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-   -   How Is Covid-19 Impacting Life in Your City? (https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/showthread.php?t=242036)

twister244 Dec 18, 2020 1:14 AM

Besides normal pandemic impacts with the uptick in cases, Denver continues to have an insane housing market that has only become more strained for potential buyers over the last several months:

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/...market-redfin/

EDIT - The reason I posted this in the thread is I suspect the permanent remote work situation that will emerge for many after the pandemic is over has pushed many folks to consider moving to Denver, since we have had this hip vibe for years now. It also doesn't help that we just can't build houses fast enough here. Couple that with low property taxes and low mortgage rates.... and this is what you get.

dave8721 Dec 18, 2020 4:34 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 9136871)
I'll repeat what I posted in the other thread:

Let's look at the two vaccines the US has now agreed to authorize for emergency use. Both are about "95% effective". That means, about one in 20 people who gets them will still get COVID if exposed.

Most scientists are now saying they believe the vaccine-induced immunity is actually better (more effective) than natural immunity you would get from having the illness (because it's more specific to the virus's most important vulnerability, the spike protein).

That means likely more than 1 in 20 people who have had COVID will, if re-exposed, "get it again". But looking at it from a the half-full viewpoint, 19 people (or maybe slightly fewer) who've had it won't get it again even if they are exposed.

Also from what I have seen they are close to 100% effective in preventing severe cases of the virus. So even if you do still catch it after the vaccine, it wont be as severe.

SIGSEGV Dec 18, 2020 4:49 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by twister244 (Post 9136967)
Besides normal pandemic impacts with the uptick in cases, Denver continues to have an insane housing market that has only become more strained for potential buyers over the last several months:

https://denver.cbslocal.com/2020/12/...market-redfin/

EDIT - The reason I posted this in the thread is I suspect the permanent remote work situation that will emerge for many after the pandemic is over has pushed many folks to consider moving to Denver, since we have had this hip vibe for years now. It also doesn't help that we just can't build houses fast enough here. Couple that with low property taxes and low mortgage rates.... and this is what you get.


and mountains! I wonder how places like Bishop, Moab and Tahoe are doing...

xzmattzx Dec 18, 2020 5:16 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 9136871)
I'll repeat what I posted in the other thread:

Let's look at the two vaccines the US has now agreed to authorize for emergency use. Both are about "95% effective". That means, about one in 20 people who gets them will still get COVID if exposed.

Most scientists are now saying they believe the vaccine-induced immunity is actually better (more effective) than natural immunity you would get from having the illness (because it's more specific to the virus's most important vulnerability, the spike protein).

That means likely more than 1 in 20 people who have had COVID will, if re-exposed, "get it again". But looking at it from a the half-full viewpoint, 19 people (or maybe slightly fewer) who've had it won't get it again even if they are exposed.

Will get Covid if exposed? Or, may potentially get Covid if exposed?

Pedestrian Dec 18, 2020 6:57 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JManc (Post 9136921)
Doesn't natural immunity only last a few months or so?

Nobody knows but the members of the FDA panel suggested immunity, whether natural or from a vaccine, probably lasts 1-3 years.

Pedestrian Dec 18, 2020 6:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by xzmattzx (Post 9137100)
Will get Covid if exposed? Or, may potentially get Covid if exposed?

OK. Maybe phrase it “are vulnerable to infection”.

Technically, what the numbers mean is that in comparable populations there will be 20 times as many symptomatic illnesses among unvaccinated people as among vaccinated ones and I’m suggesting that similarly there will be a bit fewer than 20 times as many infections among people who have not previously had COVID as among those who have. Also, the infections among those previously sick should be milder and some may not be noticed. But that’s still a significant possibility of reinfection.

Pedestrian Dec 18, 2020 7:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by dave8721 (Post 9137073)
Also from what I have seen they are close to 100% effective in preventing severe cases of the virus. So even if you do still catch it after the vaccine, it wont be as severe.

That’s believed to be true and it not only makes sense because that’s the way things usually go but I’ve been looking for reports about whether the rare documented second infections are typically severe or less severe. I’m betting they are mild.

iheartthed Dec 18, 2020 4:38 PM

This is probably the most high profile COVID death in Michigan so far:

Quote:

Benny Napoleon, Michigan Sheriff and Ex-Detroit Police Chief, Dies at 65

Sheriff Napoleon served for more than a decade in the Michigan county that includes Detroit, and ran unsuccessfully for the city’s mayor.

