At what point would you lock down again?

[mommyoffive]

What Is the 'COVID-22 Variant' and Should Americans Be Worried? (msn.com)

 

Experts renew warnings of 'twindemic' as US enters flu season amid rising COVID-19 cases: 'We face the same threat this year' (msn.com)

 

No more ICU beds in Arkansas for COVID-19 patients, governor says (msn.com)

[mommyoffive]

31 minutes ago, Carrie12345 said:

This is a huge thing for me.  
I worked so hard and gave up so much to keep my kids from getting sick. Big luck was involved, too, considering Dh had it. 
Im going to be SO angry if my <12 gets Delta before he’s vaccinated. 

 

YES, YES, YES.  I think I am going to be more than angry.  I am going to feel like giving up everything we did wasn't even worth doing at all. 

[SKL]

12 hours ago, ktgrok said:

Well, Orange County here in Florida finally got with it and declared a mask mandate for schools for the next 60 days. Why on earth they had to wait to see for themselves how badly this was going is beyond me. they should have done this before school started. Better late than never. 

Yeah, here they waited until 2 days before school started to inform people how vaxing and masking (neither of which are mandated presently) would affect quarantine rules.  I don't think I can blame the schools; I think it's the state health department that was slow, and schools follow along.  For masking, I guess the late announcement didn't matter much, but for the vax, it would have been better to give families several weeks to plan that out.

[SKL]

12 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Man, the irony is killing me... this is THE YEAR that schools should be shut down. Not last year. Not March 2020. 

Not if the main intention is to protect the most at-risk people.

Remember that in most of the world, practically nobody is vaccinated.  They still have to educate their kids.  We can do it too.

[SKL]

And yes, they should have let most of the kids finish the 2020 school year.  (High transmission areas excepted.)  When my state decided to shut down, there were 4 known cases of Covid statewide.  They could have let the kids go back to school for a final week, get their awards, graduate, say goodbye to their teachers and friends ....

[Carrie12345]

58 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

YES, YES, YES.  I think I am going to be more than angry.  I am going to feel like giving up everything we did wasn't even worth doing at all. 

I’m still going to feel good about not contributing to the risks to others but, yeah.

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, mommyoffive said:

YES, YES, YES.  I think I am going to be more than angry.  I am going to feel like giving up everything we did wasn't even worth doing at all. 

I’ll be enraged.

However, I won’t feel like it was pointless. No older people in the family got COVID before the vaccine. We helped decrease spread. Plus, one can be reinfected!

[Bootsie]

32 minutes ago, SKL said:

Yeah, here they waited until 2 days before school started to inform people how vaxing and masking (neither of which are mandated presently) would affect quarantine rules.  I don't think I can blame the schools; I think it's the state health department that was slow, and schools follow along.  For masking, I guess the late announcement didn't matter much, but for the vax, it would have been better to give families several weeks to plan that out.

Where I am schools clearly communicted rules about vaxing and masking and quaranting three months ago. It was intended to encourage vaccination.  Howver, the rules have had to be changed because of Delta and increasing cases.  Unfortunately, this leads to people feeling misled and feelling like they can't trust what is being said--it will just be different tomorrow.  

[Spryte]

18 minutes ago, SKL said:

And yes, they should have let most of the kids finish the 2020 school year.  (High transmission areas excepted.)  When my state decided to shut down, there were 4 known cases of Covid statewide.  They could have let the kids go back to school for a final week, get their awards, graduate, say goodbye to their teachers and friends ....

I agree that most kids in no or low transmission areas could have finished 2020. 

Our district did a hybrid model last year, and kept transmission pretty low. It wasn’t perfect, but overall, I think they did well.

Didn’t we here, at the time, after the initial lock down in March 2020, talk about a need for rolling lockdowns? And the need for more extensive testing and wastewater testing? I think we could have tested and isolated areas with breakouts, and those schools could have gone virtual as needed, based on an agreed upon, standard metric. But that was never going to happen. There wasn’t enough testing available, there wasn’t a standard, or any agreement on how to do things. All we have now is hindsight.

