Coronavirus and Walt Disney World general discussion

[DisneyCane]

Wyoming and Colorado are stubbornly continuing with 12 and 10 cases per 100,000. Washington, Nevada and West Virginia are at 8, Utah, Louisiana and Oregon are at 7. Since Florida is not reporting daily, I don't believe the Time's saying they are at 6 along with Alabama, Idaho, Montana and Missouri. However, that means 37 states and the District of Columbia are at 5 or less per 100,000. I am not minimizing the number of deaths but saying every death of someone with Covid19 is a Covid19 death is just crazy. YES I KNOW MOST ARE BUT NOT ALL. Anyway, deaths and hospitalizations are lagging indicators and will come down. What is known is that cases are coming down and even if one were to use the 12 cases per 100,000. there would only be 30 guests at WDW on Christmas based on 250,000 total guests, but using the national average there would only be 10. The numbers keep getting better and better, but. we should all kearn from this experience and stay cautious about our healrh and follow reasonable precautions, WASH YOUR HANDS, STAY AT HOME IF YOU ARE SICK AND DON'T COUGH OF OTHERS. Finally, I will never walk into a pharmacy without a mask on again. THERE ARE SICK PEOPLE PICKING UP PRESCRIPTIONS that they need and should get, so don't complain about that.

FL is really at a little under 8 per 100k. I'm guessing that through Friday, the times was putting in a daily number. There will always be a number for each seven day period posted on Friday which then provides a seven day average. It will only change once per week. Basically, once the data they are using starts including six days of zero and one day of a weekly total the seven day average will work out.

That’s a misnomer. The State of Florida never mattered to us here in South Florida with the most people and the most cases. Local government mandates kept Florida as a whole from having far worse numbers by keeping our mandates. And when the Governor () “invalidated” those mandates recently, we mostly ignored him and went on masking. 80-90% of people in a Publix supermarket are still masking down here.

We just went up to Sebastian, FL for the weekend and experienced a bit of culture shock: we walked into Publix and hardly anyone was masked. We stayed at a resort where there was some fishing tournament, and the restaurants were all packed for dinner, plus there was kind of an outdoor club connected to them. No one was masked, and the only reasons I felt comfortable staying was it was completely open-air, we were all vaccinated. But it was like being in another world.

Also, I had checked the stats. For June 23 (I think) we had over 200 new cases in Broward County (down a lot but still not insignificant, and higher than the 7 day average, which could indicate an increase.) Nearby Miami Dade was even higher, and Palm Beach, lower. These counties all have cross-traffic every day, so I check all three.

Indian River County, where we visited, had 10. Ten new cases in the whole county. Again, totally different world.

Of course it was largely the areas where the local government mandates were "saving" the State that had the worst "numbers" throughout the pandemic. It's only ceasing to be the case (on a per 100k level) now because those areas also have the highest vaccination rates. What saved the State (and the country) was the availability of highly effective vaccines, not local government mandates. Do you not see the irony that you are talking about Broward still having significant cases while people are still masking at 80-90% while pointing out that nobody is masking in Indian River County and they only had 10 cases?

There are a lot more variables at play than we like to think and the only "nuclear weapon" in the fight is vaccination.

As an aside, all parts of Broward County are not the same with respect to continued voluntary masking. I'm out west and Publix around here is around 50/50.

 

[GoofGoof]

According to CDC data, over 50% of the population of FL has had at least one dose. The high population counties are all above 40% vaccinated (at least one dose).

Even in the States with the highest levels of vaccination, I'm sure you can find several rural counties that too half,are low like the rural counties in FL. Notable exceptions being VT, ME and HI.

FL isn’t top half of states but isn’t bottom 10 either. I would say middle of the pack. There are many states far worse off. That being said it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. The government could and should make a little more effort to get more people in. FL is at 60.7% of adults with 1 shot. With an actual effort at increasing vaccinations I think they could get to 70%. At the current pace probably closer to 2/3 which still isn’t terrible.

My comment wasn‘t focused on just statewide numbers. In most states there are more rural counties with much lower rates. In PA where I am the state is at 72.1% of adults with 1 shot but there are counties with under 50% still. Thy are small rural counties that had very little impact from Covid. These places are ripe for an outbreak at some point.

