Bad News Thread

Grace T. said:
Well, the only bright side on this is the push back has been very severe and has been across the political spectrum and not just the hard core antilockdowners.
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It is going to be an uphill battle in many areas.

Consider the fact that the school board in SF has ONLY just started talking about possibly re-opening. After a year they are just getting around to it. They were however very busy voting on changing the names of schools of controversial figures such as Abe Lincoln and Paul Revere to name a few.

And variations of that mindset still pervade areas as in schools still not being open and making excuses as to why.
 
Grace T. said:
An article re the Los Angeles variant. Guess the world needs to isolate California from the rest of the world.....

www.latimes.com

Coronavirus variant first seen in Los Angeles has spread around the world

Coronavirus variant first seen in L.A. now accounts for about half of Southern California's infections and has spread to 18 states and six countries.
www.latimes.com www.latimes.com
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I'm (obviously) no virologist but with the ability people have to freely come and go between states, this has to be of no surprise to people, right? I almost wish they'd shutup about all the new variants!
 
"Vaccine trials measure how many people get infected after vaccination. Take for example the Moderna vaccine trial, published in the New England Journal of Medicine beginning in November with follow-up publications extending through February. In that trial they randomized 15,210 people to the vaccine and 15,210 people to placebo. Of those who got the placebo, 185 developed COVID-19. Therefore, 1.2% got COVID-19. Thirty of those became very ill. Of those who got the vaccine, 11 developed COVID-19. None of them got very ill. Therefore, 0.07% got COVID-19. So, the vaccine was effective: it prevented illness and it prevented serious illness."
-
"Another way to approach this issue of whether the vaccine prevents spread is to consider what happens with other vaccines. When we give the flu vaccine do we find that those who get the vaccine contract the flu and pass it on to others at a clinically significant rate? The answer is no. Can it happen? The answer is yes. The flu vaccine, like the COVID-19 vaccine, is not perfect. But it is highly effective. The same holds for the smallpox vaccine (smallpox is now obliterated from the planet by vaccination), the polio vaccine, and others. Even when vaccines are not perfect they can be highly effective. Therefore, to harp on the rare possibility of spreading COVID-19 after vaccination is to focus on what is unlikely to happen rather than to focus on what is likely to happen — that it will work very well."

www.medpagetoday.com

Op-Ed: Stop Stressing Post-Vax Risk of Spreading Coronavirus

Why give people another reason to avoid vaccination?
www.medpagetoday.com www.medpagetoday.com
 
crush said:
More from Doc F

Senior White House CoVID advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci threw more cold-water on Americans looking to return to normal life this week; saying even those vaccinated twice should avoid restaurants and movie theaters.

“There are things, even if you’re vaccinated, that you’re not going to be able to do in society,” Fauci said on Monday during a White House COVID-19 press briefing. “For example, indoor dining, theaters, places where people congregate. That’s because of the safety of society.”

“We hope that when the data comes in, it’s going to show that the virus level is quite low and you’re not transmitting it,” Fauci said, adding: “We don’t know that now. And for that reason, we want to make sure that people continue to wear masks despite the fact that they’re vaccinated.”
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He needs to read the NY Times article I just posted in the Good News Thread.
 
kickingandscreaming said:
I fully expected the following.
Vaccinated: Wear a mask
Not Vaccinated: Wear two masks.
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Think about what we are hearing from Fauci and others.

If people are vaccinated can we do the following?

Stop social distancing? No

Can we travel like we did before? No

Can restaurants and bars go back to normal? No

Are we safe? We don't know

Can we still spread the disease? We don't know

And so on.

So what is the point?

Watch the idiotic rules/procedures they keep or put in place long after this is over.

By the way...the latest is hey there are variants popping up. We just don't know what MIGHT happen with the new ones.

My response? Live life. The flu has variants come around every year. I suspect covid will constantly mutate as well. We cannot keep on living in fear of what MIGHT be.
 
By the way this is why @dad4 and other pro lock downers don't write much in this thread anymore. The facts on the ground have disproven their long running arguments.

From NPR.

“In late fall, we saw this horrible surge that grew even worse after Thanksgiving. …. this sustained, horrible surge of infections, the worst in the nation, for many weeks after the second lockdown was ordered. And the fact is, California’s deaths per capita numbers, which, you know, officials have used throughout the pandemic to defend these very tough restrictions, are in many cases either the same or worse than many states that have been far less restrictive.”

