10 ms·

Most new NY coronavirus hospitalizations are from people who stayed home

71 points by prostoalex 7y ago

bb2018 7y ago
I feel like this is anything but shocking and the wrong takeaway? The source, as I understand it, is just where the person is living. It doesn't distinguish from people who worked from home, worked because they were essential, or those who have been going out socially. 66% of the people in the hospital are people who normally live at home. What percent of the normal population lives at home - 90%?
- josephorjoe 7y ago
  This was my reaction as well and left me wondering if there is missing information here. NYC has been on lockdown for weeks. A very large percentage of the city is staying home. Some completely isolated, but most are not completely isolated. People have periodic contact with family, friends, neighbors, pharmacies, grocery stores, and/or delivery people. People who live in buildings with shared common areas (doors, entryways, elevators, mail rooms, laundry rooms, ventilation systems, etc.) cannot help but risk some exposure. Masks and social distancing are not 100% effective.
  - bogomipz 7y ago
    >"NYC has been on lockdown for weeks." It's actually been since March 22nd so well into its second month now. When the order is lifted on the 15th it will be a week shy of two months. On it's face anyway the news definitely isn't encouraging.
  - rasz 7y ago
    >NYC has been on lockdown for weeks yes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJmExSMz28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJmExSMz28
- trianglesphere 7y ago
  There is some info that hints that the people at home are not venturing out much. I personally find this alarming that there is still widespread community spread. In my more rural state I think there is community spread, but nursing homes and long term care facilities are still dominating hospitalizations and deaths.
  - loopz 7y ago
    If there is much socialising and lack of testing and tracing, it may be alarming due to new cases. In places without contagion, there needs to be preparedness, or risk another round. Italy/France/Spain took their time until lockdown and rest of Europe learned from that. This needs planning and leadership, then opening may be OK.
  - Marsymars 7y ago
    > I personally find this alarming that there is still widespread community spread. You should probably expect it - you only end community spread in short order with R=0. With, say R=0.5, you get something like a ten day half-life for number cases. Furthermore, tests tend to have ramped up after social restrictions, so number of new cases isn't a useful figure outside of the context of % of positive tests, and deaths are a lagging indicator. In both France and Italy seven weeks of hard lockdown have only reduced deaths to about a quarter in that time-frame.
  - bogomipz 7y ago
    >"There is some info that hints that the people at home are not venturing out much." What are those hints exactly? Cell phone tower data, metro card swipes, bandwidth usage? I'm guessing it's not yet warm enough for power consumption(ACs usage) to be an indicator.
  - illumin8 7y ago
    It seems like one of the primary differences between countries that have effectively stopped Covid-19 like South Korea and Taiwan, and the US is how people are quarantined. In the countries that were effective at stopping the spread, they quarantined sick people outside of their house. Since transmission is so effective its almost a guarantee that the rest of your household will catch it if you stay home, either by touching a shared doorknob, then touching their face, or by droplets landing on surfaces, or any number of other mechanisms. We should seriously consider paying for hotel rooms for people that test positive. The total cost would likely be far lower than letting them infect the rest of their family.
- elipsey 7y ago
  This. What's base rate I should compare with %66 percent? Until I know that, I can have no idea whether to be shocked!
- copenja 7y ago
  In the article he implies these are people who are not working, not commuting, and not travelling. Here are some quotes from the article: "He said the information shows that those who are hospitalized are predominantly from the downstate area in or around New York City, are not working or traveling and are not essential employees. He also said a majority of the cases in New York City are minorities, with nearly half being African American or Hispanic." "Cuomo said nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking. He said a majority of those people were either retired or unemployed. Overall, some 73% of the admissions were people over age 51."
  - illumin8 7y ago
    Have you seen those photos of crowded subway platforms in the early morning? Almost all minorities on their way to gig worker jobs in the city - delivery people, etc. These are the essential workers that are still delivering food and groceries to the rest of NYC that is sheltering in place. It doesn't surprise me that the rate of infection by those staying home, that are in poor neighborhoods and minorities, is high. How many of those households have an essential worker in their family? How many of them might be living in large multi-generational families where one or more are instacart shoppers, Uber/Lyft drivers, etc? We need more data before we can really determine if this is surprising or not. I'll tell you what I thought immediately after seeing those photos: - First reaction: OMG, those people are not social distancing and are putting everyone at risk. - Second reaction: If those essential workers can't deliver food to all the people trapped in their apartments, society would collapse very quickly.