But yes, I also agree that looking at it from here - this is the year schools would make more impact being closed or mostly virtual. I think hybrid models, this year, would have a big impact, with less cramming kids into small spaces and less exposure.  Of all years, it seems that it would be more effective this year, with Delta so contagious. Or allowing kids back to school as vaccines are available for their age group, so high school and middle school now, but elementary school age kids going hybrid/virtual until vaccines are available for their age groups. 

 

 

[Bootsie]

2 hours ago, Loesje22000 said:

In the first lockdown march 2020 we (Belgium) were not allowed to travel for recreational purposes. Borders were closed, everything recreational was closed except nature, and only supermarkets, drugstores and pet feed stores were open. 2nd home owners were not allowed to go to their second homes, schools and outdoors playgardens were closed. We were not allowed to sitdown or to picnic in public. Finally, to keep the people happy at home they opened garden centres and hardware stores. In the second lockdown they also kept bookstores, libraries and craftstores open. September 1st we will finally get out most of the second lockdown restrictions although masking will probably required until Easter 2022

How successful would you consider Belgium's response?  The overall numbers of cases per million and deaths per million do not look that much different than the US.  

[Jean in Newcastle]

2 hours ago, ktgrok said:

I think that is the point - it was chaotic because one county might do great, the one next door had different rules, and people freely traveled from one to another. 

Well, I mean, they certainly prevented cases and deaths. But going back to no mitigation now sort of makes you wonder why bother if we are just going to let people suffer and die anyway. The difference is, now at least some are vaccinated and protected. 

My point was that the leaders in my state did a good job. (Many people in more “conservative “ areas disagree with that statement but it’s my opinion and I will stand by it. ). Others in my county agreed and so there was good compliance. Good compliance was what made the difference. My county is the most populous county in my state (I think) and while it had more cases because of that, we never had (so far, anyway) the out of control problems that have happened elsewhere including your state and Numbers. 

I understand what Numbers and you are saying. I just disagree. And gave my county’s experience as a reason for why I disagree. We obviously didn’t do as well as NZ but for the US, my opinion is that we did (and are still doing) pretty darn well. 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Jean in Newcastle
Typo

[Not_a_Number]

1 hour ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

My point was that the leaders in my state did a good job. (Many people in more “conservative “ areas disagree with that statement but it’s my opinion and I will stand by it. ). Others in my county agreed and so there was good compliance. Good compliance was what made the difference. My county is the most populous county in my state (I think) and while it had more cases because of that, we never had (so far, anyway) the out of control problems that have happened elsewhere including your state and Numbers. 

I understand what Numbers and you are saying. I just disagree. And gave my county’s experience as a reason for why I disagree. We obviously didn’t do as well as NZ but for the US, my opinion is that we did (and are still doing) pretty darn well. 

That's quite good 🙂 . What did your number of deaths per population wind up looking like? 

[mommyoffive]

New NY governor adds 12,000 deaths to publicized COVID tally (msn.com)

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, mommyoffive said:

New NY governor adds 12,000 deaths to publicized COVID tally (msn.com)

Interesting. I wonder if this is consistent with how other states are reporting this data. 

[prairiewindmomma]

There is no way my state could have not shut down and had that go well. The initial outbreak took out dozens of healthcare workers in early March. PPE was in such limited supply they shut down dentists and offices to supply hospitals. We didn’t have the beds or equipment to keep many more people alive than what were in the hospitals then. As it was, they had to stop all nonessential medical.

We are in the same dang spot now—hospitals full, noncritical operations postponed…..but we have PPE this go around. But sure, we have the national guard called out to try to throw nurses a lifeline and, btw, let’s open schools so everyone under 18 is mingling with hundreds of people in closed indoor spaces now. This will end well. 

