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It seemed like California took some of the strongest lockdown measures early on, especially compared to Texas and Florida; all three of which are seeing increas

It seemed like California took some of the strongest lockdown measures early on, especially compared to Texas and Florida; all three of which are seeing increased fatalities while the rest of the country is plummeting. I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable, combined with the fact that many of those affected are in places with high population densities. If we are to learn anything from elderly care facilities in NYC, Sweden and Canada, it's that infected people need to be separated way out away from anyone in their home. The primary vector of infection is still the home, likely due to higher exposure if someone is sick.

bkor 6y ago
> it's that infected people need to be separated way out away from anyone in their home That's not what I got from it. It pretty much showed that separating elderly from anyone else is really difficult. It failed in many countries. This because they're either with families, or they're with people whom take care of them. > I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable Lockdown is to ensure the hospitals aren't overwhelmed. Many countries had to completely stop or delay certain activities. People avoided going to the hospital out of fear of catching anything. It'll happen eventually isn't very compassionate IMO.
- blaser-waffle 6y ago
  > This because they're either with families, or they're with people whom take care of them. This was a big reason why things got very ugly in Italy, and to a lesser degree Spain -- a lot of working adults live with their (older) parents. They pick it up and might be able to shake it off or call out of work for a week, but they end up bringing it home to their elderly parents. The US has this too, doubly so since the millennial generation is more likely to live at home than ever, but compared to places like Italy there are far fewer people living with their 60 year old mother and 80 year old grandpa, all in the same house.
  - christkv 6y ago
    It got ugly in Spain due to getting into the old folk homes just like NYC.
dragontamer 6y ago
> I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable Even if it is "only delaying the inevitable", it bought 3+ precious months of gathering PPE, increased testing, and political change. Yes. Political change. Mr. Trump is now wearing a mask: it took this long to convince people that masks are a good idea. If COVID19 has a 2nd wave, we're far more prepared now than we were back in March. > The primary vector of infection is still the home The primary vector of infection has BECOME the home, because we've shut down schools, restaurants and more. I'm not entirely sure if we can push the lockdown any further logistically than businesses / public spaces. The home remains personal responsibility.
bluGill 6y ago
You don't hear as much about the rest (they have smaller populations), but things are not going well anywhere. Illinois is getting close to increasing lock downs. Wisconsin should be, but isn't (though they have finally put out mandatory mask orders) . MN is is looking at options. Iowa is barely doing okay, but will probably start getting high numbers soon. Tennessee probably is going to see problems soon but so far has been lucky. Those are states I have personal friends in and so reason to follow them. I'm sure the rest of the country isnt much better off. For that matter, much of the world seems to be celebrating they are doing better than the US while ignoring signs that thier luck is running out.
- gattilorenz 6y ago
  > For that matter, much of the world seems to be celebrating they are doing better than the US while ignoring signs that thier luck is running out. A large part of Europe (not to mention Asia) already dealt/is dealing with it significantly better than the US. I doubt it's a matter of luck.
  - ppaattrriicckk 6y ago
    I second this. Try to have a look at the statistics of Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Norway, Thailand, Denmark: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Seems that some countries manage to _consistently_ keep the spread at a comfortable (for a lack of better word) level.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Denmark isn't requiring masks and from what I've read, not many people are wearing them. And Vietnam went 100 days without an new case and are now dealing with an outbreak they can't trace back to a source.
      - yongjik 6y ago
        Vietnam has total confirmed cases of 642, out of 96 million population. When they have a few dozen patients, they call it a new outbreak. The US has ~60k daily new cases - that is, 642 new patients about every 15 minutes.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
bynormous 6y ago
Strong lockdown measures doesn't translate to people actually following through. In Central Valley and places like Huntington Beach you can go outside and not realize there's a global pandemic. The data is fuzzy and evolving. I doubt the world will have concrete answers for many years.
seebetter 6y ago
It seems difficult to understand what caused the spike. I didn't even know bars were open. It seems hard to believe opening the bars was the primary cause. It also seems amazing that despite the nighttime protests/riots in Portland, that there's basically no cases there. LA seems mostly the same the last 4-months except early on. There's now 100s of people on the street on the weekend eating outside like it's Europe. I've unfortunately been outside everyday since the pandemic started.
mc32 6y ago
I live in a place where I’d loosely characterize people as compliant (at least with re local and state gov). At the beginning people wore masks at every outdoor occasion, now with warm weather things have changed and it’s like a California stop. They wear it if someone’s looking, otherwise many are off.
- beamatronic 6y ago
  Many workers diligently wear them during their shift, then take them off for meal breaks with other co-workers. I was at a hospital yesterday and the person screening every incoming visitor had their mask under their nose.
  - mc32 6y ago
    Yeah I don’t get that. They sit down to eat, where of course you have to take off your mask, but they don’t keep a distance, and, moreover will keep on chatting during and after eating with masks off...
    - kevingadd 6y ago
      It's still better than nothing if they're avoiding exposing customers and getting directly exposed to customers, but yeah, that's a recipe for spread in the workplace (and we've seen a lot of that). Most break rooms and such aren't really designed for the circumstances, so it's tricky to address this...
grecy 6y ago
> I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable Amazing you just assume it's inevitable. New Zealand certainly proves it's not. Aim higher.
- SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
  Australia tried aiming higher, and now Melbourne is facing 6 more weeks of hard lockdown with record highs. Maybe there were policy choices that could have allowed them and every other country to replicate New Zealand's current situation, but you're going to need more than a pithy comment to demonstrate that.
- thehappypm 6y ago
  I don't think it's really feasible to compare a continental nation of 300M+ people to a small island nation.
- nkohari 6y ago
  New Zealand is a small island nation with only 5 international airports. It has 1.4% the population of the United States (4.8M vs 328.2M), and a smaller population than New York City (8.4M). It has 18 people per km², compared to 94 people per km² in the United States. This is an absurd comparison.
kevingadd 6y ago
Part of the problem is that the lockdowns were inconvenient and their effectiveness at slowing the initial spread made it easy for conspiracy theorists and extremists to argue that it was all fake. Now that the government has been pressured (in part by lawsuits from conservatives, business owners and extremists) to open back up, we're seeing aggressive spread combined with people convinced that the lockdown was a scam to begin with. Going to be hard to put together another lockdown when we need it...
foxyv 6y ago
They are just high population states with big crowded cities. If you sort Worldometer by cases per million, these three states aren't even in the top 10.