 

[GoofGoof]

FL is really at a little under 8 per 100k. I'm guessing that through Friday, the times was putting in a daily number. There will always be a number for each seven day period posted on Friday which then provides a seven day average. It will only change once per week. Basically, once the data they are using starts including six days of zero and one day of a weekly total the seven day average will work out.

Of course it was largely the areas where the local government mandates were "saving" the State that had the worst "numbers" throughout the pandemic. It's only ceasing to be the case (on a per 100k level) now because those areas also have the highest vaccination rates. What saved the State (and the country) was the availability of highly effective vaccines, not local government mandates. Do you not see the irony that you are talking about Broward still having significant cases while people are still masking at 80-90% while pointing out that nobody is masking in Indian River County and they only had 10 cases?

There are a lot more variables at play than we like to think and the only "nuclear weapon" in the fight is vaccination.

As an aside, all parts of Broward County are not the same with respect to continued voluntary masking. I'm out west and Publix around here is around 50/50.

Do you not realize by now that the places with high population density will have more cases? His point stands. If businesses and local governments did not continue with mandates there would have been more cases and more death. That’s not really disputable.

 

[Jrb1979]

FL isn’t top half of states but isn’t bottom 10 either. I would say middle of the pack. There are many states far worse off. That being said it doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. The government could and should make a little more effort to get more people in. FL is at 60.7% of adults with 1 shot. With an actual effort at increasing vaccinations I think they could get to 70%. At the current pace probably closer to 2/3 which still isn’t terrible.

My comment wasn‘t focused on just statewide numbers. In most states there's are more rural counties with much lower rates. In PA where I am the state is at 72.1% of adults with 1 shot but there are counties with under 50% still. Thy are small rural counties that had very little impact from Covid. These places are ripe for an outbreak at some point.

Its why I think it's a mistake to focus so much on cases going down as being the only metric for ending this.

 

[DisneyCane]

Do you not realize by now that the places with high population density will have more cases? His point stands. If businesses and local governments did not continue with mandates there would have been more cases and more death. That’s not really disputable.

Of course I understand that and population density is one of the most important variables. My point was that there are a lot more variables than the pride of masking that effect the community spread. As I had repeatedly pointed out over the last year, Miami-Dade and Broward had the worst "numbers" in FL over the course of the pandemic despite having the most extreme mitigation.

 

[DisneyFan32]

South May See Summer Covid Surge as Vaccination Rates Lag

I got bad feeling about this: there may be surge in the South this summer. I hope the people will get vaccinated by late July or August to reach 70% for southern states soon.

 

[danlb_2000]

I was in Wawa yesterday a noticed a recruiting sign. Not only are they offering a signing bonus, but are also offering and extra bonus if you are vaccinated.

 

[danlb_2000]

Interesting pre-print article. They were looking at preserved samples of waste water from Barcelona, and detected SARS-COVID-2 in a sample from March 2019.

Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates the occurrence of COVID-19 cases

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported. Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater would enable adoption of immediate...

www.medrxiv.org

 

[GoofGoof]

Of course I understand that and population density is one of the most important variables. My point was that there are a lot more variables than the pride of masking that effect the community spread. As I had repeatedly pointed out over the last year, Miami-Dade and Broward had the worst "numbers" in FL over the course of the pandemic despite having the most extreme mitigation.

....and the most population density. You are drawing the conclusion that mitigations didn’t work because Miami had the most cases and the most mitigation and you are completely ignoring that it has the most population density as well. No rational person can conclude that Miami’s cases would have been better or even the same without mitigations. It’s a respiratory virus that spreads from person to person so the less people interact with others the less spread.

 

[Polkadotdress]

Interesting pre-print article. They were looking at preserved samples of waste water from Barcelona, and detected SARS-COVID-2 in a sample from March 2019.

Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates the occurrence of COVID-19 cases

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported. Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater would enable adoption of immediate...

www.medrxiv.org

This was in the comments of that paper:
"The authors of the paper have now published a second study that states their earliest positive sewage sample is from January 15th 2020 and does not make any reference to this preprint"

 

[hopemax]

Interesting pre-print article. They were looking at preserved samples of waste water from Barcelona, and detected SARS-COVID-2 in a sample from March 2019.

Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater anticipates the occurrence of COVID-19 cases

SARS-CoV-2 was detected in Barcelona sewage long before the declaration of the first COVID-19 case, indicating that the infection was present in the population before the first imported case was reported. Sentinel surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater would enable adoption of immediate...

www.medrxiv.org

There was one of these studies last year too. But the samples were destroyed in the process so there was no way to re-test to make sure that it was actually SARS-CoV-2 the test found and not another similar coronavirus. Looking at your link, it looks like it is the same thing but as PP mentioned they have a 2nd paper, with only the January 2020. I bet the media conflated the two...again.

I wouldn’t get too attached to the alternate conspiracy theory that it arrived earlier than we thought. As we’ve seen, consistently, where there is actual COVID, the bodies follow. This is not the evidence that disproves lab leak, although that seems to be today’s primary Twitter purpose.

 

[havoc315]

Have you looked at the curve? We aren’t going to steadily be giving 1.1 million first doses per day. It’s dropping fast. It was 2 million 1st doses per day just 2 weeks ago. In another week or 2, could easily be just 500,000 first doses per day.

If it starts to smooth out, maybe we hit 70% by mid June. If the decline continues, it could become difficult to ever hit 70%. (I earlier projected an expectation of getting 65-75% of adults vaccinated... I’d probably adjust that down to 63%-73%. 70% still possible but it’s on the more optimistic side).

Looking at my old posts.... early May, I suggested 70% by July was still possible but becoming less likely. Per recently analyses in the NYT and Washington Post, it's now looking like we will be between 66% to 68% by July nationwide. We may not hit 70%+ until the fall (I'm suspect some resurgences may push more people to get vaccinated).

But looking at my old posts, I see possible reason for optimism and celebration... My pessimism may have been correct about vaccination rates, but my optimism might have been more correct on cases..

I said, on April 21st:

Right now, the goal posts are what Israel and the UK are doing: 80%+ of adults, or whatever it takes to get to herd immunity... with daily cases under 5,000-10,000. (Equivalent of Israel right now, would be about 5,000 cases per day).

That's my goal post. In reality, I don't care about the vaccination numbers -- If we only vaccinated 40% of adults and we still got down to 1,000 Covid cases per day, I'll be celebrating the great victory. If we vaccinate 75% of adults but still have 20,000 cases per day, I'll be lamenting the great failure.

Here we are, 6 weeks later... the USA 7-day average is now slightly above 13,000 cases.
So we still haven't caught up to where Israel was 6 weeks ago. But we are well below the "20,000 would be a failure" number. And there is definitely a decent chance we will get to 5,000 or less by July.
I'll stand by my goal posts from 6 weeks ago..
Under 5,000-10,000 cases would be good, under 1,000 would be a true victory.

 

[danlb_2000]

This was in the comments of that paper:
"The authors of the paper have now published a second study that states their earliest positive sewage sample is from January 15th 2020 and does not make any reference to this preprint"

Yeah, it's interesting that they haven't withdrawn the pre-print paper.

 

[danlb_2000]

There was one of these studies last year too. But the samples were destroyed in the process so there was no way to re-test to make sure that it was actually SARS-CoV-2 the test found and not another similar coronavirus. Looking at your link, it looks like it is the same thing but as PP mentioned they have a 2nd paper, with only the January 2020. I bet the media conflated the two...again.

I wouldn’t get too attached to the alternate conspiracy theory that it arrived earlier than we thought. As we’ve seen, consistently, where there is actual COVID, the bodies follow. This is not the evidence that disproves lab leak, although that seems to be today’s primary Twitter purpose.

In this case they found two parts of the genome that were unique to Sars-cov-2 make it less likely it was mis-indetifiaction, although it's still possible it was sample contamination.

Not sure what you mean about the media conflating the two, the link I provided was to the actual paper, not a news story about it. I am not trying to promote an conspiracy theory, just presenting information.

 

[hopemax]

In this case they found two parts of the genome that were unique to Sars-cov-2 make it less likely it was mis-indetifiaction, although it's still possible it was sample contamination.

Not sure what you mean about the media conflating the two, the link I provided was to the actual paper, not a news story about it. I am not trying to promote an conspiracy theory, just presenting information.

