Bad News Thread

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.
Click to expand...
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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...

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.
Click to expand...
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.
 
I had to go find some of the photos.

This is from May 8, 2020 in Utah.

At this time for example, you couldn't dine in or outside at any restaurant or go to any bar in AZ.

Notice all the mask wearing. They never shut down.

2020-05-08.jpg
 
Desert Hound said:
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.
Click to expand...
For a while, people were going to fall over dead while exercising from the inflammation in the heart caused by COVID. I am happy to say I haven't heard anything about that in a while. Now it's the variants.

You saw those percentages from Israel I posted in The Good News thread from the NY Times. Once you are vaccinated, you are at a much lower risk than the flu - to get or give.

"Here’s a useful way to think about Israel’s numbers: Only 3.5 out of every 100,000 people vaccinated there were later hospitalized with Covid symptoms. During a typical flu season in the U.S., by comparison, roughly 150 out of every 100,000 people are hospitalized with flu symptoms."
 
Desert Hound said:
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.
Click to expand...
For alcohol, UT is always half closed. Has been that way for years.

Per capita alcohol consumption is about half what it is in other states. That likely also means that average time spent in bars is about half what it is in other states. And the bar/saloon contribution to transmissibility is about half what it is in other states.
 
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.
Click to expand...
I was in Utah for a week in July, including the 4th. Utah was way more open and way more lax with mask wearing than California. Mask wearing at indoor retail shops was not mandatory and at some stores (like fishing and hunting shops) mask wearing was virtually non-existent. Your liquor theory is speculative at best (I'm being polite).
 
kickingandscreaming said:
For a while, people were going to fall over dead while exercising from the inflammation in the heart caused by COVID. I am happy to say I haven't heard anything about that in a while. Now it's the variants.

You saw those percentages from Israel I posted in The Good News thread from the NY Times. Once you are vaccinated, you are at a much lower risk than the flu - to get or give.

"Here’s a useful way to think about Israel’s numbers: Only 3.5 out of every 100,000 people vaccinated there were later hospitalized with Covid symptoms. During a typical flu season in the U.S., by comparison, roughly 150 out of every 100,000 people are hospitalized with flu symptoms."
Click to expand...
I did read that. And that is all very good news.
 
dad4 said:
For alcohol, UT is always half closed. Has been that way for years.

Per capita alcohol consumption is about half what it is in other states. That likely also means that average time spent in bars is about half what it is in other states. And the bar/saloon contribution to transmissibility is about half what it is in other states.
Click to expand...
And yet their numbers match up with OR and WA.

2 states that basically did the CA shut everything down route.

As I said if lockdowns and masks made a difference the data would easily show it.
 
Grace T. said:
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.
Click to expand...
I think NM threw in the towel on restrictions late last fall. Not quite as bad as Europe, but with similar results.

It just shows that restrictions won't work after you stop using them.
 
kickingandscreaming said:
For a while, people were going to fall over dead while exercising from the inflammation in the heart caused by COVID. I am happy to say I haven't heard anything about that in a while. Now it's the variants
Click to expand...
Yes that was the "fear' for awhile. As data came in that went away.

And yes you are correct, now the "fear" is variants.
 
Desert Hound said:
And yet their numbers match up with OR and WA.

2 states that basically did the CA shut everything down route.

As I said if lockdowns and masks made a difference the data would easily show it.
Click to expand...
The data do show it.

You just aren't good enough at statistics to understand the data.

There are statisticians who are good enough, but you refuse to listen to them.

So you go back to cherry picking the comparisons that tell you what you want to hear. WA/OR, but not SD/MN. CA/TX, but not AZ/CA.
 
dad4 said:
The data do show it.

You just aren't good enough at statistics to understand the data.

There are statisticians who are good enough, but you refuse to listen to them.

So you go back to cherry picking the comparisons that tell you what you want to hear. WA/OR, but not SD/MN. CA/TX, but not AZ/CA.
Click to expand...
How about explain CA vs TX/FL?

Or explain OR/WA vs UT?
 
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