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Post by bsutrack on Jan 21, 2021 21:28:50 GMT -6
I was bored this morning, so I did some number crunching comparing 2 US states that went the extreme lockdown route (New York and California) and 2 that attempted to keep their economies open (Florida and Texas). California: Population: 39.5 M; Reported Positive Cases: 3.07 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 34,390 From those numbers; 7.8% of state's population reported infected; 87 deaths per 100,000 citizens New York State: Population: 19.5 M; Reported Positive Cases: 1.27 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 40,933 From those numbers; 6.5% of state's population reported infected; 210 deaths per 100,000 citizens Florida: Population: 39.5 M; Reported Positive Cases: 1.59 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 24,435 From those numbers; 7.4% of state's population reported infected; 114 deaths per 100,000 citizens Texas: Population: 29.0 M; Reported Positive Cases: 2.16 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 33,176 From those numbers; 7.4% of state's population reported infected; 114 deaths per 100,000 citizens So NY and CA locked down their citizens and got basically the same rate of infection (6.5% and 7.8%, respectively) as TX and FL (7.4% for both). In terms of the all important deaths, CA did a little better at 87 per 100,000 while NY did a lot worse at 210 per 100,000 to both TX and FL having 114 to 100,000 (an amazing quirk that both have the exact same number). Oh I forgot the added bonus of totally destroying their economies. Of course Blue states like NY, CA, and IL have long been mismanaging their affairs. Not to worry, Uncle Joe can now use the old US printing press to bail them all out. Florida has 21 million. (several sources) Sorry, typo I actually used 21.5 million in the calculations for Florida. 1.59 M/ 21.5 M = 0.0739 or 7.4% 24,435/ 21.5 M = 0.001136 or 113.6 per 100,000 |
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Post by bsutrack on Jan 22, 2021 11:19:33 GMT -6
Don't kid yourself that the only factor is lock down. If you look only at Miami-Dade in Florida in and Houston in Texas you don't see much magic in not locking down and enforcing masks. There was a need there too for lock down. In fact both did lock down but had no support from state government in mask orders.
Yea, don't follow the science! summit.news/2020/10/07/over-6000-scientists-doctors-sign-anti-lockdown-petition/ |
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Post by 00hmh on Jan 22, 2021 11:43:21 GMT -6
I was bored this morning, so I did some number crunching comparing 2 US states that went the extreme lockdown route (New York and California) and 2 that attempted to keep their economies open (Florida and Texas). California: Population: 39.5 M; Reported Positive Cases: 3.07 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 34,390 From those numbers; 7.8% of state's population reported infected; 87 deaths per 100,000 citizens New York State: Population: 19.5 M; Reported Positive Cases: 1.27 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 40,933 From those numbers; 6.5% of state's population reported infected; 210 deaths per 100,000 citizens Florida: Population: 39.5 M; Reported Positive Cases: 1.59 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 24,435 From those numbers; 7.4% of state's population reported infected; 114 deaths per 100,000 citizens Texas: Population: 29.0 M; Reported Positive Cases: 2.16 M; Reported Covid Deaths: 33,176 From those numbers; 7.4% of state's population reported infected; 114 deaths per 100,000 citizens So NY and CA locked down their citizens and got basically the same rate of infection (6.5% and 7.8%, respectively) as TX and FL (7.4% for both). In terms of the all important deaths, CA did a little better at 87 per 100,000 while NY did a lot worse at 210 per 100,000 to both TX and FL having 114 to 100,000 (an amazing quirk that both have the exact same number). I believe your analysis is simplistic and far from conclusive. Any analysis runs the risk of confusing causation with correlation, but this also ignores importanf factors such as the differences in percentage of population in large urban areas and other variables such as weather and when the virus became widespread. Looking at lock down as the only independent variable, you ignore the timing and impact of a lock down in relation to the rate of spread. Lock down was an early strategy with a specific intent.
Lock down is a response to rapid catastrophic spread that endangers hospitals and an attempt to temporarily slow things, flatten the curve. That worked. Longer term, other mitigation and rapid vaccine were the key. The US generally has failed to take advantage of the lock down. Which is not a failure of lock down, but of subsequent action.
