7 ms·

L.A. was uniquely vulnerable to this Covid catastrophe. Here is what went wrong

15 points by cmurf 6y ago

francisofascii 6y ago
Reasons given: colder, drier weather, false sense of confidence, people started to let their guard down, huge manufacturing sector, combination of poverty and density. I am not convinced LA was uniquely vulnerable given these reasons.
- Mountain_Skies 6y ago
  Unique? No, but it does point to the folly of trying to impose one size fits all solutions. What would work best in Los Angeles is not what would work best in Boomer, West Virginia or Atlanta, Idaho. How people live and interact are different in these places but instead of acknowledging that, we've had dictates come down from high above which demonize those who understand their communities better than someone living hundreds or thousands of miles away in very different conditions.
  - jjeaff 6y ago
    No one is asking for one size fits all. Just a uniform set of guidelines that leaders form using public health, scientific and economic experts and that is then promoted as the right thing to do. This nonsense of having an expert stand at the podium and say we need to be wearing masks and then the president standing up and saying he's not going to wear one and it's not a big deal has been very, very destructive. Regardless of the initial mistakes of not promoting mask usage, once we knew that masks could help significantly, all our top leadership should have been on board and encouraging use through example and word. They were not and that alone has likely contributed to many thousands of unnecessary deaths.
ecf 6y ago
Oh look American exceptionalism has degraded into making excuses for why our situations are uniquely worse than any other place on Earth. Give me a break.
mariodiana 6y ago
Way back when all this started and the paper came out from the Imperial College, counseling social distancing and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, the idea was to make a priority of not overwhelming the hospitals. The thinking was that there was no reasonable way of stopping this, so the goal was to ensure as best as possible that no one died because they couldn't receive the supportive care they needed: meaning, because there was no ICU bed available for them. The lockdown mechanism was meant to be periodic and short-lived. We lockdown if we see hospitals are going to be overrun. Then, we open back up again. We don't sacrifice our economy — and our sanity — by keeping things shutdown long-term. We swallow hard and realize that people are going to die. We protect the vulnerable by encouraging them to take extra precautions. But what have we done instead? According to the article, we failed to take into account both the very real phenomenon of lockdown fatigue, and the phenomenon of simply kicking the can down the road: namely, avoiding more cases in the summer (via lockdowns) to then have them pile up in the winter. So, here we are in L.A. and elsewhere. Now, despite the draconian lockdowns and damage to the economy and people's sanity and general well-being, the hospitals are overwhelmed. Ambulances are circling, looking for an empty bed, while their patient-passengers gasp for air. The moral here is that politicians (and much of the populace) panicked and turned into obsessive-compulsives, convinced that if they only did that "one more thing," they could make everything right. And now we see how ridiculous that turned out to be.
- lefrenchy 6y ago
  How do you come out this end and think “we did too much”? We have definitive proof that we actually did too little. Look at S. Korea, New Zealand, Thailand, etc.. More contact tracing, stricter targeted lockdowns, paying people to stay home. The problem is that we didn’t do enough, instead we took half measures and took all the damage with barely any of the benefit. The idea that death was inevitable is wrong. There are plenty of nations and extremely dense cities with very low death numbers. Sure, Americans are higher risk because they are more obese (or so we think) but our death counts were avoidable.
  - mariodiana 6y ago
    In the United States, our death count is skewed by a handful of cities, some of which represent some of the top destinations in the world. New York City gets 65 million visitors a year. Los Angeles get something like 50 million. All of South Korea — never mind Seoul — gets just under 18 million. And let's not even talk about New Zealand. Other than the hobbits, who's going there. In the United States our numbers are skewed by places like NYC and LA. The rest of the country is doing much, much better, overall. Moreover, we're a free country. Yes, I realize that, on paper, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand are also. But the kind of contact tracing and other measures that has gone on in some of these countries is simply unacceptable here, and rightly so. I stand by what I've said. We are destroying this country in an effort to "save lives." Your suggestion is what? More destruction? If you read the original paper from the Imperial College, you'll note that death estimates in the United States were from 200 thousand (if we followed their recommendations) to 2.2 million (if we did nothing). Remember, these were estimates. But you will see that we are close to the low end in actual numbers. So, when you say that the idea of death being inevitable is simply wrong, what exactly are you basing that on? Can you answer that? Where do you come up with your assertion?
vondur 6y ago
Too many people living in too small of housing units. I see it near my house. Then many of these people lost their jobs due to the lockdowns, leaving them home. Lots of people were still having parties here too, you can hear them all the time.
SomeoneFromCA 6y ago
Big part of Latino culture is visiting each other, hugging, living in multi-generational dwelling. We've seen this in El Paso, same story in LA.
drzoltar 6y ago
For a stark reminder of the inequalities in Covid impact, there’s a nice map here detailing Los Angeles rates by subregion: https://products.xtown.la/coronavirus https://products.xtown.la/coronavirus For non-LA natives, the west side (near the coast) is considerably more affluent than the rest, and sees much lower rates. Even places like Palms and Brentwood which are packed with apartments seem to be doing alright relative to the rest.