istorical 7y ago
I don't trust people saying they are 'staying at home' if the data is self-reported rather than verified by a third party. Living in Brooklyn in a predominantly hispanic neighborhood (relevant only because the article mentions it hitting black and hispanic communities hardest), had to venture out this weekend for the first time in weeks to facilitate moving apartments. Observations: 1. An incredibly high amount of people are out and about, even people who seem to just be socializing, standing around / hangout out on their stoop, talking to friends or neighbors, having small 5-15 person gatherings or cookouts (on their stoop), or going for walks (without pets). There is a big culture among natives of socializing outside in front of your building, gathering to share in smoking, eating, listening to music, and chatting, which is honestly a beautiful thing about New York when it isn't a pandemic. But these gatherings seemingly haven't decreased, at least not to the degree one might expect. 2. An incredible amount of people have access to surgical masks. This was news to me as I figured stocks were still depleted, but it turns out that they are to be found in a variety of pharmacies, groceries, hardware stores, bodegas etc. just at inflated prices and in small batches. I purchased a replacement pack of 6 surgical masks at my grocery store checkout counter for about a dollar each. I would estimate 80-90% of people in public here are wearing a mask, mostly surgical, a minority KN95 (also was available at the grocery I was at in individual units at a fairly high price) or bandana/improvised masks. 3. A huge percentage (maybe 30-45%)? of people that I see wearing masks seem to be putting them around their chins or wearing them over their mouth but with nostrils exposed or hanging around their neck. Or I see people pulling them down and only pulling them back up when they walk by someone or go into a store (most stores have signs on the entrance requiring masks but state that improvised is OK). It's incredibly frustrating seeing people wearing PPE incorrectly and/or treating it as optional outside of stores. 4. The young transplant/white/yuppie minority population in the area seems to be either wearing masks correctly, clutching their grocery basket tightly with a stern look on their face or alternatively treating the whole thing like a joke and walking their dogs outside shining new development luxury buildings with a look of glee and wearing no masks at all. For the most part they are not to be seen at all except for seemingly in a grocery store or walking back from one, or walking a pet. Where I would normally see dozens of young, predominantly white hipsters in bars or at restaurants, coming and going to the subway, or just walking, now I see 10-20% of usual traffic of them. 5. Older people seem to be more likely than younger people to be wearing no mask, to be wearing a mask incorrectly, or to be just standing around on their front porch/stoop aimlessly. Anyway, these are not meant to be construed as directly relevant as evidence for a cause for the present infection demographics as we don't have a complete picture of initial infections, of percentages of population that can work from home vs works outside as essential workers, etc. But certainly if you asked me about what my hypothesis might be about the causes of minority populations in NYC having bad outbreaks, I would say we can't ignore self inflicted wounds due to bad education or cultural disregard / machismo around rules and authority, skepticism towards government or science, etc. No idea what the solution would be besides reducing inequality and lifting people out of poverty, improving their education, or role models within the communities stepping up and speaking out to those who flaunt social distancing. Lastly, I don't think these communities are alone in not abiding by quarantine as much as they can, I think most of the United States is being as lackadaisical, but the initial seeded infection just had much more time to develop here unchecked so we're seeing those much worse outcomes despite most of the country also breaking social distancing rules in a multitude of ways.
guardiangod 7y ago
In Hong Kong, 1 of the transmission vectors for SARS and COVID19 is from sewage pipes in high-rise apartments. Body fluid goes into the drain and its droplets spread to floor above and below the infected unit's.
- sjg007 7y ago
  Do they have open vent pipes or something?
  - aaron695 7y ago
    In this instance it leaked at the seams. [Edit] It was a mix / not sure -https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/in-hong-kong-apartment-tower-sars-virus-spread-through-plumbing/99bcd25f-de85-472a-b084-4f847e0dac9a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/i...
    - randcraw 7y ago
      And the vent pipes leaked anywhere that someone cut the vent to make room in their bathroom — which the articles say was common. In principle, it's helpful to know that sewer fumes might allow covid to spread. But based on those two articles, the fact that many toilet / drain traps in that building appear to be dry, and given the hacked up state of that building's sewer and vent stacks, neither story clarifies how covid actually spread there. Nor should the reader assume the same is likely to happen in another building that conforms to building codes — unlike that one.
- sojournerc 7y ago
  Source?
  - guardiangod 7y ago
    SARS https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/in-hong-kong-apartment-tower-sars-virus-spread-through-plumbing/99bcd25f-de85-472a-b084-4f847e0dac9a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/i... COVID19 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3051209/coronavirus-changes-pipeline-sewage-systems-hong-kong https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3051209/...
