I'll continue my attempt to mostly do 1 major post in a given day in this thread. Let's call this one lessons and unknowns.
I reside in a New York county that was an early hot spot. The most updated seroprevalence testing suggest that up to about 25% of my county was already infected by coronavirus. Looking at the death numbers, that would suggest an infection fatality rate in my county of 0.6%.
Cases are now extremely low. With a population of about a million and now doing ample testing, our daily positivity rate is under 1%, under 50 new cases per day. And each new detected case leads to considerable contact tracing. We still have significant restrictions though most businesses are "open" with capacity limits. (though movie theaters and gyms remain closed).
So now, how's that relevant to the current situation in Florida and elsewhere.
The July "hot areas" appear to be starting to cool off. Arizona appears to actually be in decline. Texas and Florida have hit a plateau and possible early decline.
Some people are breathing a sigh of relief. (cases going down is certainly better than cases going up!)
A lot of people are looking at the curve from New York and the Northeast.... seeing it took about 4-6 weeks to get down to a pretty low baseline after the peak.
And people are assuming it will be the same curve in Florida and the other hot spots.
But that begs the question -- what led cases to drop off significantly in New York, etc, in 4-6 weeks? Are those same factors at play in Florida? Will Florida decline even more rapidly? Or will it have a longer plateau and slower decline? Or most dangerously, will it have a partial decline and then just start to rise again?
So comparing New York, including lessons from my own county, to Florida:
-- Factors in favor of a faster decline in Florida:
- We have learned lessons over time, we are better protecting our most vulnerable, we have "smarter" social distancing measures in place. (In a McDonalds recently, I was amazed at the huge hard-plastic wall separating the cashiers from the customers). While Florida is behind in contact tracing, they have more contact tracing in place now than NY did in April.
- The Florida (and Texas and Arizona) peaks are actually much shorter than NY's true peak. NY was detecting less than 1 in 10 infections with testing limits in April. Testing is still far from perfect, but has increased significantly. So while Florida now has more detected cases than NY's peak, the real peak is still significantly shorter.
--Factors in favor of longer plateau / slower decline in Florida.
- New York actually had so much infection, they "benefited" from mini-herd immunity. Not full herd immunity, but certain at-risk communities may actually have developed enough herd immunity that it sped up the decline. Florida potentially still has a lot more people who could still get infected.
- NY and the Northeast had huge declines over 6 weeks.... of largely being shut down. Florida is far more "open" today than NY was in April/May. For that matter, Florida in July is still more open than New York is now.
In all likelihood, cases and deaths in Florida will decline faster, the more you "lock down" and mitigate. Given the current level in the State, the curve over the next couple of months is really an "unknown." Will there be a significant decline over 4-6 weeks like we saw in New York? Or will there be a very long sustained plateau (or slow decline) as we see currently in Brazil.
Finally, an even bigger unknown -- I've seem some suggest and infer that this "wave" will be the last. That once it goes down, we will be done.
The danger to that thinking, is two-fold:
First -- we are not 1 region, we are multiple regions. Even if the "Northeast" was done in April/May, we saw the sunbelt get hit in June/July. And maybe it will be the center of the nation in August? And maybe South Florida would be done, but Central Florida is still going to eventually get a Miami-Dade type wave? And even if 25% seroprevalence provides some level of herd immunity, as in NY, that would mean you still have a long way to go in Florida, etc.
Second -- Even the areas that got his pretty hard, are things going to worsen in October? Just like the flu, will Covid transmission and effects be worse in the fall? Imagine what we are seeing now is the "low season" for Covid, how bad will things get in the high season? Is masking and some social-distancing going to be enough?
Nobody knows the answers to these questions. The experts can provide educated theories, they can do mathematical projections based on the best available evidence. But nobody knows with certainty. Which is why continued vigilance and caution must be a priority.
I reside in a New York county that was an early hot spot. The most updated seroprevalence testing suggest that up to about 25% of my county was already infected by coronavirus. Looking at the death numbers, that would suggest an infection fatality rate in my county of 0.6%.
Cases are now extremely low. With a population of about a million and now doing ample testing, our daily positivity rate is under 1%, under 50 new cases per day. And each new detected case leads to considerable contact tracing. We still have significant restrictions though most businesses are "open" with capacity limits. (though movie theaters and gyms remain closed).
So now, how's that relevant to the current situation in Florida and elsewhere.
The July "hot areas" appear to be starting to cool off. Arizona appears to actually be in decline. Texas and Florida have hit a plateau and possible early decline.
Some people are breathing a sigh of relief. (cases going down is certainly better than cases going up!)
A lot of people are looking at the curve from New York and the Northeast.... seeing it took about 4-6 weeks to get down to a pretty low baseline after the peak.
And people are assuming it will be the same curve in Florida and the other hot spots.
But that begs the question -- what led cases to drop off significantly in New York, etc, in 4-6 weeks? Are those same factors at play in Florida? Will Florida decline even more rapidly? Or will it have a longer plateau and slower decline? Or most dangerously, will it have a partial decline and then just start to rise again?
So comparing New York, including lessons from my own county, to Florida:
-- Factors in favor of a faster decline in Florida:
- We have learned lessons over time, we are better protecting our most vulnerable, we have "smarter" social distancing measures in place. (In a McDonalds recently, I was amazed at the huge hard-plastic wall separating the cashiers from the customers). While Florida is behind in contact tracing, they have more contact tracing in place now than NY did in April.
- The Florida (and Texas and Arizona) peaks are actually much shorter than NY's true peak. NY was detecting less than 1 in 10 infections with testing limits in April. Testing is still far from perfect, but has increased significantly. So while Florida now has more detected cases than NY's peak, the real peak is still significantly shorter.
--Factors in favor of longer plateau / slower decline in Florida.
- New York actually had so much infection, they "benefited" from mini-herd immunity. Not full herd immunity, but certain at-risk communities may actually have developed enough herd immunity that it sped up the decline. Florida potentially still has a lot more people who could still get infected.
- NY and the Northeast had huge declines over 6 weeks.... of largely being shut down. Florida is far more "open" today than NY was in April/May. For that matter, Florida in July is still more open than New York is now.
In all likelihood, cases and deaths in Florida will decline faster, the more you "lock down" and mitigate. Given the current level in the State, the curve over the next couple of months is really an "unknown." Will there be a significant decline over 4-6 weeks like we saw in New York? Or will there be a very long sustained plateau (or slow decline) as we see currently in Brazil.
Finally, an even bigger unknown -- I've seem some suggest and infer that this "wave" will be the last. That once it goes down, we will be done.
The danger to that thinking, is two-fold:
First -- we are not 1 region, we are multiple regions. Even if the "Northeast" was done in April/May, we saw the sunbelt get hit in June/July. And maybe it will be the center of the nation in August? And maybe South Florida would be done, but Central Florida is still going to eventually get a Miami-Dade type wave? And even if 25% seroprevalence provides some level of herd immunity, as in NY, that would mean you still have a long way to go in Florida, etc.
Second -- Even the areas that got his pretty hard, are things going to worsen in October? Just like the flu, will Covid transmission and effects be worse in the fall? Imagine what we are seeing now is the "low season" for Covid, how bad will things get in the high season? Is masking and some social-distancing going to be enough?
Nobody knows the answers to these questions. The experts can provide educated theories, they can do mathematical projections based on the best available evidence. But nobody knows with certainty. Which is why continued vigilance and caution must be a priority.
Last edited:
