mask mandate in place since June 18, 2020.

Despite this, per capita cases, hospitalizations, and deaths from COVID-19 in these states are similar.

California has had about 8,900 cases per 100,000 people while Florida has had about 8,700 per 100,000.

That fact has been seized upon by some as evidence that mask wearing, physical distancing, and other mitigation efforts are not effective at preventing the spread of the virus.

However, experts say the real reason for this dynamic is much more complicated.

Confounders abound

“First, I kind of reject the premise of the California versus Florida comparison,” Whitney R. Robinson, PhD, MSPH, an associate professor of epidemiology at the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health, told Healthline. “[COVID deniers] are cherry-picking a restrictive state that’s done worse than other restrictive states and chosen a permissive state that’s fared better than other permissive states.”

“This comparison isn’t an accident. They are stacking the deck by choosing outliers that favor their argument,” she said.

The data bears this out.

North Dakota and South Dakota are both among the least restrictive states in the country with the higher per capita case rates of COVID-19 in the country.

North Dakota has had 13,036 cases per 100,000 residents while South Dakota has had 12,585 per 100,000, according to data tracking from the New York Times.

Vermont and Hawaii, on the other hand, have some of the lowest per capita case rates in the country (2,341 and 1,912 per 100,000, respectively) and among the most restrictive policies, according to data analysis from WalletHub.

This doesn’t necessarily prove that more restrictions are better than fewer, either — and that’s just the point.

“There are so many measured and unmeasured variables that are different between those states. And all of those are at play right now. You’re asking us to have a deep understanding of a virus that’s only been around for 12 to 14 months,” said Brian C. Castrucci, DrPH, president and chief executive officer of the de Beaumont Foundation and a former director of state health departments in Georgia and Texas.

Some of those variables that change state by state include differences in housing density (including how many families live together in a single apartment or apartment complex) and the number of densely populated cities where superspreader events can quickly lead to a large spike in cases, as well as income level, age, and race.

But separating out and controlling for those variables is difficult at this stage.

“I can’t explain why Florida is not worse off than it is. I don’t know why,” Castrucci told Healthline. “We discount that little word novel, right [in novel coronavirus]? We’re still learning a lot about this virus.”

Looking abroad for answers

But containing COVID-19 is far from an unsolvable dilemma.

Countries such as New Zealand, Vietnam, and even China have had success containing the virus.

The measures these countries have used include robust contact tracing, strict quarantines, and social supports, such as delivering regular meals to people in quarantine and paying them to stay home.

In other words, mitigation isn’t a mystery. The United States’ response has simply fallen short.

“Even the very restrictive states weren’t all that restrictive when you compare to places like Spain, Italy, Australia, New Zealand,” Robinson said. “Without good quarantines, income supports, worker rights, a lot of what was done in a state like California was nibbling around the edges — closed schools and churches but open restaurants and bars.”

Those sort of intermittent — and at times contradictory — containment measures might simply be insufficient to significantly curtail the damage that COVID-19 causes.

“Some measures are more pandemic theater than best prevention,” Robinson said. “Places like Japan have taken smarter, more targeted approaches — really clamping down on superspreader situations but being more permissive about low-risk activities.”

“The alternative — treating activities that vary greatly in riskiness as equally risky — leads to really bad decision making at the individual level (people are genuinely confused) and also lets governments off the hook for bad public policy (at some points, open indoor dining but closed parks),” she added.

America’s impossible problem?

The bigger problem might lie with some uniquely American structural and cultural barriers, along with a lack of public health investment.

The first is federalism, which is the autonomy each state has, and why the federal government left COVID-19 response up to each individual state at the beginning of the pandemic.

“I’ve been in states where I’ve been working in the health department and there’s been an outbreak in our state; we can handle that — it’s within the boundaries of our state,” Castrucci said. “If that outbreak then went to the state next to me and the state next to them, we do need federal support because we need someone coordinating this while we’re still debating.”

But that didn’t happen during COVID-19, despite it being an interstate phenomenon early.

“Federalism has never been applied in the way that the Trump administration applied it,” Castrucci said. “They said, ‘Hey, it’s the state’s problem,’ and then we have a buffet of provisions and now we’re all trying to compare which of those dishes on the buffet are better. Pandemic response should not be a Choose Your Own Adventure book.”

This dynamic, combined with disinvestment in public health across the country, was a recipe for disaster.

“The fact is that we have allowed our public health system to erode over the past several decades, so we were wholly unprepared for this,” Castrucci said.

