Shanghai Disneyland will close in effort to contain coronavirus

I know it is not quite the same, but on the flip side,

Honey come look! I've just discovered some information all the world's top scientists missed - I think the earth revolves around the sun.

It’s not quite the same in the same way that my son’s bb gun isn’t quite the same as a nation-state’s military.

Copernicus was, in fact, one of the top scientists in the world. And the folks finding the "information" that the top scientists "missed" were the leadership of the Catholic church.

So the cartoon kinda describes that situation too.

I can’t tell if we’re being serious or not but I’ll play along. Copernicus didn’t just come up with the idea on his own and expect everyone to believe him, he proved a theory that had already existed that no one believed.

There are studies being done on the effectiveness of ivermectin (sheep dewormer) to treat Covid…

It’s all so silly. If the FDA had come out and said if you don’t like vaccines you can use this horse dewormer instead the same people would be apoplectic.

Watching people dunk on individual states/governors while they're getting their turn has been one of the more fascinating sociological observations in the past 19 months.

Two weeks moving average in cases:
Louisiana -50 percent
Florida -28 percent
Missouri -14 percent
Mississippi -8 percent
Oregon +28 percent
Delaware + 42 percent
Minnesota +47 percent
Pennsylvania +63 percent

It is almost as if it got hot in the south and people went indoors.

Alas...as in all the other waves...regardless of mitigation strategy...every region will get its turn.

Source: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2021/us/covid-cases.html

You are spectacular at cherry picking data to imply genuinely misleading conclusions. Those numbers outside of the per capita infection rates aren't super meaningful. The US aggregate is 48 per 100k.

Louisiana -50 percent - 58 per 100k
Florida -28 percent - 99 (second highest state)
Missouri -14 percent - 39
Mississippi -8 percent - 106 (jackpot winner)
Oregon +28 percent - 55
Delaware + 42 percent - 38
Minnesota +47 percent - 28
Pennsylvania +63 percent - 25

So tell me more about Florida is winning with four times the infection rate of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania is going to have their turn - cases have been steadily growing - but I suspect it won’t be nearly as bad as the south. Our Governor had his hands tied by the Conservative state legislature but I’ll take that over that over whatever the heck Desantis thinks he’s doing.

We shall see how bad it gets here.

My aunt has been in ICU the past week with COVID adding to the Ohio count... She did not get the vaccine (trump flag waiving, 'natural' medicine type family), which is compounded by health issues (autoimmune compromised) that make her high risk. Then they travel all over for work and such, just a bad mix...

No ventilator, but she has required high doses of oxygen requiring her to be in ICU vs. standard room. She was on 60% O2 concentration, reduced to 50% and now 40%. Sounds like within a few days she could go home (with an O2 tank, possibly). She is doing well otherwise...

Hard lesson learned for them, perhaps. Wonder if my uncle or my cousins will vaccine up now given they see first hand what it can do to you. It's crazy... But expected from them, unfortunately.

EVERYONE will get their turn. The trends are quite super meaningful. It gives us preparation time to dunk on the governors we don’t like!

Get all those Desantis digs in for the next couple weeks. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see the southern states are moving in the right direction while the northern states have a lot of Delta antibodies heading their way.

I think there is some truth behind the idea that regional weather is going to do its part to fuel changes in case rates. I will not be surprised to see Michigan pick up some more come mid-to-late October when people start spending a lot more time inside.

But, I also don't expect the rate of increase to be as bad as it has been in some other places, because it is likely that other mitigation factors will be brought to bear. For example, I believe our county is going to switch to a mask requirement in all schools as of this upcoming Monday.

In some other counties/states, institutions are either unwilling or (in some cases) unable to do that, and that compounds the problem. It doesn't create the problem---the virus and human behavior do that---but it adds to it.

Anyone unwilling to see that is neither serious nor worth debating.

Desantis is actively sabotaging any effort that companies, school districts, etc, try to make in order to pander to national voters. That’s not a laudable trait not matter the state or political party.

Michigan cases and hospitalizations are up 42% in the last 2 weeks. Most (all?) the Midwest and Northern states are trending the same. Hopefully by October they’ll be on the downside of the wave. Everyone is going to get their dose of Delta, no matter how much some hope this was just a Florida/“dumb southerner” issue.

I’d say the two biggest mitigation factors are age and health of the population. Then you have to look at density/weather/etc. Obviously vaccination status should make a huge dent in the hospitalization and deaths too…though it isn’t doing much for cases.

Mask mandates MIGHT be a mitigating factor. Though if you look at that data closely, even at the school level…mask mandates haven’t had much (if any) effect.

I know that last sentence will fire up those who religiously believe in masks. But anyone who can objectively look at the available data has to admit masks are WAY DOWN the list of mitigating factors, IF they belong on that list at all.

Yeah, you keep saying everyone will go through it, but you keep leaving out to what extent. That everyone will go through it the way Florida has is objectively false.

Aamilj said:

Though if you look at that data closely, even at the school level…mask mandates haven’t had much (if any) effect.

Show your work.

Jeff said:

Yeah, you keep saying everyone will go through it, but you keep leaving out to what extent. That everyone will go through it the way Florida has is objectively false.

Calling the race before it is over never made much sense to me. More than half the country has yet to experience their "inside" season where the Delta thrives. We’ll know “to what extent” then.

You MAY well be right that Florida will end up being objectively…THE WORST. It certainly doesn't look good for them when you take a static view. However, I will note that the age-adjusted charts (not sure if the CDC is still publishing them) didn't have Florida much worse than half the country a couple of weeks ago...maybe that has changed.

The Desantis dunking seems like political zealotry to me. It is almost as if some are hoping that Florida is the WORST to justify their political slant.

djDaemon said:

Aamilj said:

Though if you look at that data closely, even at the school level…mask mandates haven’t had much (if any) effect.

Show your work.

It is a time consuming process to link charts on this board. And there are more charts than I have time in the day.

I’d be more than willing to go through that process for one or two IF I/you thought it would make a difference. But I suspect there isn’t a chart/study available that could change most minds. The “mask” debate is like debating religion.

Aamilj said:

I think you missed it when I said: "Anyone unwilling to see that is neither serious nor worth debating."

Rationalize all you want, but as cases (hopefully) start to peak in most places, there's a common factor among all the worst hit places. It's not geography. It's not age. It's not rural/urban. It's politics. The correlation is so strong, you could basically predict it looking at an electoral map.

"But Andy," you might say. "That's because the blue states haven't had their turn yet."
Here is the chart of cumulative per capita cases. If you look back to June before Delta or summer or whatever, you'll see the same trend. Delta is only exacerbating it.

I had a person ask me the other day why it is that when you combine something super flammable (Hydrogen) and something essential for combustion (Oxygen) you get something that puts out fires (water). The answer is because they explode in the reaction which creates water. You've already had the fire and what's left is something that won't catch on fire. If the red states are headed in the right direction (and it's not even clear to me that they are in aggregate) it's because they've already been burned.

Thank you for showing the work.

Thanks, Andy. It must have been very time consuming to link to those charts.