Using one variable (lockdown) applied to different states ignores those things I mention above. The LA area and NYC have had a lot to do with the figures in their states for example. Texas and Florida have greater populations in rural areas than those states. Your analysis ignores different timing and pattern of viral spread. There are other longer term variables to consider beyond the Spring, such as tourism and warm weather.
Just to illustrate weather as a variable, I am in Florida right now where I can safely eat out and play golf and am thankfully not suffering the usual visits from family. Living in a multi generational household in LA where it is warm would be much different or a NY household where it is cold and I rely on restaurants.
So with my free time this AM, let's look at some more numbers for the 4 states you mention. Every additional data point I add makes lock down less important a variable.
Go to that cite and look at the 4 states and the curves of daily death rate and total death rate since August. I see no pattern making lock down the key. The history shows NY was slammed in the Spring when there was a lock down, and it undoubtedly saved lives by preventing hospitals being over run. California had an early surge. Florida and Texas we know had a summer surge ending by August. Lock down not needed.
I also invite you to look at plains states, the Midwest, Southwest and other breakdowns. Lock down was highly variable in these states, hard to evaluate any impact.
Back to the 4 states you focus on. Looking at the site above you can fairly easily see where they stood in August and their record since. Just looking at a point in time in August and right now, the analysis varies greatly. Note how the recent surge in California skews the data. That NY is dramatically different in being a northern state hit hardest early, compared to all other states.
STATE Total deaths Now Total August Death rate now Death rate in August % of deaths since August
Florida 23000 7200 150 174 2/3+
Texas 29000 6700 241 212 3/4+
California 29000 9000 450 132 2/3
NY 39000 33000 164 11 1/4
These numbers don't prove much, but they do show that your analysis, comparing just total deaths and the sole variable an early lock down, is not very convincing. Any analysis has to take in much more, including differences in when the virus peaked.
Why? Some states had big peak in the summer, some very little in the Spring. Taking August as a start, the Spring and Summer peaks are smoothed. Lock down was a response to danger to the health system early on. Florida and Texas had much less early problem.
More important NO STATE had much lock down since August excepting California very recently when they encountered a surge. The last column would indicate NY is doing relatively best since August. (They had the strictest lock down, but hard to say that was the reason. Lockdown was mostly irrelevant) They did poorly relatively before August, but the virus hit there hardest in an urban area and I haven't seen anyone argue they should not have had a lock down to save their hospitals...
The other issue we need to look at is how well states handled the reopening. It would appear NY did relatively well with the strictest policy. The other states have been much less strict with mitigation efforts since then.
Experts say that we needed a nationally coordinated policy on lock down and more strict policy during the time just after lock down. We failed in that by allowing different states to act without coordination. We did not need a national lock down, and did not have one, but did not have state lock downs when they might have helped. Failed miserably in other steps like testing, tracking and now vaccine distribution where we needed federal efforts and funding to make it work.
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Post by 00hmh on Jan 22, 2021 12:02:31 GMT -6
Don't kid yourself that the only factor is lock down. If you look only at Miami-Dade in Florida in and Houston in Texas you don't see much magic in not locking down and enforcing masks. There was a need there too for lock down. In fact both did lock down but had no support from state government in mask orders.
Yea, don't follow the science! summit.news/2020/10/07/over-6000-scientists-doctors-sign-anti-lockdown-petition/
You are trying to revive the herd immunity argument and say it is current science?
The so called Great Barrington Declaration is supported by a small fraction of reputable scientists expert in epidemiology. Signature count is irrelevant
Virtually every mainstream academic organization in Medicine, Epidemiology and Biological Science rejects the theory.
