According to this site, the US is seeing about 35,000 new COVID diagnoses per day. How are people getting the virus? To be clear, I’m not asking the fundamental question “how is the coronavirus transmitted?” That seems to be pretty well understood at this point: spend time in the proximity of an infected person, and eventually they will exhale enough virus-filled droplets to share the bug with you.
What I’m asking is this: what are the statistics regarding activities people were engaged in that got them exposed? In the past month, what percent of newly diagnosed patients recall recently dining in a restaurant, going to a concert or political rally, frat party, or…? What percent recall only grocery shopping and working their regular job, all while wearing a mask and washing their hands regularly?
Restaurants, which despite precautions is a problem. One factor is that you can’t keep your mask on while you eat.
Family and friends getting together. A lot of people may be trying to avoid public places, but still get together in medium sized groups in private. People think that’s safe, because they know everyone. But it isn’t.
This web page here, made by Kaiser health, is holding sever news sources:
Briefly, eating out indoors is a good way to spread the disease, whereas close contact in a small room with family or visiting the elderly is only a little less so. Shopping or working in an office is about middle, and outdoors playing with children the least risk.
People are unaware of symptoms, or not exhibiting them, or ignoring them, so that’s a thing too. Currently, I’m having my typical sore throat and stuffiness for seasonal hay fever, but that could be in addition to, or masking other symptoms. Back in last April, and now again for a couple of days, I’ve felt hot, and with the mercury thermometer right her, I check, and … 98.5. Humpf. I can’t figure that out – and no, as a man in his 50’s I’m not having hot flashes, thank you.
This could be correlation and not causation. The people who are willing to eat in restaurants might be willing to do other things that put them at risk too.
I was wondering something similar earlier today, but more who than where. Like, are there any studies yet that show how many people who catch it adhere to wearing masks? Or if there really is a lower risk outdoors when you’re attending an outdoors event that’s crowded?
Yep, I’ve made this exact same argument, in fact I’d say the Euler diagram of anti-maskers & people willing to go out a lot has a pretty big intersection.
I’ve seen plenty of stories where they figured out that Person A got infected because they were eating with (or otherwise too close to) Person B (who was already infected).
What I have NOT seen is where they figured out that someone got infected because of some object they touched without cleaning it off properly, and without cleaning their hands afterward, etc etc etc. So why are they still telling us to be so careful about what we touch, and to keep washing our hands?
Looked at the lead story from the WSJ. Yesterday, I was taking a biking/walking trail I’d never been to before. I sat on a bench right next to the paved trail, and a jogger went by on my side of the two lane trail. What are the risks there? On one hand, he was obviously breathing hard, and he wasn’t that far away, but on the other hand, outdoors.
I also wonder a bit about the story I told in the Covidiot thread (went to get haircut, a stylist not working with me had her mask under her nose, was asked to hold mask by the outside against face, not sure if I disinfected hands enough), but that’s probably less than clear.
For COVID-19, a close contact is defined as any individual who was within 6 feet of an infected person for at least 15 minutes starting from 2 days before illness onset (or, for asymptomatic patients, 2 days prior to positive specimen collection) until the time the patient is isolated.
By that standard, sitting on a bench next to a trail as a jogger zips by, spending less than one second within six feet of you, is probably pretty low risk.
Mayor Tim Kabat was already on edge as thousands of students returned to La Crosse, Wis., to resume classes this fall at the city’s three colleges. When he saw young people packing downtown bars and restaurants in September, crowded closely and often unmasked, the longtime mayor’s worry turned to dread.
Now, more than a month later, La Crosse has endured a devastating spike in coronavirus cases — a wildfire of infection that first appeared predominantly in the student-age population, spread throughout the community and ultimately ravaged elderly residents who had previously managed to avoid the worst of the pandemic.
For most of 2020, La Crosse’s nursing homes had lost no one to covid-19. In recent weeks, the county has recorded 19 deaths, most of them in long-term care facilities. Everyone who died was over 60. Fifteen of the victims were 80 or older. The spike offers a vivid illustration of the perils of pushing a herd-immunity strategy, as infections among younger people can fuel broader community outbreaks that ultimately kill some of the most vulnerable residents.
“It was the very thing we worried about, and it has happened,” Kabat said.