Fun with COVID-19 reporting in MA (and elsewhere)

I saw a post about how much people on the Right were/are so upset about what happened in response to Covid. On the one hand, yes, I agree. On the other, I don't care. Oh my god I don't care. We accepted the premise and this is the result. "There were lock downs" no, there weren't. "There were mask mandates" there are other clothing mandates that you don't care about. "The vaccine mandates" were limited to where you worked. "I don't like masks" you also don't like moving somewhere else to smoke. "the lock downs!" again, in the US, we didn't have any. You were free to go wherever. We closed down business and government buildings. We did not stop deliveries, we did not stop you from going outside, we did not stop you from hanging out with friends. You're a snowflake that doesn't understand what a lockdown is. "I can't breathe in a mask" oh stop now. The long and short of it is t...

I'm reminded of a quote from The West Wing episode Inauguration Part 2: Over There  "We're for freedom of speech everywhere. We're for freedom to worship everywhere. We're for freedom to learn... for everybody. And because in our time, you can build a bomb in your country and bring it to my country, what goes on in your country is very much my business. And so we are for freedom from tyranny, everywhere"...  In this day, the increased risk one person takes with COVID-19 gets brought home and circulated to everybody else in their home and likely also to other events that person is going to. Spread begets spread, regardless of how severe the symptoms are, regardless of whether there are long-term impacts to the initial node in the network, it's still spread. And for those of us aware of the potential long term impacts have even a mild case of COVID-19, as well for as those of us who are at greater risk for reasons as common as being overweight or having diab...

I'm listening to NPR's podcast Throughline. It's a great series. But... I just got to March 2020. You'll never guess what topic has come up. Ok, first, I'm not really paying attention to when the podcast came out and at the end of one recent episode the hosts said "Stay safe" "really" and it was so different from the usual sign off, especially the intonation of "really" and I thought to myself "oh, I've made it to pandemic time" and sure enough, the podcast had been released on March 19. But here's the thing... here's the really depressing and enraging thing: in the next episode, "1918 Flu", they had on someone who walked them through the similarities and differences between COVID-19 and the 1918 Flu and he said that he was hopeful about how we might all come together and realize that we need to not just protect the most vulnerable but that we need to come together and protect everyone. And I rememb...

Just saw an email from WBUR that said Baker trying to get local colleges to relax their masking rules is an effort to move toward an "endemic-like approach"... but here's the thing... something being endemic just means it's going to continue to be here, not that we shouldn't respond to it being here. My having diabetes isn't going to change, but that doesn't mean I'm not going to do what I can to mitigate the impact it has on my overall health and wellbeing.   Admittedly, Accidents is now the fourth leading cause of death (having been overtaken by quite a bit by COVID-19 last year unless accidents doubled their usual count in the same year), but does anybody think we should get rid of seat belts, airbags, crumple zones... despite the fact that accidents will continue to kill thousands of people each year even with these precautions in place? If we continue to mask-up (and take other precautions), that reduces the spread and contains the virus so that t...

"if not [removing the mask mandate] now, when?"... "How about when we get to levels that are on par with what we saw last summer, or roughly 1/10 of what we see today, so that spread continues to drop and we get out of the CDC's highest level of transmission before determine that we will no longer try to reduce further? How does that sound? Or maybe when we get the death rate down to single digits per day again? Even if we're not going to aim for 1 death per day perhaps we can aim lower than low double-digits per day (currently at about 40 per day but dropping)? How about we wait until cases per day fall to a much more reasonable count (right now we're at around 30 times what we were last summer and still in the ballpark of the first wave's peak... and that's without all cases being reported since home-testing isn't in those figures unless the person then goes and gets tested more formally)? How about when hospitals aren't still crowded a...

A few thoughts on what happens if COVID-19 becomes endemic.... So, first off, vaccination rates.  You may be thinking that as we live with COVID-19, people will accept the vaccines and accept that COVID-19 is a serious enough illness to take, you know, seriously.  I would argue that after a year and a half, if people aren't taking it seriously yet, it's unlikely they'll start.  So what could potentially increase our vaccination rates if people refuse to take it seriously?  Well, one option is mandates.  We're seeing more and more requirements around people being vaccinated in different settings, and these may continue to increase.  Yes, people balk at them and raise hell over their rights, but some will use it as an excuse to get vaccinated when it's not socially acceptable to do so otherwise.  Having the vaccinations be required for college settings will help too given the idea that is prevalent that with youth comes less risk, but if you need to get ...

