U.S. Hits Record Daily Death Toll, with Worse Likely to Come
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Honestly I don't really know what to say when I see these headlines anymore. I am in [redacted] but have many friends and family in the US and hearing the stories from them is both saddening and infuriating.
Sadly my own friends and family that I used to respect and look up to have shown themselves as fools this year. People I used to think of as very intelligent falling for the most insane conspiracy theories and other such nonsense. It has been really eye opening in an increasingly depressing way.
And on top of that as someone from the UK (but now living in [redacted]) I also have the stupidness of Brexit to deal with.
People talk about the impact of lockdowns on mental health but honestly that wasn't a big deal to me, the biggest impact to me this year has been the stupidity and selfishness of so many people. It is draining having to listen to people talk about 5G spreading the virus or Bill Gates wants to microchip you with the vaccine or going on rants that surgical masks lead to a dangerous build up of CO2.
There is something seriously wrong with the human race. A shocking lack of education and rational rather than emotional thinking for starters.
Sorry I guess my comment doesn't really add to the discourse. Guess I just needed to just put something 'out there' rather than it just rattle around in my head right now.
This has been the most astonishing fact of life that has come out of Covid. Blown away by discovering the same. I think a whole lot of humans must have discovered this fact for the first time in their life.
I try to listen to as many different perspectives as possible, look up claims I hear being made, listen to experts in the respective fields and err on the side of caution.
Back in March when medical experts said masks are unlikely to help I was like "okay well that sucks but they know much more about this kind of thing so I will just keep my distance, etc". Then when some data showed that actually masks do seem to help I didn't argue. I listened to the reasons for the change in advice and it all sounded, to me at least, perfectly reasonable. Yet I still hear people saying medical experts are "flip flopping" on masks as if changing ones advice based on new, scientifically backed information is a bad thing.
Highly intelligent people I know have made comments to me about masks, 5G, Bill Gates microchip vaccines, "Plandemic" and all that kind of stuff.
Sadly I have a (second) aunt that has been sucked into the QAnon madness. She honest to god believes the election was stolen from Trump. She isn't even American! She is a lamb farmer in Wales that still believes Brexit is going to be the best thing ever. But that is a conversation for a different thread.
I am just mentally exhausted from it all. I miss the days of moon landing and what really goes on at Area 51 conspiracies.
And here I keep getting told IQ is the measure of competence
Some things blow my mind: fellow good earning engineer uses subway few times a week he goes to the office. Afterward his corona app tells him to go and do test. He does test like every 2 weeks. And he owns a car:-/
My colleagues never wear masks in the office. My manager starts always with “this is another flue” story, but he at least wears a mask.
https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/excess_deaths.htm
Exponential growth means that even a small amount of non-compliance will still be explosive, and with so many cases already there were enormous opportunities for somebody to fail.
It also helped when front-line doctors figured out the treatment they were told to use ("invasive ventilation") was a death sentence. They stopped ventilating all their patients, and their patients stopped dying so quickly.
The sun also provided progressively more adequate illumination (providing Vitamin D and red light), starting with the vernal equinox on March 20.
Covid Season has returned this fall, like clockwork. The only factor that really matters is light exposure.
https://www.space.com/vernal-equinox-2020-earliest-spring-12...
It peaked in April at 17,000 in one week.
There's a column for percentage of expected deaths too.
I imagine the total deaths over the next 2-3 years will be below average based on the deaths experienced this year in older people and/or those with co-morbidity.
FWIW, based on county test results and my anecdotal poking around the US - most counties in the US have 1% or less of their population getting a positive COVID test in the past two weeks. In the grand scheme of things, I contend we have only a handful of people infectious in any two week period.
Find your state and county at https://thecovidcomplex.com/states
Queue the hug of death. Using ASP.NET Core and Digital Ocean droplet for hosting.
I have some really specific biases about the COVID response in the US that I shall not dwelve in to here. You can read about them on the About and Resources page. The other day I posted my site as a comment to something else COVID and you can read that discussion thread at https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25255589 just search for my username in the comments.
Young, healthy, fit people are getting this and dying. Your hypothesis may be accurate overall, I do not know, but frankly it's noise nobody needs.
