5 ms·

> observational data show that regions or facilities with a higher percentage of the population wearing masks have better control of the coronavirus disease Wh

> observational data show that regions or facilities with a higher percentage of the population wearing masks have better control of the coronavirus disease Which is also not entirely true. There are quite a lot of regions (data from worldometer, statista) that have a better control of the virus despite people not giving a crap about face masks. For instance, Florida has 1600 deaths/M vs 3000 deaths/M in New Jersey. What'd be the explanation?

deleted 5y ago
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fancifalmanima 5y ago
https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-jersey/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-jersey/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ It looks like New Jersey was hit early on (when it was also rampant in New York) and Florida got hit later. It could be that hospitals do better at treating it now. Obviously that's speculative. But there are like 30 things I could think of that would make it difficult to make direct comparisons between states. Climate is another one -- Florida is nice all year round, so you can have family/friend gatherings outdoors. I also live in a warm state, and we've just done family/friend stuff outside, even Christmas. At this point we do things indoors when everyone there is vaccinated, and outdoors otherwise. In the case of Florida, turns out all those people that ignored restrictions and went to the beach were something like like 20x less likely to spread it than people spending time indoors. Again... speculative. Point being, you'd have to somehow have the data you need to properly control for a multitude of factors if you wanted to make direct comparisons (including some solid reasoning on what to control for).
boplicity 5y ago
I don't understand this myth about Florida. It has fared very badly in the pandemic. You're three times as likely to have died in Florida from COVID, as opposed to in Canada. It sits in the middle of the States, in terms of death rates, which overall have been among the worst in the world. Compare your example to an area where people really take masking serious, such as Hong Kong, and then maybe you'll have a valid comparison.
- andreygrehov 5y ago
  It's not a myth. I'm looking at statistics right now. A myth is that Florida has fared very badly (most likely a politically inspired myth). Compared to other states, it hasn't. It's indeed in the middle, meaning that Florida does better than half the states of the USA. It's on par with California numbers, but I've never heard anyone (in the media) slamming very badly on Cali. I honestly don't believe that a mask can make such a MASSIVE difference when it comes to Hong Kong vs USA numbers. I don't have the answer, but it's something else, something foundationally different that makes them less prone to catching the virus. Genetics? No idea. I mean, c'mon, I can smell literally everything around me when I'm wearing a mask, but it protects from a virus? I'm not an expert by any means, but something tells me it's a joke.
  - logicchains 5y ago
    > I don't have the answer, but it's something else, something foundationally different that makes them less prone to catching the virus. Compare China to the US on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r... . Obesity is the second biggest contributor to covid severity after age.
  - boplicity 5y ago
    I think you missed my point that the United States has fared very badly and that Florida sits right in the middle of the pack, in the States. California has fared very badly as well, but that's a separate point. I think many Americans are so insular, they forget there's more to the world than just the States.
    - chrismcb 5y ago
      US hasn't fared that badly, they are in the middle, as far as per population goes. But that isn't really the point, it maybe it is. The point is that comparing California and Florida, they did roughly the same, despite attacking the issue differently. This isn't to say how well Florida or California did compared to the rest of the world.
- 5y ago
henrikschroder 5y ago
I think it's hilarious that everyone who commented on this completely ignored your given examples of Florida and New Jersey, and instead chose to compare Florida to completely different places, that just-so happen to make Florida look bad. Regardless of strategy, every country in the northern hemisphere that had a decent number of cases in spring 2020, got absolutely hammered in winter 2020. Of course there are examples of regions where the one with more restrictions got a better result than the one with less. But there are simply way too many counter-examples where regions that did more, tried more, had more restrictions, still got a similar or worse outcome than comparable regions that didn't. Here's a pretty fun quiz that highlights this complete lack of correlations in the actual data: https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/ https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/

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fancifalmanima 5y ago

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-jersey/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/new-jersey/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/usa/florida/ It looks like New Jersey was hit early on (when it was also rampant in New York) and Florida got hit later. It could be that hospitals do better at treating it now. Obviously that's speculative. But there are like 30 things I could think of that would make it difficult to make direct comparisons between states. Climate is another one -- Florida is nice all year round, so you can have family/friend gatherings outdoors. I also live in a warm state, and we've just done family/friend stuff outside, even Christmas. At this point we do things indoors when everyone there is vaccinated, and outdoors otherwise. In the case of Florida, turns out all those people that ignored restrictions and went to the beach were something like like 20x less likely to spread it than people spending time indoors. Again... speculative. Point being, you'd have to somehow have the data you need to properly control for a multitude of factors if you wanted to make direct comparisons (including some solid reasoning on what to control for).

boplicity 5y ago

I don't understand this myth about Florida. It has fared very badly in the pandemic. You're three times as likely to have died in Florida from COVID, as opposed to in Canada. It sits in the middle of the States, in terms of death rates, which overall have been among the worst in the world. Compare your example to an area where people really take masking serious, such as Hong Kong, and then maybe you'll have a valid comparison.

andreygrehov 5y ago
It's not a myth. I'm looking at statistics right now. A myth is that Florida has fared very badly (most likely a politically inspired myth). Compared to other states, it hasn't. It's indeed in the middle, meaning that Florida does better than half the states of the USA. It's on par with California numbers, but I've never heard anyone (in the media) slamming very badly on Cali. I honestly don't believe that a mask can make such a MASSIVE difference when it comes to Hong Kong vs USA numbers. I don't have the answer, but it's something else, something foundationally different that makes them less prone to catching the virus. Genetics? No idea. I mean, c'mon, I can smell literally everything around me when I'm wearing a mask, but it protects from a virus? I'm not an expert by any means, but something tells me it's a joke.
- logicchains 5y ago
  > I don't have the answer, but it's something else, something foundationally different that makes them less prone to catching the virus. Compare China to the US on: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_obesity_r... . Obesity is the second biggest contributor to covid severity after age.
- boplicity 5y ago
  I think you missed my point that the United States has fared very badly and that Florida sits right in the middle of the pack, in the States. California has fared very badly as well, but that's a separate point. I think many Americans are so insular, they forget there's more to the world than just the States.
  - chrismcb 5y ago
    US hasn't fared that badly, they are in the middle, as far as per population goes. But that isn't really the point, it maybe it is. The point is that comparing California and Florida, they did roughly the same, despite attacking the issue differently. This isn't to say how well Florida or California did compared to the rest of the world.
5y ago

henrikschroder 5y ago

I think it's hilarious that everyone who commented on this completely ignored your given examples of Florida and New Jersey, and instead chose to compare Florida to completely different places, that just-so happen to make Florida look bad. Regardless of strategy, every country in the northern hemisphere that had a decent number of cases in spring 2020, got absolutely hammered in winter 2020. Of course there are examples of regions where the one with more restrictions got a better result than the one with less. But there are simply way too many counter-examples where regions that did more, tried more, had more restrictions, still got a similar or worse outcome than comparable regions that didn't. Here's a pretty fun quiz that highlights this complete lack of correlations in the actual data: https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/ https://www.covidchartsquiz.com/