5 ms·

I don't know. We had some of the highest mask wearing percentages in the country here in Southern California, yet some of the highest infection rates in the wor

by vondur 5y ago

I don't know. We had some of the highest mask wearing percentages in the country here in Southern California, yet some of the highest infection rates in the world. Something isn't adding up here. I'm guessing if everyone had N95 masks, we would have seen lower numbers however. I don't think the average cloth masks that people are wearing are very effective.

omginternets 5y ago
Could it have to do with population density (perhaps even only in certain areas)? My reasoning is that you could have high transmission among the minority that doesn't wear masks, and that might suffice to make the absolute case-load quite high.
- nostrebored 5y ago
  Counterpoint: Miami
  - dragonwriter 5y ago
    Miami-Dade County, FL has a little under half the cumulative confirmed cases as Los Angeles County, CA (500K vs. 1.2M) with a little over a quarter the population (2.7M vs. 10M), for a much higher per capita rate. So...how is it a counterpoint? (Case numbers from usafacts.org.)
    - beagle3 5y ago
      I don’t know the details here, but in the Israel vs Sweden comparison, absolute numbers favor Israel (7000 vs 14000 dead) but age normalized are the same (Sweden has about twice as many >60), and in European normalized excess death measures from Oxford, Sweden is at 2% and Israel at 6% Personally, I try to only use excess death figures, because case counts are not comparable due to local policies. E.g. once vaccination started, Israel categorically stopped testing vaccinees unless they show clear covid symptoms; whereas it demands weekly test from many unvaccinated even though they have no symptoms.
      - dragonwriter 5y ago
        > Personally, I try to only use excess death figures, because case counts are not comparable due to local policies. Deaths are great measure of how bad you’ve been hit overall, but even if they (when you use excess rather than COVID-attributed deaths) are arguably more reliable numbers, they are a much worse proxy when you are trying to compare effectiveness specifically of infection control measures..That’s because they are extremely sensitive to when a region was hit during the pandemic (because we learned a lot about treatment over time), geographic distribution and time concentration of infections compared to local healthcare infrastructure (was treatment capacity exceeded anywhere, and by how much for how long?), as well as the population age distribution that you can try to adjust for by age normalization.
        beagle3 5y ago
        It is far from perfect; and yet, it's the only metric comparable between different countries, assuming you can trust death counts -- which I do for most countries. It's not a good proxy, but there is no better one that I've found (nor that I'm aware anyone else has found). Every other measure has all of the problems you listed, and in addition it is subject to testing policy differences (including who to test, cycle threshold, and other variables), diagnostic policy differences (e.g., in the UK, death within 28 days of a positive PCR test is classified as death from corona, regardless of what happened since; Death more than 24 hours from a vaccine is assumed unrelated to the vaccine), and explicit number fudging.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > it’s the only metric comparable between different countries There are a near infinite array of othere measures besides exceess deaths that are both comparable between countries and not, even approximately, measuring the thing being discussed, which is COVID infections, like GDP per capita PPP.
        beagle3 5y ago
        Not sure what you are trying to say here. Let's try again. Are you aware of any other metric for covid infection, comparable between different countries? Please pay attention to the examples I already gave about how numbers from Israel and the UK make, specifically, "cases" and "deaths from covid" non-comparable. And remember that I do not dispute that "excess death" is far from perfect. My claim is that -- inherently -- every other measure of covid infection suffers from the same problems that "excess death" does, and then some.
- astrange 5y ago
  In NYC the less dense areas had worse infections. The problem in California might be crowding, ie it's not designed for the population density and so everyone has roommates or lives with an extended family. That would cause more indoor transmission, and I believe a lot of cases in CA were among working class people and Latinos.
AuryGlenz 5y ago
Could it be that Southern California believes in masks too much? As in, they weren’t as cautious in other ways?
awb 5y ago
I wonder how much super spreaders affect outbreaks. Let’s say LA had 50 super spreaders vs. 25 in SF. I’d expect LA to have more than 2x the cases because of the exponential spread of the virus. And I think the idea behind masks was not that they’re a cure, but a 2nd best option if the best option of social distancing isn’t possible. And even if they’re 30% effective, the idea is to get R (the number of subsequent people an infected person goes on to infect) to go down. Because a 30% reduction in transmission has a huge effect over time, even if it’s not perfect.
- froh 5y ago
  super spreaders and super spreader events are key to transmission, like indoor singing hallelujah or indoor family gatherings happy birthday granny or schooling, Kindergarden, you get the gist... indoor and speaking/singing is the key combination for aerosol based transmission.
- cr1895 5y ago
  Zeynep Tufecki described this phenomenon in the Atlantic, going into its overdispersed nature of spreading and how most infections don’t result in a spread to others, but some circumstances become super-spreading events with an outsize impact: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overloo...
bagacrap 5y ago
how do you measure mask wearing percentages? Socal seemed to have a lot of unmasked private gatherings throughout the pandemic. The draconian lockdown measures just pushed the spread underground.