--


“Florida has had fewer cases per capita than California."

--

“(FLORIDA) Unemployment’s below the national average. Consumer spending, judged by sales tax collections, is nearly back. Tourism is, of course, still way down. But there are signs that even that’s ready to rebound.”
 
Desert Hound said:
By the way this is why @dad4 and other pro lock downers don't write much in this thread anymore. The facts on the ground have disproven their long running arguments.

From NPR.

“In late fall, we saw this horrible surge that grew even worse after Thanksgiving. …. this sustained, horrible surge of infections, the worst in the nation, for many weeks after the second lockdown was ordered. And the fact is, California’s deaths per capita numbers, which, you know, officials have used throughout the pandemic to defend these very tough restrictions, are in many cases either the same or worse than many states that have been far less restrictive.”

--


“Florida has had fewer cases per capita than California."

--

“(FLORIDA) Unemployment’s below the national average. Consumer spending, judged by sales tax collections, is nearly back. Tourism is, of course, still way down. But there are signs that even that’s ready to rebound.”
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You beat Dad bro, good job. I watched you kick his ass for 12 months. He lost all the debates and his math is full of shit and he knows it. At least when I lose a argument, I admit it.
 
Desert Hound said:
Can we still spread the disease? We don't know
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The answer to that appears to be because not enough research and testing has been done on it, which is probably not unreasonable as the immediate goal was a working vaccine, which happened in a record amount of time and with extraordinarily high success rates.

Here's an article from MIT on the vaccines & transmission. Herd immunity via infections and vaccinations are the key, but if vaccines don't prevent transmissions then that's a problem.

"But if vaccinated people are “leaky”—if they can still spread the virus sometimes—the threshold will rise. In fact, according to basic outbreak math, if the vaccine stops anything less than two-thirds of transmission events, it’s impossible to reach herd immunity at all. And that’s not even considering that many people will refuse the vaccine, nor mounting evidence that immunity may not last against new variants of the virus."

There's a quote which points to the inconsistent messaging - mainly because they don't yet know if vaccinations will prevent transmissions.

"Jody Lanard, a medical risk communicator who has worked with the World Health Organization, says until questions about vaccine transmission are answered, public health officials will likely send out contradictory messages. On the one hand, she says, exhorting people to “keep wearing a mask” implies that a vaccinated person can still transmit the virus. At the same time, encouraging everyone to get vaccinated, even those who are not in a high-risk group, “leans heavily on the notion that transmission will likely be reduced by vaccination.”

Can I still infect people with covid if I’ve been vaccinated? | MIT Technology Review
 
Desert Hound said:
By the way this is why @dad4 and other pro lock downers don't write much in this thread anymore. The facts on the ground have disproven their long running arguments.

From NPR.

“In late fall, we saw this horrible surge that grew even worse after Thanksgiving. …. this sustained, horrible surge of infections, the worst in the nation, for many weeks after the second lockdown was ordered. And the fact is, California’s deaths per capita numbers, which, you know, officials have used throughout the pandemic to defend these very tough restrictions, are in many cases either the same or worse than many states that have been far less restrictive.”

--


“Florida has had fewer cases per capita than California."

--

“(FLORIDA) Unemployment’s below the national average. Consumer spending, judged by sales tax collections, is nearly back. Tourism is, of course, still way down. But there are signs that even that’s ready to rebound.”
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No point in writing when the argument stalls out at the same point every time.

Hound: FL and TX have similar case counts to CA.
Dad4: yes, because the housing setup in CA promotes the spread of disease.
Hound: <crickets>
Dad4: would you like to talk about pro-restriction states other than Southern CA? Or the death rate in AZ?
Hound: <crickets>

You have one argument. It applies to only one state, and only half of that one. It completely falls apart as soon as you try to talk about Oregon, Washington, Northern CA, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona.
 
dad4 said:
No point in writing when the argument stalls out at the same point every time.

Hound: FL and TX have similar case counts to CA.
Dad4: yes, because the housing setup in CA promotes the spread of disease.
Hound: <crickets>
Dad4: would you like to talk about pro-restriction states other than Southern CA? Or the death rate in AZ?
Hound: <crickets>

You have one argument. It applies to only one state, and only half of that one. It completely falls apart as soon as you try to talk about Oregon, Washington, Northern CA, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona.
Click to expand...