My empathy is primarily towards the people who have worked hard for what they have only to have it ripped away because of arbitrary government decisions.
Regardless, the people who have passed directly from and because of this disease is a tragic story in the history of our country.
During the same time period, over 50,000 people under age 25 have died from all causes:
Can you say more about this? Lots of people have died; if anything my feeling is that our response has not at all been commensurate.
Your argument is that if you're fit and healthy, you shouldn't have your behavior dictated by people who aren't. They've made poor choices, they're the ones who should bear the consequences. You further argue that the low per-capita positive tests indicates that COVID-19 doesn't deserve the response we've (so far) given it.
Here's why you're wrong:
- Fit, healthy people do die from COVID-19. They can also suffer long-term effects.
- There are people with high vulnerability to COVID-19 through no fault of their own. They can have autoimmune disorders, or simply be old. You acknowledge this. However, you generally can't choose to transmit COVID-19 only to the obese and not the old (for example).
- Further, you broadly can't choose to contract COVID-19 and not transmit it to others. It's possible to be asymptomatic and shedding for days. To be clear: you can have COVID-19, not know it, and infect dozens of others who can do the same.
- Tests are a poor measure of the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. They do lend themselves very well to manipulation and motivated reasoning, which I would guess is why people who are motivated to diminish the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic like using them. The only stat that matters is death count per capita.
Every possible demographic has experienced some type of negative outcome from COVID. Most people make a full recovery. Have the fit and healthy passed from COVID? Absolutely, albeit at a staggeringly lower rate than others.
Personally, my wife and I made a decision back in the summer to get back to living our lives and accepting the consequence because we are a family of four healthy individuals. We workout several days per week. Our children are healthy. We don't eat like assholes. We are not licking doorknobs. We have stayed at home when we knowingly came in to contact with someone who tested positive. We respect others' decisions who have decided that stricter measures are right for their situation.
On the site I acknowledge asymptomatic transmission of COVID. If I am worried about getting sick then I should be taking all possible precautions to minimize my risk including self isolation, etc.
A large part of my personal motivation for starting this in the first place is because of the terrible way the media currently reports COVID which is almost exclusively through number of confirmed cases. I'd argue that stat means very little.
It seems true to reason that the sick and unhealthy are the group who suffer the largest impact from COVID. Health is a choice (obviously there are exceptions). Millions of people die every year in the US from otherwise preventable causes like heart disease, lung disease and various forms of cancer. Therefore my thesis is that we are punishing the responsible people in the world to prioritize those who have willfully neglected their health for a significant portion of their life. It's really straightforward to not be significantly overweight and workout 2-3 days per week.
> Have the fit and healthy passed from COVID? Absolutely, albeit at a staggeringly lower rate than others.
The end of this argument is "the mortality rate for X people is/isn't worth response Y", e.g. "the mortality rate for fit people isn't worth lockdowns for everyone". This seems like a good analysis to engage in, but it isn't, because you can't pick who gets COVID-19. The rejoinder here is "it is worth lockdowns for everyone because fit people can still infect other groups with a much higher mortality rate with COVID-19." Another rejoinder would be "the current mortality rate is 1-2%, which means if we're all infected millions of people die."
> On the site I acknowledge asymptomatic transmission of COVID. If I am worried about getting sick then I should be taking all possible precautions to minimize my risk including self isolation, etc.
You are essentially saying you accept the risk of contracting COVID-19 and infecting others. I think that's the crucial point you're missing: infecting others. You may be in a position to make that choice for yourself, but many others aren't and can't avoid you. They could be essential workers, or dealing with a situation that forces them to take a risk. Many, many health workers or their family members have died because people like you infected them with COVID-19 after they got sick and sought care. Many of them quarantine themselves away from their families during outbreaks for exactly this reason. Please reconsider your stance here.
> A large part of my personal motivation for starting this in the first place is because of the terrible way the media currently reports COVID which is almost exclusively through number of confirmed cases. I'd argue that stat means very little.
