COVID-19 Outbreak (Update: More than 2.9M cases and 132,313 deaths in US) (27 Viewers)

[RazorOye]

went grocery shopping today - our local grocery store is requiring masks to enter. If you don't have one, they will sell you one for $1.00 and donate it to a local food bank.

People were buying masks without needing them and donating money when they already had a mask.

The grocery store just wanted to dissuade people from not having a mask, but when they came up with this twist, they started making a ton of money - it was just a little afterthought and ended up being a lot more than they planned for.

It's not often that 'unintended consequences' ends up like this

 

[St. Widge]

went grocery shopping today - our local grocery store is requiring masks to enter. If you don't have one, they will sell you one for $1.00 and donate it to a local food bank.

People were buying masks without needing them and donating money when they already had a mask.

The grocery store just wanted to dissuade people from not having a mask, but when they came up with this twist, they started making a ton of money - it was just a little afterthought and ended up being a lot more than they planned for.

It's not often that 'unintended consequences' ends up like this

Canadians. Always just being nice and doing nice things.

 

[RazorOye]

Canadians. Always just being nice and doing nice things.

yea, it was too much for this American to bear...

so I did what twitter and facebook have taught me to do.

I walked into the middle of the store, ripped off my mask, stuck a box of Krispy Kremes under my arm and shoved one in my mouth, grabbed a can of EZ-Cheese and squeezed it into my mouth on top of the donut, yelled "FREEEEEEEDOM!" and "END TYRANYYYYYYYYYYY!" and I began cutting my own hair in the middle of the Coors Light Beach-themed display

and I managed to get out a "LIBERATE ONTARIOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" before security caught up to me.

They roughed me up pretty good, but in typical Canadian fashion, slipped in regular "sorry"s in between punches and kicks.

My injuries were treated at the hospital and I wasn't charged a thing.

So, all in all, a pretty typical Sunday for this red-blooded 'Murikan

 

[bonnjer]

and I managed to get out a "LIBERATE ONTARIOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!" before security caught up to me.

They roughed me up pretty good, but in typical Canadian fashion, slipped in regular "sorry"s in between punches and kicks.

But did they have their masks on while roughing you up?

 

[N.O.Bronco]

I don't think you can use Texas due to our climate, diversity and the spread-outedness of it. There's not really a corollary for Texas anywhere in the country. Same problem with Cali and Florida. Texas vs. California doesn't really work either because we don't have any mass transit, and our population density in the cities is still much lower than Cali. I think you'd need to pick two relatively homogenous states that have similar climates and population densities.

I'd do Illinois vs. Indiana, or Michigan vs. Pennsylvania. Probably the latter, because with IL vs. IN you have one with a huge city and one without.

You definitely have to control for climate, though. I'm pretty confident the hot southern states and California are faring better right now because of the weather.

This might help: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/states-reopen-map-coronavirus.html

I hope you go forward with it - always interested in this type of analysis.

First point is I am not sure there is a whole lot of strong evidence that heat is all that big a factor. The studies I’ve read say yes, but not enough to deeply alter the capacity of spread fromthe virus. I welcome more input on this though.

Here’s also the thing with Texas though(as an entire one year expert living here lol) while it is not as highly concentrated as other states, and it’s cities largely more spread out, it does appear there are a ton of mixed use spaces and pockets of communities where there is a lot of close contact in communal areas. And I think what it also has is a lot of commuter traffic to help spread the disease. Think of a construction site, people from every corner of the county come to these mega projects, work in close proximity, then go off to all corners of the city. The virus hits one of them and you could have a few hundred people infected and going all over every corner of the county interacting with entire sub-communities and starting tons of mini hot spots that could be very hard to trace and stamp out.

We actually somewhat see that in Houston where some of these suburbs got hit with major spikes. Now you swing the doors open and you have people in the suburbs Ubering to a bar in midtown, going out to brunch in Sugarland with your family, driving to work in the city or maybe out to the plants in Deer Park, hitting the gym in the heights where you live, now suddenly you’ve come into contact with several communities in just a weekend.