“We spend $700 billion a year on defense and we’ve been preparing for the wrong war. This was not an ‘if,’ this was a ‘when,’” he said. “And we didn’t invest in our labs and our public health system and now we’ve been taught an extraordinarily hard lesson by COVID-19: The safety, security, and economic prosperity of this country going forward is predicated on a robust public health system that I don’t think we have the political will to invent.”

“I think there’s a great risk that that vulnerability will persist following COVID-19,” he added.

Robinson agreed, noting that growing anti-science sentiment among the American public has also been an issue, a problem that can only be solved through strong leadership and education.

“Our society’s attraction to absolutes, miracle cures, and black-and-white answers has made COVID-19 response harder and less sustainable,” she said.


Link: https://www.healthline.com/health-ne...is-complicated

No COVID patients at Touro Infirmary in New Orleans!

https://www.fox8live.com/2021/03/18/...m_content=wvue

And the deaths reported elsewhere might be bullshit too.

Everyone dying with Covid is recorded as a Covid death, even if they only contracted Covid when they were hospitalised for something else, or had a mild case alongside a more serious health issue.

In the U.K. especially, hospitals are such hotbeds of infection (of all types) that anyone admitted for inpatient care is likely to be exposed to the virus. If they haven’t had it already, they will be infected in hospital, and then get recorded as a Covid death if they die from whatever was the original cause of admission.

There is also lots of free testing in Florida (it’s much easier to get a free test than in England) so I expect that testing rates are quite high.

Florida is substantially undercounting COVID deaths, and so is California. Both states show a very large uptick of deaths in 2020 vs 2019, which is obviously due to COVID. But both states are only counting about 60% of those excess deaths as COVID. By comparison, New York attributes over 80% of the excess deaths in 2020 as COVID, and New Jersey attributes over 90%.

How are you calculating excess deaths? And how can you say this is “obvious” (which has no scientific basis)?

It is obvious because there is no other event in 2020 that would cause deaths from any cause to spike by 20% year-over-year.

Excess deaths = total deaths in 2020 subtracted by total deaths in 2019. Total death counts for all states is available on the CDC's website through September of 2020.

Urbanisation in the US is slightly below that of the UK and Australia, but ahead of Canada. Even if there were vast gaps in coverage, that still wouldn’t explain the divergence.

You may very well be in a position to receive the best treatment in the world, but all that would divulge is that you are an outlier when the spectrum of healthcare outcomes is mediocre relative to the outcomes in other developed nations. Many – if not all – pay far less for better outcomes.

Foolish. You fight the enemy at hand. The enemy in the pandemic is a respiratory virus that spreads through the air. It makes sense to wear a mask and maintain distance to fight the spread, but apparently you see it as people living in fear or being snowflakes or whatever.

There should be some natural increase in deaths from 2019 to 2020 based on population growth. There is also normal annual variation.

Florida had 4.5% more total deaths in January 2020 than it did in January of 2019. Florida had 30% more total deaths than in August 2020 than it did in August 2019.

Now show me from March 2020 to March 2021 by month, against a last 3 year average (not just 2019), adjusted for population growth.

One factor is that 2019-20 was a very mild flu season, so it wasn’t a reference level of deaths.

You can look it up yourself when they release the figures, but not sure what you don't get. Nothing short of a major catastrophic event would cause such a drastic swing in deaths year-over-year. And August isn't even flu season.

Last and this year's flu seasons were stunted by measures take for Covid. People started wearing masks, social distancing and washing their hands as early as February '20.

And I don't know about you guys, but ever since I started wearing face masks, even outside, my allergies don't seem as bad. Just saying.

Same. I did a lot of long distance biking last summer and noticed a huge difference between when my face was and was not covered.

Yes, when I went hiking outside of Ojai last month, I had no issues with allergies. And I'm so used to wearing face masks (sometimes I even double it up when I know I'll be among more crowds) that I have no issues with breathing while constantly walking uphill or even light jogging.

You’re joking, right?

In Western countries Covid excess deaths is something unheard since WWII. In Britain or Italy, excess deaths due Covid is much higher than they’ve registered in WWII, where their 300k casualties was distributed over 5 years.

You find it’s cool to downplay the disease, but you cannot go against facts. In several countries it’s the most important mark in their demographic history. In Brazil, by far, the largest year-to-year death variation in recorded history. In the US, also the largest, bigger than the Civil War.

You're not wrong, but the passing of 300k senior citizens is not the same as 300k teenagers.