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COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:25 am
by Woodchopper
Whether its a second wave, or a continuation of the same wave, its looking bad in the US.

Here's a worrying trend in California.
“We’re seeing more people get sick and go into the hospital. This is very much a change in the trajectory of the epidemic over the past several days. It’s a change for the worse and a cause for concern,” said Dr. Christina Ghaly, L.A. County’s director of health services.

The daily number of new coronavirus cases that require hospitalization could be four to five times the peak of what L.A. County saw in late March and early April, “placing tremendous burden on our healthcare system and hospitals and resulting in much otherwise unnecessary suffering and mortality,” Ghaly said.

With a predicted increase in hospitalizations, for the first time since the coronavirus crisis seemed to ease locally, L.A. County is now projecting the possibility of running out of hospital beds in two to three weeks. Likewise, the number of intensive care unit beds could be exhausted sometime in July.
https://www.latimes.com/california/stor ... oronavirus
The article has some worrying predictions.

More data can be found [url)http://dashboard.publichealth.lacounty. ... dashboard/]here[/url], and here.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:31 am
by Woodchopper
And increasing hospitalization in Texas, though there is still some capacity
Hospitalizations of patients with the novel coronavirus in Texas reached an all-time high Monday after breaking records for nearly every day the previous two weeks.

The Texas Department of State Health Services reported 5,913 COVID-19 patients hospitalized Monday — a jump of 416 patients from the 5,497 hospitalized Sunday.
https://www.star-telegram.com/news/poli ... 84372.html

More data here: https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/ops ... 9eaef6101f

ETA Hospitalization data in Houston; https://www.tmc.edu/coronavirus-updates ... lizations/

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 8:47 am
by Woodchopper
And in Arizona, ICU beds are at 88% of capacity and inpatient beds at 84%, after an increasing trend.
https://www.azdhs.gov/preparedness/epid ... /index.php

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 5:01 pm
by FlammableFlower
WaPo" wrote:A Florida city council unanimously voted to rescind mask order
Residents in Milton, Fla., will not be required to wear face coverings following the City Council’s decision to rescind an emergency declaration that stipulated face coverings.

The council held a special meeting Monday in which it unanimously voted to rescind Mayor Heather Lindsay’s order issued Friday.

Lindsay told a mostly unmasked crowd that the decision was a disappointment, the Pensacola News Journal reported.

“It is a sad state of affairs today that there is so much passion around personal liberties; if that same passion were applied to preventing the spread of this disease, imagine where we could be,” she said, according to the paper.

Only three of the seven council members wore masks as they heard questionable testimony against the order and the benefits of masks, the News Journal reported.

The seat of Santa Rosa County has the bulk of positive infections in the county, but the growing spread was not enough evidence to persuade most residents at Monday’s meeting to adopt science or science-based decisions about how the virus advances in communities.

The city now recommends residents follow the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s social distancing guidelines. The agency also suggests face coverings in places where physical distancing might be hard to practice.
This is going to go well...
ETA - my emphasis

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:52 pm
by Martin Y
Well, you know, America's a different country and they do things their way. In particular compared to Europeans they prize personal responsibility and personal liberty and resent being ordered to do anything.

I mean, if I had to job of trying to get Texans to wear masks to get the situation there back under control, the very last thing I would try is to mandate masks. I would appeal to them... no, wait, I'd ask somebody like maybe Chuck Norris to appeal to them to defend Texas from the virus by defeating it with masks and then mention that nobody ordered anyone to defend the Alamo, they just knew what was the right thing to do. Then I'd step aside for fear of being trampled in the rush to buy masks.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Tue Jun 30, 2020 9:05 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Martin Y wrote:
Tue Jun 30, 2020 6:52 pm
Well, you know, America's a different country and they do things their way. In particular compared to Europeans they prize personal responsibility and personal liberty and resent being ordered to do anything.