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. — Benny Napoleon, the sheriff of Wayne County in Michigan and a former Detroit police chief who ran unsuccessfully for mayor of the city, died on Thursday. He was 65.

The current mayor of Detroit, Mike Duggan, confirmed the death on Twitter. Sheriff Napoleon had been hospitalized in Detroit for weeks with Covid-19 complications.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/18/u...leon-dead.html

suburbanite Dec 18, 2020 4:53 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Pedestrian (Post 9137137)
That’s believed to be true and it not only makes sense because that’s the way things usually go but I’ve been looking for reports about whether the rare documented second infections are typically severe or less severe. I’m betting they are mild.

I'm curious as to how places like Sweden are experiencing such high amounts of severe cases now (leading to a shortage of ICU beds) while being the poster child of the laissez faire herd immunity strategy. You would have to think their percentage of the population that was exposed to Covid between March - October was pretty high given the prevalence in places like New York. Was there a large subset of vulnerable people who voluntarily restricted their activities until recently and are getting it for the first time? Are they getting hit with a new strain? Does getting it a second time not make it any easier?

Pedestrian Dec 18, 2020 5:11 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suburbanite (Post 9137338)
I'm curious as to how places like Sweden are experiencing such high amounts of severe cases now (leading to a shortage of ICU beds) while being the poster child of the laissez faire herd immunity strategy. You would have to think their percentage of the population that was exposed to Covid between March - October was pretty high given the prevalence in places like New York. Was there a large subset of vulnerable people who voluntarily restricted their activities until recently and are getting it for the first time? Are they getting hit with a new strain? Does getting it a second time not make it any easier?

These are among the many things we don't know and the reason I reject the notion that places like Canada are doing better because they behaved smarter or whatever. We simply don't understand well enough the factors that matter.

One thing that does come to mind re Sweden is that the younger set there probably passed around a lot of asymptomatic infections in March-October but didn't take it home to the grandparents and older folks until everybody had to head indoors for the winter. Just a thought.

There have been some different strains of virus identified in Europe but everything I read argues they are niether resistant to immunity to other strains (or the vaccines) nor do they produce worse disease because the altered bits of their RNA don't code for anything critical.

iheartthed Dec 18, 2020 5:20 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by suburbanite (Post 9137338)
I'm curious as to how places like Sweden are experiencing such high amounts of severe cases now (leading to a shortage of ICU beds) while being the poster child of the laissez faire herd immunity strategy. You would have to think their percentage of the population that was exposed to Covid between March - October was pretty high given the prevalence in places like New York. Was there a large subset of vulnerable people who voluntarily restricted their activities until recently and are getting it for the first time? Are they getting hit with a new strain? Does getting it a second time not make it any easier?

We could have been overestimating asymptomatic spread/infections. In hindsight, Sweden's confirmed infections were not really that high early in the pandemic compared to some other places. Michigan, which has a similar population size as Sweden, had an early pandemic peak of +1,800 new cases/day on average in April, which the state didn't surpass again until late October. Sweden never got above an average of 1,800 until late October. Coincidentally, Sweden and Michigan hit 1,800 within a week of each other in October.

If you want proof that lockdowns work, Michigan's infections peaked a month ago around the time of the most recent shutdown order, and are now down to about 50-60% of peak. Sweden has yet to peak in this new wave.

Pedestrian Dec 18, 2020 8:15 PM

Quote:

Charts show how COVID surge has hit L.A. much harder than San Francisco
Kellie Hwang Dec. 17, 2020 Updated: Dec. 17, 2020 1:43 p.m.

Los Angeles marked one of its worst days of the pandemic on Wednesday, reporting over 22,000 new cases in what is likely a single-day record for any county in the state. The grim milestone underscores the area’s ongoing struggles to curb the virus’s spread.

Until recently, the Bay Area had mostly avoided a similar fate. San Francisco, in particular, was cited as having the lowest mortality rate of any major U.S. metropolitan area. Now, the current surge is sparing few regions across California, yet the latest numbers for the two regions underscore that the pandemic continues to impact different areas of the state in very different ways . . . .

The Bay Area’s average case rate over the past seven days is 49 cases per 100,000 people as of Wednesday, according to the Chronicle’s Coronavirus Tracker. Case rates across the counties range from 61 in Santa Clara to 30 in San Francisco. Los Angeles County’s 7-day case rate is 111.


The recent daily hospitalization rate in Los Angeles County is more than twice that of San Francisco. And, as of Dec. 16, the county is down to 26 available ICU beds, while the Southern California region dropped to 0% ICU capacity on Thursday.