But your chief data source, the New York Times, is already doing this. Their README [1] gives the exact same motivation you do. The difference is they don't highlight a stat that downplays the severity of the pandemic. Given this, I think your site is deeply misleading, and a prospective user would gain more valuable insight simply by loading the NYT's CSV into Google Sheets.
> It's really straightforward to not be significantly overweight and workout 2-3 days per week.
It may be for you, but many others struggle with weight for completely valid reasons (disability, mental illness, hormone disorders, metabolic and dietary disorders) and you can't distinguish them in the grocery store. I would also argue more broadly that we shouldn't value the lives of the overweight of obese less than others, no matter the cause.
It's also worth saying that while you keep focusing on obesity as the chief comorbidity, in truth it's age, and no amount of personal responsibility can let you avoid that (the opposite, actually).
---
I don't want to imply that I don't want to get back to life. Despite being misanthropic and super privileged, lockdowns and precautions haven't been wonderful for me--and it's been even worse for people I'm close to. But to be blunt, your position is selfish. I urge you to change your behavior. Many people and their loved ones are vulnerable to COVID-19 through no fault of their own, and you are putting them in danger. We should have vaccines in the next few months. It doesn't feel like that much to ask to try and stay in your home as much as possible, wear masks and socially distance when you can't, and wash your hands frequently until then. Compared to the potential consequences, I just can't see any justification for not doing so.
[1]: https://github.com/nytimes/covid-19-data#methodology-and-def...
You make several valid points for which there is little argument. I feel I do the same. At this point we simply have a different frame of reference on what is important to each of us.
> My bias is that the COVID-19 response in and across the United States is overblown and hysterical. In other words, the juice has not been worth the squeeze.
These are the kind of statements that people in future generations will look back on in embarrassment. "How could people be so purposefully blind to what's happening right in front of them?"
Also this;
> I argue that getting sick is a human right and that no one can deny you this right.
Do you not realize the fundamental issue with this statement?
Edited to add: 3,100 deaths reported in a single day, not necessarily all dead on the same day.
Realistically 3,100 people died over several days, possibly weeks, and due to reporting delays caused by the Thanksgiving holiday, the numbers were all reported on one day.
There's never a more important time to follow the seven-day rolling average than around a major holiday. A lot of people died of covid yesterday, and a lot of people will die of covid today, but not 3,100 people.
We have a significant number of people in this country (including the person you replied to) who sincerely believe that covid is overblown. Obviously incorrect statements like "3100 people died in a single day" reinforce those beliefs and are counterproductive.
The kids who are being left behind because schools across the country have gone virtual?
The increases in domestically violence? Suicide and depression rates?
The unavoidable health decline because people have been forced in to their homes and apartments for several months?
There’s a boatload of problems in the US. COVID is a symptom - not the cause.
Health is the antidote to COVID - not lockdown. And as we see, far too many people have spent years upon years sacrificing their health and now suffering consequences.
The rough price of a human life in estimates of cost-benefit analysis is on the order of $10-100 million. That puts the cost of pandemic in lives lost in the US alone as of this date to a couple of trillion dollars. Were the pandemic to infect everyone in the US, the resulting death toll would have a calculated cost of approximately 100% of yearly GDP. The economic costs of a lockdown are a bargain in comparison.
Yeah, agree with all of that.
I see this pattern in COVID discussions all the time. Someone claims COVID is overblown, people push back, then the response is always "yeah but lockdowns are horrible!". It's largely a strawman.
COVID, as a disease, should be taken seriously. It is absolutely more serious for some than others. Ultimately every person needs to exercise personal responsibility instead of demanding that others change their behavior.
I don't know how well other jurisdictions do at distinguishing between day-of-report versus day-of-event, nor how well aggregations do at tracking the disparities here.
In any case, at current trends, "3100 people died in a single day" will shortly be true if it is not true already.
Nobody would have predicted the current response based on that graph. It fits a trend where people become less and less willing to accept physical risks.
Why can't we discuss this without calling one another "purposefully blind"?
Not to mention that if we were to have lived our lives as normal and not cared, then deaths outcomes would rise even more in proportion to hospital admissions since the more overloaded a hospital gets, the harder it is to get proper care.
