The group in the picture above is just one of several I saw on my morning walk with Kara last Saturday. I wanted to make a couple of observations.
First, I honestly don’t see how social distancing can have much effect at all unless and until people are willing to lock their teenage children in their rooms. They are not adults and cannot be expected to be as responsible as adults. Heck, getting adults to act in a responsible manner is hard enough. I see no such willingness.
Second, to believe that social distancing even in slowing the rate of transmission of SARS-CoV02 can be effective you’ve got to make some pretty strong assumptions about human behavior, community spread of the virus, and networks that are simply not in evidence.
I think we’re fully committed what I consider the worst possible outcome—letting the virus run its course and attributing that natural course to the actions that have taken, viz. lockdowns, social distancing, wearing masks, etc.
From what I’ve read, there have been 0 deaths – zero – for teenagers from Kung Flu in the US who didn’t have a significant underlying medical condition. So why should they be subject to lockdown if they’re not particularly at risk?
Now keeping them away from people with co-morbidities, that’s something I’m fully in favor of. That was the insane thing about the universal lockdowns – healthy people were forced to remain at home while in some states recovering patients were forcibly returned to nursing homes where they infected the rest of the habitants. And worse once they realized it was happening the policies of re-injection didn’t change for weeks if not months. And now the governors responsible for the deaths are praised like Gods while those who did try to isolate nursing homes are Devils incarnate.
https://covidusa.net/?state=Florida
I’m sure the zero case rate for 6/22/20 is not accurate, probably not updated yet. As for the case load spike, I assume that was due to more testing as Florida’s economy opens up and people get tested before being allowed to return to work.
From earliest days I’ve pointed out that because compliance was a pipe dream due to (American) human nature the strategy was doomed to failure from the outset. I have been proven correct in spades. And at such horrific cost.
Moving on, the only rationale for severe lockdown that made sense was to avoid overwhelming the health care system. But that risk proved to be sensationalism in all but the grossly mismanaged venues. And the goal post changing started for political reasons.
Unspoken, but obvious, is that in the absence of a vaccine or highly effective treatment, people were/are eventually going to contract the virus. Only heard immunity or marshal law style quarantine will prevent that. We haven’t had marshal law, but we have seen the devastation rendered by severe lockdown. Its not an option.
For the vast majority, contracting the virus has been a nothingburger, including yours truly. For some, its been devastating. But the same can be said for almost all of life’s risks. We had best let this run its course with modest precautions: wash hands/perhaps masks/if you are age or comorbidity risked then somewhat isolate. Its what we did with the Hong Kong flu. And it worked without all the collateral damage.
Once again, the strategy should have been to focus on the most vulnerable, and call upon them to the degree they could to take responsibility for themselves. It would not have guaranteed safety. It simply would have been the most effective strategy from both an absolute and cost effective perspective. The lesson is clear, don’t let the local experts, in this case health care, dictate broad policy. I wouldn’t let a bunch of private equity guys dictate M&A policy either. Problem: nail. Solution: hammer etc etc (But what did I just describe? The regulatory framework of our country……. )
We can howl about reacting two – three weeks earlier and how the manufacturing base did not mobilize fast enough blah blah all we want. That’s political drivel. March 11: Fauci is telling people to calm down; all is well. Nancy is doing Chinatown, and Cuomo is making brain dead nursing home decisions. We never did the right thing, practically and from a common sense perspective right out of the box. Media, opportunists, politicians all in control.
There are your scoundrels. Same as it ever was.
And now we have NPR doctoring videos for political purposes………….. Sparkling.
All it takes is one of those kids to have COVID-19. He transmits it to the others who, when they return home, transmit it to their other family members including, possibly those who are immune-compromised or otherwise vulnerable.
It’s not just deaths, I think young people are far less likely to be infected and less likely to transmit. Those under 20, half as susceptible to infection as those over 20. I think the issue in the picture is that groups, even relatively small groups, will impede traffic so that others can’t social distance.
My annoyance with the closest Lowe’s is the large signs in the middle of large aisles telling everyone to stay six feet apart, the result is a narrowing and slowing of traffic flow around the signs that reduces social distancing.
One consideration is that WHO recommends social distancing of at least 1 meter (3.2 feet), and no European country uses six feet or more other than the U.K., which uses 2 meters for now. I suspect that the shorter distance would be fine outdoors, and might make traffic flow safer.
I presume the rationale for two meters (rather than one) is that the more distance the better. That might be true if we were talking about, say, 10 meters but I strongly suspect that there is no measurable reduction in contagion between one meter and two.