JackFr 7y ago
As expected HN comments dismiss this evidence because it does not match the narrative. Study is dismissed as flawed, and personal anecdotes handwave the data away. From the data it’s not clear that shelter in place orders have had anything other than a marginal effect.
- mcfunk 7y ago
  The posted article is hardly "data" (at most, one poorly defined data point) and most of the questions here are pointing to how little information the article offers from which to draw conclusions-- for instance, what does "sheltering in place" mean? Where were these people? When were they leaving their houses? etc. What data are you referring to that suggest shelter in place orders could be having only a marginal effect?
- jddj 7y ago
  Another anecdote: I do some contracting work for a British company, and had some extremely unrealistic deadlines looming in late February. For this reason, I was keenly watching their government's announcements at the time and was amazed as weeks went by and my country's restrictions got tighter and tighter while the UK didn't budge. Now, in May, it's not exactly apples to apples but they're now the hardest hit (deaths-wise) in Europe, and my country has dropped down below 1000 active cases (and decreasing some 50/day). You could probably substitute my country for almost any other early mover and the UK for almost any other late mover and arrive at the same result. Even across different pandemics. "Moving", here, means locking down. Given that, my personal biases lead me to think that lockdowns probably work. I have to acknowledge that there's a moderately high bar set for data which disproves this thesis, because it's just so damned intuitive. This doesn't meet that bar.
  - abduhl 7y ago
    How does your intuition square with a country like Sweden's response to the virus who would be classified as not just a "late mover" but a "non-mover?"
    - 7y ago
obastani 7y ago
This statistic is very hard to interpret without additional context. If 99% of people stay at home, the of course most people who get infected would have stayed at home. Older people, who are more likely to need hospitalization, are also more likely to stay at home. People who continue to commute to work are likely being more careful, and may also be benefitting from fewer others commuting, which reduces the risks of going outside. The relevant metric is how many fewer people have caught it due to the lockdown, and assuming the numbers are accurate, it's pretty clear that the lockdown has substantially reduced the infection rate.
- ashtonkem 7y ago
  People who stay at home are also likely to be some of the last people to get sick.
- namelosw 7y ago
  And it could be very misguiding for most people, combining with the title. It also could be those easy targets get infected first, then people indoor. Either way, the metric seems to be not very helpful and extremely misguiding.
SrslyJosh 7y ago
> “Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you,” Cuomo said. "Personal responsibility" is a great cover for not taking the pandemic seriously in February.
RickJWagner 7y ago
“I was afraid that it was going to infect my family no matter what I did. We’re past that,” Cuomo said at a press conference on April 13. “If you isolate, if you take the precautions, your family won’t get infected." Yet also: "Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday." Seem contradictory, no?
- richman777 7y ago
  That's the point. He said one of those things on April 13th, the other he said, presumably, yesterday, May 6th.
6510 7y ago
https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/physical-activity-fundamental-preventing-disease https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/physical-activity-fundamen...
lookACamel 7y ago
A lot of evidence shows that the more severe cases are linked to having Vitamin D deficiency. Perhaps increased COVID severity is a unexpected consequence of the the public policy of "stay home indefinitely".
rapjr9 7y ago
This seems like exactly the experience in Wuhan and is why they started removing people that tested positive from their homes and putting them in isolation centers, so they wouldn't spread the virus to their families. The US is not doing that, so if one person gets the virus in a family almost all of them get it. It means that stopping the spread will be slower and take longer. Certainly the numbers from testing seem to be coming down very slowly anywhere in the US that has had a major outbreak. If US citizens won't stand for being isolated that way, maybe they'd be more amenable to staying in a hotel for free? The rooms are already empty anyway and I would think people would want to protect their families. The whole family could even move into adjacent rooms so they could at least be close to each other. Seems like many people would not have the space or ability to isolate a family member at home (doctors with training in this are having trouble keeping themselves from becoming infected), and without testing they might not know to do it anyway. It seems less likely the virus is spreading through the septic systems of buildings in enough buildings to make a big difference.
- foolmeonce 7y ago
  > maybe they'd be more amenable to staying in a hotel for free? I would avoid American hotels first for corona risk and then for legionaires. Most will get it right, but a few large ones getting it wrong are worse than a lot of people sitting in rooms in single family houses without forced air systems.