It’s really not rocket science. Epidemiologist and doctors are saying we should take significant measures to stop this, I think I trust them. I wouldn’t want a doctor telling me how to engineer a web service.
And then if, through heroic effort and sacrifice the hospitals don't get overrun, people say "why were we worried? The hospitals never went over capacity!". Like if a team of engineers spend a week mitigating a security attack, then all of the non experts at the company say "well, nothing ended up happening, guess the whole thing was overblown".
"One epidemiologist told us the environment was “too toxic” to talk to us, even anonymously."
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-covid-science...
We know how to beat this virus, other countries have done it (South Korea, Taiwan, NZ). The solution is incisive contact tracing, short effective and targeted lock downs, social distancing, etc...
The problem is that in the US our institutions have failed us so badly that those solutions are not an option. Because of the delayed (and insufficient) response and our hollowed out institutions the virus has become so widespread (and our institutions so rickety) that we can’t effectively apply the solutions we know exist because it’s too late.
This is where the problem lies. Instead of talking about the solutions we know work, we are forced into a position where our only options are extreme (full lock downs and such) and they can't even fix the problem, only mitigate the damage (with significant collateral damage). Our binary choice is essentially death or destruction, and that is a direct result of our own failures. These are not the only two existing options, they are just the only ones presented to us in the US.
I am not trying to say that epidemiologists all agree on full lock downs. But no epidemiologist worth their salt will say we should do absolutely nothing about this virus, they will argue over specific strategies and their collateral damage, but they will not say that we should do nothing.
You're being dishonest however in saying "look the excess deaths are so low" without considering that their have been significant measures put in place to reduce that death count. That's logically equivalent to saying "see we don't need seatbelts because the number of people dying is not that high" after seat belt laws have been implemented. In this case, the reason excess mortality is lower is not because the virus isn't deadly to many people, but precisely because the measures we have taken.
I don't know a lot about viruses, but I know groupthink when I see it. Suppressing competing opinions is the opposite of science.
With a fatality rate of 2% (source: https://ourworldindata.org/mortality-risk-covid?country=~USA) that means 64~32 thousand die every two weeks. This translates to 1.7~0.8 million people dying every year. With that I'm obviously ignoring the large spectrum between 'no lasting symptoms' and 'death'.
With one of the most lax responses in the western world I cannot see how you conclude from this that the US's response is 'overblown and hysterical'
Where’s the outrage and concern from eating pie and cookies for breakfast?
Note that in the US and most countries, it'll be folks working in hospitals and other healthcare settings that get it first, then likely high risk elderly (nursing home patients, etc). The UK has a very extensive set of guidelines on who gets it, the US does not yet but those policies will happen at the state level.
It remains possible that the death rate may climb among the unvaccinated if others' vaccinations is used as an excuse for risky behavior.
This is stated with far too much confidence. It may be true that vaccinated individuals can still transmit COVID. It may also be true that they can't. We don't know yet.
What if the vaccine does not deliver the expected results? What does the average layperson expect the results to be?
What if the vaccine does not have a significant impact on the spread? I wonder how the “protect thy neighbor” group will change once people feel genuinely comfortable their personal risk is lowered.
https://thehill.com/news-by-subject/healthcare/528619-pfizer...
I feel like you’re lamenting that people don’t follow your experts.
I mean look at all the experts that signed on here: https://gbdeclaration.org/
Why don’t they count?
They aren't.
See "Inside Job" - an excellent documentary about the 2008 financial crisis. Highly credentialed Harvard, MIT, Columbia professors produced reports for Wall Street to convince buyers to buy their toxic financial products (while collecting enormous fees).
I am all for science, but one needs to watch out for $cience.
I'm also curious how (or if) we're going to learn to collectively solve some of these long-term problems before many of them really start to turn into those specific, concrete, short-term threats to us as individuals, at which point many of the "easier" solutions may no longer be effective anymore.
From flat out denying, to "we have to quarantine, no Thanksgiving!" from mayors who are then caught at fancy dinners and restaurants! Hard to sell the "we're in this together" narrative when you think the rules don't apply to you if you're rich...it's sad.
