Coronavirus Outbreak

[Ken]

A big mistake with the handling of this was simply that far to much focus/consideration/weight was give solely to "fighting" the spread of the virus. It would have been better to take a lot more considerations into account. But that is what you get when you turn the problem over to the Fauci. That is his bailiwick, so of course that is what he is going to focus on. It isn't his job to take all things into consideration. He should have advised, along with many others.

I don't know. For the first 9-months of the pandemic we basically has a 50-state experiment on Covid response. Fauci and the CDC made recommendations and such, but almost the entire response was at the state and local level. Unlike most other countries, there weren't any Federal mandates to speak of in terms of shut downs, social distancing, mask use, and such.

So we can directly compare states like WA and OR which had pretty strict response throughout the pandemic, to states like TX, GA, FL or IA that have had much more relaxed responses with a focus on fast re-opening of the country. Did the states with fast re-opening and less restrictive responses actually do better? That is debatable. The economy here in WA is arguably better right now than in TX. WA state revenues are actually up 2% while in TX they are down about 10%. And the death and infection rates are much lower.

One thing we do know. If the rest of the country had achieved the same infection and death rates as WA then over 300,000 lives would have saved during the pandemic. OR has done even better than WA. Would that have been worth it? Would the economic impacts have been worse? I have no idea. But the fact of the matter is that some states did horribly and others have done quite well.

[Ken]

America’s overall immunity numbers are almost identical to Florida’s: 30 percent infected, 19 percent vaccinated, about 40 percent protected to some degree.

If these numbers are correct, this would mean herd immunity is twice as impactful of the downward trajectory of the cases we are seeing right now. Vaccines are helping, but must would seem to be from immunity those who have been infected. If we would not have shuttered, we may have reached this stage much sooner.

I expect that is probably true but the cause is largely behavioral and not the result of the source of the immunity.

If we took the whole US population and rated everyone based on how likely they were to CATCH Covid, the people at the top of the rankings would be those who's behavior or jobs put them at higher risk of exposure. The super-spreaders if you will. Maybe it is 10% of the population who does most of the spreading. If most of them eventually catch Covid due to behavior, then eventually the most "dangerous" segment of the population in terms of Covid spread will be taken off the table due to already having been infected.

On the other hand, the vaccine rollout has been focused on the elderly who mostly are NOT part of the super-spreader population. The elderly are mostly not in the workforce. And they are mostly not the ones out partying in bars and restaurants and such.

So if 10% of the population is immune due to infection, that probably has a lot greater impact on covid spread than vaccinating 10% of the most at-risk population who aren't nearly as likely to be spreading the disease in the first place.

Once the vaccine rollout gets to the younger and riskier segments of the population it will probably have greater impact on halting the spread.

Put another way, the vaccine rollout has been focused on saving lives and not halting the pandemic. If they wanted to halt the pandemic as fast as possible they would have focused the early vaccine rollout on the 20-40 year old population that does most of the spreading. That would probably have brought the numbers down faster than giving vaccine to 80 and 90 year olds. And might have actually saved more lives in the long run too if the pandemic had ended sooner.

[Biblical Anabaptist]

Have there been any studies done comparing population densities to infection rates? It would seem reasonable that the less dense the population the slower the spread.

[Ken]

Have there been any studies done comparing population densities to infection rates? It would seem reasonable that the less dense the population the slower the spread.

Yes there have been. And they have been inconclusive. Or have found that density has not been much of a factor.

For example, in California, San Francisco is the most dense city in the state and has had remarkably low levels of Covid. By contrast, Los Angeles is much less dense than San Francisco and has experienced far higher rates of covid infection and death. In fact, almost all of the Covid numbers from CA are from the Los Angeles area and the central valley cities like Bakersfield and not the dense Bay Area cities.

Likewise, here in Washington, the more dense Puget Sound and Seattle region has had the lowest Covid infection rate of all the populated parts of the state and the worst Covid outbreaks have all been east of the Cascades in the smaller rural agricultural cities like Yakima and Walla Walla.