71 points by prostoalex 7y ago

bb2018 7y ago

I feel like this is anything but shocking and the wrong takeaway? The source, as I understand it, is just where the person is living. It doesn't distinguish from people who worked from home, worked because they were essential, or those who have been going out socially. 66% of the people in the hospital are people who normally live at home. What percent of the normal population lives at home - 90%?

josephorjoe 7y ago
This was my reaction as well and left me wondering if there is missing information here. NYC has been on lockdown for weeks. A very large percentage of the city is staying home. Some completely isolated, but most are not completely isolated. People have periodic contact with family, friends, neighbors, pharmacies, grocery stores, and/or delivery people. People who live in buildings with shared common areas (doors, entryways, elevators, mail rooms, laundry rooms, ventilation systems, etc.) cannot help but risk some exposure. Masks and social distancing are not 100% effective.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  >"NYC has been on lockdown for weeks." It's actually been since March 22nd so well into its second month now. When the order is lifted on the 15th it will be a week shy of two months. On it's face anyway the news definitely isn't encouraging.
- rasz 7y ago
  >NYC has been on lockdown for weeks yes https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJmExSMz28 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QJmExSMz28
trianglesphere 7y ago
There is some info that hints that the people at home are not venturing out much. I personally find this alarming that there is still widespread community spread. In my more rural state I think there is community spread, but nursing homes and long term care facilities are still dominating hospitalizations and deaths.
- loopz 7y ago
  If there is much socialising and lack of testing and tracing, it may be alarming due to new cases. In places without contagion, there needs to be preparedness, or risk another round. Italy/France/Spain took their time until lockdown and rest of Europe learned from that. This needs planning and leadership, then opening may be OK.
- Marsymars 7y ago
  > I personally find this alarming that there is still widespread community spread. You should probably expect it - you only end community spread in short order with R=0. With, say R=0.5, you get something like a ten day half-life for number cases. Furthermore, tests tend to have ramped up after social restrictions, so number of new cases isn't a useful figure outside of the context of % of positive tests, and deaths are a lagging indicator. In both France and Italy seven weeks of hard lockdown have only reduced deaths to about a quarter in that time-frame.
- bogomipz 7y ago
  >"There is some info that hints that the people at home are not venturing out much." What are those hints exactly? Cell phone tower data, metro card swipes, bandwidth usage? I'm guessing it's not yet warm enough for power consumption(ACs usage) to be an indicator.
- illumin8 7y ago
  It seems like one of the primary differences between countries that have effectively stopped Covid-19 like South Korea and Taiwan, and the US is how people are quarantined. In the countries that were effective at stopping the spread, they quarantined sick people outside of their house. Since transmission is so effective its almost a guarantee that the rest of your household will catch it if you stay home, either by touching a shared doorknob, then touching their face, or by droplets landing on surfaces, or any number of other mechanisms. We should seriously consider paying for hotel rooms for people that test positive. The total cost would likely be far lower than letting them infect the rest of their family.
elipsey 7y ago
This. What's base rate I should compare with %66 percent? Until I know that, I can have no idea whether to be shocked!
copenja 7y ago
In the article he implies these are people who are not working, not commuting, and not travelling. Here are some quotes from the article: "He said the information shows that those who are hospitalized are predominantly from the downstate area in or around New York City, are not working or traveling and are not essential employees. He also said a majority of the cases in New York City are minorities, with nearly half being African American or Hispanic." "Cuomo said nearly 84% of the hospitalized cases were people who were not commuting to work through car services, personal cars, public transit or walking. He said a majority of those people were either retired or unemployed. Overall, some 73% of the admissions were people over age 51."
- illumin8 7y ago
  Have you seen those photos of crowded subway platforms in the early morning? Almost all minorities on their way to gig worker jobs in the city - delivery people, etc. These are the essential workers that are still delivering food and groceries to the rest of NYC that is sheltering in place. It doesn't surprise me that the rate of infection by those staying home, that are in poor neighborhoods and minorities, is high. How many of those households have an essential worker in their family? How many of them might be living in large multi-generational families where one or more are instacart shoppers, Uber/Lyft drivers, etc? We need more data before we can really determine if this is surprising or not. I'll tell you what I thought immediately after seeing those photos: - First reaction: OMG, those people are not social distancing and are putting everyone at risk. - Second reaction: If those essential workers can't deliver food to all the people trapped in their apartments, society would collapse very quickly.