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Post by bsutrack on Jan 22, 2021 22:57:06 GMT -6
First, let me say I'm impressed with the amount of time you have put into your 2 responses above. Don't know how much of it I buy into, but I am impressed. Too bad your data source truncates its X-axis at August 2020. It would have been better for the cut-off going all the way back to say March, 2020. I also don't put much faith in it's forward modeling. I hope their code is better than Neil Ferguson's models were when the pandemic started. www.zerohedge.com/markets/pandemic-computer-model-used-professor-panic-was-deeply-flawed-and-he-was-banging-radicalAh, but that is from Zerohedge which you don't agree with. As for Summit, that's probably another "fringe source" you will not find acceptable. But here is an another article from them discrediting lockdowns. summit.news/2021/01/15/peer-reviewed-study-shows-covid-lockdowns-have-no-benefits-compared-to-voluntary-measures/Bottom line: You think lockdowns were an import tool in controlling the virus and probably should have been used more, or at least more uniformly. I think they were tragic mistakes that did more harm than good. You're not going to change my opinion, nor I change yours. |
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Post by 00hmh on Jan 22, 2021 23:35:53 GMT -6
The model has been startlingly accurate for some time.
Early modelling had flaws since we had so little experience with the virus.
Science is like that. You learn and change and refine models. More data leads to better theory.
I said above lock downs are necessary to stop hospitals being slammed. Need judicious use.
Voluntary means have shown to be inaccurate. Just look at LA recently. They worked well in NYC.
The key is the mitigation AFTER you reopen.
Experience says voluntary measures have not worked in the US.
Korea and Sweden are poor comparisons to the US versions of "voluntary" measures.
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Post by 00hmh on Jan 25, 2021 16:41:38 GMT -6
Florida has 21 million. (several sources) Sorry, typo I actually used 21.5 million in the calculations for Florida. 1.59 M/ 21.5 M = 0.0739 or 7.4% 24,435/ 21.5 M = 0.001136 or 113.6 per 100,000
I have generally been following the "excess death" statistic. If we had X deaths last year and X+Y deaths this year same periods then you have to look for some explanation. There is a fairly high death toll in the last year compared to previous years.
The article talks about how in counting and reporting deaths belief about the existence of a COVID problem seems to produce a difference. Both under count and over count are possible I am sure. But where there is an over count of Covid deaths but also an increase in deaths over last year we need to find out how that is explained.
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Post by bsutrack on Feb 18, 2021 21:05:32 GMT -6
It appears the "talking heads" for the Biden Administration are also having problems explaining the similar results between red states like Florida and blue states like California. www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/watch-biden-adviser-struggles-explain-similar-covid-numbers-ca-fl-despite-opposite"California and Florida have strikingly similar COVID numbers despite polar opposite approaches to dealing with the virus; Florida has remained a largely open state without mask mandates or lockdowns, while California has imposed strict lockdowns that have devastated small businesses and contributed to a national mental health crisis. New cases, deaths, and hospitalizations between the two states follow virtually the same patterns, with Florida's data looking even better than California. In an appearance on MSNBC, White House COVID adviser Andy Slavitt said that the virus was unpredictable and that the differences between the two states are "a little bit beyond our explanation." Biden's adviser struggled to spell out specific reasons that Florida's lax approach wasn't just as effective, saying: 'What we do know is that the more careful people are, the more they mask and social distance, and the quicker we vaccinate, the quicker it goes away and the less it spreads,' Slavitt said." |
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 19, 2021 10:26:58 GMT -6
Biden's adviser struggled to spell out specific reasons that Florida's lax approach wasn't just as effective, saying: ' What we do know is that the more careful people are, the more they mask and social distance, and the quicker we vaccinate, the quicker it goes away and the less it spreads,' Slavitt said." The bottom line in the Covid story will be exactly what Biden's advisor said above. Has been from day one.
I'll wait for scholarly study of the two responses in peer reviewed journals before I conclude how one approach or the other had better results. And when and under what different circumstances.
Early on lock down was a good idea, we knew a lot less about the virus. And that might have crushed it if we had used it properly.
As it was I bet the science will show we closed down a little too much more than needed some places and MUCH less and much too late than needed many places. AND it will show that some places we lifted lock down early and almost everywhere failed to mask and distance when we did. That latter part was critical and became stupidly political thanks to stupid Federal leadership.
