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It's weird because back in October the head of LA County Health Department gave a briefing where she said that contact tracing shows that 15% of COVID cases are

It's weird because back in October the head of LA County Health Department gave a briefing where she said that contact tracing shows that 15% of COVID cases are due to outdoor dining. Then the the board of supervisors asked her more specific questions about the data when they were preparing the latest lockdown order. Instead of reiterating or expanding on what she said before, she walked back her claims and said there was no specific data about the spread of COVID due to outdoor dining.

wesammikhail 6y ago
There is no specific data because measuring is basically impossible. You´d need to control for all variables in a situation like that and that just cant be done or at least wont be doable any time soon. This is all just an emotional reaction based on what you consider to be probable. It isnt based in science or data, it´s based in hypotheticals.
- danhak 6y ago
  That's absolutely not true. Contact tracing is a thing. Most of the restaurants I've patronized in L.A. this year required a contact name / number before being seated for tracing purposes.
  - nodesocket 6y ago
    That's insane. Here in Nashville, TN I have NEVER been required to give my personal information to visit to a restaurant or bar. At what point do the people of California start to wake up about big brother, destruction of freedoms, and government control? I am so happy I left San Francisco in 2018.
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      Utah bars scan the dotcode on dyrovers licenses, so even if you are just there for music or friends, a record might be kept. That was well before 2020.
      - bigbubba 6y ago
        Utah loves laws that hassle drinkers, because they're a bunch of Mormons.
    - mixmastamyk 6y ago
      Calm down. It's BS, LA resident never even been asked for info.
    - TomSwirly 6y ago
      From outside the US, this attitude is impossible to understand when there's 9/11 worth of horrible, miserable, lonely deaths each and every day. It's so strange. After 9/11, Americans completely remade their society and started a series of pointless, losing wars. But COVID has killed a hundred times as many, seriously injured god knows how many more, and people just go on about "big brother, destruction of freedoms, and government control". That's what's "insane" to me - a major, deadly pandemic that the world's richest country refuses to deal with due to clinical paranoia.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lostlogin 6y ago
    Contact tracing can work and NZ has had success, mostly meeting its “80% traced in 3 days” target. However the system cost is something like NZ$70m and can handle up to 1000 cases daily. Doing this for 225k cases per day seems almost insurmountable from way down here. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122433365/coronavirus-contact-tracing-are-we-seeing-the-benefits-of-promised-improvements https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122433365/... https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/oversight-contact-tracing-strengthened https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/oversight-contact-tracin...
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - hef19898 6y ago
    Which only tells you who was there at any given time. And I doubt that data is correct, we had multiple cases where people lied on the forms. And then you still don't know where they caught it. It only tells officials who to call. They is always a huge margin of error. And that is when contact tracing is working at scale. German authorities basically gave up on it because there are too many cases.
  - jayd16 6y ago
    After the initial outbreak we never got low enough in LA for tracing to actually be useful.
  - twblalock 6y ago
    I'm in the Bay Area and I have never been asked for contact info for outdoor dining. Apparently restaurants are supposed to ask people who dine indoors.
    - kelnos 6y ago
      I've dined outdoors at about 10 different restaurants in the past couple months, but only one has asked for contact details (they just immediately entered me into their reservations app). So agree that this does not seem to be a widespread practice.
baxtr 6y ago
It's really strange to me, that we have a vaccine, but we don't have real, deep insight into where transmission really do take place. What public transport for example where people usually don't talk. What about workplace meeting rooms. I would want money spent on researching transmission pathways in depth.
- jacobolus 6y ago
  They do have such investigations in South Korea, Taiwan, and similar places with low spread and competent leadership. In the US community spread is far too out of control and contact tracing is far too underfunded to get anywhere close to comprehensive data about this. There have been some useful small case investigations published by the US CDC.
  - rasz 6y ago
    Its rather simple, fill out a form for every patient admitted to ICU. Were you wearing a mask? how diligently? were you going outside? how often? where? Add random check by scanning peoples social media profile photos to see if they lied. Instead we dont even know what percentage of hospitalized actually used masks, something super basic and easy to check.
    - TomSwirly 6y ago
      > Its rather simple, fill out a form for every patient admitted to ICU. With all due respect, it's like you've never met Americans. People wouldn't cooperate if asked to, and the hospitals can't afford to hire the people it would take to process the forms. The primary question to ask in America is always this: "Can an investor make money out of this?"
    - bluGill 6y ago
      Not worth checking if they were wearing a mask. You wouldn't learn much from that. People lie, stretch the truth, and mis remember all the time.
zaroth 6y ago
Back in October the LA County Health Department lied. Apparently the actual number is less than 4%. > The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health admitted during a Board of Supervisor's meeting Tuesday that there is no hard scientific evidence linking the recent COVID-19 surge to back up their move to shut down outdoor dining. https://abc7.com/covid-19-data-restaurants-outdoor-dining/8235279 https://abc7.com/covid-19-data-restaurants-outdoor-dining/82... https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/los-angeles-department-of-public-health-admits-no-science-to-back-up-link-between-outdoor-dining-and-covid-spike https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/los-angeles-department...