Not quite like the subway in New York, but still ripe for transmission.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Canadians. Always just being nice and doing nice things.

I’m sick of it

 

[SoggyBottomBoy]

Mitch McConnell is pushing the Senate to pass a measure that would let the FBI collect Americans' web-browsing history without a warrant

Another amendment blocking the FBI surveillance failed by just one vote Wednesday, bringing McConnell's proposal one step closer to becoming law.

www.businessinsider.com

If that passes, my Google searches are going to consist of a lot of "Bill Barr sux, bites, blows, etc." If I get a visit by black ops, I'll know he's on his toes.

 

[Loose Cannon]

First point is I am not sure there is a whole lot of strong evidence that heat is all that big a factor. The studies I’ve read say yes, but not enough to deeply alter the capacity of spread fromthe virus. I welcome more input on this though.

Here’s also the thing with Texas though(as an entire one year expert living here lol) while it is not as highly concentrated as other states, and it’s cities largely more spread out, it does appear there are a ton of mixed use spaces and pockets of communities where there is a lot of close contact in communal areas. And I think what it also has is a lot of commuter traffic to help spread the disease. Think of a construction site, people from every corner of the county come to these mega projects, work in close proximity, then go off to all corners of the city. The virus hits one of them and you could have a few hundred people infected and going all over every corner of the county interacting with entire sub-communities and starting tons of mini hot spots that could be very hard to trace and stamp out.

We actually somewhat see that in Houston where some of these suburbs got hit with major spikes. Now you swing the doors open and you have people in the suburbs Ubering to a bar in midtown, going out to brunch in Sugarland with your family, driving to work in the city or maybe out to the plants in Deer Park, hitting the gym in the heights where you live, now suddenly you’ve come into contact with several communities in just a weekend.

Not quite like the subway in New York, but still ripe for transmission.

My understanding is that the protective lipid around the virus breaks down in the heat. Here's the first link when I searched about it: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/04/08/coronavirus-in-texas-does-heat-humidity-kill-covid-19/

I don't know that Texas big cities have any more community areas with high traffic than most major cities. Don't get me wrong, there will be some risk at very high traffic places like Zilker/Barton Springs/Hike and Bike Trail in Austin. But I don't know that Texas is any different than any other state. At least the majority of our public congregating areas are outdoors.

From what I have seen, the upward trend recently is mostly because of one packing plant in Amarillo, more testing, and the fact that they're now testing every prisoner in the state. Positive cases is largely a function of testing capacity, not actual virus spread. For my money the most reliable metrics are hospitalizations and deaths, which have not seen an upward trend since the re-opening. I'm not saying we're not going to see those upward trends, but so far, they're not coming. This very well could be because in most big cities, people for the most part are exercising caution still.

Source: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/h...ates/269-39a4e795-c206-49bb-89e8-48f77e9bcf13 - you can scroll through the charts about a third of the way down the page.


That said, my family and I are still hanging at home, letting the anxious to leave the house crowd be the guinea pigs for another few weeks.

 

[DaveXA]

My understanding is that the protective lipid around the virus breaks down in the heat. Here's the first link when I searched about it: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/04/08/coronavirus-in-texas-does-heat-humidity-kill-covid-19/

I don't know that Texas big cities have any more community areas with high traffic than most major cities. Don't get me wrong, there will be some risk at very high traffic places like Zilker/Barton Springs/Hike and Bike Trail in Austin. But I don't know that Texas is any different than any other state. At least the majority of our public congregating areas are outdoors.