I am waking at 3 am with acid reflux nightly because I am pretty sure my teens will be bringing home covid in the next 6 weeks.

 

[mommyoffive]

I freaked out when my son got COVID at college: Here's what I learned (msn.com)

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, prairiewindmomma said:

There is no way my state could have not shut down and had that go well. The initial outbreak took out dozens of healthcare workers in early March. PPE was in such limited supply they shut down dentists and offices to supply hospitals. We didn’t have the beds or equipment to keep many more people alive than what were in the hospitals then. As it was, they had to stop all nonessential medical.

Then it sounds like the shutdown was the right thing for you. 

I'm just musing here. IF we'd had surveillance testing, things would have looked very different. First of all, NYC and the Northeast would have shut down MUCH sooner. That would have saved countless lives. 

Secondly, there were parts of the country where the virus levels were NOT high enough for a March 2020 shutdown. Shutting down right then did nothing other than use up everyone's good will and cause conspiracy theories to mushroom. Those places would have benefited from later shutdowns. 

I think we could have saved lots of lives with better planning. Truly I do. The lack of coordination had consequences. 

[Jean in Newcastle]

9 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

That's quite good 🙂 . What did your number of deaths per population wind up looking like? 

Right now it is 1.3% deaths out of all positive cases in my county.  That's what's on the dashboard.  I don't know how to convert that to per population because all stats have number of tests or number of positive tests as the denominator, depending on the stat. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

Right now it is 1.3% deaths out of all positive cases in my county.  That's what's on the dashboard.  I don't know how to convert that to per population because all stats have number of tests or number of positive tests as the denominator, depending on the stat. 

I guess you could just look up total deaths and total population? 

[prairiewindmomma]

Nota#, what would your criteria be based off of for what would have been a “proper” shutdown? Our case loads were low then,  but the bump in hospitalizations threw us over the edge. I don’t think you can directly correlate case numbers with hospitalizations.

I mean, weren’t NY hospitals kind of a mess? 
 

[Not_a_Number]

3 minutes ago, prairiewindmomma said:

Nota#, what would your criteria be based off of for what would have been a “proper” shutdown? Our case loads were low then,  but the bump in hospitalizations threw us over the edge. I don’t think you can directly correlate case numbers with hospitalizations.

I mean, weren’t NY hospitals kind of a mess? 

Right. They were terrible. So we were WAY TOO LATE on the shutdown front. 

I also think shutdowns aren't really a long-term solution. The long-term solution is tamping down cases then figuring out workarounds that lets you run society more or less functionally while keeping cases low. 

So, we could have done more stuff outside. We could have mandated masking in all the places it's important. We could have made sure to NEVER open restaurants or bars and subsidize them with tax dollars -- goodness knows that would have cost society less than the resulting mess. 

I just feel like our response as a society was highly ineffective. It's been disappointing! 

[Jean in Newcastle]

2 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

I guess you could just look up total deaths and total population? 

For the entire state, the Covid deaths per 100k is 84.  New York State is 278 per 100k.  (According to Statista)  I can't find anything that breaks it down by county in my state. 

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Jean in Newcastle said:

For the entire state, the Covid deaths per 100k is 84.  New York State is 278 per 100k.  (According to Statista)  I can't find anything that breaks it down by county in my state. 

Your state obviously did MUCH better than mine, sigh. The whole NE was screwed by the early decision-making by the administration. 

It actually kind of boggles the mind that there are southern states that are about to pass the NE in deaths/population 😞 . They weren't hit by an unpredictable tsunami. They are choosing this 😕 . 

[catz]

2 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

For the entire state, the Covid deaths per 100k is 84.  New York State is 278 per 100k.  (According to Statista)  I can't find anything that breaks it down by county in my state. 

This is an aside.  I was computing death rates in various states recently.  I do think some of those early hit east coast states death rates were really hurt by lack of testing those early days.  I've been too lazy to figure it out to this point, but it would be interesting to calculate like NY and Massachusett's death rates since like summer/fall 2020 to now to see where they land.  The CDC estimated on average catching about 1 in 4 cases with testing in May.  

