Hacker News Reader

Comment by just-juan-post | Hacker News Reader

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8743605/Nashville-m...

In Nashville, TN (USA) bars and restaurants are closed to stop the spread of the virus. In e-mails obtained by a local television station, and later confirmed authentic by legal council, the e-mails discussed how only 80 of the 20,000 positive cases could be traced to bars and restaurants.

> Tennessee Lookout reporter Nate Rau asks, “The figure you gave of 'more than 80' does lead to a natural question: If there have been over 20,000 positive cases of COVID-19 in Davidson and only 80 or so are traced to restaurants and bars, doesn’t that mean restaurants and bars aren’t a very big problem?"

A day after the story broke they allowed bars and restaurants to re-open:

https://www.tennessean.com/story/money/2020/09/17/nashville-...

Indoor recreation was shut down in this city for 80 cases in a city of 2 million aka .004% of the population.

Point zero zero four percent.

View on HN

What causes have the other 19,920 COVID cases been traced to? I read the articles you linked and this is the only other data I could find:

“The results showed that more than a thousand COVID-19 cases had been linked to construction and nursing homes - while bars and restaurants had just 22 cases.”

1,000 cases from construction and nursing homes brings the number to 18,920 cases we need data on. This is the problem. There is so little high confidence tracing data that we can’t make strong decisions on what quarantine actions are materially impactful. Whose to say a substantial amount of that remaining number isn’t caused by bars and restaurants? If that data is out there, please share it. If not, please support more rigorous contact tracing.

No evidence here, but if I had to guess: grocery stores would be a large chunk.

Grocery stores probably closer to zero. Reminds me of stranger danger.

You most likely will be infected by a family member or office coworker.

In march during the full lockdowns, something like 20% of the population was still meeting their friends and family behind closed doors like nothing was happening, and this is why the virus didn't die out in 2 weeks.

The reason why China welded apartment doors getting shut was not to prevent people getting out. It was to block family and friends of the apartment house inhabitants from visiting.

In San Diego at peak outbreak season more than half of the outbreaks were traced to bar/restaurants. The point is what you put on the denominator to have a reasonable ratio. It should be the traceable cases not total cases. Most community spread cases can not be traced. And even traceable cases may not all be meaningful: a prison may contribute a large amount of cases but not much to community spread. Counting outbreaks is likely a better measure.

That's because bars were among the first things to be shut down. The policies work and are the primary reason things aren't even worse currently.

Restaurants and bars are very conducive to spread: https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/7/20-0764_article

How many cases did they trace? Out of a much smaller number of cases in quebec, more than 80 have been traced to bars and restaurants. (The govt hasn’t been forthcoming with data, but in one week they disclosed at least that many from bars)

There is perhaps some factor unique to that town or their contact tracing isn’t extensive?

I'd find that more compelling in the presence of meaningful contact tracing, which in general seems to be lacking in the U.S.

I'm more inclined to trust an epidemiologist who says they'd rather fly in an airplane than eat at a bar, a quote I found today but regret I can't locate at the moment.

How many of those cases were traced at all? The denominator of this analysis should be the number of positive cases traced, not the whole population.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com