In Pennsylvania, the worst hit counties were some of the most rural. Like Mifflin County (Belleville) which had much higher Covid infection rates and death rates than Philly or Pittsburgh. It is hard to find a more rural place than Mifflin County.

Internationally, the really big dense Asian cities like Tokyo, Hong Kong, Seoul, and Singapore have seen almost zero Covid spread compared to the US.

What happened in the US is that the first big wave hit the Northeast the hardest before the medical community and authorities really had a grip on how to deal with the pandemic and treat the disease. So NYC and the tri-state area got hammered early on last spring. That probably wasn't so much due to density as the fact that it was highly connected to Europe so got a lot of Covid spread coming across from Italy, France, and Spain. And then did a poor job containing it and treating it compared to cities where the Covid waves hit months later after all the lessons had been learned.

[mike]

In Pennsylvania, the worst hit counties were some of the most rural. Like Mifflin County (Belleville) which had much higher Covid infection rates and death rates than Philly or Pittsburgh. It is hard to find a more rural place than Mifflin County.

Mifflin County has had 172 deaths from the virus, while Philadelphia County has had 3,204 deaths. I assume you're correct that it had much higher rates.



A lot of rural PA counties have such low numbers that even if their rates are higher than urban areas, they don't make a lot of difference statistically.

[Ken]

In Pennsylvania, the worst hit counties were some of the most rural. Like Mifflin County (Belleville) which had much higher Covid infection rates and death rates than Philly or Pittsburgh. It is hard to find a more rural place than Mifflin County.

Mifflin County has had 172 deaths from the virus, while Philadelphia County has had 3,204 deaths. I assume you're correct that it had much higher rates.

Mifflin county has a population of 46,000. Philadelphia county has a population of 1.58 million

That gives Mifflin County a death rate of 374 per 100,000 and Philadelphia County a death rate of 203 per 100,000 which makes Mifflin County's death rate 83% higher than Philadelphia if my quick calculation on my phone is correct.

Allegheny County (Pittsburgh) has a total population of 1.216 million and had 1767 Covid deaths according to the data you posted which gives it a death rate of 145 per 100,000 which is only 38% of what Mifflin County experienced.

[Robert]

How the mighty have fallen.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/bethbauma ... k-n2586203

Is WA Gov. Jay Inslee Single-handedly Responsible for America's COVID Outbreak?

Over the last few weeks, all eyes have been on New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) for his nursing home scandal. Cuomo instructed nursing homes to take in COVID-positive patients that were being discharged from the hospital, a move that resulted in more than 10,000 deaths.

As it turns out, Cuomo wasn't the only governor to make that kind of call. Reporters in Michigan are suing Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) to obtain data about the Great Lakes State's deaths in nursing homes, something prosecutors say could end in criminal charges. Washington State Gov. Jay Inslee (D) can now be added to that very list.

[Biblical Anabaptist]

In Pennsylvania, the worst hit counties were some of the most rural. Like Mifflin County (Belleville) which had much higher Covid infection rates and death rates than Philly or Pittsburgh. It is hard to find a more rural place than Mifflin County.

Mifflin County has had 172 deaths from the virus, while Philadelphia County has had 3,204 deaths. I assume you're correct that it had much higher rates.



A lot of rural PA counties have such low numbers that even if their rates are higher than urban areas, they don't make a lot of difference statistically.

I could be wrong and I could not find information to confirm, but I thought earlier the Mifflin Co numbers were high due to an outbreak in a state prison. Perhaps that was Huntingdon Co.

[Ken]

I could be wrong and I could not find information to confirm, but I thought earlier the Mifflin Co numbers were high due to an outbreak in a state prison. Perhaps that was Huntingdon Co.

There is no state prison in Mifflin County. It is just the small town of Lewistown and then the Big Valley Belleville area which is mostly all rural Mennonite and Amish land. Outside of Lancaster County PA and Holmes County OH it is about as rural Mennonite and Amish as you can get. My family goes back there many generations to before the Civil War.

[Robert]

Dr Rand Paul. He is a doctor, so we must listen to him.



Rand Paul is quite consistent. He has challenged Dr Fauci early on.