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html

[Jean in Newcastle]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Your state obviously did MUCH better than mine, sigh. The whole NE was screwed by the early decision-making by the administration. 

It actually kind of boggles the mind that there are southern states that are about to pass the NE in deaths/population 😞 . They weren't hit by an unpredictable tsunami. They are choosing this 😕 . 

OK I am so not a math person.  But I try.  1732 total covid deaths in my county.  Population of 2.253 million.  If I divide 1732 by 2,253,000, I get the answer?  My calculator says .00076875? 

(This is so embarrassing.   Trust me, I did graduate two kids from homeschool and one is excelling in a STEM degree in college and had to take no remedial classes.  Just to say that they did well in math despite me. . . ) 

[Bootsie]

15 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Then it sounds like the shutdown was the right thing for you. 

I'm just musing here. IF we'd had surveillance testing, things would have looked very different. First of all, NYC and the Northeast would have shut down MUCH sooner. That would have saved countless lives. 

Secondly, there were parts of the country where the virus levels were NOT high enough for a March 2020 shutdown. Shutting down right then did nothing other than use up everyone's good will and cause conspiracy theories to mushroom. Those places would have benefited from later shutdowns. 

I think we could have saved lots of lives with better planning. Truly I do. The lack of coordination had consequences. 

I think there has been misunderstanding of what shutdowns were supposed to accomplish.  I think many places thought in March 2020 if they shutdown they could keep COVID out of their area.  That works if you are an island and can really control all entry (before their is widespread infection on your island).  We still have that mindset to some degree.  To fly to the US from a country with much lower incidence than the US I have to have a negative COVID test (although I am vaccinated).  But, I can be on a domestic flight that is just as long and requries just as much airport interaction and be flying from a high incidence area in the US and am not required to have a COVID test or vaccination.  

[Happy2BaMom]

2 hours ago, Bootsie said:

Where I am schools clearly communicted rules about vaxing and masking and quaranting three months ago. It was intended to encourage vaccination.  Howver, the rules have had to be changed because of Delta and increasing cases.  Unfortunately, this leads to people feeling misled and feelling like they can't trust what is being said--it will just be different tomorrow.  

This isnt directed at you, but for the life of me I cannot figure out why people expect information and protocols to remain exactly the same during a rapidly & constantly changing pandemic. 
It’s really unrealistic (among other things) to think that guidance and rules should not shift, esp with a new virus. Yes, it will be chaotic and confusing at times, esp with every state doing its own thing. That’s the nature of the beast. 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Happy2BaMom

[freesia]

9 minutes ago, FuzzyCatz said:

This is an aside.  I was computing death rates in various states recently.  I do think some of those early hit east coast states death rates were really hurt by lack of testing those early days.  I've been too lazy to figure it out to this point, but it would be interesting to calculate like NY and Massachusett's death rates since like summer/fall 2020 to now to see where they land.  The CDC estimated on average catching about 1 in 4 cases with testing in May.  

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html

This is what I would like to see, as well.  NY and the Northeast obviously had a ton of spread before anyone knew it and those first patients didn't have the benefit of anyone knowing how to care for them.  I think comparing death rates with regard to mitigation like masking and social distancing is only fair if you lop off the spring. 

[prairiewindmomma]

7 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I think there has been misunderstanding of what shutdowns were supposed to accomplish.  I think many places thought in March 2020 if they shutdown they could keep COVID out of their area.  That works if you are an island and can really control all entry (before their is widespread infection on your island).  We still have that mindset to some degree.  To fly to the US from a country with much lower incidence than the US I have to have a negative COVID test (although I am vaccinated).  But, I can be on a domestic flight that is just as long and requries just as much airport interaction and be flying from a high incidence area in the US and am not required to have a COVID test or vaccination.  