In fairness, once you start distinguishing it gets hard to make comparisons. You have to throw out Arizona too given the issues with the Native American counties and the border counties. Nevada has to be thrown out due to the casinos being opened. You can still salvage a comparison....NorCal v. Utah.....Washington (excluding Seattle) v. Wyoming.....but it gets trickier.

Pretty much the main thing that your rebuttal shows is that besides seasonality, population density is a major driver of infection rates. I totally agree with that. Unfortunately, though, there's not much governments can do by way of that quickly once the pandemic hits. That factor, like the seasonality, is sort of baked in. Yes, it serves as an explanation for why SoCal did so bad. But no, it does not serve as an excuse for why California's NPIs did not work, given the tremendous costs which wasn't accounted for (particularly when it comes to children). If we are going to pay the price that we did for the NPIs, given the enormous cost, they should have worked better (and there's not a whole lot of proof out there that given the density issue they actually saved that many lives....I'm sure they did some).
 
Grace T. said:
In fairness, once you start distinguishing it gets hard to make comparisons. You have to throw out Arizona too given the issues with the Native American counties and the border counties. Nevada has to be thrown out due to the casinos being opened. You can still salvage a comparison....NorCal v. Utah.....Washington (excluding Seattle) v. Wyoming.....but it gets trickier.

Pretty much the main thing that your rebuttal shows is that besides seasonality, population density is a major driver of infection rates. I totally agree with that. Unfortunately, though, there's not much governments can do by way of that quickly once the pandemic hits. That factor, like the seasonality, is sort of baked in. Yes, it serves as an explanation for why SoCal did so bad. But no, it does not serve as an excuse for why California's NPIs did not work, given the tremendous costs which wasn't accounted for (particularly when it comes to children). If we are going to pay the price that we did for the NPIs, given the enormous cost, they should have worked better (and there's not a whole lot of proof out there that given the density issue they actually saved that many lives....I'm sure they did some).
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If lockdowns and masks worked, we would see stark differences between strict and non strict states in this sense.

We just do not.

Utah at deaths per million does better vs WA and worse vs OR. But looking at all 3 they are very close....despite having very different policies in place.

Looking again at FL/TX/CA you are talking 90 million people in those states. Those are large enough numbers where if lockdowns and masks did work, we would expect to see the results show up in the data. We don't.

TX/FL have about 50 million people. CA has 40 million. Kids have been in school, people going to restaurants/bars, etc in 2 of those states. Things @dad4 and others have told us are very bad things and needlessly help to spread the virus.
 
dad4 said:
It completely falls apart as soon as you try to talk about Oregon, Washington, Northern CA, Idaho, Nevada, and Arizona.
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It doesn't actually.

Compare OR/WA vs Utah. Look at the deaths per millions. Not much difference. What did OR/WA gain vs Utah?

Look at most other western states vs CA. Most of those states have been open and have outcomes rather similar to CA. Their kids have been going to school in person. Biz has been open, etc. Hell even CA has been creeping up on NV deaths per millions. 1592 vs 1262. I don't look at that number and think to myself yep killing off biz and keeping almost all kids out of school did the trick.
 
Desert Hound said:
It doesn't actually.

Compare OR/WA vs Utah. Look at the deaths per millions. Not much difference. What did OR/WA gain vs Utah?

Look at most other western states vs CA. Most of those states have been open and have outcomes rather similar to CA. Their kids have been going to school in person. Biz has been open, etc. Hell even CA has been creeping up on NV deaths per millions. 1592 vs 1262. I don't look at that number and think to myself yep killing off biz and keeping almost all kids out of school did the trick.
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Ok. deaths per million residents in the west:
AZ 2150
SD 2106
ND 1890
NM 1738
KS 1596
NV 1592
TX 1477
CA 1262
MT 1261
OK 1078
NE 1060
ID 1030
WA 650
UT 582
OR 513


Looks like we should ask what WA, UT, and OR did right. We should also ask what AZ, ND, SD did wrong.

Don’t forget to include alcohol when you think about it. UT is a weird place for booze. The low case rate in UT may have something to do with fewer people going to bars or drinking at each others homes. Per capita alcohol consumption in UT is about half what it is in Oregon or Washington. The total number of bars is also restricted by state law, as are the hours.