wesammikhail 6y ago

There is no specific data because measuring is basically impossible. You´d need to control for all variables in a situation like that and that just cant be done or at least wont be doable any time soon. This is all just an emotional reaction based on what you consider to be probable. It isnt based in science or data, it´s based in hypotheticals.

danhak 6y ago
That's absolutely not true. Contact tracing is a thing. Most of the restaurants I've patronized in L.A. this year required a contact name / number before being seated for tracing purposes.
- nodesocket 6y ago
  That's insane. Here in Nashville, TN I have NEVER been required to give my personal information to visit to a restaurant or bar. At what point do the people of California start to wake up about big brother, destruction of freedoms, and government control? I am so happy I left San Francisco in 2018.
  - nitrogen 6y ago
    Utah bars scan the dotcode on dyrovers licenses, so even if you are just there for music or friends, a record might be kept. That was well before 2020.
    - bigbubba 6y ago
      Utah loves laws that hassle drinkers, because they're a bunch of Mormons.
  - mixmastamyk 6y ago
    Calm down. It's BS, LA resident never even been asked for info.
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    From outside the US, this attitude is impossible to understand when there's 9/11 worth of horrible, miserable, lonely deaths each and every day. It's so strange. After 9/11, Americans completely remade their society and started a series of pointless, losing wars. But COVID has killed a hundred times as many, seriously injured god knows how many more, and people just go on about "big brother, destruction of freedoms, and government control". That's what's "insane" to me - a major, deadly pandemic that the world's richest country refuses to deal with due to clinical paranoia.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- lostlogin 6y ago
  Contact tracing can work and NZ has had success, mostly meeting its “80% traced in 3 days” target. However the system cost is something like NZ$70m and can handle up to 1000 cases daily. Doing this for 225k cases per day seems almost insurmountable from way down here. https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/us/ https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122433365/coronavirus-contact-tracing-are-we-seeing-the-benefits-of-promised-improvements https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/coronavirus/122433365/... https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/oversight-contact-tracing-strengthened https://www.beehive.govt.nz/release/oversight-contact-tracin...
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- hef19898 6y ago
  Which only tells you who was there at any given time. And I doubt that data is correct, we had multiple cases where people lied on the forms. And then you still don't know where they caught it. It only tells officials who to call. They is always a huge margin of error. And that is when contact tracing is working at scale. German authorities basically gave up on it because there are too many cases.
- jayd16 6y ago
  After the initial outbreak we never got low enough in LA for tracing to actually be useful.
- twblalock 6y ago
  I'm in the Bay Area and I have never been asked for contact info for outdoor dining. Apparently restaurants are supposed to ask people who dine indoors.
  - kelnos 6y ago
    I've dined outdoors at about 10 different restaurants in the past couple months, but only one has asked for contact details (they just immediately entered me into their reservations app). So agree that this does not seem to be a widespread practice.

baxtr 6y ago

It's really strange to me, that we have a vaccine, but we don't have real, deep insight into where transmission really do take place. What public transport for example where people usually don't talk. What about workplace meeting rooms. I would want money spent on researching transmission pathways in depth.

jacobolus 6y ago
They do have such investigations in South Korea, Taiwan, and similar places with low spread and competent leadership. In the US community spread is far too out of control and contact tracing is far too underfunded to get anywhere close to comprehensive data about this. There have been some useful small case investigations published by the US CDC.
- rasz 6y ago
  Its rather simple, fill out a form for every patient admitted to ICU. Were you wearing a mask? how diligently? were you going outside? how often? where? Add random check by scanning peoples social media profile photos to see if they lied. Instead we dont even know what percentage of hospitalized actually used masks, something super basic and easy to check.
  - TomSwirly 6y ago
    > Its rather simple, fill out a form for every patient admitted to ICU. With all due respect, it's like you've never met Americans. People wouldn't cooperate if asked to, and the hospitals can't afford to hire the people it would take to process the forms. The primary question to ask in America is always this: "Can an investor make money out of this?"
  - bluGill 6y ago
    Not worth checking if they were wearing a mask. You wouldn't learn much from that. People lie, stretch the truth, and mis remember all the time.

zaroth 6y ago

Back in October the LA County Health Department lied. Apparently the actual number is less than 4%. > The Los Angeles County Department of Public Health admitted during a Board of Supervisor's meeting Tuesday that there is no hard scientific evidence linking the recent COVID-19 surge to back up their move to shut down outdoor dining. https://abc7.com/covid-19-data-restaurants-outdoor-dining/8235279 https://abc7.com/covid-19-data-restaurants-outdoor-dining/82... https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/los-angeles-department-of-public-health-admits-no-science-to-back-up-link-between-outdoor-dining-and-covid-spike https://www.foxbusiness.com/lifestyle/los-angeles-department...