Right, and if a huge chunk of your cases are asymptomatic or mild enough to mistake for a cold, you are only catching a small number of the people transmitting viral loads. Oregon’s epidemiologist at one point estimated that only 1/10 of all cases in Oregon likely had been captured through positive tests.

If we wanted to be effective early on, we needed to not only have been watching the waste water (which Oregon did), we needed to have been doing exponentially more testing including random screenings throughout this entire period. We are 18 months into this. We know what we need to do if stopping covid was the priority. It hasn’t been. The priority has been to keep healthcare functional. 

[catz]

1 minute ago, freesia said:

This is what I would like to see, as well.  NY and the Northeast obviously had a ton of spread before anyone knew it and those first patients didn't have the benefit of anyone knowing how to care for them.  I think comparing death rates with regard to mitigation like masking and social distancing is only fair if you lop off the spring. 

Absolutely.  They unfortunately had to be guinea pigs for the rest of us.  

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, freesia said:

This is what I would like to see, as well.  NY and the Northeast obviously had a ton of spread before anyone knew it and those first patients didn't have the benefit of anyone knowing how to care for them.  I think comparing death rates with regard to mitigation like masking and social distancing is only fair if you lop off the spring. 

I think it only makes sense to compare mitigation measures between places that are similar. That's why nearby counties with and without mask mandates, especially when they are ethnically and economically similar, are such a good natural experiment.

I do think the NE basically mostly got hit hard because no one knew it was so endemic here. We really had no idea. 

[Faith-manor]

1 minute ago, freesia said:

This is what I would like to see, as well.  NY and the Northeast obviously had a ton of spread before anyone knew it and those first patients didn't have the benefit of anyone knowing how to care for them.  I think comparing death rates with regard to mitigation like masking and social distancing is only fair if you lop off the spring. 

And I am actually even more interested in covid side effects, long term damage, long haul covid. Now that this thing is more than a year old, they need to begin studying this in depth, not self a report, and haphazard guesses, but surveying every doc, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, physical and occupational therapy clinic, just everybody. How many covid patients did you see? How many had continued issues 3 months after no longer testing positive, 6 months after, a year after? And then maybe we will have some better numbers. Then they should do a break down of patients with monoclonol antibody treatment, and without, and see how that breaks down. We need some decent data here. Because as much as any of us don't particularly want to die, we also really extra specially don't want to live with long covid if we can help it, and now might also be the time for some exploration of treatments for that as well.

Would people who recovered without treatment, like Mark's brother who eight months since his infection so sick he thought he would die, but not hospitalized because no beds and didn't get antibody treatment because the ER was overwhelmed and running out, have benefited from an IV treatment of those antibodies post infection? Might he not be at this point ONLY just able to barely manage work again? Hmmmm....that would be good to know. Would something else have worked? Should he have been sent to physical therapy? (I actually think that last one is a resounding yes. He lost a lot of muscle tissue while he was sick, and it made him so weak. I truly think PT would have been helpful, and good therapist would have been able to help him regain strength.)

[Not_a_Number]

Just now, Faith-manor said:

And I am actually even more interested in covid side effects, long term damage, long haul covid. Now that this thing is more than a year old, they need to begin studying this in depth, not self a report, and haphazard guesses, but surveying every doc, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, physical and occupational therapy clinic, just everybody. How many covid patients did you see? How many had continued issues 3 months after no longer testing positive, 6 months after, a year after? And then maybe we will have some better numbers.

I agree that I want this data, but I think it's actually a bit hard to get. For instance, some people aren't going to the doctor for it. So you might undercount like that. But you can also undercount via self-report. It's hard. 

[Corraleno]

Oregon had some of the earliest cases of the pandemic, and we had a shutdown that lasted longer than most states and a statewide mask mandate that was only lifted when the CDC stupidly said vaxxed people didn't need to mask. That kept the case rate pretty low and we had one of the lowest per capita death rates in the country (ranked 46th) despite having some of the earliest known cases. Then Delta hit after lockdown restrictions were removed and the mask mandate was lifted and cases exploded like they have everywhere else. Although the mask mandate was reinstated a few weeks ago, and compliance in the metro area is nearly 100%, compliance in the rural "red" counties is much lower and people there are living life as normal, which has caused the largest spike (by far) in the state — and school hasn't even started yet.