bkor 6y ago

> it's that infected people need to be separated way out away from anyone in their home That's not what I got from it. It pretty much showed that separating elderly from anyone else is really difficult. It failed in many countries. This because they're either with families, or they're with people whom take care of them. > I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable Lockdown is to ensure the hospitals aren't overwhelmed. Many countries had to completely stop or delay certain activities. People avoided going to the hospital out of fear of catching anything. It'll happen eventually isn't very compassionate IMO.

blaser-waffle 6y ago
> This because they're either with families, or they're with people whom take care of them. This was a big reason why things got very ugly in Italy, and to a lesser degree Spain -- a lot of working adults live with their (older) parents. They pick it up and might be able to shake it off or call out of work for a week, but they end up bringing it home to their elderly parents. The US has this too, doubly so since the millennial generation is more likely to live at home than ever, but compared to places like Italy there are far fewer people living with their 60 year old mother and 80 year old grandpa, all in the same house.
- christkv 6y ago
  It got ugly in Spain due to getting into the old folk homes just like NYC.

dragontamer 6y ago

> I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable Even if it is "only delaying the inevitable", it bought 3+ precious months of gathering PPE, increased testing, and political change. Yes. Political change. Mr. Trump is now wearing a mask: it took this long to convince people that masks are a good idea. If COVID19 has a 2nd wave, we're far more prepared now than we were back in March. > The primary vector of infection is still the home The primary vector of infection has BECOME the home, because we've shut down schools, restaurants and more. I'm not entirely sure if we can push the lockdown any further logistically than businesses / public spaces. The home remains personal responsibility.