San Francisco’s COVID-19 hospitalizations in recent days are also at an all-time high. Yet ICU capacity in San Francisco remains above the city’s 20% target. Across the Bay Area region, capacity dropped to 12.9% on Wednesday.

Los Angeles County’s rate of deaths has overall been significantly higher than the Bay Area’s, and that difference has become even more striking in the current surge.

In particular, San Francisco has had one of the lowest mortality rates of all urban centers in the U.S. . . . . Current projections estimate that San Francisco will finish the month with a rate of 2.7 deaths per 100,000 people, and Los Angeles will reach a rate of 15 for December.

Los Angeles is, of course, a bigger metropolis than the Bay Area. Jeffrey Martin, a professor of epidemiology and biostatistics at UCSF, said that really matters when health officials are faced with messaging safety precautions to millions more people.

Los Angeles also is surrounded by huge counties that have high case rates, and have had varying responses to health orders. Next door in Orange County, Huntington Beach has made headlines as a gathering place for locals to demonstrate their resistance to mask orders and other pandemic restriction-enforcement measures. Orange County’s case rate currently is 55.2 per 100,000 people, and its test positivity rate is 13.2%.

Neighboring San Bernardino’s case rate is 120.3 per 100,000 people, with a 20.1% test positivity rate. Riverside has a 92.2 case rate and 18.5% positive test rate.

The high rates across Southern California likely are contributing to spread not just within the region, but the entire state . . . .

. . . Southern California’s demographics mean there’s a larger percentage of the population who are at high risk for getting the virus.

According to 2019 estimates from the U.S. Census, about 10% of San Francisco residents were living in poverty, and 5% of individuals under 65 were without health insurance. In Los Angeles County, 13% of residents were living in poverty, and 10% of people younger than 65 didn’t have health insurance.

Racial disparities in who is most likely to get the virus have existed across the country since the beginning of the pandemic, with Black and Latino communities being harmed by the virus at higher rates.

In Los Angeles, 49% of the population are Latino. Los Angeles reports that 42% of total cases have been in the Latino community, but the county also reports about 32% of cases where ethnicity is unknown.

In late summer, Los Angeles began making progress in reversing racial disparity among communities of color. However, recent data shows backtracking on that progress: Cases in the Latino community are now twice that of cases in the white population, and Latino residents are hospitalized at three times the rate of white residents. On Tuesday, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti sent mobile testing teams to predominantly Latino and Black neighborhoods that have seen explosive infection growth in recent weeks.

The Bay Area’s Latino community also has been disproportionately impacted by the virus. The Latino community here makes up about 19.4% of the population, but has accounted for 48% of coronavirus cases since the outset of the pandemic. San Francisco’s Latino community is 15% of the population, but 44.5% of cases.

Yet counties in the Bay Area appear to have had more success as the pandemic progressed in targeting testing to those communities.

The state’s health equity metric tracks the test positivity rate in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods to ensure they don’t lag behind a county’s overall positive test rate. San Francisco’s metric is currently 5% vs. its overall test positivity rate of 3%. Santa Clara County has the highest health equity metric in the Bay Area at 12.8%, vs. its overall rate of 7.3%. Los Angeles County’s is 17%, vs. 11.4% overall . . . .

https://s.hdnux.com/photos/01/15/63/...29/9/940x0.jpg

https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/...a-15810194.php

Pedestrian Dec 18, 2020 9:50 PM

Quote:

The front line in the lobby: NYC’s building workers protect residents and themselves
Published: Dec. 18, 2020 at 1:46 p.m. ET
By Ellis Henican

It’s been a year unlike any other for the doormen, supers, porters, engineers and others who staff New York City’s rental, condo and co-op buildings, the frontline workers who stand between millions of anxious residents and an increasingly infected city. These jobs have gotten far more difficult and far more dangerous in this time of COVID-19, even if some well-heeled families are still hiding out in the Hamptons, the Hudson Valley or South Florida.

“Definitely, definitely,” said Kenny Ortiz, the day-shift doorman at a high-rise, high-service, high-amenity building on Central Park West. “The job has changed a lot. We’ve been asked to do all kinds of things we didn’t used to do.”

Such as?

“We have to make sure the people have masks on and the hand sanitizers are full and the wipes are there and the area is clean, and make sure only two or three people are inside the elevators,” said Ortiz, who is 38 and looks after four children when he gets off work every afternoon at 3 p.m.