The problem is a highly transmissible, deadly virus, and people reacting to it relative to how others act, regardless of wealth or political affiliation.
It's unproductive and distracting to focus on a few people, even if they are leaders, making poor personal decisions in a crisis. It is not about them, it's about sars-covid-19 and the thousands of people dying from it every day, and the hundreds of thousands that will die if we don't get our collective act together.
The virus is clearly the problem but it isn't solvable until a vaccine comes which takes time - in the meantime you have to enter the realm of sociology. Messaging matters.
One moron in Austin doing something has zero bearing on the pathology of this disease. I wish they were not hypocrites, but looking more broadly, a mayor or councilperson isn't the problem in the large scale response to this epidemic.
Message matters, and saying "why do I have to do something smart if at least one person in a person of power is doing something dumb" is itself a message, and not a productive one.
concretely: hypocrites will exist for any principle or situation imaginable, so you can take it as a given, reason about a situation independently of them, and ignore them.
EXACTLY. That is the message being sent - it's unproductive! That is my exact point. Our leadership sends unproductive messages all the time -and when half the country doesn't think it's a big deal, they see rich people doing whatever, their confirmation bias kicks in and says "see if it was bad they wouldn't be doing X"
> concretely: hypocrites will exist for any principle or situation imaginable, so you can take it as a given, reason about a situation independently of them, and ignore them.
You can't ignore hypocrites if they have influence. If Trump was pro-mask a good deal of this country would have been too.
Leadership needs to lead or the message is undermined. What do we want? To stop covid or to fight a culture war?
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/Gavin-Newsom-birthda...
[0]: https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/heatherknight/article/S-...
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8289921/Scientist-a...
people should take a bit more responsibility for their own safety. We aren’t all children to be told every single common thing to follow. Especially after quarter million deaths!!!
Where can I find research that confirms masks work?
"The authors of this article, published in 2015, have written a response to their work in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. We urge our readers to consider the response when reading the article. https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/5/4/e006577.responses#covid-..."
Would not standard practice be to wear proper masks?
Yes, here we go: "some subjects in the control arm wore surgical masks." And indeed, someone comments "The control arm had less than 1% of no mask use".
Surgical masks are widely available and not solely for healthcare workers.
Which is only sorta true in the sense that people who are sick often wear them and they're not almost unheard of like in the West. But pre-pandemic, go out on a crowded street in Tokyo and you probably wouldn't see more than a few masks if you saw any.
But even with the confirmed cases the trend in Japan is worrying, especially compared to other countries in Asia. They're setting new records every day: https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20201201_36/
With that said, I absolutely think the mask culture in Japan has dampened the surge a lot. In countries without this people just do the bare minimum to be compliant, so we have all these chin-wearers and nose-flashers. We're simply hopeless at wearing masks even with the strictest of mask mandates. So even if masks could reduce the spread significantly we're not likely to see the effect of that here.
That being, said has the working group made any update to their predictions / statements.
Genuinely asking - even with the message "we're all in this together", does it surprise you that others don't see it this way?
But, as a European, I must say that the strong focus on masks on the other side of the Atlantic feels a little dangerous; over here the regions with a mask mandate have not fared significantly better than those without.
So here is the more complete CDC advice: "Wear a mask, stay at least 6 feet apart, avoid crowds, and wash your hands often."
You do not really need a mask if you are out for a walk and are maintaining social distancing. It has been proven time and time again that the main culprit is people crowding indoors without masks.
If you are downvoting, please provide evidence that wearing a mask outside while maintaining social distancing has any substantial effect.
If they aren't doing the bare minimum, that I can see with my own eyes, I have no reason to believe they are also social distancing.
It's also an interesting illustration of why things like virtue signaling are a sociological phenomenon to begin with. They're hard-wired into us, for good reasons.
You don't need to shame people who have an overabundance of precaution.
And no, wearing a mask outside is not automatically "virtue signaling".
I wear a mask outside while walking and social distancing and I'm not virtue signaling. I simply personally find it harder to futz w/ a mask when coming up on people or going inside a building.