[Not_a_Number]

By the way, back to the topic of the thread... the numbers in NYC are currently basically stable. We're staying at our current level of precaution: no indoor activities, no large group activities (like camps) for the kids, but occasional playgrounds with our co-op and other fun outings when it's not crowded. 

Now that the co-op kids mostly know each other, I'm going to try to set up some fun online activities for them for when the inevitable shutdown comes. 

By the way, we tested our safety protocol with a cold (not COVID) last week: some people in our group were presymptomatic when we met up -- as in, they started showing serious symptoms the next day. The kids were masked and outside, but they played together very actively. Some of the kids' masks also don't stay on super well. 

No one seems to have caught their colds. However, all the people they had seen INSIDE 2 days before that spread the cold around. It's fascinating. 

Edited August 25, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[Jean in Newcastle]

29 minutes ago, Jean in Newcastle said:

OK I am so not a math person.  But I try.  1732 total covid deaths in my county.  Population of 2.253 million.  If I divide 1732 by 2,253,000, I get the answer?  My calculator says .00076875? 

(This is so embarrassing.   Trust me, I did graduate two kids from homeschool and one is excelling in a STEM degree in college and had to take no remedial classes.  Just to say that they did well in math despite me. . . ) 

Quoting myself to say that this would be 76.87 deaths per 100k, correct? 

[mommyoffive]

3 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

By the way, back to the topic of the thread... the numbers in NYC are currently basically stable. We're staying at our current level of precaution: no indoor activities, no large group activities (like camps) for the kids, but occasional playgrounds with our co-op and other fun outings when it's not crowded. 

Now that the co-op kids mostly know each other, I'm going to try to set up some fun online activities for them for when the inevitable shutdown comes. 

By the way, we tested our safety protocol with a cold (not COVID) last week: some people in our group were presymptomatic when we met up -- as in, they started showing serious symptoms the next day. The kids were masked and outside, but they played together very actively. Some of the kids' masks also don't stay on super well. 

No one seems to have caught their colds. However, all the people they had seen INSIDE 2 days before that spread the cold around. It's fascinating. 

Were they masked inside?  I don't have many details but with our recent exposure email nobody else got covid from the kid who had it.  Indoors and people masked and exercising.  Everyone 12 and up vaxxed.  That was the last I heard, unless something has changed from that time.   But I would imagine people are not testing unless they have symptoms

[mommyoffive]

Three-quarters of ICU beds across country are full (msn.com)

[Laura Corin]

33 minutes ago, Bootsie said:

I think there has been misunderstanding of what shutdowns were supposed to accomplish.  I think many places thought in March 2020 if they shutdown they could keep COVID out of their area.  

The UK shutdown was to stop the NHS from falling over, as health systems had in northern Italy.

[Mrs Tiggywinkle]

54 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Then it sounds like the shutdown was the right thing for you. 

I'm just musing here. IF we'd had surveillance testing, things would have looked very different. First of all, NYC and the Northeast would have shut down MUCH sooner. That would have saved countless lives. 

Secondly, there were parts of the country where the virus levels were NOT high enough for a March 2020 shutdown. Shutting down right then did nothing other than use up everyone's good will and cause conspiracy theories to mushroom. Those places would have benefited from later shutdowns. 

I think we could have saved lots of lives with better planning. Truly I do. The lack of coordination had consequences. 

We had 0 cases of Covid in my county when we shut down, 2 active cases in the county I work in.  NY could have shut down hotspots like the city and monitored upstate areas to shut down at a crucial point, and not used up so much goodwill.  We did have several businesses shut down for good and people now feel like it was all sacrifice with very few benefits.  
I frankly don’t believe we could shut down now.  I think people will revolt. 