15 points by cmurf 6y ago

Reasons given: colder, drier weather, false sense of confidence, people started to let their guard down, huge manufacturing sector, combination of poverty and density. I am not convinced LA was uniquely vulnerable given these reasons.

Mountain_Skies 6y ago
Unique? No, but it does point to the folly of trying to impose one size fits all solutions. What would work best in Los Angeles is not what would work best in Boomer, West Virginia or Atlanta, Idaho. How people live and interact are different in these places but instead of acknowledging that, we've had dictates come down from high above which demonize those who understand their communities better than someone living hundreds or thousands of miles away in very different conditions.
- jjeaff 6y ago
  No one is asking for one size fits all. Just a uniform set of guidelines that leaders form using public health, scientific and economic experts and that is then promoted as the right thing to do. This nonsense of having an expert stand at the podium and say we need to be wearing masks and then the president standing up and saying he's not going to wear one and it's not a big deal has been very, very destructive. Regardless of the initial mistakes of not promoting mask usage, once we knew that masks could help significantly, all our top leadership should have been on board and encouraging use through example and word. They were not and that alone has likely contributed to many thousands of unnecessary deaths.

ecf 6y ago

Oh look American exceptionalism has degraded into making excuses for why our situations are uniquely worse than any other place on Earth. Give me a break.

mariodiana 6y ago

Way back when all this started and the paper came out from the Imperial College, counseling social distancing and other non-pharmaceutical interventions, the idea was to make a priority of not overwhelming the hospitals. The thinking was that there was no reasonable way of stopping this, so the goal was to ensure as best as possible that no one died because they couldn't receive the supportive care they needed: meaning, because there was no ICU bed available for them. The lockdown mechanism was meant to be periodic and short-lived. We lockdown if we see hospitals are going to be overrun. Then, we open back up again. We don't sacrifice our economy — and our sanity — by keeping things shutdown long-term. We swallow hard and realize that people are going to die. We protect the vulnerable by encouraging them to take extra precautions. But what have we done instead? According to the article, we failed to take into account both the very real phenomenon of lockdown fatigue, and the phenomenon of simply kicking the can down the road: namely, avoiding more cases in the summer (via lockdowns) to then have them pile up in the winter. So, here we are in L.A. and elsewhere. Now, despite the draconian lockdowns and damage to the economy and people's sanity and general well-being, the hospitals are overwhelmed. Ambulances are circling, looking for an empty bed, while their patient-passengers gasp for air. The moral here is that politicians (and much of the populace) panicked and turned into obsessive-compulsives, convinced that if they only did that "one more thing," they could make everything right. And now we see how ridiculous that turned out to be.

lefrenchy 6y ago
How do you come out this end and think “we did too much”? We have definitive proof that we actually did too little. Look at S. Korea, New Zealand, Thailand, etc.. More contact tracing, stricter targeted lockdowns, paying people to stay home. The problem is that we didn’t do enough, instead we took half measures and took all the damage with barely any of the benefit. The idea that death was inevitable is wrong. There are plenty of nations and extremely dense cities with very low death numbers. Sure, Americans are higher risk because they are more obese (or so we think) but our death counts were avoidable.
- mariodiana 6y ago
  In the United States, our death count is skewed by a handful of cities, some of which represent some of the top destinations in the world. New York City gets 65 million visitors a year. Los Angeles get something like 50 million. All of South Korea — never mind Seoul — gets just under 18 million. And let's not even talk about New Zealand. Other than the hobbits, who's going there. In the United States our numbers are skewed by places like NYC and LA. The rest of the country is doing much, much better, overall. Moreover, we're a free country. Yes, I realize that, on paper, South Korea, Thailand, New Zealand are also. But the kind of contact tracing and other measures that has gone on in some of these countries is simply unacceptable here, and rightly so. I stand by what I've said. We are destroying this country in an effort to "save lives." Your suggestion is what? More destruction? If you read the original paper from the Imperial College, you'll note that death estimates in the United States were from 200 thousand (if we followed their recommendations) to 2.2 million (if we did nothing). Remember, these were estimates. But you will see that we are close to the low end in actual numbers. So, when you say that the idea of death being inevitable is simply wrong, what exactly are you basing that on? Can you answer that? Where do you come up with your assertion?

vondur 6y ago

Too many people living in too small of housing units. I see it near my house. Then many of these people lost their jobs due to the lockdowns, leaving them home. Lots of people were still having parties here too, you can hear them all the time.

SomeoneFromCA 6y ago

Big part of Latino culture is visiting each other, hugging, living in multi-generational dwelling. We've seen this in El Paso, same story in LA.

drzoltar 6y ago

For a stark reminder of the inequalities in Covid impact, there’s a nice map here detailing Los Angeles rates by subregion: https://products.xtown.la/coronavirus https://products.xtown.la/coronavirus For non-LA natives, the west side (near the coast) is considerably more affluent than the rest, and sees much lower rates. Even places like Palms and Brentwood which are packed with apartments seem to be doing alright relative to the rest.