istorical 7y ago

I don't trust people saying they are 'staying at home' if the data is self-reported rather than verified by a third party. Living in Brooklyn in a predominantly hispanic neighborhood (relevant only because the article mentions it hitting black and hispanic communities hardest), had to venture out this weekend for the first time in weeks to facilitate moving apartments. Observations: 1. An incredibly high amount of people are out and about, even people who seem to just be socializing, standing around / hangout out on their stoop, talking to friends or neighbors, having small 5-15 person gatherings or cookouts (on their stoop), or going for walks (without pets). There is a big culture among natives of socializing outside in front of your building, gathering to share in smoking, eating, listening to music, and chatting, which is honestly a beautiful thing about New York when it isn't a pandemic. But these gatherings seemingly haven't decreased, at least not to the degree one might expect. 2. An incredible amount of people have access to surgical masks. This was news to me as I figured stocks were still depleted, but it turns out that they are to be found in a variety of pharmacies, groceries, hardware stores, bodegas etc. just at inflated prices and in small batches. I purchased a replacement pack of 6 surgical masks at my grocery store checkout counter for about a dollar each. I would estimate 80-90% of people in public here are wearing a mask, mostly surgical, a minority KN95 (also was available at the grocery I was at in individual units at a fairly high price) or bandana/improvised masks. 3. A huge percentage (maybe 30-45%)? of people that I see wearing masks seem to be putting them around their chins or wearing them over their mouth but with nostrils exposed or hanging around their neck. Or I see people pulling them down and only pulling them back up when they walk by someone or go into a store (most stores have signs on the entrance requiring masks but state that improvised is OK). It's incredibly frustrating seeing people wearing PPE incorrectly and/or treating it as optional outside of stores. 4. The young transplant/white/yuppie minority population in the area seems to be either wearing masks correctly, clutching their grocery basket tightly with a stern look on their face or alternatively treating the whole thing like a joke and walking their dogs outside shining new development luxury buildings with a look of glee and wearing no masks at all. For the most part they are not to be seen at all except for seemingly in a grocery store or walking back from one, or walking a pet. Where I would normally see dozens of young, predominantly white hipsters in bars or at restaurants, coming and going to the subway, or just walking, now I see 10-20% of usual traffic of them. 5. Older people seem to be more likely than younger people to be wearing no mask, to be wearing a mask incorrectly, or to be just standing around on their front porch/stoop aimlessly. Anyway, these are not meant to be construed as directly relevant as evidence for a cause for the present infection demographics as we don't have a complete picture of initial infections, of percentages of population that can work from home vs works outside as essential workers, etc. But certainly if you asked me about what my hypothesis might be about the causes of minority populations in NYC having bad outbreaks, I would say we can't ignore self inflicted wounds due to bad education or cultural disregard / machismo around rules and authority, skepticism towards government or science, etc. No idea what the solution would be besides reducing inequality and lifting people out of poverty, improving their education, or role models within the communities stepping up and speaking out to those who flaunt social distancing. Lastly, I don't think these communities are alone in not abiding by quarantine as much as they can, I think most of the United States is being as lackadaisical, but the initial seeded infection just had much more time to develop here unchecked so we're seeing those much worse outcomes despite most of the country also breaking social distancing rules in a multitude of ways.

guardiangod 7y ago

In Hong Kong, 1 of the transmission vectors for SARS and COVID19 is from sewage pipes in high-rise apartments. Body fluid goes into the drain and its droplets spread to floor above and below the infected unit's.

sjg007 7y ago
Do they have open vent pipes or something?
- aaron695 7y ago
  In this instance it leaked at the seams. [Edit] It was a mix / not sure -https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/in-hong-kong-apartment-tower-sars-virus-spread-through-plumbing/99bcd25f-de85-472a-b084-4f847e0dac9a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/i...
  - randcraw 7y ago
    And the vent pipes leaked anywhere that someone cut the vent to make room in their bathroom — which the articles say was common. In principle, it's helpful to know that sewer fumes might allow covid to spread. But based on those two articles, the fact that many toilet / drain traps in that building appear to be dry, and given the hacked up state of that building's sewer and vent stacks, neither story clarifies how covid actually spread there. Nor should the reader assume the same is likely to happen in another building that conforms to building codes — unlike that one.
sojournerc 7y ago
Source?
- guardiangod 7y ago
  SARS https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/in-hong-kong-apartment-tower-sars-virus-spread-through-plumbing/99bcd25f-de85-472a-b084-4f847e0dac9a/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2003/04/18/i... COVID19 https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3051209/coronavirus-changes-pipeline-sewage-systems-hong-kong https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/society/article/3051209/...