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Mrs Tiggywinkle said:

We had 0 cases of Covid in my county when we shut down, 2 active cases in the county I work in.  NY could have shut down hotspots like the city and monitored upstate areas to shut down at a crucial point, and not used up so much goodwill.  We did have several businesses shut down for good and people now feel like it was all sacrifice with very few benefits.  
I frankly don’t believe we could shut down now.  I think people will revolt. 

RIGHT. Exactly. There was NO REASON to shut down upstate at that point. It was mostly done due to the lack of surveillance testing that led to high levels of fear -- no one knew where the virus had gotten to, really. 

[Corraleno]

I'm not 100% locked down, but I'm only going out for things I can't get delivered and I go first thing in the morning when they open and wear a happy mask. I went to Home Depot last week at 6:30 AM, and I need to go to an outdoor nursery to buy some plants tomorrow, but as much as I miss Trader Joe's I am back to Whole Foods deliveries for the foreseeable future. DD and her boyfriend have jobs with public exposure, and DD will (theoretically) start in-person classes in a few weeks, so I am seeing them much less often, either outside or with everyone masked.

[Not_a_Number]

4 minutes ago, Corraleno said:

I'm not 100% locked down, but I'm only going out for things I can't get delivered and I go first thing in the morning when they open and wear a happy mask. I went to Home Depot last week at 6:30 AM, and I need to go to an outdoor nursery to buy some plants tomorrow, but as much as I miss Trader Joe's I am back to Whole Foods deliveries for the foreseeable future. DD and her boyfriend have jobs with public exposure, and DD will (theoretically) start in-person classes in a few weeks, so I am seeing them much less often, either outside or with everyone masked.

We've been back to WF deliveries for a while, too. I'm trying to enjoy our outdoor activities while we're able to do that. I really want the kids to bond with the other co-op kids as much as possible, to make online classes more fun for them during the year. 

[Matryoshka]

36 minutes ago, Not_a_Number said:

Your state obviously did MUCH better than mine, sigh. The whole NE was screwed by the early decision-making by the administration. 

It actually kind of boggles the mind that there are southern states that are about to pass the NE in deaths/population 😞 . They weren't hit by an unpredictable tsunami. They are choosing this 😕 . 

It boggles my mind how bad it was here in spring 2020.  If you look at the cases, it doesn't look so bad, but if you look at deaths - oh, my.  Even with all the stuff going on down south, NJ, NY, MA, RI and CT still have higher deaths per capita than the south - even now!  (Wait, no, Mississippi is coming on strong and has just passted MA, and a bunch of states have passed CT) And the CFR is the northeast is the only place it's over 2%, but I think that's likely because of 1) hugely inadequate testing - so there were way more cases than we realized and the CFR and IFR are radically diferent but no way to measure the latter at this point and 2) hospital overhwelm - which the south for some reason is trying to emulate rather than avoid.  

Meanwhile FL's rates still seem quite low for the dumpster fire going on there... hmmm...

I like this chart because you can sort by various criteria (deaths per capita, CFR, totals)

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/cumulative-covid-19-cases-and-deaths/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel={"colId":"COVID-19 Deaths per 1,000,000 Population","sort":"desc"}

[Not_a_Number]

1 minute ago, Matryoshka said:

It boggles my mind how bad it was here in spring 2020.  If you look at the cases, it doesn't look so bad, but if you look at deaths - oh, my.  Even with all the stuff going on down south, NJ, NY, MA, RI and CT still have higher deaths per capita than the south - even now!  (Wait, no, Mississippi is coming on strong and has just passted MA, and a bunch of states have passed CT) And the CFR is the northeast is the only place it's over 2%, but I think that's likely because of 1) hugely inadequate testing - so there were way more cases than we realized and the CFR and IFR are radically diferent but no way to measure the latter at this point and 2) hospital overhwelm - which the south for some reason is trying to emulate rather than avoid.  