Please be a little less reflexive when it comes to this stuff. I'm sure people are "virtue signaling" by wearing masks. But coincidentally they're also limiting the spread of COVID-19. Let's focus on the latter here.
It really seems like you're just reflexively jumping on this stuff. Mask wearing is good! Even if you're not social distancing it's better than not wearing a mask and not social distancing.
It's also worth saying there's nothing wrong with "virtue signaling". It's indistinguishable from... actually having the virtue.
edit - If you need to take a walk through downtown Los Angeles or somewhere where it is physically impossible to social distance, then yes wear a mask.
As an avid bicyclist I do not wear a mask on long distance solo bike rides, and I get harsh or worried looks from seniors. However, I understand the details and am not exposing myself or others.
A major challenge in public health messaging is the intractable problem of lack of context and lack of intellectual effort by all parties. Mix in serious consequences and you have a recipe for conflict quickly.
So "virtue signalling" is a one liner, my post is a one liner (almost) and, public health officials face millions of inconvenienced, ill or panic'd people with their "one liner"
Please wash hands, be mindful of others, take it seriously and no, I do not wear a mask on my long distance solo bike rides.
What bothers me more is not having clear rules/instructions. So I just resort to wearing the mask everywhere, doesn't hurt me or bother me and shouldn't be controversial.
The glasses thing is actually a pretty critical issue. I've seen people wearing masks and glasses by themselves in cars while driving with the windows closed. In that scenario fogging glasses makes wearing the mask more dangerous to people around you than not wearing the mask...
Of course, none of this is to say that in all these cases, even outdoors, that you shouldn't wear the mask if you can't social distance or need to go indoors. You totally should! But giving people the stink eye when they're 30 ft away from everyone else and outside and mask-less seems a bit much. It doesn't seem like there's any justification for that outside of shaming non-conformity.
Other commenters here are saying things like - if there's a .0001% chance this pre ents harm to you or others, then it's your duty to not do it. I'm a teetotaler; I wonder if these folks drink alcohol.
I've rarely eaten at an outdoor restaurant since March, I haven't eaten indoors at all, and have been generally minimizing trips to stores so I'm conservative. But I'm not going to do something just to send a signal that I'm a "good" person.
Wear the damn mask, and wear it properly. This tells the world that you get it, that you take it seriously, and that you're probably doing all the other trivial but necessary things also.
Yes, it's slightly inconvenient. But generally no more so for you than for everyone else. So get over it.
Also, use your turn signal, even if there are no other cars within 100 meters of you.
Also, don't leave your shopping cart in the middle of the grocery aisle while deciding which product to select, even if no one else is presently trying to get past you.
Do all the simple things that signal "it makes more sense to be courteous and clear, than to demonstrate disregard for others (whether purposeful or oblivious, because they are often hard to tell apart)".
But if those people are going to be stupid in private, then I still want them to do all the CDC-recommended stuff in the places where we cross paths.
If we could isolate those folks in their bars and churches and let them burn themselves out, I'd be OK with that.
But they are in the grocery store the next day, wearing a mask around their chin because they care equally little in public as they do in private.
So, if you are not one of those people, signal it by wearing the mask properly.
("you" in all of the foregoing is directed generally, not personally!)
When I'm walking early in the morning, I carry a mask with me in case I encounter other morning joggers/walkers and can't easily cross the street at the time.
If you can allow for that possibility, at low or zero up-front cost, then -- I don't know, maybe it's the adulthood speaking here, but -- why would one not do so? :)
I would love to see confirmed cases of transmission from merely walking by someone when outside.
I seriously don’t get the pull up the mask thing when I walk by someone outside. I’m not going to do it and I have zero expectation the other person do that either.
No, that's not correct at all. But if I may take a guess at what you meant to write..
Those are guidelines based on estimated inflection points where more time or less distance increases the likelihood of transmission.
They are presumed to be good-faith estimates, but they are based on difficult-to-collect data. It's probably reasonable to draw the conclusion that, if fully observed, the guidelines would drive R0 below 1.0 and the trendline would follow.