JackFr 7y ago

As expected HN comments dismiss this evidence because it does not match the narrative. Study is dismissed as flawed, and personal anecdotes handwave the data away. From the data it’s not clear that shelter in place orders have had anything other than a marginal effect.

mcfunk 7y ago
The posted article is hardly "data" (at most, one poorly defined data point) and most of the questions here are pointing to how little information the article offers from which to draw conclusions-- for instance, what does "sheltering in place" mean? Where were these people? When were they leaving their houses? etc. What data are you referring to that suggest shelter in place orders could be having only a marginal effect?
jddj 7y ago
Another anecdote: I do some contracting work for a British company, and had some extremely unrealistic deadlines looming in late February. For this reason, I was keenly watching their government's announcements at the time and was amazed as weeks went by and my country's restrictions got tighter and tighter while the UK didn't budge. Now, in May, it's not exactly apples to apples but they're now the hardest hit (deaths-wise) in Europe, and my country has dropped down below 1000 active cases (and decreasing some 50/day). You could probably substitute my country for almost any other early mover and the UK for almost any other late mover and arrive at the same result. Even across different pandemics. "Moving", here, means locking down. Given that, my personal biases lead me to think that lockdowns probably work. I have to acknowledge that there's a moderately high bar set for data which disproves this thesis, because it's just so damned intuitive. This doesn't meet that bar.
- abduhl 7y ago
  How does your intuition square with a country like Sweden's response to the virus who would be classified as not just a "late mover" but a "non-mover?"
  - 7y ago

obastani 7y ago

This statistic is very hard to interpret without additional context. If 99% of people stay at home, the of course most people who get infected would have stayed at home. Older people, who are more likely to need hospitalization, are also more likely to stay at home. People who continue to commute to work are likely being more careful, and may also be benefitting from fewer others commuting, which reduces the risks of going outside. The relevant metric is how many fewer people have caught it due to the lockdown, and assuming the numbers are accurate, it's pretty clear that the lockdown has substantially reduced the infection rate.

ashtonkem 7y ago
People who stay at home are also likely to be some of the last people to get sick.
namelosw 7y ago
And it could be very misguiding for most people, combining with the title. It also could be those easy targets get infected first, then people indoor. Either way, the metric seems to be not very helpful and extremely misguiding.

SrslyJosh 7y ago

> “Much of this comes down to what you do to protect yourself. Everything is closed down, government has done everything it could, society has done everything it could. Now it’s up to you,” Cuomo said. "Personal responsibility" is a great cover for not taking the pandemic seriously in February.

RickJWagner 7y ago

“I was afraid that it was going to infect my family no matter what I did. We’re past that,” Cuomo said at a press conference on April 13. “If you isolate, if you take the precautions, your family won’t get infected." Yet also: "Most new Covid-19 hospitalizations in New York state are from people who were staying home and not venturing much outside, a “shocking” finding, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Wednesday." Seem contradictory, no?

richman777 7y ago
That's the point. He said one of those things on April 13th, the other he said, presumably, yesterday, May 6th.

6510 7y ago

https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/physical-activity-fundamental-preventing-disease https://aspe.hhs.gov/basic-report/physical-activity-fundamen...

lookACamel 7y ago

A lot of evidence shows that the more severe cases are linked to having Vitamin D deficiency. Perhaps increased COVID severity is a unexpected consequence of the the public policy of "stay home indefinitely".

rapjr9 7y ago

This seems like exactly the experience in Wuhan and is why they started removing people that tested positive from their homes and putting them in isolation centers, so they wouldn't spread the virus to their families. The US is not doing that, so if one person gets the virus in a family almost all of them get it. It means that stopping the spread will be slower and take longer. Certainly the numbers from testing seem to be coming down very slowly anywhere in the US that has had a major outbreak. If US citizens won't stand for being isolated that way, maybe they'd be more amenable to staying in a hotel for free? The rooms are already empty anyway and I would think people would want to protect their families. The whole family could even move into adjacent rooms so they could at least be close to each other. Seems like many people would not have the space or ability to isolate a family member at home (doctors with training in this are having trouble keeping themselves from becoming infected), and without testing they might not know to do it anyway. It seems less likely the virus is spreading through the septic systems of buildings in enough buildings to make a big difference.

foolmeonce 7y ago
> maybe they'd be more amenable to staying in a hotel for free? I would avoid American hotels first for corona risk and then for legionaires. Most will get it right, but a few large ones getting it wrong are worse than a lot of people sitting in rooms in single family houses without forced air systems.