Meanwhile FL's rates still seem quite low for the dumpster fire going on there... hmmm...

I like this chart because you can sort by various criteria (deaths per capita, CFR, totals)

https://www.kff.org/other/state-indicator/cumulative-covid-19-cases-and-deaths/?currentTimeframe=0&sortModel={"colId":"COVID-19 Deaths per 1,000,000 Population","sort":"desc"}

Case numbers from back then are basically meaningless. You have to use death numbers. Even hospitalization numbers don't mean much except "there was no more room, so this is how many we took in." 

[Matryoshka]

1 minute ago, Not_a_Number said:

Case numbers from back then are basically meaningless. You have to use death numbers. Even hospitalization numbers don't mean much except "there was no more room, so this is how many we took in." 

Yeah, exactly.  Our higher CFR rate I think is mostly because there's a huge disconnect between cases reported and actual cases.  But considering the number of deaths, the actual case numbers must have been astronmical considering that after a year and a half of this ripping through everywhere the death rate per capita in the northeast is still the highest in the country.

[Not_a_Number]

14 minutes ago, Matryoshka said:

Yeah, exactly.  Our higher CFR rate I think is mostly because there's a huge disconnect between cases reported and actual cases.  But considering the number of deaths, the actual case numbers must have been astronmical considering that after a year and a half of this ripping through everywhere the death rate per capita in the northeast is still the highest in the country.

They did antibody sampling back in spring 2020 in NY and there were lots of people with antibodies. The estimates were that something like a fifth of people in NYC had antibodies... now, did all those people have active infections at some point? Unclear. But that's still a staggering number.  

Edited August 25, 2021 by Not_a_Number

[SKL]

2 hours ago, Not_a_Number said:

Your state obviously did MUCH better than mine, sigh. The whole NE was screwed by the early decision-making by the administration. 

It actually kind of boggles the mind that there are southern states that are about to pass the NE in deaths/population 😞 . They weren't hit by an unpredictable tsunami. They are choosing this 😕 . 

Delta was a somewhat unpredictable tsunami.  I think the rate of hospitalization from Delta was not totally predictable.  Certain states experienced it first, but now it's moving around the country.  The vax rate in FL for example was right at the US average when this wave got serious, and since then, folks in other areas have increased vax uptake and mask usage, which is probably going to impact their numbers.  It will look like places that got their Delta wave later were smarter, but I don't think that's true.

Edited August 25, 2021 by SKL

[SKL]

2 hours ago, FuzzyCatz said:

This is an aside.  I was computing death rates in various states recently.  I do think some of those early hit east coast states death rates were really hurt by lack of testing those early days.  I've been too lazy to figure it out to this point, but it would be interesting to calculate like NY and Massachusett's death rates since like summer/fall 2020 to now to see where they land.  The CDC estimated on average catching about 1 in 4 cases with testing in May.  

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burden.html

Lack of testing, lack of knowledge about the virus, Eastern super-spreader event(s) very early on before people knew it was a possibility, and certainly not least, the devastating decisions made in respect to nursing homes in some states.

So many people in NY got Covid early on that they probably had some protection from later waves.  However, they still have the 2nd highest death rate in the US (after New Jersey).

[Not_a_Number]

43 minutes ago, SKL said:

Delta was a somewhat unpredictable tsunami.  I think the rate of hospitalization from Delta was not totally predictable.  Certain states experienced it first, but now it's moving around the country.  The vax rate in FL for example was right at the US average when this wave got serious, and since then, folks in other areas have increased vax uptake and mask usage, which is probably going to impact their numbers.  It will look like places that got their Delta wave later were smarter, but I don't think that's true.

There's no particular reasons for people to have stayed at 50 percent vaccination, though. I mean, yes, that's the average, but not due to lack of access. 

Some of this is also bad luck, though. Like, Israel got the Delta wave right as they were figuring out that immunity was waning...