I mean, if I had to job of trying to get Texans to wear masks to get the situation there back under control, the very last thing I would try is to mandate masks. I would appeal to them... no, wait, I'd ask somebody like maybe Chuck Norris to appeal to them to defend Texas from the virus by defeating it with masks and then mention that nobody ordered anyone to defend the Alamo, they just knew what was the right thing to do. Then I'd step aside for fear of being trampled in the rush to buy masks.
Branding would help, too. Stars-and-stripes masks. Red masks that say "MAGA" (or "M4GA" to avoid legal troubles). Picture of an eagle. Picture of (white) Jesus. Etcetera.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 2:08 am
by Herainestold
64% of Texans are claiming they wear masks. Higher than I thought.

It would be interesting see it broken down by Black, Hispanic and whites.
AUSTIN, TX — Amid soaring rates of new cases of the coronavirus and related hospitalizations, Texans wear protective face coverings less than the national average, a newly released study found.

According to new national and state surveys taken on Monday and published by leading market research platform 1Q (www.1Q.com), findings show fewer Texans (64 percent) wear masks "always" or "often" compared to the national average (67 percent), and much less than other large states hit by the pandemic, including Florida (71 percent), California (84 percent), and New York (85 percent).

The state surveys also feature breakdowns of specific environments where Texans believe mask wearing is important, including grocery stores, restaurants, bars, and retail stores/malls. Notably, 22 percent of Texans say wearing masks in restaurants is not important, 18 percent say wearing masks in bars is not important and 13 percent say it's not important in retail stores and malls.
https://patch.com/texas/downtownaustin/ ... -elsewhere

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:15 am
by plodder
People down here aren't wearing masks, no need to be rude about Texans.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:30 am
by Gfamily
plodder wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:15 am
People down here aren't wearing masks, no need to be rude about Texans.
Based on my observations last weekend I'd say less than 20% are wearing masks around here (North West England).

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:57 am
by Bird on a Fire
I suspect that the social pressure to wear a mask only kicks in after a certain threshold - probably roughly 50%.

I can't see an easy way of getting to that 50% without an actual instruction from the government to do it. Voluntarism has a pisspoor record of solving other crises and expecting it to work now seems very naive.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 10:41 am
by Martin Y
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:57 am
I suspect that the social pressure to wear a mask only kicks in after a certain threshold - probably roughly 50%.

I can't see an easy way of getting to that 50% without an actual instruction from the government to do it. Voluntarism has a pisspoor record of solving other crises and expecting it to work now seems very naive.
Well as I rather jokingly suggested above there might be some gains to be had from low appeals to patriotism. If the sort of person who noisily protests against being forced to wear a mask could have that stupidity harnesses into noisily protesting that it was everyone's patriotic duty to choose to wear one, that would be something. Better to have them inside the tent pissing out, as it were.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:47 pm
by Herainestold
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:57 am
I suspect that the social pressure to wear a mask only kicks in after a certain threshold - probably roughly 50%.

I can't see an easy way of getting to that 50% without an actual instruction from the government to do it. Voluntarism has a pisspoor record of solving other crises and expecting it to work now seems very naive.
I can't see how it could be enforced in America where everybody is armed to the teeth.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:43 pm
by Gfamily
And have a right to bare gums.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 4:45 pm
by Bird on a Fire
Herainestold wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 3:47 pm
Bird on a Fire wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:57 am
I suspect that the social pressure to wear a mask only kicks in after a certain threshold - probably roughly 50%.

I can't see an easy way of getting to that 50% without an actual instruction from the government to do it. Voluntarism has a pisspoor record of solving other crises and expecting it to work now seems very naive.
I can't see how it could be enforced in America where everybody is armed to the teeth.
I don't know if enforcement is even necessary to create social pressure, just a more-or-less united front from lawmakers and medics saying "you need to do this, now."

In any case, only about 40% of US households even own guns, and there a fewer gun owners in urban areas that are riskiest for covid, so I don't think that's so much of an issue.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 6:06 pm
by Herainestold
You saw all those pics of gun toting anti-lockdown militias threatening their state legislatures. Do you think they are going to start wearing masks?