bluGill 6y ago

You don't hear as much about the rest (they have smaller populations), but things are not going well anywhere. Illinois is getting close to increasing lock downs. Wisconsin should be, but isn't (though they have finally put out mandatory mask orders) . MN is is looking at options. Iowa is barely doing okay, but will probably start getting high numbers soon. Tennessee probably is going to see problems soon but so far has been lucky. Those are states I have personal friends in and so reason to follow them. I'm sure the rest of the country isnt much better off. For that matter, much of the world seems to be celebrating they are doing better than the US while ignoring signs that thier luck is running out.

gattilorenz 6y ago
> For that matter, much of the world seems to be celebrating they are doing better than the US while ignoring signs that thier luck is running out. A large part of Europe (not to mention Asia) already dealt/is dealing with it significantly better than the US. I doubt it's a matter of luck.
- ppaattrriicckk 6y ago
  I second this. Try to have a look at the statistics of Taiwan, South Korea, Germany, Norway, Thailand, Denmark: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Seems that some countries manage to _consistently_ keep the spread at a comfortable (for a lack of better word) level.
  - refurb 6y ago
    Denmark isn't requiring masks and from what I've read, not many people are wearing them. And Vietnam went 100 days without an new case and are now dealing with an outbreak they can't trace back to a source.
    - yongjik 6y ago
      Vietnam has total confirmed cases of 642, out of 96 million population. When they have a few dozen patients, they call it a new outbreak. The US has ~60k daily new cases - that is, 642 new patients about every 15 minutes.

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

bynormous 6y ago

Strong lockdown measures doesn't translate to people actually following through. In Central Valley and places like Huntington Beach you can go outside and not realize there's a global pandemic. The data is fuzzy and evolving. I doubt the world will have concrete answers for many years.

seebetter 6y ago

It seems difficult to understand what caused the spike. I didn't even know bars were open. It seems hard to believe opening the bars was the primary cause. It also seems amazing that despite the nighttime protests/riots in Portland, that there's basically no cases there. LA seems mostly the same the last 4-months except early on. There's now 100s of people on the street on the weekend eating outside like it's Europe. I've unfortunately been outside everyday since the pandemic started.

mc32 6y ago

I live in a place where I’d loosely characterize people as compliant (at least with re local and state gov). At the beginning people wore masks at every outdoor occasion, now with warm weather things have changed and it’s like a California stop. They wear it if someone’s looking, otherwise many are off.

beamatronic 6y ago
Many workers diligently wear them during their shift, then take them off for meal breaks with other co-workers. I was at a hospital yesterday and the person screening every incoming visitor had their mask under their nose.
- mc32 6y ago
  Yeah I don’t get that. They sit down to eat, where of course you have to take off your mask, but they don’t keep a distance, and, moreover will keep on chatting during and after eating with masks off...
  - kevingadd 6y ago
    It's still better than nothing if they're avoiding exposing customers and getting directly exposed to customers, but yeah, that's a recipe for spread in the workplace (and we've seen a lot of that). Most break rooms and such aren't really designed for the circumstances, so it's tricky to address this...

grecy 6y ago

> I wonder if this a case of lockdowns delaying the inevitable Amazing you just assume it's inevitable. New Zealand certainly proves it's not. Aim higher.

SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
Australia tried aiming higher, and now Melbourne is facing 6 more weeks of hard lockdown with record highs. Maybe there were policy choices that could have allowed them and every other country to replicate New Zealand's current situation, but you're going to need more than a pithy comment to demonstrate that.
thehappypm 6y ago
I don't think it's really feasible to compare a continental nation of 300M+ people to a small island nation.
nkohari 6y ago
New Zealand is a small island nation with only 5 international airports. It has 1.4% the population of the United States (4.8M vs 328.2M), and a smaller population than New York City (8.4M). It has 18 people per km², compared to 94 people per km² in the United States. This is an absurd comparison.

kevingadd 6y ago

Part of the problem is that the lockdowns were inconvenient and their effectiveness at slowing the initial spread made it easy for conspiracy theorists and extremists to argue that it was all fake. Now that the government has been pressured (in part by lawsuits from conservatives, business owners and extremists) to open back up, we're seeing aggressive spread combined with people convinced that the lockdown was a scam to begin with. Going to be hard to put together another lockdown when we need it...

foxyv 6y ago

They are just high population states with big crowded cities. If you sort Worldometer by cases per million, these three states aren't even in the top 10.