Seems to be a pretty strong case for closing bars and restaurants. All three of the best records in the west were is states with some kind of restriction on bars and restaurants. All three of the worst records in the west were in states with bars and restaurants open.
 
dad4 said:
Ok. deaths per million residents in the west:
AZ 2150
SD 2106
ND 1890
NM 1738
KS 1596
NV 1592
TX 1477
CA 1262
MT 1261
OK 1078
NE 1060
ID 1030
WA 650
UT 582
OR 513


Looks like we should ask what WA, UT, and OR did right. We should also ask what AZ, ND, SD did wrong.

Don’t forget to include alcohol when you think about it. UT is a weird place for booze. The low case rate in UT may have something to do with fewer people going to bars or drinking at each others homes. Per capita alcohol consumption in UT is about half what it is in Oregon or Washington. The total number of bars is also restricted by state law, as are the hours.

Seems to be a pretty strong case for closing bars and restaurants. All three of the best records in the west were is states with some kind of restriction on bars and restaurants. All three of the worst records in the west were in states with bars and restaurants open.
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My experience with Utah was only late July-September, but I can tell you: a) they weren't wearing masks on the streets....pretty good about wearing masks indoors in markets and medical waiting room, b) the restaurants there (including indoor dining which shocked us) were busy...there is a pretty big restaurant culture there including the burbs....from Park City/Salt Lake where you see the high end restaurants, to the burbs where you saw busy chain restaurants popular in California in the 90s like Applebees and Olive Garden type restaurants, c) worship and other life was carrying on as normal and people weren't simply scared out of their minds like they were in California at the time. Yes, booze is a weird thing, but interestingly the use is spread with places like Park City and Salt Lake having numerous bars and places like Ogden not so much. Somebody could actually construct a study that would show the impact of bars on pandemics....compare the zip codes with a large incidence of bars against those that were totally dry...the one caveat though is it might also mirror population density as the more dense places have a tendency to run more wet than dry. And while the population does not tend to gather indoors at bars, they do at other people's houses to socialize and at church and temple for worship (you don't need to be drunk to socialize in Utah). Things might have changed in October after we left there.
 
Grace T. said:
My experience with Utah was only late July-September, but I can tell you: a) they weren't wearing masks on the streets....pretty good about wearing masks indoors in markets and medical waiting room, b) the restaurants there (including indoor dining which shocked us) were busy...there is a pretty big restaurant culture there including the burbs....from Park City/Salt Lake where you see the high end restaurants, to the burbs where you saw busy chain restaurants popular in California in the 90s like Applebees and Olive Garden type restaurants, c) worship and other life was carrying on as normal and people weren't simply scared out of their minds like they were in California at the time. Yes, booze is a weird thing, but interestingly the use is spread with places like Park City and Salt Lake having numerous bars and places like Ogden not so much. Somebody could actually construct a study that would show the impact of bars on pandemics....compare the zip codes with a large incidence of bars against those that were totally dry...the one caveat though is it might also mirror population density as the more dense places have a tendency to run more wet than dry. And while the population does not tend to gather indoors at bars, they do at other people's houses to socialize and at church and temple for worship (you don't need to be drunk to socialize in Utah). Things might have changed in October after we left there.
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p.s. It's interesting Utah, Oregon, Washington all behaved similarly. All states roughly the same size and each having 1 large city and several mid size cities. Most housing is single family homes. My completely speculative guess is in Utah probably, more than the bars, the factor that is going on is their conscientiousness. People from Utah really look out for each other. Our next door neighbors, for example, who we'd only known for a couple weeks offered to watch my boys overnight in the event I needed to be hospitalized overnight for some tests. I think part of what was happening in Utah is that if someone felt sick, I don't think they were going to temple/church for fear of contaminating others.

The other monkey wrench in your figures is New Mexico....had one of the harder lockdowns in the west and quarantine periods for travel yet it still got the result that it got....partially its due to the outbreak in the Navajo nation, but still the NPIs didn't work as well as hoped.
 
dad4 said:
All three of the best records in the west were is states with some kind of restriction on bars and restaurants.
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Not true. Utah was open. When I was sitting here in AZ with restaurants and bars closed, my friends in Utah were sending me texts of them dining out, going to the bar, etc.
 
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