Your point may turn out be well taken that neither California or Florida really had an optimal strategy and implemented it. Both states were wrong. Neither strictly followed the science. And "almost" getting it right is almost as bad as not getting it right at all...
In the end, I am not so sure the two states really responded so much differently at the critical times during their respective peak infections.
Early on Florida was taking big risks and escaped trouble. California did not probably respond and maintain response, but did fairly well into the summer. Lately not so well. Florida was not so good at all in the summer.
Here is the California history.
Where Florida faced a different problem is less acute hospital crisis in Miami than experienced that in LA. They were able to off load their cases. Partly a factor of fewer overall cases, and the timing of the surge there.
I am going to bet Florida benefited a bit more by mild winter weather than they did by anything their Governor did or did not do in mitigation, and the conclusion will be they both could have done much better.
The factors that seem to dominate in both states are density of population. Also nursing home stats. California has a huge hot spot in LA where a large percentage of their population lives. Compare to Florida in Miami-Dade and surrounding areas. In those two areas the two states are really rather similar in factors like density of population and minority population. But the sheer numbers in LA swamped their public health system. Also, when you look closely, the local governments were in fact not that different in response. An effort made, but unable to overcome spread in dense population and also not enforced effectively.
Before you go wild in praise of DeSantis, I know from current experience visiting Florida that vaccine distribution is not handled all that well, although much of that is a total lack of Federal decisions or lack thereof. Until recently.
Floridians widely criticize the Governor for no state wide plan dumping distribution on the County governments which have not been uniform or overall very good. Still doesn't have the simple state wide registration system Indiana has used. People are spending hours on line registering with Publix and Winn Dixie, Walmart and Sams, while waiting for County to get it straight.
The timing for me was that I could not finish my two vaccine doses in Indiana and would be in Florida and had to get vaccine there. Had I been in Indiana I probably would have had both doses completed before getting the first in Florida. I give Indiana a solid C+/B overall in Covid response, about the best you can do without Federal guidelines and consistent messaging from all levels of government. No state deserves an A/B grade. But we seem to have done above average, except for state wide consistent mask policy. At least the Governor let local governments make the decision on many things, and wisely did NOT embrace the Trump mask rhetoric. Or insist we had no worries. That made a difference I think.
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 19, 2021 12:04:21 GMT -6
To date, Florida has logged slightly fewer cases per capita than California.
OTOH California tests at a much higher rate and recently endured the nation’s worst holiday surge, possibly due the more transmissable strain of the virus. The overall death rate in Florida is higher than it is in California.
The number of daily deaths in Florida has held steady at a record-high level for the past month; California has declined.
14 percent of COVID-19 tests in each state were coming back positive a month ago, today Florida’s positivity rate is 7 percent. California, 3.5 percent and falling. DeSantis and his defenders would counter that sustaining a somewhat higher rate of COVID-19 death and transmission than California is a reasonable trade-off for keeping businesses and schools relatively open.
OTOH the future is not clear. The variant UK B.1.1.7 is now spreading so rapidly doubling in prevalence roughly every 10 days, most rapidly in Florida. Maskless Super Bowl did not help? Scientists have detected twice as many B.1.1.7 cases in Florida than in any other state — a full third of the national total.
We'll see the economic and health data in the future to test how well Florida went. Both California and Florida appear to be middling in both areas.
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Post by 00hmh on Feb 20, 2021 18:28:09 GMT -6
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Post by 00hmh on Mar 3, 2021 11:48:56 GMT -6
Texas and others are premature to declare normal times are here.
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Post by rmcalhoun on Mar 3, 2021 12:43:50 GMT -6
Well at least we can use Texas as guide if it goes well great if not we'll you know
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Post by rmcalhoun on Mar 3, 2021 12:45:02 GMT -6
I get round two of Moderna fri.. I've heard the next day is a bitch ill let you know
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Post by villagepub on Mar 3, 2021 17:39:42 GMT -6
I get round two of Moderna fri.. I've heard the next day is a bitch ill let you know Both of my daughters are MDs. They said to expect it. |
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