Hawaii has still gotten off relatively lightly, but we are on the rise. For a while, single-day numbers of new cases had been in the single digits or even zero. But in the past week or so, we’ve not only been getting back up into double digits, but three times this week including today we beat the old single-day record set two or three months ago. Today we recorded 42 new cases for a cumulative case count of 1200 even, with 19 deaths total.
As I said, relatively light, but plans to reopen some tourism from the mainland on August 1 look set to be put on hold.
My father just got out of the hospital from COVID, having spent nine days there. He told me that he didn’t really think COVID was a big deal until he got it. He wasn’t one of these maniacs out here saying it was a hoax, but as soon as the casinos reopened, he was there. Not wearing a mask. Now he’s telling everyone who’ll listen to take it seriously.
He got infected from his niece (my cousin). She’s been in and out of the hospital for the past two weeks. She’s in her early 50s and doesn’t have any underlying conditions as far as I know. This shit is serious, yo.
So glad to hear he recovered, monstro, and I hope your niece can do the same. Really scary shit indeed.
Meanwhile, after posting all that last night, I got an email from my mother and brother, both Fox News loving Texans, telling me how the main stream media was hiding the decrease in deaths, and how masks are gonna kill you. So I guess they’re not as quiet as I thought. I will note, however, that I’ve stopped blowing this off, and now I send them emails back telling them in polite, fact-laden paragraphs, that they are full of shit.
However, there may be a lot of pandemic related, non-COVID deaths. For example, people who avoid going to the hospital when they should and die as a result. I personally know someone who lost their mother this way. Suicides have increased over the lockdown. About a month ago, I heard a story that car accident deaths were up during the shutdown, but I haven’t double checked that stat.
In addition to raw numbers I would like to see a breakdown by type of death, e.g. accidents, suicides, etc. then we can get a real sense of how much of a COVID death under count there is.
They’re using data through June 13, I’m guessing to allow it to mature, because some states have substantive delays in reporting. I do the same (I just updated through June 20 a couple of days ago), but even that kind of adjustment isn’t enough, so I also model reporting to adjust states with longer delays. The adjustments are pretty small by state, but there are a lot of states.
I only use deaths from natural causes, because increases in suicides, decreases in murders, and decreases in motor vehicle accidents complicate the data.
They exclude 8 states, I exclude 4, and my data is a week more forward, so I’m guessing we’re pretty much in the same place once you adjust for the residual reporting delays in their data.
My final comment is that both The New York Times and I are something like three weeks behind in this estimate because we let the data mature, and I haven’t figured that into my estimate of under account, nor have they. There is no doubt in my mind that we are both low in our estimates through July 12.
Disclaimer: This is from WaPo and ought not to be paywalled as they are making CV stories available without subscription. I don’t know what hoops you have to jump through to access the article without a subscription. I hope they are not too onerous. As is routinely my practice, I’ve quoted the juiciest, meatiest paragraphs, so if you can’t access the original, it’s probably okay. Also this story will likely be reported in other, non paywalled locations. I heartily apologize for any inconvenience. That is all.
RIO DE JANEIRO — For months, even as the coronavirus pandemic grew into a debilitating national crisis, Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro did everything he could to downplay it. He called on people to return to normal. He waded into crowds of supporters. He repeatedly described it as nothing more than a little flu.
The Washington Post analyzed hundreds of videos and photos of Bolsonaro to retrace his steps in the two weeks before he first reported symptoms on July 5. Experts believe symptoms may appear 2 to 14 days after exposure to the virus.
…[snip: timeline of his activities]…
The visual evidence shows that Bolsonaro not only met with far more people than his official schedule suggests, but that he routinely flouted public health guidelines. He at times wore a mask and maintained a distance of six feet from others. But just as frequently, he met with people without a mask, shook hands and even hugged supporters.
…
The upshot: he tests positive and then goes out and hugs people and shakes hands.
The accident rate went up dramatically, but the actual number of deaths went down. At least that’s for March, as the article from NPR says below, and I’d expect the trend to continue in the following months.
One factor is that as the number of cars on the road decreases, the average speed goes up, which leads to more serious accidents. They compared it to previous recessions, but the amount of traffic in those previous recessions did not drecrease as much as it did during the shutdown. Obviously there’s a nonlinear relationship between the number of cars and speed. In other words, when the roads get really empty, as they did in March, the speed of the few cars on the road goes way up.
hoy, I’ve heard that one a lot. Things I’ve said that got some traction with one person or another have been:
Surgeons, operating room nurses, and anesthesiologists routinely wear a mask for hours at a time when engaged in complex surgery.
You can’t poison yourself from CO2 without noticing. CO2 is actually the body’s trigger to breathe. An excess of CO2 is extremely obvious and uncomfortable, and you would feel that you need to breathe. I once watched someone “euthanize” a cage of hamsters with CO2, and it was horrible to watch. Anyway, be assured that you would rip off your mask long before enough CO2 built up to do any real harm.
(In contrast, you can’t detect a lack of oxygen, which is why several people die every year in fruit/vegetable storage facilities where all the O2 has been removed, typically replaced with something harmless like N2. They walk in, don’t realize they aren’t getting oxygen, and just collapse and die without ever really noticing they have a problem. I have a friend who was videoed in a low-oxygen room as part of pilot training, and she says it’s really embarrassing to watch as she got, um, silly before passing out and being removed from the room.)
I have personally measured my blood oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter wearing a variety of masks, including no mask. The heavy cotton mask did measurably reduce my oxygen – from 98 to 97 – but not enough to have any clinical significance or to be anything worth worrying about.
The thing I’ve said that gets no traction is that wearing a mask is much less invasive than most everything else that seems to prevent the spread of this virus. Restricting gatherings – closing churches and schools and factories – is incredibly costly, and prevents us from doing so many things. Wearing a mask pretty much only prevents you from eating in public. It’s otherwise something you can just ignore and get on with your life.
The researchers found 32% of the total study population were medically vulnerable for severe Covid-19. However, when the group of participants who smoked cigarettes or e-cigarettes were taken out of the analysis, the medically vulnerable percentage decreased by half, to 16%.
Make of this what you will. Those are higher numbers than I expected.
Elected officials and public health experts say the surge in cases in Florida began in mid-June and was caused by young people gathering at house parties and other locations. In recent days, doctors say the median age of people testing positive for the virus has been going up, a sign they say that young people have now spread the virus to older friends and family members.
That makes sense (sadly).
The following does not make sense:
Miami-Dade County recently imposed a curfew and ordered all restaurants closed for indoor dining. County Mayor Carlos Gimenez says he wants to see if those steps are effective before deciding whether to take tougher measures, such as re-imposing a county-wide stay at home order.
My bold.
“Wants to see” what? “Effective”?
Florida posted its highest number of deaths yet from the coronavirus Tuesday. The state’s Department of Health reported 132 deaths and 9,194 new positive cases.
Would it be effective if there are only 100 deaths instead of 150 overnight?? For crap’s sake, lock the place down!
