Santa Clara County, California has reported a death due to COVID-19 that took place weeks before what had previously been presumed to be the first death due to the disease here in the U. S.:
Santa Clara County, CA – The County of Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner has identified three individuals who died with COVID-19 in Santa Clara County before the COVID-19 associated death on March 9, 2020, originally thought to be the first death associated with COVID-19 in the county.
The Medical Examiner-Coroner performed autopsies on two individuals who died at home on February 6, 2020 and February 17, 2020. Samples from the two individuals were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Today, the Medical Examiner-Coroner received confirmation from the CDC that tissue samples from both cases are positive for SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).
Additionally, the Medical Examiner-Coroner has also confirmed that an individual who died in the county on March 6 died of COVID-19.
February 6 is three weeks earlier than what had thought to be the first death due to SARS-CoV-2. That is additional confirmation of the point I have been making for some time. Without China’s being much more forthcoming weeks earlier than they actually were any prospect for avoiding an outbreak of COVID-19 here in the states depends on assumptions unrealistic in the extreme.
I think that “unrealistic assumptions” will be the story of the handling of this pandemic from end to end, not limited to the United States. The word I’m getting now is that India, which issued a countywide “stay at home” directive several weeks ago, is about to surrender and just let the disease run its course.
So, what next? I would think that the experience of Florida, which initiated “stay at home” directives much later than in other jurisdictions and the incidence and mortality due to COVID-19 are an order of magnitude lower than in New York, suggests that whatever is happening in the U. S., it cannot be attributed to “stay at home” directives alone.
Just to reinforce your point, the person who died Feb 6 would probably have been infected say Jan 20 – before the China travel ban.
So much of our strategy amounts to shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted. Chinese lies didn’t help, but I wonder if they’d been upfront from the start whether we still would have taken decisive enough action soon enough. Human brains just don’t grok phenomena that grow exponentially. In the early phases when it looks like nothing, how do you create enough support for radical action?
There seem to be more and more evidence, called current day data, indicating this virus to have a much lower mortality rate than what the computer models initially predicted. However, it was this earlier science-based siren, blaring and forecasting massive deaths, that pulled our entire economy into the basement huddling in fear. Most people are still there, paralyzed by the deluge of media telling people it will be all right if, together, we just stay the course, into infinity, until they tell us it’s ok to ascend out of our bunkers.
Those who defy these orders are being called “terrorists,†or simply suicidal. It’s the same pattern followed by climate change advocates, “believe and do as I do, or else you will deservedly be ranked lower than slime.†Free debate without derision? That doesn’t exist anymore.
The data is bad, The models are bad. The thinking of “experts” is flawed. Its a carnival. And the poor bastards who have suffered most really have no say. Nancy eats gourmet ice cream.
As I noted in week one: something is wrong here. It stinks.
This story is a mind-bender.
Feb 6 is when the first case died. It takes an average of two weeks from infection to death, so they got infected Jan 24. It is likely they did not travel back from China, so the index case came back even earlier.
In other words — this was before the testing issues with CDC and the travel ban.
They should genome sequence the virus from these cases and see its relationship with the Seattle index case and other cases in California.
It leads to another question — if the virus was spreading undetected in Santa Clara for roughly the same amount of time as Seattle, New York, how come Santa Clara didn’t have an outbreak?
“in New York, suggests that whatever is happening in the U. S., it cannot be attributed to “stay at home†directives alone.”
Why yes, Florida is just like NYC. I still remember all that time I spent waiting on the subway in Tampa when I was stationed at MacDill.
” into infinity, until they tell us it’s ok to ascend out of our bunkers.”
Who is advocating that we stay in lockdown for infinity?
“blaring and forecasting massive deaths”
If we didnt mitigate. We performed the experiment of not mitigating in NYC. Wasn’t pretty. UK performed the experiment of delayed mitigation. Not pretty.
” how come Santa Clara didn’t have an outbreak?”
Luck? If asocial computer geek goes to China for tech meeting then comes back to his asocial lifestyle, you probably dont get an outbreak. If Jonny social organizer comes back you get an outbreak. OR, maybe they missed a lot of other people who died and didnt test.
Steve
It is highly unlikely Santa Clara missed an outbreak because it because of underreporting or under-testing.
Seattle and New York had a flood of people going into the hospital — so many that it made the news, like every place where the virus has hit hard (Lombardy, Madrid, London, Wuhan, etc). Or it would show up as excess deaths in overall mortality figures like New York. Neither things occurred in Santa Clara.
Seattle has no lack of programmers either — the first index case there worked for Amazon.
If chance plays a much bigger role then is acknowledged, then we maybe in the biggest placebo experiment in history.
“If chance plays a much bigger role then is acknowledged”
At the beginning. Once established it would be much less of a factor. Ina larger group of people they act like average people. In a group of one or two their behavior can be much different than average.
Steve
You are dodging two questions, steve. The first is “why is NY such an outlier?” Chicago has mass transit and much close in living. So do Miami and San Francisco. They even have high rise buildings and shit….
Second, predicted Florida covid hospitalizations were something like 450,000 by April 25 or some such. Actual: a couple thousand. Whatup with that? I suppose we could have 445,000 hospitalizations in the next three days. I suppose……
Where did I dodge NYC? I have specifically criticized Cuomo and Deblasio for telling people to keep partying and not locking down. NYC is what you get when you have a dense city that does not mitigate early. San Fran closed early. Miami has mass transit on the scale of NYC? Really? Been a long time since I was there. (You do know that sunshine kills the virus?)
Who predicted that Florida would have 445,000 hospitalizations? Every time, and by that i mean 100%, I can look at the original study I find they dont say what you guys claim it says.
Steve
I gather from your sarcasm that you missed all of the criticism that was leveled at the governor of Florida because he did not impose the same “stay at home” directives in that state that the governors of New York and Illinois did in theirs.
I don’t think you can reasonably have it both ways. Either different measures are completely appropriate in different states or they aren’t.
I think you keep confusing me with other people. I don’t care if we use different approaches, I just want us to be honest about the trade offs. Take Sweden. I think it is the only country in the world where more than 50% of households have one person. They have high social cohesion and trust government. So if you wanted to try voluntary social distancing that was probably the place to try it, but we should note that the cost is death rates twice as high as their neighbors, so far. You wont find any writings by me criticizing the Florida governor, though I would have done it differently. I would have locked down the cities, or at least Miami early. Of course there is still the risk that people drive back and forth from the urban areas but as long as they take that risk knowingly and, I hope, try to monitor it some way and are prepared to change if needed, I am OK with that. It is the Sunshine state and that kills the virus after all.
Steve