From what I have seen, the upward trend recently is mostly because of one packing plant in Amarillo, more testing, and the fact that they're now testing every prisoner in the state. Positive cases is largely a function of testing capacity, not actual virus spread. For my money the most reliable metrics are hospitalizations and deaths, which have not seen an upward trend since the re-opening. I'm not saying we're not going to see those upward trends, but so far, they're not coming. This very well could be because in most big cities, people for the most part are exercising caution still.

Source: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/h...ates/269-39a4e795-c206-49bb-89e8-48f77e9bcf13 - you can scroll through the charts about a third of the way down the page.

Yeah, the hospitalization rate will probably be the number one metric I'm looking at. I think some or the other numbers maybe have stale or duplicated data, but hospitalization rate and capacity is what I'd be most concerned with. Fatality rates increase dramatically for obvious reasons when emergency rooms and ICUs are at or near capacity.

 

[bclemms]

My understanding is that the protective lipid around the virus breaks down in the heat. Here's the first link when I searched about it: https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/04/08/coronavirus-in-texas-does-heat-humidity-kill-covid-19/

I don't know that Texas big cities have any more community areas with high traffic than most major cities. Don't get me wrong, there will be some risk at very high traffic places like Zilker/Barton Springs/Hike and Bike Trail in Austin. But I don't know that Texas is any different than any other state. At least the majority of our public congregating areas are outdoors.

From what I have seen, the upward trend recently is mostly because of one packing plant in Amarillo, more testing, and the fact that they're now testing every prisoner in the state. Positive cases is largely a function of testing capacity, not actual virus spread. For my money the most reliable metrics are hospitalizations and deaths, which have not seen an upward trend since the re-opening. I'm not saying we're not going to see those upward trends, but so far, they're not coming. This very well could be because in most big cities, people for the most part are exercising caution still.

Source: https://www.kvue.com/article/news/h...ates/269-39a4e795-c206-49bb-89e8-48f77e9bcf13 - you can scroll through the charts about a third of the way down the page.


That said, my family and I are still hanging at home, letting the anxious to leave the house crowd be the guinea pigs for another few weeks.

I'm pretty certain it has more to do with UV and heat than anything else. I do think people over the last few days have gotten more in line with the mask thinking. They are starting to realize if they want the economy to stay open they need to at least do the little things to help. Like I've said before, I think most areas will be able to make it through the summer with just a slight up trend but no way do we make it through the fall. Hopefully by then we'll have legit mass testing and antibody testing but I'm not holding my breath since we still do not have a plan. My fear is we start getting greedy, packing out restaurants and bars, people get lulled into a false sense of security, traveling and we even do something as dumb as open up sporting events and concerts without seeing this big spike then everyone really starts to relax heading into fall before it overruns us on a national level. The peak spread rates for most of the country is going to be November-December then late February through April. In the South it will be even longer, November-Early April.

 

[SoggyBottomBoy]

This is a read. OF course, we all saw all of this. This is Financial Times. Not Vox, not MSNBC.

https://www.ft.com/content/97dc7de6-940b-11ea-abcd-371e24b679ed

That was a long, interesting read. Disheartening in that it doesn't matter to a large group.

 

[Loose Cannon]

Jerome Powell's interview on 60 minutes was very good. He is thoughtful, articulate, and honest. He should make sure his resume is updated.

 

[gboudx]

Dallas county’s hospitalization rate has increased since Phase 1 started. But it’s not too significant to cause concern yet. Plenty of beds left. Including ICU and ventilators.

 

[Goatman Saint]

Dallas county’s hospitalization rate has increased since Phase 1 started. But it’s not too significant to cause concern yet. Plenty of beds left. Including ICU and ventilators.

And we know hospitalization rates trail active new infections.

 

[Dallas_Saint73]

Yeah, if anything, I'd rather the Patriot Act go away. Never liked it, never will. Just too easy to get misused.

Working in banking, I've only been exposed to the Anti-Money Laundering provision of the law. I understand why this is needed, and why it should remain. But as for the other surveillance stuff, a lot seems like overreach. What McConnell is proposing is on another level.