I recently heard someone say that this was the new normal.  I've heard this a lot recently and there are 2 responses that are quite distinct.  One group of Left leaning friends has said that because the current situation is the new normal, we should just go back to the old way of doing things and not try to do things to minimize the harm.  But that's not what this person, the new Governor of NY, was saying.  Instead, they were saying that we must adapt... not return to life as usual but find a way to deal with the new normal in a way that minimizes the threats we face. That's right, this post is about comparing COVID-19 to climate change.   There are long term efforts and short term efforts that can be applied to each.  At this point we can't just work on the long term efforts to reduce the harm of climate change.  We have to also focus on mitigation of the changing patterns.  Places like New York need to accept that there will be a lot of floodin...

Right now, of the 50 states in the US, 5 or 6 have started to decrease their spread of COVID-19 in their most recent wave (it's a little too soon to tell for Georgia but we can hope for them) and 6 or 7 have plateaued at levels close to or above their first wave (Kentucky is that 7th where it's too soon again). Here in MA, we have no apparent intention of doing anything state-wide to curb our steady increasing spread.  As we enter the school year, we're re-opening even more networks for the virus to spread and many are fighting to allow the virus easier access through those networks. But this isn't all that worries me.  Winter is coming. We're back to over 90% of our non-ICU hospital beds being in use (currently at 90.9% state-wide, 95.6% in Metro Boston).  It appears to be only a matter of time before we'll need to re-open a field hospital or two... but where will we put them with everything re-opened?  Last fall we were able to use convention centers because t...

Ok, elephant in the room time... Baker has decided that we can stop all precautions meant to stem the spread of COVID-19.  This is because we have been driving down cases and because the vaccines are readily available. Ok, except... Past is prologue - we've seen cases drop and rise before.  We pushed cases down last summer to under 200 cases per day in MA and, while starting to re-open, saw the spread increase.  Past is prologue, we didn't close anything down until we saw cases way surpass the first wave's peak. It's not all about those who choose not to be vaccinated... we still have kids who just recently were made eligible and have a month to go before they would be eligible to be fully vaccinated AND we still have younger kids who aren't yet eligible to get vaccinated at all.  Essentially you're saying that those kids can be damned because it's time to re-open.  Essentially you're saying you're fine with the kids that will die and the many more t...

The CDC recently came out with guidance saying it is ok for fully vaccinated people to go maskless in most outdoor spaces and some indoor spaces (no, not all outdoor spaces and certainly not all indoor spaces as it has been simplified by the news and individuals to suggest). This makes sense because it is indeed safe for the person who is vaccinated in that they are protected from severe illness by the vaccine(s).  It also makes sense because we want as many people to get vaccinated so the more incentives we can give people the better.  The vaccines appear to reduce spread and with less spread comes fewer impacted by long-haul illnesses, fewer immunocompromised getting severely ill, as well as fewer chances of mutations that the vaccines are less effective at protecting us against. So there you have it, the CDC guidance makes sense. Oh, did you think I was going to explain how the downsides of the CDC guidance shift? Did you think I was going to point out that the CDC guidance...

I want to predict that this summer will see daily case counts averaging lower than last summer.  That we'll continue to see the current trend downward continue through June like we did last year and potentially only slowly increase again in July and August. I would not be completely unreasonable for predicting this either, for a variety of reasons. I want to predict this but it is just so far from a foregone conclusion.   A year ago, we were still (for the most part) actively trying to do less risky activity.  We still had some businesses closed.  We had many restrictions on those businesses that were open.   There was a sense that we were improving, and many in late May/June started to say that things were indeed better and gleefully announcing the top-page reporting numbers since they were suggesting the situation was much better than if you took more than a minute to look at it.  But this sense was tampered among many and the restrictions caused many to ...

I recently saw someone comment online that when Israel got to just about 50% fully vaccinated, their cases fell off a cliff.  I figured I'd take a moment to look at Israel's lock-down from this past winter.   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_Israel#Third_wave At first, they went into a bit of a lockdown... Traveling limited to 1,000 meter radius from home (individual sporting activities are allowed)  Gatherings limited to 10 people indoors or 20 people outdoors, for approved events (e.g. funerals and weddings) Visiting another person's home is forbidden Closure of all non-essential stores and services Businesses that do not receive customers can remain open at 50% capacity or up to 10 employees, whichever is greater Restaurants will open for delivery only Closure of  bed and breakfasts , zoos, safaris and parks Closure of alternative medicine centers, beauty, and hair salons Cancellation of driving lessons Public transportation reduced to 50% ...