But that doesn't mean that no transmission occurs in other situations. People sometimes sneeze unexpectedly. It takes a fraction of a second to put on the mask that prevents that event from becoming risky, or at least uncomfortable. Cheap insurance.
It's also important to realize that "walking by someone while outside" can take many forms, so it's not clear that we're all talking about the same thing. Jogging on a narrow path is very different from strolling on a beach.
Different measures are appropriate for different cases, but it's never harmful to use the mask, it's a reasonable habit to get into, and it makes people around you more comfortable. What's the trouble?
So I guess it’s 15 minutes of cumulative exposure over the course of 24 hours.
Indoors, sure wear a mask. I wear a mask where required indoors. But outdoors no thanks.
What’s the trouble? A behavior devoid of reason is nothing more than a ritual. Furthermore, it sets the expectation that the behavior does actually provide tangible benefit leading to a false sense of security and lead to riskier behaviors than what would have otherwise occurred. Finally, masks are not created equal. How do I know the mask “you” are wearing is actually worth a damn?
https://www.courier-journal.com/story/news/2020/10/26/cdc-re...
Absolutely. But we're not in "devoid of reason" territory here, we're in "with complex and sometimes impossible to quantify reasons" territory.
So here are two people:
- Person A is an epidemiologist-statistician who has run the numbers rigorously for his part of his county, factored in the likelihood of inter-county travel, and concluded that there's no benefit for any party to be wearing a mask in the specific situation they expected to be in when they left the house this morning, and that that situation is perfectly aligned with the reality of the day.
- Person B is an average underinformed conspiracy theorist who thinks COVID is all a scam perpetrated by the medical establishment for more funding and to undermine Dear Leader and that it would go away like magic in the summer, no the fall, no the winter if only the media would stop talking about it and 5G.
How can you (random sidewalk passerby) tell the difference between these two people?
I wear a mask, no matter how smart I'm feeling that day.
(Note that this is not a response to why one should wear a mask, just a light observation of a positive side effect! But there is value in signalling, even if it's just to normalize the behavior so that the reluctant just stop bothering to protest about such a simple thing, and thereby get a jump on any asymptomatic spread that occurs semi-randomly in populations.. :)
I logged my thoughts here https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1335634895826087938.html
CDC guidelines are about likelihood of transmission, not certainty.
It's considerate and respectful to wear a mask when around other people. If you're not going to do it, then all I ask is that you stay far away from me and mine.
Because that’s ultimately what this 24/7 mask wearing is about - demanding others engage in specific behaviors to make yourself feel better.
I view this as personal responsibility and that’s how I conduct myself. I should draw boundaries for myself with what is and what is not okay and operate accordingly. I don’t expect anyone to change their life to account for my insecurities.
If I see a person wearing a mask, even one of those single-ply gaiters that seems to be much less effective than three-ply cotton masks, I still understand that they are not one of the radical science-denying people that make zero effort to avoid infecting themselves and others, and are therefore dangerous.
Personal responsibility sounds great, and is a good start. But also, we live in a society, so personal responsibility includes doing what you can to avoid spreading COVID-19 to others.
Epidemiology is not "insecurity." That's... wow, I'm not even sure how to respond to that.
0. https://twitter.com/zeynep/status/1334641685154902021 links to https://jkms.org/DOIx.php?id=10.3346/jkms.2020.35.e415
Here's the conclusion from the study that was linked: "Droplet transmission can occur at a distance greater than 2 m if there is direct air flow from an infected person. Therefore, updated guidelines involving prevention, contact tracing, and quarantine for COVID-19 are required for control of this highly contagious disease."
Walking by someone is an interaction measured in seconds. If that person is infected and shedding via aerosol then a plain cloth mask does not offer much protection. The cloth mask would offer some level of protection if the infected was shedding via droplets from sneeze/cough/etc.
If there's direct evidence that wearing a mask on my walk around the neighborhood offers significant benefits then I will reconsider. To this point, I just haven't seen anything that supports this behavior.
People should just shut up and wear a mask. (And social distance. And wash their hands. And refrain from touching their face. And, and, and)
If there's even a 0.000001% chance that you could prevent the spread of a rampantly spreading disease that has hospitals in many regions at or above capacity, by putting a damn piece of cloth over your face, then just do it. It's not burdensome.