But there is a measurable difference in what it means to businesses. That extra meter is the difference between restaurants being viable or not.
I would add that one great complication in reading any study is that the diagnosis of COVID-19 varies from country to country. In at least one country of which I am aware there is no such thing as asymptomatic COVID-19—to be diagnosed as having the disease means that symptoms much be present.
The cumulative numbers of cases and deaths depends upon the number of susceptibles originally present. Lockdowns merely slow the spread; they do not reduce the cumulative numbers. What this means is that any second wave will be smaller than the first, because many susceptibles have already been removed from the population.
In this situation, the absolute possible outcome would be another lockdown. If that happens, and many governors and medical authorities are threatening it, the current brief Great Depression would be locked in for a decade.
Turchin, Strauss and Howe, Fischer, and Friedman have written books predicting extreme social disorder in the coming decade. They use historical cycles, generational psychological cycles, economics and patterns in American history to justify their predictions. Another lockdown would guarantee it.
“All it takes is one of those kids to have COVID-19. He transmits it to the others who, when they return home, transmit it to their other family members including, possibly those who are immune-compromised or otherwise vulnerable.”
And so what? The young have lives to lead, passions to follow, do you really expect them to forego that for granny? Don’t kid yourself.
or, said another way, social distancing is impractical.
If you are out in public, you are at risk. It’s not on them. It’s on you and me. To whatever degree you or I choose.
If you look at the US and around the world it is pretty clear that the lockdowns, social distancing, etc were pretty successful. As we get better data we can know how much each intervention contributed. What we know is that every first world country in the world did the same thing, and a lot of the 2nd and 3rd world countries. The ideological will try to blame it on Fauci, Pelosi, etc. (All while ignoring that the actual leader of the country was pretty much claiming it was all a hoax.)
“letting the virus run its course ”
Sort of correct. Lets not forget that by slowing spread we have probably saved thousands of lives already since it gave us the time to find that steroids have a positive effect. Beyond that, it is probably correct. There have been enough people who live in ignorance, see Drew above, spreading ideas that couldnt work but sound good. (A lot of fantasies sound good.) Then there are a lot of people like you who declare it isn’t science unless it works 100% of the time and you have perfect studies. If only biology worked that way, but it doesnt. So if we have another wave in the fall we arent going to see much in the way of government responses. I will go out on a limb here and predict that we will still have another economic slowdown as people, ala Sweden, stay at home and distance anyway.
Steve
The only thing we actually know for certain is that time passed. EVerything other than that is speculation.
I presume the rationale for two meters (rather than one) is that the more distance the better. That might be true if we were talking about, say, 10 meters but I strongly suspect that there is no measurable reduction in contagion between one meter and two.
You’re thinking of two people. Think of lots of people. Or even consider 3 people in a line. One meter of separation between people has the first and third person about 2 meters apart. If it’s two meters for everyone, then the outer two would be 4 meters apart, and surely that must help. Consider a group and two spatial dimensions instead of one, and the two meter recommendation spreads the groups out considerably more. You’re still close to that first group near you, but a good deal farther away from the second group, the third group you probably have to raise your voice a little for them to hear you, etc.
Like the masks, it’s not about absolute safety, it’s about decreasing transmission as much as practicably.
What this means is that any second wave will be smaller than the first, because many susceptibles have already been removed from the population.
That is not true at all. The second wave could well be worse than the first, as seen in the pandemic from a century ago.
TarsTarkas, the Florida numbers have often jumped around considerably from day to day, depending on the number of tests run and when the results are posted. In recent weeks it has been smother, as seen on the dashboard, but that only runs about 30 days. Back in March, April and the first half of May, the daily totals changed radically in both directions frequently.
In short, it’s just a random change until we see a trend.
“I presume the rationale for two meters (rather than one) is that the more distance the better.”
The old teaching for decreasing the spread of airborne disease was keeping a 3 foot distance. It was increased to 6 feet fairly recently. (Think it was due to SARS but would need to check.)
The number of cases in Florida varied but the rate of positive tests stayed the same, 6% of less for along time so for most of the time Ice was correct. However, the percentage of tests positive has increased to over 12%. That suggests this is not due to just increased numbers of tests.
https://www.wfla.com/community/health/coronavirus/florida-coronavirus-12-test-positive-as-state-adds-record-4049-new-cases/
Steve
Where did I say anything about % testing positive, you goddamned liar?