Sometimes the news that doesn't happen IS the news

[dreamshark]

Remember all the tut-tutting about the Memorial Day crowds at someplace called Lake of the Ozarks?  How the people who allegedly believe in science confidently predicted that there would be a huge spike in infections in the two weeks following Memorial Day, especially among those naughty Missouri partiers? Well, look at this.

 

No new COVID-19 cases from Lake of the Ozarks crowds, Missouri health director says

 

I was on the fence about this one. I have believed for a long time that outdoor exposures are literally an order of magnitude less dangerous than indoor, but unsure if that rule of thumb would still hold where people were packed closely together with a lot of one-on-one interaction. Looks like the answer to that is probably "yes." While it would be morally satisfying to have seen a spike in cases among people who "weren't being careful" I am glad to see that it didn't happen. That makes me considerably less worried about the predicted spike in cases following the George Floyd protests. 

 

Similarly with the Wisconsin primary. All that commotion and finger-pointing before the election took place, then almost no coverage of the complete lack of a spike in infections in the following two weeks. It annoys me when people refuse to acknowledge important facts that run counter to their ideological expectations, whether they are lefties or right-wingers. I just want to know what's real. While it would have been satisfying to say, "I told you so!" to the Republicans who insisted on an in-person election, I am glad to know that voting in person is not actually that dangerous. Partly because I want to vote in person in the fall, but also because polling places resemble grocery stores in terms of their infective potential, and I would like actual information on how dangerous shopping really is.

Comments

[quadong]

Isn't it still at least a few days too early to conclude anything about exposures on Memorial Day? (Oh, it says that at the bottom of the article.)

I buy that voting didn't spread COVID-19 much, since there's barely any personal interaction there, and my sense is that nearly everyone was being very careful. I agree that it's somewhat similar to shopping, but I'd expect shopping to transmit viruses more as people handle items and then put them back on the shelf, repeatedly pass each other in the aisles (despite whether they are marked as one-way), etc.

I agree, I'd personally like to vote in person in the fall, although I'm completely in favor of no-excuse mail voting for anyone who wants it.

[dreamshark]

"Isn't it still at least a few days too early..."

I suppose it depends on the testing strategy. The average incubation period is only 5 or 6 days, but if people don't get tested until they are seriously ill it would be a couple of weeks until the spike started to showed up. I'll be watching those numbers, since the whole Memorial Day phenomenon was a handy natural experiment. Not just Lake of the Ozarks, but everywhere that had halfway decent weather that weekend.

I'm in favor of universal access to mail voting too, but I expect that the more people rush to take advantage of it, the less reliable it will be. I'm concerned about error, not fraud.

[maruad]

Wisconsin doesn't surprise me that much as people were taking precautions. The Ozarks does though. I wonder if a lot of those kids are asymptomatic and any that are showing symptoms are keeping it to themselves. The Ozarks may be quietly spreading to parents/grandparents as we type in which case it is still a week or two before we see older people getting ill.

There has been a lot of people dying of pneumonia that are not being tested for covid-19. If statistics are not kept them the numbers look better (even Trump could figure that out) so it may be things are worse than is known.

Manitoba has had hardly any cases and there were a few factors including the fact that no want seems to want to come here if they can avoid it. No visitors = no infections. That being said we are still doing masks and social distancing.

[dreamshark]

Well, the Memorial Day fallout, if any, should become more obvious in the next week.

It's a different topic, but more attention does need to be paid to what is apparently called "excess mortality." That's when deaths from all causes spike for no obvious reason. In this case we mean deaths that are not clearly attributed to COVID. Not just pneumonia, but heart attacks, strokes, and sudden kidney failure.

[maruad]

On one of the blogs I read, there has been a discussion about Covid-19 causing blood clots. If the clots are in your lungs it looks like pneumonia. In the kidneys, it leads to kidney failure... etc. Basically whatever is weakest seems to be what fails as far as I can tell.

There are also excess deaths because people are avoiding getting medical treatment or because of crowding, unable to get medical treatment for other ailments.

Before you asked, these folks were providing links to medical journals but I don't click links so I don't know for certain this is the case but it could explain the mortality patterns.

[dreamshark]

I've read a number of articles about the blood clots. Seems to be for real. Sometimes called "blood thickening" - really innumerable micro-clots. They first noticed it in New York when unusual numbers of younger adults started presenting with sudden kidney failure and massive strokes. Don't know if that symptom is actually more common in younger people or it's just that it causes them to experience medical events that are usually rare in their age group which makes it more obvious. It is a really weird and scary virus.

[davidwilford]

It wasn't business as usual at polling places in Wisconsin for that April election, and here in New Richmond we had drive-up voting where people did not get out of their cars and all the election workers were wearing masks and taking other precautions. Those seem to have worked and it doesn't appear that the COVID-19 virus is as easily spread in outdoor conditions also. So in places like Florida where beaches have re-opened, given people generally keep several feet between spots on the beach it's not likely to contribute to significant spreading of the virus either.

[davidwilford]

Given that Wisconsin suddenly let bars and restaurants reopen if they wanted to three weeks ago, I've been waiting to see what happens. So far so good, but of course that could change. In Western Wisconsin there weren't a large number of cases to begin with when the stay-safe order was in effect and that could be the reason why there hasn't been a jump in COVID-19 cases yet.

ETA: In the news today, Mayor Tom Barrett of Milwaukee announced this morning that bars and restaurants in that city can now reopen for up to 25% of their full capacity, with a limit of 250 people.

[dreamshark]

I will be very interested to see how that works out. Unfortunately it will be hard to untangle the data on this because the big protests are happening pretty much on top of re-openings nationwide. It sounds like in Wisconsin the bar/restaurant re-opening was just a little before the protests, so confusing. Especially if it takes a week or two for people to actually start showing up at the re-opened establishments.

But it's hard to imagine people NOT showing up to bars in Wisconsin...