I think about past generations in the US that had to sacrifice mightily in the great depression or WWII, and then I look at today and how many people are whining over petty nonsense like this, and I shudder at what the country has become.
For me, it has a convenient counter response: nobody using the term "virtue signaling" has anything useful to say, on any topic. It's "vice signaling", their call-out to their buddies that they, too, don't like anything you say solely because you say it. They're not listening to me, except for the purpose of rejecting it reflexively, so there's no point in talking to them.
Could that be because people in regions without a mask mandate wear masks anyway?
It is unbelievable that this list of behaviors does not include airing out or ventilating indoor public spaces.
Here in sunny California, where the weather in the Bay Area has been mild and warm through December 3, I find myself walking into shops or offices every day that have operable windows and doors: all shut tight.
Many of these spaces could be indistinguishable from the outdoors in terms of fresh air flow. For reasons I cannot fathom this simplest (and healthiest) mitigation is not practiced.
"The restaurant owner filmed a city inspector issuing a citation due to the cafe’s open front door"
https://ny.eater.com/2020/10/21/21526832/gravesend-restauran...
We have many laws about fire safety, not so many about COVID-19.
* Offering live streaming.
* Reducing capacity for services to one-quarter capacity and having our ushers enforce 6-foot (4 seats) separation between family groups.
* Constant "wear a mask, please" signs and reminders.
* Reducing childcare room capacity to 6 children and 2 adults per room.
* Opening every window and door possible.
* Keeping the ventilation system running to circulate air.
Our city fire marshal recently threatened us with fines for keeping the interior doors open to improve ventilation.
If we are following the science, you should be fine to not wear a mask due to immunity, right?
Should these people also be allowed to live a normal life, gathering with others indoors, etc? I’ve never heard people giving the previously infected a pass to return to normal. I think everyone thinks it’s only fair to make them continue to suffer too, despite having immunity and ignoring the actual reason for social distancing and mask wearing.
There are two concerns related to post-immunity spread: First, the accuracy of tests, and second, the ability to spread despite immunity.
I believe that some studies have shown you may still be able to transmit the disease if exposed, even though you yourself are immune.
I don't have sources handy, but that is a starting point for your own research.
As to your second point, would you also be saying we should still mask and social distance after vaccination, because just in case?
1: https://www.usatoday.com/story/travel/news/2020/11/11/covid-...
Yes people may break the laws or not follow the rules, that doesn’t mean there is no value. There’s surely a black market for passports, ids, etc, does that mean those documents are useless?
It can be deceptive depending on your local area, as well as just exhausting to hear so many times. For example, if you live in New York, yesterday's death toll was 7% of the highest day its ever been.
Even when the death rates are super scary, people still don't follow common sense measures. Remember the so-called lockdowns in the USA? Everyone was still out horsing around, getting together, buying their khakis, eating at whatever restaurants they could find that were open. There was no enforcement, so nobody followed the rules. What a surprise!
Even now, where the disease is arguably worse than it's ever been, local governments are talking about opening up schools and other indoor super-spreader businesses like bars and night clubs. In most places, churches, with their saliva-fest indoor singing and chanting, are fully open. Nobody is taking sane measures at the arguable height of the pandemic!
If we learned anything from this pandemic, we learned that we can't rely on people voluntarily acting collectively to make things better for everyone.
Edit: While deaths yesterday are only a little above the deaths from the April peak, cases yesterday are 6 times as high.
Wave 1: NY + NJ (some other northeast)
Wave 2: Florida + Texas + Arizona (most of south)
Wave 3: Midwest
You can even see this within California. Wave 1: Bay Area, Wave 2: Some LA, Wave 3: All SoCal
Each wave basically amounts of when that population gave up distancing, and once you’ve undergone your wave, you don’t really get it that bad again. (unless you have a small wave that misses much of the population, like LA)
Texas’ wave 3 is popping in different cities than wave 2 (Texas, like Cali, is just huge).
[1] https://kylebenzle.medium.com/adding-an-air-purifier-to-your...