“There are more duties so there’s more work. We take up every single box that comes in. Before, the delivery guys did. Now, we wipe down the boxes and we bring them up to the apartments. We have to make sure we have the names of all the people coming into the building and make sure they’re checked in correctly. We have to start cleaning the gym.”

None of which he minds, said Ortiz, who spent 15 years as a concierge before switching to doorman to get the day shift. Most people understand the threat now and how to combat it far better than they did when the first coronavirus wave hit New York in the spring . . . .

One of New York’s very first COVID-19 casualties, back in March, was Juan Sanabria, a beloved 52-year-old doorman at 860 Grand Concourse in the Bronx. His life and death provoked a heart-wrenching 3,584-word feature in the New Yorker and helped define the exploding viral tragedy. The death reports had finally slowed a bit. But with the sharp rise in cold-weather cases, no one can say what’s coming next . . . .

“COVID changed our game,” said Jimmy Brennan, the resident manager of a co-op building on Fifth Avenue in the 70s. “We are in such close proximity to shareholders and tenants. We’re in their homes. We’re in elevators. We’re changing a lightbulb, fixing a toilet seat. Whatever their day-to-day needs are. More so than police or firemen. Maybe not as much as medical workers or EMS, but it’s no surprise that our industry had such a high fatality rate in the first wave. We’ve been right there all along.”

Will this time be better?

“We were not masked up when COVID hit the first time,” Brennan said. “It wasn’t commonplace to see a doorman with a mask or a handyman with a mask for eight hours. Not having masks before, when many first responders did, I think that did lead to a higher fatality rate. This time around, I believe that the mask may end up being part of the new uniform. I do think we’re in a better place now.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/th...Pos=6#cxrecs_s

It's not just in NY. It's similar in my building in SF except we only let one person at a time in the elevator.

10023 Jan 5, 2021 7:54 PM

It’s like a grey, wet and dark prison.

I had to stay over Christmas for family reasons but am planning to de-camp for somewhere in the free world soon, perhaps Miami. I’ve got an offer of a place to stay in Jackson Hole which is an option as well.

iheartthed Jan 5, 2021 8:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 9150064)
It’s like a grey, wet and dark prison.

I had to stay over Christmas for family reasons but am planning to de-camp for somewhere in the free world soon, perhaps Miami. I’ve got an offer of a place to stay in Jackson Hole which is an option as well.

If you all had did what they told you almost a year ago, you wouldn't be in this situation.

the urban politician Jan 5, 2021 9:00 PM

The Macy's in Water Tower Place Magnificent Mile is closing.

Yay for COVID!

Yuri Jan 5, 2021 9:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 9150064)
It’s like a grey, wet and dark prison.

I had to stay over Christmas for family reasons but am planning to de-camp for somewhere in the free world soon, perhaps Miami. I’ve got an offer of a place to stay in Jackson Hole which is an option as well.

A tragedy indeed. You're all over the place, saying/bragging on how you can freely jump across oceans, continents, beaches, ski resorts while complaining on how unfair life is. My thoughts are with you.

10023 Jan 5, 2021 11:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by yuriandrade (Post 9150219)
A tragedy indeed. You're all over the place, saying/bragging on how you can freely jump across oceans, continents, beaches, ski resorts while complaining on how unfair life is. My thoughts are with you.

Well, I would rather not have to spend thousands of dollars on travel and accommodation in order to not be imprisoned for 3 months, but in the current circumstances I do intend to get some use out of my US passport (and the annual tax filings that it requires).

10023 Jan 5, 2021 11:18 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by iheartthed (Post 9150103)
If you all had did what they told you almost a year ago, you wouldn't be in this situation.

People did what they were told. At least I did. We had a proper lockdown here for months, which few people in the US experienced.

It doesn’t matter, and lockdowns don’t work. Look at countries like Italy and Spain, which had severe lockdowns (needing written authorization to leave home, etc). The virus made a resurgence as the weather got colder just as everyone had predicted it would months earlier.

Countries that have done relatively well (like a few in East Asia) have done so for very different reasons, some cultural, but probably also including a degree of genetics or pre-existing resistance due to community exposure to similar coronaviruses like SARS. Japan has never locked down and never had to. People just aren’t getting sick.

Yuri Jan 5, 2021 11:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by 10023 (Post 9150297)
Well, I would rather not have to spend thousands of dollars on travel and accommodation in order to not be imprisoned for 3 months, but in the current circumstances I do intend to get some use out of my US passport (and the annual tax filings that it requires).

Yes, it's very unfortunate to have thousands of dollars to burn when things get dull or being able to leave behind all those mundane stuff such as a job, bills, etc.


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