Disclaimer, I am not speaking on behalf of any organization I may be part of or employed by or have any kind of connection to.  The numbers are based only on the very preliminary data available to all and the sources are at the bottom of the rant.   Ok, it's math time...  let's say that the estimates of the vaccines being 75%-90% effective at preventing asymptomatic cases of COVID-19... let's further pretend that our population of 0-19 year olds is equally distributed and say that we continue to distribute the vaccine through the end of June at the current rate which is roughly 1% per day for first dose... today we have 46.7% vaccinated across all age groups and 5.2% of those under 20 specifically.  In 3 weeks, those who are partially vaccinated should be fully vaccinated (hopefully).  6 weeks thereafter gets us near end of June and brings us to 84% total vaccinated rate... which would mean that in this proposed future, at the end of June, literally everyone 16 ...

Just watched Critical Role C2 Ep99, which originally aired back on Mar 12, 2020. There were several references to COVID-19, including the ending where they mentioned "do your research, wash your hands, we'll get through this together"... this would be the last time they had an episode before their months-long break to figure out how to do the show in a safer setup. It's a little weird watching the beginnings of concerns being raised and also hearing the idea of us getting through it together, a sentiment I feel like isn't as often communicated these days as it was last spring. It's been a hell of a year and a couple months. Last week I was reminded of the fact that as we closed out February in 2020, we had guests for PAX East and I spent the start of that weekend stocking up on supplies for the expected lockdown. This would be the last time we had guests and soon thereafter the North Cambridge Family Opera would announce the canceling of further activities...

So... let me get this straight, we're launching the first phase of our state-led COVID-19 testing initiative in schools NOW ? I mean, better late than never but... it's November and Gov Baker's administration has been doing a full-court press to get EVERYBODY to go back to in-person schooling ~checks calendar~ over 3 months? Also, Gov Baker, not for nothing but downplaying COVID-19 and your own responsibility to govern is also the kind of activity that will lead to heightened risk of the disease spreading this holiday season. Gov Baker's inability to grasp the psychology of the situation is mind blowing.   And lastly, I like that the administration keeps saying that there's been limited spread within schools AND that we're doing really well with contract tracing and yet, if you discount places of residence, schools are in the top tier of locations where clusters are taking place and where people are getting sick. Luckily they aren't sharing where 89% of the...

The other day, I wrote a post about how Baker had done real harm to MA in relation to his handling of COVID-19. As if on cue, Baker's team rolled out a new color-coding for their neighborhood spread map. The new color coding says that a city/town's color coding will no longer be based solely on the rate of infection in that location.  Instead, a location with 50k or fewer people can have up 10 cases and be grey and a location with over 50k can have up to 15 cases and be grey, meaning that to be green, a location with under 10k people would need more than 5 times as high an infection rate as a location with 50k people.  That seems strange that a smaller population would need to see a much higher infection rate to be considered the same risk... and that measure continues throughout the new color coding.  For yellow, a population of <10k needs 16-25 total cases, which, if you have 9,999 people (to make for the smallest avg cases with 25 cases), you would have an average ...

I've read several people arguing that Baker is doing the best he can and that he's doing everything that he thinks will be permitted.  I would argue that he is not.   I would argue that public messaging is important and that the fact that he has been saying that the entirety of the issue is house parties is a problem.  By downplaying the situation, he has contributed to the confusion among many who struggle to understand that we're still in the midst of a global mess where relaxing will cause many more cases, many more adverse health situations, and many more deaths than if we all kept up our guard.  Furthermore, if he truly did wish that he could do more, his downplaying of the situation and pushing the house-party narrative is causing the issues he's facing.  By promoting this idea, business owners who feel that everything should be fine now for them to re-open see their feelings confirmed by his statements and push all the stronger.  By promoting this i...

News this morning: Worcester has jumped in cases per day to 9.5 in the last 2 weeks, but there is some good news which is that the positive test rate is still very low and below 1% which is one of the important data points per the state administration. Me: um, so, what exactly is the good sign? Is it that Worcester doesn't actually have that many cases since the positive test rate is down even though the actual cases is up OR is it that you think that Worcester now has twice as many people living there so the percentage of people who are getting sick has remained low per the test rate?

"COVID-19 cases are increasing in some communities throughout Massachusetts, this while the positive testing rate continues to be at its lowest" (news report this morning)... Yeah, it's almost like the testing rate doesn't identify how well we're doing when you increase the testing and/or change who is being tested