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:22 pm
by AMS
Probably not, but presumably they are a (noisy, unpleasant) minority. It will be more useful to persuade the much larger number of people who are not gun-toting militia members to wear masks.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:19 am
by plodder
Gfamily wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:30 am
plodder wrote:
Wed Jul 01, 2020 9:15 am
People down here aren't wearing masks, no need to be rude about Texans.
Based on my observations last weekend I'd say less than 20% are wearing masks around here (North West England).
It’s less than 1% down here in isolated rural poshshire-by-the-sea

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:36 am
by Beaker
MartinY’s suggestions appear to have become policy now.
RacistDonaldTrump said he is "all for masks" and they make him look like the Lone Ranger.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-53258792

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:31 am
by lpm
Don't want to.

You have to, Donnie, it's the rule.

Don't want to.

Come on sweetie, just try it.

Not going to, not going to, not going to.

Donald, come back here. Just try it on.

Don't want to.

Please, sweetie pie, try it for Mommy.

Not going to.

You'll look like the Lone Ranger! Ever so cool! You like the Lone Ranger, don't you Donnie, you want to look like the Lone Ranger. Only big boys are allowed to dress up as the Lone Ranger. You can wear it, because you are a good boy. What a treat, dressing up like the Lone Ranger!

Give it me!

Now, don't snatch Donald. Yes, you put it on like that - no that's not - yes, now put those bits round your ears - no, your ears. Try again, sweetie, you're doing very - whoopsie! Here let me - ok I won't help, you can do it yourself, you're Mommy's clever little boy - if you just put that bit - oh dear it's all tangled - that's it! Well done! Nearly there - never mind, try again - yes, like that - no - just move it - whoopsie! Try again - no, don't shriek like that Donald - here, let me hold it - good boy! Now let me put these bits round your ears - there! We did it! Look at you in your Lone Ranger mask!

Lone Ranger!

Yes, you look just like the Lone Ranger! Awesome! Run and show Daddy. Look Daddy, Donnie looks just like the Lone Ranger! Yes, so cool! Wow! Look at you Donnie! You are the Lone Ranger!

Look like the Lone Ranger!

Yes you do, Donnie, yes you do.

Trucks!

OK Donnie, you can play with your trucks now, you've been such a good boy.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 8:43 am
by lpm
Uncanny!

Exactly the same sort of mask.

Hard to tell which is which (Trump is the first, below is the Lone Ranger).


Image

Image

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 12:17 pm
by FlammableFlower
So they're now at 50,000 cases a day and saw a 50% increase in cases in June.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 1:01 pm
by bmforre
- but have not yet demanded Manneken Pis for the Rose garden?

Or crying baby statue "Sinnataggen" from Vigelandsparken for the Oval Office??

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 2:50 pm
by Gentleman Jim
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p08jljq7
Trump’s poll numbers are falling, and coronavirus cases are rising. Americast is back.

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Thu Jul 02, 2020 7:41 pm
by Woodchopper
Florida just reported 10 000 cases in a single day
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-heal ... SKBN243299

Re: COVID-19 in the United States

Posted: Fri Jul 03, 2020 12:41 pm
by hakwright
Scary situation with new records for daily new cases being broken every couple of days. Increasing hospitalisations, and the related predictions look bad. Presumably the trend for daily new deaths will look flat in a week or so, and will then start to edge upwards. All the while Trump does nothing, says it's all fine, numbers only going up because of the awesome testing they're doing etc.

Fourth of July celebrations coming up, including a Mount Rushmore shindig in South Dakota organised by Trump. Republican governor there says "social distancing will not be enforced and anyone who doesn’t like that idea can “stay home”".

We need new expressions for when sh*t has been hitting the fan in a steady stream, for a long time, and people are still saying no need to worry about the sh*tstream or switching the fan off.

On top of all this, what makes it worse is that much of the US population is probably tired with social distancing. Those that actually followed guidelines are presumably frustrated that many others didn't, and there are many that assumed to socially distance or wear masks was an assault on their masculinity/patriotism/liberty. So as the need to impose social distancing grows larger than ever, the likelihood of people following it is perhaps lower than ever.

America First!