by vondur 5y ago

omginternets 5y ago

Could it have to do with population density (perhaps even only in certain areas)? My reasoning is that you could have high transmission among the minority that doesn't wear masks, and that might suffice to make the absolute case-load quite high.

nostrebored 5y ago
Counterpoint: Miami
- dragonwriter 5y ago
  Miami-Dade County, FL has a little under half the cumulative confirmed cases as Los Angeles County, CA (500K vs. 1.2M) with a little over a quarter the population (2.7M vs. 10M), for a much higher per capita rate. So...how is it a counterpoint? (Case numbers from usafacts.org.)
  - beagle3 5y ago
    I don’t know the details here, but in the Israel vs Sweden comparison, absolute numbers favor Israel (7000 vs 14000 dead) but age normalized are the same (Sweden has about twice as many >60), and in European normalized excess death measures from Oxford, Sweden is at 2% and Israel at 6% Personally, I try to only use excess death figures, because case counts are not comparable due to local policies. E.g. once vaccination started, Israel categorically stopped testing vaccinees unless they show clear covid symptoms; whereas it demands weekly test from many unvaccinated even though they have no symptoms.
    - dragonwriter 5y ago
      > Personally, I try to only use excess death figures, because case counts are not comparable due to local policies. Deaths are great measure of how bad you’ve been hit overall, but even if they (when you use excess rather than COVID-attributed deaths) are arguably more reliable numbers, they are a much worse proxy when you are trying to compare effectiveness specifically of infection control measures..That’s because they are extremely sensitive to when a region was hit during the pandemic (because we learned a lot about treatment over time), geographic distribution and time concentration of infections compared to local healthcare infrastructure (was treatment capacity exceeded anywhere, and by how much for how long?), as well as the population age distribution that you can try to adjust for by age normalization.
      - beagle3 5y ago
        It is far from perfect; and yet, it's the only metric comparable between different countries, assuming you can trust death counts -- which I do for most countries. It's not a good proxy, but there is no better one that I've found (nor that I'm aware anyone else has found). Every other measure has all of the problems you listed, and in addition it is subject to testing policy differences (including who to test, cycle threshold, and other variables), diagnostic policy differences (e.g., in the UK, death within 28 days of a positive PCR test is classified as death from corona, regardless of what happened since; Death more than 24 hours from a vaccine is assumed unrelated to the vaccine), and explicit number fudging.
        dragonwriter 5y ago
        > it’s the only metric comparable between different countries There are a near infinite array of othere measures besides exceess deaths that are both comparable between countries and not, even approximately, measuring the thing being discussed, which is COVID infections, like GDP per capita PPP.
        beagle3 5y ago
        Not sure what you are trying to say here. Let's try again. Are you aware of any other metric for covid infection, comparable between different countries? Please pay attention to the examples I already gave about how numbers from Israel and the UK make, specifically, "cases" and "deaths from covid" non-comparable. And remember that I do not dispute that "excess death" is far from perfect. My claim is that -- inherently -- every other measure of covid infection suffers from the same problems that "excess death" does, and then some.
astrange 5y ago
In NYC the less dense areas had worse infections. The problem in California might be crowding, ie it's not designed for the population density and so everyone has roommates or lives with an extended family. That would cause more indoor transmission, and I believe a lot of cases in CA were among working class people and Latinos.

AuryGlenz 5y ago

Could it be that Southern California believes in masks too much? As in, they weren’t as cautious in other ways?

awb 5y ago

I wonder how much super spreaders affect outbreaks. Let’s say LA had 50 super spreaders vs. 25 in SF. I’d expect LA to have more than 2x the cases because of the exponential spread of the virus. And I think the idea behind masks was not that they’re a cure, but a 2nd best option if the best option of social distancing isn’t possible. And even if they’re 30% effective, the idea is to get R (the number of subsequent people an infected person goes on to infect) to go down. Because a 30% reduction in transmission has a huge effect over time, even if it’s not perfect.

froh 5y ago
super spreaders and super spreader events are key to transmission, like indoor singing hallelujah or indoor family gatherings happy birthday granny or schooling, Kindergarden, you get the gist... indoor and speaking/singing is the key combination for aerosol based transmission.
cr1895 5y ago
Zeynep Tufecki described this phenomenon in the Atlantic, going into its overdispersed nature of spreading and how most infections don’t result in a spread to others, but some circumstances become super-spreading events with an outsize impact: https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overlooked-variable-driving-pandemic/616548/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/09/k-overloo...

bagacrap 5y ago

how do you measure mask wearing percentages? Socal seemed to have a lot of unmasked private gatherings throughout the pandemic. The draconian lockdown measures just pushed the spread underground.