I’m sorry, that article doesn’t cite its sources either. See, I can do that too:
Deaths per million:
Alabama 2330905430
New York 10
Florida 314159265358979323846264
You’re forgetting that, when it hit NY, no one knew how to treat it. The experience in NY uncovered more ways to treat it, so rates are decreasing.
Most of the deaths in NY happened in the early days of the pandemic. Citing them is like citing deaths from polio in 1957. It doesn’t matter how bad it was five months ago; what matters is what’s happening now.
Hawaii seems to have a handle on it, relatively speaking, even though cases are starting to rise now.
There was already a huge outbreak in New York City before there was any significant testing whatsoever. By the time that we in New York State locked down in mid-March, we had basically already committed to the deaths that followed.
Florida had plenty of time to get its act together and still royally screwed it up. We now have about 36 new daily cases per million while Florida is having about 500 per million. In New York, about 1% of COVID tests come back positive; in Florida, it’s 19%. So, don’t worry, you’ll be be rapidly gaining on us.
As another example, I have been comparing what is going on here in Monroe County, NY to what is going on where my sister lives in Charleston County, SC (which has a little over half the population of our county). Early on, we had many more cases and deaths than Charleston. However, more recently, in like a two week period, Charleston had more confirmed cases than we have had the whole pandemic. And, now Charleston’s total number of cases is more than twice ours. Their total deaths are still less than 1/2 ours but are rapidly approaching more per capita…and I imagine they will likely surpass us in absolute numbers of deaths.
Hawaii has a huge geographical advantage; far easier to track and monitor those who come in by plane.
Yes, we were heavily affected by our proximity to NYC, which is why our case rates and death rates were highest in Fairfield County (which is basically a suburb of NYC). We were also greatly affected along the interstate corridors that come from NYC (i.e. I-95 and I-91), which is why New Haven County and Hartford County were subsequently hit hard.
ETA: I believe you live in southeastern Connecticut, right, @SCAdian?
You can get coronavirus updates for CT here:
You can also sign up for daily email updates from the governor here:
Nobody is denying that New York (along with New Jersey and Connecticut) was hit hard by the coronavirus and had a lot of deaths – back in April. However, New York has subsequently managed to get the virus under control.
Florida, on the other hand, after watching what happened in NY and being given four months to prepare, did little or nothing to get the virus under control. Instead, you had a governor who arrogantly bragged about how well Florida was handing the virus and how low their death rate was compared to NY. These arrogant remarks have not aged well, as Florida now has the highest rate in the nation for new cases in absolute numbers as well as per capita (i.e. normalized by population).
New York is now near the bottom for new case rates. See here (4th graph down on page):
That deaths per million people figure for South Dakota has to be wrong. They don’t evenhave a million people.
It’s a figure that is normalized to a hypothetical million people. It’s doesn’t matter if they actually have more or less than a million people. On a related note, if I drive to work at 65 mph, it doesn’t mean I have to drive for a full hour for that to be a valid speed.
Anyway, the fourth graph indicates that South Dakota has had 137.9 deaths per million people as of Friday (7/24).
The second graph indicates that South Dakota has had 122 deaths (absolute numbers) as of Friday (7/24).
Since the population of South Dakota is approximately 884,659 people (as of 2019), this makes complete sense.
(122 deaths) / (884,659 people) * 1,000,000 = 137.9 deaths per million people.
I’m pretty sure that was a joke.
I advocate shooting down any incoming flights as enemy aircraft, but who listens to me?
Florida is well below the national average:
USA : 451 deaths per million
Florida : 269 deaths per million
That’s a cumulative total number of deaths to date (normalized by population). It doesn’t reflect the death rate right now.
On Friday (7/24/2020):
The USA as a whole had 3.43 deaths per million people
Florida had 6.29 deaths per million people and rising
For comparison, New York peaked at 118.2 deaths per million on 4/17/2020. New York is now at 0.103 deaths per million (on 7/24/2020).
Florida now has as many confirmed cases as New York did at its peak. I sincerely hope the death rate in Florida doesn’t rise to match that of New York’s at its peak.
Sadly, I expect it’s only a matter of time for Florida to overtake NY.
I don’t think you need to worry too much about Florida going from 6.29 to 118.2
No? Do you not understand how exponential growth works?
And for the record, we had this same discussion about exponential growth back in March. Note that when the following article was written, nobody – zero people – had died yet in New York, but within one month New York’s death rate would reach its peak – the peak you don’t think Florida needs to worry about – and within two months nearly 30,000 people would die in New York.
When a danger is growing exponentially, everything looks fine until it doesn’t
You know, it’s one thing to be having these kinds of discussions back in March, when only a handful of people had died in the U.S. I can’t believe we’re still having this discussion after 150,000 people have died here in the United States.
We went through hell here in the northeast over the last four months. It’s the reason why most of us are still taking the virus very seriously and why many of us are still locked down.
Yet many people in Florida, Texas and throughout the south and west still seem convinced that the virus won’t affect them, and refuse to take simple public health measures, like mask-wearing and social distancing.
What’s maddening about this is the simple fact that if we had all locked down effectively and simultaneously throughout the nation, we could have all but eliminated the virus in the U.S., just like in Europe, and not only restarted our economy but also saved a lot of lives. Instead, we keep doing these sequential half-measures as the virus flares up in different parts of the country, so the virus will keep hopscotching around the country indefinitely.
P.S. Here’s what needs to be done at this point:
Amen, amen, amen.
I would add: do it right by listening to scientists (including public health scientists) who are not being threatened by politicians with losing their jobs because the scientists are saying what the politicians don’t want to hear. It seems clear that is happening to Dr. Robert Redfield and the CDC.
As long as DeSantis doesn’t do something crazy like sending infected people to nursing homes it should be manageable.
DeSantis hasn’t impressed me with his good judgement and leadership so far.
And while the idea of sending recovering patients to nursing homes in New York ended up not being a great idea, it wasn’t the only, or even the primary reason why the virus killed so many people.
The idea wasn’t the worst one. They were trying to free up hospital beds for sicker patients, and they needed some place to send recovering patients who needed less care than was being provided in the hospitals (like oxygen and close monitoring).
The alternative is to send patients home where they can infect their family members. Another alternative is to build temporary medical facilities, like we did in one of our convention centers here in Connecticut.
Your repeated statements (and those of DeSantis) that everything should be fine in Florida because it’s “not New York” sounds a lot like people here in the U.S. saying back in March that we’re “not like Italy” or “not like China.”
They were right. Italy and China both got the virus under control. The course of the pandemic has been much worse here in the U.S.
Your comments that everything should be fine and manageable in Florida remind me of the apocryphal fellow who jumped off the top of 100-story building and remarked as he passed the 90th floor that everything was fine so far.
Maybe everything will be fine and manageable in Florida. Maybe we’ve learned enough lessons about how to care for covid patients, and maybe the older people who are more susceptible to complications and death will quarantine themselves and avoid getting infected.
But wouldn’t it be easier to not jump off the building, and instead do everything we can to get the virus under control with basic public health measures? This includes mandatory mask-wearing, social distancing, and lockdowns until the rate of infection spread is under control. See my last post for more detail.