I assumed you originally found the info via media reporting, and then do what I do, go to the original paper for sourcing because otherwise people get all in a tizzy about which outlet did the reporting. What made you seek out a paper with a date of June 13, 2020, and one we talked about the first time it made the rounds, and post the link to it today?

Now, that I'm not reading on my phone in bed, I see there is no new media reporting, only social media recently unearthing this old pre-print, which I suspect is due to wanting evidence against lab leak. It appears in their eagerness, no one bothered to check the current acceptance of the original supposition.

Here's the link to the 2nd paper, which only references January 15, 2020 as the "early samples." If the original authors have moved on, the rest of us should too.

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/AEM.02750-20

 

[havoc315]

 

[GoofGoof]

Looking at my old posts.... early May, I suggested 70% by July was still possible but becoming less likely. Per recently analyses in the NYT and Washington Post, it's now looking like we will be between 66% to 68% by July nationwide. We may not hit 70%+ until the fall (I'm suspect some resurgences may push more people to get vaccinated).

But looking at my old posts, I see possible reason for optimism and celebration... My pessimism may have been correct about vaccination rates, but my optimism might have been more correct on cases..

I said, on April 21st:



Here we are, 6 weeks later... the USA 7-day average is now slightly above 13,000 cases.
So we still haven't caught up to where Israel was 6 weeks ago. But we are well below the "20,000 would be a failure" number. And there is definitely a decent chance we will get to 5,000 or less by July.
I'll stand by my goal posts from 6 weeks ago..
Under 5,000-10,000 cases would be good, under 1,000 would be a true victory.

So we hit 68% by July 1 but it takes until Fall to hit 70%? Interesting.... so it will take 84 days to get those additional 5M people in. I will take the under on that one.

We may or may not hit 70% of adults with 1 shot by July 4 which was the arbitrary target date Biden set. 28 days to go still and 16M people. Pace of 571K a day needed on average. Probably depends on whether full authorization happens soon and how many additional states make some efforts. If we don’t hit July 4 I estimate we will be over 70% by end of July at the latest.

 

[havoc315]

So we hit 68% by July 1 but it takes until Fall to hit 70%? Interesting.... so it will take 84 days to get those additional 5M people in. I will take the under on that one.

We may or may not hit 70% of adults with 1 shot by July 4 which was the arbitrary target date Biden set. 28 days to go still and 16M people. Pace of 571K a day needed on average. Probably depends on whether full authorization happens soon and how many additional states make some efforts. If we don’t hit July 4 I estimate we will be over 70% by end of July at the latest.

You have repeatedly underestimated the degree to which voluntary vaccinations were slowing. Not along ago, you were saying even if it slowed significantly, we would still get to 70% by July 4th. (IIRC, you may have originally said we would get to 70% by end of May).

Numbers will continue to decline in all likelihood. Look at Israel… they have been stuck at the same vaccination level for the last month. Per Bloomberg, their “first shots” are now crawling at under 0.1% of the population per week.
We are at the point where almost all adults who want a vaccine, have gotten it.

So we are quickly entering the phase Israel is in. So yes… if we are at 67-68% by the end of June, at 0.1% per week, that’s another 20-30 weeks before we get to 70%.

I think it will be faster than 20-30 weeks, because FDA authorization may give a bump. Fall resurgences can give a bump. Dr. Gottlieb expects low vaccination over the summer but expects it to pick up over the fall:

Dr. Gottlieb: Fully vaccinated people should feel safe this summer but fall booster may be needed

Former FDA chief Dr. Scott Gottlieb told CNBC that vulnerable Americans, in particular, could need an additional Covid shot this fall.

www.google.com

So yes… I’ll take the bet that we are still under 70% by the end of July.

But hopefully it won’t matter. 70% isn’t a magical number.

 

[Parker in NYC]

Yay for non-vaccinated individuals in the UK. They bring good things to life.

 

[James J]

Yay for non-vaccinated individuals in the UK. They bring good things to life.

It's not necessarily the case that the people testing positive have chosen not to have the vaccine. We've been going through the age groups at a slower rate due to the very high take up, and only tomorrow will those aged 25-29 be able to book their first shots. I'm 30 next week and today have finally had my first dose of Pfizer.